Luca and Seeing Problems Differently | Ryan Boswell on Perspective, Identity & Growth

0:00 At the start of my career, I bounced from an AI startup over to a mechanical engineering firm, building a technology startup over to a nonprofit, building the community of business people and business owners here in Utah. Then I moved to Indiana to run a cold plunge business. From there, stepped into a hedge fund that my partners had started, which I'm now a general partner in. And so all of these things over the last four to five years have just been a result of me trying to get as much experience as possible. Even when things are going wrong, they're going right. All of those things. had to go wrong in order for them to go right in that given moment as i started to listen to this bruno in my head i realized how frequently that i was doing that whenever i was alone in the sauna like i would actually talk back to myself and i'd be like but like i would be sitting in the sauna and i'd hear something i'd be like no that's not the way it is and i think for me the the Bruno Ryan, that happens when I don't take the time to slow down. Yeah. Isn't there a quote in the movie where he says, like, silencio Bruno, silencio Bruno? Yes, yeah. And then big Massimo, who's this huge guy, he's the biggest guy in town, he comes up and he's like, I know who they are.

1:02 And you're not sure at this point in time, is he gonna be like, yeah, they're monsters, let's kill them, right? Or what is he gonna say? And he says, I know who they are. They're Luca and Alberto. Truly, I think that this is one of the hardest things in life. It is near impossible. unless someone is actually willing to do it and go through the hard stuff to change your frame of someone else but as you start to then take those things that you think about and put them into action that's where you start to take more control over your life and your living life not living life as life is letting you live welcome to yes and land where we say yes to the reality of yesterday and today and we say and to the possibility growth and imagination of tomorrow Welcome to Yes and Land. Super excited today.

1:49 We've got a great guest. Has a wonderful name. His name's Ryan. Ryan Boswell with us today. Ryan has a number of different business ventures that he's been a part of. He's actually a pretty young guy and yet one of the most connected guys that I know. Runs a business. He's a general partner in a hedge fund. Has a number of different things that he does as well. Super excited to have that conversation today. So welcome to the program, Ryan. Thank you. Thank you. It's good to be here and great name as well. And today, what we're going to be doing is talking a little bit about the way that we see problems or things that come up or situations that we encounter and seeing them in a different way to solve those problems or take advantage of the situations we're presented. And we're going to do that through the lens of a great Pixar, Disney Pixar movie, which is Luca. which i know you like right absolutely uh you've you've watched that with uh with your little one yeah am i getting that right yeah um definitely a fun movie and it'll be a really good opportunity for us to take a look at that through this lens today as well so uh so first off the way we want to start is just you telling a little bit more about um kind of how you got your start and how you got to where you are being CEO of a company and general partner in a hedge fund and the different things you're doing. Yeah, it's a good question. And I'm excited to be here.

3:12 This conversation is going to be really fun. You know, my story kind of dates back when I was in high school. I started doing social media. That was kind of where I started. That was my generation was like the first generation to get Instagram in high school and figuring out how to like post and have friends and be building content and burner accounts and all of that fun stuff. And that was where my career really began was in posting social media for myself, doing social media for other brands. By the time I was 18, I had like seven or eight different sponsors that sponsored me for content on Instagram and YouTube. I was doing longboarding content, just kind of general lifestyle. I had no idea what I was doing. But that led into me really having a knack for marketing and building businesses.

3:54 Kind of bounced around in the beginning of my career. I did two years of college before I dropped out of college at Utah. Valley University here in Orem, Utah, and really just tried to figure out what I wanted to do. I have always been big on different perspectives and trying to find different ways to do things. I realized early on that there wasn't just one set way that things could be done or should be done. And so I kind of set this goal and this mindset of when the goal is to experience, everything is a win. So even when things go wrong, even when crap hits the fan, even when you run into problems or you get into arguments, for some reason that's supposed to happen. As long as you're experiencing something and you're not just stuck when you experience, everything is a win. And so for five years at the start of my career, I bounced from an AI startup over to a mechanical engineering firm building a technology startup over to a nonprofit building the community of business people and business owners here in Utah. Then I moved to Indiana. run a cold plunge business. And while I was there, my business partners ended up being, we kind of had a whole portfolio of some startups and businesses that we were building together.

5:04 And then from there, stepped into a hedge fund that my partners had started, which I'm now a general partner in. And so all of these things over the last four to five years have just been a result of me trying to get as much experience as possible. And so my day -to -day now, tying all of that together, comes down to capital and connections. Primary day -to -day is our hedge fund. We do capital raising. We have an investment strategy, about 1 ,500 investors in that group. That's been growing for about four years now. So that's kind of my day -to -day primary there. But then really my favorite part of what I do is I get to work with a lot of really cool people over here, but I also have all of these businesses and startups and ideas that people are building that are looking for either strategic connections or strategic capital to help them grow. And so when I'm not raising capital or working on our hedge fund, my kind of other focus is brokering connections and finding ways to make special projects happen. So an example, someone could send me a text and be like, hey, we're looking to buy two crumble cookie franchises up in Baltimore.

6:09 This was a text I got in January. Do you have someone that would be interested in putting up $240 ,000 for a six -month short -term loan with X percent of the amount of interest? And I sent one text over to a person and said, hey, this is another deal that popped up. He's like, yes, I'm in. Send me the details. got them together and within about a week and a half we had the deal funded so I'll take a lot of those projects and find ways to put people together to broker connections to help other people make their ideas happen and all of that just going back to what I said earlier of kind of that perspective when the goal was to experience I didn't know five years ago fast forward to now that this is what I was going to be doing yeah but I knew that when I could just hop in find somewhere to help someone out being able to identify someone's problems, helping them understand, hey, yes, this is a problem, but there's a way that we can get over it and get around it. By the way, most of the time, that's either going to be through something I can do or someone that I know that can help you solve that problem. We take all of that, put that together, and help them take their idea and opportunity to market. I love that. So one thing that I wanted to pull on a little bit more, and this might be because my son's in high school, so of course I'm thinking about, like, what is he going to do after high school and for college? So I heard you say you did two years of college. and then you didn't anymore, okay? So walk me through, or walk people through what your advice would be about somebody who is gonna finish up, maybe wanting to further their education, but they're also maybe have a little bit of that entrepreneurial blood in them, like it sounds like you certainly do. What was that experience like for you, deciding I'm gonna do some college, but then... I'm now moved

7:39 on, I'm going to do these other things, I have these opportunities to do? Yeah, it's a really good question. My path with college was a little bit different. I actually... There's a few ways that I could kind of go about and explain this, but my path with college was a little bit different. I got into college and realized that what I really wanted to do was business. I was pre -marketing. I took one marketing class in college, and that was the one that inspired me to drop out of college. I had this professor. His name is Ryan Schill, who's a really good friend of mine. It was basically an entrepreneurship class through the lens of marketing, but he was just teaching us about all of the different basics and fundamentals of this concept of what marketing is. was and and i knew that i was really interested in it but i didn't actually know anything about it i didn't know the acronyms i have had no accolades or anything like that but he was telling these stories of how he took taco bell into costa rica and how he had built this online car parts business and how he had all these other businesses that failed and i just realized i was like that's what i want to do but i'm not going to do that sitting here theorizing over how to build a business plan how to do it i realized that what i needed was actual experience from people and so i set out the goal to go learn and connect with people that were actually in the trenches to find opportunities to be able to do that and at the time i was running the social media and the athletics department at uvu i got connected over through a mutual friend whose father -in -law was starting a tech business and he was like hey i need someone to help me with social media and marketing i was like sure let's give it a shot like i had to google what is artificial intelligence my first day on the job. I was starting day one. I think

9:11 it was June 13th, June 12th. That night, I was Googling, what is AI? I don't know what this is. I was 20 years old. I had no idea what I was doing. But my path for me came about, really, it happened by looking at realizing what I wanted to do or looking at and analyzing what I wanted to do, which was business. And I realized that the only way that I was going to really figure out what I wanted to do was by doing things. And so I know that that's different for different paths, right? Like my wife went medical. She was an x -ray tech and then did echocardiology. She was an echo tech, so she did heart ultrasounds. Like she's very, very smart. She had to stay in school and had to follow her specific program to go through and get those certifications for her to do that. But with business, like I would much rather take someone with experience than certifications. that's been through the trenches and actually understands it and you know for example moving to indiana to take over a struggling business that had three thousand dollars in the bank and we had payroll due on friday and we were a couple hundred thousand dollars in debt and we had we were three months behind on rent had to figure out how do we get to break even keep the store alive save all of those things with a zero dollar marketing spend that's experience that i would not trade anything for in the world and so for me it came as a result of having i in my opinion specifically with with business i'll say this i think college is there to help you figure out and get an idea of what you would like to do sure life is there to help you figure out what want to do and for me I just realized that I needed to go test this theory of I want

10:44 to go in business I want to go in marketing but I need to test that in a variety of different situations to see if I actually do want to do this because I see it time and time again whenever I'm guest lecturing at universities is a question that's always brought up whenever I'm talking to people that are like established into their career I see it way too often where people are in their dream job in an industry that they hate and they didn't get that experience testing out seeing hey I love doing this but I hate doing it for this specific industry. So I don't know if that helps, but that's kind of how I look at it. I think it's interesting. You know, as I've thought a lot about my experiences, because as an attorney, I had to go to school, right? That was kind of the requirement. But I decided to study business in undergrad because I thought it was interesting. I liked it. So I thought, I'm going to do something that's interesting that I like studying about because I don't want to major in poli sci like everybody else or English, yuck. I didn't like that at all. But through my college experience, one of the things that I've kind of come to a realization of is one of the ways that people can take advantage of a college experience is in connections. And it's a stark contrast for me. Undergrad, I didn't at all. I went to the University of Utah, which is like a classic commuter school. Never lived on campus. I wasn't a part of any organization at all. I just went to classes, mostly worked full time, went at night. So I didn't make a single friend in undergrad, which is crazy because I love people. Whereas in law school, the law school I went to, you have to, you don't have to, but they say you're not supposed to work at all. They make you sign something saying you're not gonna work, because you're gonna dedicate all your time to school. Now I had a few classmates that did, I won't name them. So I was in school

12:17 all the time, and it was hard, but I built connections with my classmates. And I started to understand and appreciate the value of those connections. And one of the things I was hearing from your story is, build a connection with your professor. And you start getting connected with these other things. I think a lot of people don't understand the value of the connections they can build if they're going to go to school, especially if it's business. Now, it might mean they end up taking a different path after and they don't finish, but there is some value in the connections you can make and creating genuine connections with those people too. Well, and I think it's important to distinguish here. And I talk about this concept of connecting versus networking frequently. Like I have a lot of people that are like, oh, you're so good at networking. I'm like, thank you. I don't like try though. Like at the end of the day, it's just people. And the thing that I realized was that right now at this stage in my career, I'm 27 years old, right? Like I have some good ideas, but I don't have the fuel in the tank nor the experience that I think that I'd necessarily need or the right idea to go build like $100 million company.

13:19 But I do know that I'm really good and I've gotten really good at diagnosing other people's problems, figuring out what they need and finding ways to help them. And in return, I then find success like that. For me, it's never been about how much money am I going to make up front? What like what am I going to be compensated? What do I get out of this? And that's where I think a lot of people go wrong with networking. Like I'd even in I guess I'll call it undergrad. I've never referred to it as that because I never even got my associate's degree. But like in my undergrad, per se, like I. Saw so many people and we were always getting advice like you need to network with people and you build connections and this and that I'm like but how and then i realized i like looked at what i was doing when i was connecting with people at basketball games or working in the athletics department and i realized that i was just connecting like networking to me is you have something that i want or i have something that you want and so we're going to network together and we're going to build a network of people that can do that connecting is we're going to connect and then when the opportunity presents itself then we have the opportunity to do something together right and i mean that's kind of how we met too we went to a jazz game we were chatting we we connected we found different spots I was like, what are you working on? What do you need help with? Oh, you're building this cool thing. I've got the perfect person that could help you build that with the right budget and save you a lot of money. Let me connect you guys together. That's my day to day now. And it literally is just putting people together and finding out every single day. It's talking to a new person, figuring out what they're working on, what they're excited about, what problems that they're facing, and then having a solution to be able to connect in together and finding ways to solve everyone's problems. And then as a result, the effect, not the cause, is you're

14:50 very fairly compensated when you do that. Right. And then. My day -to -day now, literally, everything that I do revolves around helping people do what they love to do. So I think that regardless of if you're in your undergrad, if you're in your master's degree, when you were connecting with people in your law program, it was probably a little bit easier because you had common ground. It was easier for you to make connections because you knew, if I invest into this relationship, we have a whole career that we could be friends together. Whereas in undergrad, not that it seems pointless, but it's a little bit harder because I felt the exact same thing. was sitting in that marketing class I was surrounded by students that while it was a general marketing class I was surrounded by students that yes we're going to be in that program for another three years in college but I could tell that most of them didn't really enjoy it they didn't really love it and so I I wasn't incentivized to want to build into that or stick around or stay inside of that program because it wasn't gonna be what I necessarily wanted yes that was a little selfish but I think that if you're gonna be selfish it's gonna be about your career in your life sure but I think that the the most valuable thing that come out of life are when we connect with people on an authentic level and find ways for us to mutually benefit and help each other out.

15:58 Adam Grant wrote a book, Give and Take. Yeah. And in that, he talks a lot about that idea, right? That you have people who are takers. And those are the traditional, like, that gives me the ick when it comes to networking. Someone who I can clearly tell that, like, they're trying to network with me just because they want something from me. And the question is always, like, what I can do for them. And I don't like that at all. And that's why I always hated networking, to be honest. Like it was something early on in my career that at my last firm, they were very entrepreneurial and they would encourage me to, but I hated because that's the only thing that I knew. Oh, go to these networking groups and you're just looking for somebody that can give you something. And that's why I hated it. And once I started evolving in my career, especially as I opened up my own firm and started realizing like, hey, just creating genuine connections.

16:41 and seeing what I can do to help somebody else, much like you do, that's brought me way more opportunities, and been much more fulfilling, to be honest. Because then sometimes I just have a genuine connection with somebody, and we don't end up doing anything together, but I learn something from them, right? And I learn something that they've done in their career, or I get connected with somebody else, and it's just a much more, I guess for me, fulfilling and enjoyable way of having connection, as opposed to this like, let's go out and be a taker and network that way. Or even, I mean, just as bad too as people who are just givers and only give but aren't willing to accept something back. Like one of the things you said was that as you've done that, you've also been fairly compensated. And so in this idea of having these connections, you do need to be willing to accept back when those things come, when those opportunities come. Yeah.

17:24 And I think there's a difference between receiving and taking. right like yes i'm i'm not one i'm not one to call in favors very frequently like i could but i'm not the type of person that likes to do that like i in in my opinion my entire business model is is set up in the way primarily just on performance fees so like i'd i noticed that a lot of people whether that's in my industry doing business development or sales or brokering things like some people will charge like an upfront retainer and then they'll take a performance fee i like to just take the performance fee because in my opinion this really only works and and this is really only a win -win anytime i'm heading into a project or a deal like it it's really only a win -win if I win when you win rather than me charging you up front. And then you have to make and recoup those costs when we both win.

18:14 And then you end up making less because you had to pay me up front. But then I'm also going to take a performance fee on top. Like I want to be just as incentivized and work on deals or projects or with people so that the only time that I win is if we all win together. And that's proven. I mean, that alone has helped me build some incredible relationships with people because it allows I'm always. You probably feel the same. When you first get to know someone, I'm always trying to sniff out, what does this person want from me? Is there something that they're trying to get? Are they angling for something? When I started adopting that method of, hey, I'm going to help you, and if you win, then I win as well. I'll just take a 20 % performance fee. When people realized that I wasn't trying to sell them anything, I was just like, let's just figure out what we want to do, how we want to do it, make it a win.

19:01 it disarms people in a way where they're like, okay, I can let my guard down a little bit because I'm not trying to be sold. And I think that's actually one of the things that I noticed. I've got a project that I'm working on, on a contract on a business project, and I talked to you right before this interview. I looked at the stickers on your office when I walked in, and it says business law, estate, divorce attorney, family law, and then at the bottom it says business law. And I know that you guys are experts when it comes to... family estate divorce right i didn't i actually was wondering and and when i walked in today it confirmed i was like i wonder if he does anything with business because i need to ask him a question on a contract that i'm working on and from there we'd already built the connection and then when the opportunity popped up i knew who the person was that i needed to go to and that's just been the the model that i've tried to build for all my relationships because when someone feels like they're constantly being sold when someone feels like you're only connecting with them because they need something I was guest lecturing at a university a couple months ago and a student came up to me and said, hey, I'm looking for a job. Can I send you my resume and will you send me any jobs that you see open? I'm like, who are you? What's your background? What do you do? What's your last name? What's your first name? What do you want to do? What career have you done? What study?

20:14 Like, what are you interested in doing? I didn't know any of that information, but it was just like, hey, you're connected. Looks like you do really cool things. Here's my resume. Can you get me a job? I'm like, I got to get to know you first. I can't make a suggestion or a recommendation if I don't know you first. that whole thing goes for everything in life you have to build the relationship first to be able to have that perspective and opportunity to then open it up to the rest of the things that need to happen yeah for sure one of the things we were talking about too with what you're kind of doing with these connections that you have and what people are coming to you for is problem solving And that kind of takes us to what our topic is today, which is how do we see the problems that we're facing? How do we look at those in a different way? And one of the things that I wanted to have you share about was your Porsche story that we talked about before of what happened one time when you were dealing with, I think it was the sale or purchase of a Porsche. And how you had to look at that differently. So if you wouldn't mind sharing that story and we can kind of talk about the lessons you learned from it. Yeah. Well, I think I'll start with I'm really big on perspectives, right? Like I tried to learn very early on. And not ever take the victim mentality, right? Because I realized that another kind of lesson and theme that I learned early on, even when things are going wrong, they're going right. So back in October, this is kind of a funny story. I actually had this other car that I was looking at buying.

21:39 I would qualify myself as like a retro car collector now. It's not anything crazy, but they're cool cars and I like them. So I had this car out in the Midwest that I was looking at buying. I found it on Facebook. I booked a flight. I let the guy know. that i was coming out to check it out make sure that everything was good and then i was gonna buy it i was gonna trailer it back to chicago uh and then uh and then i was gonna have a friend ship it back for me um and so i booked the flight and i let the guy know that i booked it and three hours later he sends me a message he's like hey uh i just sold the car i'm like I just booked the flight. Like I'm coming out in two weeks. So I ended up going out because I'd booked a non -refundable ticket, mistake number one. But then I had also texted my high school. I was like, hey, I'm coming back into town. We kind of have this thing where I'll come back and speak if I'm in town and speak to a couple of their business classes. So I'd already confirmed for three straight days of me speaking at my high school too. So I did periods one through eight day one, one through eight day two, and then one through five day three. I'd already confirmed for all of these around this trip.

22:41 So, trip gets canceled, and I'm just like, my goodness. Well, the purchase of the car gets canceled, but the trip is still going on. So, I'm looking at my phone, and I'm like, all right, let's just, I don't know, my go -to and default when I'm bored is I get on Facebook Marketplace. And so, I pull up Facebook Marketplace, and I'm looking at my phone, and this. really cool vintage Porsche pops up. And I'm like, oh, that looks really cool. I've always wanted one of those. It was about the same price as the car that I was looking at in the Midwest. And so I sent a message to the person. It looked like a really good deal. I sent a message to them. I was like, hey, I'd really love to come take a look at this. Would that be all right? And they're like, yeah, we have a couple other people that are interested. I was like, I can come look at it. I can come look at it this afternoon. They're like, okay.

23:24 So I drive over. I go over like two hours later. I go look at it. It's a 1983 Porsche 944 five -speed manual. They're the original family owners. Her dad was the one that took delivery of it on July 1st, 1983. Garage kept, original everything. Like it was in beautiful condition. 47 ,000 miles. Like it just, it was a true, just like perfect find. And so I look at it. I asked her husband. to take me for a drive because i couldn't remember how to drive stick shifts because it's been so long so he takes me around the block i'm like yeah this thing's sick i'll take it uh i'm like how many other people do you have coming to look at he's like ah we have like six people coming to look at it on saturday this is a thursday i'm like i'll take it So I'm like, I'll send you 500 bucks on Venmo right now. Let me come back tomorrow and we'll complete everything.

24:11 So I go back the next day and I had scheduled the wire and the payment to go through at 12 o 'clock. And we were going to meet up at their house at one o 'clock and we were going to go and do all the paperwork. So I get there at one o 'clock. My wire still hasn't been sent. I call up my bank. I'm like, hey, I'm trying to get this wire to go through for this purchase. And they're like, OK, you're in the queue, but we. yeah, you're, you're in the queue, but I will just get to you when we get to you. And so I tell that to the, to the owner of the car and he's, they invite me in and they're like, you can just hang out. And why don't we just hang out until the wire goes through? It should be, it should be, you know, a short amount of time. Next thing I know, I've been in there like in his den and study and kind of living room area for like two and a half hours. So it's like three 30 at this point, it's Halloween. My wife is like, Hey, we need to get back. We're going trick or treating. We need to meet at my dad's. We've got a two -year -old. It's her first like conscious Halloween where we're actually going to remember what she's doing. Um, and so I'm sitting in the living room and we ended up just having this phenomenal conversation, um, talking about, uh, life and career. And we get into it for a little bit and, and the dad goes, Hey, I, you know, I actually have a son that just got back from his mission. He's kind of looking for some, uh, for some career ideas and things that he wants to do. Um, would you be okay if he came and sat in with us? I was like, yeah, absolutely. So son comes in and then daughter comes in at one point, mom, we got the whole family here. There's like a party in there. or waiting for the wire to go through. And I'm looking at my phone every like 10 minutes because I'm just totally inconveniencing these people. But we're sitting there and we're

25:43 talking and we kind of get into talking about my career a little bit, how I dropped out a year before I got my associate's degree. I didn't really know what I wanted to do, but I knew that I wanted to do something in business. And we go through this whole conversation and then we get into mental health. And mental health's a really big part of my story. A couple years ago, I got diagnosed with ADHD, anxiety, depression, and OCD. That is what led me to doing ice baths. I then started posting my ice baths on TikTok, which led me to becoming CEO of an ice bath business in Indiana. There's a whole lot more that we can unpack there on episode two. But we get into all of this stuff and just how mental health has played a pivotal role for me in needing to be able to understand, one, connecting with myself, giving myself a little bit of grace, but also sometimes having to relinquish stuff to God and understanding that things are out of my hands at some points. And we connect with... I feel like I'm connecting really well with their son.

26:35 And he looks at me and he goes, last night I was actually praying that I would find some direction of what I wanted to do in life. I've been having a really hard time with it. My friends are all going to college. I feel like I'm kind of stuck and I don't know what to do. And I sat down and I said a prayer last night. And I didn't expect for that prayer to be answered within 12 hours. And I looked at that and... I started shedding tears. I was just like, can you imagine if that car sale in the Midwest had gone through? If everything had gone right, if I hadn't happened to open my phone at the exact right time, I'm not saying that the thing that went right here was that I got a really cool car, but yes, that's a great thing that I got out there. I'm excited.

27:18 For me, I had to take a step back and just realize that I was exactly where I needed to be. And if everything had gone how I wanted it to, if I'd gotten the car, if I'd gone out to Chicago, none of these other things would have happened. If the wire hadn't gone through and we would have only been there for 10 minutes, we would miss out on this whole conversation. And so we go through that and he says that and we share a quick hug, embrace for a second. And as soon as he says that, my phone dings and the wire goes through. And so I'm just sitting there. I'm like, OK, this is exactly what was supposed to happen. And it goes back to that perspective that I shared of even when things are going wrong, they're going right. All of those things had to go wrong in order for them to go right in that given moment. And so now, every single time I get in that 1983 Porsche 944, that's what I think of when I sit down in the driver's seat.

28:07 I mean, how could you not? Right. And it was a really it was a very humbling experience for me. Like, I just felt like I was there and part of it. Not that I like played a massive role, but I had to be there. And it's something that I will remember forever. It's a story that I'll pass on to my kids. But I'm just so grateful for stuff like that. It all comes down to perspective, though, and being willing to look at things. Like I said, it would be very easy to look at the victim mentality and get mad at the guy that sold the car and, you know, this and that and just missing the opportunity. and not being willing to like move forward after one little setback I would have missed out on everything else that was supposed to happen even though it technically was going wrong right for sure we end and so what where does that come from where instead of just being mad the guy who sold the car ready or instead of the wires delayed and just getting in your car and just you know playing on your phone or going somewhere else But instead of being frustrated or mad at that, where does that come from for you where you made that decision to not let that stand in your way and still look for the next thing, still look for the positive in the situation, still look for the lessons there or being open to what's there? I think part of it comes from... I mean, a lot of it is mindset. A lot of it is mentality. One of the things that really helped me with that, I started listening to the Daily Stoic in like 2021 from Ryan Holiday, which is a daily podcast on stoicism, different principle or tenant. And when I started listening to that, I felt like it really aligned with my beliefs and helped me instill some really positive mindsets. But

29:39 I think that most of it honestly comes down to there's a really good book called Extreme Ownership. And there's one phrase that kind of I think is kind of. like the tie between stoicism and this book and it's if not me then who if not now then when like if if not me then who's going to do it if i don't do it now then when is it ever going to get done and so i've just kind of adopted this mindset of like if something's going wrong it's probably my responsibility to fix it and i'm going to be the one to give and give and give and give and give and try to do it and i know that people are going to take and take and take and take maybe occasionally i'll take something in return but that that's just kind of been the mindset that i've adopted and things have worked out pretty good for me and so when i've seen the theme i've seen it proven and i see that it pays off in the long run my mentality is just if if something goes wrong there's a reason that it's supposed to and i need to do something about it and if something needs to get done or a problem pops up then it's my responsibility to fix that or do it and i'd say that works nine times out of ten there's sometimes where i like run into a wall and there's nothing that i can do some things are just out of your control but for the most part adopting that mindset has helped me take a lot more I'd say a lot more ownership and having higher agency with what I end up doing in life. Yeah, for sure. Before we jump back in, can I ask you a quick favor? If you're enjoying the journey so far, will you like rate and subscribe to our show? It helps us reach more people like you. We can design and create and build the most

31:09 wonderful place in the world, but it takes people to make the dream a reality. Well, let's kind of take a look then at how we see kind of this general topic when it comes to this movie, Luca. Okay. So set the stage, if you will, in case somebody hasn't seen Luca, what that overarching story is of Luca. So Luca, I would say the distinction is we've got a civilization of people, sea monsters that live below the water. My daughter loves Luca. This is one of our favorites. But we have the civilization of people that live below the water, the sea monsters. And then you have the people that live on land. I believe it takes place in Italy. It does. Okay, so it takes place in Italy. And then you've got the people that hate the sea monsters. This would be like if crocodiles could speak and they were coming up and standing on two legs. And we're like, no, we hate crocodiles. They should not be riding our bicycles. But we've got two primary characters, Luca and remind me the other. Alberto. Alberto.

32:07 They become friends. They start to realize that they can break the surface of the water and actually go up to live with the land people, right? The land monsters is probably how they think of it. And they, I don't remember exactly how we get to it, but they really want a Vespa. They want like this little scooter. And they're having to do these things to like camouflage themselves anytime it rains or anytime. they get wet it like turns their skin back into looking like a sea monster and they have to stay hidden and covered uh from all the people so they don't get discovered that they're sea monsters um and they go through this whole movie basically learning and trying to find ways for them to blend in in this area in civilization where where they grew up they're not allowed to be there these are the bad people but they find out that these people like really aren't that bad uh but they just have this preconceived notion that sea monsters are really bad and so it's this whole story of friendship becoming friends with people from other areas finding ways to find those common interests and and blend to with the overarching goal of getting a Vespa while there's a lot more and a lot more things that happen inside of there.

33:10 But that's kind of the theme is like having a different perspective of these people that traditionally haven't really liked each other, but finding common ground for them to become friends and realizing that they're not that different. Yeah, I think that's perfect. And so what I want to do is there's a couple of lines that I really like in here. And there's some other quotes too that I want to ask you about and get your perspective on. So at the very beginning, when Luca is under the water, and he's kind of shepherding these fish, much like a shepherd on the land would. And he's experiencing different things, and he's finding some things from the humans that float down. And his mom does not like this at all. And his mom says to him, the curious fish gets caught. And so what kind of limiting belief do you think that is? I mean, the mom didn't have bad intentions at all, right? It's not like his mom's trying to be mean to him. But in what way was that a limiting thing for Luca to hear? Well, I think it, I mean... curious fish gets caught this kind of now reminds me of like finding nemo right like you get curious you start to look for other things not maybe not necessarily in a bad way but like being willing to discover new things is going to open you up to a new world but when we grow up inside of this box and we know that this is our section of the ocean and we do not leave this fence everything outside of it is bad everything that is different is bad it restricts us to thinking that we can only play within this sandbox but how i actually like to think of those things is it's more of like a gate it's like a fence this is a barrier of safety but the gate can open and we can go out

34:41 and we can branch out and go to other areas while knowing that we have the safety of our own home to come back to but i think that that is just a pure limiting belief of thinking that you know Everything else that is different from what we have right now, we're good. We should be comfortable. We have everything that we need. We don't need other people's things or ideas or perspectives or anything that they have is going to be different. Why can't we just be happy and comfortable with what we have now? But that's very limited because there's so much more that's out there. There's so much that we're missing out on if we restrict ourselves to just staying within the box. For sure. One of the things that I thought really ties into this is something that Stephen Covey said that you're probably familiar with as well.

35:23 He said the way we see the problem is the problem. And so in what way is that kind of the case, both in the story of Luca, but also in problems that people would face in their businesses or in their lives? I think a lot of it comes down to learning to remove yourself from the situation. Like if it wasn't you, it's really easy for us to look at things and put a lot more emotion and weight to them and think that it's the end of the world when a decision is being made for us. But it's really easy for us to like look at other people's situations, be like, oh, all you need to do is this like that. Why don't you just do this one thing? That's the only thing that you need to do. So I think one, we need to take ourselves a little less serious because at the end of the day, like worst case scenario really isn't that bad. Like, oh, bummer, like you made a mistake at work. Now you know not to make that mistake anymore. But, oh, if you spend your whole life trying to focus on not making mistakes, you're going to miss out on all the things that you could have learned if you were just willing to make one or two mistakes.

36:24 And so, you know, I think that looking at, I think so many people get focused on the problem and looking at the problem and talking about the problem rather than. theorizing on and identifying solutions to what that problem could be so that that thing doesn't need to be a problem anymore like i don't i i look at problems as open loops and when i have like an open loop that hasn't been closed then it's just like piling up for me of all of these things that i know that i need to close the loop on and solve the problem for and so my mind is much more ocd and that like i need to close all of those loops and solve all of those problems but i think that the the more willing we are how we look at the problem is the problem we need to take a step back and realize that it's just a problem yes it's my problem but for now it's just a problem remove myself from the situation if i were going to make the suggestion to a friend what would i tell them to do if it weren't me in this scenario because you look at the word the long enough and it starts to not look like a word anymore i feel like the same thing happens when we're looking at our problems or issues or relationships or things that we're looking at and in reality we just need to take a step back not take ourselves so serious and be like if this were my best friend in this situation what would i tell them to do to solve this problem Yeah, and I wish I knew the research on this specifically, but it's research that I've heard both Brene Brown and Adam Grant talking about where when you're able to remove yourself from it and see it from that perspective outside, it helps you to overcome that problem because it's not you. the issue isn't you it's just something you were facing and the ability

37:54 to take that perspective away from it allows you to then move past it because it is just a problem that you can then solve and move fast as opposed to i am the problem i am the thing that's gone wrong yeah and and i there's a really good book i'll reference ryan holiday again he's got a really good book called the obstacle is the way like i fell in love with when i when i started doing a deep dive into like mental health and understanding myself rather than looking at things as problems like oh why do i do this like why this is such a problem for me i just started realizing like oh this is this is a behavior that i do this is something that i do what can i do to change that oh, when I go into social situations and I say something stupid, I don't actually have to go home and overanalyze for three hours and toss and turn in bed wondering why I said that. Like, oh, wow, I just saved myself three hours every single time I go out in a social situation, all this stress and weight.

38:46 And I realized, you know what, I'm going to say some stupid things. But if you don't say some stupid things, you don't say some funny things, right? And so I just realized that I had to loosen up a little bit for myself and not take myself so seriously in those situations. But when I stopped looking at things as like, these are like my problems this is a character flaw and just realized these are things that i can tackle and i will be better as a result of fixing them or solving them i started becoming obsessed with problem solving because we're not taught to i don't feel like we do a good job of teaching how to approach conflict Like we would rather avoid conflict and avoid a hard conversation rather than address it and love and bask in the glory of what's on the other side of just addressing a problem with someone, right? Addressing contention or something that we're running into. And so as soon as I started to realize that, and when I read that book, The Obstacle is the Way, I started to just fall in love with the idea of when I have obstacles, this is the way that I'm supposed to be going. like you're going to run into things and the more the more tolerance that you build up to be able to have hard conversations to be able to diagnose really tough problems to figure out solutions to those problems and this could go business or relationships right any of those things right there when those obstacles start to be overcome you become a lot better at overcoming obstacles and everything becomes less stressful the problems that I was solving five years ago in my career were like the smallest little tiny things in the world compared to what I'm doing now but I couldn't have had the confidence to do what I do now if I didn't just start solving

40:16 and overcoming obstacles where I started at. Yeah, that was what you needed so that you can overcome greater obstacles. Correct, yeah. Another quote from the movie. I want to get your take on. This is a classic one. This is one of the most famous ones from the movie. It's where Alberto and Luca are talking, and Luca's afraid to go down this little hill on their homemade Vespa that keeps falling apart. And Alberto says to him, I know your problem. You've got a Bruno in your head. Luca, it's simple. Don't listen to stupid Bruno. And I think it's that sometimes people do let that Bruno in their head really hold them back. Yeah. I think that when you start to identify that voice, you realize how frequently that voice is there. Yeah. Right? Like when you hear that. uh, negative self -talk, you realize how frequently you're actually doing it. And, well, uh, this was probably three or four years ago. Um, one of the spots where I really, I was at a spot in life. I used to spend a ton of time in the sauna. I still do, but I would spend like a big sauna guy. I would spend like 20 to 30 minutes a day in the sauna. And that's where I would, that's where I learned how to think.

41:26 no one no one had ever taught me how to think and so i i started realizing i was just like i would just run through like my day to start and i'd look at all of these things and then i'd like listen to how my brain would react and respond to things that had happened through the day and then i would start making note of like why am i being so hard on myself for this thing like I did 10 reps instead of 12 at the gym. Like, why am I telling myself that, oh, you're weak. You didn't go as hard as you could have. You know, you didn't do this to completion. I'm like, I did the very best that I could. Like, I'm happy with that. Yes, I understand like challenging yourself sometimes and not skating by. But like, as I started to listen to this Bruno in my head, I realized how frequently that I was doing that. And then I actually, some may call it like heebie -jeebie, right? But like, whenever I was alone in the sauna, like I would actually talk back to myself. And I was sitting there. I'm sure there were people that walked up, opened the door, heard me talking. They're like, yeah, I'm not going in there. That guy's creepy. But I would be sitting in the sauna and I'd hear something.

42:21 I'd be like, no, that's not the way it is. And I started doing this positive reinforcement to myself. And that was where I felt like I really started taking this connection of like. Ryan who's in my heart and Bruno Ryan who's in my head and starting to get him out of my head a little bit more and get my heart to pop up here a little bit more. I felt like I built this in tune relationship with myself that wasn't there because I was letting Bruno Ryan talk so much more than Ryan Ryan. And I think for me, the Bruno Ryan, because I guess that's for me as well, right? Yeah, there you go. That happens when I don't take the time to slow down. And then it's just like I'm in the heat of it and I'm negative self -talk and doing that. For me, what I found where I get that opportunity to almost have this meditative status actually in running, which I used to hate. I just hated it.

43:09 and i have one of my best friends who just loves running and kept encouraging me to do it and i finally started doing it it took me a long time to get there to that point but once i did now when i run i get to that state where i can think through my day. I can think through the things that are holding me back. I can think through problems in a way that I just can't at any other time of day because it's so busy. When I look at my day and my schedule, it's like almost every minute of every day is just scheduled out. And taking that time though, first thing, I'm a morning person. Taking that time first thing, getting out running when no one else is awake. I run at 4 .30 in the morning. No one else is out there. It's still dark. The whole world is my oyster. And I can just think through those things. And then that Bruno in my head gets a lot quieter and then I'm able to process through like who I am and what I want to accomplish and putting things into perspective a lot better when I'm able to do that. Yeah. Well now, as you're saying that, isn't there a quote in the movie where he says like silencio Bruno, silencio Bruno? Yes. Yes. Um, so yeah. And, and I think there's, there's one thing in there that you said that I want to highlight. You default to that talk when you're busy. Because that's our natural reaction. When things are going wrong, just when life is happening, our default reaction is to respond in a way that puts us on guard and covers and is like a protective state. And it's like justifying other people's actions or the things that they did or the errors that they made, justifying the things that I did as a survival

44:40 mechanism. But in reality, when we're doing that, that is just pure reactionary. And out of fear. Yeah, it's out of fear. Reacting out of fear. Whereas when you take the time to actually stop and think and be like, OK, they said this. Did they mean this or did they mean this? Because they have these five other things that's going on in life. And all of those things are causing all this pain and hardship. And that is what's manifesting through what they said to me. That allows you to be. it's not a word, but I'll say instead of being reactionary, proactionary, and you can actually look and bifurcate and separate out these scenarios and situations where people are responding negatively, but you're not reacting to that. You're taking that, you're internalizing it, running it through your filter and being proactive in how you respond to that. And sometimes just in doing that, that's where I've had some of the best conversations is when I see that, I hear that, I listen to that. And then I'm able to say, hey, I take a day or I take two days.

45:30 I'm like, hey. I know that you said this. I know that you have a lot going on. is there any chance i i know that there's probably something that i could do a little bit better here but with kind of how you approached me and what you said i did notice that i'm not trying to find like another spot or trying to place blame somewhere else i know that you have a lot going on in any of in these other areas like is there stuff that we could do to help solve this so that we can not have this issue again in the future and is there stuff that i can do to help you with that so that we can get more to the root of the problem rather than just the zit and how it's manifesting right like there's more under the surface there that needs to pop for sure so and And to me, that's rooted in empathy. Because when you're looking at that with that person, you've got to care about that person to have that conversation.

46:13 Because then you're caring about what else is going on in their life. And to me, it's the idea of kindness. Kindness is rooted in empathy. And you can't have that kindness and assume positive intent if you're not willing to try to empathize and understand what's really going on for them. You can't because you ignore those things. You ignore they have other things going on in their life. You just assume it's the worst. So they must mean the worst thing to you, to everybody else. They must be a bad person. But if we can flip that, empathize, find the kindness in the situation, we can really get to the root of the problem a lot easier. Yep, spot on. Yeah. So one more quote that I want to talk about where it kind of wraps up the movie. This is kind of where it reaches kind of the climax, right? So Luca and Alberto do this triathlon. And the triathlon is not a traditional one. It's swimming, a bicycle ride, and also eating pasta because, of course, it's Italy. So it has to be eating pasta, right?

47:06 They get to the end of this race, and it starts to rain. And so then Luca and Alberto are both revealed to be these sea monsters. During the show, they've built this relationship with Julia, a young lady there who also has this nemesis kid in town who always wins and always beats her down. They build a relationship with her dad, Massimo, who's a fisherman with one arm, who's just this great but very stoic guy. He's this quiet guy. He doesn't say a lot. So they reach the end. They reveal the BBC monsters, and the villain of the show is calling them out. He's like, you guys are just monsters. You're just monsters. And Julius says like, no, they're not monsters. So he says, well, they're not monsters.

47:47 Who are they? And then big Massimo, who's this huge guy, it's the biggest guy in town. He comes up and he's like, I know who they are. And you're not sure at this point in time, it's gonna be like, yeah, they're monsters. Let's kill them, right? Or what is he gonna say? And he says, I know who they are. They're Luca and Alberto. And to me, it was, it's just such a nice. i don't know it's just really emblematic of what we're talking about here seeing seeing it differently changing perspective let me get your take on that well number one i think that that that could have been like a a teeter that was definitely a teetering point like which way does mossimo lean here if i remember correctly and i could be wrong i'm pretty sure mossimo actually lost his arm to a sea monster I don't remember. I don't remember. I feel like there was some fishing incident or something where he lost his arm.

48:32 But he definitely did not like sea monsters. Yeah, he didn't like sea monsters. Very antagonistic towards them. You know, looking at it from his perspective, right? Like these are these two kids that this whole time they've been living underneath my nose and they've been visiting and they built a friendship with my daughter and they turn out to be someone completely different from who I thought they were. In fact, they're the epitome of the thing that I hate, right? and to go in that moment and one having the frame of who he is stepping into that moment the whole town is going to listen to whatever he says yes but i think that the most important thing is that he and this truly i think that this is one of the hardest things in life it is near impossible Unless someone is actually willing to do it and go through the hard stuff to change your frame of someone else. Like, my perspective is I don't need someone to show me twice why I can't trust them. But, you know, I'm trusting until someone gives me a reason not to. And it's really hard for people to change a frame, especially for...

49:24 I don't know how many centuries or layers of the family tree, generations, there we go, that's what I was looking for, how many generations the hate for sea monsters went back. But him saying that was the turning point that now changed the relationship of now being able to, I'll say, cross the border to go out of the water back up into town and having this bilateral relationship to go back and forth. And all of that came from being willing to... loosen your own heart up to see someone for who they actually are and who they've become and all of that trust was built over time if that was just you know they met and then that happened you know the next day there's no way that masmo would have stood up for them no chance but by building that relationship by being there by not networking and connecting right like they built that relationship over time they sat down for dinner together they built the friendship they they slept at the house right like all of those things led into him seeing them through a different light and he's like oh these people are actually just regular people right even though we may think and we've thought for years that they're different and that they're monsters and they're this and that all it took was that one friendship to be kindled and sparked to realize that we're really not that different.

50:34 Why are we separating ourselves? And I think that resetting the frame is one of the best ways for us to build that deeper relationship with people. So it is so hard to do. especially when it comes from something that might be a deeply held belief or a long time or just assumptions that you've had for a long time. It's hard to break those down, but the willingness to do so and then to lead others in doing it is really something. And that's really what Moss is about. And I think it's important to clarify, like, if you have problems with someone or if someone betrays your trust, you don't need to rework to create the new frame of, like, them in a perfect light. Like, they've already recreated the frame. You trusted them, and now you don't. But I think that there is a lot of value and there's a lot of insight in being willing to be graceful and forgiving someone so that you don't have to carry the weight and the emotion of what they've done to you. I think that that's important to clarify.

51:26 But I think that it's also good in scenarios where it may be. hey for the longest time a business relationship for example for the longest time we thought that we were competitors but now we realize that we're actually very synonymous and we've got overlap of our customer bases and there's opportunities for us to create a partnership together and this industry and this industry like we very frequently we thought that we hated each other but in reality there's a lot in common here why don't we work together um so i think it's important to clarify there that like if someone burns you or does something bad you don't it's not on you to recreate the frame after they've done that to put them back in the light of being a good person sure but i think it's important to still forgive them allow yourself to move on find closure even if you haven't gotten closure from that person, so that you don't have to carry that weight of the negative frame that they've put on you, and you can just carry with you who you are, understanding, I got the experience and I know what to look for now. But then on the relationship side, being able to reset that frame is very, very important because it opens up a whole other set of opportunities that was just on the other side of this obstacle right here. And that's what we see there, right? That even though Luke and Virgil had lied about who they were, um it was built based off of fear but they also did a lot to help build that relationship with both massimo and julia so that when that time came and they were sorrowful for what they did he was able to embrace that back in and see them in a different light yep um okay so when you when you think about kind of this approach that you've had what's what's kind of the what's

52:56 kind of the takeaway that somebody could have, general advice, we'll get into our three actual takeaways here in a minute, but what's kind of the general advice that you would give to somebody when they're thinking about this topic in both their business relationships professionally, but also in their personal life? I think the most important thing is figure out who you are and what you stand for, right? Read through the books. I see some books on your shelf that I've read and gone through in here. Read through the books and research information online and study philosophers and different religions and scriptures and figure out what is the philosophy of Ryan. What do I believe? What do I stand for? What do I not put up with? Who am I willing to surround myself? Who am I not willing to surround myself?

53:41 And then from there, I think that allows you to have your perspective, which is uniquely you. And then I think from there, the most valuable thing that you could then go do is help other people figure that out, whether that is they have a business that they're building and they have this idea and they want to do it and they want to do it this way. But they're missing this one thing that from your perspective, you're able to share a piece of insight that's super valuable or they need help with this other person over here. And, you know, I'm talking about what I do now. Right. But like you're able to connect this other person that has a different perspective or a different insight to do things a different way. You have to figure out who you are first before you can help anyone else. Figure out who they are, do what they want to do. connect with other people. And I think the same thing goes for relationships. My wife, Taylor, is super, super strong in knowing who she is as an individual, who she is as a mom, who she is as a wife, who she is as a dog mom. She has the things that she knows that she has to do to feel comfortable with who she is. And I have the things that I know that I have to do. And we feed off of those and build a, it's not a 50 -50 relationship.

54:45 We try to treat it as a 100 -100 relationship. We're always giving our all at all points in time. And there are some where I'm doing 75 and she's doing 125. And there's some where I'm doing 100 and she's doing 150, right? Like she does a phenomenal job with that. But I think that it's really important to have a clarification of who you are, what you stand for, what you do, so that you can be there as a support and a balance. So that if you come in contact with someone that doesn't know who they are, who they are, what they do, what they stand for, that doesn't throw you off your game. You've got your foundation that you're rooted in, but you're also willing to open up and see things in a different perspective or in a different light by not just saying, oh, I've always my least favorite people in the world. We've always done it this way. This is how it's always been done. This is how I do it. And I'm like. okay, but if we did it this way, it actually would probably be a little bit better. And prove me wrong. Like if it doesn't work, we can go back to doing it your way. But I don't like the people that are just so hardheaded and stuck in their ways that we can't see past or can't see another opportunity because it's an ego stroke or it's a power play. Like we have to be willing to accept us for who we are, accept others for who they are, and find the common ground to build those opportunities. And I think that's the key to successful relationships in life is being able to meet people where they're at too. Yeah, I think that's right. Okay, let's take two quick segments here. Okay. Have some fun. So we're going to first hit a this or that.

56:03 All right. So you just got to say which one you think. It might be a controversial opinion. You'll have to defend it if it is. Here we go. And we'll see how it goes. First one, Vespa or bicycle? Vespa. Okay. More entertaining, more fun than a bicycle. 100%. You can feel more wind on your face, too. Yeah, there you go. I like that. Number two, gelato or fresh pasta? Gelato. You big gelato guy. Big gelato guy. And gelato over ice cream. This is going to be controversial. Yes. I think all pasta tastes the same. Interesting. Someone can change my mind and take me to a... Nice restaurant, and prove me wrong, but I think that most, like my default, no joke, I was in Arizona last week, I got spaghetti and meatballs. I think that, I am lactose intolerant, so that probably plays a factor here. Sure, sure. So yes, gelato over ice cream, because there's no dairy in most gelatos.

56:58 But yeah, I think most pasta tastes the same. Interesting. So. Yeah, I. I've never heard that perspective before. I don't know if I agree or disagree. I'm going to have to process through that. Have you been to Italy? Because I haven't. No, I haven't either. So I probably need to go there and experience Pasadena. If you're Italian, please do not listen to this. Because I'm sure that that would be different if I went over there. Oh, my goodness. And like I said, I'm more than willing to have my perspective changed and opened. It sounds like we need to have a Ryan and Ryan trip to Italy. There we go. That's what it sounds like. And then we will find out. R -R -I -I. Ryan, Ryan in Italy. Yeah, I love it. I love it. Okay. Massimo or Alberto? Massimo. Yeah, I like Massimo. He is a bit of a stoic. Yeah.

57:44 Vintage car or brand new car? I think this is a good timing for this question. It's apples to oranges, in my opinion, because I have both. But I think that you appreciate them for different things. Because I've got a 1979 C3 Corvette, and then I have a 2026 C8 Corvette, and I love them for different reasons. I like it. Road trip or travel outside the country in a plane? Outside the country in a plane. Okay. What's your favorite place? Favorite place that I've been to recently would probably be the Philippines. Philippines. Yeah. All right. Went to the Philippines last February. I was speaking at a company on site for a company called KJ to all of their Asia Pacific employees. And that was a perspective changer. Like a lot of things that were just different, how they do things, how they approach.

58:33 Karaoke was amazing. Everything just seemed a lot more happy and light over there. I like it. Okay. Here's a rapid fire. Okay. So just the first thing that comes to your mind, favorite Disney movie. Toy Story. Does that count? That's Pixar. Totally. Okay, Toy Story. Anything Pixar will count. In fact, we'd even give you all of Disney brands for any of these questions. Cool. Toy Story. Okay, Toy Story. It's great, by the way. Favorite Disney song? Probably the theme song from Up. Oh, it's so good. It really is like... I can't help but think of my wife when I hear it. That is exactly. It makes me like, I just see the two characters in that movie, and it's just like this lovely, oh, that's a great choice. I love that song. Theme song from Up, because every time you hear it, you can visualize the entire story of their life together from start to finish throughout the song. Yeah, they did a really nice job on that movie. I'm doing a poor job of rapid fire, sorry. No, this is great, this is great. Favorite Disney princess?

59:36 Jasmine. Okay, favorite Disney hero or heroine? Probably The Beast. Okay. There you go. That's a good one, too. Favorite Disney villain? Captain Hook. Captain Hook's good. He's good. Favorite Disney sidekick? LeFou. No, I lied. Sorry. The Genie. I played them in my 7th and 8th grade plays, but definitely got to be Genie. Both of them are great. Both of them are great. The Genie's amazing. Absolutely wonderful. I mean, Robin Williams in Aladdin was phenomenal. I mean, just... out of this world okay these ones are gonna be tough but i i want you to come up with an answer okay all right you're gonna hedge i know you are okay hit me best car brand corvette okay chevrolet corvette okay there you go favorite city mccall idaho Whoa! Okay, we're going to have to not rapid -fire this one. I've got to have an explanation. Well, I guess I wouldn't really qualify it as a city. It's more of like a town. Chicago, big city. McCall, favorite place on Earth. It's a small little water skiing town.

1:00:45 My family's been going there for 70 years, I think, is what we're at. Might be a little bit more than that. But we go up there. We get a house on the lake and go water ski for a couple days. It's like my favorite place to retreat to. You get the anticipation leading up to the trip. You know that it's always going to be fun. You know what to expect. But it's out in nature. Your best Wi -Fi speed there is going to be like 40 megabytes per second. You're maybe getting a few emails out, and that's it. Which is good. Connected, which is good. It's my favorite place on Earth, McCall, Idaho. I love that. But if you're listening to this, don't go there because it's really small. So I want to keep it small. So pretend like we didn't say that. Totally fair. Pretend like it's not on the top 10 most hidden cities or hidden gems on National Geographic.

1:01:26 Yeah, there you go. Best business book? Who Not How by Dan Sullivan. Very good. And last one here. Best piece of advice you've ever received? Hmm. Best piece of advice that I've ever received. Is this just like life advice or like business specific advice? Whichever you like. All right. Well, the one that's coming to mind for me because it's 10 a .m. now and we're starting the workday. Business takes on a whole new meaning or relationships take on a whole new meaning when you do business with people. And that was a piece of advice that one of my mentors, Sean Holiday, gave me. i had a lot of relationships and i held a lot of value in my network and uh and he kind of told me straight up he's like those those relationships are really nice but like you haven't really done anything with them so go do stuff everyone's scared of like a business deal going south or something going wrong but no one ever talks about how much could go right and all the opportunity that sits on the other side of that and mutual success.

1:02:36 And so when I took that piece of advice from him, I started falling in love with the idea of doing business with people because that's how fast forwarding now three years, that's how everything fun, exciting, successful in my life has happened has been by doing it with other people. It's great. It's wonderful. I love it. Okay, so to kind of wrap into kind of our closing reflections. So, you know, I thought today I really appreciate your perspective on how taking a look at these problems and seeing it from a different perspective, how we can look at this, you know, situations like a delayed wire or a deal that fell through and yet find the good in that situation, find how we can still make that into a positive thing. I appreciate your story, your willingness to share your experiences on how you've been successful and how we can kind of see Luca through this same lens of looking at things differently, looking at problems differently, seeing people for maybe who they truly are as opposed to what's on the outside. So what are three actionable takeaways that somebody could, who's listening to this, could say, I'm going to put this into action today or this week that can help them in the very things that we've been talking about? well i think the first specifically i'll say life career if you have an idea of what you want to do or you're doing something right now pause and take 15 to 20 minutes and ask yourself and look at like am i doing what i really feel

1:04:07 drawn towards I talk about the concept of push versus pull. Am I pushing myself into something or am I letting myself be pulled towards something, that gravitational pull? And so analyzing and looking at whether you're early on in your career, do you feel like you're headed down the trajectory of what you want to do? If not, what do you want to do and how can you get there? Do you know someone, you know, you're in business, but you decide, hey, I do want to go be a cardiologist. Do you have any relationships or friends or family friends or connections or cousins or friends of cousins that are inside of that industry that you could send a text to your friend or your connection and say, hey, I'm really looking to talk to this person. Would you be willing to introduce us? I just have a couple of quick questions that I want to ask them. I'm trying to figure out if this is something I'm interested in doing.

1:04:49 Being willing to just take that step in action towards, one, think about something that you want to do and then figure out. Step two, what could you do to put that into action? If that's building a relationship, if that's creating an internship or a job opportunity, if that is being a better person at home and identifying, hey, instead of letting the dishes pile up, I'm just going to do them right after dinner and I'm going to load the dishwasher so that my wife doesn't get upset with me. I need to be home for dinner more times throughout the week. Those are a couple of things that I've thought of recently. So take a little bit of time to think about what are some things that I want to do in life. Am I getting the most out of it? Am I feeling pulled towards what I'm doing? I think the second thing there would be anytime something happens in a relationship, when something happens to you, pause and take a second and ask yourself, why is this happening for me? Not to me, but for me. Taking that perspective allows you to take a step back, draw back and analyze and look at like, I know that they did this or I know that this happened, but why was this supposed to happen? What did they say that I could draw something out of there that could open up some insight for me to be able to turn or reframe this in a way that helps both of us get out of this sticky situation? So taking some time to pause and think about what you want to do, what you want out of life. And then the same thing on if something happens, stop and pause.

1:06:03 Why is this happening for me? And taking the, I don't know what the opposite of victim mentality would be, but I'd say champion mentality, right? What can I do? What do I need to do to make this situation better? Or how do I put that into action? And then I think the third thing would be just growing. I touched on this a little bit earlier. No one ever teaches us how to think. We're taught how to do stuff and how to research stuff. We're never taught how to think about stuff. And I think that that's a... We have like the scientific method and the Socratic method. And I have like my Ryan method. I guess you can copy that because you're Ryan too. But I think that the third thing would just be building the muscle of starting to look at things differently. And, you know, I think we did a good job of unpacking the movie Luca. There's a lot of things that I think, you know, if people didn't pause and think about it, they would probably miss some of those things.

1:06:57 If you're driving down the street and you see a billboard or you see a company that has a logo on the side of their building, like why do they have that logo? Can I tell what they do based on how they describe it or what they show in the visual depiction there? When I see something online, you know, is there a reason that they're doing that? Are they doing that to show off? Are they doing that to, you know, prove something to the younger version of themselves that, you know, they've achieved what their childhood dream? Like just starting to pause and look at the things that are around you and just trying to see things from a different perspective. I think that muscle then helps number one and number two. So a lot of that. I mean, all three of those revolve around pausing and stopping to think. And so I think that's kind of like the overarching theme. The only way that you're going to get new perspectives is if you're willing to stop, pause, and think.

1:07:48 And then not just stopping there, but you actually then have to put things into action. You have to overcome the obstacles that we talked about. Maybe it's through it. Maybe it's over it. Maybe it's around it. Maybe it's under it, right? But as you start to then take those things that you think about and put them into action, that's where you start to take more control over your life and your living life, not living life as life is letting you live. And I think that's exactly why looking at why is this happening for me is a helpful reframe. Because if I know this, if I can say this is why this is happening for me, then it helps me to come up with better action items to... to approach that situation to take it as an opportunity as opposed to the victim mentality right it's a growth mentality versus a victim mentality so i love that those are great and i think it's accepting especially in like bad circumstances just to kind of close out on this right like i'll say bad where i thought i was buying this car and then it fell through and then i found myself and i was sitting in a on a friday afternoon three and a half hours in someone's living room right like looking at that if i had if i had focused so much so that and all the things I needed I could have gone back out and sat in my car and just sat on my phone I could have gone and run errands right but like there's a certain point in life where you you humble yourself to the circumstances of what is around you to just be able to sit and look around and see like okay yes this is happening for a very specific reason there's probably a reason that I'm supposed to be here let me look around and just like see and you almost like You almost just relinquish and cave and give in to the circumstances. And I remember being there when that experience happened. And

1:09:19 I was sitting there and I was like, oh, there's probably a couple things I could do. And then I kind of just paused and I was just like, I'm just going to be here. There's a reason I'm supposed to be here. I don't know what it is. I've got this, I think it's a stoic philosophy of be where your feet are. And so I knew that there was nothing more important than what I was doing right there in that moment. And I think by being able to do that. to accept the circumstances that life has given you, but being willing to pause, think, look, identify a problem, identify a solution, a different perspective, and then put that into action. That's when we really start to live our lives. Yeah, fantastic. It's been so great having you here today. Thank you for your vulnerability, for your willingness to share with our audience some of the lessons that you've taken from your experiences, from your career, from your life.

1:10:05 Appreciate you. Thank you. As you leave this conversation, remember that yes, the past can hurt and you can either run from it or you can learn from it. So here's to learning and finding joy in the journey. See you real soon.