A Founder's Life
Join me as I explore the powerful intersection of entrepreneurship, health & wellness, and parenthood. In each episode, I’ll be interviewing inspiring individuals who excel in one or more of these areas, sharing their stories, insights, and lessons. My goal is to provide valuable takeaways that can help you thrive both personally and professionally.
A Founder's Life
The Real Secret Behind Entrepreneurial Success - Brad Swineheart - S6 - E5
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradswineheart/
Oxford Advisory Group: https://oxfordadvisorygroup.com/
What happens when everything you’ve built disappears overnight?
In this episode of A Founder’s Life, Bradley Swinehart shares the deeply personal story of rebuilding after a hurricane destroyed his family home — and how that experience reinforced the mindset required to succeed as an entrepreneur.
Bradley’s journey spans construction work, sales and marketing, and eventually leadership in the financial advisory world. Today, he serves as Chief Growth Officer at Oxford Advisory Group, helping families better understand retirement planning and financial strategy.
This conversation dives into resilience, discipline, family support, and the mentality required to keep moving forward when life or business knocks you down.
Bradley also shares practical advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, including why marketing is often the real engine behind a successful business and why determination matters more than having the perfect idea.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Bradley’s unconventional path into finance and entrepreneurship
- Lessons from losing everything in a hurricane
- Why resilience defines entrepreneurial success
- The importance of family as a support system
- Discipline and mindset in health, business, and life
- Why marketing is critical for every business
- Balancing work, family, and personal well-being
- Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs
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Welcome to a Founder's Life. I'm your host, Leo Gastetna. On this show, we dive into the real stories behind the highs and lows of entrepreneurship and how we pursue a more balanced and meaningful life along the way. This podcast is brought to you by Thanks, helping founders like us scale with reliable remote talent. Email founders at Thanks.com. That's T-H-A-N-K-Z.com. Now I'm excited to be joined today by Bradley Swinehart. Bradley, would you like to introduce yourself to the audience?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thanks for having me. My name is Brad Swinehart. Right now I'm I'm uh Chief Growth Officer at Oxford Advisory Group here in Florida. Um have had a just a wonderful career that's that's led me to this point, you know, lots of highs and lows. So very excited to hop in today and kind of chat with you about this stuff.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for introducing yourself and joining us today. And uh, would you like to talk a little bit about your journey that brought you to where you are today, then a little more about your business and uh what you're doing for your clients as well?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'd love to. So kind of what we do now is on the financial advisory side. We specialize in helping retirees, but to get there was a kind of an unusual path for me. I started in sales and marketing. I went to school for a marketing degree, went through kind of numerous, just kind of like retail positions, like working my way up in the sales organizations and and kind of stumbled into the financial advisory world. You know, it was it was marketing first, you know, sales second, and then kind of stumbled into this world where you can actually impact someone's lives, you know, just by giving them education, giving them a firm understanding of how finances work, how retirement works. And it w it was pretty wild. You know, if you if you shoot back, you know, 20 years ago before I even started in sales and marketing, I'm I'm lifting bricks, I'm doing construction work, you know, and then kind of found a passion for, well, how do you take a concept and distill it down into something that people can understand? And that's I just thrive in that that mentality of, okay, we've got all this complex stuff out there in the world, and you know, it's it's hard for everybody to understand this stuff, especially the way that it's presented. So how do you take a complex subject, break it down into bite-sized pieces that people can understand? Doing that through sales organizations led me to the financial world. And then it was like, hey, this is this is something that you can really impact someone's life with. If you if you can really get these concepts across to families, you can impact their retirements, generations to come, really set themselves or help them set themselves apart from some of the the mistakes that other people are making.
SPEAKER_01That's great. I think uh, you know, I was on a podcast, I was I had a guest on on my podcast recently, and he said to me, Where do most people become entrepreneurs? Like why is probably a better word, and we'll give them the idea. And uh said, Well actually, I think most people uh actually fall into it. Uh, you know, they they end up with an idea that makes sense and a business grows from there. Uh but they don't go out to it saying, I want to be an entrepreneur. So what you were saying made a lot of sense.
SPEAKER_00I think you're you're spot on. I think that people, you know, on the flip side too, people that want to be entrepreneurs but don't have a good idea, like those are the people that that end up struggling, right? Because they just they like the idea of the the glamour behind being an entrepreneur, right? Set your own hours, you know, potential lots of money, all this stuff. And they see this world of entrepreneurship as a as the lifestyle, and then they say, well, what kind of idea can I do to get into that world? You know, I think those people tend to struggle more than, like you said, the people that say, hey, I've got this great idea. I'm trying to implement it in the current structures. It's not working. I'm just gonna go do it myself. And I think that passion leads to people to be more successful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think you're right there.
SPEAKER_00Talk to us a little bit about what family looks like for you. Family is just everything. Like we've talked about this before. Family is everything. Wife, three daughters, wonderful. They're they're growing into real people now. The youngest is just turning 20, the oldest is 23, going through the whole college thing. You know, we dealt with the the COVID era college, which was a mess. And, you know, now seeing them kind of persevere through that and pursue real, real careers now. You know, they're starting to settle into themselves. You know, you've got kids where they start becoming more and more like real people. You know, you you mold less, you coach more, and it's a pretty for wonderful experience, you know. I had the unique perspective about a year and a half ago. We live in Florida, about a year and a half ago, um, entire house, everything we owned, everything that that you grew up with throughout your entire lives that you've collected was just totally washed away with a hurricane. And it was myself, my wife, and two of our kids that were here during the hurricane. And we were here. We watched the water four foot high inside the house, wiped everything out. And, you know, you stood at the the porch of the neighbor's house and they had a nice high house. We had a dot, and you watched everything get wiped away. And that that sort of perspective when you're you're with your family through that, right? Like the next day we got to work, we, you know, nobody complained. Obviously, there was a lot of emotions, but you made it through without arguments, without negativity. And I think that was just a huge, not only bonding experience, but also just a massive growth opportunity for everybody involved. And, you know, I would never put my kids through that on intentionally, but I think they really benefited from seeing like, hey, mom and dad just got knocked down to the lowest they've ever been. And and what did they do? Well, they they got up the next morning, they went over, and they started getting shovels and working on the house. You know, that's just what you had to do.
SPEAKER_01I'm sorry to hear that. And uh, you know, I guess that's the uh the you know, if you want to live in uh paradise in Florida, that is one of the uh disadvantages.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, I always say it's wonderful down here, except for maybe one day of bad weather, but um, you know, um just you know, we're all safe, we're all fine, you know, it's just stuff. And having that perspective just hammered home, like you always say that when you're when you're trying to be successful or even when you make success, that it's stuff, family's important, but you know, it it puts it to the test when you lose all your stuff. Yeah. All at once. Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_01We had that discussion a few years ago with the fires in LA. Yeah. We were okay, but you know, it was with lots of friends who weren't, and you know, there was certainly a big risk that we wouldn't have been okay. And we were discussing as a family what would we take with? And yeah, my opinion is sort of not a lot really in the grand scheme of things. It doesn't really matter. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean that's um that's what we found afterwards. It was like, you know what? I couldn't tell you stuff that we lost. I there's not a couple of keepsakes here and there that really, really hurt, you know, and when you saw like the baby photos and the the stuff from when they were kids that you just can't get back. Like that was that was pretty impactful, you know, especially on my wife. But she can make new memories, you know, you you share, we get to reach out to all our family and say, hey, do you have baby photos? Do you have when they were little? And you know, that just it's another bonding experience with a family. So everything's good. I mean, we're we're much stronger for it. And I think that, you know, when you become an entrepreneur, you're gonna go through those same things. You know, you're gonna have plans, you're gonna you're gonna build a house, you're gonna build a family, you know, you're you're building a business, you've got this path that you want to follow, and every entrepreneur is gonna run into something that just feels like they get totally wiped out. And very, very true. That is the entrepreneurial journey. Yeah. And you know, being able to get up and keep going after that, you know, that's the that what that's what makes or breaks an entrepreneur. You know, if you know that, hey, at some point I'm gonna get totally devastated and I need to maybe change my path, maybe rethink how I'm doing things, but then keep going, right? That's the that's the thing that the most successful people in the world, I mean, a lot of them, if you look at some of the just absolute, just off the charts successful people, they've had devastations in their careers where they were made their first million, lost it all, you know, and then built it all up again. And for most people, getting to that height once would be enough. But for the the diehard entrepreneur, you know that those swings are gonna come in. Very, very true.
SPEAKER_01And tell me, how does health look for you?
SPEAKER_00Health, well, I mean, you and you and me both, right? We love uh we love exercise, we love staying healthy. For me, that's that's lifting weights, that's that's eating as clean as I can when you know, avoiding the sweet stuff and stuff. But it's important. You only get one body, right? I was crazy enough a couple of years ago when I when I turned 40. I I entered a bodybuilding competition, won a couple of little trophies, you know, like put yourself through that extreme. You know, hired a trainer. I was lucky enough to work with uh John Simmons. Um this trainer happens to be the same guy who coaches the current Miss Miss Olympia, who's won uh, I don't know, the last seven years in a row, Andrea Shaw, she's amazing, she's a wonderful person. Um, but I just kind of happened into working with this guy because we both lived in Detroit, you know, and um so I got to use that experience to kind of push your body to these extremes that you've never, never even imagined it could do. And for me after that, it was like, okay, let's let's chill, let's drink some water, right? But maintaining that, that, that dedication to health is important, right? You have to keep your body a a well-oiled running machine. I still hit the gym every day. I like doing weightlifting, I like to keep the strength up. You know, I'm kind of the opposite of you. I'm not really into cardio, right? I do it if I have to. But just that mentality for me, it all kind of blends together. If you're gonna be, you know, an entrepreneur, you're gonna be uh a family person, you're gonna be into health or fitness, it all comes back to the same mentality of determination and you know, you're kind of removing options that are bad for you. I don't do this because it's just not an option for me, right? There's no cake in the fridge. If someone says, hey, you want a piece cake, I'm I just say no because it's in my brain, I've already conditioned to it. That's that's not an option, right? That's a that's a no. This is you're gonna eat your boring chicken, your boring rice, you know, and and that's okay because you have other bigger things in mind. And I think that all tile tiles back to um family, tiles back to uh entrepreneurship, where it's the same thing, right? If you can carry that mentality through all streams of your your being, then life, you know, it's it's not easy, but it is simple, right? Like you're you have your path set forward. Like during the the hurricane, it was not a was not an option to take out frustrations on the family, right? That's they're going through the same thing we are. So if you're frustrated, that's not an option. So it was easy, you know. And um, same thing with being an entrepreneur. It's not, you don't get to turn it off. That's one of the things that that I'm sure you know, and every other person out there who starts a business realizes is that you don't set your own hours, you're always working, right? That's how it works in reality. Until you're ungodly successful, you're always working. And I think that understanding that, that mentality that goes through health, entrepreneurship, all of it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean always working, uh, but it's about finding the balance. So your to-do list may never be done, but um doesn't mean you need to be always working. Your mind may always be active, but but it's important to actually find ways to find that balance. And talking about that, what do you like to do for fun?
SPEAKER_00The the balance is always critical, right? Because if you're not at, if you're not well rested, you're not in there, you know, when you're first starting a business, it's entirely different than when you're running a business. But uh but you're right, it's a it's a mental game, like you're always inside of it. For me, fun is family time. I I work, I go to the gym, and then when it's when it's time to relax, it's I want to hang out with my wife, I want to hang out with my kids, we do a lot of um you know, boring stuff, we do puzzles, you know, we play, we play a lot of Rumacube and a Monopoly deal card games and stuff like that. And it's just that's it. We throw on a record, we s we're at the house, we lounge by the pool, we walk the beach, but it's just how many how many of the people that I love can I cram around me at one point? That's my that's my relaxation, that's my fun.
SPEAKER_01I don't know if I've met many people, certainly outside of the UK, who play Rummy Cup. Uh it's great. I mean, I love Rummy Cup. I I played it as a kid, and my kids uh play it as well. Yeah, it's a great game. But it's not not when you come across I'm sure there's lots of people in America who play it, it's just not when you come across to do.
SPEAKER_00I blame it on Dutch ancestry. My my grandfather's from the Netherlands, and he all I mean, that's all we played when I was a kid. So yeah, we'd we've uh it's infected our household. We've got our own little boards or matches, like we just yeah, we come up with our own fun rules to make things harder.
SPEAKER_01You know, it's just it's good times. Excellent. And uh so we were talking about balance. So, you know, circling back to that, you know, it is important to have a form of balance, which doesn't mean you're always in balance, but it's an overall balance. And and for you, how does that come about? How does that look for you?
SPEAKER_00That's a great question. I think there's two things is is you have to understand first and foremost for me, first and foremost, it's the dedication. It's understanding that things that have to be done still have to be done, whether you want to do them or not. Right. And you can if you can acknowledge that and you can take care of the things that need to be done as opposed to avoiding them, you're gonna free up more time. I think that's something that people don't understand is if you just get done what you have to first, instead of putting that stuff off, well, now it's done. You don't have to worry about it, it's not on your to-do list anymore. Now you can free up time to have that relax and to have that family time. I would say for me to to achieve that ultimate balance, there's two things that I just that I really focus on is one, you have to have enough family time, support time, the people that you love being around them. You have to can't you can't continually sacrifice that. All it's gonna do is make you fail at other aspects of life. And then the the second thing is knowing in yourself enough to be able to say, hey, you know what? I need to decompress, I need to take a step away, I need to recharge. Knowing that that's that's not selfish, that's not lazy, it's literally you're protecting your health and your your mental being so that you can come back in and do it, do it full strength. You know, a lot of entrepreneurs, I think they get it in their own heads that any day off, any any time not working, you know, you're it's a waste of time. But if you're not fully charged, if you're not able to go into whatever activity you're doing, whether that's family or or work with a clear 100% mind feeling great, then you need to take that step back and recharge so you can get back into it and and give it full full commitment.
SPEAKER_01I was giving somebody some advice this morning, a a successful entrepreneur I know about meditating, and uh that is a way to really clear the mind. I've been meditating for over a decade. I think you know what you talk about there, which is never off, is part of that is a younger entrepreneur's perspective, part of that is a very American perspective. Probably. You know, because breaks are important. Now, personally, I'm not the best at taking a complete break, as in I don't completely switch off, but I can go away for a week or whatever and and work a couple of hours a day. I d you know, I can't completely switch off. I can certainly reduce the amount that I work, uh, but I like to stay on top of stuff. Some people do need to completely switch off. You know, my business partner needs climb off. That's you know, he and that's fine. Like each to their own. Everyone needs to work out what what they need uh for their mind to recharge. Uh I can recharge well even working every day, but just uh less work, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think that that uh it's a good mindset to do to have is when you have time off and you say, Hey, you know what, this is me time, and then you want to work, you know, an hour, two hours, you're I think you're much more productive, you're much more positive about that experience. You know, if you if you get into that nine to five grind every day by Friday at noon, you're like, I'm checked out, last five hours are worthless. But if you say, hey, you know what, I've got Friday afternoon off, Saturday and Sunday, I don't have to do anything, but I've got this great idea that'll give me a jump start on Monday. I think you're you're much more passionate in that hour or two that you put in on a Sunday morning than you would be at a Friday at five o'clock. Tell us, what's been a pivotal moment in your life? I mean, I the first thing I go back to is that hurricane, you know? Like I think that having that life experience where you're entirely like it's it's wild. We we moved down to Florida maybe six months before that. We bought a fixer upper, a house, and we spent just months just working this thing, rebuilding it. They so I think we we were putting that final coat of paint on the outside of the house when that hurricane hit and destroyed everything. You you the the devastation, losing everything, but also you had worked so hard for something that was now entirely gone, and having the the willpower to start over and go through all of that again. If anybody's ever done a home project before, you know that these things can drag on. You're living in construction, you want it just to be done. And you know, I think that was a pivotal moment. I think the the other, probably, probably more impactful pivotal moment was was meeting my wife, you know, is as as cheesy as that sounds, but it's a hundred percent true because she just the way we get along, she's my biggest advocate. Like we are both our each other's biggest support system. And I think having that person in your life to say, hey, you know, you've had a tough day, you can make it through, or you know, even be uh be persuasive or be encouraging, but still pushing you to drive forward. You know, I think I am uh a hundred percent of me now. And without her, I'd be much less than that. You know, I probably would have settled in some areas of my life, probably would have been okay with media, but having that support system and then having a a drive to say, hey, I want to take care of you know, the wife, I want everything that she wants, I want her to have it, you know, and take care of the kids, make sure that they are, you know, that they can achieve the things that they want to achieve, having those extra factors in life, not only as a support system, but then as a motivator to keep going, to reach that next level. And I think, you know, finding pure motivation that is also supportive, I mean, that's what every every successful entrepreneur has to have.
SPEAKER_01Definitely needs the motivation. What's one piece of advice you would give to a sparring entrepreneur?
SPEAKER_00Well, just one. I'm gonna give two. How about that? The first thing I think is just the mindset and the dedication. That is what will make you successful. You know, knowing that having confidence in yourself, but knowing that, hey, I'm gonna get this done, I'm gonna move forward despite the obstacles. I think that is that is key. Having a support system built around you enables you to do that. So I think set up your base and then find a way to establish that determination and that mindset will get you very, very far in life. And I think the second thing for most businesses to be successful, they should probably be a marketing company first and a business second. And you could do the best service, the best product, the best anything in the world. If you don't have people in your lobby, you don't have people looking at your wares, you will be unsuccessful. So just don't discount the the amount of people that you have to tell about what you do in order to find that perfect audience. Not everybody's gonna be your perfect client, but you gotta go through uh a lot of people to be able to find that that niche. And I think if you can find that determination and let enough people know, you'll be successful.
SPEAKER_01Excellent. And uh thank you.
SPEAKER_00And how can people find you? LinkedIn is the easiest way. Just stalk me on LinkedIn, just Brad Swinehart. I also run a podcast called Be Advised. We're gonna bring you on because this is phenomenal. And I want to learn all about your life. But yeah, just uh feel free to connect with me on there. All my contact information is on there. Uh shoot me a message. I'm a I'm an open book to anybody who wants to pick my brain, go right ahead.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you. And thank you for listening to today's episode. If you enjoyed the conversation, don't forget to subscribe to the channel, tell your friends, and please leave a review.