17 Runs: Living Life Without Limits (A Conversation with Garnet Morris and Joe Polish)

I was a hotel tycoon in my 20s. I was a millionaire by 28, and I was bankrupt at 40. And at one time I think I had 12 or 13 hotels. So I was a wizard buying them and had no idea how to run them. So every hotel I bought actually made me lose money faster. So I had to stand in front of a judge and go bankrupt and tell them all about my stupidity. So a little, a little embarrassing. So I learned a lot about humility and I learned a lot about knowing what you're good at because that's, that's a tough one. So at 40, I'm back at zero. But I didn't make the same mistake the next time through. So I didn't do stuff that I wasn't good at. And I started to recognize when I was not good at something to stop doing it. I'm very, very aware of that in my life all of the time.

How can you be a domino for someone else? The Joe Polish Show Any problem in the world can be solved with the right genius Network Originally hailing from the prairies of Saskatchewan, Garnett Morris graduated high school in 1972. To give context, I was born in 1968, embarking on a journey marked by entrepreneurship and financial acumen. His career began at the bank of Commerce where He worked from 1972 to 1976, and gaining valuable experience in the banking sector. In 1975, Garnett ventured into business ownership by purchasing a hotel showcasing his early entrepreneurial spirit. Two years later, he sold the hotel and transitioned into selling commercial real estate for six months before assuming the role of CEO at a credit union With a specialty in commercial lending. Garnett spent the next five years leading the credit union to success. After his tenure at the credit union, Garnett returned to the hotel business for another five years, further honing his business management skills and industry expertise. By 1985, Garnett had entered the insurance industry where he excelled in sales and entrepreneurship. Building on his success, his successes, Garnett built and sold three insurance agencies of various sizes, demonstrating his ability to thrive in dynamic markets and create value through strategic business ventures. In 2020, Garnett founded a life insurance company in Barbados, a testament to his entrepreneurial drive and vision in the financial sector. Service sector. Alongside the venture, Garnett established Grasslands Finance Corp. Which has flourished under his leadership, offering innovative solutions and driving growth for its clients. Additionally, Garnett is the founder of Health Code Medical, a preeminent diagnostic medical clinic in North America. Health Code Medical stands as a testament to Garnett's commitment to innovation and excellence in healthcare. In addition to his role in finance, entrepreneurship and healthcare, Garnett is an active investor in 15 or more private entities through his family office. Leveraging his financial expertise and strategic insights to support innovative ventures outside the world of entrepreneurship and finance, Garnett finds inspiration in advising marketing companies and exploring the latest trends in the industry. Garnett is also an avid philanthropist, donating to various charities that he's passionate about, including Genius Recovery. He's been huge in that. Thank you, sir. And so he's married with four children. Garnett cherishes family time and enjoys pursuing his avid car collecting hobby. And I'll let you guess what his favorite car is. So give it up for my friend, Garnett Morris. What is up?

Just so you know, my EA wrote that.

Really?

That's not anything about.

Well, I'm going to ask you how. Which do you prefer? Aside, I'm left handed. Here you go. If you want.

If you.

So basically, how would you describe what you do for a living? Because it's quite a. Or who you even are.

I told my kids I was a drug dealer because that just stops the conversation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean I, I'm, I'm innately curious. I'm not a drug dealer. I've just made that up. And I'm actually introverted. It's not going to sound like that, but Joe threatened me. So I mean, I guess I'm really curious and I have a philosophy around my curiosity. So I'm a baby boomer born in 1954 and we're all lemmings. So if you actually stand back, we all do the same shit, just in a little different order. So I'm only doing what everybody else is either doing or thinking about doing. So I was in financial services, figured out how to eliminate estate tax for business owners in Canada. So we did great. Now we work in the U.S. we have other things, but, but everybody's starting to get old and run down. So I got a health clinic, but I wanted to have preventative health clinics. So I could not only fix what was broken, but I could catch what's starting to break. And so we made sure we're the best at it everywhere. So we don't always think we can fix it, but we're positive we can find it, whether it's stage one cancer, whether it's. So everything is driven by my curiosity and then I'm lucky. So I guess that's kind of the rest of it.

And money. Yes.

Yeah. Well, I. I mean, I'm really. So I actually have a philosophy around money, and that I've had ever since I got out of school. I. I always believe I can make more than I can spend. So I'm not. I'm not kidding. I mean, I wake up, you're saying, well, whatever. So I have 22 Porsches. So I didn't. They didn't fall out of a tree. I didn't find a Porsche. I just could make more than it cost to buy 22 Porsches. Now I don't have time to drive them. So they're all sitting in a garage in the United States. But whatever. I'm not that clever.

I just said, so, Shirley, your wife just showed up. What do you think of her?

Well, I. This. So I went through a marriage, was married 30 years. Marriage basically fell apart because she wanted to stop and. And I wanted to keep going. And that's a really candid thing. There was nothing more, absolutely nothing to talk about anymore, because she just won. So I met Shirley, and I can tell you that my net worth in the 10 years we've been married went up more than. More than 10 times. And the number is a staggering number. And that's the difference between having a partner on the same page in life as you and a partner who's not as simple as that. I mean, and then we have the same values. And so to give you a little bit. It's not in the book, but whatever. So when Shirley and I met, because we both were divorced, we decided the first thing we better do is get marriage counseling, because we figured we were both, you know, just. We didn't actually know how to run a marriage because we both blew up one or blew up. So we went to marriage counseling to start. Yeah.

How quickly into the relationship did you do marriage counseling?

Well, just right at the beginning.

Okay. Whose idea was.

I kind of brought it up, and she agreed. And then I picked the counselor. And so I went through the phone book, looked at the pictures, and. And the counselor. The marriage counselor I picked was the one that she'd gone to, and I didn't even know.

Wow. It kind of sounds like a setup.

Well, so by the end of it, we were counseling him.

Okay.

Because he was saying, well, I'm dating this young girl. I said, well, you're an idiot, you know, and whatever.

Well, you know. You know, what's funny about that, though, is. So I think that's probably a role that you play in your life. Constantly helping and coaching and mentoring People, even your book. So let me. Yeah, I'll just show, like, because it's not physically out yet.

When.

When will the book be out?

So it's. It's done. And anybody that wants a PDF of it after this, just give me your email address and I'll flip it to you. We were not very good at writing books yet, so the book is ready, but we sort of hadn't sorted out all the social media stuff, and we started talking to advisors on publishing, and we find out that we're total morons. And so they said, well, you better hold off for three or four more months and get this part organized. Because I just thought, well, I'd write the book and I'll give it to all my friends and I'll give it to, you know, penitentiaries or anybody that believes it would help and give it to school. I don't really care. But, you know what said, well, you know, like. Yeah.

Well, I want to show you this. So it's called 17 runs. So I've. I've gone through it twice. I read the whole thing, and then I listened to it on audio. So I use an app where you can upload a PDF and it reads it to you.

Right.

So the way that I do. So the first few ones I did on my Kindle, I read the PD and then I highlighted. Then I was like, oh, this is. I, like, re. So what I did is I go. I go through books and I highlight all the key areas, and I started doing edits and looking at all the different things that you talk about and. And explain what 17 runs means.

So it's. So I was newly separated, and I needed a new personal trainer because at my peak. I call my. I guess my peak weight or whatever, at 40, I was 330 or 340 pounds. I sent Eunice a picture. I looked like a hell's angel at 40.

Do we have that picture? We should, if we have that picture, show Garnett at. What was your top weight?

Well, I stopped weighing at 320.

320?

Yeah. Because it's not healthy to weigh after 320 because you have to lift your feet up off the ground.

Right.

So. So I don't know. I. I topped out there at a pretty big number. And so I went through a transformation. So. And. And. And so that part of the book is my transformation. But I met Olivia, and she was a personal trainer, and she took me on as a. As a client when I was a little bit, you know, working crazy hours. So I Wasn't always that, you know, I might end up not getting back from Toronto or whatever. So she did. And we had a really interesting relationship. And it was interesting right from the beginning. And when we got to know each other and we got to know each other's stories, what we found out was we had had a parallel life, but she was in England and she was two decades younger than me. She was sexually abused as a child or she abandoned by her, you know, all of the things that, you know, you could use as a reason why. And so that was why we just had this affinity. So we had these phenomenal conversations while she was training me and running weights and they were, they were deep. And so these 17 runs as a metaphor for the year and some that we trained together probably, you know, probably 150 times. So this is kind of the summary of our discussions and our things. Yeah.

And so. And what's interesting is, so I met Olivia when I was at your surprise.

Birthday party, which was a surprise.

Yeah. Which is kind of cool. It just happened to coincide in a way that I could make it to Vancouver and show up there. So me and Cherie showed up and that was cool. Met Olivia. And so the book is based on lessons and, and life and insights. So I have some questions, but what I. The different things is breaking limiting beliefs, resilience and overcoming hardship, dreams and visualization, good habits and replacing bad ones. These are what I've taken. So I've got quite. Dealing with discomfort, generosity as a success principle, core values, building emotional connections, mentorship and teaching. And then, you know, your legacy. So one of the things. So I just want to ask you some questions related to this and have you explain the concepts because I think they'll be really valuable for everyone here. So you talk about the concepts of bricks in the very first chapter. And so those mental barriers, we carry us. So what. What is. What was the hardest brick for you to remove in your life and how did you approach dismantling it? So first explain what bricks are and then how you identified that, how you change that.

So we, we all have bricks, every one of us. It's the thing that keeps us from doing the next great thing that we have the capability to do, but we won't. So then we make up a story about it. Well, you know, I'm comfortable. No, you're actually not. You've got a brick on your head and you're. You just don't want to do what it takes to move it. So I'm 70. I am still full on in entrepreneurship, probably at the highest and most successful level of my life. Now, most of the people my age are playing pickleball. That's the truth. Right. And pissing off all the people that play tennis. So. So I don't do that. Like. So that brick is. Is the single most important thing. So I. I learned to move the brick from two different people. One was a consultant from Montreal who used to be the senior vice president, Willie Fournier, I mentioned in the book. The other one was Dan Sullivan. And when I started strategic coach at 40, and I've been in it, I'm still in it, we had to do at that time a list of all of the things that are in your life that were keeping you from being successful. So I didn't call it a brick. I just had this list of all these things that I was doing wrong that were keeping me from being successful. And then he made you make a chart every quarter. What are you going to do? Do you each one of these things to get rid of them? So weight was a big thing. Health was a big thing. I smoke. Those are all big things. So made a list, started doing well. That was starting to move the brick.

When did you and Mike, did you find that picture? Yeah, so I. I mean, we might as well show you what. Because you mentioned the word transformation, and you also mentioned that you have the capability to do it, but you're not doing it. So that's. How old were you at this picture right here?

That's. That was the. So I. My birthday is October 30th. That was the winter after I turned 40. And just so you know, that's in Lake Louise. It's a great hotel, and they let fat people in.

So you were. You were an addict.

Yeah, I was an addict. I mean, an addiction. I smoked and I ate anything. Yeah, well, everything. Actually, not anything.

Should. Good thing he was never on Fairfax.

Just so you're clear, I have a sister who's an addict who's been on disability because of addictions. My mother was an addict. Like, it's deep in my family.

Yeah, it's a lot of pain.

Yeah.

And it makes sense, looking at your childhood and everything. You had a lot of. A lot of abuse. So throughout the book, you and Olivia discuss how embracing discomfort is crucial for growth. So can you share a specific moment when discomfort led to a major breakthrough in both your life and in your business?

I think the easiest one to understand is that picture and the epiphany I had. I was walking the length of Pearson Airport In Toronto, I had to go to a meeting. My flight was late. I had a briefcase and I'm sweating like a pig. And it just hit me that this is not good, this is not good. So I went to a doctor when I got home and these are a series of things that happened and I can tell you when they happened. They were shocking. She said, well Garnet, I'll tell you what to do. She said, but don't expect me to be your mother. Exactly. Said that I was humiliating. So she sent me to a sports psychologist. So that's where I learned about self defeating behavior. What keeps an athlete from being great? This. They defeat themselves. What keeps a salesperson from being great? This. The brick. So we spent the first six months of weight loss and actually learning why I was fat. And then from there to a dietitian, from there to a trainer. So by the time I was in 42, I was working out with the trainer. Nothing was happening because this brick thing still would not let me be uncomfortable. So I'd do like 10 pound barbell curls thinking this is going to be like one day I'm going to look like Joe, like hot, like £10.

I need to put on more, I need to put on more sizes.

Yeah. Anyway, but that's, but that stuff. So all of this is looking back retrospectively. So when you know. But it was just one little thing after another little thing after another little thing that started to pile on on the good side, not the ledger.

You know, the word disgust. Were you ever or a lot were you disgusted with yourself at times?

Like did I get up in the morning, look in the mirror and say, geez, you're a big fat pig. Yes. Yeah.

No, the reason I say is, is because I often think a lot of the motivators for action, if you want to call it motivators or just the. That time where you're just like I'm done. Often is not a positive inspired thing. It's as you just get disgusted. And I think disgust is a useful sort of place to be in if you do something positive with it. Because when people are discussing and keep making it worse and worse and worse or it takes over, then it, it's, you know, but it, but disgust can actually be a huge catalyst.

Well, I, I told you I was lucky. And so here's what was lucky. I got disgusted about this in a big way about the same time I started meeting really, really interesting people. So people who would say yes, you're disgusted, but get on with it, make changes, do this thing do this thing. Do this thing. My rest of my family, not so lucky. I was sick when I was a kid. I spent a lot of time in hospital. So I actually had met good people even at a young age. My family, not so lucky. So when I look at it and saying, well, in everything in your life that's not good say, but I can change it. I already have done all of these things where I've changed these things in the past. You know, I wasn't so good at math. I got through math. I wasn't. So disgust can be a tremendous motivator as long as you know people around you that give you the hope that that's just where you are at this time. But it doesn't have to be.

Well, and I know that's your, one of your, your desires and motivations with writing this book is to, is to create that, that sort of inspiration in Roadmap. And of course you had Olivia as a trainer. And you're a person that is always now Garnett is massively successful. So I probably should have asked you more about this in the beginning. So talk about just your life insurance company because you, you're beyond many companies. Like how, how big is this, is this company? Because I met your partner, your ex, the guy that your first company that you started, you sold it to him. You guys are still friends. And I believe between your current company and him, you guys sell 50% of all life insurance in the entire country of Canada.

Yep.

I mean, that is.

And my new company sells way more than his company, but that's his competition. And actually I'm actually buying out his partner.

Really?

And we're going to put Humpty Dumpty together again.

Wow, that's a trip.

Well, might as well have a monopoly because that's the Canadian way. Yeah.

So, I mean, to. So how many people work within your organization in order to do this?

So this is going to be embarrassing. So I think in the new company that we started, I think our commission revenue this year will be over 200 million and we have one agent and 12 support staff. That's the insurance business. Like, it's a terrible business. I mean, I, I mean, you people don't even want to talk to you at cocktail parties because you say, what do you do? Ask Mom.

And insurance, they say, well, so what, what's your advice on people that have to sell? Because you've made your living presenting and selling and finding what people want and presenting it in a way to where they get it and selling something that most people don't consider very exciting. But you're, you've obviously built a company that's heavily effective at selling.

Well, I'm. So when you, when you look at the insurance industry, everybody talks about it about this time in the future and so they're trying to give you a win for this time in the future. And so we won't actually sell you anything if it doesn't make you money today. So in Canada we have estate tax just like you do in America. So we figured out how to use the accounting techniques of insurance to eliminate estate tax, not to pay it because that seems like stupid. You know, I'm going to sell you an insurance policy so the government gets their money on time. I'm going to sell you an insurance policy so the government doesn't get the money. Simple. Just a change in dynamics. Seems simple, but nobody else was doing it. And so we lined up all the tax firms and the CA firms and we're just getting referral after referral after referral. Turns out Canadians don't like paying tax when they die.

Yeah. So you reframed it. You came up with a different model. You found all the networks of people that could endorse and refer you and you have a amazing business that's not insanely self heavy.

We figured out something in the US that Americans like football coaches better than doctors. It's true. Found this great article sent to me by a tax lawyer. So we started phoning state governments and saying we have a program that universities use to keep football coaches that you can use to keep doctors. So now we're working through. We hired a national CA firm so they can give the state government's advice on how to use football coach lingo and technology to keep doctors from leaving the state. We were doing it in Canada too, but it's more fun talking about it in the states because it's so funny because I'm Canadian, right. I'm going to come down here and solve your healthcare problems and I'm not even going to get a MAGA T shirt because I can't vote. It really sucks.

Yeah, that's funny. Well, isn't Canada becoming a state?

I couldn't even vote.

Canada is going to become the 52nd state.

Well, there's a great YouTube video that I can't. I got to tell you about my home province because this guy was hilarious. It was a message from this Canadian guy to Trump says, don't waste your time taking over Canada. Let me just go through every province and tell you what's going on. So he says, Saskatchewan, he says, you're not even going to find anybody to shoot there unless there's a football game. Then they're all together in one place. But other than that, that's eight times a year.

You.

You won't find anybody. It's just empty.

That's funny.

Says you go to Alberta, the trucks are bigger than your tanks. Forget about it. Like somebody's going to run over you. And so he went through every prop and it was just hilarious. Like, why are you going to drive your tanks in Ontario? Traffic's so horrible, you'll never find a place to park. You won't even get into the city. And you go to Winnipeg, someone's just going to stab you. And on and on and on, right across the country. It's just hilarious.

Yeah, no, it's, well. So doing business in Canada versus America, what's the similarities and what's the difference?

So the best way to describe it, if you go to somebody in Canada, they say, who else is doing it? If you go to somebody in America, it's how soon can we do it? There's a reason that your GDP per person over the last 10 or 15 years has grown by about 40% more than in Canada. So, I mean, I. As much as you look at the rhetoric on the news and blah, blah, blah, I can tell you the spirit in America is noticeably different. Wow.

Interesting.

Yeah. I mean, it's me. I mean, it's not all roses anywhere, but the spirit of America, the spirit of American entrepreneurship is what is going to drive the world. It's not in Europe. It's not. I mean, we have entrepreneurs in Canada, but not the same. I mean, you got. Brian's a friend of mine here. We're both old dogs.

And.

And hey, we're going back to war again, like, because we can. Because, well, he hates pickleball too. At least he told me he did. But wow.

Well, let me. Let me ask you about. Okay, so you describe how generosity has played a huge role in your journey. And from knowing you, you're an extremely generous human. What does generosity look like to you beyond material giving? And how is it changed your relationships?

So if it was not for generous people, I'd still be stuck. So I look at people who took an interest in me and would share. So, I mean, Willie Fournier, back in my life again because we bought part of a company and he's a very, very significant consultant of First Nations. First nations have a nutrition problem. It's a lack of education. They have access to the same grocery stores. So I wanted to get him to help me give this app to First Nations. And it's like, this is the guy who taught me about values. When he came to our company, we spent the first three or four sessions working on values and mission. And so he's still being generous because I said, I need your help. I really want to be able to go back. He says, well, I. These people that you knew, when we're working with first nations, getting benefits to aboriginal teachers and things like that, they're still there and they're still doing it, so we're going to go back in and kind of do that. So he was the first teacher. And then he said, well, Garnet, it wasn't just me. You're going to strategic coach then, too. And it was Dan Sullivan. And so Dan Sullivan has always been generous with me more because I think he felt really sorry for me. Like, like this, like this guy made it all the way to Calgary with his driving record and like.

Right, right. Well, you know the interesting thing about Dan. So I used to have this business card that said, and I really got it from Gary Halbert. So I would sit around with Gary Halbert, who is a copywriter that I originally learned marketing from. And you either loved or hated this because he. It's like, you're either on. If you're on his bad side, you would not want to be on Gary's bad side. So I had a business card that said, an obnoxious marketing genius that knows how to make true entrepreneurs lots of money real fast. And Dan Sullivan looked at this card early on and he's like, you know, I don't find you to be obnoxious. So I had this sort of shtick that I, Because I had long hair in a ponytail, I wanted to become a millionaire, you know, before the age of 30, which I did. And I wanted to look however I wanted because when I first was getting jobs, they would always, like, make me cut my hair in order to have a job delivering pizza and all these different things that I was doing. And I, for some reason, it just really bothered me that someone was telling me, you know, cut your hair. And so I, you know, I had this whole shtick about, oh, an obnoxious marketing genius and this sort of positioning. And I was learning marketing from people that truly were kind of obnoxious. And Daniel said, no, I don't see you that way. And he helped me reframe stuff. But the point is, is Dan has this interesting ability to see talents and skills that are unrefined in people, like a, like a diamond that's not yet polished. But he sees that unique ability. That's where his notion of unique ability, that everyone has the unique ability. And if you can find what that unique ability is and spend your time on that versus the things that you're no good at, you know, because they'll say, if you spend your life strengthening what you're weak at, at the end of your life, you're going to have a lot of really strong weak. And so I think I never had anyone that I can remember that was a human that I could point to, that was that encouragement to me. So I found mentors and inspiration in books. So that's why I think I became an avid reader because I didn't really have family members or people that encouraged me. So I had horrible self confidence, horrible self image. You know, I, you know, I just, I was scared, I was shy. I mean, like, I never looked at the world as a safe place. And so it's, it's interesting how one person can have such a. You know, I call it a domino, which is funny because Daryl sutherland back here, 3D, printed that domino form. We always put it up here because there's always a person or a situation that could be this domino in your life. And you had a lot of dominoes. And what's interesting is I almost want to get a brick and a domino and put them next to get to each other because it's like, okay, what's the brick that, the self imposed limitation that we create a narrative around? And what's the domino that's actually you going to change that? So I think with, you know, 17 runs, you're, you're really becoming that inspiration, but you're telling the story and I think, I just think it's really cool what you're doing here. So let's talk about Olivia for a minute. So the, so Dan Sullivan was really instrumental to you. So you, you hire Olivia as a personal trainer. That's a central theme of the book. And then how did this partnership change your perspective on both a personal and professional relationship? Because for some reason, Olivia, I guess in the book you were referred to her from a trainer that said you're canceling. Yeah, you're canceling your training appointments all the time. And like, I always paid though.

I just didn't show up. Yeah.

Which is funny. So, so again, I think you found this alignment with, with Olivia and what ended up happening?

Well, I mean, the, the I've shared this book with A lot of friends. Everybody here's my friend. If you want a copy, a PDF, you can have it today. Because I actually think the most important part of the book that is is, is is around family. And I mean, I started watching Jordan Peterson because of him and he just had a little short thing on family and said the family you're with now is far more important than the family you're born with. And when you look at everything in my life that's great, it's because I accumulated this family. So Dan Sullivan's kind of like a family. I go to an event, he always wants to sit and talk. Could find out the fact that he's shocked that I'm still alive because I think the year I joined Coach, I had 23 speeding tickets because I got mixed up about what it said on my license. It said tear along dotted line and just confusing, but whatever.

So that's why you had to make a lot of money. You kept getting all these damn speedy tickets and stuff.

So, I mean, the government of Saskatchewan allowed me to hire a student for a while to drive me around. It's kind of interesting. But, but the thing about family is this. You hear all these business things. You know, if you fly with eagles, you'll be an eagle. If you run with chickens, you'll be a chicken. All those things that really is about family. So you look at Genius Network and it's family. But when you're here, there's different levels. So find the people that make you the most uncomfortable and the people that jar you a little bit. So I mean, at last, a strategic coach sitting with a guy that sells insurance in Dubai. It's kind of jarring. Make eight sales a year. So jarring. I mean, you're learning a different culture, you're learning a different thing. Find people that jar you. Yeah, so, and, and make them your family. So you're always moving up the size of the eagles you're flying with. And I'll tell you just to give you an example of how I do that. So I'm 70, I'm now hanging out with 40 year olds because they know all the stuff that I don't know. And there's a lot of scary things that they know that I believe I need to know. So they are becoming like family and so they appreciate me because they know what ADHD looks like after 30 or 40 years of the drugs. So I think it's kind of cool. But I'm learning about AI and quantum computing and UFOs and all kinds of these from mathematicians and guys that would never ever be part of my system or where I'd hang out.

So we're going to do another session on US UFOs, just because I don't want that to just be a thing you say in passing. I want to know.

They all come from Alberta. You didn't even see that video. They all come from Alberta.

Really? Really.

Wow. Yeah, because the Saskatchewan sold it to him 35 years ago.

That's awesome.

Yeah. Oh, learn to think. Yeah. Another brick.

Exactly. Yeah. No, that's great. So you're really good at setting goals. You talk a lot about. So what?

Because I got sidetracked, so I went. I had hired a consultant to help our family office. So we surely each brought two kids into our marriage and we wanted to make sure that they learned to be siblings. So I did not want a situation. Sure did not want a situation where we had rivalries between the kids. We hired a person from Salt Lake City by the name of Rich Christensen, who was unbelievable. And the first thing he said is, is your family really your family? A family member is someone who would take a bullet for you. So when you go back and if you read the book, you see the history of, you know, Olivia's son who had heart disease, heart failure, all those things I saw in him a little me from when I was young. And so I took responsibility for him in a way. And then we had another person beside him. And Olivia had been my ea for since she was 18. She's now 38. And so we asked them if they would like to be our kids, Shirley and I together, basically our kids. And they are not our kids in law, but they're our kids financially. They're in our trust, just like our kids because they're our family. And we continue to expand that. And so Olivia is like a daughter, so she looks at me as her de facto father. It's not a weird relationship. It's kind of nice. She just. That's what I always wanted in life, someone I could talk to, someone who wouldn't always judge me. Something like that. So I think we have an obligation to, especially in today's time when there's so many mixed up kids, to actually expand our view of what a family is and actually reach out a bit. But on using those criteria, if they won't do something, if they wouldn't stand away. So, Lisa. So I had Harley Davidson because it was part of growing up, and I asked her if she could ride it out of the garage so that the Harley Davidson dealer Come pick it up. Well, I forgot to tell her how to decompress the engine so she couldn't start it. So she pushed it up two floors of a parkade to get it outside so they could come and pick it up.

Wow.

Then she took a bullet for me. She wasn't going to let me down, so she pushed the standby. And I never knew about it. And until she said that they fixed the problem with getting your bike started. But that's family like. Just think about that. Just think of this young girl, worked for me, my ea. I asked her to do something, not letting me down. And she still doesn't. She still phones. Well, she, she. When she acts as my ea, she says, I didn't set up that appointment. I thought you were already too busy. Okay, well, that's my daughter.

Yeah, well, you know, also like the relationship with Olivia, from the outside, most people would not quite understand it, but you ended up building rapport with her, and that has to do with values. I was going to ask you about goals, but I'll come back to that. So what are your. So you have a process in the book on identifying goals, and you ask people to. You have a whole list of different values to go and pick the ones and then them, which I think is a really cool exercise. What are your key values?

So one is. And you can change your values. I don't believe that the values you're born with. So my number one is honesty and integrity. And those are very, very hard in my world. So if you're not honest, I'm not going to have anything to do with you. And if you not operate with integrity. So I mean. And integrity is not lying. So I have a really interesting thing about lying. So when I was hired by London Life, one of the questions on the aptitude test is, have you ever lied? They had yes, no, and maybe. So I answered maybe. Wasn't going to tell them I was a liar, but I wasn't going to tell them I didn't. But when you think about lying, when you think about honesty, that's yes or no. Either I lie or I don't lie. I don't want to be with people who lie. So when I'm talking to Keenan and if he tells a little whopper, I say, well, Keenan, that's a lie. And you either are a liar or you're not a liar. So that's integrity. I have a philosophy around relationships. You have to earn your way out, not earn your way in. So I will trust you until you prove yourself. Not trustworthy.

I mean, that. That's such a good one that it's worth writing down. You don't earn your way in. You. You have to earn your way out. So what are some of the ways that. That people have earned their way out.

That you just not doing what they say? That's the biggest one. So I gave you my card. I said I would take your call. If you phone me, I'll take your call. No question. I wouldn't give you my card if I wasn't prepared to do that. I agreed to do that because I find you interesting. I find what you do interesting. I find what you do necessary. So if I'm not prepared to spend some time. I've been. I've been hugely successful beyond, you know, the fact that I was bankrupt at 40 to. To now. I mean, I'm worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars. And because people all along the way take the time to. To give me a hand, answer a question, to say, Garnet, you know, have you thought about this? To have a partner who wakes up in the morning believing in me that I don't have to justify.

Yeah.

Which is awesome.

And Jeff, who's leaving right now, that guy's very much lacking integrity, but that's fine. We don't want him in the room right now. Not on K. He. The guy's like, what did I do? I didn't do it. I'm just trying to go.

When you run a place where everybody's over 55, you need more bathrooms.

It's true. It's true. Yeah.

I learned that at a Neil diamond concert.

Oh, really? That's funny. How old is that dude now?

Older than me.

Yeah. Wow.

Well, but you think about how slow the bathroom lines move when everybody there is over 60. Yeah. You just think about that. Like, so, like, I think we should be in the porta potty business for concerts for seniors. Just a thought.

Like, I'm going to put that on the list of 4,000 opportunities and see which one that was.

But on the not now one.

No, exactly. Now.

Yeah.

Well, you know. So. Yeah.

Now.

Not now. Never.

Yeah.

Talk about now.

Not now.

Never.

So I have two things. The thing I learned as strategic coach and the thing I learned at Genius Network. That are two really, really big things. So the strategic ones are the four habits of success. Do what you say. Finish what you start. Say please and thank you. Show up on time. But I have ideas like hurricanes. So I have in my mind all of the time. Now, not now and never. So when I Say, I'll give you all my ideas, I'm going to give them all to you. But it's your job to take now, not now, never. And I'm never going to phone and hold you accountable. I just want you to know all the things I could possibly think about about your business based on a 10 minute conversation. You can sort them. And that is pure genius.

Thank you.

And if you don't launch the clothing line now, then say, no, no. And I'm going to do it.

So. No. So I want to. I would like us to collaborate on that. It's what, advertising? Yes, exactly. So we're going to be going in the clothing business because he's urged me now to do this. So we're going to have a lot of cool Genius Network swag. And I'll do this because we have a lot of people on Zoom. And if there's any Genius Network saying or any slogan that you think would be really cool to be on a Genius Network clothing line, then I would like you to send it over, just type it up and put it in the chat. And then if someone on my team. Yep. If at first you don't succeed, try doing what Garnett told you to do the first time.

That was. Joe sent that to me for Christmas and I get this thing and I blush like I can't wear it on the outside, but I can show people.

That, you know, yeah, no, which is great. Which is great. So, yeah, we're going to be in the clothing business soon. We need a lot of suit, but we want to do really high quality, super high level clothing. So that's, that's one of the fun ventures that we'll be working on. But okay, so resilience is a major theme in 17 runs, especially the idea of failing hard and getting up again. So can you share an example of where failure led to the new direction or an unexpected success, whether in business or in your, your life?

So the. I was a hotel tycoon in my 20s, I was a millionaire by 28, and I was bankrupt at 40. And at one time I think I had 12 or 13 hotels. So I was a wizard buying them and had no idea how to run them. So every hotel I bought actually made me lose money faster. It's a great system. So I had to, I had to stand in front of a judge and go bankrupt and tell him all about my stupidity. So a little embarrassing. So I learned a lot about humility and I learned a lot about knowing what you're good at because that's a tough one. So at 40, I'm back at zero. But I didn't make the same mistake the next time through. So I didn't do stuff that I wasn't good at and I started to recognize when I was not good at something to stop doing it. So I'm very, very aware of that in my life all of the time. Yeah.

Because I got more questions for you, but I want to give we've only got a few more minutes before we're going to break for lunch and this is just going to be start one of conversation with Garnett because once the book comes out, I want us to do another interview because I think, I think it's going to create a lot of momentum. Who here we'll take two questions. So who has a question for Garnett? If we could please run a mic.

To Barry.

Garnett, you spoke about the Mediterranean diet in our group. Could you share with the group how that's made such an impact in your life losing all that weight? You said you were 340.

Yep. That's Canadian. So it's like 800America.

Share your thoughts on the Mediterranean diet.

So I'm going to tell you two quick stories about it. So one, I lost all the weight first with nutrition. So it is more about what you don't put in your mouth than what you do. So she actually came to our house and went through our cupboards and took out all of the food that we weren't supposed to eat. Simple. That's what you eliminate in your life, not what you add. So then after there's not much left but healthy food. So if you look at the Mediterranean diet. So now I'm going to segue now both my grandfathers on both sides had heart disease. My dad had heart disease. Everybody in my family has heart disease. I got heart disease even though I exercise. And I went to a doctor in Nashville, Dr. Houston, who actually rig jigged my diet and made it even more Mediterranean. Mediterranean. And inside of three months, the plaque on the valves disappeared. So now I bought part of a company run by cardiologist who did all the original research on reversing heart disease with nutrition. Mediterranean diet. Mediterranean diet. Mediterranean diet. But real Mediterranean diet, not pop. Mediterranean diet. Awesome.

Hey, Garnett, you if I caught this correctly, you said you have you do 200 million in revenue. So commission revenue with one salesperson and 12 people supporting them. I got that right.

Yeah.

Can you tell us a little bit more about what that support mechanism is to support that one? That person that's doing 200 million in sales.

So our mission always has the word best in it. So we have two tax people that were top tax lawyers. We have underwriters that are really good at underwriting. So. And the CEO of the company, we probably only take 15 families a year. He's phenomenal at actually not bullshitting. So he just gets right down to it. And this is not a popularity thing. Like people are not phoning him and inviting him to the Christmas party or me. I never really cared because I learned early on, and this is from Dan, it's to be respected, not liked. All the money is in respect showed up in your election. What's up in your US Election. So. So that. So we work with bigfam. We know exactly who we need to work with. We get referral to referral to referral to referral. We do zero marketing. And then. So then we were finding, we were getting prospects that were below that level. So we started another company for that group, and then we found more. So we started another company for that group. But they're all independent and they have their own management, their own boards, their own view, their own missions, their own everything. And then we have us things we're going to work with Brian, because we're not Americans. We still have a lot of cultural differences between Canada and the U.S. that, you know, I just haven't. Didn't live here.

So. I love what you write about in the book about daydreaming and why daydreaming and visualizing is a very important thing. Because a lot of people might be like, well, I got to work a lot. I need to do all this versus letting their.

Their.

You have a very creative brain, but you give yourself permission to do that. So can you speak to that as it relates to. Because everyone here has dreams. And a lot of times you don't let yourself express those dreams because, you know, sitting around daydreaming sounds like you would get punished in school for daydreaming. You know how many of you said you're just a dreamer? Does anyone know? When you're young, of course you're a fucking dreamer. You're an entrepreneur. If you weren't dream. If you weren't dreaming, you wouldn't have Dan Sullivan make it up, make it real. So love to get your perspective.

So When I was 3, 4 or 5, I had really bad asthma. I was in the hospital a lot, sick a lot. And I used to daydream because that was. What do you do? So I can. And my daydreams were very specific. So that's a really big rule about daydreams. They have to be specific. So at that age, and I remember this, I wanted to be rich. And by being rich I would have $100,000 and a swimming pool and all my friends would come. That was my recurring over and over thing. So when I rethink about the friends that would come and what we would do in the swimming pool and how deep the pool would be. $100,000. So I have the hundred thousand. I have a hot tub. I'm still working on the pool, but it's still, I still, I still daydream. So now I have a dream about being a billionaire. So I'll get there and I want to be a billionaire. I don't want to be a billionaire because I need more stuff, more stuff than I can handle. But I can do more things for people, I can help more groups, we can do stuff together. I can invest in startups, I can help those ways because money won't be a thing. It just be that. So I don't not fixated on it. I'm not thing but I'm just, my brain is saying, well this is what we're going to do. So I'm not going to go play pickleball because I don't know pickleball billionaires just yet. Right. I'm sure I'm going to meet them and then I'm going to say oh, what an idiot. You were sitting in front of Joe Polish saying I'm not going to play pickleball.

That's a good website. Pickleball millionaire. Someone should grab.

Yeah, we write a book. It would be a great movie.

Yeah. Oh, you know, I actually have elf made millionaires.com actually. And I just realized the other day I don't, I'm not doing anything with that. I need to create elf made millionaires in all the different ways. But you know, these are just ideas though.

So say join the genius network pickleball billionaire club. It's 250,000 a year and it actually will save your elbows. Kind of a health thing too.

I'm putting. That's not a bad one.

I like it. Yeah.

Well what do you do with all these ideas? So like you, you, you're not now and never. Yeah. Yes. So not now and never.

I mean a crazy brain. It's just, I'm really lucky that way. So I mean we, we're sitting together and probably in this space of eight minutes we had 15 ideas, right. And he's probably got an Idea migraine.

And he's got to let me, let me say something because so I have this gaping void image at the office that says intoxicated by possibilities. How many of you can relate to that? Right? And here's what's. What's interesting about entrepreneurs and people that may. May have a different, you know, Colby, a different mo. I had one of my platinum members when I used to have this group for service businesses called Platinum Plus. And I was doing a group and I had this woman who'd been a member for probably like three years, and she came up to me during a break and she said, God, I really love the I. All these ideas you have. And I, you know, I could never come up with these ideas. And I, I repeated back to her, I goes, you see, like all the ideas. She goes, oh, yeah. I mean, that's why I'm in this group, because I pay to come and get ideas, because I can't come up with ideas on my own. And it never occurred to me that people like, I'm like, you can't come up with ideas. I'm cursed by ideas. I've actually had to create a group as a way to pontificate and puke up these ideas because if I don't, they torment me. So I need to have a way to process them. And I'm saying this for, for dramatic reasons, but, but it's. Oh, there is that it talks. Yeah. Intoxicated by possibility. And there are people that just, they don't think up ideas. And that's where you play ping pong with different people in different skills and find people who's, you know, got. Every human has these geniuses and these capabilities if they unearth them. Secondly, if they're brought out or they allow it to be brought out. And I think, you know, along the way that's kind of like. So the entrepreneurial key Life lessons from your book. Break free from the past. Identify and remove limiting beliefs that no longer serve you. This is what you will. Some of the things that you'll get out of the book. And here's what I'd like to do. Just make sure we got the updated email from you. I will send you. How many of you would like us to send you a PDF of Garnett's book right away? Okay, great. And read it. And then when the book comes out, please give him a review if you like the book on Amazon because that really helps when people first have their book come out. And then when the book comes out. I am also happy to get physical copies and send it to everyone too. So. But if we have your email, we'll send everyone online. And if we don't have your email online, just put it in the chat or send it to us privately and we'll send you a copy of Garnett's book. You need to get me the more update.

Yeah, I'll get the one from Julia.

Yeah. And then embrace change. Discomfort is a necessary part of your growth. Visualize success. Dream vividly and use visualization as a tool for goal setting. Build resilience. Learn from failure and always get back up. Practice generosity. Make giving an integral part of your business philosophy. Prioritize emotional connections. Foster meaningful relationships in both personal and professional situations. 7. Establish good habits. Start small and track progress to make sustainable change. And then stay authentic. Your uniqueness is your superpower. Lean into it. So is there anything that I didn't ask you that I should have or that we didn't talk about that would be like your famous last words?

So I want to use you as an example because I remember you saying you wanted to have real estate investors. You're doing this. You're doing this. I think you should be saying I want to be the first female run BlackRock because it changes how everybody hear your story. That. What?

The first female run blackrock. Okay.

Okay. Yeah. So pick. Pick something that's without corruption though. Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah. But, but. But you have high values. That's why you'll get there. So that you actually have a feeling for what success looks like at the pinnacle. Because just like that, wanting to have investors, you and everybody else. But if you're going to be the first BlackRock, that changes your values. That changes how you articulate yourself. It changes who you hire. It changes what you do. It changes how you frame everything. So I didn't set out to be, you know, this or this. And I'm not proud of how much insurance we sell. I just set out to solve what I thought were really big problems that nobody else was solving.

I love. And by the way, when you get the mic, by the way, because the end of your mic and I know you're like, what am I supposed to say? Something or whatever. The way that we'll usually end the interviews now is the last person that has to the mic has to sing what it is their perspective.

So that's.

We'll just have you and with a. With a song in a moment. But I'm kidding. You don't need to do that. So. Okay.

Thank you.

Anything.

Yeah, I Guess I can say if I can do it, anybody can do it if they just decide they're going to.

How can we help you with this? What do you mean?

I like to help back.

Well, I know you help a ton.

Of people and you're. I mean it truly, like, I like meeting people. I like every time I hear a story. So this gentleman here is a risk management specialist, and we're talking about AI and the unknown unknowns of AI and risk. So now just having had that conversation with him, I'm going to be fixated on, you know, is there a train that's left the station that I don't see? And is it going to affect me? Is it going to affect my family? Is it going to affect health? Is it going to affect my friends? So my job now is to keep thinking. I meet people like crazy because no one's afraid of me and like to tell me almost anything. So I just learn stuff. So each conversation I have when I help somebody is always fascinating. We were talking about, you know, taxation and investment. Just, I mean, I became a friend of Brian's and now he comes to our clinic and, you know, we're just learning each other and it's. It's fun. And he's from Minnesota, like that, the one state in the US that's the most like Canada. So it's like a brother.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, so there's this line that I love, which is, if you. If you people that say money can't buy happiness, have it given enough of it away and, you know, not only are you unapologetic about having financial success, you also are a huge supporter. I mean, you've contributed a lot to Genius Recovery. When I first explained to Garnett about the. The recovery kits that we're going to put in pharmacies throughout America, which we have had our first run of them, Garnett, you know, contributed a significant amount of donation to Genius Recovery. And he said, I want to bring this to Canada as soon as you have the year, which, you know, we're going to do. And there was. I was in Strategic Coach and I was talking to you. You know, you, like, kind of. We're just talking. And I said, yeah, I'm trying to figure out how to get to this big agricultural convention in Saskatchewan, in Saskatoon, called Ag in Motion, because one of our Genius Network members, Dennis, wanted me to spend four days at the largest farming convention in Canada so that I could learn all about oils and pesticides and everything. But it was during the date that I could not figure out how I would get there. And Garnett's like, oh, you can use. You can use my plane. And I'm like, he's already let me use this plane before. And I'm like, I can't do that. Let me just pay for fuel. But, like, not even thinking.

He.

He just. I've seen him constantly just help people because he's had success. He's able to do so much. And. And you're very sincere, and you're very generous, and you're. The. You're. You're just like. Once people get to know Garnett, he's just.

I care.

Just. Yeah, you're. You're. You're a good dude. And so I hope you love his book. I hope it's a domino for you and that you tell other people about it. And when it comes out, you know, I want to do another interview on it and follow up on it. So thank you.

No, I. I appreciate this. I appreciate everybody. It's just. The world is just full of amazing people.

Yeah.

Awesome. And our job is to get to know them. Cool.

So, Garnett Morris.

Thank you.

Thank you. Don't miss another episode of the Joe Paulish show. Subscribe today@thejoepauishow.com if you'd like access to the show notes to take action on what was discussed, please visit thejopolishow.com 28.