Building Your Dream Team: Why Professional Networks Matter With Charlie Garcia

John Corcoran: 13:57 Not easy to do. Oh, so you could just call them up and open a bank account, I guess. Charlie Garcia: 14:03 No, no. You could get a Po box at a UPS. John Corcoran: 14:07 Okay. Got it. Okay. Charlie Garcia: 14:08 With that address, you could open the account. You can’t do that today. But yeah. So I had these seeds all over the place, and we had a 37% compounded annual return for four years. So we had a phenomenal track record. And then that led into. John Corcoran: 14:25 What were the 500 bank accounts for? Charlie Garcia: 14:29 So if you had an account at a savings and loan and they decide to go public. John Corcoran: 14:34 Oh, you just wanted to get in on the friends and family for all these different banks, I see. Okay? Charlie Garcia: 14:39 Well, not friends because they’re a mutual savings bank they would have to offer. John Corcoran: 14:45 Oh. Got it. Okay, okay. Charlie Garcia: 14:47 You’re almost like a shareholder, and you could buy up to 4.9% of the shares. So. Okay, anytime these banks went public we would then buy up to our maximum. I see sometimes we would try to find other people who weren’t buying so we could increase it. John Corcoran: 15:07 Okay. So now there was a little thing with the savings and loans that happened at some point in this story here. For those younger people who haven’t heard of this, did you get caught holding the bag at some point? Did this catch up to you? Charlie Garcia: 15:20 No, that actually was a great thing for us because it allowed us to buy undervalued assets. So we were really fortunate. And then if we had banks that weren’t performing or they didn’t, because then the banks would go public in 2 or 3 years, they’d be acquired by somebody else. So we would start proxy battles. It’s something that the law changed in 92. I graduated from law school in 94. So we became what we were in the Wall Street Journal. We were in the Washington Post back in the day. We were making and bringing on board of directors to make them much more professional. So that’s how it really got started. But then I went from that into building a broker dealer, managing money, opening offices in Latin America. And where I saw the opportunity was in the US Hispanic market. I spoke Spanish, I grew up in Latin America. People said, you’re wasting your time. Nobody, you know, Hispanics don’t have money, so I took out commercials on CNBC. Also on Univision, Telemundo, and in 5 or 6 years we became the like bank of choice for Hispanics in the US and then wealthy clients in Latin America. So when I sold the company in zero six, I sold the US operation and I kept my offshore operations, and I sold that to UBS. In 2012, UBS took, you know, 2 or 3 billion assets. And with their brand and that base, they grew it to 150 billion in Latin America. John Corcoran: 17:15 Wow. Wow. Charlie Garcia: 17:17 And the guy that I hired in 2000 stayed with them until 2022. He got picked off by another big Swiss bank that was expanding. Spanning. John Corcoran: 17:30 But now, is there a part of you that looks back at that and feel like I missed out on a lot of upside potential? Or do you say, you know what, I took it as far as I could. I did great, and I’m glad that it was successful after I left. Emotionally, how do you feel about that? Charlie Garcia: 17:49 Well, you know, I had an amazing board of directors that convinced me I should sell the US operations in. There was a guy named Max Chapman who was the CEO and chairman of Kidder. Peabody. Sold it to GE, became the president. Nomura, vice chairman of Amex, the first American to be on the board of a Japanese company. And he basically convinced me that it was time to sell, and I’m glad I listened to him. We cleared Bear Stearns and Bear Stearns several years after we sold. Wasn’t around, which would have caused a lot of issues. Now I’m very happy that I kept it. I only sold the US operations because the other sale did so much better than the first. And you know, they bought what I had to offer and I didn’t have the brand name to build it to that scale. There was Swiss bank UBS. Yeah. So they had the infrastructure and they ran it like the Swiss bank. It was not you know, UBS was a US company following US rules. The Latin American UBS was, you know, if you had your money in Panama or Mexico or Chile, it was just like you had it in Switzerland. John Corcoran: 19:15 And I want to ask you about so in 2002, I believe it was when you’re running the company, it was a number eight, fastest growing privately held company in the US. You were named entrepreneur of the year by three different organizations. Did you ever burn out in that period of time? It sounds like a massive growth. And if you didn’t burn out, how did you avoid burning out with that amount of growth in that time period? Charlie Garcia: 19:41 You know, I was younger, so I could always, you know, focus on having a very, very good team and I would always take time. I’m a surfer. I grew up on the ocean. So I would take off. I would spend time surfing. We also started building the international branches, which was fun. But it burned out and it was tough. Also, when you’re married, you have young children and you know, if I had to do it again, I would have done things much differently. I did get divorced in 2006, and you know, a lot of that was because you’re running, you know, 24 over seven, you’re opening an office in Greece and Chile, and next thing you’re opening an office in Spain and the UK. And it’s a heavy lift when you’re the face of the company. What what had happened is, you know the PR team initially said look, there’s Merrill Lynch, there’s Goldman Sachs, there’s Charles Schwab. These are brands around individuals. So if you want to have people trust you to put their money in your firm, you have to be the face of the company and you have an advantage in that. You’re fluent in Spanish and you can have commercials or do interviews in Spanish. But I also started writing for CNN, and I was on Telemundo, Univision, CNN, Fox. So that was exhausting, to tell you the truth, but I did have a good process in place to grow and scale the business, and I hired good people. You know, and in retrospect, you know, companies that scale quickly tend to replace their entire management teams three times in ten years. So you have to be really disciplined because the person that got you from 1 million to 5 million in revenue is not going to be the one that gets you from 5 to 100, and the one that gets you from 100 to 1 billion will be somebody else. There are different skill sets, and when you’re small, you can’t afford that plus plus talent. You don’t have money and you’re too small. John Corcoran: 22:05 Yeah. Charlie Garcia: 22:06 So you have to keep upsizing. And it’s also not fair for the people that you know, you keep growing and their capabilities aren’t aren’t good enough. John Corcoran: 22:19 What did you learn during this time period where you’re having to up level your own skill set? Who did you learn from? You didn’t have a, I imagine, a Ypo or a Tiger 21 or an R360 at that time to turn to. So how did you learn these things that you need to replace your management team? Those sorts of lessons. Charlie Garcia: 22:41 So I did have in 2002, I got very lucky. I was introduced to Ypo and to Vistage. It used to be called tech when I joined, so I joined them both at the same time. So I had this kind of unofficial board of directors. And then I had, you know, people like John Whitehead who made the introductions to, you know, a guy like Max Chapman. Why would he talk to me? So I was disciplined enough to get a real board of directors and, and have real accountability and transparency and listen to them. And then I had my ypo and my vistage, which was monthly. And in Vistage you have someone that comes once a month. I called them my business shrink and he, Harvey Gellman. He has since passed, but he was a chief operating officer of a New York Times, you know, public company. So he was a super seasoned guy. And I learned a lot in Ypo and Vistage from the other members. And I got smart, you know, really fast. John Corcoran: 23:57 Yeah. Charlie Garcia: 23:57 But I think always believing and being totally transparent. And I had shareholders and I raised money, and most of the individuals that put money into the company were very seasoned business executives that had cash flowing, businesses that allowed them to make, you know, speculative businesses or Their investments in, you know, in a small company like mine. John Corcoran: 24:23 I want to take a little bit of a detour and ask you about you. Kind of went back to your roots. You’d gone to the Air Force Academy and you went back and you served as chair of the board of visitors at US Air Force Academy, appointed by both Presidents Obama and Bush. You were the second longest to hold the position after Senator Barry Goldwater. I’m always a bit fascinated by people who returned to their roots and what that’s like for you emotionally, having been, you know, a cadet and then rise to that level. What was that like, kind of going home again, so to speak? Charlie Garcia: 24:55 Well, you know, I got a call from Tilly Fowler. They call her the Steel Magnolia. She’s a congresswoman, one of the first women on the Armed Services Committee. And she’s in the Orlando area. And there’s a sexual assault scandal at the Air Force Academy. They issued a report. Nobody was demoted. No one No one was really held accountable. She was really upset. So she formed a seven person panel, came out with 26 recommendations. That and a couple of generals got demoted. And one of the problems is they have a board of visitors that is supposed to meet four times a year. But yeah, they weren’t always there. Four senators, four congressmen, seven presidential appointments, and now they want it okay. For meetings mandatory. And also, the military would kind of decide what the agenda was going to be. So she called me and said, hey, I want you to do this. And I said, why should I? Said, well, because I’m asking. And I said, well, I’m busy and I’m, you know, I retired as a captain. You, you know, shouldn’t you get a general? And she said, look. When you were at the Air Force Academy, you disenrolled 60 cadets in one year for violating the honor code. There wasn’t an honor scandal. You did it. That’s never happened since or before. And that indicated to her that that you’re going to go do these things and you’re not going to take said you’re not co opted by the system. You have nothing to gain. So I said, well, is the president going to back me up if I do this? So she she assured me that would happen. So I became the chairman of the Board of visitors. And I had to clean up this, this mess at an institution that gave me a lot. And I had to, you know, set the agenda. It’s my agenda. I have a four star general sitting next to me. I have a superintendent with three stars, and then I have the secretary of the Air Force. I have four US senators, four members of Congress. John Corcoran: 27:17 This is intimidating. Charlie Garcia: 27:19 Yeah. One of the members of Congress now is the governor of Colorado. And I had to lead. And that’s what I did. And I was there to clean up a mess, and I did. And then I found other things that needed to be done and when. John Corcoran: 27:37 What was the hardest? John Corcoran: 27:38 Mess to clean up during that time period while you were there? Charlie Garcia: 27:44 Look, some of it was, I had to go to the president 3 or 4 times just because the military was withholding data and information that I needed. Wow. You know, getting the senators, the congressmen, the other presidential appointments on board, understanding our authority, the new authority. Because all of a sudden we had this, this new authority. I got lucky because the dean was appointed a one star general who was a classmate of mine. And she was extremely helpful. But it took a few years to get the rhythm down. And I think also, you know, like we have a new secretary of defense, right? And he was a lo you know, he was an officer. But having you know, you’re a captain. John Corcoran: 28:43 Yeah. Charlie Garcia: 28:44 People in my class at the time were colonels. Maybe that was a one star general by then, but I don’t think so. So the way that they look at you is like, you know, if I had stayed in the military, I’d be like a colonel. I’m here telling generals and secretaries of the Air Force what to do. John Corcoran: 29:04 Yeah. Yeah. Charlie Garcia: 29:05 And I have one of these. John Corcoran: 29:07 It’s incredible, its culture is incredibly hierarchical. Charlie Garcia: 29:13 Yeah, that was the tough thing. But for whatever reason, because of the White House fellowship experience, I was not scared of it. I mean. John Corcoran: 29:25 You weren’t you weren’t intimidated by going to the president and reporting up. Charlie Garcia: 29:29 The. John Corcoran: 29:30 Chain or going beyond the chain, I guess. Charlie Garcia: 29:33 Yeah. What? In my first week working for Bill Bennett, he needed to get 15 Black Hawk helicopters for an ambassador in Bolivia. And the military told them they didn’t have them. Well, I said, that’s ridiculous. Of course they have them. So he said, well, go meet so and so and so and so and well, that, so and so and so was a three star Marine Corps general. And I walk in with a suit and I’m sitting down and I didn’t stand up fast enough. And he started he and his entourage screaming at me like, you better know where your bread is buttered and blah, blah, blah. And a week later, you know, Bennett got his helicopter. So having that experience with the military. I learned and part of the reason honestly also that I went to law school is when I was done with my White House fellowship, I was so effective for Bill Bennett, and the military at that time really wanted nothing to do with the war on drugs that my new assignment I showed. I show up to the Defense Intelligence Agency, and they tell me that my new assignment is going to be the analyst for the Nicaraguan Navy. And I said, well, the Nicaraguans don’t have a navy. I said, exactly. So, you know, one of my mentors was General John Galvin in Panama. I worked directly for him. Now he’s a four star general, NATO supreme Allied commander, and he wrote a letter to Colin Powell on my behalf. But I saw the writing on the wall, so it wasn’t going to work. So I left and went a different direction. Went to law school. Yeah, but coming back to the Air Force Academy, I have a law degree. I’ve been a White House fellow. I’ve worked for presidents, multiple presidents at this time. To me, the military and the Air Force Academy had a serious, serious sexual harassment issue that needed to be corrected. And I was there not for my own glorification, but to correct it. I had a roadmap. John Corcoran: 31:45 I’m sure you’re. I’m sure you’re thinking this. You know, this. The US Air Force gave me so much. This is my role to help save this institution and preserve it, you know, for future generations. Charlie Garcia: 31:58 Absolutely. And one of the other things I saw, you know, diversity, inclusion has gone the wrong way? Certainly. But when I was there, there were 1200 new cadets coming in with a $400,000 scholarship. And I asked, well, why are there only 28 African Americans and 22 Hispanics? It made no sense to me. John Corcoran: 32:24 Out of how many? Out of. Charlie Garcia: 32:26 1200? John Corcoran: 32:27 Of 1200, yeah. And it was tiny. Charlie Garcia: 32:29 Because what was happening is that the Hispanic and the black members of Congress were not making the nominations that they should, and they were going to other people. It wasn’t because they didn’t exist. By the time I left, we had 300. And more importantly, their combined SAT score of those 300 African American Hispanics was higher than the 900 others that were because I wanted to make sure that, hey, we’re not We’re not in the game. All the Ivy leagues are taking the best. Brightest. You have like two people in your recruiting office. You’re not doing your job. You’re not spending the money. And if you did, because the military was saying they don’t exist and we can’t bring. John Corcoran: 33:19 And what did you do? What did you have to do? Did you have to go to the individual members of Congress that were nominating these candidates and say to them and point that out to them? And is that what we are? Charlie Garcia: 33:31 What we were doing was we first had to find out what the problem was, and the military wouldn’t give us the list. And I finally had to go to the president. And the reason they didn’t want to give us a list is that the then speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, was one of the ones making zero recommendations. And it wasn’t because any one of them was Anti-military or anything like that. The military didn’t want me to get the list because they thought we would make something out of this Nancy Pelosi thing, which we never did. What we did is we took the staffer to the academy. We showed them the benefit. We also showed them that they could use the franking system, which was free. Every time they nominated somebody, it photo op, it would be great. They would be giving the kids a $400,000 scholarship. And if you’re a congressman in an all African American district or Hispanic, obviously. John Corcoran: 34:36 No brainer. Charlie Garcia: 34:36 That you’re going to be. And once we educated the staff and showed that, look, this is not like a full time role. You can take a staffer and it could be 25% of their duty. We solve that problem very quickly. And they and all the assumptions that they were making that these kids didn’t exist. These people are anti-military. It was all nonsense. I did have an issue in LA, and there was a congressman who then became the attorney general, and under Biden, he was the head of HHS. He came up with a brilliant idea, and we brought special forces, Navy Seals, Marine Recon, and he filled up a high school full of gangs in LA and said, you guys think of this gang, this gang, this gang is the toughest gang. But I’m going to tell you about the toughest gang in the world. I don’t know if any one of you could even make it there. And all of a sudden, like, a Navy Seal comes out highly decorated. They start showing all these videos. Kid’s eyes were opened up, and all of a sudden, all these people wanted to see, well, hell, how can I graduate from high school, get good grades, and go to one of the service academies? We just had to talk to them in a way that. John Corcoran: 35:59 Yeah. Yeah. Charlie Garcia: 36:00 Made it, made it seem attractive. John Corcoran: 36:02 You mentioned right now that there’s kind of a backlash against the equity and inclusion movement, if that’s fair to say. We’re recording this in the beginning of 2025. You’ve done a lot of work to help Latinos empower Latino leaders. What are your thoughts on that? What is a solution to the current kind of culture that guys like? Charlie Garcia: 36:27 It went way off the, the skids and the it’s you got to give everybody an equal opportunity, not equal outcome. And you have to treat everybody equally and give them a chance. So I liked what they, you know, they’ve done in football and other other things where, hey, there’s a bias and that we, we tend if we’re interviewing to select people that look like us have the same background. But if I’m a manager and I want to look good, I want to hire the very best, the smartest, the most capable, and I don’t care what color they look like, what religion they are. I just want them to be super, super competent. And I think that in today’s day and age, people believe that they don’t care what your sexual preferences are, they don’t care what color you are. If you’re working in corporate America, they just want you to be a really good team member. And people do understand that if you have diversity of thought, it’s going to be more helpful because you’re going to get better ideas. But the whole idea was corrupted into something that it wasn’t. It went away from merit. And that’s why I think it’s so important that when we did this at the Air Force Academy, we were very We wanted to get African Americans and Hispanics that were better. John Corcoran: 38:00 Well, as you said, the numbers demonstrated it because their numbers were better than the underlying numbers. Yeah, yeah. Charlie Garcia: 38:06 Right. And we wanted to say no, no, no, no. These aren’t like if this person is black or brown and they’re sitting next to you, they’re smarter than you. John Corcoran: 38:17 Yeah. Exactly. Right, right. Charlie Garcia: 38:20 But that’s not what you saw over the last four years. And the president was on the, on the, you know, live TV today over the accident with the helicopter and the plane in, in, in Washington, DC. And it really has the pendulum has swung and like everything else, it now will swing to the other side. And maybe one day it’ll be somewhere in the middle and we’ll find the right balance. John Corcoran: 38:47 Yeah. I want to get to present day some of the projects you’re working on now. Or rather, let’s start with the pandemic. So you had been involved in Tiger 21. You’d been involved in Ypo, and at some point you started to form this idea of creating R360, which is for ultra high net worth individuals. And I have so much respect for people that create a community, because creating a community is so hard from scratch. So talk a little bit about the original origin idea, why you wanted to take on this Herculean task. Charlie Garcia: 39:23 Well, it goes back to signing up for a class when I was around 50 years old. Bill George, who’s an incredible leader, took Medtronic from 1 billion to 60 billion on the board of Goldman. Exxon. He went to Harvard Business School in 2002 to teach, and he wrote the book True North Authentic Leadership. I’m like, well, I’m an authentic leader. So I went to this 5 or 6 day executive program that he was teaching, and I found out I’m not an authentic leader because I didn’t know my life purpose and I couldn’t align them with my values. So I hired a coach from Ypo. It took me about a year, and I can now articulate very clearly that my life purpose is to inspire and connect others to achieve extraordinary things. It takes my three God given gifts. I like to teach. I like to coach. I like to lead. That’s the inspiring part. I like to write. At the time, I was one of the top 20 most connected people in the world on LinkedIn. Now I’m in the top 100. Since it’s grown so much, I’m just a natural connector. And then whatever organization I’m in, I’m the big I’m the strategy guy. What’s the big hairy audacious goal? We’re the people that we need. What is the differentiating product, and what’s the process that we’re going to use to grow and scale the company? That’s what I’m good at. That’s how those combine into my life purpose. And at the time I was doing like 23 different things, and I eliminated 20 of them because they didn’t align with my purpose. And then really understanding what your values are, which is really important, especially in a company. So George says, you know, told me, hey, Charlie, you should come to this one year advanced leadership class at Harvard where you’re going to learn from the best and the brightest. You can take any class that you want at any of the 12 colleges, which is great. You have to do the homework, but you don’t have to take exams or write papers. And at the end of it, you have to present what you want to do to change the world, to make an impact over the next 20 years. And everyone in your class was actually 45, and then half of them brought their spouses to be in the program as well. I went with my spouse to Cambridge. So it was an incredible learning experience. And then I taught at MIT for two years how to use behavioral analytics to lead high performing teams, which has always been a fascinating thing for me. So I’m trying to figure out what I should do next. I was in Ypo Vistage. I’d been eight years in Tiger 21 and Tiger 21. You need to have a net worth of $10 million, and it’s all about learning to become a better investor. And I was already a good investor when I joined Tiger 21, and I became even better learning all these different asset classes. But my belief is that wealth is much more than money. To me, wealth is not only financial capital. It’s also your intellectual capital, social, human, emotional and spiritual. And it’s a combination of those which I call the fishes because it spells fishes. And the other important thing is, and I mentioned it before, is, is values. And my number one value is honor, which is not only integrity but being transparent, protecting the privacy of other members in terms of our company excellence, relishing direct feedback and always getting better entrepreneurial grit, just being curious, open joy and and importantly, generosity of spirit. So I decided that if we could find people who had built a net worth of 100 million or more, and they had those values, and we could align them around an inspiring purpose, we could change the world. So I launched R360. And, you know, the website R360 global because I couldn’t buy R360 from a Chinese company. John Corcoran: 44:12 Yeah. Four letter domains. That’s so hard these days. Charlie Garcia: 44:15 Very hard. So our purpose is to architect an oasis for strategic wealth creators and their families to flourish. And flourishing families do certain things. They set an intention not only to build a great fortune, but a great family. They share their history and their family stories, repeated through the generations. So I have an award winning filmmaker. We do a film on each member, Not for ego, but how do you talk to your great great grandchildren that you’re never going to meet? How do you inspire them to live a purposeful life with all the blessings that you’ve created? Respect and encourage individual differences. I have four children. They’re totally different, and if you treat them all the same, you’re not going to maximize their full potential. And then how do you wisely allocate family capital to family members and worthy causes? And if my family is my human capital and I have a family enterprise, am I hiring a coach for them to help them professionally? Well, a really good coach costs 5 to 8000 a month. They don’t have that money, but I do. So many, many individuals have a liquidity event and all of a sudden they’re running a family enterprise. And if you have employees and they don’t perform, you get rid of them. But you’re kind of stuck with your family. Yeah. And getting your spouse or your kids like, oh, dad, I heard that. Heard that one too, dad. John Corcoran: 45:45 I have four kids as well right now. The youngest is six, and I can’t really picture them running a family business right now. Maybe when they get older. Charlie Garcia: 45:52 Yeah. So? So there’s a lot of things that you have to learn. And I thought if we could aggregate a thousand superheroes around the world that had these values and aligned around this purpose, and we created a philanthropic platform, not that we’re investing together, but if we have 20 individuals that want to take plastics out of the ocean, and we have a circle around that where they’re working together and increasing their impact to do that. I mean, how amazing would that be? I was just on the phone yesterday with Scott Harrison, who founded charity water. He’s brought 20 million people into the world. Water. He crossed the billion dollar mark that he’s raised a hundred million a year. I knew him when he was a $2 million a year non-profit. Now he’s over 100. He is a rock star. So we bring people like that to help our members. Like, hey, you’ve had a liquidity event, John. You’re worth like, you know, our average member now is worth 500 million. We have 138 and are growing quickly. And some of them are like, what do I do next? I said, dude, you’re like one of the most amazing entrepreneurs. We have 14 members that didn’t graduate from college. Eight of eight of the members didn’t go to high school, didn’t graduate from high school. Five of those eight are billionaires and their stories are just dyslexia. They got thrown out of school. And they’ve done amazing things. And now they really want to give back. And they and we help them and inspire them to not only and it’s not only giving money. So I was on the Florida State Board of Education for six years, and the reason I did it, not only because the governor, Jeb Bush, asked me to, but one third of Latino students were not graduating from high school. And by the time I left, they had the highest graduation rates in the United States, the highest percentage going to college. And if you think of the effect on the Florida economy from doing that, and Jeb Bush was just a great governor around education, and he really understood that. Well, I led his reading task force. A lot of the reason they were not graduating is because if you can’t read at grade level by fourth grade, by fifth grade, it really picks up. And we had a really bad reading program, so we had to do a lot of things structurally to change it, and I would say that if I had to say, well, what’s your greatest achievement? It’d be what I did there. And I didn’t give my time. So for six years, every month I was going to Tallahassee for a couple of days and helping, you know, I was one of seven members on and we had, you know, the budget at the time for Florida was 53 billion, and half of that was K-20 education. So it was a massive responsibility. Florida, because of what the governor did. And the board is the only state in the United States that increases substantially on the nation’s report card year to year. So they have one of the best school systems in the United States. John Corcoran: 49:36 I want to ask you about getting our 360 off the ground, because oftentimes it’s that initial few members, you know, the early days are kind of the hardest. How did you get it off the ground? Was it just, you know, people within your network and was it harder than you expected? Charlie Garcia: 49:53 You know, I surrounded myself with ten advisors that gave me advice I did not want to take. And I’m glad I did. So when I worked at a law firm when I was younger, I said the worst job in the world would be to be the managing partner of a law firm. John Corcoran: 50:14 Oh. Were you? Shoot me. Charlie Garcia: 50:16 Awful. John Corcoran: 50:16 Yeah. Yeah. Charlie Garcia: 50:17 60 or 70 big egos. Oh, yeah. To deal with them. And how are you going to split the profits? So their advice was, look, YPO is a nonprofit, Vistage is for profit. Then you also had, you know, these kinds of in-between companies that have a social purpose. And they convinced me you should have a partnership. And what you should do is go to 40 or 50 individuals that would become founding partners. And they and basically they would own up to 60% of the organization, but they’d write a check for $360,000, but they’d be partners and and you’d have. John Corcoran: 51:12 Interesting. So you’re giving away. So you’re basically giving away a lot of equity in this organization in order to get their buy-in and get them to help with building a critical mass of members. Charlie Garcia: 51:20 Right. But if they’re owning it, you know, 1 to 1, you know, over a percent. You give them something so they feel I’m a partner. John Corcoran: 51:29 Yeah. Charlie Garcia: 51:29 Guess what? They’re going to recommend people in their network. They’re going to be on the strategy committee. I have a comp committee. Yeah, I have all these different committees. John Corcoran: 51:39 Yeah. Charlie Garcia: 51:39 So they’re helping to build the business. And these are these serious entrepreneurs that 80% of our members are first time entrepreneurs. Many have had, you know, 2 or $3 billion exits. And I certainly couldn’t afford to hire them. But they’re now on your strategy committee, and. John Corcoran: 52:03 You get them bought into the mission and they’re more into it. So you took that advice and how did it play out for you? Charlie Garcia: 52:10 Took that advice. And look, you know, when you have 7 or 8 hard charging, very opinionated, smart entrepreneurs looking at stuff and telling you what to do, you just have to learn how to, you know, how to take feedback and how to work. And at the end of the day, it worked beautifully because now we’re at 100. And, you know, I think we just let in two people last week, incredible humans. And I was just laughing today because we had a team meeting. And there’s probably 20 members that I don’t even know which I guess is a good thing because we’re in New York, we’re in the Midwest, we’re in Texas, we’re in California, we’re Florida. We just opened Deer Valley in Utah. We have 6 or 7 members internationally. We even have groups there. But we are in Switzerland, London, Buenos Aires, Taiwan, Canada. And I’m meeting this week with someone that wants to open a Canada. We’ve been named the most exclusive private members club in the world by three organizations 72 applicants have been denied, including nine billionaires. I’m not on the membership committee. I’ve had several people that I’ve recommended that haven’t made it through. And while it’s uncomfortable when that happens, we’ve gotten much better in weeding out people before they go to the membership committee. John Corcoran: 53:49 And what disqualifies a person. Charlie Garcia: 53:53 What disqualifies them is one like, hey, I want to be involved, but I don’t want my spouse or kids involved. This is really a family thing. Unlike Tiger 21, we invite spouses to meetings. We had a meeting in November where I had six children. I said, well, I had. John Corcoran: 54:10 I changed the dynamics. Charlie Garcia: 54:13 Four adults and 216 year olds. But it was very, very cool. So it’s a family experience. Others are not alignment around the values they want to use the organization to sell products and services, or get some benefit from their company. We have an honor committee. We have a member who was a prosecutor, tried 45 cases. There is no solicitation. We never in Tiger 21 every meeting they’re presenting an investment product. We don’t do that. Our members. They’re so wealthy they don’t care. 80% of them outsource their wealth to professionals. They’re there for family, for legacy, for other things. And also really believing that wealth is more than money. And you’re going to what? What happens at our meetings, which is very different than anywhere I’ve been, is when you’re at an intellectual capital meeting, at the end of it, you have to tell the group between now and the next intellectual capital meeting, this is what I want to be held accountable for myself, my spouse, my children, because I’m the patriarch Dark matriarch. And. And then I reach out to you. Do you need any help with any of those? And when you come to the meeting in a year, it’ll say, hey, John, you said you wanted to do these six things. Did you get them done? And you don’t want to be like, oh, no, I didn’t get them done. So the idea is that you are growing around these six forms of capital and you are increasing your game. So, you know, I made a comment like two and a half years ago in the human capital meeting that I wanted to write a novel. And guess what? Are you accountable? John Corcoran: 56:00 Yeah, it’s in the works. We were talking about it before. Yeah. Charlie Garcia: 56:04 Right now. And they and they like about a year ago, I said I was going to learn to play the electric guitar and all this stuff. And I have the electric guitar on my wall, but I’m not there yet because I’m so busy with everything else. So that holding each other accountable and then helping others like, hey, you’ve never done a family meeting before. Well, great. We have all kinds of resources to help you do that. So. John Corcoran: 56:32 And I’ll just point to your website, which has some great resources on talking with your family, talking with your kids about money. I grew up in a family that barely talked about money at all. Very different from my wife’s upbringing. And so I think that there are some great resources for people. Charlie Garcia: 56:54 Yeah. We didn’t talk about it either. I mean, it’s just one of those things, one of those things. And, and I’ve learned because we’re very interactive at meetings. It’s not that people aren’t talking to you. We’re talking to each other and we’re sharing. And I’ve learned things about what you do with kids from 5 to 10? 10 to 15, 15 to 20. And you know, I’m like, you know, I’m going to have to wait and do that with my grandkids because, you know, my youngest just turned, you know, 22. Yeah. But had I done that, they’d be very different today. But I just didn’t know. I mean, I. John Corcoran: 57:33 So you learn these things. Yeah. Charlie Garcia: 57:35 These things are from each other. John Corcoran: 57:38 And how does it feel for you now? Five years ago, you said that you took this course where you figured out you weren’t, you know, you weren’t using your superpowers. You weren’t utilizing them. Coaching, leading, writing, your connector, doing strategy. How does it feel for you now, five years later, having built this organization, do you feel like you are operating in your superpower now? Charlie Garcia: 58:02 You know, knowing what your life purpose is is super. It is so empowering to really know why you’re here. They said the most important days in your life, like when you were born and when you figure out why. So I know why. And I just, you know, I’m in YPO and I just finished my retreat. And what we do each year is we create a new painted picture. So I have a painted picture, which means I know where I want to be. December 31st, 2027. Where I want to be professionally and personally, I review that. I also have a eulogy, and my eulogy is how did I make people feel and what impact did I have? It’s not about accomplishments. No one’s going to remember that. And that’s very family centric and very impactful. So I focus on that. And I spend a lot of time manifesting and meditating, and I and I have my own practice where I think if you can really visualize it and all of R360, I visualize, you know, 3 or 4 or 4 years ago, back when I was in, in Cambridge, and I would do these exercises where I would bring the five senses into it and I could see it. And that’s so important because your subconscious mind, while you’re sleeping, while you’re walking, it’s taking you into the direction. And if you can’t see it, you can’t feel it. It’s not going to happen. John Corcoran: 59:41 Yeah. And I know I’ve had Cameron Harold on this podcast. He has a book called Vivid Vision. It’s similar to the painted picture idea Brian Scudamore. Yeah yeah yeah. Others I know have used some similar terms for it. But the same general idea. Right, is to to really vividly put together a vision of where you’re driving towards so that you can go in that direction. Charlie Garcia: 1:00:04 Well, yeah. And it’s more than that because here you want to look at it often. You also need a system and I will wish for an entrepreneurial operating system. Traction. Gino Wickman was out when I started. John Corcoran: 1:00:20 Got it behind me here. Yeah, yeah yeah. Charlie Garcia: 1:00:22 But I, I’ve used that in five organizations and three nonprofits and, and if you do not have and use those 20 tools which really can articulate those and have a disciplined process to grow and scale and hire and use behavioral analytics to bring the right people with the right behavioral DNA for the seat. It’s hard to be successful, but these tools exist now and they work. John Corcoran: 1:00:57 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve had Gino Wickman on the podcast and a bunch of other iOS experts on there, and it is a fascinating tool. Anytime I meet a successful entrepreneur who tells me, oh, I have five companies, I’m like, do you run on iOS? And they’re like, well, how’d you know? I’m like, it just happens to be, you know, it just always is the case. Charlie, this has been a great conversation. We’ll wrap up in a moment, but any further thoughts? You know, what are you most excited about as far as R360 is concerned? You know, going into 2025 right now. Charlie Garcia: 1:01:29 I think the, the, the, you know, people are coming to us. We had our, you know, January. It’s typically not been a great month for us. But what’s happened is we’ve had, you know, five new people clear the membership committee this year. We’re starting with renewals. Unlike some organizations that are, you know, one year memberships, our memberships are three year memberships. And those renewals are coming in, you know, really strong. So I’m really excited about that. I’m meeting this week with someone that wants to open up Canada. Our strategy committee doesn’t want us to touch internationally until we get to 200 to 250 members. But I think we will get there within the next year to 18 months. But what I’m most excited about is the incredible impact that the members are having. And, and and they get inspired when you’re in a room and you have dreams of what you want to do. And, and and really see, wow, I can do that too. And we have members also that could have $1 billion plus exit. But they’re thinking, oh my gosh, I’m I just can’t imagine what I’m going to do if I sell this company in six months, I’ll be so bored, who the heck knows what will happen? And I’m going to regret it. But then they meet people that say, you know what? I’m ten times more busy today. Having fun, making an impact, doing venture philanthropy, doing this, doing that, and I don’t have all the stress, and I’m spending all this time with my family coaching them, my grandkids. I have three members now that are on this boat called the World That Goes Around the World. John Corcoran: 1:03:29 Is it a cruise ship that goes around? Okay, yeah. Charlie Garcia: 1:03:32 Yeah, actually buy one and they vote every year on where they’re going to go. It spends ten months on the water so they’ll miss the meeting, but they’ll zoom in from who the heck knows. Wow. Where are they? But they’re having fun. So. So I think that and I, I’m about to have a granddaughter on February 11th, so congratulations. John Corcoran: 1:03:58 Congratulations. That is very exciting. That’s very exciting. Well, this has been great. Oh, one more question before I get to my last question. And you have a picture with Richard Branson, Sir Richard Branson on your website. Maybe you did in the R360 event there or something else there. I’m always a bit fascinated by him. Is this an iconic entrepreneur? Any thoughts or observations or anything that you’ve learned from any experiences with him? Charlie Garcia: 1:04:27 Richard is kind of the founding father of R360, and a lot of the ideas were initiated with him after the pandemic. R360 was the first group that he invited to the island. I’ve done nine events now with him on Necker and one in South Africa with him. Look, he is , he’s authentic. He’s real. He’s fit and in shape. He’s the real deal. He lives his life with purpose, with passion. I mean, I was there when he was selling a massive one of his companies. He wasn’t surrounded by investment bankers. He’ll still spend four hours a day bicycling, playing tennis, and working out. And he’s not afraid to say it like it is. He was born, you know, dyslexic. He’s had that challenge. But he is just a joy to be around. And I just love his curiosity. He’s like a child in terms of his curiosity, but he is one of the most curious people I’ve ever been around, and also one of the most competitive humans I have been with. John Corcoran: 1:05:52 And did you play him at tennis? Charlie Garcia: 1:05:55 I’m not a good tennis player, so he has no partner. That was, and he couldn’t beat. So he would invite at six in the morning to play until or or chess like one. A friend of mine was beating him in chess, so he invited him to his house like he couldn’t let him off the island until. But but but but his curiosity, his competitiveness. And then the other thing, which is counterintuitive. You think he’s an extrovert in this? He’s. He’s a little shy, actually, which you wouldn’t think, but he’s such a kind, gracious human being. And I’m very happy to, you know, call him, you know, not a friend, but an acquaintance. Where? John Corcoran: 1:06:44 Yeah. Charlie Garcia: 1:06:45 Yeah. Saw him. He knew who I was. But he’s become very good friends with some of our members who can keep up with them cycling in all parts of the world. And he. But a lot of the reason that our R360 was founded in the first place was really because of his vision of what somebody should do with their wealth for the benefit of humanity and to heal our planet. John Corcoran: 1:07:18 Yeah. Really amazing, amazing guy. All right. I want to wrap up. And actually, that was a perfect transition to my final question, which is I’m a big fan of gratitude, practicing gratitude, especially acknowledging other people in your network who’ve helped you in your journey along the way. So you’ve mentioned a bunch of names so far, Sir Richard Branson being one of them. Anyone in particular that you would want to shout out and just thank for helping you in your journey and your story? Charlie Garcia: 1:07:46 Sure. And we had our team meeting today and we always end with gratitude. We’re everybody in. The team goes around and points out people. But I’d say Max Chapman, who I mentioned briefly, he was the chairman of Sterling Financial and he did something amazing for me. He said, look, part of my role is to find a successor. You’ve been really working hard. You’re a little burnt out. I want you to take a two week vacation, but before you leave, in case something happens, you get hit by the proverbial bus. Help me find the perfect person to replace you. Something happens to you. And I did that. And when I came back, he said, hey, Charlie, you left this for me. And I want you to be honest with me and yourself. Take a look at it and tell me if you’re that person, if you are, great, but if you’re not, then you should come on board with me and we should find that person. Or we should sell the company. John Corcoran: 1:08:45 Wow, wow. Charlie Garcia: 1:08:47 And I had and I had to be honest, I said that wasn’t me. And I ended up selling the company and I credit him for number one. He’s a super busy, wealthy guy, and he took the time to join the board of a little rinky dink. Yeah, we were fast growing, and but we weren’t $1 billion, you know, behemoth. We had billions in assets under management. But having a guy like that on the board was so incredible. And he was a US marine, 10% body fat. He was just a tough guy. But he knew. John Corcoran: 1:09:28 And you see, you said earlier that you were fascinated with how to use behavioral analytics to lead teams. What a fascinating way that Max handled that conversation in a respectful way that, you know, allowed you to be vulnerable enough to acknowledge that you weren’t the person that you had written down on paper. Charlie Garcia: 1:09:50 Yeah. No, I looked and he said, look, if that’s you, then great. Then we’re in the camp. But if it’s not and look I had shareholders and it you know it’s tough the business changed tremendously from how we used to make markets. You used to have these wide spreads. You could make money. And then all of a sudden it became decimals. And the whole business radically changed from 2000 to 2003. And all these markets that we were in, we had to pivot. We couldn’t compete. All these new rules and regulations came out. So I thank him and I’m grateful for all the great advice that I got from him and the fact that he took the time to, to to be on a board of a regulated company and, and really guide us. Yeah. With what was great. John Corcoran: 1:10:47 Charlie, this has been great. R360 and r360global.com is the website anywhere else that you would direct people to go check out and learn more about? Charlie Garcia: 1:10:57 I think that that’s it. And my last, you know, recommendation is the, you know, my favorite business book is Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill. John Corcoran: 1:11:06 Yeah. Charlie Garcia: 1:11:07 To get the actual first book, which before it got reduced, The Laws of Success, which is about 1200 pages. And if you really want to learn from the best, that is a great book. If you want to be an entrepreneur. John Corcoran: 1:11:24 I read 1200 pages at one point, but I don’t think it was 1200 pages. I hope they have that on audible and I can do it at two times the speed. Charlie Garcia: 1:11:31 Well, well, what happened is Clement Stone came in and said, no one’s going to read a 1200 page book, and The Laws of Success are boring. So they put it into 220 words and they called it Think and Grow Rich. But in compressing it down, it lost a ton. I have it behind me and many times I’ll read a chapter or two. But you know, the first 106 six pages of the book. John Corcoran: 1:11:57 Just acknowledgements. Charlie Garcia: 1:11:59 The. John Corcoran: 1:11:59 Big one. Charlie Garcia: 1:12:01 It’s all about the importance of a mastermind. John Corcoran: 1:12:04 Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. Charlie Garcia: 1:12:05 You know, you said you’re an EO and I’ve been in YPO and. John Corcoran: 1:12:08 Yeah. Charlie Garcia: 1:12:09 The value of having a mastermind. You know, Elon Musk has one and Franklin had one in his day surrounding himself with a dozen super smart people and being vulnerable. They’re not on your real board. They can call you out on your BS. Yeah. And hold you accountable. John Corcoran: 1:12:33 Really super valuable. Yeah. Charlie, this has been great. Thank you so much. Charlie Garcia: 1:12:37 Thank you John. Really appreciate it. Outro: 1:12:42 Thanks for listening to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.