Share The Struggle
Share The Struggle
Finding Grace When Everything Goes Wrong: Lessons in Gratitude
Breaking a streak of bad luck doesn't require perfect circumstances – it demands a perspective shift that transforms how we experience life's inevitable challenges. As I celebrate the milestone of 260 episodes spanning five consecutive years of Share the Struggle, I find myself reflecting on a chaotic 24-hour period that perfectly illustrates this truth.
From malfunctioning equipment and surprise mortgage payments to vehicle breakdowns, the universe seemed determined to test my resilience. Yet through each frustrating moment, I discovered pockets of gratitude hiding in plain sight – the blessing of finding mechanical problems before they stranded my family on a lengthy road trip, meaningful conversations that might never have happened otherwise, and precious moments with my daughter that I'll cherish forever.
The hardest lesson I've learned since losing my father is captured in a simple phrase: "What I wouldn't do to do something I didn't want to do." Those frustrating chores and difficult interactions I once dreaded with him? I'd give anything to experience them again. This perspective has transformed how I approach daily challenges, reminding me that today's annoyances might become tomorrow's cherished memories.
We often postpone our happiness with phrases like "I'll be happy when..." or "I'll enjoy it when..." – dangerous mindsets that defer joy to some idealized future that may never arrive. Life doesn't have to be perfect for us to enjoy it. Perfect doesn't exist. The key is finding ways to celebrate milestones and count blessings even in imperfect moments.
Whether you're facing your own streak of bad luck or simply navigating life's everyday challenges, remember that the choice is yours – you can go through it or grow through it. Struggle becomes strength when we approach it with gratitude, perspective, and faith. As we mark five years of this podcast journey together, I'm grateful for every listener who has shared in the struggle – and the growth – alongside me.
If you found value in today's show please return the favor and leave a positive review and share it with someone important to you! https://www.sharethestrugglepodcast.com/reviews/new/
Find all you need to know about the show https://www.sharethestrugglepodcast.com/
Official Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100077724159859
Join the 2% of Americans that Buy American and support American Together we can bring back American Manufacturing https://www.loudproudamerican.shop/
Loud Proud American Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Loudproudamerican
Loud Proud American Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/loud_proud_american/
Loud Proud American TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@loud_proud_american
Loud Proud American YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmYQtOt6KVURuySWYQ2GWtw
Thank you for Supporting My American Dream!
Have you ever had a bad day, maybe a bad couple of days? What about a bad week? Or even a bad month? What do you do? How do you get over it? How do you pack up? How do you move on? Let's just say I've been dealing with my fair share of bad luck and today we're going to break the streak, we're going to bust the slump and I'm going to tell you how to put bad luck in the dump. 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. Do 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.
Speaker 2:What it do, what it do Hot diddity.
Speaker 1:Damn Good, lord almighty, am I so excited to be back with you. Oh, it's true. It is damn true, because I miss you, boo, episode 260. Two, six, hey, you know what that means by the art of bus math. If I were to take the number 260 and let's say we divided it Actually, let's not do that Division might not be my thing.
Speaker 1:I'm not here to divide, I'm here to unite. I'm here to multiply, okay, I am here to multiply positive vibes. So if I ask of you to take 52, because, why 52? Because there's 52 weeks in a year, am I right? 52 weeks? That's how that works. I know it's how it works.
Speaker 1:Take 52, if you would, my good man, my fair lady, if you would take 52 and times it by five. Why five? Because five would signify five beautiful, long, luscious years. 52 times 5 gives to you 260. Y'all, do you believe it? We achieved it 2-6-0.
Speaker 1:Now, I may be mistaken here, but by the art of bus math, 52 weeks in a year times 5 years gives me 260 episodes In a year. Times five years gives me 260 episodes. That means we have reached five consecutive years of Share, the Struggle podcast, this little spiritual journey that we started all the way back in the pandemic because we just could not deal with not being together. I could not handle not being with all y'all, could not handle not being with all y'all. So we started this show as a way to stick together, as a way to spread a positive vibe and to grow a positive tribe. And here we are, five long years later, boys and girls, I am proud to say we have not missed one weekly episode for five long years. That means that you can tune in to share the struggle podcast. One episode a week for five years and if you keep listening to the show, you could technically do two weeks or episodes a week for, you know, five more years if you want it.
Speaker 1:Because we're just going to keep this thing a-rolling. Okay, we're just going to keep this show rocking and rolling. I got no plans of letting it go, because I have heard from many of you and I've seen good growth over the past few months. We've got a lot of new listeners joining us, so I just wanted to say welcome aboard to all the new listeners. Choo-choo, climb on in. We are leaving the station and I must take the opportunity to put my ones up To all you listening out there, to all the loyal ones, to all the day ones. I know who you are. There's a bunch of you listening right now that you've been here since July 2020. You were here all the way back in episode one and here we are on 260. I acknowledge you, I love you and I appreciate you. Put your ones up, celebrate it with me, because if it wasn't for you, there wouldn't be an us. I'm here because of you. I'm keeping this show rocking and rolling because of you. 260 episodes, that is one episode a week for five long, beautiful years.
Speaker 2:Oh, there he is, yeah, yeah, it's me, your favorite little character. Here I am. Yeah, I'm the mom from Nutty Professor and I'm here to say look at him, oh, congratulations. Look at him celebrating. You guys, you can't see him Because he's not on video, but he's, he's cheesing, he's a big cheese ball With his Budgy little fists and little biceps and his big old cheeks and smiling Cheers. Congratulations, big Ears. Yeah, he did it.
Speaker 1:Woo, we did it, 260. And your face, I don't know that was for, but there's some people out there those are for the doubters and the haters out there. I mean, we got to. Every once in a while you're going to, you got to rub the dowels in it. Okay, I'm clearly off the tracks, but it's hot and I'm recording in the garage. I'm sweating a little bit because I'm off schedule. I'm off kilter. I've been going through it. Okay, I've been dealing with some stuff. Y'all Things haven't been going according to plan, but I wasn't going to leave this streak unattended.
Speaker 1:Okay, I wasn't going to miss our consecutive streak for five freaking years. Because I'm getting dealt a little bad hand, because I'm experiencing some bad luck no, I don't give a. Hmm, he's a bad mother. Watch your mouth. See that what I did right there, I almost swore, because you know what rhymes with luck and you know I love to say it, but I'm turning a new leaf. I'm trying to do better y'all. I know you don't believe it. I probably don't believe it either, but the reason I'm saying all this is because I've been dealt a little bad luck. Maybe I earned some bad luck, maybe I deserve some bad luck, but I've been going through it, okay, and I don't want to just paint a big old, nasty recipe here. I don't want to just open the floodgates on the poop tank of luck I've been going through. So, no, I'm just going to share with you like a 24-hour period to kind of set the scene, to pave the road, to paint the picture, to make sure the story's told.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's what we're going to be doing here. We're not talking about woe is me and oh, my goodness, wow, wah, wah. That's not what we're talking about. I'm also not talking about big depressing stuff. Okay, I'm not talking about medical diagnosis. I'm not talking about difficult decisions. I'm not talking about that. I'm just talking about shit. I can't believe that went wrong again, type of stuff.
Speaker 1:And I'm saying this because I know of all of you listening, none of us are immune to bad luck. None of us are immune to a little bullshit. All right, I can still say shit. I think that's fair enough. I mean, I'm not. I'm not a saint. Okay, I'm trying to lay back on the F-bombs so they have a little more impact, but I'm still going to say shit. All right, anyways, so they have a little more impact, but I'm still going to say shit, all right. Anyways, here's the thing, y'all. We're not talking about depressing stuff, we're just talking about son of a C biscuit. I can't believe that keeps happening, all right, so let's just take you through like a 24, 36-hour type of scenario, just for you to understand what's going on.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to roll the curtain back to Sunday. I'm in the office working. Our schedule is about to get pretty crazy, right? We've got some big events coming up, we've got some craziness happening, and so I'm in the office just plugging ahead trying to get as much stuff done as possible.
Speaker 1:If you've been listening on, you know this year is a little different for us because financially I wasn't able to prepare like I always do. Financially, I didn't have the ability to just stock the shelves and set the season and just say, team Bronco, set it and forget it, put it in the smoker and I'll collect it in 13 hours. No, I need to make things as we make money. So as I go someplace and I get a little bread, I pay some bills and I make another sandwich. You know what I'm saying. I pay for something and then I buy something new. So I pay a bill for the family, I buy a new product for the business, I restock an item and we're building that way. It's not ideal and I'm certain it probably holds me back from a few sales, but it is what it is and it's just how it has to be until things break loose. But I've got endless optimism about how successful my July is going to be.
Speaker 1:This is the month for me. All things are going to change this month, but as I'm setting the scene for you on Sunday, I'm working with what I've got. I am in the office producing, I'm working, I'm making things happen and all of a sudden, things start going wrong. I start making mistakes, I start having mishaps, I start how do we say? Destroying product, which is not something that I like to do and it's not something that I am accustomed to. As of late In my early years, that happened. But after you know, over five years of business, I've seen a lot of things. I can adjust to some things. So the issue that was happening comes down to a couple of things that I can narrow it down to Over my experience. One of those things is temperature and humidity.
Speaker 1:Now, a few years ago, this happened and I was just racking my brain, beating my head against a freaking wall to try to figure out what was going on. Why was I ruining so many things and all the research I did? I had a dehumidifier going and all these things and I said air conditioner. And my old man being the beast that he is, he said, well, let's fix that. And he took a hacksaw and we cut a giant hole in the side of my parents' wall in the garage or basement, I should say and we chucked an air conditioner through a hole in the wall, plugged it in, and he said there you go, get to making shit. And it fixed it.
Speaker 1:Okay, but with that said, I had to take the air conditioner out and be an adult and try to put the house back together and put a window in. I didn't want to open the hole any bigger than it already was. So when I put the window in, I knew ahead of time it was just a small window and we had cut the hole in the wall based off the size of the air conditioner frame, not for the frame of the window. So I knew that AC wasn't going to work, no big deal. Anyways, here we are. I'm at that point where I'm breaking things on Sunday and I say to myself self you got to cool this place down and I can't fit an air conditioner any of our ACs into the window that I purchased. So bring on the marketplace support group, get the wife on there looking for air conditioners. We find a portable one with a hose. I know that's going to work.
Speaker 1:Longer, short of it, I decided I'm going to get a bigger version of what we already have in our house. Put the bigger version in the house, because I found a great deal on it. Take the smaller version from my house and put it into the office. Bada, bing, bada, boom. Coolest guy in the room. You understand what I'm saying. No pun intended. We're talking AC over here. It's an HVAC joke. You feel me? You're an idiot and you're sweating profusely because you left the windows open in the garage. But back on track, scuba, steve. So this is the plan. This is what we're going to do.
Speaker 1:I found this little old timer. He sells air conditioners on Marketplace. Come to find out. He's retired. His buddy does HVAC. He's going around putting mini splits in houses and every time he does, the people give them their ACs and then he fixes them up and flips them. Now I have a mini split in my house but it's not working. It's a great wall ornament that leaks all over the freaking sheetrock, but we're going to change that subject to another freaking show, okay, because it's sensitive. Anyways, I meet this guy in Topsom at 9.30 PM on a Sunday. I get home at about 10.30. I'm going to install the air conditioner on Monday morning.
Speaker 1:Right Now, with all this said, it's approaching baby's bedtime, so Allie stays home and me and my mom take the ride together. She accompanies me to Topsum to pick up the air conditioner. Now on this ride, ironically, me and my mom got into an in-depth conversation and it was a conversation that needed to happen. And it was a conversation that I guess I didn't realize needed to happen, but it was clearly on my mom's mind. She needed to talk and this gave her an opportunity to have some real heartfelt conversation with me. And you know, we just kind of worked through some things together because you know, losing my dad, as tough as that is on me, it's way harder on my mother Like let's, let's be honest, they're married for over 40 years. So you know, we're going through some of those things and talking through some of those emotions and it was a conversation that really needed to happen. And that conversation was difficult, it was heart-wrenching, it was emotional, but it was also happy and productive at the same time. And when I was talking to my mom, it also molded into a business conversation.
Speaker 1:And in that business conversation we started to kind of talk about much of the things that I just said to you guys, where, hey, I'm not as prepared or as planned out this year as I should be, but I have confidence that it's going to work out. And one of the things that I've been trying to do and recently my wife's been really working on doing, is when you hit this wall, when you have these struggles and you just can't find an answer to them, then all that's left to do is give it to God. You know, you just you have that conversation with God and you just hand it over and say I don't have the ability, I don't have the strength, I can't handle this, I don't know how to process this, I don't know what to do with this. I'm going to give this to you and you help guide me and you help direct me, and that's one of the things that we've had to do. And, as we are talking about bad luck and some of these things. As we roll through conversation, we're going to highlight some points and some tips and some tricks and some techniques, and that's one of the biggest things I can give you is talk to God and give it over. Okay, that's one of the biggest things that I can. I can say to you and I should have saved that for the end but I want to do this in a in a chronological order for you so you guys can kind of understand the conversation and the scenario. So, as we're talking about business and all these struggles and I just tell my mom like really all I can do is just hand it over to God and say you know, I'm trusting you and just work as hard as I can with the right intentions in the right direction and hope and pray for the best.
Speaker 1:One other thing that I need to highlight and I think this is critical in this scenario is there's a life lesson that I learned with losing my father. There's a life lesson that I've learned with watching him battle and having to say goodbye. Watching him battle and having to say goodbye and then, over the course of you know, the year plus since he's passed, one of the things. That has helped me get through bad scenarios, negative scenarios, difficult experiences is learning to appreciate what you do have and learning to appreciate the opportunity that's in front of you, learning to be grateful for what's happening right there in the moment with you. And what I really mean by this is I try to elaborate on this is oftentimes there's going to be difficult things in life that you just don't want to do.
Speaker 1:There's going to be things that you've really been putting off. Maybe they've been on the back burner, they've been on your to-do list for the longest time and you just don't want to do them, but you know you have to do them. Maybe there's these conversations, these meetings, these difficult things, whatever it is. Imagine something in your life that's super difficult, that you don't want to do, that you don't want to deal with, that you don't want to have to handle, and then to reframe that scenario. I try to be grateful for the opportunity to go through it and and for me to kind of just really kind of paint a picture for you so that you can understand my perspective when I'm talking about losing my dad and how this really opened my eyes to things. Is I?
Speaker 1:There are so many things that my dad did with me, like chores or projects or working for him that I absolutely hated. If you've listened to my story, if anniversary, if I think back to episode one where it all begun, the greatest life lesson I ever learned was a lesson from my father on hard work, and I kind of go through the whole story of what it was like and if you guys are new here and you're listening to this episode, I highly encourage you to go back to episode one. Ironically, I think it's one of my favorite episodes and it's the biggest lesson I ever learned in life. But if you listen to that episode, you know there's many opportunities in there where I had to work with my dad or do something with my dad and I just didn't want to.
Speaker 1:He was humiliating, right, and there were so many times where I'm being yelled and screamed at in public. I'm a sensitive kid at the time time and I'm taking things personal. I'm struggling. There's all these things that were so difficult and things that I never wanted to do. But here I am now, over a year after my dad's passed, as I'm approaching, actually, two years of his passing I can't tell you what I wouldn't do and what I wouldn't give to go back and be yelled at again. Does that make sense for you guys? Some of the tasks, some of the chores, some of the jobs that I just despised and I never wanted to do, I can't tell you what I would give up today to go back or to have to do that task and chore again today if my father was by my side.
Speaker 1:There's things in life that we just dreaded and regretted and hated to do. But when the person that you were doing them with meant so much to you and now they're no longer here you would gladly go through the abuse, you would gladly go through all the difficulty if it meant you got to do that task with them. So in my conversation with my mother we're talking about some of the things that we have to do and some of the things that we're going through and growing through, and my mom doesn't want to feel like a burden and I had said to her you're not a burden at all. Nothing about you and our relationship is a burden, because I need you to understand I wouldn't change anything for the opportunity to spend time with you. Losing my father made me realize you need to cherish the opportunity to spend time with the people that you love, no matter what the circumstance, no matter what the situation. Having that philosophy has helped me get through things.
Speaker 1:A few weeks ago I mentioned to you guys that the wife and the baby and I broke down on the side of 295 and Matt and Sarah Perkins came out and saved us. I didn't get worked up, I didn't get stressed out about sitting on the side of the road for an hour and a half or whatever it was, because it was an opportunity for me to slow down and sit down with my wife and my kid. You got to cherish those things. Sometimes things just happen to make you slow down and enjoy them. But you also need to realize when you're in that moment and you're stressed out and maybe you're doing something you don't want to do or you're dealing with something that you don't want to have to handle and process. Ask yourself the people that are around you that you get to work through those things with. Be grateful for them, because someday, if they're not here with you, you will completely regret not taking advantage of the opportunity that lies in front of you. So, no matter how difficult the situation is, if you get to go through that or grow through that with a significant other, with a friend, with a child, with a mother, with a brother, whoever it is, be thankful, be grateful, embrace it. Those are one of the things that I look at.
Speaker 1:When I'm stuck in a situation that I don't really want to do, I think about it and say, hey, if I had to sit here at a doctor's appointment with my dad for an hour, would I do it if that meant I got to sit here with my dad for an hour? Absolutely. So there's so many things that you're going to have to do and you're going to have to put up with, but when you sprinkle on that perspective, I think it opens up a whole new avenue for you. So that was really a great part of the conversation that me and my mom were having and I was just saying you know, right now in our situation, we're all working very hard for different things. You know, getting over my father's loss, my mom dealing with that, my wife and I dealing with that. Raising our first child, my mom helping out with raising our child, the getting my mom to work, all those things Me being on the road, sometimes, them coming with me, other times my workload being dropped on them. When you think about it, the opportunity for all of us to work on these things together. I'll take the difficulty. Does that make sense with you guys? I'll deal with the difficulty if it means that we get to do it together and that's kind of the conversation that we had on the ride home.
Speaker 1:So the very next morning, to continue continue the story here, to get back on track I I follow the wife to um the garage to drop her car off. That's getting some warranty work done and um. So I'm following her so that she can drop her car off and then return back and um take another vehicle and and and drive to work type of deal. So I'm following her. She goes all the way to the garage, finds out parks didn't come in. Nobody communicated that with her. So back home she goes, gets her stuff and heads back to work.
Speaker 1:I come home and I start working on making the air conditioning switch, which I don't know if any of you are like me that whenever the smallest, most simplest task becomes a major ass project. But that's me, and the hotter it is outside, the more crazy. My project's going to be A simple flipping of the air conditioners where I already have ductwork tied in in the house should be no big thing. Turn it into a big old thing because nothing fits. This, don't work with that, this doesn't fit here. Tear it out, put it in, replace it. All this nonsense, right, turns into a couple hours. Now you're in two rooms with no AC, pouring sweat, freaking out, throwing shit. Can I, you know, kind of describe life and times for you. That's me here. I am building platforms, raising up air conditioners because the duct work's not big enough. All this nonsense, right. Finally, after all said and done, I've got the AC in the living room running, just fine. I've got the AC in the office running, things are going good. And I get back to trying to press. Hey, we resolved the situation, things are going to be good.
Speaker 1:I start going back to working and not so good, having some of the same problems. So now I'm freaking out a little bit about what's going on here. Process of elimination at this point it has to be either pressure of my press or temperature of my press. So now I'm working on calibrating pressure and temperature. This turns into hours long process with heat guns and temperature strips like test strips and going through all this nonsense, trying to dial things in. None of that's working at this moment. Right? I then say I'm going to take a break from this for a minute. I got to just get my head right and I'm going to surround myself with things that make me grateful, things that make me happy, spend a few minutes with the baby, just kind of clearing my mind and just kind of recentering myself, right? I go back to the office, start to look at a few more things.
Speaker 1:While that's heating up, I go online and I start to pay some bills, and I find something rather peculiar at that moment, as I start doing my research, as I'm paying things and moving things around, I happen to notice that my automatic mortgage payment through a special savings account at my bank didn't go through for June. Y'all know this episode's coming out in July, right? This episode's dropping to you on July 2nd. That means I went the entire month my mortgage is due on the 1st without making a mortgage payment. Some of you might ask how does this happen, moron? But what I'm going to tell you is this the way that I have my automatic payments set up for things is a separate account. It's like most of you probably have for so many things. I have one account that just basically handles my mortgage and I transfer the money over to my mortgage ahead of time to make sure that everything's good.
Speaker 1:Now what I assume happened was, as I was transferring money from one account to the next account on my banking online, you go through the process, click over, transfer a hue to here, bada, bing, bada, boom, click, boom. Here you go. There's another pop-up page that comes up and asks you do you want to confirm this transaction? All I can think is I did not click confirm, and when I didn't click confirm, the money didn't go over there to actually pay the mortgage. And then some of you would be asking well, how come you didn't realize that your account was higher on the other account by a mortgage payment? How come you didn't realize that?
Speaker 1:Well, it was getting paid out of my business account and I'm on the road selling things and doing transactions and money is coming in 24 hours later from credit card postings, and I also have these posting charges, processing fees that come through. So, unless I'm balancing those, I also have an equity line with my credit card company that takes a percentage from each transaction. So even if I'm selling X amount of dollars, I'm not getting that same X amount deposited. It might be a Y amount deposited. So if I look in there and I don't take the time to go back and count everything when I'm doing events and stuff, I'm not realizing that I'm off here. Now, when I look at the mortgage account and I see it's at a lower number, my assumption is my mortgage payment went through just fine. Apparently that wasn't the case. I'm realizing the night before my mortgage payments due for July that June was never paid. That's a big ass surprise that I didn't budget for, that's a big ass surprise I didn't account for.
Speaker 1:So now everything goes on hold and it's time to figure out a contingency plan to figure this out. So I'm running to banks and doing this and robbing Peter to pay Paul to try to get caught up, and I'm going through all this nonsense and I feel like I get to a point where I have a satisfactory result. I put out that fire and I come back to the office to get back to working on the products and see hey, did this heat calibration work? Did this pressure calibration work? Let's get back to pressing. Start doing that Didn't fix the situation. I'm at my wits end. I don't know what else to do and randomly, as I'm applying transfers, I happen to notice that a couple of them are missing adhesive lines or these speckles of adhesion. So I begin to explore and examine some of my transfers and realize the company ordered them from failed to add enough adhesive to some of these images. So this entire time, all the chaos, the air conditioner, the temperature, the temperature of the press, the equipment, the pressure of the equipment, all of those things weren't in fact the problem at all. It was a problem with the design that I ordered. I resolved the situation. Get back to pressing back to making things happen. Right, good to go. Situation handled, let's get back at hand here, okay Now.
Speaker 1:A few days ago I had dropped my school bus off with the family, noah and Chris, over to Torque Solutions to get some work done on the bus, because we're getting ready to do some road trips and I had a coolant leak. We thought it was a hose. Noah calls me to inform me. Yeah, buddy, it's not the hose. In fact, the water pump on your bus is bad. I got to replace the water pump and the thermostat. Okay, go ahead and work on that. Get that rocking and rolling. There's another fire put out. Moving on to the next thing, I find out today, after putting the water pump in, while he's doing a review of everything, that the alternator on the bus is actually bad as well, not putting off enough voltage. He tested that smoked Alternator bad, battery bad. So we dropped the bus off for a coolant leak, which we thought was a hose, which turned into a water pump, an alternator and a battery for a guy that just realized he's two mortgage payments behind that had to rob Peter to pay Paul to navigate the waters to make it all. That is just how it goes for me as of late.
Speaker 1:With all that said, I start to count some blessings. I get to slow down, identify ways to be grateful and start counting some blessings and realize, man, am I thankful that Noah found these things before I was driving to Hiram to be at a fair. I am so thankful and I'm going to count all my blessings that Noah found these things before I drove six hours away to Syracuse, new York, with my wife and my baby in a school bus, because can you imagine what would happen if I lost an alternator or a water pump on my school bus six hours from home? The tow bill to get a school bus from Syracuse, new York, back to Maine. I have to count my blessings. I'm not appreciative of the timing, but I'm going to count my blessings and I'm going to feel thankful that we're resolving these situations while they're sitting at the shop, while they're right there at the garage, while they're getting handled, not more on the side of the road.
Speaker 1:A few years ago, before I bought the school bus, when I had the ambulance, I lost an alternator in the field after a fair and me and my cousin changed it and didn't get home until probably midnight. So I don't want to do that again. I'm thankful that he found it and resolved it and the fact that he didn't just do the job that was in front of him and get me back on the road. He assessed everything, knowing I was about to embark on a journey, and got me resolved and got me fixed. I'm also going to count my blessings that none of those things failed when we drove 26 hours away to Florida. We made it home safe and sound. I'm going to count those blessings and be thankful for them.
Speaker 1:With that said, while I'm being grateful, while I'm being thankful, I go back upstairs and I'm going to have dinner with the family. I'm going to sit down with my wife, my mother and my beautiful baby girl, and we're going to have dinner and I'm going to unwind and be thankful and then I'm probably going to get back to work. When I'm done, I go upstairs. I'm grilling on the barbecue. I come in and Allie says, hey, look, that's a big puddle of water. That air conditioner is leaking. Now the AC that we just bought is flooding the living room. My floor is a dark colored wood. Didn't notice it? I have a massive puddle taking over my freaking living room. So now here I am, put steaks on the grill, hands and knees under the air conditioner, trying to figure out what the hell's going on.
Speaker 1:And if I was just sold a marketplace lemon, that turns into, you know, an all night situation researching, figuring things out, cleaning this, fixing that. Baby's having a meltdown, she's having a toothache, she's teething, she's stressed out. I sit on the couch with her and I give her some toys and we're playing and we're hanging out, and I start to think about those philosophies of being grateful for the time and the opportunity. And I'm sitting there on the couch holding my beautiful baby girl, this beautiful baby girl that two years ago I never could imagine would be mine and I could never imagine myself with her in my arms. And here I am, being thankful and being grateful and I'm holding her and I'm spending time with her, and I keep telling myself, no matter how difficult it is to be holding her, with her screaming and having a toothache and freaking out about cutting teeth how grateful am I for the opportunity and for the moment to hold my beautiful baby girl and spend time with her right now Much like when I think about my father what I wouldn't give to go through things that I never wanted to go through if it meant I could do them again with my dad.
Speaker 1:I know, someday, when she's 18 years old and doesn't want to talk to her dad because he's not cool anymore, because she's going through some kind of phase who am I kidding? I'm always going to be cool, but everybody tells me that, right, someday she's going to be 18 and she's not going to want to hang out with dad, and you're going to think about the time you could have been holding her on the couch, all the times that she came to you and put her head on your chest, and all that meant to you. So I'm sitting here as I'm being yelled at and she calms down and she starts to play. I start thinking to myself someday she's not going to want to do this. Someday she's going to be too big for this.
Speaker 1:As difficult as this day was, as trying as the times are, I'm going to embrace the moment that I have right here, right now, with my little girl. As the day comes to an end. Allie's working on the AEC, because I'm at my wits end. I'm sitting there holding my baby girl and I'm giving her bottle and she's falling asleep and we're just saying you know what? Tomorrow is a new day, tomorrow is a beautiful day. My baby coughs and then she chokes and then I sit her up and she throws up all over me and the couch and the pillows and herself. She threw up more milk than I ever thought. She took in in a month Her whole dinner, supper, breakfast, whatever you want to imagine all over the frigging place. Just when you start to celebrate the moments when you put the negativity behind you, you're dealt with this right.
Speaker 1:So let's start talking to you guys about a bad streak and bad luck. We're not talking about terminal conversations. We're not talking about difficult decisions. We're talking about mistakes, failures, mix-ups, mess-ups, some things completely my responsibility, some things completely out of my control. If we start to recap some things realizing I needed an air conditioner in the office, running around, getting one at 10 o'clock at night. Dropping the wife off to get her car fixed when the parts aren't in. Working on ACs that take most of the day to get straightened out and by the end of the day, one of them's leaking. Working on temperatures and calibrating equipment that never ended up being the issue in the first place. Realizing you're a mortgage payment behind, with another one due. Finding out you need a water pump, an alternator and a battery all in your bus. All these things happen and you get settled in and you get nestled in and then you get puked on. Here's the thing, folks. Life is difficult. Get over it. That's it. Life is difficult. Get over it. Put your big girl pants on, get a shovel and dig yourself out of it. Life doesn't have to be perfect for you to enjoy it.
Speaker 1:Was I at my wits end? Was there moments in the past day where I just got to the top of my abilities, when I felt like I was beyond my capabilities, when I needed to walk off and cool off. Did I have those moments? Of course I did. But here's the thing I found time to enjoy it. I still found time to enjoy it. I found time to be grateful. I was grateful that the things that needed to be fixed in the bus were getting fixed now, versus on the side of the road. I'm thankful that today, when I walk over to my office after recording this podcast, I'm going to have a nice cool, freaking 69 degrees Hello In my office as I start to work, I'm going to realize that I'm not going to deal with any mechanical failures because I've already calibrated the heat and pressure on my equipment and I've moved on from the situation and now I can just maximize my opportunities right, find ways to enjoy things. I sat down with my baby girl and I spent time with her, and I'm sure it was comforting to her that when she got sick, mommy and daddy was right there for her. And today guess what folks, I woke up to a perfectly cooled, temperate house, to a beautiful baby girl on her 10-month birthday.
Speaker 1:Life doesn't have to be perfect to enjoy it. Think about it. I've been listening to a new audio book and it's kind of funny how things kind of they arrive for you when they're supposed to right. And there's some tips in here that I'm sharing with you or I'm about to share. That came from this audio book and it was also a story in there that I heard that kind of resonated with me and in this story as well that I'm sharing with you guys today.
Speaker 1:And the story in the book was about this lady that used to complain about her husband, that her husband used to drink coffee all day long and he would take his coffee cup and he would put it on the table without using a coaster and he would leave these coffee rings all over the table and she was constantly complaining to him and going back and having to clean up these coffee rings on the table. And she was constantly complaining about it and nagging and saying, like man, why do you keep doing this? How do you? Why? You know, like, why don't you just listen to me? Why don't you just respect me? You can imagine, right, years of wiping coffee rings off of a coffee table. Well, her husband gets some disease and some condition and he passes away and this conversation about her missing cleaning those coffee rings off the table. So think about it Sometimes, things in life that we might spend the most time complaining about, that we might find the most nagging or annoying, as unbelievable as it is, someday you might miss those things. The woman in that story went on to miss cleaning the coffee rings off the coffee table because that meant her husband was here. That meant she could argue with her husband, she could talk to her husband.
Speaker 1:So if I go back to the conversation that I had with my mom about my dad, I go back to that conversation. I think what I wouldn't do to do something I didn't want to do and that line is for me and me only. I came up with that line what I wouldn't do to do something I didn't want to do. I think about all the chores and tasks and obligations and jobs I have with my dad, where he just yelled and screamed at me, belittled me, because that was just his nature and his way of showing affection. Apparently Later in life I learned to understand it. But all those things that I didn't want to do, what I wouldn't give up today to go back and do those things. So, like my day yesterday, there's going to be a time in my life when I'm going to say what I wouldn't do to go back to holding my little girl, even if it meant she puked all over me.
Speaker 1:Think about those things, man. What can you be grateful for today? How lucky am I today? Identify those things. Hold on to those things, especially in the most difficult of days. I just listed all the things that has gone wrong for me in the past 24 to 36 hours and then I went on to list to you all those things that I'm grateful for that, indirectly or directly, are correlated with all the things that went wrong. So, no matter how difficult your day is, you can find things to be grateful for. I'm not grateful that I've missed a freaking mortgage payment, but there's things in my day that I'm grateful for. How lucky am I? When you're going through something, when you're growing through something, it's difficult Ask yourself how lucky am I?
Speaker 1:Because I heard of something in this book that really just stuck with me and it's something that I found myself doing in the past and I often hear so many people say, through all the years of me growing up I'll be happy when insert when, I'll be happy when this happens. I'll be happy when I do this. I'll be happy when winter's over. I'll be happy when it's the weekend, whatever the situation is. Right Y'all have heard that so many times from people right, I'll be happy when or here's another one. I'll enjoy it when. I'll enjoy it when I retire. I might be working 70 hours a week, missing out on my child's lives. I might be working 70 hours a week, missing time with my family and friends, but I'll enjoy it when I retire and I have all the time in the world to myself.
Speaker 1:Think about those answers, think about those questions. I'll be happy when. I'll enjoy it when. What if that day never comes? I'll be happy when. What if that day never arrives? I'll enjoy it when. What if it never changes? How about all the times? Well, I'll enjoy it when so-and-so gets promoted. I'll enjoy it when so-and-so retires. What if that never happens? What if that never changes? Or what if they do and someone else comes along and replaces them and nothing changes? Those questions, those crutches that we lean on, ah, I'll be happy when this happens. I'll enjoy it when this is over. What if that day never comes? And what if it never changes? What if that day never comes? And what if it never changes? I got news for you, america, the ideal scenario isn't coming. Ideal life isn't coming. Perfect doesn't exist.
Speaker 1:We need to celebrate every milestone because you can't waste your life waiting to be happy. Celebrate every milestone Because if you're telling yourself you're going to enjoy it someday, you'll be happy when it. Someday. You'll be happy when You're going to waste your life waiting for that someday, waiting for that event, whatever that is. We don't know what we don't know. We don't know if today's our last day. We don't know if our last day is 75 years from today. There's no guarantee on you and me. We don't know what we don't know. We need to find things to celebrate.
Speaker 1:As I opened the show today with you guys and the credits to the show, I guess the B-roll, the build-up, the preview of what the show is going to be about, is about bad luck. Right, but what's the first thing we talked about before? Bad luck today, the fact that this episode number 260, signifies five years of the podcast. I didn't even realize that today was that day until two minutes before I pushed record on today's show. Otherwise, I would have been building it up, I would have been celebrating it online and announcing this is happening and try to do something new and super cool over it.
Speaker 1:But life got in the way and I got busy. I didn't set back and celebrate. I didn't mark it on the calendar and build up to it and give myself the excitement for it. We earned that right. We earned that opportunity. We should have done that. We didn't. I let life get in the way and I let myself get lost. But think about today's show. We started saying we're going to talk about bad luck. We're going to talk about how do we bust the streak, bust the slump. But before we talked about bad luck, we celebrated a milestone the milestone of five years. Five years, weekly episodes, consecutive, week to week. Never missed a damn show.
Speaker 1:Celebrate every milestone, because you can't wait to be happy and you need to count and find all of your blessings, no matter what difficult task comes to you. Today you need to slow down, embrace the moment and I understand I'm asking a lot right. When shit's hitting the fan and your blood is boiling and your face is hot and you tell a vendor to get the F out of your tent, like I, get it okay, things happen. I'm not asking you to calm down and find your zen and channel your peace right there. That's not what I'm saying. When the moment passes, when you take the time to cool and reflect, I beg of you to identify positives for you. What am I happy for? What am I grateful for? Find those blessings, count them, acknowledge them. I'm grateful for. Find those blessings, count them, acknowledge them.
Speaker 1:You can't spend life waiting to be happy. You can't spend your life waiting for perfect to happen, because perfect doesn't happen, ideal doesn't come. It's all about what we make it. Life is difficult. Get over it, get over it.
Speaker 1:With all this said, I've outlined 24 plus hours in the life and times of Keith Liberty, with the ups and downs. All those outcomes aren't perfect, but they're resolutions and they're solutions. I found the obstacle, I identified it, I overcame it and I handled it the best I possibly could. The obstacle I identified it, I overcame it and I handled it the best I possibly could. I give these troubles to God and I ask him to help me through it. I find opportunity to celebrate and be grateful for the things that are happening to me and for me, and I celebrate milestones and moments. I slow down and surround myself with ways and opportunities to count my blessings. That's all you can do, folks, but no matter what it is you're going through, whatever it is you're growing through, if you lean into these things, they'll help pull you through.
Speaker 1:With that said, I want to end today's show by telling each and every one of you I'm grateful for you, I'm thankful for you. I'm counting you as a blessing today. If you made it to this point in the show, then I consider you a blessing. You've made an impact on me and on my day, and if you've been with me, ride or died all along the way, I can't thank you enough. Today, five long years, none of it's possible, none of it's worth it without each and every one of you. Thank you for supporting my American dream. I'm gonna wash your fucking hands. The Delta Savage, that's it and that's 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, 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 are tickety talking on the tick tock. 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 to this year's 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. I like to. I truly thank you for supporting my American dream. Now go wash your fucking hands, you filthy savage.