Ryan Daniel Moran explains how he runs multiple ventures without sacrificing sleep and family time. He sets clear role expectations upfront, uses time-blocking to batch similar work, and hires implementers to handle execution. Examples: he built and sold Zen Active Sports, a yoga company, and now runs Body Vega Nutrition.
Joe Smolenski asks, how do you manage being involved in several ventures at once while also allocating time for sleep and family?
It is very hard to be in multiple things at the same time without having very clear expectations for what you bring to each project or what you bring to each relationship. My life changed in a great way a few years ago when I started Zen Active Sports, which is a yoga company that I built and sold. And my business partner on that is Sean. He's one of my best friends to this day. We spend every Friday night as guy night, which usually revolves around a really good meal and then being asleep by 10:30. That's what happens when you have a kid. Anyway, so Sean and I started Zen Active Sports a few years ago and when we were starting that business, I remember we being in my bedroom on the phone with Sean and I said, shawn, look, I have other commitments. I have other businesses that I run. So the way this is going to work, the only way I can be involved is if I'm the capital partner and your advisor. But this is your business. You run the operations. I will walk you through the process. I will bring relationships to the table, I will bring money to the table, but those are my only commitments that I can bring. Does that work for you? Yes. Then we outlined what the arrangement was going to be. I have a somebody company called Body Vega Nutrition. Same exact conversation with my business partner, Paul. Paul, I can be an advisor and an investor, but that's all I can bring to this. I can commit a few hours a week to working with you, to bringing in certain relationships, to bringing suppliers that I know to the table, and that's my commitment to those projects. Whereas with some of my other projects where I'm much more involved, that's because either we started it years ago and it's really successful, or I have other skill sets I bring to the table. I have other relationships I bring to the table. So I am not fully time committed into every project. I set the rules up front for what the relationship is going to look like. So that is how I manage having multiple projects. I on top of that, I just block out certain times for certain projects. So when you hear the podcast, I will record two or three podcasts in a day and that will be spread out over a couple of weeks. Or if you look at some of my projects, like my physical products brands, I have certain days of the week that I have blocked out for those projects. And my other members, my other team members know not to bother me on certain issues about those specific. On those specific days. Cause I'm gonna be committed to something else. So scheduling and blocking out that time has worked out really well for me. So batching that time, if you will. If I don't batch time, I'm at my computer trying to figure out what am I gonna do today, what am I gonna work on? Whereas, if I know, Wednesday, I'm showing up for this meeting on this project with these team members that has helped me be fully present in the project that I'm focused on. And then I surround myself with implementers so that I can be the idea guy. I can bring what I know best to the table for a project and then get out of the way. Because I work with people who are better than me at the things that I'm not good at doing.
