Ryan Daniel Moran delivers a monologue aimed at entrepreneurs about the common tendency to delay gratification in pursuit of a future ‘done’ state (e.g., selling a business or reaching a financial milestone). He argues this postpones actual enjoyment of life and prescribes practicing "active appreciation" (daily gratitude) as the way to be "done" while still pursuing growth.
So there's a little bit of a common trait that I've seen among a lot of entrepreneurs where we are really good at delaying gratification, but we have this elusive idea of someday we're gonna be done, everything's gonna be rosy. And in a lot of cases, that is from selling a business, or it's when you've got a million dollars in the bank or when you've invested it wisely enough to where you can live off the profits. And I've noticed this trend among entrepreneurs, and I can only speak to it because I. I've been guilty of this myself. Look, one of the greatest predictors of success is the ability to delay gratification. And the only way we're able to justify this is if we have some sort of shiny day in the future where we think we're gonna get a payoff. I mean, I go to the gym because one day I'm gonna look like a Greek God, right? I mean, I already got it going on, but one day it's gonna be even better. Or one day I'm gonna have so much money in the bank that I'll be able to. Then I'll get to enjoy my life way better. It's gon. And it's gonna be. Just keep working hard. One day it's gonna be worth it. We need some essence of that, like, that drives us. That desire for tomorrow to be better than today is why we run for office, supposedly. It's why we build businesses. It's why we invest. It's why we cultivate relationships. So there's an element of growth there that is necessary, but there's also this element that is really, really unhealthy. And I think the missing thing that a lot of us in our community miss is active appreciation. Look.
We'Re sprinting towards the end of the year. We tend to take one day a year called Thanksgiving and actively talk about what we're thankful for in between belches and pieces. And in reality, I think that an idea of being thankful, what I just call active appreciation, that's when you're done. That's when you get to enjoy it. This idea of we put things off until one day when you're done, assumes that that's the point at which you get to enjoy what's in your life. Whereas we can practice that all the time. My buddy Mark Jenny, he's The founder of RVshare.com, he said something to me really interesting, and he said, appreciation to me is like the process of enjoying life. If you don't actively practice gratitude or appreciation, when do you get to enjoy what's in your life? When do you actually get to enjoy the relationship you're in? When do you actually get to enjoy the process of serving the customers that you serve? When do you actually get to enjoy the life you have? If you don't pause and appreciate what's already going on, because otherwise we're just going to always be pushing it off till later, till later, till later. And then you're dead. And that's like the ultimate failure. The weird combination that I have seen among the very few people who are both growth minded and happy is that active appreciation. So rather than practice it once a year, let's practice it every day. That's when you're done as an entrepreneur, when you actually enjoy your life.
