How Losing Everything Led to Success - Ryan Beckmann

What's Your Deal? | Business Buying, Business Acquisitions, Investing & Exit Strategies

Ryan Beckmann shares his harrowing journey from running a multi-million dollar RV dealership empire to experiencing homelessness and battlin

Key takeaways

• Ryan Beckman built three of the largest RV dealerships west of the Mississippi before losing everything to personal crisis.
• He discovered that leading with service rather than focusing on financial outcomes accelerates business growth.

Main topics

• Entrepreneurial resilience
• Addiction and recovery

Notable quotes

The smallest moments of kindness can transform the world.

Conclusion

A profound look at how personal devastation can be repurposed into a m

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:01) Welcome to the What's Your Deal podcast, where we discuss business acquisitions, investments, management, and exit strategies. I'm your host, Matt Euler. Let's dive in. Speaker 2 (0:16) Welcome back to another episode of What's Your Deal? Today's guest is true proof that sometimes in life, our greatest setbacks can become our greatest opportunities to make impact. Today's guest is Ryan Beckman. I'm going to give you a little bit of background and then we're going to dive right in. Ryan is a serial entrepreneur, a founder of Hero Picks and the driving force between Behind the Last Save, which is a nonprofit supporting individuals and families navigating mental health challenges, trauma, and substance abuse. He's built a successful business while facing extraordinary personal adversity, and he's here to talk with us about what he's learned about both. Ryan, thank you so much for joining us today. Speaker 1 (0:59) Kind words. Speaker 2 (1:00) Well, and you deserve them. You know, we met at an event. Yep. I guess, Jesus, it's almost been two months ago now. It's amazing how time flies. And I was moved by what you were up to. And so it's such an honor to have you here as a guest. Thank you. Speaker 1 (1:16) Yes. I'm honored to be here. Speaker 2 (1:18) So can you share with us a little bit about your background, business and otherwise? And then I'd like to know more about The Last Save and Hero Picks and just what you're up to now. Speaker 1 (1:29) Okay. Yeah. As you said, I'm a serial entrepreneur. So I've had a lot of businesses over the years. Speaker 1 (1:37) I mean, I've never had a, I don't know if I've ever had a real job. I shouldn't say that, but I don't know if I've ever had a real job. You know, like I've had jobs. I think I worked at a gas station as a kid, but I always loved the idea of being in control, right? Of being in control of the outcome, the pressure, all the things. So yeah, I've had, I mean, I had RV dealerships here in Arizona. That was my main thing. And, you know, we talked a little bit right before this about, I've had adversity in my personal life and, professionally, and sometimes they've intertwined. So I, we'll just start here. Like I, this is kind of, I say famously because it's famous to me. It's probably not famous outside of like people who know me, right? But in my head, because it's all about me, it's very famous. But so I, you know, I came down to this country. I'm from Canada originally. And I came up with this idea that I wanted to have an RV dealership. So I started selling RVs on eBay. And this was back in, gosh, 2000. Four, maybe? So eBay was just kind of really becoming a thing. And I grew that. I rent a little warehouse in Gilbert. I fixed them, cleaned them, sold them, did everything. And I ended up growing that into three of the largest dealerships west of the Mississippi. And, you know, I built that off of, again, like I was the first person to advertise them on YouTube. So I do videos on YouTube, like walkthroughs that became like an advertising agent. I was just a young kid and I thought it was fun to be in front of the camera. But like, you know, it turned out to work out really well. But then, you know, I and I won 40 under 40 in an industry. Very, you know, then when this were the very famously lost it all. And so the year I won 40 under 40. I actually became homeless. So it's kind of like a, like, so yeah. Speaker 2 (3:16) That's a, that's a very steep slide. Speaker 1 (3:19) I have a history of doing that in my life up until recently. But I, you know, I grew up in a system where around addiction and, and all sorts, all sorts of things, trauma related. And, you know, like 17 of my aunts, 17 out of 18 of my aunts and uncles are addicts. Like that's the kind of system I grew up in. So I was always, I would say that I was always, always, always an addict in some sense. I just wasn't always in an active addiction or a healthy active addiction because I could become addicted to being a father, all the things, work. And so, you know, a series of events led up to me losing everything. And, you know, I mean, like I said, I was very successful in that industry. By the time I was 30, I had over a million dollars in the bank liquid plus all the things, right? But I still was miserable. I was really miserable. Speaker 1 (4:08) And yeah, I just was never happy with myself. I had a beautiful life with all the kids and all the toys and all the things and everything I ever wanted to have and I was still miserable. And so I ended up losing everything through a series of events that... Speaker 1 (4:24) you know, caused me to go hard into addiction. And, um, and looking back on it now is, is the best thing that ever happened to me. Like, um, you know, which, you know, I get to lead a life today that is beyond my wildest dreams, but yeah, it was, I'm one of those people that I'm so stubborn and so hardheaded. Like I need to be forced almost to do things. Like if it's not my way, somebody better be like, Brian. So, you know, I believe in higher power. And for me, that was my higher power saying, you know, if I don't take everything away from you, literally, like every material thing and relationship in your life, you're not going to change. And you're going to continue to lead this life without purpose of doing things for the wrong reasons of, you know, favoring the wrong things, which there's nothing wrong with favoring money, but it should not be your primary, in my opinion, your primary. Speaker 1 (5:17) driving force in life. And so, yeah, God took everything away from me and forced me to really look at myself and go, what's important to me in life? And, you know, it was a struggle. You know, it was, I'd get things back and lose them again and get things back and lose them again. And it took a lot of work, but I finally got to a place where I'm able to not do that anymore. You know, and it's been a few years and a lot of work, but I, I finally learned that for me, you know, I need to have things that have in business have a strong purpose for me. Right. Like and when I say need, in my case, it's almost a need. But like I really, truly mean that like I almost need to have to. But what I've learned through that process of the need is that everything I've built since I started leading with. not an outcome. Like I'm leading with being of service. I'm leading with showing up for other people. I'm leading with the product or leading with the experience for someone. Everything just grows so much faster. Like I always build businesses fast, but it's just like, like crazy. Right. So yeah, I think, like I said, I, you know, I'm grateful looking back on it now for that experience at the time it was not very fun, but it's, it's allowed me to grow into the person that I'm proud of who I am today in life and in business. Speaker 2 (6:39) Yeah. Well, I really appreciate the vulnerability to share it. And also it's, I think I'll probably just crumple up our outline Speaker 1 (6:47) and throw it away Speaker 2 (6:48) because Speaker 1 (6:49) there's Speaker 2 (6:51) so much in there that I want to drill into. And part of it is because so much of what you're describing you've been through is, is one of the greatest fears of so many people and business people. And you've been there and done it. And you've also decided that it was a blessing. And so Are you okay? Oh, man, we can go anywhere. We can poke anywhere, man. I'm Speaker 1 (7:10) good. Yeah. Well, Speaker 2 (7:12) the poking is with the intent that, you know, I grew up around lots of addiction as well. And I had the, that was all I knew until I decided my bottom looked a little different than yours. You know, it hit and crashed, but it turned me a direction 180 degrees from everything I knew. So I can relate with you on that. And part of what I appreciate about what you're saying is that I was running from the life I didn't want, trying to find another. So that was my why. And that didn't work. Speaker 1 (7:46) And Speaker 2 (7:46) what I heard you describe is that as long as your why is in service and giving back, that then you're full speed ahead and you're favored. I'll put it that way. Yeah, absolutely. So can we go back to when, when you were 40 out of 40 and then you're homeless within that period of time, like we don't need to get into the detail, but like, what was it a self-sabotage thing do you think? Or was it just circumstances or choices? Speaker 1 (8:14) It was a lot. It was probably all of them. I mean, definitely self-sabotage, you know, I, you know, I come from a series of history of abuse to have every kind of abuse that you can imagine. And because of that there, you can develop, it's a weird, like it's a, it's just a really hard thing to explain, but like you can be extremely confident, but not confident at all. You know, you know what I'm talking about, right? Yeah. So you can, so it creates this, like all this, you're, you're like, I can do this, but I don't deserve it. Even though you're doing it. Right. It's like this huge, like stretch. And, and, and I think so then comes in the self-sabotage because you're trying to like pull these things back together to make it make sense to your body, to your mind, to your nervous system, to everything. Right. And so, And when you grow up in chaos too, it's a weird conundrum, but like you crave chaos. Like it's like your body will crave what's comfortable, whether it's good or bad. It's just your nervous system will. So while I'm succeeding in all these things, I'm constantly doing things. Like even when I was like. Like, looking back, and I'd be, like, climbing this ladder, and, like, I'd come down for a little bit, and it would be like, why did you do that? Like, why did you, like, Ryan, that makes no sense. And then you beat yourself up, and then you sit, and then you're like, okay, now I'm going to climb up again. But, yeah, it was, I mean, you know, if we'll be fully transparent, the thing that, like, really took the wheels off was, so. Speaker 1 (9:39) Let's see. You know, my business was still thriving. I definitely had been participating in some behaviors like drinking and stuff that I wasn't really proud of. Like not like full-blown, but just a lot of like Speaker 2 (9:52) looking Speaker 1 (9:54) back things that I'm not proud of. And then I was starting to prioritize like the. Speaker 1 (10:00) attention of what I was doing more than like the actual journey. So it was like, I loved that people were like, Hey man, you're somebody, right. You know what I mean? So then you start making poor decisions, right? Because you're making decisions, even business decisions based on what other people think, as opposed to what's actually good for your business or yourself. And then you start trusting other people a little more than you probably should. You get a bigger head and I'm like, man, I'm like this guy, like it can't fail. But, you know, what really happened was, you know, I and my therapist, this is the way that she explained it once I got sober, was that, you know, everyone's got their own bottle of trauma, right? And everyone's got a different size jar. But once that's full, the next things that start coming in, everything just starts puking out every time. Like if you don't deal with removing some of the trauma from that jar, the smallest things will start being. catastrophes in your life, right? Like, and we each have a different capacity for how much of that we can, we can, we can handle. And, um, there was two events in 2018 that, um, or 2017, sorry, that, uh, kind of, you know, led me down the path really of where I was going. And the first one was my youngest son. I have four boys. He was born and through the pregnancy, it was a really difficult pregnancy. And when they had to pull him out early, which was normal for all of our boys, but there was a time where we thought either him or his mom were going to make it. Or like both possibly. And that was just, I mean, it would just remember me like. I've already been through so much. Like, why are we doing this? And then he was born without the ability to breathe on his own. So for like two months he was in the NICU and like, it was just a tough experience. Right. And he made it through, which was amazing. And, and, you know, he struggled for a while. He's good now. Well, he's great now, but, uh, and then, um, the thing I remember forever, remember this day. So I was at one of our stores and one of our dealerships and we had, we just, we just bought our dream house. Right. Like we just bought this, like, It's crazy. Like I'd drawn a picture of this like two years before and went up buying this, like the exact house, right? And so we'd sold our house we'd had forever. And then we were living in a rental temporarily. And the rental had a swimming pool and we didn't have a swimming pool. And my kid's mom was in the pool and the baby was on the little like bouncy thing here. And all of a sudden she hears a scream and my second oldest is on the bottom of a 10-foot pool. And here's a screen from his two oldest brothers who were like nine and ten at the time. And they swam down and pulled him up, which I don't know how they did that at that age. And, you know, he was unconscious. So she called me in the ambulance and she's like, we're on the way to Banner's Children's Hospital. Nico drowned and I don't think he's going to make it and hung up. So I just like beeline it to like the hospital. And, you know, I get there and he's awake. Speaker 1 (12:54) So I'm like, oh, thank God, like everything's fine. And the doctor's like, hey, I got to tell you something. Like there's a strong chance that he's going to experience second drowning and probably won't make it through the night. And so we said goodbyes that night to like my parents, her parents, like the whole night. That was a tough experience I've ever been through in my life. And again, he made it through like through some miracle, he made it through the night. But I remember the next morning just being like, I'm done. Like I cannot handle. any more of this stuff. Like I just can't. And I went out and I used drugs and I was just like, and it was to the races from that day. Cause it was just like, I don't have to feel that way anymore. And I had never, I'd never done anything internally to like have the skills to. not do that to not feel myself. Right. Like when you grow up around that, unless you do the work, right. It's like, that's the go-to. Like, you're just like, that's when something bad