250 Years on a Promise: What the Founders Pledged That We Forgot to Keep

The founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor — and a lot of them paid in full. A promise only counts when keeping it is expensive.

 We celebrate the signing. We almost never count the cost. And the cost is the whole point — because a promise that costs you nothing was never a promise. It was a preference.

In this episode, we cover...
Freedom of Speech: "What the Founders Pledged" 

Full Story:"250 Years on a Promise: What the Founders Pledged That We Forgot to Keep" 

From the Newsfeed: "Proud, But Uneasy: America at 250" 

Faith & Hope: "Crown Thy Good With Brotherhood" 

Father Time:"Own Family"

Funny Factory:"Things Americans Believe With Their Whole Chest"

Fitness Minute: "Built to Last 250 More" 

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📖 Jason's book "The Promise to the One": https://www.amazon.com/Promise-One-Ja...

🌐 Website: https://jasonhewlett.com/

The Jason Hewlett Show — Where we use lots of F Words: Faith, Family, Fatherhood, Freedom, Fitness, Funny & Farce, as well as the Fulfillment of your Promises.

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Transcript

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There's a signature on a piece of paper that's 250 years old this week. 56 of them actually. And here's what most people forget when they look at that document. Those men weren't signing a celebration. They weren't signing a feeling. They were signing what they knew could be their own death warrant. The last line of the Declaration of Independence isn't a flourish, it's a vow. We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. Lives, fortunes, sacred honor. That's not a slogan. That's a promise. The largest one in the history of this country, and a lot of the men who made it paid for it. This week America turns 250. There'll be fireworks. There'll be a lot of concerts. There'll be flags on every porch on the street. But underneath all of it is one word. The same word this whole show is built on a promise. So today, we're not doing a fireworks roundup. We're going to the thing under the fireworks, what those men actually pledged, what it cost them, and the uncomfortable question it leaves on the table 250 years later. Did we keep the promise? Let's get into it. The rest of your fatherhood. Pick one promise. The card expires, the promise doesn't. Coming up on the show today, we're going to talk freedom of speech first. What the founders pledged. A nation is a promise that has to be re-signed every single generation. And the same word that built America is the one holding your house together. Then in the full story, we'll talk about 250 years on a promise. What the founders pledged that we forgot to keep. From the news feed, Proud but uneasy, America at 250. The brand new poll's landing right now as the country hits its semi-quincentennial and the one place the promise was never actually stored. In Faith and Hope, we'll talk about Crown Thy Good with Brotherhood, the prayer hiding inside America the Beautiful, and the warning a school teacher wrote on top of mountain in 1893 that we needed to hear this week. In Father Time, I'll be talking about some of our family Fourth of July experiences that we've had through the years that we've enjoyed so much. And in the funny factory, we'll talk about things Americans believe with their whole chest. The backward fireworks or the backyard fireworks general, the grill commander, the guy who knows two verses of the anthem and hums the rest. And then Fitness Minute, built to last 250 more. A Republic and a body run on the same fuel. Daily upkeep. Not one big day, brought to you by Cardio Miracle, our sponsor. So we thank Cardio Miracle for all that they do. And stay with me. This one is for every American holding a sparkler and a promise this week. Like it was the way you feel when the fireworks go off and the bass hits and everybody's hand goes over their heart. But freedom was never a feeling. Freedom is a promise. And it came with a signature line. Read the last sentence of the Declaration of Independence sometime out loud to your kids. This week, why not? It doesn't end with a celebration, it ends with a vow. We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. Stop on that word for a moment. Pledge. They didn't hope, they didn't intend, they didn't manifest, they pledged. And when you sign your name to that document in 1776, you weren't signing a press release. You were making yourself an enemy of the most powerful empire on earth. That signature was a death warrant with your own hand on it. So here's the thing: I can't get past 250 years later. A nation is not a building. It's not a flag. It's not even a piece of paper under a glass in Washington. A nation is a promise. And a promise is a feature, no monument has. It has to be re-signed. Yeah, every generation re-signs it. Or doesn't. The founders signed it once in ink in a hot room in Philadelphia, knowing what it might cost. If you've ever been to this room, it is odd. Especially in July. It's a hot, dank, stank room. And yet they did world-changing things there. When they they handed us the pen, and the pen gets handed down to you, and to me, and to the kid watching the fireworks on your shoulder Saturday night, who has no idea he's next in line to sign. Here's where it comes home. The same word that built this country is the word holding your house together. Promise. You can't outsource it to a flag. You can't outsource it to a holiday. You can't outsource it to a fireworks show or a politician or a parade. A country is only as kept as the promises of the people in it. And so is a family, and so is a marriage, and so are you. The founders didn't celebrate independence, they pledged it. Think about that. They pledged it with everything they had. The question this week isn't whether you love the country. The question is whether you're still keeping the promise underneath it. And so I have a few questions for you. When did freedom stop being something you keep and start being something you just feel? How about if you had to sign the declaration this week, pledging your fortune and your sacred honor? Would your name go on the line? What promise did the generation before you keep so you could be free that you've never once thanked them for? And what are you handing the kid on your shoulder Saturday night? A feeling about America or a promise to keep? If a country's exactly has kept the promises of the people in it, what shape is your corner of it in? Let's talk about the full story right after this. No air conditioning, flies in the window. I'm telling you, I've been there, it's it's hot. 56 men. And a single sheet of paper that ends with a sentence that would either make them founders or make them dead. And one by one, they walk up and they sign. We tell this story every July like it's a triumph. And it is, but we almost never tell the second half. The half where the bill comes due, because here's what we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor actually meant once the ink dried. Take John Hart, for example, of New Jersey. After he signed the after he signed, the war came to his doorstep. His wife was dying, he couldn't get home to her, his children scattered and fled. He was hunted through the New Jersey countryside, sleeping in caves and forests to stay ahead of soldiers who wanted him dead. By the time it was safe to come home, his wife was in the ground, his children were gone, and his farm was burned and stripped. He died before the war was even won, never seeing the country his signature helped create. Man, think about the sacrifice of these people. Take Thomas Nelson of Virginia. At the Battle of Yorktown, the British took his own house and made it their headquarters, because that's just what you do, right? So Nelson turned to his own artillerymen and told them to fire on it. On his own home. He never rebuilt it. That's what was inside the word pledge. And so that's the part we skip. Uh we keep the fireworks and we lose the cost. And the cost is the entire point. Because here's the truth that runs from that hot room in Philadelphia straight into your kitchen 250 years later. A promise that costs you nothing was never a promise, it was a preference. A preference is I'll be there if it's convenient. I don't know if you know anybody like this. I know I've I've done some of that myself. No, promise is I'll be there and if it costs me, I pay it. The founders didn't prefer independence, they pledged it. And then a lot of them, they paid for it. Now, you and I are not going to lose our farms to soldiers, uh, most likely. We're not going to fire cannons at our own houses. Our promises aren't going to cost us our lives, most likely, but they're going to cost us something. And the promise to your wife costs you the easy way out. The promise to your kid costs you the phone in your hand and the hour you wanted for yourself. The promise to show up costs you the excuse you had ready to go. And if it doesn't cost you anything, if you can keep it without ever once being expensive, then somewhere in there it stopped being a promise. So 250 years ago, 56 men taught us what the word actually weighs. They signed in ink, a lot of them paid in blood. The least we can do in our own much smaller, much safer lives is keep the small promises. On purpose, even when it costs us. That's the promise under the fireworks. That's the 250-year-old assignment. Yeah, you have homework. Keep the promise. Especially when keeping it is the expensive thing to do. Let's go into as we roll into the news feed. I just noticed uh we've had some comments here. I'm wondering if I can scroll over and point one out. It looks like Soulful Squirrel. Soulful Squirrel Studios says we've also lost the moral ethical roots the U.S. was founded on. Yeah, I'd love to know your opinion. I mean, I'd love to know how you think things are going because that's what we're going to talk about in this newsfeed piece. It's very interesting how people are thinking about this like 250 years. For some people, it's it's not a time to celebrate, according to what I'm about to read you. But the official national report and effort, America 250, is going all out for the semi-quincentennial. Say that 10 times fast. Semi-quincentenal, the America semi-quincentenal. The America 250 semi-quincentennial. Their goal is right there in the name. 350 for 250. What does that mean? Engage all 350 million Americans in the 250th. Block parties across the country, a benefit concert, or lots of them. Oh, an app so you don't miss a moment. It's the biggest birthday party the country's ever thrown, and it's landing on a country that's feeling, yeah, just like that comment. Complicated, right? And uh it's been the biggest birthday party the country has ever thrown, and it's landing on a country that's feeling complicated. And so what I'm excited to talk to you about today is that there is a way that we can get through this, but I have to share you the actual numbers in the news because this is what's going on. Uh so the record low is this here's the number that should stop you cold. Brand new Gallup polling out this week finds that only 33% of Americans say they're extremely proud, extremely proud to be American in 2026. 33%. That's the lowest since Gallup started asking the question in 2001. It's down eight points from just last year, and a decade ago that number was 52%. Man, 2016 it was that much better. Okay, 33%, one and three on the 20 on the 250th. That's crazy, right? Okay. The one that hits the thesis here is that uh there's the number I can't get out of my head, and Gallup asked Americans whether they think the founders, if they could see what exists today, would be proud or disappointed. 77% said disappointed. I mean, want me to read that again? 77 said they're disappointed. When three out of four of us believe the men who signed that promise would look at what we did with it and be let down. It's not a polling result. That's a report card. That's a crazy bummer. And so, here's the twist under it. A rooters poll out July 2nd found that 80% of Americans still plan to celebrate the fourth this year. Are you celebrating? What are you gonna do? I know in our state of Utah they've told us no fireworks. That's interesting. Uh, it makes sense because most of the state is on fire from wildfires. Uh, and we don't know if they're human-caused or natural, but it's been crazy. So, no 4th of July fireworks around here, and yet, you know, two in five don't believe the country will survive another 250 years. That's pretty sad. So put it together. The biggest 250th celebration in history. Uh a number at a record low, uh, three and four saying the founders would be disappointed, and still 80% of us still firing up the grill anyway. So here's the thing the founders knew that we sometimes forget. They never stored the promise in the institutions, they stored the promise in the people. We mutually pledge to each other, not to a government, not to a building, but to each other. The institutions can wobble, the pride number can crater, and the promise doesn't live there. It lives in your house, it lives in your handshake, it lives in whether your word still means something on a Tuesday. And here's the good news buried in that 77%. If the disappointment is about whether we kept the promise, then keeping it is still up to us. The report card isn't final. It's due every generation. So where do you stand? The country is 250 years old this week. The promise is exactly as old as the last person who chose to keep it. Are you going to keep it? Faith and Hope right after this. Uh I think about the song we're gonna sing on Saturday. Most of us only know the first verse. Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains majesties above the fruited plain. Sing it if you know America, America, God shed his grace on thee and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea. Good singing. Good job. Well done. We sing it like a postcard, right? A pretty picture of a pretty country, but America the Beautiful was never a postcard. It's actually a prayer. Have you thought about that? The woman who wrote it left us a warning that we needed to hear this week of all weeks. Her name was Catherine Lee Bates. And in 1893, she was a school teacher from Massachusetts, and she took a train 2,000 miles across the country to teach a summer course in Colorado. At the end of it, she rode a wagon and then a mule to the top of Pike's Peak. Have you ever been up there? 14,000 feet. Crazy. It's very high, it's very nice. Incredible to see that view. And when she looked out over that sea-like expanse, she said all the wonder of America seemed displayed there. That night in her hotel room. The first lines of the poem came to her. But here's the part that isn't on the postcard. That same trip, she said something to her friends that I can't stop thinking about. She said that countries like England had failed because, while they may have been great, they had not been good. And her words, unless we are willing to crown our greatness with goodness and our bounty with brotherhood, our beloved America may go the same way. Hear that again. Great is not the same as good. We've heard Jim Collins Good to Great book. But what about great not the same as good? That's why this song doesn't actually brag. No, listen to the words. It's not. America, America, you're the best, man. No, it's a prayer. America, America, God shed his grace on thee and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea. That's majorly different. Crown thy good. Not thy great, just thy good. This is the oldest lesson in the book, too. A nation like a man is not measured by how big it is, it's measured by how good it is. You can be great and rotten at the same time. History is a graveyard of great and not great and not good empires. Bates was warning us in a love song, not to become one. And here's where it lands for you and for me, the same place it always lands. You can be a great provider and not a good father. You can have a great reputation and not a good character. You can build a great life and not be a good man inside. Greatness is what the room sees. Goodness is what God sees. And the prayer, the actual prayer of the actual song, is that the greatness would get crowned by the goodness, not replaced. Crowned, topped off, made worth something. So this week, when you sing the first verse and hone the rest, remember it's a prayer. Not make us great. We're already great. Crown our good with brotherhood. Do we still have the brotherhood? Make us good. That's the prayer for the country. It's the prayer for the man singing it. I know that for sure. And if you've been watching the World Cup that's right now going on in our country, the world is coming to the United States and many people for the first time, and their minds are blown in the right ways. They're saying we've never seen this type of these types of stores with all the food and options, we've never seen uh national parks like this with all of this sacred ground. I mean, it is so wonderful to see. If you follow anyone on Instagram, on TikTok, anywhere you are, watch what people from other countries are saying now that they're stepping foot in this country. It's our prayer. And I hope that it's a prayer for every man that sings it. Father Time, right after this. Do we have an unrealistic view of what the founders built? A constitutional republic with the power built for the people? Yeah, good question. And and they asked as well. But John Adams observed our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people, and it's wholly inadequate to the government of any other. Yeah, that's the good stuff, right? Okay, so how do we make sure that we're morally sound? It's uh it's a matter, I guess, of personal preference at this point. But if we can understand what God expects of us, that's a major part of it. And if we can believe that we've uh we've got it in us. Unfortunately, I think a lot. Of people have turned away from that concept and that idea, and that maybe why brotherhood is shifting a little bit or a lot, and people aren't as optimistic. And so instead instead of like telling everyone what morality ought to be, it's in my opinion, it's just living our best lives, being our best self-serving each other. As long as we are able to reach across the aisle and love one another, that's what's going to fix everything. As long as we talk and listen. I mean, listen more than we talk. Those things matter. And as a dad, now we're in the father time section of this, you know, this broadcast today. In the father time segment, I want to talk about being a dad of kids who are growing up in the United States this time and some of the places we've gone. For the I don't remember if we even have one time when we were home for the Fourth of July with our kids, we always were traveling. We would either go like to uh we'd we'd go across the country in our motorhome. Uh we've celebrated it in multiple states. Uh we've done sparklers on the beach in Florida. We've we've been in uh Illinois for one. I I'm just trying to think of all the places we've had some really cool Fourth of July experiences. Now, two years ago, our family, and not just my little family, you know, my family. This is the picture of them. This is my favorite people, right? Well, I also have an expanded family, which is my siblings, my parents, and what we did is we went on a cruise to Alaska. Yeah, if you haven't been to Alaska, that's kind of, in my opinion, the coolest state there is because it's just so vast and it's unbelievably beautiful. My my daughter's living there right now, she's in Juneau, Alaska. And uh, we believe that maybe she wanted to go there because of the experience we had on our stop in Juneau on the actual 4th of July. We didn't realize we were stepping into a time machine. Literally, we got off the boat and the streets were jam-packed. It's this very small town. I mean, it's a I I mean it's a city, but it feels like a town. It's very small. Juneau is so special. And there were there were old dudes walking down the street in like full garb as if they were going to battle back in the 1700s. It was unbelievable. Little cars with people in it. I mean, it was the ultimate parade, small town parade, that you usually only see in a movie. People with their as they're marching. We felt so much pride, the good kind of pride, in being an American. And being in June, Alaska was very special. I I don't know if you can get up there this year, because it's kind of gonna be soon, but maybe in the future you should check it out. I've been around the country and never seen a celebration quite this unique and special, and it really did something for my kids as well. They were just like, that was so cool, that was so different than what we expected. But you know, teaching your kids what it actually cost, it's it's pretty it's pretty important to sit down and talk to your children about what the founders paid for and and and what that freedom isn't free. And you know, the moment you try to hand a kid the weight of it and not just the sparklers, it's an it's an interesting thing to watch your kids realize that people died in order to preserve the opportunity that we have every single day. And so it was fun to travel. I would recommend you travel and you go out there, but also just be safe on this 4th of July. It's a it's an important time and important place for all of us. So I was thinking it would be fun to share with you this song that I was actually asked to sing because we are in town this week. Our state is under a mandate, no fireworks. So we are putting together in our neighborhood, a few streets over, we're putting together a uh a gathering just for anybody that wants to come. And we're excited about that. And I haven't been in town for so long, and they found out I'd be around, and so they asked if I'd sing uh the song that I've become known for. Uh, I didn't write this song, this is a Lee Greenwood song, and it's uh he's he's the best singer of it, and he's pretty much the only one allowed to sing it for certain events. But then if they can't get him, they get me. And so I wanted to show you part of the song. We're not gonna start from the beginning, but just I want you to watch this video that I'm gonna share of me performing this and what happens to an audience when I perform it. You see, most of the audiences I've done in recent history, especially in large arenas and stadiums, they're not there to see me, they're there to see the main performer speaker and person that's like a celebrity, right? And so I get to come out and warm up the audience. And I like to celebrate patriotism. I love to help people feel grateful to be a part of the USA. Even if we disagree and even if we're not sure about our brotherhood, God bless the USA and bless us all to make it a great place, as great as we can make it ourselves. And so God needs to have a hand in that. Here's the performance. Watch these people, they get up and stand up and turn on their lights. It's a I think I start the video where they're already doing that, but I hope you enjoy it. It's fun to share. Enjoy the song. And uh the way I sing it is as if it's the last chance I ever get. And I appreciate Soulful Squirrel Studios. Nice voice, you inspire me to get back into leading worship. Right on, thank you very much. And you know, I appreciate that. Uh it looks like my my man Mike LeBlanc also said nice voice. Thank you very much, sir. You know, it's it's fun to sing those songs, especially when somebody like Lee Greenwood puts something that special together, and it's it's a real sacred anthem, in my opinion. Uh, some of the best times I've ever had performing that song was with my dad. I don't have video of it, but when he and I sing it together, and it's very special because that was essentially the song that he liked the most, and so that's why I learned it. And then I got to see Lee Greenwood sing it at the National Jamboree for Boy Scouts in Washington, D.C. Changed my whole perspective of performing and feeling patriotism. And, you know, as I'm looking at Soulful Squirrel Studios, thanks for sharing. It says nihilistic outlooks are usually founded without a grounding in faith. I'd submit as Americans, we need to return to a faith basis. For me, it's Christianity. I agree. Um, and whether it's Christianity for every single person, uh I mean, I think it's important to have diversity. I think it's important for people to believe what they believe. I know that the principles of Christianity are what the this country was founded upon anyway. And so you're absolutely right. When God is with us, um, God is over us, it changes everything for us. And and and as a father, I mean, I love it when I get to see my kids feeling that they're a part of something special, like living in this beautiful country. And so I'm just curious, you know, forget the country for a second. What's the small promise you're pledging uh your own sacred honor to this Independence Day? Is it to is it to m me to my wife? Is it to my my kids? Uh is it to my parents? Is it to myself? Is it to God? The one nobody will see you keep. That's the promise. Pledge it out loud. I mean, right here. Live. Say it. Do it. Be it. That's Father Time. Thanks for joining us on this. Let's jump into Funny Factory right after this. Alright, there are things every American believes on the Fourth of July with their entire chest. Not one of them would survive five minutes in a court of law. So here are the top seven. One, that you are personally a professional fireworks technician. Yeah, I know I told you that we don't have fireworks in my state this 4th of July, but yeah, I think a lot of us guys think that we're a fireworks technician. You bought them at a tent in a grocery store parking lot from a man named Sky. You have zero training, and yet the second the sun goes down, you become General Patton. You're giving orders. Everybody back! Back! I've got this as you're lighting the match. You do not have this, you have a lawn chair and a deep unearned confidence. So just remember that. Number two, that the grill is a sacred male jurisdiction granted by the Constitution. Okay, this is funny. I mean, a woman has run the entire kitchen, the entire menu, and the entire household logistics for a week. She's marinated the chicken. She's made sure the steak is ready to roll. It's not frozen, it's it's sitting on the counter. But the moment those coals get hot, a man materializes from nowhere. Tongs already in hand and announces, I'll take it from here. He has prepared nothing. He'll accept all credit. This is just somehow in the founding documents. Number three is that you know the words to the Star Spangled Banner. I don't, I mean, I've stayed away from doing the Star Spangled Banner. This song is so hard to sing, but you know the first line with total conviction, like, oh say, can you see full volume hand on your heart than by the Don's? Yeah, slightly quieter than by oh, it's so probably we held. Yeah, you're essentially just moving your mouth and producing a low patriotic hum until you hear a word you recognize and lunge back in. We all do it, it's a national it's a national tradition, really. The hum is the anthem. One of my favorite and the most tragic ways I've seen somebody sing this was like he forgot all the words once he got to certain part, and he's like, and the rockets in the air, they were right there. The rockets in the air, they were right there. I feel for that guy because he just kept trying, and it was not right, and it's hilarious because he's not the only one. I remember Michael Bolton forgetting the words, and he like in the middle of the song, the stadium starts booing and he goes, I'll make it up to you. And then he cranked out something impressive. You gotta look up the like botched Star Spangled banner. We've all been there. So I don't know if you've heard that version, but I love the rockets in air, the they were right there, that's the best. Okay, number four, that one more hot dog is a reasonable decision. Yeah, it is your sixth hot dog, and it's only 4 p.m. You're not hungry, you have transcended hunger. But it's the 4th of July, and there's a man at a grill who believes he built that hot dog with his bare hands, and you will honor his service. Freedom isn't free, neither is the antacid you'll need at nine. Number five, that the cooler is organized by a system only you understand. Yeah, the good stuff's in the bottom, ice on top, sodas on the left. But don't move the blue thing. Nobody knows what the blue thing is. You don't even know what the blue thing is. You probably forgot to freeze it, but the cooler is your domain, and that system is sacred. And if someone reorganizes it, you will feel a grief you cannot explain. This is my favorite one. Number six sparklers are safe for children's activity. Yeah, think about it. It's a metal stick burning at the temperature of the surface of the sun, and we hand it to a four-year-old and go, go nuts, sweetie. And then we spend the next 90 seconds in a state of pure terror, narrating safety rules. Nobody's phone. Don't run with it, don't point it, don't stab your sister. Oh, they're pointing. Okay, yeah. Well, then don't give it to them. And be careful with those sparklers. Finally, number seven. That this is the year the family photo will be easy. Yeah, everybody's in red, white, and blue. Or just just one good one. That's all we need. 20 minutes later, everybody's crying. Someone's blinked the entire time. The dog left. You've got 41 photos, not any usable. But you'll caption the worst one, blessed, and post it anyway. That, my friends, is the American spirit. It's it do you know how hard it was for us to get this photo of our family? We did this last summer. I'm so grateful we finally got one. But man, lots of blinking. And let me tell you, lots of people not pleased with even the fact that we chose that one. It is what it is. Go for it anyway. Happy fourth! Hug your people, hug your family, hum the anthem proudly, and the Rockets were there, they were up in the air. Gave proof for the night that they were still there. Alright, I've had too much fun with that one. Okay, we're wrapping up this show in just a minute. Let's jump into the final segment, the fitness minute, right after this. Neither one of them lasts because of one big day. No, America didn't make it 250 years on the 4th of July. It made it on the 91,000 ordinary Tuesdays in between. The quiet unglamorous, nobody's filming days of people just doing the work, the maintenance, the upkeep. Your body is the same. You don't get healthy on the one day you go hard at the gym and post about it. Yeah, bro, look at what I did. I did my one workout, it was amazing. You get healthy on the boring days. The water you drank when nobody saw. The walk you took when you didn't feel like it. The thing you didn't eat at the cookout, or I mean, the second thing you didn't eat at the cookout, let's be honest, it's the 4th of July. You're gonna just eat that way anyway. But greatness is the big day, goodness is the boring day done right, over and over, for 250 years, or for the rest of your one life. So if you want a body and a heart built to last another 250, you build it the way the country lasted, daily, quietly, on the days nobody's watching, making good choices. And when you make a mistake and you eat or drink the wrong thing, or you miss a workout, don't let that now become the trend. That's where we fall apart in our ability to be great. It's in the boring days. Just start again tomorrow. Keep a new promise, it's gonna happen. Michael Blanc saying, Randall, thanks for the link. Love hearing from Jason. Thanks. Thanks to Randy for sharing. He's probably the the one that follows this show the most. So thank you. And uh Soulful Squirrel Studios said, I seek to continue to act as a conduit for unconditional love. That's what I'm talking about. Good job. Be unconditional love, love each other, love one another, spread joy. The golden rule. What would Jesus do? Yeah, all of those things matter. That's what this is about. And as we talk about making sure that we're fit in our body, and the country has great fitness in the sense of having its own level of health. Well, that's where our sponsor comes in for this show. All right. The sponsor is Cardio Miracle, and I I see that Soulful Sub, uh Soulful uh Squirrel said, I've subbed to your YouTube channel. Thank you very much. I I don't have very many followers on YouTube, so thank you for subscribing there. That means a lot. Uh I want to tell you about nitric oxide and cardiomerical before we wrap this up. There's no nitric oxide actually in this, but it is ignited once you drink it. And you just mix it in your water. It's an easy, simple drink you can take once or twice a day. And we recommend two servings for the full effect. It actually ignites nitric oxide, which dilates your your blood vessels. And what's so powerful about that is that if you have heart disease, if you have blood pressure challenges, if you have numbers all over the place, if you have um if you need to take insulin with diabetes, if you're having brain fog, if you're having uh not enough energy for the workout, and so you just have to crank the caffeine. This doesn't have any caffeine in it, so that's an interesting thing, but it does have 58 natural ingredients. And what happens is when it goes into your bloodstream, it actually if it's long enough in there, which this product stays in your body as nitric oxide for 24 to 36 hours, it's unheard of in the nitric oxide industry and in the supplement industry. When it's past 12 hours in your system, it actually releases vitamin D3 from your fat cells as well. So I don't know if you have a vitamin D3 deficiency, most people do. Most people need to supplement with vitamin D3. All you really need to do is take your cardiomerical every single day, it's going to change your life. And if you're interested in any information on it, of course, cardiomerical.com, you could go there, you could scan this QR code, and uh you can get you know a pretty good deal. It's uh it's amazing. We have a 60-day money back guarantee. What's fascinating about that is that any person that I've ever put this on or I've said, hey, you need to go try it. Uh if if they don't see the results in 60 days, they get their money back. But that's never happened with anyone I've ever shared this with. They've all come back to me either 10, 20, 30, 40 days later saying, Oh my gosh, my numbers have improved. I feel so much better. I just finished building the deck on the back porch after I haven't felt myself for 10 years because of my hip surgeries and knees. It's a miracle of a product. It was created by my dad, John Hewlett, and I'm the president of the company. My family, my brothers work in the company. I mean, we're it's a family business, and we've helped save a million lives so far just with one scoop at a time. And and the long game is this take it every single day, your body will feel better, you'll look better, you'll feel happy, and everyone around you will be happy because hey, when you're healthy, everything's better. So that's the upkeep. Uh, we'll put a link in the show notes, but built to last the country and you. Let's bring it home. So here's where we land. 250 years in. We started in a hot room in Philadelphia with the 56 men signing their names to a promise that could have gotten them killed, and a lot of them paid for it. We went to a mountaintop in Colorado, where a school teacher wrote a prayer and warned us that great isn't the same as good. You know, when I think about Purple Mountain's Majesty, I don't know if you know this about my book, The Promise to the One, if you can see that. That is a Purple Mountain Majesty. Now that's a mountain from another country because it's the Matterhorn. I love that mountain, but what I love about it is Purple Mountain's Majesty, the Promise to the One, if you want to check it out on Amazon. They have plenty of those left. But I want you to think about how we ended at a backyard grill with a man who knows two verses of the anthem and hums the rest. And the rockets were there, they were up in the air. That's America. All of it, the pledge, the prayer, and the hum. But under every bit of it is the one word this whole show is built upon: a promise. A promise to be one under God, a promise to help one another and love one another, made to each other, resigned by every generation that chooses to keep it. You re-sign it when you choose to keep it. This week, when the fireworks go off and the kids on your shoulders and everybody's hand goes over their heart. Remember it's not a feeling, it's a pledge. And the pen's been handed to you. Keep your corner of it, keep the small promises, even when it costs you. Especially when it costs you. I'm Jason Hewlett. This has been the Jason Hewlett Show. I hope you'll subscribe and share it with your friends. I'll see you next Thursday. Until then, keep the promise. Have a good one.