May 15, 2026 • 30 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load. The
Michael Berry Show is on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
It's Charlie from BlackBerry Smoke.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I can feel a good one coming on. It's The
Michael Berry Show. Oh yes it is. We're glad to
be with them. Honest too. I'm gonna make an executive
decision here on Friday to drive home. I'm looking at
my notes. George Conway's a never Trumper ex husband of
(00:47):
Kelly and Conway, who was a loyal advisor to President
Trump is running for Congress. It's a Democrat. Don't talk
about the never Trumpers, how they're broken and it's it's sad,
it's it's tragic what's becoming them. And then Kamala Harris
and her crazy ideas because she has to say something stupid, stupid,
(01:08):
or the better. And once you understand that this is
what people it's a Carnival Barker position. You got to
say stupid stuff to be mentioned in the news because
the worst thing you can be being stupid does not
hurt Kamala Harris being irrelevant does. Once you understand that
you don't take anything she says or does seriously, you
realize her her sole responsibility is to be covered in
(01:33):
the news, to be talked about. I was going to
talk about Trump's trip to China, and we will, we will,
We will even get some of that today. There's some
news stories I wanted to get to this. This bomb
at the Converse Reservoir in the dam in Mobile, Alabama
(01:55):
concerns me a great deal. We'll talk about that. The
Charlotte North Carolina NAACP president Corin matt is not happy
about a white person replacing a black person as mayor.
You can imagine what I'd have to say about that.
But I would like to make I'd like to pivot
(02:17):
and I'd like to do something else instead. Because this
has been I watched it again this afternoon. I watch
a lot of graduation speeches because over the years I've
given a fair number of graduation speeches. One year, I
gave seven graduation speeches. All seven of them were almost
(02:43):
exclusively black high schools. I know, surprising, right, And the
administrators liked the message. You know, they go to each
other's graduations and so they already have the graduation speakers
set this year and they would invite me back. I
used to give free speeches. I don't give free speech
(03:03):
before I get paid. But I don't accept pay to
give a graduation speech because I view it as an
opportunity to young people. Other than that, I don't give
free speeches. It's part of what I do, and over
the years, I always use that money as play money
with the kids. If Dad gave a speech, then hey,
let me take a vacation, we go do something we'd
(03:25):
you know that thing you always wanted that so you
couldn't have Now you can have it in exchange for
me being away to go give this speech. But I
watch graduation speeches because a it helps me prepare speeches
in the future. It's the really, it's the super speech.
I like the Ted Talks as well because people put
(03:47):
a lot of time into it. They really think about it.
And I maintained that the two best speeches I've ever heard,
and I think if there is a speech, I've seen
Jeff Beatsos, I've seen Steve Jobs, I've seen the speech
is that I've seen it all. You're welcome to send
me something that you think is good. For the likelihood
(04:08):
if it's on YouTube, I have seen it. The two
best I've ever heard, believe it or not. One of
them is Lou Holtz. Lou Holtz gave a speech at
a small Catholic school and it is a banger. Man,
it is so good. It is so powerful. It's overwhelming.
(04:30):
The old ball coach, I know that spur or not
Lou holtsper the old ball coach. Man, it is something else.
The second one just happened. It's at the University of
North Carolina and it's a singer named Eric Church. I
know his name. I couldn't name one song, but I
would encourage you this weekend or whenever you're hearing this,
(04:52):
go to the YouTube machine and look up Eric Church
graduation speech. It's at the University of North Carolina. It's
so good because I had no expert well, I had
expectations because everybody kept sending it to me. You're gonna
love the speech. You only I don't want to hear
some singer give us space being good now. I don't
want to hear that. But I did, and I'm glad
(05:12):
I did. And it's so good because it's so engaging.
He has the people. It's it's a moment. Man. Anyway,
I want to talk about that speech because I think
it deserves to be amplified. We're gonna talk about that
first before we get to the news of the day.
It is Friday, after all. Hang Michael Berry Show. Let
me ask you a question. To stand down. If you're
(05:35):
on your way home or fine, you're at home about alone.
What would be the most devastating thing that could be
said to you in a phone call? The most devastating
thing you may never recover. Is it that your wife
(06:00):
or husband just died. Is that your child just died,
so your mother father just died. Is your best friend
just died? Think about that. What would be the most
horrible phone call you could get right now? If your answer,
because of what I do, I get a lot of
political stuff people send me is told on our president.
(06:24):
No more, I got news for you. There's going to
be a day, it's not so long from now that
Trump's not going to be our president. We got to
be big boys and girls. We got to carry on.
We got a nation to save here. If your biggest
(06:48):
news is political news, then you've not sunk roots in
the soil. The relationships that matter most should be those
closest to you. Once you identify who that is that
(07:10):
they're passing tragically, would devastate you the most, then that's
the most important thing to you. Now that you know that,
you can start with number two, three, four and five.
I understand many people are incapable of prioritizing. Nobody realizes it,
but most people are incapable of prioritizing. It's one of
(07:33):
many reasons we can't ever cut the budget because everything
is the most important thing. Hey, let's cut food stamps
by twin.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Food stamps are the most.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Okay, all right, Let's cut medicare. Medicare is the most.
All right, let's cut social security. Social security is the most.
Everything hit me the most. You don't understand what those
words mean. One has to be more important than the others.
They're all important, Michael, you're not very smart. You just
(08:09):
unfortunately you don't have a good processor. You got the
old Atari twenty six hundred you're carrying around on top
of your shoulders. One has to be more important. Likewise,
one relationship that you have has to be more important
than the others. Has to or the death of that
person has to be what would devastate you the most.
(08:31):
Once you understand that, you can start with number two, three,
four and five. The call that would devastate you most
is not that the meeting that you're going to go
to was canceled, or that event you're showing up to
that you said you'd go but you wish you wouldn't.
The power of being able to say no. It's a
(08:53):
crazy thing. I have friends with saying to me, we
doing this weekend. I must spend time reading, visiting with
my family, thinking, or do some writing. I wish I
had time for that. You do no. No, I got
to go to a wedding. I got to do this.
(09:13):
I gotta do this because you don't know how to
say no. It's a hard thing to do because you
feel like you can't say no unless you have an excuse. Oh,
I can't go do that thing I don't want to
do because I've already committed to doing this thing. I
don't have to say that. I just said no, I'm
not coming. And people who love me understand. People who
(09:38):
are so self centered that me not showing up makes
them angry are really just looking to fill the seats
at their event, and that is a hard truth for
people to understand. So I'd like to share some of
this graduation speech by Eric Church because it's wonderful. It's
(09:59):
really really wont to. You might not have graduated high school.
I don't care. What matters in life is births and
deaths and relationships, the dash in between the year you
were born and the day you died. And I like
to focus on those things. So we're gonna talk about that.
But first to get us started, as we always do,
(10:19):
Curse the Grace, executive producer and all the land Chattlekoni Nakanishi.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
You're a weekend.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
At Monigue. You'll always pry muffler shops, not advertising anyone.
When I was growing up, that was a big deal.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Mightas guarantee a replacement muffler.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
It was minukey and MIAs. But why did we not
have muffler?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
You'll always get a lot of money gy like a
nationwide WORRT on the money give up. Look.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
I don't know why, but if George Foreman guarantees, I
just feel like, all right, that's got to be a
good muffler.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
China's spots operating in the US.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
General Hawk is here to warn that China has hacked
into US computer networks to an astonishing degree. Local mayor
in California who has admitted to spreading propaganda on behalf
of the Chinese government. Is there another country that spies
on the US as much as China? It's just amazing.
They are our enemies. They are absolutely our enemies that
(11:13):
are not our friends. A highway that begins and taxes
could get a new name. Senator John Cornan has filed
legislation to call part of highway to eighty seven and
change it to Interstate forty seven, calling it the Trump.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Interstate, and it says the proposal would boost economic growth,
improve safety, and increase federal funding.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Can we all come together and name this highway for
Donald J. Trump? Five days before we're supposed to vote.
That's odd timing, isn't the president who is far more
popular than John Cornyan, whose voters buying large don't like
John Cornynan is all of a sudden, just out of nowhere.
These are the days of our lives.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Man.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
This takes me back to being at my grandmother's house.
So I call a name. Ten years old at my
grandmother's house is my other had gone into town and
needed to get more done and had left me with
my grandmother for the day. And I would sit there
and watch TV with her and I remember this was
one of this was the days of our lives. So
(12:14):
the stories is my grandmother see these other days of
the loaves, other days of the only time with don't
(12:42):
you call me?
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Don't you call me a chicken? Michael Mary.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I'm having a journey. Maybe it's Victor Franco's search for meaning.
I'm on a journey for more meaningful connections and experiences.
Not everybody understands that. Not everybody wants to participate. Some
people really can't get it. Some people are slaves to
a schedule of things that won't matter a year, two,
(13:15):
three years from now. I always feel so bad when
friends of mine get laid off from a job that
has been their total preoccupation. They've lived in fear of
being chastised or criticized in their jobs. They've shown up
at meetings that they want to go to. They've sat
through sat through meetings that were unproductive. They never pushed
(13:38):
back at a new initiative that was dumb that they
didn't believe was good. They have taken on tasks that
were unprofitable. They have taken on roles and responsibilities that
didn't matter in order to make somebody higher up in
the chain, feel good about themselves. What no, no, you
(14:03):
have an easy job, please don't in a row? And
then they get laid off from that job. Then all
of a sudden, what was it worth? What did it matter?
All those things, living in fear, running scared, and now
they've lost that thing. And then they realize none of
(14:26):
that even mattered, none of it. Control your spending, develop skills,
build relationships. Michael, it ain't gonna matter, None of us
gonna matter. A eye is gonna replace us. All AI
is going to replace a lot of people and a
lot of things. You know what's interesting that's been going
(14:48):
on for hundreds of years. That will accelerate a lot
of things. But if you're really valuable, really valuable, you're
going to be able to sell a good or service
to someone, an end customer or an employer for at
least the course of our lifetime. Just that simple. Anyway,
(15:13):
I got an email this morning from a listener just
outside of Houston, in a little country town, and he
said he saw this picture of a guy that's doing
free He said, free buzz cuts for kids under twelve
for summer, so a mom could take her kid in
get a buzz cut, did it all cut off? So
(15:35):
for the it's hot in Houston and in Texas for
the summer, and I talked to the barber. I talked
to him for a while. And I got so many
emails today from people who said, I hope you're going
to replay that conversation. I think it was. He was
a he was at rock bottom drug addict, got a
barber's license, opened a little barber shop in a small town,
(15:58):
married a woman who was her so off a heroin attic.
She works at the seven eleven across the street. They're
not rich, not in money anyway. It was a great story. Anyway,
A number of people asked us, we may play some
of that in the second hour. We'll see, all right,
I want to I want to get to Eric Church's
graduation speech at North Carolina. Here he is going to
(16:19):
lay it out, talking about using his guitar to teach
a lesson about having all aspects of your life in tune.
This is balance he's talking about.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
I've been grinding on this for a little bit about
how to do it.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
I have torn up multiple speeches, I have thrown things,
and in one of my fits of frustration, I sat
down with a guitar, and I thought it was my man,
Who am I kidding? I need to figure out a
way to do this with a guitar, So, if you'll
(16:54):
indulge me, I want to start with a sound.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
You know this sound.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
It's a guitar that's out of tune, something that almost
gets there, that tries but doesn't, and some ancient, honest
part of your brain knows it immediately. You don't need
training to hear it. You just know that sound is
the sound of something beautiful that has not been has
not been.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Tended to six strings. When all six are in.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Tune, the chords they make can stop a conversation, hold
carry a broken person through the worst night of their life,
or make a room full of strangers feel for three
minutes like they've known each other forever.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
But if even one is off, stop right there the
whole court.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
That is so true the power of a song to
connect us. You've been in a bar while you're traveling
and a song comes on, or you're at a concert
and you're with people you don't know well. Or I
guess I've been married since I was eighteen. But say
(18:03):
you're on a first date you don't know this person
very well, or for whatever reason, you're there by yourself
and a song comes on that you like, and you've
had a beer or two and you start singing a law. Look,
people around here are singing a law. Clank your drinks together.
There's a connection, an immediate connection to that. It opens
up synapses in your brain that very very few things do,
(18:28):
and that is that guitar, That is that musical instrument.
The piano does that as well. And he's using that
as a beautiful, beautiful metaphor for your life and something
far more important than what Fox News is going to
have on this evening, carry.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
A broken person through the worst night of their life,
or make a room full of strangers feel for three
minutes like they've known each other forever. But if even
one is off, the whole chord unravels, not gradually, not politely,
the moment you strike it.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Then he talks about Then he talks about the strains.
And I'm not a music theory guy, per se, but
he gets into the lowe stream cord and faith. And
I will tell you what I'm noticing is that at
(19:29):
university graduation addresses, people are returning to discussions of faith.
You know in the state of Texas, Texas A and M,
one of our major universities. The president is Glenn Hagar,
who used to be the comptroller, an elected official Republican.
The University of Texas. President Davis comes from the political
(19:52):
world where he's a strategist. The University of Texas Tech University.
Brandon Creighton, who was a state senator, also a republic
You're seeing Ben Thas who was down in Florida. You're
seeing academia. You're seeing people taking back academia from the
(20:14):
academics because frankly, they weren't mature enough to handle it.
The idea of the academy being a thoughtful place of
free expression and free ideas and engagement and true tolerance
and true understanding and true diversity being hijacked by leftists
in a political cultural war. There are massive changes going on,
(20:41):
and reference to faith, reference to Christian faith no less
is now being seen. When you watch as many speeches
as I do, you start noticing this trend, and you
notice that that people are craving this. Americans are craving
that which we are rooted in. So good things are happening, folks.
(21:03):
Good things are happening. If you can't say something nice,
you can always say it on the Michael Berry Show.
All right, Eric Church, singer songwriter, apparently speaking of University
of North Carolina. One of the best graduation speeches I've
ever heard in my life, and I mean of all time,
I mean of every great speech you can think of.
(21:24):
Admiral McRaven level. But he used his guitar and music
and the symphony of balance and how one being out
of balance, out of tune, can ruin everything but the
power of the balance working together. Here he is talking
(21:45):
about faith. I believe your life.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Runs on this principle, and I'm going to break it
down for you right now and tell you about your strengths. Okay,
string one, the lowe that is your foundation. The lowe
is the thing is string. It is the heaviest. Every
chord a guitar can make rests on this string.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Being in tune.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Your faith is the low e of your life, the
thing that sits at the very bottom of you, your
belief about what this life is, for what you owe,
What holds the universe together. When science reaches the edge
of its own explanation and shrugs the people who tend
(22:28):
to their faith in ordinary seasons do not come undone.
In extraordinary ones, they still hurt, they still sit in
hospital waiting rooms asking unanswerable questions at three in the morning,
but they have a foundation to return to the world.
Will try to untune this string through busyness, through slow
(22:52):
accumulation of a full schedule, a full inbox, a full life.
Listen to me, Tend to your faith, not just when
you're broken, but when you're whole.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
That is so deep. I watch people who are so
busy being busy that you wonder if there's even a
human being left inside there. Everything they do is through
the portal of a phone, communications that have no meaning
(23:34):
beyond that minute. L L R O T F M
A L O l Oh, my god, omg. Here's a meme.
Here's another one. Here's a meme. Here's another one. Here's
a meme. Here's another one. Here's a gift. Here's a TikTok.
Here's let me scroll TikTok, let me scroll whatever the
dating side of the week is. Let me scroll this.
(23:55):
And there's nothing left that human being has not you.
He was their brain. I saw I saw discussion Jordan
Peterson had the other day and he was talking about
how few people read anything meaningful, challenge themselves to read
anything meaningful. And I must say that my mother never
(24:17):
went to college, She didn't go beyond high school, and
she never left the United States. She couldn't get a
passport because the place she was born burned down. The
little clinic where she was born burned down. So we
fought and fought and fought, and she gave up. She
was so frustrated and so never having left the United States,
(24:40):
barely having traveled outside of Texas, never having gone to college.
She taught me to travel the world by reading and
the Power. One year for Christmas, I got a set
of books. Last of the Mohicans was the one that
really took me on my travels and made me a
(25:00):
voracious readers reader. And I just think to myself, people
are going to wake up one day and realize that
life passed them by in momentary blips that they can't
even recall because none of it was important. None of
it was important. It's this momentary text respond text, respond,
(25:25):
three dots showing up because the other person is responding.
But none of these conversations are meaningful, none of them matter,
none of them feed our souls and nourish our minds.
It's crazy, and he does such a good job really
putting that into perspective. The next one he talked about faith.
(25:46):
The next one he talks about family.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
String too, String too is fam Okay, look out at
these bleachers.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Look around.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Somewhere in that crowd is someone who has loved you
longer than you've been easy to love.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
It's true.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Someone who saw you at your actual worst, not your
public facing worst, and didn't leave you.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Someone who worked.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
A job they didn't love to put a book in
your hands you sometimes didn't open. Someone who sat alone
in a quiet house and cried the weekend you moved
into dorms and wondered have I done enough? That is
family and the A string is where the music starts
to get warm. It gives a chord its body, its richness.
(26:50):
It's the string that makes you feel like you're not
alone in a room. I want to warn you about something.
You're about to get busy in ways that feel important
in men are professionally ambitious, creatively alive, building the life
you've been pointed toward for four years. And family, because
they love you with a grace, you will spend most
(27:11):
of your life trying to deserve, will rarely demand your time.
They'll tell you they understand, and they'll mean it. Do
not take them up on it. Call your people, not
when there's news, not when there's nothing, show up when
it cost you something, Let them see you when things
are hard. The A string is not a holiday string,
(27:33):
it's an everyday string.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Protect it. Then there is something that doesn't get talked
about enough, and that is your spouse, your life partner,
the person you trust and honor and respect and serve.
Too many people don't understand how important that is to
(27:55):
make you whole. Too many people do not understand how
much better that can make your life. Let's play that
one real quick.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
The D string the heart of a chord on a guitar.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
The D string sits right at the heart of the instrument,
in the middle of the low and high strings.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Given the chord.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Its body.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
And it's soul.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Strike a full chord in a D string is what
you feel in the center.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Of your chest. That is not an accident.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
That is exactly what the right spouse in partner will
do for your life. The person you choose to share
your life with is the most important decision you will
ever make outside of your faith. They will either amplify
every other string you're playing or slowly pull the whole
instrument into an out of tune. Miss that I know
(28:50):
that I love you, honey. Find your best friend, someone
you want to talk to at the end of a
long day. Look for shared values over or shared interest
You don't need to love the same food or music.
You need the same compass that it would.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Be a Did you hear that? Find your mate for
life not based on shared interests but shared values. Boy,
that's not something you'll hear very often. We both really
like the Dave Matthews band. Okay, well, what if they're
(29:31):
not performing anymore? What about when you have kids? What
about when you want to move your mom in with
you because she's ill, and that person doesn't believe that
we should make sacrifices like that. You didn't share values.
You shared interest interests change values don't. Values are the
bedrock of who you are. Find a person they don't
(29:53):
need to like the same music or food or movies
or whatever. Talk about having kids, you know, the Catholics
are very good about this. Do we want to have kids?
How many? How do we want to raise them. What faith,
what tennants
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load. The
Michael Berry Show is on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
It's Charlie from BlackBerry Smoke.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I can feel a good one coming on. It's The
Michael Berry Show. Oh yes it is. We're glad to
be with them. Honest too. I'm gonna make an executive
decision here on Friday to drive home. I'm looking at
my notes. George Conway's a never Trumper ex husband of
(00:47):
Kelly and Conway, who was a loyal advisor to President
Trump is running for Congress. It's a Democrat. Don't talk
about the never Trumpers, how they're broken and it's it's sad,
it's it's tragic what's becoming them. And then Kamala Harris
and her crazy ideas because she has to say something stupid, stupid,
(01:08):
or the better. And once you understand that this is
what people it's a Carnival Barker position. You got to
say stupid stuff to be mentioned in the news because
the worst thing you can be being stupid does not
hurt Kamala Harris being irrelevant does. Once you understand that
you don't take anything she says or does seriously, you
realize her her sole responsibility is to be covered in
(01:33):
the news, to be talked about. I was going to
talk about Trump's trip to China, and we will, we will,
We will even get some of that today. There's some
news stories I wanted to get to this. This bomb
at the Converse Reservoir in the dam in Mobile, Alabama
(01:55):
concerns me a great deal. We'll talk about that. The
Charlotte North Carolina NAACP president Corin matt is not happy
about a white person replacing a black person as mayor.
You can imagine what I'd have to say about that.
But I would like to make I'd like to pivot
(02:17):
and I'd like to do something else instead. Because this
has been I watched it again this afternoon. I watch
a lot of graduation speeches because over the years I've
given a fair number of graduation speeches. One year, I
gave seven graduation speeches. All seven of them were almost
(02:43):
exclusively black high schools. I know, surprising, right, And the
administrators liked the message. You know, they go to each
other's graduations and so they already have the graduation speakers
set this year and they would invite me back. I
used to give free speeches. I don't give free speech
(03:03):
before I get paid. But I don't accept pay to
give a graduation speech because I view it as an
opportunity to young people. Other than that, I don't give
free speeches. It's part of what I do, and over
the years, I always use that money as play money
with the kids. If Dad gave a speech, then hey,
let me take a vacation, we go do something we'd
(03:25):
you know that thing you always wanted that so you
couldn't have Now you can have it in exchange for
me being away to go give this speech. But I
watch graduation speeches because a it helps me prepare speeches
in the future. It's the really, it's the super speech.
I like the Ted Talks as well because people put
(03:47):
a lot of time into it. They really think about it.
And I maintained that the two best speeches I've ever heard,
and I think if there is a speech, I've seen
Jeff Beatsos, I've seen Steve Jobs, I've seen the speech
is that I've seen it all. You're welcome to send
me something that you think is good. For the likelihood
(04:08):
if it's on YouTube, I have seen it. The two
best I've ever heard, believe it or not. One of
them is Lou Holtz. Lou Holtz gave a speech at
a small Catholic school and it is a banger. Man,
it is so good. It is so powerful. It's overwhelming.
(04:30):
The old ball coach, I know that spur or not
Lou holtsper the old ball coach. Man, it is something else.
The second one just happened. It's at the University of
North Carolina and it's a singer named Eric Church. I
know his name. I couldn't name one song, but I
would encourage you this weekend or whenever you're hearing this,
(04:52):
go to the YouTube machine and look up Eric Church
graduation speech. It's at the University of North Carolina. It's
so good because I had no expert well, I had
expectations because everybody kept sending it to me. You're gonna
love the speech. You only I don't want to hear
some singer give us space being good now. I don't
want to hear that. But I did, and I'm glad
(05:12):
I did. And it's so good because it's so engaging.
He has the people. It's it's a moment. Man. Anyway,
I want to talk about that speech because I think
it deserves to be amplified. We're gonna talk about that
first before we get to the news of the day.
It is Friday, after all. Hang Michael Berry Show. Let
me ask you a question. To stand down. If you're
(05:35):
on your way home or fine, you're at home about alone.
What would be the most devastating thing that could be
said to you in a phone call? The most devastating
thing you may never recover. Is it that your wife
(06:00):
or husband just died. Is that your child just died,
so your mother father just died. Is your best friend
just died? Think about that. What would be the most
horrible phone call you could get right now? If your answer,
because of what I do, I get a lot of
political stuff people send me is told on our president.
(06:24):
No more, I got news for you. There's going to
be a day, it's not so long from now that
Trump's not going to be our president. We got to
be big boys and girls. We got to carry on.
We got a nation to save here. If your biggest
(06:48):
news is political news, then you've not sunk roots in
the soil. The relationships that matter most should be those
closest to you. Once you identify who that is that
(07:10):
they're passing tragically, would devastate you the most, then that's
the most important thing to you. Now that you know that,
you can start with number two, three, four and five.
I understand many people are incapable of prioritizing. Nobody realizes it,
but most people are incapable of prioritizing. It's one of
(07:33):
many reasons we can't ever cut the budget because everything
is the most important thing. Hey, let's cut food stamps
by twin.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Food stamps are the most.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Okay, all right, Let's cut medicare. Medicare is the most.
All right, let's cut social security. Social security is the most.
Everything hit me the most. You don't understand what those
words mean. One has to be more important than the others.
They're all important, Michael, you're not very smart. You just
(08:09):
unfortunately you don't have a good processor. You got the
old Atari twenty six hundred you're carrying around on top
of your shoulders. One has to be more important. Likewise,
one relationship that you have has to be more important
than the others. Has to or the death of that
person has to be what would devastate you the most.
(08:31):
Once you understand that, you can start with number two, three,
four and five. The call that would devastate you most
is not that the meeting that you're going to go
to was canceled, or that event you're showing up to
that you said you'd go but you wish you wouldn't.
The power of being able to say no. It's a
(08:53):
crazy thing. I have friends with saying to me, we
doing this weekend. I must spend time reading, visiting with
my family, thinking, or do some writing. I wish I
had time for that. You do no. No, I got
to go to a wedding. I got to do this.
(09:13):
I gotta do this because you don't know how to
say no. It's a hard thing to do because you
feel like you can't say no unless you have an excuse. Oh,
I can't go do that thing I don't want to
do because I've already committed to doing this thing. I
don't have to say that. I just said no, I'm
not coming. And people who love me understand. People who
(09:38):
are so self centered that me not showing up makes
them angry are really just looking to fill the seats
at their event, and that is a hard truth for
people to understand. So I'd like to share some of
this graduation speech by Eric Church because it's wonderful. It's
(09:59):
really really wont to. You might not have graduated high school.
I don't care. What matters in life is births and
deaths and relationships, the dash in between the year you
were born and the day you died. And I like
to focus on those things. So we're gonna talk about that.
But first to get us started, as we always do,
(10:19):
Curse the Grace, executive producer and all the land Chattlekoni Nakanishi.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
You're a weekend.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
At Monigue. You'll always pry muffler shops, not advertising anyone.
When I was growing up, that was a big deal.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Mightas guarantee a replacement muffler.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
It was minukey and MIAs. But why did we not
have muffler?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
You'll always get a lot of money gy like a
nationwide WORRT on the money give up. Look.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
I don't know why, but if George Foreman guarantees, I
just feel like, all right, that's got to be a
good muffler.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
China's spots operating in the US.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
General Hawk is here to warn that China has hacked
into US computer networks to an astonishing degree. Local mayor
in California who has admitted to spreading propaganda on behalf
of the Chinese government. Is there another country that spies
on the US as much as China? It's just amazing.
They are our enemies. They are absolutely our enemies that
(11:13):
are not our friends. A highway that begins and taxes
could get a new name. Senator John Cornan has filed
legislation to call part of highway to eighty seven and
change it to Interstate forty seven, calling it the Trump.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Interstate, and it says the proposal would boost economic growth,
improve safety, and increase federal funding.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Can we all come together and name this highway for
Donald J. Trump? Five days before we're supposed to vote.
That's odd timing, isn't the president who is far more
popular than John Cornyan, whose voters buying large don't like
John Cornynan is all of a sudden, just out of nowhere.
These are the days of our lives.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Man.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
This takes me back to being at my grandmother's house.
So I call a name. Ten years old at my
grandmother's house is my other had gone into town and
needed to get more done and had left me with
my grandmother for the day. And I would sit there
and watch TV with her and I remember this was
one of this was the days of our lives. So
(12:14):
the stories is my grandmother see these other days of
the loaves, other days of the only time with don't
(12:42):
you call me?
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Don't you call me a chicken? Michael Mary.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I'm having a journey. Maybe it's Victor Franco's search for meaning.
I'm on a journey for more meaningful connections and experiences.
Not everybody understands that. Not everybody wants to participate. Some
people really can't get it. Some people are slaves to
a schedule of things that won't matter a year, two,
(13:15):
three years from now. I always feel so bad when
friends of mine get laid off from a job that
has been their total preoccupation. They've lived in fear of
being chastised or criticized in their jobs. They've shown up
at meetings that they want to go to. They've sat
through sat through meetings that were unproductive. They never pushed
(13:38):
back at a new initiative that was dumb that they
didn't believe was good. They have taken on tasks that
were unprofitable. They have taken on roles and responsibilities that
didn't matter in order to make somebody higher up in
the chain, feel good about themselves. What no, no, you
(14:03):
have an easy job, please don't in a row? And
then they get laid off from that job. Then all
of a sudden, what was it worth? What did it matter?
All those things, living in fear, running scared, and now
they've lost that thing. And then they realize none of
(14:26):
that even mattered, none of it. Control your spending, develop skills,
build relationships. Michael, it ain't gonna matter, None of us
gonna matter. A eye is gonna replace us. All AI
is going to replace a lot of people and a
lot of things. You know what's interesting that's been going
(14:48):
on for hundreds of years. That will accelerate a lot
of things. But if you're really valuable, really valuable, you're
going to be able to sell a good or service
to someone, an end customer or an employer for at
least the course of our lifetime. Just that simple. Anyway,
(15:13):
I got an email this morning from a listener just
outside of Houston, in a little country town, and he
said he saw this picture of a guy that's doing
free He said, free buzz cuts for kids under twelve
for summer, so a mom could take her kid in
get a buzz cut, did it all cut off? So
(15:35):
for the it's hot in Houston and in Texas for
the summer, and I talked to the barber. I talked
to him for a while. And I got so many
emails today from people who said, I hope you're going
to replay that conversation. I think it was. He was
a he was at rock bottom drug addict, got a
barber's license, opened a little barber shop in a small town,
(15:58):
married a woman who was her so off a heroin attic.
She works at the seven eleven across the street. They're
not rich, not in money anyway. It was a great story. Anyway,
A number of people asked us, we may play some
of that in the second hour. We'll see, all right,
I want to I want to get to Eric Church's
graduation speech at North Carolina. Here he is going to
(16:19):
lay it out, talking about using his guitar to teach
a lesson about having all aspects of your life in tune.
This is balance he's talking about.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
I've been grinding on this for a little bit about
how to do it.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
I have torn up multiple speeches, I have thrown things,
and in one of my fits of frustration, I sat
down with a guitar, and I thought it was my man,
Who am I kidding? I need to figure out a
way to do this with a guitar, So, if you'll
(16:54):
indulge me, I want to start with a sound.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
You know this sound.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
It's a guitar that's out of tune, something that almost
gets there, that tries but doesn't, and some ancient, honest
part of your brain knows it immediately. You don't need
training to hear it. You just know that sound is
the sound of something beautiful that has not been has
not been.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Tended to six strings. When all six are in.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Tune, the chords they make can stop a conversation, hold
carry a broken person through the worst night of their life,
or make a room full of strangers feel for three
minutes like they've known each other forever.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
But if even one is off, stop right there the
whole court.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
That is so true the power of a song to
connect us. You've been in a bar while you're traveling
and a song comes on, or you're at a concert
and you're with people you don't know well. Or I
guess I've been married since I was eighteen. But say
(18:03):
you're on a first date you don't know this person
very well, or for whatever reason, you're there by yourself
and a song comes on that you like, and you've
had a beer or two and you start singing a law. Look,
people around here are singing a law. Clank your drinks together.
There's a connection, an immediate connection to that. It opens
up synapses in your brain that very very few things do,
(18:28):
and that is that guitar, That is that musical instrument.
The piano does that as well. And he's using that
as a beautiful, beautiful metaphor for your life and something
far more important than what Fox News is going to
have on this evening, carry.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
A broken person through the worst night of their life,
or make a room full of strangers feel for three
minutes like they've known each other forever. But if even
one is off, the whole chord unravels, not gradually, not politely,
the moment you strike it.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Then he talks about Then he talks about the strains.
And I'm not a music theory guy, per se, but
he gets into the lowe stream cord and faith. And
I will tell you what I'm noticing is that at
(19:29):
university graduation addresses, people are returning to discussions of faith.
You know in the state of Texas, Texas A and M,
one of our major universities. The president is Glenn Hagar,
who used to be the comptroller, an elected official Republican.
The University of Texas. President Davis comes from the political
(19:52):
world where he's a strategist. The University of Texas Tech University.
Brandon Creighton, who was a state senator, also a republic
You're seeing Ben Thas who was down in Florida. You're
seeing academia. You're seeing people taking back academia from the
(20:14):
academics because frankly, they weren't mature enough to handle it.
The idea of the academy being a thoughtful place of
free expression and free ideas and engagement and true tolerance
and true understanding and true diversity being hijacked by leftists
in a political cultural war. There are massive changes going on,
(20:41):
and reference to faith, reference to Christian faith no less
is now being seen. When you watch as many speeches
as I do, you start noticing this trend, and you
notice that that people are craving this. Americans are craving
that which we are rooted in. So good things are happening, folks.
(21:03):
Good things are happening. If you can't say something nice,
you can always say it on the Michael Berry Show.
All right, Eric Church, singer songwriter, apparently speaking of University
of North Carolina. One of the best graduation speeches I've
ever heard in my life, and I mean of all time,
I mean of every great speech you can think of.
(21:24):
Admiral McRaven level. But he used his guitar and music
and the symphony of balance and how one being out
of balance, out of tune, can ruin everything but the
power of the balance working together. Here he is talking
(21:45):
about faith. I believe your life.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Runs on this principle, and I'm going to break it
down for you right now and tell you about your strengths. Okay,
string one, the lowe that is your foundation. The lowe
is the thing is string. It is the heaviest. Every
chord a guitar can make rests on this string.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Being in tune.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Your faith is the low e of your life, the
thing that sits at the very bottom of you, your
belief about what this life is, for what you owe,
What holds the universe together. When science reaches the edge
of its own explanation and shrugs the people who tend
(22:28):
to their faith in ordinary seasons do not come undone.
In extraordinary ones, they still hurt, they still sit in
hospital waiting rooms asking unanswerable questions at three in the morning,
but they have a foundation to return to the world.
Will try to untune this string through busyness, through slow
(22:52):
accumulation of a full schedule, a full inbox, a full life.
Listen to me, Tend to your faith, not just when
you're broken, but when you're whole.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
That is so deep. I watch people who are so
busy being busy that you wonder if there's even a
human being left inside there. Everything they do is through
the portal of a phone, communications that have no meaning
(23:34):
beyond that minute. L L R O T F M
A L O l Oh, my god, omg. Here's a meme.
Here's another one. Here's a meme. Here's another one. Here's
a meme. Here's another one. Here's a gift. Here's a TikTok.
Here's let me scroll TikTok, let me scroll whatever the
dating side of the week is. Let me scroll this.
(23:55):
And there's nothing left that human being has not you.
He was their brain. I saw I saw discussion Jordan
Peterson had the other day and he was talking about
how few people read anything meaningful, challenge themselves to read
anything meaningful. And I must say that my mother never
(24:17):
went to college, She didn't go beyond high school, and
she never left the United States. She couldn't get a
passport because the place she was born burned down. The
little clinic where she was born burned down. So we
fought and fought and fought, and she gave up. She
was so frustrated and so never having left the United States,
(24:40):
barely having traveled outside of Texas, never having gone to college.
She taught me to travel the world by reading and
the Power. One year for Christmas, I got a set
of books. Last of the Mohicans was the one that
really took me on my travels and made me a
(25:00):
voracious readers reader. And I just think to myself, people
are going to wake up one day and realize that
life passed them by in momentary blips that they can't
even recall because none of it was important. None of
it was important. It's this momentary text respond text, respond,
(25:25):
three dots showing up because the other person is responding.
But none of these conversations are meaningful, none of them matter,
none of them feed our souls and nourish our minds.
It's crazy, and he does such a good job really
putting that into perspective. The next one he talked about faith.
(25:46):
The next one he talks about family.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
String too, String too is fam Okay, look out at
these bleachers.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Look around.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Somewhere in that crowd is someone who has loved you
longer than you've been easy to love.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
It's true.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Someone who saw you at your actual worst, not your
public facing worst, and didn't leave you.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Someone who worked.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
A job they didn't love to put a book in
your hands you sometimes didn't open. Someone who sat alone
in a quiet house and cried the weekend you moved
into dorms and wondered have I done enough? That is
family and the A string is where the music starts
to get warm. It gives a chord its body, its richness.
(26:50):
It's the string that makes you feel like you're not
alone in a room. I want to warn you about something.
You're about to get busy in ways that feel important
in men are professionally ambitious, creatively alive, building the life
you've been pointed toward for four years. And family, because
they love you with a grace, you will spend most
(27:11):
of your life trying to deserve, will rarely demand your time.
They'll tell you they understand, and they'll mean it. Do
not take them up on it. Call your people, not
when there's news, not when there's nothing, show up when
it cost you something, Let them see you when things
are hard. The A string is not a holiday string,
(27:33):
it's an everyday string.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Protect it. Then there is something that doesn't get talked
about enough, and that is your spouse, your life partner,
the person you trust and honor and respect and serve.
Too many people don't understand how important that is to
(27:55):
make you whole. Too many people do not understand how
much better that can make your life. Let's play that
one real quick.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
The D string the heart of a chord on a guitar.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
The D string sits right at the heart of the instrument,
in the middle of the low and high strings.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Given the chord.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Its body.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
And it's soul.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Strike a full chord in a D string is what
you feel in the center.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Of your chest. That is not an accident.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
That is exactly what the right spouse in partner will
do for your life. The person you choose to share
your life with is the most important decision you will
ever make outside of your faith. They will either amplify
every other string you're playing or slowly pull the whole
instrument into an out of tune. Miss that I know
(28:50):
that I love you, honey. Find your best friend, someone
you want to talk to at the end of a
long day. Look for shared values over or shared interest
You don't need to love the same food or music.
You need the same compass that it would.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Be a Did you hear that? Find your mate for
life not based on shared interests but shared values. Boy,
that's not something you'll hear very often. We both really
like the Dave Matthews band. Okay, well, what if they're
(29:31):
not performing anymore? What about when you have kids? What
about when you want to move your mom in with
you because she's ill, and that person doesn't believe that
we should make sacrifices like that. You didn't share values.
You shared interest interests change values don't. Values are the
bedrock of who you are. Find a person they don't
(29:53):
need to like the same music or food or movies
or whatever. Talk about having kids, you know, the Catholics
are very good about this. Do we want to have kids?
How many? How do we want to raise them. What faith,
what tennants
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