The Ryan Leak Podcast - Keep It Moving

Episode Date: September 14, 2026

Getting started takes bravery. Keeping going takes resilience.Life won’t always cooperate with your plans. Ideas flop. People disappoint you. Opportunities disappear. Doors close. And sometimes the hardest part isn’t what happened. It’s figuring out how to move forward after it happened.In this episode, Ryan talks about the difference between processing disappointment and parking in it, why you don’t always need closure to move forward, and what research on the “Progress Principle” teaches us about the surprising power of small wins.You don’t have to fix everything today. You don’t need a massive breakthrough. Sometimes you just need one conversation, one email, one workout, one page, or one next step.Whatever happened, it doesn’t get the final word.Keep it moving.

What's going on, my friends? Welcome back to the Ryan League podcast, where we love to keep things short and sweet for you each and every week. Today's episode has a very simple title, but very powerful if acted upon. And the title is simply this. Keep it moving. Keep it moving. You know, it takes extreme bravery to get started. Oh, but it takes resilience to keep it moving, to keep going.

love celebrating starters. Yeah, of course. We celebrate the person who finally launches the business, or they started writing the book, or they finally applied for that job, or maybe they went back to school at an older age, or they just started working out, or they finally made that decision to move to a new city, or decided to try again, and they absolutely should be celebrated because getting started takes courage. But eventually, the adrenaline of starting wears off. Eventually, the newness disappears. Eventually, the thing you were excited about gets difficult.

Eventually, you get criticized. Eventually, somebody leaves. Eventually, the numbers don't look, the way you thought they would eventually life introduces you to something you did not plan for. And that's when bravery has to become resilience. Because life will not be perfect. And when life is not perfect, my friend, I'm going to encourage you to keep it moving. Your best ideas might flop.

Keep it moving. People are going to disappoint you and break their promises and leave when they said that they would stay. Keep it moving. You are going to disappoint people. And when you do, keep it moving. Markets will rise. Markets will crash. And you guessed it, I'm going to encourage you to keep it moving.

You're going to have seasons where everybody seems to believe in you in seasons where it feels like nobody does keep. it moving. I know that that can sound overly simple, but sometimes the most profound advice isn't complicated. It's just hard to follow because when life hits you, your first instinct isn't always to keep it moving. Your first instinct is to stop, to sit in it, to replay it, to analyze every angle of what went wrong. Who's to blame? What you should have done differently and what they should have done differently. And look, there's a place for reflection, no question about it. There's a place for grieving. There's a place for sitting with disappointment and learning from failure. I'm not suggesting that you ignore what happened, but there is a difference between processing and parking. Yeah, processing

says, I need to understand what happened. Parking says, I'm going to live here. I'm going to move into this neighborhood. And some of us, well, we aren't processing anymore. We're parked. We're stuck on the thing that happened three years ago. We're stuck on the job we lost, the relationship that ended, the person who betrayed us, the failure that embarrassed us, the opportunity that didn't panic.

out how we thought it would, the investment that didn't work, the mistake we wish we could take back. And because we're stuck on what happened, we're missing what's happening. At some point, you've got to keep it moving. At some point, you've got to keep it moving. Keeping it moving doesn't mean you don't feel the pain. It means you refuse to let the pain set up permanent residence. It means you grieve the loss, but you don't build a house on it. You acknowledge the setback, but you don't let it define the season. You learn the lesson without allowing the lesson to become your identity. You can be disappointed and still keep moving. You can be confused and still keep moving. You can have unanswered questions and still keep moving. I think sometimes we

believe that we need closure before we can move forward. We need an apology. We need an explanation. We need somebody to finally admit that they were wrong. We need to understand why it happened, but what if you never get the explanation? What if they never apologize? What if the opportunity never comes back? What if some questions never get answered? Are you going to give someone else the power to determine whether your life keeps moving? You will be criticized for thinking differently. Keep it moving. Some seasons will be lonely. Keep it moving. People will misunderstand your motives. Keep it moving. You might have to. start over, keep it moving. You will never have a shortage of pit stops and setbacks, giving you an

opportunity to give up. And here's what I've learned. Resilience isn't always dramatic. Sometimes resilience is just waking up tomorrow and doing it again. It's sending another email, making another call, writing another page, having another conversation, showing up for another workout, going to another counseling session, applying for another opportunity, trying another idea. And there's actually some fascinating research behind this. Did you know that there are Harvard Business School professors who studied thousands of daily diary entries from people at work? They wanted to understand what actually motivates people and helps them have a better day at work. And what they discovered became known as the progress.

principle. One of the most powerful motivators wasn't some massive breakthrough. It wasn't getting a promotion every week or receiving a standing ovation every afternoon. No, it was progress. Small wins. The feeling that something meaningful had moved forward. And I love that because when life knocks us down, we're usually looking for a breakthrough. We want everything fixed. We want the relationship restored. We want the business turned around. We want the opportunity to appear. We want the problem solved. But maybe you don't need a breakthrough today.

Maybe you just need progress. One email. One conversation. One workout. One page. One application. One apology. One phone call.

One next step. My friend, do not underestimate what a lot of little forward motion can do for your life. You don't have to fix your whole life today. Just keep it moving. Because progress creates evidence, evidence that you're not where you used to be. Evidence that the setback didn't finish you. Evidence that something is changing even if it's changing slowly. We tend to think resilient people never get tired. That's just not true. Resilient people get tired. They just don't let tired make every decision. They rest when they need to rest. They adjust when they need to adjust. They ask for help when they need the help. They change strategies when

the strategy isn't working, but nevertheless, they keep it moving. And there's a difference between quitting and changing direction. Sometimes keeping it moving means admitting that this particular road isn't working and choosing another one. The goal isn't to stubbornly keep doing the same thing forever. The goal is to refuse to allow one dead end to convince you the entire journey is over. Because if you keep it moving, you give your future self the chance to look back and realize how far you have come. You give yourself the chance to discover opportunities you couldn't see from where you were standing. You give yourself the chance to tell a comeback story instead of a quitting story. Think about the most successful people you know. I bet,

Very few of them had a smooth ride. Somewhere in their story is a chapter. They probably wouldn't have chosen. Something failed. Somebody left. Money got tight. Plans changed. Doors closed.

They questioned themselves. The difference isn't that they avoided hard seasons. The difference is that they kept moving through them, through the doubt, through the criticism, through the failure, through the silence. starting takes bravery but continuing takes resilience and maybe that's what you need right now you don't need a brand new vision

you don't need another strategy you don't need somebody to convince you that what happened didn't hurt maybe you just need enough resilience for the next step so whatever you're going through right now whatever hit you this week whatever didn't work out

whatever knocked the wind out of you I need you to hear this and hear me clearly keep it moving not because it doesn't hurt, not because it doesn't matter, not because you're pretending everything is okay. Keep it moving because this moment doesn't get to have the final word on your life. Keep it moving because there's more to your story. Keep it moving because you've got somewhere to be

and you can't get there standing still. My friend, you listen to this podcast today to hear one very, very clear message. keep it moving. And I've got the sinking suspicion. It's the message you needed to hear. My friend, thank you so much for listening to the Ryan League podcast. I hope and pray that today's episode added value to your life. And if it did, I would just ask you to share it with a friend today.

Maybe you have somebody in your life who has been really discouraged, is on the brink of giving up. Maybe they already have given up. I think you should send this to him. Yeah, we we create these podcast episodes to help people reach their potential, help people keep going. And if you got somebody in life, then they hear that message. Yeah, I would encourage you to share it with them. And as always, if you haven't already, don't forget to subscribe, rate, review.

All of those things help us reach even more people with these short and sweet nuggets of inspiration. Until next time, my name is Ryan Leak. And thank you so much for listening to the Ryan Leak. pocket.