Hangin’ with Geoff Carlston
As the founder of Epic Journey Leadership Geoff loves to build transformative leaders and teams through the creation of authentic culture forged in trust, love and the magic of shared experiences. But what exactly does that all mean? After years of coaching volleyball at the university level, he saw the incredible benefits of nature and adventure to unify high-performing athletes. When every individual came to the university at the top of the game, he saw that they all had different personalities and approaches to the game of volleyball. He knew that until they started to understand one another from a soul level, they would never have the chemistry to play together effectively. Using retreats to form connections, Geoff discovered the power of narratives.
Having positive narratives yielded to positive life experiences and vice versa. For him, authentic connection is the key to finding joy. This can only happen when you are present and show up for other people. We had a great chat about some deep topics. Enjoy!
Get to Know Geoff
Once you understand a little about Geoff Carlston, you’re going to understand more about Epic Journey Leadership and what Geoff is doing for the world around him. Originally from Minnesota, Geoff now lives in the mountains with his wife and three sons. He didn’t take the conventional path to where he is now, and it was full of highs, lows and chances to search his soul and dig deep. Geoff was never a person of particular planning — how he lives now was never in the plan. However, with the death of a parent, the loss of a vocation and the re-identification of new goals and dreams, Geoff managed to forge an entirely new identity for himself. It wasn’t without struggle; there was plenty of that. But what person doesn’t struggle with the uncertainty that comes from reinvention?
Facing Challenges
Geoff is proud to be himself, to face every challenge head on and, whether he wins or not, embrace the changes and make life better. He’s well-traveled, with forty-five countries under his belt. That’s a lot of world and life experience that most people don’t have the pleasure of enjoying. A big part of the Epic Journey Leadership manifest has come from the experiences that Geoff has had on the road. Speaking of roads, did you know that Geoff is an avid motorcyclist? He has taken his bike through more than 12,000 miles of Blue Highway, falling in love with the exhilaration and adrenaline that comes with hearing the roar of the wind. Given the years spent on the road and in the mountains skiing in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, it’s safe to say that Geoff chases the high and embraces the natural euphoria that comes with it. He has backpacked through the depths of Europe, hiked the heights of the Great Wall of China, and swum with the seals in the Galapagos Islands. Geoff has even reached the Mount Everest Base Camp — he does not shy away from a challenge, and he shows this in his endeavors in his personal life as much as being the founder of Epic Journey Leadership.
Fighting for the Future
Geoff has always been a man of peace, and if he can cultivate it, he does it. He was once in the Peace Corps as a volunteer in Central America. There he worked closely with gangs, taught in the school for the deaf and worked tirelessly to develop rainforest-based youth retreats. His efforts as a volunteer taught him how to listen to others tell their stories, and he learned the harsh side of humanity while witnessing the injustices affecting communities filled with the least privileged. Among all of that, though, Geoff also felt the depth of human spirit that bridged it all.
Leadership
Before Epic Journey Leadership came about, Geoff was a collegiate coach. For 20 years, he taught, trained and inspired players to national rankings and has been an integral part of his players’ lives ever since. He has attended weddings, watched some of them become mothers and has been there as a pillar of strength through some of the toughest moments life has thrown at them. Geoff invests his time and his emotions into the successes of others, and his time as a Big Ten head coach was a peak of his profession. He felt he had made it in life at that point, but he knew there was more to come. Geoff openly admits that he is continuously learning every single day and that those who seek his help shouldn’t seek perfection but the kindred spirit of another human being. He works to ensure that others can see their own uncharted path, to see that transformation takes time. He wants to be the conduit for those who seek out more from life, bringing the ordinary into a new dimension of extraordinary togetherness. Geoff works hard to design and live a life based on leadership, service and pure authenticity. There is no moment of “cannot” with Geoff, only uncomfortable fear and mindfulness.
Epic Journey Leadership
While it may not be for everyone, Geoff has designed this for the adventurers, for those who can see the transparent time we are given in life and want to make the most of it. It doesn’t matter whether you are a business leader, a coach, an athlete or a parent looking for deeper meaning, Geoff wants to help you to find your purpose and legacy throughout your life. Epic Journey Leadership is there to help you to do it.
Geoff Carlston Podcast Transcription
Charan: What’s up, guys? This is Charan Prabhakar with the Lemonade Stand Stories podcast, and I’m here with Geoff Carlston. And we were having a conversation. Am I close enough friends with him that I can call him Geoff, or is it Ge-off? And I felt like we broke the ice real quick, because I’m going with Geoff. I’m sticking to it. And it feels really good.
Charan: Geoff and I just met today, but we actually have a mutual friend. His name is Dennis Allen, who’s also a great friend of mine, great entrepreneur. And he’s done all kinds of different things. And he was like, “Charan, you’ve got to get Geoff on. He is a legendary guy. He has got all kinds of stories to tell.” So, I did a little research and discovered Epic Journey.
Charan: And I guess it was Epic Journey Leadership, right, where through shared experiences, you allow people to have transformative, I guess, experiences where they can change their lives and become better leaders, and better, I guess, I don’t know, what would you call it? What would you describe that as? Like through shared experiences, they would have a chance to grow out of their comfort zone? Is that correct?
Geoff: Right. Yeah. I mean, I have coached volleyball at a pretty high level for 20 years. And so, we would go on retreats, and I’ve been to 45 countries, and we’re able to take our team to South America. And when we do that, we work in schools. And I think the best way for us to grow, and frankly, I think some of the big issues in our country is when you get out there and you explore and you travel and you see other people and you learn; you just expand.
Geoff: And once you’ve expanded, you don’t go back. And so, that can be through, my belief and really in Epic Journey, what we philosophically frame it in is you can have transformative conversations; they can be super simple. But they become a part of our story. You can go out and do a mountain bike or go fly fishing and do some things maybe you haven’t done before. And get outside of your office and outside your typical arena.
Geoff: And you just, especially if you’re around other people that are there in that vulnerable”hey, let’s get real; let’s get authentic.” And in my experience with my clients and certainly with myself, that’s where the magic happens. So, I’m trying to create magic everywhere I go through shared experiences and conversations. And yeah, I love to frame it all under storytelling. So, I’m a big fan of the concept of stories.
Charan: Yeah, I am, too. I’ve made movies. I produce because I love telling stories. And it’s very interesting what you’re saying. I feel like our philosophies align so much with each other. Because-
Geoff: Absolutely.
Charan: … for me, I love having adventures and I love expanding my soul. And I love what you’re saying, when your soul is expanded or when you have an experience, you can’t go back. You can’t go back because now you’ve experienced that. And I love traveling. If I get a chance to travel, I will travel. And last year, I remember we were making a movie where we got to travel all throughout Utah. And it was a very interesting experience because that was a very shared experience.
Charan: A group of us, we’ve initially started in a place where we could all go home and go to bed after we filmed, in our own homes. But then, once we started traveling, we were traveling together, and now we’re having this incredible experience where sometimes we wouldn’t have cell service and sometimes, we wouldn’t have any of those type of things that we normally would have.
Charan: And so, the experience was just each other. And sometimes we wouldn’t see a single other person except for us, except for the crew. And we had such a blast. And it was such a stretching experience. We got to see how we can symbiotically work together.
Charan: So, I love that you do that. But you said you were coaching volleyball. And you started having these shared experiences. You would go out of country and whatnot. Was this something that you came up with? Or was this something that was like thrown to you? Or how is that?
Geoff: Yeah, well, the beauty of coaching a team, and I coached at Ohio University and I coached at Ohio State, and when you have 17, 18 young women who come from very different backgrounds and have different motivations, and they’ve all been the best on their teams, and they’ve failed hardly ever, certainly not in the game of volleyball. They’ve always been a full-ride, Division 1 student athlete, and the challenge was, okay, how do we get all of these individuals rowing in the same direction motivated-
Charan: To work as a team. Yeah.
Geoff: Right. Because they can’t all play at the same time; that’s not how it works. In volleyball, you only get six on the court at a time. And so, we spent a lot of time, we’d always… you know, for me, I understood early on, maybe from my grandpa, which we can talk about down the road, some of the experiences I had through growing up with him.
Geoff: But really that I believed in beginnings and endings. And this is a story, right? It’s like the idea of, we would always start with a retreat, two or three days we’d get away. We’d get outside of the gym. And we mostly, almost always, go out in nature. And we tell stories around the fire. No cell phones. Same idea, because you’re forced to go internally, and you’re forced to connect, not forced, but that’s where we connect, and there’s not external distractions, which is so common.
Geoff: So, we would build trust and the second, third day we’d be getting into some pretty heavy stuff and talk about motivations and fears. And I’m a big believer in how can we act out of love over fear. And we would get into that as a group and as a team. And most coaches know that if there’s not any trust built off the court, there’s not going to be any on the court. And so, I love that part of it, the building, the culture, the chemistry, the challenging one another.
Geoff: And so, really, what I do now is I do that with individuals, I do it with CEOs, I do it with some professional baseball teams, I do it with lots of different people who are just whatever mountain they’re climbing, whatever they’re dealing with; it’s really similar shared experiences.
Charan: Dude, there’s just so much stuff to unpack right now. There’s just so much. I hope you’re ready.
Geoff: I’m ready. I’m excited.
Charan: Let’s do this thing. Here’s the thing. First off, I love good conversations. That’s why we even do podcasts, right? So, we have these great conversations, and we can get deep.
Geoff: Absolutely.
Charan: One of the things that you were mentioning was the external stimuli of maybe social media and whatnot disappears when you’re in nature, when there’s just not self-service or whatnot. And again, I don’t want to use the word force, but it makes you say, okay, we’ve come to a quiet place, which sometimes is a little nervous for people, because they’re so used to having so much noise all the time, so much stimuli all the time.
Charan: But when they finally go silent and they can turn inward, what was some of the first things you would see happen?
Geoff: Fidgeting. No, it is, it really is. And we all know that this isn’t just about… it’s not even just about young people or even social media in some ways, although I think that that does put some gasoline on the fire, but it’s just, I really believe that a lot of us just don’t feel that our story is worth telling. And another one to let it correlate is that people aren’t going to listen to my story.
Geoff: And so, we don’t tell it. So, there’s this unspoken gap of, well, my story is not that exciting, or if it is, or even if I want to share it, it’s going to take too long and people don’t want to hear it. And so, I’m just not going to bother them. And so, we sit in this, I believe, in this space of boring, uncommonness, where if you sit down, and being away from our cell phones creates this space on the stage, all of a sudden, you start realizing that, wow, that person’s story is unbelievable. And then they feel you listening to them.
Geoff: And then that gives you a freedom to speak some of your story. And over time, all of a sudden, you’ve just shared and you’ve learned something. And a lot of these would be roommates in college, and they would find out more stuff in that eight minutes than they knew-
Charan: The entire semester or something.
Geoff: … from the first year living with them. So, I think a lot of is, we’re just a little bit insecure and don’t feel our story is worth telling. But man, as you say, when you start hearing people share, and you really give them, like they’re the only person in the room right now, like they’re the only person in the world that matters, there’s a connection, because it’s so uncommon.
Geoff: And my belief is those of us who can make that common and listen and tell our stories, and more importantly, let someone else tell their story to us, that’s where the magic and it’s really transformative.
Charan: Yeah. Wow, that’s so powerful, man. I mean, it’s interesting. I went to college. And when I was when I was there, I was known as the guy that was trying to, I don’t know, figure out ways to get around the system as much as I could. But the thing was, my teachers loved me and I got good grades and stuff. But if I could figure out ways to get around the system, I would do so.
Geoff: Sure, sure.
Charan: And one of the things was, my major was psychology for the family, right? And I had an internship. And in the internship, they gave us a whole list of things that we could intern for, like therapy this, doing this, like social worker here, that type of thing. And none of those things interested me.
Charan: But they did say, if you found something that’s a little bit different than what’s listed here, then come and pitch it to us. And if we like it then we’ll make an exception type of thing. So, I’m like, “All right, well, you guys opened a rabbit hole.” And so, I decided to pitch them that I wanted to teach snowboarding as my internship.
Charan: And they were like, “Wait, how does this work? How are you going to link it to psychology?” I said, “Listen, guys, here’s the deal. Through snowboarding, I am going to help families facilitate conversations with each other. And it’s a tough thing for people to get involved in the very first day, so you’re forced to communicate; you first encourage each other.”
Charan: And I gave him this whole thing. And they’re like, “That actually makes a lot of sense. Okay, great, you’re in.” And I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe it worked.” And my boss, because I love snowboarding and I love to teach it, and so my boss was just like, “Dude, I cannot believe you convinced your college to give you three credit-hours to teach snowboarding.” But it was amazing. I had a great time doing it.
Charan: And then, I realized, wow, this actually is very powerful. My own thing. I was just like, “Well, I’m just making stuff up.” It actually ended up being a very truthful thing, like, “Whoa, these people were really having positive experiences in this circumstance of being uncomfortable a little bit.”
Charan: And doing an activity that a lot of people, they just didn’t know how to do. And I taught college students as well as families together. It was pretty awesome. And so, I’m a full believer of that.
Geoff: That’s incredible. You and I are soul mates in terms of our stories. So, I had my master’s in social work. The same thing, I just wasn’t a big fan of the two tracks. One was really hardcore clinical and one was working in schools. And I just didn’t really want to do either one of those. I love working with gangs and street kids and teams.
Geoff: So, I pitched to my professors that, hey, I want to go. I was in the Peace Corps and we used sport to bring people who had never ever come together and compete together, and I’m like, “I want to do this in South Africa.”
Geoff: And I presented a grant and was able… I got cleared to go do it and went to Cape Town, South Africa, and presented my research that I had with gangs in South and Central America, and then I stayed on and worked with street kids from different tribes who were literally killing each other, their families, for decades, and we brought them together.
Geoff: And through soccer, football there, but through soccer, these kids who had never ever… first, we’ll get them off the street and out of the shanty towns, but they were actually competing and playing and high-fiving each other because they were connected through sport, through this activity. And it was like, “Whoa.”
Geoff: And my professors, I wrote a paper on it, and they actually have a track now at University of Minnesota that’s community development that I helped create along with these people who just said, “You know what? That’s cool. That’s a good idea.” And if you find the right people who are willing to get outside the box, there’s some really cool stuff that can happen. So yeah, you and I have a-
Charan: Dude, it was-
Geoff: I like snowboarding, snowboarding. That’s [crosstalk 00:15:50], man.
Charan: It’s a new one. It’s a new thing that, you got to give it a shot.
Geoff: I love it.
Charan: You know, it’s interesting, because we had a senior portfolio we needed to do as part of our experience. And I remember just thinking like, “Oh, my gosh, this is such a joke.” Because I’m trying to figure out how to make snowboarding seem philosophical. And I was struggling. But I managed to come up with papers, and I put all these random quotes in there.
Charan: And they wanted us to have a headshot of ourselves and whatnot. And I found a picture of me looking off into the sunset. I’m like, “Yeah, that seems right. I want to put that on there.” So, I put that on there as a headshot. And I just put random quotes that were just so ridiculous. But I’m like, “You know what? It’s my senior year. I’m going to graduate. This doesn’t matter.”
Charan: And so, I had one of those nothing-to-lose type of things. I showed it to my friends. And they were just dying, laughing that I do… “Why did you make it so goofy?” My professor loved it. She absolutely loved it. And my friends were like, “What?” And then, I’m like, “Look, here’s the deal. When you look into that binder, what do you think about this person?”
Charan: And they’re like, “Oh, we want to meet him?” Exactly, and I was like, “Oh, yeah.” So much of my personality was infused in that experience, right?
Geoff: Right, right.
Charan: So, I go back to what you are saying regarding some of these folks that they’ve never had the chance to really share their voice or feel like, “Hey, you know what, I don’t really have a story worth telling.” But then, when you have a shared experience, and when they’re able to dig down and dig deep, they’re like, “Oh, my gosh, I do have a voice. And I do like to share it.”
Charan: And that becomes very transformative. So, I love, I love what you’re doing. That’s amazing.
Geoff: Yeah. I’m meeting with a group later on today. And really, a lot of what we do is, we just spend six or seven minutes, and I give them something to talk about. And it starts out pretty mellow, and then it gets a little bit more serious. But we talk about asking curious questions, meaning, okay, if you’re talking about snowboarding, I’m going to say, “Oh, hey, where were you doing it and what was your favorite? What are they doing now, the people you were working with? Do you still keep in touch with them?”
Geoff: Like curious questions. And really, the idea of staying super engaged in someone’s story, because what happens is, with neuroplasticity and what we know about it is like, “Wow, you actually open these pathways to feel comfortable to say it again and to tell more of your story, maybe not to that person, with someone else.”
Geoff: So, the gift of actually being present with someone and asking really important, curious questions that allows them to continue is one of the more powerful acts, I think, we can do for each other. And that just doesn’t happen, right? It doesn’t happen even within families. And part of it is we’re so busy, part of it is-
Charan: We’re so worried about our own selves.
Geoff: Yeah, and the technology is, I mean, the technology is real. I mean, there’s no doubt about that. And anxiety and depression and suicide has followed the track of the influx of technology because we become externally driven, externally motivated. Everything on social media is everyone’s happy. And if I’m not, why am I not as happy as they are?
Geoff: That becomes this really powerful hold to you. “Well, if they’re happy then there’s something wrong with me, because I’m not happy.” And reality is, we talk a lot about, and this is an interesting conversation, again, with people that we talk about, let’s talk about joy, not happiness. Everyone wants to be happy, right?
Charan: Yeah.
Geoff: But happiness is an emotion, like sadness or anger or jealousy. It’s not sustainable. But joy… and it’s not it, for example, if you’re a volleyball player and you get a kill, you’re happy.
Charan: I know.
Geoff: And if you hit the ball in the net, you’re not happy. If you’re starting, you’re happy. But if you’re not starting, maybe you’re not happy. And the reality is, you don’t have control over some of those.
Charan: You’re describing, they’re all happiness in external circumstances, right?
Geoff: Right.
Charan: You want that happiness. And if a certain external circumstance happens a certain way, then you’re happy. But if you’re not, if the ball goes in the net, then you’re not happy, right?
Geoff: Right. Or you get a B and not an A. A lot of my players were valedictorians; they’d never gotten a B, and all of a sudden, they get a B. Well, wait a minute. The professor thought that you did B work. And so, I like to talk about joy, because, I think, it encompasses happiness, and it encompasses all this emotion, but it’s internal, it’s mine, and no one can take it from me.
Geoff: Whereas happiness, a lot of things that make us happy are external. So yeah, I think it’s a powerful differentiation. But it’s an interesting dialogue to get into, because the word happy is such an important word in our society, too.
Geoff Carlston Talks About Joy
Charan: So, let me ask you this: how do you become internally fulfilled? How do you have the internal state of joy?
Geoff: Wow, that’s a great question.
Charan: Yeah. I mean, that’s the issue, right? Isn’t that the issue? Because I think here’s the deal: without voicing it, we’re all searching for it. And it takes conversations like that through the shared experiences to be like, “Oh, that’s really what I’m looking for.” And by allowing you to share your story, to share your voice, suddenly you start feeling the sense of fulfillment and the sense of like, “Wow, I matter. I have purpose.”
Charan: But in order for that to happen, someone else has to be present and say, “Hey, tell me about you.” So, the person that’s present, the person that is wanting to know more, hopefully, that person is fulfilled, hopefully, that person has joy already, right? So, how does one get to that state of inner joy and fulfillment?
Geoff: Right. Well, I’ll let you know. And I’ll let you know if I have the actual answer.
Charan: Yeah, that’d be great.
Geoff: I think this is, if you’re in Buddhism, it’s enlightenment or Nirvana, whatever it is. So, I think it’s a process and it’s a journey. And I think, the curiosity, for me, my answer is this, is that what we can do and what I try to do with so many of my clients, whether they’re a Fortune 500 CEO or a 15-year-old trying to navigate COVID, is create a new relationship with failure and with fear, pain, where we can focus inward and be curious.
Geoff: I love the word curious, being curious about, “Okay, I’m feeling lonely right now. Let me take a step back. Where is this coming from? What’s going on right now? What triggered this?” And just be really, really inquisitive in a kind and compassionate, which is hard, kind, compassionate, open-minded way. And realizing that I think we all feel like we’re the only human beings going through whatever we’re going through.
Geoff: And it’s not true. But unless you’re in a room or unless you have one person who’s willing to share that, “Man, I feel that too,” it’s like, “Oh.” Everything changes at that moment where we feel that we’re not the only human being going through this.
Geoff: And the problem with social media is a lot of times, everything that we put out there is not false. It’s what we want people to think about ourselves. And COVID just revealed all of this. I mean, the beauty of COVID, if we can look at a positive from COVID and from the pandemic, it’s… we are all interconnected, one. Two, we don’t have control like we thought maybe we did.
Geoff: I mean, we’ve always known impermanence and all of that, but it really is a shining light on top of it, and that people need each other and that people are struggling and their stories, it doesn’t have to be this huge thing, it’s just being present for each other. And so, the answer to me, the best answer I know is be really kind and compassionate and curious about yourself, taking a step back.
Geoff: I love the idea of breathing and getting off the highway. A lot of times, things were just going, you just got to pull off the side of the road, just take a look-
Charan: Just take a breath, yeah.
Geoff: … take a breath and remind yourself that everyone is going through this. And you’re not alone and that you’re powerful and you’re okay with just who you are. And this is about growing. So, the relationship to all of these things, I think, is where it has to start.
Charan: You know you’ve hit some really interesting points. I wanted to unpack a little bit more. We’re unpacking so much. It’s so exciting.
Geoff: Yeah, I love it. I’m on the [crosstalk 00:25:32] more.
Charan: You’re on the road, yeah, yeah. And we’re going to unpack even more. So, here’s an interesting analogy I was thinking about. I’m a filmmaker; I make movies and stuff, right? We were talking about this.
Geoff: Yeah.
Charan: Now, when you go into a movie theater and you watch a movie, if it’s a good movie, hopefully you get sucked into it, right? And suddenly you almost forget your sense of self, and you’re just like, “I’m in this movie. I’m watching this.” And when you come out of the movie theater, then you’re like, “Wow, that was so crazy. I learned all of this stuff.”
Charan: And you can share all these different things, right, different analogies and stuff. But in life, I’ve noticed a lot of people never leave the movie theater. They’re always living in a story. And they’ve identified that story as who they are. But that might not necessarily be who they are.
Charan: I was thinking about this during COVID a lot, because so many people have different narratives about COVID, about themselves, about depression, about whatever it was, this sense of isolation, yada, yada, yada, right? But like what you were saying, when you’re able to take a step back and be like, “Wait, I am not the story. I can actually be an observer of the story.” If I’m the observer of the story and this goes into a little bit of Buddhism, right?
Geoff: Yeah, absolutely.
Charan: When I observe the narratives, when I observe my thoughts, when I observe my emotions, I realize I am not them. I am not those things. I can be independent of those things. And once you realize you’re independent of those things, you have power over them, instead of letting your story rule over you.
Charan: Because so many times, if I’m having a bad day, and I start thinking, why am I having a bad day? I’m like, oh, well, I was thinking about this, and this, and this, and this. And I gave whatever I was thinking about power over me, to rule over me. Being my own being, right, my own man. But one of the things I was doing, even earlier this year, I kept feeling like this sense of claustrophobia.
Charan: There was just so much noise all the time. So, I found myself going in nature quite a bit as well, just by myself. And the only rule I had was wherever I went, I didn’t want anyone around. I didn’t care where it was, I just didn’t want to hear noise. I didn’t want to hear cars. I wanted to just be in a quiet place. That’s all I really cared about; it didn’t really matter where.
Charan: And so, I went to these different places, places I’ve never even been to before, just driving. And when I finally found, like I found a spot where nobody was, I would pull over and I would stop and I would just walk out. And I would just be. That’s all I would do, is I would just be. I would take deep breaths.
Charan: And I can’t even tell you how good… my mood instantly changed to being a much better, much more wholesome place just by doing that, so.
Geoff: Yeah. Just talking about unpacking stuff, I think the stories we tell ourselves become our lives, right? And it becomes how we think. And then, those thoughts become how we feel. And the feelings become our actions. And our actions reinforce the narrative, right? And one of the examples I always used is math.
Geoff: So many people [inaudible 00:28:57], just don’t think they’re very good at math, right? I’m not going to… whenever it was, you took a test, and you were told you’re not that good at math, so you’re going to take general math. And at that moment, it’s… I love the book The Four Agreements. But we’ve made this agreement that we’re not good at math and it becomes our story, and we say it over and over again.
Geoff: And we go in every math test, and we basically feel like we’re not going to do well and, lo and behold, we don’t. And this happens with us, how we look, our jobs, our money, our bank accounts, our status, where we live. These become our stories. And I love the idea. That’s why I love storytelling. I know you do, too. I love movies.
Geoff: And I love writing and I love pictures, photography, because I think one snapshot can tell a lot of… it’s just the power of photography, it’s always been intriguing for me. But we first have to recognize, we go back and what’s our story that we’ve been telling?
Geoff: So, this is the hard work where we go, “Okay, I was raised in this family. This is why I’m this way. Or maybe it is, but I can start seeing and unpacking a little bit of what my story is, and then start realizing, which is really hard, what chapters do I want to get rid of because they just don’t serve me?”
Charan: They don’t serve you, yeah.
Geoff: And they’re actually not even true. If you really think about it, well, why am I not good at math? I mean, growth mindset and neuroplasticity has proven that we can all learn. Maybe you’re not going to be Einstein. But you can certainly become above average at math if you worked at it. And so, the hard work is getting people to sit down and… one shared their story of where they come from.
Geoff: Where am I from? And that’s not just your religion. And it’s not just your family. And it’s not just the schools and the state, although that’s a part of who we are, right? That’s a cool part of our story. It’s also our attitudes, our beliefs. And then, that gets us to where we are right now. Okay, where we are in this moment. And I love the concept, Joseph Campbell’s, The Hero’s Journey, of we’re here right now.
Geoff: And the reality like you said, we are the authors, we author how we move forward. But if you haven’t taken a step back and really appreciate it and look inward on the stories you’ve been telling, and the story that you’re going to write is not going to be your true, authentic story.
Geoff: So, I love the idea of looking back to see where you are right now so you can move forward and write the story in any way you really want to, which is powerful, like you said, powerful concept.
Charan: It’s a very powerful concept, because to know that you can rewrite your own stories, it’s a beautiful thing. One of the things I love to think about, we talked about having an abundant life, having a lot of wealth or having all these different things. Sometimes I like to think of it more, though, like, how do you experience life abundantly?
Charan: Instead of having an abundant life, how do you experience it abundantly? Because I think every moment can be precious. So, I started doing this experiment about… because I often ask people and I ask myself, how am I experiencing life right now? Is it light? Is it joyous? Is it fun? Or am I constantly burdened? And I’m constantly stressed out about the next project.
Charan: Am I not able to relish this present moment that we’re having right now? And I started doing this experiment. And I realized this. I started paying attention to how I was holding my steering wheel when I was driving. Was I holding it tight or was it loose? And I realized, like, “Oh, my gosh, I’m holding it, I’m gripping it really tight subconsciously.”
Charan: And it was this weird lesson that went off in my head that said, “Oh, my grip on my steering wheel is very symbolic to my grip on life right now.” I’m trying to hold onto it too much. I’m trying to control everything too much. I’m a big tennis player. That’s my sport. And one of the things I’ve noticed with tennis is sometimes when I’m not feeling like I’m doing the best, I’ve noticed my racket is being held so tightly in my hand, instead of being relaxed.
Charan: And the pros, they all talk about having a very relaxed arm. And I’m like, “How do you have a relaxed arm when you play?”When you do, when you’re able to relax, you’re like, “Oh.” You almost get into the flow of it. Now, what’s interesting is volleyball is a team sport, right? It’s not just one person against another person. It’s a whole team versus another team, right?
Geoff: Right.
Charan: But have you been able to see when your team can get into a state of flow and a state of almost oneness, where you don’t have to think, people know exactly where they need to be? You know what I mean?
Geoff: Yeah. My mentor told me when that happens, get the hell out of the way.
Charan: Yeah, things like that happen.
Geoff: Things like that happen because [crosstalk 00:34:18].
Charan: Don’t say anything. Let it do its thing.
Geoff: Yeah. There’s a lot of moving parts to that. But I mean, there’s so many things, but certainly if you don’t have trust from the end and the front end, it doesn’t matter how much talent you have, it’s going to be very hard to find that flow. But yeah, I’m a tennis player as well.
Charan: Oh, cool.
Geoff: And golf is the same thing, where you need to be loose. It seems counterintuitive, but it’s absolutely true. And I love your use of the word relish. It doesn’t get used enough. But I think, yeah, certainly, that’s the pulling off the side of the road, the breathing. There are some physiological things you can do to slow your heart rate.
Geoff: But these are just things. I think the key is, for example, I lost my job right before COVID and the first time in my life. And all of a sudden, COVID hits. I have three kids. Life got real for a lot of human beings. And for me, we went up to Minnesota, trying to sell our house in Columbus, Ohio, or our cabin in Minnesota, and what’s going on with COVID.
Geoff: And I’m like, “You know what? We talked about acting in love and not fear and passion.” And so, I have an amazing wife and convinced her that we needed to move out to the mountains, because that’s where I wanted to live my whole life. So, I bought a ski. I bought a steamboat.
Geoff: And so, we moved our whole crew to Evergreen, Colorado, and I’ve had an amazing year with our family and exploring and start up this business and met some incredible people. But I was like, “You know what, if I’m going to talk to people about expanding and getting uncomfortable, then I can’t just stay and-
Charan: Comfort zone.
Geoff: … I’m being told in my heart of hearts that I need to go. And so, it’s an amazing experience, scary, but all of us are going through this on one level or other on a daily basis, like you said, whether they come out as stories and the more we can help people navigate that, I think that’s a part of why we’re, I’m sure that’s part of why you’re making movies, because you can impact people through that narrative and get them thinking and maybe shock the system a little bit to get and process things a little bit differently.
Geoff: But I think the one thing I’ve learned, I don’t care what your bank account, how old you are. And that is one of the things, I think, the pandemic has shown that we all have mountains that we’re climbing; we all have stuff. And the more we can talk about that stuff in an intimate way, the more we release ourselves and others to not feeling alone.
Charan: Wow, I love that. One of the big things about this podcast that I discuss with a lot of the guests are times when we’re going through just really heavy, heavy times, or when we’ve been dumped lemons, and COVID was that for a lot of people, right? And now, you just mentioned how you lost your job.
Geoff: Sure, sure.
Charan: And now, you’re like, “We need to move and we have to go to Colorado.”
Geoff: Go big or go home. Go big or go home.
Charan: Yeah, exactly. Go big or go home. But it’s really interesting, because you mentioned something that a lot of guests have not really talked about, which is the idea of talking to other people and having those shared experiences, and saying, “Hey, this is what I’m going through, and I’m being broken, I’m being vulnerable.”
Geoff Carlston Talks About Empowerment Through Vulnerability
Charan: And that automatically gives other people have the permission to do the same, right? And then, you realize, wow, I didn’t realize that we were all going through this exact thing together. And it feels heavy. And it can be a painful thing. But how have you found that, I guess, sharing and those broken moments, how have you found that helps people empower themselves better?
Geoff: I’m a firm believer, if you’re not going to share your entire story, including the sharp edges and the scars, then you’re never going to hear another person’s true story, right? And so, if you’re a leader in a company or you’re directing a movie or you’re the head coach of a softball team or whatever, I think we’re learning.
Geoff: And I think it’s absolutely true that leaders who are willing to show themselves as vulnerable and open themselves up and share their stories are the leaders. They’re transformative; they’re not transactional. And people feel valued. It ups everything, the value, the trust, the willingness to be there for each other.
Geoff: And so, for me, the biggest challenge I would throw out there for anyone, whether you’re a parent, the CEO of your household, whether you’re a mother, is if you want your son or daughter to tell you what’s going on, then they need to know who you are and what you’re going through. And it’s okay.
Geoff: And CEOs of companies that are wanting to leave legacy and wanting to have a stronger… ultimately, if all you want is to make a lot of money and you don’t care, then this isn’t a podcast for you, right? This isn’t the conversation for you. But if you want to be remembered as someone, as a leader of impact, then it starts with telling your story and being vulnerable.
Geoff: And I think people really appreciate hearing some of the valleys and the sharp edges and the scars, as well as the successes, and when you climb the top of the mountain. But the whole thing, the story of the ups and downs is what matters. And that’s the impact.
Charan: It’s interesting. There were thoughts in my head that came to my mind when you were mentioning about being vulnerable and stories. So, the industry that I’m in, sometimes it’s filled with a lot of people that are just, they just talk and talk and talk, right? And there’s a very interesting game sometimes that they play, where they pretend like so many great things are going on and all these different things.
Charan: And I remember it being a part of some of those things, just seeing it happen. And I would always get weird taste in my mouth when that would happen. I’m like, “Wow, this is weird; something just feels weird.” And a buddy of mine was telling me, he’s like, “Listen, you got to play the game. You got to play the game or you can’t really be in the industry. That’s just how it works. You have to jump around things and maybe say certain things, but not say other things, and yada, yada, yada.”
Charan: I’m like, “Yes, but that just feels weird to me.” I don’t know what it is. I don’t know why. And I even told him, I’m like, “I don’t know if I can be in the industry anymore because I have a hard time playing that game.” It’s like, “I would rather be authentic, completely authentic and talk about my own brokenness.”
Charan: And it’s interesting, because it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. I have found that as I’ve been able to be a little bit more just open and real, and like, “Hey, this is me. I have nothing to hide. This is just who I am.” I have found that it has actually opened more doors for me. Then, if I was playing the tippy-toe game of like, “Oh, this is what I do, and yada, yada, yada.”
Charan: And I love that you share that. Because I think that’s what you’re saying, right? Being a transformative leader means you have to transform yourself. And you can only do that when you’re authentic.
Geoff: Right. So, when people love the stories of the hero and the heroine’s journey where there’s trials, I mean, anyone who’s telling me a story and it’s all roses and rainbows, it’s not real. And I think I’m sure you and I are similar, that we want to be around people who are real and then we want to be authentic and genuine ourselves. And it’s hard to society.
Geoff: The society makes it hard. But ultimately, like you had alluded to earlier, what’s the story you want to tell? What’s in our past story that isn’t serving us? And a lot of times, it’s a societal pressure or it’s just “I’m not good enough”, or it’s something that, again, isn’t really serving us well at all. But that takes some work; that’s a grind. It’s easier to play the game.
Charan: It’s easier to play the game.
Geoff: But I think in all facets, no matter what your profession is, and certainly relationships, give me people who are going to show me their sharp edges and talk about some scars, as well as their successes. Those are the people I want to hang out with on the fire, and I, frankly, want to be walking my journey with.
Charan: I love that. I love that. It’s a powerful thing, because then you realize you’re with people that don’t, I don’t know, they don’t take, they don’t find value in themselves by what the world is saying. Their value comes from something much deeper, much more powerful and much more real, in my opinion. And you’re right, when I’m around those people, it always seems a lot more powerful, more connected.
Geoff: Right. So, as a movie maker, what’s one story that you’re like, “Okay, it’s on my mind, I want to do this. I want to write about it. This is something that’s in me. I just haven’t done it yet.” Is there a story you want to tell?
Charan: You know what, it’s interesting. I’ve always been a spiritual person. I’ve always been one that’s believes in God. I don’t know, for me, I’ve always just felt like I’ve had a relationship with Him. And that sense gives me, it fills me with a lot of love. It fills me with a lot of light. And not necessarily saying I want to make a religious movie. I think I want to do universal movies that have impact a lot of people.
Charan: But if I can share one thing, if I could share how there’s just a lot of love in the world. And that would make me so happy, just to make a movie like that. So, currently, I’m producing a movie. And in fact, right before this podcast, I was with my director. I’m working on this, finishing touches of this film.
Geoff: Okay.
Charan: And it’s an action, sci-fi, action-comedy.
Geoff: About love.
Charan: About love, you know. I mean, here’s the thing: it’s a fun movie. It’s going to be really fun and everything. But actually, the main character has to learn responsibility. And that’s the big lesson that he is learning. And for me, I’m like, “You know what? That’s a really powerful lesson.” And in the end, actually, the movie really is about love. Because he has to learn to sacrifice his own personal needs for the good of his future wife, humanity, all that stuff.
Charan: And so, for me, I’m like, “You know what? This movie satisfies those needs.” And so, for me, I don’t have any specific “it’s got to have this here and this there.” But if it can have those themes but have any type of genre, then that’s great. Sometimes I like to make movies that are fantasy-based or it takes you on a magical adventure.
Charan: Because then, people suspend their disbelief, their reality, and are willing to go into this new world. And I feel like when they go into this new world, they can learn some really cool, powerful lessons.
Geoff: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Well, I love the name of your podcast, by the way, it’s a really cool name.
Charan: Thank you.
Geoff: And I think when I was doing some homework on it, I think one of the reasons, if I think about it, piggybacking at what you said, Epic Journey Leadership, and the people I work with, really, there’s four pillars, and one of them is like, “How do we as humans learn to act out of love and not fear, over fear?” Because a lot of our decisions are fear-based, right?
Geoff: And some of them have served us well. And you don’t want to go and jump a car over the Grand Canyon; maybe you should have a little bit of fear over that. But a lot of our decisions and not having conversations are based out of fear. So really, getting it down and working with people and organizations and teams about, okay, if we can behave and act from a place of love, which isn’t always exactly what people want to hear, but having an honest conversation.
Geoff: “This is where I’m at. I’m being genuine. And this is how I feel and this is where I want to go.” That’s a huge piece of the puzzle. So, I think the more love we can have in the air through your film or through other ways — I think there’s all kinds of different love — but it’s the antidote towards to fear, I think, a lot of ways.
Charan: Okay. I’ve got three questions for you. And we’ll wrap up with these three questions.
Geoff: Awesome. Awesome.
Geoff Carlston Talks About Love
Charan: Because you’re hitting some really big points right now. One, you’re talking about love, right? How have you found love in your life? What brings you the greatest amount of love?
Geoff: Well, aside from familial love, I mean, I’d had children when I was 43. So, I’m 51 now, my first child was… and that’s a whole, that’s another world that I didn’t know exist. And so, there’s that love which is hard to describe. I think, for me, I find a lot of love, especially last three or four years, I weighed love and peace in some ways, like nature and being outside where I can… because I’m not sure I’ve always been great at loving myself and being kind and compassionate.
Geoff: I mean, these are things we all try to work towards, right? But that’s solitude. And a lot of times I find it in nature, too. But if I can try to find solitude and really listening and giving myself a break. I wrote an article that was called “Coaching with Grace.” And it really resonated with a lot of people. And really I’m not the most religious person, but what I meant by grace is allowing ourselves to be imperfect.
Geoff: And in imperfection, that’s where the good stuff lies, right? And admitting that, hey, I’m not there yet and we’re becoming and all these sorts of things. And that really never ends. So, that’s another form of love. And then, I think, for me, I find it also in just, when you really connect with someone, there’s a moment.
Geoff: And you’ve had these, I’m sure, just that being there for someone in those moments of pain, crossroads of vulnerability, and just being there and being so present for someone, that feeling of serving another person and being there without ego and without any other thing other than just being simplistically being there.
Geoff: So, those love of family, love of solitude and introspection and the love of serving others.
Charan: Your sources of joy and love.
Geoff: Yeah.
Charan: One of the things that you were mentioning regarding living with that sense of grace, I love that. Because so much of my life growing up, I felt like I needed to be perfect. And I know a lot of people have that tendency, in whatever way they are wanting to be perfect, whether it’s the perfect athlete or the perfect student or I got the perfect grades, whatever it is, whatever that role looks like for you.
Charan: And you’re trying so hard. And if you’re not perfect, or heaven forbid, you got a B when you wanted to get an A, man, you beat yourself up. And I noticed I had a severe problem in college, actually, when I got 100% on a test, and I still beat myself up, which is so ridiculous. How would you beat yourself up? Well, I beat myself up because I was like, “Well, I was lucky. There’s no way that’ll ever happen again.” Like, “What? It was a good, crazy thing.”
Charan: And I realized, wow, I really have this issue. And where does this issue stem from? Why do I have this need to be perfect all the time? But when I was figuring it out for myself, and then I started to understand this concept of grace, and even pulling the religious side out of it, just that idea of like, “Hey, everything’s going to be okay.” Just the idea of everything’s going to be okay.
Charan: And so, what if a timeline doesn’t happen? I’ll tell you what, one of the greatest things about being an actor is getting rejected over and over and over. And I’ve been rejected so many times, I can’t even count, right, probably thousands. I lived in LA for 10 years, so I know rejection intimately.
Charan: But with that, I came to realize something, “Oh, everything’s going to be okay. I didn’t get the part, so what? I’m going to go and do something else. And the next thing I know, when I had that more of a relaxed attitude towards things, when I realized my value wasn’t based off of the outcome, and it was based off of something else entirely, just that feeling of peace that swelled inside of me.
Charan: Then, I found that I would start booking the parts. And I feel like athletes would do the same thing when they can relax a little bit, they would perform better.
Geoff: Yeah. Well, energy, I think, grace and gratitude, and then just being aware of where we’re choosing to put our energy. And this is hard. This is not easy stuff. But another stuff we’re talking about is easy.
Geoff: But when I got fired, my last three years, I didn’t enjoy… I love coaching, but I was bound up so tightly with injuries, and we weren’t reaching the goals I wanted to, and I’m coaching in a place like Ohio State where the expectations are you win the national championship, is all over the place, and you feel that pressure. And when you feel that pressure, once you start getting in that cycle, I can tell you… I was in it for three years, and it was not healthy.
Geoff: I didn’t have balance at my house. I was struggling. I have three little [inaudible 00:55:13]. I was trying to try to juggle 47 balls in the air at once. And I realized when I walked out for the first day not being a coach there anymore, first, I felt like this huge 100-pound bag of cement was lifted off my chest. That’s on me; that has nothing to do with Ohio State. That’s me, right, it’s my actions.
Geoff: But I also realized that, wow, I was coaching from a place of fear. I didn’t enjoy winning. When we won, it was, “Thank God.” And when we lost, it was like, “Oh, God, oh, my gosh, what’s next?” And my focus was on the waiting, the outcome, and not the process, and being able to be away from that for a year and be honest about that. I know CEOs feel that way; you just described how you feel that way. Young people feel that way.
Geoff: The perfectionist mindset, or the mom who doesn’t feel like she could be doing more, or the CEO who is, we all have this. And I think the more we can share it, and I think that’s why it resonate with people. And I said, “Look, it’s sucked, but I was not in a good place.” And it was probably the best thing that could have ever happened to me, because I couldn’t have gone on many more years physically where I was at.
Geoff: So, being able to take a step back and breathe and pull off the highway and recognize that, it was really powerful, but also scary. Like, “Wow, I was miserable at times.” And I love coaching. And it wasn’t about it. It was about me and how I was navigating the story I was telling myself. The narrative that I was telling myself was not one that was helping me by any stretch of imagination.
Geoff: So, I think, whether you’re an actor, you’re a coach, or you’re a CEO, you’re a 14-year-old trying to navigate a math class, and just understanding that we all… that’s part of human nature, too. Recognizing it and being aware of it and catching yourself and trying to be curious is a really incredible life skill. So, I appreciate us talking about this.
Charan: Well, I love it. And I love the analogy you keep saying of pulling off the highway. I think that’s a beautiful analogy that we all should do at some point. Because the thing is we owe it to ourselves.
Charan: We owe it absolutely to ourselves to pull off and just introspect and say, “Hey, let me look at this narrative that I’ve written for myself. Do I like it? Do I like what is happening to me as a result of it? Or am I unhappy?” I’m very grateful to say I do have a lot of joy in my life right now.
Geoff: Yeah. That’s awesome.
Charan: And it’s interesting. I turned 40 in January. And I feel like I’ve got more energy now than I did in my 20s. Why is it that I have more energy now? I mean, I was 20 years younger. And I think the reason why is because in my 20s, I was so wrapped up in narratives of perfection that I couldn’t just relax. I held the steering wheel too tight. I was too worried about things. But thankfully, my acting journey helped break me down, funny enough.
Charan: So, it wasn’t just about getting the parts, it’s about the psychological effects of what rejection did for me. I was like, “Hey, you know what, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” And now, it’s like I’m in a much more peaceful, healthy space, I feel, than I was back then.
Geoff: Yeah. Well, that’s a powerful, I mean, that’s a powerful message to get out to people. And I know, in addition to movies and acting, I can tell you’re a teacher. And so, the more people you can get that message to because, yeah, I agree. I think it’s an incredibly powerful story there.
Charan: I appreciate that. I appreciate that. So, we got two more questions for you. Okay?
Geoff: Fire away, yeah.
Geoff Carlston Talks About His Greatest Fear
Charan: Okay. What is your greatest fear right now?
Geoff: Whoa, okay. Let’s go there. I think right now as a father of three kids and really feeling the pressure to… really for me, it’s financial, for the first time in my life. I mean, I’ve never really worried about money. I mean, we didn’t grow up with a lot of money, so I never really had a scarcity mindset. And that’s probably my biggest stress, is I’m burning the boat and wanting this business, starting up a new business, and it’s great and I love the people I’m working with.
Geoff: But there’s a lot of work to be done. And so, I think just the security that I had for 25 years of having a paycheck every month. And there’s a lot of things I don’t miss, but I do miss the paycheck, and I do miss the kids. I miss the competition. But I think, yeah, that’s the not having a paycheck coming in every month and navigating that as a family is, certainly, probably one of my biggest concerns right now.
Charan: Hey, look, as an actor, I know that feeling. I’m not married. I don’t have a family like that, so I understand. But I remember the feeling of not having a paycheck come in on a regular basis.
Geoff: Yeah, yeah.
Charan: It can be terrifying. It’s definitely tricky to navigate. But I can only imagine it being exponentially more difficult when you have little humans to take care of and a family to take care of, right?
Geoff: Well, that’d be a quick one. My second one, that would be my eight-year-old; it’s a combination of terror and pride because he has no fear skiing, mountain biking, the things he does. So, I would be lying if I didn’t add on, I’m terrified of my eight-year-old jumping off a cliff into the running waters of the river. Anyway, I digressed.
Charan: No, no, no. You’re totally good. Look, because now he’s also got a responsibility, right?
Geoff: Yeah.
Geoff Carlston’s Advice to His Younger Self
Charan: No, it’s awesome. Okay, so final questions to wrap things up, final question to wrap things up. What would you tell the younger Geoff Carlston? The one that’s just barely getting into coaching, the one that is just bright-eyed, he’s excited for life. What advice would you give that Geoff?
Geoff: This is my book, I’m writing this book, Conversation with My Younger Self; it’s hilarious.
Charan: Oh, my gosh, then we’re going to go ahead and promote it. Go ahead and promote it.
Geoff: I’ll do it twofold. One is, I would say to a lot of people to go and talk to your grandparents and go to nursing homes. We did this a lot with our players. I would say, “Do it now. Go do it while you can, because life’s going to get more complicated.”
Geoff: So, if you want to travel, if you want to learn how to paraglide, if you want to write a book, do it. Do it now. You have your whole life to work, explore, and do it with incredible passion and with good people. And I actually did that until I was 30, basically. The other part of that would be and part of that book is you turn 50, a lot of my friends are 50, 51, in their 50s, late 40s.
Geoff: And the conversation the other way would be that 20-year-old, 22-year-old Geoff reminding the 50-year-old Geoff, “Hey, remember when you told me that? You told me to go do it and go. You need to do that too. Just because you got kids and your job, you shouldn’t be doing that too. Just because you’re 50, doesn’t mean you…”
Geoff: So, the 50-year-old telling the 20-year-old to go for it, live life, do it while you can. And then, the other conversation will be the 20-year-old telling the 50-year-old, “Hey, get off your butt-
Charan: And go do it.
Geoff: … and not to go to bed yet and go do it yourself. Taste your own medicine. Those excuses of your job and family, you can still go do some crazy stuff, too, so go do it while you can. So, that’s the conversations.”
Charan: Those are good conversations.
Geoff: Yes, yes.
Charan: I’m an adventurous type of guy and I love having fun, for sure. That motivates me a lot. A lot of times, I stop myself, because I’m like, “Oh, I’ve got this; I got that.” No, don’t get me wrong, acting is fun, and I get to act all the time so in a sense, I am doing it. I’m happy. But I like traveling and those types of things, like having adventures like that. I need to do more of that.
Charan: That’s my jam. But I love it. You’ve motivated me, because right now, after this, well, in a couple hours, I’m going to play tennis for the third time today.
Geoff: Oh, nice.
Charan: Yeah. So, I’m doing more things right now, so.
Geoff: All right. Next time, I’ll bring a racket. I’d love to play a little bit.
Charan: That’d be awesome. It’ll be so great. Well, Geoff, this has been such a privilege, man. I’m so glad that you hopped on and reminded me about doing this podcast. And I’m so glad that you were ready and we were able to do this today. So yeah, thank you, thank you so much.
Geoff: Yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate it, really grateful to be a part of it. And yeah, I’m looking forward to our paths crossing. You need to go up to Colorado. And you, myself and Dennis and go do some hiking.
Charan: Listen, I used to live in Fort Collins. I don’t know if you [crosstalk 01:05:45].
Geoff: Oh, yeah, I don’t know that.
Charan: I lived way up there. And my dad and I, this was when I was a kid, but yeah, we would go snowboarding in Breckenridge. And so, I love Colorado, so yeah.
Geoff: Yeah. I’m a big skier, big snowboarder. And yeah, we live 40 minutes from there, so well-
Charan: Amazing.
Geoff: … let’s do it.
Charan: Okay, that sounds awesome. We’ll all have to hang out. All right. Well, thank you so much, Geoff. I really appreciate you taking the time. Okay.
Geoff: Yeah. Same here, have a great week.
Charan: You, too. Take care.
Geoff: All right, see you.
Charan: Thank you 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 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.