Ryan Daniel Moran records a short, vulnerable monologue describing a period of depression, panic, and loss of purpose despite professional success. He traces part of his anxiety to intentionally "blowing up" and rebuilding his following, cites Habits of a Happy Brain to explain the brain's cortisol/dopamine response to change, and reminds himself (and viewers) that freedom often follows chaos. He also emphasizes the value of journaling and recorded reminders to recover clear thinking, and closes by noting unconditional love for others contrasted with harsh self-criticism.
Chapters
Somebody told me that I should share this, even though I don't want to.
So I don't have a whole lot for you in this video, except maybe permission to feel however you feel.
I don't have it today. Life feels really hard today.
Hey, cardboard cutout Ryan. Life feels very heavy. Entrepreneurship feels very difficult. I woke up today.
Super depressed, and.
I've been very anxious the last three days in a almost panicky sense, like the world is crumbling, and I have not been able to pinpoint why. I haven't been able to pinpoint my trigger. There's a lot of things going on, one of them being that I basically have decided to blow up my following and rebuild it. And.
It'S exciting, and now I'm panicking about it. And there's two things that I've. It's. As I'm recording this, It's. It's like 7 o' clock at night and I'm at the office. I actually just got to the office, and.
I'm only now kind of getting back into, like, a good mental spot. And there were two insights that got me there. So I'm making this so you can use them. Number one, it came from a book that I just love that I'm reading right now called Habits of a Happy Brain by Loretta Bruning. And it basically argues, I mean, analyzes everything through a biological hormonal perspective. And the brain releases cortisol when it thinks something is wrong. And one of the things that is wrong is when you're doing things differently. Anything different? Well, it can do two things. It can provide dopamine. Ooh, distraction. Or it can provide cortisol, which is fear, anxiety, stress, worry. Anything that is different is going to trigger that. And I'm having both of them. I decided to do things differently because I wasn't getting the results that I wanted. So with us doing things differently, at first I'm like, oh, this is gonna be great. It's exciting. And now I'm panicking, like, what am I doing? What am I giving up? What have I. Why did I decide this? Why do I not. Why do I. Why am I vulnerable on the Internet? How is this going to.
Challenge me later? And.
I'm frustrated because I feel like I've worked so hard for so long and I'm not where I want to be. And I'm not enjoying the process right now. But as soon as I jumped into it, I started enjoying it again. And that leads me to the second thing that I took away, which was from myself, which sounds really egotistical. But there's a reason I journal and there's a reason I record myself when I'm in a really good spot. And it's so I can remind myself of what I thought and how I felt when I was in a good spot rather than a bad spot. I read my journal more than I write my journal and I write letters to myself and I write how I'm feeling about certain things. Because when I'm in a clear decision making spot, that's when I wanna document it for my future self who will come back and be like, what did I decide? Oh, clear thinking. Ryan decided to do this. But what? I recorded a podcast episode for my new show which is coming and I talked about how freedom usually lives on the other side of chaos. Freedom comes from burning old structures and systems to the ground. Freedom comes from that. Freedom isn't something that we build over time. It usually comes on the other side of destruction. Think about how the United States was formed. We rebelled, we burned it to the ground. We wanted a new way and we burnt it and we built it. Most people, most entrepreneurs will say that their biggest financial wins came after their biggest setbacks. Freedom and freedom to find the relationship you want only comes down, only comes from burning the old one to the ground. That doesn't always mean getting them all, getting all new stuff. Sometimes that means burning the expectations you had around a relationship or business to the ground and rebuilding it. That's what I'm doing in a couple areas of my life.
Today. I'm not happy with a lot of things. I'm not happy with.
My lifestyle, I'm not happy with my business, I'm not happy with my body. I'm not happy with the way I feel. And I'm changing a lot. And so part of my brain is going to be, is going to say, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong. I'm afraid, I'm afraid. Keep it the same. Don't change the system. You need to survive. And I know that freedom lives on the other side of chaos.
And you have to be willing to go through the chaos because most people aren't. That's why most people stay stuck. It's why most people stop.
It's like your brain says, I want to be safe, keep me safe. Don't do this to me. Release cortisol.
And I want what's on the other side of that.
No one is gonna kill it all the time. No one's gonna kill it every day. I didn't today.
I just, I Feel.
Uncreative. And I feel like I have nothing to share. I feel like I have no value. I feel like, why would anybody listen to me? I feel.
Loss of purpose. I don't know where I'm going in life. And I hate it. I hate that feeling. It's the worst. It's the thing that really knocks me on my ass. And the only reason I'm telling you this is because.
Someone challenged me to share the lows as much as the highs. And here it is. And I want you to know that we've all got it. We all go through it. I reached out to mentors, and they go through it, too. We all do. But freedom lives on the other side of chaos. And by the way, man, this is so weird.
You know what's funny? I don't need anyone to be anything in order for me to love them. I don't need my daughter to be anything in order for me to love her. I don't need my fans to be anything in order for me to love them. I don't need my partners to be anything in order for me to love them.
I just love them because it feels good to love. And I have a hard time accepting that for myself.
I think we all do. Huh.
Interesting. We're so hard on ourselves. The things we say to ourselves.
Like we would be arrested if we ever said them to someone else.
So I was hard on myself today. Be kind to yourself in my absence. And if you don't love yourself today, I love you.
