The Ryan Hanley Show - Stop Living a Life You Didn't Choose

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

In this solo episode, Ryan shares the core message of his TEDx talk titled "Stop Living a Life You Didn't Choose," exploring the concept of the "status trap," an invisible prison of societal expectations that diverts people from their true paths. He introduces three principles to overcome the status trap: viewing fear as a prompt for action, granting oneself permission to deviate from others' expectations, and understanding that focus dictates personal growth. Ryan emphasizes that while gaining status isn't inherently bad, it's vital to ensure it doesn't compromise personal integrity or harm key aspects of one's life. Takeaways: • Recognize and escape the 'status trap' that holds you back • Embrace your unique path • Cultivate focus on your craft and aspirations Sound Bites: • "We make so many bad decisions when we're operating from a position of status." • "Every day, millions of people wake up, go to jobs they hate, pursue goals they didn't choose, all because they're caught in what I call the status trap, the invisible prison of social expectations." • "Prioritizing status is the path of comfort. Just do what everyone does and expects of the type of person you'd like to become. 📌 𝗙𝗢𝗟𝗟𝗢𝗪 𝗠𝗘 𝗢𝗡: Website: https://go.ryanhanley.com/ Course Page: https://masteroftheclose.com/ Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ryan-hanley-show/id1480262657 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5AZFuTiQsgS9hMQDDdtlOr?si=98432b7806534486 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryan_hanley

Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. We have a tremendous episode for you today. We're gonna do something a little different. It's gonna be a solo episode, but I wanted to take a few minutes with you and I wanted to read through my TEDx talk that I recently did at TEDx New Albany, kind of table read style. The version that comes out that I actually performed on stage in New Albany is not going to be what you're going to hear. Not exactly. I did a little different.

I cut some sections out and expanded some places for the actual on stage live performance that got recorded. And, you know, hopefully we'll be up on the TEDx YouTube channel in the not too distant future. But I still wanted to share the message in its entirety with you guys. Particularly because I think the topic that I addressed is something that, it's a blind spot for us. It's something that we don't see coming until we're caught in it,

and then it is very difficult to get out. And I have found myself, in some of the situations in which I am the most regretful of the things I've done or not done. It is often because I fell into what I call the status trap, the invisible prison of societal expectations, right? Those things that we feel we are supposed to do because of this label that we might wear at any given particular time, right? So people like me or people like this do things like this and therefore I need to do all those same things as well. We make so many bad decisions when we're operating from a position of status and

I've had several experiences in my career where I just look back and it doesn't even seem like the same person who made those decisions today. And in examining why I made them, it was because I was trying to be something instead of just allowing who I actually am and the way that I operate to come through and to follow that unique path, if that makes sense. It'll make more sense when I do the table read. But I wanted to put this in front of you, not only because I'm very proud of the work that I did and I spent over six months putting this talk together and, you know, working out the performance and all that kind of stuff. This is something we can avoid, right? It's not an intangible. It's not a if this happens, break glass kind of thing. It's this is something that if we're intentional and thoughtful, if we haven't had major downsides from, you know, attaching too much value to status or the corresponding ideas, then we can still avoid it. And if we find ourselves in this place, there is a real path out.

And as leaders, as creators, if you're ambitious, if you wanna become an influencer or an entrepreneur or an executive or really anyone that starts to hold positions of status or desires positions of status, the status trap is absolutely something we can get caught in and it can derail our progress and I don't want that to happen to you. So I'm going to just kind of table read style work through this script. How I built this, right? I didn't just build an outline. I actually scripted every single

word first in its entirety and then I went back through and just to kind of work through what my process was right for this talk so scripted every single word in its entirety did some table reads got a feel for that deleted some parts it made adjustments and kind of went back and forth on this full script editing and then once I got the full script to where I was in a time frame that I had some buffer so TedxTalks if you're unfamiliar have a max limit of 18 minutes they really want you to come in 17 or under some of the most successful Ted Talks have been in that

15 to 16 minute range right you don't want to it is not a platform for more context than is necessary if that makes sense, which as you guys know as listeners to the show is difficult for me. So this took a lot of work and refining is one of the most challenging speaking performances that I've ever had to prepare for. Most of that is pressure that I put on myself because I wanted to do well or at least be proud of my performance, which I was, but you know this process was very different than how I normally would build out a talk. I normally would build out a talk.

I would normally build out a talk in slides actually, and then use the slides as a template and an outline to ultimately get all my stories and talking points and stuff together. In this case, I scripted every word, I edited down to be like exactly what I wanted to say, and then from there I broke it into an outline. And then from there I actually built a few slides off of the talk. So I'm not gonna necessarily do all the slides. I think that's extraneous and I don't think it's necessary.

But I wanted to read this for you guys, put it in front of you and I would love your feedback. So if you're listening, watching on YouTube or even if you're on Spotify and Apple, I would love for you to come over to the YouTube video and leave your comments, leave your thoughts, leave your questions. I really want to know what you think of this particular idea. It is so incredibly powerful and so insidious. If we are unaware that our mindset has been captured by this idea of status, I want to make sure

that if you're part of this community and you listen to this show and this is something I think I can help you with. So hopefully what you're about to hear is valuable to you. I hope you enjoy it. If you do, would love, and you're not already, please subscribe to the show, share with friends. That's how we grow the community. That's how we grow the audience of this show, and as always, I just appreciate you and love you for taking time out of your day and choosing to be here with me. I know you have so many options and I'm not going to belabor it anymore, but it is just so incredibly meaningful that you spend this time here. Thank you and like I said, all questions, all comments, all thoughts, if you come over to the YouTube video leave them there and

I will respond to every single one of them. So alright with that I'm gonna get on to my TEDx talk table read now the like I said the version that you that comes out in TEDx The from the text will be different What I ultimately ended up doing was in the 11th hour was cutting a few sections and expanding in a few other places. So it is a little different version, but I wanted to read to you kind of the fully scripted version that I put together that ultimately was the template that I went to stage with. So, alright. Okay. The The title of my talk was Stop Living a Life You Didn't Choose. He said, I thought you figured it out by now. We didn't hire you for your opinion.

I sat there paralyzed. The CEO's crippling words hung in the air. That was the moment I realized I wasn't living my own life. I was 38 years old and I had lost the way. This was the job I was supposed to have. I had checked all the boxes. On my career ladder, this is exactly where I was supposed to be. My dream job. And that dream had just become a nightmare. As his comment sank in, it felt like I was falling as if I had been holding onto a ledge high atop a mountain of success and my fingers had just gotten over the top when someone decided to walk by and step on my fingers. At that moment, I experienced just about every negative emotion a person can feel about themselves. Pain, shame, doubt,

insecurity, anger, fear. How did I lose the way? My story isn't unique. Every day, millions of people wake up, go to jobs they hate, pursue goals they didn't choose, all because they're caught in what I call the status trap, the invisible prison of social expectations. This would become a defining moment in my life, and it's the reason I'm here today. See, it's astounding how many people want to live spectacular lives, but prioritize fitting in, getting along, being normal, being accepted. Raise your hand. And for you guys listening and watching, put the word status in the comments.

Raise your hand if you've ever done something, not because you wanted to, but because it's what you believed was expected of you. I know I certainly have. Look around your life and you'll see the status trap everywhere. It's the law degree you pursued because your parents convinced you it was sensible and safe. It's the vacation that you spend staging Instagram photos on the beach instead of just enjoying your time. It's the house that you buy that's expensive, but in the right neighborhood,

even though it comes with a soul crushing commute. It's saying that's interesting in meetings when what you really want to say is, I completely disagree. And to be clear, there's a fine line between giving into the demands of status and sacrificing for family and loved ones. Your choice to have a soul crushing commute could be so your kids could go to a better school or working that sensible safe job that you hate could just be a placeholder till you get your entrepreneurial idea off the ground.

The outcome isn't the issue. It's why you make the decision that matters. George Bernard Shaw wrote, The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. Unreasonable people get unreasonable results. Yet so few of us lead unreasonable lives. See the status trap, it's a blind spot. Our society encourages us from birth to fit in. Don't touch that, don't say that. Be nice, listen to your teacher, take these classes, go to this college, get this job. It's all subtle programming.

At face value, none of these things are necessarily wrong, if we choose them. But what my experience has taught me is that status is a limiting belief that denies us our full potential. It teaches us to master working the system rather than mastering the skill of our craft. Prioritizing status outsources our passion, our dreams, our goals to other people, to what is expected. We chase significance, we're intoxicated by attention, we trade comfort for purpose, conformity for impact impact and inertia for legacy

Tyler Durden said it best we buy things we don't need with money We don't have to impress people we don't like think of it like this We all start at the bottom of the ocean in the darkness unsure of where to go what to do who we will become And along comes status the anglerfish, dangling its little light, and in the darkness that light feels like the path. It lures us in with shiny rewards, attention, accolades, but behind its light, lurking in the darkness, lies the danger, the silent suffocation of never becoming who we were meant to be,

when the whole time all we needed to do was swim up. Thoreau wrote, The massive men lead lives of quiet desperation, their souls trapped, held hostage to social expectations and the material requirements of status. These prevent them from truly experiencing freedom, fulfillment, purpose, meaning, happiness. I'm here today to challenge you. Challenge you to examine your relationship with status, reframe your approach to success, and give you three principles for breaking free of the status trap. Because having status

isn't necessarily a bad thing. There's a reason status is hard-coded into our human system. Safety, security, routine. According to a study published in the National Library of Medicine, conforming to group norms can temporarily reduce stress and anxiety by aligning with others and avoiding potential conflict and rejection. Status in and of itself is not the problem. The corruption lies in why we achieve status. For in that same study, the

short-term relief that comes from conformity has the cost of our long-term psychological wellbeing. See, the larger the gap grows between who we are and who we were meant to be, the more stress and anxiety fill our lives. We're not born chasing status, but we choose early in our lives how we're going to play the game. Prioritizing status is the path of comfort. Just do what everyone does and expects of the type of person you'd like to become. Fit in, play along, say the same things, read the same books, have the same opinions, go on the same vacations, be agreeable, be nice, get along, don't stand out, avoid tough conversations.

The American education system was built to produce cogs in the societal machine, which is great for the machine, not so great for the cogs. But this isn't just an American problem. We've all heard the Japanese proverb, the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. In Australia, there's tall poppy syndrome. In Scandinavian countries, it's called the Law of jante which I'm paraphrasing here says you're not to imagine yourself better than we are. Society's encouragement of conformity is a problem as old as time. The good news is there is another way. See I wasn't born with status. I grew up in a small

town of 900 people in the middle of the woods of upstate New York as kids We joked that you could leave the doors open at night because the criminals lived in our town. They didn't steal there Needless to say it was not an opportunity rich environment and as early as 12 years old All I wanted to do was get out of that town I didn't want to have my life dictated to me by its desperation And I believed at the time that money helped you escape. So at 12, I began waking up at 5 a.m. every Thursday morning before school, I'd grab two large 50 gallon trash bags and head out into the dark.

Why Thursday? Because that was recycling day. And all my neighbors would put the recyclables out on the street in little dirty blue bins. I'd walk from house to house rummaging through their dirty little blue bins looking for recycle bottles and cans with a five cent deposit. After about an hour and a half, I'd have filled my two garbage bags, which was about 30 bucks in profit. This was a zero status job.

I was literally a garbage picker. I had neighbors yell at me and eyeball me through the windows. My friends and classmates ridiculed me calling me things like garbage boy. And even after I told them how much money I was making and I asked them to help, no one would. Picking garbage was beneath them. Me, I didn't care. I was 12 years old and was flush with cash. My immunity to status allowed me to capitalize on an opportunity others would not. See, we all have a choice. We can play the status game, chase the accolades, mimic the crowd, fit in, or we can do as Steve Martin taught us. Be so good they can't ignore us. Or maybe put in the context of our conversation here today,

we can be so unreasonable they can't ignore us. Because it's completely unreasonable at 12 years old to get up at 5 a.m. put on a snow suit because it's 20 degrees out and pick garbage for five cents a pop. But here's the rub. After a few months, my neighbors stopped yelling at me and giving me the stink eye out the windows. And my friends, they liked hanging out with the kid who always had money in his pocket. See, my status changed. Not by fitting in, not by doing what was always expected, rather doing exactly what I needed to do the way I needed to do it without regard for what others think. We chase

status but we envy execution. Fast-forward back to my 38 year old self. I had forgotten the lessons I learned at 12. There I sat shamed out anger coursing through my body. I was lost at what I thought was a major stepping stone in my career. A milestone job. I found myself at the lowest thought was a major stepping stone in my career a milestone job. I Found myself at the lowest emotional point of my life Needless to say I did not speak again in that meeting. I just sat there When the meeting was over I got up and dragged myself back to my office. See I didn't realize it at the time, but status-seeking behavior activates the same neural pathways as addiction.

I at 38 years old was addicted to status. I had done things. I had achieved things and people wanted to know what I thought. They wanted to interview me. They wanted me on their podcast, asked me to speak at their conference. As I slumped into my chair staring out the window of my 15th floor office, a torturous set of questions entered my mind. Was this it? Was this the top? Would I ever get another opportunity like this? How the heck did I get here? And then the memory of walking those streets at 12 entered my mind. I thought

about who I was back then and what I was willing to do to create a better future. I remember making my high school varsity football team as a sophomore. For the sole reason, I was the only guy in the program willing to lower himself to learn long snapping. I was a starting middle linebacker by week four, but you know, who keeps track of these things? I remember writing a letter to every college baseball coach within a six hour drive in

my house explaining that this six foot three power hitting catcher would commit on the sole factor to whichever school gave me the biggest scholarship. Not because we were greedy, but because I was poor. And a scholarship was the only way I was going to college. How little I cared about the opinion of others. It was then that I took out a notebook and I started writing. And what I wrote down that day would be the beginnings of the three lessons that I'm here to share with you today.

These three principles have guided me ever since. And that when followed, create an immunity to status and they will empower you to become your unreasonable self. Principle number one, fear is a vector to action. I hadn't read Ryan Holiday's The Obstacle Is The Way Yet, but it's the same idea. Fear would be my guide, not my anchor. For me, that was the pull to become an entrepreneur.

A year later, I founded my first company, Rogue Risk, a first of its kind digital commercial insurance agency. Principle number two, give yourself permission. I would no longer allow the opinions and expectations of others to dictate my actions. You'll never be able to. You don't have enough. That's not the way it's always been done. You'll never be able to, you don't have enough, that's not the way it's always been done. I would not allow my unique approach to business to stay just notes on a page because others didn't get it. And using our unique approach, we were able to scale, rogue risk, and sell it in two years

and ultimately exit within lesson four. Principle number three, what you focus on is who you become. I could either focus on gaining, preserving attention, status, or I could focus on becoming a master of my craft. And in my case, that was mastering the craft of entrepreneurship and leadership, skills that were necessary for me to develop in order to manifest this business that I had dreamed of

for more than 15 years. To be clear, being unreasonable, choosing yourself as James Aldoushire puts it, it's not the easy path and it comes with a cost. It's torturous and treacherous and lonely, and you will absolutely find yourself on an island, but it will be an island of your own design. There's this Emerson quote that rents space in my head

God will not have his work made manifest by cowards the challenge I bring for you bring to you today isn't should you or should you not chase status? It's do you have the courage to choose the future you want? Can you be? Unreasonable enough to become the person God intended you to be? Because in that unreasonable pursuit is where you find purpose, meaning, and happiness. And if three principles is too many, if you can only take one principle away with you today, the inner forearm tattoo worthy principle. It is undoubtedly what you focus on as who you become.

What you focus on is who you become. The choice is yours. Choose wisely. This is the way. And cut scene. So my friends, that is the talk. Like I said, it took me six months to get to that of writing and editing and, you know, researching and framing ideas and, you know, the number of stories that I pulled out and how it all laid together,

building the case, keeping it short. It really, putting this TEDx talk together was one of the most challenging speaking performances that I've ever taken on, mostly because of its brevity, right? It's much easier to have an hour to kind of weave and meander your way through different stories and you can read the crowd and you know poke and prod and try things and back up and go down different paths as you're getting feedback from your audience it's a completely different experience where this was you got one shot and you had to rip because the lights go off at 18 minutes and you don't want that to happen. I'm very proud of this message.

I'm going to be sharing more as I develop more around this idea. I think that, you know, being able to recognize status and its impact on our lives and our decision making is an incredibly important part of our own personal development and becoming that best version of ourselves. Because as I say during the talk, status in and of itself isn't a bad thing. If you're doing incredible work and people appreciate it and enjoy it, you're going to elevate in status in their eyes. And there's no intrinsic problem with that. Unless your decisions start costing you or your company or your family and loved ones, if chasing that status comes at a cost that you don't wanna pay,

that creates negative impacts in your life, that generates more stress and more anxiety, then it's a negative. So developing a relationship, an intentional relationship with what status means in our lives, how we handle it, and how we make sure that it isn't corrupting our decision making process is incredibly important. And I hope that you got value out of this talk. When the TEDx, you know, kind of the video recording of the talk goes live, I'll make sure that, you know, share it on all the socials. If you're not on the email list, go to go.ryanhandley.com. That's G-O dot Ryan Hanley dot com.

And you can jump on the email list. I'm going to definitely share it there as well. Guys, I appreciate you for being here. I appreciate the fact that you continue to show up, that you get value from this show. And I hope you appreciate how hard I try to work to deliver up, that you get value from this show, and I hope you appreciate how hard I try to work to deliver value back to you. I take our relationship that we have here very, very seriously. Any comments, any questions, any thoughts that you have about what you just heard, I'd love for you to leave them in the comments of the YouTube video. It's just an easy way for me

to collect all your thoughts and then respond to you guys I hope that you absolutely Crush this day and understand that with all things in life It's your choice and I very much do hope that you choose wisely wisely for you Because that my, is the way. Thanks for watching!