--:-- Ryan Hanley: What's up guys, this is a special audio episode. I'm actually on a long drive, and I've been thinking a lot about 2025. I've been talking to a lot of people about their goals. I've been talking to a lot of people who either are or work with high performers about what makes those high performers special. How do they separate themselves? How do they reach their goals? How do they reach the highest levels of whatever field they're in, whatever their expertise is in, whatever their practices in? How do they get there? And so many others don't. What is that separating feature?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I've also been thinking about how I'm going to set up 2025 in a way that when I get done, I'm proud. 2024 was a very tough year for me personally. I flailed. I tried a lot of different things. I spent money on different projects. I invested time, resources, energy into projects that went nowhere. I came out of 2024 with a much deeper perspective on what success looks like for me personally. And as much as I'll be honest with you, I'm ready for 2024 to be over.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Nothing's going to be different in 2025 if I don't make changes. If I don't take the lessons, the failures, the obstacles, the challenges, the setbacks, the sunk cost into things that just did not materialize, if I don't reflect on them and make changes in 2025, 2025 will be exactly the same. There's nothing special about 2024. It's a number. It's an arbitrary period of time that we set expectations on. And while it's easy to say, hey, I'm ready to turn the page on 2024. I'm looking forward to 2025. Nothing changes if I don't change. Nothing changes if we don't change.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And that's scary because what it means is nobody's coming to save us. No external force would be a differentiating factor in our success. It's all on us, and while that should scare the absolute shit out of you—it does out of me—it also creates infinite opportunity because you control your destiny, just as I do. We all control our destinies in a way that is so profound, so amazing, that with even small tweaks—with even small changes in habits and routine and focus and energy and what we give our time to—we can make massive, massive, massive improvements in our life.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I think, you know, not to get too philosophical, most of you know that I'm a Christian. I believe—I've shared this story in the past with you guys—about six months ago, this was over the summer of 2024, my son, who my kids go to a Catholic school. My older son has gotten very much into the religion aspect, right? I won't say he's like ready to go be an altar boy or anything. Probably won't be. However, he has a lot of questions and he's very into it. And I think that's wonderful. He asked me, "Dad, do you think that hell is really a fiery place below the ground?" And I said, "No, I do not. Regardless of what hell is, here's how I visualize it. I believe that at birth, God gives us the ability to be our max potential. He gives us a max potential, a max upside, what we're capable of and the impact that we're able to have on the world. The love, the positivity, the energy, the creativity that we're able to bring to the world. He gives us this max ability. And when we die, we are presented with that version of ourselves, and heaven is when we're proud of how close we are, and hell is when we're shameful of how close we are. And that is a driving force in my life because what I think it says to us is it's all there for the taking."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Maybe you grew up like me in a small, tiny town that was going nowhere with parents who loved me and did the best they could. But they didn't have a lot of resources. I didn't grow up with resources. I had to put myself through college. I had to go get scholarships. There was no expectation for me going to college. Zero. Zero expectation from my parents that I would go to college. The day that I came home from school and said, "Mom, I want to go to college. I'm going to start applying," her response was great—and that's not a knock on my mother; I have a tremendous mother, wonderful—but there was zero expectation because we didn't have any money. She wasn't sending me to college. She loved that I wanted to go, but she was doing the best she could. She's a receptionist. My parents were divorced. You know, my dad had his own problems. And we did the best we could.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: My point in sharing that with you is it doesn't matter where you start. You could have horrible parents. You could have all the money in the world. You could have somewhere in between. You could have everything given to you. You could have nothing given to you. None of that matters. Because you're given a max potential by God. And our goal in life, the reason that we're here, is to do the best we can to meet that goal. That's essentially what I believe, why we're here. People ask, why are we here? My belief is just because it creates a construct for me that I can work towards, right? Even if that's not exactly the way it is. Obviously, I have no idea. It gives me a construct and permission to do everything in my power to be the best version of myself that I can be.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I miss on that constantly, guys. I'm not trying to sit here on some ivory throne and tell you that I'm living some maxed-out life and you need to do everything I do. That's not the case. I struggle with the same doubts and fears and shame and regret and all the things constantly. But what I hold in my heart and how I get through those moments is this idea that it is me and only me that has the ability to make the decisions, to make the choices, to make the changes necessary to become the person that God intended me to be, to become that max version of myself.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: In all these conversations that I had with individuals that either work with or are high performers, there been a few things, a few key items, a few factors that have been consistent. This has just been burning a hole in my head, and it's probably not the best audio quality. I don't care. I had to get this message out to you. These factors are simple, straightforward, and they're 100% in your control. If you want 2025 to be a more productive, more impactful, a year filled with more energy, more excitement, more intrigue than 2024, than you thought was possible, right? We always want to make the next year the best year we've ever had. And we should. There's a few things. The first is the cultivation of our own energy.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And what I mean by that is, how I frame that idea is like this. For the last six months, I've been wearing a Whoop strap. A Whoop strap is a bio-tracking device. I wear it as a, like, it's like a wristband. And it tracks your sleep, your recovery. You can track your activity, your strain, et cetera on that. What I really wanted to track was sleep and recovery. I wanted to figure out what were the things that I was doing in my life that kept me from waking up every day with maximum energy? And the things that I found were not things that were outlandish, but were very profound. First and foremost, I can have no more than one drink in an evening, or my sleep goes to shit. On this app, you want to be 80% recovery or above to be in that kind of max energy zone.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Now, if you wake up in the 90s, man, you could feel it, right? Now, obviously, the app is just reporting back to you the way you know you feel. But when that app shows 93, 95, 98% recovery, you feel like you could take on the world. You feel like you're running through a brick wall. Even at 43 years old, you feel like you're in your 20s. You're like ready to freaking go. 80 or above, you feel good. It's all good. You're crushing your debt. But if you wake up and that app says 50, 60% recovery or less, man, you're dragging. You're dragging. You're pushing for that extra cup of coffee. You're wishing for a moment to take a little power nap. You can't wait to check out for the day.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And I'm a pretty generally day-to-day motivated dude. Most days, I'm willing to get after it. I rarely wake up and just want to be a freaking bum. But, man, I just found that certain things like not getting enough sleep. Those of you who are sitting out there going, "I can perform on six hours of sleep." No, you can't. No, you can't. There are a very small portion of the population, very small portion of the population who can operate effectively off a minimum amount of sleep. I know we all hear Jocko Willink and other guys that tend to be in the military who've trained themselves to work on that amount of sleep. I promise you they're not going off three hours of sleep every day. Now, on days when they only get three hours of sleep, what they're willing to do because of their training and the willpower they've developed and the routines and habits that they do not negotiate with, they're able to push through three hours of sleep. But they're human beings. They're not living off three hours of sleep.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And you're not living off six hours of sleep and being the best version of yourself. You're absolutely not. Seven plus hours of sleep minimum for max recovery. Seven plus hours minimum. Inside of that recovery time, we need to make sure we're doing the right things. So as I said, if I have more than one drink of alcohol, one drink a night, I'm not recovering well. And even with one drink, I'm not getting into the 90s. It's not gonna happen. Alcohol just destroys your sleep.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Now, for those of you that are pot smokers, right? You smoke pot, maybe you wind down at the end of the night. Some people are okay talking about it. Some aren't, right? I have tested using pot as a way to kind of land the ship at the end of the day. In 2023, I was diagnosed with hyperactive bipolar. So I'm essentially switching between hypermanic and manic all day long, which is one of the reasons why I naturally have a lot of energy and motivation. Another reason why I talk so fast. So inside of that, I get to the end of some days, and I'm like jacked out of my mind, and it's 8:30, 9 o'clock at night, and I can't calm down. And I've tested using pot as a way to kind of pull myself in. And it does that. It works incredibly well as a tool to calm my mind, narrow my focus, settle my body down. Problem is, I sleep like shit. I never drop into deep sleep. And even if I get seven hours of sleep, I'm not getting—I'm getting 60% recovery. Max, max.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So all of you out there who are smoking pot and saying, "Oh, I work better. It gives me focus or whatever." That's all great. And maybe in small doses in the right situations, managed properly, it can help you as a tool. I don't think most of us are using it that way. I think it's very easy to abuse. Just know that you're essentially burning the candle on the other end. So while it may help you in some regards while you're awake, it is not helping you when you sleep. And then you're waking up and you're not recovered. And now you get into your day again, and you're groggy again, and your willpower is low. And you start negotiating with yourself, right? You start to say, "Ah, I'm going to skip the gym today." Or, "You know, I really need to have that tough conversation with my employee, but I'm going to skip that."
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Another one is exercise. If I work out strenuously for 45 minutes, I sleep better at night. You've used your body. You've pressed your body. Now, there was a recent study that came out that showed when you contract your muscles, they release a protein that calms your body, removes depression. And we've known that for a while. We've known why that it happens, that depression, anxiety, stress, fear, all of these negatively oriented emotions and ideas that float around in our head, that when we exercise strenuously, either cardio or weightlifting, that it calms our body, it removes those negative emotions from our body. We didn't know why. It's because when we contract our muscles, our bodies release a protein which attaches to the chemicals in our body that create those negative emotions and it flushes them out of the system.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Those negative emotions are oftentimes what keeps us from dropping into high recovery sleep. I'm going to end there because I could go on for another hour talking about recovery, but managing your energy. If you want 2025 to be the best year of your life, I'm sorry, you have to take your energy level seriously. I'm not talking about exercise. You know, I'm not specifically talking about diet. I think you have to figure out what that means for you. But if you're waking up every day on five to six hours of sleep, a little hungover, or you smoke some pot or you didn't work out—you just sat in front of your computer and then watched TV and went to bed—and you're not recovered at the end of the day, the next day when you wake up, you're going to be right back in the same situation. You're not going to be able to get after it.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And when you're making—if you're a salesperson, maybe you only make 10 calls and then negotiate yourselves out of the 50 that you told yourself you would make. Or if you have a creative project you have to put together, you do 10 minutes worth of work and then you say, "Ah, my brain's not working today. I'll put this off to tomorrow." Or those just jobs, tasks you need to get around your house, you know, folding the laundry, you know, whatever you got to do with your kids. Like maybe you're, instead of being present with your kids and playing a board game or doing something with them, you decide to scroll on your phone and let them sit on their tablets because you don't have the energy to be there with them. And it's not because you're fucking old. It's because you're not managing your energy, not managing your energy.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So for 2025, a big focus of mine is going to be energy management. The second is focus. What you focus on is who you are. What you focus on is who you are. The highest performers, they are constantly managing their energy levels, and they are ruthlessly focused. So what does focus mean? It doesn't just mean popping an Adderall pill so that you can bang out a bunch of tasks at work. That is a very shallow way of breaking down focus. Focus means what are you willing to sacrifice to achieve the things to become highly proficient, to create impact in the areas of your life that are the most meaningful to you.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And this has been a big problem for me because I consider myself a bit of a—I'm going to use this term, it sounds really douchey, I don't mean it to—a renaissance man. I'm interested in so many different things. I love sales. I love leadership. I love marketing. I'm super interested in product design. I love politics. I find it infinitely engaging and interesting the way these maniacs operate and how politics works. I love economics. I'm super interested in like what's going on in the universe and, you know, just astrophysics stuff. I just love reading about that stuff. I love reading about mindset and personal development. I just, I'm so interested in all these different areas, which is wonderful for me. Except for the fact that when I allow myself to be distracted by things that I'm interested in versus the things that I can drive true value and impact in my life, I'm less than I could possibly be.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: It's fun to get into things like conspiracy theories, another area that I waste way too much frigging time on. I just find conspiracy theories to be so engaging and fun. And, you know, I get a lot of shit from people because I'm so interested in conspiracy theories. But, you know, a lot of conspiracy theories over the last three years have been true. But what does that do for my life? How does that keep me from creating for Finding Peak or developing new product designs and helping build new business development relationships and driving growth in Linkora? Linkora is the company that I'm the chief marketing officer of. And I love Linkora because I feel like the industry that I'm born in, that I work in, the insurance industry, I feel like I get to be part of delivering this technology, artificial intelligence, to an industry that has given me everything that I have in a way that I believe is going to be useful and secure for that industry.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's going to do it in a way. It's not going to be a bait and switch. I'm not just selling them a product to make some money and bounce out of the industry. I love the insurance industry. I love the people in the insurance industry. I understand the value of the insurance industry. And while I may coach people and I may do keynotes, presentations, and performances outside of the insurance industry around leadership and personal development and topics like that, my home is the insurance industry. And if I can be one of the individuals as part of one of the companies, Linkora, who is helping provide and usher in artificial intelligence into that industry in a way that is useful and pragmatic there for the long term, that to me is a major, major value creation, not just for the people who end up using our product, but for me personally.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I get to wake up in the morning and say, "This technology, which is coming on like a tidal wave, I can help. I can help insurance agents, insurance carriers, individuals and companies inside that space understand this technology and put it to use and catch that wave and drive their businesses forward." That creates tremendous value for me. But if I'm spending two hours listening to a podcast about conspiracy theories, is that really helping move that needle forward? Or is it just providing me some fun, you know, small talk banter at a trade show cocktail hour? These are the kind of decisions that we have to think about.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I know a lot of people like to golf. They like to, they have all these hobbies, and I think those are great. I think we need to have a real discussion with ourselves around—are we, is this hobby that I have, is this thing that I do, is it really adding value to my life or is it an escape from the things I'm not doing in the places that I should be doing them? And look, golf's amazing. I love golf. Truth be told, last three years I haven't really golfed that much. I was growing Rogue Risk last year. I was, you know, kind of refinding my place in the world post-Rogue Risk, building Finding Peak, I joined Linkora, and I don't really have plans to golf too much in 2025 because I'm going to be growing the shit out of Linkora and continuing to build my leadership in sales consulting and coursework and stuff like Master of the Clothes program, which is coming out in January of 2025. I want to continue building that thought leadership, that IP, and continue helping people move forward with the content that I create.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And those professionally are the two most important goals that I have, and anything that takes me away from them, I have to say no to. That's incredibly difficult for me. I love saying yes to shit. I'm always interested in a new startup and our new, you know, I have 14 angel investments that I track and try to help. And those are the kinds of things though that take you away from your primary goals. I think too often when things become difficult or mundane, we look for that new thing. And every new thing that we take on, if it's not at least tangentially related to the primary goal, to our primary impact, to the primary value that we're trying to create, not only for ourselves, but for whoever it is we serve, it's a distraction. And we have to say no.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So in 2025, energy management and focus, and the third idea that I want to share with you that high performers—and again, I've talked to a lot of these people on the podcast—I had Steve D a few episodes ago on the podcast. He coaches some of the highest-performing basketball players that have ever come out of the greater Albany area. There are multiple pros. We have multiple dozens of Division I athletes, and all of them have come through his basketball coaching program. He coaches for the National Junior U.S. basketball team. He coaches incredibly high-performing basketball players. I've had just recently, Adrian Kaler. He works with some of the most successful leaders in the entire country. Fortune 100, Fortune 500, entrepreneurial endeavors, high, high performers, alphas, up into the right Ds, right? Ds are people who drive, who drive results. If you just go back in the podcast, you'll hear over and over and over again, high performers think big.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: If you've set a goal for yourself, is it a big goal or a small goal? Are you setting a goal that's reachable so you can feel good about yourself at the end of the year? Are you setting a goal so fucking big and audacious that there's no freaking chance you're going to hit it? There's no freaking chance. I think we honestly have to ask ourselves that. We set all these goals. Oh, I'd love to have this happen this year. What do you mean love to have? What's the biggest, baddest thing that you could possibly do this year? Go frigging get it. Go get it. Go get that thing.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And in talking through the podcast, all these amazing thought leaders, all these amazing high performers, all these amazing high-performance coaches, you don't think small. High performers don't think small. One of my core issues in life is I tend to think small. It's the way I was raised. I was raised by two parents. One was a union guy. One was a receptionist for a large company. What they taught me was, "Go get the big safe job, go work for the company, no risk, don't have big downside, don't take chances," because that's what they knew. That's how they survived. And I love my parents for living that life and getting us through that. But I don't believe that's what God intended me for. Yet I'm constantly battling that voice in the back of my head that says, "There's no one there for you. If you fail, you're going to fall on your face. Everyone's going to laugh at you. You're not going to have any money. You're going to lose your house." That voice is constantly in my head. So if you have that voice, don't think you're alone. You're not. Everyone has that voice. You know what the difference is between the high performers and those of us who continue to wallow in a place that we don't love? They don't let that voice keep them from setting enormous goals and then doing the things necessary to reach them.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: It doesn't mean you're ever going to get there. But you got no shot if you don't shoot up. Jordan Peterson said this, "Aim high." Aim high. I watched an entire keynote that he did on aiming high. It's the only chance we have. It's the only chance we have. And in every moment of my career where I have achieved incredible performances, it has been in the moments where I gave myself permission to aim high. I didn't give into the fear. I didn't give into the naysayers. I didn't give into the people that told me it wouldn't happen. I didn't give into the people who said, "You shouldn't do that. Who are you? Why would you think that you're ever capable of that?" I didn't give into them. And I pushed through it.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: What are we doing here if we're just getting by? What are we doing here if we're just getting by. What fun is that? If you don't believe me, read the book by Dr. Benjamin Hardy, "10X is Easier Than 2X." In that book, he outlines the case for what I have just made, in which he says 10X goals are easier than 2X goals. And the reason is because if you set a 2X goal, say your goal was to write $100,000 in business in 2025, that's your goal. Well, there's a thousand ways to do that. Now make your goal a million dollars in business. You're a salesperson, you're going to write a million dollars in business. How do you get to a million? There's only one, maybe two ways to get there. What does that do? It immediately narrows your focus. Someone asks you to do something? No, that doesn't get me to my 10X goal. I need you to help me with this project? I'm sorry, that doesn't get me to my 10X goal.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: You want to wake up every day and have the energy to do the things necessary to hit your 10X goal? You have to manage your energy. You have to be, you can't be hungover. You can't be sleepy. You can't be tired. You want to hit that 10X goal? You have to be supremely focused. If you want 2025 to be the best year you've ever had, if you want 2025 to be a year that you get to the end of and you're proud of, that you're sitting around the Thanksgiving table or whatever holiday you celebrate, Hanukkah, Christmas, whatever it is. You're at that New Year's Eve party and you want to sit there with a smile on your face, proud of 2025, manage your energy, dial your focus, and set big, hairy, audacious goals and then go fucking get them.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Why not be a complete badass? Why not be a complete badass? Why have a dad bod? Why be someone who spends hours scrolling social media? Why be someone who is always told what they have to do instead of the one who gets to choose what they want to do? I can't think of a better definition of health than standing next to St. Peter, looking at the version of myself that I was supposed to be and realizing that I didn't go 100% for it. Guys, I'm going to get it in 2025. And I hope you're along for the ride. Because 2025 is going to be a wild year.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And I know there's going to be setbacks. And I know there's going to be challenges. I know there's going to be obstacles. And I know there's going to be stuff that happens that I wish didn't happen. But I'm going to fucking plow through those things. Because I don't want another 2024. I let a lot of doubt and fear, frustration leak into my life. And those are things that I got to deal with. But what it did was wake me up to who I could be, to what I want to be, and the things I need to do to get there.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I love you for listening to this show. Guys, if there's anything I can do, reach out. Ryan at findingpeak.com. Send me an email, DM me, LinkedIn, Instagram. I'm always here for you. I'm going to be sharing my journey. I'm going to be sharing the things that I do, the things that I learn, as well as growing Linkora, as well as growing Finding Peak. I'm those channels. If you want to be part of those journeys, please follow along, reach out. I am always here to help. I love you. I'm out of here. Thank you.
