Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - Freedom of Business - 149

Episode Date: May 26, 2020

The Covid - 19 Virus has had many impacts on the world - the economic halt, the hit on mental health, and the hit on physical health. This is going on for far too long and has reached the point of infringement on our constitutional rights. Connected with two Great men today , Nick and Shane, who have further insight and personal experience on what’s going on behind the scenes with Covid - 19.    Here’s what you’ll discover: 7:00 - Taking a hard position on government overreach and infringement  19:20 - Why It's my opinion that the Coronavirus is not as serious as being made by the government 43:00 - The Mental impacts of the the world turned off 01:02:00 - The slippery slope we need to avoid!    “If I was a political leader and I had the people’s best interest in mind, I’d allow the 90% of smaller cities to reopen while big cities stay on a tighter grip of quarantine.” “It's a very slippery slope if we allow the government to slowly erode our constitutional rights”   - Bedros Keuilian -- Follow me on Instagram: @bedroskeuilian   Buy Man Up and get Bedros’ High Performance Leadership Course for FREE: https://manup.com/   Subscribe to My Channel for weekly videos: http://www.youtube.com/bedroskeuilian/?sub_confirmation=1   Youtube https://youtu.be/N_QIlFMu98k

You can arrest me. That's fine. I'll go to jail. And we'll take this up in court and see if a court of public opinion where they sit on all this. But I can't allow good American citizens of my town to be harassed by a very small local police department and threatened like that. All right. So, hey, welcome to the Empire Show. Bedros here. And this is a very type, very different type of Empire show today. And I'll get to it in just a moment. and you guys will understand why if you're watching this on YouTube or you're listening to this on your favorite podcast platform. But let me tell you this. I'm a meathead.

I love working out. I was a fat kid growing up. And when I discovered the weight room, it changed my life. So all I wanted to do was help more people get in shape. And as I got in shape, I increased my confidence and self-esteem and self-worth. And all I wanted to do was help more people do that. And so I had been a personal trainer for many years. Most of you watching and listening to this know my story.

But the reason I want to share that story with you guys again is because I was ecstatic when a personal training client of mine said, hey, man, you ought to quit working at this big box gym and let me help you open up your own personal training studio. And to me, that was a game changer. That, you know, you fast forward, whatever, 15 years. And here we are, Fit Body Boot Camp, one of the fastest growing franchises on the planet. hundreds of locations throughout U.S. and Canada. But I'm also, in addition to a meathead and an entrepreneur, I'm an American. I'm an American and I'm an American citizen, but unlike most of you

listening to this, I'm not a born here citizen. I escaped from a communist country, the Soviet Union, Armenia, when I was six years old. We escaped into Italy. We pretended like we were going to, on a vacation in Italy. And my dad was a member of the Communist Party. So, As we entered Italy, we went right to the American Consult. My dad said I'm a communist member. I denounced communism. We want to legally enter the United States. What do I have to do to get to the U.S.?

And he absolutely risked his life and he bribed some Soviet government officials to let us make that escape. But I share that with you all because when we got here, my dad definitely served our country, the United States. He was pumped for a lot of information, wasn't allowed to be a citizen. So those of you watching and listening, you ought to know that when you come from a foreign country, you enter legally.

At best, you get a green card and a social security number so you can start paying your taxes. And when you do that, after five years of living here and staying out of trouble, and again, legally, I should stress, you could apply to become a citizen. My dad didn't become a citizen until 15 years later because he was denied citizenship twice because he was constantly pumped for information, which he was fine with. But he was hoping that he could become a citizen while being pumped for information about the Soviet government. Because only 18% of the Soviet population at the time was a member of the Communist Party. And so he knew information that obviously the United States needed, especially in the 80s. and I remember some U.S. agents coming to our house and talking to my dad.

And I had to go in another room because my dad didn't want me around as he was sharing this stuff. So I share that with you all because at the age of 20, I finally became a U.S. citizen and was sworn in. And I guess the thing that the three of us have in common here is we love to lift on the show. We love to lift. We are Americans, and the two of you have taken the same oath because, how do I say this? I mean, both of you have served our country, and both of our guests here have served our country. One as a U.S. Marine, the other as a Navy SEAL, and one's now becoming a doctor, and the other one is an entrepreneur and gym owner. The gym owner is Nick Kumalazos and, of course, the Navy SEAL.

Well, his name is Shane Kronstadt. And I wanted to bring you guys on here because some stuff went down recently with Nick's gym in North Carolina that I really want to address and get down to. But becoming a U.S. citizen meant I had to take an oath. And I'll just read a couple lines of the United States Oath of Allegiance that a foreigner who becomes a naturalized citizen has to take. It starts off with saying I hereby declare on oath that I absolutely and entirely renounce allegiance to any other foreign country, state, and sovereignty. And I show allegiance to the United States, and I will support and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States. against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States as required by law.

And I will also serve as a civilian of national importance, when required by the law. And, you know, raise their hand, right? So help me God. And I did. And I was 20 years old. And I really took that to heart. Like, I'm like, man, I'm an American. I'm not an Armenian American. I'm an American, period. And maybe because of that,

and because I had to learn everything about the judicial system, our House of Representatives, Congress, the presidency, the stars and stripes and what they meant on the U.S. United States flag, I believe most people don't know that. How many stripes there are? Why is it red and white and blue? And I had to learn all that and pass the test. And so I took all that serious.

And while I attempted to join the Marine Corps after that, since I had flat feet, they denied me. These days, apparently they'll take anyone, they say. And I said, well, I'll sign anything. Just take me. You know, it was 1994. They're like, nope. And they took my fat friend, by the way, guys. His name is Dave Sanborn.

He was fat at the time, but they pumped him with B12 and he lost some weight. But I was just so disappointed that they didn't take me. But I'm like, but I swore allegiance, you know? And let's go. And I wanted to see the world. obviously not much was going on in the 90s after I graduated high school, but here we are today. I'm 45 now and never did I think what I think that the meathead entrepreneur like me is going to have to take a hard position against what I believe is government overreach and government

exaggeration. And so this kind of brings the three of us, Nick, myself and Shane here today on the Empire show. So I wanted to set the stage. I don't care what your position is on the coronavirus. We'll talk about that in just a moment. But Nick, I want to start with you, man. Why don't you tell us what happened recently when you went to open your gym? Yeah, so are you familiar with what kind of what's transpired in North Carolina

and kind of the steps that Governor Roy Cooper has taken? I am, but let's assume that our audience isn't. So let's educate our audience first. And you might even want to share some of your background in the Marine Corps. It wasn't like you just did a short stint. Like you did, you did an amazing tour for our country. Yeah, I did 12 years of the Marine Corps. I joined the Marine Corps.

Ended up in forced reconnaissance. And in the last half of my career, I kind of like Shane, I spent half of it in Marine Special Operations Command as a Marine Raider. And deployed overseas, Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey, Southeast Asia. And so this is why it kind of, it hurts because I spent my, my youth deploying overseas fighting terrorism and protecting our freedoms that we have back here to eventually one day come here and enjoy those freedoms.

And like you said, this is a big overreach and overstep of our government. And it kind of breaks my heart to watch this kind of transpire. So I left the Marine Corps in November 2012 and did what most military people do. I contracted for a little while and then ended up starting my business and kind of fell into the role that you're in and entrepreneurship and philanthropy and things like that. March 17th, the governor shut down restaurants and bars due to the virus. On the 25th of March, he shut down everything and the whole stay-at-home order was enacted. And initially, you know, we did, you know, we knew.

We didn't know what we didn't know. So initially everybody was, I think everybody in the U.S. was kind of like, okay, like, let's see what happens. Give it a couple weeks. Of course, everybody was closely following the POTUS and what he had to say and whatnot. So we obliged on the 25th at 5.5 p.m. We shut the gym down and explained what we were going to do. And that was supposed to be two weeks, and two weeks turned into three weeks and then turned into a month.

And for North Carolina, phase one, we thought was going to open May 1st. So all of March 25th, all of April, we were shut down. And I was expecting to be able to open my doors on May 1st. He came out on the press conference and said that he was going to extend it another week. And phase one was started on May 8th. And then, but nothing that was currently closed was going to open in phase one. And he had no date for phase two. So he had no plan.

He had no data. He had, there was nothing other than just an arbitrary, like, shot in the wind. And during this entire time, I'll keep in mind, ABC stores, which in North Carolina is a controlled state. So they're controlled by the state. So liquor stores, tobacco was open and big box stores was open. So Lowe's, Walmarts, all, you know, grocery stores, whatever. So because there was nothing, there was no, there was no data whatsoever, there was no plan whatsoever. I made the call to look at what the CDC actually, very close to what you actually put up for opening, reopening your gems.

The guidelines that you were putting in for California. It's a great document, by the way. Thanks. We looked at the CDC guidelines, checking temperature, sanitation. six feet apart, well-ventilated, minimal amount of people, which for us was only to be 10, allowing only 10 members at a time, which we only have a 2,400 square foot facility. And I made the call, and May 1st, we opened up. No issues initially.

On May 7th, we were raided by the Holly Ridge Police Department. Wow. Yeah. What does a raid look like when the cops come and, like, what do they? tell you how does it go how does that work you know it wasn't like a swat call i say the reason why i say rated is because of their posturing so the officers that were involved in that that incident um we kept the doors the front and back doors open of the of the facility so that it was well ventilated which is one thing that was part of it and so they had free access to come in right they didn't have to

knock, they didn't, they were able to just walk right in. Sure. And they came in, they pulled into the parking lot, blocked off the entire parking lot with, with, uh, their cars. And then entered the facility, hands on guns, voices raised, banging on doors, yelling at citizens of the town. And just causing a complete scene. They weren't wearing mask. So if this is a, if this is a, a virus thing, they weren't wearing masks. They weren't wearing masks. They weren't. weren't staying six feet from people. They were in people's faces yelling. And then, of course, I wasn't there at the time. I immediately showed up, asked what was going on, who sent them, what the problem is. And they said I was in violation of the law, which is an executive order,

not a law, but I'm not a lawyer. So I'll let lawyers figure that out. And I got a class two, I got cited a class two misdemeanor. Wow. And so when you say they're yelling at citizens, the citizens they're yelling at are probably your coaches, your instructor and maybe your clients, right? Absolutely. Like these are people of the community who contribute their taxes

and are there to get a workout. Good American people. Yeah. They're not like former convicts that you're bringing together to collude the next bank robbery. And for those of you that may paint a little picture, I'm right outside Camp Lejean, North Carolina, which is we are a military town.

Majority of our members are either have served or serving or family members are serving. I mean, we're a military and law enforcement community. Sure. And so we shut it down. They ran everybody out. I got the misdemeanor. I went home, tried to cool off. The chief at the time knocked on my door and said, hey, I need to talk to you.

so I stepped outside. The chief was very cordial, very understanding, kind of apologized for how things went down and took the misdemeanor back and said it was going to be voided, which I just actually found out yesterday that it was, in fact, voided. And said, listen, I believe in the Constitution. I was in a meeting when this happened. I wasn't aware that it was going to go down the way that it did.

You should have been, you know, when it went down, he asked the officer, the captain, were they given a warning? He goes, well, I think so. He goes, well, you think so or they were given a warning? And what did you do? He said, well, we gave him a citation. So, of course, that's where we ended up having a conversation. So we had a conversation in phase one opened up May 8th.

So the next day at 5 p.m., we reopened the gym. And he said, listen, we're going to operate on that warning basis, these three warnings before citation. And any warning or citation is going to come from me. personally to a business owner in the area. And there's a couple other businesses that were like barbershops that were trying to. And then we can get into numbers. But to give you an idea of my town, there's 2,598 people in Highly Ridge, North Carolina.

Okay. So it's a small town that we're, I mean, word gets around obviously very quickly when this happened. Very quickly. Yeah. So we're a very small town. We're not on the map. Like we're a blip when you go down Highway 17. Sure.

And by the way, I do have to say for every. everyone watching and listening to this, like you have to understand this isn't just about gyms. You know, you might think that I'm biased towards gyms because of our franchise. This is about every small business owner. This is about barbers. This is about hair stylists. This is about nail salons, tanning salons, about the little mom-and-pop furniture store and the antique store. This is about those stores who have employees and these people who have a right to earn a profit and not look for the government for a paycheck because we are not a socialist empire. So, yeah, so go on because I'm just getting fired up about this. So,

so we had that conversation. We did the warnings. There were no issues from May 8th at 5 p.m. until the, I believe the 18th. And this is when everything kind of came and you probably saw the video and this is why we're speaking. Sure. Out of respect for the chief and everything that he was doing for the community, I was stayed quiet. The members were extremely happily. The military members, the law enforcement people that come into that gym were like, Nick, thank you so much. A month and a week was too much. Like, we're talking about, we can get into mental health and we can get into dopamine levels and we can get in all kinds of that stuff and a little bit. But they were, they were overwhelmed, appreciative of what we were doing and how we were handling it.

On the 18th, the, we were doing a closed session, jadisue session with, some military and law enforcement members. The captain knocked on the door. It's controlled access. The 18th of this month. 18th of, I don't know where we are. We're March, April, May. Thank you.

18th of May. 18th of May, early in the morning, we're doing a closed, a jitzy session, and he knocks on the door. I'm like, how can help you, sir? Hey, I know the chief said you could be open, but you can't, you got to close. I said, Roger, that.

I'm going to call the chief. So we get done with our training session. I get cleaned up. I try to call the chief. His number's been disconnected. Come to find out he has been on a temporary leave pending an investigation. Wow. Wow. I mean, does this raise suspicion for you already? Like what the hell is going on? And this guy is a, this man has served this community in law enforcement for, I want to say, 25, 26 years. He's a good American. a good a good American and this is the guy that came to your home and you guys spoke outside yes yep yeah so and like a man like came and let's have a conversation what happened here hear me out he's like what happened I want to talk to you so I call I got to trit and get a hold of the chief

I'm doing some stuff my daughter turned 18 so I was celebrate I was kind of doing some stuff with her actually buying her her first car which was a very proud moment for me coming from my background. And so I get a call from my manager saying, hey, it's happening again. They can't get in. They won't let them in. But they're on the, they're on the, they're outside on their horn saying threatening members, if that they're going to be cited or unticketed or whatever, and they're taking pictures of the members inside the gym, and then taking pictures of their license plate and threatening them over the bullhorn and there's a bunch of cops there. And by the way, I should also just start to interrupt you for a moment. I should also say this

exact thing to say you guys know is happening almost at the same time in New Jersey at a gym called Atlas Gym. And now let me draw another parallel. This exact thing happened when I was five and a half years old, just six months before we escaped Armenia, Soviet Union, when the KGB agents came into our home and started to ask my father, are you making suits? My dad was a tailor. Are you making suits and selling them on the black market to make more, basically, you have a side hustle. So look at the similarities here.

In other words, what freedoms that we have just get thrown out. And if there's a chief who believes in our constitutional rights and freedoms gets put on temporary leave or suspension or something. And his phone's disconnected because, well, the power. hours it be don't like his messaging. So, so let's keep going here. I'm so so I'm the, um, you know, those that those that don't learn their history, it's doomed to repeat it, right? Yep. And I'm seeing it firsthand, right? It's, it's blowing my mind. Experienced it. Right. So, so at approximately 310 on our security cameras, this law enforcement officer,

uh, your company by a detective, gains access to our facility via an access. card that we didn't know that they had. So they just walked right into the gym. Wow. And they said everyone has five minutes to get out or you're going to be sighted. And then goes outside. So the town manager, the acting chief at this point, and one of their detectives was a part of that. Now, come to find out, this was a key card that from everything that we can tell that they got issued back in 2010. In 2010, I was in the Marine Corps. I was serving in Marine Special Operations Command, and probably in Afghanistan, depending on the month. And I took ownership of this facility May 31st, 2018. So I had no knowledge of this. I didn't know this until they scanned the card,

and we saw it pop up, and we could trace where it came from. There was no contract. They had no contract with us. They had not signed any waivers with us to be in our facility. So as far as I'm concerned, I had a reasonable expectation of privacy for that facility of my property. Sure. Once this kind of came down and everything happened, I drew the line when I saw what was happening with the members. The way that they were being treated, the way that he had his younger officers taking

video of them and their license plates threatening them. And I said, I have to, I got to do something else. So I have to, I have to, I have to close the gym. I have to close the gym. Not because I'm, I can, you can arrest me. That's fine. I'll go to jail. And we'll, and we'll take this up in court and see if, if a court of public opinion where they sit on all this. But I can't allow good American citizens of my town to be harassed by a very small local police department and threatened like that. That's where I drew the line. So we closed it down and that's when I made the video telling a story of what's been transpiring over the past month and a half. Gotcha. Gotcha. So that catches this up. Now, Shane, I want to bring you in on this. Not to talk about the medical side just

yet. We're going to get to that. But I've known you now, I don't know, going close to a year. Your wife is my doctor and you as a former seal were a medic. I would say probably practiced medical procedures in the most high anxiety state ever. Traumatic. Traumatic state ever. Yeah, thank you for that, Nick. And today you're in medical school. And so just hearing this as an American, Shane, never mind the medical side. What is it that you're feeling, experiencing? I just want to get your thoughts, man, because I know you to be a pretty pragmatic, logical dude. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely upsetting and really confusing as to why that's happening.

You know, it's definitely very upsetting to hear. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. So guys and gals, if you're watching this or listening to this, and you're like, well, all right, so that's Nick. He's got a gym. Doesn't affect me.

Does it affect your real estate office? Does it affect your hair salon? Does it affect your restaurant? Does it affect your furniture shop, your antique store? Does it affect all these small businesses who, by the way, let's talk about some facts and figures here. For every 1% increase in unemployment, an average of 30,000 people will die. This is a fact. This is not my opinion.

This is a fact that's been scientifically. studied and proven and shown of the 30,000 people that die for every 1% increase in unemployment, majority of those people will die over the next 12 months of a heart attack. In other words, they lost their job, they lost their business, they can't string their finances together anymore, family turmoil usually leads to alcohol, some kind of drugs of coping and then bad, eating out of stress and emotions, not sleeping well, boom, heart attack. Of that 30,000, majority of those people are heart attack. The second group is, you know, eating out of stress and emotions, not sleeping well, boom, heart attack. The second group is suicide. The third group is domestic violence murder.

So when those numbers come out, and let's say we've gone from about 3% to 13% unemployment right now. From 12 weeks ago when the world was fine, there was no COVID virus in America yet, to now we've gone up about 10,11%. So at 30,000 deaths for every 1%, that's about 300,000 deaths guaranteed. No one's going to point a finger to that and say it's a byproduct of the COVID virus because we decided to quarantine. and exaggerate a virus and quarantine people who could have fought off the virus still served the economy, they're going to point to heart attacks and suicide and domestic violence, and they're going to shrug and say, we don't know why these are up. But it's because of this.

And so if you're wondering why I'm making it such a big deal has nothing to do with money, the money is directly correlated to the debts of these 30,000 people who will sadly go away. and it has to do with your rights and freedoms being slowly eroded, no different than the waves that are smashing on a coast, and you come back a decade later, a decade after that, and you slowly see that that coastline has shrunk. And this to me is a big deal because I really wish everybody that was born in the United States should either have to serve in some capacity, maybe not in battle, but in some kind of, maybe in a support structure, or at least take the damn oath that I took to understand what it means to say, that you will have to take arms for the Constitution if asked to. And I think so many people are living in this tranquilized, numb life. As long as I have my iPhone and Netflix and Grubhub,

hey, everything's fine while the news keeps tightening around society. So Nick, let me ask you this, man, what are you doing now not only for the sake of your business, because the Empire podcast is about entrepreneurs and helping entrepreneurs scale, because of more of my money we can make, the more meaning we can have. An Empire podcast is about money and meaning. Money is a direct connection to meaning. You're a philanthropist as well. You donate to causes you believe in. By the way, I donate to Toys for Tots, Shriners Children's Hospital, and we have 98 kids adopted through Compassion International. And all that comes from the profits that I generate, more than seven figures in just Shriners Children's Hospital. I don't see

the government offering me a payroll protection program. for me to donate the amount of monies that I used to donate to Shriners and Toys Rott's and Compassion. So those causes that I believed in and helped those little kid-based organizations, I'm not able to help. Well, I am able to help. But a lot of people aren't able to help their church, their cause because they don't have the opportunity of I have of having multiple businesses and seeing one increase as the other one decreases. So Nick, I'm curious, what are you doing, one, for your business and two for your constitutional rights before we go into the science of what's really happening with this virus. So, so like you, I don't have just one business. So some of the other ones, you know,

that are e-commerce businesses and other things, you know, are thriving, right? But our brick and mortar, our brick and mortar stores, and of course the training facility is is on the outs. What we're doing, though, is just like you, like as soon as it happened, we pivoted to online training through an app. offering that to members as well as, you know, dieting, coaching videos. I mean, we just went full-scale content and full-scale online coaching as much as possible and didn't charge anything extra, didn't do anything. It was about taking care of the members. I will make up the money at the end.

I know I can do that. I believe that. So I'm not worried about that. What I am worried about is our community and the people that are in that facility. That was my concern. So as far as the as far as the the revenue loss, I'm not so worried about it. Like you said, though, that that revenue loss does stop me from doing some of the things that I like to do on on other things. As far as now my rights, well, out of respect for the chief, I was staying quiet because he was taking care of our community.

When that stopped and I saw what was happening with the members, I am full force in this. I don't like politics. I'm not the right. I'm not on the right. I'm not on the left. I'm right up the middle. And I'm about our constitution and our rights. And that means for the people that disagree with me, I'm for you.

Right. Disagree me. I'm waving my flag for you. And so, and Shane can second this. When you're, when you operate in special operations, you deal with a little bit more government than the regular military. And then I said this, I said this on team frog logger podcast. Once you've dealt with the state department, you'll never want to deal with the government ever again. So when I left the military and I started doing this, I did not want to be involved in

politics. I didn't want to be involved with the town council. I didn't want to, I don't even want to be involved with my neighborhood HOA because I just want to do me. I want to make videos. I want to make content. I want to help people. I want to inspire, educate, and motivate people to live a better life. That's me. I've done the government thing. But just like John Rambo, they drew first blood and now they get to see this version of me. So now my mission is this. My mission is to ensure our rights are protected and that Americans are free to be Americans for the stuff that Shane and I serve for to protect and the oath that you took to become an American. Well said. That's what I'm doing. Well said. Well said. All right. So now let's let's let's take a little turn. And again,

all we're going to give here is our opinions. I'm not a doctor. Nick, you're not a doctor. Shane, you're closest to being a doctor. And God knows you're surrounded by an amazing doctor in medical school and, of course, combat medic. On March 6th, when the whole rumblings began of this coronavirus, et cetera, before any kind of lockdown or quarantine happened, I put up a video on Instagram and I said, hey, let's not freak out about this virus that's coming, coronavirus, what you ought to be most worried about is your bad habits, you're eating too much sugar, you're not getting enough sleep, you're maintaining a negative mindset, you're pre-diabetic, you're overweight.

Those are the things that have such much higher chance of killing you than the coronavirus. And this is before I knew anything about the coronavirus and the hype that was created by it. Now very much like you, when the coronavirus then came to be on March 17th, the real lockdowns began. I told all of our franchisees, guys, it's my strong. recommendation you shut down and we're going to pivot to online coaching we don't want to raise any any kind of blip on the radar where increasing this virus is concerned since we don't know how contagious it is so we're going to online

coaching all of our franchisees complied and off we went and we did that thing and as time went on we got to see very quickly that and in fact even as early as yesterday yesterday the CDC said oh by the way as it turns out it's not as as contagious as we thought on hard surfaces and doorknobs and all that stuff. And we saw that in the financial relief package, the CARES package that the government put out, hey look, if you're a hospital and since you don't have a lot of people coming to the hospital doing elective surgeries right now, and those elective surgeries are like kidney replacement, heart bypass. If anyone watched the Joe Rogan and Elon Musk interview recently, you know, Elon's like technically a triple bypass

not be elective but when you're afraid of what's been positioned as a deadly virus you're like fuck it man i'm not going to do this triple bypass and then die of the covid i'll wait so as people are not going into the hospitals getting their medical treatments hospitals are making less money so the cares act and i believe they had the best of intentions the cares act the financial relief act said well i'll tell you what anyone that dies of the covid virus at your hospital if their their death certificate says COVID virus, that's $13,000 for the hospital. If a ventilator is used, there's $39,000 for you. So now the hospital is incentivized.

I'm not saying it's a conspiracy. I'm saying it was an act of, I believe, good intentions, but we all have heard the path to hell is paved with good intentions because as humans, we always find the loopholes and we go, well, shit, my hospital's not making enough money. One of my private coaching clients, by the way, is a director. He's the CEO of a big hospital. His job is to make that hospital run like a business and be profitable.

Save lives first, make money, second. But at some point when they're putting doctors and nurses on furlough, because people aren't doing their elective surgeries, the people running the hospitals quickly realize, hey, when someone dies, can we just put them down as COVID? And if so, can we just get an extra 13,000 or 39,000, depending on death or ventilation? And so soon they find a loophole and start kind of milking the system.

that way. And so I'm curious. Shane, I talked to you yesterday and I said, hey, if you can just do some research and find out some actual facts about this virus and who's really susceptible, should the rest of us who are healthy and able-bodied go and contribute to the American economy so that we can help? Like, what facts can you give us about this? Because what people are seeing is just what they see on TikTok and Instagram. And now I see people driving in their cars by themselves with a mask on breathing in their own CO2, and I can't figure out what the fuck is going on. Yeah, I think the best way I can really be of use is to tell you what I've learned, factual, unemotional.

I've spoken with some ER colleagues, their opinions, and then just kind of maybe my own personal opinion. So, yeah, so I do think in my personal opinion, I think a lot of things are getting really hyped up a little extra. obviously people are overstepping their bounds in terms of government. It starts to get very gray in terms of trying to do the right thing and keep people to not spread a virus potentially. And, you know, how do you do that without evading someone's constitutional rights? So that gets very blurred and I don't know that there's a great answer for that.

You know, and I interviewed an ER doctor in New York who works at a COVID hospital yesterday. And just keep in mind everything with COVID. a lot of the data is not peer reviewed so that it's new and current. So it doesn't have a lot of time to get that out there so guys can get something. And the information I put out today could be not valid in a week. So as of today, you know, third week of May, you know, they said they think that it doesn't live on surface. It's not as infectious and it can't live on surfaces, really. And so, you know, that really raises the question, in my opinion, I was personally upset about the gyms.

enclosed because they had just got into a good rhythm. And, you know, they're doing a good job, good ventilation, keeping it clean, limiting the amount of people in there. And that's really the best way to do it safely. And if it's not living on services and you're limiting the amount of people regulating it, you know, yeah, they think it can spread through breath particles, through breathing on each other or through spit. If you're talking, you spit out on someone. And that's kind of the idea with the mask. It's not really foolproof, but I think it can help maybe less project your breath particles. And people who are diabetic, people have high blood pressure, people who are unhealthy,

people who are very old, they don't do well with coronavirus and it's really, they do very poorly. The rest of us, you have to think people going to a gym, for example, that's a self-selecting enterprise. So the people that show up to a gym aren't usually a person who needs a kidney replacement or a person who's massively obese. So, you know, even at that, in certain industries, really, it's, you have to keep that in mind. Without getting too much into the science of it, you know, basically it goes in through your lungs. It can go in through your stomach.

And they don't think it lives on surfaces. And they do think that a lot of the, just from what I'm told from a lot of the ER doctors that I've spoken to about it. You know, for example, how cleanly is the 16-year-old worker at the grocery store packing your groceries? You get food delivery. I mean, really, right? Right. So we'd all be infected by now. I personally got sick with COVID.

I'm pretty sure. And my wife and my baby, we were all right. I have a friend who didn't do too well. For the most part, most people who are pretty healthy are going to be okay. There are some risks you could run into a risk of getting, developing a pulmonary fibrosis. or myrocarditis, but for most people, healthy, good age, you're going to be all right. And I think that not everyone can worry that you're going to get super messed up if you're a healthy age individual.

You know, there are people that do need to be taking into consideration like older people, our grandparents. And you can look at different countries like Australia. And for example, they open up two hours early at the grocery store. They spend an hour cleaning, and then they let everyone else in. And so there's definitely different approaches that could be taken into account. Another thing to keep in mind about the coronavirus, coronavirus is most, one of the strains of the coronavirus makes up most of the strains of the common cold. So this is a mutant form of a different form of corona.

But the thing is we don't have a vaccine normally for corona, right? And there's so many different strains and it mutates. And the thing is, we might never have a vaccine for coronavirus and to protect those certain amount of people in the question is, how long do we wait until we tank the United States that becomes Tamalia by shutting everything down? And I think at a certain point, probably someone in the medical field would give me a dirty look for saying this. But I think as a society, you have to keep in mind that maybe this might go on a long time, that maybe there might not be a good fix for it. We don't have any drugs for it. And that most people will probably be okay. And that we have to open up small businesses.

We have to continue with life because the longer and longer we tank the economy and shut everything down, the more the country's going to crash, the more crime has been going up significantly. Doctors are going through mental health issues, regular civilians going through mental health issues. It's affecting the military, which affects our security. It affects so many things. It affects mental health. And I think it's really important to consider that we really have to kind of consider going back to business as usual. You know, that's a really good point, man. So I appreciate you sharing that. And let's talk about the, and again, I don't want to, if any of our listeners and viewers are watching or listening to this and saying like, hey, what about the conspiracy theory and the 5G that they're going to put up as they keep people quarantined? Like, people are sending me the weirdest shit. Listen, let's keep conspiracy theories out of it. I'm not saying some of the conspiracy theories can't be proven true later. Only time will tell when we look back in hindsight. But I don't want to necessarily talk about that. I want to talk about what's really happening. Because when I put up a post like I did yesterday and I say look I'm not Republican I'm not Democrat I'm a I'm a

free market capitalist that wants to live by my constitutional rights and serve the people clients customers my my employees etc that I have a duty and a responsibility for and let us go to work and let the elderly and the immune compromise stay at home I'll get majority is a lot of support but every now and again a misinformed American and I'm going to say misinformed. I'm not going to call them an idiot or whatever. That's not what they are. And some people really start bashing them. And I'm like, they're misinformed. Go, so you're okay with old people dying when someone goes to work, comes back, and infects their grandparent. And it's that extreme way of thinking that you're, whenever did I say I'm okay with it?

And it's, sadly, this virus has not only split up our country even more, it's crashing our economy and because most people don't understand how the U.S. economy works, and Elon Musk did a great job. He says, for people to have things in stores and on shelves, we need people to work to produce those things, whether it's fruit, vegetables, televisions, cameras, iPhones, et cetera. And when people aren't working, money isn't being spent. And hence back to what you said, Shane, the economy crashes. And when the economy crashes, the country will begin to crash if we don't do anything about it. Let's look at the Great Depression. So that said, crime goes up, depression goes up, anxiety goes up, alcohol drug use has gone up.

In fact, I can give you the stats. We surveyed thousands of fit body boot camp owners, and I'll give you some stats here. One out of every four fit body boot camp, I'm sorry, not owner. We surveyed thousands of fit body boot camp clients, and just two weeks ago, one out of every four are now using either drugs or alcohol to cope with this. one out of every four so that's that's bananas 79% are ready to go back into a gym into their fit body boot camps or into just a normal way of life assuming the stores in those businesses have taken the precautionary sanitization steps 69% of the people feel a sense of depression anxiety and loneliness and so let's talk about that piece for a moment i'd love to hear your guys is nick we'll

start with you. Your guys is in your insight about the the mental side of this. What is the fallout after nine, 10, 11, 12 weeks here of the mental repercussions from this? So let's let's you got to look at the human beings in general and both you know this. At our core, we are our tribal people. This is the reason why military works so well, special units work so well, law enforcement is a tribe. This is why CrossFit has been become a thing because they create a tribal, a tribal community. This is the reason why your gym has done so well because you create a tribal community

within Fit Body Boot Camp. Now, we create these within every single one of the training facilities. We create these in mommy day camps, you know, stroller warriors. We are constantly creating tribes for ourselves. What happens when we take someone and we take them out of their tribe?

I wrote a whole book about it. You go through a person, a personality conflict. You, you start to, depression does kick in. You want to be part of your tribe. These, so the members of this, the members of my facility, they're displaced. Yeah, they can, we can prescribe them training in, in their community and whatnot. And they can go do it in their garage.

It's not the same when you come together with a bunch of other human beings for a common interest and a common goal to make yourself better, to sweat. And this is what, this is what my facility is all about. We all have stuff. We have stress in our relationships. We have stress to our jobs. We have stress with bills. We have stress.

There's always stress in our lives. Our kids aren't taking the trash out when they're supposed to. There's always something going on in our lives. But you know what? You go into that facility. You sweat. You leave it all on the freaking mat. You leave it there.

And you walk out a better man, a better woman, a better father, a better friend. So you take care of yourself right here. You leave all that stress on the mat. and you walk out and you're a better human being. We've taken that away from our people. So where is it supposed to go? Now you have fathers that are stressed. Like you said, they're out of work.

They're not getting that dopamine release they normally get from going to a training facility. Same thing with the mother. Now they have schools are closed. So the kids have been at home, right? So all of that is compounding. It is a snowball effect. If you continue this up, you are going to rip people. people apart.

Yeah. And again, the conspiracy theories say, well, it's the government trying to see how far they can push us, et cetera. Let's just put that aside for a moment. Maybe that's true. Maybe it's not. We'll find out in the future. But what I can tell you is a fact because I just love, I love irrefutable facts. I love numbers. I love when the CDC goes, hey, we screwed up. This thing is not as transmittable on hard surfaces, doorknobs, countertops as we once thought. Okay, great. Here's what I can tell you as a fact. If this thing was really as deadly as we first thought, and the example I gave to a friend was this. I said, hey, man, you've got six kids.

Your oldest kid is 15 years old. If you're at the park with your wife, and you've got kids from 15 all the way down to four years old, it's a beautiful day, no threats in the park. You're going to go, hey, kids, go play, and the 15-year-old is in charge. Everybody listen to the 15-year-old because he's in charge. Me and Mommy are going to have ourselves a little picnic.

He goes, okay, gotcha. I go all of a sudden you hear like, clack, clack, clack. Someone's shooting off a pistol in the parking lot. Now is the 15-year-old in charge? He goes, no. I go, who's in charge? He goes, I am. I'm going to gather my kids and we're fucking out of there.

I go, exactly, exactly. Daddy takes charge. So if my common sense tells me that if this was truly that big an issue, would our president be like, hey, I'll tell you what, there's 50 governors, the 50 of you trying to figure it out in your own states. Oh, by the way, arbitrarily wear a mask. or don't, depending on the governor, oh, you can touch the avocado and the banana and the apples

and then look at it, put it back. Oh, you can touch that soda can, put it back. Like, that wouldn't be happening. If this was truly that much of an issue, Daddy, the president, would be taken over and saying, this is what we're doing. We're rolling out the National Guard, keep your asses at home.

And I'd be like, you know what? I'm on board with that. I'm on board with that. And then we would drive to the grocery store. Someone in the hazmat suit would hand me my shit, and I'd take it through the window, and then I'd drive off. But that's not what's happening.

So common sense, which is not so common these days, tells us that maybe this isn't so big of a deal if the president's like, yo, not handling this. And then the governors are like, you know what? I don't want. How about the mayors handle it? Like they just passed the buck. And that's not how a CEO thinks. Like all my employees will look at me like, hey, B, what do we do? What do we do?

And the VP will look at me. What do we do? I don't have anyone to turn to and go, what do we do? I just do. Like the buck stops here. And so one, that was a big red flag for me. like, all right, maybe this isn't that serious. Number two was the fact that when we saw states opening up, Utah, Atlanta, Texas, and others, the first 14 states that opened up,

13 of them, and again, I'm not Republican, I'm not Democrat, but of the 14 that opened up, 13 were Republican, which tells me that now the Democrats are using this coronavirus during an election year to punish the president and hopes that he doesn't get reelected, which I get it, man, they're so loyal to their party, they're using the people as fodder, but for how long, for how long? And that's what I'm not down with, because we voted them into office. And so when you look at the stats, is it coincidence that 13 of the 14 states are Republican that opened up and Democratic states are dragging their feet because let's just blame the president and he won't get voted into office? And in the process, if the country takes an economic dump,

and a lot of people lose their businesses and lose their lives, well, it's a price we pay for Democrats to win. Or you could reverse the role. The Republicans would probably do the same damn thing. It's not right, and that's what I'm standing up against and for. And that's what's really bothering me, man. That's what's really bothering me is, and no one's really calling that out.

They're just so worried about the virus. And, of course, then I look at the other fact, majority of the world, let's just the United States, they're not entrepreneurs, they're employees. They get a paycheck, and that's totally cool. And so they go, hey, we're going to bribe you by increasing the federal unemployment payout to $600 a month and the state unemployment to $400 a month or a week. I'm sorry, $600 a week, 400 a week.

So collectively, between state and federal, you're going to get $1,000 a week if you're unemployed. And so most people who lost their jobs got laid off are effectively being bribed. with some making even more money than they were in their careers and jobs to stay at home even longer. And they extended the amount of time in unemployment. What are they doing again? They're separating entrepreneurs and employees. And so I've got team members and I've got a pretty loyal organization. I got team members going, are you sure we should come back June 1st?

I'm like, what the fuck? Like, of course we should. The state said it's fine. Of course we should. We're good. We're going to temperature you. We've got alcohol everywhere. You can wipe yourself down, dip yourself in it.

But I also realize they're co-chilling at home making the same amount of money. Why would I have to come to work? Get out of my fucking PJs. Come to work and make the same amount of money actually doing something. It doesn't make sense. So when you bribe the majority to stay at home, when you see the obvious that states that are opening up are like, hey, they're open.

We're open for business. The virus is not increasing. The other states are like, no, we're not going to open. We're going to be cautious. And once I see the political battle, start unfolding in front of me and the people become fodder, it really irritates me. So I'd love to get your guys' opinion on that. Shane, what's your thoughts on that, man? Yeah, I definitely think it's a big problem, and I definitely think it's probably not the first

time the American people have paid, and I see it time after time probably throughout the whole presidency lately with the Trump administration, where the Trump administration and the Democratic Party can't get along, can't play ball, and the people pay. And that's a very common theme. One other thing that I think is really something to take in consideration. You know, I live in New York City. Do I think coronavirus is a problem? Yes, but I live on top of everybody. We can't even go anywhere.

I used to live in North Carolina. It took me 20 minutes to get to grocery store. I didn't see anybody. So over 90% of the United States is not a big city, is not, is mostly rural, is not New York City, is not Chicago, is not Los Angeles. And that's just a fact. And the odds of people are a lot less dealing with these kinds of problems. So should the rest of the country really have the free reign to open up in these different states? I think so.

I don't think New York should be under the same rules as Dakota, Ohio, Texas, and different regions of the United States. I definitely don't think the whole country should be shut down in that regard. I think we have a problem here. Dude, and that's exactly it. You really make a good point. because if I was a political leader and I truly had the people's interest at heart, I would say, look, places like New York City specifically, downtown Chicago and its outskirts, L.A., guess what? You guys are going to have to deal with the higher level of quarantine

than the rest of the country, well over 90 percent that are suburban and have nowhere near the number of people stacked on top of each other. But that would mean you're actually using, again, common sense and you have the best interest of the society and the country. at heart. And I don't believe they do because they have agenda at heart. And that just pisses me off. But Nick, what's your thoughts on that, man? So two things. And you like facts. So I'm going to get into some numbers here for North Carolina. But the second thing, so my other business, Johnny Slicks, we actually are trying to hire people. What is Johnny Slicks? Tell me about it. It's an organic grooming company. So we're the largest,

fastest growing organic grooming company in the United States. Very, very proud of that. And we can talk offline. You'd probably love the story. But it's growing rapidly, very, very rapidly, and we're trying to hire people. But currently, no one wants to apply for a job because of what you said. They're making more sitting on their ass at home than they would coming into work. Right. So we've seen it personally right here in this town. Nobody wants to apply for a job because they're making so much thanks to the governor. And that's bananas, right? Because again, since things are agenda driven, it's just, look, humanity for the most part will lean towards the path of least resistance. If the path of least resistance is, I can stay unemployed for a longer

period of time and still make the same or more amount of money. Why would I go work for Nick and actually have to comb my hair and go to work? Yeah, what's the incentive? Yeah, what's the incentive? So stay home, be controlled. We will take care of you. But here's the actual, here's the numbers of North Carolina. And I'm not a doctor. I'm not a lawyer. I don't work for the CDC, but these are numbers that are published on the North Carolina's website. So there's 10.5 million residents in North Carolina. The cases for COVID are 21,618. That's 0.0021% in North Carolina. There's currently 568, currently hospital for COVID-19 in North Carolina, and there's 728 deaths. As far as the deaths, that's 0.000,000 69%. That's in the state. Okay, let's look at Onzo County. Onzo County is the county

that I live in. There's 197,000 residents in Onslow County. 80 confirmed cases. That's 0.000 41%. 60 have recovered. There's been two deaths. We can't confirm they're actually COVID. They're saying they're COVID. But again, like Shane said, we don't really know. There's two deaths. That's That's 0.0001015%. Good Lord. Now, in Holly Ridge, my city, there are 2,598 residents in Holly Ridge, North Carolina, zero confirmed cases, zero deaths. Now I'm going to ask the people listening and people watching,

is the level of escalation that we are dealing with in North Carolina, comprehensive enough to those numbers, Do those correlate at all whatsoever? No. And that's the unfortunate thing. And again, so much of this is common sense being removed and society sheepishly following a message that's been twisted for a benefit of a political party. I mean, that's truly what it is.

It's not about safety. It's not about safety. It's really not about safety. If it was, then I think the three of us could simply come up with the rule that says, hey, there's no COVID in your place. Be cautious. Be whatever. Let's run it. Keep testing people. If it spikes, we're shutting it down. New York, Chicago, L.A., and other places like that, here's the precautions we're going to take. If we all had really the best interest, what if the whole country, the moment you're born, you come to an age where you can actually have some kind of self-awareness, maybe 13, 14, 15 years old, you raise your hand and you're sworn, you're given that oath. that I was given and then

every year you have to retake it so you remember it right because again if I brush my teeth once it doesn't mean they're going to stay clean the rest of my life every year I take it and I remember it maybe then the rest of us would be willing to stand up but unfortunately none of that is happening and again this almost seems like

the Empire show just got political today but it's not that I lean political I just want to have fun goof off make lots of money and contribute and then all of a sudden I'm talking to dudes about a political thing that we shouldn't even be talking about. Like, we should be more worried about an external force coming in, like 9-11 and trying to

ruin our lives. Not something internal pulling us apart. So that's my big thing here. Shane, if you could just maybe explain one thing. I've been hearing a lot of this, and I think audiences need to understand the difference between having COVID and then dying from COVID. versus dying with COVID. Yeah, I'm glad you asked

because I wanted to actually bring that up. So here's the thing. There's a couple things. There's one thing called viral load, and that's basically how much of the virus you're exposed to. So there's been cases of people of various ages who have died from it, say there was a nurse in the hospital in his 20s who died from it,

and then there was someone who got sick, got a bad cold, went back to work a few days later. And the difference of the viral load, this nurse being exposed to it, after day after day after day after day, breathing it in with all the respirators and everything, that nurse died. So it also really depends on how much of this are you getting exposed to. So that everyday person not probably living on top of each other and even at that, you know, and it's transmitted by breathing on each other or through respiratory droplets, not living on services,

You have to really cognitively think and be realistic. What is my risk level with this? I don't want to say negligently COVID isn't bad. I think COVID's bad. I wouldn't want someone with COVID to breathe on me. But, you know, the odds of you getting it are pretty low, especially in most of the United States. And I think definitely the government has definitely overstepped their bounds in a lot of ways. and I definitely think that the economy is being hurt and that businesses should be allowed to run.

And I think people in certain areas should be very cautious. And, yeah, I hope I answered your question. Well, I'll also kind of clear up the difference between dying of COVID versus dying with COVID. Right. Okay. So some people can die from a heart attack and have COVID at the same time. That kind of becomes a gray area that can be reported. in either way.

It could be reported as a COVID death, could be reported as a heart attack. And I think that probably also depends on where you're at in the United States. In New York City, they see so many that, you know, this heart attack might just get ridden off. This COVID who had a heart attack that they think might have died of COVID

might get ridden off as a heart attack. In the Midwest, maybe that guy gets written up as a COVID. But there's so many people that have it who are asymptomatic and don't get affected by it. And we haven't even tested all these people. And we're going to see, most likely, according to the experts, that the numbers, the mortality rates and the effects of people that are actually severely affected are much, much, much less and lower than we actually think because there's tons of people who get no symptoms, don't get affected. There's people get minor symptoms. Nothing happens.

So I think the numbers are a lot lower. I think there's a lot of people walking around with COVID right now who don't know it and aren't going to be affected by it. And you just got to have common sense. I mean, you live in New York City. Don't go breathe in someone's face. If you live in somewhere where there's not a lot of people, I don't see the problem, you know, doing what you need to do with life, business as usual. Well said.

Well said. Nick, any final words, Nick, that you want to share with our audience and that will benefit them? The only thing is, like all of us, we swore an oath, right? and those that oath means something these rights mean something and whether you agree with this situation or not know that there are people that have that have fought and died we're coming up on Memorial Day for those rights for your right to stay at home and for your right to go to work and you're right to thrive don't be so close-minded to the other side well said and I could say one last comment I think tail back and off of what Nick said

I think it's important to remember how easily we did kind of throw away our rights on a different side of the token. And think about in the future, you know, would we so easily give up our rights in all these different ways and to really kind of remember what America stands for? I think that's really important because in the future, what if it's not COVID? What if it's something else? You know, are you just going to? I think we got into a whole revolutionary war over tea. It's extra thing. You know, I mean, this, you know.

And I want to bring up something, too. I'm glad you guys brought that up. You know, the gold standard. And let me talk about the slippery slope. It's like, Bezos, why are you freaking out? This is all temporary, and then it's all going to go away and we'll be fine. And I'm telling you it's not because when you think about the gold standard that was put in place for the American dollar, the gold was used in 1934.

The powers at Bede decided, hey, we're going to put gold against the United States dollar so that this dollar has actual value against a precious metal. And then I believe it was Nixon who decided for a temporary period of time, because of the economic crash that was happening during his time, for temporary period of time, I'm going to take away the gold standard until the economy straightens back out again. But don't worry, we're going to still back up the U.S. dollar by the FDIC, which is the federal financial institute.

You walk into a bank and you see, like, hey, your money's safe here because it's backed by the FDIC. It's the federal whatever. the feds back up the fact that your money's good. It's not going to get lost where it used to be backed by gold. And I share this with you right now because that temporary taking away of the gold standard still exists. It wasn't temporary after all. Still exists.

It's gone. That's gone. And what ends up happening, from time to time, you'll see people who have a limp and you're like, hey, man, what's going on? You know what? I didn't even realize I limp. It's just, I guess, 10 years ago, I hurt my knee. I never did anything about it, and it's just become this new way of life. And when people talk about this new normal, I want to slap them across the mouth

because I don't want to go to a new normal. I don't want to degrade the quality of my life, even worse. The quality of my kid's life, a 12-year-old and a 14-year-old who I've raised to become amazing humans and serve humanity at a greater capacity than I ever will, because they're much smarter than me. They've got a great mom who poured into them. They're much smarter than me. They had the advantages that I never had.

And I don't want them to live in this new normal. I want them to exceed any expectation that I've ever set for them. And for that to happen, they need the freedom to do that. And I'll give you another example. And I don't care if you're watching this listening to you, pro guns or not. It's not the issue of pro guns. It is that an assemblyman here in Southern California reached out to the governor, Governor Newsom, and said, hey, you know what?

We ought to stop the sales of bullets of ammunition during this time of the COVID virus because as crime is going up, bad people are going to buy bullets and likely kill good people. Again, best of intentions. Now, so guess what? No one's able to buy bullets right now. You can buy a gun and then throw it at someone. And good luck. Hopefully the gun hits the bad guy.

Because you can't take away your constitutional rights of the right to bear arms, the Second Amendment, but you can certainly take away that tiny little bullet. But it's temporary. Hey, Californians, don't panic. Will it be? We'll see. And those are the things when I say your rights are slowly being eroded, guys and gals watching this. Do not believe for a moment that the erosion isn't happening in every other place.

When your phone auto updates to the new iOS, when your phone and your TikTok and your Instagram auto updates and you automatically accept the new terms that say they can listen to your conversation. And on one side of it, I love that because as a marketer, as an entrepreneur, I'm like, hey, I heard you talk about protein. I'm going to show you trulein protein, my supplement line, right, on your Instagram ad. I'm down with that. But I also don't want someone to come and police me like they policed my dad back in Armenia when the KGB came into our room, into our house saying, hey, we heard that you're making suits on selling it on the black market. And in socialism, everyone has to make the same amount of money.

so how dare you? And he actually was because he had to bribe this communist government for us to escape. So the fact is they were right. But what the fuck? So again, if there's anything you guys watching and listening to this can take away from this, it is that logic and common sense should trump all. You should not be willing to let the noose tighten not even a little bit. and don't forget that this isn't just your quality of life. If you have kids and those kids plan on being moms and dads and have kids and you'll have grandkids, the quality of life that those kids will have will erode. And I don't know about you, but I would die with massive regret if I did nothing today knowing that my kids and their kids would live a life subpar to what I'm living today with the freedoms.

Guys, amen. Thank you. And Nick, what's the best way that people can reach you and learn more about your cause, man? Everywhere. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, my website. Nick, N-I-C-K-K-O-U-M-A is all you need.

There you go. There you go. Shane, what's the best way to reach you if people want to connect with you, man? At Dr. Gabriel Lyon, Instagram. I've got like 200 Instagram friends. Don't even waste your time. Yeah, yeah. Just follow.

his wife at Dr. Gabriel Lyon. Yeah, I like that. I like that. Well, guys, thank you so much for spending time with me. Really appreciate you guys and thank you again for your service. Nick, great to officially meet you and get to know you. Yeah, we'll stay in touch. And guys and gals, you know what the story is with the Empire podcast. The only way we're going to get the message out to the tens of thousands and millions is if you take this episode, take a screenshot, share it on social media in your stories, tag people who need to listen to it, leave a five-star review and of course as always come back and listen to more episodes because the more you know the more you grow we'll see you guys later