Ryan Wegenast has built a business around helping innovators find the secret sauce to scaling, growing, building, moving, developing and winning at their ventures. The magic ingredient is the same every time, is infinitely regenerating, and is already in his client’s possession. They just don’t realize it yet.

The ingredient: potential.

But not just potential. Full potential.

“My business specializes in unlocking and supporting the full potential of established founders, entrepreneurs, creatives and their ventures,” says Wegenast. “Which in return creates significant shifts in the levels of creative output, profitability, and organizational congruence.”

Wegenast believes that a founder’s number one investment should be themselves and the people who work for them. Model companies that people look at and say, “I’d love to be doing what they’re doing” are already exemplifying that.

“Those companies are playing a completely different game,” said Wegenast. “That game is self-awareness and personal mastery––really tuning into your human capital’s full potential.”

For example, imagine a sales team decreased their personal fear and inner critic by 112%. Wegenast says that has a direct effect on how they sell and the movement of the venture.

That’s where his business comes in.

“My business does this through the lens of personal mastery versus peak performance training, which I get is popular, but from the evidence, I don’t believe peak performance training is sustainable in the long haul,” says Wegenast. “It’s not producing the heightened states of creativity, profitability, and impact that most hoped for. You and your team are unique and you are also the vehicles in which your ventures move, so being hyper-focused on mastery at a personal level is showing up a 27x ROI right now.”

Midwest roots

Wegenast was born and raised in Grand Island, what he describes as a very normal life with cornfields behind his house and late night knockout basketball games.

“While I’m very grateful to grow up in Grand Island, I also felt this extraordinary fire inside to make a dent in the world,” he says.

He joined the military following 9/11 and according to him, the rest is history.

“As ‘cliche’ as this might sound, this line of work kind of ended up in me,” says Wegenast. “It’s always been there, hearing the noise in people’s lives, feeling what people aren’t feeling and seeing what people can’t see and then helping turn all of that into new levels of clarity, creativity, impact and income.”

Wegenast turned his ultra-tuned senses into a business by asking other people who were further ahead in their business processes how to turn it into a business.

“Which that process took years of trial and error, timing, and being scared a lot,” he laughs. “This is the case for all of us, we all have what I would call your inner-genius, this skill or ‘thing’ that feels the most natural to you, not always easy, but natural. And when you do it, it feels timeless and it simultaneously creates the most abundance and impact in your world and in the world of the people that you’re creating for.”

Wegenast worked on his craft while traveling the world putting on workshops.

“I simultaneously was in the healthcare startup world, so I was able to practice personal transformation and mastery daily with real-world founders, entrepreneurs, creatives, sales teams, advisory boards, etc.,” says Wegenast. “It was a really special and fun time in life. From there I took the big leap and started speaking, leading group and one-on-one programs and hosting workshops and retreats.”

Breaking bad habits

So why isn’t it easier for entrepreneurs and founders to listen to their inner-genius? Why are the brightest business innovators stuck in cycles that are holding them back?

“First, they are susceptible to cycles of bad habits because they are humans and all humans share that common,” says Wegenast. “Transformation is simple, it just requires attention. There a lot of moving parts in life and if you don’t give mastery the right attention, then we will simply do what we all do which is to follow the past of least change.”

There’s also the matter of wiring.

“Secondly, as achievers and visionaries, we weren’t naturally wired to pause and confront our invisible ceilings,” says Wegenast. “So you can let yourself off the hook! We were wired to build, create, lead, innovate, so when we rub up against resistance, we naturally just ignore it, which then in return creates bad habit cycles, feelings of being a fraud, high stress and overwhelm, increased inner-critic, and blocked financial and creative flow. These cycles need to be disrupted properly and then dissolved.”

Then there’s the sort of obvious one.

“Lastly, we think we can do it on our own, because we’re entrepreneurs right? ” says Wegenast. “But the studies are really clear, you have roughly a 98% chance of failing on your journey of transformation if you try and do it alone. So that can either be fuel for the fire or you can simply just keep doing what you’re doing. Life is just one big powerful choice after another.”

Three objectives for founders and business owners

When Wegenast sits down with a founder or business owner for the first time, he has three initial objectives that he likes to see happen:

1. Address Skepticism, I don’t ignore the fact that I’m human and your human and when it comes to transformation we are naturally skeptical because we have all tried to change in the past and most of the time it probably didn’t stick, hence the “Stuck” feeling. I keep the early conversation low informational. Information rarely creates transformation. If it did, then everyone who had access to information would be healthy, wealthy and happy.
2. My second objective is to deliver rapid results, by creating space to move quickly and powerfully through the one invisible ceiling that the person or venture is experiencing. There’s a lot of noise out there around growth and it doesn’t need to take years or even months and I don’t believe the best path to the change you want is via more habit, more mindest or more peak performance work. You can’t out hack the way your mind, body, and soul were designed, hence the big shift to the future of mastery.
3. My third objective is to create a roadmap to their next level. This is very important for long term sustainable growth.  A lot of founders, entrepreneurs, and creatives leave their roadmap to growth on their nightstands as a hobby. I personally get that because your head is down and your building. But that doesn’t work very well, at least for those who are in this industry to win. Breakthrough and Mastery does require work, commitment, and a willingness to go where most don’t wanna go.

Start solving your problems right now

Wegenast believes that anyone can change their thinking at any time by reverse engineering their perspective of problem-solving.

“The future of problem-solving isn’t actually solving a problem,” says Wegenast. “This is something people experience in my workshops. Shifting from ‘thinking you have a problem to solve’ into ‘developing the ability to allow a solution to enter your reality, your life, your venture’ is an absolute game changer.”

He believes the resistance and problems people feel are actually solutions––creative impulses and new ideas trying to nudge their way in.

“Maybe it’s the next round of seed funding, maybe it’s an acquisition, maybe it’s the next product you need to launch,” sayd Wegenast. “So if you can shift from problem-solving to solutions evolving you will accelerate your entire world.”

He also believes people need to listen to their guts. Literally.

“You know that tight chested feeling or stomach ache you get when your nervous or sense fear?” asks Wegenast. “That’s not made up, it’s real, and it happens to all of us. So my one tip for everyone is to start paying attention to your five senses.”

Wegenast often references a psychologist who has helped over 30,000 patients experience real life transformation.

“In his work, he identified that your body always keeps the score and that at times can be a real signpost pointing to where your next level is,” says Wegenast. “So as unorthodox as that might sound, it’s one of the most studied principles that I use with my clients in guiding them down the path of lasting personal mastery. Learning the early stages of true awareness.”

What’s the next step for founders and entrepreneurs who want to go deeper into the problem-solving process?

“I have two programs, one is for companies and ventures as a whole and the other is specifically for established founders, entrepreneurs, and creatives who want to experience lasting transformation through the experience of personal mastery,” says Wegenast.

Learning from his clients

The teaching goes both ways for Wegenast.

“The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that deep down entrepreneurs really care about making an impact in the world,” he says. “And sometimes that get fuzzy with life, but ultimately I do believe that ever founder, entrepreneur and creative wants to further mankind towards its best self. Learning this from working with other entrepreneurs pushes me towards my best self and I find that really beautiful.”

Wegenast would love to make a similar impact.

“I would love to impact a million lives,” he says. “In order for that to happen, we need to scale while maintaining the personal touch that mastery requires. So my team is creating in that space right now.”

He also believes there’s an inner-genius in every human.

“The reason it’s important to move quickly and powerfully through your invisible ceilings is so that you can start making the impact you want,” says Wegenast. “Because your reach is not my reach and my reach is not your reach and so we need everyone on planet earth living their best lives, creating their best ventures, leading hearts and minds into wholeness, etc That would all be fantastic.”