The Ryan Leak Podcast - Bad Day or Bad Moment?

Episode Date: August 11, 2025

In this episode, Ryan unpacks why most people confuse a bad moment with a bad day, and how that simple mix-up can hijack your peace. He shares a personal story about spiraling over book reviews, breaks down the science of negativity bias, and reminds us that we don’t have to give a rude email, a low-like post, or a traffic jam that much power. One moment doesn’t define your mindset. You do.Each week, Ryan sends out an encouraging text. If you'd like to subscribe to those, just text podcast to 469-809-1201.

What's going on, my friends? Welcome to the Ryan League podcast where we love to just keep things short and sweet and practical for you. We just want to give you one thought, one piece of motivation, one nugget that's going to add value to your week. And this week is no exception. I believe that today's episode is absolutely going to add value to your life because this one is near and dear to my heart because I see so many people trapped by their own words. In fact, some people are going through a lot. and they're having a rough go, they're having a tough time, they're having a tough day, and how they actually talk about their situation will either add fuel to the fire or how they talk about their situation can actually help them move towards a resolution. And so, for example, I'll be talking to people and they'll say, hey, man, I'm having a bad day. And I'm like, who, man, my first response is, you know, with empathy, it's like, oh, man, what happened? And the more they start talking about what happened, they actually aren't describing a bad day.

They're actually describing a bad moment. And so today, as you begin your week, I just, I want you to begin to get your power back, to be able to look at whatever you're going through or when you find yourself having a moment that has the potential to turn into a day, begin to just look at how you're talking about it. Because are you having a bad day or did you just have a bad moment?

And you see, most people can't tell the difference. They let one rude email ruin their whole day. Yeah, yeah, your boss hits reply all just to call out something you missed. And now you're rereading it all day, crafting imaginary comebacks while your to-do list grows untouched. And so you let one email turn into an entire day. Perhaps it's one missed call that throws your day into a spiral. You see one miscall from somebody important. Maybe it's a potential client or it was your kid's school.

And now your mind starts racing with worst case scenarios before you even listen to the voicemail. And now it's taken over your day. Some people let one unexpected bill ruin their day. And this can happen, especially a medical bill. bill. You go see one doctor, you get four bills back from all these people. You're like, who are all of these people? Okay. And I never saw these people. I've never met these people before. And all of a sudden, you find your day spiraling. Sometimes people let one passive, aggressive comment from a coworker just ruining their day. Wow, must be nice to leave early,

even though you've been working overtime all week. And now you feel some type of way. Now you're replaying what they said at dinner with your kids. instead of actually being present. Some people let one traffic jam just destroy their entire day. That was your commute in the morning, and now it's the afternoon and the roads are clear, yet it's still sitting with you. And this is what most people do. Most people allow moments to turn in the days.

Some people actually let those moments turn into a week or a month or a year. sometimes people can actually make a conclusion about the whole world based off of one small moment that is most people but i've got the sinking suspicion you're not most people in fact i think you're listening to this because you're trying to be dare i say exceptional and exceptional human beings know how to put bad moments in their place. You see, I love coming alongside a friend and gently asking, are you sure that it's the whole day that's bad? Because it could just be a bad moment that hijacked your entire day. And you could let that moment hijack your mindset. Because when you name the entire day bad, you start to see everything through that bad lens. One inconvenient,

becomes a catastrophe. One delay feels like defeat. But if you can zoom out and name it for what it really is, a moment, you give yourself the power to shift. You reclaim the rest of your day from that one scene that tried to steal the show. Now, I'm going to give you something very, very practical from me. Okay, like this just happened to me a couple of nights ago. and I'm embarrassed that I did this, but nevertheless, I got to be vulnerable with you because I'm telling you I have to practice what I am so-called preaching right now here on this podcast. I did something I was not supposed to do. And if you are an author or an aspiring author in the future, every best-selling notable author will tell you not to do something. And I somewhat accidentally did it, but I clicked on something.

I should not have clicked on the other night. And obviously there's a lot worse things you could click on in this world. But I clicked on the reviews for my latest book, How to Work with Complicated People. Now, let me just say this. There were hundreds of kind, encouraging comments on there of how the book has changed their life and changed how they work. And those were awesome. But I'll be honest. I didn't even really read those. I skimmed those. Let me tell you what I focused on.

I went straight for the one star and two star reviews. I wanted to know if I knew them personally. You know, like it just infuriated me. And I don't know why the one star and the two star reviews are the ones that caught my eye. In fact, one person said something that hit a little too close to, if I'm honest, my insecurity. and I'll be honest I let that moment rent space in my mind all night long

and in fact the next morning I sat there and I had this thought maybe I shouldn't write any more books yeah dude

you're putting out all this work and you're taking away time from your family man for a one-star review You, no, man, maybe maybe you need to just just stay with the speaking things and shut, shut down the whole bestselling New York Times author thing. You need to just shut that down. Shut down the New York Times bestselling author nonsense. And if I'm honest, I had to really sit there and take a step back and go, wait a second.

Are you about to let one moment convince you to walk away from something you have actually felt called to do almost your whole life? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're not most people, bro. Come on, come on, come on, come on. Now, here's the deal. There were some valuable feedback in some of those one and two-star reviews that will allow me to get better. But for me to give that moment more power than it needs to, I think it's sabotaging. what I believe God has in store for me. And I believe it could sabotage what God has in store for you.

And here's the deal. I get it. I get how a review, a comment, a post, a text, an email. I get how it can trigger you. I get how it could send you into a complete spiral if you're not careful, but I just have to encourage you today that we cannot give that much power to a moment. In fact, researchers at Harvard found that our brains are wired to overreact to negative experiences. They call it negativity bias. What that simply means is that one negative comment

holds more weight in your brain than five positive ones. So if you feel like bad moments, hit harder than good ones. You're not crazy. You're just human. But just because your brain registers pain quickly doesn't mean you have to stay in it. And I think that's where being exceptional comes in. Exceptional people actually train themselves to feel the emotion. Yes, 100%.

But also to say, this is not going to run the rest of my day. yeah this moment is not in charge of my afternoon and my evening and my time with my family and my time with my friend this does not get to decide the future of my calling this does not get to live rent free in my head no no i'm putting this moment in its place i had a a bad moment one bad email but i refuse to give it that much power over the rest of my day dare i say the rest of my week or month or or like this was just a moment. And so the next time you get hit with something. And I just have a feeling it's going to happen this week. Yeah, you're going to run into somebody with a tantrum. You might get a bad grade dealing with a rude customer. You might get a passive aggressive email. And whatever

that moment happens, what I want you to do is I want you to ask yourself, is this a bad day or is this just a bad five minutes? Because, Five minutes should not get 24 hours. One comment should not cancel out your gift or your purpose. One review doesn't get to define your future. Yeah, I want to give you permission to feel it, for sure. But I also want to give you the permission to name it for what it is. It's just a moment.

And then I want to encourage you to move forward anyway. Because you actually get to define your mindset, not a stranger, not a comment. Not a glitch in the plan, not a last minute surprise, not the chaos at work. No, other people don't get to determine the temperature of your day. No, bad things can happen to good people. Bad moments can happen to good people. But the really good people know how to put those moments in place. So I ask you again, are you having a bad day or are you just having a bad moment?

Thank you so much, my friends, for listening to the Ryan League podcast. I hope that today's episode added value to your life. And if it did, I would ask you to share it with a friend. And it would also help me out if you would take some time to rate, review, and subscribe. You can leave a review. Please don't leave a one or two-star review. The reason I don't want you to leave a one or two-star review is because I've already decided that if I get that moment, I'm already moving on. okay i'm not going to make that mistake again but seriously uh it would be great uh if you could

rate review subscribe leave a comment would love to know how this podcast is adding value to your life and if there are future topics that you want me to cover for future episodes leave a comment would love to learn how we can add value to your life even more and also send out an encouraging text every single week if you would like to subscribe to those text messages you can text the podcast to the number 469-809-1201 and you'll start getting those text messages for me every single week that number will also be in today's show notes my friends I hope you have a phenomenal week and do not give moments more power than they should have we'll see you now