Meet Ryan James DeLaney

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ryan James DeLaney. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ryan James below.

Hi Ryan James , appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
The definition of resilience to me is to recover quickly from difficult situations.

I believe that life is beautiful and filled with highs and lows. You can’t enjoy the highs without experiencing the lows.

Life is a roller coaster ride and what goes up must come down. In order to experience life you have to get knocked down in more ways than one.

Once you get knocked down so many times it’s up to you the individual to get back up.

I have been knocked down in many ways over and over and over again in my career and personal life. I learned to block out all the what ifs and those voices in my head telling me it’s easier to quit and basically stay knocked down.

I learned that those voices are not truth and are actually your / my driving force to prove not to others but to yourself that life is difficult but it’s up to the individual to get back up and recover.

I learned the definition of resilience through trial and error.

If at first you don’t succeed get up and try again, except the things you can’t change and CHANGE the things you can!

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I believe that film is more than just entertainment. It’s a powerful medium that can transport us to different worlds, challenge our beliefs, and inspire us to take action.

I like to approach every project with this philosophy in mind.

Hard work and dedication will never let you down.

Present Day, I am an Award Winning Film Producer based in Los Angeles, California.

My most recent films include CORSICANA, directed by Isaiah Washington, and NIGHT NIGHT, directed by Niki Koss, new to my slate is a heart felt documentary currently in post production LOUIS CHAIX A JOURNEY WITH PURPOSE.

I come from a small town just outside of St. Louis Missouri. I was not born into the entertainment industry and I have been climbing the ladder in this industry for over 10 years. I actually grew up training quarter horses so way different than what I’m currently doing now.

My thought process is to enjoy the climb because it’s my life’s journey and in a blink of an eye everything can change for the better and or for the worst.

But it’s up to us the individual on what we do with the betters and the worst.

One of my favorite words is resilience. I chose to bounce back from difficult situations with class and enjoy those difficult moments as I tell myself if you can withstand the storm you will be stronger and more intelligent than yesterday!

I have dreams that have came true and dreams that I am still to this day working towards.

But. Only I have the power to see my dreams come true and nobody can take that power away from me.

I am currently focusing on my latest project a documentary that I directed, produced and created alongside Jennifer Cox.

“Louis Chaix A Journey with Purpose”.

I have been filming Louis Chaix for over 2 years.

Louis is a survivor of Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis. A life threatening skin condition that causes peeling and blistering skin over much of the body, including the mouth, eyes, and genitals.

TEN is the most severe form of Stevens-Johnson syndrome. Both conditions are caused by a reaction to medication.

I have never heard of Louis Chaix nor have I ever heard of his rare disease.

But, I can recognize resilience and that is what intrigued me about Louis.

So, I asked him to make a 5 minute video of exactly what he was seeking especially from me and how I can help him tell his story after all that is my passion, truthful storytelling.

After it was all said and done I filmed everything from Louis highs and lows.

Louis wanted to shake his survivals guilt once and for all and inline skate across the United States!

He now currently holds the world record in just 45 days. He departed Venice Beach California on June 1st 2022 and arrived in Times Square New York City July 16th 2022.

I filmed his entire journey and Jennifer Cox and I helped him raise funds and awareness across the United States for his rare disease!

I am extremely excited to share this once in a lifetime Journey with the world!

We are anticipating post production will be finished in the next few months and the world can watch first hand the power of resilience!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
To this day, I will drink my coffee and stare out my window and daydream.

I daydream about how I had a dream and how it came true.

How did that dream come true, because where I come from my dream to work in “Hollywood” Modeling, Acting, Producing, Directing etc is a fairytale and wishful thinking.

But when I’m daydreaming I think how in the heck did I make my dreams come true?

Well I want to say easy…. But in reality it was and still is one of the hardest things I have and am doing in my life, following my dreams and perusing something that can’t be seen with the human eye until it happens.

My advice to whoever is reading this is to keep resilience alive in you.

Life is crazy, sad, beautiful, adventurous and everything else!

But it’s YOUR life, YOUR Story, YOUR reality.

Stay focused, determined and trust the domino effect.

There are no studies to my knowledge that the domino effect is a proven thing.

If you make a left turn in life the dominos will follow, if you make a right turn the dominos will follow, if you make a wrong turn the dominos will follow.

It took me a while to understand and dissect “my” domino effect theory.

I would ask myself constantly did I make the right decision? Did I take the right path? What if I did this? Or what if I did that?

The truth is nobody knows. Us individuals need to trust the Journey and if you never give up you will eventually find what you’re seeking.

Every wrong turn and right turn I believe lead me a small town guy from Fenton Missouri population of 5 thousand to where I’m at today.

Trust the process except the things you can’t change and change the things you can is my advice.

Always stay humble and kind. Say hello to that stranger standing next to you.

Stay truthful and honest with yourself and never lower your expectations and make your bed in the morning!

What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?
Do I think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?

This is a beautiful and yet challenging question for me.

I think it’s subjective on what the individual is doing / setting out to do in their life.

All in to me is a “scary” word.

I believe investing efforts in areas you aren’t as strong in will make you stronger in the end.

Investing anything in oneself is always a great idea.

If an individual knows their strengths, they absolutely should lead with their strengths know and learn from what they don’t know.

At the same time I believe it’s important to be well rounded and part of being well rounded to me means educating yourself on areas you aren’t so familiar with and would be considered a individuals “weak” areas.

The more you know the more “strengths” an individual will have at least that’s what I choose to believe.

I personally feel this way as I put my theory to the test on my latest project my documentary coming soon “Louis Chaix A Journey with Purpose”.

I am a dam good movie Producer and I know my stuff. I have never made a documentary before nor blindly filmed some one inline skating across the United States.

There were so many unknowns and as a successful movie producer I am prepared for the unknowns as much as I can be.

What I wasn’t prepared for nor did I have strength in was documentary film making, becoming not only the producer, creator and 1st time director I was driving a RV, changing bandages from injuries, mapping out the safest route to my knowledge of how to successfully get Louis across the United States and more (you gotta watch the documentary 😉).

I went All in with my strengths that I had and educated myself on the strengths I didn’t have and in the end that made me well rounded in many areas and now Louis holds the world record for inline skating across the United States in 45 days.

His only job was to skate and my job was to figure out the rest!

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