In this inaugural vlog, Ryan Desanti introduces his new content series, "The Arena," a rebrand inspired by Theodore Roosevelt's "Man in the Arena" speech, framing his entrepreneurial journey toward building a $2 million chiropractic practice. He explains why he moved from a shared loft to a private home office, citing distractions and a need for focused productivity. He tours the new space, highlighting a large whiteboard used for brainstorming and task organization, personal décor items (a handcrafted arrow, a half‑man/half‑lion painting, various hats) that carry sentimental value and motivation, and a curated bookshelf featuring leadership, marketing, and chiropractic books that shape his mindset. Desanti details his content‑creation studio setup—including a sit‑to‑stand desk, lighting panel, camera gear, microphone, Vocaster Two mixer, and workflow tweaks to sync audio and video. He shares personal background as a former Air Force firefighter, his family (wife Sarah and son Theo Archer), and how these experiences inform his entrepreneurial ethos. The vlog concludes with a call to action for viewers to join him as he documents his real‑time learning, content production, and business growth.
Chapters
Welcome to my first vlog. What is up guys, welcome to my first vlog video. I'm committing now to documenting more of the process in the arena, the entrepreneurial journey as a chiropractic business owner who is on the road to $2 million, and calling this or theming this the arena, which is inspired by Theodore Roosevelt's— take these out, didn't even realize these were still in my ears, just got back from the gym— but inspired by Theodore Roosevelt's speech, "The Man in the Arena," which really just highlights the gladiators that are actually doing the work, that are fighting every day, that are overcoming all of the obstacles, the challenges, and the hardships, and paying less attention to the spectators in the arena. That cast the stones of judgment, you know, that are always being hypercritical of the person in the spotlight or of the person who's actually doing the work. The gladiators that are marred by dust, by sweat, by tears, and by blood, that are doing the hard work and making the contributions on a day-in, day-out basis that improve quality of life of all the humans around them. So that is going to be the rebrand for the podcast coming out in a few weeks, which I'm really excited about. But I just wanted to start to create more of this content for you guys who are on a similar journey or a similar path, whether you're ahead of me, whether you're parallel to me, whether, you know, you're a few years behind me in this chiropractic journey. You know, I just hope this is gonna be valuable for everybody. And also selfishly, it's gonna be great documentation for me looking back as my future self. So I'm currently standing in my new office space. Space. I was previously recording and doing all of my work in the office in my loft. This isn't even on. That's hilarious. Now it's on. Um, I was previously doing— you can probably hear me better now. Um, growing pains. I was previously doing all my content in the loft upstairs, and I really liked the loft because it was like an open space. I had my sauna, I had a mat that I did a lot of my movement on. I had my bookshelf. I had a really cool move sign that illuminated, and I had a lot of natural light, and it was a really open space. It was what I called my think tank. It was a place for me to go and be creative and just feel like I could get in flow. And then Sarah had Theo, and her and Theo were spending a lot more time downstairs, and there's, there's no walls obviously in the loft. There's no doors. There's no separation. There's no soundproofing at all. And so I just started to get really distracted. And it wasn't like, oh, they're distracting me. It was like my— the bi— the biology, the biological dad, father figure protector in me, like, wanted to be with them when I could hear them, you know, throughout the day. So it made it really hard for me to actually execute on all the tasks that I had. I was falling behind on a lot of my work, and I just kept asking myself, like, why? What's the resistance here? What do I need to do differently? And so I finally just decided to change my environment. And now I have a better, more private environment and workplace where actually I can actually come in here. I have my whiteboard where I get to brainstorm on, uh, get all of my ideas out, get my task lists out, prioritize and execute. I also have my workstation that's going to make it really easy for me to create content, kind of just point and shoot. And then I have, uh, the space here that just feels really cool. So I'm going to walk you through it first. Things first. Maybe one of the most important pieces in this room is this whiteboard here. So I love to get things out of my head, through my hand, and onto a surface. And bonus points if that surface is large and I can be somewhat disorganized and messy as I get all of my thoughts out, and then I can organize them into technology after the fact. So typically when I'm writing ads or, or scripts, or I'm trying to work through like a system or a process, I typically like to do that on a whiteboard. And then after that, I'll get my iPad and kind of put it down into a Google Doc or Notes app or something like that. And that's typically how the flow goes. So you're going to be seeing a lot of video footage here of me working on things on the whiteboard, which I'm excited to share with you guys. And then right behind me isn't a great shot because the window is right here. That's my ice barrel right there. But right over here is just cool little desk thing where I have a lot of my camera equipment. I actually have this Make It Rain money shooter, which I'm going to use for an ad coming up for Cairo Ads Academy. This really cool LED moon here, and then a gimbal. And then of course, are you even an entrepreneur if you don't have an acquisition.com Alex Hormozi hat? Probably not. Next, some really cool pieces here. So Colorado native portrait here, and then this arrow. So this arrow has a lot of significance for me, a lot of sentimental value. And actually, I didn't realize how much sentimental value it held until I took it down out of my old office space, and I actually thought through what this arrow means. So the first time that my family came to Colorado Springs, whenever Sarah and I were thinking about moving here to Colorado, we all came and visited Manitou Springs, which is over by Colorado Springs, which is where we thought we were going to move to, but we ended up in Boulder. And my dad and I ended up both buying an arrow like this that were handmade by some Native Americans there that were local to Manitou Springs. And my dad and I each have one of these arrows, matching arrow, and I've always had it up in my office. And funny story, we actually ended up naming our son Theo Archer. And Archer just because of like the mindfulness practice, the grounded kind of earthly character that is mission-oriented and very purposeful, but also mindful. Theo as in Theos, or the God within, also inspired by Teddy Roosevelt, one of my favorite characters of all time, hence the arena. So yeah, just really cool pieces that I have up in the office that I can look at and find inspiration or find a little bit of that like emotional touch in the case that I, that I need that. So next is my bookcase, bookshelf, shelf, shelf with books. So here, let's see if I can take you up. Oh yeah, nice. So right here, Make America Healthy Again hat, which somehow has become political in nature and off-putting to some people, kind of perplexing. How can you argue with Make America Healthy Again? This was the shield from my helmet when I was a firefighter in the Air Force, which a lot of people don't know about me. I was a firefighter in the Air Force from the time that I was 18 to 22 years old before going to school and thinking I was going to go the physical therapy route, but I did not. Obviously, chiropractor, thank God. Next, I have some books that Sarah always says are just a great representation of who I am, so I like to keep the books that I do find most valuable and most impactful in my life. Here's my Jocko Willink, uh, shelf here, or my mindset shelf. We got Leadership Strategy and Tactics, Relentless by Tim Grover, Extreme Ownership, and Discipline Equals Freedom. And then here I have my Traffic Secrets, Expert Secrets, Dotcom Secrets, the Secrets Trilogy by Russell Brunson. If you haven't read these books, you totally should. And then here I've got a Green Book, The Bigness of the Fellow Within, my thoughts book, Reality Check by Heidi Havoc, and then The E-Myth Chiropractor with a little camera accent on top. And then here, business and marketing, $100 Million Leads, $100 Million Offers, The Linchpin by Russell Brunson, Breakthrough Advertising Mastery, which is a really old but awesome book. I think that's Gene Schwartz. And then The Wizard of Ads, which is a great book. And then I've got my Theodore Roosevelt book here. Um, which I believe is called Cowboys and Kings. So these are like several excerpts that he wrote while on the road. And then Tax-Free Wealth, just to remind me to always be strategic with my tax strategy and make sure that I'm keeping, uh, a majority of what I earn. Next is one of the coolest pieces that I have in the room, which is this lion here, half man, half lion. Actually, this was a gift from one of my clients at Move, the old Move Chiropractic and Yoga. And this painting was actually brought in at one of our events. We did like a small business event, and she brought this in, and it just like captivated me. And I was just staring into the eyes of this painting, standing in the middle of the room, just like captivated by this one piece. And she saw that I was extremely interested in it. It was very obvious, my body language, and she asked me if I liked it, and I told her yes, and she asked me why, and I told her why, and she said, "Well, do you want it?" And so she ended up giving it to me at the end of the night, which is amazing because she sells these paintings for thousands of dollars. But what's really cool about this, and she told me the history behind it, is that it's actually Venetian plaster on canvas. So she actually takes Venetian plaster puts plaster all over the canvas, and then she puts it in the center of her house, and she walks by it for 10 days to a week. And whatever catches her eye, whatever she sees in the plaster, is what she paints. And the reason why it's off-center is because she actually caught the eye of the lion first. And so she saw the eye of the lion and a little bit of the cheekbone, and so she went and she just started painting outwardly from that eye. And then it ended up turning into this half-man, half-lion, which does look similar to Jesus. She said it wasn't Jesus, but, you know, your imagination is your interpretation, so interpret it as you will. But really cool piece there. And then my next kind of setup here, which I'll show you guys, is my little content studio. Let me get this right. Well, first off, red light panel on the wall, gotta have it. And then here is my content studio. So As you can see here, I've got my sit-to-stand desk. So I can just come over here and press elevate and it will elevate to standing height. But what I really like about this is that it's got my entire content setup here. So I can just flip everything on, essentially crank up the spaceship and press record. So it's where I do my podcast shoots. It's where I do my YouTube content, a lot of my shorts that I shoot, which I know I haven't been shooting much of recently, but it's because I've been focused on building the practice. So there's more of that content to come. But what I really like about this is that I have this arm over here that has the light and the camera on it, so I can move these around however I need to. I have my microphone here, which I just spin around. It comes all the way out and around so that no And now I'm ready for my podcast material. I've got my headphones here. I've got some nice Logitech speakers. I've got my Vocaster Two, which is my sound mixer that my microphone actually goes into, and then it comes out to my computer. And what I've actually found to work better is actually plugging my Vocaster Two into my camera so that the sound records into the camera instead of recording onto the recording software because somehow there always seems to be a discrepancy between the video and the audio, which we kept having to fix, but not anymore since I made that change. And another piece here, "Be here now," if you can't see that. So this is something that I'm keeping right here on my desk, and it's kind of tucked away in the shadow there, but it's a nice reminder if I catch a glimpse of that to just take a moment, pause, and remember to be present, to be here now. It's something that I need to work on a lot, especially as an entrepreneur, as an aspirational chiropractor, as a business owner, multi-business owner, and obviously as a father. You know, sometimes I get caught up in the future as a visionary. That's where I live, is constantly solving problems that haven't happened yet. So I just need to be reminded often to be here now. Now. So love that piece. Well, that was my office space. So nice little tour for vlog number 1, and I'm just excited to bring you guys along for this ride. I think it's gonna be a great opportunity for, again, me to share everything that I've learned to this point, but also everything that I'm learning in real time. So I just keep telling myself You just gotta press record, and I haven't really done that yet, so I'm starting today. And I came home from the gym and I just decided to pick up my camera and press record, and that's what happened. So if you've watched this far, I truly appreciate you being along this journey with me. If you've, uh, maybe a fan of the podcast and you've listened to the podcast up until now, you know, haven't had the chance to really prioritize putting out volumes of content in that long-form platform. But it's coming, it's coming, and it's all for you. And I'm really excited for that. And so thanks for watching, and I look forward to bringing you along in this journey. I will see you in the next one.
