The Ryan Leak Podcast - Just Do It

Episode Date: July 18, 2022

Today's episode is tackling chapter 10 from Chasing Failure entitled: Just Do It Scared. Sometimes we're waiting for the ideal emotional state before we can start taking steps towards our dreams. Sometimes you're tired, frustrated, or annoyed. Just keep moving forward anyway because ideal may never come. Join the conversation with Lacey Stenson and Ryan Leak as they unpack what it means to overcome fear. You can also get your copy of Chasing Failure at ryanleak.com. If you'd like to receive encouragement from Ryan every single week, text "Followership" to 469-809-1201.

Ladies and gentlemen, today we're going to be unpacking chapter 10 from my book, chasing failure. The title of that chapter is Just Do It Scared. Sometimes it's not just do it scared. Sometimes it's just do it tired, just do it frustrated, just do it nervous. And one of the things that a lot of people don't know about me is that I get incredibly nervous before speaking. I mean, I'm not throwing up, but I definitely. I definitely cannot eat before I speak.

And I can't tell you how many times I have been scared to death behind the stage. And they say, coming to the stage is Ryan Leak. And it's too late. Like now I've got to go out there. And I didn't get a chance to get over my nerves. So sometimes we just do it. I'm scared. So today's episode, Lace and I will we talk about it.

So go ahead and check this out. All right, Ryan. Hey, thanks so much for sitting down again today. I thought the last time we connected was really great. We talked about your last chapter, which is Friends Don't Fail Me Now, which is such an often chapter. This one I'm so excited because it really gets to the heart of failure. And I can only imagine when you work with executive, they come to you with really this concept of like, can you help me with my business plan or, you know, in the future I want to do X, Y, and Z. But you have a very different. framework, which is stop waiting and start family. So I'd love for you to kind of give us the

coaching behind what you tell people, which I know is this framework of start now, but start, you know, fill in the blank. So give it to us, give us some coaching. Yeah. So I think, especially when you're a follower in an organization, you feel like you don't have that much margin for air. And you have this like weight of, you know, you feel like you don't have that much margin for air. And, fear on you. You have this emotional weight that keeps you from actually moving forward. So this chapter and Jason failure called Just Do It Scared. It's not just, it's not just, just do it scared.

I think it's just, it's just do it tired. I think it's just do it frustrated, just do it annoy. I think sometimes we're waiting for the ideal emotional state to start moving towards some of our goals or getting outside of our comfort zone. You're getting outside of your comfort zone. So guess what? You're not moving into comfort. Yeah. It's going to be uncomfortable.

So there's this phrase that comes up with a lot of my clients all the time, which is, that's just not me. Or we just don't do that here. And I remember I was sitting with this with a client. You know, they were making hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. and I remember asking this person if they wanted to kind of go to the next level. And he said no. And I just thought to myself, well, then why are you paying me? Why do you fly me here?

Did you fly me here so that you can just be you more? I help people grow. So do we want to grow or do we not? And so I think it's important that people realize that for you to grow, you're going to have to do something that's different than what you've been doing because that's only gotten you so far. And so there is this emotional pushback that I often get working with teams or leaders of they're waiting for some euphoria,

waiting for some emotional state that is prime for them to change or grow. And while that is ideal and hope that ideal can happen, I think the good news and the bad news is the same. I don't think that day's coming. I don't think that emotional state is coming. You know, there's an extreme exhaustion

right now from so many things. And I'd say, yeah, just do it tired. Think about what you've already accomplished tired. I'd say just do it frustrated. Think about all of the things that you've already done frustrated. Just do it annoyed. And especially for followers, sometimes I think they're waiting for their boss's mood to be better

before they can move forward. Sometimes I think they're waiting for the organization to get their act together or something. And I'm just kind of going, well, if you're waiting on them, you're going to be waiting a long time. That's right. You reminded me of this line where, gosh, you were like a little boy and you were going to go drop.

But you have this line in the book that says, you've spent a lot of your life being thrown in the deep end without a life jacket, but sometimes you jump without being pushed. And I love that because I think it's what you just said about followers, which is so many times we're waiting to be called upon before we have to go do the thing scared or go do the thing tired. But I also love this concept of I think you can just jump without getting thrown into the deep end and still being the deep end, right?

To your point, it's still going to be uncomfortable, but you can still do it without the resources on the team. Yeah, people have no idea how nervous I get before I speak. Like, they would be completely surprised, not throwing up, but like I cannot eat before. Like, I'm incredibly nervous and anxious before I speak. And I never get over those nerves in time for them to introduce me. It's like, coming to the stage is Ryan League. And it's just like, I don't, well, I don't have any options now.

So sometimes I get up to, and I'm sweating the whole time. And if you zoom in, you can see the perspiration coming down my forehead. But, you know, I don't know if the lighting or whatever you guide it. But there are times where it's just like, there's so many things that can go wrong and often do. And I'm consistently having to create new content in a lot of the special. that I speak in. And so it's like, I don't, I don't know how this is going to go. It's not like I can just grab my stories and best illustrations.

And like I'm talking about the same thing every single time. I have a whole content menu that companies are choosing from that, you know, makes it, makes it difficult. I just, I just keep getting invited to the deep end. And more times than not, I've been pushed into it. But yeah, every now and then, I'll just tell people that I can do things. that I'm not all that confident that I can pull off well. But I just, you know, we're doing a lot of new stuff where we're creating like a lot of

like, what we're calling like micromotivational keynotes that we're creating for companies. And it's not that I can't do it or don't know how to do it. It's just that we've never done it. So we're just, so yeah, we jumped in. They didn't ask for it. I suggested it. And they're like, yeah, we'd love for you to do it. And I'm like, okay, well, let's not go figure out how to make that.

Yeah. You know, and it's part, I think it's part of the fun. Because I do have this boredom complex as well. It's like that's where I kind of start jumping in the deep end to kind of see, see kind of what's in me a little bit. But I just, I don't know that I'm ever in the ideal mood to move forward, if that makes sense.

It's like, I wake up and I think to myself, we got to add value to our clients. It's why they, it's why they contract us. It's why they reach out. And so let's keep doing that. it is a lot of trial and error. And yes, it's gone well a lot.

But there's been some duds in there too where it's like, and you never know which one's going to be the best. Yeah, I love that part in your book. I mean, I think you give a good framework in this chapter about kind of three key components, the first of which is stay ready. And I think to your point, has it been a little bit of luck, sure,

but you've always had that readiness and preparation for what's around the corner so that you are in a position to say yes. when people are pitching wild idea that you, that is who you are, you're always bringing back crazy to the team for us. But talk a little bit about how to stay ready. And maybe we can give a couple examples of where you truly didn't know what was around the corner,

who you were going to talk to or what your opportunity was, and how you just felt like in that moment you could say yes, even though you were going to be scared, tired, nervous, or frustrated, but you had perfected readiness over being scared. Yeah. So whenever I get a lot of people on teams who feel absolutely undervalued. And so they're getting ready to sort of make their pitch as to why they should get a race or why they should get a promotion.

And I always encourage them this direction on this readiness high. and I always caution, and I want to caution, especially people that are in a following position in an organization, you should be careful what you ask for. I can't. You think you want to be a leader. You think you want more responsibility.

You're just inviting more crazy in your life. Okay, so if you can't handle the crazy you have now, it's only going to get crazier at the next level. Right. And so you can't always control your circumstances, but I do believe you can control your readiness. And so whenever someone comes to me and says, hey, I'm thinking about asking for promotion or I want to raise

or I just say, hey, are you, do you think you can handle that? How well have you done with what you've been given right now? if you're not crushing it where you are right now I don't know what you think is magically going to happen to you

when they give you more responsibility and so some people have this mindset of oh I would work harder if they paid me more and it's like well that's not good like you should be giving your best

right now and if you if you're giving your best right now then yes I think you'd be surprised how much that will actually put you in a position to be elevated within the organization because people can see your heartwork. But there is nothing worse than a team member who thinks they're crushing it. And they're actually terrible at their job. Yeah, that's right.

And there's just there as well. Yeah. There's just, you have to have what I call like that work awareness, that workplace awareness of, hey, I think I'm doing a pretty good job. And I would want someone else to agree with that assessment. But you just don't want that to be off. So I just, I encourage people, hey, you want to stay ready for future opportunities by giving your best to your current opportunities. And so even if you are not a leader yet, even if you've not been given that position yet,

I would start reading leadership books. I would start spending time with other leaders. I would start preparing my mindset for future growth so that when the opportunity presents itself, you are ready. Great resignation. It's happening in every industry. Talent is talent.

There is an insane amount of talent that is migrating to, other companies, which is great news for every single person that's listening today, which means there's future positions that are going to open up for you. And instead of the company having to look outside for outside talent, what have you decided to be the talent? What have you decided to be the person that says, you know, I'm going to step up my game. I'm going to add some tools, some my tool belt. I'm going to grow my mindset and grow my leadership capabilities

because there's more than enough opportunities that are opening up right now across so many industries and I just encourage a person like, hey, there's not going to be an ideal time. Like, hey, now is the time. So I would just step into it and begin to do my very best

to control what I can control and let go of the rest. Yeah, that's such good advice, Ryan. Real quick, before we wrap up, the other part that I love of this chapter that only pops up in this specific chapter is this concept of failure insurance. And just knowing that when you fail,

you can create this environment where others give you grace and the benefit of doubt because they trust who you are and know that to be true. And so I just, can you talk a little bit about where you needed the grace of others

because to your point, I also think people assume we don't get nervous. And then you have just such a way of words that I also think people think you never fail, or at least if you do fail, you fail so big that we see you fail. And that's not often the case because I know your material so well and I know what you want to say or I know the order of your slides.

And I've seen sometimes what's in final production because we're moving too fast or the team's taking some shortcuts before we get you on stage. But walk us through what that means to you and where you've needed kind of the grace and integrity when you failed. Yeah. Well, I think it's, I think people need that relatability, that human piece. When you're on a stage, there is this elevation of you literally in the room.

You're literally elevated on a stage. So you're taller than everyone. You are quite literally looking down on people in most stage-speaking settings. And so I think there has to be something in there that's like, oh, no, like, I'm, I'm a human. And I think the more we lean into our failures, the more we share that stuff, I think is, it's just, I think people gravitate towards that. they connect with it more. We spend quite a bit of our resources creating quality content

for digital platforms. And it's so funny, the things that we filmed on iPhones and anytime we've shared any of our like bloopers or anything that doesn't make me look good gets the most engaged.

Yet the stuff we can pay money. to make me look good and showing highlights of these events they get good engagement but it's not nearly the engagement that you know when people see my hotel room

set up of you know me balancing a coffee table on a full size bed and getting the lighting right and I'm getting ready to speak to 12,000 people in Spain and I'm like okay I've got this

set up this is perfect and then all of a sudden the hotel lobby calls my hotel room in the middle of my top and people are like, where in the world is it? It's like people go, ah, yes, like it wasn't perfect. And I'm like, hey, it's, I don't think perfect's coming. And so I think what it does is it endears you to people. And it makes, it. People need to know that successful people are human.

And so I think whatever it is that you're doing, I think, whatever facade that we're all trying to keep up with, I think we just got to let it go and just realize like, hey, we're all humans. I make mistakes. I was speaking to a bunch of people in politics the other day, and we were talking about this. We're talking about failure.

It's so funny. And they go, hey, we're in public service. We really don't have the margin to fail. And I said, well, I'm going to give some pushback to that. You actually fail in public all the time. How many palaces have we seen failing yet they still had their job? That's right. And so I said, as much as you're telling me you can't, like, I probably could Google you right now and find a few of your failures.

And yet you're still standing. So as much as we've given ourselves this narrative that failure is not an option. except it is. And I think we've got to lean into it a little bit more. And I think when we do that, I think we're actually leaning into our humanity. Yeah, I've heard you. I've watched you say this a number of times.

And it's so funny because it feels like the first time people have heard it, but I also think it's in how you respond to other people's failures, right? And so I've heard you offer encouragement to people to say, look, when your colleague fails, come alongside them and say, man, that sucks. I've been there too. I did that. But just creating an environment and where colleagues aren't so competitive that you're silently wishing for or celebrating the success of others, it promotes an environment

where failure is accepted. And again, you're human to human. And you can be better, you know, together moving forward, which is pretty powerful. Totally. And if there's somebody on your team. team that you're secretly hoping that they fail, you're a bad teammate. Because we're on the same team, dude.

Like, you just got to think about that. Like, if you're going, man, I'm competing with this person within the same team. It's just like, that's not good team work. We're trying to help our customers. We're trying to sell a product. We're trying to make the world a better place. We've got to work together. But if we're working against each other on the same team,

that's just not going to vote well. And so sometimes I think we can rejoice in somebody else's failure because we think it makes us look better. But the minute you float, you don't look better. And so I think it's important that when somebody else on the team isn't having a great quarter and is going through their own personal recession, I think it's important that you come alongside those people in those moments and you get their back because those are the moments they will never forget.

So I think that's very important. Hey, thanks for joining us today on followership with Ryan Lee. I would love to keep you encouraged each and every week. And I actually have a group of people that I text weekly to keep them inspired and motivated. If you want to be a part of that community, text the word podcast, to 469-809-1-201. Again, text the word podcast to 469-809-1. And this will put my contact information directly in your phone

and you will start getting a weekly encouraging text for me. If today's episode added any value to your life, I would ask you to do me a favor and leave a comment, share with a friend. And don't forget to subscribe.