The Advice You Don't Want To Hear... (But NEED)
Ryan Daniel Moran argues that entrepreneurs perform best when they prioritize activities that recharge their energy (socializing, play, exercise, masterminds) before tackling hard work. He explains that high-energy states improve creativity, decision-making, and relationships, and warns against operating from chronic stress—advocating intentionally scheduling high-energy activities and treating energy management as central to entrepreneurial success.
Chapters
I get my best ideas when I am around other people having fun. The thing that I am procrastinating all of a sudden feels easy. The sales copy that I'm trying to write all of a sudden starts to flow. And what I've noticed is that we as entrepreneurs will go through this balance of having a full cup when we're having fun, when we're in the presence of other people, and then spending that cup when we're behind computers and we're isolating ourselves from the rest of the world. Now, I've gone back and forth on this for a long time trying to figure out like, why do I get my best ideas when I'm not working? Why do I get my best ideas when I'm just out connecting with other people? Why is that the case? And I've come to the conclusion that when we have our cup full, then everything else just feels easier. And we as entrepreneurs are constantly draining the cup, trying to be in a position to fill the cup up later. We say when we have the money or the exit or whatever it is, then our cup will be full and then we'll be able to focus on those things. But I think it's only by filling the cup first that we have the energy to be able to do our best work. This is why recently, for our last mastermind, we decided to do things way differently. Instead of being in a stuffy hotel room, we rented a 10,000 square foot mansion on 15 acres and we played pickleball and we brought in chefs to make amazing meals three times a day. And we played games and we had a pool. And then after 24 hours of being together and connecting and getting to know one another, then we got into a mastermind and we helped each other with business. And by then we had seen past the facade. By then we had had some fun together. By then we really started to come out as ourselves and we were able to actually be present with one another, to make introductions for one another, to give each other advice based on what we've seen in the other person, not just what they say about their business. You know, something I've experienced in my own life that has been a point of frustration is I feel the pressure to make a lot of decisions when, when I feel stressed, meaning when I'm in a low energy place, that's when I feel the most like I have to have everything all figured out. But the truth is, when I'm in a high energy place because I've been around other people, because I am being good to My body because I am focused on things that I enjoy, then all of the hard decisions all of a sudden feel light and easy and clear. Now this is not to say that we always need to be in a good place. Obviously we're not. And obviously we can use and activity as distraction from doing the hard work. But what I've noticed about myself is that I tend to stay in the grind mode for way too long until a point where I have to like, throw the computer out the window and go recharge. But if I make recharging the priority, it's the unlock to everything that I want in life. Oftentimes as entrepreneurs, we start businesses because we're stressed about money. And starting a business because you want to fix a money problem is kind of like having a baby so that you can have more free time. It doesn't work like that. But when you're in a stressed place, particularly about money, and you bring that over into business, how are you going to operate that business? You're going to be trying to take money out of it as fast as possible, which doesn't give it the fuel to grow. But if you contrast out with you coming up with your idea when you're on vacation, when you're around other people, when it's just because it's a fun idea that you would like to see exist in the world, well, now naturally you have the energy to put focus and attention and nurturing into that business. So I've started to ask myself the question of how do I build a life in which I get to prioritize those high energy things? Because let's face it, I work behind a computer a lot. I create content on the Internet and I don't see a lot of you until you come to one of our events. So I definitely have a tendency to isolate myself and to work behind a computer and forget that there's somebody else on the other side of this. Well, could I change that? Could I stack the deck so that I have more opportunities to have a full cup? And some of that comes down to just my basic habits. Do I have a consistent wake up time? Do I get to the gym? Do I eat well? Do I stop working at a certain time and go be with friends? Do I schedule the guy night once a week? Do I do that kind of stuff? Those are all just good for my mental health. But could I do it in business as well? Could I have masterminds and meetups that weren't in a stuffy hotel room where we talk about serious business? But could we actually make them hella fun? Could we make them so that it was like a reunion of friends playing games and just dare to support one another? Because those are when the best ideas come, Those are when the best relationships are built. And sometimes I just need to close the fucking laptop and get out and go have fun before I have the clarity to go address that situation with a team member or go write that copy or think about how I want to sell this thing. I know that I need to get out of my element. When I have this long to do list of things that don't actually matter and I don't have the energy to do it. That's when I know that I'm in a really low place. One of the ways that I've found that I can shift this a little bit in my life is if I prioritize what I would consider high energy activities. So high energy activities for me are things like selling, creating content, going to masterminds, and having coaching calls. These are all things that have me talking because that's a high energy activity for me. And a lot of times it has to do with other people. These are things that charge me up. I have more energy at the end of doing one of those activities than the opposite. And so if I prioritize those things, then either I have the energy to be able to attack that problem, or I realize that that problem didn't really matter all that much anyway. A lot of the game of entrepreneurship is energy management. We think it's about strategy and it's about who you know and having enough capital. And all of those things matter, but none of them come into play if we're in a low energy state. This is when people get really into their heads into optimizing for exactly how things are supposed to be, when really what you need to do is turn your brain off for a minute and let your body come online and for you to feel the energy richness that you want out of life and let that guide the brain into saying more of this, let's do more of this. The secret then is to go charge up first and then come back to that thing. Now, of course, we still need to make hard decisions. We still need to do hard things. And doing hard things actually gives us the strength to be able to continue to run at a high energy place. But sometimes as entrepreneurs, especially new entrepreneurs, they obsess in their head about doing things perfect from the get go because they're in a low energy place. But when you step away from it and you go get charged up and you think about what you actually want to create. Those are the best ideas. Those are when the best relationships happen. Those are when the best breakthroughs and strategies happen. Now, I'm only giving advice that I need to hear myself. So this is not a judgment on entrepreneurs burning the candle at both ends. This is more me giving a warning to many of you who are early in your journey about what can happen if you don't realize that your body's driving the show. Mark Manson, in his book Everything is a Book about Hope, talks about how there is a mental brain and there is an emotional brain brain. And we all think that the mental brain runs the show. But a better analogy is like, both of those are in a car. And the mental brain is reading the map. It knows where to go and it knows where the turns are. But the emotional brain has its hands on the steering wheel. And if the emotional brain is not happy, it will say you to the mental brain, and it will make a left turn when it's supposed to make a right turn. And the mental brain will recalculate and say, okay, now I need to turn around to go in this direction. And the emotional brain, depending on what kind of a mood it's in, will really determine where the car goes. When those two things are not connected, it's very hard to make decisions where you will take consistent action. Eventually, the emotional body is going to win. And so we have to find a way to tap into the things that make us feel energy rich and fueled up if we're going to allow our mental brain to make clear decisions. Whenever I have a problem, I. I want to pound that problem into the ground. I wanna fix that problem from a stressed and anxious point of view. But every time that I do that, I get stressed and anxious results. Remember, you're an entrepreneur because you want a better life. Ultimately, you want the freedom to be able to build the business that you want to have, not the business that you feel trapped by. So the next time you feel trapped by a problem with, go get into the zone first. In fact, turn this off. Go for a walk, go outside, get some sun, go do something fun. And if you're anything like me, you'll come back to the problem feeling sharper, more refreshed, and focused on building the business that you want, not the business that you think you're supposed to have.
