You Can’t Grow In Comfort, Risk Everything And Live Your Truth
May 30, 2021
You can’t grow in comfort. If you want to take it to the next level, you have to risk everything and live your truth. Where to start? Maybe you’d like to join like-minded people who all want to unleash the hero inside of them. In this episode, Ryan Weeden invites you to the MOB HERO Retreat. This event is all about hairstylists taking their businesses and lives to the next level. Are you ready to take your business and life to the next level? Then you’ve got to listen to this episode. Don’t miss out on this opportunity!
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Listen to the podcast here:
You Can’t Grow In Comfort, Risk Everything And Live Your Truth
The show is rolling again. I took a two-month hiatus because sometimes you have to take a break and have to step back from things when you get overwhelmed. The show, on top of everything else, with our education we rolled out in 2021, when that started to come back into play, I’ve got overwhelmed and stressed out. I had to focus on the most important things in my life and also, the most important money-making activities. Podcasting, for me, is not one of those. I’m not Joe Rogan who’s got this multi-gazillionaire-type of contracts or anything like that. I pretty much do it because I enjoy it. It’s fun and it gives me some content to post every now and then. Maybe in the future, it will pay off in ways I can’t even imagine but for now, it’s more of another way to reach people and to get my message out there.
The MOB HERO Retreat
I am here to inspire others, help hairdressers and people, in general. Believe that they can accomplish a lot more than they think they can. I understand it because I have my own doubts, challenges and what I have started to call my darkness. it makes me sound like I’m some criminal or something. We’ve got this event. My whole focus is laser-focused on this event. It’s called MOB HERO Retreat. We had a MOB HERO event in 2020 and it was awesome. It was this event for hairstylists to take their businesses and more importantly, their lives to the next level. To do that, we’ve got these educators, trainers and coaches from different walks of life, not necessarily in the hair industry to come in and open up the audience’s minds to possibilities and people that have had great epiphanies, ways that they have bettered their lives, themselves and reach goals far from what they ever thought was even possible in their own lives.
I used to think that being a hairstylist wasn’t good enough. Many people told me, “Ryan, you need to find another job. Nobody is going to pay you well enough to create a life with financial freedom, a life that you can serve your family, go on vacation, buy nice cars, houses and that type of stuff.” Material possessions and things like that. There are so many naysayers out there that say, “You are a hairdresser. If you are not a celebrity hairdresser, then you are not going to be able to make a lot of money and you are not going to make a million dollars ever in your entire life.”
Believe that you can accomplish a lot more than you think you can.
I proved them and myself wrong because I believe that you can be hugely successful as a hairdresser. To do that, you need to think outside of the hairdresser box that’s why I have this event called HERO to bring in people, entrepreneurs, hairpreneurs, people that have done what I consider the impossible. They have tapped into their own inner hero and started to take their life, live out loud outside of the box and try different things that are maybe not traditional or other ways to make money and ways to approach how they live every single day. How do they get better habits? How do they fight what I call my darkness? Everybody got problems.
That’s the way I look at it. I’m like, “My darkness is problems.” I’ve got bad habits. I’ve got vices. Who doesn’t? If you are reading this, I’m sure you do, nobody is perfect. That’s why I know you’ve got problems, challenges and obstacles. I was talking to my coach who’s going to be at HERO as well. His name is John Roussot. He’s an incredible dude. He can see into my soul and in my mind. He understands how I think so he can help me to understand, “This is what you are trying to go for, Ryan. Why don’t you try this? Why don’t you try that?” I’m trying to wrap my head around like, “What am I going to say at HERO? How am I going to talk about even myself being a hero, tapping into my own inner strength?” That’s what it’s about. Pulling out our greatness for the greater good for our lives, families and future. He said, “Ryan, first of all, what does a hero need?” I’m like, “Supernatural powers like superpowers.” We all have superpowers too. It’s about learning how to tap into those. What he said was, “Heroes need a villain. People need to understand who their villain is. Who and what are they fighting against?” I started to think about it and it came to me.
Hero, Who Is Your Villain?
I was watching this stupid, funny show called Mythic Quest. It’s this Apple show. It’s got one of the dudes from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I can’t remember his name. He’s super funny but he’s a total egomaniac. It’s about this company that puts on and creates these video games. The video game industry is like a multibillion-dollar industry. He has one of the most popular games in the world. They are creating these games, situations and whatnot. One of the games that they created is an expansion set. It’s Mythic Quest and it opens with this deep voice in the sky talking about swords and castles that’s where this game is situated.
This narrator is talking about the evil come from far away and it takes the best of the best to succeed and overcome evil, but then there was a quote that came that hit me so hard. It’s one of those super funny, fairytale types of quotes but for me, it made total sense at the time. I have been literally repeating it to myself whenever I start to feel an inkling of doubt, fear and uncomfort in my life. The quote is this, “To expel darkness, one must focus only on the light.” Of course, it was with his deep voice but I heard this quote and at that time, I’m like, “My darkness is my villain. My bad habits and challenges, that is my villain.” If I want to overcome, defeat my villain, pull out and extract that inner hero inside of me, I need to know who I’m fighting.
I have talked about it before. I smoked some pot. I was thinking about it and I’m like, “I was smoking since college.” I don’t smoke a lot but at night and other times. I smoke a lot less now because I’ve got kids. I want to make sure that I’m fully functional if I ever need to race them to the hospital or something happens. I want to make sure that I’m fully present and a capable parent. I will still take a puff here and there and probably more often than I should. I have bad habits, too. If I pass by chocolate, I eat the chocolate. If there’s ice cream in the fridge, I’m going to eat the ice cream. I can’t help myself. It’s like an addiction and we all have these types of, we call them, bad habits. They are vices. That’s fine but is it fine?
I looked back at journals from years ago and I’m talking about the same damn things, the same challenges that I’m talking about now in my journals. I’m like, “Are you fucking kidding me? I have the same challenges. I’m repeating the same pattern. Why am I doing this to myself?” I haven’t labeled a villain. I haven’t done it. I can’t call this a bad habit of mine. I’m the one who can change it. Until I started to look at it like it’s a villain. It’s an evil force that’s keeping me from becoming my full true self.
If you want to live your best life now, start making your best decisions to let your inner hero shine.
When I started to look at it like that, I’m looking at the chocolate, smoking pot and drinking beer a little bit differently. Do I need that Margarita? Do I need that third glass of wine on a Tuesday? Do I need to do that? This is hurting my progress where I see myself when I look into the future of who I want to be, who is my best self, what is the best version of me that I want to be and what is it going to take to get there? Lots of drinking, smoking and chocolate are not in the future. It’s not in the equation and vision of who I want to be and who I’m going to be.
Now, I have labeled it as a villain and I can allow my hero to shine. I have been nerding out about this because I’m a total nerd and I’ve got dad jokes for days. You already know that. Everything starts to make sense now. I can start to plan my future. When I look at my vices, I’m not looking at them like, “It’s something I probably shouldn’t do but I’m going to keep doing it because eventually, it’s going to catch up to me and it’s going to keep me from reaching those goals that I want to hit very shortly.” I don’t want to have to let this slide for a while until it gets to a point where suddenly, my health is at stake or my heart is incapable of getting better if I have had too much cholesterol. I don’t want to get to a point where it’s like, “I have to change or else I will die.” I want to live my best life now. To do that, I need to start making my best decisions now and the best way to do that is to understand that I need to let my inner hero shine.
What Is Your Hero Challenge?
Now that all that is said and we’ve got this incredible event, the MOB HERO Retreat event, it’s going to be happening on August 14th and 15th 2021 on Clearwater Beach in this beautiful hotel. A two-day event. It’s going to be insane. Of course, if you are reading this and that event has passed, we are going to have more. This is the beginning but the message still stands. One thing that I’m going to be doing for myself and I was thinking about it, I had this epiphany and I’m like, “I need to give myself a hero challenge. What am I going to do so that I can show up on stage and know that I did everything I could to stand on that stage with these other incredible educators, coaches and trainers? How am I going to be able to stand up there next to them, talking about bringing out your inner hero if I haven’t done it myself?”
I have done some cool things in my life. I have made a lot of money. I have had a lot of success in business and branding but do I feel like I’m the best version of myself? I don’t. I have fears, regrets and that darkness. I slide into depression and anxiety, although there are certain things that we can’t control, we can control how we think about each moment and how we look at different situations. Going back to that quote, “To expel darkness, one must focus only on the light.” What does that mean? It means if you are laser-focused on only what’s good, beautiful, positive and optimistic in the world, you won’t even see the darkness. It will be so far removed because all you see is light. If you are only positive and optimistic all the time, darkness doesn’t even exist.
When darkness comes and something challenges you, you are going to look at it in the most positive and best self-eyes. You will see it differently than you would. If you are already depressed and something bad happens, then you are going to say, “God damn it, why me? Why does this always happen to me?” We want to look at it and something happens, we are like, “I can get through this. This is tough but I have been through worse. I have survived 100% of my bad days and this is just a challenge, obstacle, road bump in my life and I have the tools to get through this.” That’s what focusing on the light means.
This event I’m gearing up for it now and I’m starting to put together my speech and my bit. I’m going to be on stage quite a bit. I’m hosting the event but I have a big moment at the beginning of the whole event where I’m going to be pretty much presenting the event. Getting people hyped up and excited. I’m like, “Do I go out there and rah-rah, jump up and down like Tony Robbins, Brendon Burchard or some of these other educators?” Is that me? Maybe, we will see. I have done it before and it’s fun but I also want to live my truth. I want to go out there and tell people that, “You know what? It’s okay to be flawed.” It’s okay to have fears, regrets and not be doing things that you think you should be doing at all times. It’s okay to be imperfect because that’s what being human is all about.
Get charged up because you can conquer the world.
Here’s what I’m going to do. Not only am I going to have this weekly show come out, leading up to Hero and talking about how I’m approaching this event because this is a huge event. We are expecting hopefully 600 people there. We already have hundreds of tickets sold and we are selling out quickly. We are going to have hundreds of people there. Regardless, it’s going to be an incredible event. I want to make sure that this is such an eye-opening, mind-blowing event that people are like, “I didn’t even know this existed in the hair world,” because it doesn’t. We want to be the people that create that buzz and inspiration that you go to each year. You get charged up and you feel like you can conquer the world. Yes, you can. That’s what this event is all about.
I’m going to lead up to this with my show, talking about creating and building a hero. One thing I’m going to be doing is allowing myself to do a hero challenge. This hero challenge scares me. Health and fitness are a big part of my life. I want it to be a big part of my life. I have always been very athletic throughout my life and I have always had a decent body. I work out every so often. Sometimes, I have good stretches where I will work out repeatedly but then something in life changes. When you have a growing company and a growing family, things are changing all the time. I know I’m not alone. People’s lives are always changing and, of course, after COVID in 2020. We are all in different places.
My goal to myself is I want to be able to stand on stage knowing that I did the best I could and be as fit as I could. I want to be fit as fuck for this event. I want to go up on stage, take my shirt off and feel confident about it, not like I’ve got this dad bod. It will get better in time. It’s fine. I’m a dad. I’ve got this. I have seen dads that have stellar bodies that are in tip-top shape. They’ve got many more kids than I do and they are much busier than I am. I know it’s possible. Why is it not possible for me?
I’m going to be able to do this, stay up on stage and show this montage of me in my journey, it’s got to start now. What I’m going to do here now in my studio, right after this show, before I work out and get pumped up from the gym, I’m going to go on stage, take my shirt off, take some video and start to share it with the world and be like, “This is where I’m at. I’m not happy with where I’m at.” To some people who might look at me and be like, “He’s in decent shape. It could use a little bit more toning around the midsection and whatnot,” but we all know how we feel individually and what we are capable of and I know I’m capable of so much more.
You know that you are capable of so much more. We are all at different levels, places and stages in our life. This is a stage where I want to take it to the next level, especially gearing up toward here. I’ve got days to get as fit as possible. I want to be noticeably different on stage. I do want to take off my shirt briefly, not to be like, “Look at how great I look.” It’s more about I want to feel confident like I accomplished something huge. I’m not going to say like, “My bicep has increased by 2.5 inches. I don’t care about that stuff. I want to take off my clothes and look good naked. I’m not going to take off my clothes on stage but I might take off my shirt or something like that.
I’m going to start to document my journey each week. I’m going to talk about what I’m doing, how much I’m working out, what I’m eating and how I’m focusing on improving. This is either a genius or terrible idea because I’m not always a big fan of telling people your goals and making the world watch you in accountability. After all, this is a vulnerable thing to do. I’m terrified but I also know that growth happens when you uncomfortable.
Take It To The Next Level
You don’t grow in comfort. You can maintain and you can enjoy that state of comfort but if you want to take it to the next level, you’ve got to do next-level things. You’ve got to put yourself where you might not want to be but you know you need to be if that makes sense. This is what I’m going to do and each week, we are going to talk about my journey. If you can, I also want you to send me DMs. Take a screenshot of this episode and tell me what you are working on. If you have a hero challenge, let me know about it.
If you are reading this and you want to go to HERO, I will give you a 10% off code. I’m not sharing this worldwide, across social media but I will give you a 10% off. Just RYAN10 and that will be 10% off of a ticket to HERO because I want you there. I want my supporters there. It will be like, “Ryan, you look great,” even if I look like crap but I’m not going to look like crap. I have said things like this before and then I haven’t lived up to what I believed but I also haven’t looked at my challenges, vices and problems as darkness as a villain. You need a villain to be a hero and I want to be a freaking hero.
I want to feel more confident. I want to feel like I’m well-rounded because it’s one thing to be successful in business and another thing to feel that self-love. I want to feel that self-love that I’m treating my body like the incredible, one-of-a-kind machine that it is. Our bodies are so incredible and yet we feed them with crap all the time. We all are driving around in Ferrari’s in our skin but we are putting in the lowest octane fuel possible. There are a few of us that are appreciating our bodies for what they are. Our bodies are all we have and our life depends on it, how well we keep it and how we maintain it.
I want to start that journey now, not just to show you that it’s possible but I also want to be around for my kids when they are older. I know I’m a little bit older and got me a little emotional now but I want to see my daughter walk down the aisle or graduate college. She’s 2.5. I’m 43. I’ve got to stick around for a while. This is my hero challenge to myself. I challenge you to take your own hero challenge. Find your villain. If you want to share with me, great. If not, keep it to yourself or write in a journal. Find out what moves you because that’s what it’s all about. Here I am, vulnerable to you, taking The Hairpreneur Show to a completely different level. I appreciate your support and I will talk to you next time.
