The Morning Upgrade Podcast with Ryan Cote

#51 - Changing Your Identity with Ryan Horn

July 25, 2021 Ryan Cote Episode 51
The Morning Upgrade Podcast with Ryan Cote
#51 - Changing Your Identity with Ryan Horn
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode of the Morning Upgrade podcast I talk with Ryan Horn about understanding and changing your identity, how to grow a successful business, his morning routine and more. 

Ryan  

Hey guys, it's Ryan real quick. So my mission with the Morning Upgrade blog and podcast is to raise the awareness of morning routines and personal development. And I now have two products that are also helped me with this mission. The first product helps you start a 20 minute morning routine. And the second product is a book that outlines how to use personal development, upgrade your life and business. You can get full details on both products over at morning upgrade.com. Thanks for letting me share. And now on to the show.


Announcer  

Welcome to the Morning Upgrade podcast with Ryan Cote where we feature casual conversations with entrepreneurs about personal development and growth.


Ryan 

Hey, Ryan, welcome to the Morning Upgrade podcast. How are you?


Ryan Horn  

I'm doing outstanding. Thanks for having me on today, Ryan.


Ryan  

Absolutely. I think you're the first Ryan on the show. Ryan Ryan. Why don't you start off by telling everyone who you are, what you do for a living? And then what do you do for fun?


Ryan Horn  

Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Ryan Horn. And I think the question of who are you are very interesting because of our identity. And maybe we'll get into this a little bit later. But it very important. So what I would say is, first and foremost that I'm a follower of Jesus. I'm a husband, I'm a brother, I'm a son, and I'm a friend. And I'm also a business owner. And so with my business, I currently help men grow their business without sacrificing their family faith in fitness in the process. And I do that through one on one coaching as well as a virtual mastermind that I run called the brotherhood of extraordinary men. I also have a podcast called The extraordinary man podcast. And I also have a free Facebook group called the Academy of extraordinary men with over 200 married businessmen in it. So I also previously owned a fitness business for about six years, I've always been very entrepreneurial. And I think I love telling the story, I'll make it real quick. But when I was in either sixth or seventh grade, I think this summer between them, maybe I convinced my mom to buy calendars from this fundraising magazine that she had. So I could go door to door and sell them as really funny because our son, the reason we had the magazine, the first place was because the previous year, our Sunday school actually went around selling these calendars. So I was going door to door and everybody was asking me like, Oh, are you doing this for Sunday school again? And I was like, No, I'm just doing this for me. And I didn't really think anything of it. But so I've always been very entrepreneurial. And in terms of hobbies, things I like to do for fun. Honestly, I love learning and growth. I love going to conferences, anything to do without reading books, I love traveling. I love spending quality time with my wife, and I really love playing and watching sports.


Ryan  

I can tell we're gonna have a hard time keeping this to 15 minutes because there are a lot of questions I have. But I like that you mentioned the identity because that's something I'm trying to dive more into with like mindset and identity. And I realized I have an identity of being like a shy person from just things in my past whatever, you know, that I'm trying to work through. And but it is such a major because the identity creates like, I guess it basically forces you to act the way you act, you know, subconsciously. And so I think it's something that is definitely worth jumping into Have you come across a thing with identity, how to figure out what your identity is how to change it if you need to anything you've anything you could share along those lines? 


Ryan Horn  

Yeah, that's a great question. I know, we'll do our best to give it 15 minutes. But so identity, I really started learning about identity from Tony Robbins. And I've learned a lot from Tony Robbins, I've been to probably over 10 of his live events, been through pretty much all of his audio courses and stuff like that. And Tony Robbins says that your identity is the strongest force in the human in human psychology, basically, because you will stay consistent with who you believe you are. So if you believe you're a shy person, that's going to dictate the actions you take or don't take. And so one of the things that I've learned about identity is, if for example, you say that I'm a shy person, that's part of your identity, one of the things that you could do to get over that would be to go take some massive action that's completely outside of who you believe you are. So if you got some accountability from someone else, and you know you're accountable to them, that you were gonna go up to, like 20 strangers in a mall and just start a conversation with them or something by you doing that and actually following through with it, that is going to change your identity. Now, I'm not completely like if you just go to that one time, it's going to totally change it. But your brain is going to have a really hard time still saying that you're a shy person if you're consistently doing things that are outside of that. So that's one thing. Another thing is anything that you attach or anything you say after the words I am, you will eventually become. So for me, one of the things that I do and we'll probably get into this later talking about a morning routine is I have written out the ultimate vision that I want for my entire life. So all the major areas, and I speak it as though it's already happened. So for you If I want to impact millions of people with my business, I haven't done that yet, but I want to. So I will say, and I'm impacting millions of people on my business. And I also have specific 
“I’m” statements for each of those areas of my life. Like for my marriage, for example, a couple of my identities are related to my marriage that gets me excited about growing and being an awesome husband are. I am king Ryan, I'm the best husband on Earth. And I am the CEO of romance. So hopefully that helps.


Ryan  

Yeah, absolutely. I do something similar to that in my morning routine with the goal sheet and affirmations. And “I’m” statements as well. So I read that every morning, speaking, more morning routines, what is yours look like? What can you wait, what do you do to set your start your day on the right foot?


Ryan Horn  

Great question. So it varies a little bit, depending on the day, I think that's why being flexible is key. Because it's never going to be the same seven days a week, 365 days a year. But ideally, these are the top things that include working out. So typically, if it's a workout day, where I'm actually going to the gym, that's one of the very first things that I'll do is go straight to the gym. Another key thing that I do, and I love this, because it's, it's killing two birds with one stone is my wife and I will do a short Bible study and some prayer time together. So I get connection time with my wife. And then also we are together connecting to God. And then I will either read through or usually, I like to listen to my ultimate vision statements. So I've recorded myself speaking it out, which I think is really, really powerful. Because, yeah, because how many you guys know that when you get up in the morning, you're not always gonna feel motivated, and you're not always gonna feel like crushing it that day. So I recorded it on purpose, where I was in a, like, passionate, energetic state, and there's emotion in my voice. So if I'm not feeling like that, I can just turn that on, and get back to that state pretty easily. I also like to look over my vision board real quick. I like to have a little bit of either reading or listening to some Bible study on my own. And then one of the most powerful things I think that I do is I created these power questions. And this is something that I do I try to make sure I do this every single day before I sit down to work for the day. And so the questions real quick, are number one is What are three things that you're grateful for. And sometimes they'll do more, but at least three things I'm grateful for. Number two is, who do you appreciate? So three specific people could be the guy that opened the door for me at Starbucks, or it could be someone who's like, my best friend, doesn't matter. And then what are three things that I achieved from the previous day? And on this, I'll just write down everything I can think of. And then what are three special moments from the previous day? A great question, if you're married, is I asked myself, What is at least one thing I can do to make Brittany which is the name of my wife feel the love today? And then my last question is, what are my top three outcomes today? And so that really just sets me up and gets me ready to go gets me in the right state of mind. I'm grateful. I'm appreciative. I'm remembering all the things that I got done yesterday, remembering specific special moments, and then I'm focused on today, what are my top three outcomes? And then I don't do this every day, but I'll also spend some time journaling. So sometimes just a minute or two, sometimes I'll get into it go 10, 15, or 20 minutes.


Ryan  

I love the power questions. That's a great habit form. Do you have any other habits that you rely on, besides your morning routine and the parts of the morning routine?


Ryan Horn  

Yeah, that's a great question. So I would say my morning routine, those are like, those are my top habits. Those are the ones that I really, really focus on. And that probably helped me the most. But on a weekly basis, there's a couple of things that I think are really important as well. So my wife and I try really hard to do a weekly date night. Now, it doesn't always happen. But we almost always are flexible, we try to do a Friday night and make it happen on Saturday or Sunday or whatever. Or maybe make it shorter or switch to something else. We also do a weekly finance meeting every single week. So we both know exactly where we're at any updates anything like that. And then we do a weekly planning session on Sundays where we kind of talk through the upcoming week, anything big that's coming up or stuff like that, and we will come up with the list of our top outcomes the week as well. 


Ryan  

You guys seem like a real team. You in Britain?


Ryan Horn  

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she's an entrepreneur as well. And we really worked well together. We both love learning and growth.


Ryan 

I resonate with a lot of what you're saying because I'm very similar. Even the questions that you ask yourself and the way your morning is very similar. Why do you think you're so into personal growth? I've been thinking a lot myself lately. I'm just interested to hear what your thoughts are on it.


Ryan Horn  

That's a really great point. Question. I'm not sure if anybody's ever asked me that before. But what I would say is, so Tony Robbins says that, that happiness comes from progress. And I really believe that because if you have a big goal, say you want to lose 30 pounds, you don't have to wait until you've lost all 30 pounds to be happy, like somebody who's making progress. They've been working hard for a month, and they've lost a couple of pounds, they know they're going in the right direction, they're feeling pretty good about themselves, and they want to do more, and they want to do more. And it's kind of like they get in the positive success cycle. And I think that's kind of what it is for me. And even going back to high school, and even before that, I got rewarded for being good at things. Whatever you get rewarded for, you want to do more of, so I got really good grades in school. And you know, my parents were proud of me. So I wanted, I wanted to do better, I did well in sports. And I felt good about myself for that. So I always had a hunger to be the best that I could be. And I think once I got started in personal development, and I hired my first coach and started going to events, I started to see how much it was impacting my life. And I just wanted more and more and more.


Ryan  

I agree with what you're saying, I think it does tie to being productive. Because I know me, me personally, I'm happiest when I feel like I'm productive and achieving something and growing towards something, not necessarily anything with money, or nothing wrong with that. But that's just not like, what gets me going. It's more like being productive. And I mean, that's what it is with personal growth because it's like the journey that never ends. Because even though like if you look at yourself, Ryan, like we're recording this in 2021, if you look at it, if you compare yourself to your version of 2020 A year ago, I would think you'd say you're probably a better version of yourself than you were last year 12 months ago, but still got, you know, improvement to make still got things to work on. No one's ever perfect. And so it's sort of like the journey that never ends. So you're always achieving and producing and, and working on yourself. And that's, I think that's very exciting.


Ryan Horn  

You're 100% right. It's the journey that never ends.


Ryan  

Yeah, your wife is into personal development as well. It sounds like you have the weekly meetings and stuff. But is she into it as much as you are with your morning routine?


Ryan Horn  

She is. So it's actually pretty funny. So the way that we met was actually through a Tony Robbins conference. So we didn't actually meet at the event. I won't get into it, because it will go way over time. But we ended up meeting through the a Tony Robbins conference. And I actually ended up proposing to her at a Tony Robbins conference. So personal development is very interwoven into our lives.


Ryan 

That's amazing. That's awesome. Let's talk about entrepreneurship. You've got your way, fitness business. And you've got your coaching and your academy Academy business now. What works for you and growing, you can answer the fitness business or your current business, what works and growing and growing the business like what have you had success with that you can share, like tips or strategies?


Ryan Horn  

Absolutely. So over the years, so I've been really heavy into personal development, I would say since probably about 2013 Is I remember the day, July 31, 2013, I ordered a Tony Robbins audio program, and I didn't even have the money to pay for it. I had to do the payments over like three months. But that's what really got me started. And so over the years, being immersed in personal development, going to probably over 20 events, seminars, conferences, and having countless coaches and being in masterminds and stuff, I've started to see patterns, and after coaching hundreds of people as well. So I have put together a framework that I call my five-step to become an extraordinary framework. And these five steps are what I coach in my business, if you work with me one on one, or join my mastermind, these are the five steps that I'm leading people through. And so I'll just say the first five steps first, and then I'll give a little bit of context for each of them. So step number one is clarity. Step number two is commitment. Step number three is coaching. Step four is courageous action. And step five is course correction. So clarity, I won't go too deep into this, if you want me to expand on any of these I definitely can. But clarity is basically where you are right now. What do you want? And why do you want it? And I love using SMART goals, which stands for specific, measurable, making sure they're aligned to your vision realistic and time-based. And with commitment, I think there are really three pieces to that. So there's accountability, which getting professional accountability, in my opinion, is the best because you're more likely to actually take action, versus just a friend who's holding you accountable or something like that. The second part of that is leverage. So pain and pleasure really the only reason that you do anything in your life either to gain pleasure or to avoid pain. So adding in some negative consequences if you don't achieve something can give you massive leverage. And the third part of that is focus That's really like, some of the daily habits that I mentioned in my morning routine even helped me be committed. So looking at my vision board every day, helps me be more committed. Reading or listening to my ultimate vision every day helps me be more committed and go through my power questions as well. And so step three, the coaching, there's really, in my opinion, I look at coaching a little bit different. So I think there are two types of coaching, there's active and passive. So passive coaching to me is like reading a book listening to a podcast, or something like that. It's passive because there's no interaction, right? But you're still getting coached by that person. I mean, they spent five years writing this book, they have some great tips and some great coaching in there. And then active coaching, of course, is what most people would think of one on one coaching, or a mastermind or group coaching or something like that. And I really believe that the bigger your goal is, the higher level of coaching you need. And to me the ultimate coaching is one on one, it's where all my biggest breakthroughs have come. So step number four, the courageous action, is really where the rubber meets the road. To me, it's where the men get separated from the boys. Because, obviously, as the name implies, you need courage. And courage doesn't mean that you're not scared, it means that you're scared, and you and you do it anyway, for me and my coaching clients, whenever somebody is they're struggling with taking that action, the courageous action, and when you're going after a big goal, at some point, you're gonna have to take some courageous action, it's not always, it's not all just going to be easy. But you really need to go back through steps one through three, because if you're not taking courageous action, you need more of one of those steps, and probably all three, you don't have enough clarity, you don't have enough commitment, or you either don't have a coach or you don't have a high level enough coach, you know, like you're trying to make a million dollars just by reading a book, probably not going to work. And then the last step of course correction, to me, I think is the hardest step sometimes for people because they go through the first four, and they don't get the result that they want. And they don't realize that you're rarely going to get the result you want the first time. So you need to make that course correction, that people have the wrong expectations. And the way I would look at it is if you fail, it means that your winning experience and experience is ultimately going to lead you to success and to what you want. So those are the five steps in a nutshell.


Ryan  

Yeah, that's great. I love the framework. It makes it very tangible.


Ryan Horn  

Just makes it so much easier to remember.


Ryan  

Yeah, absolutely. Well, we're over time, but I have to ask you this last question because it sounds like you said you went to 10 Tony Robbins, Tony Robbins events?


Ryan Horn  

Honestly, I couldn't give you an accurate number is somewhere around there's probably over that.


Ryan 

Okay, so the first thing that comes to mind with entering in terms of Tony Robbins, and what you've learned from him, going to all the events and consuming all his content? What's the most impactful thing that you've learned from him?


Ryan Horn 

Wow, that is definitely a difficult question. If I had to break it down and say one thing, I would probably say that if you change your story, you'll change your life. Because the only thing that's holding you back from what you want is the story that you're telling yourself about why you can't have it.


Ryan  

I love it. Great way to end the show. I appreciate it. Ryan, I really enjoyed speaking with you. What's the best way that people can connect with you if they want to learn more?


Ryan Horn  

Yeah, the best way they can connect is to go to extmanpodcast.com. So that will take you directly to my podcast, the Extraordinary Man podcasts and there are also links on that website where you can go to my free Facebook group, as well as schedule a free business accelerator coaching call with me. So if you connect with anything I said on here, definitely go check that out.


Ryan  

Great. Thanks, Ryan. Thanks, everyone for listening. 


Ryan Horn

Appreciate it. Yeah, thank you.


Ryan  

Thanks for listening to the Morning Upgrade podcast. Please subscribe and review. And don't forget to visit us at morningupgrade.com for more content.