The Eric Metaxas Show - Brandon Straka - Part 4

Episode Date: February 18, 2022

Before Brandon Straka wraps up his tale of being a target of Biden's oppressive and weaponized FBI, Eric dips into the virtual mail bag of emailed goodies to respond to Qs with his snappy As in this week's edition of "Ask Metaxas!"

Folks, welcome to the Eric Metaxus show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m. Investments.com. That's legacy pm. Investments.com. Taxis show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Hey there, folks. Welcome to Hour 2 of the Eric Metaxis show. If your radio station doesn't play Hour 2, you can't hear my voice right now. It's really sad. You'll, you have to go to Metaxistalk.com. there's all kinds of places you can you can hear this and better yet you can watch the videos uh if you sign up at our newsletter go to eric mataxis dot com sign up for the newsletter and then you don't ever have to listen to that dumb radio station again hey albin yes sir ask metaxis video

uh audio that we do every week but this is a special home edition Thursday hour two we do this This is a special home edition. So we've got a number of questions. I'm going to ask the first question, even though I'm answering it. It's a little long. And then you get to ask the rest of them. Okay. The question.

Eric, I'm reading his atheism dead and came across the mention of Dr. Francis Collins, National Institutes of Health Director. He has been implicated with Dr. Fauci in clandestinely conducting gain of function research at UNC and in Wuhan, China. Given your promotion of Dr. Collins as one of the foremost Christian scientists of the 21st century. Has your opinion of him changed? Do you believe in claims that he worked on gain of function as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic? And all I can say is, I don't know nothing about that. We was just in the oil, olive oil business together. That was a long time ago. No, I'm sorry.

That's what Frankie, a five angels said in the Godfather and Godfather, too. My answer is a little different. My answer is yes, my opinion of him has changed. He has been implicated in the research of my friends, John Zmirak, Keith Junta. Some of you look at wine patch.org. You can read at wine patch.org what he wrote. Many, many people have written that Dr. Francis Collins, who has been an outspoken evangelical Christian and the top scientist in America, that he's been involved, that he's turned a blind eye, among other things, to using aborted fetal tissue for experiment. So I have to say, yes, my opinion of him has changed. I'm horrified to hear these things of anybody, much less someone that I have known over the years. So the answer to that one is,

yes, I believe those claims. And yes, my opinion of him has changed. And I'm very sorry to say that. Okay, Alvin, let's get to the funner questions. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Okay, here we go. Me reading question number one, how do you feel about Biden's stance towards intervening with Ukraine? Does he have a stance?

I have to say that certain problems are preventable, okay? This one's complicated, actually. What is coming out now, we know that Hillary Clinton, in collaboration with the deep state, demonized Russia so much that they created enmity between us and Russia that ought not to have existed and really escalated things. Biden seems to be, if he were only clueless, we'd be in fine shape as a nation. But he seems to be, he almost seems to do the wrong thing so often that it would be better

if he did nothing. We have escalated things with Russia unnecessarily. So the idea that we would be contemplating war with Ukraine is a kind of a madness at this point. I don't know I could go on and on about why we need, why we even needed NATO after 1991. But my short answer to that is that I'm convinced that Joe Biden's administration has so weakened the U.S. on the U.S. the world stage that he has dramatically invited military overtures from China, from Russia, and from other countries that are looking. They're just waiting for somebody like Joe Biden to take the helm so that they can do what they want to do.

I'm sure Kim Jong-un is waiting his turn because he's a very polite tyrant. But they all understand that when a country like the United States doesn't know what it's doing when it's more about transgender in the military and that kind of sheer lunacy that they can exploit it. So whatever Biden's stance is, I'm sure I'm against it. How's that? Okay. Here's another tough question. Rank the types of water bottles, Poland Spring, Fiji, rank them, please. Okay, yeah. Whoever, whoever asked me to do that, I want to tell you politely, you need to think about doing other things with your life. Because I'm not going to answer that question.

I have no opinion on that. And I'm just fascinated. I'm fascinated that you took your valuable time, which is God's time, by the way, to ask me this question for which I have no answer. So I'm very sorry to... Okay. It's a stump the band kind of thing.

Yeah, exactly. Respond to New Jersey. Governor Phil Murphy relaxing mask mandates against CDC guidelines? What's your response? New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy is such a skunk that even when he does something good, you know, I'm only thinking that it's he did it for political reasons or because he had no choice or something. I mean, look, there shouldn't be mask or vacs guidelines or anything anymore. There should be none. So if he did it, hey, that's swell. He's still. a skunk. And I want to say, I spoke at Ocean Tabernacle in New Jersey a year ago, and they told me,

we don't want you to be political. And I said, that's fine. Normally, if I am asked to speak someplace, they say to me, please don't be political. I'm not political at all. I will just, you know, talk about my book or whatever. But I think in the course of the Q&A, I mentioned that Murphy was a skunk, and I was disinvited this year for calling Murphy a skunk. And I thought, you know, if I had known that they specifically didn't want me to call him a skunk because skunks are cute animals, I never would have said that. But it's true. Ocean Tabernacle disinvited me this year because last year I called Murphy a skunk. So on this program, I just want to say from the bottom of my heart, he really is a skunk. But I'm sorry that I said that at Ocean Tabernacle last year because I really do want to,

honor people. And I don't know if that was a confusion or something like that. But part of me just finds it funny because of calling him a skunk is that that's a nice word for Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey. But by the way, I feel like disinviting you right now. But anyway, okay, here's question number four. Favorite, favorite shoes. We never see them. Oh, what are my favorite shoes? Oh, I haven't, I haven't worn shoes since the 80s. They're very unhealthy, very, very constricting. No, I guess I wear a lot of wing tips. I wear, gosh, that's a good question. I don't know that I have favorite shoes.

It really depends. You'll have to come see me in person, and then you tell me what you think. I've got some beetle boots that I wear. I've got some fancy wing tips that I wear, but I mean, I don't know, monk straps. I don't know. You stump me again.

Okay, there you go. Hey, dating advice. I like this, dating advice. How to know when you found the right person. I hope my wife isn't listening, but I'll been, actually, you know, this is kind of funny to me because people ask that question. And there's no right answer, right? I think that, first of all, marriage is sacred. So if you marry somebody and then you suspect there might be somebody better out there, that's the voice of the day. devil. If you marry somebody, God will honor your staying in that marriage, even if you encounter difficulties. And I think every good marriage encounters difficulties because it's two sinful human beings trying to live their lives together in very close quarters. But in terms of how to find that person, I always say I met Suzanne at Times Square Church. And I think meeting somebody in a really spectacular church is the best thing because you're already probably on the

same page in terms of values. That's really huge. You want to meet somebody, I say especially to women, you want to meet a guy who loves God more than he loves you because if things go tough, you can pray together and you can appeal to a common source. I really think, I also think that if if somebody doesn't love you enough to say, I want to be with you for the rest of your life, if they don't say that pretty quickly, you need to move on. Don't let that person waste your time,

especially obviously if it's a guy. Unfortunately, we're out of time. Thank you for these spectacular questions. Hey, folks, I've got to tell you a secret about relief factor that the father, son, owners, Pete and Seth Talbot, have never made a big deal about, but I think it is a big deal. I really do.

They sell the three-week quick start pack for just 1995 to anyone's struggle. from pain like neck, shoulder, back, hip, or knee pain, 1995, about a dollar a day. But what they haven't broadcasted much is that every time they sell a three-week quick start, they lose money. In fact, they don't even break even until about four to five months after if you keep ordering it. Friends, that's huge.

People don't keep ordering relief factor month after month if it doesn't work. So, yes, Pete and Seth are literally on a mission to help as many people as possible deal with their pain. They really do put their money where their mouths are. So if you're in pain from exercise or even just getting older or to the three-week quick start for 1995, let's see if we can get you at a pain too. Go to relieffactor.com. Relieffactor.com or call 800-500-384-800-500-800-3-8-4 relieffactor.com. I use it. It works. Hey, folks, talking to Brandon Strach. Brandon, just keep going. You were talking about the fact that in this preposterous civil lawsuit against you, that if it's not dismissed, which it should be, but if it's not, that you and your attorneys would then have the opportunity to depose people on the other side.

Absolutely. And again, I don't want to behave this way. I don't want to have to engage this way. But I'm literally being pushed into a corner where I have people with a lot of money and a lot of power who are trying to claim that I am somehow a conspirator to create January 6th. And so in an effort to defend myself, what I am saying is that realistically, I'm going to be forced to have to, to depose possibly members of Congress, possibly members of the sitting house, and ask them what they knew in advance about security measures. What did they reject in terms of security measures that contributed to the cause of this riot that got out of control on January 6th? These are things that I would be forced to do to have to defend myself. And so in a way, again, I hope it never goes that far because the right thing to do would be to dismiss my part of the case. But I'm saying that should the

judge not make the decision to dismiss my case. I hope the American public stands behind me because in that event will be in a position to almost be the anti-January 6th committee and actually try to get to the truth of what actually happened by deposing people under oath and making them answer the questions of what they know. But how crazy that it falls to you? I mean, when you think of it in the scheme of things, who are you? You're some guy. I mean, the idea that it would fall to you to get to the bottom of this. Don't we have senators and congressmen who ought to be doing everything they can to get to the bottom of this? This is what I don't understand. I'm not quite sure. They're too busy. They're busy partying at Marilago. Believe me, I've been following their social media accounts all year.

I mean, even the ones who are virtue signaling all year about how much they care about the January six people, every time I open their account, they're at Mara Lago in a ball gown or Mara Lago and I'm just like, can you guys stop partying for five minutes and actually help the people whose lives are being destroyed over nonviolent misdemeanor charges for January 6th? I mean, the number of Congress people that I have reached out to by email, by phone, and some of them have responded to me, mind you. It's not just like, oh, well, we didn't get your message. Many of them have gotten the message and made a decision to do absolutely nothing to help in this

situation. Now, I'm not saying that they could make all my problems go away, but I can tell you it would go a very long way to even pick up the phone and say, we're standing beside you. Please don't be afraid you're not alone. I would settle for that. Are there, are there none? In other words, I think of a hand, I can think of a handful off the top of my head of senators and congressmen who, I would think, are heroic. They get it. But you're saying that none of them. I'm not, I'm not saying none because that wouldn't be fair. What I can tell you is that I reach out to Marjorie Taylor Green.

I reach out to Lauren Bobert. I reach out to Ken Calvert in California. And I reach out to Matt Gates. And I reached out to Ted Cruz. I've reached out to a number of people. I got zero response from Ted Cruz, which was not a surprise because Ted Cruz has never responded to any attempts that I've made to try to seek help

for a number of things that have happened over the years. Grigious violations of things that he himself claims to about like social media censorship and suppression. And I've never gotten a response from him on anything. And I did get a callback from Lauren Bobert and I did get a call back from Marjorie Taylor Green. And I can say that they were caring and they were, they cared, they understood. But the message seemed to be that overwhelmingly people are scared.

They're just, they're scared to get involved. They're scared to try to take any meaningful action to try to help. Now, I want to be clear, people should not run out and start attacking Marjorie Taylor Green or Lauren Bober because at least they called me back. They did call me back when others didn't. And Congressman Ken Calvert also got on the phone with me. And he also took a few steps. He said, try reaching out to this person, try reaching out to that person. And ultimately, it didn't really end up being of great benefit to me.

But again, at least he tried. But other than that, no, it's been radio silence. And I would have loved to have heard, I've gotten a phone call from Matt Gates because he did respond to me when I reached out to him. He asked me for my phone number. And I followed up numerous times and said, are you going to call? Are you going to call? Are you going to call?

And that call never came. But, you know. Senator Cotton, Senator Josh Hawley, there are people, I'm concerned. convinced Congressman Jim Jordan who see things, who understand what is happening. There are good folks out there. But we have to hold their feet to the fire. We have to make them fight. I don't see, you know, what you were saying is that if we took the White House and the

Senate and the country, I really wonder when the American people, hear stories like yours. I mean, there are many stories similar to this, that when you hear them, your blood boils and you just think, if you're not fighting to write these wrongs, why would we ever vote for you? Why would we ever want you to represent us? What good are you? I mean, I would love Mike Pence to do something about this. I mean, I really don't know what is there about your story that somebody like Mike Pence would disagree with. That's what I don't understand. Is it all about narrative that I don't want to get near that narrative? I have to be on this side of that narrative. Yes. Because what has happened is as per usual, not just with January 6th, but with just about everything.

Our side allowed the left to create a narrative very quickly, run with that narrative. It became sort of the ubiquitous narrative about that day. And again, we've lost all ability now to have any nuance. So if early on, and I mean literally within the first week or two weeks when the FBI was raiding and arresting people, if our side had made a concerted effort and, you know, all hands on deck effort to get out and say, look, some people deserve to be arrested. Some people deserve to be convicted. Some people did violent, terrible things. And that needs to be looked at. But some people walked in an open door. Some people didn't even walk in an open door. They stood outside on the steps. but every single person who got arrested is being treated with the same level of, oh, you're a terrorist,

you're an insurrectionist. And now it's out of control. And I don't know that it can ever be reversed and gotten back under control. But yes, that's the problem, whether it's Fox News, whether it's Mike Pence, whether it's members of Congress, they don't want to get anywhere near me because I have a January 6th arrest. It doesn't matter that it's a nonviolent class B misdemeanor. disorderly conduct charge with the judge who, by the way, didn't love me. This judge did not love me at all, but she herself referred to this as a petty offense. I was arrested and charged on a petty offense, but people don't want to associate with me because it's a January 6th petty offense.

So you have people with no spine who on our side of the aisle who are not willing to stand up and say, look, we've got to start creating a little bit of nuance here. We have to start saying that people who are arrested on nonviolent petty offenses, who are now on terrorism lists, who can't travel without being harassed. by the government who've had all of their financial streams shut off their careers ruined and destroyed over a petty offense, nonviolent misdemeanor. Maybe we should be speaking up for these people. And by the way, it's Brandon Stroke, the founder of the walkaway campaign, the guy who spent three years trying to fight for this country and save, unify people and fight against the Democratic

Party. Maybe we shouldn't abandon him. Maybe we should have his back. But again, this is, this is a very clarifying moment we're in in the United States of America, where we're seeing. that I wrote a book about a German pastor, Dietrich Bonhofer. And that story is horrifyingly similar. What happened in Germany in the 30s, how people just look the other way. They just said, I don't want to get involved. Let those people just be taken away to a concentration camp. I don't want to go to a concentration camp.

I don't want to stick my neck out. And we've heard this, you know, there are many quotes. all we need for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. That's what we're talking about right now. And I think when you mentioned some of the names, we've mentioned a number of names here, people have to have to decide, do they want to do the right thing?

Anybody who claims to be a Christian and to believe in the God of the Bible, for example, if you claim that you believe in the God of the Bible, you should have no fear in doing the right thing. And now is a test of people's faith. There are people listening to this program, Brandon. They could go to brandonstrock.com and they could cover your legal expenses times 10 and they wouldn't even feel it. Yeah.

I wonder if those people are going to listen to this radio program much longer. There are plenty people out there. Folks, if you don't get busy, if you don't understand that you're in a war and that God has blessed you to be a blessing. if you don't use your time, your freedom, your voice, your money for God's purposes, to stand for justice, to stand against injustice, to stand with people who have been victimized, you're useless, your Bible studies are useless, you're a Pharisee and a hypocrite. If our faith does not have legs, if we do not use what we say we believe to drive us to action. I don't know why we wasted all our time at those Bible studies and in these church meetings.

We're living in a weird time. Folks, go to brandon strock.com. S-T-R-A-K-A dot com. Brandonstrock.com. We'll be right back. In case you haven't been paying attention, the Biden administration has caused a financial crisis and they have no clue how to fix it. Oil prices have skyrocketed. And when oil prices go up, the cost of transportation and shipping spikes leading the prices of goods to rise. And when we're already seeing record inflation, that's the last thing we need. Our economy is in trouble and you need to take steps to protect yourself. If all your money is tied up in stocks, bonds, and traditional markets, you are vulnerable.

Gold is one of the best ways to protect your retirement. No matter what happens, you own your gold. It is real, it is physical, it's always been valuable since the dawn of time. Legacy precious metals is the company I trust for investing in gold. They can help you roll your retirement account into a gold-backed IRA where you still own the physical gold. They can also ship gold and precious metals safely and securely to your house. Call Legacy at 866-528-1903 or visit them online at LegacyPMinvestments.com. Hey there, folks. I'm talking to Brandon Stroke.

Brandon, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, hard to process what you have been through and hard to process that there are many voices. that are silent when they might be speaking up for you. I want to encourage people, folks, the reason you have a voice, the reason you have what freedoms you have is to use those voices, those freedoms, whatever you have for those who don't have them. Otherwise, you're not doing with your voice and your freedom and your money and your energy and your talent what God gave it to you for. We've just got a few minutes left, Brandon.

and what else can we talk about that we haven't yet touched on? Well, I would like to sort of expand on what you were saying at the end of the last segment because I think it's really important. So I want people to understand that what happened to me is it is unfathomable and it's unbelievable. But please don't just listen to this story and feel sorry for me or feel because my story should be viewed as a cautionary tale as far as I'm concerned. And what's really scary, I think, about my story is that just as with everything, every time the left does something or persecutes someone or engages in some egregious behavior, we as the public at large, the American people teach them what they can and cannot get away with. Just as when everybody complied with every COVID mandate and restriction,

we taught them that they can shut down a government, they can shut down your business, they can illegalize your right to have bodily autonomy. We have taught them through this situation that they can take somebody who is a very high profile and very well loved public figure in the world of conservative politics and make him disappear. And nobody will say or do anything about it. And if they can do that to me, imagine what they can do to all of you who are not famous or well-known or a high-profile people, they can come and get you and make you disappear and no one will say anything or do anything to support you. But if we actually showed them by example that they cannot do this, because we will all stand up and stand together and fight for one another and defend one another

and not allow this to happen, they wouldn't be able to get away with this time and time and time again. but all that has happened with my story in my case is we have shown them on a very big and large and public scale that they can now do this to anybody. And the next person they go after will be a bigger name than I am and a bigger name than that until everyone starts disappearing. And then there's nobody left to speak for you. And that's really the truth of the situation. Well, that's the that's your alluding to the famous poem by Pastor Reinhold. I'm sorry, I was going to say Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Niemuller, who was friends with Bonhofer about whom I have written and whom I just mentioned. That's exactly what happened in Germany.

That's what happens. If people say, not me, why should I speak up? I'm going to, I'm going to sit this one out today. I don't want it to happen to me. I don't want my, you know, ability to travel, my ability to move funds around to get even threatened. And folks, if you're not in the battle, you're guilty. You are part of the problem. We have to live that way.

That's what it is to say we believe certain things. We have to live them out. We have to live them out every day. And this is a teaching opportunity in the United States of America for us all to see what happens, what can happen. Most people say, well, it hasn't happened to me. Well, it will happen to you if you don't join the fight, if you don't get serious about it. Brandon, do you have plans to be on other conservative media? Are there other folks that want you to tell your story?

Is it just so far, Mark Levin, in this program? Well, the options have been very limited, very, very limited. But yeah, there are a number of people who are willing to stand up and speak out. I just finished an interview with Dinesh D'Souza. I have one coming up with my good friend, David Harris, Jr. Blaze Media has covered it with Mark Levine. O-A-N has covered it. uh, newsmax with, uh, Greg Kelly has covered it. I've always had a good relationship with newsmax.

So I know I'm going to be continuing to do things, uh, with them. It's really, you know, just certain outlets and certain people. And, uh, it's very unfortunate. But no, I'm going to listen, I'm a really hard worker at the end of the day. That's how I got where I was and where I will be again. And in the absence, maybe of some of the really big, heavy hitting interviews, I'm just going to go out and do small podcast. I'm going to do AM radio. I'm just going to keep telling my story until finally people listen and get it and understand that what's happening is unacceptable. It cannot be accepted. It cannot be tolerated. And again, this is not about defending people who behaved horribly and criminally and violently. That's not what it is. I'm talking about people who are being put on

terrorism lists for nonviolent misdemeanor charges for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. and we on the conservative side of the aisle are doing absolutely nothing to support these people. And it's just the beginning of what is going to be an ongoing process of demonizing and destroying conservatives if we don't stand up now and stop this. Well, and not only do we need to speak up to stop this, but we need to find out who is behind this and make sure that the power that they have is taken away from them. whoever is working at places like the FBI. These places are funded by American taxpayers. The good people who went there on January 6th fund the FBI, fund the bloated federal government.

If we do not drain the swamp, if we don't get busy and go to war with bloated government, we're going to have more of this. We'll all be worried about what comes out of our mouths. and what we say ought not to be scrutinized in the way that it's been. It's just an extraordinary thing in America to be living this way. Look, it's a joy to know you're out there, Brandon Strach. God bless you.

Thank you. Thank you, Eric. Hey, folks, if you listen to this program, of course, you've heard me talk at infinitum about my pillow and my friend Mike Lindell. Well, Mike has just announced that you will receive one of his books and the book is next level insane. It is called What Are the Odds from Crack Addict to CEO? It's his story. You will receive it absolutely free with any purchase using the promo code Eric. Did you hear that? It would be a great time by the way to buy his warm and wonderful

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To use the promo code, Eric. Welcome. We are talking to my friends, Pete and Seth Talbot. But for this segment, we call them the Talbot Group. Welcome, Talbot Group. Thank you. You're business gurus. You've run all these businesses.

You've crushed it. You turned a relief factor into a business so successful, we can't mention it on the air. Legally speaking, we're not like that. That's sort of true, right? And we were talking about your coffee business, honor-bound coffee. You said, I think you said to me, Pete, that 20% of all businesses fail in the first two years. 65% of all businesses fail in the first 10 years. Is this true?

Yes, and the amazing thing about that, think about it. That means odds are for those 10 years, those business owners and CEOs are really struggling. Badly. They have not figured it out. They're terrified. They have sleepless nights. They're trying to make things work.

They're trying to figure out advertising. Do I do direct mail? Do I do radio? Do I do TV? They're trying to do too much with very, very little resources, trying to desperately figure out what the combination has. And so what you're, I mean, you're now officially offering help for people who want it, but you talk about the science of marketing.

And other is, you, because you've done so much in this world with so many different kinds of business, you feel like you've figured it out. It's not just, hey, let's see. There's actual principles that always apply. Yeah, I think. and I've actually focused on failure more than I did success. I found that when I was trying to figure out what these big successful companies had in common, frankly, timing, unique relationships, and a bit of just luck too often kind of correlated

to why they were super successful, like with Facebook. Like, don't try to deconstruct that and use that as an example. What I found is that failure had a lot in common. And from my business failings, which I know I have at least, least as many. In fact, I think I have more than my dad in actual failings. I started looking at the postmortems that CEOs of companies that had failed were writing. And so I started to become a student of that. And so what we do with the topic group is that when we engage with our clients, we kind of deconstruct the brand, the company to figure out what's going on so that

we can give them a strategic plan. Because the truth is that when companies start to find some success. There's these combinations of hard work and timing and luck and strategy, but we kind of help, you know, that whole adage of, I know half my advertising is working. I just don't know what half. Most small businesses have no idea even in that range. They wouldn't even be able to say within 50 percent. And so what we try to do is figure out what a brand needs to be, what the customers really care about, will it scale, does it have the right kind of margin, and do you have a strategic plan to execute it. Because rarely, and there's really nothing to be ashamed about this, just most companies, just out of desperation, don't have time to stop. They don't naturally say,

hey, we just need to stop and we're finding some success, but is this really enough success? It sounds creepily like my life. It really does. Like, I don't have time to figure it out. I'm just going to keep going. I'll tell you what often happens, Eric, is most businesses and non-profits, and we love working with nonprofits. We've got some very exciting. exciting ones that, well, we won't talk about them today. But the principles are the same. But most leadership sit around a table, a conference table, have a cup of coffee and say, hey, what do you think about doing this?

What do you think about doing that? Should we try this? Or somebody pitched me on the radio or somebody did this. And they basically, it's a shooting from the hip. Just because it has a whiteboard doesn't mean it's not shooting from the hip. That's right. That's important. Right.

There's no cohesive strategy. What we do is we deconstruct a brand to figure out what works and why. And then you do more of it and you test it. You test the theory. You test the results. You measure it and you measure it and you measure it. But it's not like indecision by measuring. You're testing and iterating and improving.

So you try to get to market as fast as you can and you figure out what your test level needs to be before you pivot. So it's not like indecision by analysis. your paralysis by analysis. It's testing, though. Most companies don't really realize that they can do that. And some validation ends up being full validation. So they find some customers that will proceed with it. But that doesn't necessarily mean that enough customers are going to buy it long term

for it to be more than acute business. Okay. And not to be funny, but part of the reason you know this is doable is because you failed so much that you have a track record to see how and why More failure than success. Certain things work and certain things don't. So you're, because you do put it out there as like there's a science of marketing. There really is a way to do. They make it so that a lot of people do, like, again, I wasn't kidding when I said, you know, just because it has a whiteboard doesn't mean that it's strategic. That's, that's a creative session, but it doesn't mean that there's a cohesive strategy behind it. That doesn't mean that the message you've decided to go to market with, the customers care about. A lot of times founders of companies are strong personal. that are like go-getters and they're convinced that people want this thing. And when somebody buys it, it validates that singular focus. So what we've found a lot of times is that companies are focused on something based on the passions of the founders that doesn't correlate directly with the interests of the consumer.

Well, right. And so it may overlap by 60%, but it still means 40% of your messaging is lost or a detriment. This is huge. I mean, I can speak to it with your, you spoke last time about honor bound coffee. I think that I might say, why do I buy and drink honorbound coffee? Yes, it tastes great, but that's not the only other reason. I know that there's other coffee out there that I might find that I like. But the fact that you give 100% of your profits to help military families, that is what grabs me.

And that's what makes me say, I'm going to be faithful to this brand. And we obsessively focused on that messaging to make sure that people understood that that's what we were about first. And when we were rolling out the website, there was a lot of AB testing that went in to make sure that that message is clarified cleanly throughout the product positioning so that they know that they understand that this purchase directly is correlated to that heart issue. Well, and Mike Lindell does it with the made in America. I mean, you just think like, well, I don't know where to get, but I know everything is made in America. I'm going to go, so that to me is part of it when you talk about messaging to try to, to, to try to, to

try to get people over the line. Why would you buy this and not that? Well, basically what we've done, because we have this desire to help other businesses and nonprofits, for-profits, nonprofits, succeed. We created a two-minute video, which basically describes what we do at the Talbot Group. And we'd love people to go there to take a look at it because we'd love to talk to them. Since we're at a time, I might as well say, go to that video. First of all, you can call 866 Talbot. T-A-L-B-O-T-T-S-S-S-T-S-T-S-T-S-B-B-O-B-O-T-B-B-O-T-B-R-B-R-B-T-B-T-B-T-B-T-E-LB-R-B-T-E-L-R-B-E-R-T-E-L-E-R-B-E-R-E-L-E-L-D-E-R-E-R-E-E-R-Y-N-E-L-E-U-L-U-N-D-E-E-R-E-R-E-L-U-N-E-R-E-E-R-E-E-U-N-E-N-D-E-E-- hero. He'll be in the studio with us. James O'Keefe. That's next week. We also have Dennis Prager on the

program next week. And I'm going to apologize for all the insults that I've been leveling at him over the years behind his back. We also have Matt Schlapp, I think, on the program next week. Obviously, John Zemarck is back every week. I do want to say this weekend, I'm going to be in Albuquerque, or as my dad pronounces it, Albuquerque. That's the Greek pronunciation. Albuquerque. I'm going to be in Albuquerque this weekend speaking at Skip Heitzig's church and at another church on Sunday morning. I'm forgetting the name of that church. But if you go to my website, Eric Mataxis.com, you can hear me at a breakfast on Sunday morning. You can hear me speak at a service.

I'm sorry, a breakfast on Saturday morning at a church in Albuquerque. You can hear me that night at Skip Heitzig's church. I'm speaking. and then Sunday morning, I'm speaking again at Skip Heitzig's church. Next week I'm going to be an Old Bridge, New Jersey. And then I'm flying to Phoenix, Arizona. So that's what I have coming up. If you go to Eric Mataxis.com, obviously, sign up everybody on your church email list for a newsletter.

That's the biblical thing to do. But we do, listen, we use the newsletter. This is not the radio newsletter. This is my personal newsletter. There's no advertising. We just want to get the video. videos and information to you. And it's difficult to do.

The give, send go page for us is back up. I think some evil person hacked it. So if you go to give send go, if you want to give to us and what we're doing. And we're doing an awful lot. Tomorrow on this program, we have, we're talking about farming tomorrow. We've got a real firecracker, Lucinda. That's all I'll say Lucinda is going to be on the program tomorrow. And I do want to say in these crazy times, because listening to Brandon Strock's story today, we finish that story, I just want to say that we all need to do something.

So the question is what? Well, the first thing you need to do is ask Jesus into your life. You don't need to know the details, okay? I'm not telling you to just open yourself up to lunacy. But we need the God who created the universe, who created you and who has a plan for your life, wants to guide you. And we've talked about that.

I write about that in my books, in my book miracles, and my book is atheism dead. I write about it a lot. But that's the most important thing. But the other thing is that just to ask God, what do you want me to do today? But as some of you know,

if you go to my store.com, most of my books are available there with the code, Eric, but we also have the Bonhofer poster available. It's a gorgeous poster, and I think it will inspire you. The quote, which you can say that I came up with the quote, because it's not officially attributable to Bonhoffer, but it says silence in the face of evil is itself evil, not to speak, is to speak, not to act, is to act. God will not hold us guiltless. So I saw a, movie the other day called Mr. Jones. I think you can get it on Hulu. But when people look the other way, when there's evil, the Bonhofer story is the classic story. But this happened in Stalin's Russia. We need to know that we're living in such a time as they were or the beginnings of such a time.

And we have to fight. We don't have an excuse because we have those stories to look back at. And the Bonhofer poster, I think, is a good reminder that this man was willing to to do whatever was necessary for God's purposes to speak the truth. Solzhenitsyn's another one, but the Bonhofer poster has that quote on it. You can get it at mystore.com. You can also go to MyPillow.com, use the code Eric. You can go to Neutrametics.com, use the code Eric. But to get the poster, go to MyStore.com.

I encourage you because I just think we need to be inspired. And Bonhofer is the ultimate inspiration. Thanks for listening.