If You Can’t Win in 2025, You Can’t Win (and what you should be doing)

0:00Happy Holidays! Want to give your host a gift? Consider subscribing, rating, and reviewing the show this holiday season. it really helps the show grow from all of us at believe have a merry christmas everyone and a happy holiday in the green room you started by saying something that i was like all right i gotta hit record because i want you i don't want you to waste all the flavor you said a lot of people are complaining that it's difficult to win today and you think that this is one of the best times to win. Can you break that down for us? Well, I'll break it down. The message from my 91-year-old father who retired.

0:40My dad worked until age 85, Ryan, so he's been retired for five years, almost six years. He said to me the other day when we were out on the boat, he said, you know, son, he says, I don't have many regrets in my life.

1:02hello everyone and welcome back to the show we have a tremendous conversation for you today with michael mclean michael is a former professional hockey team owner took a failing franchise in junior pro division turned that franchise around and then six later six years later won the barkley Cup. He then went on to purchase an insurance business, turn that business around, turn it into one of the most successful insurance businesses in the United States. He now coaches men to find their power to become kings, as he says. And we talk not just about what that means and how we how why men need to reclaim their lives, but why it's also not just important for the individuals, for the men themselves, but for those they love, for those in their world, for those that they want to take care of, help, support, right?

1:54In order to be the best father, we have to be good. In order to be the best spouse, we have to be good as men. And this is a dynamic conversation. One warning before we move on to Michael, there is a lot of colorful language in this episode. So if you are offended by colorful language, you may want to turn the volume down just a little bit, but I I promise you will be motivated, you'll be inspired, and by the end of this episode, you will be ready to run through a brick wall. Guys, I love you for being here. If you enjoy this show, we grow this show just by you sharing it, by telling people, by posting on social media, texting the show to friends.

2:32I appreciate you so much. I hope you enjoy this episode. Let's get on to Michael McLean. In the green room, you started by saying something that I was like, I got to hit record because I don't want you to waste all the flavor. You said a lot of people are complaining that it's difficult to win today. And you think that this is one of the best times to win. Can you break that down for us? Well, I'll break it down. The message from my 91-year-old father who retired. My dad worked until age 85, Ryan. So he's been retired for five years, almost six years. He said to me the other day when we were out on the boat, he said, you know, son, he says, I don't have many regrets in my life.

3:13If you met my dad, Ryan, you would think he's 70, not 91. Same with my mom. My mom's 91. She doesn't have any gray hair. He says to me, he goes, I have one regret. He says, I should have worked to 90. And then my dad and I were talking about how this is clearly the greatest time in history to be alive, especially if you're a husband, a father, an entrepreneur, a founder, any of that stuff. My dad started his businesses. He was an entrepreneur for 71 years. He said, he goes, I started my business with the yellow pages. He said, you have the worldwide web, you have AI, you have the greatest time in history to be alive.

3:52And this is the message that I'm telling my 12-year-old daughter all the time. You know, she has her own podcast. She makes her own money, that kind of stuff. But like the men and women that I work with, they spend way, way, way too much time on rat poison platforms like the news, like, you know, politics is rat poison and anti-social media. I mean, it's okay to be on there for a little bit, but if you think that times are tough in 2025, you're in the wrong echo chamber. You need to get around better people. You need to get around people who have actually won. People ask me what my business is now that I'm semi-retired.

4:34I said my business is the same as when I was in the hockey business, the insurance business, being a husband, being a father. I'm in the winning business. That doesn't mean I win all the time. It means I lose a lot, but I mean, there has never, ever been a better time. And my dad's only regret is he said, I should have worked to 90. He said, I would, I would give my, I would give my, one of my arms to be in the environment that you're in now. So that's my mindset every day that I get up. I'm like, and my dad mentioned on the boat the other day, he said, Michael, he says, if you can't make it in 2025, you can't make it.

5:11And you know that's the message that we need to be sending to leaders That's what you do You work with some of the top leaders Unreasonable outcomes But man oh man talk about the greatest environment in history to be in And when I say greatest environment There's three things that really stick out Number one we are awash in wealth Trillions of dollars every single day Go stand in the river Go stand in the river Secondly, abundance like never before I mean, I pack up my family for half the year And I get to live in the greatest country in the world America in the greatest city in the world Naples, Florida And then for the other six months I get to return and live on the lake In the second greatest country in the world Which is Canada Like the abundance is unbelievable And then of course, what I mentioned, the opportunity Like literally the World Wide Web Artificial intelligence Whatever you want to talk about it But man, oh man, my dad said it the other day, best Ryan.

6:13He says the good old days are now. Why do you think so many people live in this perpetual state of anxiety and fear and go down these negativity rabbit holes? They're scared of winning. When I was coaching minor pro hockey, I owned a couple of my own teams. Then I got into the insurance business as the number one agent in the nation. I've run barber shops, all this kind of stuff, tennis camps, hockey schools. And Ryan, when I was younger, I used to think that most people were afraid of losing. And then as I matured and worked with the peak, peak men and women in the world, I realized what stops most people from getting moving is they're afraid of winning.

7:01And that was a light bulb moment for me because the thing is, is sure, we're all afraid of losing. We don't want to lose. You should be sick to your stomach when you do lose. And nothing is more valuable than losing. I tell my 12-year-old daughter, I'm like, are you kidding me? You don't win. You don't learn anything from winning. You win everything from being taken behind the woodshed and taught a lesson in sports, business, and life. That's where all the learning happens. But I find most people that I work with, Ryan, they're afraid of winning in their subconscious or their conscious mind. If I do write the book and it's a smash success, what will other people think?

7:43If I start traveling and speaking like you do What will my friends think? And this all goes back to the way we're hardwired Into people pleasing Like we need to be men and women on a mission We don't need to be people pleasers So when I run into people that are afraid of losing But more importantly they're afraid of winning They sedate and they medicate By spending their time in these places where they watch other people live. See, you're living, you're a man on a mission. I know your deal. You're a man on a mission. But there's so many people that watch you instead of doing their own thing because they're afraid of winning.

8:27I would love to be like Ryan, but what if I became like Ryan and chased my mission? What would my wife think? What would my friends from high school think? What would my fuck-ole friends from college think? And it gets down to that fundamental where if a person cannot escape that mindset of people pleasing, if they can't, that is the number one crippling thing in sports, life and business. If you are a people pleaser instead of a man or a woman on a mission, you have no chance to live the life of your dreams. Why aren't we taught this? well i mean there's a lot of reasons that it's not taught in in in school and it's not you don't run into it a lot is because i mean the education system as an example i mean we i we homeschool our daughter because i don't want her in the old factory industrial age put up your hand to use the bathroom school so i'm raising an entrepreneur i'm i'm raising a president not a poodle i'm raising a president, not a princess.

9:36So we focus on entrepreneurship in our home, whether she decides to be a vet or decides, I don't care long as she runs the show for herself. Because I think in 2025 and looking down the road in five or 10 years, there's no place for anybody but the founder and the entrepreneur. Like you're going to have a hard time commuting to work and sitting in a cubicle once AI gets going here. So we're preaching freedom. I just believe the education system and society is set up in the hundred year old, we need workers. We need people to work in the factories. We need people to sit in the cubicles. But unfortunately, those days are all gone.

10:21So in my daughter's particular case, she is. AI agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed. But agents make mistakes. Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice. Rubrik Agent Cloud is the only platform that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails, and rewind mistakes. So you can unleash agents, not risk. Accelerate your AI transformation at rubrik.com. That's R-U-B-R-I-K dot com. Six hours of private tutors a day. And we accomplished more in six hours Than she would in six years But it's interesting because I hired the number one math teacher in America And here in Naples And what do they start every day with?

11:10They start every day with fitness and movement Skipping rope, push-ups, all this She's been doing this since she was five years old So they get the body moving Because the body is before the mind Then, Ryan, she does old school mathematics Like she's 12 years old, but she's at a college level of mathematics Because what is math? Mac is the ultimate problem solving It's black and white, it's not opinion based It's hard and it's difficult And then she does cursive writing She writes out the best advertisements in history So she'll write out a Gary Halbert ad She'll write out an Ogilvy ad So that's cursive plus copywriting And then the other thing that she does after that is she'll do something entrepreneurial, whether it's a lemonade stand or writing her book or whatever.

12:01But the reason that this isn't taught is because they don't want it taught. They don't want a world of top 1 %ers or top 5 %ers. They want followers. So what you do is the exact opposite of what the 1 % is. Like, what does the world need more? You know this better than anybody. We need more leaders. There's such a leadership vacuum. I always say to my daughter, I'm like, I'm with Dana White on this. If your kids and you have two of them, if they even have a speck of badass in them, they're going to own this world. And like I say to my daughter, I look at the other kids her age and I say, these are not your peers.

12:46These are not your peers. And that's the biggest thing. So just the fact like it's what happens at the kitchen table and in your home is more important than anything that happens in the White House. But that goes back to my initial thing about this is the greatest time in history because a guy like you is raising a couple of badass entrepreneurs who are going to run over people because they're going to be equipped for the new age world. yeah we talk about this all the time we uh so my kids play a lot of sports i coach them i'm basketball and baseball and this summer we were driving home from a game and uh my son my older son my younger son was in the car too uh my older son um missed a ground ball at short stop he played short stop and it ended up costing us the run that cost us that in the end of the game cost us the game and um he came off the field and you know I gave him hey keep your head up you got to hit you know whatever but he kind of stopped and looked at me and I was like yeah you should have fucking had that ball like I I knew what he was asking me with his eyes which was and he kind of looked and went back in and you know did his thing and after the game he said you know he goes dad how come he was like you know you you talk to me differently than other parents i'm paraphrasing his question but essentially and i said it's because you you fucked up that's a ground ball that you can make should make and need to make as a starting shortstop of this baseball team it's not that i expect you to make every play you're you're you're 10 years old that's not what i'm saying but that was a ball that was in the range of things that you should be able to handle and you didn't handle and the reason you didn't handle it was because you were lazy to the ball you didn't get in proper form like we've practiced a thousand times and you tried to you nonchalanted it so the lesson is don't fucking nonchalant the easy plays just make them get the out all that matters is the out right don't you know you you you felt like it was an easy play you approached it like an easy play and you got your hat handed to you and it cost the team the game.

14:56All right. So he kind of ruminated on that for a second. And then he said, yeah, but how come you're harder on me than other kids? And I said, I said the same exact thing to him. I go, you're not the kids on your team. Some of them might be your friends, but they're not your peers in baseball. Like they're not your, they're not, you're not competing against them. You're competing against the kid in Puerto Rico who's using a fucking leaf for a glove who would die to play on a real baseball field like you play on, right? That's who you're competing against. I said, and even if you never achieve that level of skill that that kid has, I said, what I need you to do to win at life is to understand that you only get prizes when you win.

15:46In real life, you only get prize when you win. Yet you're, you're so much of how it's why we send our kids to Catholic school. It's why we sent, we're sending our kids a private Catholic school for high school. Like is because this idea that you are talking about, like, like I'm in a weird generation. So I'm 44 years old. Right. And thankfully I had 20 years with no cell phone. Very, very thankfully that I had 20 years of no cell phone, but then still in development from 20, you know, in the, in the early days, right. I got the world changed this more like socialist kind of everyone gets a prize kind of thing.

16:26Right. And I said, dude, I've lived, I've seen both sides of this coin. Like this whole idea that the effort you put in was, is what matters is nice and a start. But at the end of the day, if you want to achieve, you have to win. And that's, that's what you're trying. And it doesn't matter baseball, whatever, whatever you do. And you have to get away from this idea that showing up is winning or just trying hard is winning because you can always try harder or like, you know, because you were nice, you won. No one gives it. The universe doesn't give a fuck about any of those things. And it's just so incredible to me.

17:04Like, I feel like now that Trump is in office and our culture has swung a little bit back to a little bit more living in reality, all of a sudden there's this spotlight on the methodology on this like everybody's equal, everyone's the same, everyone deserves a prize mentality is like you don't have a receipt. Show me the receipt for that mentality where someone is killing it. That's an honest question to everyone who's listening to this show. If you believe in kind of modern liberal postmodern beliefs or more socialist ideals or whatever, show me a fucking receipt for that methodology producing positive outcomes.

17:44That's all I want to see. And then you can tell me that the way that I approach my kids in my life is wrong. Right? I mean, that's kind of what we're talking about here. It's crazy. There's no receipts for the other side of the argument. You know, they got words they can throw at you. Bigot, you know Toxic masculinity, you know, whatever else they want to throw at you But not a single receipt for that methodology And that's what fucking breaks me Yeah, I mean, I've been coaching youth sports For 23 consecutive years And the term I use Similar to yours is ROI Show me the ROI Everybody wants to be led Everybody likes structure Everybody likes discipline Show me the ROI of the other way So, you're right about the shift There's a shift happening here But man oh man People are responsible for their own And what you're doing for your kids Is you're literally stacking the deck Ryan you are I call it putting your kids on the power play You're putting an extra man on the field Like my job as a father Is to make sure my kid lives her adult life On the fucking power play Like I don't want to I want a loaded deck I want a stacked deck And to do that Guys like us and our wife have to work a long time, but there's no competition.

19:00And that's the other thing, the man or woman in the glass, like that was Richard Williams 101 with the Williams sisters where, you know, he didn't let Serena and Venus play in all these tournaments, even though the agents were hanging around. And he's like, my kids are going to practice most of the time. And he's like, he kept telling Serena and Venus, they can speak five languages. None of these players are your peers Your mom and I want you to be artists We want you to be musicians We want you to be athletes We want you to be good people And if one of these things works out, fantastic But weaponizing your children Goes back to what Brene Brown says Which is clear is kind Unclear is unkind Like I could tell you horror stories You wouldn't believe from My hockey, coaching young kids In hockey, power skating Is the COVID kids especially The China virus kids especially Five to zero It's a culture of quitters coming Now I'm not one of these guys Who ever used to say Oh well the next generation I'm not saying that at all The China virus crippled what's coming So I'll start out Ryan With 50 kids In a low income skating program On a September By Thanksgiving I've got 25 kids that means mum and dad let 25 kids quit I'm not upset that the kids want to quit every kid wants to quit I want to quit every day but the fact that the parents are so soft as fucking shit that they let these kids start quitting when they're 2, 3, 4 and 5 that's a crippling habit my dad calls it patronizing so if you want to raise cupcake kids and snowflake kids and poodles just lie to your kids all the time and patronize them.

20:55And eighth place trophies, like you said, is the secret to this. Our kids are afraid of failure because of eighth place trophies. Now you're doing the right job where, you know what? Bill Parcells said it best. When Bill Parcells, in my opinion, the greatest football coach in history, the scoreboard says who's best. The scoreboard says who's best. And that's the way you can get better when the scoreboard doesn't say you're the best, but you nailed it. Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind. So when you have these cupcake parents, they think they think they're helping their children when actually, Ryan, they're crippling them for life.

21:36Yeah. And for the guys out there that are listening who maybe, you know, you have people pleasing in you. and I'm a recovering people pleaser. You know, most of the, when I look back at the places in my life where I've stagnated in my growth, it's because I allowed that side of my body. You know, I wanted to be nice. I wanted people to like me. I wanted people versus what had to get done, right? And it doesn't mean, you know, I think the way that this argument gets straw manned is, oh, well, you're just saying you yell at them and authoritarian. in. And it's like, that's not, that is not what you just said.

22:13You said, be clear, not yell, not, not bash people over the head. You don't have to dog people all the time. That's not what we're talking about. It's not good leadership. It's not good culture building, but you can have by simply letting people know what they're responsible for, what they need to do and how they're going to be judged on their work. Just those giving people those three simple things will change the entire culture of your organization. Because I guarantee most of the people listening to this, if you were to go survey, all of your employees cannot give you those three things. Cannot.

22:47Cannot give you those three things that they have to do in their job. And they get confused and they misunderstand. And you start having HR meetings about tonality and email messages. And now your whole business is fucked and you're spending half your time dealing with problems instead of going out and growing the business. when what people, what I feel like so many are missing, and I know this because at different times in my life, I've missed this, is like, what am I supposed to be doing? Do you know how many guys I talk to? I mean, you know, you know, you do the same thing I do. How many guys do you talk to that you can see the energy in them?

23:23You can see that they're intelligent and talented at something, right? And you're like, from your perspective, you see this aura of potential, you know, like around their body. And they're like, but I have no clue what I'm supposed to be doing. Like I'm working this job, I'm paying the bills, but I really want to do this thing over here, but I don't know if I should. And, and, but then I really like doing this thing over here too. So maybe I should start a business there. Or I watched this TikTok video and they said I could make a bunch of money in the TikTok shop. So maybe I should start a TikTok.

23:53And you're like, all of a sudden you're like, bro, like pick a lane. You know what I mean? And, you know, that's a very hard thing. How do you when you get someone who who does have ability and drive and like, how do you help them start to harness it? How do people start to know like like they're like, Michael, I believe you like I believe in winning. I believe in get after. I'm not sure what game to play. I feel like that's a big part of the problem today is people just simply can't figure out what game they should be playing. so when a when i have an elite man a generous a driven man come to me buys my book he joins my mastermind whatever the hell he does the number one thing and the only thing like one of your speeches the only thing that i could one thing to 10x his life is the first thing i say ryan like whether he was a pro hockey player pro football player whether he's a nine-figure entrepreneur a man without a mission is a man without balls.

24:52So we don't go any further than that. And I get these men and some brave women in my program, and they think about when they get up in the morning, they pray about their mission. When they go to bed at night, they ask their subconscious to think about their mission. When they go for a walk in the morning for an hour, half an hour outside without their phone, They think about their mission They talk to their kids about their mission They talk to their wife about their mission It's all about the mission Any great leader that you've developed That's gone from a people pleaser Or one of these cupcakes Or one of these poodles Is a man or a woman on a mission And a man or a woman With no mission They have no mental balls Whatsoever So when a guy like you goes to a barbecue or a ball game or to church and somebody walks up to you, you can instantly tell whether they are a man on a mission.

25:54You can see it, Ryan, in their eyes. You can feel it in their voice, their high frequency, their high agency, their body language. They cannot not talk about their mission. When they talk to a guy like you, you get chills and they get chills. When they talk about their mission It's like the hair starts to stand up on the back of our head And it's contagious And the leaders that are on a mission All of a sudden they become magnetic to money Money quickly becomes no problem Money loves a man on a mission They become magnetic to the opposite sex They become magnetic to good fortune They become magnetic to other people Because they're a man or a woman on a mission But when my guys and gals When they finally And I call it something bigger than yourself Because they say to me the same as you I don't know what my purpose is Michael I don't know what God wants for me And I'm like God wants you to be a man on a mission And if you'd put the cell phone down And you'd get off TikTok And you'd stop watching the NFL for nine hours a day God's trying to tell you Your creator is trying to tell you This is what I need you to do To serve other people So my guys, Ryan, gradually It doesn't happen in one hour They gradually become a man Or a woman on a mission That's based in service That's the secret It's based in service They literally for the first time in their life Find something that's bigger than themselves And you and I are both doing this Like I haven't had to work since 2017 Here I am, you know, consulting with other men and women Because I'm a man on a mission And I've found something bigger than myself And it took me months to find my latest calling When I bought my first hockey team My mission was to win a Barclay Cup When I got in the insurance business My mission was to become the number one agent in the nation I sell that, I start a barber shop The mission was to be the number one.

28:07I've been on a mission as a husband for a while, as a father. So some missions are a month. Some missions are 30 years. But you have to be on a mission. And it changes everything. And you know this better than anybody. Less than 1 % of 1 % of 1 % of 1 % of the people you meet today, whether it's at your kid's school or whether it's at the ballpark, nobody's on a mission. But when you meet that man or woman who's on a mission, you can just feel it. You're magnetic. They cannot not talk about it. It's like me coming on this podcast. Like I'm like, I'm going to go talk to Ryan. I don't do podcasts anymore because I like talking to men who are on a mission.

28:52If you're not on a mission, I'm not going to talk to you. I'm a man on a mission and nothing comes before the mission. So I don't participate in anti-social media. I don't follow the news. I don't follow politics. I built a seven-figure company again without even trying because I'm on a man on a mission. When my marriage is struggling, it's when I'm not a man on a mission. When I was a lousy parent in the first couple years of my daughter's life, I wasn't a man on a mission. And it's normal to lose your way, but you have to continually bring yourself back to men on a mission. When Nick Saban went to Alabama And lost for the first three to four seasons That's a man on a mission So now Saban retires And he goes on TV That's the next mission You know, wherever Bill Parcells Went in the NFL to take over the worst team From the outhouse to the penthouse Man on a mission Elon Musk is a man on a mission Like, it's costing him Billions of dollars It's costing him, he doesn't give a shit He's a man on a mission Trump has done the unthinkable Trump is unreasonable You can't be president You'll never win He's a man on a mission And as you can see with those guys Margaret Thatcher was a woman on a mission Richard Williams Earl Woods Those were men and women on a mission And like you said It's sports, it's life, whatever But it all starts and ends With the mission Nothing comes before that calling Yeah, I completely agree with that.

30:34I think that there are a lot of people who have never fully given themselves to something. you talk to people you hear what's going on in their lives I fell into this job I started this and ended up here I always wanted to be this but you know need to make money so I did you know I took this job or you know I love to golf but I never golf because I you know blah blah blah whatever and you think about these things and you know and everyone's got problems in their marriage and you know, they feel like their kids are disconnected and don't listen to them. And, you know, when you ask a simple question, well, like, have you ever just gone 100 % into that thing?

31:22Very, very, very few people will honestly answer that question. Yes. And, you know, I can't say that, you know, I think it would be disingenuous to say that I've always been 100 % focused on the different things in my life. I think you did a good job of outlining that, right? Like you said, the first few years, you weren't the best father. Then you went and you said, hey, this is going to become my mission and change that. Okay. So I don't, there's no requirement to always be at that level because you have seasons of your life, your life changes, your priorities change. At times your interests change.

31:57Okay. That being said, if you have never given 100 % of yourself to something, then you just simply can't relate. It's why I think people struggle so much with particular Elon Musk. Like, I can understand. I'm a big Trump fan, but I can understand logically why someone might not like it. I can logically understand that. I cannot logically wrap my head around the Elon Musk hate. because you don't have to, you could do one chat GPT or one Google search or whatever and see the amount of work that this guy has done, right? And the amount of value driving products and services that he like life changing, like societal, like humanity changing products that he has built.

32:46And then we're going to say that he's working with Doge to steal our money. He wants access to our financial accounts. Like that, when I hear that, when I hear that comment about him, that person has never, has never invested themselves as deeply into something as Elon Musk has, so they simply cannot relate. You just, you cannot relate if you've never given 100 % of yourself to something. And if you're out there and you have never given 100%, your next thing in life, stop listening to this podcast and go just for a month. Just do something 100 % and see how you feel. It'll change your entire viewpoint on the world.

33:30It'll change everything about it. And I just, I'm shocked at how few people have ever been willing to fully give themselves to a thing. Well, that goes back to Ryan, afraid of winning, sedating and medicating. Now it's in your phone. But here's a big point that I make with my athletes and my students and my daughter. Being passionate about something or curious about something isn't enough. So a guy like you, people would look at you and say, you know, Ryan's really passionate about coaching. And to that, I say, yes, he is. But what separates you from everybody else is you found a mission that you're obsessed with.

34:16I don't want anything to do with anybody that's not obsessed about their mission. So I don't go to lunch. I don't go to dinner. I don't go visit my sister. I don't do anything with people that aren't on a mission. And I'm way, way too far gone to spend time with beta males and gamma males who talk about the weather or talk about Elon Musk or talk about, I'm like, tell me about your mission. So obsession, my dad said to me So I walk into my dad My dad says, you know, you're interested in taking over the family insurance business And this is way back in the day, 20 years ago He said, don't you even think of buying this business Unless you're going to take this to the next level, 10x And this becomes your obsession Don't buy it if you're passionate about it Don't buy it if you're curious about it And don't buy this agency If you want to drive a nice car You better be obsessed Or before you start Do something else So number one in the nation Didn't take long because I was a man on a mission Then I walk into my dad's office five years later I said dad I'm going to take over this bankrupt Junior hockey team Nobody can win in a small community He says the only question You have to answer is Are you on a mission?