Hangin’ with Randy Garn
Randy Garn truly is a serial entrepreneur. From selling worms to local fisherman to opening up miniature golf courses to taking out women’s garbage for $1, Randy loves the idea of being self-sufficient by truly serving others. He loves working with his best friends in everything that he does. And he absolutely LOVES people. This, he feels, is the secret to all of his success in life. He truly has desires to serve and love people. Instead of thinking of how much financial gain he could make with a deal, he thinks about how best to serve someone. This has attracted much of the success in Randy’s life. Above all, his relationship with his Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have come first in his life. By prioritizing them first in his life, he has felt that everything else just magically fell into place the way it was meant. Randy exudes joy. He has an incredibly infectious personality, and it has helped him to win the hearts of others. He truly has gathered many wonderful people into his life and is constantly thinking of how to best lift others up. Super fun catching up with him. Enjoy the podcast!
Get to Know Randy Garn
Randy Garn is most at ease away from the spotlight, despite his status as a serial entrepreneur, New York Times bestselling author, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, and Harvard Business alumnus. Somewhat of an enigma, there are plenty of lessons when it comes to life, learning, and business that can be learned from the man, but who is he, and what drives him in his success? Let’s take a look at who Randy Garn is to get an idea of how he became such a success and what drives him to help others.
A True Family Man
Despite immense amounts of success, a plethora of high-flying clients, a best-selling book under his wing, and a schedule that would make most people faint with exhaustion at just the sight of it, Randy Garn is a family man through and through.
He lives with his wife, Charlotte, and their six children — four daughters and two sons. One thing that you can say about Randy’s life: it certainly is never quiet! He reminds people that no matter how big and successful they get, the family should always be at the forefront of one’s mind, stating: “I never let my entrepreneurial work get in the way of time with my family. While it is important to provide for them, I know that our happiness is the most important thing of all.”
Another way he connects with his family is through his involvement with the Bronze Buffalo Club, an exclusive members-only venture. They provide their members with a variety of activities, such as hunting, fishing, and golfing.
Striking the balance between a super successful businessman and a dedicated family man is something that Randy always strives to achieve — and does it with aplomb.
A Shining Example of Entrepreneurial Spirit
When it comes to the who’s who of serial — and successful — entrepreneurs, Randy Garn is right up there with the best of them. You could almost say that starting up and helping companies flourish is one of his hobbies!
Randy has founded or partnered with numerous companies such as Prosper, Hero Partners, Education Success Inc., High Performance Institute, and many others. He also sits on the advisory board or partners on many other companies, including High Performance Institute with Brendon Burchard; SolutionStream, which is one of the top-tier software development companies; and Malouf Foundation, as well as the aforementioned Bronze Buffalo Club in Star Valley, Wyoming
He started off as a co-owner and founder of Prosper, which he launched in 1999 with Ethan Willis and was with for fourteen years. Prosper was a thriving company in the areas of direct-to-consumer marketing and training in real estate investing, small business and entrepreneur education, e-commerce, internet development, and stock investing. This was his way of giving others access to the many skills and experience he picked up at Brigham Young University, where he was awarded a bachelor’s degree in business education and economics.
He has always insisted that becoming a serial entrepreneur was something that he never actually set out to do but that he learned a lot about life in his early business ventures. He states that it taught him that there are significant differences between growth and goals and that his end goal was never to partner up and work with so many companies. However, as he grew in experience and skills, he began building new companies and partnering up with others with the same visions to create businesses that looked forward. Now it is something that we come to associate with Randy Garn.
Mentorship
Throughout his early business life and career, Randy Garn was fortunate enough to have some superb mentors who guided him and taught him all that they knew, and now Randy is working to do the same with others. He takes a new approach to mentorship: instead of invading his mentees’ thought process and handing out unsolicited advice and guidance, he seeks to observe and remind those he works with of their achievements and their skills, allowing them to guide the process themselves and make their own discoveries. This is all covered in his best-selling book Prosper.
What Makes Randy Garn Tick?
As well as being a dedicated family man, Randy Garn is a deeply devoted religious man, who puts his relationship with God and Jesus Christ at the forefront of everything that he does. He puts his success down to making sure they are the priority and that because of this, the rest of his life and career has fallen into place.
Randy Garn Podcast Transcription
Charan: Welcome back, guys. This is Charan Prabhakar with the Lemonade Stand Stories podcast. And I’m here with Mr. Randy Garn. And it’s so funny, because I’ve heard of Randy through passing so many times. And I think you may have heard of me a little bit, too, from my different circles of people. And yet we’ve never sat down and chatted. And it’s weird, because we’ve been in similar social settings, done all kinds of cool thing, we know a lot of the same people, but I don’t know. Everyone has been telling me, “Oh my gosh, you’ve got to sit down with Randy.” And I’m like, “I’d love to.” So we were thinking of having lunch, and then we’re like, “We should do a podcast.” That’s the best way to discuss stuff.
Charan: But thanks, man. Thank you so much for being on here. I’m so stoked to get to know you more and for the listeners to also hear your story, because you’ve been a serial entrepreneur. And I’d just love to hear your story, man, your lemonade stand story on how this spirit of entrepreneurship came alive in you and what you did to make it what you’re doing right now.
Randy: I love it. What age do you want me to start out, bro?
Randy Garn Talks About His Lemonade Stand Story
Charan: Let’s start at two years old. No, when you were a kid. Did you have a lemonade stand when you were a kid?
Randy: Oh, yeah. Yeah. No. So I grew up in Idaho. I grew up in a sweet little place called Sugar City, Idaho.
Charan: Sweet.
Randy: And my first business was selling worms to fishermen. I’m not kidding.
Charan: That’s the best. How’d you say, “Yeah, I want to do this. I want to sell the worms to people”?
Randy: Well, it’s because we always went fishing, and we had to get our own worms. And so there was this guy. And it’s funny, because 30 years later he came back and he said, “Dude, you used to buy chemical from me to sell worms.” So literally you could sell worms to fishermen. You don’t know this, but you can actually collect worms and sell them in the market. It’s bananas. So there’s a chemical that you get. And we had a huge lawn, and we could do it once a week. And we would literally get hundreds of thousands of worms. And then we would sell them to fishermen, and then we would sell them in the market. It was bananas. So that was actually one of my first entrepreneur stories.
Charan: That’s amazing. Did you always have that desire to be an entrepreneur and sell stuff and all that things? Or was that something that was taught to you? Or how did that happen?
Randy: It’s funny, because I think I was probably 10, 11 years old. I actually did it out of necessity. And I can’t actually say that we grew up poor, because I never missed a meal. When I say we grew up, we grew up in a place where I had tons of love in my home. We were very, very rich and blessed. But we didn’t have a lot of the monetary things that you really do. So I had to do worms to buy clothes for school and to do different things and literally just have some play money. I loved it. I remember at a young age that I loved the feeling that I could be self-sufficient.
Charan: Okay. [crosstalk 00:04:26].
Randy: At a very, very young age, that was a fear of mine. I was just like, “Dude, I don’t want to ever ask anybody for anything.” So when I started doing that, we then created my next business after that. Me and my brothers created a miniature golf course in our yard.
Charan: No way.
Randy: Yeah, just right there in our yard and then out in our field. And we charged $1 to golf, but then we charge 50 cents for the ball. And if you lost the ball, you had to buy it for $3. So we made more money on people paying for balls they lost.
Charan: That’s amazing.
Randy: But that was the second idea. And it was tons of fun. All the neighborhood kids came over. And I think at an early age, I really started to understand the joy that comes from being able to create your own wealth and to create your own sustainability.
Charan: Mm. That’s a powerful lesson to learn. You know what I mean? Were you ever shy as a kid, or were you just like, “Nope, we’re going to do this thing”? Because I cannot imagine you being shy to [crosstalk 00:05:26] spirit to do this type of thing.
Randy: It’s really funny you ask that. When God created me, I think he put a couple extra drops of joy in there, because I haven’t been shy. I really do honestly and sincerely love people.
Charan: That’s amazing.
Randy: For me, I don’t care if they’re a multi-billionaire or a “rillionaire” or a trillionaire or if they’re the taxi driver or an Uber driver. I try to do everything that I can to treat everyone the same. When you do that, you don’t see status. You don’t see other things. You’ll just be like, “You know what? They’re just like me. They put their pants on just I do.” So I’ve actually never ever actually had a fear of people because I love them.
Charan: That’s amazing, man. And that’s such a powerful gift that you’ve been given. I came from India. I had a family that had a little bit of wealth. But right outside where I lived, there was this concrete fence and then tons and tons of people in cardboard boxes living. And it always made me feel just-
Randy: What location was that in India?
Charan: It was a place called Chennai, [crosstalk 00:06:40]. Yeah. And it was a very interesting feeling because I didn’t feel deserving, first off. What made it so I was born in a family with money when tons and tons of people were not? And then on top of that, my family is Hindu and we kept trying to come to the States. We kept getting denied. And my mom had this… I don’t know. She had this desire to learn more about Christ. She just had this faith in Christ. And so she prayed to Jesus Christ that we could get our visas. And two weeks later, we got our visas.
Randy: Oh my word.
Charan: And we landed in Provo, Utah. I mean, come on. You see these little circumstances that happen in your life, and you’re like, okay, how is this happening? And how is this being orchestrated? Because it’s not like we planned this. So I love the fact that you were born with that extra bit of joy and that extra bit of love for people so that you never gave status more distinction versus somebody else. And I think that’s the key to being a truly successful entrepreneur, is to genuinely care about the people that you’re serving. So I love that, man. That’s awesome.
Randy Garn Talks About His Many Business Ventures
Charan: So you went from golfing. Because I feel you’ve done so many different businesses, so can you give me a little list of some of the things that you’ve been involved in?
Randy: Yeah. Yeah. So from golf, we actually did really well. We did it for three years. I also moved pipe in Idaho, so I’d wake up in the morning, and we get out and do that. But the other really, really fun business that I started back in the day, and this is for when I was in college, I served an LDS mission in the Philippines. I was up in the Philippine jungle up in the north and Baguio and again saw extreme poverty and saw extreme circumstances. But when I was there, I just saw how happy they were, and they didn’t have a lot. But the thing is, how do we help people actually find ways to be innovative and ideation? And so when I got back from my mission, I didn’t have any money for college.
Randy: And what’s really, really super cool is that my grandmother, who grew up Price, Utah, with her husband, they were coal miners, she said, “Hey, Randy,” I didn’t know this, but when I got home, I didn’t have any money. So I’m like, I got to figure out how to do this. I got a $500 scholarship from my mission president, and my grandma had paid for my whole first year of college. And she didn’t have a lot, but she said any of her grandkids at went and served that she would actually do that for them without telling them.
Charan: Wow. That’s nice.
Randy: She didn’t say it, but she’d done that. So I really considered that an honor. But from that I was like, “Man, I still got to pay for books, for food, for everything else for housing.” And so I started a company called Buck Buck, which, in Idaho it’s really cold. And we would take out the women’s garbage in the dorms and all of the things. And this was so amazing. We charged $1 a girl. Usually, there’s four girls per dorm. And what did that do for me?
Charan: Yeah. You got to meet all the girls.
Randy: I literally got to meet all the girls.
Charan: That’s amazing. Yeah, yeah.
Randy: If you do the math, we had close to 400 apartments that we were doing. 400 times $4 is how much?
Charan: $1,600, I think, right?
Randy: Yeah. Yeah. Around $1,600. You got this. And that’s $1,600 twice a week.
Charan: Okay. Amazing. So $1,600 twice a week is $3,200, right?
Randy: $3,200 a week. Times four.
Charan: Oh, gosh. 3,200 times four. Hang on, hang on. $12,800, right? $12,800.
Randy: Yeah. $12,800. So we were making anywhere between $9,000 and $10,000-
Charan: Every month.
Randy: … a month split between three of us.
Charan: Oh my gosh.
Randy: But we were taking out garbage. We found a need. The girls did not want to take the garbage all the way to the dumpster, and it was 30 degrees below zero and windy and cold. So we started in the wintertime, and I just pulled up my dad’s truck. It took us about two hours. So we figured out how much we were making an hour was well over $600 an hour. It didn’t take a long time. We got it, and we’re like, “Hey, how do we optimize this?” We had them put their envelope outside the door. And I got to meet all the girls.
Charan: That’s amazing.
Randy: And then we did a fun service. And we were the Buck Buck guys. So it was trash for cash. And that paid for my entire college. Now, what I did the next year was I met a lady, and she’s like, “Randy, you should run for student body president.” I’m like, “I never thought about that.” I already knew everybody and ended up becoming student body president because everybody knew who we were. And they loved us because we’d show up, we’d be so fun. You think about that simple idea.
Charan: Such a simple idea.
Randy: Anyone can do that.
Charan: And it serves a niche. It serves a market. And yeah. It’s so perfect. I love that because, like you said, it’s only $1. That’s amazing that you’re able to make that happen. So you did Buck Buck. And so did you kind of decide, hey, I’m going to make all of my ideas seem simple or seem effective something that anyone can sign up for?.Because I feel like that’s your bread and butter almost.
Randy: Yeah. I think simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. I think a lot of people just are fearful of getting started and fearful of failure. I’m never really worried about that. I’m like, man, if somebody else can do that, I can do that. That’s always been my philosophy. It’s like, dude, again, we all put on our pants the same way. And how do I serve? And I think my whole life’s been, how do you serve before you sell? And even Buck Buck came… Four girls that we were talking to, they were like, “Hey, would you guys be willing to take our trash out?” And I simply said, “Yeah, I will if you guys will pay me a dollar.” And that sparked it right then it’s that. And then we put that to a business plan and a business model.
Randy: So I think that have I always thought about the money side of it? I don’t think so. I’ve actually just thought about how do I drive value, and that revenue will come. I don’t know if it’s still going or not, but once I moved down and came to college down to Utah, we did have some other people running that. And it was awesome for them. And so, honestly, anybody could do that right now at any college at any place. And it works really, really well. Just a simple service idea.
Randy: From there, it’s really interesting. My father was a high school football coach and for 32 years. And so I think a lot of that has been bred in me is you can do more, you can be more, you can accomplish more. And it’s just like, okay, start everyday new. So like I said, I didn’t grow up poor because I had the most awesome, awesome dad in the world. Seriously, he could have been a doctor, he could have been whatever, but he’s like, I have four sons and two daughters. I want to raise them. So he ended up buying a ranch in Idaho, and that’s actually how we got there.
Randy: But a lot of times, a lot of things that I get, I think stemmed from his coaching. And my whole life, everybody calls me Coach Garn. That really has stuck with me my whole life. So after that, after college, me and Ethan Willis, who he ran against each other for student body president, we said, “Hey, we want to work together.” And so then we started a company our junior year at BYU, really our sophomore year, junior year, around the whole coaching training and learning space. And then that company just exploded. We won entrepreneur of the year at BYU and got some money for that. And then that company just took off. We ran that for over 14 years and just had a blast.
Charan: That’s amazing, man. What was that company called?
Randy: It was Prosper.
Charan: Prosper. That’s amazing. So is that still happening? Is that still going on?
Randy: Yeah. We ended up selling that and doing some other things. And we’re still business partners today and still having a blast.
Randy Garn Talks About His Current Projects
Charan: Dude, that’s so great. And you’re doing it with the people that you love. And that’s what I think is awesome. So what are some of the companies you’re working on right now or you’re working with right now?
Randy: Well, it’s interesting that you say that. It’s like you do it with somebody that you love, and I want to hit on that for a minute.
Charan: Please.
Randy: My philosophy has been this. My philosophy has been that I only work with my best friends.
Charan: I love that.
Randy: Why is because, and especially if they’re competent and you love them and you trust them, is that I think that too many times people will work with somebody, and if you don’t enjoy it, I have been in some situations where it just literally drain the life out of you. And so I think that’s really important. One of my real key things is work with people you love, like and respect because life is super short. And so one of my philosophies is I only work with my best friends.
Charan: Dude, that’s amazing. Well, and the thing that you said about that, which I think is so important, is you’re also making incredible memories with them. We’ve talked about this before, but I work in film as an actor. And the reasons why I do is because I like making memories with my friends. And storytelling is a great way to do that. And if you’re not having a good time and if your life is being sucked out of you, it’s tough. So let’s say someone is in a situation like that. How would you help them if they were stuck in a place where the life was being sucked out of them every single day? What would you say to them?
Randy: It is interesting. One of the things that’s been really a blessing in my life too is that I haven’t really feared people, but the other thing is that I’ve always been willing to ask for help. Too many times we are afraid to ask for help. We think we have to do it all on our own. And especially as an entrepreneur, you’re like, dude, I have to do this. I’ve got to figure this out. Yeah, you do, but you need to build a team around you.
Randy: And so I think the other thing that’s been a tremendous blessing as I look back and think about that, one of the companies that we’re building right now is called High Performance Institute. We’ve done the largest study on what are the six best habits you have to have to be really be a high performer. And that’s with Brendon Burchard. It is the largest study of habits. And so one of those habits is to generate energy. It’s number two. Seek clarity, and then generate energy is number two.
Randy: When somebody’s stuck, I would tell them that they need to spend some time and to seek clarity on what they want to accomplish in their life. I’m a massive, massive journaler. And so we have six practices that actually help people go from just performing to high, high, high performance in their life. So that company is exploding and taking off.
Randy: And Ethan and I are still partners on that that we did our other company together. And I’m just working with just amazing humans that make me want to be more and to do more. And so if somebody’s stuck, I would say, “Grab a journal, literally grab a journal, and spend some serious time seeking clarity on what you really want to accomplish with your life and who you want to work with.”
Charan: I just love that, man. That’s such good advice because just the idea of grabbing a journal and writing your thoughts down because sometimes we drown in our own sea of thoughts and we’re going through the motions. Today more than ever, there’s just so much stimuli all over the place that if you don’t actually take time to write stuff down and figure things out, you don’t go places. You’re stuck in your own ocean of thought. So that’s awesome that you’ve been able to find clarity for yourself.
Charan: Now, one of the other things I’ve known about you is you’re such a massive networker. I feel like everybody knows you, and you’ve just built relationships with a lot of different people in all kinds of various fields. So what has been the key to helping you be that person to network and all that stuff?
Randy: One, again, I think it comes back to really loving people. And not every relationship, honestly, is going to end up perfectly or [crosstalk 00:19:07] just well. Here’s what I did. And I actually learned this from a really, really great mentor, is that we spend so much time on our business strategy and things we want, like I want that car, I want to go on vacation, I want this home, this is what I want. For me, the most valuable thing in my life are my friends and relationships. And at the end of the day, they are for everyone. We just don’t realize that. People are always more important than things. Yeah.
Randy: And I strategically said, “These are the 25 people that I want to get to know.” I wrote their names down. Instead of writing goals down the things that I wanted to accumulate, I wrote down individuals I wanted to get to know, I wanted to work with, I wanted to be with, I wanted to be like. And because I did that, you can call it whatever you want, whether God aligned those resources up, those are the people that are now my very, very best friends in the world.
Charan: Oh, man, I love that. That’s so awesome. And it’s so true because at the end of the day, I want to work with my best friends and do things with them. And when we’re going through hardships, I’d rather go through them with my best friends than with strangers or enemies even.
Randy Garn Talks About Turning Lemons into Lemonade
Charan: Now, speaking of hardships, every entrepreneur I feel faces their fair share of hardships. Just people in life, everyone faces hardships. So has there been a specific moment in your own life where you’re like, oh my gosh, that was a lemon, that was a tough blow, how are we in turn this into lemonade? Anything come to your mind?
Randy: Yeah. Really, what comes to my mind most is that I got ran over by a car-
Charan: Oh, wow.
Randy: … two years ago.
Charan: I did not know that.
Randy: Yeah. Because there was some serious transition happening in my life, in my business. I’d signed up for the Kona Half Ironman with some friends, and we were training for that. I was right here on 800 North in Orem, getting ready to head up the Canyon up towards Sundance. Guy was on his cell phone, car. I looked at him, and we saw each other, stop sign, everything. He ran it and ran right over top of me. And this was two years ago.
Randy: And I remember as I was getting ran over, I smacked right on the front, and it ran over both my tires. I just heard stuff popping and crunching. And I’m like, I’m going to be paralyzed. I’m going to be done. And my friends were there screaming, “No.” And that was a moment where I remember as I was going under the car and I said, “Dude, if I don’t die, my wife’s going to kill me when I get home.”
Charan: Yeah.
Randy: But the reality of it was it really shook me up, because I was in an interesting relationship business-wise then and really wanting to do more. And as I thought about that, I said, “I’m no longer going to spend any and more of my time,” and that’s why High Performance [inaudible 00:22:12], “dealing with and being with people I don’t want to be with because life is so finite.” The guy behind us was an EMT. He was actually heading to the emergency room in his Toyota Corolla. He drives the ambulance. They chucked me in the car.
Randy: I went. I ran. They got me into the emergency room. And I had scrapes and stuff, but getting ran over by a Toyota… I think it was a CJ7. And I got in there. They put me through the CAT scan, everything. I didn’t have one broken bone. I didn’t have one broken tendon. Nothing was wrong with me. My jersey was ripped. I had strawberries and stuff, but I walked out of there. And literally, I went home. I’m like, “I can go to work,” and she’s like, “You’re not going back to work.” But I walked out of there thinking, dude, God has seriously preserved me for more. The bottom of my cleats were ripped out, dude. Somebody had to pull me out from under there because it was a circumstance.
Randy: And so talk about a lemon. I know that there’s a lot of people, and I have friends right now that are dealing with cancer. I have a friend right now I’m working with the with Tamarack Capital, and we’re investing in companies and doing a lot of stuff. And I have some friends that are dealing with some really, really hard physical ailments that all of a sudden just come up out of blue. You never know when those things are going to happen.
Randy: But that day, really what I got as I was surrounded by angels. I didn’t get hurt. Nothing happened to me. And literally, I remember just as I wrote on my journal, I was like, “God has more for you.” That keeps coming to me as I think about the rest of my life. I think about every day who I’m working with, who can I bless, what kind of dad am I being. And now I take all Saturdays off just for my kids. And so for me, that lemonade shook me to the core, and I knew that God was watching over me. I knew that I had angels watching out for me that day.
Charan: Dude, oh my gosh. Thank you so much for sharing that. And it’s so interesting. And we talked about this a little bit before, but I have always felt the hand of the Lord in my life. And I can’t deny that. Just too many miracles. Yeah. I’m too humbled even to think about all the many times where I felt God has watched out from me and he’s preserved me. There’ve been several times in my life when I was younger that I almost died and I didn’t. And it ended up being a funny thing, because it’s like, geez, it could have been a lot worse.
Randy Garn Talks About How His Faith in God Sustains Him
Charan: How has your faith sustained you, and how has that helped you in your life and making the decisions that you’ve been making?
Randy: That’s a great question. And I have the privilege right now to working with… We’re doing a lot with the Maloof Foundation and with the Maloofs out of Logan. And I’m working closely with Tamarack Capital. We’re investing in really amazing companies.
Charan: Awesome.
Randy: And it’s so neat to work with them and work with some of my other partners. Even though even some of my other partners aren’t the same faith as me, we talk about God all the time. For me, there is no differentiation between my work and my play, my religion and my leisure. Between whether I’m working or playing, I’m always going to think of God, always. And so for me, the very top of my life is my personal relationship with God and my Savior, Jesus Christ.
Randy: And I kind of unapologetically share that with people, and they know. And people know, and now I have people reaching out to me saying, “Randy, I really love the way you live your life.” I want to be a window to God’s love. The way I want to live my life is that if people want to know what I believe or my faith in the Savior, Jesus Christ, that they’ll be like, “I have confidence. I want to talk to him because I feel like he can help me get closer to God.” Everything that I do in my life, I’ve been preserved so many times. I’m a massive, massive journaler. I have two journals. I have a journal I take everywhere with me on tactics, but then I also have a journal that’s just filled with my spiritual intuitions and my spiritual guidance and my personal life. That’s the one I want my family to know, my belief in God.
Charan: Mm. Oh my gosh, thanks so much for sharing, man. And I think as I see this light coming through you, I feel like that is your source of joy. That is a source of all of the things in your life. And it’s like if you can keep that at your center, everything else falls into place in the proper perspective, which is so awesome.
Randy: Well, one of my favorite quotes is just, “If you love God,” actually, “If you know God, you love differently.” If you know God, you love differently. Then you know that God created all of us. He’s literally the God of joy. He wants us to be happy and to serve and to bless one another. And so all the companies we invest in, we want them to be like that. And so it does. It is the biggest driver in my life.
Charan: That’s so awesome, man. I’m so glad we get to know each other and talk to each other because I feel that’s my driving force as well. And I look at my own life and think about all, just the random things that I’ve been through but yet the miraculous things that we went through. And as I look back, I’m like, oh my gosh. For me, God has an incredible sense of humor. And everything I swear I go through, I’m like, “Good work.” I’m always like, “Well played. That was amazing.” But I just think it’s so amazing the people that I’ve been connected to and get a chance to chat with. It’s all because of that.
Randy Garn Talks About Overcoming Challenges
Charan: Now here’s the deal. There’s a lot of people, a lot of youth specifically, during the time when COVID hit, a lot of depression took place, a lot of sadness, a lot of isolation, feeling they were disconnected from God. How do you help those people? How would you empower those people?
Randy: I’m not going to say that I haven’t struggled with certain things. I think it is a chance for you to really have that time with God, because, for me, this has been the best time of my life. I’m just going to say 2020 has been one of the best years of my life.
Charan: Mine too.
Randy: Period, hands down. I haven’t traveled as much. I’ve actually got way more done. I’ve been way more focused. We’re able to accomplish so many things on Zoom and other things. The thing that we do miss is human connection. And that’s why I go back to, we can have all the toys in the world and we can have all the money in the world, but we can be unhappy. And I did write a book, Prosper. It’s a New York Times bestselling book. The balance between money, happiness and sustainability was our book.
Randy: And in that, we really talking about ensuring that your happiness is just as important to you than any financial gain you’ll ever make because if you get on the hedonic treadmill, and this is a huge study, is that even the more money that you make does not increase your happiness. And so at this time during the COVID time, what I would share with people is to surround yourself with great people. Connect with people. Do more video stuff with people. Listen to uplifting, great music. Dive into the scriptures and journal and really come to know yourself internally. If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place.
Charan: I love that, man. That’s so great. It is so true. Everything starts from the inside. And I truly believe, and the scriptures even talk about how everything’s created spiritually first and then temporally. So if you, yourself as a spiritual being can be whole, made whole, everything outside of you is just going to reflect that. So I love that.
Randy Garn Talks About His Greatest Fear
Charan: Okay. So last two questions. Let’s do questions. One, what is your greatest fear?
Randy: Oh, man. My greatest fear is that when I die, I didn’t live the life that God wanted me to live. And when I meet him, will he be happy? And I think getting ran over, now I’m on that mission. Now I want to do the very best that I possibly, possibly can. So my biggest fear is that not living up to my expectations of what God created me to do. Am I living up to the measure of my creation every day? That’s my greatest fear.
Randy Garn’s Advice to His Younger Self
Charan: No. There’s a lot of things I can resonate with that. I’ll tell you that for sure. And then the last thing I was going to talk about is, what advice would you give young people, specifically yourself? If you were to look back at your life and go to the young Randy Garn that’s selling worms, the young Randy Garn that’s golfing, what would you tell him?
Randy: That’s a really, really good question. I’d tell him not to be so hard on yourself. Don’t beat yourself up. And don’t sweat the small stuff because it all works out in the end. So play the long game.
Charan: I like that. That’s so great. Sometimes it’s like those that have that expectation of “we got to do the best we can all the time” tend to be really hard on yourselves. And I know I was definitely one of those people. I think I still am at some points, but I think just knowing that God, who can orchestrate everything, who can orchestrate your heartbeat, orchestrate the cells multiplying in your body, orchestrate everything so that you can function, if he can do all that and still keep planets spinning and orbit, he can take care of little problems that you’re not sure about. So I love that. Well, thanks man. This has been so good, and it’s been so great to get to know you more. I really feel inspired by this podcast. So any last words or anything like that?
Randy: I’m just grateful for what you’re doing. I really do think that a lot of people are searching for podcasts like this. And I would love to be a resource for you on helping you grow Lemonade Stand. I’m just so grateful that you had me on the show because even during this there’s some things that I want to do even better because of you. My hope would be is that let’s get some great people on the show-
Charan: Let’s do it.
Randy: … share business strategy, innovation, entrepreneurship, faith, family, because that’s really what people are looking for nowadays. That’s what matters.
Charan: Absolutely. Hey, and please send people our way. We love this. So thank you so much, Randy. Really appreciate your time.
Randy: Awesome. Thanks a ton.
Charan: Yep.
Charan: Thanks so much for listening to the Lemonade Stand podcast, and we hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you used to be alerted when we release new episodes. We’d also love to hear your feedback in the reviews. And if you or someone you know has an awesome lemonade stand story, please reach out to us on social media and let us know. Thanks so much, and have a great day.