Good morning! Hey, another wonderful Monday morning to start your week off, Live A Life By Design. I am particularly excited after last week, I tell you we had such a great week. Spending time with our family in Hawaii, enjoying all the beauty the islands have to offer. The great food and everything that you know you can experience when you’re in Polynesian culture. I’ve gotta tell you we came back on a natural high. But now I’m gonna take it to the next level. You know, our whole podcast premise is to make you a bigger, better, and bolder you.
And to do that we seek out people that are mentors of mine. People that I admire, look up to, that are inspirational to me, in my career, in my personal life. And man, I have done it today. I have had a gracious acceptance by one of my dearest friends, a mentor. Now you’re gonna laugh, he’s the same age as me. How can he be your mentor? I’m telling you, his experiences are far beyond his age at this time in life. And this gentleman has done so many things in his career that you would not imagine. He flies his own jet plane, he is all over the world, the country, doing what he wishes to do because he taught me the phrase, “live a life by design, not default”. And the key thing about this is that we’re not gonna focus on those things that we can accumulate in life other than experiences. And we’re gonna focus on that which makes us unique, which gives us influence toward others, so that we can help make their lives better.
So, saying all this, I want to get into this immediately, because this gentleman has some great ideas, some great tactics. I hope he doesn’t feel I put him on too high of a pedestal that he might need an oxygen mask, but hey, welcome to the show Ron Carson.
RC: Jimmy, that was one of the sweetest introductions ever. Thank you, and I’m glad that you invited me. I enjoy talking about living life by design, not by default. You’ve heard me speak and I think so often, people are on this unconscious journey to arrive at dusk safely. You know, they let life dictate their happiness, and it’s so often people are in, on these journeys and they’re just not, they’re not very fulfilled, I think they think some points they’re gonna get somewhere, they’re finally gonna be happy, and I learned sometime ago that the destination isn’t what’s gonna make you happy, it’s the process, it’s the journey. And love to influence people on how to live a life more by design not by default.
JW: Man, that is a great way to start this, and I will say this Ron, one of the things I’ve noticed about you is that you at some point during our relationship, had a lowering, if you will, of your standards and allowed me in your own home with your lovely family.
RC: You know anybody that knows me, I try to live a transparent life. I try to, I want to share, I want to share anything I can with others, and you know my whole family’s that way, and so I was honored that you I know you were in Omaha, had some business, and then you came out and you were part of our annual fireworks show where we had terrible weather and I think we had to put five hundred people in the house. All sopping wet, I believe in that, do I have the right night?
JW: And for our listeners, I want to tell you how transparent he is. This gentleman opened up his very beautiful home and his lovely wife, and seriously there had to be at least five hundred of us, I mean we were packed in his poor house, filled it up, but the only area I will say, Ron, that I’m still trying to earn the right of entrance, is to that wonderful wine cellar that you still keep locked when I come over.
RC: Yea and it really isn’t locked from you, it’s locked from my kids. You know, it’s been quite a few years ago, my kids are all drinking age now, but they weren’t then. And so yea, we have a grandchild now, and in my kids, I know I’m getting off in the weeds a little bit here, but always said, I’ve always talked to people that weren’t quite sure about having kids, and I always describe it as, it’s like Christmas morning everyday. It is one of the best things ever. And I’ve had people say, wait until you have grandkids, and that’s better, and it’s like you can’t get any better, because our kids were so easy. The worst, the most heartache they ever gave us, when our oldest graduated high school, she went to a graduation party and they got busted for alcohol. And she actually, she didn’t have any alcohol, they actually tested them all, but that was the worst. I had to go get her. Other than that, it was pretty easy. Not that I think they’re complete angels all the time, but I always operate on the iceberg theory that if there’s a little bit, there’s probably a lot somewhere else. But we always try to be really conscious of keeping them out of trouble and one was keeping the alcohol under lock and key.
JW: Understood, and I gotta tell you, you may not know it, but I actually have first-hand knowledge that Maddy and Chelsea are truly angels, now granted I’ve not had an opportunity to spend a lot of time with, but I will tell you those two ladies, in my honest opinion, are truly angels on Earth my friend.
RC: Thank you, and it’s just a direct reflection of their mother.
JW: Absolutely I say the same about my daughters. So Ron real quick for our listeners now. Many in our profession of financial planning and investments and so forth know who Ron Carson is professionally, but I want to set that phase of your life aside for a moment, I’d like to know, and for our listeners today, what was growing up as Ron Carson like in Omaha?
RC: You know, Jimmy, I didn’t grow up in Omaha, I grew up an hour north of here on a farm. My dad was a farmer, and you met my mother, she’s from, I was born in Ohio, moved to a farm when I was young. My dad was in the Air Force. Wright Patterson Air Force base, and so we farmed my entire life and to this day I think it’s what gave me my work ethic. And I thought I was gonna be a farmer in 1982, my parents went broke, and the primary interest rate was 21.5%. It’s just hard to imagine we had a period like that. And I had a crazy upbringing. My mother, just passed away, just four years ago now. So it feels like yesterday. She battled, she was manic depressive. My dad, he doesn’t think he was an alcoholic, he is and was. So my sister and I, very close to this day, very close growing up. We had a really crazy just, lot of time, parents weren’t around. My mom wasn’t either, not that she wasn’t physically there, but not mentally, or my dad was working hard, he was a hard worker. But a lot of times he didn’t come home at night. He would spend time at the bar and I’m not, I think that all those, someone was asking me the other day, don’t you wish you could go back and do it over. I’m 54 now it’s like there’s no day I want to go back and redo. And I look at all of that as ingredients. Made me who I am today. And I think I appreciate things, as a gift that, I was given the gift of struggle, if you will, that allowed me to look at things from a different angle to experience things that a lot of people don’t get to experience. But it also drove me to be self-sufficient. And it made me a more conservative person. Watching them go through, they were in a pretty good position financially, probably took some risks they shouldn’t have taken, and then as a kid, going through, that’s a horrific experience by the way. You know as a kid you think you’ve got your life planned to do something, then all of a sudden, it’s pulled out from underneath you and we’re from a small town, so the humiliation that all that brought that was a big ingredient in making me who I am today.
JW: You know it’s amazing you said that story, and it’s very very impactful to me because we have an episode number 17 that will be forthcoming on the podcast that talks about, it does not matter where you start, it only matters where you end.
RC: Yea, and I would challenge that notion a little bit in that so often we’re focusing on an endpoint and we’re missing the very moment we’re hit. I really spend my time trying to live in the moment and believe it’s a miracle to live in the moment. And I’m often asked, oh I’ve traveled all over the world, I do traveled a lot, and I’m often asked where’s my favorite place, and my favorite place is wherever I am, and that means that I don’t care what the weather’s like, it’s all about where I’m at, whether I’m in nature by myself, or if I’m with people, or even a stranger. I just got back this week from doing the presidential traverse which was twelve peaks in the white mountains in New Hampshire. I met some people on the Appalachian Trail, you know been on the trail since February, and just even stopping and having a ten minute conversation with somebody that you just randomly meet, I live for that, for that very moment. Whether it’s on the trail, whether it’s meeting somebody new, whether it’s connecting with an existing friend, but I want to be in that moment, I don’t want to be dwelling on something that happened in the past, I don’t want to be consciously thinking about something that I should be, or wanting to do something in the future, and I used to live that way, Jimmy, I used to live in the past or in the future, rarely lived directly in the moment.
JW: I think that is great words of advice and I need to change my phrase then. I do believe the same thing, I try to live in the present, that’s all I can control, contain, and basically contribute to success is today, right? And you know at the end of the thing too, I want to ask a question, because for folks that don’t know Ron, he is not just Ron Carson the certified financial planner practitioner, he’s Ron Carson, the entrepreneur and I like to tell people, Ron, I’m really not in the financial planning and investment retirement planning business, I’m really an entrepreneur that actually owns a company that is in the wealth planning business, how did you decide that you wanted to be an entrepreneur being brought up on the farm like that?
RC: You know, I, from a really young age, I had a desire to have money. And I remember even before we moved to Nebraska, I remember setting up a concession stand in my neighborhood, and I also learned that if your cost of goods is zero, margins are really great. And I did, I took stuff out of the house, and sold it to friends, and I had the bug. And I had all kinds of little businesses growing up. You know, I had I went to auctioneering school, so I had a little auction company in our small town. I had a bait business, where I would hire and I would go out and pick up night-crawlers and sell them. I had a popcorn business where I would hire kids to go out into the fields after the harvest happened and pick up ears of corn and we would shuck the kernels off and bag it and sell it. I had a fireworks business, I just think about how irresponsible it was. I was literally ordering fireworks from China, and send them in the mail. I put a catalog together and took school, I’d have all those fireworks in my locker, and sell them to people and never once had an incident. You know think of that, it was all four years of high school, never once got in trouble, I mean, thank goodness those things didn’t all go off in my locker. But I had this, I always had this insatiable appetite to running businesses, but ultimately, what really was in my heart, what I loved was being a farmer. And by the way I’m still very connected to the family farm. My sister runs it, and I’m glad to say that family Carson Farm is striving, we’re feeding an awful lot of people and that’s something that’s really important to me. And then I’m often asked how I got into financial services. I literally was reading a financial magazine article in the library. After my dad had said Ron, you need to take care of my family, you need to find something else to do. And I was reading the top ten professions of the future, one of them was to become a certified financial planner, I thought, you know what, I love, I’ve got a little bit of money, I liked investing. In those days I owned two stocks, Coleco, which had come out with Cabbage Patch dolls, and Berkshire Hathaway which was Warren Buffets company. And then, by the way, I was at an event at the Napa Valley Wine auction three years ago, and a lady was asking me how I got my start, this was totally random we were at the reserve, it was a pre party for the auction, and I said I got started because of this article in “Money Magazine,” and she looked at me kind of strange and said, you’re not gonna believe this, I worked at “Money Magazine” during that time and I’m the one that wrote that article.
JW: Oh my goodness.
RC: Oh I know and every time I say it sends shivers down my spine. I go I guess you’re responsible for my career, I mean what are the odds of that? Of all the people to run into, that you literally, think of the butterfly effect of something so small, so insignificant has such an impact and had she not wrote that article, I don’t think I would be on the path I’m on today. Of course, I could have been on maybe a better, maybe a more impactful path. I was pretty excited to meet her.
JW: Well I don’t know if you could be any more impactful my friend, I say that with a great amount of respect. Anybody goes from a college dorm room of selling maybe universal life policies as a college kid to managing now multiple companies, multiple ventures and having 7-8 billion dollars with a ‘B’ under assets under management for your company, I’d say your trajectory has been pretty good my friend.
RC: Well, Jimmy we just, I just did an update video, we do a video for all of our stakeholders every week, we just crossed 10.5 billion dollars today. Literally, today, so that’s a new all-time high for us. We’re serving 28 thousand families in the United States of America. We’re making a difference. One thing I will say, what we do is really important. We’re solving first world problems. My commitment to my life, which has taken a little different turn recently, is I want to lead a utilitarian life. I want to do the greatest amount of good for the largest amount of people and this is always been something important to Jeanie and I and our kids by the way, I’ve watched how awful money can be to families and how it tears them apart, not always but many times, and so, my kids grew up very comfortable, but they had to work for their own money, very little was ever given to them. Even if, we had things like if you leave the lights on, it’s a $10 fine. I remember coming home when Chelsea was scared to be at home, she had like 22 lights on, she wrote me a check that night for $220, all that money of course went into their investment account, but I didn’t tell them that. They learned that later on, but it turned them into kids that are, they know they’re going to get something, but most of it’s going to a charitable organization, Jenny and I started a foundation called Dreamweaver where we do end of life dreams for the terminally ill impoverished elderly. And we were doing a fundraiser for, not even Dreamweaver, for JDRF and Jeanie and I were chairing it, here in Omaha, and I knew at the time my kids, both Maddy and Chelsea, maybe had three to five thousand dollars of liquid cash and that night when they said raise a paddle, they had different levels, they each gave a thousand dollars, and I looked at Jeanie and I go that might be the proudest moment of my life, knowing here we have kids that have a little, they don’t have a lot of wealth, but they gave significantly, and where my life’s taken a little different turn, as I get deeper into the rest of the world, I’ve realized how many people go, you know 9 million people died of starvation last year, a billion people go hungry every night, and there are people in the world that don’t have access to clean water, and it’s like, I wanna, back to that utilitarian life, I want to have an impact on making a difference, for those people. I just through one of our partners in Texas, he’s doing some amazing work in Africa. I just, we’re sponsoring a school, 300 kids to feed them for this next year, and that’s where I want to get to the real ground-level people doing this kind of work and support them.
JW: That is admirable. I do believe that there is a great need for the basic needs of life on this planet that we even have here in the United States Ron, I have personally have seen lives that have been impacted tremendously powerful in the way of just giving them food, shelter, and clothing, now who would have thought you and I were probably brought up with that, yeah I didn’t have to worry about those three items, may not have had any excess cash, but I didn’t have to worry about a meal coming up, or clothing to wear, or a roof over our head, but here are kids and families out there today, here in the United States that are struggling with these basic tenets of life.
RC: It’s a real issue, I mean, and there’s a bigger separation, there was a book I just read recently, which I really enjoyed it was called War On Normal People, and not to get political, but I grew up as I would say a conservative fiscal and social conservative, and I’ve got to tell you I’ve moderated dramatically, there’s a lot of need. The people say well, if you just work hard, everything will work out, that’s, I can say, that’s not always the case. And for people that have that desire to work hard, you know sometimes they need a real help up.
JW: Oh, absolutely, not a handout, but a help up is what I always say.
RC: You’re right, big difference, right?
JW: Absolutely.
RC: It’s way different then a help up.
JW: Absolutely. So, Ron let’s shift just a little bit in our conversation, I want to talk to you today about influence, and I’d like your input, because coming from real personal standpoint for me, you as a professional and a person has had a tremendous influence in not just my business, which has gone exponential over the years, but you’ve also been an impact and influence on my personally. How you maintain the lifestyle you maintain by juggling all the responsibilities and so forth and that is very inspiring to me, but let’s talk a little bit about influence in your life, who would you say was your biggest influence on your life to date, the first 54 years of your life.
RC: My mom.
JW: M’kay, what ways did your mom influence you?
RC: My mother. My mother, Jimmy from the day I was born, and a little backstory on my mom, she was married before, I had a half brother that passed away when he was ten. He had had heart issue that he didn’t survive. Today he would have survived, that was a long time ago. His name’s Mike, and then her husband Dan was killed in a car accident within the next year. So she started over. When I was born, she was so protective, I mean, that created maybe some other issues, I think that also contributed to her manic depressive state, but she instilled in me, like Ronnie, you can do anything, there’s nothing, and I was 100% in, I remember going to my pediatrician appointment, and my mom said you know Ronnie is going to be, if he wants to be the president of the United States, or if he wants to do this, and I was like Yeah, I am, I mean, she was such a major injection of confidence about anything you want to do you can do. And she was my biggest cheerleader to the day she died. I remember, you know I knew the time was near when she was gonna pass to whatever awaits us on the other side, and she looked at me, and she had had alzheimer’s, and so the last few months were very cruel, but in a total moment of clarity, she knew everything, she always recognized me, but she looked to me, and said with total confidence, Ronnie, you know I’m going to be ok, even at the end she was being a mother. She didn’t want me to worry and she passed the next day. But she taught me to this day, you know, I still think about all the life lessons all the things the confidence that she gave me to pursue anything and everything I wanted in life.
JW: Do you believe, Ron, that things happen for a reason in life?
RC: You know, I do not believe in, I do not believe that our lives are pre-scripted. What I do believe is that we are all evolving continuously, and that you can, everything that happens you can either look at it as a negative, or look at it as a positive, even things that are seemingly bad, I’ve always been able to find the positive, and so from that definition I don’t think it was pre-scripted to happen, but I do believe that we are, we have a choice of whether we take things that happened as a victim or as an opportunity.
JW: Agreed, totally, and where I was going with that is, is that many years ago, you know I was invited to come to at that time, it was called Peak Coaching, one of your companies that provides Elite Coaching to financial advisors and financial professionals as myself, and I was invited to come to one of the events you call Excell now, which is once a year, it’s like, for our listeners man it is like a party rolled into a classroom rolled into a, just a wonderful two and a half days, and I want to go back to something that I picked up many years ago that really impressed me to stay now with your coaching program I guess 8-9 years now I’ve been there, and the thing I admired most was you were giving back to your community, you were using and wielding some influence to help others as you’ve already talked about helping with food and water, but you’re charitable mindset, your investment in others is so critical to me, so why is it important to influence others from your mindset?
RC: You know, I, my personal mission statement has been to leave the world a better place by helping family, friends and others find meaning and purpose in their life. And I heard a saying when I was young, that I try to live by everyday and it’s do something nice for someone who never expected it, who can never repay you. And I do believe in the law of abundance, and I do believe the universe, if you’re constantly giving, it will take care of you. I’ve always told my kids, don’t ever do anything for money. Do what you love, do what you’re passionate about and enough will show up. And I, Jimmy, like the words that you said opening this, that gives me such a warm return on my psyche, when I first got started in this business, and I would meet with a client that was going to give their money to their church or to charity, I couldn’t comprehend that. It was like, why would you work so hard and just give it away, and now I totally get it. It’s like they, you know I’d had something then we had had the bankruptcy and now I realize when you’re given the opportunity to help others, yeah it looks like you’re doing for others, but you get way more back. It almost sounds crazy because it’s almost a selfish thing because you do it, you’re getting more benefit then I’m giving, and so it’s easy to do. I love, love making an impact. I love helping people that don’t expect it. And culturally here at Carson, we’re big at giving back to our community. We have a tremendous matching program with all of our, we call them internal stakeholders, but we don’t have staff or employees as you know. We have internal stakeholders, and we’re challenging them all the time to make bigger contributions, and to places that are important to them. And when they get to experience how great that feels, then if we had the whole world, trying to pay it forward, just and people were sincerely cared about helping others, just think how much more beautiful relationships would be. And not that there’s not a lot of beautiful relationships out there, there are, but I just think of the hatred and the fighting, that happens even within the leadership in our political system today, is I think would be, would be a much better thing to watch and experience.
JW: Oh I certainly agree, and one of the things I tell people is, I look for ROI in several of the investments I make on a tangible basis with our clients, but I also look for ROI in what I do on this podcast or relationships I make and they look at me real funny and they go what do you mean return on investment and say no, its a return on inspiration. I get inspired more when you see these people’s lives improve and you may have played a small role in helping them, as you said a hand up, not a hand out. And I think that’s something that you’re speaking about is the influence that we can have. I tell people wealth doesn’t make me the person I am, it gives me the freedoms to be who I wish to be. How do you feel about that?
RC: Right on Jimmy, I mean, money is a tool. I tell clients all the time, your money, you’re our client. Not your money. Money is simple a tool to help facilitate, it delowes into Maslow’s hierarchy of needs of security. As humans we want to know that basics are taken care of, but beyond that let’s move up the value stack all the way to for some, self actualization. That is the freedom to not have to worry about financial resources, to know that you have enough, that you can then be aggressive about reinvesting those excess resources into other places and other people. And I operate where any wealth I have, I’m just the steward to make sure that it is, that it does the largest amount of good that it can. I’m not here to build a family dynasty of wads of wealth that can be transferred to one generation to the next, I’m here to be to have an impact. And it’s, I purely view it as a tool. The other thing I love is most the clients we work with, even those that are billionaires are very giving, they are always thinking about the responsible way. One of my billionaire clients, Ron, said making the billion was easy, giving it away responsibly is way harder. And responsibly is key there, it’s like, it’s easy just to write a big check to something, but is it having the impact that it needs to have. And the thinking of money as a tool, I think is the right way to think about wealth.
JW: Absolutely now, you’ve got a great amount of influence across what I call our Carson Coaching population or my colleagues that are in this group. And we set down at every Excell meeting with you and your team of executive coaches, and we get to share ideas and so forth. Give me about a minute or two to comment on how you feel that’s been popular for our group. So I’ll be honest with you for me and most of my colleagues that are in that special invitation-only meeting, we gained probably the greatest good from the 2 and half days and those half days sitting there enjoying, sharing, and relating to what others are doing to be successful.
RC: And Jimmy, you’re part of this community that is, and it’s truly unique that we that all of us, for the most part are there not to hoard, and I want to go back to a comment that I made, there’s a segment of our population out there today that’s hoarding resources, and it’s all about how can I make a massive amount of wealth and continue to pass it on the next generation, to the next generation, to the next generation versus what can we do to really have an impact. And that’s really the, if you think about the advisors it’s the same thing, they’re not hoarding ideas, they’re sharing them, because they look at, if they can help somebody lead a better life, have a better impact on the people they serve. And when you get a group of humans in a room, that are focused on helping each other, it’s amazing at how much stronger we are together then we are individually. How many more ideas that we have. Today I just announced our second rice innervation here at Carson, where everybody comes up with innovative ideas on how we can improve the client experience, improve advisor productivity, improve the culture that we’re all culture agents for here at Carson. And those best ideas that we would take from Carson and we’d share in that same format that you’re talking about. And some of my best learnings have come from members like you Jimmy, who have a unique idea I’ve never thought of, or you take an idea that I may have started, and you improved it dramatically and gave it back to me. It is, but you have to have a group together that really operate on this law of abundance. I went to a meeting, probably 20 years ago, was sponsored by, the very first one, by Baron’s which was bringing a similar kind of meeting and I remember this question being asked of this advisor, well that’s a trade secret I have, well what, you know, he really was there sharing something, he talked about the impact but wouldn’t tell them the how, and that’s really a waste of time. You sit there, and you get all excited about it, but he won’t tell you how to do it. Which is the absolute antithesis of what we do at our meetings, we’re all about not only will I tell you how to do it, I’ll come out and help you if I need to.
JW: Oh I can attest to that on my own personal career and life. I’ve actually got the benefit of calling Ron personally, and I hate, and I told him I want him to know that I’m cognizant of his time, but he stops what he’s doing, gives you the assistance you need, so you can go ahead and take it to the next level. And Ron’s, that kind of influence, for me is invaluable. I just can’t put a price on that because exponentially whether you know it or not, cause we probably haven’t told you or your team. My coach Scott Wood, with Carson Coaching, I tell him, you don’t believe what we’re doing. We just took this idea, developed it, amplified it and moved it out to our clients in a different way and it is doing exponential returns for us on that investment.
RC: You mention Scott Wood, I mean, he is a, I want to give a special shout out. He represents what we do, what we believe in, and to the nth degree and he’s been here for a long time, and he’s, it’s people like Scott that allow the Carson Group to be successful.
JW: Oh absolutely agree, 100%, along with the other executive coaches, they are outstanding at what they do, but Ron take me real quick to a point in life, what would you say at age 54, what has been thus far the most fulfilling event in your life or career?
RC: Having my kids and having my grandson, I think has been the most satisfying thing that I’ve done and I still to this day just live for. You always, you know tell people that are parents for the first time, you know some of your highest highs and some of your lowest lows will be through your kids, and my kids have given me, you know tremendous more highs than lows. You know but when they’re struggling with something you struggle too, or I do, I struggle with it, I feel their pain. But being a dad, being a grandfather, is the most significant and I think second to that is what we’ve created at the Carson Group and that we’ve got a mechanism, a company that empowers people to help advisors, provide total transparency. We’re consumer advocates. We’re out there, I think Wall Street is really abused, continues to abuse the consumer. You just read all of the negative headlines that are out there. So we can impact people in such a positive way, and as a result of that the success, the profits, we get to reinvest, I get to reinvest that back into things that I think are really important to make this place a better place and ultimately to live the mission. I want to get to the end of my life and say I’m glad that I did, not that I wish I had.
JW: Oh that is a great comment too, and I will say based on our listeners now, he has a beautiful young grandson, maybe not quite a year old or maybe just turning a year I believe.
RC: 16 months.
JW: OK.
RC: Yep.
JW: And one weakness that now that the 3rd generation of Carson, of which, your lovely host here has now impacted in Nebraska. So I got a hug and a good kiss from Carson when we were out in Las Vegas at the last Excell that he was attending and he was just a little tike and he’s just a good looking kid.
RC: Thank you.
JW: Let’s talk about a couple things before we close out here, what does the next phase of the Ron Carson career look like?
RC: You know, that’s a great question, I’ve been, I don’t want to say struggling, but I’ve been thinking a lot about that, Jimmy. I’ve thought about politics. A buddy of mine, Neil Simon sold his wealth management firm, and he’s become 100% in on what’s known as a centrists movement. There’s a book called The Centrist Manifesto. I recommend you listen or read it. And it’s like, can I have an impact there? I don’t think, politics are so ugly and our society is so jaded that I don’t know if and I think the prevailing belief is anybody gets into politics even if they go into it with a pure heart and mind, they end up corrupt and I don’t believe that, but I believe that it could limit the kind of influence that you’d be able to have. I think the next phase is hitting the business mission and that’s to be the most trusted for financial advice, nobody else that in financial services. It’s still most people do not trust financial services and with good reason. And then beyond that, it is I want to quantify lives that I want to impact when it comes to food and water. I know I have one of the largest farming operations in Nebraska, so I raise a lot of food for profit today, I’m thinking do we find ways of getting that food directly to people that need it, also I’m bringing Scott Harrison in. Have you seen the video or anything about charity water, Jimmy?
JW: I have not.
RC: I will send you and you can, if any of your clients want to see it, this is one of the most moving things that you’ll ever see. Around freshwater, you know, having access to freshwater for people is really important to me. And I may do both. For a real opportunity, the centrists party is all about having influence in pulling the middle together. I believe to get elected today you have to be an extremist on both sides representing the 1%, and in both of us, regardless of our views, we have a lot more in common than we have difference, but those people aren’t the ones that get into office. And so it maybe a combination of both those things.
JW: Man, I think that that would be a fascinating for you to take. Hopefully some greater ideas, innovation to DC and change the whole paradigm of how we, in this country set policy to benefit all of our citizens and help improve everyone’s life. So as we come down to this closing moment, I want you to know that I appreciate your time, I know that you’re very busy man, appreciate your time today, but I do want to give a little bit of an un-selfless plug here. There’s a book that my guest today, Ron Carson, has written two NY Times bestseller right now, and I was so fortunate he had included me as a quote in a portion of his most recent book The Sustainable Edge, and you can get that on Amazon or you can get it on our website at livealifeby.design under Jimmy’s Top Reads. And just wanted you to know I had that book on there Ron, you didn’t ask, but I wanted to give back a little if I could.
RC: Well, thank you.
JW: Yes, so one of the things about that is is Ron’s providing influence in varied different means, so not just in his words, and I’ve had the good fortune of sharing the stage with Ron speaking, at the Excell meetings and introducing him at other Elite Wealth Advisors symposiums and things, that is in itself a great great opportunity to influence others in the room. But where you can do that as well, and our listeners need to listen to this closely, Ron’s leaving the legacy of influence through these writings and his books, and these take a tremendous amount of time, but that is where we can also, Ron, spend a little more time learning from you and picking up great ideas and maybe use as a reference guide. Your thoughts?
RC: Yea, no, this is so I’ve written four books, the first was on our profession. I’m actually writing a fifth book right now which would come out next year, but it’s really industry-specific to financial services. But the one I think I’m most proud of is Sustainable Edge for businesses, and then Avalanche for the “Blueprinting Process”. It was a consumer book, those were both the two NY Times bestsellers, but Avalanche is full of my life, my dad’s in it. I mean I changed all the names of the characters, but, to this day I continue to get really positive feedback on the book Avalanche and in it, there’s a companion piece called “Blueprinting Process”, you know, helping you live your life by design not by default. And like Jimmy said, those are available on his website or on Amazon, and I do not enjoy writing books, by the way, I was not born to be a writer. So it’s one of those, I like to say everything I do in my day I pretty much love, the two things I don’t enjoy, I don’t enjoy writing but I do it, and I do not enjoy working out, like going to the gym, but I do it. I like being outside. Being in nature, and I like most of the day. But I’ll leave it at that.
JW: Understood. We’re gonna come to a close now. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate today. Ron has been so influential in my life in terms of setting the tone for the day, he’s got me into this tool that has been a wonderfully efficient tool to keep us focused called ‘the vital one and six most’, and I’m betting you did yours last night, am I right?
RC: I’m looking at it right now, I just crossed this interview off it. Yea, I talk about that in Sustainable Edge. It’s the single most powerful productivity tool that I’ve ever used, and I’ve done this for years, and it’s all around in the ‘Blueprinting Process’ as well. You know, I teach people to go to the end and work backward, cycles, and I’m a big believer when you connect the conscious mind to the subconscious mind that amazing things happen and opportunities show up for the well prepared. And prepared means having the eyes to see opportunity based on what you’re trying to accomplish.
JW: Absolutely so Ron, last question for you sir, and we’re gonna let you take off for the day. If you could leave our listeners today with one statement of advice about influence, or leadership, what would that be?
RC: My advice is to do the ‘Blueprinting Process’. Get out of this feedback loop of saying I’m going to get around to it, or I’m too busy. And by the way, get rid of the word busy and replace it with it’s not a priority. I hear people say I’m ready to do this but I’m too busy, I’m too busy. We all have the same 24 hours in a day. It’s never ever say I’m too busy. Just simply say it’s not a priority. I don’t work out because I’m busy. You say I don’t work out because it’s not a priority. And prioritize your life, on things that are meaningful to you. And you will live in the moment. You know, prioritize your life, make it meaningful. People say, Ron, are you ever going to retire? I quit working at age 36, cause that was the time I designed my life where I got to do the things that I love to do, not the things that I have to do. And I hear people say well, I just don’t have that option, we all have that option. But it can’t happen overnight, but it can start happening with a very specific process and the “Blueprinting Process” does that.
JW: Absolutely, and one thing I have found too during this “Blueprinting Process”, when I started with Ron’s coaching group, at that time Peak Advisor, now known as Carson Coaching Group, one of the basic things that I started with was the “Blueprinting Process” and it turned my entire outlook and focus around Ron, and I’m not just saying that for our listeners, I use it everyday. Matter of fact I went back and re-did the “Blueprinting Process”, I took a whole weekend Ron, and just set aside and planned for visiting where my goals are, are my one, three and five year goals where I want to be, am I living my attributes that wish to live, and I really gave myself some introspection and so after the first five years I did it again.
RC: Cool. I look at the blueprinting every single year and I set my goals off the blueprinting guide, and things can change. Priorities can change. But it’s a great way to know what you’re doing, I want to do the most productive thing at every given moment, if that’s with family it’s that. It’s doing something else, but I want to live a purpose-filled life.
JW: Absolutely, and that Ron, is the whole purpose for Live a Life by Design and this podcast. I want to thank you so much, not for just being my guest today, you’ve been very very open to us, I appreciate that. You’ve been very sincere, I just want to thank you though, mostly for being just a great friend and a mentor. Thank you so much for joining us today.
RC: Hey, thank you, Jimmy.
JW: So one of the great things about our interview with Ron was learning some of his approaches to becoming an influential positive making person to those around him. You heard him mention some of the things he’s reading and his books, The Centrist Manifesto for example, and also looking at things from basically War on Normal People. Those books will not be on the website, but I do want you to go to our website, look at livealifeby.design and you will see in the ‘Jimmy’s Top Reads‘, a segment for the books that I highly recommend so that you can start building your library to be an influence to those around you. You know we all have a sphere of influence. Some of them more wide on individuals than on others but at the end of the day you have influence on those around you. Make it a positive influence. Make it something that you are going to be proud to leave a legacy. So special thanks to this week’s guest Ron Carson of Carson Group and Carson Coaching in Omaha, Nebraska.
This has been a transcript of today’s show. While you’re on the website, if you would look down below, you will see a form for that asks a few questions. I appreciate if you would go to that form and include the name of one person that has influenced you the most in your life so far. And if you would, we’re going to enter those names into a drawing, and if you give me a name, you’re gonna be in a drawing and we’re going to have a prize that we’re gonna be sending out a little later in August 2019. So do me a favor, go to the website, input the form and we’d be honored to know who’s the biggest influence on your life and career. So if you like the show, please tell your family and friends about it. Also, we would be very appreciative if you would leave a review of the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for joining us today, hope this has been helpful to you as much as it has to me. I am learning so much from our listeners out there. Send an email to us. Send a message to us through the information on our show notes and let us know what your concerns and questions are and we’ll gladly bring you those tools, techniques and strategies to help you Live A Life By Design.
