A Midlife Reset Built On Gratitude

Why 44 Hits Different

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This week's episode of Share the Struggle Podcast is just a little bit different. Maybe, hopefully, a little bit wiser. Because I have just turned forty-four. And it appears that birthdays hit just a little bit different now. When we're younger, we're counting the years, looking to get older. As we get older, we start looking at those years a little bit differently. We start to think about where we've been, what we've learned, the people who have been there all along the way, and maybe most importantly, what you're going to do with the years you have left. So tonight we're talking about getting older, changing perspectives, faith, family, and the struggles that shape us, and why 44 might just be the beginning of a different chapter. That's coming up on this week's episode of Share the Struggle Podcast. 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. So

324 Weeks Of Showing Up

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we're excited to be back with you. Oh, it is true. It is damn true. Why? Because I love you, Boo. Episode 324, and I hope you're ready for more, cause somebody just turned 44. And if you're doing a little math right there, I'm feeling oh so right because tonight is 444. Get it? Episode 324, turning 44. That is a special note. That is a memorable number for some of y'all loyal listeners listening for some of the closest ones to me and some of the day one loyal ones to me. Get your ones up. I acknowledge all y'all, the original ones, the day ones, the loyal ones that have been here since episode numero uno. Number one. 324 consecutive weeks later, we are here gathered yet again. We ain't missed a week together, my friends. No, no, no, no, no. Why? Because we are committed to each other. If this is your first time here, then welcome here. We appreciate you. We love you. And we are excited to welcome you to this little positive tribe with a positive vibe. We just keep on multiplying, baby. I appreciate you. I thank you. Share the struggle podcast, proudly brought to you by the fine folks over to Loud Proud American. Wear what you stand for. The apparel brand bringing you exclusively made in America products. As they gear up for the biggest, the greatest, the granddaddy of them all, as they gear up for the Freiburg Fair. And we ain't talking pronouns because it ain't they, it ain't him, it ain't them, it's me. I okay? I'm the one behind Loud Proud American. There ain't no they and me and my mama, my baby mama, and my baby. That sounded a lot like a Jerry Springer episode right there. That went a little off the rails, and I just realized I was using some they, and that ain't for me. Not today, not any day. I was trying to read, like, put it out there as an actual um, you know, powerful sponsor. We gotta thank our sponsors today. But if you've been listening, you know we're sponsoring our own asses on this show. Okay? Loud Proud American is us. Share the circle podcast is us. We together is us. Boy, you you might be a redneck if you just freelance the most obnoxious opening you've possibly ever had to your show. I started

Feeling Lucky And Looking Ahead

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this off by saying I turned 44, and maybe there's things that are a little bit wiser behind the door when you turn 44. But I might have just recorded the dumbest opening I've ever done. But one thing about being wiser is I'm a little wiser about how I spend my time, so that means I shall not go back and edit the podcast. I shall not delete it. We are here to eat it together as a positive sandwich. So here we are over the weekend, Saturday, September 19th. The Virgo that I am. I turned 44. 44, which I feel lucky. 44 is a is is a lucky number. I feel like it's gonna be a lucky year. I feel like this year is gonna end super amazing as we're gearing up for our biggest and best event. I have the confidence pumping through my bloodstream that's telling me this is about to be the largest event in the history of our business. I feel it, I believe it. I've been working towards it each and every day. I'm pulling forward, I'm praying for it, and I think it's gonna come true. So I'm gonna finish this year super strong, and I feel incredibly encouraged about what's to come for me in the age 44, get into that 2027 year. And

Social Media Makes Birthdays Real

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I think that maybe we do a lot more birthday reflection because it gets put out there on social media, and I'm just gonna say that it's probably the most positive thing about social media because you hear from so many people, and I think we would all live life realizing that um your family forgot about you and your friends forgot about you in your birthday because they just got on with their busy lives, and you might feel a little down about yourself. But uh good old Facebook is there to let everybody know, hey, dumbass, it's your friend's birthday. That also goes to acquaintances and such and so forth. But at the end of your birthday, when you have all these, you know, birthday wishes and it provokes birthday messages and phone calls and text messages, and it makes you feel special. It makes a guy feel a certain way, makes a gay feel a little special. So thank y'all to each and every one of you that reached out, that sent uh pleasantry, that wished me a happy birthday. That means a lot. And and those conversations and those messages Oh plane or helicopter, plane or helicopter. You guys hear it? I'm recording outside today, it's beautiful. I'm actually in the camper with a door open. It's evening, sun is setting, but I have an airport behind me, so that happens. Squirrel! Either way, anyway, I gotta say thank you today for each and every one of you that reached out and said happy birthday. It truly um helps make me feel special, and it's crazy. I never um really grasped it at a at a young age when um you know you're like you'd ask your dad, What do you want for your birthday? And they'd just say, Dad, nothing, just another day. And your mother says the same thing, and oh, you know, son, when you get to a certain age, you just stop counting the birthdays, and maybe it'd be a lot easier to push those things aside and believe that philosophy deep inside, if it wasn't for social media that provokes the conversations, you know, the comments, the calls, the messages, the text, because it just kind of forces you to think a little bit.

Growing Up Late On Purpose

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And I think that maybe, just maybe I'm in my feels a little bit different because I've kind of lived life a little bit different. I'm late to grow, late to show. You know what I'm saying? Don't take that the wrong way. That's uh okay, we're gonna avoid that. What I meant to say, I grew up late. I showed up late, I matured late in life. I didn't grow up size-wise physically late in life. I baby, I come out the gate big, okay? But I matured late. I I grew up um into being an adult maybe a little bit late, and and really only in the regards of being a father, and maybe I just kind of blew this all out up a portion, and I should certainly wind this back and rephrase it, but it was kind of funny, so I'm gonna leave it. It took me a really long time to mature enough to make the decision and the commitment to being a father. It took me a really long time, uh, much longer than than most people that I know. Ironically, one of my best friends on this planet, uh, somebody that was the best man at my wedding, he had his first child uh just about a year or so before me. So maybe there's something in the water that just made us mature late. But I guess I'm I'm looking, I'm thinking, and I'm reflecting a little bit different because I am maturing at a little bit different rate. Now I chose to be a father so late because I chose to live my life to the absolute fullest that I could. Not saying that having a child isn't one of the greatest accomplishments and biggest things about living and fulfilling your life and your purpose, because it is. But what I meant to say is I wasn't mature enough to grow up enough to slow down my life enough. I was living it up a little too much. And I knew that I wouldn't be, that I couldn't be, the father that I needed to be, that I wanted to be, because I wasn't ready to be. Man, that's a lot of rhyming and Simon right there. Uh something's something is certainly in the water today. But I just knew it. I wasn't ready. I was partying too much, I was doing way too much dumb stuff, and and Lord willing, thankfully, him knowing me and what I wasn't ready to do, I would have made some serious mistakes along the way. If I had had a child with anybody but my wife along the way, my life wouldn't be different, would be so different today, right? My life wouldn't be the same today. And um, I needed to meet my person, I needed to mature in my life, I needed to be ready to make this commitment for my life. And I know I'm going long-winded on this, but there really is a lot to this on my birthday because as I turn 44, there's probably not a lot of you listening that are above the age of 44, or you're in your 40s, and your daughter just had her second birthday. And I'm not saying I'm the latest and the oldest in the group to be a father, but I'm just saying it's a little less common. And I know a lot of my friends were having their kids in their 20s and in their 30s, so you were living life a little different. You were looking at things a little different. When I was turning 25, I was focused on partying, I was focused on living it up, I was focused on anything but growing up. When I turned 30, my local bar, Bentley Saloon, helped throw me a dirty 30 birthday party. I had my own band. We had a slideshow, custom cakes, which was a cooler of high life, all this crazy stuff. And it was all about just enjoying myself and my friends and my family, and ultimately getting blitzed off my ass and just making crazy memories. I partied so hard turning 30 that I wound up in the hospital for over a week where they thought my intestines were going to explode. Does that put into perspective for you that I wasn't ready at age 30 to be a dad? But I'm ready to be a dad now. I'm excited that I am a dad now. So there's a little different level of reflection on your birthday now when at 44, just a couple weeks earlier, my little girl turned two. So as I think about my birthdays in the past, and I think about how I prioritize those things, all the things that you focused on. If you go all the way back to being a little kid, you think about the excitement of your birthday. And when we flash forward to my 25th and 30th birthday, you think about those parties, those late nights, those crazy stories, right? The early mornings. Those are the things that you focus on. At 44, you look backwards as much as you looked forward. And I think that's a common scenario when you get into 40s and 50s and 60s, you start to look back on your life as opposed to looking forward towards your life. And it's not lost on me that there's a great possibility I've already lived more than 50% of my life. There's probably a slim chance, hopefully, there's a great chance, that I'm only at that halfway marker and I can make it to 88 or later, you know? But my dad didn't make it to 88, so I can't expect all of us to make it to 88. So there's a great possibility that I've already lived over 50% of my life. And when you think about that, you start to think about how quickly um this time can fly by, right? You start to think about just how short this life is. So at 44, I should be looking back a heck of a lot more, but it's crazy to me that I'm looking forward. I'm looking oh so forward. With the intention of appreciating, loving, and celebrating each and every day as I move forward. You see, a lot of people my age would look back at their life and think about all they've done and how far they've come. And I certainly do that. I certainly do. But because I've started so late, because I'm a father, a new father, with so much to learn and so much to grow, it's impossible to not look forward. It's impossible to not think about each and every day. But the perspective that I now have in my forties is gratitude and appreciation for each and every day that I do get, for each and every opportunity to hold my little girl, for each and every opportunity to wake up and wake up next to my best friend and my wife. You see, life's a lot different for me than I expected it to be. But I'm so grateful that I lived my life the way I did because I have perspective and I can appreciate all the opportunities and all the little moments. And I can sit here and I can tell you I certainly don't feel 44, but I absolutely don't feel 24. It's wild to me some of the people that I've seen that I grew up with, and no offense here, man, no shots fired, but y'all have aged a bit too much. Some of y'all have grown a little rapidly, okay? I will say the one thing on me that has certainly grown is my waist size and maybe even my bust size right now. Because I had a serious conversation with me, the mirror, and my wife today about how I look today. Lord. Yeah, a training bra conversation was had today. Alright? That's more than you should say. When you're at the age of 44, you stop giving so much shit, okay? You stop caring so much about what other people think. But the commitment that I have to myself is to be here for my little girl and for my family. Life looks and feels different.

Success Becomes Faith Family Freedom

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One of the big things about life that is so different is success. Because success isn't about stuff anymore with me. It's about faith, family, and freedom. And I don't want that to sound cliche for me because you know I make a whole line of products that say faith, family, freedom, but it is the truth. I have leaned incredibly into my faith. I've devoted myself to my faith, made the commitment to raise my daughter by faith. My family, as you can hear, is my number one priority. And freedom. Freedom can mean a lot of things. And we think about freedom, we think about the great freedom in this country that has been fought for, that has been earned, and the price has been paid for us to have those freedoms. But there's also the freedom of experiences, the freedom to have experiences, to make memories, to share stories with your family, to build your legacy, to share your story. My life success now runs on faith, family, and freedom. And it's the freedom to have the opportunity, the time, and the ability to create the experiences with my family that'll last a lifetime. That's become success for me. We focus a heck of a lot less on the things we own, and more on the security that we create and the memories that we make. This business, this brand, all I want from this is the security for my family, the comfort, the calmness, the confidence for my family, for them to know that this business, this brand provides for them, and it provides us the freedom to have the experiences and the opportunities that we want. And sometimes the struggle, sometimes, you know, the late nights, the getting ready for events, sometimes the experience of going on the road for the event is the experience. It is that freedom. Because we're about to spend a couple weeks at one of my favorite fairs, and we're gonna be there with my little girl, with my mom, with my wife, and we're gonna make memories to last throughout her life. And that's what this is all about. This business is providing those freedoms, and that's what's important to me. These are priorities to me. It's a lot different than last call for me.

The Cost Of Chasing The Wrong Win

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As I've gotten older, I've thought about and I've focused on all the things that I used to chase for happiness. As I'm another year older and I spend time and reflection, I start to think about all the things that I took for granted. And how many times those things that I took for granted were the true sources of happiness, not the things I was chasing. Sometimes we put so much time, effort, and focus on on obtaining, uh on achieving, on owning that certain tangible thing, the new name tag, you know, like the the that new the new job title, the new vehicle, the house, the relationship. All those things we sacrifice for and we chase them because we think that's where our happiness is gonna come from. But ultimately a lot of it is those things that we took for granted. The times with family and friends that you don't get back. That's the true happiness. I think I lived my life in an in a in in a kind of a suspicious way. And I'm thankful for it each and every day. I'm thankful that this is the way the good Lord told me to live. And I got some crazy out of my system. I live life to the fullest. I can't say there's anything that I that I wanted to do that I didn't try to do. I've made the commitment, I've made the sacrifice to chase the corporate job. I've set the highest of goals and standards for myself and applied every ounce of myself to obtain them. I have sacrificed relationships, friendships, events, and experiences to obtain certain promotions and achievements. And I did all those things and I made all those things, and I'm grateful that so many of those things came before long before I turned forty four. Because I paid the price and I realized what the sacrifice for success. Success can ultimately do. And I can't tell you how grateful and thankful I am to wake up each and every day and realize that perspective now that I'm starting to be a parent now. Because in all those things that I sacrificed that I've lost out on to achieve and attain the things that I wanted to, it would kill me to know that one of the things that I sacrificed was the time and the memories with my little girl. So the fact that I waited until now, the fact that it took me this long to mature, I am oh so grateful. Because I lived the lesson, I paid the price, I know the sacrifice. The wisdom of a 40-year-old dad is to hold on to every moment in memory you've ever had. Because no day is guaranteed, and that lesson will never be lost on me. Now I know there's good days and bad, I know there's stressful days, I know there's difficult days, and I can guarantee there's many more of those days coming my way. But I will never go to bed not feeling blessed for what I have. I will never open my eyes not being grateful for the opportunity that lies in front of me. I truly realized over this weekend, looking back at my life, looking forward to what's to come, I realized just how blessed I am. And how this truly is the way I was supposed to live. This is the path I was supposed to find myself on.

New Birthday Highlights As A Dad

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Part of the realization to this was me laying in bed with my wife and my daughter as the clock struck midnight and I turned 44. Because my little princess was not ready to go to sleep. I thought about turning 25 and the party we threw at my house. I thought about turning 21 and going out to all the bars, even though I've been going to them for years. I thought about the fact that when I turned 21, it was the party with all my friends at all the clubs. When I turned 22, it was the party with my family at home. When I turned 25, it was a Tim McGraw song, and we decided to throw another party. And when I turned 30, I went so hard at the saloon. Literally, when you roll into the bar and Miller Light has a banner up that says happy birthday. Like from Miller Light. Do you know what I'm saying? You know, you got a reputation. I partied so hard I spent I spent over a week in the hospital. I went from that to the biggest smile on my face being the first happy birthday coming for my wife and daughter. I think one of the greatest birthday moments of my life and memories of my life was waking up, laying in bed, watching cartoons with my beautiful baby girl, snuggling me, and loving every minute with me. It doesn't get much better. It's kind of crazy that uh one of the highlights of uh my birthday was Paisley asking to go to the potty and um sitting on her little little training toilet and um actually peeing in the potty, asking for it, doing it, peeing in the potty, and all of us celebrating. She's only done that a couple of times, and for her to ask and to do it was um just special. It was just absolutely special, and and it's crazy. It's crazy to think this guy, these stories, what I've just told you, those are just quick moments in time of my birthday. I have I have an incredible amount of crazy birthday stories, these these tales from the dark side of drinking and craziness that I could tell you to make you laugh, to make you cry, to make you pee your pants. I have all those stories. But the highlight, the memorable one for me is my little girl on the potty. What has happened to me? This is all crazy to me. We finished the night at my father's favorite restaurant My wife, my baby, my mother, and me. Absolutely exactly how my father would want it to be. Crazy to me. I I didn't uh think this would this would happen, but I don't think I would have been open to this perspective. I don't think I would have been so receptive to appreciating the little things, to fully, fully embracing all the moments, counting the blessings. If I didn't live the way that I did, if I didn't have the failures that I've had, the successes, the achievements that I've had, the lessons that I've learned. And I'm not saying life's gonna be peachy the rest of the way for me. We have a podcast named Share the Struggle because I have more than my fair share of struggles. But 325 weeks starting next week, okay. 325. Is that where we're at? I blacked out. I'm on such a roll of excitement. Yeah, 325 would be next week. 324 this week. 324

Counting Blessings Through Hard Seasons

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consecutive weeks. I've gathered here, finding some sense of struggle to overcome. Always ending it with some some ultimate silver lining of positivity, because as we just agreed, you nor me shall ever go to sleep again without counting a blessing, and we shouldn't wake up without a touch of gratitude in our eyes as we see the rising sun, because that's an opportunity, and there's no guarantees on opportunities. We've got to be thankful and grateful for them each and every day that they come. Because this is a blessing. No matter how hard the days can be, no matter how difficult the days can be, the tough decisions, the trying times, the difficult times, the heartache and the heartbreak. It's all worth it for the little times, the little moments, the little memories. Laying in bed with your beautiful daughter, snuggling up to you watching Bluey. The celebrating her using the potty. It's crazy. Absolutely crazy. As I sit here now at the age of 44 and I think about all I've been through, all I've grown through, my successes, my failures, my my moments that make me just red-faced embarrassed, the stories I'd never care to share, the mistakes that I hope never see, the light of day, the heartache and the heartbreak, the most difficult times of my life, having to say goodbye to my father, telling him he was dying, those conversations, watching my brother pass, some of my best friends, losing my life, dream, career twice. All of those things. There was blessings in all of them. And they've all made me who I am. And I know that there is abundance and there is greatness destined for me and my family. I know that there is. So as I sit here, feeling grateful and thankful, and I look forward to each and every moment and memory and minute with my family, I continue to ask myself, how do I go about fulfilling my purpose? Just what does God want for me? I feel like there's another calling for me that's connected to what I've been doing, but I need to lean into it more. I feel like this life, this path was paved for me with a purpose. And whatever days and years I have left, I need to focus on fulfilling that purpose. I need to dedicate to my faith, my family, and our freedom. This here podcast, this episode, these 323 previous episodes, this is all part of me and my journey and my purpose.

Purpose Gratitude And Thanks To You

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And I humbly thank each and every one of you that have been on this road with me. That have been on this journey with me. If you guys weren't here, I don't know what number this show stopped at. The legacy, the lessons, the heartache, the heartbreak, and the triumphs, these stories might die forever. But by the commitment that I have to each and every one of you, because you continue to come back each and every week, I share just what it is that I am growing through. And together we are getting through. As part of Turning 44, is telling each and every one of you how grateful I am for you. From the bottom of my humble heart, thank you. If this is your first time or you're here every time, I appreciate you, and it's because of you that I will be back here next week to do it all over again. Thank you for supporting my American dream. Now go wash your hands. That's it, and that's all, Biggie Smalls. If you're allowed out Americans, I'm still finding me on YouTube, Facebook, allowed out Americans, Facebook, if you're like RAM I think you want to find me on Facebook Rams, I think it is. Underscore underscore background. Never lost your fucking hands, you filthy savage.