The Commander's Conundrum

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[00:00:26] You're listening here to PBN. You will pay us back the stability here.

[00:01:19] You know what I mean? There's many other great hosts, great shows here at PBN. We're going to talk about The Commanders Conundrum today. And I think I've done a show like this before. I can't remember. Who knows? 6,000 episodes in, you're supposed to remember. 10 years, 12, whatever the hell it is. Visit LeematangoSurvival.com, our great sponsor for this episode of the podcast.

[00:01:43] Check out the Alpha. I want you to check out the Alpha. If you're a family man, family woman, something along those lines, check out the Alpha. The Alpha is a two-bag kit, 48 hours, effective, right? They got a lot. They got a lot of solutions. Like I always tell you, Leematango solves your problems. You know, you got a car that's not quite equipped. They got a bag you could throw in there and be a hell of a lot better off, you know?

[00:02:11] I've been palling around with the Solo. The Solo is an amazing kit. If you are, if you've got the Prepper Moxie, the Survival Skills, you know, that kind of stuff, this Solo bag could probably keep you in the game for, it's supposed to be a 24-hour bag. I bet the mass of you out there listening who've been listening for years and doing the Prepper things could probably survive a week with what's in that bag, if you thought about it, you know what I mean?

[00:02:41] But today I want to talk about the Commander's Conundrum. I also want to talk about a money-making opportunity for everybody listening to PBN. So doing something, I did this years ago. It didn't really work. Nobody was really interested, but I'm noticing the tightening of belts, the talk of economies and so on and so forth.

[00:03:08] And, you know, I'm always going to live in that empathetic world for all the listeners. It just is what it is. You reach out, you talk to me, I can't help but want to help. You know what I mean? In any way that I can. I guess you could thank the Prep and Patriot. You could thank the Phoenix as well. These guys really started stirring the pot here and brought this back to life. We'll talk about it in just a second.

[00:03:36] Pretty easy opportunity for anyone who really digs PBN and what we do. But I definitely want to talk about, what was it? Oh, the gym. The gym brought it up. Oftentimes this conundrum of mine is brought up. And, you know, it is what it is. It's a really good thing.

[00:04:00] It's just one of those selfish things that you deal with when you spout a message for years and years and years. It's literally coming to terms with the message. Not that it's me getting the message to everyone, but it's coming to terms with the message and the efficacy of the message. For years and years and years, talking about fitness. Right? I talk about fitness on... I'd love to go back and find those old forums I'd write about fitness. You preppers ever think about fitness?

[00:04:30] Do you guys ever... Fitness is very important in prepping. I would get skewered. If you're not, people would just... They would kill me over it. Like, there's no way. I have a .38 and plenty of ammo. That's my fitness plan. Just hilarious, right? They're probably all dead now. Probably died of COVID. They're probably... Overweight. I don't know. But there are things. Homesteading. Growing gardens.

[00:05:00] Right? Getting outside. Getting in the woods. Right? Running in the woods. It's taking... You know, spending time out in nature. Taking your time out in nature. Fishing. Get out. Fish. The forgotten art of angling. Right? The long forgotten art of angling. I can't sit still. In the constant go and constant scroll and zero patience generation that we live in. You know, fishing is really...

[00:05:28] Like, it is the other side of the coin. You know, to get out in the... And if you fish like me, I've talked about how I fish. It's not like everybody fishes. It's a really intimate thing. That sounds weird. But, I mean, that's the best way to describe it. You know, we get in the water. We wade. We catch my mouth. We look at the world around us. And all these things, you know. For me, when things work...

[00:05:57] This could be the whole basis of why I do a podcast still all these years later. When I find things that work, and I've done this my whole life, I want to tell people. I see my kids do it, too. It's kind of a beautiful thing. But you find something that works. You want to tell people. Like, you find this thing that works. You feel good about it. You feel good inside. You feel like, wow. This is so fun. Like, you want to tell people. I'm not the type of guy that's like, what's that you have over there, Jim? No.

[00:06:27] Get away. You know what I mean? I'm not that kind of person. So, it's... The problem, the conundrum is, over these years, it's worked. The problem for me is, over these years, it's worked. And I have a lot of negative to say about the world. About the times, about the situations that we're in.

[00:06:53] The overwhelming technological cage that we all seem to be living in. But the message has grown, and it's worked. And again, when I say the message, I don't mean that James Walton from the Prepper Broadcasting Network has changed the world. I mean, overall. This sort of overall, what is it? Like a zeitgeist kind of thing, right? Like, outdoors, fitness, you know, that kind of stuff has resonated with people.

[00:07:23] And the conundrum part is, you're at the gym with your wife. It's 8 o'clock at night, and it's packed. Or maybe it's not packed, but maybe there's people in your way. You see, I remember going to gyms 10 years ago. And there were certain times of day you could go to the gym, you wouldn't see anybody. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody's around. There were gyms open 24-7 before COVID. And our gym was always open 24-7. You could go at 4 in the morning.

[00:07:51] I fundamentally learned the basics of boxing and kettlebells in a little side room in a gym between 4 and 5 o'clock in the morning with a guy named Antoine who popped in and out of my life like some character in a movie. But it was really cool because nobody was there. We had the whole room to ourselves.

[00:08:19] I could do these strange and different movements to me, footwork. And really let loose on the heavy bag and really start to understand, oh, okay. This is how you use the human body to damage something. And it was an amazing time. And it was, you know, it led to this whole thing. It led to heavy bags in the backyard, you know, training at the MMA Institute, all that kind of stuff.

[00:08:48] And it led to me behind the microphone saying, do this, this, this, and this. Do this, this, this, and this. Trust me. You want to do this, this, and this. And you look up from the haze of life and you see, oh, there's people doing this, this, and this. And you know what the conundrum is? They're in my way. They're in my way. I go in the woods. There's always people in the woods. I live near a big, big, big park, right? It's not necessarily a park.

[00:09:17] Park is kind of the weird, it's a weird way to look at it. It's a giant stretch of woods, right? For an urban area, suburban area. I used to run into that place. I used to run to the end of my street, take the dogs off the leash, and we would run through that park as though it were ours. You know, as though it were ours. Like, 100 acres. I'd never see anybody. Well, I might see one guy on a bike. You know what I mean? Run that whole park, the dogs would be living.

[00:09:47] Now, I lost dogs doing that. And we had to find them. And we did. But that whole place is different now. There's kids and people and other people walking dogs and people running and bunches of bike riders. And it's a popular place now. And I'm always reminded, you know, it's all good. Don't get me wrong.

[00:10:17] Everything about what I'm telling you is good. Only from the most selfish parts of my being do I go like, God, really? Come on. It's something you bitch about with your wife. You know, that's what it is. Right? That's what these things are. They're surface-leadable irritants that you say like, of course I walk into the park. Right? That thing. But the reality is, it is beautiful. Right?

[00:10:46] That people are out. Fishing hasn't quite got there yet. I don't know if fishing will get there or not. I can tell you for sure the gyms, the quiet places, the parks, the mountains. Right? I'm going to the mountains 10 years ago. Nobody. Go to the mountains now. It's a pretty popular thing to go up to Blue Ridge Parkway. Park your car. Go look over an expanse. Take a deep breath and go, oh my God. I forgot there was more to life than the spreadsheet I was working on this week.

[00:11:16] You know what I mean? The first time I went to the mountains, I couldn't believe it. I'm 20-something years old. I've never even been in mountains before. And I just get up in these mountains by Waynesboro, Virginia. One of the most beautiful places in the world. And I'm like, what? This is crazy. I remember like pulling over Blue Ridge Parkway and looking out the side. High up. Looking down into this valley. And there's houses down there and shit.

[00:11:45] Like there's a whole little town down there. And I'm so high up looking down into this beautiful valley. And it's just this... My point is people are doing it. People are having those same moments. Having those same feelings. And like it couldn't be better. It couldn't be better for humanity. It couldn't be better for America. It couldn't be better for the state. It couldn't be better for the person. Listen.

[00:12:14] You know, you see a guy in the gym working out. And you're like this... You know. I mean, if you work out, you know. You know what it looks. Here's the deal. At 3 o'clock yesterday, 3 p.m. yesterday, I was dead to the world. I've been sleeping. Drinking too much coffee. Watching late night TV. And, you know, I make those same mistakes. Eating too much. That kind of stuff. I was dead. 3 o'clock. You know.

[00:12:43] And I told my wife months ago, Thursday nights we'll go out. We'll go to the gym. We'll go as a family. Or, you know, just you and me. Whatever. And I was like, no way I can go to this gym. I'm so dead tired. Dead. 3 o'clock. Right? We do the dinner thing. Get that all cleaned up. You know. Everything. Kids. Whatever. And then it's, oh my gosh, still got to go to the gym. You know. And I know the deal with fitness.

[00:13:12] And the deal with fitness is I get up on the treadmill with my wife because I told her, let's do cardio together. You know, we're probably not going to work out together, but let's do cardio together. Because I hadn't been to the gym in a while, so I knew it was going to be a, I knew it was going to be like a tank rolling through the front wall of the gym. I mean, like it was going to be heavy weights, a lot of heavy breathing, sweating, suffering. Right? And that's what I needed.

[00:13:38] But what I also know, because I've been doing, you know, working out for so many years now, is you got to go right into the fire. You know, when you're tired like that, you can beat the tired easy. It's easy. But you got to go right in the fire. It's put the incline up on the treadmill and just start running. Not like breakneck running so you pull a calf muscle. But start a good jog on a good incline. And get your heart pumping, get your blood flowing. You know?

[00:14:07] And as you work out, and as that workout carries on, like, you become, I don't know what you become. You become this thing that your body's used to, I guess. I guess my body's used to it. The call. Right? My body's used to, like, being shooken and woken up. It's like, hey, dude, we're doing that thing again with the heavy things. Oh, okay. All right. No, no, no. Get out of bed. We're doing it right now.

[00:14:35] And that's kind of the way you have to do it, because then the body would kick back into gear. And what was a tired, sluggish evening turned into a beautiful night out with the wife. So, yeah, I'm running into a bunch of people doing a bunch of things they should be doing. Getting in my damned way. And you know what? It's a beautiful thing. Because I'm doing it, too. Right?

[00:15:03] I've been rolling into this store called Battlegrounds lately. Getting in the way of all the people playing Warhammer and playing card games and doing all the dorky things. And I'm in there lumbering around trying to figure out, what color paint do I want? What do I want? Maybe I'll play on this table one day. You know what I mean? It's a beautiful thing. Life. It really is. It really is. And again, this isn't a complaint show.

[00:15:32] This is a realization that there's more people doing the right things. We complain and complain and complain. Everybody's on their phone. Everybody's disconnected, disjointed. But out there in the world, there are lots of people doing things together. Doing things outside. Getting in shape. Getting aware. All that kind of stuff. And it's a reminder. You know? On to the business of making a little money. How about we go on to the business of making a little money?

[00:16:00] This is an interesting and unique opportunity. But one that might be worth pursuing for you guys. It's going to resonate more with the members. But it doesn't, you know, it's not exclusive to them. A year ago, we did an affiliate program. I don't do affiliate programs. But I did an affiliate program for PBN's membership.

[00:16:27] So in other words, we split the profits of a membership when it's sold. If you're an affiliate. What I've decided to do is to give a 35% commission on affiliates. Two affiliates for people who sell PBN memberships. You know what I mean? We have this big, giant membership world over there at pbnfamily.com. And most commission is like, you know, 8%, 10%, 15%.

[00:16:55] You get a 15% commission from affiliates. It's like, ooh. We're going to go 35%. 35% on the annual. So fundamentally, the transparency is, if you convince someone to sign up for a PBN membership, right? You're going to get $20. I'm going to get $40.

[00:17:21] And subsequently, that'll happen every year that they re-sign with us. Okay? Now, that might not sound like that big a deal. But what if you get 10 people to sign up? What if you get 100 people to sign up? I don't know who you know. I don't know what you're capable of out there. But what I can tell you is we have a great preparedness membership website filled with awesome stuff at pbnfamily.com. If you're a member, you already know it.

[00:17:49] If you're not, you should check it out. You should peruse it. And you should say, if you're, you know, if you're this kind of hustle person. I know there's people out there like, dude, I'm never, I have no desire to sell your stuff. Like, none. Fine. But if you're listening and you're going, oh, that could be a little side hustle. And $20 per sale is pretty good. $20 per sale is pretty good considering I touch no inventory. I do nothing other than send people to a website and get them to sign up. Boom. They sign up. I receive payment.

[00:18:20] You get 35% of that payment. Hey, you know, look, here's the reason. I had a handful of people, not a ton, but enough to notice, that said, well, there were two decisions made. I had a bunch of people jump up into the lifetime membership rank. I don't want to bill annually anymore. We're tightening our belts. We want to make sure we're not, you know, we're getting rid of all sponsorships, all that kind of stuff, or all subscriptions. Cool. Thank you.

[00:18:50] Welcome to the lifetime side. Then I also had people who dropped out completely. Oh, we got to drop out. We're really tightening the belt. We don't want any of this extra money going out the door. Hey, I completely get it. Right? So to help people tighten their belt, to talk about frugality, those kinds of things, that's good. This membership, this PBN membership, is one of the only things that I could do something like this with.

[00:19:19] I have the ability to price it the way I want to price it, and then I have the ability to give out a commission on the way I want to give out a commission. Whatever. 99% if I wanted to, right? All right. So this is what we're going to do. I want you to reach out to me. I want you to reach out to me. Intrepid commander at proton.me. Intrepid commander at proton.me if you're interested.

[00:19:49] Like I said, there's really no commitment on your end whatsoever. I'll sign you up as an affiliate. You will get a link, and that link will allow you to say, here, sign up for this. I have this membership, or I'm going to get this membership, or I listen to these people all the time. They know what they're talking about. They'll get you prepared. They got a great spreadsheet up front. They got some great documentation to get yourself more prepared, schedules, great podcasts, great video content, all that kind of stuff.

[00:20:22] Join. It's only $60 for the year, right? And then, boom, you get your little cut. And the cool thing is, like I said, they stay with us. Most of our members stay with us for years, four or five years. I've got people who have been with us since we started. You'll get that payment again next year, payment again the year after that. And as you build your little cushion of PBN membership affiliate payments, all of a sudden you have something you can depend on year over year.

[00:20:50] Whoa, I've got 200 extra bucks coming this year for preps because I signed up 10 people. It's my offer to you, okay? I know there's a lot of things out there that our president and the administration is doing right. I still think we have plenty of hard times coming, and this is a way that I can help, one of the few ways that I can help outside of just giving advice like we do here at PBN. All right? Oh, it's such a joy to be on the microphone and not on the camera.

[00:21:21] Sorry, Johnny. Johnny Five's looking at me with those googly eyes. He's like, you going to turn me on today or what? Not today. But, well, I may. I may make a video later, maybe a membership video. But as far as morning podcast goes, you got the day off, my man. All right, PBN family, I appreciate you. Thanks so much for taking the time to listen to the podcasts. Again, visit our great sponsor, LimaTangoSurvival.com. Get the bag. Get the kit.

[00:21:49] Get the thing that you need to be prepared. Don't overthink this thing. You know what I mean? Like these, when you get it, the only reason I'm telling you this is from experience. When you get the bag, you go, oh, my God. Like that's a problem off the plate. It was well worth it. It's like well worth it. Throw this in the wife's back vehicle. Now she's prepared, right? Go over some things with her. Now she's taking care. Throw it in the older child's vehicle. He's driving now.

[00:22:18] And now he's taking care, right? I don't know. For some people, it's the perfect solution. All right. I'll talk to you guys soon, man. Carl B will be up at noon. Don't miss it. It's the Prepper Broadcasting Network, folks. Your path back to stability. Thank you for listening to the Prepper Broadcasting Network, where we promote self-reliance and independence. Tune in tomorrow for another great show, and visit us at PrepperBroadcasting.com.