Henry Ward Beecher once said, "No man can tell whether he is rich or poor by turning to his ledger. It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich according to what he is, not according to what he has." In the pages that follow you will focus on the two games that you must play to be your very best: the inside game and the outside game. Our quest for success demands that we take massive action. This is our performance, which is the outside game. You will conclude by focusing on this action, but first you must immerse yourself in understanding the inside game, the ingredients of purpose and passion that energize your outer action. Real change comes through changing behaviours; behaviours are influenced by external stimulus and internal decisions. Exploring the inside helps us understand and influence what we believe, which in turn impacts our behaviour. The pleasant irony is that as we focus on finding our inner game we positively impact our outside game.

Indeed, as our inside game develops we grow a new and better perspective as Mark Twain so humorously described: "When I was fourteen years old, my father was so ignorant I hated to have the old man around. But when I was twenty-one, I was surprised to see how much he had learned in only seven years." Emily Dickinson wrote, "Things may happen around you, and things may happen to you, but the only things that really count are the things that happen in you." Ryanwalter.com is focused on the inner energy, the heart stuff, the inside motivators that maximize our outside actions. We call this focus the Hungry Spirit.

Success in professional sports, business, and life is created through constant improvement from the inside-out. The key to life is to be proactive and not reactive. When we take responsibility for shaping our heart, our courage, our enthusiasm, our hungry spirit, our will to win is intensified. That will to win, in turn, delivers our outer victories. It's been said that you have to be a champion before you can win a championship.

Secondly, Hungry, as we will explore, is often personally influenced by the culture we are closest to. George C. Marshall said; "It is not enough to fight. It is the spirit which we bring to the fight that decides the issue. It's morale that wins the victory." That spirit, that morale that wins, is what we call the Hungry spirit!

I am convinced that every person alive today is hungry at some level. The hungry spirit for some may be injured or suffering. For others it's full and firing on all cylinders.

My hope is that as we work with you and your team, we will inspire your hungry spirit to its highest level, and by doing so increase your impact on a world desperately in need of your very best!