Follow Me As I Journey Head First Into Entrepreneurship…My Origin Story.

Ryan Harwood
Nov 2 · 7 min read

As I sit here with you today, 31 years old, married to a beautiful woman, that has been my other half since our teenage years, she’s been my support system, my financial advisor (Really, though, she keeps me accountable) but most importantly, the best mother to our beautiful 2 year old little girl. These two are my “why” if I’ve ever had a why. Life is good. I’ve got a pretty good job as a local railroader, it pays a decent wage, has benefits, pension etc.. my wife works, we get by. Although like many others, we struggle from time to time, that’s life, but I am thankful for how fortunate we truly are. I found myself constantly thinking that, there had to be something more, something bigger out there, something with infinite potential. Lets stop there for now though. we’ll come back to that. In fact let’s take a little journey back in time here for a few minutes..

Things weren’t always like this. I can still remember to this day, all the very, very poor decisions that I had made in my younger years. Looking back on it now, it’s almost as if I had embarked on some sort of mission to make my life inherently more difficult in the coming years. It started in high school, when I thought it was much cooler cutting out on class, than having a high school education. Yeah, real cool, old me, Real cool, How’d that work out for ya? turns out, that’s a pretty good way to flunk out. And this is where it got difficult for a few years…

I remember being about 17, or 18 years old and my brother and I were both looking for jobs (which, yeah, was pretty hard without a diploma) and we stumbled across this job ad in the local paper that read something very vague like “ apply now $18/hr and up” with nothing really else to it. So naturally, I applied. I remember thinking “ sweet, who needs that diploma?” Both my brother and I, actually ended up getting an interview, and when we went, we showed up to what we had hoped, wasn’t the address. I remember trying to see through the mass amounts of rainfall smashing down on the windshield, thinking, man…what are we getting ourselves into? we finally spot the address. It’s a little room above a tool shop, so we go in. We reluctantly go upstairs…and there it is. This job, is selling Tri-star vacuum cleaners, and I was like, ahhhhhhhh mannnnnnn. But as the saying goes, beggars can’t be choosers, so we both decided that we’d give’r the old “college try”. I HATED it. All 4 minutes that I lasted at that job, I hated.

We would get sent all over the place, with a car full of Ginsu knives to give away as “gifts’’ to prospective clients, you know, after we interrupted their dinners, bed times, you name it and we were there, unexpectedly, with that unwanted knock at the door… “Here’s a free set of Ginsu knives, can I show you the best vacuum cleaner in the world” yeah, most of the time we got that door slammed in our faces before we could just tell what we really wanted to tell them…“these knives are crap anyway”. I think I just hated it so much because I know that if it were me, I’d say take a hike too, I didn’t blame them, so how am I supposed take myself seriously slanging something that I wouldn’t want someone trying to slang to me..

From there I dove into another job working at a garage door wholesale warehouse, which I actually enjoyed. Great people, great customers, but just couldn’t make ends meet there. I think I actually tried out another job after that place, but ended up going back there. It was then, however, that I really realized that I needed something else, something better, more stable.

I had a good friend of mine who worked on the railway making some pretty good coin, so I bugged and bugged him for awhile to get me an interview. He did.

I made the couple hour trek up to this hiring fair, I ended up getting selected to stay after for an interview (still to this day I don’t know how, remember, I don’t have my grade 12) and I ended up getting put through to the physical, where if I had passed, I had the job. About a week later I passed the physical and drug test, I was expecting a call. Time went by, no call. More time went by, still no call. I thought it was over. I was stuck forever at a dead end job. And then, BAM! the stars aligned. I’m outside grabbing up some material for a customer and my phone rings. Now, i’m NOT supposed to be answering the phone, but I didn’t care, I didn’t recognize the number, maybe it’s them? and it was a good thing I did, because, BOOM! got the job. Man, was I happy.

My biggest fears were always that I would never amount to what my family or friends, or I, for that matter, thought that I could be, or could achieve. BOOM! this was my ticket to erase all of that. And it did, I had to start off working In other provinces for a while, and at first it wasn’t so bad, It allowed me to get out of debt, save money, buy a townhouse, and Finally marry the woman of my dreams. I was making great money for the first time ever, But it got old, real old. I became so lonely, so miserable, I missed my family and friends, the job was gruesome, in awful weather, that was it. I had made up my mind, I was getting a job at home. One way or another.

I did just that, I secured a bid job at home, and haven’t looked back since. But one thing that came with that, was alot less money, and alot more inflation. like I said we get by, but that’s just it, I’m tired of “just getting by” my salary is capped. I started getting fed up with the situation, and I was like man, I really have to do something about this. Its only going to get worse.

It was about that time that I really started looking into internet marketing. My brother had just started building out funnels for clients in a software program called Clickfunnels, and at first I had NO IDEA what a funnel was, or what it did, but I was like man, I need to make some surplus income here, you gotta teach me! without hesitation, he showed me the ropes, pointed me into the proper avenues to fast track my learning process, and with that it was hook, line, and sinker, just like that. I joined the Clickfunnels facebook group, and just tried to soak up every little bit of information I could. Asking him SO many questions that this poor dude was probably ready for me to just give up. But I didn’t. And I won’t.

I was all in, man. My wife and I took the kiddo camping this summer, and I actually brought my brothers copy of DotCom Secrets by Russell Brunson (which if you haven’t read, is phenomenal) and I read that at every opportunity that I could that didn’t interfere with family time. This was it, this was my ticket to stability, I could feel it. I even had my laptop with me on this camping trip, and one of the days it started pouring, I mean just hammering down rain. We all quickly ran into the trailer to seek refuge from the rain, so I figured, Oh yeahhhhhh, time to hit up some training!

After doing a few funnel designs of my own in exchange for testimonials of my work, I had landed my first real paying client! which who, by the way, is a solid, solid dude. He was super chill with me, knowing I worked full time and had a young child etc.

Soon however, I found myself hitting a wall, I was struggling to find the work, side hustle, family life balance, so I tried getting Into drop-shipping. That, my friends was when the “AHA” moment hit me, that I knew NOTHING about the online marketing world. Sure I could build a funnel, but I wanted more, I wanted to be legit. I wanted to be that guy that could share my knowledge with the people just like me. I love that stuff, that’s how I roll. Helping the people that were just like me, Is something I am striving to get to.

That’s when I found the holy grail, the challenge of all challenges. The One Funnel Away Challenge. This course had the most extremely valuable content, that I had ever come across, and guess what? the best part, was it only cost $100…ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS!? to have my hand held by Russell Brunson, Steve Larsen, and Julie Stoian? shut up and take my money.

They start it off by a “Pre-Training” week, focusing on the mindset and belief to be a successful entrepreneur, and I’m telling you, its amazing stuff. It changed my views entirely, I now see through a different lens and I have so much more belief that I am worthy of this game.

Then, they teach you how to create offers, stories, hooks, funnels, a bit of psychology of selling, and they hold NOTHING back, they truly want their students to be a product of success. This challenge really opened my eyes to just how much wizardy, and pure genius actually rolls through the noggins of these coaches . I would have paid the $100 JUST for the Pre-Training. It’s that good.

In my very short time in this game, and with being in the One Funnel Away Challenge (I’m in week 2, and already so life changing, I’ll keep y’all updated), I’ve really been able to step out of my comfort zone, and learn to just not care what people think. Learn not to be scared of failure, because it is the essential fuel to the vehicle that is driving you toward your success story.

Now that I’ve tranced you all to sleep, It’s time for me to sign off for the night. I hope that all of you reading this will follow me in this journey into entrepreneurship! Until next time, Have a good night.

-Ryan

Husband & Father, Internet Marketer, Entreprenuer & Railroader. Follow me on my journey into the world of entrepreneurship!

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