Share The Struggle
Share The Struggle
Can Social Media Boost Productivity? 247
I explore whether social media can actually increase productivity, sharing surprising results from a challenge my wife gave me to do TikTok Lives while working. This counterintuitive approach completely transformed my perspective on how social platforms can benefit my business.
• My struggle with social media as both necessary for business and a massive distraction
• How dopamine addiction creates a cycle of unproductivity and guilt
• My wife's challenge to use TikTok Lives while working on hats
• The unexpected result: seven straight hours of productive work while building relationships
• Discovering that relationship-building online mirrors in-person sales success
• The difference between quick dopamine hits versus sustained satisfaction from meaningful connections
• How this approach could potentially solve my work-life balance challenges
• Building a loyal, positive community across the country through authentic interaction
Find me on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube at Loud_Proud_American to connect and watch future lives. I truly thank you for supporting my American dream.
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Today on Share the Struggle Podcast, we answer one crazy question Can social media actually increase productivity? A social media challenge thrown down by my loving, beautiful wife provides some surprising results. That is what's on tap today on episode 247 of Share the Struggle podcast. Let me tell you something Everybody struggles. The difference is some people choose to go through it and some choose to grow through it. The choice is completely yours. Which one you choose will have a very profound effect on the way you live your life. If you find strength in the struggle, then this podcast is for you.
Speaker 1:You have a relationship that is comfortable with uncomfortable conversations. Uncomfortable conversations challenge you, humble you and they build you. When you sprinkle a little time and distance on it, it all makes sense. Most disagreements, they stem from our own insecurities. You are right where you need to be Back on time. We need to back off. The whole day gone. What in my heart? Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. What it is, what it hot, dee-dee-dee, dee-dee-dee-dee. Good Lord, almighty, am I so excited to be back with you? Oh, it's true, it's damn true. Did I use enough voice inflections to open today's show? Good Lord, man, blame it on the caffeine y'all.
Speaker 1:Today I'm enjoying a large, big old, big gulp ice coffee from the Dunkin' Donuts. This is what I'm going to tell you folks. I have scaled back my Dunkin' Donuts consumption. I know y'all have been worried about me. I traditionally have been a two ice coffee a day kind of lady over here and I've been scaling that back for a couple of reasons. First one financial and then second one fat Fat reasons. Right, I'm feeling rather fat. So there's that. Anyways, what was I talking about? Caffeine. So I have scaled back my Dunkin' habit. I've even scaled back my Duncan habit. I've even I can boldly say I have even gone a couple of days without going to Duncan, which is wild. Okay, honestly, this kind of piggybacks.
Speaker 1:My trip to Florida, because when we were confined to the campground and we were slinging merchandise all day and night we weren't able to get out, right, we were, the bus was our home, ponderosa, so that was set up. I was only able to get away from camp and the vendor space like a few days to actually enjoy a coffee. So that kind of sped up my process of scaling back caffeine. My mother and I have got together on making coffees during the week, so if we drink two cups a day, we are only purchasing one cup a day, but I'm going days in between without buying coffee as well. This is random, I know. Okay, but what I'm here to say today is I'm enjoying this large Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee, not because it's made perfectly.
Speaker 1:Enjoying this large Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee not because it's made perfectly, but because it was free. My wife texted me a little while ago Today's April Fool's Day, the day that I'm recording this and she asked me about my free coffee, which I assumed was an April Fool's joke. But there was a code that you needed to put into your Dunkin' app today that says this is not a joke and you get yourself a free coffee. So maybe, if I get done in time, I will do a video and post it so that your loyal listeners that follow along on our social media channels will get the ability to take advantage of a free coffee, just like I did. If a coffee is not made correct, but you didn't pay a damn thing for it, it's not that bad. You'll enjoy it.
Speaker 1:I've had some questionable coffees taste a hell of a lot better than the ones that I paid for, when the ones that I paid for were made even a little bit better. Isn't that the truth, folks? Perception is reality, right, we say it all the time. And here's another lesson on perception is reality, because when I perceive this coffee to be free, good Lord, almighty, does it taste delicious to me? Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm. Jiggling, ching, ching, ching. That's a cup of ice right there, folks, mm, oh yeah, mm, mm, mm. Oh, it's almost gone. It's almost gone.
Speaker 1:The downfall to recording a podcast and drinking a nice coffee is that it kind of gives you like a cotton mouth effect. So I'm going to turn my mic down, back up and try to do my best to not sound like a complete asshole. So that is what it is. Now. Here's the subject for today, folks Can social media actually be a productive avenue? Can social media be a way to ramp up production? Okay, that is a crazy thought. And we're connecting dots because I just told y'all, if you follow me on social media, I'm going to try to alert you to a free coffee. And we're connecting dots because I just told y'all, if you follow me on social media, I'm going to try to alert you to a free coffee. And here we are talking about the benefits of social media. Can it increase productivity? When, to be honest, I have assumed social media to be a bit of the antichrist. Okay, let's be honest, it is a time-sucking warp zone. That is also a mind-corrupting cesspool, right, we can say all those things. I have been on record saying that if it wasn't for Loud Proud American, our business, if it wasn't for Share the Struggle podcast, this beautiful, lovely, voluptuous podcast podcast, this beautiful, lovely, voluptuous podcast, I would give the old Daz boot to my social media because, number one, it's a drama filled fart fest. Okay, I would. I wanted to swear right there, I really did. I wanted to drop an F bomb so hard right there because it would have just had such more of an impact. But I'm a leaf to um, scaling back my profanity as a girl dad. But not, I'm not writing promises right now. Okay, I'm not issuing permission slips and hall passes and I'm not signing guarantees, but I'm just saying I'm a little more conscious of my vocab. So I just turned an F-bomb into a fart, which I guess isn't all that polite for a little lady either. But you see, I'm making progress. Life's about progress. It's about taking steps, making progress. Here I am All right, I'm making progress. Social media can be just this drama-filled fart fest that can just rob you of your positive way of thinking. How many of you have been on social media? And as you're just scrolling along, it goes from woe is me, debbie Downer? To the next person is I hate you because you voted for this? Who voted for this? Who voted for that? Who are you? Why are you here? Get the hell out of here. Right, all these things, this nonsense, time-sucking, just negative hailstorm of ridiculousness. That's what our social media timelines have become right. Media timelines have become right and I've kind of tried to organize my social media avenues off of like, let's call them buckets, okay. So I have a few different layers of social media and this is going to kind of open up the can of worms. Here we're going to start to peel back the onion. I have Facebook, right, and I have Facebook, three accounts of Facebook. I have Facebook for this here podcast, which I do not post enough, and we're going to get into some of the reasons why here shortly. I have a social media Facebook page for this podcast. It automatically now drops new episodes, which is the biggest reason why we have it, and I'm trying to find other avenues to grow this positive tribe. I also have Facebook, my personal account on Facebook, which, in that section, I am following friends, family, stuff like that, right, more so friends than family, and friends that become family because my real family not quite as much. Let's be honest, if I go back a few pesos here, my podcast page really follows inspirational stuff and other podcasts. Now the third page for Facebook is the Loud Proud American page, which that one gets the most activity. Even with that said, it probably doesn't get enough activity. Right, I should be posting on social media as a business owner way more than I do. I have such a backlog of posts that I should have put out that I'm just not doing. I need to get my Cabela's catalog right now, put my left hand on it, place my beady little eyes to the sky and put on a full frontal confessional that says I need to get better at being more active on social media, and I'm going to do my best at that. But when I say getting better at being active, I'm not talking about endless scrolling on social media, which is something that I tend to fall victim to. So those are my three accounts on Facebook. The podcast website, or podcast Facebook page, gets used the least, followed by my personal page, which I would put the podcast one above it because it has automatic posting. My personal one, you'll notice I don't post very often whatsoever. And then the business one is obviously the most active. We do live sales and we try to announce a lot of things that we're doing, and then that one follows other businesses and inspirational stuff right Now if we flip on over to Instagram my Instagram for Loud Proud American kind of doubles, as my personal as well. Instagram for Loud Proud American kind of doubles, as my personal as well. So it's a business Instagram page. It reflects all of our business. You know what to do and who to do and all the things that we're doing. It posts rather similar to what our Facebook one actually posts, but occasionally I'll have some personal things I get dropped in there. Then I also have a share the struggle podcast Instagram page, which at one point I was really dedicated to putting you know 30 second clips on there, and that has fallen right off the map. So you're seeing a trend here. Folks, I'm not utilizing social media like I should. I have a Snapchat. I don't know the last time I turned my Snapchat on. I used to only use Snapchat for the funny filters and make stupid clips of myself. That was it. I don't really use it. I should probably get rid of it. Tiktok I have a TikTok page that I have utilized more so for making funny videos. We had one video on there that you would say almost went viral. It nearly touched a million views, which I don't know what the landmark is for a viral video, but we're pretty damn close to a million views on there. So I would consider that the closest thing that we had to viral. But nothing of that was making me famous. Nothing of that was generating a profit or putting awareness on our business, even though it has our business name. I would try to wear our apparel and then make dumb videos at the same time and kind of hope they worked together and I also at one point had a TikTok shop on there, but that and my website stopped communicating. So, with all that said, I would go on there and try to make little videos to sell products around the holidays, and they would always flop Me making a ridiculous comment or doing something totally silly to myself, but get all these views, but the moment I tried to peddle anything it didn't go anywhere. So I've really stopped using it. I've placed maybe one video or two videos in all of 2024 on my TikTok and I don't think I had placed a new video on there at all in 2025. My last avenue for social media is my Twitter page, my X page, which this might surprise some of you I'm the most active on there. I'm not really posting on there, but this is where I find myself doing more endless scrolling, because there's a lot of reading and I follow a lot of different things on there my ex page, my Twitter page. I don't think I really follow anybody that I know personally. I follow news outlets. I follow sports teams, sports reporters, athletes, inspirational stuff and political stuff, and that's where I get a lot of my news. I get a ton of my news off of X, thanks to Elon Musk for filtering through the nonsense and providing some genuine, legit insight and news. Filtering through the nonsense and providing some genuine, legit insight and news, so I use that to stay informed on sports, on politics, on things like that. Now, if I'm going on there, I'm reading, looking at things, I'm watching videos, whatever. That will destroy a bunch of my productivity. If I go on Instagram to make a post for the business, I might waste an hour just watching Instagram reels and kind of just endlessly scrolling around looking at funny videos or watching sports things. Now on Facebook I've kind of gotten to the point where I don't really scroll on Facebook that much anymore. I might do a quick peruse to see locally what's happening, keep up to date on any of you listeners out there that we're friends and family and and I see you kind of pop up on my timeline. That's kind of how I'm utilizing social media. But this is what's happened. I have reached a time in my life where I'm having a hard time being productive and knocking things out of the park and you guys have heard me have these conversations before. But you know my schedule and I don't want to dig into the whole scenario and hoopla on my schedule all over again, because if you've been listening, you know how it works. But Tuesdays and Thursdays is me and baby day. I get up at five in the morning, bring my mom to work, wifey goes to work, it's me and baby. Till about one o'clock go pick up Mima and then baby goes with Mima from like three o'clock to four, 35 o'clock when the wifey gets home. I'm trying to work during those those few hours Monday, wednesday, friday, you know, get up, do chores, get the baby ready, get her settled in at Mima's house. I'm allowed to go to work around 10 or 11 and work till the wife gets home. Weekends is kind of when I'm really, you know, putting things in as far as, as far as you know, trying to work but you're also trying to divide up time with the family. So my schedule is a real, just conundrum. It's a real man. I'm trying to say a bunch of bad words but I really want to say twat waffle. Can I say that my schedule is a real twat waffle? Okay, minus the syrup. I mean, put the syrup on. I'm a little overweight. Syrup has a lot to do with me being overweight. The point I'm making here, folks, is I've realized that I've fallen victim to needing dopamine hits. I've fallen victim to being a dopamine addict, and that's not a dope addict. We're talking about dopamine, that artificial shot of energy, that instant gratification, that instant satisfaction, and I find myself just scrolling and wasting time. I find myself having a real FOMO over sports. I will endlessly go back and forth to look for information like, wow, it's been 20 minutes. What do I need to know about my sports team with free agency. What the draft? What's going on with the president? What's going on with Musk? I've developed a FOMO over this fear of missing out, where I'm always checking in on things, and if you're checking in on those things on social media, then that's an avenue to just scroll and lose a bunch more time. So when you don't have a lot of time to be productive, and then you have this FOMO and you're craving dopamine, have this FOMO and you're craving dopamine. It's a bad recipe for sending yourselves down a rabbit hole of depression and unproductivity. Right? Is that even a word? I don't think that is a word. You're an idiot. Lay off the coffee. What I'm saying here, folks, is it's a game of catch-22. It's chasing your tail. You try to talk yourself into being so productive, but you're so easily distracted that you basically just end up screwing yourself. If you wake up with a list of things that you need to get done and today is your daddy daycare day you will, in the back of your mind, feel guilty about the things you're not getting done, but you're trying to erase that so that you can be present and enjoy the time with your baby. So then, when mom gets home, when the wifey gets home and when me ma's around, and then you drift off to work. Now your FOMO kicks in on a whole different level because now you feel like I'm missing out on you, feel like I'm missing out on family time, I'm missing out on quality time. So you have that vicious cycle. But then if you find yourself with a free couple of hours, you can get too easily distracted and find yourself on social media. Now, I'm not saying this is my world every single day, but I'm trying to pave the road, to paint the picture, to set the scene so y'all can understand that we have all these distractions in our lives. My world is currently filled with a bunch of distractions and I have found myself being extremely dopamine dependent. I need that instant gratification, that instant satisfaction. The reason why I get two large iced coffees a day. Part of it is the caffeine kick, part of it is the task of going to get a coffee, to breaking up the routine, to doing something new. So for me, curbing some of that habit is regaining some of my confidence, and I know that sounds strange, but it's you building willpower to say no, I don't need that cup of coffee. No, I don't need that Red Bull? No, I don't need a cold beer, whatever that is right. These vices all come to us in different ways shapes, forms and devices, right, whether it's your cell phone, whether it's a coffee, whether it's booze, whatever the hell it is, there's these different vices and devices that come to us and they rob of us our attention, they take away our productivity and they rob away our natural ability to handle, process and function with dopamine. So I've become this dopamine addict that always needs satisfaction, always needs gratification, right? So I've identified myself being in this struggle and I know some of the ways out of it. Right, start to gain some willpower. Remove some things from your life. Start making better choices. Start eating better. Get back to the gym making better choices. Start eating better. Get back to the gym. All these things Now. For me, some of them don't feel all that possible. I'm short on time and low on patience, so going to the gym seems rather impossible right now for me to do. But I need to find a way to start regaining willpower. I need to find a way to start removing distractions and get back to being the wholesome, present person that I need to be. My trip to Florida was a great step in doing that. It helped me to eliminate distractions, focus on the task at hand and try to seek and destroy as much money as I could because I was away from my family. I needed to make the best of it. It was a great factory reset and I've come home and tried to stay on that production train to get things done. But you also run into the vicious cycle of if you're listening along and you know the whole business model here we're in a tight spot financially when it comes to cash flow for the business. We're in between events. We're low on opportunities when it comes to either events or custom stuff. So I'm out there trying to cultivate what I can and you're robbing Peter to pay Paul to navigate things. So all of that just that ball of stress in in itself that weighs on you as well and can prevent you from being productive. So here I am fighting the good fight of production, fighting the good fight to try to remain productive, to be positive, to get things done, while fighting the fact that you don't have the money to buy the product to be productive. You don't have the money to apply and get into and accepted to the events that you want to be involved in. So you're trying to be creative to find the funds to do those things. So that takes a lot of time, energy and willpower and just real, clear, positive thinking to overcome those things. But when you sprinkle in this whole dopamine, you know ridiculousness. That I've been on it makes it really difficult. Have I done an adequate job of painting for you this ass douching scenario? Have I done it at all? Have we described anything that hits home for you? Anybody listening right now? Are you victim to any of the things that? I am right. Do you find yourself endlessly scrolling on social media? Are you watching TikToks? Are you watching reels? Do you have the coffee habit? Do you have a shopping habit? Do you have a drinking habit? Whatever it is? Do you have these things that are taking you away from what's important? Do you have any vices and devices that are robbing your time and attention from your family, from your career, from your happiness? Do you have any of those things? Have I hit on anything with my endless rambling today? Has any of this stuff touched you? Okay, not there. I'm not trying to touch you below the Mason Dixon. I want to keep this all on the up and up. Okay, I'm going between the blinkers here. I want to go between the ears and the eyes, between the blinkers. I'm trying to shoot straight and narrow. I don't have a doll. I'm not asking. People aren't here asking you. There's no therapist asking you, where did the podcast touch you? Huh, where did the podcast host touch you? Can you show me on the doll? That's not it I'm talking about. Did it touch you between the blinkers? Did anything here resonate with you, hit home with you and say to you well, son of a bitch, I got some distractions in my life and I've been talking those up as positives because they remove me from reality, they take me away from you know, whatever shit fest it is I'm suffering from today. Sometimes we go to those vices and devices to remove ourselves from the situation that we placed ourselves in. Is this all hitting at home at all? Is it Any of it Setting in with anyone? I hope so. You know what you think about it. You think about it for a second. Okay, I'm going to give you a topic Rhode Island. Neither a road nor an island. Discuss, talk about it amongst yourselves. Here's another one Fish sticks. Neither a fish nor a stick. Think about it. I'm going to have some iced coffee, all right, all right, all right. Now, folks, with everything we just said to start the show, do you think in any way, shape or form, it is possible for an increase in social media to result in an increase in productivity? Because I, for one, thought no chance in hell. Okay, thinking about the old theme song, for was that Vince McMahon's old thing song, no chance in hell? Anyways, don't get rambling. Already I, as I mentioned before during my confessional hour that we've already had the old full frontal confessional, I said I need to be posting more on social media for the business, for the awareness, for building the brand, for increasing sales. But part of the reason why that hasn't happened is because, number one, I guess I'm lazy. Number two, if I go on social media to push, promote and post for the business, the ability for me to for the lack of a better term dick off goes way up. The ability for me to get so easily distracted squirrel goes way up. I get lost in the sauce when I'm trying to work on stuff for the business. So I can have a list of social media things that I have to do for the business and I go on there and I might get one or two of them done, but they could also result in one or two hours of me losing productivity. So I tell myself, nope, you're not gonna do that stuff right now. You need to be more productive. Take advantage of your time. If you wanna post those social media things, then do them at night, and then at night when I'm on the couch. If I start getting ready to do those far too often I'm just like you know what I'm done with today and then it just doesn't get done. So I've been fighting this vicious battle in my mind of you need to be more productive on social media for your business, but by doing so you become less productive in your life because your distractions are right between the blinkers. With that said, my wife has thrown down a social media challenge and said social media challenge actually revolves around the one app that would cause the most distractions in my life. She threw down a TikTok challenge to me. Tiktok, the place where we all go to watch funny videos, to laugh our ass off, scroll endlessly and have new productivity. At least that's the way I look at it. My wife says to me and she's been saying this to me for quite some time and I guess I haven't taken it serious. Wifey, I apologize, don't worry, you're going to hear me apologize quite a bit in the rest of this segment. Here she tells me you need to do TikTok lives and you need to do them all the time and I'm saying this makes no sense. This actually spits in the face of my theories. All right, this goes in the opposite direction of what I'm trying to accomplish. This runs headfirst into the wall of distraction. I can't do this Now. In my defense I want to say a year or so ago I took the shot at it and I started doing some TikTok lives and I had one or two people show up and nothing really happened and I've not really had any sales success or anything off of TikTok, like I mentioned to you before. But Ali said to me listen, people will watch you do anything Like just work, just work and turn on your phone. This is mind numbing to me. I didn't think there was any opportunity here for me. Why would somebody want to watch me work when I barely want to watch myself work? But she tells me people do it and it's a distraction and for her, get this, it increases productivity. You ask yourself how well my wife has to do a lot of work that while she's at work that she would consider busy work or might consider like mind numbing, like I just have all this stuff to do, like this data entry stuff, going, going through the process. I have a process to get through and sometimes I just need the mental distraction that in return actually refocuses me on what I need to get done. Here's my wife. She will put on like Steve Wilkos or Jerry Springer in the background and just work Much like you would at home. My wife will have Steve Wilkos on and she'll be cleaning the entire house right. So at work she might have those things on in the background. Or she will go to somebody's live, somebody's TikTok live, where they're doing whatever and the sound of them doing that live. Whether you're doing whatever and the sound of them doing that, offers a pleasant distraction that helps her through her day, that helps her through her data entry and whatever it is that she has to do. So a couple things get accomplished she's more productive, she's less distracted, she's getting her work done and she's also forming a connection with the person that's providing the distraction. Does that make sense to everybody? I know this was a challenge for me to understand, but I said over the weekend let's do it. I was sitting on a perfect opportunity. I have just received about 800 or 1,000 hats and I needed to do 300 hats for Bentley Saloon with leather patches on them, 100 leather hat patches for my friend Ed's Barbershop, and then I have a few more things on the way this week for transfers to finish the rest of those hats. So on Friday I turned on a live. On Saturday I turned on a live. On Sunday I turned on a live. On Monday I turned on a live. On Saturday I turned on a live. On Sunday, I turned on a live. On Monday I turned on a live. Okay, this is how things went. I set up a camera, I turned on a heat press and I just went to work. So on Friday I ended up crushing through a great pile of hats right, getting a bunch of work done, meeting people along the way. I'm going to get some days confused here, but I want to start digging into a few things. One of the first days that I was doing this I think it was actually my very first day on Friday a fellow popped into the chat, started talking with me and I quickly realized he's a loyal supporter and follower, my man Morton, out in Connecticut. His mother actually came to see me in the Freiburg Fair and I've told this story before on the podcast, where I said one of the coolest and most favorite things that have happened to me since starting this business and having this brand and doing all this social media stuff was when a lady was in my tent shopping for her son and she had him on FaceTime and he was looking for certain items and I jumped on the call with him and we just had an absolute blast. That was one of the coolest things that I've ever done. Like it just gave me like a I don't even know how to explain it. Folks, you want to talk about a hit of dopamine for a second? You want to feel like somebody, you want to feel important, feel special, feel like a celebrity. Have that happen right. Like, oh, my son follows you, he loves you, he wants this item. I'm trying to figure it out and it results in let's get him on the phone and let's have a conversation. It was one of the coolest things I've ever done. Now, every year at the fair, I either see him or his mom and that conversation can come back up. So here I am doing a live and he jumps on and we start chatting and then I say, oh my God, you're from Connecticut, right. And then we start making this connection. That turns in to him giving me a bunch of likes, sending gifts, having positive conversations, sharing the show. My wife's jumping in, she's sharing it because she's excited to see me on here doing these things. And then some friends of ours are coming in and so overall, you know, we have a good time. We don't have a lot of people show up, but we have a good time. Saturday that increases a little bit. And again, I don't want to get all the days blurry, but I'm just going to hit on a couple of high notes here. On Sunday I went on and said you know, let's just try to crush through some hats here, and it turned into me making hats for seven hours straight. Now I really have to try to explain this to you guys. My phone is set up on a tripod. It's focused on my work surface. I can kind of pop in and out of the screen. But while I'm making hats, I'm reading comments, I'm seeing people come in to the room, I'm acknowledging them, I'm thanking them for likes, I'm encouraging them to share the show, I'm asking them where they're from. I'm genuinely learning about people and I'm introducing myself. I'm talking about my brand repeatedly, I'm talking about what it is I'm doing repeatedly and I'm inquisitive to the people that come in the room. So I'm constantly asking and then I'm learning things about people where they're from Idaho, michigan, texas, california, north Carolina, virginia what they do for work. I'm a truck driver that owns nine trucks. I'm in Michigan right now waiting on a load. I was just in Maine picking up potatoes not that long ago. All these conversations right, my man from Connecticut that we've never talked this long since we've known each other, learning about this lifetime of similarities that we have, right? All these cool, crazy things True, texan out in Texas talking to me about different fairs and events. I should do out there, these great conversations are happening. This, ladies and gentlemen, mimics what happens for Loud, proud American when we're on the road at an event. If I am on the road, set up as a vendor, when you come in my tent, I'm asking about you, who you are, where you're from, what brings you in, and I am learning about you. I have said till I'm blue in the face. The best thing about sales is not transaction sales, it is relationship sales. It's about getting to know people, making a connection, building a foundation, building a relationship. In the world of sales something I've been doing my entire life I've come to learn a few things. Number one sales is a transfer of enthusiasm. If you are not excited about your product, you will not sell your product. If you want to be a successful salesperson, find a product that gets you excited. When you're excited about your product, you are going to convey emotion. You are going to discuss, describe, display, show and give the entire show about your product with true, genuine emotion. That emotion gets people excited. If you do it correctly, you are transferring your enthusiasm, your excitement about your product to somebody else. You are building a loyal brand ambassador. At that point, and the more you get to know somebody and you start to begin relationships with those people, they will always buy from you. Another fun, interesting fact about sales is all things considered, people would rather buy from somebody they like. This is a foundation that I used to great deals of success when owning, running, operating a Harley-Davidson dealership. All things considered, somebody would rather buy from somebody they like. What that tells me is, if you come in looking for a motorcycle and you can get that exact same black street glide at any other dealership around, but you just happen to like me more than the other guy. We just happen to connect a little bit more. We're a little more personable, we have a connection. We made a relationship. You, my friend, would much rather buy from me, even if the prices aren't the same. So the key that I've always operated on with Loud, proud, american is relationship retail first, guerrilla marketing. I need to be out on the streets, meeting the people, shaking the hands, introducing myself, having the conversation. When I'm online and I'm selling, whether I have a quick 60-second reel, whether it's an email marketing flyer, whether it's me showing off my product for 30 seconds or in a post, we're not building a relationship. You might be interested in my personality or my presentation, but there's no interaction. While having this live event on TikTok, I am forming relationships, we are building relationships and currently over the weekend I'm not necessarily selling anything. You're watching me work and we're just having conversations and you appreciate that what I'm working on just happens to be American made. I'm leading up to the time and opportunity to sell on TikTok, but right now I'm trying to build a foundation. If I were to go on there on Friday and just try to sell, I would have had two people watching me. That would have very quickly left and I wouldn't have sold anything and I would have come out of that experience rather discouraged, much like the first time I started doing these lives. It is extremely difficult and demoralizing to do a half-hour live, sell nothing and interact with one or two people. That's tough. But when my wife said people will watch you work, just get on there and work, I didn't want to believe it. I couldn't believe it. But I'm here to tell you it is true. And when I said to you is it at all possible for social media to increase productivity? I'm here to tell you that on Sunday on Sunday when I should be spending more time with my family and get this we started the day off with me making breakfast for the entire family, us hanging out, me still getting quality time, and then going to the office and saying I'm going to make some hats time and then going to the office and saying I'm going to make some hats, I'm going to do a live for an hour or so and let's just be productive. That live pushed me into making hats for seven hours. I made hats for seven hours because I was being social, I was building relationships, I was interacting and we built a very loyal tribe with an extremely positive vibe. We were all in there shooting the shit. The people that were in the room were connecting and reacting with other people throughout the country that were in the room. At one point there was only three people in the room. One of them was my wife. The other one was my man, morton, out in Connecticut, and the other one was Chris, child of God from man. Was it California? I want to say I can't remember. I'm sorry, chris, but he looks like Kid Rock Profile. Looks like Kid Rock. Everybody asks him if he's Kid Rock. We're in the room because I made a few comments that suppressed the chat. I made a few references to crackheads. I was sharing some stories about our road trips and my brother Brian's superhuman power to attract crackheads and while having this conversation that led into I don't believe boys should be in little girls' bathrooms or playing in their sports my live was suppressed and I got these warning labels that came up on my live that I had to click on that. I was violating community rights. And at this point we have a record number of likes for my live sale or my live work process. I should say we are at like 20,000 likes and I'm telling everybody I can't leave the room when we have this many likes, like we're pushing 30,000 likes and it's they're telling me I can't leave the room when we have this many likes, we're pushing 30,000 likes. They're telling me you might have to end this live and start a new one, because no one's going to see this one, because you're kind of getting almost banned right now. Well, the positive troop that we assembled went on a mission. They were hitting the like button, so much I'm certain everybody had a carpal tunnel appointment on Monday. They also were sharing the show, letting everybody know the show was happening and guess what folks. The gates opened and people started coming in. Even my niece was in there, and me and my niece haven't interacted and had conversations like this in person in a long time, like we were saying things, joking back and forth. I don't remember the last time we were this social together. So think about this we are building relationships, friendships and connections throughout the country. My own family's chiming in and we're crossing barriers that we haven't in quite some time. And all in the meantime, our likes we were over 40,000 likes. Y'all hearing this. Over 40,000 likes on our live I couldn't believe it. A few things happen after that. When you shut it off and you go eat, have dinner with the family, like I'm kind of riding a high I if we're talking about me being on a dopamine quest, I've just filled myself up on that satisfaction. That quick hitting dopamine shot this one wasn't quick hitting, it was self-sustaining, it lasted all day. Because we're accomplishing things. I'm meeting people. I'm really pinning off the things that I'm good at. I'm tapping into the stuff that we wait all winter for. Being out on the road, meeting people, introducing ourselves, being enthusiastic, sharing our stories. These things are all happening from my office while I'm working and being productive. The things I've always done in the dark, the things I do every day in silence, are actually rewarding me in satisfaction. It was crazy to me At dinner. I'm so excited about what we accomplished. I'm rambling and, truth be told, I'm looking forward to the next opportunity to be productive, like the next day. I'm doing the random things I got to do in the morning and I said you know what that's it. We're going to go live and we're going to be productive. I've got a stack of hats here to finish. I got like 40 more hats, 34 to be exact let's get them done. I turn it on and before you know it I got 160 people in the room watching. Remember folks on Sunday? There was a time when I had three Now we're up over 100, and that would come and go and they would leave the room. But we spent quite a bit of time with 20, 30 people hanging out on a Monday. It got to the point where I ran out of things to work on and I just stood back and just started firing off questions. It became a Q&A. We were giving relationship advice, life advice, marital advice. My wife came home with lunch. We introduced her to the crowd, like the whole shebang. I never in a million years thought the devices and distractions that have robbed me of my production, when I use them in a different way, reward me with increased production. They fill me up with some satisfaction, some long-lasting satisfaction. It's not that quick-hitting, shiny, blinking-like dopamine hit that we get. It was more of a fulfilled one, of knowing that I made connections today. We started relationships today. Another thing that gets kind of crossed off the list here that is a major side benefit is we're also talking about the podcast at the same time, where you guys heard me kind of throw down the gauntlet at the end of last year, the beginning of this year, where I said we've kind of hit a plateau where we need to overcome this, you know, and I'm trying to grow the show, and if we don't, then I got to really consider different things to do and maybe scale back the show. When, in the past few days, we have gained listeners, and we have gained loyal listeners based off the relationships that we are building, because my wife challenged me to turn on my phone and just go to work. This has resulted in some true benefits, some true opportunities, and I truly think that, with a lot of hard work, this will be a major part of the answer to the problems that we have in trying to build a brand, to launch a business, to sustain a business and to provide for a family. Because after this one weekend experience, my mind is always already turning as to how I need to design our new office so it can be more user-friendly and beneficial to doing lives. Because if I set things up to work and do production and do those things live a lot more often, then I'm going to build an audience that, when I go to our new office and things are set up to do lives at the drop of a hat, without all this endless preparation. A week or so ago we did our live sale on Facebook and that was a tremendous success, but it took me two days to get ready for that live. With our new office and things being set up, we can do lives with a drop of a hat. I could be doing a work session, have a full crew of people watching and then say you guys want to look into buying some stuff and walk next door, flip on the lights and go right into selling. I need to turn my social media into an avenue that creates a financial benefit for my family. That happens when I'm not on the road. This could be the greatest answer in resolving some of the challenges that we have. If I can turn social media and my daily production into an avenue, a revenue avenue for me and my family. This could be the answer that I've been looking for, when I'm allowed to work from home and still do the things that I do and make the money that we need for the family. While working from home, I can pick and choose the events I want to do, just the way I've always set out to make that the grand master plan. I've been trying to find major events that I could do that would allow me to eliminate small events. What if the major events aren't things I have to find anymore? Maybe I can replace that quest with online success and then I can do the events that I want to do. This could truly provide me a work-life balance that allows me to raise my little girl from home and do the things that we want to do and provide for the family, just like the way I've always wanted to do. I can't say this plan is foolproof. I can't say it's going to work overnight. It hasn't resulted in a bunch of sales, but it has certainly lit a fire under my ass. It has reignited productivity. It is resolving some of the things in my life that I've been dealing with. It's building some more willpower, some more confidence, and I am here to say that my beautiful bride was right yet again. Babe, god, this hurts. You were right. You were so right All the time I bitched and complained about the TikTok. You were right, I should have been doing it sooner. I was talking to Brian about this on the phone yesterday and I said, dude, we should have live streamed our whole trip to Florida. We would have killed it. But he made a wise drop of knowledge when he said to me brother, we're just getting started, so things could just keep on changing, and I like the fact that we're going to be able to provide different forms of media with different forms of content, because what I'm doing on TikTok is not something that would work on Facebook. It's not something that would work on Instagram. I don't think the audience on those platforms would tune in to watch what I did over the weekend, but I'm so refreshed knowing there's something new and different I can do for one platform exclusively. It really changes the impact of all of our social media when you begin to do different things for each form of media. This little challenge for my wife has resulted in a new mindset, a positive way of thinking and a new increase in production. I will put out the spoiler alert it is a lot harder to get a hold of me when I'm doing lives, because I can't answer the phone. If you're looking for me and trying to get a hold of me, you might have to go to TikTok and watch me work, to pop in and ask questions, which I was so surprised by some of the people that came in, all the folks that I've never known, that I got to meet for the first time, people that followed me, that I didn't know followed me, and just friends and family I haven't talked to. Completely surprised by some of the people that stopped in and hung out and you didn't realize that not everybody uses the obvious platforms, right. Sometimes you, just as a business owner, you start to think well, if I'm putting everything out on Facebook, then everybody sees it anyways. But in reality, a lot of people don't even use Facebook, they're just on TikTok. So it's a whole new way of thinking for me that I've had a hard time buying into until I finally did it and finally saw some results. So I'm here to say some of the devices and distractions that have removed my productivity when I change my perspective and I put them to work for me instead of against me. They've resulted in great rewards for me and I'm encouraged, I'm excited and I'm here to admit my wife was right. Man, wow, what an episode. Am I right, man Well folks. Huh, wow, what an episode, am I right, man well folks. We're pushing an hour here. I gotta finish some stuff up and get ready for another live. Well, I should, but I can't. I'm out of product. We worked so damn much doing lives. I don't have anything-house right now that I could actually go produce, but I do have a bunch of design time to get to. I want to get that done and spend a little time with my family because I have been productive. Boys and girls and gentlemen and squirrels, I appreciate you. I thank each and every one of you for supporting my American dream. Now go watch the bucket heads at the old age. That's it and that's all Biggie Smalls. If you're a loud, proud American and you find yourself just wanting more, find me on YouTube and Facebook at Loud, proud American, or the Face page, as my mama calls it. If you're a fan of the Graham Cracker, you want to find me on Instagram, or all the kids by tickety-talking on the TikTok. You can find me on both of those at loud, underscore, proud, underscore American. A big old. Thank you to the boys from the Gut Truckers for the background beats and the theme song for this here podcast. If you are enjoying what you're hearing, you can track down the Gut Truckers on Facebook. Just search Gut Truckers. Give them motherfuckers a like too. Make it bleed. I hate to say them motherfuckers, I like too. I truly thank you for supporting my American dream. Now go wash your fucking hands, you filthy savage.