Omani Carson: What He Learned After ‘Winning’ the Game

This podcast is brought to you by Wells Fargo Advisors. Looking for a firm your clients can't outgrow? Wells Fargo Advisors offers financial advisors full balance sheet solutions with wealth planning, investment products, banking, and lending that meet the needs of affluent to ultra-high net worth clients. Build your practice your way and on your schedule with independent and employee model options designed to meet your needs today and tomorrow. Learn more at joinwfadvisors.com. Hi everyone, I'm business coach Steve Sandusky for Barron's Advisor, The Way Forward Podcast. My guest today is Omani Carson. Omani and I go back about 30 years, and we were business partners for about 11 of them. So when we sat down for this conversation at the recent Barron's Advisor Independent Summit in Scottsdale, it wasn't two strangers exchanging talking points. It was really two old friends and colleagues picking up a thread that stretches back many years, and that makes this episode much more personal. What I'd ask of you as a listener is this: as you hear Omani's journey, place yourself within your own. Think about where you were 10 or 20 years ago, where you are today, and where this profession is heading. Now, Omani and I cover a lot of ground here, from the foundational principles we were teaching advisors 20 to 25 years ago to the AI tools that are already catching $56,000 in tax errors in minutes, to the deeply personal question of what happens when you've built everything you set out to build, yet realize you're still not fulfilled. Omani talks openly about his own transformation, not just professionally, but personally, and what he's learned about purpose, human connection, and why the advisors who meet clients belly to belly today are still decades away, if ever, from being replaced by technology. He doesn't sugarcoat what's coming either. This profession is changing fast, and the gap between good advisors and great ones is about to look like the gap between the North and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. So no matter where you are in life, I hope this conversation encourages you to think about your own evolution, not just as a business owner, but as an advisor and as a person. The advisors who thrive won't just be the ones who adapt their practice. They'll be the ones who are willing to grow alongside it. With that, please enjoy my conversation with Omani Carson. Omani, it's great to have you here.

Oh my God, it's great to be here with you, Steve.

Yeah, well, I want to set some context here because you and I have some history.

Yeah, we do.

And we go back— I was just thinking about this. About 30 years. I don't know if you remember this or not, but the first time we met—

you want to check, see if I do?

When did we first meet?

I think we met conference in Utah. No.

Well, maybe. Keep going. I got a different idea.

But okay, conference in Utah. You were with Janine Jones. Yeah, I think she was still Janine Jones then. And you were in a club and we had a beer there. You had to like buy, you know, into a club. And gosh, that would have been— I remember what year that was. It would have been at least 30 years ago.

It would have been in the '90s.

Okay.

So maybe what I was thinking was sometime in the mid-'90s when I was working for Securities America, we had you and Todd Feltz come over to the office and we tried to recruit you from LPL.

Yeah.

And Janine was there, Sylvia was there, Steve Wild was there.

Yes.

And so that was what I was thinking, that maybe that—

Well, I think the conversation in the bar kind of led to that.

Okay.

You know, I think, yeah, but it could have been within a year.

Within a year.

That same time period.

So yeah, so it goes back a ways and then We moved to your neighborhood a couple years after that. And then long story short, our kids became friends and you and I got together one Saturday morning in your office at your home and we hatched an idea for a coaching program, which became Peak Advisor Alliance, which today is Carson Coaching. And so you and I were together for 11, 12 years with that, and it's still going great today, as I understand.

It is, yeah. It's evolved, as you can imagine, dramatically. But you know, it's funny, I got a different recollection.

Okay, all right, well tell me.

We were standing, we had, I think the kids had a party and your kids were over and we were standing in the garage and just, it was hot that day. We had a margarita machine in there. I don't, you remember that?

Yep, yep.

And I thought that's when we kind of talked about maybe let's have a conversation about it. And then we had a formal meeting later.

Yeah, no, I remember we spent 3 hours on a Saturday morning in your office, and I pitched you on this idea of this twice-a-year meetings and charge a monthly fee and everything. And then you said, well, why don't you write up a business plan? And I did. And lo and behold, a few months later, we start working together. And a few months after that, we had the first class in October 2001, and the rest is history.

Now, do you remember where it was?

Yes, it was in— It was Pacific Life Insurance in California, in their basement. And we had like 70 people-ish, I think.

I think it was, I think it was 66.

66.

And it was like the largest percentage of any event we ever did, the percentage that joined coaching right away. I mean, the conversion was like 30-some percent, 38% or 40%. Yeah, almost half the class. And we were using transparencies.

Transparencies.

Yeah. And Susan was there helping. Yes, she was putting the transparencies on the, yeah, on the screen.

So we could certainly talk a lot about that. I want to start by talking about what we were teaching, what you were teaching back then, what of it still holds true today, and then flash forward to today and what are we teaching financial advisors today. So just for some fun, I started looking at some things that we were teaching back then. So do you remember Ron's goals in 1983?

I do.

I'm going to— okay. You want to read them to you?

Yeah.

Spout them to me.

Oh, I thought you meant the form.

No, I got them right here. 1983.

Oh, man. Okay. I thought you meant the idea of writing our goals.

No, no, I've got— I've got to—

you actually have my goals.

I do. So.

All right, let's do it.

They are.

Yeah.

To be making $100,000 by my 25th birthday.

Hmm.

Buy a new car before year end. Get my Series 22, have 625 appointments, close 80% plus, and start the CFP process.

Yeah. So, wow.

Ron's goals, 1983.

Yeah.

So how do you think about—

by the way, I have the booklet that has every goal I've ever done.

Oh yeah.

Still. Yeah.

Do you think of goal setting differently today than you did back in 1983? How has that evolved?

The only difference— I still do them. The only difference is that I'm very intentional about the categories.

Okay.

You know, I start with my personal goals and then I set family goals and then I set professional goals. And, you know, I'm such a believer that as humans, you know, we generally don't— like, we're always the last. So I'm, you know, one thing I've always said and I teach and I live is you have to be selfish to be selfless. I work with advisors all the time today. You know, they call and they're so burnt out and they're so overwhelmed. And working women, you know, we have more in the profession than ever. And man, they need a lot of self-care. And then the golden goose is vibrant and alive for everybody. And then the family goals, you know, nothing more important than taking care of our family. And then the professional goals seem to lag. They've become— that's about all I had was work and professional-related goals. And now they're pretty balanced.

So as you say, you're pretty focused on business back in those days.

Yeah.

And you and I written— wrote a couple of books together as well. The first one was Tested in the Trenches, and we did a lot of dog and pony shows.

Yeah, we did.

About these ideas. One of the things that you came up with was the 3 secrets.

Yes.

So tell me about the 3 secrets. And do you think any differently about the 3 secrets today compared to 20, 30 years ago?

What's really beautiful is they've held up. You know, one is this relentless burning desire and call it passion. Passion prospecting was actually born out of, you know, doing the blueprinting process and what gives you that fire in your belly. And I've always said, you know, you can have all these tools, but if you don't like have a reason, if you don't have a why, I think remember we used to say if your why doesn't make you cry, you need a new why. And I think it's more important today than ever, especially among men. You know, I was at the Abundance 360 workshop out in LA about a week ago, and there I met a lot of guys that have had massive exits. I mean, we're talking billion, $2 billion, $3 billion exits. They're like, I am purposeless, I am bored, I am miserable. And, and then guys don't seem to have a lot of, a lot of friends. So I mean, close friends, intimate friends. So yeah, man, I think blueprinting holds up. Relentless burning desire, love affair marketing does, you know, just— we— it feels good like when we, when we do something for someone. And, you know, I know this can be a little bit controversial because people thought, well, is it a manipulation? And, you know, we always said if you have a really good heart, you know, you're putting the client's interest first, this is a really effective way. It's powerful. So if you're, you're just selling in, you know, those days, index annuities, which were high commission, pretty poor products, or just things that were you know, really front-loaded, then don't do it because it's powerful. And of course, systemization. You know, Michael Gerber with E-Myth, you know, having processes. I love what he said. You know, if you don't have good systems, you need extraordinary people to get ordinary results. And with great systems, you can have ordinary people get just extraordinary results. And I really believe that and really use that. I mean, today, you know, that's really— systems are going to go to a whole new level when we think about AI and this recursive learning and AI agents and everything that can be done. So, that one, it's gonna be interesting to see how the systems piece evolves. But what an exciting time, I think, to have a business, to be in any business, but especially financial services.

Yeah, and we're definitely gonna talk about purpose. We're definitely gonna talk about AI.

All right.

You also came up with this thing called the A+ Action Plan.

Yes.

So, where is that today?

I don't know, to be honest, 'cause I'm completely outta retail. I don't even know if we still coach it. Within the coaching program.

What is the A+ Action Plan?

Well, the A+ Action Plan was purely about going to your centers of influence, your very best clients, having a, here's why it's in your best interest to help me grow so I don't have to spend my time marketing. I had a whole spiel. It was super effective. I mean, people wanted to have part of your success or a part in your success. And if they were happy with you, they would refer you all kinds of qualified people. Passion prospecting. I'm gonna— are you gonna ask me about passion? Yeah, I mean, this is— to this day, when I see advisors doing anything but just living their passions, you know, whether it's golf— mine was golf— aviation at the time, hunting, wine was a big one. Yeah, it's funny how those have shifted. But when you connect with people that way, you build trust really quick. You have this amazing connection, and they have people they know, and then they have people they know, and they know. So it's an unlimited pool of prospects and you get to have a lot of fun working with them. I think Passion Prospecting, Love Affair Marketing were some of the funnest systems or ideas that we had come up with.

So let's touch on AI on that for a second.

Yeah.

So do you think the idea of Passion Prospecting is going to become even more important in the age of AI as almost a backlash against all of this technology, meaning people want to crave human interaction again instead of all these, you know, my AI agent is going to talk to your AI agent and We're not even going to communicate with each other because our agents are just going to do that for us. You think that'll even become more important, the human connection?

I absolutely do. You know, I might— I don't know if you're going to ask many questions about what I'm doing today, but we're creating these spaces, you know, all over the world where people can come connect, be in nature, connect with each other. It's like, I think it's— we're going to just crave human connection. We're going to crave knowing it's human-made will be the most powerful brand out there. You know, because with that comes a lot of distrust. And we're creatures that really need proximity to one another, and we're going the opposite direction. And I think there's going to be a huge backlash, and I think it's going to be— people are going to value— I think the financial advisor that's directly meeting with the client belly to belly is two decades from even being close to being replaced. And I don't know if they ever will. I'm a pilot. These planes take off and land, and we still have a whole crew up there, right, flying the airplanes, because We trust technology, but not with our lives. Right.

But here we're in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Waymo just pulled up.

Exactly.

Yeah.

But Lynn was like, well, there's a driverless car right there.

Yeah. I was actually, when I was out at Abundance 360, Dario, who owns Uber or CEO of Uber, was talking about Waymo and he said, you know what, by the way, they're, I mean, everybody's going autonomous. I mean, pretty soon, who knows if we'd be allowed to drive our car. He said the first time you get in a Waymo, You're like, holy shit, it's like there's nobody else in here. You keep looking up in that space and it's like, it's a little bit disconcerting that there's not someone sitting in the driver's seat. And then he goes, the next 10 minutes you're just in awe of all the technology and this is really happening. And then he goes, after that you're on your phone and you're not impressed anymore and you're just super comfortable. So he goes, yeah, Waymos are fun. Yeah, I've never taken one yet.

I haven't either.

Yeah, yeah.

So another quote that you used to share frequently, maybe you still do, was from Richard Branson. Yes. Remember his quote?

I don't think his work is work, his play is play, but I just think of it as living.

It's all living, right?

Yeah.

So do you still live that, or maybe it's even truer today than it was back then?

Steve, it's— and I still have the magazine cover.

I got it right here.

All right. I have it. Yep. Sitting in a hammock. I saw— I have the actual magazine.

Yeah.

And I have a drawer full of just nostalgia, like really special stuff that was really important in my life. And I remember like, that is a way to live. I think I pretended to live it then. I wanted to live it then. I had intent, but I worked all the time. It was really hard to do. And we even talked about delegating and releasing and getting rid of all this stuff. And man, I was, you know me, I was into everything. I mean, shit, I would open up all the mail. If I was gone for 2 weeks, we'd have 6 tubs waiting on me. So it took me another week to open all the mail when I got back. But it is true today. You know, Jeanne and I, we've been very intentional about how we spend our time. And, you know, one of the things we noticed we were doing is we were sacrificing without intention, without really thinking about it. I mean, we can't control every second. There's just some, some things you're obligated to do. But what we both noticed is our present selves are way overcommitting our future self. We have this test. If it's not a hell yes, it's a hell no. We just— if it's not a hell, we actually say something else. But yeah, it's not— not just going to keep this PG. That's right. And, and here's what Bert— I mean, this was really powerful because I was still finding myself overcommitted. And Bert, when he joined us—

Bert White.

Bert White. Yeah, our CEO, who's fantastic, but he's doing a really great job. He said, you know, pretend what you're about to say yes to is going to happen tomorrow. And then make the decision. And man, through that lens, it's really good. So Jenny and I create white space to have availability to see our grandkids or be spontaneous or do a podcast like this. Yeah.

So I think I knew you reasonably well from 2001 to 2012 when we were partners running the coaching business and you were still running Carson Wealth. And you and I, we haven't talked a whole lot since then. We've run into each other occasionally at conferences. And I would say it's fair to say that you've evolved a little bit from those days. So, tell me a little bit about the evolution from Ron to Imani. We don't have to get into a lot of detail because there's other podcasts that people that are interested, they can go listen to some of the other shows where you've gotten a great level of detail. But what do you think is relevant to financial advisors? You obviously have worked with thousands of advisors over the years. You've seen people that have gone through probably versions of what you've gone through that have reached the pinnacle of success and found it to be a little bit hollow. And so you sought out other things and so on and so forth. So tell me a little bit about that evolution from Ron to Imani and how that might apply to folks that are listening to this.

Yeah, I mean, it's all there. I mean, the blueprinting process that we taught is really powerful and the answers are there. There's a question in there, though, that if I wasn't so afraid, I would, right?

Yeah.

I didn't know what it was like. I truly I don't think I really knew what love was. I mean, this sounds so cliché and so, you know what, but it is, you know, you said there's a lot of detail, but I had a lot of my childhood was so mercurial. It was up and down and our family didn't hug or didn't say we loved you. And I met Jeannie and her family was about hugging and loving and it was like, wow, this is really weird. I remember Jeannie said to me one time, she goes, I love you. And I go, I know you do.

Wrong answer.

She still reminds me of that, but it was so true. And, and so I think period, man, just really figuring out who you are. So a version of the blueprinting process, as we tell the people we work with today, is imagine, you know, here I am, 61 years old, but I did this when I was 50. This was when I had my big transformation, is examine your life and everything that's happened, good, bad, indifferent, call them ingredients. And imagine you're going to take all these ingredients, you're going to dump them out, and then you got this clean slate. And you got how many years? You might have, might have a week, you might have 20 years. But realistically, you sit there and I'm thinking, I've probably got 30 good years. What do I want that 30 years to be like? And which ingredients am I going to add back? And I told— I call that going into creator mode. Being true to yourself. What do you truly want? Not compromising, like living in full integrity of who you are. Once you do that, then you start attracting abundance in groves. And so I learned this. I mean, I learned once I really, really had reconciled who I was, how I wanted to show up in the world, a lot of relationships kind of fell away, but I got some really powerful ones. And I just noticed that I can really lock in with with great frequency. And so that's, that's the biggest change. And for advisors today to really spend time— you, you and I, how many times would someone, you know, really just kind of gloss through the blueprinting process? And another saying that most people are on this unconscious journey to arrive at death safely. I mean, we just are so caught up in the busyness of everything. It's like, if you just pause, take some real time— and that's why every December I sit there even this year, I got every blueprint I've ever done. I go through the most recent one. I don't go through all the past ones. You'll continue to examine how you're spending your time and energy. It's the one bank account we have no idea how much is left.

Right?

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and I still do my version of the blueprinting every year as well. My compelling vision of the future. And I update that every December and look at that throughout the year as well. So there's, there's been a few things that you taught me that I still do to this day.

Well, are you still doing your stock You are? How you doing?

He beat me like 2 of the last 3 years. He's 96. So my dad and I, every year we pick 5 stocks on January 1st and we just let them sit there. And at the end of the year, what is the average performance of those 5 stocks? And my 96-year-old dad has beat me more than I beat him.

That was my next question.

Yeah, yes. Yeah, I think he's—

and you and I did it for a couple of years, didn't we?

We probably did.

Yeah, I don't, I don't even remember. Yeah, if who won or What? But I think he did.

He still asks about you.

Oh, he does? Tell him I said hi. I will.

So you mentioned death. You're going to remember this.

Oh yeah.

Back in the peak days, Matt Halloran was with us. The True Wealth Institute came out with the True Wealth coaching program, the True Wealth Institute, and you had this great idea of why don't we bring a coffin into the office, have people lay in the coffin, and we'll read their eulogy. And I thought that was the craziest idea I'd ever heard. Tell me about that. How does that apply?

Oh my gosh, yes. And I was so excited about this idea because, you know, as part of the blueprinting process, we have them write their eulogy, go to the end and work backwards. And I'm like, oh my God, I got a, you know, John Richmouth Funeral Homes, uh, client of ours, a really great guy. I go, hey, can I borrow one of your coffins? He goes, yeah, for what? And I said, I got this idea. He goes, oh, that's a great idea. So I shared with you and Matt, and you're like, that's like the worst idea I've ever heard. I go, well, let's try it anyway. And I think we had 60-some people come through the institute, and we made it— the compromise, we made it optional. We made it optional, and you guys were more right than I was because I think only 16 people did it, right? I did it. I was one of the first, and I sent a picture to my sister, you know, eyes closed, laying in the coffin with my hand.

We had the lights down. Oh yeah, we had candles going. Yeah, we had some music.

Yeah, and they read the— and they read your eulogy.

Matt did a great job and recorded it.

Yeah, and it was emotional. I remember how powerful it was. And think about how few people have ever gotten out of a coffin, right? I mean, you— now you know one.

That's right, that's right, that's right. Yeah, yeah, quite the exercise. So let's flash forward to today.

Yeah.

And how do you think about the nature of being a financial advisor in this world today? Again, we've got AI. You've been to Peter Diamandis and all these different events where we're just talking about the future and AI and everything. How do you see the nature of the advisory role evolving over the next few years?

I truly see the advisor having such a prominent role in the, in the client's life. So, um, Jeannie and I, uh, prominent doctor in Omaha, we saw him at Boots and Buckets, which is for our foundation for Dreamweaver. I said, hey, is AI going to replace your job? And he said, yes, it's going to replace doctors that don't use AI. And I am really concerned about how many— I mean, I think there's going to be two kinds of advisors: those with an AI-forward firm that can make real-time decisions because it's moving at the speed of light. I mean, you saw what Altruist came out with, with Hazel. We have Steve, and it's amazing.

Steve? So you named it after me?

We named it after you.

I appreciate that.

We do.

Yeah, that's your internal AI system.

It's our internal AI system.

Okay.

Yeah, like Hazel is too, altruist. And it's driven productivity like crazy. And then I was talking to an advisor in Aspen and another advisor in Chicago recently. I said, what's your firm's AI strategy? And they're like, you know, they really, 'cause they're relying on their broker-dealer, you know, to provide it. They're really not doing much. And so I think it's going to be amazing because the role will be, Really just talking to the client, that personal interaction. Because even with, for example, Hazel, she can actually analyze all your emails, respond to all your emails in the tone, in the way, because it becomes intelligent and how you talk. We talk different to your wife than I would a more formal client, or versus someone you went to college with. And it's that good. And you know, at first you're going to want to review things, but it's going to be that amazing that You're gonna have total confidence that, you know, even today, this year, you know, you're gonna be able to having a meeting with your clients and the room will pick up everything that's going on, prepare documents, transfer accounts without even having to fill out a form.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I've been thinking that with AI, it's gonna be a terrible time to be a good advisor, but it's gonna be an amazing time to be a great advisor.

How do you mean that?

Meaning that if you're just an average advisor, you're gonna get left behind. Yeah, by those advisors who really embrace this and really embed it into their organization.

Couldn't agree more.

They're the ones who are going to get the lion's share of the business.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

So that's sort of how I'm framing it.

I think it gives you real breakaway velocity, and I think it's also going to accelerate the consolidation that just has to take place. We still have way too many trading departments, compliance departments. Quite frankly, we have too many advisors that are managing their own assets. That was me for a long time. And it's just, I mean, if that's who you're competing, you're trying to generate your alpha through stock selection and investment performance, if you're not Steve Sandusky, that's hard to do.

That's right.

You know?

Or Jim Sandusky.

Yeah.

So organic growth in the industry, I think the data would suggest it's probably in the low single digits. Do you think AI is going to accelerate overall organic growth or do you think it might reduce it because it's gonna make it easier for those people on the margin to sort of do it themselves themselves now and not necessarily work with an advisor, or what kind of ultimate impact do you think AI will have?

It's going to accelerate it without a doubt. I mean, we had tremendous— I'm not going to say exactly, but they were big numbers, organic growth numbers last year, and it's directly proportionate to the amount of time we're giving back to the advisor. You know, if you look at our production ratio per stakeholder, it's up fivefold in the last 4 years. It's because of the big investments in AI.

Let me ask you about that. So if I look at the Schwab data, The Schwab data is saying that the revenue per employee, which is a number we used to talk about years ago, and the most recent data was like $403,000 per year revenue per employee. So do you have a similar number for Carson?

We're almost 1.3.

1.3.

Yeah.

Okay. I'd say that's impressive.

And we were, yeah, I think it is. I mean, it's, and the advisor in the last 3 years can take on 50% more clients and give better service, a higher touch experience today.

Okay, now I want to press you on that because about a decade ago I had a conversation with Rick Edelman, and one of the things that we talked about was how the typical advisor might work with, let's say, 150 clients. Let's sort of go back to Dunbar's number. And he said, well, Steve, he says, here's what we do. Our advisors work with 300, 400 clients.

Yeah.

And he said the reason why we are able to do that is that that your typical advisor only spends a third of their time meeting with clients, and the other two-thirds is they're hiring staff and they're buying copy machines and they're, you know, they're doing all this other stuff of sort of running the business. But he said at Edelman, our advisors do one thing and one thing only all day long. They're doing nothing but meeting with clients.

Yeah.

And so as I think about productivity, and I want to hear how you frame this, is When you say your advisors are like 50% more productive, does that mean that they've gone from spending 40% of their time meeting with clients to now 60% because they're not doing any of the paperwork? Or what's happening?

If you really looked at the systems in place and we pushed this for a long time, remember 100 items to delegate? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The advisors that are fully using all the systems we had, all they're doing is meeting with clients. Okay, that's it. So they've been able to increase their client number by 50%.

Okay.

Yeah.

And how much of that is due to technology versus how much is due to actual specializations? Because let's go back to Edelman. 10 years ago, we didn't have AI like we have it today. I think what he was saying to me was simply that we're very specialized where we have people who do all the support work and the advisor just sits in, meets with the clients. They get an update before the meeting or whatever. And I don't want to necessarily say this is an analogy to the doctor-nurse model, Yeah, but you know, the nurse would take the vitals and then the doctor would come in and give a diagnosis and be on their merry way. So how much of it is actual technology is making the advisor more productive versus we're letting the rest of the staff use the technology for them to be more productive? And I mean, I'm just trying to get a sense.

I think it depends on the practice because what you're really referencing is where's the bottleneck at, right? If it— if the advisor bringing in clients and the team can't handle the clients, because it's normally team, I'd say any big Offices today are really team-driven, or have they increased their capacity so the advisor can go out and bring in the clients and actually process it? So I think it's a little bit of both, right?

Yeah, yeah, it's— yeah, not an either-or.

I think that is both.

Yeah. And I think the other thing Edelman was saying too is that their advisors are not responsible for business development, so they weren't spending 20%, 30% of their time to try and bring in new clients. It's like, we got a whole marketing machine, which, you know, Carson does as well, and many of the big firms now have made a big separation between business development and advice. So maybe that's another good angle to talk about here. What does Carson do in terms of what expectations do you have for your advisors? Are they just supposed to advise? They supposed to bring in new business, do both? Do you also have separate business development?

How are you structured there? All the above. All the above. I mean, you know how many different models because we have so many different affiliation models. So we have just partnered. So they pretty much do what they want. We have Carson Wealth branded, which And even they, you find out how long they, they're with us, you have different ways that they run their business. We have minority-owned, so there's— it's all the above. But what I will say is the adoption of the technologies is really high, so you get closer to a uniform kind of way of doing business among all of our locations. That's gotten much tighter over the last few years.

Okay, so you're chairman?

Yeah, I'm chairman. Yes.

How How active are you in, say, the day-to-day, or what's the role of you?

Not at all. I mean, I'm— any big decisions. So Jeannie and I and the family still control the board. We're going to for 100 years. So we're going to be 100 years old.

You're going to live those 100 years.

I hope so. I hope so. I think it's possible, especially after Abundance 360. And I'm there for the quarterly meetings. I still run. So I have Momentus and Omnia, and I'm still on the 6'4". So I'm around, I work out in the fitness center, I'm with those stakeholders. I mean, I'm pretty plugged into what's going on, but I don't go to any day-to-day meetings. Okay. Yeah.

What's the hardest part of being Omani Carson today?

Oh, wow. Hardest part. You know, there isn't a hard part. But I mean, this is so petty, but someone reached out to me today and called me Ron and then said, oh, I'm so sorry. So no, no worries. Like, I'll just remind you and I'll continue to remind you, but I know you forget and it's not that big a deal. That's really it. Yeah. You know, changing your— legally changing it, going through that process, that was a real pain in the backside. But no, the Ron Carson you knew, and God, I know you knew me well because we were, we were like oil and water. It's just style stylistically, right? I would say, by the way, I appreciate you and love you. You, you're just an amazing human being and you're a great partner. And thank you for putting up with me all that time.

Well, seriously, right back at you, because I know I wasn't the easiest to deal with either.

Um, but yeah, my, you know, the Ron— when I was a kid, I got made fun of, you know, remember Ronald McDonald and that's all of that. So I never liked my name. Plus I was a junior. Plus my parents went broke when I was 17, so they would always confuse that Ron Carson with, oh, you went bankrupt. Like, nope, that's my dad, you know. Even though I had my Social Security number on it, would be flagged. And so I just never liked my name. Then I did this work for these chiefs and they gave me the name Tate Omani for the work that we were doing and the vision about having a better world. I'm involved in a lot of really fun humanitarian-related projects, but also building spaces for people to heal. Tate means, it's a Lakota and it means walking into a stiff wind, and I just loved it. Now it went from Ron, who stood for operating system fear and scarcity, And always driving for more and more and more because I was chasing some feeling that was a mirage. It just never appeared. You talked about this all the time, but I didn't really, really, you know, understand it. Like, I, I, how do, how do I get this, this whatever it is? And it's not going to be found in material items. You talk about the hedonistic treadmill. I was on it. And then Omani is around just love and abundance. And, you know, Jenny and I have been so comfortable doing things, giving things away. Our charitable endeavors. Matter of fact, you know this, I think I shared it way back then, our kids are going to get very little. We're going to— most of our money is going to be left to run. We'd like to take Dreamweaver nationwide, so it's Make-A-Wish for the elderly. And then we just celebrated 14 years, we've served 1.6 million seniors. And then the rest of it's going to support the healing centers. We just had a $200 million groundbreaking on Friday, just 90 minutes outside of DC. It's really cool. We're doing a $150 million project in Panama. We're doing a $50 million project in, in Nebraska. But we're living our legacy now. We're creating these amazing spaces for people to come and, and do. We have so many different modalities. I was just on the phone today with Kurosh. He was like my cosmic father. We're starting to do couples retreats. We have our first one coming up next month, and we're just going through the program. Oh my God, this is to get Linda to come. Oh yeah, I'm telling you, you would— Jeannie and I went through this with Farouche last summer.

Yeah.

And we've been together 44 years and we were like, oh my God, like we got so much more intimate with just emotionally. And you would enjoy it. Yeah, you would enjoy it. Yeah.

I don't remember what the exact context was, but I think you were maybe being interviewed by someone and there was some big achievement and your response to the big achievement was, I'm pleased but not satisfied.

Yeah.

And I think that's a bit of an example of maybe how you felt about things back in those days. You talked about being on this hedonic treadmill, and I want to tie this into this idea of purpose. I also remember you saying one time that you wanted to become one of Omaha's billionaires.

Yeah.

And you are one, maybe a multi-billionaire at this point. I'm not sure. What was that like? I think it's pretty clear that it wasn't what you thought it was going to be when you hit some of these huge milestones that you'd worked so hard for. So tell me a little bit about that, about the material success, and it wasn't necessarily meaningful success. Maybe tie that into Omnia, where I think you're trying to have these conversations with other people.

Yeah.

Who have reached big levels of success but haven't found the happiness that they thought that might bring. So it's kind of a big open-ended question, and feel free to take that.

Okay, I will. So, you know, one of my other business partners died last year, Todd Feltz, who just Yeah, just an amazing— we had a friendship, then we had a business relationship, and then he was not quite as patient as you. I mean, it's just— I was just hard to work with, period. Because I remember Todd saying to me, can't we just like celebrate one of these victories for like just a moment? Because I was always on to the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, you know, no matter what it was. And, you know, we were truly financial partners for a short amount of time. We were actually splitting revenue, and then we— by name only, and that was 4 years. And I was wanting to work all the time, and Todd's like, man, I want to enjoy life and I don't want to work that hard, so let's just go back the other way. And but we still operated under Carson Feltz for many, many years. And man, I mean, I'm so happy he was living that life because he didn't get to live that long. I wanted to be a billionaire because, you know, I remember thinking if I ever had $10,000 in the bank, I would have this feeling that I was craving. And I remember getting $10,000 in the bank and it just didn't do it. And then it was $100,000, it was $1 million, and then I just kept setting other numbers. And the billion, it just— it meant nothing. It really didn't. And I, uh, you know who Jesse Itzler is? Yeah, yeah. His thing about the, the, um— by the way, I want to go back a little ways because this is relevant to this. My parents were atheists and I had no spirituality whatsoever. And the first session with a doctor in LA in Topanga Canyon, and it changed my— it was 11 years ago, January. And I came out of that, was like, oh my God, there's something else out there. So my spirituality was, was born. And that gave me a portal to really get to, to get to try to get to know myself.

Right.

But having that belief that this isn't the end was a really cool, really powerful. And And I, and I realized going back to that examination of my operating system and how I was showing up and really didn't believe that there was, you know, anything else out there. It was all just material stuff. And so if you're going to be a billion, it'd be a 10 billion on 100 billion or whatever the number was. And I even look at Elon a little bit, you know, he was at the abundance 360 via satellite. And I think he's an amazing man, maybe the, Benjamin Franklin of our time, but I've been around him a couple times and I just get a sense he's— doesn't it really? I don't know. I don't feel like he— I think he's in that same trap. Just keep going and doing bigger and more grandiose things. I don't know, because I wasn't ever just being with myself, really getting to know myself. So that's where Omnia became born, because if you could have $100 million or so much money that you could never ever dream— I remember reading about these people when I didn't have a lot of money, and, you know, in those days it might be $10 or $20. I remember a guy at our club just sold his business for $10 million. Like, oh my God, $10 million! I mean, he just never has to worry, he doesn't have another worry in the world. And now I see these people have just enormous wealth, and they are, they are truly sad. And it's because it was all about that. It wasn't about taking care of themselves. It was about relationships. You know, this longitudinal study that Harvard's done, I don't know, over 100+ years, it comes down to relationships, right? But the first one is relationship with you. Yeah, with you. I just did a— I don't know if it's being your best friend, you know, like treat yourself as your best friend.

So you mentioned this experience, I think you said, was it 11 years ago in California? So that was sort of a big aha moment. But I don't think it was like, well, maybe a switch did turn on, but then you needed more to continue to power that light. So it was a continued evolution from there. So tell me a little bit more about from then to today. That was Ron 2.0, let's just say. Now we're Omani 100.0, or what are we?

That's an interesting— that's— I've never thought about it in those terms. Maybe 8.0. Okay.

Yeah, I'm a quantitative guy.

Yeah, but it's, it's, it's accelerating a little bit, um, because Omnia and Momentus— so I stepped down as CEO 2 years ago this April 1st. Momentus is my family office, and Aaron Chaben is the CEO. And, you know, it was really me, him. It was like you and Janine and the whole team with Scary's America. It was us, you know, building Carson Group. Me, Paul, Aaron, Terry, Kelsey, and it was just a core group there. And then stepping down 2 years ago, I was able to set up Momentus, which Aaron really was a big part of growing Carson Group, but I pulled him over, talked to Bert, and it was just a great fit. And then under Momentus is our holding of Carson Group, obviously the largest asset that we have, and then, uh, everything else, everything flows up to there. We have a great team By the way, I think about how much money and waste I had because I haven't had a family office. I probably should have had it like 10 years ago. I mean, the tax, the— I mean, getting that deep and being intimate with every little thing that you're doing is— we have a lot of complexity, you know, in our lives. So for advisors out there who are— if you're your own advisor, it's like a doctor being your own doctor.

Tell me who your advisor is, but do you have an outside advisor and advisors that you go to?

I do now, but I didn't.

You didn't?

I didn't, and it was, it was the worst decision ever, and now I can see that. And so that's what that is. And then also Omnia fits under Momentus, and Omnia is, you know, it's really fun because we're bringing all these really cool entrepreneurs together, and they have their own team, and we customize this plan for them. So it's essentially a really high-end, from that standpoint, coaching program. Then on the investment side, they get to co-invest with our family office. Sometimes we invest in their businesses. I mean, we've— we were the first check for Altruist. We just stood up a company called FC Mother, which is around maternal health. We have a company out of LA called Current Technologies that one of our members became CEO. What's cool is we have this elixir of capital, knowledge, and opportunities. So we're doing some really cool things together. In really regenerative kind of technologies. For example, this is— you love this company— a company called Twelve we invested in, and they convert CO2 to jet fuel, reducing CO2 in the atmosphere. My partner in this is Tenzin Seldon. She is an amazing human being. You should— you would enjoy reading her. She's—

maybe get her on the podcast.

Yeah, you would like her on the podcast. She was born at 24,000 feet. She's Nepalese. Her dad's a right-hand man to the Dalai Lama, and she's one of the top authorities in the world on climate. She had this talk with me about a year ago and she said, "You understand how big a deal climate is going to be?" I said, "Yeah, I'm all in because I want to improve our world." She goes, "No, the best technologies, the biggest companies are going to come out of climate. We've been so woefully underinvested." Look how hot it is here today. It was 99 in Nebraska 3 days ago.

In March.

In March. We've had 100-degree swings. Last several years in the winter in a matter of 10 hours. This is like the real deal because of the greenhouse gases, CO2, it can't escape the atmosphere and this is what you get when you get these high-pressure systems. Things like Twelve, I mean, this company is doing it at scale. We just signed a deal with British Airways. This company has tripled in value in the last year and that's what Tenzin said, the biggest companies are going to come out of climate and because the technologies are superior to anything, so they're just going to be adopted. Not because someone wants to do the right thing, because it's the most efficient application.

So how do you square concern about the climate, capitalism? I know you're into conscious capitalism, but I think you like, you know, you've got some material things.

I do, right? Okay, I do, I do.

How do you sort of square all those things?

I do. I look at my own carbon footprint. I mean, I look at the amount of like regenerative ag that we're doing in Nebraska. We are taking the lead in Nebraska and we're helping lots of farmers become educated. And when you think about, you put that cover crop in, how much CO2 you sequester, a company like Twelve sequestering CO2, the plane that I fly that takes a lot of, I try to fill it up as much as I can wherever we're going to get the, have it be as little as possible. So we're very aware of that. We don't use plastics, we refill our water bottles. Someone just sent me from a trip, said, my wife saw your water bottle from a year ago. I said, I never throw these water bottles away. I have to do the path water, no plastic in the—

but you clean up peanut M&Ms from your jet, right?

From you, from me, when you, when you leave, when you leave M&Ms all over the place. And, uh, so you're right. I mean, but I dramatically absorb my— I have a big negative carbon footprint. Okay. The way I live my life.

Yeah. So tell me more about conscious capitalism. How do you think about that today and how has your thinking evolved on that? Well, and how do you define it?

I was just with Tim Henry, who's actually the CEO. He was at our groundbreaking on Friday in D.C., or just outside of D.C., and just how this has been evolving. You know, this was John Mackey and Raj Sisoda really had the brainchild. There's— they wrote the book Conscious Capitalism.

From Whole Foods.

From Whole Foods. Yeah. John Mackey started Whole Foods. Do you remember what Milton Friedman wrote about capitalism?

Yeah. That the sole purpose of a corporation is to increase shareholder value.

Yeah, at the expense of everything else.

Yeah, right.

Only shareholders. Only shareholders. Didn't he win a Nobel Prize too? I mean, think about this. When we look back in history, like, cigarettes used to be good for you to smoke, right? They said they were healthy for you. We had someone saying, at all costs, maximize your profit. I feel like we're living in that world today. And so John and Raj really, you know, Whole Foods— when you learn the Whole Foods story That business should have never made it. Do you know John and other guys?

I mean, I know of him, but I've never met him.

They had faced every adversity, um, from being flooded to not being able to get a product. And their customers were like, they would support them even when times were really bad. Their banker, he thought his banker gave him a loan, and it was the banker didn't— couldn't get it from the bank, but he never told John. He wrote him a personal check. To keep them going. And so what John realized, without ever being part of this, like, they weren't making any profit early on. And so their suppliers were giving them extra time, and their customers were coming in and being extra gentle if they didn't have everything they needed. But they still found, even though they weren't making money, they still invested in the community. There was this real balanced approach of— and nature was a big piece of, you know, how they showed up. And in the short run if you take this, if you just go from pure capitalism to conscious capitalism, it's going to be like, we got to pay people better and we got to do more things for them, we got to really share the wealth. It looks like you're going to take a hit and you probably will for a few years, but when you get to the other side, they were able to show significant additional profit than just taking the same capitalistic approach from day one, right?

But look at Carson today. So you've got some outside investors, but you still have the majority. So So is there any friction between your idea of conscious capitalism and your outside investors who are like, just give me the return?

There hasn't been. There hasn't been. Because I think that what they've, they've experienced and what we're doing is that it's created more profit. It hasn't come at a— especially if anybody's been with us any period of time, right? They realize the ethos at which we— that we operate in that creates a lot of value even to this day. I mean, we are— we're a coveted place to work. People love coming to work at Carson's. We have very little negative turnover, meaning turnover that we don't want to have. People want to be at Carson. And one of the things Bert did when he came in is he said, you know, you're— we're bloated. We have a lot of people that aren't performers. And if you don't, you still expect people to perform. And I think when you're taking care of them in that conscious capitalistic way, They want to perform and you attract high performers because they see that you're, you're spreading the impact across lots of constituents. And that in itself motivates people.

Yeah. And I think this was from Rick Pitino, actually, a book of his I read many years ago. He's a bit of a controversial basketball coach, but he's doing great this year. I think St. John's.

Yeah, he won.

Yeah. Well, as we're talking, I think they're in the Sweet 16 right now.

Okay.

And one of the things that he said was about motivation was he said, I don't try to make people work hard. I want them to work hard. And I think that's what I heard you just say here.

Yes.

It's like I'm not cracking the whip. It's like we want this to be a place where you want to excel.

Yes.

Because you want the organization to succeed.

There's a, there's a Tao thing. It's, there's a process called Wu Wei. Have you heard of Wu Wei? It's the art of just letting things flow. It does. I mean, you know how I used to have this, you know, butts in the seat, how many hours you're working, are you in, are you dressed up professionally? And, you know, my—

Don't remind me.

I know my style completely changed. And it's like, actually, Joe Durant, you know, I remember he said— he had a great quote. He says, if I got to tell you how to do it, I got the wrong person.

Yeah.

If you just hire really great people— Howard Hawks was a mentor of mine who passed away a couple years ago. Go now. And he— I said, what was your secret to success? Because he became a billionaire and didn't even start his business till later in life. He said, hire the best people you can, get the heck out of the way. And I would have said I was doing that, and I think I did a pretty good job at it, especially over the last decade. But Burt came in and he was like, we're gonna go to the next level. And I, I was a little offended by it, but he has— I mean, he's brought in just really amazing people.

So what's roughly the size of Carson today?

Around $60 billion. Yeah, okay, just pushing $60 billion.

So what's the future? I mean, what's the goal? What's the purpose? Why are you still crushing it?

Yeah, so 100-year firm, and I think that's important for a couple of reasons. One, I'm so bullish on the business. I think that there's going to be— this consolidation is really accelerating right now, and I think Who knows with all the volatility that we got in the world today? We're committed to staying a 100-year firm. We're going to make it to 2082. 2082. 2082. The other piece of it is, is I can't think of a better place to generate catalytic and philanthropic capital. I mean, Jenny and I love doing the things that we're doing. And, you know, we just served our 6 millionth meal in Africa, right? And Charity:water, we, we work with on, you know, the clean water. And I look at FC Mother, maternal health. I view our role today as creating a better future. And I think we all say that, but like, I want to get really aggressive. I mean, I look at our food supply. I mean, I've got lymphedema in my leg. My grandfather, my uncle died in their— uncle in his 30s, my grandfather in his early 60s, my age, of cancer. Jenny and I have terrible arthritis from the glyphosates and atrazenes and all that. I got lymphedema in my leg. From it, and our food supply is poison, you know. And so that's something that I can have a direct impact on. And we've lost 97% of our topsoil in the last 200 years. 3% left. Eastern Nebraska still has some. We sit on the largest freshwater aquifer in the world, Ogallala Aquifer. Ogallala Aquifer. And so we need to really try to reverse— it's not enough, it's not sustainable. We need to regenerate, you know, our soil. We need to get off glyphosates. Because they're also causing the arthritis, you know, in our system today.

So you talk to advisors, you've talked to advisors for decades now. For someone listening to this that might be in the career for 10, 20, 30 years, is maybe getting a little burned out, a little concerned about how fast things are changing, but still wants to have an impact, still wants to help people, what would you say to them? What what advice would you have? How would you want them to maybe reframe how they think about the work that they do so that they can get re-energized and re-engaged about it?

I like the question. I mean, Jenny and I call each other out on this all the time because you'll say, I have to do something. I said, do you have to or do you get to? And so I think about the advisors today, especially those that have been around a while. It's like, are you looking forward to every— you remember the 6 most vital one, right? Are you looking—

I still do it.

I do too. Do you look—

I got a funny story about that.

Do you look forward to every single thing that's on your to-do list for the day. And I can't tell you the difference between— we were down at the basketball game Saturday night, and, uh, I have no idea if it's Saturday or Monday. I had to— one of the guys, what night, what day is this? And if you're loving what you're doing, one of the things I will say, I don't care what AI does and all these other— if you have a handful of clients and you're having coffee with them and you're taking them to lunch and you're playing golf with them, like AI is not going to touch you, right? Just isn't, right? Period. But if you want to grow, pick a place and go. Because I, you know, think about the banking industry that consolidated in the '80s. We had like, I think, 68,000 banks, and now like 6 banks control close to 70% of the market. I think is something close to that happened in farming with the farm crisis. Massive big farms had to, to survive, and And the same things happen with financial services. So pick a spot, go where the puck is going if you want to be in this and you want to be relevant. And, and really look for firms that have had clean data that can be scaled truly with, with AI. They estimated at Abundance 360— I said this in one of my Omani-isms on LinkedIn— that 99.8% of the population truly doesn't know. They did some surveying, like, what's coming at them. They think it's, you know, the frontier models that's using ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini. But it's, it's like wild.

Yeah. So what do advisors misunderstand right now, or what do they underestimate? What's something that is just gonna really surprise them?

I think they're going to underestimate the magnitude of these AI models and what they can do.

Okay.

I mean, dramatically underestimate what they can do. I'll give you a quick example. Hazel ran a 550-page tax return instantly. And I mean, I'm talking about just in a few minutes, identified $56,000 in mistakes that the tax team— because this was a very high net worth client, and just imagine what he paid his tax team— and immediately wrote up an assessment, what needed to be done, what needed to be amended. And we're talking about almost instantaneously, which took them you know, having a relationship for a year and all the charges that they had. And they're like, oh, we, we're actually going to amend that. And he's like, I wonder if that was really going to happen. Or another instance where had someone had their divorce decree, fed it into, you know, the engine, and it said, you know, you're overpaying alimony, there's a mistake made. It was $156,000. I mean, that was identified in seconds.

So is that going to enable advisors to increase the fees that they charge or decrease because it's just going to take a few minutes to do, but the impact is going to be huge.

So what might that do for pricing? I still don't see— we've been talking about fee compression forever. It really hasn't happened. I mean, if you do get to a certain size, there's a little bit of pressure, but we have not seen significant pressure. But what we're doing for the client's gone up dramatically, and we've been saying that forever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're going to do more for the same price, right? But you better be able to do more because if you're an advisor that's not doing more for the same price, you're gonna have to lower your fees, and you're probably just going to eventually lose a client, right?

You're going to be that good advisor instead of the great.

That's right. Yes, that is right. That's correct.

Well, Amani, as we wrap up here, what's a final thought or an Amani-ism that you want to leave us with?

Yeah, well, I think that financial services— being a financial advisor is really, for the really good, like you said, the really great financial advisors, not a better time to be in this profession. And the value we add is incredible. It's just incredible. As long as, you know, you know how you add value. And if I could do it all over again, the things that, that I would do is love your life every day because you don't know when— who said, live like you're going to die tomorrow, but learn like you're going to live forever? Do you remember who said that? I think it was one of your quotes.

I don't think I—

okay, I may have quoted somebody, somebody else. All right, originate. But that's, that, that's advice I I would give. And be a librarian and not a library. I mean, not try to hold— there's just no way to hold the information. And just position yourself as someone that, as we've always said, as a quarterback. Delegate, release, enjoy the business. Find out, you know, go through that process of, of going into creator mode and saying, you know, who do you really want to be and what makes you happiest, and everything else will we'll key off of that.

All right, well, Amani, I think a great way to end the show. And it's been great having, uh, known you and worked with you for several decades here and getting a chance to spend about an hour with you and catch up on things. So appreciate it.

Thank you. Thanks for having me, Steve. It was fun.

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