Oct. 1, 2025
Bus Won’t Start, But the Dream Won't Stop
When everything that can break decides to break—bus, budget, and belief—you find out what you’re really building. We pushed into our biggest Fryeburg Fair ever by tripling our booth size, stretching every dollar, and betting on our community. Then the week erupted: the bus died at a gas station, the camper lights quit at dusk, and the last credit card barely covered a rental truck. We turned wrenches in the rain, moved mountains with borrowed tools, and showed up on opening day running on fumes and conviction.
What happened next surprised even us. With friends under the chassis, family on the sales floor, and neighbors sending solutions at midnight, the booth came to life. Saturday became the second-biggest day in our company’s history. Inventory moved faster than announcements. People who watched the struggle online walked into the tent ready to buy, encourage, and celebrate. The power of small business isn’t just product; it’s the story of persistence your customers can see and feel.
We talk about the real cost of scaling a booth—rent, fixtures, tents, and the inventory math no one posts about. We open up about mechanical failures, cash flow choices, and why accountability and prayer became our pivot. Most of all, we share the blueprint that carried us: ask for help early, ship before it’s perfect, protect your energy, and keep your mission public. On the far side of breakdowns are breakthroughs. On the far side of sacrifice is triumph. If you’ve ever stood one setback away from quitting, this one is for you.
If this story fires you up, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s building something hard, and leave a review with the moment you almost quit but didn’t—we want to cheer you on.
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00:01 - Trials Before Triumph
02:26 - A Vulnerable Confession
07:18 - Community Rallies Online
11:23 - Why Fryeburg Fair Matters
13:18 - Scaling Up Against the Odds
16:45 - A Year of Mechanical Failures
20:01 - The Bus Breaks Down
24:16 - All Hands Under the Hood
27:19 - Camper Chaos and Late-Night Hauls
29:26 - Renting a Truck with $15 to Spare
32:10 - Building the Booth in One Day
34:57 - Record Sales and Renewed Hope
37:11 - Perseverance and Faith
40:12 - Gratitude, Resolve, and Next Steps
WEBVTT
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I am certainly beginning to believe that the closer we get to our goals, as we close in on achieving our dreams, we encounter our greatest obstacles.
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We have to overcome our biggest roadblocks.
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The difficulty level seems to ramp up higher and higher.
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The frustrations, the tensions, the disappointments, they all mount, they weigh on you.
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They deter you, they deplete you, and they try to defeat you.
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Today I am here to say to you do not let the tough times win.
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Do not let the dark days win.
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Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial.
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Let me tell you something.
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Everybody's struggled.
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The difference is some people choose to go through it and some choose to grow through it.
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The choice is completely yours.
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Which one you choose will have a very profound effect on the way you live your life.
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What it did, what it do, what it hot did it do.
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Good Lord Almighty.
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Am I excited to be back with you?
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Oh it's true, it is the damn true, Boo.
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Mm-hmm.
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Episode two hundred and seventy-three, and I hope y'all are happy to hear from me.
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Boys, girls, chipmunks and squirrels, I got a full frontal confession for you to start off today's show.
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Where's the Cabela's catalog?
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Let me find this sucker right here.
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Hang on.
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Listen to the background noise.
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Cabela's catalog.
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It's a big one.
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Ready?
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There it is.
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Left hand on the Cabela's catalog.
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D little eyes.
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Placed toward it to the sky.
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The truth.
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From this here to guy.
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I almost lost.
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I almost lost the fight, y'all.
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My frustration, my temptation, my commitment to the cause, my dedication, all challenged, all under fire.
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I found myself at an absolute breaking point.
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I don't know if uh all of you listening follow our social media pages.
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If you um know me well enough to be on my timeline on my friends list, we have listeners all over the country and now all over the world.
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So if you don't follow our social media channels like our uh podcasting page on Facebook and on Instagram, you should also follow our business page, Loud Proud American, on Instagram and on Facebook.
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And on Facebook this week I posted a video where I was at a breaking point.
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I was literally fresh off of a breakdown, and I said, In this moment, this is as vulnerable as I can be.
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I'm gonna turn this camera on, beaten and and damn near near defeating, but I'm not gonna be, right?
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I am starting the show off, telling you, confessing to you, admitting to you, my full frontal confessional right here, telling you right now, it was in the most vulnerable state of mine, at a point where I didn't know how much more I could give and how much further I could go.
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I knew in that time, in that moment, in that instant, if I was vulnerable enough to turn the f camera around on my face, beaten face.
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You understand?
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You can see the tears and the fears in my eyes as I recorded this message.
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I needed to take this opportunity to say, This shall not beat me, this shall not defeat me.
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I needed to take the time to thank each and every one of you that has supported us along the way, each and every one of you that listens to our show each and every week, each and every one of you that buys a piece of an apparel, that shares a message that we post, that you know shares a post, that sends a friend, that tells a coworker, that preaches and believers in loud, proud American.
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I needed to say to each and every one of you thank you.
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Thank you for pulling me through.
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I needed to say thank you to each and every person that has stopped their lives and and put their to-do list on hold to help me to chase my dream.
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I needed to say that to each and every one of you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
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And I needed to take the time and opportunity at my breaking point to say, God, thank you.
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And to say, God, I don't know how much more I can take.
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I need you, and I'm gonna have to give this to you.
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I was vulnerable, I was weak, and I needed the help.
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I made that post, I made that video, and I was absolutely blown away by each and every one of you, by so many of you.
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The responses on our Facebook page went through the roof from people saying, Hey man, I'm here, I got you.
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I'm praying for you, I got you.
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What do you need from me?
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The amount of people that sent me pictures of their trucks and trailers hooked up saying, I will come to you right now and I will handle this.
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The amount of people that offered their services, the amount of people that called with solutions and opportunities and creative ways to get us to the place we're at today was unbelievable and it was humbling.
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The support, the showering of love, it means more than you guys can possibly imagine.
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I've had so many people come into the tent this week at the fair and say, Hey man, I am so happy to see you here.
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Hey man, I'm proud to see you're here.
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This all of this, this experience, let's be honest.
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I wish I didn't have to go through the trials and tribulations.
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And I certainly know that I'm hardened by fire.
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But it's overwhelmingly amazing to have so many people come in and say, I'm proud of you, I'm here for you, I'm gonna support the cause, I'm buying something from you.
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The support is unbelievable.
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I have been challenged, I have been pushed to my breaking point, but all of y'all have pulled me through.
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I'm saying all of this to tell you right now, I'm sitting in my camper at the Freiburg Fair, a place that many would have questioned if we could get back to here.
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But we knew hell or high water, we were going to be here at the Fryberg Fair.
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We were not gonna take no for an answer.
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We found a way.
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I'm here recording today from the camper at the start of one of the most amazing fair weeks we are ever gonna have, and I know this to be true because of each and every one of you.
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That right there, folks, is my way of working this episode backwards.
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Because if you follow the social media, if you've reached out, if you know, then you know.
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But if you don't know, then I am going to fill in the blanks to pave the road, to paint the picture, to tell you how I got here today.
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That is what is on tap for the Loud Proud American sponsored podcast.
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Precisely, perfectly, beautifully named, share the struggle.
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But I'm gonna start with a little disclaimer.
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I'm gonna talk hard and fast and as quickly as I can possibly go, because I gotta get back down to the tent to uh help the wifey with the LowerProt American booth because she's down there right now with little Paisley Rain running the whole kit and caboodle by herself.
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My wife and Paisley running the tent.
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That is a challenge.
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Today is on the day that I'm recording this Woodsman's Day.
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It is one of the busiest days of the fair, and my wife is down there getting it done.
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I'm gonna talk hard and fast, and I'm gonna set the scene, and I am gonna make you scream.
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Okay?
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That's what we're gonna do, that's what we're gonna say, that's how it's gonna go today.
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If y'all have been listening, if you've been tuning in, if you're a day one, get your ones up, my loyal ones.
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If you've been here for 273 consecutive weeks, y'all know I love you.
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If this is your first show, then thank you for coming along this little rodeo, and I welcome you to this show.
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We are properly, precisely, beautifully named share their struggle because everybody struggles, and the truth is there is strength in each and everybody's struggle, and we just have to be willing to share that struggle.
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Over the past few weeks, our current struggle, outside of all the wildness, craziness in the world, has been us preparing for our biggest and our best and our largest event of the year.
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Also, us preparing for the greatest challenge we've ever taken, the greatest level of debt we've ever partaken, because we have challenged ourselves to the biggest display, the largest space we have ever done before.
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To pull all of these things off has been a challenge.
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When Lau Proud American started five years ago, we bet on ourselves and we got into the Freiburg Fair, we had a 10-foot space, 10 foot wide, 20 feet deep.
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Ever since then, we worked our way trying to get bigger and bigger.
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A couple of years ago, we graduated to a 20-foot wide, 20-foot deep space.
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That was fantastic.
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From the moment we did that, I have been asking about getting to 30 feet.
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We finally got the okay to expand to 30 feet.
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We are 30 feet wide, we are 20 feet deep.
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To do this, we needed to take and make a lot more risks and a lot more product.
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Now, by doing this, if you go back to day one, we've tripled our rent because we've tripled our size.
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So I'm adding an additional amount of um rent this year.
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And to buy another tent, I needed another 10 by 20 tent.
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I needed another canopy top, I needed a new canopy top for the other tent to make things all look seamless.
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That investment right there,$4,500.
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Add that to our rent, add that to the$600 in camping to be here.
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Add that to the fact that we then need more grid wall, we need more things, we need more fixtures.
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Add that expense to it, and then realize you need to fill this sucker.
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And if you've been listening along, then you know that it's been a challenging year for us, and we've been um robbing Peter to pay Paul, we've been going to events, floating the next event, rolling into an event, selling stuff, coming back, reinvesting more back into the business.
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So, what I've had to do this year is take out more equity lines.
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I've had to take out more credit lines, I've had to take more risks and more personal investments.
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I've had to sell things and reallocate things to keep this season rolling.
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I've broken more things than you can imagine this season, but we just keep picking up the pieces and we just keep moving forward.
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Trial by fire.
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We just continue to run hard and fast towards our dreams and towards our goals.
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Throughout the year, we have been met with more obstacles, we've had to overcome more challenges this year.
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As I'm leading up to our greatest event of the year, we are not in the correct and proper position for inventory because we just have not been able to afford it.
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And if you've been listening, you know we've challenged ourselves to a bunch of brand new first-time events.
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When we go into those events, they're not coming um to fruition as far as as successful as we had hoped for.
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They haven't panned out to be all that we um banked on or bet on them to do.
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So I'm talking about taking chances and and investing in product and traveling to Daytona, Florida from Arundel, Maine to take a chance to barely make a few bucks, to travel six hours to New York to barely make a few bucks.
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We're trying these things, we're applying to new things, we're taking risks because we know that we're not gonna find growth in our comfort zones, we're not gonna grow this business, we're not gonna chase our dreams and achieve our goals if we stay comfortable.
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If we continue to work from our comfort zones in our little hometowns, it's not gonna work for us.
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We need to shake things up.
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That's what we've done.
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And and it's been good and we're trending in the best direction because we're trending to have the best year we've ever had.
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But it's also going to be our most financially difficult year we've ever had because we're taking these chances and we're rolling the dice.
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And in between, you know, coming home from events, we're working on restocking everything.
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So as I just start to kind of paint a little picture for you guys, our year this year has been also summed up by mechanical failure.
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I want to say that our farm truck that I've had for a long time, it was actually the first and only new vehicle I've ever purchased in my life.
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Um, she could went kaput.
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She didn't make it after the winter.
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She's been toast.
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We didn't have a way to get the camper here.
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We bought um a truck, a great deal from some from some great friends of ours, and uh that was going great for us, but we ran into some mechanical issues, and um that vehicle is now the Liberty New Farm truck, it's doing all the chores at home and plowing the driveway and doing all those great things.
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But we needed to get a vehicle uh for the family and for hauling the camper.
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And um a great friend of mine, a brother of mine, Chris Woodcock, came along and said, Hey man, let me help you figure this out.
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And Chris and Noah, they helped me.
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Chris loaned me some money, and uh, we went and bought a a um a Yukon, a GMC Yukon, and um they said, you know, we'll go through it and get it ready for um you know hauling the camper scenario, and and we got that, and the air compressor to lift the airbags to haul the camper was blown.
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So you put a new one of those in.
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The motor mounts ended up being blown, you know, some brakes and rotors, all those things.
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So you continue to make those investments in in those things along the way.
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And you know, we were having people help us to haul things, to move things.
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It's been all these different challenges to make things work, and but we continue to be met by obstacle after obstacle, but we continue to overcome those obstacles and continue to find a way.
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We roll into the Windsor Fair.
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I get there and I lose all ability to shift the bus.
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We lose the gears in the bus.
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We lose the brakes in the bus.
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Noah talks to me on the phone about how to fix the gears so I can get off the fairgrounds.
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I park it in the campground.
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Noah drives up, puts a new brake line on it.
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Allie's dad, Dan, comes up and helps finish off the brakes, and we get that back on the road and we nurse that home.
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Every time there's a challenge, every time there's an achievement, it's met with an obstacle.
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Every time we find a reward, we're giving that reward to another avenue because we have something broken, we have something to fix, something to overcome.
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So we're working on these mechanical failures and all these breakings.
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We're trying to get caught up on all the loans and you know and and and risks we're taking, and you're trying to stay on top of the bills that you currently have, so you're having a difficult time being able to replenish the inventory that you need.
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So it's this vicious cycle where you're just chasing your own tail around in a circle.
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Now, we come back from from Windsor and we find ourselves with a grave challenge to restock our shelves.
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We're way off on inventory, and we just don't have the finances to figure it out.
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So we start to get as creative as possible, and we're moving things around and investing here and reinvesting here and moving this there.
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I'm trying to be very vague, but I want you to know what I'm describing to you is a crazy son of a biscuit, bound and determined to live his dreams, committed and dedicated to the cause, to the business, to the plan, to the reason, to the task at hand.
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So bound and determined, so committed, so steadfast in his beliefs that he will risk anything and take all challenges.
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I have maxed every single ounce of my life out to make it to get here.
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You also have encountered a family that is so dedicated and committed to this business that they too are making those risks and taking those chances.
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My mom doing everything she can to keep us afloat, investing in you know the product and the bills and to help us continue to move.
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My wife doing the same thing, borrowing money and doing these things, all of us pitching in and pulling in the right and same direction.
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We're all rowing in the same direction, we're all taking those chances.
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Together with creativity and intensity, we scraped up the funds to put ourselves in the best possible inventory position we can be in.
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And I just worked my ass off on getting things taken care of.
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Now, to add a few more, you know, difficulty bumps and lumps to the scenario.
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My mom, while we were at the last fair, she um managed to have three or four of her ribs broken.
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My cousin gave her a hug and uh thought a bear hug was a good choice.
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So my mom broke some ribs.
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She was out of commission, she wasn't able to help us with a little one for most of the time in between the fairs.
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Allie was adjusting to working from home.
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So I'm, you know, doing the daily daddy daycare stuff as much as I can, working in between, early in the morning, late at night, trying to get everything done.
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On the weekends, I just dedicate myself from sun up to uh till I can't stand up to get everything done and ready for this week.
00:20:21.839 --> 00:20:32.720
Now, over the weekend, I want to say, leading into the fair, um, Allie went to move the bus and said, Hey, we I can't move the bus, it's dead, I don't know what's going on.
00:20:32.880 --> 00:20:39.359
I go out there and I put a trickle charger on it, and every time I would go check on it, it would stop recognizing the charger.
00:20:39.599 --> 00:20:44.160
So I kept moving things around and trying to get that to work, and it was going back and forth.
00:20:44.480 --> 00:20:45.759
Long to short of it.
00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:48.240
A full day of charging, nothing.
00:20:48.480 --> 00:20:51.200
Bus, no luck, no go, no charge.
00:20:51.440 --> 00:21:01.279
I um make a few phone calls, and I had um three people to literally just uh stop what they were doing and come over and try to help.
00:21:01.440 --> 00:21:05.759
And I say three people because everybody kept taking a chance on trying to figure it out.
00:21:05.920 --> 00:21:09.039
Allie's dad came over and uh helped me work on it.
00:21:09.200 --> 00:21:33.359
My cousin Joey came over and helped me, and um Noah came over and helped, and through all of these uh steps here, we warrantied the battery, put a new battery in, which over the course of this year and last year, we've already done a new alternator and a new battery, and we've done a new starter and a bunch of other you know things to the bus.
00:21:33.519 --> 00:21:41.839
So we we we know that a lot of these things have already been taken care of, but uh we're having some kind of situation where the bus doesn't want to continue to run.
00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:49.440
So we get things going, and one day me and Noah get everything um straightened out so the bus is running and we think that we're good.
00:21:49.680 --> 00:22:04.720
On Tuesday before the fair, I usually Tuesday is the day where we bring the camper um to the fair, and uh on Wednesday we build our shell, and then that gives me a few days to get ready.
00:22:04.880 --> 00:22:09.759
Normally the fair opens on a Sunday, and we get here on a Tuesday.
00:22:09.920 --> 00:22:11.920
If you do the math on that.
00:22:12.480 --> 00:22:27.279
Now on Tuesday, I felt great that by 10 in the morning on Tuesday I was all done, all my printing, and I'd had put us in the best position possible to get to the fair and to crush it while we're here.
00:22:27.599 --> 00:22:30.240
So, doing all those things, I feel great.
00:22:30.319 --> 00:22:34.559
I come out and I said to the wife, hey, uh, let's go fuel up both vehicles.
00:22:34.720 --> 00:22:39.759
So Allie's gonna haul the camper, I'm gonna run the bus, we're gonna go to the gas station and fuel up.
00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:47.920
On the way to the gas station, the bus loses power and uh it's spitting and sputtering and it does not want to go.
00:22:48.079 --> 00:22:53.519
I manage to get to the gas station, I fill her up with fuel, and then she doesn't want to start.
00:22:53.839 --> 00:22:59.039
I spend three hours at the gas station trying to get this thing to start.
00:23:00.480 --> 00:23:02.319
No luck, no go.
00:23:02.640 --> 00:23:09.519
Um the guy that literally was working at the gas station was super cool, he kept coming out trying to troubleshoot and to help us.
00:23:10.480 --> 00:23:18.640
But this is where I want to start counting some blessings here and acknowledging the people in my life that put things on hold to come over and try to help.
00:23:18.960 --> 00:23:25.519
Allie's dad came over and uh he actually called work and decided to go in late to try to help out.
00:23:25.759 --> 00:23:28.720
Uh, Chris stopped and tried to help.
00:23:28.960 --> 00:23:33.680
My cousin was driving by and saw us and pulled in, and he came over to help.
00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:42.079
Noah uh stopped what he was doing and came over to help, and we ran into so many difficulties with the bus.
00:23:42.319 --> 00:23:48.640
We put a toe strap on it and towed a school bus down the road back home to my house.
00:23:48.960 --> 00:23:53.680
We get there and it's all hands on deck, fixing everything we possibly can.
00:23:53.839 --> 00:24:04.079
Uh, dropping a new fuel pump into the bus from inside the bus through the floor while other people are chasing electrical and resolving those things.
00:24:04.400 --> 00:24:16.640
Tuesday turns into uh you know 10, 11 o'clock night outside with the bus still not running, which turns into a Wednesday with a full day of working on the bus.
00:24:16.799 --> 00:24:26.640
Everybody stopping what they're doing to try to help with the bus, which turns into another day, Thursday working on the bus.
00:24:27.039 --> 00:24:34.640
Every time a new theory, a new thought, a new opportunity to do something, to chase something.
00:24:35.119 --> 00:24:37.599
More batteries go into the bus.
00:24:37.920 --> 00:24:39.920
Starter switch goes into the bus.
00:24:40.079 --> 00:24:45.759
A dealership tells us to tear apart the main wiring harness to the bus to chase that.
00:24:46.480 --> 00:24:48.640
It goes on and on and on.
00:24:49.599 --> 00:24:56.480
A grounding strap underneath the bus that we believe might be the final answer and resolution to the scenario.
00:24:56.640 --> 00:25:12.480
We recreate all of that only to be at a point on Thursday night at probably nine o'clock at night, where it's pouring, an absolute torrential downpour.
00:25:12.880 --> 00:25:19.119
Noah's on the ground, under the bus, outside, installing the strap, only to have nothing.
00:25:19.359 --> 00:25:20.400
Nothing work.
00:25:20.960 --> 00:25:36.480
During this time, another close friend of mine, Derek Down, volunteers to uh come to the house and pick our camper up because we're trying to find ways to conserve time at this point, because what we need is is time.
00:25:36.720 --> 00:25:44.000
We are now taking something that takes us three, four days to build and giving ourselves one day to do it.
00:25:44.240 --> 00:25:49.119
And while doing that, we don't have time to wait around to put our camper in.
00:25:49.200 --> 00:25:54.319
If you show up here at the day before the fair opens, you can wait in line for an hour or two just to get in with your camper.
00:25:54.880 --> 00:25:58.240
So we need to uh lighten the load a little bit.
00:25:58.480 --> 00:26:11.440
Derek shows up to um come haul the camper, and um the electrical on the camper is not working, the lights to the camper isn't working, and the sun's going down.
00:26:11.599 --> 00:26:14.160
It's it's nighttime, it's getting dark out.
00:26:14.400 --> 00:26:17.200
He says, you know, I I can't I can't haul this.
00:26:17.440 --> 00:26:57.680
And uh Derek leaves and we work on the wires on the camper and we get the lighting on that to work, and it's pouring and it's getting late, and uh my brother Toby Reynolds and his boy Gavin show up, and me and him load the camper up, and uh the three of us head up here and drop the camper off late night because now at this point I'm not gonna have uh the wife and the you know one-year-old hauling and they're dead of night, not being able to see anything when the truck is still getting adjusted correctly to running this camper and trying to set up and all those all that difficulty level that goes with that.
00:26:57.759 --> 00:27:00.400
So Toby stopped what he was doing, him and Gavin.
00:27:00.559 --> 00:27:02.559
We brought the camper up together.
00:27:02.880 --> 00:27:14.240
We got it in, we got it settled in, get home a little past 11 o'clock, and I just sit down and say, Man, I I don't know how much more of this I can take.
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