Ryan Fish stood at a crossroads in April 2020, wrestling with a question no business leader wants to face: Should he file for bankruptcy and shut down a 60-year-old company, putting 150 families out of work? It was one of those days he describes as beyond difficult—the kind where you think, “I literally can’t do this.”
Yet Fish did handle it. And in the years since, he’s built a philosophy around that experience that’s resonating with corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, and organizations nationwide. His message isn’t about toxic positivity or pretending challenges don’t exist. Instead, it’s about a fundamental truth he’s discovered through building businesses, raising four children, and navigating personal crises: life will always contain difficulty, but we have agency over which difficulties we face.
This isn’t theoretical advice. Fish learned this principle during some of the darkest moments of his life. These weren’t abstract business challenges or minor setbacks—they were the kind of experiences that test whether someone will move forward or shut down entirely.
What Fish realized through these experiences forms the core of his keynote presentation, “Choosing Hard.” The insight is deceptively simple yet profoundly practical: every meaningful path involves difficulty, so the real question isn’t how to avoid hard things but which hard things serve your goals.
The Framework That Changes Decision-Making
Fish presents his audiences with a series of stark comparisons that reframe how they think about challenges. Marriage requires effort and vulnerability—but so does divorce. Maintaining physical fitness demands discipline and discomfort—but so does living with obesity. Financial discipline means delaying gratification—but so does living in debt. Communicating openly feels risky—but so does the isolation of silence.
In each case, difficulty exists on both sides of the equation. The difference lies in which difficulty moves you toward the life you want versus which difficulty moves you away from it.
“When you can do hard things, it’s empowering,” Fish shares, recalling advice he received during a grueling eight-hour mountain hike with his daughter. “But when you choose to do hard things, you become unstoppable.”
From Victim to Agent
The distinction Fish draws matters because it fundamentally changes how people relate to challenges. When difficulty feels imposed from outside, people naturally adopt a victim mentality—they’re subject to forces beyond their control. But when they recognize they’re already dealing with hard things and can redirect that effort toward chosen goals, they reclaim agency.
This shift has practical implications for leadership and organizational culture. Fish has delivered this message to corporate teams, business owners, youth groups, and college students. The consistent response—standing ovations and messages like “This finally gave me the courage to do something hard I’ve been avoiding”—suggests he’s addressing something people intuitively understand but rarely articulate.
Building Resilience Before Crisis Arrives
One of Fish’s central questions is whether we can prepare people for their hardest days before those days arrive. His experience suggests the answer is yes—not by eliminating difficulty but by changing how people think about it in advance.
During that mountain hike with his daughter, exhaustion and frustration led her to throw up her hands and declare she was done. But a chance conversation with another hiker reframed the entire experience. The man explained that he runs up mountains because it proves to himself that if he can do that, he can handle almost anything else life throws at him.
This is the practical application of Fish’s philosophy: deliberately choosing difficulty in controlled environments builds the psychological muscles needed when uncontrolled difficulty inevitably arrives.
The Business Case for Choosing Hard
For business leaders and entrepreneurs, Fish’s message addresses a common pattern: avoiding difficult conversations, delaying tough decisions, or hoping problems will resolve themselves. These avoidance strategies feel easier in the moment but accumulate into harder problems later.
Fish faced this directly when considering whether to shut down his company. Continuing meant daily stress, difficult decisions, and uncertain outcomes. But closing meant immediate certainty at the cost of his legacy and the livelihoods of 150 families. Both paths were hard—but only one aligned with his values and long-term vision.
His framework helps leaders recognize they’re not choosing between hard and easy—they’re choosing between different versions of hard. That recognition often clarifies decisions that previously felt paralyzing.
A New Relationship With Difficulty
Fish’s hardest days—facing potential bankruptcy, navigating the end of a 15-year marriage—aren’t fundamentally different from the hardest days most people face. Everyone encounters moments that test their capacity and challenge their sense of what they can handle.
The difference lies in how those experiences are processed. Fish argues that when people learn they can handle hard things and, more importantly, choose hard things intentionally, they stop feeling like victims of circumstance. They start seeing themselves as active participants in shaping their lives.
This isn’t about motivation that fades when circumstances change. It’s about a fundamental reorientation toward difficulty that persists because it’s based on accepting reality rather than fighting it. Life will include hard things. The only variable is whether those hard things are chosen with intention or accepted by default.
For audiences who’ve heard Fish speak, the takeaway isn’t just inspiration—it’s a practical tool for navigating everything from career transitions to personal relationships to daily decisions. By recognizing that hard exists on both sides of every meaningful choice, they can stop wasting energy trying to find the easy path and start investing that energy in choosing the hard that matters.
