Balancing Debt & Regret With Hopes & Dreams 157

Today we dig into the confident yet vulnerable mind of a small business owner. When you forecast a 25% gain but you achieve a 50% loss, balancing debt and regret with hopes and dreams, it's the aftermath of a down event. All that and some Farmers' Olympics. On today'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. If you find strength in the struggle, then this podcast is for you. You have a relationship that is comfortable with uncomfortable conversations. Uncomfortable conversations challenge you, humble you and they bail you. When you sprinkle a little time and distance on it, it all makes sense. Most disagreements, they stem from our own insecurities. You are right where you need to be. Ooh, ooh, ooh. What it do, what it do. Back again for another beautiful, glorious week of me and you Can. You believe it y'all. Share the Struggle Podcast episode 157 gets y'all speakers up to 11. Okay, that was cheesy, but that's me living my fantasy of a radio rock and roll DJ guy. Yeah, yeah, 150 7. Get the speakers up to 11. Yeah, okay, that's a lot, that is a lot, but I blame it on the heat stroke. Yeah, stroke me, stroke me. Stroke Billy squire, anybody I don't know, lost it completely, absolutely lost it. Welcome to 157 baby. The Loud, proud American podcast properly, precisely, beautifully, accurately named Share the Struggle Podcast, because everybody struggles. But the key is, the truth is for you and me, if we share our struggles, if there's transparency between you and me, there is growth that happens between you and me. We can all get better, we can all learn, we can all earn if we share our story. And that's what we're about to do today. Y'all, we're going to hit you with a recap for the very first fair event for Loud Proud American. How did it go? Well, if you listen to the intro, you might already know It didn't go so hot. I mean, it was actually really hot and maybe that was the problem. But we're going to get there in a moment. Last week, the wife joined me for a fantastic episode. I think the highlight of the episode, according to most of you, was me getting a little poo poo on me, which I don't really know how I feel about that. Y'all, i thought you and me had a deeper connection than this. But apparently you started turning on my wife where you just laugh at the horrific things that happened to me. And you know I don't man, i don't know how I feel about that y'all, but hey, whatever keeps you coming back. So thanks for coming back. If you continue to come back, please share the show, help it grow. You can find all things about the show that you should know at wwwsharethesparkipodcastcom. Don't forget, you can be a sponsor, you can be a guest, you can do all those beautiful crazy things over there at the website. Speaking of sponsors, big shout out and thank you to Bud and Dreamer. B&d Flagpoles home of the Titan Telescoping Flagpole, the proudly made USA Telescoping Flagpole. So might have seen me traveling around with it. It's pretty damn sweet. Don't spend another year with pole envy y'all. We just put 4th of July behind us. If you are a loud, proud American out there and you don't have a flagpole, i got a question for you. What the hell is wrong with you? Huh, come on, straighten up, put yourself together. I'm disappointed. What's wrong with you? Get yourself a flagpole. Bflagpolesalescom. Tell Bud and Dreamer. I personally sense y'all Here. We are, y'all Here it is. Last week, the wife joined me. We were recording actually pretty late on the 4th of July, so we could keep our consecutive streak alive, and we adjusted up the camper. The next morning, my Mamma, my Mamma, dukes and myself were headed to the fairgrounds to start setting up. So that's what we did. So I'm going to take us all the way back to a week ago, at the moment that this podcast drops. If you're listening on the release date, then this will all make sense. If not, it makes sense. Anyways. It's just a week, it's just a calendar. I'm pretty sure you can figure it out. So a week ago today, my Mom and me, we headed up to the fairgrounds to start setting up, full of high-hull streams of aspirations, y'all. I'm going to tell you this because we have been playing around with a new layout for our vendor display, where we used to have 10 feet of frontage, 20 feet of depth, and we just really had a couple successful events of 20 feet of frontage with 10 feet of depth And we're working our way towards 20 feet of frontage and 20 feet of depth. We are working on big, bold, beautiful business. We are excited about said business, but we were in hopes of a last-minute request to change the angle of our display to go from that 10 foot of frontage, because curb appeal matters America. So we were going to go to 20 feet if at all possible, if the fairgrounds wouldn't let it happen. So my mother and I we show up. We already know our spot. I'm very fortunate to have the spot that I have because it took me a good year to get to that spot. Last year I had a miserable spot and just by moving over to this new location I saw a very nice increase in sales, a nice solid bump in sales. So I know where I'm going, i'm excited to be there. But I was asking if I could change the angle. So I had to wait around for the organizer, for the person to say, yeah, your name. Now that person obviously is getting pulled in several directions. During an event like this, right, you can imagine, everybody's all trying to set up on the same day-in-day And it happens to be one of the hottest damn days. It's 90 degrees, which I'm not built for that. I'm not all conditions gear over here. No, i have an acclimated. I'm not a Florida dude, i'm not a South dude, unless it's a wintertime dude. You hear me, i'm not ready for it, y'all, and I feel like in Maine. We went from snow to rain to exhaustion. It's aggressive. So here I am. I'm a big fella, known as the heavy breather, when it comes to heat. It ain't easy on me. I've known the sweat. This is like a 3-4 t-shirt kind of day type of heat. I'm waiting around trying to locate and find the person that I need to speak with for over an hour in the heat. That's getting to be a little silly of the athlete, but it is what it is. We started taking the tents out and just kind of laying them out to see how things would have to go, how they would look, and we're like you know what, let's just see. So I finally get the thumbs up, we go for it. So here we are super excited by our new curb appeal, sex appeal, twisted steel. You know it's a big deal. All right, we got everything's all changed around, looking good, we're feeling good. This is one more thing that factors into my mindset about we're going to make more money. Okay. There's one more thing that says we are going to grow our business. So I kind of said in my mind that I'm really hoping for a 25% gross increase, and you know that might sound a little silly to y'all but to me it makes a lot of sense because I actually achieved more than a 25% gross increase at this fair by moving locations. So I'm under the impression, by improving my location, bringing in a new set of products, adding some things in, sprinkling some sweetness you know what I mean That I'm really feeling like, hey, man, i'm going to knock this out of the park. Let's get at least 25% gain on this, and that's kind of what we're setting ourselves up for Now. During this time, our good friends and family and extended family of mine, walsson Woodcraft, was going to be a vendor at this fair for the very first time. I recommended them to, you know, join this fair And I was trying to get them set up next to us so we could help each other, we could be there for each other, and I also didn't want them to be on death row, which was the corner that I was on in my first year, because it was hard to make a living over there. So I was pushing for them to be alongside me. So I was out there with a measuring tape trying to make things work in hopes of getting them to be able to set up And that was successful. That did happen. Now, another friend of mine, another vendor, kyle from underdog metal. I had recommended for him to be there. If you guys follow Loweprote American, you've seen that Kyle made a really sweet custom sign for Loweprote American And I returned the favor by making him some awesome merchandise for himself, right, some new, fresh gear for himself And the folks from Walsson Woodcraft. You guys have also already heard Scott Pettengill on here from Freedom Designs. Well, walsson Woodcraft is Scott's parents, so Scott and Lindsay and Pete are always there helping out, so it's a real family thing, right? You kind of see how things all connect. Now, when you recommend a couple of people to go to an event, you are really hopeful that the event goes well for all people involved in the event yourself and the people you recommended, right? Spoiler alert I don't think any of us were totally stoked about the results on the event. But I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. I don't want to trip over my skis here. I don't want to get out in front of the old skis, right? We're not. We're going french fry and not pizza, right here. Okay, that was a skiing joke from a guy that's never skated day in his life. But I mean doesn't mean, i don't know. Come on, bitch, please, i don't know where that came from. Now, back to Wednesday. We're setting up. It is so damn hot. It's one of them days that the old thermometer says 90 degrees but the reality is 200 degrees. You know what I mean. It's swampy, steamy, regretful, all right. It's brutal. And I'm trying to set up, me and my mom. And when you put the tent up, you got to put the walls on and you have to close in the walls of the lock and then, before you can stake the tent down I've said this to you guys before, if you listen, you already know this but it turns into a sauna, it turns into a greenhouse, a sweat lodge Man, it turns into some uncomfortable swampiness, all right. So we get that all said and done and we put the grid wall up. Matt was there from Ledgeway Farms. He's been an inspiration to me as I've got to meet and know Matt and Sarah along the way, forming a good kinship friendship with them. They offer a lot of insight and they do a lot to help me along the way, and that's kind of kind of be a theme today, because we're going to find some positives today. That comes from a down event. There has to be some knowledge nuggets along the way. We must be dropping little nuggets of knowledge, even when you fail to hit the bar you set for yourself, even when you fail to achieve the goals you set for yourself. There must be some little nuggets of positivity. There must be some little kind of knowledge, kind of nuggets. Okay, knowledge nuggets. You feel me? Loggots of knowledge. Yeah, i think you made yourself clear. Big fella. I think I get it. Yeah, yeah, there's got to be. You got to find positives. Okay, wow, you guys are testy. Are you overheated? I think I am. I'm hot. Are you hot? It's hot in here. Anyways, it is hot in here because I have the damn ACs off, because it makes too much noise if I have the ACs on, which is going to make me run through this episode a little quicker than I would like. I'd like to spend more time with you all, but it's hot And once I get too far behind the heat, not good, right? So here we are, setting things up and I make the decision that we're going to take a break, go to the air conditioner. We're going to get in camp. We're going to hang out, cool down a little bit and then we'll come back when the sun goes down. So me and my mom went back out around like 7 o'clock, 6.30, 7 o'clock. We worked through about 11.30 at night getting as much on as we possibly could And then we returned to continue our setup and we went back to the continue our setup in the morning as the sun was coming up so that we could get ahead of the temperatures and we could be open and ready before the crowd showed up. So that was kind of our plan And to not dig too much into some more personal matters. My mom was on the cusp of a major surgery. My mom has had a hernia that's actually in her stomach that has been driving her stomach up towards her esophagus. I'm to find out, three quarters of my mom's stomach is actually up in her chest by her esophagus. It's a lot much shorter distance between her throat and stomach than the average person. So she can't eat very easily and things don't digest well. She's often getting sick and getting like heartburn and acid reflex, not sleeping a lot, not been able to digest a lot of things, having a lot of difficulties, and this stuff has kind of started a few years ago, but it also lines up with COVID. I had brought her in for a test and they actually identified the hernia. They stretched her esophagus and they said you know what? we don't want to bring you in for surgery because it's COVID and we don't want to take that kind of risk And we're just going to hold out and see how this goes. Well, as you guys know, that's a start of COVID Here. It is 2023. So my mom's been dealing with this for nearly three years. It's to the point where she just can't deal with it anymore. So she's been awaiting a surgery date and that surgery for her was just this past Monday. And I was telling my mom listen, i know you enjoy doing these events, but you don't have to suffer through this, right? You're in pain, you're not feeling good, you're having a hard time eating, you don't sleep very well, and now we're going to go into a fair that's, according to the forecast, going to be between 80 and 90 degrees all week, with a mixture of rain, and you have a surgery up ahead of you. You don't need to be miserable, you know, but my mom wanted to tough it out. Spend the time with me and then get back out there and see everyone and really try to just, you know, unwind and enjoy yourself as much as possible before having her big surgery. So to not fast forward too far ahead here, i will proudly report that I actually literally physically just brought my mom home from the hospital right before pushing record on today's podcast, and she's doing great. She's in a lot of pain but she's recovering really well. Her surgery happened on Monday morning and I'm recording this on Tuesday And, as I said, i waited to record the podcast until I got her home so that I could be, you know, readily available to get her here and get her comfortable. So she's home, she's doing well. The surgery went really well. It actually went, maybe even a little better than expected. She has a, you know, tough road ahead of her as far as the recovery goes, but she's feeling a lot better And I'm really, i'm hopeful and praying that this really gives her back her quality of life that she's been missing for the past couple of years. So that's a little side note, but I just want to put it in perspective. Here's my mom on the cost of this surgery. It's now 90 freaking degrees out. It's hot enough to beat the Dickens. And here we are, you know, hauling out apparel, building tents, hanging grid walls, just reading customers selling merchandise, doing all these things And you know, just really overcoming some some pretty dramatic odds at this time. Right, imagine, you know you're going in for a very invasive surgery. They're going to go in, open you up, you know, remove a bunch of, bunch of parts of you really, and then pull your stomach back down to its location, wrap it up, tie it up so it stays in place, all these elaborate crazy things. And you're trying to balance all that right Along. Doing that, you're also balancing the fact that your son, the entrepreneur Pekkerhead, next to you, that has kind of roped to end of all this nonsense. He's dealing with a down of it which, when you're a small business owner and your life and business and livelihood all depends on results of events, you could be a little moody at times, right, you can be a little down on yourself. Okay there, little buddy, you can stress out from time to time. It's all right, little fella, but you know you got to try to remain on the up and up. So when my mom's dealing with all this, she's also dealing with all this, and when I say this I'm pointing at myself because, i'll be honest, you can doubt yourself when things aren't going your freaking way. So, as we get things set up the first day pretty slow, okay, it was a pretty slow first day, but I'm looking at things and justifying it by the heat, and I will say this for the bulk of the day, up until maybe five or six o'clock at night, i was sitting on $25. I had made $25, okay, not real good. By the end of the day I made a couple of bucks, nothing crazy. I was down quite a bit on the day, but I was cautiously optimistic about the next day, thinking, hey, we're going to get into Friday and they always have this nice little parade that comes through town And after that parade because it goes right by my tent, right through the center of the event after that parade's over, we tend to get a nice rush of business. So, as luck would have it, the parade comes and goes and we get a little rush of business. Things start to pick up, right as they start to pick up, and we start to dance and romance and enjoy ourselves. Some rain moves, in which it was an enjoyable rain, but then it rained hard enough and there was thunder and lightning, so it was enough for people to say you know what I'm out of here, i'll see you tomorrow, or see you when I see you, maybe I won't see you at all, so really kind of put a damper on our business to end our Friday night. So again Friday here we are down a significant amount. I mean we had an okay day where we're down a significant amount. I'm coming into Saturday rather cautiously optimistic that, hey, i'm not going to see the 25% gain I'd hoped for, but I do have a chance. I have a slight chance to match what I did last year, which last year was a really strong year and I had a real nice gain from the previous year. So I have it all planned out and I'm texting my wife back and forth, because Allie comes up on Saturday. My mom goes home on Saturday and I'm telling her here's the plan We're going to have a monster Saturday. We're going to have a solid Sunday and when it's all said and done, when we say goodbye to the fun, we're going to be right where we need to be. We're going to be right on par with last year, which I always like to overachieve, right. We all want to beat last year, we all want to beat yesterday, we all want to beat today. So that's the philosophy for me. But when I have to pivot and then set a new goal and form a new strategy, that's what I do. Well, unfortunately, saturday never really turned out to be all that I had hoped it to be. I will say that my Saturday in 2022 was greater than my entire event in 2023. And I'm just going to kind of wrap up the results of the event real quick so I can get off this portion of the subject. But Sunday was another decent day. It was an okay day. I don't think we were that far off from the previous year, but once all said and done, we were down over 50% from our last year. So you go into an event hoping for a 25% bump and you take a 50% drop. So that's a tough pill to swallow, right. And when we really peel back the layers of the onion and we kind of narrow it on the core of the onion and this onion just happens to be the small business owner or entrepreneur that's betting on himself and trying to make something for himself and his family it's very easy to get down on yourself, it's very easy to second guess yourself. We've had many episodes where we talk about self-sabotage and imposter syndrome and all these things where, when you're trying to make it and you feel like maybe you're a fraud or things just aren't right, and when you're not achieving the goals that you have for yourself, when your business and your brand is not growing like you believe it should grow, when you're not achieving the way that you feel like you should achieve, you open yourself up, you get vulnerable and you just really start to doubt. You can self-doubt yourself. Your product, your decisions, your business. When things are going good, when you're crushing things right, when you're having a solid event or you've been on a stretch of success, and someone comes in and they make fun of something that you make, or they walk out on someone or something based off the price. They give you some kind of shit-bag attitude and say I wouldn't pay that for that. That's crap. And they walk out like Tony Tough Guy, right. Or I'd rather buy this at Walmart or whatever, right. They talk down on you and your brand and what you're doing. When times are good, when things are rolling, they're like that guy, what a douche. You see that guy. Yeah, what an idiot Man. I couldn't imagine waking up with a face like that. I mean, there's ways to laugh it off, right, and you're like, that guy has a total tool bag. See, he's old lady. I'd be pissed too. You know what I mean. You can find ways to blow it off like well, one in every pack, right, so you can dismiss that. But when you're tracking at a 50% loss coming off an event that was rained out, that was a 50% loss coming off another event where you're there to support a good cause If you guys are following along you've been listening to the past few weeks you know I had another event that was about a 50% loss. So shit, i'm going to talk myself under depression right here on the microphone because if I really start stacking them up, i can take three events that are down 50%. When you think about last year's events doing that, you start wondering where the hell are we going? America, what am I doing? And you start thinking about the health-wanted signs. And you start thinking about the fact that Dunkin' Donuts will pay me $18.75 to slink coffee. Maybe I won't have to pay for coffee anymore. What's the hell is a discount? Maybe that'll actually work out. You start thinking about all these things, right, you start running into friends and say, hey, i got a promotion. Hey, man, how you doing? man, i got a new job. Okay, and they're talking about all the great things going on and the vacations and just all the nonsense, right. All the awesomeness, right. I'm proud for everybody, i'm happy for everybody And I always will be happy for everyone. But in those moments when you're not achieving what you achieve, when you're slumping, when things aren't going the way you think they should go, when you have been putting all your effort and all your eggs and all that focus and attention into one basket, into one direction, you tug it on one rope and you get nothing but hope, but you're not getting what you feel you deserve. You're not getting what you feel like you weren't. You can doubt yourself. And when someone comes in during those moments of weakness and is, yeah, i wouldn't pay that. No, no, i don't like that. No, that's dumb, that's dumb looking. No, i'll go down here. Oh, let's go see the other guy down here, or? no, i don't like those, i don't like that. Mm-mm, that guy's fat, whatever right, all those things, all of a sudden that starts to weigh on you And all of a sudden you get these little lanes of vulnerability that start opening up in you. They start to affect you, they can start to derail you and your positive attitude. And if you get too far off that positive track, you, my friend, are never going to achieve all that you want to achieve because you don't have time for negativity. You don't, you just don't have time for it. But when you're running through these types of events, it can be difficult. And this was one of those weekends where I'm telling you I'm doing the best I can to overcome it, but it weighs on you, it beats on you And you can let it beat you up, but you can't let it beat you down, you can't let it keep you down, you can't let it defeat you. And there's also this whole thing of strength in numbers. Now you don't want everybody else around you to not be successful, because that's not good either, right. But when you start hearing from everybody else hey, man, i'm not making money. Or hey, man, i'm going to be lucky to do 50%, or I'm trending at 75% And you start analyzing the business, and now that I've been on the road for three years, you start to make these friendships, these relationships where people, they don't necessarily tell each other your dollars and cents but you can say, hey, man, i'm down this much, i'm up this much, i'm right where I need to be. There's all these things that if you're honest with each other, there's transparency with each other, you can help each other. And I tend to believe that if everyone's down, or a majority's down, or a good portion is struggling, that there is that strength in numbers, right, there is that common ground, there is that common unity, even if the results aren't what we all want, there's some, some strength in the fact that we're all in that same boat. That makes sense, right. I think we can kind of all draw some strength on that. I mean, you don't want anybody to be down, right. But this is a little bit worse everybody's way up and your way down. I think at that moment the opportunity for doubt and failure to creep in really gets ramped up, right. So this is one of those instances where I feel like a lot of us were down and you can look at this and very easily justify the fact that Man, it's hot, bro, It's way hot, like it was miserable hot. It was difficult to just Stay positive. Hot right, when you're changing clothes multiple times, changing you know You skips and you sure it's multiple times you're, you know You're. You're sucking down popsicles and drinking waters. When you drink like 15 bottles of water a day and multiple Gatorades and whatever else and you don't wake up once they go pee, pee in the middle of the night. I mean you might be a touch sweaty, eddie, okay, let's just, let's just think about that. But It's one of those things where, when you start sharing conversation with people, you don't want to put yourself down and you want to put anybody else down. You want to kind of build each other up and you find that silver lining on that layer. And you look at things and you kind of just Try to be as raw, brutal and honest in things and say, okay, here's the weather, here's what we're up against, here's the conditions. Now, what can I do better? What could I have done better? And you have to take a raw, real look at those things. Right, because I'm going in there with all this positive outlook on things. I'd be a little bit of an ego maniac if I didn't assume some of the blame, some of the results, right, if I didn't say, hey, you could have done this a little bit better, you could have placed this different, you could have bought something different. So, yes, you have to analyze some of those things, you have to wash out all the bullshit that comes at you and you can't beat yourself up, but you need to really see is there anything in my direct control that I can take control of? and then we're gonna chalk things up and look At the event and say, yeah, there's multiple reasons for this event to be down. And I could actually pinpoint reasons for all the events that were down. Whether I had an event that I lost two days of business due to rain I had an event that was, you know, maybe not as well as attended as previous and the temperatures were super hot into another event the same way, where it's like, hey man, are people just not coming out because of the heat, right? so you have all these things. What you hope for is those are the reasons. What you don't want to hope for is that this is a sign of a season and when you have one, two, three events that do those things, because I've had some events this year that I was way up. You heard me say bike week I still beat last year with one less day. I was off to have a great friggin event. But when you have a few Duds in the mud along the way, you start to worry that this is a sign of things to come. and being in Maine, things come to us last, right, a new release song might take Six extra weeks or months to get to Maine before you actually hear it on the radio, right? certain things Take a long time to get to Maine and they take a long time to get out of Maine. I think there's people still wearing Z-Caviricis man and button-flasks. You know, i mean, it takes a lot of time for things to leave. Sometimes things will come into style and then and then go out of style And we're just getting them into style. You know, i mean because it's been a while. Yeah, we find things late, and I say this to say that I've talked to some, some mutual friends that are vendors that travel around the country And they've all reported to me that I've had a tough time throughout the country. But Maine's been great. Every time I come to Maine, my events are either dead even, or I'm up. A Lot of people would say that's encouraging results, right? Hey, man's a real strong state for me. It's a worrisome result for me because I know, being a lifelong Maine resident, that things happen late. A recession, what happened late, you would get into that recession late and you would come out of that recession late. So what makes me really worried about the business that I'm in and and what I'm attempting to do and all that I want to achieve is, if my friends are experiencing down Numbers throughout the country except for Maine, and now that switch is starting to get flipped, where you're gonna feel it in Maine, as a small business owner with 30 grand in debt to start the season off, trying to pay those things off, trying to pay the mortgage, trying to build the brand, trying to reload things, trying to growth rings, renew things, redo things, i'm a little nervous because if the barrel does drop out, if those Things that they're experiencing throughout the country happens here now, it could be a real difficult time here now and When you're thinking about that conversation all weekend as you're wrapping up this event. It makes it tough and it takes a toll on you. So I'm gonna pray those things away. I'm gonna, i'm gonna stay positive, i'm gonna look towards the future and I'm gonna say to myself that, hey, you got a new event coming in a couple weeks. You're going to a new place when new faces place you never been. You don't know what to expect, but I don't have anything to compare it against. I don't have anything to make me feel like I'm up or down, so I'm gonna tell you I'm gonna be up, right, because I ain't been there before, so I'm hoping for more. These are just some of the things that we think about as a small business owner. This is just some of the some of the moments of self-doubt and and worry that happens. But you have to beat those things out and you have to move them out. And the nice thing about Being at these fairs and having these conversations and making these relationships and connections is there's others to help pull you out. So, as I said, i'm neighbors this whole week, with good friends and extended family, basically, and we're feeding each other positivity and we're having those conversations. But we're also being realistic about what's happening. But I'm also checking in with other people that I know and Matt and Sarah from Ledgerway Farms But, by the way, the best soap you'll ever friggin experience. We've switched completely over to soap from Matt and Sarah Ledgerway Farms. It's a goat soap, it's. It's fantastic, it's it's all natural. It's made here in Maine and Hopefully in the future you're gonna see a collaboration with Loud Proud American and Ledgerway Farms. But they've really been an inspiration because they started their business in hopes of just paying the taxes and now, if you just find them on social media, you find their website, you see them at events, you can tell they're doing more than that and that their business is growing and they now have employees and they're doing all these great things for themselves. And I'm not gonna share too much of this story because maybe someday they'll come on here and share it to all of you. But there's There's knowledge nuggets hanging out with them, right. There's little, just pebbles of positivity that comes from those conversations with people that have been there. Hey, man, i've been there. I know those growing pains. I know what you're feeling right now. I know that doubt you have right now. I've been there, but here I am right now. We all need to have people around us that we can aspire to be right. We all need to have influences around us that encourage us, that inspire us. If we don't have those, i'm really begging you to seek those, whether you Maybe don't have somebody in your own specific lane I don't have anybody close to me that runs an apparel brand But I have other people close to me that that have their own brands, that have their own businesses, and we're all at different steps and we're all at different places in time. So when you share those stories and those struggles with each other, there's growth for one another. Right, and We all need to have those things. If you don't have somebody physically close to you, if you have not made those relationships, you can find them online. Hopefully I'm a resource for you And hopefully, if you're a small business owner out there or if you're just, you know, just really just trying to chase your own dreams and you have your own goals, hopefully this show touches on something that encourages you in the right way. Hopefully the show just does something for you and that maybe we can be that positive influence too. That's really what I want this show to be, right, whether it's a life struggle or a business struggle, we're all here to share those struggles, so we can get strength from those struggles, that we can move on from those, we can grow from those. So that's really why we do this show. So hopefully this can help you, but don't be afraid to stop here, man. Get on YouTube, find, find other businesses, find other podcasts, find other stories, find other pages, other social media outlets That you can latch on to. You're not, you know, trying to be them, to reciprocate them, but you're trying to learn from them. You're seeking those little nuggets of knowledge from them. They can help you to carry on, to move on, to get on, and That's what I found from this weekend is with conversations with people like Matt and Sarah, people like Scott and Lindsay and Paul and Pam Kyle, julia, charlie McKenzie all these people, right, all these other You know, vendors and business owners and organizers, and I know all these names don't mean anything to you, but that should be an example to you that there's always somebody for you, there's always somebody like you that can share some knowledge, that can share some perspective and, hopefully, hopefully, find some positivity. And some people you don't even know their name, but you meet them along the way and you hear their stories and and you share things with each other and You can really inspire one another. And one of them came from an ironic place this weekend. It came from a young lady that does character drawings, and Her and her dad travel all around and I've known him now for a few years, but her dad is always happy, absolutely always happy, and he was at every event. He goes around and takes videos and makes highlight reels for his page, for his daughter's page, and He just seems to be always wired, right. You know, the guys that are, or girls that are, always seem to be like two pots of coffee in, you know, and they just don't seem to get down. They just seem to make things happen. Well, this guy's one of those dudes, right, he's just so full of energy and Here we are all down, right, we're all struggling at the end of day one, we're all hot and miserable and tired and bothered, and he comes around making videos and he's smiling and my mom says that guys, always Fucking happy, he's always happy. I mean, we've been at events where he's there, where you lose the whole day to rain. You know poorly attended events, cold events, hot events, awesome events. You know what thing? that doesn't change, unlike the weather, his attitude doesn't change, it's always the same, he's always happy. And he came over one night and my mom said you know what I'm gonna lack about you. You're always smiling, you're always happy. And we started this conversation. He said That's all. You can be right. There's no real reason to be unhappy. I mean, look where we are, look what we're doing. It might not be as successful as we wanted, but at the end of the year you don't think about the bad days. At the end of the year you don't dwell on the bad days because You put them all in the pot and mix them up. And I started to make some sense because he said to me You don't dwell on the bad days, you can't let him get you down. You got to move on, because Maybe today's a bad day, maybe tomorrow is a great day, or if tomorrow is a bad day, maybe next week is full of some great days. But at the end of the year, when you take all those numbers and all the money you needed to make, when you travel around doing things that we're doing, if you're up, you're up. If you're down, you're down. But if you're up, what good did it? do you to dwell on the days you were down? And it's such a simple concept, but it's so damn true. You can't let the bad days get you down. And if you think about it, as much as we enjoy the good days, we can't let those good days get us too far up, because if we're too far up, the crash feels a hell of a lot harder, right? So it's really about being that happy medium and I say happy medium was, i think, of this man, because he's always happy. That is his high, that is his low, that is his medium. That's just how he goes. And people like that, that personality, is not for everyone. I think this world would be a much easier, happier place if it was right. But I think there's a lesson there. I think there's a lesson to be learned that If we could just be happy, if we just take every day the same way and we don't dwell on the bad ones, how much of better will life be? That's a fundamental question and lesson for all aspects of life, whether it's business or personal right, whether you work for someone or your own your business, whether you date someone or you're married someone or you're single, it don't matter. If you just take that philosophy of not dwelling on the bad days, i truly think we're all going to have a hell of a lot more Good days. Gut checks, it's my Christmas. Laoproud American is a lifestyle brand, dedicated and determined to represent the American spirit, with an unrelenting commitment to provide made in the USA products. If you would like to join the 2% of Americans that buy American and support American, head on over to wwwLaoproudAmericanshop. Together we can bring back American manufacturing. Alright, alright, alright, man. There's some positive there. Baby, there's some pebbles of positivity right there for you and me. Some conolid conuggets. Don't take bad days, personal man. It all averages out For my friends. I totally care about you. Don't let those bad days get you down. They all average out. Now, what doesn't average out is my wife showing up on a Saturday and Vaughn telling me that I need to join the Farmers' Olympics. Yeah, you see, my wife arrives, just hanging out. I heard my mom hanging out. She tells me go, you know, go, explore, explore, be free, little butterfly, be free. That was weird. But you know, when you've been sitting in a conductor's chair hanging out, sweating yourself for a week, where it feels like a week, it's only about a couple days. But sometimes you're afraid of freedom, you know, sometimes you're afraid to get up and use your legs and walk around. It's not easy. But Matt came over and said hey, man, there's some wrestling, let's go watch this wrestling. So while we're watching some wrestling, charlie, one of the organizers, comes over and says hey, your wife wants me to tell you she, vaughn, told you to join my Farmers' Olympics team What My wife spent here for three hours and already volunteered me to bust my ass. What in the everloving, oh my, what is going through her precious little mind? Because I'm going to grab it and shake the hell out of it and rattle it loose, because I've been telling you how hot and bothered, uncomfortable and unhappy I am. And what do you do, cinderella? Sign me up for the fucking Olympics. Oh my God, yeah, yeah, there's no talking your way out of this. And of course, matt's like yeah, this is going to be awesome, i did it one year. You got to do it too. Screw you Matt, screw you buddy. So I find out, i'm assigned up for the Farmers' Olympics, a competitive challenge of farmer type things and athletic ability I mean pseudo-athletic, i guess. But when you're on the verge of vapor locking and straight up dehydration because it's been 90 degrees all week and you could drink 17 bottles of water and not take a wee wee, the likelihood of me rupturing tendons, the likelihood of me having muscles fall out of my body very high, very high. Also, as I might consider myself a family-tuned athlete at the age of 40, i am not anymore But yes, i have been at the gym and I've been working out. Oh wait, you've missed a few weeks. Haven't you fella All the gains I thought I was having? muscular gains, weight loss gains, all those fantastic things that you would hope happen from working out? Well, my schedule's ramped up, my travel's increased and I have not been doing any of those things and I've lost the advantage of all those great things. So for the guy that had been working out for I don't know how many months, feeling a little bit better about himself, i can tell you two, three weeks a month off. We'll derail that, and nothing derails that confidence more than hearing you're on the Bummer's Olympics team. Oh joy, thanks, babe. Oh my god, it's so great to see you. Did I mention my ankle fell off yesterday? Oh great, let's get a crowd, a microphone and record it. Oh my god. So I go over to meet my team and join in the Farmers Olympics. I won't bore you with all the details because, shit, if you wanted to see the details, my wife videoed them live on the Loud Prod American Facebook page so you can go back and watch my embarrassment for yourself. But the first order of business was grabbing a hay bale which weighed in at about 65 pounds, run down, circle a barrel, come back and throw it over a hoop, which I felt pretty good about, actually, because I tend to run around with hay bales a lot of time. So this one very qualified for And I personally felt like I did pretty damn good. I'm not going to lie. I was fresh off an Italian sub in a Miller High Life when I realized you should you know. Now that you've been told what you're going to be doing, let's sprinkle in a power aid and some water and maybe some light stretching. Oh, you got a roll of Kineso tape. How about you go ahead and tape your ankles before you start running True story, handle the Cabela's catalog out of the sky. That's the truth from this guy. That's about as much preparing as I could do. But I would say when you get this ball of mass and forward motion enrolling, some people might say, oh, i don't think I feel like I moved like that, and that's commonly what I heard from a few folks like bam, nicely done, big man. So okay, event one done. I feel pretty good about it. I may mess up the order on this. I may even forget an event. I don't fucking know. I tried to black most of them out of my mind. I do believe the next one was maybe a tire event. actually, you had to roll the tire down the arena. This is a you know race situation. I think we have six members on each team and you're going head to head. During these type of things, either they're timed it's an accumulative time at the end or it's a head to head thing. It's also timed. So we run down, circle around the barrel and come on back. I will say I had that sucker going. We were moving pretty damn good. Here's the disadvantage. This year is the first year they give you a 14-inch tire. Oh, sweet bud, that's below the kneecaps, fella. Last year they had like a 32 or 33. That would have been great if you asked me. But no, no, i got to just about blow my back out quasi-modo my way down there in full sprint mode. Well, i was doing pretty damn good until I lost the tire around turn two. That sucker started heading for the puckabush but I corralled there, went around the wrong barrel, but I made it back. Pretty damn good, i thought overall not that bad. Okay, if there's six people on my team, i'm probably commonly in third place. I'll take that after a sausage sub and a cold beer, all right. Next event was a water bucket challenge Not the one you dump it over your head, though It'd have been great. But no, you scoop a five gallon bucket of water, run down the arena, pour it in. I'm pretty good at this. I can get down there If you go long, pour tall, pour like you're making a drink. This might be one of the advantages of being an alcoholic You know how to pour drinks, so I could pour a bucket of water and then, pretty damn good, didn't hold the team back, felt pretty good about that. Okay, nicely done. Everything was going great, all things were pointing towards success, until I heard about a little event called the blind wheelbarrow race. Yes, you get a team member in a wheelbarrow, you get blindfolded. You drive them through the obstacle course. I make a game plan with one of the people on my team She's a lady of the cow industry, okay And she says are you familiar with G and Ha? G means right, ha means left. When we get in this crowd, everybody in the stands are going to be yelling left and right. You're not even going to know what the hell's happening. When I say G Ha, we're going to be all set. And I watched another team in front of us when they were smacking the side of the wheelbarrow And I said, hey, here's the deal, g Ha, g Ha, g Ha. When you say G, smack that right side of the barrel, get it up nice and high, Smash that thing so I can feel it in my hands. I know where it's coming from. We'll figure this out Right before it go time. Another lady on the team says Oh, no, i'm going with you And we have a switcheroo. This lady, sweet woman, sweet, sweet woman. But we didn't have a game plan. And as we get up there, when we're standing there before the blindfold, she already is confused by the layout of the obstacle course. We go this way, that way, around here, around there. No, no, no, no. That way, this way, here there, around here, back there. No, this way, that way, that way. No, no, no, no. Are we getting in here? Yes, no, no, no. Okay, if we can't communicate with the blindfold off. How is this going to go? Here's problem number two. They gave us a rubber wheelbarrow. You can bang on rubber all you want And what's not going to happen? Pregnancies or directions. Okay, you can bang on that rubber, i can't tell what the fuck you're hitting. Okay, so after what appeared to be and feel like 45 minutes of fucking slamming and everything in the goddamn arena, i put the wheelbarrow down and I completely leaned in and said This isn't fucking working. It's not working. She's yelling at me left and right and all things tight and back up, back up, back up, back up. Four steps, back up, four steps. One, two, three, four. Keep backing up, back up. No, back up. Eight, nine, ten, keep backing up. 11, 12, 13. Why aren't you backing up? Put the wheelbarrow down. That's like 20 fucking steps backwards. You asked for Four women. Oh my God, this is embarrassing At this point in time. Everybody's yelling at you. The guy on the microphone saying Apparently he doesn't know how to drive a wheelbarrow. No, i can drive a fucking wheelbarrow. I'll drive this wheelbarrow right up your fucking ass sideways there at homey. The problem is the lady in front of me, the one that can actually see, isn't telling me a damn thing And she's baking, freaking, banging on the front of the wheelbarrow. I smashed into guard rail as I ran somebody over. I got a wheelbarrow up my ass. That wasn't part of the cards. I literally leaned in there and said This isn't fucking working. I went straight Tommy boy mode on her And I said I can't feel anything you're doing. I don't know what you're banging on, for the love of God. You know what I'm talking about Heated and embarrassed. It's not even on the way. You want to just rip your blindfold off and just fucking gun it Right Like you're just, or I just want to launch this lady right off this wheelbarrow right through the hay bar, and I'm just going to just keep on going. But the problem is you don't know which way straight. Oh man, talk about absolute misery, disappointment and embarrassment. Oh boy, that suck. My forearms are ripping. You know what? And I don't think about it. I should have just taken the wheelbarrow, picked it straight up, dumped her out of it and just tried to figure it to fuck out myself. But that would have been way funnier and way cooler. But I just thought of it And I vowed to the young woman Oh, she's older than me, but I wouldn't dump her, i wouldn't kick you out of the wheelbarrow And I didn't. As much as it pains me, as much as my forearms are still clenched and my pains are still bustling Oh my, he's vascular. I catch her in the wheelbarrow. I seem like 45 minutes of running all around and I'm pretty much at this point of something. I take all blame for our team coming in probably last place. I didn't stand around to figure it out. Oh my god, everything was good until then. America. It went downhill and did an abol of embarrassment. The only saving grace was the next guy on my team was almost as bad as I was Absolute fucking misery. But only I did not want a little fun. Fact After that game I come over to the sidelines. There was this I don't know, maybe he calls himself a farmer over there that was drinking. He kept saying weird things to me that I didn't understand the whole time. I was there. Every time I go out there. Are you even from Maine? What does that even mean? asshole, what does that even mean? And I was doing one game and he walked over to my wife and said maybe you should just go to bed when he's done Again. I don't know what that means. I finished a wheelbarrow game. The next game is this centipede game, where they have two planks of wood and your whole team gets on them and you have to put your feet on there. And you, you know, left, right, left, right, you all walk together My feet. I'm looking at it. Soon I'm probably not even going to fit on this damn board, but thankfully only the top two teams were going to complete this task and my awesome wheelbarrow handling skills made certain we were not in the top two. But that guy was next to me and he literally said hey, fat guy, can you even do this one? I looked at him and said what Fat guy, can you even do this? Huh, you can assume my rage, america. Not only was I volent told to do something I didn't really feel like doing, not only is it hot as fuck, not only am I not making the money I wanna make, not only have I had people criticizing me all weekend or having moments of self-doubt. I got every opportunity and reason to knock this honky out, which is, at this moment in time, the one thing I would really enjoy doing. But my life in future depends on my brand and these events And the last thing I need to do is to be a vendor that knocks out a hail billy that costs himself a big event. So I just looked at him and said, well, hopefully I don't have to, and kind of turned his head and at that moment I think he realized I'm a fucking idiot. Because he said, well, that was kind of rude. And his son came over in Silly and got between me and his old man because he knew I wanted to fucking choke him out And he said to me oh, you're the loud, proud American guy. I bought a bunch of stuff from you And they just started shooting the shit and kind of defusing it. But it makes me wonder what the fuck goes on in people's heads. It also makes me wonder why people think they can say shit, do shit, express shit without repercussion. Because we could have had a whole different ending of that Saturday evening. Because on that Saturday evening the ambulance had to come to the fairgrounds twice. One lady unfortunately had a cardiac event, but she was fine and she was back at the fair the next morning. Another fellow nearly lost his leg, nearly had his leg amputated, when he was hitching horses in the polling arena and they lunged forward and ran over his foot, took 7,600 pounds of weight clear over his foot. He was wearing cowboy boots that apparently de-sold his boots. He was in the arena. They didn't wanna dare take his boot off, going into shock. They were smart enough to bring the man's dog to him. I didn't get to see any of this, but I heard of this Everybody running to his side helping him out and then bringing his dog to him to calm him down And he's had already had one surgery and he's going to have two surgeries, but they feel like he will regain all function and he won't lose his leg. Those are the serious things. Those are the important things. Those are the real things that we should focus on, not some fucking hillbilly calling me fat for no fucking reason, because there would have been a third reason for an ambulance and would have been the ass whooping I put on that son of a bitch outside of the arena. That might have scared some kids, that might have made an impression that maybe some people might think about. There's consequences for the shit you say and do in life. That's really all I wanted to do, but I had to use all the inner strength that I have to walk away. It's a combination of being blown away by the fact someone actually said to me what they said and the common sense to not overreact and do what it is that I wanna do. But in that moment, as much as the businessman and me is doubting himself, second guessing himself, questioning himself. When, then, your actual confidence and personality gets questioned, when in that moment, all somebody sees you at is just some fat guy and they wanna talk shit about you, it's all the more reason to doubt who you are, to question what you're doing and to change your direction. I will say those comments stuck with me for some time. I will also say people staring at you when you're out there, suffering and sweat, making comments about how you look, because you know what? Yeah, i'm a 350 pound fucking dude outside trying to make a goddamn living in 95 fucking degree heat, 200% fucking humidity, and I actually sweat. I apologize, but when you sprinkle those things in there, there's a lot of opportunities, a lot of room for doubt. I'm gonna take my hand, i'm gonna place it on the Cabela's catalog, put my bead of the lies in the sky and tell you the truth. It hurts And you second guess yourself when you beat yourself up and you can lose your confidence. But when you remove those moments of weakness and you realize you have a beautiful wife, an amazing family, a mother that is on a verge of surgery, that's giving her time to be there with you, friends begging to spend time with you, opening their campers up to you, opening their houses up to you, offering all things to you. See, that little event that I thought was gonna be 20 minutes was nearly two hours. Scott and Lindsay took care of my tent and their tent at the same damn time. Their son, pete, was extremely supportive and helpful. The whole friggin week The three of them stayed and helped me and Ali pack on Sunday evening, an hour plus after they were already unpacking their own display. Matt and Sarah constantly checking in with us, you know, spending countless hours drinking beers in the camper with them hanging out, bouncing ideas and business plans. Matt going to bat trying to get me into other events. To the multitude of people that do come over to support us. To the one gentleman that was in the tent talking to my wife that she introduced me to. That said, you are the only reason I come into this fair in the first place, because this is the closest event that I see you go to. So I come to this fair only to see you to freshen up my wardrobe. You need to take those, those positive pebbles. You need to take those knowledge nuggets and push out the hillbilly that calls your fat. The kids that point at you, the people that laugh at you, the people that criticize your work to you know, say that your products aren't good to the 50% of your goal that you actually achieved, to losing 50% from last year, all those things. It's a hard fucking balancing act between having the confidence to believe in yourself, the ability to bet on yourself, and being crazy enough to stick to your damn dream. That is what it's like inside the mind of a small business owner. I say all this to wrap it up with this. I wouldn't and won't change a damn thing because the life I'm living, the way I'm living, is the hell of a lot more enjoyable than the way I lived, and I'm thankful for each and every one of you that have pushed me along the way. I'm thankful for each and every one of you that have supported me in any way. I love all y'all And I thank each and every one of you. If you wanna come out and celebrate. Friday night, i'll be back up at this saloon hosting a Daisy Dukes and Mullet party as I'm DJing, and then Saturday, i'll be at a wagon wheel campground, i believe it is, and all of which are each main, So double ensemble of DJ events. This weekend, my mom's home recovering, and I'm gonna whoop my wife's ass for volunteering me for the Olympics. Thank you for supporting my American dream. Now go watch your fucking hands. You'll tell the status. That's it and that's all. Biggie Smiles. If you found value in today's show, please return the favor and leave a positive review. Share it with someone that is important to you. Hit, subscribe and help us grow our tribe. Are you interested in sponsoring the show? Maybe you're looking to be a guest on the show? Find all that you need to know about the show at sharethestrucklepodcastcom. Subscribe to Grow Our Tribe on Apple Podcasts, spotify, google Podcasts, amazon Music, iheart Radio and all other major platforms, and don't forget to like and share our official Facebook page at Share the Struggle Podcast. If you're a loud, proud American and you find yourself just wanting more, you can find me on YouTube, on Facebook or the face page, as my mama calls it. Just search Loud, proud American. If you're a fan of the Graham Cracker, the Instagram or the Tickety Tuck but the kids be a tickety talking the Tick Tuck you can search Loud Underscore, proud Underscore, american. If you want to join the 2% of Americans that support American manufacturing, head on over to wwwloudproudamericanshop and get your hands on some of that made in USA. Apparel and join the mission, mission 2%. Together we can bring back American manufacturing. A big old thank you to the boys from the Gut Truckers for the background beats and the theme song that's shared, the Struggle Podcast. You can find the Gut Truckers on Facebook. Just search Gut Truckers and show your support to those Mother Truckers. I truly thank you for supporting my American dream. Now go wash your fucking hands, your filthy savage.