The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Redneck Resilience: A Country Boy’s Journey To Prosperity by James Harold Webb

Episode Date: October 26, 2025

Redneck Resilience: A Country Boy’s Journey To Prosperity by James Harold Webb Jamesharoldwebb.com https://www.amazon.com/Redneck-Resilience-Country-Journey-Prosperity/dp/1642252395 RESILIENCE FINDS A WAY James Webb’s life is the American dream in a nutshell. Born to teenage parents in Laurel, Mississippi, and faced with a future working in the town’s only two factories, James chose to change his fate and forge his own path―to become a titan of business, a mentor, and a philanthropist. In Redneck Resilience, James shares stories of amazing wins and devastating losses, of sin and redemption, of recovery and forward momentum. Most importantly, he discusses the benefits and advantages of resilience. James uses his own life to illustrate truths about success in life and in business, including: Failures happen, and resilience vanquishes failure. No lesson or experience is ever wasted. When opportunity presents itself, take the risk. A true entrepreneur works for no one. You cannot succeed on your own. And much more. Resilient people never take their eye off where they’re going, even when they get knocked down. They refocus. Resilience isn’t worried about the odds. Resilience finds a way.About the author Born to two 17-year-old parents and living an economically disadvantage childhood, James Harold Webb has had amazing wins and devastating losses throughout his life. He attributes a majority of his success to resilience and to relationships, both personally and professionally. James’ storied career started as a radiologic technologist in his home state of Mississippi. After moving to Dallas in 1983, he began working as the Director of Radiology at a local hospital and, for the next 13 years, worked on the executive team for various medical imaging companies. In 1996, Webb started his first of many companies and became a key leader in the industry. After more than 40 years in the medical field, and selling his three largest companies, James turned his focus to the fitness sector, becoming one of the largest Orangetheory Fitness franchisees in the country owning, overseeing, and ultimately selling 33 Orangetheory Fitness gyms located throughout North Texas. Not one to slow down, his most recent endeavors include an agreement to develop, and open BeBalanced Centers (health, wellness and weight loss) throughout Austin, Dallas, and Fort Worth and the recent purchase of 10 Scenthound franchise locations (dog health and grooming) for the Dallas, TX market.

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Anyway, we have an amazing young man on this show today. We're going to be talking about his insights, his experience of life, et cetera, et cetera. He's the author of the book that came out April 6, 2021, called Redneck Resilience, The Country Boys Journey to Prosperity. Was I supposed to have a banjo playing when I said that? Anyway, James Harold Webb joins us on the show. And we're going to be talking about his life journey and everything you may want to ever know about the man. the legend, and the redneck, I guess, as it were.

He was born to two 17-year-old adults, parents, and living in an economically disadvantaged childhood. James Harold Webb had amazing wins and devastating losses through his life. He attributes a majority of his success to resilience and to relationships, both personally and professionally. His story career started as a radiologic technology in his home state of Mississippi, and then he moved to Dallas in 1983, began working as the director. director radiology at local hospital for the next 13 years, worked on the executive team for various medical imaging companies. Now he started his own companies and has become a key leader in the industry. Welcome to the show. How are you, sir? Hey, Chris, how are you, buddy? I am good. I think

I had a little colder cough this morning, so I got a little bit of that going on. So give us a dot-coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs? Yeah, so, and by the way, I have the same little cough and cold as you do, I think. Oh. So, yeah, you can find me on the web in my website, James Haraldweb.com, LinkedIn, Facebook, all those places. And then I wrote books on Amazon and Barnes and Noble

and books a million through three other places. It sounded like the style of a country song, maybe. Country Resilience, A Country Boy's Journey to Prosperity. I don't know. I didn't thought of that. I should do that one, Dan. Yeah, yeah. Get like Willie Nelson to write that out.

Maybe you can cut the book down in a set of lyrics. So give us a 30,000 over you. What's the side of your new book? Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's one of those books where people tell you all the time that you've had a great life. Why don't you write a book? And so I finally did. And as you mentioned, born in South Mississippi, to two teenage parents that got a little too friendly, too early in life and got married and had me before they even graduated high school.

And we grew up in poverty, as you might imagine. And started working when I was five years old. as I learned early, early in life that if I wanted anything other than food on the table and a birthday present, I had to get it myself. Wow. And work my way to the making pot holders for the church bazaar,

to mowing yards, to do a paper route, ultimately working at a print shop when I was 14 years old. Wow. Well, you learn a lot of gumption at that age, right? A lot of hustle. Yeah, you do, you do. Particularly you grew up in the deep south where it was a crazy time to grow up there.

Yeah. You know, I remember when I was a kid trying to sell, like, what was it, Boy Scout, Scannerama tickets and Cub Scout, Scouting around tickets. Man, they used to drop me off at the store, and I try and hustle adults. And, man, it was so scary because they were so big and towering and sometimes they were really mean. And I'm just like, I'm just the kid, you know. And so now whenever I go to the store, I see those people out soliciting Cub Scout kids or Girl Scout. cookies. I always just walk by animal 20 and go, you know, keep your product. And there's, you just got a great tip. But, uh, I did the exact same thing. I appreciate that exact same

thing. Yeah. Help those entrepreneurs. Own a business someday. But, uh, yeah, it was pretty, it was pretty soul-sucking when I was a kid in L.A. It didn't help that it was the 70s. So, uh, it was in a recession. That, that, uh, that, uh, anyway, uh, so, uh, you know, uh, You talk about the, would you say this is kind of a memoir, would you say? It is. It's got both, every chapter has a life lesson or a business lesson. And it just kind of traces through the different paths I've gone.

And some of the cool stories and some of the crazy stories and some of the sad stories. But people seem to like it. And I think the one thing that people take away from it is that it reads like I talk. So that's always enjoyed that. I don't have necessarily the greatest talking in the world. Well, you know, there's something about plain language, English, because, you know, I mean, you ever tried reading one of those medical books? Oh, yes. Thesaurus.

Absolutely. So redneck resilience growing up that way. You know, I was like you, I got a, what is the paper out early on? I think it was like 10 or 11 that we could do it. And we started slinging that. I think before that there was a, God, there was some things to sell. I think it was a subscription to a magazine. You could toward a door and sell it.

I remember that, yeah. Yeah, you remember. But we do that, and there was a few other hustles we had that were in, like, the back of those magazines. You'd be like, you can make money doing that. And, yeah. But, you know, it taught me a lot of gumption. It taught me a lot of discipline. It taught me about work ethic really, really on.

Boy, there's something that set you in a work ethic when you're like 10 years old, and you're like, I got to go deliver in the snow. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You're right on about the work ethic. It definitely teach you that. Tell us more about, you know, I kind of breached over some stuff in your bio. Tell us about your upbringing.

Give us a little bit more color into the background there and take us up through, you know, your work in the medical field and then starting your own companies. Sure. So, again, grew up in the deep south, right in the middle of segregation. I can remember National Guard. being on our college, on our high school campus. And my family was, was not part of that whole process. We have actually my best friend was African America when I grew up, which actually caused us a little grief in the South. And then, you know, one day I decided to go local junior

college. I think I went to the bank and borrowed $525. And while walking through the campus, I saw a little sign that said, you want to be an X-ray tech called this number. And I thought, I got a little girlfriend. I'm going to get married early because I'm a Mississippi. And I, uh, I signed up for X-ray Tech School, and the day I had my interview, the girl done me, but I still went to X-ray Tech School, and that was a two-year slave labor program because it was based out of the hospital, and you basically work for free while you learn how to be an X-ray Tech. Wow.

That led me to back to college in the daytime when I worked in the night shift in the emergency room and got a ton of crazy stories about that. Oh, bad, yeah. And then the day I graduated from college, I was 21 years old, the hospital administrator called me to his office and they offered me the job of director of education of the program I just graduated from 18 months earlier. So at 21 years of age, I was the youngest radiology education director in the country and had 15 students, eight of them, my age, three of them I went to high school with, and quite the learning experience there as well. What a journey. And it was it hard to transition

from working for other people to starting your own companies? It wasn't when I did it because that That was along into my journey because I thought initially I was just going to climb the corporate ladder and did that. And, you know, did everything you're supposed to do or not supposed to do. I got the master's degree and thought I was going to be a hospital administrator. And then this thing called MRI came out in the 80s. I got involved in that early on the business side. So I got a transition from clinical to business. And worked my way up to become president of a company in South Florida.

They had a bunch of imaging centers. And then about five years into that deal. Dr. came to me and said, would your company be willing to put an imaging center in the Caribbean? And I said, they will probably not, but I will. And the next day, I got my boss to fire me so I could have a severance package and asked him to be our first investor and off I went to the Caribbean. Write that down, folks. That's how you get your start. Get fired by your boss.

He was a good buddy, my thank goodness. He was the chairman of the board. And I was actually married to his niece. It all worked out well. Wow. Yeah. And spent three years ago. Always marry the boss's niece, too.

It's not a bad move. Trust me. And I had fun down there. A lot of great crazy stories. And I tell people I'm the only guy you'll ever meet that had the San Anisa soldiers put a gun to his head twice. Only guy you'll ever meet that was almost kidnapped by the Guatemala Rebels. So a doctor talked about him out of it.

Wow. And just some crazy, crazy stories. And these are all in the, Well, they're all in the book. And then at one point, I had a new baby, one-year-old baby, and I'd been in a riot in the city of Nicaragua. And the police were shooting at the taxi-up drivers, and I had a shotgun in my hand,

and I just thought, what the hell am I doing? And I got on a plane and finally and get back to Miami, and literally the next day, reached out to some buyers and said, I'm done, you want to buy my company, and within 30 days sold it. Wow. There you go. You're doing well, then. So you're talking in your book about you have the ability to build your own legacy.

What's the messaging there? What do you expand on that if you could a little bit? Yeah, I think that a lot of us get caught up in, you know, so the rules and regulations, and that's not always necessary, particularly when you're going to be an entrepreneur. And for me, it was always about hard work and the standard line, the hard you work, the lucky you get was me. And then I always said, if you haven't failed, at least something. three times you're probably not trying hard enough.

But it's really just about that constant, as we call resilience, getting knocked down, getting back up, and not just getting knocked down again, but getting back up and finding the new path. And I was always trying to find the right path. Wow. You talk about how you can, you know, where's this question? I thought this really stuck out to me when I saw it. And it had to do with the new ex-Rockefielder.

So ask yourself, why not me? Why can't my family be the next Rockefeller dynasty? I guess that's possible, right? Yeah, I mean, that's something that it's a little later in life when that sort of hit me when I realized that, you know, I'd done okay in life and I had the potential to pass on to my children. And I learned a lot through a group called Tiger 21 about, you know, passing on legacy and that the way you lose your money is not the bad business deals. It's really through family relationships. and so we spend a lot of time as a family doing family governances and meetings. And, you know, we have a once a year formal meeting.

Oh, really? Once a year we have a sit down. We go over our mission statement. We go over our finances. My kids see that once a year. They see my estate plan. And we have an hour-long discussion. When daddy dies, what do we do?

We go through all of that. And then we have to play a game and have fun meal and do it again next year. Wow. You know, that's kind of interesting to bring that up. There was an article that I'd seen, and it was from the Wall Street Journal. Wealthy Families are writing mission statements to avoid lost fortunes and fights. This came out just on the 19th, a few days ago. That's me.

Did you see the article was wrote by me? I mean, that's my article. Juliet Chung is your... He was the writer. Julie wrote it and interviewed me. Oh, so you're saying you're in it. Yeah, you read the first line. I see. Oh, duh. There it is right there. Okay. Well, I just had a page down.

Well, I see what's, I think I'm part of a conspiracy now. But yeah, I read the article. I didn't read it, obviously. I recognize your name. But yeah, I think that's good. You know, it's important for everybody to know whether they're in the will or not. And then is it also helpful to give the people who aren't in the will a list of things they could do to be better so they can get in the will? Well, with our situation, you have to have a ring on your finger to be part of the meeting. Oh, really? Yeah, no boyfriends allowed, you know, you've got to be over 18 to be part of the meetings. Oh.

And so those are kind of our little regimental rules. And we're a triple-blended family. Oh, wow. I'll backpedal just a little bit and darken the story slightly for you. So in 2011, my wife at the time, Marsha, was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, no sign, no symptoms. She passed away in May of 2012. And I was left for raising two little boys and trying to build these companies. And then after a while, I did the silly thing of going on Match.com.

And as I say in my book, and in my wedding vows, I had my first, first date. in 22 years and it was the last first day of my life i met kathy she had two daughters that were older so my daughter her daughters my two boys were a blended family and then my deceased wife's family still very tight with them and they accepted kathy and they even called her daughter-in-law it's a really nice story yeah that's really nice they know the tragedies that happen in the world are very unfortunate but uh you know it's great that we can all come together as people all the time. So, I wish I had some of my family. I screwed something up. Anyway, it's probably the money I home or something. No. Anyway, no, but that's, that's really interesting.

Would you say a triple cross family? I called it. Yeah, because I was married in, you know, right at high school, had a daughter when I was 24. Uh-huh. Her and her mom got divorced when I was 30, married Marshall when I was 32, 33, lost her, unfortunately. I had two boys, that period of time and then Kathy had two daughters so we've got this triple blended including marshes family all together we're all very close and very tight and uh you know very blessed well i what a beautiful story and i mean it's kind of interesting i like the idea of uh people doing a mission statement for their family you know i i grew up with a with a with a great patriarchal grandfather but when he passed the whole family really fell apart and i fell into a

a lot of, you know, the, the feminist sort of, you know, what would you call it? I don't know. The gals didn't like each other. That was it. So it just became this hen pecking sort of, you know, I remember being, feeling taken away from my cousin and, you know, 20 years later when I finally met, I'm like, what was that about? And he's like, I don't know. But, you know, they just separate his family.

So I like this idea of the mission statement. And then, of course, everybody knowing where they're at in the food chain or the will chain, but also planning a vision for the future. What is our family about? And I think really that kind of gives it identity, wouldn't you say, the family unit? It does. And I learned a lot about, you know, a generation of wealth is lost 95% of the time by the third generation. And again, it's not from bad business, it's from family that can't get along.

And another way you get along is we have a family foundation. And so we do philanthropic work together as a family. not just writing checks, but also actively participating in things. Oh, wow. So I think that also helps the family kind of stay together, and we're bringing the grandchildren into that now. That's awesome. Yeah, it's kind of fun.

Yeah, and teaching the family charity, too. What a great thing, right? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. It's part of our mission statement. We want to give more than we take. I like that. I like that.

So it talks of the values of the company, or I'm sorry, the family, the family company. as it were. So anything more you want to tease out or talk about before we go? Any services, consulting, coaching, anything else you do? No, you know, I've got the book. I enjoy it. I think people enjoy reading it because it really has some good lessons in it

and takes you all the way through my journey. And, you know, this closes a few cool things and some fun things and some sad things. But no, I'm available to meet people if they have questions. You find me through LinkedIn or through the website. I'm actively currently currently living in Mexico. so not so bad and then heading back in about a week for grandchild number seven and not that'll be me congratulations and then I we talked in the pre-show about a company the franchise is for now in Texas do you want to plug those yeah I will please you don't mind so it's a new franchise out

there that about 150 stores nationwide my group has the rights to most of North Texas and it's called scent hound S-C-E-M-T hound and it's a dog health wellness and grooming company. It's a little different. It's not just about clipping the dog's nails and that. We actually do a full-blown health check on them. We teach you how to be the term as a better dog parent. And I've got to bought into it.

And, you know, again, like much of the other deals, we'll build it up. And hopefully private equity will jump in here someday. And we'll have a nice little exit. But it's a cool little brand. People should look at it. Sinhound.com. There you go. That's a good thing.

Thank you, brother. I appreciate it. Thank you. And thanks, sir, and it's for tuning in. Give us your dot-coms one less time as we go out. Yes, it's www. James Haroldweb.com or scenthound.com. Order out the book, folks, for our fine books are sold.

Redneck Resilience, a country boy's journey to prosperity. Thanks for my nice for tuning in. Thanks for being here. We'll further show your family, friends, and relatives. Go to goodreadreason.com, Fortresschristch, Christfoss. LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Christch, Christfoss. YouTube.com, Fortess,chchchchchchchchfuss, and Facebook. And Facebook. Be good to each other.

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