About Ryan

Founder of Visionary Business School, Ryan Eliason is on a mission to empower socially conscious entrepreneurs to transform the world’s most pressing problems with purpose-driven, profitable businesses of their own.  Since 2011, well over 200,000 change makers have joined his Social Entrepreneur Empowerment Network to learn and profit from his popular People, Planet and Profit group business training programs that equip them with the tangible skills and mindset shifts needed to expand the reach and positive impact of their own powerful missions.

Recognized as one of the world’s top coaches for social entrepreneurs, Ryan has worked with over 6,200 satisfied clients from 85 countries and all 50 States through his results-focused and sold-out group training programs.  His debut book —  The 10 Best Ways To Get Paid for Changing The World – How To Make A Lucrative Career Out of Profound Service  — was downloaded 73,000 times within the first 14 days of its launch.

Ryan’s commitment to making a difference in the world took root early. As a teenager, Ryan co-founded Youth for Environmental Sanity which has since supported more than 675,000 young visionary leaders from 65 nations working on social change, human rights, and environmental sustainability. Ryan believes that business can be a powerful force for transformation, and his clients, visionary changemakers across the globe, carry that flag with the training he provides to support their high impact and sustainable success.

My Story

I’ve been developing this framework for over 25 years.

I had a 4.0 grade point average in high school, and my goal at the time was to go to a top school, get a job on wall street, make millions of dollars, and retire young.

That was my limited idea of success back then. But the more I learned about the radical injustice, conflict and suffering taking place around the world, and the more I learned about things like climate change and rapidly accelerating species extinction, the less appealing this selfish idea of success became.

Then, everything changed for me at age 19 when I walked out into the middle of a clear cut forest near my home in Eugene, Oregon…

Something in me cracked open that day, and my empathy for all life expanded by at least a thousand-fold. Through the pain I found a love that was deeper and more all-encompassing than I had ever experienced in my entire life.

I felt deep in my bones that everything and everyone is connected in ways that we will never be able to fully understand.

The pain I felt that day turned into love, which turned into a deep inspiration to be of service, and I finally understood the famous quote from Rabindranath Tagore:

I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy.

That’s when I came to understood that each of us is here to serve, and we will never be 100% satisfied with our lives if we’re not making the positive contribution we know we’re capable of.

Over 25 years of starting businesses…

Over the course of more than 25 years I started businesses in the fields of massage therapy, counseling, fundraising, database consulting, executive recruiting, and my current coaching and training business.

Unfortunately, there were no programs like my Visionary Business School back then, so I had to learn everything the hard way.

At this point I had experienced just about every challenge you can face when starting and running your own business… time pressures, cash flow problems, marketing challenges, customer service issues, employee issues, mindset issues, self-doubts, overwhelm, distractions, and massive amounts of technical challenges…

If I am really honest with you all, throughout most of those 25 years I felt like I was working REALLY hard, too hard, for the results I was getting – both in terms of the number of people I was able to help, and in terms of my personal income.

Do you sometimes feel like you know you’re capable of much more, but you’re just not sure how to get there?

But even though I sometimes felt like throwing in the towel, I didn’t give up and I kept choosing to believe in myself and my vision.

I kept investing in the best support and mentoring I could find.

Gradually, I developed and implemented the complete system I now teach my clients in Visionary Business School.

And I’m glad that I did because once I started applying this holistic and systematic approach to my own business I started to see massive growth. And I’m confident you will too.