The School of Greatness - How to Stop Reacting and Start Winning with Difficult People | Ryan Leak

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

Ryan Leak spent the last day of his twenties at a speaking event where a woman told him his documentary had pulled a young man off the floor of a crack house and back into life, and that single moment changed how he decided to spend the next decade of his career. What makes this conversation surprising is how openly Ryan admits he is still working through his own lies, like the belief that the only value he brings to the world is what people see on a stage or a screen. He talks directly to anyone who has ever burned energy on relationships that were never really friendships, anyone who has reacted to a difficult person and become someone they did not recognize in the process, and anyone who keeps saying yes when everything inside them is asking them to pause. Ryan lays out a practical case for why becoming proactive instead of reactive is the only real solution to handling difficult people, and why the most generous thing you can give someone is not money but a path to make their own. The episode closes with a question every listener deserves to sit with: if you stayed on the exact same path for another decade, would you look back knowing you truly went for it, or would you realize you were playing it safe inside something that felt comfortable? The Greatness Playbook: The Self-Trust Edition Ryan's Website Ryan’s books: How to Work with Complicated People: Strategies for Effective Collaboration with (Nearly) Anyone How to Work with Complicated People: A Survival Guide Leveling Up: 12 Questions to Elevate Your Personal and Professional Development UnOffendable Chasing Failure: How Falling Short Sets You Up for Success In this episode you will: Discover why reacting to difficult people is the one habit guaranteed to turn you into someone you do not want to be, and what to do instead Learn how to identify the difference between a good opportunity and the right one, using a simple prayer practice that cuts through the noise Uncover the lies you have been telling yourself about your potential and why the story that starts with "I can't" is the one costing you the most Recognize which relationships in your life are real friendships and which ones are draining you with the illusion of closeness Understand why generosity at its highest level has nothing to do with money and everything to do with putting people in a position to grow For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1920 For more Greatness text PODCAST to [phone] Follow The Daily Motivation for essential highlights from The School of Greatness More SOG episodes we think you’ll love: Lewis Howes Solo [STOP Letting People Walk All Over You] Pastor Sarah Jakes Roberts Tabitha Brown Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy!Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I have this mantra of like, don't match the energy set the standard. My expectations for other people, it's not that they're low, but they're realistic. I expect humanity from others. If I give to you and you take advantage of me, I don't know that you took advantage because I gave it. And once I give it, I truly give it. Some people give with strings attached. I give and now you owe me. Well, then that's not a gift.

That's a loan. Best-selling author, a transformational speaker, and one of the most in-demand leadership consultants on the planet, We have the inspiring Ryan Leak in the house. Scripture talks about not letting the left hand know what the right hand's doing when it comes to generosity. There is eight levels of generosity. Really? Each level has a different level of ego attached to it.

Sometimes you can give with a smile on your face, but you don't give enough. You need 100? I go, hey, here's 50. But I smile. I got you. The highest level of generosity is actually not giving them money. It's putting them in a position to make money themselves. It is not giving them fish.

it's teaching them how to fish. How do you know if someone in your life aren't willing to learn how to fish for themselves? And they're always coming back for more. You know, for me, I'm always... You grew up speaking in the church because everything I see you do online is like, perfect.

Like you have no mistakes, you're polished, you're put together and you sound like a preacher on stage communicating to leaders. And I'm curious, did the church ever let you down in your process of growing up that made you realize you had to learn something different than outside of the church.

Yeah, that's a good question. You know, the church was interesting. So I grew up in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which basically means it was a black church. If you don't know what that means, it's like nobody knows what that means. And so my dad had a stroke when I was in the fifth grade. So he actually lost his church, like early on in life. Now, I was going to this private school that was connected to this predominantly large white

church. So I went from all black church to all white church in like a weekend. And my parents were like, just, you know, go to church with your friends. And so, man, my story would probably be the opposite. Like the church showed up from my family in a way that I'll never forget.

Not your church though. No. A different church. Just the church. Okay. In fact, here's the coolest part. I've never told the story to anybody. When my dad had a stroke in Rockford, Illinois,

The pastor from another church was the first one at the hospital. Really? Yeah. Not his own church. No. I don't remember anybody from his own church showing up. Maybe they did. Right, right, right.

But it was a guy by the name of Sam Mayo who showed up at that hospital. Interestingly enough, my dad had a stroke when I was in fifth grade. Then he had another stroke 18 years later in Atlanta. It just so happened that this same guy, Sam Mayo, was also in Atlanta. I fly from Dallas, and as I am walking into the hospital, so is Sam May. Come on. 18 years later. So my experience with the church has been one that isn't confined to the building.

I saw people show up, the power of presence, being there. And so that inspired me as a kid. I saw what it looked like to be the church, not go to church. church. So I wasn't big on like, hey, did you go to church for Easter? Did you check the box church attendance? But, man, have you shown up for the people in your world? Like, I think church starts on Monday. That has always been my mindset. And so when watching my dad impact people's lives on a Sunday, I would always think, what if we could do this on a Monday? What if we could do this on a Tuesday? What if we could do this on a Wednesday? And so I've always had this like heart for church,

I've always had a mind for business. And so that's where my communication style kind of had a little bit of a mix of both of being able to garner people's attention, but at the same time, give them something that's actually going to add value to the way that they lead, live, motivate them, write books, content on the internet. I've always got that interesting dichotomy going on in my realm and how we create content. Something you talk about a lot of your content, which is really, I think, how to be a more effective communicator and a more effective leader and really understanding human dynamics, which

I love that you talk about. I'm curious, what do you think is the first sign that you were living for someone else instead of yourself or your higher purpose? And I like to say often, God has a plan for your life and so do other people. It's true. Which one are you going to choose? Every day, you're going to have to make that decision because people will always be pulling you towards their preferences to make them more comfortable with your life. And you're going to have to make a decision

about who you're going to follow. What's going to be your North Star? What's going to be the thing that helps you make decisions about your life? And you can do it by what other people think about you. That is something that holds people back a lot. What are they going to think about me? But I'm more concerned with,

what do you think about you? Like if you don't have a solid view of yourself in where you're going, you will veer to the left or to the right, just depending on who you're hanging out with, depending on who left the comment on the post, depending on the co-worker that emailed you. Like, you're going to surrender the direction of your life

to all of these different directions. You can wake up very confused and probably very sad. So I'm very much like, hey, God's got a plan for your life. and I wouldn't surrender to anybody else's plan. But how do you know what that plan is? Did you feel like you were distracted by other people's opinions growing up? Like, how did you come to that conclusion?

Man, I would say it's a daily battle for me. You know, people, well-meaning people, family members, good friends. Hey, man, you know what you need to do this? Hey, man, you know what you should do? Oh, dude, I got to introduce you to this person. I got to, and you're like, yeah, I mean, I get what you're trying to do, but they can become what I would consider divine distractions. Like they seem good, but that doesn't mean that they are God.

And separating the good from the God can be very, very difficult. So I don't think I've ever arrived at that. I think every day I'm going, and I've got to lay this down, And like I've got to surrender my business and my life and my parenting and my marriage to God every single day. So I had a buddy called me the other day. He's like, hey, all right. So have you thought about a Netflix documentary? And I'm like, I mean, have I ever thought about it?

Sure. But I don't think that's what I'm supposed to do right now. What is that? I would say it's a holy pause is what I would tell my kids it is. Like whenever you're trying to figure out a decision, for there to be a holy pause to go, Lord, is that what I'm supposed to be doing right now? And I think that sensitivity, that slowness, to be able to seek God and everything that you do to go, am I supposed to say yesterday?

It looks good. It sounds good. But does that mean that it's God? How do you know? I have a simple prayer. Lord, give me peace or pause. Lord, give me peace or pause. Have I gotten it wrong?

Have I made the wrong decision before? Of course. But I'm always going to try to say, Lord, I hope you see that my heart's in the right place and that I want to do the right thing. So, Lord, would you give me peace or pause? I don't think that you're always going to know. But I do think you can always try to get it right. You think about marriage.

it's like, I'm not always gonna say the right thing, but like, hey, you know, I love you. You know, I'm trying to get it, right? And I think that that is, that's more important than actually like trying to be perfect, trying to go, man, am I, am I always making the right decision? No, I'm trying to always make the right decision. And I think in the process, you can live with that.

Yeah. You know, you can live with the failures on that of just going, hey, I'm trying to get it right. But when I get it wrong, be willing to raise your hand and say, hey, I missed the mark on this one. I should have said no. And I said yes. Or I should have said yes. And I had said no.

But I think you're just always trying to read the situation. So when you have an opportunity in front of you or a business idea or a partnership or a gig that someone wants you to do, is that kind of what you do internally? You say, give me peace and saying yes to this or give me. me pause if I'm not supposed to do this? Or is that how does that work internally? It's Lord, give me peace or pause about this opportunity. And then I'm looking at the calendar. You and I were talking about this before. His and all of it. You know, it's I get booked a year and a half in advance. My kids' basketball schedule comes out a week before the first game. Yeah, good luck. And so it's like, he's like,

are you going to be in my game next Friday? I'm like, you mean, I don't know. Like it's, it is a, like, I've got to look at all of your games that just came out and then match that with, with the schedule. And so it's not like it's high school football where you're like, oh, it's every Friday night or whatever. So, so that, that definitely goes, goes into it. Then it's also looking at where it's at, you know, we talked about, you know, do I got to go overseas? Do I, you know, how long is the flight? How long am I going to be gone? My wife and I were going to Hawaii in a couple of weeks because I'm speaking out there.

Well, then somebody else said, hey, can you come back to Hawaii two weeks later and speak for this other group? And I went, that's an eight-hour flight. You know, it's a long. It's like I never thought in my life. I'm saying, you know, if you would have told me even four years ago, there will come a day where someone will want to pay you money to come to Hawaii, not just go, pay you money to go. And you'd be like, no, I'm just, I'm not. It's like, what planet are we on? But it's like, I don't, I didn't have a piece about going to Hawaii twice and being away from the kids.

And so there's a lot of things that factor into it. So it's a great problem to have to be in demand, which you're grateful for. But every opportunity that hits my inbox, it's deeper. It's deeper than most people would think. How do you learn to say no when abundance is flowing your way? when, oh, I've been bustle my butt for 10, 15 years in this speaker journey on this business journey, on building my name to be known enough to have these opportunities to create a living for myself.

And I wasn't always making this money. Yes. You know, maybe I was speaking for free when I was younger. And maybe I, you know, I had to really put the reps in. Yeah. And now I'm saying no to abundance. How do you feel and navigate that, knowing how to say no to abundance to create a bigger or deeper abundance as well.

It is a daily battle. Daily. But when I tell people that I truly trust God with our business, it would blow their mind. So we measure our business by how much we give, not by how much we make. To the church or the charities or to whatever. All of it. Everywhere. Really?

So we have a donor advisory fund. I'm sure you might be familiar with it. So we stack the decks on our daft and we try to give away as much as we possibly can every single year. So we have a giving goal. And so that giving goal goes up drastically every single year. Wow. So I had mentors, my very first boss, his wife, they decided they were going to give away her entire salary for a year and just giving away to missions organizations. My second mentor, he lives off of 49% of their income.

Doesn't matter what it is. They've had years where that was multiple million. They've had years where it was bad and maybe it was only 600 grand. No matter what the number is, they live off of 49%. And I have another mentor who lives out here. He lives off of 9% of his income and gives to a way. He's making money then. He's making.

Well, you'd be surprised. He was giving away 63%. of his income before he was a best-selling author and just started, we're raking it in, add another, but, but most people think, well, you can do that now. It's just like, no, no, no, I was doing that when it was hard. And it might look easy now, but it's not. So, so for us, it's not necessarily an exact percentage. There's a lot. But you have a call every year. Like, we did this last year. What would it take to be able to give this much? I, I cannot tell you, I've got a private group chat.

where they're kind of in like a little mini mastermind with me. And they say, okay, so what's the secret sauce for Ryan League? We're in your mastermind. Give more. Give more. Give more. Give me the marketing tips. Give more.

So like, but, but like, come on, social media. I'm like, yeah, like, it's all about giving, giving value. Like we talked about like your event before this. It's just like, the event wasn't making money. because it was just tons of giving value. And so that heart of generosity isn't like pat on the back. The heart of generosity makes me show up to an event to go, hey, how can I serve you guys?

I'm not just here because you paid me. I'm here because I'm here to add value. So this is your event. It's not Ryan's event. This is capital one's event. This is whoever's event. Like, I'm here to serve you. And so, hey, what can my team do for your leaders?

Hey, we're going to create a post-event playbook for every single leader. Well, how much is that? It's free. You already paid me. Like, you're just going to give it away? It's like, yeah, well, that's what we're trying to do. So generosity permeates everything that we do. So you'd be surprised how many times we have, I mean, as of yesterday.

And I, again, I'm not like a prosperity guy. person. But I have every single time that we have given big, we do not give to get, but every single time we've given big, I get like four or five contracts in my email. Like nearly within 24 hours. Related to the people that are around the giving or just somehow it comes to you. It has nothing to do with anything. Wow. Nothing. I mean, I, without giving numbers, I'm not. I'm not. I'm I could show you screenshots on my phone that would absolutely blow your mind. So because of that, when people go, man, it's like, man, the last two years, man, your stuff is like taken off.

I'm like, our giving is taken on. It's not what, again, like, did we get better at shooting video? Yes. Yeah, yeah. Did we do some of those things? Put the wraps in and all you see. Yeah. But, man, I, so many things are outside of my control.

And so part of like this idea of abundance of our giving has drastically gone up and so has our income. Do you think if you weren't giving, let's say you were giving and whatever, a few percent a year. So you were generous here and there, you know, 20 bucks in church or whatever, you know, you're giving something every time. But you're not giving at a next level. Do you think you'd be making as much as you are right now? If you could be in the same reps, the same energy, same effort, same tax. same charisma, same dedication to mastering your craft and showing up and being a great leader, but you weren't financially giving to the levels you're giving.

Would you be earning as much? I don't think so. Personally, I don't think so. I think I would be doing fine. I think I would be doing okay. I wouldn't say it's this way or the highway. I wouldn't take it that far. I mean, we know plenty of people who are making great money who aren't giving.

So, but for, for us, for the things that have come our way, I could, I could show you 50 emails that you would go, no way. There's, that makes no sense. There's, there's, there's no way that you gave that on Tuesday and on Wednesday, this person caught, like, and that has nothing. The amount of times it's happened, it's comical. Like, we have an entire group chat that they go again, again, how?

That's insane. It's kind of insane, but it's, when I say I trust God, I really do. Like it's not something that it's a cute phrase or a verse that you just put on your refrigerator. For us, I don't know any other way to build a business. Personally, other people who have done great, great businesses, not trusting God. It's fine. For me, I know for a fact I would not be where I'm at without trusting God with our business completely. How do you trust in God when people disappoint you?

Yeah. People let you down. People take advantage of your generosity. They know you're a big giver. Hey, let's find a way for Ryan to give us some money. But then we don't fall through on our promises. We take advantage. We do some things that maybe we're out of alignment.

How do you navigate that in your heart? Mel Robbins, let them. I mean, like for me, I have this mantra of like, Don't match the energy set the standard. My expectations for other people, it's not that they're low, but they're realistic. I expect humanity from others. So do you get let down when people show you who they are?

Or they don't match your energy or your standard? No. Really? You don't get let down. Part of it is, you know, so had this book come out last year, and the pub date got moved, I think, six times. Okay. Each time the team would be like, you mad?

I'd say, no, I was expecting it. What do you mean you were expecting it? I said, well, just looking at all of the moving parts of what's happening with this book, it doesn't seem like it's going to be ready by the date. And so I set an expectation that it's probably going to come out six months later than what I had originally intended. Exactly eight months. So when the publisher and the editors and, hey, Ryan, sorry, we got a delay,

I know this is upsetting. I'm like, I'm okay. It's actually not upsetting. Well, you're not upset? Like, it's not that I'm impervious to getting angry. I'm just trying to get angry. I'm just trying to. But it's one of those things where you just kind of go, at the end of my life, I will be held accountable for my part.

I won't be held accountable for your part. And so if I give to you and you take advantage of me, I don't know that you took advantage because I gave it. And once I give it, I truly give it. Some people give with strings attached. I give and now you owe me. Well, then that's not a gift. That's a loan.

Giving is saying it's yours. Whatever it is that you want to do with this. What if someone's yours? Then speaks badly about you, talks and asks behind your bag, lets you down, breaks their promises, and you've given them a big amount of money, time, energy, resources, you've shown up for them, and then they treat you this way. How do you, that doesn't make you angry at all? There's got to be a little bit of like, man, I really showed up to this question.

That's a good question. And I just gave them 100 grand for free. And now they just ran all over me. And it's, there's got to be some anger inside of you. Yeah. You know, that is. And when that happens, it's like, I'll just keep giving to them. Do you have boundaries once someone's?

Yeah, yeah. You're not going to keep getting the, getting the check now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there is a, you know, part of it is there was somebody we gave to who we, you know, we found out was a fraud. Oh, okay. You got duped or you got, you know. I wouldn't say I got dup, but I would say they certainly are not the person people think that they are.

And we found out in some very interesting ways that this person was, not who they said that they were. This person does not know that I know that they are not who they say. Still today. To this day. Yeah, they could be watching this. And think they're the best in the world.

That's my guy. Great job, man. I'm thinking about you. Hey, buddy. Watch yourself. But at the same time, it's like, hey, I'm sad for you, man. Well, I'm really, really sad for you. You will not get another dollar from us.

But I am, I'm sad. that you can't be who you really are. So I'm not mad at you. I'm sad for you. And so for me, it doesn't, it doesn't deter me from wanting to give more and more and more to other people. Really? No, I, again, at the end of the day,

I'm going to be held accountable for how God trusted me with his resources. And so if somebody else, I did what I felt like I was supposed to do. My wife and I talk about this all, and I'm like, hey, is there somebody we're supposed to give to? If it's through our death, great. If it's a person, great.

Hey, if it's a friend, hey, great. We try to be what we would call obedient to God in it. And if we're obedient to God in it, what that other person does. It's up to that, house. I have so much on my plate. If I'm sitting around thinking about what this, it's like, no, I'm going to be distracted from the room that I'm actually in

because I'm thinking about this other person. And so I wouldn't say it's not that I don't get angry when I think about that person or that transaction, if you will. But again, I have been on the receiving end of people who gave with strings attached. And I'm like, you didn't give it. Unless it was like, okay, there's a, I'm going to deliver something. you're going to, it's a business deal. I'm going to speak on stage.

You're giving me a check to deliver a service because we have an agreement. That's different. Totally. This is not, hey, I'm just going to give you five grand to help you out. But then later, oh, you want me to, you know, or something else. Well, you know, something happens. You're like, hey, Ryan, I need to borrow 100 grand.

I say, hey, man, I'll ask, I'm going to give you 100 grand. If I bring that up over dinner two years later, then I didn't give it. It's not even like. Unless there was an agreement, you're going to pay this. back. There's something. Yeah, that's a big agreement. But I just, the giving, I grew up around some generous

people. What are that, what's this generous means? They were generous, but they always brought it up. They always hung it over my head. I always buy dinner. Well, then stop buying dinner. Right. It's like

if you're going to bring it up, then it's not, it's not generous anymore. Does that make sense? There is a string attached. And so, for my wife, and I, when we give, we really try to like walk away. It's yours. And now I'm not like watching you. It's like, no, if God told us to give it, then we have to let it go.

And so I just, I never want to give and be looking over somebody's shoulder. How do you know when to give for who to give to? Yeah. So for us, we have several. And being a speaker, it's kind of nice because you get to meet so many different kinds of people doing all sorts of different things. And, you know, if it's a cause, you know,

there's somebody on our team. She helps raise money for single moms. And I was like, that's so awesome. And she had just joined our team. And so I just, I looked at my wife, I said, hey, what do you think about this organ? Hey, could you send me the website? We send the website.

And we just give. Scripture talks about not letting the left hand know what the right hand's doing. when it comes to generosity. Like the more you're involved in it, the more your ego can get involved. In fact, in Jewish culture, we're getting deep in the generosity. There was eight levels of generosity.

Really? Yeah, eight levels. The first level was where you give, but you give with a grudge. Big grudgingly. Yeah, you can have it. Frustrated. Yeah, but it goes all the way to,

Each level has a different level of ego attached to it. Sometimes you can give with a smile in your face, but you don't give enough. You need 100, I go, hey, here's 50. But I smile, I got you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then there were actually like rabbis that would walk around towns and they would keep coins on the back of their rogues.

So people would, the poor could actually grab money off of their rogues, but they didn't actually know who it was. They kept moving. Wow, interesting. And then there were other times, different levels of generosity, where they would actually put coins in poor people's, like, mailboxes back then, if you will. So they knew who the receiver was, but the receiver didn't know. Interesting.

So you don't know that it's me. Then there's like anonymous giving. It's like, you don't, so we like to do anonymous giving where our friends get to poor. It's like, man, you won't believe what happened. I'm like, I do believe what happened, you know. But it's like the more you're involved, the more ego that is there, the highest level of generosity is actually not giving them money. it's putting them in a position to make money themselves.

That's the highest level of generosity. It's not giving them fish. It's teaching them how to fish. Sometimes people don't want to learn how to fish. No. They say they want to, but really the work and time and energy that takes to invest in generating fish,

generating money, they want the easy relief now. Yes. That's the hard thing, though. It's like, how do you know if someone in your life or people aren't willing to learn, how to fish for themselves.

And they're always coming back for more. How do you navigate that from being an enabler to someone who's empowering? Totally. You know, for me, I'm always, I mean, again, it goes back to peace or pause. There's people that we've given to on one month and then the next month they ask for just say,

hey, no, not this time. And that's just peace or pause for us. Sometimes I'll tell a friend, you don't need my money, you need my money. If I gave you an hour of my time, the money you're asking for. You're asking the wrong question to the wrong person. If you have somebody like Mize phone number and attention, you should be asking me for 30 minutes.

Not this, does that make... But that goes back to them, even if they took it, they may not act on it. You know what I mean? They may not act on the wisdom. They have to be ready for that. You know, they have to want to seek it out. That's what my friend calls and ask, An ask hole is somebody that asked the same questions over and over again.

Doesn't, but doesn't do it. Yeah. Yeah. I got some assholes in my life, for sure. But, man, I just, I think where my posture towards humanity and other people, the chill nature of that, I think comes from the fact that, and so many people in my life gave me a shot when they shouldn't have. They gave me a pass. And so it's hard for me to hold people to the letter of the law. It's not that I don't get mad or I don't get bothered.

It's just that I know that there was somebody that should have been mad at me and wasn't. And talk to me in a tone that was respectful and showed me a lot of grace. So it's hard for me to hold people to the letter of the law when, I've been given so much. I could go on forever telling you stories about when my dad had a stroke. I was at that private school. We were getting ready to leave that private school

because we couldn't afford to be there anymore. And there was a freshman English teacher named Mrs. Holstead who came to my mom and she says, hey, me and my husband see your boy's potential. We'll pay further to it. Wow. So again, it's like, they just know me. They're just rolling the dice.

And I actually talk to Mrs. Holstead about a month ago. Unbelievable. Unbelievable conversation. What happened? Well, because she's just, I said, hey, I don't know if you know this, but I talk about you a lot in corporate America slash all over the world, you know? She said, you do?

I'm like, yeah, I'm thinking you should be a little bit more excited that I'm like, you know, telling the story about you. And she's like, yeah, you know, Ryan, that was just me being faithful to what God asked me. Wow. Like, it's not like a chauffeur. And I said, where does your spirit? of generosity come from.

She said, in this world, there are givers and takers. My mom was a taker and my dad was a giver. And she said, I love my mom, but I wanted to be like my dad. And so not super wealthy, but very, very generous. And there's a massive difference. So, man, I could, that I could go on and on of so many people in my life that just, um, helped me stay in college. I didn't have a scholarship at a D3-ish school. No scholarship coming in,

man. Yeah. So it's so so many people help me out along the journey when I wasn't who I am today. You know, they were just looking at potential and so sometimes I want to hold people to the letter the law and go, why won't you just get your act together? Why won't you just listen to me? Why won't you just take my advice? If you would just listen to me, your life would be so much better. But it's like, dude, I've, I've been hardheaded. I've, I've not listened before. I've, I've, I've, I received advice that I didn't practice, and yet people didn't cut me all. They stayed in relationship with me. And so for me, I wouldn't say it's easy, but when you've been given a lot of grace,

it's hard to withhold it from other people. But there's a lot of difficult people out there. There's a lot of difficult people out there. And you talk about this in your book. And I'm curious, I think most people aren't clear on what they're supposed to do with difficult people, maybe they've tried a lot of different strategies. Yeah. Maybe they've tried to avoid them or confront them or just power through.

But what are people actually doing wrong when dealing with difficult people? Well, number one, I think people are reacting to difficult people. All of us are at our worst when we're reacting, every single one of us. I don't know one great reactor. I don't know anybody that's like, you know what? I'm really good when I'm reacting. Like, who has good reacting skills? Who's writing a book on how to react well?

It's like, no, you're reacting. And so if you're reacting, you're never going to be the kind of person you actually want to be. And so what we talk about in books and in seminars and in keynotes is like you've got to be a proactive person, which means you have to prepare for difficult people ahead of time. What's funny about people that are navigating difficult individuals is they're always surprised by them. Always. In fact, in our research, we kept hearing this phrase over and over again, I can't believe. Can you believe they said this?

Can you believe they left this comment? Can you believe they hit reply all? Can you believe that they would say that in front of my boss? Can you believe that they would bring up my past? Can you believe that they ghost at me? I can't believe. I can't believe. And we're like, I actually think you should believe them.

Like, you've known this person for a very, very long time, and you're letting this person catch you off guard, and you're reacting. Be proactive. Proactive means you're going, all right, if I've known this person for a long time, history tells me that Monday, They could act a fool.

Yeah. And historically, my plan has been when they act a fool, I act foolisher. Okay, I act more. I'm going to match active fool for active fool. It's like, well, that's not a good plan. And so if you know this person has active full potential on a Monday morning, why don't you on Monday morning go, you know what if I prepared for act of fool? What if I called act of fool?

on the way to work and say, hey, can't get you a couple car? Well, what do you mean? Hey, I'm pulling a Starbucks. Can I get you a couple of car? I knew you were going to have an attitude, but I'm prepared for it, but I'm not going to let your bad attitude create a bad attitude in me.

In the process of working with people that we don't like, we can become people we don't like, and that's what this book is all about. It's about going, everybody wants me to come in and go, so can you fix them for me? I'm like, yeah, but I can't work on them until we talk about us.

Like, because this is what you can actually control. So if I can prepare for complicated people, if I can prepare for difficult people, well, my energy is different walking in the room because I'm actually expecting it. So a lot of it comes down to expectations and that are often unspoken. I don't know what the data is,

But I would say most of our expectations are unspoken for humanity around this. And when somebody doesn't live up to the expectations that we have internally, that we think others are gonna be like us. Right? Which most people aren't. They aren't.

And which would be a terrible world if everybody else is just like us. But that's what most people's plan is though. Like whenever they get a difficult person, they go, if I can just change them, especially in marriage. If I could just get in there and change it. And change it. It's like, yeah, but that quietly communicates to the world around this, that the world would be a better place if everybody else is just like us. That's just not true.

So if that's the case, then I think we have to be the kinds of people who step back and just go, all right, how can I prepare for this? Knowing that this person is coming, knowing that this person is coming over for Thanksgiving, knowing that I'm going to be in a meeting with them on a Tuesday, knowing that I'm going to see them on Friday night, knowing that they're going to try and sit next to me in my kids' soccer game. And it's like, we just act so surprised. And so we just try to help people to go, stop being surprised. They're coming. They have packed their bags.

It's on a flight. It's coming. The question is, how are you going to show up when they do? Don't react. Be proactive. But what if you can't? You weren't expecting it. Let's say you weren't proactive.

You didn't know they were going to show up and they showed up unexpectedly. Sure. You know, it's some new person that shows up that you weren't even aware of and they show up in a way that's causing chaos in your inner world or your environment. How do you prepare for the unexpected? Some people will literally trigger your nervous system. Yes. It's a thing. Yes. Do you get triggered? Yes. Your nervous system get triggered? I mean, I don't know if I would go that deep, but it could. I mean, it seemed like a pretty relaxed, calm guy. For the most part. Yeah. For the most part. But how do you handle it when your nervous system gets triggered then? Literally, I have to have a conversation with God internally to go,

okay, I know I want to react right now, but let me try to think about what's going on with this person that I cannot see. So I believe that every difficult person that you deal with has a difficult behind the scenes that they've not told you about. And if you could see that, you would understand the behavior and the words that are coming out of their mouth that most of the most of the time don't have anything to do with you at all. Well, good. And so if my kid has an outbursts, if a colleague is saying something just wild,

I have to go, you, hey, are you okay? Hey, what? Something fills off. And then I try to move towards the mess and have a real conversation to say, hey, there's a, because we can talk about what you just said, but I think we would be missing the forest for the trees,

if we went there. So it seems like there's something underneath the surface that's happening here. Can we talk? Can we dial it down just a little bit? Part of it is being the adult in the room. Also, when I say expect complicated, I also have a job where I go to a place every couple of days

where the angriest people in the world go every single day, the airport, okay? Listen, people be mad all the time. Like, and they'd be, get mad at stuff that's completely outside of their control. They're mad at the airlines. They're mad at gate agents. They're mad at TSA. I have just, I just started going, you know what? There could be delays. And if there is, well, then I guess I'm just going to have a good day

at the airport. Yeah. I've made up my mind. I call it pre-decisions. I think you need to make good decisions. I think you need to make better pre-decision. Pre-decision is saying, hey, I've already decided what kind of week I'm going to have. I've already decided, what kind of day I'm going to have. I've already decided how I'm going to show them to that. I've already decided how I'm going to show up to that line. I have that decision is already made. I have already made a decision to forgive people in the future who have yet to hurt me.

Wow. I've already made that decision. So that when it comes, I'm not like, well, what should I do? Not sure. It's like, no, I already made this decision that I'm going to be a forgiving person. I've already made that decision. And so if I've already made that decision, you could say something crazy today. And it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt my feelings.

But I've already made a decision that says, you know what? I don't know everything that's going on in Lewis's day. But perhaps something happened to him that would make him say something to me. And I can't see it all. And all I know is this is if I said something crazy to Lewis, what would I want him to do for me? I want him to forgive. So in light of that, I'm going to say, I want him to forgive. of that, I'm gonna let it go.

And the other alternative is this, I can get angry, hold on the bitterness, and carry that to the airport. Why would I do that? If I have a choice, which I believe people have choices. It's so I'm always like, man, they're like, choose joy, what do you mean, choose joy? I'm like, okay, you tell me your choice.

Choose bitterness, choose anger. You wanna heart, like, if we get to make choices, in pieces on the table, joy is, on the table, I'm grabbing bees. What are you going to grab? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, but it is, it's, I've made a decision about my future.

And so it, it allows me to enter into spaces that can be toxic, that could be chaotic. And I don't have to become chaotic in the midst of chaos. I've made a decision. I can't tell you how many times an event planner, just freaking out. Oh my gosh. Hey, how were you? Yeah.

She's like, you just have such a calming presence. I go, I know, but I've been expecting you all month. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I knew you were coming. So I pre-decided that I wasn't going to freak out with you, because I knew you were going to freak out. So somewhere in your world, you can't always get it perfect. But again, when you've made several predecisions about how you're going to show up in a room,

another pre-decision completely different. I've pre-decided that I won't walk in a room and prove myself to anybody. Pre-decision. Improve yourself. What does that look like? What does that not look like, I guess? And that used to be like my whole internal world

was I got to impress you. I got to impress people. Trying to build a brand. Your speaker, like you've got to you got to prove yourself. And one day I just made a decision that says, actually, I don't have to do that. And it was so free. Wow.

It was, all it was so free. And here's what's crazy is when I stopped trying to prove myself, you make a much better impression because you're just way calm or you're just you. You're way more yourself than when you're trying to like prove something to to somebody. So where did that come from the need to prove yourself in life? Culture. I mean, wanting to be successful, drawing up broke. You know, this is the way of the world. This is just how it works.

And you first impressions are everything, everything that you hear, you know, as an adolescent and college. You know, you've got to make a good impression. I mean, in fact, like, I still do interviews, as weird as that sounds, for gigs. Like, I still get interviewed for jobs all the time. Where it's like, hey, we're interested in you speaking here, but we wanted to get on a call first. Yes, and I lose it all the time.

Really? All the time. But he's not our guy. Oh, wow. Like, I still live in that. Like, even as successful as I am now, it's like I still can feel that pressure of like, I got to do this song and dance for you.

And sometimes I'll just give a vibe like, actually, I don't sing and I don't dance. And so if you want me, take me, it's not. If you want to be great. And sometimes, but I used to be like, oh my gosh, what do you want me to do? Just tell me. And you want me to sing?

Okay, so I'll sing. Or you want to tap dance? And then one day I'm like, I'm exhausted, trying to be everything for everybody else. And so again, I just made a pre-decision that says, hey, I'm happy to share with you what I can do to add value to your organization, but I don't have the posture of, oh, I got to, I got to prove it. But how old were you when that started to like transformed from proving to being at peace with who you were? All right. All right.

When did that happen? 38. That's months ago. 39. I mean, now. I mean, it's, I did, I'm always a work in progress. You know, there is a, there's a lot that can be thrown at you, especially you throw a lot of money into the mix

and you can feel to like, paying you a lot of money, you know. The amount of times somebody has told me, hey, you're very expensive. And, you know, I signed the contract and the CEO doesn't know it. So no pressure. I'm right. You're like, well, I didn't tell you to do it. But now it's like there's pressure.

So it's taken a lot of inner God dialogue to get to a place where I just show up and say, I'm going to get my best. And I think this is going to go well. I think I'm pretty good at what I do. I've put in the hours. I love my craft. I work on my craft every single day. I lock in for every single client I have.

Sometimes you miss. Sometimes you miss, man. That's why we didn't go D1. You know what I mean? Right. I feel like there's a lot of lies that people tell themselves. You're around people all the time from the corporate world to sports to everyday people. Yes.

What do you think is the biggest lie people believe? The biggest lie people believe starts with I can't. They have more I can't than they have. I can't. And so those I can't really can steer people's lives a lot. And I think that's a big lie that people believe that they will always fall short of their potential because of their I can't. And we can fill in the blank on what the I can't is, you know? I think another big lie that I see with a lot of people is they have this like, if I, it's never been done before, then how could it ever be possible with me? I mean, how many people

have sat on this very podcast and that were the first? Yeah. And so most people believe that they have to be second. It's a big lie. It's never been done before. Most people want tried and true, but for something to be tried and true, somebody's got to try. That's right, man. So that's why they pay me big bucks. Because I'm there to get you to try. I'm there to get, no, you go first. No, no, we're going to wait for somebody else to jump in the pool. I'm like, somebody's got to test the pool. Why not you? Why not me? What's the biggest lie you believe about yourself right now? Biggest lie that I believe about myself right now is that, that I'm just a speaker, that that is the, that's the only value that I bring to the world is with the microphone. What is the, what is the

microphone. What is the on the other side of that lie? I don't know working through that. I don't know. I mean, it's like you spend so much of your career trying to be good at this thing. And then you get good enough, if you will. And then one day you wake up and you go, am I supposed to be going more than this? Less than this. More or less. Something different. Something, yeah, you know. And then you, you get the everybody got a plan for your life so just god sort of thing and then yeah so you you can you can believe a lot of lies in there of just you you are the only value you're bringing is is what you can do on a stage or what you can do for somebody's phone on social media you know you can easily fall for the trap of believing like those things are your identity so so for me

I think it's a daily fight to go, I'm not, I'm not only what you see on your phone. I'm not only what you see on a stage. So yes, I think trying to answer that question of like, who are you and what do you bring to the world is an interesting dance for sure. What was the biggest limiting belief you had growing up that you had to overcome? Man, there's probably so many narratives around race. Really? Oh, yeah. Just being black and what that means.

And what, you know, you hear so many things about what it means to be a black man in America. And most days, I'm just like, I'm just emailing like crazy. And it's not like, I don't sign my email, Ryan Link, the black guy. You know, you're like, just, finally, like, let's go. Let's move on to the next thing. Uh-huh. And so then it's like, well as a and again sometimes it's like a limiting belief that is partially true in some ways and so

I spoke for a Fortune 100 company I was the first black speaker that they've ever had for their executive retreat and there is one black guy on their board and he told me he came to me after and he goes he goes no it can't even before he goes you're the first black guy don't be the last Oh my gosh. All right. Avoid speech. No pressure. Yeah.

And then he goes, and then I finish and he goes, because you were first, you won't be the last. He goes, you crushed it. He goes, you are the, you are the perfect first. And I'm like, thanks. You know, it's like I don't, you don't really know what, like, are you limiting what I can do from your vantage point? Because I don't plan on limiting myself. And so. That's good.

I think another limiting belief that permeates. every day is that. So it's different. So I do 120 events a year. 100 of those events are corporate America events all over the place. And then 20 of those are in megachurches. And so what I have been told is that you can't do both. You have to pick one.

You either have to pick a pastoral life or have to pick a keynote speaker life. But you cannot mix it to you. You cannot speak in churches and speak at the, these top companies. You can't, you can't do that on your social media. I've been told by plenty of people, you have to stop posting faith content. You can't do that. So it's almost like the religious people have limited you. Those are the ones in the setting have kind of said, hey, you got to kind of pick and choose. Or is it the corporate people have said that? Both, really? Both sides. Both sides have said, I've heard it from both sides. But the corporate people keep booking you, the more, and you're doing it,

and not holding you back. Yes. But even when I first got in, it was like, hey, dude, you got to delete your faith stuff. Literally was told that. Other speakers, other speakers right now would be like, how is Ryan getting away with that? Because the mantra is, if you continue to talk about your faith this much, corporate America won't trust you because they'll think you're coming in to preach or I don't know what they think this is going to happen. If people convert to something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's only, it's only grown the more that I, so the, the, So, yeah, some people will put that limiting belief on you of going, if you're going to be effective in the church,

then you can't be effective in business. And it's like, or you can just do a good job in both. It's kind of my mind. Exactly. Blended too. Because it sounds like you're, you've learned now how to not be a people pleaser. Yeah. That's what I'm hearing you say in the last six months.

Yeah. No, literally. Because you've had to figure out, okay, I want to make corporate people happy and faith-based people happy and make sure I'm not doing the wrong things. But it sounds like you're just being you. Yeah. Do you think someone can truly reach their potential if they're being a people pleaser to others?

No. Absolutely not. I think that if you do the hard work of being yourself, which is a lot of work, man. Or it could be the easy work. Just be yourself and stop pleasing everyone else. Either how you look at, you know, it's hard for me. It's been hard for me for me for a long time. But the more you practice it and you're just like, oh, I'm just going to be me.

and I have my five core friends around me, and I don't need everyone else to like me. Hopefully they respect me or they like me, but I don't need to care what they think about me. Yeah. Because I have my wife and my kids and my five friends that I play pickleball with, you know, whatever. I'm good, but it's so, I grew up where it was so hard

where I wanted everyone to like me, right? I didn't want people to not like me. Yes. That was based on wounds and traumas and different things that I learned out of heal, but yeah and it it was exhausting trying to get everyone to be okay with who i was and the shapeshifting or changing to please someone else or you know the song and dance yeah it was exhausting oh yeah and it's like i'm only imagine what i could have done with the energy i had that i lost by trying to please other people

yeah it's i think sometimes you know i mean you're you're a high performer you have a lot going on You know, it's, it's, you're what I would call not normal. And then you have people in your world who would really benefit from you being normal. Oh, yeah. Like, just come to the barbecue. They'd feel more comfortable. Like they would. And so that, like, what do you mean you can't come?

You're like, well, I don't know if you know. I got a commitment over here. I got this dream. I got this thing. Yeah. Yeah, I kind of got this Olympic thing going. I don't know if you've been. It's like, you are, you're doing like, you're trying to make an Olympic thing?

Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, I got it. Yeah, it's like I got, I got work to do. And so not everybody's going to understand that. And so that that is the piece, especially over the last three years from me, where people, did I had to get really okay using a phrase with with acquaintances that they were very uncomfortable with? because there are people who we were acquaintances in, I don't know, 2015. I don't know, maybe we played basketball together. No.

And then they see whatever proverbial success they believe I have now, they'll be like telling their friends, yeah, yeah, yeah, Ryan's my boy. We're friends. And then they kind of like want to cash in on our friendship or whatnot. And I've just, I've had to say this to a few people over the last year. said, hey, I love you, but we're not friends. Oh, man. Gosh, I've done that in the last few years.

Without there, I love you part. But just, we're not friends. We're not. I haven't spoken to you in years. You want something from me and acting like we're friends. We're not friends. It was probably the scariest thing, the scariest thing to do to say that the first time.

We're not friends. But then afterwards, it just felt so free. Oh, my God. They're free. Dude, I was like, when I said it, I was like, I can't believe I'm saying this. Yeah.

Because all I wanted when I was a kid was friends. This is whatever. You know, it's like, you just want him to me alone, right? Yeah. But it's like, come to time where you just can't fake it anymore. You know what I'm saying? Dude, like, the more I started saying it, they'd be like, much I got to call it six months from Ryan, Lewis, we're not.

Like, I would just say, like, and they would be so hurt hearing that. Really? And then I would just say, what are my kids in them? Oh, yeah. Ooh. Like what a day? Yeah, what's my wife's name? Like, what are we?

Tell me something that's going on in my actual life that you don't see on social media. Zing. Does that make, it's like, we're not friends. You see my highlights on the internet. That's it. You don't know anything. And we played pickup basketball 10 years ago. Yeah, like, I'm even planning more.

That's how much you were not friends is the fact that you still think that I, like, Like, you wouldn't even know that. And so, and sometimes I've had to tell people, like, we don't have a bad relationship. We don't have one. Right. We're just not friends. We're not, we're not friends.

And hey, that's not a problem. That's okay. I respect you. Yeah. I should invest. Yeah, I do. I wish you, but it's like, there's no ill will here. It's like, but why am I pretending that we're closer than we really are?

Like if, like, and conversely, I don't know your kid's names. Yeah. I don't know what's going on in your life. Some people will say, you never call me. I'll go, my phone works. You haven't called me either. Why is the on us all on me? It's like, we're not friends.

Yeah, we're not friends. And I started doing that at 38. Six months ago. Is it crazy? I mean, it's, and there is something. So when I was turning 30, the last day of my 20s, I was speaking for somebody, and I was talking about a documentary that I had done.

and this lady, she says, I was, literally, I was 20, I had one day left in my 20s. And she goes, do you want to know why we booked you to speak? I said, why? She goes, it's not because you're a good speaker. She said, you're a documentary. Well, my daughter's dating this guy and he's,

well, he's kind of a druggie and he lives on the floor of a crack house. But he does love basketball. and your documentary is about basketball. So I actually had him over to the house, and we watched your documentary. And because of your documentary, he called 73 junior colleges and asked him if he could come and play basketball.

And he's going to be playing college basketball this fall. He called his mom, who he had not spoken to in five years. She said, you're not a good speaker. She said, you pulled a young man's life off the floor. And that day, I said, how do I want to spend my 30s? And at the time, I was on an executive team at a big church. And I just thought, I don't love this church,

but somebody else can be on the executive team and I quit. Wow. And I said, I want to spend my 30s pulling people's lives off the floor. If I have that ability, I want to do everything in my power to make that happen. That's pretty cool. So now that I'm entering into my 40s, I'm asking myself that question, too, of going, how do I want to spend my 40s? And part of that is, is as I'm filling.

rolling in the blank as I'm inching towards August 20th. When I turn 40, I'm going, I don't want to be juggling these random relationships that I really don't have when I could just be honest with that person and just go, I respect you, hope things are well, but like we're not, we're not friends, stop putting me in group chats, connecting me with people that we're not even connected. I don't want to get connected to it too, yeah, yeah.

Institute. So to be able to have some of those conversations, I wasn't willing to do that, even six, seven months ago. It's scary, man. But yeah, as you enter into your 40s, you go, man, I really want to enjoy my 40s, and I really want to be surrounded by the people that are actually my friends.

Wow. Instead of using a bunch of little energy for a lot of small relationships that really are superficial. Yeah, man. and whatnot. So it's, again, it's a daily journey for me. I wish that was all polished and put together, but that's just, that's just not the truth. In the next six months, text me how many times you, yeah, tell that to someone and I'll let you know. We'll hold each other accountable. We're not friends. Yeah, that's true. We'll get in our own group chat group that we're not

friends chat. Yep, here's the person. Bro, if I sent you some screenshots of people that were like, come on, man, we go way back. I'm like, way back where? Where do we go way back to, you know? Something I heard you say before is why having a backup plan actually is the thing that's killing most people's dreams. Why is that? Yeah. You know, I think whenever there is a, this idea of here's my parachute, you don't go all in. You don't give it your best because you have that fallback plan. So it's not about a wisdom side of things.

It's about putting yourself in the prime position to move towards your goals. And, you know, the famous scene that the dark night rises, how did he make the jump without rope? Mm-hmm. Still the way you can make the jump. So good. It was just an iconic scene. And as soon as he said, without rope, everyone in the theater went,

or you die. You're either making or you're dead. But when you know you don't have rope, you jump a little higher. Oh, yeah. And that is, it's like, Ryan, what can I do to jump a little higher? Run a little faster. Lose the rope. It's the only way that you're like, do I train harder?

It's just like, I mean, that'll help. But when you don't have that rope and it's your only thing, you're going to go further than your competition. What is the rope you're holding on to in your life right now that you need to let go of? I don't know the exact answer to that question, to be honest. You know, we were talking before. It's like, do I start doing my own event? Don't do it unless you feel called. I mean, but that, again, that's the like, so sometimes I'm like, oh, I'm holding on to just like,

like one of my friends, he calls it, he goes, you got a corporate couch, man. He's so, you're, you're just riding. And I'm like, it's kind of cruising, but at the same time, like, it's like, dude, I got to lock in. Like, you're in the flow too with it. Yeah, it's like, I enjoy it. Yeah. But it's, it's a, how long can you do that? And then it's like, okay, I'm going to keep writing a book every, let's say, let's go your, your few months before you're 50. Let's go 10 years in the future. And let's say you lock in for the next decade doing the exact same

things to the maximum. You're 120, 150 days on the road speaking. You've maxed the revenue generation. You've maxed your level of giving. You're given 49.5% to go even more than your friend every year. You are writing a book a year. Maybe you're doing

an event, a smaller event in Dallas once a year and you maximize for a decade the exact same path, just better. Yeah. How do you think you'll feel at 49 and a half looking back at the last decade? Do you feel like you dropped the rope and went for it? Or do you feel like you were holding on to something that was comfortable, that you were great at, that was familiar? Do you feel like you served at the greatest level or you served what was great for you

and easy for you because you could just do it on autopilot. Yeah. What do you think 49 year old you will say in a decade? And I think it also, before you even answer it, I think it's also a question for everyone to answer, to reflect on. Because you don't have to let go with a rope of every moment to, like, create something incredible or go for something. You don't have to do that also.

You don't have to strive and achieve everything. Yeah. You can live a beautiful, fulfilling life in the pocket. Totally. So one of the questions that guided my 30s was, what would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? Okay, so that was a big part of what I talk about

and getting people to try things and whatnot. When I first answer that question is, oh, I'd be in the NBA, documentary, you do that whole deal. Great. This next question, I don't know if I'm going to make it public-facing. I don't know if I'm going to like do something with this question, but it has been something I've been wrestling with, which is what would you do if you never needed another dollar in your life?

What if you were set for life? What would you do with all of your time if you were post-economic? We have some friends who are post-economic, right? They don't need money any. They make an interest what you all dream of making something, right? But yet they still work. Why? Why?

Yeah, it's like because they love it, because they need it. You need purpose. Is it purpose? You know? But I've begun to think like, okay, if I didn't need a dollar, would I do every event that I'm doing this year? No. I wouldn't.

I wouldn't. I wouldn't do every event. I do a lot of them, but I wouldn't do every single one of them. And so when I think about 10 years from now, I think, man, would I start saying no, even more to create margin? for a fun project. That don't need to make money. It don't need to make money.

That's what my event was. It was in a fun project that made no money, no dollars, no cents, but it brought a lot of joy and fulfillment and impact. And dude, I think. And it had its season in its place and... 100%. But when I think about that,

I think about like, okay, five years from now, I say no more and I've got margin and I call Lewis, Because we're friends now, right? We're real friends. Hey, Louis. Hey, man, I got some extra time. We should just do an event together.

And, like, let's see how many of people like us would be willing to just all donate our time. To do something to make L.A. a better city. And let's see how much money we could raise for the Boys and Girls Club of L.A. And, hey, it's going to be a light lift. Oh, hey, guess what? I found a production company to donate all of the gear and all of their hours for. So it's a light lift. None of us are selling anything.

But, hey, matter of fact, we're going to do a tour. And just like, we're going to call it the Make a Difference Tour. And we're just going to, you pick the cities you want to be in. If you want to come, great. But we just, we kind of just like great potluck of giving, you know. Like, I just had a little dream session with you in three minutes. Right. I don't have that space right now.

Because every day is playing for the next year and a half. I mean, there's just kids and sports and whatever. It's like, but I would hope that 10 years from now that I wouldn't be holding onto that rope so tightly. And it's not like I need to do every single event, but I am running a business. I have employees. And the number one product is me getting on a stage, you know? And it's just like, okay, well, we get books and we can get workbooks and we do all of these

other things and we can do courses and whatever. but it's just like. That's not making the money like you on stage. No, it's like, and so it's like anytime I do get a speaking contract, I'm always looking at the calendar, I'm going to be doing another day, golfing?

You know, it's like, I like like golf, but it's like, I actually could speak and go golfing the same day. It takes an hour. Yeah, yeah. It's so, and so in the future, I would love to, and there's been times where I have been, where I've had opportunities

to work with organizations that I just want to work with, that and I'd love to spend a few days with them. I don't have a few days. You don't have that time. Yeah, I don't have that. And so I would, maybe when my kids graduate high school and I have a little bit more margin in that, in that space. How are they, eight and 12?

They are, good question. Six and 11, about to be seven and 12. Okay, cool. So you've got, you know, six, seven years. Yeah, until it starts to happen. So good questions to think about. Very much. I'd love to hear what everyone's answer is in the comments below.

Yeah. The next 10 years, you know, is there a rope that you need to let go of to step in who you truly want to become? So, for sure. This has been powerful, man. I appreciate you showing up, Ryan, and sharing this wisdom. I've got a couple final questions for you. Before we get to it, I want to make sure people follow you. Ryan Leak.

Yeah. Dot com, Ryan Leak on social media as well. Yeah. You got some great content on there. So if people want more on how to navigate communication. strategies, dealing with complicated people. You can get the book, how to work with complicated people,

and all the other content that you have is on your website, ryanleet.com. If they want to book you for speaking, they can go there as well. Check you out, man. That's right. Just a question I ask everyone at the end. It's called The Three Truths.

We've already gone 10 years in the future. Let's go to the end of life. Imagine you get to create and accomplish anything you want for the rest of your life. Yeah. You had all that margin to do all the cool projects.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You gave 49.5% every year. All these things happen. Yeah. But for whatever reason, at the end of the day, you have to take all of your work with you, all your content, books, everything's gone. But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. Yeah. I call it the three truths.

What would that be for you? The first truth is every single person that you and I know has an assignment from God. And until they get started on it, life will not make sense. And that could be a song to sing, a book to write, a movie to make, a podcast to record, a family to raise, a student to teach. It could be in the mundane. It doesn't have to be a big dream, but I believe each and every person has been given a God assignment. There is a reason you are on this planet. And if you do not search for that God assignment, life will never make sense.

That's the first truth. That's one. Second truth is that I would leave with the planet, because I'm taking all my stuff with me anyway. Yeah, you can't get access to this conversation is gone. Gone. I would say contentment is true wealth. Contentment is true wealth.

The reason I believe that is because if you ask somebody what would make them happy, their number would be more. Mm-hmm. More. More. More, more, more, more, more. more followers, more money, more, houses, more, more, more, more, more. I know some people that got a lot, but they don't have enough.

When your number is enough, you move completely different. And in fact, if you can find enough in your life anywhere, I would say you're the richest person, I know. Wow. So interesting to say that before you get to the number. There was a great interview from Jim Carrey, who I'm a big fan of, a couple of years ago, where he said he was retiring from acting. And he was doing an interview, promoting a movie. And he was like, and she was, the journalist was like, what do you do to do next?

He goes, I think I'm done, you know. I think I'm retiring. I've done enough movies. Yeah. And she was like, no, you can't retire. Like, you're so good. And this and this. And he goes, I'm going to say something that no celebrity in Hollywood will ever admit.

And he said, I've done enough, I have enough, I am enough. 100%. And it's easy for saying, him and his career, he's done all these things. But usually a lot of people, when they're at the top, they feel like they need to keep going for more. And I think it's just knowing what to say yes to because you want to, not because you feel like you need to have more or you don't have enough. Yeah. Right? Kind of like what you said.

Oh, yeah, man. That enough thing will take you really far. That's when peace enters the chat. Oh, yeah. Oh, there's no better feeling than enough. It doesn't create complacency where you say, am I going to do it anymore? It's like, I just get to do it now.

I don't have to do it. Yeah. When you have inner peace, that is true abundance. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, if you want to be rich, get enough. Good enough. That's good. The third truth?

Third truth If you want to live Like no one lives Give like no one gives Do you want to live like no one lives Give like no one gifts What I love about What my wife and I get to do with our two boys

Is We don't think about Generational wealth We think about generational giving Interesting The DAF that I was telling you about earlier Our kids will inherit a lot of money that they have to give away.

That's how it works. I don't know if my kids will drive at BMW. They can. They want to do this up to them. I don't know what size house they'll have. I don't know where they'll live in the world. I don't know what they're going to do with their life, but they'll be givers.

We did exercise over dinner the other day. I said, hey, if I gave you $100,000 right now, what would you do with it? My first son, he says, well, I'd give 20 grand to God. I said, really? It's amazing. And then he said, and then I'd save another 20 grand. I go, wow, that's great. I said, so you got 60 grand left.

What are you going to do with the rest of the 60? He said, I'll probably buy Pokemon cards. I went, okay, now we're on track. Now we're back a kid. Sounds right, yeah. And the second kid goes, I go, okay, you get 100 grand. What do you do? He goes, I'd give 40 grand to God.

Competition, you know, it's like the ego. I'm going to give more. I like this. I like that this is our house. And it's better to give than receive. And that just, it's not about the money. It's about that spirit of generosity. You can feel it.

You can feel a taker coming a mile away. But when you're in the presence of a giver, you breathe a whole lot deeper. You breathe a whole lot easier. There isn't this. What's up the sleeve? What's the agenda? It's like, I'm here to give.

I'm here to add value. I don't, I don't, I don't got any tricks up my sleep. And so, yeah, I think if you, if you give like nobody gives, then you'll live like nobody left. Final question, Ryan. Yes. What is your definition of greatness? My definition of greatness is when you can truly discover your potential. your strengths, your influence,

and leverage all of that to serve other people. Like when you figure out, I am really great at this thing, this is what God put me on the planet to do. And I have locked in on that, and I am unlocking my potential. But I'm doing all of that to help somebody else. Yeah.

Like to me, that is, that's the definition of greatness. My man, thanks for being here. Appreciate you, man. Thank you, man. Powerful, brother. Thanks, man. Thank you. enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out

the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.