From Rock Bottom to Rockstar: How to Alter Your Life with Ryan Blair

Thank you for tuning in to the True Grit and Grace podcast. I'm Amberly Lago, and I'll be sharing inspirational stories of resilience and empowering ideas to elevate your business and your life, ignite your passion, and fuel your purpose. Hey, it's Amberly. Thanks for tuning into the show. My intention for starting this podcast was To share stories of resilience. And I have to say, I wasn't feeling very resilient mentally. I mean, we've got a lot going on. We are in the middle of packing up our house. We are moving again. And at the same time, I'm planning a 2-day event, in-person event here in Dallas for my mastermind. So it's been a little nutty. I haven't been able to stay as focused until I started taking something that has really helped me. So I wanted to share it with you. So I started taking Nootopia. It's a nootropic.

Yeah.

Y'all, it has helped so much with my brain, with focus, with recall, with my creativity, with my energy. I didn't even have coffee this morning. Coffee makes me feel anxious and jittery sometimes. I just needed smooth energy. And so my favorite is the Brain Flow because it actually boosts your confidence and eliminates feelings of anxiousness. And they also have something called Focused savagery, y'all. I am going to be doubling up on that on at my event. So anything that I take that I love that works for me, I want to share it with you so you can be resilient mentally, so you can stay focused because Zoom fatigue is real. So get something to help you with your energy, with your clarity, with your creativity. Go to newtopia.com forward slash. Amberly again, that's newtopia.com/amberly. N-O-O-T-O-P-I-A dot com forward slash A-M-B-E-R-L-Y. Telling you check out these products; you will thank me later. Again, newtopia.com/amberly. And now on to the show.

Hey, it's Amberly. Thank you so much for tuning in to True Root and Grace and listening and subscribing because of. You listening each week, you have got us to top one percent on Apple. Today I have someone so special, resilient, who is the definition of grit and grace put together. When I was thinking of the podcast, this is the type of story, the type of person that I wanted to bring you. So we have Ryan Blair. If you don't know who he is, go Google him right now. Follow him on Instagram at Real. Ryan Blair. He is an incredible serial entrepreneur. He's a New York Times bestselling author. Um, I loved his book Rock Bottom to Rock Star. Um, I have it on Audible. You guys, he's built multimillion-dollar companies and he has learned to reverse engineer ways to solve pain, anxiety, and addiction. And I think we could all use a little bit of that right now. So Um, he is also the founder of Alter Call, which I can't wait to talk to him about. So Ryan, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me.

Oh my goodness. I just actually binge your videos, um, everything that you do, especially on Instagram. And I have to say, before we even get started and get into your story a little bit, I love the way that you did your Audible book. And how you did like extra bonus content.

Yeah.

That was awesome. I'm like, gosh, why didn't I do that on my book? So I loved your book. Um, and I love how you say, you know, we've all hit a rock bottom at some point in our lives. We've all had hard times and we've all had moments of shining. For you, you didn't have the easiest childhood. But you grew these huge, successful businesses. But can you take us back to a little bit of your childhood? Because I want people to understand that you can turn a struggle into a success. So can you tell us a little bit about how you grew up and didn't have the best support or mentor when you were really young and then found that mentor?

My story is one that is actually quite commonplace. I had parents that didn't know how to love themselves. And as a result of that, they didn't know how to fully love their children. My mom was a beautiful soul. She loved me, but she had a really tough time dealing with her own emotional trauma that she had as a result of her upbringing. And my dad, the same situation. He had suffered from child abuse as my mom did. And so, they repeated the cycle. the cycle of alcoholism, the cycle of drugs, in my dad's case, a cycle of violence. And, you know, and so my household was anything but safe. And the way I was raised, you know, I really had to develop some survival skills early on. At 13 years old, my dad disappeared after getting heavily into hard drugs. And I was pretty much left on my own. My mom struggled just to survive and, you know, she was making just over minimum wage. And so, it took everything she had to try to provide for us because he disappeared on us. And as a result of that, I started getting influenced by, you know, some bad role models in the environment that I lived in. My dad was an engineer, so we lived in the middle class. And then abruptly, that was all ripped away from us and we went into poverty at about 13 years old. And from there, I started learning how poverty worked. I learned the middle class from age—

Yeah.

you know, 0 to 13. And then from about 13 to 17, I was in abject poverty, in and out of juvenile hall, in and out of gang violence, uh, got in a lot of trouble. And then at 17 years old, after a lot of prayer and a lot of commitments to my higher power, a mentor showed up into my life and my life changed forever. And so part of the work that I do is, is to pay tribute to him and to the other mentors that have taught me along the way, and to also be a mentor to as many people as I possibly can to help them learn what I've learned.

Well, you know, it just seems like the people that I meet that are the most successful, that have the biggest hearts, and they have this— they exude this confidence but humility at the same time, are people that have gone through some struggles. And you mentioned the word you prayed to, you know, your higher power. That is the first thing I did when I was like at my rock bottom was I just started praying. How did you learn? Did you grow up going to church? Or how did you come to understand a God of your understanding? How did that come about?

My— so my mother was adopted by a very spiritual and religious family. And so she was rescued by this family. My mother strayed from that. But my grandmother, she always did her best to try to instill in me various spiritual beliefs. But both my mother and father didn't have that. My mother was very, I would say, spiritual, to a degree mystical. But she didn't have really any foundational or any real desire to pursue a spiritual path. My grandmother was as near as a saint as it gets. She lived to 99 years old. She dedicated her entire life to the church. She served something like 30 different missions where she took, you know, over a year of her life and went and served others. And so she made her entire life about her faith and serving others. And so I had that, that foundation from my grandmother. And my soul always sought out the spiritual path. I would go to my grandmother and ask her, you know, to teach me about the Bible. I was always seeking, even at a very young age. I had this big desire to seek. I asked my grandmother to be baptized. I asked her to, you know, to teach me the Bible. I would just constantly seek this information, even at, as far as I can remember, like 5, 6 years old. You know, I was, I was on the path, a spiritual path. Now, I lost my way for quite some period of time, and, you know, as a result of some rock bottom moments, found my way uh, back onto the spiritual path. Um, but, but I had it instilled in me very early on in my upbringing.

Oh, that's beautiful. I just got a little teary-eyed hearing you talk about your grandmother because one— the main reason I moved back to Texas was so I could be close to family, especially my grandmother. And she's 94, and we went to church with her. It's the first time I've been to this church. It's the tiniest little church you've ever seen in the smallest little town. There's like 600 people that live in town, and the attendance was 12 people last week. And yesterday, um, the attendance was double that because about, you know, 14 of our family members went with my grandmother to the church, and they displayed on their little TV screen like, in memory of, thanks to my grandmother, in honor of, thanks to my grandmother.

Wow.

always helping the church and goes every Sunday. And so a lot of, uh, my spirituality started in church, you know, growing up in the Bible Belt here. But I lost my way as well.

Wow.

And then found it recently. Now, when you were at your worst and you were in, in juvenile going, getting into trouble and stuff, were you getting into drugs and alcohol and that sort of thing?

Yeah. Oh yeah. I got into everything. I was an extremist. So I wanted to figure out stuff is the best way I could describe it. So I pushed myself to the limits in everything I did, drugs, alcohol. As a juvenile, I got into that. Now, once my mentor came into my life and I discovered entrepreneurship as a vocation, then I went completely opposite and put all of my energy into entrepreneurship. Then I made several hundred million dollars and had all the time and money, and I didn't heal the things that were driving me to want to do drugs and alcohol in the first place. Then I had a good 5 years of my life where I lost my path, even after being very successful. I lost my way, I should say. I was raised to be very pure, and I didn't really understand why until I did enough experimentation to realize that the way that I was living was very hard. And when I did pursue a path of purity, my life just started changing. And the amount of suffering that I was experiencing mentally, physically, and spiritually all started being reduced the more that I pursued the path of purity. And so as a result of that, now, you know, I've been drug-free and alcohol-free for the past 4 years. And, um, and, you know, I'm living The best life that I could ever imagine because of that.

Oh my goodness, that's amazing. I, uh, I actually— we are so alike, I swear. I was an extremist too. Like, it was an athlete, and then when I couldn't do that, I got into trouble with, uh, drugs and not alcohol. Not— I mean, alcohol, but not drugs so much. It was prescription after I had surgeries, and thankfully I never got hooked on that, but the alcohol was like relieving my pain. And I'm glad that you share that it doesn't matter if you're successful, if you're wealthy, if you're in poverty, where you come from, where you live. I mean, it's cunning and baffling and can sneak up on you. And so was praying the first thing that you did when you wanted help to get just relief at that moment in your life too?

I surrendered to God. I, I— my mother passed away in a very difficult, um, situation. She had relapsed on alcohol after my mentor and my stepfather passed away abruptly, um, and she fell down a flight of stairs and she was in a coma for 2 years. Uh, by the grace of God—

Coma for 2 years?

Yeah, so for 2 years I had to go, you know, visit my mother. Half her skull was removed, tubes coming out of her. And, you know, she was just, you know, having her lungs pumped. I mean, it was a very extreme, painful thing for her and for me to witness. And then, by the grace of God, right as I'm about to take her off of life support, she wakes up. And she would never regain her physical faculties, but she did get back, you know, to some of her mental capacity. And so I was able to have some conversations with her and— And, you know, but she lived a very difficult life for about 4 years after the coma. So for nearly 7 years of my life, basically, I was going through a tremendous amount of suffering. First with my mentor and stepfather's passing, then with my mother passing, then with my father passing.

What year was your— did your mom pass away?

November of 2017. And that was when I made the commitment. I had a spiritual intuition that it was time to go say goodbye to her. And I went there and I confessed to her everything that I was suffering with. And I made a deal with her. I told her, Mom, as you elevate, you're going to be my angel. And I need your help because I'm suffering. And I can't be the leader that I'm destined to be if you are suffering the way you are. And if I'm worrying every single day about, you know, the amount of pain that you're in, the amount of suffering you're in, it's just— it's killing me. And we had a tough conversation. And she literally agreed to transition. And within a couple of days, she was gone.

Wow.

Now, I wasn't prepared for that. I didn't think it would happen just like that. But, you know, she— once she realized I was, you know, I was ready to, uh, you know, venture into life without her, uh, she, she transitioned. And then all of my spiritual work really began. My whole life changed from that point forward. It was like a nuclear explosion went off, and everything that I had done identity-wise, all the actions that I'd done, I all of a sudden was looking at myself in the mirror Realizing that I'd taken valuable time away from spending time with my mother and that I wasn't being the best son that I could possibly be and the best father that I could possibly be. I have a 12-year-old boy. So it was a spiritual awakening, by all means.

Oh my goodness. I'm just getting so teary-eyed because that video you posted on Instagram of you talking with your mom.

Yeah.

Oh, I mean, y'all have to go check out the video that he's posted where he gets to talk with his mom and you're saying, you know, that she's your hero and— oh my goodness. Yeah.

Wow.

And, um, I, I knew you had a son. I thought your son and one of my daughters were about the same age. And I loved— there was something, I can't remember on what interview that you did, where somebody had asked you, what advice would you give to your younger self? And you said, I get to do that Every day because I have a son.

Yeah.

You have broken these cycles of, you know, what your parents experienced and then what they experienced. You broke the cycle and you're such an incredible father.

Thank you.

Son, what are some of the things that you tell your son?

Oh, well, I just got off of a 7-day holiday with him where we went to Hawaii and we spent 7 days together. I think the most important thing that I tell him is The stuff that he's experiencing, the feelings that he's having, learning his body, the stuff that he's going through at 13 years old, I went through too. And that it's okay to make mistakes and that it's okay to, you know, to sin. And I teach him the process of how we repent and how we make amends on that. And with loving, unconditional non-judgment, I accept him for who he is and try to explain to him my job is to help him not make the same mistakes that I made. And it's not an easy thing to do because oftentimes, you know, you might not want to hear, right? You know, you're like, do I really want to hear this? But he needs to have, as do all of our children, they need to have somebody they can confide in. Because if they can't confide in their parents, if they can't seek a deeper understanding from their parents, then they're going to seek that from someone else.

Mm-hmm.

And that someone else may not have your child's best interests in mind. Or that someone else may have a perverted view on life. And so now you've turned your children, you know, to mentors that aren't necessarily, you know, the best fit for your children. I really spent a lot of time having conversations with my son and teaching him the process of repentance and also sharing with him vulnerably the mistakes that I have made to, you know, give him the, you know, the opening to share the mistakes that he's making. And that way we can work through those mistakes together.

Oh, that is so beautiful to hear that. I know that for my kids, I've always wanted them to know that they have a safe place to come and confide in me. And I've always said, I will never— I grew up with, you better not sin. And if you do, you're going to burn in hell and God's going to be mad at you and all those things. And I'm like, I just don't want to teach my children that.

Well, it pushes them away. That ideology, which I'm very familiar with, basically creates a tremendous amount of guilt and shame.

Yeah.

And it then forces the children to hide things from you and to basically live a life filled with secrets. And I know that because that's the way I lived, because I could not tell my parents anything. I was afraid that I'd be humiliated, I'd be grounded, I'd get whooped with a belt, and I'd be ridiculed, and they would withhold love. if I, you know, wasn't operating in the most honorable way while they weren't operating in honorable ways themselves. And so this is what parents tend to do, is they don't understand that by withholding love and by punishing a child, you're basically forcing them to create 2 different identities— the one that they display to you and then the one that's their truth. And as a result of that, you won't ever really fully get to know your children.

Oh, it's so true. It is so true. And I mean, I grew up with sayings like, well, hide your crazy and be a lady. It doesn't matter. You just put a smile on your face. I don't care if, you know, it was like the appearance of what's going outside isn't matching what's going on in the inside.

It's often because your parents are placing an element of their identity into you. So the way, how proper you are, how good you do in school, and particularly in the Bible Belt where you're from, right? There's a whole lot of pride that parents place into their children. And so that's a mistake that we make. It's like, you know, we should, yes, of course, love our children and be very proud of our children, but our identity should not be placed as a burden onto them, right? They, they should be free to create the individual that, that they are capable of creating, and that, you know, we should be the nurturers And, you know, just teach them along the way and, and then one day be able to turn them loose into humanity and be able to provide, you know, value and service to the world, right? But the more that we place our identity as a burden onto our children, the more that they cannot live up to that standard. And it creates a splitting of their identity. They have one version of them that they display to their parents and another version of them that they display to their friends and another version of them that they display to others. And that lack of integration is the source of depression, anxiety, suicidal behavior, and a variety of other, you know, very difficult behaviors.

Oh, it sure is. When they have to feel and act like a certain way and look a certain way. That's one thing I've always— actually, I learned, you know, when I was really embarrassed as a mom, really embarrassed after my motorcycle accident of my scars and my deformed leg, and I would always like try to cover it up. And then when that shifted and I was like, I don't want my daughters to be uncomfortable in their skin, to feel bad about the way they look. I'm gonna start rocking this scar and show them that they can love their bodies whether they've got scars or anything. And I started to see the shift In my oldest daughter. And my youngest daughter has always been like, you know, confident and not camera shy. There's a lot of responsibility as a parent, isn't there?

Yeah, well, the best leadership is example. And so there, you know, there is a, a lot of responsibility, and it's the most intimate relationship that you could possibly have because, you know, you brought this child into the world and they depend on you. you know, for quite some period of time. And now's day and age, they depend on you for like 25, 30 years of their lives where they heavily depend on you to help them get acclimated and get a foundation together so that they can then go off on their own. Um, and you know, that's, that's a serious commitment, you know, 30 years, you know, 25, you know, it's a lifetime commitment. But to say like, I will provide for your needs and, you know, provide you with, you know, the tools and the wisdom that you need to create the foundation necessary for you to fulfill your soul's purpose. That's a big mission.

Yeah.

And it's a privilege as well, you know, but it is a lot of work and it requires, you know, I was telling a friend just today that my son just turned 13 and everything that I thought that I knew about being a father, I now have to question because he now has a whole different set of needs and a whole different contemplation and consciousness about life. That now I have to go relearn and rethink everything because dealing with another higher level of consciousness now that he has about life that, you know, that I need to now rethink and acclimate to. So, you know, as our children grow, we are forced to grow.

Oh, it's so true. And I think as long as we have a strong foundation to grow on, we can kind of change and adjust, adjust the sails a little bit. But I have a daughter that's 26, and I remember when she Turned 13, how things started to change. And my youngest daughter is now starting to do that. And I'm like, ooh, here comes the change.

But you have some experience. You know, the other day my son and I were teasing each other and I said something to him, just very slight. And I watched him get triggered and I just watched it crush him. And I was like, wow. Like, I, one, I could have been better. I didn't have to say that, you know, I should have been more sensitive. And it then represented a healing opportunity for me to have a conversation with him and say, you know, hey, let's, let's talk about that. One, I want to take responsibility, and then two, let's talk about why there was so much emotion connected to the words that I said on your end of it, and let's talk about triggers. And, you know, the opportunity to actually learn and grow and then do the work with a child is one of the greatest teachers that you can possibly have. Because, you know, I got to look myself in the mirror and say, wow, I could have been a much better person. I didn't have to tease him there. I should have been much more sensitive and should have had a much better understanding, you know, to the things that he was going to be sensitive to. And then conversely, I used it as an opportunity to grow and heal. And, you know, our relationship is much stronger because of it. But there's plenty of times where I get to look myself in the mirror and say, I could have been a much better father, and I could have been much more sensitive, much more understanding, and, you know, and really been much more compassionate and listened to my son and tried to better understand him. And so I think my son is the greatest gift that I have as a leader because he teaches me how to become a better father. And by becoming a better father or a better mother, you become a better leader. I have about 29 people that are on my team now. You know, I'm basically a father to these individuals, and I'm a father as it relates to their careers, not necessarily as it relates to all of their lives because many of them have, you know, other fathers that handle those components. But I'm the father of their career as being the CEO of a company. And so the skills are very transferable. And what you learn as a mother or a father is very applicable to being a leader of a company.

I think what sets you apart as a great leader, and not just a good leader, but a great leader, is that you call it— it's like a team, a family, but you take accountability. You look at how you can learn and grow together, and I can tell you're not coming from a place place of ego. You're really talking about having compassion. And I wish that all leaders could just learn from you. Maybe they can go to your Shasta retreat or one of your other retreats coming up. But you did create this new company that is all about being of service and helping entrepreneurs really who tend to put things off like their health, Or their families or, you know, things that are important in their lives, just solely focused on the work. Is that your main target, or entrepreneurs?

Well, yeah, I believe— well, one, you know, I've been trained in entrepreneurship now for 25 years, and I've had a lot of experience. I share with people the revenue that I've generated as an entrepreneur is in the billions. And, and so that revenue represents an opportunity that I have had to experiment and to try many different things, from hiring to firing I've had exits. I've had all kinds of success and an equal amount of failure in the process, if not even more. The successes have been bigger than the failures. So net-net, I'm certainly ahead, but I can tell you a long list of major failures that I've made. And those failures are what I really teach the entrepreneurs. I try to teach them by way of the experimentations that I've had that have worked. And I think I've learned the most from the ones that haven't worked. And the reason why I focus on entrepreneurs is because I believe entrepreneurs, you know, have the opportunity to really solve a lot of major problems in humanity. And I believe that entrepreneurs are the heroes of humanity. I mean, we, we take the risk, we solve problems that, you know, that are going on. And, you know, the Lord knows there's a lot of problems in humanity right now, problems with the environment, problems with renewable energy. There's all kinds of problems that we can possibly solve as entrepreneurs. And so I've made it my life's mission to help entrepreneurs understand that they're heroes and then to help them, you know, find and build a foundation that is sustainable so that they can build a business with the right mindset and they can, you know, contribute and make an impact that they're capable of.

Wow. I love that, that they can be sustainable because, yeah, you know, there's the hard part and it takes a lot of grit. It's especially starting up a business, but it has to be sustainable. One of my friends told me, because I was pushing, pushing, pushing hard, I ended up in the ER like 6 times in 1 year.

Wow.

It was just crazy. But I like, I love grit. I love going all in. But I had to really stop because my friend was like, hey, Amberly, your impact is only as big as you are healthy. You can't help people if you're not taking care of yourself. And I kind of had to learn the hard way. What are some of the things that you teach and the things that are so important to you? First of all, I'd love to know what your morning ritual is. Do you have the same morning ritual every morning?

To speak a little bit— I'll ask the morning routine, but speak a little bit about on grit as an entrepreneur. Sometimes the most difficult thing to do is to make space. And in fact, it takes more energy to make space in your calendar than it does to fill it up. We can all find 1,000 things to do in a day, but actually taking the time to make sure that we're doing things that are the highest impact and highest priority, and that we're maintaining a level of consistent energy in those things, that we're not sacrificing our fulfillment and our quality time with family and so forth in the process. That takes a lot of grit. That takes intelligence. That takes strategy. That takes planning. It takes a morning routine. You know, it takes a lot of work. It's real easy just to load up your day, run yourself down, run yourself out of energy, and then to play a victim. And that's what most people do is they, they say they're a victim and they allow their businesses to control them as opposed to them controlling their business. It takes a lot of energy to actually architect and design a business that actually provides you with a sustainable amount of energy so that you can bring a tremendous amount of enthusiasm to your work. Now, that's—

That's it right there, Ryan. You just said it. That so you can bring the enthusiasm to your work. That's it. That's it. You've got it. And if you don't create that space, then you'll be like me and end up in the hospital.

Yeah.

Or you will be burnt out and not want to do anything. And so, yeah, I had to like really put the brakes on stuff, set up some boundaries, set some strategies up, and get down to basics. I mean, which a lot of people would be like, what do you mean you had to remember and write down to drink enough water? You had to write— I did. I had to like, Remember to drink water, make time to even get up and go to the bathroom instead of working straight through. It was, it was crazy, but I was just, you know, I had been told, you say yes to everything. And then I was like, no, I can't say yes to everything. I have to say yes to what is going to move the needle on my business, for my business, but also fulfill. me, my heart, and allow me to have success, which to me, success is being able to do the things that you love with the people that you love. To me, that's success. What's success to you?

Well, I have a definition of success that was given to me by Coach John Wooden, who was a mentor of mine. And I'll paraphrase it, but success is the peace of mind of knowing that you did your best with the tools that you had. So the peace of mind knowing that you did your very best with what you have. And that's a difficult definition of success because it requires you to grow, because you as a human being have a tremendous amount of capacity that is yet to be tapped into. And so knowing that every single day you have to grow. And back to the conversation of morning routine, I think the most important aspect of my morning routine is that each and every single morning I wake up and the first thing that I do is I learn something. When I was an entrepreneur, there were times where my ego got the best of me. There were times where, you know, I made a lot of mistakes as an entrepreneur and I reverse engineered, you know, what happened. And I had a goal mindset as opposed to a growth mindset. I didn't put my energy as my highest priority, meaning that, you know, my energy was always, it was like the 3rd priority on the list, if at all. I would compromise the fundamentals. I compromised my morning routine, compromised my workout, compromised food. Yeah. And so I realized, you know, in reverse engineering some of the failures that I'd made and rethinking, you know, I took 2 years off and just basically spent 2 years meditating, healing, and contemplating. And then when I decided to get back to work as an entrepreneur, I decided I was going to architect a new way of doing entrepreneurship, you know, one that was much more holistic. But yes, I live by a morning routine, and the most important aspect of my morning routine is first I learn Then I meditate and contemplate. I would add prayer in there too. Prayer is an extensive part. And I spend at least the first couple of hours of my day learning, meditating, and contemplating and praying. And then from there, I get a workout in, I eat a healthy, nutritious breakfast, and then dive into my meetings. By the time I've had my first meeting, I've already won the day. I've already learned something. I've already grown. I've already meditated. I've already prayed. And I've made the space for God in my life. You know, we— in order for God to do his work, we have to make sure that there's space for God to do his work. If we're just completely booked solid, there's no space for God to do his work in there. So we want to make sure that we have that space for God to do his work. And the more that I've built this new startup, which is, you know, very brand new company, I now have about 29 people. And so my job now, early on in the startup, I had to be heavily involved in almost every aspect of the business. But now my job is to mentor those people that are running key functions of the business and then to provide—

Is this for AlterCall?

Yeah, for AlterCall. The companies that I serve, some have hundreds of employees. So I'm working with the CEOs of companies that are doing very meaningful and significant work out there. And I teach them how to architect and design a business and a culture that basically is one that takes radical responsibility, that delivers at a high degree of excellence and that's fun to work in. And so I've designed a prototype of a culture that meets the aforementioned values, and then I teach the entrepreneurs I work with how to do the very same in their cultures. And you'd be surprised, there are companies out there that are doing hundreds of millions of dollars and the cultures are just terrible to work in. And so part of my role is to help those entrepreneurs, you know, reimagine their culture And then create a culture that they love to work in. I know entrepreneurs that have made tens of millions of dollars and just hate the company that they've created.

Wow. I, I don't know if you can see me over here, but I'm like taking notes. Yeah, you are so awesome. Okay, first of all, I gotta go back to make space for God in your life. That's powerful. I love that you learn, then you meditate, contemplate, and then prayer. I usually start my day first thing with prayer. And just if I'm having a rough time, I even like, I get down on my knees because it really means I got to talk to you, God. And that you learn something. Are you learning mostly from books, from podcasts? What are you learning?

Yeah, a variety of sources. I love it when I get a good book in my hands. I'm thriving with in order to do that, I have to buy maybe 10 books a month, if not more. And one of those books is going to be one where I'm like, all right, this one's hitting home. There's a tremendous amount of wisdom within the book, and it's teaching me something that I didn't know. Generally, in the morning, I read spiritual books, and I try to deep dive into spiritual books to have a deeper spiritual understanding— things like compassion and the understanding of suffering and being able to overcome the ego and being able to fulfill purpose and so forth. I really fill my day with inspirational words and wisdom, you know, from some of the ancient texts like the Bible, but I also will read perspectives on those texts from third parties and I'll dive deep into those subjects. And then the other books that I have in my life around me are skill-oriented books. So like if I want to become a better speaker, one of my hobbies is to sing. So if I want to become a better singer, I'm reading different works on that subject. And I, I too also pray. I basically say a very simple prayer, and that is I try to just basically turn the day over to God and say, I'm here, you do the creating, and just I'll be the vessel.

Right.

I'm not doing any of the creating. God's doing all the creating in my life. I'm just being the vessel, and I'm trying to make sure that my vessel is worthy of God's creation to come through it. In order to do that, I have to work on any negative mindset things that are going on and constantly improve that. I have to reframe and, you know, my attitude toward things when, you know, I have a negative attitude or a negative disposition. You know, I have to constantly reframe that, and I have to make space for God to do the creation in my life. That might mean that I have to have time on my calendar to go for a walk, to go, you know, have a meditation midday, to make sure that, you know, that I'm meeting with the people that God has called me to serve. You know, there's, there's people that God has sent my way that, that he has big plans for, and I have some wisdom and information that they need in order to affect those big plans that God has in store. And so I have to show up to each of my meetings, such as the one you and I are having right now, with the intention to serve and to be able to share as much wisdom as I possibly can, so that way, you know, God can work through the people that he has sent my way. And so that mindset and that viewpoint that I have on the people that I encounter on a daily basis. And the work that I do is just one of full service toward, you know, those that I support and, and have the pleasure to work with.

Oh, that's beautiful. I mean, and, and just your growth mindset, you really do, you know, before you said you had a goal mindset before.

Yeah, yeah. You know, you switched that to a growth Yeah, I still struggle with this, you know, because I've, you know, AlterCall is a small company in comparison to, you know, my last company did billions in sales. And so there's a part of me that's like, you know, God, I want to create a multi-billion dollar company here. And then there's a part of me that says, you know, I, I, that, that's nice to have those aspirations and those dreams and, and, you know, and, and intentions. The way that you get there is by forgetting all of that and just each and every single day grow at your maximum capacity and invest as much as you can in your growth. And when you do that, you will ultimately wind up at a destination where you will no doubt be 100% satisfied by your results. I think what happens is, is when we focus on goals, we either don't achieve the goal and then we're dissatisfied with our results, or we do achieve the goal and then we need another goal. And then you're constantly in this pursuit of different goals. And that can be a very difficult way of living. But if you live in such a way where you want—

It can be addictive too. It can be very addictive.

It is. And you got to ask yourself, what's the true purpose? Why do you want billions of dollars? Why do you want that? And asking yourself questions like, why do I really want this? Is it because I want to prove myself to others? Is it because I want more power or more status or more love? or more acknowledgement? Like, why is it that I really want that? And really asking yourself some deep questions about the aspirations that you do have. And, you know, that's part of the contemplation that I mentioned earlier, is really going deep and trying to take multiple perspectives on something and ask yourself, like, you know, is it that I want that goal because of this or because of that? Or is it that I want that goal because of this? And being open to questioning yourself is part of the spiritual journey of contemplation. And that's kind of the way of living. What I try to teach entrepreneurs is if you have the right mindset, you can solve any problem. And so the mindset work though, to solve that problem is the work. And each and every single day, you know, you have to grow your mindset in order to solve the problems. So as entrepreneurs, we solve a problem in the marketplace. And the way we do that is we solve internal problems, internal problems within ourselves and internal problems among our team and our company. And the more we solve internal problems, the more we can solve external problems.

What year did you start AlterCall?

I started AlterCall in 2017, but you know, I've been an entrepreneur now for 25 years, so I've been able to do it at some pretty high levels. So I've been a part of—

I think that's 29 team members? Yeah.

My last company, I had several thousand. I've been in a position where I've built pretty large teams. And I've had a lot of failure in that process. So as a result, I'm now building a prototype of a company that is spiritually driven and conscious. And there's never been anything like it in my life to be able to do something from scratch and to do it in a way with pure intentions, with a mindset of constant growth and improvement. And it's been a beautiful thing. But, you know, I just, I want to share with you that the wisdom that I teach and that I've learned It's just simply trial and error and experience. And so for those people that are listening in that are like, this guy is a good entrepreneur, and they're judging themselves in comparison to me, it's just all I've done is I've spent 25 years obtaining skills and knowledge and wisdom necessary to be able to execute at a high level of proficiency. And that's it. And, you know, I'm just getting started in this new venture, AlterCall. And I have no doubt that, you know, 2 years from now, I'll be looking back and saying, you know, wow, I knew nothing when I was on this podcast in comparison to what I know 2 years later.

Oh, well, to me, I mean, I, I see everything that you have created for Alter Call. Even your Instagram for Alter Call is like everything that you share on there, whether it's a quote or it's a video, it's pure value.

Thank you.

And so I encourage all of you listening to really go and Just listen to his videos because you have a lot of videos. That's one thing I really am inspired by what you do is how much speaking that you do actually on Instagram, like the video clips that you show.

Yeah.

And as you were sharing, it resonates so much with me to just asking yourself why it is you do what you do. Because I run a mastermind and I had one of the participants in the mastermind ask me, she said, Do you do speaking for the money or to sell your products? And I was like, no, I didn't get into speaking for either of those 2 things.

Yeah.

I said, I got into speaking to make a positive impact in someone's life and to connect with people. I said, I think the minute that I start focusing on the money of it or this or that, it, it doesn't work for me, but connecting with people does. So I so resonate and And I keep putting one foot in front of the other. And you know what? What's meant to be comes your way, you know?

Yeah. A mentor of mine, Dan Gilbert, has a quote that money doesn't lead, it follows. And I remind myself of that. But what it follows in the case of speaking is it follows our ability to articulate, to connect, to being able to share vulnerably and emotionally with people. And the more that we work on that talent, the more that the money follows. And so speaking is a skill and it's a talent. And, you know, if we want to be paid more for our speeches, then we have to develop that skill and that talent. And, you know, that's a process. Like, part of the reason why I've ventured into learning to sing is so that I could be more articulate, enunciate better, have better resonance and tonality in my voice when I speak. And, you know, I've invested a lot of money into that and a lot of time into that. And that's what most people don't realize is Those that are the great ones, the Tony Robbins, the John Maxwells, the, you know, the people that, that have very large followings and have been very successful in the public forum, they have spent a tremendous amount of time perfecting their skills. And we just, we often don't realize how much skill goes into what a Tony Robbins does or what a John Maxwell does.

Or how much thought goes into. I mean, It's not about the 45-minute to an hour keynote when you're up on stage. It is the thought before it, putting your— tailoring your talk. I still get butterflies sometimes. Like before I did my TED Talk, like a month before I did, already had the butterflies going on.

The amount of practice and preparation, you know, to master a skill. Right? So the skill is obtained by that practice and that preparation. And then you went up there and you spoke, and you added to your skill IQ as it relates to that speaking. And the next speech that you did after TED was even better than the TED Talk, right? Because the TED Talk, you know, grew you, and then the next speech is going to be even better because all growth is cumulative. And so each time we practice it, you know, I'll tell you, I— when COVID hit and I just started AlterCall, obviously events were shut down, and we do events at AlterCall, and that was primary thing that we were doing at that time. Now we do virtual, but back then they were in person. And I decided I was going to lead a group meditation every morning via Zoom. I'd never meditated in front of a group before, never done it via Zoom, and never done it with strangers. Like, you know, I certainly, uh, never tried it. And I did it for 483 days in a row. And so now I can lead a group meditation, you know, with my eyes closed, literally. with a whole bunch of people, and they could be strangers, and it's no problem. But that became— that was a result of 483 days worth of practicing and developing the skill to be able to lead a group in prayer and meditation effortlessly. And so, you know, I did 483 sessions in a row in order to obtain that skill. Now I have meditation videos on YouTube, and, you know, I lead people in meditation all the time. And it's the skill that I have is purely because of those 483 days that I did, you know, with a group of strangers working through voice cracks, having allergies. My dog would run around in the house and make noise during the meditation. You know, I had to go through everything to get to a place where I could, you know, go into a state of consciousness that I could lead a group in prayer and meditation.

Oh, that's amazing. You know, actually, one of the things I have— I mean, I could talk to you all day, and I know we're running out of time, One of the things I actually had written down to ask you is, can you give us an example of the meditation and lead us through a short meditation? But you guys, he has videos on YouTube. Check out his videos, and you even have them on your Instagram too. Yeah, uh, maybe it was on the Altar Call page. I'm not sure if it was on your main page, but—

Yeah, there's, there's meditations, um, on YouTube if you just search Altar Call. It's A-L-T-E-R-C-A-L-L, and also on my Instagram, which is @realryanblair. And from time to time, I host public meditations, and I also have a, a free course where I teach people the principles that I've utilized spiritually, you know, as a father and then as an entrepreneur. And, uh, I have 29,000 students that are part of that course, uh, and it's absolutely free. And so there's a lot of content that people can get out there so they can deeper dive into the work that I do.

And so where do you find that free course?

If you go to altercall.com, uh, it's on the website there and it's called our Principles Course.

Cool. So y'all check that out. I, I didn't— I missed that. I'm gonna go get that.

Yeah.

Um, and before we go, can— do you have time for a couple more questions?

Oh, sure. Yeah, sure.

Okay. So I wanted to ask you— I've got so many. Let me pick some. Limiting beliefs, how do you change them? Like, I get limiting beliefs. I have, you know, my inner critic comes out loud and mean sometimes, but I just wondered, how do you switch that or change the limiting beliefs? Or do you have any?

Yeah, certainly I do. Everyone does. Meditation allows you to calm the mind and to get to a place where you can observe your thoughts. Once you start to observe your thoughts and you're actually saying, I just thought that, was that my higher self or was that my lower self? Where did that come from? Is that, is that positive? Is that true? And so what meditation allows you to do is get to a place where you have fewer thoughts and you can observe them. And then you start walking around every single day and you're observing your thoughts and you're like, wow, why did I have that thought right there? Sometimes the brain will pop up a thought that is ridiculous, that is silly, that doesn't make any sense whatsoever, or that is, it is inspired by our corrupted and often very sinful culture that we live in. And you're like, okay, that's not a thought that I agree with. Why did I have that thought? You know, or maybe I'm being critical or judgmental of a person, and I'm like, wait, that doesn't serve any purpose. Why did I have that thought? Right? So the more that you meditate, the more that you'll get into a position where You can observe your thoughts. And then from that point, you can then start to change those thoughts, you know, where you can confront the thoughts that you have and say, that's not the person that I want to be. You know, I might have a team member make a mistake and I find myself judging them, for example. And I say, that's not who I want to be. I've made that mistake 1,000 times. I need to get that person on the phone and talk to them and help them, you know, rectify that situation or help them understand, you know, that they can do a better job. And so observing your thoughts is just key. And that's why we meditate, because your brain is constantly firing off these thoughts and most people are just unconscious to them. So that's probably the number one thing that I do to address limiting beliefs is that when I see myself having a thought, I just ask myself, What is that? Do I agree with it? Is that my highest self speaking or is that my lower self speaking? And I also, in my team, I've taught them this. And so I have, you know, 29 people plus a community of hundreds of entrepreneurs I support that also have permission to call me out when I'm not being my highest self as well.

I love that. That's what I tell my team members too, like right first call. I'm like, I am very open. I want to learn and grow. If I'm doing something that you feel is off, not right, or just plain old wrong, yeah, please call me on it because I want to do better every day. I want to be better than I was the day before. Um, so I love that. And one, one last question. Okay, let's imagine this big company wants you to come in and talk to their team about wellness and give like 3 points, what 3 points would be the most important that you would want to address in a big company?

Well, number one is training your mind. In a big company, I oftentimes have to be sensitive to speaking about faith. So I'll often—

That's true, huh?

Yeah, I'll often just say, look, there are forces at work that we can't see. Some call it the quantum field, some call it the Holy Spirit. You know, every, every ancient tradition has a way of, of describing this force at work that we cannot see. And, um, and so I'll describe it as such. So I, you know, I tend to try to get each and every individual to double down on whatever their respective faith is and whatever their respective beliefs are. Then I talk about training the mind. And most people just don't realize if you don't train the mind correctly, It can go haywire. And I know that because there's been times in my life where I was filled with depression, anxiety, grief, all kinds of pain, a victim mindset. And so, you know, if you don't train your mind constantly every single day, you're going to not reach your full potential. And then I talked to them after I talked about faith and training their mind, then I talked to them about, you know, really balancing productivity.

Yeah. About productivity and generosity.

You know, you want to find a balance between the two. Productivity is often ego-driven, right? Because I want to accomplish things, I want to be— I want to achieve a lot of results, I want to get a raise, I want to, you know, help as many people as I can, I want to improve my resume, right? That's generally ego-driven. But then generosity is, I want to be able to serve the purpose of this company, I want to be able to serve our customers, I want to be able to serve my fellow team members. And I want to be able to give back. And so if you can really find the balance between productivity and generosity, you will live a fulfilled life.

I love that. I seriously could just talk to you all day. I appreciate you coming on. Tell everybody, first of all, I love listening to your book on Audible, but I like an actual book too. So, um, I loved your book. Tell people where they can get Your book, the, you know, find the free course, find you. And you know what, y'all, anything that really stood out to you from this amazing interview with Ryan, take a screenshot and tag us. He's on Instagram at The Real— or sorry, Real Ryan Blair. I'm Amberly Lago Motivation. And tag us. When I see that you've tagged me, I'll share it in my story. It means a lot that you listen. And just show him some love. So where can people find you?

Oh, well, for my books, you can find them everywhere where books are sold. Um, Real Ryan Blair on Instagram, or you can just go to altercall.com and you can find us there.

Okay, well, I hope to be going to like Shasta or something.

I would love to have you there. Yeah, I'd love to.

Seriously, there's— it— and I know you have an event coming up in October. So I have got to find a way where I can go to one of these events because it looks incredible. I mean, just from the videos that I've seen, and that view was amazing. And some of the locations that you do. So thank you so much for being on this show. I sure appreciate you.

Thank you, Amberly.

Thank you.