Episode 03: $20B Carson Group Founder Ron Carson on How Internal Growth is Key to External Growth | Can You Be a Specialist and Scale? | Why Culture and Values Matter in Defining Target Market
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In this episode, Ron Carson and I discuss:
Ron’s backstory:
The heartbreaking moment that veered him from his predetermined path as a small town Nebraska farmer to the world of finance
His adventures in entrepreneurship, sometimes a bit illegal (but we’re not judging)
How his mom’s death and overworking took a toll on his mental health
The rewards of switching from a fear-based mentality to an abundance mentality
His drive to make an impact, solve world hunger, improve mental wellness, and help others find their freedom
3 important things to consider as you scale: Taking care of your client, taking care of your community, and profitability
Attracting a target market whose values and passions align with yours: from helping farmers invest to taking on Carson Group clients who make a charitable impact
About Ron Carson
Ron Carson is an icon in the independent advisor space. He's the CEO and founder of the $20B Carson Group, a platform that serves over 44K families through their advisory network, including 135 partner firms and 35 Carson Wealth locations.
Ron is actively involved in charitable giving and his personal mission is to “do the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people.” He has:
Co-founded the Dreamweaver Foundation with his wife, Jeanie, a non-profit organization dedicated to fulfilling end-of-life dreams for seniors with terminal illness
Led the charges at Carson Group to provide 600,000+ meals to children in Kenya through work with No Hungry Children
Founded the American Charitable Foundation, a foundation established for a more efficient disposition of charitable assets
Served as President of the Child Saving Institute
Established a global partnership with charity: water and Global Coalition
His journey of finding freedom in his own personal life has ignited a profound mission to help others find their freedom.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Below is an AI-generated transcript and therefore it may contain errors.
Ron Carson: I think, well, maybe if I have more, more, more, more. And I kept getting that. Mm-hmm. other more number. And I felt emptier more alone and dissatisfied. And I think I was on my way to having a nervous breakdown, all kinds of stuff. People on the outside looking in, all they could see is, oh, I'm on this list and I've got the success.
And yes and oh, and you must have the perfect and like, man, if you only knew, there's a saying. We used to have in my YPO forum, the happiest people we know. We don't know very. Meaning that you're,
Stacy Havener: you're seeing the facade. Wow.
Ron Carson: So I love working with people to help them free themselves as I did.
Stacy Havener: Hey, my name is Stacy Havener.
I'm obsessed with startups, stories, and sales. Storytelling has fueled my success as a female founder in the Toughest Boys Club, wall Street. I've raised over 8 billion that has led to 30 billion. Follow on assets for investment boutiques. You could say against the odds. Yeah, understate. I share stories of the people behind the portfolios while teaching you how to use story to shape outcomes.
It's real talk here, money, authenticity, growth, setbacks, sales and marketing are all topics we discuss. Think of this as the capital raising class you wish you had in college mixed with happy hour. Pull up a seat, grab your notebook, and get ready to be inspired and challenged while you learn. This is the Billion Dollar Backstory podcast.
Hello and welcome to the Billion Dollar Backstory podcast. I am your host, Stacy Havener, and today we are joined by one of the icons in the independent advisor space, my friend Ron Carson. Ron is one of the industry's most passionate, most successful advisors. He's the c e o and founder of a platform that serves independent advisors and their clients.
The 20 billion Carson Group. They serve over 44,000 families through their advisory network, including 135 partner firms and 35 Carson Wealth locations. You might know a lot of stats and figures about Ron and Carson, but today we're going to dive into the stories and talk about Ron's journey as a professional.
But also as a person, my conversations with Ron are always magic, and I'm thrilled to invite all of you to join us. Ron, welcome
Ron Carson: to Oh, thank you for having me, Stacy. Wow,
Stacy Havener: it's a pleasure. I mentioned stories. And even in the green room, if you will, we were talking about your story and, and I've heard you tell it, it's phenomenal.
So for people who haven't heard the journey of you as a small town farmer into kind of the big bright lights of finance, will you take us through that? Yeah,
Ron Carson: I would. Uh, it's fun. Literally five minutes before we started talking, I had a gentleman, cuz I get people reaching out to me on LinkedIn all the time.
He's like, Hey, I, I want to come and meet you. He is from Nebraska. He started this business. It just brought me back cuz he's from Lincoln actually, where our company started from. Uh, I was 18 years old and really started this business out. Don't cold calling out of a phone book. Uh, my college dorm room.
But the backpack story is my mom was from Ohio. My dad's from Nebraska. People say, how'd you end up in farming in Nebraska? My father was at Patterson Air Force. Uh, in Dayton, Ohio. Met my mother, uh, after we did this time they moved back, take over my grandparents family farm and I was a farmer. I thought I was gonna be a farmer.
I did, you know, our whole family did everything farming and when I was 17, and a lot of farmers there in that time went broke. And you know, think back in 1982, interest rates were 21 and a half percent, and it was scary for me. My dad, I'm realizing this now, and this is stuff you've not heard on previous interviews or podcasts, but an epiphany really just in the last few months.
And my dad operated on, I'll call it a fear-based operating system. He was poor growing up and he was everything in his life. He was, he was afraid. Afraid of losing. Afraid of not looking up for his family, and then just imagine his worst nightmare came true. You know, you lost everything that, that we had.
And I, one and only time I'd ever seen my dad. Even to this day, it was the only time I've seen him cry. Yeah. And he said, Ronnie, I gave you support the mom and your sister. You need to find something else to do. And shortly after there that I was sitting in the library reading Money magazine and said, top professions of the future, become a financial advisor, get a cfp.
And I thought, you know what, that's what I'm gonna do. And I had had some interest. I had a little bit of money. The work I had done, I, I was, I'd say a serial entrepreneur, even as a kid, you know, I remember having a, you know, a lemonade stand and then I sold reading cards and. Had a little popcorn.
Stacy Havener: You sold.
I did. I love
Ron Carson: that You could, at the back of like these magazines you could order and I even imported fireworks when I was and a freshman in high school and I made a catalog and I'm importing these from China and they're illegal. Oh my gosh. But I taking, gosh, oh my gosh. Catalogs. I mark everything up a hundred percent.
We still for. and I'm shocked that, you know, like if something would've gone off my locker, I would've blown the whole school up. And I never even once had a teacher administrator say, what are you doing? You know, it just shows you how times have changed from then. But I was like, who? And I had bought a couple of stocks and so I had this interest and I just knew for certain that, you know, I wanted to do something around finance and I was totally an unconscious and competent.
I didn't know what I was. . Um, and I, and I knew I didn't and I really didn't know where to start. And as you remember, Stacy, back in those days, all while selling product, everything was mm-hmm. paid. Mm-hmm. , no one knew what they were paying, uh, mutual funds in those days, people could pay up to, if you had a contractual plan on 20% front-end load.
Mutual fund companies didn't even put the value on the statement cuz it was a bear market on top of the. And I very quickly realized that I wanted to kind of do it differently, and I had a clean slate to start from. I started to realize that people were starving to have an advocate sit on their side of the table, expose a lot of the stuff.
Unfortunately, this still goes on in financial services today. It still drives me crazy to think we have two regulators, two sets of rules, and I really don't believe that the consumer's interest is being protected at the level it should. But that's really what carsin fast forward to today. Yeah. That's why we've had our growth is, is we really believe that people want to find their personal freedom.
I believe that Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And like my father and like me for most of my life, I operated on fear, not abundance, not love. And I think a lot of the world's problems today. You know, I'm passionate about Jeanie and I, and our whole family is passionate about impact. I'd like to see, uh, in world hunger in my lifetime doing that too.
Uh, bill hungry tile.org. Also clean water, a few stockers and charity. Hence the cap. I just, we just did a fundraiser for the medical last week, Dr. Love it. And then mental wellness. I believe if we can make significant progress in those areas, those are symptoms. We're gonna always be there. And unless we can shift from a abundance mentality away from a she fear-based operating system for the world, and I really, I'm spending a lot of my energy and time.
You know, how do, how do we do that? How do we align the right people? And I believe it's happening. There's a real vibe change going on in the world today. People care more, you know, about impact, about how they show up, about the resources that, you know, that we bring to the, the game of life or humanity.
than ever before.
Stacy Havener: Think about what the journey you just took us on there. Uh, you know, the fear mentality, the product, pitching, the, I mean gouging, really Yes. That was happening in this industry. And now here we are sitting here today and we're talking about abundance and mental wellness. And freedom and I love on your website, you have this call out right there.
So proudly like love your business. We're using love in the financial industry. I think that's amazing. And to your point, I think it's pent up in the people in this space and the broader world. But here, this is just stuff that's not talked about. So I appreciate you shining a light on it. I wanna talk about.
You've said that, you know, the, the farming roots, and I relate to that being sort of an odd duck in an industry that, you know, just I, I never envisioned myself in. So when you started, were you, like, was your target market farmer? It was.
Ron Carson: Yeah, because I do nothing about the profession, which most people coming in don't.
You don't need a college degree, right? You really can go do a weekend course and pass the securities test. There's not, you know, in my opinion, there's not a high enough barrier still to this day to come into the profession. But I could talk weather, I could talk equipment. I would sit at the kitchen table with farmers and I was young.
I was 18 years. And they would give me a little bit of money to invest. I remember, uh, they, they've since passed. There was a, um, Gertrude and Herbert McClellan, they're, they lived in, uh, Fairmont, Nebraska. Really? Anybody town, they had just sold their pharmacy. Um, they had a little bit of money and they had give, they had wrote me a check for $2,000.
I remember the very first client I ever had. I remember pulling out into the country on a gravel road, got outta my car, ran around my car like three or four times, jumping up and down . Oh good. You know, I made a total of about $80, I think on first , my first sale. But yeah, I mean, and it was they, so it was farmers or people.
In farm community. So really tied to the farm, the farm industry.
Stacy Havener: And I think that's so important for people to realize because you know, I believe strongly as I know you do in the power of people, right? People do business with people and the power of story. But it's important not just what are you saying?
What stories are you telling us? Who are you telling them to? And so even though you were 17, Because you had grown up in that space, that actually became a superpower for you because you were talking to someone specific Yeah. About something specific that you knew it wasn't, you went in and said, I'm a expert on finance.
You're like, I'm like you, I'm a farmer, but I, I can be a guide in an in a space that you maybe aren't as familiar with and need help. That's powerful.
So now jump stop to here today. Who would you say your target market is?
Ron Carson: So, our target market is, and as you know, I used to teach something called love affair marketing and passion prospecting to other advisors. My target market was who did I connect with, who did I have common interests with? Mm-hmm.
because I didn't wanna do business with people. I wasn't looking forward to meeting, and this is a touchy feely thing for Carson. We are a family. The people we serve are an extended part of our family and we take care and care about our family and it really transcends. All kinds of occupations, all kinds of ways of life.
The common denominator for me personally is people that wanna leave the world a better place than they found it. They want to have measurable impact, especially on some of the humanitarian relief efforts. They wanna be very involved in their community and because that's how I rally my car, my extended family here at Carson.
Is the work we do is around helping people find their freedom so they can feel comfortable moving from, am I gonna have enough fear to where I'm for sure gonna have enough abundance? And the excess. Let's do something really cool. You know, what kind of legacy do you wanna live? Mm-hmm. . And we actually work with high net one families in establishing rights of passage for future generations family constitution.
What do you want it to stand for? How does it be amended? All the way down to people just getting started? Cause everybody needs help. And so I would say that in even our, we call 'em internal stakeholders, we don't have employees here at Carson, is that the work they do? Like we have a end world hunger wall.
So every time we bring down a new partner, Jeanie and I, if not the company, cuz we want the company to focus on what they do. We sponsor a school in Africa, you know, so we want to time our activity to. The impact and causes we're passionate about, and I'd say we want to attract clients. They wanna find their own personal freedom so they can buy extension through the work we're doing, help other people have an impact and help them find their personal freedom.
Today we suffer from so much anxiety. Almost weekly I have someone tell me, oh I'm, you know, I'm not gonna have kids cuz I don't wanna bring a kid into this world. The truth, the truth is different. We're at an all time low in violence in the. All time low, even though you would never know that by listening to the media standard of livings are at an all time high in the world, and we have plenty that we just need a more efficient way of distributing some of the resources we have.
So we really do live in a amazing time in history where people are doing better. We don't have to worry about being attacked and losing our. It's as low as it's ever been. Yeah. Worldwide. And so I'm really optimistic. Optimistic, Stacy. I'm excited. But I think it's time that, that we help people move out of the anxiety ridden world.
And I think media plays a lot to that. Like our political system on both sides play into that fear. You know, always talking about what could happen in the fear and scaring people into really manipulating. . That's well
Stacy Havener: said. And I think what's interesting here is that you talked about you want to work with people that are like-minded, that share passion.
And so when you're, whether it's a family you're serving, and I'm extrapolating this to, or an advisor that you're partnering with, that alignment is important. And what we talk about a lot with our clients is you can't be everything to every. . And if you're going to attract your target market, you have to be brave enough in what you say, that you're going to repel the people that are not for you.
That's what a magnet does. Yes. Right? It's two sides. You can't be like, well, I'm not gonna repel. I'm not, I don't wanna offend anyone or have anyone not like me. I wanna be for everyone because if you try to do that, you will actually end up being for Noah. Well, and I think what you said there is so on point, staying with that thread and maybe just pulling on it a little bit here.
I was gonna say, if you're an outsider, but even if you're an insider in the investment space, you would look at our industry and say, oh, well the key to succeeding in the investment and finance world is be. Be big and be everything to everyone because the odds in this business favor the largest firms who are generalists and who do the exact opposite of what we were just talking about.
To be frank, they try to be everything for everyone. And I'm wondering how you square that because you have grown a very big enterprise, but. I also know that you are very specialized and you lean into what's important to you. So do you think there's a place for specialists in this world of bigs and generalists?
Wow, there's
Ron Carson: a lot there. Let me kind of dissect this. Stacy, first of all, you know Carson, today we're pushing 22 billion in assets, and I think to be relevant, we're gonna have to be a hundred billion. And here's why. Okay, let me provide a little more. The future is gonna be one by those that can provide the most value and the most convenience.
I don't care what kind of services you're providing, we're on a meritocracy. You know, back when I first got started, it was a relationship business, if you like people, you did business with 'em and you had no idea. Neither did a lot of the advisors had no idea who was taking what, who was making what, because disclosure was poor as long as it was put into prospect.
And you hit a suitability requirement and people signed and said they read it, which no one understood you could do it to 'em and it was terrible. And there's still that standard today, the difference between the brokerage standard versus the fiduciary standard. And I, people are becoming more educated and they have more information than ever before to make decisions.
And so with armed with that knowledge, asking better questions. I think they're making better decisions and understand that they're gonna do business with people that are being proactive in anticipating their need before they even know they have the need. Hence, our size. Come back to, as I started with that.
Mm-hmm. , we have invested in Carson. If I said a hundred million, that'd be a dramatic understatement in data, in data warehouse to be able to leverage. The artificial intelligence that is coming and a lot of people think that's bad. There's a really beautiful side to it is where if data is not used against you, but used for you not used to manipulate if it used to help you, it's a game changer.
Not only from the side of of convenience, but also understanding that you have this need coming. It may be, I've got grandkids going off to college. Oh, you have medical power. Automatically the system can know that. Or this rich data that says, I can refinance your mortgage for you automatically because there's a $653.
Savings or you know, I could just go on and on your legal documents. I can, the AI has scanned them. They're not relevant for what you're doing today, and we have all of that data held in this environment. If I'm a two or three or 400 million shop by myself. That's who I'm be competing with. And I think of the Amazon as a way to look forward now, love or hate Amazon.
Pretty much everybody listening to this is an Amazon client. And look at the Jeanie, my wife was asking me the other day. She goes, is Kmart still around a shop code? Still around ? I mean, who does business that way? And I think those are the smaller firms of today. So I believe the, our advantage is we sit on the same side of the table as a.
We're about conscious capitalism, but we've gotta be at a size where we can drive an Amazon kind of experience that people don't even question. No one wants to pay a fee. Who wants to pay someone 1% to make 1% u l s? What they want is to make an investment in their future and know that the return that they are getting is any, is exponential.
The piece of value that someone's asking the trade, you give me a dollar. I want to be able to. A dollar 50 back every year, a dollar 20 back. And not just in financial terms, but I'm talking about in value and sustainable value. Yeah. That transcends all parts of their life. And that's the big bet we're making at Carson is that people are gonna care about impact, they're gonna care about the work that we do with the success that we have, and they want, we wanna be very visible about the work that we're.
But before they even can care about all of that, they want to know what's it mean for them and how are we gonna make their life better? How are they gonna have the peace of mind know that someone is truly watching out for them? Right. It's not about how much money can I make, but someone is being a consumer advocate and thinking about the things I'm not thinking about in my everyday life.
I'm tying all that together in a very convenient, simplistic experience that I get to have. That's where we're going, and you can't do that really even over 22 billion in assets. That's more of a hundred billion plus. Yeah, and just because you're big doesn't mean that you lose your culture. And I think people associate big with that.
It really, we charge everybody here at Carson to be an a culture agent. Everybody here at Carson be an innovation agent. How do we continue to look at everything we do? I just in Houston a couple days ago and I got to visit the. Space Station that's being built and it's gonna be deployed, and NASA is actually contracted with Axiom to do this.
And because of their, I mean, they've got 800 I think, and they call 'em employees, internal stakeholders. They're doing things 10 times faster for 20th of the price that NASA is assuming. Because they have a different culture and the culture is beautiful. If you ever get a chance to go down there mm-hmm.
and see what's going on, 800 people and they have a watch out for each other, culture, how they collaborate, culture, how do input, how you figure out a quicker, faster, better way. To deliver an outcome versus doing it the old way. The big is Wow, that
Stacy Havener: yeah, big is not bad. I like that. I'm gonna challenge a little, because what I think is true about Carson, and maybe it's just, you know, sort of what I want to be true is that.
Your culture support. So if I'm an advisor and I plug into the platform at Carson, can I still have my culture too? Can I still have my specialization? Like let's say I serve. I don't know, females in finance, and that's my niche. Can I keep that niche? And are you gonna support me in that? Because then what you're saying is yes, you're Amazon.
I'm using quotes which no one can see. Yeah, but you're actually a collection of specialists. And you're helping them be better together than they could ever be
apart.
Ron Carson: That's exactly what we are, Stacy, is we give the breadth and depth of being on a, a battleship, you know, if you think the analogy of mm-hmm.
of, of business, but for you to have the. Local personality to focus on the area you wanna focus on. And that has been why our growth has been really good. And this isn't to brag, but it's to be, to give people some context. You know, this is our, I think our sixth year on the Inc. 5,000 lists. Bain came in a private equity firm.
People think private equity's bad too. Bain Capital came in and invested. They've been amazing. And what people don't know, like Bain, some of their portfolio companies, they've held for 20. And they have been just amazing, amazing partners around, and this, they saw something like our organic growth rate was three times faster than industry average.
Reason I share that stat is that is validation of how the end client is feeling about what we're doing and how we're showing up. And our partners, so often they've been stuck in a. That was around how can we make the most money? Yeah, we gotta be profitable. We owe it to our internal stakeholders, people we serve.
But it's number three on the list. The first is taking care of the client. Number two is taking care of our community. And part of that is having people's essence shine through to where they can deliver the most value to the people they serve. Cuz once you, I can trust someone, you can help them up nozzles, hierarchy to find their personal freedom.
And that's what living and being human is all.
Stacy Havener: Gosh. I love that, and that is such a perfect dovetail to my next question. I love that you even kind of wove in the Bain piece because one of the things that jumps out to me as so rare about Carson, I mean here you are, it's a massive business. You have private equity, you've got this a hundred year, a hundred billion kind of target, right?
You're building something big with a collection of these specialists as your partners, but. Ron Carson have stayed the face, the heart, the soul of that business, and I think that's super rare at your size and scale and even rarer. Is rare your word. Now, if we say it's a when, when private , I mean, I'm saying it even more rare when private equity is involved.
And so why is that so important to you? Because you, you don't have to do it.
Ron Carson: It's my, yeah, we're, I've been very public about this. Stacy is, we are gonna, Lee's gonna be a hundred year. And when you are, and I, there's a book out there, I'd love any business owner or if you're interviewing a company to do business with them.
Um, it's called The Infinite Game and Simon Sinek talks about, um, and I would listen to it cuz he does such a beautiful job narrating the book. Is when you're playing a game that's tonight, you make really different decisions than if you're making, if you're playing an infinite game. And a good example of that, we've made enormous investments here at Carson and training the next gen.
There's like, who's training the next gen? They come, they're trained on our systems within our culture. So I can tell a family, we're gonna be here for the next seven Generat. Of your family. This isn't someplace that's gonna get acquired by somebody else, and then all of a sudden you don't know who you're doing business with.
And so we get to make investments. Yesterday we had our board meeting with Bain, and we're looking at investments that have a four or five, a six, seven, sometimes 10 year payback. If you're playing a finite game, then you're looking at it totally differently if you're playing. And the other thing Simon talks about is a just.
We have a powerful just cause we're attracting people from all over the country that want to come and be part of this. Cuz they believe in the mission, they believe in the Just cause helping the people we serve find their freedom. Doing it a higher level and then the just cause on top of the just cause.
It's really solving issues within our own communities and beyond that mm-hmm. . And so the hundred year firm, me being here, if you said, Juan, what do you love doing the most is exactly what I'm doing. It's this, and I've surrounded myself with really great people to allow me to do the things I love to do.
Uh, not the thing. I don't, there's nothing in my day that I have to do. I really look forward to everything I do, and I solve the farmer hours. I get up at four in the morning pretty much every day. I have my little routine and I'm loving my life. I, I like to say my, I love my life. My life loves me, and I'm like a nine year old on Christmas Eve pretty much every day.
I want that same feeling for every human out there because a lot of people don't love their life, and it's because of the fear operating system versus the abundance operating.
Stacy Havener: So what's interesting about what you said, there was a lot of interesting things, but the fact that you still love it and that you're still you, so I mean, we, our friendship grew on LinkedIn during Covid. Yes. And one of the things I loved about. Watching you there was like, you would just take a camera or something and just like point it at yourself and do your little rensen videos and I'm like, it's amazing that a, that you do it.
and you do it with such authenticity. It's not scripted. You're just talking. And that the business you've built is supportive of that because you are putting a face to a business that at this size and scale could lose it. It could lose its soul very easily if you weren't there to be, you know, that heart and soul of the biz.
And I wonder when, cuz so many founders are afraid to do that. They're terrified. And what advice do you have for
Ron Carson: them? Well, first of all, you can't comment on my videos without me comment on yours, , I You do. You're, and that's, I think why we connected is I love yeah, your take on life, your take on just things and people wanna connect and they just wanna connect with the person and the soul.
I'm selling something, you know, or manipul, like something, I'm just trying to speak my truth. That's where I, where I coach. and I do still coach and mentor other entrepreneurs that are stuck in this hedonistic treadmill. This was me. I wanna go back because up until about a decade ago, Stacy, I was miserable.
I had all kinds of material stuff. There's a gentleman who spoke at a conference. I was just, that I, we were both speaking at, uh, I guess name's Jess, Jesse Isk. I get the same, right? He's called the, um, spiritual billion. And, uh, he's very wealthy, but he says, if you don't have that side, I'm not gonna define what spiritual is, but I had zero of that.
I grew up in an atheist household and no spirituality whatsoever in our, in our house. And when I met my, one of my wife, she was Lutheran. I became baptized before we got married, but I still didn't connect. I mean, it was, uh, we went to the Lutheran, it was Missouri sin. It was very structured and they lost me when my father-in-law passed away was very close to, they wouldn't let me speak at his funeral because it was against their Missouri rule.
Oh, wow. I'm like, okay, now it pushed me even further away. Mm-hmm. . And then my mom passed away and I am. There's no joy. I'm getting up every day. I'm working. I'm sprinting. I think, well, maybe if I have more, more, more, more. And I kept getting that. Mm-hmm. other more number. And I felt emptier more alone and dissatisfied.
And I think I was on my way to having a nervous breakdown, all kinds of stuff. People on the outside looking in, all they could see is, oh, I'm on this list and I've got the success and this. And oh, you must have the perfect and like, man, if you only knew, there's a saying. We used to have in my YPO forum, the happiest people we know.
We don't know very. Meaning that you're seeing the facade. Wow. So I love working with people to help them free themselves. As I did. I worked with a therapist and I think the, and I had had a, you know, ZUS from a good therapist and a bad therapist, but his name's Korosh. I spent a week out in Venice.
California. It was intense, and it was after my mom died, I went into a deeper level of depression and despair, and even though felt like I shouldn't be there, I just couldn't explain why I was there, and he really helped me understand that I didn't need to run from scarcity anymore. That even if I did lose everything, is that really the end of the world.
The end of the world is living the life you're living. He helped me see and understand at the level, wow, you're already in help. You're already living. So you Oh my gosh. Yeah. Get any worse than where you're at. And he helped me feel that. And then, and this is a little controversial, but I am a big believer and I have personally done ayahuasca.
I have done some of the, and I, and you talk about a spiritual awakening. I know it's kind of like popular. Everybody's doing it back when I mm-hmm. did it. It was the first time I knew for certain that God existed. It was a first you talk. Power, and I had this epiphany during one of my sessions that, and this gave to, to this day, gives me so much power of understanding power of faith is that we think of all the disagreements, all the arguments, all the hate, all the killing around the religious beliefs, but we all have the same source.
There's nobody out there that can argue. We came from a different source. We all argue about how it all. But this allowed me to become spiritual. This allowed me to understand my purpose on this Earth is for a reason, and it really is to help people live a higher, better life where they have an advocate and that ascension, you know, to that level.
And so I do it now for other people. Nothing gives me greater joy, you know, to be able to take someone from, and I, last year I was responsible for a handful of people quitting their jobs cuz they hated 'em. Mm-hmm. , they were there cause of the money. Yeah. And every one of those, right, they quit, walked away from something they'd never envisioned they could ever walk away from or living the, they're happier than they've ever been.
And they're making many cases way more, but in a couple cases way less. But they didn't need.
Stacy Havener: Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that. What I would call kind of the messy middle. Yeah. In some ways. And I think that's a part of our journeys that people are very reluctant to share. So that was 10 years ago, and you kind of alluded to this with the people you've helped.
I'm wondering 10 years ago, uh, when you were in it, Verse now, after doing all of this work and really leaning into more of who you are and what's important to you, and finding this, these other sides that, you know, the day-to-day nine to five wasn't supporting, after doing all of that, are you more successful now than you ever imagined you would be?
Ron Carson: That that's, that's the crazy thing. Like I was worried about scarcity, worried about all, as soon as I started. Yeah. As soon as I moved from fear to abundance. All of a sudden I started attracting people into my life. Stacy, from all kinds of places, unexpected, the universe keeps score. You know, as I book, the Body Keeps Score, the universe set right?
It does reward those that trust in its power and our success has accelerated exponentially. But with that, and I believe this into the center of my. It was divine intervention because of the impact that I, that I wanna have, need to have am having.
Stacy Havener: That's amazing. Thank you for sharing that. And I hope that as people listen to this, they don't only kind of get to know maybe some other sides of you and some other parts of your story, but I think when we hear someone share their story, it helps us have touchpoints to our.
Because maybe there's something similar that we went through, right? Maybe, maybe people listening to this say, gosh, I'm in that place right now, or, I, I hate my job and I don't know what I'm doing, and I, I don't have this. Or they listen to your story and say, if Ron can do this, if Ron can lean into this and share his story and look at what he's.
Built and is building. If he can do it, so can I. And that's
Ron Carson: incredibly entire, that's really the message now is I have been where you're at. I know what you're feeling. I know that sometimes it's a perceived perception that what we, how people want to think about us, but it's not true to how we feel. But I'm on the other side.
Mm-hmm. and I can pull you through to the other side and I, in this journey and it's safe. I'll grab your hand. You're on the side. You don't want to be, there's a cliff. There's a massive chasm to chart. Come. I can help you. Yeah. Get to the other side of this
Stacy Havener: and that right there. Everyone listening. That is the difference between being the hero and the guide because Ron just took the story and said, I am not the hero.
I'm the guide to the hero and that is brilliant. Well, I wanna end with something that I love. Um, I hope you do, and this is sort of my version of proof's questionnaire and this questionnaire, I don't know, I should probably know what year dates back to, but the idea was that there were these questions that you can ask people.
Give you an insight into who they are and I think you've done a, just a, a wonderful job of sharing who you are today in general. But we're still gonna do the questions cuz they're also kind of fun. Okay. So you can answer the questions in one word, you can do a couple sentences, whatever the first question is, what book inspires you?
Ron Carson: Outwitting The Devil by Napoleon Hill. Okay, now I wanna say just
Stacy Havener: me. I'm like writing them all down. Start,
Ron Carson: it's a original book. Think and Grow Rich.
Stacy Havener: I'm,
Ron Carson: yeah. Which everyone talks about a success early on. It gave me the ability to believe in myself and my mind. And then I recently, cuz they, they'd only released it I think in like 2017, maybe 13.
Outwitting the Devil. It's really.
Stacy Havener: Okay, love that. Staying with inspiration, what place inspires you?
Ron Carson: Wherever I'm at.
Stacy Havener: Oh God, that's a great answer. And I believe that that's, it is true. Yeah. Wow. That is good. Okay, switching gears. Let's pretend, let me paint a little picture here. Okay. You're, and maybe you've already done this, but I'm still gonna paint anyway, so you're at a stadium.
And this is like the Ron Carson concert. and you're about to walk out into this, you know, 20, 30,000 of your true fans, , or fans, and what song do they play as you're walking? Dream Weaver them.
Ron Carson: Ooh, . And by the way, I got a dream. We started this foundation 11 years ago. We provide end of life dreams for the terminally ill elderly in.
and we called it Dream Weaver because of the lyric. That's the play. Absolute favorite song.
Stacy Havener: That is so great. Okay. What profession, other than your own, would you like to
Ron Carson: attempt a singer? Rock? I like a sing. I like to be able to sing, you
Stacy Havener: know? That's amazing. And I mean, hi, I already told you you're gonna have a concert, so we're putting that out as the universe.
There we
Ron Carson: go. I work for a year and I. Sang to my daughter and my kids are like, oh. So I, I, uh, it was way outta my comfort zone and my daughter about had a nervous breakdown, and then , I practiced enough that it sounded okay. . That's
Stacy Havener: amazing. Okay. Well, okay, so staying with professions, what profession would you not like
Ron Carson: to do?
Oh, man, I can't, I don't think anything, I don't think I would like any. not like to do is probably all of them. But what I'm doing, because I'm at a point in my life, Stacy, is that I get to do what I want to do and I'm choosing to do. So anything else would be less desirable. Yeah, that's
Stacy Havener: great. Anything else besides what you're doing right now?
Love that. Okay. Now this is an interesting one because, because we just talked about legacy in the hundred year firm and all of these things, but let's say, I'm not gonna use the word, the R word, I'm not gonna use retire. , but what do you want people to say about you? After you've left the
Ron Carson: industry, he made my life better.
That
Stacy Havener: was amazing. Perfect. Well, you make my life better every time we talk. Ron, thank you for being so candid and sharing with us today. Um, if people wanna connect with you and follow your, your work, , what are the best ways to do that? I know you're on
Ron Carson: LinkedIn. I really, I mean, I'm on Instagram's and Twitter, but my team does that.
LinkedIn, I do all my own stuff. So if you send me a message on LinkedIn. Okay. I'm on LinkedIn every day and I, and I little, if you enjoy the videos, I cut a couple of, uh, a week and there are a couple of minutes and, uh, but yeah, you can reach out to me on
Stacy Havener: LinkedIn. Thank you for
Ron Carson: being here, Laura. Thank you for having me.
I appreciate.
Stacy Havener: This
Ron Carson: podcast is for informational
Stacy Havener: purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. The information is not an offer, solicitation, or recommendation of any of the funds, services, or products, or to adopt any investment strategy. Investment values may fluctuate and past performance is not a guide to future
Ron Carson: performance.
All opinions expressed by guests on the show are solely their own opinion and do not necessarily reflect those at their
Stacy Havener: firm. Manager's appearance on the show does not constitute an endorsement by Stacey Havener or Haven or Capital Partners.
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