6 Resilience Building Habits that are Easy to Adopt - Ryan Hanley

What if I told you there were six simple habits, backed by science, battle-tested by the world's top performers, that you can implement today to start increasing the amount of resilience you have? Most people think they know how to become resilient, but here's the truth. Most of the advice we've been given about resilience is archaic.
It is not built for modern life. We need simple, straightforward habits that we can implement into our lives that will allow us to maximize our ability to push through hard times.
Resilience isn't built in calm waters. It's forged in the storm.
Or put more succinctly, there's an African proverb, smooth seas do not create skilled sailors. We must make adversity challenge part of our lives.
But if we're going to do that, if we're going to allow ourselves to be forged in the fires of challenge, we must be resilient. The question is, when you do, will you keep moving forward? So if you'll stick with me today, I'm not only going to show you six habits to build resistance, I'm going to reveal why they work and how you can change your life faster than you think just by implementing one of these six habits.

And one of these habits that we're gonna discuss today

is commonly overlooked by top performers and is likely the reason why their success comes at such a high cost. In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home.
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. We have a tremendous episode for you today, a deep dive into six resilience building habits that I promise you are easy to adopt.
If you enjoy this channel, I appreciate you being here. I'd love you to like, subscribe, leave a review, whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Guys, I love you for being here. It is such an honor to continue to put on this show, watch it grow with time.
Thank you. I love you.
And here's to another year, 2025 of getting after it with this show and getting better. All right? We are here to defy ordinary and become the civilized savages that we were born to be.
All right, with that, let's get into our first resilience building habit, and that's optimism. We have to practice optimism, right? Optimism isn't about ignoring reality.
It's about controlling your focus. And this is something that pessimistic people miss, right? Pessimistic people tend to think they're smarter or better or more astute than others because they see all the little nuanced difficulties and they call them out and this won't work for this reason.
And look how smart I am. And it's all bullshit.
Stay as far away from pessimistic people as you possibly can. We must live in reality, right? When I'm talking about creating utopian optimism where everything's going to be okay, regardless of, you know, the challenges that we're presented with.
But to be pessimistic about those challenges adds zero value beyond your own selfish, egotistical need to be right and to feel smart. Practice optimism.
Optimists are 40 percent less likely to experience cardiovascular events and live an average of 11 to 15 percent longer than pessimists. I mean, just think about that.
Optimists tend to live in a perpetual positive state.

Doesn't mean every moment of their lives is positive, but they tend to view the world through good, through positivity, through growth. Right.
Where pessimists tend to focus on the negative. Right.
They tend to be more depressed. There's no reason to be a pessimist.
It's just silly. So what can we do here?

We can start each day by asking ourselves,

what's one thing I can control today to make my life better, right? You can control your time. You can control your attention and your focus.
You can control who you talk to. You can control the projects you work on.
You can, you can control, you know, the hobbies or the extracurriculars that you engage in that add either, you know, fitness benefits or mental health benefits or relational benefits between you and your community, your family, whoever, right? What's one thing I can control that I am going to focus on that's going to help make my life better today, right? What's that one thing I can grab onto? Because we all find ourselves in storms at different times and it's easy to go down the pessimistic road. But the more you can hold on to that optimistic path, the better your life is going to be.
Winston Churchill has a great quote on this. A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity.
An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. Winston Churchill was kind of a gangster.
All right. Resilience building habit number two, micro gratitude and putting a micro gratitude practice in place.
So let's talk about both gratitude and what it means to have a micro gratitude practice. Gratitude rewires our brain.
When we take a moment to show appreciation and gratitude for even the small things in our life, our brain sees these as opportunities instead of threats, right? It's very difficult to have fear for tomorrow when you're grateful for today. I'm gonna say that again.
It is very difficult to have fear for tomorrow when you're grateful for today. There's a study that came out from the University of California at Davis, and it found people who wrote down daily gratitudes experienced a 23% reduction in cortisol levels, which meant that they were able to manage stress and energy better than their peers who did not practice, who did not write down things that they're grateful for on a day to day basis.
So we can make this super easy either before bed or when you wake up in the morning, you're having your cup of coffee. I like the morning personally to write little notes down.
You know, I have a journal. I don't necessarily journal like write out full pages.
Sometimes I just write down thoughts, you know, whatever's most pertinent on my brain. And I try to write down.
You know, I have a journal. I don't necessarily journal, like write out full pages.
Sometimes I just write down thoughts, you know, whatever's most pertinent on my brain. And I try to write down at least one, but two or three, if I can, things that come to my brain that I'm grateful for today.
What am I grateful for right now? You're drinking that cup of coffee. This takes two, three minutes, five minutes tops while you're sitting there.
And I'm sure you can find five minutes in your morning. But if you do this, right, you are rewiring your brain to reduce stress chemicals and hormones, as well as position yourself for a optimistic, positive outlook on the day.
Because if you've already shown gratitude for something, which naturally reduces your stress in your body, when you get to work or you get to whatever you have to do that day, one, you're less stressed to you're approaching it immediately from an optimistic, positive standpoint. Absolutely incredible practice, right? Melody Beattie has a quote on this.
Gratitude turns what we have into enough. And for those ambitious out there, the ambitious people who are listening to this, oftentimes the word enough comes with a lot of negative connotations.
And I would encourage you to understand that it's really finding harmony in our belief that we are enough with a focus on getting better. Because if you don't believe you're enough, then doubt, shame, regret, a lot of negative feelings will fill you if you don't feel like you're enough in the moment.
However, if we rest on enough and we never get better, then ultimately we find ourselves stagnated, which we ultimately don't want as well. And this is a whole nother podcast on how we balance these things and, you know, find that harmony in our life between being enough and wanting more.
But gratitude is huge for understanding that you are enough right now, even if you do want to put yourself in a better place in the future. All right.
Resilience building habit number three, physical strength for mental strength. A strong body supports a strong mind.
This one is probably beat up by every fitness guru, thought leader, health guy, gal out there. However, it is absolutely positively true.
If you wanna get better in the next 60 seconds, hit pause on this video or pause on this recording, wherever you are, if you're sitting down in a chair, get up out of the chair, get down on the ground and do 10 pushups. Just do 10 solid pushups, do five pushups.
If you gotta do them from your knees, do them from your knees. You do 10 pushups right now and stand back up, you will immediately feel better, immediately.
Whatever's going wrong, just do 10 pushups. If you can't do pushups, right, just do air squats.
Just stand up wherever you are. You're already standing, right? As long as you're not in a place where this would, you know, get you physically injured, right? Just do 10 air squats.
You will immediately feel better. Now, that's not enough for a lifetime, but it's a start.
And if you're having a bad day, I'm I literally sometimes when like stuff is hectic and going crazy and like

I'm just flustered and maybe overwhelmed by the amount of work or something didn't go the way I wanted to or I can't figure out something with a project I'm working on. I will often just drop down and do 20 push ups just to just to reset my brain, drop some endorphins into your system, reduces your cortisol levels.
And all of a sudden you feel better. Your mind opens up.
Your stress has been reduced. Your positive mood, endorphins create a positive mood in your brain.
So now I just, even if it's the smallest little bit, it can correct the path that you're on. If you're going down a path of negativity, just some simple physical exercise, and I'm not talking about even a full workout, can drastically change the course of your day.
Harvard research revealed that regular exercise reduced the symptoms of depression by 26%. And frankly, I'll tell you, it's probably much larger than that.
In my own experience, anyone I know who's been down a path of depression or just having depressed feelings, negative feelings, you hit the gym for a couple of days in row and they're just not there. It doesn't mean you're never going to feel depressed again, but it drastically reshapes the chemical balance inside your brain.
It's just an absolute must. And this can be, you know, like I said, this could be 20 pushups, 10 pushups.
This could be doing some air squats. You'd be going for a 15 minute walk in between conference calls.
And, you know, frankly, a 15 minute walk is great. I'd go out and get a ruck vest, you know, weighted plate vest.
I wear a 40 pound vest. I put a 20 pound plate in the front, 20 pound plate in the back, go for a half hour walk.
You come back, you're working a lot of your stabilizer muscles. You're getting a much better workout than if you just go walking regular, you're building a lot of strength in your legs, strength in your back and your knees and your ankles.
And it's a wonderful way to get exercise. and you just go walking regular you're building a lot of strength in your legs strength in your back and your knees and your ankles and it's a wonderful way to get exercise and then just go from the last thing you want to hear when you need your auto insurance most is a robot with countless irrelevant menu options which is why with us a auto insurance you'll get great service that is easy and reliable all at the touch of a button get a quote today restrictions apply here that's where you have to start, start there and then just go for longer walks and mix in a run.
I would highly recommend that you push or pull weights, some sort of iron. Go push or pull something, right? Squats, presses, deadlifts if you're feeling super froggy.
That's my favorite exercise is deadlift. So physical strength is paramount to mental strength.
It's very difficult to maintain strong sense of resilience and the willpower necessary to fuel resilience if you're not physically active and particularly physically strong. Resilience building habit number four, embrace the power of yet.

Adopting a growth mindset will turn setbacks into opportunities, right?

Just it's a complete reframe of your brain.

If you go back in past episodes, you'll hear we talked about a lot of different reframes,

right?

This power of yet is a huge reframe for your brain, right?

So in Carol Dweck's book, Mindset, she has research on what a growth mindset is versus a fixed mindset, right? And students who embrace the word yet improve their academic performance by up to 50% compared to those that operated with a fixed mindset. So what does this mean? The mindset reframe of yet, right? So yet, Y-E-T, is as simple as replacing I can't do this with I can't do this yet.
So think about the various projects, various things you wanna improve in your life, right? It is very easy to look at where we currently are, swing our head back and forth, look at our peers, look at people that are out in front of us and go, I'm never going to be able to get to where they are. I'll never get there.
I can't do it. Versus looking around at all these people, understanding where you want to go, right? Finding someone whose path or skills you want to mirror or mimic and saying, I can't do this yet.
I can't do it yet. Someday I'll be able to do that thing, but I can't do it yet.
That's it. I'm just not there yet.
Not I can't do this. Not I'll never.
I'm not that kind of person. I wasn't born with that skill.
I just can't do it yet. Simple reframe changes everything.
And Michael Jordan's got one of the quotes on this particular topic. I failed over and over and over again in my life.
And that is why I succeed. Because he just hadn't won his first championship yet.
He just hadn't won his second championship yet. And on and on, right? He just hadn't won a scoring title yet.
He just hadn't been Defensive Player of the Year yet. And then he worked on those things and got better and better.
Everybody picks up the story of when Michael Jordan and the Bulls won their first NBA championship, but he played for six years before the Bulls won their first championship. And we often forget about those six years.
We look at the six successful years, but how did he get there? He got there through the work that it took in the first six years. Without the first six years, he never gets the six championships.
He just wasn't there yet. Powerful, powerful reframe.
That's huge. Resilience habit number five.
Cultivate a network of resilient people. Resilience is contagious.
If you surround yourself with people who embody and inspire you to be resilient and to persevere, you will naturally mimic their behavior. A UCLA study shows that strong social support, particularly for challenging skills and mindsets, reduces the impact of stress by 50 percent.
Right. And we talked about 2025 is all about energy management.
Stress is an energy killer. Killer.
So this one's really simple. Just set a weekly reminder to reach out to the people that inspire you.
That's it. This is super easy.
I told you these are easy. Nothing about these are overwhelming.
Nothing about these habits are something that you don't have access to or that you have to buy. They're just little micro tasks that you can do throughout your day, throughout your week, throughout your month, throughout your year that will drastically improve your ability to be resilient through challenges.

Quote here is from Jim Rohn.

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

We've heard it a thousand times.

It continues to be true, continues to be true,

and probably will be forever.

All right, success habit number six, my friends.

Here we are. Learn to rest, not to quit.
Train yourself to rest, not to quit. Resilience isn't about never stopping.
It's about knowing when to recover. And this was something that I actually learned through some documentaries and things that I've read around Kobe Bryant and how when Michael Jordan referred his trainer, Tim Grover, who's written two amazing books, Relentless and Winning, highly recommend both of those.
When Tim Grover was referred from Michael Jordan to Kobe Bryant, one of the first things that Tim Grover did was install a recovery program for Kobe because he trained so hard naturally, right? He had built this lifestyle of training incredibly hard, harder than anyone else, but he hadn't built in recovery. And once he did, Kobe Bryant's career took off to a whole nother level.
I mean, he was already great at that point, but he went to a whole nother level. The CDC reports that individuals who sleep at least seven to eight hours per night are 33% less likely to suffer from burnout and experience a 20% boost in cognitive performance.
Ultimately, what they're talking about is willpower. You got to sleep.
You have to five, six hours a night once in a while is okay. But if you're rocking four, five, six hours of sleep, and it's probably crappy sleep because you're not doing the right things to prep the night before to make sure that you sleep well.
Your brain doesn't perform the same way. There are very few people who can actually survive on that much sleep.
But we convince ourselves that we're one of those people because we don't want to change our lifestyle. So how do we build a recovery window? 30 minutes every day to disconnect and recharge.

Read a book, go for a walk,

have a conversation at dinner with no electronics,

take 30 minutes to meditate,

go to the gym, disconnect, recharge.

This is particularly important right before bed.

If you can put this practice in right before bed, whether it's reading a book, meditating,

just having quiet time, sitting at a table and talking to your spouse, your partner,

your kids, and just having a conversation.

If you can disconnect and recharge your body leading into sleep for 30 minutes, you will

sleep better.

You will sleep longer and you will have just an incredible boost of energy the next day

when you wake up.

There's this story from Anthony Robles.

I don't know. minutes, you will sleep better, you will sleep longer, and you will have just an incredible boost of energy the next day when you wake up.

There's this story from Anthony Robles.

I don't know if you've seen this.

There's a new movie.

It's out on Prime.

You can download it or rent it, whatever.

It's called Unstoppable, and it's a biographical film on this guy, Anthony Robles.

He was a wrestler, and he was born without his right leg.

Now, this dude does not have a right leg, not lost his leg, never had a leg. Yet he went on to become the NCAA Division One Wrestling Championship at the 125 pound weight class.
And he's legendary. Like he didn't just like win one championship.
He wrestled for Arizona State. And while this dude had everyone, everyone pushing against him

when he first got in the game and was first trying to come up,

his work ethic, his commitment, his resilience pushed him through those barriers

where he achieved a 96-0 record.

He's two-time Arizona State championship. He had a high school national championship and then won the NCAA division one wrestling championship at 125 pounds.
It's incredible. Talk about resilience.
He is competing with one less appendage than any for everyone else. He's got three quotes when I was researching this dude because I saw the movie.

Movie's great.

And, you know, he's got these three quotes that I found when I was really digging into the research on him.

And this dude is just incredible.

I highly recommend you look into his story.

Watch the movie, if nothing else.

But these three quotes I wanted to share with you guys.

When you can't change a situation, you can only change how you respond to it.

Very stoic idea. The easiest thing to do when faced with adversity is to give up, but pushing through it is what makes you stronger.
I mean, think about that. He's, this dude is going up against people with two legs and two arms, and he's got one leg and two arms, and he's trying to compete at the same level and not just competing.
He's dominating them, right?

It was the adversity that made him stronger that allowed him to be the best. Your greatest disability is not what's missing, but what you tell yourself you can't do.
Incredible. Absolutely friggin' incredible.
One of my favorites, this third quote, your greatest disability is not what's missing, but what you tell yourself you can't do is officially now on like my all time quote board that I will probably be quoting over and over and over again because it couldn't be more true. We are limited by what we, but the narratives, the stories that we create in our mind, not by what's in front of us because everybody's got stuff in front of them.
If you're feeling down on yourself, if you're in doubt and shame, if you're feeling like the world is against you, understand that is how everyone feels. That is the experience that everyone has in their own way.
They are faced with constant obstacles and it feels like the world is constantly against them. The best, the successful, they change the narrative.
Even if it's true, they change the narrative in their head. They're optimists.
They create little micro habits that allow them to push forward. And they're resilient through all the crap that life is gonna put in front of you.
None of us are alone and having to deal with crap, myself included, but it's how we respond to it. It's the story that we tell ourselves that matters.
So guys, resilience is a skill. It's not a superpower.
You're not born resilient. You develop resilience.
You build resilience. You cultivate resilience.
It's a skill. And if you start small and you adopt just one of these habits today, I guarantee you're going to feel better.
You're going to start to have less stress hormone working through your body, more positive hormones and chemicals like endorphins pumping through your body. You're going to be more cognitively aware.
Your energy is going to lift. And those moments where you felt tired or doubt or fear, you're going to push through them in ways that you didn't even know you were capable of.
And it starts with one of these habits. Just pick one and put it into practice.
Tell me the habit that you're going to put in the practice, either in the comments or leave a review on Apple, Spotify, whatever. I read them all.
Let me know which habit you're going to pick up

and why you're going to pick it up.

What is the resilience building habit

that's going to change your life?

I want to know.

Guys, I love you for listening to this show.

I want you to be resilient.

I want to be resilient.

Let's work on pushing forward

and building these resilience habits in our lives.

Together, this is the way my friends

in a crude laboratory in the basement of his home It is 3 a.m.