Ryan Hanley: Fighting Back From A Sacking

Ryan Hanley Joins Us On The Join Up Dots Podcast

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Introducing Ryan Hanley

Ryan Hanley is our guest today ready to be interviewed on the Steve Jobs inspired Join Up Dots podcast.

He was first on the show back in May 2014 and on that show we talked about how he was full on busy

With Insurance being just one thing on his resume, he was creating an online marketing production line, that was simply exploding on all platforms.

Type in his name and you would find him actively participating as a blogger, public speaker, Podcaster, Internet marketer, published author and the list goes on.

Weaving through all these different areas was the art of storytelling and creating content that sales.

How The Dots Joined Up For Ryan

Now it appears he joined up dots and when back to an environment that he knew better than most – small business insurance.

He has created Rogue Risk that helps people get the insurance that they need and also explains why they need it too

As he says “At Rogue Risk, one of our core values is “No Customer Left Behind.”

No small business owner should be left to fend for themselves because their account is “hard to place” or their insurance premiums are “too small to be profitable.”

We are NOT scared to put in the extra work necessary to find the insurance you need to protect your business.

In truth, “No Customer Left Behind” is more than just a core value, it’s the filter by which we make every decision in our business.

We call this The Rogue Risk Way.

So is this business the one that was always waiting for him, once he joined up his dots to the point that things made sense?

And where would he mark himself against where he wants to be?

Well let’s bring onto the show to start joining up dots, as we discuss the words of Steve Jobs with the one and only  master of Content Warfare Mr Ryan Hanley.

Show Highlights 

During the show we discussed such weighty subjects such as

Ryan shares how he feels that he has to get kicked around in life and in business and lives by “never trust someone without a limp.”

Why Ryan feels that it is even easier to win the game in business nowadays, simply by just turning up which is never the case for most people.

We share how so many people should be focused on the years and experience behind them when they are moving forward instead of running away from them.

And lastly…..

Ryan talks about how his passionate nature is both his super power and his kryptonite and what he needs to do to deal with both.

Return To The Top Of Ryan Hanley 

Transcription Of Ryan Hanley Interview

Intro [0:00]
Life shouldn’t be hard life should be a fun filled adventure every day. So now start joining up dots tap into your talents, your skills, your God given gifts and tell your boss, you don’t deserve me. I’m out of here. It’s time for you to smash that alarm clock. And start getting the dream business and life you will, of course, are dreaming of. Let’s join your host David route from the back of his garden in the UK, or wherever he might be today with another JAM PACKED episode of the number one hit podcast. Join Up Dots.

David Ralph [0:39]
Yeah, good morning, TEAC Good morning. And welcome to Join Up Dots. This is one of those shows when we join up not just the dots of the episode, but the Join Up Dots of Join Up Dots as well because today’s guests was first on the show back in May 2014. And on that show, we talked about how he was full on busy with insurance being just one thing on his resume. He was creating an online marketing production line that was simply exploding on all platforms typing his name, and you’d find him actively participating as a blogger public speaker podcaster, internet marketer published author, and the list goes on weaving through all these different areas was the art of storytelling and creating content that sours now, it appears he’s joined up his dots and when went back to an environment, but he knew better than most small business insurance, he has created rogue risk that helps people get the insurance that they need, and also explains why they need it too. As he says at road risk, one of our core values is no customer left behind. No small business owners should be left to fend for themselves because their account is hard to place, or their insurance premiums are too small to be profitable. We’re not scared to put in the extra work necessary to find the insurance you need to protect your business. In truth, no customer left behind is more than just a core value. It’s the filter by which we make every decision in our business. We call it the rogue risk way. So is this the business the one that was always waiting for him one that once he joined up his dots to the point that things made sense. It was just where and where would he Mark himself against where he wants to be in the future? Well, let’s bring onto the show to start joining up even more dots with the one and only Mr. Ryan Hanley. Good morning Ryan, how are you?

Ryan Hanley [2:28]
David, it’s tremendous. It’s like I said, it’s turning to be here, man, thinking back to that conversation and where I was in my life and where you were in your journey. It’s wild, you know, the things as you’re, as you’re reading that, which I appreciate, by the way, I was get a little squirrely when when when you know, when people start reading, things you’ve done, you know, I it’s just, I’m thinking through the journey from that moment to this one now. And it’s wild. How you just you just can’t You can’t see the future, right? You can make plans you can you can you can try to put guide posts in or, or, or destinations. But how you actually get there. I don’t know that you can ever predict. And, you know, I’m looking forward to getting into it again.

David Ralph [3:14]
Well, we’ve been doing a lot of connecting with guests who have been on the show previously, and that the thing that really has hit home is when they come on the show, first of all, and most of them admit it themselves. They felt like they were kind of playing at business, they were doing stuff that didn’t really fit them, but it was it was them trying to find their way. When they come on again. It’s like they’re serious, experienced business owners, they know what they’re doing. They’re in control of it, where 10 years ago, they were spinning a lot of plates, but they could have just let drop. Do you feel the same?

Ryan Hanley [3:50]
Yes, that’s a fairly accurate way of describing it. I would say, you know, you don’t really know if we’re specifically talking about business, but this probably applies to life. If you haven’t had the crap kicked out of you, if you don’t have scars, or you know, I wrote this article few weeks ago about never trust anyone who doesn’t have a limp. You know, it you know, the, the whole concept is like, you know, as I you know, when we talked last time I was 33 years old, I was just coming out of eight years in, in a Family Insurance Agency you know, I don’t eight years is like a very traditional boots on the ground insurance producer or salesperson for those that don’t know the word producer and insurance means salesperson. And, you know, I had learned all these lessons but in a very small world, right that was very small was 25 miles from our location which was just outside of Albany, New York. And I which for those that aren’t familiar is not the fun part of New York. And it’s in my world was small right in though I felt confident in that world. It was very, very small. Oh, and right around the time that we talked, I had left that that business because I wasn’t part of that family. So I was never going to be an owner, there’s no place for me to go, there was this ceiling sitting on top of me and, and I had to kind of find my way and I and I left there. And, and it’s almost like, got I don’t want to say it’s hero’s journey, ask I don’t want to I’m not trying to say that I’m a hero in any way, shape, or form. But, but like, you know, I kind of leaped out into the world, I took a job as a chief marketing officer for a national insurance, marketing and technology company. And all of a sudden went from, you know, I’m spending 99% of my time, 25 miles from from the location of our business here and small town, USA, to flying all over the country, I’ve been in 43 of the 50 United States. And, you know, speaking in consulting in, in, in meetings and doing business development, and, and, you know, there’s, there’s more to the story, but, but to kind of TLDR here, watching that world expand, and then have, you know, having a whole new set of larger challenges and, you know, bigger battles, you know, not battles in the literal sense, but in the bigger sense, you gain, you just, you just see how big the world is. And today, that’s not scary, you know, at the time it was and then it becomes not, and you learn how to deal with it, and you make all the mistakes, and you get fired. And you you know, find your way. And it’s, it’s, like I said, you know, thinking back to the last nine years, that conversation that we had was really like, you know, like I was staring out over the cliff and had no idea what I would find when I went down. And now I have a much clearer vision.

David Ralph [6:54]
But the thing that jumps out to me there, Ryan, was you were saying about the battles. Now, when he was on the show, previously, you were Mr. Content Warfare, and there was a kind of fighting element to your talk at that time, you were very front and centre in, you’ve got to battle to get your words out there, you’ve got to battle to get noticed. Do you still see it as a battle? Or is it just you’ve got to focus more in on the quality, and the quality will naturally help you win the game?

Ryan Hanley [7:28]
So I do, you know, I know you have to be careful with that time type of terminology people get all messed up with, you know, I mean, it doesn’t mess me up. But people get kind of messed up if you use terms around warfare and stuff like that, but but the concept is, I’m probably only more committed to it. It’s, it’s, you know, I think that we, you know, we’re living in a time when most there’s a there’s a general sense or a cultural aspect of particularly here in the states where, where, like, people feel like because they showed up there do something and and I love that I absolutely love it. And the reason why is it actually makes my job easier that so many people you know, especially younger, the younger generation believes that by showing up there do write that they haven’t actually, they’re they’re oftentimes afraid to do things like get fired to put themselves out there, they, they don’t want to do the work, they want to do the seven, the seven day super hack to 150 followers on Instagram or whatever your your goal is, and all this is nonsense. And and I love that mentality. Because what it does is it makes it very easy to beat. And I’m actually finding in many ways as much as this might sound crazier, it is almost easier to stand out today than it was 910 years ago, because 910 years ago, the general sense was this takes a really long time. Right? It takes months, it takes years, it takes decades to get your brand out there to build a following. And some of that had to do with the tools and technology and and some of it just had to I think it was just a different cultural aspect today with all the quick hacks and you know, Johnny went from zero Instagram followers to you know, however many are tick tock or whatever. And there’s no depth to it. Feel like they haven’t spent the time you know, bleeding out his uses term. You bleed on the keys, right? You you, you you put your heart and soul you digitise your soul you digitise the soul, your business and you put it in mind and you connect with people. And I just don’t see people taking that same amount of time and depth. They want to get there quicker. And and frankly, I kind of smirk and nod my head and say yeah, yeah, no 100% do that seven day hack. Go right at it.

David Ralph [9:48]
He can’t blame him now, can you because I think I think we would assign Huawei because I remember launching Join Up Dots and really thinking that if I went every single day, Ben I would win the game. You know, and it was I got myself to a point of extreme burnout, that almost brought me to my knees. And it was all down to the fact that I was always looking for the, if I do this extra thing that’s gonna cut the corners. It was it was the cut in the corners that I was looking for. Around business, that’s all the corners were cut off.

Ryan Hanley [10:22]
Yeah, you know, so this is this is the balance that I think that you only learn through time. James outra, wrote a book skip the line, which is, which is a really interesting concept. And he’s got some some interesting stuff in there. And the whole point that he wrote was, there are ways to, you know, use technology or to learn or, you know, to take our mentors that allow you to, you know, quote, unquote, skip, skip the line, which, which I think is smart, right? You don’t, if there are lessons that you don’t have to learn the hard way, then then learning them from a mentor or, or taking a course or being part of something certainly can help. But I don’t know if it’s the blue collar nature of my upbringing, or what, but I’ve always thought in terms of, you know, years, five years decades, to me, it’s, it’s an, it’s a never ending, like, I’m never gonna stop like writing, creating, helping using content and content marketing in my businesses, which which now I, you know, I own I own an insurance agency, which so nicely promo there for me at the beginning. You know, it, it, thinking long term, it seems seems silly, right? You’re like, Ah, you can get there faster, you can do this hack, you can buy these followers, you can pay this influencer. And, well, I think those things are are they’re good ways to, to ignite the, to ignite the fire, which I think is what you did with your with your launch strategy, and how you got got off the ground, I think it was a good way to ignite the spark. But longevity only comes from from Ken, the crappy idea is, you know what I mean, making the mistake, do you know, getting the famous guest on your show, who have you been waiting for forever, and then doing an hour and, you know, 30 minutes with them, and, and then realising you never hit record, you know, like, those are the kinds of things that, that teach you that give you the battle scars that allow you to sustain and while I absolutely am all for finding ways to be better, faster, if you’re thinking in terms of of days, weeks or months, I feel like you’re setting yourself up for failure. So we tend in everything we do at Rogue and all the other businesses that have been a part of between 2014 today. Purpose really take a long view, you know, you’re you’re you’re leaving to the muse or serendipity how fast she rewards you. But you have to think in years or, or sets of years, you know, blocks or years, or you just you just won’t sustain through the ups and downs that come with business and marketing and brand building and all that kind of stuff.

David Ralph [12:58]
Let’s talk about the rogue risk. Because this is fascinating to me, because one of the things, again, that I see is when people are starting their first foray into entrepreneurship, it’s generally running away from what they were doing before. Now, 567 years down the line, I would say a vast proportion of the people that I talked to, had kind of connected with the thing that they were running away from, because it’s the thing that they knew most about. And that’s when the business suddenly made sense to them. And they started to grow in areas that I could only dream of before. Now, with you, I wouldn’t say that you was ever running away from it. But to me now, it seems to make more sense by and what you was doing at the beginning, what you were doing at the beginning seemed to be kind of like what most people were doing back 10 years ago. Now, it seems like a proper, serious customer focused business with legs. I understand. And I always look at these things Ryan and I say to myself, I don’t get this, or I do get this and for you this one seems a fit. It seems perfect fit. Do you feel that way?

Ryan Hanley [14:10]
Yeah, yeah, I mean, this is rogue risk is a mash up of all the things that the it’s a mash up of the this arcane knowledge that I have, which is in the insurance industry, right? Like once you unfortunately once you get too deep in the insurance industry, you kind of lose skills that are applicable in any other space, right? You have this set of knowledge that you’ve like, earned, you know, through years of, of reading policy forms, this is incredibly boring, you know, mind numbing stuff, but is not applicable anywhere else. So like, part of it is I knew I had this bank of knowledge and experience from all these years and seemingly taking it into another industry. There was no, there was no transfer value, right? Like there’s nothing to move across so, so I had that I saw this window of opportunity, where so so first, just a snap forward on how we got to rogues. To be this will make more sense, I left that family agency became Chief Marketing Officer of this national technology company, whatever I did that was was very, very successful there got to experience things that, you know, in my, in my early 30s, I probably sat in rooms and listen to listen to conversations with executives and leaders in the insurance industry that I probably didn’t have any right to be there, but because of, you know, just, again, serendipity I happen to be in a situation in a position where this you know, a kid in offence and a 30 is probably not a kid everyone listening but I mean, the insurance industry it is this kid was able to just sit in, in these rooms and listen to executives talks was always taking notes, always learning, always listening to, to where did these mega carriers want to go? Where did these the biggest and best insurance businesses in the country were? What were their struggles? Where were they finding success? What were they? What were they prioritising? How were they set up? How did they adapt, add additional revenue streams, etc, etc. And I unfortunately got fired from that business. You know, that that warfare Bulldog entrepreneurial mentality, you can put an entrepreneur in a bureaucracy, but you can’t take the entrepreneur or the kid or something. I don’t know how that works. But you know, so I eventually,

David Ralph [16:28]
you knew too much basically, didn’t you, you, you listen to them, and you didn’t buy it there, I follow it somehow,

Ryan Hanley [16:36]
you know, I, a personality trait about me is I don’t like to be told what to do. We’ve also done, I’ve done years of therapy to try to resolve that issue. But seemingly, I don’t like to be told what to do so. And I just, I don’t know what it is about me. I don’t know if it’s because I have ADHD, or what that’s not an excuse is reality. I just, I just like, I just I’m kind of, I just, I don’t like to wait for people, I don’t like to wait, like if someone can’t keep up, I tend to just push them out of the way and keep going, like keep up or fall behind. That’s your choice. And I told the CFO that the CFO of that business, was complaining about this problem, and had been complaining for months on our leadership calls, complaining and complaining. And just finally, one day I said, you know, I’m gonna, I’ll solve that here. But I said, Shut the up. I’ll just I can solve this Get out of my way. I said that on a call. Like, he just I just like snapped, you know, because I’ve been presenting solutions. And now and then we’re going to do it and whatever. And finally, I was just in it was holding our business back. And I’m standing here one of the executive leaders of this company, and this person just kept complaining, I can’t stand complaining, right, like, solve the problem or be quiet like I just, you know, I don’t we all have problems, right? I don’t want to hear your problems. You know, again, if it’s your, your spouse, or your best friend or something you’re being shoulder to cry on is different. But like, general people complaining out their problems, I just don’t care. Because because I have my own stuff, you have your own stuff. Let’s talk about solutions. I don’t care about your problems, right, we all have them so so this guy just continuing to complain and complain about the same thing. I just kind of snapped one day because I knew I could solve the problem, I actually knew the answer. And I’ve given it to him multiple times, and he just refuse to take action. So I told him that, you know, shut the EFF up and get out of the way and then I would solve the problem and you know, probably rightfully so two months later I was fired. So I went became a chief marketing officer of another company. In this case, where the were the company I was with before trusted choice.com They were very agent insurance agent focused company. Well then I became the chief marketing officer after I was fired there have another large national insurance technology company except this one was kind of focused the opposite way it was focused on creating technology that would replace agents they call them disruptors or whatever. And so I got to see the local agency right for eight years in this family and see how it’s done that the tradition the the where we came from, I got to know where we came from. And then I moved to this new business Trusted Choice where for four years and the Chief Marketing Officer and I’m, I’m getting to meet all the best right so now I’m meeting literally the best in the industry, the biggest and the best all over the country and, and I’m getting to hear them and and I’m taking notes, you know, mental notes, and I’m kind of creating derivatives, what are the ideas? What are the core concepts of success and failure? And where are the pitfalls Okay, and then I got to see the other side of it. The people who literally wanted to put everyone that I’d worked for the previous 12 years of my life these people want to put them out of business so now I got to see like the enemy you know, the end I’m doing air quotes, you can’t see me that the enemies mentality, right. What do you Where, where are the places that they see there from their mindset, the weaknesses in the in the independent insurance agency model and, I mean, the education that I got, you couldn’t you couldn’t pay for right or, or I guess I did. With 13 years of my life, and I just boiled all that down. So eventually, the job, I had to leave the job with a company whose name was bull Penguin, I had a family member who terminally ill and that job required a heavy travel, so I couldn’t travel anymore. So I had to leave that job. But I got this amazing education, this just ridiculous education. And, and so this is probably 20 This is probably 2017 2018. And then 2018 Is 2018 going into 2019. And so I had to, I had to kind of stay home in Albany, New York, which if no one’s been there has ever heard of it before is is not a it’s not a bastion of Business, Innovation and Opportunity. It’s really just the state capital of New York. So so what happened was, I took the CEO job at a fitness franchise, six location fitness franchise, I’ve been working out there for a while, really liked to work out, got to know the owner. And when I left this company, bowl Penguin, and Ken was looking for something locally, he came up to me and said, Hey, I’m a, I’m a gym guy, you’re a business guy, which, you know, the joke was on him, I’m just really a marketer. But you know, he said, your business guy, I’m a gym guy, I would love for you to run my business. So I can focus on the workout in the in the quality of the workout. And together we can grow this thing seems like a good opportunity, I’d love to work out Jesus and I’m gonna be healthy, surrounded by healthy young people at times, you know, if I can’t work in the insurance industry, and do the thing that I that I love and want to be part of. And there weren’t really any insurance opportunities here locally, just seemed like the next best thing. And I felt very blessed. And, and I did that for nine months. Seo, we I added two new locations, and added and almost doubled their membership, we went from just over 2000 members to just under 4000 members in nine months, at which point the founder said the business was quote unquote, fun again, and wanted to become the CEO. And you know, if no one’s ever been fired, here’s one way that it looks like October 6 of 2019. It’s 8:30am. Every Monday at 830, as of Monday at 830 He and I would meet and just kind of get on page for that week. What are we doing? What are our priorities, what problems we have to solve etc, right, and, you know, fairly classic, whatever. So I’m in the best part about being the CEO of a fitness franchise, you get to show up in like sweats and sweatshirts every day because you gotta, you know, part of your job is to like work out with the members. So I would go to different locations and work out with them and, you know, whatever. And it’s pretty fun to not have to be like Lululemon and you know, these you know, whatever is like your what you wear to work that’s like your office outfit. Like if you came in jeans and a sweater or a sweater, people think that you’re weird, you know. So, so I’m sitting there and just waiting, and I got my coffee and just waiting for him to show up. And I see through the window of the conference room. I’m in, I’m in a Lululemon sweatshirt and pants sneakers, he’s in a suit with his attorney. So he comes walk and then sits down looks at me, he goes, we appreciate your service, you’ve done a great job, but we no longer need it. My attorney will speak now. And it hasn’t spoken to me again, turning pushed across a piece of paper, one single sheet of papers and we are firing we are terminating you without cause. So thank goodness, at least I had a little severance or whatever. But you know, basically have a nice day. And that was it. 8:36am I got my hat and my, my walking papers in my hand and out the door. I go. And it was in that moment of I wasn’t mad I don’t I got mad. But in that moment, I wasn’t mad.

David Ralph [23:45]
Did you feel liberated at that moment? Now that you could just do anything you want. It was a left or right situation?

Ryan Hanley [23:54]
You no no I do today or today. I felt like that. Maybe that’s what but in the moment what I said was this is the universe telling me it’s time for me to start my own thing. I had been kicking that can doing like smart, like really small little side businesses, the speaking business, you know what I mean? Like, you know, I never really, I had the speaking business. I had the kind of content coaching business, but it always it was always a side job. Right? I never it was never what I did, it was never the thing. And I don’t know their business ideas that I had. Yeah. And then you know, you and I would get nervous. And that’s why I took a lot of these executive roles is frankly I was scared right? I had a family I had a young family. My wife at the time who is no longer my wife today. But um she was very risk averse, right? She she she was very, very risk averse and was not supportive of me kind of going out on my own. And in that moment as I’m walking through the parking lot, I didn’t, I didn’t. It was the only thing that was clear as day to me was this is the universe telling me that I bet and swimming upstream for too long. And it was time to shoe embrace the flow and start my own business. And that’s where ro gris came from.

David Ralph [25:08]
Well, let’s go and shoot there. Because it’s a fascinating moment, let’s hear these words, and we’ll be back with Ryan,

Speaker 4 [25:14]
you, me or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward, how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning

David Ralph [25:28]
is done. Now, Faye tie in very nicely to what you were saying. Because as you say, you can’t trust somebody who hasn’t got the limp. You’ve got to experience these things. But there’s also a point where you could have gone into mourning. And you could have put your dressing gown on not shaved for six weeks, left the curtains and just think that life is rubbish. So what was it that you tapped into? Because this is the thing that so many people are lacking nowadays, this kind of fire in their belly to make something happen. So what did you tap into? Right?

Ryan Hanley [26:07]
I wasn’t going to let them win. If I had crawled under a rock, that’s that’s, that’s this asshole winning, lets him winning. Right? He did something grimy and dirty. I built I turned his business from a nicely profitable business into a highly profitable business. I mean, when we added close to 2000 members margin on those members was huge. Because our fixed costs were relatively set, right? We didn’t need any more internal staff. We just weren’t. I mean, we were literally net adding new members, and we’re talking 70 You know, depending on which gym it was, we’re talking in the 60s to 70% profit margins on every single new membership because of the way we’d set up our, our cost structure and how we centralised our services and etc. And he just started making so much money that he looked at me as his biggest expense and figured I can’t screw it up from here, right? So him, that’s that’s my mentality is I’m not gonna let you win. You know, like,

David Ralph [27:03]
it was it was it was it that you didn’t want him to win, or you didn’t want yourself to lose. I

Ryan Hanley [27:09]
so so two things, the crawling into a hole was f him, I’m not gonna let him when they’re not crawling into a hole, the I’m gonna go build the thing that I’ve had in my brain for these years that I’ve been marinating on that, that the universe has finally, you know, just, you know, it’s taken a big, a big slap and just, you know, just just just wake up like, you know, I mean, that’s what I felt this was it was like, it was like, you know, the universe reaching down and grabbing my shoulders and saying, Hey, we’ve been trying to tell you for years that you need to go out and be your own your own boss. And this is it like the humiliating nature of walking through that office and all these people you would manage for nine months, and were your friends. And literally, he told all of them. I didn’t realise this five minutes before he walked into me. I learned this later, five minutes before I walked in there, he sent a mass text out to everyone in the company and said, you will be fired if you speak to Ryan Hanley. I don’t know what I did to deserve that. I mean, honestly, if and I would be if I if I had done something, I would have like something that I knew like God like, you know, hit on his wife or sneaking money or was talking talking crap someplace. I mean, if I had done some I would tell you, I mean, I’m far enough away from in a dive. No, there’s no, you know, there’s there’s no benefit to me not being honest. I honestly have no idea what I did and then come to find out later, he was making so much money that he looked at his he went him in his accounting, looked at his expenses and said, Geez, you’re paying this guy, you know, an executive salary, could you do you need him anymore? And he goes, Nope, just like that. I mean, that’s like psychopath love stuff. So that now crawling into the hole at first was I’m not gonna let this guy win, right? I’m not gonna let, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna let booze or lethargy or self loathing be in one, I’ve never really been a self loving guy to begin with. I kind of have, you know, I don’t again, I don’t exactly know what it is about me. But I’m just not. I’m just not gonna let I’m not gonna let myself down. I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna let the you know, I tend to create I don’t know what it is, I don’t know how to best to describe it. I tend to create these, like, these these competitors in my head, whether they’re real or not. And maybe I have some sort of inferiority complex. Are

David Ralph [29:27]
you saying that you are an entrepreneur? You know, because saying that every time you’ve got to go, yeah, you’ve got to keep on going. And some days you’re not getting any results at all. And some days it’s completely wasted. Some weeks go by and you haven’t really done anything but you’re still moving forward.

Ryan Hanley [29:44]
Yeah, I just I just said to myself, This is it the time and that doesn’t that’s not gonna mean I didn’t have moments where or days where I’d wake up and geez, I’d be like, I’d look at you know, you’d see the gym coming through your social media or whatever one of the gym posts and be like, Man, I miss them. I, you know, I made a lot of friends there, right and, and they were just all gone. Literally not, I couldn’t, none of them would text me, half of them blocked me. I mean, these were people that I spent every day with, and that hurt, you know, it hurt personally. But at the same time, I just said, you know, I don’t know if you know any for Sella, but he always he has a saying, you know, personal like excellence is the ultimate revenge or something like that. And and, and I just said to myself, like, the only way I’m never gonna I’m not gonna create a gym competitor I know interest wanted and I don’t know how to do that. I’m not gonna even waste my time on this guy. I’m just gonna go be so good at this thing that I this this mashup of things that I you know, marketing, sales, leadership and insurance, right, I’m gonna mash them all together and create distinct, it’s mine. And I’m going to do it in my way, which is why I named it rogue risk instead of Hanley Insurance Services which every other person, it’s very insurance, a very ego driven business. that progress is not about me, I had these core concepts I wanted to build, you know, I just wrote so I started writing concepts down no customer left behind is our client facing ideal. So we have three, we have three ideals in our business, and you know, whether ideals is the right word or not who the hell knows. But that we’ve three ideals or client facing ideals no customer left behind, what I saw, in my travels was that most of the businesses, most of the insurance businesses, sorry, that dealt with, with small business, it was very transactional, there was no care because because even though you know, most, most non insurance, people believe that insurance companies just print money that the profit margins are actually pretty thin. Most of the money that they have, like, on their balance sheet that everyone thinks they’re rich, they can’t actually spend or use, they have to keep it for claims, in case there’s a hurricane or something. So whatever. So So small businesses actually a, it’s very, very difficult to be profitable when you work with small businesses, because they don’t pay a lot of premium. And the margins are very small. So what happens is small businesses get treated like a commodity, right, they get they’re kind of like cattle, they don’t, they don’t get good service, they don’t get the expertise, access to people who know how to help them. And, and, and I wanted to change that, because I love small business. And frankly, I feel like the over indexing of national conglomerates and stuff is is a problem in our, in our society today. Right? The, you know, the main street, you know, mom and pop business used to be a core part of the culture of communities, and it’s just been ripped out and replaced by the next freakin iteration of some franchise that, you know, no one gives a crap about and capitalist. And that’s the way the world works. I wanted to be in support of these small businesses, okay, so no customer left behind, if you come to us, if we can’t, our guarantee is, if we can’t help you and find you the right covered, we will refer you to one of our competitors who can, and we guarantee that, so we’re finding you a home for your business, whether it’s with us or somebody else, always. And that extra step is something no one else does. That’s a completely unique thing to the insurance industry, that we would actually take the time we have a list of, of competitors, these are people that compete head to head to us. And literally if if, if their business matches one of their appetites, what they want to write what they will literally say here, we’ll hand it off to them and make them money, you know, because I want to, I want the small business person to be taken care of. Right. So So that’s that was our first core principle. Set. Second thing I wrote down was a concept called human optimised. And what I meant by that was, I’m going to give you a small kind of example here, let’s let’s say, every time you call your insurance provider, be they a big, big, you know, big eight Viega national carrier or a small local agency, let’s say every time you call, you have a 20 minute block of time, just for purposes of this thought experiment, okay? The traditional model of insurance, and even in most like what what are console digital or modern agencies, they still operate from a service perspective, very non digital very analogue. And if you have a 20 minute block of time, what ends up happening is you call and this this expert, customer service rep will pick up the phone, and they will give you about five minutes of their attention. Because they know that it’s going to take 15 minutes to actually do all the legwork processing work, you know, notating you know, whatever messaging to actually execute on whatever that whatever your problem was, right? So you’re not getting, you know, connection, you’re not getting breadth and depth and relationship you’re not you’re not building trust, because you give this tiny little window of time because it takes so much on the back end to get that request done. So what I said very early on was I want to take that 20 minutes I want to flip it around. I want to create optimizations in the background through self service automation and low cost third parties such as carrier call centres and you know, external vas, we there’s some really excellent virtual assistant groups that work out of the Philippines and Puerto Rico that service, the Emir Oregon insurance consumer market. So I want to use those three levers as lower cost options than full time w two employees, right? I want to use those three options as a way to give my licenced. You know, American, you know, the boots on the ground people here living and breathing this every day, who are the most experience, I want to give them 15 minutes to spend on the phone, and then create those automations and optimizations in the background. So it only takes five minutes for them to process it. And what that means is, you’re getting three times as much connection, as much expertise, insights, explaining right, you want them, I want someone who works with us to leave that phone call and say, Man, now I understand, I don’t know, you’re never gonna understand all of it. And I don’t expect any of our customers become insurance experts. That’s what our role is. But I certainly want them to at least understand what they’re purchasing, or at least believe that we know what we’re doing. So there’s a trust factor they so they stick around, and so that they feel taken care of, and then, and we’re actually able to build them coverage portfolios that protect their business, right. I mean, there are so many small businesses in the United States who pay money every month for insurance products that either don’t need or aren’t actually going to help them if shit gets hectic. And I wanted to fix that. So this human optimised concept was number two. And then number three, and this is the final kind of core ideal of our business, that we that we that we think through these ideals, that with every new feature functionality, you know, whatever we do, was a no ceiling insurance career. So the last piece of this, so I want to make sure every customer is taken care of, I want to make sure that we are optimising our people’s time, so that they were able to deliver their expertise, not just be transactional, you know, monkeys taking orders and processing things, right, I wanted them to be the experts that they were and have the time to do that, and for our customers to feel taken care of. And lastly, I wanted our people, I wanted our people to never have to experience what I experienced, which was eight years at a business only to hear the words, your name will never be on the box, which is what I was told verbatim. Hey, thanks for your eight years, just so you know, you will never own a piece of this business, your name will never be on the box. That’s what I was told. And that’s,

David Ralph [37:07]
that’s kind of life because I I’ve done that. Two or three times, really, I suppose in the past where I was climbing the ladder, and then I just realised that hang on, they’ve got they’ve got a loft here and there’s a padlock on it. And I’m never gonna get to what I was told, you know, but that’s that’s just don’t look back on it and think to myself anything other than a well, you know, I don’t look back on it and think you were stupid to believe them? I don’t think anything. He’s just something that was now. Obviously, with you, Ryan is really coming out as passion. Are you more passionate about this when you was the last time we spoke? Or is it equal? Or are you just a passionately driven person?

Ryan Hanley [37:48]
Yeah. Passion is both, I think one of my greatest strengths and also one of my greatest weaknesses. People use it as a weapon against me smart tactical people will use my passion and energy against me, in negotiations and different stuff I’ve learned, I’ve learned how to not allow that to happen, or certainly not allowed that to happen as often. But when I was younger, savvy executives that were posturing inside of companies or whatever, you know, external forces or stakeholders who, you know, wanted to, you know, didn’t maybe didn’t agree or, or whatever, would use that against me and have many times and many of the scars that I have in business are because people mistook my passion for you know, I had I had when I was when I was fired from trusted choice.com That that job I took directly after the small business. The day that I was fired, the CEO said, you know, after he had he fired me or whatever, and he just his parting shot was, you know, you were coming, you deserve this, you are coming after my job. And that was like, the farthest thing from the truth. I was the Chief Marketing Officer, I was right where I wanted to be you’re in pain, like I love content. I love helping people. I love building audiences and sharing and distributing and all the stuff that we talked about back in 2014. Right. I mean, I love that I still love it today. And I wanted no part of board meetings and you know, hate emails and you know, the questions in the, you know, the PDF spreadsheets, or PDF presentations that you have to go pitch and invest. I want to jump no part of that, especially I but I was hard charging. I was I was loud it just because of the nature of me and what I thought my role was as chief marketing officer. And you know, he kind of used He used my passion, energy, excitement, willingness to fail and be out front and in not care. He used that as a way to kind of kind of let me get out over my skis a little bit, and then used and then kind of pointed at that and said, Hey, look, he didn’t appear. So I’ve since made up with that individual, my friends again, although that’s a whole funny story. So this c out, right and that he and I were very, very close for the four years that I was there and, and it was only in these last like four or five months. And I just he thought I was coming after his job, oh, blah, I was kind of really rising in in the insurance industry as a thought leader and I’d put on this conference and etc. But, and he was the CEO. So I think in his mind, he’s saying I’m the CEO, everyone should care what I think not what this what this kid thinks, who’s the CMO? Why does he care what he thinks they should care what I think? Right? I think it was some of that and, and whatever. And I can have a big personality. So and again, I’m very passionate. So I would I would do things that I think would seem that would seem probably would seem like I was coming after his job, right. As someone who was coming after his job, they would probably do these things, right, they would be building a brand and doing speaking and stuff like that. But I wasn’t I am my mind. And again, naive at the time, you know, and just always hard charging. In my mind. I was I was going above and beyond what they were asking me to do. I was like, I’m pushing the brand, I’m making new connections and whatever. So so he fires me says all this stuff, and there was some just nastiness and whatever. And that’s just life that happens. And three years later, so So and you know, so he goes in, like the hate bucket, right? I don’t like to hate anything, but kind of put him in this bucket over here where I’m just like, Yeah, you know, if I could, if I could somehow mess with him, I would, I don’t know, it’s probably not nice to say, but I am a human so. So you know, whatever. And I kind of let him go and went on with my life and did the other things that I explained. Well, three years after that, so this beach, 2020 20. And then three years, two years after that, 2020 i He calls me on the phone randomly. I haven’t spoken to this guy since the day that he fired me, like haven’t spoken a word to him. Because I see his name on the cell phone, right. And all the feelings that I had for all that for the last two years of like, you ripped me out of this. I mean, that was my community. I loved it there. I had no desire to leave this. I built this brand agency nation and and we were this digital media company inside the insurance industry and we’re pronounced carry was amazing. I had no I did not want to leave. It wasn’t this wasn’t like I was feeling bad. This was like, I there was unfinished work to do and I got ripped out of it. You know, when you feel that sense of like, I never got to really go with far with that as I wanted to. So I had a lot a lot of anger and whatever. So he calls pick up the phone. I’m like, What the Bleep Do you want? That’s how I answered you know, so not coming in, you know, not coming in, in a very Christian way or whatever I was. I came in very hot to that conversation. And he’s like, right, he comes back at me and we’re going and we’re kind of going back and forth. I’m like what you know so what do you want? He needed something for me to sign this document or whatever. You know, something he needed me he needed my help. So we spend the next hour David two grown men I’m at this point I’m at this point 39 He’s approaching 50 And we’re on the phone MF and each other and you know all the words just scream you did this you said for an hour we are screaming at each other over the phone I’m feeling in the middle of my I’m pacing laps around the island in my kitchen you know there’s probably like a track warning now from how like how vigorous I was I was walking the circle just screaming it and he’s screaming right back and you know I at some point I got the phone away from my ear and we’re just by and then once I kind of got that out and he got it out like we had this like moment of quiet. And you know I don’t I you know, and I just said Well, how about you stop being an asshole and I’ll stop being an asshole we can be friends again. He goes okay, and we’ve been buddies now we’re buddies again.

David Ralph [44:00]
Do you think do you think you’re fighting too much Ryan? If I am listening to you and I think to myself Oh Ryan just let it go. Just let it go my you know not everyone’s against you. Not everyone’s gonna be for you. Just do your thing. Sit at home in the evening. Watch a bit of Netflix go to bed

Ryan Hanley [44:19]
now I wasn’t made that way I think some people are that seems nice. I just wasn’t made that way I was made to build and go that’s whatever when God put me on this earth I was not meant to watch Netflix at eight o’clock and coast into the evening just wasn’t made that way. It doesn’t make me happy. I don’t feel manic. I don’t feel stressed or anxious. And frankly he was out to get me general truth. And what I’m I guess the lesson that I take away from that is like you read a lot of gurus you read Instagram people calm be nice. Jordan Peterson has this quote. Right? Be a man stir, be an absolute monster, and then learn how to control it. Because there’s no honour and being a pushover and being calm. There’s no honour in that, if you don’t have teeth, what’s the honour and not biting? Right? So

David Ralph [45:15]
if you can just come out instead?

Ryan Hanley [45:19]
Well, no, no, I think I want to be able to, I want to know that if some somebody, I mean, look, man, I’ve had two different scenarios, in when every category and he would even MIT today in every category, I was off the charts in terms of my performance, right? I’ve had two different guys, two different times wiped me out. Absolutely wiped me out just from making six figure great living doing what I love wiping me out and sending me all the way back to zero. Okay, I’ve had two guys do that to me in my life now. And if you consider what happened at the, at the small agency, where essentially I was told, hey, you know, you’re just gonna be a peon for the rest of your life. While he didn’t technically fire me, he essentially put me in a box that would have killed me, mentally. I never want someone to be able to do that to me again. Right. And that doesn’t mean I fight with them. And I have great relationships. I mean, it gets it sounds like I’m fighting because these are the scars, right? This is real life. It’s not a real life to think you’re gonna coast through, everything’s gonna be calm, and easy and nice. And yeah, you know, you do your 5am routine, just the way you know, Ben Greenfield tells you to do it. And then you get into your day, and it’s perfectly calendar blocked, and everything’s amazing. And your spouse loves you, or your you know, your partner, and your kids are amazing, everything’s amazing. And it just like, that is not the way that that is not the life that I’ve lived. And certainly the people that I’ve found in my life are the most successful, none of their lives have been that way. It’s It’s mean, and it’s dirty. And it doesn’t mean you can’t have great moments, and that you shouldn’t surround yourself with the people who bring you peace and happiness. And I do that I have wonderful people around me who I love and I support and care about children are amazing. My ex wife and I, for as much as you know, I didn’t love getting divorced, I loved being a dad and a father and a husband. You know, she had her thing and you know, whatever. And that’s life. She needs to get along fairly well, right. And I get it always people in my world that I love. And to me, if I try to live a passive balanced life, I’m doing them a disservice. That’s the way that I look at it. I don’t believe in balance. I think there are moments of balance. I think you have to take time for yourself, you have to take care of yourself. I still I still focus on any inflammatory diet. I work out very hard. I press my you know, I do I do. I lift weights, I do cardio, do I take care of myself? I take cold showers and do other things. I still do these things. But I don’t do them to find the peace. For me. The peace when I’m at peace, it’s when I’m focused and charging forward. I’m, you know, for better or for worse. There are there are there are peacetime generals in their wartime generals, right. I’m a wartime General, I have to own that. If your company has already hit escape velocity, and you just need someone to manage the 4% growth every year and a solid EBITA I’m not the guy for you. I’m not I have I that I know that about myself. I am not the guy for you that I will mess that situation up. Because I’m a tester and I’m a pusher and I’m I do experiments and I want to see what works. I want to try this and I don’t care if I fail flat on my face. I will just pull back figure out a new plan and off we go. And, and I have to own that about myself. I I would be nice if I was calm and balanced and everything was great. And I was all stoic all the time. I mean, I love stoic philosophy. Don’t get me wrong, but like I would love it. I would love it. Trust me. Now there’s I also wouldn’t

David Ralph [48:50]
just before we sort of move you to the Sermon on the mic on the end of the show, you did a podcast episode the other day on the Ryan Hanley show and it was never get comfortable with being uncomfortable. And one of the things that he was talking about is why being uncomfortable. I’ll actually quoted as you say in the episode, we break why seeing comfort even if it’s comfort in being uncomfortable, is the worst course of action to reach success. Are you uncomfortable over time? Isn’t Isn’t this what we’re discussing here? And you thrive on that?

Ryan Hanley [49:24]
Yeah, I you know, my I was kind of sussing out some ideas in that episode. You know, sometimes I do these episodes where I literally write down a sentence. Right and what was the title of that I wrote down a sentence. Never get comfortable being uncomfortable and it’s this idea was like running around in my head because it came out of the idea of taking cold showers right. A lot of people try and stop and don’t like it and I hate it and I love it. And I but I hate it every time I do it. Literally every time I go to take a cold shower so basically take a regular shower in the last two minutes and I set a timer on my phone in the shower, and I have a specific song I listened to the I like and I turn the water, it was cold as it’ll possibly get in for two minutes, I stand in there and it’s miserable every single time and I hate it. And, but I do it. And the reason that I do it is there’s some incredible health benefits. And I don’t want to get into that’s a whole nother show. But but but the mental part that I do it is because I hate it. Because I hate it, I do it because there are things that I have to do to be the best leader of my company to be the best boss, friend, partner, dad, you know, whatever, right business partner investor, do a lot of Angel and seed investing now to be the best that all those things, there’s tonnes of uncomfortable conversations, uncomfortable moments, decisions you have to make. And I want, I want to experience I never want to get I want to take every one of those moments and and experience it for what it is. Right? I don’t want to gloss over them. I don’t want them to become familiar or easy, because that’s when you make mistakes. And in my mind, that’s the thought process. That’s what I was trying to ferret out in that in that conversation that that episode is really just a stream of consciousness of me trying to kind of work through this idea in real time on the microphone. And you know, it could have merits it could not have merit, I think there’s something there, it’s probably not as fleshed out enough to be like something I would publish in an article. Because it still needs some refining. But I do use the podcast at times to just literally turn the mic on, I’d be like, This is me and you guys today, you know, we’re solo episode. And here’s the idea and why now if we go, and I just, I guess my message I try to remind myself every day is is that real life, you know, non social media life is very hard. We have to fight ourselves, there are people oftentimes that that don’t have our best interests in mind. We have all these expectations put on us all these people pulling on our schedule, and we want to be we want to be great for all of them. Or at least the ideal you don’t mean or you know, for the people who care about you want to be great. I want to be great for my employees. Right I’ve 21 People whose salaries based on me making the right decisions in business. And, and I have this family of kids and you know, I have I have a great partner now. And she you know, I want her to be happy and, and all of this is not easy. So putting yourself in uncomfortable moments that you hate on purpose. My mind. It helps train me for those tough moments. Right, if I can sit and you know, I last time I checked it, it was like 4142 degrees. If I can stand in 42 degree water for for two minutes. In the morning. I can have a hard conversation with one of my employees. Huh? Yeah, with? That’s the way I think about

David Ralph [52:48]
it. Yeah. Okay, well, this is the partner show that we’ve been building up to. And this is the part that you get to travel on for the second time, we call it the Sermon on the mic. And then last time you was on the show, you got to go back in time and speak to the young Ryan. But this time you don’t get to choose, you get to go back and speak to the Ryan who appeared on the show back in May 2014. And if you could speak to that guy, what advice would you give him to ease his way through the next 10 years, we’re gonna play the tune, when we’re gonna find out this is the Sermon on the mic

Speaker 5 [53:26]
here we go with the best bit of the show the Sermon on the mind, the sermon on

Ryan Hanley [53:44]
what an amazing transition that is. So if I were speaking to the Ryan of 2014, in this moment, where I would tell him is, you know, think bigger, faster. And trust yourself, I made a lot of decisions, where I didn’t, I thought very small, I thought very safe. And I would just tell him look like when you feel when you when you feel it you’re capable of handling the bigger opportunities, the bigger world you’re capable of it. So give it a try. And, and get out into that bigger world faster. And, you know, you’ll you’ll figure it out. I think that, you know, I tend to write don’t as much anymore, but I can find myself thinking small. And I’ve tried very hard to fight that because if you if you aim at a larger target, even if you come up short, you still have a lot more opportunity. And there’s and I think we’re all capable of much more than we give ourselves credit for. And I would just remind myself that you’re you’d be out you’ll be alright. You know you can play the bigger game, go after it and everything’s gonna be fine. So

David Ralph [54:53]
makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? You know, aim for a bigger target because you got more to hit. It’s bloody obvious It’s really about your right we we look at what we think it’s achievable instead of going for the mountain. Yep. Now, yeah. And that’s another show in itself. So Ryan, thank you so much for being on today’s Join Up Dots. But what’s the best way that people can connect with you?

Ryan Hanley [55:17]
LinkedIn is probably the best way I do some writing there and produce a lot of stuff, you can DM me easy to get a hold of, and if you’re interested in some of the writing that I do, I do it at finding peak.com It’s free, it’s a free substack. You know, whatever, if you’re into that kind of stuff, I write about peak performance and, and all the different things that I do to try to be a good professional, it’s not necessarily insurance focused. It’s kind of the broader concept. So I and again, complete free. It’s just I kind of do it almost as therapy. So those are probably the best places.

David Ralph [55:47]
And all the way through that episode. I think I was thinking, insurance for gyms, gym surance, that that seems to me to be a brilliant branding that’s appeared in my head. Is that something? Is that something that you could go with? Jim surance?

Ryan Hanley [56:02]
Yeah, you know, it’s funny, there actually are a few companies that write gyms, specifically. If I’m being completely candid, gym owners are very difficult to get a hold of, and they’re a tough market to market to about insurance because they hate it. But yeah, we do. Right, we read quite a few gyms as it is, and being able to speak the language is nice. And I think that the last thing that I’ll leave you with, and I just want to say, Dave, it’s been so amazing to connect with you. And hopefully there’s the meandering nature of this conversation. Now, there’s some value in there for your listeners. You know, I think that insurance is not every little boy’s dream, like, no, no, no, no young boys or girls wake up, you know, at age eight and go, I want to be an insurance professional, I grew up no one says that. And I found a passion for this by committing to it, and being really good at it. And now I love it. You know, now, there’s nothing else that I want to do. There’s no other industry that I want to be in. This is my home, this is my place. And I think, to your point of jumping away from an industry to start something else as an entrepreneur, I think if we stick around, and we apply our unique qualities, even if the thing isn’t as interesting, and trust me insurance is not interesting to most people. And I know that you find a passion and a unique cross set of skills that that can be your life’s work it. It’s It’s interesting how that happens.

David Ralph [57:26]
Yeah, Brian, please come back again, when you’ve got even more dots to join up, because I do believe that by joining up those dots and connecting our past is always the best way to build our futures. Ryan Hanley. Thank you so much. Thank you Mr. Ryan Hanley from a rogue risk. So yeah, he had a business he learned the skills and he’s tried other things. And when he realised that it was the knowledge base that he’d left behind, but he learned so much he realised that he’s mantra of no customer left behind, you see how other people operate. And you either take the good stuff or you learn from the bad stuff as well. You look at them and go, I never do that. It when I get a chance. I’m gonna do it this way, or you look at it, and that’s brilliant. I’m gonna do it as well. All the dots join up. As always, all the dots join up. You’ve just got to keep on moving forward. Until next time, thank you, as always, but everybody who listens to Join Up Dots, and we’ll see you again soon. Cheers. See ya. Bye bye.

Outro [58:29]
That’s the end of Join Up Dots. You’ve heard the conversation. Now it’s time for you to start taking massive action. Create your future create your life. Easy only you live God. We’ll be back again real soon. Join Up Dots Join Up Dots Join Up Dots Jolina Join Up Dots.