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Ryan, who was born in Houston, Texas and raised in Topsfield, Massachusetts, studied theater his whole life and always thought he would be an actor. After high school, he attended Hamilton College in New York, then moved to New York City to pursue acting. Not long after relocating to the city, Ryan landed the role of Evan Walsh on the soap opera, As the World Turns (2007- 2008). "And then, I ran out of money. I was going to go home to Colorado or go get my master's —just continue the process— and a friend told me to get into real estate and I just fell in love with it the minute I got into it. I talk about there being a lack of control [as a realtor], but as an actor in New York City, you have complete lack of control." Ryan has been working as a real estate agent since 2008, but it wasn't until 2010, when he was cast on Bravo's Million Dollar Listing New York, that his career really took off. "I went to an open casting call with 3,000 brokers in Times Square in March of 2010. The show was me, Michael Lorber, and Fredrik [Eklund]. I was basically doing rentals beforehand. I've grown my entire business with the show as it has grown." This August, Million Dollar Listing New York returns to Bravo for season eight and Ryan tells me that it's the greatest season yet. "I've got a baby. Steve Gold had a baby out of the blue. Fredrik is moving to Los Angeles. Luis came back from Paris, out of retirement. This season is going to be the most visceral and intense season that, I think, we've ever had by far because the market is so up and down," he says animatedly. " It's not just going to be like, 'Yay! We got a listing. Let's sell it, cool,' and show beautiful properties. We'll still have that, but you'll also see the market crashing around us, prices tanking, sellers taking losses of millions of dollars to get things sold —the real struggles that New Yorkers are going through to sell property right now. We have the same situation in Miami, where there's a significant amount of condos to sell in Miami, but less buyers to buy them." Million Dollar Listing New York has certainly helped Ryan's career, but it takes more than being on a reality TV show to become the #1 real estate team in New York and among the top 5 real estate teams in the nation. He works arduously to separate himself from the pack, noting that NYC alone has about 80,000 realtors. This no-days-off guy credits his immense success to staying in touch with everyone he has ever met as much as he possibly can, and the utilization of every resource available to him, including, social media (especially YouTube, Instagram, etc.), press, multiple outlets for sales, and his book. "I've grown a significant network of clients and developers and used all of them to help propel the business. I learned early on, success in any business, but especially in sales, is driven by your focus on new business. 90% of my day is focused on new business, 10% is doing the best with the business that we have —I have a team that helps me with that. I think the discipline that I had growing up, that I really resented and hated, has paid off for me in this business by a lot, because you have to be self-disciplined to be an entrepreneur," says Ryan. Over the last decade, he has built a highly lucrative and recognizable brand that grows more and more each year. In addition to filming Million Dollar Listing, Ryan is working on his second book, producing a vlog, growing his team in all markets, selling as much as possible, releasing a real estate course this month, and enjoying time with his family. How do you balance it all? What is a typical day for you like? I wake up at 5 am. I answer emails from overnight. I deal with any phone calls with clients that are in Europe or Asia at that time, partly because they're always appreciative that I call them earlier than anyone else in the country. I go to the gym for an hour. I come home, shower, get dressed, go to work. I have a driver that takes me around, I basically live in the backseat of that car. I'm booked on the half hour, for the most part, throughout the entire day, Monday through Friday anyway. I try to start in the office and end my day in the office, but the days are random, different appointments, different pitches. I'll be either filming or I'll vlog or I'll be working on book number two or I'll be working on the course. Then, I'll have a dinner or an event or two. I'll get home and if my wife and baby are there, I'll say hi to them or kiss them —they'll be sleeping. Clean up email from the day. I get on average, somewhere between 900-1,100 emails that I have to respond to —I have an email assistant who helps me with that. I also have five other separate assistants that help me with the rest of the work. I prep my day ahead, that way when I wake up the next morning, I'm not already playing catch-up like most people are going to do. Wow, what time are you going to sleep? Between 11 pm -12 am. That is a very busy day. I think that is one of the busiest days I've heard. As a real estate agent, there's so much you have to do personally. It's a lot of work, but it's what I chose to do. There are times, I will say, when things get a little bit slower, and I don't know, I lose my mind. Unfortunately, I am now a product of my environment. I am so addicted to it, so as crazy as it might be, as tired as I might get sometimes, I need it. It's like a drug in a way. I think New York does that to you as well. You're sitting there like, I need to be doing something. Can you Netflix & chill? Sometimes, yeah. Although, the problem now is we have all these great shows I try to watch, but I'm always on my phone and I don't even know what happened. I'd love to watch Stranger Things, but I don't even know what happened the last season. Pretty sure I was just doing emails the whole time.