The Ryan Hanley Show - Nick Mornard Landed in Miami With Nothing. Now He Runs a Global Business.

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

What would you do if you landed in a foreign country…✔️ Couldn’t speak the language✔️ Had six bags to your name✔️ And zero clue what comes next? That’s exactly where Nick Mornard found himself when he stepped off a plane in Miami. Join our community of fearless leaders in search of unreasonable outcomes... Want to become a FEARLESS entrepreneur and leader? Go here: https://www.findingpeak.com Watch on YouTube: https://link.ryanhanley.com/youtube Nick Mornard Book: https://amzn.to/43J4CR4 Website: https://nmornard.dreamvacations.com/ Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/2jCitCeId7yiNTC508O2ox In this episode, Nick shares the raw, unfiltered story of how he left Belgium, won the green card lottery, struggled through his first years in the U.S.—and ultimately built a global sales organization spanning 8 countries and over 3,000 people. You’ll learn: ✅ The mindset shift that turned setbacks into superpowers✅ How he taught himself English on the fly✅ What most Americans completely misunderstand about opportunity✅ His formula for building high-performance sales teams✅ Why mentorship and proximity changed everything This one’s about more than business.It’s about grit, faith, and chasing freedom—no matter the cost. Recommended Tools for Growth OpusClip: #1 AI video clipping and editing tool: https://link.ryanhanley.com/opus Riverside: HD Podcast & Video Software | Free Recording & Editing: https://link.ryanhanley.com/riverside Shortform - The World's Best Book Summaries: https://link.ryanhanley.com/shortform Taplio • Grow Your Personal Brand On LinkedIn: https://link.ryanhanley.com/taplio Kit: Email-First Operating System for Creators (formerly ConvertKit): https://link.ryanhanley.com/kit

If you do the wrong thing, the wrong thing will come to you. I do believe it. If you do the right thing, the right thing will come to you eventually. Don't give up. Don't expect anything fast. But if you are consistent, because a lot of people have great ideas, they have the great start, but they're not consistent because they want instant success. Instant success, I don't believe it exists.

The move from Europe to the United States, like what was the impetus in that? Obviously you were doing very well, you were very successful. Why did you decide to come over to the States and start to build over here? Wow, we have a couple of hours. Thank you, Ryan, first of all, to have me on your podcast. I really, really appreciate it. The offer, Ryan, first of all, to have me on your podcast. I really, really appreciate it. The offer. I'm looking forward to it. So yeah, that's a loaded question. So I moved to the US June 25th, 2013. So it's been 12 years. I couldn't speak a word of English when I moved. It was my childhood dream to move to the United States. I was

nine years old the first time I thought of it. But yeah, I won the lottery, the green card lottery. So that's very different than most people. I was very lucky to win it, but I applied since I was 18 years old and I won at 33 after seven years playing the lottery. So I was consistent with it and you can only play the

lottery seven years and so that was the last year that I was eligible to play the lottery that I wanted. So it's a long process, it's not like I received a green card in the mail after two weeks, it's a long lengthy process but I received the card on June 22nd and on 25th I was in the plane to Miami and I figured it out. I literally landed with six legages and that was the hardest three years of my life but I was always thinking thanks to my mindset if I can make it in a country like Belgium where we are taxed 53% I can probably make it in America which is the land of opportunities and the first three years I could have given a million times but I was confident that I was going to succeed.

And I'm not where I want to be now, but I'm further than I thought I would be after 12 years. But yeah, the journey was fantastic. I learned by speaking to numerous people, making tons of mistakes, and I keep making them. But if you dare, you will succeed. And I believe that in a lot of different areas, definitely in language as well. I really like to, you know, I think a lot of Americans, we love to bitch about the country and, you know, I think it's part of our culture with the whole free speech thing

that people feel like it's an obligation to have some sort of complaint about this place. But I always think it's a good reminder, especially when I interview people who are either international or now live in the States on the show at, you know, this is a, this is the place, you know, not that you can't be incredibly successful anywhere in the world for sure, but like, yeah, we have problems here and yeah, there's stuff that broke and doesn't, you know, maybe annoy us and different, but like this, this really is a, a, a, a unique moment in time and you know, a unique place in time that you can essentially become what you want. And you're gonna get beaten up and you're gonna get tossed against the wall and people are gonna do and the universe is gonna do everything it can to stop you from getting where you wanna be.

But as you said, you know, if you persevere and you stay committed, man, there's no other place where eventually it's gonna work out. Like it just is. Like if you keep going, eventually it's gonna work out. Maybe not what you planned, but you'll get there. And my next question for you is around that confidence, right? Like obviously you are confident in yourself

that if you just keep moving forward, you're gonna eventually get to where you wanna be. Where does that confidence come from? Is that, do you think that's innate in you? Was it taught? Is it just, you know, is it just practice learned? Like, how did you instill that confidence in yourself to say, I'm gonna get on a plane with six bags

and no idea what I'm gonna do and show up in Miami and just make it work? I mean, that's ballsy. Yeah, that's a great question. So the confidence I have, I think, is from young age. I mean, my dad was an employee all his life. He always provided for me. It was never a problem.

But he was not an entrepreneur. My mom was a stay at home mom. They had a very mindset of you go to school, you go to work, and then you retire and you enjoy your retirement. And that's something I never understood since I was super young. I'm like, why don't you build a business? I was always like that. I don't know where it came from because no one in my family were entrepreneurs. But at 16 years old, I became a professional basketball player. And I think that's when it changed. I had my mindset set on playing ball for a living and I achieved that at 16. And

after four years, every pro athlete, you know, scared of his injuries. And that's what happened to me. So I couldn't play professionally after that. And I like, oops, what am I going to do? I don't even have, you know, I don't have any degrees. And so I started door knock sale literally to start making money to pay the bills. And then from there I grew and I know you did insurance and that's, that was my field, health insurance, life insurance, sorry. So I did life and death insurance. And I grew a team of 3,200 people in seven years in eight countries. And it's just because I believe in listening to people who did it

and not try to reinvent the wheel because I knew nothing about nothing. I just knew that that person was successful. So I listened to that person. I had a mentor. I believe in mentorship, wholeheartedly. And I'm like, just tell me what you did. I'm going to replicate it. Monkey see, monkey do.

And that's literally what I did. And it made me successful. Then when I was successful, I wanted to improve it by tweaking things because I'm already there. The problem I see a lot of people do is they try to do everything their own way from the start before getting there. And so to answer your question,

I think that it's the having a lot of great mentors around me picking very well the five person I spend the most time with around me because I refuse negativity in my life. And that's something I was very clear and I was very blunt about it. And I probably heard some people's feelings when I was in my early 20s, but I'm like,

you don't have the lifestyle of the life that I wanna have. So I wish you the best, but I'm not gonna be hanging around you much longer. And I was literally telling those things and so it helped me when I moved to the US like That's what I did the first three years It was literally trying to get to understand how the system work here But America is the best country in the world and I do believe it I'm the most patriotic non-born American that you can find everything's perfect now

But it's pretty damn close. And that's my vision. You know, I love that you said that. It drives me nuts that so many people that I have on the show who weren't born here, but now live here, right? They have a very similar take that you do, that this is a very special place and that, you know, not perfect, but as perfect as you can get in a world of humans who

are fallible and, you know, there's governments and all this different stuff, right? I mean, we can't deny human nature and the way, you know, reality works, but there is so much opportunity. And it drives me crazy that so many Americans, especially today, these last like 10, 15 years, they want to take this country and put it in a box and compare people to... my god like I can't even take like the Hitler comparisons and the you know this fascism and I'm like thank God I've never lived in a country that was actually fascist but I've done enough reading and watched enough documentaries and shows and you know I love history and I'm like you don't understand what fascism is fascism is. Like if you even try to apply that word

to anything that's happening in the United States, like you just simply don't understand what it means. And it feels very ungrateful to me for the opportunity. Like you hit the birth lottery. Like you were literally born in a country where your last name doesn't matter, where you were born doesn't matter, how much money you had when you were born doesn't matter.

Like different starting spots can help, but there's challenges no matter where you're born in whatever hierarchy. And no matter where you're born, you have this opportunity to work yourself out. So coming out of that, coming out of that process, to me, the thing I see was so many young entrepreneurs and young in entrepreneurship, not just necessarily with so many young entrepreneurs and young in entrepreneurship, not just necessarily young in age, is this idea that I think ego plays such a big role in this process. And I'd love for you to break down how you approach these mentor relationships because I see a lot of people who want to have a mentor or even are lucky enough to find someone who

could be a great mentor, but then they try to put their own, like their ego gets in the way, like they're unwilling to do all the sucking that it takes, even if you have someone showing the way, to get to that place. So how are you, and maybe what was your mindset, obviously being mindset so key to your success and so much of what you talk about,

like what was that mindset that you had that allowed you to maybe put part of your, I mean, obviously you're an ambitious guy, so you have some ego and you should, right? That's natural and helps people. But like, you were able to push enough of it aside to listen to these people to say, I'm going to not pretend like I have the answer, I'm going to do what they tell me to do. And then I'll iterate as I have experiences. Like, that is a very unique perspective, but also in so much as I don't think a lot of people have it. However, for people who ultimately reach the success they're looking for, it is a fairly common trait.

Where do you think that came from for you? And do you think it could be something if someone doesn't have today that they can learn? Yes. So again, a great question. Everybody has an ego, like you mentioned, and it's fine as long as the ego doesn't stop you to go where you want to be or you need to be. And I think that's the biggest problem. When you start working with someone that you are willing to learn from, you need to excite their ego and put your ego on the side. Because I do believe, I mean, maybe I'm lucky, but I doubt, I think that if you want to reach out to someone to help you out, if you're genuine about the ask and the person feels like you really want it,

very rarely someone will tell you, no, I'm not interested. Because you will literally state all the things that they do that you look up to. And you would like to get like 30 minutes with that person, you know, online, having coffee, the person leave close by. Nobody will tell you no, maybe not at the time you want, but they will do it. And I think the problem is that a lot of people, they tend to go on one of those call and they take what they want to take from the conversation. If it's someone that I really look up to and I want to be where they are today, I'm going

to take over everything they tell me and I'm going to apply the hell of it out of it. And I will learn of it and I will follow up with them, thank them, but also follow up with, here's what I learned during this conversation, here's what I wanna apply, here's my goal the next two weeks, a month, two months, regardless, timeline. They love that because people, when they spend time,

that's very valuable for successful people to actually help you, they love to see that that's not for nothing. And I built such strong relationship with some majority of my mentors. And I still have close relationship with them to this day. And it's, I think, because I value them, I respect them, and I don't waste their time when they give it to me. And I think it's important.

Can you learn that? Yes. You just, you just need to know the reason why you want to talk to that person. And you need to be very clear about what do you want to get out of it. And you would be surprised what the universe is coming back to you, thanks to actually doing the right steps. It's not easy, but if you set yourself in, if you think about a certain way, saying like, hey, I know that I will have challenges.

I know it's going to be not going to be an overnight thing, but you have a plan. You're going to be fine. And that's exactly to get back to my story about about moving to the US and having a hell of three first year. I was prepared. I knew it was not going to be easy, but I knew eventually it was going to happen. So when all the challenges and all those things come in between me and my goal, I smiled and I took a step back and said, look where I came from. Look at the steps I already did today. I have a lot to do still in front of me, but look back at what you did. Celebrate the small wins, like I always said, and then move fast, move forward. And if you do that consistently, you will be successful.

I have zero doubt with that. But you need to have that mindset and that readiness of what's coming. And that's my belief. Yeah. If I were to surmise what you just said, it's approaching these conversations with a beginner's mindset. Right? I think that's the thing. And I have people reach out to me quite often,

hey, can I pick your brain? Can I chat? And I used to do all of them. I simply don't have time to do all of them anymore. But I'll tell you, the ones that get through, I still try to do some, right? Because I love to help and I want to give back as much as I can in whatever experience I've had, okay.

You know, in the way they ask and in the way they approach the conversation, it determines whether or not you're willing to give someone your time, right? If you feel like someone just wants to talk to you for 30 minutes because they feel like, like, it doesn't feel like they actually want to hear what you say, they just want to spend time with you, right? Like, you're like, I don't want to just spend time with someone. Like, you know what I mean? Like I have enough friends, not that I don't want more friends, don't get me wrong, but like, you know, I have enough. Like if I'm going to give you 30 minutes,

what am I helping you with? Like what's the problem? If you, if you can present a problem, and I think I can actually guide you in some way, like actually add value, I am often willing to find a time to do that. But I think so many people, they're, they're unwilling to be a beginner. They start giving you their resume and telling you all the amazing things. And it's like, I honestly don't care about any of that stuff. Like if you're asking me for help with a problem, I'm happy to help you.

But I wanna know you're gonna listen, and I wanna know that you're actually gonna implement. And that's the part that's I think the most frustrating when, you know, from the mentor side, and using this as a way, if you are looking for mentors to approach the relationship, it's like that person just wants to know, and I'm interested in your feedback too,

because I'm sure you're mentoring people as well now that you're in the place that you're in, but like, I just wanna know personally that this person's gonna take action. That's all I'm looking for, right? If I believe that you ask me a question, I give you an answer, and you're actually gonna take some action on it, I'm'm looking for, right? If I believe that you ask me a question, I give you an answer, and you're actually going to take some action on it, I'm happy to help. Right? Like I'm

all for it. But if you're just want to like spend time with me, I'm not really interested in that as much because I'm like, if that's the case, just listen to the podcast or read the newsletter. Like that's there. There's my thoughts. You know what I mean? I'm sharing a lot of this with you anyways. And it's like, just drop that ego, put on your beginner hat, be curious, be interested, you know, be deferential to that person. Not in like a, like a, you know, they're the boss, you're not kind of way, but you know, hey, you're approaching this person for their insights and that type of, you know, you find someone who's curious oh my gosh you'll you'll spend tons of time with them you can tell they're soaking it in and they're

they're analyzing it and they're figuring out how they can apply it to their business and you know I think we get so messed up with this mentorship thing and it's like just be honest upfront and curious and if you reach out to 20 potential mentors more than half of them are gonna say yes. Absolutely. For sure. And it's like anything else. It's like if you're in sales, it's a numbers game, right? Like some people just don't have the time. Some people might not be interested, whatever.

Some people might want you to pay an amount of money that you can't afford. Those are all possibilities, but eventually you'll find a good fit. And man, as you said, it can take you to the next level. So I would love for you to spend a little more time digging into these first three years. I'm really interested in them.

Like, I think a lot of people could probably get the excitement. They could get, they could maybe pull themselves together to say, I'm gonna go do this. But then when they hit the ground and they see how hard it actually is, they start to fold. So how did you not fold, you know, presented with the challenge of not speaking English in a town

you've never been with no friends or network and you're starting fresh with six bags. Like, how do you work through that challenge? Because I'm sure there were moments where you're like, what did I do? Yeah, yeah, definitely. It definitely happened a few times. And the thing is that the people back home that's that, you know, my dad my dad for example that I know has the best intention he told me a million times come back you have your life here and all you have everything you need here and I'm like I will not I will succeed here first you know like I know there's no way I ever come back but I I had my mind so set on this but like you mentioned there are things that

people don't realize because they're born here. The credit score and the way to build a credit, we don't have that in Europe. So it was new to me. So it was like, it took me two weeks to get an apartment to sign for a lease because I had zero credit history. And that was like a first learning. Of course learning the language. You know, lease a car, how it works here, things are so different, like you pay so much more insurance because I need to do a new, you know, I need to get a driver license that the one in Belgium didn't come for here. So I need to start back, but then I'm a new driver at 33 years old, so the insurance fee wasn't insane.

So a lot of things that I needed to understand. I thought I was gonna come here, I will get into the sports business, you know, and I realized that I had offers for 2D1 school, basketball to be an assistant coach. Those people do it for $30,000 a year and they have zero life. So people look at Calipari,000 a year and they have zero life. So people look at Calipari, Coach K and stuff. Those are the exceptions. The people in the bench, like the assistant coach,

majority of them, don't make money. They just spend all their day and night at the school, at college. They have one month off a year and the rest is on campus or recruiting. And I love basketball, but that was not the life I on campus or recruiting. And I love basketball, but that was not the life I wanted to be. And so I decided, okay,

what is the first step I should be doing? So of course, learning the language was one. The second step was like learning how, you know, it worked with credits because that was a huge thing that I was not expecting. And then how can I start making money? Because I came with $20,000. So $20,000 was done in six months,

just with rent, with leasing a car. I mean, that was just the way it is. And so I figured it out. Then I needed to find a mentor. And so I literally was walking around in malls and things like that, and trying to figure out someone, you know, someone, the way they were talking or dressing or and things like that and trying to figure out someone, you know, someone the way they were talking or dressing or things stupid like that.

But that's how I started. And then I started introducing myself with my broken English and that's how I got invited for something that was a direct selling ACN, I think it was at the time. And I went invited to one of those meetings they tried to and I'm like, oh my god I know because I build a huge organization in in in live insurance in Europe doing that And so let's see but of course we don't know no one you cannot invite no one in those meetings and I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna just find people in the street and that's literally what I did I literally went to every single mall and place like this restaurant and I was talking

to people, annoying people literally and inviting them to a meeting that may change their life. I'm not kidding, after three months I had 17 people in my team and so when people say that I don't know what to do in the United States, I don't have like, you know, there is no enough work, there is nothing, there is work everywhere work. There is nothing. There is work everywhere, but you need to do actually action on them. And so I start doing that and I grew the team to be 230 people in a year and a half. And I was not making a fortune at all, but I was making enough to pay my rent at the roommate.com that I was staying at. And I don't have any, any issue sharing that because it's in my book as well. I spent a year and a half eating hummus with pita chips from Costco and drinking

water from the fridge from my roommate. And, but from there, it went up and I started like making connections who were very influential to me and then making some good decision every time I have like a couple of thousand dollar invested and I got lucky but you need to do something to get lucky and then things start getting better and better and I start getting requests to be working at the bank and so I started working at the banks I hated it but after a year I got another job from a client at the bank and I go up and up and then I start building my own business.

And so I know I have three businesses who are well established and continue to grow, but it literally started with zero. So when people complain about they cannot do it, there is work, but you need to work. You need to actually act. And that's the problem I see here. I mean, the same in Europe, but here even more, like people complain that people don't do nothing. And there are so many opportunities in the US. That's the problem I see here. I mean, the same in Europe, but here even more. People complain that people don't do nothing. And there are so many opportunities in the US.

That's just insane. And I want to just, if I can influence one person on this call, say like, you know what, I'm going to get up from my seat or my sofa and I'm going to push the doors myself. Well, it's a success. And I always said, if I can influence one person every single time I talk on a podcast or live or anything like that, that's a win. And I'm pretty sure you think the same way because you also love to influence people. But yeah, even though it was hard, I always made sure to do something valuable each and every day that will bring me closer to where I want to be.

And then I start, you know, renting something better myself than buying a house and then do an investment who just paid off completely unexpectedly. Then COVID happened, which was the best for me because that's where all the investment exploded positively. And then the rest, yeah, the rest is history, but continue to grow. But I love the fact that I had those three difficult years because it makes me, you know, put completely my ego on the side and said, if I want to succeed, I just need to listen and do what people are successful are doing. And that's the story of my story for the first three years. You know, to me, I hear this and I'm like, you showed up and you expected it to be hard. You expected it to be hard.

And because you expected it to be hard, you were willing to do the things that were necessary to achieve the goals that you would set for yourself. And this is something I see with so many people today who they talk, they talk like they're ambitious. They talk about having ambitious goals, but I know deep in their mind, they haven't properly set their expectations, right? They're still in their mind thinking,

oh, you know, this $27 ebook program that I bought on Instagram is going to hack me into a 20K month or whatever nonsense. And I think it's going to be easy. And it's like, well, hey, maybe you could do that. But that's going to be hard, just so you know. Like, there is no path to success that's easy. Even, and I get this a lot because I live in a very kind of leftist liberal state, which is the antithesis of my personal belief structure. You know, there's this concept that like, that I should, this should just happen for me. Like I showed up today, like I just wrote this article this week for the newsletter, which guys, if you're not subscribed yet, go to findingpe peak comm subscribe today around this idea that so Woody Allen is famous the actor Woody Allen is famous for saying 90% of success. Like the point of my article is like, yeah, you gotta show up, sure, but it's not 90% of success.

Showing up is the fucking bar. Like that's the bar. Like you showed up in Miami. You grabbed your bags and packed them and got on the airplane and came. Like you showed up. But if that was 90% of success, it wouldn't take you three years to break out, right?

Like you had, you set your expectations to be very hard, which allowed you to set aside your ego, which allowed you to be a beginner, which allowed you to randomly walk up to people in malls and on the street, pitch opportunities to them. You know, and look like there's a chance, and I'm sure you did at times, feel like a fool, feel a little nervous, feel like, oh my God,

I'm walking up to this random stranger who doesn't know me from Adam, and, you know, I'm gonna try to pitch the miss opportunity. And there's all kinds of fear and doubt and insecurity that comes with that, but you did it anyways because you knew from the drip that it was supposed to be hard. How do you, how do you, how do we cultivate that mindset? Like if I were

coming to you and I wanted you to be my mentor and I said, you know, I, jeez, I was blessed by being born here, bup bup bup bup bup, seeing what you did, I'm just completely enamored by it. Like how do I follow your path? How do I set that mindset? Like how do you start to get across to somebody this idea that the universe does not care about you, it's going to mow you down and you got to keep going. Yeah, I think you need to feed your mind with positivity and with things that are aligning to what you want to achieve in life. So I was reading a lot of book or listening to a lot of audios, believe it or not, every

morning and I know it's cliche, but I was literally going on YouTube and find like motivational speech two, three minutes. And that's what the first thing I do before going on Facebook and all those things. I go on YouTube and I just listen to a powerful like speech from anyone I could find and I had a few but and it motivates me and it drove me and now I have teams and I send them that once a month also like like a motivational thing. And I know some people are rolling their eyes and laughing and smiling, but it works. To me it works, but you need to feed your mind with all those positivity.

Nick, I'm gonna interrupt you for a second. The people that are rolling their eyes at what you just said are the people that will never be successful long-term because I'm completely with you. Like if you were to, people, like sometimes people will be like, oh, you know, you spend a lot of time on your phone. And I'm like, I'm on my phone,

but I'm listening to David Goggins, Jocko Willing, Jordan Peterson, you know, Steve Jobs clips. Not like I feel like I'm gonna grab some nugget that changes my life. But what it does is it's just like, like you said, it's like another hit of positivity. It's like, like you have this energy meter, right? And 100% is you're willing to run through doors.

And there are days where you wake up at 40 and sometimes just by yourself, no matter what your morning routine is, you just can't get your, but man, you listen to like David Goggins running on the street yelling, get hard. And man, you listen to like David Goggins running on the street yelling, get hard. And man, it like maybe it boosts your motivation 10 percent.

And now you're that much more motivated for the day. And like, I feel like those little hits, whether they're, you know, 15 minute speeches or Ted talks or whatever, I do feel like that stuff's important. It's not ethereal. It's not fluffy. I feel like it the universe resonates, right? And if you can start to resonate at the same level as a Goggins because you need it that day, right? You might not need that every day, but some days you do and I feel like that's a super positive thing And and I hope if the people if you're listening to this show

You're most likely not rolling your eyes because you've put up with me for this long But you know what I mean? Like if there are people rolling their eyes like what Nick is this is this is part of what winners do. They they surround themselves with humans but also ideas concepts and media that pushes them forward. So I just wanted to jump in there real quick. I apologize for interrupting. No, no, I totally agree with you. But again, it's a it's a mindset thing. You know, like if people don't believe in something they don't believe in something but then don't believe in something, but then don't expect change in your daily habits and daily income or whatever you want to achieve.

So, yeah, definitely that. And then the mentor again, I was talking to people, to entrepreneurs, to business owners, and what are you doing? What are you doing? Like, what are you doing that I don't do? You know, like it's literally what I would try to understand. Then I put it on paper. So I'm an old very old fashioned guy.

I know we have like old phone and iPad and all that, but I was, I put on paper, like exactly, I put on paper something and then I read it back and I write it back and I write what I want to achieve each and every week, months. And I just, usually I do like a five year plan, but I drill through the five year plan into two, three years, one year, then by months. And when you achieve it, celebrate it. Again, enjoy it because it's a journey.

Going through the journey, you're not going to achieve it in one day. So enjoy the process. And that's something that I'm very clear with the people I work with right now, but also to myself. To this day, I still follow that 100% of the time. I have an hour, I mean, we can call it like the power hour or something like that. I have an hour that I said, okay, I need to sit down

and go through things that will get me closer to my goal. And I never skip that one hour. I can do whatever I want, and I do it six times a week. So I have one day off. But it's six times a week so I have one day off. But six times a week I have that one hour even when I'm on vacation and I just put down something okay here's what I need to do in order to do but act on them and I checked when I had done I like to see it cross it you know. So it's detail it's it's it may be like something that someone said I'm gonna just put on my phone but on the phone I cannot cross it you

know like so I just have to delete but on the phone I cannot cross it. So I just have to delete it, but then I don't see it. So it's psychological you can say, but it's all those things that I was doing constantly and I still do them and I still teach it to people I work with because it's so important to me. And maybe it's not for you, but then do something else that will replicate that

as long as it works for you. I believe there's more than one way to be successful, but I can only teach the way that works for me and so yeah all those things are things that I were doing. Also I believe you need to you know to be physically on point as well. It doesn't mean that you need to be like a six-pack and be like Arnold Schwarzenegger but I take care of myself you know I take care of myself every day. I go at least 30 minutes, 45 minutes at the gym because that's just my time to just release, you know, like, and I believe it's a combination of everything.

But it's important to me to be able to be also, you know, mentally and physically ready, because when you, you know, when you talk, you know, you're a speaker as well when you go speak for 50 minutes If you don't take care of yourself, you will not be able to pass 20 minutes 30 minutes. You will be like Not be able to talk anymore. So there are detail like that, but it's important I think I think it's important you rarely see a very successful person on TV You is like like 400 pounds and eating burger all day. That's mentally, but I don't see it neither. Yeah, there's a cliche that I've been kind of pulling back into my life a little bit

as I continue to always improve and evolve, is how you do anything or how you do everything. How you do anything is how you do everything. Yeah, yeah, something like that. So with the idea of like, okay, you want to be a very successful salesperson, let's say, right? So you're in an organization, you like where you work, you like what you want to be successful selling. Great.

But as you said, if you're not taking care of yourself physically, you're going to get to the second half of the day, you're going to go search for sugar, the sugar is going to create a dip in a spike and then a dip and then you're going to be tired. And now, now you don don't wanna make your phone calls or you don't wanna do your follow ups and you're kinda, you know, now you start surfing the internet and you lose a second half of your day and you know, you can blame it on,

oh, well I had a couple of important calls in the morning, et cetera. No, you weren't physically, you don't physically have your body in a place where it can sustain a six to eight hour day of consistent work to get the things done that you need to get done. Like you set this goal of being a successful salesman,

whatever that looks like, like part of that is physical. And the other part that I love in this, I think this is the part that so many people miss is mental, right? If you don't, if you're not, if your life is chaotic at home or you have all these bad habits, or vices, or addictions, or simply you're just not feeding your brain positivity or growth-focused content in some regard,

your brain starts to dull and starts to become very compartmentalized. And now all of a sudden you can't piece together ideas or think on your feet as well, or you're not seeing the vision out past you know the next day or the next week and and This is how we start to fall apart because then we start making excuses. Well, I miss that goal because you know This client didn't come in well

No, the real answer is you should add seven of those clients on the books potentially coming in But you know you're losing a day a week because your mental and physical health isn't there And I think when we really want when when you, to your point, like, you don't see highly successful, like, obese people. Like, you don't. They are the exception. I'm sure that the audience can pull out a couple. But like, and I'm like, again, like you said, we're not talking about Adonises. And even, you know, look, I don't want to be overly judgmental here because your actual, like, you said, we're not talking about Adonises. And even, you know, look, I don't want to be overly judgmental here because your actual, like, you know, you carry a couple extra pounds here, then maybe you just like to have a few extra drinks or whatever,

but like, the point is you gotta use your body, you gotta feed your mind because at the end of the day, they are just as important to your performance as the skills that you have, and they directly impact the effort you're able to put in. So, you know, like, I love how you talked a little bit about your routine. I'm interested in like, so again, coming back to this scenario where I'm positioning myself as a mentee to you as the mentor, right? And I'm, let's say I'm a young kid, 25 year old dude, came out of college, tried a couple jobs, nothing works.

I come across you, I love what you're doing, tried a couple jobs, nothing works. I come across you. I love what you're doing. I love the way you approach it. Like, what's the first thing you want me to work on? Obviously, this is kind of a generic scenario. But like, if you know, in a broad sense, what's the first thing at that age, 25, just getting started in my career, but I'm highly ambitious. I have goals.

What's the first thing you would recommend I work on to put myself in a position to be successful? Wow, that's also a lot of question. I think that I would ask a lot of question first to see what's their goal, because I need to understand what they wanna achieve and see if it's realistic in their timeline. Because sometimes I got some people coming,

like you said, that age category, and then what they wanna do seems completely unrealistic. So I first want to understand the why and the how they thought about that and how they came up with that time frame, for example. But then some I mean, I already talk about this, but. Who are you spending your time with when you're not working? I think that's super important. And again, I don't want to be judgmental with the people, you know, like you spend time with,

but, you know, I think it's important because you will fit yourself, your mind with things that are maybe not be in line with what you want to accomplish in life. And sometimes you need to make difficult decisions. And so I would like to understand, okay, so who are the three to five person you spend the most time with outside your day, you know, like the work day and why? So what do you like about that relationship that you cultivate with XYZ person? And I think that it's sometimes I have people who said, oh, my, this high opening. I just realized that I'm not, I'm not spending the time with the people I should

spend time off and, and it's just life, but you see that all the time. I'm a sports, I'm an athlete. And so I should spend time of. And it's just life. But you see that all the time. I'm a sports, I'm an athlete. And so I watch a lot of sports. My passion is still sports. And so I see so many athletes with so much qualities. I will talk about one, John Moran, for example, from Memphis Grizzlies. This guy has the most potential I ever saw in my life, maybe.

But everything, he spends his time with the wrong people outside basketball court. And that's why he already lost 12 million in endorsement in two years, et cetera. So I think that's the important, but in business it's the same thing. So that would be one. What are you doing outside your normal hours

to actually get where you wanna be? So what action are you doing? And how are you taking track, keeping track on all of that? That's gonna be important because if you don't have a tracker, you will not be able to achieve anything. Celebrate your wins neither. And I still believe it's so important to celebrate the wins. Something that my mentor, one of my mentor told me

long time ago, said Nick, have goals for yourself that you wanna get for yourself if you achieve your yearly goal. So for example, this year with my travel agency, I have a goal to reach a million of sales by myself, not my team, a million dollar of sales like travel sale. And if I reach that, I have a certain thing I want to buy myself, you know. So I work towards not only being good for my business and continue to grow, and I have the other business

and I have the trainees and stuff like that, but I want to reach it because I really want this thing that I put myself on that on December 31st if I reach it, I buy it. And I think it's important because it gives you the extra adrenaline, the extra energy, sometimes day or week that you don't feel like it, to actually look at something that is for you

that you wanna achieve. And if I don't get to that million, I will not buy it. I can buy it, I have the money, but I would not buy it. It's only if I reach my goal. And I think it's important for anyone to have something that will be good for themselves as well, and not look only on the business side of it, but also how can you

please yourself with something if you achieve your goal? It can, it doesn't have to be monetary. It can be something different, but something that you can actually put your mind to it when times are more hard, harder. So I will start with those two, but those are two main things that I think are very important. I love that. And I think, I think the fact that you focus on who first

is incredibly important. I know over the last, so I started my entrepreneurial journey later, like in my thirties. Kind of grew up in the same situation as you. My mom was a receptionist, my dad was a mechanic on the railroad. Blessed to have two parents that love me,

but we lived very much on the poorer side of life, right? Like we... I'd get two new shirts, one pair of jeans, and one pair of sneakers, and that's what I had for the school year. I just had to make it work, right? And, you know, by the end of the year, you're tattered and torn, and if I ripped the sneakers or ripped the jeans, I wasn't getting a new pair. That's what it was for the year, you know? So it was like, so we weren't ever hungry, but we didn't have much. And the way they taught me was go to the big, you know, go get a job at a big company,

have the consistency, have the security, et cetera, you know, the full K, and you know, that was the idea. And while that never really fit with my personality, because it was ingrained in my head, that's the first path that I took. And growing up, you know, growing up severely poor, you kinda, you know, and the people that I've talked to, they tend to take two paths.

They either go the safe path or they go the crazy path right from the rip. And then usually at some point they realize whether that's the right path, and that's what happened to me. I got, you know, 10 years into my career, my working career, and realized this big corporate, this is not, this doesn't work for me. I'm too entrepreneurial. I'm too, you know, this, I love building.

I move really fast. All these things. Okay. In that process of going from, okay, I kind of look and feel like everyone else. I got XYZ job. I'm, you know, manager of this. I got XYZ job, I'm manager of this or director of that, whatever, to the entrepreneurial path.

I lost a lot of friends in that transition and not lost like I kicked them out the door. I just had to start saying like, guys, I can't play golf at AM on a Friday because I'm building a business or, hey, I don't wanna go out drinking because I'll feel like shit tomorrow and I got work to do, right?

And those relationships started to fade away. And what's funny is, when you start, and I just had this guy on Kevin Trudeau, very successful individual, sold multiple companies for nine figures. And he was talking a lot about the law of attraction and the law of vibration, et cetera, and kind of putting it in realistic terms.

And what's been funny is the more like super, super successful people that I've talked to who also seem happy, I'm gonna put that caveat on. I had seen they seem content, right? They don't seem fucking miserable. They all in some way, whether they verbalize it or not, live by this law of attraction. And when you start vibrating as like, hey, I'm, I like to grow personally,

I like to read, I like to work out, I like to, you know, I'm interested in business, I'm interested in, you know, breaking down philosophical topics or mindsets. What's funny is, those people that should be in your life, they start to find you. Right? Like, do you practice, I'm very interested in this, and this is maybe contextual, but take it where you will. Like, one, do you believe in practice, the law of attraction and vibration?

Have you seen it in your own life? Like, this is something that for a long time, so I read the secret, and I was like, this is all bullshit. I was like, this is so stupid. But then, you know what I mean? And I just didn't, that version of it didn't relate to me at all. However, I've been shocked the last two or three years doing the podcast, how many people have come on the show.

And this is like a core feature of who they are, is like, I resonate this energy on purpose. Because not only is it how I want to live my life, but I want to attract the people and opportunities to me who match this vibration or whatever. Like, one, are you there? Do you believe in this concept? Two, do you actively practice it? That belief so hard. And it's funny because I was going to mention the secrets

because my first mentor, I was 24 when I started the entrepreneurship journey. And my first mentor mentor who was very successful in Europe in live insurance. She told me, Nick, the first thing when I reached out to her to become my mentor, she said, no problem at all, but you need to first read the book, The Secrets. I'm like, what's the secrets? And so I bought the book and I read it and I was like, you're my boy. One of those.

And so I meet her after I read the book and she asked me, you know, how would I think? And I was honest with her and she said, well, change the way you think about this book because that's going to change your life if you actually apply those things. And I will never forget that. It's funny enough because when I was growing my team myself after a while, every new person, new leaders who came in, I made them read the book as well, because it was so impactful to me, not at the same, at that moment, but it was impactful afterwards. And you're totally right.

Things are coming your way, the more you change the people you are around and the more you change your habits, who are aligning to what you want to achieve and accomplish. It's funny. I started, I don't have a podcast like yours, but I'm at 100 episode in mind from October 1st last year with my co-host Will. And one of the episode is on leadership and mindset. And we struggle at first, you know, for guests and things like that, you know, so we were doing a lot of back and forth between him and me.

And then we start having guests and I saw people, you know, requesting it. And then we start people in the area we live at, who started listening to us, you know, so we were doing a lot of back and forth between him and me. And then we start having guests and I saw people, you know, requesting it. And then we start people in the area we live at, who started listening to it and start saying like, I would love to be a guest. And the same with my podcast about sports. And we start having athletes not reaching out. And I believe in, I had like, when I started in October 1st, I had a three year plan with certain name that I want to have on the podcast.

And I know people laugh when I say those two names because it's like it's impossible. My number one for my leadership one is Sinek. I want to have Simon Sinek in my podcast at one point. And I know I will reach that because I do everything every day to get where it's going to get to that point. I will look at Donkitsch for sports, my sports podcast. And I need to have those impossible to reach in my list because it's not like it's the only person I'm going to be reaching for. I will have hundreds of people or more before that.

But by doing the right thing, I believe I will reach to the person I really want. And I have the same for my podcast for travel. So yeah, so that's really like very interesting the way that things work. Clients that comes to you, like you at first you send a million emails to get one call. And then when you start putting your brand out there, you know, the 1% pushes the brand for my coaching and leadership speaking business that I have. Now you have like some who reach out to you

while they were never answering your email six months ago. And now they say, hey, by the way, I saw you there. TEDx reached out to us, to me and Will, like my co-host, and we have a TEDx presentation in September. And so I'm like, who, who am I to be on a TEDx? I can barely speak English, but TEDx, TEDx actually reached out and saying like, we would love to have you guys coming to talk about leadership. So I believe in the percent in law attraction.

If you do the wrong thing, the wrong thing will come to you. I do believe it. If you do the right thing, the right thing will come to you eventually. Don't give up. Don't expect anything fast. But if you are consistent, which is the key word because a lot of people have great ideas, they have the great start, but they're not consistent because they want instant success. Instant success, I don't believe it exists. Some people may be lucky. Do the right thing consistently. You don't give up. It's the same last analogy I will give. If someone is building something on social media, I don't believe it exists. You may, some people may be lucky. Do the right thing consistently. You don't give up. It's the same last analogy I will give.

If someone is building something on social media, they build a group or something like that. If you consistently post, very carefully posting things that matters to the audience. Don't stop after three weeks or a month or two months because you get a like or two likes and nobody shared. Eventually people will see that you are serious about what you're trying to accomplish and they're going to come to you.

And that's what happened with the travel business. The first year I got no one to like and share my post, but I kept posting two, three times a day. And then after that, I started receiving private messages. Now I'm at five to 10 private messages a day for new clients, free marketing. But it took me a year and a half with almost nobody reach out to me about the travel business that now I can barely handle it.

That's why I have a team now. And so be consistent in everything you do in life because things will come back to you. But the universe or whoever you think it is looking at what you're doing and they will that's going to come back to you so yes I I agree yeah it's funny it's funny how we don't think through how we apply value to things to our own work right so like if you see someone brand new that you've never seen before and they post something you may read it it, but you're like, oh, okay. And you're not going to buy from them.

You're just, okay, they do that thing. That's great. And you move on. And then you do the same thing. And then when you've seen that person, like you said, six months, a year, 18, and they're still grinding, they're still doing that. They're getting better at it. They're sharing more value, their service, you know, they're getting better at describing their service. Maybe their service has expanded offerings. And now all of a sudden, you're like, wait, I want to go on this trip and I really need help with it, you know, like I'm going to reach out to Nick, he's been, I know he does it, like it is intuitive in us to wait for some trigger point where I believe you're serious about what you do and an expert at it, and therefore now I'll reach out to you and do

business with you, yet in our own business we're like exactly you said I'm gonna post for three weeks and if no one responds then I'm done it doesn't work no one likes what I'm saying. And it's like if you just applied your buying mindset to your own business like you would just keep going because you know you have to keep going simply to prove to people that you're serious about the work. And you know I'm growing a startup right now, AI company in the insurance industry, AI is brand new, it's all this stuff, right? And like, I remember some of our team members early on were like,

man, we're not getting any traction. This and I'm like, guys, we're three months in. Like, no one even believes that we're serious. Most people are going, this is another AI company that's going to crash along the rocks. Like, we just have to keep going. And at the six month mark, all of a sudden, a big potential enterprise client reached out.

And everyone's like, oh my God. And I was like, you gotta keep going, right? And now we're starting to get real traction. The business really started, it's much more fun. I'm not getting the, oh my God messages from the team as often. You know what I mean? And it's like, guys, we've been in market for a year now,

and now people are going, wait, maybe I can give these guys my attention because they haven't crashed across the rocks, they are continuing to share, they are building new feet. And it's just, you're just wearing people down and everyone has their own trigger, at which point you've hit enough tumblers for them to believe that you're serious and you can solve the problem.

And it's just grinding until you hit that for enough people and then everything changes. Like I tell my kids all the time, I have two young boys, they both play baseball. Huge sports fan as well. We could come on and do an entire show about sports. Happy to do that. That would be tons of fun actually. I have toyed with the idea of starting another podcast about sports. There you go. But I just don't have the time today, although I starting another podcast about sports. There you go. But I just don't have the time today, although I fantasize about it, maybe in the future. But my boys are big into baseball and basketball. And right now it's baseball season. And my older son is a pitcher. You know, right now he's not throwing as hard as some of the kids that throw

hard, right? But what he's done that I think is phenomenal is he's taught himself how to bank the ball move So at 11 years old he can throw a two-seamer a cutter. He's got a hook He throws a nasty changeup. So what happens what I say to him is like he gets up on the mound He's warming up and you know I'll even hear the other coach say like move up in the box box and all this stuff. And then he'll like mow these kids down. And you know, but he still gets frustrated that he can't throw his heart or this kid gets more innings or whatever.

And I'm like, bud, this is not, you're 11. Like the game is not to be the best 11 year old. That's not, there's no prize being the best 11 year old. Like you're playing for your modified team. And when you make your modified team, you'd be playing for your, playing to make your freshman or jv team and then from there you know like most of these kids are going to get frustrated and give up just keep growing keep learning your position keep working on details and eventually you're going to grow into your body and your

velocity will pick up and you know and and so many of these kids that you feel like X or Y about today, most of them are going to fall away. There will be the ones that stick with it and you'll be your teammates or competitors, and that's great. But just by continuing to focus on the work, you're going to separate yourself. And that goes for literally everything in life. Everything. I did a speech last week for a company and I was using this analogy of Michael Jordan,

you know, if you want to give up, he didn't, he was not picked in the top 10 of his own high school. He was number 11 because the coach didn't believe he was athletic, but he didn't believe in his IQ, basketball IQ. Well, he had two choice or he give up, oh, it's not for me. I'm doing, do something else. Or he's gonna use that as extra motivation to actually grind even more to prove this person wrong, which will elevate his game.

And then he will go another level, which of course we all know that's what he did, but there's always an option for people. You always have a choice in life. You can choose to give up or you can choose to move forward. Which one are you gonna choose? And that's really, that can choose to give up or you can choose to move forward. Which, which one are you going to choose? And that's really, that can change the direction of your life for a lot of people. And that's, that's literally decision that you have in your head.

So you're, you're out there doing the 1% push keynote. Give us a quick, just a quick breakdown of the keynote. There's a lot of people who book venues, who listen to the show. You know, if they're interested in your message, want to get a hold of you, like let them know how they go deeper in your world. But before you get into like where they can go, like I just love maybe just a couple minutes on on this keynote, because obviously, obviously, you and I line up really well. I love what you're doing. I'm getting a TEDx talk is phenomenal. I just did my first one in

February. What an amazing, challenging experience. And, you know, I know you'll crush it, but embrace it, man. It was the most nerve wracking talk I've given of my entire life. Not even, you know, a 10th, a 10th the size of the audience in terms of like live, of like what I've actually done. You know, I've done thousand plus audience and, you know,

there's maybe a hundred people in the room, but I'm as nervous as I've ever been for this talk, right? So like, it's an amazing experience. So tell us a little bit about the 1% push and then let us know where we can dive deeper into your world. Absolutely. So thank you for the opportunity.

So basically I help leader improve their skills when it comes to understanding their people and the different style of people that they work with. And it can be anything from first level manager to CEO, CIO, which is, you know, I'm a lot more doing a lot of speech on the tech side right now, but it's literally like the performance piece of it. So we all know that, you know, the title being leader, but I, I focus a lot about the difference between leadership and manager, because a lot of companies that I'm going to, they, they believe they have a great leadership team, but a lot of

time, they have a lot of managers and manager will do what you want them to do, but they will inspire no one. So how can you actually do the step necessary in order to move those managers into leaders or maybe get them back to individual contributors because they don't have it. And I think it's important to do the right thing at that level because if you keep promoting managers you will not have a strong leadership team. You will not have a team where people actually inspire by and I do believe in this inspiration. Someone will fight 10 times more,

fight 10 times more for the right leader, but a manager, they will just do it because that's a strict minimum they need to do in order to be successful at the end of the year. But you're not gonna inspire someone to become a leader themselves, because they don't wanna follow this pathway. So I think it's extremely important for every company to understand the material of their leadership team. And from my experience in

leadership for years, it's literally that difference make or break an organization long term. If you have an organization where you need to hire people from outside for every VP or above position, it's probably because you don't do the right thing with the first few steps of leadership managers and if you continue to do that you will struggle big time to actually promote from within which will diminish the capabilities of your team to actually be willing to progress within your organization and you will have to hire from outside and it's usually not the right thing to do for culture purposes, etc. So my speech is all about what steps to do in order to actually create leaders instead of create managers.

I love that. Awesome. And so if someone wants to get deeper into your world, the podcast, if you know, if you newsletter, where do they go to dive deep into your world? Yeah, so easy, easy. I mean, I have a website, which is my name nickmornar.com. That's the website for everything else to do with leadership, speaking, mindset piece. You can find my book here. I published my first book last year, which is published, which is Mindset is My Degree, which is short, but straight to the point about my story, but also how to use mindset in your advantage and how to really like continue to work on it.

And LinkedIn, I think nickmornner.com or LinkedIn Nick Morner You will find me I post every single day. I do videos I do inspirational posting and things like that and please give me feedback reach out I'm always willing to talk to anyone I believe in in improving every day and help people on the same way as well So I will always welcome anyone who want to reach out and have a conversation. I love it, bro. Appreciate your time.

Guys, I'll have links to all Nick's resources that he just mentioned. So just scroll down, whether on YouTube or wherever you're listening, make sure you dive deep, dude. Love it. So glad you came on the show. Appreciate the hell out of you.

And I wish you nothing but the best, my friend. You too. Thank you. Very inspirational. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Ryan Hanley show. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a comment or review wherever you listen to podcasts.