The GOAT of Hacks for Getting Unstuck

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I'm here during the lunch rush with Janice, who owns her own food truck. Best cheese steaks in town. Janice traded up to Geico commercial auto insurance for her food truck business. We're here where she needs us most. They sure are.

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Consider subscribing, rating, and reviewing the show this holiday season. It really helps the show grow. From all of us at Believe, have a Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy holiday. Are you stuck? Are you frustrated?

Are you in a place that feels mundane, routine, or you're just not exactly sure how to break free and get that growth that you know is possible? Well, the answer might be something that you don't expect. It's time to get in more trouble. Let's go. Yeah.

Make it look, make it look, make it look easy. Hey, stand up guy, he on ten toes. Big body pull up in a Range Rover. I could chase the whole game when I say so. I pull up, should've never- Hello, everyone.

Ryan Hanley here, and welcome back to the show where we are all about entrepreneurship, leadership, growth, personal development, becoming the best versions of ourselves. And if you like what you hear, make sure you subscribe. If you're watching on YouTube, leave me a comment. Let you know, let me know what you think about these shows. Let me know your best hack for getting unstuck.

If you're listening to the audio show, know that I love you for listening to the podcast version of this show, and that every time you show up, you're in my heart. Before we talk about why getting into trouble is the ultimate GOAT of hacks for getting unstuck, I first want to talk about why I believe we get stuck in the first place. Why do we ever find ourselves in situations where we just can't move forward, we can't grow, we feel unsatisfied, discontent, right? There's that sense of just a, a lack of progress that grinds at us, and you're waking up in the morning and you're not sure what the next step is. Some people would say it's the fear of failure.

I believe that is completely wrong. It's the fear of status. We get stuck because we don't want to make a decision, make a move, have a conversation that could potentially impact our status in a situation. Now, that could be our place at work. It could be our status in relationship to our spouse, or to our children, or to someone in our community, a friend, our religious group, right?

We all have different levels of status in every group or community that we are a part of, and we become paralyzed because we do not want to lose that status. We don't want someone who would walk up to us and shake our hand at the community event all of a sudden walk right past us because they... we took an action, or we started a new company, or we left a job, or we had a take on a, on a economic situation or a political situation, or we decided to make a move with our kids, or stand up and take a contrarian take or ask a tough question. Therefore, we stay right where we are, because where we are is safe. So fear of failure is complete bullshit. Do not blame failure or use failure as an excuse for anything.

Failure is, uh, it's a third-party observation. Failure doesn't exist. It's a, it's a word. It means nothing. Status is real because it lives inside us.

It plays on our ego. So we get stuck because of status. So let's break that down. How do we get past that fear of status? Well, first, we have to live by the GNF philosophy.

Give no fucks. The people who grow give no fucks. They GNF everything. What that means is they live their life. They ask the tough questions.

They move to the job that they want. They have conversations that are tough. They live their life. It doesn't mean life gets easier, and it doesn't mean that you won't lose status in some groups. But when you make the bold decision to leave a job that you've been in for 10 years and maybe you have a, some sort of director or VP status inside that company, and at age 40 you go back to doing a startup out of your garage and people look at you with a side eye like, "How could he possibly do that?

He's being irresponsible. She's not taking into consideration the fact that she has a family or this. She's gonna put pressure on people, or that she was next in line for a promotion." If that's not what you want, then that's not your life. If you go back in the archives of this show, you'll see one on telling the truth.

Telling the truth doesn't just mean the words we say, it also means the actions that we take. It was George Bernard Shaw who said, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." Or, in parlance for today, also woman.

My friends, it is unreasonable to want more out of your life because that's not what society says. Society says, "We understand who you are. We understand where you fit into the world." And when you change that, when you make bold moves, you are being unreasonable. The fact that you want more out of your life is unreasonable to society, but that doesn't mean it's wrong.

It means it's what you want. And if you're going to be unreasonable, you're gonna have to get into some trouble. So why should we get into trouble, and what does trouble actually mean? I'm talking about productive trouble. I'm not g- talking about going out and robbing a bank or, uh, blowing up a situation or a meeting just to cause trouble or to create strife for attention.

That is not what I'm talking about. That is the antithesis of what I'm talking about. I'm talking about recreating, re- re-embracing the curiosity that we had as children. As children, we don't care about trouble. You- if you have kids and you're watching, just thi- think y- when they're little, they turn every dial, they press every button, they jump over things, they, they splash puddles, they grab dirt, they throw it at people just to see what happens, not to be a jerk.

They do it because they're testing everything, and we forget this as adults. There's a certain point of our life where a, a dial or a switch flips and all of a sudden we're just supposed to fit in. We're supposed to understand how the world works and just go along, and early decisions dictate so much of our later life, and I refuse to accept that. I refuse to believe that we have to fit in to what everyone else believes we should be doing. GNF.

If you want more, you're going to have to get into some trouble. You're gonna have to start questioning norms. You're gonna have to start asking tough questions. You're going to have to be a little disagreeable. You're going to have to make a bold move.

And to do that, you have to get into some trouble. So what does productive trouble look like? In Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life, uh, one of the rules that hit me the hardest was: do not bother children when they are skateboarding. And in this rule, what Jordan breaks down is the idea that kids skateboarding in parks, sure they can get hurt, but they're also playing, they're trying, they're developing, they're learning, they're testing, they're adapting. They're figuring out what their limits are physically, mentally, emotionally.

How much pain can they take? How much risk are they willing to take? What is the risk/reward to taking certain actions? And to an outside observer, to someone who believes in safe places and helicopter parenting, that that somehow is wrong and that we need to protect them from themselves, when in reality, they're becoming the best version of themselves. They're becoming resilient, they're reinforcing their curiosity, and they're developing independence.

Getting into trouble is a core feature of pursuing mastery. If you're going to go deep down a path, if you're going to grow, you have to become a master at something, and in order to do that, you can't go about it the same way everyone else has because the way everyone else does something is the exact way to become mediocre just like everyone else. You have to find your way. You have to GNF. You have to get into trouble.

You have to test, try, develop, figure out where your risk tolerance is. How resilient are you willing to be? What type of platform are you willing to build? How independent is that platform going to be? If you only ever do what you're told, then you don't necessarily understand where your intrinsic motivation comes from.

You're only responding to extrinsic motivations, to extrinsic goals, certain monetary goals that are given to you by your boss, or a societal norm that tells you how you're supposed to act. But what drives you? Do you know? Have you ever played around? When's the last time you just played at something, you just did it for pure fun for no other reason than it made you happy?

Regardless of what everyone thinks about that hobby, thinks about that task, thinks about that activity, thinks about that take that you have, that thought, that belief, that standard, when is the last time you played? Because when we play, we get into trouble. I coach 10-year-old baseball players. They get into trouble all the time, but that is exactly how they learn. They make throws they shouldn't make.

They swing at pitches they shouldn't. They try new pitches that don't work and get knocked out of the park. And yes, is that trouble? Sure. Do I wish that those things didn't happen?

For sure. But you know what? They learn. They learn what it feels like to make a bad throw, to swing at a pitch they shouldn't, to get h- to throw a pitch and have it knocked out of the park and watch someone else trot around the bases. And in doing so, we realize that getting into a little bit of trouble doesn't kill us.

Getting into productive trouble doesn't end our life. And what happens is the fear goes away. When you make that big entrepreneurial leap, the scariest part is the moment before you do it. Once you jump in and you're full throttle, you're not scared anymore. Maybe there's a low level of fear.

Maybe there's a little bit. Maybe there's a, this small sense of anxiety, for sure, and there should be, especially if you're taking on some project that's gonna grow you as an individual. Ultimately, all the fear comes before the big leap. And once you get to the other side, you realize, "Geez, I'm not really scared anymore, mostly because I gotta make it happen now." So here are five ways that you can get into productive trouble as an adult to help you break free from that stuck feeling.

The first, find a commonly held assumption that doesn't feel quite right, and challenge it. Now, that assumption may be completely accurate and a best practice and something you should be doing, but have you challenged that best practice? Have you challenged that assumption? Have you asked tough questions? Have you dived into the research?

Have you looked at the case studies yourself? Or do you just accept that norm as something that we all should be doing? It doesn't mean that it's wrong, and it doesn't mean that anything's ever gonna change because you did, but in so challenging you may realize that you find some insight, some tweak, some new idea. This is what I found in my business. When I started my national commercial insurance agency, the thing that we did differently was we lived by the idea that ins- commercial insurance consumers, small business owners throughout the United States, did not need to meet with their insurance agent face-to-face to have a high-quality relationship.

This broke all the norms in the industry. We were the only agency operating like this across the country, and we grew exponentially, so much so that we were acquired in two years because of one assumption that we challenged and built our business around: that I could have a 100% remote workforce and still grow at scale while delivering high-quality insurance products th- and our customers would stick, and that's exactly what happened. I questioned one primary assumption that was commonly held by 35,000-plus independent insurance agencies across the country. Challenge an assumption. I built an entire business on challenging one assumption.

Two, set ridiculous goals. Dr. Benjamin Hardy wrote this amazing book, 10X Is Easier Than 2X, in which he makes the case that going after 10X goals are far easier than going after 2X goals. Why? Because there's a thousand ways to 2X your business.

There's a thousand ways. If you wrote a list right now, you could probably come up with a thousand different ways to 2X your business, but there's only one way to 10X your business, and that one way's gonna be tough. It's gonna be different than many other people. It's gonna challenge every skill that you have, every connection. It's probably gonna take every dollar you have, but there's only one way to 10X your business, and going after that 10X, focusing, being determined, being resilient, and taking that one path that gets you to 10X will change everything about your business.

It'll change everything about your life. It'll change everything about you and your relationships because you will have to change as a person to get there. You're gonna have to get in a little bit of trouble to 10X your business because that one path is gonna force you to say no to people. It's gonna force you to say no to things that you would've otherwise said yes to, and people are gonna start to question, "Well, you used to come to this conference. You used to take these types of calls."

Can't do it. I have one, one path to 10X my business, and this call, this conference, this connection are not part of it. Number three, and I'm gonna use the F word here but only for a moment, embrace failure. There are going to be setbacks. There's gonna be obstacles.

There's gonna be roadblocks. If you start to create trouble, if you start to question things, if you start to try to move around best practices, if you try to take on things from a different angle, you're going to have setbacks because there's no trodden path. There's no th- the, the path more taken. It's not there. You're gonna be blazing a trail with a machete, hacking through the woods, trying to figure out how things work, and you're gonna run into roadblocks, and this is why I talk about wins and lessons.

Embracing failure means viewing every setback, every obstacle, every roadblock as a lesson, not a loss. If we look at them as lessons, we learn, and if we continue to challenge the assumptions, we c- not only the assumptions commonly held in our industry or in our societal norms, but if we continue to challenge our own assumptions, we make challenging assumptions a constant in our life, a core virtue and value to who we are, then everything is just a lesson. If something doesn't go the way we want, we just learn, adapt, adjust, and move forward. The fourth way to get in productive trouble is to create new experiences. That means go on a trip to a place you've never been before where people do things entirely different, a completely different culture.

Go to a conference you would've never gone to before, possibly outside of your industry. Reach out and try to build a connection with someone who has an expertise, an insight, or a way of viewing the world that is completely contradictory to the way that you do it because what's gonna happen is people are gonna look at you and you're gonna say, "Why are you talking to that person? Why would you think about going to that conference? Why would you ever visit that place? Why are you causing trouble?

Why are you disrupting your life?" Because I'm trying to grow. I wanna get better, and the only way to do that is to take in new data points. The fifth and final way to get into good, productive trouble is to surround yourself with other troublemakers. The best place to do that is to find entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs tend to be a little crazy because they do all these things, and if what I've talked about so far is not in your nature, then surround yourself with people with which it is, and by osmosis, by proximity, you will start to take in their mindset. They will expose you to things that you weren't pr- previously exposed to. They'll share insights. These individuals aren't different from you. They're just further down this path.

They're just have already become okay with trouble. That's why they started their business in the first place. If you want to get into trouble, surround yourself with troublemakers. And if you're looking for an example of a troublemaker out in the world, just read Walter Isaacson's book on Elon Musk. Elon Musk is the ultimate troublemaker.

This guy GNF's everything in his life and he has been wildly successful. Now, that doesn't mean his life hasn't also included tons of issues, tons of problems, tons of turmoil, criticism, negativity. Because when you decide to step down this path of growth, understand that those things are coming whether you want them or not. But if you are stuck, if you are frustrated, if you are discontent, unsatisfied, if you feel that sense of anxiety that you've just been stuck in the same place for so long and you believe you're capable of more, the best way to break free is to cause a little trouble. I hope you will take this advice.

I'd love to know how you create trouble. What is your method? What's your favorite way of creating trouble? Have you created trouble in your life in the past? If you're watching on YouTube, leave a comment.

I'd love to have a discussion around ways of creating trouble. If you're listening to the podcast on audio, know that I love you and you can come over to YouTube, leave a comment as well. If you're not subscribed to this show, please do. Till the next time, go create a little trouble, my friends, and GNF. This is the way.

I'm out of here. Peace. Let's go. Yeah. Make it look, make it look, make it look easy.

Hey, stand up guy, boom, ten toes. Big body pull up in a Range Rove. I could change the whole game when I say so. I pull up, shut it down, yeah, they know. Running this game ain't a thing for me.

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Happy holidays. Want to give your host a gift? Consider subscribing, rating, and reviewing the show this holiday season. It really helps the show grow. From all of us at Believe, have a Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy holiday.