The founder and chairman of Carson Group once known as Ron Carson is changing his legal first name to Omani, the former CEO said late last week on social media.
While Carson has used Omani informally as his identity, particularly since stepping away earlier this year from the CEO role at his company, he also included “Ron” as part of that.
No more, he said on a video on LinkedIn and on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“I was named, obviously, by my parents – had no say in the matter. And I really never liked my name,” Carson said, noting that he was teased in grade school, with his name compared to Ronald McDonald. He also has not like the “Jr.” part of his full name, Ronald Lloyd Carson, Jr., he said.
For the first 50 years of his life, which he said were lived based on a mindset of “fear and scarcity,” he planned to live with the name, despite how he felt about it, he said.
About 10 years ago, around the time he began experiencing psychedelics, he shifted to a “love and abundance” way of viewing the world, he said in recent interviews on podcasts.
He has also focused more of his time on projects that reflect that, including the Freedom Healing Ranch, a nonprofit affiliated with a church he registered with the Nebraska Secretary of State.
That organization hosts retreats, including a large annual gathering, Imagine OR.
“Two years ago, I did some work for the indigenous. We literally had eight people come to the Healing Ranch for a few days [who] represented close to 50 million indigenous people from around the world,” Carson said in his video. “It was such a profound experience that they wanted to show gratitude, and so they gave me a name – a Lakota name – Ta Te Omani. And it means ‘walking into a stiff wind.’”
Carson is planning a book about his recent experiences, he said. His work today is “really a process of awakening, and then really helping people find their higher selves, really becoming the person they were meant to be. And this is really a process for me, stepping from Ron to Omani, becoming the person I was meant to be,” he said.
As of Tuesday, Carson Group’s site had not reflected his name change.
“Ron Omani Carson’s video regarding his name change reflects his personal choices and pursuits outside of Carson Group. Thoughts and opinions expressed in the video do not necessarily reflect the views of Carson Group or our partners,” a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
Carson stepped away from his role as CEO in April, remaining as chairman but passing the CEO role to Burt White. That followed a significant event at the firm, when its former chief marketing officer sued it, alleging that she was retaliated against for her objections to how Carson Group handled an employee who allegedly sexually assaulted someone at an industry conference.
Carson started the company when he was in college, turning it into what is now an RIA with $40 billion in assets under management.
On his name change, the former CEO said he will gently nudge people who refer to him as Ron.
“Please, it’s just a request,” he said in the video. “I will remind you if you call me Ron – but no big deal, because you’ve been used to that for 60 years, some of you. But I would ask that you make the effort. It’s important to me.”
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