April 29, 2025 • 20 mins
Best-selling author, Hall of Fame speaker, and podcast host Randy Gage reveals the lightbulb that clicked on after being incarcerated at 15 years old, "the big lie" for entrepreneurs, talks about the feasibility of human cloning in the coming years, and shares what truly great company cultures do.
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Episode Transcript
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Host (00:54):
So Randy Gage is in the speaker Hall of Fame. Randy is a
critical thinker. You might beoffended, you will probably
laugh, but you will definitelythink differently, and I know
that's what his book Mad Geniusis all about. And so Randy,
welcome to the show.
Randy Gage (01:10):
Great to be on with you.
Host (01:11):
So let's dive into mad genius.
Randy Gage (01:14):
Well, at some point in your life, I think if you're
on the right path, you want tomove from success to
significance. It's not about howmuch money you can make or how
many cars you can have anymore.It's about, Am I really making a
difference? I wrote mad geniusto make a difference. I want to
(01:37):
change the way people think it'sa very arrogant concept, right?
I had a, I was doing aninterview on a radio station, I
forget where, and they and theysaid, Do you really write books
to change the world? You know,isn't that a little
presumptuous? I said, Well,that's not a little
presumptuous. That's a lot ofpresumptuous. But that's exactly
(01:59):
why I write books otherwise Iwouldn't write them. I write
books that I want to read. Iwrite because I have to write
because I have things that Ifeel I need to say. And I look
at what's going on in the worldtoday, all of the entitlement
mentality we have, all of thevictim mentality we have, and I
say, Man, somebody's got toshake people up and grab them by
(02:21):
the throat and say, Stopthinking this way. We're going
to enter the most cataclysmictime in human history. And if we
want to survive the challengeswe're going to face, we're going
to have to think at a higherlevel. This is the manifesto for
entrepreneurs, because I believein the power of free enterprise,
I think that's what's going tosave the world. I mean, people,
(02:45):
it's great. You know, you'rehaving a protest, and you go
around with signs, well, savethe rainforest. Okay, great.
Well, how many trees did we cutdown to make those signs? If you
want to save the rainforest, youknow how you save the
rainforest? You go and buy it.And I support charities that do
that, for instance, where theybuy acres and acres of rain
forest and then deed them into atrust. And that's how you have
(03:08):
to do it you want to besuccessful. Like, here I'm in
Southern California, and they'relike, if you wash your car,
they'll shoot you. If you wateryour lawn, you'll go to prison.
Because, you know, there's sucha water shortage. It's not a
water shortage. We live on aplanet that three quarters of it
is water. What there's ashortage of is desalinated
(03:28):
water. But let's not say there'sa water shortage. There's really
not so how do we solve that? Wesolve that with free enterprise.
We need the technology thatmakes it and that's where I
think free enterprise comes in.The profit motive there causes
people to invest, to innovate,to develop things. Because, of
course, the greatest ways tocreate wealth are to solve
(03:50):
problems and add value. Andthat's what I'm doing with the
book. Is trying to get people tothink in ways like an
entrepreneur, to say, well, howcan I solve problems? How can I
add value? Because that's what'sgonna save the world.
Host (04:04):
When you talk about free enterprise saves the world. You
know, you talk a lot aboutlimiting beliefs, and how a lot
of times people think that justto be rich you have to be bad or
you have to take advantage ofpeople. And you know, obviously
that's not what you're sayinghere, but but your background,
you were in prison as ateenager.
Randy Gage (04:22):
Well, I was in jail at 15 years old for armed
robbery and burglary, and I hada father of a girl I had gone to
school with before I gotexpelled, who came in to see me
in my jail cell and said, Youdon't belong here. You're you
know, I read your files, and youtest so high and reading
comprehension, you're at collegelevel, and you skip five weeks
(04:46):
in a row, and then you show upand you take a test and you pass
it, you're capable of greatthings. Nobody had ever told me
anything like that. I mean, thething I heard growing up was,
how can somebody so. Smart be sostupid if I heard that once, I
heard it 100,000 times. Andbecause this teacher, he was a
(05:08):
teacher, the father of thisgirl, he was actually a teacher.
His name was Baxter Richardson,so he came in this jail cell and
he tells me, I'm capable ofgreat things. I so desperately
wanted to believe him that Ibelieved him, and because I
believed him, it was true. Youreally own it, something like
that, and you accept it. If youmanifest it, you make it true.
(05:31):
And so that changed my wholethought process, and changed the
way I approached the world. Andthen I went out and did the hard
work and said, Okay, I'm goingto start as a grill cook and
work my way up to a manager,trainee, an assistant manager,
and then restaurant manager, andget a big ring with all those
keys and wear a tie and walkaround and say, Well, how's your
(05:54):
dinner this evening, which tome, at that point in my life,
was the ultimate level ofsuccess, right, if you could,
because I was starting as aminimum wage dishwasher, so
ultimate level of success wouldhave been restaurant manager
with the key ring, you know. Andof course, that changed as my
vision of prosperity changed myvision of the window through
which I see the world. But I canattribute it back to that Baxter
(06:17):
coming into my jail cell andseeing something for me before I
could see it for myself.
Host (06:25):
That's inspiring. And in mad genius, you talk about the
big lie. What is the big lie forentrepreneurs?
Randy Gage (06:32):
Here's the big lie for entrepreneurs. If you get
1000 of them and you say, justgrab 1000 people off the street
and say, what is the opposite ofsuccess? 999 will say failure,
but that's the big lie, becausethe opposite of success is not
failure. The opposite of successis mediocrity, and failure is
(06:53):
actually part of the successprocess. It's inherent in the
DNA of success that we willattempt things and fail, that we
will make mistakes, that we willmodify based on those mistakes,
that we will learn from thosemistakes. We use them as
stepping stones to developcharacter, to learn new skills,
(07:15):
to change our approach. And thesome of the case studies I'm
looking at in the book, whetherit's Steve Jobs at Apple or
Richard Branson, or look atpeople who have done some pretty
extraordinary things, and yousee a lot of failure along the
way, a lot of risk. My last bookwas called risky is the new
safe? Because I really believethat the companies and the
(07:38):
organizations and the peoplethat play it safe right now,
those are the ones that aregoing to get run over, because
that's the riskiest thing youcan do. Because we're now
entering what I believe thisnext decade is going to be the
most tumultuous decade in in thecourse of human history. There
(07:59):
will be more well, there will bemore breakthrough changes that
take place in the next decadethan at any time because of the
accelerated level of growth, wewill see the advent of human
cloning during this next decade,and we could argue and debate
the moral and ethicalramifications of that for
decades, And we probably will,but 150 countries could sign a
(08:23):
treaty tomorrow to say, Okay,we're not going to allow human
cloning. There will be somecountry somewhere that says we
don't have diamonds, we don'thave oil, we don't have natural
gas, we'll be the cloningcountry. And if they can offer
North Korea of 5 million clonesoldiers, North Korea might just
want to make that offer, right?So cloning, genetic engineering,
(08:47):
people going to be able to orderdesigner babies saying, I want
the Peyton Manning quarterbackgene. I want the Maya Angelou
poetry gene. I mean the withtransplants, 3d printing, where
social media changes thebusiness landscape, where mobile
(09:08):
app, mobile will change how webuy, how we sell, how we
communicate, how we train, howwe eat, how we're entertained,
how we do everything, right? Itblows up branding forever. But
mobile will change marketingmore than radio, direct mail, TV
(09:31):
and the Internet combined,right? So we're in this the at
the advance of artificialintelligence, and getting closer
and closer to the point wherethe acquired knowledge of AI is
greater than all acquired humanknowledge. When that happens,
that'll be the single biggestevent in the course of human
(09:54):
history, whether you go backwhatever your belief system now,
if you think we start at 6000Years ago with Adam and Eve, or
go back 13 billion years to theBig Bang. There will be no event
more important to human historythan the day that the second
that artificial intelligenceequals and then surpasses one
(10:17):
second later, all acquired humanknowledge, and that could happen
in the next decade.
Host (10:22):
So what do you do? Like, so some of that's terrifying.
Some of that's like, Oh my gosh.What do you do to prepare for
that?
Randy Gage (10:31):
That's the thing. That's why I wrote the book.
People got to understand they'renot prepared for this yet,
because there's nobody on earthwho's prepared for this, and the
only way to prepare for it is toaccelerate our level of thinking
and thinking at higher levels.Uber, Airbnb, here's the
fascinating thing. Uber wascreated by people who were not
(10:52):
in the taxi business. Amazon wascreated by people who were not
in the bookstore business. DanBurris, futurist, he was
speaking to the nationalbooksellers convention, whatever
that is, years ago, and he toldthem, somebody in this room
needs to start an onlinebookstore, because if you don't
(11:12):
do it, somebody else is going todo it. So he had 1000s of people
in the convention hall, and noneof them did it. Now, why not?
Because they say what they saidwas, well, that's not how people
buy books. People go intobookstores and they browse the
shelves and they getrecommendations from the clerks.
And now we've added a coffeebar, and so they come in and
(11:35):
they sit down and they relax ona Friday night. And then two
years later, Jeff Bezos startedin Amazon. So you look at Uber,
do we think that nobody in thetaxi business ever thought,
Well, gee, we could use GPS andtrack where every car is at
every second and send the ridethat's closest to the fair. Do
(11:57):
we think somebody in the taxibusiness might have thought,
well, we could develop a mobileapp and then they could call
when they want to get picked up,and they could rate the driver.
Or Did nobody in the taxibusiness think, well, we could
allow them to pay with theirsmartphone, with Google Pay or
Apple Pay or, you know,whatever. Of course, they did,
(12:18):
but they did nothing on it,because they were in the space.
Because when all you, you knowthe old cliche, when all you
have a hammer, everything lookslike a nail. So the guys in
Dan's audience all like, I'vegot the bookstores and I pay the
rent and I've got a 25 yearlease and 27 employees. How do I
(12:38):
their only thing is, how do Iget more people to come into my
store? Whereas a guy on theoutside like Bezos says, Why do
we need the store? So the peoplein the taxi business say, Well,
I just spent $50,000 on a newradio system, and I have all
these dispatchers who work forme. And this is the way we've
done it for 30 years, and it'salways worked this way, that's
(13:01):
the thing you got to protectagainst everybody who's
listening right now, they're intheir business said, Well, okay,
well that doesn't apply to me,because my business is
different, and those are thepeople who are going to get
screwed if they don't wake up.And Steve Jobs. I mean, did
Steve Jobs have anything to dowith radio stations or record
companies, yet he changed themusic industry more than any
(13:23):
person on earth.
Host (13:25):
I don't want to leave without asking you this other
question, because there's a bigmovement of be an entrepreneur.
Have your own business. Be yourown guy. But one of the things
you touch on imagine is on howthe best companies are treating
people more like entrepreneursand so those people don't have
to really be entrepreneurs. Theycan still be inside of a
(13:47):
company. Can you kind of justlike, break that whole little
piece of the book down?
Randy Gage (13:50):
Yeah, that's all...that's all about culture.
I mean, why can you go in and Inand Out Burger on a Saturday
afternoon with a line 100 peopleoutside the door, 200 cars lined
up around the block, literally atraffic hazard. There's some
minimum wage kid cleaning thedining room, keeping the
restroom spotless, refilling theketchup bottle, smiling,
(14:14):
sweeping up, greeting everybody.How do they get him to do that?
How can you how come you can gointo an Ace Hardware store and
ask for the most arcane,ridiculous thing that nobody has
asked for in seven weeks. Andthe clerk will say that is on
aisle 13, right near the end, onthe second shelf from the
(14:35):
bottom. That's culture. Youcreate that culture in an
organization, and the biggestthing that's an impediment to it
that I see is this protectingagainst failure, right? Because
nobody wants to make mistakes,because if you make a mistake,
you get ostracized, or you getdemoted, or you get passed over
(14:56):
for promotion, or you get fired,right? Whereas the great
companies, they not only allowtheir people to fail, they
expect them and encourage themto fail. I think the great
companies, they have thisattitude like venture
capitalists. So if you takeJason calsenis or Chris soccer
or someone, they're gonna investin 100 ventures, and they're
(15:20):
gonna know that 97 of themprobably aren't gonna work out
but they're hoping for one ortwo unicorns in the bunch, and
there's four or five that mightnow work out there, but they'll
find some breakthrough that'llhelp them segue into a different
business and a different modelthat might work out there, and
(15:41):
they expect that a bunch ofthose things won't work out, but
they know that's part of theprocess, and companies that are
willing to do that, that allowcompanies to I'm not talking
about missing your third quarterstock price by 2% or What I'm
talking about allowing somebodyto open up a division and have a
(16:02):
spectacular failure, the kind offailure Steve Jobs had when they
first ran him out of Apple thefirst time around, and then
realized, well, you know, maybethat wasn't, you know, maybe
which was probably the rightmove for Apple at that point,
But just as bringing him backwas the right move, because they
(16:24):
needed that level of thinkingagain. And so how do you create
that kind of culture? You giveyour people space to be
brilliant, to make mistakes, youallow them to fail, you
encourage them to fail, and theyknow they can fail and not get
demoted, not lose theirpromotion, not lose their job,
(16:44):
and know that they're going tolearn that lesson, grow from it,
modify Test Track, come backwith something better, and
that's where the breakthroughs live.
Host (16:54):
Wow, well Randy, where do you want people to go to connect
with you and learn more about you?
Randy Gage (17:00):
Alright, so Randygage.com that's my
Starfleet Command main site, andRandygage.com and then, of
course, follow me on socialmedia. I'm everywhere, Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube. I love toconnect with people and discuss
the work.
Host (17:15):
Nice. Well, the last little question I have for you,
do you really believe thateverybody has genius inside of
them, and if so, how do theylike how do they access that?
Randy Gage (17:26):
I really do believe everybody has genius in them,
and it's different with everyperson. When Ray Chen picks up a
violin, that's a certain kind ofgenius, when LeBron James is on
the basketball court that's adifferent kind of genius. When
Stephen King writes one of hisnovels, that's an entirely
(17:48):
different kind of genius, andMaya Angelou has hers, and Oprah
Winfrey has hers. And we haveall got our unique kind of
genius, and that's why I wrotemad genius, because I really do
believe that everybody has that,and that's what my manifesto is
about, is to get people toanswer the call and step into
(18:10):
their greatness. Because I re Ireally know they have that mad
genius inside of them.
Host (18:16):
Yeah, thank you for making some time here, Randy. We wish
you all the best and keepinginspiring people to find their
genius.
Randy Gage (18:22):
Alright, thanks for having me on.
So Randy Gage is in the speaker Hall of Fame. Randy is a
critical thinker. You might beoffended, you will probably
laugh, but you will definitelythink differently, and I know
that's what his book Mad Geniusis all about. And so Randy,
welcome to the show.
Randy Gage (01:10):
Great to be on with you.
Host (01:11):
So let's dive into mad genius.
Randy Gage (01:14):
Well, at some point in your life, I think if you're
on the right path, you want tomove from success to
significance. It's not about howmuch money you can make or how
many cars you can have anymore.It's about, Am I really making a
difference? I wrote mad geniusto make a difference. I want to
(01:37):
change the way people think it'sa very arrogant concept, right?
I had a, I was doing aninterview on a radio station, I
forget where, and they and theysaid, Do you really write books
to change the world? You know,isn't that a little
presumptuous? I said, Well,that's not a little
presumptuous. That's a lot ofpresumptuous. But that's exactly
(01:59):
why I write books otherwise Iwouldn't write them. I write
books that I want to read. Iwrite because I have to write
because I have things that Ifeel I need to say. And I look
at what's going on in the worldtoday, all of the entitlement
mentality we have, all of thevictim mentality we have, and I
say, Man, somebody's got toshake people up and grab them by
(02:21):
the throat and say, Stopthinking this way. We're going
to enter the most cataclysmictime in human history. And if we
want to survive the challengeswe're going to face, we're going
to have to think at a higherlevel. This is the manifesto for
entrepreneurs, because I believein the power of free enterprise,
I think that's what's going tosave the world. I mean, people,
(02:45):
it's great. You know, you'rehaving a protest, and you go
around with signs, well, savethe rainforest. Okay, great.
Well, how many trees did we cutdown to make those signs? If you
want to save the rainforest, youknow how you save the
rainforest? You go and buy it.And I support charities that do
that, for instance, where theybuy acres and acres of rain
forest and then deed them into atrust. And that's how you have
(03:08):
to do it you want to besuccessful. Like, here I'm in
Southern California, and they'relike, if you wash your car,
they'll shoot you. If you wateryour lawn, you'll go to prison.
Because, you know, there's sucha water shortage. It's not a
water shortage. We live on aplanet that three quarters of it
is water. What there's ashortage of is desalinated
(03:28):
water. But let's not say there'sa water shortage. There's really
not so how do we solve that? Wesolve that with free enterprise.
We need the technology thatmakes it and that's where I
think free enterprise comes in.The profit motive there causes
people to invest, to innovate,to develop things. Because, of
course, the greatest ways tocreate wealth are to solve
(03:50):
problems and add value. Andthat's what I'm doing with the
book. Is trying to get people tothink in ways like an
entrepreneur, to say, well, howcan I solve problems? How can I
add value? Because that's what'sgonna save the world.
Host (04:04):
When you talk about free enterprise saves the world. You
know, you talk a lot aboutlimiting beliefs, and how a lot
of times people think that justto be rich you have to be bad or
you have to take advantage ofpeople. And you know, obviously
that's not what you're sayinghere, but but your background,
you were in prison as ateenager.
Randy Gage (04:22):
Well, I was in jail at 15 years old for armed
robbery and burglary, and I hada father of a girl I had gone to
school with before I gotexpelled, who came in to see me
in my jail cell and said, Youdon't belong here. You're you
know, I read your files, and youtest so high and reading
comprehension, you're at collegelevel, and you skip five weeks
(04:46):
in a row, and then you show upand you take a test and you pass
it, you're capable of greatthings. Nobody had ever told me
anything like that. I mean, thething I heard growing up was,
how can somebody so. Smart be sostupid if I heard that once, I
heard it 100,000 times. Andbecause this teacher, he was a
(05:08):
teacher, the father of thisgirl, he was actually a teacher.
His name was Baxter Richardson,so he came in this jail cell and
he tells me, I'm capable ofgreat things. I so desperately
wanted to believe him that Ibelieved him, and because I
believed him, it was true. Youreally own it, something like
that, and you accept it. If youmanifest it, you make it true.
(05:31):
And so that changed my wholethought process, and changed the
way I approached the world. Andthen I went out and did the hard
work and said, Okay, I'm goingto start as a grill cook and
work my way up to a manager,trainee, an assistant manager,
and then restaurant manager, andget a big ring with all those
keys and wear a tie and walkaround and say, Well, how's your
(05:54):
dinner this evening, which tome, at that point in my life,
was the ultimate level ofsuccess, right, if you could,
because I was starting as aminimum wage dishwasher, so
ultimate level of success wouldhave been restaurant manager
with the key ring, you know. Andof course, that changed as my
vision of prosperity changed myvision of the window through
which I see the world. But I canattribute it back to that Baxter
(06:17):
coming into my jail cell andseeing something for me before I
could see it for myself.
Host (06:25):
That's inspiring. And in mad genius, you talk about the
big lie. What is the big lie forentrepreneurs?
Randy Gage (06:32):
Here's the big lie for entrepreneurs. If you get
1000 of them and you say, justgrab 1000 people off the street
and say, what is the opposite ofsuccess? 999 will say failure,
but that's the big lie, becausethe opposite of success is not
failure. The opposite of successis mediocrity, and failure is
(06:53):
actually part of the successprocess. It's inherent in the
DNA of success that we willattempt things and fail, that we
will make mistakes, that we willmodify based on those mistakes,
that we will learn from thosemistakes. We use them as
stepping stones to developcharacter, to learn new skills,
(07:15):
to change our approach. And thesome of the case studies I'm
looking at in the book, whetherit's Steve Jobs at Apple or
Richard Branson, or look atpeople who have done some pretty
extraordinary things, and yousee a lot of failure along the
way, a lot of risk. My last bookwas called risky is the new
safe? Because I really believethat the companies and the
(07:38):
organizations and the peoplethat play it safe right now,
those are the ones that aregoing to get run over, because
that's the riskiest thing youcan do. Because we're now
entering what I believe thisnext decade is going to be the
most tumultuous decade in in thecourse of human history. There
(07:59):
will be more well, there will bemore breakthrough changes that
take place in the next decadethan at any time because of the
accelerated level of growth, wewill see the advent of human
cloning during this next decade,and we could argue and debate
the moral and ethicalramifications of that for
decades, And we probably will,but 150 countries could sign a
(08:23):
treaty tomorrow to say, Okay,we're not going to allow human
cloning. There will be somecountry somewhere that says we
don't have diamonds, we don'thave oil, we don't have natural
gas, we'll be the cloningcountry. And if they can offer
North Korea of 5 million clonesoldiers, North Korea might just
want to make that offer, right?So cloning, genetic engineering,
(08:47):
people going to be able to orderdesigner babies saying, I want
the Peyton Manning quarterbackgene. I want the Maya Angelou
poetry gene. I mean the withtransplants, 3d printing, where
social media changes thebusiness landscape, where mobile
(09:08):
app, mobile will change how webuy, how we sell, how we
communicate, how we train, howwe eat, how we're entertained,
how we do everything, right? Itblows up branding forever. But
mobile will change marketingmore than radio, direct mail, TV
(09:31):
and the Internet combined,right? So we're in this the at
the advance of artificialintelligence, and getting closer
and closer to the point wherethe acquired knowledge of AI is
greater than all acquired humanknowledge. When that happens,
that'll be the single biggestevent in the course of human
(09:54):
history, whether you go backwhatever your belief system now,
if you think we start at 6000Years ago with Adam and Eve, or
go back 13 billion years to theBig Bang. There will be no event
more important to human historythan the day that the second
that artificial intelligenceequals and then surpasses one
(10:17):
second later, all acquired humanknowledge, and that could happen
in the next decade.
Host (10:22):
So what do you do? Like, so some of that's terrifying.
Some of that's like, Oh my gosh.What do you do to prepare for
that?
Randy Gage (10:31):
That's the thing. That's why I wrote the book.
People got to understand they'renot prepared for this yet,
because there's nobody on earthwho's prepared for this, and the
only way to prepare for it is toaccelerate our level of thinking
and thinking at higher levels.Uber, Airbnb, here's the
fascinating thing. Uber wascreated by people who were not
(10:52):
in the taxi business. Amazon wascreated by people who were not
in the bookstore business. DanBurris, futurist, he was
speaking to the nationalbooksellers convention, whatever
that is, years ago, and he toldthem, somebody in this room
needs to start an onlinebookstore, because if you don't
(11:12):
do it, somebody else is going todo it. So he had 1000s of people
in the convention hall, and noneof them did it. Now, why not?
Because they say what they saidwas, well, that's not how people
buy books. People go intobookstores and they browse the
shelves and they getrecommendations from the clerks.
And now we've added a coffeebar, and so they come in and
(11:35):
they sit down and they relax ona Friday night. And then two
years later, Jeff Bezos startedin Amazon. So you look at Uber,
do we think that nobody in thetaxi business ever thought,
Well, gee, we could use GPS andtrack where every car is at
every second and send the ridethat's closest to the fair. Do
(11:57):
we think somebody in the taxibusiness might have thought,
well, we could develop a mobileapp and then they could call
when they want to get picked up,and they could rate the driver.
Or Did nobody in the taxibusiness think, well, we could
allow them to pay with theirsmartphone, with Google Pay or
Apple Pay or, you know,whatever. Of course, they did,
(12:18):
but they did nothing on it,because they were in the space.
Because when all you, you knowthe old cliche, when all you
have a hammer, everything lookslike a nail. So the guys in
Dan's audience all like, I'vegot the bookstores and I pay the
rent and I've got a 25 yearlease and 27 employees. How do I
(12:38):
their only thing is, how do Iget more people to come into my
store? Whereas a guy on theoutside like Bezos says, Why do
we need the store? So the peoplein the taxi business say, Well,
I just spent $50,000 on a newradio system, and I have all
these dispatchers who work forme. And this is the way we've
done it for 30 years, and it'salways worked this way, that's
(13:01):
the thing you got to protectagainst everybody who's
listening right now, they're intheir business said, Well, okay,
well that doesn't apply to me,because my business is
different, and those are thepeople who are going to get
screwed if they don't wake up.And Steve Jobs. I mean, did
Steve Jobs have anything to dowith radio stations or record
companies, yet he changed themusic industry more than any
(13:23):
person on earth.
Host (13:25):
I don't want to leave without asking you this other
question, because there's a bigmovement of be an entrepreneur.
Have your own business. Be yourown guy. But one of the things
you touch on imagine is on howthe best companies are treating
people more like entrepreneursand so those people don't have
to really be entrepreneurs. Theycan still be inside of a
(13:47):
company. Can you kind of justlike, break that whole little
piece of the book down?
Randy Gage (13:50):
Yeah, that's all...that's all about culture.
I mean, why can you go in and Inand Out Burger on a Saturday
afternoon with a line 100 peopleoutside the door, 200 cars lined
up around the block, literally atraffic hazard. There's some
minimum wage kid cleaning thedining room, keeping the
restroom spotless, refilling theketchup bottle, smiling,
(14:14):
sweeping up, greeting everybody.How do they get him to do that?
How can you how come you can gointo an Ace Hardware store and
ask for the most arcane,ridiculous thing that nobody has
asked for in seven weeks. Andthe clerk will say that is on
aisle 13, right near the end, onthe second shelf from the
(14:35):
bottom. That's culture. Youcreate that culture in an
organization, and the biggestthing that's an impediment to it
that I see is this protectingagainst failure, right? Because
nobody wants to make mistakes,because if you make a mistake,
you get ostracized, or you getdemoted, or you get passed over
(14:56):
for promotion, or you get fired,right? Whereas the great
companies, they not only allowtheir people to fail, they
expect them and encourage themto fail. I think the great
companies, they have thisattitude like venture
capitalists. So if you takeJason calsenis or Chris soccer
or someone, they're gonna investin 100 ventures, and they're
(15:20):
gonna know that 97 of themprobably aren't gonna work out
but they're hoping for one ortwo unicorns in the bunch, and
there's four or five that mightnow work out there, but they'll
find some breakthrough that'llhelp them segue into a different
business and a different modelthat might work out there, and
(15:41):
they expect that a bunch ofthose things won't work out, but
they know that's part of theprocess, and companies that are
willing to do that, that allowcompanies to I'm not talking
about missing your third quarterstock price by 2% or What I'm
talking about allowing somebodyto open up a division and have a
(16:02):
spectacular failure, the kind offailure Steve Jobs had when they
first ran him out of Apple thefirst time around, and then
realized, well, you know, maybethat wasn't, you know, maybe
which was probably the rightmove for Apple at that point,
But just as bringing him backwas the right move, because they
(16:24):
needed that level of thinkingagain. And so how do you create
that kind of culture? You giveyour people space to be
brilliant, to make mistakes, youallow them to fail, you
encourage them to fail, and theyknow they can fail and not get
demoted, not lose theirpromotion, not lose their job,
(16:44):
and know that they're going tolearn that lesson, grow from it,
modify Test Track, come backwith something better, and
that's where the breakthroughs live.
Host (16:54):
Wow, well Randy, where do you want people to go to connect
with you and learn more about you?
Randy Gage (17:00):
Alright, so Randygage.com that's my
Starfleet Command main site, andRandygage.com and then, of
course, follow me on socialmedia. I'm everywhere, Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube. I love toconnect with people and discuss
the work.
Host (17:15):
Nice. Well, the last little question I have for you,
do you really believe thateverybody has genius inside of
them, and if so, how do theylike how do they access that?
Randy Gage (17:26):
I really do believe everybody has genius in them,
and it's different with everyperson. When Ray Chen picks up a
violin, that's a certain kind ofgenius, when LeBron James is on
the basketball court that's adifferent kind of genius. When
Stephen King writes one of hisnovels, that's an entirely
(17:48):
different kind of genius, andMaya Angelou has hers, and Oprah
Winfrey has hers. And we haveall got our unique kind of
genius, and that's why I wrotemad genius, because I really do
believe that everybody has that,and that's what my manifesto is
about, is to get people toanswer the call and step into
(18:10):
their greatness. Because I re Ireally know they have that mad
genius inside of them.
Host (18:16):
Yeah, thank you for making some time here, Randy. We wish
you all the best and keepinginspiring people to find their
genius.
Randy Gage (18:22):
Alright, thanks for having me on.
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