RHS 193 - Monday Mindset: This is the Way

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. My name is Ryan Hanley, and this is the Monday Mindset.
It is a brand new series that I'm doing for the podcast. It's something I've wanted to do for a really long time.
As many of you know who listen to the standard interview series, which comes out every Thursday, I do a lot of reading. I listen to a lot of podcasts.
I spend a lot of time thinking about mindsets, about mental models, about concepts, ideas. And I use those things in my daily life.
In 2017, if you're unfamiliar with my journey, I found myself in a place where I was overweight. I was unhappy.
I had foggy brain. My joints hurt.
I couldn't perform at a level that I wanted to. And I also then in 2018, when I got fired from a job that I loved, and it really rocked my world.
And what I realized is I had to start making changes in my life. I had to start thinking deeper about how I interacted with the world, about how I interacted with my own body, with my own mind, with the ideas,

the thoughts that were running through my mind. And it wasn't until I started to really dig deep into philosophy, into different thought leaders, biographies, history, stoicism, the Bible.
I'm Christian. If you're listening to this, it doesn't matter if you are or not.
But I started digging into these core ideas and concepts that drive humanity that I really started to understand why I was the way I am, which is an individual who just a year ago, this is being recorded in 2023. So this is 2022 was diagnosed with ADHD.
Now, many of the people in my life who hear that go, Ryan, how did you not know? And maybe I could have known. I never wanted to believe it.
I always just thought I was crazy. And I mean that with all sincerity.
I always just thought that I was different, that there was something wrong with me, that I didn't understand why when I tried to communicate concepts or I tried to communicate ideas, people would look at me and say, you're scatterbrained or you move too fast or you don't consider decisions enough. And what they didn't realize is I would

have spent hours and brain cycles spinning through every iteration of every possible positive and negative that could come out of a decision and all these different branches. And I would have spent major mental energy on these things.
And then they would come back to me and act as I was just shooting from my hip as if I wasn't really thinking through these concepts. All this culminates in this kind of general idea that I had to come up with a series of mindsets.
I had to come up with a philosophical way of living my life so that I can interact in the world in a positive fashion. And throughout all the time from 2018, but really since COVID and even really in the last year and diving incredibly deep on these topics and trying not just to understand them, but to actually apply them to my life, have I really seen success? So I want to create this series to give you once a week, to start your week, an idea or concept that you could take.
Now, some of these you may not agree with. Some of these may not work for you.
Some of these you may not actually want to apply. However, all of them are tried and true concepts that work for people who are highly successful, that work for people who have a neurodivergent brain, be it ADHD or otherwise, or work for someone who doesn't, who've put themselves in different situations.
These are the mental models. These are the mindsets.
These are the ideas, concepts, thoughts that transcend the kind of shallow nonsense that drive the highly successful individuals. Those people who operate in peak performance states, whether that be flow state or whatever you want to think of it as, whether you believe in flow state or not.
These are the mindsets that drive highly successful people that I think about. Not all of them I practice.
Some of them just, you can't have all these ideas. You have to pick some.
Some you choose to use as tools. I call it doing the work.
I talk all the time about, I've done an incredible amount of work. I go to a counselor every other week and I read every single day.
I have very deep conversations with as many people as I can as often as I can, because I want to have a tool belt, mindsets, concepts, and ideas that allow me to be as successful as I possibly can, regardless of the situation. It's preparation.
It's being prepared for the moments, not trying to figure out how to solve something when it happens, but having thought through iterations or versions of life or reality that

haven't happened. So if they do, I'm prepared for that moment.
It's an impossibility to always be

prepared, but you can do your best work. You can follow that aspirational dream.
So I want to do

this because I love it. I'm obviously passionate about it.
And I hope, my hope is that over time, you will pick up on some of these mindsets. You will pick up on some of these ideas and they will work for you.
Now, if you're listening to this on the podcast, awesome. Thank you for listening.
If you're not subscribed and you're listening, please do. If you're watching this on YouTube, love for you to hit subscribe.
Love for you to use YouTube as a place where you can actually leave comments. If you agree, if you disagree, if there's a version of something that I say that you think can take the conversation further.
If you have questions about a concept, if you're looking for source material, whatever, YouTube is a great place to do it. And you can watch the video as well.
But wherever you're watching it, appreciate the hell out of you. And if you share it, I love you even more.
Okay, I to start with something that I've got a tremendous amount of comments about. I share a lot of these ideas, almost like a daily diary on Instagram.
They tend to be bite-sized. They tend to be shorter.
There's not necessarily a consistent flow to the concepts. It's really, as I come across ideas, as I interact with the world, as things hit me that I think could be useful, I share them on Instagram.
So if you like this show, if you like this concept, then go over to Instagram. I'm Ryan underscore Hanley on Instagram.
Follow me there. Connect with me, whatever.
That's great if you're interested in that. But in a lot of those, I finish the post, I finish the reel or story or whatever with four words.
This is the way. And I've got a tremendous amount of comments about using that phrase.
Now, if you're not familiar with this phrase, this is the way it was used in the Star Wars series, The Mandalorian. And it is a phrase that Mandalorians use to basically state that this is what it is.
Like they have a code, they live by that code. And by choosing to be a Mandalorian, and again, please excuse the trite nature if you think of Star Wars as silly or whatever, but I think the concept both has relevance to today.
I think it's relevant from a pop culture standpoint. And I also think the concept is incredibly deep and consistent with how I'm trying to live my life, which is things are going to happen.
Things are going to happen outside of your religious philosophy. They're going to happen outside of your virtue set, outside of your core beliefs, that you could step outside of those core beliefs, step outside of those virtues, step outside of your religious practice.
And to be a Mandalorian, you cannot do that. When you do that, you are no longer a Mandalorian.
You lose your status in their community. So when they make a decision to stick to their code, they say, this is the way.
What it signals to both other Mandalorians and to those who may not understand is simply, I do not break my code. I have made a promise to myself that I will live by a set of virtues, and I do not break those virtues.
And by stating this is the way I think it both is a way of signaling, obviously. I also think it is a way of reinforcing their own belief structure.
It is a way of acknowledging to themselves that they are not going to break a promise that they make to themselves. Because we break promises to other people all the time.
It happens. It's not something we want to do.
I don't like doing that, but it happens. But we can choose to never break a promise to ourselves and we can commit to that and we can make good on that commitment.
It may be the only commitment we can actually make good on in our entire lives. We can guarantee that we make good on that commitment is a commitment that we make to ourselves.
And by stating, regardless of the situation, no matter how much pain it causes, no matter how badly they want to do a thing outside of their virtue set, they don't do it. Because when they do, they're no longer the thing that they said they wanted to be.
In this case, be a Star Wars, a Mandalorian. And they state this is the way.
And it's frustrating. You can see it through the other characters on the show.
They oftentimes become very frustrated. They want the main character of the show.
They want him to do X, but it's outside of his virtue set. And he'll say no.
And then he'll state this is the way. And they look at him and you can tell they don't necessarily understand because so rarely do we meet individuals in our lives who commit to a virtue set and do not break it.
What's up, guys? Sorry to take you away from the episode. But as you know, we do not run ads on this show.
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I love you for listening to this show. And I hope you enjoy it listening as much as I do

creating the show for you. All right, I'm out of here.
Peace. Let's get back to the episode.

Think about everyone in your life who says they're going to do something and doesn't do it.

Think about in your own life, how many times you have made a promise to yourself and broken it. What if it meant you no longer were part of the community that defined who you were? We don't live in this way.
In our society today, it's hedonistic, it's materialistic, right? It's narcissistic. It's me, mine, mind.
I'll do whatever I need to do. I'll step on you.
I'll lie to you. I'll subvert you if it gets me my thing.
Because all we care about is ourselves. There's no larger community that we're committed to.
There's no higher power. We don't care how our actions impact the generational value created by our ancestors.
We don't think generationally. We think simply about ourselves in this moment and what makes us happy.
So the concept of this is the way, I believe so strongly. And maybe today for me, it's aspirational.
I'm sure I still break commitments to myself. I know I do.
I'm not going to have a late night snack and then I have one. I'm going to be 100% honest in my speech and I'm not.
I'm going to commit to some activity and I get three days in and I don't do the activity anymore. This happens to us.
Maybe the Mandalorian code is an unachievable aspirational goal, but to even commit to it and to be 90%, to be 70% of the way there and to continue to get better on this path of not breaking our own promises, to me, feels like the worthiest of causes. It feels like the most important mindset we can have.
And it's why I wanted to start this series with this concept of this is the way. I don't break promises to myself.
That's what the main character of the show, that's what all the other Mandalorians on this show are saying. And I hope you can get past that this is Star Wars.
I get it. Some of you are like, this is silly.
It's Star Wars. I hope you can get past that because if you can allow your mind to open up and understand that what this show is about, the core concept of this particular show is quite simply, I do not break promises to myself.
I do not. It defines who I am as a person is that I do not break promises to myself.
Everything else that we do on this show, in this series, in this Monday mindset series, none of it means anything. If we're going to break our promises to ourselves, if we're going to commit to a methodology, if we're going to commit to a mentality and break that promise to ourself, nothing else that we do matters.
It is not worth engaging in the content. If you're simply then going to break the promise to yourself and not live by the code that you set, your code is going to be yours.
Mine is mine. There is no reason that our codes need to be the same.
But whatever code you defined yourself, whatever set of rules or principles define your life, whatever matters to you, matters to your family, matters to your children, matters to your ancestors, matters to your community, matters to the people that matter to you, whatever defines you as a person, if you commit to it and you keep that promise, this is the way. My friends, this idea is so much larger than a TV show.
It's so much larger than a science fiction story. It is a core concept that goes beyond this kind of trivial nature of television entertainment and extends into concepts like stoicism.
I'm reading from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. This is one of the greatest books ever put together.
I won't say written because Marcus obviously had no intention of ever having these words published. These were notes to himself that were then pulled together and turned into this book.
And if you haven't read this, I highly recommend it. I'll have it in the show notes below.
He writes in chapter, let's see, book, I think it's book three, book two, section five, how to act never under compulsion out selfishness, without forethought with misgivings. Don't gussy up your thoughts.
No surplus words or unnecessary actions. Let the spirit in you represent a man, an adult, a citizen, a Roman, a ruler, taking up his post like a soldier and patiently awaiting his recall from life, needing no oath or witness, cheerfulness without requiring other people's help or serenity supplied by others, to stand up straight, not straightened.
Now let's compare that to the Mandalorian code, which again, this is from a book, so take this for what it is. But I pulled together almost a dozen different resources and basically came together with this list as being the defining list of what makes the core aspect of the Mandalorian code, the character who defines this concept of this is the way.
Strength is life. Strength gives you the right to rule.
Honor is life. Without honor, you have no reason to live.
Loyalty is life. Without your clan, you have no purpose.
Death is life. Die as you have lived.
The idea of strength is life. Strength gives you the right to rule.
I read a lot of comments online on Reddit and different message boards that talk about these concepts. And so many people call that particular line out as a barbarian or aggressive.
And I don't actually think that that is what that line reads. That's not how I rule it or how I read it.
How I read strength is life. Strength gives you the right to rule is that you are not worthy of ruling without strength, without taking ownership for your health, for your wellness, for your mental capacity, for your wellbeing.
If you allow trivialities and distractions to run you, if you allow things to impede your ability to be the best version of yourself, then you do not have the right to rule. And I think that's well said, spoken and absolutely.
Honor, loyalty, death is life, die as you have lived. Meaning do not change who you are to extend who to extend.
Do not subvert your life to live longer. Live at the core of who you are.
Live by the idea, by the core values, by the virtues, be they religious or otherwise, that define who you are as a person and own them. And obviously, none of us want to die necessarily, but the idea is to not sully your virtue to survive.
And I think that this aligns almost exactly with Stoicism written differently. Now, obviously, Marcus Aurelius wrote this book 2000 years ago, so it's well within reason to think that the individuals who put together the Mandalorian character, mindset, methodology, and creed certainly could have been influenced by stoicism.
But the idea is these concepts are not separate from the core concepts that have ascended time, right? Never under compulsion,

out of selfishness, without forthright, or with misgivings. This is loyalty.
This is honor, living with honor, right? Do not allow yourself to be pushed around. Be strong.
Live with honor, not out of selfishness, without forethought, without misgivings. Let your spirit be in you, represent a man, an adult, a citizen, a Roman, a ruler, right? Death is life.
Live or die as you have lived. Be the thing that you are meant to be.
Live that life and do not break the promises that you make to yourself, the virtues, the core values that you set for yourself. You know, we see this across all major contexts.

We see it in the work of even new thinkers

like Jordan Peterson in his 12 Rules for Life.

We certainly see it in the work of the Bible, right?

I was looking through some notes that I have here

to me that say the sluggards do not plow in season.

So at harvest time, they look but find nothing.

Do not complain about your lack of results

for which you did not do the work. If you don't plant the seeds, you don't reap the harvest.
Right? These concepts are not trivial. They're not trite.
Yes, they may be presented in an entertaining format. Mandalorians show up in both cartoon and live action.
And the core concepts of never make a promise to yourself. You don't have to make a thousand promises to yourself.
Make one promise to yourself. Make one promise to yourself.
Define a virtue or core value of who you are. Make one singular promise to yourself and commit to it and never break it.
This is the way. My friends, if you enjoyed this, leave comments below, subscribe to the show, share the show if you love it.
Let me know if you love this new series. Come on, if you're not watching this on YouTube, we'd love you to come over to the YouTube channel, Ryan M.
Hanley, or just search Ryan Hanley, you'll find me. And come over to the YouTube channel.
Let me know in the comments if you enjoy this format, if you enjoy these ideas. I have literally, right now, I'm going to do this weekly, so there'll be 52, but right now I have 37 concepts that I've already lined out.
I've already recorded a few of these. Look for this every Monday.
If you like the audio only, subscribe to the podcast. Wherever you listen to podcasts, my friends, I love you for watching this show.
I hope that you will define that one core concept,

make that promise to yourself,

commit to it, and never break it

because this is the way.

I'm out of here.

Peace.

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