Ryan Daniel Moran argues entrepreneurs chase money and forget the point: business should be fun. He sees money as fuel for creative work and freedom, not the goal itself. Refocus on joy and intrinsic motivation, he says, and financial reward follows.
This is supposed to be fun. Listen, I know you think you want the money. I know you think you want the stuff. But the reason you want the money and the stuff is so that you can have a great time, so that you can enjoy the next chapter a little bit more, because you're comfortable, because you're free. And there are so many of you who are listening to this, who are doing things in your business that you do not like. Now you're stuck in the making money portion of it, and you have forgotten about why you did it in the first place, which was to have a really good time. Because when you are fully locked into what you are good at doing, which is usually what you also enjoy, then things show up to reward you and sustain that. Money is the fuel that we use in order to make good work, to make change, or to make things that are enjoyable, sustainable. It's a tool, it's neutral, it's not good, and it's not bad. It is neutral energy that shows up to where it is needed. What we really want is to be expressing, or to give, or to grow, or to do the things that we find naturally motivating and exciting without the burden of it having a result. Everything that you think that you want is actually just a route for you to practice the joyous expression of whatever it is that you really want. If you just switched the focus from what you think you need to do to build the bridge to what's on the other side of the bridge, it would happen faster because you would have the fuel, you would have the energy, you would have the pull, you would have the creativity to be able to do what was right in front of you. Now you're in this to have fun. And I do believe that we're entering into a new era in which the fun and the excitement and the collaboration and the creation and the giving and the service is what becomes financially rewarding. That's your job. Because if it's creating energy, money matches it.
