Shed Geek Podcast

Richard Miller's Blueprint for Community and Connection Part 1

• Shed Geek Podcast • Season 5 • Episode 10

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Richard Miller returns to the Shed Geek podcast, bringing with him a wealth of experience and stories that weave together personal ambition and the power of community. As he navigates the complex world of managing a SmartPay rentals portfolio while co-running a small business with his son, Richard also embarks on the daunting task of building a new home in southern Missouri. Highlights include his innovative use of electric radiant heaters and how his construction background informs his unique approach to design. Richard’s enthusiasm is infectious as he shares the trials and triumphs of reaching his dream home while preparing to say goodbye to Ohio.

This episode takes a heartfelt turn as we reflect on the spirit of community through the legacy of our dear friend, Kenny Schlabach. By transforming a multipurpose shop into a buzzing hub for barbecues and gatherings, we celebrate the connections forged through shared projects. Kenny's influence extends to an incredible house-building event, reminiscent of traditional barn-raisings, where over a hundred friends and strangers from across the U.S. and Canada joined forces. These experiences underscore the importance of opening our doors to others, where the act of coming together becomes more enriching than any physical structure.

We also shine a light on the essential values of respect and genuine care, drawing from examples like the Stover brothers and Richard’s own impact in the shed industry. Their stories illustrate how embracing individuality and fostering collaboration can redefine success as something deeper than material wins. This episode leaves listeners with a message of hope and the transformative power of showing up for others. As we weave together personal anecdotes and broader societal reflections, we celebrate the bonds that unite us all, encouraging listeners to carry forward the spirit of community in their own lives.

For more information or to know more about the Shed Geek Podcast visit us at our website.

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube at the handle @shedgeekpodcast.

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To suggest show topics or ask questions you want answered email us at info@shedgeek.com.

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Sambassador:

All right guys. Welcome back to another episode of the Shed Geek podcast, Friday Fun Day with Sambassador. I'm your host, Sam Byler, and I am so freaking excited about what we're doing tonight. This is what I call a sequel. We've had this guy on before, a long, long time ago, in fact. Shannon likes to brag on the fact that he's the guy that gives me the most competition on here for most listened to, but I am so excited and honored to have Richard Miller on with us tonight. Richard is wearing a barbecue hat. It looks like.

Richard Miller:

Yep, dead pigs. That's where it's at, man.

Sambassador:

Dead pigs. Richard, how in the world are you?

Richard Miller:

I'm doing good. I'm tired, got a lot going on in my life, but I'm doing good.

Sambassador:

Yeah, let's talk a little bit about what's going on in your life right now.

Richard Miller:

Well, I'm trying to keep my SmartPay rentals portfolio going and taking care of my customers. I'm helping to run a small company that I'm a partner in with my son and I'm building a house 10 hours away in Southern Missouri. We're on the general contractor and there's some cool stuff that I want to talk to you about tonight because I think it's going to bring some value to some people Some of the lessons I've learned along the way on building that house and also trying to get our house in Ohio ready to sell. So, between all that, I'm not even sure how I'm breathing.

Sambassador:

I completely understand. I've wondered her. In fact, Karen asked me the other night. She's like, are they still in Ohio? And it all of a sudden, it all of a sudden hit me. Something you just said was you know, I don't know if he sold that house yet or not. No, do you? You? You're not even like focused on that right now. Are you, or are you starting to get that away?

Richard Miller:

We've got a guy here almost every day working on it like a handyman contractor working on it probably ten, twelve thousand dollar's worth of work to get ready to sell nice so, but not really push them on your timetable yeah, I've had enough delays.

Richard Miller:

I had a bunch of delays in getting the house done in in Ohio, uh, in Missouri and Ohio. That yeah, I'm getting pushed on some timetable stuff now, but it's not a crisis mode, it's just uh getting pushed. I'm leaving February 5th uh headed back to Missouri to work on the house and got a handful of my friends really good friends going up to help get it not ready to move in but get it to where we can move in. So, we're shooting for the first couple weeks of March to move.

Sambassador:

Oh nice, that was all my questions. I want to know, if you kind of have a goal you're shooting for, as to when you're going to try to move. So, is what? What stage is the house in?

Richard Miller:

A little bit of the electrical is done. It's got the foam insulation in the walls and in the roof line. All the interior framing is done. Of course the divider wall between the shop and the house is one side of it's covered. Uh, we need like a day and a half worth of plumbing. Two days worth of plumbing then we can have a usable bathroom. It's got water in the house. We just don't have the plumbing fixtures in and needs about two or three days worth of electrical. And then I gotta put the heating system in. I'm heating 2800 square feet with three of those little electric radiant heaters, those plug-in heaters, and it's generally keeping the temperature 40 degrees above outside. So, when it's 14 degrees in Missouri, those three electric heaters are keeping my house at 55 degrees 2,800 square feet. So, I'm pretty happy about that.

Sambassador:

You have to be. That's pretty cool. So you said you got your divider wall up between the shop and the house part. That's always to me that's a big key. I used to build houses and most couples when they walked in even with the walls framed and stuff being able to see through the walls and stuff, kind of always still threw them off. Like most of my change orders came after we like insulated the walls somewhere to divide a house. Yeah, did you. What was your feeling like when you got that divider wall up to where now this is house, this is shop, this is what it's going to look like, did you? Did you get what you wanted?

Richard Miller:

For the most part, there's things in the. My wife and I Tina and I spent a lot of time on on on the design of the house, and I grew up in the trades.

Richard Miller:

I was a licensed master plumber at one time, so I spent a lot of my life in the construction industry and so I've developed a lot of opinions, right or wrong. I've developed a lot of opinions about laying out a house and you know they're working selling, selling sheds for eight years or so. You know selling a lot of cabin shells that people will make into homes. I got a lot of, I got a lot of, I got a lot of ideas and so, once all the framing is done, I, because of my background, I'm pretty good at visualizing what's going on there.

Richard Miller:

We get that that wall covered um between the, the shop of the house, and I'm walking through there and everything I'm going not quite almost everything. I'm going, yep, yep, perfect, oh yeah, oh yeah, and it's just like because we put all the thought in there's, uh, there's several areas that I'm not happy with, but I knew that, like it was compromises we intentionally made, and so I'm going uh, this is, this is actually sucking as bad as I thought it would, but, like my office, I wanted a 10 by 16 office and I'm ending up with a 9 by 14. Okay, well, whatever, I'm disappointed. But who cares like? Who cares like it don't matter.

Richard Miller:

There's one area, there's one place in the, in the guest bathroom, slash laundry that I'm going like. This is not working out quite as good as I thought it would. So, there's only one place that I've been disappointed. I'm really happy, but I put in probably 20, 30 hours in designing the thing, plus all the thinking over 30, 35, 40 years. I used to draw house plans for a hobby when I was 14 years old in school.

Sambassador:

Yeah, so that's cool. So, yeah, yeah. So, you've got some of that, yeah, so what about

Richard Miller:

such a thing as a shop that's big enough?

Sambassador:

No, no, you know that. So, talk about selling, talk about selling sheds. You know, I used to tell people all the time, you know they, they were like well, I mean, it's, the shed customer is always up against budget versus what they need. And I always tell them look, I'm not trying to upset you, I could really care less. I said but I promise nobody's going to ever come back in my office in two years and say I wish you wouldn't have sold me such a big building. Yep, they always come back, they're like oh, we just got an extra four foot here, an extra two foot there. You know true, you know what I'm saying. Yep.

Richard Miller:

I've even had people want to come back. They bought a shed and they come back and wanted to trade in their shed for a larger one. I tried to sell in such a way that that would never happen, but it still happens sometimes.

Richard Miller:

Actually, you know what let's go

Richard Miller:

with this. Let's go with this. The stinking competitor down the road sold him a shed that was too small. Then they came to me to get the right side. Let's go with that that sounds better.

Sambassador:

Yeah, we don't know where down the road was, so it doesn't really matter, does it?

Richard Miller:

Yeah, exactly, but no, my shop is 30 by 40, and we're going to dual-purpose it. To entertain guests in. My shop is going to be heated and air-conditioned, have rated-4 heating, even though it's southern Missouri. It's going to have an air-conditioning and heat pump unit in it. It's going to be all completely finished with painted plywood on the walls and liner panel steel on the ceiling. And then when our house is intentionally smaller, then we need to entertain the size that we will on occasion, but then we'll open the door between the kitchen and the shop and we'll spill out there, and so it's kind of a multipurpose thing.

Richard Miller:

30 by 40,. You know what I can make it work. The part that I'm most proud of in that shop is Sam. I get my own miniature barbecue kitchen. I have seven foot of cabinet space, uppers or lowers, my own single full size kitchen sink, all my barbecue cabinetry Everything's in there my own refrigerator. Okay, I'm really proud of it. But the real story is miss Tina wanted that mess out of her kitchen. She has been so patient most of the time with my barbecue messes and all the seasonings and all the stuff and she cannot wait to get it out of her kitchen.

Sambassador:

I was going, I was just going. If you wouldn't have gone there, I was going there. I'm like, if, if your wife is anything like my wife at all, it's even better, because it's like, hey, you're out there now, buddy, yep, yep, which is a good thing. I come, you know my poor wife, you know my body clock and her body clock, or I should say my buddies and my body clock versus hers, buddies and my body clock versus hers. I come into the house.

Sambassador:

1130, 12 o'clock, one o'clock at night and I got a whole pile of dirty forks and spoons and knives and butcher knives or whatever we were using and you know I just chunk it. She doesn't want me washing it, that's fine, but I just chunk it in the sink and it's like you know you've been in my shop. My shop's a mess. One day it'll get done the way I want it done, but right now it's multipurpose to make a living. But it's like you know well, you can't leave your knives and forks and down in your sink because you guys are washing grease and stuff in there. True, we are, but it's the ultimate idea that, hey, you know what. I'll be able to leave all my stuff there to where it belongs, and I know you're worse than I am when it comes to that. So, to have that, that's a big deal.

Richard Miller:

Yep, I can't wait. And then there's a door that opens from my barbecue kitchen right out into the 14 by 32 foot porch. And you guys in the shed industry like picture a 14 by 32 shed that's with 10 foot sidewalls. That's the side of our porch. One end of it, one third of it, is going to be a bunch of my grills and smokers, and there's a door that goes out from our barbecue kitchen right to that. And then there's a door that goes out from our dining room onto the same porch. Then we're going to have a fire pit out in front of the porch and lights and the whole thing.

Richard Miller:

We're setting it up, Sam, so to invite people over to sit with us and eat good food and to sit around a fire, to sit on our porch and just to be together with people. Community, community, community. I, I, man. I've been thinking about that so much about community for the last while. And you know my friend in my and your friend, Kenny Schlabach, passing away, we buried him last Sunday and the community that he had created around him, without even trying. Oh yeah, six or seven hundred people showed up at his celebration of life. Yep, by the way, I way that's my Hawaiian shirt and his honor tonight.

Sambassador:

I was going to find I was going to ask you about that later. I was like I'm suspecting that's what you're doing there. Um, Kenny for those that don't know was one of the guys that came and helped you with your crazy house project. Talk to me a little bit about for guys on here that obviously you know they're like oh, Richard built a house. But it wasn't just that Richard built a house. Richard had a crazy idea to go back to the way we did it 50 years ago and get a whole community together. Here's the difference. I don't know. I've never heard you talk about this. You talk about the crazy idea of community get together, go back and build it, and I know you know this, but I've never really heard you say this. You brought 100 communities together. Most of these people came from different areas. It's not like we got all the neighbors together in Missouri and did it, or all the ones in PA.

Sambassador:

You had them there from everywhere.

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Richard Miller:

Yep, we did. We truly did. Here's how it started. I wanted to move back to the Ozarks that's where I was born and raised and kind of go back home and buy 10 acres and build my dream house, which is not big, it's not exotic, but it matters and everything's like I'm getting the things I wanted in the house. And so it started working out. I bought the 10 acres and I had this audacious idea to invite all my friends in to help me build a house. And I immediately dismissed it because it felt like it was self-serving, it felt like it was about me and like, why would I do that? Why would I ask for help, which I want to talk about that thing about asking for help before we get finished tonight, because it's important, it's something very important to talk about. And then one of my friends said hey, Richard, you should. You should let your friends come in, help you come, build this, build your house. And like, huh, let your friends do.

Richard Miller:

You see the language there, oh yes, absolutely I was talking to Kenny Schlabach and he said Richard, you need to let your friends come help build your house. And I respected Kenny, as did any of his friends, that you meet one of Kenny's friends. They respected Kenny and Kenny's words carry a lot of weight and I'm going huh whoa. And so, I thought about it and this picture developed about you know, we all desire deep within us to be part of something bigger than ourselves. It's like something that wired into us. We all desire community and I don't care if you participated in the draconian COVID stuff I'm trying to watch my language here. It makes me spit the way some of those things went down. I don't care if you participated in it or not. You were probably negatively affected by the reduction of community by trying to separate people, social distancing, all that stuff.

Richard Miller:

And it messed with our national psyche and it messed with our whole you know, and some of us just ignored it, but it still affected us. That's my argument anyway. And I got this picture that what if I create an event and I bring all my friends together that want to show up and we build this house, and all of a sudden it wasn't even about the house, it was about the coming together, and so I threw it out on social media and I remember that night telling you know, like honey, this thing is going up, there's like 25 people are in and we might actually even have 40. Like honey. I had no idea it would ever go anything like this. It blew my mind 25, 40, you know, whatever. Anyway, so things, I went to Kenny's house in March of last year.

Richard Miller:

He and I there's spruce pine, North Carolina, and I took some food, I cooked some food for him on his grill, which I like to do. When I went to Kenny's house, the younger kids say oh, Richard, he's the one that makes the best cooks, the best sausages ever like. Yeah, I want to be known by that, by the one that makes the best cooks, the best sausages ever like. Yeah, I want to be known by that by the kids. That makes me happy. So, we took some food, I showed him our house plans and Kenny did like he did for so many people. I was like man, I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I could. Oh, that's like a piece of cake, because I had all the elevations. I went back there, mapped out a map of the elevations on a 10 foot increment for the entire like 120 by 100 foot area that the house might sit on, and I had the whole map and I'm looking at. He'd go oh, that's a piece of cake. You should see what we deal with here in the mountains of North Carolina, you know, and he did like he did.

Richard Miller:

Kenny had a gift of helping you buying within you. Like, a lot of us have something within us to do way more than we think we can. You're experiencing that. You're like hey, this is Sam. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I had told you six months ago that you could do everything you can get how many sheds I know you've got a number, but you're probably not ready to say it hundreds of sheds you would have said no. But you know what with. Sometimes we need help to get that, to reach within ourselves and make that happen. And Kenny did that for us that night and I said, hey, if I put on one of those events, will you come help run it for me? He said tell me when I'll be there. That was Kenny's whole posture tell me when I'll be there. That was.

Richard Miller:

Kenny's whole posture. Tell me when I'll be there. He, that was his posture to God, that was his posture to people. Anybody that needs help, tell me when and I'll be there anyway. But the thing blew up bigger and bigger and bigger and by the time it was all said and done, Labor Day weekend last year, we had just over a hundred people, counting women and children, from coast to coast and border to border. One guy jumped in his truck and drove straight through 16 hours from Manitoba, Canada. We had a guy there from Oregon, Wyoming, Florida, Pennsylvania. 15 or 16 states showed up and we had Amish, ex-Amish, ex-Mennonite, Mennonite, probably even a few heathens there.

Richard Miller:

I don't care, I love them all. And I got to tell you something cool On Friday there's a local Irish community there and on Friday I was walking down through. We're ready to eat lunch. There's 80-some people there for Friday lunch and I thought, wait a minute, do I want to go here on this? Yeah, I do, I don't care, I'm going to go here on this podcast. I thought, God, who should I ask to pray for a meal?

Sambassador:

and I normally don't even ask God, like I just like you know, would you pray?

Richard Miller:

like I never, but I felt compelled to ask and I walked down there and this local Amish bishop caught my eye, like that's it, and so I'm gonna say it in Dutch, I'm gonna translate and I said Jonas's the beta Jonas, would you pray? And he said oh, I'd rather not. You know, if you know anything about the Amish and I love my Amish heritage- I love my Amish faith, but you can't be a true Amish man if you say sure you have to pray like you gotta push back.

Richard Miller:

Okay, and I say that as affectionately and fondly the Amish and Mennonites are my people and I love them absolutely. So don't any of you Amish or Mennonites are listening, don't interpret this any other than that. Anyway, I and I said, uh, uh, he really want to ditch. I really wish you would. He said, okay, he come off with a beautiful prayer of I I'm not well, a little speech beforehand of blessing everybody that's there. And there were ex-Amish there that had been hurt, with tears in their eyes who told me later that that blessing he spoke over them and then prayed over them and included, like he acknowledged, that we're there because we love God and because we love each other and we love Richard, and you know that was very healing for them. That's why I was supposed to ask him. I know this is crazy stuff for a shed geek related but, it's where we go, it's all important Anyway.

Richard Miller:

But Friday morning it was a bare slab. There was some lumber stacked on it. That was all. Yep, Saturday. Saturday night I had yep, Saturday. Saturday night I had a 40 by 70 building built, all the interior framing done. It had metal siding, 10 foot sidewalls and there were some challenges because the concrete slab wasn't right. So, there was some significant challenges in getting it lined out. That's all taken care of, and a 14 by 32 porch with the roof tied in. Yeah, everything done. We were. We were short. Two to three hours of trim on the metal. That's it in two days. Yep, it was absolutely crazy. My boss, Dave miller, CEO at SmartP ay rentals, showed up in his RV. So, we had, we had I don't know seven RV's and campers down in my field of people that just showed up.

Richard Miller:

We had a tent or two on the property. And that's the crazy thing, people, everybody did this at their own expense, like it just blows my mind. Anyway, Dave took over the cooking and, kind of like other people, helped Women stepped up and helped my wife. It was truly a community coming together and I don't know 20, 30, 40 people thanked me for giving them the opportunity.

Sambassador:

Think, about that, yep, yep. That's back to the part of let them Yep, let them. Exactly. Oh man, when you said the whole thing about what we can learn from letting people or asking people to be involved with us, or whatever, and I know that's, I guess that's part of our background too. You know I don't want to do that, it's not, I don't want to do that because it's me. You know I want to help other people or whatever. It's me. You know I want to help other people or whatever, and it's, it's like man I'm experiencing that to a level that is ridiculous with what we're doing here Having to ask haulers to help, having to ask guys to, you know, donate more sheds, get to work with the Amish community that you know the two or three different Amish communities that are here that we're helping, you know, know they're, they're building sheds and we're teaming up with them to do what we're doing and it's crazy, it's just absolutely crazy.

Sambassador:

It it? Uh?

Richard Miller:

you have to ask yep and I want to talk about that for a second, if I can. Yeah, also before we get, before we wrap up, I want to tell you what I did on this project that I'm the most proud of, and if that sounds arrogant, wait till I explain it. It'll make sense.

Richard Miller:

But the whole thing about asking, the whole thing about asking, is so I find myself finding it very hard to ask for help, especially if I get in a bind. But here's the reality there is no human alive. Well, I shouldn't say that, but the vast majority of us that will ever hear this podcast. We get into a space in our head where we're locked into having trouble finding solutions for stuff. And if we just say, guys, I'm having trouble here and it's embarrassing because a lot of times I think we think we should have the answer, like even for me, I'm not embarrassed to ask somebody for help in and of itself, but why don't I then more often? Because I think I should have the answer yeah, and therefore I become embarrassed excuse me, but uh, to ask for help. And then the other thing is.

Richard Miller:

The other thing is some of us detest the um, the, the kind of mentality where you don't ever lift a finger for yourself, where you expect everybody to pick up the slack thing you know, I don't know how to describe it without and still be polite, and we detest that so much. I don't want that kind of, I don't even want that kind of feel anywhere close to how I live my life and so I will slog and, slog and slog and go through all kinds of misery to finally, like I get desperate and I ask for help. And one of my friends said, well, why don't you do this, why don't you do this? And boom, a path appears that would be is just tremendous path, you know, and sometimes the very act of me asking actually unlocks the solution.

Richard Miller:

I need help. I can't figure this out. Well, you know what? Why don't I do this and this and this? And I got the solution. Just because I asked unlocks my brain and I'm like, why don't we ask more? We should ask more, we should be. And here's the thing I want to help people, you want to help people. There are very few people that don't genuinely want to help somebody else.

Sambassador:

Yes, this is true.

Richard Miller:

So, let's give the opportunity, yep, and I'm not talking about being needy, that's a whole other thing.

Richard Miller:

Yeah, yeah, we're not talking about that.

Richard Miller:

Why don't we give people the opportunity to help? And you know, I don't know if you've noticed a lot, but I've asked a lot of questions about building my house on Facebook, yep, and lot of questions about building my house on Facebook, yeah, and, and I've got a construction background. I can figure a lot of this stuff out, but you know what I get locked into chant or tunnel thinking or whatever I put it out there. People, I told these guys that are coming this weekend, like, if we don't have at least a couple of arguments of you guys arguing about how I want something done, I'm gonna be disappointed in you. Because, Sam, it isn't just all the people that came together, it's on our house. Even the ideas behind it are collaborative.

Sambassador:

Absolutely.

Richard Miller:

We were made to be a collaborative people. That's how we function the best, but why do we try to be silos? It's ridiculous.

Richard Miller:

We need to quit tha t

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Sambassador:

Well, we didn't listen. Going back to Kenny again, we can't be Kenny's, remember that. Yep, um, but we can all be the best we can be at what we are. Yep, and I can't be. I can't be Richard, I can't be Kenny, I can't be Jason. But I have Richard, I have Jason, I had Kenny, so, um, so if I can get biblical spiritual for a minute, is that not the body? That's the way it's supposed to work. Instead of fighting each other, we're supposed to all pull together. We're supposed to work together, because I can't do what you do and you can't do what you do, true.

Richard Miller:

Exactly A hundred percent. By the way, Jason is one of the guys that's showing up here in a week and a half at our house. What I'm really hoping is that Jason doesn't show up, because I'm not sure that Jason wouldn't cause some trouble on the project. But Jason's cool.

Sambassador:

Well, you're going to have trouble if they both show up because they won't get nothing done. They'll be fighting all the time if both of them show up.

Richard Miller:

This is true. By the way, speaking about Kenny and being yourself, what made Kenny so powerful in impacting people is that he reached out and he got a hold of his identity and he got a hold, understood what his calling on earth was. Yeah, and he walked in that and his give a hair I'll be polite broke in the most beautiful way possible. Yep, it wasn't the word. He became obnoxious and rude or whatever, but I, hey, I got, I got my calling, I got what God asked me to do and if you, you know, I think one of his shirts said something about your opinion was not part of the recipe. Yeah, and yet he loved people passionately and he cared about people passionately. And I think, if we're going to have our give a care break without caring about people, we become toxic and hurtful, but if we care about people and we have that break, it can be a beautiful and powerful thing.

Sambassador:

Oh, 100 percent. That's where I feel like. That's, that's the ultimate place, you know. So, my definition of success seems to change all the time. The older I get, the more different it gets. You know, at 35, I was still one of those guys that all success is when I have everything I more different it gets, you know. At 35, I was still one of those guys that all success is when I have everything I own, paid for, you know, and I have an established business and I'm helping others, and my business is able to support different missions and different projects and on. You know what I'm, you know where I'm going with that. I mean, that's, that's what I looked at, that's what I, the people that I was looking up to, or whatever, and somewhere over the last 15, 18 years, I've got to this place where success is being comfortable in your own skin and being able to love other people in their skin.

Richard Miller:

Yep.

Sambassador:

Yep, and guys like Kenny taught me that, Motz's dad, John and Abe and them guys they were a huge influence on my life, and I've got other guys that aren't in the shed industry that nobody knows about. The one thing my dad was really good at was loving people where they were at. I've said many a time I wish my dad was alive to see what I was doing today. Um, because I feel like, even though I got, I got plenty of affirmation from him in the latter years, um, I feel like this is this would be what he would. He would be like he would be here. This would be what he would be like he would be here. He couldn't help himself.

Richard Miller:

He would have to be here helping. Yeah, you know some of the stuff I was thinking about, about Kenny and all that. Some of the things that I find myself doing are actually Papa taught me this way and I don't remember him ever teaching me with his mouth, but he just like. This is what we do when. When somebody is in trouble, we show up. And I wonder, I'll watch you, Sam, when somebody is in trouble, you show up. Did your dad do that?

Sambassador:

He did. So, he did, but it was different. He was always the guy that if somebody was down and out in church, or if somebody was in trouble with church or something was going on, they were probably under his arm. I don't really have that part. I guess I'm a little more calloused. I'll definitely sit down If you come and ask me what's going on or what am I doing. I'm happy to sit down and talk with you or whatever, but I'm still so. In my opinion I guess the easiest way to say it without going into detail he cared more about the ones that were already in the fold, and I'm still outside the fold. I'm looking for the ones that are still outside.

Sambassador:

You follow what I'm saying I don't know that he intentionally did that. That's just where he ended up at. There's a lot of guys out there that would I mean a lot of them told me you know that if it wasn't for dad, they wouldn't even be in the church anymore, and he kept a lot of them and he brought a lot of them in. That would have never been, would have never, because that's just who, that's who he was. He didn't care about money, he cared about people. Yep. So yeah, I got that.

Richard Miller:

Go ahead. I'm sorry, let me cut you off.

Sambassador:

No, I'm just saying I got that part.

Richard Miller:

Yeah, I'm probably more oriented to the people hurting within the fold, because within the church sometimes it feels like everybody's bleeding and I just, it just breaks my heart and I want people to not be bleeding like. I want people to thrive, I want people to. Yeah, yep, you know one of those powerful things one of my friends said during one of the darkest times not the darkest time, but an extremely hard time in my life, just devastatingly hard. He looked me in the eye. He said you're going to live. And I, okay, if he believes I can live, because you know what happens, no matter where they're inside the fold, outside the fold, church, whatever, it doesn't matter. None of that matters If you can give somebody hope. You know, when I was down and out in my darkest years, I, I was suicidal. I didn't know, you know I, I didn't know if I was going to, why I was even alive and I couldn't even find a reason. I didn't know if I was going to, why I was even alive and I couldn't even find a reason. I didn't know if I believed in God. I was hanging on by one thin thread, maybe two thin threads even to my faith, very thin threads.

Richard Miller:

A guy from Virginia named Linford Berry met me at the I forget what it is, a fast-food restaurant there Excuse me just on the north side of Statesville, North Carolina. I lived in Statesville. He was down at the Statesville Auto Auction. We met up there. He said he has a few minutes. He spent three hours and he listened to me. He listened to everything out, he knew me, quite a bit about me and he said look, there's I don't remember how he said it, but there's like these different areas of a man and if all three of them are broken it's hard for me to see a path forward. But you've got this going for you, you've got this going for you and I think you can do this. And literally the dude I don't know if he saved my life, but pretty doggone. Close, I mean physical life, but he saved my life but pretty doggone close I mean physical life but he saved my life in a different way, definitely Like that was a huge, huge, pivotal moment where I'm like I have an outside opinion that it's actually there is a path.

Richard Miller:

And he gave me hope. And if you can give hope to people, legitimate hope, you can't blow bs up. You can't blow smoke up their rear. You can't be a bs if somebody that's hurting and you flatter them or you. You know whatever that that's cruel, it's extraordinary evil. But if you can like sit down and hear them and go. You know you've got a rough spot and there ain't nothing going to be easy about this, but you know what you do want to do, what's right and you're willing to. Like you, I think you could do this. Come on, let's, let's walk together and and you've got a path here, because you got this and this and this going for you and that person will guarantee they will go home and go, they will have hope, and hope changes everything. Sam.

Richard Miller:

That's what you're really doing over there in North Carolina.

Sambassador:

Absolutely.

Richard Miller:

Are you solving these people's housing problems? No, you're not. No Dinky little sheds 10 by 12 or whatever. There's no way that's solving there. But you're giving them a hope. You're giving them a step up and more than that, you're giving them hope and I guarantee you the psychological effects of what you're doing long-term will be exponentially more powerful than the actual physical thing that you're giving them. Yep.

Sambassador:

Yep, I had that conversation, the other day.

Sambassador:

Yep, I had that conversation the other day with a little lady there at the church in Old Fort. She said so it's been crazy. When I started there, I just looked at the whole Western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, people as just a whole. Been crazy. When I started there, I just looked at the whole western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, people as just a whole. And now, three and a half months later, there's five different cultures in that area. They're not all the same, there's very, very different cultures.

Sambassador:

You go to Barnardsville and you find one. You go to Spruce Pine, you find another one. You go to, you know, to Swan and Olin. You got a whole different one. Well then you go over the mountain down into Old Fort and into Marion and Nebo and you got a whole different class of people. And I don't mean class as far as high class, mid class, low class. It's a different class, just high class or low class, they're different. High class or low class, they're different.

Sambassador:

And that's where I found what the mission is about, in the fact that, yes, it is. It's not just about giving somebody a warm, dry space. They literally need something that they can hang their hat on, something that they can grasp and say is where I can start again. And yeah, you're exactly right, it's hope, that's what it is. Um, you know, Jonas did that. That's why he calls it hope for crisis, you know, because you have to start giving them something back again. And ultimately, you know, I said I'm fighting suicide and depression. What do you fight suicide and depression with?

Sambassador:

Hope, hope, hope Exactly.

Richard Miller:

That's where it starts.

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Richard Miller:

That's what Linford thought, my suicidal drive that day, and it wasn't as intense as it had been a few years ago, but it was still definitely there. Yeah, but you know what? Here's the thing I want to say to everybody listening. Maybe you don't have and the number almost slipped off. I'm going to steal your thunder, but, man, that's an impressive number. I'm going to tease it. That's an impressive number Sam. But a bunch of sheds Maybe that's not where, but you know what you might be selling sheds and you might have somebody come in that needs some hope way more than they need a shed you might have. Maybe you're a manufacturer, you're out there, maybe you're an employee, and you're out there building with some guys and you notice the one guy's down, and the next day he's down, and the third day he's down. Finally, you pull him aside and say are you okay?

Richard Miller:

Oh yeah.

Richard Miller:

I'm fine. Like no, listen, cut the BS, are you okay? What's going on? And he like, oh, this guy cares. And he starts telling you and you say, all right, we're going out to eat tonight or whatever. And you go pick him out to eat and you say what is really going on here? And at the end of that conversation, you give him some hope. You know what you might? You might change the trajectory of his life forever, but by what you consider like nothing, but for somebody who's at a dark, hard spot, it can be really powerful. And so, you don't have to wait for the big stuff. You don't have to wait for the big stuff. You don't have to wait for the situations like Barry ran into that day when I was down and out and was just a crummy human being in many, many dimensions, and he gave me a path of hope. But give people hope authentically. You've got to be real. Like I said, you've got to do it from your heart.

Sambassador:

Yeah, Well, yeah, I just interviewed the Stover brothers. Um their episode came out last Friday and I got a bunch of calls Um I hadn't got any. Like I know that I get my typical calls from guys that say, hey, it was a great episode, I really enjoyed it. But when the Stover twins episode come out last week, it was 10 times the calls that I got back then off of it and it was an episode I had fun with, like it was entertaining and fun. Josh was doing a repo in the middle of the episode and Joe's running up and down.

Sambassador:

Joe's running up and down the road somewhere doing something. But the thing that stuck out to everybody those dudes are killing it in what they're doing and everybody wants to know. They don't want to ask them why, but they want to know why, and they said it. You have to treat people with respect, you have to care, and these guys are doing pickups. I mean, they do other stuff too, but we're talking about guys that are national retrieval artists. They're very good at what they do. Joe will go anywhere if somebody asks him to go and pick up sheds that nobody else wants to pick up or whatever. And he says you have to care. And I'm like mind blown yep, because you can. You can, uh, almost said manipulate.

Sambassador:

I'm not allowed to use that word anymore because I used it one time when I was doing I used to do praise and worship. Um, I was a worship leader. I was a worship leader for years and I used to tell guys, yeah, I'm gonna manipulate people into getting ready to hear the word of God. Oh, that's terrible. Leader. I was a worship leader for years and I used to tell guys, yeah, I manipulate people into getting ready to hear the word of God. Oh, that's terrible. You shouldn't be a manipulator. That's a bad thing. So, I've kind of crossed that word out a little bit. But you have to get people to understand that you're there for them, even if you're there for bad things. That's huge man.

Richard Miller:

I want to take a risk. I want to say something. I really like those Stover brothers. I like them a lot. I've heard people like yeah, I don't know, let's just be honest, they cultivate an outlaw image on social media. They do, they just do. And so people start thinking of them as outlaw repo guys and I'm like no, no, no, no. They will go to the most difficult repos and then, who knows, they might end up being buddies with the person they repo'ed it from before it's over, because they care about people and they treat people with dignity and respect, even if they're loser, bums, even loser. But we should treat everybody with dignity, respect. These boys get that I I see through their online persona, which is awesome, by the way. It's not negative.

Richard Miller:

Oh, yeah, no it's not, it's a little bit of an outlaw image that they cultivate and it makes me laugh. I love it, but you pay attention to what they're doing. They actually love people and they treat people with respect and they care. They care about what they're doing and I have tremendous respect for them. Yeah, I would hire them to do my repos in a heartbeat. We at SmartP ay haven't had need of them, but I've put in a good word to our repo guy. Like, if you ever need these guys, like you can count on them, like they're not going to cause us trouble, they're, they're the guys yeah, we, we have some amazing guys too.

Richard Miller:

I'm just you brought them up, so I'm talking about them oh yeah, yeah, you, you do have some.

Sambassador:

I mean, I know some of the guys that work with you and they're great guys. Um, and yeah, I'm not, I'm not saying that, but we have seen a bunch of hot shot retrieval guys come and go, yep, and those two dudes are still out there just hammering away and they will continue to hammer away. Um, they don't, they don't try to reinvent the wheel. They still out there just hammering away and they will continue to hammer away. They don't try to reinvent the wheel. They go out there and do it the way it needs to be done. They're happy doing it.

Sambassador:

And yeah, josh literally did one in the middle of his shed geek episode.

Sambassador:

And the crazy thing about it was I was like, oh, this is going to be cool. We're going to be like right along with Josh in a pickup, you know, in a retrieval cool, we're gonna be like right along with Josh in a pickup, you know, in a retrieval, his, his, what blue parrot had, whatever he's using. We you couldn't even tell he was on the mule like he. He got the mule off the truck, went in behind the building I mean behind the and the only time we ever knew that something was going on was he paused a little bit in the middle of talking to us ever knew that something was going on was. He paused a little bit in the middle of talking to us and the dude never lost his concentration talking with us, but he paused in the middle of it. He paused in the middle and he goes man, can I get you to move that car for me please? And wow, that was the only thing through the whole thing that you could tell. Anything even happened.

Sambassador:

That's awesome, it was it was great but I don't want to get off track on that, I want to get so here. Here's what I caught. When he said that, um, you got to care about people, I was like let me tell you something. I'll put one guy head and shoulders above everybody else in the shed industry when it comes to. I want to be able to stand on top of whatever stack of Bibles we have in this industry and say that this man has never let me down when it comes to caring for people, and that's Richard Miller oh, thank you yep, you do a phenomenal job.

Sambassador:

Cry. Yeah, it me cry. Listen, it doesn't matter if we don't all agree with each other. There's times I want to bump heads with you or whatever. I always know you care, I always know you care Same thing to you.

Sambassador:

So, it's to have that in this industry. So, whenever anything comes up with you, I immediately know that I don't have to look at it from the angle that he didn't care about it. It's just not. It's mute, there's no point there, never it's like okay, so get that off the table. So now you play by a set of rules that if Richard cares about it which we know he does then that immediately tells you what's going to come next. Well, that means he was at least honest about it, even if we don't like what he was honest about, and we know that it's always going to stick with that. That's thank you.

Sambassador:

That's a legacy to build on. Thank yeah, you're welcome, but thank you, that's, that's uh. You can't, nobody can take that from you. It's you. It's who you are.

Richard Miller:

Thank you, yep, it means a lot. Hey, I do want to talk about that thing I was proud of on my home building. Yes, and I know that sounds cocky and arrogant, but there's a great lesson in it. I was same, You and I grew up around what we call it, a frolics, where people would get together. We built each other's houses and stuff. In the culture we come from, the Amish have their barn raising, you know whatever you call it like. That's in our culture, and you probably saw some of the same things I did, where sometimes the quality standards would start slipping by the end of the day and people like dude, this is my first home I've ever built and it's not perfect by a long shot, but dad's coming. I want it done right. And how do I? How do I get that? Here's what I did.

Richard Miller:

I picked three guys Kenny Schlabach, AJ Kaufman, Joe Cover. Joe is from Iowa and they are all competent. They are all great leaders. They're all great guys and I communicated with them what I wanted and I turned them loose and they ran that whole project. They asked me some questions along the way. There's some things. I said how I want it done. They argued back with me. There's a lot of things in that house, the way it got built in those two days, that are not the way I wanted it, but they convinced me to do it a better way, like rafter ties, hurricane ties. There's a way, better way of doing that and that's these lag screws, a certain kind of lag screws I forget what they're called up through the bottom plate, vast and superior. I didn't know about that, but when I got done I had the product that I want, and that product, that final house, will stand up to anybody doing anything Like the job that they did, especially with some of the concrete issues, is just absolutely top of the line.

Richard Miller:

It's not that barn raising slash, frolic, lack of quality. But I got good guys. I communicated what I wanted to them and I gave them leeway and authority to execute on it and they were better. See, that's the other thing, Sam. I got guys in place that were better than myself, significantly better in every dimension of what was needed and my end result like see, if this was a company, I would have like I put a guy in for the CEO and CFO and the COO or whatever. I'm just making up stuff that are better than me and all that kind of stuff, and I have a phenomenal company. It's my house, right. And I communicated with what I wanted and I let them run with it. And that was probably the best judgment call that I made in the entire project was to get those guys communicate what I wanted and let them run it. And I got so many comments about how these guys people over and over they said like they would come together, they would huddle and they would split up like, okay, guys, here's what we're going to do.

Richard Miller:

The decisions made, boom, boom, boom. They executed. It was like it was a. We had 10 foot sidewalls, 40 foot spans, 70 feet of rafters, two foot centers and all the rafters were not rafters, trusses, sorry, all the trusses were put up by hand. We had no equipment on the property. I saw that. I saw those, just boom, boom. They said no, it's going to slow us down. We got the manpower here, boom, boom. But.

Richard Miller:

But the organization, like these guys, did a amazing, amazing job. And that's what I want to say. Like, ask the people for help. Ask the people, like, don't be threatened by people who are better and say, hey, will you help me with this? Most people want to help you with that. Yep, and then communicate what you want to them. If you have a business, get good employees, get people that are better than you. Communicate what you want with them, empower them. You have a business, get good employees, get people that are better than you. Communicate what you want with them, empower them to do it and get out of their way and enjoy the fruits of their labors. That's what I did and it's the best thing I did on that project and I'm proud of it. But the reason that's not why I want to talk about. I want to talk about because of the lessons that are inherent to that.

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Ah, that's right. You're talking about the one they had up in Michigan at the Shed Show, that monster meal man. That thing was awesome.

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Man, yeah, there's nothing like a little diesel donkey to make my day go so much better.

Sambassador:

Why is it so hard to let good leaders lead? Because they make us look bad?

Richard Miller:

They don't, but we feel that way. That's not the whole reason. They'll show me up. I don't ever consciously think that, but I think subconsciously it's there.

Sambassador:

Where did we get off track to where we feel like that's a hundred percent, I'm with you, I agree. But how did we get to the point to where we feel like if, if, if. I'm okay, so I'm the let's, I'm. I'm going to use the same example you did with your house and I'm just going to go with. I have a company, but I could apply it to church, I can apply it to business, I can apply it to community centers, anywhere I can apply this. Where did we get the idea that the best leader is not somebody who has the best leaders?

Richard Miller:

Brother, I'm going to get one more time. You lost me, sorry, why do?

Sambassador:

we not believe that the best leader is the guy that has the best leaders? Where did we get off track on that? Where does that come from?

Richard Miller:

I don't know, it's illogical. You know, look at Elon Musk. Okay, you can criticize him in many different ways, that's fine. You can criticize him in a million different ways, that's fine, but you can't argue the fact that his SpaceX program and the Tesla program you ignore the mainstream media and actually just talk to our friend Ronnie Wagner, who is in the shed business too, by the way. Ronnie Wagner would happily give you all the stats about Tesla versus every other automobile manufacturer and I love it, I enjoy it. I'm just laughing about it. And the Internet thing, the Starlink thing, which I have Starlink in my house in Missouri and it's absolutely wonderful. It lets me live there in Missouri and have the high-speed Internet that I need to do my job and it's wonderful. You know what as brilliant as Elon might be and he's a machine and he works long hours he doesn't have a fraction of what it takes to pull all that stuff off.

Sambassador:

No no.

Richard Miller:

But he has surrounded himself with some of the best of the best of the best and I really think, based on everything I can tell, he is not one bit threatened by hiring people that are significantly better at something than him. Like he wants that, and listen to what he says. He doesn't say I want to solve that. He says our engineers will solve that.

Sambassador:

Yep, yep.

Richard Miller:

This is true, and if he's not threatened by it, it's bizarre when you stop and think about it.

Sambassador:

So you know where I go with it. Where's that? You gave me the little dude that we used to stick on the gas pumps. You're the one that gave me that sticker. Yep, I did that. You remember that, I remember that.

Richard Miller:

I forgot about that.

Sambassador:

I remember the gas station we were at up in Ohio. I was following you back over and you and Tina gave me some of those stickers and I remember the thought crossed my mind this guy would actually be proud. His sense of accomplishment is so warped that he would pull up to that pump and he would be like, hey, look at there, I did this, yep, and it led me down the trail that sometimes I feel like. So, I'm an old Zig Ziglar, protege and Maxwell. I grew up, you know, my leadership skills all come from John Maxwell's stuff and everything that I've been pounded and taught into me is for me to operate at my best capabilities. I have people that operate better than I do, but that means I can't say I did that, because it's a we did that, or they did that or you know, and ultimately it comes back to God did that? That's. That's what gets us in trouble, I feel like. And I said I said from day one, before I ever made the first post about North Carolina, I looked at Baylor and Kramer and I said, if we're going to do this, this is going to be God's thing. It has to be, it absolutely has to be. And yeah, by the time this episode comes out, everybody's going to know that we went over 500 sheds. By the time it comes out, we'll be there and that is God 100% showing up, showing out.

Sambassador:

And the part I don't get to talk about a whole lot because I'm the I don't know. Social media drives me crazy some days. That is God touching people's hearts when they read the stories. I'm not talking about the people in North Carolina. I'm talking about the people that are all over this country that when they see that, they want to be a part of that and they see it for what it is. That's the exact same thing that happened to you with your house. I watched that post that night and the whole time I'm griping and grinding because I already know that weekend's gone for me. I can't be there, but to see the people hey, you know what. You're going to go, I want to go, you're going to go. I'm going to go because we're all going to go help Rich. Do this. You follow what I'm saying? Mm-hmm, it's the. You remember the old song the fields are wide under harvest, but the reapers where are they?

Sambassador:

Mm-hmm are wide under harvest, but the reapers, where are they? We have some people that are stepping up and that they're seeing that there's fields and they're stepping up and they're being willing to harvest in those fields.

Richard Miller:

But see, I want to point something out. You're 100% right. You're talking about a mega project. Since you gave the number, like you said it's going to be, everybody's going to know by the time it comes out 500 sheds, okay, I'll you. You had to be the first one to say it 500 sheds. Or? Or building a house, like one weekend and people coming from literally coast to coast and border to border, across the border just absolutely mind-boggling, okay, well, well, what if I don't have what it takes to pull? You know what? Here's what I want to tell everybody that's listening go, step up and do something. I don't care how. You know what. Invite people over for, well, I can't cook. You know what? Make mac and cheese and hot dogs, okay, yes, seriously and tell them yes just tell people up front.

Richard Miller:

It ain't fancy. I don't know how to cook or I don't have much money right now, but I'd like to be together with you. Can you come over and eat supper with us? Maybe clean? Maybe here here's one that'll stretch you. Maybe your fence rope needs to be clean. Well, probably shouldn't have gone fishing or play video games so much in summer, I, I, so I don't deserve to ask somebody to help. Well, you know what? You're probably right, okay, but do any of us deserve any of it? Get over that and say you know what? I got a crazy idea. My fence row needs to be cleaned and I'll get to it eventually, but I thought it'd be a lot of fun if we could hang out our family and your family. Do you guys want to come over and we'll clean the fence row? We'll use some of the trimmings and we'll build a fire, roast some hot dogs and by the time they get done with that evening, they'll be thanking you because you created community and connection.

Richard Miller:

You know what I'm going to say something. Maybe I should. You know what I'm going to say something. Maybe I should. No, I'll just say this you know there are some websites out there that you can get subscriptions and stuff that are we didn't want to go there, but fans get on it and stuff. Okay, I'm hinting, you get the idea and people are like what's the attraction? You can get all that stuff for free on the internet and I don't know from personal experience. I got to throw that disclaimer in because somebody's going to say, oh, how do you know? But anyway, but you know what I was thinking about, because people feel a connection. That's why they pay the money.

Richard Miller:

That's why they go to all these places that are not good I'm not even going to say it but bad places you shouldn't be going to. They're going there and spending that money because to get a connection, give people a healthy connection. You know what, if you whoever's listening to this if you will step up and do one thing a month to give somebody a healthy connection, you're making a difference in other people's lives. And maybe it's cleaning the fence row, maybe it's eating hot dogs and mac and cheese around your kitchen table, I don't care what it is. Create opportunities for connection. And now you know what. You're leading in a movement and let's just build this thing and build this thing until our country becomes connected again. I'm idealistic, I know, but man no, that right connected again.

Sambassador:

Because now we're going back to what you were talking about earlier, the disconnect that was put on us on purpose, yep, and we have to fight back from that. And I'm telling you, the haulers that come in and all these buildings, they'll, they don't even understand what's happening to them, but that's exactly what's happening to them, you know. They come in and they're like, hey, I can't do much, but I can come work a day, I can come work two days, I can come work three days, or some of them come a week, and then they can't wait to come back again. It's because they're making a connection to what's going on. Yep, yep, you know what I'm saying, yep, and oh man, if I ever want to use this platform to get the word out about something, it is exactly that. You just start. You have to start.

Richard Miller:

And everybody can do it. It takes no skill. You've got to have the picture, you got to be intentional about it and see here. You know you said something about that that division and stuff was on purpose and it absolutely was. But I think it's important we say why, we acknowledge why. Because if I want to take over whatever, let's say I'm the devil and I want to destroy a church, yeah, as long as they're connected, I will never get anywhere. If I can get them divided, I can move in there and knock the thing out if I want to. You know, united we stand, divided we fall, like that is. That is a foundational truth, principle of life. And when a community, when a church, when a company or whatever, when they are connected, it's almost impossible for them to fall. When you see somebody, that's an organization or an area that's fallen, every single time there will be a lack of connection.

Richard Miller:

It's just it's just. There's probably maybe there's an exception somewhere, but I've never seen it.

Sambassador:

Yeah, there's always a disconnect somewhere. What we have here is a failure to communicate. Yep, you know, that's one of the oldest phrases out there is the fact that you know communication broke down somewhere. You can apply that to family, even personal family life, if you guys. I don't care how small or how big the family is if it starts failing to communicate and starts disconnecting, which I personally believe is one of the biggest battles in this country is the family. What's the word? What am I trying to say? All the way back to the 40s, I can see stories and I read about history of where it's an attack on the family and an attack on marriage and all the rest of it hinges off of that. And when you start there, you can divide all of it Exactly. Thank you all for all of it Exactly.

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Thank you all for listening to today's episode. This was part one of a two-part episode, so be sure to listen next week to finish today's podcast.