Finding Peak w/ Ryan Hanley

You are being lied to about artificial intelligence. 

The talking heads on television and the doomers in your social media feeds want you terrified. They want you scared because fear is profitable. It keeps you docile, it keeps you buying their products, and most importantly, it keeps you late.

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I help founders & executives generating more than $10M in revenue find their Easy Mode. Start here: https://ryanhanley.com/subscribe

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtube.com/ryanmhanley

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The hard data from the Federal Reserve, Stanford, and Harvard tells a completely different story. Half of America is already using these tools to build, cure, and scale. Sitting this revolution out is not a conservative strategy. It is business suicide.

In this solo episode, I break down the exact numbers that prove why optimism is the only rational path forward. We will steel man the doomer case, look at the real threat of job disruption, and explain how the most safety-focused AI minds in the world are secretly betting on massive abundance.

You do not get credit for being right about the risks if you also missed the wave.

Follow Ryan:

Website: https://ryanhanley.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/ryan_hanley

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I help founders & executives generating more than $10M in revenue find their Easy Mode. Start here: https://ryanhanley.com/subscribe

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtube.com/ryanmhanley

Everyone is racing to automate everything. Emails. Content. Customer service. Hiring. Even their thinking. And the market is already correcting for it.

36.3% of new ventures launched in 2026 are solo-founded by choice. Not because people can't find co-founders. Because they've figured out what they're built to do and wrapped an AI layer around it so nothing gets in the way.

Most founders are using AI backwards. More content, more outreach, more reports, more meetings with better summaries. More output from the same broken operating system. That's not a strategy. That's faster work slop.

I break down the three decisions AI will never make for you, the three markers that reveal your Easy Mode, and the architecture that separates founders who look like they're cheating from founders who are efficiently stuck.

Follow Ryan:

Website: https://ryanhanley.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/ryan_hanley

X: https://x.com/rhanley

This is the way.

Hanley.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I help founders & executives generating more than $10M in revenue find their Easy Mode. Start here: https://ryanhanley.com/subscribe

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtube.com/ryanmhanley

UC Berkeley tracked 200 workers who loved using AI. They did not work less. They worked more. They had fewer breaks, constant context switching, and hit full burnout in six months.

Only 8% of the time saved by AI gets reinvested back into ourselves. The other 92% is taken by our bosses or by ourselves.

We are using AI to expand our surface area instead of protecting our zone of genius. That is a leadership failure.

In this solo session, I break down why direction multiplies effort. When you are pointed in the wrong direction, AI gets you to the wrong destination faster. It exhausts you.

I share the exact three-step framework to find your Easy Mode, audit your week, and deploy AI as a protector of your zone of genius.

This is the way.

Hanley.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I help founders & executives generating more than $10M in revenue find their Easy Mode. Start here: https://ryanhanley.com/subscribe

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtube.com/ryanmhanley

I was 17 years old. Kitchen table my mom bought at a garage sale. I hand-wrote 17 letters to college baseball coaches with a message no teenager should have the nerve to send: my family is broke, whoever gives me the most money, that's where I'm going.

George Mack calls what happened at that table high agency. Three wheels: clear thinking, bias to action, disagreeability. This episode breaks down why high agency is not a trait you're born with. It's a state you access. And the fastest path to that state is what I call Easy Mode.

I also make the argument that most people are using AI backwards. They're speeding up hard mode. That's the low agency move. The real play is building an AI layer that protects your zone of genius so you can operate at full high agency by default.

Ryan Hanley is the host of Finding Peak, author of the forthcoming book Easy Mode, and founder of the PEAK coaching framework for founders and executives generating $10M+ in revenue.

If this episode connected with you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. That's the best way to support this work.

Follow Ryan:

Website: https://ryanhanley.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/ryan_hanley

This is the way.

Hanley.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I help founders & executives generating more than $10M in revenue find their Easy Mode. Start here: https://ryanhanley.com/subscribe
Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtube.com/ryanmhanley
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We are facing an epidemic of intellectual laziness. Leaders are handing over their creative output to machines. They are letting their problem-solving muscles atrophy. This is a massive mistake.
Ryan Hawk joins me to break down the real cost of outsourcing your thinking. We dig into why curiosity is the ultimate competitive advantage. We cover the brutal truth about excuses and how they soften your character. We get into why being coachable is the single most intoxicating trait a leader can possess.
If you want to build long-term success, you cannot be closed off to feedback. You need truth tellers in your corner. You need to pay the price of becoming.
Ryan Hawk is the host of The Learning Leader Show and author of The Price of Becoming. He has interviewed hundreds of the world's most brilliant minds on leadership and high performance. He is one of the sharpest thinkers I have had on this show.
Subscribe to his Mindful Mondays newsletter at learningleader.com.
Connect with Ryan Hawk:
Website: https://learningleader.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanhawk12/
Book: The Price of Becoming: https://amzn.to/4fz6nYt

Follow Ryan Hanley:
Website: https://ryanhanley.com
Instagram: https://instagram.com/ryan_hanley
X: https://x.com/ryanhanley_com

This is the way.
Hanley.

This show is part of the Unplugged Studios Network — the infrastructure layer for serious creators.
👉 Learn more at https://unpluggedstudios.fm.
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