Harmony In Hardship Life's True Priorities 187

Today we all learned of the passing of country music legend Toby Keith. I found myself today thinking about a 62 year old man with all the success in the world, all the high achievements, recognitions, appreciations, accomplishments. I could imagine he was living the life of his dreams. I took the news of Toby's passing as yet another example of the fact that there is no guarantee on you and me that this life is precious, that our time is limited. You could certainly say, after recently losing my dad, that I'm a little more sensitive to this topic. Recent life lessons certainly have me questioning what's truly important in our lives, taking a deeper look on our priorities and our time spent. Let me do some eye-opening research that just might change how you look at your own life. 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. What it do. What it do, hot dick as a damn. I'm so excited to be back with you. So, what it do, baby boom. How you living, how's your mama and them? How's your kinfolk? You know All those good things. How's your mental? How's your dentals? You know? Just checking in on y'all. Somebody's got to check in on you. You know what I'm saying. Well, episode 187, 187, that's 187 consecutive weeks. We say it every damn week because it continues to surprise me each and every week. Big ol'. Thank you to all of you listening. If you are day one, getcha Wands up, getcha Fingers up. If you've been here since day one, if this is your first episode, then welcome to the Loud, proud American podcast, properly, precisely, beautifully, perfectly named Share the struggle. Because, as we all know, everybody struggles and there is strength in that struggle. We just have to be willing enough to share it with each other, because we will learn from it, we will grow from it. That is why we are here yet again this week. Don't forget, find all things podcast related over to wwwsharethest strugglepodcastcom. You can even get yourself some podcast merch. You can find it over on the Loud Proud American website right now Actually still currently on sale. It's on sale right now for 17 bucks. Get yourself one of those. If I sound a little different this week, I'm changing things up. I'm working towards finding the perfect recording scenario for this show. Yes see, even after 187 weeks, we're still tweaking and critiquing. You know what I mean. So today I'm actually recording in the garage. I am at the spot where we just had a Loud Proud American live sale over the weekend. Big ol' thank you to some of you that showed up. I know that a lot of the loyal listeners of the show. I saw quite a few of you chiming in and saying hey, and I've heard messages from you guys since then. So big ol' thank you to any member of the podcast Peeps this year, the struggle tribe that we're building here. I want to say thank you to each and every one of you that showed up for the live that said hey, put a like, put a share, spent some money, said you care, whatever it is you do. I appreciate you. So on Sunday evening we had a Loud Proud American live sale and you might have noticed the backdrop that I created that I've been super excited about. Well, I actually had all my audio equipment down here in the garage from the live, which, if you weren't able to tune in on the live, you realize we had some technical difficulty. Which, man, is everything I do difficult. Is that the truth? I mean, am I difficulty is beginning to rub off on you? Am I making this relationship difficult? I hope I am not. I truly hope I am not. But we had everything all lined up. Y'all know, after nearly 200 episodes of the podcast, I kind of know my way around a microphone and setting up some audio equipment. So to say that I was disappointed would be an understatement. But we had everything set up laptop, good to go audio check and when we went to go time for the Facebook Live, apparently Facebook and my web camera just decided they did not want to communicate and it turned into a bunch of nonsense in my laptop having to do an update which, after the update, we still don't have camera access and I no longer have iTunes and my music library, which, for a DJ, is kind of a shitty situation, don't bring it up after realizing that the laptop just wasn't going to happen. I was about eight or 10 minutes late to the show and we just said go on the iPhone and made the best of it. So thanks for hanging in there with us, with you, all the technical, technical difficulties. I do appreciate you. I thank you. Thank you for all your orders, your love and your support. But the reason why I bring that all up is that's where I'm recording today. Hopefully we sound okay today. And the downfall is I had to turn the heat off in the garage, which I thought the temperature would sustain a lot longer than it has, because currently it's a bit cold. Right before I pressed go on this here audio, I said to myself. I said, self, you're feeling a little thirsty and I'm kind of tucked in here. I'm really nooked in here because I'm actually recording right in front of the bumper of my car, so the challenger's right here next to me, so it's kind of like snug as a bug in a rug scenario. And I said to myself I said, say, oh, I've been feeling a little bit parched and I need water. I really do need some water, but I didn't want to get out of the time to get up. I'm nooked in here and I don't want to sound all cotton mouthy, the cotton mouth rat. So I said I'm going to find something to drink here and luckily I found a Miller Highlife from the live sale, just sitting here in the cabinito this golden Godwater, fresh from the golden streams of Millie Wauke, usa, and I opened it up, took a swig and realized this sheet is slightly above room temperature. I don't think I've drank a beer this warm since I was 17. Your muff's mother, I wasn't drinking that young. Who am I kidding? I was God. That's pretty gross. You guys ever get bothered by the fact I just start the show and ramble. I don't Gunches. Laow Proud American is a lifestyle brand dedicated and determined to represent the American spirit, with an unrelenting commitment to provide made in the USA products. If you would like to join the 2% of Americans that buy American and support American, head on over to wwwlaowproudamericanshop. Together we can bring back American manufacturing. Alright, alright, alright. Speaking of rambling and going off topic, while I'm sitting here recording, the wife sent me a picture of some dude's Dunkin Donuts coffee order. Apparently she follows this like Dunkin page on Facebook. Isn't there a page and a group for everything? Anyways, this dude's holding a Dunkin Donuts iced coffee and his caption is my new go-to. I just got to share this with you because it's blowing my mind. Right now I'm going to read his ingredients for the label. On the side of the cup it says modify medium iced decaf. 30 butter pecan swirl. 30 butter pecan swirl. Are you kidding me? It gets better, sweetheart. 30 butter pecan swirls and 39 blueberry shots, one Splenda, one equal, one sweet and low, one liquid cane sugar and 20 creams. Okay, this can't be right. This has to be a misprint and this dude's just showing it off. There's no way. You can't even fit that in a medium. You can't fit 30 pumps of butter pecan swirl, 39 blueberry shots and 20 creams in a cup and a splash of decaf. I could have believed part of it until I saw the 1111 on every possible option of sugar right there. What's that dude's name? Wilfred Brimley, is that his name? I want to talk to you about the diabetes. I'm here to talk about diabetes, debatus and diabetes. Wilfred Brimley would see this and just diagnose you with type two. Lord, I was actually in line at Dunkin Donuts a while ago and this dude in front of me ordered like 20 pumps of white chocolate and 20 pumps of mocha and like a bunch of cream and I just threw up and shit my pants right there. But again, we are right. Blah-ah-off topic. I really swear to y'all that I started the day off with an outlook of positivity for today's show and I have ruined it already with 10 minutes of chaos. But that's what makes us us man. This is it. That's what makes us tick Again. I do apologize. I'm gonna do the best I can to ground myself on this railroad to success. So let's get things rock and rollin'. As I record today's show, all of America found out today that country music legend, country music icon, toby Keith, passed away this morning at the age of 62. 62 years old, he died from a battle with stomach cancer, and I'm a Toby Keith fan. I can't say that he's one of my all-time favorites or greats or anything, but I'm definitely a Toby Keith fan. I think all current-day music fans would have a couple of songs of his that would resonate with them. Should have been a cowboy, I think, is one of the best country songs of all time. Let's just put it out there. I mean Red Solo Cup you might not be a fan of, but I'm pretty sure you probably drank to it. So the point I'm making here is that Toby Keith probably had some kind of musical impact on your life and I am very highly influenced by music. It plays a big impact in my daily life. I feel like it's a big part of who I am and where I am, and you can tell by just a lot of the tattoos I have. A lot of tattoos they have are actually song lyrics. I actually have a portrait of Johnny Cash as well. So you can definitely say that you know I'm heavily highly influenced by music. If you're listening to this here podcast, then you obviously know about my goal, about my dream, about my brand Loud Proud American. And there's actually a Toby Keith song that maybe might be a little more obscure than some of his other songs. That actually really hit home for me. And when I started the brand and then I heard that song, it just gave me goosebumps all over and it's really been something that kind of drives me, that makes me think of the brand. And actually the first time I did a live sale on Facebook kind of funny how we are just talking about how we just wrapped up a live sale on Sunday, the first ever live sale I did I created all these graphics and slideshows and I had this video entrance and all these cool things. And I started it off with a Toby Keith song and eventually I rolled in a few other just iconic country songs and actually I think I started it with Johnny Cash, ragged O' Flag, and then I ended it with Toby Keith and Facebook blocked all of it and took my audio away and said that that's copyright and I can't do those sort of things. And typically when I record a podcast, there's a lot of songs I'd love to play but I just can't because I don't wanna get sued or have things taken down. But I feel like, in the context of what we're working with today, I'll be allowed to play this and then, if not, I gotta say to people that would sue me I'm already broke. So I mean, what are you gonna get from me? And I do truly think, based off of my mission and that man, toby Keith, and as patriotic as Toby Keith is and was, I think that he would really actually support the brand. He'd get behind the brand and had I've known Toby Keith, I bet you this brand would be known by many, many people, because he was definitely one of the most patriotic artists, all the stuff he's done for the troops. Actually, I don't know if everybody knows this, I don't know if this is common knowledge or not, but when Donald Trump was president, he actually gave Toby Keith the National Medal of Arts, which is one of the highest honors that the government could actually give an artist. But before I get off track here, I just wanna play a little excerpt from this song and then, if you guys think about our brand and our mission, I think it'll all make sense to you. Appelle產 Rolling Mandels. It breaks his heart seeing foreign cars fill with fuel. It is an ours and we're in common. We didn't grow. He's got a red foot blue grand ham on farm. Simper rides at two on a slip dog. Spent a little more in the stove for a tag and a back assist USA. He won't find out that he came fixed with WD 40 and a pass for red T8 prejudice he's just made in America. Oh, buddy, I'm getting goosebumps all over again just hearing that song. And man, when I think about the brand and the task in hand, those lyrics, they really just ring true to me, they inspire me and they, they motivate me and I think that's all an artist could ever want and hope for from their song, from their lyrics, is that reaction, that movement, to actually think that, you know, if I was an artist and I recorded a song that helped somebody to motivate a brand and in a lifestyle and in a sense of providing for his family, I think that that's an amazing tribute, right. So I'm very confident that if Toby Keith knew that, he would really be forever grateful for that right to be honored and to be flattered for our actual starting of the brand and the influence that his lyrics actually have had on our mission. Let's just take a quick second to drill in on some of those lyrics. So the song starts off with my old man's. That old man spent his life living off the land, dirty hands and a clean soul. My old man had some of the dirtiest hands you've ever seen, calloused like catcher's mitts, and my dad's hands were these big, massive mitts that were hardened leather. If you shook his hand, you quickly knew that this man worked every day of his life. When I get back to the lyrics here, it breaks his heart seeing foreign cars filled with fuel that isn't ours and we're in cotton we didn't grow. He's got the red, white and blue, flying high on the farm, semaphye tattooed on his left arm. Spends a little more on the store for a tag on the back that says USA. That is the Lao Proud American mission. That is mission 2%. His old man saying that it pisses him off to see that we have all these foreign cars and we're filling them up with fuel that isn't ours and we're in cotton we didn't grow. Mission 2%. The bloodline of our business, of our brand, is the fact that only 2% of all apparel bought and worn, consumed and owned in this country is made in this country. That right, there is exactly what our mission is about. Spends a little more on the store for a tag in the back that says USA. I love it. He ain't prejudice, he's just made in America. Toby Key, thank you for an amazing song and message that has helped to mold the brand to be an inspiration. Thank you for all your years of great country music. I was reading today that it's reported he has over 5,000 songs and 20 number ones fabulous, amazing life. During the news of Toby's passing, one of the biggest things that impacted me was the fact that he was just 62 and here I am. You know, emotional and crying that I just lost my dad at the age of 79, a few weeks before turning 80, and I said during his funeral which if you guys listen to the show or you got to go, you've heard that story and that message. I shared the fact that I'm blessed. I'm blessed that I got 80 years. Here's another example of me getting nearly 20 more years with my old man. Then Toby got with his family, you understand. So there's a great deal of blessing there and there's a perspective. That's there because one thing I realized is Toby Key's being 62 years old, dying of stomach cancer, made me realize that money doesn't matter. Made me realize that fame doesn't matter, success doesn't matter, gold and platinum records don't matter. Time is a great equalizer on us all and it seems like more and more of us are losing a battle with cancer. My dad lost a battle with leukemia that he didn't even know he was fighting, or, if he did, he didn't let us know. Not that long ago to me, which actually it's been quite a long time now, but it feels like yesterday I lost my brother to multiple myeloma, which is a bone blood cancer. So all the way back in 2011 now, so 13 years ago, I lost my brother to cancer and I was thinking about that over the past couple days and then hearing this news of Toby really made me kind of drill in on it, as I think about my dad dying of 79, I think about Toby Keith dying of 62, and I found myself wondering how long was my brother again when he passed In 2011? When my big brother, david, passed, he was 46 years old. He was 46 years old. There's a few things that you might sense that were headed on for direction today, and one of those things is the fact that I turned 42 this year. To think that my big brother only had four more years than me to this point I'll turn 42 in September, so right now I'm 41. My brother had five more years. That's all he had left five more years than me. It scares the living shit out of me to think that I could have just five more years. I think back to those times. I think back to those days of my brother and what his life was and what his direction was, and how everything stopped in the blink of an eye, how everything changed overnight when he found out he had cancer and he went from living the life of his dreams. That wasn't 5,000 country songs, it wasn't 20 number ones, but it was his dream, it made him proud and it was his life and he was enjoying it. But it all came to a stop. My brother fought that, that news and that disease as long as he could. We lost him at age 46. When my dad officially found out he had leukemia, we lost him a week later. Not even I'm not exactly sure how long Toby Keith has known that he's had this stomach cancer, but from what I was seeing online I know he was receiving treatments and such, but I'm pretty sure it was less than a year. So the message I'm trying to make clear here is it doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter where you are, it doesn't matter what you have. Cancer does not discriminate and time does not come with a guarantee. There is no guarantee on you and me. We don't come into this life with an expiration date that we can read, that we can see, that we can drive to live the best, most fulfilling life possible before that carton of milk that is us expires. I was thinking about this because I was telling my wife this morning. This is just proof. This is absolute proof that money doesn't matter, success doesn't matter, fame doesn't matter, because if you could beat cancer with dollars and cents, toby Keith would have beat cancer. There's a clear message here, people, and that's that we can't take things for granted and that we should really take the time to prioritize what's important in our life. As I said to open the show, I'm obviously ultra sensitive to these topics, based off of my life and what's recently happened to me and my family. So I get it, I'm ultra sensitive to this. So I'm in this stage in my life where I'm going to analyze everything that's happening and to really draw a reflection from all the things that are happening to me, that are happening for me, that are happening around me, and to try to find some sense of hope or some sense of direction. So, while analyzing these things, while being sensitive to these things, I was having a conversation with my wife this morning where I shared those things that, hey, this just goes to show that cancer doesn't care and that time is a great equalizer. If money made the difference, then Toby Keith would still be here, right? Another thing that I went on to say is can you imagine being 62 years old, 5,000 songs in the book, 20 number ones, millions and millions of dollars from us on the outside. Looking in would assume there's not a care in the world, there's not a worry in life. Right, you're 60 years old. You're hoping that you get 20, 30, 40 more years ahead of you and you can do whatever the fuck you want. You've worked your ass off and you've earned everything you have and you can do with it whatever you so choose. That's a position that all of us listening could be very envious of. Am I right To be 62 years old to have the world by the balls? Yes, I said that by the balls. All the money in the bank you could imagine, all the lifelong dreams and goals and aspirations already achieved, just looking at life with an amazing perspective. Right, that's just kind of how we envision. If you took yourself and said hey, I'm going to be in Toby Keith's shoes at age 62, can you imagine what that means for you? The fact that he wasn't able to enjoy that kills me, because I envision myself as that, like if we're playing in this little fantasy world that we're discussing right now. Envision yourself at 60 with all you ever dreamed for, all you ever hoped for, just getting ready to just enjoy every ounce of it and you lose it in the blink of an eye. The perspective that I have drawn from these recent events between my dad hearing of Toby Keith's passing, thinking about my brother's passing and the fact that he was only five years older than me, I realized there's things we need to prioritize in life and I realized that we can miss all that's important in life if we are just working towards that goal we have for our life. I'm not saying that we need to not go for our goals and our dreams, that's not the point. But we need to prioritize our families. We need to prioritize our friends, our health and what's important. Because if you think about Toby Keith, I'm sure he enjoyed his life right, let's not downplay it. He lived an amazing life. But can you imagine the hours and the dedication that went into him chasing his dream? If this entire time he grew up saying, hey, when I hit 65, I want to stop doing everything that's demanded of me and I'm just going to enjoy myself? And he never got to that moment. I know my brother was working hard towards his hopes and dreams and I can't say that he planned on shutting it down, or 50 or 60 or 65, but I'm sure, because I know he was working hard enough to someday not have to and when that day came he could enjoy himself that much more. But guess what? That day never came. Even though I'm at a later stage in life, that most would not start a family, my dad never gave up hope at the fact that his son would give him a grandson. My dad never lost hope to spending the rest of his years watching me raise a family, to spending the rest of his days with his grandson by his side. He never lost that hope. You know what? That dream never happened for him. It never happened because time does not come with a guarantee. Time is a great equalizer. So what I've tried to learn over these past few years that I really need to focus on is prioritizing what's important. When I ran a Harley-Davidson dealership, I spent all my time striving and driving towards that dream. I was in a much greater financial position than I am now. I'll be honest, I haven't been this financially strapped since I was probably 20 years old. I had that conversation with my wife just last night. I said I literally can't even think about the last time I was this financially tight and I spent all the time really trying to just focus on hey man, when was the last time that you were just trying to figure it out, when you had all these things up in the air? And it had to be literally 22 years ago. It just goes to show that we never have life figured out. But the thing that's crazy is I wouldn't change where I'm at now for where I was. A few years ago. I was the most financially free of my life. I thought I had my life plan worked out, my next 30 years planned out and I had all the finances to do whatever it is I wanted to do. I can't say I was rich I was by no means rich, but I was comfortable. I had what felt like financial freedom. And the crazy thing is I spent so much time working towards that financial freedom that I never experienced the freedom. So what I've learned over the past few months is that if I stayed that course, if I continued down that road, I might have achieved some financial successes that I want for myself, but I never have ever experienced the freedom that comes with those successes. I would have been so focused and driven on attaining the ability to enjoy myself that I never would have given myself the opportunity to take advantage of that ability. You understand what I'm saying. Do you see where I'm going? We need to prioritize enjoying what we have. We need to prioritize being happy with where we are soaking up, who's around us, spending time with who's important to us. All of these thoughts and emotions drove me down a road today of research and development. Little R and D. I want to research where all of our time is being spent and determine if there's a better direction for you and me. Yep, you didn't expect a little double gut check now, did you? Gotta keep you guessing? Y'all? Here it is. Man, put that left hand on the Cabela's catalog and put the eye to the sky and give the truth to this guy. You did not have two gut checks on your share of the struggle bingo card this week. No, you didn't. Don't you lie to me? This is not a foundation of lies, yeah, so let's wrap it up with all the chaos there. I hit you with a double gut check because I gotta get ready to fact check right here. Okay, I gotta get ready to rock and roll because we did some research, because I mentioned a little R&D from me, because I don't want to just come on here every week and just preach what it is that I believe, whatever it is that I'm searching for, that I'm hoping for no, I'm gonna back things up with some fact toys, with some information. Here's what I think is fun about life when something comes to you, when something happens to you, when something happens for you, it's an opportunity for you to explore what those things are. So, as of today here in the news of Toby Keith, it really put me into some reflection. It had me thinking about my dad, it had me thinking about my brother, and then that just brought up a desire to research some things, to look up some things, to explore some things. So while doing this, I found myself doing what I always do Throwing a few things into Google, throwing a couple things out there to YouTube. Today was a good day for me because I had a custom project lined up where I was able to plug into YouTube and dedicate a bunch of time to being right in front of my heat press just working through an order for somebody. So I'm making a bunch of merchandise today and I'm absorbing some new research today and I'm hoping that that new research can develop a new way of thinking for me and that's how I really try to read and react to life. That's why I say that the Share the Shruggle podcast is a raw, real-time response to life, because I'm on here right now recording this podcast at 5.45pm. I got up this morning at 4.55am while bringing my mother to work. She says to me and Allie, hey, did you hear what? The country singer that just died? Obviously no, it's five in the morning. I had no clue and we dropped my mom off to work. Allie and I go to the gym and that's where I hear that it's actually Toby Keith that passed. From that point on, I go into research and enlightenment. I put a new Audible book in and get that going in my head. I come home, I type a few things in YouTube and since 4.55 in the morning, my brain has been turning on this way of thinking. Here I am right now feeding to you what information I took in today. That's what I love about this show. That's why I love the fact that we do things raw and in real time as they happen. So I'm really sharing with you things that I found today and things that I'm trying to digest today, and I'm hoping that you can do the same thing today. Now, what's really cool about scratching the itch that's the technical term we're going to use today scratching the itch when your brain wants to go in a direction you might as well go. You might as well scratch that itch, baby. So one of the cool things about exploring your thoughts and just sending them on a wild goose trace on YouTube is when you're doing it for good, you never know where you're going to end up. So when you just start typing in random things in YouTube and then clicking on different podcasts, motivational videos, you never know where you're going to end up. You never know who you're going to find. I have found some of the most inspirational people that I go to on a monthly basis just from these random YouTube searches. So today I landed on a podcast from Mel Robbins, who I think if you're out there looking for motivation and life coaching and things you've probably heard of Mel Robbins. And here's the thing with all the people that you might hear me throw out there to you, I can't say that I a thousand percent agree with all of them, but that's okay, because you're not going to a thousand percent agree with me either. So sometimes I might hear one episode or one speech or one conversation from one person and I can come on here and preach it as the Holy Gospel and be all excited about it. Maybe a weeks later I could be on another speech from them and be like who is this person and where do they come from? You never know, right. That's the beauty of scratching the itch on YouTube. But today's itch scratching landed on Mel Robbins, and I actually heard a really awesome podcast from her today and on her podcast she referenced some new studies that she found for herself from the World Economic Forum. So she found this study from the World Economic Forum and basically to do a thousand foot overview of this study. It's research on where Americans are spending their time and they did this research over a long period of time long enough that you're able to break down where you spent your time at age 15 all the way to 80, okay, so it breaks down in minutes per day the average on where you spent your time. So I'm not going to go over all these years and bore you with all the details, but there's some cool high points that we should get to that. Some of them are depressing, some of them are exciting, but in the end, they should all be encouraging and hopefully enlightening onto a new way to think and prioritize what it is that we do and what exactly we care about. You all ready for this? All right, let's get into it. This is a time spent chart that we're going to dig into. This is time spent research from the World Economic Forum, and I found this from Mel Robbins. So I just want to give all the credit, all the glory, to the people that did all the research. All I'm doing is sharing said research with y'all right freaking now. So let's dig into it. They have this awesome chart and I want to do the best I can to maybe either screenshot that chart and share some of those links. So I'll actually take the research. Maybe I can even get a link to Mel's podcast episode and I'll throw those on our show notes. If you go on the website or whatever provider it is, whatever platform you go to, that streams this episode for you, remember, you get those downloads. I'll try to have those things linked and maybe I can share them on our social media pages as well. So I'm going to go ahead and try to do that. Now the research here. This is all done in minutes. So it looks at an average per day in minutes that you spend on certain things and we're going to get into those categories here shortly. So on some of those, because my brain isn't that far advanced, because I have a public education my knowledge went only as far as my parents' tax dollars would take me. I tapped out at high school, so I might have to use me old calculator on some of the time frame here. Let's get things rocking and rolling. We're going to start off with how we were spending our time when we were kids. It should be rather obvious where we were spending most of our time, right? So I looked at age 15 and at age 15, the highest amount of time spent was obviously with your family. So their chart here has us spending 268 minutes with our family a day. So 268 minute average with our family, that's nearly five hours, right? So nearly five hours of the day is spent with our family. So we're age 15. At 15, our next highest total for minutes is 193, and that's alone. So you're spending 193 minutes alone, 268 with family. And in third place is your friends. You're spending 109 minutes with your friends. It's about two hours with your friends a day. So at 15, obviously your priorities are family. You're going to spend a lot of time alone trying to find yourself, and then obviously you're in school, so you have a lot of time with your friends and you might be thinking about it saying, hey, you go to school for more than two hours, but they're averaging all of this out, they're doing all this research and they're averaging it out by seven days a week and they're also factoring in summer when you're not at school. So they're really trying to get a real average here. So if we take 15, then we jump up to 18. So if you remember when you were 15, the most amount of time you spent with something, someone, was your family. At 18, that changes. At 18, you actually spend more time alone. At 18, we're averaging 242 minutes, which is about four hours spent alone. Our family's pretty close it's about 236. But here's the thing, folks age 18 is actually the tipping point for the time spent with your parents. After age 18, you start to really see a major decline in the time you spend with your parents. Think about that for a moment. I think most of us listening right now are over the age of 18. A lot of us might have already lost our parents. Maybe some of you aren't quite 18 and you're listening to this and I apologize for the language you might learn, but it's scary to think that after age 18, we just decrease. The time that we spend with our parents just decreases from age 18 on. So your real high point is those childhood years, those magic years, and once you hit 18, it really starts to go in the other direction. So it's already kind of sad to think about that. If you're out there raising a family, try to imagine that 18 years, that's really the time you have. After that it really starts to take a dip. So at age 18, the most minutes per day is dedicated to being by yourself, which obviously at 18, I think there's a lot of soul searching and we're trying to find ourselves at 18. So if you're going to rank the top three, at 18, you spend the most time alone, follow closely by time with family, so your parents, your siblings, and then coming up next is your friends. You went from at age 15, having 109 minutes, about two hours. You're adding about a half hour at a time. So you're at 137 minutes spent with friends at 18. When you get to age 20, that alone time continues to climb. So at age 20, you're spending five-ish hours alone. That's 277 minutes. Here's your family numbers, guys. It's dropped down to 173 minutes with your parents, with your siblings, you're down to about three-ish hours, so not a very long time since being 15, right, we're talking five years difference. So when you were 15, you were spending five-ish hours with your parents, with your siblings, 268 minutes a day. Now, at age 20, you've chopped two hours of family time right off of this average chart. Now, at age 20, your friend's time that's at an hour and 22 minutes, which you can see that your friend's time actually starts to decline around age 18 as well. Right, you're starting to see a bit of a decline there as well. What's taking the replace of those friends that you spent all those years fostering, those 20 years of relationships? What's taking the place of those things is your coworkers, because now you're seeing about 122 minutes spent with friends being taken over by 144 minutes with your coworkers. As we jump ahead another five years and we skip to age 25, that alone number seems to be right around the same 275 minutes of being alone. So pretty close to where you were at at age 20. But can you guess what's jumped up to the number two spot of where you're spending most of your time at age 25? That's a jeopardy sign or whatever the hell that is. That's about 3 and a half hours dude On average with your co-workers. In third place, you're going to see a new one make the list here at 25, and that's your partner. You got 121 minutes with your partner on average a day, so that's two hours, right. So you're gonna have, you know, let's see, five ish hours alone. You've got a couple hours with co-workers a little bit more than that actually and two hours with partner. Now you're actually gonna start adding in your own kids. So now you've got two hours of time with your kids being added into the mix. And that family number at age 25 has gone all the way down to 101 minutes. We're under two hours y'all. We are under two hours. Ten years ago we were at five hours for under two hours. When it comes to our family and our friends, our friends are taking a dive here, folks. At age 18 Was 137 minutes. I said to you before that age 18 is a big decline in the amount of time you spend With your parents and your siblings. The same thing happens to those friends. So now, seven years later, at age 25. We've gone from 137 minutes down to 77. So you've lost an hour an hour with your friends. So if we're ranking the top at age 25, number one is alone, number two is co-worker, number three is your partner, number four Is your kids, number five is your family, number six is your friends. I don't want to continue on a five-year trend, so I'm gonna jump all the way up to age 40. At age 40, you're actually climbing and alone time. The one thing that really starts to climb, that you see in in your life as to where you're spending your time, is Alone. You're gonna notice that as we increase in age, we tend to spend a lot more time alone with ourselves. So in our 40s, 278 minutes dedicated to being alone, 243 minutes dedicated to your own kids, right? So the time that you're spending with your kids is 243 minutes. When you're in that average of age 40, that's just over four hours. Oh, you're spending 202 minutes with your partner and you're spending 188 minutes with your coworkers. Can you guys see a trend here? You're spending Just as much time with your coworkers, in some cases more time with your coworkers, then you are with your partner and your kids. Does that put a new level of importance on what it is you do for a living? Think about it, guys. Everybody's hiring. Everybody is hiring. If you're listening to this right now and you hate your coworkers, think about the impact your coworkers have on your life. It's more than money y'all. You are spending more time with your coworkers than you are your partner and your kids at many, many stages in your life. If not, there's a lot of stages where they're just about. Even so, how important is it to you Love your partner? How important is it for you to spend time with your kids? Now think about how important it is to like the people that you work with. If this isn't a red flag for some of you listening that you need a career change and I don't know what is. If you're listening to this and you're saying, thankfully, I love the people I work with, then that's great, because at my last job, before I went out on my own, what I loved most about what I was doing is the people I was doing it with. So it was easy for me to spend that amount of time with my coworkers, because that's really important to me and they meant a lot to me, and they still do and I still have Relationships with so many of them. But here's a red flag for me as well Some of the people that I cared most about I still have great relationships with, right, thankfully. The other side of that coin is some of the people that I cared most about Are the ones that screwed me in the end, and some of the people that I cared greatly about Don't give two shits about me or they sent me up the river for their own professional advancement. So if you think about the time you spent and I think personally about the time I spent with my coworkers versus my family, if I narrow in on that year range for me in my 30s, thinking about the time I spent at work, first off, I spent a lot more than 200 minutes with my coworkers in that time frame. But here's the scary thing looking at this chart, there's 200 minutes, let's say, with coworkers. A day with family, 54 minutes. Here's the thing I'm ultra sensitive to the loss in my life. We've talked about this already today. Recently I said goodbye to my dad for me to think about the fact when I was working the hardest towards my goals, towards my dreams. When I worked for that dealership, I was spending on average 200 minutes with my coworkers. I was only getting 54 minutes with my dad Less than an hour a day average with my dad. What I wouldn't give today to flip the script on those numbers. What I'm thankful for today as I'm reading these numbers, is I didn't work into my 40s for that business. By things out of my control. I no longer work for Harley-Davidson that that dealership got sold and I decided to bet on my business and my brand. One of the best things that happened to me by betting on my business and my brand was spending more time with my family. So I'm forever grateful for that opportunity. But let's narrow it back in. On age 40, 278 minutes alone, 243 with your kids, 202 with your partner, 188 with your coworkers 54 minutes less than an hour with your family in nearly a half an hour with your friends, or down to 36 minutes with your friends. Let's jump ahead another 10 years. We're gonna go to age 50 and at age 50 you are now spending 361 minutes alone. That's six hours, six hours a day spent alone. This is one of those numbers that continues to climb for us y'all. Here's another key. That's climbing partner. Your significant other. You're spending 175 minutes on average with per day and your 50s that's nearly three hours. Your co-workers At 50 we're starting to slow down a little bit, I guess I don't fucking know. 169 minutes, your kids 132, which here's a sad number. There, folks, just 10 years ago you were spending a hundred and four. You were spending two hundred and forty three minutes with your kids. Now You're at 132. That's that's pretty sad. That's losing nearly two hours a day average with your kids. By the time you're 50, feels like. In your 50s You're trying to rekindle some relationships. If your parents are stole around, you're trying to spend more time with them. If you have siblings, you're spending more time with them and goes up to 65 minutes. You gain about 10 minutes there and your friends continue to trickle down to 29 minutes. So the last amount of numbers that I'm gonna throw in your face because I don't want this to be all Analysis, paralysis and to lose you guys today is we're gonna fast forward to age 60. At age 60 you spend 413 minutes alone. That's nearly seven hours a day spent alone. That's a lot folks think about it. We are doubling the time we spent alone. Actually more than that. It's like four times the amount of time we spent alone as a kid. And the next highest number is your partner. Your partner comes in at 204 minute average a day. So You're looking at three. What's that? Three and a half hours a day spent with your partner. So we have all these numbers. Let's digest a few things, let's let's stick to that number that we're looking at. At age 60, the most of your time is gonna be spent alone. What should that say to you guys? Get comfortable with yourself, learn to love yourself. It's never been more important to enjoy spending time with yourself. So I know that's a challenge for a lot of us. If you go back to the beginning of this podcast not this episode, but this series, this show there's a few episodes there and the early on episodes where I talk about Having to learn to love myself, having to learn to enjoy spending time alone with myself. I'm so thankful that I learned those lessons at age 30, right, because I mean a lot of people might learn them a lot younger than that. But I feel fortunate that I learned those lessons then and that I got uncomfortable with being alone with myself and then turning that into a comfort for myself, because I'm thankful for that now as I look at these, these charts on all this information here, because it's trending towards spending a lot more time alone. So if you're listening today and you're struggling with spending time with yourself, it's important for you to begin now challenging yourself and Scanaling the ability to love yourself. Spend that time now, whether that's, you know bettering your health right it's, maybe it's going to the gym, maybe it's you know eating better, maybe it's a fucking hygiene routine, I don't know. Maybe there's different things that you can do to build that confidence you have in yourself. And then Maybe it's exploring spirituality for yourself. It's a Furthering education for yourself. Whatever it is, buy the time to spend the time with yourself and learn to love yourself, because You're only going to spend more and more time with yourself. Moving forward, you understand, get comfortable with who you are and where you are, and embrace Just who it is that you have become and who you want to become. Now the next thing is your partner. If you're looking at this and you realize the older I get, the more things I lose. What do we lose? We certainly lose our friends, right? We're talking about spending a few hours a day with them to two minutes. So you certainly lose friends, those relationships, and you absolutely lose family. Some might be by choice, others completely out of your control. There's two constants you spending time alone and you spending time with your partner. I Hope that is a blinking green light for you right there. I hope that you, if you are currently in a relationship, if you're married, if you're dating, I Hope you can think about that partner that you have chosen and envision yourself spending the most time with them possible and vision yourself growing old with them, when status doesn't matter, when you know the, the car that they drive, the job that they have, the hair that they die, then the tans that they get, the nails that they paint, whatever it is right, and those things don't matter anymore. I like to think that we're growing old and a rocking chair on our front porch and we've raised our kids, we've said hello and goodbye to friends, to family, when it's just the two of you. Is that who you want it to be with? Think about it guys. Analyze the relationship that you're in and ask yourself is this who you want to spend all your time with? Because when you get older, you're gonna have two things to do spend it with them or spend it with you. So if you're in a relationship right now where maybe you're feeling stuck, maybe you're in a rut, maybe you've tried to change but you can't change, maybe you've hope and pray that they would change and they just can't change and they haven't changed. If maybe it's time to make a change because the time you spend with them is only going to increase, these are lessons to learn to prioritize our life. I hope that these numbers are Feeling some thought for you today on what's important for you today. Now, when I go back to Mel Robbins podcast and I think about some of the things that he that she highlighted, and I go through some of her show notes and see some of the Research that she, that she mentioned in her podcast, like this study here she also had a chart kind of breaking down a little bit of a recap of all these numbers and what they should mean, so I want to share those things with you. Number one Family time is limited. Cherish it. We've talked many times, many ways, about the importance and the benefits of Building traditions. I think, if you've listened to these numbers today and you realize that after age 18 there's a steep decline on how much time you have left with your parents and your and your family, your siblings. Make those traditions. Y'all make those memories, those of the things that we're gonna cling to. Those are the things that are gonna bring us back to our family. I talked to you today about losing my brother at the age of 46 and the fact that I'm already 41. When I think about my brother I have to go back to those traditions and those memories. Without those I don't have anything. So I beg of you to create those. Family time is extremely limited, so we must cherish it. Number two friend time is limited to you. You need to prioritize the real ones. I'm very blessed and thankful to have some friends in my life that I've had since kindergarten and that I've had since high school. I'm blessed by those, forever grateful by those. One of those relationships I communicate with on the daily, and some of those it's once a month or it's more sporadic, but every time we see each other it's like we never left. So we do follow that average right. We do fall in the lack of minutes when we look at, if I look, I'm at age 40. So if I go back now and look at it and see that my average should be about 36 minutes. It's probably not far off right, because you might have some text messages and stuff, but when we actually get together and have the Time and ability to spend time, I'm probably lucky if I get 36 minutes right. When I Maybe get one day a month or one day every couple months and you start to average those things out, it's probably pretty damn spot-on. So Front time is limited. Prioritize the real ones. I and that's the point that I think we need to really look at is we're making new friends all the time right, and I've been blessed to make some new great friends and I've talked about a lot of them on this podcast and it's a blessing when you can actually spend time with the real ones, with those people that make an impact on your life, that leave a positive impact on your life, and when you think about that, you might only have that 36 minute a day average to spend with friends. Doesn't that make you wanna choose the right ones? Doesn't that make you wanna spend the right time? Doesn't it make you wanna focus on spending time with the ones you care about and not the ones that are just acquaintances. I think it should, right. I think it should when we're starting to divide up that pie of life that is you and me. Number three partner time is significant never settle. I think we just shared a big message on the importance of finding the right one and realizing it's not about status, it's not about just about looks. Today you have to put the whole package together. It's gotta be that personality, it's gotta be that heart, it's gotta be that soul, it's gotta be everything that makes your relationship whole. That's what you need to focus on, that's what you need to lean into, that's what's important. As I think about this line here about prioritizing your partner and the one that you choose, and to never settle, I'm reminded of a story that I should share with you that I had with my dad. If I go back to just after turning 30, I can remember the day I actually was at Bentley Saloon. I was in the campground and I was in a previous relationship, a long-term relationship, and I wasn't happy. I wasn't denial about that relationship. It was a very rocky relationship and I had a friend that came into my life, that made a major impact on my life and you've heard me talk about it before. Her name is Emily, and this weekend I wanna say July 4th, the weekend I was camping at Bentley Saloon with my girlfriend at the time and we put all this time and money into hosting her family and my family in the campground where we were doing barbecues, and I was a part of events that weekend. So we're doing all this stuff at the saloon and Emily was there with Bud Lizer. So was my brother from another mother, todd. He was there with Bud Lizer and I think, todd, I think we were doing a bike show there, buddy, and I say that because I know you're listening. So I had all this stuff going on this weekend and what's ironic about this weekend is that I had really given a lot of thought to maybe proposing to my girlfriend Not during this weekend, I don't get it twisted, I wasn't that close, but I was thinking about the fact of had you been doing this for seven years or so? At what point do you have to decide that this is the one? And I know this is something that she was pushing for. She was pushing for marriage and for kids. But I also knew that I wasn't really happy. And Emily came into my life and made me realize that I wasn't happy. She was cautioning me about my life and my choices and saying to me I haven't known you all that long, but I can see that she's kind of like a cloud weighing on you. I can see that you're not the same person when she's around. So, to speed up this story, I had opened up this equity line with my bank and I had a few grand sitting in there and for me, I was paying for a few things, but the potential was there to use this money for an engagement ring. The irony here is that my girlfriend spent all that money on this one weekend to impress her family, and what's crazy is that we fought all weekend. She was miserable all weekend. What I didn't know was on the Saturday, where we were having a barbecue. My parents were there and my dad was sitting in a lawn chair with my mom and he was watching all the interactions and he was watching me interact with Emily and he said to my mother why can't Keith be with somebody like her? Why does he have to be with so-and-so, why can't he be with somebody more like Emily? And my mom had this deep discussion right there on the outskirts of the barbecue where he said all I ever want for my kids is for them to grow up and find somebody that they can love and spend time with and be happy with, like we are. And he said I don't know why it's such a challenge for my kids to find the right person, to find the right partner. So my mom and dad had this conversation and I didn't know about it and clearly my interaction with Emily made my girlfriend jealous, because that spiraled into this big, deep, long battle of an evening Fast forward to just about closing time at the bar. My ex is back at the camp in the tent freaking out. She accused me of cheating on her with her little sister, who at this point just turned 21. So here I am at the bar with her little sister and her stepdad sharing conversation and saying guys, I'm sorry but I think I need to get out of this relationship. And they understood and they knew and they've always respected me and been there for me, and they still are. Today I had to come home and tell my mother that, hey, I put a lot of thought into this and I'm gonna end this relationship and I'm sorry for what's gonna happen, because I know that this entire family is gonna go through hell, because I was living at home and I knew what was gonna happen. And I was right. A big battle ensued in the Sheriff's Department was called and all these crazy things happen. But before that happened, before I went through with that breakup, my mom said to me I think it's important for me to share a story with you about a conversation I had with your dad yesterday. So, as much pain as we were about to go through, as much discomfort as we were about to endure, the promise of possibly, potentially, hopefully, living up to what my dad wanted for me, that was enough. That was enough for me to press forward and to go through with that breakup, to deal with those hard times, and thankfully I did, because only a few months later I met my wife. So when I read in here that partner time is significant, never settle I count my ever-loving blessings that I did not settle. Number four children. Time is precious. Be present, isn't that the truth? Y'all? How many times are you as a parent and listen, I'm not one. I hope to be someday, but that's not today right? So how many times have I seen friends and family with children not be present, to be multitasking social media time with quality time, and when you think about how quickly you lose the time with your children, when you look back on those numbers, and it's very important to realize we need to be present, we need to cherish those opportunities and those memories, to foster those traditions. Number five is coworker time is significant. Find energy that should be either a blinking green light or a waving red flag for you and where you are right now, that the people you spend time with at work play a major role in your life. Because that energy that you get from them, whether it's positive or negative, you're bringing it home to the people you truly care about. So it's important to enjoy the people that you work with. And the last one is alone time is the highest. So love yourself. All the choices you make in life, whether it's to have kids, to try to have kids, whether it's the job that you take, the life you try to make the partner that you choose, all of those things fall short to the time you spend alone. Learn to love yourself, man. I don't know how all y'all are feeling, but I really think that today's lesson, that these information that we've shared today, I think that it puts a new perspective on what we do each day and how we prioritize each day. And I hope that the way I'm feeling is the way that you're feeling and I hope that I truly shared something new with you today, that I sprinkled some perspective on today and that, as depressing as some of these numbers can be, they should be enlightening Because, if you think about some of the declining numbers, if those friendship numbers are on decline, if the family numbers are on decline at the time with your kids, those numbers are on decline and you still have an opportunity to impact those numbers, then here's your time, here's your flag, here's your sign, here's your light, here's your chance. Y'all Focus on that time. Just because these numbers are true, and they've been true for me and you, they don't need to remain true for me and you. You can cause and effect whatever number, whatever time you see fit, wherever you realize. Hey, I still have the opportunity to make time, to make memories. I don't have the opportunity to spend time with my dad, but I can make up for it and spend time with my mother. I might be losing time with my friends, but I can pick up the phone, I can call a best friend. I can carve out the time. You understand what I'm saying. Prioritize wherever you so see fit. This is our opportunity to change our priorities and to live life, because our time is limited. This life doesn't come with a guarantee on you and me. Because of that, I'm even more grateful for the fact that you continue to spend time with me 187 weeks. If you've been here since day one, I should have done the math and factored in how much time a day you're spending with me, because I bet you I'd rank on this chart and because of that I thank each and every one of you. So thank you for supporting my America. Thank you so much. I love you, please. I love you, sad bitch. 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 put the face 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-tockin' 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 Guttruckers for the background beats and the theme song to this year's podcast. You are enjoying what you're hearing. You can track down the Guttruckers on Facebook Just search Guttruckers. Give them, motherfuckers, a like too. I feel a pain. I will make it bleed, I hate to say I told you so. I feel a pain. I will make it bleed, I hate to say I told you so. I truly thank you for supporting my American dream. Now go wash your fucking hands, you filthy savage.