What I've Learned From My Biggest Mistakes - Ups and Downs of Entrepreneurship

It's been a tough year for me, C. Money, but tough in the sense of I now wonder how I could have been so stupid. But I'm glad I'm getting the lesson now and not later.

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.

And now, your host, the future owner.

Of the Cleveland Indians, Ryan Daniel Moran.

Hey there, fair fastlaners Ryan. Dang ol. Dang ol Moran here. That was supposed to be a boomhauer.

Impression from King of the Hill. That didn't go nearly how I wanted it to.

Anyway, what's up guys? So a couple of weeks ago, my content creator, my king of the content right hand man, the guy who makes me look pretty on the Internet, we call him C. Money here around capitalism.com he was over at my apartment.

My.

Downtown fancy old pad, and we had a little bit of whiskey and I had just put Esther to bed. I should have said that in reverse order. I put Esther to bed and then we had some whiskey and I started opening up a little bit about some of my frustrations in my where I am as an entrepreneur. And what C Money started to ask and started to pull out me was some of the mistakes that I've made and what I have learned from those big mistakes. And if we could do it all over again, what would we do differently and what are we going to do differently based on those mistakes? And as a result, if you listen to this amid my rants and complaints, what you're going to be able to pull from this is the mistakes to avoid and how you can progressively be moving forward and.

Making progress without running into these major pitfalls that have cost me quite literally millions of dollars. There was a podcast episode released by Russell Brunson at one point where he talked about the cycle of an entrepreneur and how when you see some success, you start to get a little bit cocky and make some bold errors that make you get humble and then you make better decisions when you are humbled. So what I attempt to do is give you the lessons that I learned from getting humbled recently so that you don't have to go through the pain of getting kicked in the knees like I did a couple of months ago. So you're going to hear me let my hair down a bit. There's whiskey involved and there's just a lot of me eating humble pie, if you will. So if you take any of these lessons and it saves you even half of the pain and struggle and money that it costs me, then it's probably going to make you like a kabillion dollars. So with that, enjoy this chat with Whiskey, see money and a very humble Ryan Moran.

Enjoy. No, I wanted, I wanted to do this video officially with you just because I feel like I'm at this point in my career where I feel as though.

I'm licking my wounds after several failures. Which is weird because less than a year ago I sell this business, get a.

11Ish million dollar check and change plus, you know, another big check on its way from when the rest of it sells.

But I feel, I feel like there's almost been this dark cloud of failure that precedes that a bit and kind of came to a tilt or a hilt in the past couple weeks with my own.

Following and with capitalism.com and trying. I spent so much time trying to make it into something. And what we should have been doing was documenting the highs and the lows and.

Building real businesses like back, back.

Remember stories instead of talking about like Burt's Bees or whatever else topical.

I forgot about that. Oh my goodness. It's like I, I just, I just.

Feel like.

I tried.

In some ways. I've done a lot of self defeating of.

Beside. I mean financially I'm fine. It's just I feel as though I put so much work into something that was such a mise failure up until this point. So I, I just wanted to reserve time to have like, you know, I'm, I'm 30, I've got, I've figured out all the R and D of like research and development of things that didn't work.

Yeah.

And now it feels like we're at a reboot period because we just let half, half the team go because I made these stupid mistakes of just hiring all these people to try and get somewhere and losing $100,000 a month.

Just trying to grow, whatever that means. It was like what was, what was I thinking? And now that that's over.

Yeah.

And we've stopped the bleeding and we've come back to center. I just wanted to have this spot of like two years from now coming back and being like, oh, that, that was when. That was when we went in a different direction. And so.

I know every time I've gone through a hard time, I've come back and looked at it and said all the success I had was because we reset at that period. And I know we're at that period. We're at that point of like, we're at that Reset period. And it freaking sucks. Like, I. I hate the period.

So I thought you were gonna say you feel good about the reset period.

No, I hate it.

Because the future is unlimited and bright.

No, I don't feel that way.

Oh.

I feel. I feel. I feel like I just failed. I feel like, what have I been working towards? I feel like I had all these opportunities. I squandered them, and I feel like I'm doing a lot of beating myself up. I just fired however many.

Four or five people.

Yeah.

And these are people I love and care about.

Yeah.

And I lost a ton of money with these experiments. I broke my body into the ground. Like, my body was just wrecked.

Yeah.

My mind was wrecked. I had no creativity. And now that I'm, like, clearing it, like, clearing it all away and coming back to center, I'm sitting there thinking, what. What the hell was I thinking? So, like, this period. This is not the fun period of entrepreneurship.

Yeah.

This is not the. Like, hey, we're killing it. Like, driving Lambos. Like, this is that. Man, this. This sucks. But I wanted. I wanted to. Wanted to document it, because I know every time I've gone through that two years from now, like, that was. That was the most important thing that happened.

Yeah. I feel like I'm at the similar point where, you know, I'm turning 30 in June, and it feels like 30 to 50 is sort of the sweet spot in your career and that. I mean, who knows? We could live to 90, 120, 150.

But that is why so early, man. 138 is my number.

So it's like, what are we gonna. What is the impact we're gonna have in the world? But the losing money is. I think it's so relatable to entrepreneurs because everyone in your audience, everyone who watches your content, knows what it's like to have a product fail, business fail. Need to make a really hard pivot, let employees go. So.

And if they don't, they're gonna.

Yeah. Yeah. They haven't yet. If everything is going perfectly for them, then they're gonna have some. But I like that video you did where you're saying entrepreneurship is a life sentence.

Yeah, I stole that from Dan Sullivan.

Oh.

But everything smart I've ever said I've stole from Dan Sullivan. Travis Sego.

Who else? Maybe Jesse Elder. Although, Jesse, you send some weird things to him first. I don't steal much from Tim.

I don't talk about how many hours a week I work out. 4.

I'm talking about how. How many Hours a week I work.

Not.

There's a.

There's a sense, since we're resetting, if you will, of like, hey, see money. What do we. What's. What's the story we're gonna tell?

What. What are we. What are we documenting?

Because honest with you.

I think it's.

It's gonna be weird to say, but.

The whole training other people to be entrepreneurs, I don't think that's our message. So I think people become successful entrepreneurs as a result of watching what we're doing, not because I'm teaching them anything.

Yeah.

And I bet. So after I had my big successes, it's almost like I stopped being an entrepreneur and I started being an entrepreneur to entrepreneurs. And that was. It was. It was, like, wrong to go in that direction almost.

So is the next level up to teach other people how to teach other people how to be entrepreneurs? Go up a level?

No, I don't want to be the guy who gets rich selling ebooks about selling ebooks. About selling ebooks. No, no. I think the neck. The next level is like, all right, I built a $10 million company. What's next?

I think you have to document.

The next great success.

So do you think the mission is still.

To keep creating deca millionaires or.

Start working towards nine figure businesses?

No, it will. It's just the. The million. Like, we've. We've created what, like four or 500 millionaires?

Yeah.

Handful of DECA millionaires. But none of them happened because, like, I was out saying, you can do it because they were following along what we were doing.

Yeah.

And so. So for me, I think all the success stories almost happen as a byproduct.

It's a byproduct of watching you do something great. It's like them following along the pursuit.

You know what I think this comes back to is.

Kevin and Jeremy, when we were talking about the point at which they entered our ecosystem in our world. So, like, we just need to find more great people like them who we can support, and they can be a part of our community and they can help us. We need to find Kevin and Jeremy where they were, like, a year ago, two years ago.

So let me say this a little differently.

Part of where I made the mistake, I think, was trying to make.

The following the business.

It's. That's not. That's not the business because it's not inspiring.

Like, I. I don't want to be respected for that. The way that you both build the following and get insanely wealthy is that you build A real business business.

Yeah.

No one. No one. No one respects me if I haven't built a $10 million company.

Yeah. And, like, Travis Sego isn't, like, a content guy.

Right.

We were just talking about how he does things that are not high production value.

I've seen Dan Sullivan in, like, one video. It was cool. But he's not. He's not going the content route. He's not going the audience building route in which you're trying to kind of monetize your audience instead of build the business.

Yeah. When I think about, like, I don't want to be a YouTuber. I don't even want to be a podcaster.

Hmm.

Meaning I don't want to be known for being a great podcaster.

Yeah.

So here's where I'm going with this, is that. I mean, the next business that I'm building is that I'm investing in other businesses and other entrepreneurs and shark tanking them, Right?

Yep.

And I want to be known because those businesses were great.

I like how you shark tanking as a verb there.

I think everyone knows what you mean.

I think it's a way.

The way that we. The way that I get my Cleveland Indians is not because capitalism.com becomes worth a billion dollar company. It won't ever be a billion dollar company. But it will document the billion dollar company.

Yeah.

And it will support the growth of a billion dollar company because we documented it. But what. Or I made the mistake. Here's the braingasm where I made the mistake was going all in on capitalism to make capitalism the thing, rather than it being the container for things. Because. Because the. The. The way that you get insanely rich.

Is by building great companies and investing the profits. And the document of that can't be the business itself. It has to be its own separate living thing. And we tried to make it the thing.

So let me ask this, because I know that you really enjoy doing podcasts. Yeah. I just recently listened to episode one. It was really cool.

But I love doing them when I don't have to.

Yeah.

We tried to make the podcast and the following. The business. Because it was working. And the minute we did that, it started sucking. Yeah.

So you love doing it. Enjoy doing it. When it's not. You need to. It's not.

Because then I'm on the hamster wheel.

Yeah.

It's like, we got to hire these people to manage the thing that's working. And then now. Now podcast managers, like, I'm not a podcast. You need to record more podcasts. Like why do I need to record my podcast? Because we have to sell more advertising on it. Why do we need to sell more advertising on it? So that I get a paycheck. Well, why do you get a paycheck? So that Ryan can keep podcasting. We all can go to hell. And I can just podcast, for goodness sake. Like, I don't. I don't know how that. How that hamster wheel happened.

It's like, I don't.

It's like, I don't need any of this shit.

Yeah.

And I just. I feel like I made so many mistakes in that state. Like, another example would be the greatest success of my personal following was the success of the tribe. The tribe basically incubated a whack ton of millionaires.

Yeah. Yeah.

And then we said, okay, we have this following of all these people who want to join the tribe. We turn this into a business.

And we did. And that's when it fell apart, because then we had to, like, then I had to keep doing things in order to keep paying members happy. And then we had to sell it even if we didn't want to. And then it just became this broken amount, amagolous thing that wasn't the value that people wanted, whereas I could have just charged for what was working and not adding anything to it in order to make it sustainable.

So I just feel like I've realized now all the mistakes I made coming to this point, and now we've hit the reset button.

Yeah.

And I have no idea what's gonna go next.

So two questions. First of all, what I was getting at here is, obviously, I want to keep doing YouTube content. I've heard you downplay the role of content. If the content isn't the business, and most entrepreneurs shouldn't make content the business, what is the role it plays? Is it supplemental? Is it to share the stories of the success stories?

I mean, if you want to pivot away from what we were doing, where does the content fit in?

I think 80% of content is a waste of time. And I think.

Most people try to create content that ultimately doesn't lead to sales.

And the purpose of content is ultimately to lead towards conversion, because.

Nothing happens until it's sold. Until something is sold. Like, that is the point. And a conversion could be turning into a follower too. And most people just throw a bunch of things out because they think they have to. For example, I was working with a client this week, or I was asked, we were talking about their Facebook following, and they were like, well, we have to pay this person because we have to keep releasing content. Really? Why do you have to keep releasing content?

That's what you do.

Yeah.

What you're supposed to do.

You just gotta do it.

I think it's just a waste of time. I can't imagine why no one's listening.

Yeah.

Yeah. I can't tell you how many people have, like, come to me wanting to do a podcast with me, or they want to start their own podcast, or they. They do five episodes of a podcast and give up. Because it's like the cool, sexy thing everyone's doing, but without that tie to a business or a sale.

It could be a big waste of time.

Yeah. Or it's just a passion project. Which is fine.

Which is fine. But it's not a business.

So and so this is. So this is what I mean. Capitalism.com and freedom fast Lane was always a passion project.

Yeah.

And the minute I tried to professionalize it and turn into a business, that's when things started to break and the business needed to be elsewhere.

You know, I really. And this is more of in the passion project than in the business side, but I would really love to help reshape people's ideas of what capitalism is as a positive force in the world. Especially millennials are overwhelmingly against the whole idea of capitalism. I think in some ways, instead of preaching it, you just live by example. You just show. You just document these stories.

Well, also found it's really difficult to have an argument in the positive meaning it's really hard to change minds, to say capitalism is good, that you're arguing from a difficult position because they've already.

Got their mind made up.

Well, it's more.

They're gonna come back.

You almost have to start with what the negative is.

Sure.

Because what is the argument against capitalism arguments? Capitalism is always. Look at the difference between rich and poor, look at the extremes of poverty. And I could sit here and tell you all that's bullshit.

But now I'm just the guy saying, everything's great, everything's great, and our brains are wired to find problems. Of course. So now I just. So now you just sound like you're. You're making a weak argument or making.

Light of people who are unprepared. Unfortunate. You know, and so it's not.

It's not a. It's not a persuasive argument to say everything. It's almost like saying, man, everything Trump is doing is great.

Or. Or everything that Obama did was great. And then while he's in office, like, your brain isn't wired to people aren't.

Gonna look at the overwhelmingly good stuff. They're gonna be, oh, but what about that?

Correct.

It's, it's like, what about ism as a new word? I like what about ism as. But we have a what about. But so with.

So this, this is why. It's a more powerful argument to, to say, like, this is why Democrats are stupid. Now, I'm not saying that's an argument that we're going to have or that we want to have. It's just, it's a more attention getting and actually a more persuasive argument for me to, to make the argument about why Democrats or liberals are stupid than to argue why capitalism is great.

True. Yeah.

So I've, I've realized that, you know, I bought the domain name capitalism.com because I wanted to represent capitalism well and because I'm very afraid of how my.

How our generation is abusing the name capitalism.

Yeah.

But.

To argue from the defensive position is a bad, persuasive argument.

So let me bring back the tribe because you have kind of said it as like a failure in certain aspects.

Maya Culpa will say, as tribe member Kellyanne Fetio would say, it was like fancy French. I think it means just like an admission of wrong.

And the tribe wasn't a failure. I mean, it was a huge success. I just, I just, like, we just ruined it.

So. So as an entrepreneur, like, how does.

He cuts that part out?

How does, how does that change your perception of yourself as being successful?

It shatters.

Right. On the one hand, you have huge 10 million, $11 million sale.

Yeah.

@ the same exact time we have these other problems. So how do you, how does that change your perception of like, I'm a successful person, I'm a successful.

Entrepreneur? Like, it shatters.

It.

Yeah.

I don't, I don't know how else to put it except, like.

Just, just like we don't look at what's going. Like our brains are wired to find problems. Problems in your life.

Too.

Yeah. And just the fact that I've got a few mil in the bank and a lake house that I paid.

Cash for that you normalize and a.

Test and a $200,000 Tesla that you eventually normalize and a.

Penthouse. That part of your life just becomes.

Normal.

Right. So this is the new normal. I have this, a month I've made in my bank account, and then you take it for granted and then you're like, oh, but this is wrong. This has.

Failed. Nailed.

It. This has gone.

Bad. Nailed.

It. We don't appreciate the good because that's just not the way our brains are set.

Up. You nailed it once when you were like, wow, I wonder if Ryan envies my life. And I.

Do. It is a lot less low, like low. More low.

Stress. Yeah. And I have no idea what.

It'S like to have low stress pressure on my.

Shoulders.

Yeah. And part of that's been very intentional and that I enjoy documenting the stories of high achievers because I find incredibly fascinating, you know, the books I read and sharing those stories in the world. But it doesn't mean I want to be running $100 million company. I mean, maybe when I'm like 40 or something, who.

Knows? But it's funny, 40 doesn't feel that far away. It's like 10 years for both of.

Us. I know. I know.

I guess that's like the double edged sword of like responsibility. You talk a lot about personal.

Responsibility. Responsibility is not.

Fun.

Yeah. It's just the only way this.

Is something Jordan Peterson's talking about is like everyone's talking about rights, but there is no, there are no that.

Responsibility.

None. And this is the conversation like no one is.

Having. It's a paradox between freedom and responsibility. People think that freedom is the absence of responsibility, but it's actually a heightened state of responsibility. People have this perception of I want to be financially free and they think that means I want to be like, have the burden of finances removed from my brain. But it actually requires you to be more in tune to finances if you're going to be.

Free.

Yeah. Freedom is control. Freedom is the system working within the control that you put on it. And we think that it just means you forget about.

It. You just do.

It.

So here's a, here's a great example. This is what I've done to sync companies. The minute that I tune out.

And you don't mind the basket, as Warren Buffett would.

Say.

Yeah. Things crumble.

Because, oh, I'm successful now I can tune out.

That's when you get in.

Trouble. It makes me think of like even like the founding of this country since we so much stand for, like liberty was founded on. Is that okay? Now you, you, the revolution. You leave the English empire, you're no longer under a monarch. But it's like, okay, now what? Now we have to build a.

Country.

Yeah. And it's just like, it's just like now you have to build a business from scratch. But I think that's, that's the story of like all entrepreneurs is.

It'S, it's the, that that responsibility is the tool to create the life you want.

Change the future, have an impact on the world. But then it's like so much stress.

So.

Take it to the next extreme here. Elon.

Musk. Oh, my.

God.

Responsibility to protect the lives.

Of millions of people who drive Teslas on autopilot.

Wow. I didn't thought about that. Like, this is one, this is life and.

Death. One autopilot crash, and now the entire reputation of.

Tesla.

Yeah. Is in jeopardy. Even if every Uber driver. Uber. Can you think of how many people have died in.

Ubers. Yeah. Or one bad actor, some Uber driver who, you know, sexually assaults their passenger or something. Now this makes the company look.

Bad. There you.

Go. And so, yeah, it.

Always. The people at the top, there's only an increase in responsibility. There's a direct correlation between the amount of responsibility and the amount of growth or success that you.

Have. I remember when you had James Altitude on the podcast, he was saying that he would not want to trade places with Elon Musk for, like, exactly that reason, because his life doesn't have that much responsibility. I think we all, I guess we all have to decide how much we're comfortable.

With. Yeah. Correct. So this is where.

I feel like.

I'm resetting in the sense of.

I.

I, I don't think I was a proper steward of my responsibility when my following started to pop. When my following started to.

Resonate. I wasn't a good steward of people's, like, attention and.

Desires.

But things like, for example, the chapters, doing the local chapters, I mean, is that just a bad idea we shouldn't have done to begin.

With? You just don't do them if you're not prepared for the responsibility that will come from.

Them. Sure. And something that ambitious might mean a whole nother employee to manage it or.

Something. Yeah. And we had chapters in Israel and San Fran and Miami and New York City and which before I joined.

The team, it sounded like, so cool. Yeah. And then I joined the team and I was like, oh, my.

God. Yeah. And what you saw was like, us freaking out all the time, trying to manage all this stuff going.

On.

Yeah. And.

It just like, there's just too much. And that was.

Like, that was me falling in love with an idea and then trying to build the idea. You know, it's funny, this is very therapeutic for me talking about.

It. Oh, that's.

Good. Yeah. Because, like, as soon as you say it, you're like, what the hell was it? This was so.

Stupid. What did you think was gonna.

Happen?

And so now it, like, once you talk about it, it's like, okay, well, I can't ever be that stupid again, so let's document what we do moving.

Forward. So looking forward, I. I like how in a recent email and a post you did and Instagram post, you were talking about, you only want to do things that you love and that are.

Energizing.

Yeah. So, I mean, do you think it's. It's possible you're gonna. We're gonna find a way to.

Set the vision, take on this responsibility, but still have fun doing.

It? Yeah. Yeah. Like, and I've. I spent so much time in my head trying to figure that out. And once you're in your head, you're dead, as Tony Robbins would say.

But I know step one was that we just had to cut a lot of shit. Like, we had it. We had to cut. We had to make the team smaller. We had to cut all these projects that we had running around so we weren't doing anything well.

And then we had to regroup as a team, refill the bank account. Yeah. And then we can reassess. Okay. Who do we want to be able to grow.

Up?

Yeah. And that's what we're doing now. It's like, all.

Right. Just feel like we're in an exciting transitional.

State. I'm glad you think it's exciting. I'm so. I still beat myself.

Up. I see new back room members joining every.

Week.

Yeah. We've got some exciting stuff I shouldn't talk about on camera. In the works, product wise.

And new team.

Members. So, I mean, we did basically a reboot of the whole company.

Which is. Which feels really nice. Like, I feel much more energized simply by the fact that we stopped doing things that weren't working. But.

And I have relaxed my need to have, like a three year vision in favor of just doing things really well now.

We created so many millionaires because we were intentional on them.

In the moment rather than trying to build a three year vision for something. And now we're back there. And so what I care about now is what's fun today that provides value for other people. It doesn't matter what happens in three years matters. Like, are you enjoying showing up today and helping your customers.

Today?

Yeah. Going back to Tony Robbins for a second, I love how he talks a lot about aiming to live in a state of, like, pure joy and bliss every moment of every day. And I feel like this is a hugely. This is a white. This is a goal. He tries to live by with his wife now. And it sounds like, impossible. It sounds like only like Christ could live like that or some Gandhi type of figure, you know? But I like setting that sort of goal. For yourself maybe in life and in business, because it's one of those things where it's like, well, if you shoot for the stars and you only get to the stratosphere, you're still way up above the.

Rest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I want to call.

Bullshit. Are you thinking the negativity is useful or.

Necessary? No, it's more. If your goal is to be in a constant state of bliss. What. How do you feel when you have a bad.

Day? I think maybe you apply the Hal Elrod, like, five minute technique of like, you experience the emotions, the pain, and you move.

On.

Okay. I mean, he was like, right, that's what life or death.

Experience in the hospital. And he was able to stay in a positive mood.

And I'm not at that point yet, but I want to be at that.

Point. I gotcha. I'm more leery of people setting the goal of happiness in the first place. Like, is happiness really the highest.

Goal? Oh, man, this is getting deep. I don't like philosophy. Philosophical, I.

Think. I think it is good to be happy and to optimize happiness. But. Yeah, but, but people have an. An expectation that life is about the pursuit of happiness, and so happiness eludes them.

What we consider happiness in.

Today'S world, where everything's amazing and no one's happy. What we consider happiness is excitement. And it's impossible to always be excited. Happiness, true happiness is an acceptance of what is.

That. That is.

Contentment.

Yeah. That's what happiness.

Is.

Interesting. Happiness is a. Is a, is an appreciation for what.

Is. Because, you know, you being. Being a father. I'm sure it's not all Skittles and beer. It's not all rainbows.

And. Did you just say skittles and.

Beer? Have you not heard that? It's an.

Old. I just, I just.

There's. Okay, so if you gave me.

A hundred ways to describe fatherhood, I wouldn't have said I get. Actually, Skittles and beer is probably how most Americans describe fatherhood. Have some.

Skittles.

Skittles. I'm having a.

Beer.

I love that.

Yeah. As a side note, that comes from like an old, like Irish folk song or something. And like, Skittles is a. Is a game of nine. Is like a nine pin bowling game, like where you, you like throw a bowling ball and you try and knock over the pin. And that was a game called Skittles, so it does not a reference to the candy. So. Yeah, I have really, really weird references.

But. But yeah, I've been checking a lot of Jordan Peterson lately, and he's talking a decent amount about that. Like, people want novelty and pleasure in the absence of pain. They don't always pursue, like, fulfillment and contentment like you're talking.

About.

Mm. So you're in the. You're in the contentment.

Camp.

Yeah. Or I'm maybe a little bit more hedonistic. I don't know what, like you, you're pursuing like good times, like living in the.

Present. Yeah, I pursue that too. Like, I would desire that too. But what we have bought into is the idea that if you're not in that state that you're not happy and that there's something wrong with us. And I think that's the common belief that if you're not in a positive state, that something's wrong with you because the goal is.

Happiness. You know what I guess I'm really aiming for, and I think this ties into business entrepreneurship too, is that like, I want to create as many memorable days as I can. Some it sucks when you look back on a month and a quarter and you're kind of like, where did the time.

Go?

Or.

Okay, I guess I hung out with my mom on this day and then I went to this networking event on this day and then we had a workshop on this day. But I feel like in an ideal life, you're creating more memorable.

Moments. The mind fuck of that is that you only know what those are in the rearview.

Mirror. Totally. As you're experiencing it, you're just in.

It. Pam has done a really good job of getting me to see.

This. She reminds you of good memories. Like, do you remember.

This? No, no, It's. It's different. It's.

She takes the philosophy of Up. Remember the movie.

Up?

Mm. Remember the heart wrenching opening of that.

Movie? Oh, my.

Gosh.

Yes. I was like, I. I'm. I cried.

Who. If you don't cry at the beginning of up, you don't have a.

Soul. Yeah. And I don't. I don't cry in a lot of movies, but like the first five.

Minutes. Oh, it's heart.

Wrenching. I gotta stay away from that movie.

Right. It's like, kid. Like, the only reason why they got away with that in a kids movie is because it was so damn sad that it went over kids heads.

Yeah. They couldn't even.

Understand. Had no Reference point for how, like, hard.

Heart wrenching that was. Anyway.

The.

The. That scene ends, you know, they're saving for vacation and they keep breaking it because things keep happening. And the scene ends with the wife leaving the old man a note saying, thanks for all the adventures. And the adventures were the miscarriage, the.

Broken, like, the. The. The rusty old house. And Pam takes the philosophy of, like, thanks for all the.

Adventures.

Yeah. Like, life is its own story, is its own adventure. And she has. She has been so grounding for me of getting me to realize.

That. That's a good perspective, man. Because, like, I've definitely.

Grown the most and learned the most from my failures. And you talk a lot about this, but it's so true.

I look back on some of my bad memories as, like, good.

Memories.

Yeah. Because there was a lesson there. Or things are better.

Now. This is what I mean of when you said, so you must be enjoying the suck right.

Now. No, I'm not enjoying the suck.

But maybe I know that in a few years I'll look back and think, I learned so much. No one learns while they're.

Succeeding.

You're on top of the world. Everything's going.

Great.

You don't learn in that.

State. It's all Skittles and.

Beer.

You learn when things suck because you're humble enough to learn.

So I got.

Humbled.

Yeah. And now I'm learning again.

Which is great, I.

Guess.

Yeah. I don't think there's any way to be ecstatic through the hard times. You just.

Gotta.

Yep. Power through, you.

Know. You know what is exactly. Like.

I didn't lose everything, but when. But in the scenario in which you lose everything, all little things are progress. And your brain sees all progress as happiness. It's like. It's a serotonin.

Kick.

Yeah. Because there's a positive comparison. So, for example, I don't fear being poor.

What am I afraid of? Eating beans. Beans are freaking delicious. Like, I don't fear being poor. I fear losing it.

All.

And Gary Vee says he almost wants to lose it all. So you can make it all.

Bad. Right. So exactly. Like, the being poor, every piece of growth is awesome.

Your brain thinks in.

Comparison.

Yeah. I don't fear the being poor. I'm probably happier if I'm poor, because every little piece of growth is.

Awesome.

Totally. It's the losing that I fear is the losing the millions in the bank and the Tesla and the house and the.

Condo. Like, I fear that I heard some story about one of the richest men in the world. You Know, net worth goes from $8 billion to $5 billion. And he killed.

Himself.

Yeah. And, yeah, it's all relative, you know? So in the spirit of doing things you love, let's do a little, like, thought experiment here. And like, let's say it's September.

What do you. What do you think your. Your day looks like.

Ideally? Ideally, we're.

Getting. We just had.

Our August event as a great success. We're already wrapping, ramping up for capcon.

I mean, you've talked a bit about community, making videos, spending time with people you.

Like.

Yeah. And then what does the business look.

Like? I don't know. But I can point to.

A few activities that I did that I think were eye opening for me.

One was when.

We were in the ONIT headquarters.

And we were recording with Aubrey.

Marcus.

Yeah. I was like, how do I do this every.

Day?

Yeah. And Billie Jean. The other was in San Diego. Billie Jean going, oh, my goodness, I'm. I'm arguing politics while drunk on a show that's supposed to be about business. How do I do this every day? Like, this is, like, this is. This is my purpose. Right. So much fun. So much fun.

And then the third was sitting here in Austin with a client I really love working with.

Just two buddies who.

Found the podcast, built a multimillion dollar business.

And now they need help scaling and, like, sitting there and going through their business is freaking.

Great. Do I know them?

Did you just make.

That? Okay? You.

Don'T. This is a consulting client of.

Yours.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, just do more of.

That. You know what's funny is, is Pan is my voice of reason. Right. And she.

She says to me.

You need to be okay.

Like, working with clients, teaching entrepreneurs, and you podcast, get your name out there and you have a few.

Events.

Yeah. Like, stop trying to grow five. Like, what's five years from.

Now? I do get that sense from you that there's a dis, there's disappointments because things are happening.

Faster.

Yeah. Where someone else who's less ambitious would be like, everything's going. Everything's going.

Great. Oh, my gosh, totally.

Right. Because you want to do so much and so fast. That's the.

Setup. Yeah. I've made myself. I made the game of Happiness really hard on myself because my comparison is where I want to be, not what's going.

Well. So do you do personal quarterly goals? I know you do, like, journaling more yearly. Yearly, yeah.

And you think they're. They're.

Reachable.

Yeah. Do you think you're gonna hit this year's? Annual.

Goals. You know what's funny, Chris, is like, they're more reachable the less I.

Do.

What do you mean, the less you.

Do? The fewer things I do, the easier the goals are to.

Hit.

Mm. I used to just pile it on and pile it on and pile it on and then I would break.

Like, my fitness goals aren't that ambitious, except when I just don't have the energy to do it. And my cortisol is out of whack, so I crave salty food all the time. I just want to eat a bag of chips.

My financial goals aren't all that ambitious as long as there's one or two things that we're just knocking out of the park rather than 12 things that we're trying to.

Juggle.

Yeah.

The amount of free time I have, that goal is not all that ambitious. Long as I have two people reporting to me rather than 12 C players reporting to me. So it's like the less I do, the faster I go. And I bought into this lie that in order to go faster, I had to do.

More. Yeah. I was literally just thinking, it sounds like the biggest mistake you could make now is to over commit to new projects and new.

Things. Tribe member called me out is like, we don't know who you like, what your brand is because you got too many things going.

On.

Really.

Yeah.

Yeah. I know. You talk to him about that. Like you've said, I don't know what the market perceives me to.

Be.

Yeah. And.

I mean, I don't know. I feel like the branding, brand expert, the millionaire maker, the e commerce.

Guru. I don't want to be an e commerce.

Guru.

But you're really good at it. Like this. This.

Client. Yeah. I just don't want to be known for it. It's like. It's like something I.

Do. Yeah.

Yeah. But I don't want that to be my brand.

Millionaire makers.

Fine. I think. Yeah. We've talked about this. The eventual goal is you're just Ryan.

Moran.

Yeah. And your personality speaks for itself. People know different intricacies of who you are, what you stand.

For. And I tried to build that without building. Like, Ryan Moran will always be.

The pro capitalism guy, you.

Know? Well, I hope so.

Though.

Yeah. I'd be really disappointed if I'm watching this two years from now and they'll be like, I'm a pro government guy now. That's the.

Millionaire. They're gonna drop it all and run for Senate. What's that? Is that you're gonna drop it all and run for.

Senate. That was the best April Fool's joke ever.

You know, Faras was like, you have no idea how much you ruined my day. When you. When I realized you weren't running for.

Something. He was ready to.

Campaign. He was going to be campaign.

Manager. Oh, yeah. There's a couple people already. Oh, well, we. We handled it well. I thought it was.

Obvious. It was awesome. To anyone who knows you resurrect Texas because it was Easter. Oh, my.

Goodness. Oh.

Man.

It's been a tough year for me. See.

Money.

Yeah. But.

Tough in the sense of.

I now wonder how I could have been so stupid. But I'm glad I'm getting the lesson now and not.

Later.

Yeah. And I do think that two years from now, I'll look back and be like, man, if I hadn't got that lesson, then I would still have been doing it, what I was always doing. And my life tends to do this. Like, I expand way too fast, and then I come back and I. And I cut it in time.

And then I grow really fast again.

Like, I remember.

I remember five years ago.

I was just doing stuff that wasn't making me happy.

And I felt like to get through it, I had to expand through it. So I hired all these people. It was just like, now I hire all these people. Didn't know what I was building, stopped paying attention to things.

And I went for broke. And it broke me. And I mean, like, physically, mentally, it broke me.

And so I cut it all and then had the mental energy to the next opportunity. I just smashed it out of the park. And people would come up to me, and they were still doing the things that they hated that I had been doing. And they were like, how did you get out of this?

What do you mean, you just stopped.

It?

Yeah. And then. And that's what I, like, feel like I'm doing now. It's like we're heading a direction that I wasn't happy with. So we had to cut. It was. Had.

To.

Yeah. It's kind of like when you first started, you had all these different people that you were reporting to, and as soon as we cut it all, you were like, oh, now I know what to.

Do. Yeah.

Exactly. That's how I feel now, where it's like, I'm getting rid of all this junk, and all of a sudden, I know what to do. So just keep getting rid of junk. And maybe the answers just show.

Up.

This is a little different, but it reminds me of this time I left.

A bunch of equipment in my trunk And I think I told you this. It all got stolen. One night at 1am.

Somebody, like, broke into my car and stole a couple thousand dollars of video equipment, photo equipment.

Really important bag that I got as a graduation gift from college. And, you know, it's weird. I was so angry. I was so frustrated for a really long time. And I blamed myself for not, you know, taking care of my equipment better and leaving it in the car and not somewhere safe. And now I look back at it, you know, this happened when I was like, 26. I'm like, dude, what if that happened now when I'm 29 even? And it was like, more gear. It was like more equipment. It was like an SD card loaded with a full day's worth of Ryan Moran footage. And it's like, it's a weird thing. I'm glad the mistake and that hard experience happened then because I learned the important lesson about, like, respecting my gear and my equipment and just the relationship of, like, trust with people and strangers. So, yeah, just like I was saying earlier, it's like the hardest. The hardest stuff, man. You don't enjoy it. At the time, it was one of the worst days of my life. But if I didn't learn the lesson then, I only would have learned it later in a more severe way.

Yeah, yeah. So bad, man.

So then I. Yeah, so then I switch from Canon to Nikon. I'm gonna go all Sony.

Eventually. The thing that came to mind when you were saying that was what Hal said at Capcom last year of like, you know, I can't change.

It.

Yeah. So what are we gonna do about it moving.

Forward? Yeah.

Good guess, man.

Good. What's.

That? Good guests we.

Had. Yeah, we do a really solid.

Lineup. Yeah.

People need to come. The next.

One.

Plug. Plug.

All right, well, I don't know anything.

Else. I think it's time for bed. Exhausted, you're in your.

Pajamas. Yeah. This is going to be.

Interesting.

Hey, if you enjoyed that, and I hope you enjoyed some of the letting our hair down and talking about life and meaning and purpose and all that stuff too. If you enjoy that type of a format, if you hear enjoy those types of thoughts, those types of behind the scenes peaks, then I want to highly encourage you to do two things. One, subscribe on Instagram. I'm under the handle ryandaniel Moran, which should be fairly obvious. We post a ton of behind the scenes stuff as Instagram stories, and we're doing more and more behind the scenes looks on YouTube. And our handle on YouTube is Ryan Moran, Thirteen. Or you can just search my name. So we're posting a ton of behind the scenes footage, lessons learned. And I'm taking a policy right now with C Money of I don't want to have any secrets. Like, let's just give them all away. There's no magic behind a paywall. Let's just give as much as possible. So we're doing a lot of that on YouTube and on Instagram. And so if you're enjoying this type of format, then I'm going to encourage you to go over there and follow because you're going to see a lot of this kind of stuff there. If you enjoyed today or if you know someone who is licking their wounds and needs a wake up call, send this podcast to them. It might save them, you know, half a kabillion dollars. Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for listening to the show and I'll see you guys on the next episode.