Nothing To Lose, Everything To Gain by Ryan Blair - Book Review


Ryan Blair is a very successful multimillionaire entrepreneur and one of the founders of ViSalus. This book tells us how he has gotten to where he is today. For someone that doesn't have much business experience and has dabbled in my own small start up companies this was an extremely helpful book. It showed me where I have gone wrong in the past and pointed out traits that will both work in my favor and others that I will need to overcome.

I enjoyed that Ryan does not come across as someone that has done everything right. He draws as much, if not more, experience from his mistakes and failures as he does on his successes. He is not afraid to point out the things about himself that have held him back and this is something I have found most helpful. Sometimes you get the impression from very successful people that they have had all the luck, all the opportunity, all the chances and that they really didn't have to work for what they have gotten. With Ryan you really see that no matter what your circumstances you can create in yourself ability to overcome your downfalls.

I also appreciate that Ryan credits many other people for lessons he has learned. Even pointing out a few times where he has been corrected for mistakes or harmful attitudes. It's nice to know that even if we have made some mistakes and gotten off on the wrong foot that doesn't mean our entire business career is doomed to failure. I leaned a great deal about why my past ventures haven't gone smoothly and needed to be abandoned and I now have a better understanding of where my own skill set would place me in the business world.

This book really concisely covered every aspect of creating, establishing, building and even some day selling your own business. To someone who is new to this whole world some aspects are not where I'm at and I have a feeling I will need to come back to this book at numerous times in my life.

As a promoter for ViSalus as well it was night to get a bit of the behind the scenes look at what is driving this companies success. Though there is some information specifically related to ViSalus itself the book is not focused on only how to be successful withing that company. There is so much information that would be of value to any entrepreneur. There is even a chapter directly applicable to anyone involved with any direct sale company. This is the first I have heard of a solid business book addressing working as a multi level marketer. Since I am involved with not just one but two direct sale companies I found this an extremely helpful portion of the book.

If you are a business owner, are thinking of becoming one or work for yourself in any capacity there is something that you can learn from this book. I would highly recommend Nothing To Lose, Everything To Gain. After all, what do you have to lose?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anna Karenina By Leo Tolstoy - A Book Review

When the movie Anna Karenina came out a while back I had a mild desire to see it.  However, when movies come out that are taken from novels, especially classic novels, I will usually read the book first. It sort of slipped my mind for quite a while though until I found it as a free book for my Ereader. Quite a few years ago I remember this book was one on Oprah's Book Club.  One of the first things I found myself questioning was whether or not she ever even read anything more than liner notes or coles' notes at best.  This is a long book....I mean really long.  This is coming from someone that has read the Game of Thones series (A Song of Ice and Fire).  What make this book seem so long is all the superfluous information you encounter at every turn.  I seem to recall that it was more than 10 chapters before Anna was even introduced.  Though the side story is pertinent and somewhat interesting, it can often overshadow the main storyline. What also m...
Read more

How Much Is That A Baby In The Womb

Image
There is a petition making its way around stating Tell Harper: Hands off our reproductive rights.   This is because on the 26 th of April (today) Stephen Harper is apparently going to allow Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth to put forward a motion in the House of Commons which clearly opens the possibility of re-criminalizing abortion.   I have read this motion, Motion 312 and it is one asking that a committee of the House be appointed and directed to review the declaration in Subsection 223(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada which states that a child becomes a human being only at the moment of complete birth.   This committee would be asked to submit their findings after 10 months on what medical evidence exists to demonstrate that a child is or is not a human being before the moment of complete birth. I suppose the concern of allowing this motion to move forward is the fear of what the findings would mean.   IF they find there is evidence that a child is a hu...
Read more

Money, the Root of All Evil?

I'm thinking in a few directions this morning and having trouble deciding what one to talk about. One can be a bit of a sticky subject but some of my thinking was slightly altered about this last night. I think I'm going to talk about money, dun, dun, dun! Money is one of those conversations that tends to be avoided but avoiding something doesn't make the problem go away. Thankfully Randall and I have a similar approach to money, we are both sort of cheep. If I'm going to buy anything I'm going to try and make sure it's the least expensive way I can get it. Randall tends to be the same way. This is helpful for our marriage since 2 people with very different spending styles can have a lot of conflict. I'm not saying we don't have problems at all, we definitely do, just not really with our spending. Part of our spending style I think might have a fair bit to do with necessity although even when we were both working and didn't have kids ...
Read more