Don't Be Discouraged By The Distance

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Today's

Struggle Versus Growth Mindset

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episode of Share the Struggle Podcast should be a funny and frustrating show. One with a lesson that we should all know. Don't get discouraged by the distance between you and your dreams. 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.

Dawn In The Camper Studio

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What it do? What it do? What it hot did it do? Good lord almighty. Am I so excited to be back with you? Oh, it is true. It is damn true. Why? Because I love you. That's why. And y'all should know that I absolutely love you because I am back outside recording in the camper this morning. For a multitude of reasons. But let me uh let me start setting the scene and sharing the story for today's episode of Share the Stockout Podcast. It is an early, early morning here in the wet state of Maine. It is uh pre-6 a.m. here in the old camper, the Lau Proud American studios for this fabulous episode of Share the Truckle Podcast. I'm out here for a multitude of reasons, but let's um let's kind of just let's put this out there for you real quick. I dropped my mom off to work this morning, and on my way home, I was kind of thinking about you know the podcast and what I needed to talk about, and uh I had originally made the choice, hey, let's record this episode of the show from the LoudProud American production headquarters, from um, you know, my my office, surrounded by cases of apparel that either is printed and needs to be loaded, or is waiting to be printed, um, all stacked around me as I gear up for what we hope to be the most successful and greatest event in the history of this business, of our brand, Loud Proud American, the apparel brand that works exclusively with proudly made in USA merchandise, giving you that proudly patriotic apparel as we get ready for the Freiburg Fair. So part of me wanted to be encouraged, discouraged, motivated, frustrated, the whole nine, gathered, surrounded by my to-do list, by my apparel, a little view of what you've accomplished with a preview of what needs to be done. That's kind of how I felt about this morning's um recording. Well then as I was coming home, a couple of things uh struck me. Number one, the last time I recorded the podcast, I was rushing to get everything done, and I recorded from the camper, and all my other recording equipment is in the camper, um, with the exception of my laptop. So everything was already kind of set out. And then I decided you know what? You have had such a miserable, difficult, discouraging, demotivating, challenging Monday that you need to see the sun come up on a Tuesday. You need to see the sun come up on a new day. You need to see the good Lord above blessing you with a new day and a new opportunity. So I'm here in the camper, it's cold, I've got a hoodie on, with my hood legitimately on, with my headphones under my hood, I'm saddled up here on the couch. I'm actually gonna turn and position myself to uh see if I can spot the sunshine a little bit. And uh what I could say is uh the angle of the windows and the location of the camper is not gonna give me the um fabulous, delightful view of the rising sun that I hoped for, but I can see the day go from dark to light. And as things begin to brighten and it sheds a little light on the camper, and I think about the day ahead and then how my day today shall be just a bit brighter than yesterday. Now I'm in the camper, and some of you might say, Hey man, why don't you have your lights and and and power and heat and all that? But um I don't have the camper plugged into my house. The battery um isn't strong enough to run everything right now because it's been unplugged for a bit, and um I haven't reconnected my propane to turn my heat on out here. So um it is what it is, and it was dark when I got in here, so I wasn't gonna go out there rattling around, throwing things around, families trying to sleep, and I'm out here uh setting up propane. So there's that side of it, okay? But here we are today, yet again in the camper, recording together as friends.

Freiburg Fair Pressure And Past Lessons

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Last week and in the previous weeks, you've heard me talk about the Freiburg Fair and how encouraged I was and excited I was. You've heard the game plan, you've heard the task at hand, and you know that I decided to uh take some time off in between the Windsor Fair and the Freiburg Fair because I really needed to buckle down and get everything done. And this time I really, really wanted to put myself in the best position I possibly could be in and hopefully roll into town a little bit early and um not have that frustrating, difficult um rush and push that I had um last year or that I've had in previous years. It feels like we're always rolling in there at the very last second. And last year, for those of you that uh haven't been here, or a little refresher course for the ones of us that that have been here and been around this whole time, last year my bus went down. The um the school bus, the Loud Proud American Express that hauls all the all the goods, it went down as we were loading up, and I actually was going to get fuel to um head out on our trip, and I died at the gas station, and I went from Oh man, I'm not shouldn't I try to factor in my months here. I went from um, let's see, September. It's about September to September. Okay, that thing went down. I threw thousands of dollars at chasing problems, and we couldn't get that thing back together until I think it was September of this year, August or September. So um give or take a year, right? To uh get it back together and get it running, and that's um that's been good. But last year was some of the most trying times. As I was getting ready for our biggest event, the uh vehicle that hauls all of our product to that event, for lack of better terms, shit the bit. And it was down to the very last minute, and I had so many people trying to help and trying to figure it out, and it was down to the very last minute. I had so many people working day and night um trying to help. My cousin Joey, uh Chris and Noah from Torque Solutions, um, Mike and Ryan from Packard's Garage, uh, so many of us uh working on it, so many people helping um to figure it out. Um Toby Reynolds hauling our camper for us uh in the pouring rain to get it there. Me having to rent a box truck with one day to go, load everything up, get there and set everything up um in you know much less than 24 hours to be open to um have to this date one of the best events we've we've had. It didn't set the record, but it was a really strong event, and um but the whole time you're you're stressed about everything, all the unknown, all the things at home, and and and trying to figure things out and and um you know what's to come, what's to be paid for, all the things you can't afford anymore, all of it. You know, it was a big big stress factor, and I was so stressed. And uh this year I said, Man, I can't do that again. And um let's be prepared and let's um let's make this happen. And if I can get there and I'm not rushing and I can just make things happen, then that's what we're gonna need, that's what we're gonna do, you know. So um, as I was packing at my last event, uh I broke one of my tents, snapped the leg in half, or a cross member that holds the um roof up, and you add that to the list, and you just start thinking about all these little things. But I came home with time and prepared, and I got things warranted, and I got those parts in, and I just put that part of the tent, just put the tent back together, and and I've had freight delays and payment delays and processing delays and all these things for many, many days, right? All these little hiccups, like you know, somebody at the um, you know, the apparel brand that I um buy all my blanks from not pulling the order early enough on uh you know a Friday to get it on the truck, and then you lose two production days over the weekend and all these these random things. Like I had a moment where I kind of had to freak out on my number one supplier of apparel because their process is if you order before 2 p.m. in the afternoon, they'll ship it that day. When I give you an order by 10 a.m. in the morning and you don't ship it until the evening of the next day, I have a problem with that. When I'm going to um, you know, ship and have it show up on a Friday so I can have a uh full Friday and a Saturday and a Sunday to work and get all those things done, and you don't do that, uh, it doesn't arrive on a Friday, it doesn't get here till a Saturday, then um there goes your entire weekend, right? Which, I mean, gearing up for Freiburg Fair, I don't have weekends right now. I'm working uh straight through. I'm watching football, standing up, making t-shirts, right? Um, so having those delays, those things have been frustrating. And um, you know, when you're waiting for a massive UPS delivery with nearly 600 items to show up, and it shows up, you know, a couple days late, and um it's the final week of um you know production time, it's the week that you have to go, it's go time. Um, that's frustrating. But you've given yourself what you feel to be enough time to um to pull through. And this is random and this is gonna be a squirrel moment. I'm gonna um change subjects real quick, but as I'm sitting here in the camper turned uh sideways, trying to get a view of the daylight. I haven't had the best angle on the sun, as I mentioned to you, but I did just see a flash of brown go go by and I looked, and uh there was a there was a doe, a deer, a female deer, um walking by just outside of my camper, and then I saw a flash of brown, and I looked, and it was two widow widow babies. So a mama and her babies just watched them stroll right by, maybe um I don't know, 30 yards from the camper. So there's that, that's nice. But I was setting the scene as to trying to give myself some time and um trying to make things happen.

The Plan Collapses On Monday

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So um I bet against the clock as usual, but uh I feel like I have the potential for everything to work out, and and my schedule was um you know production all day Sunday, Sunday night, which I think I stopped working around 10 or 11 o'clock on Sunday night, and um and then Monday needed to be one of my biggest production days, make everything um happen, try to um you know really try to get to 150 to 200 items done on a Monday, and um Monday was also a day to bring um the denial either Yukon over to um Torque Solutions and have them um have Noah give it an oil change and check the suspension. I have a compressor, automatic compressor that we put in last year uh that when you plug in your trailer, your camper, it'll adjust the height of the ride. And um he was gonna look at that and see if we could get that fixed. And then the plan was on Tuesday, the day I'm recording, would hook on to the camper when I got out of work and uh we would go put the camper in and uh maybe spend the night and then on Wednesday I would um put the uh put the tent in. I would um start building my vendor display on Wednesday, and uh, and then I would uh I would come home and um then I would be able to have um you know the rest of the day Wednesday for production and give myself a full Thursday of production roll in sometime on Friday, me and my mom, and I would have uh two days, one entirely full day to finish my entire setup and be ready to rock and roll. And that was uh that was the game plan. That was the that was the plan. That's the task in hand, that's what we're going for, that's what we're gonna do. Well, let's bring we've got ourselves up to speed till uh till Monday morning. Monday morning, um I um get in the truck, my mom and the baby. Allie's going to the chiropractor, and she's gonna meet us at Walmart. I'm grabbing some of the things that I need, oil and such, and um then I'm gonna go drop the truck off, and Allie's gonna give me a ride home and uh I'm gonna get to work. Now, I should have said this part sooner, but um the Yukon's been running great, everything about it's been uh been great, other than uh you know resolving the uh the tow scenario. And um on Saturday, Allie was using the truck to go pick up a marketplace find that she had, and um she called me and said, Man, I heard like a pop come out of the back of this thing, and I lost all power. Like I just stopped moving, and I I pulled over and and checked everything, and then I got back in and then I had full throttle and power and everything was good. And and she came home and I checked the oil and you know, and um we did all that and it um it started and fired and it's like well it's going to the shop and we'll have them look it over and see if there's any any codes and uh do the oil change and we'll call it good. So you get to Monday and I fired the truck up and it doesn't want to start. It stalls and coughs on its face and uh doesn't want to run. And then um I go ahead and uh try to get it to start, and after a few attempts of it chugging along and coughing and not want to st wanting to start, it fires up, and um and then it it uh the idol's all crazy, but the idol levels off, and um it just it's a little bit rough, but it just it finally gets to a spot where it's not gonna stall. It seems to be okay. And I start just put it in reverse, move around the driveway, and everything seems fine. I seem to have power back, and I'm driving, and I I call Noah and I'm telling him what's happening, and then I'm on my way, and I pull down the driveway, and I get um, you know, maybe uh I don't know, uh three-quarters of a mile or so down the road from uh from my house, uh maybe not even that far, and um nothing. I lose all power, die on the side of the road. Um can't get the truck to start, can't get it to to move or do anything. And um here I am again. The week of the Freiburg fair, dealing with a vehicle that's not moving, that's not running, yet again. So I get out, I mess around with a few things, can't get nothing. I'm like, I gotta go home and get some tools. I go home, get some tools, and I get a toe strap, and I go back and and um you know I'm checking the airbox to see if there's like a mouse nest or something starving it off and trying to figure things out. Nothing works. And um we call my cousin and he comes down to to pull me, and I um get the truck and I um I have to push it um to try to turn it around, so I get it pushed around, hook onto it, haul it home, get home, Noah comes over, starts looking at it, plugs it in, has a bunch of codes, long to short of it. Um it's a some kind of fuel issue, whether the fuel pump went or electronics to the fuel pump went because you don't hear the fuel pump wind up and and uh begin to start. So uh Torque Solutions, they're building a new garage right now. They don't have lifts in the garage, they don't have anything, and he says, Man, I I can't even do anything to fix this truck right now. Like I can't uh I don't have an option of fixing this truck, man. I I can't drop this fuel tank on the ground and uh and do this. And uh um we uh decide that this isn't gonna happen, and my first thought is, well, I'm gonna have to uh check on old Uncle Mike.

Getting Help And Finding A Tow

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I'm gonna have to go to Mike Packard at Packard's garage right here on my road. He used to do so much uh work for me and my family uh when I was when I was growing up and such. And uh but I said uh Mike's Mike's a well-known garage, he's a very reputable garage, he's got um you know a long line of people that um are always you know on his books, right? Uh you have to schedule work with him because he's he's well known and well liked, and uh it takes time to time to get in. And um I was like, well, let's uh let's see. And um uh I wanted Noah to go with me to explain what he run and what he sees and and the codes. And so we went down to uh see Mike and to talk to him and uh was like, man, again? Because he's one of the people that put everything down that he was doing to try to get my bus on the road. And um he's like, You're dealing with this again, and I explained the situation, and he's like, Man, I'm I'm you know, I've got weeks worth of work over here right now. And uh um the young fellow that works for him was uh was off at the time, and uh, you know, and we were just kind of kind of chatting, he said, I have so much to do, but I know how important this is to you, and and um how bad you um really need uh to get to get this done. So um just get it here to me. Just get it down here, and uh the first chance I get I'll bring it in. But I I mean I'm not I can't do it today, you know. I I I can't just guarantee to have it done to you super quick, but I'm gonna take a look at it and see what I can figure out. And uh I said, hey man, that's all I could ever hope for. So I come home, Noah drops me off, and um I've got a I've we have a multitude of vehicles here right now. Okay? We've got um man, like I think eight vehicles here. I have my old red dodge, who is uh dead in the woods, DOA dead on arrival. Um I'm gonna have to empty it and haul it across the scrapyard this year. I have my old man's old pickup that we will be looking to uh to sell. I had multiple family members tell me they were going to buy that truck, and then when it comes right down to after I hold it for a few months, they decide not to buy that truck. Um that one um is dead, dead battery. Um, and that's on the farm road to um to the field, and parked in front of that is the plow truck, um, the 2500 plow truck that is dead. Both batteries dead, two vehicles, nose to nose, neither one of those will start. That's three vehicles in my yard. My wife's Kia, I'm not gonna hook something on to, I'm not gonna pull the Yukon with the Kia because we can see that going bad. Okay, my Dodge Challenger isn't gonna be pulling um the the Yukon, and um the battery in that one is dead. Then I have the Loud Pratt American American Express, the school bus. And uh thankfully that one runs, but I have nothing on the back to hook to. There's no there's no hitch or anything. So we're at vehicle number six. Then I have an ambulance that's running strong, nothing to hook to on that either. Number seven. The eighth vehicle in my driveway is a dead Yukon. So I could call my cousin, but um, I have this thing about not wanting to run one of my vehicles into something that's something else that I don't own. So uh I'd rather hit myself, if that makes sense. I don't want to have to pay somebody else, rather be mad at myself. So I fire off the tractor, and I go in and beg the wife and ask her if she wants to go on a wild and crazy, ridiculous adventure with her husband, and if she wants to be uh pulled about a mile down the road. And um, you know, she's my wife, so she agrees to it, and uh I think she looks forward to some of the chaos that I that I do. Not all of it, not all of it. But um, so we go out, get the truck turned around, hook the um tractor onto it, and uh we get heading, and it's hilarious and it's fun, and it is pouring rain, okay? I don't have a cab, it's not an enclosed tractor, so it's pouring rain, I'm getting soaked, and um I haven't used the tractor in a while because I've been on the road, and when you get home, you don't have time to uh do fun, cool tractor stuff. So it's getting low on diesel, alright? When I get on the big road, the main road, and um I start climbing a hill, and I'm towing a Yukon, um, she's working pretty hard. I start using quite a bit of diesel. I can smell it working, and uh it makes me a touch nervous. I get going a little bit further, and um my light comes on, and I'm shifting gears, trying to make it not work as hard, and uh I see the fuel light come on and I'm like, oh no, and it starts chugging, and I call the wife and I said, Yeah, here's the deal. And she's behind me with a toe strap to the Yukon, and I tell her, Yeah, so um I'm gonna run out of diesel. I gotta pull over. Stop. I leave the wife on the side of the road with a rope hooked from a Yukon to a tractor with four ways flashing, and I have to hoof it home to get a can of diesel. A neighbor picks me up, thinks it's hilarious, drives me home, drops me off, I get out, grab a can of diesel. It is empty, of course. Get in the wife's car, take off, pass my wife on the tractor on the side of the road, go get some diesel, come back, leave her vehicle on the side of the road, and then um, you know, fuel up the tractor, fire it up, and tow the Yukon to Packard's garage to drop it off with Mike and hope and pray that he can find an opportunity and the time uh to get it on the lift and hopefully um it's okay. It's not gonna be some catastrophic, wild and crazy, ridiculous um parts project with massive bill and can be done on time. Let's just let us hope and pray on that one. So I get on the tractor, put the wife in my lap, and uh, you know, like the hero I am, I give her a little side saddle ride in the pouring rain back to her chariot. Let her get in the vehicle and and uh and come home. And uh at this point it's after 4 o'clock. I already told you I need to have about uh 200 items done to really be on my schedule. And uh I haven't started work, and I said, alright, I'm gonna uh turn the heat press on, I'm gonna go check in with the little one and my mom, and I spend a little time with the baby and get some some squeezes in and kind of recalibrate and reset. And

Heat Press Failure At Crunch Time

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um I do all that, and then I go downstairs to try to get ready for the night shift to make things happen, and um my heat press just isn't working right. And uh I want to set the scene for you and tell you that when I'm making apparel, I need to be I try to cook at least 300 degrees. I need to be about 300 degrees for a successful uh press, anywhere from 290 with a certain design and like a polyester fabric up to 320, but I'm usually a 310 to 320 range degrees for temperature. My heat press will not come up in over 260 degrees. I have a $3,000 heat press made in America and um industrial, you know, just top of the line, one of the best single heat presses you can get. Um and uh I can't get it to heat up over 260 degrees, so I'm trying to recalibrate it. It's throwing a code saying it's not communicating with um with the uh um the thermometer or the other heating probe, and uh I'm trying to recalibrate and reset and work on it. And it's been a little finicky this past week getting ready uh for Fryberg. It'll throw that code from time to time, but I can override it and find a way around it, make it work, and I know that I need to tear the entire press down to identify the problem, uh, to get to it and see if I can resolve the problem, I should say. Like I know that's what I have to do. But the last thing I want to do is take a piece of equipment that I can I'm working around and I'm making it work, and then disable it, open it up, maybe cause a greater issue, or even when I get to said issue, if I have to order um that new part, I'm DOA. It's not gonna show up in time, and I'm gonna lose all the downtime, even if it did show up in time. So I need to get through for the Freiburg fair and then take the time to tear down the machine and get it fixed the right way. Um that's that's the problem that I have. But um, I need to work around and and and to work through it. And I just couldn't get it to work, and and I spent hours, a couple hours just trying to make one one piece of apparel and it and I couldn't um get it, get it up to temp to make it work. So I tried to recalibrate it again, shut it off, walked away, had dinner with the family, went back, started it again, and um nothing. I just couldn't get it to actually um get up over. I got it up to about 270 degrees. I found another 10 degrees, but I'm still 30 degree minimum away from where I need to be for production. And just kind of at wit's end, right? You're you're now looking at the clock, and it's been a full day of uh breakdowns and and um towing vehicles and pushing vehicles and and and nearly running out of fuel in vehicles, and um, and then now you're just you feel like you overcome that obstacle and you and you um you know you you get willing, helpful hands to try to help, and and you feel like I've done all I can do, it's out of my hands, it's out of my control. Um all I can do now is pray about it and be about it. And when I say that, I mean pray about the situation and and then be about the production and the hard work and the effort that it takes to um to get things done. So

Friends Push Solutions And Hope

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get to work, and then you go to get to work and you can't get to work. And um at that time, I I got a phone call from uh Matt Perkins at Ledgway Farm and we were chatting, and and Matt's in the middle of one of the biggest um crunches for his business that they've ever had. You know, they're they're at the Big E in Springfield Mass, which is a very massive uh fair, also running the Common Ground Fair. Um he's also a vendor coordinator for that fair, and he's he also sells at that fair, and he's taking his one of his displays from that fair and bringing it to the Freiburg fair and he's dropping it off, but he has all these moving parts, and he calls me to check in on how I'm doing, and we're sharing some stories, and you know, and we talked about the vehicle, and then he asked me what I was doing, and um, and I tell him about my my equipment, and I don't know if he could just hear it in my voice, sense it in my tone, or what it was, but I think he knew that that I was struggling and that I was that I was full of doubt and that I was uh I was frustrated. And he said, Man, I um I'm sorry, man. I called you uh, you know, in a good mood and sharing some good news, and and this is what your day's like, this is what you've been going through. And and I said, No, man, I appreciate all the good news I can get that's around me, you know. I'll take all the positive conversation that uh can come my way to help uh rub off on me and encourage me, you know. And and he had some real uh supportive words for me, and and just said, man, I don't know about this uh this dark cloud and the difficulties that you've had to go through over the past few years with your business, but you need to stay the course. Like you need to stay the course, stay focused, figure it out. This will clear, it'll all work out. There's there's good things coming for you, man. There is. You just have you just can't give up. You can't give up. What can we do right now to make this work? Who can we call? And he started running through names and trying to figure out people that maybe had a heat press that I could borrow, and then he said, you know, what about marketplace? Can you find can you find one in your area? You know, even if you just throw a couple hundred bucks at at something to get you through, to get you, to get you, you know, to get your things done, to be ready, like it's it's it's worth it. And he just started started offering alternative outlooks and just just kind of pushing me. And some things like maybe they seem obvious, you know, maybe they seem obvious to to you that you're listening, but when you're in the middle of the day that I was having and you're just at wit's end and you're struggling, and you feel like you're sinking, you feel like you're standing in quicksand and it's beginning to overtake you and and and you're just having a hard time breathing, um, it's hard to really see the simple things, you know. It's hard to find the obvious things because you just feel like you need to accomplish everything. And um Matt slowed it down for me, and he put some urgency in it for me, and and and started looking at at different things in different ways and trying to understand my situation and how to get around it, and wasn't taking no for an answer. And um we got off the phone and he started sending me some uh some Facebook ads for heat presses in the area, and I I shut all my equipment off and I went upstairs with the family, and I was just talking, and I started sharing my conversation with Matt, and and Allie was like, you know, that's actually a really great idea. And she started looking, and then she was like, Okay, I've reached out to this person, this person, this person, and marketplace can be a nightmare, but uh, you know, she's looking at at heat presses and she's checking reviews and uh comparing them, and then we're looking at distance and and the downtime for me to go to get something, and she's just going back and forth and and and just sending messages and trying to figure things out, and uh it just gave you a little bit of optimism, you know, like a little bit of optimism, and it just kind of shows that that fight, you know, and and sometimes you you might get to the point in life and the situation and and the task at hand where you you just keep swinging, but there's not enough power behind your punches, and you need people in your life to show up and remind you about why you started, and to remind you about the fight, and to remind you that it's worth it, and to encourage you to keep fighting, and to put a little more power back in in your punches, and when you get that positivity, that positivity starts building the power, and uh you start putting putting that positivity behind the power into the punches, and you start swinging towards your goal with a little more effort, a little more oomph, and um you start getting creative and trying to figure out ways to overcome and and you can't you can't sit back and think, why me?

Stop Asking Why Me

SPEAKER_00 36:41

You can't sit back and think, when is this gonna end? And those those moments happen, and and and and I want you to understand that those those moments happen. When I'm on the side of the road with my hood up and the pouring rain, with my two-year-old sitting in the car seat, my mother in the passenger seat, and I gotta walk home for tools. When I'm thinking about all those things, and I'm thinking about last year, and I rewind the the tape of my life, and I get back to last year if my bus not running. I remember last year having to haul my bus with a rope from the gas station to my house. Here I am hauling my Yukon with a rope from my road to my house. I remember last year standing on the pouring rain with no answers. Throwing more more parts and and and more um time at a situation that wasn't resolving itself. I remember all the times that I said, today's the day, this is the deadline, it's gonna happen today, we're gonna get this vehicle running today, this new part that we're we're putting in today, this is gonna be the one, and it was never the one. I remember sitting in my uh in my office just breaking down in tears, realizing that the only event that keeps me in business is the event that I can't get to. And I just calling out to God for help and putting it all on his shoulders because it was too big for my own shoulders. For me to not find um the the the answer to the test to get um things back on track the way that they've always been. I had to find the workaround, I had to spend the money on a rental, I had to spend the money on all the parts we threw at the bus with no result. And here I am again, in the pouring rain, broken down, reliving, recreating. The same week. The same deadlines. It is certainly hard to not ask yourself why? Why me? To then get to the equipment, to have all the failures and to say to yourself, man, one tragic failure is enough. One massive obstacle is enough. Why two? Why why why this? Why now? Why me? But that stinking way of thinking isn't gonna help your cause. And you have to find as as as difficult as it is, as trying as it is, you have to find the silver lining, you have to find the positives. Like what if the truck didn't act up until we were halfway to the fair with our camper hooked on? What if? My wife barely drives this truck because it's awful on gas. But thankfully, she was on marketplace, picking up a marketplace find, and she went and um, you know, took the truck for a ride and picked this item up and hadn't experienced what she experienced. If that doesn't happen, maybe it doesn't trigger the situation that I ran into on Monday. If those things don't happen, and all of a sudden it happens when we're hooked onto the camper, maybe we don't even leave the yard and it happens, and then I have no way to overcome. Or maybe we're halfway there and it happens. It happened here with the ability to tow it to Packard's garage with the opportunity to possibly fix and resolve the situation. My heat press failing, having the issues that it's having, if I can find a workaround, if I can find a backup press, there's nothing wrong with having a backup. There's nothing wrong with having something when things go wrong. And maybe, maybe that backup ends up going in my and my bus and it goes on the road with me. And maybe uh there's certain things that I can do with that press on the road when um I need to fulfill production and to make things work. Maybe it's just um opens up a new avenue and it's uh and it's and it's new possibilities. You have to think of those things. And as much as this week is gonna be one of the most painful weeks I've had because of all the things that are floating in the air, and because all that is left for me to do, the overwhelming feeling of my to-do list and all that's around me, the just suffocating feeling, knowing you gave yourself all the time and opportunity to be more prepared than ever. And here you are, just swimming towards the bottom, just trying to trying to hold your breath to pull through to make it through, yet again. Here we are, yet again.

Small Wins After A Brutal Day

SPEAKER_00 42:39

So last night to end the evening at my mother's house with my mom and and and Allie and uh and Paisley just watching her run around and and be so joyful and not a care in the world not realizing the um you know the stress and the pressure that that her father was under. And she gives me a big hug and um you know, she grabs my finger and drags me around the room and my mom's talking to her about Santa Claus and and uh you just start trying to let it all go. And you try to recalibrate and reset, and as Ali's scouring the internet for for heat presses, and she understands that I no longer have the mental capacity to um navigate that search, she's she's taken that on, and I said to myself, You gotta get something off your list today, so I grabbed a couple of cases of paper bags and I stood in my living room while we're watching the rodeo and um I pressed my logo on about a hundred paper bags and um just said I gotta get something done today. So at about 11 o'clock at night, I'm finishing up pressing a case of paper bags in my living room, putting my logo on bags, and at midnight you're you're you're crawling into bed and you're exhausted from the day and you're trying to just forget about what you've gone through. Up at 5 a.m. 15 minutes before my alarm goes off when all you really want to do is crawl back in bed and put the covers over your head. But your mother has to be at work, so there's no excuses. You get up, meet your mom outside and and um and go to work. And as you're leaving in the darkness, you pass your vehicle that's at the garage outside as that reminder of what was yesterday. And I dropped my mom off and um I switched the radio over to Joel Olstein Radio, which if you are a serious XM user, um Joel Olstein Radio is channel 128, and it's incredible. It's um so many of his sermons and speeches, and uh, I've often find myself on this channel, and um this morning was the message delivered right to me. It was a message for me, and and the the concept and the premise behind his message was don't be discouraged by distance. Don't be discouraged by the distance between you and your dreams. Don't be discouraged by the distance between you and all you hope for and all you work for. Just keep the faith. Give it all to God and trust in Him and your faith that that abundance is coming for you, that all that you hope for will be there for you. Just keep working, don't get discouraged by the distance. And he had so many great stories and and personal and biblical that related to just being faithful and just believing, and he spent a lot of time discussing all the all the people that want to believe in God, but they need to see him and feel him for themselves to believe it.

Don’t Be Discouraged By Distance

SPEAKER_00 47:33

And you know, he mentioned in the Bible the people that needed to see the scars of his hands and the wound on his side to believe. All of you listening today, whether it's the medical test, the results that aren't what you hoped for, the promotion that you strive for, the connection that you long for, the relationship that your heart aches for. Whatever that is. Don't be discouraged by how far away you are from those goals. Don't be discouraged by the results. Trust in God, put your faith in him and believe in your purpose in what he created you for the purpose he bestowed upon you. These good things are coming for you. There is abundance for you. Don't be discouraged by the distance. Don't be discouraged by how far you feel from the things that you want so badly. Don't be confused by wants needs and desires. Some things in life we just we just want for all the wrong reasons. But if your heart's in it for the right reasons, it's part of your purpose. Seek and it shall be given to you. Keep working. Don't lose the faith. These past few years it would have been very easy for me to give up on this dream. Instead I've found myself identifying an even greater why. That legacy in the future for my daughter, the opportunities and experiences we can have together as a family, the ability to help bring back America to increase American jobs and American manufacturing, to spread pride and country, to celebrate, to acknowledge, to recognize the God above with my apparel, to give people the confidence to showcase their beliefs, to wear apparel with pride that says I am a Christian and I am proud. I've uncovered higher meanings in greater wise all along this journey. I'm not here to give up. I've had some extreme challenges, and a lot of them revolve around this fair right here.

Legacy, Purpose, And The Deeper Why

SPEAKER_00 51:17

As I'm sitting here sharing these stories, the similarities from last year's mechanical failures and this year's, there's also other underlying connections. When I got the phone call at the Freiburg Fair that my dad wasn't okay, that he collapsed and the ambulance was called, that call I received was from Mike Packard. The garage I ended up yesterday, the one I ended up standing in pleaing for help, was Mike Packard's garage. This Freiburg fair. I've dealt with the phone call of my dad having a heart attack, being in the hospital. Realizing the last time I saw my father out of a hospital was at the Freiburg Fair. A year later, going to that fair with my newborn daughter, riding in the middle of my father's truck. To nearly not making it to the fair, having to rent box trucks. So here we are yet again this year. I will not be discouraged by the distance. Not between me and my dreams. You never know how close they are. I trust in God. I trust in me, my family, and all around me. I thank you for supporting my American dream. While you're washing your hands, I'm gonna go do some barn chores, then I'll wash my hands, then I'll get to work figuring this out.

Gratitude, Faith, And Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_00 54:05

Thank you, thank you, thank you for supporting my American dream, no matter how far the distance is between me and that dream. That's it, and that's all, Biggie Smalls. If you're allowed out American, if you find yourself I mean on YouTube, Facebook, American, Facebook, if you're Facebook Green, I mean on Facebook Green, I think it's a good sticky topic, I mean on all of those underscore and underscore.