Summary: “From the outside it looks as if I have this great, easy lifestyle. The truth is I’ve never made a million dollars easily, and I’ve made many millions of dollars.” Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain, pg. 1-2 Some of the most astonishing successes in the business world have come to those whom the odds are stacked against. Ryan Blair, author of Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain, is one such person. As a young boy, Ryan Blair reaped the benefits of a middle class lifestyle. His father had instilled within him “a risk-reward mentality” (10), and Blair displayed a considerable level of business acumen at a young age (exemplified best when he outsourced his chores to friends and kept the profit). But his life descended into a harrowing nightmare when his father became addicted to drugs. Ryan and his mother moved out of the family home into an economically depressed and unsafe area. Blair explains, “By the time I was seventeen I’d been arrested nearly ten times; I’d been asked to shoot a man to prove myself to the gang I was accepted in; I’d broken into and robbed every business within a mile radius from my house; I’d been dragged home in the middle of the night by police officers; I’d sold firearms with disastrous results; I’d gotten convicted for strong-arm robbery. Finally, after many of these episodes, I found myself sitting in a jail cell in Juvenile Hall, faced with four years. Every day I watched people leave the jail and wished I were among them.” (68) He vowed to be better: to get an education and a job. He was released early and did just that. By the time he was in his early 20s, Blair had made his first million with the sale of his first business venture. In his words, his success came from a mentality of "nothing to lose and everything to gain". Golden Egg Don't Let Anyone Steal Your Milk “A lot of people come into my office with a front. They talk, and talk, and talk. And I test them.” Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain, pg. 23 Ryan Blair credits his street smarts and nothing-to-lose mindset as his “greatest assets”. In the book, Blair uses an analogy for his street smarts: stolen milk. When he was serving his imprisonment in Juvenile Hall at the age of 17, he quickly learned the rules of the game. New prisoners were subjected to a number of tests to determine whether they were “tough” or “domesticated” (i.e. willing to roll over and allow anyone take advantage of them). For example: “What would happen if I bumped into him? Or better yet, what would happen if I walked over and asked him for his milk during lunch? Was he going to jump up and fight? Or was he going to hand it to me and say he didn’t want it? … Soon you’ll be taking his milk every day. And so will everyone else.” (23-24) Blair has applied this psychology to the business world to considerable advantage. Many people build up a façade, and Blair uses the principles he learned in prison to discover the real person behind that mask to determine if that’s a person he’d like to work with. “I start by asking for specific names, people they’ve worked with. Or I’ll ask a business-model question that only the real deal would know. You had millions in sales, huh? So what was your cost of goods sold? What type of EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) did you have? Where’d you bank? Wells Fargo? So were you with the private bank at Wells Fargo? Who’s your rep over there?” (23) Blair adds, “If the person can’t answer these types of questions in detail, he is either a complete scam, or he wasn’t actually responsibly for the success of the business he’s referencing.” (23) Asking this level of detail will help you in trusting your own instincts, as well, as you will see below. GEM # 1 Say No “If you were to take only one thing I tell you and apply it to your business and your life, apply these words: if you say yes to too many seemingly good ideas, then you have one bad idea of a company and a poor management culture.”
