--:-- Ryan Hanley: There's not some secret code or hack that successful people do than others. It's insight without action. It's useless. Knowledge is great, but it's not power. It's potential power. I know a lot of things, but I'm not doing it. I'm not living it. I'm not executing, moving. What good is it? 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: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. Today, we have a tremendous conversation for you, a mind-blowing conversation with Rebecca Fitzsimmons. She's a former NCIS special agent, now turned holistic leadership coach. What holistic means is not just approaching the technical or business aspects of our leadership, but also looking into our mind, our body, and how that plays a role in our success as leaders.
--:-- I guarantee at least one of the ideas that Rebecca shares is going to get you tilting your head and jotting down notes because this one is filled with value. And I mean filled. This is one of the best leadership conversations that I've ever had on this show. So just get prepared for that.
--:-- But before we get to Rebecca, my friends, it's time to start chasing leads and start closing deals. In today's economy, we cannot afford to waste leads. There was only one system, the One Call Close system that I invented at my business, Rogue Risk, that allowed us to scale so fast we were acquired within two years. My own personal close ratio was 89.1%, and that is writing hundreds of accounts a month. We were taking reps coming in at a 25% close ratio and driving them up north of 80% within a three-month period using this system.
--:-- If you want that kind of action, that kind of close ratio, those types of ROI on the inbound opportunities that you generate for your business, go to masteroftheclose.com. That's masteroftheclose.com. You'll learn more about the program, learn more about the system, and if it's right for your business, which it is.
--:-- I love you for watching this show. I love you for listening to this show. I love you for being part of this community. My ask is that you share the show. If you enjoy this content, if Rebecca brings value, if our conversation brings any kind of joy or value to your life, please share the show. It means a tremendous amount to me. I love you for being here. Let's get on to Rebecca Fitzsimmons.
--:-- Rebecca, hi. It's great to have you on the show.
--:-- Rebecca Fitzsimmons: Wonderful to be here, Ryan. Thank you for having me.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: In researching what you're doing, I love your approach. I love how you weave dogs into your work. You have this unique style. This is probably where a lot of people start, but I'm just so interested. How do you become an NCIS special agent? How did that career path take shape?
--:-- Rebecca Fitzsimmons: For me, it started with my degree, which is in forensic and investigative science. As part of that program, I had to complete a mandatory internship requirement. I was looking at crime labs and traditionally where you think crime scene investigation, things of that nature. I had a buddy who's now an FBI agent say, "Hey, Rebecca, have you heard of NCIS? You'd be great." I said, "What's NCIS?" Because this was before the TV show.
--:-- I looked into it and thought, "I can weave in my crime scene investigation and forensic science and that analytical nature with all of the other amazing things—that investigation, that curiosity, and all the things I leaned into." That was the beginning of the end, so to speak. I applied, I got it. I had an internship at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. I absolutely loved everything about being a special agent and supporting our warfighters and the global footprint. My spirit is very adventurous. I want to travel. I want to see the world. I love our country. I love our military. That's how it molded and took shape. A couple years later, I was an NCIS agent traveling the world. It's been amazing. It's been a ride.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And now they make TV shows about you.
--:-- Rebecca Fitzsimmons: They do. They do make TV shows about us. I try not to watch it, but it's all good.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Is it hard? Have you ever watched a show? Is it hard to not pick apart reality from what's in the show?
--:-- Rebecca Fitzsimmons: For sure. I will say the show and the producers are amazing. I've had the opportunity to consult with the show because they mirror our criminal investigations and other things to make it as real as possible. I have a lot of respect for them and I've met some of the actors and actresses. It's been wonderful. But it is kind of funny when you watch NCIS or any type of show that has crime scene investigation. I laugh because I think, "Wow, I wish I could get results back within three minutes," or "I wave my wand and everything is solved within 45 minutes or an hour." That would be nice, but that's not reality. It's lighthearted, but I do enjoy watching it every now and then.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: What originally drew you to the investigation process, law enforcement in general, and just being in that world?
--:-- Rebecca Fitzsimmons: Great question. I haven't been asked this in a long time. My uncle and aunt were in law enforcement in my very tiny town in Northeastern Ohio. I always had so much respect for what they do. It wasn't really until college and that internship that showcased everything I was interested in and my skillset, what I was really good at. I'm a very curious person, very inquisitive. I like to ask questions. I like to learn. I like to lean in, coupled with helping people. One of my core values, my North star in life, is I love impacting others. I love supporting and helping them. If I can do that for victims, if I can do that for our country, I would be so honored to do it. I don't come from a military background. My parents aren't in the military. But having that ability to support specifically the Department of Navy within NCIS—our United States Marines, our sailors, and the United States Navy—has been so transformative in so many ways.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I was one day away from signing a contract to become a nuclear engineer for the Navy. Back when I was in high school, we took some test. I don't know if it's New York specific because I grew up in New York. However I scored in the math and physics portion put me in some level where I started being recruited. I was very interested and went way down the path. I took a couple more tests and scored into the program. The recruiter shows up and says, "We want you to become a nuclear engineer. It's going to mean 10 years, but you come out X-level officer." All that sounded great. I was super into it. But I also wanted to play baseball in college. This is the decisions we make at 18. This is why when people say 18-year-olds should be making important decisions, my life story and trajectory is a case study in this.
--:-- He said, "I think I'm going to do it, just give me two days." He said, "Okay, I can give you two days, but we got to start locking people in." I'm sure that was partially a sales tactic. Long story short, in those two days, I get a full scholarship to go play baseball at the University of Rochester. At 18, I thought, "Okay, six foot four in a submarine for nine months at a time for four years, or play college baseball for free?" The 18-year-old brain went that way. I'll be honest with you, I have a lot of regrets that I didn't serve because I have a lot of the same feelings towards our country.
--:-- Outside of enjoying the work, challenging you, and feeding into some of your natural tendencies around curiosity, learning, leaning in—has being part of the discipline and regiment of the military transitioned into your life today? I know for some people who've been in the military, they go the opposite way. They say, "Screw this, I'm not living that life anymore." For others, it becomes embedded in who they are. I'm assuming I know the answer, but I'm interested.
--:-- Rebecca Fitzsimmons: Great question. For me, it definitely helped mold and shape me into the human, the leader, the professional, everything I am today. I would say it was probably a result of all the different duty assignments I've had. I was not so traditional in that I've worked across all disciplines in NCIS. I worked in criminal investigations, counterintelligence, counterterrorism. I did that around the world, living in Italy, all over the United States. By virtue of that, I had such an opportunity and privilege to work with so many different teams, so many talented special agents and intelligence specialists. It forced me to do different things, learn different things, develop different skill sets, and refine the ones I had.
--:-- Through all of those experiences, even post-NCIS in the private sector, and certainly within my business, the same thing kept coming to the surface. That was holistic leadership and mindset. That was the undeniable truth and the trajectory to success. I call it a victory mindset, and this is what I train my clients on. There are four components of that victory mindset. Leaning into that, training my teams, and building those resilience and grip muscles always led to success, no matter the person, the industry, or the level. That is why I am so very passionate. It is the essence and the spirit of why I launched my business, Tactical Harmony. That's why I'm here today. My gratitude is immense.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Maybe you could break down the four factors you talked about. To me, and this is why I love having individuals like yourself on the show who really dive into mindset—when I talk to any leaders or anyone who reaches out to me, I always tell them no strategy or tactic is the reason a company failed. A company failed the vast majority of the time because the leader or leadership team did not have the right mindset to build the right culture, to make the right decisions. That's where this all stems from. It's not because you ran this ad campaign or bought this new technology, which is where we spend all our time.
--:-- Before you give your four, why do you think so few people actually take time out of their day to work on their mindset? They give it lip service, but they don't actually work on it. Why do you think that is when I think everybody nods when we say mindset is what matters most, yet we put so little work into it?
--:-- Rebecca Fitzsimmons: Great question. I completely agree and align with everything you said. It super resonates with me. It really is 80% mindset, 20% strategy or mechanics. That's success. There's not some secret code or hack that successful people do that others don't. It's mindset and working on themselves. But I think it's insight without action. It's useless. Knowledge is great, but it's not power. It's potential power. I think that's something Tony Robbins has said. It is potential power because if I know a lot of things, but I'm not doing it, I'm not living it, I'm not executing, moving—what good is it?
--:-- I feel like a lot of people lack awareness. Or if they are aware, they could be a little scared of it. They think, "I have to be alone with my demons," or "I have to confront something in myself that I haven't healed. I don't know how that would look." That limiting belief, that fear, that's what's holding them back. It'll manifest in incredible ways. It could be physically, mentally, or you feel stuck. Maybe you have a short fuse, you're frustrated with your team or your loved ones. There's a million ways it can manifest. I would argue with any one person, it always comes back to mindset and looking within and examining all parts of yourself—mind, body, and spirit. Then you are leaner, stronger, better, and faster. Then you are the better professional, the better leader, the better mom, dad, sister, brother. It really is that beautiful threshold of "Okay, I got this. I know what I need to do," and then doing it. That's where I come in. I push them over that edge.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I was talking to a guy who's been a very successful consultant for a long time, a friend of mine. We were just rapping about stuff one day and he looks at me and says, "You know, people pay me to be the bad guy." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "People pay me to come in, whether I'm working specifically with an individual leader and I'm yelling—I'm doing air quotes for those who are just listening—but yelling at them to push them to where they need to go. Or I'm helping them make the tough decisions that they don't want to make inside their business. Basically, people pay me money to be a bad guy." I said, "I don't know that I love the idea of a coach being a bad guy, although I understand where it's coming from and think it's funny." But it really is if we don't have someone in our lives, whether it's hiring someone like yourself as a coach or a mentor or accountability partner, doing it on our own is very, very difficult. I think so many people are scared to ask for help. Do you find that? How do you get people over that? If someone feels like they need you, but they're really struggling, how do you help them understand that it is okay to ask other people for help? That's where I see a lot of people get stuck—they try to do it on their own. Nobody successful that I know does it on their own. No one.
--:-- Rebecca Fitzsimmons: I agree completely. The coaches need coaches. The mentors need mentors. We all need to look ahead at someone that's ahead of us to save us time and years of needless struggle or pain. I really lean into, "Hey, I've been there. I'm not just saying the things in lip service. I'm walking the walk. I'm talking the talk." I can specifically remember one time where I didn't ask for help. It was this high profile investigation and task force that I was running. It took me a long time to ask for help. Was that my ego? Was I just doing the next thing in front of me and focusing on the tactics and getting things done? Whatever it was, that is a failure. That is not something that I'm proud of. The moment I asked for help, I was able to get a breath of fresh air. I was able to do more. I wasn't risking any operational risk or anything of that nature.
--:-- So often people think they can do it themselves, or they label it as weak. They say, "I don't need help. I don't need to read the book, hire the coach." I would lovingly tell that person that nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so. The meaning that we give anything, that intentionality—as soon as I'm labeling something, I'm putting it into a bucket in my brain. Our brains want to do that. They want to keep us safe in the known and the familiar. So, love you brain for that. But having that radical awareness and keeping myself in check, I'm going to know better that if I'm labeling something in a certain way, I need to check myself. I need to do that because I love myself and I have discipline. I'm going to make sure that whatever is happening, whether it's good or bad in air quotes, it's going to serve me. It's either a lesson or it's a blessing. It's going to build my character. No bad days, only character building days. Or it's something like, "Hell yeah, I crushed that project." I'm going to repeat that because that was a successful strategy or successful mindset hack. Success really does leave little breadcrumbs or clues, and we should all lean in from it and not try to go it alone.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Where do you fall on the concept of manifesting and positive affirmations, talking to yourself, being optimistic with yourself? I was not a believer for a long time. I thought it was just nonsense. Then I started journaling in a time when I was really struggling to make a decision. I was just having a hard time making the decision. I started journaling for whatever reason. In the journaling came a lot of positive. It was almost like I was tricking myself to believe something that was very positive. It was a good thing, but do you believe in that? Do you think it's a good practice? Where does that fall in this positive self-talk, almost convincing yourself that you're capable?
--:-- Rebecca Fitzsimmons: 1000%. People call it different things—manifestation, law of attraction. There's a lot of different terms. The short answer for me is yes. Thoughts really do become things. What we think, we become. We're looking through that lens. If we're not paying attention to our thoughts, and we are truly the creators of our reality, everything around us is a crystallization of what we created. We have to start with our thoughts, but beyond that, it's thoughts coupled with a feeling. I can say, "I'm so great. I am a magnet for abundance." All those things are great, and we should say that because we're imprinting our subconscious. The subconscious mind, different than our conscious mind, is always listening. It has no sense of humor. It's your blueprint. Everything is imprinted on you. Yes, I think that's important, but we need to couple it with that emotion and that feeling that we want. Raising your frequency, raising your energy is truly important for peak performance. You need to raise your energy.
--:-- I do that by doing a quick workout or some pushups or squats, which I did before this call. Anytime I have something big or important in front of me, I'm going to raise my energy and I'm going to talk to myself in a way that's empowering. That's going to get me from where I am to where I want to go. For the listeners that may be familiar with Dr. Joe Dispenza, he really leans into this—your thoughts and your feelings create your state of being. It really creates this Wi-Fi signal. I can think things, but when I'm coupling that with an amazing high energy peak state, I'm going to collapse time and get that thing to me quicker. I'm going to have more clarity. I'm going to feel damn good when I'm doing it. You kind of create reality instead of waiting, instead of being reactive. You're really proactive.
--:-- Another thing you mentioned regarding journaling—I dismissed it for so long. I said, "I'm not going to journal. I'm not going to do a gratitude practice." Those were the two I said I wasn't going to do. But when I started to do it, that intentionality for both gratitude and journaling changed the game for me. I was rewiring my brain in a different way. Neurons that fire together, wire together. I'm relearning. I'm bringing that deliberation, that intentionality, which is so radically different while raising my frequency and my vibration by being so incredibly grateful for everything—for the failures in air quotes, for the things that I've learned, for the amazing things that have happened to me. It really changed the game for me. So I really leaned into those in Tactical Harmony.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Do you have a process for that? Is it random? Is it like morning pages? I know this is kind of a hyper tactical question, but I'm always interested in where people's brains go. I've always been very freeform or morning pages style, just barfing the thoughts out of my head that I wake up with. But I have other friends who use more guided methods or bullet point methods. When you're journaling or getting these thoughts out of your head, do you have a specific process?
--:-- Rebecca Fitzsimmons: A little bit of A, a little bit of B. I mostly lean into freeform. I really tune into my intuition and the wisdom within. What is feeling right in that moment might look different from day to day or even hour to hour. I really lean into that. But there's also a lot of questions that I could ask myself because I really believe the quality of the questions we ask ourselves determine the quality of the answers that we get. If we're asking the wrong questions, we're not going to get the right answers. I really lean into an honest, raw look within. I am having a meaningful exchange with my journal. When I review it, it's giving me the feedback because I truly believe that all answers lie within, which really leans into the mindset. My what and why are super powerful. The how is going to come. The strategy, the how to develop this, how to launch a business—that's going to come because I have such a fierce internal knowing.
--:-- One thing that I do before journaling—and I normally journal in the morning as well—I raise my frequency by gratitude. Before my feet hit the ground, especially as I'm coming out of certain brain waves when you're sleeping, that's when you're most susceptible and most programmable. I'm coming out before I hit beta, which is your analytical state. I'm coming from theta to alpha immediately. I anchor into gratitude. Is it the smell of coffee brewing in the morning? Is it the love I share with my husband? Is it being an entrepreneur and all the lessons I learned? Is it that I love my dogs, which I do, and I'm so grateful for them? Then you feel it—biochemistry, you're releasing those chemicals. I'm programming myself. Then I'm setting these powerful intentions for the day. "I'm going to have a great day." That's how it works. I do that before the journaling so my energy is up and it's more successful.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: How do you respond to someone who hears all that and says, "That sounds amazing, but I'm too busy, too stressed. I have six kids. My job forces me to work odd hours." Insert excuse. I had this conversation with my kids the other day, specifically in the context of their baseball versus video games. I said, "You can optimize your fake life or you can optimize your real life. That's your choice." I think that translates to so much else. For adults, it's more like they fall into "I'm not going to work out because I'm stressed. I'm going to have three drinks every night because I deserve it for how hard I worked." You're taking these short-term little hits versus what you are describing, which is the same feeling if not better, but it's long-term. That trade-off is a question people have been asking for ages. I don't expect you to have the be-all end-all answer, but I'm interested in your take. How do we start to move away from making these short-term pleasure decisions to get to doing things like what you just described, which does take work and commitment and discipline but gets you so much farther over the long term? How do you make people see that gap?
--:-- Rebecca Fitzsimmons: This is an incredible question. I could speak to hours for this. There's a lot of strategies, a lot of things to implement, but really it's like, you don't like the price you're paying for that small hit, that small whatever it is. But then when you get the bill from regret—I think there's a famous quote out there for that. That's a big thing. I think often we don't want people to get to that point where they're drowning and they're rock bottom and then they have to do something, because that's a lot harder. A lot of people have to reach that destination point in their journey to be like, "Okay, I need to do something different. Something's got to give."
--:-- There's a lot of strategy there. A couple of things: it's really time management. As you said, you even said the word—it's an excuse. It's an excuse because if your what and why are powerful enough, you're going to do it. That's where discipline comes in. I define that as the ultimate expression of self. I love myself enough that I'm going to PT—physically train—every day. I love myself enough that I'm going to take the time, the five minutes to meditate, or the 10 minutes to go within and make sure that I'm good to go. I'm actually going further faster and sustainably, which is a key.
--:-- If they knew that—this is a good one—leverage. If you have enough leverage on yourself or someone you love, you're going to do it. If I were to say, Ryan, and this might be a little harsh, but sometimes you need to be very direct and bold to get someone's attention: "Hey, I know you say you've got all these things and there's not enough time. I do call BS on that because you could get up earlier and you can do these things. But if I were to say I'm going to take your loved one and I'm going to hurt them within 30 days if you don't do X, Y, and Z, and you say you want these things but you're giving me every excuse not to do it, you would find a way to do it. You would never subject your loved one to any kind of harm or pain because that's leverage."
--:-- What I do is I find what that leverage, what that motivation, what that source of truth is for that person. It can look different for everybody. You threaten it because people want to either move toward pleasure or away from pain. Finding that balance, you get enough leverage, they start to do the thing and they're like, "Oh wow, I'm feeling better. Oh wow." You just got to push them over that initial threshold where they haven't crossed before. They're going to immediately see results. Immediately. That's how the game works. There's no secret code. It's really getting them past right up here to that point. Because when they start moving, they're like, "Oh, this wasn't so scary as the narrative that I created in myself. Oh, she was right about all these things."
--:-- Rebecca Fitzsimmons: And so that's where I lean into is the time management, the leverage, what their core values are, what's motivating them to kind of push them over the edge. Because the best time to start was yesterday. The next best time is today. And we're already thinking about it. We're too late. So creating that sense of urgency can also be very helpful for people to support them.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Now I see the NCIS special agent tie-in. You're, in order to get you to do this thing, I'm gonna go kidnap your spouse. You won't get her back until you actually take this action. It works. Think about it. If someone threatened my husband and I've been delaying doing the thing, my ass is going to move. I'm going to do it and I'm going to do it amazingly. You just need that push over the edge. I know it sounds harsh, but it works.
--:-- Rebecca Fitzsimmons: No, I'm not going to offend anyone. Trust me, the people that listen to this show, you are not going to offend them. But there's some of the shit that comes out of my mouth. So I have this theory I've been working on. It's actually going to become a TED talk. I was at a conference that I was speaking at and there was another speaker talking about fear of failure. I thought they did a great job, except I was never convinced that failure is what people are actually concerned about.
--:-- In my mind, I think failure is a glossing, a shiny sticker on top of what the real problem is, which is a fear of status. The reason I don't want to get in shape is because all my buddies have beer guts and they like to drink beer on Thursdays and we crack jokes about the new beer. If I stop drinking so much and get in shape, now I'm going to be different than all my buddies. That may sound crazy to people at face value, but when you really dig into the mindset, this is what holds people back.
--:-- My parents always wanted me to be this thing. They wanted an engineer and they put these expectations on me. But I want to create YouTube videos for a living. What are they going to think of me? What are my siblings going to think of me if I give up this life as an engineer and become a YouTube creator? It's not that they're worried about not being successful as a YouTube creator. They're worried about what the people in their space will think of them when they make this move. That's the thing they're actually scared of, not the failure.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: My point in saying all that is so much of this is being able to get rid of the outside voice's impact on your inside world. How do you work with clients to be more true to what's going on inside of them versus the inputs they're getting from all these other people towards their action? Does that make sense?
--:-- Rebecca Fitzsimmons: Yes, a resounding yes. I actually just did a podcast on this on my Tactical Harmony podcast, so I completely align with this. This is where being inquisitive and really digging in starts to peel all these layers back like an onion. You get to the core and the truth. Are people afraid of failure? Sure, maybe on the surface. But as you said, there are all these other elements to it. People's opinions of you, people's thoughts of you, that's a projection of their reality. That's a projection of what they hold dear or what they don't like or their insecurities, which is usually the case.
--:-- When I have clients who say, "I'm worried about what someone thinks," or "What about my husband? I'm doing this thing but my loved one isn't aligned," or "What would my parents think?" I totally get this because my unconventional path from NCIS to a tech company—I could have let other people's thoughts hold me back, but I didn't because I knew what I wanted to do and I knew how I wanted to serve.
--:-- Your creator, whatever anyone believes in—God, creator—gave you your vision. It's in your heart and mind. Nobody else's. I'm not in yours, you're not in mine. We're doing ourselves a disservice if we don't move in alignment with that. If we don't move in alignment with that, we're going to feel some sort of discord or lack of harmony in our mind, body, and spirit. That's where holistic leadership comes in, because if I don't know myself radically and I'm not moving in alignment with what I give a damn about and what I hold dear, I'm going to feel stuck or frustrated or something might feel off.
--:-- Freeing yourself from other people's opinions and projections gives you that ability. It frees up that energy to move in alignment with what is important to you. What I'm thinking about, I'm giving my life force or my energy to, and that thing's going to expand. If I'm thinking about what I don't want, that shit's going to expand. That's going to become everything that I see. If I'm thinking about what I want relentlessly and I'm disciplined, I've got my self-love that I'm going to do the thing every single day and move that ball down the field every single day in micro actions, then I'm going to be in alignment with my true self, my authentic self. I'm not going to give my energy away like that. I'm not going to let anyone live rent free in my head.
--:-- To answer your question, how do you get past that? Reframing how you're thinking about it. Does it matter? I call it the rocking chair test. You're 90-some years old, sitting on your front porch in your rocking chair, looking back at your life. Is that person's opinion really going to matter? Are you going to have that bill of regret like, "Oh, why didn't I start the business I wanted? Why didn't I ask the girl?" Whatever it is, you don't want to have those feelings. So do the damn thing now. You realize how insignificant other people's thoughts and projections are of you.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: When my kids asked me about hell—because my kids go to Catholic school—they asked, "Dad, do you think hell is really a fiery pit down below?" I said, "No, I don't actually believe that. What I believe it is, is you get a snapshot when you die of what you could have been if you lived the path that God put you on and what you are. And hell is the distance between those two things."
--:-- It's so clear to me that we have so much more potential than we give ourselves credit for. I love conversations like these because I vigorously take notes. I know I'm not supposed to as a podcast host. If I was a good podcast host, I wouldn't take notes. But there are so many ideas in here that are like—it's like we have a set of tumblers to unlock this version of ourselves. Everybody's set of tumblers is different. For you, it might be your curiosity. That's a big tumbler for you. When you really tap into your curiosity, bam, you're closer to being that person. For someone else, it might be discipline as a bigger tumbler. They're all different things. It's figuring out what these things are for us, and to your point, the only way to figure it out is to do shit. "Fuck around and find out" is an epic meme for a reason, because it's literally how we figure everything out in life. We just get so hesitant and fearful.
--:-- I want to spend the remainder of our time together digging into some of the core principles of this idea of holistic leadership, because I also know you have a book coming out soon. I want to make sure everyone knows about that and if there's a place for them to get on a waiting list. Maybe dig us into this. I know we've talked about a lot of the mindset pieces, but any of the pieces that you feel we haven't touched yet, and maybe a high-level idea of where this came from for you.
--:-- Rebecca Fitzsimmons: Thank you. I want to define holistic leadership because I think a lot of people may misunderstand what it means. You hear about holistic and you're like, "Oh, isn't that like a doctor, naturopath?" That's part of it. But when you pair it with leadership, those two very important words, it's a game changer. Holistic leadership, the essence, is a whole person approach to influence and inspire your life as well as others' lives. I truly believe it starts with you. It's self-leadership, it's personal leadership. You can't lead yourself, you can't lead others.
--:-- This pertains to leadership in the traditional sense of the word. I'm a business leader. I have a team, direct reports, subordinates. But it's also leading your family, leading your children, leading your relationships. I think so often we put it into a bucket, but I'm here to expand your thinking of that. If I uncover all parts of myself and I'm so radically aware socially, with my self-regulation and self-awareness—which is emotional intelligence—and I'm also doing that with you, myself, my relationship management and my awareness of you, I'm going to have a more meaningful life. I'm going to have a more meaningful relationship. I'm going to be a better leader at home and at work. That implements a no-stone-left-unturned approach because you're uncovering all parts of yourself. You're not ignoring one thing, and then you are able to go a lot faster.
--:-- For part two of your question, for my book, I derive wisdom from unconventional places. I absolutely love this. I think that goes into my curiosity. I'm a dog lover. I absolutely love dogs. My book is called *Unleashed: Holistic Leadership Insights Derived from Our Canine Companions*. Dogs organically display these things in everything they do, from expressing gratitude to mindfulness, discipline, grit, adventure, curiosity, love, and connection. All the good things in life, all the things we need as humans to be more powerful and to step into that next level of who we are meant to be, dogs are doing it naturally. I weave all of these things into my book to awaken that leader within, to awaken you to the possibility and the things around you. That is the essence of *Unleashed* and of holistic leadership and how it can utterly transform your life professionally and personally.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I love that concept. I think we often see leaders who maybe do a good job for a period of time in their business, but then they completely neglect personal relationships, personal health, personal energy, any type of relationship to God. That great leadership can't last. It's in there, but something always ends up coming out if we don't take care of both sides of the equation. I think a lot of people who live externally successful professional careers and very poor personal lives would say that they couldn't spend time on themselves because they have to get the business successful. How do you work through—I hate the word balance, so I'm going to use the word harmony—that it takes to navigate both?
--:-- Rebecca Fitzsimmons: I love that. Yes. Tactical harmony. That's why I call it harmony, which balance is a part of that. But words mean something. They also carry energy. Everything is energy. Emotions are energy in motion. Everything is energy. When we look at the word balance, it would insinuate that it has to be 50-50. I call bullshit on that because there's going to be weeks, months, even years where I'm full court press on my work, my business, whatever that could be professionally. And then there could be times where it's more on my personal life, my relationships, my loved ones, my parents. Having the harmony between the two is the goal. It is an art and it's going to look a little different every day. It's going to look different between me and you.
--:-- When you start to do those things, self-leadership—one, as a leader, you're setting the tone, you're setting the example. Others are watching you, whether you realize it or not. Everyone's watching and they're going to mimic what you do. If nothing else, do it for other people, which goes into the leverage. But it's time management. I know that's a term we all say, but it really is. Where I place my time, and this goes into habits, that's my energy. That's my life force. If I have a habit of working out in the morning or brushing my teeth or eating my bread, I'm in this routine. But if you switch it up, your body's going to throw a temper tantrum. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, I haven't seen this movie before. What are you doing?" Then it's your job, and your mind's job, like a wild stallion you are taming it. "No, I'm in control. I'm going to have you sit down and meditate. I'm going to have you sit down and do the damn thing." Because when you start doing the damn thing, whatever it is, that action gives you feedback. You can't get feedback if you don't move, if you don't execute. Feedback is a gift. It's like, "Oh wow, I'm going to adjust. I'm going to adapt. I'm going to pivot." But you can't get that unless you do the damn thing.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I want to be delicate with this. I struggle with our current societal normalization of ideas of mediocrity and average. The book I'm working on with my friend is called *The Civilized Savage: From Mediocre to Mastery in an Age of Cultural Conformity*. Our whole premise is that we have normalized the lower baseline of what is okay. The book walks through 10 lessons that his great-grandfather talked to his grandfather, who taught to his father, passed down through this Italian lineage. These 10 lessons have allowed him to live a very disciplined, highly successful life. What are some of the things we can be looking out for in today's ecosystem, marketplace, society—however you want to go—that can keep us from living this life? What are some of the ideas that have become normalized?
--:-- Rebecca Fitzsimmons: This is a great question. You're asking such amazing questions. I love this. I would say to people, to raise their awareness, we always fall to what our self-worth is. If I think I'm only good enough to do X, Y, Z, that's what I'm going to do. It's your self-worth. I know people use different words. I actually don't like this term "imposter syndrome," but like, "Who am I to start a business? Who am I to sign up for the Ironman?" Whatever it is you might want to call in, you're going to follow the way you think you can.
--:-- A tactic I always share is you've got to raise your standard. If you're good, well, good's not good enough anymore. Look around, look how many successful people there are. You need to raise it from good to excellent. Well, there are a lot of excellent people. Raise it from excellent to outstanding. You raise that standard because how close you are to hitting your goal can be just a couple millimeters. Look at surgeons. If they were one millimeter off in plastic surgery or whatever kind of surgery, it's so precise. You've got to raise your standard. You've got to do the thing because you were so close.
--:-- People create this narrative and they romanticize the outcome, but they don't do the damn work. They don't do the execution that gets you there. I can romanticize all day, great, awesome. But if I'm not executing, I'm killing my dreams, my goals, my desires. Raising that standard—I think another tactic here, Ryan, is people think it's got to be this big thing. They start at the finish line instead of starting at the start line. I'm not going to go from zero to running a marathon. If you're doing 10 pushups, okay, great. Tomorrow do 11 and do that for a week. Then the next week, I want you to do 15. It's those micro actions, that small incremental step every single day. It's consistency. I don't get a six-pack by going to the gym once a week. I do that consistently. I show up, I have the discipline, I have that victory mindset. I love myself enough to make it happen. Then I'm going to get the results. I'm 100% going to get the results, or I'm going to get the feedback where I need to adjust my strategy, adjust my mindset. That's only made possible by moving and taking that inspired action.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: The statistic—sorry, my allergies are crushing me today and I'm butchering some words. The statistic from James Clear in *Atomic Habits* is that if you get 1% better every day, you're 37 times better at the end of the year. That is so incredibly powerful. If you only saw that stat from that book, reading the entire book is worthwhile because it shows exactly what you just said. Everybody can get 1% better each day. It's one more pushup. That's technically 10% better than the day before. You go from 10 to 11.
--:-- Ed Milet wrote a book called *The Power of One More*. It's a really good book. You can kind of get the idea just from the title. Ed Milet's fantastic. This idea of just give yourself one more. You don't have to go to 20. 20 might be the goal. But what we do is we go, "Well, today I could only get to 11, so I'm a failure. I suck. I'm no good. I only got to 11. I should be at 20. My buddy John's at 20. He's doing 20. I should be doing 20 because I'm only doing 11." It's like, yeah, but if you just think about it, one more each day, in 10 days, you'll be there. It's just nine more days of work. What's nine days in the course of your life? It's really nothing.
--:-- That concept to me is the difference between the people who get to where they want to be and the people that don't. They take these little tiny bites. They may have the big goal. They may do the press release on the big goal. They may stand on stage and talk about the big goal. But in their life, it's this tiny little bite, tiny little bite, tiny little bite. It's absolutely fantastic.
--:-- What is one question that you had wished I had asked during this podcast?
--:-- Rebecca Fitzsimmons: Oh goodness. You asked all the questions. Let me think. We covered such amazing ground and I want to express my appreciation for that. Maybe I can share the four components of victory mindset. Would that be okay?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Yeah. Let's give them a tease and we can drive them to find out more about you.
--:-- Rebecca Fitzsimmons: Victory mindset—I believe this is a key code to success, y'all, so tune in. Number one is discipline, which I already talked about. That ultimate expression of self-love. Really thinking about you love yourself enough to make the thing happen.
--:-- Number two would be integrity, which we touched on a little bit. Living that authentic life. I know myself so well that I am living a life that matches that. I'm not worrying about what other people think because we know comparison is a joy thief. You're stealing my joy when I'm comparing myself. I'm giving my power away, my energy, which we touched on. When I'm living a life that is authentically aligned and aligned with my values, I call this soul-aligned ambition. Everything that I do is a manifestation, a crystallization of who I am and what I was put here to do on earth. I'm going to feel great. Abundance is going to flow. I don't just mean financial. I mean emotional, spiritual, mental abundance. Abundance in all forms is going to flow. Having that integrity and that honesty with your life is huge.
--:-- Third is taking inspired action. Not just any action. Inspired. By that I simply mean I'm not just doing something to stay busy. I can be busy and not making progress all day. I'm doing things that are actually getting me the results. I'm paying attention to my inputs. Usually it's like 20% of your inputs give you 80% of your results, the 80-20 rule, the Pareto principle. I'm paying attention to that. I'm doing those things. I'm doing more of them to get me whatever I need in my results personally and professionally.
--:-- The fourth component is grace. Grace with yourself. Grace with your creator, with God. Grace with others. Perfection is not the goal. That doesn't exist. It's the lowest standard. It's progress. It's doing the thing. It's having kaizen, which is a Japanese term for continuous incremental improvements every single day as we talked about. Leaning into that consistency. But knowing that some days I'm not going to hit the mark. Okay, cool. What did I learn from it? I'm going to be selfish. I think selfish gets a bad rap. I'm going to be selfish because I want to know what I can do to get better, stronger, leaner, faster. Then I'm not going to make that mistake again because I'm going to fail forward. I call failure my favorite F word. One of my favorite F words. I'm going to learn from it. I'm going to grow from it. That's part of the journey. Sometimes we're given opportunities that can piss us off and frustrate us, but that's the thing we need on our journey to build the muscle we need on our trajectory. We may not know it at the time. "This isn't fair. Why is this happening?" But then I build that grit, resilience, whatever I need. Five, ten years down the road, maybe it makes sense. "Oh, I've seen this picture before. I got this. I can figure this out and I can be a blessing to others and have that beautiful exchange." I believe it's a spiritual game. Victory mindset, those four components, has truly transformed my life and everyone around me.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: My favorite one is grace. I think that we just—to me, it's the difference between framing something bad as a lesson or as some scar that we have to carry around. We're not good at it in general. It doesn't seem like an intuitive quality. It seems like something we have to learn. The more we show grace, I feel like it gets passed along. When you're graceful to yourself and to others, that tends to spread. That's a concept that spreads. That's wonderful that it's part of your victory mindset.
--:-- Rebecca, this has been a tremendous conversation. I appreciate the hell out of you and what you're doing. I love this work. We'll do everything we can here at the show to support you. We'll have links to all your stuff in the show notes. Where is the best place for the audience to connect with you deeper and get more involved with your world?
--:-- Rebecca Fitzsimmons: I would say my website, tacticalharmony.com. It has all the ways to reach me. It has my Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, all of the things. Tacticalharmony.com has my services, every way to reach me. That's where I will be advertising my book in a couple of months. Before we end, Ryan, thank you for everything that you do. I am a huge fan of your podcast. I love the work you're doing. It's spreading such incredible messages and helping and serving others. I'm honored to be here. I'm grateful to be your guest. I'm very blessed. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Oh, that means so much. Thank you. Let's go. Make it look easy.
--:-- [Closing music fades in]
--:-- 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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