coaching.

Happy 2025!
As we kick off a new year, I’ve been reflecting on some powerful themes and insights from my coaching conversations at the end of 2024—and thought I’d share. You might find them helpful.

First, men are struggling.
(Some women might say “about time,” but still...)

Men are:
• 4x more likely to die by suicide
• 3x more likely to face addiction
• 12x more likely to be incarcerated

Nearly 1 in 7 men have no close friends (compared to 1 in 10 women). Almost half of men consider themselves lonely. And if you talk to women trying to date men in 2024, you’ll hear stories that confirm this struggle.

But I’ve seen big change. I’ve coached men through uncertainty, doubt, and those moments where they felt like they were stuck on the sidelines of their own lives—and it’s shifted my specialization a bit more toward men. We need it.

Some other themes I've seen:

1. The world is hard.
   Period. Full stop. Yet somehow, many of us still believe that if life feels hard, we must be doing something wrong. Just watch a nature show—any nature show about anything: sea otters, algae, outer space. There’s a constant struggle from every living thing to survive.
   
   It’s not abnormal—it’s normal.
   
   The goal isn’t to make the world easy (impossible) but to manage the hard in all the right ways (hard, but realistic). That’s a huge perspective shift for many.

2. Regret is still annoying as hell.
   We’re haunted by past regrets—but also by future regret anxiety—the fear that we’ll regret a decision we make today. And it’s true—we might. But we might also regret not making the choice.
   
   If we trust Daniel Pink (The Power of Regret is an amazing book), our biggest regrets at the end of our lives aren’t the things we did, but the things we did not do. So, if you’re scared of regret, it might be better to try that thing than not try it. Or at least equally risky.

3. We’re all scared of becoming "that" person.
   For workaholics, it’s the fear of being lazy. For people pleasers, it’s the fear of being selfish. For people who want to be more free, it’s the fear of being an asshole.
   
   I’ve heard it so many times in so many contexts. I’m even saying it to myself right now: I’m that guy trying to sell myself on LinkedIn.
   
   Good news: You’re not that person.
   If you were, you wouldn’t be scared of becoming it. Since you’re not—and you’re so damn scared of it—go for it.

• If you’re a workaholic, try being lazy—it’s also sometimes called balance.

• If you’re a people pleaser, try being selfish—it’s also sometimes called empowerment.

• If you’re trying to be yourself, lean into being bold—it’s also sometimes called Kendrick.

If you’re a man ready to sharpen any part of your life in 2025, let’s chat. A typical football team has 12 coaches—mental, nutrition, and offseason specialists. We know this works for them, so why not for you?

Give it a shot. I know you’ll find it worth it.
(See? I’m selling myself!)

Schedule a discovery call!

if, then…

If the only thing we have control over is our attitude and effort in the current and next moment...

Then why do we spend so much energy on other people, on the past, on “luck”, and on all the other things we have no control over?

Distraction? Excuse? Fear?

I’m sure the list is endless but none of them are great answers.

Black Friday.

When the only metric of success becomes profit, we begin to measure people’s worth in dollars instead of dignity.

There’s a myth that capitalism rewards hard work. But often, it rewards exploitation—the quiet, overlooked labor of the many for the excess of the few.”

If you want to keep people trapped, convince them they never have enough. Convince them they are never enough.

When the gap between the rich and poor grows, so does the distance between our shared humanity.

We are not consumers first. We are creators, neighbors, and caretakers.

gratitude.

Gratitude shifts our posture, moving us from scarcity to abundance, from anxiety to wonder.

Gratitude isn’t a transaction—it’s an act of recognition.

When we give thanks, we remind the world that even in the mess, there is goodness worth celebrating.

Even when life breaks us open, it leaves room for something new to grow. And often, gratitude is the seed that takes root in that broken soil.

the goal of religion.

I was recently on a podcast and the interviewer started talking very kindly about religion - and said I think the goal of every religion is to enrich the human soul.

I did have to push back - a bit. I think the goal of every system is to make sure the system lives. That means it has to evolve, adapt, and stay attractive to enough people so as to keep spreading. That means it needs fervent followers and mediocre followers and it needs a myth and story that gives people hope. That means it needs to adapt pieces of other religions so as to stay relevant but not so much so as to lose its uniqueness that keeps it special.

Really none of this matters. The point of a system is not to make someone better, it’s to survive. This is no fault of people in it, but it is what they are often doing and it’s worth thinking about for all the systems we belong to.

enough with labels.

Christian, Atheist, Republican, Democrat, Jew, Muslim, Independent… they’re all starting to fee like lazy words to me. Easy words. Just something we throw out to others so that we don’t have to really talk about what we believe, value, or search for in the world.

More importantly, words we tell ourselves so we don’t have to wrestle in our own mind with what we believe, value, or search for in the world.

How do you treat others? How do you want to? What do you want for your life? For others? What do you want for a society? For kids? For friends? For enemies.

These are all better conversations than arguing about which label we are or aren’t.

getting to the moon.

I’ve been complaining that I have to learn Klaviyo. Oh it’s so hard, takes so long, it’s a whole new system. I watched First Man the other night and Neil Armstrong spent about 10 years learning new systems and physics and controls and, and, and… shut the hell up Ryan and learn damn Klaviyo.

the best christian…

Is the one that leaves Christianity.

The most Christian thing someone can do is to leave Christianity.

The best guru is the one that says you don’t need a guru.

The best church is an empty church.

You picking up the vibe here?

to be less offensive…

I heard it on a podcast years ago: we need to be less offensive and less offended.

And I still couldn’t agree more: it’s essential for us to move along our society to better places.

But, the thing is, in order to be less offensive and less easily offended, we’re going to need some better security in who we are and what we’re doing and just some better self-image.

It’s the insecure who are so easily offended by everything and so often offend others.

So, I guess less offensive and less offensiveness is just a symptom of a bigger problem: low self-esteem. I suppose that’s what we should be working on.

the slow down.

It’s funny how often I get irritated with people “taking their time”. C’mon, let’s go, hurry up, I don’t have time for this.

EXCEPT

When I’m on a plane. It’s taking a while and I want to get upset and anxious and then I realize, no, no, no, take your time.

When I’m about to get a vaccine - like I was a few days ago. No, no, take your time, don’t be distracted, do the job just right.

It’s funny that I consider most of what I do as something that should just get done instead of as important as flying a plane or giving a shot.

Slow down Ryan. Take your time.

the audacity to think…

I remember back when I was in my religious days we used to always joke about the fact of how ridiculous it was, how audacious, to believe that any church in name your year, name your place, name your language finally figured out theology and/or the answers to the universe. It’s absolutely insane to think “we got it all figured out now but all of those other cultures, perspectives, times, denominations, etc…” didn’t.

And that was crazy.

But in the “secular” world it seems we’ve got a lot of the same thing. This diet, this exercise, this cold shower, this sauna, this lifestyle… we finally have it all figured out.

I’m not saying we don’t know more… but I am saying it’s still audacious to not take most things with a grain of salt in the grand scheme of human intelligence, knowledge, and evolution.

Gotta stay humble.

it’s all perspective.

Most of you under 50 will not be aware that David Copperfield once made the Statue of Liberty disappear. I remember it was pretty epic as a kid. And recently someone revealed how he did it. You can watch the video here.

The short of it is this: the live audience and the camera were on a stage with two pillars on each side. The statue was in the middle. A curtain went up and David started doing his magic dance. While he did, loud music played - with lots of bass - and David kept dancing so that the stage they were on - and the camera - slowly turned. When the curtain came down the audience and camera were looking in a different location, though they didn’t know it and the statue was gone.

In other words, perspective made the statue disappear.

Which is pretty good. Perspective can make lots of problems disappear too.

how history sees us.

Really good podcast with Sharon McMahon - a law and government teacher - on Armchair Expert right here. She had two epic lines.

History never looks kindly on the timid or the cynical.

Blind allegiance to any tribe always leads to dehumanization.

Boom.

worse than porn.

Growing up in the Christian home I did, porn was one of the worst things in the world. A big no no. Now I’m not saying porn is great. It has ruined a lot of people who watch it, who film it, who become addicted to it: I get it.

But.

I would much rather someone watch porn that Fox News. In fact, I think society would be infinitely better if people watched porn instead of Fox News.

Just a thought.

it’s good we live on a big boat.

The Seawise Giant was the largest ship ever built. It’s not cruising around anymore but, from what I understand, when it was it would take two miles just to turn around.

America is a big ass boat. Bigger than the Seawise Giant. And usually that drives me nuts. Why can’t change happen faster? These days, I’m real happy it’s a big boat and takes forever to turn in any direction. In fact, I’m placing a lot of my hope on that. Systems are hard to change. Thank god right now.

Not saying the whole ship can’t just be sunk real quick… but let’s not go there.

the horseshoe.

I’m definitely no expert on political science or government—let’s get that out of the way - but this idea keeps coming up, and the more people I tell it to, the agreement I get. (Mostly.)

It seems we’ve got four parties in our government. Woke. Liberal. Conservative. MAGA.

(A quick word about “woke”. It’s a loaded term and one I was hesitant to use, which says something actually, about how extreme that side can be and how nervous I am of it. Or maybe it’s just because I have some Woke biases and tendencies because I didn’t feel that way about MAGA. Regardless, I don’t mean to offend with any of these words but they are words most people understand and they speak for themselves.)

Woke and Liberal are, obviously, under the Democratic umbrella.
Conservative and MAGA are, obviously under the Republican umbrella.

I’m not sure on this one but I think most Republicans don’t really want to be MAGA.
I also don’t think most Democrats want to be Woke.

Gotta give it to the Republican Party (as far as winning an election), they go all in with their side no matter what and, it seems, they’ve gone, and are going, all in with their extreme: MAGA (we’ll see how far). The Democrats had an opposite problem - they were more Liberal but tried to keep the Woke around. They tend to try to make everyone happy. I don’t know whether I think they should or shouldn’t but I do think all Democrats not going “all-in” on Liberal or Woke cost them in the election. There were splits that MAGA (aka Republicans) didn’t have. The enthusiasm was not the same and that enthusiasm gap was the difference.

Anyway… the horseshoe shape has been used to describe lots of things, in extremes. The further you get from the middle, the closer you actually get to the other extreme. I do believe MAGA and Woke are actually very similar - it’s just the targets of their rage that are different. It’s just who they want to cancel that are different. It’s just who offends them that is different.

I do believe Liberal and Conservative are also pretty similar too - I wrote a whole post about it.

I do believe whatever party go backs to Liberal and Conservative again (the middle) will dominate for a long time. It’ll be interesting to see if either can.

And maybe—just maybe—there aren’t actually four sides like I started this whole thing. Maybe there are only two: a massive middle and the small, loud extremes. Somehow, the system got us thinking we all hate each other and can’t agree on anything.

But what if that’s not true? What if there’s a chance to change that? What if the middle started putting the extremes back in their corners and got some actual shit done again? Maybe we could stop talking so much about the extremes, we mostly aren’t, and start talking more about the middles, we mostly are, and what that actually could mean for our future.

team you.

When someone is a true friend, they are team you. Not team jealous, not team selfish, not team only if—just team you.

That’s all.

broken bottles.

If you take a wine bottle and smash it you will have tiny pieces of glass all over the floor. If you then take as many hours as it needs to gather all the pieces and glue them back together, eventually, if lucky, you will have the rough shape of a wine bottle that has never been smashed. But we all know it will not work the same.

It may have unique features that enable it to help other wine bottles, but it won’t be the same.

Some kids were smashed to pieces. It’s devastating. And it’s so sad—but that doesn’t make it less true—that they can never be like a kid that was not. They can do some amazing things, of course, but they cannot be a fully functioning wine bottle.

Some find this depressing or pessimistic or cynical. I get that, but the problem is that I’ve seen it too many times and talked to too many counselors who have seen it too many times. And I think saying the opposite can make us lazy in trying to defend all children from this ever happening to them. Maybe if we weren’t so trite and inconsequential, we would stop telling some of these adults that they are not doing it right because they aren’t a fully functioning brand-new wine bottle. It’s okay. They are beautiful wine bottles with all of their cracks and imperfections, and if you are one of them, it’s okay that you’re not like them.

It’s nothing you did wrong, and it’s nothing you’re failing to do now. Be free. Hold what you can, in your own way, but don’t compare yourself to those who have never been through what you have.

We love you no less. Be free of the burden of perfection.

the real danger.

As someone who has met countless people who have experienced all kinds of sexual assault, violence, deception, and straight up harm from religious followers and leaders, I’ve never met anyone harmed in any way by an immigrant. This is definitely anecdotal of course, but it’s backed up by numerous different stats. If we are going to be concerned about groups of people that cause harm, maybe it’s the religious we should be paying more attention to?

a consistent and underrated message of the Bible.

The Bible has some wack shit in it and some good shit but there’s one consistent message in those stories that spreads across the entire thing and is rarely mentioned. Feel free to prove me wrong.

You were once slaves. Now you’re not. So don’t use your power to make slaves of someone else.

If that simple message was followed by people who say they believe the Bible (let alone everyone else) everything would be so much better.