The Ryan Hanley Show - Vital Lessons I Wish I Knew In My 20s For Success

Episode Date: March 13, 2025

Wish you had a roadmap for your 20s? Ryan Hanley delivers the brutal truth in this video, sharing 17 harsh lessons he learned the hard way. Forget sugarcoating—these are real-life insights designed to align your life for success and help you navigate the inevitable challenges ahead. Ryan cuts through the noise and delivers a motivation-packed session, drawing from his own experiences and a deep understanding of psychology. He's not just sharing theories; these are hard-learned truths that will reshape your mindset forever. Life isn't fair, and Ryan doesn't pretend it is. He lays out the stark realities you need to face head-on to achieve personal growth. He reveals what they don't teach you in school, emphasizing how your mindset shapes everything. Here's a glimpse of the hard-learned truths Ryan shares: The reality that success requires more than just good intentions. The importance of facing your fears instead of avoiding them. How crucial it is to take responsibility for your own actions. That personal growth is painful, but necessary. The fact that most people will not support your dreams. This video is a wake-up call, a dose of reality, and a powerful guide to navigating the crucial decade of your 20s. Prepare to have your mindset reshaped and your path clarified. Thanks to Mando for sponsoring this episode—use code 'RYAN' at shopmando.com for 40% off their starter pack, and stay fresh and confident with their top-notch odor control products! 📚 Interested in mastering sales? Check out Ryan's new sales course, "Master of the Close" at https://www.masteroftheclose.com 🎯 Takeaways: Focus determines who you become Mental health is ongoing work Embrace unfair realities 💬 Sound Bites: "Focus determines who you become; consistent focus boosts productivity."  "Life's challenges bring true purpose and fulfillment." "Courage to be disliked brings true appreciation." 📖 Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 00:40 - START 02:13 - What You Focus On Is Who You Become 05:34 - Life is not fair  08:02 - Operate in Reality  09:50 - You Are Going To Lose Friends  12:21 - Your Health Is Not A Luxury  14:16 - Mando 17:14 - Mental Health Is A Practice  19:52 - There Are Seasons To Life  23:15 - Give No F*cks - Lesson 9:  24:19 - You Cannot Improve Everything All At Once  25:49 - Be Proud Of Your Faith  27:37 - Consistency is the Killer Flex  28:57 - There Is No Path  31:57 - It’s Either Hell Yes or No  32:56 - Life Is Not Supposed To Be Easy  34:59 - Double Into Your Strengths  36:32 - Have The Courage To Be Disliked  39:01 - Create More Than You Consume  40:43 - You Are Always To Blame   📌 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

In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. Today I'm going to share 17 harsh lessons that I wish I knew in my 20s. As of recording this, I am 43 going on 44. I'll be 44 in two weeks. And as birthdays tend to do, you reflect on where you are, what are the ideas that are driving you as a person today, and you think back to where you came from. And I did not come from a household, from a family that taught these lessons. We were, came from a small town. My mother was a receptionist. My father was a laborer. They were great parents, showed me tons of love, but we were just trying to get by day to day.

And I didn't have a playbook coming out of my teens into my 20s that allowed me to be successful. So what you're going to learn today are directly lessons that come directly from the beats of my own career, from trying things and failing and trying and failing and learning each step of the way on how to get better at what I do, how to get better as a person, and how to set my life up for the success that I enjoy today. And I want to share those with you because that's what we do here. If you see a lesson, hear a lesson that makes sense or doesn't make sense, something that you disagree with or you just like us to expand on, leave it in the comments below.

I'd like to know which lesson hits you the hardest, which one maybe you struggled to implement in your life, leave those comments in the YouTube comment section. I respond to every one of them. I read every one of them. If you're listening to the audio podcast, Spotify, Apple, wherever, make sure you head over to YouTube and leave your comments there and I will make sure that we dig into those and if there's any that warrant expansion in a future episode, we'll make sure we get

that done as well. Okay, lesson number one, what you focus on is who you become. This is a core mantra to my life. It is number one for a reason. It is a defining principle in who I am and how I run my life because three years ago, I was diagnosed with hyperactive bipolar, which means at any given moment, I am bouncing between manic and hyper manic, which means at all moments of the day, I am out over my skis going 100 miles an hour mentally. I have had to build into my life systems, processes, mantras, etc. that allow me to stay focused because anything that doesn't drop a massive amount of dopamine to my system immediately gets disregarded. And for a long time, I thought that this was just who I was. I was scatterbrained or you know, I was, you know, high energy or, you know, whatever label or moniker you wanted to put on it. The lesson came in the form of understanding the true impact of

my inability to stay consistently focused on a single topic without these systems or processes in place. It takes on average our brain 23 minutes to regain full focus on a topic when we switch our focus. So if you are working on a major project and get distracted easily by a Netflix show you wanna watch or video games or text messages or scrolling through Instagram or TikTok, and then you try to come back to that major project, it is going to take your brain 23 minutes

before you regain your full focus. That is a massive loss in output and productivity. And this was something I experienced for a very long time until I started to implement processes in my life. The most powerful was time blocking. I am a major proponent of time blocking. My calendar dictates my life. And by doing that, I am able to dictate what things I focus on and where my energy goes. So working out

is incredibly important to me. If I don't use my body physically in some way, then I have massive amounts of energy reserves that then get dissipated through, you know, jumping from topic to topic from thing to thing. And I ultimately don't get the level of output that I would like. Time blocking allows me to determine who I want to be and I ultimately don't get the level of output that I would like. Time blocking allows me to determine who I want to be. I want to be a high performer in terms of the work that I do. I want to create incredibly valuable content like what we're watching right now and I want to be physically fit. Additionally, I am hyper focused on being a present father in my children's lives. Therefore, I time block every event of theirs that I want or need to go to and make sure that if something else comes up, I am scheduling around those moments because priority number one in my life before anything else that I do is being present for my children.

present for my children. So if I want to be a present dad, a high performer, and physically fit, the only way to guarantee that that is a reality is to time block. There are many other systems and processes that I put in place. I've done some other episodes for the show that you can kind of scroll back through on Focus if you want more information on those. And if you would like to know some of the other systems and processes that I use just leave a comment below and I'm happy to share those with you as well. Lesson number two life is not fair. This is one of the major issues that I have particularly with individuals who come to me and ask questions. They'll say I should have gotten this promotion it's not fair. I

should be selling more in this product that I created it's not fair. I should be selling more in this product that I created. It's not fair. Right? Why does this person you know, this person started with money I didn't I had to bootstrap this person has some particular experience that allows them to gain more attention. That's not fair. Sorry, none of that matters. Right? Like life is not fair. Get over it. The minute you stop thinking in terms of fair, you can start focusing on the things that you need to do to reach your goal. Fair is just a distraction. Going back to lesson one, this idea of fair. Do not assume that coin is you should not act in a fair way. If you have a competitive advantage, you should leverage that competitive advantage. I don't mean screwing people. I don't mean lying. I don't mean bait and switch offers. None. That's not what I'm talking about. If you're an incredible copywriter who can get people to click through or to buy a thing, but then the thing is terrible, that is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about competitive advantages you may have. You may not have kids, which gives you a massive advantage over people that do simply by the

amount of time that kids take out of your life. Leverage that advantage, right? You may have, you may come from a family with money and be able and have reserves that you can pull from to seed a business leverage that competitive advantage there is there's nobody nobody who matters cares what competitive advantages you come to the game with they only respect your execution of the thing you're trying to do. So do not expect life to be fair. Additionally, do not play too fair. If you have a way to step out ahead of your competition that is unfair, but hopefully morally okay, leverage that unfairness. Because the world, the universe, isn't fair, so just remove fair as an idea from your mindset.

And just assume everything is unfair so that you can focus on what you need to do in order to move forward in your life and whatever that goal is that you're trying to pursue. Number three, operate in reality. We see this all the time with political discussions, right? Well, this is what should happen or, you know, this is the way things are supposed to be. No, reality is reality. What is happening on the ground right now and how do you need to respond to that reality in order to stay safe, stay secure, create financial freedom, hit your goals, grow your business, be a better

partner, be a better husband, father, whatever it is that you're trying to do. Operate in reality. You cannot change people, right? You cannot change the way reality has set the table. And it may force you to make decisions you don't want to make. It may force you to operate in a way that you'd rather not operate. However, if that's what reality dictates, that's what you have to do. This goes back to lesson number two about being fair, right? What is happening is what is happening

and far too often when people come to me and you know they have questions or they want you know they're looking for a coaching or mentorship relationship they're talking about the world that doesn't actually exist right people buy not because your product is good but because of what your product does for them and how that makes them feel and how it makes them look to other people in their peer group just because you have a good product doesn't mean it's going to sell. We have to operate in reality. Operate in reality. Do not make up these utopian scenarios of the way the world should work and try to build

for those. Build for the way the world actually works and the reality that you are presented with at the current moment. Lesson number four. You are going to lose friends. I wish that I knew this in my early 20s because I have lost so many friends throughout my life for so many different reasons. And I don't mean that in a bad way, right? Some of those friends I just grew apart from. Some of those friends moved away physically and just we didn't have a connection that yielded us to continue to be connected.

Some of those friends I, you know, just disagree with philosophically and we have split apart. Some of those friends haven't appreciated certain levels of success that I've hit and have become, you know, kind of bitter or resentful in the way that they communicate or passive aggressive and, and I've distanced myself from them. At the same time, you are going to gain, especially if you are focused on the things that matter to you, friends who align with the new version of yourself. If you are consistently growing, if you are consistently trying to get better, if you are consistently reaching new goals, new heights, new levels in your work, in your personal development, in your relationships, you're going to lose the people who don't want to follow along, and you're going to gain people who align with this new version of yourself. And oftentimes these friendships that we make later in life

are some of the most enduring and meaningful relationships we've ever had. Because many of our early relationships are based on proximity or based on things that don't necessarily matter to us as we grow and mature in our lives, right? You have how many friends in your late teens and your early 20s that are simply based on partying, right? You go out to these bars you like to drink or you let whatever the thing is that you like to do. And that's a they're fun to have as friends at that moment in your life. But as you mature, and you move out of that stage of your life, and you want to become more professional, and you want to work more in your business, and you want to work more in your physical fitness, those friends who want to go and eat crappy food and drink tons of beers, they might not be aligned with this new version of you who doesn't want to

do those things and certainly don't want to do those things as often. It is okay to lose friends who no longer align with where you are in the current stage of your life because I promise you, you will backfill those friends with new people who do align with you. And what I've found over the course of my life is that those new friends are often deeper, richer, more meaningful relationships. Lesson number five, your health is not a luxury. You have to focus on your health.

American society is fat as fools. I recently had a guest on the show who shared that 80% of Americans have metabolic syndrome, which essentially means they either have diabetes or they're overweight or you know they have some other form of debilitating issue that keeps them from being max energy every day and in order to be the most successful, the most purpose-driven, meaningful, happy version of yourself, you want to be at max energy every day and the only way to do that is to focus on your health. It is not health is not a luxury and you may be saying, well, Ryan, you don't understand.

I just started a startup and I don't have time. Time block in physical fitness into your day. Time block in eating a healthy lunch. If that's what you need to do, If it's that hard for you literally create a 15 minute calendar invite only to yourself that says eat a salad or whatever that healthy thing is that you need to eat right or time block in intermittent fasting if that's something that you like to do. Time block in the health and wellness

that you like to do. Time block in the health and wellness things that are important to you being Max Energy because that that startup that that you're using as an excuse for not going to the gym you're going to fade, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to get you're going to procrastinate, you're going to get lazy because you're not going to be at max energy. Being at max energy, which means focusing on your health is a core part of a startup. This is something no one talks about in the entrepreneurial space. Your health is part of the startup. Because if you're not at max energy, if you have brain fog as the founder, how are you gonna make the decisions? How are you gonna do the work that's necessary to get that startup past startup mode into escape velocity? It's not going to happen. And I'd like to put a particular point on building strength. And this goes for men and women, not a fitness guru, although I've had many on the show in the past. So you can go back and look at those episodes, strength training, one to three times a week. You know, I don't mean just going out for a run.

I mean lifting something, pushing something, moving iron. Strength training is core because of the chemicals that strength training releases into your body and the earlier in the day you can get your strength training done the better. Okay guys, because we're talking about health and wellness right now, it seems like the perfect time to talk about our newest sponsor and partner of the show and that is Mando. Mando is the number one odor control product in the market today right feet packages pits it's wonderful they have

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All right, lesson number six, mental health is a practice. I'm gonna go back to thinking about this from the standpoint of like a startup founder, because I know a lot of you are in business that listen to this show or are considering side hustles, et cetera. If your mental health isn't in a good place, it's almost impossible to get these things done. Right? This was a hard lesson for me, because I just always thought I had good mental health until like really bad shit started to

happen like getting fired from a job that I loved. I had a startup that I that I, you know, worked on and launched and it just didn't go anywhere. And the reason it didn't go anywhere wasn't because the product was bad or because I had bad strategies and tactics because I wasn't here, right? I didn't have the mental health to push through those hard times. I started having all these limiting beliefs, all these negative thoughts started running through my brain. I hadn't yet fully understood how the voice in your head isn't you and how that voice is often not helping you move forward in your life. And there's all these little aspects of mental health that, you know, we can dive into this in future episodes as well.

We've talked a lot about it on the show in the past. We will continue to because this is such an important topic to our success. Mental health is a practice. So all that being said, taking out the specifics of mental health, I want to focus on this idea of practice because this is the lesson. You don't go see a counselor or therapist one time and get fixed. That's not the way it works. The best advice that's ever been given to me by a mentor was this. Find a counselor, make a recurring meeting with them every two weeks for the rest of your life, and just consider it a life expense.

Because mental health is a practice, right? It is about consistency. It's about doing the work. It's about tiny incremental gains. It's about, you know, learning how not to react, how to, you know, manifest things in your life, how to reinforce good ideas, good thoughts, good beliefs, right? That mental health is something we need to constantly be working on. And early in my life, how to reinforce good ideas, good thoughts, good beliefs, right? That mental health is something we need to constantly be working on. And early in my life, I may have a problem, talk to someone, feel like I'm fixed, and then that same exact thing happens again, because I didn't consistently work on the concept. I didn't consistently work to get better.

I didn't see it as a practice. I saw it as like, you know, fixing the leg of a chair that breaks, right? You fix it once and you're back in business. That's not the case with our mental health. It is something we will be working on our entire lives. And if you truly want to be successful in whatever it is that you're trying to do, we must focus on our mental health and we must think of it as a practice, not as something we can patch and fix and move on. Lesson number seven, there are seasons to life.

If you can understand that everything in your life is a season, it is way easier to get through the bad seasons and way easier to prepare yourself for bad seasons when you're in a good season. What does that mean? It means that early in your life, you most likely will not be making the amount of money you want to be making. You most likely will not have the network that you want. You most likely... So what does this idea of seasons actually mean? It means everything has a season. Again, going back to our analogy with the startup founder, the first season when you create a startup and launch that business is going to be you grinding 10, 12, 16 hours or more a day. It's just the nature of getting a business up off the ground and it's going to burn you

out unless you can understand that that is a season that you just have to get through. You just have to get through that season from launch to escape velocity where you are grinding every minute of every day. It's all encompassing. Maybe you're letting relationships go. Maybe you're struggling in other places because you have to get through this season of getting your business to a place where you can move on to the next season, which is starting to bring in employees, starting to bring in new systems, new processes, maybe tools that you can afford at that point. to help you systematize, build process, build consistency in your business that will allow you to work less hours, but reap more benefit. It's a season, right? You have seasons of your marriage. You have seasons of your relationship with your children. You have seasons with

friends. You have seasons with everything. And framing where you are as a season allows you to emotionally rationalize the things that you're doing at this moment so that you can set yourself up to move beyond that season to where you ultimately wanna be. For so long, I didn't understand this concept. This is one of the lessons that I've learned very recently in my life.

I would launch businesses and get so frustrated by the just constant unending grind knowing that that was what was required, but not understanding that someday that was going to have to turn. And I would just keep grinding and keep grinding even though we would be hiring people and even though we would be bringing in new tools and building new systems. I would keep grinding and grinding until I had someone literally grab me and shake me at a conference when I was complaining about this and say, this is just a season move on. When I started to research this topic, I started to understand what they meant. And it gave me some emotional release.

It allowed me to say, okay, I'm in this grinding season. How do I move on to the next one? And that thought gave me the light at the end of the tunnel to realize that I hadn't given up a corporate job to become an entrepreneur, to only work twice as many hours, twice as hard, you know, without seeing the benefit. And that this concept of seasons was a game changer for me. And I highly recommend you dig into it and spend some time thinking about what season you're currently in and where you want to get to. Lesson number eight, give no fucks.

I have a little wood sculpture that one of the audience members here has made for me when I talked about this concept the first time on the show. Right here, made for me right here. Right here, made for me right here. Thank you Gordon for making this for me. Sits right, sits right back over my shoulder. Reminder every day to give no fucks. And what that means is believe in yourself, not in the opinions and expectations of others. If someone's got a comment, let them have a comment.

Use it as a data point. Use every comment, every negative piece of feedback that you get, every, you don't have the resources, you don't have the knowledge, you'll never, you don't have enough, you're not capable, whatever those negative things are that people put into your world, use them as data points, but ultimately give no fucks. If you believe in your path, believe in your path, push forward and that's all that matters. It's the only way to get to where you want to go because your path is your path, believe in your path, push forward, and that's all that matters. It's the only way to get to where you want to go. Because your path is your path.

GNF. Give no fucks. Lesson number 10, you cannot improve everything all at once. Pick one thing, master that thing, execute that thing, improve that thing, systematize that thing, build that thing, then move on to the next thing. The more projects you have going on at the same time, the less successful you will be in any one of those projects and the longer all of those projects will take to complete. The reality, again going back to a previous lesson around living in reality, is that we can't always only have one thing going on in order to move our business forward. However, we can have one primary focus.

And if we give as much or the majority of our focus to one thing at a time, we will be the best that we can be at that thing. We will get it done the fastest and we'll be able to move on and then do the same for the next major priority task, etc. that we have to achieve. But too often, we hit this, and all of a sudden, I want to become a better person, or I want to be a successful entrepreneur, and we put 10, 15, 20 different priorities on our table and try to execute them all at once. And ultimately, none of them are as good as we could have possibly done if we had just focused on them. And many of them don't ever get done because we just don't have the brain power to scale ourselves over

that many different priorities at one time. Do one thing at a time and be incredibly good at that one thing. That way you can give your best effort, produce your best product and do it in the most efficient way possible and then move on to the next thing. Number 11, be proud of your faith, whatever that is. For so long I did not talk about my faith. I'm a firm believer in God. I have my own relationship with God and Christianity. I was raised a Catholic. I've kind of moved a little away from the Catholic Church. However, I still very much, you know, practice Christianity. I read the Bible and I

often on this show will quote biblical verses. My faith is important to me and it's a driving force in how I live my life and who I am as a person. You don't have to agree with my faith, but in order for you to understand who I am and what guides me as a person and the ideas, concepts, strategies that I share with you on this show, my faith is a big part of it. And maybe that turns you off and that's okay, then that means that this isn't the best place for you. And thinking through your own life, whatever your faith is, right? It is okay to share that because it is an upfront filter

for the people who are not gonna be good partners, good friends, good prospects, good customers. Sharing who we are and the things that drive our core values. They're not detractors, right? They're magnets. Because while you may lose some people on the on the, you know, the tertiary who who who don't necessarily align with your core values, you're going to attract even more

people who do align with your core values. And those people will be great friends. They will be great friends. They will be great partners. They will be great customers. So whatever your faith is, don't be scared to show it. Don't hide it. It doesn't mean you have to wear it on your sleeve and, you know, you know, shout it from the rooftop every single time you create a piece of content or interact with another human, right? But in a tasteful, respectable way, in a way that, you know, serves you and allows you to present your core value structure, do not hide your faith. Lesson number 12, consistency

is the killer flex. So you see so many flexes on social media, you know, I achieve this or I have this car or I go on these vacations and all that is whatever it is. And I guess for some of you, if you want that lifestyle, maybe those flexes are attractive. But for me, consistency is the killer flex. I want I want to align myself. I want to follow the people I want to learn from the individuals who have built a life that allows them to consistently show up over and over and over again. I do not want to align myself with the flash in the pans or the people that put something out and then they're gone because they made some money and they come back with something else and they're gone and then now they're a crypto expert. Now they're an AI expert. Now they're, you know, political expert, whatever. Consistency.

What does that person do over and over and over and over again with value, with passion, with energy that provides value, right? That's the killer flex is I'm so passionate, engaged in this topic. I'm so excited about this topic. I want to create value on this topic so much that I come back over and over and over and over and over again that Consistency is the killer flex lesson number 13. There is no path There's no path like this whole idea that you can buy a course and follow someone's Seven step funnel process and make all this money is you know, maybe in the short term, but there is no path, right? Your path is going to be yours. It's going to have a little bit of this and it's

going to have, you know, some some pieces from over here and you know, you're going to hit this roadblock that no one else hit and you're going to have to skirt it in a unique way and then maybe the next three steps you could actually follow someone but then, you know, your path is going to diverge because the economy changes the market changes the technology changes there is no path and the core idea behind there is no path is that the winners are adaptable and necessary and rigid when it's required walking the line between adaptability and rigidity is what's gonna make you successful. It's

the entrepreneur journey. It's the success journey. Whatever that is, right? Whether you're trying to be a better partner, father, whatever the thing is that you want to become, there isn't a path. Because if you're trying to be a better parent, right, your kids are so unique that you can't just do what everyone else does. They're trying to be a better parent, right, your kids are so unique that you can't just do what everyone else does. They're going to have different needs, different desires, different things that they're interested in, different energy levels. They're going to have different, you know, just ways of talking to you even inside your

own family that, you know, sure you can read books and get little tips and all this kind of stuff. But ultimately, with this idea of there is no path is accumulate mantras, accumulate value structures, and then be able to pull them off the shelf as needed in the moments in which they're required. But to be so rigid to one plan is going to cause you issues. And to always flex and adapt is also not always going to be the right path. So it's walking that line between when to stick to your guns and when to adjust course. That's the game of life.

And for those of us that believe we can find someone who's done, who's lived a life that we would like to mimic and then to strictly follow their path is going to cause more problems than it creates opportunities. Right? Learn from people, research, you know, reading biographies, you know, you know, best selling tried and true books from people. You know, I have a friend who says only read dead authors, right? Only read people whose books have lasted the test of time. Okay, take in these inputs as much as you can and create a shelf of systems, of ideas, of core concepts, of methodologies, mantras, and then as needed, as the situation requires, the skill is to pull from them and make your path yours. Because we're not interested in

the person who followed the path of someone else.'re not interested in the person who followed the path of someone else. We're interested in the people who created their own path and whatever that looks like. Lesson number 14, and this is a short one, it's either hell yes or it's no. This comes from Derek Sivers. He's written a book on this. He's done multiple podcasts on this. If the answer isn't hell yes, it must be no. This goes all the way back to lesson number one on focus. It's either hell yes, or it's no. Incredibly difficult life lesson that I fumble with all the time. So this is one I'm still efforting on. If it's not hell yes, it's gotta be no. Because there are enough hell yes opportunities out

there that you do not need to say yes to all of to everything that comes your way So if it doesn't feel right if it doesn't fit in this moment respectfully decline But if someone hits you with something that immediately lights you up that gets you sitting up straighter in your chair That gets you leaning forward that you can't wait to be a part of and it's a hell. Yes Do that thing because you have much more likely a chance of being successful when it's a hell yes than when it's a maybe or okay or that's fine. Number 15, this is another straightforward one. However, so many of us miss this. Life is not supposed to be easy. Life is not supposed to be easy. There's no easy. I have, you know, I was talking to my kids the other day and they were talking about where you know, I my older son is 11 and he plays baseball a lot He's a big fan. He you know, we've been playing baseball at a travel level since he was 7. Don't judge me

he loves it we were talking about hitting and He goes to hitting lessons and he had had two or three really good lessons in a row and then we had a lesson where just it was as if we hadn't had all the previous months of lessons that we had gone to and he just had a bad day and he was like man you know he was talking about easy and I go bud this is this is not easy this is this is not something everyone can do life is not supposed to be easy this this bad lesson that you had this is a good thing this. This is an opportunity because it shows you, one, how far you've come and one, how there's always going to be bad days because it's not easy. And it's the consistency of work that allows us to have one bad day and then have three good

days after that. But this idea that anything worth doing is supposed to be easy, we just need to throw that out. That is a limiting belief that just absolutely crushes our ability to be successful. Life is not supposed to be easy. It's need to throw that out. That is a limiting belief that just absolutely crushes our ability to be successful. Life is not supposed to be easy. It's not supposed to. If you believe in God, God did not create the world to be easy. Read the Bible. It's suffering everywhere. And the challenge is can we be successful despite the world not being easy? That's where purpose and meaning and happiness and fulfillment and freedom come from is doing the thing despite the fact that it's not easy. Because nothing worth doing is going to be easy. Nothing. And if you choose easy, that will only yield hardships down the road.

You're essentially, if you defer to easy, you're just kicking the can to more hardships. Life is not supposed to be easy. Throw that concept out. Assume everything is going to be hard and you will approach life with a new energy, a new attitude, and you will be highly successful. Lesson number 16, and this one can be controversial, double into your strengths. I have so many people that come to me and ask me questions about different things in their business or different things in their lives and they're talking about, they talk about weaknesses. Well I can't do this, or I'm not good at this. And I'm like, Okay, what are the things that you're good at? What? What are your superpowers? What are

your competitive advantages in the marketplace? And then they always have one or two. And I'll be like, Fuck all those things you're not good at. hire somebody create a system by a tool that solves that problem. Go double into. Be the absolute best you can possibly be in the things that allow you to create a competitive advantage, that separate you from everyone else, your superpowers. Double into your strengths. Get even better at the things that come naturally to you, or that you're willing to put the work in to become great at. Double into those things. Forget the weaknesses. Outsource, systematize, create tools, processes, whatever for the weaknesses. But spending time getting better at things that you may only be at best 50th

percentile at does not create true lift in your business. But if you can take yourself from 70th percentile to 95th percentile in a strength, that's where you're going to get real run. That's where you're going to get real run. That's where you're going to get real success. That's where you're going to get real lift double into your strengths. And if you completely disagree with that, I'd love to hear hit me in the comments.

This is the one I get a lot of push back on because people are like, well, you know, you want to be well rounded well rounded be really freaking good at one or two things that separate you and watch the needle move. I promise you lesson number 17 have the courage to be disliked. Have the courage to be disliked because when you do things that truly matter, things that stand out, whether that's achievement or your physique or the way you speak and approach your relationship with your spouse or your children or

how you involve yourself in your community or feats of physical fitness that you put yourself through like ultra marathons or climbing mountains. When you do things that separate you from the crowd you are going to be disliked. Even though those things aren't controversial you're going to be disliked because people will look at you as an indication of their weakness. Have the courage to be disliked. If you live your life through a filter of wanting to be liked by everyone, you will only find sadness, despair, anxiety, stress. Being liked is overrated. Have the courage to be disliked. Because here's the flip side. In your pursuit of greatness, when you have the courage to be disliked because here's the flipside in your pursuit of greatness when you have the courage to be disliked those who truly appreciate the work that

you're putting in they will love you so from having the courage to be disliked comes the opportunity of being loved and appreciated and cared for and supported but if you just try to fit in if you just do things so that people like you that don't make other people uncomfortable. There's nothing there. There's no depth shallow surface and there's certainly no success. All right. Here are the two. So guys, if you've enjoyed this episode so far, if you're not subscribed to the show, wherever you're listening or watching YouTube, Spotify, Apple, wherever, please subscribe to the show wherever you're listening or watching YouTube, Spotify, Apple, wherever please subscribe to the show.

We put two episodes out every week, an interview every Monday, a solo episode every Thursday, as well as tons of additional content, additional resources that come out through the show, tons of new opportunities and being part of this show just it means a tremendous amount to me. And if you want more of this content, make sure you subscribe, like if that's an option on whatever platform you are and if you have a comment, a thought, an idea, a question, come over to the YouTube version of the show and leave it in YouTube. That's where I try to capture all the comments so that I can respond to everybody and make sure that they get their questions answered and comments replied to.

I love you for listening to this show. With that, we have two bonus. You've made it to the bonus section. These are the two ideas that when I was creating this originally, I didn't have written down. And then as I was going through it, I was actually like, I'm missing these two things. I have to get them in. So the first create more than you consume.

This is a huge problem for me. I love consuming content. I love like if you look at my Instagram feed, it's like how to coach baseball, how to coach basketball, motivational quote, you know, like if you look at my Instagram feed, it's like how to coach baseball, how to coach basketball, motivational quote, you know, like, you know, other thought leaders, comedian stuff. I love, you know, I have a problem with TikTok and Instagram, mostly Instagram more than TikTok, but I just, you know, my brain wants to go consume that stuff and I love listening to podcasts and I love watching YouTube videos. I just

enjoy great content, great ideas. I love soaking it in. However, what I have found over the course of my 20 plus years creating content online is that the more you consume, the harder it is to create. It doesn't mean that consuming in a healthy manner and being inspired, getting ideas, things that you can piggyback off of or ideas that you feel like you have a unique spin on, inspiration is wonderful. And I'm a huge reader, so I do not wanna advocate that we do not consume. But we always wanna create more than we consume.

And creation doesn't always just mean content. It can mean putting effort back into the product you're building or into the work that you do or whatever it is that's important to you. But if we are not creating more than we consume, right, you will find that doing any creation becomes harder and harder and harder because we start living in the lives of other people. We start living in the thoughts of other people and our own unique ideas start to become corrupted. It's a delicate balance. You have to be

very careful. But if you can make sure through time blocking, going all the way back to our first lesson, through time blocking that you are creating more than you're consuming, you will find that your output from creation will continue to go up and up and up. But if that is out of balance, you will never be able to create enough to hit escape velocity. So we have reached our last lesson, technically lesson number 19. And this is, in my opinion, if not the most important lesson it is a top three lesson in this list and this goes for anybody who is a leader of anything leader of your family you are a leader of yourself you could be a leader of a company of a community group of sports team if you hold a leadership position

in any capacity including yourself you are always to blame you are always to blame as the leader whether that is true or not you are always to blame. You are always to blame as the leader. Whether that is true or not, you are always to blame. Whether you're the one that did the thing or not, you as the leader always to blame. You should always take the blame and you should own it. There is nothing that destroys a team, that destroys a group more than when the leader passes blame.

It is the unfortunate reality of the position that you are always to blame, right? The buck stops with at the top. The buck stops with the leader. The buck stops with you. You are always to blame. And if you can adopt a mindset that no matter what happens in your business, in your family, in your community group, in your on your team, whatever it is that you are a leader of, that you are always the one to blame, then you own the solution. And you can execute making sure that that thing does not happen again. But if you pass the buck, it creates bitterness, resentment, people start to stop listening to you, they stop

respecting you, they stop supporting you. But when you always take the blame, when you remove the blame from the people who are doing the things in support of your mission, of your goal, and you take on that blame and then you support them and making sure it doesn't happen again, they will run through fucking walls for you. They will run through walls because what they know is they are operating from a place of safety. And I don't mean safe spaces in the woke regard. I mean, from a place where they can make decisions, they can execute,

they can have some level of autonomy to do their job and be great at what they do without always feeling like the guillotine is over the top of their head and that one mistake is going to come down and crush whatever it is that they're doing. That's what you're doing. You're removing that fear that one mistake is going to kill their career or kill their opportunity. You're saying, look, I know you're going to make mistakes. And as long as I feel like you're doing your best, I am always to blame. I'm always to blame. And if there is a systemic problem in the business in terms of an individual or there is someone on the team, right, you can address that privately through coaching, through personal, through performance improvement plans, through mentorship, through training.

But there is nothing worse than listening to a leader, get on a call, have something happen and then pushing that blame on someone else. It just absolutely destroys that group, that company, that team, that community organization, destroys it. If you want a leadership position, understand that everything is your fault and you are to blame. And you are the one that needs to figure out how to solve that problem. And if you live that life I promise you you will start to be surrounded by people who will run through walls for you who will love you who will care not just about their own success not just about the company's success but about your personal success and that my friends is how great things

happen I love you for being here I hope these 17 slash 19 lessons added some value that you found some things in here that you can start to work on. Leave comments, questions, thoughts here on YouTube. This is the way. Corrupted. It's a delicate balance. You have to be very careful. But if you can make sure through time blocking, going all the way back to our first lesson, through time blocking that you are creating more than you're consuming you will find that your output from creation will continue to go up and up and up but if that is out of balance you will never be able to create enough to hit escape velocity. So we have reached our last lesson technically lesson number 19 and this is in my opinion

if not the most important lesson it is a top three lesson in this list. And this goes for anybody who is a leader of anything. Leader of your family, you are a leader of yourself, you could be a leader of a company, of a community group, of a sports team. If you hold a leadership position in any capacity, including yourself, you are always to blame. You are always to blame as the leader. Whether that is true or not, you are always to blame. You are always to blame as the leader. Whether that is true or not, you are always to blame. Whether you're the one that did the thing or

not, you as the leader always to blame. You should always take the blame and you should own it. There is nothing that destroys a team, that destroys a group more than when the leader passes blame. it is the unfortunate reality of the position That you are always to blame right the buck stops with at the top the buck stops with the leader the buck stops With you you are always to blame and if you can adopt a mindset that no matter what happens in your business in your family In your community group in your on your team Whatever it is that you are a leader of that you are always the one to blame, then you own the solution and you can execute making sure that that thing does not happen again. But if you pass the buck, it creates bitterness, resentment, people start to stop listening to you, they stop respecting you, they stop supporting you. But when you always take the blame when you remove the blame from the people who are doing the things in support of your mission of your goal, and you take on that blame, and then you support them and making sure it doesn't happen again, they will run through fucking walls for you. They will run through walls because what they know is they are operating from a place of safety. And I don't mean safe spaces in the woke regard. I mean from from a place where they can they can make decisions they can execute they can they can have some level of autonomy to do their job and be great at

what they do without always feeling like the guillotine is over the top of their head and that one mistake is going to come down and crush whatever it is that they're doing. That's what you're doing. You're removing that fear that one mistake is going to kill their career or kill their opportunity. You're saying, look, I know you're going to make mistakes. And as long as I feel like you're doing your best, I am always to blame. I'm always to blame.

And if there is a systemic problem in the business in terms of an individual or there is someone on the team, right, you can address that privately through coaching, through personal, through performance improvement plans, through mentorship, through training. But there is nothing worse than listening to a leader, get on a call, have something happen, and then pushing that blame on someone else. It just absolutely destroys that group, that company, that team, that community organization, destroys it. If you want a leadership position, understand that everything is your fault and you are to blame and you are the one that needs to figure out how to solve that problem. And if you live that life, I promise you, you will start to be surrounded by people who will run through

walls for you, who will love you, who will care not just about their own success, not just about the company's success, but about your personal success. And that, my friends, is how great things happen. I love you for being here. I hope these 17 slash 19 lessons added some value that you found some things in here that you can start to work on Leave comments questions thoughts here on YouTube. This is the way In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home