[Opening Music Fade In]
The Frame
Every so often, I return to a question that guides much of my work:How do we live well—right now?
Through The Bill Ryan ecosystem, I explore different ways of seeing the world. Each is what I call a lens—a frame through which I examine life, work, and meaning.
Some lenses focus on why—the deeper purpose behind what drives us (Fix Your Why).Others focus on how—the craftsmanship and alignment that build a rich life (Building the Rich Life, The High-Performance Home).
But this lens—LiveForward—is about when.It’s about now.
BILL:You know, there’s a line Frank Sinatra sang that’s always stayed with me.“Mistakes… I’ve made a few.”
And every time I hear it, I smile—because it’s honest. There’s no pretense in it. No illusion that life is neat, or that we always get it right. It’s a statement from someone who’s lived—really lived.
And at sixty-five, I can say the same: mistakes, I’ve made a few. More than a few, if I’m being honest.
But what I’ve learned is that the goal isn’t to avoid mistakes—it’s to stop letting them define you.That, to me, is what it means to LiveForward.
BILL:So what is LiveForward?
It’s not a brand, or a tagline. It’s a mindset—a way of seeing the world that reminds me to live in the moment.To forget the mistakes of my past, but not the lessons they taught me.
LiveForward is my reminder that the past is information, not identity.That regret is a teacher, not a sentence.That forgiveness—especially self-forgiveness—is a form of freedom.
When I started thinking about this idea, it wasn’t as a coach or a writer. It was as a man looking in the mirror—someone who’s built things, lost things, loved deeply, and still found himself holding on to moments he wished he could rewrite.
But you can’t rewrite the past.You can only reframe it.
BILL:Let me share something personal.
Years ago, I made a business decision that didn’t go the way I’d hoped. It cost me more than money—it cost me trust. I replayed that moment for years, thinking, if only I’d done this differently…
But looking back now, I realize that decision—however flawed—was the beginning of a much bigger lesson.It forced me to ask: what really drives my choices—fear or conviction?
That’s the essence of Living Forward.It’s not pretending the past didn’t happen.It’s choosing to take responsibility for it—and then, to move.
BILL:Here’s another story.
There was a time in my personal life when pride got in the way.I thought being right was the same as being strong.Turns out, it’s not.
Strength isn’t about being right.It’s about being open. About being willing to say, I see it differently now.
“I don’t want to go to work for an asshole.” - Trax
That’s when LiveForward became more than a phrase—it became a practice.Because every day we’re faced with the same choice:We can live backward—reliving our regrets—or we can live forward, learning from them.
BILL:Here’s how I see it.To live forward is to accept that life is not a straight line.
It’s presence over perfection.Direction over regret.Forgiveness over shame.
Marcus Aurelius wrote, “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it.”The Stoics understood something profound: we can’t control the past, but we can control the story we tell about it.
And maybe that’s the real power—learning to tell a kinder story about yourself.
BILL:So, here’s something to think about this week.
What mistake are you still carrying?What story about that moment have you been repeating?
Now—what would it feel like to set it down?To look at it as a teacher, not a punishment?
Just take a breath, and ask yourself:“What did that mistake make possible that I couldn’t see then?”
That’s how you LiveForward.
[Closing Reflection]
BILL:I’ll close where I began—with Sinatra.“Mistakes, I’ve made a few…”
We all have.
But that’s not the end of the story—it’s the middle.
We live. We learn. We move forward.
Not because we’ve perfected the past,but because we’ve finally chosen not to live in it.
Thanks for joining me today.
I’m Bill Ryan, and this is LiveForward—a mindset, a reminder, and a way to live each day with a little more grace.
