Gratitude and Growth: The American Dream 191

Gratitude and a change in altitude. Last week I was headed to Florida. This week I'm back in Maine reflecting on lessons learned and potential for money to be earned. 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 build 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.

That calm time leading in black water tastes and you're doing the whole day gone, running behind me to the last day.

I wait, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. What it do, what it didi-do, how do you do? Hot damn. I'm so excited to be back with you. Episode 191 and we're dialed up to have a little fun. Well, I mean, that's no different than every other week, baby, because we always line up some fun. We looking to get it done 191 consecutive weeks of this beautiful, magical, successful ride to awesomeness that we're paving right here. Thank you to each and every one of you that continue to tune in each and every week. If you are a day one, y'all know the tradition. Right now, if you're on that treadmill, you're on the elliptical, you're in your office, you're driving to work, whatever it is, get your ones up y'all Put that number one up. I acknowledge you as being a day one, loyal listener and supporter. For those of you who tuned in for the first time, I hope you tuned in for a long time. I hope to turn you into a day one. I mean, here's the thing, y'all if you just start listening today and you enjoy this episode and you enjoy the theme to this year podcast, the fact that we have these transparent talks, the fact that we come on here and share our struggles because we know that everybody grows through the stuff that we go through If you are a believer and you aspire to be a higher achiever which I think we all also do I encourage you to go on back, listen to all the episodes. If this is your first episode and it's episode 191, well then, let the mathematical wizard explain to you that means you have the luxurious benefit and privilege of listening to another 190 episodes. So you know, do what you do. You can find us on all major platforms. You can also find us over to wwwsharetheshrugglepodcastcom. Feel free to say how do you do? Leave a review and share this show with someone close to you. Man, one thing I gotta say y'all about new listeners, loyal listeners. I've noticed some new states popping up on our regular listening basis, so welcome to some of those new states that are out there. We're starting to get a few loyal listeners in Tejas, which I know a few of you, but I've seen some Atlantis popping in there. Florida we just made a trip out there and I know there's some loyal listeners, or soon to be loyal listeners, out there now after the time we spent. So yeah, man, see some cool things coming up. As far as states, as I'm saying and I can't think of them all, but there was a few that were just kind of caught me off guard, so I think Iowa was on there Some cool stuff, man. So welcome to all of you that are just tuning in. Don't forget, man, this podcast is what I consider a raw, real-time, transparent response to life. So if you're listening to the show and you wanna hear something on the show, drop a line, man. Head on over to the podcast website, send me an email, shoot me a message and we'll try to tackle your topics, your thoughts, your ideas, your hopes, your fears and your cold beers. I'm here for all of that. You understand? Ha ha ha, I think you do. How do you do. Well, I hope all y'all are having a great day. This episode's gonna drop on a winning Wednesday, but I'm recording it on March 5th, which is a Tuesday. It's a primary day. Everybody I'll be getting out there doing some voting. Then it's suspicious day here. Man, I don't wanna pour fuel on the conspiracy fires, but apparently there's some kind of Facebook breach thing going on. My wife called me and said stay off of Facebook. This seems to be having this big meltdown. Whatever Hiccumaboo that's going on. We've recently had the meltdown of AT&T, with no ability to call people and use your phone if you had AT&T not too long ago. So kinda strange, right, I mean, it's a primary day, and then I think a lot of people go to social media for their news and stuff, and that just seems to be down. But isn't it kind of just a little curious for you to put it in the back of your mind to think about what life would be like all over again if there was no social media, if there was no cell service? I mean, think about the mad, just rush to chaos that ensued for people with AT&T not too long ago when they couldn't use their phone. Everybody was freaking out about it, right, I think if you go on social media, you saw it all over your timeline Everybody was panicking that their phones weren't working, and I can only imagine. I haven't been on social media today, but I can only imagine that there's gonna be people freaking out about Facebook being down and such too right, which I mean. It's crazy that we have dependence on so many of these things. But I think it's important for us to maybe think about the other side of the coin having that backup, that fail safe protection theory in your mind that, hey, what if I needed to get hold of somebody that was close to me and my phone didn't work? What if social media was removed? Think about some of those things, I don't know. It's kind of curious, it's crazy. We're just having some conversations about what life was like before we had all this technology in the palm of our hands. It's pretty easy to see that one of the best things that ever happened to us is one of the worst things that ever happened to us, and that's really, truly how I feel about technology. Right, it could, I mean, it's made the world a much different place. It can make the dumbest guy in the room the smartest guy in the room, am I right? It's a powerful place out there, the World Wide Web, and it helps people to grow a business and do awesome, amazing things, but it also could be the one thing that destroys the freaking world. It's crazy. So I don't know, that's a random little rant there for ya, but the wife just told me a little while ago that Facebook's having a meltdown and I was thinking it's kind of ironic, it's a primary day and I don't know, just weird stuff. Right, just throw it out there. Because, hey, that's what I said, this is a real time response to life, baby, and I just found out about some of this craziness. So you know that's what we do. I started to show off that opening credit, that B-roll. I said to y'all gratitude and a change in altitude and, if you're asking me, I don't get the benefit of the change in altitude without some actual gratitude, without being thankful for friends and family relationships in my life. Without those things I'm not experiencing all these other things. So before I get rockin' and rollin' and I kinda give you guys a little synopsis, a little screenshot, a little peek beneath the sheets as to what my last week was like, because when I came on here and recorded episode 190, I was gettin' ready to head out with Matt to the Strawberry Fest in that's actually in Plant City, Florida. So I know everybody's tuning in and wanting to know how things went, and I didn't do the greatest of job at posting all the things I was doing while I was out there. I think that's what kind of happens, right? You get in the mix of doing things and enjoying things and then you forget that People want to see what's happening, right? So before I kind of give you guys a little update as to how things all went, I think the first, foremost, most important thing I need to do is to throw out a bunch of thank yous. So first I need to say thank you to my man, matt Perkins. You guys have heard me shout out many times, many ways, many days. Matt's become a great personal friend of mine and this trip, as I said last week, doesn't happen without Matt's encouragement, without that push, without that motivation and without his connections. So, matt, I want to say thank you, man. We spent a lot of time together, living in a garage together for a week. Man. We've definitely shared a lot of a lot of stories and we're gonna get into some of that stuff here Pretty soon, but I just wanted to let you know, before we get rock and roll, and just how much I appreciate you, man, and the fact that you've welcomed me into your into your life with with open arms and You're always there pushing me, motivating me and trying to help me Be better and do better, and I hope that I do the same for you. And I just wanted to say thank you and I also wanted you to know that you know this trip wouldn't be possible if you didn't have such an amazing family willing to open their homes up to you. Know their family, but their families crazy, ridiculous. Harry, heavily intoxicated, loud, proud American friend over here. So Just to kind of give you guys the insight, matt was able to Secure us a place and a tour guide and an awesome time with his cousin and his cousin's girl. So I Wanted to say big ol Thank you to James, aka Jw and a crystal for opening your, your, your home to us, for putting your life on hold for us and for Really just taking me. It's just the moment I landed to the moment I left. I can't thank you enough. You welcome me and his family. I know what it's like to be family. Right, I know we all have a family and we all have those people in our families that if they said, hey, man, I'm coming to town, a place to stay, You'd figure it out right, you would make it happen. And I know that Jw and Matt have that relationship where you can pick up the phone and say, hey, I'm coming to town, and he says, I got you, I'll pick you up, I'll take care of you. But it goes to a whole new level when that conversation is hey, man, I'm coming to town for this and I'm bringing a buddy with me, because now they assume the responsibility of holding my big-ass hand as well. So I just want to say thank you to Jw, to crystal and To Trey. I only got to meet you really briefly, but you seem like a real solid dude. But I just want to say thank you to you guys. Man, you opened your home to me. You set me up with a nice little pad. Jw is a is a bar owner. He's in between locations right now, so he set us off in the garage with, you know, dark boards and unlimited booze and and just awesome stuff. So Thank you so much for welcoming me to your home, like I said, from the moment I landed to the moment I left. They picked us up at the airport, you dropped me back off, you were a tour guide. He showed me some awesome stuff, some things that we never would have experienced and and I think we formed a great relationship and one that will continue on. So Welcome to the family y'all. Thanks for for having me, for housing me and, you know, I think, by the end of it, for loving me, because we definitely made some memories. All now I Didn't get any confidential, you know communication type agreements, some releases of Liability agreements sign, so I can't share, I will not share the personal confidential craziness that might have part part taken in, participated in, contributed to you. I Will not be sharing all those with you, sorry. Until those confidentiality agreements and liability waivers are all signed and released, I can't share all those things. But I just wanted to say thank you to, to you guys so much for From the garage to the tour guide, I gotta say thank you. Oh, so freaking much, man, wow, what a, what an awesome, awesome experience that I'm coming back from. I think I'm still trying to recover from it. Man, it's, it was a. It was a crazy time. We definitely left a lot of opportunity for, I Guess, for a lack of better terms for dick and off man. We definitely left a lot of opportunity for sitting back and relaxing and enjoying ourselves and sharing stories with each other and learning more about one another and doing all those great things. But the Amazing thing about it is that, as much as we had fun and we let loose and did you know awesome things, it was always about business. We always got back to business and I know some of you guys might be hearing this, thinking like, yeah, sure man, like you are a pool side, you're by the beach, you're looking at palm trees and you're getting absolutely loaded. Trust me, I made time for those quality events. But it didn't matter in the time or the place or the face that was in front of you. It was always about business. We had some extremely in-depth critical conversations and it didn't matter if it was a five mile walk for coffee first thing in the morning, it didn't matter if it was beard number 15 or 22 at 3 in the morning. Business conversations took place at all times, at any time, and it was such an inspiring, encouraging experience when you have three people with a business mindset, at all times with gears turning. I think that it just creates an opportunity for some amazing productive conversation. And if you just kind of peel back the curtain a little bit here and take a little peek out the window, you can imagine here's me traveling for the first time with a friend looking at potential opportunities to expand my business and my brand. Here's Matt doing the same thing, looking to head to these bigger festivals to add more foot traffic to the things he does to expose his product to a whole new market. You know us sharing some of those same hope streams and aspirations. His cousin just closed the bar, looking for another one, exploring new avenues, having his mind remain curious and open, right. So we're all throwing things at each other and it's constantly happening that way. We're always sharing just different thoughts and insights and experiences, and it's pretty awesome to be in a situation where you could be telling a dirty joke, drinking a beer, taking a shot of sake and in the next minute, having this crazy, diabolical plan as to how to be the most successful apparel slash soap maker in the business. Right, that's awesome, that's powerful man. That's what it really comes down to. We always talk business. We put our and each other's business to the front of the conversation in just about every conversation. This whole trip was about motivation, it was about inspiration, it was about analysis. So many great things came from this trip. So I just wanna say thank you to each and every one of you that helped make this trip possible. I really truly appreciate all of that. The three of us was a constant analysis. It was competitive and it was creative, and I'm so excited about all of that. Gotcha, I'm so excited about the latest care. All right, all right, all right. Welcome back y'all. Thank you to Jeff Foyn and the Gut Truckers for that little musical interlude. He got us back on track. Now would you look at that? So I decided when I was preparing for today's show I've got so many things floating around me noggin. I got so much stuff that I wanna talk about. I figured the best way to really handle some of this would be to just kind of do a quick overview, aerial view, timeline of the weekend, the week that was, and just kind of share some of those things that kind of resonated with me and put a little bow on it from there, and maybe in the future we'll bring some more of this up. So in order to do it properly and not forget the bulk of things, I'm just gonna kind of roll you guys through my schedule. That was and kind of how things unfolded. So as we start this off, on Wednesday I drove up to Bangor it was about two and a half hours away met Matt and we flew out of there and headed south right.

So on the flight I actually finished my book from On those Swords of Niggas that Got Me Bale of Candifonia.

Last week I shared some of Arnold's like tips, tricks, techniques and thoughts that he had. The name of the book is Be Useful Seven Tools. And remember those conversations about critics. Right, there's a couple of things you can do to respond to the critic. You can either ignore them or you can be motivated by them, but never believe them. We had the whole conversation about nothing good comes from a plan B, that your plan B is a plan of failure, and plan B leads to the path of least resistance. And that path of least resistance leads to acceptance. And we know that when we try different cult things, when we apply for challenging things, when we test our comfort levels, if we always have the opportunity to turn back, to just take a different road that seems to be the more traveled road, the less bumpy road, that least resistant road is going to lead to acceptance. So, before you know it, you're going to give up on your plan, and one of those things that Arnold had said was, if you wanna have a plan B, then it should be to make plan E succeed, because plan B shrinks your dream. So that was some of the fun facts and cool things that we got from last week's episode, when I was kind of summarizing some of the things I heard on that book. And I wanna share one more story from Arnold that I heard on the flight to Florida because it's gonna kind of connect the dots here, because it's another important message coming throughout this episode. So I just think it's a good way to encapsulate this whole scenario here. So while I was listening to Arnold he was talking about his career and I don't wanna spend too much time on all this, just wanna just narrow in on one specific story and chapter in the book. If you know Arnold and him coming from Austria and focusing on bodybuilding and doing all these things, coming over and imagine him being the Terminator and all that stuff, arnold decided that he wanted to be bigger than just an action hero. He wanted to be an actual movie star and to do that he needed to diversify himself a little bit. He needed to change himself. So he realized to be more famous than he already was. He didn't wanna be pigeonholed into just that action hero type of character. He knew he needed to get some comedy gigs. He needed to get some like romance type of movies under his belt. But he had been pigeonholed as the big bodybuilder, deep voice action hero and he knew if he stayed in that lane and this is what his agent and stuff were directing him to do was to kind of stay in those lanes that he would never be all that he wanted to be. So he really wanted to change himself, to reapply himself and to fine tune his craft. So he had a director that he really enjoyed working with. I forgot the name of the fellow, but he mentioned this director and how great he was and other movies they were on together. I might even have been Terminator, I don't remember and he said that they came up with this script to have the movie twins. So if you guys remember the movie twins, it was Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. Which funny story. Dcf Darren Clark Finnegan. When he listens to this he's got to think of me and him because for the longest time him being a little shorter in stature, me being a little taller we always worked together. We were always side by side. We kind of embodied the twins mold of Danny and Arnold. There was something that we used and thought was hilarious. So Arnold talks about wanting to do this movie twins and they get Danny DeVito on board, who at the time I think the show he was on was like taxi or something. He was really popular. So they go in and they start pitching this movie to so many different investors and movie makers and such A lot of them loved the idea and they were excited that they had Danny DeVito on board. But nobody could see the vision of Arnold in this movie. So they kept denying him the opportunity at this movie until they finally, the three of them were so confident in their dream they were still steadfast in this philosophy. They knew what could come from this, the potential that was there. The three of them agreed that they would go to this movie production I don't even know what the hell you call the companies and pitch the idea of the movie and then at the end of it say if you take all three of us for this movie, if you let us run this the way we want, we'll do it for free. We won't take any payment upfront on this movie. What we want to have happen is, at the end of this movie, we're gonna be cut in on all the royalties, we're gonna get a cut of the success. So all these movie stars, they take that upfront guarantee, right, they take that massive guarantee and maybe they have some royalties to come in on the back end. But Arnold, danny and this director said don't pay us, don't pay us a dime, pay everybody else and at the end of this we're gonna take a piece of the pie. We want a piece of the pie. If you're old enough to remember, that movie was a massive success and it definitely put Arnold on the map. And he talks about just how beneficial that was for him and just how much money they made off of that movie. And he shared a story where he goes in with the producer of the film. They all walk in and in the words of Arnold he says he goes in to meet with them after the movie premieres and it starts taking off.

And in the words of Arnold, the director, the director is sitting at the table and he gets up and he looks at all three of us and the undos, his belt and he pulls his fucking pants down and he turns around with his underwear. He's tight, he white, he's in the bends right over and he basically puts his asshole right in my face and he says you guys are really sticking it to me now, aren't you? Are you happy? Now You're really sticking it to me?

The point we're making here is they made a lot of fucking money. They made a lot of money because they bet on their dream Along the way they could have found somebody to pay them a hell of a lot less for the opportunity. They could have given up on Arnold being a main character in that movie and the rest of his life would have been written rather differently. So it's just pretty powerful to have the balls and the confidence to bet on yourself and to say I'm gonna take all these risks up front and in the end I'm gonna get rewarded. And that's really a theme that I wanted to keep in the back of my mind for this entire trip. So as I'm getting off the plane, I'm thinking about Arnold and the fact that he took those chances, the fact that, you know, he took the opportunity to bet on himself and to say, in the end, this will all work out. In the end this will all pay off. So I really wanted to keep that in the back of my mind this entire time. So as we land the plane and it was a great ride down for me I was in an exit row and I was the aisle seat. The middle seat was wide open and the guy in the window seat was a recognized guy for Maine and he was wearing a Yankees hat and we just kind of started chatting and I said, are you happening to be going to the game while you're here? And he said, yeah, man, I'm Friday night. And I said oh, no, shit, me too. And he was on the third baseline and I was in right center, so we weren't really gonna be able to connect. But we kind of started sharing conversations about how the hell is there two dudes in Maine that are Yankees fans and happened to be on the same flight and going to the same game. So it was pretty cool, just kind of, you know, sharing those little fun facts. And then that led to getting picked up in the festivities beginning and you know James and Crystal showing us around and being tour guides and all those things, and it led up. All the anticipation led up to Thursday for day one of Strawberry Fest in Planet City and to really kind of describe this, I just want to kind of bring you guys into how I was feeling, what I was seeing and what I was thinking. So day one of that festival, when you start rolling up to the festival, what's kind of crazy about this type of festival and there's other ones that are like it. If you've ever been to the Big E and you know is that Springfield, massachusetts, it's one of those things where you're just in the city like you're traveling city, city, city, city, and then what the hell is that? And you see a big festival going on. Like in Maine we're used to country farmland, trees, small town Wow, there's a big ass fair. So I always get surprised when I'm in the city and then all of a sudden this just big fair festival pops up in the middle of it. So that's what this was like. We get there, we get out and then I see three of the biggest ferris wheels I've ever seen in my life and we come in the backside and we start walking in and as soon as you get in there and you start to look around, you feel intimidated. It feels overwhelming the size of it. And when you're kind of trying to mingle through all the crazy crowds and figure things out and you're looking at just the overall layout and it just feels so massive and you kind of doubt yourself a little bit and you start thinking, man, can I handle this, can I do this? And your wheels start turning, in the sense of how you envision handling this fair, versus seeing it, feeling it and realizing how you need to handle it are two different things. So in this time when you're starting to see all of this, your mind starting to think how much product do I need to bring? Where can I stay? How far will my product be from where I'm at? If I can't bring a trailer for storage, if all my storage is in, like my bus, and I'm not on the fairgrounds, I can never get my, my overstock. If I do have my overstock on the fairgrounds, how long does it take me to get to it? Then you start realizing there's no way possible I can work this fair alone. It's definitely a two-person fair. And then you start thinking how much is it gonna cost me to stay here? How much is it gonna cost me to get here? And you just all these things start happening. Right, this is literally what goes on in your mind. So as you're looking around, you start thinking like holy shit, this place is huge. And you start to experience things. And and I'm just gonna tell you guys this whenever I do events at fairs, I don't usually set up in a building, I set up outside and the philosophy that I've adopted for my state is that rednecks don't always go in a building. If you have some of your diehard rednecks walking around and they look in their building and it looks just too crafty for them, they're not gonna go in. How do I know this? Because my dad never went into those buildings most of the time unless it was like a, you know, like a agricultural thing. It was like a farmers type of thing, and I know many people that are the same way. They wouldn't go in those buildings. But some of the people that won't go in those buildings are my biggest customer base. So I go outside to be with my people. If I applied for this fair Online without actually going there to screen, screen it out, I I would have applied to be outside. I learned over the course of this week that I will not be a vendor outside of this fair for a couple of reasons. Number one, it's brutally hot. Number two, you deal with crazy wind, the potential of crazy weather. Number three, no security. Like your stuff's out in the elements and if I leave for the night I don't know what their Security is like. You start thinking about theft Just multiple things right. Also, I realized they don't have a lot of outdoor vendors like Maybe it'd be cool to be one of the ones, that the only ones that are out there. There are a few vendors that are out there that kind of do what I do, some people that like resell air, eat and Western wear and such, but I can also say there's no vendor that does what I do. And being outside like I see some benefit to it, but I don't think the benefit outweighs the risk. And the other cool thing is I've never been into expo buildings at a fair that have been so busy in my entire life. Their buildings are massive and they are full and their air conditioned, which is pretty sweet. At least a couple of them are should go in these expo buildings and you check it out. And and while I'm in there I'm saying to myself self this is a lot of people. I've never seen this much traffic inside a building at a fair at home, unless it's the busiest day of the week. I'm here in the city of, I'm here on opening day and I'm here on opening day, which happens to be a Thursday, which should be a slow day. Now, as I talk to some vendors and they tell me it is a slow day for them. That's when my gears really started to turn, because you're realizing, if this is slow when at home this is busy, right. So you start to feel my thought process here a little bit. Now I come out of the Couple of buildings and me and Matt are talking things out and we say when is the agriculture, where's all the animals and the things to do? Right? So we we had out looking for all the livestock like horse barns, cattle barns, goats, sheep, pigs, and we're really not finding anything. We found one room that maybe has 500 or 1000 chickens in it, roosters and Bunnies, and then there's one room that has some cattle and some Some pigs. But this is a festival. It's not really focused on agriculture. It's focused more on music, on crafts, on food. There is so many food vendors there, so so many food vendors. I had the best cheesecake of my life when I was there and they have a high focus on music. They have a 10,000 seat ampouli theater. That is absolutely phenomenal. So there's things to come there for. But it's different than some of the fairs that we would go to. Now. At this point I started to realize this size doesn't actually feel as big as I expected. Now I'm trying to find acreage to figure out the actual size of the fair. But I haven't had that luck because I know that back home fryberg fair our biggest fair is like 180 90 acres. So I was trying to figure out just how many acres are at this fair but I couldn't find it. But there's so many people that, um, it's just, you feel overwhelmed, right, you're getting mowed down from all directions, so everything feels big. But when you start realizing like no, I've, I have already seen that and I have already seen this, you start to think maybe this isn't as massive as I thought. Now I'm gonna leap ahead here a little bit because I just want to make sure I get this point out there. We went back on saturday and it was the busiest I've ever experienced a fair in my life. I've never seen so many people in in my entire life had a fair. It was. It was sea Of people, sea to shining fucking sea. There was people. Hot to get a damn was their people. Now the other thing that I thought about about this fair is the capacity. First, what is there for opportunity? And when I say opportunity, I think about opportunity to do, as in what is there for the fairgoer to do, what do they have the opportunity of doing? So for me to better explain this to you, I'll say that, um, the Freiburg fair At the top of my head, let's say it does around 200,000 people that come through the fair. I think this fair, this festival, has 600,000 people that attended. You have three times the population and I personally think you might have Three times less to do, three times more the population. So you triple the population that goes to this fair, but you take away Half the things that you can do at some of our fairs, because if you go to Freiburg, if you go to Windsor, you're going to be able to, you know, see some, some bands and stuff, but you're going to have truck poles, you're going to have demolition derby, so you're going to have horse poles, ox poles, you're going to have All these four H shows, all these different agricultural events, all these different, different demos and things are happening at these fairs. That Number one they draw people to the fair but they give people something to do and these things often happen. These things often give people something to do for free. So if I'm a family and I'm bringing my family you know, my wife and kids to this event or to a fair. I generally would be looking for things that I could do to save money, but I still enjoy ourselves. So if I could see demolition derby for free, I'm going to bring my kids over there and I'm going to kill an hour If I could watch horse poles for free, if I can, you know, watch a woodsman's day for free. If I can see these demos for free, I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that because my kids are going to experience that and we're going to feel like we got our money's worth. Now, when you add an event like this, that has tripled the amount of people. But they don't have these activities. They have less to do. They have two, let's say three things to do. You could spend the extra money and go see an awesome concert, which the lineup of bands at this place is absolutely amazing, and we're going to head to that moment in a second here. That's an additional charge for most of those, so you can go there to see some awesome music. You can go there and eat some great food and you can go there and spend your money crafts, buy stuff, right. All you can do music, eat, spend, music, eat, buy. You understand? There's triple the amount of people and there's half as much to do. So if you're asking me, there's multiple extra opportunities for me to make money because all you have to do is to walk around, to do laps, to eat food and to check things out. That's gonna give me multiple opportunities to see you and to provide you with an experience and a reason to join the family to spend some money to support the brand. So the opportunities here are absolutely freaking tremendous. On Thursday when we went there, matt and I tried to get as much information as we could out of other vendors, and the way that we went about doing this is to just go into the booth and then just interact with people. My philosophy was just to go in, start a conversation. A lot of vendors wouldn't even have a conversation with you and you realize that if they see 600,000 people, maybe they just get burnt out. They get burnt out by the same conversation, but if I have one opportunity to make money, I'm not gonna get burnt out by conversation. If I travel across the fucking country to create this opportunity and bet on myself and invest all this money and take all this chance. You can picture your ass. I wanna talk to you when you come close to me, and if you're asking questions or making conversation, that reveals the possibility of a sale, why would you not capitalize on that? And it was frustrating to me that these folks wouldn't take the opportunity to really discuss things with us. As much as that's disappointing, it's also an opportunity because if we can go there and just be ourselves, we'll make money, because being ourselves is gonna provide a level of service that they're just not accustomed to. They're just not used to. So as we go into all these different displays, interact with these vendors, I just try to feel them out for conversation in general. So one of the easiest ways that I found to do this was to either compliment the product or the display so I could go in and be like, wow, I really love the look of this, and or talk about their product. There was one vendor in particular, that really nice lady, extremely nice, and she was a soap maker. And the whole conversation started because I walked in and was like, wow, I really love this display, and I started commenting on this cabinet that she had, that she removed the glass from and then kind of had her display put together and it really was a beautiful display. I didn't make that up, I was just complimenting her on her display and her products and then that turned into just more conversation. And as you have that conversation you start to peel back the onion a little bit and just on the next layer do you start to drill in on the questions of being a little bit more focused. You're not being malicious about it, you're just looking for information and I'm willing to give information if somebody asks me for information when I'm at another fair. I've been known to help people, so you're just looking for someone that's like-minded and willing enough to share their insights. So once we found somebody that was willing to chat, I would ask questions. Matt would ask questions, some people would connect more to him, some would connect more to me, and you just capitalize on that relationship and you just start asking questions. So she was fantastic. She shared a lot of great information. I'll have to see if I can find her business stuff. It was like everybody I chatted with, I went ahead and instantly gave them a follow on social media, I gave them a like and I looked up their page, so just to kind of share the wealth right To spread the wealth. So she was fantastic. There was another lady that worked for a pickle company I think it was Carolina Pickles and they were phenomenal pickles. She actually had a food truck from Carolina. So we were just having great conversations. I'd give people my loud-prout American stickers and just try to connect and we're all like-minded. Man, there's enough people at this fair for all of us to win. Let's be honest, there's 600,000 people. They don't all want to buy for me and you right, we can spread the wealth here a little bit. So it was great to have conversation. Every vendor that was willing to say so would tell us that this is by far the best festival they do. Throughout the entire year I received an offer to be a wholesaler for somebody another American Me product. All these cool opportunities came up right, all these great conversations. That's why I said at the forefront of this entire trip was business, whether it was sitting down having a beer, discussing potential opportunities, laying out obstacles that would have to overcome, or if it's meeting another vendor, another business owner, and sharing thoughts and insights and trying to learn how to get in. It sounds like it's very difficult to get into this event. Now, outside of the business part of the festival, one of the things we wanted to do was to experience a show and when we were looking up the information about this, there was a blinking light on the board for me and that was Oliver Anthony was playing day one Strawberry Festival. Oliver Anthony if you've listened to the podcast, if you've heard me talk about him before, if you're just loud, proud American, you've probably heard of Oliver Anthony. He's been an inspiring story. It's kind of crazy. So not even a year ago I was August when his whole story took off and just a quick little screenshot on it, I'm not gonna share too much on it. For me personally, the first time I experienced Oliver Anthony is I was at the Topson Fair in August and it was a slow day and I was sitting in my tent and a buddy that owns a coffee company mainly coffee. He's set up at the same fair and he sends me a link and says hey man, this guy's right in your wheelhouse. I think you should watch him. And it was Oliver Anthony's song, richmond, north of Richmond, and it was such a powerful tune and later that day we saw that it shot all the way up to number one on iTunes, and I started researching him a little bit and it was crazy because he had a video that he put out the day before his song was released. He shot a video. I think he was basically in his pickup truck on his iPhone and said my song's about to come out. Lord willing, some people are gonna hear it and you're gonna come looking for me to learn about me, to see who I am. So this is my story, and he shared his story and his motivation, his recovery, his inspiration and it was just amazing right, and from then it's just been a freight train for him. Everything he does just goes right up the charts. It's truly inspiring. It's crazy to see, but his message, his meaning, his reason, it's powerful. Everything he does is powerful. He opens every show with prayer and I knew this was gonna be a great experience for Matt and I knew this would be right in our wheelhouse. So I had asked Matt you cool if we go to a show, and together we wanted to buy tickets for JW and Crystal so that it could kind of be a thank you from us for housing us, you know. So we all went to this show and we're way up high at the stadium and we're up there and just kind of taking it all in and he's got a tour bus outside that we could see that he's just a plane, plane bus, right, and it's really nice, but there's no marketing on it at all. And JW had said to me like that bus looks like he just rented it, like it looks like a new bus, like it doesn't even have anything on it, and later on he comes out and he starts the show with prayer, like I said, and he in between songs would just share such a powerful inspirational message about himself and his journey and just what's been happened to him. He just came back from Europe, I wanna say, and he was sharing a story about when his song first came out. He had booked a show at like a festival for free. I forgot what it was, maybe a fundraiser or a festival and he booked it for free, like he's gonna play for free. They expected a few hundred people to be there at this festival and the day he showed up to play it, 12,000 people showed up at this little town and they shut all the roads down and flooded the entire festival and I remember seeing the video of it. But can you imagine you're prepared to play for 200 people, 300 people, and 12,000 show up. This just says that what you're doing is right, what you're doing is a gift and what you're doing is for more than you can imagine. It's for more reasons than you have in your own mind, that you can process, because when something takes off like this, it's because the world needed this, it's because people needed it, people needed your message and it's just so powerful to see. So, in the words of Oliver Lord willing, some people were gonna hear it and man the Lord was willing because it seemed like all of America heard it. He had shared a story that really hit home with me and it's gonna kind of connect the dots to some of the things we're talking about, like the story from Arnold's book. And all of us stood there and said that At the time he released his song, he was so confident in himself and his dream that he quit his job. And he said that I might have jumped the gun and quit my job a little too early, because I quit my job and I had two or three hundred bucks in my bank account and and the song took off. And that's when he realized that when you're streaming music. It takes 90 to 120 days to get paid. So here he is with these songs just skyrocketing up the charts. But streamed music doesn't pay For three or four a month and he's got less than three hundred dollars in his checking account and he's got a family, you know. Think about that. I left my job. I could see my dreams starting to take off, but I only have a couple hundred bucks left in my checking account and I've got three to four months before I really see any kind of payment during this time he made reference to some Slicked-back hair salesman from Nashville, tennessee, reached out to him and said I want to offer you a deal for $3 million was two or three million bucks, I think it was three million bucks. So here's this slick back salesman, record label, nashville Tennessee, calling him up. He just quit his job, he's got two hundred something bucks stuff in his checking account and this record label says I'll pay you three million dollars right now. And he said no, no, I'm not taking the money. Can you imagine what it takes, the amount of confidence, the amount of belief it takes to say no to three million when you're sitting on 300? God bless him for having the ability, the strength, the confidence, the belief to Stay steadfast in his dream and his philosophy. Because he doesn't want to sell his rights to his music. He doesn't want to have to be told what to do, what to say, how to do it and when to say it. No, the beauty of what Oliver does is singing from the heart. We talk about our podcast being a raw, real-time response to life. His music is a raw, real-time response to reality, to life, to what's happening in this country. His music is powerful. The more you listen, the more you learn, the more you hear the experience. It hits with you, it resonates with you. It's powerful. I encourage you to listen. He has an album coming out soon. He mentioned that he just rented this bus. It was his first time on a bus. Just like J W said, here's a man on the rise, here's a man experiencing and living his dream. He still lives in his little house I think it's back in Virginia with his dogs and his wife and kid, and Truly, truly special. He shared so many amazing stories that night. But that that message of having the confidence to bet on yourself, to leave your job, to have two or three hundred bucks on your account, to be offered three million and to stay with your dream, to stay true to who you are, to stay the course. Wow, absolute, freakin Inspiration. Man, man, I can't uh, it's hard to put it in the words man being there and Inheriting him say that and feeling him say that, and the crowd and the energy and realizing what's going on, it was extremely powerful. He had a friend with him, named Eddie, that Eddie had recorded on his phone, like him singing a song, made this little video and Put it out and it just took off. And as it was taken off, he said I basically told my buddy if he'd put it out and since I would take off, I was gonna take him out to McDonald's. I was gonna take Eddie over to McDonald's and get him like a freaking McNugget or something. He was gonna buy him dinner and that's what he promised him. And he said Then, as that thing started to take off and and to see the ride that he's on now, he said you know where my buddy Eddie live is not too far from his hometown. There's a McDonald's right there and when we started this whole thing I I promised him a McNugget, but by the end of this thing I'm gonna give him a McEddie's, because I'm gonna buy that fucking McDonald's and give it to him and he can run in McDonald's. We can call it McEddie's if he wants. Some believe, oh man, from McNuggets to McEddie's, because you, you just pushed a friend and the next thing, you know, it was the right message at the right time and it just took off from there. So, such a beautiful damn thing, such a genuine soul man. He Told a story about a military member that sent him his medals and and and said that you know, he contributed him for still being alive because he's been battling PTSD and his songs have made a difference. So Oliver actually bought him a plane ticket, flew him to Florida and brought him out Stay on stage at the strawberry festival so all of us could acknowledge him and thank him. But Oliver could spend time with him and meet him and make connection. Truly inspiring stuff, man. It's reminds me a lot of Of jelly roll. I've been in the crowd with jelly roll when you see somebody that's authentic, that's on the rise, that's making something of themselves and they're truly Just living their dream. And you see somebody living their dream and appreciating it. They had that common connection. The two of them, all of his message was unbelievable and he ended his show by saying that, no matter what they tell you, they will always be more of us than them. And it's so true, man, because we continue to be fed all this bullshit in this country About you know what's important and what you should be doing, what you should be injecting into your bodies, what you should be eating, when you should be taking a shit in this country is dictated in this country. It's, it's crazy, man. All if you listen to mainstream media, to social media. This world is divided and you know we're headed for world war. When, if you really just stood up and realize that, if I have the confidence to say what I believe, if I have the courage to Show people who I am, what I stand for and what I believe in, if all of us had that courage, if all of us were steadfast and determined to be loud, proud Americans, to be proud of our country, to get back America, the moment this country realizes there's more of us than them, we can take back this country. I'm not, you know, crying for violence. I'm not plating for war. I'm just telling you it's never been more important in this country to be allowed proud American. You can be disappointed in the actions of this country, but you should never not be proud of your country. It has never been more important and more critical to be a loud, proud American, to stand up for what you believe, to be thankful for your freedoms and all the great benefits you receive. And when I say benefits, I'm not talking about food stamps and I'm not talking about free housing. I'm talking about the benefits of opportunity the opportunity to start a business, the opportunity to build a family, to build a life, to make a life. This country is full of great opportunities and great freedoms. On the backs of our forefathers, our friends and family that have fought for these freedoms. It has never been more important, has ever been more critical for us to remind Everyone there's more of us than them. There shall always be more loud, proud Americans. There's a lot more of us that are happy to be here, that are proud to be here, and it's important, it's critical, it's necessary to be loud about it. Man, I'll Get off my soapbox for a minute here. But such a powerful message, such a motivational trip to hear Arnold's story about Doing a movie for free, betting on the back end to Oliver Turning down three million when you're sitting on 300. Pretty inspiring if I doesn't give you the courage to, to bet on yourself and to do things and to chase your dreams, and nothing's really going to do that for you, right? So I felt that it was an inspirational Moment for me to have these messages coming to me, have the support of the people that I'm there with Just cultivating these hopes and dreams. So that was. That was great. Another great thing for me was it was a bucket list moment for me. If you know me personally, I'm a diehard Yankees fan. I've never been to a Yankees game. When I realized when and where I was going to be and how close George Steinbrenner Field would be to me and that Yankees spring training was going on, I decided to get myself a ticket to go to the game. And Again, if you are a loyal listener a day one listener You've heard me talk about the benefits of getting uncomfortable and the benefits of doing things by yourself and on your own. I've shared stories all along the way about Taking a motorcycle trip to a fair and walking around all by myself, to getting comfortable with myself, to be uncomfortable enough to Go have dinner by myself, to have lunch at a restaurant by myself to saddle up at a bar by myself. It's not creepy, folks, it builds character. And Another step in building character is going to a baseball game by myself. There's nothing wrong with it, man, and it builds confidence in yourself. When you Challenge yourself to get into an uncomfortable situation and sometimes that uncomfortable situation is uncomfortable because you're not comfortable being alone You're not comfortable and confident enough spending time by yourself in these situations. I've gotten to a point in my life where I can go into a situation Like a baseball game, a concert, a fairground by myself and I can make friends if I so choose. And that's exactly what happened. I went to this game and I got an amazing seat for this game. I highly recommend going there for games for 45 bucks. It's a standing room, first come, first serve scenario, general admission along the right field line, actually out in the entire right field to center, and there's tabletops and chairs. And when I got my seat I literally texted my wife and said I'm just waiting to get kicked out because this is too good to be true. I was in right field, juan Soto, newest Yankee, right here in front of me. To the left, to my right, aaron Judge, my favorite Yankee, roman Center field. When I checked the lineup on Thursday night they announced the pitcher and I saw that it was Garrett Cole, my favorite pitcher, obviously. Reigning American League saw a young winner take on the mound. I was floored. Then on Friday, when I got up in the morning and I checked the lineup, I couldn't believe it when I saw it DJ Lameju batting first, juan Soto, second, aaron Judge, third, anthony Rizzo, fourth, let's see, giancarlo Stanton. When I started seeing the lineup I couldn't believe it. Almost the entire starting roster was out there that night. I was so blessed by it. It was an amazing, amazing experience. Yankees were down early but they battled back. Anthony Rizzo hit a home run right over my head. Rizzo hit a grand slam. Juan Soto hit a home run. Everson Pariah hit a home run. Yankees won 8-4. It was an amazing experience. While I was sitting there I made friends on all sides of me. One of them I really connected with. His name was Felix from the Dominican. Felix was born and raised in the Dominican. He actually lived in the Bronx for a long time. He's now a bartender of 20 years in Baltimore. His wife's an Orioles fan and they travel around to games all the time. He does about 20 Yankees games a year. We swap phone numbers and I gave him some stickers. He said if I'm ever looking to do a Yankees game or an Orioles vs Yankees game, to hit him up and he'll help me out. You just get blown away, man. You get blown away by the fact that if you share your story with people, if you're open with people, you never know how those people and their stories and relationships are going to impact your life. It's a beautiful life if you're willing to share it. It's a beautiful world if you're willing to experience it and to learn from it and be open to it. Man, it was an absolute bucket list evening for me, my first Yankees game. I get it. It was only spring training, but it was an amazing experience, man. My buddy Felix, my new brother Felix, gave me a baseball from the game. Man, it was just special dude. It was just so freaking special man. I just can't really put it all into words as I stop and think back about all I experienced and just how awesome those little moments are when you're on trips. Difficulties happen, man, mistakes happen. You don't always have to do the things that you plan on, or schedules change and things move. But if you're flexible and you allow yourself to be open to things and to ideas and opportunities and explore things and have conversations, you'll never lose man. You'll always be inspired by those things happening to you and happening for you. It's a beautiful life y'all, and it was a beautiful trip. As I just ultimately take a back seat now try to recover from my trip, from the schedule we were keeping of getting home between I don't know man, I would say the average time we got home was between 2.30 and 3.30, 4 o'clock. The average bedtime was from 3 to 4.30 in the morning. The average awake time was 7 to 9. I don't know man. We averaged maybe three to five hours sleep. I would sleep in 20-minute increments because when you have 25, 30 beers and two gallons of water, you kind of have to get up and piss every night or in my case, every half hour or so. So my paranoia for snakes and bugs might have kept me up a little bit. So my average of you know, three to four hours sleep in 20-minute increments has caught up to me. I'm a little tired. I might have basically slept an entire day away, but as I find myself on the couch, trying to re-gather myself and center myself, to be coming back to being a human and living by an actual schedule again. I start to just reflect on the trip that's been and what was. I have come to a proud conclusion the decision has become more about logistics than product, and I can't tell you what those fine details mean to me in my business, because what that means to me is I've reached a level of confidence and belief in my business and my brand that I know I can succeed when I no longer have to be in a situation where I doubt myself, my product, my brand, my opportunity. Instead, I spend diligent time accounting for the logistics to making sure I can pull something off. What I mean by all of this is had I gone to this festival two years ago, I walk around and say no way, no way can I do this. I don't think I'm ready. I don't know if the people are going to like my product. I don't know if they're going to buy my product. I don't know if I can pitch my product. I would have had so much doubt, so much fear. I walked around this event telling myself you would crush this event, to go from telling yourself what it actually worked, could I actually sell? To, asking myself how much would I have to bring to not sell out. That's where my mind's at. And to ultimately sit back now and realize that a couple of years ago I would have been full of fear and telling myself this can't happen To now being a place of confidence where I tell myself this would be a success. When I tell myself there's nobody here doing what I do, I'm going to bring something here that they don't have. It's exhilarating, it's invigorating, and I know Matt feels the same way. I know he's confident in his brand and his product and there's no competition there for him at this fair. That's a powerful feeling that shows me I've come a long way in my business and my brand, because I've gone to events and doubted myself as to whether what I was bringing was going to work. To now be at a point in my business where I'm confident enough in my brand, my presentation, who I am and how I work that I'm so confident that I know I could go 24 freaking hours, drive away from home over many miles to a festival of 600,000 people and kill it, because that's the belief I have in me myself, my brand and my ability Powerful. That is a proud conclusion. Now the process of analyzing logistics, the question of whether you can actually get in If the opportunity exists, based off of how difficult it is to be accepted but those are far different things to be analyzing and thinking about. Then, what I would have been analyzing and thinking about, what I would have been thinking about is can I do this? Can I handle this? Is my brand good enough for this? Am I big enough for this? Am I ready for this? When, instead, I'm looking at can I get in? How much do I have to bring? How long is it going to take? Where do I have to stay? All those different moving things? I came home and I was actually able to have a great visit with my uncle and my aunt. They travel around and do a lot of the same things as me. They were just coming back from a big show, actually at the Big E Fairgrounds. We sat down and chatted and we were talking about this fair, my new philosophy for the business, of the brand and the direction I want to go. He said to me because he used to be a business, owner of a construction company. He used to do drywall, he owned that business. Now his son does that. Then he went on his own being a blacksmith. My dad taught him how to weld many years ago. He's built a great life for himself traveling around. He does, I want to say, 40 events a year. Now I think he's got like 32 or 33 events this year, so multiple time business owner. And he told me you know, when I had the construction company and I was going into a big house, like a big mansion or something, I was looking at this massive room or a massive amount of rooms that I had to do. I looked at every job the same way, one room at a time. If I look at the job, no matter how big or how small one room at a time, they're all the same, it all averages out. So my plan for this monster down in Florida is to begin to look at it one room at a time. So all of you that have helped me to get to this event, all of you that housed me, that traveled with me, or the ones that stayed home, that allowed me to travel, I can't thank you enough. Each and every one of you, whether this is your first time listening or you're a long time listening. I appreciate each and every one of you, and to all of you I must say thank you. Thank you for supporting my American dream. Now go wash your fucking hands and you'll build these savage. That's it and that's all Biggie Smalls. If you're a loud, proud American and you find yourself just wanting more, find me on YouTube and Facebook at Loud Proud American, on this page, as my mama calls it. If you're a fan of the Graham Cracker, you want to find me on Instagram, or all the kids by tickety-talking on the tick-tock. You can find me on both of those at Loud Underscore Proud Underscore American. A big old thank you to the boys from the Gut Truckers for the background beats and the theme song to this year's podcast. If you are enjoying what you're hearing, you can track down the Gut Truckers on Facebook. Just search Gut Truckers. Give them Gut Truckers. I like to. I truly thank you for supporting my American dream. Now go wash your fucking hands, you filthy savage.