The Eric Metaxas Show - Kevin McCullough and Ask Metaxas

Episode Date: May 27, 2022

Ask Metaxas kicks off the hour, followed by Eric quizzing Albin on his recent article, "Thou shalt not steal"; then Kevin McCullough urges listeners to contribute to CSI, and Seth Talbott answers another important business question.  

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 pm investments.com. That's legacy pm investments.com. The Texas show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Hey, folks, you know what time it is? Alvin, do you know what time it is? Oh, I do. I do. I do. I do. It's time for our weekly segment that we like to call Ask Metaxis. I play the role of Metaxis. you ask the questions. People have sent these in. And by the way, folks, anything you want to ask,

submit it to the radio website, submit it to any of my websites. We'll get it and we'll try to answer it on this program as I'm going to do right now. Go. Question number one, who was more important? Martin Luther or John Calvin? I don't know. I wrote a book about Martin Luther. He's German. I love him. He's an amazing figure and just an absolutely amazing figure. I don't get that impression of John Calvin. I don't think a biography in John Calvin would be as interesting. But what do I know? The real answer is I don't know. But actually, I think my Martin Luther book is available on Kindle for $4.99. I just heard that like yesterday. By the way, that just occurred to me. We don't put these questions into sell my books, folks. I'm probably losing money on that deal.

But I'm extremely proud of the Martin Luther book. And I don't know enough about John Calvin to answer that. My guess would be Martin Luther. Okay, next. Number two, hi, Eric. Loved last two books. How did you recall so much detail about fish out of water? Everybody asks me that question. People have been saying that from the beginning,

that like, I can't believe your memory is amazing. Yeah. I have to tell you, I never thought of my memory is amazing. And I'm amazed that people say that over and over and over. One thing I can tell you is that I am. very, very assiduous about details. I do not like it when people are sloppy. So in all my biographies and in this book as well in Fish Out of Water, which is the story of my life until my dramatic, miraculous conversion around my 25th birthday, in all these stories, I care deeply about details.

So I just want to say that that's important to me. In many cases, to be honest, I guess, I called up my parents, and I was on the phone with them all the time, saying, do you remember this? What about this? What did this? Because I did want to get everything right. So I can say that part of it has to do with the tremendous blessing from God of having my mother and father with me. My dad, by the way, will be 95 next month by the grace of God.

And I love my dad so much. I could cry. And it's just a wonderful thing to have them. So they did help me. but honestly, I just, I don't know, I remember things. What can I tell you? Oh, and the fish had a water book, I'm speaking about that publicly a lot. If I've already, if I've been to a church or something and I've already spoken about,

is atheism dead? The next time I speak, I always speak about fish out of water tell my testimony. So, okay, next question. Great. Favorite Greek dish? That's a tough one. Probably Molina Mercuri around 1960. But I don't know.

I honestly, I don't even like the term referring to a woman as a dish. It's meant to be flattering, but I don't, I don't really, I just don't, I just don't think of it that way. Okay. What is life like in NYC right now? Well, right now in my apartment where I'm doing the radio program, it's cool, it's refreshing. It's full of faith. As for the rest of the city, it's hard to say because I'm not out there. I don't really know.

I think it's basically back to normal. How can I tell you, you know, it's obviously crime is rising and all that kind of stuff. But I think people overplay that. They act like you're coming. You know, if you don't live here, you don't realize that it's basically the same. So I don't know. I don't know how to answer that. I want people to come here and visit and, you know, but you got to go to the right places.

Like go to Central Park where I go. It's beautiful. It's wonderful. Anyway, next question. Where did you get so much information for is atheism dead? From the back of a comic book or the place where you subscribe to Grit magazine, right? That's where I get most of my information. Actually, when people ask these questions, I think, why don't they just look in the book?

There's a bibliography. I mean, I got it from other books that I am privileged to know about and read. But like I said, before, details matter to me. And there was a bunch of typos in the first edition, which was very embarrassing. saying a couple of actual mistakes. I won't even typos. So we've corrected all that. But I try to stay updated on this information.

But then the reason I wrote the book is because I realize so many people don't know about the books or the authors that I'm aware of. There's another one. Hugh Ross, we've had on this program. Michael Benton, we're going to have on this program. These people are amazing. And they're amassing staggering information. And I thought, I want to put it in a popular book so that everybody can have access to it. Because frankly, when you know these things, it really changes your view.

of the world and God. It just, it can't help but do that. It's just astonishing stuff. So I feel excited to get it out there. Is there still room to sign up for Socrates in the city? I don't know when this airs, which will be a few hours from now. I hope so. We have the big room at the Union League Club and we are going out of our way.

I just said, I don't care if it's overflowing. I don't think we have room at the VIP or at the dinner. but at the general event, I'm sure, you know, we will, if somebody wants to sign up, we can accommodate you. As I said earlier, I want as many people to be there as possible. So, so yes. Okay, here's a good one. Number seven, is everything big in Texas?

That's not the question, Almond. The question I have here is, is everything big in Texas? T-A-X-A-S. That's the last part of my name. It's meant to be a joke. And you, Mr. Funny Man, you missed the joke. I missed a joke. I think somebody is just trying to be funny by saying, is everything big in Texas?

I don't know what that means. Ha, ha. Thank you very much for the question. I have no answer. Next. And I blew the joke. Sorry. I know.

Is it, it's not that funny, but it's sort of funny. Yeah. Okay. My 11-year-old son would like to know what were your top 10 favorite childhood books? You know, I have to answer that another time because, that is, it's one of those questions that it kind of jumps at me. And I think, I don't really know. I don't want to pretend that I was some big reader as a child. But I have many fond memories, but it's weird. I'm like, you know, because of CS Lewis, I think of children's books as books that can be read by children and adults. And so now I think what are my favorite children's books now? The Tim series, by Edward Ardizone, an Englishman who illustrated and wrote these books. Edward Ardizone, they are some of the most wonderful books for young people,

but I had no clue about them when I was growing up. Obviously, the Narnia books, top of the list, I didn't read them until I was 30 years old. So I'm a little bit behind. Okay, next. I thought you were going to mention Donald the Caveman and also Hamster Holmes. I don't know why you didn't. Okay, we're going to move on, though, quickly. why do you always wear a double-breasted jacket?

It's just a safety issue. If one of the breasts breaks down, you've got another breast, and you know, you don't, you have to think ahead. A single breast, you're dependent on the single breast. Anything goes wrong. There's no backup breast in the jacket. So I figure double-breasted, you know, better safe than sorry. That's really, that's just it.

I actually think, though, the serious answer to that is I'm a fan of, the sartorial choices that people made in the 1930s and 40s. I watch a lot of movies on Turner Classic movies. A lot of them wore the double-breasted jackets. It's just kind of a cleaner look somehow to me. But thanks for the question. Yeah, I always thought it was because you were so big, because everything is big in taxes.

Ah, thank you very much. Alvin, that was excellent. That was excellent. Why don't you unbutton your jacket when you sit down? the question is, Eric, why don't you put in your jacket when you sit down? Why don't you, whoever asked that question, maybe he or she does? I don't really have an answer. I think because with the camera, it ends up looking sloppy.

So I apologize. Final question. Okay. What were your thoughts? What are your thoughts on Francis Collins these days, given your interview with him at Socrates in the city, and then you interviewed Megan Basham, about her daily wire article? I never interviewed Francis Collins at Socrates in the city. He spoke at Socrates in the city. My views of him then were, as you would guess, different than what they are today. I am very sorry to say that he has not been what I consider a friend to evangelicals or to Americans. He has made some grievous mistakes. We won't go into that now. But yeah, that's the issue. All right. When we come back, I'm interviewing Albin-Sad. It's going to get crazy.

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His name is Albin Seder. Albin, welcome to the program. Oh, my God. It's great to finally meet you and be on the program and just say hello, New York. I love you, Eric. Oh, oh, you're just, you know, you're a producer, you're a co-host. No, no, no, no, no. You're my guest right now.

And I'm interviewing you because you, every now and again, you write an essay, an article. And you wrote one that is not only very important, but you frame the issue so well. I said, we need to get people to read the article and to hear what you have to say. So where can they find the article? What's the title of the article? The article is titled, Does Thou Shelt Not Steal apply to elections? Now, you can find it at two places. It's at stream.org, you know, where Johns Marek writes and where you wrote recently. And you can also find it at American greatness. That's am greatness.com. Now, most people know me for the Hamster Holmes books, right? The whole series of six hamsterhombs books that you can get from Simon & Chuster at Amazon.com. They say, wow, he's a kid's author. He can't actually say anything serious. No, he can't be serious.

Any more than Eric McTaxons can be serious because he's written 30 children's books. Poppycock, we say. No, Albin, you know this. When I read your article, I said, this article is so important. I really want to get the word out. I want to interview you about it. Tell me the title again so people can look it up. Okay.

Does thou shalt not steal apply to elections? Does thou shalt not steal apply to elections? you can find it at m greatness a m greatness american greatness dot com or streamed.org. So, Albin, what made you write this article? What is your thesis? Well, here, it's actually a two-parter in a way. It starts by saying, you know, Christians, well, we all know the Ten Commandments, and one of them is thou shalt not steal.

So if somebody steals, well, that's wrong. Now, the first part is saying, like, we're not allowed to talk about the stolen election. For some reason, it was so secure that if you say anything, then you, you will be shut down and you will be canceled. Okay. Now Christians, they don't listen to, you know, the world. We're supposed to listen to a higher authority. So if there's proof and there's evidence that without a doubt shows that the election was stolen, well, then we have an obligation to say something. Now, the movie 2000 mules, go to 2000 mules. Go to 2000mules.com, which was produced by the Salem Media Group. So both of us worked for Salem Media Group. And I

understand you, Eric, get a little back end, a little piece of the, you know, a little piece of the pie there. Very little piece of the pie, but we're legally obliged to say that if you go to say, if you go to 2000 mules.com and you buy the movie or watch the movie or something like that, we could participate financially in that. Wouldn't that be nice if so many people saw it that I would get a check? But I got to tell you, Albin, I don't, you know me. I don't care about that. I care that every American see it because this is. about a stolen election and you've got to be clear, folks, if it's possible this happened, and it did. I'm sorry to say it did. You need to know about it. You need to know how it happened because we can't let this happen again. And so everybody has an obligation. So Albin, when you wrote the article, I said, I want to, I want people to read the article because you, let me just say this to my audience. You phrase things in such a way and you frame things in such a way. That's

very valuable. It's very simple, which is brilliant. That's the point is that to be able to make it clear is not easy. A lot of times people get confused by the, by the, you know, there's so many pieces to it and they just kind of their eyes glaze over and they move on to the next thing. You're able to put it in such a way that I want to say to people, please go to stream.org or Americangratness.com, read the article, print out the article, share it with everyone you can. I put it on Twitter, and it's already gotten like 100 retweets, which is, no, 400, I think. So a lot of people are finding it that way. But you put it so well, I want people to find it.

Well, yeah, no, I appreciate that, but you saying that. But a lot of the ideas I got, of course, listening to you and all the wonderful guests we have on the show. I mean, there was Esther who stood up, you know, to the powers that be, and she saved Israel. And of course, you've written about William Wilberforce. And if it wasn't for Wilberforce, a politician, for heaven. sags, the slaves would not have been freed in England or over here in America. Eventually, and of course, Dieter vonhofer stood up to the German government led by Hitler. But we, as Christians, were perhaps us, you, me and all the other Christians listening out

there, perhaps we were born for such a time as this. Now, here's part of the problem. There were a lot of people out there and some good people that we know and love saying, like, well, Christians should not be involved in politics, okay? And, you know, if the nation's going to go one way or the other, that's up to God because he is in charge. And in my article, I share one of my favorite jokes. A guy has just finished his physical exam. And the doctor says, I'm sorry, Joe, Joe, you are in bad shape. You're going to have to take some pills if you want to live. And Joe says, well, I'm a Christian. I believe in God has predestination on my life. And whatever happens, happens because God says so. And the doctor says, well, I'm also a Christian. I believe in predestination. And I'll tell you this, if you take the pills, you're predestined to live. If you don't, you're predestined to die. So in America, if you want America to survive, you got to get involved in politics and God will say like, okay, you're predestined to live. And if you say, like, I'm going to sit on the sidelines, I'm going to let whatever happens happens. God's going to say, okay, you're predestined to go the other way. Goodbye, America.

Well, it's funny because that's, you know, you've summed up the thesis of my new book, which is letter to the American Church, which people can pre-order right now. But in a letter to the American Church, I talk exactly about this, that we have a choice and this idea that we're not supposed to be political. It's simply preposterous. It is a satanic lie designed to shut up voices that need to be speaking, that we need to hear from. Wilberforce was political. If you say abortion is wrong, you're political. How can you avoid being political? Sometimes you can't avoid it. And the idea that you should is a lie. And so, Albin, I'm glad you wrote this article because people need to know that if we do not get serious and take action and in some cases get political, we are allowing

this country to be destroyed. It is being destroyed as we're speaking now. It is being destroyed. And we, each of us has been chosen by God to do the right thing, to speak up. And if we don't do it, the Lord will allow these things to fall apart. He is not committed to saving this republic. He has deputized us to do it. And if we don't do it, we are to blame, not God. Yeah. And the thing is, we have to get involved in every aspect of our lives. I mean, we went to a church where the pastors were saying, like, you know, God is the Lord of your life. He's in Lord of every aspect of your life. well, what about the political aspect of our lives? The evil people, the people doing evil, I should say, because we like to think they're not evil, but they're influenced by evil. They have no problem getting involved in politics. Why can't people who are good? Why can't they get involved in politics and push back and say, no, this is not going to be the way our country is ruled. I'm working on another article, even as we speak, called Church of Cowards. And God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power. of love and of sound mind. So we're supposed to think correctly, right? We're not supposed to let the woke.

It's not Jesus plus woke. It's Jesus plus nothing. And Jesus has given us power and a sound mind and we've got to think and we've got to act. Okay, please. Well, this is, you know, it's beautiful when I hear people saying what I'm trying to say because I don't want to be the only one. And I'm amazed. And you, I know you know all this, but that people, People in the evangelical church have been seduced by some lies. The idea that we're not supposed to be political, it's a lie. I mean, I want to tell you, folks, if you care about the unborn, if you care about the urban poor, if you care about people of color in inner cities, if you care about these people, if you care about people confused about their gender, about their sexuality, God needs you you to speak the truth.

People who don't want to hear it will say, oh, you're being political, you're being divisive, you're a culture warrior. That is a lie. And people writing about that, there's a, there's a book, a heartbreaking, wrongheaded, misleading book by Andy Stanley. I don't think he's an evil person, but the thesis of the book is deeply wrong. It's basically saying the precisely opposite of what you're saying and what I'm saying in my book. And it is going to mislead people because they're looking for some kind of excuse, for some evangelical leader to tell them, don't get involved in politics. Just it is really, we're hanging in the balance. folks. There are misleading voices out there that are very powerful. We need to think for ourselves. And I have to tell you, these people are, they're deeply mistaken in saying these things, but don't you be deep. Don't you be taken in by it. So Albin, the article is at Americangrateness.com and at stream.com and the title again. Sorry, does thou shalt not kill, does thou shalt not steal apply to elections? My goodness.

Does thou shalt not steal apply to elections? Folks, it is so important. Albin, seriously, thank you for writing it. Writing is hard. You've written a wonderful, wonderful article, Americangrateness.com, stream.org. Does thou shalt not steal apply to elections? Folks, share it.

Thank you. Thank you, Albin. Hey, folks, if you could make money off of abortion or pornography, would you do it? I hope the answer is no. But I want to tell you, Robert Netsley, the founder of Inspire Insight.com, he was the president of his local pro-life pregnancy center when he discovered that he owned investments in three companies manufacturing abortion drugs.

Well, God helped him to see that he was making money from abortion, pornography, LGBT activism, and the list goes on. And that's why he created InspireInsight.com. InspireInsight.com gives you instant access to biblical values data on over 23,000 stocks, mutual funds, and ETFs, so you can invest to the glory of God. You need to go to InspireInsight.com today and screen your 401k's IRAs and other investment accounts. I did and I was shocked. Now I'm able to clean out the junk and invest in companies actually doing good things.

Go to inspireinsight.com today and register for free. That's inspireinsight.com. Go there. Folks, welcome back. We've got a lot to talk about with our friend Kevin McCullough, aka. vote stradamas but kevin uh i want to talk to you about the horror in the ukraine there are 11 million refugees and you and i know that c s i is a great organization they're helping the refugees we are partnering with them i'm telling people please go to metaxis talk dot com please help the refugees this

is horrible stuff folks we need to do something well eric just picture for you and by the the way, this is just another reason why people should be very fired up for the elections this year. Our foreign policy has turned into complete mush. And when there are international crises taking place, we've taken the seat at the back of the bus, literally. We've said we don't want to be involved. Like Joe Biden, people, they're just absent these conversations. And when he does try to call people, they don't take his calls, partly for this reason. But when you're talking about the Ukraine refugee crisis, 11 million displaced people and more than half of them now bleeding over into the NATO countries that border Ukraine.

You're talking about the largest displacement of people since World War II. And we haven't seen anything like this in a very, very long time. And the idea that there's all these different political pronouncements about Russia and Ukraine, all the rest of it, this is inarguable. The victims of this are largely mothers and children because the fathers put them on the train, sent them west. They stayed behind in Maripole and in Kiev and in Kharkiv and in those places to try to fight Putin off and to try to keep their home their home. So you've got from a biblical standpoint, Eric, when Jesus was asked, what does it mean to be truly your follower? And he said to feed widows and orphans.

This is literally what that is. These, they're not all the husbands and fathers have died, but functionally, these families don't have husbands and dads. These are moms with two or three kids each. They are in, they are in countries now that don't speak the language that they come from, just to give your audience a little bit of perspective, the largest speaking Russian community, the largest Russian speaking community in New York City, the tri-state is a Ukrainian community. In that part of the world, all the Ukrainians speak Russian and all the Russians

in that part of Russia speak Ukrainian. It is very common in terms of understanding each other. You go to the west of Ukraine and you go to all of the Baltics and the NATO countries, Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania, Poland, and then the Baltics. None of them speak a language that the Ukrainians understand. And so what you're talking about is literally, grabbing your kids in the middle of the night, putting whatever you can in their backpacks, making them carry that. You've got a duffel bag. You've got it packed with whatever you can get to. And then in about three or four days, you get to finally rest again at some place that is taking kindness upon you and giving you a bed to sleep in in another country. But when you get there,

you don't know the language. You don't have any financial resources. There is no food. There is no work. And you can't find any because you can't even find you don't even know how to communicate. And in that vacuum, CSI has come alongside and said, and using their typical network of pastors and church-related points of contact, they have beds for shelter. They have places for the kids and the moms to find places to sleep. They have, they're doing feeding programs. They are getting emergency medical attention to the ones that have it. And I was talking with Dr. Jeanette Nishwat from Fox News, who's been over there a couple of times already. and she said the medical needs are huge.

People are coming out of the country dehydrated and they have all kinds of other health problems that are then amplified because of that. But you're talking about a dire emergency where people need food and they need immediate shelter and they need help. And CSI has that with this network of pastors that they put in place and schools that they're working with. And for something as little as $140, you can help a family receive all of those services. It is a no-brainer to me.

We need to be helping as many of them as. we can. I was told it was $280. So I'm not sure what, but see a side. Well, then you got two families helped. Look, the need is going to be ongoing for the longest period of time. So whatever you're able to do, do your best gift right now. And that will, that will enable as many of them as possible to find that help. But it's, it's, it's, it's not a matter of whether or not we should. Jesus clearly said, feed widows and orphans help them in their time of need. It doesn't get more strictly biblical than this need right now. It's just hard for us to believe many times that these things are happening.

It seems like, you know, it's not real. It is real, folks. Especially when the world was moving towards a safer place just two years ago. I mean, not to lose the, the idea here, but it matters who's president in the United States. And if you don't have people that are trying to do good. things in that position. It impacts people around the world. I don't think Putin would have ever invaded Ukraine if Trump was in office today. I just don't think you would have. Oh, there's no question. Look, there's no question. Literally in his speech at Mara Lago last night before the film,

President Trump spoke to this issue. And there is no question. I mean, if you understand how these things work, you do these kinds of things when you see an opportunity, when the Afghan understand thing happened, this nightmare, this nightmare. People like Putin, they're licking their chops. They're waiting for weakness to exploit weakness. It's like watching a nature film and you see the wolves or the hyenas. They're skulking around waiting for a moment of weakness, someone in the herd, you know, to show weakness. And then they pounce. That is what's happening. But the good news, folks, is that we can help. In fact, I hope you will. I'll give you the phone number, metaxis talk.com, but please call right now 888-253-3522.

888-253-3522. 888-253-3522. Thank you. Darker shame, darling, dark a shame. Hey, folks. Welcome back to the show. As you know, every week at about this time. In fact, right now, we talk to Pete and

Seth Talbot at the Talbot group, Talbot Group.com. You may know them as the geniuses behind relief factor. We talk to them every week on business questions, and we're going to continue with our new mini-series, 10 business questions being asked today. Today I only have Seth Talbot because Pete Talbot is stuck in Hawaii. boo-hoo. He's still in Hawaii.

He's stuck in Hawaii. He's still like, I don't know what to do about this. I can't get him to come back. You're going to have to. We're going to see if you can answer the question. But this is, so we're doing 10 business questions. This is the second one in our series. All right.

So I think it was some weeks ago on this show, you or your dad, I don't remember which one of you said it, but that 31 million small businesses, which is to say 90% of the businesses that try to sell, in fact, never sell 90%. So what happens to these businesses or why is it that 90% of these businesses that try to sell? Like, I don't really get that. Well, there's a generational tsunami going on right now. We call it the silver tsunami. And in business, there is a massive amount.

There's about $10 trillion worth of businesses transitioning over this next decade. And the problem is that a lot. lot of these really small businesses, they don't know how to sell. So that's part of the answer is they don't sell because people don't know how to sell a business. And for instance, a lot of businesses, one of the primary reasons is that it really doesn't act like a business. It acts like a sole proprietorship with some extra people that help. And so one of the key things, if you're looking to sell your business, and this is one of the things that we partner with companies to specifically address because we do bring companies to market. We do partner with companies and get them ready to sell.

One of the guys internally, one of our managing partner, says, you know, there's three states to business. And John always says, you know, they're either ready for a full remodel that's going to take a long time. They just want to throw some pain on it or they want to sell it yesterday. And our ideal scenarios to come alongside a company earlier than the day before they want to sell, because it takes a while to get the company ready. And your valuation is directly tied to how much owner dependence there really is. And so when you've got a company that, if you think, okay, I do want to sell, you need to put in systems and processes and you need to reduce owner dependence. The number one reason why people are you, you know,

don't sell their businesses is that it is incredibly dependent on the primary owner, and they don't know what to do about it. We were just working with a company this last week that's in that same situation where it's a good revenue, good margin, but it's really the brilliance of one guy with a bunch of employees around him. And so he brought us in to put together a plan to say, how do I get out of this business? Now, this guy was actually low 50s. He was like 51 years old. He wasn't old, but he was thinking ahead. And he said, I want to have a life. I want to be able to travel.

I want to be able to do what I want to do. And I'm willing to pay to get out of this business. So it's an actual business instead of just like a glorified consultancy. Now, it was a very profitable consultancy, but it still was basically a consultancy instead of a business. So we came in and we put together a plan to say, all right, here's the different people you need to bring in, to bring in the talent, to put in the systems and the processes to build out, you know, account. managers and sales process and onboarding and handling the execution for the customer. And so it's going to take a couple of years for this guy. But at the end of the road, he will have invested money into it so that he has a legitimate

business. It will be slightly less profitable because he will have paid to put some more people in to pull him out. But the company is worth significantly more because he's out of the business. This is so fascinating to me. Seth, I've got to be honest with you because I'm not a business guy, but it's just so interesting to me how these are principles that touch on everything. I mean, these are basic principles. And what you're talking about, obviously, you see this over and over, that somebody is so central in terms of the way they lead that if they can't reproduce that in the system of the business without themselves, then they can never sell, obviously, because somebody's going to say, look, without you, there is no business, right?

Yeah. And so you're, you at the Talbot group, obviously, that's what you're trying to help people do is to say like, okay, you've got this genius. Well, you've got to figure out a way now to make that part of the business so that when you step away, it's still there, which obviously might take some time. Well, the challenge is is that as humans, we want to be needed and we want to feel important. And we all bring that baggage into running our own companies. and entrepreneurs are a weird bunch. Some of us are reluctant entrepreneurs. Some of us were determined and born that way. And regardless of that makeup, there is a bit of wanting to be needed and wanting to be wanted and wanting to be able to flex to show your value. And unfortunately, that is a big part of how people end up kind of structuring their companies

because they become the most important person in the company. So there's that like baggage that weighs in on that. And a lot of times people, even if they don't have that baggage, they don't know any other way to do it. So there's a lot of reasons why people end up in that situation. It's not always just baggage related, but it sometimes makes that process harder where someone may not realize that that was a driver for them. But as that starts to strip away, they feel less and less important. And they don't understand that the less that they have to do with their business, the more valuable it is. that's counterintuitive because especially as we get older and we have more and more of our identity tied to the success of our business, which is totally unhealthy and it stinks and it's not the right way to do it.

And God has a better plan for us. But that's a separate topic. It's counterintuitive and it feels terrible because if all your worth is in your business, as you start to plan and de-owner dependent the company, it feels like your value is diminishing. and your value as a human is diminishing. The thing is, is that if you look at it from, how do I get the most value out of this company, you need to get out of the way. And again, people don't know how to do that.

And that's one of the main things we do is we come in and we deconstruct to figure out, what's the plan? Where are you trying to go? What are you looking for? And then how do we get the maximum value? Because not everybody's looking to sell. You know, you don't have to have to sell to want to do this,

Because if you want to generationally transition, sometimes we come alongside companies, and they just want us to take over, but they don't want to sell. Okay. And we can do that, too, where we're helping them get out of the way so that we can help grow and scale the business so they can be in Tahiti without necessarily having to sell. If you have further questions, folks, you can go to Talbot Group, T-A-L-B-O-T-T-T-T-Roup.com. We used to laugh. We used to cry. Hey, Albin, it's just about the end of the program. Aw.

I got to tell you, we've got so much coming up tomorrow and Monday and whatever, but the Memorial Day weekend is upon us. Did you, did you know that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm excited, really. What do the sadars do, you and the lovely Ann? What do you do on Memorial Day? I am going to get some sort of T-bone steak, go out in the back deck,

and fire that grill up. for the first time kicking off the unofficial start of summer. That's so wonderful. I and Suzanne, we go to Danbury to hang out with my parents. As you know, my dad is looking at his 95th birthday. I'm just excited. I've been traveling so much that I haven't been up there in a few weeks. So I'm looking forward to that tomorrow and over the weekend to be with my folks in

Danbury, Connecticut. Maybe we'll go up to Canterwood Lake and go ice skating. Actually, we won't be able to do that. I love the fact that you and your dad have the same birthday. And he's going to be 95. You're going to be like 78. It's incredible. It's pretty incredible.

Yeah. And I got to tell you, the crazy thing is we did not plan that. No. No, neither he nor I. So I really don't know what to say about that. Now, so this weekend, as I said, I'm going to Connecticut to a lot of times people spend time with families on Memorial Day. We need to take time to thank God for those who've served this country,

those who've paid the ultimate price for this country. We only have our liberties because of them, and we need to be very clear with our kids what you have is a gift. It is a gift. You don't deserve it. It is a gift, and you need to treasure it. I want to say that, was it yesterday? Yeah, we aired, I had a conversation with Pastor Chey on,

I will be speaking at his church in Pasadena, California on June 12th. That's two days before Flag Day. I will be speaking at his church in Pasadena. If you're interested in where I will be, because I have been traveling a lot, but I'll be home for a little while, go to Erica Mataxis.com and you click on speaking engagements. I'm really going to be all over the place in Dallas. I will be in Dallas in July, speaking in Flower Mound, Texas, speaking at an Anglican conference in Texas. And I've just got a whole bunch of other things.

I can't even remember where I'm going to be speaking. I'm probably going to be at Turning Point USA in August. Oh, I'm going to be in Seattle. You know what? Yes, you got to go to my website. I'm going to be in July. I'm also going to be in Las Vegas. and in Seattle.

And, man, I got a lot of stuff coming up. I think I'll probably be in Phoenix in August, but a lot of stuff coming up. Remember, folks, my personal radio, I mean, my personal website is Eric Mataxis.com. I want you to get the newsletter from there. Some people get some other newsletter. And it's like, that's fine.

But there's important information that I want to send you for my personal newsletter that you can only get at ericmetaxis.com. Finally, we should remind people, this is the last chance to donate to CSI. The suffering in the Ukraine has been terrible. I just want to tell you that CSI is a great organization. You can rely on them to show the love of God to people in tangible ways. And if you go to Metaxistok.com, there's all kinds of great reasons to go to Metaxistock.com. Believe me. But the main one, go there, click on the banner and help these refugees. If you've ever suffered, you know that you're hoping that there's somebody out there who's thinking, what can I do to help? These people need our help.

I can trust CSI. You can trust CSI. Please go to metaxis talk.com. I think that settles it. I just love the fact that we get to do more tomorrow. Tomorrow, the Babylon B. that tomorrow, I can't believe I'm talking to Babylon B guys. You'll see. It's going to be crazy. Thanks for listening.