What If a challenging Week Is Proof You’re Winning?

Fryeburg Fair Recap Begins

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Lau Proud Americans biggest event of the year is in the books. How does everything look? And we ask ourselves, is imitation really the greatest form of flattery? What if it happens three roads away from you at your biggest event of the year? That and more on this week's 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. What do you mean to be? Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh. What it do? What it do? What it hot did, did it do. Good love, Almighty. Am I so excited to be back with you? Oh, it is true. It is damn true. How do I know it's true? Well, because I love you, boo. That's how I know it's true.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

I love you.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

How couldn't I love you? This is 327 consecutive weeks of this year's podcast, Share the Struggle Podcast. Clearly, we've got something going. Clearly, we have a connection. Or we wouldn't gather here week after week after week. We wouldn't record podcasts from uh the driver's seat of the bus, the back seat of the bus, or from a golf cart, or walking around a field, or recording from the uh confines of the camper, like I am yet again today, if we didn't love and appreciate each other. So here we are, y'all. Back again, episode 327. I am back in the camper. This might be the last uh camper show of the season. I'm not really sure. I don't think we're gonna be using the camper for uh camping the rest of the season. So uh we just returned from the Freiburg fair. We still have to open the camper up and take everything out and clean it up and winterize it and all that good stuff. So it's gonna be um in the drive for a bit longer, obviously. But uh yeah, all my stuff was stolen here, so I figured we might as well just go to the camper and maybe just maybe we could have a nice uh little ambiance, a nice romantic setting. I don't know if you can hear it, but uh it's a little bit of a rain, rainy day on this Tuesday, and you can hear you can hear the rain on the old tin roof, so which if that doesn't get you revved up in a in a private tickling kind of way, then I don't know what does, okay? You know what I'm saying. It's like the feeling you get when you hear fishing in the dark or neon moon to the two greatest country songs of all time. Anyways, why am I getting so sidetracked? While I get started and I'm here in the uh the camper, I must give another big old thank you and another, let's bring this back Loud Proud American, Stay of the Struggle Podcast, winning Wednesday weekly shout out wow wow wow

The Village That Makes It Work

SPEAKER_01 4:04

to Doug Stimson, but coming through like a VIP knows how to do. Not only did he tow the camper to the Fryberg Fair, he showed up during the fair with the entire family and asked if we needed to haul it home because he knew we were in the same situation that we started off in. So uh Monday, the wife and I and little Paisley, we were packing. After we got up in the morning, we closed the camper up. We went down to pack up the booth. Doug showed up with the family, hooked on to the camper, and hauled it home for us, no questions asked, and made all of it possible. This week is yet another shining example of how it takes a village to pull off the things that we do. There's so much sacrifice that goes into an event. As I just kind of hover around some of the details and I'll forget a lot of it, trust me. But if I think about all that went into it, we rewind to the family car breaking down, and then uh, you know, me and the wife hauling the truck over to Mike Packard's Packard's garage, him putting his schedule on hold to work on the vehicle, to calling Doug on a Friday night for him to show up in an hour to hook on to the camper and to pull it to the fair, um, to my mom taking time off, going up, setting up with me, spending the first part of the fair with me, my wife taking a vacation and bringing the baby up, and uh her and Paisley been living in the camper with me for the rest of the week. Uh, my cousin taking time off from his day to come up, pick my mom up, and bring her home so we can spend more time at the fair without having to, you know, travel back and forth. For Doug returning to the fair, and for all the the vendors that that have helped out or to check in during the time, all the loyal, loyal loud proud Americans. So many of you are loyal, dedicated listeners to share this ruckle podcast. We get the opportunity, sometimes it's the only opportunity for all of us to uh connect and to say, hey, we get that yearly visit at the Freiburg Fair, and uh all that means so much to me. And it's because of each and every one of you that we continue to do what it is that we do. Some of the guys I keep thinking of, like like Jeff and Big G from Connecticut, you guys that we really only get to see each other face to face at the Freiburg Fair, but I always so look forward to that encounter and those conversations. Um, all of that uh just makes um makes it all worth it. And and I'm gonna get into a message I received from Jeff while I was at the fair and while we're on the on the subject, Big G. I know you're listening. Um, I don't know if I can call you Big G anymore. You're always gonna be Big G to me, but uh kudos and props and tremendous uh accolades to you, my friend, for all that you've done to uh to change your life, to to lose weight, to uh to get healthy, man. You're an inspiration to a big fella like me. So I just wanted to tell you, Big G, I'm proud of you, man. Uh it was great to see you and to uh spend some time with you and the family and and share some smiles and some laughs. But I just wanted to give you some words of encouragement to say that I'm proud of you and I hope that you continue on this path that you're on, man. Keep on doing what you're doing. That's some of the best things about the Freiburg Fair is getting to connect with everybody, you know. Um in this whole little negative scenario of vehicle troubles that seems to continue to rear up every year, and uh typically right before our biggest events. One thing that it did allow is for me to have you know three hours sitting down in a vehicle with my good friend Doug sharing conversations and chatting and things that we never really get to do. You know what I mean? Sometimes you gotta look at those opportunities and those things and say that that's gotta be a positive, too. And um I spend a lot of time trying to uncover the little hidden gems and nuggets that life gives you because there's gotta be a reason for some of the struggles during your season. And when I say season, to me, it could be my vendor season, it could be my busy season, my travel season, it could be the holiday season, it could be any season that it is that you're going through. There's certain times where life's gonna deal you some some difficulties and some struggles, and and uh you just gotta you gotta find some positives there, man. You gotta find some things, and I really want to uh hopefully not forget and share with you one of my or my absolute favorite moment of uh of this fair, and I hope to share that with you at the end of this. Hopefully I don't get too uh too sidetracked, but um it was a crazy, uh, crazy couple of weeks. I think this is the fastest moving Freiburg fair I've ever been a part of. It um it really, really flew by. And um I'm not ultimately sure why. Maybe it was the time with family, having the little one there, um, you know, and and I'm I'm not sure. I I'm just maybe it's as everybody says, the older you get, the faster things go. But this year I couldn't believe it was already Fryberg Fair. And I'm telling you right now, I can't believe I'm sitting here and explaining to you that it's over. And I think about in years past, when I first started the business, after Fryberg Fair, I would shut it down and we would take a big long break and um, you know, kind of get it ready for the winter and get things done. And I don't think that's a luxury anymore. It hasn't been a luxury for the past couple of years. You kind of come home and hit the ground running and make things work, and I feel like when the snow is flying in January, I don't have the opportunity to work outside and and be productive. It also happens to be the slowest time of the season for me uh for the business and for the brand because everybody's you know coming out of the holidays, they've spent their money, they've maxed out their cards, they're they're putting oil in the barrels of their house and all those things. So maybe I'll take a break when we get to January, February. But um, I needed to take a break today and just try to I don't know, recalibrate.

Resetting After The Grind

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Factory reset. I just took some time. I got up at five, brought my mom to work, and then I came home and just climbed right back into bed with the family. And when the wife got up to go to work, she went out and did the chores, and and me and the babe just uh went back to sleep and took a little cat nap, and then we we watched TV today, and we kind of relaxed and fell asleep watching Garfield. Just me and the kiddo, and uh, you know, then I had to get up and run some errands and pay some bills and do some adulting and find myself here in the in the camper doing this recording. And but I needed this little factory reset, and there's something that I find myself doing this time of year, whether it's coming out of Freiburg or or um you know anything where you've just kind of been on the run for for so long. There's something that I like to do that I've been doing for a long time. Even when I worked for uh for Harley Davidson, like when I would travel, I always had to travel right around October and November to some some meetings and stuff. When when I was away from the family, one of the things that I would do this time of year to recalibrate, even though it's early and it might freak some of you guys out, me and the family just get together and we just go look at Christmas stuff, man. We just go to like a hobby lobby and cruise around and think about Christmas and think about Thanksgiving and the holiday season and and all the great things that that means, you know, and just celebrate each other and do something that's totally opposite of everything that we've been doing. And I know that might sound crazy to a bunch of you, but um it's one of those things, man, when you've just been doing something for so much for so long, you're working so hard on what it is that you're chasing that sometimes you have to do something totally opposite. Like I love having the opportunity to uh just turn my phone off and um get out a couple of skill saws and drills and hammers and and uh and and two by fours and and uh you know one by twelves and just get to work on building something, just doing something. Detaching myself from what it is I do every day is a tremendous stress reliever and it's a confidence builder because there's something that just makes you feel good as a human to look back and say, I did that, like I built that. Um, you know, when you can so often we work on tasks and things that you can't really see the result of. Like some things just aren't tangible. You don't just turn around and look at them and see what you did. But when I take the time to unplug and build something, create something, fix something, when you can step back and look at it and go, Yeah, I did that, that's a great feeling. And uh with the weather the way it is, I don't have the opportunity to do that, and I still have a lot of things I'm gonna have to get rolling on. And tomorrow is gonna be a spreadsheet kind of day, figuring out checks and balances and what you gotta pay and what you gotta order and what you gotta do. But today, after this podcast, I'm gonna unwind and I'm gonna spend some time doing something completely opposite of what I do every day. And we're gonna celebrate the season and embrace a little family time to uh just reward them for you know what we just went through. Like today, I got my mom some flowers, and I got um my wife and my daughter some flowers, and just to kind of say thank you for for working and doing what you do. And um as I get older I spend a lot more time being grateful and thankful. I spend a lot more time in reflection. When I'm in the swirl of an event like like um I just had, I put a lot of pressure on myself and I put a lot of expectation, and that creates a lot of uh self-doubt, it creates a lot of moments of frustration,

Pressure, Competition, And Self Doubt

SPEAKER_01 14:07

it creates um opportunity for your for your mind to wander and for your confidence to uh take a beating. And as we talked last week, I mentioned that the fair wasn't really off to the good start that I'm used to. And what was frustrating for me this year is that so many people around me were having tremendous events, and I'm thankful for my friends and family around me for all the fellow vendors that are doing great. I I love that, and that's always a great sign, and I appreciate hearing all of that. But when you're struggling to not have this year's event be the worst year you've ever had, it's difficult to know that everybody around you is doing fantastic, and um, that's kind of the the swirl that I found myself in this week. I have this thing where I'll look at a book, and this year in front of me, I think I had four or five running years totals, and each day, like what was Monday like in 2025, what was Monday like in 2024, 2023, like those are the things that I look at. And every day, my day was either the worst Monday, the worst Tuesday, or the second worst Wednesday, whatever you uh you know, insert day here. There was only like one or two days during the week where I actually made some progress over the previous year, and that's defeating, and that's deflating, but you keep talking yourself up and you keep building yourself up and you keep trying to find positives. Um but it's tough, man. It's tough when you come in here with this massive goal, and every year's goal is um is an increase and an improvement on the previous year, and we've been fortunate that up until last year, every year we gained, every year we grew, every year we did a little bit better than the year before. Last year we were down maybe a thousand dollars, which isn't too bad. But this year, when I looked at it and said, there's no way I'm gonna grow, I just need to minimize how much I lose, and then you begin to press for every single thing you have, and um that makes it difficult. And I'm a competitive person, and I think that sometimes my family has a hard time understanding how I'm looking at things because I'm a realist when it comes to competition. I want to know how far I'm down, I want to know how much time is left in what quarter I'm in, I want to know how many opportunities I'm gonna have to maximize the situation that I'm in. So I look at everything and I compete at anything. So I think it can be it can be tough for my family, and they look at it like as if I'm depressed or um uh I'm angry or you know, um whatever it might be, but that's not the case. It's it's held energy for success. And if you guys have been listening to me for years, then you know there's a there's a term, there's a saying that I've uh adapted or adopted for a long time, and it came from it came from NFL Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Lewis, and the message is pissed off for greatness. That you have to be pissed off for greatness, and and and that's a mantra, that's a that's a motto that I've kept for a long time. And I don't know what year it was on this podcast that we talked about being pissed off for greatness, but that's me, and I compete, and I compete every chance I get at this business because I'm different. I don't have a storefront, I don't have a booming online presence. So when I am somewhere, when I put ourselves out somewhere, when we go to an event, and I only have so many days and so many opportunities for success, I am pissed off for greatness. I want to seek and destroy everything that's in front of me. I want today to be the greatest day, and that's just how I look at it. And um, it can be tough for some people to be around me when I'm in that that mode. Um, but I just think about all that's on me. I think about everybody that's depending on me. I stop and think about all the people like I mentioned in the beginning of the show that sacrificed for me to be where I am. I think about all the people, all of you that are listening, that come in and support us, and how much you want to turn the podcast on in a week and hear me celebrate. I think about all of those things. And uh when you're not succeeding at the level in which you have been shooting for, it's difficult. It's it's it's it's difficult. And uh but I don't let it get me down. I try to make it motivate me. But the way I motivate myself for my competitive background, I think is tough for some people to uh understand. And um that's just kind of how I'm wired, and and it's on it's it's it's tough, and and I and I get that, and I can beat the hell out of myself. So that's a lot of what my week was like, and maybe that's part of the reason why uh you know time flew, I guess. I'm not really sure, but we ended up obviously not having the greatest event that we've ever had, but we did not have our worst Fryberg Fair that we've ever had. We um we did beat our our slowest year ever, which is good. That's that's thankful and grateful. And the numbers at Fryberg Fair that we attain at any other event, you would be doing cartwheels and and and jump and jacks over. You know, the Fryberg Fair for us is a whole different beast, it's a whole different animal to look at, so it

Family Moments That Matter Most

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makes it a little bit different. Even though this wasn't our best Fryberg Fair, it was still hands down the best event of 2026 for Laura Proud American. So I am extremely grateful for that fact right there. It was still a tremendous success. It's just difficult when you know that you go into it with all these different things over your head, like uh, you have more mechanical problems. You have you know thousands of dollars to put out on the line for this. You uh you know, you're doing different things, you're renting golf carts, you're you expanded your space, you uh, you know, you have a higher rent bill here, you took chances on all these different products, all these things. All that goes in uh into the pot. All that goes into the big the big whirlpool of craziness that happens in your mind. And um typically when I come home from the Freiburg fair, I I sit down and and I'm relieved and I celebrate and uh I relax for a moment and I breathe. You know, I'm absolutely beat, but I I have this overall just accomplishment, you know, this overall sense of accomplishment. And this time I came home a little bit angry, and not angry for my result, but angry for a different reason, and that anger is a motivator for me to do better, that anger is a motivator for me to look at things differently, that anger is a motivator for me to grow this brand even more. That anger is a motivator for me to put my foot on the accelerator and really absolutely crush 2026 and make this a tremendous year for Lao Proud American. That's how I Motivate myself. I take these things and I swirl them around and I think about them and then I I uh try to apply them in the most constructive way possible. So I came home absolutely beat. I'm sore. We literally got up yesterday morning, packed up the camper, then went down and spent about four, four and a half hours packing up our display, and then we you know took the journey home. And I've been once your body kind of just relaxes and breathes for a minute, everything starts to hurt. My knees, my back, uh, my ankles, I'm moving slow, I'm feeling slow. All those things start to creep up, you know, because you've been so go, go, go that you don't realize what's what the sacrifices you've been you've been making, you know. All those things go into it. And uh, so I'm beat. I'm mentally, emotionally, physically beat. So I need that break, but I'm ready to get back to work and uh to make things happen. So that's part of that's a big part of the recap that I really wanted to uh to to drop on all of y'all, and I'm gonna turn into something else that was kind of uh crazy about the event. Before I do, I just want to say thank you to each and every one of you that did come in and make us a tremendous week. I mean, even though it didn't end up being what I wanted it to be, it was still a very amazing success for my business and my brand and my family. And I'm never gonna look a gift horse in the mouth. You know what I mean? I'm gonna be thankful and I'm gonna be grateful and I'm gonna count my blessings. And it absolutely surely was a blessing. And when I think about everybody that contributed, everybody that that helped in their own way, or they came in and made a purchase on one of the days. I thank you. Uh, I think about all the small special moments that happened. Like uh Matt Perkins from Ledgebay Farm went in this big, giant, massive bull for Paisley from the skee ball game. They're bringing that in, just seeing her eyes light up over that, her riding that thing like she's actually in the rodeo ever since. I think about those uh those those moments. I think about on Sunday evening I was surprised by Isaiah, who uh rolled a three-hour journey to come in and surprise us and to say hey, and to hang out and to see our big display and spend a little time. I think about those things, and those things are um things that make me grateful, and those are things that make me so proud of um what we've accomplished and the and the relationships that we've made. I think about how much fun my little girl had at this fair. I think about um her just riding around in the golf cart and the smiles on her face. Some of y'all might have seen the videos of her in the petting zoo trying to bring a goat home or turning the loo, proud American tent into a dance floor every day, just out there dancing and smiling. I think about at the end of the week, my little girl was taking stickers and handing them to little kids and babies in the tent. She was greeting kids and giving them stickers and saying bye and thank you to people, and she wanted to bag things and to do things. And I just think about all of it. At the end of the fair, she actually asked me for a paper bag and I gave it to her, and she opened it up and she started putting her favorite stuffies in it, and she looked at me and she said, Dada, home. And she was ready to go home. And I knew at that moment that we gave, as a family, we gave all we could give to Fryberg Fair and the people that were there. We did every single thing that we could to make this the biggest success that we ever could, and um that's an accomplishment, that's an achievement, and those are memories made. I think about driving through the fairgrounds before it closed on a golf cart and letting my little girl see all these things, and all these things that we take for granted or people take for granted, I stop and think about it and say to myself, I know how important this fair was to me as a child and how much all these fairs

Catching A Copycat Selling Our Logo

SPEAKER_01 26:00

mean to me. For my daughter to be intertwined into the fabric of these fairs and what takes place, like that's an amazing thing. How many people are driving through the middle of the fair on a golf cart? How many people are out in the barns or on golf carts? These things that you know, hundreds of thousands of people go to fairs and they don't experience these things that my little girls do, and they're just part of what she does every single day. And um, that's just that's incredible. And and I was gonna save this for the end, but I'm gonna I'm gonna put it in here right now because regardless of dollars and cents, and I'm gonna highlight some positive dollars, and we're gonna discuss about some nonsense. My favorite thing about this fair, the greatest thing that happened during the Freiburg fair, is on Sunday I needed to uh go back to the camper, and uh I needed to go to the camping office and book a septic pumping, and uh, I took the baby with me. It was just me and Paisley. I put her next to me on the golf cart and we headed off, and we were just riding around and we were going through the parking lots and the fields and through the cattle barns, and um we were just just hanging out and spending time together, and I had my arm around her because I obviously I put my arm around her and I and I tuck her in next to me to make sure that she stays put on the golf cart and she doesn't slide off, and I have my hand on her leg just kind of holding her tight to me. She took her little left hand and she put it on my right leg and she was rubbing my leg and she was just tapping my knee and I looked at her and she was just smiling and taking it all in, and I said, Well, babe, did you have fun this week? And she looked at me and said, Yes, Dada, I had fun. And I I have this thing wherein it's me and my daughter, and it's just me and my daughter no matter what her age is. I talk to her as if she's an adult. And we have adult conversations, and I know she doesn't understand them. She doesn't understand all of it, but she does understand some of it. And I thanked her for being a big girl, and I thanked her for all that she did to help mama and dad during the week, and I thanked her for being such an amazing, amazing little girl. And I wanted to make sure that she still had some fun. And I wanted to let her know that I'm doing this for you. Because these experiences are worth more than anything in this world. To get the acknowledgement for my little girl, to have these adult conversations that you're not sure she understands, and then to get that response, that was it. When you're driving through the through the campground chasing a septic truck uh to try to pump out your your your pooper at the fair, and you're getting emotional and teared up, that uh only a redneck. Only a redneck, does that make sense? My little girl started getting amazed by the helicopters. They were doing helicopter rides, and we pulled over to the side of the road right next to the helicopter field, and we just watched him take off and land back to back to back to back, and she was just celebrating and cheering, and and we just had this great time at the fair, separated from the fair, just me and her taking that moment and that opportunity, and you realize a few things. Like, if I didn't screw up, if I didn't not book my camping spot, I never would be on that side of the road. Allie never would have looked into renting a golf cart. We never would have had these opportunities, these moments. You know what I mean? All those little things. So when we talk about your day and your week, your month, or even your year not going the way that you wanted it to, if you dig a little bit, then there's some gems in there for both me and you. You understand what I'm saying? You just gotta you gotta sift it, you gotta cultivate what's in front of you and find those positives because they're there for you, I guarantee it. And um, that was that was one of the things. That was one of the things for me that was just um just so amazing, and it was absolutely my favorite, my favorite part of the fair. Now, my not so favorite part of the fair, and I kind of teased this a little bit in the beginning of the show in our in our B-roll for the show, saying that you know, imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Well, this is the first time for Loud Proud American that I've experienced someone stealing our designs and logos. As I mentioned earlier, I gave Jeff a shout out. Jeff had reached out to me and said, Hey man, it was great seeing you today. I happened to be going by this vendor booth and I saw somebody selling some products, some sweatshirts that say Loud Proud American, and it looks like one of your earlier logos. And uh me and my wife went looking around one night as the fair was closing, and we saw this tent uh with an Asian couple in it, and Ellie said, I bet you it's them, because this couple was with us at Proving Grounds the beginning of the year, and they were with us again at uh Barnyard, and they were super polite to us, but they were really observant of us, and Ali said she actually saw them taking photos of our display. So uh she said, That's them, I bet you that's them. And uh, we kind of filed that on the back of our mind and said, you know, the next chance we get, we'll go check again. And then another really good friend of ours, uh Corey, Corey Jakes, sent me a text message with a photo of somebody sitting in front of him in the grandstands wearing a zip up a sweatshirt that says Loud Proud American with our reverse flag logo on the back. I've made this exact sweatshirt. I've made it in blue, the exact same color, and a zip up in the exact same way with the exact same logo on the back of a sweatshirt, just like that. This is the logo that is on all of our apparel. Like it's I started putting it on pretty much every t-shirt sleeve we make. It's the logo on the door to the business, it's the logo that is the number one selling sticker we have. It's all over the friggin' country, okay? It is our logo. It is the first logo I made when I started the business back in 2019. So um, it's absolutely our logo. Loud, star, proud, American at the top of the flag. Exactly what I made. American at the bottom, the whole thing, taking the flag, reversing it, uh, distressing it, every single thing. It's like you took a picture of my logo, and in Allie's words, you take a picture of our logo and you upload it into Cricut Design Space and have it trace it, this is what it would do. So I go in and I find these people, and I walk up to him, and as he's sitting there, the sweatshirt is right behind his head, and I walk up with the sticker in my hand, I looked him right in the face, and he knew when I walked in that I was not happy and that I knew what he was up to. And I put the sticker in his face, and I what before I put the sticker in his face, I said, I believe we have an effing problem here. He looked at me and he said, What? And he had people in his tent and everything. And I pulled the sticker out and I put it in his face, and I said, The problem I have is you

Protecting The Brand Without Burning Bridges

SPEAKER_01 34:12

stole my business logo. You have stolen my logo. No, no, I didn't. Yeah, bud, you did. You stole my logo. That is my logo. And I said, That is my design. You are using my business name exactly the way I have it. You flipped the flag exactly the way I did, you distressed it just like I did. And he said, I've been selling this design for a year, and I said, Exactly. I met you at the first of the year, and I've been in business for over six years. You stole my design. More than my design, you stole my business logo. That is the logo of my damn business. And to top it off, I am three of four effing roads away from you at this fair, selling my merchandise with my logo on all of it. And here you are down the road from me, signing selling this Chinese crap for $20, $30 less than I am, stealing my business. And he said that he would take it down and he wouldn't sell it. And I said, I better not see it, I better not see you selling it again. And then I had more people bring to me different designs. He copied my freedom design, he copied my God family country cross that goes on the back of it. He basically took a sweatshirt that I sold out of at the fair and made his own version of it. And he's um for most people that aren't in the in the you know the fair business or the traveling vendor lifestyle that I'm in, at fairs there's sections of fairs, and and I'm on the independent midway section. And what that means is the fairgrounds. I work with the actual local people of that fair. So for me, when I'm at Fryberg, I'm working with people from Maine and New Hampshire that run um that part of the Freiburg fair. If you're working on the interior of the fair around the rides and the games, you're dealing with a carnival. So you're renting space from uh whoever's providing the carnival. In this case, it's a company called Dreamland. So he's not under the Fryberg Fair rules, he's under the um the midway rules. So I went to that office and I knocked on the door. And the first lady that came to me, I explained her what was going on, and she took me serious and she understood my concerns, and then she brought her boss over, and then he didn't really give two flipping hoots about what I had to say and about the situation that I had. I said, Man, I've already confronted him, I've already talked to him, but I'm here venting to you before this gets any further. And I'm asking you to police the situation. And uh he really didn't care. He said, This is your logo. This I said, this is your design. I said, dude, it's not just my design, it's the logo of my business. Like, this is my actual business. I'm right down the road. I've been here for you know six years. He's stealing my designs right here at the fair. And he just didn't really care. He said, Well, uh, do you have uh that trademarked? And I said, But you can't trademark an American flag. And uh we went down this this long road, and by the end of it, he he said to me, Well, I can understand your frustration, but um I knew, I completely knew that that was just to get me to stop talking and to make me feel like he's gonna do something, but he doesn't care, and ultimately he is getting paid off of what that person sells, so he certainly doesn't care. But I was I was fired up, and it took me a while to kind of calm down. I didn't want to act up because here's the thing in the back of my mind, this fair, this event keeps me in business. If I didn't have this fair, Lab Proud American probably wouldn't be here. I need the Freiberg fair for me to stay in business. It's the biggest event we do every single year, and every year I try to spend my entire year finding other events that'll do what this event does. I need it, I need it to succeed, I need it to stay alive. So I don't want to jeopardize what I have going on, and people were around me saying, man, like you can't keep looking at it like that. You have to protect your business and your family. And and for me, I'm thinking in the back of my mind, I am protecting my business and my family by not doing what it is I want to do. I'm protecting my business and my family by not sending this all the way up the flagpole, freaking out, and then jeopardizing what it is that I've worked for so hard and for so long. So I needed to make sure that those things weren't getting sold anymore at the fair. And then I also needed to kind of have this self-evaluation conversation with myself that says, number one, I don't think we have the same customer base. Everything that's in this person's tent is all knock-off, cheap crap, and he's you know copying Dodge and Chevy and Ford and Duramax and and Cummings and all of those things. And I told myself a couple of things. Number one, the fact that these people looked at us and our presentation

When Helping People Backfires

SPEAKER_01 39:26

and our success and classified us as a company they needed to copy, that to me is an accomplishment. The fact that these people looked at us and said, Hey man, we make a living off of stealing from major brands and companies. We're gonna classify this dude as somebody we need to steal from. They had to have sat back and watched me sell enough to make a decision that says, Man, these guys are popular and they're a big brand, and we're gonna copy them and we're never gonna see them again. That's the decision that they made. I'm gonna take that as a compliment. Invitation is the greatest form of uh flattery, right? I'm gonna think about that as a compliment. But like everybody else said, you need to protect your business, and there's a few things that come into play here. Part of it is this they are selling at the same events as me my product with my name. Not my product, but a cheaper version of my product. I don't necessarily feel like we have the same customer base, but what I can't afford to have happen is people to buy that product with my business name on it and get an inferior, crappy ass, imported, cheap product, and then make the assumption that that's me. I can't have people get this Chinese made crappy fabric that says loud proud American on it, and then see me on the road with a logo that clearly is an attempted version of the logo that they purchased, and think I'm not going to buy from that guy, his stuff is crap. Because somebody else is out there trying to pirate my stuff. I can't afford that, I can't have that. I don't really think there was a lot of people there at the Freiburg Fair buying stuff from him thinking it was me. I don't think there was people at the Freiburg Fair that was buying so much stuff from him that it was really hurting me. I mean, maybe, as we just talked about, my numbers were down. But my customer base, all of you loyal loud proud Americans, you know me. And you know my family and our story, and that's why you buy from us. You're not buying in from this Asian family because of that. So it's a tough battle in my mind, but I needed to bite my tongue, I needed to regret the situation, stand up for my family and for my business, and now that I'm home, now I take the steps to protect myself. So I'm not gonna share all those details with you, but I'm going to be taking some further action on this situation, and then I know just how to find these people and have the proper conversation. So, what I'm going to do is keep it as up and up as possible, leave it where it is, and I'm going to take the steps to protect myself and prepare myself. So the next time I see them and they're selling stuff with my brand, with my logo, I can hand them something that makes them stop or lets them know I will sue the living hell out of you. But who would have thought? Who would have thought at this fair, my biggest fair, my biggest event, there'd be somebody copying me, my business, my brand, my name, my logo, my designs, my everything. Trying to take money from me while I'm not having the greatest fare that I need to have. Those things are all happening. So as you can imagine me being the competitive one I am, analyzing and looking for all the reasons why I'm not succeeding at the level that I want to succeed, and I have somebody there stealing from me at the same time. It was a vicious, vicious discussion going on in my brain. Okay. Man, I still don't know if I actually have all the words for it. But uh man. I was pretty fired up. But I'm not done with it. I think I did what I needed to do to get through what I needed to get through, and to live to see another day, and to come back at them in a whole different way, and that's what I am going to do. Man, crazy, crazy times. I didn't uh didn't expect this. It's been a tough week. I've uh you know, I I've had people. Right at the same event, trying to steal my my whole business logo. I've uncovered people that I've done work for over the past couple weeks that I've done logo work for, uh, some of them free work, and then seeing them announce and and show uh make announcements off of business plans and announcements. Um, you know, like, hey, look at this accomplishment. I'm launching this business, and here's a bunch of apparel that I bought to launch this business, help support me when I realized I did all that for you. I created that for you, and you didn't um pay me for any of that. You went somewhere else. That's great. I've had um, I'm not gonna spell all of them out, but I've had when you sit down, when when you're at a fair and it's kind of slow, you have those down times, and you're sitting there. Um, you can pull your phone out and you know, and and try to promote and do things for your business. You happen to see some things that maybe maybe they've happened weeks ago, maybe they've happened months ago, and you just didn't see them because you haven't had the time to look at them, and you realize, wow, it's not a lot of fun doing custom work for people when they turn around and just uh go to the lowest bidder or don't reward you for what it is that you do. And it's one of those things where a lot of um um my energy that swirls around when it comes to these custom projects. It's a it's a catch-22 scenario because I like helping friends and family and having them see their vision come to reality, and I like that it helps support the business and the brand and keep us employed uh to keep the lights on. But um I hate the other side of it. The people that shaft you, the people that don't reward you, uh, the people that that steal from you. And um, it's tough. It'd be a lot easier just to say, you know what, I'm all done here. I don't want to do these things anymore because I don't want to create any more negative opinions about people that I like, and um but I can't. I need the money to survive. It's food on the table for my family, so I have to keep doing it. But uh that's a vicious cycle. That's a tough one. That is a tough one. So that that frustration added to the week. That added to uh what was but what I do want to celebrate with you as we talk about dollars and cents on Sunday and as I mentioned, I'm running reports and I'm looking at everything.

A New All Time Sales Record

SPEAKER_01 46:38

On Sunday, when I crossed the amount that gave us um that prevented us from having our slowest year ever, when I when I surpassed those numbers and said, Okay, this wasn't our worst. It isn't our best, but it wasn't our worst. There was also another number associated with that, and that number, it's a tremendous accomplishment. If you guys have been listening for a while, you know last year, when I was recording last year, I was in Bangor, Maine at the Bangor Mall, and I had a sale. I remember the interaction. I made a sale with Christy Palmer, uh, BP, brother Brian Pomolo's wife, Christy, who Brian's been such a tremendous asset and member of Loud Proud American. He's put his life on hold to go on the road to help us grow this business and this brand. Brian's wife Christy was buying Christmas presents and it helped Loud Proud American. That sale pushed us into a dollar amount that we had never attained before. It was a dollar amount that I've been chasing since creating the business in 2019. A number that I put in place and I said to myself, every single year we must get here. And as I get into the grind and I learn things, I realized that number's not quite high enough for what you're trying to shoot for, but there's a great deal of satisfaction and and and gratitude and accomplishment by hitting that number. And I'm not gonna spell out those numbers for you, but last year, in November, I hit that number for the first time in all time of us being in business. And what I want to tell you is on Sunday, when we when we hit a number that prevented us from having our slowest Freiburg fair, that number also tipped us into a new all-time high for Loud Proud American in a year of business. That means that this year, as of October, 2026, Loud Proud American has already beaten our 2025 year of business, which was our greatest year in business. What I'm here to tell you is as of October, we have already beaten any single year that we have been in business. We are currently having, through all the struggles, through all the trials and tribulations, through all the failures and f ups, through all the disappointments, we are having our greatest year in the history of Loud, Proud American. I have what is left of October and November and December to absolutely finish on a high note. To take this number to a number that we have been dreaming about. That's why I came home pissed off for greatness. I am oh so thankful and grateful for the success that we have had during this year. I cannot believe that at the end of the Freiburg Fair I am looking back and saying, This is already our most successful sales year in business. And that's because of each and every one of you. I can't thank you enough. I humbly can't thank you enough. It has been a roller coaster. But I'm so grateful for the ride that I paid admission to. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh so much for all that you do for us and for all that you mean to us. Thank you for supporting our American dream. Now go wash your friggin' hands, you filthy savage. That's it, and that's all, Biggie Smalls.

Thanks, Where To Find Us, Sign Off

SPEAKER_01 51:05

If you're a Loud Proud American and you find yourself just wanting more, find me on YouTube and Facebook at Loud Proud American Face Page at the Mama Call. If you're a fan of the Graham Crackin' and want to find me on the Instagram or all the kids, tickety talking on the TikTok, you can find me on both of those at loud underscore proud underscore America. Big old thank you to the voice of the gun structure for the background beats and the things on your podcast. If you are enjoying what you're hearing, track down the gun truckers, Facebook dust turns but like I truly thank you for supporting my American dream. Now go wash your fucking hands, you filthy savage.