September 18, 2025 • 53 mins
#178 - The road to redemption isn't always straight, and nobody knows this better than Garr Russell. From sitting in a jail cell in fifth grade to building a nationwide RV rental franchise with 70 locations, Garr's journey proves that our darkest chapters can become the foundation for something beautiful.
After his parents' divorce set him on a troubled path, Garr spiraled through expulsion, dropping out, and eventually dealing drugs. Rock bottom came with multiple arrests, but transformation arrived in an unexpected form – a coworker who simply asked him to read the Bible aloud during their shifts. This small invitation sparked a profound spiritual awakening that completely redirected Garr's life.
Years later, when an anniversary gift of an RV for his pregnant wife didn't quite land as expected (she left the campground early!), Garr's entrepreneurial mind saw opportunity. Fireside RV Rental was born, built not by purchasing a fleet of vehicles but by managing other people's assets – a brilliant model that allowed rapid growth without massive debt.
The RV lifestyle eventually became more than business for the Russell family. Following a challenging situation with one of their children, they hit the road full-time for five years, homeschooling their four kids along the way. Their adventures created lasting memories, but Garr's favorite wasn't at some grand national park – it was sitting beside a small river, making stick boats with his children, completely disconnected from life's pressures.
Garr has documented his journey in two books and continues to expand his entrepreneurial vision, recently purchasing a historic diner in his Florida town. Through it all, he maintains that "life happens for you, not to you," turning painful experiences into purpose. His mission now? Serving Christian entrepreneurs and supporting his family in fulfilling their unique callings.
Whether you're facing your own crossroads or simply love stories of radical transformation, Gar's journey reminds us that our past doesn't dictate our future – and sometimes the most meaningful adventures happen when we're brave enough to change direction.
To learn more about Garr, his books and Fireside RV Rental check out www.firesidervrental.com and www.myhisstory.com.
Want to be a guest on Journey with Jake? Send me a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/journeywithjake
Visit LandPirate.com to get your gear that has you, the adventurer, in mind. Use the code "Journey with Jake" to get an additional 15% off at check out.
Visit geneticinsights.co and use the code "DISCOVER25" to enjoy a sweet 25% off your first purchase.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What happens when a shady past collides with faith,
family and life on the open road.
Gar Russell has lived it all hefounded Fireside RV Rental,
wrote my Wheel Estate Story andmy His Story, and keeps himself
inspired with post-it notes ofscriptures and quotes.
In this episode, gar and I talkabout redemption, adventure and
(00:20):
the road that changedeverything.
Welcome to Journey with Jake.
This is a podcast aboutadventure and how, through our
adventures, we can overcome thechallenges of life that come our
way.
While I expect you will learnsome things about different
adventures, this show willentertain you.
Each episode will feature adifferent guest or guests, as
they share experiences andstories from the different
(00:41):
adventures they have been on.
Not only will you beentertained, but you'll also
hear the failures and trialseach guest faces and what they
have done or are doing toovercome the hardships that come
their way.
My goal is to take each of uson a journey through the
experiences of my guests, withthe hope that you'll be
entertained and inspired toovercome your day-to-day
(01:01):
challenges.
After all, it's not all aboutthe destination as it is about
the journey.
Welcome back to Journey withJake.
(01:22):
Before we jump into today'sconversation, just a quick
reminder Be sure to follow me onInstagram and YouTube at
Journey with Jake.
Before we jump into today'sconversation, just a quick
reminder Be sure to follow me onInstagram and YouTube at
Journey with Jake Podcast anddon't forget to subscribe
wherever you listen to podcastsso you never miss an episode.
I'm also proud to be part ofthe Podmatch Podcast Network.
Now today's guest, gar Russell,has such a powerful story of
faith and redemption From hisshady past to finding God and
(01:44):
letting that faith shape hislife.
Gar has built Fireside RVRental, written two books and
continues to share the hope he'sfound in Christ.
If you enjoy this episode, Ithink you'll also connect with
bonus episode eight with DrDouglas Brower, where we dive
into faith and the journey itinspires.
Let's get to my conversationwith Gar Russell.
All right, I've got Gar Russellwith me on the show today.
(02:07):
Gar, welcome to Journey withJake.
Hey, jake, excited to go on ajourney with you.
Absolutely, I'm excited to talkto you.
Looking at your bio, looking atwho you are a little bit you
know.
First I thought, okay, we'regoing to talk about living in an
RV.
It looks like I don't know.
Five or six years you spentfull-time living in an RV with
your family, your kids and thewhole bit.
So I thought, oh yeah, that'ssuper adventurous.
(02:29):
This is an adventure podcast.
But then the more I got into itand looked at who you are, I
thought I just want to hear whoGar is and hear his story.
So before we get rolling intowho you are, just maybe a little
background, kind of whereyou're from, where you grew up,
that sort of thing, and thenwe'll kind of get into your
journey.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Currently I live in Florida, where I was actually
born, but I only lived here fora couple of years, about three
years old.
We moved up to Michigan andthat's where I spent most of my
life.
The West Coast of Michigan,grand Rapids area.
Yeah, we came back down to, orcame down to, florida about six,
seven years ago.
We were full-time RVers forabout five years.
(03:07):
It started.
We went for about five months.
Then I told my wife I want togo for well, no, we went for
three months.
We go for three months.
After we closed for the seasonand I told my wife I want to go
for the whole winter.
As soon as my toes startgetting cold, I want to leave
Michigan and not come back untilI know they won't be cold when
I return.
And that's how we ended up inthis little town of Okeechobee,
(03:29):
florida, that we're in right now.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Okeechobee's kind of the.
That was the warm spot for you.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, okeechobee was far enough south to where it
stays decent throughout thewinter and it was kind of last
minute when we looked to leavefor the whole winter.
So it was kind of like ourthird choice.
The first couple campgroundsthat we called they were already
full for the winter, what wecalled the KOA, which actually,
(03:55):
for those y'all that know KOA,it's campgrounds that are all
around the country.
The largest KOA in the countryis here in Okeechobee and they
happen to have a spot open andit met our criteria of what we
were looking for and we ended uphere.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
So growing up in Michigan, do you come from a big
family?
Small family, siblings,anything like that?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, I have three siblings and you know it's
interesting Some of thequestions you're asking me.
You don't want to ask those ona bunch of podcasts, so I like
that.
It Trust me.
You don't want to ask those ona bunch of podcasts, so I like
that.
It's cool.
I'm like you normally like diveright into it, so I'm like
having to like go into the brain.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah, making you think a little bit, do I have a?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
big family?
Do I have a small family?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I grew up andmy parents got divorced in
fifth grade, so that kind of setmy life on a course.
Those of y'all that have youknow separated families like
that.
You know what I'm talking about.
Life gets interesting.
Yeah, my mom remarried.
It's a funny story.
My dad, my stepdad and myfather-in-law all have the same
(04:55):
name of Gary and that's where myname came from, gar.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Your dad, your stepdad and your grandfather is
what you said.
My father-in-law, yourfather-in-law, your
father-in-law, jeez, okay.
Your father-in-law, your dadand your stepdad, wow, okay.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, what's the odds , huh.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, that's pretty wild.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
You know, I turned down the road when my parents
divorced.
I turned down the road ofbecoming like the class clown
you know, trying to makeeverybody laugh.
Then started getting into lotsof trouble.
Actually, the first time I satinside of a jail cell was in
fifth grade.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah, what could you have possibly done in the fifth
grade to land you in jail?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I lived, right across the street from the police
station was my house.
The other side of the policestation was the elementary
school that I went to and we hada you know call like a fun
night, where you do like thecarnival at school and all that
stuff and you go to differentrooms.
Well, somebody decided thatthey wanted my bike and my
stepdad had just bought it forme.
(05:52):
I remember it perfectly, it wasa Fuji Odessa.
It was like a really nice bike.
Well, this kid started pickingon me and he said hey, you want
my bike?
Well, I had a pocket knife.
So I pulled out my pocket knife, held it towards the kid, told
him to back off and then I goton my bike and pedaled my butt
home.
Well, literally minutes later,here's police officers, kids
(06:15):
from the fun night, all walkingacross the street to my house
and a police officer brought meand sat me in a jail cell.
To, you know, scare me, and Ithought I was going to prison,
you know.
And yeah, so that was.
That was one of many, manystories of me being quite the
quite the troublemaker andgetting into it.
(06:36):
I don't know, I feel like thatstory, though I had a defense,
though I don't know.
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Oh, I think so.
I mean no-transcript.
(07:05):
That Was it kind of right.
You know, in high school didthat start happening?
Was it after high school, likewhen did you find yourself
getting into trouble?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, it was continue on in fifth grade.
I can remember.
I don't know how old you are.
I'm 47.
How old are you, Jake?
Speaker 1 (07:18):
48.
I'm right there with you, okay.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
So you remember how we used to French roll our jeans
back in the day.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, okay.
Well, I used that to myadvantage to steal.
I would French roll my jeansand then I cut the lining out of
my pockets so I could go into astore, drop something in my
pocket and it would fall to thebottom of my French roll jeans.
So here I am in fifth grade.
I've got cigarettes, cigars,all the things.
(07:46):
I remember Jake standingoutside of my classroom in fifth
grade smoking a cigarette,looking in at the rest of the
class Like that's how quick Iwent down that path.
And then, obviously it's.
It is like they say you knowthe gateway stuff.
It's literally one thing to thenext and the next.
And in junior high I'd have abottle of liquor in my locker
(08:07):
and I went down that road veryfast.
I got expelled from high schoolin ninth grade.
Then I dropped out from thenext school in 10th grade and I
turned to selling drugs, crimeand all kinds of other things.
And yeah, I was all the waydown that road.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
What was the I guess the rock bottom point for you?
I mean, when was it like hey, Ican't keep doing this.
When did that happen for you?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
You know, you would think it was the second time I
got raided for maintaining adrug house and got put into jail
, but it wasn't, because shortlyafter that I got out and I had
some really good intentions.
You know, I've been anentrepreneur since I was a young
one.
Right, I love the scripturethat says the gifts and callings
(08:57):
of God are without repentance.
So before I had given my lifeto the Lord in 2003, I was using
my entrepreneurial skills to doall these other things.
So after I got out of jail thatsecond time for running a drug
home, I enrolled into onlineschool and things only lasted
for a handful of months and Iwas back to some of the similar
(09:17):
habits, as far as you know,drinking drugs.
It was.
I had gotten an old job backEmployer, let me come back and I
met a guy named Skip, who I wasthe laborer.
He was the driver.
We put all the cones andbarrels out on the road.
Do a traffic control.
Well, skip would say hey, gar,I'm driving, would you do me a
favor and read my Bible to me?
(09:38):
So I would read him his Biblewhile he was driving.
And then, you know, one thingnext led to the next, and then I
just felt that conviction, thattug of the Holy Spirit and and
I gave my life to the Lord thereright at the time clock.
That was kind of the rockbottom slash.
I need to make a change momentthere with with my buddy Skip.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
And was that in 2003?
Cause you mentioned 2003.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yeah, that was in 2003.
Yep.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
So let's see you probably what 20,.
How old were you in 2003?
I'm trying to think how old Iwas 25-ish.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
So yeah, 2003.
Yeah, so about 24 years ago,yeah 24.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Okay, yeah, with that happening to you and kind of
realizing, hey, I can't keepliving this way, what does that
mean to you to have God in yourlife?
Speaker 2 (10:23):
man, it was a total.
Some of the stories that Ishared.
Right, I, I've got a prettyshady past, so you know, I
prayed with my buddy skip thereat the time clock and then I
went to church with him thatsunday and this was a big mega
church, seats like 5 000 peopleand they do the altar call at
the end and I went out for thealtar call.
Well, then they call you offover into this room after that
(10:46):
and they, you know, talk to youabout a couple of things.
I literally I felt the grace ofGod so heavy from all the things
that I had done that literallyno one else could have a
conversation in the room BecauseI'm like not crying, bawling
loud.
So it literally just was atotal 180 transformation.
It wrecked me, it changed meliterally.
(11:07):
You know, you hear our pastorwas just talking about this
Sunday at church, about hedoesn't have one of those
stories, like so many peoplehave, of this radical salvation.
He's like I just grew up a goodkid, I don't know, but I was
one of those stories where itwas a radical transformation,
where I literally just felt thegrace of God just in such a
heavy way that it just literallyjust changed me overnight.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Because of the shady past and things like that.
For you, what is like the ideaof failure and forgiveness?
I mean, how does that play intoit for you?
Because obviously you, probablyyou know you needed to feel
forgiven and it sounds like youwere.
But kind of talk to me aboutlike forgiveness a little bit.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, my wife will.
Uh, we'll joke about thatbecause she'd say somebody could
break into our house, takeeverything we have and I'd
invite him over for lunch thenext day.
Because I felt the forgiveness,the grace of God so heavily,
I've experienced it so heavilythat I mean, when I was dealing
drugs I was selling crystal meth, cocaine, ghb, which is known
(12:11):
as the date rape drug I mean Idid some horrible things and so
to feel that grace of God theway that I did, to hurt my
feelings or offend me orsomething like that, it's almost
near impossible To hurt myfeelings or offend me or
something like that.
It's almost near impossible.
My wife, on the other hand, shewas such a good kid growing up,
she has such a strong moralcompass that she feels it a
(12:33):
little bit differently when shesees somebody doing wrong or
this or that.
I just look at them through theeyes of grace, like, oh, they
don't know what they're doing,they're blinded, they're walking
and whatever, you know,whatever.
So it's definitely interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
And speaking of your wife, how did she come to play?
How did you meet her?
What's that whole story about?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah, I met my wife actually through my mom.
My mom hooked us up.
Yeah, it was my grandma.
Emma had passed away, she hadleft an inheritance to my mom
and my mom was going to the bankto pull out a sum of money.
So I went with my mom and mymom was actually living with me
at the time I was helping my momget sober.
(13:13):
My mom had struggled withalcohol all of her life through
some traumatic events that shewent through, and at that point
in my life, you know I waswalking closely with the Lord.
I was just getting ready toclose on the purchase of my
first home.
So there I am in the banksitting in the waiting area, my
mom's in the office with Tina,my now wife, and my mom's
(13:38):
playing matchmaker.
And so that's how I met my wifewas through my mom.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
That's incredible.
That's a good story.
I love that.
And how many kids do you have?
Four, four, wow, okay, you gotfour kids.
How did the whole RV thing comeabout?
How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah.
So the RV business that we have, that was a total pain to
purpose story.
I call it because I had boughtmy wife an RV for our 10-year
wedding anniversary.
She was seven months pregnantwith number four and she was
chasing a toddler around.
So there we are, brand new RV,I bring it to the campground and
set it up.
(14:16):
We're set up at a campgroundand my wife is just sweating,
miserable pregnant, all thethings, and she tells me she's
going home.
And I thought she was goinghome to grab something.
But no, she's like going homeand not coming back.
And so there I sat at thecampground with my two older
kids and this brand new camper Ijust bought, thinking, man, my
(14:37):
wife does not like camping.
So, you know, we had owned abusiness, I had built a real
estate portfolio, had, you know,entrepreneurial experience, and
I thought, well, I'm going torent this thing out.
So I went on to Craigslist andI put it up for rent and within
a couple hours people arereaching out to me wanting to
rent my camper.
(14:57):
So instantly the light goes off.
I'm like, man, this is, I gotsomething here.
So I reached out to somefriends and family.
I said, hey, I'm renting mycamper out.
Would you like me to rent outyours for you too?
They're like, yeah, sure, well,my sister-in-law said, no,
that's gross.
Someone's not sleeping in thebed of my camper.
That's a horrible idea.
No, for the majority.
Most people are like, yeah, mycamper sits around most of the
(15:19):
time and does nothing.
Yeah, sounds good.
And so it just kind of spiraledfrom there, turned into.
I went and bought a handful ofcampers and then I quickly heard
the Lord say no, don't do that.
Use other people's campers.
Don't go and get into a bunchof debt, you know, and a bunch
of payments.
Use other people's assets.
Build the business that way.
So I did that Fast forward ahandful of years.
(15:42):
We went through the process ofturning it into a franchise.
You know, we build all thesystems and processes and
software and all the stuff thatwe turn it into a franchise
opportunity.
Now we have about 70 locationsaround the country wow, and it's
(16:28):
called fireside right fireside.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
There's your hat yeah , fireside rv rental yeah that's
a good concept now that you'reexplaining it to me, because I
was trying to figure out how youdo this and I was kind of
looking at you know, yeah, yougot locations everywhere we're
70, like you said, that makessense to use what people already
have rather than purchasing abunch and going into debt.
You're an entrepreneur man.
(16:50):
You got the whole businessthing down.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Yeah, so you know it's other people's assets.
It's just like people do withairbnb, arbitrage and turro,
managing other people's cars.
Heck, I seen a website recentlywhere you can rent out your
swim pool.
It's called like swimly orsomething like.
You name it, you name it, yourent it out.
You know it's.
It's amazing what you can do.
There's websites, just likethere's airbnb for renting your
(17:15):
home, there's RV Share andOutdoorsy.
So there's these peer-to-peerwebsites and we work
side-by-side with them.
A lot of people will thinkwe're competitors of theirs, but
no, we're the propertymanagement piece, they're the
marketing platform, so we workside-by-side.
We're RV Share's largestpartner.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Oh, wow, rv share's largest partner.
Oh, wow, okay, very good, Ilove it.
And obviously you've had, youhad a love for RVing because
you've been doing it for a while.
What makes you decide thatyou're going to go on the life
on the road with kids in tow,homeschooling them the whole bit
?
What makes someone want to dothat?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
You know, we were enjoying the RVing.
After my wife had a number four, isabella, we started camping.
We were enjoying it and weactually had something painful
happen in our family with one ofour children and honestly,
we're like you know what?
We're just getting out of theroad, we're just going to go
travel for a little bit.
That's literally how it started.
Is we just decided to go hitthe road for a couple of weeks.
(18:13):
Then it turned into all right,we're going to actually go for
three months.
And then it just escalated fromthere Like, wow, we're having a
blast, we're going to go longer.
And man, it's just, it's such abeautiful thing to travel
around, set up at differentcampgrounds for a night or a
week, meet different people fromdifferent backgrounds, have
(18:34):
different sceneries, especiallywith homeschooling.
It's just such a beautiful wayto travel and see and just,
there's nothing like it.
It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Had you been homeschooling your kids prior to
that?
So you kind of had that base,or was that like, hey, we're
going to go travel around, wegot to learn how to homeschool.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Yeah, we've homeschooled our kids since the
beginning.
That's something I've alwayshad a heart to do is homeschool
our kids.
I always told my wife when wewere dating I said I want to
live in Florida someday, I wantto homeschool my kids and I want
to have five of them.
And so we're at two of thethree, we have several we call
them unofficially adopted kidsfrom my 16-year-old Emma.
(19:13):
She just has a heart forhurting teenagers and she just
seems to draw them in and loveon them and stuff.
So we have a lot of those kidsthat end up at our house and
stay in the nights here andthere and us loving on them.
But yeah, it's always had been adesire of mine to homeschool
and I think it just comes backto like the entrepreneurial
spirit that's in me.
(19:34):
I've always had that heart tolive life on my terms, you know
so.
Not an employer telling mewhere to be and when to be there
, not having something that likedictates my schedule and when
you've got, you know, school,monday through Friday, certain
hours.
You know that limits you towhat you can do as far as you
know travel and adventures andstuff like that.
I've always admired that aboutentrepreneurs and just how you
can do, as far as you know,travel and adventures and stuff
(19:55):
like that.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
I've always admired that about entrepreneurs and
just how you can.
You know you want to live lifeon your own terms and do things
and that doesn't come withoutsacrifice.
I mean, obviously there's somesacrifice you have to make and
there's a lot of hard work andthings like that.
But I've always respected that,admired that.
That's why I like doing theshow too, when I get to talk to
people like you and and howyou're living that.
Take me back to that firstmoment.
In those two weeks you saidthere was kind of something
(20:19):
tough going on.
So was it?
The idea was like let's just dothis just to kind of take our
mind off things, just to getaway.
Was that kind of the pointbehind that that first two weeks
?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
yeah, you know, it was almost like let's just
gather our little ducks and hitthe road like we just it's, it's
kind of like, honestly, like weran, like we had something
happen and it's not my wifedoesn't like me to share it
because it's it's my child'sstory more than mine, you know
but you can imagine, as a parent, you know, something that would
happen to make you want to justrun, you know, and that's
(20:52):
really what we did.
We're like let's just go,let's's just get away, let's
just kind of recalibrate, let'sjust connect with our kids and
uh, and so that's what we didand it's, it's amazing.
Even so, this summer we we'vedone a lot of travel, but it was
a lot of flying.
Like we went to california acouple times.
(21:12):
We we did a lot of travel.
We didn't RV really Well, weRV'd once, actually for like 10
days.
That's funny.
I don't even consider thattravel.
It was only 10 days.
Last summer we went for a coupleof months up to Michigan and
it's so amazing, like myteenager, right, emma, female
teenager, friendships, this andthat, like that's their world,
(21:33):
and she was, you know, kickingand screaming for that's their
world.
She was kicking and screamingfor us to hit the road for that
long.
But I tell you what, man Jake,within several hours of just
being on the road, all of asudden you just, you just
disconnect.
It's just beautiful to just beable to unplug like that.
And sure enough we did.
Our kids had a blast.
It's just like a vacation,right, you get far away enough
(21:57):
from home that all of a suddenall the worries and thoughts of
home seem to just kind of fadeinto the distance big thing
these days too.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
It's just there's so much pressure, even like on our
teenagers too or you know, Ihave a teenage daughter as well
and there's so much pressure.
I think that being able todisconnect, allow them to
disconnect, that's gotta be huge.
Did you ever have a moment whenyou're traveling, where you're,
you know you're on the road andI don't know if it was a place
that you were at or maybe somepeople that you came across, but
(22:27):
just the moment where you'relike this is why I'm doing this,
this is why I'm out here, anymoments like that that you could
share.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely several of them.
I mean the people that we metwas amazing.
We were in California and wemet a couple from Texas that we
just really connected with.
They had seven kids there onthe road in a big, huge Prevo.
We ended up going on a missionstrip with them to Dominican
Republic.
La Jolla Beach in Californiawas just a beautiful time Hiking
(22:57):
up into Joshua Tree with ourkids, going up the East Coast
and going whale watching andjust those moments, honestly two
of the most special moment thatwe ever had, I feel.
That just pops up in my mind isand I don't even remember where
it was this is the cool thingabout it, right, we weren't at a
big tourist-y place, it wasthis little campground that had
(23:20):
this little river that ranthrough it and we just sat on
the side of that river with thekids making little boats and
stuff out of wood and sticks andtying them together and seeing
how far they would float.
That was just one of thesweetest times that we had, just
not a care in the world,literally just saying, hey, can
we put something together andsee how far it floats down the
(23:42):
river.
You know, just totallydisconnected from all the life's
cares and worries and notthinking about just, you know
right, all the things we think,about our schedules and bills
and all the things.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
And then you think about travel and you think about
being in an RV, and there arethose moments where you have
those the beautiful Vista or theamazing scenery or something.
I love the fact that that smallmoment on the side of that
little Creek or river that'swhat you remember and that's
what comes to your mind was justthose moments, just connected,
make these little boats.
(24:14):
It's those little sweet momentsthat are priceless.
They can't, you know, you can'treplicate, and I love that, I
love hearing those stories.
Speaking of that, speaking ofyour kids, what are some lessons
you've learned from them?
Speaker 2 (24:27):
One of the things that we've definitely learned is
man, the memories that our kidshave like well, they'll bring
up something from years ago.
Hey, remember that, rememberthis.
You know, and then too, it'sjust been, uh, being that
connected with them and thatclose proximity for such a long
period of time.
It's amazing how you're reallyable to see their uniqueness and
(24:52):
the things that God has putinside of them.
That's going to be part ofshaping who they are and the
things that they do.
You know, like our Emma, ouroldest, she's just got a heart,
like I was saying, for teens herage that are in troubled
situations and all the way downto little babies, she just has a
heart for the hurting.
You know, to watch her see thatand then respond to that is
(25:18):
just beautiful.
And then you know, noah is mylittle entrepreneur.
He's our 10-year-old and healready has ideas for taking
over Fireside someday and thedifferent things, and so just to
be able to see those corecharacteristics and qualities
inside of them is really cool.
We actually were able to use alot of things that we learned
about our kids with being soclose to them in homeschooling
(25:40):
to help them create like theirown mantras that they repeat as
part of their homeschool aboutwhat they're going to do and why
they're going to do it and thequalities that are inside of
them that are going to help themdo it and the things that
they're going to study to helpprepare them for that.
Emma, our 16-year-old.
I just enrolled her today toget a mental coaching
(26:03):
certificate for mental health.
So it's a program that she'sgoing through that probably
usually only adults go through,but she has that heart to help
people through tough situations.
So she's 16 years old right nowgoing through a college class
to get a certification on beinga mental health coach.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
It's impressive the things you can learn on the road
.
I love it.
It sure is so for you, fiveyears on the road.
How has it changed youpersonally?
Speaker 2 (26:31):
You know, I don't know, I'd almost say more like
it's allowed me to be more ofthe person that God created me
to be.
You know, the adventurer,somebody who I like habits, but
I don't like schedules androutines, like just allow me
right, like literally to be ableto just start the RV and hey,
(26:54):
let's go here now, let's gothere now, let's change this and
that.
So I feel like it's just helpedme to be kind of the free bird
that I desire to be.
You know, we always even say,once Emma next January leaves
for Huntington Beach to go toYWAM it's called Youth with a
Mission, it's like a missionarytraining school, college we
(27:17):
always say, once she moves,we'll probably get back in an RV
.
Like part of the reason wesettled down for a little bit is
just to help her with her lastcouple of years of just having
some.
I mean, because the RV can onlyget so big, right, thev?
Yeah, it's 42 foot.
You know, maybe 44 foot, youknow if you depend on how you're
measuring it, but you can onlyget so much space in an rv.
(27:39):
We had a grand lodge, 42 dl.
That was a two-story, reallydestination trailer.
We we were cheating towards theend we had a two grand lodges.
We had one up in michigan on alake, one down here in florida
on a ranch, and then a class, arv, and we traveled between the
two and back and forth, and sowe were kind of cheating, we
were trying to really trying tostring it along as far as we
(28:01):
could, you know you kind oftalked about the fact that this
has allowed you to to beadventurous, and you know
journey with Jake.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
it's an adventure podcast.
I like to talk about adventureand usually I ask this question
at the end.
But I want to ask it now Foryou, gar what does adventure
mean to you?
Speaker 2 (28:17):
For me, adventure means, especially as a Christian
, adventure means following theprompting of the Holy Spirit.
You know, that's what I thinkof when you say that is
adventure of all right, lord, Ihave my schedule of what I'd
like to do, but what do you wantto do?
You know one of the post-its Ihave I love post-its.
If I could flip my camera you'dsee like a hundred post-its in
(28:39):
front of me with differentsayings and scriptures and this
and that.
But one of the post-its that Ihave right in front of me it
says start in the natural end,in the spiritual.
And I have another post thatsays mentoring over meetings.
Like if I have a meeting on mycalendar, I'm like, ah, meeting,
but if I know it's a mentoringwhere I'm going to get on and
we're going to give value backand forth and encourage each
(29:00):
other and share stories andtestimonies and things that
we've learned, then that's alittle more exciting for me.
For me, in regards to adventure, I always love to end my
meeting or my mentoring withsaying in my mind like all right
, lord, I'm done with my meeting, what do you want to do?
You know, because there'salways something that the Lord
has in store.
(29:20):
That, to me, is one of thegreat adventures, especially
when I'm interviewing potentialfranchisee candidates and I'm
going over their applicationwith all the different questions
that we ask them about you know, why they want to become an
entrepreneur or why they want tojoin Fireside, or because one
of the things that I've learnedabout with the adventure of
Fireside is just in general iswe were created for community.
(29:44):
You know, and that's one of theone of the things that happened
during COVID, when communitywas really just stripped away
from us, is so many people wentinto this isolation, I went into
what I call my COVID coma.
I write about it in both of mylast two books.
I write about it a little bitand I got very passive in my
business.
I actually started drinkinglike daily and justifying it
(30:07):
Like oh yeah, I'm still handlingmy business, I'm not beating my
wife, I'm not, you know, drunkdriving, you know all the.
You know I was still.
I was seeking that adventure,right, I was seeking community
and just the excitement of life,and we were kind of stripped of
that.
That's what adventure is to me,is just right.
We can do community together.
We can be free.
(30:28):
I love the scripture that saysit's for freedom that Christ set
us free, like when we'rewalking in the freedom that
Christians are supposed to walkin.
It's for the adventure wherewe're not super worried about
right.
What's finances?
What's this?
What's that we're trusting God?
What's that we're trusting God?
And when we're trusting andwe're walking in that peace?
(30:49):
Well then, man, we can havequite the amazing day when we're
not walked around, walkingaround stressed out or or in
fear, you know, or in guilt andshame and all those things that
that life can put on us to getus from not walking in the
fullness of you know how weshould be walking.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
How do you overcome that fear?
How do you have the faith overfear?
I guess I've heard that sayingbefore, because when you're in
the middle of it and you're, youare stressed and you're worried
, it's hard to see a way out.
And sometimes it's hard to havethat faith.
When you're struggling, what doyou do, or what's something
somebody can do?
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah, well, there's.
There's a couple of thingsFaith over fear that was
actually our last firesideretreat that we did.
That was the theme of it wasfaith over fear.
And actually, again, my post-it.
I have a post-it in front of methat says fear gar or faith gar
.
So the thoughts that arerunning through my mind is this
fear gar talking right now or isthis faith gar talking right
now?
And so, first of all, right,it's just simply recognizing and
saying, hey, I'm walking infear right now.
And so when we first justacknowledge our feelings which,
(31:56):
right, guys, a lot of times ourwives, you know they're doing
that, you know, like 12 secondsafter the emotion comes, we're
like suppressing it for, youknow, seven months.
And then, finally, we, you know, we're like, okay, I was, I was
scared, you know whatever.
But first of all, one of myfavorite scriptures in regards
to this is Isaiah 26, three.
It says you will keep him inperfect peace, whose mind is
(32:18):
stayed upon you because hetrusted you.
So, first of all, as as aChristian and a Christian
entrepreneur which I feel likebeing a Christian is is hard,
right, being a Christianentrepreneur, I feel like it's
twice as hard because, as you'rebuilding a business and you
need to know sales and marketingand accounting and all these
(32:39):
things in entrepreneurship, likeall these insecurities, are
always constantly coming tosurface in us.
Right, we run a marketingcampaign and I remember when I
decided to turn my Facebook adon at $50 a day.
Oh my gosh, the fear that wasin me.
Now we run $2,000 a day.
We'll spend $30,000, $50,000 amonth on just one campaign and I
(33:02):
remember when $50 a day wasjust mind-blowing to me, keeping
our mind stayed upon God andtrusting in Him.
And then I love the scripturesthe scripture in Hebrews 11, 1,
where it says faith is thesubstance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen.
The thing that I love aboutthat scripture is the word hope,
(33:24):
because it says faith is thesubstance of things hoped for.
So a lot of times we're tryingto be in faith over fear, but
actually we have zero hope.
We actually have to go back astep before we get into faith
and we actually have to havehope.
And again, another post-it hereright in front of me says hope
does not know what's going tohappen, it just knows that
(33:47):
something will.
So, first of all, just havinghope, saying you know what, I
don't know what's going tohappen, it just knows that
something will.
So, first of all, just havinghope, saying you know what, I
don't know what's going tohappen, I just know something
will.
And then under that, it saysonce hope creates expectation,
then faith begins to look forthe thing that hope is feeling.
So once we begin to have thathope that, hey, I have hope,
things are going to work out.
(34:08):
And how do we get that hope?
First, by keeping our mindstayed upon God, and one of the
main ways that I do that is Ijust simply look back in my past
of where I've been in othersituations where I could have
easily had no hope, but yet Igot through it Right.
So I look back when I'm likeman.
I remember when I lost my housein 2008, because I got fired
(34:32):
from my job for sharing my faith, and God brought me through
that.
And I remember when thishappened in 2010, that God
brought me through that.
And I remember when thishappened with my child and I
felt hopeless, but then Godbrought me through that and I
began to remember, like it saysin I forget maybe Psalms, where
it says David encouraged himselfin the Lord.
(34:54):
I began to remember all thesetimes where God has showed up
and brought me through.
You know I love that sayingwhere it says five years ago,
you how does that go?
Five years ago you'd kill to bethe person that you are today,
but then the person we are today, we're thinking of oh, I wish I
was just this right.
So it's so easy to forget allthe victories.
(35:18):
There's a really good book aboutthis, called Gap in the Gain.
You ever heard of that book?
Speaker 1 (35:23):
I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
It's one second here.
Let me turn around.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Dr Benjamin Hardy.
It's called the Gap and theGain, and he wrote another book
called 10X is Easier than 2X,and basically the Gap and the
Gain talks about how we can put10 things on our to-do list for
the day and we get eight of themdone.
Maybe we even get nine of themdone.
What do we do?
When we lay in bed at night?
We literally think about theone thing we did right.
(35:52):
But if we were to, if we wereto think of the nine things we
did accomplish, we would get allpumped up, excited and then we
would take that energy into thenext day.
But we don't do that.
We're so quick as humans toforget all the things that are
going right and we only focus ona couple of things that are
going wrong.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
All the things that are going right and we only
focus on a couple of things thatare going wrong.
So true, and I love what youshared.
Thank you for sharing that.
This is what I love about thispodcast and this is not a
Christian based podcast oranything necessarily like that,
but I love hearing people'sfaith and how they overcome
things and I appreciate yousharing that because that's
important.
Before we wrap up the RV, I doa couple of just I guess we'll
(36:31):
call them rapid fire slash quickquestions on RV.
Any particular favorite RV mealthat you guys have as a family?
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Oh, RV meal.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Oh man, I'm trying to think.
I feel like it's been foreversince we've RV'd.
Now it's weird and it reallyhasn't.
It's like ancient history to meand I'm like I literally right
outside my window is my RV.
I've got a friend taking itthis weekend.
I don't rent my RV anymore justbecause it's got 150,000 miles
on it.
I rented it a ton, paid for itthree times over and use it a
(37:00):
million times.
Man, anything over a campfireyeah, you know, hot dogs are
definitely a favorite.
Anything over a campfire yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
There's something about that a campfire and
cooking over a campfire.
There's something about thefood.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Oh there sure is.
Just sitting around a campfireis just so beautiful and just
camping.
In my webinar that I do thatexplains our franchise
opportunity.
In my webinar that I do thatexplains our franchise
opportunity.
One of the images that pulls upon the screen it's two people
talking and one person isholding a bag of dog poop.
And then right to the left ofit says oh, they're both wearing
(37:41):
their pajamas.
And it says camping the onlyplace where you can walk around
in your pajamas with a bag ofdog poop and strike up a
conversation with a totalstranger.
And it's normal, like that'sour being.
That's how cool it is oh, Ilove it.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
That's fantastic.
Any particular campsite thatjust has extra special meaning
besides where you're at nowokachobies or some other like
one that you're like, that'splace had special meaning to us
yeah, there's a couple campsitesthat we would go to every year.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
So there's one in Michigan that our friends
actually own that we would gothere every year.
There's this little like redtube kind of thing that the kids
climb through.
I've got a picture of myIsabella in there, I think like
five years in a row.
Like I would recreate thepicture with her, have her put
her eyes through the littlepeephole on it, so that's
probably the most favorite one,for sure.
(38:31):
There.
That's such a sweet memory tojust go back and back and back
and then it's like it's longenough that you miss it, but not
long enough that the kidsforget it.
So, like, right when you pullin, just like, oh, that's a
candy store, I remember thecandy store.
Oh, my gosh, yeah, the swimmingpool, I remember that.
That's so cool, you know.
So that is, that is so much fun.
(38:52):
So we didn't actually get therethis year, but I think probably
the last eight years in a rowwe probably went there.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
And then, finally, what's that?
One essential piece of gearthat you can't travel without.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
The one piece of gear that you can't travel without
is a griddle.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Got to have the griddle.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
You got to have the griddle.
It's funny because when we werefull timing, I mean we had all
the gear, we were loaded up, butthen if we just go somewhere
for a handful of days or aweekend, man, we, we've got it
down to a science.
We're like OK, bikes, griddle,you know, and obviously you know
for the kids at night, like weknow, like two outfits, we can
do longer this and that.
(39:33):
The little you know the griddleis.
You could do so much on that,and especially with a camper,
you know you've only got so muchspace inside, so you want to be
strategic.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
And then now you mentioned earlier you talked,
you kind of alluded to it thatyou said you have a couple of
books.
Tell me about the books.
What are they?
Why did you write them?
What's kind of the purposebehind those?
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah.
So I've got a couple of books,one of them right here it's
called my wheel estate story.
So you can go to my wheelestate storycom and download it
for free.
Or if you want to hold it inyour hand, you can buy it off
Amazon.
But I just love really justgetting the information into
people's hands.
So my real estate story uh, thesubtitle is from lawnmowers to
(40:13):
RVs my entrepreneurial journeyfilled with faith, failures and
fun times.
And basically it's my firstbusiness proposal I gave to my
dad in fifth grade for a lawncare business up to our RV
business.
And that just talks about mybusinesses.
But I feel like mostimportantly, it talks about my
failures.
And same with my latest book.
(40:34):
My latest book is called my HisStory and it's basically it's
my story through the eyes of Godand it's my journey.
Basically what happened withthat book was I was getting
ready for our fireside retreatin January and the Lord woke me
up at 4.14 in the morning in oneof my God spots where I go and
(40:56):
I just hear from God, believe itor not.
A lot of people can connectwith this.
Do you get it when you're inthe shower and all of a sudden
you have like a brilliant idea,come to you.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
A hundred percent yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Yeah, something with the shower.
It's like this magical placewhere, like you just almost say,
you're like, oh man, Iliterally have a dry erase
marker in my shower so I canwrite on the wall, because in
the shower I get these ideas.
Well, that's the same with myhot tub.
That's like one of my God spots.
So normally when I go to my hottub, though, I leave my phone
so I can just disconnect andjust hear from the Lord.
(41:27):
Well, this morning, he told meto bring my phone with me and he
told me to open up a Google Doc.
So I did that and I startedvoice texting.
Four and a half hours later andthis wasn't all in the hot tub
I got out of the hot tub afterabout three o'clock.
Four and a half hours later,they wake me up.
(41:50):
I was unconscious.
Now, four and a half hourslater, literally, the Lord had
walked me through like a halfdozen moments in my life,
starting in second grade, when Iwent up to my dad.
He was passed out on the couchand I was.
I came home from church and Iwas sharing with him a rock that
I had painted for him.
God brought me to that momentand showed me the pain of the
moment where my dad just kind ofdismissed me and he showed me
(42:11):
where the devil whispered a lieto me about my identity.
And then God spoke the truth tome and he took me through about
a half dozen different momentsin my life where something
happened, a lie was spoken to meabout who I am, and then he
spoke the truth to me about whoI really am.
And this story is so beautifulbecause literally the stone from
(42:34):
second grade is intertwinedthrough the whole story.
I'm at a men's retreat in thewoods.
We go out in the woods, we dowhat's called a monastic fast.
We're in the woods for thewhole day.
We don't talk the whole day andwe have this book telling us
what to do.
One of the things it said to dowas go on a walk.
So I'm just walking around thewoods, I look down on the ground
(42:54):
, I see this white stone and Ihear the Lord speak to my mind
clear as day.
Pick up that stone.
So I picked it up, put it in mypocket.
Later I'm sitting there doingthe homework assignment and the
homework assignment says readRevelations 2.17.
Well, that scripture says andto him who overcomes, I will
give him a white stone.
(43:15):
You can't make this stuff up.
The Lord tells me grab thewhite stone out of my pocket.
So I do, and he tells mesomething.
So all the way to the end ofthis story, and I'm like
blubbering idiot, crying, I'mtelling my wife, oh, my gosh,
now this that All the way to theend I'm sitting on my chair
wrapping things up Isabella, myeight-year-old, walks down and
(43:42):
she has this box which issitting right down here and
we're getting ready for theretreat, right?
And Isabella says dad, I havethis box of prizes I made to
hand out to people.
She starts showing me all thesethings.
She's like, dad, there's onemore thing, but I really don't
want to give it to you.
But God just kept telling meand I said, god, it's so
important, my best friend, coralgave it to me.
She's like anyway, dad, here itis.
(44:02):
She reaches into the box, jake,and she pulls out a white stone
and hands it to me.
And I just start crying againand she's like dad, you're right
.
Like, wow, I'm glad I listenedto God.
And that's the story.
The whole thing about it is whenwe have painful moments in life
(44:23):
and I put a little framework atthe end of the book.
When we have a painful momentin life, it's an indicator and I
like to say it.
Tony Robbins says, when we havethese moments to get curious.
And Tony Robbins will say, likeGod, the earth, whatever you
call it, you know Tony's like.
I choose to call it God, butwhatever you call it, you know
these are indicators.
(44:45):
So when we feel this pain, wewant to press into it and get
curious and say, okay, why am Ifeeling the pain in this moment?
And we'll discover there's aroot to that pain.
But if we press into that, theroot of that pain, on the other
side of that there's freedom forus, for us to actually hear the
truth of here's a painfulmoment that happened in your
life.
Here's a lie that you believedin the moment, but here's the
(45:06):
actual truth, that painfulmoment.
And at the bottom of my book Iput life happens for you, not to
you.
So when life happens, right,like I said that one of my kids
had a painful moment, lifehappened to them but God
actually used it for them, so itmade them part of who they are
today.
And now that pain can actuallybe used for purpose, so my child
(45:30):
is actually able to help otherchildren if they walk through a
similar moment.
So life actually happened.
We can look at it as a victimor a victor, and in my book it's
how to look at life as a victor.
When life happens to, you say,wait, actually, life actually
happened for me and uncover that, and I laid a framework out for
(45:50):
how to do that at the end ofthe book.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
What was the purpose behind doing it?
Did God call you to do it?
Is that kind of the wholereason you want to do it, you
just want to get your story outthere.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
Yeah, that was totally preparation for that
retreat.
That ended up being theframework for the retreat that
weekend, and so I walked myfranchisees through this process
and we just had you know, it'sjust beautiful time we did
different exercises, like wejust got quiet, closed our eyes,
put on some music and just youknow, hey, what's a lie that
(46:20):
I've been believing?
And then just asking what's thetruth?
And then, as people heard thelie and the truth, they went up
onto a chalkboard and they wrotedown the lie.
And then they wrote down thetruth and just several other
things we did like that.
And then after that, I thoughtyou know what, I might as well
take this transcript and send itto my publisher.
And I even say, right at thebeginning of the book I have a
(46:41):
QR code that's a video of meexplaining how all this happened
.
And then it says, hey, thisbook was basically a preparation
for a retreat, so it's kind oflike raw information.
So it's.
I didn't do a ton to organizeit because I didn't want to try
and orchestrate it a certain way.
I want it to stay as raw andgeneric as possible.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
You know, as far as what happened, I think it's a
beautiful thing that you've doneand I think it's a beautiful
thing that you're sharing.
What does the future look like?
Fireside, rv rental, the family, what do you?
You know, what do you?
What are you hoping for?
Moving into the future?
Speaker 2 (47:17):
It's serving Christian entrepreneurs and
serving my wife and children tofulfill their callings.
Serving Christian entrepreneursand serving my wife and
children to fulfill theircallings that is the future for
me and my entrepreneurialadventure.
One of the ways that we'redoing that is we just bought a
diner.
Three months ago we bought theoldest diner in our town.
It was built in 1951.
(47:38):
So next year will be 75 years.
It's the oldest diner.
My wife was a customer servicemanager when we met and she's
always had a heart for businessand managing and working.
And now that our youngest iseight and we homeschool, we
bought this little diner and weall work at it now and that's
(47:58):
one of the things that we'redoing to prepare our kids for
their calling.
Everything we do is well.
I don't like to say everything.
I don't like to say everythingand all the time and always.
I don't like those definitions.
We try to live our life in amanner that is preparing our
kids to fulfill their calling.
You know, and our big focus forour kids is like their
character, their integrity, themseeing needs around them and
(48:22):
meeting the needs you know.
So a lot of our homeschoolingis based around that.
It's like okay, you know how toadd, you know, divide, you know
.
You know those couple thingslike that's good on math, unless
we see something really in themwhere they're going to be a
mathematician.
Outside of that, I want them tomaster reading.
I want them to fall in lovewith the art of learning.
(48:45):
We enroll in lots of differentcourses together and do courses
and programs and retreats andstuff together, and so that's
the future is continuing downthat path.
We serve at food drivestogether.
That's part of ourhomeschooling so they can see
right the people right in theircommunity that man are so
thankful just to get.
You know they literally waitovernight in a car to get maybe
(49:06):
$60 worth of food stuff likethat.
So it's continued to to help mywife and kids fulfill their
calling and then serve Christianentrepreneurs.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
So if somebody has interest in either Fireside RV
rental and I think you mentionedearlier, we know where they can
get your book.
Yeah, Tell everybody where theycan follow along and learn more
about, about Fireside RV rentaland your books and everything.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
Yeah, if you go to firesidervrentalcom, you can
look out there to see where ourlocations are.
You can rent an RV.
So if you've never gone on a anadventure, or you know, or a
journey, go on there, rent an RV.
Take your family for theweekend.
If you have an RV and it'ssitting around 99% of the time,
(49:50):
you can put it into ourmanagement program.
Or if you're entrepreneurialminded, you can check out our
franchise opportunity, ourfranchise.
When I say serve Christianentrepreneurs, that's who I'm
called to serve.
But a caveat to that if you'renot a Christian and you go
through our application processand you understand, like hey,
gar runs his business based offthe Bible.
(50:11):
So if I get on a mentoring callwith Gar, I'm going to be okay
with him, you know, quoting 10scriptures and praying for me at
the end, that's cool, you know.
But that doesn't mean that youhave to be a Christian to be a
Fireside franchise.
I, you know, but that doesn'tmean that you have to be a
christian to be a firesidefranchise.
I just want you to know.
That's how I'm wired and that'sthat's how I serve people.
So I don't want anyone to feellike man, you pulled the wool
(50:33):
over our eyes, you know,whatever the case is.
And then our books.
Yeah, my wheel estate storycom,and maybe, if you want to, I
can send you the links for theshow notes.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Yeah, yeah, what.
What's the last one?
My, my his storycom my, hisstorycom, my storycom.
I love it.
Yep, this was fascinating.
I learned a lot about you andwho you are.
I appreciate what you're doing.
I appreciate the fact thatyou're serving your community,
that you're serving others,you're serving your family.
I think that's important.
This was great, gar.
(51:04):
Thank you so much for coming on.
Journey with Jake.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
Yeah, thanks for having me, Jake.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
Man, what a ride with Gar Russell today.
If you want to check out moreof what he's up to, head over to
FiresideRVRentalcom, and youcan grab his books at
MyHisStorycom.
Hey, I just want to pause andsay thank you, I.
Hey, I just want to pause andsay thank you.
I'm honestly so grateful youtune in each week.
This podcast has been such acool journey for me personally.
I get to sit down with peoplelike Gar and it honestly
(51:30):
inspires me just as much as Ihope it inspires you, I know.
For me it keeps me looking foradventure and for ways to grow
in my own life and I'm gladwe're sharing that together.
Next week I've got Lisa Burgesson the show.
She's got some amazing storiesabout life overseas as the wife
of a professional basketballplayer and, trust me, there are
plenty of ups and downs youwon't want to miss.
(51:52):
So thanks again for listening,thanks for being part of this
journey with me and until nexttime.
Just remember it's not alwaysabout the destination as it is
about the journey.
Take care, everybody.
What happens when a shady past collides with faith,
family and life on the open road.
Gar Russell has lived it all hefounded Fireside RV Rental,
wrote my Wheel Estate Story andmy His Story, and keeps himself
inspired with post-it notes ofscriptures and quotes.
In this episode, gar and I talkabout redemption, adventure and
(00:20):
the road that changedeverything.
Welcome to Journey with Jake.
This is a podcast aboutadventure and how, through our
adventures, we can overcome thechallenges of life that come our
way.
While I expect you will learnsome things about different
adventures, this show willentertain you.
Each episode will feature adifferent guest or guests, as
they share experiences andstories from the different
(00:41):
adventures they have been on.
Not only will you beentertained, but you'll also
hear the failures and trialseach guest faces and what they
have done or are doing toovercome the hardships that come
their way.
My goal is to take each of uson a journey through the
experiences of my guests, withthe hope that you'll be
entertained and inspired toovercome your day-to-day
(01:01):
challenges.
After all, it's not all aboutthe destination as it is about
the journey.
Welcome back to Journey withJake.
(01:22):
Before we jump into today'sconversation, just a quick
reminder Be sure to follow me onInstagram and YouTube at
Journey with Jake.
Before we jump into today'sconversation, just a quick
reminder Be sure to follow me onInstagram and YouTube at
Journey with Jake Podcast anddon't forget to subscribe
wherever you listen to podcastsso you never miss an episode.
I'm also proud to be part ofthe Podmatch Podcast Network.
Now today's guest, gar Russell,has such a powerful story of
faith and redemption From hisshady past to finding God and
(01:44):
letting that faith shape hislife.
Gar has built Fireside RVRental, written two books and
continues to share the hope he'sfound in Christ.
If you enjoy this episode, Ithink you'll also connect with
bonus episode eight with DrDouglas Brower, where we dive
into faith and the journey itinspires.
Let's get to my conversationwith Gar Russell.
All right, I've got Gar Russellwith me on the show today.
(02:07):
Gar, welcome to Journey withJake.
Hey, jake, excited to go on ajourney with you.
Absolutely, I'm excited to talkto you.
Looking at your bio, looking atwho you are a little bit you
know.
First I thought, okay, we'regoing to talk about living in an
RV.
It looks like I don't know.
Five or six years you spentfull-time living in an RV with
your family, your kids and thewhole bit.
So I thought, oh yeah, that'ssuper adventurous.
(02:29):
This is an adventure podcast.
But then the more I got into itand looked at who you are, I
thought I just want to hear whoGar is and hear his story.
So before we get rolling intowho you are, just maybe a little
background, kind of whereyou're from, where you grew up,
that sort of thing, and thenwe'll kind of get into your
journey.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Currently I live in Florida, where I was actually
born, but I only lived here fora couple of years, about three
years old.
We moved up to Michigan andthat's where I spent most of my
life.
The West Coast of Michigan,grand Rapids area.
Yeah, we came back down to, orcame down to, florida about six,
seven years ago.
We were full-time RVers forabout five years.
(03:07):
It started.
We went for about five months.
Then I told my wife I want togo for well, no, we went for
three months.
We go for three months.
After we closed for the seasonand I told my wife I want to go
for the whole winter.
As soon as my toes startgetting cold, I want to leave
Michigan and not come back untilI know they won't be cold when
I return.
And that's how we ended up inthis little town of Okeechobee,
(03:29):
florida, that we're in right now.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Okeechobee's kind of the.
That was the warm spot for you.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, okeechobee was far enough south to where it
stays decent throughout thewinter and it was kind of last
minute when we looked to leavefor the whole winter.
So it was kind of like ourthird choice.
The first couple campgroundsthat we called they were already
full for the winter, what wecalled the KOA, which actually,
(03:55):
for those y'all that know KOA,it's campgrounds that are all
around the country.
The largest KOA in the countryis here in Okeechobee and they
happen to have a spot open andit met our criteria of what we
were looking for and we ended uphere.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
So growing up in Michigan, do you come from a big
family?
Small family, siblings,anything like that?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, I have three siblings and you know it's
interesting Some of thequestions you're asking me.
You don't want to ask those ona bunch of podcasts, so I like
that.
It Trust me.
You don't want to ask those ona bunch of podcasts, so I like
that.
It's cool.
I'm like you normally like diveright into it, so I'm like
having to like go into the brain.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah, making you think a little bit, do I have a?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
big family?
Do I have a small family?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I grew up andmy parents got divorced in
fifth grade, so that kind of setmy life on a course.
Those of y'all that have youknow separated families like
that.
You know what I'm talking about.
Life gets interesting.
Yeah, my mom remarried.
It's a funny story.
My dad, my stepdad and myfather-in-law all have the same
(04:55):
name of Gary and that's where myname came from, gar.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Your dad, your stepdad and your grandfather is
what you said.
My father-in-law, yourfather-in-law, your
father-in-law, jeez, okay.
Your father-in-law, your dadand your stepdad, wow, okay.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, what's the odds , huh.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, that's pretty wild.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
You know, I turned down the road when my parents
divorced.
I turned down the road ofbecoming like the class clown
you know, trying to makeeverybody laugh.
Then started getting into lotsof trouble.
Actually, the first time I satinside of a jail cell was in
fifth grade.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah, what could you have possibly done in the fifth
grade to land you in jail?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I lived, right across the street from the police
station was my house.
The other side of the policestation was the elementary
school that I went to and we hada you know call like a fun
night, where you do like thecarnival at school and all that
stuff and you go to differentrooms.
Well, somebody decided thatthey wanted my bike and my
stepdad had just bought it forme.
(05:52):
I remember it perfectly, it wasa Fuji Odessa.
It was like a really nice bike.
Well, this kid started pickingon me and he said hey, you want
my bike?
Well, I had a pocket knife.
So I pulled out my pocket knife, held it towards the kid, told
him to back off and then I goton my bike and pedaled my butt
home.
Well, literally minutes later,here's police officers, kids
(06:15):
from the fun night, all walkingacross the street to my house
and a police officer brought meand sat me in a jail cell.
To, you know, scare me, and Ithought I was going to prison,
you know.
And yeah, so that was.
That was one of many, manystories of me being quite the
quite the troublemaker andgetting into it.
(06:36):
I don't know, I feel like thatstory, though I had a defense,
though I don't know.
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Oh, I think so.
I mean no-transcript.
(07:05):
That Was it kind of right.
You know, in high school didthat start happening?
Was it after high school, likewhen did you find yourself
getting into trouble?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, it was continue on in fifth grade.
I can remember.
I don't know how old you are.
I'm 47.
How old are you, Jake?
Speaker 1 (07:18):
48.
I'm right there with you, okay.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
So you remember how we used to French roll our jeans
back in the day.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, okay.
Well, I used that to myadvantage to steal.
I would French roll my jeansand then I cut the lining out of
my pockets so I could go into astore, drop something in my
pocket and it would fall to thebottom of my French roll jeans.
So here I am in fifth grade.
I've got cigarettes, cigars,all the things.
(07:46):
I remember Jake standingoutside of my classroom in fifth
grade smoking a cigarette,looking in at the rest of the
class Like that's how quick Iwent down that path.
And then, obviously it's.
It is like they say you knowthe gateway stuff.
It's literally one thing to thenext and the next.
And in junior high I'd have abottle of liquor in my locker
(08:07):
and I went down that road veryfast.
I got expelled from high schoolin ninth grade.
Then I dropped out from thenext school in 10th grade and I
turned to selling drugs, crimeand all kinds of other things.
And yeah, I was all the waydown that road.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
What was the I guess the rock bottom point for you?
I mean, when was it like hey, Ican't keep doing this.
When did that happen for you?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
You know, you would think it was the second time I
got raided for maintaining adrug house and got put into jail
, but it wasn't, because shortlyafter that I got out and I had
some really good intentions.
You know, I've been anentrepreneur since I was a young
one.
Right, I love the scripturethat says the gifts and callings
(08:57):
of God are without repentance.
So before I had given my lifeto the Lord in 2003, I was using
my entrepreneurial skills to doall these other things.
So after I got out of jail thatsecond time for running a drug
home, I enrolled into onlineschool and things only lasted
for a handful of months and Iwas back to some of the similar
(09:17):
habits, as far as you know,drinking drugs.
It was.
I had gotten an old job backEmployer, let me come back and I
met a guy named Skip, who I wasthe laborer.
He was the driver.
We put all the cones andbarrels out on the road.
Do a traffic control.
Well, skip would say hey, gar,I'm driving, would you do me a
favor and read my Bible to me?
(09:38):
So I would read him his Biblewhile he was driving.
And then, you know, one thingnext led to the next, and then I
just felt that conviction, thattug of the Holy Spirit and and
I gave my life to the Lord thereright at the time clock.
That was kind of the rockbottom slash.
I need to make a change momentthere with with my buddy Skip.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
And was that in 2003?
Cause you mentioned 2003.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yeah, that was in 2003.
Yep.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
So let's see you probably what 20,.
How old were you in 2003?
I'm trying to think how old Iwas 25-ish.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
So yeah, 2003.
Yeah, so about 24 years ago,yeah 24.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Okay, yeah, with that happening to you and kind of
realizing, hey, I can't keepliving this way, what does that
mean to you to have God in yourlife?
Speaker 2 (10:23):
man, it was a total.
Some of the stories that Ishared.
Right, I, I've got a prettyshady past, so you know, I
prayed with my buddy skip thereat the time clock and then I
went to church with him thatsunday and this was a big mega
church, seats like 5 000 peopleand they do the altar call at
the end and I went out for thealtar call.
Well, then they call you offover into this room after that
(10:46):
and they, you know, talk to youabout a couple of things.
I literally I felt the grace ofGod so heavy from all the things
that I had done that literallyno one else could have a
conversation in the room BecauseI'm like not crying, bawling
loud.
So it literally just was atotal 180 transformation.
It wrecked me, it changed meliterally.
(11:07):
You know, you hear our pastorwas just talking about this
Sunday at church, about hedoesn't have one of those
stories, like so many peoplehave, of this radical salvation.
He's like I just grew up a goodkid, I don't know, but I was
one of those stories where itwas a radical transformation,
where I literally just felt thegrace of God just in such a
heavy way that it just literallyjust changed me overnight.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Because of the shady past and things like that.
For you, what is like the ideaof failure and forgiveness?
I mean, how does that play intoit for you?
Because obviously you, probablyyou know you needed to feel
forgiven and it sounds like youwere.
But kind of talk to me aboutlike forgiveness a little bit.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, my wife will.
Uh, we'll joke about thatbecause she'd say somebody could
break into our house, takeeverything we have and I'd
invite him over for lunch thenext day.
Because I felt the forgiveness,the grace of God so heavily,
I've experienced it so heavilythat I mean, when I was dealing
drugs I was selling crystal meth, cocaine, ghb, which is known
(12:11):
as the date rape drug I mean Idid some horrible things and so
to feel that grace of God theway that I did, to hurt my
feelings or offend me orsomething like that, it's almost
near impossible To hurt myfeelings or offend me or
something like that.
It's almost near impossible.
My wife, on the other hand, shewas such a good kid growing up,
she has such a strong moralcompass that she feels it a
(12:33):
little bit differently when shesees somebody doing wrong or
this or that.
I just look at them through theeyes of grace, like, oh, they
don't know what they're doing,they're blinded, they're walking
and whatever, you know,whatever.
So it's definitely interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
And speaking of your wife, how did she come to play?
How did you meet her?
What's that whole story about?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah, I met my wife actually through my mom.
My mom hooked us up.
Yeah, it was my grandma.
Emma had passed away, she hadleft an inheritance to my mom
and my mom was going to the bankto pull out a sum of money.
So I went with my mom and mymom was actually living with me
at the time I was helping my momget sober.
(13:13):
My mom had struggled withalcohol all of her life through
some traumatic events that shewent through, and at that point
in my life, you know I waswalking closely with the Lord.
I was just getting ready toclose on the purchase of my
first home.
So there I am in the banksitting in the waiting area, my
mom's in the office with Tina,my now wife, and my mom's
(13:38):
playing matchmaker.
And so that's how I met my wifewas through my mom.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
That's incredible.
That's a good story.
I love that.
And how many kids do you have?
Four, four, wow, okay, you gotfour kids.
How did the whole RV thing comeabout?
How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah.
So the RV business that we have, that was a total pain to
purpose story.
I call it because I had boughtmy wife an RV for our 10-year
wedding anniversary.
She was seven months pregnantwith number four and she was
chasing a toddler around.
So there we are, brand new RV,I bring it to the campground and
set it up.
(14:16):
We're set up at a campgroundand my wife is just sweating,
miserable pregnant, all thethings, and she tells me she's
going home.
And I thought she was goinghome to grab something.
But no, she's like going homeand not coming back.
And so there I sat at thecampground with my two older
kids and this brand new camper Ijust bought, thinking, man, my
(14:37):
wife does not like camping.
So, you know, we had owned abusiness, I had built a real
estate portfolio, had, you know,entrepreneurial experience, and
I thought, well, I'm going torent this thing out.
So I went on to Craigslist andI put it up for rent and within
a couple hours people arereaching out to me wanting to
rent my camper.
(14:57):
So instantly the light goes off.
I'm like, man, this is, I gotsomething here.
So I reached out to somefriends and family.
I said, hey, I'm renting mycamper out.
Would you like me to rent outyours for you too?
They're like, yeah, sure, well,my sister-in-law said, no,
that's gross.
Someone's not sleeping in thebed of my camper.
That's a horrible idea.
No, for the majority.
Most people are like, yeah, mycamper sits around most of the
(15:19):
time and does nothing.
Yeah, sounds good.
And so it just kind of spiraledfrom there, turned into.
I went and bought a handful ofcampers and then I quickly heard
the Lord say no, don't do that.
Use other people's campers.
Don't go and get into a bunchof debt, you know, and a bunch
of payments.
Use other people's assets.
Build the business that way.
So I did that Fast forward ahandful of years.
(15:42):
We went through the process ofturning it into a franchise.
You know, we build all thesystems and processes and
software and all the stuff thatwe turn it into a franchise
opportunity.
Now we have about 70 locationsaround the country wow, and it's
(16:28):
called fireside right fireside.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
There's your hat yeah , fireside rv rental yeah that's
a good concept now that you'reexplaining it to me, because I
was trying to figure out how youdo this and I was kind of
looking at you know, yeah, yougot locations everywhere we're
70, like you said, that makessense to use what people already
have rather than purchasing abunch and going into debt.
You're an entrepreneur man.
(16:50):
You got the whole businessthing down.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Yeah, so you know it's other people's assets.
It's just like people do withairbnb, arbitrage and turro,
managing other people's cars.
Heck, I seen a website recentlywhere you can rent out your
swim pool.
It's called like swimly orsomething like.
You name it, you name it, yourent it out.
You know it's.
It's amazing what you can do.
There's websites, just likethere's airbnb for renting your
(17:15):
home, there's RV Share andOutdoorsy.
So there's these peer-to-peerwebsites and we work
side-by-side with them.
A lot of people will thinkwe're competitors of theirs, but
no, we're the propertymanagement piece, they're the
marketing platform, so we workside-by-side.
We're RV Share's largestpartner.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Oh, wow, rv share's largest partner.
Oh, wow, okay, very good, Ilove it.
And obviously you've had, youhad a love for RVing because
you've been doing it for a while.
What makes you decide thatyou're going to go on the life
on the road with kids in tow,homeschooling them the whole bit
?
What makes someone want to dothat?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
You know, we were enjoying the RVing.
After my wife had a number four, isabella, we started camping.
We were enjoying it and weactually had something painful
happen in our family with one ofour children and honestly,
we're like you know what?
We're just getting out of theroad, we're just going to go
travel for a little bit.
That's literally how it started.
Is we just decided to go hitthe road for a couple of weeks.
(18:13):
Then it turned into all right,we're going to actually go for
three months.
And then it just escalated fromthere Like, wow, we're having a
blast, we're going to go longer.
And man, it's just, it's such abeautiful thing to travel
around, set up at differentcampgrounds for a night or a
week, meet different people fromdifferent backgrounds, have
(18:34):
different sceneries, especiallywith homeschooling.
It's just such a beautiful wayto travel and see and just,
there's nothing like it.
It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Had you been homeschooling your kids prior to
that?
So you kind of had that base,or was that like, hey, we're
going to go travel around, wegot to learn how to homeschool.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Yeah, we've homeschooled our kids since the
beginning.
That's something I've alwayshad a heart to do is homeschool
our kids.
I always told my wife when wewere dating I said I want to
live in Florida someday, I wantto homeschool my kids and I want
to have five of them.
And so we're at two of thethree, we have several we call
them unofficially adopted kidsfrom my 16-year-old Emma.
(19:13):
She just has a heart forhurting teenagers and she just
seems to draw them in and loveon them and stuff.
So we have a lot of those kidsthat end up at our house and
stay in the nights here andthere and us loving on them.
But yeah, it's always had been adesire of mine to homeschool
and I think it just comes backto like the entrepreneurial
spirit that's in me.
(19:34):
I've always had that heart tolive life on my terms, you know
so.
Not an employer telling mewhere to be and when to be there
, not having something that likedictates my schedule and when
you've got, you know, school,monday through Friday, certain
hours.
You know that limits you towhat you can do as far as you
know travel and adventures andstuff like that.
I've always admired that aboutentrepreneurs and just how you
can do, as far as you know,travel and adventures and stuff
(19:55):
like that.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
I've always admired that about entrepreneurs and
just how you can.
You know you want to live lifeon your own terms and do things
and that doesn't come withoutsacrifice.
I mean, obviously there's somesacrifice you have to make and
there's a lot of hard work andthings like that.
But I've always respected that,admired that.
That's why I like doing theshow too, when I get to talk to
people like you and and howyou're living that.
Take me back to that firstmoment.
In those two weeks you saidthere was kind of something
(20:19):
tough going on.
So was it?
The idea was like let's just dothis just to kind of take our
mind off things, just to getaway.
Was that kind of the pointbehind that that first two weeks
?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
yeah, you know, it was almost like let's just
gather our little ducks and hitthe road like we just it's, it's
kind of like, honestly, like weran, like we had something
happen and it's not my wifedoesn't like me to share it
because it's it's my child'sstory more than mine, you know
but you can imagine, as a parent, you know, something that would
happen to make you want to justrun, you know, and that's
(20:52):
really what we did.
We're like let's just go,let's's just get away, let's
just kind of recalibrate, let'sjust connect with our kids and
uh, and so that's what we didand it's, it's amazing.
Even so, this summer we we'vedone a lot of travel, but it was
a lot of flying.
Like we went to california acouple times.
(21:12):
We we did a lot of travel.
We didn't RV really Well, weRV'd once, actually for like 10
days.
That's funny.
I don't even consider thattravel.
It was only 10 days.
Last summer we went for a coupleof months up to Michigan and
it's so amazing, like myteenager, right, emma, female
teenager, friendships, this andthat, like that's their world,
(21:33):
and she was, you know, kickingand screaming for that's their
world.
She was kicking and screamingfor us to hit the road for that
long.
But I tell you what, man Jake,within several hours of just
being on the road, all of asudden you just, you just
disconnect.
It's just beautiful to just beable to unplug like that.
And sure enough we did.
Our kids had a blast.
It's just like a vacation,right, you get far away enough
(21:57):
from home that all of a suddenall the worries and thoughts of
home seem to just kind of fadeinto the distance big thing
these days too.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
It's just there's so much pressure, even like on our
teenagers too or you know, Ihave a teenage daughter as well
and there's so much pressure.
I think that being able todisconnect, allow them to
disconnect, that's gotta be huge.
Did you ever have a moment whenyou're traveling, where you're,
you know you're on the road andI don't know if it was a place
that you were at or maybe somepeople that you came across, but
(22:27):
just the moment where you'relike this is why I'm doing this,
this is why I'm out here, anymoments like that that you could
share.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely several of them.
I mean the people that we metwas amazing.
We were in California and wemet a couple from Texas that we
just really connected with.
They had seven kids there onthe road in a big, huge Prevo.
We ended up going on a missionstrip with them to Dominican
Republic.
La Jolla Beach in Californiawas just a beautiful time Hiking
(22:57):
up into Joshua Tree with ourkids, going up the East Coast
and going whale watching andjust those moments, honestly two
of the most special moment thatwe ever had, I feel.
That just pops up in my mind isand I don't even remember where
it was this is the cool thingabout it, right, we weren't at a
big tourist-y place, it wasthis little campground that had
(23:20):
this little river that ranthrough it and we just sat on
the side of that river with thekids making little boats and
stuff out of wood and sticks andtying them together and seeing
how far they would float.
That was just one of thesweetest times that we had, just
not a care in the world,literally just saying, hey, can
we put something together andsee how far it floats down the
(23:42):
river.
You know, just totallydisconnected from all the life's
cares and worries and notthinking about just, you know
right, all the things we think,about our schedules and bills
and all the things.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
And then you think about travel and you think about
being in an RV, and there arethose moments where you have
those the beautiful Vista or theamazing scenery or something.
I love the fact that that smallmoment on the side of that
little Creek or river that'swhat you remember and that's
what comes to your mind was justthose moments, just connected,
make these little boats.
(24:14):
It's those little sweet momentsthat are priceless.
They can't, you know, you can'treplicate, and I love that, I
love hearing those stories.
Speaking of that, speaking ofyour kids, what are some lessons
you've learned from them?
Speaker 2 (24:27):
One of the things that we've definitely learned is
man, the memories that our kidshave like well, they'll bring
up something from years ago.
Hey, remember that, rememberthis.
You know, and then too, it'sjust been, uh, being that
connected with them and thatclose proximity for such a long
period of time.
It's amazing how you're reallyable to see their uniqueness and
(24:52):
the things that God has putinside of them.
That's going to be part ofshaping who they are and the
things that they do.
You know, like our Emma, ouroldest, she's just got a heart,
like I was saying, for teens herage that are in troubled
situations and all the way downto little babies, she just has a
heart for the hurting.
You know, to watch her see thatand then respond to that is
(25:18):
just beautiful.
And then you know, noah is mylittle entrepreneur.
He's our 10-year-old and healready has ideas for taking
over Fireside someday and thedifferent things, and so just to
be able to see those corecharacteristics and qualities
inside of them is really cool.
We actually were able to use alot of things that we learned
about our kids with being soclose to them in homeschooling
(25:40):
to help them create like theirown mantras that they repeat as
part of their homeschool aboutwhat they're going to do and why
they're going to do it and thequalities that are inside of
them that are going to help themdo it and the things that
they're going to study to helpprepare them for that.
Emma, our 16-year-old.
I just enrolled her today toget a mental coaching
(26:03):
certificate for mental health.
So it's a program that she'sgoing through that probably
usually only adults go through,but she has that heart to help
people through tough situations.
So she's 16 years old right nowgoing through a college class
to get a certification on beinga mental health coach.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
It's impressive the things you can learn on the road
.
I love it.
It sure is so for you, fiveyears on the road.
How has it changed youpersonally?
Speaker 2 (26:31):
You know, I don't know, I'd almost say more like
it's allowed me to be more ofthe person that God created me
to be.
You know, the adventurer,somebody who I like habits, but
I don't like schedules androutines, like just allow me
right, like literally to be ableto just start the RV and hey,
(26:54):
let's go here now, let's gothere now, let's change this and
that.
So I feel like it's just helpedme to be kind of the free bird
that I desire to be.
You know, we always even say,once Emma next January leaves
for Huntington Beach to go toYWAM it's called Youth with a
Mission, it's like a missionarytraining school, college we
(27:17):
always say, once she moves,we'll probably get back in an RV
.
Like part of the reason wesettled down for a little bit is
just to help her with her lastcouple of years of just having
some.
I mean, because the RV can onlyget so big, right, thev?
Yeah, it's 42 foot.
You know, maybe 44 foot, youknow if you depend on how you're
measuring it, but you can onlyget so much space in an rv.
(27:39):
We had a grand lodge, 42 dl.
That was a two-story, reallydestination trailer.
We we were cheating towards theend we had a two grand lodges.
We had one up in michigan on alake, one down here in florida
on a ranch, and then a class, arv, and we traveled between the
two and back and forth, and sowe were kind of cheating, we
were trying to really trying tostring it along as far as we
(28:01):
could, you know you kind oftalked about the fact that this
has allowed you to to beadventurous, and you know
journey with Jake.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
it's an adventure podcast.
I like to talk about adventureand usually I ask this question
at the end.
But I want to ask it now Foryou, gar what does adventure
mean to you?
Speaker 2 (28:17):
For me, adventure means, especially as a Christian
, adventure means following theprompting of the Holy Spirit.
You know, that's what I thinkof when you say that is
adventure of all right, lord, Ihave my schedule of what I'd
like to do, but what do you wantto do?
You know one of the post-its Ihave I love post-its.
If I could flip my camera you'dsee like a hundred post-its in
(28:39):
front of me with differentsayings and scriptures and this
and that.
But one of the post-its that Ihave right in front of me it
says start in the natural end,in the spiritual.
And I have another post thatsays mentoring over meetings.
Like if I have a meeting on mycalendar, I'm like, ah, meeting,
but if I know it's a mentoringwhere I'm going to get on and
we're going to give value backand forth and encourage each
(29:00):
other and share stories andtestimonies and things that
we've learned, then that's alittle more exciting for me.
For me, in regards to adventure, I always love to end my
meeting or my mentoring withsaying in my mind like all right
, lord, I'm done with my meeting, what do you want to do?
You know, because there'salways something that the Lord
has in store.
(29:20):
That, to me, is one of thegreat adventures, especially
when I'm interviewing potentialfranchisee candidates and I'm
going over their applicationwith all the different questions
that we ask them about you know, why they want to become an
entrepreneur or why they want tojoin Fireside, or because one
of the things that I've learnedabout with the adventure of
Fireside is just in general iswe were created for community.
(29:44):
You know, and that's one of theone of the things that happened
during COVID, when communitywas really just stripped away
from us, is so many people wentinto this isolation, I went into
what I call my COVID coma.
I write about it in both of mylast two books.
I write about it a little bitand I got very passive in my
business.
I actually started drinkinglike daily and justifying it
(30:07):
Like oh yeah, I'm still handlingmy business, I'm not beating my
wife, I'm not, you know, drunkdriving, you know all the.
You know I was still.
I was seeking that adventure,right, I was seeking community
and just the excitement of life,and we were kind of stripped of
that.
That's what adventure is to me,is just right.
We can do community together.
We can be free.
(30:28):
I love the scripture that saysit's for freedom that Christ set
us free, like when we'rewalking in the freedom that
Christians are supposed to walkin.
It's for the adventure wherewe're not super worried about
right.
What's finances?
What's this?
What's that we're trusting God?
What's that we're trusting God?
And when we're trusting andwe're walking in that peace?
(30:49):
Well then, man, we can havequite the amazing day when we're
not walked around, walkingaround stressed out or or in
fear, you know, or in guilt andshame and all those things that
that life can put on us to getus from not walking in the
fullness of you know how weshould be walking.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
How do you overcome that fear?
How do you have the faith overfear?
I guess I've heard that sayingbefore, because when you're in
the middle of it and you're, youare stressed and you're worried
, it's hard to see a way out.
And sometimes it's hard to havethat faith.
When you're struggling, what doyou do, or what's something
somebody can do?
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah, well, there's.
There's a couple of thingsFaith over fear that was
actually our last firesideretreat that we did.
That was the theme of it wasfaith over fear.
And actually, again, my post-it.
I have a post-it in front of methat says fear gar or faith gar
.
So the thoughts that arerunning through my mind is this
fear gar talking right now or isthis faith gar talking right
now?
And so, first of all, right,it's just simply recognizing and
saying, hey, I'm walking infear right now.
And so when we first justacknowledge our feelings which,
(31:56):
right, guys, a lot of times ourwives, you know they're doing
that, you know, like 12 secondsafter the emotion comes, we're
like suppressing it for, youknow, seven months.
And then, finally, we, you know, we're like, okay, I was, I was
scared, you know whatever.
But first of all, one of myfavorite scriptures in regards
to this is Isaiah 26, three.
It says you will keep him inperfect peace, whose mind is
(32:18):
stayed upon you because hetrusted you.
So, first of all, as as aChristian and a Christian
entrepreneur which I feel likebeing a Christian is is hard,
right, being a Christianentrepreneur, I feel like it's
twice as hard because, as you'rebuilding a business and you
need to know sales and marketingand accounting and all these
(32:39):
things in entrepreneurship, likeall these insecurities, are
always constantly coming tosurface in us.
Right, we run a marketingcampaign and I remember when I
decided to turn my Facebook adon at $50 a day.
Oh my gosh, the fear that wasin me.
Now we run $2,000 a day.
We'll spend $30,000, $50,000 amonth on just one campaign and I
(33:02):
remember when $50 a day wasjust mind-blowing to me, keeping
our mind stayed upon God andtrusting in Him.
And then I love the scripturesthe scripture in Hebrews 11, 1,
where it says faith is thesubstance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen.
The thing that I love aboutthat scripture is the word hope,
(33:24):
because it says faith is thesubstance of things hoped for.
So a lot of times we're tryingto be in faith over fear, but
actually we have zero hope.
We actually have to go back astep before we get into faith
and we actually have to havehope.
And again, another post-it hereright in front of me says hope
does not know what's going tohappen, it just knows that
(33:47):
something will.
So, first of all, just havinghope, saying you know what, I
don't know what's going tohappen, it just knows that
something will.
So, first of all, just havinghope, saying you know what, I
don't know what's going tohappen, I just know something
will.
And then under that, it saysonce hope creates expectation,
then faith begins to look forthe thing that hope is feeling.
So once we begin to have thathope that, hey, I have hope,
things are going to work out.
(34:08):
And how do we get that hope?
First, by keeping our mindstayed upon God, and one of the
main ways that I do that is Ijust simply look back in my past
of where I've been in othersituations where I could have
easily had no hope, but yet Igot through it Right.
So I look back when I'm likeman.
I remember when I lost my housein 2008, because I got fired
(34:32):
from my job for sharing my faith, and God brought me through
that.
And I remember when thishappened in 2010, that God
brought me through that.
And I remember when thishappened with my child and I
felt hopeless, but then Godbrought me through that and I
began to remember, like it saysin I forget maybe Psalms, where
it says David encouraged himselfin the Lord.
(34:54):
I began to remember all thesetimes where God has showed up
and brought me through.
You know I love that sayingwhere it says five years ago,
you how does that go?
Five years ago you'd kill to bethe person that you are today,
but then the person we are today, we're thinking of oh, I wish I
was just this right.
So it's so easy to forget allthe victories.
(35:18):
There's a really good book aboutthis, called Gap in the Gain.
You ever heard of that book?
Speaker 1 (35:23):
I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
It's one second here.
Let me turn around.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Dr Benjamin Hardy.
It's called the Gap and theGain, and he wrote another book
called 10X is Easier than 2X,and basically the Gap and the
Gain talks about how we can put10 things on our to-do list for
the day and we get eight of themdone.
Maybe we even get nine of themdone.
What do we do?
When we lay in bed at night?
We literally think about theone thing we did right.
(35:52):
But if we were to, if we wereto think of the nine things we
did accomplish, we would get allpumped up, excited and then we
would take that energy into thenext day.
But we don't do that.
We're so quick as humans toforget all the things that are
going right and we only focus ona couple of things that are
going wrong.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
All the things that are going right and we only
focus on a couple of things thatare going wrong.
So true, and I love what youshared.
Thank you for sharing that.
This is what I love about thispodcast and this is not a
Christian based podcast oranything necessarily like that,
but I love hearing people'sfaith and how they overcome
things and I appreciate yousharing that because that's
important.
Before we wrap up the RV, I doa couple of just I guess we'll
(36:31):
call them rapid fire slash quickquestions on RV.
Any particular favorite RV mealthat you guys have as a family?
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Oh, RV meal.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Oh man, I'm trying to think.
I feel like it's been foreversince we've RV'd.
Now it's weird and it reallyhasn't.
It's like ancient history to meand I'm like I literally right
outside my window is my RV.
I've got a friend taking itthis weekend.
I don't rent my RV anymore justbecause it's got 150,000 miles
on it.
I rented it a ton, paid for itthree times over and use it a
(37:00):
million times.
Man, anything over a campfireyeah, you know, hot dogs are
definitely a favorite.
Anything over a campfire yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
There's something about that a campfire and
cooking over a campfire.
There's something about thefood.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Oh there sure is.
Just sitting around a campfireis just so beautiful and just
camping.
In my webinar that I do thatexplains our franchise
opportunity.
In my webinar that I do thatexplains our franchise
opportunity.
One of the images that pulls upon the screen it's two people
talking and one person isholding a bag of dog poop.
And then right to the left ofit says oh, they're both wearing
(37:41):
their pajamas.
And it says camping the onlyplace where you can walk around
in your pajamas with a bag ofdog poop and strike up a
conversation with a totalstranger.
And it's normal, like that'sour being.
That's how cool it is oh, Ilove it.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
That's fantastic.
Any particular campsite thatjust has extra special meaning
besides where you're at nowokachobies or some other like
one that you're like, that'splace had special meaning to us
yeah, there's a couple campsitesthat we would go to every year.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
So there's one in Michigan that our friends
actually own that we would gothere every year.
There's this little like redtube kind of thing that the kids
climb through.
I've got a picture of myIsabella in there, I think like
five years in a row.
Like I would recreate thepicture with her, have her put
her eyes through the littlepeephole on it, so that's
probably the most favorite one,for sure.
(38:31):
There.
That's such a sweet memory tojust go back and back and back
and then it's like it's longenough that you miss it, but not
long enough that the kidsforget it.
So, like, right when you pullin, just like, oh, that's a
candy store, I remember thecandy store.
Oh, my gosh, yeah, the swimmingpool, I remember that.
That's so cool, you know.
So that is, that is so much fun.
(38:52):
So we didn't actually get therethis year, but I think probably
the last eight years in a rowwe probably went there.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
And then, finally, what's that?
One essential piece of gearthat you can't travel without.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
The one piece of gear that you can't travel without
is a griddle.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Got to have the griddle.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
You got to have the griddle.
It's funny because when we werefull timing, I mean we had all
the gear, we were loaded up, butthen if we just go somewhere
for a handful of days or aweekend, man, we, we've got it
down to a science.
We're like OK, bikes, griddle,you know, and obviously you know
for the kids at night, like weknow, like two outfits, we can
do longer this and that.
(39:33):
The little you know the griddleis.
You could do so much on that,and especially with a camper,
you know you've only got so muchspace inside, so you want to be
strategic.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
And then now you mentioned earlier you talked,
you kind of alluded to it thatyou said you have a couple of
books.
Tell me about the books.
What are they?
Why did you write them?
What's kind of the purposebehind those?
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah.
So I've got a couple of books,one of them right here it's
called my wheel estate story.
So you can go to my wheelestate storycom and download it
for free.
Or if you want to hold it inyour hand, you can buy it off
Amazon.
But I just love really justgetting the information into
people's hands.
So my real estate story uh, thesubtitle is from lawnmowers to
(40:13):
RVs my entrepreneurial journeyfilled with faith, failures and
fun times.
And basically it's my firstbusiness proposal I gave to my
dad in fifth grade for a lawncare business up to our RV
business.
And that just talks about mybusinesses.
But I feel like mostimportantly, it talks about my
failures.
And same with my latest book.
(40:34):
My latest book is called my HisStory and it's basically it's
my story through the eyes of Godand it's my journey.
Basically what happened withthat book was I was getting
ready for our fireside retreatin January and the Lord woke me
up at 4.14 in the morning in oneof my God spots where I go and
(40:56):
I just hear from God, believe itor not.
A lot of people can connectwith this.
Do you get it when you're inthe shower and all of a sudden
you have like a brilliant idea,come to you.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
A hundred percent yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Yeah, something with the shower.
It's like this magical placewhere, like you just almost say,
you're like, oh man, Iliterally have a dry erase
marker in my shower so I canwrite on the wall, because in
the shower I get these ideas.
Well, that's the same with myhot tub.
That's like one of my God spots.
So normally when I go to my hottub, though, I leave my phone
so I can just disconnect andjust hear from the Lord.
(41:27):
Well, this morning, he told meto bring my phone with me and he
told me to open up a Google Doc.
So I did that and I startedvoice texting.
Four and a half hours later andthis wasn't all in the hot tub
I got out of the hot tub afterabout three o'clock.
Four and a half hours later,they wake me up.
(41:50):
I was unconscious.
Now, four and a half hourslater, literally, the Lord had
walked me through like a halfdozen moments in my life,
starting in second grade, when Iwent up to my dad.
He was passed out on the couchand I was.
I came home from church and Iwas sharing with him a rock that
I had painted for him.
God brought me to that momentand showed me the pain of the
moment where my dad just kind ofdismissed me and he showed me
(42:11):
where the devil whispered a lieto me about my identity.
And then God spoke the truth tome and he took me through about
a half dozen different momentsin my life where something
happened, a lie was spoken to meabout who I am, and then he
spoke the truth to me about whoI really am.
And this story is so beautifulbecause literally the stone from
(42:34):
second grade is intertwinedthrough the whole story.
I'm at a men's retreat in thewoods.
We go out in the woods, we dowhat's called a monastic fast.
We're in the woods for thewhole day.
We don't talk the whole day andwe have this book telling us
what to do.
One of the things it said to dowas go on a walk.
So I'm just walking around thewoods, I look down on the ground
(42:54):
, I see this white stone and Ihear the Lord speak to my mind
clear as day.
Pick up that stone.
So I picked it up, put it in mypocket.
Later I'm sitting there doingthe homework assignment and the
homework assignment says readRevelations 2.17.
Well, that scripture says andto him who overcomes, I will
give him a white stone.
(43:15):
You can't make this stuff up.
The Lord tells me grab thewhite stone out of my pocket.
So I do, and he tells mesomething.
So all the way to the end ofthis story, and I'm like
blubbering idiot, crying, I'mtelling my wife, oh, my gosh,
now this that All the way to theend I'm sitting on my chair
wrapping things up Isabella, myeight-year-old, walks down and
(43:42):
she has this box which issitting right down here and
we're getting ready for theretreat, right?
And Isabella says dad, I havethis box of prizes I made to
hand out to people.
She starts showing me all thesethings.
She's like, dad, there's onemore thing, but I really don't
want to give it to you.
But God just kept telling meand I said, god, it's so
important, my best friend, coralgave it to me.
She's like anyway, dad, here itis.
(44:02):
She reaches into the box, jake,and she pulls out a white stone
and hands it to me.
And I just start crying againand she's like dad, you're right
.
Like, wow, I'm glad I listenedto God.
And that's the story.
The whole thing about it is whenwe have painful moments in life
(44:23):
and I put a little framework atthe end of the book.
When we have a painful momentin life, it's an indicator and I
like to say it.
Tony Robbins says, when we havethese moments to get curious.
And Tony Robbins will say, likeGod, the earth, whatever you
call it, you know Tony's like.
I choose to call it God, butwhatever you call it, you know
these are indicators.
(44:45):
So when we feel this pain, wewant to press into it and get
curious and say, okay, why am Ifeeling the pain in this moment?
And we'll discover there's aroot to that pain.
But if we press into that, theroot of that pain, on the other
side of that there's freedom forus, for us to actually hear the
truth of here's a painfulmoment that happened in your
life.
Here's a lie that you believedin the moment, but here's the
(45:06):
actual truth, that painfulmoment.
And at the bottom of my book Iput life happens for you, not to
you.
So when life happens, right,like I said that one of my kids
had a painful moment, lifehappened to them but God
actually used it for them, so itmade them part of who they are
today.
And now that pain can actuallybe used for purpose, so my child
(45:30):
is actually able to help otherchildren if they walk through a
similar moment.
So life actually happened.
We can look at it as a victimor a victor, and in my book it's
how to look at life as a victor.
When life happens to, you say,wait, actually, life actually
happened for me and uncover that, and I laid a framework out for
(45:50):
how to do that at the end ofthe book.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
What was the purpose behind doing it?
Did God call you to do it?
Is that kind of the wholereason you want to do it, you
just want to get your story outthere.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
Yeah, that was totally preparation for that
retreat.
That ended up being theframework for the retreat that
weekend, and so I walked myfranchisees through this process
and we just had you know, it'sjust beautiful time we did
different exercises, like wejust got quiet, closed our eyes,
put on some music and just youknow, hey, what's a lie that
(46:20):
I've been believing?
And then just asking what's thetruth?
And then, as people heard thelie and the truth, they went up
onto a chalkboard and they wrotedown the lie.
And then they wrote down thetruth and just several other
things we did like that.
And then after that, I thoughtyou know what, I might as well
take this transcript and send itto my publisher.
And I even say, right at thebeginning of the book I have a
(46:41):
QR code that's a video of meexplaining how all this happened
.
And then it says, hey, thisbook was basically a preparation
for a retreat, so it's kind oflike raw information.
So it's.
I didn't do a ton to organizeit because I didn't want to try
and orchestrate it a certain way.
I want it to stay as raw andgeneric as possible.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
You know, as far as what happened, I think it's a
beautiful thing that you've doneand I think it's a beautiful
thing that you're sharing.
What does the future look like?
Fireside, rv rental, the family, what do you?
You know, what do you?
What are you hoping for?
Moving into the future?
Speaker 2 (47:17):
It's serving Christian entrepreneurs and
serving my wife and children tofulfill their callings.
Serving Christian entrepreneursand serving my wife and
children to fulfill theircallings that is the future for
me and my entrepreneurialadventure.
One of the ways that we'redoing that is we just bought a
diner.
Three months ago we bought theoldest diner in our town.
It was built in 1951.
(47:38):
So next year will be 75 years.
It's the oldest diner.
My wife was a customer servicemanager when we met and she's
always had a heart for businessand managing and working.
And now that our youngest iseight and we homeschool, we
bought this little diner and weall work at it now and that's
(47:58):
one of the things that we'redoing to prepare our kids for
their calling.
Everything we do is well.
I don't like to say everything.
I don't like to say everythingand all the time and always.
I don't like those definitions.
We try to live our life in amanner that is preparing our
kids to fulfill their calling.
You know, and our big focus forour kids is like their
character, their integrity, themseeing needs around them and
(48:22):
meeting the needs you know.
So a lot of our homeschoolingis based around that.
It's like okay, you know how toadd, you know, divide, you know
.
You know those couple thingslike that's good on math, unless
we see something really in themwhere they're going to be a
mathematician.
Outside of that, I want them tomaster reading.
I want them to fall in lovewith the art of learning.
(48:45):
We enroll in lots of differentcourses together and do courses
and programs and retreats andstuff together, and so that's
the future is continuing downthat path.
We serve at food drivestogether.
That's part of ourhomeschooling so they can see
right the people right in theircommunity that man are so
thankful just to get.
You know they literally waitovernight in a car to get maybe
(49:06):
$60 worth of food stuff likethat.
So it's continued to to help mywife and kids fulfill their
calling and then serve Christianentrepreneurs.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
So if somebody has interest in either Fireside RV
rental and I think you mentionedearlier, we know where they can
get your book.
Yeah, Tell everybody where theycan follow along and learn more
about, about Fireside RV rentaland your books and everything.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
Yeah, if you go to firesidervrentalcom, you can
look out there to see where ourlocations are.
You can rent an RV.
So if you've never gone on a anadventure, or you know, or a
journey, go on there, rent an RV.
Take your family for theweekend.
If you have an RV and it'ssitting around 99% of the time,
(49:50):
you can put it into ourmanagement program.
Or if you're entrepreneurialminded, you can check out our
franchise opportunity, ourfranchise.
When I say serve Christianentrepreneurs, that's who I'm
called to serve.
But a caveat to that if you'renot a Christian and you go
through our application processand you understand, like hey,
gar runs his business based offthe Bible.
(50:11):
So if I get on a mentoring callwith Gar, I'm going to be okay
with him, you know, quoting 10scriptures and praying for me at
the end, that's cool, you know.
But that doesn't mean that youhave to be a Christian to be a
Fireside franchise.
I, you know, but that doesn'tmean that you have to be a
christian to be a firesidefranchise.
I just want you to know.
That's how I'm wired and that'sthat's how I serve people.
So I don't want anyone to feellike man, you pulled the wool
(50:33):
over our eyes, you know,whatever the case is.
And then our books.
Yeah, my wheel estate storycom,and maybe, if you want to, I
can send you the links for theshow notes.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Yeah, yeah, what.
What's the last one?
My, my his storycom my, hisstorycom, my storycom.
I love it.
Yep, this was fascinating.
I learned a lot about you andwho you are.
I appreciate what you're doing.
I appreciate the fact thatyou're serving your community,
that you're serving others,you're serving your family.
I think that's important.
This was great, gar.
(51:04):
Thank you so much for coming on.
Journey with Jake.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
Yeah, thanks for having me, Jake.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
Man, what a ride with Gar Russell today.
If you want to check out moreof what he's up to, head over to
FiresideRVRentalcom, and youcan grab his books at
MyHisStorycom.
Hey, I just want to pause andsay thank you, I.
Hey, I just want to pause andsay thank you.
I'm honestly so grateful youtune in each week.
This podcast has been such acool journey for me personally.
I get to sit down with peoplelike Gar and it honestly
(51:30):
inspires me just as much as Ihope it inspires you, I know.
For me it keeps me looking foradventure and for ways to grow
in my own life and I'm gladwe're sharing that together.
Next week I've got Lisa Burgesson the show.
She's got some amazing storiesabout life overseas as the wife
of a professional basketballplayer and, trust me, there are
plenty of ups and downs youwon't want to miss.
(51:52):
So thanks again for listening,thanks for being part of this
journey with me and until nexttime.
Just remember it's not alwaysabout the destination as it is
about the journey.
Take care, everybody.
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