How I went from working a regular 9 to 5 job to one of the youngest CEO’s I know.

Rylan Shenk
Sep 9, 2018 · 7 min read

Everyone tells you they can help you “get rich” quick. People will try to sell you so hard on why you should buy into their programs but ironically, you buying their program is what makes them rich. I laugh at people like “Tai Lopez” who say “follow me and you will be rich, but oh, by the way, you have to spend hundreds of dollars if not thousands on his course to get the information he claims will make you rich.”

This is the real-life experience that will help you understand my process to success.

I am not here to sell you anything, my goal is to share my experiences in hopes that people will see my process and gather tips from what I have experienced to be successful. Going from a regular joe working a 9 to 5 job to a 22-year-old CEO running my own empire.

(I do not have the typical story.)

All throughout school, travel ball and highly competitive leagues, I had a batting average of 700. For some reason I could just see the ball and crush it, I was aiming for a full ride at Florida State. Two days before moving from Utah to Florida to play baseball, I had received news from my high school sweetheart that she was pregnant. I am a believer in “everything happens for a reason” because without that, life would feel empty and hopeless to me. (and it keeps me positive.). I had planned to just start a new life without this girl because we were 15 & 16 and I figured life would go on. The funny part about this whole thing is she had gone to the doctors prior and the doctor said: “she could never have kids in her life.” I thought to myself “wow, I must have a miracle baby.” (At least that was the best way to look at it.)

I ended up quitting baseball because I wanted to try to be the best father I could be to my child and a good husband to this girl. (Honestly, i had played for 13 years and this was the last push to get me to quit because I wasn’t in love with playing the game anymore as it wasn't a challenge much anymore.) I lived in Florida with this girl and my parents for 1 year before everything ended up backfiring and didn't work out as we were far too young. The relationship was so bad living with my parents and trying to raise a child and have a wife all under the same roof, it put a huge strain on our relationship. I ended up moving back to Utah with nothing but $300 to my name.(Honestly, I had no idea how it was going to work but I knew it would work out.) I mean, I literally bought a plane ticket without even having a car or a place to stay. (I have no idea why but I knew it would work out for the best as I had a feeling that instilled full confidence in this decision.)

I want to give you an accurate picture of where I was in life.

I had got a job at T-Mobile for my first job. I lied about my age on the resume to simply get the job interview because you had to be 18 to even apply. I lied because I was “legally emancipated” so I was considered an adult and I figured I could sell T-Mobile on the fact that it’s legal. I got the job. From here I bounced around because I was not happy for some reason, even though I had made 50k at the age of 17 and bought a BMW. I had worked at Vivint doing door to door two summers, Manager of journeys shoes, worked at BMW selling cars(that was a nightmare.) SolutionReach Selling medical software.(Practice management software for the healthcare industry.) From there I went to a dental website company and this is where things get interesting.. Keep in mind, this was all within just a few year period as I was complacent in jobs that I had taken because they are ALL jobs where you have to prove yourself for years and years to finally be someone hopefully one day. I am glad I bounced around a lot because I feel as if you should never settle and I had a ton of life experience with how 95% of companies are filled with politics and doing things “by the book.”

PS. While I worked at Journeys shoes as a store manager in Idaho Falls, I had met another woman that was so kind and beautiful at the time. I ended up asking her to marry me(we were engaged for 1 year.) She very desperately wanted to be a mother and saw that I was a great dad to my daughter “scarlet” so she would cry at night to me and say things like “I just want to be a family with you.” or simply just make me feel bad about not having a kid with her. I did love her at the time so I made a decision after 4 months of her crying to me. I decided to have a kid with her because of my jaded views of her. She was an amazing woman at the time (or had an amazing front) and everyone would always say “ wow she is amazing.” and blah blah blah. It ended up she was the worst mistake I had made in my whole life. Again…. I have to believe everything happens for a reason because if not then life is fucked up and cruel. I will spare you the details but simply put; We broke up after she was on 4 different medications for “postpartum depression” and everything changed with how she was.(There is more to it than this as I would not take her back and she was malicious towards me after I rejected her.)

So here I am with 2 exes, 2 children and a ton of debt piling up.

At this point, how do you stay positive about life when you have a shit ton of bad experiences that lead you into a black hole of losing money and feeling defeated? I started a job at a dental website company.. again, another company that was filled with politics and it was bad. The owner was best friends of 20 years with one of the sales reps whos name is “Broc.” This company was so badly managed that Broc would often get fired (got fired 8 times) and then rehired within 48 hours because the owner is a 5 foot 7 hot head that has small man syndrome. This is the company I was referring to earlier where “things get interesting.” Things get interesting in my opinion because not only did we have to deal with a highly micro-managing company but this company valued their employees as far as you could throw them. I was there for 7 months before I broke the company record that Broc set of $104k worth of website in 1 month. 7 months in I had hit $136k website sales in 1 month. Listen to this…. 14 days after I broke the record of ALL TIME, they fired me because they “Thought I was making a company and stealing their people.” It was funny because I had no thoughts of this…. I had just made a $28,000 check in 1 month. Do you think I was planning to just up and leave?!?!? NO!!!

SCREW THE SYSTEM

You can imagine I was pretty pissed off after being treated this way. PS: The owner 2 days before firing me had pulled me in his office asking me to “sign a more aggressive non-compete.” and filling my head full of “Oh well give you stock options just sign this non-compete.” I had a choice to make.. Do I keep starting over and another company and another one after that and another one….. This cycle never ends until I either find a job I work at for 50 years and then retire or I pull my head out of my ass and see if I can succeed at my own vision… Now… This is imperative. If you take away ANYTHING from my rambling take away this: You will only fail completely when you give up. You can only FULLY fail when you give up. Success is all about miniature failures that turn into “Success.” No one sees all of the hard work you put in, they just see “wow that guy is successful” and they have no idea he has been in a closet grinding for years… Any person in your mind that is “successful” if you asked them, they had 100 ideas they tried before finding what worked and that is a low number!

Whats to come?

I am concluding this article for today. I wanted to give you a background of who Rylan is so you can see I was not handed anything for free. I started from nothing (actually negative) and became a very young CEO that has many employees now and is on track to do 100m in the next 10 years just with the pace we are going at now. I will be giving real-life experiences about the company and the day to day “what to dos” and “what not to do” in hopes that you can take my real life CEO experience to use in your own life. You think running a business is hard? You haven’t read anything yet…In my next article, you will get even more of a taste of what’s to come as in our first year of business being open, we got sued by our previous “small syndrome CEO” and how we overcame everything and more.

Follow my instagram for vlogging of my real life @ceorylan

Rylan Shenk

Written by

24-year-old CEO. Sharing real-life experiences & what has helped me create my own freedom at such a young age.

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