I often wonder if the 18-year-old version of Ryan Moran would be proud of the 25-year-old version of myself. We all tend to romanticize the future and regret the past… and completely miss the present as a result. And that is odd, because the present is all that are ever given.

One of the ways that I can trigger myself to live in the present is to remember that I am mortal – one day, I am going to die. It may be tomorrow, it may be 95 years from now, but one thing is for sure: one day, I won’t exist anymore. And that frees me to be fully present and fully alive in this moment.

These are my late night attempting-to-be-deep thoughts from my 25th Birthday:

Remember: your past is not now. There is only now, and you have a finite number of them. You do not have time to maintain regret, and you do not have time to hold onto grudges. If you embrace now and let the past stay there, then you are free to create a more glorious story than the 18-year-old version of you ever dreamed of.

Live free,
Ryan

For years, I struggled to crack the code of what the big guns were doing online. Then, Travis Sago told me how he structures his promotions, and I became a superaffiliate overnight. JVs wanted to connect with me, my products started selling, and I made more money in less time by doing this.

Not a week goes by that I don’t have a conversation with one of my peers on the topic of life purpose.

And you would be shocked at the number of people who are successful and appear happy, but confess that they feel worthless, or as though they have no purpose.

What’s more, this feeling affects their self worth, and they feel undeserving of happiness, love, a healthy income, or anything that would improve their life situation.

(I often see this manfiested in folks who feel that they don’t “have enough information” in order to start a business, take a risk, or make something happen. What they actually lack is a sense of worth or purpose.)

I seem to attract these folks – or, more specifically, I can identify them – because I, too, have spent many sleepless nights worried that I would never amount to anything… that I would never find “my purpose.”

Every week, the topic invariably is brought up by someone I know who seems to have it all.  It came up recently while sitting on the couch with a girl who I adore, yet she felt as though she was wearing a mask most of the time. It was loud and clear while taking a class at Second City; I spent time with a young man who everybody wanted to be around, yet he confessed to me that he felt insignificant, trapped, and depressed.

Why do all of us, even the seemingly successful, often feel as though we don’t matter, or aren’t enough?   Continue reading →

Over the years, people constantly me what “really” works online.

I think there is a lot of skepticism over if the stuff that the gurus teach actually works.

(Note: usually, it doesn’t.)

My friend Justin Brooke once said, “Stop doing what the gurus teach, and start doing what they do.” Ah, sage advice. But the question remains: what is it that they actually do?

No Secrets In This Post

Sadly, the answer is a bit boring. You’ve probably heard it before. And chances are you probably still haven’t done it. And after reading this post, only a few of you are actually going to do it… yet I feel compelled to write this.

This week, I am re-reading The Four Hour Work Week, and I’m reminded why it was so impactful for me the first time through. It reminds me that life is not supposed to be about doing stuff you hate, but about funding the activities that you love.

Therefore, in that spirit, the following business model is super simple, takes very little work to maintain, and will work for years to come, even if it only takes a few hours a week to continue… Continue reading →

The firewalk administer looked at me, assessing my state. She wondered why I wasn’t chanting, “Yes” with the rest of the chanters or pumping my fist to get into peak state. I waited as an employee spread fresh, red coals on the firewalk, and I prepped to walk across.

I jumped up and down, “made my move,” and stepped onto the coals. Three steps in, I felt searing pain. After finishing the walk, my feet were washed off, but they burned… a lot. And while I wasn’t one of the 21 people taken to the hospital that night, I have still have burn blisters up and down my feet from walking across the coals at Tony Robbins Unleash The Power Within event in San Jose.

Continue reading →