Hard Decisions To Create A Simpler Life & Business

Hey everyone, welcome back to Capitalism.com. I'm Ryan Daniel Moran. As I record this episode for you today, it is opening day for baseball season. And for those of you who know me at all, you know that I am a huge Cleveland Guardians fan. It is the thing that I look forward to every day, knowing that there is going to be a baseball game on. So I am crawling out of my six month coffin where there was no baseball on TV and I can't wait. I can't wait to have something to look forward to every single day. So I'm in a good mood today and I wanted to sit down with you and share a few decisions that I have made to give myself a little bit of a simpler life. And I've taken inventory of the things that bring me the most energy, the most excitement and how I am structuring my businesses in order to support and promote those. At the beginning of this year, I set out one goal for myself and it was to create more space. I didn't have an idea of what I wanted to create space for, but I just wanted more white space in my calendar. I wanted to have more time to allow whatever wanted to emerge to come through because the reality of being a podcaster and a YouTuber and an advisor to a lot of businesses is that sometimes you can get on a hamster wheel of just doing a whole bunch of stuff in the business that I am in at capitalism.com. There are times in which it feels like I got to make content in order to sell more programs so that I can pay my team and so that I can keep clients happy. And that hamster wheel of just doing more in order to keep the business going is really exhausting. And so I've taken a little bit of a step back to reevaluate what is the best use of my time and what is the best thing for the people that I serve for the people who are loyal listeners of the podcast and are in our programs. And what I was kind of emerged out of that surprised even me. Last year I went through a little bit of a business restructuring because my director of operations was recruited away from our company and he got an offer that he couldn't say no to. And so he left the company on really good terms. We're still friends to this day. And my operations manager underneath him was very loyal to him and you know didn't see the same opportunities without my director of ops here. And so I lost two of my core operations people for the brands that I oversee. And I was forced to kind of reevaluate where I wanted to go with some of my businesses. Then this year my long time creative director and content manager Alex also got an offer that he couldn't refuse. And he decided to put in his notice and give all of his attention to that opportunity. It is both a sense of pride, but also a point of stress when the people that you've been working with for a long time are recruited away from other organizations. Now there are plenty of people who come through the capitals and calm ecosystem and develop new skills and have really good careers here, but then get bigger and better opportunities. And I'm proud of that. I'm happy for them. But also it forces me to sit down and say how are we going to do things different? How are we going to do things simpler? Because the initial reaction is oh we got we got to find new people to replace the productivity that's on the team. Or we could simplify the business. And in line with my goal for the year of creating more space, I have strategically made the decision to try to make things simpler and more streamlined. And I've been asking the question, how do I get off that hamster wheel of always having to create content always pushing to sell more programs in order to pay for a team? Because that's just exhausting. And what I really want is to go deep with a core group of people that I love working with. And I had a couple opportunities emerge in the last six months or so that were really exciting. And they were nice guiding lights for me to say, I want more of that. I want to do more of that kind of stuff. The first opportunity is a brand that we have been a minority partner in inside of my fund. And it is a company that is ready to go to market. They're ready to exit. And this business has grown a lot in the last year. The founder is ready to take some chips off the table. And I have been working with him and my partner Sam on preparing this business for an exit. And as we have gone deep into the numbers and created projections of what we think this business is going to do, I got really excited again at the idea of preparing a business for exit. And the mistakes that I made in my previous exit, all of a sudden were very valuable when preparing another business for an exit. Things like I wish I had shown up to the negotiating table when I sold my company with my own terms, saying, this is what I will accept. This is what I will not accept. And if you can't meet these terms, then I will walk away. It's also things like finding the numbers that are just as important if not more important than just the overall revenue and EBITDA and creating a story around those numbers instead of just valuing a business based on the the top line or bottom line numbers. And that skill set learned from some painful multimillion dollar mistakes from an exit in my past were very valuable for this process. And that felt really good. It feels really good to be able to provide so much value for this entrepreneur who trusted us when he started working with our fund. And I could see how my skill set created millions of dollars of extra cash that hopefully this founder will walk away with at the end of the transaction. And that has been really fun for me. So that was the first indicator that I might want to do more of this kind of stuff. The second is that there is a brand in our fund that has grown a lot over the last two years. And is it could sell for a nice amount of money right now, but the founder wants to continue to grow the business. So instead of selling the business, we have been preparing that business for a capital raise. And it's a very similar skill set to selling a business. You prepare the growth story for the business and you look at what the projections will be and where capital will go. And we're preparing that business for a capital raise because that business is in a position where it could grow a lot over the next 18 months to two years. And those two opportunities have been exhilarating for me. I love that my skill sets of both advising an entrepreneur and bringing my network to the table are so valuable to these types of entrepreneurs. And it felt very different than coaching an entrepreneur who is going through their first launch. So those were two good indicators that I wanted to go more in that direction with the next chapter of my career. So I started to ask the question, how can I do more of that? How can I use my skill set and the opportunities that are in front of me for the maximum impact. And then I started to look at what I'm doing right now and what takes me away from that. And those were things like often or always promoting something to keep revenue and profit coming in for capitalism.com. Because that's how I pay my entire team. That is how I pay for my life. And also it's the biggest inflation to my ego when I get a lot of views on YouTube or when we sell a lot of programs. That's really good for my ego and for the amount of dopamine that my brain releases. But it's also the thing that takes up the most amount of my time, attention and energy and keeps me out of going deep with a core group of people. And also I'm losing my content creator at the end of this month. And so I had to reevaluate what I prioritize and what I do prioritize. And so I want to share with you some of those decisions because it will give you a bit of a preview as to what's coming in the next few months and over the next year at capitalism.com. A few weeks ago, I heard a podcast from Tim Ferris in which he asked the question, what few decisions could you make right now in order to drastically simplify your life? And I sat with that and journaled about that and started to write down the decisions that I could make in order to simplify my life. And I gave myself permission to answer this question without having to make any of the decisions. Just are there decisions that I could make that would dramatically simplify my life. And it was things like, okay, I have two homes. What have I sold one of them and lived in one of them full time? That would actually dramatically simplify my life. And then it was things like, what if I didn't date for six months? Like how much energy would I free up if I just wasn't worried about meeting new people or impressing anybody or trying to find a partner? Like what if I just deleted that and put all of that energy into something else? And then it was things like, well, I put a lot of energy into figuring out what investments I'm gonna make. And I like that. I like researching different stocks and companies, but what if I just invested in index funds? It wouldn't be as exciting. I may not beat the market, but it would free up a lot of time in my brain if I just put my money into index funds. And just so you know, I haven't decided if I'm actually gonna make any of these changes, but I started to realize that if I made some of those moves, I could free up a lot of white space in my life. I could delete a lot of the ruminating thoughts that are constantly going on in my brain. Another thing that came up for me was, what if I only had one program that I promoted and I went really deep with a core group of clients? What if I wasn't worried about building a big YouTube channel? What if I was not worried about selling programs or moving more copies of my best selling book, 12 months to 1 million? And I only focused on serving a core group of people that I went really deep with. And that was another really interesting thought for me. If I wasn't worried about more, if I wasn't worried about growing, if I wasn't worried about reaching new people, and instead I was only worried about creating the best possible results for the people who are already showing up, that would free up a lot of mental capacity for me. And the thought came up of, well, I might not make as much money. Okay, well so what? Would I have a more enjoyable life? If I just focused on creating the best possible impact for a core group of people, and that one stuck with me. And I started having conversations with my team about, well, if we were to do that, what would it look like? If we were to put all of our focus on one group of people, well, what type of people would we absolutely love to work with? And that's why I started to put some pieces together because I'm getting a lot of excitement and a lot of enthusiasm out of working with the brands in the Capitalism Fund, because they're already seven-figure entrepreneurs. I'm bringing my skillset and my network to the table and creating really unique opportunities for them. For example, there is one person in my network that has grown a really nice seven-figure business and is hoping to add an influencer to their cap table. They want to create a partnership with a specific influencer that could bring a lot of attention to their brand. And that influencer is somebody that I am cordial with, somebody that if I shoot them a text, they'll respond and will get on a call with me. And I started to realize, wow, with a couple of text messages, I could bring millions of dollars worth of value to this business. Why am I not thinking more like that? Wow, I can work with a founder who's getting ready for exit and provide millions of dollars worth of value to them. Why am I not giving more attention to that? Oh, I have a network of investors who love to support brands that are growing and I have one business that's doing a capital raise with a little bit of networking. I can bring in seven figures of capital to support this business and help them create an additional five to 10 million dollars worth of enterprise value. And when I contrasted that with the desire to sell more programs, I was faced with kind of a, I suppose you would call it a little bit of a fork in the road. Am I going to keep trying to create as much content as possible so that I get more leads and build my audience so that I can sell more programs? Or do I want to give my attention to the multi million dollar decisions that I am capable of making and bringing those opportunities to my most loyal clients? Now the reality is I still have to do both. We still have employees we need to pay. We still have programs that we're really proud of. We're still getting amazing results for the entrepreneurs that we serve. And also, I would like to have more of my time go to those high leverage decisions and those high level conversations that create millions of dollars worth of value. So then I started to look at how we could simplify the business a little bit. And the two areas where I give the most energy and sometimes have the most stress is creating content that I know is going to hit on YouTube or that I hope hits on YouTube. And it's the way that we sell our programs. For example, and I'm just being super transparent with you guys, the way that high ticket programs or mentorships are sold traditionally is you send people to a form or an application. And that application is often just a disguised sales pitch. And then that applicant gets on a call with a high ticket closer and their job is to close the check. I've never liked that model, but I don't like it as a customer. Most people don't like going through that. And you manage a bunch of sales people and you have sales managers and people quit and then you got to replace them and you got to train them on your methodology. And sometimes you have a closer who is just more interested in the commission than they are in the clients. And that always caused some friction and some stress for me. So I started to look at how could we simplify our sales processes so that there was less stress? And how could I change up the way that I do content so that it was not so focused on going viral or getting new leads but was just in the highest level of service to the people who are already paying attention? Once again, there's nothing wrong with the way that we have done things or that most people do things. But my filter was what gives me space? What gives me peace? What allows me to focus on the things that bring me the most enthusiasm and the most energy? And I now have a couple of examples of places where I'm getting a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of energy out of creating something great with my clients. So in the last two months, I started experimenting with a different way of selling our programs so that I could simply have more space. And in light of my content creator stepping away, I've started looking at how we could create really good content that wasn't so stressful. So the first thing that we did was I told my team that I no longer wanted to be promoting our programs all of the time. That instead of constantly pushing people to join something, that I wanted to have an application process that was a real application. That means that we would have to turn people away. That means that we could only say yes to the people that we felt that we could really help. And I started experimenting with different processes of filtering out leads that weren't in a position to be able to benefit from our services and attracting more of the leads that we thought had a really good shot of building multimillion dollar businesses. And that also meant that we would not be open all the time. We couldn't take sales constantly. We had to do it more in sprints. And we've just started experimenting with this over the last month or so. But the results were very clear. The results from a process of only taking a small group of people into our programs with a lot of intent and a lot of presence created much higher conversions and a much better process for everyone involved. It was better for our sales team. It was better for me. And ultimately, it was better for our clients. There were people who applied that probably would have purchased but that I or someone on my team turned away because we just didn't feel like they were in a position to be able to get the most benefit out of it. Now, my team did not like this decision at first. They thought that it would hinder our growth and that it would prevent us from helping the most number of people. And that is true. We took in less revenue over the last couple of months than we are used to. But I felt much better about the process. And I felt as though it freed up a lot of my capacity to be able to do much better content. And that leads me to the second decision that we made that has freed up a lot of. energy for me. We decided to experiment with something that I'd called shoot week. And that's this is where I blocked off an entire week of the month to record as much content as possible with the idea that I wanted to record at least two months of really good content over the course of a week. And this meant that I had to plan for two to three weeks to be ready to film and record all of the pieces that I thought would be most valuable to my audience. And as I record this, we have nine out of 12 pieces recorded and they're all fantastic. Now, none of them are the ones that I think will go viral on YouTube or make the biggest splash to build the audience, but they are all just dripping with value for our ideal person. So my focus went to depth instead of talking to everyone or trying to become famous. Just how do I go really deep with the people that I know care? It also freed up space for me to do things like do a one on one with a client that was stuck. There is one person thinking about that as a member of the one percent that was really stuck. And I found myself just stirring over how I could help this person because I had the capacity to be able to do that. And hopped on a one on one call that went like two hours and as a result of that conversation, this person's business is starting to grow again. And now I'm like, great, let's get on another call because let's let's see how we can unlock the next stage of growth. And I don't necessarily get anything out of that, but I will get a really happy client. And I will get a really great case study from that person who's been stuck at like $25,000 a month in sales. And I'm very confident that this business is going to get to the million dollar run rate. And I'll feel really proud when this person cracks that nut because we put so much energy and intention into helping this person. And so I'm very early in this transition of doing less, but focusing on doing extremely high quality work. And I don't know how it had how it's going to unfold. But the result is that I have some of that space that I so craved. And it's allowing me to focus on doing business instead of talking about business. Again, I know this is very transparent, but when you are in the business of talking about business, sometimes you get away from actually doing the business. And so I haven't had as much capacity to focus on my supplement companies or my portfolio. But recently, I've felt some of that creativity start to come back. And the desire to grow those brands is there because there's space for it. So moving forward, I'm going to keep testing and refining this process of focusing on only onboarding or bringing on a small group of people at a time. Even though I know that is going to be a hit to the short term revenue and profits of the company, I think in the medium and long term, it is going to create better case studies and it is going to create more space for my team to do really good work. And I think that the long term effects of that are going to be that we do better because the results in case studies are going to be better. And the word of mouth recommendations for capitals.com are going to be better. Ultimately, where I want my focus to be freed up to go is on serving more of the types of brands that we serve inside of my fund because those are the businesses that I can create millions of dollars with a value with an introduction or one piece of insight or one opportunity brought to their attention. And that is going to be where my focus goes for maybe the rest of the year. There's two things that we're going to be doing that allow me to focus more on that. Number one, I am going to be building a network of investors and advisors that we just love to work with. And there's no monetization play with this. But one of the things that I've enjoyed most about running a fund is that everyone who participates in the capitalism fund has the same incentives. Everyone in that group wants to see the entrepreneurs that we back have a really big win. I like to describe it as the only mastermind where everyone in the room has an incentive to have an exit together. For example, when we sell this company that I'm taking to market, hopefully at an eight figure valuation, that is going to be a huge win for everybody. It is going to be a win for my investors. It is going to be a win for myself personally. It's going to be a huge win for the founder of that business. Everyone is participating with one aligned goal of supporting this business to sell for the most amount of money. And the buyer of that business is going to have a huge win too, because they're going to get a business that is extremely well positioned to grow over the next several years. That feels really good to me. And we used to have regular meetups at my home for the investors in our fund. And they were so life giving people absolutely loved them. And I'm looking for more ways to interact with the investors and advisors and the really experienced entrepreneurs that are in my network. So I'm going to be assembling something that I'm just calling the capitalism network where I'm putting together our long standing clients, our investors, advisors and influencers, all the highest leverage people that are in my network. I'm going to be bringing them into one place just so we can bring them our deal flow, bring them opportunities and allow them to advise and serve some of the businesses that are coming from our community. Don't have a full plan for that yet, but that is something that we're going to be working on in the second quarter of this year. The second thing that I'm going to be focused on is I am assembling a small group of entrepreneurs that are already over seven figures. And I'm going to be working with them alongside my team to go through the process that we use in our fund to get them prepared to scale beyond seven figures and be in a position to either raise capital, have an exit or just oversee a multimillion dollar business that is very profitable and has the the ability to scale as large as they want. There's this transition that happens with entrepreneurs when they're at seven figures where they're wearing all of the hats in the business. They have almost no time to themselves. All of their capital is tied up in the business and they can't launch any of the initiatives that they would like to do. And there's this transition that happens where we have to move them out of that entrepreneur seat and into what we call the owner seat. And this transition going from entrepreneur to owner is where we can free up capacity for the entrepreneur to cast a vision and to bring people into the company that can build something bigger than them to attract investors or advisors or bring in influencers that can put that business on the map. And that's a transition that is a multimillion dollar transition for the right entrepreneur. And helping entrepreneurs go through that is something that is life giving to me because now I get to bring my network and my experience to help that person go through that transformation and one introduction or one insight can completely change their business. And so I am going to be putting more focus on those types of clients to help them pursue a multimillion dollar exit or at least grow beyond seven figures. I do not have a name for this program just yet. All I know is the process I'm going to be putting them through will free them up out of the entrepreneur seat and keep them in the owner seat and be in a position to allow them to take advantage of the opportunities that only we can bring to the table. And I think as of right now I'm going to limit that to 25 or 30 people. And that is the perfect size for me to do regular in person masterminds with them for me to know every business and for us as a company to know what introductions or opportunities we can bring to that group so that they can take advantage of again unique opportunities that only we can bring to the table. Again, I don't have a name for this yet, but it is going to kick off either at the end of April or the beginning of May. And if you want to see all of the details about what we are doing in that, you can go over to capitalism.com/partners and there is a Google doc that summarizes what we're doing and how you can apply. If you're a seven figure business owner and you need more strategic advice of going beyond seven figures, bringing on a team that can keep you in the owner's seat and casting a vision for eight figures. This is what we're going to specialize in. So that's at capitalism.com/partners. It sounds kind of obvious to say this out loud, but I have begun asking myself the question really for the first time, what kind of business and life do I want to have? Not what is going to work, not what worked for someone else, but what do I want to do? What are the things that only we as a team can bring to the table that no one else can? Not what strategy is going to move the numbers, not, hey, this strategy worked for somebody else or not who do we want to be like when we grow up, but instead what do we want to do? And where do we provide the most value? And then asking myself the question of what decisions that if I made them would dramatically simplify my life and dramatically shape the business towards the life that I want to have. That has been a very helpful exercise for me. And so if nothing else, I would encourage you to sit down and ask yourself a similar question. If I were to make certain changes or if I were to make these decisions, they would dramatically simplify and reduce the amount of stress in my life. I expect that in the short term, that means that the growth of some of my content is going to stall. And I also expect that the revenue in our business is going to be depressed. It's going to be less for a little bit. But as a result, we'll have this space to be able to create a business that we're really proud of and that is completely unique in the marketplace. And I just wanted to share all that with you to kind of document my own experience and share with you some of the decisions that I'm making in pursuit of that. And I will keep you posted on the progress. Hey, my name is Ryan Daniel Moran. Thanks for listening to the show and I'll see you guys on the next episode. Take care.