What If The Dream Costs Too Much To Keep

Week 317 And A Welcome

SPEAKER_01 0:00

As Low Proud American prepares for the greatest challenge and the biggest opportunity in this brand's history, there's a lot going on behind the scenes. Deadlines, timelines have a short on time. From break jobs to cruise ships to heartfelt emotional goodbyes, this week's episode of Share the Struggle Podcast runs the behind-the-scenes gamut of what exactly it takes to keep this brand rolling. 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. Uncomfortable conversations challenge you humble you and they build you. You are right where you need to be. Oh it is true. Girl, you know it's true. What's that, Bobby Brown? It is true. It's damn true. Why? Because I love you. Y'all know it's true. To all my day ones, my loyal ones, those of you that have been here each and every week for over six freaking years. And to all my newcomers. So thank ya. And me love ya. Welcome. That is head podcast. Name is Shay the Stuggle. I don't know where my um little Irish accent came in there. You know what it is? It's because it's episode 317. And we should be feeling lucky. 317, March 17th. Isn't that uh St. Patty's Day? Well, it's early. And I'm not too handy with a calendar or common sense, so I think that's accurate. You're steeping. Anyways, welcome to this here podcast. 317 consecutive weeks. Find all things podcast related at www.share the shrugopodcast.com. Welcome to all the new listeners. Uh we got some new places we can shout out real quick. Shelby, North Carolina, Hyde Park, New York, Oxford, Michigan, Kyoto Kyoto. How y'all do? Welcome to this here podcast. Man. It's another early morning here. I'm actually uh it feels like there's no middle road here, right? We never have a week where I'm like, wow, lovely little day, middle of the afternoon, plenty of time to spare. Just enjoying myself here. Having a lovely little podcast show with you.

The Sleepy Parenting Confessional

SPEAKER_01 3:20

No, it's always, oh boy. It's super right. I ain't uh I got about 17 minutes to finish the show. Or it's like, oh wow, it's 5 a.m. and uh I'm tired. It's pretty much kind of how we are operating as of late. And this would be another one of those a.m. morning wow, listen to me complain about how asleep I am shows. Because let's just have let's have a confessional. Let's go with a full frontal confessional. Let's take the Cabela's catalog, place the uh the hand on the catalog, raise my hand, beat little eyes to the sky. Truth from this guy. I'm a little sleepy uh for the reason of uh me child keeping us up last night. And uh I'm sure someday she's gonna listen to these and love the embarrassment that uh dad gets to share on these shows. But today's one of those mornings uh that I bring my mom to work, so it's uh you know a 5 a.m. morning. And uh last night, first off, the queen was in a tremendous mood all day long, and she was having a great evening, she was uh super affectionate and awesome, and as it was time to go to sleep, she started um you know getting up and complaining about having to poop, okay? P to the O to the O to the P. If you ask me, she had to poop. So um she's having some belly pain, and uh, you know, we're trying to soothe her and get her comfortable, and then we try to go to bed, and she's watching Garfield, she loves loves Garfield, and uh every time she would kind of get cozy in and ready for sleep, she would just kind of wake up a discomfort and um try to leave the bed and walk around, and then and it just got really sad and painful, you know. So here's uh mom and dad and the baby out in the living room uh trying to get her feeling better. She's taking medicine, we're trying to get her bouncing on bean bags and all these things, and and uh Allie's like, you probably should go to bed. I mean, it's after midnight, and I'm like, Oh boy, okay, yeah, I didn't realize the time here. And Allie comes up with a game plan as Paisley's just super discomfort, you know, just super uncomfortable and just um just not having it, you know. So she says, We're just gonna we're gonna take a hot bath and uh soothe her belly, and I'm just gonna get in there with her and make her stay in the in the warm water and get her feeling better. You try to get some sleep. So um, this is probably 12.30 or so. Allie's being um, you know, the amazing mom she is, and she's jumping in the tub with the little one, and uh, I'm starting to try to get some sleep. All I can recall is at about 1 a.m. Uh there's some there's some rustling, some hustling, some screaming, the tub time's over, and then I hear what appears to be a two by four hitting the floor in the um bathroom, and that was the queen relieving the the poo. Oh my god. Trust me, I didn't get up to uh assess it, to view it, or to cut it in half to count the rings to see how old it is. I didn't want nothing to do with that. I was just thankful that everybody in the household was going to bed. So sometime after 1, 1.30, I don't even know what time it was. Finally got to sleep, up at 5, bring my dukes to work, and um here I am now recording uh this here episode. So um, yeah, here we are, feeling

Cram Jam Week And Big Stakes

SPEAKER_01 6:55

a little sluggish, but there's no rest for the wicked because this is cram jam week 26. We have uh so much going on, and by this time next week, I will be in Hamburg, New York. I will be setting up at the Erie County Fair with my brother, Mr. Brian Pomolo, my road dog that goes everywhere. Um, he puts his life on hold to help keep this business going two years in a row. He's stopped everything he was doing, him and his boy Zach, and headed to Daytona with me this time around. He's headed to New York, and we are preparing for the biggest greatest challenge and opportunity this business has ever freaking had. As we prepare for the 1.2 million, or in the words of the rock, the 1.2 million of people. There's a lot that goes into this, and I'm gonna tell you, I'm sitting here as I'm recording, and there's a packet of paperwork um on my printer that's like 40 pages long of all the requirements and things that have to be done, and um as I'm just looking at that, I'm thinking about the checklist things that I have not completed that I need to get on the horn with for states and different things, and man, it there's there's a lot, and um that has me distracted now because I'm realizing you gotta call the state of New York about sales tax. Uh yeah, lots of awesomeness, okay? Isn't that lovely? See how you get distracted by um you know craziness and things you have to do. But there's so much that goes into this um particular event, more requirements and uh things asked of me that have never been at events before, but I think that's all preparing me for the craziness that's gonna happen. So there's a lot going on behind the scene, and and um what I kind of want to just do is hover around a few things and drill into some of the chaos that's been my life, highlight some of the good things that have been going, um, and and discuss the negatives, but uh uncover the positives. You know what I'm saying? There should always be that silver lining, there should always be that dose of hopium. It's our opportunity, our responsibility, um, and hopefully our ability to seek, search, and find the silver lining, and then uh cling to that and hope and pray that that's um you know that that that truth in that uh that darkness that you need to cling to to figure things out. So that's where we're headed today, man. I'm in the office today recording because as soon as I'm done, I'm gonna turn on this heat press and we're gonna get to work. And I've got um stacks of uh apparel sitting around, I've got cases of clothes, and today I believe there's another 10 or 12 cases of apparel on its way. And um, it's chaos, right? It's utter chaos. So part of the scenario is if you're gonna go into an event and you set this lofty goal for yourself, you need to have a very lofty amount of inventory to support that goal, and that's the the greatest struggle that I'm facing right now is as Low Proud American is having a um a really good year. Um we are what is this? Is this August, right? So we're on month eight. So if we finish off and look at the previous seven months, six of those seven months, Low Proud American has experienced growth over last year. Last year, 2025, was the greatest net sales year in the history of the business. Obviously, our our costs and stuff were higher, so profitability, all that aside, if I'm just looking at sales, our greatest net sales gear in the history of the business. So we set the bar last year, and this year we're exceeding it to the rate of six out of the seven months we've been up. So we're experiencing a good year, but we're trying to also dig ourselves out of the hole that we've created over the past few years. And when you're a small business owner and you're flying by the seat of your pants and you're chasing your hopes and dreams, your personal life, your business life, all your life becomes one. And um, the downfall to that is that your finances all become one. And I put myself in a really difficult situation. And this year I've been working myself out of that situation, and I alleviated a lot of um the stress and frustration that I had to survive through during the winter time. So by being able to do that, it's created this um this optimism, it's created this relief, it's allowed me to breathe a little. But as I get ready to go to this event and I have this massive number in mind, now I'm not gonna get too in depth as to where I uh think these things can be or what I'm shooting for, but um based off of the size of this fair, it should be far greater than the Freiburg fair for me, but I refuse to forecast a number tremendously higher than my greatest event that I've ever had every single year. So if I can go into this event and hope to do what I do at the Freiburg Fair, um, anything over that would be tremendous. But the amount of inventory that I traditionally have on my shelf by the time I get to the Freiburg Fair, um, at the start of this process to get ready for this event, I was maybe a third of the way there. So you can't hit a

Inventory Pressure And The Debt Loop

SPEAKER_01 12:40

number that you want to hit when you don't have enough product on the shelf to hit that number. Now, um, just in simple math scenario, if you want to sell five items, you can't have six on the shelf. Right? If you want to sell five items, you might need to have 15 or 20 on the shelf. So when you start to multiply that math scenario by thousands of dollars, it gets to be pretty damn tough. So all those frustrating tipping points, those um just trigger scenarios that I've had last year that I had to scratch claw and and and drag my way through that I've alleviated for this year, in order to get ready for this event, I've just put them all right back to where they were. And that not only has me scared, it has my family scared. And you look at it and you say, Well, I should be able to do this amount, and when I come out of there and I pay that stuff off, then there should be this amount of profit to help to kind of get me ahead. But the vicious cycle in the apparel business is well, when you come out of there, let's say you had a tremendous time and you sold all this um this the the this apparel, you still have to put half of that back on the shelf, you still have to replace that. So the vicious cycle for a small business is let's say you have a credit card or you have a few credit cards and then you um start to max those things out. Let's just take a simple number, okay? Um, let's just say you put $10,000 of debt um on yourself to go into this um this event. Now, if you go into this event and you have a great successful event and you sell so much of it, um you you sell all that ten thousand dollars that you put on the shelf, you look at it and say, Great, I got my money back. Um I paid that uh that card off. Um let's let's keep it rolling here. Now we have that chunk of profit. But here's the vicious cycle in an apparel business. When I get home, I have a week before I go to one of my other large events of the year. I need to replenish and restock what um I just sold, right? So that $10,000, let's just say, and we're just talking about one card scenario here as just a hypothetical. You make all your money, you pay that $10,000 off, but now you have that $10,000 less on the shelf, you got to put it back on the shelf. So what do you do? You take all your profit and buy the product, um, cash, and leave that card um in a good position for you to get through the wintertime. Or when you come out of there, do you realize I can't really afford to do that? And then you go right back to square one, and then you start racking those debts back up again. That's the vicious cycle. That's the hardest thing about this business. The inventory is the absolute hardest struggle about this business. You're constantly chasing your tail, trying to find that happy medium, and um, that has been extremely difficult. And as the business grows, as we hit bigger numbers and as we carry more inventory and we take more chances and we try to overhaul more designs, it begins to catch up with you. And I feel like I'm at that tipping point where I don't really know where this goes. Do you get swallowed up by it, or do you do you achieve massive success? And some of the comfort levels that um I would have gone into this event with are being removed by silly things that go along with this event. Now, um part of it is um just the cost of doing business. If you can imagine, if you're going to an event that um has 1.2 million people, the cost to attend that event as a vendor to um you know reap the benefits of that population is gonna be pretty high. So I have a I have a really high rent um to get there. I have a high cost to also get there, right? Um Brian's gonna be bringing the RV, and I, by the grace of God, will have the Loud Pride American Express back on the road, um, which is another massive expense that is proving to be um more expensive than I had um forecasted, projected, or hoped for. So, in the meantime, of all of this apparel scenario that's going on, I like to print these schedules. And the schedules are you need to get this much printed by this day, these are your cutoffs to order this for this day. So I try to operate by all this. Now, in the meantime, we need to get the Loud Proud American Express rocking and rolling. So uh Noah from Torque Solutions, he's back on the grind trying to um figure this out, and my cousin Joey, uh mobile mechanic, he's also trying to help out to uh get this bus back on the road. So the scenario that we created was let's get to work on this truck and let's um get it with a week or week plus for me to drive it around and make

Bus Repairs Collide With Deadlines

SPEAKER_01 17:55

sure everything's okay um to prevent any um any mishaps going on the road. So we ordered or I ordered a um ABS pump and module from a junkyard in Pittsburgh over the winter time uh to save us some money. So I got that, and then we decided we needed all new brakes, all new rotors, all new calipers, all new brake lines, all the way around. And this is a um it's a school bus, right? So your brake line cables are pretty damn long. So um I make a uh big purchase of parts. Noah orders some additional parts. My cousin Joey says if you bring it over to uh to my garage, we can work on it there. Now, the scenario is um the bus is dead in my in my in my house in my driveway, but we had a um scheduled bunch of rain was in the forecast that was coming, and um we just needed a dry, clean environment to get this going. And at the time, remember I have no brakes, right? Um my ABS is unplugged and I have very little brake. And um for me to drive that to uh Noah to his place, um, not ideal, and also to pay the money to have it towed, even though Torque Solutions also has a tow company, um something this large, it's it's not gonna be a good thing. So my cousin Joey rents a garage bay just about two miles from here, and with my ADS system being unplugged, I'm in limp mode. So I had to drive the bus to the garage at about five miles an hour the whole way, with the wife uh leading the way. So I get it there, and uh one thing that my cousin didn't inform me of is yeah, we can only use the garage bay when the people I share the garage with aren't using it during the day. So we found ourselves waiting till the evening or not starting until three, four o'clock every single day, which turned into us working till 12, 1 o'clock at the nighttime, and then you know, getting up at 5 and and doing all these these fun things and trying to find time to press and and work on things in between. While this is going on, while we're battling um all this stuff with the truck here, um my schedule, my calendar, I mean, he's the deadline, these are when you need to order things, is uh is getting pushed behind because if I don't have a way to get there, some of these things are irrelevant. So um what you have for this ideal scenario just keeps getting kicked around and pushed around. So I'm supposed to have my designs, my last um round of designs ordered um on Monday, and that turns into just not being the case, and then by the next another day with the dealing with the truck stuff, it's not getting done. So something that I wanted to have ordered on Monday, on Wednesday, Thursday still isn't done. And um all of my things have been like that. Everything gets pushed back, and then you start to really feel overwhelmed and stressed by all that's that's going on around you, and and trying to figure these things out. And as you know that you're trying to prepare yourself for the greatest challenge and the biggest opportunity of this business's history, knowing you don't have enough inventory currently on the shelf to make it, knowing that you don't currently have the vehicle fixed to make it, all this starts to weigh on you. I've been so uh grateful and thankful for Noah and for Joey to be um you know pulling these late nights and and and trying to um you know get the bus back on the road. And and the bus has met us with a lot of resistance. You know, you you're doing things, and then as you're working on stuff, you're finding other things like oh, this needs to be replaced, and this should be done too. And and then you realize in order to change the uh brakes and rotors on the rear of this bus, you have to disassemble the entire axle to get it apart. And all these all these issues, and then part stores giving you the wrong parts and Um it's it's just been it's just been overwhelming. And one of the last nights we were working on the garage, we get everything like working on the truck in the garage, we get everything basically set, and um realize that um O'Reilly Auto Parts gave us one of the wrong brake hoses, and um that one was was leaking. That turns into well, let's get the truck out of the garage, and in the morning we'll um try to uh get that pot replaced. That brings us all the way to Friday. And um Friday I have um some obligations. I have uh some appointments to bring my mother to, and I have a um charity event DJ gig in the evening. So I don't have uh much time in the middle of the day for to really resolve any of this, and I'm also trying to push through my final design order that was due on Monday here now on Friday. So I'm working on those things. Noah reaches out and says, Hey man, I got the right hose. Can you come over and give me a hand? And uh so I go over and meet him, and then uh I'm rushing home trying to get my orders put through and then

DJ Setup Panic Before Departure

SPEAKER_01 23:10

get all my DJ gear loaded up to go uh to DJ on the Casco Bay Lines. Now, Casco Bay Lines is uh is a is like a big, I don't know if what you'd call it what type of boat it is, because I'm not a I'm not a boat person, but it's like a it's these big booze cruises on these big massive um boats um in in Portland. It's called Casco uh the Casco Bay Lines. It's a pretty incredible thing to do, and to be asked to DJ on it for this charity that is really near and dear to my wife. Um it's a special thing, special opportunity. But I gave up a lot of DJing. I passed over um most gigs for the year. I have not DJ'd in months. I'm not even confident that I've DJ'd this year. I think it was probably oh man, maybe Christmas party season last year was the last time I DJ'd. So part of my schedule is that I should have taken my DJ equipment out, tested it, make sure everything works, make sure there's been no updates to computers that prevent software from working, and remind myself how it works. But here we are, because we spent time on the bus, now there's no opportunity for me to practice any of my DJing. So I'm pushing my order through, getting that completed at the very last minute, running around grabbing my equipment, unable to locate the hard drive with all my music on it. My wife's officer she's doing to help me find that. To get loaded up, to know that the window for me to be in Portland, in the old port, which is super busy traffic, find a place to park, unload the gear, get on the boat. My time to get on the boat is 4 30. The boat leaves sharp at 5 30. No ifs, ends, or buts about it. It's 5 p.m. and we're not on the boat yet. So now I know I have 30 minutes to unload everything, set up everything, test fire everything, and be rocking and rolling in 30 minutes. I was straight panicking. I'm pouring sweat. I'm wearing jeans and I'm trying to be somewhat professional. I didn't need to do that. Um, but I am pouring sweat, it's a million degrees, and I am scrambling. Allie's running around trying to find a parking spot, all the lots are full. She found parking for $50, $50, $5.00, and um, I'm scrambling trying to put everything together. It's been so long since everything's been assembled. I can't get my um phone to actually connect to my speakers. I'm struggling with that. Ali gets that resolved. I have a bad USB-C port on my MacBook that all of a sudden doesn't want to open up any of my DJ software. So my board's not working. The boat is starting to move, and at this moment, I don't have any sound, I don't have any music, I don't have a connection. I am sweating, I am stressing. There's people walking around looking at me, uh asking questions, and I am I am in it. I am feeling it. I am completely overwhelmed. And um, it's one of those things where you're like having a meltdown and you're literally looking at your computer saying, This might be the absolute last time that I do this. This might be it. I don't know if uh I'm ever gonna DJ again. Like, I don't know if I want to deal with this stress right now. I should be home working on my damn business. That's what's going through my mind. As we pull out of the harbor, we get the music working. Major shout out and thank you to my wife for uh helping to keep me cool and to help um troubleshoot, navigate, and get me through the chaos. But we start playing and we start, we start floating. And I'm gonna tell you, you wanna you want to master some difficulty level when it comes to uh being a DJ trying to number one, let's be 6'4, uh 300 plus, hovering over a tiny computer screen, trying to read with choppy C's. Okay, I got banana hands on tiny keys, and I'm trying to navigate this and do everything, and we are leaving the docks pretty damn choppy. And uh, you know, you have some times where you're like you're going to lean in to switch songs, and all of a sudden you're like, Whoa, that's a wave. Hey, that's a wake, that'll wake you up, and you're floating around, bobbing around, bobbing and weaving.

The Best DJ Moment Ever

SPEAKER_01 27:40

But I gotta tell you, it was the greatest DJ experience of my life and of this so-called DJ career of mine. To be out on the ocean, the views, the breeze, playing the tunes, people dancing. First, you start off with just like islandy feel type music, Ricky music, cocktail aura music, and you're just taking in the sights and you're enjoying yourself and you're seeing people sing along. And then you start to fill the dance floor a little bit. And I'm gonna tell you, I I didn't know what to expect, and I brought um I brought, you know, dance floor lights and up lights and all this stuff, and and the guy, the captain of the boat, I was talking to him and he said, Yeah, you won't need any of that stuff. Uh nobody really dances on here in the daytime. And I took that as a challenge because by the last few hours of this trip, we had what we would consider a full dance floor based off the amount of people that were on the boat, and that was pretty damn incredible. And um the greatest experience of my life when it comes to DJing happened on this boat. First off, as I'm working and setting the scene and the mood to be able to be behind the board, having a nice cold beer, mixing up some tunes, and looking at my wife and seeing her just taking it all in, just taking a moment, watching all the views, leaning out the window, taking photos, just absolutely enjoying herself. That just made it such a special, special moment. And my favorite part of the night was um at the end of the night, we were we were rolling back to the to the into the harbor, into the docks, whatever you call it, and we had uh Michael Jackson bad playing. Imagine this big old cruise ship, whatever kind of ship, okay. Big old booze cruise rolling into the harbor, old port, Portland, Maine. Slow speeds just creeping in, volume set on high, bass, thumping, dance floor, rocking, windows open, we're pulling in. People are gathered around having dinner, hanging out at bars, doing whatever, and they hear this rolling in, slow speed, slow motion. We are the center of attention. Everybody's staring, everybody's clapping, everybody's having a good time. Any of these small boats coming in alongside us, they can hear it. They are dancing in their boats. We're having dance-offs with people in the boats outside and the people on the ship inside. There's a bachelorette party building up a boat, the whole bachelorette party out there is dancing, looking at us, wishing they were a part of what it is that we're doing. Absolutely freaking incredible. Goosebumps. When I turn around and I look and see the city of Portland as we're rolling in, as we're coming in to dock, slow speed, slow motion, Michael Jackson in the background, everybody looking. We are the center of fun. The absolute coolest experience of my DJing life. It was freaking incredible, dude. Uh, the wife has some video of it. I've got a I I haven't even seen it yet. But that was an absolute highlight, man. I just blown away. Absolutely blown away. It was the coolest, coolest experience. We had an amazing time. And um, as we get off the boat and load everything up and head home, I get home to a phone call from my cousin that says, hey man, come and grab the bus. I think we're good. Um, you know, we've got

Brake Failure And A Bad ABS Pump

SPEAKER_01 31:55

the the brakes all taken care of. Now uh tomorrow you have an appointment. Go drop it off and get the um get the computer flash basically, Vin match the uh ABS system. So he comes over with the bus and then I give him a ride home, and uh, I've got brakes and everything feels pretty good, but something feels a touch off to me. The pedal feels a little bit strange, and I had mentioned um to Allie when I was in bed, like something didn't seem right, but maybe when it gets you know flashed this weekend, everything will be alright. So um next morning I get in the get in the bus and we're going to drop it off at another garage that has a computer to do what we needed to do because the um the Chevy dealership is saying they're the only ones that can do it. Um so we're we get in the truck or I get on the and the bus and Allie's gonna meet me. And uh the good news is we don't have limp mode anymore. We can actually travel at a normal speed, and uh everything's going good until I'm at a red light and I'm messing with the radio, and then I realize I think I'm rolling. I feel like I'm rolling right now. And then I look up and sure enough, I'm rolling forward. So I push the the brake pedal down a little bit more, go back about my business, and I realize I'm rolling again. And before you know it, I'm a couple feet away from a car, and I've got no more brake pedal to press, and I'm just praying that that light turns green before I take this bus and push a Prius into the intersection. So thankfully, by the grace of God, the light turns, and um I get the bus to where I need to be, drop it off, and he says, you know, I'll take a look on Monday, plug it in and get things um situated. That turns into a phone call Monday morning that says, Hey man, I got some bad news. That ABS pump that um that you bought is uh is junk. It it's kaput, man. It's not pumping one bit. And you also now have a uh speed sensor issue, which is another few hundred dollars to fix. And oh, by the way, my time to look at it's another three hundred dollars. So y'all already heard the long list of parts that I've um thrown out to you, right? Brakes, brake pads, rotors, um, calipers, brake hoses, brake lines, um, replaced evac lines, um all these random things. ABS pump, module, now that's junk. Now you also need a speed sensor, all these things, man. Everything adds up, and then it all takes time. And um, so now I'm left right back at square one, and we start looking around and nobody's calling around trying to find another another used pump, and then I just start to think about the fact that if I have to drive somewhere, we found some in New York by the time I make the trip there and back, the cost of fuel, not knowing if these parts even work, paying to overnight some from across the country. Am I gonna get the same scenario that I'm you know be raided back in? So we end up finding brand new parts from Rock Auto, and there's another um, you know, $900 before you get a core charge, and you find a way to factor that in and to and to add that as well, and those parts should be here today. And I'll get those over to Noah and he'll get he'll get back on it. And um but this bus that we thought was gonna be done in one or two days a week ago, here we are a week later, and it still has time to go. And then when I get it, I still have to drive it and make sure everything's okay, and then I still have to load it and organize it and figure it all that out, and I still have to make and press and build and do everything I need to do for all this apparel. My order that went through went through late. So now product that should have been here, designs that should have been here for me to work on, they're not gonna ship until tomorrow. They're gonna take two days to get here, and I'm gonna have hundreds of items to make over the weekend, all while trying to stay on top of the items, the hundreds of items that I have to make uh this week. Today I think I have 12 or 15 cases of apparel coming in from New York on a UPS truck. It's absolute utter chaos trying to make this happen. It's overwhelming, it's stressful, it's time consuming. I don't even know any other ways to paint the scenario. I really don't. I don't know what else to say. It's hard to accurately, properly just explain, describe, paint the picture, pave the road of the chaos, the craziness, and the demands that are on me to make this happen. And now when you start to factor in the thousands of dollars in inventory, the thousands of dollars in rent, the thousands of dollars of vehicle expense, I'm gonna go into the biggest event, the greatest opportunity for this business, for this brand, and I'm gonna hope to make enough money to break even. I'm gonna hope to make enough money to not sink my business.

Reframing Fear Into A Plan

SPEAKER_01 37:30

That's a far cry and difference from where I was a couple months ago when I found out about this this opportunity, because this opportunity was what I needed. This opportunity is what my family needed to catapult my business and my life and and and my situation into the direction it needed to be. This was that factory reset, the greatest opportunity and thing to happen to my business and my family and the history of this business. This was it. And now here I am back in a situation where I need to go in and make tens of thousands of dollars just to earn my investment back for this event. That folks is discouraging. That is disheartening, and it takes the the love, the fun, the joy, and the excitement out of the challenge. I spent some time last night in my feels when all of this hit me, and if you can hear it in my voice, I still kind of am in this off in in this moment right now as I'm as I'm putting these things out there and and realizing all the weight that I have yet again placed on my shoulders and on my family. It ain't easy. This ain't easy. This ain't for the faint of heart. Being a being a small business owner trying to launch a brand, this ain't easy. Understanding, realizing, and trying to work through the restraints, the constraints that inventory places on this business has been my greatest challenge. As I said to start the show, I mentioned you need to find these opportunities and you need to you need to find the light, you need to seek it out, and and you need to focus on the positive. When it comes down to the vehicle expense and the situation at hand, I'm focusing on the fact that that ABS pump that I bought and reinstalled didn't work. It failed, but it failed before it left home. It failed before I went on the road. I'm about to drive about 10 hours away from home with one heavy ass vehicle that can't really be towed. Had that happened somewhere else, I'm crushed, my event's over, and I have no opportunity to recoup to earn this money back. It happened here, and now we made the decision to go brand new, spend more money to go brand new, and to take any of that worry away to get me um back to feeling confident. And when you spend thousands of dollars to fix something, you should feel confident in it, and this will do that. I'm gonna be at a point with this bus where just about everything is new brakes, rotors, calipers, brake lines, brake hoses, ABS pump, module, water pump, fuel pump, alternator, batteries, whatever. It's all brand new. Okay? Next year I'll put new tires on it, and then it'll all be new, right? So you're taking some of that worry away. This truck should run for a long time. I can't take the expense of this vehicle and place all that pressure on the success of one event. If I knew last year when this truck broke, when I put another three or so thousand dollars into it then, plus what I have to put into it now, I would have cut my losses then. I never would have continued putting the money into it. I would have just moved on. But at that point last year, we were already thousands of dollars in trying to fix the vehicle. It was hard for me to cut my losses then. So here we are. This was the only option. This was the option. This is what I had to do. But now I should have something that can be reliable and it can start making its money back. I can't put that expense and that responsibility solely on this event. But if I do, even if I come out of this event and I pay off all the debt that I added on inventory and I pay off the rent and I pay off the vehicle expense and I have some money to pay some bills, I gotta look at that as a positive. I need to set my sights on that being a positive. And hopefully just knowing that my two normal largest events of the year are back to back right after this. Like typically, my two largest events of the year are the Windsor Fair and the Freiburg Fair, and those are right after this new fair that I'm about to do. And if I can get into this fair, get there, and have a successful event, make this money back, make this investment back, get on the right side financially of this vehicle expense, set myself up by paying some of the bills, maybe putting a mortgage payment aside, doing some of those things, and I come out of there in a better position, and then I roll into my next two largest events, make a game plan for the inventory. I'm putting myself in the position to come out of my last two events much better off than last year, and then now I'm prepared for next year, knowing that hey, when you go back to this new big fair, you've been there before, you know what to expect, you can forecast better, and you can plan better. I got the news for this event when I already had to be on the road for eight weeks. I'm doing the best I can, hell or high water. I am gonna swim and we are gonna survive. And this is all gonna come together, and we're gonna make this work. This is still the biggest and greatest challenge and opportunity. Yes, I'm a wee bit scared. I'm a hell of a lot nervous. But I'm still encouraged. I just gotta shake the dust off. Give this stress, give this anxiety, give this worry, give this doubt to God, and get to work. That's what I need to do. That's what I'm here to do. And that's what I'm about to do.

A Hard Goodbye For The Family

SPEAKER_01 44:23

With all that considered, all that aside, today's also a difficult day. Because today we as a family have made the difficult decision to have my father's dog laid to rest. She is um struggling. Her quality of life isn't what it should be, or what she's accustomed to, what she deserves. It's been a very difficult decision, but that's where we're at. And that's going to happen today. So in the midst of all of this, all the pressure, all the stress, the loads of apparel coming today, the parts for the vehicle coming today, all the chores and things that need to be done today, all the requirements that need to be done today. This family needs to pause, give thanks, celebrate, love, and say goodbye. I'm getting emotional just talking about it because I haven't put the thought into it. We knew this was the decision to be made. But you tell yourself, uh, I'll worry about that when that day comes. I I I need to stay on course here. Well folks, that day has come. I often sit back and ask myself, how much more can I take? How much more should I subject myself and family to? I went through a few weeks where things were smooth, you know? And I felt so optimistic. If I just put the last few weeks under a microscope, you think about wheel falling off of a trailer, the hustle and bustle to to to find an axle, to prepare an axle, using different vehicles with um out registrations and inspections to get to an event, to sacrifice to risk it to get to an event, just to, you know, getting an axle fixed and slapped back into the trailer to drive in seven hours, to running out of fuel, to all the nights of no sleep, getting up five in the morning to run down to um event locations to set up, to be open, to make it work, to to deal with all the mishaps on the on the bus, the added expenses, to finding out you do all this work for the parts to be bad, to having things not show up, to maxing things out, to stressing yourself out, to then saying goodbye to a family member. And one that um really attaches you to your father, that reminds you of your father because she was one of his favorite things on this whole this whole world. The only way that I continue to get up each and every day and put one foot in front of the other is with a steadfast belief that if I can't do anything about it, if I can't resolve it all in the snap of my fingers, then the only thing I can do is to give it to God and trust that He has a plan and trust that I'm doing my best to live and fulfill it. And um I take this stress and this anxiety, and I constantly have conversations with God that say, I'm giving this to you, and I'm here to do the best I possibly can, and I beg of you to pull me through, and I trust in you what you're preparing for me. I trust in you, the abundance that you are going to bring to me

Why I Keep Choosing This Life

SPEAKER_01 49:10

and my family by me proving I am faithful, I am loyal, and I am dedicated. There's no peaks without valleys. I feel with some of the greatest difficulties they shall reveal the greatest triumphs. And that's what's being prepared. Today's been kind of a crazy whirlwind episode, but this is literally just what's happened in my life since the last seven days since we've talked. This is what goes on. This is me peeling the onion. These are the sacrifices. This is the life. I think about how difficult this is sometimes, and I think about the simplicity of going back to punching a clock, lowering my responsibilities, having money and finances to count on, to plan on, to forecast on. I think about those things. What I would be like, would I be a better father, husband, son? How would I be? But then I think about the experiences and the opportunities. I think about being on a booze cruise, pulling into a harbor, playing Michael Jackson, stopping everybody in their tracks, boats floating alongside, clapping and dancing. I think about those moments. But I also think about the view of this world and the reflection of my daughter's eyes. By the life that this business gives her to live. Last week I was getting a haircut at uh Main Street barbershop, and I was getting a haircut from one of my best friends, owner and barber, Ed Beckett, and we were talking, and I said to him, without even preparing my thoughts, it just came out and I said, you know what? I've really kept this business going, and I continue to claw and fight, I continue to take weeks at a time, or maybe I'm one week I'm sleeping on the back of a Yukon, or I'm in a hotel, or I'm in a camper, I'm away from home for eight weeks. I do all these things because of the experiences it gives my daughter. And I just think about the life that she lives and what she gets to see. And as I was talking to Ed, I just mentioned, hey man, this is this is a week's time, basically, for my daughter. Let me just explain this to you. One weekend, she's down east Maine, I guess she would call it, at a little festival, watching a hometown parade that goes on for an hour, at nighttime watching one of the best firework displays in the entire state, spending that weekend in a hotel bouncing around or running around like a little savage, to basically a few days later, staying in the camper at a fair, waking up in the morning, walking through the barns, talking to cattle and horses and pigs and chicken, and I should say chickens, chickens which you eat, right? Um just playing with the livestock, watching horse poles and cattle poles, just sitting around watching dirt track drag racing, to one morning being woken up by one of our friends asking her to come down to the track to jump into her race car to drive around to bring it to the starting line to stage it up. My little girl riding in a dirt track truck, a drag truck cruising around to then a few days later on a road trip with mom and dad out to New York to spend the weekend with your extended family, her godparents and her family from New York at the biggest car show in the Northeast Jompin' around raisin hack in a bounce house at the Lancer Inn while being serenaded to a private country concert from country singer, songwriter, and newfound brother of mine thanks to the road Daniel Johnson. That's my daughter's life, man. That's my daughter's life. One week in a hotel fireworks, parades. The next week camping at a fairgrounds, waking up playing with a livestock, riding around in race cars, watching drag racing. Another week later, a road trip to New York. More friends and family, the biggest car show you can imagine. Private country shows with a Daniel Fragen Johnson and a bounce house before you go to bed.

SPEAKER_02 55:04

That's my daughter's life. That's why I sacrifice.

SPEAKER_01 55:16

That's why I deal with distress.

Thanks, Follow Along, Final Words

SPEAKER_01 55:22

And that's why I need to end this podcast and get back to work. I love you guys. I appreciate you guys, and I thank you guys. Thank you for supporting my American dream.

SPEAKER_00 55:38

Now go wash your frigged hands, you filthy savage. That's it, and that's all, Biggie Smalls.

SPEAKER_01 56:00

If you're allowed Proud American and you find yourself to think more, find me on YouTube and Facebook and Loud Proud American on the Facebook. If you're a fan of the Grand Crackett, you want to find me on Instagram, Robbie Kids, a tickety talking on the TikTok, you can find me on both of those clouds underscore crowds underscore America. You are enjoying what you're hearing background, the dust truckers, facebook, dust. I truly thank you for supporting my American dreams.

SPEAKER_00 57:15

Now go wash your fucking hands, you filthy savage.