July 2, 2025 • 50 mins
Breaking a streak of bad luck doesn't require perfect circumstances – it demands a perspective shift that transforms how we experience life's inevitable challenges. As I celebrate the milestone of 260 episodes spanning five consecutive years of Share the Struggle, I find myself reflecting on a chaotic 24-hour period that perfectly illustrates this truth.
From malfunctioning equipment and surprise mortgage payments to vehicle breakdowns, the universe seemed determined to test my resilience. Yet through each frustrating moment, I discovered pockets of gratitude hiding in plain sight – the blessing of finding mechanical problems before they stranded my family on a lengthy road trip, meaningful conversations that might never have happened otherwise, and precious moments with my daughter that I'll cherish forever.
The hardest lesson I've learned since losing my father is captured in a simple phrase: "What I wouldn't do to do something I didn't want to do." Those frustrating chores and difficult interactions I once dreaded with him? I'd give anything to experience them again. This perspective has transformed how I approach daily challenges, reminding me that today's annoyances might become tomorrow's cherished memories.
We often postpone our happiness with phrases like "I'll be happy when..." or "I'll enjoy it when..." – dangerous mindsets that defer joy to some idealized future that may never arrive. Life doesn't have to be perfect for us to enjoy it. Perfect doesn't exist. The key is finding ways to celebrate milestones and count blessings even in imperfect moments.
Whether you're facing your own streak of bad luck or simply navigating life's everyday challenges, remember that the choice is yours – you can go through it or grow through it. Struggle becomes strength when we approach it with gratitude, perspective, and faith. As we mark five years of this podcast journey together, I'm grateful for every listener who has shared in the struggle – and the growth – alongside me.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Have you ever had a bad day, maybe a bad couple of
days?
What about a bad week?
Or even a bad month?
What do you do?
How do you get over it?
How do you pack up?
How do you move on?
Let's just say I've beendealing with my fair share of
bad luck and today we're goingto break the streak, we're going
(00:23):
to bust the slump and I'm goingto tell you how to put bad luck
in the dump.
Let me tell you somethingEverybody struggles.
The difference is some peoplechoose to go through it and some
choose to grow through it.
The choice is completely yours.
Which one you choose will havea very profound effect on the
(00:45):
way you live your life.
If you find strength in thestruggle, then this podcast is
for you.
Do you have a relationship thatis comfortable with
uncomfortable conversations?
Uncomfortable conversationschallenge you, humble you and
(01:05):
they build you.
When you sprinkle a little timeand distance on it, it all
makes sense.
Most disagreements, they stemfrom our own insecurities.
You are right where you need tobe.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
What it do, what it do Hot diddity.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Damn Good, lord almighty, am I so excited to be
back with you.
Oh, it's true.
It is damn true, because I missyou, boo, episode 260.
(01:53):
Two, six, hey, you know whatthat means by the art of bus
math.
If I were to take the number260 and let's say we divided it
Actually, let's not do thatDivision might not be my thing.
I'm not here to divide, I'm hereto unite.
I'm here to multiply, okay, Iam here to multiply positive
(02:14):
vibes.
So if I ask of you to take 52,because, why 52?
Because there's 52 weeks in ayear, am I right?
52 weeks?
That's how that works.
I know it's how it works.
Take 52, if you would, my goodman, my fair lady, if you would
take 52 and times it by five.
(02:35):
Why five?
Because five would signify fivebeautiful, long, luscious years
.
52 times 5 gives to you 260.
Y'all, do you believe it?
We achieved it 2-6-0.
(02:55):
Now, I may be mistaken here, butby the art of bus math, 52
weeks in a year times 5 yearsgives me 260 episodes In a year.
Times five years gives me 260episodes.
That means we have reached fiveconsecutive years of Share, the
Struggle podcast, this littlespiritual journey that we
started all the way back in thepandemic because we just could
(03:17):
not deal with not being together.
I could not handle not beingwith all y'all, could not handle
not being with all y'all.
So we started this show as away to stick together, as a way
to spread a positive vibe and togrow a positive tribe.
And here we are, five longyears later, boys and girls, I
(03:48):
am proud to say we have notmissed one weekly episode for
five long years.
That means that you can tune into share the struggle podcast.
One episode a week for fiveyears and if you keep listening
to the show, you couldtechnically do two weeks or
episodes a week for, you know,five more years if you want it.
Because we're just going to keepthis thing a-rolling.
(04:08):
Okay, we're just going to keepthis show rocking and rolling.
I got no plans of letting it go, because I have heard from many
of you and I've seen goodgrowth over the past few months.
We've got a lot of newlisteners joining us, so I just
wanted to say welcome aboard toall the new listeners.
Choo-choo, climb on in.
We are leaving the station andI must take the opportunity to
(04:34):
put my ones up To all youlistening out there, to all the
loyal ones, to all the day ones.
I know who you are.
There's a bunch of youlistening right now that you've
been here since July 2020.
You were here all the way backin episode one and here we are
on 260.
I acknowledge you, I love youand I appreciate you.
(04:55):
Put your ones up, celebrate itwith me, because if it wasn't
for you, there wouldn't be an us.
I'm here because of you.
I'm keeping this show rockingand rolling because of you.
260 episodes, that is oneepisode a week for five long,
beautiful years.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Oh, there he is, yeah , yeah, it's me, your favorite
little character.
Here I am.
Yeah, I'm the mom from NuttyProfessor and I'm here to say
look at him, oh, congratulations.
Look at him celebrating.
You guys, you can't see himBecause he's not on video, but
he's, he's cheesing, he's a bigcheese ball With his Budgy
(05:36):
little fists and little bicepsand his big old cheeks and
smiling Cheers.
Congratulations, big Ears.
Yeah, he did it.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Woo, we did it, 260.
And your face, I don't knowthat was for, but there's some
people out there those are forthe doubters and the haters out
there.
I mean, we got to.
Every once in a while you'regoing to, you got to rub the
dowels in it.
Okay, I'm clearly off thetracks, but it's hot and I'm
recording in the garage.
I'm sweating a little bitbecause I'm off schedule.
(06:06):
I'm off kilter.
I've been going through it.
Okay, I've been dealing withsome stuff.
Y'all Things haven't been goingaccording to plan, but I wasn't
going to leave this streakunattended.
Okay, I wasn't going to miss ourconsecutive streak for five
freaking years.
Because I'm getting dealt alittle bad hand, because I'm
(06:26):
experiencing some bad luck no, Idon't give a.
Hmm, he's a bad mother.
Watch your mouth.
See that what I did right there, I almost swore, because you
know what rhymes with luck andyou know I love to say it, but
I'm turning a new leaf.
I'm trying to do better y'all.
I know you don't believe it.
I probably don't believe iteither, but the reason I'm
(06:51):
saying all this is because I'vebeen dealt a little bad luck.
Maybe I earned some bad luck,maybe I deserve some bad luck,
but I've been going through it,okay, and I don't want to just
paint a big old, nasty recipehere.
I don't want to just open thefloodgates on the poop tank of
luck I've been going through.
So, no, I'm just going to sharewith you like a 24-hour period
(07:11):
to kind of set the scene, topave the road, to paint the
picture, to make sure thestory's told.
Okay, that's what we're going tobe doing here.
We're not talking about woe isme and oh, my goodness, wow, wah
, wah.
That's not what we're talkingabout.
I'm also not talking about bigdepressing stuff.
Okay, I'm not talking aboutmedical diagnosis.
(07:33):
I'm not talking about difficultdecisions.
I'm not talking about that.
I'm just talking about shit.
I can't believe that went wrongagain, type of stuff.
And I'm saying this because Iknow of all of you listening,
none of us are immune to badluck.
None of us are immune to alittle bullshit.
All right, I can still say shit.
I think that's fair enough.
(07:55):
I mean, I'm not.
I'm not a saint.
Okay, I'm trying to lay back onthe F-bombs so they have a
little more impact, but I'mstill going to say shit.
All right, anyways, so theyhave a little more impact, but
I'm still going to say shit, allright.
Anyways, here's the thing,y'all.
We're not talking aboutdepressing stuff, we're just
talking about son of a C biscuit.
I can't believe that keepshappening, all right, so let's
(08:16):
just take you through like a 24,36-hour type of scenario, just
for you to understand what'sgoing on.
So I'm going to roll the curtainback to Sunday.
I'm in the office working.
Our schedule is about to getpretty crazy, right?
We've got some big eventscoming up, we've got some
(08:37):
craziness happening, and so I'min the office just plugging
ahead trying to get as muchstuff done as possible.
If you've been listening on, youknow this year is a little
different for us becausefinancially I wasn't able to
prepare like I always do.
Financially, I didn't have theability to just stock the
shelves and set the season andjust say, team Bronco, set it
and forget it, put it in thesmoker and I'll collect it in 13
hours.
No, I need to make things as wemake money.
(09:00):
So as I go someplace and I geta little bread, I pay some bills
and I make another sandwich.
You know what I'm saying.
I pay for something and then Ibuy something new.
So I pay a bill for the family,I buy a new product for the
business, I restock an item andwe're building that way.
It's not ideal and I'm certainit probably holds me back from a
few sales, but it is what it isand it's just how it has to be
(09:23):
until things break loose.
But I've got endless optimismabout how successful my July is
going to be.
This is the month for me.
All things are going to changethis month, but as I'm setting
the scene for you on Sunday, I'mworking with what I've got.
I am in the office producing,I'm working, I'm making things
happen and all of a sudden,things start going wrong.
I start making mistakes, Istart having mishaps, I start
(09:47):
how do we say?
Destroying product, which isnot something that I like to do
and it's not something that I amaccustomed to.
As of late In my early years,that happened.
But after you know, over fiveyears of business, I've seen a
lot of things.
I can adjust to some things.
So the issue that was happeningcomes down to a couple of
(10:07):
things that I can narrow it downto Over my experience.
One of those things istemperature and humidity.
Now, a few years ago, thishappened and I was just racking
my brain, beating my headagainst a freaking wall to try
to figure out what was going on.
Why was I ruining so manythings and all the research I
did?
I had a dehumidifier going andall these things and I said air
(10:28):
conditioner.
And my old man being the beastthat he is, he said, well, let's
fix that.
And he took a hacksaw and wecut a giant hole in the side of
my parents' wall in the garageor basement, I should say and we
chucked an air conditionerthrough a hole in the wall,
plugged it in, and he said thereyou go, get to making shit.
And it fixed it.
Okay, but with that said, I hadto take the air conditioner out
(10:52):
and be an adult and try to putthe house back together and put
a window in.
I didn't want to open the holeany bigger than it already was.
So when I put the window in, Iknew ahead of time it was just a
small window and we had cut thehole in the wall based off the
size of the air conditionerframe, not for the frame of the
window.
So I knew that AC wasn't goingto work, no big deal.
(11:12):
Anyways, here we are.
I'm at that point where I'mbreaking things on Sunday and I
say to myself self you got tocool this place down and I can't
fit an air conditioner any ofour ACs into the window that I
purchased.
So bring on the marketplacesupport group, get the wife on
there looking for airconditioners.
(11:33):
We find a portable one with ahose.
I know that's going to work.
Longer, short of it, I decidedI'm going to get a bigger
version of what we already havein our house.
Put the bigger version in thehouse, because I found a great
deal on it.
Take the smaller version frommy house and put it into the
office.
Bada, bing, bada, boom.
Coolest guy in the room.
You understand what I'm saying.
No pun intended.
(11:54):
We're talking AC over here.
It's an HVAC joke.
You feel me?
You're an idiot and you'resweating profusely because you
left the windows open in thegarage.
But back on track, scuba, steve.
So this is the plan.
This is what we're going to do.
I found this little old timer.
He sells air conditioners onMarketplace.
(12:15):
Come to find out.
He's retired.
His buddy does HVAC.
He's going around putting minisplits in houses and every time
he does, the people give themtheir ACs and then he fixes them
up and flips them.
Now I have a mini split in myhouse but it's not working.
It's a great wall ornament thatleaks all over the freaking
sheetrock, but we're going tochange that subject to another
(12:35):
freaking show, okay, becauseit's sensitive.
Anyways, I meet this guy inTopsom at 9.30 PM on a Sunday.
I get home at about 10.30.
I'm going to install the airconditioner on Monday morning.
Right Now, with all this said,it's approaching baby's bedtime,
so Allie stays home and me andmy mom take the ride together.
(13:01):
She accompanies me to Topsum topick up the air conditioner.
Now on this ride, ironically,me and my mom got into an
in-depth conversation and it wasa conversation that needed to
happen.
And it was a conversation thatI guess I didn't realize needed
to happen, but it was clearly onmy mom's mind.
(13:22):
She needed to talk and thisgave her an opportunity to have
some real heartfelt conversationwith me.
And you know, we just kind ofworked through some things
together because you know,losing my dad, as tough as that
is on me, it's way harder on mymother Like let's, let's be
honest, they're married for over40 years.
So you know, we're goingthrough some of those things and
talking through some of thoseemotions and it was a
(13:42):
conversation that really neededto happen.
And that conversation wasdifficult, it was
heart-wrenching, it wasemotional, but it was also happy
and productive at the same time.
And when I was talking to mymom, it also molded into a
business conversation.
And in that businessconversation we started to kind
of talk about much of the thingsthat I just said to you guys,
(14:04):
where, hey, I'm not as preparedor as planned out this year as I
should be, but I haveconfidence that it's going to
work out.
And one of the things that I'vebeen trying to do and recently
my wife's been really working ondoing, is when you hit this
wall, when you have thesestruggles and you just can't
(14:25):
find an answer to them, then allthat's left to do is give it to
God.
You know, you just you havethat conversation with God and
you just hand it over and say Idon't have the ability, I don't
have the strength, I can'thandle this, I don't know how to
process this, I don't know whatto do with this.
I'm going to give this to youand you help guide me and you
help direct me, and that's oneof the things that we've had to
(14:47):
do.
And, as we are talking aboutbad luck and some of these
things.
As we roll through conversation, we're going to highlight some
points and some tips and sometricks and some techniques, and
that's one of the biggest thingsI can give you is talk to God
and give it over.
Okay, that's one of the biggestthings that I can.
I can say to you and I shouldhave saved that for the end but
I want to do this in a in achronological order for you so
(15:09):
you guys can kind of understandthe conversation and the
scenario.
So, as we're talking aboutbusiness and all these struggles
and I just tell my mom likereally all I can do is just hand
it over to God and say you know, I'm trusting you and just work
as hard as I can with the rightintentions in the right
direction and hope and pray forthe best.
One other thing that I need tohighlight and I think this is
(15:31):
critical in this scenario isthere's a life lesson that I
learned with losing my father.
There's a life lesson that I'velearned with watching him
battle and having to say goodbye.
Watching him battle and havingto say goodbye and then, over
the course of you know, the yearplus since he's passed, one of
the things.
That has helped me get throughbad scenarios, negative
(15:53):
scenarios, difficult experiencesis learning to appreciate what
you do have and learning toappreciate the opportunity
that's in front of you, learningto be grateful for what's
happening right there in themoment with you.
And what I really mean by thisis I try to elaborate on this is
(16:13):
oftentimes there's going to bedifficult things in life that
you just don't want to do.
There's going to be things thatyou've really been putting off.
Maybe they've been on the backburner, they've been on your
to-do list for the longest timeand you just don't want to do
them, but you know you have todo them.
Maybe there's theseconversations, these meetings,
these difficult things, whateverit is.
(16:34):
Imagine something in your lifethat's super difficult, that you
don't want to do, that youdon't want to deal with, that
you don't want to have to handle, and then to reframe that
scenario.
I try to be grateful for theopportunity to go through it and
and for me to kind of justreally kind of paint a picture
for you so that you canunderstand my perspective when
(16:57):
I'm talking about losing my dadand how this really opened my
eyes to things.
Is I?
There are so many things that mydad did with me, like chores or
projects or working for himthat I absolutely hated.
If you've listened to my story,if anniversary, if I think back
to episode one where it allbegun, the greatest life lesson
(17:31):
I ever learned was a lesson frommy father on hard work, and I
kind of go through the wholestory of what it was like and if
you guys are new here andyou're listening to this episode
, I highly encourage you to goback to episode one.
Ironically, I think it's one ofmy favorite episodes and it's
the biggest lesson I everlearned in life.
But if you listen to thatepisode, you know there's many
opportunities in there where Ihad to work with my dad or do
(17:53):
something with my dad and I justdidn't want to.
He was humiliating, right, andthere were so many times where
I'm being yelled and screamed atin public.
I'm a sensitive kid at the timetime and I'm taking things
personal.
I'm struggling.
There's all these things thatwere so difficult and things
that I never wanted to do.
But here I am now, over a yearafter my dad's passed, as I'm
(18:18):
approaching, actually, two yearsof his passing I can't tell you
what I wouldn't do and what Iwouldn't give to go back and be
yelled at again.
Does that make sense for youguys?
Some of the tasks, some of thechores, some of the jobs that I
just despised and I never wantedto do, I can't tell you what I
(18:41):
would give up today to go backor to have to do that task and
chore again today if my fatherwas by my side.
There's things in life that wejust dreaded and regretted and
hated to do.
But when the person that youwere doing them with meant so
(19:03):
much to you and now they're nolonger here you would gladly go
through the abuse, you wouldgladly go through all the
difficulty if it meant you gotto do that task with them.
So in my conversation with mymother we're talking about some
of the things that we have to doand some of the things that
we're going through and growingthrough, and my mom doesn't want
to feel like a burden and I hadsaid to her you're not a burden
(19:27):
at all.
Nothing about you and ourrelationship is a burden,
because I need you to understandI wouldn't change anything for
the opportunity to spend timewith you.
Losing my father made merealize you need to cherish the
opportunity to spend time withthe people that you love, no
matter what the circumstance, nomatter what the situation.
(19:48):
Having that philosophy hashelped me get through things.
A few weeks ago I mentioned toyou guys that the wife and the
baby and I broke down on theside of 295 and Matt and Sarah
Perkins came out and saved us.
I didn't get worked up, Ididn't get stressed out about
sitting on the side of the roadfor an hour and a half or
whatever it was, because it wasan opportunity for me to slow
(20:10):
down and sit down with my wifeand my kid.
You got to cherish those things.
Sometimes things just happen tomake you slow down and enjoy
them.
But you also need to realizewhen you're in that moment and
you're stressed out and maybeyou're doing something you don't
want to do or you're dealingwith something that you don't
want to have to handle andprocess.
Ask yourself the people thatare around you that you get to
(20:30):
work through those things with.
Be grateful for them, becausesomeday, if they're not here
with you, you will completelyregret not taking advantage of
the opportunity that lies infront of you.
So, no matter how difficult thesituation is, if you get to go
through that or grow throughthat with a significant other,
with a friend, with a child,with a mother, with a brother,
(20:51):
whoever it is, be thankful, begrateful, embrace it.
Those are one of the thingsthat I look at.
When I'm stuck in a situationthat I don't really want to do,
I think about it and say, hey,if I had to sit here at a
doctor's appointment with my dadfor an hour, would I do it if
that meant I got to sit herewith my dad for an hour?
Absolutely.
So there's so many things thatyou're going to have to do and
(21:11):
you're going to have to put upwith, but when you sprinkle on
that perspective, I think itopens up a whole new avenue for
you.
So that was really a great partof the conversation that me and
my mom were having and I wasjust saying you know, right now
in our situation, we're allworking very hard for different
things.
You know, getting over myfather's loss, my mom dealing
with that, my wife and I dealingwith that.
(21:34):
Raising our first child, my momhelping out with raising our
child, the getting my mom towork, all those things Me being
on the road, sometimes, themcoming with me, other times my
workload being dropped on them.
When you think about it, theopportunity for all of us to
work on these things together.
I'll take the difficulty.
(21:54):
Does that make sense with youguys?
I'll deal with the difficultyif it means that we get to do it
together and that's kind of theconversation that we had on the
ride home.
So the very next morning, tocontinue continue the story here
, to get back on track I Ifollow the wife to um the garage
to drop her car off.
That's getting some warrantywork done and um.
(22:16):
So I'm following her so thatshe can drop her car off and
then return back and um takeanother vehicle and and and
drive to work type of deal.
So I'm following her.
She goes all the way to thegarage, finds out parks didn't
come in.
Nobody communicated that withher.
So back home she goes, gets herstuff and heads back to work.
I come home and I start workingon making the air conditioning
(22:39):
switch, which I don't know ifany of you are like me that
whenever the smallest, mostsimplest task becomes a major
ass project.
But that's me, and the hotterit is outside, the more crazy.
My project's going to be Asimple flipping of the air
conditioners where I alreadyhave ductwork tied in in the
(23:00):
house should be no big thing.
Turn it into a big old thingbecause nothing fits.
This, don't work with that,this doesn't fit here.
Tear it out, put it in, replaceit.
All this nonsense, right, turnsinto a couple hours.
Now you're in two rooms with noAC, pouring sweat, freaking out
, throwing shit.
Can I, you know, kind ofdescribe life and times for you.
(23:22):
That's me here.
I am building platforms,raising up air conditioners
because the duct work's not bigenough.
All this nonsense, right.
Finally, after all said anddone, I've got the AC in the
living room running, just fine.
I've got the AC in the officerunning, things are going good.
And I get back to trying topress.
Hey, we resolved the situation,things are going to be good.
(23:44):
I start going back to workingand not so good, having some of
the same problems.
So now I'm freaking out alittle bit about what's going on
here.
Process of elimination at thispoint it has to be either
pressure of my press ortemperature of my press.
So now I'm working oncalibrating pressure and
temperature.
(24:04):
This turns into hours longprocess with heat guns and
temperature strips like teststrips and going through all
this nonsense, trying to dialthings in.
None of that's working at thismoment.
Right?
I then say I'm going to take abreak from this for a minute.
I got to just get my head rightand I'm going to surround
(24:25):
myself with things that make megrateful, things that make me
happy, spend a few minutes withthe baby, just kind of clearing
my mind and just kind ofrecentering myself, right?
I go back to the office, startto look at a few more things.
While that's heating up, I goonline and I start to pay some
bills, and I find somethingrather peculiar at that moment,
(24:48):
as I start doing my research, asI'm paying things and moving
things around, I happen tonotice that my automatic
mortgage payment through aspecial savings account at my
bank didn't go through for June.
Y'all know this episode'scoming out in July, right?
This episode's dropping to youon July 2nd.
(25:10):
That means I went the entiremonth my mortgage is due on the
1st without making a mortgagepayment.
Some of you might ask how doesthis happen, moron?
But what I'm going to tell youis this the way that I have my
automatic payments set up forthings is a separate account.
It's like most of you probablyhave for so many things.
I have one account that justbasically handles my mortgage
(25:31):
and I transfer the money over tomy mortgage ahead of time to
make sure that everything's good.
Now what I assume happened was,as I was transferring money from
one account to the next accounton my banking online, you go
through the process, click over,transfer a hue to here, bada,
bing, bada, boom, click, boom.
(25:51):
Here you go.
There's another pop-up pagethat comes up and asks you do
you want to confirm thistransaction?
All I can think is I did notclick confirm, and when I didn't
click confirm, the money didn'tgo over there to actually pay
the mortgage.
And then some of you would beasking well, how come you didn't
realize that your account washigher on the other account by a
(26:16):
mortgage payment?
How come you didn't realizethat?
Well, it was getting paid out ofmy business account and I'm on
the road selling things anddoing transactions and money is
coming in 24 hours later fromcredit card postings, and I also
have these posting charges,processing fees that come
through.
So, unless I'm balancing those,I also have an equity line with
(26:40):
my credit card company thattakes a percentage from each
transaction.
So even if I'm selling X amountof dollars, I'm not getting
that same X amount deposited.
It might be a Y amountdeposited.
So if I look in there and Idon't take the time to go back
and count everything when I'mdoing events and stuff, I'm not
realizing that I'm off here.
(27:00):
Now, when I look at themortgage account and I see it's
at a lower number, my assumptionis my mortgage payment went
through just fine.
Apparently that wasn't the case.
I'm realizing the night beforemy mortgage payments due for
July that June was never paid.
That's a big ass surprise thatI didn't budget for, that's a
(27:22):
big ass surprise I didn'taccount for.
So now everything goes on holdand it's time to figure out a
contingency plan to figure thisout.
So I'm running to banks anddoing this and robbing Peter to
pay Paul to try to get caught up, and I'm going through all this
nonsense and I feel like I getto a point where I have a
(27:42):
satisfactory result.
I put out that fire and I comeback to the office to get back
to working on the products andsee hey, did this heat
calibration work?
Did this pressure calibrationwork?
Let's get back to pressing.
Start doing that Didn't fix thesituation.
I'm at my wits end.
(28:02):
I don't know what else to doand randomly, as I'm applying
transfers, I happen to noticethat a couple of them are
missing adhesive lines or thesespeckles of adhesion.
So I begin to explore andexamine some of my transfers and
realize the company orderedthem from failed to add enough
(28:24):
adhesive to some of these images.
So this entire time, all thechaos, the air conditioner, the
temperature, the temperature ofthe press, the equipment, the
pressure of the equipment, allof those things weren't in fact
the problem at all.
It was a problem with thedesign that I ordered.
I resolved the situation.
(28:46):
Get back to pressing back tomaking things happen.
Right, good to go.
Situation handled, let's getback at hand here, okay Now.
A few days ago I had dropped myschool bus off with the family,
noah and Chris, over to TorqueSolutions to get some work done
(29:07):
on the bus, because we'regetting ready to do some road
trips and I had a coolant leak.
We thought it was a hose.
Noah calls me to inform me.
Yeah, buddy, it's not the hose.
In fact, the water pump on yourbus is bad.
I got to replace the water pumpand the thermostat.
Okay, go ahead and work on that.
Get that rocking and rolling.
(29:28):
There's another fire put out.
Moving on to the next thing, Ifind out today, after putting
the water pump in, while he'sdoing a review of everything,
that the alternator on the busis actually bad as well, not
putting off enough voltage.
He tested that smokedAlternator bad, battery bad.
(29:49):
So we dropped the bus off for acoolant leak, which we thought
was a hose, which turned into awater pump, an alternator and a
battery for a guy that justrealized he's two mortgage
payments behind that had to robPeter to pay Paul to navigate
the waters to make it all.
That is just how it goes for meas of late.
(30:12):
With all that said, I start tocount some blessings.
I get to slow down, identifyways to be grateful and start
counting some blessings andrealize, man, am I thankful that
Noah found these things beforeI was driving to Hiram to be at
a fair.
I am so thankful and I'm goingto count all my blessings that
Noah found these things before Idrove six hours away to
(30:35):
Syracuse, new York, with my wifeand my baby in a school bus,
because can you imagine whatwould happen if I lost an
alternator or a water pump on myschool bus six hours from home?
The tow bill to get a schoolbus from Syracuse, new York,
back to Maine.
I have to count my blessings.
I'm not appreciative of thetiming, but I'm going to count
(30:57):
my blessings and I'm going tofeel thankful that we're
resolving these situations whilethey're sitting at the shop,
while they're right there at thegarage, while they're getting
handled, not more on the side ofthe road.
A few years ago, before I boughtthe school bus, when I had the
ambulance, I lost an alternatorin the field after a fair and me
and my cousin changed it anddidn't get home until probably
(31:17):
midnight.
So I don't want to do thatagain.
I'm thankful that he found itand resolved it and the fact
that he didn't just do the jobthat was in front of him and get
me back on the road.
He assessed everything, knowingI was about to embark on a
journey, and got me resolved andgot me fixed.
I'm also going to count myblessings that none of those
(31:37):
things failed when we drove 26hours away to Florida.
We made it home safe and sound.
I'm going to count thoseblessings and be thankful for
them.
With that said, while I'm beinggrateful, while I'm being
thankful, I go back upstairs andI'm going to have dinner with
the family.
I'm going to sit down with mywife, my mother and my beautiful
baby girl, and we're going tohave dinner and I'm going to
(31:58):
unwind and be thankful and thenI'm probably going to get back
to work.
When I'm done, I go upstairs.
I'm grilling on the barbecue.
I come in and Allie says, hey,look, that's a big puddle of
water.
That air conditioner is leaking.
Now the AC that we just boughtis flooding the living room.
My floor is a dark colored wood.
Didn't notice it?
(32:19):
I have a massive puddle takingover my freaking living room.
So now here I am, put steaks onthe grill, hands and knees
under the air conditioner,trying to figure out what the
hell's going on.
And if I was just sold amarketplace lemon, that turns
into, you know, an all nightsituation researching, figuring
things out, cleaning this,fixing that.
(32:40):
Baby's having a meltdown, she'shaving a toothache, she's
teething, she's stressed out.
I sit on the couch with her andI give her some toys and we're
playing and we're hanging out,and I start to think about those
philosophies of being gratefulfor the time and the opportunity
.
And I'm sitting there on thecouch holding my beautiful baby
girl, this beautiful baby girlthat two years ago I never could
(33:02):
imagine would be mine and Icould never imagine myself with
her in my arms.
And here I am, being thankfuland being grateful and I'm
holding her and I'm spendingtime with her, and I keep
telling myself, no matter howdifficult it is to be holding
her, with her screaming andhaving a toothache and freaking
out about cutting teeth howgrateful am I for the
opportunity and for the momentto hold my beautiful baby girl
(33:24):
and spend time with her rightnow Much like when I think about
my father what I wouldn't giveto go through things that I
never wanted to go through if itmeant I could do them again
with my dad.
I know, someday, when she's 18years old and doesn't want to
talk to her dad because he's notcool anymore, because she's
going through some kind of phasewho am I kidding?
I'm always going to be cool,but everybody tells me that,
(33:46):
right, someday she's going to be18 and she's not going to want
to hang out with dad, and you'regoing to think about the time
you could have been holding heron the couch, all the times that
she came to you and put herhead on your chest, and all that
meant to you.
So I'm sitting here as I'mbeing yelled at and she calms
down and she starts to play.
I start thinking to myselfsomeday she's not going to want
to do this.
Someday she's going to be toobig for this.
(34:08):
As difficult as this day was, astrying as the times are, I'm
going to embrace the moment thatI have right here, right now,
with my little girl.
As the day comes to an end.
Allie's working on the AEC,because I'm at my wits end.
I'm sitting there holding mybaby girl and I'm giving her
bottle and she's falling asleepand we're just saying you know
what?
Tomorrow is a new day, tomorrowis a beautiful day.
(34:32):
My baby coughs and then shechokes and then I sit her up and
she throws up all over me andthe couch and the pillows and
herself.
She threw up more milk than Iever thought.
She took in in a month Herwhole dinner, supper, breakfast,
whatever you want to imagineall over the frigging place.
(34:55):
Just when you start tocelebrate the moments when you
put the negativity behind you,you're dealt with this right.
So let's start talking to youguys about a bad streak and bad
luck.
We're not talking aboutterminal conversations.
We're not talking aboutdifficult decisions.
We're talking about mistakes,failures, mix-ups, mess-ups,
(35:19):
some things completely myresponsibility, some things
completely out of my control.
If we start to recap somethings realizing I needed an air
conditioner in the office,running around, getting one at
10 o'clock at night.
Dropping the wife off to gether car fixed when the parts
aren't in.
Working on ACs that take mostof the day to get straightened
(35:40):
out and by the end of the day,one of them's leaking.
Working on temperatures andcalibrating equipment that never
ended up being the issue in thefirst place.
Realizing you're a mortgagepayment behind, with another one
due.
Finding out you need a waterpump, an alternator and a
battery all in your bus.
All these things happen and youget settled in and you get
(36:03):
nestled in and then you getpuked on.
Here's the thing, folks.
Life is difficult.
Get over it.
That's it.
Life is difficult.
Get over it.
Put your big girl pants on, geta shovel and dig yourself out
(36:27):
of it.
Life doesn't have to be perfectfor you to enjoy it.
Was I at my wits end?
Was there moments in the pastday where I just got to the top
of my abilities, when I feltlike I was beyond my
capabilities, when I needed towalk off and cool off.
Did I have those moments?
Of course I did.
But here's the thing I foundtime to enjoy it.
(36:48):
I still found time to enjoy it.
I found time to be grateful.
I was grateful that the thingsthat needed to be fixed in the
bus were getting fixed now,versus on the side of the road.
I'm thankful that today, when Iwalk over to my office after
recording this podcast, I'mgoing to have a nice cool,
freaking 69 degrees Hello In myoffice as I start to work, I'm
(37:11):
going to realize that I'm notgoing to deal with any
mechanical failures because I'vealready calibrated the heat and
pressure on my equipment andI've moved on from the situation
and now I can just maximize myopportunities right, find ways
to enjoy things.
I sat down with my baby girland I spent time with her, and
I'm sure it was comforting toher that when she got sick,
mommy and daddy was right therefor her.
(37:32):
And today guess what folks, Iwoke up to a perfectly cooled,
temperate house, to a beautifulbaby girl on her 10-month
birthday.
Life doesn't have to be perfectto enjoy it.
Think about it.
I've been listening to a newaudio book and it's kind of
(37:54):
funny how things kind of theyarrive for you when they're
supposed to right.
And there's some tips in herethat I'm sharing with you or I'm
about to share.
That came from this audio bookand it was also a story in there
that I heard that kind ofresonated with me and in this
story as well that I'm sharingwith you guys today.
(38:15):
And the story in the book wasabout this lady that used to
complain about her husband, thather husband used to drink
coffee all day long and he wouldtake his coffee cup and he
would put it on the tablewithout using a coaster and he
would leave these coffee ringsall over the table and she was
constantly complaining to himand going back and having to
(38:38):
clean up these coffee rings onthe table.
And she was constantlycomplaining about it and nagging
and saying, like man, why doyou keep doing this?
How do you?
Why?
You know, like, why don't youjust listen to me?
Why don't you just respect me?
You can imagine, right, yearsof wiping coffee rings off of a
coffee table.
Well, her husband gets somedisease and some condition and
(39:02):
he passes away and thisconversation about her missing
cleaning those coffee rings offthe table.
So think about it Sometimes,things in life that we might
spend the most time complainingabout, that we might find the
most nagging or annoying, asunbelievable as it is, someday
(39:24):
you might miss those things.
The woman in that story went onto miss cleaning the coffee
rings off the coffee tablebecause that meant her husband
was here.
That meant she could argue withher husband, she could talk to
her husband.
So if I go back to theconversation that I had with my
mom about my dad, I go back tothat conversation.
(39:45):
I think what I wouldn't do todo something I didn't want to do
and that line is for me and meonly.
I came up with that line what Iwouldn't do to do something I
didn't want to do.
I think about all the choresand tasks and obligations and
(40:06):
jobs I have with my dad, wherehe just yelled and screamed at
me, belittled me, because thatwas just his nature and his way
of showing affection.
Apparently Later in life Ilearned to understand it.
But all those things that Ididn't want to do, what I
wouldn't give up today to goback and do those things.
So, like my day yesterday,there's going to be a time in my
(40:27):
life when I'm going to say whatI wouldn't do to go back to
holding my little girl, even ifit meant she puked all over me.
Think about those things, man.
What can you be grateful fortoday?
How lucky am I today?
Identify those things.
Hold on to those things,especially in the most difficult
(40:50):
of days.
I just listed all the thingsthat has gone wrong for me in
the past 24 to 36 hours and thenI went on to list to you all
those things that I'm gratefulfor that, indirectly or directly
, are correlated with all thethings that went wrong.
So, no matter how difficultyour day is, you can find things
(41:12):
to be grateful for.
I'm not grateful that I'vemissed a freaking mortgage
payment, but there's things inmy day that I'm grateful for.
How lucky am I?
When you're going throughsomething, when you're growing
through something, it'sdifficult Ask yourself how lucky
am I?
Because I heard of something inthis book that really just stuck
with me and it's something thatI found myself doing in the
(41:36):
past and I often hear so manypeople say, through all the
years of me growing up I'll behappy when insert when, I'll be
happy when this happens.
I'll be happy when I do this.
I'll be happy when winter'sover.
I'll be happy when it's theweekend, whatever the situation
(41:58):
is.
Right Y'all have heard that somany times from people right,
I'll be happy when or here'sanother one.
I'll enjoy it when.
I'll enjoy it when I retire.
I might be working 70 hours aweek, missing out on my child's
lives.
I might be working 70 hours aweek, missing time with my
family and friends, but I'llenjoy it when I retire and I
(42:21):
have all the time in the worldto myself.
Think about those answers, thinkabout those questions.
I'll be happy when.
I'll enjoy it when.
What if that day never comes?
I'll be happy when.
What if that day never arrives?
(42:44):
I'll enjoy it when.
What if it never changes?
How about all the times?
Well, I'll enjoy it whenso-and-so gets promoted.
I'll enjoy it when so-and-soretires.
What if that never happens?
What if that never changes?
Or what if they do and someoneelse comes along and replaces
(43:05):
them and nothing changes?
Those questions, those crutchesthat we lean on, ah, I'll be
happy when this happens.
I'll enjoy it when this is over.
What if that day never comes?
And what if it never changes?
What if that day never comes?
And what if it never changes?
I got news for you, america,the ideal scenario isn't coming.
(43:33):
Ideal life isn't coming.
Perfect doesn't exist.
We need to celebrate everymilestone because you can't
waste your life waiting to behappy.
Celebrate every milestoneBecause if you're telling
(43:55):
yourself you're going to enjoyit someday, you'll be happy when
it.
Someday.
You'll be happy when You'regoing to waste your life waiting
for that someday, waiting forthat event, whatever that is.
We don't know what we don'tknow.
We don't know if today's ourlast day.
(44:15):
We don't know if our last dayis 75 years from today.
There's no guarantee on you andme.
We don't know what we don'tknow.
We need to find things tocelebrate.
As I opened the show today withyou guys and the credits to the
show, I guess the B-roll, thebuild-up, the preview of what
the show is going to be about,is about bad luck.
(44:36):
Right, but what's the firstthing we talked about before?
Bad luck today, the fact thatthis episode number 260,
signifies five years of thepodcast.
I didn't even realize thattoday was that day until two
minutes before I pushed recordon today's show.
Otherwise, I would have beenbuilding it up, I would have
(44:57):
been celebrating it online andannouncing this is happening and
try to do something new andsuper cool over it.
But life got in the way and Igot busy.
I didn't set back and celebrate.
I didn't mark it on thecalendar and build up to it and
give myself the excitement forit.
We earned that right.
We earned that opportunity.
(45:18):
We should have done that.
We didn't.
I let life get in the way and Ilet myself get lost.
But think about today's show.
We started saying we're goingto talk about bad luck.
We're going to talk about howdo we bust the streak, bust the
slump.
But before we talked about badluck, we celebrated a milestone
the milestone of five years.
(45:40):
Five years, weekly episodes,consecutive, week to week.
Never missed a damn show.
Celebrate every milestone,because you can't wait to be
happy and you need to count andfind all of your blessings, no
(46:01):
matter what difficult task comesto you.
Today you need to slow down,embrace the moment and I
understand I'm asking a lotright.
When shit's hitting the fan andyour blood is boiling and your
face is hot and you tell avendor to get the F out of your
tent, like I, get it okay,things happen.
I'm not asking you to calm downand find your zen and channel
(46:24):
your peace right there.
That's not what I'm saying.
When the moment passes, whenyou take the time to cool and
reflect, I beg of you toidentify positives for you.
What am I happy for?
What am I grateful for?
Find those blessings, countthem, acknowledge them.
I'm grateful for.
(46:44):
Find those blessings, countthem, acknowledge them.
You can't spend life waiting tobe happy.
You can't spend your lifewaiting for perfect to happen,
because perfect doesn't happen,ideal doesn't come.
It's all about what we make it.
Life is difficult.
Get over it, get over it.
(47:07):
With all this said, I'veoutlined 24 plus hours in the
life and times of Keith Liberty,with the ups and downs.
All those outcomes aren'tperfect, but they're resolutions
and they're solutions.
I found the obstacle, Iidentified it, I overcame it and
I handled it the best Ipossibly could.
The obstacle I identified it, Iovercame it and I handled it
the best I possibly could.
I give these troubles to Godand I ask him to help me through
(47:30):
it.
I find opportunity to celebrateand be grateful for the things
that are happening to me and forme, and I celebrate milestones
and moments.
I slow down and surround myselfwith ways and opportunities to
count my blessings.
That's all you can do, folks,but no matter what it is you're
going through, whatever it isyou're growing through, if you
lean into these things, they'llhelp pull you through.
(47:51):
With that said, I want to endtoday's show by telling each and
every one of you I'm gratefulfor you, I'm thankful for you.
I'm counting you as a blessingtoday.
If you made it to this point inthe show, then I consider you a
blessing.
You've made an impact on me andon my day, and if you've been
(48:12):
with me, ride or died all alongthe way, I can't thank you
enough.
Today, five long years, none ofit's possible, none of it's
worth it without each and everyone of you.
Thank you for supporting myAmerican dream.
I'm gonna wash your fuckinghands.
The Delta Savage, that's it andthat's all.
(48:35):
Biggie Smalls.
If you're a Loud Proud Americanand you find yourself just
wanting more, find me on YouTubeand Facebook, at Loud Proud
(48:59):
American, or the Face page, asmy mama calls it.
If you're a fan of the Grahamcracker, you want to find me on
Instagram.
Or all the kids are ticketytalking on the tick tock.
You can find me on both ofthose, at loud, underscore,
proud, underscore American, abig old.
(49:27):
Thank you to the boys from theGut Truckers for the background
beats and the theme song to thisyear's podcast.
If you are enjoying what you'rehearing, you can track down the
Gut Truckers on Facebook.
Just search Gut Truckers.
Give them motherfuckers.
(50:00):
I like to.
I truly thank you forsupporting my American dream.
Now go wash your fucking hands,you filthy savage.
Have you ever had a bad day, maybe a bad couple of
days?
What about a bad week?
Or even a bad month?
What do you do?
How do you get over it?
How do you pack up?
How do you move on?
Let's just say I've beendealing with my fair share of
bad luck and today we're goingto break the streak, we're going
(00:23):
to bust the slump and I'm goingto tell you how to put bad luck
in the dump.
Let me tell you somethingEverybody struggles.
The difference is some peoplechoose to go through it and some
choose to grow through it.
The choice is completely yours.
Which one you choose will havea very profound effect on the
(00:45):
way you live your life.
If you find strength in thestruggle, then this podcast is
for you.
Do you have a relationship thatis comfortable with
uncomfortable conversations?
Uncomfortable conversationschallenge you, humble you and
(01:05):
they build you.
When you sprinkle a little timeand distance on it, it all
makes sense.
Most disagreements, they stemfrom our own insecurities.
You are right where you need tobe.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
What it do, what it do Hot diddity.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Damn Good, lord almighty, am I so excited to be
back with you.
Oh, it's true.
It is damn true, because I missyou, boo, episode 260.
(01:53):
Two, six, hey, you know whatthat means by the art of bus
math.
If I were to take the number260 and let's say we divided it
Actually, let's not do thatDivision might not be my thing.
I'm not here to divide, I'm hereto unite.
I'm here to multiply, okay, Iam here to multiply positive
(02:14):
vibes.
So if I ask of you to take 52,because, why 52?
Because there's 52 weeks in ayear, am I right?
52 weeks?
That's how that works.
I know it's how it works.
Take 52, if you would, my goodman, my fair lady, if you would
take 52 and times it by five.
(02:35):
Why five?
Because five would signify fivebeautiful, long, luscious years
.
52 times 5 gives to you 260.
Y'all, do you believe it?
We achieved it 2-6-0.
(02:55):
Now, I may be mistaken here, butby the art of bus math, 52
weeks in a year times 5 yearsgives me 260 episodes In a year.
Times five years gives me 260episodes.
That means we have reached fiveconsecutive years of Share, the
Struggle podcast, this littlespiritual journey that we
started all the way back in thepandemic because we just could
(03:17):
not deal with not being together.
I could not handle not beingwith all y'all, could not handle
not being with all y'all.
So we started this show as away to stick together, as a way
to spread a positive vibe and togrow a positive tribe.
And here we are, five longyears later, boys and girls, I
(03:48):
am proud to say we have notmissed one weekly episode for
five long years.
That means that you can tune into share the struggle podcast.
One episode a week for fiveyears and if you keep listening
to the show, you couldtechnically do two weeks or
episodes a week for, you know,five more years if you want it.
Because we're just going to keepthis thing a-rolling.
(04:08):
Okay, we're just going to keepthis show rocking and rolling.
I got no plans of letting it go, because I have heard from many
of you and I've seen goodgrowth over the past few months.
We've got a lot of newlisteners joining us, so I just
wanted to say welcome aboard toall the new listeners.
Choo-choo, climb on in.
We are leaving the station andI must take the opportunity to
(04:34):
put my ones up To all youlistening out there, to all the
loyal ones, to all the day ones.
I know who you are.
There's a bunch of youlistening right now that you've
been here since July 2020.
You were here all the way backin episode one and here we are
on 260.
I acknowledge you, I love youand I appreciate you.
(04:55):
Put your ones up, celebrate itwith me, because if it wasn't
for you, there wouldn't be an us.
I'm here because of you.
I'm keeping this show rockingand rolling because of you.
260 episodes, that is oneepisode a week for five long,
beautiful years.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Oh, there he is, yeah , yeah, it's me, your favorite
little character.
Here I am.
Yeah, I'm the mom from NuttyProfessor and I'm here to say
look at him, oh, congratulations.
Look at him celebrating.
You guys, you can't see himBecause he's not on video, but
he's, he's cheesing, he's a bigcheese ball With his Budgy
(05:36):
little fists and little bicepsand his big old cheeks and
smiling Cheers.
Congratulations, big Ears.
Yeah, he did it.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Woo, we did it, 260.
And your face, I don't knowthat was for, but there's some
people out there those are forthe doubters and the haters out
there.
I mean, we got to.
Every once in a while you'regoing to, you got to rub the
dowels in it.
Okay, I'm clearly off thetracks, but it's hot and I'm
recording in the garage.
I'm sweating a little bitbecause I'm off schedule.
(06:06):
I'm off kilter.
I've been going through it.
Okay, I've been dealing withsome stuff.
Y'all Things haven't been goingaccording to plan, but I wasn't
going to leave this streakunattended.
Okay, I wasn't going to miss ourconsecutive streak for five
freaking years.
Because I'm getting dealt alittle bad hand, because I'm
(06:26):
experiencing some bad luck no, Idon't give a.
Hmm, he's a bad mother.
Watch your mouth.
See that what I did right there, I almost swore, because you
know what rhymes with luck andyou know I love to say it, but
I'm turning a new leaf.
I'm trying to do better y'all.
I know you don't believe it.
I probably don't believe iteither, but the reason I'm
(06:51):
saying all this is because I'vebeen dealt a little bad luck.
Maybe I earned some bad luck,maybe I deserve some bad luck,
but I've been going through it,okay, and I don't want to just
paint a big old, nasty recipehere.
I don't want to just open thefloodgates on the poop tank of
luck I've been going through.
So, no, I'm just going to sharewith you like a 24-hour period
(07:11):
to kind of set the scene, topave the road, to paint the
picture, to make sure thestory's told.
Okay, that's what we're going tobe doing here.
We're not talking about woe isme and oh, my goodness, wow, wah
, wah.
That's not what we're talkingabout.
I'm also not talking about bigdepressing stuff.
Okay, I'm not talking aboutmedical diagnosis.
(07:33):
I'm not talking about difficultdecisions.
I'm not talking about that.
I'm just talking about shit.
I can't believe that went wrongagain, type of stuff.
And I'm saying this because Iknow of all of you listening,
none of us are immune to badluck.
None of us are immune to alittle bullshit.
All right, I can still say shit.
I think that's fair enough.
(07:55):
I mean, I'm not.
I'm not a saint.
Okay, I'm trying to lay back onthe F-bombs so they have a
little more impact, but I'mstill going to say shit.
All right, anyways, so theyhave a little more impact, but
I'm still going to say shit, allright.
Anyways, here's the thing,y'all.
We're not talking aboutdepressing stuff, we're just
talking about son of a C biscuit.
I can't believe that keepshappening, all right, so let's
(08:16):
just take you through like a 24,36-hour type of scenario, just
for you to understand what'sgoing on.
So I'm going to roll the curtainback to Sunday.
I'm in the office working.
Our schedule is about to getpretty crazy, right?
We've got some big eventscoming up, we've got some
(08:37):
craziness happening, and so I'min the office just plugging
ahead trying to get as muchstuff done as possible.
If you've been listening on, youknow this year is a little
different for us becausefinancially I wasn't able to
prepare like I always do.
Financially, I didn't have theability to just stock the
shelves and set the season andjust say, team Bronco, set it
and forget it, put it in thesmoker and I'll collect it in 13
hours.
No, I need to make things as wemake money.
(09:00):
So as I go someplace and I geta little bread, I pay some bills
and I make another sandwich.
You know what I'm saying.
I pay for something and then Ibuy something new.
So I pay a bill for the family,I buy a new product for the
business, I restock an item andwe're building that way.
It's not ideal and I'm certainit probably holds me back from a
few sales, but it is what it isand it's just how it has to be
(09:23):
until things break loose.
But I've got endless optimismabout how successful my July is
going to be.
This is the month for me.
All things are going to changethis month, but as I'm setting
the scene for you on Sunday, I'mworking with what I've got.
I am in the office producing,I'm working, I'm making things
happen and all of a sudden,things start going wrong.
I start making mistakes, Istart having mishaps, I start
(09:47):
how do we say?
Destroying product, which isnot something that I like to do
and it's not something that I amaccustomed to.
As of late In my early years,that happened.
But after you know, over fiveyears of business, I've seen a
lot of things.
I can adjust to some things.
So the issue that was happeningcomes down to a couple of
(10:07):
things that I can narrow it downto Over my experience.
One of those things istemperature and humidity.
Now, a few years ago, thishappened and I was just racking
my brain, beating my headagainst a freaking wall to try
to figure out what was going on.
Why was I ruining so manythings and all the research I
did?
I had a dehumidifier going andall these things and I said air
(10:28):
conditioner.
And my old man being the beastthat he is, he said, well, let's
fix that.
And he took a hacksaw and wecut a giant hole in the side of
my parents' wall in the garageor basement, I should say and we
chucked an air conditionerthrough a hole in the wall,
plugged it in, and he said thereyou go, get to making shit.
And it fixed it.
Okay, but with that said, I hadto take the air conditioner out
(10:52):
and be an adult and try to putthe house back together and put
a window in.
I didn't want to open the holeany bigger than it already was.
So when I put the window in, Iknew ahead of time it was just a
small window and we had cut thehole in the wall based off the
size of the air conditionerframe, not for the frame of the
window.
So I knew that AC wasn't goingto work, no big deal.
(11:12):
Anyways, here we are.
I'm at that point where I'mbreaking things on Sunday and I
say to myself self you got tocool this place down and I can't
fit an air conditioner any ofour ACs into the window that I
purchased.
So bring on the marketplacesupport group, get the wife on
there looking for airconditioners.
(11:33):
We find a portable one with ahose.
I know that's going to work.
Longer, short of it, I decidedI'm going to get a bigger
version of what we already havein our house.
Put the bigger version in thehouse, because I found a great
deal on it.
Take the smaller version frommy house and put it into the
office.
Bada, bing, bada, boom.
Coolest guy in the room.
You understand what I'm saying.
No pun intended.
(11:54):
We're talking AC over here.
It's an HVAC joke.
You feel me?
You're an idiot and you'resweating profusely because you
left the windows open in thegarage.
But back on track, scuba, steve.
So this is the plan.
This is what we're going to do.
I found this little old timer.
He sells air conditioners onMarketplace.
(12:15):
Come to find out.
He's retired.
His buddy does HVAC.
He's going around putting minisplits in houses and every time
he does, the people give themtheir ACs and then he fixes them
up and flips them.
Now I have a mini split in myhouse but it's not working.
It's a great wall ornament thatleaks all over the freaking
sheetrock, but we're going tochange that subject to another
(12:35):
freaking show, okay, becauseit's sensitive.
Anyways, I meet this guy inTopsom at 9.30 PM on a Sunday.
I get home at about 10.30.
I'm going to install the airconditioner on Monday morning.
Right Now, with all this said,it's approaching baby's bedtime,
so Allie stays home and me andmy mom take the ride together.
(13:01):
She accompanies me to Topsum topick up the air conditioner.
Now on this ride, ironically,me and my mom got into an
in-depth conversation and it wasa conversation that needed to
happen.
And it was a conversation thatI guess I didn't realize needed
to happen, but it was clearly onmy mom's mind.
(13:22):
She needed to talk and thisgave her an opportunity to have
some real heartfelt conversationwith me.
And you know, we just kind ofworked through some things
together because you know,losing my dad, as tough as that
is on me, it's way harder on mymother Like let's, let's be
honest, they're married for over40 years.
So you know, we're goingthrough some of those things and
talking through some of thoseemotions and it was a
(13:42):
conversation that really neededto happen.
And that conversation wasdifficult, it was
heart-wrenching, it wasemotional, but it was also happy
and productive at the same time.
And when I was talking to mymom, it also molded into a
business conversation.
And in that businessconversation we started to kind
of talk about much of the thingsthat I just said to you guys,
(14:04):
where, hey, I'm not as preparedor as planned out this year as I
should be, but I haveconfidence that it's going to
work out.
And one of the things that I'vebeen trying to do and recently
my wife's been really working ondoing, is when you hit this
wall, when you have thesestruggles and you just can't
(14:25):
find an answer to them, then allthat's left to do is give it to
God.
You know, you just you havethat conversation with God and
you just hand it over and say Idon't have the ability, I don't
have the strength, I can'thandle this, I don't know how to
process this, I don't know whatto do with this.
I'm going to give this to youand you help guide me and you
help direct me, and that's oneof the things that we've had to
(14:47):
do.
And, as we are talking aboutbad luck and some of these
things.
As we roll through conversation, we're going to highlight some
points and some tips and sometricks and some techniques, and
that's one of the biggest thingsI can give you is talk to God
and give it over.
Okay, that's one of the biggestthings that I can.
I can say to you and I shouldhave saved that for the end but
I want to do this in a in achronological order for you so
(15:09):
you guys can kind of understandthe conversation and the
scenario.
So, as we're talking aboutbusiness and all these struggles
and I just tell my mom likereally all I can do is just hand
it over to God and say you know, I'm trusting you and just work
as hard as I can with the rightintentions in the right
direction and hope and pray forthe best.
One other thing that I need tohighlight and I think this is
(15:31):
critical in this scenario isthere's a life lesson that I
learned with losing my father.
There's a life lesson that I'velearned with watching him
battle and having to say goodbye.
Watching him battle and havingto say goodbye and then, over
the course of you know, the yearplus since he's passed, one of
the things.
That has helped me get throughbad scenarios, negative
(15:53):
scenarios, difficult experiencesis learning to appreciate what
you do have and learning toappreciate the opportunity
that's in front of you, learningto be grateful for what's
happening right there in themoment with you.
And what I really mean by thisis I try to elaborate on this is
(16:13):
oftentimes there's going to bedifficult things in life that
you just don't want to do.
There's going to be things thatyou've really been putting off.
Maybe they've been on the backburner, they've been on your
to-do list for the longest timeand you just don't want to do
them, but you know you have todo them.
Maybe there's theseconversations, these meetings,
these difficult things, whateverit is.
(16:34):
Imagine something in your lifethat's super difficult, that you
don't want to do, that youdon't want to deal with, that
you don't want to have to handle, and then to reframe that
scenario.
I try to be grateful for theopportunity to go through it and
and for me to kind of justreally kind of paint a picture
for you so that you canunderstand my perspective when
(16:57):
I'm talking about losing my dadand how this really opened my
eyes to things.
Is I?
There are so many things that mydad did with me, like chores or
projects or working for himthat I absolutely hated.
If you've listened to my story,if anniversary, if I think back
to episode one where it allbegun, the greatest life lesson
(17:31):
I ever learned was a lesson frommy father on hard work, and I
kind of go through the wholestory of what it was like and if
you guys are new here andyou're listening to this episode
, I highly encourage you to goback to episode one.
Ironically, I think it's one ofmy favorite episodes and it's
the biggest lesson I everlearned in life.
But if you listen to thatepisode, you know there's many
opportunities in there where Ihad to work with my dad or do
(17:53):
something with my dad and I justdidn't want to.
He was humiliating, right, andthere were so many times where
I'm being yelled and screamed atin public.
I'm a sensitive kid at the timetime and I'm taking things
personal.
I'm struggling.
There's all these things thatwere so difficult and things
that I never wanted to do.
But here I am now, over a yearafter my dad's passed, as I'm
(18:18):
approaching, actually, two yearsof his passing I can't tell you
what I wouldn't do and what Iwouldn't give to go back and be
yelled at again.
Does that make sense for youguys?
Some of the tasks, some of thechores, some of the jobs that I
just despised and I never wantedto do, I can't tell you what I
(18:41):
would give up today to go backor to have to do that task and
chore again today if my fatherwas by my side.
There's things in life that wejust dreaded and regretted and
hated to do.
But when the person that youwere doing them with meant so
(19:03):
much to you and now they're nolonger here you would gladly go
through the abuse, you wouldgladly go through all the
difficulty if it meant you gotto do that task with them.
So in my conversation with mymother we're talking about some
of the things that we have to doand some of the things that
we're going through and growingthrough, and my mom doesn't want
to feel like a burden and I hadsaid to her you're not a burden
(19:27):
at all.
Nothing about you and ourrelationship is a burden,
because I need you to understandI wouldn't change anything for
the opportunity to spend timewith you.
Losing my father made merealize you need to cherish the
opportunity to spend time withthe people that you love, no
matter what the circumstance, nomatter what the situation.
(19:48):
Having that philosophy hashelped me get through things.
A few weeks ago I mentioned toyou guys that the wife and the
baby and I broke down on theside of 295 and Matt and Sarah
Perkins came out and saved us.
I didn't get worked up, Ididn't get stressed out about
sitting on the side of the roadfor an hour and a half or
whatever it was, because it wasan opportunity for me to slow
(20:10):
down and sit down with my wifeand my kid.
You got to cherish those things.
Sometimes things just happen tomake you slow down and enjoy
them.
But you also need to realizewhen you're in that moment and
you're stressed out and maybeyou're doing something you don't
want to do or you're dealingwith something that you don't
want to have to handle andprocess.
Ask yourself the people thatare around you that you get to
(20:30):
work through those things with.
Be grateful for them, becausesomeday, if they're not here
with you, you will completelyregret not taking advantage of
the opportunity that lies infront of you.
So, no matter how difficult thesituation is, if you get to go
through that or grow throughthat with a significant other,
with a friend, with a child,with a mother, with a brother,
(20:51):
whoever it is, be thankful, begrateful, embrace it.
Those are one of the thingsthat I look at.
When I'm stuck in a situationthat I don't really want to do,
I think about it and say, hey,if I had to sit here at a
doctor's appointment with my dadfor an hour, would I do it if
that meant I got to sit herewith my dad for an hour?
Absolutely.
So there's so many things thatyou're going to have to do and
(21:11):
you're going to have to put upwith, but when you sprinkle on
that perspective, I think itopens up a whole new avenue for
you.
So that was really a great partof the conversation that me and
my mom were having and I wasjust saying you know, right now
in our situation, we're allworking very hard for different
things.
You know, getting over myfather's loss, my mom dealing
with that, my wife and I dealingwith that.
(21:34):
Raising our first child, my momhelping out with raising our
child, the getting my mom towork, all those things Me being
on the road, sometimes, themcoming with me, other times my
workload being dropped on them.
When you think about it, theopportunity for all of us to
work on these things together.
I'll take the difficulty.
(21:54):
Does that make sense with youguys?
I'll deal with the difficultyif it means that we get to do it
together and that's kind of theconversation that we had on the
ride home.
So the very next morning, tocontinue continue the story here
, to get back on track I Ifollow the wife to um the garage
to drop her car off.
That's getting some warrantywork done and um.
(22:16):
So I'm following her so thatshe can drop her car off and
then return back and um takeanother vehicle and and and
drive to work type of deal.
So I'm following her.
She goes all the way to thegarage, finds out parks didn't
come in.
Nobody communicated that withher.
So back home she goes, gets herstuff and heads back to work.
I come home and I start workingon making the air conditioning
(22:39):
switch, which I don't know ifany of you are like me that
whenever the smallest, mostsimplest task becomes a major
ass project.
But that's me, and the hotterit is outside, the more crazy.
My project's going to be Asimple flipping of the air
conditioners where I alreadyhave ductwork tied in in the
(23:00):
house should be no big thing.
Turn it into a big old thingbecause nothing fits.
This, don't work with that,this doesn't fit here.
Tear it out, put it in, replaceit.
All this nonsense, right, turnsinto a couple hours.
Now you're in two rooms with noAC, pouring sweat, freaking out
, throwing shit.
Can I, you know, kind ofdescribe life and times for you.
(23:22):
That's me here.
I am building platforms,raising up air conditioners
because the duct work's not bigenough.
All this nonsense, right.
Finally, after all said anddone, I've got the AC in the
living room running, just fine.
I've got the AC in the officerunning, things are going good.
And I get back to trying topress.
Hey, we resolved the situation,things are going to be good.
(23:44):
I start going back to workingand not so good, having some of
the same problems.
So now I'm freaking out alittle bit about what's going on
here.
Process of elimination at thispoint it has to be either
pressure of my press ortemperature of my press.
So now I'm working oncalibrating pressure and
temperature.
(24:04):
This turns into hours longprocess with heat guns and
temperature strips like teststrips and going through all
this nonsense, trying to dialthings in.
None of that's working at thismoment.
Right?
I then say I'm going to take abreak from this for a minute.
I got to just get my head rightand I'm going to surround
(24:25):
myself with things that make megrateful, things that make me
happy, spend a few minutes withthe baby, just kind of clearing
my mind and just kind ofrecentering myself, right?
I go back to the office, startto look at a few more things.
While that's heating up, I goonline and I start to pay some
bills, and I find somethingrather peculiar at that moment,
(24:48):
as I start doing my research, asI'm paying things and moving
things around, I happen tonotice that my automatic
mortgage payment through aspecial savings account at my
bank didn't go through for June.
Y'all know this episode'scoming out in July, right?
This episode's dropping to youon July 2nd.
(25:10):
That means I went the entiremonth my mortgage is due on the
1st without making a mortgagepayment.
Some of you might ask how doesthis happen, moron?
But what I'm going to tell youis this the way that I have my
automatic payments set up forthings is a separate account.
It's like most of you probablyhave for so many things.
I have one account that justbasically handles my mortgage
(25:31):
and I transfer the money over tomy mortgage ahead of time to
make sure that everything's good.
Now what I assume happened was,as I was transferring money from
one account to the next accounton my banking online, you go
through the process, click over,transfer a hue to here, bada,
bing, bada, boom, click, boom.
(25:51):
Here you go.
There's another pop-up pagethat comes up and asks you do
you want to confirm thistransaction?
All I can think is I did notclick confirm, and when I didn't
click confirm, the money didn'tgo over there to actually pay
the mortgage.
And then some of you would beasking well, how come you didn't
realize that your account washigher on the other account by a
(26:16):
mortgage payment?
How come you didn't realizethat?
Well, it was getting paid out ofmy business account and I'm on
the road selling things anddoing transactions and money is
coming in 24 hours later fromcredit card postings, and I also
have these posting charges,processing fees that come
through.
So, unless I'm balancing those,I also have an equity line with
(26:40):
my credit card company thattakes a percentage from each
transaction.
So even if I'm selling X amountof dollars, I'm not getting
that same X amount deposited.
It might be a Y amountdeposited.
So if I look in there and Idon't take the time to go back
and count everything when I'mdoing events and stuff, I'm not
realizing that I'm off here.
(27:00):
Now, when I look at themortgage account and I see it's
at a lower number, my assumptionis my mortgage payment went
through just fine.
Apparently that wasn't the case.
I'm realizing the night beforemy mortgage payments due for
July that June was never paid.
That's a big ass surprise thatI didn't budget for, that's a
(27:22):
big ass surprise I didn'taccount for.
So now everything goes on holdand it's time to figure out a
contingency plan to figure thisout.
So I'm running to banks anddoing this and robbing Peter to
pay Paul to try to get caught up, and I'm going through all this
nonsense and I feel like I getto a point where I have a
(27:42):
satisfactory result.
I put out that fire and I comeback to the office to get back
to working on the products andsee hey, did this heat
calibration work?
Did this pressure calibrationwork?
Let's get back to pressing.
Start doing that Didn't fix thesituation.
I'm at my wits end.
(28:02):
I don't know what else to doand randomly, as I'm applying
transfers, I happen to noticethat a couple of them are
missing adhesive lines or thesespeckles of adhesion.
So I begin to explore andexamine some of my transfers and
realize the company orderedthem from failed to add enough
(28:24):
adhesive to some of these images.
So this entire time, all thechaos, the air conditioner, the
temperature, the temperature ofthe press, the equipment, the
pressure of the equipment, allof those things weren't in fact
the problem at all.
It was a problem with thedesign that I ordered.
I resolved the situation.
(28:46):
Get back to pressing back tomaking things happen.
Right, good to go.
Situation handled, let's getback at hand here, okay Now.
A few days ago I had dropped myschool bus off with the family,
noah and Chris, over to TorqueSolutions to get some work done
(29:07):
on the bus, because we'regetting ready to do some road
trips and I had a coolant leak.
We thought it was a hose.
Noah calls me to inform me.
Yeah, buddy, it's not the hose.
In fact, the water pump on yourbus is bad.
I got to replace the water pumpand the thermostat.
Okay, go ahead and work on that.
Get that rocking and rolling.
(29:28):
There's another fire put out.
Moving on to the next thing, Ifind out today, after putting
the water pump in, while he'sdoing a review of everything,
that the alternator on the busis actually bad as well, not
putting off enough voltage.
He tested that smokedAlternator bad, battery bad.
(29:49):
So we dropped the bus off for acoolant leak, which we thought
was a hose, which turned into awater pump, an alternator and a
battery for a guy that justrealized he's two mortgage
payments behind that had to robPeter to pay Paul to navigate
the waters to make it all.
That is just how it goes for meas of late.
(30:12):
With all that said, I start tocount some blessings.
I get to slow down, identifyways to be grateful and start
counting some blessings andrealize, man, am I thankful that
Noah found these things beforeI was driving to Hiram to be at
a fair.
I am so thankful and I'm goingto count all my blessings that
Noah found these things before Idrove six hours away to
(30:35):
Syracuse, new York, with my wifeand my baby in a school bus,
because can you imagine whatwould happen if I lost an
alternator or a water pump on myschool bus six hours from home?
The tow bill to get a schoolbus from Syracuse, new York,
back to Maine.
I have to count my blessings.
I'm not appreciative of thetiming, but I'm going to count
(30:57):
my blessings and I'm going tofeel thankful that we're
resolving these situations whilethey're sitting at the shop,
while they're right there at thegarage, while they're getting
handled, not more on the side ofthe road.
A few years ago, before I boughtthe school bus, when I had the
ambulance, I lost an alternatorin the field after a fair and me
and my cousin changed it anddidn't get home until probably
(31:17):
midnight.
So I don't want to do thatagain.
I'm thankful that he found itand resolved it and the fact
that he didn't just do the jobthat was in front of him and get
me back on the road.
He assessed everything, knowingI was about to embark on a
journey, and got me resolved andgot me fixed.
I'm also going to count myblessings that none of those
(31:37):
things failed when we drove 26hours away to Florida.
We made it home safe and sound.
I'm going to count thoseblessings and be thankful for
them.
With that said, while I'm beinggrateful, while I'm being
thankful, I go back upstairs andI'm going to have dinner with
the family.
I'm going to sit down with mywife, my mother and my beautiful
baby girl, and we're going tohave dinner and I'm going to
(31:58):
unwind and be thankful and thenI'm probably going to get back
to work.
When I'm done, I go upstairs.
I'm grilling on the barbecue.
I come in and Allie says, hey,look, that's a big puddle of
water.
That air conditioner is leaking.
Now the AC that we just boughtis flooding the living room.
My floor is a dark colored wood.
Didn't notice it?
(32:19):
I have a massive puddle takingover my freaking living room.
So now here I am, put steaks onthe grill, hands and knees
under the air conditioner,trying to figure out what the
hell's going on.
And if I was just sold amarketplace lemon, that turns
into, you know, an all nightsituation researching, figuring
things out, cleaning this,fixing that.
(32:40):
Baby's having a meltdown, she'shaving a toothache, she's
teething, she's stressed out.
I sit on the couch with her andI give her some toys and we're
playing and we're hanging out,and I start to think about those
philosophies of being gratefulfor the time and the opportunity
.
And I'm sitting there on thecouch holding my beautiful baby
girl, this beautiful baby girlthat two years ago I never could
(33:02):
imagine would be mine and Icould never imagine myself with
her in my arms.
And here I am, being thankfuland being grateful and I'm
holding her and I'm spendingtime with her, and I keep
telling myself, no matter howdifficult it is to be holding
her, with her screaming andhaving a toothache and freaking
out about cutting teeth howgrateful am I for the
opportunity and for the momentto hold my beautiful baby girl
(33:24):
and spend time with her rightnow Much like when I think about
my father what I wouldn't giveto go through things that I
never wanted to go through if itmeant I could do them again
with my dad.
I know, someday, when she's 18years old and doesn't want to
talk to her dad because he's notcool anymore, because she's
going through some kind of phasewho am I kidding?
I'm always going to be cool,but everybody tells me that,
(33:46):
right, someday she's going to be18 and she's not going to want
to hang out with dad, and you'regoing to think about the time
you could have been holding heron the couch, all the times that
she came to you and put herhead on your chest, and all that
meant to you.
So I'm sitting here as I'mbeing yelled at and she calms
down and she starts to play.
I start thinking to myselfsomeday she's not going to want
to do this.
Someday she's going to be toobig for this.
(34:08):
As difficult as this day was, astrying as the times are, I'm
going to embrace the moment thatI have right here, right now,
with my little girl.
As the day comes to an end.
Allie's working on the AEC,because I'm at my wits end.
I'm sitting there holding mybaby girl and I'm giving her
bottle and she's falling asleepand we're just saying you know
what?
Tomorrow is a new day, tomorrowis a beautiful day.
(34:32):
My baby coughs and then shechokes and then I sit her up and
she throws up all over me andthe couch and the pillows and
herself.
She threw up more milk than Iever thought.
She took in in a month Herwhole dinner, supper, breakfast,
whatever you want to imagineall over the frigging place.
(34:55):
Just when you start tocelebrate the moments when you
put the negativity behind you,you're dealt with this right.
So let's start talking to youguys about a bad streak and bad
luck.
We're not talking aboutterminal conversations.
We're not talking aboutdifficult decisions.
We're talking about mistakes,failures, mix-ups, mess-ups,
(35:19):
some things completely myresponsibility, some things
completely out of my control.
If we start to recap somethings realizing I needed an air
conditioner in the office,running around, getting one at
10 o'clock at night.
Dropping the wife off to gether car fixed when the parts
aren't in.
Working on ACs that take mostof the day to get straightened
(35:40):
out and by the end of the day,one of them's leaking.
Working on temperatures andcalibrating equipment that never
ended up being the issue in thefirst place.
Realizing you're a mortgagepayment behind, with another one
due.
Finding out you need a waterpump, an alternator and a
battery all in your bus.
All these things happen and youget settled in and you get
(36:03):
nestled in and then you getpuked on.
Here's the thing, folks.
Life is difficult.
Get over it.
That's it.
Life is difficult.
Get over it.
Put your big girl pants on, geta shovel and dig yourself out
(36:27):
of it.
Life doesn't have to be perfectfor you to enjoy it.
Was I at my wits end?
Was there moments in the pastday where I just got to the top
of my abilities, when I feltlike I was beyond my
capabilities, when I needed towalk off and cool off.
Did I have those moments?
Of course I did.
But here's the thing I foundtime to enjoy it.
(36:48):
I still found time to enjoy it.
I found time to be grateful.
I was grateful that the thingsthat needed to be fixed in the
bus were getting fixed now,versus on the side of the road.
I'm thankful that today, when Iwalk over to my office after
recording this podcast, I'mgoing to have a nice cool,
freaking 69 degrees Hello In myoffice as I start to work, I'm
(37:11):
going to realize that I'm notgoing to deal with any
mechanical failures because I'vealready calibrated the heat and
pressure on my equipment andI've moved on from the situation
and now I can just maximize myopportunities right, find ways
to enjoy things.
I sat down with my baby girland I spent time with her, and
I'm sure it was comforting toher that when she got sick,
mommy and daddy was right therefor her.
(37:32):
And today guess what folks, Iwoke up to a perfectly cooled,
temperate house, to a beautifulbaby girl on her 10-month
birthday.
Life doesn't have to be perfectto enjoy it.
Think about it.
I've been listening to a newaudio book and it's kind of
(37:54):
funny how things kind of theyarrive for you when they're
supposed to right.
And there's some tips in herethat I'm sharing with you or I'm
about to share.
That came from this audio bookand it was also a story in there
that I heard that kind ofresonated with me and in this
story as well that I'm sharingwith you guys today.
(38:15):
And the story in the book wasabout this lady that used to
complain about her husband, thather husband used to drink
coffee all day long and he wouldtake his coffee cup and he
would put it on the tablewithout using a coaster and he
would leave these coffee ringsall over the table and she was
constantly complaining to himand going back and having to
(38:38):
clean up these coffee rings onthe table.
And she was constantlycomplaining about it and nagging
and saying, like man, why doyou keep doing this?
How do you?
Why?
You know, like, why don't youjust listen to me?
Why don't you just respect me?
You can imagine, right, yearsof wiping coffee rings off of a
coffee table.
Well, her husband gets somedisease and some condition and
(39:02):
he passes away and thisconversation about her missing
cleaning those coffee rings offthe table.
So think about it Sometimes,things in life that we might
spend the most time complainingabout, that we might find the
most nagging or annoying, asunbelievable as it is, someday
(39:24):
you might miss those things.
The woman in that story went onto miss cleaning the coffee
rings off the coffee tablebecause that meant her husband
was here.
That meant she could argue withher husband, she could talk to
her husband.
So if I go back to theconversation that I had with my
mom about my dad, I go back tothat conversation.
(39:45):
I think what I wouldn't do todo something I didn't want to do
and that line is for me and meonly.
I came up with that line what Iwouldn't do to do something I
didn't want to do.
I think about all the choresand tasks and obligations and
(40:06):
jobs I have with my dad, wherehe just yelled and screamed at
me, belittled me, because thatwas just his nature and his way
of showing affection.
Apparently Later in life Ilearned to understand it.
But all those things that Ididn't want to do, what I
wouldn't give up today to goback and do those things.
So, like my day yesterday,there's going to be a time in my
(40:27):
life when I'm going to say whatI wouldn't do to go back to
holding my little girl, even ifit meant she puked all over me.
Think about those things, man.
What can you be grateful fortoday?
How lucky am I today?
Identify those things.
Hold on to those things,especially in the most difficult
(40:50):
of days.
I just listed all the thingsthat has gone wrong for me in
the past 24 to 36 hours and thenI went on to list to you all
those things that I'm gratefulfor that, indirectly or directly
, are correlated with all thethings that went wrong.
So, no matter how difficultyour day is, you can find things
(41:12):
to be grateful for.
I'm not grateful that I'vemissed a freaking mortgage
payment, but there's things inmy day that I'm grateful for.
How lucky am I?
When you're going throughsomething, when you're growing
through something, it'sdifficult Ask yourself how lucky
am I?
Because I heard of something inthis book that really just stuck
with me and it's something thatI found myself doing in the
(41:36):
past and I often hear so manypeople say, through all the
years of me growing up I'll behappy when insert when, I'll be
happy when this happens.
I'll be happy when I do this.
I'll be happy when winter'sover.
I'll be happy when it's theweekend, whatever the situation
(41:58):
is.
Right Y'all have heard that somany times from people right,
I'll be happy when or here'sanother one.
I'll enjoy it when.
I'll enjoy it when I retire.
I might be working 70 hours aweek, missing out on my child's
lives.
I might be working 70 hours aweek, missing time with my
family and friends, but I'llenjoy it when I retire and I
(42:21):
have all the time in the worldto myself.
Think about those answers, thinkabout those questions.
I'll be happy when.
I'll enjoy it when.
What if that day never comes?
I'll be happy when.
What if that day never arrives?
(42:44):
I'll enjoy it when.
What if it never changes?
How about all the times?
Well, I'll enjoy it whenso-and-so gets promoted.
I'll enjoy it when so-and-soretires.
What if that never happens?
What if that never changes?
Or what if they do and someoneelse comes along and replaces
(43:05):
them and nothing changes?
Those questions, those crutchesthat we lean on, ah, I'll be
happy when this happens.
I'll enjoy it when this is over.
What if that day never comes?
And what if it never changes?
What if that day never comes?
And what if it never changes?
I got news for you, america,the ideal scenario isn't coming.
(43:33):
Ideal life isn't coming.
Perfect doesn't exist.
We need to celebrate everymilestone because you can't
waste your life waiting to behappy.
Celebrate every milestoneBecause if you're telling
(43:55):
yourself you're going to enjoyit someday, you'll be happy when
it.
Someday.
You'll be happy when You'regoing to waste your life waiting
for that someday, waiting forthat event, whatever that is.
We don't know what we don'tknow.
We don't know if today's ourlast day.
(44:15):
We don't know if our last dayis 75 years from today.
There's no guarantee on you andme.
We don't know what we don'tknow.
We need to find things tocelebrate.
As I opened the show today withyou guys and the credits to the
show, I guess the B-roll, thebuild-up, the preview of what
the show is going to be about,is about bad luck.
(44:36):
Right, but what's the firstthing we talked about before?
Bad luck today, the fact thatthis episode number 260,
signifies five years of thepodcast.
I didn't even realize thattoday was that day until two
minutes before I pushed recordon today's show.
Otherwise, I would have beenbuilding it up, I would have
(44:57):
been celebrating it online andannouncing this is happening and
try to do something new andsuper cool over it.
But life got in the way and Igot busy.
I didn't set back and celebrate.
I didn't mark it on thecalendar and build up to it and
give myself the excitement forit.
We earned that right.
We earned that opportunity.
(45:18):
We should have done that.
We didn't.
I let life get in the way and Ilet myself get lost.
But think about today's show.
We started saying we're goingto talk about bad luck.
We're going to talk about howdo we bust the streak, bust the
slump.
But before we talked about badluck, we celebrated a milestone
the milestone of five years.
(45:40):
Five years, weekly episodes,consecutive, week to week.
Never missed a damn show.
Celebrate every milestone,because you can't wait to be
happy and you need to count andfind all of your blessings, no
(46:01):
matter what difficult task comesto you.
Today you need to slow down,embrace the moment and I
understand I'm asking a lotright.
When shit's hitting the fan andyour blood is boiling and your
face is hot and you tell avendor to get the F out of your
tent, like I, get it okay,things happen.
I'm not asking you to calm downand find your zen and channel
(46:24):
your peace right there.
That's not what I'm saying.
When the moment passes, whenyou take the time to cool and
reflect, I beg of you toidentify positives for you.
What am I happy for?
What am I grateful for?
Find those blessings, countthem, acknowledge them.
I'm grateful for.
(46:44):
Find those blessings, countthem, acknowledge them.
You can't spend life waiting tobe happy.
You can't spend your lifewaiting for perfect to happen,
because perfect doesn't happen,ideal doesn't come.
It's all about what we make it.
Life is difficult.
Get over it, get over it.
(47:07):
With all this said, I'veoutlined 24 plus hours in the
life and times of Keith Liberty,with the ups and downs.
All those outcomes aren'tperfect, but they're resolutions
and they're solutions.
I found the obstacle, Iidentified it, I overcame it and
I handled it the best Ipossibly could.
The obstacle I identified it, Iovercame it and I handled it
the best I possibly could.
I give these troubles to Godand I ask him to help me through
(47:30):
it.
I find opportunity to celebrateand be grateful for the things
that are happening to me and forme, and I celebrate milestones
and moments.
I slow down and surround myselfwith ways and opportunities to
count my blessings.
That's all you can do, folks,but no matter what it is you're
going through, whatever it isyou're growing through, if you
lean into these things, they'llhelp pull you through.
(47:51):
With that said, I want to endtoday's show by telling each and
every one of you I'm gratefulfor you, I'm thankful for you.
I'm counting you as a blessingtoday.
If you made it to this point inthe show, then I consider you a
blessing.
You've made an impact on me andon my day, and if you've been
(48:12):
with me, ride or died all alongthe way, I can't thank you
enough.
Today, five long years, none ofit's possible, none of it's
worth it without each and everyone of you.
Thank you for supporting myAmerican dream.
I'm gonna wash your fuckinghands.
The Delta Savage, that's it andthat's all.
(48:35):
Biggie Smalls.
If you're a Loud Proud Americanand you find yourself just
wanting more, find me on YouTubeand Facebook, at Loud Proud
(48:59):
American, or the Face page, asmy mama calls it.
If you're a fan of the Grahamcracker, you want to find me on
Instagram.
Or all the kids are ticketytalking on the tick tock.
You can find me on both ofthose, at loud, underscore,
proud, underscore American, abig old.
(49:27):
Thank you to the boys from theGut Truckers for the background
beats and the theme song to thisyear's podcast.
If you are enjoying what you'rehearing, you can track down the
Gut Truckers on Facebook.
Just search Gut Truckers.
Give them motherfuckers.
(50:00):
I like to.
I truly thank you forsupporting my American dream.
Now go wash your fucking hands,you filthy savage.
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