Ron Simmons (6:39)

You'Re going to get paid.

Ron Simmons (6:41)

Show up for work. I mean, come on guys and gals, you're putting people's lives at risk. You know what your job is. You know that you make a pretty good salary and in fact a very good salary and you're causing havoc throughout the country. And that is just inappropriate. Here's you've heard the term thrown around quite a bit called CR continuing resolution. Well, what a continuing resolution means is that the government will be funded in the same manner that it has been funded before up until now. Because what happens is because we haven't passed a two year budget in years because it can't seem to get through both the House and the Senate. They have these ongoing continuous resolutions that basically says, okay, we're just going to fund the government like it has been over the last several months. And the House of Representatives, some people say, why isn't the House of Representatives working? Well, they've already done their job. They passed a clean continuing resolution. They didn't add any port to it or take anything Away from it just said it's going to stay the same as it has been since, since it was funded prior to this particular budget scenario. So the House has done its work. There's nothing they can do until the Senate decide. Senate passes some type of resolution. Now what, what the Senate has put forth is the clean resolution, meaning there's no add ons to it. But the sticking point is the Democrats want to add 1.5. Listen to me, it says over the next decade $1.5 trillion of additional spending. And you know where spending comes from. Remember, the government doesn't produce anything. Every single dime that the government takes in comes out of some taxpayer's pocket, either through fees or direct taxes. So remember when any money that they say they want to increase, that's coming from you and me, no other place for it to come from. They don't make widgets. They don't, you know, they don't do anything else. They simply collect the money from you and me and then they spend it on whatever it is they're spending on. In fact, they've actually overspent by $37 trillion. Now that, you know, goes over a lot of administrations, including the Biden administration, the Obama administration. In fact, the budget has not been balanced since 1994, something like that. And so for the last, what would that be, 31 years we've created deficits. Some of those have been necessary due to like the pandemic, due to wartime, what have you. But a lot of it has just been extra spending that didn't need to happen. And now the Democrats want to put another 1.5 trillion. And the main part of that is extending Obamacare subsidies.

Allie Beth (9:51)

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Ron Simmons (11:10)

Now, I don't know if you all remember when Obamacare first got started. Some of you were probably not thinking about that cause you were teenagers and what have you. But when Obamacare finally went into play, the selling point that President Obama at the time told us and all the Democrats told us, it's going to make health and health costs go down. If it's going to make everything less expensive, more efficient. Well, if that's the case, why in the world are Democrats so concerned about continuing subsidies and doesn't want people's health insurance cost to, you know, their, their out of pocket cost to go up? It's because health insurance, health costs have continued to soar since Obamacare came into play. In fact, it's only gotten worse than what it was beforehand. As far as the rate of increase is concerned, it's been an absolute disaster. So what happened is, is when Obamacare first started, they, there were these. How much you paid was dependent on your income. And okay, we understood that based on how much money you made was how much you could buy an insurance policy for through what they called the marketplace, which is basically Obamacare. If you had a company plan or you were eligible for Medicare or anything like that, you weren't eligible for these. But if you were just an individual without insurance, you could buy a plan through Obamacare. And based on how much money you made, determine how much you paid. And so the less money you made, if you were under the federal poverty limit, you paid very little money. If you made a lot of money, you paid more money. Okay. Even though they were both getting the same coverage. So it's socialism at its best. Unbelievable. What happened was during the pandemic, actually while Biden was president, they what he called the Inflation Reduction act, which was the biggest joke of a name of any legislation I've ever heard of, okay. Is that they enhance those subsidies and so they made it even less expensive for people to get insurance. In fact, I printed some stuff off here today. I'm going to pull it out here if I can find it. Yeah. And what they, what the Democrats want to do is continue those and because, because those are supposed to, were supposed to temporary and they were scheduled to end at the end of 2025. We're not in the pandemic anymore. Everybody that wants to work has gone back to work. And everybody that hasn't gone back to work, that's able bodied should go back to work. There's no reason where people be sitting around the house not going back to work. So anyway, here's what the enhanced incentives would provide. All right? If the federal poverty limit for a family of four is $31,000 a year, which is no question, that would be very hard to make it on that. If you made between $31,047,000 a year, you basically didn't have to pay any premiums for an Obamacare plan. All right, zero. It cost you nothing. If you made between $47,000 a year and $62,000 a year. So that's above the poverty level up to 200%. You, you would pay only about 2% of your income. So if you made 60,000 a year, you would pay 2%, which would be $1,200 a year or about, what's that, 60, 50, what would that be? About a little over $100 a month. Okay, be $100 a month. If you made between 62,000 and $78,000 a year, you paid 4%, which again, the maximum for somebody that made say 80,000, that would be what, $3,200 a year. That would be somewhere around two or $300 a month. Okay, Very inexpensive. Those plans themselves generally would cost a family 2 or $3,000 a month. And then if you made 300% of poverty level, you'd pay 6%. If you made 400, if you made 400% of poverty level, which was between 93 and 125,000, you would pay 8%. Well, those are supposed to go back to the original subsidies. Okay, we're not getting rid of all the subsidies. It just goes back to the original non enhanced subsidies, which cut these about in half. And for anybody making over 400%, there wouldn't be any type of subsidy out there. So that's what they want. Now again, all the Democrats are trying to do is give away your money so that they can get somebody else's vote. That's what they're trying to do. I hope that the Republicans will not compromise on that, but my best guess is they're going to come up with some type of compromise. That's my best guess. It won't be certainly what probably you and I want, and it probably won't even be what Chuck Schumer totally wants, but they've got to figure out what people generally do in legislation like that is figure out a way where both of them can go back to their constituents and say they won. Even if it's not the truth, they'll make it just enough so that they'll say, okay, well, we held firm, or, hey, we got them to do this. That's what's likely will happen. I don't have any real inside information on that right now, but the people I'm talking to, I think that's the most likely scenario because nobody wants the government shutdown to continue as long as it's already continued. And hopefully when the Senate gets back into session tomorrow, they will have come up with a solution. Now, I know that they were off over the weekend, but I guarantee you they've been talking. That's. That's. That's what happens. There's been seven failed votes so far in the Senate. Have you got to get to 60 in the Senate. And some people have said, well, why don't we put the nuclear option where you only have to have 51? I would disagree with that, because here's what happens. I use the term sometimes that gun kicks just as hard as it shoots, meaning that sometimes when you do those things that seem good when you're in charge, you're not gonna want those when the other side's in charge, because when the other side's in charge, we want them to have to get 60 votes to pass some stuff that we don't like. So I would not put a nuclear option on this. Now, pretty interesting on all of this stuff, on this clean resolution, and Chuck Schumer, you know, talking about we're not gonna do it and all this type of stuff. But in 2013, in two. In 2019, in 2021, Chuck Schumer went before the Senate floor and on media and says, we have to pass a clean resolution. That's what we need to do to keep the government open. And then once we do that, we can talk about all these other things. Now he's totally changed his tune, right? It's the hypocrisy of liberals that drives me the most crazy, is that they are just so hypocritical when it doesn't.

Ron Simmons (18:08)

When it.

Ron Simmons (18:09)

When it suits them to be. And we'll just have to see what happens. Now, I want to tell you this, though. Don't panic about it, okay? It's going to be okay. Everything will adjust as. As it has in the past. I do think that we'll come out of this with probably less federal employees. I do think some agencies will use this as a chance, as an opportunity to trim their staff some, which is a good thing. I always used to tell people, when you see companies that are, that have a pretty good balance sheet and they're laying off people, that's a pretty good time to invest in their stock. Now, I'm not giving you personal investment advice. I'm just saying what I've looked at in the past. So that. Because that means they're tightening the ship and hopefully the federal government will do that as well. You're still gonna get your Social Security check. You're still gonna, if you're on Medicare, you're still gonna get Medicare. If you're on Medicaid, you're still gonna have your claims paid and what have you. So don't worry about that. They'll get it worked out. Probably will not be exactly what any of us want, but they'll get it worked out. So that's another good reason, though, to talk about this real quick. Every one of us should have at least 90 days in reserve, 90 days of our expenses. So if your expenses are $3,000 a month, you should have at least $9,000 in savings in a money market type fund that you can access without any risk of the principal being lost. And no matter what you're doing, that should be the first savings you set aside. You build that $9,000 up, if that's what your deal is, 3,000amonth. And don't do anything else until you do that. I think that's very, very important. Now, do I think you should still give to your church and to charities? Yes. Do I still think, you know, you should pay your bills? Yes. But before you do any other expenses, you need to be putting that money away so that you're ready in case something happens to your particular job or maybe you work for the federal government and you know you need to. There'll be another shutdown in the future, I promise you that. If not this year, not next year, in the future, it'll happen. So make sure that you're prepared for that so your family doesn't suffer or you don't have to do something that's unwise. So anyway, government shutdown, it's. It happens. It's happened many times in the past and it will all get worked out. I hope you'll pay attention, but it's not something to really be panicked about.

Allie Beth (20:39)

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Ron Simmons (21:54)

Next thing I want to talk about, though, is we want to talk about Israel and Hamas, what went on in Gaza. Not really talking about the politics of it, but we're talking about the fact that they have agreed on a ceasefire, and not just a ceasefire, but they've agreed on a. What's the beginnings of a peace plan. And everybody's pretty excited about it. Let's go to Sat. Two similar moments of joy unfolding inside Gaza as crowds of Palestinians cheered and chanted. After two years of war, an influx of aid and relief will make it to residents there. Honestly, these are indescribable feelings. We can't believe it, but thank God the war has ended and we are alive. Honestly, we hope the war does not come back and for this to be really the end with no death and destruction afterwards. That. I mean, that. That's exciting. I mean, that is exciting. We're having to record this a little bit early today. So all the hostage scenario and what's released and all that have not been totally done yet. Supposed to be starting today, and I think it will be. It's really good. There's somewhere, we don't know the exact number between 20 and 40 hostages that Hamas has that are still alive that they're going to send back. And then also the remains of 28 people that have passed away. And then Israel is releasing 250 Palestinian prisoners that are serving a life sentence and 1700 others that are detained. They haven't been sentenced yet, they're detained. So hopefully it's something that is going to work. You know, the is Israel is going to pull back from some of the urban areas. The US government sending it, we're sending 200 of our troops to help coordinate to make sure this stays in place. Now there are a whole, there's like a 20 point peace plan and everything hasn't been totally agreed upon, but it seems like this is a really, really good start. There's going to be 170,000 tons, which I don't even know what that number comes to. 34 something. 34, I don't know, million pounds or whatever that comes to, of food, medicine and supplies going to be coordinated by the UN so that it's not just taken over by some of the leaders in Gaza and used, you know, to keep their people at bay. Because that's what's happened a lot of times that we've tried to send humanitarian aid in there. And then the, the terrorists and stuff have been the ones that have taken it, controlled it to keep, to keep the citizens under control. And hopefully that's not going to happen this time. Let's pull up SOT 3.

Ron Simmons (24:50)

The hostages will be coming back Monday or Tuesday. I'm probably, I'll probably be there. I hope to be there. And we're planning on leaving sometime Sunday and I look forward to it. And everybody I see is celebrating in Israel, but they're celebrating in many other countries too. A lot of the Muslim and Arab countries, they're celebrating everybody celebrating. Everybody loves the deal. So it's a great honor to have been working on it.

Ron Simmons (25:20)

So obviously that was a few days ago. And the reason I showed that is because the work that President Trump and his team have done. One thing that's been a little bit under reported, I only saw it in one publication, is if you remember President Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner, that was very involved in the first Trump administration and actually set up the Abraham Accords, which was a relationship that America put together in the Middle east with some of the Middle east countries over there. He's been involved in the last few days with these negotiations and has obviously very talented at doing that. So I appreciate him as a fellow American that's willing to, you know, leave his private business for a while and get involved with this. And that's, I think that's a really good thing. Now one of the things that you have Seen heard, anyway, talked about in this is whether or not President Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize for this. Well, if this thing goes through like it's scheduled to go through and everything is agreed upon, I don't see how you couldn't do that. Now, they don't always give the Nobel priest Prize to people that are deserving. In fact, they've given it to people that have been non deserving. But I really think President Trump has taken the right stance on this and he talked about that recently in Sat 5.

Ron Simmons (26:44)

Everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize for each one of these achievements, but for me, the real prize will be the sons and daughters who live to grow up with their mothers and fathers because millions of people are no longer being killed in endless and un glorious wars. What I care about is not winning prizes, it's saving lives. We saved millions and millions of lives with the seven wars and we have others that we're working on. And you know, that.

Ron Simmons (27:18)

That'S awesome. That, that, that is exactly the right tone to take. Obviously there was a teleprompter up there, but he, you know, he's the one that approves all the speeches that he does. So that's the right tone to take. It's not about his prize or my prize or your prize, whatever we're talking about. It's really about saving the lives of people and people in the future that would have died in a conflict like this. Same thing's going on in Ukraine. I wish, I wish Putin and Zelensky would be able to get together and come to some type of agreement. You know, I know what my personal feelings are, but I just want them to come to an agreement because it's not going to get any better. And I'm hopeful that this works. And if happens to work, I sincerely hope that President Trump deservedly wins the Nobel Peace Prize for that. So, so that's what's going on with that. We'll monitor that as well. Again, no matter which side of the political spectrum you're on, you want to have peace in that particular area. And that'll be a big positive for the Middle east for sure.

Allie Beth (28:25)

Next sponsor is Good Ranchers, y'.

Ron Simmons (28:27)

All.

Allie Beth (28:27)

Good Ranchers is amazing. It's another Christian family owned company. All of their meat, their seafood, their beef, their different cuts of steak, their bacon, their chicken, their chicken nuggets, it's all from an American farm or ranch. Unfortunately, over the past decade or so, probably the past 20 years, American farms and ranches have just been decimated because of over regulation and over reliance on cheaper foreign imported meat. But that's not what you want to do. If you're an America first person and you want to not only put your country first, but you also want to put your faith first, you need to support good ranchers. Plus, it's really good meat. It's really high quality. I can tell you from years of experience and it makes your life easier. They are sending this meat to you on dry, on dry ice to your front door every month. I love the bacon. I love the chicken nuggets. Seed oil free, gluten free. So good and so good for you. If you go to weheartnutrition.com and you subscribe, they'll add a free bag of meat to your subscription for the life of your subscription. Plus, when you use my code ALLY, you get $40 off goodranchers.com ally code ALLY.

Ron Simmons (29:40)

Now let's talk about some of the questions that you have. You guys are awesome at answering questions. For us, it's just giving questions to us and giving us the opportunity to answer them. I want to tell you though that if you have. I've told you in the past that if you have a question that I don't answer on here and you would like for me to answer personally, just email me ronsimmons.com now. If you've sent me an email and I haven't answered you. Cause I get a bunch of emails on the other stuff that I have going on, please resend it to me. I apologize that I haven't gotten back to you. We have gotten a good response on this and I really enjoy doing that. Allie and I talk about it all the time. Sometimes I'll get my wife involved in it. Say, how would you answer this? Cause she has much more wisdom than I do on a lot of subjects. And so I appreciate y' all doing that. But we got a bunch of good ones today too. I'm gonna try to go through as many as I can in the time we have left. And if I don't get to yours and you're still interested in having it answered, please just shoot me an email and I'll do my best to answer it. Okay. I got them on my phone here. All right. Thoughts on Taylor and Travis getting married? I have no thoughts on them getting married. Okay. I do think if you're dating and you're serious, then you should move that on to being married. Okay. That's what I think. But other than that, I have no thoughts on that. Although I did Take one of my grandsons to a Kansas City Chiefs game. He's a big Kansas City Chiefs fan. A couple of weeks ago in Kansas City and I never even looked up to see if Taylor Swift was there, although I'm sure she was. But it was a great experience. Kansas City is a great place to go to a game. Very family oriented. I really, we really enjoyed doing that. All right. So somebody asked about the traveling that Lisa and Daniel and I have done. Daniel's Ali's brother and we've had a. We had a great time. We went on a nice cruise around the British Isles. Daniel is our son, you know, with autism and he likes everything British. So for his 40th birthday we took him on a cruise from London around Ireland and Scotland. We really had a great time. And for, and for the three of us, I think that probably was one of his best trips for Lisa and I. Last summer we went on the footsteps of Paul on a Cruise with about 100 other of us on this small ship into Greece. And we went to Athens, we went to Thessaloniki, we went to Patmos, it was fantastic. We also went to Ephesus, which is actually over in Turkey. But one of the cool things that we did in Ephesus is we went to an amphitheater that's still there from ancient times. And we had. The Christian singer Cece Winans came in and did a private concert for the hundred of us that were there. It was fantastic. In fact, Lisa said when we were sitting there, she looks up at. I always kind of choke up when I think about this. She looks up at the top of the theater and she just says, I can see Paul sitting up there just smiling on what had happened from his ministry and from Jesus ministry. So anyway, it was a very cool experience. That's probably our favorite trip. What's the favorite thing to do with the grandkids? The favorite thing I like to do with the grandkids is take them kind of one at a time and spend some one on one time with them. And as they get older, that's easier and easier to do. Like taking my 11 year old up to Kansas City and you know, my 14 year old, he came out to the mountains with us for a couple of weeks this summer. For the little ones right now, the favorite thing to do is just to watch them playing together. Allie's oldest and my son's youngest are about the same age and they don't see each other that much because they live hundreds of miles apart. But when they do, they're so fun to watch and just see them playing together as cousins that really enjoy being with each other. So that's the fun part. Did you ever think Ally would grow up to be such an amazing influence on women? Honestly, I knew that Allie was going to be an influencer. Now, you hope when they're little that that's for the good, and it certainly turned out to be that way. But I also knew that her mom was setting a great example for that. So you never know. Nobody expects it to be what it is, right. We didn't have any concept to know what it would end up being and what it even will be in the future. But I did know that Allie was someone that was going to be a leader and an influence. She just had that since she was born, she's always been out in front and I've appreciated that much about her. What do you think about age gap relationships greater than 10 years? Does the Bible speak to this? I don't know if it speaks to it specifically. Here's what I'll tell you. And I know that when we say don't be unequally yoked, that does generally mean about your faith, and I agree with that. But I can also believe it can mean other things as well. If it's the right fit and you believe that's what God has put y' all into, that relationship, then I'm fine with that. But just know it's gonna be different, okay? And if it's so vastly different, that's gonna cause major issues or could cause major issues. Just pray about that and make sure that's where you're supposed to be, what you're supposed to be doing at the time. Favorite Bible verse? My favorite. I got two favorite Bible verses. James 3, 17. I'll let you look em up and mark 10:45. Those are my two favorite Bible verses. And you know, those speak to me. Do I think this is a very good question here. Do I think Charlie Kirk's assassination had an effect on my generation? I think it did, but I think it was primarily because we saw the response. Now, I was fortunate I knew who Charlie was. As I said on my Facebook post, I had met Charlie through Allie. And so I was maybe more in tune than some people would be my age. But I believe it's primarily the reaction that we've seen by people since then that has been so amazing and in so many ways encouraging to us. When I saw the response in countries like the UK and Australia and Korea, that was surprising even to me who did know him a little bit and knew what his ministry was. So I think it's had an effect. I still think some people are trying to catch up with that, including some pastors. But I'm just prayerful that it's going to be a continuous revival that comes about due to that. So. So I'm hopeful for that.

Allie Beth (36:32)

Next sponsor is Range Leather. So thankful for Range Leather. This is yet another family owned company that makes all of their products right here in the U.S. kyle and Bailey started Range Leather Leather from their kitchen table in Laramie, Wyoming. And everything is still made there in Wyoming. And I mean this stuff lasts for life. I've got jewelry from there, I've got a hat from there, I've got a bag from there that I still love. Wallets. I mean their stuff makes such a great gift for people in your life. Also just for yourself. And when you're buying from Range Leather, you know that it's high quality. So many things today are so expensive, yet it just doesn't last because it's cheaply made. You don't have to worry about that with Range Leather. If you are looking for high quality, quality, family owned, made in the USA leather products, then look no further than Range Leather. If you go to rangelather.com alli you'll get 15% off all of their products. Rangeleather.com alli.

Ron Simmons (37:39)

Is a financial advisor worth the cost? You know I was in the wealth management business for 30 something years and what I will tell you is that you never want to hire a financial advisor that gets paid when you buy or sell something that gets paid on a transaction because their incentives are wrong. You want to have a financial advisor that gets paid a percent of the assets that he's managing for you. So if he's managing $100,000 and his fee is 1% a year, that's $1,000. Good advisors are worth that, right? And also they have the right incentive. If your money goes up to say $200,000 then his 1% fee is now worth 2,000 to him. If your money goes down then he lose, he gets a reduction in his fee as well. So make sure that the incentive is lined up correctly. And yes, I believe that they're worth it. You know, if you get a good one. But you need to interview them, you need to know what their background is, you know what their philosophy is, how are they going to manage your money, how active are they going to be, what type of risk are they going to take and then you know, obviously make sure you understand all the Fees. Because sometimes there are hidden fees. So make sure you understand all of them. Let's see here is constant. Is it constitutional to ban Sharia law? Sure, that's constitutional. We can. We can ban Sharia law if we want to. There's nothing unconstitutional about that. Any law that's in conflict with the laws of the state or the federal are unconstitutional anyway. So we could do that if that's what we wanted to. All right, let's see here. What's my greatest priority in the role of a grandparent? I think our greatest priority in the role of a grandparent, and it's really the same for parents, is to steward our life in a way that our grandkids can follow that not so much what we say, but in what we do and how we conduct ourselves. Okay. Certainly it can be some things that come out of our mouth. We can. Those can be positive or negative, but it's more so in how they see us steward our life and how we live our life. That's what I believe is the most important thing that. That we can do. All right, let's see here. How do you encourage your Christian husband to lead your family spiritually? That's a hard one. I know I probably hadn't done that. Did not do that as well as I should have. But I think what you have to understand is that you cannot force another person to do something with their spiritual life. You can encourage them, you can love on them. You can try to get them engaged with people that you might have a good influence that you think might have a good influence on them, but you cannot force them to do that. So you live your life like you're supposed to. Okay? You be the person you're supposed to be and the mother you're supposed to be and the wife you're supposed to be. And you let God worry about taking your husband and changing the changes that he needs to make. You just. It's just not. It's not possible to force somebody to do that. The turbo option of Republicans. What, this. This is a good question. You know, the president has thousands of nominees that he puts before the Senate to get approved, and the Senate can deny those. All right, but they have something called the turbo option, which Instead of getting 60 senators on board with, they go to the 51 senators, and this is not allowed for every particular nominee. But the Democrats have done it, and the Republicans just did it last week where they were. They approved over 100 nominees, like, in one sitting. And so they do it really quick. They don't have a lot of discussion on any of them. They just go through and approve them. And I think we're going to have to. I think we're going to have to do more of that. We'll do one more. Do you fear for Allie's safety? I think that's a really good question given everything that's going on. And of course, as a mom and dad, we're always concerned about our kids safety for sure. Not only Allie, but she has her older brother's in a position that can cause some concern over that as well. But I will tell you that while we are obviously as parents are concerned about those types of things, is that we don't let that change what we believe that God has put on our family. We're very blessed and we're given an opportunity through Allie. Allie's given an opportunity to do what she's doing. Our oldest son is given an incredible opportunity to do what he's doing. And we can't let the fear of another man or woman stop us. We can take all the precautions, which we do the best that we can in that, and we've certainly increased that over the last several weeks. But we cannot let that stop us. We have to move forward and we have to let our grandkids and their kids see that we're doing that as well. So it's something you think about for sure, but it's not something that stops any of us on what we're doing. And I hope it wouldn't do that for you either. So.

Allie Beth (43:23)

Last sponsor is Concerned Women for America. If you have been looking at what's happening in American education or you are just looking out your window and you're seeing the culture war and the fight for our children's minds and hearts and you're like, how do I get involved? How do I do something else? Invest my talent, time, energy into ensuring that the next generation is protected and can actually learn truth, then you need to reach out to Concerned Women for America. They have been in this fight for decades. They focus on family, sanctity of life, religious liberty, parental choice and education, Fighting sexual exploitation, national sovereignty, support for Israel, so much more. CWA trains women to become grassroots leaders, speak into the culture, pray for, testify and lobby. They have collegiate chapters, they've also got mom chapters. They really help all generations of women get involved. If you go to concerned women.org ally when you donate $20, you get a free copy of Penny Nance's new book, A Woman's Guide Seven Rules for Success in Business and in Life. Go to concernedwomen.org Alli.

Ron Simmons (44:42)

I have one more segment that I want to do, and I've called it this before. It's called Wisdom from the Wagon. And if you see behind me the book, my book, Life Lessons from the Little Red Wagon, which you can get anywhere you get your books, you can get it on audio. In fact, if you get on audio, you'll have Ronald Reagan reading part of my book, which was pretty hard to get considering he passed away, you know, 20 something years ago. But we were able to pull it off. You never know what you're going to be able to get. But. But I think you'll like the book. It's 15 different lessons that I've learned over the years. And I'll tell you what it is too. It's a great book of storytelling done by my friend Don Yeager that helped me write the book. And it's very transparent. It lets you see the good, the bad and the ugly about what I've gone through, some of the ups and the downs. And I think it is one of the biggest comments I get back on that is the transparency of it. And the cool thing about it is I grew up as son of public school teachers. Nothing particularly special about me, my background. There was nothing that would have predicted some of the things that we've been able to be a part of and what have you through God's grace. But I do think you'll enjoy it. And I base it on a red wagon because almost all of us have had a red wagon. And as you can see from this picture, not only do you probably have one, but this is Ali Beth. She's holding onto the handle and she's got her cousin in the wagon. All right, this is back in Arkansas. We would gone home for a visit. And that's a Radio Flyer wagon that we take a look at. And now it's interesting. This picture is really interesting because one of the things in my book is I describe all the different parts of the wagon. And the wagon has four key parts. It has the handle, it has the front wheels, it has the back wheels, and it has the part that carries something. Well, obviously the handle is held onto by someone who's leading the wagon. And can you imagine Ali Beth being on any other position than holding the handle and leading the wagon? All the people around here shaking their heads saying, yeah, we, we understand that. And she's been that way since she was a little girl. But I just love that picture because it's just her as a sweet little One with her cousin and holding on to a Radio Flyer wagon that we've talked about so many times. But today's wisdom of the wagon is create your own opportunity. You know, a lot of people think, well, I didn't have this, or I didn't get the ass, or you were lucky. Or I was. I wasn't fast enough to be in the NFL, or I didn't hit the golf ball well enough to get on the PGA Tour, or I didn't have a rich uncle or a rich daddy or something like that. Okay, I get all of that. All right, let's just wipe all that from the past. It's up to us to create our own opportunity. At lunch with a young man earlier this week or last week, and he's a friend of the family, he's been a really sweet friend to Daniel and just give you his first name. It's Andrew. And Andrew and I were sitting down for lunch. Cause he asked me business questions on occasion and whatever. And Andrew has always had the desire to be an entrepreneur. He's been very successful in the regular business world, working for huge Fortune 500 companies. But he's had that desire to, you know, to have his be his own boss, to own a company. And so he took a very bold step. And I'm not necessarily recommending. It's for all of you. He took a bold step and said, look, the only way I'm ever gonna get there is I'm gonna have to focus all of my attention on that for a period of time. And let's see what I can find that I can be an owner of, whether a part owner or a full owner of. And so he basically left his job, had saved up some money. So he didn't leave his family destitute because he's got a wife and three kids and has spent the last year looking at businesses to buy. And he hasn't found one yet. He's gotten close a couple of times. So he's out there creating his opportunity, all right? He's not waiting for somebody to give it to him. He is creating his opportunity. And it's uncomfortable. Another chapter in my book says, take the next uncomfortable step. Well, that's uncomfortable, but you have to do that. You know, when my business got started, some of you might remember if you've read the book, that I was in the investment business, and we were going to manage money for small company retirement plans. Then I went out and met with this guy that worked for American Airlines, and we're talking somebody giving me his name to call. So I went to visit with him, and, you know, it wasn't kind of in my focus that I was focused on, so I said, well, you know, yeah, I'll visit with you. We could help you with your money and what have you, an individual. But I was thinking about, we're going to manage all this money for these companies and this guy. We're finishing up the meeting, and just as we're leaving, just as I'm getting ready to leave the meeting, it's a Friday afternoon. I'm ready to get out of there and get home. Got to drive through all the traffic. He goes to the back of his house, and he brings me out a list of 1500 other guys just like him that all had over a million dollars to invest. And I knew exactly then what I was going to be doing for the rest of my business life. And so we created that opportunity. Now, did God grace us with that? Absolutely. He blessed us with that. No question. I'm not talking about me as a person. I'm talking about using what God has given you and going out there and making it happen. And you're going to have to take some risks to do that. No question about it. But don't depend on somebody else to get that. I even think about Ali Beth, okay, as I finish up, the way Ali Beth got involved in all of this speaking and podcast and writing books. I mean, again, she's always been interested in communicating. She's always been a great communicator. And in fact, she, where she went to college, the valedictorian doesn't speak. They have a contest for who's going to speak at the graduation. And she won. And, you know, it was a very proud moment for her. Obviously, for Lisa and I, it was a very proud moment. I'll never forget that night as long as I live. You could just tell this was her element. Well, then she got out of college, went off to work in a smaller town, and worked for a small PR firm. And this was around the 2016 election, before that. And she was really disenchanted by people her age that weren't interested in voting, especially young women, whether they voted left or right. That wasn't important, although certainly had her conservative views. So what she did for free is she started calling on the sororities around the University of Georgia campus and says, can I come speak to your sorority about why it's important to vote? That's how she got started. She made that happen. She created her own opportunity. She did not know what that was going to turn into, but it won't ever turn into anything if you don't take the first step. So that's what I want to leave you with today. I always enjoy being with you. I really appreciate the time that you've given Allie and the support that you give her. Make sure that you're subscribed to her through the Blaze as well. Get you a Blaze subscription. Those are great. Get a lot of other content with that and I look forward to seeing you another time. Have a good day.

Allie Beth (52:43)

Mr.

Ron Simmons (52:44)

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