36: From Gang Member to Multi Millionaire with Ryan Blair

Even though my guest today, Ryan Blair, is known for being one of the most successful entrepreneurs out there, you wouldn’t know it by his humble, surprised attitude with that title.

Ryan’s success story alone will have you believing that you too can do anything if your mind is wired right. Oh, and you’ll likely discover that you’re already a mathematician – you just don’t know it yet. 

Early on in his life, the cards were stacked against Ryan. Coming from a broken home with an abusive father, he never finished high school, and at the age of 14 he was witness to the tragic murder of the girl who gave him his first kiss. Soon after, he was forced into a gang. And while this could have been the move that led to his demise, it instead taught him the essential survival skills needed to succeed as an entrepreneur on the streets.

Some years later with a successful street career in motion, Ryan realized that he now had a choice – he could be successful either on the streets – or off. He chose to apply his entrepreneurial success off the streets. With the ability to experience both sides and looking back, he is truly grateful that he was “wired right.” Ryan attributes that to stating what he wanted and using reverse engineering (math) to get to where he is today.

“You can do your programming and wiring to get exactly where you want to be – you just have to figure it out and reverse engineer it.”

See, I told you you’d get to do some math! For example, Ryan raised money, he borrowed money, asked for investments – he did what it took to get him where he wanted to be. After listening to this podcast you’ll hear the passion in his voice when he talks about these very actions as he believes EVERYONE can become a successful entrepreneur (yes, you too) and it’s just a matter of figuring out the formula so you can use math to do it. 

“The path is the math. There is a mathematical formula. You just have to put in the work to do it.”

Ryan stresses that you always have a choice. Even if you feel like you can’t go into medicine because you’re not a doctor, you CAN! But first, make a decision and become self-aware. Then align yourself with the right people to get you there and have an appetite for learning. Absorb everything you can from the people who you want to emulate. Take their best qualities and implement them in your life. What’s even better is if you can also find the sweet spot of living your dreams and also creating wealth.

“If you have a great life-work integration, you can have a great, happy life.”

Don’t let the societal norms tell you what you can and can’t do. A software engineer by training, Ryan knows he’s not a conventionally trained mathematician, but he’s made himself into one. He personally thrives on the challenge of people telling him he can’t do things. You just need to not care what other people think. I dare you to challenge him and see what happens! ;) It’s just another example of his passion and drive to do more good things in this world through his success.

I love Ryan’s take on money as he equates it to the amount of projects he’s able to take on. The more money he makes, the more projects he can start and the more people he can help. This is the exact mentality that my podcast encourages… the more we have, the more we can GIVE to others. And that’s exactly what Ryan is setting out to do. 

He is passionate about supporting, serving and building up a family of entrepreneurs who he can do business with for the rest of his life (be sure to check out is entrepreneur in residence training at hashtagone.com). This includes all different varieties of people, businesses etc.

Ryan is out to transform billions of peoples’ lives and make a massive impact. And I have no doubt that his actions will leave a lasting legacy for years to come. 

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Ryan Blair is a New York Times bestselling author, self-made multimillionaire and serial entrepreneur who established his first company when he was twenty-one years old and has since created and actively invested in multiple start-ups. Now at age of 38, he has founded and sold numerous businesses for hundreds of millions of dollars, is the founder of global healthy lifestyle company, ViSalus, and is a venture capitalist.

 

In This Episode You Will Learn: 

Reverse engineering your way to success

Having a great life-work integration

Supporting middle class and entrepreneurs

Using math to find your path

Resources:

ryanblair.com

HashtagOne.com

Books:

• Rock Bottom to Rock Star
• Nothing to Lose and Everything to Gain: How I Went from Gang Member to Multimillionaire Entrepreneur

For more stories and tips on becoming unapologetically wealthy, follow me @Chriswharder on Instagram and check out fortheloveofmoney.com.