Achieving Awesomeness Now with Randy Garn

Welcome to Achieving Awesomeness Now. Designed to help you step into your greatness and inspire others to do the same.

Last week, Brandon met a girl on a dating app. One day after work, he finally found the courage to ask her out. No answer. He started to panic. Was he being too pushy? Maybe it was too. Hey, sorry I didn't respond. I was driving. I would love to go on a date. How does tonight sound? Brandon tried to play it cool, but it inside, he knew a girl so smart, so responsible, she must be a keeper.

And now your host, master life coach Nathan Osmond. What's up? Hello, everybody, and welcome to Achieving Awesomeness Now. Welcome to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. That's right, I get around town, baby. I'm here in Las Vegas, Nevada today, right here on the Strip, and I'm super excited to have with us today a true rock star. My buddy Randy Garn is joining us today. He's a passionate entrepreneur, New York Times best selling author, speaker, and loves being a dad. He and his wife Charlotte are the proud parents of four daughters. They're all ballerinas and two rowdy boys. His favorite thing in the world is growing companies and people. He has worked closely with some of the world's most recognized CEOs, companies, educators, thought leaders and experts. Randy was also awarded the Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst and Young. That's one of the most prestigious awards you could ever win. And top 40 under 40 entrepreneur. And has an MBA from Harvard. He's also been featured in Forbes Inc. 500 and Entrepreneur magazine. And Randy's core competency is the VOR that's right. VOR stands for Velocity of relationships. This man, he knows how to bring people together. He's also mastered the art of customer acquisition, marketing, sales, and how to relate to overall lifetime customer experience for many top experts, CEOs and influencers. Today, it is with great honor that I'm able to introduce to you one awesome guy. Give it up for my friend, Mr. Randy Garn. Randy Garn, welcome to the party. How are you, my friend?

Oh, I'm doing so good. It's great to be here with you, my man.

Oh, my goodness. I want to thank you for taking the time to be here with us. You're such a busy guy. I understand you just came back from our friend Dean Graziosi's wedding. You're over there in Italy hanging out with him. Is that right?

Yeah, it was super fun. It was fun to be a part of it. We were in Lake Como, and then I took my wife and my two Daughters. And we actually went to Switzerland for four days as well. And I mean, it's so beautiful over there. The people are awesome. Yeah, dude, I love the Italian culture. It's just. It's amazing.

That's incredible. You're a world traveler and you're doing so many things right now. I just told everybody about you on your intro here, but just, you're like, I call you coach. Okay. Because you are the magic behind so many well known people that we get to hear from on podcasts and in great best selling authors. And you yourself are a best selling author. But people like Brendon Burchard and people like Rachel Hollis, you get a chance to work with people like that. And I understand you're like the connector. If there's anyone that knows how to bring people together, it's this guy. Why, Randy, is it so important to be a connector in this world today if you want to succeed?

Well, it's a good thing. And I think that there's. It's much, much deeper than just connecting people. It really is. Because I think that that's where a lot of people think that they're good. But to be really, really good, it's actually. It's not who, you know, it's who you serve.

I love that.

And that's what makes all the difference in building relationships and connecting people. There's a huge difference. And I always say, too, it's. It's not. It's not who you know, it's who knows you and what they're saying about you. So it's like when somebody says, all right, man, you gotta meet Nate. He's the freaking man. He did this and this and this. For me, it's much different than just being like, he's a good guy, you know?

Yeah.

So you have to think about how deep is your relationship, how deep is your well. You know, you gotta dig your well before you're thirsty and build those long. You got it. When it comes to connections and relationships, you have to be in it for the long game. You can't just be in it for the short game.

People can sense nowadays, especially the millennials, they can sense hype and they can sense when you're being fake. You are one of the most genuine guys and rubbing shoulders with people like Harvey McKay. And every time I meet you, you're hanging out with rock stars and. And you take the time to introduce them to me and to anyone else in the room. You love to serve others, and I think that's the key. One of our favorite Books says, he who is greatest among you will be your servant. And that's become, really, one of the secrets to your success in business, is that you're not afraid to roll up your sleeves and serve others. We've learned that when people give. When they try to help others get what they want in life, they end up getting what they want tenfold. Would you agree with that statement?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a really good friend of mine. I mean, another guy that you should have on your show is Brandon Steiner from Steiner Sports. I've been on Brandon's advisory board for a long time. And he just. He's an amazing, amazing human. But one of the things that he always says is, do as much as you can for as many people as you can, as often as you can, without expecting anything in return, and watch what happens and. Been trying to live that. I've been on. I've known him for the last 10 years. I mean, he could be on the phone. He could be like, hey, Jeter, give me. Give me that. Give me that ball, dude, I've got to tell you what to do. And Jeter may need something, and he'll be like, dude, you need your shoe shot. Hey, I got this guy. Hey, you know, and so it's just. I watched him, and he just serves. Relentless. Like, I literally. I get a gift from him probably every other month out of the blue. I just got from him. It's in my office. I turn my camera, but it's a Mike Tyson punch out, but it's a signed Mike Tyson boxing glove and the Nintendo 84, like the Nintendo paddle and from Tyson. Hey, Randy, knock yourself out, because I told him a story. Story when I was there. So it's those little things. And when you're building relationships, little things don't. Little things don't mean a lot. Little things mean everything.

People will forget what you said, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. And I think that's something that you just said. Your friend right there, Mr. Steiner, is. He bought the Yankee Stadium, and this guy's sending you toys. How cool is that? I love that you said something that you told me once. He says, you do what you did, right? You do what you did. And I love learning from people like that because there's a lot of talkers out there. But if you want to be great and you have to manifest it. Mahatma Gandhi. Be the change you wish to see in the world. And I just love that you get to work with so many great companies and you help people Establish what you call the three Bs. Believe, belong and become. I listened to a great speech that you gave to the LDS Business College this morning, and here you are, a guy from what, Sugar City, Idaho. How does a guy from Sugar City, Idaho, go to becoming this great entrepreneur? Give us a little background of your story, how you got started, like, at Ricks College. Tell us that story of what you did to finally decide because you wanted to be a doctor. I understand. Is that correct?

Yep. Actually, I wanted to go into sports medicine.

Sports medicine.

I wanted to be on the field. I wanted to be. I wasn't big enough to be in the NFL, but I wanted to be on the field, like taking care of athletes. That's really what my. It's really what I wanted to do.

Well, you're built like a log. Seriously. You may not be super tall, but, man, you're a football player and a bull rider.

That's right. My nickname in high school is the little ball of hate. That's what I was really. I was hard to get a hold of. I was a tailback and linebacker and I also rode bulls and rolled bulls. At Ricks College a little bit. It was fun.

That's incredible. So how did you. Where did you go from being sports medicine guy to being Mr. Entrepreneur of the Year?

You know, I had always been an entrepreneur, even when I was. Even when I was younger. I mean, one of the things that, you know, my dad was a high school football coach. My mom taught English and debate, and she oversaw the drill team and the cheerleaders. And so, I mean, I live Friday Night Lights. Like, growing up, a lot of people say, like, man, my dad was horrible. He beat me. He never paid attention to me. I actually had a very, very opposite father was there and mentored me. But one of the things he taught me was accountability in a big way. And I think that helped me to be really successful because I think as parents and even as entrepreneurs, if we're not holding our people accountable, you teach people how to treat you. And so a good example was when I was young, my dad, I was a junior and it was prom and I was going to use the new truck that we just got because our car was always breaking down. Our 1970 Ford Ltd, Ford. And it was brown with vinyl seats. It was awesome. Loved it. But I didn't think it was going to get to the dance. So my dad got a new truck and he said, hey, yeah, you can use the truck, but Granny, I want you home at 11 o'. Clock. We got to Wake up early and feed the cows if you're not home. I blew it a couple weeks before. If you're not home, then you're not using the truck. I remember coming home and I got home and I remember pulling up, my friends were like, dude, just stay a little longer. Everything's good. But I got home at 11:47. I remember creeping my bed and I remember I made it, I'm safe. And I went to my bed and I pulled the covers over and there's my dad sleeping in my bed.

Oh my goodness.

I mean there's nowhere to go. And guess what he said? Guess what he said? He said, randy, what time is it? I said, dad, it's 11:52. He said what time did you tell me and promised me you'd be home. I said, that was 11 o', clock, sir. He said, well, you're not going to get the car tomorrow. Let's kneel down and say prayers together. We said prayers together and that was it. You know, he didn't get mad.

What did he do?

You know, when I woke up that morning I was thinking, dude, my dad's going to let me take the truck. He's going to be totally fine. And I learned a great lesson. He said, no, I'm going to follow through with that. I committed to and you need to follow through with what you committed to. I told you that I wasn't going to let you take the truck if you weren't home. And I have to follow through with that. I want to teach you that. So I ended up actually not being able to take. But those were little examples that I learned from him. But also we didn't have a lot of money growing up and so I had to think about being resourceful. I started a miniature golf course by myself. I sold worms to fishermen, I moved pipes. So we had to do those things to kind of pay for ourselves. I remember. I think it's so fun to be self sufficient. It's so fun that I had my own money when I was 16, 17, 18. And then I started taking out the garbage for all of the girls dorms and we started a business called Buck Buck. None of them wanted to take their garbage is out on Sugar city. It's like minus 30 degrees below zero in the winter. And one night the girls are like, hey, could you take our garbage out? I was like dude, I'll do it for a buck. And so all of them said dude, could you do that every week? And I'm like dude, an idea struck. So literally I was Taken out. There's six, six hundred dorm rooms. We're making three to four grand a month with two of us with my dad's truck. And I paid for all my college through that. We called Buck Buck. It was a buck, a buck a person per dorm. It was money. It was awesome.

Turning trash into cash. I love it.

That's right, baby.

That's incredible. So you took a turn from sports medicine and said, I want to be an entrepreneur now. Where did you go? Who became obviously your dad taught you accountability. He was a man of his word. You learned some great principles from him. Who else kind of put you on that path and, and kind of became your mentor in the beginning.

You know, actually I saw him today randomly, Dave Christianson when I was in college. He was an amazing mentor of mine and a great businessman and just an amazing man. But he wrote a book. He wrote a book that really, really changed me. And it really kind of helped me. It really helped you find your kind of what your life purpose is and what your Polaris point is. And you know, I wrote a book called, called Prosper. We're a New York Times best selling book. And a lot of it stemmed from what I learned from that. But it really helped me to see like, you know, I think going back to the entrepreneurship I did, I only had really one guy that I worked for and I did concrete and construction and the way that he treated me and the way that we did, I learned a lot from him. But I remember one day being like, dude, I'm never going to work for somebody else again.

Yeah.

And I know. And I. And from that day on, once I quit that, I was like, dude, this is it. I've always been an entrepreneur and I've always been able to create my own destiny and create my own income. Once you learn how to make money, it's awesome. Life is awesome.

It is awesome. And one thing that last time we met, you talked about how you have these modules. You have kind of like a go to system that helps to build companies and build people. And it works like every single time. It's systematic. What are some of the key systems or principles in your system that have helped you to help launch so many companies? You've built big, big companies that we all recognize you're highly involved with like the Hero Partners and Education Success Inc. High Performance Institute, Parachute Co. That's an incredible one, Scipio. And all these companies, you built them from the ground up, help sell them off and launch them and they're doing extremely well. What has Been like some of the key core principles that have helped to build those companies, the core competencies as you call them.

Yeah, it is. You know, I really say that, I mean I really come in and I'll help with strategy. I say if you don't have strategy on one page, you don't have a strategy. And that came from Virtus Norton, that came from Jim Kilts, that ran Kraft and Nabisco and everything else. He ran them all. He wanted to make sure everybody in the entire organization knew where they were going. And so I think a big one is making sure that you have a clear strategy and that as the CEO or the leader, you're not the only one that knows it. So clarity is the number one thing. Here's a good example for you. Tyler Norton and I a few years ago flew out to meet with, with the big trucking company doing about 300 million in sales. And they want us to come in and help them. They were trying to actually go to that next level to do 600 million. And you know, one of the guys brought us in and we sat the executive team down. We had the CEO, the cmo, cfo, the chief operating officer, and we had their business development guy. And we sat down and the CEOs like, Dude, everybody knows what's going on. I mean, we have our strategy. I was like, we got this. And I was like, all right, well Brandon, want us to come in and check things out. This is the thing. And Timer said, I want you guys, I'll pull out a three by five card. I want you to write your top five strategies if you get them right and then you guys are on the same page and we're fine. I can fly home tonight and make my son's baseball game. So let's do it, let's pull it out. In fact, I don't even want you to top five, just do your top three. And they all pulled it out. And we said, here it's five minutes and what do you think happened?

None of them matched.

Not only did none of them match, none of them were even like, none of them even had the same ones. I could think that maybe one or two would be right, but. And the CEO just, he had three of them down. Make more sales, make more sales, make more sales. That's our strategy, guys. So when you're running a 300 million dollar company and your executive team doesn't know what's going on and you want to go to, you know, a billion dollars, you have to really, I mean, it takes a Whole different level to get to a billion than when you're at 300,000. It takes a whole. And then you have to have more clarity when you have more people and more decisions. So that one page strat document works for 3 million dollar company. It works for a 300 million dollar company. And so that's the main thing that I do. I will drive clarity. And that's a big one. And it actually is more. It's so important to do because that's the way you can actually move fast, build trust, get the right people on the bus. And a lot of things will stem from that.

There's something that you process, that you learn from your friend, the COO of Kraft Nabisco Virtus Norton called Stratlink. Will you kind of break that down? What is Stratlink? I want to learn about this. Tell our listeners what that means.

Stratlink is linking strategy with execution. So it's linking strategy with execution. And that's part of that. That one page strap doc is so important to drive clarity, but it'll also help you to hold the accountability because from there then that one page, then you break down quarterly and annual, annual action items and things that you need to do. So, you know, and I always say there's three type of people. There's people that can see the problem, that people can actually. There's people that, well, there's people that know the problem, there's people that can see how to fix it. Then there's people that just get it done. So strategy helps you do that and it actually helps you see nobody can hide. Instead of being somebody that's pushing a chain as a leader, you all of a sudden turn the organization to have them be accountable to you. And you don't sit down and have meetings anymore where you're just directing all the time, be like, hey Jim, tell me how you're doing on your goals. Tell me how you're doing on your goal set. You know where you at, come report. Instead of being like, hey, you should be doing this and that. So it changes the way that an organization actually operates, which is really important.

And I believe it was Mr. Norton that said, if you don't set your own goals, someone else will use you for theirs. I love that quote.

If you don't have your own goals, somebody else will use you for theirs.

That's unbelievable. Now, you're an avid reader and I know you had a lot of great books that you've read and have kind of guided you throughout your process of becoming this Great entrepreneur. One of them that you mentioned is how will you measure your life? By Clayton M. Christensen. How will you measure your life? Why is that important to be able to measure your life?

Well, I mean, people think of success differently. You know, I did the Harvard program, I did the OPM program, and we had a class of 120 people. We got to meet Clayton while he was there. I'd read the book before he actually taught in our church Sunday school class and it was just phenomenal. I became fascinated with what does it mean to be successful. And it's actually a lot more about impact than it is about influence. But it's also, at the end of the day, it's a balance between money, happiness and sustainability. At the end of the day, you know, I don't really care too much about stuff. Like I could drive any car one or do I want? I drive a tundra, right?

Mm.

And it's like stuff doesn't matter to me. What is your Polaris point? Why do you matter and why do you exist if you can't actually answer that? If you go away, why would it matter? If you can't really answer that, then any amount of money in the world is not going to make that successful. And so I love that book because it actually gets down to the details of finding out what matters most in your life and what do you want to be remembered by.

I love that question. Why do you matter? Because I think a lot of young people and old people alike don't stop. First of all, I don't think that some people think that they do matter. And it's not about being big headed. It's about believing that you're worth something. And I think that that's something that perhaps your parents instill in you. When you'd have family prayer in the mornings, you guys, you would say, go garns. You were like each other's cheerleaders. When somebody doesn't have a cheerleader in their life, where do they find the self worth within that inner voice that helps them to motivate, the motivator.

You know, we have a really close friend and he's a very famous attorney in LA and he's an entertainment attorney, makes probably well over a million dollars a year, has a beautiful home and has zero relationship with his kids and came to us and just like, you know what, I have all this success, I'm busy. But now all my kids, I don't even have a relationship with them. I'd spend any amount of money to have a relationship with them. On the other side, we have a really close friend that he ran a company called doctor Detail. All of a mean, he went and he went around and detailed cars and fixed tires and did that. He probably, you know, had a smaller home, but he's the happiest guy in the world. And he's like, I think him and his wife were like father and wife of the year in California like three times and seven kids. And they work with him and he spends time with him and takes Fridays off and Saturdays. I mean, who's wealthier?

Exactly.

Who is more successful? I know too many people that are making so much money, but internally there's massive conflict. So what my life, what I've been trying to do is align my life, align myself with people that make me want to be more and do more and like, you know, that believe, belong and become. And that's, that's what I, that's, that's success to me is I'm living aligned with my, with my, my true thing. And what matters most to me and also what matters most to everybody is their families, when it comes right down to it. So that's what I'm trying to do.

Well, that's one thing that you don't, you don't just try. You are doing and you're, you're, your children, you can see it in their faces are just. They love their mom and they love their dad and you're there for them. You know, it's like Les Brown the other day, he was talking about, my children love my gifts, but what they really want is my presence. How have you been able to maintain a balance in your home with all that you're doing and all the traveling and being at these events and meetings and building companies from the ground up? How do you make time for the ones that matter the most?

You know, I'm trying to do a lot more to include them in everything that I do. You know, we, you know, we went to that wedding. I took my two oldest daughters. You know, they missed the first week of school. And really my daughters were just like, my daughter missed her first week of college and my other daughter missed her sophomore year. And at the end of the day, you know, education is important, but I mean, what is going to be more important? They went to Switzerland and Italy and met some amazing people. And so, you know, I try to balance out. Like we're going up, we have a, you know, we have a private fly fishing resort and we own a golf course up in Idaho and we're taking some clients up there, you know, tomorrow. And I'm taking my kids, I'm taking my boys, and they're taking theirs. And so I'm actually working closely with CEOs to help them. I mean, honestly, like, a lot of people are asking me to help them get their families back. And it's really an interesting thing, Nate, that's happening is a lot of these people are like, man, I want to learn from you on how you integrate family life with business life. For me, there is no delineation. There's no delineation between my personal life and my business life. I kind of teach people how to treat you. When my wife calls, I pick up no matter what the meeting is. And so I always pick up when she calls. And, you know, if I'm on a webinar or something like that, and I can't, but if I'm in something like, hold on, the boss is calling, and people laugh, but actually, people really respect that.

They really do. It shows where your priorities are, and I think that's the biggest reason why. You may have people that have all this money in the world, but if they don't know what their true priorities are, they're a wreck. They're a mess. Like you said, there's conflict going on within, but it all comes back to making the time for the people that matter the most. And I think that's one of the reasons why, like, Michael Eisner got his job. When he did his job interview, he couldn't make the meeting because he promised his kids that he was going to take them out to get ice cream. And that's what got him the job, because he had the standards that Disney was looking for. Family friendly. This guy, he had priorities, and he stuck to what he said he was going to do. And that makes for a good CEO.

Well, and you think about not only. I mean, you talk about the other thing on building businesses is the other thing is, like, how do you drive deep, meaningful relationships? And I always say, you know, honestly, if you took everything away, if you took all the money away that I've ever created, you took my home away. If you took my cars away and you drop me off on an island somewhere, as long as you didn't take my friends away and my network away, I would actually be back on my feet in less than six months making tons of money. I promise you. Wow. People don't understand, truly the power of relationships and networks. My family is my most important relationship. And then my business partners and those that are around me and those that you drive value for. And so you have to think about the long, long game. You know, I did. I've had awesome, awesome business partners, but I've had one business partner that he really didn't care about people. All he really cared about was making sure that he was okay and, you know, a lot of earth. But he's done really, really well financially. But the way that he treated people, it's gonna. I mean, it's actually catching up. And so at the end of the day, it's like, do you make me better? Do I want to be, like, be with you? How do we do business together? And being able to serve before you sell is really, really important. So you grow businesses through people. You grow businesses through relationships. Ask anybody what the hardest thing is. It's enterprise sales. And that's always done through relationships. You can have the best product in the world and. But if you don't know how to articulate a sale and build a relationship that they're going to buy from you, it's not going to happen.

I learned about a certain word that you brought back from India. You've traveled the world, and you taught me a word one time called genshai. Would you tell me what that word means? Tell it to our listeners. What does it mean? Genshai?

Yeah, I mean, genshai. And this actually comes from another good friend of mine in Park City. And genshai means never treat another person small, including yourself. That's what I do. But I do love leaders. I mean, I'm really. I mean, Brendan Burchard is amazing. He is true. He is who he is. He is a true. True. He is who he is. Like, Dennis Waitley. He is who he says he is. Like, I have a couple of other CEOs. They are who they say they are. They're a true. True. And so they love people regardless of. And I always say, dude, I treat the taxicab driver the same that I treat the CEO. You never know who the treasure map to the treasurer is either. And what I mean by that is, as we were in New York one time, and we were going to close a pretty big deal for one of the companies I was working with. There were three of us, me and two other guys. We were running to the elevator and there was a lady there that kind of got in her way and. And didn't see us. We didn't see her. And one of the guys that was with us treated her so badly, and it's just like, dude, what are you doing? Are you kidding me? We're trying to get in this elevator. She's like, well, I am too. We've got a really, really important meeting we got to get to. She's like, well, go ahead. And then she got in the elevator with us and we went up to the 33rd floor and that lady got out on the same floor we did and sat down in the desk, in the front desk. And then we walked up and I said, hey, we are here to see Steve. And it was his personal assistant.

Keep it simple, baby. I love it. Well, Randy, thank you so much for joining us here on achieving awesomeness. Now on behalf of all of us here, I think we've all grown today. We've all learned. Go and focus on those three Bs and make sure you go get Randy's book. It's a best seller. New York Times best selling author, folks. Randy, thanks again, buddy, for joining us here today. Let's get better each and every single day and let's put our arms around the world and bring them with us. This is Nathan Osmond saying, may God bless you, God bless your dreams, and may he bless you in achieving awesomeness right now. This episode of Achieving Awesomeness now was brought to you by Rave, the ultimate VIP experience. Learn more about how you can meet your favorite celebrities face to face, one on one, virtually with what we call the ultimate VIP experience. That's right. Rave is bridging the gap between fan and celebrity engagement. Learn more today@ravevip.com.