How Entrepreneurs Can Stay in Their Zone of Genius w/ Ryan Moran

You're listening to Freedom Fast Lane, presented by capitalism dot com. This is the show about building businesses and investing the profits so that you can live life on your terms. And now, your host, the future owner of the Cleveland Indians, Ryan Daniel Moran.

Hey, what's up, everybody? Ryan here. I just got off a call. It's our. It's our regular scheduled backroom call. We just recorded ours for the month, and it was so good and so much fun that I wanted to release part of it to you. We never, ever do this because it's very intimate group. We all know each other's businesses very well, and I never, ever release that stuff. But this one, I think, was particularly impactful and particularly helpful. And it was right in my zone of genius, which is a theme about staying in your zone of genius and how much money there is to be made when you're happy and when you're in that zone of genius. And so we talk a little bit about identifying that. All right. I hope you enjoy it. This was particularly fun, and I think it'll be particularly impactful for you. So enjoy, like, you know, 15, $20,000 a month. I'm being really honest, which is like a million dollars well invested.

Maybe a little bit more. And then everything else be upside, everything else be bonus. And I mean, we could talk about that all day about generating 15 to 20, $25,000 a month in passive income. We could strategize that in about an hour and a half for pretty much everybody in this group. And then the business be the thing that is all upside. The business be the thing that we just get to play in. And that was kind of the other half of this life lesson, which was how could we operate in this spot where it always felt like play? And someone said something to me at dinner. I don't know if we posted this on YouTube yet. I don't know if we caught this one, but this was a huge braingasm for me. Somebody told me the story about Jerry Seinfeld, who's a billionaire crazy comedian who's a billionaire, was talking about how when he got started, his only concern was if he could perform at a level that allowed him to be. To just have food on the table. That was just great. Like, if he could pay for dinner from performing, that to him was having had made it. And so I asked myself this question. I asked, okay, well, what for me.

What for me is the thing where I would be stoked if I could do it and just pay for dinner. Now this seems like kind of weird and esoteric. Because I love business, and I love what I do. I. But, like, what part of it do I love so much that if I just paid for dinner, I'd be happy? Because.

The hell of it all, if you will, is we're all in this because we want to be in that zone. Most of us got into this because we wanted freedom, because we wanted a better life. And to us, that means that there's maybe five things that we like doing so much that we could do that all day. And I don't mean to get into, like, what's your passion? Because I don't think that's a real thing. I don't think there's, like, one. One particular thing that everybody's wired to do. But, like, what are the things that excite us? And we all got into this because we wanted to be in that zone. And, like, for me, I don't have that one thing. Like, yes, I love to go to Cleveland Indians games, and I watch them every night, and I like to play with Esther, but I don't have, like, the passion that I love to do. I love business. But on the lifestyle side, what I decided was I just want to feel excited. Like, I just want to feel in the zone, and I want to feel excited. And if I could operate from that spot, if I paid for dinner and I had passive income paying for my life, that would be my ideal life. And that was my big braingasm from just being around all of these entrepreneurs who were not necessarily just getting started, but they came from nothing. It was just a beautiful reset of how simple life can be. And the other side of this was when you operate from that zone, like Jerry Seinfeld did. Cause he was just happy to pay for dinner. That's when you have the best shot of becoming a billionaire. Because you're operating from a spot in which you're excited, you're creative, you're jazzed. And all of us have certain things that we do in our businesses that excite us. And all of us have things in our business that we do that drain us. And we talk. I talk about this a lot and think about this a lot. But it's very rare that I get into a place that makes me go, hmm, I think I might need to reassess this in my life. And I am now.

And I'm not. I was tempted to say, I would encourage you to do this, but I don't know if I can give you the same kind of brain shift I had. But I came back and am Basically reorganizing my life and my business so that I'm in that spot. I'm in that zone as much as possible because I realize getting out of that zone isn't worth it. Like getting out of that zone to make a sale isn't worth it. Getting out of that zone to do something that's gonna, quote, work isn't worth it. Because I'm so happy and I'm so jazzed and I'm so creative and I'm so productive and I'm so purposeful and I'm so helpful and I'm so giving and I'm so.

I'm so dynamic in that zone that doing anything that takes me out of it is not worth whatever the price is. Because the best shot I have of being a billionaire and owning the Cleveland Indians or selling the next company or coming up with the next great product idea or closing the next client is going to come when I'm in that zone. And I'm going to tend to work with people. I'm going to tend to attract to the customers, attract the clients, attract the opportunities that I want if I'm operating from that zone. So any deviation from that to go make an extra sale or to do a product that I think is going to be a cool opportunity, if it takes me out of that zone, then it's not worth it. And we tend to spend so much energy and so much time in things that drain us in pursuit of the dollar, which is great, dollars are awesome. But we tend to do it thinking, well, if I do this for long enough, then I can one day go operate in my zone. And that rarely happens.

So my big takeaway was that it's not worth whatever it costs or whatever I make to get out of that zone, because the cost of not being in that zone is actually financially negative. I'm financially positive when I'm in that zone. And all of us are entrepreneurs, I think all of us are full time entrepreneurs, so we can afford to structure our lives around those exciting opportunities. On a more tactical level, there was a lot of chatter across the board about things changing in the marketplace, both in the economy and in the physical products landscape. There was a lot of chatter in Eastern Europe because there were people from all over. There's equal among the Amazon seller, among the U.S. entrepreneurs and international entrepreneurs, about reviews being harder, about new products coming to market being different. And basically all of us agreeing that the way that the game has to be played moving forward is the same way that we as a little group have been Focused on for the past, oh, I don't know, a year to 18 months, which is building the audience, being as important as anything else because it gives you the influence to be able to rank products, get reviews, make sales off of Amazon. Of that being the way that you cruise on through all of these changes, which was interesting. There was also a lot of chatter around the economy changing. It's interesting. I'm starting to see the conversation be, you know, when is the next pullback, when's the next. When is the next downward piece of the cycle coming? And that was interesting. So I definitely see people starting to get into defense mode. So if you can stay in offense mode in your business while you play defense mode in your investments and your lifestyle, that's basically the gameplay I'm playing right now is I'm going really aggressive in my business, and I am rolling everything into the business. And I am, with my lifestyle and with my investments, playing more conservative. And I am selling. I'm in sales mode on houses. I'm selling houses. I'm selling businesses. I'm selling as much as possible, keeping cash so I can invest conservatively, invest in assets that I think will benefit during down cycles or at least be protected in down cycles, while being really, really aggressive in my business. So that has been the strategy I'm playing and kind of the strategy for the mindset that I am sort of seeing. So takeaway so far. It's not worth it to deviate from your. To deviate from your zone of genius. It's not worth it to stay out of the things that excite you, meaning you'll always make more money when you're doing things that excite you versus the things that drain you. And there's a lot of interesting chatter about changes both in the economy and. And in the total marketplace. Finally, I wanted to share with you some of the cliff notes of what I shared on stage that people thought was impactful.

I have kind of a.

New type of not mindset, but like an idea that I've been sharing publicly that people have found valuable. So I'll share it with you. I'm still kind of refining the messaging behind it, but for people who don't have audiences and they're looking to build one regardless of what industry or space you're in. I have been encouraging people to adopt what I call the 110One benchmark, which is 100 raving fans, 10 personal contacts, and one influencer. One influencer being somebody who has at least 10,000 followers. And this kind of.

What I've been teaching here is if you want to release new products or you want a piece of content to go viral or you want new clients. The distribution model to me is having an audience and kind of the minimum benchmark to be able to get a product to be profitable or know that a piece of content is going to hit or to get the amount of lead flow you'll need for clients is 100 raving fans, 10 personal contacts, and an influencer. So the hundred raving fans is based off of.

Or is built by you Participating in the conversation. There's a great video by Gary Vaynerchuk called the $80 strategy, which is adding your $0.02 90 times a day and going in and participating in Twitter conversations, going and participating in Facebook conversations, participating on forums, participating on Facebook, just putting things out into the conversation. For example, my favorite thing to talk about is investing. So I've been posting a lot of content about investing, commenting on threads about investing, and lo and behold, I'm starting to get a nice little following of really successful people who are like, hey, have you looked at this investment strategy before? What do you think? And that's just super fun for me and maybe I'll monetize it one day. Maybe I'll have a workshop about generating cash flow and investing for entrepreneurs. It's something I'd love to do, I've always wanted to do. Now I'm starting to get a really cool lead flow for stuff like that. Bless you. I believe that was Justin Dyson.

So.

The idea here is to be participating in the conversation that is already happening in your space. So if it's about, you know, if you sell insurance, Sam Prentice being involved in the conversation on the economy or the stock market, or about whole life insurance or infinite banking or capital warehousing, looking for those keywords and participating in that conversation is a fast way. While also putting out your own content on those same channels is a great way to start building up those hundred raving fans. If you sell to moms, you have a list of ideas or keywords that people are talking about that you can be going in or have your social media manager going in and participating in those conversations and getting them to follow you for those first hundred raving fans. So that's the strategy for that first hundred.

When it comes to the ten personal connections. The the story that I like to tell is on one of my businesses, foxbrim, kind of our ideal demographic. We actually one of my best friends here in town. Her name is Carly. She represents kind of our Ideal customer. So sometimes we call her and ask, hey, what do you think about this? She's a personal contact, right? But we send her all kinds of free products. And if I remember, like, hey, Carly, we're doing a launch from Marula Oil. Would you post about it on Facebook? She'd be thrilled, right? It's kind of like this morning, I'm actually looking at it. It's on my desk right now. One of our students has a product called the Keto Brownie, and it's exactly what it sounds like. It's a Keto Brownie, and it's awesome, tastes great. And he sends me free stuff. He sent me a box of them this morning, and I'm eating them while I'm on the company meeting and C Money records and I make a commentary about it. I'm a personal contact for this guy. I don't get anything from talking about his product. I'm just jazzed that somebody who likes our stuff is doing cool things and is sending me stuff. So I'm a personal contact for him. If he was like, hey, will you talk about it on your next YouTube video? I'm like, dude, I already do whatever.

But if you have 10 of those people who are talking about you within your space that you personally know.

That'S enough often to move the needle on a message or a piece of content or product that you want to spread. So it's those 10 personal contacts that represent who you want to be talking about you, whose friends are also your demographic that you could call up and say, hey, look, we're doing this thing. Would you mind posting about.

So hundred raving fans from participating in the conversation and putting out your own commentary, your own two cents. Number two, the 10 personal contacts that you have. And then, oh, a good story that I told from stage that was really impactful. I have a friend who we have a ton of mutual friends. So I see a lot of our. The conversation. We're in a mastermind together. So I see a lot of the chatter of that mastermind going around on Facebook. And a friend of mine just launched his first physical product and he said very publicly, I need at least 100 customers in order to justify the spend that I'm going to put into this physical product development. So I'm pre selling 100 of these, and he got some of the customers that were his personal friends to post about it on Facebook. And. And so there's just some personal interaction going on, some personal connections talking about it. And as a result, he sold tens of thousands of dollars worth of his first product before he ever went out and developed the thing, which is really cool. So now you've got tens of thousands of dollars worth of pre orders on something because you have a few personal contacts and you've been participating in the conversation. So he has a tiny little audience is basically just his personal Facebook page. He has no email list, he has no ManyChat subscription. He just has been producing things in the conversation and now people are talking about it. And he's got tens of thousands of dollars of pre orders on something that that doesn't even have a box yet. Right. That's pretty cool.

So that's your 10 personal contacts, your hundred raving fans, then one influencer with at least a following of 10,000 people. And for me, that's going to the YouTube channels that have 20,000 subscribers, it's going to the blogs that have 30,000 monthly readers. It's going to those small to mid tier influencers that haven't hit it big yet that nobody's contacting and you sending them free stuff, offering to deliver value for their audience, offering to be on their podcast, offering, offering to feature their stuff to your audience and going for.

The first easy yes, hey, I'd love to feature your stuff on my channel. Hey, I'd love to send you some free stuff. Hey, I just did this that I know benefits your brand.

Something I did recently, I said, hey, saw that you were a part of this organization, wanted to thank you for posting about it. I just made $100 donation to them.

Or you could say I want to make a donation to them. Do you have a connection to someone at the organization? What's the easiest yes possible to open up a conversation with those influencers that you want to be a part of? If you've got 100 raving fans, 10 personal connections and one of those influencers, that is your minimum viable audience. To have launches, to have promotions, to have content go viral. That's when you are doing enough to, quote, have an audience. And that's where the scales start to tip and where you are really starting to do damage.

I love to do this stuff. This is my zone of genius. Which kind of completes the loop of why I've been thinking about all this stuff. If this is not in your zone of genius, then one of two options, one, ignore everything I just said for the last 20 minutes and just do the things that are your zone of genius. Or number two, hire somebody. Hire somebody to where it is their zone of genius to be doing this stuff. Because if Business is very simple. It's having a product and it's distributing that product. And the way you do that in 2018, until probably 2023, is building an audience or communicating that through an audience, whether that is your audience or somebody else's audience. And if you're not doing that, you're going to have a really hard time getting through the next plateau that you hit. So completing the loop. I learned this week to stay in your zone of genius because it's not worth it to come out of it in pretty much any circumstance. I learned that a lot of the chatter is on, things are changing. And number three, the way that you're going to grow through all changes in business is by having raving fans. And I think the minimum viable audience is 100 raving fans, 10 personal connections and one influencer. All right, I will take your questions on this after we talk to Mike Zagarre. Mike, go ahead and unmute yourself. Say, hey, I want to hear what's working really well in your business right now. Thanks. Was I ranting for half an hour?

Hey guys, this is Ryan. We're gonna take a quick break and we'll return to the show in a second.

Question for you. Do you sell physical products on Amazon, Shopify, Kickstarter, or click Funnels? If so, you might have heard, you might have seen, the game is changing really, really quickly. There's some price wars going on, right, Esther? There is an increased competition. Big companies are moving into the space which is making it harder for people to compete. But the people who play this game well are.

Just running away from the pack and absolutely killing it right now. For example, Esther, can you hand me, can you hand me one of these, please? Yeah, you can hand me that. Hand me that. Hand that to me, please. So, yeah, this one. So I sold a company last year. I had an eight figure exit. And the reason I sold is because I wanted to invest in other physical products, brands. For example, you might have seen Vital proteins consumable company in the protein space. They just raised money at 50 some, I think plus million dollar valuation despite being only two years old. Or this one, this is an older one. Tom's sold for $4 billion a handful of years ago. But similar companies to this native deodorant two year old company sold for $120 million. So the people who play this game well are doing really well. Which one next, Esther? This one? Yeah, we'll do Quest went from zero to $500 million in six years and similar companies are absolutely exploding right now. So if you play this game well, you're in the sweet spot to really, really do well. While everybody else is chasing the scraps and playing the trying to get reviews game and trying to stand out in a commoditized marketplace. Bulletproof just raised a bunch of money and they've gone from zero to taking over the world in just a handful of years. Or even if you just sell unbranded stuff like fitness gear. I have clients that are from zero to $5 million in a handful of years because of the power of Amazon.com this game is changing very, very quickly. So I am putting together a group of people here in Austin, Texas this August for what we're calling the Brand Builder Summit. We're putting together people who sell on Amazon, click funnels, people have sold companies or specialize in funding companies and scaling them and selling them. And we're doing a summit this August in Austin, Texas to go over what's working right now. Because if you play this game well, you'll run away from the pack. If you don't play this game well, you're going to be crushed with 80% of everybody else who is trying to play this game. So the game is changing, is changing faster than ever. And if you play your chips right, you're in a position to take advantage of some incredible opportunities if you know the right people have the right strategy and are positioned well as a company. Right, little girl? That's right. All right, we'll see you this August in Austin, Texas at the Brand Builder Summit. Yeah. So tell me, tell me what you mean by that. By.

Do you mean in terms of getting the right people to help you scale up, or was it something in the service itself that made things easier?

Yeah. And when you say it taught them the system, do you mean this, like this system to work with clients? What do you mean by the system?

Yeah, I think so. So basically, the system for helping Amazon sellers work on pay per click specifically. Now, it doesn't have to be you that has the sweet sauce, if you will. Your, your team is starting to get the sweet sauce so it can be applied so that you can be in your zone. That's how I'm hearing that.

Yeah. So, I'm sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm about to brain gas in here.

So what you just said was that you had kind of a sweet sauce. You had a system in your brain when you communicated it to a team member. Now they've got it. You can apply that to multiple people. And now it's Scalable. So you can be in your zone, even if that zone means meditating on the beach. One of my mentors, Kevin, says the biggest thing holding back entrepreneurs, particularly entrepreneurs who are at our level and is that we're too busy. And we're usually too busy because we think that whatever we're doing is unique to us. But even if our business is selling physical products.

Something in there, like there's some piece of that, that is a system that can be talked to somebody else if we don't like it, meaning if we, if we're not in, if that doesn't put us in our zone. And the question I like to ask right now is, does this activity take me out of that or does it put me into that? And we often think, well, I'm the only one who can do X. But in reality, we're just the only one who has done X. And we just need to communicate that and document that. Whether that is sales or it's the system that is working for somebody else, like applying to clients or just developing products or whatever it is. There's some piece of that sweet sauce that is a system that can be given to someone else. I apologize, Mike. I cut you off. Keep, keep dropping gold.

Yeah. And when you can operate from that spot, you realize how simple and enjoyable life can be. And when you're not in that spot, it's really easy to be operating from that mentality. That is in defense mode, that is in angry pants mode, as I would call it. I have angry pants Ryan and I have happy Ryan. And when you're in angry pants mode, everything is a burden, everything is a struggle. And when you're in the zone, everything about your business just feels like flow. Like it happens automatically.

Take us home with an outro. Hey everybody, thanks for watching. Listening to the show, I really do believe that if you stay in your zone of genius, you are a better person and you make more money. That has been the case for me. And I don't have, I don't have, like, if I could only play baseball all the time, I would be happy. I don't have a passion, right? Except maybe telling bad jokes that no one laughs at, except my 3 year old. That makes me feel like I'm funny. But anyway, see, that was a bad joke. That was a perfect example of one right there. I don't have a thing. I don't have a passion. So I don't have that thing of like, find your passion. I don't have one. I've got a feeling that I Pursue. And my feeling is that creative giving zone. And I know that to be there, the things that tend to make me feel that way are when I travel, when I'm in a new environment, when I'm having great conversations, and when I'm around people. So if I can be in that place and creating and giving, it doesn't matter what happens on the other side of it. Because if you gave me 10 million more dollars, my life doesn't change. I still want to do those things. So what's the thing in your life that if it showed up, if you had 10 million bucks, your life wouldn't change all that much? And if you can build your business to support that, you've won, that's when you've got it. Now, sometimes that is the business that you're in. But there's activities that take you out of that zone. Your job, your job is to get rid of those things so that you're always in that zone. Otherwise, things break. Like, there are things in your business that if you don't do them well, the business will break. And you've either got to focus on those because they're your zone and they make you enjoy life, or they need to be handed off to somebody else. A great example of this in my life has been there are days when at the end of a workday, I am exhausted and I just want to eat carbs. And then there are days when I am so much energy, I go to the gym and I PR.

Same amount of work. In fact, I probably worked harder on the day when I.

Go to the gym and work out afterwards. But energy is created when you're in that zone. So if you can go to the gym and pr. If you can go home and be present with your kids, those activities are the things that you need to be focused on. If you're going home at the end of the day and you're exhausted, something in that day took you off. And this is hard to believe, but there are people for whom it is their zone, and you need to go systemize that thing and give it to somebody else or just not do the freaking thing. Because if you're in that zone, there are other things that show up, create way more value than the thing that you're grinding at doing. All right. Hey, if you know somebody who's grinding too much, share this video podcast with them. Thanks for watching, listening, and I'll see you guys on the next episode.