A strong value set | With Garnet Morris | Founder’s Office™ Lunch & Learn

Well, it's Wednesday, Lunch and Learn. Uh, joining me today, of course, we have Candice Powell here, uh, founder of the Founder's Office and one of my key team members who's been with me, I think, since the beginning almost. Candice, I think we've gone through so many iterations. It's been absolutely a pleasure and a joy, and she just got back from toodling around for a month up in Canada and elsewhere, right? Which is gonna be fun to talk about.

Mm-hmm.

And of course, Jacqueline Kuiper, our general counsel extraordinaire. You've been going through the hoops so much and so many variations over the last week. It's been fun to work with you side by side because we've had so many Experiences. And I'm going to say this right now. I'm going through some— what do you call these things where I've got to do my—

Discovery responses to interrogatories.

Interrogatories. Interrogatories. Thanks for the word. And I'm going through there and I've got amazing, amazing, amazing counsel. But it really is one of these situations where you sit there and you say, I need to be very specific not passive in this language. It's got to be very not overly specific, not anything else. And it is so awesome to have an internal general counsel that you can pick up the phone at any time and have these conversations with, of someone who's so brilliant. So I just want to say thank you, since that was my morning as we started on here. So, uh, the other part of that is I've had an opportunity to finish a book over this weekend, and we're going to be talking about that. But imagine you're sitting across from the Biggest opportunity you've ever had. The money works. The numbers work. Everyone around the table thinks you should do it. There's only one problem. Something about it violates what you believe. Now you find out whether those things you call your values are actually values, because values are easy when they're free. They become much harder when they cost you money and opportunity, a relationship, or force you to make a decision you would rather avoid. That is one of the things I took away from reading Garnett's book. Garnett has spent more than 5 decades building companies, investing in them, governing them, surviving extraordinary turns, and learning that the feedback from a decision does not always arrive immediately. Sometimes the lessons come years later, but there are usually signals all along the way if you're willing to see them. And after all those years across insurance, healthcare, hospitality, financial services, logistics, education, and now a family office that invested in more than 15 private companies, Garnett keeps Coming back to some remarkably durable principles: discipline, accountability, integrity, consistency, coachability, and finishing what you start. That's what we wanna explore today. Not what are your values, but something more useful. What do your values cause you to do when the decision gets hard? And perhaps even more importantly, how do you turn those values into a company can make the right decisions when the founder is no longer standing in the room? Garnett, welcome to the Founder's Office and welcome to Wednesday's Lunch and Learn. So glad to have you.

Thank you. I'm just enjoyed to be here. I mean, you have a great family and a great operation, and you're a pretty big inspiration for me.

Oh, well, that is, that is, that is— well, I got to tell you, the great thing was very few people can you hand your grandkids off and say, hey, can you be a surrogate for me for this important scenario? And Candice, you got to share, how did Garnett handle that as the kids were away from me for a month and were up with some time with Garnet?

Well, they're begging nonstop to go visit Garnet and Shirley on our next trip. So, they loved it. And it wasn't a hard sell. They got double dessert and some pocket money to go spend at a The very first store they could find. They had a great time and just, um, they loved getting to be at a, um, a nice dinner and, uh, be a part of, be a part of it. So huge, huge thank you to you, Garnet and Shirley, to be so sweet and inclusive of them.

Well, I wanted them to have 2 desserts because it would help them understand the difference between US currency and Canadian currency. So one US dessert is equal to just about 2 Canadian desserts. And so when they're in Canada, I thought, well, this is a great way to indoctrinate them into exchange rates.

And portion size too. Yeah.

Oh, that was great. Well, so going after—

A US dessert is huge.

So before we were starting, the other part of this was you've got a Porsche behind your head there, but You were talking about the girls and a pink Porsche, and you gave financial advice to Candace. Do you remember what that was about investing in the Porsches for the girls?

Well, I mean, I think if you buy them now, because Porsches appreciate, if you buy the right ones, between 8% and 10% a year, you just think how rich they're going to be by the time they're your age. And so it would seem to be rudimentary financial planning to go get them each a GT3 now. This year, and because they love the concept of a convertible, Porsche is bringing out a GT3 convertible, and they're going to make a few too many. And so go get them because they won't be marked up, and get each one their own color, and, you know, off you go. And so now you're building them into Porsche entrepreneurs.

How is Porsche not marketing this very idea as like a smart financial decision for parents?

Well, the whole, the whole beauty of Porsche is Porsche doesn't know how to market. So that's why they don't make too many cars, and that's what they appreciate.

Well, thank you for that. Yes, I will put it into consideration for sure. I'm glad my kids aren't present because they would be like, let's go do this right now.

I'll send them a memo on paint to sample because what you want to do is order them and you can actually send in a paint chip to Porsche and they'll make your car that color. So then they get something that's precisely theirs.

Pink and glitter is, is the goal.

Yeah, I love that. Does it come with a— what are those little things they put on their Crocs? One of those little, uh—

Oh, the Croc jewel gems. Yeah, charms. Yeah, charms. The Croc charms.

Gonna have to have that on the Porsches, although they will blow off at 180 miles an hour.

We are Croc charm abundant in this house, so—

I would know where to hang them.

Yeah, this isn't the direction we're going to go, but it has been a series of conversations we've had this week again because of going through The death of my father-in-law and looking at trusts and transferring different things. Garnett, you utilize insurance in a way, and you've built a big insurance business, right? So, I want to be very clear about that. But you utilize insurance in a way that is able to provide not just the death benefits, and even in that, they're not even thinking about the death benefits. That's an afterpart. It's an afterpart. provides opportunities for people to defer income taxes, to have huge savings opportunities. And we're talking about this— this was just in The Wall Street Journal this week, but you and I had been talking about it over a period of time. Can you go into that a little bit for founders, why this is a great product or how they get even into that?

So, I've always looked at insurance saying, well, first off, you have to understand I'm really a very selfish person. So, I opened a medical clinic because I wanted to have the best doctors, and so voilà. And so when I look at insurance, it didn't seem to me to make a lot of sense that I spend a lot of money buying a policy that gives someone else a great big honking check when I die, and I'm not even positive they'll like me at that point in time. So we always worked with insurance to try to make the benefits immediate. Like right now. And so in Canada, we designed different structures. We mastered every accounting thing you could around insurance. And now I've done the same thing in the US. So in a bottom line way, the way we apply insurance is, yeah, there's still a check when you die. And you can tell us where you'd like it to go. And we're not going to judge you by who gets it. But I can tell you, we can definitely dramatically reduce the amount of tax you're going to pay this year. And if you have more disposable income, then you're likely going to help the economy a lot more than buying something that's going to pay off in 30 years when you die.

Well, you, you and I are around a lot of wealthy people in our transitions of what— and what they determine wealthy. And a fair amount of them, for me, I find out they don't have liquidity or access to liquidity. And there's a statistic we use that we got from the SEPA organization that says roughly 80% of an entrepreneur's wealth is tied up in their business. And this is one of those things that actually help people that you're able to do, make— take some of that transfer of liquidity of the business and wealth of the business into a product.

Yeah. So, I mean, I In a lot of ways in life, I've not been afraid to be unique because I— whatever. But so what we do is we are very focused to never take the entrepreneur's money to buy insurance, for starters, job one. So we become experts at premium finance. And we even built a premium finance company in Canada, and we're going to do a joint venture in the US, and eventually we'll do our own. And so we've always tried to use when there's a need for insurance for that liquidity to try to do something that didn't take any of today's money from the business. So then we've mastered premium finance. We can do— we use products that have money-back guarantees, could optimize the borrowing amount. We have lenders that don't wanna have premium payments or interest— sorry, principal payments in 10 years, or like a lot of the US banks do. They wanna know, well, how do we get our money back? And we're saying, well, Just let nature take its way. It'll all happen. And so we've become really, really good at that level because I just, I personally buy insurance like crazy, but I always 100% finance it. And I try to structure to make the interest deductible, do all those things. So I'm an entrepreneur dealing with entrepreneurs with the same general principle saying, let's not use any of your money. If you have too much money, there's a lot of charities that can use it. Let's not bother. tying it up in an insurance policy.

Yeah, I love that. I love that process because what you do is, you know, when we talk about not all capital is the same. So, when we're talking, you and I look at a lot of— we share a lot of deals where we're back and forth and looking at things and giving feedback as to, do we want to make an investment? Do we not want to make an investment? Not all investors are the same. Not all investments are the same. But this is something that is universal for specifically entrepreneurs and founders is that they're probably one of their least used tools that's available to them is good insurance. And it can be at almost any level of wherever their business is. They don't have to wait till they're totally wealthy. It's great when they have it, but they don't have to wait for it.

Well, I think they shouldn't even— I think, like, to me, money should have no impact on buying insurance. So, if we can finance the premiums and the interest, or most of the interest, Then what is your barrier to entry?

Right.

Your own value set, or maybe it's like, well, I mean, I have a theory about insurance. This is my favorite story because I'm severely introverted. And so when I go to a party, you know, it's best for me if I don't have to visit. So I take lots of business cards that says life insurance salesman on them, and I hand them out at the beginning of the cocktail party.

And nobody likes you.

Everybody leaves me alone. I can just kind of stand in my corner and watch. So, you know, It's not a fun thing to talk about, but if you can understand it from the perspective of what it's going to do for you today, how does it make things better today, and also knowing that it creates liquidity when you need it, but that it shouldn't be a conflict with your business. It should be an afterthought. Literally, it shouldn't be anything. It should be Just an afterthought to, to, to, to shoot.

Like, well, I think probably a number of our people that are joining us, we have this, you know, we have similar guests, and then we have people that listen to this down the time as they're going like, why are you guys talking about insurance? Why does this— isn't about being a founder. It actually is, because partly of being the founder's advocate is helping the founders see not just the first order, second order, or third order, it's the fourth order of business. And where does it go? And how does it impact you? And I think Candace or Katie earlier today asked me, Dad, when would have you done these policies? Candace, I think it was you. When would have you done the policies that we have, which again, using premium finance? And I was a slow learner to the game type scenario, but it is a tremendous flexibility and wealth and something that benefits employees and team members and family members, not the death benefits. There's other pieces that are tremendously beneficial through this.

Well, I am. I'm a contrarian. I mean, so probably why I have 1/10 the followers you do, but that's good. So think about it this way. So you set up a $50 million policy so you can 100% finance the premiums and by about the 5th year finance the interest too, more or less. Now that's great. So you are out of pocket, but if you can use the split dollar rules, which are 100 pages of very complex rules, as an earning partner can explain, and we're masters of them. You could actually lend the money to yourself to buy the policy. And so then, to the extent that you need a tax deduction, you take a little piece of that loan and a little piece of that policy and put it into a 501. So now, actually, your insurance policy is generating cash flow. I love it. You know, isn't that how it's supposed to work?

I love it. Well, you keep taking those cards to those parties and keep this little secret around, just like you're buying Porsche cars as investment structures. And, you know, this is why the general people don't do— and you said it very clearly— contrarian thinking. There are an awful lot of people that sell insurance. There's a lot of people that just like real estate out there. And that doesn't mean that they're all the same, just like lawyers or doctors or anybody else. Let's talk about your book.

So, I wrote that book because we have discrepancies within our own family as to values. So, we have a facilitator that comes in and we have a value session in our family 3 or 4 times a year where we just talk about our core family values. And we— what you find is that each person has their own interpretation of doing the hard things. And so I thought I would make a book that parents— well, I mean, again, I'm not counting on 55-year-olds reading this book and having an epiphany, but I really hope they give it to their kids. And say, look, to understand how to get ahead in life, it doesn't matter whether it's business or art or whatever you choose. If you're not prepared to strive, you're not going to get there. There is— as much as we're conditioned to think there's a free lunch, there isn't.

No.

And, you know, your comments were incredible because You basically said working hard is not what it's about. It's applying hard work in a mission-driven structure. And, you know, you look at most founders, they got there. And then what did they do? And again, present company excepted, they spoiled their kids because they didn't want their kids to have to go through the same pain and agony.

Yeah, that we see. And that, by the way, that's not a founder thing. That's a lot of middle class and then don't have that struggle. You know, it's whatever level, it doesn't matter about even economics. It's like, I don't want my kids to have to struggle like I struggled. And yet what they really don't realize is, and I love your analogy in there, learning to walk is a struggle. You can't take that away from the kid or they don't ever learn to walk.

Yep, yep, precisely.

I think there's actually this idea that I find it for myself. I don't want to say I'm manufacturing hardships for my kids, but I definitely find opportunities for my kids to have to do something that nobody— so, for instance, my daughter's the only kid who gets off at the bus stop in our neighborhood.

Behind a gate, by the way.

Yeah. Yes, correct. And, I make her walk home because every— I'm telling you, there's tons of kids in my neighborhood who go to her school and everybody drives up to pick their kids up and does this drop-off. It's kind of this weird other world at our kids' school. It's very much like it's a social event doing drop-off and pickup. And so, As silly as that sounds, having my kid be the only one to get off at the bus and having to walk all the way home with her backpack, it's not a real struggle. Most people have struggled far more, but I think it's good for her to have to— yeah, I could pick her up, but I want her to walk home. They have to carry their ski gear. There's families, we call it the wagon parking lot at the ski mountain. You can carry your wagon up, but no, you can, you can carry your gear. It's manufacturing these moments to have some, have some life skills. And I still am searching for these opportunities.

When you lend me your kids, um, when they're— when you're ready, I'm sure they're ready.

They're ready. They're planning it.

To Tanzania. So we did a backroads trip and took our whole family. Backroads always does something philanthropic. They always give you an experience that is not about you. We went to a school, a Maasai school in the middle of nowhere. It is a dirt poor school, the kids sit on donated benches, they're lucky to have chalk. Really a thing. These kids were delightful. They wanted us to sit with them in the desks and they did a lot of stuff and pictures. Important thing to learn is you, you have your child get off at the bus stop. Those kids have to walk 3 miles to school, and in that period of time, they're actually game.

Right.

Because exactly, there are lions and, and things out there that can eat you. So they have to go together. They have to be careful. They— every day they walk to school, there's a chance that You know, they're somebody's lunch. And so, and so, and they're also very poor. So part of their school curriculum, they have a big garden. So I get— because once I was there, my heart was broken. So we give money to the school every year.

Hmm.

And so now I get pictures of the kids in their garden and growing bananas and growing this and growing that and sitting together and waving. And so the school had 3 teachers. 1 got paid and 2 didn't. And we— one of the guides on the trip was a doctor, same education as in America, but he can't make a living being a doctor. So he's a guide during the week and he's a free doctor in his village on the weekend. So that's a different level of heart. And so once you experience that, it changes your life. Because they're like, I'm just a softie. I'm peeled because my car's at the bottom of the hill.

I think that's a takeaway for all of us on this today of this moment of gratitude. And I know we've got all these founders on listening to this. And it's, I know because I have been, I am, and I will be in that boat of you're like, this isn't going exactly right. And also recognizing that I'm built for this. Every struggle is making my muscles, my resiliency muscles stronger. And boy, do I have— like, I should be grateful for the level of challenges that I'm experiencing some days, right? You talk about you're selfish and then you're sitting here telling me about how much you're giving back. To all of these communities around the world. And, I know for a fact you are not a selfish person because you and I have had lots of conversations where I've said something and you said, how about we expand that and make it more accessible to other people? For our founders listening right now who might be in that space of just kind of focusing on the current, right? They're in making payroll. They're in solving a current issue. What advice do you have for them today that can maybe get them to that expanded capacity?

So, 2 things. One thing, the best movie ever made on entrepreneurship was Forrest Gump. So, the best line in Forrest Gump is, run, Forrest, run. So, a lot of times in business, in today's society, you have to dramatically increase the tempo. You have to be aware. Am I increasing the tempo? Am I running as fast as I can run? Number one. Number two, and this is like there's nothing that that I can actually give myself credit for learning. I was taught everything by mentors all along the way. I had a mentor who kept saying, "Garnet, to what problem are you a solution?" And how are you solving that problem better than anybody? So, if you're sitting there flailing away in your business, step back and say, when I started my business, I was solving a problem for somebody. Am I still the best solution to that problem? And if not, how do I evolve rapidly to a new set of problems to solve for people?

I love that. You even go back to— I'm going to tie a couple of things together. So, you were in Tanzania. I was in Tanzania and Zambia. working with sustenance farmers and with the philosophy that entrepreneurialism saves the world. And so free enterprise saves the world. And so how do we get them to do something that serves someone around them that can then create economic abilities for these people? And it was in goat farming and raising bees, right? And because it was— it is that scenario of how What problem needs to get solved? And if I solve it, how do I benefit others? Because then that benefits me. That's somewhat the definition of being selfish about it, but it is selfish by being of service to others. And that's where I think we definitely, absolutely meet up. And that is the great life of being a founder and entrepreneur is constantly looking and saying, if I have this need, other people have this need. So, your medical doctor scenario of, if I want the best medical care, there's other people who want to have the best medical care. And if this needs to be done, I'm the one who can get it started. Maybe there's other people to do it. I think that's fascinating. I want to talk about resiliency for a second because your book starts off with a major resilient moment because most people that ever entertained bankruptcy or had to go through bankruptcy would call it quits and would be embarrassed by it. And you lead with it on the chin. And I love how you even say not so much about it. You— I think your, your piece back goes back into a scenario of these were the warning signs of even hubris and things that you should have known that you now know and is why you do have this wonderful, fabulous life scenario. Can you, can you talk about that a little bit within the realm of being a founder?

So the, the thing to think about A lot of us, as we grow in wealth, our humility gene starts to deteriorate. So I got a really, really good lesson in humility when you have to stand in front of a judge and tell them you screwed up so badly you can't pay your bills. Right. And then the judge says, okay, I'll let you off the hook, but now you have to pay so much a month For this period of time before I let you off the hook. So it's a little bit of a wake-up call and a really good way to look back at yourself to say, where did I make a mess? And so I made a mess by not ever focusing on the problem. I just made a mess by running as hard as I could in no particular direction. And so I found out I was really good at buying stuff and really terrible at running it. So, so I was buying hotels like crazy because I could figure out how to finance them, but I could not figure out how to run them. So the more I bought, the more I lost. And I kept thinking, if I just could buy one more, I could turn this all around. So I just went faster and faster backwards.

I love your idea of that, you know, of course you buy a hotel because that's what rich people do, right?

Yeah, that's what I understood. Like, you know, and I didn't know any of the American rich people that buy hotels. I just figured in my small town, the richest guy had a hotel, so it had to be that way. No further research needed. And so at 20, I bought a hotel. And it was a terrible little hotel, and I made a little money. And then I bought another one, and then I bought another one. And then I just— I thought, well, boy, I'm really smart. I know how to buy hotels now, so I'll just get a lot of them. And the more I bought, the more I lost. And then I had to start giving them all back to the bank one by one, which is a lot of embarrassing phone calls and a lot of, you know, not so good things. And finally, I had to clean it all up and start again.

I think that's a really good lesson. I think all of us can have— I think every founder can relate to that, of we had this idea, whether it was from the community we grew up in or the founders we looked up to, or even maybe now in the world of social media or just general media, of what it looks like to be a founder and making those, like, making those keeping up with the Joneses decisions that maybe don't actually resonate with you in your core?

Well, I don't. I can tell you, I march to the beat of my own drummer and I'm getting better and better at it all the time. And it's not to say I don't need a trumpet player in the band. I've got all the other instruments, but they're not me. And so I stick— I've learned to just do what I do and not try to do the things that I don't do. And I try to look for someone who's accomplished at what I don't do. So I have a medical clinic. Probably the most I contribute to it is I pay my bill promptly. And so we have a CEO and she knows how to run a medical clinic.

Right.

And she knows how to run a medical clinic better than anybody I've ever met. So I don't try to tell her what to do. I just try to stay out of her way. And I've learned that in life, and that was a hard lesson. I've learned that I was not anywhere near as clever at 99% of the things that I thought I was clever at.

Some of this just takes time. I think one thing that is so— the common through line is being willing to look back and say, what did I do well and what could I have done differently? And Candace, you're always really open about this. Tom, you are too. We learn from other people's experiences, and we love talking about when we got bloody and hearing about when other people got bloody. What's, what's the bad stuff you've been through? Not just the wins. We don't want to hear why you're, you know, the best.

We have so many stories of getting bloody, Jackie.

I know, and they're fun to share. And what's interesting is, um, another, another word that hasn't been said, but it's definitely a common theme here, is Resilience. I had the pleasure of listening to Barbara Corcoran speak. She's one of the Sharks, and she said, you know, every single time, give me the person whose parents were alcoholics, the person who was beat up in school, the person who failed and failed and failed and got up and is here at my door asking for another shot, because that person is the person that's been knocked down over and over and over, and they will always get up. And so, I think as a nice takeaway for the audience, sometimes we're ashamed of those valleys, right? But they actually become or can become like our badges of honor, something we made it through and something that we can leverage to teach other people. That's kind of like our special share. Here's what I've been through and here's how you can avoid it.

Yeah. I'm very proud of all the things I've screwed up in life because I learned a lot in a hurry.

Yeah.

And but I look at resilience. And so, I mean, I want to talk about— so I'm 71. And so now resilience is applied differently than when you're 50. And so if you think about it, for me to be able to stay at my peak, I have to work out when I don't feel quite as good as I did when I was 40. But I do it anyway. And I have to force myself to travel and experience even when I know it would be more comfortable to stay home. And I have to mentor young people so that I don't lose my ability to see the world through their eyes. And so that's, that's a different form of resilience than we think about getting them off the mat. That's saying, look, it's sustaining, it's a sense of sustaining A pace regardless of your vintage.

I concur with that. So, my father-in-law turned 85 2 Fridays ago and passed away this Friday. And, Garnett, as we were starting this, I said, his life is one that I just love and mirror. And, he and I have been friends before my wife and I. He introduced me to my wife. So, his daughter scenario, which is kind of a fun thing about that. And, he and I share the love of skiing around the world. Super cool things. This is a guy who skied over 100 days last year, last season, at 84 years old. He taught for me, uh, 8 weekends last year, right? And he just spent 7 weeks in Europe before he found out that he had a terminal illness, and it went very, very quickly for him. Also, again, kind of his design. The main throughput for all of that was he was never measuring what he could do at 85 compared to what he could do at 50. He was measuring what he could do at 85, and he was not measuring what he could do compared to other 85-year-olds. He was measuring what he could do as that 85 and maximize that for today. Was it 10 more stairs when he first got diagnosed? You know, where was that? I need to get up those. I need to do this. I need to be able to get there. And Garnett, you— everything that I know about you from that standpoint is that same thing. It's not about the, the challenges or the things that have tripped. It's about, okay, so now what do I do to make myself better for the point I am at? Today. And I think that's a critical point of living a great life, not just about being wealthy, not just about being a great founder. It's about living a great life.

So I have a great analogy for you. Our pink Porsche that we were talking about earlier has almost no back window. So you cannot watch what's behind you. You can only see what's ahead of you. It has enough horsepower. You can pretty much catch anything that's ahead of you. And if you're doing that, nobody's gonna catch you from behind. So I think we, that's resilience. You never look back, you just keep improving and keep asking yourself, is this all I have in the tank or is there just a little bit more?

Yeah, well, no, I totally agree with that from the standpoint of I did a Genius 10 Minute Talk not that long ago and on resiliency, because a lot of people throw that word around and you and I even talk about it in your LinkedIn posts. I'll put it in my LinkedIn posts. And the definition from that is, For me is when the mind says stop and I can make my body keep going because I know my body can do more than what my mind says. My mind is always wanting to go like, no, you know, I really want to go sit in that nice warm house. And I'm like, nope, let's get up and let's go do that. And it's the same way in business. No, I really don't want to start that next one. Gosh, I have enough. No, you know, whatever it is, who can I help? What can I serve? Where can I go? Where can I be of service today? And to that, I'm going to tie it back to something else. Another big thing about founders that really helps them to be successful is when they're willing to ask questions about something they heard but didn't quite understand. And so, we have one of our guests said, revisit that idea on the loan for insurance, 501s cash flow. Can you unpack that more? So, we're going to tie it back into that because I think that cash flow is so valuable and the products that you do, you've been able to build a big business that serves all the other things that you do. Because you have a product that really does serve founders, not just founders, but it works really well for founders. Can you talk about that, how that works, the loan, the 501?

So let me give you the background. So the— we're— I met the CEO of the Mississippi Hospital Association, and Mississippi has hospitals going bankrupt. And so I figured out a structure where we could cut their payroll in half. and actually convert half of the payroll into receivables, and then they could issue municipal bonds against them, or we could sell them into the public debt markets. So we're doing some of the due diligence and working through there. There's a few other variations. So if you're a business owner, most businesses have a 501, and if they don't, they should get one. And if you simply looked at it and said, look, I could take half of my pay and put it in a 501 for when I— so when I die, there's tons of money in the charity. And at the same time, I'm going to increase my take-home pay by the tax rate on that amount. So that's called the win-win-win. And the federal government may not win, but it's their rulebook. So my view is if they want a different rulebook, they have all the resources, they should write a different rulebook. But when you look at it, all we did is we We got all the pieces organized so that an entrepreneur doesn't have to make this their life's ambition. So all they have to do is work it through with their CPA, calculate what they need to have happen, and we have all the other pieces assembled so they don't have to do another thing. They set up the insurance, and after that, we can just manage it all. We have the trust, we have the financing, we have the valuation people, we have everything that they need to successfully manage the structure. And I've been at this for a long, long time. And when you are using an insurance product that has return of premium, you don't have downside because you're always cash on cash. So it's, you know, I mean, it's made to mitigate risk and to optimize the value for every party in the chain.

I love that. You know, another question came in and said, I don't know if I'm in the right room. I'm looking about raising money for filmmaking. Let me just give you a little bit of background about how Garnett and I came together. The real conversations, we kind of met each other loosely at different times through Joe Polish, I think. And then you came up and you sat on one of our Shark Tank up in Lake Tahoe, which was awesome when we were working on that. Candace, you were also on that panel, I think it was at that time, which was super cool. But really, we started working on where we do investments from our family offices. So, in answering to that question, are you in the right place? Yes, a lot of this has to do with coming back around And being in the right rooms to be able to find the right capital. So, I'm going to close out on that. We'll come back to the insurance on other ways. If you have questions on the insurance, reach out to us. There's so many ways to solve problems using insurance products. And it's not about just what you may think or what the person who sells you insurance is out there. And I'm not selling insurance. That's not my business. But it's in the founder's office. It's one of the places that we—

Yeah.

talk about, you can solve these problems. There's lots of ways to solve these problems, and they don't have to be in the traditional ways that you're thinking about them. So, that's one. What kind of deals are you looking at? You've got investments in all these other medtech things. I love what we, we look at. What's the most exciting investment right now in a founder-led business that you've got on the forefront?

I have a good friend, His name is Dr. Ajay Potluri. To give you an idea of a person who never quits, his— he moved to Canada from India. And in India, your parents expect you to be something. If you want to understand that, read Krishnamurti's books. They want you to be something for their ego. So they wanted the kids to be doctors, and he didn't think he could pass medical school, so he became a dentist. That's a true story. So then he gets to Canada and he realizes, not really crazy about being a dentist. So he went and got a master's in computer engineering and an MBA. So, and he built a medical device, and the first hospitals to incorporate this were in the US, in Dallas, where they can take all of the sensors on a premature baby, consolidate them, And use predictive analytics to tell if the baby's going to crash. Number one. And so when you look at remote hospitals and things like that, it is going to save a lot of lives. And so this is his passion. So we actually help him raise money to donate to hospitals so they can actually accelerate incorporating it. So then as he's doing this, and this is a good story for everyone, but as he's doing this, he's finding that— Hospitals love AI but hate the loss of privacy. So he built a device for hospitals so they could download AI and not have the AI download them. So it's kind of like a box with 2 gates. I'm not very smart at technology. He says it's like having a gate here and a gate here. So the AI comes into here and this gate stops it from going into ours. So then when the AI is up to date in there, we close that gate and open this gate and we can update our system, but it doesn't go back into AI. So he built this device. So I'm sitting in his office, he says, this is a really cool thing. It's like a square box. I said, well, what's cool about it? You put your feet on it or you stand on it if you want to be tall? So again, he's solving a problem better than anybody and he's just all in on that problem. I love it. And I say to him, look, Dr. Podluri, In today's world, you have to run at a heck of a clip because you have no idea what other people are doing and the speed at which they can do it, because that's AI.

Yeah. And you know what, we know this guy because we've looked at similar as a, as an investment in there. And that again is where it comes up and having the philosophies of what is your investment strategy. And one of the things I love, Garnett, about you is that you're like, and I let them run the company. I'll do the investment. I want to be I could be in there, I could be an advisor, but I'm going to find the people that run the companies. And that's, that's what we do too. We don't want to end up running these companies because that's just like the worst for us scenario. Um, well, always, always a pleasure chatting with you. We never have enough time. There's so many opportunities that we always end up, uh, finding and talking about. And so my commitment is over this next, uh, you know, 90 to 120 days, we're going to find more time to get together so we can discuss these different opportunities, so we can make bigger impacts in the world because I know that together we can just do that. And the group that's listening to this, I saw a number of the questions come through. One of the questions was, how does somebody get in touch? We've got to have that, Angela. Yes, we do. She's always there, our marvelous engineer. Find Garnett on LinkedIn, visit his website. When's your book get released, Garnett? When is it?

So, I think we're going to launch it in November. And I really don't care how many I sell. It's more important how many I give away. And I get to talk at the forum for future medical students again next year around that book. And that, that's the most exciting part, is talking to young people. And, you know, parents shouldn't be afraid to let me talk to their teenagers because I'm pretty good at disruptive thinking.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I loved having you at Genius Youth when we brought you, you know, you came in. And I thought that was just awesome having you both at our tour of Tesla with the youth. And it was just, it was just a fun, I think it was a fun 2 days, super fun with you and Shirley as guests and on the panel. Candace, Jackie, WTF, Women Talk Finance.

Yeah.

Garnett, did you know they have this whole entire show that goes on and it's, it's far more popular and far more watched and far more listened to and many times far more interesting than what we do here. But it's the Women Talk Finance Show. And this is how you guys get in touch with there. And it's a huge underserved part of the market. We saw a need. These guys are the ones who saw the need and saw how they could solve it. And you talk about talking to young and older people across the board. Who's— any guests this week? Or what's the exciting news?

We're on a pause week. We are getting together in person next week for 2 full days. And we plan to—

Are you coming here?

Yeah.

Yay! I don't think that's on my calendar.

We talked about it this morning, Dad.

Yeah.

You talked to the left ear or the right ear?

I don't even know.

I think we said it in like a rainbow fashion over your head is why it didn't go through. We sent it in a rainbow. Yeah. Well, I'll be there for 2 full days. Candace and I are going to do a significant amount of recording. We have so many fun, like, interesting episodes planned. I think we'll get a chance to talk to you.

Yeah.

Do I finally get to be a guest? Uh-huh.

If you didn't get your invite—

I did not get my invite yet. I did not get my invite. Well, so Garnett, this is the fun that we have here because we think that, you know, business and life and all of it is intermixed and has a fun thing together. I got to tell you, it was a pleasure reading your book. It was a pleasure. You know, looking at the title, one of the books that I give away a lot of is Ben Horowitz's The Hard Thing About Hard Things. Right. And so now your book is going to be right up there as another one that I'll be giving out because it just gives so many of those stories of what it takes to get through it. It's so easy to look in today's world of social media and think being a founder is all glamorous and it's all the upside. And when I'm struggling and failing and having the challenges and stubbing my toe, that that's not normal. There's something wrong with me. Yeah.

me.

And the reality is it's the exact opposite of that. If you're solving problems, especially problems that other people haven't seen solved before, you're gonna stub your toes.

You're— if you—

that's just the way it is. Think of it like walking, right?

Yeah, and get good shoes. So the other thing, I think there's, there's a real opportunity out there for anti-social media. I mean, as social media, I think, has grown as far as it can, so we should actually start anti-social media where You pay your subscription, but you never go on it.

Oh, I want that.

Yeah. Free idea of the day. Yeah.

I walked out. Talk about anti-social media. I walked to my acupuncturist today, right? So I talk to people about this. I do about 21 hours a week on average to keep my body functioning at the level that I want it to function at. And one of those things is I have this awesome acupuncturist. Well, I walked to them today because my yoga instructor wasn't here this morning. And so I walked down. And as I'm walking back, and I walk down and I'm listening to a podcast. Podcast. And when I'm walking back, I'm like, I just want to listen to my own thoughts on this one. I'm not going to do anything. Phone's in my pocket and everything else. This is just lovely, the trees and the, you know, all the different things. It sounds ridiculous, but it's exactly that. I didn't want anybody to reach me. I got back into the office, you know, it's a pretty short walk, but it was getting back in there. So anti-social media, uh, anti-podcast except Women Talk Finance and this one.

Uh, but yeah, I mean, I have the first hour of every day I get up, I make my wife and I coffee, And I sit and I do nothing, nothing, nothing. No media, no podcasts, nothing. Just me and my monkey brain.

I love it. Your Vancouver house—you have how many coffee machines that I seem to remember?

We have one everywhere because we don't want to exceed our ten thousand steps by trying to find a coffee machine.

I mean, these aren't these aren't coffee machines. These are coffee like baristas within your house that are machines. It's really super cool. It's awesome. Well, Garnet, thank you. It's always a pleasure.

Tell. Yeah, I really appreciate being on your show, and I really enjoy it. I mean, I enjoy you. And now that we have the airplane in Canada, it's not so hard to come down to the US.

Nope.

So, looking forward to coming down here.

Super, super easy. I do love that about the airplane. I was trying to explain constraints the other day, and I said, when you have your own airplane, the constraint is not when the plane leaves. The plane leaves when you get on it. Yeah, which is really, really a nice feature. So, all right, well, thank you everyone for joining us at Lunch and Learn. Uh, I look forward to spending time with you guys next week, and apparently it's going to be with Jackie live in the studio, which is going to be super cool. Uh, so Garnet, thank you again, and everyone have a great week. Take care.

Thank you. Bye.