Running Tight On Time

Heat Warning And Sleep Deprivation

SPEAKER_00 0:02

The day-to-day challenges of a small business owner continue. Today we outline some of the obstacles in our way as we get ready to head out on what should have been today. Well, I'll I mean I'll explain that shortly. We're also going to explain the fact that our small town local city, the city in which I went to high school, the one neighboring my hometown, is making national news. Oh yeah. The crazy is about to kick in as we are about to head out. That and more on this episode of Share the Struggle Podcast. Let me tell you something. Everybody struggles. The difference is some people choose to go through it and some choose to grow through it. The choice is completely yours. Which one you choose will have a very profound effect on the way you live your life. Find a strength in the struggle, and it's podcasting is for you. Uncomfortable conversations challenge you, humble you, and they build you. Most disagreements take stem from our own insecurities. You are right where you need to be. Emphasis on the hot on that little intro. Wow. It is hot. No pun intended. There is a uh heat advisory. I'm actually in my office with the air off, mind you. No air conditioning in here right now because I love you. And I'm shooting for high quality audio for you. Because I love you. So no air conditioning in here. I'm suffering for you. You know what I'm saying? Like sometimes it's just a high cost of living. You know what I'm saying? You just just gotta be done. You gotta suffer for your people. It's hot in here. It's a little uh as they would say in the north here, hummed. It's a little humid in here. Dude, it's uh which is redneck for humid. It's a little humid in here. A little hummet. Don't uh can't breathe too well in here. Dude. I don't know where any of that came from. I apologize. That's sleep deprived. Y'all, if you've been listening, you understand when I start recording with a lack of sleep, I um I welcome all other versions of myself, aka the multiple personalities and voices and impressions that live in my head. So I apologize if we chase squirrels around the yard today, because that could happen. Okay? That could certainly happen. Because I'm on the cusp. This is the the sunrise on the shit show. That is the day that I need to have today. So things are wild and crazy. We're gonna get to that in a moment. But it is certainly hot. There's a heat advisory uh kicking in and a tornado warning in our area, which is fun. That's the type of day you just want to load a trailer or a truck and get ready to go set up at an event. You know what I mean? It's just yeah, no. Anyways, I'm an idiot. But that's that's that's the truth. That's where we are, that's where we're at. Today we are going to uh discuss the event that was, the obstacles that are, and we are going to shed some light on the craziness that is happening um one city away, or the next

Listener Shoutouts And Six Years In

SPEAKER_00 4:10

city over, the next town town over. All that while I prepare to uh to hit the road. But before we do, I must thank each and every one of you for tuning in, for listening, to being a part of, to sharing the show, to helping it grow. We've been doing this little ditty for over six years now. Episode 314, you can find all these beautiful, glorious episodes at www.share the struggle podcast.com. Yeah. That's a apparently an a radio personality alter ego that lives in my head. And we're back. How are you this morning, Sharon? That's my news anchor, apparently. I don't know. There's a lot of people in here, okay? This is what happens when you're a touch short on sleep and uh self-control. Okay, self-control might be the big one. Episode 314. Let's shout out some new cities and states, shall we? We haven't done this in a little while. I noticed it this morning. Uh McKinley View. Nope. McKinleyville, California. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for listening. McKinleyville, California. Uh Saginaw, Michigan. Saginaw, Michigan. I think they spelled that I said that right correctly. Maybe, hopefully. S-A-G-I-N-A-W. Saginaw, Michigan. Um, Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, and Walnut, California. Those are some new cities and states that I just saw this morning that are tuning in, that are listening, whether you've been here for a long time or this is your first time. I thank you, I welcome you, I appreciate you, I love you, and I encourage you to continue to come back and to share the show to help it blossom, to help it grow. We are certainly building a positive tribe with a positive vibe, and that's exactly what this great country needs. Am I right? I think I'm right. I know I'm right. Alright, y'all. Let's get into the meat and batteries of today's show. Last

Trailer Failure And A Leaky Surprise

SPEAKER_00 6:20

week, we were talking about being a small business, being an entrepreneur, uh, somebody launching a uh small brand and trying to get things off the ground and the struggles of growing and uh making things happen. And we were recapping coming off a great event for America 250. And as I rolled in the driveway when I got home, the wheel falling off the borrowed trailer that I borrowed of a um great friend of mine, and then the frustration and the struggles and all the things that that uh that come with that, right? And the tough thing is, is we're in a stretch right now, as this as I'm recording this and speaking to you, this would be week number eight. I am approaching event number eight of me uh consecutively in a row, I should say. This would be the eighth week where I am not home on a weekend because uh we are somewhere on the road. Some of the things that this um can shed some light on is the fact that you're a one-man band when it comes to being at home and getting your business stuff in line as far as making production, ordering things on time, being creative, um making new designs, keeping your office clean and organized, mowing the lawn, doing your daily chores as a as a husband, as a father, as a son, you know, like all those all those things, it all just kind of gets um cram jammed in the corner, and you run as hard and fast as you can at that um that to-do list of uh business priorities, and you go into each and every event, uh, every event as as prepared as possible, which is not nearly as prepared as you could be or you would be if you scheduled yourself some time. When things start to go wrong, when things don't happen as you need them to, like even it's just tough, and this is kind of where I'm gonna go today. You might do your absolute best to do things on a timeline that you have been taught to follow, but when somebody else drops the ball and your timeline is that tight, you end up dropping all of said balls. Your juggling skills just are not up to par. So today I'm really gonna shed some light on running super tight on timelines and deadlines and trying to figure things out and some of the things that get lost behind, but also um there's there's some success stories in there too, right? When you're putting yourself out there as much as we are, when we're traveling, when we're um, you know, seeing new people, meeting new people, and reconnecting with um our loyal, loving followers, and you're doing it at a much higher rate, you're experiencing some success, and and we are experiencing some success because we are um having a really great year for ourselves so far. The business is up. Um, we are now into July, aka the seventh month of the year. So in the first six months of 2026, LauerProt American is up in five out of the six months. There's five out of the six months where we've done better this year than we did last year. And if you guys have been listening, last year was the most successful um let's say net sales ever in the history of LowerProt American. So we are trending towards beating what we did last year, which was our greatest year. So there's some success stories there, but there's certainly a bed of chaos that exists there. Um, bed of massive organization or disorganization, a web of disorganized chaos has been weaved along this road. And when we start to experience breakdowns, letdowns, failures, mishaps, those things get magnified when you don't have the time to fix them. So last week the trailer broke, as we discussed, and um I learned after calling about 20 local um trailer facilities, whether they're you know uh selling trailers, repairing trailers, working on trailers, whatever whatever that case might be, that um this axle that I'm looking for is completely rare. The manufacturer doesn't make it anymore. Ironically, the manufacturer of this trailer is actually in Maine, and they still won't help on the situation, and the time frame to turn these things around is um pretty pretty silly. So uh with that said, we realized last week the trailer was not going to be back together. We also realized that the bus um still is not gonna be back together, and um that's something that I definitely needed by this time in the year, so it created a lot of um a lot of chaos, and it left us with um really one option last week to make the fair scenario work for us, and um it was taking a surprise out of our driveway. And there is a pretty awesome announcement that will be coming your way from my wife and myself and a great friend of mine. There is an amazing announcement that we're going to share, hopefully, in the next month or two. Um, we ought to be able to share some details and some excitement behind um this little air quotes surprise that we've been holding on to, helping Allie to fulfill a dream she's had since high school. But there's a very important piece of equipment that goes with this little love story that I'm discussing here, and we had to take that out of the driveway this week, and um, it wasn't ready to come out of the driveway. Let's just say that. Um we chucked it on my business insurance and used it to haul all of our goodies to the fair, and uh that caused a lot of conversation that stirred up a lot of questions while we were out there. So some things have started to leak out about this said surprise. So right now we're we're like that flexel guy that you see underwater, and there's like a big, you know, there's like a big hole in a fish tank, and he's putting patches on it, okay? Maybe he's patching up a screen door and turning it into a fanboat riding over alligators. That's us. We're patching leaks, so to speak, okay? Trying to keep things as contained as possible. But um, we broke something out which was kind of a uh cool feeling, and I'm not gonna share too much about this, but the crazy thing is, is last year at the Ospie Valley Fair, we were packing up from the fair, and my wife was having a heartfelt conversation with me about something she wanted to do. And one year later, to the day, we're packing up and we're putting our product for Loud Proud American into said surprise that we've been waiting to launch that we were talking about last year at that exact same time. Pretty incredible to see all that come together. So I'm excited about that. Really excited to share that with you guys. It was supposed to be a much bigger surprise, but as I said, we're patching leaks, okay? We're turning screen doors into fanboats, just trying to, you know, try to hold the excitement back. But that's about being creative, it's about using your resources, and it's about doing crazy things like um driving a vehicle that you haven't registered on a one-day transfer plate that ran out a month ago. Um, yeah, which resulted in me being followed by the state police for several miles only to thankfully not get arrested. But all in launching a business. You know what I'm saying? I'm not breaking the law just to break on the law, breaking the law. I'm breaking the law to survive, to provide for my family. Wait a minute. The gangsters and drug dealers say the same thing? Anyways, it's just gotta it's totally it's gotta be it's gotta be different. Just some rules are stupid, okay? And um, yeah. That is what it is. So I just it was our own it was like our own new dealer template. That's all it was. Yeah, that's all it was. Anyways, um it's being creative, it's finding a way to uh make things work and to continue to keep the train rolling. And um that's what that's what we're doing. That's what we've had to do. So um you just have to adapt and make things as uh as good as possible.

Fair Week Chaos And Unexpected Wins

SPEAKER_00 15:10

So getting to Ospie Valley Fair, uh doing it the way that we did it, um made things a little different. First off, we uh hauled our camper up on uh Tuesday night, went tremendous, everything was great until we turned the water on and the toilet was leaking. That was fun. Um Matt Perkins from Ledgeway Farm was there helping out, he helped to figure it out. And um Jim was there, Jim Palmer, who I've actually talked about on the podcast before. And his work ethic and just how much of a um just awesome, authentic blue-collar dude that works his ass off, just how much of a high-quality guy he is. He came over and and he was helping, and um he had uh a bunch of like plumbing tools, and they him and Matt were shutting off water and preventing leaks, and the next day I had to go buy some some parts um to uh to patch the toilet, which one little plastic piece inside the toilet that um got some water and and froze up and cracked was eighty-six dollars for this one little tiny little piece of plastic. Pretty silly. They they just know they have you proprietary parts, right? That's how it goes. So uh Wednesday I was able to um get some stuff done and then show up late to start setting up on uh Wednesday, which normally me and my mom would show up in the morning, and then um by like the nighttime, we're just kind of enjoying ourselves a little bit. Not the case this time, it was a little more uh rushed and crazy. So we get there kind of late, get the shell up, get a few things up, and then I start getting sick. The little one um Paisley had had a little cold, the runny nose, boogers all over her face. She decided to share that with mom and dad. So I started feeling like hell. And um all the stores, all the restaurants in our area closed down. We hadn't had a chance to go to the grocery store yet, so we're at a gas station getting chicken sandwiches out of a cooler. Um my mom's eating a bag of peanuts and orange juice for dinner. That's life on the road, okay? That's that's the story that doesn't get told. Either way, um, I go back and and we're getting ready for bed, and uh my mom is like, oh man, we never were able to get a hold of Jim to get that toilet fixed. You think he'll be able to fix it? And I'm like, dude, it's like 9.30 at night. I don't I don't think he's gonna be able to do this. Next thing I know, there's a knocking at the door. I open it, there's Jim. He's arrived to save the day and fix the toilet. Pretty damn cool, man. And that's that's part of what it's about on the road, making these relationships and connections and having that that safety net, that support, um, and and making those friends that that um just lasts forever. You know what I mean? So uh that was pretty incredible that he was able to take care of that for us and and get us all patched up, so that was awesome. Uh Thursday, the the fair gets to open a little bit late, so we were able to go in there in the morning and just start um finishing everything up and getting set up and open on time, everything went great. And our first day of the fair Thursday, which is traditionally a pretty uh slower day, ended up being arguably the best or largest uh biggest sale Thursday in our um history at the fair, which I think this is like our sixth year as a vendor there, maybe five because of COVID, five or six years um of us uh vending there. So Thursday set a record for us, which was pretty tremendous. And uh it really gives you that encouragement that the rest of the weekend is gonna be good, and then it kind of went in a different direction. Things uh um started to slow down. Our Friday was not nearly as busy as usual. I mean, it was pretty smoldering hot, but every year this fair is either raining or extremely hot, so it is what it is. That's July in Maine, folks. If you haven't, if you're looking to vacation here, then that's what it's gonna be. It's gonna be uh melt your face hot or um wet your pants wet. Yeah, that type of scenario. So um Friday was a little bit lighter than expected, uh, but I would say at the nighttime, like when the sun went down, we gained a little bit of ground. So I was down a few hundred dollars um from uh last year's Friday, but I was up a few hundred dollars from last year's Thursday. So they pretty much averaged out legitimately, it was a difference of about six dollars. Okay, so I felt like I was maintaining pretty well, and at that point I started to hear from a lot of vendors that they were down and they were down big, like they were really um just losing ground compared to the previous year. And then Saturday rolled around and Saturday was was pretty quiet. And um by midday Saturday, I had heard from most vendors that they were trending at a 50% loss on the year 2026 versus 2025 when it comes to business. And it was slow for us, but um, we started picking up some some decent sales, and some of our loyal customers came in, and uh, like one of my um you know good friends and and uh loyal customers came in and dropped about $300 in one sale, and those things really started to help. And um, I've created some uh new designs, one of them was for this event specifically in mind. Um, it's a new dirt racing, mud racing t-shirt that sold like crazy, like nearly sold out of this design, and um, so I was pretty thankful for that. Like the entire racetrack started coming down buying these shirts for me, and there's really only one competitor at this fair, and they're at pretty much every fair or event that I do. And um, you know, it's I don't want to like I'm not here to talk negatively about another business or anything um or or throw any kind of like shade at a business. I'm just stating facts, and I and I don't try to compete with them, and they don't try to compete with us, but people will look at the two businesses and then maybe decide who they want to give their money to. And it's us, Loud Proud American, for uh American-made apparel, right? Supporting American jobs and uh what we stand for and what we believe in. And the other one is Soldier Solutions, where a portion of the proceeds goes to uh unite veterans with um with uh with dogs, with um, you know, like uh um service talks, I should say. That's the word I was looking for. So men of service with service talks. So um both great causes. And uh sometimes somebody will buy like one shirt from us and one from them, and that's how they want to budget it. Those folks, for whatever reason, paid to be there, but something came up and they couldn't make it, which I can clearly understand because we almost didn't make it. And um so a lot of the people that might have been spending money with them they just came over and said, Well, I was gonna buy. A shirt, anyways. Let's try it with this guy. And um that resulted in us uh being up on Saturday by a good amount, down on Sunday by just a touch, and up on the entire weekend. So we gained um sales in 2026 at this fair over 2025, and I am legitimately willing to say to you that every single vendor I spoke with said they were down and they were down big. Most of them said 50%. Some of the biggest, most successful vendors there told me they were down. And it was one of those scenarios where I just didn't really want to say anything because um I'm not the type of person, like I'm not trying to gloat or to rub anything in. This isn't my doing, okay. All glory to God. He's putting me with this opportunity, he's telling me what I need to design, what I need to bring, and he helped me get there when there was every obstacle in the way for me to get there. So this this isn't this isn't my doing. And if the person or the business that shows up that we often uh share and split sales with, they don't show up, that success comes to me. I'm not saying this is anything that I did. You know what I mean? I'm not taking credit for uh for this, but I'm appreciative and uh I'm thankful for those blessings. And uh, it was incredible to sit back and say, hey man, we're we're up. And that a lot of that is also just the amazing following and customer base and loyal support that we've we've built over the years, and that racetrack just turned out for us. Um, our extended family at the racetrack, Todd and Lisa and Karen and Scott up there just showing everybody these designs and sending people down. It was tremendous, and they really helped uh push for us. So extremely blessed to come out of this weekend up when most people were down. So feeling incredibly grateful and thankful for that. That is a tremendous success. That is an amazing achievement. That is something that we are uh so blessed by, so thankful for. I started um the show kind of talking about jamming so many things together, making a real jam sandwich, and some of the difficulties that um it creates. And when you have that mechanical failure, right? That breakdown, and um it's about finding a way to get to the next event, and not all those ways are ideal. Uh, sometimes you're taking a risk, like I technically was riding dirty

Faith Mindset And Building Calluses

SPEAKER_00 24:40

to make it to this event. Um, that could have resulted in a really crappy situation. Uh, if you think back to Daytona Bike Week, I didn't have the bus, didn't know how it was gonna work. Chris steps up and says, Hey man, use this trailer. This is the way to do it, and um we get there. Less than ideal for what we were hoping for, but it worked out and we made it happen, and then it makes it um all the way it was supposed to be, right? It's about overcoming these obstacles. It's not lost on me the irony in the fact that we were dealt a difficult hand last week and we found a way to make it to the fair. And um the other vendor that does something similar to what we do, I don't have any clue what happened, but the facts are they didn't make it to the fair. So that resulted in us having a stronger fair. So the question is, was it something that they could have overcome as well? Or God forbid, was it something uh worse? You know what I mean? But you think about those things and you say, hey, it's the it's the perseverance, it's the um relentless commitment to the goal to make this work. And a lot of times it adds stress, it adds um just a lot of weight to your to your to your timeline and to your mind to pull these things off. But I do feel like the callus builds character, you know what I'm saying? Like these challenges they form calluses over you where you know I'm conditioned. I'm conditioned to overcome. This too shall pass, we shall overcome, and we shall be rewarded for doing so. I'm not saying I want these challenges to continue to happen because I really, really don't. I want to get back to normal, and I feel bad for the stress and frustration it puts on those that are around me that they didn't sign up for this. Like, I know it's hard on my wife that it seems like my life is always on fire, you know? Like I I understand that, and it's hard on my on my mother, it's hard on the people that are close to me, it's hard on my circle of friends that want to help. I can imagine a lot of them sit back and go, I'm done helping this dude, man. Like his this his life is chaos, you know. But I feel like we're just so close to tremendous success That this is some of the challenges you have to get through and that you have to go through, you have to grow through. I know that God's bringing abundance to me and to my family, and if it was just put on a on a plate for me, then I I wouldn't appreciate it like I will when I realize that I was hardened by the fire. You know what I mean? And um I know I'm kind of going off on a rant here, but I I just wanted to take that moment to say that because here's the parallel, here's the connection for everybody. Because not everybody is building an apparel brand, not everybody listening is um, you know, a small business owner, not everybody listening is trying to build a brand or launch a business. But everybody listening has been through something. Everybody listening is gone through or is going through something right now. And I just want this message to be one of hope, optimism, and and and hopefully something that makes you want to keep going. That you can realize if somebody or someone or or anyone like us can continue to be faced by these failures and letdowns, but continue to be optimistic and find a way to get around, to overcome and continue to keep the mindset that God is good and He will bring it to you, He will provide it for you. And uh I really just wanted to slow down and take a moment and highlight that for everybody. And and I'm not saying that a successful, one successful weekend at a small town fair that's not one that's gonna pay all your bills for a month, it's just gonna get you to the next one. Like, I don't I don't wanna I'm not making this more than it is, right? I'm not saying I just went to a fair and I just made $20,000. I didn't. I didn't do that, I didn't come close to that. But I'm thankful and grateful for the success that came from that and knowing that we went through all those obstacles, all those challenges, and then arguably might be the only vendor that was up. I talked to many organizers of the fair, and they had all mentioned to me that you're the only person that's come to me with optimism about this fair. So um just kind of wanted to slow down on that because whatever it is you're going through, it might not be anything like what we're going through, and it might be way worse than what I'm dealing with. But I just want to frame the mindset for y'all so that you can understand it and and hopefully it helps, and also understand that it's not easy and it's not something that that I'm great at. I struggle with this each and every day, multiple times a day, but you have to continue to um remain focused and committed to um to my faith and my belief in and and and just knowing that this is all gonna this is all gonna work out. I know I kind of went off on a rant here, but I thought it was a great opportunity to draw the parallels between our business and everybody else's just everyday life. So I just really wanted to take a minute to to say that. But I'm gonna get back to some of the crunches that happen when you structured your schedule the way that we just have, and we already kind of outlined some of the mechanical

Design Deadlines Inventory And Shipping Fails

SPEAKER_00 30:20

failures, but it goes into all other aspects of the business, no matter how big or how small, they all kind of play into each other and it has a trickle-down effect because if one small thing doesn't go right, one small thing on a timeline doesn't happen correctly, then all heck breaks loose. So for me to better explain this, um I'm just gonna kind of drill in um micro on a few things for you guys to kind of get an understanding of this. So I have been trying to bring new designs to certain events that needed them, and they've been successful. I did a uh moose lottery, as you guys know, and I designed a hunting shirt, Moose Inspired, and I brought it to this um this event. And as you guys, if you've been following around the brand, you heard me start the year off by saying we're trying to move out some of our older designs, not because we don't love them, but because we're growing, and we are trying to open ourselves up and and to other customer bases, but also really uh focus more into some areas of life that we're interested in as well. And we've talked about um, you know, like Second Amendment stuff, pro-gun stuff, hunting stuff, Western-inspired stuff, racing-inspired stuff, um, strengthening and building our kids' collection, adding more women-specific stuff. But all these things take a lot of um financial backing, and that's not something that we have, but we've decided this year as we hit the road when we have some success, we're trying to invest that into a new product and to put on the shelf specifically targeted for that event, knowing that if we target it correctly for that event, that event itself should pay for that design, and then it's on the shelf for the rest of the year. Not saying that I don't have to restock it, but I'm just saying that initial investment is a heavy one, and you're trying to see how it works out. So if you launch it at the right time, we took a hunting moose inspired shirt to a moose lottery event. We sold enough of those to recoup the cost of that initial scratch ticket investment. Now it's up to us to just restock the sizes as we go. That was kind of the way I looked at it, and it worked uh tremendously. And then I wanted to do another shirt that was uh race inspired, that was um mud racing, dirt track inspired with a patriotic flair. And we brought it out just in time for the 4th of July festival in Clinton because it was extremely patriotic, and uh I thought it would do well, and it did pretty damn well. But I really had it in mind for this fair because they have dirt track sand drag racing right at this fair, and as you just heard me say, that shirt gave us the success that um we we needed. That was the key ingredient to help push us over the top, so that worked out perfectly. With that said, we are about to head to Syracuse, New York for nationals, and um I needed a car show inspired shirt, and I've been working on a design for a car show shirt for well over a month, and I just can't get it right. I just can't get it to the way that I need it, and um, I've just been going back and forth on so many different things, trying to figure things out. I'm not an artist, I can't draw things, I manipulate things. Uh, so that makes it somewhat of a challenge. You're held to the fire by the things that you can find, that you can buy, that you can use to help yourself. So um, with that said, I've had this kind of vision in my mind, but I can't really put it together. And when I'm having slow times at fairs, I'm I'm designing and creating these things. For example, that moose shirt, I if you guys have been watching and following my social media, I had one fair, I was in Springfield, Maine, and it rained out. And because it rained out, I um sat in my chair in my tent and I designed that shirt until about midnight and I placed that order. And in doing so, um, because I made that commitment and I stayed up so late, I got it in time for the moose lottery and it made that event. Does that make sense to you guys? A lot of times it's that sacrifice and commitment. And a lot of times, like that the shirt I just talked about for um this past weekend, I paid to next day air overnight that designed me, and it was about $70 shipping. It should have been here the very next day. It arrived two days later at night. Um pretty pretty ridiculous, right? I was gonna bring it to uh one event and um because of the time frame, it didn't make it. So it's things like that, and that's kind of where I'm headed with some of this, just to kind of outline uh some of the some of the frustrations. I've been working on this muscle design, this muscle car inspired design, and um I couldn't quite get it exactly to where we wanted. And on Tuesday night when Allie was hauling the camper, I was in the passenger seat still working on it and couldn't quite get it. So on Wednesday morning, I completed some of the things that I needed to do to try to get myself in the best position I could for a product, and then um I went back to trying to finish this design and I couldn't quite get it, and then I finally ran out of time, and I was ordering stickers. I went into this weekend and um I don't have one flag sticker with me. I'm down to like three different designs of stickers when I normally have five or six. Uh, I have orders coming in on the internet that I can't fulfill because I don't even have some of the stuff. Some of these things are starting to uh creep up on me as you're on the road and you're selling stuff and uh your your website's not keeping up or you're um you know misselling a size or something and you go to pull it for an order and it's not there and you can't fix it because you're not home. These things start to start to add up. And when I look around my shelves, I have one black hat. I have two blue hats, I have three red and black hats. That's all I have for hats. I usually make um really good sales and out the course of the year on hats. So on this time, getting ready for the fair, that last day, I'm like, let's finalize an order on some stickers. I ran out of time on the design phase. I was only able to add one new design, restock other designs. I placed that order and I placed an order for leather patches for some hats to try to get those um moving and hoping that, hey, those should be here on Sunday or Monday. I'll get home from the fair on Sunday or Monday. I'm leaving for New York on Tuesday. I can fulfill, uh, make some of those hats and I can put stickers in stock. They're now telling me those stickers won't be here till Wednesday. Wednesday, I'll be setting up six hours away from here at the Syracuse Nationals at the state fairgrounds. So um that doesn't work, right? And then this design that I wanted to do, you quickly begin to realize, okay, um, here's the window for you to finish the design, order it on a normal time frame, and have it in time. As that starts to tick away, that doesn't work. Then it's like, okay, here's a two-day air opportunity. And then you start thinking about, okay, if I design it today, then I could do a next day air, and then that would work. Then you start getting a little closer and you go, maybe I could do a next day air, a weekend delivery. I could do next day air a.m. delivery, and you start thinking about all these different costs that are involved and you getting the product here, which resulted to me being at the fair on Thursday morning when it was slow trying to finish this design and still being hung up on the fact that I can't actually complete all the tasks that I need to complete. I went ahead and a couple weeks ago when I was placing an order, I bought all the navy blue t-shirts to fulfill this shirt order. They're sitting here in a box, ready to go, ready for me to print on. But my designs, I can't get finished and they won't show up on time. So when I leave for New York, that pile of shirts that are sitting here that I've already paid for isn't coming with me. That investment that I made isn't going to be returned at this event because I don't have the designs to sell. That's a backfire on my plan and the way I've been doing things. Make the design, bring it to the targeted event, let that event pay for the design, get the benefit of that design at your next few events. That's not gonna happen. I already have the money on the line, but the product isn't gonna be here on time. So that's that's a fail. Those stickers not showing up, that's a fail. Thursday, um uh in the morning, me and my mom, I'm going through the inventory of all the stuff in my in my tent that's really running out. I have zero pairs of yoga pants. I have two pairs of shorts. I have multiple t-shirts that the sizes are sold out of. My new moose t-shirt, I don't have any large, any extra large or any 2x, I've sold them out. My new race-inspired t-shirt, multiple sizes, sold out from this weekend. Some of my best-selling shirts, my God Family Country shirts, popular sizes, sold out. Faith Family Freedom, extra larges, sold out. Women's Bombshell Raglins, all sizes except for medium, sold out. Women's Faith Family Freedom Raglins, only two sizes available. All these things are happening, right? Great things to happen, but when you don't have time to reproduce them, to restock them, then you're not gonna have the next event be as successful. So on Thursday, I go through a list of all these items, and here's how my apparel company works that I order from. They ship from New York. If you order by 2 p.m., they're supposed to do everything they can to get it on the truck for that day. If I order on Thursday before 2 p.m., I'll have the product at my house on Saturday. When I come home Sunday night or Monday morning, I can go right to work making these shirts. Make sense? If for some reason I order by 2 o'clock and doesn't make it on the truck, but it leaves on Friday morning, then I'll have them Monday morning. That's the plan. I spent $4,000 on apparel to get stocked up for this next event. Money that is very hard to come by that I don't really have, but I need it to be successful. I place that order and then I get back to being at the fair, being present and trying to take advantage of the opportunities that are in front of me. Because if you're at an event and you're only worried about your next event, you're gonna have a poor event. So in the meantime, I start um, you know, just focusing on what's in front of me. I see an email come over, I don't pay any attention to it. The next day, Friday evening, at about um 5.30. No, it was about six, seven o'clock. I actually get an email from them and I click on it, and it's my tracking info, and I open it. And it shows me that Friday at 5.30 p.m. they printed my shipping label. I ordered the product on Thursday before noontime, when if it's ordered by 2, it should have left on Thursday. They had all day, the rest of the day Thursday, and a full day Friday, and they pulled and packed my items on Friday at 5.30 at night. And UPS picked up the order at about 7.30 at night. You know what that means? No product for me. That apparel, as I'm recording right now on Tuesday morning, has not arrived here for me. I have looked into the avenues of trying. Usually your product will arrive at a warehouse a day before and then get sorted out, and I wanted to go pick it up at that warehouse. I signed up and paid the charges to uh have this uh these premium UPS privileges that supposedly I would be allowed to um make changes to deliveries. I was going to reroute the stickers to the fam in New York, Lance and Jen. It wouldn't let me do that. If it was, it was gonna be a $40 charge. And then my apparel, it wasn't arriving at the warehouse in time. I wanted to pick it up at the warehouse, but it wasn't allowing me to have that change. Ironically, it did not get to the warehouse until about 3 a.m. last night or this morning. Then it went on a truck at 5, so it's not gonna help me. It's supposedly on its way. I'm sharing all of this to say that today I'm supposed to be getting a haircut at 8 this morning, 8 30 in the morning, coming home and hitting the road, heading to Syracuse, New York.

No Vehicle No Product Must Pivot

SPEAKER_00 43:10

As of right now, I don't have the vehicle to get there or the trailer to get there, and I don't have the product to sell when I am there. So what I have to do today, obviously, fulfill my commitment to providing y'all some high quality superior audio podcast, okay? With a motivational undertone. That's what we're doing right now. Up at five this morning, bring my mom to work, record this podcast for you, do barn chores, get as much laundry going right now, getting ready to uh hit the road, and before uh heat wave twenty six comes in. When I get home today from my haircut, you hope and pray that your product has arrived and you can get to crushing ass, okay, on making product. I hope and pray that the brother Doug Stimson and his dad come through on something tremendous to help me get to my next event. They're doing everything they can behind the scenes to help me out, and hopefully that works out. Doug, no matter what happens, man, I love you and I appreciate you for all your efforts and for trying. Thank you so much. If that doesn't work, then I pivot to the next option. You try to come up with plan B, C, D, E, and F to do everything you can to somehow, some way get your business to the next day. I have supreme chaos right now on making it to the next event. All my stuff is in one vehicle that needs to come out and to go into something. Whether something gets put together, um, borrowed, rented, whatever the scenario is, I'll explain those details at a later date. But let's just know a few hours are going to go into whatever that process might be. All while trying to make enough product to have as successful event as possible. And then work as late as I can possibly stay up to get as much done as I possibly can to hit the road tomorrow with only literally no room for error. It all has to happen. I need to find a solution and I need to make my product today, and I need to be on the road tomorrow. That's it. There is no other way. When you jam pack, when you make a jam sandwich of business, this is what happens. When somebody else drops the ball, this is also what happens. It's a trickle-down effect. If when I did what I was supposed to do and order that product, when I stopped everything I was doing on Thursday to order that product and then do my part to order it on time, it should have been here. I should be working on stuff right now. But my manufacturer dropped the ball and didn't send it when they were supposed to. So I was in the moment in present in the event, trying to make it work. Here we are. When you're running as hard and fast as you can, you have blinders on, and you're you can't focus on your peripherals. You don't really get the opportunity to see the yard sales that you're screaming by. You don't get to see the things on the side of the road. You have your blinders on and you're focused on the finish line. And that's where I've been. I am super, super excited to get through the struggle of what the next two days is going to be, to spend time with the family, to have a tremendous event, to have a successful event, to unwind and to rewind with our extended family from New York. Brother Daniel Johnson is going to be coming up to give us a private show. All these amazing things are about to happen. I just need to get there. And when I get back from there, I'll have a few weeks to spare to get ready for the biggest challenge that this business has had in its six-year history. That is what awaits for me. Today is going to be absolute utter chaos. But I am a coordinator, conductor of chaos. So apparently, that's what I signed up for. Man, what a life we live. Good night. But I gotta tell you, randomly as I'm thinking about this, some of these silly struggles that we go through, the reasons why we do them, some of them will surprise you, and and some of them when you're in the moment with them, you realize, yeah, this is all worth it. My little girl is living and experiencing a world that most kids could never imagine. This weekend, she spent number one, she spent the weekend camping at a fair. Okay? I just want to explain something to you. My little girl wakes up in the morning and says, Cows? Cows? Moo cows? Because she's thinking about all the cows she got to play with the day before. And then she instantly goes into dig dig, truck, truck. My little girl is obsessed with mud racing and drag racing because we vended at tracks for mud racing and drag racing, and this fair has one thing that most fairs don't have. They have drag racing and they have agriculture. My little girl woke up. How many kids wake up and say cows or how many kids wake up and they're obsessed with racetrucks or any other little random thing in their world? A lot of them wake up and talk about it. My little girl was able to wake up and experience every single bit of it all over again. While she was laying in bed having a bottle, one of our great friends, Lisa, texted my wife and said, I'm going to move my truck right now. She has a drag truck that she races. Yes, girl power, crushing it. What an amazing inspiration and role model for a little girl who loves racing. Allie said to Paisley, who just woke up, Do you want to go ride in a dig dig? And she threw her a bottle. She was so excited. We packed her up, ran out there. Allie got in the truck with Lisa and Paisley, and they just drove around the fairgrounds, getting lined up for the race. And my little girl was absolutely speechless. She got to experience that, to be a part of that. Right after that, she's petting cows, drinking bottles, watching baby cows, checking out horses, doing all these things, spending the day with her family at the fair, and then watching racing all day long. Camping at the fair, partying like a savage, and you realize this is why you sacrifice, you realize this is why you deal with all the chaos you need to deal with. It's incredible. Whenever we get through this next twenty-four to you know, thirty hours of chaos, we're gonna load that little girl up and we're gonna travel six hours south to spend the week or weekend with her godparents, surrounded by an extended family of love in New York at the largest car show in all of New England as vendors, the all-access backstage pass. And she's going to get a private concert from the up-and-coming country singer and songwriter Daniel Johnson, a brother that I made on the road. My wife discovered on TikTok who I happened to saddle up next to on a bar stool in Florida. Here we are, years later, I'm making his merch, and he's playing a private event for my friends and family, and my wife and little girl. This life is a wild, wild ride. And it's thanks to this business that I am seeing, feeling, experiencing all these amazing things, and my family is too. There's sacrifices, there's heartache, there's chaos, but there's tremendous, amazing memories. And for that, I am forever thankful. I didn't realize I was going to spend so much time on this topic. I was going to discuss one more topic this week. And uh, I guess we're just going to make it a quick one. And uh I

Local ICE Shooting And Media Frenzy

SPEAKER_00 52:35

got a feeling there'll be more to talk about with it next week. But yesterday morning before we left the fair, Allie notified me of a shooting that happened in the city next to me in Bitterford, which is where I went to high school, where I spent so much of my time growing up. And um on my way home, my mom mentioned to me that uh it was uh an ice-involved shooting with um possibly an illegal immigrant, maybe not. There's so much unknown about it right now, but it appears this was an illegal immigrant. And conflicting stories out there, but this is another incident, much like the one in Minnesota, where apparently this person um was trying to flee and nearly ran over an ICE officer. He opened fire, and uh that person is now passed. That has turned into wildfire right here a few miles from my house. There's now the chaos that you normally see on TV and states thousands of miles away is happening in a city just a few miles away. Protesting, chaos, craziness, people instantly hitting the streets with signs, pounding on windows of uh Susan Collins, a Republican uh congresswoman here, just um I don't know. The people are just going crazy already. And um, you just wonder what were these people doing? Where were they? How would none of them have to work that they're all of a sudden all here to protest and to shut down the streets and to prevent local small businesses from making money and to cause chaos without actually having any of the facts? And it took hours for this to hit national news last night. But here it is, it's happening. There's chaos happening right next to me. We're gonna learn more about it in the next few days, and maybe we'll be able to talk about it. But the reason why it's so fresh on my mind, and I want to say something about it, is because yesterday you saw it quickly progress into some into some protests, into some chaos, and you started to see um a lot of media outlets showing up for it. Our local um a local media outlet called the Main Wire who does investigative reporting on some of the lunatic left-wing nonsense and fraud that's happening in our state. They were there reporting and and um basically he was uh was attacked, was harassed on live TV. So we have all this chaos going on. And this morning, I bring my mother to work and I drop her off and I said, Well, let me just see what this is all about. So I drive through there and I realized two things. Number one, there's the media ready to stir it all up. There's a park where a lot of the protests started yesterday, Mechanics Park, which is poop park. It's a poop plant. There's the the sewage septic facilities for the city is right there. It always smells like sewage in the middle of the day there, okay? That's where these people are gathering. You connect the dots in whichever way you see fit. Multiple camera crews set up and staging, tripods, lighting, expensive cameras, probably three or four camera crews setting up. Any protesters? None. Zero. None. I turn the corner and I start to climb the hill. I begin to see two to three more camera crews on the left side. When I got to the top of the hill, I look and I see a memorial on the side of the road. Flowers and candles and all these things, some kind of vigil going on. I will say I was drinking a Dunkin' Donuts ice coffee, and right next to me was a Dunkin' Donuts cup full of ice and water. I was needed water this morning, and I can't tell you how badly I wanted to get out of the car and just place my cup of ice water. I was going to drink the rest of the water at the red light. I just dropped the cup of ice, maybe take a marker and write thank you on it. Let the crews zoom in on a Dunkin' Donuts cup of ice that says thank you. But I got up pretty early, not dressed to the best. I didn't want to make my national news appearance with my thongs showing and my hair undone, okay? So I didn't opt for that part of it. But what are you gonna do? You know what I mean? When in Rome. So um, yeah, I uh I'm sitting at the light and I look over, and there's like three film crews next to me, and they're getting set up, and across the road is another film crew, and they're doing a live report. And here's what I've noticed. There's now, if we're doing the bus math, maybe six or seven major news channels, lighting, tripods, cameras, microphones everywhere. You know what's not there? Anybody else. Are you hearing this? There's nobody there. There's no protesters, there's no chaos. You wanna know why? Because they're so heartbroken, they're so devastated, they're so just steadfast, determined, and committed for justice and investigating. But not enough to get up before six. Not enough to be out there standing outside at six. Nah, nah. If we have a job to do, we'll probably show up at nine or ten or noon. I don't know. So you look at it and you say, There's maybe twenty five or thirty news reporters waiting to report on chaos. But there's no chaos yet because there's no sleeping, because chaos needs sleep too. Does any of this seem crazy to you guys? We're waiting to report on chaos. We have the magnified glass just ready to magnify chaos. We wanted to stop traffic yesterday, we wanted to cease business yesterday, we wanted to harass politicians yesterday, we wanted to fight reporters because they're they don't have the same views as you yesterday. You wanted to stop traffic, fight pedestrians, whatever you wanted. You wanted to do all that yesterday, but you need to sleep this morning. But the news crews, God forbid, they are waiting to give you the opportunity to spew hate and discontent. That's what's wrong with this country, man. These people just want to make a ridiculous statement, and we are here waiting to magnify, increase, and blow up that ridiculous statement. If we didn't give them the light of day over the nonsense, this wouldn't continue. And here's the truth immigrant or not, guilty or innocent, if I am being pulled over by the cops and I begin to run, potentially aiming my vehicle at an officer, they would shoot my fat white ass too. This is ridiculous. The only downfall in this whole scenario right now with this chaos is we're about to leave. Because I don't know what happens in this town next to me, and I want to make sure that my mom is safe, that my family is safe. I don't think any of those yahoos are gonna come this way. But this could have been the opportunity for me to make it on Fox News with some loud proud American apparel and thank ICE and all forms of law enforcement for all they do to keep me, my family, and your family safe. That's what should be happening. With all that said, your boy has guts to run. I have chaos ahead of me. I've got tremendous challenges ahead of me. It's about to all go down. Next week, we're gonna recap the awesomeness that is about to happen, the experiences that will continue to happen, and maybe we gotta look at some of the nonsense that's beginning to happen

Closing Thanks And Where To Find Us

SPEAKER_00 1:01:05

a couple miles away from me. Until then, thank you for supporting my American dream. Now go watch your brilliant hands, you filthy savage. That's it, and that's all, Biggie Smalls. If you're allowed proud American, and you find yourself just or find me on YouTube and Facebook and Loud Proud American Facebook, if you're in the Ram Crack, find me on Instagram, tickety talking on the tickety talk, you can find me on all of those loud underscore crowds underscore. You are enjoying what you're hearing background structure, I truly thank you for supporting my American dream. Now go wash your fucking hands, you filthy savage.