Welcome to the Good Stuff.
I'm Jacob Shick and I'm joined by my co host and wife, Ashley Shick.
Jake is a third generation combat Marine and I'm a gold Star granddaughter. And we work together to serve military veterans, first responders, frontline healthcare workers, and their families with mental and emotional wellness through traditional and non traditional therapy. At One Tribe Foundation, we believe.
Everyone has a story to tell, not only about the peaks, but also the valleys they've been through to get them to where they are today.
Each week, we invite a guests to tell us their story, to share with us the lessons they've learned that shape who they are and what they're doing to pay it forward and give back.
Our mission with this show is to dig deep into our guest journey so that we can celebrate the hope and inspiration their story has to offer.
We're thrilled you're joining us again.
Welcome to the Good Stuff.
Our guest today is an executive at one of America's most well known brands, with over seventy five thousand employees and many years on the Forbes Top one hundred Places to Work list.
John Fryar t Mobile is here today to tell us the harrowing story of his childhood and is amazing climb to the top of the American dream.
John grew up in West Texas during the oil boom bus that left countless families dealing with the harsh realities of poverty, including his own father's death by suicide when John was just ten years old.
It's truly inspiring that a corporate executive is so willing to share his story.
Agreed, And it's one that's so honest, vulnerable, and yet so inspiring. Sit back, you guys are going to thoroughly enjoy this. We are so excited about today's episode. We have been hoping, praying, wishing and working so hard to get you on here with us. John Fryar from T Mobile, thank you so much for joining us here on the good Stuff.
You're very welcome. Ashley, it is so great s Year. It's good to see you.
Yeah, thank you.
I know it has been a last time. The last time we saw one another, I think was on Veterans Day in late twenty twenty one, November eleventh of twenty twenty one in New York City. You all came up and you are a big part of our keynote for our Tea Mobile Veterans Day event in New York Right.
So incredible to go up there and get to meet more of your team. And we love t Mobile. Team Mobile and One Tribe Foundation do a lot together, and we are so thrilled to be part of the Magenta family and have you as part of the Tribe.
Yeah, thank you. Well, we love what you're doing with One Tribe And you know, supporting the military and supporting veterans is a big part of the fabric of our company. And we have one of our diversity, equity and inclusion networks that is called van Or Veterans and Allies Network, and tens of thousands of people are a part of that. Every single year, our biggest event is at Veterans Day in New York City where we bring in people veterans and guests from all over the country and come in
and we participate the parade. And over the years, I know a couple of folks on my team, between Ryan Haskell and Dave Plunkett, have gotten to know all of you incredibly well. And then I got to hear more of your story and I was incredibly inspired by the story and I'm like, absolutely, let's get more involved, and it's just an honor of ours to be able to help and participate and support you guys and what you're trying to do.
It's a huge deal for us.
And main reason being too is because T Mobile definitely went against the grain, and I dig that just because all these people are rowing in the same direction doesn't mean they're doing it the right way, you know. And I love how T Mobile kind of broke in and Mule kicked the door in and was pretty much like, here we are stand by totally. Me and Buck were talking and he runs our watch program, and I was like, I really want to get to know those guys better,
because that's really indicative too of like a Marine Corps mindset. Yeah, we're going to show up and we're just not taking no for an answer.
And you're going to find a way.
Yeah.
Yeah, we will not stop moving forward, right right, So I dig that. I mean, that's really is twenty two kil which is our roots, what we started as, and I mean that's definitely really how we got going and got momentum in the suicide awareness aspect of the Warrior class and then evolving all the way to one trap foundation, which is full blown middle and emotional wellness for a myriad of demographics. There's a lot of similarities and I
appreciate that fact. You guys are definitely a trailblazers and it's to be respected.
Our big mantra at T Mobile for the last ten years has been three words, we won't stop. And as you just talked about, you're finding a way and you're not stopping. That's kind of who we are is pushing
the boundaries and trying to change. You know, this incredible technology of smartphones and tablets and we're all connected to the internet, and it's historically come with all of this, you know, rules and regulation and gotchas, and we wanted to disrupt all of that and change all of that and to help people be able to be connected to their world. I mean, in fact, our mission at our company is to be the best in the world at connecting customers to their world, because you can't really live
life without being connected to these devices. Our work, our hobbies, our friends, our family, everything is connected to these smartphones. So for us, we like to push the boundaries and think about what's possible, dream about what seems to be impossible and go chase it. And who better to be inspired than our nation's military and the veterans who bravely served this country than to tap into some of that DNA and apply that within our own company.
And we knew you were on the same mission as us, cut from the same cloth from the jump. We also have a couple other things in common. You are a son of the Republic of Texas, I am a daughter of the Republic of Texas. And we're both Native West Texans.
That's right. Yeah, So my sixth great grandfather served as a Texas Ranger during the American Civil War, and then my seventh grade grandfather served as a Texas Ranger during the Republic of Texas between eighteen thirty six and eighteen forty five, and when Texas was its own country for nine years. If you're from Texas, you absolutely know those dayta that means, you know what that means.
And if you're from Texas and don't know those dates, shame on you.
Exactly go back to the seventh grade and retake Texas history.
You your very big world and everything that you're doing and connecting so many people started out in a small West Texas town of Odessa.
Yeah, I was in the middle of the vast oil fields West Texas out in Odessa, the home of Friday Night Lights, Permian High School, Mojo back in the day, I guess still today they could play. They used to can be able to really play. I don't know about today. I haven't fallen into as much recently, but thanks. Yeah,
I think that's right. Yeah, yeah, So half of the time before I was eighteen was a little bit of town west of Odessa called Kermit, and then we moved to Odessa, and yeah, I went to grade school, junior high school, all in the Odessa area. Crazy.
What was it like growing up in Odessa at that time?
Ooh, so I am almost forty eight. So I was born in nineteen seventy five, so most of my time was nineteen eighty eighty one to when I left in nineteen ninety four. There's two tales of West Texas in the nineteen eighties. The first hill was this economic boom. Everybody's looking for oil under every rock because price of oil was out of control and just sky high. And then that was met by the crash in the mid nineteen eighties, and it was a really severe crash. And
a lot of economic despair and major recession. And this might be a little bit over dramatizing, but I think if you lived during that period of time in that particular area, it was our generation's depression. It was that severe of an economic change where the price of old went from thirty something dollars a barrel to seemingly overnight to about thirteen dollars a barrel, and all economic activities stopped.
And so it was really kind of the two tales that I got to see, which is kind of as a kid, I remember riding high, the family, riding high, not a care in the world, everybody having fun, and you know, just all kinds of craziness for a small town craziness in the early nineteen eighties, and then by the mid nineteen eighties, all of that gone away, and
we're living a very different life. As I just think about my own children, who that whole time period so far has been kind of one steady time period and they don't have like what I experienced, which is just two remarkably different points of time within ten years.
That's a drastic flush, yeah, that most people probably haven't experienced, yeah, in their lifetime. Yeah, me because that takes a toll.
Yeah, it does. It does take a toll. And you know, on one hand, it was so great to grow up in that part of the country because people are so incredible and West Texas is a little bit of a different place, like anyone will do anything for you until you don't live up to your commitment, until they can't trust you, and then it's a whole different experience. But I have some of the greatest memories from being in West Texas and the simple life and the awesome people
and still imprinted in me today. That's awesome.
Yeah, it is a great special place. Yeah, tell us about your childhood when it comes to your home, your family, and what you experienced as a child growing up in Odessa.
All of my family worked in the oil and gas business. My grandfather did, and my dad did as well, and so what I remember most is just being in the vast open fields. I went to work with my dad, like in the early eighties, like almost every single day, it seemed like, on the weekends and certainly during the summer. I wasn't in grade school, I was out in these fields, and I still remember vividly a number of things about
that time. And I can leave here right now with no map and go directly where I was as a five year old or a six year old in these fields. Yeah, I made an impression. You know. We came from very humble beginnings, and then once this economic crisis hit in the mid nineteen eighties, you lost everything, I mean almost everything and couldn't rub two nickels together during that period
of time. It was a tough time. There's elements I remember that were awesome, and again the people and some of the lasting relationships that I still have, but also a pretty tough time where we didn't have much and couldn't do much, and everything was kind of a no based on money, meaning that can I play football in junior high No, because we don't have the money. Can I do this? No, because we don't have the money.
A lot of that was kind of tough, despite some of the incredible people that I got to build relationships with over the years.
Of course, yeah, I mean, but you got to be willing to take the bad with the good and the good with the bad.
Yeah, that's right, that's exactly right.
You know, because if you don't have ball, if you die, Yeah.
That's exactly right. Growing up in Odessa, and then in the second half of the nineteen eighties was major economic turmoil and personal tragedy in my life. My own father took his life at the age of thirty and when I was ten years old, so he was twenty when I was born, and he took his life and suffering from mental illness, and I didn't realize it at the time and still don't have a ton of insight into it today, but got into a place where I think
he was hurting. I think he had just incredible despair and did not know how to stop the hurt other than taking a final action to stop the hurt. And then that left us in a position of my mom didn't work and we just didn't have anything. I still kind of go through that time period where we had nothing, and I knew in order for me to kind of get out of the cycle and be able to somehow break out of this cycle, otherwise I'm going to be kind of in this place for the rest of my life.
Take me back to that ten year old little boy. What would you like as a child before that event, and then tell us about your life after that?
Oh man, what was I like before? I was probably just like your regular little boy that was generally in trouble doing things that you shouldn't be mischief or I just mischief, like tearing stuff up all the time, and you know, harassing people. You know. Old boy, Yeah, old boy. Definitely all boy, like in the dirt in the mud with the dirt bike and you know, just all boy for sure. And again I haven't done any kind of psychoanalysis on mean, this is probably my first chance to
do that with all of you. So it'll be fund Yeah, it'll be fun to work at all.
We're capturing it.
Yes exactly, it's just got more fun for me.
Yeah exactly. Yeah, Oh you're gonna be like, uh, that's all the time we have. But I was always a little bit more outspoken, probably even in the second and third and fourth grade little I've spoken, clowning around all the time, making jokes and literally like, if I have any feedback today, Like sometimes in the corporate world, we do these three sixty surveys where it gives you feedback and the whole thing, and you love to read the awesome feedback, but you don't really like to read them
not so awesome feedback. But if I literally look at my first grade and second grade report cards, and I match that up with feedback I still get today. It's the same feedback. It's the same it talks too much inappropriate jokes from time to time.
I'm still all boys, all still.
Right, and so it's still the same stuff. I was that way definitely before ten years old, and then after ten years old. And again I haven't really thought a whole lot about it, but I was bad. Not bad in terms of like no drug use or anything like that, nothing like that, but just very disruptive, very disruptive, and probably acting out a lot, and one that would start some conflict, I correct, confrontational, just kind of run in my mouth and talking, which in Odessa, Texas, you don't
particularly in the nineteen eighties. That might be true today, I don't know, but definitely in the nineteen eighties, if you ran your mouth, fists are going to come at you. This was no like, hey, let's sit down and talk about it and work out our feelings. That was not right.
That's not how it worked there. No, And so so I definitely in fights and those kinds of things a lot, just largely for run of my mouth, and it was probably I didn't think about it at the time, and again you didn't really kind of seek out therapy and no, nothing, not a thing, talk about nothing.
Right, You're gonna be fine.
We just want to talk about it, right, Yeah, of course suppression, No, right exactly.
It was probably, well probably, I guarantee it was related to the tragedy that I went through and that was a tough time. For whatever reason, I kind of got my act together a little bit more. Actually, I know why I got my act together a little bit more. I got my acting a little bit more, and you know,
kind of the eighth grade and beyond. And the reason I got back together a little bit more is that I started working, you know, at thirteen fourteen years old, and started working and doing a couple of different things while I was going in junior high school in in high school, and I got into an environment that I'm like, Okay, I,
first of all, we have no money. If I want to be on the school's lunch program basically free lunch and go over there and sit with people that are on free lunches, which if that's what I want to do, then okay, great. But if I want to hang out with the cool kids and people who have money, I'm going to have to work for it because we don't have We don't have anything. And I little remember working at this little country store. It was called Hopper's Country Store,
and it was owned by two people. Their names were Norman and Joyce Hopper. They're both passed away now. They're in their sixties and the nineteen eighty so they both have passed away. And I was making three dollars and fifty cents an hour, and I worked there Tuesday nights, Thursday nights, and probably four or five hours on a
Sunday Saturday. Three dollars and fifty cents an hour. So that's breaking down the boxes, that's sweeping the floors, that's mopping the floors, that's cleaning the bathrooms, stocking the shelves, all of that for three fifteen hour and so generally I worked two to two and a half hours on a Tuesday night, same thing on a Thursday night. Like I said, four or five hours on a Saturday. And that was about I don't know, twenty five thirty maybe
as high as forty dollars for the week. That helped me, like do what I wanted to do and buy the lunch that I wanted to buy and eventually buy the shoes I wanted to buy. It's very materialistic in the nineteen eighties. I feel like this isn't as much of a thing today based on my own children, but in the nineteen eighties, it's very materialistic, particularly in this part of the country. If you didn't wear the right brand of jeans or I have the right brand of shoes,
you're just not in. And I wanted to be in, and I wanted to be I don't know if I wanted to be in, I didn't want to be out. I'll say it that way. I didn't want to be out. I can relate to that, and so, yeah, so I quickly just started to work as much as I could and get the money I could to be able to appear like we weren't completely dirt poor, because appearances in that particular time, I think, in that particular era, in that particular time and in my particular age, appearances mattered.
It's almost yeah, I mean it's perception is reality is not just the same.
Yeah, a.
Timestap, right right. I feel like that's something that we've all experienced.
Who are your role models during that time? I had one role model that I just fondly remember and think of often, and when I say often weekly. After I did this country store thing, I did that for I don't know, like the seventh and eighth grade, maybe the ninth grade too, and then from the ninth grade on, I started working on the J. L. Johnson Ranch, which is just west of Odesta. It's about a twenty five
thousand acre ranch. And my dad and my grandfather worked on the old business there, one of the vast oil fields at that time in the nineteen eighties. So when I was going out there, I met the rancher. His name was Yuel Hammett. He was the ranch foreman of the JL. Johnson Ranch up until his death of about ten years ago. I think he was the foreman four
fifty five years. Started, like I think he was a fire captain for the Odessa Fire Department and then became the foreman of this ranch and kind of did double duty. But he was there for fifty five years, and I think he passed away at eighty five or eighty six years old, so about thirty all the way to eighty five eighty six, he was the ranch foremant. So I met him at a very young age, and one day when I'm out there, he asked me, Hey, you know, I'm looking for some help. Would you like to help?
And I said sure. And that started first with a little bit of yard maintenance and all that kind of stuff, all the way too, fencing and cattle and all of that. He was a person that I think taught me one the value of hard work and to just there was some stability and a calmness in leadership within him that I hadn't seen up close like that, and he was a very very simple man. He and his wife were
just so incredibly kind to me. They were so passionate about what they did, and he was a role model for me early on that someone that I looked up to, but also someone that I was not going to disappoint anything and everything I was going to disappoint. And what he valued was incredible hard work. And so therefore, if he valued hard work, and he had a pretty high standard for hard work, I wanted to exceed that standard.
And I think early on in that particular era, I got imprinted the value of hard work and the drive.
When I was working for him, I mean he was sixty something years old, I mean, I remember when he had like a triple or a quadruple bypass and like was in the hospital and then came back and it was like three weeks later he's out there lifting bails and this whole thing, and it was just it was incredible to see what I thought at the time, somebody's so ancient because I was like a courteen year old kid. Of course, it's not that ancient anymore. Yes, that's pretty young.
I was one of the people early on that made a difference in my life and kind of got me square, not intentionally, probably unintentionally, But it also still carries within me that now my role as a person who's almost fifty years old working with people who are a lot younger than me, that I have an impact, either directly or indirectly, and anything and everything I do can have a positive or a negative impact and effect on people
around me. And I think about that a lot, based on his impact on me that he didn't know he made at that time.
So many years ago.
Yeah, so many years ago.
That's amazing. The lessons that truly stick with you. Yeah, what were the dynamics of your family during those formative years?
It is tough you know, like I said, my dad and my mom and I weren't all that close. We had a tough time, tough, tough relationship for the majority of the time. Were much better today, but during that time it was tough. And she graduated high school in May of nineteen seventy five and I was born in June of nineteen seventy five.
Wow, So you know in West Texas and West conservative West.
Very conservative mid seventies, and that would be like my oldest daughter, who's twenty, she would have a two year old and I can tell you she has no business today having a two year old. And that's with growing up in a stable environment.
Yeah, exactly, with all the things that you didn't have and that she didn't.
Right, right, So it was tough, and she was young, and I know she would go back and do lots of things differently if she had the opportunity to go back. Of course, don't we all almost on everything, we'd go back and do things differently. But that's a tough it's
a tough environment. Like I have fond memories of the hard work ethic that I think I have today, of the incredible people that I think exist in West Texas, I've got fond memories of that, but my memories within my home aren't the fondest in the world.
Yeah, and that's so common.
Yeah, right is that?
So what do you say that difference being is that you being who you are or you're open, vulnerable and.
Honest about it.
Yeah, it's beautiful and I think that it's that by default, and I'm speaking from my own experience here, provides empowerment for other people to find victory in their vulnerability while refusing to be a hostage of their pride.
And that is a force multiplication.
For greater good. That is beautifully sad.
All those people you have such a tremendous gift and blessing because of your story. Right, you know, every morning we do this morning motivational quote that will like gives perspective for the day, or we do verses at night and in the morning.
One morning, I think it was this week.
I don't know. I didn't have any yesterdays, I mean, but it was.
Having regrets is like driving a car that only goes in reverse.
Yeah, just because our past isn't painted with rainbows, roses and lollipops doesn't mean it didn't attribute to who we are now with conviction and grace and gratitude.
I couldn't agree more because I believe, and I'm not perfect, don't get me wrong, but I believe I'm a better parent as a result of what I've gone through, because there's no way, no doubt that my children were going to go through what I went through, no way. And I know that my success that I've had in life, you know, outside of being a parent or outside of being a husband, has been because of what I had gone through. And that has its drawbacks to it, and
I'd be happy to talk about that. But I knew I wanted to break the cycle. I knew I had to get out, and I knew there was nobody going to help me, and it really created a drive within me that I don't think. Maybe maybe I would have had I don't know, It's hard to know, but I know that there was a fire within me that there was no help around me, and I got to figure this thing out and I did. It wasn't clear cut, Don't get me wrong, I took it. It's not like
I had some grand plan. Okay, now I have no money and I'm going to be president of a fortune forty company, and here's the plan that was not it right? Yeah, let me type it all out and step one get somethody eat. Step two right, find enough money to put the gas in the fuel tank. But yeah, I was just trying to survive, you know. I was just trying to survive. And I knew that there's nobody coming around me.
I was around people with hard work. But what I was gonna say is it has its strawbacks too, because I've had a level of anxiety in me that has been on one hand good, on the other hand, kind of unhealthy. What I mean by that is when I go back and I say that I still remember and I still have these incredible relationships of people that I deeper respect and Odessa. In West Texas, I saw incredibly great people lose everything and we're a victim of the economy.
And that scared me. Like even at ten years old, I was like I was anxious about that. I still remember my dad and my uncle talking on the front like not even on the front porch. It was like in the driveway, like a cliche driveway. You know what that means, A cleche driveway, dirt road right means Texas right, a Clichee Driveway. This was in late nineteen eighty five, really worried about the price of oil and the layoffs and companies collapsing and talking about that, and that got
me nervous and anxious. But I saw these incredibly great people lose everything, And what also got imprinted me at an early age was I could lose everything, and I got to continue to work and deliver and perform irrationally, probably so that I never find myself in that position in the mid nineteen eighties where we lose everything. Because I saw great people, no fault of their own, the world changed and they lost everything almost overnight, overnight, right overnight.
And that again was a drive within me that working was never enough, getting to this level of the organization's nerve enough, making this amount of money, It's never enough. I got to keep driving and keep pushing because I need to create a cushion. And that's only gotten right with me probably in the last five years. Until about five years ago, I was still a rational and overly anxious and borderline neurotic about it.
Wow, what changed?
Yeah? What was it?
Where you were like, Okay, I can start to settle down.
I was about to lose my sixteen year marriage. So I got married in two thousand and two to my incredible wife Holly. But it was never enough. And I'm too involved in work, I'm too strong used out about it. I'm not living the life here and now I'm not putting in the time and effort into our marriage. I have learned that you know, that tank will run dry, and you have to refill that tank just within all relationships, right, relationships will run dry unless you are constantly refueling and
making deposits in the proverbial you know, bank account. I was making withdrawals and I wasn't putting a whole lot of deposits in, and I found out that I was way overdrawn, and we got in a very bad place, to the point that we filed for divorce. I filed for divorce, and you know, we got down to the one yard line, I mean like one inch line of kind of closing this thing up. I mean we've done all the you know, dividing up her lawyer, my lawyer,
the whole thing. Well, you were right there, We're right there. All we're down is to signatures. And we're down to signatures after you know, our annual bonus comes in, which is at the end of February, so we're down to signatures because that's the last thing and then we're going to divide everything up and move on. And I was
so distraught over it. I worked primarily in Seattle and we lived in Bellevue, Washington at the time, and I remember every day walking into the parking garage so distraught over this that I would like there was a trash can.
As soon as I walked into the stairwall into the building, I'd kind of put my problems in, all my marriage, falling apart problems right through at that trash can, and I'd walk in pit the smile on, do the happy dance, the whole thing, and walk back out the end of the day and pick those problems right back up and take them right to my car. And I was so distraught over it. At the one yard line, we found a spark. And the good news is that there's no bad behavior on any one of our parts. There's no
fighting over the assets and stuff. I'm like, hey, here's what you're entitled to. I'm not going to fight over all that. And I think because as we were going through that, we had as bad as good have an experience as you can have with that, we didn't find ourselves in a place that we just can't even see one another talking to one another. So many people go through such u beliefs. Right, you can't even you can't even stand the sight of something.
It can't even be in the same zip.
Code, right, exactly, nothing like that. We found a spark there at the end that kind of scared both of us a little bit because we're like, well, what is I I thought we were done, you know, and we kind of built on it a few more months and then, you know, we were very public about this with our families and the whole thing, and it was a hard time, but it was me getting right with I don't know, both people have their contributions to relationship failures, but I
had a bigger contribution to the relationship failure at that time, and it was a lot of my behavior and my just being neurotic and being anxious and being scared, being scared of going back to this time in the mid nineteen eighties, irrational, totally irrational, and just being scared about that to the point where I didn't invest in the relationship and I let my marriage die. It died at
the end of my days. I think the most thing ILL would be thankful for across my entire life I have a chance to think about it before I passed from this life, is to be thankful for the opportunity to resuscitate my marriage, because most people don't get an opportunity to do that, right, most people like when a relationship dies, people move on and hopefully generally people will
find peace after that. But I was able to resuscitate mine, And I think what my wife would tell you is I'm a completely and totally different person over the last five years than I was in the first sixteen years. Wow. And unfortunately it took that for me to kind of get my act together. And I wished it didn't take that for me to get my act together, but it did, and I'm forever grateful for it. Thank God. Yeah, forever, absolutely, that's.
Right, And thank you for sharing that.
Yeah.
I mean, it's beautiful that you are where you are now.
Yeah, That's the thing I'm most proud of in my life is we have an incredible relationship. We have two incredible children, and our family is just blessed beyond measure. And I've had all the success side of that in the workplace, but to me, that's secondary or tertiary to the success that we've had. And that's been hard, and again, of course it's been hard. But man, we're just such a great place today.
I'm so happy for you.
Yeah, thanks for all of you.
It's greatness.
Take me back to how your professional career. What was that trajectory you wanted to break the cycle and then you got an opportunity I did.
I stumbled to this business I've been a part of for almost thirty years, so nineteen ninety four and I just literally stumbled into this business before anyone really had a cell phone. There's like two of us. I had one, and my high school friend at the time recommended, like, oh, you got to go work for this company, and you're going to Lubbock because I was leaving Odessa and I was chasing a girlfriend of Lubbock.
Big city.
BIG's big city, right, That's what I do. I made it. I'm like, I'm getting out of a dusta Texas and I'm going to Lubbock and I've made it.
You all sound like so Wes Texans right now?
Halloween, Holly baby, exactly, Buddy, Holly, that's where the big mall is, the sound Planes Mall, and you know, yeah, So I went to Lubbock and I just kind of fell into this business. And at that time, they're looking for salespeople and if you could make it great, you made a lot of money, and if you couldn't, and you got fired pretty much immediately. And so the interview was something like, can you fog a mirror? If you can fog a mirror, you're hired. It's basically basically I'll work.
It was literally that because I had zero skills. I had no idea what I was doing, Like, I had nothing, So like they hired me, and I'm like, all right, so like here's the number, and if I don't make the number, I'm tossed out of here. So I got
to make the number. And I literally had my first business cards and I'm literally leaving business cards at payphones because if I can leave my business cards at payphones and I can get people who are wearing pagers that they get a page and they pull over and they go to the payphone, you should graduate from that. That's kind of dumb. Why don't you talk to me? Drop the pager and I get you a cell phone, blah
blah blah blah blah, brilliant market, right exactly. So I literally ran around all over town doing that kind of stuff, and then one opportunity kind of led into another. And first of all I worked with in the mid nineties, I just had this. I had so much fun. I worked with a whole group of people that was a cast of characters that was really kind of a band of misfits, and but it taught me a lot ill
name names or anything. But like this person over here was just kind of the crazy, borderline unethical, kind of crazy person over here. And then this person over here was like really awesome driver, but like really kind of created these weird dynamics where everybody, you know, like as soon as she walked in, everybody was uncomfortable. But she
was really awesome and made her numbers. And so I had all these casting characters that I got to learn from, and I tried to take a little bit from here and a little bit from here and try to make my way of doing things, you know, the way I wanted to do it from learning from everybody else. But I remember we called it this You're gonna laugh at this because let me show you boot camp, but we called it the boot camp. That was the sales training
program that was called boot camp. It's just like the oh I bet say, just exactly right right, you know at the hotel, at the Embassy suites, just like I mean, we did the same exactly room service, room service, you know, drinks, you know, the whole thing. But the trader said only one of you will make it out of this, and there's like twenty five of us, and turned out he
was right. But yeah, I just every single one of these opportunities I got, and I talk to people about this all the time that what you want to be able to do is in the moment, outwork everybody in the moment, take care of everybody around you. So it's not just doing what you need to do to advance yourself, it's about taking care of everybody else around you and making a group of people better and that will come back to you and reward you if you do that.
And in corporate America, you need a grand slam, high profile moments. Every once in a while. You're going to get a moment with your boss's boss and you are going to have a moment that sure on a Wednesday when nobody's looking. You need to be doing the right things. But you're also going to have a moment where that five minutes is going to matter, maybe that ten minute presentation is going to matter, and you better grant slam that.
And I kind of learned that early on, and I really put in the preparation and effort to every time I got a kind of one of those high profile moments that I call I tried to grand slam that, and that got me noticed. Then I'm in a conversation, and then when opportunity starts flowing, I just decided to say yes to every opportunity. We want you to go to the Rio Grande Valley, Yes, we want you to go to Omahona, Raska. Yes. So I said yes to everything.
Why I said yes to everything is I was scared of saying no, because if I said no, I'm going back to a Dusta, Texas in the nineteen eighties and I'm going to be penniless. So I said yes to everything at a point of like not following some game plan that I wrote out, but had of being scared to say no, right and again, that served me incredibly well. But like I said, a few moments ago that came with a little bit of problems too my personal life.
What do you want your legacy to be?
Oh, gosh, my legacy. I'm in a place my career. I'm thinking more and more about that. I want it to be one where people will think of me and will say, man, I am better because of his impact in my life. I am a better person, I'm a better leader. I'm creating a work environment where everybody can thrive because one of the things that's most important to me is, particularly at this level of the organization, where I create work environments that attract the very best people
and allow them to do their very best work. And if I can do that at a senior level in the organization, then I have the best chance for that to permeate to the next level of the organization, and then permeate to the next level and permeate to the next level. Before you know it, you've got a highly functioning and productive and thriving organization based on the people that you attract. Jack Welch will tell you that leadership
is like gardening. A lot of watering, a lot of planting, a lot of nutrients, and every once in while you got to pick out a few weeds out of the garden every once in a while. And that's part of it too. You know, sometimes the work environment is rise isn't right because you have the wrong leader or a toxic leader in the organization that you get to deal with.
But I really want my legacy to be someone who created incredible, thriving work environments that helped people do things in their lives that they never thought imaginable, that helped them break their own cycles, that help them as they were thinking about challenge us with their parents and challenge us with their grandparents and the circumstances that they were born into that they were able to break out of that.
I'm also passionate about helping minorities who just have everything going against them in so many ways and helping them break out of that as well. My organization is seventy six percent minority. We have a lot of our employees in New York City and Los Angeles and Miami, you know, all the big markets, and also in smaller places across
the country too. But I can't tell you how many people have told me their stories and like they look at themselves and they can't believe what they're doing now, and I look at them and say, oh my god, you haven't even touched You're at the tip of the iceberg. What I see in you is what you can do, not what you've done. What you've done is probably the most unbelievable part of the story. The most believable part of your story is what you're going to do that
you can't even see yet. And helping people understand that and tap into that and be all that they can be is something that I would love to be remembered for.
Well, I think it's safe to say you're crushing it. Yeah, not, I think it's safe. I know it's safe. I mean, I've looked at the numbers. What a beautiful legacy. So it's all about right leaving it better than you found it.
Yeah, like any other business, like you have lots of statistics and numbers, and there's an old saying and cliche out there that statistics fade, but the impact of people in your life will be remembered forever. I just spoke about the rancher that I worked for that he would never have dreamed in a million years that one I'm doing what I'm doing, and two that he had the
impact in my life. And I had the opportunity just not too long ago to reach out to my sixth grade teacher, who I've kept in touch with for a while, but I just told her, I said, Hey, just washed over me. I did this last August, and it washed over me how important of a role that she played in my life. And I had an opportunity to reach out to her and tell her that, and she was
just kind of blown away by that. And all of us just have this incredible opportunity to make such an enormous impact on people, and I'm just fortunate to be able to do that in a bigger way than I ever thought I could.
It's beautiful.
How do you relax and recharge?
Oh, that's a problem. I'm always a little amped. I'm a decent facade. I'm a pretty calm person and try to project calmness, but I have a hard time kind of relaxing. I think and typically take you know, seven to ten or fourteen day vacations. We'll try to get some stuff into the weekend, and right about time I'm kind of unwinding. It's about Sunday night and time to get back after it. Yeah, time to get back after it. So that's still a work in progress for me in
terms of relaxing. And so I'm always a little amped on one here, and I am relaxed because even though I have a lot of responsibility and a lot of stress around that, I'm relaxed because I have an incredible team of people that I work with that makes me, you know, relaxed because we've had all of this responsibility and accountability, but with an effective week team, then that
gets pretty rough pretty fast. But I have this unbelievable team and this capable team that that I am as relaxed as I can be relative to the responsibility that I have recharging. I've got a place just north of
Dallas in the Whitesboro area. It's a couple hunderd acres that I kind of go out and find the solitude and get on the John Deere tractor and you know, again all boy like, if I can find some big machinery that like goes and cuts a bunch of stuff down and ride that around for a little while, that's what I want to do.
Brilliant.
If I if I had a backo, I'd literally get on that and just dig up holes for no reason and just pill them back in, buldle them down. Yeah.
So, I mean a great pastime, right, And you don't have to be the little boy in you.
Does can be the grown man that enjoys that.
And I think it's fair to say like most people, right, I mean that's a lot of power at your fingertips.
Oh yeah, first movers.
Yeah.
I used to make mud pies when I was growing up. I mean I was always.
Outside, right.
Last question, what would you say to someone that isn't so fortunate to be under your leadership to have those conversations to talk about their upbringings, maybe the challenges they went through.
I would say it's okay when you think that your environment in your upbringing that might have been really challenged, and you think it's unique to you, Chances are it is not unique to you. So many of us have our own thing that can make us feel ashamed, and you just want to stuff it down. You don't want to talk about it, and you don't want to acknowledge it. But I can tell you from my own personal wellness emotionally and mentally talking about it and coming to grips
with it and also seeing it. Jake, what you said just a few moments ago, seeing it as beautiful that I couldn't do what I'm doing today without I certainly wouldn't be the person I am today that I love who I am today. I get all kinds of works, but I love who I am today. I'm very comfortable with in my own skin. I love who I am today. I wouldn't change anything if I had an opportunity to
change the last twenty years. I don't think i'd changed much, including almost losing my marriage, because the last five years has been more filling than I would have ever imagined if I hadn't gone to that point. So for me, I know I've tried to get better over the last five years, in particular wrestling and learning and being okay with challenges that I've had when I was growing up in my overall environment. And I would just tell somebody that it's okay. Like if you're ashamed by that, I
think that's a natural feeling. If you think you're alone, then I don't think you are. Talk about it, be open about it and help others. And to me, like every time I've talked about this a little bit, I've had so many people who've said that helped me tremendously
in so many ways. That gives me even more inspiration to talk a little bit more about it and go it a little bit deeper next time, because it has helped people like I've been a little bit at the surface and then ooh, you know, I want to hear a little bit more about that, or you know, I want to tell you my story, and that gives me inspiration. And it's amazing if you take the lens of trying to help others, how much it helps yourself.
That is the good stuff, and that is exactly what the show is all about. And thank you so much for your vulnerability, for coming on and for sharing your story and providing perspective for all of us.
You're very welcome. Thank thank you.
John Fryar.
Yeah, yeah, Look, your ability to burn your pain is fuel in order to take more ground. And having the intuitiveness as a child to do that, I think you and I.
Both knows a gift.
But the way that you have been able to put that into an ever evolving practice to create force multipliers for the greater good is something that.
Is extremely unique.
To say.
It's an honor and privilege to be a drastic understatement. I can't wait to do more.
Stuff with you.
Listen, the honor is all mine. I'm just a simple guy from Odessa, Texas that is doing my thing. You're the hero of this conversation, my friend.
Well then we'll agree to disagree, which is okay to do in this country.
Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly. Thank you so much.
Awesome, thank you.
Yeah, you're very welcome. Thank you, thank you all.
I think it is so inspiring that an executive of such a large corporation that employs thousands of people across the globe is willing to be so vulnerable and come tell his truth and his story and how he got to where he is today. Proof that everyone has a story.
Exactly, and it's proof positive that you put in the work, you reap their rewards. He is a prime example of what finding victor and your vulnerability and refusing to be a hostage to your pride looks like.
Absolutely. And I'm just so glad that our paths crossed with T Mobile and with John Fryar.
So grateful because T Mobile has been trail blazers in the communications industry. And you know, when we started years ago was twenty two kill. We were trail Blazers because we were in your face and the fact that we've collided and now we're fighting together to gain ground, for the fight for the great or good.
It's a beautiful god thing.
Absolutely love our Margenta fam. Thank you so much for listening. If this episode touched you today, please share it and be part of making someone else's day better.
Put on your bad ass caves and go be great today. And remember you can't do epic stuff without epic people. Thank you for listening to the good Stuff.
The Good Stuff is executive produced by Ashley Shick, Jacob Schick, Leah Pictures and q Code Media. Hosted by Ashley Shick and Jacob Shick, Produced by Nick Cassolini and Ryan Kantzops.
Post production supervisor Will Tindy. Music editing by Will Haywood Smith, Edited by Mike Robinson.