Ryan Hanley - Finding Peak

01/07/2025

This is one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn…

Focus has never been my strength.

“Great starter, poor finisher.”

God, I hate to admit that…

But it was true for a long time.

Then I learned the power of focus, and dedicated myself to changing my outcomes.

What you focus on is who you become.

This is the way.

Hanley

01/04/2025

The Declaration of Independence hangs next to my front door…

…as a reminder.

A reminder of the price of freedom, of independence and being born in the greatest country to exist on earth.

Things may seem bad, we may be off course…but off course isn’t broken, it isn’t failed.

America is an experiment…and experiments come with wins and lessons.

This is the way.

Hanley

01/02/2025

Gratitude is the gateway to wisdom.

This the way.

Hanley

01/01/2025

Scared? Good.

That means you’re awake, alive, and ready to push boundaries most people don’t even see.

Fear isn’t the enemy—it’s your compass.

Fear is a vector to action.

Today, we break down how to turn fear into your greatest fuel for 2025: from naming it to creating tiny daily wins to resetting when you slip off track.

We’re not here to tiptoe; we’re here to grow. It’s time to leave behind playing small and lean all the way in.

Because when you stop letting fear control you—and start letting it guide you—you become unstoppable.

Swipe through, soak it in, and let’s dominate 2025 together.

This is the way.

Hanley

Tag someone who needs this reminder—and get ready to crush your goals!

12/24/2024

My wish for you in 2025…

DEFY ORDINARY!

In whatever way that’s meaningful to you.

You have extraordinary inside you. Let you it.

That’s why God put you on this earth. To be your own crazy peculiar extraordinary self.

This is the way.

…and so much love to for creating this amazing swag for me. 🙏

#2025

11/12/2024

Get your work in whatever way you can…

I used to believe that every workout had to be intense dripping with sweat exhausted.

As you get older, you realize the wins aren’t when you have two hours of free time to crush it at the gym.

The wins come from getting your work in the moments when most would just bag it.

Get your work in.

This is the way.

Hanley

11/11/2024

There are no “work hours” and “off hours”—there’s just time, and what you do with it.

We're rapidly entering an age of results.

You get them or you don't.

The kids call these "receipts."

If you can't show receipts, you become replaceable.

Chris Paradiso and I are writing The Civilized Savage as a playbook for designing a life of meaning, purpose, and, ultimately, results.

This is the way.

"Endless adjustments are our lives." In the modern game, every move we make requires adjustment—but too many people misunderstand what that actually means.

11/01/2024

Stop Negotiating with Yourself. It’s Killing Your Potential.

You know what made Kobe Bryant an unstoppable force? It wasn’t just his talent. It wasn’t his work ethic either, though that was legendary.

It was his refusal to negotiate—with himself.

The second you start negotiating with yourself, you’re done.

You’re letting excuses, comfort, and mediocrity in the door. And believe me, once they’re in, they settle like bad houseguests.

When Kobe talked about not negotiating with himself, he wasn’t being philosophical. He was describing a hard line in the sand.

The man would wake up at 4 a.m., put in hours before practice even started, and then go back to do it again.

The option to quit, to sleep in, to “take a day off”—that wasn’t up for debate.

✅ Why You Lose Every Time You Negotiate with Yourself

Every time you negotiate with yourself, you’re telling your brain, “I don’t really have to do this.”

You’re saying, “Maybe this isn’t worth it.”

And the more you entertain those thoughts, the easier it becomes to abandon your goals entirely.

Imagine you’ve committed to waking up at 5 a.m. to work on your side hustle, fitness, or whatever you claim is important.

But then 5 a.m. rolls around, and the negotiations start:

❌ “Maybe tomorrow I’ll do it.”
❌ “I worked hard yesterday; I can skip today.”
❌ “I’ll catch up later.”

It’s all nonsense, and you know it. Every day you negotiate, you’re teaching yourself that commitments are flexible. And flexible commitments lead to soft results.

Kobe’s key lesson? Remove the negotiation

This is the way.

Hanley

10/28/2024

“Change your expectation of what things are supposed to feel like.”

We’re sold this narrative that success, growth, and happiness should come wrapped in a neat little package.

No stress, no mess, no challenge. Sure, we hit “Like” on the “Pain is growth” memes, but when it’s our turn to feel that pain, we act as if something is wrong.

The complaining takes a couple forms:
👉 “I thought it would be easier by now…”
👉 “Nothing is going my way…”
👉 “I’m working so hard, why aren’t I seeing success?”

If this is you, (and it’s been all of us), here’s a little secret: You’re chasing a feeling that doesn’t exist.

You’ve been conditioned to believe that things are supposed to go a certain way.

That if it’s hard, something is wrong. That discomfort is a sign to stop or pull back.

WRONG. Dead wrong.

The Universe doesn’t owe you anything…and it certainly doesn’t hand out participation trophies for effort.

Progress results from countless random and seemingly unfair challenges, discomfort, and setbacks.

You’re not failing because it’s hard—you’re failing because you expected it to be easy. 💯

The real problem: expectations.

We’re not entitled to comfort. We’re not supposed to feel safe all the time. 

The people crushing it out there? They’re not waiting to feel like they’re on the right path.

I’ll let you in on a secret I had to learn the hard way…

The more you chase comfort, the more miserable you become. Comfort is a prison disguised as freedom.

Stop asking yourself, “Why doesn’t this feel easier?”

Ask instead: “Why do I expect it to feel easy?”

Once you stop expecting things to feel easy, safe, or smooth, something interesting happens:

✅ You stop waiting for the right moment to take action.
✅ You stop pulling back when the going gets tough.
✅ You stop second-guessing yourself when things don’t feel “just right.”

You start doing the work.

Do the damn work.

This is the way.

Hanley

👉 Here’s the question: What discomfort are you willing to face today? What expectation will you kill so you can finally move forward?

10/23/2024

How to Become a Civilized Savage

Chris Paradiso joins the podcast to explain how he built a lifestyle of discipline, standards, and values.

This epic, in-person interview is going to blow your mind...

🔗 https://lnk.to/civilizedsavage

10/22/2024

I’ve made this mistake too many times… here’s how to avoid it.

Every Guru and influencer today peddles hard work.

And there is no doubt that hard work is important. In most cases, when high achievement is the goal, hard work is the baseline for success.

Here is the mistake: we assume hard work automatically leads to success.

It does not…

Success is a derivative of value creation.

Do you want to raise more money for your charity? Create more value for donors.

Do you want a promotion at work? Create more value for your boss.

Do you want a better relationship with your spouse? Create more value in your relationship.

Sometimes (most of the time), creating value includes hard work.

But other times, it’s more about:
* timing,
* preparation,
* thoughtfulness,
* empathy, or,
* patience.

The point is not that hard work isn’t important; it is… instead, the point is to work hard for a reason.

Understand the value your hard work creates and ensure that value aligns with the success you want to achieve.

Otherwise, you’ll find yourself grinding away, frustrated that you never get the desired results.

Work hard for a reason.

Create value.

This is the way.

- Hanley

10/17/2024

The Secret to Becoming a Professional Speaker for Dummies

Because there a secret…

Anytime someone tells you there “Is no secret” they’re lying.

There is always a secret.

What they really saying is either “I don’t actually know the secret,” or “I don’t want you to know the secret.”

So, what is the secret to becoming a paid speaker?!

It’s not what might think…

It’s not practice or preparation.

It’s not your social media numbers.

It’s not a big exit from a company or winning a prestigious award.

You don’t need to have written a book or be a YouTube/Podcast star.

…and it’s not the advice the more do***ey, “Do something worth speaking about.”

Now to be fair, all of these help to varying degrees.

However, NONE are the secret.

The good news is, the secret is simple.

Here it is…

GIVE A S**T ABOUT YOUR AUDIENCE.

Like, genuinely give a s**t.

You are performing for them, not you.

If you want to consistently get booked for paid gigs you have to care about audience more than yourself.

You have to be there for THEM.

If you’re there for you, everyone can smell it…and I don’t care how cool your story is, you’ll struggle to get booked over and over.

Because when you give a s**t you do ALL the things necessary to deliver max value.

This has nothing to do with style, topic, age…because the audience isn’t there for any of that.

They’ve come to steal your energy, your passion, your will…you have to be all in, whether you’re doing airport hotel breakout sessions or Madison Square Garden.

So give a s**t and get after it.

Everything else will figure itself out with time.

This is the way.

Hanley

10/10/2024

Matt Hoover's story of finding God and living with purpose will BLOW YOUR MIND!

This is one of the most powerful conversations we've ever had on the show...

🔗 https://lnk.to/matthewhoover

10/03/2024

Standards & Boundaries

When I think about the people I’m the most attracted to…who I admire and want to be around…there is one clear thread woven through all of them.

Their standards and boundaries uniquely define who they are and how they live.

I’d like to believe that others would also see me this way.

I certainly have standards. I’m working on boundaries.

Why are standards and boundaries so important?

They create the framework by which you define who you are in the world.

Without them, the world defines you.

…and maybe you’re asking yourself why having your world defined for you is such a bad thing. It’s certainly easier, in the short-term, at least.

When you who is defined by others, you lose meaning, purpose, and ultimately any chance at happiness.

Your problems are other people’s problems. Your challenges are other people’s challenges.

Survival becomes your next mental escape from the grind.

In contrast, no matter how difficult, stressful, or isolating, setting standards and boundaries for your life by which you filter every decision, relationship, and action installs meaning and purpose into every moment of your life.

The bulls**t fades away.

You surround yourself with only those willing to operate alongside your standards and boundaries, allowing emotional barriers of insecurity and fear to fall away.

This is the way.

09/26/2024

This shouldn’t have worked…

I’ve been a speaker for almost 15 years. Yesterday, something happened that had never happened to me before…

See, there is a common mistake speakers make.

This mistake throttles the impact and effectiveness of their talks.

When I tell you the mistake, you’ll say, “Well, duh, Ryan!”

But, you probably do this too, just in other aspects of your life: sales calls, team meetings, talks with your kids, etc.

It’s easy to recognize in others but often challenging to see in our work.

What is this mistake?

We speak to serve our goals, not those of the audience.

Your audience, in every format, doesn’t give a sh*t about your goals.

👉 You want to build authority.
👉 You want to sell more books.
👉 You want to push your team in a particular direction.

They don’t care.

Everyone, in every audience—whether your spouse or an arena of 20,000 people—is listening to you and asking the question: WIIFM—What’s In It For Me?

It took a while for me to learn this lesson.

So what happened?

At IndieTech 2024, Erik Garcia, and I realized we were speaking at the same time on essentially intersecting topics.

Instead of forcing attendees to choose between us, we convinced Jason Cass to combine our performances.

This kind of thing doesn’t happen.

Cass was on board. His team opened up one of the conference room walls to make more space and accommodated all our requests.

The result was a masterclass in building a Human-optimized insurance agency.

The point here is, that we could have kept our sessions solo. That would have meant more stage time, more content for social media, more feeling like the star…

We knew that working together would bring more value to the audience, more insights, and more profound understanding, and I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to create a new performance with Erik.

Speakers, it’s not about you.

This is the way.

- Hanley

09/24/2024

It’s not the stage…

Everyone thinks speaking is about the stage.

It’s not.

The most beautiful part of being a speaker is the people.

Caught a fellow speaker in the airport today on his way to his first keynote.

Lucky audience…can’t wait to Michael do his thing.

Speaking is a people business.

This is the way.

- Hanley

09/18/2024

Here’s the Hard Truth About Why Your Business Isn’t Growing

Everyone’s obsessed with “scaling” these days.

📈 Scaling teams
📈 Scaling products
📈 Scaling headcount like it’s a badge of honor.

Do you want to know why your growth is stalling? It’s NOT because you need more people or shiny new tech.

It’s because you’re too busy scaling everything except the ONE thing that actually matters: Your processes.

Yeah, I said it. Scaling without scalable systems is like building a skyscraper on quicksand.

Let’s talk facts…

I’ve spent 15 years in the trenches. Built companies, sold companies, and learned the same thing over and over again:
The businesses that thrive don’t have the biggest teams or the flashiest tech stacks. The winners are the ones with systems so bulletproof they could run themselves.

At my last company, we didn’t double our headcount. We didn’t throw money at the problem.

We built growth systems.

What happened next? We scaled so fast, we got acquired in two years flat.

This isn’t some “hire more, hope for the best” fantasy.

It’s about ruthless efficiency.

It’s about automating and optimizing, so you can grow without throwing bodies at every challenge that comes your way.

So let me ask you:

❌ Are you just adding headcount to put out fires? Are you bolting on software, hoping it’ll magically fix things?

Or…

✅ Are you building growth systems that scale the business with or without you?

If your process doesn’t scale, your business won’t either. You’ll just be stuck in that endless loop of “more hires, more headaches, no progress.”

Let’s cut the BS.

You want real growth? Build systems that make adding people the LAST thing you think about, not the first.

If you’ve scaled smart, your business should grow itself.

If you haven’t, you’ll always feel stuck.

This is the way.

- Hanley

So, are you scaling right, or are you just scaling noise?

Drop a comment below and let’s talk about how to stop scaling chaos and start scaling smart. 🚀

—

09/15/2024

Everyone wants to talk s**t.

No one wants to get their s**t together…