Right About Now with Ryan Alford - From Zero to Hero: Lessons on Rejection, Resilience, and Momentum

Episode Date: May 12, 2026

Every entrepreneur talks about the breakthrough. Fewer talk honestly about the rejection, chaos, and setbacks that come first. In this themed compilation episode of Right About Now, Ryan Alford brings together powerful moments from conversations with Alex Morton, Jen Gottlieb, Ken Wentworth, and other guests who know what it means to rebuild, reinvent, and push through resistance. The result is a sharp, motivating episode about what really creates traction: resilience, self-awareness, better decision-making, and the willingness to execute before you feel ready. Ryan ties these conversations together with the bigger lesson behind the show: breakthroughs do not come from consuming more information. They come from acting on the right insight at the right time and refusing to stay stuck. Topics Covered Rock bottom moments that became turning points Why rejection is often the start of real progress Authenticity, confidence, and reinvention in business The first win that changes how you see opportunity Strategic financial thinking and margin improvement Why execution matters more than motivation How Ryan Alford frames resilience across every industry Connect Ryan Alford / Right About Now: RyanIsRight.com Social Media: @RyanAlford Join our newsletter: https://ryans-newsletter-148404.beehiiv.com/

I learned my lesson when I got kicked out of college, I got arrested and they took me down to jailhouse and I spent a few weeks in there. I came pretty close to some more serious charges and actually doing some prison time. That's when I really made that decision in my life when I was in that jail cell all alone. And I just made that line in the sand decision of I'm going to flip the script and people are going to be surprised. They're going to see what happens from here. Pretty much made a promise to myself that I'm going to just outwork everybody. And I'm going to go all in all the time. and I'm going to do whatever it takes to be successful and I'm going to do it legally.

I talk about how I went from a broke college kid to a multimillionaire. It really boils down to just the age-old success principles, but I kind of tailor it to like the millennial generation. Because a lot of young people, man, they don't want to listen to somebody with white hair. It is what it is. But to listen to a young guy with a Rolls-Royce and some big houses and some jewelry, you kind of blind them with like, hey, this is what I have and this is what I've done. And then you give them real information that they can apply

and actually change their life if they want to. Everybody, even the biggest rock stars in the world, have imposter syndrome. Because even the biggest people that perform for years and years in front of millions of people would come backstage and they would be so nervous to go on and be interviewed. And they would come backstage and they would say to me, did I do okay? Was that good enough? I'm like, dude, you're slash.

Are you asking me if you were good enough? Are you kidding? So it was a really nice reminder to me that people are people or people and like every time I get nervous or I feel like an imposter or I feel not good enough. Everybody experiences that it's a human condition. When you're in a survival mode, you do what you've got to do to survive. And that means you're clutching and grasping and filling holes of worthiness and filling holes in yourself with whatever you can. And even though it's temporary and even though the chemical lasts, it's half life and then you got need more of it or you crash and you're on this hamster wheel of trying to maintain.

Eventually, you fall. You fall on your ass and you see that you've got to make a real pivot, a real change, something from the inside out. That's why I really believe success is. an inside job. A lot of times business owners are really good at the widget they produce or whatever service they're providing, but they're not really good on the business side of things. Increasing sales, increasing your net income, increasing the value of the company, especially now you get a lot of baby boomers that are considering exiting and wanting to sell their company. How do I improve the value of my company? Most business advice is wrong, built on opinions, echoed by people who've never

done it. But the truth, it's simpler. And harder. You don't win by following the playbook. You win by rewriting it. 700 episodes deep with the people who actually built something real. No theory, no fluff, no shortcuts. This is right about now with Ryan Alford. Every success story has a beginning, and it's usually messy. Before the wins, the money and the momentum, there was doubt, failure, and starting from zero. Today, we're breaking down the real journey to that first breakthrough. Featuring insights from Mike Sancho, Alex Morton, Jamil Damje, Jen Gottlieb, and Ken Wentworth. This is where the grind begins and everything changes.

I've been reading about all your success and automation and sales. Let's talk your background, though, Mike. The highs, the lows. everything else. Definitely some lows. You ain't losing. Sometimes you ain't learning. When I was a child, the entrepreneur vein is just something I was born with. I'd be like eight years old watching the infomercials, all those commercials. But wait, there's more. And they're selling the products on TV.

I was trying to invent products at that point. And I would go to my mom and say, hey, mom, can you help me get a patent? I was like trying to get patents with my mom's help at eight years old. Not many kids doing that. I had it early on. I just started to get into more and more businesses as a teenager. Not necessarily all of them legal businesses. I started selling a little. little weed as a kid. It's a common theme, I guess, in entrepreneurs. They take their business skills to a different kind of industry. That ended up getting me in a little bit of trouble. I ended up getting kicked out of high school because of it. I found my way into college after that

and didn't learn my lesson the first time. I'm that guy who got expelled from high school. You were the true entrepreneur. Yeah. Every friend I knew was either smoking or selling it or who knows what. I don't know. You had to make money somehow. But I can relate to that entrepreneur, Jean. I don't like that. I'm that guy that got expelled from high school and got expelled from college. As you can imagine, my family was wicked proud of me. At that, I had time. I had a 0.71 my first semester at Clemson. Is that even possible? Zero point zero. That's at F minus. My ass got yanked home first semester. It didn't go well. So I can relate to making the family proud. I think you were majoring in parties and girls instead of class. I think that was the

exact line I used on a podcast once. I was majoring in boobs, boobs and beer. Hey, you got to go pro and something. I think I was a pro. You finally learned your lesson. I learned my lesson when I got kicked out of college. I got arrested. They took me down to jailhouse. I spent a few weeks. I spent a few weeks in there. I came pretty close to some more serious charges and actually doing some prison time. That's when I really made that decision in my life when I was in that jail cell all alone. I just made that line in the same decision of I'm going to flip the script. People are going to be surprised. They're going to see what happens from here. Pretty much made a promise to myself that I'm going to just outwork everybody. I'm going to go all in all the time. I'm going to do whatever

it takes to be successful and I'm going to do it legally. From there, I got out and went to Charleston, South Carolina when I got out of jail and I was living with my parents. I had no money. I was in debt probably $100,000 from student loans, car loans, lawyer fees that I owed back to my parents. You name it. I was in a big hole at 21 years old. But your whole life was in front of you. Exactly. Exactly. But you didn't realize this at the time. I'm sure. He probably felt like, you know, life's over. But I was motivated. I was fired up. Actually, that's good. I was fired up. That's good. Most people get in those holes, though, and people need to hear that kind of reflection of knowing what was ahead of you. You were just barely getting started. You don't.

if it started a little bad. You're a little rocky. When your backs against the wall and you're at rock bottom, for me, it was purifying. I just felt free. I was able to just clear out all the bullshit in my life. It's a fresh start. It's a clean slate. I went down the main strip, King Street in Charleston. I applied at every single restaurant, shop, whatever. I took the first two jobs that I could get. One was at subway for 7.50 an hour. The other one was at a restaurant called 82 Queen, washing dishes. I started working two jobs like a madman. The crazy thing is, I decided to outwork everybody. And that's in everything because I said, how you do anything is how you do everything. So I came in a subway. I started showing up 30 minutes early working before I even clocked in. I started going in, cleaning the

bathroom, cleaning underneath the oven, straightening in the chips. This is before I even clocked in. And you're talking subway. I know you can imagine the work ethic that comes with that for a lot of the people there. Customer service through the roof. I was staying late, clocked out, still working, still helping, sweeping, taking shifts, being super helpful. Within six weeks, they made me the store manager at 21. Within another two months, they made me the general manager of five locations because I just outworked everybody. This is the ethic that I've kept with me since that point. I just kept it boom and I was grinding my ass off. I took that into everything. And I started to take as much courses as I could, studying constantly about making money, all different types of industries, learning trading,

crypto, e-commerce, real estate, course after course after course. There was no break. I shut the TV off. I just went all in. At that point, I tried to quit my jobs to go full-time into entrepreneurship. which was also a rocky road. The first thing I was doing was real estate investing. I was doing wholesaling. I started flipping properties. Ultimately, ended up going broke with that. I didn't have enough resources at the time. And pretty much I went on this cycle of quitting my jobs to go full time into entrepreneurship, losing all my money, failing and having to go back to work another job. I repeated that cycle for four times before I finally got fully free.