How to Make This Year Not Suck

As entrepreneurs, because we are wired, we are kind of incentivized to talk about how much we're killing it. We're doing great and we don't talk about the dark stuff. And the truth of the matter is we have to worry about things like payroll and taxes and overhead. That stuff is real. And I have found that there's almost like a cause and effect when you go through this dark drudgery times. It is necessary in order to have the good stuff on the on the other end.

You're listening to Freedom Fast lane, presented by capitalism.com this is the show about building businesses and investing the profits so that you can live life on your terms.

Hey fastlaners, Ryan Daniel Moran here. Welcome to the podcast and welcome to 2018. I don't know what kind of a year 2017 was for you. I've been very public about the fact that it was a mixed bag for me. There were some strikes and gutters, ups and downs. Sometimes you eat the bar and sometimes the bar, well, it eats you. And I was fairly public about the fact that I had some personal challenges, both relationally, interpersonally, physically and with my health. And also some of the biggest wins of my life in terms of selling a business. The biggest check I've ever received, the biggest conference I've ever led. So I am probably a lot like you in the fact that there were wins and losses in 2017. But I sent an email out to my email list, the Freedom Fast Lane newsletter, a few days ago with the subject line read this if 2017 sucked. And I received more feedback from this email than possibly anything I have ever done. For those of you who are curious, if you hit reply to one of the emails that I send, yes, I do see them. I do not have time to get back to all of them, but I. I do see them. And I received more heartfelt thanks and stories than maybe any email that I have ever done. So what I would like to do is follow up with how to make 2018 suck less than 2017 did for some of you. So if 2017 kicked you in the teeth, let's fix that. Let's do what is necessary in order to set us up for the best year possible. I am certainly no expert in this, but I have become fairly competent at getting through really tough times. Life has handed me tough times and I have come up with a way through them, if you will, which fortunately or unfortunately is just a muscle. Getting through tough times is not about getting to the next win. Our brains think thrive on those quick hits. Which is why we do things like check Facebook mercilessly. We have our noses glued to our phones. We buy cryptocurrencies because we're looking for those short wins because our brain loves them. They give us a dopamine release. And a lot of I think a lot of pain comes out of the fact of thinking that it's going to be those short term wins that pull us out of the dark times. And that is not the case. Unfortunately, what pulls us out of the dark times is it's actually much simpler than looking for the the quick wins. It is a matter of laying the fertile soil for good things to happen. So I'm going to share with you what I have done in order to pull myself through the dark times. But first I'm going to read the email and the post that I sent out that received so much feedback. So here goes. This is from January 1, 2018 a few years ago, I lost everything. First, the girl that I thought I would marry broke up with me. Then I lost most of my savings due to a business deal gone wrong. I even lost my religion, literally, as I unraveled doubts about my faith, which is a harder transition than I can really describe. It was like a country song gone bad. I lost my girl, I lost my money. I lost my faith. I moved in with my best friend and lived in his basement while I picked up the pieces of my life and tried to move on. I even took a job for three months while I got my life together. When I started to get back on my feet, the girl that I was seeing ran off with my new business partner. So that relationship and that business failed. 2 I wrestled with a loss of purpose and I felt like a loser. Everything that I valued at the time was gone. It was without question the hardest year of my life. That was just five years ago. Today my life is a little bit different. I've essentially retired at 30. I love what I do and I feel so connected to my purpose, my contribution to the world, and my place in this world. Someone asked me this week what the secret to my success has been over the last few years. I paused, thought about it and I said I was fortunate to deal with a lot of pain in my 20s. It forced me to wrestle with tough questions and now I'm thankful for all that pain. That year of my life was hard. It was dark. There were times that I considered suicide and I am so thankful for it. There is zero chance that I would be where I am today if I had not gone through those Dark times. I would never have done the self discovery that was required to get to where I am now. Because today I freaking love my life. I soak the juice out of every moment. I appreciate everything and I am so thankful to live this life. The hard times, the good times, the highs and the lows, it's all part of it. So if 2017 was a hard year for you, I just want you to know that you might look back on it and say, I am so thankful for that time. That sounded impossible to me a few years ago, but it's true. I am so thankful for those hard times. For the record, 2017 was a hard year for me too. I went through physical burnout, a separation, and some really hard business challenges. It was also the most successful year of my life. I made more money than I have ever made. I grew as a business person more than I have ever grown. And The Indians won 102 games. Success often comes as the result of, or even during the hardest times. In fact, every successful person that I know had their greatest breakthroughs as the result of a lot of pain and struggle. So if 2017 sucked, get ready. You're on the verge of something great. And today is the first day of that journey. Hey, listen, there's something else I want to share with you. And it is very simply that our brains are comparison machines. So one of the things that scares me about my daughter's generation is that they have it so good that there is nothing else to compare to. There is no comparison for struggle. There is no comparison for what we have to be thankful for. I am concerned about about people who look at the world today and assume that it has always been this way. So if you have never gone through a hard time, how can you possibly be happy? I'm not sure that's the case. It's kind of like you have to understand hot in order to understand cold. You have to to know what fun is. If you're going to understand what boring is. You have to know what big is in order to experience small. Because every judgment that we make is a comparison that we make in our brains. And I tell you that because if you are going through a hard time or if last year really sucked, the fact of the matter is that I have experienced that I become happier as the result of those really dark times. Because now I have a proper comparison. Now I have something to compare it to. I fear the person who has never lost it all. I fear the person who has never gone through a long and torturous difficult time. Because when life kicks them in the teeth, they will not know how to handle it because they will think it is the end of the world. Whereas the person who came from nothing, when they accomplish anything, that is literally a brain changing moment. If you've ever gone to the third world, you might have noticed that the kids who have nothing are so happy and they are so grateful for everything. And yet here we are in first world countries and we bitch and moan and complain about shit that doesn't matter. And that is what we have become because we have it so easy. So if you had a crappy year.

You are biologically wired to be happier moving forward. Congratulations. You will look back and be thankful for this time. All right, I'll get off my philosophical high horse for a second. Let's actually talk about how to make 2018 not suck.

Hey guys, this is Ryan. We're going to take a quick break and we'll return to the show in a second. I get a lot of questions about what I think of some of Tony Robbins investment strategies, especially the ones where he talks about assets that can go up in value over time, but don't participate in any downside. I don't agree with all of Tony's investment recommendations, but I do participate in investing in insurance, which is one of the things that he's describing in that strategy. Now, I want to give you a warning. When I went into that investment strategy, I got schmoozed over by a slick salesman. And, and I wish that I had used a sophisticated firm that was actually dedicated to that. That's why I had wealthpoint on the podcast recently. And I'd encourage you to go listen to that episode about infinite banking. Now, infinite banking isn't the proper term to describe what they do. They actually use a modified version which is called capital warehousing. But what it basically allows you to do is park cash like you would put it into a bank, participate in the growth of the market without participating in any down, and you still get access to that capital so that you can put it into other investments. So if you've got money sitting on the sidelines, you might want to use capital warehousing as part of your strategy. So you can go over to gowealthpoint.com freedom to learn how the strategy works. Or you can just listen to the episode that we had with Sam Prentice from wealthpoint here on the podcast. It's called how the Rich Use Infinite Banking for Tax Free Wealth.

All right. I have experienced that a lot of entrepreneurs go through the hard times before they get to the really good times. In fact, there were a couple of people who wrote in who said, you know, they said, thank you for sharing the dark side of the journey. We don't share it enough. Truth is, I had a hard year business wise and I don't know how to talk about it. And I think this is so true as entrepreneurs because we are people, we are wired. We are kind of incentivized to talk about how much we're killing it. We're doing great, and we don't talk about the dark stuff. And the truth of the matter is we have to worry about things like payroll and taxes and overhead and is there enough sales to pay for my own life? That stuff is real. And we have chosen a harder path than what a lot of people choose in producing a livelihood for ourselves that is growth oriented. And I have found that there's almost like a cause and effect when you go through the dark, drudgery times.

It is necessary in order to have the good stuff on the other end. The biggest businesses come after the biggest failures. My heaviest lifts at the gym usually come after a failure in the gym. The most profitable businesses often are, are they emerge out of dark economic times. You know, we look at what was started in 2006 and 7. Some of those businesses have changed the world as a result of coming out of those dark times. So let's talk about how to come out of a dark time and how to set ourselves up for 2018. I would say I'm gonna give you a few things to do and I am going to give you a couple of questions to ask yourself. And then I'm gonna give you one very specific challenge. So let's start at the most impactful thing that you can do to make 2018 not sucking. Number one is journaling. I don't know where I would be if I did not regularly journal. Probably under a bridge somewhere sucking my thumb and drinking the juice out of glow sticks. That's where my life would be if I didn't journal. Now here's the thing about journaling. I am not the type to sit and write three pages and brainstorm every morning. That is not my style of journaling. My encouragement for you if you are going through a hard time is to journal when you are feeling great. Journal when you are thinking clearly. Journal when you are thinking aggressive. Journal when you are feeling how you like to feel. And here's why. If you're having more bad days than good days, but you anchor the good days and you write your Thoughts down on those days. Those are the feelings and the thoughts to trust. For example, my really dark times were like 2011 to 2013, maybe 2014. Those are some of the hardest years of my life. And what I did in order to, I remember I started in 2013, early 2013. I started the process of when I was feeling really clear and really motivated. That's when I would set goals, that's when I would journal, that's when I would make decisions. So the next day when I knew I wasn't gonna feel that way all the time, when I knew that that feeling was going to wear off, I'd write it down. And then the next day I would pull out my journal and I'd be like, you know, I am not feeling good today, I am not feeling clear headed. So I'm gonna trust the decisions that the Ryan who felt great made. Because I don't have the capacity right now to make good, clear decisions or set good goals. But thankfully feeling good Ryan already made these decisions for me and I'm gonna move ahead with that. I'm gonna go forward with that plan. And that brings me to the second part of journaling, which is I said first, journal when you are feeling good. Second, journal to keep yourself making progress, track your progress. If you work out, track your workouts, journal about those, Journal about what I would do. I don't mean to sound woo woo, but here I go. I write letters to myself from the future. I write letters to myself to the future and say thank you. Thank you future Ryan for doing this. Thank you future Ryan for making this decision. Thank you future Ryan for being bold in your decisions. And then, and then I write letters to myself from the future like Dwight Schrute would do, like some crazy person does. Or I would say, hey, look, I know you're worried about this right now. I just want you to know that it all works out. Here's what happens. First you get clear about your purpose again and then you make good decisions. Then you surround yourself with really great people and I just journal about what I did in order to get through this really dark time. The craziest thing about this, here's some weird woo woo stuff for you right now. In 2013, I wrote a letter to myself from 2016. It was March 15th of 2016, writing to myself in the past and I'm doing this in 2013. And what I wrote about.

Absolutely happened, absolutely came to pass. And I just blindly trusted the future Ryan who wrote me these letters. Now look, I understand that this is some Some crazy like this is woo woo stuff that I should probably. The only explanation for this is if I was on some sort of psychedelic while I was writing them. But the fact of the matter is this was a brain tool for me to get through hard times. When I was feeling really bad about my life, I would just read the letter from the future and say this guy tells me it's all gonna be okay. And I wouldn't lie to myself from the future, would I? So I would do these types of NLP exercises just to keep myself moving forward and to keep myself making progress. So journal when you are feeling good in order to anchor that feeling and tell yourself when you're not feeling good, what you decided. Make your decisions when you're feeling good, not when you are feeling crappy. Number two, journal to keep yourself making progress. Number two. Number one is journaling. Number two is practicing active appreciation. Listen. Appreciation, meaning practiced appreciation. Because we are not wired to appreciate, we are wired to find problems.

Appreciation is a practice, it is a muscle. And appreciation is the process of enjoying what is going well. I think appreciation, I have this theory that appreciation is the recognition of the temporary nature of things. Everything ends. Your life ends, every relationship ends, every year ends, every period with your children ends, every hard time ends, every summer ends. Everything has an end point without the end. There is no appreciation of now. Without something having an end date and the unknown end date.

Without that, it is very hard to be able to suck the life in a positive way. To squeeze as much life out of what is going on as possible. When we recognize that everything ends, that's when you appreciate. That is the practice of appreciation. The funny thing is, if you don't actively appreciate what you have, when are you done? Like when, when do you get to enjoy anything? You see, our, our brains want things. There's pleasure in wanting things when we think that we're going to get it. But when we get it, we tend to want the next thing because we are forward moving creatures. So I want that relationship. I get the relationship and then we start going, some other relationships look pretty good, or now I want to be single. If you don't pause and appreciate what is so good, when do you ever stop? I was, I'm not going to admit to you that I sometimes listen to Oprah Winfrey's podcast, but a friend of mine was telling me about an Oprah Winfrey podcast that was posted recently with a woman who lost all of her money to Bernie Madoff. And she talks about the process of every morning waking up and remembering that all of her money was gone. And instead of focusing on that, she had to pause and think about the things that she still had. That is appreciation. It's wanting what you have. It's recognizing what you do have. Because we have so much, we are so rich. If you have no dimes to rub together, you have eyes that can see, you have legs that walk, you have ears that can hear, you have the ability to process. You live in a society that allows you and encourages you to be successful. These are all things that we have that many people don't. And when you are feeling in a dark time and you are beating yourself up, who are you comparing yourself to? All right, number three, Number one was journal. Number two was a practice, active appreciation. Number three, set clear goals. What are you moving toward? What is motivating you right now? For some of you? And this was the case for me in 2012 or 2013. My goal was very simply to get up and start moving again. When I was going through a breakup, I felt like, I mean, this was the woman I was going to spend the rest of my life with. I mean, I had a date on the calendar that I was going to propose. I mean, this, I, I, I, I felt like I lost everything when I lost this relationship. And.

What I did was when I was ready to just say, I, I have to get moving again, I very simply pulled out a journal. And this was my first journal ever. And I said, I'm struggling with purpose right now, so I'm just going to make one up. And I wrote down, the purpose of my life is to get up and start moving again. And what that means is I need to get in shape, I need to shore up old income streams, I need to develop some relationships because I don't have any right now. I need to spend time with my family and I need to invest for the long term. And so every decision that came to my desk, every opportunity that came my way, I read that journal entry over and over again and said, does this fall in line with my purpose right now? And purpose changes. So I simply made a six month plan, a six month set of goals to get up and start moving again. If you are already in motion, then set goals that drive you forward. So in light of full transparency, what I'm going to do is I'm going to read you my goals for 2018 so that you can hold me accountable to these. And this is what is driving me forward in 2018. All right, here we go. And you can model your goals after this okay, my 2018 goals. By December 31, 2018, I will be 10% body fat and lift 1,000 pounds across the major lifts. That's bench press, squat and deadlift. So this has been a goal of mine for quite some time. It's taken me longer than I would like. So I'm committing to get there by December 31, 2018. And that's gonna require me to ask for help. It's going to require me to follow a plan. And if I'm gonna hit that goal, I'm very close. I just haven't gotten over the hump. So by the end of 2018, I'll be 10% body fat and £1,000 across all major lifts. I know that when I get close to this goal, I back off. So I need to blast through this and I'm gonna need some help for that. And that's why I'm saying it publicly. By March 31, 2018, I will weigh 158 pounds with 9% body fat. So I know I need to slim down a bit before I go on another bulk to get over the thousand pound club. So by the end of March of 2018, I'll be 9% body fat and I weigh 158 pounds. By December 31, 2018, I will have 100 people in the backroom Mastermind. Backroom Mastermind is where we do roll ups with companies. We help people get over the eight figure mark. We open up investment opportunities for entrepreneurs who are past seven figures. There's my little pitch. You can find more at freedomfascinating.com By December 31, 2018, there will be 2000 people in a continuity program on capitalism.com By October 31, 2018, I will host a party at my lake house with 100amazing people. I set this goal last year when I didn't have a lake house and I closed on one a few months ago and that will be renovated here in March. So I'm gonna commit to having a big housewarming party before October 31. By December 31, 2018, I will have a million dollars in my E Trade account. I'm already close, but this is important to me to close to close that million dollar mark. By 12-31-2018, I will have written a book which I am extremely proud of and I will be outlining my second. By 10-31-2018, I will have been replaced as the only content provider on capitalism.com. by 12-31-2018.

X number of clients will have put me on the board of their company as an equity partner in their business. So I wanted to publicly state those so you can model what that might look like for you. There's a date. There's something very specific that's being accomplished, and I can read that every day when I wake up and every day before I go to bed to make sure that I am very clearly on track and that the decisions that I make are moving me forward to those goals. All right? That's what I consider setting clear goals. Number four, listen to personal development tapes in your downtime. Fire up a YouTube channel that has a playlist of Jim Rohn or Tony Robbins and just hit go. Just hit play. While you are cleaning the house, while you are driving, listen to Jim Rohn talk about personal development. If you have never done this, it is a life changer because it will simply remind you of the habits and the decisions that you need to make to constantly be moving forward. All right, I'm going to give you now. So those are the four Journal, practice, active appreciation, set clear goals, and listen to personal development tapes in your downtime. That's it. That's how you make 2018. Not sucking. Now, I'm going to give you a couple of questions to ask yourself, and I am also going to give you one very specific challenge. So, first primary question, when you are faced with a difficult decision or you're faced with a problem, ask yourself this question. What will matter in 30 years? This was a question that was given to me by Dan Sullivan at one of my strategic coach workshops. I went up to Dan and I told him, dan, I'm struggling with something in my personal life and I would just be remiss if I didn't ask you how I should be thinking about this. And the question was.

I'm about to be a father.

And I don't know what to do.

This isn't how I saw my life going.

The situation that I found myself in wasn't one that I could have predicted. And I'm. I really feel like I have been thrown off my course. This is. This is throwing me. And I'm. I'm not sure how to be a good dad.

And how to manage this difficult time because I'm kind of losing sight of who I am. That was a really hard time for me to keep moving forward while also supporting a partner and learning a new role as a dad and giving up things that were important to me. I was really wrestling with that. And it's the best thing ever now. But it was hard. It was a hard adjustment. And he said.

30 years from now, how will you want to look back and say that you have handled this situation? What will be important to you? What will matter 30 years from now? Is it really going to matter that I can't go out with my friends as often? Is it really going to matter that I lost sleep for a year? Is it really going to matter that I got out of shape for six or 12 months? Will that matter in 30 years? Are the things that I hold so sacred going to matter? Whereas am I going to be proud of being active in my daughter's life when she's 30? Will I be proud of how I represented the time that I was going through? So I think about this now not just with interpersonal decisions. I think about this in investment decisions, too. Will this investment matter in 30 years? If I'm sweating over this, if I'm faced with a hard decision or a hard time, will it matter in 30 years? Will the amount that I make or lose matter in 30 years? Will this investment be relevant in 30 years? Will I be glad I made this decision to hire this person or to start this business? I once told a friend who was struggling, really, really struggling with the decision of should he go back to school? He was really wrestling with this. And I said, tell me why you're wrestling. And he's like, it's really expensive. I don't know where the money is going to come from. I'm going to be giving up a decent job. And I said, okay, let's just play this out. Let's say you went to school, you lost all your money, you got thrown out of this career, you didn't even finish the degree, so it was all a waste. Are you still glad that you went? And he said, yes.

In 30 years, I will be glad that I went. That's your answer.

So what will matter in 30 years? The second question that I'm going to invite you to ask yourself. Actually, I'm just going to give you the answer. Whatever your question is.

Whatever the challenge that you are going through, the answer is almost always who.

Not what, not how, not when, but who.

We enjoy very few things alone. We enjoy very few things that we can't tell other people about. We evaluate most experience based on who we are with. Most businesses thrive on who is involved, not what is done.

This, by the way, is why so many Amazon sellers struggle to get past about $5 million a year, because they're thinking about what and not who.

Who is the answer to most of life's toughest questions, not what do I do, but who do I do whatever I want with? Ultimately, we crave connection more than anything else. We are wired to be connected to one another.

We thrive together, we build, we grow, and we tackle things together. And there's a great quote from an Ann Berlin song that says, what's it worth if what it's worth is alone? What is it worth to pursue anything if what we're pursuing is done alone? The answer to your question is almost always who?

And number seven, this last point I want to give to you. I'm going to issue you one challenge to ensure that 20,000. 20,018. Wow, we skipped to the future. I wonder what bitcoin's at in 2018. How to make 2018 not suck. I'm going to give you one very specific challenge. Do not check your phone first thing in the morning.

If I can get you to do one thing this year, it is to do something, anything, other than checking your phone immediately upon awaking. Have a cup of coffee, go for a freaking walk, journal, hug your partner, pet the dog, listen to a podcast, watch damn TV show, play a video game, do some pushups, do anything besides checking your phone first thing in the morning. I love to check my phone first thing in the morning. I want to know what the stock market is doing. I love it that. I love it that I live in the central time zone because that means the stock market opens an hour earlier for me. I love to, I love to see what's going on first thing in the morning. But I know that as soon as I turn it off airplane mode, I'm going to be in stress response. I'm going to be worried about sales, I'm going to be worried about my emails, and the whole day is wasted the minute I check my phone first thing in the morning. So a little voice comes into my head every morning when I want to reach for the phone and it says, do you want to ruin your day?

So tomorrow. And you'll think of me tomorrow morning when you wake up and a little voice will say, when you reach for your phone, do you want to ruin your day? Listen, we are after this for a better life. And so many people, they start a business, it controls their life. And that starts with the thing you do first, which is usually pulling out your phone, checking sales to make sure that the house isn't burning down. And then you're addressing fires for the rest of the day.

I would. I'm going to issue some sort of a public challenge at some point that spurs a bit of a Movement to find anything else that you can do in the morning besides checking your phone. If you do anything else, your day will be better. I 100% guarantee or your money back. So here's how to make 2018 not suck. Journal when you are feeling good and journal to keep yourself making progress. Practice active appreciation because that's the process of enjoying what you have earned. Set clear goals. What are you moving toward? What is the purpose of your life now? Not the purpose of your the totality of your life, but what is the theme of your life right now, Even if it is simple as getting up and starting to move again. Number four, listen to personal development tapes in your downtime. Look up Jim Rohn and listen to everything he's ever said. Listen to Charlie Munger, listen to Tony Robbins, listen to Tim Ferriss every day until you are through the dark times. Number five, ask yourself the question what will matter in 30 years? Number six, the answer to your question is is who? And my one challenge number seven for you is to do anything in the morning for the first 15 to 30 minutes before you check your phone. That's how you make 2018 not suck. I hope 2017 was the best year of your life and that the best years will continue to move you forward and that 2018 is even better than last year. But regardless of what happened last year, I remember going through this process and one of the things that I was thankful for by like February or March of the following year, I remember writing it in my five minute journal. I said one of the things I'm thankful for today is the brevity of the dark times that I just went through. I went through a hard time in 2013 and when I started moving again, when I started going through this process, winter felt very brief and I'm very thankful for that. You will look back on the hardest times of your life and say that's when I grew most. That's where I where I challenge myself the most. And I'm so thankful for those times. So together, let's have a great year. Welcome to 2018. I appreciate you and I'll see you on the next episode.