Who is Connor Boyack?
Connor Boyack represents everything good about the American Dream. From finding his voice and creating his own path, he has founded the Libertas Institute, a nonprofit that has educated people on Libertarian principles. He has created some of the laws that are now in effect in Utah.
Additionally, Connor is the author of the “Tuttle Twins” series, which has now sold over 1.2 million copies globally. This children’s series, which educates children and adults on the principles of economics, has such a demand that he can’t create enough content for his audience—truly an entrepreneur’s dream. He drops amazing bits of wisdom about being authentic to yourself and creating something for the love of creating. Hope you enjoy the podcast!
Career Highlights and History
A web developer by trade, Connor Boyack founded Libertas Institute in 2011. Before Libertas, he was the director of the Utah Tenth Amendment Center. With several of his policies being the first of their kind in the entire country, he has succeeded in getting the majority of his proposals enacted into law through strategy and the tenacity of a winner.
Connor is the author of the “Tuttle Twins” books, a book series for children. The book series exposes young readers to principles in politics and economics. It has sold over 1.2 million copies worldwide. The “Tuttle Twins” books have such high demand that his audience yearns for more content from him—what every entrepreneur dreams about! He also has books ranging from topics on law, religion, media, culture and education. Quite often these topics are rarely written about and need more comprehension and attention. He is an impressive public speaker as well as an advocate for being true to yourself and being authentic in your dealings.
Connor Boyack is also president of the Association for Teaching Kids Economics, a nonprofit that aims to help students learn more about the free market by empowering teachers by training in basic principles in economics.
He lives in Utah near Salt Lake City, Utah, with his wife and children. Some of the laws in effect in Utah were created by him. Connor has had a lot of legislative wins. Under his leadership, new laws involving property rights, education, drug policy, personal freedom and government transparency have been made. He has written dozens of articles on the same topics. “Salt Lake Tribune” has named him one of Utah’s most influential people.
Achievements
He has spearheaded a fair number of successful policy reforms in areas like education, freedom, civil liberties, business deregulation and transparency of the government. Some Libertas proposals that were successfully enacted into law under the watch of Connor Boyack include:
Free Market
The legislative body of Utah passed the “food truck freedom” proposal in 2017. This was to allow mobile food vendors free passage from one city to another without being restricted. In the same year, the people of Utah did not require licenses to run a business from home. This helped in saving over a million dollars in the state.
The following year, people producing homemade food did not have to comply with food regulations designed for industrial producers. They could sell their products directly to consumers. Bowen work practitioners did not have to obtain occupational licenses.
Education
Parents could excuse their children from school for mental health problems. In 2014, homeschooling families did not have to follow government requirements on what to teach.
Justice and Due Process
Drones were not to be used by law enforcement in 2014. You needed a warrant to take a person’s blood for the purposes of law enforcement. Police quotas were banned in Utah in 2018. Without the consent of a sedated person, you could not perform pelvic examinations on them.
Personal Freedom
Law enforcement had restrictions regarding when they could forcibly invade someone’s home with a warrant. Taking a person’s property without convicting that person of a crime was restricted. When children go out to play or roam independently, you could not charge their parents for neglect. Medical cannabis was legalized. The crimes for adultery and fornication were repealed. Individuals who owed money to the state could perform compensatory service instead of paying money.
Open Government
Welfare workers for children were no longer permitted to take on additional children due to issues of medical neglect until another medical opinion was provided to a parent who required one. Annual reporting requirements were forced on law enforcement regarding their use of civil asset forfeiture.
Libertas Institute won a lawsuit that repealed a law that required disclosure of donors by nonprofits, turning the law upside down. The government’s immunity from lawsuits in cases of wrongdoing was limited. In 2019, a new program was enforced by the government, which saw the automatic expungement for prior criminal offenses of qualifying individuals who had not committed any new offenses.
His Education & Philosophy on Life
Connor Boyack is from California and a graduate of Brigham Young University. He believes that Latter-day Saints should be Libertarians and that doctrines, teachings and scriptures of the Latter-day Saint faith should support a more Libertarian framework. Connor wants to propagate Libertarian principles. He wishes to expose children to topics of importance that other organizations would not have discussed with them. For now, he is much more concerned with passing laws, writing books to educate children and promoting Libertarian principles.
Connor Boyack Podcast Transcription
Charan: Hey guys, this is Charan Prabhakar with the Lemonade Stand podcast. And I’m here with my good buddy Connor Boyack, who is an incredible human being and truth be told until last week I had no idea he could even grow a beard, but, here I am witnessing him with a beard and that makes me very happy. But, Connor and I have been friends for a long time. In fact, we were actually roommates in college. And so, we met there and he has gone on to do some incredible things. He has brought awareness to what it means to be a Libertarian here in Utah and well, I guess in the world really, but he’s created an institute called the Libertas Institute and has helped change a lot of the laws and policies here in Utah.
Charan: And he’s authored several books, all about the role of government and what we should do as a good American citizen. And most specifically, and most recently he has created the “Tuttle Twins” series, a series about, like a children’s series, right?
Connor: Yeah.
Charan: Is that right?
Connor: Yep.
Charan: And educating children about the role of government, the role of economics. And this series has become a massive, massive success. It has sold over a million copies, I believe. Is that right?
Connor: Yeah. We were at 1.2 right now.
Charan: 1.2 million, and it’s unbelievable the amount of success and how they’ve had to grow so quickly. And it’s awesome. So, we’ll definitely dive into that. But, Connor, thank you so much. Well, the interesting thing I was going to tell you real quick as well about Connor is I knew for sure he’s going to do some massive things because in our apartment I ruled as a dictator and then Connor came in and said, “You know what?”
Connor: “We have a vote.” We threw you out.
Charan: Well they throw me out. No, it’s been awesome, man. So, thank you so much for-
Connor: Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Charan: … Joining me on this. So, the whole Lemonade Stand story podcast is all about entrepreneurs and how you became an entrepreneur to begin with. And what was your first “lemonade stand” stories? For a lot of kids, it was, “Hey, I created a lemonade stand.” But what about yourself? When did you decide you wanted to become an entrepreneur?
Connor: So, I actually, before I got into policy and law and economics and stuff, I was a web developer. So, when I-
Charan: Oh cool.
Connor: … Went to BYU, when I was roommates with you, I was learning how to build websites. And I was in the Silicon Slopes scene and was doing really well, having a lot of fun, but I felt like I wasn’t on my path. And so, I was trying to figure out where my purpose was and what the opportunity was. And so, that led to eventually creating Libertas Institute over the years. And it was so great because I always felt that itch when I was at the nine to five job, I needed to do something on my own. But for me it wasn’t like start my own ecommerce business or my own web development business. It was, I want to figure out how to do what I’m uniquely suited and prepared to do.
Connor: It’s funny you ask about the first “lemonade stand” story. I had just about a month ago, came across a video I was looking through all my old, photos as a kid to show my kids, “Look at dad when he was a young kid or whatever.” And I found this photo of me doing, it was in a lemonade stand, it was a Kool-Aid stand, the sticky unhealthy stuff. And I was selling Kool-Aid for 25 cents a cup when I was eight years old. I’m like, “I was part of that tradition as well.” So, it was a good memory to bubble back up.
Charan: Yeah. Well, do you remember that when you were a kid, was it successful, were you able to make some sales?
Connor: So discovering that photo was kind of like I had completely forgotten that background or whatever, and I would always do little odd jobs growing up. I was always trying to find a way to make more money. And I didn’t really know at the time because no one really talked to me about the language of entrepreneurship and how to put voice to those ideas. But I was always trying to earn money and whatever, but what I didn’t realize that I now realize looking back on my youth is that it’s all problem solving and it’s all service like, “Hey, mom needs the freezer defrosted and she doesn’t have the time to do it. If I do it, she’ll pay me five bucks.” Because for her that service of helping out then I’m gaining something as well.
Connor: And I just liked that model today, where I see the true, real hustler entrepreneurs as people trying to solve other people’s problems and serve them. And it’s a mutual exchange. It’s not like charity service where you’re doing it for free and they’re in true need or whatever. But you’re helping them do things faster, more convenient, or whatever. They reward you for doing that in exchange. And so, that I think was even though I couldn’t really articulate that when I was younger, that provided me a good foundation for later in life for me to start thinking about it as well.
Charan: Well, let me ask you this, you said, you got to a point where you knew you wanted to dive into when you were doing the web developer stuff. Right? But you said you hadn’t found your right path. You didn’t know like, “This is exactly what I wanted to do.” When did that become a thing when you were like, “Yeah, this is the path.”
Connor: Yeah, I didn’t have any lightning moment. And frankly, I don’t think most people do. I think for most people it’s very just slow, line-upon-line thing. And what I just started to recognize is increasingly I would come home from work and feel unfulfilled. I loved the team that I worked with. I loved the technical challenge of the work we were doing. But I was making websites for products I didn’t care about.
Charan: Yeah. For sure.
Connor: Just the passion element wasn’t there. The fact that of like, hey, in 30 years, when I look back on my life, will I feel like I achieved something? I just have a personality that’s very strongly connected to that. Some people are totally fine to just go put in, hang your hat, nine to five, do your work, head home and then that’s where their life is.
Charan: And there’s nothing wrong with that. Right?
Connor: There is nothing wrong with that.
Charan: It’s beautiful.
Connor: Yeah, for me though I felt like my whole energy needed to be invested in something that was moving forward a cause that I believed in. And I realized that my talents that I had developed in the professional world of just doing web development, I wouldn’t really find that niche. And so that’s when on the side for me a lot of this political and economic kind of hobby and interests started to build up and I started to look over that and say, “Well, I’m working full time as a web developer. And I have this part-time-becoming-full-time involvement in organizations and service and blogging and reading and all this stuff.”
Connor: And I started to figure out or try to figure out how can I turn that into a job? How can I monetize that so that I could do what I’m really curious about, but what value can I provide to people so that they’ll pay me so that I can sustainably turn that into a job?
Charan: Right. That’s amazing, and you know what? We talked about different books that you’ve written. And oddly enough, one of the books that you’ve written is called “Lessons from a Lemonade Stand,” which is hilarious seeing how this is the Lemonade Stand podcast. So, you already, I knew you were a prophet of sorts. You could see the future, but that’s amazing that you wrote that. So, let’s talk about that book a little bit. What is this all about?
Connor: What led to that. So everyone’s heard these stories across the country of little kids having their lemonade stands get shut down. And whenever these headlines come out, everyone’s outraged, people are sharing them all over Facebook, “Look how ridiculous this is.” And it happens a lot. And they’re silly, right? You’ll see little Abigail was selling lemonade for 50 cents a cup and someone showed up and said, “You need to pay an $80 business license.” She’s not going to sell 160 cups of lemonade just to get your permission slip. But these kids get shut down. They say, “Sorry, you can’t do that.” And to me, the lemonade stand is like the essential quintessential symbol of American summerhood entrepreneurship. When kids have time to go learn those business, micro-business skills.
Connor: And if the lemonade stand itself is being directly attacked by the overbearing regulatory government restrictions and red tape, that to me is a broader symbol of a problem of an imbalance in our society where entrepreneurs are hitting their head against these regulations. And we need to just scale those back so that they can just be free to innovate and produce their products and services. So that book is really about finding that balance I’m talking about the proper role of government using the context of this lemonade stand to say, “This is what kids are trying to do and what we need to encourage. And if that balance is out of whack, then we need to fix it.”
Connor Boyack Talks About Founding Libertas Institute
Charan: I think just those principles right there about, hey, what the role of the government should be and where we thrive. I think that’s what the Libertas Institute is all about. Right?
Connor: Yeah. So I started Libertas in 2011 here in Utah. It’s what’s called like a think tank. And so we sit around and doing legal research and coming up with campaigns and how do we change the law and so forth. And so we’re based in Utah and then there’s groups like ours all over the country. So if you go to spn.org, that’s the State Policy Network, that’s a group of more right-of-center, free-market type, pro-business limited taxes, all that kind of stuff. And so there’s groups in most states that are working on these types of issues and it’s been fun. I mean, we’ve changed a lot of laws along the way.
Charan: Yeah. What are some of the laws?
Connor: Oh man. I mean, so here in Utah, we’re the group responsible for medical marijuana. We’ve done a lot of business tax stuff like for business owners, there’s the stupid tax called the tangible tax. So this couch, you pay sales tax when you first buy it. But then the tangible tax says that if you’re a business owner, you have to continue to pay a property tax on this couch and that table and that camera, year after year, after year. And so it’s like a double taxation. And so we’ve been working to remove a lot of that tax so business owners aren’t double-dinged. We work a lot on criminal justice reform, policing is a really big issue right now, police reform. We’ve been working on that for a number of years.
Connor: Education reform. So, now special needs students can get scholarships so that they can get more support and more parental choice and homeschooling now that that’s very popular, we defended the homeschooling law and really made it a lot freer than it used to be. So, we’re across the board. Some groups are very narrow, they’ll work on one issue or two issues or five. We work on 80. And so-
Charan: Yeah. It’s amazing. Yeah.
Connor: For us, it’s fun just because there’s diversity, every day is different. You’re always working on different stuff.
Charan: Absolutely. Well, I didn’t even think I was going to get into this, but with all of the, I guess you could say, narratives that are being presented over the time when we were under quarantine, what have you found to be the truth through it all? Does that make sense? I mean, I feel like there’s just so many wild narratives presented and I feel like everything has got their own agenda and all that stuff. Have you been able to tackle some of the issues presented and what were those issues like?
Connor: I’ll admit it’s very tough because it feels like every day is totally different. You might have a handle on how June 27th, 2020 is, and then June 28th hits and there’s all kinds of crazy happening. But there are trends. I think the problem right now is a lot of people are acting out of fear. And so, when you talk about narratives, I think that’s the biggest thing. People are addicted to… Think of reality TV the drama: you get this steady dopamine drip of the controversy, and you’re always addicted to what’s the next big thing. And frankly news, the modern media is a lot the same way. They understand how neuro-psychology works and how they can keep you addicted to watching the news when really it’s more like entertainment and drama a lot of times than it is news.
Connor: So for us, it’s that fear element where in our messaging, we’re trying to have a more positive, not faith in a religious sense, but a confidence about free markets and good people trying to solve problems. And, “Hey, we’ll figure this out together.” Whereas especially with the mask issue and so many other things, it’s all about fear and, “We’re all going to die and grandma’s going to die if we don’t lock down the whole economy and shut down businesses and so forth.” And that fear, I think, presents a very unhealthy imbalance that causes people to act in rash ways that actually might be counterproductive.
Charan: I thought it was just so interesting and fascinating about the panic buys, right? When it first happened, I was like, this is unbelievable. All right. I just never thought there would be a day in my life when the biggest thing that people were fighting over was toilet paper.
Connor: Totally.
Charan: I just never thought that-
Connor: You didn’t have some stocked up in your basement or something? Come on, man. Now you know.
Charan: Well, I shifted to sandpaper a while ago. No, you know what? It was just an interesting thing when I was like, “Wait, what? We’re fighting over toilet paper? How did the narrative in our minds turn into something of such a fear based, I guess, mentality that even toilet paper would be something that we chase after?” I didn’t really see too much of that chasing when I went shopping, to tell you the truth. But then, if I go to Walmart or something like that, I started noticing that there were a lot of empty shelves.
Connor: Totally.
Charan: And it was one of those things where I was like, this feels apocalyptic, except for the fact that I was just laughing so hard. And there were a lot of people that were kind of with me, they’re like, “This is so ridiculous.”
Connor: Totally.
Charan: They understood the ridiculousness of the situation, which made me realize the people themselves, in reality, seemed very positive and they were just like, “Okay, I think we’re going to get through this.” But yet the narrative sometimes would push this huge, huge [crosstalk 00:15:05].
Connor: You also add onto that I think like being in the store with people and around humanity versus online and social media where you’re one step removed and people are much more willing to be toxic and acerbic online than they are to your face or in a crowd where they have to regulate themselves based on their peers.
Connor: And so, I think, especially with COVID more generally, with the masks specifically or toilet paper, you definitely see online, people are very freewheeling with their outrage, the whole “Karen” thing about bossing other people around and shaming people. That I think has been one of the most alarming outcomes of this whole thing is the degree to which people are shaming other people who they believe are acting inappropriately or whatever. And so, I think that’s going to have a lasting impact on our society that I’m worried about.
Charan: Yeah. And the truth is, is I have no idea how the future’s going to turn out. It seems like you said, every day something is different. And so, when things are different, it’s great to have certain principles, certain tried and true principles that said, “Hey, you know what, during tough times these principles were what we use to get through it and we’ll use the same principles again.” So I appreciate what you’ve done and-
Connor Boyack Talks About the “Tuttle Twins” Books
Connor: I think that’s why the kids’ books that I think we’re going to talk about are so helpful. What we’ve seen, what I’ve seen is so many parents in my network who are worried about maybe the overbearingness of the government, or worried about schools being closed or they’re deciding to homeschool. And they’re like, “What do I do?” Or just looking at 2020 and being like, “How do I talk to my kids about what’s happening and what the future might hold?” And so we’ve for several years been producing this set of children’s books, the “Tuttle Twins,” and to basically teach to the point you just made, not current events and this, that, and the other, but just those foundational principles that help that you can translate to current events and help make sense of them. And we’ve been plugging away at this for a few years.
Connor: We’ve been, let’s see, we’re on our sixth year now of doing these books. We have 11 now in the series and we’ve sold an okay amount and we’ve just been putting them out there. But man, it has exploded as probably the past couple of months, just because of the, I don’t know, the connection of all these different things coming together that parents are like, “What do I do? Hey, these will help me talk to my kids.” So, it’s been crazy.
Charan: Wow. And you would never have seen that happen. Right?
Connor: Totally.
Charan: You would never have seen an explosion in your book sales.
Connor: No, it’s that quote, there’s something about when preparation meets opportunity. So, we’ve been doing this for a few years, trying to build our own market. There wasn’t really a market. In fact, when we first-
Charan: Yeah. Let’s talk about that.
Connor: When we first started, yeah. We were talking about this before the video started. It was so awkward for me because I had this idea and I didn’t do any market research. There wasn’t really anyone doing this concept of teaching political and economic principles to kids. And so, I had, by that point, published a few books already in the political and some religious realm. And so, I went to a publisher who does some political stuff. And I said, “Hey, I’ve got this idea, the kids’ books, whatever.” And they’re like, “Hey, cool idea. But we don’t do any kids’ books.” I’m like, “Okay, that’s fine. Understandable.”
Connor: So, then I went to some kids’ publishers thinking, “Hey, you guys publish all kinds of children’s stuff.” And they’re like, “Oh, well, that’s nice, but we don’t do political stuff.” And I found myself in this-
Charan: Middle ground.
Connor: Yeah. I was like, “What do I do?” And then almost made the decision for me of saying, you need to figure out self-publishing and marketing and all that stuff so that you can plow this ground yourself. But man, so many of the rewards have been much more advantageous because we could control the whole process. We could reinvest all the capital into creating our own marketing engine, build out our own team, do it all internally and have just full control over the whole process rather than outsourcing it to a publishing company or in Amazon or something. But it was interesting early on for us in that entrepreneurial kind of, early days of doing this book series to figure out these options I thought that would be available to me have now been closed. And so, what do I do with that? How do I proceed? And I didn’t have a guide book. I didn’t know how to get from A to B. It was kind of tough.
Charan: I just love that even in the publishing part of it, you created your own path. It wasn’t just the series, the written series. It was just like, how do I create my own path in marketing it and getting it out there? And now it’s like, you’ve really made a name for yourself. And it’s been able to touch a lot of people’s homes and it’s great. I started reading them, and I was so fascinated by them and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I wish as a kid, I had these books.”
Connor: That’s the biggest response we get from parents. They’re like, “Why weren’t these out when I was younger?”
Charan: Right. Absolutely. Well, I’m glad they weren’t or else you would have to thought of a different idea.
Connor: Yeah, exactly.
Charan: So, I’m glad. So, let’s talk a little bit about the inspiration behind even writing those books. How did you come up with the “Tuttle Twins?” Was it an idea that you had, is it related to your own family or?
Connor: So it’s kind of like we were just saying a moment ago where a lot of parents right now are looking around for help of how to talk to their kids about making sense of the world. And I was just a few years ahead of that larger group of parents where in 2013 and 2014 I was doing Libertas. I think we had two employees at the time, but here I am everyday kind fighting for freedom and trying to change all these laws. And I would find myself going home to my kids, trying to figure out how do I talk to them about these principles that I’m working on? Because they, “Dad, what did you do today?” Or, and they were younger. I think they were five and three, but my five-year-old especially, I would ask him, “How was your day and what did you do?” And whenever he’d say, “What did you do?” I’m like, “Worked on a computer.” How do you talk about eminent domain to a little kid or civil asset forfeiture, any of these types of things? And so-
Charan: How do you explain that to even people like me? You what I mean?
Connor: We always laugh that our books are for ages five to 11 and most adults.
Charan: Yes.
Connor: And so, it was basically a void in the marketplace, but I didn’t know if it was a void basically because the market wasn’t that big, would people really sign onto this idea? And so, I teamed up with an illustrator of mine or a friend of mine who’s an illustrator and he also had young kids. And so, as we floated this idea, he agreed like, “Hey, this is a fun idea. Let’s just do this little side project as a fun thing.” And it was just labor of love. Let’s put it out there. And when it started to sell a lot, that was our market signal that, “Okay, hey, there’s interest out there.” Yeah. There’s a demand that we can start to supply. And it was small, I mean, but it was only one book, but we sold, I think a few 1000 copies just in the first few months.
Connor: And to us, it’s like, “Okay, there’s something here.” So, we did a second then we did a third and most things, it was very slowly building. And then now it’s like this logarithmic shooting for the stars and, which has been great. It’s been immensely rewarding more than anything the feedback we get from parents who are like, “Oh my gosh, let me tell you this story.” And I mean, we get them all the time.
Connor: One was, “My kid is dyslexic and hates to try to read and won’t touch any books except for yours. And now she’s learning how to read.” And I get emotional thinking about that. That’s just amazing. It’s like the stories and to Elijah’s credit, the illustrations are top notch in these books. For whatever reason, the “Tuttle Twins” seems to have clicked with a ton of people. And, I feel just, almost this conduit of just trying to put more content out there because it’s become such a service opportunity to a lot of these families who love the deeper, more meaningful conversations they’re having with their kids as a result.
Charan: Well, let me ask you then, do you feel inspired by the stories you’ve created? Because even the ones that I’ve read, like the first few books I’ve read, I was like, wow, this feels inspired. It feels like a cool way to create some really positive messaging. But how did you come up with the stories as well to begin with?
Connor: So it’s actually really hard because each of our books is based on an original book. So, each of our kids’ books, we find an original classic book or essay that for adults, that was written 100 years ago or read by a million people or whatever. That teach the idea is that that particular book, is to talk about education, entrepreneurship, economics, whatever. And so, then I have to figure out how do you take the key ideas from that story, five to eight different concepts and pick them out of that book and then build a story around that where kids… It’s not like textbook, like what is-
Charan: No, it’s not.
Connor: What is spontaneous order? No, but a kid is learning about those economic concepts through storytelling, which is how our brains are actually wired. That’s how humans learn and, or more importantly, how they retain knowledge. And so trying to figure out a story that weaves in these principles along the way, and for all the books I’ve written for adults, I can just sit down and stream of consciousness, just kind of write, because it’s like, I’m talking to you, I can just write in that way. But when you’re doing it for a kid, it’s almost like, you know how for “The Simpsons” there’s that level of, and other shows as well, there’s the kid humor, but then also the adult humor? And there’s two layers in there.
Charan: Absolutely.
Connor: And that’s something that we haven’t totally pulled up. But what we strive for is figuring out how the adults and the kids can both enjoy this material so that when mom and the kids or dad and the kids are sitting there reading together, they’re all gaining something from it. And so we put a lot of effort just in iterating through the scripts, like any entrepreneur, it’s just try and try and try until you nail it. And we do a lot of beta reading, have kids reading it, find where they laughed or what. Do they understand the ideas that we’re trying to explain to them?
Connor: But more than anything and if I’m being completely Frank with you, I feel like for all the effort I put in at the end of the day, things just start clicking on their own, call it some higher power or whatever you want to do. I feel like I’m in this role where I’m just kind of like I said, kind of a conduit to take these ideas and just sometimes we just, the story tells itself. Sometimes it’s really hard we have to slog through it, but sometimes things just click and we know, all right, we’re on to something. This is going to be really good.
Charan: Well, I’ve had that inspiration before when I’ve written even movie scripts. I never considered myself a writer. And then I decided, “Hey, you know what? I have writing software, I’m going to start writing a script.” I had no idea what it was going to be about, I would just write like a page or two, and then all of a sudden the story would just take on shape. It’s a very interesting experience when that happens.
Connor: It is. Yeah.
Charan: Because you’re like, “Wow, how is this happening and flowing through me?” And, I don’t really have any particular messaging except for maybe like, well, I do know I want the characters to end up here. This is where I think they should go. So, the journey to get there and I’ve written scripts, I know this sounds crazy, but I’ve written feature scripts in six or seven days and not perfect by any means, but I just keep thinking like, this was inspiration. It just came out of me.
Connor: That’s awesome.
Charan: And then other days you have major writer’s block and what do you do during those days when you’re like, “I got nothing.”
Connor: I just leave it and come back. Honestly, the best thing that I’ve ever done is I try and let my subconscious do as much work as possible. So, if I have writer’s block, I will review the original material, the book, I’ll cram some thoughts in there. And then I’ll just set it and forget it.
Connor: And it’ll just be percolating in the back of my mind. And then something pops up to my consciousness and I’m like, “I got to write that down.” And I don’t know how that works or, it’s, the brain is weird, but several times I’ve figured out a good way to move the story forward or to explain an idea just by giving it some time to bake, sleeping on it and not fretting. Because in the early days I would sit there and fret and like, “How do I do this? And how do I say it?” But just letting it bake in your brain a little bit. And I find that in a lot of cases, those ideas will just come to you.
Charan: I love that you just said that, man. I mean, I look at the process of acting a lot of times the same way, where if I’ve got tons and tons of stuff to memorize, for instance, what I like to do is one day when I get the script, I just start cramming, cramming, cramming, and then I sleep on it. That’s just what I do. I cram, cram, cram and I sleep.
Connor: Nice. Do you put it under your pillow so that osmosis will work?
Charan: I actually do along with teeth because I’m like, well, maybe the tooth fairy will come as well.
Connor: After all these years, maybe you’ll get your dollar bill.
Charan: Because I’m still on that the dime a tooth model I’m going through.
Connor: That’s inflation, right? Back in the day that dime was worth something.
Charan: It was worth something for sure. I haven’t actually slept over a script before. Maybe I should do that, but no, I do sleep because the next day, for whatever reason, when it’s deeper in my brain it almost becomes muscle memory. And I can’t explain how that works. It’s the same thing with playing a sport, for instance.
Connor: Sure. Yeah.
Charan: You do all these drills and drills and drills and then all of a sudden it just becomes muscle memory.
Connor: Second-nature.
Charan: Second-nature kind of. So, that’s beautiful, man. I’m so glad that you’ve been able to do it and to see the success that you’ve had is unbelievable.
Connor: Yeah. We’ve sold, I think we said earlier, over a million books, we’re selling over 4,000 a day right now. We translate these into, about a dozen languages. We ship them all over the world. I mean, it’s crazy. I will log into Instagram and I’ll have these videos where I’m tagged of some little girl in Brazil learning about justice or learning about inflation or free markets or whatever. And I mean, I think my wife’s honestly getting sick, because I’m always like, “Check this out. There’s a girl in Brazil reading one of my books.”
Charan: She’s like, “Honey, I don’t care [crosstalk 00:29:15].”
Connor: Yeah, no, it’s just fun. I think there’s that inflection point in entrepreneurship where you’re just at the daily grind and you’re slogging and you’re slogging and then word starts to get out where it’s no longer your marketing efforts. It’s like you have fans of your service or your product and they’re evangelizing it. And so, in the early days I knew everyone who was buying my book because I was pitching them on like hey-
Charan: You were going door to door.
Connor: Yeah. I’d post on Facebook and it was my friends buying it. But you get to that point where the word gets out and things just take off. And it’s so fulfilling because all that effort you put in the early days then starts to pay off. And even more, if it’s like a type of product or service where with a book, I wrote it once and apart from just having to ship them out to people and have the printer print more, the work is done. And so, you can continue to gain that reward based on that past investment of time. And it just becomes so rewarding because it’s kind of like having a baby, not that I’ve ever had the pleasure of that experience, but there’s that memory-
Charan: You should try.
Connor: Some have. There’s that memory dump where, you ask a woman who just gave birth, “Hey, you want to have another kid?” And they like, rip your throat off kind of thing. But after a few months they’re like, “Well, I could do that again.” But in those initial days, things are hard, it’s a struggle. But then you get over it. You forget how much of a struggle it was. And then it’s the honeymoon period or the enjoyment period where it’s like entrepreneurship is amazing. I forget all the work that went into it and I can just enjoy the service that we’re doing and the momentum carries you forward.
Connor: Honestly, every day I get many dozens of emails and social media posts from parents who are so thrilled with what we’ve done. And there is no greater energy source for me, like the Energizer Bunny to be like, “Let’s keep this going, man. I got to do more books. I got to do more stuff.” Because it’s just, it’s like a drug that I’m addicted to of making people’s lives better like that. It’s awesome.
Connor Boyack Talks About the Struggles He’s Faced
Charan: That’s amazing, man. And I’m so grateful that you have been able to have that experience for yourself. I remember the days when we were playing volleyball every Saturday and I just had dreams, we didn’t know what we were going to do. And now to think that was over a decade ago, 15 years ago or something like that, more than 15 years ago. And now to think of where you’re at and what you’re doing is it’s really unbelievable. But along the way, you have had to have struggles like every entrepreneur, right? What are some of your struggles been?
Connor: I think there’s always that self-doubt of the imposter syndrome like, “Who am I to be doing any of this?” I have no background in law and yet I run this legal institution, changing laws. I write laws all the time, proposals and I give them to the right people and off they run with it. But a lot of the laws that are passed are a direct result of Connor Boyack, non-lawyer, tinkering with this word and changing that. And I’ll sit in rooms with staff from the governor’s office and the attorney general’s office and legislative leadership. And I’m just like, “I’m a web developer sitting in a room full of…”
Charan: Like these guys that have been studying law for so long.
Connor: Yeah. People who have the acronyms after their name and everything and I hated economics in school and they presented in really dull and boring way. But here I am teaching, like we have a whole economic curriculum now for kids. And so, what I’ve had to overcome in the earlier years is the recognition that anyone can remake themselves and credentialism is stupid. I think especially in the professional world, people cling to their LinkedIn profile of what I’ve been able to do in the past or the college I went to and the diploma, the piece of paper I have. But I’ve seen in my own life, the power of self-education and being able to just figure it out along the way. Another failure I had is not seeking out mentorship and that’s something I’ve really tried to correct in my later years.
Connor: I think it was a prideful thing or stubborn, probably more likely where I felt like I could just figure things out on my own. Here I am starting a think tank and I’ll figure it out. There’s no playbook, but I’ll get there. And I feel like I could have accelerated things more in the earlier years and achieve some more successes, fundraising and networking and just policy reform, had I really sought more after those mentorship opportunities early on and really been willing to be receptive to what other people were trying to tell me. It’s always hard because everyone has their different paths and strengths. And some of that input, I think I felt like, “You don’t know me and you don’t know my skill set and you don’t know my particular community.”
Connor: But I think I was just a little too stubborn in my earlier days and not willing to be receptive. So, now, especially with the “Tuttle Twins,” it’s like this whole little ecommerce business that’s taken off within our think tank nonprofit. And I feel like I’m now running, I’ve got my think tank president hat on, and I’ve got my ecommerce, business owner hat on. And I’m actively trying to seek out mentors in the business space who have figured out some of those logistical things and marketing so that I can learn from them and not repeat mistakes because I’m stubborn.
Charan: Well, I don’t know, man. I mean, I love that you’re discovering all these beautiful things about yourself and that you’re, I guess in a sense saying, “Okay, I need to find mentors and I need to not have self-doubt.” And I definitely know in the world of acting, “Oh my gosh, there’s so much room for doubt.” But I’ve done a lot of analyzing for myself because I have seen success as an actor and I started thinking, “Well, what is it…” I mean, yes, I’ve taken acting classes and I don’t really consider myself like a better actor than a lot of other people or anything like that. So, why is it that I’ve been able to succeed? I think it comes down to what you’re saying is like I stopped doubting a while ago. I just said, “You know what? I’m just going to enjoy this process. It’s just going to be fun for me.” And just that alone has allowed me to get a lot more success.
Connor: I think coupled with that, I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, but a few years ago I had this aha moment that everyone has an imposter syndrome. Even people with acronyms after their own name, have their own demons where they feel inadequate. And it’s those things that they teach you like when you’re public speaking, “Imagine everyone in their underwear or whatever.” It’s like, it’s those disarming things where, “Hey, we’re all just people trying to get by.” I spoke to a youth group a few years ago and I was like, “If you guys take away one thing from everything that I’m telling you here, I want you to remember this one principle, and that is us adults are faking it.”
Connor: We’re really good at pretending. “I’m an expert. I’m this amazing genius over here. I’ve got it all together. I know everything about how to run a business. I’m a pro marketer.” We’re really good at projecting that we’re an expert and internally we have plenty of self-doubt and all that stuff. Right? Yeah. And so, these kids, I feel bad for them because they look at these amazing adults who seem like they’ve got it all together. I’m like, “No, we’re just really good actors.”
Charan: Yeah. We’re going actors. I act like I’m confident. Inside I’m just like, “Oh man, I’m so terrified.” I think what it came down for me was I just decided to have fun with everything, with the auditioning process, because that was such a tough thing when I would go on on auditions and I’d get rejection all the time. I finally realized, okay, the worst that could happen is they say, “We’re not interested or we don’t like your brand of who you are.” But I thought, “Well, if that’s all they’re going to say, then I can keep going, I can keep trying and just keep having fun with it.”
Charan: And it seems like when I was reading the “Tuttle Twins,” it’s like Connor’s having fun with this. And it’s really, really exciting to see it thrive and grow. And like you said, having a child from Brazil post something about, “Hey, I’m reading the “Tuttle Twins” and learning about justice.” That’s an incredibly gratifying feeling.
Connor: Totally. Yeah. It definitely and back to that momentum that carries you forward that the fun aspect of it too, I think it’s also bolstered by the fact that as you start to achieve success, you’re less worried about, “Oh, what if I offend this customer? Or what if they don’t like this? Or what if…” You’re walking on eggshells because you want every person to hire you as an actor or every person to get your book. But as you start to get on a roll where you don’t need everyone, you don’t need to please everyone.
Charan: You don’t need validation with that.
Connor: You can just be yourself. You can have fun with it. And look, if some people don’t like it, that’s fine. But I’ve figured out my own thing over here where I can be authentically me and not kiss the ring and be sensitive to everyone at all times. Not that we shouldn’t be sensitive or whatever, but I feel like a lot of times in the early days, you’re trying to just please as many people as possible because you’re scratching for success and like, “Will you buy my software? Will you buy my widget?” And that’s the gratifying thing I think about being at the point, at least that we’re at down the road is like, we’ll post stuff on our Facebook page attacking college professors for teaching Marxism like, “You’re indoctrinating.” We can just be authentic to like, “Hey, that’s crazy.”
Connor: And we know there’s plenty of people out there who are going to disagree with us, but it’s almost like that flag-planting tactic of marketing that when you say this is what we stand for, you’re going to attract to you all the people who agree with you. Yeah. You’re going to have your enemies, but just being able to be authentically you, I think is just a lot more empowering as an entrepreneur. I don’t know. It’s a good point I feel like we’re at that, that I don’t have to be so nervous all the time.
Charan: I think that’s one of the greatest lessons you could have learned for yourself and to share to the audience. That was one of the things that I’ve really have been striving for, especially even this year is to become more authentically me. Because I’ve identified many moments in my life even recently where I’m like, “I wasn’t authentic.” Not that I was a bad person, but it was just like, I did something because someone else said I should do it and I took ownership of it as like, “Oh yeah, yeah, I should do it. Because that’s what they said.” What in reality if I’d went back to the root of it all, I would have realized, “Oh, I wasn’t all that stoked about it to begin with, but I still went for it.”
Charan: And why did I go for it? Because I had some weird need to please somebody else, because I had issues of not feeling good about myself, but the moment you can own your authenticity and feel good about yourself, then it’s like you’re creating the path, you’re creating the wave. And then you can see success like you can see success like what you’re seeing with the “Tuttle Twins.”
Connor: I feel like it’s in “Seinfeld” there was always those moments where George Costanza would be in an argument with someone and then he’d see him driving down the freeway like 20 minutes later. And he’d finally have that light bulb moment of like, “Here’s what I should have said.” And he turns around the car and he walks in and delivers the punchline to the guy. And I have the same struggles you do, where I find myself in these interactions or whatever, where I wasn’t authentic. And then you catch yourself at the end. And I feel like George Costanza’s like, “Well, wait, wait, why didn’t I say that? Why didn’t I do that?”
Charan: Yeah. “That would’ve been way better or way funnier.”
Connor: Totally. Yeah. Or way more authentic or whatever. And so, I think that’s just human we are, I don’t know, there’s that Brian Regan skit about how you have those awkward moments where it’s like, “Have a good flight.” The taxi is dropping you off and he’s like, “Have a good flight.” You’re like, “You too. Wait, what?”
Charan: [inaudible 00:40:52] flying anywhere.
Connor: “Take luck.” That’s a great skit. But I just feel like as humans, we run into those awkward and peer-induced situations where on reflection you’re like, “Well, wait a minute. I didn’t mean to say that. I didn’t mean to be inauthentic.” But you get swept up in that. And I don’t know. I feel like we have to be patient with ourselves a little bit, that we’re all going to have that.
Charan: I think it’s a beautiful, beautiful lesson because, why would you want to have a lot of success in something that you truly were authentic about? I mean, could you imagine what your life would have looked like if you became like a really, really successful web designer knowing full well, “I wasn’t really excited about this to begin with.”
Connor: There’s actually an example of this that happened recently. What’s her name? The gal she’s a singer, Billy English or something like that?
Charan: Oh, Eilish.
Connor: Eilish.
Charan: Yeah.
Connor: I don’t know any of her music, but I read a portion of an article a couple months ago where she talked about how she felt trapped in this caricature she had created. She had created this persona for her music and her fans, and they had this expectation. She talked about the depression she was going through and she felt trapped in this inauthentic brand that she had to continue to project because that was the expectation that was set. And so, that’s one example I think too is if you build your foundation like that, you have to keep building up and up. And you got to tear that whole foundation down to find who you really are. So yeah, being as authentic as possible, I think is key.
Connor: And frankly, I think it’s hard for a lot of entrepreneurs because people have, especially in business, they don’t want to get political. They don’t want to offend anyone because maybe half their customer base-
Charan: Is a certain-
Connor: You have a certain demographic or political ideology. And so, they want to be neutral. And then you find some business owners who do get political or do convey their values. Or it was like that guy, the Goya bean guy, he said he supported Donald Trump, but now tons of people on the left are boycotting his company just over that. So, I think there’s a lot of that walking on eggshells where people don’t want to be authentic, they hide their opinions because they’re worried about the mob. And I don’t know. I think that’s a great reason for anxiety.
Connor: If you can’t find a way to authentically espouse and live and advocate for the things that you believe in, if you feel trapped to limit yourself because of the expectations of your customers. And I get it, not every business owner can go be outspoken and perhaps shouldn’t be, but I think there’s a balance to be had. And I think a lot of people out of fear are just swinging the pendulum totally in the direction of silence and then become to some degree inauthentic.
Charan: Yeah. And this goes way beyond entrepreneurship. I feel like just the need to being authentic and having your own voice, I really do believe is one of the greatest keys of happiness and to have freedoms robbed from you so that you’re not able to have that voice. I believe to me, that’s what the Liberate Institute’s should be about. Is to let people really have their voice and to create the things that they want to create. So, where do you see the future of the “Tuttle Twins”? I know we talked about the Harmon Brothers being involved, right?
Connor: Yeah. So, we actually just recently signed a partnership with the Harmon Brothers. We’re going to be producing a cartoon. They just did or they’re doing “The Chosen, “which is this going to be a multi-season show all about the life of Jesus Christ and whether you’re religious or not, the production quality of what these guys are doing is phenomenal. And just, even from the way that… I mean, it’s the Harmon Brothers, they know how to market this stuff like crazy, but the monetization structure is amazing. These guys are raising tons of money from people who watched the whole show for free. And then they feel so passionate about it that they want to share it with others.
Connor: It’s actually a pay-it-forward model where they’re like, “Hey, I want to pay for other people to be able to watch it and keep it for free.” And so, we’re going to follow a similar model with the “Tuttle Twins,” because I think, just like religion, I think people’s political and economic ideas, they get very passionate about it. Excuse me. And so, we’re going to hope for the same kind of passion to move this project forward. So, we’re going to do a whole multi-season cartoon. That’ll probably launch next year. We’re probably going to launch a pilot, early next year and do some crowd equity, raise some money to fund the rest of the season. So that’s super exciting. We’re going to continue doing a lot more books. I mean, the demand-
Charan: Awesome. I was going to ask you if you’re going to write more books [crosstalk 00:45:19].
Connor: Oh yeah. I mean, the demand is so strong. I literally lay awake at night with anxiety thinking like I need to be writing more. I need to be doing more just because the demand is in a fever pitch. We did a survey with our whole customer list and basically the result was they’re foaming at the mouth for more content. And so, it’s all I can do to just try and produce, to meet that demand.
Connor: We’re going to do baby board books. So, like the ABCs of the free market, like “I is for inflation,” “G is for gold,” and stuff like that. And we’ve got books for teenagers as well. We have a family card game. We have curriculum, we’re making more. It’s just, we’re at this inflection point where I feel like in the days ahead and the years ahead, we’re going to have this content empire. If you think of like “VeggieTales” and how much of a household name that is for a lot of families, that’s where “Tuttle Twins” is going to be in a few years. And it’s just a thrill to be that conduit and feel like I birthed, it’s like a proud parent, right?
Connor: You birth this baby but then the baby starts walking on its own. It starts making independent choices, and building its own brand and name. And you’re just the proud parent from the sidelines being like, “I brought that into this world.”
Charan: You brought that into this world.
Connor: Yeah.
Charan: Oh man. That’s amazing. And I’m really, really thrilled to see where it all goes and everything.
Connor: Thanks.
Charan: Because yeah, it’s really great to see beginnings and then to see those beginnings just really expand and take root and get people really jazzed and excited about it. And I love it because it’s like, it’s a cute story and it shares an incredibly powerful message, which is always been one of the reasons why I got into filmmaking. That what I’ve always wanted to do. So, I really appreciate that you’ve done that.
Connor: Thank you.
Connor Boyack Talks About What Brings Him Joy
Charan: Okay. So, last couple questions, Connor. What brings you joy right now?
Connor: What brings me joy? I’m just going to have to share the answer I did a moment ago, is the service and seeing these families value what we’re doing, there’s the world is a crazy time for a lot of families right now. There’s a lot of uncertainty and with this survey that I mentioned, it was so interesting to get some of the results about the different things that families are going through, the economic challenges, the stress of school, what’s going to happen, and the lack of predictability and confidence for the future. And so, these parents, by and large, the response that we get back is that they feel like our books give them some anchor, those principles that like, hey, we can’t talk about and understand everything happening all day long and current events, but we can build foundation of like, what are true principles that we should be focused on.
Connor: And so just the gratitude that we get back from those parents to us is just incredibly empowering. We’re slogging with political opponents and fighting teachers’ unions here and different groups there and it can be kind of, your typical annoying, he-said-she-said, daily-grind stuff. You’re slogging away. But the “Tuttle Twins” specifically is my little joy bucket where when I’m feeling stressed over here, I can be like, “Oh, we are making a difference. We are helping a lot of people.” So, that’s, it’s very gratifying right now, amidst so much uncertainty and chaos to be getting that steady stream of gratitude from the families we’re serving.
Connor Boyack’s Advice to His Younger Self
Charan: That’s amazing. That’s awesome. Thank you for sharing that. And last question would be, what advice would you give your younger self? The self that just, I don’t know whether you’ve finished high school or whatnot. What would you tell that person?
Connor: So, I’ll share a bit of a different story to answer the question. We in Utah do what we call the “children’s entrepreneur market.” And it’s like farmer’s markets, but it’s run entirely by the kids. So, you show up on a Saturday and there’s 150 different tents set up. And the parents are there obviously, but they sit in the back and the kids do the show, they set up the product, whatever it is. One year we had 13 different kids, all trying to sell fidget spinners a few years ago. And those were hot.
Charan: Yeah. Of course. I think I still have one.
Connor: Yeah. Just like your slap bracelet from the 80s.
Charan: Dude, that’s exactly what that is. Yeah.
Connor: Your Pogs. Do you still have your Pogs?
Charan: Oh my gosh, yeah.
Connor: So that’s the new-
Charan: I still have my slammer.
Connor: Yeah. So, last year tons of kids were selling slime. Kids will sell food, unique games they’ve created. I had a gal at one of the markets, teach me a 15-minute ukulele lesson for five bucks. It was awesome. So, these kids totally diverse products and services that they’re doing. We all come together for three hours on a Saturday, usually a Saturday. And these kids are learning entrepreneurship firsthand. The profit motive is teaching them a lot. And it’s so fun. We’ve helped 1000 of kids do these experiences. We didn’t do it this year because of COVID, but we’ve done it, I think four years now and we’re going to do it again next year. And two years ago, I was at a gas station and I pulled up and there’s this woman right next to me.
Connor: And she says, “Hey, you’re the guy from the market, right?” I think I might have had one of our little shirts on. And I said, “Yeah.” And she said, “Oh, we did your market on Saturday.” “Oh, cool. How was it?” “Oh, we didn’t like it at all.” I’m like, “Oh, well tell me why. All right. This’ll be good feedback.” She complained that her kids didn’t sell anything. And for that reason, she told me that the market was a failure because her kids didn’t succeed. And she even demanded, we have a little like $10 fee or something like that. And she demanded her money back. And I said, no. And I explained to her what the money goes for. And it was a little bit confrontational or whatever and awkward. And so, I didn’t tell her what I wish kind of that George Costanza.
Connor: I figured out like half an hour later, I wish I could turn that car around and tell her and the answer to my younger self is the same thing. And that is, there’s such a learning opportunity in failure. And she was doing a disservice to her children who were there with her, watching her talk to me about this. She was doing a disservice to them by teaching them a victim mentality of it was my fault that her kids didn’t make money. And so, I needed to fix it and, pay reparations or something to her children. And I feel like, “Ma’am, you missed out because you were probably…” In fact, I think she just went to Costco and bought some cans of soda and a little bags of chips. And were trying to mark it up by 50 cents or something and sell that versus the kid making homemade ice cream, a couple things down. And the kid over here making jumbo hot dogs with special sauce and stuff. And that could teach you a lot about the preparation you should be putting in.
Charan: The creativity.
Connor: Creativity, product selection, investment of time, all that kind of stuff. And those kids were robbed of that learning opportunity because they expected that they would make some money and they didn’t. And they ascribe the flaw to an externality to the organizers rather than looking inward and saying, what could we have done better?
Connor: And for myself in my younger years too I’ve always been so afraid of failure, the consummate perfectionist, I’m always wanting to do things right. And not allowing myself to go to market if you will, to move forward and fail and learn and iterate and then improve. That I think I denied myself in my younger years, a lot of learning opportunities because I didn’t want to try something risky that I would be bad at. But that would have given me those learning opportunities. And I think being a little bit more risky taking, willing to take risks, and experience those failures. I feel like I could have learned a lot more at an earlier age.
Charan: I remember, I’ll share like a quick little story. When I was in high school, we used to have a Sub for Santa. I don’t know if you guys did that, but we did that in our high school. And, it was, I remember our second period was the class, every, every second period we would collect money and then it would all go towards the Sub for Santa deal. And it was so interesting. I remember for whatever reason, I had like 20 bucks on me. So, I put 20 bucks in the jar and everyone was like, “Whoa, Charan just dropped huge money.” And I’m like, “I guess I had 20 bucks or whatever.” But for whatever reason, it inspired this thing within all of us. And everyone’s like, “Dude, should we do this? Should we raise money?”
Charan: And we made a friendly competition among the different classes to see who would get the most money. And there was always this teacher, Mr. Warner, I remember he would always win. He would always win. So we’re like, “Not this year, Mr. Warner, we’re going to you down.” And so it was super friendly, but we ended up raising money, raising money, raising money, and the second last day, excuse me, we counted the money that we raised and our class raise 1200 bucks or something like that.
Connor: Wow.
Charan: Which is pretty big.
Connor: For kids. Yeah.
Charan: For kids. I mean, I guess we were in school, high school or whatever. So, but we were young and we’ve never really done this before. But we were still neck-and-neck, we had one more day. And so, I remember that day, everyone’s like, “Guys, one last day.” And everyone took the energy and participated in it. And some of us went caroling. I was one of the carolers, and I remember going out and it was one of those incidents when I had the jar and I realized nobody else showed up. So I just started singing by myself. And I’m like, “I guess this is what it takes.” Utter humiliation and defeat. But then-
Connor: So the money was a go away money? Like, “Here, you’re done.”
Charan: [crosstalk 00:54:54] seriously. Yeah. I’m like, “Hey, I’ll take pity money, whatever.” But what was interesting was that day, everyone did their own thing. And in one night alone, we raised $1,300.
Connor: Wow.
Charan: It was unbelievable.
Connor: That’s amazing.
Charan: Yeah. And so, total, we raised 2,500 bucks or something like that. And I remember Mr. Warner, he was happy, but he also felt so defeated because we kind of creamed him.
Connor: Nice.
Charan: But it was so interesting how we all went for it because we had this thing of like, “Hey, you know what, who cares? It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what the outcome is. Let’s just go out and let’s just go do our best.”
Connor: That’s cool.
Charan: “And then just see what happens.” And I think that having that risk-taking mentality of saying, “Hey, I’m just going to go for it. And if I fail, then I realized, okay, well let me just try a different tactic next time.” And I think that ability to do that is what helps people to succeed.
Charan: Connor, thank you, man. I really appreciate you taking the time.
Connor: It’s been fun.
Charan: And chatting and all that stuff. And what can I do for you?
Connor: What can you do for me?
Charan: Yeah.
Connor: Can I say this on camera? You can do DinoHand. I haven’t seen it over a decade.
Charan: Has it been a decade?
Connor: I mean, since. Yeah.
Charan: Oh my gosh. Well-
Connor: Do you need to tell the viewers about the story?
Charan: I probably need to.
Connor: All right.
Charan: Many, many years ago, over 20 years ago. I’ve known that my hand is double-jointed, but I didn’t know that I could actually create it into a dinosaur. So, if you look at my hand listeners, I’m so sorry you’re not able to see this, but YouTube it, DinoHand. Yes. But if you take my hand like this, I can actually turn into a dinosaur. And, I actually created a little short film “DinoHand” about it and I’m pretty sure that I terrorized you with DinoHand like every-
Connor: Coming up my shoulder.
Charan: Yeah [crosstalk 00:56:51]. Oh man. Thank you for bringing that back to my memory. I appreciate that.
Connor: Good memories.
Charan: Good memories. Well, thanks again, Connor. I really appreciate taking the time and congrats on all of your success.
Connor: Thank you.
Charan: And I wish you the very best moving forward.
Connor: Thanks. Appreciate it.
Charan: Yup. Take care.
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 use to be alerted when we release new episodes. We’d also love to hear your feedback and 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.