The master in the art of living pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him, he is always doing both.’ – James Michener. Are you a master of your life? Does what you do bring joy to your heart? Join Randy Garn (New York Times best selling author, entrepreneur, and high-performance coach) and Eric Partaker as they share tips on how you achieve your full potential and discuss the secrets that led Randy being the successful Entrepreneur he is today.
KEY POINTS
Prosperity is a Balance – Prosperity is multidimensional, you need money, happiness, and sustainability to really live up to the full measure or your creation.
How Self Reliant Are You? – Do you feel confident that you can always generate an income on your own? Find that avenue that you love, that means you never have to worry about money again, because you know you can create it.
What’s your Polaris Point? – Create a clear vision of where you want to go. Find out, and take time working on what you were born to do, and what you want to accomplish. When you die, what will you be remembered for?
Create your Own Goals – If you do not have your own goals, somebody else will use you for theirs. Take some time to yourself and write down what you want to accomplish in life and go do it!
You are Unique, Own It! – We all have a unique ability, discover what yours is, and develop it to be the very best!
Fall in Love with What You Do – If you want to become the best version of yourself, you need to love what you do. If you are grumpy at work, your energy will be low, and you will not achieve excellence.
Prioritize your Family – Ensure that you are putting your family and loved ones into your world, and into your joy. Schedule time to be fully present in their lives. The greatest joy and the greatest sorrow will come from the walls of your own home.
Change your mindset! – A huge limiting belief is that you must accumulate a lot of wealth to be successful and live in prosperity. However, knowledge and peace of mind are vital to maintain. Start with what you already have, be happy with that and grow it. Maintain the joy in your heart.
TRANSCRIPT
Randy Garn:
I think that more people need to learn how to be self-reliant, and that will actually make you way more happy, and that will help you to be able to make more money. Money is not bad. Money actually solves a lot of problems. In fact, we encourage people to create tons of wealth and create jobs and to be successful financially. What I’m not saying is don’t be wealthy. Be wealthy, but do something that you love to do. If I’m going to do anything in my life, I’m going to work with people that I love, like and respect.
Randy Garn:
A lot of people say, “Don’t work with your friends or your family.” I only work with the people that I love. I only work with my best friends. That’s part of my Polaris point. That’s part of what I put in my personal constitution is that I’m going to love what I do, and that makes me be the best version of me.
Eric Partaker:
Hi, everyone, welcome to another episode of the 2%, where we have yet another exciting conversation with a peak performer to help decode excellence and give you some of the strategies, tools and techniques that you can use to close that gap between your current and best seller. I’m super thrilled to have on the show today, Randy Garn, who we’ll introduce in just a moment, but Randy, you want to say hi? It’s great to have you on the show.
Randy Garn:
Very good. Dude, I think the last time we were together was in Puerto Rico, a nice, warm weather. I’ve been watching you, following you. I’m so excited to be here with you guys.
Eric Partaker:
No, that’s right. It was Puerto Rico. We spoke, it was beautiful. I think we squeezed that right in before everyone stopped traveling pretty much. Randy is… Gosh, you have so many accolades. I mean, you’re in business together with Brendon Burchard, so I know you’re one of the managing partner at the High Performance Institute, which is absolutely amazing, putting together some of the world’s most cutting edge research with regards to decoding excellence and high performance. You’ve been the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year.
Eric Partaker:
You’re involved in so many various networking organizations, and you’re also a best selling author. As a matter of fact, I read this yesterday from [inaudible 00:02:21] to end, and it’s Prosper: Create the Life You Really Want. I’d love to speak a little bit about this today and make sure that we give people listening a little inside view on both your world and your thoughts, and your approach to excellence and high performance and all that. Can we bring you back down to earth, though, now that I’ve put you really high in the sky?
Eric Partaker:
I always ask this question, because you weren’t born this way, were you?
Randy Garn:
I wasn’t born this way, but I think honestly, when God did make me, he put an extra couple drops of joy in the batch, because dude, I think that the reason why I’m this way is I’ve really truly just tried to love people and see people for who they truly are, regardless of whether they’re the CEO or the taxi driver, whatever it is, but I’ve always been pretty upbeat.
Eric Partaker:
Can you tell us a little bit about your beginnings? How did life start for you, and what was that like?
Randy Garn:
I grew up… Honestly, I mean, I really was formulated a lot through my father and through my mother. I grew up in a small little town in sugar city, Idaho. My dad was a high school football coach for 32 years. He still is one of the most winning coaches in Idaho. When you think about that, I grew up on [inaudible 00:03:57] at a cattle ranch, in a farm. But every day driving out to the ranch, we’d listen to either Jim Rome or Zig Ziglar or Nightingale Conant. Every single day going out and coming back, he’s like, “Randy, the most important asset that you have is between your two ears.”
Randy Garn:
He’s like, “You get this right… You get the inside right, the outside will fall into place.” That was a little bit of my upbringing, being brought up by an amazing, amazing father. That was integral in my life. That was an inspiration. I know that not everybody has that kind of circumstance and has done amazing things. I feel like I was super, super blessed with my childhood and my upbringing.
Eric Partaker:
It’s all about getting that strong foundation. I mean, it’s interesting, though, because sometimes you’ll hear stories about people having that really strong foundation, and they achieve great things and have a real big positive impact in the world. But a lot of times too, we hear stories about people who didn’t have a very strong foundation, and they equally create an impact, and as a segue to… and they equally create prosperity. Let’s talk about that for a second. That’s the title of the book, Prosper: Create the Life You Really Want.
Eric Partaker:
Let’s start by defining prosperity. It’s a word that I think everyone thinks they know, but it’s not necessarily used all the time. How do you define it?
Randy Garn:
For us and in all the research that we did, one of my things that I really have tried to do in my life is that do I truly enjoy what I do? Do I truly enjoy who I work with. For us, prosperity actually is a balance between three things, money, happiness, and sustainability. If you have a ton of money, you’re rich and you’re wealthy, right? If you’re happy, and you don’t have a lot of money, you’re just happy. You think about that. You think about many people in your life that you love, like and respect that you look up to, a lot of them really have a good balance.
Randy Garn:
For me, a lot of those have a good balance between money, happiness, and sustainability. That’s our definition of prosperity is that it’s multi dimensional, and you have to have those three things in to really live up to the full measure of your creation.
Eric Partaker:
When you talk about sustainability, just so that we clarify for people listening and or watching, we’re not talking about recycling paper, are we? We’re talking about another sustainability perspective, right?
Randy Garn:
You know what, it’s actually both. When we talk about sustainability… I’ll give you a good example of it, is that the sustainability piece to that is that, “Do I feel good about it, and am I making a good impact in the world? Is what I’m doing making a difference and making other people’s lives better?” Whether you’re building a company or growing a company, if you’re just accumulating wealth for yourself, and you’re not actually making an impact for others, we don’t really feel like that’s true prosperity. Is the business you’re running, is what you’re building, what you’re doing, what you’re growing, is it good for others?
Randy Garn:
That’s a big question that we ask in our book and in our research, and then, “Do you feel good about it?” At the end of the day, you’re like, “Dude, I accomplished that.” You actually talk a lot about the 2%, right? That 2% is like, “Dude, I made an impact.” I work with a really, really, really amazing company called the Malouf Foundation. They’re a B Corp. B Corps are amazing. 10% of all their profits go towards a charity to help stop human trafficking. I love that because they’re building a massive company, but they’re also trying to do good and make change, and they’re so pumped about it.
Randy Garn:
I think their company’s grown because they want to give back so much and make a difference in the world. That sustainability is actually thinking about that.
Eric Partaker:
Tying that all together then, because that brings a lot of clarity to definition, prosperity is that it’s not just about money. Money is an important element. Actually, I want to talk specifically about that, because sometimes people think it’s too taboo to talk about. Money is important element, but of course, you could be miserable with the money, and you could be destructive with money. It’s making the money, being happy while making it, and then doing what you do with regards to the generation that prosperity is something you both feel good about and is having a positive impact on the world.
Randy Garn:
Exactly. The other thing is that… I mean, I’ll give you a good case example. In our book, one of the one of the individuals we interviewed was a very, very successful attorney in LA, entertainment attorney making well over six figures and more a year. He hated being an attorney. He drove two hours to work and two hours back, and missed the whole life with his kids. Yet, he was very successful in other people’s eyes, in the wealthy created, in the people that he was managing, “I can’t believe you’re actually working with him,” but inside, he was miserable, but his wealth was high. His happiness was super low, and then his sustainability is like, “Dude, I would give up everything just to have a relationship with my son and my family again.”
Randy Garn:
That’s what I’m talking about when you’ve got to have that. Money is not bad. Money actually solves a lot of problems. In fact, we encourage people to create tons of wealth, and create jobs and to be successful financially. What I’m not saying is like, “Don’t be wealthy. Be wealthy, but do something that you love to do.” On the flip side, the other guy that we interviewed, he ran a company called Doctor Detail. He detailed cars, not a lavish job. He worked with his family. He worked with his kids. He made actually great money.
Randy Garn:
I mean, when we met, I was like, “Holy cow, dude, you’re actually crushing it, and you made great money,” but he would get up at 5:00. He’d be done by 3:00. He never missed a game, never missed a soccer game, had his house paid off, was not stressed out financially. He wasn’t tons of multi billion dollar wealth, but he had enough to actually create the life he really wanted to create.
Eric Partaker:
That’s great, because especially with the focus on money, it’s almost like people are afraid to talk about it sometimes. We’ve all seen these studies. Over a certain amount of money, there’s really no correlation to happen. Every time I read one of those, I do think, “Okay, I’d like to see the salary of the person who put that thing together, and I’d like to cut their salary down to whatever that level is, and see if they’re still happy.” You guys take a slightly different… When I say you guys, because you co authored the book with Ethan Willis as well.
Eric Partaker:
You guys take a slightly different approach, which I think is way more realistic approach too, which is, “No, money can make you happier. Earning more money can drive fulfillment done in the right way,” and so money plays, in fact, a very important role in achieving prosperity. It’s one of the core elements as you’ve described it, but I’d love to hear from you, if you can go maybe a little bit more personal in this particular topic, how has your relationship to money changed over time? Were you born into abundance, for example, or is this something that’s morphed for you?
Randy Garn:
I mean, I’ll share with you… Again, some of my childhood, my dad was going to be a doctor, and doing all that, and went to school for that. Then he had four sons and two daughters, and he like, “I want to buy a ranch, and I want to be a football coach, and I want to be able to spend.” I mean, that was his goal. Actually, he’s lived a very… I mean, he just bought a beautiful cabin up on the river in Salmon, Idaho, and he’s loving it. I’m going to go up there and see him in a couple weeks. But growing up, I didn’t feel like we were poor, but we did not have a lot. I mean, I always had a car that broke down, taking my date to the prom.
Randy Garn:
My dad and mom paid cash for everything, and so their relationship with money is much different than my relationship with money now. It’s more of like, “Hey, let’s just try to do that.” Because of that, I had to become an entrepreneur at an early age. The first thing that I did, I set up a miniature golf course on our property, and charged money for doing that. I add a necessity. I learned how to be an entrepreneur. Part of the joy… I’m going to go back to sustainability, because maybe this will help.
Randy Garn:
Part of the thing that I learned at 13, 14 years of age, when I was actually running my own businesses, we sold worms to farmers. I set up a company in college to pay for my entire college. Part of the joy that came from the sustainability factor… Sustainability for us is also really about self reliance. I think that more people need to learn how to be self reliant, and that will actually make you way more happy. That will help you to be able to make more money. I don’t ever… I mean, I never, ever, ever… I’ve got my skill set where I’m at and the relationships that I have, but I don’t ever worry about that I won’t make money.
Randy Garn:
Think about your life. If you feel confident that you can always generate an income on your own, whether that’s being an entrepreneur somewhere, or whether that’s creating your own business, whether it’s a solopreneur or whether it’s being… You have to find that thing that you never ever have to worry about money again, because you know you can create it, like the alchemist, right? At an early age, I remember my relationship with money being so good, because I earned it myself. I bought my own clothes. I bought my own car.
Randy Garn:
I essentially paid through college by getting scholarships and things, but I knew that my parents, they always said, “Hey, you know what, we don’t have a lot. You’re going to need to figure this out. We’re gonna pay for our daughter’s wedding,” so I think my relationship with money was healthy that way, because I learned self-sufficiency.
Eric Partaker:
That’s such an important point. I know you got kids. I got kids as well, 16 and 17-year-old boy. When you were talking, I was just getting flashbacks of my own childhood, because when you talked about your car breaking, the first car I ever bought was a Yugo. Do you remember the Yugo?
Randy Garn:
100%, yes.
Eric Partaker:
[inaudible 00:15:10] all beat up [inaudible 00:15:11] Yugo. I remember I paid $431 for it, that exact amount, because that’s all the money I had in my pocket, and the person wanted… They wanted 500 for it, and I said, “Well, I got 431. Will you take that?” I did the same thing, paid my way through school with loans and all that, of course. At an early age, when you’re required to do that, it really helps. It really shapes that self-reliance rather than expecting the handout, for example.
Eric Partaker:
Now, you talked about the prosperity zone. Oh, wait, actually, I’m getting ahead because the whole book is… Really, your whole model here for achieving prosperity is linked to what you call the Polaris point. I love this, and I really love the whole North Star, the other spin that [inaudible 00:16:06], if you wouldn’t mind taking people through that, because I think it’s a really nice visual to help understand the Polaris point.
Randy Garn:
Well, honestly, this is where I think people need to spend their most time, and even working closely with Brendon Burchard on the six most productive habits to learn not what habits are the best, but which ones actually help you to be a high performer and to live in that 2% as you would say, is that you have to have real assurity on where you’re going. Really, the player’s point in our book is it’s really a guide. The book Prosper, really, is a step by step guide of some things that just give you a framework for your life. Am I living? Am I making the money I want? Am I happy doing it? Can I do it over long periods of time?
Randy Garn:
Because if you don’t have a clear vision of where you want to go, you’ll be like a grasshopper. Great on takeoff, you’ll never know where you want to land. My suggestion is that whether you’re 65, 50, 30, 20, 18, and you’re watching this is to really find out and take time on what you were born to do and what you want to accomplish in those three things, and living in your prosperity zone. We really call it your Polaris point. At the end of the day when you die, what will you be remembered for? You have to continue to course correct, but too many people…
Randy Garn:
If you don’t have your own goals, somebody else will use you for theirs. That’s what my dad always said, “If you don’t have your own goals, someone else will use you for theirs.” Are you clear on where you’re going? Are you clear on your North Star? Most of the people that I talk to, most of the people that I coach, most of the people that we train literally are just wandering through this life like, “Ah.” Going from here to there, they… My suggestion is get really, really, really… Take off in the mountains. Go to the ocean. Go to where you want to spend some serious time, and write down what you want to accomplish in your life, and go do it.
Randy Garn:
It’s actually pretty profound, but I don’t know very many people that do that. I mean, I’m a humongous journal, and I always have been. Then when I meet Brandon too on the stuff we’re working with, we’ve taken it to a whole nother level, but I know my five strategic initiatives that I want to accomplish in my life. I’m actually evolving and getting better from that. I journal every single night, and I say, “Dude, how did I do today?” Then I have my whole plan out the next day, and it’s on a course.
Randy Garn:
I say, “Am I going towards that?” Because if you don’t have clarity on… People will shoot emails to you, and then everybody will use you for what they want to do. Just think about that. I really look at my email as everybody just putting stuff on my plate. I don’t check it that often, and I have a really, really awesome chief of staff that checks all of that and handles it so I can stay focused on what matters most.
Eric Partaker:
Nice. Your Polaris point is to obviously the North Star with how you’re naming this, and that it stays fairly stationary in the sky while all the other stars seem to, well, swirl around. The idea here is that you discover and constantly fixate on that one thing whereas everything else can be disturbed around you, but you stay fixated on, “Yeah, but what am I here for? What’s my mission? What can I uniquely contribute to the world? How can I create an impact that perhaps someone else can’t? Why? Because they’re not me with my set of experiences, my purpose, my values,” that sort of thing, right?
Randy Garn:
I mean, you just nailed it, Eric. That’s exactly right. All of us have a unique ability, and part of that is discovering what that is, and then continuing to just develop it and be the very, very best at something. It’s like there’s two times in our life… I know you probably hear this a lot. There’s two times in our life that we really find out when we were born, and then it’s why we were born. That’s what we’re really… There’s a framework in the book, and then… I mean, even in High-Performance Habits, it’s like, “Seek clarity on what you’re going to accomplish.”
Randy Garn:
We do have some pretty good framework around that, but the North Star is an immovable, but it is really, really hard to find that personal strategy. It takes time, and it takes continual effort. You gotta keep making sure you’re looking up at that star, which is why I have a one-page strategy right in front of my face all the time, “Here’s what I’m going to accomplish by the time I’m done.”
Eric Partaker:
I remember you showed me in Puerto Rico your strategic initiatives and objectives framework. It was beautiful. It was literally all on one page, just as you’re saying.
Randy Garn:
My buddy, Tyler Norton, has really been a great guide with that, really helping me see clearly like… Literally, if you don’t… Not everybody… Also, you think about leadership, so we have a lot of CEOs or leaders on this call, or if you’re managing people always say, “If you don’t know where you’re going, neither does anybody else you’re leading.”
Eric Partaker:
Exactly. Exactly. That feels pretty awful then, right, if you’re being led by someone who appears to be walking across a minefield with a blindfold on. It’s like, “Follow me. I’m not so sure.” Okay, cool. You brought up another… I can imagine someone listening to this as I certainly also felt in the first half of my career. They could be listening, and they could think, “I get it, but I have no idea what I’m here to do uniquely. I have no idea what that thing could be such that I could earn from it and make a living, and have all this, the money, the happiness and the sustainability.”
Eric Partaker:
How do I discover that? Can you take us through maybe how you discovered maybe what is your Polaris point, or how did you discover yours?
Randy Garn:
I mean, it does get highly personal, but I’ll get… I mean, I will get personal here is that I really had to figure out what one generated great income and revenue for me. I’ve always loved human performance and human development, and like you, how do we be the very, very best version of ourselves? I also found that I love teaching that, and I love… My joy comes in my life from helping other people. I don’t know any other way to do it. If you know me, you know that. You know that I would almost rather see other people succeed and be the guy behind the scenes, and really help them grow.
Randy Garn:
That gives me joy when I said, “Dude, look at what Dr. Sonia just did. She just crushed it on stage, and she’s changing millions of women’s lives. I love seeing my core group of people succeed.” That became really apparent to me when we started our first company. We started our first company when I was a junior in college. I was like, “I want to become the very, very best world’s coaching company and training company and education company.” We really did build that. We had close to 900 employees and just, I mean, students in over 80 countries. I mean, it was just so amazing.
Randy Garn:
I think about that. Was that hard work? Yes. But did we love it? Yes. Was it financially rewarding? Yes. Were we all aligned? Yes. Was it good for the customers and the clients? Yes, it was awesome. We’re getting tons of stories, and we still continue to. I really found I was blessed to know what I love to do, and maybe some of that comes from my dad teaching, coaching. My dad held us accountable. He said, “Randy, you can be whatever you want to be.” He believed in us and showed us different ways. My Polaris point, if I could come right down to it, everybody calls me Coach Garn.
Randy Garn:
My joy and satisfaction come from helping executives and leaders to just hit higher levels than they’ve ever hit. The other thing that I love is I really, really love entrepreneurship and grid and investing. Those are really… My Polaris points are, one, helping leaders be their very best, but then I really, really love watching a company grow from one million to 300 million, and watching that company just excel and grow. That really comes down to the person, and helping them be the very best they can. I’m all about human performance, leadership, coaching, growth is my Polaris point, and it’s been just a wonderful, wonderful career.
Eric Partaker:
That’s awesome. You used a few words there that I think can help people with the self discovery. You talked about really enjoying serving others. You talked about being influenced in childhood, so from an early age. You talked about just loving it. It all makes it sound like it’s something where when you’re doing this, when you’re working, it doesn’t feel like work for you, that we may not be able to differentiate between, “Is Coach Garn playing right now or is he working?” I don’t know. It’s all blurred together.
Eric Partaker:
That might be a good insight, I think, for a listener is that if you’re trying to discover your Polaris point, maybe think back to the times when you’ve been “doing something professional,” but it didn’t actually feel like you were at a job. You were just having fun, enjoying it, right? The hours went by. Now, I want to transition a little bit to…
Randy Garn:
Let me just share with you two. One of the things that’s really important that you said is like, “How do you know when you’re living?” I’m going to share with you one of my favorite quotes, all right? It’s, “The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his life and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him, he is always doing both.”
Randy Garn:
That’s from James Michener. It’s right on my desk. It’s in front of my face.
Eric Partaker:
That’s gold.
Randy Garn:
I love to work hard. I love to play hard. I take clients, I take business relationships fishing. We hike. We do stuff that I love to do, but I mean, that helps you to get out. It’s like, “If I’m going to do anything in my life, I’m going to work with people that I love, like and respect.” A lot of people say don’t work with your friends or your family. I only work with the people that I love. I only work with my best friends. That’s part of my Polaris point. That’s part of what I put in my personal constitution is that I’m going to love what I do, and that makes me be the best version of me.
Randy Garn:
If you’re grumpy at work, your energy’s going to be low, and you’re not going to be excellent. That’s not excellent.
Randy Garn:
Totally. Totally.
Eric Partaker:
No, that’s really magical. I love that quote, actually. Who is that by again?
Randy Garn:
By James Michener. I heard that from the CEO of Patagonia shared it.
Eric Partaker:
Amazing.
Randy Garn:
I’ll send it to you, so you can share it with the readers. That’s one of my things is just like… The other thing is I really don’t give a rip what other people think. I’m going to pursue my vision of excellence, and do it. Those that I’m with in my circle and my really close friends and my close people, they know what I’m doing, but I’m leaving others to decide what I’m doing.
Eric Partaker:
No, that’s great. I just want to pick up on some other interesting threads again here with some of the words you’re using and the things you’re saying. You talked about working hard. It makes me think of just absolutely brilliant study that I didn’t even know that existed in your book, Prosper. It talks about… There’s nothing wrong with working more than eight hours, but what the study showed was that the disharmony happens when someone feels that they’re working three hours more than their total desired hours for the week.
Eric Partaker:
If they only want to be working 50 hours a week maximum, which is still more than an eight-hour day, but that they’re required to work 55, then they start to feel unhappy. But if they work 53, it’s still within the range. I thought that was quite interesting, because there’s nothing necessarily wrong, is there, with working hard. If that work and play blend together, and you’re having a positive impact on the world, then what’s wrong with it?
Randy Garn:
That study for me is one that’s bull crap.
Eric Partaker:
Right, so it’s not true.
Randy Garn:
It is probably true, Let me explain. When I listen to that, they are interviewing people that aren’t living in their Polaris point, because they’re looking at the clock. I don’t even look at the clock. There are some days where I put in 12 hours, 16 hours. Did I love it? Heck yeah, but here’s the thing, that study was done by people that are working for somebody else and not living in their prosperity zone. I’m just telling you, and the majority people are. Why would I feel like spending an extra three hours on something huge I want to accomplish in my life is a burden? No, that’s freaking war, and that’s life.
Randy Garn:
That’s joy. That’s fulfillment. That’s engagement. That’s totally freaking fun. Do you know what high performers do do? In our study with Brendon, I take a break every 15 minutes. I reset, and so I do take breaks. I bake that into my productivity, and so if I need to get something done, I’m going to spend extra hours to do it, but I’m also going to take appropriate breaks. I’m going to enjoy my day. I’m going to spend time. I’m going to reset. I’m going to go get some sunshine today. I mean, we got the mountains right out there. We can go for a walk.
Randy Garn:
But if you love what you do, it will not feel like a burden. Now, work is work. Yes, I love to work hard. You gotta write articles. You gotta dive in. You gotta do phone calls. I gotta work on taxes today. But you know what, I love it. I’m in a good mood. I’m freaking happy. It’s been a great year, but that is if you are… If you’re like, “Dude, I’m putting in too many hours,” figure your life out. One of the things that I do is I take Saturday’s completely off. I don’t take it off. It’s actually spent with my family, but it’s scheduled.
Randy Garn:
I don’t feel like it’s a burden. It’s like, “I’m going to shut things down, and I’m going to have an adventure with my kids on Saturday, and then Sunday is for God and my family,” so those two days. I’m going to work as hard as I can, but I’ve scheduled those days to work on also what’s most important. For me, what’s most important is my six kids and my awesome wife, and so I gotta make sure that I’m putting them into my world and into my joy, because I really do think the greatest joy and the greatest sorrows will come from the walls of our own home.
Eric Partaker:
Absolutely. Absolutely. I love… That’s yet another really good tip that you gave there for discovering your Polaris point is when you’ve been working in the past, have you never cared about how many hours you’re spending on the work, or if you’re doing something right now that you find that you don’t mind how long you’re working, and you’re, again, not counting the hours, then it could be very indicative of you being on the right path, right?
Randy Garn:
That is an indicator that you need to spend time, take a deep breath, and make sure you’re on the right path. If there are relationships in your life that are off, or if you feel like you’re not getting paid enough, or if your job sucks, if your relationships suck, if your whatever sucks, you probably need to take a deep breath, and get those aligned, and ensure that you’re actually earning from your core. You’re in that zone, that prosperity zone should be… I studied the flow a lot, but your prosperity zone should be stretching you. It should be pushing you.
Randy Garn:
For me, if I’m just taking a break and relaxing and sipping back on a lemonade, that’s not joy and engagement for me. I want to keep increasing my skill set and my challenges. That’s actually where you’re in that flow. You’re increasing in skill set, and you’re pushing yourself. Are you doing that? If there’s things that you’re haven’t addressed in your life that make you grumpy, “I should have signed that agreement, or I wish I was being paid more, or what I could have done,” go fix it. Go fix it.
Randy Garn:
You’re in charge of your own life. If you’re waiting for the Calvary to show up, nobody’s going to come. Take charge of your own life. That way, you’ll love it. You’ll be more engaged in what you do.
Eric Partaker:
You talk too in the book about earning from your core, which I really love, which is basically what results from having this Polaris point, knowing what your purpose and your values are, but at the same time, combine that with your unique abilities. You suddenly… I mean, I’ve experienced this. I know you’ve experienced this. When you find that, suddenly, your wealth just goes on to a completely different profile, because you’re earning in a way that it… Well, it’s frankly like putting steroids, putting your wealth creation on a bit of steroids, really, because it’s just so powerful then because you’re so aligned with that point and that purpose.
Randy Garn:
Well, we waste so much time on other people’s Polaris points. We waste so much… I mean, how would you feel, Eric… I always tell this to the people that I work with. What if I came and spent a week with you every single day? What if I woke up with you, and not went to bed with you? But I mean, what if I woke up with you each morning, and followed you around? On a scale of one to 10, how would you feel about that, and how productive would you be? What thing should you stop doing in your life?
Randy Garn:
That’s one of the big things is like, “What do you need to stop doing?” We all have 24 hours in the day. Why is it that somebody can create a $4 million business, and somebody can create a $40 million dollar business, and somebody can create a $400 million business, and then somebody can create a $4 billion business? Literally, it’s the amount of time and strategy. Are we living the measure of our creation? I’m not saying we all need to create a $4 billion business, but you should get yourself self-sustainable. It’s so doable if you quit wasting your time.
Eric Partaker:
Now, that’s a great transition, too, because one of the things that we said at the start of the show is that you’re also a managing partner with Brendon Burchard in the High-Performance Institute, and you guys are doing amazing stuff with that. I think you’re doing corporate now as well. In terms of habits, so you got the Polaris point dialed in, and you’re ready to rock and roll. You’re going to earn from the core, as you say, but that’s only as good as you able to do certain things day in and day out. What are some of those top habits that you need to be adding to the arsenal?
Randy Garn:
Actually, and you just struck a chord with me too, because once you know what you want to do, then you gotta execute to it. It really comes down to how quickly can you do it? What’s the time value of money in your life right now? I got ran over by… I was getting ready for the Kona Ironman. I ran the Kona Half Ironman last two years ago. It got shut down this COVID. I signed up for another one, but in my practice, in doing so on one of our rides, a car ran a red light and ran right over top of me two years ago. For me, totally, I’m like… I remember when I got hit. It’s like everything’s in slow motion.
Randy Garn:
I know I’m getting ran over, and my bike’s crunching and popping, and I’m thinking that, “Dude, I’m seriously going to be paralyzed, or something’s going to happen, and the tire’s coming over you.” I think, “If I don’t die, my wife’s going to kill me when I get home.” But for me, it really, really shook me up. I am I giving everything I got every day, because I never know when my last breath is going to be. Now, I was spared. Nothing happened to me. I didn’t have any broken bones. I went to the ER. I got CAT scanned, everything and not even a torn ligament. I really feel like I’ve got more to accomplish in this life, and that’s why I really wanted to double down too with what we’re doing with high-performing habits, and change as many lives as we possibly can.
Randy Garn:
We have six habits. We spent well over $30 million in research at the University of Pennsylvania and UC Berkeley. We have really honed down the six habits that will make the most impact in your life. How do you maximize what you’ve been created to do? You really have to create those habits that are going to be the most impactful. I mean, several of the habits are number one, seek clarity. Are you very clear on what you’re doing, where you’re going, and is it making a difference for you? Number two is generate energy. Again, if you hate what you do, your energy is going to be low. You’re not going to have the type…
Randy Garn:
Everybody’s energy is different, but you have a confidence in that energy and what you’re doing. Are you a generator? Do you generate energy? Do you create energy? When you walk into the room, are people like, “Dude, I want to be with him? I love this guy.” Those are some of the habits that were helping him. Are you demonstrating courage? Are you speaking up? Are you talking up? That’s one of the things I was talking about. If you’re off the track and you know it, fix it. Take courage in your own life. That’s actually a habit. You’ve gotta develop some of your courage muscle.
Eric Partaker:
My personal favorite, if I was a junkie on any one of these habits, it would be the necessity one, so-
Randy Garn:
Raise necessity.
Eric Partaker:
Create necessity. That one right there, when you get into the habit of manufacturing your own deadlines, which you can easily do by especially… I love it in the form of making public promises and telling people something’s going to be ready or delivered by a certain time before maybe you’ve even made it. Then you have no choice. It’s like, “Okay, now I gotta do it.” That’s been a real savior for me in many-
Randy Garn:
That habit, honestly, that’s actually a habit that I’ve… Again, I wasn’t born this way. Anybody can be… These habits can be learned, but raising necessity is much bigger than just setting goals and just goal setting. Raising necessity means that you’re never going to miss them, and you’re going to hold yourself accountable. For me too, I love it, Eric. It’s one of my favorites as well. That helps you… The other habit or the other six is increased productivity. Are you productive?
Eric Partaker:
I’m with you on the… Because with the necessity one, just going back to that for a moment, with the entrepreneurs and leaders that I coach, it’s… You can come up with 10 different ways to improve productivity. You can come up with 10 different ways to lose weight. You can come up with 10 different plans to improve your relationship. It’s less about the next best plan. For me, the golden rule is just adherence, just stick. If you just stick to just one thing and consistently follow that through, and have that necessity to, “Well, I’ve committed, so from a personal integrity basis, I must do this,” like that.
Randy Garn:
You’re committed to yourself.
Eric Partaker:
Exactly. Exactly. I personally love that one. One of the last questions here as we get to the end, I’d love for you to think… Let’s go back to Prosper just for a moment. I want you to think about… You only get the chance… This book, this system, it’s just going to completely blow up and disappear after this. You get one last opportunity to pick one person on the planet who’s alive today, one person who you think if you could handhold through this process, as a result, would have the biggest potential impact on the world, who would you pick, and why?
Randy Garn:
Who would I personally pick to guide through it?
Eric Partaker:
Yeah.
Randy Garn:
Oh, man, that is a great question. I mean, honestly, the person that first comes to mind is my wife.
Eric Partaker:
Nice.
Randy Garn:
She’s an entrepreneur. She’s built and sold their own women’s clothing company. But for me, that’s probably the most important relationship in the world to me, because that’s the home court advantage. Actually, high performers, I talk a lot about the home court advantage. If things aren’t right at home, it’s really, really hard to have the energy and productivity you want to have, because your mind has to be super clear. It would probably be a continuous relationship with her because she handles everything, and she’s the CEO at home, but it would be us continuing, ensuring not just me singularly, that I’m living my Polaris point.
Randy Garn:
But now, her and I together are actually heading in the same direction. Because just like your relationship with your wife or your business partner, you have to be growing together. If one person is not growing, and you keep growing, then you’re going to drift apart. For me, I mean, the first person that comes to my mind is my wife, Charlotte. She’s hilarious, and she’s so fun, but it always hasn’t been that way. When I was growing the business, that’s what I’m saying. It’s like, “I’m not perfect. I’m actually not saying I’m perfect,” but our relationship now is better than ever.
Randy Garn:
How does it even get better? She was running her own company. I was running my own company. I had massive responsibility for the church that I belong to. We’re like two ships crossing in the night in 2006, ’07, ’08. Then we decided, “Hey, we gotta course correct.” I think for me, it would be probably that relationship which is most important. I always think like… Let’s imagine in having everybody that you’ve ever met in your life, who would be the one person that you want to go to and give a huge hug with at the end of this life? Who would that be? That’s who I would say you should take to the Prosper book.
Eric Partaker:
Love it. Love it. Reminds me, I often say to people, I say, “Hey, look, if you want to be a great leader, start by being a great spouse and parent, because leadership starts at home.” I don’t mean to lead your home like, “Hey, everyone, do this. Do that.” I think you know what I mean. What’s your role as a husband, as a father, as a wife and mother, and are you leading in that role as powerfully as you can in a way that you’d be proud of? I’m totally with you. Last question then we’ll wrap it up with this one.
Eric Partaker:
You’ve helped so many people, right? You’ve impacted so many lives already, so you have such a rich set of data. Sometimes, people just can’t apply this stuff. They can’t get going. What do you see as the number one limiting belief that holds people back?
Randy Garn:
The number one limiting belief that I’ve come to understand is that to be successful, you have to accumulate things. You have to show things. I mean, one of the things that I do love about working with Brendon, he’s actually such an amazing human. Ethan and Brandon both are, and then the other guys that I’m working with at Tamarack and other places, we know what’s most important, and I think that the biggest limiting belief is that you have to accumulate a whole bunch of wealth to be successful and to live prosperity. Actually for me, it’s coming to understand that people are more important than things, and my knowledge and my peace of mind are my most important thing to maintain.
Randy Garn:
I think too many people chase things. They chase stuff. They chase things that are going to be hollow, and if they don’t have them, they feel bad. They feel like they haven’t succeeded. I just think that’s a humongous limiting belief is that, “If I don’t have a big house, if I don’t have a huge car, then I can’t make an impact.” It’s just stinking thinking. It’s false. For me, it’s just like, “You can start where you’re at.” That’s one of the things in the Prosper book is start where you’re at. Start with what you already have, and be happy with that and grow it, and literally try to have just joy in your heart with where you’re currently at.
Randy Garn:
Quit worrying about where you want to be, and just be very, very present, and give the best you can every single day. Live your Polaris point, and go to bed well at night because you’ve given every single day your very, very best. That’s what I think is a massive limiting belief is too many people chase stuff.
Eric Partaker:
There we go. Randy Garn, ladies and gentlemen, that’s such a fantastic way to wrap that up, Randy. This book is Prosper, highly recommend reading that by Ethan Willis and Randy Garn. Randy, thanks so much for taking the… It’s great to see you again. Again, it feels like Puerto Rico when we sat outside at one of those tables outside of the event. It just feels like eons ago. I’m looking forward to seeing you again in person sometime, hopefully soon. It’s really great to see you again. Thanks for coming on.
Randy Garn:
Eric, you’re a great man. I appreciate your time today.
Eric Partaker:
Thanks a lot.
