WEBVTT
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The topics and opinions express in the following show are
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solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
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those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
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make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
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or products mentioned on air or on our web. No
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liability explicit or implies shall be extended to W FOURCY
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Radio or it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments
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should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for
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choosing W FOURCY Radio.
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Welcome to to Ask Good Questions Podcasts, broadcasting live every Wednesday,
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six pm Eastern Time on W four CY Radio at
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W fourcy dot com. This week and every week, we
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will reach for a higher purpose in money and life,
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as well as a focus on health and wellness. Now,
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let's join your hosts, Banita bell Anderson as together we
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start with Asking Good Questions.
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Hey, welcome to the Ask Good Questions podcast. I am
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your host, Benita bell Anderson, and we have a fabulous
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show today with my guest Bart Merrill. Bart is someone
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who has had some pretty interesting experiences in life that
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I'm we're going to talk about a little bit. So
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with that, let's bring Bart onto the podcast stage.
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Welcome, Welcome, thank you, thanks for having me.
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Yeah, you bet well, I'd like to introduce you to everyone.
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So Bart, he kind of starts off with saying, are
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you prepared for what happens when what happens happens? What
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if it's cancer, what if it's Christmas, what if it's
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a car repair? You know, I had to laugh at that, because, yeah,
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all these things can happen, but we need to prepare
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for before it happens. Bart is an international entrepreneur, an author,
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and Monetize Your Mindset presenter. He's helped take the first
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commercial bungee jump to Japan, which I'm going to have
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him explain a little bit. He's not sure and I'm
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not sure about this either, because he said that he
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jumped off the tower with only hanging on to the
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bungee cord with his hands. That sounds scary. Bart. So
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he's been a serial entrepreneur for a very long time.
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He's going to get us thinking about creating financial security
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by monetizing what we already know, so we have the
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resources to deal with what happens when it happens before
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because and we both know this don't we It's stuff
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is going to happen. So becoming a self sufficient and
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financially secure regardless of the economy is the global problem,
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he says, with a personal mindset solution. I can't wait
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to hear that. He's the author of the book Monetize
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Your Mindset, and he believes that ordinary people can succeed
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extraordinarily well when they pay attention to opportunities that exist
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all around them and act upon them. So welcome Bart.
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Thank you, thanks for having me look forward to the conversation.
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Well, is there anything you want to add to that
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little intro?
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I didn't plan on doing this. This life happened to
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me in the beginning and cause me to do this.
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My life's goal was to become an FBI agent and
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chase serial killers. That is what I wanted to do.
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We had an FBI agent family friend that said the
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easiest way in is through accounting. Once you get in,
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you apply to the jobs that are open, and so
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I wouldn't have to stay in the white collar section.
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And so that's what I was going to do. From
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his advice, my dad's advice, I went into accounting. I
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found out two things very quickly. I didn't like it,
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and I wasn't very good at it, but it was
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a means to an end that was going to get
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me to where I wanted to go. I took a
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break right before my last semester of college, went to
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the farm and helped dad on the pig farm. Improved
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my Spanish. While I was there. I had RK surgery
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done on my eyes and it corrected my vision. It
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was really good. It was twenty twenty and one eye
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twenty twenty five and the other eye. I didn't have
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glasses again until I was like fifty two fifty three.
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But I got back up to school and I started
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the application process to the FBI, and I found out
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that that automatically disqualified me from the FBI. The surgery
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I didn't and the surgery was still considered experimental, and
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so they didn't want to put money into an AG
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and then have him go blind and sow. Their reasoning
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was valid, but very disappointing.
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And I know, I know, I've had my own disappointments
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where I went really seriously ugh.
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And so now here we are, I am the side
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hustle samurai.
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Yeah awesome. So so you've been an entrepren I've been
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an entrepreneur for a very long time. I've realized long
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time ago that I was unemployable. I liked being my
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own boss. So your early ventures, what did that teach you?
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What do you think that that your early ventures taught
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you that still shapes what you're doing today.
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So a lot of it was growing up with my dad.
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I said, my dad's a pig farmer, But he wasn't
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just a pig farmer. He was a businessman. He had
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his hands in many different things. They were just his
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love was agriculture, and so they were in agricultural industry
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specific items. But his example, he never set me down
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and taught me the birds and the bees of business.
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He showed me by example and watching him, And then
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anytime I tried, anytime I wanted to do something, he
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was always there to encourage me and help me through it.
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Whether it was fundraising for the FFA and setting a
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goal of getting X amounts so I could get this
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prize or that prize, or whether it was my first venture.
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I bought my first stereo at age eleven, Well did
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I know? I just purchased a liability because every time
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I went to town I would have to go buy
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the new tunes, and that was an expensive venture for
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a little sef eleven year old kid. Yeah, because back then,
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remember we couldn't we didn't have what we have now.
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We had to buy the crap on the album with
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the two songs you wanted. Sure, we couldn't just buy
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one song. And so when I turned fifteen, I started
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my first my first business. I was a mobile disco
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business called Illusion. I don't know why I picked Illusion,
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but I guess I was an illusion. But even then,
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in my small town in southern New Mexico, nobody was
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hiring fifteen year old DJs. No, and so I had
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to create my own opportunity. I rented the community center. Yes,
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I rented the community center. Hired and off duty comp
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for security. Mom and dad took money at the door.
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I spun records. Everybody had a good time. I was
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making seven eight hundred dollars a night on something I'd
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love to do, and it gave the community something to
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do after a football game, after a basketball game on
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the weekends, or if there.
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Was a serious money back in the day.
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For a fifteen year old kid, that wasn't bad.
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Yeah, well, let's jump to Japan. Let's go all the
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way over to Japan. And how in the world did
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you end up taking the first bungee jump to Japan.
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So I spent years there on a two years there
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on a on a church mission, so I knew the
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language when I when I finished graduating in accounting in
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a degree I wasn't good at. And so you came from.
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Your mission, come home from your mission, start school, get
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your accounting.
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Degree, and I did. And then but then I'm devastated
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because I'm not going where I wanted to go. And
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a buddy of mine that worked for the bungee jump
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company jokingly asked me, well, would you like to go
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back to Japan? And I thought for a second, and
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I'm just like, I think I do, Yeah, I want
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to go back to Japan. And they needed someone to
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be the in between between them American company in the
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Japanese company, and I contracted with the Japanese company, and
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so that's how it started.
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Well, didn't teach you anything about calculated risk.
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So the story about me jumping off just hanging on
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with my hands because I so. On our busiest day
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in Japan, I think we did seven hundred and eighty
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three people were pushed, i mean assisted, off the top
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of the tower that day, but sometimes in the in
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the middle of the week, when nobody was there, I
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was stuck alone at the top of this tower with
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just me and my brilliant mind. At the bottom of
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our tower, we had a stun personair bag, and in theory,
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one could jump from eight stories up without a bungee
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cord at all, hit the mat and be okay.
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Oh my gosh.
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My brilliant mind started to talk to me and say, hey,
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you think you could do that? And I walked over
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to the edge of the bungee tower and I looked
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down and I said, no, I'm not that crazy. How much? Now?
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How much did it cost to do that? Do you
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remember what the admission price was for one person?
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So to get in the park itself was roughly fifteen
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dollars at the time, And did you and one jump
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on the bungee jump was of fifteen dollars? Okay, let's
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still do it for free.
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Yeah, seven or eight hundred people, that's that was some
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serious bucks.
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Okay.
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So you're up there and you're thinking, all right, am
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I going to do this?
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So my brilliant mind continues to talk to me and says, Okay,
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you know, you could jump with a bungee cord attached.
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You wait for the bouncing to stop, and then you
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just unhook yourself and you would be falling from six
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stories instead of eighth. And so in my head that
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that was better. I could do that, and I tried that.
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I jumped with the bungee cord attached, but there was
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just too much pressure and I couldn't get it unhooked,
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and so they let me down. I went back up
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to the top. I'm still thinking about how can I
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do this? And my brilliant mind says, you know, when
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you connect the bungee cord to your customer, you have
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this one about a foot long, one inch thick or
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wide nylon strap with a carabiner at one end. You
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could wrap it around, hook it to yourself, and you
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make a loop. You put two of those on the
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end of the bungee cord, and what do you have.
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You have handle. I could jump just hanging on to
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those handles, wait for the bouncing to stop, and then
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when it stops, all I gotta do is let go.
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Now that's easy. I could do that. I grabbed my handles.
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I went to the edge and I looked down and
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I said three to two one bungee and I jumped,
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and obviously I'm alive. Things are okay. It was fine,
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except for your brilliant mind. Sometimes it doesn't think things
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completely all the way through. I'm hanging at the end
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of a large rubber band. What's gonna happen? When I
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let go that bungee cord shot to the top of
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the tower with this loud bang. I hit the mat
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with a loud slap. It echoed throughout the park, and
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everybody came running to see who just died? And I'm
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crawling out of the mat. Ooh, nothing to see here.
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I'm okay, I'm okay. All good now for your listeners
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and for you as well. You're probably thinking that's just
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stupid crazy, and and you're right. I probably wouldn't do
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it a second time. But if you're going to be
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in business, if you're going to be an entrepreneur, you
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have to be able to venture out, and you've got
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to be a little bit of brilliance and a little
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bit of crazy, and you got to do things even
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though you don't know the outcome. Right now, this isn't
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stupid crazy Because I had jumped a thousand times. I
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knew the pressure I was going to receive, and I
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was ninety nine percent sure I could let I could
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hang on. Yeah, I wasn't gonna fall, you know, my
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I guess my only worry is whenever you bounce back up,
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your body goes into that weightlessness. And I was like, oh,
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I hope I don't freak out and let go. But
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I was pretty sure that I could do it. And
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so it was an educated risk, not a stupid risk,
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because I knew the pressures I was going to feel. Yeah,
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And when you're in business, you have to you have
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to do things with an educated risk.
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Well, okay, so let's talk about that tagline, what happens
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When what happens happens? What's this story behind that?
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Well, life happens. And I've had several times in my
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life where unexpected things happen. And one I haven't mentioned
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very often, but in right after nine to eleven, I
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lost several hundred thousand dollars in business ventures because of
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nine to eleven and I was this close to bankruptcy.
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How did I save myself? Well, I went out and
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I purchased a forty thousand dollars pickup, brand new off
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the lot Ford one ton diesel pickup. Once again, you think, Okay,
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that's kind of crazy, that's kind of stupid, Risk. But
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I was going to pull camping trailers nationwide. I was
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already in the camping trailer industry shipping camping trailers to Japan.
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And this was I knew that this availability was out there.
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You have to pull the trailers from the manufacture to
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the dealers, and the manufacturers a lot of them are
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located in Elkhart, Indiana, or right around that area there