The Dillon England Show

Would you rather be the guy running the property or the bank lending on it? Learn how to collect monthly income outside the stock market and stop trading your evenings for more doors.

Thomas St. John is the founder of North Corp Capital, a fund management firm that invests its own capital in private credit, real estate debt funds, and multifamily properties alongside high income professionals. Over 20 years he has owned, operated, and managed more than 400 apartment units, completed 10 full cycle multifamily deals with zero capital calls, and today holds a stake in a couple thousand units across multiple markets and operators. He built all of it while working as a letter carrier, then a firefighter and paramedic, and he still serves as a Fire Marshal at Toledo Refining Company.

In this episode, he explains:
 → The Telescope Moment: Why the gift his father got after 32 years of night shifts and forced overtime set the course for everything Thomas built after.
 → The One Man Show Trap: What losing his brother and business partner in 2009 taught him about doing it all yourself, and the two words he’d tell you first.
 → The Uninterrupted Rule: Why compounding, the thing everyone thinks they understand, breaks down under one condition the stock market can’t avoid.
 → The Operator Test: Why the real risk in a fund isn’t the asset, and the default rate it would take before a single investor lost a dollar.
 → The Middleman Premium: How pooling ten $50,000 checks turns a 10% return into 12%, and why this is the one business where you want the middleman.

Chapter Markers
00:00 Intro
00:52 Cashing out in 2022 and going passive
06:27 Lending on land and why investors call their friends
09:07 A telescope, East Toledo, and a framed $600 check
12:16 Building to 50 rentals the hard way
14:02 Losing his brother and running a one man show
16:11 Liquidity, compounding, and matching your goals
21:15 Where the risk in a fund actually lives
24:00 Accredited investors and the fund of funds advantage
27:04 Barbies, the fire service, and advice for your first deal

*Connect with Thomas St. John*
https://www.linkedin.com/in/northcorpcapital/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/north-corp-capital/home/
https://www.facebook.com/p/Tom-St-John-North-Corp-Capital-Founder-61579057026534/


Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-dillon-england-show--6370921/support.


*Connect with Dillon*
https://www.instagram.com/thedillonenglandshow/
https://twitter.com/imdillonengland
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonmengland/
https://www.facebook.com/dillon.england.5

*Sponsor — Broadcast Brew (Low-Acid Coffee)*
Order our LOW ACID COFFEE “THE BROADCAST BREW”
Thank you to Cool Beans Coffee Brewery for your partnership.
https://www.coolbeanscoffeemi.com/product-page/broadcast-brew-low-acid-blend

*ABOUT THE DILLON ENGLAND SHOW*
Authentic conversations with interesting people across personal growth, entrepreneurship, and lifestyle — direct, faith-forward, Detroit grit.

Subscribe for full conversations and weekly clips.

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Comment your biggest takeaway.

Is your sales team stuck trying to close deals that were never qualified in the first place? Learn how to stop giving away your expertise for free, ask the questions that earn real credibility, and protect your team before AI replaces every seller who refuses to adopt it.

Alana Nicol is the Owner and President of Sandler by Gerry Weinberg & Associates in Southfield, Michigan, a Sandler Certified Instructor, and a recipient of the David H. Sandler Award and the 2022 Franchise Business Review Franchise Rock Star award. Before taking over the franchise her father started 34 years ago, she led global R&D packaging teams at SC Johnson on brands like Windex and Scrubbing Bubbles. In 21 years with Sandler, she has helped companies in manufacturing, insurance, software, and logistics build sales systems that hold up under real pressure.

In this episode, she explains:

• The Eagle and the Dove: Why selling or leading in your own natural style could be the reason your message never lands.
• The Candy in the Lobby Rule: Why hours of quotes, demos, and proposals are turning your expertise into unpaid consulting for buyers who go elsewhere.
• The "I Don't Know" Metric: The two phrases from a buyer that prove you're running a great sales call.
• The Skills Myth: Why skill training has the lowest impact of anything Sandler does, and the three things that have to come first.
• The Overbuilt CRM: Why the system your team refuses to use is usually trying to do too much.

*Chapters*
00:00 Intro
01:01 Alana's unplanned road into sales
09:48 Why sales feels like a dirty word
12:19 The success triangle
16:38 The biggest mistakes inside sales teams
19:49 Getting salespeople to buy into process
25:11 The limiting beliefs that cost you deals
28:28 Selling to eagles, owls, doves, and parrots
37:11 How sales teams should use AI
44:17 Why relationships still win

*Connect with Alana*
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alananicol/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/gerry-weinberg-&-associates/
https://www.facebook.com/sandlertraining


Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-dillon-england-show--6370921/support.


*Connect with Dillon*
https://www.instagram.com/thedillonenglandshow/
https://twitter.com/imdillonengland
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonmengland/
https://www.facebook.com/dillon.england.5

*Sponsor — Broadcast Brew (Low-Acid Coffee)*
Order our LOW ACID COFFEE “THE BROADCAST BREW”
Thank you to Cool Beans Coffee Brewery for your partnership.
https://www.coolbeanscoffeemi.com/product-page/broadcast-brew-low-acid-blend

*ABOUT THE DILLON ENGLAND SHOW*
Authentic conversations with interesting people across personal growth, entrepreneurship, and lifestyle — direct, faith-forward, Detroit grit.

Subscribe for full conversations and weekly clips.

Share this with someone on your leadership team.

Comment your biggest takeaway.

Greg Wahl came here from Canada, met his wife at a CPA firm, and started his own audit firm in their garage right after their first son was born.

By mid 2017 that firm had 42 offices across the U.S., China, Mexico City and Colombia. A family office had already valued it at $45 to $50 million.Then the SEC came after three of his smallest clients, and him.

His $1 million settlement offer was rejected. One press release in December 2017, and revenue went from a projected $15.75 million to $1.8 million.

He lost the firm. Then he lost the family home.

So Greg went to trial without a lawyer, facing a room of 15 to 20 government attorneys and accountants.

He spent a Christmas break reading every auditing case he could find and built an 863 page document going line by line through the SEC's expert brief.

The case was eventually dismissed, along with about 40 others, after the Supreme Court changed how these cases could be heard.

What we covered:
 → Growing a 42 office firm that started in a garage
 → What one SEC press release did to his revenue
 → Representing himself against a room full of government attorneys
 → Spending $1.6 million on legal fees with no way to recover damages
 → Why he says a CEO stands alone when things go wrong

Life isn't fair, and Greg never pretended it was. He kept his family together through all of it, and that's the part I keep thinking about.

Greg, thank you for coming on and telling your side of this. I know it isn't an easy story to tell, and I appreciate you trusting us with it.

*Chapters*
00:00 Intro
01:00 Greg the Wall and the move from Canada
04:07 Starting an audit firm in the garage
07:58 The $1M offer and the press release that followed
11:32 Bankruptcy and losing the family home
14:03 Going to trial against 20 attorneys alone
17:05 The 863 page document and a dismissed case
21:57 Rebuilding with the clients who stayed
25:41 How to decide whether to fight or settle
30:34 Why the CEO stands alone

*Connect with Greg*
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregory-a-wahl-cpa-20597816/
https://www.instagram.com/wahl.gregory/


Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-dillon-england-show--6370921/support.


*Connect with Dillon*
https://www.instagram.com/thedillonenglandshow/
https://twitter.com/imdillonengland
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonmengland/
https://www.facebook.com/dillon.england.5

*Sponsor — Broadcast Brew (Low-Acid Coffee)*
Order our LOW ACID COFFEE “THE BROADCAST BREW”
Thank you to Cool Beans Coffee Brewery for your partnership.
https://www.coolbeanscoffeemi.com/product-page/broadcast-brew-low-acid-blend

*ABOUT THE DILLON ENGLAND SHOW*
Authentic conversations with interesting people across personal growth, entrepreneurship, and lifestyle — direct, faith-forward, Detroit grit.

Subscribe for full conversations and weekly clips.

Share this with someone on your leadership team.

Comment your biggest takeaway.

Larry Namer is the Co-founder of E! Entertainment. He started his career splicing cable wires under the streets of Manhattan for $90 a week. A few years later he cofounded E! Entertainment.

Everyone told him and his partner Alan Mruvka that regular people don't start TV networks. You had to be Disney or Fox. They heard no around 157 times.

The going rate to launch a network back then was $60 to $100 million. After three and a half years, they got $2.5 million.That wasn't enough to buy real cameras, so they bought used sales training gear, hired 11 employees and 31 interns, and climbed the fence at the Academy Awards when they got denied press credentials. Three years later they had 1,100 employees. Today E! Entertainment is in 142 countries.

What we covered:
 → How E! Entertainment launched on a fraction of what every other network spent
 → Climbing the Oscars fence and asking Tom Cruise about his shoes
 → Putting cameras in Howard Stern's radio studio while everyone laughed
 → The television.com failure where more viewers meant bigger losses
 → Why Larry is betting vertical video becomes the main way we watch by 2030

Larry didn't know the rules, so breaking them never slowed him down. A lot of what E! Entertainment became started right there.

If this episode got you thinking about where TV is headed, Larry wrote the whole thing down. His new book, Two Minute Television: The Future of Television Fits in Your Pocket, lays out why he's betting vertical video will become the main way we watch by 2030.

Larry, thank you for taking the time to do this. 

*Chapters*
00:00 Intro
 01:14 The idea everybody rejected 157 times
 06:12 Climbing the Oscars fence with sales training cameras
 10:18 From $90 a week under Manhattan to running cable in LA
 15:51 Firm but fair, the management lesson that stuck
 17:23 Becoming E! Entertainment, Talk Soup, and cameras on Howard Stern
 21:16 Celebrating Hollywood and growing to 1,100 people in three years
 24:32 Off Script, Peking duck, and cooking as therapy
 30:02 Why vertical video wins by 2030
 33:17 The television.com failure and planning for the downside

*Connect with Larry Namer*
https://www.linkedin.com/in/larry-namer/
https://www.instagram.com/larrynamer/
https://www.instagram.com/larrynamertv/
https://www.facebook.com/larry.namer/


Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-dillon-england-show--6370921/support.


*Connect with Dillon*
https://www.instagram.com/thedillonenglandshow/
https://twitter.com/imdillonengland
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonmengland/
https://www.facebook.com/dillon.england.5

*Sponsor — Broadcast Brew (Low-Acid Coffee)*
Order our LOW ACID COFFEE “THE BROADCAST BREW”
Thank you to Cool Beans Coffee Brewery for your partnership.
https://www.coolbeanscoffeemi.com/product-page/broadcast-brew-low-acid-blend

*ABOUT THE DILLON ENGLAND SHOW*
Authentic conversations with interesting people across personal growth, entrepreneurship, and lifestyle — direct, faith-forward, Detroit grit.

Subscribe for full conversations and weekly clips.

Share this with someone on your leadership team.

Comment your biggest takeaway.

Marco Savone co-founded Scusa Media, a revenue agency helping home service and construction companies turn leads into closed jobs. Before any of that, he spent two years working with stage four cancer patients at the University of Michigan Cancer Hospital.

He got into two medical schools after failing the MCAT twice. At the same time, his uncle's small liquor brand was starting to take off, and Marco had to pick one. He walked away from medical school. Years later, he turned down a six figure pharmaceutical sales job too, choosing the harder, less certain path both times.

He bet on himself instead. He learned to sell the way a doctor treats a patient. Diagnose first, then prescribe. That mindset built Scusa Media into an agency getting contractors real, qualified leads and the systems to close them. One client landed 115 qualified leads in three months and got so busy they had to turn work down.

What we covered:
 → Why Marco walked away from medical school and a six figure pharma job
 → The "selling like a doctor" framework that changed how he closes deals
 → How Scusa Media generates and converts leads for contractors
 → Why he believes we're moving from an attention economy to a trust economy
 → Building the 1% Event and bringing free, high level events back to Detroit

Entrepreneurship is personal development wearing a business suit. Every fork in the road Marco talks about here came down to betting on himself before he had any proof it would work.

Thanks to Marco for making the time and for being so open about every version of the plan that didn't survive contact with real life.

*Chapters*
00:00 Intro
01:42 What Scusa Media Does
03:11 From Football to the Cancer Hospital
08:00 The Family Liquor Brand That Started It All
10:34 Two Medical Schools and One Impossible Choice
12:46 Commission Only and $100K in Two Months
16:00 Turning Down the Six Figure Pharma Job for Good
19:20 Selling Like a Doctor and Building the Agency
22:10 Inside the Home Services Playbook and a Real Case Study
29:33 Building the 1% Event and What Comes Next

*Connect with Marco*
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcosavone/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/scusa-media/
https://www.instagram.com/itsmarcosavone/
https://www.facebook.com/marcosavone6/

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-dillon-england-show--6370921/support.


*Connect with Dillon*
https://www.instagram.com/thedillonenglandshow/
https://twitter.com/imdillonengland
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonmengland/
https://www.facebook.com/dillon.england.5

*Sponsor — Broadcast Brew (Low-Acid Coffee)*
Order our LOW ACID COFFEE “THE BROADCAST BREW”
Thank you to Cool Beans Coffee Brewery for your partnership.
https://www.coolbeanscoffeemi.com/product-page/broadcast-brew-low-acid-blend

*ABOUT THE DILLON ENGLAND SHOW*
Authentic conversations with interesting people across personal growth, entrepreneurship, and lifestyle — direct, faith-forward, Detroit grit.

Subscribe for full conversations and weekly clips.

Share this with someone on your leadership team.

Comment your biggest takeaway.

Craig Ceccanti built Pinot's Palette from one location in 2009 to 150 across the country, then exited the business in 2020. Now he installs the same operating system in other people's companies.
For years he ran things by working harder than everyone else. He calls it "Craig OS." He held every title, head of tech, head of marketing, head of finance, and the business hit a ceiling because of it. It took a friend handing him the book Traction, and two years of actually running the system, before he'd admit the mess he'd built.

Nine months into installing EOS, he watched his own company outperform the version he used to run himself, and he got his nights and weekends back with his twin daughters. Now he's an EOS implementer, one year in, still learning what he calls his own second job. Coaching founders through the same ego he had to let go of first.

What we covered:
 → Why the founder becomes the bottleneck, and how to see it before your team does
 → Vision, traction, and health, the three things every EOS company runs on
 → Why buying an old, boring business beats starting a flashy new one
 → Asset sales, earn outs, and the deal terms that actually protect you
 → What private equity firms are quietly rewarding when they buy a company

The founders who get furthest are the ones willing to admit they're the problem before somebody has to tell them.

Craig, thank you for making the time and handing us this much value in under an hour. 

*Chapters*
0:00 Intro
1:00 Meet Craig Ceccanti: Pinot's Palette to EOS
4:36 The Ego That Made Him the Bottleneck
6:49 What a Business Operating System Actually Is
11:40 Franchising Pinot's Palette: The Real Tradeoffs
21:12 Why Buying a Business Beats Starting One
28:29 Deal Structure: Asset Sales, Earn Outs, and Risk
37:42 Signs Your Company Needs an Operating System
39:52 One Year In: Wins as an EOS Implementer
45:15 Why You Shouldn't Self-Implement EOS

*Connect with Craig Ceccanti*
https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigceccanti/
https://www.linkedin.com/school/rice-business/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/eos-worldwide-llc/
https://www.instagram.com/craigceccanti/
https://www.facebook.com/craig.ceccanti/


Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-dillon-england-show--6370921/support.


*Connect with Dillon*
https://www.instagram.com/thedillonenglandshow/
https://twitter.com/imdillonengland
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonmengland/
https://www.facebook.com/dillon.england.5

*Sponsor — Broadcast Brew (Low-Acid Coffee)*
Order our LOW ACID COFFEE “THE BROADCAST BREW”
Thank you to Cool Beans Coffee Brewery for your partnership.
https://www.coolbeanscoffeemi.com/product-page/broadcast-brew-low-acid-blend

*ABOUT THE DILLON ENGLAND SHOW*
Authentic conversations with interesting people across personal growth, entrepreneurship, and lifestyle — direct, faith-forward, Detroit grit.

Subscribe for full conversations and weekly clips.

Share this with someone on your leadership team.

Comment your biggest takeaway.

Ted Edginton has spent 25 years doing mortgages the hard way. In person, on the phone, at the closing table.

He started this business straight out of Michigan State, driving around town with paper checks for his clients' loans. One blew right out his car window on Hall Road. He turned around, got it reprinted, and still made it to the closing.

That's basically been his whole career since. He built a team with 60 years of combined experience between them, and every client still gets treated like the actual person they are, not a number moving down a pipeline. He calls it working the bookends. First time buyers figuring out how to afford housing on one side. Retirees trying to downsize without blowing their budget on the other. Both need someone willing to sit down and ask what's really going on.

Here's what we got into.
→ Why AI can quote you a rate but it can't tell you what your family actually needs
→ The real math behind why home prices keep climbing even when nobody feels ready
→ The occupancy fraud he's watching lenders push on people right now
→ Why getting treated like a commodity is costing people the house they actually want

Clients keep telling Ted the same thing after their first conversation with him. Nobody else brought this up. That's not luck. That's 25 years of listening before he ever starts talking.

Thanks to Ted for making the time to sit down and talk shop. If you're anywhere near Troy or Woodward, go find him at Rate. If you're not, email [email protected] and tell him we sent you.

*Chapters*
00:00 Intro
01:00 Cold Open: A TRT Story and Life's Priorities
04:48 Community, Belonging, and the Power of an Invite
08:09 Serving Clients in Ways AI Can't
11:21 Ditching the Commodity Mindset
15:17 The Steak N Shake Job That Built a Work Ethic
22:03 Real Flexes, Real Character
29:20 The Real Math Behind Buying a Home Today
36:23 Diligence, Trust, and Spotting Fraud
47:12 Compassion, AI as a Tool, and Closing Thoughts

*Connect with Ted*
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tededginton/
https://www.instagram.com/ted_edge_mortgage/
https://www.facebook.com/ted.edginton

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-dillon-england-show--6370921/support.


*Connect with Dillon*
https://www.instagram.com/thedillonenglandshow/
https://twitter.com/imdillonengland
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonmengland/
https://www.facebook.com/dillon.england.5

*Sponsor — Broadcast Brew (Low-Acid Coffee)*
Order our LOW ACID COFFEE “THE BROADCAST BREW”
Thank you to Cool Beans Coffee Brewery for your partnership.
https://www.coolbeanscoffeemi.com/product-page/broadcast-brew-low-acid-blend

*ABOUT THE DILLON ENGLAND SHOW*
Authentic conversations with interesting people across personal growth, entrepreneurship, and lifestyle — direct, faith-forward, Detroit grit.

Subscribe for full conversations and weekly clips.

Share this with someone on your leadership team.

Comment your biggest takeaway.

John Anderson started the EO Detroit chapter in a conference room in 1996 with two other guys and no money. He's now a business coach, an author, and one of the most connected people in Michigan.
He used to deliver mortgages by hand as a mailroom clerk making $30,000 a year. One man in that office, the chairman of the board, pulled him aside and told him he was going to do great things. That single sentence rerouted the rest of his life.

From there he built relationships with people like Vern Harnish, David Brandon, Bill Ford Jr, and Peter Diamandis, using one rule he's never broken. He wrote a book called Replace Retirement. And now he's chasing a new goal that sounds impossible on paper: making Michigan one of the top five states to live and work in.

What we covered:
 → How he built EO Detroit from three members into a 30 year run
 → The rule he's followed for 30 years before ever asking a powerful person for anything
 → Why he wrote a book about disrupting the entire idea of retirement
 → The Everest story that made him walk away from his own company
 → His new moonshot to make Michigan a top five state in the country

You are one call away from a relationship that changes everything. John has spent 30 years proving that's not a saying, it's just true.

Thank you to John for driving in from Grand Rapids and giving us an hour of stories most people never get to hear. And a specific thank you to Tim Bryson at Sandler for making this connection happen in the first place.

*Chapters*
00:00 Intro
 01:00 How EO Detroit got started
 06:05 The mentor who changed everything: Mr. Cooper
 12:05 Landing Bill Ford Jr. and the power of service
 19:06 Why he calls himself a people connector, not a coach
 21:15 Peter Diamandis, moonshots, and the 2% rule
 28:11 Attention, distraction, and the bee analogy
 34:41 Making Michigan a top five state to live and work
 41:26 The Everest story that changed his career
 48:34 How to dream bigger without the fear

*Connect with John Anderson*
https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnanderson12/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-ceo-advantage/


Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-dillon-england-show--6370921/support.


*Connect with Dillon*
https://www.instagram.com/thedillonenglandshow/
https://twitter.com/imdillonengland
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonmengland/
https://www.facebook.com/dillon.england.5

*Sponsor — Broadcast Brew (Low-Acid Coffee)*
Order our LOW ACID COFFEE “THE BROADCAST BREW”
Thank you to Cool Beans Coffee Brewery for your partnership.
https://www.coolbeanscoffeemi.com/product-page/broadcast-brew-low-acid-blend

*ABOUT THE DILLON ENGLAND SHOW*
Authentic conversations with interesting people across personal growth, entrepreneurship, and lifestyle — direct, faith-forward, Detroit grit.

Subscribe for full conversations and weekly clips.

Share this with someone on your leadership team.

Comment your biggest takeaway.

Peter Skaggs runs a mortgage company and a 250 door real estate portfolio, and he built both at the same time without quitting his day job.

He bought his first investment property in 2007. Then 2008 happened. By 2011 the house had lost half its value. He held on anyway. For fourteen years. He also spent years chasing apartment complexes, land, and short term rentals before realizing he was collecting real estate, not building a portfolio.

He sold that crashed property in 2021 for almost double what he paid. That experience is where his framework came from. Buying power, staying power, growing power. Now he teaches busy professionals how to build a 10 to 20 property portfolio that runs quietly in the background while they do everything else.

What we covered:
 → Why he chose single family homes over apartments, storage units, and short term rentals
 → What actually happened when he held a crashed property for fourteen years
 → The real numbers behind reaching financial freedom with 10 to 20 rental properties
 → Why Airbnbs make sense as a lifestyle asset, not a starting point
 → The framework he built after making almost every mistake in the book

The people who get rich slowly in real estate are the ones nobody writes books about. Peter has spent 20 years proving that boring wins.

Thanks for making the trip and handing over 20 years of lessons in under an hour.

*Connect with Peter Skaggs*
https://www.linkedin.com/in/petertskaggs/
https://www.instagram.com/petertskaggs/
https://www.facebook.com/petertskaggs/

*Chapters*
00:00 Intro
01:25 Peter's 250 door portfolio and 20 years in real estate
02:32 Collecting real estate versus building a real portfolio
05:23 Where beginners should start: single family, Airbnb, or apartments
10:14 The real numbers behind financing your first rental
14:21 The freedom flywheel: how 10 to 20 properties add up to financial freedom
23:07 Buying right before the 2008 crash and holding for 14 years
27:23 The expensive mistakes that led to his framework
31:54 Real estate funds and syndications versus owning it yourself
38:56 Airbnbs as a lifestyle asset and the free deal analyzer tool

Thank You for Watching The Dillon England Show!


Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-dillon-england-show--6370921/support.


*Connect with Dillon*
https://www.instagram.com/thedillonenglandshow/
https://twitter.com/imdillonengland
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonmengland/
https://www.facebook.com/dillon.england.5

*Sponsor — Broadcast Brew (Low-Acid Coffee)*
Order our LOW ACID COFFEE “THE BROADCAST BREW”
Thank you to Cool Beans Coffee Brewery for your partnership.
https://www.coolbeanscoffeemi.com/product-page/broadcast-brew-low-acid-blend

*ABOUT THE DILLON ENGLAND SHOW*
Authentic conversations with interesting people across personal growth, entrepreneurship, and lifestyle — direct, faith-forward, Detroit grit.

Subscribe for full conversations and weekly clips.

Share this with someone on your leadership team.

Comment your biggest takeaway.

Virgina Prodan grew up in Communist Romania, watching her parents whisper behind closed doors about a government that took a little more from them every year. She decided as a kid she was going to become a lawyer and find the truth.

She did. Top ten percent of her class, using a forgotten law book she found in a library to get Christian prisoners out of jail. Then the dictator took notice. He sent a man to her office with a gun, told her she wouldn't listen, and said he was there to end that.

She shared the gospel with him instead. He put the gun down and walked out. Years later, Reagan helped get her family out of Romania. She landed in America with two daughters, one more on the way, and no English, and rebuilt her life from nothing.

What we covered:
 → Growing up under a dictator who declared himself God
 → Finding a forgotten law book that got prisoners out of jail
 → The man sent to kill her, and what happened when he pulled the gun
 → Reagan, the State Department, and a case that reached the United Nations
 → Starting over in America with three kids and no English

You don't need everything figured out to obey. You need the nerve to walk through whatever door is actually in front of you.

Thank you to Virginia for sitting down and telling this story start to finish. It's not an easy one to tell, and she gave us all of it.

*Chapters*
00:00 Intro
01:49 Growing up in Communist Romania
03:50 Passing the government's test to get into law school
06:02 Quitting law and finding faith in a stranger's church
10:26 Defending Christian prisoners and becoming international news
17:07 House arrest and threats against her family
19:11 The document that reached Reagan, and the beating that followed
24:18 The assassin sent to kill her
27:11 Escaping to America and starting over with three kids
43:57 The dictator's fall and what she still believes about justice

*Connect with Virginia Prodan*
https://www.linkedin.com/in/virginia-prodan-0244581b/
https://www.instagram.com/virginiaprodan/
https://www.facebook.com/virginiaprodanauthor/


Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-dillon-england-show--6370921/support.


*Connect with Dillon*
https://www.instagram.com/thedillonenglandshow/
https://twitter.com/imdillonengland
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonmengland/
https://www.facebook.com/dillon.england.5

*Sponsor — Broadcast Brew (Low-Acid Coffee)*
Order our LOW ACID COFFEE “THE BROADCAST BREW”
Thank you to Cool Beans Coffee Brewery for your partnership.
https://www.coolbeanscoffeemi.com/product-page/broadcast-brew-low-acid-blend

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