Two Years Later And A New Heart First Vision

Two years ago we stopped recording because we didn’t want to “check a box” or grab random topics just to stay consistent. Then we spent that time building: new leadership and athlete programs, new coaching systems, a certification pathway, and a practical culture framework we’ve been testing in business, on teams, and at home. Now we’re back with a new studio setup, a sharper message, and a bigger mission to share what’s working and what we’re still learning.

The heartbeat of the conversation is a simple idea with huge implications: you are the environment. As a leader, parent, coach, or teammate, your nervous system sets the tone. When you can regulate first, you create psychological safety and a climate where people take healthy risks, learn faster, and grow on purpose. We talk through our “performance ecosystem” approach that starts with self-leadership, expands into culture building, then gets supported by systems and communication protocols that keep standards, trust, and role clarity from drifting.

We also get into the credibility piece. We ran brain mapping before and after training and saw objective changes in brainwave activity that matched the transformations people were reporting. That includes attention control, focus, and the ability to shift out of unhelpful stress patterns, all built through consistent practice and iteration. If you want to create an environment of growth inside yourself and around you, this is the relaunch that sets the foundation.

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Website: CompeteHeartFirst.com

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Transcript

Ryan 0:17

Well, here we go. We're back.

Heidi 0:19

We're back.

Ryan 0:21

In action. It's been two years. Can you believe that?

Heidi 0:25

That's crazy. It feels like it was like yesterday that we were recording the podcast, but a lot has happened. A lot's happened.

Ryan 0:32

Time is creepy. So we're gonna do a little bit shorter. We'll see how long it takes, actually. But uh an update. Uh we're back, we're we're rolling with a bit of a new theme, uh, new name, kinda, sorta. All kinds of things have been happening. So we're gonna update you, uh, not get any particular topic today. Um, but yeah, we're just we're just excited to be back on the mic. We have a whole new setup. We actually have a studio. We we got professional lights and camera and recording equipment, and we're gonna be posting these on YouTube. Uh so we're we're upgrading. It's a legit operation. Yeah, it's a legit thing. We're at we're actually doing it. So we are uh and just trying to upgrade our how we operate. And um, so let's let's do a little just let's do a little catching up. Let's get to this moment. What have you been doing? What have we been doing for two years? Why haven't we been recording a podcast? What has been going on?

Heidi 1:27

We have been working behind the scenes, creating a ton of content. It's creepy, a ton, like so a crazy amount of content.

Ryan 1:37

So two years ago, the entire podcast, I'll give you a little bit of history. If you're someone who's either new or been listening to the podcast for a while, we have 99 episodes that have been posted before this one. The name changed a few times. It was started with just me doing like interview styles uh with like my mentors and our solo cast. You then came on. We did different things, we did book uh studies, 15 Commitments of conscious leadership.

Heidi 2:01

Yeah, yeah.

Ryan 2:02

Fantastic book, by the way. Go get it. Um, and then we just kind of realized that there was a lot of uh opportunity on the table for us to develop new content. Everything in the first 99 episodes, not everything, the majority of those episodes was was driven from our kind of partner, not partner, parent, uh program that we call Integrated Mindset, 10-week course that we take leaders through, either one-on-one and in groups by corporate, whatever. And I was being nudged, pulled uh back into athletic environments. So we created an entire course for athletes that we take them through one-on-one, created, then started working with teams, uh collegiately, obviously club, high school. We now have, I don't know, it was seven or eight different programs that we work with as a as a as a corporate, as a team, as a as a company. We started to bring on coaches because we realized that there was more than you and I could handle coming in. So we had to really go from like, oh, well, I can just deliver it because it's my content, to we had to create systems and processes and protocols and all kinds of things that would make it to where we would we developed a certification.

Heidi 3:25

Yeah.

Ryan 3:25

I mean, I'm gonna I'm gonna probably forget about some of the stuff that we've been doing. But what led us to this is is is through that process of going from basically having the one program and being able to do coaching off of that, we've completely um expanded our product suite.

Heidi 3:46

I was just gonna say we've blown up the product suite because there are a lot of courses that are not even publicly available that people don't even know about that have been created in our our time and a place for the part of it.

Ryan 3:59

Yeah. Oh boy, you just always set me down a rabbit hole. I'm starting thinking the one that I'm actually writing another one right now, but it's more of a passion project, and I'm just super excited about it.

Heidi 4:11

That's awesome.

Ryan 4:12

It has to do with uh training, the breath, the mind, the body all at once. I'll do a podcast on it.

Heidi 4:20

Oh, another thing that we did in that time in between is we did some brain mapping.

Ryan 4:26

Oh, forgot about the brain mapping.

Brain Mapping And Proof It Works

Heidi 4:29

So we did some brain mapping on our clients as they went through the integrated program and ourselves, and we got some some great uh case studies and proof of concept on you know what we could already see subjectively. We could see the the change in the subjective experience, but we actually now have the data showing the changes in the brain and the brainwave activity that has taken place with the transformation of going through our integrated mindset program. So that was really cool.

Ryan 5:00

So passionate about that, it's kind of become a little bit in the background, but we got a certification, obviously, our neuro mindset uh certification through Stephanie Fay, neuromindset um, or she's a neuroscience specialist.

Heidi 5:14

She has a fantastic, I'm gonna give a little plug for her podcast, the Mindset Neuroscience Podcast. If you like to geek out about neuroscience and and want to learn all about the brain and body and mind connection, check her out.

Ryan 5:26

Yeah, she got a book out too. Yeah, I'll I'll have to pull it out another time.

Heidi 5:31

And that's on another level because it's textbook level.

Ryan 5:34

Yeah, if you like textbooks, I love textbooks, so I love it. Anyway, so yeah, I want to reverbalize what you just said because so cool. We were able to take and do actual an image of people's brainwave activity before integrated mindset and our athlete program. And then three, four, five, six months later, depending on kind of the case study, we would then do another um brain map scanning, right? And we're able to not only see people experiencing these incredible transformations, um, you know, getting off of certain medications and all kinds of things were happening. But and our neuroscience specialists would help us read. Well, we can't read them, we just get the test, we hook them up to our heads. And you and I did it, and we did with our clients with a handful. I don't know how many.

Heidi 6:27

We did the mechanical side of it. She did the actual analyzing of the brain.

Ryan 6:31

So she we would get on calls with her, and she would was just fascinated by how much people's brains were changing. I wanted to do that for some confirmation, a little bit of, you know, just some credibility and some confidence that what we were doing was working. We knew it was subjectively, but objectively, I wanted that data. You can find that on our case studies on our website if you're curious about kind of looking at some of that, some of that information.

Heidi 6:54

So many reviews from people going through that program that were telling us about their subjective experience. My life has changed, my perspective.

Ryan 7:01

I'm a science guy. I want I wanted objective, hard data. Like look at the brain has changed how it is wiring and firing, the brain activity, the brain states. You know, you can see that you're more relaxed because you're experiencing more alpha rather than high beta or low beta. And so anyway, that was super exciting. What else?

Heidi 7:20

So we created corrections all across the the board though, because for some people, they were actually um not getting into like more of a focused mode. Oh, yeah. So we saw that that balancing out too. So it wasn't just like you're in high beta and and go, go, go, and you need to move into alpha and have a little more relaxed concentration. I mean, we saw people going both directions, which is really cool.

Ryan 7:47

Yeah. The the so we're not gonna go to I we weren't gonna do brain mapping on this conversation at all until you brought it up. But here's the here's a simple piece. Like, who do you want to be? Right? Like, how do you want to experience your your brain is just an organ?

Heidi 8:02

That's right.

Ryan 8:03

And you can change how it wires and fires. I know you've heard that, you know, maybe Dr. Joe Dispenza has said that, and you've heard that, but you can change the activity of the brain as well, not just how it wires and fires, but like if you're someone who struggles to focus, and we had somebody who was that was their main thing, ADHD, they wanted to get better attention control is the mental skill. And so we were able to really tailor the content and the focus of the program to that ability to stay focused, single point focused, attention control, all the breath practices, all the mindfulness practices. We're building that mental skill, and you could see it in the brain. That's so cool. Oh, so cool. Three, four months.

Heidi 8:49

Anyway, that's one thing we did. That's one thing we did.

Culture Building And Communication Systems

Ryan 8:51

So we so let's recap. Uh started doing stuff with athletes one-on-one. Started working with teams as a whole and working on mental health, working on mental toughness, working on culture development. So then I write it, I wrote, I write it. I'm excited. I wrote, um, we don't edit our podcast, by the way. I wrote an entire document on how to build culture. Yeah, and we've been testing it on our family, we've been testing it on environments, we have been testing it on our own painting company, and it's been phenomenal. Um, of what has come out of that, everything from identity to mission, vision statements to standards and accountability and communication. We one of the coaches that we brought on was a communication expert. And uh, so we have learned a ton about communication, and we've tailored all of our a lot of our content for conflict resolution.

Heidi 9:50

Yeah. Started doing some speaking and teaching to businesses, uh keynoting at conferences, all kinds of stuff that has been.

Ryan 9:59

So all of that on the back end been doing an insane amount of content creation and testing of content. I love to test stuff, I love to make myself an experiment, our environment an experiment. And so uh that has led us to doing a little bit more corporate stuff. And um, yeah, so here we are. I mean, that's a really kind of fast screenshot, but what else?

Heidi 10:21

Uh, we're starting another cohort of our coaching certification right now, so that's kind of running in the background. Uh just excited to have these conversations again, just to dive into the things that we're passionate about teaching and and share real life examples and experience.

The Core Theme You Are Environment

Ryan 10:41

So let let let's let's just real fast hit like the the the theme behind all of the content that we create. And then maybe we'll do and let's just see where it goes. So the theme is this. And and right now, this is the name of a book that I'm working on. I'm not gonna stick to this name. I just like to have some sort of a name and subtitle so I know like the thread of the theme that I'm working on developing in my mind as I'm writing, as I'm creating.

Heidi 11:11

We cannot promise you that we'll stick with any name because we're one thing we're committed to is evolving. Yeah. So it's always gonna change.

Ryan 11:19

But the idea is you are the environment. You, your nervous system creates your environment, creates the experience of your environment, especially as a leader. So the idea, like we have to have first this self-leadership ability to regulate, right, before we communicate, state before skill is another way we we determine that. So we've created a whole system, right? What we call a performance ecosystem of self-leadership, culture building, then systems, structure for that culture to thrive, and then execution basically becomes the outcomes results, execution becomes automatic, spontaneous, right? And we create a communication protocol with feedback loops to make sure that that's being upheld, that standards are being upheld, um, that the culture is being upheld, that the trust and the role clarity is being upheld. All of those components. Um, so that's what we've been developing. And that's uh that's the theme of Heart First is you are the environment, which basically means the safer that you're able to make yourself feel more psychological safety, the more you're able to make your brain feel safe independently, your individual consciousness, yourself, then the safer your environment feels to learn, to grow, to explore, to take risks, to make mistakes, trying to create environments of growth.

Heidi 12:57

So that could be that could be on a sports team, that could be in a business, and that could be as we've been experimenting with and testing, that could be on our family.

Ryan 13:07

And when I say experimenting and testing, just so you guys know, we are it is not perfect. And we're constantly learning and growing. And uh, and that's why, you know, even the name, the brand, the podcast, the whatever, these things are constantly changing because we're constantly changing and we're constantly trying new things out and trying them on.

Heidi 13:26

And and uh that's a principle of growth from your first book.

Why We Paused And Relaunched

Ryan 13:30

Yeah, try it on it. Try it on. Yeah, put on the put on the jacket, see if you like how it fits. Do you like what the pockets are? You know, the arms are a little bit short. Um, let's try on a different one then. And so um, you know, doing that with beliefs, doing that with concepts, doing that with practices, doing that with principles, doing that with with all of these types of things that we've been doing the last couple years. So now here we are. We're here.

Heidi 13:52

Yeah.

Ryan 13:52

And it's time to begin the process of sharing. So I guess I would think back to two years ago when we stopped recording. I began to feel like I was kind of grab-bagging a little bit for topics. And and and I don't know if I was, but wasn't it as intentional as you wanted to say? Yeah, I didn't I just I wanted to be more structured and intentional and thought out and thoughtful and impactful. And so we paused it because I didn't want to check a box.

Heidi 14:21

This is the balance though for us is that like you said, we don't edit, we don't script, but we have intentionality behind what we're doing.

Ryan 14:33

Yeah, we have an idea of what we want to get out of it or what we want to give to it, what we want to contribute to the moment.

Heidi 14:39

What we get out of it is it's just a great connection and fun having these conversations. Yeah, completely honest with you.

Ryan 14:46

Selfishly, we just love doing this together, and it gives us something that connect around and and uh look forward to every week is probably our favorite part of the week is recording podcasts together. So we're back. Here we are.

Heidi 14:57

We're back, baby.

Ryan 14:58

So that's what we've been doing the last couple years, and an insane amount of content. And I don't know if I'll ever stop creating content, uh, but I do know that the product suite that I envisioned five years ago, seven years ago, when I really started to kind of form this entire thing that we now have rolling. Uh the course that I'm right now working on is the final piece of what I had in mind. So anything beyond that course that I'm working on right now that has to do with the the movement part of training the mind and the body and how to integrate all those things is called integrated training, is what I call it. Um I'm not sure what will come after that, but um maybe something. So we're here to share. We're here to share what we've created the last couple of years. We're here to share uh and and to test out what what we're testing, what's working, where we're falling short, where we're making mistakes to help you guys create your ideal environment that you want to create. It's never going to be ideal. But that's what we're striving for. We're striving for progress in the pursuit.

Heidi 16:32

Um one thing that we learned in all of our study of neuroscience is that iterating is really important.

Ryan 16:38

It's the only way to make your brain feel safe from failure is constant iteration.

unknown 16:47

Yeah.

Heidi 16:47

Yeah. So that's one thing we're committed to. That's why I said don't count on anything actually being the same today, tomorrow as it is today, because we are committed to evolution and and iteration.

Ryan 17:01

Change, change, changing, growth, reinvention. It's what the universe is always doing, it's always expanding, it's always growing. So if you aren't growing, then what's the same?

Heidi 17:10

You ain't growing, you dying.

Send Questions And Topic Requests

Ryan 17:11

Anyway, no staying the same. Yeah, yeah. So that's it. We're we're back. We're excited to be back. You know, and here what I would here's my request. We do have an entire like series of of content, of topics that I have in mind uh that I would like to, that I would like to share, um, that I would like to discuss with you, that I'd like to get out of my head. Because this is actually how I do a lot of my creative work, is I talk it out first, and then I put it on paper, and then I form it, and then I go test it in a workshop style, and then I come back and I refine it, and then whatever, right? So that's how I do a lot of that creative work. So this podcast, again, kind of selfishly, is uh is is being relaunched for me to have a platform to kind of force myself to process certain things, to get more clear about things, to refine certain thought threads and different things. So we're excited. But here's my request if there's something that you're interested in when it comes to creating environments of growth, culture, uh environment of growth within yourself, right? You want to become something, you you're going through a transition of any kind in life, you want to build something. Like I would love to hear your questions. I would love for you to give some requests of like topics.

Heidi 18:44

I forgot to tell you this, but they can text us through the podcast. Yeah, there's a link in the show notes. And and if you're listening and you're hearing what Ryan's saying is the request, text us. We have a a private.

Ryan 18:57

Where does it come to?

Heidi 18:57

It's through our podcast platform.

Ryan 18:59

So it comes to Buzz Sprout.

Heidi 19:01

Yeah, it comes to us there, and then we can respond to those and we can address things, questions that you have anonymously here on the show. Uh so yeah, let's open up the dialogue. We'd love to hear from you. Like, you know, what are you working on and where can we support you in the content that we're creating here too? So I for I completely forgot to tell you that I set that up.

Ryan 19:24

So I'm I'm the visionary and Heidi's the integrator, so she integrates things that doesn't even tell me about them. But that's cool. So text us somehow or email or whatever you do, however way you can try to contact. I mean, we we're Instagram, reach out to us on Instagram, uh, message us. I'm curious about X when it comes to building an environment within yourself that can create something new, that can bring something to life that doesn't exist, that can show up in a different way for your relationships.

Heidi 19:54

Yeah. We have a ton of coaches that follow us on Instagram at Heartfirst Leadership. And I'm sure that there's probably questions about creating an environment of growth when it comes to their teams as well.

Parenting Teams And The Attention War

Ryan 20:07

Culture has become a passion of mine. And uh and I always knew it was, I just didn't it was just something I thought just happened, and and now I realize like, oh there's a recipe. There's a recipe to it. It's really and it's really quite simple. As long as you have the system, you have the structure to it, and you have the right the right voices that are helping you to create that piece. And and I think it's more important than ever, right? Yeah. That for all the reasons, whether you're a collegiate um environment and there's more turnover, obviously, because of the portal and different things like that are happening. Or, you know, there's just you feel like there's a more of a need for retention in your business, and you want stronger retention because you're the the turnover there is is a struggle, or you just feel like I've felt like this a couple small moments of this once in a while, just because the amount of what we call it, distraction out in the world, like it's be it's really easy to to start to feel like you're losing your kids.

Heidi 21:10

Yeah, there's a lot of information, there's a lot of influence.

Ryan 21:14

Just yeah, that is just not pure, right? And I'm all and I'm okay with their, you know, a little bit.

Heidi 21:19

Yeah, we live in the real world. I mean, we're not trying to shelter to that degree.

Ryan 21:23

But how do you create the type of environment where your kids can thrive, be themselves, be courageous enough to be themselves, and and not be influenced by the world, which makes me think of like why I'm so passionate about training the mind and understanding the mind. Like it legitimately just lights me up. Um because if you're not intentionally creating you, if you're not intentionally creating your environment, if you're not intentionally training your mind, you're leaving it to chance. And the world is training it. Your environment is training you. And and I want to create the type of of structure and systems and environments where people know. Like I know how to train my mind, I know how to help my environment train their minds, and therefore I know how to create the type of culture where everybody's growing and they're really truly deciding for themselves, yeah, like who they're going to be, how they're going to operate, and they're not right. The word is I was gonna use the word victim, but they're not victim to their circumstances, right? Right. And um yeah.

Heidi 22:39

Yeah, it's powerful. I mean, that's how the next generation of leaders will come up in the world, whether it's their coach, uh their coach in the sport that they participate in, or their parent, or an employer. All of these people are creating environments of growth that are going to impact the next generation and how they show up in the world. So it's really important. And I just appreciate everyone being here, you know, you listening for tuning in. And obviously that's something that's important to you if you're a person listening to this podcast. You want to create a positive environment of growth for yourself and for others around you. And it's gonna take more of us to make a change.

Curiosity Experiments And Closing

Ryan 23:21

Well, and final thread as you were saying that is we're just on this mission to explore, to make ourselves a test subject, an experiment, which you know I'm I love doing. It's like I'm gonna just see what this does to me, uh, whether it be cold exposure or whatever. Like, I just love to see what it does to me, right? I'm on a I'm on a new kick right now. And I mean, little personal information. I have struggled to sleep my entire life. Okay, very busy mind, very, which I have now realized it's just very creative. It's always working, and I've learned to not judge that, but I've tried and I'm doing something new from a routine perspective, a training perspective, a lot of new little nuances. Uh, this week, different nutritional kind of disciplines, and I'm sleeping.

Heidi 24:15

Watch out, world.

Ryan 24:17

I'm sleeping for the first time since I was 18 years old. Like consistently the last couple of days, like, you know, stacking days of sleep. Let's go. So I love making myself an experiment, and I would love uh, and so we're just gonna stay in that mode. We're gonna stay in this mode of being curious about what we don't know, being more curious about what we don't know than what we think we do know. Like that's heart first.

Heidi 24:45

Yep.

Ryan 24:45

And and making ourselves an experiment and exploring and staying open and staying curious and and growing, because whether you're talking about being an athlete, corporate leader, or whatever, like growth is the most important thing that you can create for yourself in your environment. And that's heart first leadership. That's all I got for today. And we're gonna just have a blast. So thank you for being here, and we're excited to be back.

Heidi 25:12

Yeah, thanks for being here. We'll see you next time.