Do Your Future Self a Favor with Ryan Stanley

Elaina:[00:00:00] Ryan. Thank you so much for joining me today,

Ryan:[00:00:03] Elaina. Truly my pleasure. I've been looking forward to it all week. Thank you so much for having me.

Elaina:[00:00:07] Absolutely! One of the passages in your book Be patient, Be present, Be joyful, a first aid kit for emotional bumps, scrapes, and bruises of life I want to read.

It says everything you do and think about today, creates your future. Every thought and conversation you have, every action you take has a powerful impact on the life you are creating. How much time do you spend thinking about the future you want to live in? There is a you in the future, you are the change of what you will look and feel like decide every day who you want to be and be it with passion and determination. I love that.

Ryan:[00:00:47] You know what. I love that too. As you were, as you were reading aloud, I was like, yes, that is true and right, every, every single moment is an opportunity for us to decide who we want to be. And to your point, as you kind of started the show, it's like we have so many different people and influences in our life and so many different types of conversations and experiences that can mold our thoughts and can, you know, create fears or, just direction, right trajectory.

But when we start to recognize. At literally any given moment. So, to any of your listeners out there listening right now, like today is, is a completely unique day today. No matter what your past has been like up until this moment, your past doesn’t equal your future. So, no matter what has happened is brought you to this point where for whatever reason, you're actually hearing this podcast. And so if you're not satisfied with your life, if you decide that you, I want to be more fulfilled and that there is more opportunity, take a moment today to decide what that actually looks like. So, if you. I could have a magic wand. If you could rub the magic genie, you know, rather than magic, we have to get the genie to come out.

What would you want your life to look like? And there's an opportunity once you know that that's actually the starting point that most people don't make enough time to do to your point, because they've already been influenced by others or others experienced to decide to almost like they're kind of stuck with who they are or how they are or where they are. And that's really, nothing could be further from the truth.

Elaina:[00:02:01] Everything we do take some form of energy and we spend a lot of energy concerning ourselves with what other people think. And I remember sharing with you the conversation that I had with my daughter a while back, one of her friends used the quote, "what other people think of you is none of your business."

Ryan:[00:02:18] Yeah.

Elaina:[00:02:18] Her and I had to have a conversation about that cause she was like, well, of course it's my business. If it's about me. And I'm like, but I've been telling you that the only opinion of you that matters is yours. And I've been telling you that since birth.

And so, I see that a lot of us get kind of stuck in that pattern.

Ryan:[00:02:34] Totally. And that's typically based on past experiences sometimes with those people, but often with other people that have nothing to do with the person who you're worried about or, and it's funny, it all comes down to fear. Right. In the grand scheme of things, there's so much when, you know, as a coach, when people often ask me things like, you know, what keeps people from being successful?

What takes people from stepping outside their comfort zone? What keeps people from having a fulfilling life and, you know, nine and a half times out of 10, it comes down to fear. And then to your point, not only but fear of what others think, because unless you're actually physically in danger and that's a different type of fear, right.

And that's a valid fear and that you do want to utilize to for, for survival or health. But if you're, just worried about what someone somewhere else thinks or something that you said two weeks ago, or what may occur in the future. Like that's all fears just that we're just building up in our heads that are literally physically having an effect on our body and really keeping us from stepping outside any type of a comfort zone and keeping us from living on purpose and keeping us from really stepping into our true greatness.

In fact, so many times I've said to my clients, you know, how would your life be different if you honestly didn't care what anyone else, anywhere else thought. And that means people you love, right? It doesn't just mean you want me to say this? It's almost like I'm just scared of bullies or I'm scared of mean people or, I'm scared of maybe colleagues or, or possible, you know, whatever, just people out there like on the internet or something, but really also people are scared of what their mom will think. They're scared of what their friends will think. They're scared of, they, they don't want to hurt somebody's feelings, but as long as you're not harming somebody else in any capacity, if you're living life on purpose and really asking yourself if I didn't care, what anybody else thought, how would my life be different?

All of them, without question, you know, without all of them have said, my life would be amazing. My life would be so much different. And then, so when you get down to it, so then I'll ask them, why are you afraid? They all, you know, they sit there, think about it. It's like, I don't know. And it comes down to something that we've just been kind of programmed to do, you know, through our life and it's human nature.

But when you really start deciding like, Hey, I am here, like, you know, there is gravity, there is some light there's oxygen outside just right now, everywhere so that I can exist today. Like, so you start to really realize that every single day, every single moment is literally not only a gift, but a miracle.

Right? I mean, when it comes down to what you described, the definition of miracle, The odds and on you being born, really not even just from like, you know, what happens when, when a human is conceived, but yeah, even though the concept of your parents meeting and their parents meeting each other and having them like this whole thing of science and numbers, like it's really the odds and you being alive is like 1 trillion to one or something ridiculous like that.

And when we start to think about that and recognize that every single day is a miracle and a gift that I'm even here for me to, to your point. Take any energy that that could be focused on creating this life and, and absorbing this life and enjoying this life, instead of focusing on what someone else, somewhere else thinks or fears or things, why I'm not good enough or judgment of myself or others is really in my opinion, just like a waste of that energy.

When if you could be using all that same, that energy, if not, even more to create the life that you want and live on purpose and love life as really, as it can be a major shift in your life.

Elaina:[00:05:37] And I think we rely on other people's opinions because we've kind of lost that trust. Within ourselves for whatever reason.

And to your point earlier, a lot of it has to do with the experiences that we've had over time. How do we get to this space of being at a place to not only heal from some of those past wounds but to reconcile with ourselves and start that journey?

Ryan:[00:05:59] Yeah, I think the first in my, as I'm thinking out loud, I think the first step is going to be gratitude.

I think for anyone out there who's struggling in that, that space. If you start creating gratitude as often as possible. And that means like sometimes how do I do that? When I do that? I dunno. It's like, well, so think about when you're in the shower in the morning, what are your thoughts in the shower?

What are you thinking about? Often, it's about your day or an email or something else? Someone said somewhere other time, but sometimes it's just about nothing and or nothing of any value or any importance to your life or that the provides any direction or guidance or care to your life or to your point.

Sometimes it's even negative thoughts. And so, times when you're not. You don't need to be focused doing anything at all. Maybe sitting in traffic, if you're in your car or anything like that. Like, those are great times to just start thinking about things that you're grateful for and what I'd also recommend.

If this is something that someone is really interested in doing, and they see value in creating gratitude and I'll get into kind of the why it's so valuable in a minute, but there's something that, that feels right for you as a listener out there, maybe make some time on a Saturday or a Sunday or some other time to challenge yourself, to write down a hundred things that you're grateful for.

You know, maybe you start off with 10 and see if you can do another 10 an hour later, whatever, whatever works best for you. Come up with a hundred things that you're grateful for and keep that list in your back pocket. Obviously you're not gonna use it in the shower, but the car or whatever other times when you're feeling stressed or overwhelmed or something like that, there's an opportunity for you to sit down, take out your list and remember what wildlife is amazing and why can be amazing now to go back to the value of gratitude.

Literally gratitude is the opposite of stress. Gratitude, if you think about it, the energy of stress in some capacity is lack, right? I don't have enough something I'm judging myself as not good enough. So I don't have enough for myself from myself or from others or, or if I'm late for something and I'm angry and I'm stressed about it.

There's a lack of time. I don't have enough money. I'm not successful enough. I'm not in the relationship that I want. What are all these different things? Our feeling of lack, lack of love. You know, somebody was mean to me. These are all valid things to be stressed or worried about, but they're all a feeling of lack.

And when you are in genuine, authentic gratitude, if you're sitting in really have the feeling of receiving, that is the opposite of lack and you're in this feeling of, and so when you genuinely intentionally create gratitude in your life, You are creating the opposite of lack and you were creating an understanding of you are being given, and that is the opposite of stress.

And so right now, many people more often than not. And I think how we end up in depressive episodes is we start with one small kind of depressive, angry, stressful thought, and then we get a second one and then a third one, and then that one leads to a fifth one. And then. Soon we're we're spending, you know, we have 60 to 70,000 thoughts a day, and if 80% of those are negative or stressful, then your body's going to create a habit of just doing that all the time.

And you're gonna wake up the next morning and you're going to do the same thing. And so if you recognize that that is a pattern, we can kind of send, send the spiral in the opposite direction by creating gratitude more often than not. And by the way, this is not, well, at least I have my health. Or at least this, when, when.

Elaina:[00:08:58] Yes.

Ryan:[00:08:58] Know when we say at least it's it's coping, which is something that is necessary, it might be a great place to start.

But just for the sake of this conversation, when I'm talking about gratitude, it's not at least. Yeah, no. Like I have my health, like, Oh my gosh. Thank you. Like, I can't believe. Like I, you know, I, again, I can wake up every day. I can walk around; I can do whatever I want. I can choose to choose to be whom I want with this body.

And there's people who don't right. And there's other things that they can be grateful for. And sometimes, you know, depending on who you ask and what science, you look into, people who are unhealthy and have forms of disease can use gratitude and use joy and use elevated emotions to kind of shift their, for their physical health as well.

So, gratitude I think is, is super, super important. And the more you start to do it, the more the habit begins to. You know, become a habit, I guess, as they do.

Elaina:[00:09:42] Absolutely.

Ryan:[00:09:43] You know, the more you'll start your, your brain will start to do it on its own.

Elaina:[00:09:46] That was one thing that I was missing. I was so focused on, I was focused on the negative, what wasn't working because I am a solutions driven problem solver.

So, it's like, if I see the problem, I need to find a solution and then everything will be better. But I had a difficult time being able to acknowledge any wins that I had. I didn't view anything as a win.

Ryan:[00:10:10] Celebrating wins is so important and that's another habit that we can create as well. And so, at the end of each day, so I have a journaling practice, you know, that as part of my morning routine, it's part of my evening routine.

And in the morning, I write down things I'm grateful for. And in the evening, I also write down things I'm grateful for, but when the other, the other sections of my generalist just for wins, what were some of my wins for the day? And they don't have to be like, Hey, I just made a million dollars. Yeah, it can be.

I was, I mean, I had quality time with my kids. I, you know, I got an email from somebody I wasn't expecting from, it can be whatever you want, whatever at one point was a thumbs up or something you, you were grateful occurred. That is a win. And the more, again, we start to celebrate those, the more we start to see them as well.

Elaina:[00:10:50] Another passage in this lovely book of yours says, how often do you stop to truly celebrate life? How often do you take a moment to be present and look at the magic of your existence? Every single moment in life, is not only a gift, but an opportunity to live in wonder at the fact that you actually exist and can feel the feelings and emotions of life. You are a miracle act like it.

Ryan:[00:11:21] And here's the thing. Let me, let me just share real quick concept. I completely understand that it sounds a little bit, life is rainbows and unicorns and you know, nothing bad ever happened. I don't, I just want to re clear that when I would never belittle anybody else's experience or trauma I've, I've had my own challenges and traumas and upset.

Really some heavy stuff really throughout my life. And I would hear people say things like the quotes that you just read, the passage that you just read. And I would sometimes be like, well, that's easy for you to say or that type of thing and not really understanding it. But the more I dove into the concept of being present and being here now, and the more I've started to understand and intentionally create elevated emotions like compassion and joy and gratitude and love for myself and for others, the more it becomes a habit we talked about, but when you first read it and you first hear it, it seems like, okay, that's easy.

Especially if you're in a place where you're not feeling excited about life, right? Like to your point earlier, if you feel like you're just stuck, that is not necessarily going to feel realistic to you, but I really just want to point out that is, you know, it starts with just having faith in the concept and believing that what you just read, there's a possibility.

And so if it's a possibility that right now is the most important and only thing that there is, and I do have an option to actually think that way and recognize it and look around at everything for the beauty that it is and recognize that it is a miracle right now that I even exists. When you, you know, the first time you do it, it's like, okay, I guess, you know, it seems all right.

That seems to make sense really, but still this happened to me. Right. And then the second time, you're like, well, I guess, you know, like anything else, it's a practice. Yes. And then one day, man, you just have to of that moment where you're just looking around and you're like, oh my gosh, like, this is all happening for me.

You know, if we can say it's happening for everyone, but literally it's also happening for me right now. Who do I want to be with this gift? The challenges going back to what we were talking about earlier is that we are, when we worried about the year, we're worried about what other people think we're worried about what goes on in the rest of the world. We typically are coming from a place that life is happening to us and things are happening to us. And what someone else said is happening to us and what someone else believes is happening to us. And to your daughters, you know, the conversation with your daughter, what somebody else thinks.

It's my business, because I need to know what's going to be happening to me or what is happening to me. But if we shift that and truly recognize that life is happening for us, even the traumatic, stressful situations, as weird and crazy and scary as that sounds, if you're to take any situation and say, how could this happen for me with a genuine curiosity?

Like, why is this happening? If that's true. And if I accept for a moment that this is happening for me, why would that even be a thing? How is that possible? What would it mean? And you start to ask, well, it might mean that now I'm supposed to, because I was assaulted and now I, I am going to be someone that protects others who are, or have been assaulted and help them get past it.

Well, I'm making that up just, you know what I mean? What could possibly, the reason this happened for me can be a powerful, powerful question. And can change the, you know, the rest of your life.

Elaina:[00:14:05] You had a great point when you were talking about looking at it from the perspective of this happened to you versus for you.

I was guilty of that. It was woe is me like, oh my goodness, something else just happened to me. What else is going to happen? When is it going to stop? The world keeps showing me its ass. How's it going? What did I do? I used to tell people, like, I feel like I need an exorcism cause there is a demon that has attached itself that it's trying to ruin my life.

When I got to a place where it was like, I just, I'm going to be me and I'm going to be me and I'm not apologizing for it when you're a good person and you're putting good out into the world. Like if you were a jerk, I'm not saying, go out and be a jerk to everybody and think that you don't have to apologize.

Ryan:[00:14:48] Hey, listen, I'm going to punch somebody in the face and I don't care what they think of me.

Elaina:[00:14:51] That's not what I'm talking about. What I was talking about is when you're putting good out into the world and you're being the best version of yourself, I feel like in that moment or at that moment, you don't have to apologize for it. I'm not going to apologize for being who I am at the core to make someone else feel comfortable or to have someone accept me or like me, you either take me as I am, or we cannot orbit around each other.

Ryan:[00:15:17] What someone else and we talked about it, not being any of our business, but the truth is what someone else thinks of me literally has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with them. Right. But it has everything to do with every single second of their life up until this moment where they had that thought. And in like a weird world of had I been born to their parents at the same exact time that they were and lived every single second of their life up until that moment, I would feel the same thing about me.

So literally has like, if I was a different person, so literally has nothing to do with who I am. My thoughts, my words, or anything as much as us as to do with their experience to your point, once we start really truly, and yes, definitely never want to harm anybody in any way, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally.

But if we are, you know, our intentions are just for the greater, the greatest good of all. And we are letting our light shine, our light shine from within, and we're living on purpose to be the best versions of ourselves, not only for ourselves, but also for those, we love who or surroundings. So, they can see that as an example and strive to do the same thing, especially as a mom, right.

And for myself as a father, we are. I lost my train of thought. I got so excited just about being a dad for a second there, but we are, we're attracting people into our life who we do, you know, we'll hear what they think of us because it will align with our values.

Elaina:[00:16:29] Yes.

Ryan:[00:16:29] When people start seeing you behave your true self in a certain way, and putting yourself out there, those who feel that and see them and are a part of like, or similar to that already will say, yeah, I'd like that.

I want some more of that. I want to be a part of that. That's similar to who I am. How can we learn and grow from each other? I think the biggest challenge that we have in the world today is that we're coming from a place of competition, right? Most people are on this theme of survival, of the fittest, and I have to be better than you in order to get by and to be the best compared to everybody else.

When it's really, it's just not true. I mean, it's not our nature. We've, we've come so far from our nature. I think in actual nature, the animals, it is survival of the fittest, but human beings who are conscious, we have the ability to it's really, how can I be? The only, only competition could be, should be me, but how could I be the best version of myself?

In whatever I love to do. And even if that's in a sport, right, you can still be the best athlete in that sport for yourself, not to beat others or so others are worse or not as good as you, in fact, by being your, you take, you take people who I'll use Michael Jordan, as an example, who is extremely competitive.

Like, I mean, you hear, I don't know if you guys, if you saw, The show they did on ESPN, but like, you could just see everything he wanted to do. He wanted to be, he wanted to beat people, like literally, like that was his thing. And that led him to be the best in the world. Right. So, yeah. See the value in there and it doesn't.

I also see there's a type of energy there that probably didn't serve him as a human being, in my opinion. Now that being said, going back to the concept of being the best that you can be and others seeing it, there are so many people who, who didn't necessarily see the competition side, but saw him as being the best and did want to emulate that.

So if you can remove the competitive, I have to beat people. I have to be better than other people and just, you know, completely focused on how can I be the best version of myself and still get to those highest levels and allow others to see you do that and want to do that themselves. That's how we change the world.

And we go from competition to empowerment, to helping others want to be the best version of themselves. And if everybody's living in this space where they're not only being the best version of themselves, but combining that with being the light, they want to see in the world and empowering others to do the same.

I mean, literally that, that's how you create a goal, a global change.

Elaina:[00:18:33] That's amazing. I love that because I do think in that term too, as far as I don't, I'm not in competition with anyone, but myself and I just challenged myself. How can I be better than yesterday?

Ryan:[00:18:45] Like I have that little quote up on my wall right below my vision board. I'm looking at it right now. I'm in competition with no one. I have no desire to play the game of being better than anyone. I'm simply trying to be better than the person I was yesterday. And I would say also that I, the word better, I would even remove. And I would, I would change that to different because better is a judgment as good or bad different is an observation.

And it might be, there might be aspects that I would like to change, but by saying that I wasn't good yesterday and I'm good today still leaves you with judgment of yourself as not being good enough. And again, yesterday you were exactly who you're supposed to be for every single second of life lived up until that moment today, I'd like to be a little bit different in a way that is focusing more on who I prefer to be.

Elaina:[00:19:23] I love that I'm going to have to, I'm definitely going to have to adopt that because I talked to a whole episode about not judging feelings and there was with the better, I liked that being different. And it's all a journey getting from point a to point B many of us just have to figure out what that next step is.

And then you figure out. What the step is after that. And you have to have this create a vision. I feel like if you create a vision of your future, like in the passage, it talks about there's a you in the future.

Ryan:[00:19:55] Right.

Elaina:[00:19:56] What does that look like for you? What does your future self, if you could peek into the future and see your future self, what kind of life would your future self be living?

And now in the present, take the steps to accomplish that? I don't think that there's anything outside of our reach. If we will want to go through the scrapes, the bumps and the successes and the wins to achieve it, because there is hard work in every aspect of what we want to attain.

So then you have to put in the work, you have to put in the effort and you may go one direction and realize that was not the successful path, but there was something that you gained in the knowledge of that experience.

How do you leverage that to now change maybe the course to still go down the journey?

Ryan:[00:20:41] Totally. And that goes back to the, the happening for you, right? So there are no mistakes. There are no failures. This is, this is a perspective that, that you can, that people can attain. So if I decide that life was happening for me, even the, the, the, so I'll use the term mistakes or failures that I made, if you decide those aren't those, but there are lessons for me to be more of who I want to be. And if at every point, instead of seeing all of that, that was a stupid thing that I did. What a mistake I made. I wish I did never did that. Like, that's all energy that you're physically creating and pointing towards judgment of yourself for making the decision that you made based on your life up until that point.

As opposed to, you can say, oh my gosh, this did not turn out the way that I, well, I anticipated.  What is the best lesson here and how can I utilize it, that to be the best version of myself today?

Elaina:[00:21:24] Absolutely.

Ryan:[00:21:26] And those things will add up. And the more and more lessons that you start to add up, I learned that, you know, equals a lifetime. And to also what I would go back, you, you, you had a great point about the vision and having a vision. There's so many people out there who don't have a North star. And so again, for your listeners, that's a great place to start. We, you know, I would say, so gratitude is a great place to start. Next place is to create some sort of a North star.

You know, you said like, what does future you look like? Have you made time to think about that? And so it's typically right  the average human being will just go to this place of, well, I guess it's going to be this, I guess I'm probably an all in kind of like a, a minimal like, well, I guess I'll probably keep doing what I'm doing and maybe I'll get this if I'm lucky. Or maybe, you know, as opposed to saying no, you know what? My, if I could have my perfect life, if I could close my eyes, I could wake up a year from today and my life was perfect. This is what it would look like if you literally made, this is what my relationship looks like. This is what my income looks like.

This will, my career looks like this is what, whatever it is, whatever that's important to you and your life looks like. Make time to write that down and think about it because so many times people get so caught up in looking at the past and looking at the, the, just their journey up until now, as opposed to, to thinking about the future that they want to create on the more we start focusing on one or the other, if you're focusing on the past all the time, that's your life is going to continue to unfold based on that past.

But if you decide what your future is, and you spend more moments thinking about that and reminding yourself of that and being grateful and creating gratitude for that outcome, you are then unfolding a life that will lead more towards that until instead of something that was based on the past.

Elaina:[00:22:54] Yes, definitely. Because my future vision is me on a private Island with mai tai.

Ryan:[00:23:01] Yeah. Elaina and, and, you know, that's a real vision.

Elaina:[00:23:03] To be retired, I want to be on an Island. Chilling.

Ryan:[00:23:08] And the people that get those types of things are not the people well that sit down and look at their past. So, the people who think about that and create a path towards that every day.

Elaina:[00:23:16] We are going to wrap it up there. So, Ryan, if the listeners want to learn more about you, where can they find you?

Ryan:[00:23:24] Ryan Stanley dot com is a great place to start. If you go to Ryan Stanley dot com, that's R-Y-A-N-S-T-A-N-L-E-Y. You can check out my audio blogs. You can reach out to me if you're interested in possibly working with me as a coach.

Obviously, my book, as you mentioned, thank you so much. Elaina, the book is called Be Patient, Be present, Be joyful: A first aid kit for the emotional bumps, scrapes and bruises of life by Ryan M Stanley it's on Amazon. It's on Barnes and Noble. You can get it wherever books are sold, as they say, but you can also get it from my website directly from me.

If you order it from me, I'll send you a signed copy. And depending on my availability, which is starting to tighten up a little bit, but, if you do purchase the book, it'll also come with a complimentary session. But also if you in a space right now where, I mean, I know COVID hit different people in different ways, but if you, if you, I don't have the extra cash to spend, but you're interested in some of the concepts that we talked about today, you can actually get a free PDF of the book by going to ryanstanley.com/free-ebook. And that'll give you a PDF as well. The physical copy is more fun to have. It's something that you can get around with you. It's small enough that we can keep it in your purse.

You can keep it in your pocket. You can keep in your glove compartment for those, those moments of stress. But, if, if you are also interested in, you can just download the PDF. That'd be awesome. And then if you're on social media, I'm on Facebook. I'm on Instagram, I'm on Twitter. Basically if you, if you go to my website, ryan stanley dot com, it'll have all the links and I'm assuming in the show notes, too.

Elaina:[00:24:40] Yes. All of the links will be included in the show notes. I want to thank you, Ryan again for joining us today. I truly enjoyed our conversation and the insights that you provided. And I encourage everyone. I have a copy of the book. I've read it. I've already bookmarked several passages where it's like, yep, well, if I'm feeling this way, I just have to remind myself of this. So, I encourage you all to go check out the book and Ryan, thank you again. It's been an absolute pleasure, sir.

Ryan:[00:25:09] I agree with, and I had a lot of fun. I feel like I made a friend and I really enjoyed our time together. So, thank you for allowing me to be part of your journey.

Elaina:[00:25:15] Absolutely. Alright, everyone with that wraps up another episode of Cope Queens. Thank you for coping with us today.