For many, speaking is a job; perhaps even a passion. For me, it is much more. In speaking, I have found my purpose. Giving people of all ages the inspiration to reach for any goal gives me a level of fulfillment that my success as an entrepreneur never could. Having seen the best and worst of what life has to offer, I know all too well the importance of guidance and support at every one of life's turns.

I grew up in Ventura County, California, north of Los Angeles. The product of two abusive, drug-addicted parents, my fate seemed sealed at an early age. I blindly followed a dangerous path for years, hanging out with the wrong friends, making horrible choices, not having the confidence to stand up for myself and choose a different route.

Everything changed when a mentor came into my life and took the time to listen to what I had to say. A self-made man who understood the importance of hard work, he taught me many of the values which now make up my "5 Principles of Fulfillment." With his support and guidance, I was able to unlock my potential as an entrepreneur and turn my ideas into action, creating 3 companies by the age of 27.

My latest venture, PathConnect, is a revolutionary online community designed to unite people with common goals in a truly empowering environment. PathConnect fuses the science of psychology with the technology of the Internet, allowing mentors and experts to connect with users in search of guidance. As a user spends more time on PathConnect, his social networks expands, giving him streams of knowledge and support never before seen in the industry of self-help.

As the network expands, there is virtually no limit to the number of people who can be helped and the number of goals that can be achieved. The site has countless tools to help users set goals, generate focus, and connect with mentors for support.

Essential to the mission of PathConnect is to make our tools accessible to anybody who wants to be more effective in pursuit of his or her goals in life. For this reason, PathConnect is FREE. While much of today's self-help industry caters to those with the money to buy into certain programs, our mission is to exclude nobody. Every person who attends one of my speaking engagements walks away with an incredible free tool to help turn the inspirational energy of my presentation into action.

My speaking engagements center around my "5 Principles of Fulfillment," a set of simple values I learned on my journey to personal and financial success. The application of these principles in daily life has kept me centered, focused, and unlocked my full potential.

Identify the Path that Will Lead to Your Purpose. Before you can fully commit to maximizing your potential to be happy, you must commit to your ultimate purpose. You will know when you are on your path because you will feel comfortable and confident. Fear of failure or the fear of change often accompany the start of your journey. It is natural and expected to fear these things, but with the second principle will come the strength to convert this fear into positive energy.

Connect with mentors for support and guidance. We are not alone in this world, and to try and tackle our grandest goals alone is misusing the millions of dynamic assets which surround us every day. The support of a mentor is an empowering gift, as I learned early in life. The strength to ask for help is always rewarded with the strength of a helping hand. PathConnect is a living, breathing example of the goodness of people; a community built on the premise of mentorship and support where thousands of goals are achieved every day.

Create Empowering Beliefs. With the support of your mentors and peers, now is the time to push any negative thoughts from your mind. You will always be your own toughest critic, but the power of positive thinking will amaze you. There is no reason you can't accomplish your every goal, and to think otherwise is a misuse of your time and energy. This will be a breakthrough, unearthing a well of motivation and passion you never knew you possessed.

Generate Unwavering Focus. With the negative belief gone from your internal dialogue, it is now time to eliminate the thoughts and distractions that lead you away from your path. You will be able to identify the essential and the extraneous, investing your attention on tasks critical to your purpose. You will make strides towards your ultimate goal, achieving more than you ever thought possible. Possessing the tools and knowledge to achieve your goal is important, but the focus to apply them is essential.

Achieve your goals. This fifth principle comes naturally if you are able to master the first four. If you are on your path with the proper attitude and focus, supported by mentors in a positive environment, the fulfillment of your goal is simply a matter of time. The PathConnect community was founded on this principle, and thrives because its members and mentors believe in each other.

My path has led me to this point, and I look now to the members of PathConnect and audiences at my speaking engagements to help me realize my ultimate purpose. Knowing that my work is helping people unlock their full potential gives me great personal fulfillment, something everybody deserves to feel.

Dear Fellow Entrepreneur,

Your drive and dedication towards learning and expanding your network shows a true understanding of what it takes to succeed.

Despite a childhood of poverty and tragedy, I was able to find my path with the help of a mentor. Once on my path, my purpose became clear, and I committed my life to the steadfast pursuit of my grandest goals.

With the wonderful time that we've had together, you will no doubt leave our meeting with a great deal of inspiration. Too often, however, inspiration fades over time without the tools to convert that energy into action.

For this reason, I give you PathConnect, the Internet's only free tool designed to help people achieve their goals and turn inspiration into results. This revolutionary online social network creates and empowering environment in which mentors can connect with goal-oriented users in search of support and guidance.

The mission of PathConnect is simply to give anybody with the desire to set and achieve their goals the same incredible support system that I was lucky enough to have. Every day, thousands of members are achieving goals, making dreams come true.

I invite you to visit PathConnect.com and put in writing the goals and aspirations you have for yourself or your corporation. A Harvard Review study showed that only 3% of the U.S. population actually writes their goals down. Members of this 3% make an average of TEN TIMES the yearly salary as those members of the 97% who don't take the time to simply put their goals down on paper (or online).

By applying my "Five Principles of Fulfillment" in conjunction with the mentoring tools available on PathConnect, you can achieve anything. I invite you to try the site, and to tell your friends and employees about it as well.

I am always happy to offer guidance should you have questions specific to your company, or even your goals as an individual. You can contact me at ryan@pathconnect.com.

Thank you once again for your time.

Ryan

Despite our vast experience in business (sales, management, etc), doesn’t it sometimes still seem that good customers, who become as committed to our companies as our best staff, are magically created by good employees? But you and I have been in business long enough to know that it’s not magic after-all. The formula is simple, Excellent Employees = Excellent Customers, and a booming business.

So, the question that we as decision makers should be asking ourselves is how do we make all of our employees excellent employees? I know the answer!

Right now you are either saying “Yeah, me too,” or “Yeah right!” If you agree, great! You and I share the same beliefs and I already look forward to working with you. If you doubt me, on the other hand, I look forward to sharing with you this Secret that has taken me from minimum wage to millionaire in less than 7 years.

By answering the following two questions, asked of me by literally 1,000s of business owners and managers during my public speaking and seminars, I have helped countless people achieve extraordinary results in a very short period of time: 1) How do I replicate my excellent employees and overcome the 80/20 rule? 2) How do I better inspire those staff members who aren’t producing the results I seek to be as dedicated as I am?

With three startups under my belt and having recruited hundreds of successful employees, I found the Secret…Excellent staff members have anchored their sense of personal satisfaction and fulfillment to a job well done. When the objectives and values of each individual employee are congruent with the company your productivity skyrockets and you are rewarded by harmony within your leadership, your teams, and your customers. This technique is called Purpose Anchoring (anchoring your staff’s purpose to your company’s purpose). As you may well have guessed this is a piece of the Secret.

Now ask yourself the following: What happens when good staff members have a personal satisfaction and fulfillment to a job well done? Your customers will now sense your staff’s greater purpose and genuine commitment to your company, causing a feeling of ownership and even a responsibility to promote your company to their social networks building tremendous customer and brand loyalty.

Business Owners and Team Mangers I ask you… So honestly, on a scale from 1-10, how would you say your employees are performing?

I have never heard an “honest” ten out of ten...the best managers know that there is always room for improvement, however talented they are, and my seminar the “5 Principles of Fulfillment” engenders that improvement by inspiring each employee to perform more fully and with greater personal satisfaction. This is achieved by helping your employees understand that there is a greater purpose to their work, as well as a greater purpose to their lives. When your team members understand their purpose and begin to anchor it to their daily activities, they will start to perform at a level 10. As a leader the results will amaze you! Your employees will learn to communicate with clarity and power because they will now have clarity in their identity. As a result they will learn to tap into the power of influence and transform into a person who lives a life by design, achieving personal and company goals, becoming individually accountable, and generating previously unimaginable results.

My experience has been that these results translate into a 15 to 30% increase in employee productivity each month.

So, what else do I teach? I teach people how to drive Ferrari’s! But we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves…Here’s the second half of the Secret: In conjunction with purpose and passion, we teach state-of-the-art communication, influence, and leadership psychology. I am an expert practitioner of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), which is a scientific, psychologically-based system for determining the way in which people perceive the world and interpret information. A simple example of NLP at work is as follows: Sales people are typically visual people while a prospect’s buying strategy may be kinesthetic, or auditory. If the prospect’s buying strategy is visual then great, chances are they will build enough rapport to establish a relationship. But, in most situations the sales person and prospect’s strategies will not match and this creates roadblocks in communication that interfere with building enough trust and rapport to result in a sale. In order to prevent this communication failure I teach a process called Value Influence. This revolutionary technique demystifies the methods used by Top Producers in every industry to elicit the values and perception patterns of customers, making for flawless communication and the effortless building of trust and rapport (the #1 components of influence). This is the bedrock of flexibility, which is the key to influence, the foundation of excellent customer service; the person with the most flexibility will always lead, and leaders are who we as people are inspired to buy from.

This is an amazing opportunity for you to make your team run like clockwork. Your results will be through the roof I guarantee it.

I am happy to meet with you in person or over the phone to talk about how I may be able to add value to you and your team.

In a recent Larry Elder TV Show Appearance, I was asked to express my opinion on the aforementioned question. For those of you who saw my segment, clearly I was passionate about the subject having an intimate connection to it.

From my experience, I can tell you that poverty is not a disease, but rather a state of mind caused by poor decisions. Yes you can be born into poverty. Yes you can have poverty "happen" to you, but unlike a disease you have a choice to get out of poverty once you are capable of earning a living.

In my humble opinion, I believe that the only power we have as human beings is the power of CHOICE and when I was young, living in poverty, telling me that my state was a disease would have seriously weakened my resolve to improve my situation. Our goal should be to empower those in poverty and inspire them to take action, not to condemn them as stricken by disease. Further I find it very dangerous to use a medical term to classify a condition that is social and economic in nature, to define poverty in medical terms clouds the issue when it is social, spiritual, and motivational in reality.

By equating poverty to a disease, you stigmatize the poor, and all you will do is alienate that segment of the population. When you are poor you are labeled all kinds of things by society; stupid, drug addicts, criminals, etc! Having overcome such labels I am appalled that certain people are encouraging yet another disempowering label to be imposed upon an already disenfranchised population segment. Who will want to hire somebody out of poverty if the community views a poor person as diseased? People fear diseases, because they are contagious and uncontrollable. Poverty is neither contagious nor uncontrollable.

I was indeed born into a family of poverty, abuse, and drug addiction and like everyone in similar situations, I had every excuse in the world to follow that path to jail or the grave, but I didn't. Because of the help of a mentor, I learned how to drown out the disempowering negative beliefs that had been holding me back, and replace them with positive, motivating messages. This is the reason why I am no longer in poverty and this is the solution to the problem. Behind every successful person who has overcome poverty a mentor, an icon or a role model exists.

What is most important is not governmental declaration of poverty as a disease, but rather personal motivation on the part of the individual, and collective action as a society to support those striving towards a better life.

I encourage your feedback. Please email me: ryan@pathconnect.com

inspiration to reach for any goal gives me a level of fulfillment that my success as an entrepreneur never could. Having seen the best and worst of what life has to offer, I know all too well the importance of guidance and support at every one of life's turns.

I grew up in Ventura County, California, north of Los Angeles. The product of two abusive, drug-addicted parents, my fate seemed sealed at an early age. I blindly followed a dangerous path for years, hanging out with the wrong friends, making horrible choices, not having the confidence to stand up for myself and choose a different route.

Everything changed when a mentor came into my life and took the time to listen to what I had to say. A self-made man who understood the importance of hard work, he taught me many of the values which now make up my "5 Principles of Fulfillment." With his support and guidance, I was able to unlock my potential as an entrepreneur and turn my ideas into action, creating 3 companies by the age of 27.

My latest venture, PathConnect, is a revolutionary online community designed to unite people with common goals in a truly empowering environment. PathConnect fuses the science of psychology with the technology of the Internet, allowing mentors and experts to connect with users in search of guidance. As a user spends more time on PathConnect, his social networks expands, giving him streams of knowledge and support never before seen in the industry of self-help.

As the network expands, there is virtually no limit to the number of people who can be helped and the number of goals that can be achieved. The site has countless tools to help users set goals, generate focus, and connect with mentors for support.

Essential to the mission of PathConnect is to make our tools accessible to anybody who wants to be more effective in pursuit of his or her goals in life. For this reason, PathConnect is FREE. While much of today's self-help industry caters to those with the money to buy into certain programs, our mission is to exclude nobody. Every person who attends one of my speaking engagements walks away with an incredible free tool to help turn the inspirational energy of my presentation into action.

My speaking engagements center around my "5 Principles of Fulfillment," a set of simple values I learned on my journey to personal and financial success. The application of these principles in daily life has kept me centered, focused, and unlocked my full potential.

Identify the Path that Will Lead to Your Purpose. Before you can fully commit to maximizing your potential to be happy, you must commit to your ultimate purpose. You will know when you are on your path because you will feel comfortable and confident. Fear of failure or the fear of change often accompany the start of your journey. It is natural and expected to fear these things, but with the second principle will come the strength to convert this fear into positive energy.

Connect with mentors for support and guidance. We are not alone in this world, and to try and tackle our grandest goals alone is misusing the millions of dynamic assets which surround us every day. The support of a mentor is an empowering gift, as I learned early in life. The strength to ask for help is always rewarded with the strength of a helping hand. PathConnect is a living, breathing example of the goodness of people; a community built on the premise of mentorship and support where thousands of goals are achieved every day.

Create Empowering Beliefs. With the support of your mentors and peers, now is the time to push any negative thoughts from your mind. You will always be your own toughest critic, but the power of positive thinking will amaze you. There is no reason you can't accomplish your every goal, and to think otherwise is a misuse of your time and energy. This will be a breakthrough, unearthing a well of motivation and passion you never knew you possessed.

Generate Unwavering Focus. With the negative belief gone from your internal dialogue, it is now time to eliminate the thoughts and distractions that lead you away from your path. You will be able to identify the essential and the extraneous, investing your attention on tasks critical to your purpose. You will make strides towards your ultimate goal, achieving more than you ever thought possible. Possessing the tools and knowledge to achieve your goal is important, but the focus to apply them is essential.

Achieve your goals. This fifth principle comes naturally if you are able to master the first four. If you are on your path with the proper attitude and focus, supported by mentors in a positive environment, the fulfillment of your goal is simply a matter of time. The PathConnect community was founded on this principle, and thrives because its members and mentors believe in each other.

My path has led me to this point, and I look now to the members of PathConnect and audiences at my speaking engagements to help me realize my ultimate purpose. Knowing that my work is helping people unlock their full potential gives me great personal fulfillment, something everybody deserves to feel.

As you hopefully saw today on The Larry Elder Show, I gave an unmotivated young man the chance of a lifetime to benefit from my mentorship and turn his life around. Below is an update on my experience with Will and an account of my time spent mentoring him the day after the show was taped.

Will is a 27 year-old father from Oregon whose utter lack of motivation has cost him partial custody of his own son and put a tremendous strain on his mother and father with whom he still lives.  He appeared on The Larry Elder Show about one month ago and was torn apart by Larry and the audience for his lazy attitude towards life.  Will does not have a job, car or even a driver’s license.  His 3 older brothers and sister have left home and moved on to successful careers, but Will seemed hopelessly stuck.  What was worse was Will’s negative attitude, even when Larry offered counseling and help with finding employment.

The producers of the show knew that Will needed more than an appointment with a therapist to get on track.  They had worked with my on a previous episode, and I was at the top of their list of motivational guests.  I was thrilled for the opportunity to come back on the show and talk some sense into a young man with plenty of time to turn his life around.

As I expected, Will’s smug attitude towards his dire situation was just a front he was using to get attention.  All I had to do was show him that the positive attention for a job well done will make him feel immeasurably better than the negative attention he is used to receiving.  I encouraged the studio audience to acknowledge Will with applause for his willingness to put himself in front of millions of viewers and ask for help.

Once Will saw me as a peer, and not somebody there to punish him, he was more than willing to accept my mentorship.  While I wouldn’t wish my difficult childhood on anybody, the fact that I have been able to rise above so many challenges helps me relate to people like Will who feel like they can’t catch a break.

The key for Will, and for anybody who wants to achieve more, is to drown out the disempowering beliefs that hold us back.  Thoughts like “I have no luck,” “this just isn’t my day,” and “I’m probably not qualified to do that job,” are destructive internal dialogue patterns.  Will was unable to reach his full potential (or any potential for that matter) because these thoughts were winning.

I was thrilled to see Will’s enthusiasm to accept my mentorship.  I had a packed schedule coming up the day after we taped the show, and felt it would be a perfect opportunity to have Will be my shadow, getting to see first-hand the results of hard work and dedication.

Will showed me his commitment by canceling his plans to go sight-seeing in Los Angeles and agreeing to come along with me and learn how he can make a better life for himself.

I picked will up at 10:00AM, five hours after my alarm goes off, but still earlier than Will is used to waking up.  We started with a meeting at Junior Achievement, a charity partner of mine in Los Angeles dedicated to spreading financial literacy among America’s youth.

Among our other meetings was a visit to my agent’s office high above Beverly Hills.  We took a moment here to borrow the office of the agency’s CEO so that Will could feel like the big shot he is going to be.  In this setting, I had Will write down his goals.  One of the most empowering things you can do in life, writing goals down on paper gives them weight and is the first step in creating the road map that will lead you to tremendous accomplishment.

I will leave it up to Will to decide if he wants to make his goals public.  As with any PathConnect member, he has the choice to make any one of his goals public or private.

Our final stop was with a company where I do consulting work.  Will had a chance to see me motivate and inspire in a corporate environment, and he saw that the working world is not such a scary place after all.  He saw people working hard, as he would have expected, but he also saw the fulfillment they felt from a job well done.  This was a benefit of employment that Will had never considered, and something I made sure to stress as we parted ways.

At the end of our day together, Will made 2 important commitments to me.  First, he committed to pursuing employment until he succeeds so that he will not be a 3-time loser on The Larry Elder Show.  He loved the positive attention the audience gave him, and I had him visualize how great the standing ovation will be when he comes back to announce his new job, new apartment, and show off his shiny new car.

Will’s second commitment was to go speak at his high school back in Oregon and share with them his story of success.  My hope is that Will can take the benefits of my mentorship and pass it down to others who are looking for support and guidance.  PathConnect has been founded on the gift of mentorship, and it has thrived because of people’s inherent desire to share their knowledge and good fortune with others.

Will’s story is just one example of the thousands of people who are achieving greatness every day thanks to the power of PathConnect.  I thank and acknowledge all of you for your continued support, and would love to hear your story.  We are always looking for the next “face” of PathConnect.

Check back for continued updates on Will’s progress and for more inspiring stories from the PathConnect community.

Thank you,
Ryan Blair

I’ve witnessed the ramifications of these poor drug addicts buying into scam after scam. Self-Help Junkies are what they’re called in the industry, a fitting name considering both their behavior and the quality of what they are buying. Like addicts they consume with a junkie’s appetite.

But what are they actually buying? The message doesn’t matter much, as I was surprised to be told in private by one bestselling author. For those of us who are gifted with a message, we must be responsible. For those of us who have achieved success in the industry that we preach about, we must teach the work ethic and the sacrifice that it took to become successful. We must never lose sight of what got us where we are today.

Many times, successful people are ashamed of what it took them to be successful: The risks, the anxiety, the fear, the tears, and the sleepless nights. Those that become “motivational speakers” paste up an image of success that came effortlessly, despite the fact that were the truth told we would learn of the many challenges they faced along the way. You get out of life what you put into it, and NOTHING IS EFFORTLESS. Our poor society is dying at the hands of the “What if I win the lottery?” or “What if I win the million on TV?” mindset, a belief that killing the American Entrepreneurial Spirit.

I ask my readers and fellow industry professionals to please champion this cause. I have seen the devastating effects myself, with blood on my hands and tears on my shoulder. I’ve been in the homes of the victims as foreclosure looms. I have witnessed the mirage of Effortless Prosperity kill the American dream. I’ve helped rehabilitate a few, but I am not capable of intervention for all.

Understand that I’m not saying all motivational speakers are bad. I happen to despise the term, as I don’t think that the title “motivational speaker” signifies accomplishment. I’ve met many motivated speakers with whom you would not pay to trade places if you knew the truth about their prosperity. I believe there are a variety of messengers that will come into others’ lives with quality content. These messengers are not all bad, but one must do his or her homework before buying one. Ask what credentials they have to teach you on this subject?

Remember, it’s not just about past success, but also about present success. The shame is that most of these motivational speakers are out of touch with the times. Perhaps in the distant past they did something remarkable. Somewhere along their journey of life they decided to make a career out of talking about it as opposed to doing it. Unfortunately, the best messages of motivation and the best know-how for prosperity can only be found in those taking action on a daily basis, fighting the competitive battle as we speak. Those who are both students and teachers of the subject, something that I’ve found to be a rarity in the industry of “motivational speaking.” So-called “Mentors” who offer up tidbits of advice for a fee.

As I walk past my local coffee house I find a free (the biggest trap of such gimmicks) catalog. Thumbing through the pages, I see course titles such as “Learn how to Marry a Millionaire” and I find myself saying I hope nobody ever tries to marry me for my bank account (I wish I had a list of everyone who attended this course so I could block their numbers). That, my friends, is a perfect illustration of the root of this disease. What better a descriptor than that?

“Hey, who cares if you’re broke? Here’s how to marry someone who’s not and thereby you’re no longer broke. Congratulations! Now you’re rich because you’re leaching off someone who’s got what you want.”

Fabulous… Perhaps that’s the third wish: “Dear Genie, I want to get rich by marriage!” After reading that, I wondered if I had just dedicated the past ten years of my life to my dream of being prosperous when I could have taken this course and learned how to marry somebody to give me the same financial luxuries. Funny, playing the lottery is a fool’s game and I’m just not playing it, I think to myself.

So far in my life I’ve gone from fat to skinny and from poor to prosperous. Having made both journeys, I can tell you that there was nothing effortless about either. There’s no simplicity about it. I’ve asked this question of world champion athletes, successful business people, award-winning actors, platinum record selling musicians, and those that have reached the top of their chosen field time and time again. What I have found is that the journey of success is filled with effort and sacrifice; with self-teaching and commitment. Sure, play the lottery from time to time… Just don’t bet your life savings on it!

I can just see it now. One charlatan will create a course tiled after my last remark. Learn how to get rich without Sacrifice, Self-teaching or Commitment. Am I too far off? Pick up your local seminar catalog and take a look at the titles. The drug is being sold every day in every state across America, and it must be banned.

So what’s the solution, you must be asking. So outraged with the current self-help environment, I thought to myself, “how do I strike at the heart of this tumor?” Some have called me the next Tony Robins, blah, blah, blah. My generation knows better. We know that effortless prosperity doesn’t exist. We know when someone’s smile is fabricated with purchased pearly whites. We know when we’re being sold to, and we’re sick of it. Having come from a technology background, the answer came to me after witnessing the MySpace phenomenon of Social Networking. Take their tools, take their message, and liberate them. Make it free. Declare the values of humanity and make the tools needed to become prosperous free to all.

Give the tools away for free, give the content away for free, and then create a collaborative environment where those who are seeking something can be matched with those who have achieved. A community of subject experts and those seeking to be. Match people not based on their desire for intimacy, but rather for their intent on achievement. Connect these like-minded people and give them the tools to sharpen who they want to become… for free.

Am I a dreamer? Yes, but I’m making my dream a reality. Such a place does exist; it’s called PathConnect.com.

The universe is a masterpiece.  It consists of billions of individual tiny dots which are purposely placed together to create a unique work of art.  No dot is insignifictant; each one is as vital as another in painting the universe.

Every person in the universe is their own work of art.  We are a work in progress; and every person, experience, memory and dream dot the canvas of our lives.  Regardless of its shape, size, or color, each dot is there for a reason.  They may seem like mere specks which are there for no apparent rhyme or reason, or they may be vivid stars, forming a very evident constellation.

Some people live their lives with no real purpose.  They scatter from one dot to the next with no plan or goal.  As I journey through life, my quest for its reason has led me to connect its dots in order to find my purpose.  Although I’ve always had faith that eventually I would see the masterpiece, there were times when my life was a puzzle, much like a maze.  A maze must be elevated in order to keep you from bouncing off its walls like a pinball machine.  Our thought processes must also be elevated so that our star may shine and become a vital part of the constellation we leave behind.

Our memories are the dots of our past, and we lose our recall of them as they fade with time.  Yet, these memories all produce the slide show of our lives.  Thus far, the 28 years I have spent on earth have yielded 200 powerful memories.  Since I do not have the capacity to vividly store many more, I am releasing those memories to make room for more.

My first one hundred memories, starting when I was three, were that of despair.  My parents had been abused as children, and they despised the lifestyle in which they were raised.  Unfortunately, they did not realize they were repeating the cycle and were abusive, as well.   My earliest memories are of witnessing and later being the victim of their abuse.

Although I was the youngest of six children, I was five years younger than my closest sibling.  Therefore, I was frequently alone. At a young age, I developed a sense of survival.  Later, I learned that I had a powerful gift for auditory processing.  I was able to interpret pitch and tone; and I stored sounds and words in my mind’s memory bank, withdrawing them as needed for my survival.

I have an older brother named Brian.  His name is tonally the same as mine, Ryan.  When my father became angry, I quickly learned how to determine which one of us was the focus of his anger before he got very close.  In order to escape my father’s punishments, I learned to set crafty traps to steer his anger toward Brian.  As a young boy, I had developed a rare identity and set of skills uncommon for a child my age.

It also became clear that I was different from my peers.  A rebel in my youth, I was once considered the most dangerous juvenile in our county.  Like Huck Finn, I found I could receive attention from my negative actions. I quickly learned the power of fear, so I used that power to stand out from the crowd.   Fear was my double-edged sword.  My parents used fear to suppress me, and in turn, I used fear to gain power over others.

By the age of 16, I was aware that these actions worked and could give me whatever I wanted.  I was an overachiever in sports by this time; unfortunately, the rules of society required that I played those games in jail.  My salvation actually came in the form of a meeting with a mentor, which was arranged by my mother. He had a different presence than most men I’d known; he had a non-threatening nature with a hint of femininity and refinement.

 Later, my mentor rescued me and my mother.  We moved from a rat-infested home in a high-crime neighborhood to his castle on an island, with exotic birds and a lake jumping with fish below my bedroom window.  This peaceful and joyous environment brought me much pleasure.  Elated, I now knew what I wanted in life, and developed a desire to learn everything I could in order to achieve a life rich with success.

My first hundred memories were now behind me, and I was free to create the second hundred.  Traits which were previously dormant were awakened, and I developed ambition and a desire for accomplishment. Having only completed 9th grade, I pursued a rigorous course of study, completing high school within one year while simultaneously attending college. I spent the next two years with the curiosity of an infant, soaking up everything I could learn. 

The next hundred memories read like a story tale. I surrounded myself with great thinkers and leaders.  As their student, I learned what made them unique.  My gift to them was the satisfaction they derived from contributing to others.  In turn, they presented me with the gift of their knowledge and experience.

Not afraid to ask for help, I persuaded a major investor to fund my cause. As his protégé, this man challenged me and left me with no choice but to succeed. With his support and the wind at my back, I braved new territories.  The lessons I learned from my mentors were invaluable to me, especially during times when success was not certain.

Driven toward my goal, I persistently moved forward with a “nothing can stop me now” attitude. With a clear mind and purpose, I drove on toward my master plan. It wasn’t always easy, for I was often within a few short steps of major disaster or massive success.  I persevered, learning that success requires determination and faith.

Although I wasn’t aware of it for some time, ambition had been hibernating within me my whole life.  Awakening that ambition gave me a new perspective on life. It gave me the opportunity to have experiences and create wonderful memories which few people are privileged to know. Those memories and experiences have become the dots on my canvas, and I tell my story to show you how those dots connect to paint my picture.

The process of connecting our dots is designed to provide us with faith in our future.  I share my memories not to impress you, but rather to impress upon you that life is merely a summary of the actions we take, the people we know, and the behaviors we learn.  As you read this, you have become connected to me either by observing my dots or becoming one of them.  Embrace the process as I have, and you, too, will live a life of awe.