Determined Society with Shawn French | Adversity & Mindset - Making $50 Million in 1 Year: Brad Miller's Transformation From Rock Bottom to Financial Freedom

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

Join Shawn French in this riveting episode of The Determined Society podcast as he sits down with Brad Miller, the founder of Southern Tier Telecommunications. Discover Brad’s incredible journey from a troubled childhood and incarceration to becoming a successful business mogul. This episode is packed with life lessons, insights on overcoming adversity, and the importance of determination. Don't miss out on this inspiring story! Subscribe for more episodes. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Audience, I want you to tune into this, like literally locked the fuck in right here. From nine years old, you were incarcerated and you were incarcerated for the next seven years. At nine years old, I would already have been arrested probably 15 times. Finally, I went to court, the president judge of Mercer County, Pennsylvania. He looked at me and he said, okay, he said, enough's enough. So he incarcerated me. I remember that day because he asked my parents if they had anything that they would like to say. And my parents basically turned away and left the courtroom.

room. So at that point, I was in handcuffs and shackles, and they took me away. At 16 years old, I went back in front of the judge with an opportunity to be released. The judge said, my father and my mother, Mr. Mrs. Miller, your son has obviously done his time. This is ingrained in my brain. My mother stood up and she said, it's not my child. They got up and they walked out of the courtroom, which left me in a very unique position. Welcome back to another episode of The Determined Society. I'm your host, Sean French. And before I introduce today's guest, please do my favor.

If you haven't already, please go subscribe to Determint Society, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and the YouTube. Come check us out everywhere at the Sean French on Instagram and at the Determint Society on Instagram as well. Today I have a special treat for me and for you. It's not very often I get to interview somebody that I know love and respect on a personal level, but when I do, it's everything to me because I see the embodiment of what the individuals talk about on my show in real life, see the family, see the children, have dinners, friends givings, all that kind of stuff. So my guest today, his name is Brad Miller, and he is the owner and founder of Southern Tier telecommunications, and he's just an amazing guy, and he's done some amazing things

in his career and built an amazing freaking business that would blow your mind, but it didn't come without hardship and we're going to get into the story of who Brad is today. So without further ado, my man, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Sean. Certainly appreciate it. This is like, I got goosebumps right now. Like I just, I just absolutely adore and love you and the family and, you know, we, we had, thank you. We had such an amazing time for Marina's birthday. We have. We have many, many good moments. Oh, we have. We've done for, we've met each other. We've, we've had Halloween where I danced on your lap in the golf cart. Yep. Yeah. That was good. I love that moment. I wish that moment would come out.

And then we've done Friendsgiving. Yep. Right. And then we recently did. I missed New Year's. Thank God. Thank God I did. That was a good place to miss.

That was, I'm glad we did. And then Marina's 36th birthday. That was so much fun at Ember. Yeah. Yeah, we had a good time. She really enjoyed everybody's presence there.

So I appreciate you guys coming out to that as well to celebrate. Hell yeah, man. Yeah. Fun night. It was. It was a blast. Yeah. Too bad we had to go home because we had to go home

because we had the sitter. Yeah. Yeah. You know, because they could only get back. I'm sure it did. I'm sure it did. I'm really kind of like jealous and also kind of scared to have.

Yeah. Some things are left better on set. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, we've done backyard, backyard social together. That was a fun night. Yep.

That was the first night we met. Yep. What did we do before? Um, where did we go? I think that was it. No. No, no, no.

I think it was backyard social. Um, no. We went to Max. We went to sushi. Really? Yes. How much sake do you have that?

Yeah. Obviously. We went and they put the six of us in the corner, remember? Oh, yeah. Now it's coming back to me. Yeah, yeah. I forgot about that. Wow.

He's like, who's this guy? Like you said, too much sake. Yeah. Much sake. Uh-huh. Yeah. But no, man. So we've had some good times and, you know, many, many more.

But, dude, like, super happy to have you on the show because the one thing that I realize at Thanksgiving, right? I knew you were a friend. I knew you had, you know, you created this amazing business, but I didn't really understand your story because I didn't know about it, right? And you started speaking on it a little bit. And I'm like, dude, we got to have you on the show. So like, give the audience a small peak behind who Brad Miller is

and what you have gone through. And then we can expand on it, you know, throughout the show. But give them a little bit more. Sure, sure. Certainly appreciate having this opportunity. So first of foremost, you know, I've had many colleagues, friends, associates, and family members along the years always say, hey, Brad, you need to tell your story.

You know, there's a lot of detail out there that could really connect with people that have gone through similar situations or maybe even are going through similar situations. And I've never seen the purpose to do that. I'm a pretty close person for the most part, not real big in a social media and things like that. I'm more private than anything else. but I think today I found a purpose by meeting you was my opportunity to maybe share my story, connect with others, and just give back, just simply give back. So I'll try to condense this very long 46-year story into the window of opportunity time that we have today.

So, you know, growing up, I grew up in a very depressed town, Sharon, Pennsylvania. It's not even a blip on the map for most people here in Florida. And I grew up with two parents that had never worked. They had no professions, not McDonald's, not fast food, not the gas station. Just nothing. Nothing. So my parents learned the survival technique off of the system. And that's what I was taught at a very young age.

So while most kids were going and playing after school or doing their homework, my mom was taking me on the city bus and we were going to churches. and learning how to basically solicit the churches that, you know, we didn't have money. We were unfortunate and they would give us free food, blocks of cheese, loaves of bread, things of that nature. So that ran up until about nine years old. So those are kind of like the hard knocks of my youth until I was about nine. So I didn't have a lot of parenting, obviously, at a young age. My parents didn't have the capabilities.

God bless them the day. They didn't have the capabilities to really provide, support, love, understanding, and direction for me as a youth. I believe today that they did the best they could with the skill sets that they had. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough for me. So at nine years old, I had a road of destruction. So start getting in a lot of trouble. At nine.

At nine. Like my daughter, Alina's eight. You know Alina. Yeah. At nine years old, at nine years old, I would already have been arrested probably 15 times. Jesus Christ. Yeah, for everything that you can possibly imagine. So finally, I went to court for my last hearing and the president-judge of Mercer County, Pennsylvania.

He looked at me and he said, okay, he said, enough's enough. He said, you're a repetitive offender. We've got to make some changes. So he incarcerated me at nine years old. And I remember that day because he asked my parents if they had anything that they would like to say. and my parents basically turned away and left the courtroom. So at that point, I was in handcuffs and shackles, and they took me away. And then I spent the next seven years on my own.

So Christmas, birthdays, Halloween, no visitors, isolated to a block as a youth. You were, hold on, hold on. In the audience, I want you to tune into this. Like, if you're driving and you got all the things going on in your mind, literally lock the fuck in right here. So you, from nine years old, you were incarcerated and you were incarcerated for the next seven years. Yes. So at 16 years old, if my master's me correctly, at 16 years old, I went back in front of the judge with an opportunity to be released.

My parents had, they were forced to attend this hearing. and the judge said, you know, my father and my mother, Mr. Mrs. Miller, you know, your son has obviously done his time. We'd like to give him an opportunity to reintroduce him to society. And I remember this, you know, this is ingrained in my brain. My mother stood up and she said, it's not my child. So they got up and they walked out of the courtroom, which left me in a very unique position. I had no parents. I had no associated family that could pick up the pieces, no aunts, no uncles, no grandma, grandpas. So one of my youth friends before I got incarcerated, their parents was kind of like an adoption family. They stepped up. They had heard about my case

and situation and they decided that they were going to bring me into their home. So this was a home with about 15 children and these people were basically doing it for the passive income. Right. So they really didn't have maybe the intent of trying to foster children to put them in a better place. It was more like passive income because they needed it to. They really weren't, what would you consider successful parents? So I got out. You know, they released me and back out into society. But they released the person back into society with, again, no support and no infrastructure. And it's like almost like the same situation you were in that got you, I don't want to say call. you to do those things, right? Because you made the choice as a youth. That's right. And your frontal cortex isn't fully developed

out of that, obviously. That goes without saying. But here you are at 16, reintroduced to society, and literally in the same type of environment with people that didn't know how to make it on their own. Alone, ultimately alone. So I did, I guess, what a lot of people do,

which I think where I really can help and helping people understand is, you know, I resorted to the streets. And I learned how to sell drugs. And I bought my first car. I bought my school clothes. I bought my shoes. And I went back to high school.

So I did that on my own. So I made it a profession. Never getting involved with drugs from a uses perspective or alcohol or things like that. So I was very disciplined from 16 on in a mindset of business, like how to make money. It's like there's rules that. apply to the streets just like there is in a profession. And somehow I was able to pick those up. And still to this day, I'm not certain what my intuition was that gave me that as an opportunity. But I feel blessed today that I had that. So I met my high school sweetheart at that moment,

that's 16 years old. From a street perspective, got her pregnant within the first six months, really disrupted her life. She was a senior. And at the that point I was a sophomore so that really that really caused a lot of I don't know what it caused a lot of pressure she came from a good family um I was very disruptive you know I was the kid that no parent wanted their child to be around right I was the guy I carried razor blades in my mouth had a pistol in the car I mean I was that guy was that dude yeah I was that guy that you did not want your child anywhere in my presence Where were you carrying a razor blade in mouth for it?

What would that do? Defense. Defense. Yeah. Yeah, just growing up on the streets, you just never knew. Never knew. You know what had to be provoked. They would react just because they wanted something of yours.

I mean, I had more cars stolen than cars I've purchased in my whole life. Wow. So, yeah, so meeting her, I got to introduced to a family through her, which I found myself addicted to a family. Right. Her family, though, of the family that I never had. And this family was so grateful after they decided that they weren't going to resist me anymore. They actually took me in and she had an amazing father. I mean, this guy, he was just grounded, business savvy, super intelligent from a book perspective, intellectual.

He's a CFO, a CPA. And he just had, he's an numbers guy. And I was just intrigued by him. So he became my role model ultimately. So at this point, I started to get some direction. The problem was, is I, created one child, 16 years old. I've got high school. I've got responsibilities, but I was going to own up to all that. I was going to do what was right. I don't know how I, how I managed to

understand that that was my responsibility from going from a street mentality to a family mentality. I just transition. Right. But I didn't fully transition. So I'm still, I'm still, you know, selling drugs and I'm still on the streets and I'm still doing dirt. So I have another child, right and at this time when my second child is on the way um i decided to commit the ultimate crime so like i said i wasn't fully out of that that mindset and i committed another crime i committed arm robbery and there was a group of guys you know this is where things get kind of crazy you know we had fully automatic weapons socks full of bullets i mean this is where like the street mentality takes over and the logic is gone so where does that line blur

though, right? Because like, you know, as a man, you know, as a man now, you know, father, husband, you know, business owner. Like, now if something like that would come up, you'd like, yeah, no, like that's hard. Stop. So how does that line blur, you know, when you're, when you have second kid, you know, and now you're starting to get back on the right, I mean, you're still, you know, you're running the drugs. But that line, like, when you go in to do that, armed robbery. Are you saying that the logic of what Mike could happen doesn't even come into your mind? At the moment, it didn't. Okay. But at the moment to commit the act, it did. It became relevant. And so, you know, I was a group of five other guys. And, you know, there was a giant house party

where we were going to commit this armed robbery. Like this, this guy was supposed to have a significant amount of drugs and we were just going to take what belonged to him. Yeah. So my my logic that could actually kicked in at that point. And I said, look, man, I'm not going to do this. So we're in the woods. We're in camouflage. We're behind a school, which is absolutely worst case scenario. Guns on school property. Thank goodness that it was summertime. So there's no kids in but my logic kicked in and I don't know where this logic ever came from. Right. This is what showed me that I had a greater purpose. But at that time being at that age, I didn't have the abilities to understand or how to pull that out. And I certainly didn't have guidance to help me,

you know, find that within myself. But that night, you know, thank the grace of God that I was able to talk the rest of the team off the ledge. And we didn't end up going through with the crime. Now, how we got caught was quite ridiculous, you know, and I don't know if I need to go to the details on that, you know, we end up on a high-speed chase. We've got three fleet departments by. So there's just, you know, less important, right? So, Fast forwarding. So of course, I got convicted of armed robbery. And because of the whole circumstance, they only classified it as a misdemeanor versus a felony, which was amazing. Right. So they had me for carrying a firearm without a license and then the armed robbery. And they're like, hey, we'll drop the armed robbery and we'll just hit you with carrying a firearm without a license.

Which how does that affect me now? Yeah. That means I can't own a gun for the rest of my life. Which, how fascinating is that, right? Not a convicted felon. I'm doing great things. Yeah. But that's something that lingers over my head forever and ever and ever. How many people are in that position? So I went to get sentenced. And I remember this is all very fresh in my head because these are memories I'll never leave or lose.

The judge looked at me and he said, listen. He said, you're going to go and you're going to serve your sentence. And he said, the likelihood of me seeing you again is highly probable. He said, how about 98%? I'll see you back here again. And he said, just know this. This is how he's talking. He's the president, judge.

He says, and when I see you back here next time, you won't get a sentence like this. He said, I won't ever see you again after that. Because you won't come out. You won't come out. Yeah. So it gave me three years. Okay.

So I went to the penitentiary for a year and two months, and I got out, you know, for good behavior and things like that, for applying myself. And literally, Sean, from that day that I walked out of the prison doors, from that very day when I walked out, I looked behind me, and I said, that'll be the last time that I ever look at myself this way, that I'm not somebody absolutely magnificent.

So with that moment in time, that was it. That was my roadway to say, hey, listen, I can turn adversity into opportunity. And that was exactly what I was set out to do. And from that day forward, I never looked back. You know, it's funny you mentioned that because, you know, you and I have been talking a lot and, you know, John's name has come up. We talk about turning adversity and opportunity. And I feel like most successful people will take the darkest days in their life, right? There's some things right now that I opened up to you before the show that's going on in my personal life that is not optimal, man. You know, it's not the best situation. But it's like out of that adversity is going to come opportunity.

I didn't know where it was coming from. You and I spoke and were like, oh, we could do something together here, right? Like, holy shit. Like, and what I want the audience to really understand about what I'm saying and, you know, borderline tangent is stop judging what you're going through. Like, you know, and I'm looking at the camera because I want the audience to understand, like so many people judge the adversity that they're going through. Absolutely.

Why me? Why am I going through this? I'm a good person. why is this happening? It's just like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But what I've learned this time around is I'm just in baseball terms, we say, wear it. Just like you'd wear a pitch.

Yep. Let that ball hit you and let it fucking burn, man. Yeah. And it's like because it's building me. That's right. It's like, it's building me. It's like, wait a second, dude. This is serving me in such a positive way.

I don't know what it is yet. I'm surely not going to judge the obstacle. But I'm surely not going to judge. to judge the opportunity either right so i think what i want the audience to get out of it is like whatever you're going through just submit to it lean into it like literally you know lean into it like it's your first kiss or you're you know you know you know you know whatever and you lean into it lean into that struggle because out on the other side of that struggle is the person who you are who you have become because of all that struggle yeah i i i would have capitalized on that

So everybody used to ask me in my past as I started to grow successful of just proving what I was capable of doing, building an organization, building a group of people, leading teams. People are like, why do you do what you do? And for so many years, I found myself in this position that I had to be truthful with myself and them. And what my perception was is why I did all this is because of fear. And people say, you know, that's not a very positive thing, Brad, that you're doing this out of fear. And they're like, well, what do you mean by fear? And I said, it's not the fear of failure. It's the fear of survival.

Because my mentality growing up was, is I had nothing. Yeah. So to revert back to having nothing, that's the scariest moment in time for me. But the good news is that for somebody that comes from nothing, to go forward, you have nothing to lose. I love it. Right? So improvement can only be improvement.

Because when you come from the bottom, it's incremental, man. And it's your whole life is incremental. So it's constant growth. It's constant evaluation. It's constant challenges. It's constant pain. These things will never change. And I think from a society's perspective today,

we want instant gratification. Dude, talk about that so much here. Keep going, man. Yeah, yeah. So, so, but the, but the, The real world perspective is nothing great comes fast, right? So it takes work. So when you have the opportunity to interview folks on this show,

independent entrepreneurs, successful athletes, you know, everybody wants that right now. And the message is, unfortunately, that's not how life works, not from a relationship perspective, not from mental growth perspective, not from a physical perspective, and certainly not from a financial freedom perspective. So all of these things require work, and with work requires patience. So go ahead.

Sorry. This is everything to me right now. Right? Because I've had multiple conversations lately. Like a buddy of mine said that he would go to bed at night wishing he would wake up and look like this certain wrestler. It was on a show. And I said, wow, that's powerful because if that would have happened, then you would have robbed yourself of who you were going to become in that journey.

Most people are so interested. Like you said, the instant gratification, and that comes with social media, make a million dollars in 90 days. First of all, guys, if you ever believe any of that shit, you deserve to get swindled. Sorry. And you will. You will, because you cannot make a million dollars in 90 days. You cannot. I don't care what they say.

Okay. You can one exit, 10 exit, 39 exit. I don't give a shit. You're not making a million dollars in 90 days. Anyway, I'm moving on now. I've said my piece on my sublock. But right. But like, but right. So what we want is we want to fast forward all that, right? Yes. And we're forgetting that, you know, from this point of contention or or fear based or a big losing streak, we want to skip all the way here to win the fucking world series. You got. Well, hey, um, these are macro results here. Yeah. Okay. The big losses are from past decisions. They either you or I have made, right? And there's many of them that created this loss.

And then the big win is a series of decisions that people don't see every day. And that creates the win. Now, all the micro stuff in between, that's the joy. Yes. Because that's where you experience the pain. That's where you experience the tears. That's when you experience the camaraderie between friendships, right? That's when you start understanding what actually works for you, where you dive into yourself,

you dive into your business, you dive into your body, you dive into your mind, you dive into your spouse, your children, and your spirituality, and then you crush it because you became an absolute bulletproof monster here in the micro movements. Yes. We want to do that. No one. Because requires work and patience. Yeah. Right?

So steps are in intervals. And what I have found just through my journey in life is, you know, even as I'm getting older now, year by year, I find a lot of people are contributing their lack of successes of things that they personally want to get accomplished to childhood trauma. And I'm like, listen. So here's the reality for the audience, for everyone, for myself, for you. the reality is is childhood trauma is in the past and does it is it relevant in what happens in your life today it is but you choose how you react to what happens today based on the past so if you leave if you choose to leave it in the past you can now move forward you're free you can release all that and i held on to my trauma for a long time did it serve you it didn't serve me because

It couldn't serve me, right? There was no way it could serve me because, so I was operating off of fear, which led me to, it gave me the energy to do something significant. But here's the thing. I was doing that something great with energy with no purpose. So see, I'm heading down a road. It's like, if you tell me to jump in my car right now and I have a full tank of gas, but you give me no direction, you just keep driving.

I'm going to run out of gas. Yeah. But if you, if I have a. a full tank of gas and you give me a destination and it's within what that tank of gas or that electric battery will fulfill, I'll reach my destination. Yeah. Safely, successfully. Sure.

Sure. Life is no different. No. So I guess from this point, we kind of talk about, you know, of course, I have five children through this process, which was extremely a blessing and challenging all in itself, right? Because, of course, I've had the divorce. and then I chose to move away. So originally from Pennsylvania,

then I moved to Columbus, Ohio, then I moved to Panama City Beach, and I moved here to beautiful Southwest Florida. Yes, you did. And, you know, I met my soulmate, right? Which, you know, I will tell you that this is the greatest statement I've ever heard is for every great man, there's a great neck.

And I was really hung up on this statement for a long time because if you think about it, men are very spontaneous. Right? We're visionaries in a lot of ways. And this is not a sexist statement by any means. But men, like our testosterone and just all of the hormones that we have going on, they really drive us to get creative and think and, oh my gosh, we can do this.

You know, so big. We can do this today. We'd have to wait until tomorrow. Guys, do you see my vision? Everybody around, he's looking at you like, what? You're like, no, I'm telling you, this can work. We can do this right now. And people are like, so I found that.

The truth is, for every great man, there's a great neck. So the men is the head and the woman is the neck. And without a good neck, that heads all over the place. Yeah. And I was fortunate enough to find an amazing neck. Jackie tells me all the time, listen, dude, you're a dreamer. I get it. I love it.

But you get excited about things and you don't think about the downfalls in between, right? You just jump in and go. That's right. And it pisses me off. But if it's true. That's true. That's why it pisses me off. It's called grounding you.

Exactly. Sometimes I don't want to be grounded. None of us do. I hate it. It's not. It's almost like you want to go against the grain. It almost makes you thrive to do it even faster in horror. Right.

But she's right. But then she follows up with it, but that's what also makes you really great. That's correct. But sometimes you need me to say, hey, bro. Which is incredibly important. Yes. So, yeah, I have a fascinating wife. She's done some amazing things with herself.

You know, she has really. set me on track to just bring it all together. Yeah. And when I mean, bring it all together, it's like allowing me to really identify my purpose. So, you know, I was building a business. And I think most people say that they're building a brand. And I don't disagree or agree with that. I tell people, I am the brand.

Well, that's what the brand is. So, so I am the brand. Most people don't understand brand. I think you're right. I think you're absolutely right. They think it's the product. The brand is who the freak you are. Yeah.

Like what, I mean, yeah, we're on the same. Because, you know, we have a company of many people, right? I mean, our company is probably made up of 400 plus people. Right. Right. And they demonstrate the brand. But I'm the brand. Yes.

Right? Because it was my choice of this is our representation, our image, our colors. This is everything, right? So I am the brand. And as long as I continue to live out being the brand, we will be successful. Sure. And so I stick by that model, if you would. But if we want to fast forward into the success story in 2016, here's some irony that's pretty funny.

It is now. It wasn't done. So my business partner, who I love dearly today, David's been an amazing role model in my life. He's close to 10 years older than me, really, really, really intelligent guy. And he taught me a lot of life lessons. but in 2007, I used to work for, yeah, 2007, I worked for him. Oh, wow. So he was the director and I was the manager. And, you know, I was on fire my whole career, right? So if you remember being a younger guy and you're at the house with, you know, other guys and guys are talking about sports and all that kind of stuff and the football

games on the TV, I was never the guy to talk about sports. I'm bugging you. Like, hey, what do you do for a living. How does that work? I was always the guy with a business conceptual type mindset of I want to know more. And I was like a disturbance to the audience. But my business partner, you know, he had to fire me in 2007. So the guy who actually is my partner today that I've elected to be my partner. Fired you. Fired me. And his only reason, it wasn't his intent. but so what happened is I basically overperformed what the CFO and the CEO of a very large company today were intimidated by. They actually became fearful for the level of energy that I was going to bring to the company. And they thought in that time, from an old school perspective, it was going to be unprofessional.

Right. Okay. And, you know, I guess, look, we talked today versus then. And would I be an asset to their team? I would consider I'd be a fantastic asset. Because, of course, I could have built their business to a mega empire. And not just me, but obviously it takes a team. Yeah, from the people around me, but the abilities to lead those people.

So scaling back in 2016, my business partner and I had came back together and we were working for a company yet again for another company. And I had the opportunity. I was always a visionary, Sean. So my whole life, I always looked at every. opportunity, forgive me for saying this. But every day job that I worked, I would always look around and I would say, why am I doing this for you when I can do this for me? I can do this. Yeah. So that egotistical mindset kicked in, but I was appreciative of that. Sure. I considered it value. I wasn't being boastful. I wasn't praising myself for something that I

wasn't successful. It was introspective, right? That's exactly right. So in 2016, my business partner and I, we decided to spend off. And so we had no money. I just put this in perspective for you. We had no money. So when I had met Marina, I was completely broke. I came into the into the relationship with $65,000 in debt. I was filing bankruptcy from the previous divorce with a house that was in a state that I'd no longer resided, five children that were divided because I'm here, they're there. I have them 50% of the time. We have significant travels. Here's this 20, year old girl introducing herself into my life. I've got this now opportunity. My previous employer offered me $250,000 to stay. So yeah, I was, I was, I was, I was at, well, I was making $700 a

week. And that $700 turned into $120,000 annualized. Sure. And then just, just through the opportunity and growth. And then when my business partner left the company, they immediately came to me the next day and they're like, hey, we need you to run this whole thing. we're going to give you 250,000 plus incentive. So just imagine what's going through my mind. I never made this kind of money before. Oh, of course. So I go home to Marina and I asked her.

I said, hey, what do I do? And she said, I can tell you exactly what you do. She said, if you don't make the choice to go out on your own, you're not the one for me. And let's back, like, I want you to finish the story, but it's important because I want the audience to understand the type of woman she is because I've experienced it because I know her.

Yes. But to have a 23-year-old girl, girl at that young woman at that time have that type of clarity about what she wants. And really, it wasn't a, that was not about her. That was about what she saw in you. And if you do not execute it, you are not showing me who you, who you are, who I know you are. She's calling you. See, that statement gives me chills, right? I have, because that, that's reality. And that's very unique. Yeah. Yeah. But so possible. Yeah. Right. And here's why. I'll give you the why. Marina was never superficial.

She didn't want it all today. She's a beautiful woman. Sure. Opportunity to do anything. She's really focused on everything about her. She takes the time that is necessary to be whole, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, spirit, everything. But it was never always about her. She had this inner, I guess, calling that she was able to see what was good in others and try to bring out the best of them as well.

think it was how she was raised because obviously marina's from ukraine yeah right she wasn't born here in the states um so her parents are forming soviet union yeah um so their mentality was completely different than ours right they didn't have the i need it now expectation they didn't have the instant gratification requirements that we do today yeah which i think if we just take a step back of society and and if we can just scale that down of like i need it right now the organic growth happens it happens in everyone because my story, this isn't exclusive. This isn't a 60-minute story. This is just real life of somebody who took an opportunity and applied themselves to see it through, right?

And I understood the patience that it was going to require. How? Don't know. But I did. I understood that. So we built a company. We started in Columbus, Ohio. And I'm fast forwarding now.

I started the company dead broke, dead broke. I mean, I didn't have a business. dollar to put into this. Wild. So her father, which is a very unique individual. God bless him. I love this guy.

He's next level genius. Alex is extraordinary. So I sold him. I had to sell him, right? Because he's not the kind of guy. He's pretty conservative. He doesn't like to invest in things that he's not certain of. And so I had to sell this guy.

First of all, I had to sell him on the fact that I'm worthy to be the wife to his daughter that they just put through college. You know, she's a biochem, a graduate from OU. They had a bigger vision for her than meeting a guy with five kids that just filed bankruptcy. That didn't, you know, with a lot of uncertainties. And now a year into this relationship, I'm coming to him and I'm like, hey, I needed 140,000 bucks. Yeah. And did he have it?

Yeah. But it wasn't about whether or not he wanted to lend it to me. you really need to understand what my intentions were right so i spent the next two weeks selling my business plan everybody's got to have a business plan yeah and i put my business plan on paper it was well executed a lot of thought obviously you know we navigated away from that many times as you do but he gave me the 140 000 and we took that 140 000 in 24 months then we turned it into 50 million wait back up what did you say exactly took $140,000.

And a 24-month period, we converted that into $50 million in business. Now, the roots of that. Jesus. 530 employees slash contractors. Sure. Nationwide. We had offices in Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Ohio, Florida, Texas, Minnesota, Iowa. We were in every state, which required brick and mortar, required management,

supervision, oversight, leadership, with vast client expectations for the industry that we're in. Because we're a telco builder. Yeah. Right? So we build infrastructure. So we do. So if a client, you know, for namesake,

if a client like an X-Finity, if they decided that they wanted to have, you know, Markle Island built out to offer services, fiber to the home, FTTH, to the home, they would call a company like Southern Tier because we're a turnkey type style construction company that offers everything from start to finish. That's a big differential between you and a lot of people in the industry, right? Correct.

But everybody wants to use this catchphrase turnkey today. Right. So everybody catches on to like, what does everybody gravitate to? Once you hear the catchphrase, everybody's like, well, I'm turnkey. I'm turnkey. But do you really know what it takes to be turnkey and deliver a superior product that the customer expects in return? because in telecommunications, a lot can go wrong, right? Like, we are the backbone to the world from an infrastructure standpoint, from us being

able to communicate, from this conversation today, getting this out live, or from Tesla being able to drive vehicles autonomously or a surgeon sitting in a hospital to be able to do an autonomous surgery in a third world country to help, you know, underserved people. This is what we do, right? So I find significant value in, successfully helping to complete the broadband divide, which is America's great initiative. Yeah, I think what the interesting is,

when we were talking on the phone, was it yesterday, the day before I can't remember which one it was. But you're like, yeah, Elon Musk, that's doing all these amazing things, right? And there's people in Montana that cannot get internet without Starlink, right? Right. But like, you guys, telecom is building the baseline

for people like Elon to do what he does. That's right. we are the backbone. That's wild. Right. That's wild. So people listening, like, this is an amazing story because, like, you look at all the amazing things that Elon Musk is doing and all these innovators, but, like, it can't be done

without the backbone. That's right. That's right. Broadband is the ultimate utility. Right. So when I started in the industry, broadband was a luxury, right? Like, if you wanted cable at home or your parents could afford home telecom. phone, landline, or if you want an internet,

would be DSL or dial-up, those were luxuries. Yeah. Today it's a necessity. The world can't operate without telecommunications infrastructure. It can't, right? Fiber is a necessity for all of these magnificent things that are happening in the world, the communications with X and neural link into things that all these different companies are developing, they need fiber infrastructure for the communication lines, right?

because it's it's at light speed. So you don't just do like housing communities or you build like full on cities. Full on cities. Full on cities. What's been your favorite project? Oh. I think my personal favorite project

because I actually geared up and I went out to the field and I put myself in a bucket. I think was the Tampa Bay box. So we built before the Super Bowl, they hired us to build their whole 5G network. So we put up. all the small cell antennas around the stadium inside of the stadium so they could broadcast that

Super Bowl. So you're the reason they won the Super Bowl. Yeah. Like if you look at my website, you'll see pictures. Yeah, you should. You should have gotten a ring. I mean, yeah, I would have loved that, you know. You and Tom Brady. What's up, buddy? Yeah. So, so, you know, that's fascinating, though, when you think about an event of that size and that we built the infrastructure. And if we would have did it wrong or lack of quality, just think about what that could have created, right? So a pissed off stadium that couldn't. It's bigger than that, right?

Because it's a network of carriers that are, they're all running off of that. Right. So like tower in the tower space, like the big towers that we all see out there as we're driving, those are macro towers. And it's not one carrier on that tower. It's multiple carriers. Right. So we were specifically designing the, the buck stadium for one carrier.

And when we were doing that, that means that carrier was in a spotlight. So if the network went down, that's their name. Oh, kind of like how Netflix went down with the Tyson and Paul fight. Bingo. It would have been that big. Right. So the level of responsibility and commitment was so high that I decided to gear up, put the harness on. It's 105 degrees.

We're doing this in the dead of summer. You know, I mean, all the guy, Tom Brady was on the track. We were out there in bucket trucks 80 feet in the air, watching these guys practice and stuff while we're out there throwing up. you know, 75 foot antennas in the air that are radioactive, throwing out 5G and doing all the testing and the backhaul fibers. And I mean, it's, there's a lot to it. That's a lot. And here's the thing. Like, I was never educated on tech.

Yeah. Or telecommunications. Wow. Talking about a self-taught industry. I just grew up in, in the weeds, if you will. Right. Right. So I never had an education.

Somebody didn't put me through college to say, hey, this is what you're going to do. And you're just going to springboard off of that. This is like rooted from like my determination and like anyone else can do this. That's why I'm so fascinated to share with people like you can do it too. If you have an idea conceptually, just begin to apply it step by step. Be patient. Take the necessary steps that are required and inform yourself. And how do you inform yourself by getting surrounding yourself with like minded people or people

that are better than you? And I always say this statement. Surround yourself people better than you. and a lot of people get offended. They're like, well, he's not better than me or she's not better than me, and that's not what I mean. Well, that's why I gravitated towards you.

I'm like, this guy's like way above, like where I am, like in a financial freedom area, right? Like, all that kind of stuff. It's like, I want to be around people that drive me, right? I don't want to be the big one in the room. I want to be like the very small one in the room and I want to be able to grow to something. So it's a compliment to you, man.

Well, I appreciate that. I know we're friends, but I look up to you. you, man. No, I really appreciate that. But, you know, the key to success in anything that you do, depending on what you're trying to get accomplished in life, is making things duplicatable. Yeah. Right. So you have, you have two applicable words that I find that will lead you to success. First, things have to be sustainable, and then you have to make them do to duplicatable, right? In order to scale. Because you can build a business, you can build a brand, you can be the brand. But if you don't make the process as duplicatable so others can get involved and helped you,

you're capped. Yeah. Right. So the expansion opportunities are very limited, if there's any at all. So when you're building your brand, your business, your idea, your concept, you have to make things duplicatable. And I think people struggle with that, right? Because they're like, well, I can do it all, right?

It's a me thing. Like, as long as I can do it. And so I found it fascinating over the years of leading so many people because I've probably hired in my career. I've probably hired over 5,000 people. That's insane. Right. And out of those 5,000, I've personally probably trained.

trained, you know, 175, maybe 200, on the executive level leadership side of how to lead other people, right? And Dale Carnegie comes up some great books, right, of how to be a successful leader you lead from the front,

the middle or to the back. There's all kinds of information out there. But I think really the root, I guess the root of being successful is determination. Yeah. Right? You will have to figure out

whether or not it's something that is viable, sustainable and duplicatable, and are you determined enough to see it through to the end? And my best example of this is, you know, if you want to see gains from a physical perspective with your body, we all know that diet is important and exercise is important. But what if your nutritionist came to you and said, hey, Sean, I'm going to need you to eat cardboard indefinitely. Yeah.

All right. But, Sean, if you eat cardboard, indefinitely, I can guarantee you'll have traps above your ears. You have a decision to make. And the instant gratification party says what? Absolutely. I'm in. Actually, mine was different. I'm like, hell no.

So that me too. Me too. And the reason why is is because those that are logical, which we all are logical, but applying it sometimes is hard. Right? to remove the superficial part and to become somebody who understands sustainability, I would say there's no way I can eat cardboard every day. No. That's virtually impossible.

Yeah. Because I'm going to want to explore. My mind's going to venture. I'm going to want more, right? And but we do that in every aspect of life. Right. We always are exploring. We always want more.

It's how we're wired. Yeah. Right. As a society and social media is fast forwarding that, right? because now instead of people looking at folks like you or myself or others who are actually putting in the work and creating something that's possible for anyone, by the way, I'm not an exclusion to the person that's outside of these doors. Right. We're all one of the same. But I think media content is delivering this message of like, do I want to be a Kim Kardashian?

Do I want to be a LeBron James? Do I want to be a Beyonce? Right. So those are a bit of unrealistic expectations for yourself, right? Yeah, sure. But to be a Brad Miller, that's not unreasonable. You can be a Brad Miller tomorrow if you want to. When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know your choices matter.

You're the expert because you know what fits your life. And getting it right starts with good information. That's why America's beverage companies are sharing more information about our ingredients, at good to know facts.org. No spin, no judgments, just the facts straight from the experts for more than 140 beverage ingredients. Visit good to know facts.org. That's the thing. I don't think people are tapping enough into themselves, right? And it's like, like you said, like, be the Brad Miller, be the Sean French. Be you. Be you. Whatever your name is. Like, be that dude, but like apply it. Because people let adversity get in the way, right?

So I have a lot of people that, you know, are colleagues of mine and friends and associates and they have something that happens that they seem that they think is catastrophic. Yeah. And they're ready to pull away. They're ready to back down, right? I mean, when we made $50 million, our first year,

here's the craziest part. When I looked at the balance sheets at the end of the year, you know how much profit I made on $50 million? No, 2.03%. 2.03%. And you know why? Because I thought I had it all figured out. I thought I knew everything. What is 2% of 50 million? Well, it's like $100,000 bucks. So I just, we don't have time today to talk about what it takes to make $50 million and to do it the right way with legalities and human resources and finance. But I just want you to think we have a payroll of 1.5 per week. Right.

So when I looked at payroll and I looked at $50 million and there's 52 weeks in a year and my payroll is exceeding $1 million per week, it's an identifiable. problem. Yeah, for sure. So what I had done is in 2019, our company was nearing bankruptcy. And everybody around me was scared, John. They were scared, deathly afraid. Like, the person that invested in me, my father-in-law, which was family, petrified. Like, everybody around me just raw fear, man. And it's all crashing down on me, right? And I'm like, I'm not going to let this win. Yeah. Like, there's no way. I've made a few mistakes, but that doesn't mean that I don't have the formula to just crush it.

So again, took that adversity. We had about three and a half weeks worth of cash reserve left before the game was over. And everybody was preparing for bankruptcy, calling the lawyers, starting the processes. While they were focused on that, I went a completely different direction. I went out to the open market and I said, I'm going to find a buyer. I'm going to find somebody that's going to buy this. And they're like, it's impossible. Your balance sheets are upside down.

There's no way anybody's going to touch the size of a business with the assets that you have, the debt schedule. No way. And I said, okay. So again, all that, the noise around you, people suppressing me, telling me what wasn't going to happen. And I stood up, rose up, and I said, we'll see. And I didn't tell them we'll see. I told myself, we'll see.

And within three weeks, I found a buyer. Eight weeks later, we sold the company. Not the company. I did an asset acquisition. Yep. I kept the brand because that was me. That was ours. We built that.

Took the company from $50 million to $10,000. $50 million to $10,000 in 2019. Took that same concept. So my business partner went and bailed hay. That was his, that's what he did. He went and bailed hay. And I had the obligation to stick around for six months through the acquisition because all the people reported to me. and I was a critical tool for them in order for them to be successful with what they just purchased.

So I made that obligation. Six months later, I walked away. I walked back into a business. We were dead broke. We had no money. And we had to start from the ground up. This time we didn't have to borrow any money because I knew exactly what the formula was. And you know how I knew it?

Not because somebody taught me the right way. I did it all the wrong way. Yeah. I've ruled out the things that didn't work. Experience. Now I knew what worked. Just like you were talking about earlier. You're like, we give up on ourselves, right?

When that pain starts to hurt and we're just like, this is too much. Like, we stop. In that moment in time, that's where perseverance must be at its all-time high. That's where you must see that there's a greater opportunity in front of you. And don't let that negativity overwhelms. Don't let that bring you down. So I found a buyer and they bought the company. And I stuck with them for six months.

I left the company. I came back after my six months was up. I did what I was supposed to do. the company was making 10,000 bucks. And in a year and nine months, we took that 10,000, and we turned it back into 20 million. Only this time,

we went from a 2.3 profit margin to a 31%. That's freaking amazing, dude. So you can see that. Yeah. Right? You can scale back and do much better, but instead of me, enough is never enough.

And that was like right in the height of COVID, right? Right in the height of COVID. Right. So for me, but it's never enough. And I don't mean this from a monetary perspective. Yeah, you're blissfully dissatisfied. Bingo. Yeah.

So for me, the opportunity is always there. I'm always going to pursue it. Yeah. So like when I was, when I was ending Q4 with our team on a national level and we're doing our year end call, I was preparing them for change, for great change. So this whole shift happens again. And that's the thing in our, in my. company, they want most leaders to be predictable and I'm pretty unpredictable.

And I'm unpredictable in a good way from my perspective is that you're going to always find that if you're part of the team, you're part of passion and that I don't just win. When we win, you win. And that's what I love for my team and our atmosphere is we make sure everybody wins. We set our structures up internally inside of our company to make sure others get the prosper. And you know what? It creates loyalty. Right. So we don't have high time. We have commitment. We have dedication. So in 2025, the goal is, is we have to 2X what we did in 2024. So, right? And it sounds significant. Yeah. But it's not anymore because we built something that's duplicatable. It's amazing. Right. I just think as we land the plane today for the audience to

think and to really go back and think about and reflect upon the whole episode here, the conversation with my friend Brad, who at nine years old was incarcerated for seven years, gets out when he was 16. And his own mother, who gave birth to him, stood up and said, that is not my child and walked right out, has built something to where now he has a legacy. You're helping people. You're a good friend. You're an amazing husband, father, and a great friend.

I think I already said that, but you've built an empire and you're teaching others how to do it. So, you know, for those people that are struggling, there's a way out. And I want them to understand that. It may not be telecom for them because they may not understand how to get a hold of you, right? They may not understand how to learn this business. But just because you had the most humbling beginnings, that is not a death sentence. It's not your life sentence, right? Like, no matter what happened, like, you have the opportunity and the choice to move forward every single day and to make something great out of the rest of your existence.

Absolutely. I could have said it better myself. That's exactly. That's the message. And the more we can get that out there, I think the greatest society becomes, right? Because what I envision for us as humanity is let's stop living superficial. Yeah. Let's get back in touch with reality.

I think too, man, the one thing that I want to happen is my wish, you know, like the first wish was, you know, when I created the show was to wake up in a society that was determined to go chase their dreams, no matter what their emotions were telling them all that day. It's still that. But it's also, I want people to understand that we live in a world of co-creation and not competition. Yes. But can you imagine how many amazing things. can happen if people of two badass entities would be like dude you're good and we're good let's start let's start beating up on each other and differentiating let's let's see how we can impact the whole world together and co-create john that's my vision i i've most people that are in business

you'll find that they some clude themselves from competition it's like sharing trade secrets right like you're not going to sit down with coca-cola and they're going to tell you the recipe from from from where I sit today, anything that you want to know with the intent to start a business and the same line of business that I'm in, I'll share everything that I have. Have you ever read The Go Giver?

No. You need to read it. Interesting book. I'm almost done with it. I'm going to give it to you. Because the guy in there, I'm not going to ruin it. I'm not going to ruin it.

There's someone listening right now based on what you said, understands where I'm going with it. I will finish it this weekend, hopefully, and I will give it. it to you so you can read it and you will my buddy david waldi sent it to me such a good guy randomly just send it to me yeah and i think you're really going to connect with it based on what you just said that'll be awesome it'll be really good it's going to help you understand you will even more than you

already do um but uh let's tell the audience where can they find you man like it can they get in touch with you on i know you're not a big social media guy yeah a lot of people that listen to the show are on social media and may want to you know say hey heard the show man like can you can you help me yeah yeah i mean you can always reach out to our website you know wwws southern tier telecom.com you know there's a contact us on there so you can reach out to that um just drop us a a message of whatever your interests are the questions you may have um and believe it or not all that still goes through my desk awesome so yeah i'm the first one to put eyes on all of the information that comes through um and that's on a national platform so uh yeah that's

that would probably be the best way to reach me, you know? And I'm the type of guy. I'm here to help. You know, I want to spread the word and the message, not from a monetary perspective, no gain necessary for me. I just really want to help other people accomplish and succeed their goals, right?

And I want to help people understand that you, like you create your own reality. Do you know why that is, though? Do you know why that's your purpose? Why I think it is, or you obviously are going to tell me that you. I feel, I feel a certain way about it, but I want to hear what you have to say. So I think growing up without a caregiving system and an environment to surround myself

with has really inspired me to care for others and give what I didn't have. Nailed it. Yeah, I think that's really what's happening with me as I get older. This isn't about money. Yeah. I mean, I've achieved financial freedom, right? I've done what I've wanted to do thus far, which, by the way, I'm nowhere even close to being done. But the goal is is the freedom to now help others, right?

So if I have extra capital, I want to now figure out ways to take that capital and spread the word and educate others. Because here's what I think is super ironic, specifically for me and maybe other entrepreneurs find themselves in the same position. you will find that people will pay money for the information that you have to help them on their pathway of success. Right. So whether that be through seminar or one-on-one coaching or consulting, but your employees, they get all that information for free and you pay them and sometimes they're the ones that are most resistant. Yep. Amazing how that is. Think about that for a second.

Yeah. That's a pretty fascinating thought. It is. And I don't think most people think that way. Yeah. Right? Like, I'm being paid to be educated. And I resist the education.

Yeah. Well, I've got people across from me that are being compensated or they're compensating someone else to provide them with that detail and that education. It's amazing, dude. It's pretty interesting. It's very interesting. Well, look, dude, I appreciate you. Thank you for coming on.

Yeah, thanks for having me. You gave the audience a ton of value. and you heard him. The website will be in the show notes, so please make sure you go check them out if you have any questions, and if you're interested in a career in telecom, he's your guy.

But again, I just want to thank you guys for listening and watching once more, staying consistent with us as we've grown, this amazing show with amazing guests and an incredible production. Couldn't do it without you. So please keep sharing the show with your friends, people that you know, love and trust,

and don't, don't, don't be scared to send an email or something or a message to talk about what guests you want to hear, what topics you'd like to hear if I haven't covered anything. And please go ahead and leave some reviews, written reviews on Spotify and Apple. Helps us keep doing what we're doing. Appreciate you guys. Until next time, stay determined. Share in French, what up? Doing up until it's done, I meet for the entirety.

I'm putting over time. I'll be working. Just know I'm a go for mine because I earned it. They watch and I know it's time. I confirmed it. Our whole society determined determined society.