Episode 36 - Do You Invest in Yourself with Ryan Spence

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You're listening to the Clarita Escalante show. This is Clarita, your host, and I am a certified transformational nutrition health coach. I'll be here every week providing you with actionable tips to help you be your best self by focusing on your body, mind, and soul. Women are constantly reaching out to me asking for diet plans, but I'm here to tell you that you don't have to give up tacos, enchilaquiles, or other things you love in your life to be your best self. You can do the things you love while also gaining beneficial habits that can help you create a more holistic lifestyle. And I'm here to guide you through it. At the end of the day, when all your makeup is gone, with no one around, my hope is that you love the whole person you see in the mirror, both inside and out. I'll also be bringing you incredible gifts along the way to share their inspirational stories. Are you ready? Vamonos. Oh, my God. I have Ryan Spence again. So lucky to have you again on my podcast, Ryan. You're just such a wealth of information. You just have so much wisdom, and I just love bringing people like you over to the podcast so you can just sprinkle, you know, your wisdom to us in just a little introduction. Ryan Spence is a certified high performance coach and a yoga instructor. And Ryan was on our podcast previously, which is episode number 12. I'm going to link that episode in case you want to know a little bit more about Ryan. But, Ryan, welcome to the show again.

Thank you, Karita. Really good to be back. I really appreciated the invitation. I had such a good time last time. So, yeah, looking forward to getting a little bit deeper in the second episode.

Yeah, let's do that. And for those that are listening and haven't had a chance to listen to your previous episode, which is episode number 12, let us know a little bit about you and then what is that you do.

Sure, no problem. So, yep, as Cliche said in the introduction, my name is Ryan Spence. I'm a life coach, certified high performance coach, and also a yoga teacher. And I work with lawyers and corporate professionals to help them get the clarity, confidence, and courage they need to move from a life of lethargy to a life that's life lit and lethargy and lit. I'm sure we'll get into a bit more. Some people completely understand what that means. Other people, it takes a little bit more of an explanation. But the reason why I do what I do is I was a lawyer for 11 years in big Law, one of the top law firms in London and in Singapore, and the last sort of five years of my career, I just wasn't really feeling it. It wasn't really serving me, and I just didn't really know where to turn. And so I want to help people in that situation who are feeling a little bit stuck, a little bit lost, who feel like they're drifting to kind of figure out what they want to do with their life and then to take the action to go ahead and do it.

Yeah, I read all of your newsletters and they're just so amazing. So if you're not on Ryan's newsletter, you need to subscribe immediately because that's how I get a lot of your content. And I was reading one the other day about investing in yourself and the importance of investing in yourself and how sometimes we will not, sometimes we want this change regardless of what it is. You know, being more healthy, start an exercise routine or built a business, anything like that. We want a change, but we don't invest in ourselves or we go the other route where we are looking for this magic pill and we keep spending money on things that really don't serve us and don't give us any return for that investment.

Oh, yes, I know exactly the email you're talking about there. Yeah, I think that's a really good point. So in the email, I talked about how I think I started off talking about the amount of money that I've spent with Apple. I'm an Apple fanboy and I spent a lot with Apple. But actually that goes. It goes wider than that. I spent a lot of money when I was in Big Law. I mean, Apple products, designer clothes, I mean, fancy dinners, all those sorts of things. And there's nothing inherently wrong with doing those things. But in hindsight, I know that I was doing them because I was unhappy with what I was doing. And it was a way of effectively papering over the cracks, not doing that sort of deep in the work to kind of get to the essence of what the problem was, but trying to kind of gloss over it by buying shiny things and looking back and looking back at the money that I spent on those sorts of things, I was sort of questioning if I'd spent that money on investing in myself, investing in my brain, investing in my body, investing in my health, where I would be now. And the thing is, when it comes to investing in, people look at it as an expense. So we'll happily go out and buy the latest iPhone, even though the one from Last year is working perfectly fine. It spends, you know, I mean, where I am, it's pounds. So over a thousand pounds, maybe a couple of thousand dollars. But to take that $2,000 and go and invest it in a personal trainer or a nutritionist or a. Or a life coach seems like a big expense. And we resist doing that. And I think we have to start questioning why that is and question what's the value? Where are we going to get the biggest return? Where are we going to get the biggest value? Because once you've sorted out your life, you know who you are, you're feeling good in yourself, you're healthy, you've got energy, you're happy. Then going out and getting an iPhone or whatever is nice, but it's not going to. It's not going to give you the excitement or the thrill that it otherwise would do. And conversely, when you just go out and buy the iPhone or whatever it is, you get that sort of instant hit of excitement, of adrenaline, but that very quickly goes because it's not real, it's not. It's not something that's sustainable. It's not something that has substance. So I speak personally in that. I've invested in coaches, I still invest in coaches. And as we talk today, this week alone, I made two big investments in myself. One in the business mastermind and one in a membership community of entrepreneurs. Because I knew, and I know that to get to the next level, to get the support that I need and to really do that in a work at an even deeper level than I've already done, I need to invest in myself. I need to sort of be around people that are doing the same thing. And I need to invest in people who have done what I've done so they can then help me, me get to where they are. So whether it's business or in life, investing in yourself is crucial to kind of living the life that you want, to being happy, to being healthy, to being fulfilled.

Yes. And I mean, investing in yourself is going to give you so much dividends in the long run. Think about, like, if it's an investment, you know, to yourself is going to save you time, maybe you can make more money, maybe you can create more space to spend time with your family or obtain that health that you're looking for. Like you mentioned there on the email, sometimes a coach will guide us faster because maybe they're just a few steps ahead of us, or maybe they made us realize things that we can't see on our little bubble. And you mentioned going deeper in Some of the questions that you ask was, what do I feel the way I do, what's missing in my life, what I'm running away from, and what do I really want? And those are questions that, yes, they might be simple, but if we really sit with ourselves and have that accountability from the coach, we can really get to that root cause instead of buying all this fancy stuff, which you mentioned, And I agree 100% with you, it's not that it's bad, it's just that why is that we're doing that? You know, what is that word searching for? And yeah, you might buy this material stuff and you might feel happy, but a few seconds later it's like, okay, what's next?

Oh, exactly. And the thing is, it comes down to that sort of thing between cost and investment. Buying the latest material things is a cost, it's not an investment. I mean, the value will go down. You buy an iPhone today, a year later, new one comes out, the value of yours will go down. So it's a cost, it's not an investment. When you're spending money on yourself in the ways that we talked about, that is an investment. Because like you said, you can look at it as a cost. But what's the cost of staying where you are now, of being in exactly the same place you are now in a year's time, in five years time, in 10 years time? If you're unhappy, if you're unfulfilled, if you're dreading going to work each day, if the relationships around you aren't great because you're not good within yourself, surely that's not a good place to be. But if you're going to spend the same money you would have spent on that material product, but the outcome of that is going to be that you're happier, you're motivated, you have a goal in life. The people around you notice a change in you and are happier because you're nicer to them. You know what I mean? Because you're more comfortable within yourself. Surely that is a better return on investment than that piece of tech or that coat or that pair of shoes. That was the distinction that I didn't make. And that's why it took me nearly five years to finally leave Big Law, even though I was happy throughout that whole period. Because I was trying to do it myself. I was trying to read this personal development book here or watch this YouTube video there, or do this Google search over here and look, a lot of this stuff, yes, you can do it yourself, but it takes Time, as you said, you've got to find the things, you've got to put them together, and then you've got an implement, but also you've got to find the way that you want to do it. There are so many different routes, so many different people who can guide you down so many different paths. And if you're pulling from lots of different places, you're never going to get anywhere. You know, if you're trying to go somewhere, you want a route to get there, you want somebody who's been there before who can guide you down that path. If you've got 10 different people and you're trying to follow 10 different people down 10 different paths, you're just going to be stuck in the same place. So you may as well have not started. So look at it as an investment, not a cost. Look at it as if I do this now, if I invest this money now, the promises that in three months, six months, a year, five years, this is where I'm going to be. And that is far more valuable to me than this material thing over here.

And we do this thing over and over again, I think. And when I say we, the majority of the time is me. But where we want a different result, Ryan, but we keep doing the same thing over and over again.

Oh, yes. Who was it? I think they say it was Einstein. I think he used that. The definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. And do. But I think that partly it's not always our fault. It's partly just the way that we're. We taught. We're taught to kind of follow a particular path, that things are linear, to go in a particular route. And as a child, we have all this sort of inquisitiveness, this curiosity, and that kind of almost gets sort of sucked out of us as we kind of get older and progress. We're told to kind of go down this path, go to this school, get these grades, get into this job, do what you need to climb that ladder and don't kind of veer outside of the lines. But actually, you need to veer outside the lines to figure out what it is that you really want and to try different things and to not be afraid to try different things, not be afraid to fail. We've been shown that failure is a bad thing. I mean, you go to school and you don't do well in your exams, you know, I mean, you get ridiculed for it, and that starts. That cycle of failing is bad. And we shouldn't Fail, and we don't want to be embarrassed in front of our peers, et cetera, et cetera. But actually, if you reframe that and think, well, failure is just showing you that this particular thing didn't work. It's like an experiment, so let's try something else. Because if you don't try and run the risk of failing, you can never really know what the right outcome is for you. When I left law, I didn't know the how. I just knew I wanted to help people who were in the situation that I had been in. So I had to kind of do lots of different things to kind of get to where I am now. And I hadn't planned to be a coach at all. That was never really the plan. But by trying lots of different things, by being curious, by asking questions, by connecting with lots of different people, by working with coaches, I got closer to the essence of who I was and thought, actually, this is what I like. I'm going to go down this path. And then that allowed me to sort of follow that and continue. But if I was scared of failing, I never would have put out that first Instagram post. I never would have started the podcast. I mean, I never would have been the guest on the podcast. I mean, I never would have done any of these things because I've been too scared of failing. And it's not perfect. I don't know exactly what I'm doing yet. So you got to try. You've got to run that risk.

Yeah. And I think you mentioned something so important, how. I think we focus so much sometimes on the how, and instead of just taking action, I'm going to utilize myself as an example. After my cancer diagnosed, I know I wanted to start my journey to health, and I didn't know how. And I was like, for a year there, and I said it at that point. I see it at that point like a wasted time. But it wasn't because it was a journey and there was a lesson, you know, But I was focused so much on the how, and I was looking for that how. Well, meantime, I was losing all this time. I was wasting all this time just focusing on the how and Googling and doing all this stuff. And if I can just go back and tell myself three years ago, just start somewhere, just start somewhere. Once you start experiencing, once you start trying things, the how will come, because the how looks different on everyone else. I started with nutrition, and I thought nutrition was going to save it all. And then I noticed in exercise and mindset and all these other Things were equally important as well. I mean, I'm still working through that. How if somebody's listening and they don't know where to start, but they want to start somewhere, just start somewhere. I mean, I think you mentioned on one of your videos or emails, if you are at zero and you want to be at 10 or 100, you have to start somewhere and being compassionate to yourself and just knowing that by starting, you're going to start walking that path, getting those lessons and walking that journey and the how is going to come.

Oh, exactly. I think someone has said before, don't compare your beginning to somebody else's middle. And that's kind of what I was getting at when I said, I made the statement that we all start at zero. There's a fear, particularly if you're a high achiever, if you're ambitious, if you, you're already sort of, quote unquote, successful in what you do, there's a fear of being a beginner again. There's a fear of going to do something that you don't know how to do. But I think if we can remind ourselves that we all start at zero, we're all born not knowing anything. We then learn how to crawl, we learn how to walk, we learn how to eat, we learn all of these things. You know, I mean, the jobs that we do now, there was a process to get there. We had to learn about what we were doing and kind of gain more experience as we went along. So if you want to do something different, then you've got to start at zero. We all have to start. And if you start zero, you mean you'll get to one, then you'll get to two, and then you'll keep going ahead. But if you sit there thinking, I don't want to be a beginner, so I'm going to sit, I'm going to read every possible thing that I can read about doing this thing. I'm going to do all the Google searches, I'm going to read all the personal development books, I'm going to listen to all the gurus. That's cool. But then in a year, two years, three years, four years time you in exactly the same place. And as you said, you started with nutrition and then that led you to health. These things lead you to other things that you discover because the thing that you think you might really want to do, you might actually hate, you know, but by doing that, you may meet other people or learn other things that kind of show you a different path that you'd never even thought about before, I never considered being a coach. I knew I wanted to teach yoga, and that's kind of what I was going to do, and that's how I was going to help people. But through doing yoga and then starting the podcast and then having these conversations with people who'd been in corporate, who'd been burnt out, who had yetn't used yoga to save them, it was, you know, that was a real difference. So that's kind of what you need to do. You need to start and then figure it out as you go along. I think as Marie Forleo said, everything's figureoutable. So you mean start first and then figure it out as you go along?

Yes, and I think it's just so important, and especially if you feel overwhelmed or you feel stuck or you just don't know where to start, hiring a coach, someone like you, Ryan, is just so essential. The investment of that return is there's not going to be a number. To be honest with you, there's no comparison because you are a few steps ahead of us of where we want to be. And sometimes feeling overwhelmed or stuck is just. We think it's a feeling, it's just a stage. And we feel that way because we don't have that clarity.

Yes, no, exactly. I think the thing is, is that with life coaching, business coaching, slightly different, because you can kind of place a tangible value on that. But with life coaching or some other aspects of coaching, because there's no monetary value attached to the outcome, people don't necessarily always look at it as being valuable because how do you put a value on your health? How do you put a value on your happiness? How do you put a value on waking up each morning excited to take on the day? You can't until you actually experience that feeling. So I think that you have to recognize that where you are now isn't where you want to be and recognize that waking up like this for the next five years isn't going to make you happy. Then you have to take that leap of faith and think that this person over here, whoever it may be, has been where I have, understands exactly what I'm going through, has pulled themselves out of it. So let me go and see if they can pull me out of it as well, rather than trying to do all of these things myself, wasting all of this time, wasting all of this money, and standing up in exactly the same place that I am now. So, yeah, the thing about a coach is that you can see what your client can't always see, because when you're stuck in the middle of something, it's that whole. That phrase, you can't see the wood for the trees. You're too busy trying to look at what's immediately in front of you, that you can't see what's around you and what's in your peripheral. Whereas a coach is kind of one step removed. They are 100% committed to your success. They want you to win probably more than anybody else in your life, because they're not relying on you winning for them to be successful. They're not relying on you winning to support the household, support the family or whatever. So they can take that completely objective view and they can see what you can't see, point out those blind spots, point out where you're trying to decide that things before they've happened without any evidence, and they can kind of really sort of challenge you and help you to see things differently. That's why I have a coach. That's why I'll always have a coach. Because as you progress, as you kind of keep leveling yourself up, different things come up for you and you need somebody to kind of point those out for you. So I think if you're a coach and you think that, okay, I've had a coach, I'm on this journey now. I'm a coach, I help people. I don't need to coach anymore. I think you're doing yourself and your clients a disservice because I think that you always are going to need somebody who can help you see things that you can't see.

Yeah, my business coach told me, new level, new double. And I was like, oh, my God. And it's so true. I mean, you think, oh, they made it. They don't need any coaching. It's just we're living on this earth and we're growing every single day, and we're not the same person that we were yesterday. And having a coach is just, I believe, is one of the things that I'm going to continue on for the rest of my life on a personal, in business level, because I have been able to see things that I wasn't even able to see. And like you mentioned previously, sometimes we're just so in our stuff that we can't really see beyond that. And that's where you come in. And I'm just a really big fan of you, Ryan. You are so inspirational and motivational, which is so important when you want to start a journey. But that's just the beginning. And what I like about you is that you Inspire us, you motivate us. But then you start asking, you know, the important questions so we can go deeper and really see what is that we want and map it, how we can get there from 0 to 100.

Thank you. That's. That's very good of you to say that. And I think it's because, look, I've, as I say, I've been through it and I understand. I understand the resistance maybe to bringing somebody else in to hear all your stuff and to sit and be vulnerable and open with somebody who you maybe haven't met before. I understand the resistance to spending money and not knowing exactly the result you're going to get. We can tell you the result and we can say this is what will happen, but they're not being that sort of monetary result or that. That sort of gold trophy at the end. But for my own, I mean, just to share something that might help anybody who's listening is that when I decided that I was going to coach, I was going to sort of launch this business, I decided to hire a business coach at the beginning of this year. And I thought that what I wanted, what I knew that what I wanted was strategy. I'd never run a business before. I need somebody to help me with the strategy of running a business. How do you do this? How do you do that? Give me this blueprint approach to follow and go. And the coach that I hired, and it's just. It's great. I still work there now. Kind of listened and was like, okay, yeah, nodded and all the rest of it. And as we kind of went, kind of asked a question here, so prodded a bit there, and then kind of the penny dropped that. Actually, that's not what I needed at all. What I needed was to be comfortable with being me. And we're doing things the way that I wanted to do them, doing things the way that were aligned with who I was. I didn't have to do what everybody else was saying you had to do. Have this Instagram schedule here, do this over here, have this funnel there. I could just do things my own way. And for me, that was suddenly like this huge sort of cavern opening up me, like, wow, the possibilities are now endless. And I could have seen that without a coach. If I hadn't had somebody point that out to me, but not necessarily point it out, but allow me to find that out for myself just by the way that they held the space for me, I would still be trying to do all of the things that everybody is saying that you should do. Even Though they didn't feel good to me. And even though they were potentially going to end up burning me out because there's too many things to do for one person. So that's the value of a coach and that's value of having a coach just in life as well. Because it was the same thing for me when I first had my life coach and felt that I had to be in law and we explored kind of other things I could do and everything that I listed was within law. And then by session three, just suddenly, completely involuntarily, I kind of let out what I really wanted to do, which was to help people who were in position that I was to do something in yoga and in wellness. And saying it out loud in that safe space with no judgment and having somebody kind of work through that with me suddenly just gave me the license to kind of go off and really get clear on what it was that I wanted to do. So they're just two examples from my own life of why I think coaching is so valuable and why I see such power in having a coach.

I mean, how powerful is that statement that we already have everything we need within us, we already know, we just need that guidance to take us to that level and to really trust ourselves that we are going the right path and maybe tweak things around here, maybe technical things that we just need in order to trust ourselves and do what is that we're here to do in this world.

Yeah, I kind of talk about it like having a. It's like having a conversation with a friend, but it's a friend who listens more than they talks about and a friend who doesn't give advice but ask questions. It's a friend who's curious and a friend who has no agenda apart from wanting you to win. And what you said is perfectly true. We have everything that we need with inside of us, but just through the way that we're raised, societal conditioning, what we're told that we should do and we should want, the things that are inside us get buried so deep that we work a lot on that superficial level and we kind of do what we're told to do. And I think with the pandemic and with what people are referring to as the great resignation, people are starting to realize that actually that's not necessarily the case. There is a different way of doing things if you want to. And that's what's needing more people now to start thinking about starting with their own business or working with a coach to figure out what they really want or getting really serious on their side, hustle, whatever it is, because there is another way. And one of the key things that I want to do if I leave people with nothing else, it's knowing that you have a choice. You don't have to do what you've always done and think. You don't have to be who you've always been. You do have a choice. Whether you've been in your job 15 years, whether you're, I mean, the most senior person in your company, whatever it is, you can always change, you can always pivot. You just got to get clear on what it is that you want.

Yes. A lot of the comments that I get is like, when they see people like you, Ryan, they're like, oh, my God. It's because they're so confident. You know, they have this courageous, you know, soul. And that's why they get to do the things that they love. And it's not that, I mean, you're doing everything with. I'm pretty sure you have fear and you step in and the more that you practice that and the more that you do it in, the more that you step into the person that, you know, you are, you know, meant to be. Not that it gets easier, but you build that confidence. And sometimes we tend to get away from fear. And it's just so unfortunate that we do that because that is the part that is going to get us to have this confidence that we admire sometimes and other people.

Yeah, I think everybody has confidence within them and everybody has courage within them, but you've got to activate it. It's like working out. You've got to do the work and you've got to kind of build it up. So if you say, I'm not a confident person, I'm not a courageous person, it's not true. You just haven't sort of done the work to develop those qualities within you. And that's why I focus so much on those three pillars of clarity, confidence and courage. Because I know for me, one of the reasons that I was stuck for so long is because I didn't believe that I could do anything else. I didn't have the confidence that I could give up a, I mean, 11 year career in big law and completely switch, learn something new and do something else. And so I had to work on that. And as we talked about before, as you level up, you know, I mean, you level up, you kind of have to push yourself more. This week, as we talked about before we joined this week, I was on a push to finish the first draft of a book that I'm working on. And so much mind drama in my head about writing, about writing a book. Do you know? I mean, who are you? No one's going to read it. I mean, you don't know what you're saying. Like, this isn't kind of what people want from you, et cetera, et cetera. So it's not that I don't have it. It's just that I push through anyway because I know what I'm trying to achieve. I know the value that I'm trying to deliver to the world. And I know how important it is for people to hear these messages. And people might hear the message from me and it might not hit, but they might hear it from somebody else. It doesn't really matter. But the more that people are putting these messages down the world, the more that people are shown it is possible to do things a different way, to have a different point of view. The more people are questioning the way that things have always been done. And that saying actually doesn't necessarily have to be that way. Let me try it a different way then. The more that we're going to get to a place where we have a world of people who are a lot happier, but not only that, people who are just doing amazing things are making a positive impact on the world. And I think we all need that right now.

Oh, yes, Congratulations on that. I can't wait for that book to come out and support you in that way. You mentioned something on one of your newsletters. I believe it was Be comfortable getting uncomfortable. Did I say that right?

That's perfect.

Okay. Be comfortable getting uncomfortable. And I think it's just such a simple way that you put it out. It's such profound because the more that you do it, the more comfortable you're going to feel. And not again, that it's going to feel easy or, you know, wow, I'm never going to have fear anymore now that I have confidence. But the more that you practice, I think the more confidence that you gain and the more that you can step into that person that you want. And I love how you put it, how you guide us through your three Cs, which is clarity, confidence, and courage. Can you expand a little bit on that?

Sure. So when I sort of started to coach and I started to kind of look back on what got me from where I was to the path that I'm on now, there's a lot that you can pull on, and there's a lot in the personal development world, a Lot of sort of strategies and things that people talk about. But I wanted to kind of break it down to really simple principles because I think that that's what people can then remember, and that's what people can then keep referring back to and take action on. And so when I did that, what it came down to for me was those three pillars. Clarity, confidence, courage. And to sort of break it down a little bit more, but still keep it relatively simple, is clarity as to who you are, what lights you up, what excites you, what are your values. Clarity as to what you want. So what do you want your life to look like? How do you want it to be? And then clarity as to why you want it, what is your why? What's that thing that's bigger than yourself that's driving you? Because when you're trying to do things different, when you're trying to go left and everyone goes right, you're really going against it. And that's hard, it's tough, and it's a long road. So you need to have something that's driving you, that's kind of pulling you along, that makes you keep going. So that's the clarity. And I think once you've got clarity, that's. That's the key, that's the foundation, then you move on to confidence, which we touched on. And that confidence is just that ability to believe in yourself, believe that the thing that you want is achievable, and to believe and to trust that you can figure it out. You're an intelligent human being. I mean, you've done all of these things before you got to this point, so why stop now? Why can't you then do what you need to get to the point that you really want to get to? So that's the confidence piece. And then the final step is courage. I think a lot of people get inspired and we have all of these ideas and we get really fired up by a book that we read or a speech that we hear. But where they fail is taking action. You know, I mean, and that's that they mean the implementation stage. So courage is getting people to the point where, okay, now I'm going to take action to get after what it is that I want. And it doesn't mean that you go from 0 to 100 in a day. It means that you're so clear on what it is that you want and why you want it, and you have such belief in yourself that you can figure it out, that you're going to do something each day to get there. Because you can suddenly see where it is that you're going. Because for a lot of us, and I was in this category, we're drifting. No matter how successful you are, how much money you make, we're in these situations where we don't enjoy them. We fear every Sunday or every night getting up and going to work. The next morning we get into the office, we sit down, and we just feel the creativity drain out of us. We just feel that we really don't want to do what's in front of us, even though it's easy for us to do. And we could do it and do it in five minutes. And we're just going through the motions of life. So we need to have the courage to change all of that, to start to do little things each day to get us out of that predicament and get us moving more towards the life that we want, which is what I call the life that's lit. So just to kind of separate those out, lethargy is what I just described is that feeling motivated and fulfilled and happy, that lack of enthusiasm. And the life that's lit is where you have that feeling where you're on top of the world. You know, I mean, you're excited, you're ready to slay the day. And if you can have more days feeling lit and less days of lethargy, surely that's a happier life. That's what we all want, right?

Yeah. And that's just so important. And I think by working those three Cs, I think you're going to get lots of clarity. And like you mentioned, just having that clarity, having sitting with yourself and really either journaling or just dedicating time to yourself. To really be clear on that, it's so important to. Because we're all going to have challenging days. And I think if we really attach ourselves to the why, why is it we're here, why is that I'm doing this? The rest will fall. Yes, it might be scary to do certain things, but if we remember our true why of why is that we're doing that, that's going to lead us to be able to overcome fear and have that courage to continue on.

Yeah. And the why doesn't have to be some grandiose statement like, I want to save the world. Everyone's why is different. The why can just be. I want to set an example to my kids. The why can just be. I just want to feel free. I mean, the why can be very simple. It's personal to everybody. But I think we all we all will have that something inside of us bigger than ourselves, that would really enhance the value of our lives, would really make an impact on our own life, but also on the lives of those around us, however big or small that circle may be. So it's finding that. And I think that for some people, they kind of know what it is, but they're too scared to say out loud because they think it's possible, or they'll be ridiculed, or people will look at them like they're crazy. But if you can sit with a coach, with somebody who can hold that space where nothing is off limits, then you can say these things. And the thing about saying them, once you say them and you speak them into. You can kind of speak them into existence. But even beyond that, just to hear yourself saying those words, you can suddenly think, actually, yeah, that feels really good to me, just saying the words. Imagine if I was actually doing that. And then that starts the momentum going. So, yeah, I think that having a why is important, but we're knowing your why because I think we all have one. But knowing your why is key. That's kind of where we work at the clarity stage. And then the rest of it is just trying to kind of get you in good enough shape to start making the moves to get after it.

So one of the things that I get a lot from my clients, objections, challenges are, yes, they can do it because they're unicorn people, but I can't. Like, they can't see in themselves. And then I'm looking at them and I'm like, oh, my God, look at all your talents. What is one advice that you can give to those people that have all these talents or have all these dreams or goals, but they can't see that within themselves?

I would say, I guess, well, there's two things I say. One is look at what you did to get to where you are now. And I think that once you start looking back, you'll notice that there are obstacles that you had to overcome, which by the time probably looked insurmountable, or maybe because you were younger then and didn't have the weight of the world on your shoulders, you didn't even think about them. You just kind of found a way around them. But you'll find that you are capable of doing hard things. And I think that everything is geared towards comfort. Yeah, I mean, we get home in the evening, we sit on the tv, we get a microwave meal, we watch Netflix maybe, I mean, having eat some potato chips and then go to bed, you know, I mean, and then alarm goes off. The next morning, we rush out the door to work. Like it's geared towards comfort, but we can do hard things. And you'll likely have done hard things if you look back. So look back first and figure all of that out. And then comes back to that belief thing. So there are five things I shared recently in terms of sort of building that confidence. And I'll share them here because I feel that they might be helpful. Because one of the things that I say is, first thing you do, okay, you want to do something really badly. So write down that thing that you want to do, whether you don't believe that you can do. So once it's down on paper, it's out of your head. You look at it, you sit with that, then write down all the reasons that come to you why you can't do it. You know, and there'll be lots of noise in their head like why you can't do it and get all of that down, leave nothing out. And then look at the reasons and see what's there and strike out all the ones that aren't supported by any evidence. So we will say I can't, or we will say I haven't done it before. But they're not really reasons why you can't do it. No. So unless you're saying I want to fly like superman, and I mean basically just basic science will not allow you to do that. Chances are that the reasons that you've written down, the majority of the reasons that you've written down, will not be supported by evidence. And then once you've done all of that, take time to visualize yourself doing that thing. So just sit close the eyes and really feel yourself in that. So if it's a job, feel yourself doing that job. And I mean, start to think about what would your day be like from the moment that you get up to the moment you go to bed. Live that entire day, what you eat, what you drink, the smells that are around you. How would you get to work? I mean, who would your coworkers be? Who would you be living with? You know, I mean, this isn't a one time thing. You kind of got to build on it. But the more that you start to visualize and feel and see yourself in that situation, the more you believe that it's possible for you. And then stage five is just to rinse and repeat. I mean, keep doing that again as you require it, whether it's for the same thing, whether it's for the next thing you want to do. And I think the more that you get into that habit, the more you will see that actually these things that come up in your head, that you can't do it, that everybody else is a unicorn, but you can't do what they can do, you see that that's not actually true. There is no evidence at all to support that. And it's easier to see that when you've got it all down in front of you on paper than just carrying it all around in your head. Because all you're doing is telling yourself these negative stories all the time. And the more you tell yourself those negative stories, the more you're going to believe that they're true. But the more that you can kind of get them down, analyze them, take them apart, the more that you will see they're not true. It's just a story like any kid's bedtime story, and there's no reality to them at all.

I love that because if you do this practice, I kind of do that version on my journal every single morning. And the majority of the things there's no evidence, there's really no evidence you support that negative thought or that limited belief is just me thinking over and over again just thinking about supporting that idea and that I have supported for so long, I made it part of it, but there's really not truly evidence that that is true. And then I love the other thing that you do in. Within my journal, there's a section that I do every single day that it's called Dream a Little. And I actually put myself where I want to be. And I describe all the things that I want to be and where I want to be, how I want to feel. And to be honest with you, a few things have actually come to light. And when they came, it was just like it felt right. It felt right because I was already visioning myself in that position. There's a lot of things that I keep writing, but you're so right. Putting myself in that place and really describe the feeling that I'm going after has done wonders to my life. And even the habits and the things that I do every single day, the micro actions I do every single day actually are leading to those dreams.

Yeah. Because once you can see what's possible for you, then you can then start to look at what you're doing each day and question whether what you're doing is serving that higher purpose that you have. So if you hate your job, if you're unhappy, if you're unfulfilled, sitting and scrolling on Instagram for an hour is probably quite a nice thing for you to do because it takes you away from the other stuff around you, which you just hate. And it's quite mindless and doesn't require much effort and it's comfortable. But if you know you have a bigger purpose and you. You know what you need to get there, then you will do what you need to get there. So, for example, to me, I want to help people. I want to coach. I want to be the best coach that I can be. I want to really help people have these breakthrough transformations. So to be a better coach, there's certain things that I need to do. I need to work on my own mindset. I need to work with my own coaches. I need to work on my own business. I mean, there are all of these sort of things that I need to do which are far more valuable than spending that hour scrolling on Instagram. It doesn't mean that I never do that. It means that when I do it, I recognize I'm doing it. I recognize it doesn't serve me, and I try and rectify that. It's not just mindlessly doing it. Day after day, day after day. I'm like, okay, I've been doing this for too long. Okay, what happened today? Why is I doing that? Okay, let me figure it out, and let me try not to do that again tomorrow. Because we're all only human. Like, I mean, no one is a robot, and no one does everything perfectly every day. But once you have something that's guiding you, then it's easier to follow that guiding star. If you don't have something guiding you, then, yeah, you'll just sit around and do what's comfortable because that's what makes you feel good, right? That's what takes you away from whatever's going on around you that you don't want to be involved in. And, I mean, somewhere where you don't want to be.

Yeah, having that awareness. I mean, it's so important. Having awareness. And then I think taking the step to take action. You know, I think sometimes in this happened to me at the beginning of my journey. I was learning, learning and learning. But at one point, you have to take action, because I believe that's where the magic is, and that is actually where the learning and the knowledge is. By taking that action.

Yeah, you learn by doing. I mean, you can take as many certifications as you like. You can read as many books as you like, you can watch as many YouTube videos as you like. But I mean, taking coaching because we're both coaches. Until you sit down and work with a client, how do you know that you're good at it? How do you know that you like it? How do you know that you can get that client results? You don't. You know, you can have all the knowledge in the world. And there's been this debate, and I'm sure it will continue rumbling on about whether coaches need to be certified or not. And where I always come down on it is this, is that all the coaches that I've hired, I have never cared whether they're certified. All I've cared about is, do I think that they can help me? I've heard somebody on a podcast, so my business case at the moment. I heard her on a podcast at the end of 2020 and just instinctively knew that I wanted to work with her at some point when I was ready. And then when I was ready, I reached out, we started working together, and my instincts were right. And that's proven true over and over and over again. Now, if I was fixated on certifications, we wouldn't have worked together because she's not certified. But certification doesn't tell me whether she can help me with what my problem is. And I think it's like anything, people work with people, and there are people who I hear or I see or whatever, and it's like I want to be in their world, whether that is hiring them to help with something, whether that's just connecting with them, I mean, whether that's just being on their podcast, whatever it is, it's just like there's something about that person which, for me, is really inspiring. It kind of makes me feel good. I feel that they're doing really good things. I kind of want to be in their world and kind of get more from them and also support them however they need supporting as well. And I think so. If anyone's looking to hire a coach, personal trainer, nutritionist, whatever, I think that's what it comes down to for me. There are certain things where, yes, you do need a certain amount of knowledge and expertise, particularly when you start talking about things on the. On the medical side or on the scientific side, but particularly when you're talking about life coaching, do you feel that that person can help you? Do you feel that they get you? Do you feel that they can help you? And if they do, then focus on that. I mean, everything else isn't that important.

I'm so happy you mentioned that. It's just looking for, is this person going to take me to my goal? To my dream. Is this person aligned with what is that I want to get accomplished. It's so important. And oh, my God, Ryan, thank you so much for your time. Every time I have you on the podcast, it's just such an amazing conversation. You're just such an amazing human being. And just the wisdom that you have, the inspiration and motivation you bring on to the table is just amazing. So I can't wait to read your book, to buy your book and support you in that way. And I'm going to ask you the same question again that I asked previously in. Your answer was amazing. I mean, I was just like, wow. But I'm pretty sure it's going to be the same this time. But if you had a magic wand, what impact will you make in the world, Ryan?

Yeah, so, yeah, that's a really powerful question. And last time I thought about it for a while and yeah, I kind of talked about the climate crisis.

Do not get out of the park.

Thank you. And how, I mean, there's so many issues going on. Back to the climate crisis is the overarching one. If we don't solve that, then we just don't have a planet and the other issues don't matter. But as this is my second time, I'm going to assume that I had a magic wand and I sorted that out the last time, and so we're all good. And so I've been thinking a bit more about, okay, so then if that was the case, what would I do? And so in the spirit of that, I think eradicating global inequalities, I think that there are so many people who just don't have their basic needs met. I mean, food, water, shelter, safety, security. But that isn't due to a scarcity of resources. It's due to a misallocation of resources. And so I would be looking to have a more even distribution of the resource that we have on the planet so that there are not people who don't have places to live, who don't have food to eat, who don't have safe water to drink, and are able to access basic needs like education and health care so that they can then go on and improve their own lives and then the lives of their family. Because I think that that's the only way that we then solve things like, I mean, discrimination and the things like that. Because there is discrimination for other reasons, but there's also discrimination due to inequality. Some people feel that some people have more than they should and some people think that they have less than other People should. But I think if we can eradicate that global inequality, people can start to live happier, healthier lives and that will make for a happy, healthier planet. So yeah, that's what I do. Bearing in mind that I've already solved the climate crisis. So yeah, I mean I'm just, I'm just on top of the world right now.

You are, you are, Ryan. Thank you so much. And what do you have? What resources or what programs you have going on in case someone wants to work with you, let us know.

Sure. So we talks about confidence, which is one of three pillars that I talk about. So if you head to my website, Im Ryan Spence.com you can download the confidence journal there. So we have the five tips that I gave in this episode. That journal takes it a bit deeper with six journal prompts that you can kind of help to go deeper into building your confidence to do that big crazy thing you're thinking about doing. And yeah, if you're interested in working with me, also do that too through one to one coaching. So I typically work with future big law and corporate dropouts. I call myself the big law dropout. And that tends to be people who've, they've been successful, they are successful in what they're doing, but you know, they're feeling unhappy, unfulfilled, unmotivated. So what I call living a life of lethargy and I help them get from that life of lethargy to a life that's lit. And as I said, I'm certified in high performance coaching. I have my own framework, the triple C method, which is clarity, confidence, courage. And I kind of work with clients to help them get the clarity, confidence and courage they need to kind of help them make that shift. And so using that framework and using high performance coaching, I kind of help them work through all of those things and kind of have this transformation where they're living that life where they just wake up feeling amazing and they've got a clear goal and a clear purpose in their life.

Yeah. And how can they connect with you?

Yes. If anyone's listening to this and think actually I need that, or they're just interested, intrigued and want to know more, you can go to my website iamrinespence.com and book a discovery call there and we can get on and chat and see, I mean basically see if we like each other really going to work together or Instagram is always, always a good place to find me. I share a lot of content on Instagram and that's iam underscore Ryan Spence. So yeah, either of those two places you'll get me. And I always respond to every message I receive. So yeah, please do reach out. We get to hear from you.

Yeah. Thank you so much. And if you're driving or you're busy right now and you're listening to us, don't worry, I'm going to put all of Ryan's information underneath show notes and oh my God, thank you so much for this opportunity. Again, Ryan, I hope to have you back once you release that book and we're here to support you. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you for having me back again. And yes, the book, I've said it now it's out there so that this is holding me accountable. So hopefully that will be out in January. That's the plan. And so I'll let you know and yeah, come back and talk about it. Thank you.

Yes, I can't wait. Thank you so much. Do you enjoy today's episode? If so, please let us know by leaving a five star review on the podcast app. Doing so will also enter you into our monthly giveaway where I will choose a winner to send a special gift to. Please share this episode with a friend. She'll be so glad you thought of her and she'll gain a community of women to support her. If you have any suggestions on a topic you would like to hear on the podcast or for more information, you can Visit us@claritascalante.com Thanks for listening. And remember, do something today that your future self will thank you for. Bye.

Sam.