And it is time once again to get solar powered. We welcome you back to another episode of the solar powered podcast. I'm Ryan Hall from loyal hearts media. Thank you so much for joining us here today, and I think we've got a really powerful episode here today.
And as I was speaking with our guest before we went on, with this recording here, the the phrase, it's always darkest before dawn, really, I think, jumped out in front of me in my space because I think a lot of people when they see things when they go through things in their lives, when they when they experience heartbreak and things that just really shake them to their soul, they really it it takes a minute to kinda get out of that, and I think our guest is a great example of that.
He's a men's coach named Drew Duraney. He is the author of, of a memoir called I'll have what she's having, and we'll certainly talk about that here. And, he's a man who went through 4 soul shaking moments in less than a year, and he came out on the other side. And it's a it's a privilege to welcome Drew Doraney to the solar powered podcast. Welcome aboard, my man. Thanks so much, Ryan. Thanks for having me. I'm grateful. Yeah. Absolutely.
Absolutely. Well, I guess first question is, what's your story? Jeez. No. Where where do we begin? I know that's a very broad question, but let's, you know, answer it however you, you know, whatever comes to mind. Yeah. No. I, you know, I I've practiced this because I get I've gotten this question quite often in the last 4 or 5 years. And and I always start I I always started with, I say, July 2015.
It was, probably about 10 days after the the Independence Day, 4th July, where I found out from my best friend, my wife was leaving me. And when I say that to people, they're like, why would you find out from your best friend? You know, a lot of questions. So that that's another story in and of itself. The point behind that is, I was blindsided.
As many many men are when you talk to them, when you they learn their wife is leaving them because we don't we don't really often see or notice the signs that are right in front of us that may dictate there's trouble down the road, and that all speaks to how men and women have a different thinking language. It's science. It's fact. It's true. And and unless you're aware of that, many men and women don't thrive or strive to learn the thinking language of the other gender, and I didn't.
And I real and and so I was blindsided. And instead of going through the court system, in Jersey, because Jersey is really not kind to men and children in the in the court system, we thankfully decided to go through mediation. And it was a painful yet rewarding 3 years in mediation. 3 years because our sole focus was to do right by the children. And what was the reason why it was painstaking is, yeah, ultimately, and I didn't realize at the time, that she already had made up her mind.
Divorce is it's done. It's over. And it's very much the way women think methodically through that type of emotional situation. For me, Ryan, my mindset was I could still convince her to stay. And, again, it's many times the male, mind thinking I can fix this. And unbeknownst to me, I didn't realize how far down the thinking road she was, and I was just beginning to self reflect because I was blindsided.
So with that, those 3 years were very interesting, and, the divorce was final April 3rd of 2018. Okay? So I walk out of the courthouse with this piece of paper, and I call it legal closure because there's many other types of closure as you know that, so legal closure is like done deal, boom, piece of paper, you're divorced. And even though I ultimately knew it was coming, when you have that piece of paper and you're walking out and it's done, there are different feelings. You know?
And I chose to have the feelings of I'm gonna rise up. I got my 50th birthday was coming up on October 6th. So you're talking April 3rd to October 6, 2018, 6 months. I'm like, chapter 2, I threw myself the coolest, biggest, 50th birthday party, Ryan. I had people from all aspects of my life come. You know, you're talking from family to my own kids to college and afterwards and in between. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Now as my mother says, man plans and god laughs.
So unbeknownst to me again, again, blindsided, I didn't see this coming, at about the same time as my birthday, I had I had worked 24 years in health care, and I, the manager in my department accidentally let some patient information be discarded. So I reported a HIPAA violation because it's the right thing to do. You know, just tell the compliance officer this is what happened.
Well, 10 days after my birthday, I was asked to come into human resources with the head of HR and my boss, and I was let go. It was a leadership change. Again, the quotation marks in the air. And so I was escorted out. I was locked out of the email system, so I couldn't even do anything about that. Escorted to my car, not allowed to go to my office, and my manager, she was charged with mailing all my stuff home, shipping everything from my office to my house.
And 7 weeks later, one of those alerts comes up on LinkedIn, says congratulate so and so on her promotion. So, yeah, so I did the right thing, and I'm shown the door. And she was elevated to my director's position. So, you know, obviously, I had certain feelings about the health care industry. It's broken just like any other industry. The thing was, as many men do, we and I did. I tied my self worth and self identity to my significant other and my profession. I lost both in a 6 month span.
So as a man, I was rocked to my core, and I was I was forget it. I'm like, oh my god. My my life is done. All aspects of my life. Right? So that's that's, like, the beginning of of how all of this this started, Ryan. And, so and now it comes to a big another defining moment. It's it's now I'm out of work, and, I had kept the marital home, and my kids now are with me.
Even though during mediation, it was a grade 5050, as the years progressed, each child wanted to move to their home and with their dad. So I had all 3 kids. And so 10 days after I got fired, I'm bringing my middle guy, my middle child, my son, who was 14 at the time to, to therapy session. And, when he was 14, let me see. The kids were 91113 when the separation. So, yeah, he's he was 14 at the time of divorce. He's in with the therapist, and I'm in the waiting room.
And and she comes out crying and asks me to come in, and he's crying. He says, sorry, daddy. And he hugs me. I'm like, what's going on? And was told that, the therapist didn't she could tell he wasn't in a right frame of mind, so she had to ask him, can you promise me you won't harm yourself for the next 2 weeks? And he said, I can't promise you. What I learned was the night before, as I'm in the den watching TV, he's in the master bathroom. I thought he was taking a shower.
He was on the phone with his girlfriend, and he had made an attempt, to cut himself, and she talked him down. And it was at that point where, you know, I had to reach out to his mother, and we had to bring him into the hospital to get, you know, whatever the whole evaluation, and they interviewed us all individually. And he was released to me. No changes. Just released to me at home.
And, for so I was gonna be with him at home, and that's when I first started to think that there was a reason why the universe or God removed me from my full time job. Regardless of the reasons what happened there, now I was able to spend time both emotionally and physically with my son to really focus only on his health. And the experts said that he really needed inpatient care, so we found a place about an hour and a half away. They didn't have a bed till December 8, 2018.
So you're talking, October 29 to December 8 for almost 40 days. I was with him 247, Ryan. I didn't sleep. I checked on and made sure I said my job for you, honey, is is just to be make you make sure you're safe. That's my job as your father. Yeah. So so that that again was, brought me back down to the the present moment.
And, so that's that was, the soul shaking moment number 3. 4 came on Christmas Eve, and that's when my dad unexpectedly got sick, And 3 weeks later, an intensive care passed away while my son was away. And the ironic piece to all of this, Ryan, is on December 8th, when we went to go drop my son off, my parents came up with us. And as they were in the waiting room, he pointed to my parents and I hope not nothing happens to them when I'm here.
And I reassured him nothing would happen, and something did. So feel that for a second. And Yeah. I you know? So so that that's where I was. And, you know, I'm here now, so I didn't give up, but it was that was crazy. So any questions you have leading up to that, yeah. Well, I mean, there there there's obviously a lot to unpack there, and I really thank you so much for for your candor with that.
Yeah. 1, you know, one thing that came up for me as you were sharing all that, and I'd love to kinda go into detail on a few of these and and how it has really shaped who who you've become and who you've become for men and who you've become for yourself. Right. But was it what kind of support system did you have as you were going through all this as you were seeing, you know, as you were seeing just, like, one domino fall right after another in barely a little over a half a year?
Yeah. Yeah. I it's a that's a darn good question because it's important to have a support system. And you know what? I had a ton I had a ton of support systems. And the question is, what did I do with those support systems? Very important question. Now I ultimately learned later on in life that I've been a people pleaser my whole life, and I was big into compliance and just doing what I was supposed to do. So what I did, Ryan, is I did what I was supposed to do. I sucked it up. I manned up.
I didn't show emotion. I shunned to my support systems, and I went and I went to fix it to make sure my kids were okay and my mother was okay. That's what I did. So I turned away from my support systems because my self identity and those events caused me to fall into a victim or blame mindset. So I blame my wife for the divorce. I blamed, my boss for my firing. I blame myself for my son's ailments, and I blame God for my father.
So because I was in this victim and blame mindset, I shunned all my support systems. I turned away from the church and my spirituality. I turned away from my friends who they couldn't possibly understand, Ryan, because they're not going through it. Right? Only I can fix this. So I I did get through it. I did I I I I had promised my kids and to myself I'd be the best father I could be, so I didn't give up because I didn't want them to emulate that behavior.
What I did do is I got them I helped get them through it, but I was empty afterwards because I didn't allow myself time to grieve or to get the help to get me through it stronger. So I got through it. What I call I went from the caving in to the coping stage. I felt empty afterwards. And so it it took it really took me to I've I always wanted to write a book. You know? And I never had the content. Now I did. Now I didn't have the confidence, though, that I could do it.
So because right when COVID COVID hit, like, my dad died January of 2019, and it was on his 80th birthday, November 30th. He was healthy, and he told me he was proud of me. So I said, dad, I know you're proud of me, but what you know, why why are you telling me that? He goes, I don't know how you're doing it. Because you you you know, first, the the divorce, then the hospital stuff, you know, and now and you mentioned my son.
Yeah. You're still taking care of the other 2 kids, and you come here every day to check on your mother and me. I don't know how you're doing it. My dad said, I know you've always wanted to own your own company, and I always told you not to. My dad was with IBM for 35 years. That was his generation. I just followed suit. I said, okay. I'll be in health care for that year. So he said, do whatever is gonna make you happy. Your mother and I will support you no matter what.
At that time, Ryan, I I just turned 50, and it's his birthday, and I started crying. And I hugged him. I said, thank you, dad. And that's when I created my company, Profit Compassion. I was gonna start my own health care consulting company who and I would educate caregivers and patients and families how to navigate the plan of care so everybody would come out understanding and healthier. When my dad died, I let my dream die because of my self limiting beliefs. And I then COVID hit in March.
So you're talking about my dad was only gone, January. So almost less than a year, you know, COVID hit. And I, you know, I ended up buying a franchise in in May of 19 instead instead of, starting health care consulting. And I did that for probably three and a half years. It had nothing to do with health care. And I was on autopilot, but it was during that time of after COVID where we had I couldn't meet people in person.
I did that virtual, you know, networking across the world, and I met an a book editor who you know, I was like, that's what I wanna do. I wanna write a book. And the way the book was written, it wasn't necessarily pen to paper. I we were on Zoom because she was out in Arizona. I was in Jersey. I was telling my story to her so she got an understanding. And the more I told the story, I decided to she encouraged me to tell my story to every everybody I who anybody who would listen, male and female.
The more I told my story, the more I healed from within. It was cathartic. And and as I progressed and started to heal myself by telling the story, started to think, like, maybe I'm finding my purpose in life. And there came a point during the book where I did. And I woke up one morning, and I I had already been thinking about it. I walked away from the franchise. I breached a 10 year contract and said I can't do this. This is not what I'm supposed to do.
What I'm supposed to do or suppose I hate the term supposed do. Like, you should listen to other people. But what I believe I was meant to be on this earth for was to help men start telling their story. Because I realized I was suffering in silence and many, many other men are. Because as I was telling my story, strangers, men and women alike, would start telling me their story. Some saying, I haven't told anybody this before or whatever.
So so I was starting to be told that my superpower was breaking down walls. So So once I start telling my story and show that I can confidently be vulnerable, other people felt safe talking to me, and then they've confidently feel vulnerable. And that started molding my current view of what it is to be a man.
And so in essence, I am redefining what it means to man up, by still being strong and and building a boundary around myself identity and self worth, yet still being emotional and vulnerable and compassionate and showing emotion and asking for help and telling my story. You can be both. You have to be both. You don't have to choose between between the 2. So that's my new definition of manning up. It's been it's been pretty powerful. People are relating to it too, Ryan. So No doubt. No doubt.
Helping men tell their story, I that I mean, that that that was like game show bells for me as you were sharing that because, Ed, as I'm finding through, you know, many of my audience know that I'm, that I'm spearheading a, collaborative book called The Expanding Man Chronicles that is coming out in December of 2023.
And we have, I'm one of 7 men who have gone through some soul shaking moments, who have gone through some moments of just, like, wondering just who we are as men in this world and really expanding our definition of what it means to be a man. And it honestly sounds like it took, you know, it it took you having to get your life stripped down to the bare metal Mhmm.
That it that it almost occurs to me that that's exactly what you're doing is that you're you're not only expanding your definition of what it means to be a man, but you're helping the men in your life, your clients, to be able to expand their definition of what it means to be a man. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's the thing.
Since we're you we're each a unique human being, we may be more similar than we are different, yet we are still unique, and we have the right to have a unique definition of what it is to be a man. It's a matter of sharing experiences to see if we can get to a, very close definition of what it is to be a man so we can join together, and and make this a movement rather than just, you know, something to talk about.
So, yeah, I'm it definitely, the more we share, the more we learn, and the more we take action from what we learn, the better off we're gonna be. I love it. I love it. Well, let's rewind a little bit. As you were talking about just kind of the, like, the 4 pillars, so to speak Mhmm. Of how you rebuilt yourself, I find it very I find it very curious that it really that there's, like, 4 distinct pillars that a lot of men have.
Mhmm. Their family, fatherhood, their work, and their, and and their romantic relationship, so to speak. And seeing all that stuff break down at once really helped to, you know, really helped to reshape just who you've started to become and are becoming more and more in this world and really starting to see more and more about who you are Mhmm. About who you were, I should say, and are, like, redefining that. Right. No. It's it's true.
And, when you think about the different aspects of life, when when we try to change something, we think we have to change everything. You don't necessarily have to. You really think about your mindset. You change a little things and be more positive in your mindset. And with gratitude, everything else changes. And I look at the wheel of life. You know? You have just so the areas you talked about, you have you have your spirituality.
You got your family life, romantic, business, career, financial, fatherhood. What men tend to do is when one of those goes wrong, we allow it all to fall apart. And what I've seen is many women are able to somehow keep all the other parts of their life kinda steady while they work on the core reason the one issue is going one part of their life's you know, life's going wrong. So so women seem to be able to address the root cause by asking for help.
They have their women who they talk to and all these support systems, and men tend to go after the the the the the the symptom. You know? Men, we'll go, hey. Go with our buddies to the bar and drink so we forget, thinking that that's gonna take care of it. The next morning, the hangover wears off, and we still have the root cause issue. Women handle it much more mature way. So so what I'm really imploring men to do is you don't have to just stop everything and fix one thing.
You can still care for the other aspects of your life and ask for help and and and and and improve the the area that's not going well. And that's what, you know, we really need to do because once a man gives up on one thing and gives up on everything, the life falls apart. It doesn't have to happen. Exactly. Exactly.
You ran up a a really good point because a lot of times when and I I have been very guilty of this myself is that when we find, and also can kinda have a bit of an addictive mindset. Mhmm. But when we have a certain aspect of our life that's falling apart. Right. Like, just for example, when my father my my dad passed away in December 22, 2014. Mhmm. And as he got sick and as he was getting worse, my stress eating was through the roof. Mhmm. Mhmm. And I was close to £300 Wow.
The day that he died. And I was incredibly unhealthy. I was incredibly, like, I was a totally different person. Mhmm. But I couldn't see it. Yeah. Absolutely. I couldn't see it. I was so deep in it. I couldn't see it. And a lot of times, men, when a certain aspect of their life is falling apart, they'll try to fill it with, you know, with food, with with with drinking, with drugs, with sex, with money, with gambling.
Mhmm. They'll try to fill it with something else, but not addressing the root cause that you said. Yeah. Yeah. Men mental turn to what I call pain numbing substances, and that could be anything like sex, porn, drugs, food. Yeah. I was a stress eater as well. Avoidance is another addiction. Men end up getting help you avoid things and You don't say. Yeah. Or even the suffering and silence piece is an addict ends up being an addiction. Yeah. It's it's pretty powerful.
I think the more the way that we can fix this this issue is to encourage men that when things are going well, continue to expand your self awareness. You talk about expanding man. Self awareness is so key, and and when when you spend time on yourself, it's really selfless, not selfish. And and if we can really build a solid mental foundation during our conscious awareness, which is only 5% of our brain activity is conscious, 95% is on autopilot.
We've got an opportunity during those 5% brain activity that's conscious to actually be purposeful to change some habits to make those habits more positive. That's by changing your words, changing your mindset. And once you you do that and it becomes habit, then all that good stuff becomes that unconscious. And then we won't give up on ourselves, god forbid, when stuff starts to go poorly for us. You know? Yeah. So it really takes when things are going well to work on your self improvement.
You know, it's it's kinda sounds counterintuitive. You don't need to wait for something to go wrong to work on yourself, and, that's kinda what I encourage most people. It's the same in business. Work on improving your company when the company is doing well. Don't wait till things aren't going poorly to work on that business aspect. So very similar. Yeah. Totally.
Totally. And I find what what you just said, I find that self love is really such a base in all that because if you're not taking care of yourself, if you're not if your diet is messed up and I'm not just talking about your food. If, like, the stuff that you watch on TV is, you know, kind of out of balance, if you're not exercising, if you're not eating well, if you're not drinking enough water, if you're not, you know, spending time in prayer and meditation, if that works for you Right.
There's just, if there's just there's just a lot there that can fall apart in a heartbeat if you don't have that base if you don't have that base of self love. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's true. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Couple more things that I wanted to speak to about. You mentioned earlier that you wrote a book. I did. I'll have what she's having. I love that title, by the way. Can you talk a little bit about that book and, really how it, how it ended up coming to be?
I know you spoke a little bit about it, how it just like telling your story really helped you to find that voice. But, you know, talk a little bit about how that book came to be. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, as I initially, I wanna just talk about resiliency without really diving really thinking that was gonna be diving deep into self reflection. During the course of writing the book, I realized I was a people pleaser my whole life.
And so the second the the subtitle of the book is memoir of a reformed people pleaser. In the I'll have what she's having piece, you know, some people of our age think that that come from when Harry met Sally, you know, in the in the and they because no. That that wasn't when Meg Ryan was faking an orgasm. No. I'll have what she's having in my purposes.
Yeah. Yes. I could put it in a restaurant, but it was kinda like even when I was dating my my my my wife, you know, we'd be sitting down at a restaurant, and the waitress would come over and ask us what we wanted. And while we were looking at the menu, I would I'd look at them like, I'm I'm gonna get the steak. Right? Drew wanted the steak. Waitress would come and go to my wife and say, ma'am, what would you like? And she would go, you know what? I'd like the salmon.
And so and then the waitress say, sir, and what would you like? And I'm ready to say the steak, and I'll be like, salmon sounds good. I'll have what she's having. And then I'd bite my tongue and say, I wanted a steak. Why the hell did I say salmon? And it was I repeat stuff like that. Didn't necessarily have to be food in a restaurant, but it was any kind a decision was to be made, and I would let the other person, whether it was my wife or anybody else, go first.
And I would know what I wanted to do, but I would always let them go first, and I would say, you know what? Sounds good. Well, let's do that. And and so that kept happening and perpetuated, and I've been doing that most of my life. And when I started to look in and really dive deep into those decisions and my behaviors, I was like, damn. I'm doing all these behaviors that are people pleasing, that are confused with being nice. And that's what did it, man. So hear that.
Yeah. Book is geared towards the drew of 2023, educating the drew of 1999 through 2022. And, you know, if you could speak to your younger self and say, hey. Hey. Hey. You know what you're doing? Boom. Hoping that your younger self would take your advice, knowing that he probably wouldn't and also knowing that maybe you don't want him to because then you wouldn't be who you are right now. So I didn't write the book in terms of I should've, I could've, I would've, or regret. Uh-uh.
I wrote it that, hey. Guys who are right now, the drew of 1999 through 2022, here's what I did, and here's probably why. And here's why I want you to be aware of your decisions and your thoughts and and your beliefs and all that kind of stuff because I don't want you years later to say I shoulda, coulda, why didn't I? That that that is incredibly powerful because one one thing that came to mind is that even as you're still creating yourself in the image that you wanna create it today Right.
There's still gonna be aspects from younger Drew that you wanna keep, you know, that you wanna keep in play despite the mistakes that you might have made as a younger person, as a younger man, despite what, you know, kind of led to a lot of the breakdowns that happened a few years ago. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. And and and that's a that's a very good point.
And I've I have a new definition of of happiness because with me, happiness I always allowed happiness to be external circumstances that if something outside happens, that makes me happy, and that that's very harmful and unhealthy because then you're always chasing something. I have a new definition of healthy, and I it's more of I mean, I have happy, and it's more of a formula. Happiness equals my standards plus my belief system. My standards are what you're talking about, the young Drew.
I'm not gonna change that. That's integrity. It's courage. It's loyalty. It's empathy. That's me as a human being. It's the belief system that is the variable that needs to change. And just like you and everybody else in this world, our belief system is kinda formed for us by the time we're 7 between 7 10 years old. From our parents, our parents' parents, it is nobody's fault. It's this generation of beliefs keep getting passed down and taught to us.
And so before we know it I mean, you think about it. When we're 7 to 10 years old, we're already told what our religion is. We're told what our political beliefs are. We're told what our favorite sports teams are. So, you know, that's that's what's handed to us. So by the time we're, like, 18, 90% of our belief systems kind of formed for us.
And unless we stop and pause and think and say, I think this because I was told I'm supposed to believe this, if we're able to say there must be other ways to think out there now sometimes it takes a man 50 years to start looking outside himself to find out what else is out there. And some people takes a tap on the shoulder, and they do it at age 18. It just happened to take me a long time. So happiness to me now is not external stuff. It's comes from within. So I changed my belief system.
My standard stayed the same. Right? That's my constant. The variable I change is my belief system. So now I don't regret things anymore. I forgive because I only knew what I'd know. Right? I'm not afraid of the future anymore. I'm not anxious because I look at what I desire and my faith in it instead of being afraid of the future. And then in the current moment, no more victim and blame mentality. That was in my belief system. It's now gratitude. So I didn't change my standards.
They stayed the same like you suggested. So that's why happiness to me is standards plus belief system. That that that's incredibly powerful. It it's so simple, but it's incredibly powerful to just really to just really kind of absorb just what happiness means to everybody because a lot of times, I find men can be very vulnerable to this. Mhmm. The, you know, the whole, hey. Is my bank account healthy enough for the you know? Are the, you know, you know, the women following me?
I mean, that external validation Mhmm. Piece, so many men crave and need just desperately need in their lives. But really finding true happiness is being able to when your head hits the pillow at night, are you satisfied with just who you're being in the world? It's like the line from the old, from the old earth, wind, and fire song mighty mighty. What you gotta do about your living thing, will you make it better, or will you just complain?
And the there's just there there's just so much, like, there's just so much power and so much, so much choice in that. Because if we because if we allow yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. No. No. No. It's so true. And, actually, the the just on on that that song, those words, the it was just last week I came up with this acronym that the acronym itself is CIA w. It doesn't spell anything. But what it means is the c is confidence is sexy. Alright? So you ask yourself, how do you get to sexy?
How do you get the confidence? Right? So the c is confidence is sexy. The I is intention leads to action. Alright? CIA is action leads to wins. C I a w wins leads to confidence. So confidence is sexy. The way to get to confidence, you have to have the right intention purposeful. When you have intention, then you act on it. When you act on good intention, you start to win. As you build those small wins, you get more confident. Confidence is sexy.
And so that is, I believe, the way to go, to help all the stuff I talked about. There's no magic pill. But in in order to build your self worth, self identity, self confidence, you need to start winning. And how do you win? You gotta take some action, man. And what kind of action do you take? It's gotta be intentional and purposeful and do it for good. Do it for joy. Do it for service. And that's all confidence is sexy. And in turn for men, women love confident men.
Yes. They don't love the wishy washy people pleaser that I once was. They love confidence. You know? So Man, I could talk about this stuff for hours because Okay. You're you're you're so right in that. You know, what a huge fear that I personally have is, am I taking the wrong action? Am I gonna go out there? Am I gonna fail? Am I gonna, you know, look foolish?
Mhmm. But one thing that I have to keep remembering is that nobody nobody is born I mean, if you think of, like, a great musician or a great athlete nowadays, nobody is born with those type you know, with that type of presence, with that type of skills. I mean, yes. You know, they're I'm a huge fan of the guitar player, Derek Trucks. Mhmm. Derek Trucks has been one of the baddest guitar players on the planet since he was in 5th grade.
Mhmm. But even now, he you know, he's in his early forties now, but even now, he's still getting better. He's still improving. He's still learning about just what makes him tick. Mhmm. Does he does everything that he do succeed? Absolutely not. But he but he knows enough about himself and what kind of musician he is to be able to learn from those mistakes. Same, you know, same thing in baseball.
A baseball player who hits 350 for his career is probably going to the hall of fame, but you're still failing almost 60% of the time or 70% of the time. I don't even know what the math is on that. But you get my point. There's you know, if you're afraid to take those actions, if you're afraid to fail, if you're afraid to look foolish, you're never gonna get that confidence that you really need and you really desire. No. I think that that's so true.
And then when you when you sit back and wonder why did this person succeed and this person didn't, I mean, there's a lot of variables like, you know, but when you think about it, if a human being has a solid support system and people around them, good mentors and advisers who are gonna build them up rather than knock them down, who are gonna fill their cup because they believe in their dream, then you're taught not to be afraid of failing.
The thing is in our education system and a lot of things that surround us, we're told not to fail. We're given limits. And so, you know, if you take if you write had taken an exam, you know, gotta get that 100. You know? No. No. No. And he talks to kids who are perfectionists. And if they get a 98, they're mad at themselves. They beat themselves up. There's a lot of problems in our society where people are told failure's bad. Beat yourself up. I'm wrong. No. No. No. No. No.
No. No. You'll learn from that. The only way to learn is to have a contrasting experience. You know? Yeah. And, and I think those people who succeed, they do it scared because they, in their life, were told, you have no limits. You can be what you wanna be. And so if you're told and and you learn that you have no limits, then there's no such thing as failure. There's win and learn. Right? And there's something so beautiful about that, and, you know, we're all born with that, Ryan.
We're born with that child. As a child, we don't put limitations on ourselves. We we ride a bike. We fall. We cut our knee. We get back up. We ride. You know? We learn to tie our shoelace in a weird way, and then we perfect that. We we crawl before we walk, before we run. The the issue is once people tell us we're not a child anymore and now we're an adult, they form this different definition of an adult, and we shut our our young child inside of us off. He's still there, Ryan. Yours is there.
Mine is there. We gotta start saying yes to our inner child instead of saying no. I'm an adult. Bunch of bull. So we gotta relearn what we learn, pal. So so, yeah, those people who succeed, no one ever put limits on them. And if they did, they shook those limits off, and they're listening to their inner child. That's why musicians and athletes are so good. They're listening to their inner child. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. And when you think about there's no limits out there Yeah.
Their footprints their human footprints on the moon. Mhmm. And more than likely, they're gonna be human footprints on Mars within the next, you know, 15 years. Yeah. Yeah. Limit, you know, limits are limits are made up. Limits are fictional. Absolutely. Let me give you a good quote. Someone told me that today. It's from Steve Jobs. Says the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. Yes. Preach. That that'll preach 8 days out of the week, my man.
Mhmm. One more thing that I wanna talk about before we wrap up here. We spoke about this a little before we, we started recording here. But, your son who, you know, had, you know, had some of the issues with, you know, suicide attempts and ideation Yep. How's he doing now? He's he's he's doing much better, and thank you for asking. The yesterday, which was October 29th, was 5 years to the day. That was the day when the therapist came out of the and did all that.
So that was and when I thought about that yesterday morning, I initially had a sad sinking feeling, and then I shook my head, said, no brain. It's positive. Because then I said, well, how is he now compared to how he was 5 years ago to the day? And he's doing much better. And, today is actually his 2:20 PM EST. He's gonna start his 1st day of of, technical school, Universal Technical Institute to be an auto mechanic. It's taken him a long time to find himself.
When he finally told me that's what he wanted to do, and this was only a few months ago, I said, let's do it. So he starts today, and I think it's just beautiful timing that he has found his purpose. And he's and then I called him today. I said, listen. I'm proud of you, and this is why. And they said 5 years ago, you're in a different place, and you chose not to give up.
And I'm proud to be your father because where you are 5 years later, you may not be where you wanna go or you wanna be, but you are in that direction. And I had told him, and he said, thanks, dad. I said, I love you. I love you too. So, yeah, we're all a work in progress, and I encourage all of you that dates to me are important because you wanna try to lift yourself up when a date comes to your mind that has a negative thought to it or a sad thought.
Think about the positive within that and and look to where you are now and see if you're in a better place. Odds are if you have a growth mindset, more positive, you'll be in a better place. So he's in a better place right now, Ryan. And, I can't I'm so looking forward to seeing what he's gonna do once he starts this whole journey of the auto mechanic thing because we all need a good auto mechanic. Yes. We do. Honest an honest auto mechanic too. Yeah. A good and honest auto mechanic. Absolutely.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, that's awesome, and I'm sure a big piece of him, you know, finally finding just what his passion was was being able to look at you and being able to see the example that you were leading of being able to crawl out of that hole Right. And, you know, making you know, finding your passion. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It makes me feel good because if if I had curled up and given up, who knows where my kids would be right now? I got 3 awesome children.
You wanna leave a legacy. That's you know, I'm 55. I'm not sure how much longer I have. I hope it's a long time, but in the time I'm on this earth, man, I wanna build people up. So that's that's my goal. Absolutely. And last but not least, you've got a podcast yourself, do you or not? I do. I do. I do. I have you on it, by the way. It's called from caving in to crushing it, and it's I bring men and women on who've gone through, as you say, soul shaking moments. I say faith shaking moments.
But, really, we have a decision to make when those things happen. We can either decide to give up or decide to move forward and become better human beings because of our adversity, not despite it. So yeah. And I'm very proud of that. You know, I right now, I've recorded around 70 episodes, and, I'm looking forward to you being on, and, share your story. And in turn, you may heal yourself even more and heal others by them hearing your story, Ryan. Absolutely.
And we'll include links to all of that. We'll include a link to your book as well in the show notes, on this podcast here. Well, Drew, this has been truly an incredible conversation. I'd love to have you back one day. I'd love to be back. Thanks so much. Yeah. Right. Grateful. Yep. My my pleasure. And I'm also grateful to our mutual friend, Oscar Kropel, for, connecting us. Absolutely. Thank you, Oscar. Yes. Absolutely. How can people find you out there on the interwebs, my friend?
Well, you can go to my website, profit compassion.com. I am, bringing back my men's group, rebranding it. It's called the Mindful Man Movement. So I'm bringing that back. I also host a webinar once a month. It's called get over yourself, how to use the caveman formula to to overcome self sabotage. The next one will be November 30th, so I'll I'll give you the link to register. It's a free webinar. Okay. Those will be the 2 things right now. I got the men's group coming up and, the webinar.
Alright. Beautiful. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Drew, and thank you for joining us here in the solar powered podcast, a presentation of Royal Hearts Media. For more information about me, just go to my website at royal heartsmedia.com, or you can follow me on the social media machine at ryanhallrights on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and now on TikTok, or you can just shoot me a good old fashioned email at royalheartscoaching@gmail.com. But that'll do it for this episode.
Until we meet again, this is Ryan Hall saying thanks for listening. So long for now, and go get solar powered. Take care.