Share The Struggle
Share The Struggle
Chances Have Consequences: Business Growing Pains
What happens when your business is growing 92% but you're still struggling with doubt, guilt, and anxiety? Welcome to the entrepreneur's paradox.
Ever feel like you're being pulled in multiple directions at once? In this revealing solo episode, I dive into the complex emotions that come with balancing new fatherhood, business expansion, and pursuing the American dream on my own terms. After sharing some heartfelt appreciation for my wife's recent vulnerability on the podcast, I explore how our first "official" Mother's Day with baby Paisley outside the womb created one of those perspective-shifting moments that makes everything feel different.
As the busy season approaches with back-to-back events at Ledgeway Farm, Bonnie Eagle Car Show, and Memorial Weekend at Bentley Saloon, I confront the overwhelming guilt that comes when pursuing your passion means disrupting everyone else's routine. My mom takes time off work, friends step in for childcare, and my wife adjusts her schedule—all so I can bet on myself. The weight of these dependencies creates a pressure unlike anything I've felt before.
I share the raw truth about taking chances and their consequences. Our Florida venture didn't deliver the breakthrough we'd hoped for, forcing us to pivot strategies and postpone bigger dreams. Yet despite these challenges, our business is up 92% in net sales—proving that sometimes success doesn't feel like success when you're in the trenches.
The episode culminates with exciting news after years of persistence: we've finally secured a triple-wide booth at the Freiburg Fair! While this expansion requires substantial investment, it represents the growth we've been pushing toward. Remember: anything unattempted remains impossible. If there's one message to take from this journey, it's simply never give up. The regret of not trying far outweighs the difficulty of waiting for success.
What chances are you taking in your life? I'd love to hear about your journey in the comments or on social media. And if you found value in this episode, please share it with someone who might need this encouragement today.
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Episode 253 of Share the Circle podcast and, unfortunately for you, it's back to just you and me. Episode 253 is a solo show for me. No wifey this week, so I can promise y'all no tears this week. This week we get back to business, and when I say back to business, I mean time to talk business. 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. If 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, leading a bad world the whole day gone, falling behind Too fast, and I'm waiting to pass what it do, what it ha do-do-do-do. Good Lord, almighty, am I so excited to be back with you? Oh, it's true, it is damn true. I miss you.
Speaker 1:Boo Time for our little weekly reunion, episode 253. And this week it's just you and me. Before we proceed, I feel the internal need to say thank you, thank you, thank you to my lovely, to my beautiful, to my amazing, bold, transparent, truth-telling wife. I appreciate you, babe. It's been a long journey. It's been certainly a struggle for the wife to come on here and open up her heart, be transparent with her emotions, share everything with you raw and in real time, as it happens. That has been the vow and commitment that I made when I started this show that whatever I go through, whatever I grow through, I shall be bold enough to share it with y'all as it happens, regardless of people's emotions, regardless of people's opinions, regardless of whether I hurt some feelings along the way. What I didn't realize is, when I took that vow, when I made that commitment, sometime some way along the way, everybody that's part of the show made the same commitment and my wife, being one of the biggest parts of the show, certainly made that commitment and I'm honored to have had her on here over the past month sharing that commitment, sharing that story. Some extremely powerful episodes over the past month. We've had some great conversations off air from people because of those episodes. I'm excited of some of the things that could come from those episodes, but, more importantly, I'm excited for all the things I've seen in my wife.
Speaker 1:I'm excited for all the things I've seen in my wife, the number one, having the ability and the confidence to come on here and bear everything, unafraid, unashamed, to share her story, her raw, real life story, uncovering and undusting things for people that they never knew about her and her family. But having the courageousness to do so, which is a word that we've talked about this year, our guiding word for the year. My wife, coming on here and sharing those things and then committing to them has made a major difference. I've seen her shed negativity. I've seen her take that ability to press on and to move on and to move forward and to cut ties with negativity. I've seen it ramp up. She's really used this time as an opportunity to recommit to herself and to her values and to her dreams, and there's going to be an episode in the next couple of weeks where she's going to come on here and give you, I would say, some additional insight but possibly some tremendous updates. That all comes from the ability to cut negativity. It all comes from the ability to put the past, in the past, the fact my wife's been able to do that all while going through what she's just gone through, or shall I say, growing through what she's growing through right now. I'm telling you, right now, my wife's a badass, and when she comes on here and shares some of the changes that she's made, even in some of the darkest of times, it's absolutely incredible. So, baby, it's been a little while since I've done one of these, but if you stick with me, please, I'd like to give this week's winning Wednesday weekly shout out to my lovely, to my beautiful bride coming off her first mother's day, y'all well, I mean, we celebrated mother's day last year, but little baby paisley was still in the belly. This is the first mother's day with the little princess strutting around. You know what I mean. So it hits different, it feels different. What an incredible time, man, I'm telling you, life is crazy to see and to experience and to feel all the changes, what we've been going through, growing through, what we've been shedding ourselves from. Man, life comes at you fast, dude.
Speaker 1:Spending the weekend with it being Mother's Day weekend. Like the first time, I went arts and crafts. Okay, let me just give you all a confession I went arts and crafts and I made cards for my wife and for my mima, right, or my baby's mima, my mama, my mama, okay. So I made some cards because, to be honest, y'all, sometimes that just means more. And I wanted to start the trend of Baby Paisley making those gifts, right, so I get her little hand-drawn images in there, we trace the hands, that whole type of deal. But you write a nice message and, listen, I kind of have a little bit of a background in designing flyers and such now, so I can design a pretty sweet-looking Mother's Day card and then we can personalize it and then add a little baby touch and say here's a start to a long line of homemade gifts.
Speaker 1:But I got to tell you, writing cards for your wife and for your mother for Mother's Day, when you're 42 years old and there was a lot of your life where you didn't expect this to be your life, that shit hits different y'all. I'm going to tell you right now, man, I personally think that Mother's Day might feel more different to me than Father's Day, because I don't like taking credit for things. Giving credit is more my style and Mother's Day just the overall feel of it was was wild to me, man, to think that my wife is a mother. You know what I'm saying? I don't know. I don't know, dude, I don't know. It's. It's weird.
Speaker 1:Y'all might be hearing this being like no shit, dipshit. Uh, your wife was pregnant for nine months. Then you had a child. She's, uh, eight months. That makes her a mama, and none of this is new to y'all. But sometimes it's those little milestone moments that make shit seem real. It kind of certifies the election. You know what I'm saying. And making Mother's Day cards and saying, here it is. It certified some stuff for me. You know, literally I'm not going to share all the details of the cards, but the whole message to my wife being like you know, 10 years ago it was hard to imagine this, but now I wouldn't want it any other way. This is the way it's supposed to be, getting to the point in life where there was probably no feeling or hopes of me producing a grandkid.
Speaker 1:And if y'all haven't been listening the entire time here, if you're not a day one, if you haven't been here since episode one, get your ones up. We're my certified OGs, my day ones. Get your ones up in the air. I acknowledge you, I appreciate you. My day ones, get your ones up in the air. I acknowledge you. I appreciate you, my loyal ones there's some of you out there right now that are new ones that I see you going back and picking up on all the episodes you have missed, because when I get, like, a stat update and it shows random episodes and then that stays kind of consistent in an order, I see you, I see you and I love you. I appreciate you, man, I encourage each and every one of you. This is day one for you, or you know, day two or 21. Then I'm telling you we got 253 damn weeks of the show. Man, go back, there's some gems out there. You know, even though the timeline might be wonky, there's fruits of our labor. Okay, success leaves clues. Baby booze, they're out there.
Speaker 1:You can find all things podcast related at sharethesparklepodcastcom or on all major platforms, but you already know that. What am I talking about? You already know that, okay, but my mama, she has always been Nana to all the grandkids and for me there's only one Nana and that is my Nana. Ok, don't be confused. I didn't say banana, but I really wanted to say banana, right there. I don't know, I'm weird, ok, but y'all already know that Listening this long, you know I'm a weirdo. Ok, you know I'm a little silly. Y'all already know that. You've been listening this long. You know he's I'm a weirdo. Okay, you know I'm a little silly. I'm silly like that. You already know that. You know what I mean. It is what it is.
Speaker 1:Anyways, we made the commitment, um, that my mama would not be a nana, because my nana is no longer here, and, um, I can't call anybody else Nana. And also there's something about me that just feels like I was born in the South and raised in the North, even though that's not the truth. I'm a maniac chewing through, born and raised right here, how do you do? But something about me screams the South, and we've always had this conversation that there's not enough memas in the North. That's a South thing, right. Memaw, mamaw, that stuff's more in the South. I like mamaw a little better than memaw, but my mom is too young to feel mamaw, unless Paisley makes her. So my mom selected memaw.
Speaker 1:It all started with I think it was a Morgan Wallen song and a car ride drive-thru line, a Dunkin' Donuts talking about how there's no more, there's no Meemaws, there's no Mamaws in the North and we were talking about how the Nannas and the Papas have passed on a lot of them in the Memes and the Pepes. And you know a lot of them in the memes and the pepes and you know a lot of those names are they're? They're vintage, right? And people these days are like I don't want to be, no, I'm not, I'm not, no, I'm too young for this. I'm not. You ain't calling me meme. Oh no, I'm gonna be me, me. I'm gonna be gg, I'm gonna be tt, tata, who ya, who I? I don't know man, but y'all come up with some funky ass names.
Speaker 1:People don't want to go back to memaws and mamaws and papaws and all that good stuff. But I said to my mama there's not enough memaws, there's not enough mamaws, it needs to happen. And my mom said you ever give me a grandkid, I'll be memaw, I'll be mamaw, I'll be whatever. Fast forward to a month or two later. Surprise, my mama is now a Meemaw. I made the joke back then and you probably already heard it, but I'm going to tell it again that my mom would be Mamaw or Meemaw, my dad would be Pawpaw and if I'm ever a granddad, I'm going to be Hee-haw, hee-haw, hee-haw. I'll tell you what I'm going to be Hee-haw, what's up. Hee-haw, that's going to be me, my honky old ass. Or should I say honky old ass? That's going to be me Writing a card to me Ma, something about it just hits a little bit different, y'all.
Speaker 1:Everything just feels a little bit different. The reality of the situation that I am a dad, the reality of the situation that my wife is a mama, my mama is a me-mom. It feels different because I've heard the grandkids call my mom Nana forever. So everything about this is different. Everything about this has that new car scent and I just want to say and shower the women in my life, the ladies in my life, my baby, my mama, my baby mama and my mama. Okay, that could be too much mama drama with all y'all, but I want to celebrate them, cherish them, tell them I love them and also say happy Mother's Day, happy late Mother's Day to all the beautiful mamas out there, all the beautiful, loud, proud American mamas out there. I love y'all, I appreciate you. Happy Mother's Day. I hope it was all you wanted it to be.
Speaker 1:Now, I told all y'all at the start of this episode that today's show was going to be a business show and I told you there'd be no tears on today's show. Okay, I'm going to make a commitment to try not to cry today. So if everybody students in the class, if you would grab your Cabela's catalog and place your hand on the Cabela's catalog and your beady little eyes to the sky, I'm going to confess some truth from this guy Thou shall not cry today. No, there will be no tears today.
Speaker 1:Today is business day and some of you are asking right now what the hell are you talking about, boy Business? You've been over here fussing and confessing on about your wife and your mom and would you get yourself in some trouble over there? You sweet-talking no, watch your mouth when you talk to me like that you heard. Okay, this is what happens when I'm given the microphone and I'm asked to host the show on my own, when I don't have guests, when I don't have a co-host, I tend to pretend there's more people in the room, and then I end up arguing with myself and then some of y'all sons of bitches call in a wellness check and the next thing you know, I'm getting evaluated. Okay, I'll take enough of that. I'm going to confess enough of that.
Speaker 1:All right, there he goes again, talking to himself, like there's a room full of people. That boy, he man, he, that boy, he need help. Sad, sad, sad situation. I can't believe they let him reproduce. Lord, it's sad what's happening to this world. Anyways, I digress.
Speaker 1:It all blends together because on today's story of business, as we discuss business, there's a major family element to business and a lot of it stems from the fact that I'm finally a dad and I'm raising a child, okay, and the responsibility that falls upon my mother and my wife. It all goes together in this life and this subject is today's subject because we are on the cusp of all things opening. We are on the cusp of the flood gates opening. Lord, have mercy. We know I need it, but I ain't prepared for it. You better believe it.
Speaker 1:This weekend starts the trend, it starts the run of our season. You guys already know we've been to Florida, we've done Daytona Bike Week, we've checked that off the old bucket list. But as far as our season goes, this weekend kind of signifies the start to our season. We start hitting the road this weekend because when this weekend gets here, it starts to knock down a trend of me not being home anymore on the weekend, I think. My next three weekends, I'm committed to something. I want to say, four of the next five weekends I'm committed to something, maybe even seven of the next eight, something like that. Right, where you're on the road, you're moving and things are happening. With that said, if any of you are Mainers that are listening, if you're maniacs and you're looking for something to do because not all the fun has started to begin in your state, then I got some dates. So please don't wait.
Speaker 1:Saturday you can catch me with the fam at ledge way farm. Head on over to ledgeway farm, home of the greatest goat soap you could imagine. The liberty family washes exclusively on goat soap from ledgeway farm. You can head over to ledgeway farm out in pitston, maine. Check them. The flyer and event information is on my Facebook page if you're looking to find them. If you don't already like and follow Ledgeway Farm on Facebook, you can find a great easy avenue and way to do that. Go on ahead and do that today. Track them down, give them a follow.
Speaker 1:Join us this Saturday at Ledgeway Farm at 10 am, pittston, maine. It's going to be a great time. Man, we're doing everything right at the farm. You can kind of see the process, how things work. There's going to be a bunch of vendors there. Walson Woodcraft's going to be there I do know that which is some more friends and fam here, so they're going to be there represented, selling their woodworking merchandise. But it's a great time. Plenty of vendors, there's food, there's free entertainment, there's pony rides for kids, guided barn tours, possibly some goat snuggling. There's a lot of good things that are going to happen.
Speaker 1:So we did this event last year. It was a really, really successful event for us. Number one we would do this event and sign up to do this event, even if, um, we weren't selling anything. It's just the right thing to do and, um, you know their family. They've done a bunch for us. It's something that we feel is necessary to do, to be there and, uh, no matter what the numbers are, we would be there. That's just kind of how it's supposed to go. But surprisingly, we were rewarded with a really damn good day of business last year. So hopefully that happens again this year. I'm not saying we're dependent on it, but hello, and I would love it.
Speaker 1:And then it's a double dip weekend because we will leave there and start our setup process for the next morning being the Bonnie Eagle Car Show. I don't remember what number of car show this is like 45 years or 50 years, something like that. It's a long time they've been doing the Bonnie Eagle Car Show. We did this event last year. It was a little sprinkly, but we did pretty decent last year. It was certainly worth doing and yeah, so I'm excited.
Speaker 1:It's a back-to-back doubleheader weekend, two separate events. We're going to load up the bus again this week, hit the road, ledgeway Farm on Saturday, starting at 10 am, and then the Bonnie Eagle Car Show on Sunday. I believe it starts at 8 or 9 am. So it's a double feature weekend. Y'all that's coming up hard and fast. And then, believe it or not, memorial weekend is the next weekend. So, um, ledgeway farm on Saturday, bonnie Eagle on Sunday, and then on Thursday I'll be rolling into Bentley saloon setting up and getting everything ready to rock and roll over there, and, um, that's going to be me setting up on Thursday and then being open for business Friday, saturday, sunday, monday. So, um, you got a four-day opportunity to catch me at the saloon selling some merchandise, and then that's going to end on Monday. I'll pull out of there Monday night and then on Friday night I'll be right back at the saloon and this time around I won't be selling anything, I'll actually be DJing.
Speaker 1:It is our first DJ event of the season, another themed event, and I believe we've flipped the schedule around. So I think this one is going to be 90s night, which is one of the best nights. To be honest, like the music, the 90s doesn't get enough love. Man, let me tell you this the 90s doesn't get enough love. Musically, it was, I want to say, the best years of hip-hop. Grunge rock was was coming in hard and fast. It was making a making a break for it. All that alternative stuff, some some, you know, traditional classic rock was still damn good ac, dc. Think about some of this stuff. Y'all um, I could start pulling out some damn albums, but 90s country as well was full of freaking bangers. Man, 90s country was great. So 90s is an extremely underrated decade when it comes to music. So get on your 90s duds, whatever it is y'all want to wear. Meet me out there, bentley Saloon, 7 to 11. We're going to get after it. It's going to be a great time.
Speaker 1:I say all these things to also point out the fact that I start to connect the dot with the family and their responsibility. Part of it is a great, overwhelming sense of guilt and I've talked about this before when I mentioned making the commitment to head to Florida and be on the road for nearly two weeks and being away from my little baby girl. I'm going to tell you some of y'all have made fun of me for this. But this is difficult, man, it ain't easy.
Speaker 1:When you're um, I don't want to say I'm a stay at home dad because you know I I am working and I'm on the road and such but my schedule during this time of the year I'm working from home most of the time. So, man, you feel like a stay-at-home dad and you have a lot of those stay-at-home dad responsibilities during the week and you kind of just try to make business fit in where you can get it in. And that's been a whole other um, you know, challenge and stressful element to the whole scenario. But I got to say being with my baby every single day when you have to think about not, it uh hits a little different y'all, some of the excitement. You have to remove responsibility, throw caution to the wind, dick off and get after it. You lose some of that desire. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:And if you heard me talking a little while ago about my wife making these decisions to cut off negativity and to really just focus on her dreams and reprioritize things, we've all made these commitments right. As a family, as a household, we're all leaning into the responsibilities. We're all leaning into making commitments to remove ourselves from situations we put ourselves in. My mom has some, I have some, my wife has some. So as a family, we're dedicating ourselves to like a recommitment, so to speak. And in doing that, there was one evening where we were doing some stuff together, committing to this decision, and at night we had to go for this drive, and we'll explain the story at another time.
Speaker 1:I don't want to get too far off topic here because it is a really interesting story, but we were doing something and we had to leave and we were releasing, like basically just releasing all the negativity and recommitting yourself, reprioritizing yourself, and it's a whole spiritual feeling. And I just felt like grounded and centered on my responsibilities and my goals and my family. And we were out for a drive and I drove by Bentley saloon and all of a sudden, y'all, I just had this. This anxiety hit me. My chest just got tight and my throat got tight and something just kind of came over me and my whole mood changed. And, uh, it took a little bit for me to actually talk about it and to realize that I'm here, I am making all these commitments to my daughter, to my family, listing out priorities and focusing on things that need to be done.
Speaker 1:And when I drove by the saloon, an overwhelming sense of guilt and selfishness hit me, because if I'm over here saying that I have a hard time leaving my baby at home, saying that I have a hard time leaving my baby at home, just driving by there reminds me of the commitment I've made to be an entertainer at a biker saloon and, you know, close the bar down a few times a month, right To stand up there and entertain and do those things. All the commitments I started thinking about, you know, pinup contest, tattoo contest, uh, theme DJ events and if you add them all up, maybe I don't know a month's worth of me staying in the parking lot every single day all this time. All these commitments to me being away from my kid and also just the overall guilt of being away from my kid and also just the overall guilt of being away from my kid and then spending the entire day at a bar and late nights at a bar, coming home at one, two in the morning, whatever it might be. I had this overall guilt come over me and this anxiety set in, where you started to ask yourself does this align with your priorities, does this align with the new version of yourself? Do these things align with what you're trying to do? Or have you spread yourself so thin? Have you applied yourself to so many different areas in life that you're losing your life? Man, I was overwhelmed with this feeling and literally just started to just feel guilt. Man, just feel guilt. And I know I've made these commitments and these commitments are made to provide for my family.
Speaker 1:Every single year, I get to the end of the season and I say to myself self there's some things I don't want to do again next year. Like I'll roll into DJing at the saloon and for the first hour I'm going to say, man, I shouldn't be doing this, right. And then by the end of it, I'm going to have a great time and I'm going to leave and I'm going to go. Eh, it wasn't so bad. I could do that again. But at the end of the year I said to myself, I said, self, you probably don't need to be doing this anymore. You're going to be an old ass dad, okay, and you got too much shit to do and too many opportunities to take advantage of. You should probably take this off your plate, right?
Speaker 1:But then, as the luck would play out, as the season plays out, and as divine intervention and timing plays out, we make the plan for this stuff in November, december, at that time when you've had months off from doing those types of things and you're sitting around and your bank account's getting low and you get a big fat schedule of events emailed to you saying would you do these? Would you play on these days when you are bundled up in the cold, when snow be coming down, or when you're thinking about buying Christmas gifts and putting oil and propane, whatever, you start thinking about priorities, responsibilities and the cost of those things and also the desire to maybe let loose a little bit, it gets real easy to say, yeah, I'll take those dates, I'll do that. Sign me up, buttercup, I'll do it. But then now, when, as you should say, maybe the check's about to post, when you actually got to start to do the work. You think shit. What the hell was I thinking? Why did I say yes to all this? In my defense, I did take some stuff off my list. This year I've thinned out some of my event responsibilities. But, man, I've taken that stuff and putting it out of sight, out of mind.
Speaker 1:And when I drove by the saloon it was like right on the cusp of it reopening and everything just kind of hit me. It was just like, wow, this is happening. Sweetheart, here we are, things are happening, you're committed to things. And you got to leave the nest, little bird. You got to get out there and make things happen. And as we're recording today and we're about to drop a double decker, double feature event weekend, that's going to roll into me.
Speaker 1:Being at the saloon, I started thinking about the responsibilities where you say well, on a normal Thursday, I would get up at five in the morning, drive my mom to work, take care of my baby till 2, pack her up, pick my mom up at work at 2, come home, get her settled with me, ma, and then I would go to work from 3 till whenever going to be. You're going to get up at five or six in the morning, you're going to roll your ass over to the saloon. You're going to start building a tent, unloading all your merchandise, and you start thinking what is your mom going to do, what is your baby going to do? Your wife's got to be at work and then, all of a sudden, you become dependent on so many things. So for this to work, for this one event, for example, my mom's taking the day off, she's going to the saloon to work with me, a friend's taking Paisley for the day and my wife's going to work. So my responsibilities, my commitment to my business trickles down and disturbs the routine for everybody else. My mom takes a day off from work, right? A friend of ours is taking Paisley for the day. My wife's going to bring Paisley to meet her. So there's responsibility to my wife. There's a new routine and person for the baby, which I mean Allie. So here's the funny thing the young lady that takes care of our baby. We're about the same age. I'm the oldest one in the room, I'm the crusty guy in the room, okay, but her name's Allie too, okay. So this is a double feature, allie. Okay, we're double dipping in Allie, so it all just makes sense. So Allie's going to bring Paisley to Allie, right? So Allie's day changes both of them, my wife's day changes. And then Allie, who is going to take Paisley, her whole day changes, her routine changes, her kids' days change, right, her husband's day could be impacted by this. You think about all these different trickle down impacts that this plays and it adds a little bit of a layer of guilt. And then you think about Friday morning. I'm going to get up and take care of Paisley for a little bit. Let me bring my mom to get a coffee, then I'm going to set her up with my mom. And then you think about Friday morning. I'm going to get up and take care of Paisley for a little bit. Let me bring my mom to get a coffee, then I'm going to set her up with my mom, and then I'm going to roll over to the saloon and work all damn night, right. And then you think about at nighttime what time am I leaving the bar, like who's coming home to take care of the chores, to do the horse, and there's so many different moving parts to all of this. You think about DJing. My mom's going to be watching the baby until we get home at midnight.
Speaker 1:One in the morning. All these different layers, man, and I guess it's like layers of dependence, everybody that I have to depend on for me to make this business tick. And when you leave the door to make the business tick, if it doesn't tick-tock you know what I'm saying If it doesn't tick-tock and pay some bills like if it isn't worth it, you start to beat yourself up. When you make these sacrifices and the people around you make sacrifices for you to bet on yourself, for you to continue your dream, for you to further your journey, if they're all pitching in and pulling for you to make it and it doesn't click, it doesn't make it, so to speak, like it's not making a benefit. I tell you what, man, it feels a hell of a lot different right now when you layer on that responsibility. It makes things feel different. And I must say this, I must confess chances have consequences. Okay, chances have consequences.
Speaker 1:Now, truth be told, if we don't take chances, then we don't live the life we were meant to live, right? If we don't take chances, then we live in our bubble of comfort. If we don't take chances, then we end up wearing gray sweatpants, sitting on your couch, farting in the cushions and spilling Cheetos all over your chest Right. You just get comfortable and you lose sight of who you are and who you could be. You need to leap. You need to leap out of that comfort zone. You need to take chances in life. My guiding word that we talked about was courage being courageous, leaning into the courage it takes to leave home, to leave the family behind, to bet on yourself to try things, family behind, to bet on yourself to try things, to change things, to do things. But the other side of that coin is that those chances have consequences.
Speaker 1:I took a big, big, massive chance. I bet on the business, I bet on the brand. I threw all the money I had, yet again, on taking a chance. We went to Florida. We did it, we accomplished it. It was a bucket list scenario. We did it. We beat it, we defeated it. We didn't lose money, but it didn't pan out like we wanted it to. It didn't benefit us the way we needed it to, especially for the investment that we made in it. So when I say to you that chances have consequences, part of what I'm referencing is because I took this massive chance, because in my mind, I felt that Florida was going to be the answer. Florida was going to be the tipping point. It was going to be what we needed to have happen to launch us into a new stratosphere. That didn't happen. It's okay. It didn't shut us down, it didn't paralyze us. We're here to live another day, but it has consequences. We had to make some changes.
Speaker 1:My entire plan was to be so successful at Bike Week that, first off, I was going to liquidate some of the designs that I've been carrying for some time. Allow me the cash flow and opportunity to reinvest in the business, make new products and to bring to you guys a bunch of new stuff. Right, that part didn't really work out. I was also trying to get enough capital that I could then take chances on other events. I had my eyes on a couple of Tennessee events that I really wanted to do. I didn't come home with enough cash to keep the business going, keep the lights on at home and also take chances on those other events, whether I could afford the event fees, the product to stock up for them or the overall cost to get there. It just wasn't a wise decision to bet on that this year. But I do have my eyes set on a few more challenges this year that are going to pull me out of my comfort zone, that're going to put me in a new place with new faces and new changes and challenges and opportunities, because you need to take chances.
Speaker 1:But the consequences of our first chance not really working out the way that we wanted it to is that we've had to remove some of those big hopes and dreams that we had for this year, take them off the plate, re-evaluate and move them a little bit further down the road, but don't lose sight of them. I'm just moving things around. We're going to continue to grow and to challenge ourselves. One of the other consequences that we have is that we need to roll with the times, roll with the punches and it's going to be an extremely challenging time. But for us, if we come out of this weekend let's say, for example, we have a double feature weekend If we come out of this weekend with a little extra cash where we made something happen, if we can pay a bill, then we reinvest in the business and we're starting to work on different designs and ideas and have things kind of in the bullpen. So when the opportunity comes, when the cash flow arrives, we purchase and bring it to the next event. If something's super popular and we're selling it out, we restock and bring it to the next event. So what we have at the beginning of the year could look vastly different by the end of the year. But we need to ebb and flow with the way everything has to go.
Speaker 1:My overall plan that I went into this year with was I'm going to go to Florida, I'm going to crush it and then I'm going to come home. I'm going to make all these new designs, I'm going to stock up on all this inventory. I'm going to organize our office like our new storage office facility. I'm going to get all these things taken care of, all these you know bright and brilliant ideas I have for the boss after spending two weeks and you know, on the road, all these things. I'm going to implement all these changes. I'm going to do all these things and then, when the season gets here, I'm going to be fully stocked, fully loaded, and we just read, react and respond. We go everywhere we want to go and we make all the damn money we need to make.
Speaker 1:Well, spoiler alert chances have consequences. We took a chance. It wasn't as rewarding as we wanted it to be and the consequence is none of what I just said could happen. None of it. What I had to do in reality is to come home, reassess, re-evaluate and decide what to do. You've heard of some of the changes we've made. We've done different sales, we've done live sales. I'm starting to work on TikTok, doing all these different things, we're trying new things. We've got a TikTok shop that's available now. We're really just trying to branch out in different avenues.
Speaker 1:But I also had to double down on custom orders and I've done a lot more custom merchandise this year than I normally would. And custom orders are a catch-22 scenario because they're great, you can get cash flow and it makes a tremendous benefit to the business and it's super exciting when you can help somebody bring their vision to reality and give them something they can be proud of. I've had some great experiences over the past couple of months on some of these customs because, for example, chris, this guy from New Hampshire he paid somebody $500 to design a logo and he hated it. He didn't he didn't even want to use it. So he wanted us to do something for him and we gave him something he could be proud of, that he can be happy for and ultimately, what's cool about it is, when I gave him his merchandise he was like, man, I'm literally thinking about buying a different color truck, Like I'm thinking about buying a black work van. So I could, you know, use your logo and, you know, maybe I take my white van and wrap it in your logo. So that's awesome, man. That's encouraging, and we've had a lot of those stories over the past couple of months of helping people out, and what's been tremendous is I haven't gone and had to really seek a lot of this out.
Speaker 1:A lot of it's coming to me Thanks to a lot of you out there. You know pushing and advising people to check with us. I know Matt from Ledgway. When he's on the road he's recommending people to us and Ledgway Farm they did a much bigger custom order. Actually, I'm looking at a big stack of their stuff I'm going to bring to see them on Saturday. You know Scott the Pettengills from Freedom Designs. Scott sent me multiple people, like chris that I just talked about, um, dana, he sent me.
Speaker 1:All these people like that have played massive orders with us and, uh, you know just people that we've treated well along the way, coming back to us or sending friends to us. It's been a tremendous benefit and in the past I would turn some of these things down because this time of year I should be stocking up and getting ready for the season. So I've been so focused on other people's stuff but I can't do any of my stuff Designing things, welcoming new things. I've done massive hat orders for Bentley Saloon, for Main Street Barbershop all these great customers and friends and family that are pitching in and they say I want to support you, I want to support the brand, I want to support the mission and this is how we're going to do it. All that's been great and that's helped pay bills and it's helped us to survive.
Speaker 1:But the tough thing is is this custom money that comes in? You don't make as much stuff when you're doing. You don't make as much profit, I should say, when you're helping somebody with wholesale orders, right. But the nice thing is is you're getting this cash flow, you're staying home, you're working, you're making things happen and as the money comes in, you pay a bill and you try to do something for the business and you just start navigating these things around. But it doesn't allow you the time, the cash flow or the opportunity to focus on your own brand. I've gone through a lot of classes on this stuff where they say you really can't operate both. You can't do both. I'm trying to make both work because I see it as an opportunity to be successful. I see it as an opportunity to grow our brand by partnering with other businesses, also increase our cash flow to a point where it helps sustain our brand and keep us in business. So I'm trying to do more. I've doubled down on more of that this year and that's paid off for us.
Speaker 1:And a lot of you guys could be listening right now and you're saying man, how is this kid having a down year? How is he, you know, continue to slug his way through more Debbie Downer news and information? How is it? Every time he goes out and applies and tries for something, it fails? Why does he keep beating his head against the wall? Well, I have a very high standard of what I want and where I see this brand and to sprinkle some optimism, to sprinkle some positivity on this, currently, right now, for 2025, loud Proud, americans' net sales are up 92%.
Speaker 1:We are up 92% in net sales. Right now. We're crushing it on the year. It doesn't feel like we're crushing it because chances have consequences. Right, we've taken chances, we've invested on things. We're in that stalemate period of trying to grow things. We bought a new office, our storage facility. Chances have consequences. So we are up 92% in net sales. I am bound and determined to make this season the greatest season we've ever had. If it's not, then we will reassess and reevaluate what we're going to do and how we're going to do it, and whether it's time to stop doing it. But right now I have a firm belief and commitment to the brand and the task at hand.
Speaker 1:What's tough right now is some of these other events and opportunities that I want to try, that I want to apply myself to. I'm reaching out man. I'm sending emails, I'm calling, I'm leaving voicemails and nobody's getting back to me. There's a few events that I want to put on the calendar that I just can't get any damn responses to. And it's tough when you really have your event calendar not written in pen, when you have things on your calendar that are written in pencil because you don't have firm commitments.
Speaker 1:It's tough when you have things on your calendar that are written in pencil because you don't have firm commitments. It's tough when your season's here. Things are opening, things are happening. It's tough to not have all of your shit written in pen, but a lot of these events and things, man people are volunteer Not all of them put people on the payroll, so they don't really care.
Speaker 1:They don't care about your schedule, they don't care about your timeline, they don't give two shits. So you just sit out there and wait. But the difficulty is I can't afford to wait. I can't afford to not have answers, Because what happens if, all of a sudden, when they do get to me, they go oh shucks, yeah, we're full. Now I don't have anything on my schedule, nothing on my calendar. I got to find a new way, an opportunity to fill it.
Speaker 1:All that stuff just builds layers of anxiety and doubt. That part becomes really difficult when you're trying to apply yourself, when you're trying to push yourself, challenge yourself, and these people just don't want to respond. For the love of God. Sorry, I had to go, chris Frawley, right there. I do want to sprinkle, for the love of God. Sorry, I had to go, chris Farley, right there. I do want to sprinkle some more positivity and optimism on this little conversation right here, because Loud Proud American is up 92% in net sales, and we just received one of the greatest emails this business could receive, one email that I'm so excited to receive.
Speaker 1:Okay, I might've built it up so much for you guys that you're thinking like, oh my God, that son of a bitch is going on tour with jelly roll. I know it, that's what you thought. You thought you thought it Me and jelly. I'll tell you what, though Y'all ain't ready for this jelly. It'd be too much jelly if me and jelly be on the row. You know what I'm saying. Ooh, me and jelly on a roll. You know what I'm saying? Anyways, I have some undiagnosed conditions that should be talked about in a lab. Maybe I built this email up too much for all y'all, but to me it's tremendous.
Speaker 1:Okay, loud, proud, american started five years ago. In our first year in business, my wife convinced me to apply for the Freiburg Fair and I didn't know if I was ready for the fair or if we could handle it, and I didn't think we could get in, because it usually takes years to get in. But it was COVID and we applied and we got in, and I'm so thankful that we did, because it kept us in business. If that event didn't happen, we might have gone out of business in our first year. So Freiburg saved us and we started off with a 10 foot by 20 foot tent, so 10 wide, 20 deep, and it was a black tent and most people couldn't even see us and they just walked right by us. But we had a tremendous first year at Freiburg. It was unbelievable. I think we did as much money in one week at that fair as we did the rest of the year at all of our other events. So it was tremendous, kept us in business.
Speaker 1:And after that we continued to ask to grow and to expand and a couple of years ago they allowed me to go from 10 feet to 20 feet. So I went from a 10 by 20 to a 20 by 20. And I think that was about two years ago and I saw a nice gain. I want to say $5,000 or $6,000 bump my first year in expanding the tent. We continue to ask for an expansion. We continue to ask to grow Because I think if I can add another 10 feet it can make another tremendous difference. And every year since that year I've asked for 10 feet more and I've never gotten it.
Speaker 1:This year, with my contract, I put another handwritten letter, thanking them for the opportunity, appreciating them for all that they do and all that it means to my business, and yet again asking, if at all possible, I would like another 10 feet. The person that was next to me last year was a new person. For the past two years I've asked for more feet. For the past two years I've had a new neighbor that neighbor that I had last year. Their stuff was too big for their 10-foot display. I'm assuming if they come back, they want a new location. If they're going to a new location, can I please have their 10 feet? I sent that letter and I've waited. I've seen that it's been delivered, I've seen that my deposit hasn't been cashed, hasn't been deposited and then, to my pleasant little surprise, I got an email saying Keith, we can do that for you. Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo, your boy is going to a triple wide baby, 30 feet long, 20 feet deep. Oh, how glorious it's going to be. I have man.
Speaker 1:I have grand illusions and disillusions in my mind over what's going to happen this year at the fair, the opportunity, the challenges. Again, we're taking chances. If I'm going to add another 10 feet wide, 20 feet deep scenario, that's another $3,000 investment in a tent. That's another additional investment in grid wall, into hooks, into hangers, into material, into merchandise, grid wall, into hooks, into hangers, into material, into merchandise. I'm going to say that just for me to make the expansion on the tent and just the what it takes to make the tent um, and then the additional increase in rent, that's a minimum $5,000 additional investment on this one fair, plus all the products and material and the you know the increase in overhead it's going to take for me to load that tent. My rent has gone up by a thousand dollars just to add that extra 10 feet, another thousand dollars in rent. So my overall not to crack going into this fair is pretty tremendous.
Speaker 1:But I am oh so confident I am going to crush any number I've ever done at this fair. I am going to crush any number I've ever done at any fair. At any event, at any time, I'm willing to bet that in that one freaking week I'm going to beat my first year in business. That's how confident I am and what I am about to do, what my family is about to do. I am telling you it is going to happen and I hope that today's message and this mission has outlined a theme for all of you, and that theme should be never give up.
Speaker 1:There's something that you really want, something that you want so bad. If you want it, if you really really want it. It's difficult to wait for it to come true, but it's even more difficult to regret it. You understand. Never give up. If you want something so damn bad, don't give up. As difficult as it is to wait for it to happen, the difficulty really sets in when you regret the fact you never made it happen. Never give up. Never give up.
Speaker 1:Anything unattempted remains impossible. Chances might have consequences, but if you don't take chances, you'll sit around shitting in your pants. I know that that's not how you say pants and it probably wasn't appropriate to put that there, but I wanted to underline some humor, man, because your life is laughable if you don't take chances. You understand the regret that sets in from giving up or the fact that never trying in the first place, anything, anything unattempted, remains impossible. Take a chance, don't be afraid to shit your pants, even if those chances have consequences. You too shall overcome, we too shall overcome. This too shall pass. Now get off your damn ass and get out there and win this Wednesday and win this life and make shit happen. I'm proud of you, I thank you and I appreciate each and every loving one of you for supporting my American dream. That's it, and that all Biggie Smalls.
Speaker 1:If you're a Loud Proud American and you find yourself just wanting more, find me on YouTube and Facebook. At Loud Proud American and you find yourself just wanting more, find me on YouTube and Facebook at Loud Proud American. Put a 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 are tickety-talking on the TikTok. You can find me on both of those at Loud underscore Pr. 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. I truly thank you for supporting my American dream. Now go wash your fucking hands, you filthy savage.