Share The Struggle
Share The Struggle
We Grow When We Stop Chasing Things And Start Training Our Thoughts
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What if the real upgrade this year isn’t a new purchase, but a new pattern of thinking? We open the door to a raw, relatable conversation about why we obsess over stuff, set punishing deadlines, and then watch our motivation fade while anxiety grows. From a scratched-CD glitch to a stack of old vinyl and a French bulldog cameo, the setup is light—but the message lands heavy: we’ve been valuing things over thoughts, and it’s costing us peace, progress, and purpose.
I get personal about the trophies I once chased: the truck I worshiped that now rusts under a pine, the Challenger I babied that sits unregistered in the snow, the Harley that became garage decor. Each win felt like a finish line before it turned into clutter. The throughline wasn’t the gear; it was the inner voice I let run wild with comparison, doubt, and deadlines. We pull apart how rumination spins up from tiny sparks—a “K” text, a lagging reply—and becomes a story that strains relationships and stalls action, all without a single new fact.
A vivid dream flips the script. In it, a refinance wipes out debt and the body responds first—deep breath, shoulders light, real relief. Waking up doesn’t erase the bills, but it rewires the target: stop giving power to the problem and start giving power to possibility. That shift fuels a practical framework you can use today: label intrusive thoughts as mental events, separate you from you with a firm “not today,” move your body to break the loop and then take one step toward your goal, and control only what you can—especially not other people’s opinions.
We close with a challenge for 2026: keep the goals, ditch the self-imposed choke points, and talk to yourself like someone whose future matters. Your expectations are your responsibility, and your mindset is the leverage that makes hard things possible. If you’re ready to feel lighter without buying a thing, press play, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a quick review so more people can find the show. What thought are you upgrading today?
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It's a new year, and I've got some new thoughts. And speaking of thoughts, I've come to the realization that we value things far more than we value our own thoughts. So today on Share the Struggle Podcast, I'm going to throw down a challenge, a challenge to each and every one of us to reduce the value we place on things and increase the emphasis on our thoughts. 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. Uncomfortable conversation. I got stuck right there. Did you guys feel that? Did you hear that? I got stuck on repeat. You remember when you used to put CDs, you know, in the CD player, and you would find that big scratch, that gouge on your Credence Clear Water Revival album, and it would just spit. Yeah. I just that just happened to me. There's a lot of folks listening right now, all y'all digital peeps, that probably don't even own CDs. I mean, do people still buy CDs? I mean, occasionally I do, actually. And now my wife buys vinyl. Which I got her a record player for Christmas, and the I needed to start her vinyl collection, and I can't believe the cost of vinyl. It is incredible, man. So I said, here's the deal. I'm gonna buy you one brand new vinyl. And from here on out, the greatest thing about you owning a record player is thrifting for your old vinyls. Okay, that's gonna be the scenario. So I went on a quest to find the most proper first vinyl for the wife. I didn't want to get her something that she already has, is already listened to. So I actually scored Brandon Lake King of Hearts. It's a nice double vinyl set, I guess she would say. So I got her that for Christmas. That's a random little thing. But this all started because I glitched, I got stuck on a track, and it happens. Kids these days might never know what that's like, but it absolutely happens. Welcome to Share the Struggle Podcast. That podcast, perfectly, beautifully, precisely named Share the Struggle. Because as we say week to week, boys and girls, everybody struggles. Oh, it is true. You and me, we struggle. But the difference between you and me and everybody else is that we are bold enough, courageous enough, and transparent enough to share our shit with each other. Mm-hmm. Because when you do so, we both grow. It's the truth, folks. If you are willing to share it, then there is strength in it. If you're asking me, that's the shit. Dad joke. Well, I mean, probably we shouldn't be using shit in dad jokes, but hey, at least I didn't drop an F bomb this early. So, you know what I mean? Feeling pretty good. Pretty good about that. Well, episode 288, and I'm feeling great. I'm a little late to the recording studio, but that's just how things happen to go around here. I am in the middle of a lot of chaos when it comes to the business, trying to plan things, figure things. And um, I threw a Hail Mary phone call today, and then that turned into um an opportunity, which turned into a big discussion, both family and uh with the support team and um extended family, I would say, the the Palmelos, and we are doing a lot of research to decide if um I take a leap on doing something um for the right reasons, right? I have an opportunity and I don't want to give too much of it away right now, but the question becomes does it make dollars and cents? Is it worth doing? So I gotta fight through the excitement and drill into the reality and decide if that's what's best for me. With that said, it kind of pushed the recording off a little bit because I was all just geared up, buttercup. I was ready to rock and roll. I even put some notes down today. I was ready. It was Daddy Daycare day today, and uh the moment that I was able to get away when the little one was having a nap, and I started scripting some things out in silence. So I have notes today. I feel like an actual organized show host, but don't get used to it because I'm typically just shooting off the kef here, but here we are. I'm recording in the Gee Raj tonight, and uh my wife for some reason just kicked the French bulldog down the stairs, and she's down here making a ruckus. So I've moved myself to isolation so I could have just quiet and solitude. I just made that up. And uh, nope, no such thing. Send this noisemaker downstairs to disrupt my zen. But that's the world we live in. Show the struggle podcast, episode 288. This is the second episode of 226, the year 2026. I got a little play on resolutions, a little play on New Year's forecast. I'm gonna keep that trend going before we do. We've come accustomed to saying a welcome to some new locations to the to the podcast here. And this one, I love everything about this. It feels made up. I did not make it up. Saskatoon Saskatchewan. Welcome to the fine folks in Saskatoon. Lawrenceville, Georgia. Welcome. Georgia, I got news for you. I might be headed to you. That's a conversation for a later date. Ludlow, Massachusetts, and Powethon, Virginia. Powhaton, maybe? P-O-W-H-A-T-A-N. I'm not sure. Virginia. The land of lovers. Here's the thing, folks. It is in fact a new year. It is 2026. And with this new year, I've got some new thoughts. Today, this thought came to me and it inspired this entire conversation. And I guess the thought didn't really just come to me because it came from something that I was watching. I have this little habit of on daddy daycare days, the the little one will um have a bottle and sit with dad, and she'll she'll sometimes watch Fox News in the morning. She'll watch Fox and Friends, but she we always squeeze in time for Blueie. Sometimes it's sports, and oftentimes it's spiritual. And uh we will watch some some uh some sermons, some church services. We're fans of Elevation Church, and it's incredible to me how much my daughter will clue in on a church service. Like today, there was times when I was just holding her, and it must have been 10 or 15 minutes where she was just having a bottle and then a binky, and her eyes were just glued, glued to the service. She was just watching uh Stephen Furtig from Elevation Church, and she was just glued to him and taking it all in, and I was just watching her, and just so, so amazed by my little girl and then all that was happening, and thinking there's gotta be something positive from this, right? Like, you're doing the right thing here, dad, aren't you? Like, we're putting some positives in to this little girl and her world and her vision of the world, and that's just all you can really hope for. But we have these these moments together watching, just worshiping, taking on church. It's funny, on Sunday, we we didn't have the availability of going to church, me and the wife, so I dialed it up on YouTube, and uh we were watching church, and the baby just gets into it, man. You'll see when they're worshiping, when the music's playing, she's dancing, she's got her hands up, she's clapping. It's incredible. It's incredible just to think like what she's getting out of this and what she's thinking. But today, while me and my my little princess were worshiping, while we were having our own church session, I was listening to Elevation Church, and there was a line that Steven Furtick said, and it resonated with me. And I pulled up my phone and I put it in my notepad, and then that turned into a full day of thoughts. And the one line that he said was, We value things over thoughts. And he spent an hour digging into valuing things over thoughts. I'm not gonna steal the thunder from that service because I didn't take a lot more notes from that point on because I really was just staring at my little girl and and thinking about her and her world and how she was processing. But I spent a lot of time thinking about my own thoughts and and my own things. And I was listening to his great, tremendous examples on those things. I wish I would have retained some of them, but right now they're they're fleeing me, probably because of the phone conversations I've been on over the past couple hours, because I was prepared to um go after some of those things, but instead, we're going to do it from our own point of view, from our own our own life experiences. And the fact that there couldn't be more truer things said than the fact that we value things over thoughts. We all put an amazing emphasis on what we acquire in life, how big our house is, how big the yard is, what we're driving, what we can afford, the vacations, you know, all these different things. How big is the diamond ring? All these things that we're chasing. A lot of things that we we chase are they're financially motivated or they're they're acquired via finances, right? So it's this keeping up with the Joneses rat race chase that we embark on, and we put all these values into acquiring these things. We focus on them, we obsess over them, but we don't put an emphasis on our thoughts. When I started thinking about things, one of the thoughts that came to me was, man, how many things in your life did you just obsess over, strive for, work towards, hunger for, and you attained them, and now you don't appreciate them or you take them for granted. Now I'm not saying it's bad to to have things or to shoot for things, because I I believe in all forms of motivation. But what happens when we no longer have those things or we no longer appreciate those things? But we don't focus on our thoughts and the thoughts that we have either over those things or over ourselves, because here's the truth, folks. The thoughts aren't going anywhere. The thoughts continue to come back. The thoughts continue to control our lives, to put anchors on our emotions. What you think is what you are positive in, positive out, negative in, negative out. So many of us struggle with self-doubt. I say it so many times over the course of all these episodes of this podcast. If you had a friend that spoke to you the way you speak to yourself, you wouldn't have that friend. If you spoke to your wife, your husband, your mother, your brother, your father, your cousin, your uncle, your boss, the way you speak to yourself, you would be divorced, lonely, unemployed, by yourself, miserable. Because nobody would put up with your shit, the shit that you say to yourself. So when I heard Stevens say we value things over thoughts, I realized me chasing things and being corrupted by my thoughts is probably one of the biggest obstacles in my life, probably one of the most destructive things in my life. Because I can talk myself in and out of so many things. I can talk myself down from reaching for certain things. I could talk myself into trying for certain things. That's part of the struggle I was having on the phone trying to decide about an event before I started this recording today. But I really started to think about those things, and a couple examples came to mind for me. If you've been listening to all the episodes over the course of the you know five plus years of us recording as we approach hitting our six-year mark, you've heard a lot of stories in my in my days of having these goals and these things that I wanted to attain. And if I just start to identify some of the tangible ones, I go all the way back to some of my first episodes, me lusting over this new vehicle as I was driving dead-end vehicles of 300 plus thousand miles, and then going back and forth from Maine to New Hampshire with my 1992 Ford Bronco that was busting at the scenes every chance it had. Finding myself on the in the parking lot of a Dodge dealership, drooling, fantasizing over this brand new four-door Dodge Heme that I was all geared up about with straight pipes and all the all the tricked-out goodies. I remember the tears, the heartbreak, the heartache, overrealizing, over-trying to buy and being denied and realizing that wasn't possible. As I looked at a$40,000 plus thousand dollar sticker on the window. Which is crazy to think now that that same truck is probably a hundred and hundred and twenty thousand dollars today with the new amenities if you're going apples to apples. But I think about that vehicle. And that a year later, I went back to that dealership, and that same vehicle was still sitting there because it was loud and obnoxious, and it was in a downtown scenario, and nobody wanted to drive that sucker but me. And I bought that truck brand freaking new. That was a 2003. I bought it in like 04 or 05. That old girl is still sitting at my house. If you've been listening as of late, you know that I commonly refer to her as old Red. She's now being laid to rest. But I've had that vehicle for over 20 years. But as I think about things, I think about how good I was to that girl, how much I appreciated that truck, how I value that truck, how I was so sweet to that truck. And now when I go out to do barn chores, that girl's on a dead end, dirt part of my driveway, stuffed under a pine tree, with a bumper folded over, with the hood unable to open, with the doors and bed rotted right off of it, unwilling to start and flat on all four tires. And I think what happened to the value I placed on the thing twenty years ago. Recently I've been cleaning the garage and trying to cleanse myself of old things, and I had a little uh a little memento in time where I took a capsule of me and I set it free. I took a giant tote of my past that I was holding on to. Pay stubs, tax information from a previous life of mine, back when times were easier, money wasn't as hard to come by, different artifacts that I held on to to help me if I ever went back to an old life of mine, and then history of me. Part of the history that I found in there was the window sticker. It's all red. And I looked at it and I thought about how important that was to me. I saw the paperwork, the loan agreements, the price tags, the sweet honey of a deal I got on it when I talked him down to like$27,000. And I burned all of it. When I heard we value things over thoughts, this is one of the things that I thought about while working for Harley Davidson, and the dark dog days of summer, the 50, 60, 70 hour work weeks, being away from the family. There was a picture on my screen of a Dodge Challenger, all blacked out. That was my motivation. It was my driving light, it was my beacon in the night. I spent a lot more time putting value into that thing than into the thoughts that I should have been considering about my life and where I'm going and processing what's around me and enjoying where I'm at and being present and in the moment. For years I worked towards that vehicle. It's nothing amazing. But I bought that vehicle. I own that Black Dodge Challenger. Might not be quite as sweet as the one on my screen, but it's pretty damn close. Oh, how I valued that thing. She's never seen salt, it's always been in the garage. I didn't drive it once this year. I didn't drive it once this year. I haven't registered it in two years. And right now, it's sitting in my driveway, covered in ice and snow. What happened to the value I placed on the thing? Having this conversation, I think about how many thoughts were wasted focusing on the thing. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I'm recording in the garage. On the other side of me is my Harley Davidson Road King that I can't tell you the last time I enjoyed. But oh boy, did I obsess and value those things. Oh, how hard I worked for those things. I obsessed over those things. I put the greatest value in those things. I made myself miserable trying to attain those things. I doubted myself. I talked down to myself and I compared myself to all the people that had those things. And I thought about the feelings associated with those things. And I self-sabotaged myself because I didn't have those things, because I didn't feel adequate because I was missing those things. If I focus on the negative thoughts that I was consuming me, if I focus on the negative thoughts that were overtaking me, if I could have canceled those out, how much better would I have felt? Now, granted, I appreciated the things when I attained them, but how quickly do we lose the appreciation for the things that we strive for, that we work for? So I want to start 2026 with some new thoughts. New year, new thoughts, and a new challenge to each and every one of us to reduce the value we place on things. I am not asking you to abandon goals, but to focus less on self-imposed deadlines to attain tangible things. Instead, let's emphasize positive thoughts towards the goals, starting with positive thoughts about ourselves. So here's the thing, folks goals are essential. Hopes, dreams, aspirations, essential. But we often compare ourselves to so many others based off the things they acquire that we don't have. And if you're like me and you're shooting for that truck or that or that car, you have these self-imposed deadlines that you stress over, that you worry about, that you strive for. Instead, if we could shed a light on positive thoughts towards those goals, starting with some positive thoughts about ourselves. When you're talking to yourself, you get to be right. When you're talking to yourself, you get to be right 100% of the time. There's nobody negotiating with you but you. When you talk to yourself, you get to be right. If you tell yourself you can't do it, then guess what? You cannot do it. You win. You always win. You get the right to win. You are always right when you talk to yourself. When you say to yourself I can't do it, then you shall not do it. Let's just peel back a few layers of the onion a little bit and just start thinking about all the times in life you didn't do something, you didn't try something, you didn't achieve something because you convinced yourself that you weren't adequate enough to try, to take the chance, to take the risk, to ask the girl. Think about it. How many times did you not do something or achieve something because you convinced yourself you couldn't do it? Or how many times did you make the leap of faith to do it? But that self-doubt, that self-sabotage, negative thoughts and talks never truly gave yourself a fair shake at attaining what it is you set out for in the first place. Another thing to focus on with these self-talks, with this self-evaluation, with these thoughts, is that we make assumptions and interpretations on the little things in life, then we ruminate till they become big things. This is in regards to all things. Have you ever misinterpreted a text message from a co-worker, from uh a friend, from um, you know, uh your spouse? Have you ever misinterpreted something? Like when you find yourself reading in between the lines here. What do they mean by that emoji? Like, what confused face? Like, what are they what are they getting at here? Or they just responded with a K instead of an OK? Like, how lazy are we to just put a K? Like I thought, okay, O A K, you know what I'm saying, was uh like short enough with me. And then I don't even get the respect of an O and a K. I just get a K? What forever do you mean? The interpretation that comes from text messages. I'm a firm believer that someday, somehow, somehow, there's going to be wars over text messages and social media because there's room left for rumination. There's time left for interpretation. We often read in between the lines. When the truth is, when you can't see into the other person's eyes, and you don't know how that message was delivered. You don't know if they're cheerfully saying okay. You don't know if they're in the middle of something. Maybe they're holding a baby in one hand, wiping an ass with another, and they're just the only thing they can get to is the letter K. Maybe they're driving and there's a cop behind them, and they shouldn't be on their phone in the first place. But your interpretation of it is this person ain't got no time for me, and that was rude as shit. So then now your defense goes up, and you begin to think about that, and you begin to swell on that and dwell on that. Before you know it, you're face to face with that person, and now you have an attitude over what you perceive to be true based off of the message that you got given to you. You understand what I'm saying? We let the little things become big things. Those little things only become big things based on the conversations we have with ourselves over the little things. We make assumptions and interpretations on the little things and then we ruminate until they become big, big things. That's just the small stuff. What did she really mean when she said that to me? Just the small stuff. So when you start to think about the impact that could have in your life over the big stuff, how am I going to pay the mortgage? Am I happy with my career choice? Should I be living here? Whatever those questions are, now think about the emphasis and the amount of time you place thinking about those. We have a high priority on attaining things. We don't have a high priority on how we think about things. Because if we did a little self-check, self-evaluation on the thoughts that we have, the conversations that we have, if there was a way for us to self-check that, then it's going to be a lot easier for you to attain those things that you're lusting over, that maybe you shouldn't be in the first place. Maybe if you focus on just being happy, enjoying yourself and living the life that you want to live, fulfilling that purpose, you might find that some of those things you don't need at all. Sometimes those things are just replacing things. You're using them to fill voids, inadequacies in ourselves. We're just stuffing them full of things, tangible things. But we get swallowed up in thoughts, don't we? I'm so guilty of being swallowed up in thoughts. I'm so guilty of ruminating on the negative. I'm so guilty of having bad, bad self-conversations. As of late, I've really been trying to self-check myself and tell myself the more I focus on the problem, the more I think about the problem, the more I give power to the problem. I spend so much time trying to figure out how I'm gonna pay bills, how I'm gonna grow the business, how I'm gonna pay for the product, how I'm gonna fix the bus, how I'm gonna book the events, how I'm gonna cover the dates, how I'm gonna do all these things. I focus so much on that that it becomes bigger than it needs to be. I focus so much on the tangible things, the timelines, setting these deadlines. I need to be at this point by this date to cover this bill, to get to this point, to provide this opportunity for my family, to cover the security for my family. All these things. Deadlines and timelines run through my mind at all times. This is where things are gonna get funky, and I want to share a little a little something with you. I want to share a dream with you. And about a week ago, I had an amazing dream. But this one really plays well today. It fits in with the message today on thoughts. I had a dream. I fell asleep next to my beautiful wife after her little princess kept us up far later than she should. She's gone this new kick of 12, 12:30. It's when she's gonna officially go to bed. My wife and my beautiful baby girl, and we're just watching Kids Baking Championship or something, and having conversation, and as a little one fades asleep, Allie puts her in bed, and as we agree to go to bed, I close my eyes and I begin to think. I begin to think about all the bills that are due in the morning, the bills that are due a day later. I begin to think about the bus that's not running, I begin to think about the items that aren't on the shelves, and I just start to overanalyze and paralyze myself with negative thoughts. I start to get this tightness in my chest, I start to not feel so good. I end up actually spending time in the bathroom, which is not what you really want to hear on this story, but I was making myself sick. This tightness is pounding in my chest as I lay there, and I try to talk myself out of all of this self-sabotaging, self-doubt, negative conversation, thinking about how are you gonna provide for your family? Where is this gonna come from? What are you gonna do? And I lay there thinking to myself, how am I ever gonna fall asleep? And why wasn't I thinking about this when the sun was shining? When there was something, some time for me to do something about it. Why is this coming to me now? Lord, why am I thinking of this now? And I lay there and I say, Right, nothing I can do about this right now but to give it to God and try to get some sleep and tackle it again in the morning, and I go to sleep somehow, some way. I get to sleep. And then I have this dream, and I can't remember all of it. But I remember having this dream with a financial lender, a financial advisor, somebody that was either with my bank or my my business bank, but they felt like they were starting to have a relationship with me. Like a I know who this person is, and I see what he's doing, I understand what he's working towards, I see the growth of his business. It's not coming along like it sh like he's hoping for, but it's growing and it's and it's gonna continue to grow. And if he could just get a break, it's really gonna grow. And then he's talking to me about how great of a person I am, and and how I know it's been hard, I know it's been hard for you, but you've you've been making these things on time, you've been finding a way, you've been you've been providing, you're not giving yourself credit for what you've accomplished, for what you've done, and I have an answer for you, I have an option for you. This might not be the biggest break you're gonna get, but I think this is an opportunity to help you get a little reset. I think this is an opportunity to help you breed. I think this is an opportunity to make a difference. This is what we can do. I'm gonna refinance your house. We're gonna redo the mortgage on your house, and then you're in such a positive equity position that you're gonna come out of this with$120,000 cash. We're gonna refinance your house, we're gonna redo your mortgage, you're gonna get this home equity, this positive equity, you're gonna walk away with$120,000 in cash, your mortgage isn't gonna go up a tremendous amount. It's an affordable payment, and it's definitely an affordable payment when you can take that$120,000 and you can pay off all of your debt. You can pay off your debt, you can pay off the business credit cards, the personal credit cards, the personal loans, the business loans, the equity lines. You can pay it all off. You can pay for your office, you can, you can, you can pay for your vehicle, you can you can pay off your tractor, you can hit reset, you factory reset your life, your bills, your stressors, relieved, gone, removed, reset. I feel lighter just telling you about my dream, but what the amazing thing about this dream was I felt this dream. During this conversation, I felt a weight literally coming off of my shoulders. When I retold the story to my wife a day later, I said to her, I often hear people say that old analogy. Man, just I could just feel the weight coming right off my shoulders. And I was like, Yeah, I've said that before, but I've never felt that before. But in this dream, Lord, I felt that then. I felt lighter. I breathed, I took this deep, deep breath. And if you remember, I told you I went to sleep with this heartache, with these chest pains, with this anxiety, with these shallow breaths. I went to sleep, and I took a major deep breath, and I felt lighter, and I felt vibrant, and I felt refreshed, and I felt saved. I couldn't believe it. Everything reset. New year, new me. The stress was over. It was an amazing, amazing feeling. There was a tangible, actual feeling. I left the meeting with that advisor, and I couldn't wait to get to my wife. And in my dream I ran to my wife and I told her, baby, I did it. We did it. And I was bawling as I told her the details. This is so amazing for us. I just removed the debt for us. I just reset it all for us. Financial security for us, freedom for us. We can grow the business. We don't have to depend on paycheck to paycheck, event to event. We can do this for us. It all worked out for us. This is everything, everything is amazing, it's coming to us. It's all been given to us. Here it is for us. This is the best thing to happen to us, and I woke up. And reality came. I had to think about reality. An emotion set in that wasn't real. I've been thinking about how I've valued things over thoughts, and I've been thinking about how I haven't controlled my thoughts. And I've been thinking on how the fact that I just continue to focus on how I get there. I stress over the insurmountable, but in doing so, it's only giving power to the problem. Since that dream, I realized I have been leaning into the wrong how. I've been thinking about how I get there, stressing over how insurmountable it is, only giving power to the problem instead of leaning into how it makes me feel. Now, after this dream, I know how it is going to feel when I achieve it. Now I must believe it. To achieve it and believe it, it starts with the conversations and the thoughts with myself. I am no longer giving power to the problem. I am giving power to the possibility. Just move. Nike made it. Famous when they said just do it. Screw those liberal bastards when I tell you just move. And after you begin to move, eventually you can learn and focus and move with purpose. But to begin with, you must just move. Get off your ass. Get out of the trash. Stop thinking and ruminating about nonsense. Get up and move. Do something. Find something positive. And once you start to knock those things down, you begin to move with purpose. And moving with purpose will put the power to possibility. We're going to take ourselves from feeling overwhelmed and reactive to being positive and active. You understand what I'm saying? We have analysis by paralysis. We dwell in swell. We're going to remove those thoughts. We're going to go from overwhelmed and reactive to positive and productive. Now I know this journey isn't going to be easy. I know this challenge that we've laid out today for each one of us is not going to be easy. So, to combat the battle, to battle the battle, to fight the fight, we gotta equip ourselves with some tools. The first thing that we need to realize when we're thinking about these thoughts, when they start to overtake us, when they start to break us, we must first label them. Realize when you're having these negative thoughts, or when you're obsessing and stressing over what you don't have, what you can't have, what you want to have, label them. These are just mental events. They are just distractions, they are not factual, they are not reality. These intrusive thoughts are mental events. You can control events, you decide which event you go to, you decide which event you leave early from. You decide which events you enjoy to go to, the ones that you strive to go to. So when you label these intrusive thoughts as just mental events, then you can realize that they are only distractions, they are not factual. This is not reality. It all starts with a label. Number two, separate you from you. You need to take control of you. You need to take control of your mind, your thoughts, your conversations, your distractions. Separate you from you. My wife has this tremendous saying that she always uses when uh you know something's trending in the direction of going wrong. Or, like, you know, let's say you uh um almost spill your coffee, like it's falling off the table, but you catch it and save it in the last minute. My wife will always say, Not today, Satan, not today. Separate you from you, draw the DM line. Number three, move. Just move and get busy on your goals and on your beliefs. When you're having these intrusive thoughts, these negative thoughts, get up and move. If you stay stationary in the position that you're in, you're gonna continue to dwell and swell. When I say move, I mean get up off your ass and just move, just do something. Whether it's going for a walk, it's going to the store, it's going to the gym, it's getting the blood moving, get up. Do some jumping jacks, get moving, do something. Just get busy. And the next thing you do, once you get a little momentum, once you get your feet on the street, then get busy on your goals. If there's something you can do to get yourself closer to the goal you're thinking of that you're stressing over, if there's something you can do to get you closer to attaining that thing that you want for yourself, then get going on it. If there's nothing you can do for your goals in that moment, then get working on your beliefs. What do you believe in? What are your core values? What do you use to ground yourself? Get moving, get on your goals or get on your beliefs. And surely, last but not least, control what you can control. Because you can't control what you can't. We all worry too much, we all stress too much about what is completely out of our control. Worrying about the inevitable, worrying about what might be that never comes for me is the worst wasteful use of time ever. Control what you can control. That even goes for all the things we think about other people. How we interpret their text message, how we interpret their phone call, how we interpret their personal reaction towards us. We spend more time worrying about other people's opinions of us than they actually spend thinking about us. No more. No more. You can't control how somebody feels about you. Quit worrying about it. You can't control or decipher or decide what they meant by the message they sent or by how the conversation went. No more of it. There ain't no reason for it. And the words of the great Les Brown, don't let someone else's opinion of you become your reality. However, somebody feels about you, that don't concern you. That ain't for you. That's for them. Don't let their opinion of you become your reality. Don't dwell in a swell over what you assume to be the opinion from them. It ain't in your control. You can't control it. You don't have time for it. The question I have for you is will you reach your destiny or will you be limited by your history? All of you that led up to you in 2026, is that history of you? Is that gonna limit your ability to reach your destiny, or are you gonna set your mind and yourself free? That is a question from me to you. And another great line that I learned from Steven today was my expectations are my responsibility. Whatever you want for yourself, whatever you believe for yourself, that's your responsibility. Nobody else's. Don't let nobody's opinions persuade it, don't let anybody's perspective persuade it, and certainly don't let your own negative thoughts persuade it. Your expectations are your responsibility. This year, I want so, so more for you New Year, new thoughts. Realize we value things over our thoughts. Instead, we're gonna put a positive emphasis on our thoughts towards those goals with positive thoughts, a positive perspective, remembering that when you're talking to yourself, you get to be right. Together, we can make 2026 the best year for each and every one of us. I hope today's show was a powerful show. I hope today's show was a meaningful show. If it is, then please, please, please share the show. Drop a review, say how do you do, send this show to somebody close and important to you. Together we will help it blossom, we will help it flow, we will help this show be even bigger and more beautiful than ever. I appreciate each and every one of you. Thank, thank, thank you for supporting my American dream. Now go wash you filthy hands, you dirty savage. That's it, and that's all, Biggie Smalls. If you're a Loud Proud American and you find yourself just wanting more, find me on YouTube and Facebook and Loud Proud American on the Facebook. If you're a fan of the Grand Crackin', you wanna find me on Instagram for all the kids, the tickety talking on the tickety tock, you can find me on both of those loud underscore crack underscore American big old thank you to the voice of the gun truckers for the background beats in the things on this podcast. If you are enjoying what you're hearing, track down the gun truckers on Facebook adjusters, gun truckers. Now go wash your fucking hands, you filthy savage.