Ron Carson: From salesman to shaman

When I met Ron Carson in the dark days of the 2008 financial crisis, the star financial advisor told me how he began working in the financial advice industry by selling insurance in college during the 1980s, the trunk of his car a portable office.

In our future meetings and conversations, along with his trenchant observations about Wall Street titans like Goldman Sachs, he at times reminisced about broker conventions in the 1990s when he was an up and coming star at Linsco/Private Ledger, now LPL Investment Holdings Inc.

Carson told tales of sharing poolside drinks in those days with other advisors, dreaming about the future and talking about how to take care of clients with the broker-dealer’s owner and industry innovator, Todd Robinson.

Pretty standard stuff for a salesman at the top of his career.

But, along with his evident concern for his customers, it was clear that Carson relished the attention and accolades he received as one of America’s top financial advisors. He enjoyed the limelight: a stock photo from several years ago displayed Carson, a pilot, in front of an airplane hanger with his firm’s name on it.

At the same time as running his wealth management firm, which is now called Carson Group, he was the star attraction for a financial advisor coaching business called Peak Advisor Alliance.

To kick off a meeting for several hundred financial advisors taking a training class in his home base of Omaha in 2012, Carson bounded on stage in the midst of plumes of smoke from a dry ice machine, posing as Marty McFly from the Back to the Future movies, replete with puffer vest and shades.

The audience of financial advisors, all paying for two days of classes to learn how to be more like Ron Carson, went wild. After the crowd settled down, Carson ordered them to work on their 30-second elevator pitches to clients, and they obediently broke into groups, practicing their pitches in an attempt to sound more like Ron Carson.

Now, the ultimate salesman and majority owner of the $35 billion in assets Carson Group, is apparently trying to find distance from those ways and looks to have gone full-on shaman.

In the face of a spiritual awakening, is Carson really dropping his inner pitchman?

The 60-year-old Carson the past few years has discarded his given name and refers to himself as Omani. He’s holding spiritual retreats in Omaha these days, as my colleague Emile Hallez recently reported, with no mention of coaching financial advisors.

And Carson’s transformation appears to be accelerating.

This spring, he stepped aside as CEO of Carson Group, naming LPL veteran and former chief investment officer Burt White as his successor, and kept the role of chairman. That happened after Carson Group was sued by its former chief marketing officer, who alleges retaliation and discrimination. The company has denied wrongdoing.

The financial advisor who used to preach the necessity of the 30-second elevator pitch to land fresh customers is currently in the business of hawking inner peace and tranquility.

As InvestmentNews’ U.S. News Editor Hallez reported this month, Carson’s nickname means “to run into a stiff wind.”

“And his ambitions go far beyond wealth management, spanning sustainability, mysticism, and personal transformation,” Hallez reported. “He talks openly about psychedelics, having started using them eight years ago – a turn of events that he credits with unlocking his creativity and helping him increase the size of the business tenfold.”

In the article, Hallez quoted Carson, speaking in August on The Spiritual Psychologist Podcast. “I remember the day after I did my [first] journey, everything looked brighter. My mind was cleaner. I was vibrating this energy, and people were looking at me and smiling. I’m not sure if they were before and I never noticed it.”

Carson did not return a call on Tuesday to comment. A spokesperson for Carson Group also did not return a call to comment.

In social media posts on X, formerly Twitter, this week from the Carson Group’s Excell conference in Orlando, the charismatic White was featured heavily while no mention of Ron Carson could be found. In what appears to be an out of date video on Carson Group’s website, he introduces himself as the firm’s founder and CEO, not chairman.

“Obviously, this is beyond unusual,” said one veteran financial advisor who knows Carson and spoke confidentially to InvestmentNews about recent events. “But why draw the attention to yourself right now, considering the questions the firm is facing? This doesn’t look like it’s helping the situation.”  

Hallez further quoted Carson about this spiritual awakening: “This was when I’m like, ‘I’m going to devote my life to helping others jolt themselves into a different dimension and a different way of being.’”

A Carson property in Nebraska next month will be home to a $2,222-a-ticket annual event called Imagine OR, according to Hallez, where up to 350 guests experience new-world music, art, gourmet food, breathwork, and talks on environmentalism and the cases for psychedelics.

From the looks of the website for the event, think Burning Man meets Field of Dreams.

Quick. What’s a 30-second elevator pitch for enlightenment?

Show up next month in Omaha to find out. Ron Carson, the financial advisor who has always been a mix of salesman, shaman and showman, will lead the way.