Ian Smith- Destruction Through Progress

When the world grappled with unprecedented lockdowns, Ian Smith stood as a bulwark of resistance, a gym owner whose fight against COVID-19 mandates transcended personal struggle to spark a political awakening. Embark on a journey with us through Ian's transformation from an uncertain individual to a tenacious fitness entrepreneur and community leader. His tale unfolds against the backdrop of a society wrestling with government overreach, where the quest for health and freedom drove Ian to challenge not only pandemic directives but also the political establishment itself.

Through the narrative of Ian's gym, a haven that thrived against all odds, we witness the power of solidarity and the grassroots defiance that captured the nation's attention. The legal battles, arrests, and financial hurdles he faced paint a stark picture of the cost of standing firm in one's beliefs. Yet, it's the unwavering support from veterans, gym members, and the larger community that underscores an indelible truth—the shared human spirit can overcome even the most daunting adversities.

As Ian's story culminates in his leap into the congressional fray, we dissect the broader implications of progressive ideologies on fiscal stability and personal freedoms. The chapter of his campaign reveals the gritty reality of grassroots politics and the challenges of confronting a system fueled by big donors and career politicians. This episode serves not just as a recount of resilience but as a clarion call for informed involvement and steadfastness in one's convictions, urging listeners to shape society through conscious, courageous choices.

For more information on Ian Smith check him out his social links here!

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Chapters

• 0:12 Government Overreach in Pandemic Response
• 12:23 Battle to Keep Gym Open
• 17:26 Challenges, Support, Politics, and Hypocrisy
• 21:43 Seeking Honest Leadership in American Politics
• 36:29 The Impact of Progressive Ideologies
• 41:34 Erosion of Individual Freedom and Privacy
• 52:42 Inclusivity vs Exclusivity
• 1:08:32 Power of Words and Identity Loss
• 1:15:22 The Slippery Slope of Compliance
• 1:30:13 Get Involved and Make Better Choices
• 1:42:56 Standing Firm in Faith
• 1:52:29 Survival Food Bucket Recommendations

Transcript

Rich: 0:12

Welcome back to the Full Spectrum Warriors podcast. My name is Rich Graham and today I'll be joined by Ian Smith. Today's podcast is brought to you by ReadyWise Food Storage. It's America's number one survival food brand In long term food storage and camping supplies. Check them out.

Rich: 0:31

Today, with Ian Smith, we're going to talk about the destruction of our country through the name of progress and how the government's pushing its way into our lives on multiple fronts, dismantling our freedoms for collectivism. It's going to be a hot topic episode, so stay tuned and enjoy. All right, ian, welcome to the Full Spectrum Warriors podcast. It's good to have you. Thank you, it's good to be here.

Rich: 0:57

So, for you guys who haven't heard of Ian yet, ian came onto the scene a few years ago when a gym that he had up in New Jersey got under massive scrutiny during all the lockdowns and everything. Ian has come and spoke multiple times now at our Protector Summit events and has had some major impacts on some of the people attending the events. Just from willpower and standing up for what you believe in, for business ownership, being a man, strong man, training. It's been a lot of stuff that you've brought to the table for the people, so why don't I let you just kind of give people a rundown on your story just so they know where you're coming from when we get into the other parts of the discussion.

Ian: 1:52

Sure. So I was a small business owner, mining my business Like most small business owners tried to do. I had gotten into entrepreneurship in about 2016. I got tired of working at gyms. I was a personal trainer. I loved doing what I was doing.

Ian: 2:17

Working out was something that I got into later in life. I was not an athlete. I wasn't a big guy. Most of my life I was actually underdeveloped, super shy, very timid and got into a lot of trouble as a young man I think that's an understatement Got into quite a bit of trouble as a young man.

Ian: 2:43

I found a lot in working out, so I fell in love with it and I wanted to share it with the world. So that's what I chose as a initial career path. I just wasn't very satisfied with it inside the corporate fitness realm. It was prohibitive and restrictive. I wasn't able to express myself in the way that I wanted to and I wasn't able to help people in the way that I wanted to. So in about 2016, I officially started my first personal training business Didn't have anything to my name.

Ian: 3:15

I had actually just moved back in with my parents after graduating college and being married for a short amount of time and coming back licking my wounds in quite a bit of debt and I didn't really know what to do. But I knew that I didn't want to work for anybody, so I just kind of put it out there hey, I was going to be a personal trainer and I would train you anywhere, anytime, didn't matter if it was at your house, in a public park, in a parking lot. I'd come to your gym. I had a gym that we could go train at and it took off very, very quickly. I amassed a pretty extensive book, but I was driving all around, driving all up and down the state of New Jersey into Pennsylvania, to the point that I was driving more than I was working because my clients were everywhere. So I opened my first personal training studio and again, just a single operator, but I was really enjoying what I was doing.

Ian: 4:14

And then, in 2019, I had the opportunity to buy a gym. My business partner and I bought a dumpster fire of a gym. It was a 14,000 square foot facility that had about 80 people a day coming in For anybody that goes to the gym. It was just not a welcoming environment. It had a very sort of nasty crew of people that were in there. They were not very welcoming. It was not a friendly place for beginners. It was not a friendly place for women, and my partner and I came in and we changed that very quickly. This place was behind on its rent I think six months and we were profitable in the first month. We had a lot of work to do, but we had faith in our own ability and that if you do the right thing by people and you offer a valuable service or product to the community, that you'll be fine. And we were.

Ian: 5:08

Nine months later, the COVID lockdowns came and that was incredibly scary for us. I had put my life savings into the gym I think it was about 33 at the time. I had just sort of worked my way out of crushing debt and it was the first time in my life where I really had something. So I was not excited with the idea of shutting it down, even temporarily. But we didn't really know enough to stay open at that time. So we reluctantly closed our doors, with a bit of skepticism and keeping our eyes and ears open.

Ian: 5:50

Very quickly that hunch proved to be correct. A couple of days went by and then a week went by and then they started handing out money to everybody. And then two weeks went by and we were supposed to open and nobody even mentioned the idea of opening in New Jersey and it was kind of like shut up and wait and we grew very restless. But in the process we were still working, we were at the gym every day and it just didn't feel right. And the more we paid attention to what was going on, we educated ourselves on the science, we looked beyond what was kind of on the news and did some reading and some research at PubMedgov and other credible places online and it just wasn't making a whole lot of sense from a science perspective. I've been in health at that point for 10 years health and wellness and they were doing everything that was counterintuitive to people being healthy and running that.

Ian: 6:54

Alongside of the political nonsense that was going on, it became very, very clear very quickly to the both of us that this was not what they said it was. We didn't have a full grasp on it, but we knew that at the very least these people were dead wrong. At the very best these people were dead wrong and at the very worst that there was some malicious intent to what was happening. And again, we didn't understand it. But in my gut, in our guts, we knew it was very wrong. So we ultimately made the decision to open the gym and it just kind of took off from there.

Ian: 7:38

We didn't just open. We created a 15-point safety protocol that went so far, above and beyond what anybody was even required to do. That was open, that the idea was. If they tried to shut us down, it would be ludicrous, because we were doing all of these things to keep people safe. And we presented the plan publicly. At the time I had a small Instagram, a couple thousand followers, and I sat in front of a camera and recorded a seven-minute video and just kind of said who we were, what we were going to do, why it was important and how we were going to keep people safe. And I remember I was very, very nervous to do that because at that time it was wildly unpopular to even question that COVID wasn't what they said it was.

Rich: 8:27

So I pressed the send button and very, very quickly it became clear that what we were doing was going to be very controversial and the crazy thing is, while this is all happening us being done here in Florida, we didn't have these types of lockdowns and I would talk to people from New Jersey and be like dude, are you guys okay, like you guys were hearing up there, that we were all dying in here in Florida?

Rich: 8:53

Yeah, everybody's just out in the sun, and Florida was reporting fake numbers to make it because the hospitals were getting more money, right?

Ian: 9:01

So every time there was, there were so many aspects just like that, where they were getting.

Rich: 9:05

Every time they had one of those documented, they would get like 44 grand to the hospital and so they were reporting false numbers. I remember they were doing stuff where you would. If you were in the hospital, they would take, they would do a test and the next day, like, let's say, you tested positive, the next day they would test you again and you tested positive. The third day you were in the hospital, they tested you again they were reported as three positive tests, versus it being the same person who they gave a test to three times. So they're reporting fake numbers, manipulating the statistics. Meanwhile, down here in Florida there was people who were sick, but the majority of the people were fine and it was just hey, dude, if you want to take precautions, take precautions. If you don't feel safe, don't leave your house.

Ian: 10:02

Yeah, there were so many layers of just nonsense that was going on the buffering of the numbers but there was so much that didn't make sense. You had a state like New Jersey that was in this complete lockdown and you drive two hours south into Virginia and it was different and somehow that was okay. Or you go across the bridge to Pennsylvania and they have a different set of rules and other businesses are allowed to be open. I was driving by a Walmart every day to go to work to my empty gym and the Walmart was packed shoulder to shoulder and so there was so much that was wrong with that. And it was once we noticed one thing and because it was so personal to us, I went from being able to provide for my family to not being able to provide for my family. So I took a great interest in it, and the more you looked at it, the less it made sense. So, yeah, but at the time it was still very unpopular to question it, so we got a lot of hate, but very quickly it became clear that there was a tremendous amount of people who felt the same way and everybody was kind of waiting for somebody to jump and we decided that that was going to be us, at least in the state of New Jersey. And I remember right before we opened, because we made that announcement and then we were set to open a week later. And I remember seeing Shelly Luther, who was the hairstylist who refused to close her salon in Dallas, I think it was and watching this woman open her business and just thinking there's no way that I'm going to keep my doors closed. As a man, it became very clear that it was unacceptable for me to turn a blind eye to what was clearly a lie, a bold-faced lie and a destructive lie, and I felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility to do this, knowing that we didn't know what was on the other side and that we were probably going to be punished for it too. So that video caught the attention of a local radio host and we went on the next day. And we went on this radio show, a local Philadelphia radio, and our phone started blowing up and it became clear that people really wanted us to do this, because people were asking how they could help. We had people calling from other states asking if they could come, if they needed a membership, if they could donate. We had other businesses that were open like other small businesses that were like cleaning businesses and people asking if they could donate supplies. We had a business that wanted to donate air scrubbers. These are like $5,000 machines that clean the air. So there was a tremendous amount of support as well as the hatred. It was like 50-50.

Ian: 13:10

And then it caught the attention of Tucker Carlson and I was in the gym. We were kind of preparing and we still had some clients kind of sneaking in the backdoor and I was working with a client and my phone rang and it was like a Washington DC number and I remember thinking like uh-oh, who's calling me from Washington DC? And I picked it up and it was one of Tucker Carlson's producers. They said is this Ian Smith? I said yes. And they said do you own a gym in New Jersey? And I said yes. And they said are you going to open it on Monday? And I said yes and I said why? And I said do you want to come on the Tucker Carlson show and talk about it? And I remember like this sinking feeling in my stomach where like fear started to creep in. But before I could even feel the fear, the words came out of my mouth like yes, absolutely so. I went that night, went on the Tucker Croson show. Barely remember any of it, but I remember again very clearly a moment where, during the conversation, tucker says you're on the most watched cable news show in all of history, in front of millions of people, and you're about to openly defy your governor's orders to close your business. Are you prepared to do that? And again I felt that fear. But immediately the words came out of my mouth and I said yes.

Ian: 14:30

And by the time that episode was done I looked at my phone and my social media following had grown by I think 40,000 people on Instagram alone. You know another couple of thousand on Facebook, twitter, everything. And it became clear that we not only were we gonna do this, there was no going back, but that it was gonna be a fight, but that we had an army of people behind us. So we opened the gym and it turned into a two year battle. Everything in the world had been done to us. They started with just some citations. Next thing, you know, they were arresting us and they were locking our doors and we were going back and forth and we were picking the locks and they came to lock them again and we took the doors off and then we were open for 24 hours and you know, we had people sabotaging our plumbing system. They were trying to cut the power off. They were finding us. You know, $15,000 a day for every day that we were open. They were trying to get us on felony charges for violation of court orders, everything possible. They took money from our bank accounts to the tune of six figures $200,000.

Ian: 15:48

But we just stayed relentless. You know we didn't have a plan that was. You know, I remember people used to call us all the time and small businesses would call and they'd say you know like we wanna open our business too. You know how do you do it? And I would say I'd just go in and turn the lights on. And people wanted this answer like this, this broad, comprehensive answer. But the plan was very simple. It was just do the right thing over and over again. And the right thing for us was to open our doors for our customers, because we had upwards of 800 to 1,000 people coming every day. We had people who would travel 45 minutes in hour every single day to come work out because their gym wasn't open.

Ian: 16:27

And even when gyms were allowed to reopen much later, a lot of those people still stayed with us because they respected what we did so much and it just turned into this really nasty legal battle where they really tried everything to break us. But people stood with us in so many ways, whether it was people just showing up at the gym, like I said, every day the gym had hundreds and hundreds of people and to the point that we were spending like five times the amount on toilet paper. Then we were doing our normal operating times because there was just so much foot traffic and machines were breaking left and right because they were just getting used so much, and it was awesome. It was a grueling battle. It really took a lot for us to stay standing, but people gave us everything that we could have asked for and more, from donations to buying, a parallel to. We weren't charging people, people were just donating money. We didn't charge anybody for two years because it wasn't about the money, it was about staying open.

Ian: 17:26

So when the legal battle started to accrue and we had hundreds of thousand dollars legal fees, people chipped in and people prayed for us. People wrote letters. I still have a stack of, or a drawer full of letters at home written from people from all over the country, all over the world, saying how important it was that we did what we did. I have challenge coins from veterans who real heroes, who fought in war Vietnam vets, korea vets, guys that would come to the gym they weren't interested in working out. These guys are 80 years old but they came to give us challenge coins because they said what we were doing was so important and that collectively, all of that gave us the ability to, no matter what they threw at us, just stay open.

Ian: 18:14

So, yeah, that kind of that thrust me into the public spotlight a little bit, made me public enemy number one. But it also there was a point where I was the golden boy for the GOP and they would fly me to events to speak against COVID mandates and people just organizing small rallies would have me come out and speak and help with their events. So I got into public speaking and it sort of transformed to where now we're four years out from that and people still care about what I have to say. In terms of politics, my politics have changed quite a bit. I got lumped in with the typical Republican right for a long time but when I spoke out against them, because a lot of them are just as complicit as the people on the left.

Rich: 19:10

It's one of the things I was gonna say, like you've been pretty outspoken on the conservative front as well or more so as much as the leftists, and one of the things we've seen with these it's like I know a lot of people have said, the politics is basically the same side or two sides of the same coin. I remember back when and I'm sure everyone else who doesn't have a short memory when Trump first ran and he was like we're gonna make America great again and the American people sided with what he wanted to accomplish. They won all three branches of government and then these people in Washington DC didn't do anything with it. They stalled at every single opportunity that they had to impose the changes that the American people voted that they wanted. They didn't do anything. They didn't do it.

Ian: 20:17

And then as soon as and they blocked every attempt.

Rich: 20:19

Yeah, they blocked the attempt and the stuff with the wall. Like if we watch all these Republicans now like, oh, we need to finish the wall. Like dude, we gave you the power to do that and you guys stood in his way of doing it, right, and he had to go through like military spending appropriations and all this kind of stuff to try to find a way to fund the wall. And then these same people who were like, well, we can't do it, it's too much money. They've sent 20 times the amount of that to Ukraine to secure their border versus our own. And it's the hypocrisy between but from these people is absurd, to say the least. But you've been in there, you've been in those circles. What have you seen from being at those events and hearing these people talk and all that stuff?

Ian: 21:15

Well, you know, on the back end of the things that happened at the gym essentially it just kind of calmed down and it got slower and then eventually they kind of went away and they ultimately gave us our business licenses back. And you know, we never really won anything landmark in court, but they gave up and that was enough of a win for us. You know they tried everything they possibly could to shut us down.

Rich: 21:39

So on the back end of, it.

Ian: 21:40

you know I was thinking, I had this idea. I was thinking, you know, like what? What next? You know, because people had begun to look at, look to me as a leader. You know, and I would get that question a lot, I would get hundreds of DMs. You know. What do we do next? You know how do we keep fighting, how do we win back our rights? Or you know how do we regain our freedoms that they've taken? How do we become better Americans?

Ian: 22:08

And you know, I remember just feeling like I didn't want to sit around and wait for the next thing. You know, and I remember thinking like man, this is the problem is that as Americans, we're always responding to bad politics Like we're always running to the fight. You know as somebody. You know as somebody who understands fighting, like you never want to be late to the party, you don't want to be on your back foot responding to some sort of threat, and that's, as American citizens, that's what it feels like we're always doing. We're running to go put out the fire. We're never on war footing. You know it's always oh man, they're trying to do this to our kids in school. You know we got to stop them before the bill comes and you're scrambling to get people together and you're scrambling to get, you know, some sort of resistance to whatever this encroachment on your liberties are, you know.

Ian: 23:01

So I just had this feeling. I said I think I don't want to wait around. How do I personally bring the fight to them? And I had this stupid idea that I would run for Congress. You know I had gained all this notoriety and I say that sort of joking.

Ian: 23:23

I gained all this notoriety and sort of social firepower and I just remember thinking like man, nobody ever reached out to us in New Jersey politics, like nobody did. The Republicans in New Jersey like just watched us get our heads bashed in for two years. No elected Republican who apparently was on our side, you know so at least. So they say nobody helped, nobody used any of their political power or anything to help the gym or any other you know business that was affected or any the kids that were forced to wear masks for two years in school. So I was like, who is my Congressman? And you know, I looked it up and it was this guy who. He was a Democrat, his name's Andy Kim. And I remember thinking like I've never heard of this guy and that's probably partially my fault, but I feel like I should know who my Congressman is Like, so I said all right, well, I'll run against him.

Ian: 24:21

We had an election coming up, I'll run for Congress and I learned very quickly that politics is not for the average person. The GOP ran harder against me than they ran against the DNC, so I was not the person they wanted to run. So I ran in the primary against an individual named Bob Healy, whose father had donated a ton of money to the New Jersey GOP over the years. And Bob is like a slice of Wonder Bread wearing a suit, just doesn't have a whole lot of opinions with the people who were in the elections, will sort of just do what his donors want him to do. And if you know anything about politics, most of the money comes from big donors. So people's campaigns need money and if you want the money to run a successful campaign, you have to go to the big donors and the big donors are gonna tell you exactly what you're gonna vote for and exactly the positions you had. And I wasn't willing to play ball with that. And we were able to raise some money but we were outspent 11 to one by the GOP. They stopped going to events that we would go to because people showed up and they had a very favorable impression of me and this individual couldn't hold a conversation, didn't really have his own thoughts, wasn't able to think on the fly, didn't really have any political position. And then there was me, who was seen as radical to a lot of people, but to the voters everything I was saying made sense.

Ian: 26:00

The GOP ran, like I said, a smear campaign against me and I learned very quickly that most of these people involved in right and left politics have no interest in helping citizens. They're in it because it pays well and it puts them in a favorable position in society. And most of the people who get involved have never really done anything in the real world. Most of your politicians and politicians are only part of the problem. It's political operatives, people who work in politics. So the people that run the campaigns, the people that run the fundraising events, all these people you call them political operatives.

Ian: 26:45

Most of these people have gone to college, they went to law school and then they went into politics. So they've never created a business, they've never offered a service to society, they've never worked really hard to build something, and not to say that law school's a walk in the park, because that's an accomplishment in and of itself, but they've never made anything real in the real world. So they get into politics and they get a taste of the good life, of a guaranteed salary, of state dinners and being treated well. And they get a taste of that. And whether or not they go in with malicious intent, they get changed by that touch of power and they don't wanna let it go. So they don't do their job, because if they did their job then they'd eventually they'd do themselves out of the job. So it just-.

Rich: 27:38

Yeah, they should be shrinking the government and using our money wisely. Instead, they spend money that we don't have and grow the government and add more dependence on the government. And one of the things that's interesting that you said is when you stood up for yourself and you kept your gym open, you had people who were looking to you as a leader and they were asking you for a solution. And many times and you're like dude, I just I open the gym every day. That's what I did. You know what I mean. But that's leading by example, and that's one of the best forms of leadership is leading by example. And for someone who doesn't seek to be a leader but finds himself in the leadership position because people continuously look to them for guidance, because they wanna replicate, right, what it is that you're doing, because they see it as the example, that's such an honest form of leadership, right?

Ian: 28:36

Yeah, I think it's the best form of leadership.

Rich: 28:38

And what you see with these people who are politics. I had a guy who used to be like a student of mine who was in business with me, a little bit like doing some network marketing stuff, and he constantly wanted to be the dude, to be the one coaching, and he always wanted to be the one in charge of everything. And I was like dude. And I had another buddy who was coming to me to be like a shooting instructor and he wanted to learn how to be a shooting instructor. But the thing of it was is he was more interested in being the one teaching than he was about getting people the results. So all the questions were about like, how do I get myself into this position of leadership? How do I get myself into this position to where people wanna hear what I have to say? And they never wanted the answer I gave them. It was never the one they wanted to hear was like go perfect being a shooter first and then understand how to communicate that to the other people and pull out the best in them. And if you go create multiple clients that get great results and you make them great shooters, then people will seek you out to do the same for them.

Rich: 29:54

But you're trying to put the cart before the horse and the reality of it was is that narcissistic personality trait. They wanted the power, they wanted people to look to them and they wanted the celebrity aspect of it, so the notoriety. They were never actually in it to help people. The only reason they wanted to help people was because they wanted to be known as the person. You know what I mean. They wanted that position and I guarantee you, if you took politics and you said, hey, man, we're gonna take it back to where it was an act of service, where you just donated your time, right, or and you didn't get paid for it, all these people be out. Or if you did it, to where, like, hey, dude, you're gonna get paid based off the average salary, the average income of the people in your district, right, most of these people would get out.

Ian: 30:50

No, yeah, they wouldn't be interested at all In Plato's Republic. I don't know if you read that. Plato tells the story of Socrates and in one party talks about the perfect form of government and he says that it should be. They call them. He basically said that the government should be run by philosophers basically poor philosophers, that they should be taken care of.

Ian: 31:20

But it's almost like, hey, you do your time. It's almost like the military right, so you do your time, you're provided some housing, you're provided the things that you need and a small, you know tiny salary, and then you're done. And when you're done, you're free to go achieve whatever you want in life. But while you're doing it, you are not able to be financially influenced, motivated in any way. It's a duty that you have to fulfill and you know you don't have to worry about feeding yourself. All you have to worry about is the best policies and running the government, and you have the total opposite here. I mean, look at Nancy Pelosi or Dan Crenshaw or any of these guys who make exorbitant amounts of money Insider trading.

Ian: 32:10

Yeah, insider trading and then they're in Congress for 50 years. You know something I I guess I knew, but I didn't realize it. I was having a discussion with my step dad the other day and we were talking about insider trading and just how absolutely ludicrous it is that we tolerate this, as you know, as as something that's like oh yeah, just Nancy Pelosi making, you know, double her money on NVIDIA stocks in six months, and we look at it and we just everybody collectively kind of shrugs but nobody really cares enough to change it. People, the members of Congress, are allowed to do that, but the president is not. So how does that? How do we? How do we have term limits for president? Because we acknowledge that it's a powerful position and we acknowledge that with that position, they can do things Right as the president.

Rich: 33:01

Well, they would. They were never allowed to until recently. Yeah, it was just a few years back I forget if it was during the Obama administration or the Bush administration. It was recent. To where that? I know that to where that changed because they were never allowed to do it prior to ludicrous. And then they, they allowed it to run out or whatever it was, or they in one of those bills they changed it to where they could. And now all of a sudden they're all making. They're making millions, because when Martha Stewart went to jail for that, for getting advice Right, she got a tip. She went to jail for that. Yeah, and at the time, the at that same time, the congressmen and women weren't allowed to do that. Since then it's changed, but the whole thing is just asinine. I mean the the fact that that the people in Congress get to vote on what their salaries are gonna be Asinine. It is ridiculous. Could you imagine if we all just got to vote on what ours?

Rich: 34:09

Like hey, I'm gonna take a vote. I'm gonna get to vote for my own salary like dude the whole thing and that's that's what I realized.

Ian: 34:16

You know running. Obviously we ran a great campaign. We really did. We gave them hell, round up, 40% of the vote in a three-way race, but we ultimately fell short. But just seeing the underbelly was Life-changing for me, because I think everybody kind of understands that, like politics is a just a clown show at this point. But I don't think we realize the extent of it until you see it up close, like that, and you really take and you only and you only scratch the surface. Yeah, and I only scratch surface and it was enough for me to look at it and go I want no parts of this ever. And I have and this isn't to the a glass half empty kind of thing, because it's, it's far from it, but these people are not, they're never going to help you.

Ian: 35:06

They are never going to make your life any better. If you want your life to be any better, if you you know whether it's your, your family more, more well off financially and free. You want to be in better health, you want to be in a better position in any area of your life. You cannot rely on these people because it doesn't matter if they say the things that you like, and even if Even somebody like Trump which you know, like a lot of people, really like Trump even if he wants to help you, he can't. He can't because he's just one man, and it's like we've got to get out of this mindset where we expect these people to fix our problems because they create them.

Rich: 35:48

They, yeah, they create them and, at the very least, they allow the ones that they didn't create to continue on so right now, right Today, biden just came out and he said, due to inflation and the economy, he wants to help because of rising interest rates and because of inflation, that he wants to give every family $400 a month or $800 a month I think it was $800 a month To help pay for their mortgages For the next two years.

Rich: 36:29

But so here he's coming to you with the solution, so that we're getting ready for the election, the elections coming up, and he's like hey, man, I'm all the promises, I'm gonna give you, guys, money for your college loans. Hey, by the way, I'm gonna give you money for your mortgage, right. And at the same time, he's saying we need to send another 67 billion dollars to Ukraine, right? So that's gonna put us well over $200 billion to Ukraine, and Not under still. And and it's like hey, I'm gonna give you money for your mortgage and I'm gonna give you money for college. The reason you need Money for your mortgage and money for your college is because we just were in the process of sending 200 billion dollars to Ukraine with Money that we don't have, that we're just printing.

Ian: 37:17

Yes, so here's your, here's your, your pennies, just like.

Rich: 37:21

What you're saying is they're literally creating the problem, mm-hmm. And then they're trying to come in as the hero To give you the solution, a band-aid. But okay, let's say what they do give us Everyone $800. Where is that money coming from? Either You're printing more money, which creates more inflation, or You're going to tax us and Then give us money with the money you just taxed us with. Yeah, you know what I mean. So it's like the. The. It's so stupid, it really is so stupid.

Rich: 37:57

And it brings me back to one of the first things you said when we kicked off this conversation. You said I'm a business owner Minding my own. I just want to be a business owner minding my own business, and the problem is it. You can't just mind your own business anymore. Everything with this progressive movement is is we're moving forward and we're gonna shove Everything that we believe Into your life. And you don't have a choice in the matter. You have to accept what it is that we, because not all progress is positive. No, there's a lot of negative progress. There's a lot of this stuff that's being pushed into more of a socialist. You know, I didn't hear them in the state of the Union and we could go back and listen to it in more detail, but Everything is talking about democracy, democracy, democracy. And we don't live in a democracy, we live in a republic right that were protected by law.

Rich: 39:02

We're that our individual freedoms, our individual liberties are supposed to be protected by the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the nature of how our country is. Is suppose that that's all to protect our individual liberties. But everything with this progressive movement is it's all it's the community think yeah so it's been collectives a group think and this collectivism is gonna force itself upon you and you have no opinion in it whatsoever. Yeah, right.

Ian: 39:38

It's Everything that this country was designed to be is being Well, it was slowly and it's. It's no longer slowly, it's being chiseled away. Yeah, the thing, the, the value systems that we once had, and and this goes into, you know, like we were talking about earlier you, you can ignore it if you want, and there's a lot of people who do, and, and two things happen. One, one thing happens. You can ignore it for as long as you want, but you can't. You can't pretend any longer. You know you can. Only, you can only think that politics doesn't matter Until your dollar is worth nothing. You know. So you can. You can ignore.

Ian: 40:23

Oh, I, you know, I don't care if they send money, it doesn't. You know. I don't care if they teach that in schools, my kids not in school. I don't care if they shut businesses down. I, you know, I'm working from home, it's fine, it doesn't matter. I'm home, it's fine, it doesn't affect me. So I can, I'm just minding my own business.

Ian: 40:39

But eventually they wind up on your doorstep and then not only can you not ignore it, but you can't resist it either, and that's, that's the major problem, like with all of the just the progressive the group think you know, to look at the, the LGBTQ push, right? Oh well, I don't have kids, it doesn't bother me, right? And you know, whatever I'm, me and my wife are happy, you know what, whatever, whatever people are saying. But you know, when I have, I have friends who work in the corporate world and you know they have to sit in a in a corporate environment that requires them to Put a pin on their chest to pick their pronouns and and they get in trouble and they they miss promotions or they'll they'll be fired from their jobs for misgendering that's, that's exactly what I'm talking about.

Rich: 41:32

It's everything is forced down your throat. At this point, there is no individual freedom, there is no individualism. You're not allowed to think for yourself anymore. You have to conform or you're gonna get Suicided. Not technique like, not physically you just like deep person.

Ian: 41:47

Yeah, they'll make your life miserable, or they'll?

Rich: 41:52

punish you and the dudes at the World Economic Forum. They said that in the interview. They said we're going to force, right, we're gonna force behavior change. Yes, right, we're gonna come in and we're gonna force you to adopt certain behaviors because they're not doing it. So now we have to force it.

Ian: 42:10

It's. It'll make your life miserable until you surrender.

Rich: 42:14

Yeah, it's an interesting thing, man, because we walk through that, the we live out in, like the countryside, and there's this little town here, little suburb town called the land, and and in the land I Remember a few years back, before the full LGBTQ push it was, you started to see some of these. It was when Trump was in office. They were saying that he was anti gay and that Under Trump that gays weren't safe. And you started to see these stickers go up in a few of the windows going this is a, this is a, a, a gay safe zone. And I just remember walking down the street like laughing. I'm like dude, the land is like one of the safest towns in the whole country. Nothing bad happens here. What? What gay people were getting beat up in the land. That that you you even had to put this sticker up like so is is. This is the restaurant across the street. That's not safe for everybody, that's not safe for gays like are they poisoning some food?

Rich: 43:22

You know, I mean like this whole thing is just absurd. It's not like there's there's these things attacks happening and you're saying like, hey man, there's all these atrocities happening here and we're gonna, we're gonna, you know, stand up against it. There was nothing going on and now it's evolved into there have this nonprofit or this organization called the land pride, and now they're going out to the land or Daytona pride and all these other surrounding towns, and this movement has their stickers in almost every single restaurant in Downtown Deland. It, and if you don't support this, then that means you're transphobic.

Ian: 44:04

Yeah, and they'll send. They'll send the hordes at you to the. Yeah, your business will get bad reviews. Yeah, people will vandalize your business. Yeah, like people will act a fool in your business.

Rich: 44:16

But the crazy thing is is this organization they'll put together what? What all these restaurants are being pressured into supporting and all these business are being pressured and supporting is. You know it turned it started with, oh, you know, it's just for the LGBTQ community. Then that transitioned into you know it's gone as far as now. What they're doing is they're having transgender prompts and they're doing Meetup groups where you, you have a daughter, right, you come to the, to the park and you bring your daughters Clothes with you and this other person has a son and they bring the son's clothes and when you meet up at the park, they get to exchange clothes and practice cross-dressing and then they're going to teach your son how to put on makeup like a girl, right, and we're going to do all this up.

Rich: 45:12

But all of these businesses are making donations. By making a donation and you're supporting this, you have that sticker in your window to Show how you're you're being accepting, right, all these businesses are now supporting, although, all the kids doing the cross-dressing and if you talk to the people, they're like oh no, you know that's not necessarily what we believe in, but you know we want to be open mind.

Ian: 45:35

Everybody's afraid, everybody's afraid to speak their mind. Because you know, this stuff is, it's. It's so fascinating how they make this all work, you know, because they always they start with victimhood is is that the, the initial footing into, into whatever it is, and it's very insidious. I mean, this is, this is Bolshevism, this is. We saw this in Russia, we saw this throughout Europe. You know, this is, this is neo Marxism, this is communism, called a hundred different things. It's Bolshevism.

Ian: 46:06

And these people are willing to play a long-term game. So they'll start with some sort of victimhood, identity, right, some sort of oppression, and they start with a, a cause that is hard to argue against, right. So they'll say something like well, we just want gay people to to not be harmed, you know, and whether or not you agree, you know, you can, I don't agree with homosexuality, I I want no parts of it, but I don't want you to be harmed as a result of it. So your normal person will say, well, I agree with that premise, you know. You know, gay people should be able to do what they want, right, which is, which isn't a ludicrous idea, but it opens the door. It opens the door, and I remember that with the gay marriage thing.

Rich: 46:54

I remember that I was said this is going to open the door. My grandfather said it 15 years ago, Yep so this is gonna turn it into they're gonna make a push Then they're not gonna say that the Bibles hate speech. They're gonna attack the church. They're gonna come in and they're gonna push for pedophilia right?

Ian: 47:11

I remember we were calling this out, yeah years ago and you were labeled as crazy and hateful for saying that and that. Well, that's what they do. So they open the door and they get the average person to say well, I mean, sure, you know, and again it's. It's not a ludicrous idea, at least on the surface, to say well, yeah.

Ian: 47:29

You know they should be safe too. And then it changes to Well, if you don't actively support us, if you don't put this sticker on your business and donate to us, well, then you're just as bad as the people who say gay people shouldn't get married. And the business owners go Well, whoa, whoa, whoa, I know. Well, give me a sticker, give me a, give me a sticker. I don't, I don't want the bad reviews, I don't want you to sick the community on me. I'll be supportive. Okay, a couple dollars a month. And then the few that hold out look like the bigots because oh, oh, I don't want to go Shop at that business. You know that they don't like gay people because they don't have a. You know they don't have a rainbow sticker on their thing. So then, it's just like the.

Ian: 48:12

The compliance with the masks right. How many people didn't want to wear masks but did because everybody else was? Yep and it's. It's that same thing, right and it's. Oh, you're so selfish. Just put the mask on and you saw the same thing with BLM. It's, it's the same, it's. This is Bolshevism.

Ian: 48:29

This is exactly what they do in plan and then that that that little piece of victimhood turns into a baseball bat that they will bash your head in with if you do not. Not only now. And and their demands get bigger too. Oh well, we just want to get married. And now it's bake us a cake, or will sue you, or will shut your business down. Yeah, you know, you had the. The case of the guy who's hey, I don't agree with homosexuality, I'm a cake baker. I don't want to make you, two dudes, a wedding cake. Go somewhere else, bake the cake. And what did he have to do? He had to bake the cake.

Rich: 49:04

Yeah, now they're talking about in places in in the UK and in Canada. If you use the wrong pronoun or you refuse to use someone's pronoun, it's hate speech and people are literally going to jail.

Ian: 49:17

Yeah, if you don't call me a toaster of it, I'm gonna call the cops on you. You know, and that's it's.

Rich: 49:22

It's freaking insanity. But one of the things with that is one of the things you said before is, you know, you put your life savings into your gym and you were terrified about the shutdown, because this is your life savings, you put everything into it. What people well, some people aren't connecting the dots on is All this same stuff, the lockdown, these these different things. During the lockdown, when they Made you shut your business down Right and they printed Billions and billions of dollars in COVID subsidies, that they bailed people out. They bailed out the banks, they bailed out insurance companies, they pick and choose which businesses get to go All these small business owners. More small business owners went out of business during that time than ever.

Rich: 50:14

Yeah right and never back up meanwhile, you had a billionaire a day being created right over the course of the lockdown there, more billionaires created than ever. Right over a thousand billionaires were created that year and and Meanwhile, businesses like Walmart and Amazon and all these don't doubled, right. So when you have these people going and doing this stuff, where they're trying to put all these small mom-and-pop Shops out of business whether it's through the COVID thing, whether it's through Putting the stupid freakin sticker in your window or not and we're gonna, if you don't do it, we're gonna cancel you because you didn't put the BLM sticker, you didn't support Antifa, you didn't support LGBTQ rights the way that we wanted you to. We're gonna put you out of business. All these world economic forum people are freaking, laughing. You're useful idiots. They are and you are. You are doing. You're the pawns for the big play, right? And all they're doing is empowering these mega corporations, right that turn around and oppress those useful idiots.

Rich: 51:22

Anyway, anyway, yeah, yeah, that's the beauty of it part of this omnibus, omnibus, whatever the how are you say it? Bill that just went through, that no one read. Now the green groups have the ability to put a tracking device on every freaking cow in the country so that they get to monitor all the cows so they can monitor the CO2 consumption. These people are the, you know the. They're digging their own graves. Meanwhile, while all these businesses got shut down and the government came in and forced and they're still doing it over in Europe and stuff like that they're forcing these farmers to call their herds.

Ian: 52:02

Mm-hmm right.

Rich: 52:04

Bill gates just bought up 70% of all, though, of the farmland privately owned farmland while all these farmers were forced to be shut down and forced out of business. Now he's taking it over, right? He wants you to eat fake food, or they want to put the mRNA shit inside the beef, right, and give you your boosters through what you're eating. And then, through all this stupid green crap, they're now going to monitor and micromanage the people who are just trying to have a normal farm. And again, going back to, I'm just a business owner, I just want to buy my own business. Just leave me alone, but you can't. You can't because they're coming in in so many different ways, just shoving their, their progress into your lifestyle right and leaving you in a position to where you can't. You can't just mind your own business anymore.

Ian: 53:06

No, it's it's a fallacy to think that you can, we live in you know, and I was one of those people.

Ian: 53:12

I was absolutely one of those people for most of my life. Mind my business, I don't care what the gays do, whatever. You know what I mean. It's again. On the surface that seems like a reasonable perspective, but when you live in a society with 300 million people I think we're on our way to 400 million, especially with the illegal immigrants coming in that is no, it's no longer a reasonable way to exist. If we lived in a tribe, you know, if we lived here on your property and there was a hundred of us, there was 10 families, we could probably get along, get away with hey, as long as Rich and his families, you know, not in my business, I don't care what they do, I don't care how many kids they have. We're here, we have all this land, we're fine. You know there's, there's, there's five miles between each one of us. You know so.

Ian: 54:08

But it doesn't work on a large scale. There's, there has to be certain standards and values that we have, and this idea of inclusivity for everybody is a is a disaster. Exclusivity is a good thing. You as a, on the micro level and on the macro level. So you as an individual, you within your family unit, you within your community, you within the faith community that you have, you within your country, should be able to say I don't like what you do, you are not a part of my community. There's nothing wrong with that, and they've demonized that. You know, if, as a Christian, I can say I don't want, I don't want homosexuality anywhere in my community, I don't want it near my children, I don't want it, you know, in my church I don't, I don't want to include people who who live a lifestyle that is totally opposite my value system. And we've, we've demonized that idea. And it's not a. It doesn't mean I hate you, it just means that you and I don't, we don't, we don't get along. So go somewhere else, be be somewhere else, go to another state If you want to. You guys can take California, whatever it is.

Ian: 55:30

But we've, we've been forced to adopt this idea that we have to accept everybody or we're a bad person and it's not. It's not a bad thing to say this is my group, this is our perimeter, our values are within this perimeter and if you don't agree with them, you are not part of our group, you don't get the benefits of being in the group, you know. But but you're also, you're not welcomed in here and we don't have to look at you and welcome you with open arms. We can say you are not one of us. But it's been forced upon us now, this idea that we have to accept everybody, no matter, no, no matter if it's a man in a dress. You know you.

Ian: 56:13

You, now and and again, that's the on the surface you say, yeah, you know. Okay, who cares? Who cares if the? You know, if we let a couple guys wear some dresses, whatever, you know. Next thing you know your daughter's not safe in the bathroom. You know, because you're no longer allowed to question the grown man using the ladies room. You know because you've you've you've welcomed them into your society and now he's a part of your society.

Ian: 56:40

So now you can't remove him you know, and it's, it's interesting you saying that they cracked the door open and then they, as soon as the it's cracked open, they kick it in and everybody's wondering how we got here.

Rich: 56:52

It's. It's funny you mentioned that because I recently, for most of the people who follow this podcast, I've heard of our protector summit, and the protector summit is a faith based men's leadership, and I do training throughout the year. Whenever we train men, women, kids you know this that it doesn't matter. Oh, if, if you want to come out, we'll train you, but we do a event once per year. That is a faith based men's leadership.

Rich: 57:25

And when I was my website thing has this AI built into it?

Rich: 57:31

Now, right, I didn't ask for it, but it's built in and AI is going to give me suggestions.

Rich: 57:37

So AI is reading everything about my website and then they try to give you your two cents and AI is recommendation right Of me running a faith based men's leadership, right? Instead of telling me you know how I can make this year, you know where I'm going with this. Their, their recommendation for what I should do to help my business and to be something that's better promoted is that I should take the faith part out and be more inclusive to people of all beliefs. So I shouldn't do a Christian event because I should be open to all beliefs and all people who don't believe, and the other thing is is I should be open to not only men but women and the trans LGBTQ community, and if I would do this, then my website would score better and it could be put out for more people to see. But because my event is a Christian men's leadership, now, unfortunately, the algorithm can't show this to everyone because I'm not being inclusive and open minded in my business practices, so now my business is going to get punished.

Ian: 58:55

So you literally don't have the gay sticker on your website Because you know so.

Rich: 59:00

So what happened is is exactly that, because it started with the sticker in the windows in town.

Ian: 59:08

Yeah.

Rich: 59:08

Yeah, and now it's AI is built into. I didn't ask for fucking AI to be built into my website, but now I don't have a choice. The people who have all these things. It's now being forced into your businesses. So, okay, cool, I didn't want to put a sticker in the window. I don't even have a storefront but just in the wording of me trying to run a faith based event, which it doesn't matter how many other events I run throughout the year that are open to men, women I trained, I've trained gay people, I've trained lesbians, I've trained transgender, I don't care. If you want to learn how to defend yourself, I'll teach you how to defend yourself, but once a year we want to run an event.

Ian: 59:53

That's just faith just for the boys, which is specific and I remember what.

Rich: 59:58

I had a sponsor who I'm not going to mention who they are, if I told you the company. You know who the company is but they didn't want to sponsor the Protector Summit because it was a faith based men's leadership and because women weren't allowed to be there, they didn't want to get behind it, they wanted to do the other. I'm like, dude, you know they're there, we're asking because they had heard that we were being closed minded and we're being misogynistic and we're being transphobic and all this stuff by running a Christian men's leadership. And I literally said to the sponsor because they still sponsor me in other things and I was just like look, if I run a precision rifle class, my focus is on precision rifle. That doesn't mean I don't think you should own a pistol and that doesn't mean that I don't do pistol training. But if we're talking about shooting targets at 800 yards, the relevance of a 25 yard shot or a 15 yard shot become very like irrelevant. Irrelevant because we're talking about long distance. So just because I'm doing a long distance training course doesn't mean I'm anti pistol. It's just this specific course is going to target, focus in on long distance marksmanship and and the two can be. Because I'm not doing the one while I'm doing the other doesn't mean I'm anti the other. It's just this is what we're going to focus in on. And because I'm going to do an event where we're going to focus in on coaching men who happen to be Christian in faith, right, that doesn't mean I'm anti anything. That's just what this, but it doesn't matter. Now my company is being labeled and here's as as transphobic and uninclusive, because I want to do one event that has a specific audience.

Ian: 1:01:58

And here's the thing that should piss anybody off, regardless of where you fall that standard is not applied evenly. Because I bet you any amount of money that if you had something on your website that was faith based, that was catering to Islam, catered to Judaism, or was specifically designed for women, or was specifically targeted for people of a different race non white, that AI would not give you those same recommendations. Nope, if you said this is a gay summit, a gay protector summit, this is LGBTQ only, ai would not kick out that result and said you should include straight white Christian men. They wouldn't. It wouldn't Because there's, there's, there's, there's an insidious element to the, to the, the, the inclusiveness is not genuine from these people.

Ian: 1:03:08

That's, that's the big. I think that's. The big thing is is they use it because it sounds like welcoming and it sounds benevolent, and and again, on the surface, yes, we should include people, yes, that's not an unreasonable thing to say, but the, the standard doesn't get applied equally because there's an agenda at play and it's the undermining of certain American values that have been the foundation of this country, and that's really, and that's really what it is.

Rich: 1:03:41

It has nothing to do with, has nothing to do with Black Lives Matter, has nothing to do with the LGBTQ community. These are, these are just reasons.

Ian: 1:03:50

These are just opportunities to implement more control and take over Right and I mean, they're using those communities as the useful idiots Because, at the end of the day, when the when the control mechanisms are are fully in place if they ever do get there they don't give a crap about LGBTQ anymore, they won't give a crap about BLM anymore, they won't give a crap about protecting Islam anymore, because then nobody matters. You know, because then they've achieved their ultimate goal. It's just, they use these communities of people, these demographics of people, to undermine what is the foundation of this, of of the American dream, of the American country, of the American system of values. It's. This country was founded on Western civilization values. That was Christianity, and if it's not Christianity, it still abides by the Christian set of values. A man and a woman together, forever creating a family, a patriarch being the decision, the main decision maker of the family. All of these things, you know, there's nobody cared. Any of these people who are pushing feminism don't care about women's lives. They care about undermining the family structure.

Ian: 1:05:20

All these people pushing BLM don't care about black people. They want black people to be angry at white people so that there's a conflict, there's this constant conflict between them, so that that that black people and white people are continuously fighting. Instead of building communities together, they're tearing them apart. Same thing with LGBTQ nobody cares. These people that are in control, the world economic forum, all of these, you know all of these insidious forces. They don't care about gay people getting married. They just want to upset the system. Because the United States could never be defeated from the outside. Nope, never, never, ever, ever, ever in a million years. It had to be. And you look at any any communist, marxist thinker. From the beginning of Bolshevism, they said that this is what they were going to do.

Ian: 1:06:13

Yep they've laid it all out. They said the United States will fall. Big Lenin said it like a rotten fruit from a tree.

Rich: 1:06:20

Yeah, they said give us 60 years. It takes 60 years to go over to do it, and they were right about it.

Rich: 1:06:27

Right about it, but there was a there was a congressman I think it was congressman Bob McEwen. He said in a talk he had a talk that he would do with his wife was called love, respect in the M1 tank, and it was an interesting conversation. But in that he said how do you destroy a tank from the inside? Yeah, and he was talking, and it goes into a discussion, about how you know the dynamics between the husband and wife and all that kind of stuff. But but again it's that same thing of how do you destroy America?

Ian: 1:06:56

it's from the inside out, yeah you create fatherless families, you create racial tensions. You, you, you destroy the idea of God. You, you get people to accept I think this is one of the biggest things they do they, they, they get people to accept untruths. So, if you can, if you can convince a generation of children that boys can be girls and girls can be boys, that generation of children has no idea what objective truth is. Objective truth exists and they destroy the idea. So now, if I can get you to believe a boy is a girl and a girl is a boy, I can get you to believe anything. I mean, I can get you, I can get you to believe the sky is green also, and and that taxes are good for you.

Rich: 1:07:42

One of the things that's crazy with this, you know, with the, with this AI stuff, is if you go back and you read the old school like Webster dictionary from 100 years ago, the definitions in that are different than they are now. And if you go back and like the encyclopedia Britannica's and and some of these other old, you know information books, right, AI is changing, they're updating and changing definitions. So in the future, when you don't have hard copy books anymore, right, and everything starts going digital at any point in time, it'll be gone forever. They can just change history. They can just change what words actually mean, Right. And that is important.

Rich: 1:08:32

When you look at, when you go into, when we get into, the talks on spiritual warfare and you look at what did God create the universe with? Right, and it says that it was created by the word and the power is in the word, Right. So when you talk about one we've had this conversation on earlier episodes of the podcast with Shannon, you know Shannon, you know God said he made us in his image. We are the image bearers and God created us through the word and he created everything through the word. And if you look at what we're talking about of dismantling this, you could. You attack the image bearer, right? The devil can't attack God, right? So he attacks his image bearer. How does the devil attack God? By attacking those who are in his image. How does he insult God? Or how does he attack God by taking the thing that God made in him, in his image, and having them mutilate mutilate themselves, right.

Rich: 1:09:44

And then, if the power is in the word, how do you take the power away? You make words meaningless, you make the words not mean what they're supposed to and you take away the creative power of the word by making words have no power, because words that have no meaning have no power. And people who have no name. That's why our names carry weight. If our name doesn't represent anything and you don't even know what your name represents, right?

Rich: 1:10:10

If a country has no border in a country doesn't represent anything and it just becomes ambiguous, then there's nothing to fight for, there's nothing to defend, there's nothing to represent and you have this whole breakdown of identity and you have people who are lost and people who are lost and have no identity and have no hope and have nothing to fight for, nothing to represent, right? It's probably one of the reasons why we're seeing this increase in suicide rates, you know, within these communities, because people just they're so confused and yeah, it's just wild. It's wild to look at the word and see how many of these things were predicted and when God's saying that in the end days, the you know right will be wrong and everything is just going to be upside down. And there's, you know, you're starting to see all of that stuff unfold.

Ian: 1:11:06

It's crazy. Now it is, it's right in your face and you know it's. We laugh at it because it's absurd, but it's so important to, and this is, you know, this is. If there's a takeaway, you know, from the conversation for anybody listening, it's understanding the power of the word, of your word, right of you as an individual, and never in a million years would I have ever, ever, imagined, you know, when I opened the gym that day, that it was going to be as powerful and impactful as it was. I mean, it impacted the lives of millions of people.

Ian: 1:11:52

You know, there's, there's, millions of people who saw that story and in some way were changed from it. You know who? I've been told thousands of times, tens of thousands of times probably hey, man, you were a huge inspiration. You know, when it came time to get the vaccine, I quit my job and I did it because I saw that you, you did what you did, and although I didn't have a business to fight for, you know, I, that was my hill, that's what I, that's what I stood on, or, you know?

Rich: 1:12:24

could you imagine if every small business owner just did what you did?

Ian: 1:12:28

Yeah, or even just every person. If every person did what they felt in their heart, every person who were like like screw this mask, just didn't wear it, or every. You know I again I can't tell you how many how many parents came to me and said you know what I, you know me and my wife sat down, you know, and we saw what you did, and we decided that, that we were going to pull our kid and we're going to homeschool. And you know what life? Life was a little bit harder for a while. You know, my wife quit and I've been working, you know two jobs, but we made it work. We changed our budget because we, we, we understood the importance of, of taking control right of, or of moving somewhere, or whatever it is.

Ian: 1:13:08

If everybody acted on that, none of this would be happening. And if everybody made the decision today to do it, it would, it would fall apart instantly. And that's that's one of the one of the probably one of the most frustrating things for me is knowing that people are so much more powerful than they understand and every decision that they make. Again, I didn't know, I was just some obscure gym owner in South Jersey, you know, with a gym of a thousand members and the decision I made, which was a tough one, you know, but I didn't die, I'm okay. You know it was rough I. There was some turbulence, yeah, there was some stress involved with it, but because of that decision, my life personally my life is immeasurably better. I'm much more free and in control and confident in my own ability. But there's so many people who are impacted by that decision and I don't think that people realize how important it is and and so and so it doesn't have to be as big and bold and drastic and you know, have Tucker Harlison interview with you about it. Sometimes it's just speaking the truth and saying no, like no, I'm not going to put that sticker on my window. I don't care what you say or do.

Ian: 1:14:31

And I know I have friends that own a steakhouse in Pennsylvania, in Allentown, very LGBTQ plus area, and they don't, they don't, they don't do that and they get harassed for it. They get harassed for it. They've had the mayor come after them. Their business gets vandalized Guess what they haven't been did. And their their steakhouse. You know they have people come all the time and they have the people that go there are inspired by what they're doing and they take that, you know, after they, they, they eat their steaks and talk to them and hear about the struggles. They take that home to their own lives and and it might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, but eventually somebody watching you is going to make a good decision because they saw you do something.

Ian: 1:15:22

You know, there's so many people who are like right on the edge and they're like almost there, but they just need that reassurance that they're not alone and they look to their left and they see somebody doing the right thing. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I used to walk around without a mask on and I used to travel I fly all the time and it was like it was a nightmare. But I'd be in the airport and you know I'd see somebody look at me and it'd be like another guy and he'd look at me and you know he sees me without a mask and then next thing, I know he's not wearing a mask. You know and again, it doesn't have to it's not always about action. Sometimes it's just about, you know, not reacting to stuff or just speaking your mind. You know like you're going to preserve if, if, this world means anything to you. If this country, if your family's safety, if your value system means anything to you, you have to get involved, and sometimes that's just defending the truth.

Rich: 1:16:19

Yeah, I think, I think right now, that could probably be one of the biggest things that we can do is standing up for truth.

Ian: 1:16:27

Yeah boys are not girls and girls are not boys.

Rich: 1:16:30

And not breaking into the peer pressure that everyone's trying to force. All these, you know, because the thing is, people make a deal with the devil on this stuff and they they think that by giving an inch they're going to gain favor, and the reality is is nope, they're just going to move the goal line, they're just going to take more. Every time you give them an inch, they're going to ask for more.

Ian: 1:16:55

Well, yeah, what winds up happening? You know, it's the. You know the bully in the schoolyard. You know, when you give them your lunch money, he's not going to say thanks, man, and never bother you again. He's going to come back tomorrow and he's going to now expect your lunch money. Yeah, you know, and if you give that lunch money over enough times, there's not even a question. It's his lunch money. Now, you know, and it's the same thing. Like Debo, that's a side bike. Yeah, exactly, and it's the same thing. You know.

Ian: 1:17:25

I always, I always use the, the, the example, you know, it's like the army retreating. You know, like you, you watch one of the one of the old, you know, war movies where the army gets pushed off the cliff, right, and we give an inch and we give an inch, and we give an inch, and we give an inch and we give an inch, and next thing, you know, it's a year later, it's two, and we give that inch in the sake of temporary comfort. Right, oh, I just don't want to fight this battle right now. Right, I'll put the mask on because I just need to get my groceries right Instead of saying screw you, I'm going in your store, I'm going to buy my groceries and I'm going to leave. I don't care if you yell at me, I don't care if you spit on me, I don't care, whatever, you know what. I'll just put the mask on and I'll worry about this later.

Ian: 1:18:12

It's always, it's a, it's a very temporary. I just don't want to be uncomfortable. I don't want the confrontation, I don't want the fight. So I'll give you that inch, but you give that inch and you step back. You give that inch and you step back. You give that inch and you step back, and then you get so used to avoiding discomfort that you don't even that. Two things happen that you don't know how to be uncomfortable when the time really comes and even if you're prepared to do that, you've got no footing.

Ian: 1:18:44

You've backed yourself off to the edge of the cliff. There's nowhere to dig your heels in anymore. You know, you've you've you've just given it all away.

Rich: 1:18:52

The other thing with that is there's a plan and when these guys say from stage and again, this is just their own words we're going to force behavior and we're going to use companies to, because these guys don't have well, they have the power of the government by, by paying people off. But they basically said we're going to use the biggest companies, the biggest 600 companies in the world, to force behavior. So they're picking and choosing. There's a playbook they're picking and choosing of how they're forcing the behavior.

Rich: 1:19:23

So when you give that inch, you're actually being forced into a trained yeah, and you're being shifted into a position that's already been predetermined and wargamed strategies out, oh yeah, you know what I mean. So they're, they're shifting you into the position. It's like playing checkers or chess like they're. They're positioning into, setting you up for the trap and to eventually you have no move to make. It's not some random shit.

Rich: 1:19:49

No, like this wasn't, this wasn't by, just by chance, you know just some random thing. You know what I mean. These are very, very strategic moves and there was a lot to it. When you walk into every single store and they have signs and placards for six foot, you know, and they have arrows on the floor and things on the walls and plexiglass at the checkout counter and all that kind of stuff. Like that wasn't by chance. You know what I mean.

Ian: 1:20:20

This is all for executed Yup.

Rich: 1:20:22

And and you paid them because I guarantee you, before they did that, they all had insider trading stocks purchased on the companies that make those masks, on the people who make hand sanitizer, on disinfectant wipes, all the things that were mandatory for the, the companies that they deemed were important enough to be left open, right, the essential employees and essential companies. All that stuff was pre-gamed and they all made bank again. All those people who became billionaires during that time, that was a strategic move. So, as they forced your behavior, you also helped them become billionaires. Yeah, you paid them to allow them to train you. Yeah, you know what I mean.

Ian: 1:21:06

Yeah, it's crazy when you, when you just step back and look at the big picture which I think you know a lot of people need to do that, you know, like we tend to like look at what's right in front of us and not see it, you know, because it's all coming right at you. But like, when you step back and look at it like that, it's like yeah, not only did I do what I was told, but I shopped at the stores they told me to that were forcing me to do the things that I didn't want to do. Yeah, you know, and I didn't support I couldn't, in a lot of cases, support people who would respect me enough to allow me to make my own choices, because they were closed. You know it's yeah. When you look at it like that, at least from my perspective, you have no other choice but to say screw this, gloves off. I'll fight you, you know, and I'll fight you wherever. However, I have to.

Ian: 1:22:10

You know people just ask me all the time like, oh, why don't you just put on the mask? You know I got banned from five airlines. You know, like I was on a TSA heightened security list to where TSA would literally greet me at the door of you know of the ticket gate, they'd say, all right, mr Smith, and I have my own line, and they would put me through the ringer. I'd get frisked and my bags torn apart and I only was allowed to fly on two different airlines and I had my own. You know, personal TSA agent, walk me to the gate. After the two hour search, people just say why don't you just put on the mask? Because I'm not. I'm not, I'm going to fight you. I'm going to make this miserable for you because I know that I won't quit. I won't quit unless you beat me, and I'm not going to. I'm not just going to give it up. You know the same thing as if you but the the.

Rich: 1:23:00

That's funny, you mentioned that so that the whole thing with the TSA, that was the earlier stages. Yeah, it was the same shit Just earlier on and it was part of that incremental that needed to happen for them to get to the point where they were doing what they're doing now. You needed to have that because that was like the start of where you started giving up your individual liberties. That fourth amendment right, we suspended it for the sake of safety and you know, and again, the greater good.

Rich: 1:23:34

Yep, that's another example of where you give an inch and you're just it's the Trojan horse. So we've identified there's a whole colossal cluster that's going on right now and I know a lot of people are in a position where it's like, if the politics are screwed up, the companies are screwed up. You know this global push of socialism, all this stuff is just everywhere. What, what do we do? Like what? You know, a lot of people feel lost or frustrated, which is very easy to do.

Rich: 1:24:12

Yeah, and I know myself, I feel frustrated sometimes as well, and I get pissed off about it. What are you actively doing in your lifestyle to counter this or to not buy into this? What are you doing?

Ian: 1:24:27

You know. So I think you know awareness is fundamentally part of it. So you do have to kind of think about it and pay attention to it and know what's going on. But it's very easy to get overwhelmed by that and that is undoubtedly by design. You know people who want to beat you, want to demoralize you. You know, in any type of warfare, you know if you can demoralize your enemy I mean back in the day they used to. You know when forts were held up, they would. They would trebuchet. You know animal manure over the walls, you know like. So demoralization is a very real tactic. So you have to understand that most of what you see around you is meant to demoralize you. When it comes to this kind of stuff right? So the news you have to be able to discern information from propaganda, and that just takes you being conscious of it, right? So see something, try not to get emotional over it. When you see the stuff happening around you, when you see it on the news, understand that you're being shown it for a reason and that there is a value in seeing what's going on, but there's greater value in not letting it pull you down. So that's one thing, and I say that because there was a point where I got very they call it blackpilled, where I was like, well, what's the point anymore? Like I might as well just enjoy the last days, which is totally what anybody who wants to beat you wants you to think. But that just takes some discernment. So being sort of conscious about that, I think, is a really helpful thing.

Ian: 1:26:12

The other thing is action. Look at the problems. What do you see? You see small business going out of business. You see it being forced out. You see corporations behaving this way. Commit yourself to supporting people that support you going out of your way.

Ian: 1:26:34

Now people will say, well, it's not easy. Of course, none of this is going to be easy. It's far easier to Amazon your life, which and again, I'm not suggesting that you make your life ridiculously complicated. There's some balance to be struck in all of this. You still need to live your life, you still need to achieve things, but go out of your way to support small businesses. There's no reason why you can't. The internet is there. It's one of the greatest tools you have. Yes, you might pay some more, but yes, you're going to get a higher quality product. Yes, the shipping time is not going to be Amazon's same day shipping. But get comfortable with your actions being more meaningful and less comfortable. Supporting that small business may cost you a little bit more, it may be a little less convenient, you may have to wait, you may have to spend more, whatever it is.

Ian: 1:27:39

But every dollar you put into, say, a small business and there's a fantastic video on this. If you really want to visualize it, the guy's Instagram is called cancel this t-shirt company and he talks about what happens when you spend a dollar at a mega corporation and what happens when you spend a dollar at a small business. When you spend a dollar at Amazon, a very, very, very small fraction of that dollar gets paid in local wages and then the rest of it siphons right up and out of your community forever. If you spend that money in your community, that money stays in and around your community. So we don't necessarily see that impact right away, but understand that you have that impact. When you go down the street and you go to eat at the local restaurant and not the chilies, your dollar is going back into your community and again, you won't see that right away. You won't see the results of it right away, but if you spend that dollar over and over in those small businesses. It stays with the people. It doesn't get siphoned up into the billionaires. That's a huge one.

Ian: 1:28:58

Getting involved in your local community is a huge one we tend to focus on and again, look at what you're showing. Do you see a lot of local politics on the news? Nope, you don't see. You see barely any Local politics has much more of an impact on your life than what Nancy Pelosi is doing. They'll show you what Nancy Pelosi is doing. They'll show you Joe Biden, because it pisses you off and it makes you feel powerless and, in a sense, you're not going to stop Nancy Pelosi right now until you get a foothold to fight from. You're just throwing ice cubes at the sun, being mad at the federal government, and I understand it's enraging watching your money get sent overseas. But pay attention to what's happening locally. Who's your sheriff? You were down here in Florida. A lot of the sheriffs there were still COVID mandates. Most of the sheriffs said, no, we're not going to enforce that. That had much more of an impact on your life than what Ron DeSantis was doing, than what President Trump was doing. President Biden was doing what Fauci was doing. So not only pay attention to local politics.

Ian: 1:30:13

Get involved Doesn't mean you have to run. If you run, I think that's a great idea. I think it's something honorable. It's going to be tough, but I guarantee it'll be worth it. But you don't always have to run. Sometimes you just have to show up for the people that are. There are good people everywhere who are trying to make a difference, and it's really hard to do it Because these people don't have big Instagram platforms. They don't have a whole bunch of money for advertising. Show up, show up. Donate a couple of bucks. Donate your time if you don't have any money. My campaign was driven by about a dozen volunteers. That's all it took, and if we would have had five dozen volunteers, we probably would have went a lot further. So focus where your energy means something, and that doesn't necessarily have to be politics. Show up at your local church. Get involved. I guarantee you, if you turn off the news, you're going to find good stuff happening all around you. But we open up our cell phones and we watch the news and we see stuff, and all this stuff gets put in front of our faces and we miss all of the good stuff in our communities. Really important. I think that's probably one of the most important things you could do.

Ian: 1:31:30

I live in St Augustine now and one of the things I love about St Augustine is it's a small business hub and it's a community of people that support each other. There's men's group. There's a men's group I go to. There's only 10 of us Guess what? There was only seven and there was only five when we started and it's a men's group that meets every Thursday morning at 6.30. And we talk about business, we talk about family, we talk about God, we talk about working out, we talk about stuff that impacts all of our lives. And because of that men's group, I'm involved in four or five other things that I probably wouldn't have been involved in.

Ian: 1:32:08

So one of the big things and to tie all of that together is focus your time and your energy where you're going to get something out of it. Stop throwing ice cubes at the sun. And probably the most important thing is to take a good, honest look at your own life and see where you're lacking and see where you can get better. And that doesn't mean that you need to become a different person, it doesn't mean that you're failing, but we can all kind of pick up the slack. If you are out of shape, get in shape. If you spend money like you're not paying attention and you don't know where your paycheck goes, start making a budget. Take control of the things that you can take control of. And the question of what can I do is going to answer itself, because you're going to see, oh man, well man, I just dropped 50 pounds. I feel so much better. I have so much more energy from my family for this.

Ian: 1:33:20

Like all of these things are going to come out of it, or hey, I didn't realize I was spending $1,000 a month on eating out and I'm eating all this crappy food. That's connecting back to me gaining weight and feeling like crap. And with that $1,000 a month. Now we set a budget. Me and the wife go out once a month and we support a local business. We don't just go to Chili's, we go to the local diner and we support there, but we only go once a month. And then we cook every night and I plan my meals. So now not only am I spending less money, but the money I spend is making an impact in my community. It's not just going up the corporate ladder somewhere. I'm losing weight. I'm feeling better about myself. I'm more health conscious than ever. My family, my wife, my son, my daughter, my mother, are all following my lead as well, and all of their lives are getting better.

Ian: 1:34:21

So now, all of a sudden, these couple little choices. It's not just a couple choices anymore, it's radically different, because they're all magnifying each other. And then all the choices are magnifying each other and everybody around you who's making those choices is magnifying one another. We see it in the group, in the protector summit right? How many of those guys? Everybody brings something to the table. I think everybody leaves that summit just a little bit better. We all make better choices as a result of it, even if it's something tiny, how many guys got baptized last time? Stuff like that it all pours over into the next thing. So it's a matter of understanding how important all these little choices are and just start making better ones.

Ian: 1:35:09

And then that big question you have of like, oh my god, how do I fix all of this? You don't need to have the answer to all of it, but you start with just a few small answers and then you start to chip away at that big. It's just like losing weight. You know what I mean. It's like the newbie who walks into the gym, right Coming from where we both have a fitness background. The newbie who walks into the gym who's 100 pounds overweight. They're looking and all they see is a jungle of equipment that makes no sense. They don't know how any of it works. They don't know what food they should be eating, what food they should not be eating. Where should I get a trainer? Should I do this? No, just start walking on the treadmill. Start walking on the treadmill today.

Rich: 1:35:54

Their focus is 100 pounds and you're like, let's focus on one. Exactly, exactly. Let's do one before 100.

Ian: 1:36:01

And that's perfectly said, and that's the answer right there is looking at your own life and finding those small little parts, and the rest is just going to. You're going to figure it out.

Rich: 1:36:15

Yeah, I agree, I agree and anything else you want to add.

Ian: 1:36:24

No, that's it. I just. You know I always try to leave people with the truth that we are all so much more in control than we realize. And I wouldn't have believed that four years ago I would have said and I've said this at my speech here the greatest lie that we tell ourselves is I'm just one person and that my choices don't. Nobody will notice if I don't do the right thing, if I do the easy thing instead of the hard thing, if I wear the mask, nobody will care if I wear the mask, but it does.

Ian: 1:37:03

Everything you do matters. And that's such a dangerous thing that we tell ourselves is that somehow what we do doesn't matter. And it's not only is it not true, it's completely the opposite. Everything you do matters. And when you start believing that and start living that, you will know that it's true. And it's like a light bulb goes on and you're like, oh, oh, this isn't as big of a scary thing as you know. It's not that you're not going to have problems and whatever, but you're back in the driver's seat of your life.

Rich: 1:37:38

Yeah.

Ian: 1:37:39

And that's all you can ask for.

Rich: 1:37:41

Yeah, I agree, man, and on my end I've been like in regards to the stuff that you just listed. I know, for my wife and I we've been looking at this stuff and like dude, they're coming in and they're attacking all the farmers, they're trying to say that cows are just killing the world and all this stuff. And it's like, dude, you know what? We're going to start supporting local butchers. Yeah, you know what I mean. We're going to support local farmers and we go and we buy from a local they have like a festival or whatever and we go down there and all these farmers come in and basically they butcher up some cows and whatnot or whatever livestock. And we'll go there. We'll get like a half cow or a quarter cow and it's local, grass-fed beef, and we fill up our freezer with it and then we go down to a farmer's market and we try to get a good portion of our eggs from local farmers. We're going to start our own chicken coop again.

Ian: 1:38:45

We used to have it with the bears came and you know I was wondering where they were at.

Rich: 1:38:49

Yeah, we also have a bobcat on the property that smashed some and it's been a process, but you know not everyone. My brother and I we just invested in some of our own cows and we're going to get our own chickens, but I know not everyone has that ability. You know what I mean. So, like, if we don't like the fact that they're coming in and trying to manipulate the beef, we'll support a local beef guy and get a cow that's grass-fed. Get the chicken eggs when you go to the store that are pasture-raised versus the other ones We've been looking in. It sucks because it costs more money, but we've been trying to really be diligent on buying products that are organic, non-gmo, Right, and, like you're saying, not going to the major.

Rich: 1:39:45

One of the things that is so sad is when you travel as much as we do and you go to these other states and every state is starting to look exactly the same Because it has the same fast food restaurants, all the same chain stores. The identity of towns is like withering away and even like what they're building these developments here in Florida and other places. They're just coming in, buying up these giant plots of land and just putting in cookie cutter homes. And if you live in one of those, I'm not attacking you. I'm just saying it's sad to see that everything is just becoming a cookie cutter. It's like fast fashion of food, it's the fast fashion of housing and everyone. It's just falling into this. You'll own nothing and, like it, everyone's going to have the same damn thing. You know what I mean.

Ian: 1:40:45

But you can absolutely fight and stop that. Yeah, yeah.

Rich: 1:40:48

Because, again, it's like if everyone just stopped buying.

Ian: 1:40:53

Starbucks or whatever it is.

Rich: 1:40:55

You know what I mean? Yeah, and that's the same thing. And through that, what I've found is we've been going to mom and pop restaurants and now that we've been really trying to focus in on what we're eating, we've been eating home a lot more, which is better for your relationship. Yeah.

Ian: 1:41:14

Everything pours over into the next thing.

Rich: 1:41:17

Exactly.

Ian: 1:41:18

You go to those mom and pop places and you wind up talking to the owners and you're like there's a mom and pops place that when I do get food right near the house I usually stop in and even if I'm getting takeout, you know whatever and it's a single owned restaurant. But I've met so many people in and around my town Like I'm taking lessons from an older couple that they raise bees. That wouldn't have happened if I just ordered Domino's. You know what I mean. It wouldn't have happened had I been sitting at a chili. I keep nagging on chilies. But if I'm just sitting at some random corporate restaurant, it happens because you're putting the effort in that area and there's always going to be some sort of reciprocal benefit that you don't see until it's right there.

Rich: 1:42:10

Yeah.

Ian: 1:42:12

But it's about just the smallest step you can take, the smallest, littlest step you can take. A lot of people say you mentioned getting a cow. Oh, I don't have the space for that. Ok, find 10 neighbors and split the cow. Like that. There's always some sort of solution. And guess what? After you split the first one, you're going to go man, that beef was way better than the stuff I got at Kroger or whatever the grocery store is, and you're going to feel better for eating it. You're probably going to be more inclined to work out. You're probably going to maybe teach yourself to make a steak better, because you're like man, that was a pretty good steak. Maybe I'll learn how to blacken the next one. And next thing, you know, there's all these doors that have opened as a result of just one choice to take control and push back.

Rich: 1:43:06

And not to open up a whole can of worms on this thing One of the because this could be a whole, another hour conversation but we sort of ask ourselves what are the restaurants putting in there Like? Once I started reading, like really really diving into the labels and I realized that like 99% of the stuff in a grocery store is not even worth eating.

Ian: 1:43:31

Yes, it didn't even exist 50 years ago. Most of the stuff.

Rich: 1:43:34

Yeah, like it's just chemical, it's a chemistry project. You know what I mean Inside your body and when you look at this stuff, you go how much of this is actually the ingredients that they're using at the restaurants? And then, when you really start diving into that, what am I eating at these restaurants? Because the food isn't the same as it was 20 years ago, 30 years ago, not even close. You know what I mean.

Rich: 1:44:00

So part of that of eating home is also just, is really just controlling what are you putting in your body. Because, again, if we poison our bodies and we're feeling unhealthy and we're sick and our hormones are off and all this stuff, the same people who were organizing and behind all this stuff that we had going on over the last few years are the same ones who are supporting and organizing what's in the food. Yeah, just playing into their traps and again. But I think also, in addition to those basic action steps, I think it's one of those important things that we come back and again, standing firm in our faith and understanding what is God instructing us to do, what is God guiding us to do, understanding that all of this has already been predicted. And when you go, how could this all be happening? And it's like dude, it's got to play out Now. We don't have to support it and buy into it, but understanding that the plan is in action and what.

Ian: 1:45:20

What side are you going to fall on?

Rich: 1:45:22

Yeah, and what can you do? And how are you going to represent yourself and how are you going to represent your faith? Are you going to stand firm in your faith? Are you going to bend a knee and give in just because of peer pressure and take the easy road? And that brings us back into that whole saying that the gates to hell are very wide and then the gates to heaven are very, very narrow. You know what I mean and which it's a beautiful idea. Which course are we going to walk? What route are we going to take? What actions are we going to do and will we stand firm in our faith?

Ian: 1:46:05

That is one of Corinthians. That's one of my favorite, just like one lines is stand firm in the faith. That speaks to me so much that it's hard for me to put into words. It's actually very overwhelming because most of my life I never did up until that decision to open the gym and to keep it open. I never stood firm in the faith. I would always take the easier option, I would always try to weasel my way out of any, because when you stand firm in the faith there's some discomfort with that.

Ian: 1:46:46

You know what I mean In some form or another. And I was so afraid to do that. And then, when I did, it was the most powerful feeling I've ever felt, because, whatever happens after that, I knew that God would smile upon me and that when it was time to be judged for the life that I've lived, that he would say good job. He would say the world tested you, the devil tested you, and you believed in me, you believed in yourself, you believed in good enough to stand in the faith and to not cower, to know that there was something so important about your actions, no matter how small they seemed at the time or no matter how scary it was or how hard it was. You had enough character in you to go through whatever you had to go through, to stand true to your value system, to stand true to who you are and not be bent or broken.

Rich: 1:48:07

And I think the hardest part of that is standing firm in the faith. I also resonate with this verse and that's why I use it on the shirt for the summit as the One of my favorite shirts. Yeah, but the last line and let all that you do be done in love. That's for me. That's the hard one.

Ian: 1:48:26

Yeah, that ties it all. You know what I?

Rich: 1:48:28

mean being strong and standing firm. It's like, ok, I'll hold the line.

Ian: 1:48:31

You can do it with the hate in your heart.

Rich: 1:48:32

Yes, yes, but at the same time, I accomplished a lot being angry. You know what I mean and you can tap into that and that's like the double edged sword. You know what I mean. So it's like to be able to stand firm in faith but then also do it with loving your heart, not out of hate and resentment. And it's a very, very slippery slope, because sometimes you're on the right track and then the devil basically throws it back on you and basically takes your momentum and pulls you with your own momentum the wrong direction.

Ian: 1:49:08

Hate is blinding, even if you have good intentions. Yeah, you know, if you don't have that love, that light in your heart, in what you're doing, you are bound to get pulled somewhere where you didn't, you don't want to be, and you won't notice it until you're there.

Rich: 1:49:29

Yeah.

Ian: 1:49:31

And I can testify to that on a whole other episode.

Rich: 1:49:35

Yeah, yeah, we'll get you back, we'll do another episode. I think that's a good spot. A good final thought is doing what we can do, the small incremental steps that we can do on an individual basis.

Ian: 1:49:48

Every day.

Rich: 1:49:49

And standing firm in the faith and having trust and believing that what we're doing is right and that it can make an impact, even if it's just small, in our own circle, leading by example and then not falling into the trap of building hate and resentment, and doing what we do out of love for our family, for God, to better ourselves and those who are under our care.

Ian: 1:50:16

Absolutely Amen.

Rich: 1:50:17

Awesome. Well, ian, it's been great having you on. I appreciate it, and I would love to have you back on and talk a little bit more on other aspects of your story and we can get into some other details there as well. Sounds good, awesome, man, thank you. Thank you Appreciate it. All right, guys. Well, thanks again for tuning into another episode of the Full Spectrum Warriors podcast.

Rich: 1:50:49

Check out Ian Smith on some of his social media platforms. You can look below. Also, if you haven't already check out ReadyWise Food Company. They make long term food storage, survival kits, camping kits and other food long term food storage options. With everything going on in the country right now, I personally believe that it's a good investment to have at least 60 days of food for each person in your home. Sometimes you can't do that in one shot, so for me personally, what I've done is I've done that incrementally. Every couple of months I get a few more food kits to where I'm in a position now where every one of my home has at least six months worth of food stored up, and it's just a good plan to do that with some of these long term food storage kits.

Rich: 1:51:41

I was doing it with canned foods. I was doing it with other things and they were expiring and I wasn't using them. And I know you can get into a routine to where you're rotating the foods out and getting really diligent about that before they go bad and expire. When I tried that, I would just get a loose track of all that and just get distracted with life and everything. And then, before you know it, what I remembered to go check on that stuff. I'd realized many things had expired and they wasted. And then I found myself in this position where I was like, dude, this is a waste of money If I had to grab some stuff and go, for whatever reason, if there was an emergency and it wasn't going to stay in my home, I'm not going to be putting in bags, of cans and all this stuff.

Rich: 1:52:29

I could grab one of these survival food buckets that's already pre-sealed, it's weatherproof. I could grab it and go. So that's what I have from ReadyWise Prepare. I would check them out Again. You can use code FSWTeam for discounts or check out their social media pages, because they run a lot of sales and they have good deals and whatnot where you can take advantage of one of those sales and get a good bulk kit for a really good price. So, anyway, I appreciate you guys tuning in. If you liked this episode, please share it. Help us beat the algorithm, share with a friend, like and follow, leave a comment, any of those things. They all help get the word out and get this message in front of more people. All right, we'll see you guys back on the next one.