“Every great entrepreneur understands the value of finding out the reason why a person is in their life,” Ryan Blair said, gearing up to tell another grand story of fateful meetings. “Many people are put into your life for a reason. You never know where a chance encounter will lead you.”

The day Ryan Blair met John Wooden was a perfect example of two destined events. When he arrived at John Wooden’s house in Encino that afternoon, there was a man walking out of the garage. A writer by the name of Don Yaeger.

Don Yaeger was leaving Wooden’s house to pick up some cold medicine. It was spring allergy season. He’d been traveling back and forth from Tallahassee to LA, spending several days at a time with John Wooden in the process of writing a book on the famous coach.

Blair asked if he could borrow the writer’s recording equipment for his meeting. Yaeger agreed, hoping they could use the material for the book, which was centered on Wooden’s lifelong perfection of mentorship. Yaeger got the two men set up to record, and then headed out to the doctor’s office. When he came back, Yaeger said Ryan Blair was getting the most out of his mentorship. He was still there, and they were still talking.

“He was maximizing his time with the coach,” Yaeger said.  

After the interview ended, Blair expressed interest in reading the John Wooden biography, which Yaeger said was coming out by fall 2009. The two men parted ways, but destiny was already working to rejoin them in the near future.

Blair realized when he left Wooden’s house he should have brought his own recorder to the meeting; all he had were his notes. He pulled out Don Yaeger’s business card and contacted him. The writer’s assistant sent him the transcribed tapes, and included a press kit on the author.

“I didn’t know anything about Don Yaeger,” Ryan Blair said. “I looked at this press kit, and come to find out he wrote Walter Payton’s book, he’d been on Oprah, Larry King, was a 4 time New York Times best selling author, 11 years at Sports Illustrated as an Associate Editor.”

Ryan laughed. “Here I thought I just met some random guy in Wooden’s garage.”

One day Ryan Blair was talking to mutual friend Coach Dale Brown about his struggles to get his book written; it was difficult to make the time to write a book while actually doing what he wanted to write about. Shortly after, Brown sent him an email reintroducing him to the well-respected author. It simply said, “Don, you met Ryan, you need to write his book.”

So the discussions began. The Wooden book would be soon be finished, and Yaeger set his sights on his next big project, tackling Ryan’s story.

“This was way out of my comfort zone,” Yaeger said. “But then I realized that Ryan’s sport is entrepreneurship. I’m used to talking to competitors, and Ryan is a competitor. As fierce a competitor as Tiger Woods or Jimmy Connors.”

Don Yaeger told Ryan that he had a number of books in him, but he was interested in writing about how to become an entrepreneur. “I own a handful of businesses, from a comedy club to a PR firm,” Yaeger said. “I have a taste of being an entrepreneur, maybe not to the extent Ryan has. But I was taken by the things I was learning in the conversations with him, and before long it made complete sense.”

The author already had an idea for the title of their book: Nothing to Lose. It was a reference to an episode of Donny Deutsche where Blair mentioned leveraging this mindset.

“When he said Nothing to Lose, I thought, you’re right,” Blair said. “That is the mindset that you need to have to start a new business.”

Blair said he wants to make people aware that getting caught up in financial fears, and fear of failure, and their pride, prevents them from taking action. Having nothing to lose is one of the first ingredients to success.
 
“Now would be a unique time to offer up these ideas to people,” Don Yaeger said. “If a book can be pulled together in time for millions of Americans to use it, it’s the greatest legacy you could leave behind.”

The book Nothing to Lose, which will be out later this fall 2009, aims to be both timely and timeless; an ultimate handbook for entrepreneurs. The authors are looking for feedback about business advice topics the audience would like to see covered. Check back for a follow up article with a chapter outline of Nothing to Lose, and information on submitting suggestions.

Ryan,

I am so sorry to hear about the family tragedy, please relay my deepest sympathy to Kasie. No I am not the best man, today you grew 10 feet in my eyes for putting family first & not pride. I was just going out the door to workout but out of respect to you I am not going to do it & we now have an official tie.

THE SUREST WAY TO BE FULLY LOVED IS TO LOVE FULLY AND YOU HAVE DONE THAT!

Dale Brown

Dear Coach,

I have two pieces of bad news. The first is that there was a family tragedy. We found out that Kasie’s nephew passed away suddenly yesterday. We can’t fly yet because my son is still too young, so I packed up the family and drove all through the night to Oklahoma. The second piece of bad news is that I failed the Dale Brown Challenge.

When we arrived in Oklahoma, I had to make a selfish decision. As I sat there surrounded by our grief stricken family, I kept wondering when would be a good time to excuse myself to go work out. I realized that there was no good time in the midst of a wake to say, “sorry guys I have to go change into my gym clothes now.”  We fell asleep last night laying there crying, and when I woke in this morning, I’d failed the challenge.  

I will have plenty of time in my life to finish the challenge, but now is the time I have to show my family that they are my priority. My priority is to love my son's mother.  Family first. Love first, is something I learned from John Wooden.

I figured out a way to plan around business trips, flights from the west coast to the east coast, sickness, the birth of my child, and every obstacle I encountered.  This challenge has taught me to both plan ahead and be able to think on my feet. But the only thing I wasn’t able to plan around was seeing my family in sorrow and pain, and the loss of a loved one.

So, I respectfully say, Coach—you are the best man in this challenge.

Ryan

I am a person who believes that mentors are given to you when you’re ready to learn from them; it’s part of my spiritual beliefs. What surprised me is that I got the chance to meet one of the greatest leaders of our time, a man who would influence the way I defined success for the rest of my life, and I almost missed the opportunity twice.

Last year, before I really knew who John Wooden was, I was at a charity event and I saw a John Wooden collector’s item, a framed collage of signed photos and his pyramid of success. I stood there and I thought—I know who John Wooden is.

I remembered seeing the John Wooden pyramid of success on the desk of one of my sales people at SkyPipeline. I also recalled watching the Superbowl when the Giants had defeated the Patriots, and the coach of the Giants talking about Wooden being one of his main inspirations. A notable figure in sports and leadership, this is someone I knew I’d have to learn more about.

I stood there staring at this John Wooden piece for a long time. I decided not to bid on it. I had already bid on two pieces of JFK and Marilyn Monroe memorabilia, and if I walked out with everything I’d bid on that night, I’d have spent too much. After the charity was over, my girlfriend and I walked out to the parking lot, and there it was. Facing backwards and leaned up against the tire of my car was this John Wooden collector’s item.

What a coincidence, I thought. I had been debating on bidding on this thing and here it was sitting on the ground by my car. My mother or my stepfather must have bought it for me. Maybe someone saw me staring at it.

Right away I called my mom, who had helped organize the charity, and she told me she didn’t buy it. Later she checked the registry, and we found out it had been stolen.  So I was standing outside a charity event, with a stolen artifact leaning against my car. It must have looked real bad. My mother decided that the piece was important to me and the way the events lined up were too coincidental to ignore, so she would buy it for my birthday. I hung the board in my office as a conversation piece and it’s been there ever since.

Later that year, another coincidence came. My friend Coach Dale Brown called me and told me he had a treat for me—I was going to meet John Wooden.

Of course there were more obstacles. The day I was supposed to meet John, I had to call him and tell him I couldn’t do it, since I had already made a commitment to be at the Vitality event for ViSalus. I felt very conflicted over this because I knew I was supposed to meet this man, and John Wooden was 96 at the time. I might never get another chance.

Dale called me back in April 2008 with another offer to meet John Wooden. This time everything lined up. I went to John Wooden’s house in Encino, and we sat and spoke for an hour and a half. I left with four pages of notes from that meeting, and some of the most valuable lessons I’ve gotten from any one man.

One of the practical lessons I came away with that day, got applied immediately to a business transaction I was considering at the time. Wooden helped me use the same set of criteria used in deciding whether or not to ‘go pro’ to the concept of taking a company to the next level. I used these criteria when negotiating the Blyth and ViSalus transaction in 2008. I’ll go more into this in my book Nothing to Lose coming out later this year, which is more geared toward teaching business principles.

In the meantime, I’d like to share three pieces of wisdom from John Wooden that struck a chord with me on a personal level.

•    The first lesson was about success. At the time when I met Wooden I’d been searching for a personal definition of what it meant to be successful. I wondered, who was the standard of success? Sitting there in this meeting I thought—here I was, a young man with some very ambitious goals. How many others would have wanted to be in my shoes that day? What an amazing life Wooden has, to have a long list of future leaders seeking him out for his time and attention. In a society where the majority of our elders feel lonely and unappreciated, if I could reach the age of 96 and have young leaders to give my wisdom to, then I can truly say my life has been a success.

•    The second lesson was about love. John Wooden is well documented for his enduring devotion to his wife, who died many years ago. He showed me his room where he sleeps in bed next to his wife’s dress and her photo every night. On the anniversary of her death each month, he pens her a note. I decided that this is the ultimate definition of love.

•    Which ties in well to the final piece of wisdom that I received from John Wooden, the answer to my question—what was the most important thing you could to do as a father? Wooden told me that the best thing a parent could do for a child is to love its mother.

Not knowing that I would become a father myself just a little less than a year later, these words of wisdom soon became extremely meaningful to the way I now live my life. How many difficulties did all of us have as children that came from our parents lack of love for each other? If we could apply this one principle and be good fathers, the world really would become a better place. And that’s a good place to start.

Thanks to John Wooden I have my standard for success, and I also have an example of love that endures beyond death. As for the collector’s item, it still hangs proudly in my office, with a signed note addressed to me by the legend himself.  

When legendary LSU coach Dale Brown challenged his friend to 365 consecutive days of working out, Ryan Blair had to stop and think. They were in Hollywood, sitting at a table in Katsuya that evening. Brown, turning 73-years-old in a week, pressed Ryan to accept his challenge again and again. It would be his last.

This was no joke tossed out over sushi—this was the infamous Dale Brown Challenge. A commitment so impossible to honor, that everyone but Dale Brown had failed the challenge to this date.

Ryan said, his answer was no.

“I have a personal rule not to accept challenges that I can’t win,” said Blair. “And I know consistency has been my biggest weakness.”  

That didn’t stop Coach Brown, who continued to needle Ryan Blair to accept the challenge. He sensed something in the young entrepreneur. “Ryan was chosen because I love his competitive heart,” Dale Brown said. “I knew one of these days he’d accept the challenge.”
 
This very same persistence has given Dale Brown the advantage over the half dozen or so challengers he’s taken on over the years. It was 1972, Brown’s first year at LSU, when the challenge was officially created.

“I had this phenomenal assistant coach at the time,” Brown said. “He was a body builder. You know…he looked like superman. One day we were working out together, and he was making a lot of noises. So I was teasing him about it, and he got defensive about his workout style.”

“He said, you can’t beat me! So I said, alright, I am going to challenge you to 365 consecutive days. You must work out every day, no excuses—travel, injury, sickness, whatever. One hour of weights and one mile a day.”

Four months into the challenge, basketball season had ended, but both competitors were going strong. Brown had accepted an invitation to Reykjavik, Iceland to give a speech. That night the plane touched down at 11pm in the middle of a sleet storm. The coach sat up reading until 1am, waiting for it to end. It didn’t.

“So I go outside and I do it,” he said. “I run my mile, and I almost hyperventilate. I got frost up my nose, it was miserable. When I laid in bed shivering, I thought—man, that was awful! I hope Jack is working out too.”

When Brown got back to the states, he called his competitor to ask how he was doing. From the other end of the phone line came a telltale pause. In that instant Dale knew, he’d dropped out. The assistant coach admitted he had injured his back and taken a day off. The challenge was over, and Dale Brown had won.

But victory wasn’t enough, so he decided to finish the challenge. Brown worked out every day for the entire year.

Dale Brown’s next big challenge didn’t come until after he had retired from coaching, some 30 years later. In 1995 a former player of Brown’s accepted the challenge. It ended in a mutual concession. Then there were two film producers that stepped up to the challenge. Both failed.

The coach decided he had one last challenge left in him. His sights were set on Ryan Blair, a man whom he met while reuniting with a mutual friend in 2007. Blair, who had facilitated the contact between the two lost friends on his social networking website Pathconnect, flew Dale Brown out to meet them both at his company ViSalus Sciences yearly event in San Diego.

“That night Dale gave a speech that knocked me out,” Ryan Blair said. “I made a video out of it and sent it to all my friends and family members as a Christmas gift that year.”

The next day Coach Brown contacted him to get an original copy of the video, and they had been friends ever since. Blair liked Dale Brown’s speaking style, and invited him to present regularly at his company’s events.

Brown saw another chance to deliver his challenge. He was booked to speak at the Vitality event in October 2008 for ViSalus; he made sure he took full advantage of his time on stage.

“I saw Ryan sitting in the front row,” Brown said mischievously. “I started saying that I really liked Ryan as a leader, the creativity he’s shown and the challenge. Then I said—maybe some day this great leader of yours will accept a challenge of mine.”

“I tell you, I saw Ryan come up in his chair! He couldn’t wait to get backstage.”

The two met behind the curtain, and after a volley of heated smack talk, Ryan accepted Dale Brown’s challenge on the spot. Persistency had paid off for the coach, but would it be enough to overcome Ryan Blair’s lifelong struggle to consistently take care of his health?

Fast forward to April 2009. Ryan Blair is now 180 days into the competition. Half way there, and his only hope is that he’ll tie. For him, the consequences of failure are greater than the pleasure of taking a day off. This April he found himself sprinting a thousand laps from wall to wall in a hospital room the day after his son was born.

“So far I’ve had to work out with food poisoning, on the road, in hotel rooms. I ran through Christmas. In Oklahoma, Michigan, Europe,” he said. “It’s really a lesson in consistency and ingenuity.”  

Blair is focusing on the victory. The day the competition ends, Dale brown, Shaquille O’Neal’s mentor and hall of fame coach, has to write a letter to his last challenger. The letter will read: “Ryan is the greatest competitor I’ve faced in the history of my career.”

 “I’ll have it framed. Get it engraved on a coffee mug and some t-shirts,” Blair joked. “That’ll be all the celebration I’ll need.”

 “But no matter what, I’ll be a better man for it when I’m done.”