Ryan J Melton

24/01/2024

I had to disappear.

Here's why:

18/08/2023

I used to get so overwhelmed by people that I would go home and cry.

For as long as I can remember, I was absolutely petrified at the idea of talking to a stranger.

It wasn't until I put my dreams on paper.

And laid out everything I want to achieve and how I was going to achieve it that I realized I needed to face this fear.

It started with commission only selling.

Where either I face my fear or I don't eat.

Which looked like this.

Get rejected by 100s of people a day in the street and have 40 stop to talk to me.

6 days a week.

For 18 months.

And when you do that at such a scale, you start to develop tactics that help.
The first thing to helped was keeping my sugar levels even.

When my sugar levels would drop, I would go into fight or flight response and start feeling more anxious.

The other thing I discovered was with meditation, if I observe my surroundings/breath and not invest into my anxious thoughts they wouldn’t catch as much momentum.

Kind of like a snowball rolling down a hill.

One thing I didn’t realise until recently was the moments where I felt most anxious were the moments, I was playing a character.

I was wearing a mask out of fear.

Whatever the feeling was it was hidden from view.

And the more hidden it was the more anxious I felt.

I see it like a defence mechanism that is protecting me from something.

Something that is not fit for my current reality.

So, by me sharing how I truly feel I teach it that it’s okay.

Whatever happened in the past isn’t happening now.

That there’s nothing to fear.

24/07/2023

I hate being a leader.

It feels like you’re saying you’re above someone else.

Even admitting it makes me cringe.

You’ve probably seen it too.
Those people on tv that put their hand up first to ‘lead’ the group challenge and immediately crumble under their own ego.

What even is leadership?

Does a great leader even call themselves a leader?

Something I’ve found helpful lately is realising I’m not actually ‘leading’ people.

I’m following.

I’m listening.

I’m supporting.

I’m encouraging.

I’m questioning.

The biggest mistake I’ve made in leadership lately has been trying to ‘drive’ the team.

The interesting part is the moment I stopped ‘telling’ and started listening they started leading themselves.

Most of my ‘leading’ these days has been saying:

“Good idea”

“Oh wow, I never would have thought of that.”

“What do you think we should do?”

20/07/2023

Every 10 cold calls I make.

Someone knows me.

They either watched a video, read a post, or listened to a podcast.

Which is crazy when I think about it.

I never spoke to them.

Never met them.

Just called a random number.

“Oh hey Ryan, I thought I recognised your voice.”

How bizarre is that?

Sure, you see the numbers.

1,000,000 views.

100,000 views.

217 views.

Whatever that number is, just imagine your speaking to that many people on stage.

How much would that be worth to you?

How incredibly would it be to know every post you make has the potential to network with hundreds of people at once?

No added time investment.

No awkward introductions.

Just you and your ability to make content that resonates.

25/06/2023

There are three companies in charge of about 24% of all the money in the world. Is that a problem? Is that too much power?

As of 2023, Blackrock, State Street, and Vanguard manage close to 22 trillion dollars of assets, and depending on what you class as 'money', there is only about $90.4 trillion in circulation.

They are also shareholders of most of the major corporations around the world. What do they do? They manage passively managed index funds.

When you look into the Senate Office of Public Records in the USA, you'll see that just Blackrock alone has invested millions of dollars to lobby the government.

Eric Van Nostrand left Blackrock to start his Biden-appointed position in the US treasury. Blackrock has since been given the opportunity to rebuild Ukraine. Eric is now the senior adviser on economic issues related to Russia and Ukraine.

Billions of dollars of 'aid' for Ukraine went to only a few US defence contractors - Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman. These same companies have lobbied the government with hundreds of millions of dollars.

I'm not saying people are good or bad. I'm not even saying Blackrock and others are necessarily evil companies. I just wonder, when did the blood of innocence become so profitable?

When did fear become the most valuable currency for accumulating wealth? When did the slaughtering of Iraqis, Afghans, Vietnamese, Syrians, and Yemenis become okay, but not Ukrainians?

Are we really the good guys in this story?

Or is it just too painful to acknowledge that the value of life is now measured in dollars and cents?

22/06/2023

If you're not sure how to find purpose in life,
here's a process I use.
The first thing in finding purpose is acknowledging what it isn't.
It's not trying to live up to the expectation of others.
It's not trying to prove you're good enough or worthy of a person's love.
These are what I would call 'other' led goals.
An unquenchable void that craves the very thing that causes it harm.
The confirmation that you're not good enough, that you need to be more than what you are.
The solution of which isn't to be more than what you are; it's to accept who you are now.
I digress.

If that's not purpose, then what is it?
I believe purpose is the alleviation of a shared pain.
Solving in the world what you feel in yourself.
An example might be as a child you were raised in a very toxic and cruel environment, so you find immense joy in helping create safe environments for others.
It might be that you grew up with nothing, so you want to empower people to be more than their situation, providing them with the tools and motivation to achieve financial security.
It could be you experienced the struggle of a single mother doing her best to support you and your siblings, so you feel a strong affinity to their plight and make it your life purpose to support them.

There's just one problem.
It's also the most painful thing to pursue.
If you're ever not sure if something is aligned with your true purpose, use this saying as a yardstick:
The truth hurts.
The closer you get to pursuing what you truly want in life, the closer you get to the core of who you are, and if you haven't yet started the journey, then your mind will fight to keep you rooted in place.
It will rationalize.
It will justify.
It will sabotage.

But if you can conquer the journey, bit by bit, you’ll create a life worth suffering for.

21/06/2023

The time spent avoiding the work is often > than the time spent doing it.

I was sitting here staring at this blank page.

I didn’t want to write.

I couldn’t think of what to say.

I was about to just post a video and be done with it.

One minute turned into 10.

10 turned into 30.

Until I finally decided to try.

And it took 5.

20/06/2023

I just got angry for no reason.

I spewed my story onto someone that didn’t deserve it.

They provided great service but because I felt trapped, they coped it.

Emotions are funny old things.

Very rarely have I felt a strong feeling towards someone, and it not been a story I made up.

Sure, people do bad things.

Sure, people say things that hurt.

But, if it was just what they said or did, then why don’t other bad things upset you?

What about this particular hurt makes it painful?

If you ask these questions enough quickly realise..

The pain isn’t a ‘them’ it’s a ‘you.’

07/01/2022

21/08/2021

🔔 What would you text back? 👇

16/08/2021

I found this absolute gem of a video from back when I was living in a tent community, fondly referred to as the ‘Jungle.’

It’s funny looking back at how much of a hippy I was but in any environment, I find there are deep and meaningful lessons.

The lesson in this moment came from Avishay Biton. He and his comrade had started a silent disco business in Byron Bay. Utilizing the solar panel of their van to run innovative parties anywhere they wanted. It’s an amazing experience dancing on the beach with complete strangers sharing a moment connection through the station of which you headphones are connected to.

When Avishay walked in grinning ear to ear you didn’t expect the news to be this…

20/07/2021