Order of Man - OoM 037： Creating Freedom with Entrepreneurship with Ryan Moran

00:00:00.000 There's a natural desire in all men to provide. In fact, it's one of the primary functions of a

00:00:04.140 man. My guest today, Ryan Moran, shares with us how to not only use entrepreneurship to fulfill

00:00:08.540 our desire to provide a way of life, but also create freedom for yourself and others.

00:00:14.200 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart

00:00:18.980 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:00:24.120 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is

00:00:31.100 who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:36.820 you can call yourself a man.

00:00:39.140 Man, welcome to the Order of Man podcast. I am Ryan Michler, the host and the founder of Order of

00:00:44.140 Man, and I'm glad to be back again here with you today. We are having some incredible conversations

00:00:48.500 about what it means to be a man. Specifically today, we are talking with someone who's been

00:00:53.900 extremely successful in his life about entrepreneurship, providing value, switching

00:00:58.460 your mindset, and how to create more freedom in your life. But let me give you a couple of

00:01:03.000 resources if you want to delve further into the conversation, the discussion that we'll

00:01:05.980 be having today. First, you can find all the links, the resources, the best quotes, the overview

00:01:10.320 of this show at orderofman.com slash 037. And second, if you want to dig into this conversation

00:01:16.180 a bit more beyond what we're talking about here on the show, join us on our Facebook group,

00:01:20.020 facebook.com slash groups slash order of man, where we'll be talking and debating about the

00:01:24.500 conversation that Ryan and I have today. Now, also, I wanted to make you aware that I have set

00:01:29.560 up a Patreon page for you and the other men listening to the show. It's an opportunity for

00:01:34.900 you to become more than just a listener of the show. In fact, it's the groundwork for the

00:01:39.380 membership to the Order of Man that we're going to be creating in the very near future. So you'll want

00:01:43.760 to stay tuned for that. If you want to learn more about how you can help the show and become

00:01:47.000 more involved with the order, head to patreon.com slash order of man. That's P A T R E O N.com 1.00

00:01:55.540 slash order of man. I've got some incredible incentives from adding you to our wall of patrons

00:02:00.440 to a monthly Google hangout we're doing with the guys to t-shirts and even an opportunity to be

00:02:04.580 interviewed for a segment on this show. Again, just head to patreon.com slash order of man and

00:02:09.560 make sure you check that out. Guys, today we're talking with Ryan Moran about something I get a lot

00:02:14.040 of questions on and that is how to become an entrepreneur and create more freedom in your

00:02:18.720 life. He is one of the most sought after and respected leaders on entrepreneurship, personal

00:02:23.620 responsibility, and lifestyle freedom in the internet business world. He's best known for

00:02:27.200 helping entrepreneurs develop what he calls the million dollar plan, getting rapid results and

00:02:31.120 investing the profits for passive income. Now you've probably heard and seen a lot of information

00:02:35.280 out there like this, like I have, but what I like about Ryan is that he's able to do all of that

00:02:39.720 without being overly hypey or being that annoying salesman, which you'll see how he does that in

00:02:44.900 our discussion today. You might also be familiar with Ryan's podcast, Freedom Fast Lane, which is

00:02:49.380 one of the most popular business podcasts available today. And I'm stoked to have him on the show.

00:02:54.500 Ryan, thanks for joining me. It's a, it's an honor to have you on the show today.

00:02:57.000 Hey other Ryan. Good to be here. Thanks for having me, man.

00:02:59.580 It's going to make it easy for the guys listening because we've got two Ryans on so they won't get

00:03:03.460 confused, right? Well, you know, we have such a rare name. This never happens. So

00:03:08.820 well, how old are you? Because I, so I'm 34 and I've got Ryans all over the place at my age. I'm,

00:03:16.040 I'm assuming you're probably right around my age too. Is that right? I just turned 28.

00:03:19.600 Oh, okay. So you're younger than me, but yeah, still Ryan is, is, has always been a popular name,

00:03:23.420 right? Yeah. Growing up, I thought it was a rare name, but maybe I just had a big ego about myself

00:03:28.160 and thought I was a rare breed. I only knew one of the Ryan, but now there's a bunch of us. We've

00:03:33.160 taken over the world. It seems. That's right. There may be a lot of us, but we're all one of

00:03:36.380 a kind, right? Amen, brother. So tell me a little bit about the work that you're doing with Freedom

00:03:40.640 Fastlane. This has always been fascinating to me, especially as I started branching off and

00:03:45.020 starting this project with Order of Man. I'm really curious about how you got into the work you're

00:03:48.500 doing now. Yeah. Well, I, I grew, I came out of the womb an entrepreneur. So my first business was,

00:03:53.720 I was five years old. I drew hand-drawn pictures on pieces of notepad paper and took them door to door

00:03:59.160 around my neighborhood and tried to sell them for a penny each. That business lasted about one

00:04:04.460 evening and I made, I made, I made five cents. My dad was, was two of those cents. And you hit up

00:04:11.700 dad and grandma and all of them. I hit dad up first and he bought two of them and he also supplied all

00:04:16.280 the ink and notebook paper. So it was a hundred percent profit. Thank you very much. And I always knew I

00:04:24.080 was going to be an entrepreneur, but it was when I finally became an entrepreneur, I was, I was 18

00:04:28.960 and started my first real business, but it was all about the money. It was all about how much I could

00:04:33.480 extract, how much it could take. And I have this goal of, of owning the Cleveland Indians. I'm from

00:04:39.640 Cleveland, you know, I'm a glutton for punishment, obviously. And I love, I love my Indians and my dream

00:04:45.980 is to own the Cleveland Indians. So I bought into this idea early into my career that I had to take

00:04:52.620 and extract as much as possible in order to be successful. And you know what, Ryan, I was,

00:04:58.120 I was pretty successful pretty quickly. Sure. But after a couple of years of just pursuing the money

00:05:04.940 and pursuing the idea of taking as much as possible, really realized that after a few years,

00:05:12.680 all this taking was, was taking me, it was taking my spirit. It was taking my energy. This idea of

00:05:19.180 always trying to take just completely burned me out. And I actually hit a point of just total

00:05:26.140 burnout, depression, um, at one point was, was even suicidal. Um, I felt like I had achieved

00:05:33.540 everything that I thought I could achieve and I was completely empty and broken inside. It wasn't until

00:05:39.380 I hit that rock bottom that freedom actually became important to me because I realized, you know,

00:05:45.160 we're not after the certain things in our life or actually, we're actually after what those things

00:05:50.720 will give us, what emotions, what experiences do we want to feel and experience as a result of having

00:05:56.660 those things. And that, you know, sent me on a path of, of personal discovery. And I started sharing

00:06:05.600 after kind of a couple of years off of not talking about entrepreneurship, I started sharing about my

00:06:11.040 journey more openly and the things I had learned along the way after just completely burning out

00:06:16.480 with no agenda or no need to take anything. And my life really took off or my career really took off

00:06:22.820 from that point because there was no more need to, to take or extract from people. It was more about

00:06:28.580 making the pie bigger and really cool things started to open up for me at that point.

00:06:33.060 It's really interesting that you say it's not about the, the money that we have. It's about

00:06:36.660 the thing that that, the value that that will provide. I'm a financial advisor by trade. So I

00:06:40.920 run into this all the time and people want these large bank accounts. And at the end of the day,

00:06:43.920 you ask them what they're going to do with all that money and they have no idea. They just want

00:06:46.360 the big bank account. So I really, I can really resonate with what you're saying there.

00:06:50.260 Talk to me about the difference between giving and taking, because I think when it comes to

00:06:55.640 entrepreneurship, it's a fine line because we are giving value and providing value in exchange for

00:07:01.220 something. In most cases, it's money. So talk to me about the difference between those two

00:07:06.160 mindsets. Well, I think for me anyway, and I don't know if this is the case for, for every guy,

00:07:11.320 but for me, when I'm coming into a business or I'm coming into a project that I'm working on,

00:07:18.960 there's just two very different mindsets. And the mindset is, man, we're going to make so much money

00:07:24.920 doing this, or it's, here is the impact I'm going to make. And those are two extremes. Usually the

00:07:31.840 conversation isn't, you know, that, that opposed though. Of course. Right. It's somewhere in

00:07:37.400 between. Yeah. But, but I think, I think the sweet spot is knowing where you provide a lot of value

00:07:44.720 naturally. So it's easy to be rewarded generously. And if you're very clear on that, then you can just

00:07:53.440 focus on a point of contributing a whole lot of value and money just follows you. A really weird

00:08:00.960 thing has happened to me in the last couple of years. And it's as, as long as I operate in that

00:08:07.320 sweet spot of here's where I know I can provide the greatest value for my time in one hour, I can

00:08:14.920 provide more value than most people can in 10 days. As long as I focus on that sweet spot, money just

00:08:24.720 chases me everywhere I go because you are giving a whole lot of value. And so when we, when we

00:08:32.120 released from that need to take, I think anyway, you're able to focus on that sweet spot more because

00:08:38.880 now you're not attached to the result. And that's true, whether you work a full-time job or you're an

00:08:44.380 entrepreneur or you're starting a business or you have an internship, whatever it is, the more you can

00:08:49.540 focus on that sweet spot where you know that you provide as much value as possible. That's when

00:08:54.840 your life career and income takes off. So if you don't mind me asking, what is the value that you

00:09:00.500 provide in that? Like you said, the one hour where I could provide the most value versus somebody else

00:09:04.800 who, who couldn't provide the same amount of value in 10 days. And then the follow-up question to that

00:09:08.640 is how do men who are listening to this find the value that they can provide and do the same thing

00:09:13.580 that you're talking about? I'll answer the second question first. And that's, I don't think

00:09:17.900 most people know out of the gate. And that can be horribly frustrating for purpose-driven men.

00:09:26.040 We are, especially in today's world where we can specialize in just about anything, there's

00:09:32.920 a high demand and a lot of pressure for guys to, to think about, okay, what is like, what's my gift

00:09:40.020 or what's my purpose or what's my passion as if there's only one thing. And when we pursue that,

00:09:46.740 it eludes us because there is no one thing, there is no, there's no defined purpose for your life.

00:09:53.800 I think that is a really damaging, a really damaging thought that there's one route that

00:09:58.900 you have to go down. And if you get it wrong, you're screwed. Yeah, right. Yeah. So much weight 0.98

00:10:03.940 and pressure on everything that we do. There's a, there's a thousand different paths that you can

00:10:08.740 take that would be beneficial. Just like there's probably a thousand women out there that you could 1.00

00:10:13.780 be perfectly happy with. The way that you find it is by aligning where your passions and your talents

00:10:22.680 intersect. Well, where is there demand for something that you're both interested in and you are good at?

00:10:29.840 And there's, there's 20 of these in your life right now, but in the marketplace, it will reward you

00:10:35.820 for any of them as long as there is demand for that thing. For me, it's looking at a business or

00:10:42.060 looking at a plan and impacting it very quickly and then getting the hell out of there. So my gift

00:10:49.640 is looking at a business and how it's operating or taking an idea and getting it to the 20 yard line

00:10:56.520 and then getting out of there and letting the people whose specialty is taking something from

00:11:00.940 the 20 yard line into the end zone. So for example, a couple of years ago, I decided I would only ever

00:11:08.600 start a business if I was partnered with, I called it an implementer, somebody who loved the process

00:11:15.120 of building things and getting things done. Cause I ain't that guy. If I have to sit at a computer

00:11:21.000 and I have to actually draw out what we're doing, like I will hate my life. But one of my business

00:11:29.040 partners, Sean, absolutely loves that process. And I am absolutely amazed at his ability to get things

00:11:36.440 done. And he is absolutely amazed at my ability to sit in the corner and come up with ideas that

00:11:41.780 are actually really awesome. So by partnering them and us both focusing on where we're best,

00:11:46.680 we're able to get a tremendous amount of work done very, very quickly. So my sweet spot is looking at

00:11:52.680 a business or taking an idea and getting it rolling and then getting the hell out of there so that

00:11:57.060 somebody else can operate in their sweet spot. And then I'm off to the next idea, the next win.

00:12:00.660 So is this just a matter of, let's say, let's say somebody's listening to this and they,

00:12:05.800 and they're thinking, yes, I need to find where passion and demand meet. And this is something I

00:12:10.760 need in my life. Is this just a process of exploring your passions? How do you find demand? What's,

00:12:16.620 what's the process for a guy to step into this idea of the intersection between passion and demand in

00:12:23.220 the marketplace? So I have a really hypey and silly mathematical equation that I created for this.

00:12:29.240 And it looks like this, your results equal your beliefs times your strategy and execution times

00:12:40.000 time. So your results equal your beliefs times strategy and execution times time. And the way that

00:12:48.980 works is this. If we want a certain result, we can impact the result by changing any one of these,

00:12:56.180 these equations. Right. Any of the variables. Exactly. You know, if you had bought Coke stock,

00:13:02.560 um, in 1850 and put like 10 bucks in it, it's now worth like a hundred trillion dollars or whatever 0.72

00:13:09.700 the ridiculous idea is. And when people hear that, they're like, Oh, I should go buy Coke stock. Well,

00:13:15.800 you know what? That's a really interesting strategy, but most of us don't have 150 fricking years.

00:13:21.880 Like most of us don't want to wait that long for a certain result. So that there is a result and the

00:13:29.240 strategy is a fine strategy. And given enough time that compounding interest will be incredible,

00:13:35.560 or we could just explode the strategy and we could get the result with less time in the same way.

00:13:42.640 Most people have beliefs that set pretty low targets. So that impacts the strategy that they

00:13:49.500 look for or the way that they execute or the time that they're willing to put into something.

00:13:53.940 So we can explode either, any one of these variables and we can get a better result,

00:13:58.300 but we don't make any progress until we have a really clearly defined and decided

00:14:04.720 what result we ultimately want. We have so much information overload. We have so many opportunities.

00:14:13.140 We have so much contact to anyone living right now. And that is a blessing. If we align all of that

00:14:21.520 towards what we have decided that we want, but we don't get any of it until we are laser crystal clear

00:14:28.760 on exactly what it is that we want, because then we can align all of these resources. We can align our

00:14:34.160 beliefs, our strategy, our execution, the time we're willing to put into something, our contacts,

00:14:39.160 the information is floating around everywhere, the opinions of people. We can align that all into

00:14:46.540 what it is that we've decided that we want, but we can't do any of that if we have not clearly defined

00:14:52.320 what that thing is or what the result that we want to get is.

00:14:56.520 Right. And it's so interesting that you say that because this is a reoccurring trend as I have

00:15:01.360 men on the podcast. That is the reoccurring thing is that you've got to define your beliefs. You've got

00:15:06.600 to find out what it is you want. You've got to reflect. You've got to meditate. You've got to do

00:15:09.900 whatever it is you can to determine what you want first before you start putting these plans into

00:15:13.960 place. Otherwise, those plans might just get you into a place that you're not interested in being

00:15:18.180 or that you shouldn't be in or whatever it may be. Right. And one thing I want to add to this that

00:15:22.440 puts some space and freedom around it is you can change this whenever you want. And it's just

00:15:27.400 another decision. I had a coach. It was a female coach that I worked with for about two years. 1.00

00:15:34.660 And she said something really profound to me. And it was when I first moved to Austin, Texas,

00:15:40.320 I actually had a lot of guilt around moving to Austin, Texas, because I had aging grandparents.

00:15:47.440 I had my mom is a single mom. My brother has two young nephews. And I felt really guilty leaving

00:15:54.580 Cleveland. But I knew I had to do it because I had new paradigms to grow into in my life. And I

00:16:00.760 wasn't doing it living where I grew up. And when I moved to Austin, I had all this guilt. And I was

00:16:08.300 telling my my mentor, my coach about it. And she said, Ryan, you can move back at any time. And if you

00:16:15.040 move back, it will not be failure, it will just be another decision. And this created so much freedom

00:16:22.280 and space around what I wanted to do. Because we so often want to define what's the right decision.

00:16:32.100 What's the best thing? I'm afraid of making the wrong decision. I'm afraid of starting the wrong

00:16:37.240 business, dating the wrong girl, going down the wrong career path. The true answer is that if you

00:16:45.040 make a decision and then you want to pivot, you can do that anytime. And it's just another decision.

00:16:53.380 And owning that created so much freedom and space around the decisions that I wanted to make and

00:16:58.500 actually liberated me to make good, positive, forward decisions without feeling like I had to have

00:17:07.380 everything figured out before I did so. Right. Yeah, it makes total sense. I know I get a lot of

00:17:12.480 questions about where I see order of man going over the next year or two years or five years or

00:17:16.600 10 years. And my answer, if I'm being truthful, is I have no idea. Yeah, I know where I'm going now.

00:17:21.360 And that's it. Right. And I've got some goals and I've got some visions and some things I'm working

00:17:25.380 on. But I don't want to pigeonhole myself into one thing. So I really like the way that you that you

00:17:30.160 that you describe that because it it's just a process of decisions and corrections along the way,

00:17:35.200 right? Yeah, 100%. And we never have full information before we make a decision. We only make

00:17:42.320 it based on the information at hand. And we always are getting new information and you can always

00:17:47.840 pivot later. You said something really interesting as we started talking today. You said that you were

00:17:52.660 born, you came out of the womb an entrepreneur. And I would have to say that I was probably the

00:17:57.620 opposite of that. I never had any entrepreneurial experience or desires when I was younger. I never

00:18:02.940 sold candy or went door to door or even started a lawn care when I was a child. But I consider myself

00:18:07.420 now an entrepreneur. And I think there's a lot of guys out here who think that maybe because they

00:18:12.560 didn't come out the natural salesman or marketer or entrepreneur that somehow it's not in their stars

00:18:18.500 or it's not for them. Tell me a little bit about that. Is it something that we're born with? Or is it

00:18:23.260 something that can be developed? And how does that look? Well, yes, it absolutely can be developed.

00:18:27.540 But I want to throw a bit of a wrench into the argument and propose the idea that maybe all of us

00:18:34.400 are entrepreneurs. If we look at what an entrepreneur is, it doesn't just mean somebody

00:18:40.500 who goes out and starts businesses. We get a lot of the glory, if you will, because there's a lot of

00:18:47.920 cool stories out of that. But an entrepreneur is simply somebody who is compensated according to the

00:18:56.200 value that they provide to the marketplace. Now, in a private sector economy, unless you work for the

00:19:02.960 government, you are an entrepreneur, because you are operating in a place where you are paid or

00:19:09.700 compensated for the value that you bring to the marketplace, which is not tied to your time.

00:19:16.520 It is 0% tied to your time. Now, it takes time to provide value, but you're not paid for the time.

00:19:23.860 You are paid for the value that you bring to the marketplace. Now, there are some systems

00:19:29.020 that make it difficult to think this way. If you are working for someone and you're paid per hour,

00:19:35.880 it can be a bit of a challenge to think about what makes you compensated more or less because you

00:19:45.160 have an agreement with that employer. But I actually have one employee, my executive assistant,

00:19:50.520 who took a pay cut to work for me over her last job. And it was she worked for the government,

00:19:57.440 and she had a big mental hurdle to get over of this idea that I was paying her for value,

00:20:02.740 not for her time. So we had a really interesting conversation where I proposed the idea where if

00:20:08.120 she could provide more value by doing X, Y, and Z, I would be willing to compensate her more.

00:20:13.700 And her eyes just opened up like, you mean there's other value that could be provided rather than just

00:20:20.920 what's expected of me in this hour. But we're all operating that way. We're all operating in a world

00:20:28.400 where we are compensated for our value rather than our time. And the system that you're operating in

00:20:34.140 right now may not encourage that thinking, but that's the reality of it. So the minute that we focus

00:20:40.280 on value driving activities, or providing as much value with our time as possible,

00:20:45.920 then we have infinite, we have an infinite ceiling that we can grow into, because that is really how

00:20:52.500 the world works. So I like to say that everybody is already an entrepreneur. Some people just aren't

00:20:57.900 actualizing that and operating within it.

00:21:00.940 I like that. I like that. So how do you know what's valuable? And one of the things that you said

00:21:06.340 earlier is where that freedom or that whatever it may be success lies, where your passion meets the

00:21:13.760 demand. So how do you determine what's valuable? How do you determine where there's demand and where

00:21:18.660 you can actually make a difference in the world?

00:21:20.460 I had a professor in college, my favorite professor, his name was Dr. Tom Lehman. And Dr. Tom Lehman

00:21:26.700 said something once in class that made me smile. And, and I've never forgotten this. He said,

00:21:32.920 so many of you college students are walking around wondering, what's the plan for my life? What,

00:21:39.180 what direction should I go in? What's the answer? Where's their demand? And he's, I went to a religious

00:21:45.760 college and he said, God gave you the marketplace. The marketplace tells you where the value is.

00:21:52.640 Right.

00:21:53.360 So the, the marketplace is where we identify where inefficiencies are or where there's

00:21:58.660 excess compensation according to value and where we can provide a lot of value based on what people

00:22:05.760 are willing to pay. So I, I look, I'm a capitalist pig. I think the marketplace is a great thing, 0.95

00:22:12.620 a great indicator of where we can provide value. It's not the end all be all, but it can be a great

00:22:17.380 data point for where a lot of value is provided. So I, I look at, at money as one of those indicators for,

00:22:26.140 for where the value is. Now, if you're operating in a company that it's looking at where the company

00:22:31.460 can provide the most value or where there's untapped potential or customers or clients that

00:22:36.980 could be served in a way that is not currently being done and bringing those concepts or ideas to

00:22:44.620 the table or going in that direction. I have a buddy who works for a healthcare company and he is

00:22:51.700 constantly looking for ways to save his, his clients, which are hospitals, millions of dollars

00:22:57.180 off their, off their expenses. And as, and as a result, he has clients and customers who just

00:23:04.320 absolutely love him because he's constantly in a place of providing value. So I think the marketplace

00:23:09.720 is a great indicator of that. If that's kind of a broad concept, if we look more micro,

00:23:15.820 then we look at where people are spending money, where there are inefficiencies in marketplaces,

00:23:21.260 how things can be improved, where industries or markets can be disrupted, how things can be done

00:23:27.480 differently that improve people's lives. And any of these questions can lead us to conclusions where

00:23:34.840 we can provide more value. I like that because that was actually my next question is you said that

00:23:39.940 money is one indicator of value, but you talk about how to make things simplified or easier in people's

00:23:44.960 lives or where do they get satisfaction and fulfillment. So I can see how it goes so much

00:23:48.400 deeper than just the monetary value of what you're providing. Yeah. If we can answer those

00:23:52.640 questions, then the money piece is usually really easy, but the, the money piece, if answered first,

00:23:59.180 can also be a really good indicator. I want to talk about your platform. Your brand is Freedom Fastlane.

00:24:06.140 And I want to talk about what freedom is, because I think we all have a different definition of that

00:24:10.520 and define it differently and look at it differently. Right. When you say freedom,

00:24:13.720 what are you referring to? What specifically are you talking about? Beautiful question. I can,

00:24:18.100 I don't think I've ever been asked this question. I've always wanted somebody to ask me. So thank

00:24:22.340 you. Good, good. Happy to. I define freedom as the space for you to define life as you see fit.

00:24:33.160 So, so many people identify freedom as the release of pain or struggle, meaning I want to be free from

00:24:45.840 this. I want to be free from my job. I want to be free from oppression. We need to free this country

00:24:52.120 from whatever dictatorship is oppressing them. And that's the common way that we see it to free

00:24:59.620 from whatever is holding us back. I think that's a mistake until we have married that to whatever we

00:25:08.560 want to be free to move into. So if you think about a prisoner, a prisoner is locked in a cell somewhere

00:25:15.940 and he dreams of the day that he wants to be free from the prison cell. But we know when we have all

00:25:23.740 kinds of data on the fact that prisoners are more often than not less happy when they get out of prison

00:25:31.480 than when they were in prison. Right, right. It is not enough to just be free from the cell

00:25:40.720 and the oppressive prison guards. It has to be married to a clear vision of what they want to be free

00:25:47.780 to do. Freedom is empty. It is an empty concept. It's like an empty bedroom. If you look at a

00:25:56.180 bedroom and you're like, man, I just want to clear out all this furniture so I can sit in an empty room,

00:26:01.300 that makes no sense. Right. But if you clear it out so that you can build something that you love

00:26:07.240 or design it in a way that you really enjoy, now you've actualized your freedom. But it's nothing

00:26:15.260 if it is empty. So when we say, I want to be free from this thing, that's great. Then what?

00:26:23.440 It has to be combined with, I want to be free from this thing so that I can be free to move

00:26:29.920 in this direction. Otherwise, it is a completely empty, depressing, and lonely concept.

00:26:36.660 It reminds me a lot of, we hear about habits, trying to break bad habits. And it's not enough

00:26:42.520 to break the habit. You've actually got to replace that habit, a productive habit, a good habit with,

00:26:47.020 with replace the bad with that productive habit. Yeah. A hundred percent. Great, great comparison.

00:26:52.540 So I want to talk about this concept a little bit more because you have what you refer to as the five

00:26:57.760 steps of freedom. So now that we've defined freedom a little bit and what we want to move into,

00:27:01.880 let's talk about some of these steps. And the first one, which I think you already addressed a

00:27:05.660 little bit, which is decide what you want life to look like. So we've, we've kind of skimmed the surface.

00:27:11.080 Is there anything else that you would add when it comes to deciding what you want life to look

00:27:14.720 like? Well, if we, if we look at the analogy of the empty room, so, so many of us, especially guys,

00:27:21.500 we're afraid of this step because we, we don't want to make the wrong thing. But if we, if we,

00:27:27.820 we don't want to decide the wrong thing or get it wrong. But if we look at it like a room and we clear

00:27:33.060 out the old, we're free from all the junk in our room. And we were to just say, ah, isn't this freedom

00:27:38.200 great? I'm sleeping on the floor and I'm looking at a blank wall. It makes no sense. So this decide

00:27:44.640 piece is just defining and getting clear on what we're going to put in the room or what we're going

00:27:50.520 to, where we're going to move our, our life next. We're not really free until we make some decision,

00:27:56.960 even if it is not the ideal decision, we're not free until we have really decided and start to move

00:28:04.600 towards what it is that we've decided. Right. Okay. So let's say we we've gone through this.

00:28:09.480 We've decided we have a vision. We spend time reflecting. We think about what life wants to

00:28:14.020 look like. We know what we want to move towards. Then what do we do from there? The next thing is

00:28:18.280 to cut out everything that is not supporting that vision or that decision. So, and especially in

00:28:25.420 today's world where we have constant information, constant noise, distractions, opinions being thrown

00:28:34.180 at us all the time. We have, if you want to be an entrepreneur, you can listen to one of about a

00:28:40.180 hundred business authorities at any given time by typing into YouTube and listening to them. But if we

00:28:48.940 want to get what we want, then we have to cut out everything that does not directly serve that

00:28:55.000 purpose. Cutting out the information, cut out the time sucks, cut out the waste of our energy,

00:29:02.120 cut out the people who bring us down, cut out the surroundings that are not supporting the vision

00:29:07.580 that we have. We have to create space for us to expand into. And we can only do that by cutting out

00:29:16.200 things in our life that don't support the vision that we have. A great example is for whatever reason,

00:29:21.720 I find that if I log out of Facebook and change my password and write it down in a journal somewhere

00:29:28.300 so that I have to go get my journal anytime I have to log into Facebook, all of a sudden I get like

00:29:32.460 two extra hours a day. Now it's not like I'm sitting on Facebook for two hours, but when you compound the

00:29:38.500 distractions and the interruptions, I waste like two hours a day of productivity where I could be

00:29:46.880 supporting my vision just because Facebook is constantly like, hey there big fella, come check

00:29:51.320 me out. So when I cut that out, I get new time. If I cut out watching TV or if I cut out a relationship

00:30:00.900 that I feel is dragging me down, now all of a sudden we have this space to expand into the decision of the

00:30:08.740 vision that we've created. Right. Okay, good. So we've identified those things and now you talk about

00:30:14.700 expanding into this vision. Talk about that because I think that's the third step. Yeah, the third step is to

00:30:20.200 expand. And when I say expand, I mean expanding our mindsets and expanding our incomes. And we do that now

00:30:28.540 that we have the space to expand into. The biggest excuse that people make for not getting what they want is

00:30:36.300 I don't have the time or I don't have the blank. All right, quit whining and cut something out.

00:30:44.700 So that you can expand into that. And we expand by identifying the pieces of information,

00:30:51.920 the contacts that we would like to have that will lead us toward that vision. Most people know the rule

00:30:58.440 of five. If you are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with. So change who you

00:31:05.000 associate with, change the inputs in your brain, change the conversation that's going on in your

00:31:11.680 brain, and you will move towards a different vision. And you can align whatever supports that

00:31:18.500 vision because we have an abundance of information and contacts. We can contact everybody. So we expand

00:31:25.120 by consciously choosing what we do with our time and resources that we freed up in step two.

00:31:31.500 Right. So we talk about as much information as we're exposed to and have, and then next you say

00:31:38.900 expand those opportunities. How do we know what to consume? There's so much out there. And is there

00:31:45.600 a way for us to determine this is going to be helpful versus this is clutter and distraction in my life?

00:31:50.640 Yeah. I think when you come back from consuming some piece of information and you say,

00:31:56.080 what, we need to change everything because I had this new idea. That's a thought we need to

00:32:02.740 take captive, if you will. I'm an idea guy. So it's easy to get lost in the sea of ideas that are

00:32:10.720 constantly being thrown at us. So I think if something causes us to change direction swiftly,

00:32:19.320 we need to pause on that idea and consider if it meets with our vision that we've clearly defined.

00:32:26.980 I think the best sources of information come from individuals that are ahead of us on the path that

00:32:32.020 we want to go. And by being close with relationships that support us, that type of information or the

00:32:39.640 information that they recommend is usually a good filter for where we want to go.

00:32:44.260 Right. Yeah. I just had a conversation with some guys this morning about the power of mentorship

00:32:48.720 and I can see how valuable that is because you're finding, like you said, guys that have already been

00:32:53.220 successful in whatever area, whether it's learning how to be a better golfer or a better shot or a

00:33:01.360 better business owner, finding men who are people in general who have been more successful than you

00:33:06.020 have up to that point in emulating what they're doing. Exactly.

00:33:08.680 So this next step is really valuable. And I know most of the guys listening to this probably

00:33:13.640 adhere to this principle to some degree or they would not be listening to this podcast.

00:33:18.120 So talk to me about the next step. Step four is to invest. And before we go into investing,

00:33:23.500 I want to make the argument that everything is an investment. Everything has an ROI. The relationships

00:33:31.220 you keep. If you have a fight with your girlfriend or your wife, are you more or less productive? I mean,

00:33:37.920 come on, who can focus on you? You're not nearly as bad. Yeah. And whereas if you have a woman 1.00

00:33:42.660 who is like, I got your back, babe, no matter how big you fall or fail, I got you. You're like,

00:33:48.700 this work is mine. Today is mine. So does how you show up in your relationship have a financial ROI?

00:33:58.880 Yeah. Are you more or less productive when you wake up in the morning and you're just full of energy

00:34:03.460 and you are, you feel fit and you've gone to the gym? Yeah. We, we attack work completely

00:34:09.420 differently. So is your physical body have a financial ROI? Yeah. You better believe that it

00:34:14.440 does. So we can talk about like investment strategies that I follow, but the real argument

00:34:19.680 here is to recognize that everything we do with our time, every relationship that we keep is an

00:34:26.220 investment in some capacity. Free time is an investment because I am a terrible entrepreneur when I don't

00:34:32.260 have free time. If I burn the candle at both ends, I'm a, I'm terrible at work and playing video games

00:34:39.640 has a certain investment because there's diminishing returns. If I play video games for an hour and I get

00:34:44.600 disconnected, that can be a positive investment for me. But if I spend three days doing a game of

00:34:52.300 thrones marathon, or I'm playing, I'm playing Madden 16 for three days in a row, that usually has a

00:35:00.100 negative ROI in terms of my happiness, my financial return, my relationships. So everything is an

00:35:07.580 investment. And when we look at it like that, I think that frees us up to really make better

00:35:12.120 decisions. Yeah. It's such a great point. I mean, just for me personally, a lot of guys that are

00:35:16.580 listening to this podcast know that I've been on a health journey over the past several years. And I

00:35:20.280 had a friend of mine, a financial advisor that I'm in the business with, ask me about the success I've

00:35:25.780 had with losing weight and getting in better shape. And it's amazing. I told him, this is probably the

00:35:32.120 number one best decision, business decision that I ever could have made because my productivity and

00:35:39.180 my ability to connect with my clients and prospects went through the roof as I learned to master my body

00:35:45.520 because we can't make these decisions in a vacuum. The way you do it in one area is that naturally going

00:35:49.480 to spill over into another area. Absolutely. Completely agree. All right. So we're investing,

00:35:54.060 we're investing our time and our energy and our money and our commitment, and we've done all those

00:35:57.520 things. What's next? So the final step is to give back or just to give. And when we focus in a,

00:36:05.140 first of all, I think the best thing that you can do, the best way that you can give is to just be

00:36:10.420 completely you, is to live life on your terms, to focus on the things that light you up and the

00:36:19.360 things that change the world in your specific sweet spot. So if we've done steps one through four,

00:36:25.280 I think five is natural. But focusing on giving rather than taking or extracting, I think is really

00:36:32.160 how we ultimately get free because our ego is never happy. Our ego is never satisfied. And a healthy

00:36:38.440 amount of ego can be a healthy driver, but it's never satisfied. But when we focus on giving rather

00:36:47.180 than satisfying our ego or our selfish tendencies, that's when we really are free because that's

00:36:55.140 when we feel fulfilled. That's when we feel happy. And that's when we actually are able to change our

00:37:02.740 lives, our family's lives and the lives of those around us in a positive way. So focusing on the idea

00:37:10.120 of giving, even if it's just operating in your sweet spot, that is when we ultimately can get free.

00:37:16.020 I like that. And these aren't necessarily in chronological order. I mean, these are things

00:37:20.920 that obviously we want to be giving and we want to be doing these things throughout the entire thing.

00:37:24.480 So it's not like you check it off a list and then it's done forever, if I'm understanding correctly.

00:37:29.020 Well, they're not necessarily done forever, but I do think that there's a chronological order to them

00:37:34.040 because we can't have what we want until we're clear and we decide on it. We can't expand in

00:37:40.900 anything until we've created space for it. When we start to expand and invest, those are things that

00:37:48.280 we can only do once the first two are in place and they're long-term investments. And it's only

00:37:54.120 when we have gotten clear on what we want, we're moving towards it, we're expanding and we're

00:37:58.880 planting seeds for the future that we're really giving back. So if we just focus on giving before

00:38:05.300 we have really created any abundance for ourselves, we can't give as much. If we try to expand before

00:38:11.200 we have cut out anything, we burn the candle at both ends. So I think there is a chronological

00:38:17.020 order, but you're never done because once you have finished them, you tend to go back to the

00:38:22.420 beginning and say, okay, what do I want now? What direction do I want to go in now? And then we

00:38:27.320 decide, okay, what do we need to cut out? What do I need to expand into? What seeds do I need to

00:38:31.400 plant? And the whole cycle starts again. Nice. Yeah. That makes sense. Well, Ryan,

00:38:37.000 we're, we're running down on time here. I want to ask you a couple additional questions as we wind

00:38:40.720 down. The first one, I didn't even prepare you for this. So I'm throwing you on the spot and under

00:38:44.080 the bus a little bit, but this is a question I ask all of my guests. And that is, what do you think

00:38:49.380 it means to be a man? Wow. I mean, I think, yeah, it's a big one. I think being a man is putting

00:38:58.040 your stake in the ground and saying, this is who I'm about and this is who I'm going to be. And

00:39:03.080 this is what I stand for and never letting that be shaken. Perfect. On the spot, even well done.

00:39:09.660 Thanks. I, uh, I have very high testosterone. Yes, that's right. Hey, so we've scratched the

00:39:15.160 surface on the five steps to freedom. I know you have a ton going on. If guys are listening to this

00:39:19.940 and they're saying to themselves, Hey, I want to connect, or I want to learn more about what Ryan's

00:39:23.200 doing. I know you've got some exciting events coming up. And so let's hear about those and then

00:39:26.860 how we can connect with you. Yeah. My eyes, I focus mostly on business when it comes to what

00:39:32.500 I talk about publicly. So I have a business podcast called freedom fast lane, which you can find on

00:39:37.780 iTunes. The thing I'm most excited about right now is we're having our first ever live event here at

00:39:44.600 towards the end of the year, December 11th, 12th and 13th in Austin, Texas, where we're bringing

00:39:49.720 some of the top entrepreneurs in the world. Robert Herjavec, the nice guy on shark tank, Gary Vaynerchuk,

00:39:55.140 Grant Cardone, who owns about $350 million in real estate, the billionaire founder of Priceline.com,

00:40:01.900 Pat Flynn, the top business blogger. These are all guys that have stretched my mind. And I said,

00:40:08.460 how much, how many paradigms could we shatter if we got them all into a room for three days? And that's

00:40:14.280 what I set out to build. And that's what we're doing December 11th, 12th and 13th. And that's at

00:40:19.260 freedomfastlanelive.com. We'll make sure we link all that up to the show notes so the guys that are

00:40:24.460 listening can connect with you and connect with what you're doing and look at these events.

00:40:28.540 Ryan, I know you're busy. I appreciate your time. I appreciate your wisdom and everything that you've

00:40:31.740 shared with us today. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks, Ryan.

00:40:34.440 There you have it, man. Mr. Ryan Moran talking about creating value, becoming an entrepreneur

00:40:38.420 and finding freedom in the process. I hope that you guys enjoyed this show. Again, if you want to

00:40:43.160 check out a couple of resources to follow up on this show, first, you can go to orderofman.com

00:40:47.520 slash 037 to gain access to the links and the highlights from this conversation. And then next,

00:40:53.580 you can head to our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash order of man, where we will

00:40:58.840 continue the conversation with over 1200 men on that exclusive Facebook group. Last thing, again,

00:41:03.740 I want to give you a quick reminder and an opportunity to jump on board. If you want to learn

00:41:06.820 more about how you can help this show and become more involved with the order, you can head to

00:41:10.960 Patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N, patreon.com slash order of man. I've got a ton of incentives that we're giving

00:41:18.600 away. We talked about the wall of patrons, the Google hangout we're doing with the rest of the

00:41:22.140 guys, t-shirts, and even an opportunity to be interviewed for a segment on this very show.

00:41:28.280 So again, you can head to patreon.com slash order of man and check that out. Guys, I look forward

00:41:32.900 to talking with you next week, but until then, take action and become the man you were meant to be.

00:41:36.820 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

00:41:42.380 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - December 01, 2015

OoM 037： Creating Freedom with Entrepreneurship with Ryan Moran

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