Embracing Uniqueness: Find And Pursue Your God-Given Talents With Miguel Garcia
God created everyone to be special and unique. You don't have to change something about yourself to fit in. Embrace your uniqueness. Find what you're good at and pursue it. This is what Miguel Garcia believes in and he has been through a lot. Miguel has founded seven different companies. Right now, he's the co-founder along with his wife of Natural Choice Company. Join your host Chad Burmeister and listen to Miguel's story. Learn about his career, why you should be happy with what you have, how God helped him, and more.
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Embracing Uniqueness: Find And Pursue Your God-Given Talents With Miguel Garcia
I'm hanging out with a new friend of mine, Miguel Garcia. He has founded seven different companies. He's on his eighth and that's not even the most impressive thing that I'm going to tell you. He's the Cofounder with his wife of an amazing company called Natural Choice Company. It's NaturalChoiceCompany.com. The most impressive thing is that he had not one child, not 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, but 15 children. I don't think I have met somebody in my entire life until I met Miguel and he’s the proud father of fifteen children. Miguel, welcome to the show.
Thank you very much, Chad, for having me. It's going to be fun.
I'm excited to dig in with you because I enjoyed your presentation in Florida, what you are doing with the towelettes with more natural oils, rather than the stuff that a lot of these airplanes use that give you, and it rubs off, you have to keep doing it over and over, a cool product. Before we get into that, I like to rewind the tape and ask you the question, where were you born and raised? What were some of the things that you were passionate about when you were a kid?
I was born and raised in Mexico. Guadalajara was the city where I was born and then, against my will, they brought me to the States but they lied to me. My parents kidnapped me. My dad moved to the States in ‘71 in Chicago, and then in ‘76, the whole family moved in. I had a scholarship in Mexico for my high school and my college, and whatever I wanted to do in life in a very prestigious school. My parents go, “You are going to go back. You are going to go on and be very successful.”
Embracing Uniqueness: Everyone is unique. There's only one of you. There's never been anybody like you and it never will. You're only created once, that is the uniqueness of creation.
I spent a lot of time on my mom's in ‘71 to ‘77, my teenage years or whatever. I was about 13, 14 when I went back to Mexico and I unleashed. I started hanging out with the guys. I was living with my grandparents and they were a little softer and I started doing a bunch of crazy stuff. My parents said, “Why don't you come to Chicago for the winter? You have never seen snow. It’s beautiful.” I’ve got on a plane and landed in Chicago.
Mom took the passport and she goes, “Monday, you are going to school.” I'm like, “What? What's going on?” She goes, “You are not going back.” I'm like, “What?” My infancy was full of innocence and freedom. I didn't know we were dirt poor but I played soccer on the street at six years old, having fun and barefooted, shoes tore up or whatever, it didn't matter to me. I looked back at those years and I miss that freedom. I never wondered what I was going to eat. I knew that there were beans, rice and that’s all I needed. I never wanted anything more than to go play soccer. I love playing soccer.
It's interesting because if you ask an entrepreneur who's juggling, maybe they are on the board of five companies and they are the CEO of their company, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy you are." If they look in the mirror sometimes, some people could say, “I'm a four,” even though they've got everything. What you are articulating is happiness is all a relative term. You were as happy kicking the soccer ball on the street, eating rice and beans than being a seven-time founder of different companies.
I'm part of a mastermind, the Arete Syndicate. I have been there for years, so much that they call me the Godfather. I don't know why, maybe because I'm the oldest one probably. I met a lot of my brothers and sisters in that mastermind. They are very successful but family-wise or whatever, they don't have the faith and they are not happy. They’ve got toys. They’ve got all sorts of things.
They keep buying things to appease that sadness and they are not happy. I have a 2013 Ram pickup truck and I love it still. I don't crave the Lamborghinis, exotic cars or anything like that because I’ve got everything else. I’ve got my faith and my family. I have an awesome relationship with my wife. She's my super best friend. My children, we hang out together all the time and that's what it's all about.
Thinking about when you played soccer in the streets, there's probably some traits and characteristics you found. Were you defense or offense? Were you the leader? Think about those characteristics of you as a kid and now. Look at yourself nowadays in the seven companies you have worked for. Is there a common thread? Why do you think you became a Founder of multiple companies? What led you from there to here?
I was always a leader. I always take charge of things. We were nine when we were growing up and I was the third one. They considered me the oldest because everybody came to me for things because I would get things done. I'm a doer. I do things with a sense of urgency. I want to get this done and I get it done. I have leadership qualities. I was always the captain of the team. Even though it was smaller or whatever but somehow I managed to rise, lead and inspire people.
I remember teaching some of the kids. We are in a championship game. There are a couple of guys that go in there and don't know how to do a couple of things. We went into penalty kicks and they are freaking out. This is a championship and I'm going, “Focus on these, do this, ignore everything else. You are going to be fine.” They score and look at me with those eyes like, “That's awesome.” I accomplished this on my own. I was probably eleven years old doing that stuff. That translated into my business life. I have always been a leader or pursued that naturally, instinctively. I'm an alpha person.
Think about people reading the show. Maybe they are an individual contributor or grinding the gears. They are not happy with the life they are living. Sometimes if you rewind and go back to 6, 9, 8 and all those years and go, “Who was I as a kid?” At that point, you are unfiltered. Your parents haven't necessarily influenced you, teachers, pastors, whoever you meet out in the street.
You are your own kid and you are in the eyes of God. You are living the dream and the passion. The further we get off of that track, the more we can go back, be the kid and go, “That's what I loved to do.” The more we line up with that, the less grinding of the gears and the easier it becomes, at least what I have found throughout my career.
On Instagram, I had a program going up. It was called Mondays with Miguel. I would take a free phone call from anybody for between 30 and 45 minutes and I did hundreds of calls. People weren't happy with what they have or with their looks. There was something wrong with them, whatever it was, lack of money, lack of good looks, lack of talent, lack of this and that. I always ask the question, “Who are you comparing to?” That's the problem. We are unique. I tell my children, “There's only one of you. There has never been anybody like you. There will never be anybody else like you.” If you think about the uniqueness of creation, it's the same thing with animals, fish, horses, whatever you want. They have been created once.
One of the things that blow my mind is your fingerprints. You look at this little finger. Can it be billions and billions of fingerprints since the beginning of the world? That's only God's work. It's amazing. I tell people, "Don't compare yourself to anybody. You are unique. Find what your gifts are and pursue that. Those are your strengths. Don't look at your weaknesses. Focus on your strengths." Some people do snap out of it and they realize that they have been cheated by the fact that social media outlets glamorize everything. They say, “People have their highlight reel in the social media platforms.” You are comparing them to them. I tell you what. I have met the saddest persons on social media. When do you get one-on-one, they have a lot of issues.
On my wall, I've got a fingerprint made of Bible verses and I saw it up in the mountains at this house. I was like, “I need that.” You are right. It's amazing. I use that example a lot. I had a guy named Juan Lee on the show and he wrote a book called Love Made Simple. It was interesting because he talked about how he had a learning disability. He didn't discover it until age 37 but he doesn't call it a deficiency. He's like, “What I realized is that's my gift. I'm good. God made me with all of it.”
My good friend, Jorgensen, who's just the most amazing marketer ever, his whole mission is to help people discover what are they 1 of 1 at in the world. He works with Tiger Woods. He works with Tiger's old caddy. These people come to them like Tiger's old caddy and say, “I'm Tiger's caddy.” He's like, “No, you are not.” He's like, “Let's talk about this. Let's redefine this. You are the best kid in the world.” It's like, “You are right. Why do I want to be his caddy when I can be the best caddy in the world?”
Embracing Uniqueness: People always look at what they can improve but never embrace themselves. Figure out what you're good at instead of comparing yourself and being miserable.
I discovered I was dyslexic late in life. I'm a visual person and I used to be embarrassed to say to people in the meeting and say, “I don't understand the concept.” Abstract things, it's hard for me to grasp but if you draw me a picture or whatever, I will get it and I will go very far. People take it as a crutch and go, “I'm dyslexic.” I think backward in some things. With my accountant, we were always having this thing, she's like, “You always go to the granular level and I'm here.” We are always the opposite but we always come up with the answer. For me, making decisions, it's unique in the way I make decisions. People are like, “Why wouldn't you do that instead of this?” I'm going, “It's because I'm thinking this way, that way.” They are like, “I get it but I wouldn't do it that way.” I'm like, “That's fine. That's why I built seven companies and you haven't.
We are all put together differently for a purpose, too, by the way.
You’ve got to embrace your uniqueness. People repel that uniqueness. They go, “I wish I was taller, blue eyes," whatever it is. We are always looking at something else but we never embrace ourselves. "Thank you, God, that you made me this way. Let's figure out what you have given me. Let me unpack this thing and figure out what am I good at," instead of comparing yourself and being miserable.
While we are on this topic, I'm going to go off-script on this one because it's interesting. I went to a concert. I'm not a big country fan but I went to a country concert. One of the big guys was wearing his cowboy hat and his boots. It was all the popular music. We’ve got the booth seats because we bought them the day of, and we go in and they go, “You have to buy tacos or nachos six at a time," because it's a whole big VIP booth. Finally, three girls and guys come in, and then this couple. The one guy is from Mexico and his wife is from Spain. I don't want to ruin the punchline of the story.
Halfway through, we get an offer. “Would you like a shot of this tequila?” It was 1942 Don Julio, the good stuff. We are like, “Okay, cool.” I show him my app. I'm like, “We launched this app called 77Pray. You should check it out.” We had a great conversation about their love of Jesus and everything else. We ended up hanging out the rest of the night for 2, 3 hours. We went across the street to a bar and got to know this couple well. He goes, “Did you see what happened in the booth?” I'm like, “What are you talking about?” She goes, “You can't afford the Don Julio and you can't even afford the six-pack of tacos.” He's like, “What are you talking about? I bought the whole booth.” He was the guy who put together the whole booth that everyone else bought from. His mom owns 4,000 acres in Mexico.
Yet it was interesting because when we talk about uniqueness, to me, he's a cool dude that gave me a shot at tequila and we are all brothers and sisters under God. To the lady that was serving him, she was like, “Do you have enough money?” He's like, “I bought the suite, lady.” It took a while to figure that out. I asked him, “You are from Mexico and your wife is from Spain. What percentage of the time do you feel treated differently?” He guessed it to be 5%, which I was like, “That's 5% too much.” In America nowadays, it should be zero. Is that something recognizable these days? On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being it's terrible to 1 being nothing, what is it to you?
Whatever they call me, Hispanic, Latino, Latinx, on a call me, I ignore it. I am another human being. I moved from Chicago to Kansas. This is White, rural America and I tell you what, I love and respect the Midwestern culture. They did embrace me. I have never been called names or anything like that, never ever. We used to run a company. It was an international telecommunications training company and we will have instructors from all over the US and the world come here to the middle of Kansas.
I had a guy from New York that came in and he says, “How do you do it?” I'm like, “How do I do what?” He goes, “How do you live in this White, rural America?” He's White. He's trying to play the card with me and I'm like, “I don't have a chip on my shoulder.” These are my Christian brothers. I don't have an issue. Don't make an issue. I have never had an issue. I had more of an issue when I was in Chicago, back in the ‘70s than any time now.
There's a friend of mine, John Guydon, who played for the CU Buffs. He did a TED Talk and it's called Why The Race Card Has Expired. It's quite controversial but they have even changed the name on YouTube. His perspective was, you've got to investigate things when you think it's discriminatory. For example, he's on the first class of an airplane and he gets served last.
He was like, “Excuse me, ma'am. A quick question out of curiosity. Out of all these twelve nice people up here, I was the one served last. I'm curious.” She goes, “That's totally explainable. You've got the lowest points of every single person in here. It has nothing to do with anything other than you've got 100,000 points and that guy has 1.4 million. Any other questions?” A lot of people are associated incorrectly with something different and that's what pausing and making the question.
It's also a mindset. If you have the mindset of a victim, you will find anything that offends you in all sorts of things. I have a very strong mindset. I don't have a chip on my shoulder or anything. I'm not going around like a victim. I'm going around trying to help people and do things. People need to change their mindsets. I could tell you a Mexican joke now if you want to but I have only been frowned upon or whatever. I could take a joke. I'm that not sensitive.
Let's move to the next question. Everybody faces something tough in life and I know you shared with me when we were in Florida 1 or 2 of the very tough things you have had to go through. Is there something you are comfortable sharing? What was that hard thing for you and how did you get through it? What got you through to the other side?
Embracing Uniqueness: The goal in this life is not to accumulate toys, riches, and fame. The goal is to work your butt off, to go to heaven, and live a better life for eternity.
The hardest thing has been when we lost our son. He was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor at age six. It was September of 2006 and he passed January 1st, 2007. Those were the toughest three months of my life but at the same time, I saw God in this whole thing because people ask God for things. "God give me strength. God give me patience." God doesn't give it to you when you want it. God sends it to you when you need it. When I would pray for something, I say, “Give me strength to be able to help my son have a quality of life or help my family, my wife deal with this whole thing.” I was cool. I don't know, it was eerie. When God gives you peace and he says, “I'm with you. I'm going to take you through this.”
We know that the goal in this life is not to accumulate toys, riches and fame because of our faith. Our goal is to work our butts off, to go to heaven and live a better life for eternity. If the goal is for you to go to heaven and live a great life, then my son accomplished that goal at age seven. I am old and I am still struggling with this. I wish God would have taken me at age seven so I wouldn't have to go through the struggles that I have gone through.
It's he reached the finish line when he was supposed to reach the finish line.
Once you accept that, it's easier. It's easier to deal with any hardship. We don’t call it a hardship. We call it a test. For us, it's a test and you pass a test, and then God graduates you to the next level. After him, we had twins with Down syndrome. They are premature and they were in the hospital for months with a lot of health issues and things like that. That was pretty tough as well but again, with God, you could do anything.
I love how you have been able to understand that even in the hard stuff. People go through things and even in their toughest things, God shows up, as you said. You were at peace.
They curse God. There are a lot of people who have the bad habit of cursing God. I always explain to people, "On a natural level, if you and I are good friends, you have a lot of money and you have a lot of power, why would I curse you? Why would I not want to befriend you? I know you could help me." While on the supernatural level, it makes much more sense because God is the source of everything. Health, finances, happiness, whatever you want, he's the source. To me, it's illogical to curse Him. Trust him in the sense that he's sending you something. You are like, “I don't know why you are sending me this.”
When something happens, my wife and I say this, “We don't know why you are sending us this. We will accept it and we are going to work through it because you are going to guide us through wisdom.” It happens. You surrender basically your will to Him. As a father with my children, especially the little ones, they don't know why I'm saying, “You can't have that candy," this, that or whatever. They don't know it's for their own good. We are the same thing. God is the perfect father and what He does for us is for our well-being.
I love Malachi 3:10, and there are different versions of it. This is King James Version. I like a different one even better but this was pretty darn good. “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse.” I used to think of tithe as 10% and I am always short of that. My dad and my brother always hit it. I was always like, “Someday, I will live up to theirs.” Now, I look at tithe as time, talent and treasures. Notice treasure is not listed first in that.
In my new day job with my profit business, I'm only doing 30% to 40% of that and I'm doing 60% time, talent, treasures. I can see, it says, “There may be food in the house and prove, said the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out blessings.” It says, “Unleash the flood gates of heaven,” in another translation.
As I have done 50% to 70% above the quota of 10%, you can feel the flood gates of heaven open up. It's so rewarding. In one translation, it says, “Test me.” It's like, “God never asked you to test Him. Be careful of the translation.” Prove this, it's like, “Try it and I will prove it to you.” It's meaningful and it sounds like you have lived your life that way. Next question. If it's three years and we are back on the show or maybe I see you back in Sarasota, maybe I've got a few more grays on the chin and I said, “How has everything been for you the last three years?" What do you say looking back over the last three? What's transpired in your life?”
I would say, Chad, we have built an eight-figure business. It didn't look like it was going to take off and it exploded. We helped build a new church, helped three charities that we have and we are living the life. We are living the dream.
The last question, I'm going to jump ahead to this one and that is around faith. We have talked about it but I love this question. Maybe it will cause you to answer in a slightly different way. What role does faith play in your journey?
It's above everything. As a businessman, I have core values. My companies have core values. You have to have family core values, first of all, because if you preach about core values on a company, then you have to have family core values. Our core values in our family are God, family, and country, in that order. It used to be arguable that the country was second but our country is in crap. We need to fix our families so that we could rebuild our country. For me, it's God, family and country. God is the trunk where if we are attached to Him, we are the branches and graces are going to flow, we are going to grow and prosper. I believe that 1,000%.
For me, I must go to church. I'm Catholic and I try to go to 7:15 mass every single day. The reason why I do that is it’s our duty and our love for God. I know he's going to take care of me. It’s like, your children. If you had four children and one of them is always seeking you out, “Daddy, how can I help you? Daddy, here's your shoes. Daddy, here’s your slippers.” You are going to love him to death and if he asks you for anything, would you deny him anything?
Never.
You've got to be a good son to our Heavenly Father so that he could bless you beyond your wildest imagination. I try to do that. I try to be a good son to my father.
I had a couple of talks and one person in particular sticks out. He was in jail, methamphetamine, married and his wife is a meth addict. They have a son together. He goes in and out of jail. Finally, the term he used was he was broken. He was like, “That was about it and I was ready to take a razor blade and go in the back, in prison, and because there was water, the guards wouldn't see it. I would bleed out. That was option A. Option B was turn my life over to God.” He goes, “Obviously, I chose to turn my life over. God started talking to me, saying, 'You’ve got to go make amends here. You’ve got to do this. You’ve got to do that.'” What I'm curious about and I have been asking my wife and friends, is a lot of times we have to be broken before we can truly turn our lives over to Jesus.
I was raised Christian and have I been broken on a scale of compared to other people? Not as much, but I have gone through a head-on car accident. I've got through some pretty bad things in life. What is it about the brokenness? Why is it that it takes people some time to get into jail, at the bottom before they finally wake up? Can you do it a better way than having to hit the bottom? What's that all about?
I have talked to a lot of people that have hit bottom and my thoughts on that are that God needs to strip you out of your pride because pride gets in the way. Look at Lucifer, the prime example of pride. As long as you have pride, you are going to think you are everything. You don't need God or anything like that. Sometimes some of us learn the hard way and some people don't. For those of us that we learned the hard way, we have to hit bottom and feel helpless to recognize that we are helpless without God.
Miguel, I have enjoyed the conversation. I enjoyed getting to know you out there in Florida. Any final words of wisdom or advice that you would give to our readers on how to live a better story?
Befriend God. Try to look at him as a father. Don't look at him as a judge or they are going to judge you. He will forgive you. There's forgiveness, love, gifts that he could pour down on you and he makes this to do it. He doesn't cost you anything, too. Try it, start and embrace it. As I said, you try to be a good son, a good daughter so that he could pour those blessings on to you.
Honestly, on the natural level, if you have children and one of them is the runaway kid, the troublemaker or whatever, and the other one is always there helping you, you are going to help the one that wants to be helped. The other one, it will take him to get broken for him to come back, for you to help him out. For me, the thing that changed me quite a bit was when I started looking at God as a father.
If somebody is reading and they want to be involved in an eight-figure business and helping you take number eight to success, tell us a little bit more about Natural Choice Company and how would they reach you?
We are trying to produce anything that touches your skin. All-natural, no chemicals or anything like that. They told us that’s what we are doing. They are 100% natural. They create a barrier over your hands, like a virtual glove. You don't have to be putting sanitizer on your hands. This is a revolutionary product. There's nothing like this in the market. If they want to support us on that, that would be awesome. You could find me on Instagram, @MAGPatriot, or if you want to shoot me an email, it's Miguel@NaturalChoiceCompany.com.
Everybody, we have been talking to Miguel Garcia from Natural Choice Company. Thanks for sharing so much with us and with our readers. If you haven't tried to have a relationship with your creator, the father of everything, it doesn't hurt to try and wait for the blessings to get poured out. They will. They always do.
Chad, thank you very much. This has been the best show I have been involved in. You had great questions and I could see you love this. I love your message. I love the fact that you created the app and I love where are you going with this? Anything I can do to support you, let me know.
It's great to have you on. Thanks, everybody. Catch you on the next Living A Better Story.
Important Links:
Why The Race Card Has Expired - TED Talk
@MAGPatriot – Instagram
About Miguel Garcia
37 years of experience in business development, logistics, sales, marketing and manufacturing. Strategic and Tactical Executive with a passion for learning. Arete Syndicate Godfather, RPG Programmer, Network Administrator, Logistics Director, Sales and Marketing Director, CEO of HerbaFruit, President of Guardian Angel Enterprises. GM at Patriot Outfitters, co-founder of AngelFire Ammunition, Patriots Guns, and Natural Choice Company.
