Ep17 - Andy Carr

We have the one and only Andy Carr from Feed My Starving Children. We are going to learn how to live a life of purpose, not necessarily a life of paychecks. This is a guest you are going to want to listen to. If you're somebody that believes in the world and helping the world, the insight from this guest is going to blow you away. Andy, tell me what else we're going to learn.

You know, Glenn, I'm going to talk to you today about how you can help turn hunger into hope and the need around the world that you can make a big, big difference. Can't wait.

What is the roadmap to defeat self sabotage, negative thinking, and learned helplessness in these unprecedented times, you must get connected, get growing, get certain, and Get Attitude. The Get Attitude Podcast. And welcome to the Gap. The Get Attitude Podcast. We are here to help you become the person you want to come. We're here to help you bridge the gap from where you are to where you want to go. And today we have an unreal guest who has bridged the gap, who bridged the gap from who he was 20 years ago to what he is doing now. This is one of our shows that I think will move you. This is one of our shows that I hope will create action and awareness for what's going on outside of your life, right outside of your world. There's this big thing called the world. And we are here today with the one and only Andy Carr, who is the vice president of development and marketing for this wonderful organization called Feed My Starving Children. Jason, let's go ahead and pull up a little video so you guys get to understand what you're getting ready to hear.

Imagine a world without hunger. This is the world we dream of. A world where bright futures are the norm, where children, families and communities thrive. But every year, millions of children are still dying from preventable causes such as pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, and undernutrition. Hunger causes nearly half of deaths in children under 5 years old. In spite of all this, we know that hope is not lost. It starts with food, and it starts with all of us. We believe in feeding kids. As a Christian nonprofit, we're dedicated to seeing every child whole in body and spirit. Nutrition allows children.

All right. And so, Mr. Andy Carr, welcome to the Get Attitude Podcast.

Thank you so much, Glenn. I am just honored to be here, humbled to be able to be a part of your tremendous program and love to connect with people and just share exactly what you just heard about that. There's kids that need fed and we're going to talk little bit about maybe how we can help with that.

I love it. When this pandemic started, Andy, I was encouraging people about a year ago, a little bit more than that. And I heard how many deaths that were going to happen with the pandemic. And I said, this just came to me. And this is when I thought about having you on a year ago. I said, how many people? I wonder if you know the stat. I'm not trying to make you look bad. Do you know how many people in the world died of starvation each year?

Yeah, I do, actually.

Tell me.

I'll put it into the number for kids. Let's break it down. So every single day, Glenn, every day, over 6,200 children die from starvation and malnutrition related causes every single day. I often say think of a large high school, the biggest one probably in just about any community where I live. I live up in a suburb of Minneapolis and the high schools here range around 2,500 kids. And think of two and a half of those wiped out every single day because of a problem that is the disease of hunger. And the good news is we have a cure. And the cure is pretty simple. It's food. It's not a supply issue as much as it is a distribution issue. And it's about awareness and raising that awareness. Because most people, if you ask them how many kids die every day, and here's another thing that I know, a lot of people, it leaps to mind, well, how many of those are in the United States? Well, the answer to that is none. They're not kids dying of starvation in the United States. This is a different kind of problem that we're talking about that often people have a hard time wrapping their mind around. Don't get me wrong, we have food insecurity here in our country, but we have safety nets. If someone were to die of starvation in the United States, somebody's going to jail because they have not paid close enough attention and access the resources that are readily available. But in places that we're talking about, Glenn, that we serve the ultra poor of the world. These are people that do not have access to the basics of basics, food, water, certainly then onto education, healthcare and other things. But these are places where if they don't get nutrition, these kids die. Yeah.

That's amazing. So back to my opener, which is how many people die in the world of starvation? Of course I googled it, right? Nine million, nine million people annually are starving to death. And I started to. I was being interviewed and they're like pandemic, what do you think? And I'm going, you know, we're all freaking out about. And obviously it's horrible. Half million people die in the pandemic. But I'm going, do we understand we are all losing our shit over the COVID but we have this recurring annual 9 million people every single and nobody seems to talk about it. And that's why we are here today, to bring that awareness, to help open people's eyes and hopefully open their hearts and checkbooks and have them follow you at my starvingchildren on Facebook. But I couldn't believe that 9 million people die of starvation, Glenn.

It truly is a travesty and it's preventable. That's the thing. That's the good news is we have a solution and we can talk more exactly about how that works. Yeah.

And you're doing it one meal at a time. Well, let's ratchet it back a little bit because again, what we focus on with our gappers is how do they bridge the gap from who they are to who they want to become, from where they are to where they want to go. You are standing as a young man with me. I've known you for a long time on one side of the river, if you will, and there's this big bridge and you bridged the gap and I mean literally changed your whole paradigm, your whole life. Talk to us about who you were and then how you bridge the gap to who you are now and understand that there's people out there that may be in the same circumstances, same feelings, same surroundings that are going, I got to have more meaning in my life. I don't know. So tell us the story. I can't wait to hear it.

Yeah, well, Glenn, I remember those days. I can say affectionately to the people that are able to see this. Glen and I go back far enough that both of us had hair. And so that was a long time ago for either one of us. But as young men, as we knew each other back in the day and living that, I'm going after the world and I'd say that both of us did that in ways that I don't think that means it wasn't without meaning and purpose, but it was certainly, I would say, a lot more self centered than what I have become today. I don't always do it right, but I certainly make the attempt. So a 20 year old guy. I've been a sales and marketing guy all my life. And that's where I got my start. I had a business with My family, my dad and a couple other guys that we were salespeople that were selling throughout the Midwest. I grew up in the Indianapolis area, up in little town called Zionsville as you recall, and went to IU and know your family and have fond recollections of just growing up. Got married early, beautiful wife Jenny and I, high school sweethearts and really went after it and was successful in business. Left the industry of being a sales rep that was kind of a self employed manufacturer's rep and stumbled into the garbage business, believe it or not. And I rose the ranks through the garbage industry primarily in Cincinnati, Ohio, out to New England and Boston, Boston down to New York City, back up to Minneapolis where I live now some 25 years ago. And I was a corporate executive with Waste Management here, ran sales and marketing for the upper Midwest. Left that business, went to a private equity held organization that we owned that was primarily involved in tire inflation and vacuum vending business all across the globe. I came on board, we grew that business to be throughout the United States, Canada and the UK and into mainland Europe. We were about $150 million company. We sold that in 2013. And as such, along the way through my life, having kids, going through the leadership and growth and shaking and baking and doing all those things, I really came to a realization and Feed My Starving Children paramount in this, in understanding that there's more to life than just about how I fill up my bank account and that idea of purpose as opposed to necessarily paychecks. Understanding that paychecks can help with purpose and I get paid for what I do at this Christian nonprofit, Feed My Starving Children now. But in 2013, I had the opportunity to come on full time in this role where I get to encourage people to inspire, to be a part of fixing this problem, which is kids dying of starvation around the world.

Talk to me about the day or the story that you said, I think I'm going to do something different. I think I'm going to do this. What was that discernment or decision making like?

Wow. Glenn, I will tell you that the introduction to Feed My Starving Children came about in a unique way. I was running sales and marketing for Waste Management here in Minneapolis for the upper Midwest. And I got a call from my wife and she said, hey, there's this place over in Eagan which is a suburb here that has a pallet of bananas and they don't know what to do with them. And so they asked me to come get them. My wife was involved in helping some local charities and actually they had been. This organization had been directed by our church to give my wife a call. So I drove over there, and lo and behold, it was feed my starving Children. And I had never really been engaged or knew anything about them. And so I walked in and there was music playing. And there was. You saw in the video there. There was people in hair nets and they were packing food and they were having a blast. And I said, what are you guys doing? And they said, well, we're packing. Packing food that we send around the world to feed kids. And I'm like, wow, why are you doing that? And they told me, well, all these kids that die every single day, they need this special nutrition. I'll talk about that in a little bit. But I said, that's pretty cool. I said, well, I'm here for the bananas. And they're like, oh, thank goodness. We didn't know what to do with them. I'm like, well, why do you have bananas? And they said, well, that's kind of a funny story. You see, about nine months ago, we sent a truckload or a container full of food down to Honduras. They had had a hurricane come through and they were wiped out and they needed food. So we sent this down here. And today at the dock, the bell rang, and there was a truck that had a pallet of bananas and a thank you note from Honduras that said, thanks for helping us. Here you go. Well, they didn't really understand that they don't send perishable food around the world. So anyway, the long and short of it is that introduced me to feed my starving children. And it got me to where I started volunteering. I started bringing my business associates there, my family, other people. And it just caught fire because what they told me was we're able to take and put meals, these meals of vitamins, vegetables, soy and rice in these bags. And each meal costs less than a quarter. You're seeing bags of it there. That this is just amazing to me that that can be done so effectively and efficiently and cost w make a difference. And so it struck me and grabbed me and I just jumped in with both feet, Glenn. And here I am following the purpose.

I love it. And so I'm guessing that as you jumped in with both feet, they said to you, why don't you go and meet some of the people that we take care of? Talk to me about any mission work you did. What was it like getting off the plane in a third world country interacting with starving children? What was the profound effect that it had on you and what what was the attitude of these kids and what did you learn?

You know, the first thing I would tell you is that the thing that I really, really struck me and opened my eyes is that we're all the same, that we are people that have basic needs. And the care and concern and compassion that exists within communities is unreal. In places where maybe you go in with a preconceived notion, like, I feel sorry for them, I feel pity. That is something quickly to set aside because I would tell you, a mom in Haiti or Uganda or the Philippines or somewhere in Africa, that you think they have a love and care and concern for their kids just like we do here. And to see in many ways the joy that they experience. And when we're able to give them a hand up, not really a handout, that's something that we saw, that it really gave them some additional joy in their lives. We often say hope starts with food. And in many of these places where these kids have this just despair, they feel somewhat hopeless, like they feel forgotten or nobody cares or knows about us. When we show up through our partner network around the globe, we send food to over 70 countries. When we show up and we're able to give them these meals, it lets them know that somebody cares and that it's not that they're lacking. There's two things in our life that are scarce, time and money. And in their cultures, they put a lot more value on time and relationship. Money is not the primary driver. And sometimes I think we get that upside down. It doesn't mean you don't need to have money and you can't use money appropriately, but you just need to make sure there's some good balance there.

Yeah, no doubt. And so is there a story or a kid or a parent that touched you and made you go, wow, we're either doing great, or was there an attitude lesson that when you were out doing mission work that you know, and you know this as well as me, you can learn from a 4 year old just like you can learn from a 40 year old.

I tend to learn maybe a little more sometimes from those kids because the kids don't come in with all the bags. You know, they don't have a filter. They just kind of tell you how it is. And I would say that you probably know that from having kids and grandkids now that they just kind of say it like it is. And that's no different as you travel across the world, you know, they want the love and care and affection, I think, of a story Glenn, when down in Haiti. Haiti is the place that we send the most food to around the world. We'll send 370 million meals across the globe. So we feed a million people a day every single day across the globe. And Haiti is as close as they are to the US. They receive typically on any given year, 90 to 100 million meals because the level of need is so great. Poorest country in the western hemisphere. So I went to one of our partners down there that operates a malnutrition clinic. And it just so happened that I was there three times that year in a period of about three months increments. And I had been there right when two young boys came in, Mashallah and Michele. They were eight and nine year olds that came into this malnutrition clinic and they had been out. They were actually found by some villagers up in the mountains. They don't know how they necessarily really stumbled upon them or how long they'd been on their own. But these two boys, Glenn, they weighed 28 and 29 pound eight and nine year olds. You would think they were four and five year olds. But Mashallah and Michelet and I happened to be there about a week or so after they came in the first time. And so I was able to meet them and just see that they were very timid, shy, had been out there. They found out later that they had really kind of just been abandoned. And I want to pause there just for a second because that abandonment in a lot of these situations are where parents have to make a horrific choice because of the lack of resources. It's not that they don't care about these kids, but they have to make a determination which kid might stand the best chance. If I have five or six kids, which two or three can I feed? They have to make that kind of choice. And these two were maybe determined that they had the best chance of making it and so they were kind of cut loose, so to speak. I mean, that's horrible to think of, but that's kind of how things happen in a lot of places. It doesn't mean they don't care about these kids. It's just that they don't have access to help take care of them. So back to the story. Mashallah and Michele. I meet them for the first time. They're starting to just get food in their bellies. I mean, they had the big distended bellies, just looked terrible. I come back about three months later and I see him again. And now they're starting to get some Meat on their bones. And they're starting to interact with the other kids that are at this facility. And it was just great to see the progress. Come back again three months later and you would not know that these were the two same boys that had been there. And it was a matter of them getting the nutrition that was certainly paramount. They had each gained some weight. They started having a sparkle in their eye, and they were playing and running and laughing. And it was just a joy to be able to see the progress that I get to hear and see the stories like that around the world all the time. But these particular two boys, Mashallah and Michele, I got to see like, boom, boom, boom, which is not normal. I travel a lot and take people around the world to see some of the places that were making an impact. But that one was special because I got to see it. And ultimately they came to find that they found kind of a long lost ant. And Mashallah and Michele were able to be put back with their family, so to speak. Don't know where the parents necessarily ended up in the story and have lost track since then a couple years back. But that's the kind of thing, Glenn, that really got me was understanding that these kind of stories, that these are real people, these aren't imaginary things that were just in theory, in a textbook. This is a very practical thing that we can put food in the belly of a kid that's going to give them a fighting chance.

Tell me, so, like, how does that work? Like, are there campuses for all these starving children? So you fly in, you got all this food. Is it organized? Do you have to organize it? What you doing are. What's the whole logistics?

That's the amazing part. So Feed My Starving Children has been around for over 30 years, since 1987, where there was a gentleman who was from Minneapolis St. Paul who had been down in Central America and saw the very thing that kids were starving. So he came back and he started gathering up things like granola bars and cereal and things that were non perishable. And he sent them down to the Central American country and went back like I did a few months later and saw no progress, no change. And he was frustrated. And so he came back to Minneapolis and he happened to have some friends in the food industry. We have two little companies here, Cargill and General Mills, you may have heard of. He had friends that were food scientists. So he started talking to them and they said, well, here's the story. You're sending them calories and calories they can do so much. But it's not the same as nutrition. And you need to have a special formula. The vitamins, vegetables, soy and rice that are in these food bags is formulated such that the protein in the soy, the carbohydrates in the rice, the vegetables for some flavor and color. But the micronutrients in the vitamins and that micronutrients, supplements and vitamin mixture is critical to get into these kids, especially at a young age where they're in the growth stage, their cognitive development is happening. If you don't get that right, nutrition, if you just keep pumping calories, you're going to still have growth stunting, you're still going to have impairment in their brain development, you're going to have all of those kind of things that are just going to continue to be problematic throughout the rest of their life cycle. Some of that stuff's not reversible. So. So he worked with these scientists to come up with this formula. And that's what we still use a very similar rendition of it today that we send. So we partner with people, Primarily missionaries and NGOs, non government organizations in countries around the world. Each year they make a request to us about how many meals would they need for the programs that they serve. They're engaged and on the ground. We don't want to be the organization that flies in and just drops off food and says, see you later. We want people who are there, engaged and plugged in the local community to know exactly how the benefits of this is going to happen. And we do the food part, they do the part where they do the additional things with education and health care and all of the things that go into a holistic lifestyle to promote sustainability. Not just showing up and handing stuff out and feeling good about ourselves. That's not why we do this. We want to empower them, to empower the people there so that they can lift themselves up and give them a fighting chance. So that's how that's done.

So when you say you work with missions and NGOs, that's great. Obviously you've been a liaison, you've met them. Here's what I want to know. What missionary or what NGO executive that you met in person has affected you the most, impressed you the most, and, or, and then, you know, what was their attitude? So certainly you've worked with some amazing people. I want to hear about who you think, who you go, Glenn, let me tell you this person, unreal attitude.

Yeah, boy, Glenn, that is a long list. I'm inspired every single day. We actually through this pandemic, it's been pretty cool. Just like you and I are connected via the technology. What that has done to explode leaps and bounds across the globe. We do a weekly prayer time with guys and gals from across the globe where we gather together, hear the stories and the challenges that they're facing. But I think of some of the places that I travel to, and I've had the privilege, literally, it humbles me every single time that I get to go in and see these men and women who put themselves out on the front line. Gosh, I'll go down to Haiti to a guy I know down there that runs an organization called Sport Disciple. He was an executive with Lifetime Fitness, and he had gone on a mission trip shortly after the devastating earthquake that happened over a decade ago, killed over 200,000 Haitians in the blink of an eye. And he was down there with his church, doing some mission work, and really felt God calling him to step out. And he's moved his whole family down there, his kids. I've seen him grow up down there. And Barrett is his name. And he put together a program where he uses FMSC me, where they bring kids together, because kids one to what they love to play, they love to have a chance to interact. And there's not a lot of organized kind of things like that from the slums and areas that are in great need down there. But he saw that coming in and doing some things like soccer, which is tremendously popular. You see the kids playing it with whatever they can kick around over on a barren field of rocks and dirt. And so he came down and established some programs where he has over 1200 kids that participate in his programs, bringing some discipline and some just order to their lives and using the food, because these kids would come from miles away to walk to be a part of this program where they would have practice and then have games. And each day they would feed him a few meal, and often, Glenn, that was the only meal that they got. So they would come from miles away just because of that. And he built upon that. He shared his faith, certainly with the people. He developed coaches who then worked and just shared an attitude of positivity to these kids and in their communities. It raised up these young men and women who were then coaching and continues to do that to this day, using the meal as the foundation for providing hope. Like I say, hope starts with food and to see the kids progress. And they take it a step further because then they take them out into the community and have them do community service. Projects for a lot of the elderly and people in need. Because, like I say, in these places, there's not safety nets. So they'll go out and help with people that maybe have disabilities or have lack of weight to take care of themselves, and they'll go in and try and help them out in ways that they can. So it's just a really cool thing to see a guy like him, who was a captain of industry, so to speak, go down and sacrifice in that way to help make the world a better place.

Yeah, it's just. It's amazing. And I know that there's people listening, you know, that probably either feel empty or they feel like, you know what? What? I think there's more to this thing called life. And listening to this interview, listening to the stories of the two kids and the story of your friend down in Haiti is inspiring, and I think it will cause people to pause and think, if somebody wants to help feed my starving children, just go to feedmystarvingchildren.com would be my guess. And tell us the best way. If somebody's gonna. Going, I dig this. I want more. What's a great way for them to get involved? Number one, and do you have a couple big different fundraising events? If you want to talk about what your big events are, we'd love to know.

Yeah, so. So it's actually fmsc.org.

Okay.

Yeah. Fmsc.org as a nonprofit. We, We. We. We play in that space. And. And there's ways that you can donate. You can sign up. We, we. You can come and pack meals. So in Minneapolis, Chicago, Dallas, and Phoenix, we have facilities that you can come and do it, or we do mobile packing events. We'll do. On a normal year, we'll do over 300 events where we go out into the community, and the community signs up. They contract with us to come in and host a packing party, raise the money to help feed kids. I mentioned the fact that you can make your contribution, understand the value of making that donation. We feed a kid for less than a quarter. So $88 feeds a kid a meal a day for an entire year. And Feed My Starving Children is a model of efficiency and effectiveness. That's what really caught my eye. Over 90% of everything we touch goes right into our meals. Charity Navigator has rated us four stars for 16 years in a row, puts us in the top 1% of over 8,000 charities that they rate every single year. So to think about that, we're in the top 80 charities of anybody in the United States is pretty incredible. And over 99.8% of everything we pack and ship, it's one thing to produce it, but to get it to where it needs to go. And we're not talking about shipping it from Minneapolis to Indianapolis. We're sending it to the deepest, darkest places in the globe. To know that over 3 billion meals, 99.8% of them, have reached their destination. That's an important thing. So people can understand, as you're giving of your scarce resources of time and money, that they're being put to the highest use and impact to get these meals into the hands of those people. Because people like my friend down in Haiti are on the front lines sacrificing every day to get that food in their plates and in their belly. So we assure you your contributions in any way. And we covet people's prayers because I would be remiss. As a faith based organization, we have seen God's hand, certainly through this pandemic, but well beyond that, I've seen miracles upon miracles of places that there's a lot of humanitarian aid organizations that do some really good work. But we see some incredible things that we're right side by side and our stuff shows up and gets in through places that sometimes their bureaucratic process has it sitting in a warehouse somewhere. And so I will just tell you, I've seen it firsthand and it saves lives.

That's cool. I noticed the pack, it's called the mana pack. Who came up with that?

You know, that goes back well before my time. But there's no mana, there's no mistake. And many of these same people that we serve notice that. And they're familiar with the story of the Old Testament and manna from heaven. And they view it in just that way. They're like, why are you here? Why did you send this food? And we say, we're here. And don't get me wrong, we don't discriminate by any people who can come and pack these meals, who can participate with us. I have Muslim friends, Jewish friends, people of no faith that come because they see the good that's being done. But it's the heartbeat of who we are and the people that we give it to. It's not a requirement that it's being used. Like, we're going to give you this. If you listen to us about all these other issues about sharing the gospel or anything else, that's not a prerequisite. It's about showing the love of Christ, who, you know, I know, you know me, and that that's that's what we desire to do is to be that, be the hands and feet. And then have people say, and they've asked me, why are you doing this? And I love to tell them why is but that I'm not going to hold you to, hey, we're going to hold you hostage until you listen to what I have to say. We're here to help.

That's just so cool. I love what you do. I want to pick up on just one thing. You talked about local packing parties and you did 300 of them. Number one, are those as effective as the eight centers? Is there a goal instead of doing 300 to do 3,000? Because what I instantly thought and I think what most people maybe I should do a packing party. Can you just dive in a little bit about, hey, if you're somebody that's listening, if you're a gapper that wants to make a difference, if you're going to bridge the gap, here's how you do a local packing party. What are the quick logistics on that?

Yeah, so we want to make it efficient and effective. So it's got to be to scale. We call it pack and provide doing at the end of the day, all of these meals. And our ability to produce these meals is based upon how much can we fund. This year, for example, we want to raise over $50 million to be able to produce this food because we buy all the ingredients they're not given to us. We go out on the commodities market. We buy all the packaging. We have our employees who oversee and kind of facilitate the volunteers who come and experience this with us. But we pay for everything. We're not subsidized by the government. Government. And that gives us a lot of freedoms in doing that. But when you think about going out to a community to pack packed meals, what we ask is that they produce at least $25,000 in contributions to host a party. And then we'll pack starting at like 100,000 meals. And then it goes up. And the more meals that you provide, you can do the math. It's about use 25. And however many meals you want to be able to do, we can scale that up. And so the $25,000, whether you pack all those meals or not, that puts that money into the pipeline that allows us to put it to the best use, whether it's in one of our facilities. We've recently brought online packing with machines which have never been done before. The pandemic kind of forced our hand to be able to do that. And it's something that we found has had a great deal of a success. So we are really only lim buy how much money can we raise? And the line to feed more kids is out the door. So if we can't fund it, and this is the thing I would say to any of your gappers, if you've got a brilliant idea about something that has a great theory behind it, if you can't pay for it, it's wishful thinking. So at the end of the day, when we invite people and say, is this something that would move you and you want to make a difference, we would invite you to come consider how you might help feed my starving children. And if it's not not here, go help somewhere, you know, see beyond yourself. And that's what I would encourage people to do. So you can go to our website again, fmsc.org and we call them mobile packs. And you can click on there and learn about who we are. We've got people that would love to talk to you about what would be involved in you kind of being the champion for being able to pack food in your community to help feed these kids across the globe.

As an entrepreneur, I think small businesses are always looking for ways to make an impact in their community, but actually outside their community and in the world, this would be something that with enough creativity, enough energy, enough hope, passion and prayer, that this could really help a local entrepreneur do something. People are going, I don't know what to do when it comes, you know, attitude booster number 10, be a part of something bigger than yourself. There's all kinds of stuff, but so many people have trouble finding that.

Yeah, well, the beauty about our packing, Glenn, is that it engages at all levels. So you can be 5 years old or 105 years old, right? You can have. We have special needs groups, we put on hairnets, which even guys like me and you have to put on a hairnet. So. So we make it fun and it engages people. And I say it this way, Glenn, we want to activate people's hearts. And so if we only come in through their eyes and ears, it often gets stuck in their head. But when we come in through their hands, it seems to get the heart pumping. And so when you touch it and the fact that you can bring your family, your church, your school, your business associates, and there's no prerequisite, and when you put that hairnet on, the CEO and the janitor are on the same level, and so is their kindergarten grandson. And what you're doing is uniting to come together for a Common purpose. And people feel fulfillment in being able to do something because they often look at these big problems. And when I told you we feed a million people a day, how do we do that? That. One at a time. Yeah, we feed them one at a time. And that's the same way when you're. When you're looking out and thinking you have a small business or you want to make a difference in your community, what do you want to be known for? You can't just talk about it. So what are you doing that aligns with something that makes a difference? That's incredible. Has a high level of integrity and incredible amount of efficiency and impact. And that's where I say Feed My Starving Children is an example of the kind of organization to align.

I love it. So we're gonna go ahead. And I don't know if you've listened to any of our things, but you've done such a great job talking to us about Feed My Starving Children. And as we started off, you were a sales guy. You were out living life. You were living the American dream and doing the corporate stuff. And then, boom, you bridge this gap to do something, I think, with obviously more purpose, less. Less selfishness. And you've done a great job explaining of everything that Feed My Starving Children does. But I can't let you off the hook. We need to know a little bit more about Andy Carr, the person. And we do this with a technique or an interview technique I created called Knowledge through the Decades. And there's no wrong answer. We're heavily edited. So if you mess up, we can. Can do it. But this is fun, and this lets people know, number one, it helps them relate to you, and it helps them think about themselves. So what we do is. I asked you a question. What was your attitude lesson in each decade of your Life? You're not 60 yet, are you?

I'm brushing up there. I'm the same as your brother, Jude.

Right, right, right. And so, like, on the first question, I always ask people, what is the attitude lesson of a newborn baby? And my guess is you've probably been around. In your opinion, when you either witnessed a newborn baby in a mission or whatever, what was the attitude lesson that you think there is with a newborn?

I think, Glenn, the thing I would say is that life is precious and not to be taken for granted. And the attitude of don't take. Take this life and just think that there's got to be. There's more to life than just the moment. And it doesn't mean that you don't have the fulfillment and fun in the moments, but don't think or take for granted life.

Yeah. Very good. So now we're going to go to andy Carr. At 10 years old, you were probably third or fourth grade grade. Would love to know your attitude lesson when you were in third or fourth grade for our gappers.

Well, I know much like you, Glenn, I was blessed and I am fortunate that my dad is still around. But my dad was a role model for me and he preached attitude. I mean, I literally had a card in my room that said it's all about your attitude that he did. And one of the things that he gave me that's been a real cornerstone in my life as I look back when I was nine years old, he gave me John Wooden's book, the Pyramid of Success. And I still have that. I keep it right here on my desk and talking about and just some of the axioms that John Wooden. And it's funny how I've gone back to that over my life and I look back at that and I wouldn't say I've always done it the best, but as that 10 year old self, the fact my dad put that in my hands really was foundational for me in terms of understanding and just, yeah, it just was a true blessing to be able to have that.

Yeah, how cool for your dad to do that, number one. But cappers, here's a tip. If you're a parent, go buy John Wooden's book Pyramid of Success. You've just heard what that did for Andy. If you got kids, I'm just saying might be a book that you put in their hands, like tomorrow would probably be good. So then you become 20, you're out of high school and you're on the campus of iu, baby. And tell me the attitude lesson that you took from 20.

Well, as a young man, Glenn, you may recall I was a little bit of a, an outlier in the fact that after my freshman year at Indiana, and you've met her before is my wife Jenny. We got married when we were 19, which in today's world that's a very unusual thing. But I am so thankful she saved me from probably many ways of trails of ruin that I could have ventured down. We won't go into those details too much here, but the fact of the matter is I became a guy that saw the world as possibility and I was one that just went after it with vigor and gusto and I wanted to do everything at full speed. And so the fact that I got married, I Think was a little bit of for me, a need that adjusted my attitude to say I needed to take this thing called responsibility seriously. And so I, I still was having a great time as a young man, but all of a sudden realizing, hey, there's going to be more around the corner and I better start thinking about that. And so I was engaged in business at that point with my dad and ended up leaving IU at the end of my junior year and moving to Cincinnati because I had the opportunity to open up a branch of our business there. And then kind of things took off from there as I was 20 something. But responsibility became a real into focus as a young married guy.

Yeah, we share that common path, don't we?

Yes, we do.

I was married at the same age and never got through it as well. So this era of possibility and focus, as you said at 20, now all of a sudden you go, you look around and you go, Damn, I'm thinking 30. Do you remember where you were when you turned 30 and what was your attitude lesson when you hit 30?

Yeah. So 30, I was still in Cincinnati and now had kids. And my attitude lesson was this idea of responsibility wasn't just about paying the bills, but it was about, you better start thinking about how you conduct and carry yourself because you've got other mouths, not just a few, but to set an example for sure. And so that part of that continued growth in responsibility in marriage and in fatherhood and in business, I had then, by that time I had joined the corporate world and I was learning what it meant from going from being self employed into how to function in a corporate world and growing climbing a leadership ladder. So started from a sales position into a larger sales role, a sales management role on a local level, a sales management role on a more regional level and getting added responsibility. So those responsibilities just continue to build. And so I didn't do it right all the time for sure, but I also started to feel like where and how as these successes continued to happen, I just kept always feeling this, what else is there? But in my 30s I was definitely climbing the corporate ladder, having kids and then moving, made a move later in my 30s to the east Coast. Lived out in Boston for a couple of years so had to make some big decisions. So I had to pull the big boy pants up and say where do we go from here? And take some risk. And so the 30s were definitely some areas where the responsibility and risk happened. And I was blessed to have a wife that supported me and opportunity that came along with that.

That's Cool. So then we moved to 40 years old. Kids are getting older, responsibilities are mounting. Maybe you were in Boston at 40. When you think about turning 40. What's the attitude lesson there?

Yeah, actually, we had, by then, had come to Minneapolis, and the attitude lesson there was I had some success behind me and really trying to make some understanding of what kind of value creation was I going to be involved in. I really. I'm a big believer in providing and taking advantage of opportunity. And I was where I was starting to have some platforms where I could have influence. So I noticed that as that was happening, I was able to look out across and pour into some people. I would say that as I saw my kids, my faith life was certainly maturing and getting more real. Funny how that happens as you get older and you start thinking about what those things are. And I came to the realization, Glenn, that I can talk and think a lot about what I want to be and I can say a lot of things, but there's really two places that I can look at when I say that I have scarce resources of time and money. And you've got an ability to take an X ray of both of those things in your life. And one is look at your calendar and look at your checkbook, and you can think about all those things, about what you want to be, or you say that you are. But if you look at your calendar and you're saying, I want to devote more time to my kids and my family, and your calendar is crammed full of all the activities you're doing for work or whatever else and they're not a part of, then you're kidding yourselves. If you say you want to be generous with your dollars or your resources, and you look at your checkbook and there's no deductions for charitable contributions or helping somebody else, then you're kidding yourself. So you have tools that you can put into use today is to say, I'm going to block out this time. I'm going to carve out these dollars to do what I say I'm going to do. And you can kid yourself all day long, but you can't look at the pa and they ain't gonna lie to you.

The scoreboard of life, my man. Very good.

Got it.

Yeah, that's good. Good stuff. That's a bomb dropper. Gappers. Go look at your checkbook and your schedule. Great. Great tip. So now you turn 50, right? We're all there and we're going, oh, My God, I'm 50. And just, you know, a few Short years ago, I guess it would be eight years ago, right? Or seven years ago. And so. So talk to me about where you were at 50 and what happened.

That's the place, Glenn, that I say I realize some of the ways the world wants to kind of manipulate us. I say it this way, that often from a faith perspective, that Satan lulls us to sleep in our abundance. And so we grow comfortable and judgmental, and we think that it's because of us that we've achieved all this stuff and we have to put forth the effort and take advantage of the opportunities as they're presented. But make no mistake, I came to that understanding that there was a lot of things that I had chased in life that were fun. And I had a lot of fun. I've been very blessed in what I've gotten to do, the places I've gotten to go, the people I've gotten to meet. And a lot of it was a lot of fun. But I found that there was a different element that really resonated more with me, me, which is joy. And so what I would tell people at 50, I found was that when I experienced joy, it was like it was an elixir that I never wanted to let go of or I couldn't get enough of. Don't get me wrong. You can have joy that is fun. But oftentimes, if the pursuit of fun is just for fun's sake, it's fleeting, and it oftentimes leaves you. You empty. And so it's back to those kind of calories versus nutrition that I talked about earlier. Fun is the calories, fun is the junk food. Fun is the ice cream. But joy is the fact that you have something that really gets your heart beating, it gets your pulse going, and it's something that you want more and more and more in a way that has lasting impact. And so I just encourage people, as you're in that stage of life is find what joy is and don't listen to the world's definition that wants to overlay it as fun. And when you find that joy and that passion, grab onto it and run after it and trust it. That's what your purpose is, where you find joy. And it may be in being a painter, it may be in fixing trucks, it may be in taking care of your grandkids. I don't know. But in my case, it was the fact that. That I saw the opportunity to use the skills that I had attained and that God had given me over my life to put to use for a higher purpose, to Help make a difference for a bigger stage and so find your joy. That's what I would say.

That's awesome. Tell me what is that behind you? It says be still and know that I am God.

Psalm 46:10.

I love it. I love it.

That was something that I can say from my faith that I felt God. God spoke directly into my life at a time where with all the responsibility of running, you know, multimillion dollar international organization, that was very overwhelming at times that, that, that I just needed to hear that. And it's something that has just stuck with me. That's actually a piece of Haitian, Haitian art. They take 55 gallon drums and hand chisel those. We sell that stuff on our website through female starving. We want to provide jobs in these communities and so we have a whole marketplace that people can go on and buy. You can see some mugs back there in my background, we have a whole array of stuff that we get from all over the world and we use those proceeds to continue to produce more meals. But that particular verse is one that really resonates and it's a life verse for me because I need to remember to be still. It's not always about chasing harder, faster. It's also about thinking about meaning and purpose. And I got to stop and be still to kind of figure that out.

And I hope all of our gappers take time after they've listened to Andy walk through a life well lived from his message right of birth and life is precious. And talking about the pyramid of success going into his twenties, the thought and attitude of possibilities, possibility going into his 30s, talking about how to conduct and carry the attitude of how to conduct and carry yourself into his 40s about value. What value am I giving? Not only to myself, to my family, to the world. And then his last message of finding joy. So what a great knowledge through the decades. Andy, I think the inappropriate way. I always love to ask our guests to give our gappers your thoughts on number one attitude, your thought on hope. And it might be appropriate and I'm cool with this if you wanted after you say that, just to maybe end in a prayer so our gappers can maybe bow their head and just be with us. Be still and we'll conclude the gap.

Well, Glenn, I just genuinely thank you for the opportunity. Like I said, if we would looked back at a couple of young guys back in our teens and early years to say that we would be having this conversation now, I think both of us would have looked at each other like we were crazy. But I think that's exactly what I hope the gappers hear and understand that you, too, can make a difference, to take each day and take it to heart and look at what you can do. And it's not all of a sudden an immediate transition. In many ways, it's taken that first step to learn and to grow. And no matter where you're at in chronological age, it is about attitude. And I love the fact that you focus on attitude. I like to say a John Wooden saying that's near and dear to me is, don't mistake activity for achievement. And so if you're just out there chasing after things with a bunch of activity, activity, stop and look at what is it that you're really achieving. And I point you back to that joy that I spoke of, that I really encourage you to find that joy. Don't let the world try and put you in a box. Find your joy and really go after it. And, Glenn, the fact that we live in a country that has this opportunity, I travel the world, and I know that there are people that would literally die for having those kind of opportunities. So especially to the audience, that's probably the ones that are listening to this. Don't take that for granted. Don't be disillusioned that this is the way it is all over the world. It's not. We are living in a bubble, so to speak, compared to what the rest of the world, the 8 billion people around the globe are facing. I'll give you a little statistic. If you own a car, you're in the top 2% of the world's wealth. To put that in perspective, when I'm talking about the people that we serve, they're people that live on less than $2 a day. Okay? That's what a lot of the world has happening out there. So to that end, just think about what can I do to help somebody else. And if you're in need of help, don't be afraid to ask for it. Look for those opportunities to help and to be helped and to grow. So that's what I would say, Glenn. And if you give me that opportunity, I love to pray for people. It's been foundational in my life, and I would love to do that if that's okay.

Yeah. Please pray with us and pray with our gappers. Gappers. A first time, a prayer from the great Andy Carr.

Well, Father God, I thank you, thank you for the opportunity that you have given us with this precious gift of life that you breathed into each one of us and that each one of us is a precious child of yours that you know by name, God, and you know that the gifts and talents that you've given to each of us. And I just pray that attitudes, Lord, would just grow in positivity and in ways that is going to inspire people to look at this world for the good news and the hope that's out there. Don't be disillusioned by the bad news and all the despair, but there's things that we can do about it. I thank you for what you've done in my life and in Glenn's life, Lord, as we've traveled this road that you brought us down. And I just pray that each one of us would live to the fullness that you've created us to be. And for all these kids around the world that need food, help us to reach them. And I ask that in Jesus name, Amen.

Amen. Amen. All right, the one and only Andy Carr with the fantastic organization Feed My Starving Children. Go to folks fmsc.org buy stuff, volunteer, pour your heart out. Learn more. And Andy, thank you so much for sharing with us the the goodness of Feed My Starving Children. This is Glenn Bill signing off for the G. This podcast is a part of the C Suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c suiteradio.com.