Share The Struggle
Share The Struggle
Camper Confessions: Finding Faith at the Fair
Sometimes the hardest moments reveal our greatest blessings. From the comfort of my wife's camper instead of the school bus I planned to sleep in, this episode takes you on the raw, unfiltered journey of a small business owner fighting for survival at the Skowhegan State Fair.
What does it feel like to open your booth in 95-degree heat, wait five hours for your first sale, and end a 10-hour day with just $120 in your pocket? I'm holding nothing back as I share the mental battle between the demon whispering "give up" and the angel reminding me why I started. Every entrepreneur knows this struggle—watching your savings dwindle while bills pile up and wondering if you're crazy for believing in your dream.
But amidst this struggle, unexpected blessings emerge. Friends driving hours to transport my camper without being asked. My 18-year-old new friend Isaiah working the night shift at a dairy farm, then volunteering at my booth during the day. When a young man with a severe cut stumbles through the fairgrounds, Isaiah's EMT training proves more valuable than the actual first responders who arrive late and unhelpful.
This episode evolved in real-time over two recording sessions, allowing you to hear my optimism in the morning transform into raw vulnerability by day's end. It's the most transparent I've ever been about my faith, my fears, and the divine timing that keeps me going when logic says quit.
If you're facing your own seemingly impossible challenge, or if you've ever wondered what keeps a small business owner fighting when the numbers don't add up, this conversation might be exactly what you need to hear today. Sometimes the village that supports your dream becomes the greatest blessing of all.
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This week's episode of Share the Struggle Podcast is another Camper Studio episode, because this week I am recording live well, I guess it's pre-recorded for all of you, but I'm live doing it, which I'm an idiot. Basically, what I'm trying to say here, folks, is I am at the Skowhegan State Fair and I am recording this week's episode of the podcast from the Wifey's New Camper. So this week's show is how did we get here, how's it going and why we must keep counting our blessings? 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. This podcast is for you.
Speaker 1:You have a relationship that is comfortable with uncomfortable conversations. Uncomfortable conversations challenge you, humble you and they build you. When you sprinkle a little time and distance on it, it all makes sense. Most disagreements, they stem from our own insecurities. You are right where you need to be Back on time. We can fight for our rights the whole day gone. We'll be fine Too fast and the waves will be slow. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. What it do, what it do, what it hot Do-do-do-do. Good Lord Almighty, am I so excited to be back with you? Oh, it is true, it is damn true. Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm. How do you do, baby boo?
Speaker 1:Welcome to another camper recording session. This is the first recording in the new camper. I'm trying to recall the name the wife came up with. I think it's like Nalia or something. I don't know. We name all of our campers, so we had Tallulah Matilda. I think this is Nalia. It's an Indian spirit name of some sort. I'll have her explain it. I don't know.
Speaker 1:But anyways, I'm recording this episode of the podcast from the camp and I know some of you listening right now are asking yourself. You're saying to yourself self, didn't this some of a bitch? Tell me he was going to be living in a school bus? Well, it pays to have good friends. Okay, it pays to have great friends. I shall say it's also a key ingredient to have a loving wife who thinks things out and decides that old boy's going to suffer. And yeah, maybe I should help figure out a way to make this happen. And I know he's not going to ask for help, so I'll do it, because that's just how I'm wound. All right, I don't really tend to ask for help. I guess that's a guilty fault of mine. Full confessional Get the Cabela's catalog. Put the old left hand on the Cabela's catalog, beady little eyes to the sky. Truth from the sky. I don't ask for help.
Speaker 1:So here's the scenario. The plan was I was going to stay in the old Hulabas because our tow vehicle situation hasn't gone the way we thought it would go. So we had to make a little bit of a pivot. Nothing crazy. We just kind of had to change plans and also get ourselves a vehicle that would be a big family vehicle. So I'm going to share some details on this in a further episode because I'm saving this whole conversation. But I really just kind of want to give you guys a little understanding as to why I was planning on bringing the school bus.
Speaker 1:So the new vehicle that we have that's going to be the family vehicle and the tow vehicle for the camper isn't quite ready to haul. And when I say that, what I mean is when you put the camper on the old girl, she what, what, squats a lot, um, like a, like a hen on an egg. Okay, that's, I got nothing. It's been a long week, all right, but uh, it squats, the old truck ski a little too much. So we're not going to haul the camper two hours under said conditions. And, um, it needed to be gone through. We just got this vehicle.
Speaker 1:So, again, I'm being very vague for a reason, because someday in the future I'm going to share this story. But uh, I have plans for it. So you just quit, quit judging me, judy. Just let me finish my story, would you? Joe brown, god, there's nothing I hate more than being judged on a freaking Tuesday morning in a camper. Wow, you know of all the disrespect.
Speaker 1:Anyways, we said this isn't the right time to use this vehicle for this situation. I'm just going to take the bus, I'm going to be on my own, I'm going to be solo. It is what it is. We're going to make it all work. I'll put an AC in the bus, I mounted a TV to the wall.
Speaker 1:I did all those things and the wife said no, I'm not going to let this happen. So she called one of my great friends, toby Reynolds, and she said hey, tobe, any chance you could pick up our camper. And he said done, deal. And the next thing I know he's calling me saying hey, I'm picking up your camper tomorrow. What time do you want to leave? And if you think about this, this is somebody that he's 45 minutes an hour away from me. He's going to drive to my house, meet me in the morning, hook onto my camper. He's going to drive two hours north, help me set my camper up, and then he's going to drive two hours back home. So, going out of his way to help, and it's something that I wouldn't ask somebody for that level of help because I feel bad asking. It's a guilty fault of mine.
Speaker 1:We just discussed this. I just confessed to you. Why are you questioning me about it? Okay, so, wow, my phone just keeps going off. Sorry, I usually silence my phone, but I'm at the fair. This is a new fair for me and I'm supposed to be opening here soon, so I have my phone on in case I need to get down there for some reason, some scenario, someone needs to get a hold of me, so that's the reason for that. I apologize. What the hell were we talking about? Oh, I was confessing about the fact that I'm a loser that doesn't like to ask for help, and I don't want to inconvenience people more than necessary, right, but I learned something, and that's where this is going.
Speaker 1:Hear me say that I'm blessed and we talk about, you know, counting our blessings. We had an episode just completely on appreciation, living with gratitude, developing that gratitude attitude, that positive mentality and mindset, and it just continues. And this week, when I've had some slow time, some downtime, I sit around and think about how blessed I am by the village of support that I have in my life, each and every one of you that's listening right now, so many of you that have been listening since day one. We have five years of episodes, week after week after week, since July 2020. Y'all been tuning in my day ones get your ones up All my day ones, my original ones, the ones that have been here since episode one. I love you and I appreciate you, and all along the way, we've gathered and gained some loyal ones, some new ones. To each and every one of you. I thank you and I appreciate you. It's because of you that I continue to find the time, to make the time, to dedicate the time to this here podcast, to this here show. This is why I'm in my camper right now, with the AC off, when it's 95 degrees out, and I'm building a sweat lodge confessional in here because I'm committed to you, because I love you and you guys are committed to me. You're one layer of the appreciation. You're one layer of the blessings, the many blessings that I have in my life and I'm realizing that this week as I sit back and I see all the amazing things that are happening for me, around me and so many of those things I'm not even asking for. And that's incredible To have one of my best friends show up, hook onto my camper, drive two hours, a four-hour trip, out of his way just to get me set up for an event that my family depends on, that my business depends on. He goes out of his way, inconveniences himself and his business. He's a business owner, so he puts his things on the back burner to help me, to get me in a position where I can succeed, because he knows that I need it and he knows that I shouldn't be sleeping in the bus when it's 95 degrees out here. So he does that. That's one layer, that's one step for me.
Speaker 1:Me being at this fair took a tremendous push from friends of mine, from Matt and Sarah Perkins, saying, hey, I think this would be a good thing for you. This is a good opportunity for you, matt getting me the contact info to get in my friends, kyle and Julia from Underdog Metal, them being here and Kyle reaching out saying, hey, man, I'm going too. You should do this. At least you'll know somebody else that's there. You should be there. So there's all these layers of pushing and these layers of people in my life that care about me and my family and our success and our health and our well-being. So when you're sitting back and you're slow and you start thinking about those things and you realize, man, I am blessed. I am so incredibly blessed.
Speaker 1:So as I'm sitting back and I'm thinking about these things, I also think about my wife and my mother and them changing their schedules around for me to be here. I usually bring my mom to and from work. Now one of my mom's co-workers is doing that, replacing me from those duties. My wife has one of her great friends, allie, watching Paisley On the days that my mom's not home. My wife's leaving early, grabbing the baby working from home, all these moving parts, all this effort that goes into me being here. And then, as I talk to you about the new family vehicle that we have for a future episode. I'm going to share the details later.
Speaker 1:We talk about that, my friends and family, that and I say friends and family For the people that are listening on day one, this is your new episode for you. I want you to understand that my friends become my family when we break bread and shed tears together and we go through trials and tribulations together, highs and lows together, ups and downs together. When you go around this world together and you are loyal to each other, you become family. The truth is to me is it doesn't take blood to be related to me, because when the truth comes from me, most people that are blood to me no longer love me or appreciate me. So it's the friends and family out there that I've made along the way that prove to be loyal, that prove to be dedicated, that prove to be genuine right. That's family to me.
Speaker 1:When you often hear me say you know one of my best friends, my brother, my sister, like these people, are my family. Y'all listening you become my family, you're a part of my family. If you listen week to week, you know more about me than my blood knows about me. You understand what I'm saying so. I have a big, extended family. One of the biggest blessings in my life is knowing that my little girl is going to grow up with a million aunts and uncles, and when she goes to school, kids are going to be like how big is your family? How many aunts and uncles do you have? That's because loyalty is thicker than blood, if you ask me so. I am super blessed and I am super fortunate.
Speaker 1:So when I talk about my family over to the garage Chris and Noah when I'm talking about them which I'm going to share more details on a future episode what's incredible to me is I'm here, starting out at a fair and like opening day or opening setup type of scenario, and Chris and Noah go to my house, pick up our vehicle, bring it to their place and start working on it, and then I'm getting the updates on this is what we're doing, this is what we have. Then they're bringing the vehicle back to my house, hooking it up to a horse trailer, checking on it, bringing it back home. I'm getting constant messages, constant updates. All these things are happening without me moving, without me asking these people in my life, this family that I've developed along the way, is the greatest blessing that I could ever possibly imagine and I'm thankful for them each and every day.
Speaker 1:Think about it, folks. When you're sitting back and sweating in a tent in a field 95 degrees you're slightly delususional, you're on the cusp of blacking out, you haven't made sales in some time, but you see like your security camera go off and a friend of yours is bringing your vehicle home or to the garage and you didn't ask or you didn't know about it. When you know a friend is coming to your eyes calling you I'll be at your house at 7 in the morning to haul the camper for you and you didn't ask for it it's overwhelmingly amazing. And to sit back and think about the blessings that I have and to sit back and think about how many people and how much effort it takes to build a business, to build a brand, to try to overtake this task at hand right, it's bigger than me. This business and this mission is bigger than me. Loud Proud American doesn't exist without these blessings, these family members that are pulling and pushing and trying for me. It doesn't happen. Without them, I am DOA. Without them, it doesn't happen.
Speaker 1:This podcast doesn't continue without each and every one of you. So, when you stop and think about it, the people that are listening right now that I've mentioned your name. You've kept me in business. You've kept me alive. You've kept my dream alive. You've kept the future for my family alive. That's not lost on me. I appreciate you more than you possibly know. Each and every one of you listening to this podcast right now. You've kept this dream alive. We continue to strive because you continue to come back, week after week after week. When I'm sitting back and I'm having another challenging week, a big old, sweaty ass week, it's not lost on me that this opportunity wouldn't be here for me if it wasn't for each and every one of you.
Speaker 1:Now, the key to this is I start to peel back the onion and core out. The center of this little scenario is that it makes it impossible for a boy like me to give up on a dream like this because of each and every one of you that puts us as a priority in your life. It's special, it's overwhelming, it can be hard to understand, but, lord, do I appreciate it? Man, I could literally sit back and just outline all the people that have reached out, that have made an impact, that have made a difference in this week for me to be here and for us to have this opportunity, and that seems to happen week after week after week. So the old saying that it takes a village it's the absolute truth, man. We wouldn't be in business without this village. I wouldn't be living the life I live without this village and I am steadfast, determined and committed to the fact that this business will work, this brand will work, and when I get to where we need to be, it will not be lost on me that I didn't get there without each and every one of you pulling me, pushing me and encouraging me to get there, me to get there. I love y'all oh so friggin much. It is the truth, y'all. So that's the long-winded scenario for each and every one of you, to understand why I'm actually getting the benefits of air conditioning and a fully furnished camper, as opposed to living in a school bus in the middle of the field. All right, not saying I couldn't do it, but I didn't have to do it because of each and every one of you.
Speaker 1:So, with that aside, let's set the scene on this little rendezvous fair. How do you do so? I'm excited to be here. It's got a nice layout here. There's a lot of potential here.
Speaker 1:I'm not entirely stoked about my location Shocker, right, I seem to be the trend every time I go somewhere for the first time. Most importantly, the reason why I'm not so stoked about this one's location is I'm on like reclaim and gravel and sand, and it's one of the hottest weeks of the year, so it's incredibly dusty and there's a racetrack behind me, a horse track, so it gets pretty damn dusty when they're dragging the track. I got to shut my doors and I have to constantly, um, try to either water my dirt front frontage or, uh, I've gone over to the Walmart and stuff around here trying to find outdoor rugs and I haven't found any that were the right size or the right price here. But occasionally I get water and water down the dirt inside my booth because I don't want the dust to come up and ruin all the garments. So that's been a challenge. Okay, that's been a challenge. The temperature has been a challenge. We are on a stretch of 90 degrees here. When you just have like a big-ass open field with no shade and you're inside of a tent a primarily black, red, white and blue tent it gets a little hot. Okay, so we're running a couple of fans. It's making it steamy, I will say because of the temperatures.
Speaker 1:I feel like the fair has been not as well attended as we would have hoped for. I guess it's common that this week tends to be hot in general, but a lot of people just aren't coming out during the day. When it cools down at night they'll show up and the nighttimes have been beautiful, as miserable as the day is when it's 95, 100 degrees. At night it's like 75 and perfect. But I will say we rolled in here on Wednesday.
Speaker 1:Me and Toby set the camper up and then I went over and started building my shell for the vendor display. I started building at about 10 30 am and I was done at probably about 9 pm, took a few breaks for heat exhaustion and lunch, but it was a long setup to build a 20 by 20 by yourself and it was super hot. It was miserable, right, let's be honest. And the next day we open up for the fair and I went five hours without my first sale. Oh boy, what a doozy that was.
Speaker 1:Think about it, when you spend like 10 hours building a tent the day before, plus all the lead up time that goes to the fair right, the things you're making, the load time like the travel time, a couple hours, the putting the camper and all that stuff. You start to think about all the time you have in and then you open the doors and you're all excited. You're like Jojo, the Indian circus boy with a shiny new pet, and five hours goes by before your first sale and your first big sale is $15 off your clearance rack. That folks will kick you in the motivational clusters, I'll tell you the truth. But we must remain positive and vigilant. You understand, by the end of the night I had a remarkably encouraging first day. I said well, for a Thursday, this actually is not bad at all. This is pretty good. Maybe night times is my time.
Speaker 1:So then on Friday I came into Friday incredibly encouraged, ready to rock and roll, and we did okay Friday. But it fell far short of what I expected for a Friday. Traffic was pretty light and I'll also say one other observation that I had made is it actually took me six sales on Friday to reach $100. That's almost impossible to do in my tent, but it showed me that people are conserving money this week and that people were coming in and buying $5 koozies, they were buying stickers, they were buying items off the clearance rack. When it takes six sales to equal $100, it's challenging to get there. It's hard to come up with that number combination. So it showed me that people were conserving money and you know that can be concerning. But I do think the end week of the fair is always the better part of the fair, so I didn't let it beat me up. Friday was an okay day. I expected Saturday to double my Friday and it didn't. It actually fell a few bucks short of my Friday. So an overwhelmingly disappointing Saturday at a fair in the state of Maine. So that's a bummer. And on Sunday it was so slow that the fair actually closed two hours early.
Speaker 1:Now we're just going to analyze the facts. Okay, we are not doing as well as we hoped for. We are not doing as well as we hoped for, and I think that I've got a reputation this year of over forecasting and getting over excited about events until I get there and then them not fulfilling my prophecy or my hopes, dreams or aspirations. So maybe partially this is my fault. Okay, but for a fair of this size there's no way we shouldn't be doing better.
Speaker 1:Now I will say it seems to be everybody around me, with the exception of one, that is having this same struggle. So that is what it is. The unfortunate thing for me is the one exception that's doing well is in the same business as me and that's been a hard pill to swallow. But the difference is that their claim is that proceeds go to these veteran causes, so people feel like they're giving back. So I think that that is kind of the difference, because their quality and their designs, I know, aren't better than what we are providing and their pricing is higher. But it's still a hard pill to swallow, right. So you're dealing with that other kick to the confidence clusters right there. But overall, everybody's feeling down. Overall, everybody that's been here before is telling me hey, um, this isn't, this isn't normal. So I'm hopeful by the end of the week, when, hopefully, temperatures cool a little bit, people get some money in their pockets and they want to come out and spend at the end of the week. It's all going to work out.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes, when you do these fairs, the days that you expect to be busy, they can be affected by heat, they can be affected by rain, they can be infected by a bunch of random things and you might surprise yourself by having a random weekday be ultra successful. So you never really know if a fair is really worth it or not until the end of the fair and you kind of divide it all up, count the money and figure things out. With all that said, through the trials, tribulations, ups and downs, I will still come out and say next year I will put this fair back on my schedule and I will return to this fair because I feel encouraged about the potential and the possibility that's here at this fair. So that tells me I've already put two events on my schedule this year that will remain on my schedule for next year. I've tried a multitude of events this year that are new, but I can't guarantee I'm going to keep all of them, but this is one of them. So I'm encouraged by that right, and I do think that things are going to get better, that this is going to get better. This too shall pass.
Speaker 1:I feel like tonight's going to be a good night. That's Demolition Derby tonight. I feel like that's going to be good, but there's definite challenges here. Right, it's beyond hot. I'm the new guy in town. I've got the old dusty location on the edge of town. I don't know that. All just kind of sounded good.
Speaker 1:The schedule here is kind of different too. We open at 1 o'clock in the afternoon and we close at 11 pm, which is late, especially when it's slow. It's real late. Now. I could go out there and open a little bit early, which I'm pushing noontime on Monday as I'm recording this. So I've got to wrap up and get back out there. But it's 100 degrees, bro, and when I get out there and I just start sweating, I'm going to hurry up and sweat, to hurry up and wait. I'm going to sit around and do nothing. So it's the old catch-22. Do you try to get out there and hope to get an extra sale, or are you just going to sweat your ass off for an extra hour or two for no reason? It's a battle, it's a dilemma. Okay, it's a tough one, but here we are fighting that good fight. So that's been the struggle, I will say, the first couple of days I was here.
Speaker 1:Another struggle was sleeping. If you are closing at 11 o'clock and then you come back and you're super tired and you're ready for bed, um, right next to me there's one kind of run-down raggedy camper of some I don't know carnival workers or other vendors that come rolling in late night and make a bunch of noise. The first night they were unpacking their groceries at midnight and setting off the horn, locking the doors, smashing doors, so that was kind of tough to sleep. And then I woke up in the morning to six tents being set up right outside my camper. I had a real tent city out there and them folks liked to party all night. So you crank the AC up, turn the TV up and try to sleep.
Speaker 1:But oftentimes you get done working at 11, you walk back and maybe have a light snack, you try to settle in and then you're wide ass awake laying in bed just thinking about what you got to do, what you didn't do, what your family's doing, what your baby's up to, what your wifey's doing. All these things start rolling in your head and you look around and you go son of a bitch, it's 2 in the morning. I got to sleep. So that's been a challenge. Okay, it's been a challenge, but I think I'm starting to settle in with the routine here. I think we're going to kick it into high gear here and things are going to happen. I can feel it. I can feel positivity about to happen.
Speaker 1:Another interesting, fun, cool thing has happened this week is I made a friend out here, okay, which, when you're on the road you make a bunch of friends, right? That's just what you're supposed to do, man. If you're being true to you and your brand and your cause and you're just provoking conversation and having positive conversation, you're gonna meet like-minded people along the way, you're gonna form connections and, hopefully, friendships and eventually you add them folks to your family, right? Well, this week I met a couple of young bucks, a couple of 18-year-old dudes that are floating around here, you know, looking for their next girlfriend, so to speak, and I met a real nice young fella named Isaiah. He's 18 years old, he's a real hardworking kid and we just kind of hit it off having conversation and like the next day he came over to the tent and he was eating some lunch or something and he had a couple of Red Bulls with him and I was by myself and the tent was slow. So I said, hey, man, have a seat if you want. So he came on back and sat down and started having some snacks and I put his drink in the fridge and then we just started chatting and getting to know each other and then the next thing you know he's there till about close and as I'm talking to him, real awesome young man, right, and he gives a positive beacon of hope for this generation, because we're talking about an 18 year old kid who's done his EMT training, that's done his fire one and two training.
Speaker 1:He works with a fire department and he works on a dairy farm and he works on a dairy farm that his grandmother's worked on for 25 years and he often gets to work with his grandmother at the same time. So now this young fellow is with me on a Saturday night and he leaves. We close at 11, 11 and he leaves, I don't know, right around 10, 11 o'clock, something like that. He goes home, gets a quick nap, gets up for one in the morning to go to work at the dairy farm, to get out at nine, to then take a quick nap and before you know it he's reporting to duty at the Lound, proud American booth, coming in and with his cowboy hat on and a couple of Red Bulls, and he comes in and pops a squat and hangs out and greets people and talks to people and helps me put shirts on the shelf and he just kind of covers the booth when I go to the bathroom and we just kind of hang out and swap life stories and just kind of hang out and we've spent a couple of days together and I've learned about Isaiah.
Speaker 1:I've learned a little bit about his life and his upbringing and just his roots and his personality, his motivation, and I'm just going to say it's encouraging. It's rather encouraging to meet an 18-year-old man trying to find his way, trying to learn his way, and I know a lot of you heard me say 18-year-old man and you're saying, at 18, he's not a man. And I'm telling you, this young man is. He has the right mindset, he's focused, he's motivated, he has a plan, he has direction. It is refreshing, it is encouraging, it is hopeful to meet a young man this committed, this focused, this prideful. How many 18-year-olds do you know that'll spend all day at a fair, that'll sleep for a half an hour, that'll get their ass up and go to work at one in the morning at a dairy farm, bust their ass for eight, nine hours and come back and do it all over again? Not too many. So as I'm having these conversations with him, I'm encouraged, I'm hopeful that there's more kids like him out there that can save this country and this generation, because we know it takes our youth to fix this country.
Speaker 1:And when you see some of the things going on in this country, when you see the socialist could-be governor in New York and you see some of these freeloading people that don't want to work for nothing, that expect everything to be given to them that can ruin this country, you get hopeful, you get encouraged. When you meet an Isaiah, you know there's promise. When you meet an Isaiah, there's a lot of things going on right now where, like my wife was telling me, if you go on TikTok right now and you search EBT, there's people freaking out that their EBT benefits are getting cut. There's people freaking out that the government's not paying for their groceries anymore. There's people freaking out that they have to go to work if they want benefits. That's the way it should be. A handout isn't something for you to live on. A handout is something to help you get back on your feet.
Speaker 1:Now the difference is and the trickle-down effect for all of us small businesses is those people that are used to getting their groceries for free no longer have the disposable income to buy t-shirts from me. So I understand that that is part of what I have to deal with, part of the growing pains that I have to go through, that I have to grow through. But those people that are dependent on those benefits they need to learn and they need to try better for themselves. They can't depend on us to try harder for them than they try for themselves. So I'm in agreement with all these directions, but they're all cause and effect for my business as well.
Speaker 1:But it's interesting to me to see these people that could be 20, 30, 40 years old complaining, able-bodied, working individuals, complaining about not getting benefits when they could be getting benefits but they don't want to work. And then I have an 18-year-old young man in my tent, shooting this shit with me, that's going to work at one in the morning to bust his ass to provide for himself, who is living on his own, who is doing all things for himself with a goal and a direction in mind. What a polarizing difference that is, but what an encouraging difference that is. Lord, I hope and pray there's more Isaiahs out there than there are people with their hands out there, because America needs more Isaiahs. America needs more young kids that are committed, like you and me. America needs more people that want to work, like you and me, that are motivated, that are driven, that are prideful like you and me. America needs Loud Proud Americans. If you ask me, gotcha, me, gotcha. Loud Proud American is a lifestyle brand, dedicated and determined to represent the American spirit, with an unrelenting commitment to provide made-in-the-USA products. If you would like to join the 2% of Americans that buy American and support American, head on over to wwwlalproudamericanshop. Together, we can bring back American manufacturing. All right, all right, all right. Y'all might hear some difference in my voice. Y'all might experience a little slowness, a little doneness, a little overdone in my voice.
Speaker 1:I decided to do something a little bit different. Okay, we ended the last segment, I went into a beautiful little gut check and then I walked my sweet little ass on down to the fairgrounds and I opened up and I had me a self another day. Okay, I did this because, well, two reasons I was running late and then, uh, number two most importantly, I thought this was a great idea. I wanted you to experience the roller coaster of a fair. Okay, and, in all honesty, I had full intentions of doing this for the entire episode.
Speaker 1:I wanted to record a little bit on Wednesday when I started to set up. I wanted to record a little bit on a Thursday when I was opening for the first time, you know, on a Friday I wanted to just do like a daily thing and you guys could literally learn and understand the manic chaos that goes through the mindset of a small business owner at a fair, because it's crazy, the ups and the downs and the turnarounds that goes through your little brain is maddening. But I've been way too tired to do that every freaking night. So I apologize, that's a. You know, that's on me. Okay, I'm going to own it. Cinderella, I own it. It's my fault, all right. But yesterday I said, well, we can do, we can do it at least once. Right, we can swing it once. You can force yourself into this conversation At the end of the night.
Speaker 1:Last night I sat at my kitchen table with the microphone and I was ready to record, but my brain was toast and I couldn't give to y'all the energy that it deserved. So I said I'll do it in the morning. And right now I'll do it in the morning and I, right now I regret that choice. I'm working on the shittiest cup of coffee I've ever made. Hang on, oh God, it's disgusting, but I need it. Yeah, you ever do that. Wow Gotta get it in my bloodstreamstream, regardless of how bad it is.
Speaker 1:Anyhow, I'm struggling a big time today and I and I think it's because it's the first night I got real sleep we actually closed early yet again, not a good sign. Um, was a little bit early last night and we're not going to open till later today, and I'm about to tell you why in a little bit early last night and we're not going to open until later today. And I'm about to tell you why in a little bit. So, with that said, I actually got some sleep and then I woke up at a normal hour and I forced myself to take a little cat nap and that was a bad choice. Okay, I'm just going to put that out there. That was a bad choice. But here's the thing we now have the ability for you to ride the dragon. That is the fair circuit, and we can connect last segment with this segment with a couple of fun stories. All right, first things first.
Speaker 1:I actually saw on the news that adults quote unquote air quote adults are buying pacifiers. Have you all seen this? This is, this is not a joke. People have taken fidget spinners to a whole new level. People are now buying pacifiers, and people who claim to be consider themselves to be adults are buying adult pacifiers. They range from $1 to like $150. And they say, when they're feeling stressed or overworked at the job site, at the job place, they will pop in a binky and it reminds them of their childhood and they can calm the fuck down. I share this with you because, number one, this shouldn't be true. Right, like, I limit the amount of exposure that Paisley has to a binky because I don't want her to be addicted to it. And we have adults buying binkies.
Speaker 1:If you worked for me and you were tugging on a binky, I'd slap the shit out of you. That's going to be why I work for myself now, because I wouldn't let myself have a binky. No, because I would slap the shit out of an employee. I'm not fit for human consumption anymore. Okay, I've served my time of running and managing groups of people. Not anymore. Man, I can't be trusted. I'm not allowed to have a crew of employees. Not anymore, because clearly I couldn't contain my true feelings and that would get me into some trouble. So I want to put things into perspective. We have so-called adults out there buying binkies to get through the workday, laying around at home tugging on a binky, scrolling on their phone, and then we have my young friend, isaiah, out there working his ass off. Friend Isaiah out there working his ass off. And here is a great Isaiah story for you.
Speaker 1:Yesterday I go down and I open the tent at 12 o'clock, about an hour early. I open the tent it is sweltering, it is over 90 degrees, feels like 2 million. Okay, we might as well be selling t-shirts in afghanistan, because it is insanely hot and incredibly dusty. Now, about one o'clock ish, I want to say isaiah reports for duty, comes into the uh tent to hang out. He's got his cowboy hat on and his emt bag with him, drops the emt bag in the corner and, um, you know, he goes out and is chatting people up and walking around and hanging out and um, mind you, he just worked from one in the morning till nine in the morning. And um, next thing, you know, he comes into the tent and a family comes into the tent and there's a young boy with him. Maybe, I don't know, five or six or so. I'm still not good with age. Maybe I don't know five or six or so I'm still not good with age and he's got blood running all down his arm and apparently the guy had a good size scab. He ripped it off and he was bleeding everywhere. But the kid was in a panic like he thought he was dying. Isaiah brought him into the tent, took out the EMT bag, put on the rubber gloves, cleaned the little guy up, talked him through it, bandaged him up and sent him on his way. So he was outside talking to some other vendors, saw the kid go by and took care of the situation. Don't really expect that from an 18-year-old kid these days, not when I tell you a story about kids sucking on bankies, am I right?
Speaker 1:Well, fast forward to the end of the night and this is when things get interesting. Sun's going down, demolition derby's happening behind the tent starts at seven o'clock. I'm over at Underdog Metal's tent talking to Julia and we're all kind of in this little corral where we can see each other's booths so we help each other out. I'm over there talking to her and I see this boyfriend-girlfriend scenario Skinny kid coming across the lot, probably late teens, early 20s looks white as a ghost and he's holding his hand. He has his hand balled up and she's keeping him balanced. And I look and he's got blood running out of the bottom of his hand. I could tell he definitely cut himself. I can't tell at this point how bad the scenario is, but judging by the look on his face, it actually looks pretty damn bad.
Speaker 1:So Isaiah's over at the pretzel, stand down the way and I see this couple coming towards me and they're trying to find somebody and they're in a panic. And I said that fellow right there in the red t-shirt and the cowboy hat can help you. And then I can assess how frightened this couple is. So I yell across the fairgrounds, Isaiah, and he looks over at me and I was like need to help this fellow. And he comes running over to the guy and then sees the amount of blood loss and the massive gash in his hand and he runs to the tent to grab the EMT bag. And we have a quick conversation in passing that results in yeah, I need to go get somebody. Like I need to find a medic as well, because this is going to go beyond what he needs to handle right now. So he grabs the bag, he runs over to take care of him and I said I'm going to go find one of these sheriffs.
Speaker 1:Now I say I'm going to go find one of these sheriffs because there's multiple sheriffs walking around here during the course of the day. That's one of the best things about this fair. You can clearly see that they're prepared. There is multiple sheriffs. I'm willing to bet and I say 17 or so as an exaggeration but I feel like at all times there's six or eight sheriffs that are working. They're always traveling in groups of two. I've seen multiple different sheriffs on duty, so I assume that there's a very high likelihood as soon as I turn the corner, I'm going to run into one.
Speaker 1:The fair is not that big and I see them like all day long. So my thought process is I'm going to run over and find a sheriff, get them to respond to this and they can call an ambulance if they need to. They can handle the scenario, but let's get them on scene assisting Isaiah and get this taken care of. And uh, at this point my assumption is like my phone's in my tent, I'm not at my vendor tent and, um, I feel like it's going to be quicker for me to literally just go find a sheriff than it is for me to make any kind of phone call. So I go off in one direction and Julia goes over to help Isaiah and then apparently she takes off in another direction to find some sheriffs. When she encounters sheriffs, they argue with her about finding an ambulance, which I mean not helpful, am I right?
Speaker 1:So I start walking or jogging, I guess you shall say, and I'm looking and I can't find a sheriff, and I can't believe it. Like, how is there no sheriff over here? Because I need to find one. And I keep going and going and going, and then I said to myself self they'll be at the beer tent. So I run over to the beer tent area. I look nobody there, no cops there. I remember Kyle telling me that there was cops down on the other end of the grandstands, which is at the very end of the fairgrounds. I start huffing over there, thinking they got to be over there, maybe patrolling for the derby.
Speaker 1:Then, at the very end of the fair, I see an ambulance. So I start running. Did you hear me? I'm running? Okay, not cool bro. Hear me, I'm running. Okay, not cool bro. I just painted a picture of Afghanistan and here I am running. This isn't safe. Not safe for me, not safe for civilians, in my way, okay, we don't need two medical emergencies here. I run up to the ambulance, get to the doorway and this individual is coming out First off. When you see a 300 plus pound man running up to the ambulance, get to the doorway and this individual is coming out First off. When you see a 300 plus pound man running up to the ambulance and tells you there's an emergency, that someone has been cut, they've lost a lot of blood and they've passed out, you should take that serious. Okay, that wasn't really the case and I'm going to say something controversial here, but it's factual here and when I say this I'm going to try to be as PC as possible about this.
Speaker 1:A transgender individual was the person in the emergency truck, okay, and I just honestly thought it was a guy. I thought this person was a guy, honestly thought it was a guy. I thought this person was a guy. And then I you know, throughout this entire process, I noticed that maybe some hormonal things had been taken and I noticed that the name of said individual was Sophia and then I kind of made the connection. I didn't really make this full connection until the end. But I guess you could say maybe this doesn't have any importance on the story, but I kind of feel like it does, because this was a very piss-poor, embarrassing interaction with first responders and I'm frustrated by it. I'm still frustrated by it because I go to the truck and I tell them what's going on and this person is not taking me serious. They're just looking around for stuff and I was like I'm sorry, what happened? There's maybe a late teenage individual cut himself, he has lost a lot of blood and he's down here at the other end of the fairgrounds and he passed out, okay, and they're looking around and I said you know, I had a friend with me who is EMT certified and or has EMT training and he had an emergency kit with him and he's helping him right now. But this young fellow needs help. He definitely needs help.
Speaker 1:This person procrastinates and takes so long looking around for things. I was running, okay, I was running, and we are a long ways away and I literally said to them it's a pretty good distance away. You might want to drive there, you might want to hurry up and get down there and nope, not the case, right? So this individual I believe it was Sophia was the name comes out of the truck, starts walking with me and then goes, oh, I should get my gloves, yep, you might want those. Goes back to the truck, gets gloves, then comes out and we start walking further and then says, oh, I should grab a radio. And then turns around, gets a radio, like has to go back to the ambulance to get the radio and then explain to um their boss what's going on. And I assume it's their boss, because this person is reporting back to them and that one seems to be carrying on like they have a clue. And this individual says to them like this is what's going on. And I said, yeah, he's got a pretty deep cut, he's losing a lot of blood and passed out. I'm sorry what he's passed out? Yes, he's passed out. How many times do I have to say this? So we start going and then this person starts questioning me Okay, so was the individual responsive when you left? No, no, he wasn't. My friend is helping him right now. Was he responsive? No, his eyeballs were behind his head. I looked back at him and he was out cold.
Speaker 1:Then they start to pick up the pace, or Sophia starts to pick up the pace slightly. I'm still miles ahead and I'm slowing down Like come on, let's go. At this point Sophia begins to counsel me. So for future reference, it would be better if you just called 911. Listen, I'm at a fair and I'm not near my phone and I honestly thought it'd be quicker for me to find one of the 17 sheriffs or one of the multiple ambulances that are always at this fair. I just assumed that'd be quicker than me trying to call 911 and then them trying to dispatch me over to somebody to just explain to them where I am, for me to say pretzel stand, listen, I just thought it'd be a lot quicker. It's not my fault, I couldn't find a sheriff. And it's the Derby. There's always ambulances over here, so get off of me.
Speaker 1:First off, why are you counseling me? Why are you trying to talk down to me? Instead you should be like hey, thanks for coming to get us. My apologies for not taking this serious. As we're going, there is other fair goers, other patrons that are saying to the EMT down here on the corner, down here on the corner, over here on the right, just a little bit further. They all knew this was serious. So as we get up to the scene.
Speaker 1:I go directly to the scene where Isaiah is and I look and Sophia is heading in the other way and I'm like over here. Go directly to the scene where Isaiah is and I look and Sophia is heading in the other way and I'm like over here. Oh no, no, this person's on the radio trying to make sure that the ambulance can make it through. How about you go over to the actual person that is unconscious in the dirt at the fair? Well, when I get over to the scene, this young fella is alert and Isaiah has his wound cleaned up to the best of his ability. He has the bleeding stopped and his hand is wrapped in gauze and he's keeping him alert and having conversations with him. I guess I didn't need to go anywhere because he handled it right. This EMT first responder.
Speaker 1:Not only did they try to discipline me for doing what I assumed to be the right thing, they now go into lecturing the kid on the ground. Well, first off, it's like what did you do? And he's, you know, telling them. And they're being sarcastic to the sense of like. Telling him, and they're being sarcastic to the sense of like. Well, I guess I'll just take this off and see.
Speaker 1:And they begin to question and discipline the dude that was unconscious on the ground. Sofia says what happened? This happened in the derby, yep, happened with my derby car. You do know there's an ambulance inside the, inside the. You know fairgrounds over there by the, by the derby, and why would you lecture somebody that was just unconscious and didn't know where he was? He apparently wakes up, you know, in that question and she's like grilling him about it and he says I was on this side of the track, I was over here. I later found out from another vendor he was actually passed out laying on the ground, out from another vendor. He was actually passed out laying on the ground, basically behind my tent, and they got up and walked to the closest area that had people that had population.
Speaker 1:Why would an EMT literally talk down to and discipline somebody that has a major cut, a major wound, so much blood loss and pain that they passed out two times? Come on, do better, be better. Don't try to educate me when I'm trying to help. Don't try to educate somebody that was a first responder doing your job, helping out, and then don't try to talk down to and educate an individual that just woke up from being unconscious that's laying in the dirt. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Julia was holding his feet up, isaiah was wrapping him up and your boy was running around the fairgrounds, only for a sorry excuse of a first responder to talk down to discipline, to lecture and to overall just make people feel like crap Unbelievable. I think maybe in this Little scenario, sophia should invest in a pacifier to sit in the ambulance with and calm her debts, because this was just ridiculous. The individual ended up leaving in the ambulance.
Speaker 1:But I'm just sharing this story with you because this is another day in the life and times of somebody at a fairground, as a small business owner at the fair. But again it paints a real contrasting picture between me watching the news and hearing about full grown ass adults buying pacifiers to remind themselves of their childhood, to wash away their anxiety. And then I have an 18-year-old young man that literally jumps in the face of fear at this point, because we have this young man that is completely freaked out and scared and he's passed out and he's bleeding everywhere, and Isaiah jumps into action and helps this young man out, does more than the first responders do, and then we have these first responders that are treating people like shit for trying to help. That's the contrasting world in which we live in. That's the nonsense in which we deal with. I had to share that story with y'all. I had to connect the dots between the first segment and the second one. That story was too good not to share, so I had to get it out there.
Speaker 1:But I've wanted to take you guys on the roller coaster ride that is a small business owner on the fair. Because if you listen to the enthusiasm and the excitement of me in the first part of the show talking about, hey, tonight's going to be a good night. There's a demolition derby, I think today's going to be a really good day for me. Hearing that excitement in my voice, me also telling you hey, I'm definitely going to be back here next year. You're riding that positive wave with your boy.
Speaker 1:Okay, I run down to the fair, I open an hour early and I sit there for four and a half hours before I make my first sale, four and a half hours before I make my first sale. We closed a little bit early. We closed at, I want to say, 10-ish, maybe 10.30 by the time I started closing and coming back, which is about a half an hour early, but the fair actually shut down, maybe even an hour early. But I just kind of sat around hoping that people would walk from um, like whatever they were doing, to the cars out the exit. Maybe they would stop and buy for me, and that, uh, didn't really happen. So you know, there's that, yeah. So, um, let's just say this I opened at 12. I was closed around 10, 10.30. So let's say, you know, nice 10-hour workday and I made $120. Yeah, $120.
Speaker 1:While we're chatting, I'm actually going to open my phone here and I'm going to check my business app and I can actually see the course of my day. My first sale didn't happen until 4.21 in the afternoon after opening up at 12, right. I then didn't have another sale until almost 8 o'clock, so another three hours. So you go four plus hours first sale, another three hours before your next sale, and then I had a sale 30 minutes later and then one 40 minutes later. My last sale was at 9 o'clock at night. I had four sales over the course of the entire friggin' day for $120 effin' dollars.
Speaker 1:That's not good, as I just state the obvious. That's certainly not good when you really start to add everything up, right, and you look at the fact that my little, beautiful, amazing 11-month-old baby girl is at home without her daddy. I'm inconveniencing all these family and friends. If you listen to the first segment, we talk about all the people that went out of their way to do something to help me be here. All those people are being inconvenienced. All those people are doing what they can to help me and my family for me to be here and I'm rewarding them by making $120 and 10 plus hours of work. I leave my wife and my baby and my mother and I inconvenience them and my friends and my family to make $120. Not good, not good, not good. It Not good.
Speaker 1:I've been open for five days and when I add those five days up I pull them all together. What I've done here in five days I expected to do in just one Saturday here. The last fair I did was a tiny little hometown fair. That means a lot to me. It's because it's the fair that I grew up going to as a kid Osprey Valley Fair. It is a small fair, like a really small fair. I don't know the expected attendance at that fair maybe 8,000, 10,000 people. I do believe this fair that I'm at expects like 60,000 people In four days at that little town fair. I've whooped the ass of me being here for five days now In five days. Here I'm not even close to what I did there in four days. This is an incredible disappointment. I'm not giving up. I'm not giving up. It's hot as all get out.
Speaker 1:As I've explained multiple times over and over and over, I'm going to consider that part of the problem. I'm not going to say that's the only problem over. I'm going to consider that part of the problem. I'm not going to say that's the only problem. And you have to sit back and analyze what you have and what you're doing and how you're doing it.
Speaker 1:And you look around at everything else and, as a business owner, you beat yourself up. But you work yourself through it right. You go through it, you grow through it, you try to figure it out and you try to pull yourself through it. So that whole learning process, everything's happening right and I'm observing and I'm doing everything I possibly can and I'm brainstorming and I'm working things out and I'm trying to talk myself into remaining positive, because if you're sitting around like a bump on a log and you're negative, you're only going to get negative results. So I'm trying to remain positive.
Speaker 1:And I'm looking at it and I understand that today's going to be a challenge. It's mid-90s today. Today's going to be a challenge. It's mid-90s today. Today's going to be a challenge, tomorrow's going to be a challenge, but maybe by Thursday things really start to change. Maybe Friday night demo derby we hit things in a major fashion. Maybe on Saturday, the last day of the fair, we really capitalize.
Speaker 1:Maybe this somehow gets blown out of the water by a couple amazing days, somehow gets blown out of the water by a couple of amazing days. But if those amazing days do not come, then this was all for nothing. That's the challenge. That's the struggle of a small business owner that is living and dying by attendance at a fair, that is living and dying by the dependence on people opening their wallets. This is not easy for anybody out there that says, yeah, I can do that, give it a shot. A lot of you can, a lot of people can't. It's not easy. It is not easy to remain positive and I am glad that I recorded this podcast the way I did that. I took a break and I came back. Number one we gained an amazing story out of it. But number two, you get to experience the highs and the lows that goes into doing what I do. You get full experience of, like the mental gymnastics that goes into what's going on for me as a business owner.
Speaker 1:Now, I'm not one to end shows on negative notes, so I want to put one positive spin on this and to do that really quickly. I'm going to outline some of the difficulty that went into me being here and the difficulty that plays out for what's ahead of me real quick, without getting into too much details, for me to be here at this fair. I'm going to be honest. I borrowed money to be here. I borrowed money from my mother to actually pay my fees to get here and I need to give her that money back and that's not something that's easy to say for a grown ass man that's trying to fight for his business to stay alive. The next thing I'm going to tell you is I needed to make certain amounts of money each day to make payments that were coming due.
Speaker 1:The next thing is by Tuesday, which is when I'm finishing this recording, I need to have X amount of money to actually order designs that I've made or that I need to restock, so I actually have enough designs to replenish stock to go to windsor fair, which is one of my bigger events of the year. That needs to happen today, that needs to go through today, or that they won't be at my house in time. The next part of this equation is I need to make enough money by, let's say, thursday, to order the apparel that goes with those designs for those things to be at my doorstep when I get home. Because when I leave here on a Sunday, by Monday I need to be working on stock for the Windsor Fair, because then I need to be reporting to Windsor Wednesday or Thursday to start building my display for the next fair and from there I need to have enough inventory to capitalize on that fair. And right now I'm not sitting on the right mix of things that I need for that fair. I'm low on sweatshirts and stuff and when it's this hot out that's not that big of a deal. But you know, in a couple of weeks it will be. That's how things work in Maine and I need those things because they're some of my my biggest sellers. So I have all these moving parts that are going on.
Speaker 1:I also have large amounts of money that needs to be dished out for me to go to my largest event of the year. I need to purchase another tent, another display, which is going to run me another 2,500 bucks or so my entry fee into that fair. I still have thousands of dollars to pay towards that. It should have been paid by now. All these things go in the back of my mind, right? And when you're thinking about those things and you're saying, okay, I need this amount of thousands of dollars to be ready for this next event and I would roll out of that event in a couple of days and then go back to New York and then I would be home for a couple of weeks trying to get ready for my biggest event, which is going to require $20,000 more of product. I need $5,000 or $6,000 just for fees and display stuff. You start thinking about all these things and in the middle of that you're like $1,500 for this. You know I need $1,500 for my mortgage, I need this much for my tractor, this much for this, this much for that insurance. Yada, yada, yada, yada. You start thinking, you start laying all these things out and you sit around and you wait five hours with no sales and then you spend 10 hours and you make $120.
Speaker 1:The mental discipline it takes to not lose your ever-loving mind is one of the most challenging things I've ever had to experience. I know some of you right now are listening and you're saying to yourself I thought this son of a bitch said he was going to end on a positive note. None of this sounds positive. It sounds rather depressing. What I can tell you that is positive. What I can tell you that is a miracle. What I can tell you that is a plan, that is all part of the plan.
Speaker 1:As I was in my camper getting ready to go to work and I had the news on and when the news stopped it went into a church service and the church service started playing as I was putting the last, finishing, you know things together to get ready to go to work. I sat down for a minute and I was watching this part of the service and my phone goes off and I looked down at my watch because my phone's across the room and I saw the email populate on my watch and I clicked on it. Phones across the room and I saw the email populate on my watch and I clicked on it and it was my credit card processing company telling me, bing, you have a loan offer. I often take loans against my credit card processing company and what happens is, when you're selling things on credit cards, it takes a bigger percentage of them to pay the loan back, and I've used it to get through some tough times, but I still have an open, active loan with them. I'm still paying some back to them. I've paid almost 80% back. So I'm back to them. I've paid almost 80% back, and they ding me and tell me here's some more money Now. I waited, thinking that I could make even more credit card sales, maybe my loan would increase, but that didn't happen.
Speaker 1:But what I'm here to say is there's enough in there for me to get ready to go to the next fair, to pull me through these dark times, to get me through another time of great struggle. Can you all understand that? Can you feel that? Can you process that? I just painted you a very small picture of what's going on in my world. I just painted you a very small picture of the struggle in my life. I'm blessed by the people in my life that have come out of nowhere to help me, to pull me through, to drag me through, to push me through. I have many more stories I can share. It takes more than a village to get there. I painted you a small picture of the struggle in my life, of the worry in my heart.
Speaker 1:If you start connecting episode after episode after episode, you've heard me say weeks ago give it to God. You get to a point in life where you just have to give it to God. And I know there's people listening right now that maybe they don't believe. There's people listening right now that said, keith man, I come here for practical advice. I don't come here for spiritual wisdom. And I tell you give it to God, man, even when you have the most doubt, when you feel the most challenged, when you feel the most down and out, give it to God. You have to, you have to, you have to In this world.
Speaker 1:If you don't have belief, then it makes this world almost impossible to complete. And the divine timing is not lost on me. I'm at my wit's end. Y'all can imagine what's going through my head. Right, I am thousands upon thousands of dollars in debt. I've created a crazy amount of debt for my business and for my personal life. Because I believe in what I'm doing, because I see where this is going to go. I am in the middle of the greatest challenge my business has ever had and I continue to convince myself, on the other side of this, great challenge is great triumph. I continue to convince myself that this is a test for myself to see if I'm determined, to find out how committed I am to my cause. These are challenges, these are obstacles. These are placed in front of me to challenge me, to question me, to ask me how bad do you want it? Are you serious about it? But please understand the great difficulty that comes with being by yourself on the road away from your beautiful baby girl and your beautiful wife and your mother and your family and your friends. And you're failing and you're failing. And you're waking up every single day and you're brushing your teeth and you're looking at yourself in the mirror and you're saying today is the day. God help me today. Today shall be the day I will get to where I need to be today.
Speaker 1:And you go out there and it's a hundred degrees and you sit there in the blistering sun and you sweat your ass off and you fight, and you fight and you fight and you try to remain as positive as you possibly can be for each person that comes in that tent because that might be your only opportunity. And at the end of the day you make a hundred dollars and you go back to your camper and you dust yourself off and you wake up and you try again. And every day you battle the demon in your head that tells you just give up. You battle that demon that says just give up, be the responsible person for your family. And on the other side of that is the prideful son of a bitch that says don't you dare turn back now. You've invested your life in this. You know what this is going to provide to your family and where this is going for your family. Don't you dare give up. So when you fight those demons and those angels and you say, god, I don't know what else to do. I need help, I need a sign from you. And you're watching Fox News and it flips over to church and you sit your ass down Just in time for your watch to tell you here's a loan, keep on going.
Speaker 1:I've run the risk of making my show too spiritual. I've hidden from talking about God too much on this show, but I've got to the point in my life where it's all that's left. We don't know what we are capable of in this life until we put ourselves in positions of great challenge, and I have certainly done that and I am certainly learning what I am capable of. But it is not lost on me that I am not capable of any of this Without my Lord and Savior, jesus Christ. God, I thank you for granting me this day. I thank you for granting me this day, god. I thank you for granting me this opportunity. God, I thank you each and every day for my beautiful family and I will not give up and I will give all glory to you. Today, I hope and pray that each and every one of you take time to have a relationship with God. I hope and pray that today, each and every one of you take your hardships and your difficulties and you give them to God. I understand this might not be the best look for me. I understand that me sharing my pain, my fear, my failures, being in a camp or having a breakdown is probably not the best look for me. But I do this and I share this Because there's one thing I want from this I want anybody listening right now that has never had a conversation with God to understand the power that comes from that conversation, the power and the strength that comes from that belief and that conversation.
Speaker 1:I did not plan for tears today. I did not think in any way, shape or form, that my episode of this podcast would result in this ending. But this just isn't me talking today. It is my duty and my purpose today to reach and connect and touch somebody else today, because a favor was done for me and I need to repay it by giving the greatest favor to one of you that's listening right now, that's going through it, that's dragging yourself through it, that's pulling yourself through it, that's struggling. I need you to know that today you need to talk to God. Make today your day.
Speaker 1:Wow, this is as transparent and possibly as embarrassing as it can be for a 42-year-old man, but I hope you feel the absolute best of intentions from me. I love each and every one of you. Thank you for supporting my podcast. 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, want to find me on Instagram or all the kids by tickety-talking on the TikTok. You can find me on both of those at loud underscore, proud underscore, american. A big old thank you to the boys from the Gut Truckers for the background beats and the theme song for this 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. A like too. I feel the pain. Make it bleed. I hate to say I told you so. I feel the pain. Make it bleed. I truly thank you for supporting my American dream. Now go wash your fucking hands, you filthy savage.