Meet Ryan Rakers | Property Manager & Photographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ryan Rakers and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ryan, what role has risk played in your life or career?
I think that most people fail their future selves, simply because they are afraid to fail now. After a change in mindset, I am under the belief that risk is always prevalent. You’re either risking failing a step or two while creating the life that you want, or risking never having the life that you want and always having the “what if”.

I don’t believe that it’s possible to create the life that you truly want by not embracing the risk that comes with it. We’ve built a system where it’s so easy to get on cruise control and play it safe the rest of our lives. Everybody deals with risk, it’s just a matter of which risks we choose.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I currently do property solutions for homes in the mountain areas around Colorado. This includes everything from cleaning between guests, home inspections, general maintenance, snow removal, on call services, and anything a client may ask of me. I believe what sets me apart from my competitors is consistency. Most industries in the mountain areas are very inconsistent with either showing up on time, communication, or providing quality work every time. This is no different for the property management industry.

I also Wildlife/Landscape Photography. I’ve always found any excuse I can to get outside. During my adventures I continuously grew a need to share the amazing things and beauty that I was seeing with others. This grew my passion for photography. It allows me to relive the incredible scenes and memories, while also sharing them with others.

I got to where I am now by failing over and over. I was a Project Coordinator for an architectural company before Covid. I was the youngest employee at the company and felt like I was finally starting to make an impact and grow within the company. I got a call one Friday afternoon… just like that. Unemployed. They were making cuts to survive whatever was ahead.

I fought hard to find a new job. Over the next 1.5 months I had 27 interviews. Yes, two-seven. At one point I was 3 interviews in with 3 different companies and was expecting a couple offers. I ended up getting 0 offers. Every company basically put a hiring freeze to prepare for the unknown.

That was my breaking point, I realized that my livelihood was in my hands. I could never depend on anyone else to “save” me or create the life that I wanted. It was up to me and only me. I needed to take full responsibility for anything that happened to me. So I started finding anyone that would give me property work, started 75 hard and shut the outside world out for a little bit and focused on myself and my business. The “grind” stage was so cool and I hope that everyone gets a chance to experience it.

The main lessons that I’ve learned is that the distance between us and the life we want, really is just a mindset shift. We are all SO close to fulfilling our potential/dreams. Even though the system we’ve created wants us to think otherwise.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I am not much of a city guy. I LOVE the mountains. I would definitely think it’s worth the trip to any mountain town if they’ve already made a trip to CO.

If it’s winter, I would take them skiing to any CO mountain and then head to get some hot pizza and drinks afterwards. I remember the coolest thing to me was just seeing the snow and mountains. Driving around the areas would also have to be in the plans.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My wife, Katie, has always been extremely supportive of any crazy ideas that I have. My parents, Angie & Scott, and my sister, Paige, have always been there for me on this crazy ride as well. It would have been very easy for all of them to discourage my craziness and encourage me to take the safe route. Having a great support system is extremely vital through the hard stages of entrepreneurship.

Other things that have helped my mindset are books and podcasts. 10x (Grant Cardone), Atomic Habits (James Clear), Rich Dad Poor Dad (Robert Kiyosaki) are some books that come to mind that tremendously helped my mindset. Some podcasts that have helped are BiggerPockets (Real Estate) and Real AF (Mindset).

One thing that I did during the startup phases of my business was a mindset program called “75 hard”. It’s a pretty intense program that strengthened my mindset ten fold at the time that I needed it most.

Website: https://ryanrakers.smugmug.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanrakers/