Private Talk For Entrepreneur Men: What We Talk About When No Women Are Around #TheOnePercent

And so I realized this wasn't a Ryan problem. This was a human problem.

This is a problem among men. We're all craving. We're starved for this. So I thought for a long time, I'm just a lonely person. I just don't have deep friendships. And it took talking about it to realize.

That'S just our challenge as men. In today's world, especially when you are self employed, work for yourself or you're the leader of an organization.

It takes one free person to create change. This is the show for them. We are the creators of the free world. This is capitalism.com and we are the 1%.

Hey, capitalists, before we jump into the show, I just want to throw a cool free resource your way. I know I talk a lot about some advanced wealth strategies like tax planning and passive income and cool investments that were really only known by rich people but are available to common entrepreneurs as well. And I know that stuff is overwhelming because the reality is you don't want to be an expert in that stuff. You want to build your business and you want to put the profits into a machine that build your overall wealth and passive income. Me too. I just happen to nerd out about this stuff. But I use advisors too and have partnered with one of the people that I call for advice when I'm like, hey, is this legit? Is this loophole real? Can I really do this? That person is Patrick Donahoe. He runs Paradigm Life. He's been on the show where we talk about this stuff. I was also quoted in his book, he's been to my home. So he and I partnered up and we put together a free guide for you and it's gonna show you what you can use and without becoming an expert in all this stuff, but still make good decisions that don't leave a bunch of money on the table. Because you're probably doing that. If you're an entrepreneur and you're just giving your books to a CPA and maybe having a 401k, there's probably a lot of other things that you could be doing. So we put together a guide for you and it's over@capitalism.com wealth and it's just going to help you have the tools that you need to be able to make better decisions. Again, that's@capitalism.com wealth all right, enjoy the show today.

How many of you have familiarity with Ryan Andor capitalism.com? okay, cool.

All right, thank you.

Awesome, awesome. How many of you are looking forward to getting familiar with RyanAndor capitalism dot com.

There you go. All right, great.

I think what would be cool would be for you to take a chance to start where you want. Finish where you want. Just give us the Ryan Moran backstage story. Whatever you want to share. It'd be awesome.

Oh, and you know what?

You could do that or. I also wanted to get your perspective because you were here yesterday morning. So you go whatever order you want. You run a huge event. You're around a lot of events. So at some point, I wanted to get your take on what it was like just being at a gobundance event for the first time.

Let's start where you are. Let's start there. Because yesterday I just kind of came in and sat down the first session just to get a vibe for the room and where everybody is. And.

What meant a lot to me and stood out to me was the fact that men come from all over the world to be better, because there is, I think, this big lie that enters our world, and it's that we're on our own. Us dudes are used to and trained to throw it on our back and start carrying the burden. And.

How was the lake today, by the way? Awesome. Right? And so what are your stress levels right now? Like, 0 out of 10, right? Right. You're with dudes who have your back. You've had fun. You spent the whole day out in the sun.

And my guess is.

That you probably have more creativity, more capacity. And.

Honestly, if every day were like this, would money matter that much?

Money is a tool for us to have this, for us to have connection with one another, for us to have fun, to inspire good ideas, to inspire creativity, to inspire how we can sharpen each other.

That's what it's there for.

And we have mistaken the tool for the goal. And it's no wonder why we're stressed and why we're alone and why we feel like we have all this on our back. And so I could actually feel yesterday the mood in the room getting lighter and lighter as the morning went on, as there was more bonding that happened. And, I mean, I only know based on my own journey, right? Of being aware of the fact that I feel alone. I don't like feeling alone. And when I'm not alone, I'm more creative, more abundant, more helpful, more caring, more loving, more patient, and I make more money. And yet it is so hard to find that zone on a regular basis because we are usually behind computer screens angry about either the president or those who don't like the president.

And by the way, politics and Religion are my favorite topics. I'd love to go there at some point.

But if we even talk about Trump.

Trump, to me is the same thing as money, meaning the idea of it is actually what we are responding to, not the thing itself. We respond to our idea and our perceptions about money because we think that that is the goal. And then we separate from one another because we pursue the idol rather than the goodness that it can create.

It's this weird idea. I went to college thinking I was going to be a pastor. I'm no longer religious, but I think there is deep wisdom in the teaching to seek ye first. The kingdom and everything else will be added unto you as well. What you experienced over the last two days and will continue to experience is a taste of the kingdom. It's that connection with one another. It's that depth, that inner peace, that abundance mindset, that feeling of abundance. And as a result of feeling that, of experiencing that, of practicing that, of cultivating, that you end up creating things that matter. You end up creating things that make more money.

And that is the added unto you as well. When you no longer need the thing you're pursuing, the thing that you're pursuing just becomes added unto you as well. And it doesn't happen when you're alone. It doesn't happen when you feel on your own. Because we're human beings and our first emotion is fear, and our biggest fear is death, and we die faster when we're alone. And there's no replacement for this connection that is being cultivated. And I would say I'm 31. I don't know shit. But the biggest challenge I've had at this point in my journey as a human, journey as a man, journey as an entrepreneur, is undoing the lie that you're alone, that I'm alone, that we're against one another, that we're competing with one another, that we have to impress one another.

The world has conspired for us to serve and need one another.

That's the point of capitalism. That is the point of life. We are wired to deeply need one another and to serve one another. And so I've just been impressed as yesterday and then carrying in today, watching walls come down, watching connections happen. And if I could tell my younger self or another person a piece of advice, please foster that. Please water those seeds, because they're the. They're the biggest ROI you will have in terms of money and happiness. So that's what has stood out to me. That's.

Is that beautiful? That's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. It's really cool.

It's cool to hear your perspective. And in fact, there were two guys who I met just before we started and the very thing they shared with me, and forgive me because I remember Will, but I don't remember the other gentleman's name. The very thing they shared with me was that they couldn't find something like this. And then they found this being gobundance. How many of you can relate to that on some level, right? I mean, all of us in some way. It's how we got here. So it's awesome to hear that.

So quick story, short story, to piggyback on that. This has been a recurring challenge of mine, finding this outside of this. And we're entrepreneurs, we're capitalists, we solve problems. So I just decided no one else seems to be solving this problem for me, so I will do something about this. And I just started having regular board game nights with my guy friends at my house. And one day there's like six of us around the table and I'm doing a little bit of market intel, if you will. I, I think we're playing cash flow because we're all entrepreneurs. Of course we were playing cash flow or Monopoly or something where someone had to win. And I was like, hey guys.

Just curious, when was the last time that you hung out with only guys and it wasn't a work related function? You know what the Average answer was?

12 months.

It had been 12 months on average.

And I think Lee had to delete one of the outliers who was never. What?

Never? And so I realized this wasn't a Ryan problem. This was a human problem.

This is a problem among men. We're all craving, we're starved for this. So I thought for a long time, I'm just a lonely person. I just don't have deep friendships. And it took talking about it to realize that is just, that's just our challenge as men in today's world, especially when you are self employed, work for yourself or you're the leader of an organization.

You, you are by nature alone. You are by nature in a position where it would be easy to practice loneliness. And so I don't, I don't, I think it's easy to believe that that's a rare problem. But what I've discovered is that is, that is, that is the majority of men of male leaders today.

Interesting. Yeah.

Can you give us your backstory of how you got your entrepreneurial journey, how you got to the point where you started this community and this conference that you host today, which is, and I don't know much about it, but from an outsider, it's almost as though you just found a way to create an environment where you have hundreds or thousands of people now that come to you, but give us the backstory of what was built and where that all came from.

My first entrepreneurial venture was five years old. I drew hand drawn pictures on computer paper, went door to door knocking on people's doors, selling them for a penny each. My father provided all of the colored pencils. He's also my biggest client.

He bought two pictures that night. And so since I had it all donated, it was 100% profit is a good start. I was the kid who was raking leaves, shoveling snow, trading baseball cards. When you have it, you have it right? When you're born with is just, it's just in us. And we all have that piece of us that is just like. It's just. It's just in us. I went to school thinking I was going to be a pastor. I learned Internet marketing from my college dorm room to pay for college.

Graduated, had doubts about my faith, fostered the Internet business instead of going the pastoral route. And when I was in college, I was also studying economics during the recession.

And.

The 2008 election. And so the ideas of entrepreneurship while I'm building my first business, while there's an election going on and there's an economic meltdown. And my minor is in economics was just the creation of, I guess, all of my formative years. And there was one word that encapsulated all of that and it was capitalism. And the opportunity came to acquire that name a couple of years ago and I took it. And we do.

The.

I've always violated the number one rule of business, which is you are not your customer. I've always violated that because I figure if there is something I'm struggling with, there's probably other people who also struggle with that. And so the community aspect and also the aspect of being around people who just look at life completely differently.

Was something that I really craved. And so in 2015, we started doing an annual event and that has now become the Capitalism Conference. And that's what you're referencing?

Yeah. That's cool. Give us. So since you started that, tell us about the growth of that conference and what you've learned through that experience.

Wow. I would feel like an imposter talking about the growth of capitalism because I feel like I have done. We're all actually market research time. Is anyone else their own worst Critic.

Okay, you hesitated for a second. I was about to be like, shit, it's just me.

I made all of my money, all of my wealth, all of it in building physical products, brands and marketing them on the Internet. All my money has been made there. Capitalism.com is my 25 year commitment to myself and the world. Because I'm very concerned about both what my generation perceives to be, what their version of capitalism is, and also because I see a trend of entrepreneurs who are pursuing idolatry, just pursuing what they can extract rather than what they can create. And just from a selfish perspective, just purely from a selfish perspective, if you stop thinking about what you can get and what you can create.

You will make more money. So what I've discovered for myself and when other people.

Other people reflect this back to me, they agree when you are creating something for others, you make more money, you attract better people, meaning clients, customers, team members, and you're happier. And there's no competition, none.

So capitalism is perceived as being a competitive environment. It is a creative environment. Capitalism is simply the process of creating value and organizing that value in a way that is sustainable. That's what we're paid to do. And what I see because the world has opened, because we have access to everything. There is instead an inherent desire for young. And by young, I mean starting off in their journey, young entrepreneurs, to have an extraction mentality, to have a what can I get out of this mentality. And my aim in the content we produce is to start to shift that for the entrepreneur. Because I know how lonely and depressed and unhappy and stuck I felt when I was in the mode of extracting as much as possible rather than thinking about what I can create for other people. So we could sit here and talk about the growth of the company. I'm not all that impressed with the growth of the company.

I've made all my money elsewhere. And capitalism exists to change the conversation about what it means to be. I would really like to just claim the word capitalist as separate from entrepreneur, because entrepreneur is this idea of you'll do whatever it takes to not have a job. That's also the mentality of homeless people.

Entrepreneurs are just glorified homeless people and they're probably happier. Homeless people do whatever it takes to not have a job, which means you have any change.

Hey, I'm hungry. You got anything?

That is the same hustler mentality as what we call entrepreneurs today, or hustlers. The person who's like, there's an opportunity, I'll do that. So that I don't have to do X, but I'll work 18 hours at it, I'll put my whole life into it so that I can prop up this facade of having shit and having it together. Because we also, we don't actually want the money, we want the status of what the money gives us. And so I would really like to, and I just need to practice this, of claiming the word capitalist as someone who creates something, who builds something, who does it, because you have to do it. And that only happens, that's only possible when you have the internal awareness of something wanting to bubble up from you, of there wanting to be something to create. Because the minute that you switch over into this mentality of.

Either how or there's money here, you shut off that creativity, you shut off the bubbling up that has to come out. And real capitalism is the creation of that value. Usually, and especially today when we have just infinite abundance, is because you have to, you can't not do it. And we've lost that somewhere in this culture because it becomes about what you get rather than what you can create. And one is really exhausting, especially after a while. Like you start off with that mentality and you get to a certain point and then you go, what the hell now? Have any of you ever achieved financial freedom? And you're like, hell, do I do now?

You have the passive income from the houses. I don't really want to look at another house.

I don't want to do another flip.

I don't want to take on another client.

And it's because the mentality was escaping something rather than pursuing something. And sometimes you have to do that for a while. And then you either decide to do the hard work of defining what is worth pursuing, or you stay stuck in this mentality of escaping something. Which means the more you do it, the more you are fostering this idea of there's something I need to escape. Which is when we self destruct, which is when, which is why like the person I fear the most in this world is the financially free person who just wants more like that. That person is a, is a ship about to burn. Because the person who's financially free is like, I'm just like ready for the next level. Like, oh, this is going to be. I will, I will, I will not invest in that project.

And I will call you in a year for a recommended therapist. Because that person who has already achieved freedom and then just wants more without any drive behind it of any thing that they're pursuing is now feeding, they're now feeding the thing that they were like the mentality of I'm being free from something. I was in a job, I was in a previous situation, I was in a marriage, I was in a. And I need to run, run away from that. And you need to do that for a while. But if you pour more on top of it, you keep feeding it. There has to be some switch at some point where there is now something to pursue. There's now, there's now a vision. I found that the pivot point is if you can get somebody to sit down and write out a two page vision of what the hell they're building or creating or doing or wanting or what's in their head, that's like the magical pivot. I think the reason why Jordan Peterson has blown up so much in the last few years is because he's gotten us to finally think about choosing to pursue something that is meaningful in order to overcome, what does he say, the natural depression and pain that comes with being a human being. It is finding the thing that is meaningful to give us purpose through all of the struggle that is being a human being. And most of us don't. Most of us never cast something that is meaningful. We instead just run from problems, which is why we're unhappy.

What did you ask me?

No idea.

I'm doing great though.

You are crushing it.

Yeah, thank you.

I think there's acknowledgement for appreciation of you inspiring us to look forward and find meaning. And guys, I'm going to come to you in a second. I wanted to ask you one thing I thought was cool and interesting that you just said real quickly that what you're doing now is, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think you said a 25 year commitment. That's really interesting. I'd love to hear if there's something behind that. The idea of committing for 25 years.

Yeah. So I've just found that I make better decisions the longer term. I think so. I mean we could take this back to real estate very easily. Right? I mean.

The longer you can think, the more you can factor in errors in judgment, the higher chance of success, the calmer you are about the decision. And we are so addicted to short term results that we don't get anywhere in the short or long term. So I just have made the decision of thinking in as long chunks of time as possible as I'm capable of thinking. And right now it's about 25 years. And so I'm just committed to seeing capitalism.com for the next 25 years just to frame my thinking about where I take the project and the company.

That's cool. Have you ever extended that question to beyond your own lifetime?

I'm not there yet.

I only recently. It's funny you asked. I've only recently started to ask that question.

And I think it shifted. I'm having my first boy in December and that'll do it. I have a four year old girl. And if you have a daughter, you know that all you need to do is just love the shit out of them, right? I mean, they don't care how you killed it, how you crushed it, what you did after you crushed it. I mean, like, it's like, are you here and do you want to play.

Are you here or are you still in that mode? I just need to know how many.

Of you have daughters, by the way.

Wow. All right, look at that. All they care about is are you present and do you love me and am I safe? That's it.

That'll be the question forever.

She brings home.

He is not safe. He is not loved.

Your daughter's 4 and I would actually challenge that.

I would question if you looked into it when she's 13 and throwing a fit. There's some question of, are you present with me, Am I safe? Do you care about me?

I think underneath. Are we recording this? Ah, fuck it. Like underneath it all, that's what women crave most. That is what the feminine needs. Is the masculine present? Is the feminine safe enough to be expressed?

And.

That is every fight you've ever had with a woman is her not feeling safe and like you're being present?

So what I learned from having a daughter is it doesn't matter what you do as long as you are present with her. But when I found out I was having a son.

I had an oh, shit moment.

And on the surface it was like, I know what to do with a girl, I know what to do with a daughter. And there was a next thought of, like, it would be easier to have a daughter. And then the thought like a second one. I know what to do. And then what I realized is that what I was really afraid of, of having a. Having a boy is my little girl is seeing how other people will treat her through the lens of her dad. But a boy is seeing who he's going to become. He's watching the model that he will become. And that's heavy.

That is responsibility. Especially today. I mean, biologically, we're wired to see a group of men or see a group of men and see what the tribe needs and to rise into the position of what the tribe needs. But today we just see.

If you're lucky, one father figure and that is exactly who you will become. And that is a tremendous responsibility. So what has been unearthed through that process is everything I don't like about myself that I don't want to pass on, every habit that I need to get control of now. And also realizing that there's a chance that he may step into a similar role that I am and.

Take over the empire and I will never push that on him. But it then opened up the thought of what about after me, what about after my life and what after I want to do something else. And so it's interesting you bring that up because it's only been a recent thought. Yeah.

You know, on this last point you made, I'd be curious how many of you guys can relate to some of this. So my oldest is nine, a boy. I've got an eight year old daughter and then a five year old boy. My oldest boy as he was three, four, five, six, starting to develop a personality. My experience, and I'm curious if you guys have had the same thing is as he starts to become this little young man, he is everything that's great about me and he's everything that's terrible about me. How many of you can relate to that? And it's like that.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I don't know if that'll happen for you, but that was a big teacher for me is to see within my son the best and the worst of myself and realize that that's just not going to change. Like that's he is going to be me to some extent. So good luck with that.

It's good.

He's a great teacher. Guys, I'd love to turn it over to you. We got a question right off the bat from Mike here.

I've actually been wanting to ask you.

This for a while. Just thinking about something I watched and I think it'll just on the parenting thing. So I was able to spend some time in your back room and I watched.

You've helped some really successful entrepreneurs and a couple of them were really young.

Like 18, 19. Yeah. And I'm sitting next to these kids at a dinner and they don't order a drink and I'm like, you don't drink? And then he's like, I'm 18. I read.

I don't remember where I read it.

It's predictably irrational. Maybe.

There'S a study done among teachers and they.

Gave.

They gave teachers intel about the students they were going to have in their class that year and they gave them wrong intel. You're nodding. Do you know this study? Do you know where we read it? What's that? Okay, that doesn't ring a bell, but.

We can debate it. Let me see if I get the story right first. So they give the teachers intel about who the students are, and they give a group of.

Below average students to a group of teachers and tell them that they're advanced. And what happened was there was a measurable increase in the student's performance. And the opposite happens as well. You give a group of students and tell the teacher ahead of time, there's a below average performing group, but it's actually the honors class. They will. Their performance will drop. And so part of that is just how the person who is the leader communicates to the group. But it is mostly expectations that are set and you calling out when you see things that are out of alignment with those expectations. So the person that you're referencing, his name is Jeremiah and.

He saw me have a meaningful exit of a company and that's what he wanted. It's the same idea of you didn't think to become an investor and entrepreneur until you saw someone else do it.

And.

So your goals and your mindset changes based on what is perceived as normal to you, based on what you perceive in the tribe, based on what you see the people who are closest to you doing. And so knowing that that's what he wanted, that was just the equation we solved for. And I think had he not been in that room, had he not been in that group, he would have been really happy selling 100k a month and his little business being the richest kid in Maine, as we used to call him. But instead he grew way through that because there was a different standard set for him. There's a different set of expectations. Like it's you. You all know that it's just as much work to do the million dollar deal as it is to do the $100,000 deal or the $10 million deal versus the million dollar deal. It's the same amount of work. It's just the type of work and it's the perception that you have about what it will require. And so sometimes you just need that outside opinion from somebody who has that expectation of you and that changes you. My best friend's name is Mark. We had breakfast together this past Monday. So like six days ago. And as any really good friend does, man, he was so hard on me.

And about every six Months we get together and Mark just.

Basically makes me feel like I have nothing figured out. I don't know anything. I'm doing everything wrong. And I immediately got better. I immediately started thinking differently because I don't want to disappoint Mark because I don't want. I want Mark to beat me up again in six months. But damn it, I don't want him beating me up over the same things.

I at least hope that he's beating me up over something that I did see today. And that outside eye changes everything. It's the same thing about the difference in the way you think when you're behind the computer working versus how you feel today after being in this community and what you will do the week after you get back. You're solving for a different set of problems that are much more important than the day's tasks. And that's why Jeremiah, 18 had a multimillion dollar exit at age 21. So hopefully he's not buying a lot of booze right now.

I know he's not. Thanks, Mike. Awesome.

We'll come right over here.

What's up, dude?

How's it going, man?

I have this theory that. Well, I guess not theory.

Kids don't have any preconceived notions, so it should be actually easier to make them entrepreneurs, right?

I mean, what do you think?

Because they're more fluid. I mean especially. Obviously six year old isn't going to run a company. So in theory, yes. But I also don't believe in trying to make my kids entrepreneurs. I don't care if they're entrepreneurs. I care if they're kind. I care if they're empathetic. I care if they're happy.

I have no interest in trying to make Esther or Philip entrepreneurs.

That's what I wanted for me. And it would be really bad parenting to assume that what I want for me is what is best for either of them. But you definitely have some skill sets. If you added to their normal curriculum that the normal education doesn't give, they'll.

Be that much more awesome though, right?

Absolutely. And my dad was a phenomenal craftsman. And I don't know how to use a saw.

Wasn't my path. And to his credit, he never forced it on me.

And he. And he saw a different interest in me. He didn't know how to help me.

He saw me on the computer, so he bought me a typing tutor computer program. So in seventh grade I was typing 100 words a minute. That's good parenting, him being like, I know you don't want to do this, but let me show you how this tool works. That's not good parenting. We assume we know better. Our job is not to mold our kids into who we think we should be. It's to give them the safety and the love for them to become what is natural to them. And so I'm not even sure I want them to be entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship's hard.

I would probably be a lot happier if I wasn't so ambitious. But I am.

And it's my greatest gift and it's my greatest flaw. And so I don't know that I want to pass that on. And if either of them wants that, hell yes, I will align all resources I have, just like it would do for anyone else that I really loved that had it. But far be it for me to try and force it on.

That's cool. How many of you appreciate that perspective there? Yeah, that's cool.

That's beautiful. Yeah, right here. Ryan, I have a two part question and they go together. Do you still want to buy the Indians? Want me to answer that now? Yeah. Yes, I want to buy the Indians. But I'll tell you what, ask me if they win the World Series. I mean this in all seriousness. Before 2016, I had to buy the Indians. And then in 2016, oh, I'm going to cry. I watched Raje Davis hit a two run home run in game seven of the World Series. And I heard the city of Cleveland just. I have goosebumps right now. Gary Vaynerchuk asked me a couple months ago. He's like, he's like, was that one of the top five moments of your life? Tell me right now. And I was like, obviously it was. And had they won the game, I'd have been like, I don't need to own them anymore. We did it. We're good. I'd be like, shit, I gotta find a new goal.

So there's something very special about, like, the climb and almost being there if they win the World Series.

I'm actually afraid if they win because I'm afraid that I won't want it anymore. In fact, I know at some level be like, it can be any team at that point. That point is like, okay, now I just want to own a team because it's really fun. I set that goal of wanting to buy the Cleveland Indians because growing up, the most fascinating thing in the world to me was the business side of baseball. It's like my two loves. It's like my business brain and baseball. I was never a great player, but I used to love. My favorite thing was making the lineups for my coach in Little League. And.

I was always a better manager or owner than I was a player. And I realized in order to get that job, you have to go to school for a long time. Somebody has to see you, have to put you in that position. My chances of doing that are way better if I just make a lot of money and buy a team. So if the Indians win a World Series, then I'll be like, I can be any team, and then that'll be the goal. Besides, want to buy a team? Because I want to. I just want to do it for the fun of doing it. But if they don't win, then, yes, that desire is still there. I guess I was asking that because when I met you in December of.

15 at Freedom Fast Lane Live, you know, you had talked a lot about that, and I was just curious how.

Your goals had changed over the last four years. And it sounds like it's more about.

The journey of taking them to the.

Top than it is about just owning the team. Yeah. So that's true. But it is also.

In 2015.

I would say that buying.

Maybe not then, but definitely the years before then, the team was the same way that I portrayed money. It's the idol. It's the when I get it, I'll matter when I get it. I'll be happy when I get it. And so I literally. There was years of my life that I woke up every day depressed because I didn't know how I was going to achieve the goal that I had set for myself.

And I also think that's a common human problem, especially in men.

And when the goal becomes the idol and I can't be happy until I get the goal, we're fucked. And so it is about the process of who I become as a result of trying to buy the Indians. And I've discovered that now. I have discovered that because as a result of having this impossible goal for a kid from Cleveland who grew up on reduced lunch programs in middle school and high school, I want to buy the Indians. I want to own the Indians. This impossible dream has forced me to become a very different man than if I chose a different goal. So choose your goals really carefully. So it is. It is. You know.

I wanted to be a millionaire when I was a kid. I'm a millionaire now. I was probably happier as a kid.

My menu of options is just wider.

I'm not any happier than before. I had two commas.

There was one commas. It's Fun for, like, two weeks. And now I worry about what's going to happen to the money and how I'm going to invest it. So it is. But I have a very different skill set than if I didn't want to be a millionaire. So it is about who you become and what you do with what you become. The money is a byproduct of that. And what I've learned as a result of having a goal like that is how to build a team, how to lead people, how to lead myself, because I was a multimillionaire before I had those things. And if I want to go bigger, about two years ago, I was like, I'm gonna have to get good at leading a team. And I suck at it real bad right now. And this is gonna hurt. This is gonna be hard, and I'm gonna learn how to hire, fire and lead. Two years in, I'm like. I'm, like, adequate at it now. I'm just at adequate now.

But I have to get better at that if I want to get even close to that goal. And if I die without buying the Indians, it was still one of the most meaningful goals I had because it flew. Forced me to become a different person, and that is the point.

Cool.

We have room for one more question.

Shit, we haven't got to politics or religion yet.

Well, we'll see what the question is.

I'll just go on a riff, depending on.

We don't allow that here.

How much time have we got after this?

Do whatever you want.

Yes. Okay, cool.

Well, hold on, hold on. This will keep me excited. Okay.

I was at the Freedom Fast lane live in 2015 to the first event, and it was awesome, by the way.

And really, really enjoyed it. But I was going to ask you, like, now that you're at this place where you've kind of achieved a bunch of those early goals and you're looking forward towards your future. The question that Tom Bilyeu asked everybody on his podcast is, what's the impact you want to have on the world? Have you thought about that? Like, what's the mark you want to leave? Or what difference do you want to make when, you know, when you get to the place where you've got the money that you. That you want, what do you want to do with it? That's crazy that you would ask me. What's your name? John. John, thanks for coming to the event. Appreciate it.

So I wrote this down yesterday because. Because you asked. You asked a question.

And.

Shoot, I wrote down my answer, but I don't Remember the question, why am I here? And were there three parts to it?

Oh, you were here for that? Yeah. What would you want to be celebrating six months ago, six months from now? There was. Looking back, where have you won in the present?

So there's another part to this exercise where it was like, why are you here? And then. Or maybe I just did this on my own. I went one level deeper, and then I went one level deeper and I went, yeah, okay. All right. So what I ended up writing down is like, the baseline of that was that I want to be an example of service for other alpha male leaders to lead with kindness. That was what I wrote down.

That's cool.

And so.

That'S the direct answer to your question. I wrote it down in this room. Yes. Yesterday. Right? Yeah. And. And the. The reason for that is because.

There is.

There's a redefining of. Of what the alpha is right now. And it is like, do you. You realize, like, all the world's problems could be solved if men were just real men? But the perception of men and masculinity is one of destruction and divisiveness, which is not.

Which is not real masculinity.

That's the reason why my friend Ryan Mickler will say, like, toxic masculinity is an oxymoron. It's not a real thing. Masculinity is the leader who serves the rest of the tribe. That's why he's nominated leader. People want to be led. People want to be shown the way. People want to feel purpose. And that's a lot of hard work. And it takes one person to say, we're going this way, and I will ensure that we're all taken care of. And that is leadership. That is being the alpha, whether you're male or female, that is being the alpha. And that requires service and kindness. And somewhere we've lost that, and it's not cool right now. And I think all the world's problems could be solved if you just had more examples of that. And so if nothing else, that's what I hope that's cool.

I don't know if you're here for it. David. This reminds me of your question yesterday about getting. Didn't you have a question around getting to the top and not what was your question that you. Did anybody else get reminded of that conversation?

When you see people that have been very successful, they're very far ahead of the mean average of others versus versions of success, you often see that their personalities have developed differently than the standard person. So to play at a smaller level, being nice will get you pretty far being being honest, other people will be honest back with you. When you play at a very big level, being nice, being honest without wisdom to go with it can get you burned. It can get you taken advantage of.

Right.

And as the leader who's in that role that you just described, if you're going to be leading a bunch of other people at the. It's not enough to just say, well, my intentions are good. I intend to do well. It is your job to look out for all the things that can hurt those people that are behind you and make sure you chose the right direction. And in order to fulfill that role, you. I don't know if it's. If it has to happen, but what does happen is people's personalities change. They appear calloused in ways, and they often get called names like asshole or a jerk.

Right.

And my question was, is there a way to do that without that happening? Or is there a piece that you can find knowing that's going to happen? But it doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing, because I think a lot of people in this group do not. And really in life don't live up to the potential of who we could be because our subconscious is screaming at us. You don't want to end up like him, and you don't want people to say the things about you that they say about that person. I mean, if you look at whoever the sitting president is, there's always a ton of criticism that comes against that person. And that's what happens when you're the person in the top job. And I feel like if any of us are going to hit our potential, we need to make peace with the fact that either we are going to change or people are going to perceive us as changed and be okay with that, or we'll just keep playing smaller. And that was a question I had asked of. Of the successful people you found. How do you reconcile that and what advice can you give us about how to take that journey?

I love the quote. I discovered this quote when I was really struggling in my faith. And this gave me a lot of peace. This quote, it was, listen to the man who pursues truth and flee from he who claims to have found it. And the minute that you.

I think they like that quote.

I have no idea who said it. It's Ryan. Daniel Moran once said it's Josh Painter.

I think.

Listen to the man who pursues truth and flee from he who claims to have found it. The minute that you claim that you know something, that you have the answer, you have shut off.

The part of you that is expanding, that expanded to get there. And so if you are. If you are leading from a position of I have the answers, you don't.

And.

The way that you avoid becoming that person or that negative example is by being committed to growth and the process rather than the result. And knowing that the result is just a measure of. Of where you are right now, and that sometimes that result is a punch in the mouth. I have a team member right now who is extremely talented. And I told him the biggest thing holding you back right now is you are afraid to get punched in the mouth. I don't know who you think is going to punch you in the mouth, but I need you to go take some shots. Like, go get punched on the chin. It's okay. It hurts. And you get better. And then you take another shot and you get better. There's a muscle that happens in what some people call failure of just being okay, taking a lick. And if you ever have been in a fight or boxed, like, the fear of being punched is way worse than being punched. And as soon as you're not afraid of being punched, you start fighting better because you're no longer hedging, you're no longer trying to avoid getting punched. You're gonna get punched.

You're in a boxing match, you idiot, go get punched. It's the point. And the minute that you accept the fact that you're gonna take some licks, you start punching as well. And so when somebody is afraid to build an audience by putting out content, or they're afraid to do the deal, or they're afraid to risk the money, or they're afraid to hire the team member, or they're afraid of whatever it is that they're hedging against.

It is just a matter of go get punched, go make some mistakes. It's all feedback. And the reason you're afraid of the feedback is because you think that if you get the feedback that you want, you will be done. If you make a certain amount of money, then I will retire. If I get a certain amount, if I meet the girl, I'll be happy forever. It's the idea that there is something that when you accomplish it, you're just done. It's not a real thing. It is all a process. And so when you adopt that mentality that you're done when you're dead or you're retired, which, if you look at data, they end up being real close to One another. It is the process of that improvement rather than thinking that there's an end point that is that person or that example.

He didn't. He didn't make any expression after I answer that.

So I think it's like a German expression. Well, I think he's a cop.

I don't think he agrees with me.

David, do you have a response?

There was no nod. There was just. There was. There was more of a look of you asshole.

And so now I want to know.

That's beautiful.

Hey, out of respect for what you guys have tonight, Ryan gets one more chance to say whatever he wants.

So go ahead.

Last word.

Well, hold on, someone. I think it was you. He was gonna ask me.

Politics or religion?

It's want most.

If you guys are cool with it.

I'm really curious about your journey on how you went from a place of faith to a place where you're not religious.

Yeah. Cool.

How much time we got? You've got 90 minutes. Okay, here we go.

You have four minutes on this one.

Four minutes. These guys have a lot of work to do. Four minutes to talk about anything you want, really. So let's piggyback on the last statement that seemed to resonate of. Listen to the man who pursues truth flee from. He would claim claims to have found it. What I have discovered, or my experience was in the church specifically, was a lot of people who claimed to have found truth and were no longer in pursuit of it. And I was often accused of leaving my faith or turning my back on God or whatever you call it. And I like to think of it more as graduating.

As my pursuit of truth had outgrown.

The church or my church. I will someday write a book called why I Left the Church to Find God.

And I think any.

Dogma that has reduced truth to a.

It's cliche to say a list.

But we'll call it at the very least a check mark. A list of check marks of necessary beliefs. For example, I remember having a debate when I was just on the brink of like, am I in this or am I not? Of somebody saying.

Ryan, I think that's really great that you question your faith. I think, like, I think. I wish more people would ask these questions. I think. I think it's like, it's okay that you do this. And I said, let me ask you a question. If I told you that I'm questioning the legitimacy of the resurrection and I'm not sure that Jesus literally rose from the dead, do you still have the same opinion? And he said, no. So there was one checkbox that was not okay to question.

And so he failed the test because there's either a pursuit or there's a list. There's either an endpoint or there's a journey. So even one of my family members, several of my family members are still very scared by the fact that I wouldn't call myself a Christian.

And they will say, hey, I think your journey's great.

I really want to encourage it. And I'll say, what if I conclude differently than you? What if I conclude that Jesus is not the son of God? And they get real uncomfortable. And so I think you have to be willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater in order to find out what is meaningful and true. And I was taught from a young age that it was a lifelong journey. And I knew very few people who are actually on a lifelong journey. It looked a lot more like they reached temporary conclusions and were committed to their life, to defending those positions. That's not a journey. That is that I don't think there is any. I think there is any depth, any meaning, any spirit, any consciousness to that.

And.

So that was not satisfactory to me. And as a result, I would call myself.

I am on a pursuit of truth. And the context through which I come from is that of a Christian background. But I no longer hold to the dogma of that. I perceive keeping so many people in that context and prevents them from growing and having a deeper understanding of, dare I say, God. I think that American Christianity specifically keeps most people from experiencing the God that Jesus of Nazareth referenced. And I was not willing to hold to that container.

You want a follow up question? Hey, now's a good time for the disclaimer. The views of our guests do not represent the views of gobundance.

It's just a legal thing. I had to get it on camera.

Of essentially being willing to throw out any sort of.

Essentially, you know, we'll start with a petition questioning every aspect. Where are you today?

A level of peace and understanding that surpasses anything that I ever experienced in the church.

Now, that was not the case a few years ago. I'm often accused of.

Leaving my faith out of a desire to just have sex and drink. And I was a virgin who didn't drink.

And just as, to be honest to myself, still didn't for years after I left the church. And it was an extremely painful transition.

One of the things the church has going for it is that it is a mainstay of community and tribe. And when you give up the reason why you believe you're here.

What you believe to be true about the nature of the universe, what gives you purpose, community. It was extremely lonely and painful and I. And I wanted to go back, but I couldn't. I couldn't.

And being willing to open up the can of worms and go deeper. I think some people have their angry atheist phase and they never grow out of that. And so that becomes their dogmatism, that becomes their. They become. They become debaters of atheism to justify why they are right, why they were right to leave, and then they don't grow from there.

I've just decided I am always willing to be proven wrong. I am always willing to have a deeper understanding. And because of that, I do feel like I have a.

A deeper, more meaningful and more peaceful understanding of why we're here, what we're up to and what all of this means. And I never would have the perspective that I have today had I stayed in the church. And I'm really pumped about what that evolves into five years from now. Whereas I thought before that the pulpit point was to reach the right conclusions. And now I know that five years from now I'll have an even deeper understanding of things I don't know today I'm going to say some weird shit five years from now. And it's really exciting to me.

He might be back in the church.

Hey, can we give Ryan Moran a.

Big round of applause?

Thank you.

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Sam.