Oct. 29, 2025
What If Fear Was Fuel
What if the thing you’re missing is the very thing that could make you unstoppable? We dig into the uncomfortable truth that scarcity can be a strategic advantage and explore how to turn setbacks into a springboard for action, growth, and grit-fueled wins.
Pulling from 50 Cent’s The 50th Law, we break down why “every negative situation contains the possibility for something positive,” and then put it to work in real life: using a presale to validate demand and fund production, doubling down on what resonates, and showing up at crucial events even when the “Loud Proud American Express” is parked. We also face the heavy lift of legacy and loss, choosing to release the clutter of a father’s lifetime of “might-need-it” gear to buy back mental space, cash flow, and momentum. Negative energy is still energy—if you move it.
We get personal about the myths of readiness—building a modest home, becoming a parent later than planned, and the hard truth that the “right time” never arrives. Scarcity beats analysis paralysis because it forces decisions. Commitment sharpens focus because stakes create attention. Your energy rises to the level the moment demands. Along the way, a friend’s business closure becomes both a gut check and a gratitude check: survival is progress, even when the numbers hurt.
You’ll leave with practical ways to act under pressure: pre-sell to test and finance, create constraints to spark creativity, trade perfection for momentum, and flip fear into fuel. If you’re stuck waiting for the green light, take this as permission to go. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs a push, and tell us: what leap will you take before you feel ready?
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00:00 - Opening: Struggle As Strength
02:35 - Sponsor Shoutouts & Presale News
04:20 - Hard Year, Bigger Goals
06:30 - 50 Cent’s 50th Law Enters
09:10 - Turn Shit Into Sugar
12:45 - From Near-Death To Demand
16:10 - Mindset: Perception Creates Outcomes
19:00 - Applying The Law To Business
22:00 - Presale Strategy That Funded Growth
26:00 - Letting Go: Dad’s Legacy And Clutter
30:00 - Selling The Tractor: Relief And Momentum
33:00 - Negative Energy As Usable Energy
36:00 - Move Before You’re Ready
39:30 - House, Kid, And Commitment Jumps
44:00 - Create Obstacles To Sharpen Focus
46:30 - Scarcity Beats Analysis Paralysis
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Can a lack of resources be an advantage?
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Curtis James Jackson thinks so.
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Today we put fear in the back seat, go to work with what we got, because waiting for the right moment will leave you on the sidelines.
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All that and more on today's episode of Share the Struggle Podcast.
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Let me tell you something.
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Everybody struggles.
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The difference is some people choose to go through it and some choose to grow through it.
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The choice is completely yours.
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Which one you choose will have a very profound effect on the way you live your life.
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You are right where you need to be.
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Am I so excited to be back with you?
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Oh, it's true.
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It is damn true.
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I missed you, baby boo.
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Welcome to episode 277 of that podcast.
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Properly named, precisely named, perfectly, beautifully named.
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Share the struggle.
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Because everybody struggles.
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And the truth is, boys and girls, chipmunks and squirrels, we all have a struggle.
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We all have a story.
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But when we are transparent and tough enough to share it, then there is strength in that story.
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277, that means for 277 consecutive weeks.
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It has been you and me, unless you're new here.
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And if you are new, then we welcome you to this positive tribe with a positive vibe that we are building.
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You can find all things podcast related over to WWW Share the Struggle Podcast.
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Don't forget to thank and shout out our proud sponsors and creators of the show, Loud Proud American, aka myself and my wife and my baby and my mama and my baby mama.
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You know what I mean?
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We be a family, okay?
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Representing American manufacturing, bringing you American goods.
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Find all things American at loudproudamerican.shop.
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Get ready for the gift given season.
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I have been in the office going strong on fulfilling the pre-sales for our Charlie Kirk tribute shirts, and I must give you the first confessional of the day.
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Go ahead.
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Cabela's catalog.
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Left hand on the Cabela catalog.
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Beady little eyes to the sky.
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And truth from this guy.
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Chef's kiss.
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I am so stoked about the Charlie Kirk tribute shirts that we have put together.
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They look tremendous.
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I love them.
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I'm a huge fan of them.
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They will be in stock on the website by the end of this week.
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So make sure you get on over there.
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If you didn't jump in on the pre-sale, spoiler alert, I'm gonna stock them.
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I'm gonna keep them and we're gonna continue to sell them because I absolutely love them.
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They look fantastic, and the message is uh more important than the design.
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So you will find those things on our website, loudproudamerican.shop.
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Get yours for the gift giving season.
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I will also throw out to you that we uh decided to take the plunge on a couple more events this year.
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Our business and our family and our bottom line need us to continue.
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We are so close to having the greatest year we've ever had, even though this is arguably the brokest year we've ever had.
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So I'm gonna push forward.
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We're gonna do the best we can to make this happen.
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So uh, with that said, there's a lot of challenges that are gonna go into this, mainly being that we do not have the Lower Pot American Express.
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The school bus is off the road for the uh foreseeable future here.
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We're suffering from something called a lack of funza.
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So um, yeah, lack of funza and um lack of parts uh.
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Okay?
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Not to be confused with make a pizza.
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I don't that was a really dumb joke, but they all sounded the same.
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So no loud Proud American Express.
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So we're gonna have to get creative.
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I have uh a few options, a few tricks up the sleeve.
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But um we're gonna do it, man.
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We're we have submitted ourselves, or shall I say, we submitted applications, were approved, and committed ourselves to two events for the month of November.
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So Lao Proud American will happily be returning to the great city of Bangor, and we will be in the Bangor Mall.
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We have rented a spot and a storefront uh for two weekends in Bangor.
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Um, so check us out at the Bangor Mall.
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Off the top of my head, I think it's like the 7th and 8th, and then like 15th, 16th, something like that.
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It's two days, uh, two Saturdays and Sundays coming up in the next couple of weeks.
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So look for us there.
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And really, I'm saying these things and I'm telling you this about our business and our schedule and the fact that we're overcoming obstacles because we have our eyes set on bigger and better.
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We have our eyes set on our best year yet.
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We also have our eyes set on reality, which says if you don't commit, if you don't take on these events, you won't make it.
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You have put yourself in a financial situation where you need to make more money than you ever have over the winter to try to live the way you like to live.
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And I'm not living outside my means when I say I'm just trying to pay my bills and to feed my family and to have holidays with our family to enjoy Christmas.
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With all that said, there's a lot that has to be done, there's a lot that has to be paid.
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We've had a difficult season, so I've set myself up to have to do these things.
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And I'm saying all of this because I'm positive, because I'm optimistic, because I'm confident, and I realize that my outlook when it comes to life and circumstances and situations has gotten stronger and it has gotten better.
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And I want to share some of those things with you.
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I also think it's funny in life that um like learning lessons and things come to you when um when you need them.
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And it can be random things, right?
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It can be um spiritual, it can be motivational, it can be by happenstance, it can be by fate.
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Things kind of happen.
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And we can get into all the different ways, but what I want to tell you is oftentimes I'll pick a book and I'll start getting into this book and you know, and listening or reading or whatever, and there's gonna be sections and chapters that really just relate to what it is that you're going through and that you're growing through.
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And uh right now I'm actually into a book by Curtis James Jackson.
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Now, for all of you that heard the intro and are hip hop fans, you should know that there, folks, is 50 cent.
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So far, I'm really digging this book.
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The name of the book is The 50th Law, and it basically goes hand in hand with um like all these laws of power and different laws that you know powerful, motivational, successful people tend to live by, and this book really adds to it.
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So it is the 50th law by 50 Cent.
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And if you know of 50 Cent and you see him and the Empire that he has uh built for himself, without digging too deep into it, 50 Cent um came from you know being on the streets as a drug dealer, uh trying to make ends meet, to you know, releasing a rap album right before trying to get that album released.
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Um basically is um has assassins try to take him out.
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He gets he gets shot in the face, like um basically this near-death experience where he certainly should have died.
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And in that time, 50 decides, I'm not gonna live in fear, I'm not gonna run from fear, I'm gonna embrace it and I'm gonna use it to my advantage.
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And he takes this negative situation, this near-death experience, this time when you should be you know fearful for your life and and hiding, and he says, you know what?
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All these record labels and these these uh these music, you know, artists and and you know um producers and such, none of them want to work with me, none of them want to showcase me because they feel like I'm troubled, because you know, I have these people that are out to get me.
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So he records his own music and he just starts putting it out and he starts giving things away for free and just creating a name for himself and one that forces people to um have to listen, to have to pay attention.
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And because he's not out there in the public eye, because he could be shot at again, the curiosity grows, right?
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And and the things that he's saying, I think the first song he came out and said was was F U, basically.
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And um people just wanted to scoop all this stuff up because they didn't know how much longer before this guy gets shot at again, how much longer will he be here?
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Um, is this guy going to be murdered?
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We need to get all of this um this music and and know as much about him as we possibly can.
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And that not knowing, that scarcity created um a lot of desire, and it created a a following.
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And and and because of that, all these people that you couldn't go see 50 on a concert, but as music was being played in the streets of New York, everywhere, it really just started to build this this tribe of people that were were just longing to hear from 50 Cent.
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Eminem saw this, capitalized it, and uh signed him to the label and the you know the rest is history.
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But 50 Cent goes on to be a very successful businessman.
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And um if you just think about that, right?
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You just think about him coming from the worst of situations, the the you know, difficult upbringing that he had, to being on the cusp of the greatest break in his life, to then being at the brink of death, and then taking the time to say, I'm not giving up on my dreams, I'm going headfirst into this.
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A person that can do that and then become one of the most successful rappers of all time and an extremely successful businessman.
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I'm gonna listen to what he has to say.
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So the 50th law by 50 Cent, the chapter that I'm stuck on, that I'm focused on, that I want to share with you, is called Turn Shit into Sugar.
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I think that uh a lot of us have grown up with the old analogy and the wise tale, the saying that says, I'm just gonna turn sugar into shit, right?
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But um I was listening to this chapter while I was in the office making some of my Charlie Craig tribute shirts, and when he just said turn shit into sugar, for some reason it just hit me at the right time.
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Uh granted it was um maybe 5 45 in the morning, and um I guess I was receptive to it because my ears perked up and my uh my spidey fences started tingling because I realized, wait a minute, man, right now with your circumstances, with your situation, you sir, are turning shit into sugar.
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I shall listen to this.
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And I will say I didn't get as many shirts done as I wanted because I found myself in between pressing stuff, just diving for the notepad and the and the pen to jaw jot down some notes and to really try to give myself some food for thought and some things to just kind of illuminate on to chew on.
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And um, let's dive into some of those.
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Here's a quote from 50 Cent into the book.
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Every negative situation contains the possibility for something positive.
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So if we think about 50 Cent and just that little story that I just gave to you, he gets shot at, almost dies, right when his you know record is about to be released, when this big opportunity is about to happen, and then everything, everything drops, right?
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The record label, everybody drops him.
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He's um at near death at this point.
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And if you listen to his words, every negative situation contains the possibility for something positive.
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This is about as negative as it gets.
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Your big opportunity, your big break is taken from you, and uh your life has been tried to be taken from you.
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You're on the brink of death.
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But he says there's something positive.
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And as we just kind of outlined, think about some of the positives there.
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That the the mystery, the wonder, the just the lack of knowing this whole situation, the details, it really piques on people's curiosity.
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When people start hearing, wait a minute, this guy was someone they tried to assassinate this guy?
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Like, why would they want him dead?
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What's going on here?
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And you start hearing these things, and then just when he says, you know what, I'm gonna face it, I'm gonna embrace it, I'm gonna go after it, I'm gonna continue to rap, and I'm gonna put out an FU track to the people that tried to kill me.
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And the new uniqueness in his voice after being shot in the face, everything about this ramps up curiosity, and with curiosity comes attention, and with attention becomes a following, and with a following, there comes needs.
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And when there's needs, there's people that are willing to respond to the needs and fulfill the needs.
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And when I say that, I mean there's people willing to pay for that.
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So that's how he gets noticed.
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That's how he takes a near-death negative situation and he finds a positive opportunity because every negative situation contains the possibility for something positive.
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It is an opportunity.
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In the words of 50 Cent, it's how you look at it that matters.
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It's not the circumstance, it's not the negative that you're going through, it's not the struggle that you're growing through, it's how you look at it that matters.
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If you look at a situation and you perceive in your mind that this is it, this is the end, this is final, then this shall be it.
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We've been talking about this for weeks.
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This too shall pass.
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If you put into your mind that this shall pass, it will pass.
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Remember, we've been saying since day one, whatever you perceive to be shall be.
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Whatever you decide in your mind is right, is right.
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That's the truth, folks.
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You get to be right.
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Whatever decision you make in your mind, you get to be right.
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So when a negative comes along, you get to be right based off of how you look at it.
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If you're gonna be positive and say, this too shall pass, let me find the opportunity, let me find the possibility for something positive, then you're gonna have one result.
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If you deem this as a situation, an obstacle, a failure, a letdown that you can't overcome, then you're right.
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You won't overcome it.
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Circumstances that you can't control, you can't let them control you.
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50 says circumstances you can't control, you just gotta make the best of them.
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If you spend your time worrying about the things that you can't control, then that time spent worrying will control you.
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Eventually, those circumstances are going to control you.
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With all that said, I want to interject here and bring back some of my business and that conversation.
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We're going to really start to connect the dots, pave the road, paint the picture, the story to be told.
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When we talk about me trying to get back on the road, those circumstances, not having a vehicle, all those things, realizing the responsibility and the commitments that I've made.
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When I take all those things, when I take those circumstances, my real life situation, and I apply them to this book, as we turn shit into sugar, we take the circumstances and we realize and frame our mind on the fact that it's not the circumstance, it's not the situation, it's how we look at it that matters.
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Here I am in a very tight situation, but mentally I've decided that in here somewhere there is the possibility of something positive.
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I just need to sort through the nonsense and start to identify the possibility.
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If we think about some of the business stuff, and I'm just gonna kind of jumble a lot of things here, and we're gonna throw a bunch of stuff at this modge podge hodgepodge puzzle, and we're gonna identify some possible positives in my situation right now.
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So with the business and the situation that we're in, I've done a couple things.
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Number one, I've done something for the first time in my business.
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I went ahead and did a pre-sale.
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And by doing a pre-sale, a couple things happen.
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Number one, it gauged the interest of the audience.
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It pulled the audience, it asked you guys, hey, do you like this product?
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Are you interested in seeing these Charlie Crook tribute items?
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If I do that and it fails, if I do that and not a lot of people respond to it, a couple things happen.
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Number one, I'm disappointed because I want to carry these items, but I'm not out the financial commitment on these items because I put them out there and y'all didn't want them.
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If I put them out there and some of you want them, it gives me enough money to bring in a small amount of them to fulfill the orders and maybe put a few on the shelf and see what happens.
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If I do a pre-sale and a lot of you want them, I can also do a couple things.
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Number one, it shows me these designs are right, the message is perfect.
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Y'all want these.
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Okay, great, all right, we're gonna get them.
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Here's the other side of the coin.
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You heard I'm tight financially.
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It's tough to make ends meet right now.
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I'm in a a certain just difficult situation.
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I have these circumstances, but by doing a pre-sale that I've never but done before, if it takes off and enough people love the designs and the message, and they jump on the pre-sale and spend the money, what happens?
00:19:19.680 --> 00:19:23.039
I get the money before I have to invest my own money.
00:19:23.279 --> 00:19:35.920
So I can take the money from the presale and buy the designs and the products and put them on the shelf to number one, fulfill the orders, and number two, try to live off some of that stock and help move us forward.
00:19:36.160 --> 00:19:51.440
So this is something new that we've never done before, but my circumstances, my situation, my financial uh constraint that I have forced me to analyze this stuff and come up with something new and a different way of doing things.
00:19:51.680 --> 00:19:53.759
So, with that said, how did it go?
00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:55.440
Pretty damn good.
00:19:55.920 --> 00:20:02.720
The pre-sale went well enough and went strong enough that I made enough money to buy all my designs for my shirts.
00:20:02.880 --> 00:20:05.920
I made an investment on the shirts on my end.
00:20:06.319 --> 00:20:17.119
And if I went into this with a um an entry-level small order on this, my cost would be higher, but my pre-sale would have absorbed all of that cost.
00:20:17.279 --> 00:20:22.160
But what I decided was these seem to be going really well based off of the initial sales.
00:20:22.240 --> 00:20:24.480
That tells me these are gonna continue to be well.
00:20:24.640 --> 00:20:36.240
Now, when I make the next commitment that I want to be in Bangor, it's important for me to go to the mall with these new designs because this test we just ran proved to me that these designs are gonna work.
00:20:36.319 --> 00:20:39.440
So, with that said, I doubled my anticipated order.
00:20:39.599 --> 00:20:49.200
I took the the proceeds from the pre-sale and I bought all my graphics, and then I just had to make the investment in the textile and the actual shirts themselves.
00:20:49.359 --> 00:20:50.960
Does that make sense to you guys?
00:20:51.279 --> 00:20:53.359
So this was something different.
00:20:53.519 --> 00:21:00.079
I identified a um a possibility to do something positive, and we tried it and it worked tremendously.
00:21:00.240 --> 00:21:09.519
I'm hopeful to do more of these, but I also have to be creative and restock some things, so I can't do um a lot of these right now, but I will you will see me sprinkle some more in there.
00:21:09.680 --> 00:21:14.079
But this is just an example of me looking at our circumstances and our situations.
00:21:14.400 --> 00:21:19.920
Now, another thing that's um going on here, and this becomes a twofold scenario.
00:21:20.160 --> 00:21:24.079
If you guys have been listening for a long time, you know a couple years ago I lost my dad.
00:21:24.240 --> 00:21:30.960
And if you've been listening for a long time, you would understand that this is all family land, and where I live, this is what my dad built.
00:21:31.039 --> 00:21:33.440
And the house that I grew up in is right next door to me.
00:21:33.519 --> 00:21:38.960
And my mother lives there, and we built me and my wife built right next door, and it's almost attached.
00:21:39.039 --> 00:21:44.400
And my business office is in my mom's basement, so we're all connected here, and I love it this way.
00:21:44.559 --> 00:21:46.799
My mom is here to help, and we're here to help her.
00:21:46.880 --> 00:21:48.559
It's a tremendous scenario.
00:21:48.720 --> 00:21:56.559
Some of the difficult things here is all of my dad's belongings, everything that he's ever um acquired in life is here, right?
00:21:56.799 --> 00:21:58.960
All those things that he's attached to is here.
00:21:59.119 --> 00:22:11.440
And I don't know how many of you out there are in my age bracket, but I think my parents come from a generation of um um where many of them were hoarders or pack rats.
00:22:11.519 --> 00:22:16.880
And I think like my dad, he passed away uh on the cusp of his 80th birthday.
00:22:17.200 --> 00:22:24.880
And um I just think that there was a time in my dad's life where he just had to be creative and make ends meet with whatever he had.
00:22:25.039 --> 00:22:34.400
So he held on to whatever he acquired because he knew somehow, some way, someday, he could flip that into money, he could fix something, he could overcome something.
00:22:34.720 --> 00:22:38.880
So with my dad's upbringing in that way, he's held on to so much stuff.
00:22:38.960 --> 00:22:40.799
It's overwhelming, it's suffocating.
00:22:41.119 --> 00:22:53.359
But also, as a son that was considered like a best friend relationship with his dad, it's hard for me to give up any of my dad's stuff.
00:22:53.440 --> 00:22:56.240
It's been hard for me to let go of any of his stuff.
00:22:56.480 --> 00:23:11.440
But this creates a vicious cycle, it's a suffocating cycle because they have all these things that are that are cluttered and overtaking um our spaces and our freedoms, but it's also overtaking my mind because I'm seeing them and I'm thinking about them.
00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:15.200
I'm also not okay with parting with them, getting rid of them.
00:23:15.440 --> 00:23:23.440
There's all this stuff that goes on in my mind, and there's so many things that, hey, I know this is worth something, but I don't really know what it is or what it does.
00:23:23.599 --> 00:23:25.599
I don't know how much this is worth.
00:23:25.839 --> 00:23:30.000
If I just give it away for nothing, am I being taken advantage of?
00:23:30.240 --> 00:23:34.720
If I try to put it out there for what I think it's worth, is am I just going to continue to hold on to it?
00:23:34.880 --> 00:23:38.799
So all this has been a vicious cycle in my mind.
00:23:39.119 --> 00:23:47.440
And with my circumstances, with the situation, with what I've backed myself into, I forced myself to let go of some things.
00:23:47.599 --> 00:23:50.799
I forced myself to start hauling some things to the dump.
00:23:50.880 --> 00:24:01.119
I'm forcing myself to haul some things to the junkyard, and I'm forcing myself to sell some things, and with those, those finances, it results in a couple of things.
00:24:01.359 --> 00:24:14.000
Half that money is going to my mother for her to um pay bills and do house repairs, and half of that is going to me and my family to um come above water, to come out of the red, to get things figured out.
00:24:14.319 --> 00:24:19.039
So we're trying to do those things, we're trying to make those choices.
00:24:19.359 --> 00:24:26.640
And um, this week was a big accomplishment for me because I sold a tractor that me and my father bought together.
00:24:26.960 --> 00:24:39.599
We bought this tractor together, and um it was the first tractor that the two of us have ever had together, and um, it was tremendous, but it died on us in the middle of a job, and we've spent years trying to figure it out.
00:24:39.759 --> 00:24:48.880
We've had Mechanic beyond mechanic try to figure it out, family and friends try to figure it out, and it's always resulted in it not being fixed.
00:24:49.039 --> 00:25:03.759
But I couldn't get over the fact that me and my dad bought this together and it's just sat here and it's become an eyesore, and it's just begun to um become even more of a project and even more difficult to repair.
00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:05.359
So I said, you know what?
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