From the depths of our minds and hearts, we can make a change so great that it can impact the rest of our lives. Through positive thinking and undoing our sustained childhood and adulthood trauma and damage, we can ultimately face the force that is holding us back. One of the best examples of this method and change is Ryan Stream, an award-winning professional speaker, musician, and two-time war veteran has been through the ringer and has found himself on top in his personal life and career.
Ryan was dealt a terrible hand and suffered immensely throughout his childhood. His parents made a lot of bad choices that led to addictions, jail time, the loss of their family, and poverty; he was left to experience homelessness, extreme poverty, and undiagnosed learning disabilities early on and continued to carry the weight into his adulthood, almost destroying his future in the process. “I had a terrible mindset, I didn’t have anyone to teach me how to reframe my thoughts, set goals, live out my dreams because it was so unimaginable when I was young. You don’t dream big when you have slept under a bridge,” he explains
Ryan bounced around from a harsh Los Angeles ghetto to Colorado to Utah where he was put in fostercare after his mother committed suicide and his father was arrested. “I never saw life as anything changing. My biological family was destroyed and I didn’t know that dreaming was even an option at that point,” he began. “When I was put in foster care, I separated from my siblings while in the system. This really made things so much harder because I missed them so much. I acted out and got in trouble and I still was struggling at school because of my disability. I felt like the loneliest kid in the world.”
While Ryan was intelligent, he was struggling immensely. “I was already struggling at home and school was not a safe haven to counter the problems at home. I didn’t want to be called on, I was always the last person in class to complete a math worksheet or quiz and I was embarrassed,” he says. “I was away from my brothers and sisters, my mom’s death was really hard on me and on top of that, foster care was a very difficult adjustment.”
Many children stay in the foster care system for years, but Ryan was fortunate: he was adopted by a police officer and a school teacher. “That was awesome for me,” Ryan relates. “What was even more incredible was that he adopted my three brothers, too, and we were reunited to become a loving, very close family of thirteen members.”
Even so, Ryan would continue to battle his inner demons and academics. Once he graduated from high school, he fell into drugs and alcohol. “It was one wrong choice after another that just snowballed into multiple arrests and jail time,” he sighs. “The court fines were through the roof – $25,000+ at one point, and I definitely didn’t have that kind of money on me. I also had nowhere to stay and ended up couch-surfing or living in my car.”
The turning point came when he joined the military, though he would still face enormous challenges. Ryan was deployed twice to Afghanistan and entered the harrowing world of war and combat. “I went out with a sapper unit and our mission was to locate and destroy I.E.D.s,” he relates. He was deployed with a round of 32 soldiers in his platoon. “I won’t ever forget the sound and the force of the explosions when the I.E.D.s went off. Around 23 of my buddies in my platoon had their vehicle hit with an I.E.D. Sadly, one was killed in my unit.”
Ryan pauses a moment before continuing. “There is no way to describe what war is like. You see the best and the worst in humanity and in yourself. When I came home, I couldn’t forget any of it. I struggled with PTSD and almost lost my family. I finally fell to my knees and made the choice to change what was going on in my mind so that I wouldn’t lose my wife or children.”
Once Ryan decided to change the trajectory of his life by changing his thoughts, his life took off. In the first year, he read 54 books to educate himself and broaden his understanding of the world, people, and himself. He also discovered that he had a passion for bringing a message of positive thinking to others. “I had a horrible childhood, and my start to adulthood wasn’t all that much better,” Ryan says. “I learned, though, that the future was still ahead of me. I could accomplish anything I wanted to if I was willing to change the quality of my thoughts. That’s what I did. I went from $0 to six figures in that year, and I’m talking to anyone who wants to improve their life just like I did.”
Ryan has multiple sources of income and finds joy in helping others stand up with purpose and focus to obtain the same rewards. He is developing his career as a multitalented motivational speaker, model, actor, pianist, and musician who performs in front of packed crowds. He travels the world, talking about how to overcome adversity, have a healthier mentality, and stay positive with adults at real estate conferences in Mexico, inside prisons, and at universities and with youth at high school assemblies, elementary schools, and concerts. He has been featured in dozens of magazines including Valor magazine, Entrepreneur, Yahoo!, Influencive, Marketwatch, and been honored with multiple awards for music and speaking. He had already released a third album called Front Pages and was awarded Best Video of the Year and People’s Choice at the LDS Film Festival.
Ryan is a born performer, and he uses his musical talent to connect with his audience. “I have a song for every situation I’ve been in,” he explains. “Some are rap songs while others are country or a different genre.” His lyrics talk about suicide, drug addiction, his desire to be a hero as he grew up, and the importance of never forgetting about how to dream. He amazes his audience with his talent for playing the piano blindfolded and also upside down.
It hasn’t always gone smoothly, however. “The first time I got on stage, I completely forgot the music because I have memory problems,” he says. “People laughed and said I wouldn’t make it, but guess what? I didn’t listen to them, and here I am today.”
Ryan encourages people to challenge their situations and their thoughts. “You want to be happy with how your life is going and not settle for what you’ve been dealt. Find your dreams and passions that make you feel alive and ready to take on the world. You can literally do anything you put your mind to. So, what’s stopping you?”
To book Ryan, go to RyanStream.com and find any other information on him or watch his videos, type his name in the google search.
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