CONCLUSION It was December when Matt and I first got Sheer Strength to the million-dollar mark—almost six months to the day from when we took our first sale. I spent that winter, weirdly enough, in a bit of a funk. I mentioned this earlier when I told the story of my dinner with Tim Ferriss. I’d made a huge amount of money, and I’d inarguably smashed my childhood goal of becoming a millionaire, but I wasn’t happy.
Okay, I made it to this big achievement. What do I do now? Am I done? Do I keep going? Do I start another business?
There’s a weird almost-depression that happens when you reach the million-dollar mark. It’s a whole new type of self-discovery. You wonder if you’re really as good as you think you are; you wonder if you deserve it. Most of all, you wonder if it’ll all go away at any moment.
It sounds crazy, but if there’s a big pain point in the method I outline in this book, it’s that it works almost too quickly. Your brain doesn’t have a chance to catch up to the new level of success you’re in, and it reacts by going into defense mode. You sit at your computer endlessly watching all the pieces of your business, trying to make sure no fires start. You’ve only allowed yourself to think right up to the edge of the million-dollar mark, and now that you’re past it, you revert to playing whack-a-mole with (largely invented) emergencies.
My whole thought pattern at this time was in the groove of if I stop moving, it’ll all go away. It was exhausting. A part of me was annoyed that I still hadn’t made enough money to buy the Cleveland Indians, a life goal of mine since I could walk.
When I decided I was going to put on the Capitalism Conference, a conference for budding entrepreneurs featuring the best minds in business, I started out, like any total amateur, Googling speaking bureaus and cold-calling to try to land the people I wanted to speak. It took some persistence—and figuring out how to sound like I knew what I was doing way more than I actually did—but I managed to book Gary Vaynerchuk, of whom I’d been a fan since 2008, way before #AskGaryVee or VaynerMedia. The second person I booked was Robert Herjavec, from Shark Tank, because I’d seen the impact a physical products brand had on the show. The third person I booked was Grant Cardone, and at the time I thought there was a lot I could learn from him. (Nope.) I’ve publicly documented my beef with Grant on the podcast, but let’s just say that when you meet your heroes, you sometimes run the risk of realizing that you don’t want to be anything like them.
I ran the first CapCon simply as a way to elevate my thinking and my knowledge, and do the same for my friends and the dedicated band of followers I’d gained sharing my business-building on my YouTube channel and podcast. I did it because, after reaching the million-dollar mark, I needed to see what the next steps looked like. I figured that I could crowdsource the path by bringing together as many uber-successful entrepreneurs as my budget would allow.
It was a huge success—enough to immediately plan year two—but after that conference, I had the same little comedown I’d had after my business made it to seven figures. The same thing happened! I was mildly depressed and unsure of what to do next. Now what?
A friend of mine, Todd Herman, called me up after the event and asked how I was feeling. I was honest with him about the funk I was in.
“You know why, right?” he asked.
“No. Why?”
“Because you planned up to the goal, but not through the goal.”
He explained that it’s common to get depressed after you hit a goal because you don’t know what’s next. If you plan through the goal, though, the goal itself is just another step on a longer journey.
He was right. After a couple years of CapCon, I started to see deep correlations between the people I brought onstage to talk and my own journey. I started to expand my perspective of what was possible. My lens widened. I started to see myself not just as a successful entrepreneur but as a mentor; I wanted to help other people achieve their own business dreams by sharing the path through the jungle I’d hacked out with grit, guesswork, and, honestly, a shitload of stubbornness.
And there had been one more very important factor in my success. Through it all, I’d had incredible mentors.
We can all point to moments in our life that changed everything. I hope that reading this book becomes one of those moments for you. One of those life-defining moments happened when I accidentally sneaked into a bar to meet Travis Sago, who would later become my long-standing mentor. That ultimately paved the way for my success, and ultimately to the writing of this book. When you hit your first million, you will have this accidental barhop to thank.
When I was nineteen, I was, believe it or not, attending ministry school. I was studying to be a pastor. Remember when I told you that starting down this path was opening Pandora’s box, and you wouldn’t recognize yourself at the other end? Case in point.
Deep down, I knew that I was attending ministry school out of guilt, and that what I really wanted was to be an entrepreneur. I’d never lost that spark that had started that day I asked my dad how much a million dollars was and decided I’d become a millionaire. I’d been carefully guarding and kindling that flame all along—constant little hustles throughout high school, running a scrappy dorm-room internet marketing business while preparing for a career in the church—and the vast gulf between what I was planning and what I wanted was starting to wear me down.
That’s what led me to take a few days off and fly to San Diego to attend a conference for internet entrepreneurs. I was making a full-time income from my college dorm room, and that’s hot shit when you’re bragging to your buddies, but I knew that I was just “guessing” at it. If I was going to be a true entrepreneur, then I needed help building a real business. I needed someone to guide me. I told my mom that I was going to the conference to learn how to grow my business, but I went for one reason: to meet Travis.
I walked into the bar that evening thinking that it was only a restaurant; a few hours later, when it turned into a dance club, I had no idea what was going on. (Life hack: It’s not technically sneaking into a bar underage if you go there for dinner and then stay out of sight until after they start checking IDs.) I was distinctly the youngest person there. I didn’t drink at all, and I still don’t know how to talk to girls. Talk about being out of my element.
Travis went by “BumMarketer” on the internet forum where we met. Don’t let that fool you—even in our digital conversations, I could tell that this was a person who could teach me everything I craved learning. I figured that if I could get Travis to meet me and remember me, then it would be worth it. After all, no one was showing me how to play this game. Entrepreneurship is lonely on its own, but when you grow up without a mentor—spending most of your days alone, trying not to binge the peanut butter because you are depressed about your parents divorcing—you deeply crave the guidance of someone to show you the way.
And that night in San Diego, sitting in the dark, watching girls dance on the dance floor and drinking a tall glass of water, I prayed that fate would find me. Because when someone like me—and like you—has the chance to meet someone who can cut the learning curve, I’ll move heaven and earth to meet them. For me, that person was Travis. I believed that he could help illuminate the path for me.
This was my chance.
I was mid-conversation with a couple of dudes who I knew from the internet business world (“internet marketing” was still kind of a niche thing back then) when I saw Travis walk in. I left the conversation mid-sentence to go introduce myself.
Nervous as hell, I said, “Hey, Travis, I’m Ryan.”
Travis got a huge smile on his face, and I found myself enveloped in a huge Arkansas-country-boy hug. “Oh hey! Ryan!”
Apparently, he recognized me from the internet. That felt good.
“What are you drinking, Ryan?”
I didn’t know how to answer. I didn’t drink. In fact, I had signed a contract at my college vowing not to drink alcohol or participate in any sexual activity until after I graduated. I was also not allowed to participate in “social dancing.” Probably because it led to drinking. Or maybe I couldn’t have sex because it led to dancing. I’m not sure. I still don’t quite get the order.
Anyway, I think I asked Travis for a Coke or a water, while he ordered a scotch. Years later, he would turn me into a scotch drinker. If you ever run into me in person and feel like buying me a drink, I’ll take a Glenlivet 15. But only one. I start slurring words after two.
I remember that Travis invited me outside to sit on the patio, and we talked until I literally couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. And I remember walking back to my hotel, wondering if I’d ever see him again.
Either way, I was confident that I had accomplished one of my goals: Travis knew who I was, and he would, with hope, remember my name. I knew that finding the right mentor could be a five-to-ten-year process. (In fact, as I write this, I’m boarding a flight to meet with a mentor that I have been courting for two years.) I felt like that night at the bar I might have just cut the line a little. I knew that I would be an entrepreneur for life, and I was only in the warmup process. A mentor could change everything for me.
The next morning, I stumbled from my hotel room to the conference, exhausted but still buzzing from the night before. I waited in a long registration line to check in at the conference. I had no idea what to expect there; I was only hoping that I would meet some people who could help open opportunities for me. While I awkwardly stood in line among entrepreneurs twice my age (and probably ten times as successful as me), I felt a tap on my shoulder.
“Hey, dude!”
I turned, and there was Travis’s friendly face again, fresh-eyed and somehow far more awake than me.
He remembered me. This was a good sign.
“I want you to meet someone,” he said. Travis pointed to some kid who was rounding the corner. We met glances and froze. We were definitely the only kids under twenty-one there.
Travis said, “You guys are probably the youngest people here. You should talk. See ya later!”
And he was off to the next conversation. In that brief interaction, though, he’d changed the course of my entire life, because the random kid he’d pointed out to me? That was Matt.
I think back on that moment all the time. Travis barely knew me; what did he have to gain from staying up all night to talk to me or make a life-changing introduction (not that either of us knew that at the time)? He was far more valuable to me than I was to him.
But that’s the point: Travis wasn’t in it for the value he could get. He was in it for the value he could create. He saw what I had inside: the deep conviction that entrepreneurship was the passion I was willing to sacrifice for, and that I might be a good horse to bet on.
I don’t remember anything else from that conference. All I remember is that I met two people: Matt and Travis. Travis would become my mentor for the next decade—although he says that we’re more like brothers at this point. Matt would become a good friend and, five years later, my business partner. He would be right there with me as we developed, tested, and proved the method I taught you in this book.
From the day we met, Matt and I shared that deep, dedicated drive to be successful. Through five years of ups, downs, wins, losses, successes, and failures, we kept trying. I’ve heard people say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result; to me, that’s just the definition of an entrepreneur. The only way you can go from hustler to entrepreneur is by going all in. And if you’re having trouble making that choice, maybe you need a swift kick. Matt and I each got a big one that ended up pushing us all in. After five years, we were close to giving up on building anything “real.” Then our motivation arrived, one by one, in the form of two plus signs.
My plus sign arrived on my twenty-sixth birthday, more than half a decade after the conference where I’d met Matt and Travis. It was my birthday, and my girlfriend and I had tickets to the Austin City Limits music festival. We had a big breakfast at Kerbey Lane Cafe and then went back to her apartment to change.
“I’m a day late,” she casually said. “Just let me pee on this stick so I can drink with a clear conscience.”
Long story short, we didn’t go to the music festival. Instead, we held each other, crying—sometimes excited and sometimes scared as hell—as we mentally wrapped our heads around the fact that we were pregnant.
My first call was to Matt. “Dude, I’m gonna be a dad. We need to figure our shit out.”
There was no doubt: I was all in. I had no choice but to make our business work.
My second phone call was to Travis. He had become more than a business mentor by then. After years of help navigating business challenges, Travis had also taught me about life, leadership, and being a man. He calmed me down, helped me get my bearings, and picked me up when I was crumbling. I was about to go on two adventures: learning how to be an entrepreneur, and learning how to be a dad.
A few months later, after moving into a house with a bunch of baby furniture, ready to start my new adventure, my phone rang. It was Matt. Our business was starting to show some signs of life, and I thought that he was calling me to give me the updated sales numbers. Nope! He called to tell me something else entirely.
“Ryan,” Matt said, “is there such thing as a false positive pregnancy test?” (I dare you to think of a better way to start a phone call.)
I guess serendipity brought Matt and me together twice; this time, it was in the form of two very random pregnancy tests. We were both all in. We had the drive. We had the mindset. We had the passion. We had the idea. But this kicked us both into gear. Together we built a million-dollar business.
With this book in your hands, reader, you have everything you need to do the same. This method will work. But will you? Or do you need your own plus sign (proverbial, of course) to kick you into action?
For the next twelve months, you’re going to be focused on the steps outlined in this book. You’re going to realize your dream of freedom through entrepreneurship. Here at the end of the book I want to make sure you understand that twelve months to a million is just the first twelve months on a much longer journey. If you are like most entrepreneurs, the business will only be half the journey. This adventure will show you who you are, and it will force you to become more. It will force you to take more responsibility, it will humble you to your knees at times, and it will teach you what is important in life. Entrepreneurship is a beautiful portal into self-discovery.
There will be times that you get frustrated and want to quit. There will be many times when you wonder, What is this all for? And there will be times of incomparable excitement. Keep going through all of it. As Steve Jobs famously said, You can only connect the dots backwards. Success is never a linear path. It’s filled with ins and outs, ups and downs, and weird left turns. Ultimately, who you become along the way is what is most interesting. When you become the kind of person who is responsible, happy, and giving, that’s when you are unstoppable. That is also when you get rich.
The tagline for Capitalism.com is to “Create Change,” because it takes just one person to go all in. It not only changes your financial future but can also change an industry. It can change your world, if not the world.
Life will keep giving you the opportunity to learn, to grow, and to expand, and these developments will be reflected in your business. As I write this, I’ve been outlining my next business, and I’m confident it will be more successful than all the previous ones combined. Shortly after signing the papers, I learned that my second child is on the way.
I am, once again, all in.
I am all in for you, too.