Ryan Alford (Recorded) [00:00:01] On today's episode of the Radical Company podcast, I sat down with a good friend and business partner Patrick Garner. Patrick Garner founded Generation Success, a new platform for personal development and growth for 10 to 15-year-olds. This is going to be a world-changer, a dynamic platform. It couldn't be needed more. And in today's society, there are personal development and growth opportunities for us adults that have learned so many bad habits through the ways and are stubborn in our own ways. If we can get to children and young adults before they develop those habits, give them a purpose, give them great fundamental focus on the things that matter, and get them in the right headspace for success in business and finance, in personal development and in physical fitness. It will be a game-changer. Really enjoyed my sit-down with Patrick. We go in-depth on personal development and what made Patrick develop this where we're headed with GenS. Hope you enjoy the episode. 

Ryan Alford [00:01:32] This is Ryan Alford with the Radical Company Podcast, excited to be joined today. We spoke earlier in the year with Patrick Garner. Patrick joins me today. We wanted to catch up and give everyone an update of where we're at with Generation Success, that’s GenS for short. Excited about this program where it's headed, all the work that's been done to date by Patrick and his team. I'm honored to be part of that team helping bring GenS to life. We've gotten into our beta phase and are thrilled to have you, Patrick, back on the podcast to tell everybody where we're headed. 

Patrick Garner [00:02:14] Thanks for having us. And, as you said, from conception and what we were talking about multiple months ago to now, so many things would change. But, they will change for the better and I am excited about it. 

Ryan Alford [00:02:35] Patrick and I have been friends and acquaintances going on 20 plus years back to the high school days, played basketball together and have stayed in touch over the years mainly through digital connections and things like that, but rekindled a year ago or so and started talking. And Patrick brought me up to speed. But I guess for everyone listening, Patrick, let's back up and talk about what brought GenS to life and your perspective for everyone listening Generation Success is going to be modern leadership training and personal development training for 10 to 15-year-old boys and girls. Let's talk a little bit about what brought you to this place. 

Patrick Garner [00:03:34] So from my end, I'm just anybody else. I got out of school trying to figure out what I'm doing. I did a few pretty cool jobs that were fun while learning some sales and business stuff. One of them was in Philadelphia when I lived there for a couple of years. I always knew I wanted to move back here to Greenville for multiple reasons. Greenville was not nearly as cool and awesome as it is now back then. But still, it was home and my family was here. So my wife and I met when I was living in Philadelphia. And the first opportunity I got here was with a giant company. It looked like a good opportunity but was not because it was a public company. They were doing things based on driving stock prices, maybe we're not looking out after the client. But it was cool to see that approach because you sometimes got to understand what not to do before what to do. So I saw that firsthand and then somewhat stepped into an opportunity with a private company that is a global company and very big on partnership and very big on you just running your own business in your area. And it's a manufacturing company that's been around since 1795. And I love the team approach. I'm an athlete and it does not resonate with me and they push you to be a part of that team and be a valuable part of that team. So when I got that opportunity, we had a very young family. My first son was about to be born, who is 12 now.

Ryan Alford [00:05:57] Where does the time go? 

Patrick Garner [00:05:58] Life became very real for me at the time. And I don't know why it hadn't become this real before. And, I got this opportunity and something in me clicked. I've never accepted some of these challenges even as a college athlete, unfortunately, I have to look back and I was committed and maybe just didn't put it all out there all the time. And that showed in and out of my career. And I didn't want that to happen again. And this just happened to be a business. So I started thinking about how can I become the best part of this team and the best person I could be to take advantage of the situation. And so I started looking into ways to do this. And I met a couple of guys, Walker McKay and Bill McCreery, and they worked for Sandler Training at that time. And they just became a huge part of my growth. And I started working with them, ended up working with them for seven years and was religiously there every Friday, 10:30 A.M. and made a huge jump in the business part of it. But I started noticing way more personal growth. And so I became somewhat obsessive about personal growth at that time because I saw such a difference in relationships with my friends, family, of course, wife, brand new baby. And I started seeing what a life-changing thing I could be. I knew it was for me, but something in me made me think, “I've got to help other people”. That may not know this is out there in the way I was learning it, which was more personal, and then if you get your personal stuff together, good things happen from a business standpoint typically. So if you're good with you, other people are going to be good with you. 

It cannot be more true because just think about the attitude you show up to work out. I mean, if you are there. Without a purpose, without intention, without a love for what's going on, and you have and love for yourself, right? People know that and people sense that and you attract unfortunately if it's good, you're attracting good to you. And, if it's bad, a lot of bad people show up and it just happens. So that became a big part of our life is really figuring out what vehicle do I share my experiences with? And I knew, “hey, what type of team did I need to do this?” At first, I thought it was going to be with other adults. And so I partnered with the group that I had worked with, Sandler, a global group. They have tons of resources, tons of unbelievable content. And we develop a program for pro athletes. And then a lot of people I knew in the medical field are like, you got to do the same thing for like residents at hospitals and people in the medical field. So we did both of those. And the common we met with. I got to meet with cool NBA teams and development guys for the NBA teams and then coaches. Really cool groups of people that led hospitals and got to be in some really awesome meetings and everybody in these meetings like we have to do this, this will be a game changer for us. From a player standpoint, they're like, this is the missing piece of the puzzle and I kept thinking, I see all these horrific stories about how these guys either lose all their money or have their personal life just absolutely go to shambles and it falls apart for them. So everything started coming together about people saying they wanted to work with us and really wanted to get engaged. But then when this went up the chain to the decision-makers, meaning the head coach, the owner of the teams, the hospital hierarchy that wasn’t in that room, you kept hearing, I don't know that our people will take the time to do this, albeit a life-changing possible opportunity. They may not see it as important, as important as we do for them to take the time. The NBA coaches were like, if we're not on the court trying to help us win more games, we're not interested. And so it was somewhat shocking to see that everyone in the room said, “Yes, we have to do this,”. But then once it became time to put the time and resources into it from their end, they couldn't get commitments. And I remember after one of the last meetings, I thought. The adults just can't get out of their own way to do this. There's something here about the comfort zone of their current day in, day out routines. They can't get out of that. And they want to say, hey, we don't have the time to do it. But obviously, it came down to a commitment and getting out of a comfort zone. Here's how we've always done it. And this is different from what we've always done? And so it just came to me. I remember leaving one of the meetings in the car and thought. Could you get to these people before they become adults and before these comfort zones get so strong, which would mean working with kids? 

So it started there of me thinking about from the kid’s standpoint. And then after that, once I started digging into it, what I realized is there was nothing like that out there that had a purpose of reaching hundreds of thousands of kids, possibly millions of kids. It was all done in little small, in a part of the city like South Boston. Mark Wahlberg and these people are doing phenomenal things. But it's so small. It's you're affecting kids. But you're not getting out to multiples of kids? And so that really is when I started thinking, how do you do this? I'm not a child psychologist; that's not where my expertise lies. But I was like, I've got to find some people here that could bring this to life. And so I don't want to do things just for the sake of it. So after all of it, we are sitting here and you've been very instrumental in helping bring the idea to life, which I found out when I came to you. And I feel, “I'm not sure how to do this, but this is what I want to do.” And you've helped tremendously in the skull sessions of, “How do we do this?” And then on my end, I had to find the experts and we finally got that lined up. So it was pretty awesome. 

Ryan Alford [00:14:20] So I have four boys and you think about where society is and you think about all the distractions and you think about the video games, which has been part of our story. Like, people immediately get it seeing my kids are doing that and the outlets are sports and the parents are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on sports and improving the children, and I call them children. I mean, they're young adults, but they're still children, in that 10 to 15-year-old range. There's nothing out there that really is available that develops kids in this way. And it just seemed like to me and I want you to speak to this, having your own kids it just seems like it is so over needed in today's society with just giving parents some help in this regard and not just the coaching, not just the physical, but the head, heart and hand. Share your perspective on the need in the market for this. 

Ryan Alford [00:15:53] It’s the knee-jerk reaction to almost every parent that I know is to push against the phones and the games and in the social media. But I always explain this, that it clicked, the light bulb came on when I heard it said this way, that is their world. Our world was not that OK. Our dad could come and our fathers could come and take the Atari. And that really dates me. But it could take the story in the end. I didn't know that was called that. It did, though. I thought of the wall, which I did on multiple occasions, and put it wherever he put it. That was a big deal for about one minute and then we went outside and played or we started wrestling each other and break in beds in the room, whatever the heck we were doing then. But today, if you do that, you can tell that you're taking a part of that kid's. Like an arm or a leg away. OK, so when the parents try to push against that and resist that so hard, the kid doesn't understand because that is their world. That's their environment. And, you mentioned Bill Courtright. Bill and I were talking about this and he said the worst thing you can do is tell the kid that their world is not right, that the world they live in is should be different and should be like your world and it just doesn't make sense to do that. So that's why a huge part of what we're going to do as we build this. We're going to embrace social media. We're going to embrace gaming. We're going to embrace things that these kids know and love, but we're going to bring it to them in a healthy, drive-oriented, goal-focused way that almost gives them the opportunity to do the gaming. If and when they work with us on our program and some of their some of the goals that we have for them. So if they integrate into our world a little bit, which is helping them develop the purpose and the values and really dig in on who they are, which we have to make fun of. And like we've always said, that this has to be fun for them. We're going to make it fun. It's going to be work, but we are going to embrace social media as a huge part of what we're going to do. We're going to develop an app that can compete with each other on the things that we're bringing to them. But that will also allow the parents it almost like if you earn your keep by doing what we're wanting you to do and asking you to do, then that gives you access to some of the gaming and some of the video games basically, like make it a reward, make it a positive thing, and not a negative one. Hey, you guys don't need to do that ever and take it from them. It's going to be more of a reward-based system to where they're competing in with our program and in what we're putting together for them through an app, having fun, communicating with their friends in a positive atmosphere. Not some of the atmospheres that are out there now are very adult-driven. The scariest part to me about the social media with the kids is that I've dug into my son's phone and he's 12 and he has no clue of what's going on. There are no bad intentions there. But there are bad people out there that try to dig into their world knowing their children. And that's the scary part about it, is when you figure out and find some of these people that you are clearly having bad intentions. And one of my major goals that will be achieved is that our social media site will be one of the coolest kid-friendly sites based around positive driving forces that are competition-driven, fun and hopefully their outlet for their social media use. 

Ryan Alford [00:20:36] It's interesting, I can want my kids to do anything and I'll add a little gaming component like cleaning the house. Who can pick up their stuff the fastest is going to get this piece. Or if I had a point system to anything like I'm trying to get them outside and once they get outside, they'll stay out there for hours, but to get them outside. And it's like immediate. It's like how they're wired.

Patrick Garner [00:21:13] I always make a joke with my sons. They both play baseball at a high level and are good at doing well and invite them and run and bases. And I'm like, we'll get done with the game. And like if we go home right now and your little sister takes your phone and runs through the backyard, I need you to run that fast. Not like a game like is not most people say game speed and it's like I say, little sister stole something from your speed, but again, it's that competitive. Yeah. I got to go get my little sister as opposed to like in a game you would think, OK, I want to run fast in the game. Use that in inter-family competitions. And that's what we want to make, is like our community is going to be a family and we want it to be competitive. And we want there to be some “winners and losers”. But the winning and losing will be done in a way that they are understanding that, hey, look, we're going to have a say, another competition next week or next month with something different. And it will be done in a positive fashion. But you've got to have competition. You've got to somewhat understand what failure is right now. And they just don't get that now. The kids are set up for success in their parent’s minds by all these. As you mentioned earlier, the countless hours that they're swinging a golf club or shooting a basketball or swinging a baseball bat or throwing a baseball, hundreds and thousands and hundreds of that, like dollars and dollars. And they think we all think by osmosis of being in these environments that they're going to learn all these things without anybody, like, truly telling them. And I, I just the more I dig into it, the more you realize that if you are hoping that they learn things from groups of people that they're just around, I think it's not going to work out as you want it to. 

Ryan Alford [00:23:23] My first boss had a saying hope is not a strategy. And I've told you, this is what I want to make sure and I said this at our event the other night. I look at myself truly as a connector in this. And I am the guy that's leading the personal development chart for us. I'm a client of his. So I'm the first one to throw my hand up and say, OK, whatever we do, not only are we going to help a bunch of people like, I want it for two in my family, so that's a fact and I'm constantly working on all this stuff I look at parenting is like the toughest job we have as adults. That is bar none, the toughest. And then Bill talked about at our event the other day, the legacy, the legacy has nothing to do with any monetary or stuff. It absolutely 100 percent lies in the kids that we're at some point and I'm leaving behind that will have families that will be teaching their kids and others. That's our legacy. I think, most people have a great idea or an idea that they think is a no-brainer of how people don't do this and then they look into it. And the more you and I, you've helped me a lot, the more we have done our homework on this, the more we realize that there is not. This does not exist in the way we're going to bring it to the table, which is fun. We're going to make it cool. We're going to embrace the game and we're going to embrace social media. We're going to basically embrace their world, but we're going to achieve some life lesson type goals within doing all this. So it doesn't exist now. It is going to be hard work to get it where we want it to. But we got a damn good group that I wouldn't fight against this. 

Patrick Garner [00:25:37] I think we got Karma and legacy on our side. I do want to talk a little bit about it, we'll have Bill on and get into the nitty-gritty of his philosophies and all that. So I'm not going to ask you to go there, but I'd love for you to give people a little bit of the nuts and bolts, starting with purpose and all that you've been through you going through Bill's stuff and how we're tailoring it to kids. We'll direct people to the website where they can get more information – the core phases of the program. 

Ryan Alford [00:26:17] I had seen a bunch of speakers and countless books about personal development and being better and business strategy and all those great things that have sold millions and millions of books. And the common theme is “do it like us and you'll be successful”. “This guy's great”. “He did it this way”. “If you copy his way, you can't lose and it was always based on someone else or some other huge company”. And you had to fit in bills. The first one that has something that is based around you and your physiology, your body, he’s big into understanding your health and fitness first because he feels that the food you put in your body and your exercise are the foundation for you being able to improve yourself. And so the foundation there is truly like the fuel you're putting in and figuring out this specific help, your health focus, not a health focus for everyone else. So you've got health and fitness are the core to get you in the right frame of mind and have your body operating in a way that you are ready. And then he specifically digs in on finding your purpose. And his theory is, and I think if you read at all, got to different books, including religious books, right now, all of us have a purpose. We are born with one purpose. And then you have to establish that purpose, not just to understand.  But in his words, where's that pendulum? So if you are, I will share it with everybody. So I'm a freedom purpose? And he's defined that to me is that my purpose is to reach out to others and develop things to allow people freedom from their comfort zones and their internal cage. So my purpose is freedom. My pendulum is control. So when I try to control the outcome of things by things that I focus on or do or say, then I'm not OK. That's when you go through these, you have a bad day. You're trying to tell everybody and shift everybody around to do what you want them to do as opposed to, sharing with others, making a team, everybody has goals, and then you just go do with a common goal to achieve whatever it is opposed to, you telling everyone instead of sharing telling versus sharing. So purpose. And then he's going to establish your five values? And then once you understand these things, then his whole program and system are based on. That is the core, so fitness and your health. Then your purpose, you understand your pendulum and then you've got your values, and then he's basically going through success principles and he's got eight success principles. And within those eight success principles, you are working on making sure that your day in and day out activities are aligned with your purpose and your values. And when. You get to a hurdle. Instead of that hurdle “stressing you out”, you understand that, OK, whatever this is in front of me, this challenge. Once I decide what I'm going to do to meet this challenge or overcome this challenge, then you do it, per purpose, per values, per who you are at the best of your ability, and then you allow it to happen as opposed to try to force things to happen and living in this way and really believing in what Bill is talking about, things just become the stress goes away because you're not trying to force and control. You are understanding who you are and how to optimize who you are. And then. You just basically you're getting things done, but you're getting things done that really align with who you are not trying to be, someone else not trying to tell somebody something they want to hear because that will help you control the situation. It really gets you to become as transparent as you possibly can because you believe in yourself and then in turn you somewhat believe in others more. And you're also believing in that the less stress and control and force you to have in any situation being family business. The better the outcome typically will be so that's the foundation I would challenge everybody to check Bill's podcast out, LIVE with Bill Courtright. Truly awesome. If you're a believer and set in the day and ending the day set to begin the day or even throughout the day, if you're a driver, a driver driving around for work or sitting in the office, he is very clear and concise on a lot of these principles in his podcast. And it's very uplifting, but it's also very in-your-face. No one else is going to do them for you. And like you said, it's a hope that these things are achieved without you putting in the time and effort into it and being mindful. He's big on that word, just being mindful of what's happening and being aware that if you're having a bad day, there's a reason for that. And that reason typically is staring, staring you in the mirror. Don't blame. It's on you and it's on you too if you're having a bad day, have a bad day for an hour. Figure it out and get over it and move on. So when we get home to the wife, to the kids, or if you get to work again, then there's your positivity. And, if your source is at a high level and you've got a positive way about you, then others somewhat follow that and are what they say, like a high tide raises all ships. And that's a big part of what he believes. So even if your significant other does not somewhat become a client of his or work on themselves on personal development, your source is going to raise that of your significant other. And for sure, your kids are going to see that. 

Patrick Garner [00:34:07] We've talked about this terminology, but kids that get involved with this, it's almost like they get to cheat sheet to life because like what we've said like they're hacking their way. But not it's not a hack, really. It's just this prime age getting ahead of it, if kids will get in this program, can get in this mental headspace and adopt these principles and really grow with the program, it will be life-changing because we've gone through our own journeys. And, if I can't even imagine where I might, I feel like we both had ups and downs and successes and failures like everyone has. But it doesn't, it's not a magic fairy dust or anything that makes everything perfect. But I can only imagine I've put myself off as we've brainstormed and thought about these things.

Ryan Alford [00:35:11] If you think about when you're a kid and then going into college especially, there are those plateaus that a lot of kids can skirt through and get somewhat of a free pass. If you're smart, your family is if they're somewhat of a positive influence, if you got a good environment at home, if you're a good athlete, a lot of kids skate through the middle school and they get through high school. But then that college you even if you're an academically driven student or if you're sports-driven from a play in a college sport, you start to realize it's like, OK, I said earlier, layback is the life. The real well life becomes real for the first time. It did for me when I realized, everyone here is good. And I've got to be the best I can be at first just to compete, not to be a star. Everybody goes into these things, I'm sure, I wasn't like a valedictorian. I wasn't a bad student, but I definitely wasn't competing for academic scholarships. And again, it was just focus-driven. I was focused on sports at that time. But from a sports day, a point you think you're going to show up and it's just going to happen. And we had someone speak the other night that Spencer Cole, who had everything going for him, was a no-brainer. But then when it came to playing and actually being part of that, I didn't even know how this worked like playing golf. But if you're not in that top seven, then you're not playing, you're not even playing in the tournament. And Spencer, did he play in the first multiple tournaments? And he is there as much as he had everything going for him. And as much as he was prepared, he wasn't prepared to hit a wall and he hit a wall. So agreed on that end. And then from a business standpoint, if you think about it. The network that we will be able to give these kids, once we get this to where we want to want to, not just in Greenville, but as we scale it the network is going to be phenomenal when it comes to doing internships. We've talked about the power of the internships and partners will be able to create for these kids to go and see what these businesses are like before they actually hit the real world. They'll see real life. We don't have to tell them about it all the time. We're going to let them see it. And then once they do get into whatever their chosen field, I mean, the network they'll be able to rely on will be unbelievable. And if I feel like you either are going to resonate with the plateau's that we're talking about from high school to college. You're going to have heard a bunch of personal stories like,  “my freshman year was the biggest nightmare ever”. I've heard a lot of those, but then I've heard other people that think as the vision of, “oh, this is like an unbelievable business connection, network opportunity for these kids as they get to be professionals”. Never a bad thing to get a head start there either. So I think it is all phases of the game that we will make an impact that will be life-altering for not just the kids, but for the families now. Because we had Heather Gail speak the other night and she is the doctor, she's the brain, the science. And she's putting all that in. The more I've heard her speak like brain development, all those things. I mean, this is real life stuff here. And she made a comment the other night to the group and has made it to you and me both are like she works with kids that are having challenges. And she said I don't want as many clients as I have. I will if I have a client. I would love for it to be on the front end to get ahead of some of these things. If your kid does have ADHD or some of these things that sometimes are looked at as negative, she is explaining to us scientific fact terms that it doesn't have to be negative. There are ways to deal with this that are not, like crash and burn type things where the family comes to her and is not in a good place. She wants to get in front of it and ahead of it. And so when she gave her her story and what she saw as some goals for us to have on her, and that that was pretty awesome. And you heard that, too. So that made me even more passionate. Everybody says I'm passionate about it, but that got me driving pretty hard. To hear someone that deals with that space say those things was very powerful. 

Ryan Alford [00:40:53] Well, I think, we'll be touching base. We'll get Bill on and we have Heather on. Dr. Rich Constantine's involved. People can go to GenS.life. Anyone listening to that wants to follow along. We'll be developing our application and website and social platforms over the next few months. But what an exciting program! 

Patrick Garner [00:41:26] Yeah, it's going to be fun. And we are getting to that adage of the rubber's hitting the road here or we're getting our families lined up and we've got some awesome follow-ups from our event. And people are very excited and interested. Now we've got to develop a following from a partnership standpoint to do what we want to do from social media and from to play in the world that these kids play in. There's a lot of development from a standpoint of the electronic and the gaming world. We've got to do that. And we are going to need to have people who see the vision and believe in the purpose to join us and help us build it. So we're definitely looking into who sees the vision. 

Ryan Alford [00:42:55] Very good. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. 

Patrick Garner [00:42:57] Thanks so much for listening. This is the Radical Company podcast and we'll talk soon.