Branding Expert Reveals the Secret to Business Success in 2025 - Sara Connell

Ryan Hanley: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. We have a tremendous conversation for you today with Sarah Connell. She is the founder of Sarah Connell Coaching, where she helps individuals with expertise, with ideas, with experience, turn that into a bestselling book and ultimately a thought leadership platform, as well as so much else. This is a wide-ranging and dynamic conversation. However, there are some key ideas that we get into, especially Sarah projects out our kind of forecast, as she calls it, 2025 and some of the trends that she sees coming. Specifically, we address five.

Ryan Hanley: There's one in particular that I want to tease out at you right now. And that is the idea that we are moving from Simon Sinek's "it's all about your why" to "it's all about your who." Who is greater than why? This is a big idea. It's a core concept to what she is helping her clients achieve in 2025. And I'll be honest with you, I have to agree with her. I have to agree with her reasons why this is such a big trend and that this is actually what is working in the market today. Whether you're a small business, you know, you're a coffee shop in a community and you're trying to grow and expand your influence and where customers come from to buy your coffee, or you're leading a large multinational organization, or you're an entrepreneur, or you are an author, these ideas are paramount.

Ryan Hanley: You're gonna love these five forecasts that she has for 2025. And especially I'm interested in your thoughts around this idea of "who is greater than why." This concept really caught me, grabbed me. I'm gonna put a lot more thought into it and I think you are going to love it. Before we get to Sarah, if you're watching on YouTube, like this video, subscribe, guys, leave a comment. I want to hear from you. If you're listening on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts and you're not subscribed, make sure you do. Leave a rating and review with your thoughts. I read every single one. I appreciate the hell out of you.

Ryan Hanley: And if you haven't yet, if you're not in "Master of the Clothes" and sales is an important part of what you do every day, I released a brand new sales course, "Master of the Clothes," where I teach the process that allowed me to grow multiple organizations across the technology, fitness, and insurance industries to scale massively using inbound leads. There is a different sales process for inbound leads. And if inbound leads are part of your process, "Master of the Clothes" is a no-brainer. Go to masteroftheclothes.com today. With that, let's get on to Sarah Connell.

Ryan Hanley: It's such a pleasure to have you on the show today. Thanks for taking the time.

Sarah Connell: I'm so happy to be here, Ryan.

Ryan Hanley: So one of the things that we were talking about before we went live was, we're still early in the year, recording this in early February. And we talked a little bit about what's going to happen in 2025. That's kind of where I'd love to start. When you're looking out over what we have in front of us, where we are as a country, as society, business-wise, marketplace, and you're dealing with tons of clients, tons of successful people, what are you hearing? What are you seeing? Where's your brain at for forecasting 2025?

Sarah Connell: Yeah, I think it's very easy to be reactive. It's very easy to say, "Oh, what's going on in the world and what's happening in the economy." As of the recording of this episode, there's just a lot of churn, a lot of uncertainty. So I think that while people can feel like, "Oh, what a drag," you hear things like buyers are hesitant, they're scared to make investments, the trust recession has happened. There's this break in trust that people feel in themselves and in leadership and in all kinds of things.

Sarah Connell: When I listen to people who've been around a lot longer than I have—I've been coaching and being an entrepreneur for over 15, almost 20 years, and there are people who have decades more than I do—what I love is they say every single situation we're in is an opportunity. We all hear that, like "find the gift in everything." But what if we believed that? What if we practiced that? So what I'm really excited about for 2025 is saying, what does this particular moment call us forth to become masterful in? If people are taking longer to buy, then how do we become masterful at building trust and playing the long game? Maybe before we've gotten really good at the mid game or the short game. And if people are feeling a trust break and a trust recession, how do we create a trust ascension?

Sarah Connell: I think that the people who are going to win—as in, be fulfilling, make an impact, and make profitable big numbers this year—are going to be leaders who are willing to get really resourceful, get excited, even if we have to fake it sometimes. But actually say, "Cool, what am I going to learn here and get to become really masterful at?" Because one thing is for sure: creativity and innovation do not come out of the comfort zone. They don't come out of a thriving economy either. It's usually when it's hard or challenging. And I don't think this is only hard and challenging of a time. I'm having a great year and it's wonderful. But there are a lot of people who are just really in it, in a lot of feelings and overwhelm. So I think this is an exciting time.

Ryan Hanley: I love the idea of "what if we just acted like everything was an opportunity?" There are so many things in our life that are cliches that we hear, and I think we let them pass by us. I love this idea of what if we actually just embrace that cliche, that tried and true mantra, because it's been around for a while for a reason. Yet because of that, we seem to dismiss these ideas. Why do we always want the new idea when there are 50, 100, 2000-year-old ideas that have seemingly lasted forever? And we're kind of like, "Eh, no, those ones aren't for me. I need this new shiny idea right here." That's really interesting. I'd love for you to dig into this trust recession because I find that very interesting. I can see it. I haven't experienced it in my own business necessarily in that way, but I can see it. If you're watching social media, everything that we just came through with the election, mainstream media being torn apart, all this kind of different stuff. So break down where you think that's coming from, where you're seeing that. And then I'd like to transition into how you would guide someone through flipping trust. If I was experiencing a trust recession, how do I flip that into an ascension?

Sarah Connell: Okay. Well, I love it because luckily in our business, we've seen it less. But a lot of people are either trying something new or in certain industries. I think people who are running courses, things that have a less relational aspect. So the first thing: is there a trust recession? Yes, in some industries. It's not just that Inc. Magazine came out and said 94% of consumers don't trust ads—Facebook ads, television ads, whatever it might be. There are trust breaks with people. They feel like even influencers—that was such a movement for a long time. And I'll share something in a minute that I think is going to be really big for this year, a cousin of the influencer and a way to overcome some of these.

Sarah Connell: Whether you're experiencing it or you're not, we can all agree: people do feel uncertain and it's harder to make decisions when they feel nervous about whether it's political, economic, whatever it is. So what I think we want to recognize is leaning into that. Instead of being afraid and going into bunker mentality—"I'll ride this out till people want to invest more"—it's like, what's really the opportunity? A couple of things to create that ascension: one is looking at how to be relational versus transactional. I think a big thing that happened last year—if 2024 had been sponsored by something, it would have been sponsored by AI. It was like the year. And AI is awesome. There are so many cool things and ways to play with it. But what I personally choose not to have it replace is real human contact. Even in our marketing, even in my books, I write my own emails because people can feel the difference. They really can. You can use Perplexity, Claude, and ChatGPT to do a lot of stuff, but people know when it's a robot and when it's a real person.

Sarah Connell: So I think people are willing to say, "I know it's going to take longer and cost more, but there is a road." So focusing on relationship versus transactional, but then using AI for automation, for systems, and many different things. Where does it make sense to be relational? It's going to go a really long way when there's this sense of "I don't want to be with a computer. I don't want to be with the robot." Another opportunity is going to be how we can show people that they are investing not just in the product or result anymore, but they want to trust the person behind it. So what you're going to see, I believe, is a lot of leaders, CEOs, entrepreneurs doing what we're doing: having real, long-form, unscripted conversations instead of just being behind a logo.

Sarah Connell: Simon Sinek gave a famous viral TED talk a few years ago about how people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. I think in 2025, people aren't going to buy why we do it. They're going to buy who they're buying from. So the importance of personal brand, the importance of being seen from behind the logo, people having a relationship and an inside glance into things like our values and things we care about, even beyond the actual service we provide or the niche we're in, is going to be a really powerful way to create that trust ascension.

Sarah Connell: And then there's something called the ZMOT—the zero moment of truth. A lot of you might know it. It basically says how people make a purchasing decision. The way to build trust is to give people the 7, 11, 4, which are the coordinates of the ZMOT. That's the seven hours of interactive time, which is why long-form unscripted content, books, audiobooks, or podcasts are so important. The 11 different touch points and then four different places. That's interesting too, because if you're like, "I'm always on LinkedIn," being on multiple platforms gives people the sense of you being around—that omnipresence effect we hear in marketing. So I think those are some of the things.

Sarah Connell: But the really cool one that I'm obsessed with this year is called user-generated content. Whereas an influencer or an ad very clearly involves someone being paid to market something, user-generated content is where people who are using your thing—your method, your book, your product—in an organic way in their own lives create content from that. The big example that happened recently was the Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver, AJ Brown, reading a book on the sidelines of the Super Bowl playoff game. It caught CNN and all these people: "What are you bored? Why are you reading a book on the sidelines of a Super Bowl?" And he said, "This book is what I use to get in the game. This book is what I use to get my mind right, to show up and make the key plays and get us to the Super Bowl." So Jim Murphy's book went viral. It came out in 2018, they revised it. I've been talking to him a little bit about this because it's so cool as a book person. Having someone using your thing in their real life to achieve a result is going to skip the trust recession and build right to trust.

Ryan Hanley: I want to go back to "who over why" because I think that's a really interesting take. In some marketing and brand building channels, that would be blasphemy at the highest degree. My question for you is what I've seen: any influential voice, thought leadership—I don't necessarily want to say just influencer-type people—it's almost as if where we used to wear a pair of Nikes as a way to express our personal value through this physical object, now you express your personal position or your tribe by who you follow, who you quote. Is that the trend we're kind of grabbing onto?

Sarah Connell: That's so interesting. I don't know as much that it's the tribe or the community. Now I'm going to give that a lot of thought because I want to look at that and do some research and data on that. What I'm seeing it more is, before it was really curated—showing the dream life. And I still think you're going to have that, showing people what they could be or what they want. I think that's still crucially important. But if we're making a Venn diagram, I think that Venn diagram overlaps with more real talk. That's what I meant: the unscripted instead of the perfectly filtered photographs. Really real, more unvarnished. Showing the mess, not in a way that's distracting, but it's like, yes, it's the dream and the result you're going to get from this product, program, or service. But it's also like, is this a real person or is this some kind of BS? Because again, that trust meter is really high. People signed up for things and they kind of sucked.

Sarah Connell: So who is this person? I think it's less who we're surrounding ourselves with and following, and more, do we have integrity? Are we the real deal? And what is the real deal for each of us? Because values differ. Some people value the Lamborghini and the jet, and that can be exciting and sexy and cool. Other people value knowing you're not going to sign them up for your thing and then not show up. That you talk a good game at the front, but the fulfillment is crap. So more stories. That's why I think the stories of people using the thing or doing the thing matter a lot more to people, because they want a real peek behind the curtain, not the perfect marketing.

Ryan Hanley: That's a really good point. What's funny is you see people almost trying to jump that trend who have played the "my perfect life" game—like "I rent the Maserati" game—and then all of a sudden they'll have one where their hair is messy, but then you're like, "Wait a minute, you still put like six filters on it." So I don't really know what we're doing here. "Okay, I just woke up and their hair is messy and I'm gonna go do some pushups," but it's perfectly framed in one third and the light. I'm like, come on.

Ryan Hanley: I also think what's interesting about this particular trend—and I'm just kind of dialing in on this because I think a lot of people who are new to the game or are trying to realize they can't run their local coffee shop on just word of mouth alone anymore—it is who you grab on to early and who you start to follow and try to mimic. Who you mimic early really sets the tone for what you're going to be going forward. My point in saying all of this is that I think those "rental influencers"—I'm going to do whatever—they've become easier and easier to spot. That's part of what's happening. There are all these cracks in their narrative that we couldn't really see before, or we weren't trained to see before. We've been in the market long enough that now the consumer goes, "Wait a minute, he's 21. He doesn't have a McLaren. Come on." We weren't looking behind the curtain before; we were just enjoying the show. There's nothing wrong with any of it.

Ryan Hanley: But you see someone—we're in the book space as a way to build brand and thought leadership and revenue—and there are these younger people on YouTube at the end of last year saying, "Just let AI write your book in an hour and make a hundred thousand dollars a month on book sales." I'm like, that is complete... No. First of all, there's nothing in that book anyone wants. ChatGPT can only pull what's already been written. By its very nature, that book is not going to be... unless it's a super basic how-to manual. But there's no way you're doing 100K on book sales. I think a lot of us have our version of suspicion about those things now. We say, "I want to see the real things." You're going to hear people doing more of what Alex Hormozi calls "W's and L's"—the wins and losses. The more vlog-style content, which is what we're doing a lot more of now: "I'm going to take you on this journey. Here's all the things that didn't work. I'm going to show you the total fail." Not in that boring "my weakness is that I'm a perfectionist" crap, but really going, "I'm pulling my hair out. This sucks. I'm embarrassed. This didn't work. I'm scared about money because we launched and it didn't work." That's actually going to create connection and trust, as long as you still figured it out and give people the results. Versus before, it was just fun to watch the show.

Sarah Connell: There are people that I follow that I know are completely full of shit, but I just think they're so ridiculous that I find it entertaining. It's just entertainment.

Ryan Hanley: Exactly. Entertainment. And would you buy from them? That's the question. Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn't. But for something really high ticket, you might not sign up for that mentor if you don't think... but you will definitely keep watching because it's candy. It's fun.

Sarah Connell: Yeah.

Ryan Hanley: I keep coming back to this, but it's something I think about a lot in my own work. The internet was so new that so many of these tactics, these templated-style videos—hook, turn, build, turn, hook, paint—not that those formats are wrong, but what I've found is if I find someone new and they're just using one of these boilerplate templates that's been passed around forever in the D2C space or the ad space, I can pick up on that template now. It's not because I'm some template expert; it's because I've just watched enough content. We're 25 years into digital creation. I think our audiences have become more mature. They're more able to figure out the bullshit. Their bullshit meter is stronger and has more filters on it.

Ryan Hanley: So I think things like what you described—going back to that Casey Neistat style, 2015-2016 vlog-style video—it's a pattern interrupt. Instead of the same hook template that every influencer watches, they're like, "Wait a minute, she didn't start with the standard urgency hook. She just kind of started talking to me." That's really interesting. It's a pattern interrupt. It's like, what is everyone else doing? Figure out a way to do you inside a format that might be slightly different. But here's where my question goes to you: if that's true, why is it so hard for people to pattern interrupt or do different things? Everyone just wants the super secret template that's not secret. Why do we cave to conformity? Why is that the case?

Sarah Connell: I think there are a couple key reasons, and I want to cave to it all the time, so I'm just going to cop to it. Wouldn't we just love to say, "If I just do my YouTube videos like this hook, what I'm going to deliver, a call to action..." Wouldn't that be nice? First of all, it's exhausting to think about. With all the stuff we do as entrepreneurs, now I've got to innovate a whole new framework? I can't even. It's enough to film the content with a template you've already done. So the idea of innovation takes a lot more energy, and we're already kind of tapped.

Sarah Connell: Second, it does require creative thinking. In our world right now, I feel like I have to fight for my own white space. And who am I fighting? Myself. It takes white space—thinking time, visionary time, creative time, CEO time. That is space that we often don't have. We have a 2.9-second attention span. That's the stat of the average attention span right now in 2025. To actually get into a state where we are accessing new ideas and being innovative and creative is asking a lot of ourselves. So there's an undertow of, "Oh my God, this is going to be tiring. It's going to take more time." The fruits will be so phenomenal and it's so worth it, but I even know this. I teach creativity. We're creating creative thought leader assets. And I know how hard it is to do it, even when I know how valuable and crucial it is. So if you're not even sure, you're just going to use the templates. I think it's the fatigue. It's also the fear. We're afraid: "What if I can't innovate something? What if I'm not original? What if I don't have any creative ideas?" That is a real fucking fear. We can feel like, "Do I have creative ideas, or am I just derivative, rinse and repeat?" To have to think of new concepts and film a day of videos is a big ask.

Ryan Hanley: I'm with you. I think most people who say they aren't creative—that's not true. It's just prioritization. It's way easier to feel good about yourself at the end of the day by ticking off 15 tasks on your to-do list than it is to have a block of four hours in the morning for free-form writing, researching, putting together a script, or however you create. You get to the end, and what's interesting is if you get something out of that, the feeling of fulfillment is a thousand times more than the to-do list. But the difference—and this is something I talk about a lot in my work with leaders—is uncertainty. Uncertainty is such a paralyzing concept to us. We say, "Okay, I could spend eight hours doing tasks today, and I know at the end of those eight hours, I'm going to have this positive feeling of getting stuff done. I know that. Or I could spend four hours of open creative time to try to create a script for a new video I want to do, and I'm not sure if I'm going to love what comes out the back end." Even though the reward is 10X, a thousand X more, we simply will not prioritize that because of the uncertainty. So how do you start to coach your clients around this idea of leaning into this creative space?

Sarah Connell: I always experiment on myself. I'm the first one to say, "Oh God, do I have a creative idea ever?" So a couple of hacks. I'm a big neuroscience person, so I love tapping in. One of the things I'm a really big fan of is brain priming. It comes from neuro-linguistic programming. There are different modalities. The idea is that everyone—Picasso said every child is born an artist. We are all creative. We all have access to what's called the genius zone. I believe that about every human being. There is no exception in my mind. So then the question is how do we tap in? We can't control if we get a good idea at the end of the four hours; that's the rub. But you are going to get good ideas. If you keep making the space, the ideas are going to come. You're going to get those downloads.

Sarah Connell: How do we brain prime ourselves? One thing you can start the night before. There are many different studies about asking your subconscious mind before going to bed. You could say, "While I'm asleep, give me some cool ideas for content creation or my book or email marketing." Really start to prime your brain at night to work on it while you go to sleep. I even go to sleep listening to different hypnosis, meditation, or binaural beats. You can get them free on YouTube. There's all kinds of really cool stuff. You're training your subconscious mind, who has all the goodies, to offer those up. It's not that I wake up every morning writing down, but throughout the day, they'll just start popping in. They'll come in the shower. They call it the shower principle for a reason. I use that time very strategically. I'll sit there and say, "Okay, I'm going to tap in. I'm going to let that be white space instead of having a fight with whoever in my head."

Sarah Connell: But then there's even more. I record these for all of our clients, but you can use different binaural beats to get into the genius zone. You want to hit alpha and theta at the same time. We've seen pictures of that. You can habit stack—have alpha theta stuff on while making breakfast or getting dressed. You're just getting the brain as primed as possible to get those ideas.

Ryan Hanley: I don't want to interrupt you on this point, but I want to share something with you and the audience. So I have... I'm hyperactive bipolar, so I'm constantly living either manic or hyper manic, right?

Ryan Hanley: So while I find myself to be highly creative because of that, it's also like, sometimes it's like getting a download from this huge cable, and sometimes it's like this tiny... Okay, so I've been researching a lot about exactly what you're talking about—brain waves, how sounds impact them. I found this app called Endel, E-N-D-E-L. It's like two bucks a month, and it has all these different modes and the ability for you to actually make your own versions of this.

Sarah Connell: Yes.

Ryan Hanley: And I'm telling you, I don't listen to music half as much as I used to. I have chopped my podcast listening in half because instead of walking around the house listening to a podcast, now I just have these beats in the back, and I'm like doing shit. I hate to do the dishes and folding laundry. And like, I got down and walked. I'm a single guy. I got two kids. But like, I'm on my hands and knees washing the floor. How many single dudes out there are on their hands washing the floor? Right? Like, just doesn't happen. And I'm like, wait a minute. I'm super productive right now. Let's go. I'll wash. So it's crazy. It's the beat. Right? So then I dug into the science of it, and it's everything you just said—the way the progressions work, the way they do it. Right? So if I'm in focus mode, it's perfect. If I'm in relax mode, sleep mode, reading mode, whatever. So that's a really cool app I found. It's super inexpensive. I'm not sponsored or anything, but I use it every single day. Endel, E-N-D-E-L.

Sarah Connell: I am downloading that the minute we get off this interview, because I'm obsessed with all my little... you know, we record them. Like I have, you know, I put it to the music, and we'll do ones for creativity, for thought leadership, for content creation. I mean, you're exactly right because we can create a genius state in our... So we think it sort of happens sometimes, wait to get inspired, but there's so much we can do. And then I think just really reminding ourselves—this is the mindset piece, right?—it's just saying like, I write down every day. It's going to sound... this is very embarrassing. I don't think I've ever confessed this anywhere. So it's just coming. I'm going to say it. But I write down—I do morning pages, like journaling in the morning and just sort of free writing, getting all your stuff out—and I write down, "I'm a creative genius" every single day. I write it out. And you know, that can sound whatever, but the point is, I'm reminding myself like I have the ability to tap into the same mind that tapped through Steve Jobs and, you know, name your favorite genius, your Einstein. Like, quantum physics has shown like there's a field, right? We can tap into it. And so I think just reminding ourselves of that, and getting excited for the treasure hunt, you know? When does that nudge, like you said, "I'm going to get down and watch this floor," because that very Zen, like chop wood, carry water, is going to bring in the ideas.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. It's why for most of my life, I was never a believer in manifesting. I read parts of *The Secret*, and frankly, I just didn't like the delivery. It just was too woo-woo for me, and I just never grabbed it. And then I listened to Andy Frisella, the MFCEO Project. And he one day randomly went off on this tangent about how manifesting has been an enormous part of his life. Now here's this big, burly, swearing, whatever guy, you know? You just wouldn't picture manifesting being in his toolkit. So then I was like, well, shit, if it works for this dude, right? Then maybe I should look into it. I did. And then I started looking into what you're actually doing. So I think manifesting does what's actually happening a disservice. For those that don't understand, the core concept here is you're priming your brain to look for certain things. That's what's happening. It's like when you buy a new car, and then all of a sudden you see that car everywhere. Or you get a green car, and every car is green. You're like, "I thought I was getting you this new color. They're everywhere." Right? So essentially, all you're doing is telling your brain—like what you're doing with "I'm a creative genius"—it's saying, "Your brain, look for creative things. I'm a creative person. Look for creative things. Don't look for mundane things. Don't look for things that have already been said. Look for creative things." So manifesting is really hacking your brain to basically put a special target on the radar for that type of thing. And when you start to think about—and again, you've talked about neuroscience and these different things—I think it's so incredibly important we get to that level. So many people got stopped at *The Secret* like me because they didn't love the way that book was delivered. But the idea, what's actually happening to your brain, is science. It's neurology. And if you can understand that piece, now waking up every morning and saying, "I'm going to be a great father. I'm going to be a great leader. And I'm going to be creative today." Bam. And then you just write that over and over again. Or, "I will be a bestselling author. I will be a bestselling author." Because then your brain starts going, "What do bestselling authors do? They connect with people like Sarah. They work on these projects every day. They block time to do these things." And you think you're just really motivating, getting things done, but you just basically hacked your brain to do those things. That's all it is.

Sarah Connell: And what I love—like you said, so many people, remember my husband was just like, "Oh, *The Secret*." I mean, it just made fun of it. It was just the work because again, it didn't give the science. Right? And that's fine because now lots of people have. But what's really fun is even knowing—because I think our rational brain wants to, it needs to make sense of this kind of thing. Instead of just thinking, "Oh, I'm in the shower saying I'm a creative genius. What the hell is that going to do?" But the reticular activating system is the part of the brain. And it's like a dog that will fetch whatever toy you throw. So if we throw the toy of like, "I'm overwhelmed, I'm tired, I'm broke"—that's what *The Secret* was kind of trying to get at—then it's not that it's doing some magical thing. I mean, even though it feels kind of fun and magic, it's that we filter out 90% of everything that comes across our radar. We have to, because we get like hundreds of thousands of impressions constantly bombarding. So our brain has to filter out most of it. And then what we do, if we're conscious of it, is we tell the reticular activating system, which is the filter, right? What to go look for. Like you said, if we say, "Go look for creativity," it's going to suddenly like, "Oh my gosh, I feel so creative." Or you get invited to do a class, or someone recommends a book and it's really inspiring, versus like, "Oh, I'm exhausted. I don't have time." It's going to fetch whatever we feed it. It doesn't judge it. It doesn't think if it's good for us. It just says, "I'll go get the bone you threw me." That's what we're doing.

Ryan Hanley: Have you read or heard about Abigail Shrier's book, *Bad Therapy*?

Sarah Connell: No, but I'm going to have an app and a book now. I want to know.

Ryan Hanley: I have read the short form of the book, and I've watched her do a couple of podcasts because I just didn't, you know, of all the time I had, but I wanted the concepts, right? So to be, you know, Abigail, I'm referencing your book. I'll go buy a copy just to get you paid because I shouldn't. She's amazing, but I haven't read the full book yet, to be honest, but I've gone through all the concepts and listened to her a ton. And the idea here is, you know, she basically calls out—and I'm going to forget the year, it was somewhere in, I think, the eighties—where the way therapy was delivered became like talking out your problems all the time. And essentially, if I'm pulling out her core concept at its highest level, what we're talking about is going to therapy and talking about, "My wife doesn't love me. She doesn't respect me. I don't get respect at work. I can't get ahead. I'm always..." All you're doing, to your point, is setting that in your brain. Your brain doesn't know the difference, right? If you couple that idea with... Have you ever read *The Untethered Soul* by Michael Singer?

Sarah Connell: Yes, yes, yes. One of my favorite books.

Ryan Hanley: I probably talk about that book too much on this show. It defined this idea that I could not get my head around, but always believed for a long time. Once you realize that your mind—the thing that's talking to you, that voice you hear in your brain—is not you. It's your mind. So if you think about it that way, right? So you're your soul. You have a body and a mind. And if you think of the mind as not you, what you're then able to do is program that thing like a computer to do exactly what you want. So if you program it with "I'm broke all the time, I can't get ahead, I can't get a good job, men or women don't like me, aren't attracted to me, I can't get fit, I'm not strong," then your mind doesn't know the difference. Your mind does not know the difference. All it's hearing is these things. If on the opposite side you said, "I'm funny, I'm happy, I'm filled with love, I connect, I grow," your mind's going, "Oh, well, I guess that's who I am. And that's the way that I should act." I just love these ideas. And obviously, I nerd out like you do. When we can detach ourselves from "This is who I am," right? And start saying, "This is who I want to become and who I want to be," you can program your brain and your mind to do those things, just like you would a computer. It's so exciting.

Sarah Connell: Right. And this is what they talk about—neuroplasticity. That's what it is. Everything is revisable. And I love what you're saying, too. Do you know, even it goes a step further, which is so fascinating to me—that our immune system, I think it was Deepak Chopra who first said this, so I want to always give credit—our immune system is eavesdropping on whatever thoughts we're running all the time. Our immune system, our longevity, like you're sort of... so our health or how long we're going to be on this planet, our finances, our happiness level, our influence or impact or success, whatever we want to call that piece. It's eavesdropping. Like, so your physical body is eavesdropping and getting the cues for how it should be. Like you said, fit. There's people that have struggled, "I can't lose weight. I can't do all this stuff." And then suddenly start working with this piece, and it's like, "I didn't even try." One of our team members released 52 pounds in the last six months, like not... And she's like, "I didn't go to Weight Watchers. I didn't..." I mean, she did change her movement and her food, but it came from that level of identity, which is what you're talking about. So who do we associate and what do we associate as "me"? And she started associating as a fit, healthy, strong, amazing, powerful woman. And people were like, "What did you do? Are you on Ozempic?" She said, "No, I didn't take anything. I just..." She had a new idea. She was running a different program. And that's what you're saying. We run a different program. And that's what's so cool. This is available to all of us. It's here. I love it.

Ryan Hanley: So, okay. So I want to take our remaining time together and transition just a little bit. So I've been listening to this. I'm an expert in a field. I may not feel I'm creative, but I'm believing our argument that I can be creative. Like, why a book? Aren't books super old school and no one reads anymore? Like, why would I take this expertise and use a book as the way to capture it and build a business around it?

Sarah Connell: Yeah. I love this so much because we did it. We did a webinar once on, "Is a book worth it?" Right? And obviously, you know, it's like a book saved my life 20-something years ago. So for me, I've got a whole history with that and paying that gift forward. That was my vow. You know, I loved your TED Talk on that.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah.

Sarah Connell: It's like, you know, just knowing that that was one of those like we have these mission moments in our lives. Right? But here's what's fascinating. Because you would think in a—I said earlier—a 2.9-second attention span world, why the hell would someone write a book? So I'm going to give the three that are most important to me in this year, just for 2025. So the first thing is so fascinating: the human brain, because you know I care about this stuff, can process in 1.8 seconds. They see your book cover, your name, your topic. So under the attention span barrier, that 2.9 seconds, the human brain will process, "Oh, Ryan's the expert on this. He has my solution." We give authority, whether that's deserved or not, because there's plenty of crappy books, but we think someone knows what it is. They have a system. So for if you're unknown, the reason to do a book is that it's a flag in the ground in your niche and in your industry to say, "I've got my unique take on this piece, and I have a solution." And because of this trust issue we talked about, someone's going to get the ZMOT moment with you. They're going to have that time and that intimacy because you took time, and you couldn't just whip out a video for one second on Facebook. It's a frigging book, right? So that's one thing. Then what's fascinating is at the beginning of this year, I think Eckhart Tolle re-released a book with Oprah, Martha Beck, Mel Robbins, and Gabby Bernstein. If people know those particular thought leaders, they all did January books. And these are all women who've had multiple *New York Times* bestsellers. They make many millions of dollars a year. It's not like they're... their household names to many people in certain circles and personal growth. So it's like, why another one, right? This isn't even the first book, but it gives them a reason to go on all the shows and all the podcasts and be booked as the keynote speaker for their six-figure speaking fee commands. Because the research is 80% of the time, people that get invited on a media outlet, a podcast, a keynote stage have released a book in the last year. Sometimes it can be longer than that, but it's so people keep writing them, whether you're really established or you're brand new, because it's a door opener to the visibility and the ability to get back and be relevant. So that top-of-mind awareness we hear about—people will invest in one of the three people that last crossed their radar. How do we maintain top-of-mind awareness? The book still has gravitas. It still does, no matter—even though there's so many books—it still has this ability to say, "There's something new. Something big. You've got a reason to go out and be visible and be top of mind again."

Ryan Hanley: Yeah, I used to talk about this topic. In another life, I used to talk a lot about content marketing back in like 2010 to 2015. It's whatever, different story for a different day. However, an idea that I used to share a lot back then, and I talked about in my first book—which please do not go look at the cover, it's the worst book cover ever, that's a whole story for a different show—was time and attention, right? And what I meant by that was like, if you produce something, say a long-form video, right? So this will probably end up being 45 minutes-ish, whatever the length. Okay? We could have also done this in five minutes, like a clip from ABC or CNBC or whatever, right? And you could have a thousand people watch that five-minute video, or you could have a hundred people watch your 45-minute video, right? My argument was always, I'd rather have the hundred people watch the 45-minute video because what's happening is every moment that their eyes and attention are on your content, they're building a connection to you and a deeper connection. So it's like you either need nine five-minute videos, right? Or one 45-minute video, right? And then get to explain your expertise. And to the book, you know, blog posts used to be all the rage, obviously 15, 20 years ago, right? And while blog posts can still be interesting, right? How many... in 2010, the guidance was 750-word blog posts. If someone sent you a link to a 750-word blog post today and you looked at it, would you even scan it? You'd be like, "There's no way they can deliver anything of value to me in 750 words." Right? Now blog posts are like 4,000, 5,000 words. They're like chapters of entire books in a blog post. And it's almost like we have micro content and super long-form content, and everything in between is dying. Does that feel like a good...?

Sarah Connell: It's true. This year, it's going to be the micro to get someone intrigued, and then it's long form. Long form is king, queen, whatever you want to call it. Long form. But we need the micro is important, but the middle form, it's like just almost... I mean, you know what, like Substack is big. There are different things going on. And I still think the shorts—like an amuse-bouche, a little hors d'oeuvre of us on YouTube or something—is worth cutting the podcast that you already made, picking a nugget, a good soundbite, having that short. But then the long form is everything right now.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah, yeah. You just... I look at just the comments that I get. Very... I get less comments, and the comments I do get are often just like, "Good job," or "This is cool," or "I'm feeling this today," right? On the short form. But on the long form, I will get like epilogue emails from people like, "Oh my god, here's my experience similar to what you talked about. I couldn't get out of this, and here's what I did." And you're like, "Oh my god, I made a freaking impact. Look what's happening here." Right? But that doesn't happen on the short form stuff. And I think we have to be very careful with how we split our time and attention. Really, short form should be systematized unless you're like a TikTok creator is your job. But I couldn't be more with you. I mean, to me, books, podcast series, long-form podcast series, really well done. Courses are tough. They can work and can be important, but I think we have to be very careful with those. But all this time on middle-form content—five-minute videos, blog posts, short newsletters that aren't really super valuable—all that stuff is dying, and people aren't subscribing. And it's a really interesting time.

Sarah Connell: Well, Ryan, I want to be respectful of your time. This has been a tremendous conversation. You're welcome back anytime. Consider us a friend. Anything you have going on, please come back again, because there's like a million more topics we could talk about. But if someone's listening to this and wants to get deeper into your world, how do they do that?

Ryan Hanley: Yeah, definitely. I'm a big YouTube fan. So certainly DM me on Instagram, just at Sarah Connell, and I'm S-A-R-A-C-O-N-N-E-L-L. I know I don't have an H on Sarah. And then our YouTube channel—we're doing a lot of cool stuff over there. And I don't know if you all have heard this, how YouTube is going to soon have what it was like in Facebook in the beginning, where you can really build community and have almost more like what Facebook groups had. That's coming soon on YouTube this year. And so it's at Thought Leader Media is where we are over there.

Sarah Connell: Guys, and whether you're watching the show on YouTube or listening wherever you listen to podcasts, just scroll down into the description or show notes, et cetera, and I'll have links to all of Sarah's stuff, how you get deeper into her world. Thank you so much for taking this time. What a tremendous conversation. It's been a blast.

Ryan Hanley: Thanks, Ryan.

[In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home...]

Sarah Connell: We'll be right back.