--:-- Ryan Hanley: The idea is don't strive for balance. Too many times we try to live our lives by the standards, by the accordance of what other people tell us we should be doing. Let's go.
--:-- [Intro music plays]
--:-- Ryan Hanley: The Ryan Hanley Show shares the original ideas, habits, and mindsets of world-class original thinkers you can use to produce extraordinary results in your life and business. This is The Way.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Everyone, welcome back to the show. Happy to have you here today. We have an incredible guest, Clara Capano. Clara is an international speaker, educator, and the host of *Working Women Channel* and *Living in Real Life TV*. Clara is phenomenal. Her work on clarity, on finding harmony, aligned with so much of what we talk about on this show. You're going to hear why work-life balance is bullshit, how to align the season of your life with your work style, and why the missing key to massive success is clarity and how we find it.
--:-- Guys, having a clear focus on what we need to do to get things done is the capstone to success, whether we're working inside a large organization or we're entrepreneurs. When you're listening to this, think about the season of life that you're in when Clara describes that concept. We talk about how harmony, and not balance, is the key, and we have to understand the season of our life to understand what harmony looks like for us. This is masterwork. You are not going to want to miss how Clara breaks this down. You're not going to want to miss hearing her takes on exactly why we miss so often with this concept of work-life balance.
--:-- If you're enjoying this show, if you have comments, leave them in the reviews on Apple or Spotify, or come to the comment section of YouTube. Let me know what you think about this conversation. How do you find harmony in your work? How do you find harmony in your life? And does this concept make sense versus work-life balance? We get into it. Phenomenal episode. Love you for being here. If it's your first time, make sure you subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. Just know I love you for being part of this community. Let's get on to Clara Capano.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So talk to me about that difference. Why not balance? Why harmony? And how are they different?
--:-- Clara Capano: Well, when you're looking at balance, think of a teeter totter. It only balances for a short time. Life doesn't stay that way. It's constantly moving. The idea is don't strive for balance. Strive for the trade-offs. Strive for finding the ways that work for you. Too many times we try to live our lives by the standards, by the accordance of what other people tell us we should be doing, when that may or may not work for us. Who are we to judge someone else for the way that they show up? Just because I'm a morning person doesn't mean that you have to be a morning person if that doesn't work for you. Sometimes the female stays at home. Sometimes the male stays at home and raises the kids. That's their idea of harmony.
--:-- As a single mom raising my son from the time he was one and a half, I had to look at these things. I couldn't run my days the way that other people in a dual-parent household did. By trying to meet those standards, I was beating myself up and living with so much guilt and so much shame. What I really had to do was lean into what it was that I really needed. What was it that my son really needed? And to live it that way.
--:-- For me, harmony is sitting at the table with my son when he would do his homework, and I would sit next to him with my computer out doing my homework. Harmony was going to the park and being there and being mom for 45 minutes, and then saying, "I'm going to go take a break," and that's when I would check my voicemails and emails. Harmony for me meant that when I am at a speaking gig, when I am done and everybody else would go out and party and celebrate, I was back in my hotel room answering my email so that when I returned home, I could be present when I needed to be present. It's about learning what is really going to work for you and giving yourself the grace and the credence to not have to answer to what works for everyone else, and just finding what works for you.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I love that. It also plays into this concept that I have to admit I was unaware of until like two or three years ago: the seasons of our lives. We think we need to be the same person or that we have to be doing the same things all the time. It's like, no. Right now, I am also a single dad. I have 10 and 8 year old boys, and they're hardcore into baseball. It's hardcore baseball season in the north. For me to pretend that I could give max effort to my work projects right now is a joke. It's impossible. A few years ago, that would drive me up a wall. "Oh, I'm not getting work done." I'd be putting stress and pressure on myself. But you said feeling guilty, like "Oh, I'm getting behind." Now I'm just like, "Sorry, my kids have a baseball game at 2 PM today. I'm not going to be there. I'm off the grid. I'm sorry."
--:-- Clara Capano: That's the thing. What I find is that when you get clear on those priorities and you get in alignment with it, the right people come to you. When I was doing it, one of the trade-offs I had to make was rather than being on the road so much, I did a lot more individual coaching so I could work from home. Then as Nicholas got older, now he's 19, I can be on the road full time. You can have those different seasons. What I found is that the clients I would bring in also valued family because they wanted to go and be with their kids when they were playing sports, just like I did. You sort of attract who you are. If you're in alignment, you're going to attract other people that are also in that same alignment and share the same core values.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's a wonderful take. I think you're 100% on the button. I think it goes the other way too, as the consumer of information or individuals. I just had a conversation with one of my clients. He brought up a particular thought leader on a topic who is brilliant, absolutely brilliant, with tons of great ideas. He was like, "Dad, I'm not doing this. I can never do it the way he does it." I said, "Dude, you're 41 years old with three kids. He's 33 with no kids. What he is talking about is amazing for a 33-year-old with no kids. But at 41 with three kids, you have to find pieces of what he's saying that you can apply and give yourself—and the word you use, grace, is a core value for me—give yourself grace to the fact that you're going to do it your way. It's not going to be his way. His way is his way because of the season of the life that he's currently in. That doesn't mean you can't learn from him, but do not take his success or what he's doing and use that as a value structure for your life. It's just two completely different things."
--:-- Clara Capano: It is. I think we also have to understand that so much of what we are seeing is somebody's highlight reel. We are seeing what they want us to see, not what's happening often behind the scenes. You hit it spot on with having to look at the reality for yourself. I see so many people that I work with having that comparisonitis with others, but they're not looking at the reality. Like you said, you have kids, they don't. Maybe they have a spouse, you don't. All of those things are going to be different. You have to really do exactly what you said: pick knowledge and figure out how you can apply it in your way so that you can have the success meant for you.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: So let's say for most of my career, I've bought into this work-life balance, whatever that means. I'm trying to pounder the grind during the day and then be home, and then I feel guilty on both sides of the equation because I feel like I'm never doing enough work, but I'm also never present or home enough. It's not working for me. This is the first time I'm hearing about the idea of thinking through harmony. What is the first step action activity? How do I start to break myself of the balance idea and move into a mindset of harmony?
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--:-- Clara Capano: That word mindset is so powerful because mindset really is the key to everything. It is the only thing that we can control. When we get our mindset right, it then goes into our energy, our focus, and then the actions that we take. The first step is you have to create your vision. Your vision is going to be your compass. For me, I had a vision early on, and success to me was all about the title. It was how many titles can I get? What accolades and achievements can I have? Do I have the big house? Do I have the fancy car? When I was in my 20s, that was fine. That was the season I was in. Then I found things were not working because my vision changed. Now for me, success was about being a good mom, about being a role model, about leaving impact for other people. I had to change my actions in accordance with my new vision.
--:-- What happens is when you get clear on the vision, you can then use that for your checks and balances. When opportunities come to you, you can line it up and say, "If I say yes to this opportunity, is it moving me towards my vision or away from my vision?" You can start making better decisions and feeling okay with the decisions you're making because they're part of a bigger picture.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I've shared this story before on the podcast, but the largest miss for me in my career ever—just culturally, position, peers, the leadership executive team—the biggest mistake. The minute I stepped in the building as an employee for the first time, I knew I had made a mistake. I chased a huge salary in a company that was sexy as hell, that looked great, sounded great. There were all the things on a LinkedIn profile that were home runs, except all my internal bells and whistles were going off about this not being a good fit. This is not where I should be. This is a misalignment on my value structure. This is a misalignment on the work that I want to do. But it was the big title at a sexy company with a huge paycheck. I was only there for nine months.
--:-- Maybe for someone else in a different season of their life, that probably would have been an amazing job. But for me and what I was trying to do, it wasn't. It was the wake-up call for me to the things that you're saying. I started to learn these lessons because I was going, "How can I be unhappy here?" I was talking to my ex-wife at the time, and I'm like, "I don't understand. I'm miserable, but the specs are huge. We're taking the kids on great vacations." She's like, "But look at this and this." And I'm like, "I know, but I'm miserable. I just don't understand." Then it's like, "Is there something wrong with me? What's wrong with me? Why can't I just be happy?" You go through this tornado of thoughts and mind-ick.
--:-- Here's maybe my question. What we're talking about, I think some people feel is fluffy. It's ethereal. It sounds great on podcasts and when you're giving keynotes, but in real life, that's not the way it works. Yet to me, the more I get into my career—I'm 43 years old now—this feels like the most important stuff. You have to have this stuff figured out first before all the other stuff lines up, or you're living that slow suffering. The quote is, "The slow, dull suffering man feels when they're misaligned." This is so important. How do we start to break down the idea that this is fluffy, soft skill, ethereal stuff, and this really is a core activity that we must do to find our success in life?
--:-- Clara Capano: I wanted to share a little bit of my story because it's very similar to yours. The truth is, I am one of the least fluff people you will find. I am very strategic. Even though I believe in those things and I do the visualizations and everything, when it comes to what I do, I'm very direct. This stuff works, and I know it works because I learned it the hard way.
--:-- My story was just like you. I had my eye on the prize. I was in my early 30s, working for a real estate company, managing real estate offices. I had my eye on the prize. It was the office that I always wanted. It was the crème de la crème. It was the ace. I got the call three days after my son was born that the office was available and I could have my dream job. I needed to start right away. So when my son was two and a half weeks old, I went back to work to this so-called dream job. It was disastrous. It was horrible because the season I was in before my son was born had that vision. The season after my son was born, the vision changed. Living out of alignment led to a divorce. It led to anxiety and depression, really bad living habits that were not good. My life started to fall apart. I wasn't listening because I didn't think it would be possible. I thought, "What's wrong with me? I have everything I ever asked for, and it was falling apart."
--:-- It was through this that I had my awakening. I call it my moment of clarity. That's when I started to design a way out. It took me about three years to come to the awakening. What I learned is that when you live in alignment—you get clear on your vision, you start looking at where you're really investing your time, who you're investing it with, what are the right activities—you learn the harmony of the action and the rest and how that rest and reflection is so pivotal. You learn how to track and measure. It's not that you cannot do something. As an overachiever, I really struggled with "I can do this." "I can do this" is different than "I should do this." When I started to take control back of how I ran my days, and I started to do it on my terms without asking for permission and doing it unapologetically because I knew it was the right thing for me, I worked less hours, I made three times more money, and I was happy. People started to respond to me differently. Before all of this, no one ever said, "I'm so attracted to your energy." I hear that all the time now. I get people all day saying, "Oh, do you want to do this new job?" No, I am living my dream job now because I learned how to do it on my terms by getting very clear on my vision and getting very clear on living by those core values. It could sound like fluff. It is the furthest thing from fluff because it's a strategy. When you live that strategy, everything else falls into place.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: One of the core missing pieces I see so often, particularly in high achievers, is this word: clarity. Why are we struggling today? Maybe this has always been the case, but let's say it feels today like—and some of this could be social media, the massive information in general, our lives are just stuffed with things—it feels today like very few people are clear on what they want to do, what they need to do, how to do it. First, why is that the case? What are you seeing in the world that is creating this lack of clarity? And what is the first step that people can start to take to gain that clarity?
--:-- Clara Capano: That's a really great question. Clarity is power because when you are clear, you actually move forward and take action with conviction and commitment. My personal thought is it's fear. If I live with my clarity, I might upset somebody else. My clarity may not allow you to live your way. We tend to want to be people pleasers. Also, there is so much noise and so much confusion from the outside world. Confusion about expectations, how we should live our life, that we need to be here and not there, how we should parent, how we need to be productive. There is so much misinformation and judgment that we get confused. We have to be brave enough and courageous enough to turn off the noise and to put our blinders on and to say, "All of that sounds great." Almost like what we started the conversation off with: take the information and repackage it to how it's going to work for you. We need to let go of the fear that my job is to live my life for you, for someone else, so they can achieve their goals. Understand that by me achieving my goals, that's how I'm actually going to be able to deliver more value to help others achieve their goals.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: When I think about fear and fear of failure in particular, how I've started reframing it is more: no one's afraid of failure. Failure is just a label of a thing. It's a construct. It doesn't actually exist. Failure is not a real thing in my mind. What we're actually afraid of is the loss of status that we'll have from the various constituencies that may matter to us, and in some cases don't matter to us but we still consider them, by making a certain decision. If I stop drinking beers with my buddies on Friday and instead I drink water because I want to work out in the morning to get fit, now I can't relate to them as much because they're all out of shape and don't value that. I'm going to be different from them. I enjoy their company, but what are they going to think about me? They're going to make fun of me. "Who are you? What do you think you are?"
--:-- I'll give you an example. I did 75 Hard in the fall last year. I don't know if you've ever heard of that program. I'll most likely do it again. It's probably going to be an annual thing for me. I loved it. I tend to like having a drink here or there, probably more than I should. I know it's not good for me, but I still do it. I don't like that about myself, but it happens. What 75 Hard did—for those that don't know, it's a mental fitness program with six requirements. One of them is you can't have a drink for 75 days. That actually was the easiest part. The hardest part was the gallon of water. You had to work out twice a day for 45 minutes. One of those workouts has to be outside. For my inside workout, I love lifting weights, but I wanted to do something different. I started learning boxing. I've never boxed before. I have no intention of ever sparring, but I wanted to learn the mobility in the workouts. I filmed myself boxing and put it on Instagram, not to be an influencer, but just for accountability.
--:-- The amount of "Who are you? Why are you doing this? Dude, you're 42 years old. Why do you need to do this?" All this negativity. Not even necessarily in a way to be negative towards me, but their mindset was, "It's different than what most 42-year-old people do. So why are you doing this? I don't understand." I think ultimately it's making them feel bad that they're not doing something. It was such an eye-opening experience around human behavior and thought process. One of my favorite parts about it was boxing people, like actual boxers, would comment all the time. They'd say, "I'd knock you out in one punch." They'd make all this stuff and be super negative. Long descriptions of how they would knock me out. I'm like, "No duh, dude. I'm a 43-year-old who doesn't even know what I'm doing. I'm watching YouTube videos." So I would respond, "Hey, thank you so much for the feedback. I'm just learning. I just started. I have no intention of being a boxing influencer or a professional. I just enjoy the sport and find it challenging." Then their next comment would be just as long, but it would be like, "Oh dude, you need to get this thing and watch this video. This piece of equipment will help you do this." And then they became incredibly positive. I was like, "This is insane. You wrote me three paragraphs on how I was terrible and this horrible person, and then the next comment is like you're teaching me."
--:-- Clara Capano: It was because you were no longer a threat.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Exactly. I think that's what you did. When you do these things, it's less about you and more about a reflection of themselves.
--:-- Clara Capano: I did a similar thing in January. I decided to not drink in January. I had a family trip for my sister's 60th birthday. We all went to Mexico, and I said, "I'm not going to be drinking." Oh my gosh, "What's wrong?" Luckily, my family knows me and knows how regimented and solid I am in my grounding values. None of them cared. They were just like, "Okay." I'm the girl that goes to bed at 8:30 at night because I'm up at 5:00 in the morning. All my friends would tease me. Now they're just like, it's just part of it. I was going to a networking event last night that was going until 8:00, and they're like, "Oh my god, it's going to be a late night for you." It's important to me, and if I'm important to them, they'll do it. But there are so many other people out there that don't get it. I don't know if it's just age, but you get to a point where you're like, "I just don't care anymore. This is what I need to do for me." Because at the end of the day, when I look at what I was accomplishing versus what they were accomplishing, when I look at my level of happiness versus their level of happiness, it's such a vastly different world. I like who I am. I like the life that I have created for myself. I can look in the mirror at myself at the end of each day and feel proud of the work that I did. That's all I have to answer to.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I completely agree. You used the word awakening. I had a guest on a few episodes ago. Her story is that she found herself in jail in her 20s, and she woke up behind bars. It was an awakening moment for her. I asked her the same question, and I'm very interested in your take on this: Do you think people have to have a rock bottom moment before they can be shook loose from whatever the malaise is that's keeping them doing what everyone expects of them, but makes them miserable?
--:-- Clara Capano: I think there has to be something. I don't know if it's rock bottom because I think that's very subjective. For me, it was my son when he was three years old, taking the phone out of my hand and saying, "Mommy, you're not paying attention to me." That was my moment. I have someone else, and for her, she was obese. It was the doctor basically saying, "You're going to die." That was her moment. Would some people say that's rock bottom? There was still a roof over their head. They had food in the refrigerator. It wasn't rock bottom like Eric Thomas who was living on the streets and homeless. I think you have to have your moment for when you're finally going to be ready to be honest. When are you going to be honest and take the responsibility to change? Because until the pain is strong enough, it's hard to find a way out until you're really in that pain. It seems like we excuse away so many moments that could be that moment. "I know 20 people that are divorced." "All my friends look just like I do." "I work hard and I deserve to have a night out and get smashed and feel like crap on Saturday." We have these things, and we're really good at excusing them away.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: How do people develop the awareness to start to see these moments for what they are? As the Ryan Holiday thing, these are obstacles that essentially point us in the direction that we should be following. How do we develop that awareness in our life to see these moments for potential turning points?
--:-- Clara Capano: Can I share a funny story first?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yes, please.
--:-- Clara Capano: You're a little younger than me, so hopefully you'll know who I'm talking about. When I was young, my favorite band is Duran Duran. When I was 12, 13, I developed anorexia. Doctors telling me, parents telling me, friends telling me, none of it mattered until the doctors were ready to put me into the hospital. I was going to miss the Duran Duran concert. That was the moment of clarity. I'm like, "All right, I think I'll start eating." I had escape routes planned in the hospital, my friends picking me up. I think we have to be ready. To answer your question, in retrospect, it's reflection time. Maybe journaling when these things happen. I can think of all the red flags that came up to tell me that I was going down the wrong path. The crying all the way to work. The wishing that I would just get into an accident so I could have a couple of days of rest where nobody would bother me. The husband who, rather than saying, "Oh, he just isn't supporting me," was like, "No, he's worried about you. You're not showing up." I think just taking more time to reflect, to write things down.
--:-- I was talking with someone earlier today, and she was saying that feelings aren't really feelings. Feelings are a reflection of the programs, of the thoughts that you have. When you're feeling sad, what is the program? When you're feeling uneasy, what is the program? I think leaning into these feelings of uncertainty, of fear, of anger, and starting to say, "Where is this coming from?" Because chances are there's a truth that we need to look at. Start to look at what the patterns are that are there.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Have you ever read *The Untethered Soul*?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Very good. That was a defining book for me. I've always had this sense—and I'm sure this wasn't an original thought, I'm sure I picked it up from a bunch of different sources—that we're not the voice in our head. We're not our mind. We're this something else. I also have a very strong belief in God, and I believe there's more in a deeper consciousness. That's my personal beliefs. I always had this sense that I wasn't the voice in my head because the voice in my head is kind of a dick, seemingly weak, very short-sighted, and pain-averse. I was like, "That's not who I believe myself to be. So where's that disconnect?"
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And then when I read *The Untethered Soul* and the way that it's laid out in that book around how you are this other thing—call it a soul, a being, whatever you want, consciousness—you're this. And your mind and your body are simply mechanical systems meant to provide data points to you that you can then use however you like. It solidified that in my head and allowed me to start saying, "Okay, I'm sad." No, I'm not sad. There is sadness around something. It's a data point. What is that? Where is that coming from? And how can I fix it, adjust it? Maybe I just have to deal with it, right?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: When you view these things, particularly emotions and feelings, I used to think they're all just bullshit. I was more like, keep them at arm's length. I do not believe that's the right way. When I started to think of them as data points—like you're a business professional, an entrepreneur, a leader—and you're getting a report. Your sadness meter is at three, your happiness meter is at five. You start to look at them as data points. One, you're emotionally detached enough that you don't start to take them on as yourself. Abigail Schreier wrote that most recent book, *Bad Therapy*, where it's like, if you just ruminate on these horrible feelings over and over again, all you're doing is perpetuating them and entrenching them in your soul. If you see them as data points, well, now I'm not sad. There's just sadness about this situation. How do I deal with that? What's the appropriate next step? Not "I'm sad." You're not that thing. Your body and your mind are sending you feedback.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Man, when you start—and I'm not doing a great job and I haven't put this into any kind of system—it's just my viewpoints. But it has changed my ability to handle situations in a way that I can't even fathom. It completely changed my ability. Like you said, when you can sort of take the emotion out of it and look at where it's coming from, you can approach it in a more logical way. You can take ownership of it, take more responsibility, and find a way to work through it. If it's a good feeling, how can I create more of this? If it's a negative feeling, how can I approach it differently? It's the same adage: we can't control what happens. All we can control is how we respond to it. So if you're understanding where it's coming from, it's going to help you respond in a more purposeful and intentional way.
--:-- Clara Capano: Yeah. I saw in one of your speaking reels, you talked about three questions that you ask yourself at the end of every day. Could you share what those are? And then I'd like to talk through each one individually.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Absolutely. This all sort of came about when I started to reinvent my definition of success as I was changing seasons. Whereas before it was all about checking off the boxes. What I do now is I ask myself three questions at the end of the day: Did I show love? Did I inspire? And did I contribute positively to the world today? If I can say yes to those three things, it was a successful day for me. That is my meter for how I define success now.
--:-- Clara Capano: What does love look like in that context?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: To me, it's kindness. It is gratitude, compassion for others, being present and showing up fully for others, giving the best of myself to another person.
--:-- Clara Capano: Talk to me a little bit about the idea of being present. I'm reading *The Power of Now* by Eckhart Tolle right now. Classic. Don't know how I haven't read it before, but it's all about this idea of being present. It is so incredibly difficult to be in the present moment only. When you are, you experience life in a way that I think is pure joy, almost regardless of the situation. But it is so difficult, especially with all the noise today, to be present. What does that mean to you and how do you create a sense of presence in your life?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: This was shared with me by one of my mentors. I think we've all heard it: the greatest gift that you can give is yourself, being truly there for someone. This is under the umbrella of emotional intelligence, building empathy. One of the reasons it's so challenging is because we are faced with distractions about every three minutes, and it takes us about 15 to 17 minutes to get our focus back. My whole goal is to deliver value to other people, to serve other people. I cannot serve at my highest level when I am multitasking, when I am not showing up as my best. I want to make the most out of each moment I have. Time is so valuable. That's why I'm very passionate about helping people learn to leverage and invest their time, because it's the one commodity that we do not get back. I want to savor it because we only get one trip around the sun. I want to make sure that I am not wasting any moment.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: For me, being present means when I'm here with you, my phone is away. I'm not answering those things. I heard this one time: even if you go out to lunch with someone and you have your phone upside down on the table, non-consciously, the message they get is that that phone is still more important than them. So put it away. Be here. If you're at a concert, you don't need to be taking pictures. Enjoy it. Take it in. Those moments with your kids, with your significant others, with your friends—really embrace it. It's not perfect. The distractions are still going to come. We can't stop them. It's just a matter of can we come up with strategies to minimize the distractions as much as possible. So even if we're at an event and you and I are talking and we have that person standing right here, I'm with you, because that's where my presence needs to be. It's a lot of discipline. It's practice. It's a skill set. I find that I get so much more out of it. I build deeper relationships, more trust. And again, I can deliver more value when I am fully present.
--:-- Clara Capano: I'm sure you'd agree with this, but as a speaker, I've found that you give your presentation, your keynote—I like to call them performances—and then afterwards, there are people who want to talk to you. Most of the time they don't actually have questions. They just want to share their experience with what you said, which is a blessing. Even though you might be emotionally exhausted, it's part of the job and it's a wonderful thing. What I've found in doing this and being around other speakers is that by taking that—you may be completely exhausted after an hour, and you should be—the last thing you want to do is talk more. But if you can muster the ability to be present with someone, even for two or three minutes in that moment, just present with them, listen to their story, acknowledge them, maybe ask a follow-up question or confirm what they've said, and give them your full attention for two or three minutes, that person will feel like they've known you and talk about you like they've known you their entire life.
--:-- Clara Capano: This goes for all interactions, but I've particularly seen it there. We all just want to be heard. If you can just let someone know, "Hey, you got to barf on me for five minutes about this story that relates to something I said," and I can sit here and make eye contact with you and acknowledge you and listen to you, they're going to walk away. You even see them—they'll come up kind of timid and tell you their story. Then as they're telling it and they realize you actually give a shit and are willing to listen to them, their shoulders pull back, their face lightens up, their eyes get big. They walk away happy as hell. What a gift to give somebody.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: It is. It's incredible. We have to take it as a blessing. We are there to inspire. What a small thing that we can do. One of the things that has helped me is when I go into a performance, whether it's 30 minutes or a whole day, mentally I tell myself it's a day event. That helps me maintain it because I am in that performance from when I walk through the front door to when I leave that door. I talk and do whatever I can to make it an experience, not just for me, but for the attendees. Even yesterday I was doing a virtual one and I received several emails. I was exhausted at the end of the day, but I took time to respond to each of those emails saying, "Thank you so much for making the time to be there." They gave up an hour of their time to listen to me. I can invest five minutes in sending them an email of gratitude.
--:-- Clara Capano: Yeah, I agree. Why is inspiration one of the questions that you ask yourself at the end of the day?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Because part of my vision is to deliver impact. I am where I am because of how people impacted me and inspired me. That's really what I feel my job is. My job is not to be a speaker. My job is to deliver value and inspire people to motivate and inspire them to their level of greatness every day, to let them believe in themselves again and believe that they can overcome. That's a guiding principle for me.
--:-- Clara Capano: What is it about contribution? We go through our day, we work, we punch the clock, we come home. Why is feeling like you've contributed an important question to ask yourself?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I remember someone once told me, "At the end of the day, did you earn your rest?" I want to pour as much as I can into the people that I interact with. There is so much negativity out there. I want to bring positivity because I believe both of them have a ripple effect, and I really want more of a positive ripple effect. For me, it's: did I leave today a better place than it was when I woke up? Did I at least do my part? Whether they listen to me or not, it doesn't matter. Did I do my part in trying to make this world a little bit better today? Because if today is my last day, I want to make sure that I'm going out with a bang, leaving a mark, and making sure that every person I touch, everything that I do, is positively impacting other people's lives.
--:-- Clara Capano: Clara, I'm so glad you're out there. I love your message. I love your style. I love the way you think about these things. If I were a better podcast host, I would have found some way to disagree with you, but I can't. I absolutely love it. And your sign behind you—"Sarcasm is a superpower." Completely agree.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That was a gift from my mother, if that tells you anything. My kids give me a hard time. I love busting chops. I love to have my chops busted. I love the giving back. I love the "Oh, you got me. Now I need to figure out how to get you." The playful nature of it. How do you rib somebody but not make it... I just love that. It's so much fun. I think it speaks to someone who's good-natured. If you're going to bust chops, you've got to have the humility to have yours busted.
--:-- Clara Capano: Where can people find out more about you and your work? If they love what you're doing, how do they hire you to come speak at their event? How do people get involved with what you have going on?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Thank you so much. And again, thank you for what you're doing because you're opening the conversations for people to grow. We have to give you acknowledgement for what you're doing. So thank you for inviting me on. The best place to find me is LinkedIn—that's the social platform I'm most engaged with where I feel I deliver a lot of value. Also my website, which is just claracapano.com. Going back to what we just talked about of impacting and positively contributing, I want to be a resource to people to help them live a better life. So I always offer a clarity chat. It's not some covert way to try to sell you something. It truly is a way to impact. On my website, they can always get access to have a little 15-minute clarity chat with me. Hopefully I'll leave their day a little bit brighter and bring them some clarity. If you're having a day, if you want to talk about how I can come into your business—awesome, love doing that all day long. And if you're just having a rough day and need some clarity, I'm your girl.
--:-- Clara Capano: Clara, you're amazing. Thank you for being on the show.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Thank you. Let's go. Make it look, make it look, make it look.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Thank you for listening to The Ryan Hanley Show. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a comment or review wherever you listen to podcasts.
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