Ryan Daniel Moran, founder of capitalism.com, describes why entrepreneurship is an inside-out game.

Ryan Daniel Moran is the founder and CEO of capitalism.com and has worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs all over the world to build businesses and grow profits. In our interview, he discusses why he feels entrepreneurship is the fastest route to self-discovery and personal development. He also explains why the pursuit of freedom may be fundamentally misunderstood, and why entrepreneurs can yield better results for themselves and their business by working on their inner game.

How Entrepreneurship is linked to self-discovery and personal development

“Entrepreneurship is the fastest route to self-discovery and personal development that exists on the planet. This is because entrepreneurship, specifically in free-market capitalism, requires an immense amount of personal responsibility.

Because personal responsibility is at the root of entrepreneurship, this is an inside-out game. What I mean is that the results that you create are in direct proportion to what is going on under the hood—what’s going on between your ears. What you produce in the marketplace is a reflection of your mindset, your beliefs, your time horizon and the way that you treat others through the products you produce, through the way you show up and through your systems and processes. What is produced in the world is a direct reflection of what is going on inside the entrepreneur.”

How to easily spot a wantrepreneur

“You can spot an entrepreneur who does not have their act together when you see someone who is operating with a very short-term time horizon. When you see someone who is addicted to very short-term results rather than producing something very long term, you know that they are operating from a place of scarcity. When someone is looking at the marketplace wondering what they can get out of it rather than what they can create and give to it, you know that person is operating from a place of lack. That person is playing scared and insecure and they’re seeking safety, so they will always be looking for short-term results. Since we know that the best results come from the long-term, you know that person is not going to be successful. People don’t want to do business with people like that and it’s hard to cast a vision for your employees when you’re operating from that place.”

How to increase self-confidence through connection and development

“The way that you flip that is by addressing what’s going on between your ears, addressing what is going on under the hood. We feel safe as human beings when we feel connected to other people. We don’t feel connected to other people because we hide behind screens. We divide each other by race, ethnicity, gender, income level and we categorize people rather than connect and communicate with people. That creates a sense of divide, of being against one another, that doesn’t make us feel safe. It makes us feel scared

We flip the script by pursuing connections. We flip the script by addressing our health. We flip the script by listening to or reading books by those who have done the hard work for long enough. It comes from turning social media off and instead, paying attention to those that we want to be like. Our emotions and our beliefs are not ingrained with us. They’re learned so we can learn differently.”

Ryan’s personal journey to self-discovery

“I have discovered that the safer I feel, the better I treat my customers. The more in tune I am with who I want to be in the world the better vision I can cast. The less that I worry about money, the more money I make because I’m willing to do the things that are necessary to create money.

Out of all the bio hacks, optimization tricks, endless morning routine recommendations, here’s what I’ve found to be the most impactful. I became very involved in therapy. For the last five years, I’ve been doing an ‘out there’ form of chiropractic called Network Chiropractic. I came full circle on my belief in prescription drugs and found an open-minded biohacking doctor who is willing to prescribe both supplements and prescription drugs to address the things that I wanted to address.

When you optimize your body, it’s easier to optimize for your mind and vice versa. When you optimize for your mind, it’s easier to address your relationships and vice versa. It is an exponential game where you tweak each system to create a bigger result in every other area.”

Why money is not the route to freedom

“Most people who are pursuing what they call freedom are actually running away from things that have held them back. They want freedom from things that happened or decisions that they made in the past. There’s a mistake that people make when they equate money and freedom. Money and freedom are not related. People say that they want money because they see it as a route to undo past decisions. ‘I made this decision, more money will allow me to stop stressing about that bad decision.’ You can also just own the fact that it was a bad decision and undo it. 

‘I shouldn’t have bought that big house.’ Sell the house.

‘I shouldn’t have taken that endless job.’ Quit the job. 

‘I shouldn’t have racked up so much debt.’ Stop spending so much.  

But, we have cultivated a hustle culture. We have cultivated an addiction to work in order to get free when the two are actually against one another. Now, you can be free and work all the time. If that is genuinely what you desire to do, that is freedom. Freedom is in the doing. Freedom is the enjoyment of the process rather than the addiction to the end result.

The hardest lesson to learn

“We should be pursuing the process that we love but most of us have never cultivated the muscle of doing what we enjoy. We have instead pursued the results that give us survival so that later we can enjoy the process. 

What if you just enjoy the moment now, and went all-in on that? You only do that when you feel safe enough to do it. That doesn’t mean hustling so that you have the money and resources later. You can do it now. That has been the hardest lesson that I’ve had to learn through personal development. I probably would have never discovered it had I not become an entrepreneur because entrepreneurship is the fastest route to personal development.”

This article was written by Terry Rice, and originally appeared on Entrpreneur.com