Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - November 10, 2025


Ep 1265 ｜ Is America Doomed？ A Reality Check After the 2025 Elections ｜ Ron Simmons


Episode Stats

Length

58 minutes

Words per Minute

185.25212

Word Count

10,899

Sentence Count

868

Misogynist Sentences

13

Hate Speech Sentences

8


Summary

After the disappointing election results, what do we make of America post-election? What does that mean for us as a nation? Should we just be pessimistic? Well, my dad, who is always very optimistic but also practical, is here to break all of that and so much more down for you today.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 What do we make of America post-election? Obviously, in New Jersey and Virginia and New York and elsewhere, there were some disappointing outcomes of the races. It doesn't seem like the Democrat Party in the United States has any moral limits. What does that mean for us? Should we just be pessimistic?
00:00:19.360 Well, my dad, who is always very optimistic but also very practical, is here to break all of that and so much more down for you today. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. It's goodranchers.com, code Allie. You'll get a discount when you use my code. That's goodranchers.com, code Allie.
00:00:37.760 Good Ranchers
00:01:07.760 not able to be here today. PBS, if you can believe it, PBS is going to have her on a show in January right around March for Life Day is what we're thinking. So that's going to be really exciting. I know she'll talk more about it coming up, but that's super, super exciting. And PBS, you know, it's pretty rare for them to have a conservative on. So that's going to be an exciting time. But I'll tell you one thing we're excited about today because, you know, I've hosted two or three of these before, but I've never had a guest on.
00:01:36.400 We are very blessed today, though, to have a really good friend of mine. U.S. Congressman Craig Goldman is here today, and he represents the 12th District of Texas, right, Craig?
00:01:47.080 Correct.
00:01:47.740 Well, thank you for being here.
00:01:48.980 Thanks for having me. I'm a huge fan of yours, but I'm a bigger fan of Allie Best.
00:01:52.640 As most people are that watch this and listen to this, for sure, as they should be, and as her mother is.
00:01:58.520 That's exactly right.
00:01:59.240 Totally okay.
00:01:59.780 Yeah, I'm a bigger fan of her mother than you as well.
00:02:02.100 Yeah, that's a good one, too. Well, Craig and I served in the Texas house together. So we have known each other for, I guess, over a decade now.
00:02:09.660 Over 13 years.
00:02:10.680 Yeah, and we actually both got sworn in the same day in 2013, and he sat on the house floor one desk in front of me, and I generally had to vote for him because he was out wandering around talking to other people.
00:02:24.820 But, no, but, Craig, we're really glad to have you. Now, you're a fifth-generation Texan. Is that right?
00:02:29.900 I am. My great-great-great-grandfather moved here in the 1800s from Canada. He actually was a Russian immigrant to Canada, and he led the team of oxen on the trolleys around Montreal.
00:02:42.560 Wow.
00:02:42.920 And then ended up coming to Fort Worth. He answered a call for workers to come build the original T&P Railroad from Fort Worth to El Paso.
00:02:53.280 Yeah.
00:02:53.620 And he led the team of oxen who carried all the materials to lay all the railroad ties and everything.
00:03:00.720 Wow.
00:03:00.740 So what we don't know, and I'm dying to find out, and I don't know if I'll ever figure it out, is how do you answer an ad? Was it an ad? How do you know in Montreal, Canada about the job opportunity in Fort Worth, Texas?
00:03:12.900 Yeah. Wow, that is. And y'all been here ever since, right?
00:03:15.580 Been here ever since, yeah.
00:03:16.700 Oh, that is really good.
00:03:17.880 And the generations to follow, they're all buried. John Peter Smith, everyone may know the hospital, John Peter Smith. Well, that actually was an actual person. And John Peter Smith donated land. It's right across the street from John Peter Smith Hospital. Donated land in the Jewish community of Fort Worth for their first cemetery.
00:03:36.440 Wow.
00:03:36.920 So all my relatives from that great-great-great-grandfather are buried in that original Jewish cemetery in Fort Worth.
00:03:44.760 That is fascinating. Yeah, that's really pretty cool. And your district is part of Tarrant County, which is where Fort Worth is. Is that correct?
00:03:52.940 Right. The western part of Tarrant County and then the northern part of Parker County.
00:03:56.680 Okay. And that's kind of in, for those of you that don't live in Texas, that's kind of in the north central area of Texas. And how many people would you represent?
00:04:03.660 We represent close to 750,000.
00:04:06.060 About 750,000.
00:04:07.440 Yeah, but you tell that to a Texas state senator and that's peanuts.
00:04:10.400 Yeah, that's right.
00:04:11.260 They represent close to a million. And then in the next census will represent over a million people. Imagine that.
00:04:16.960 Wow. That is fascinating. Well, Craig was one of the very effective legislators in Texas, and he was elected to Congress in 2024, right?
00:04:25.320 Last year.
00:04:26.280 Yeah. So how's it going your first couple of years?
00:04:29.620 It's going good. It's going good. You know, it's first about, you know,
00:04:33.420 setting up your office and just like we did 13 years ago as freshmen is figuring everything out, how to pass a bill, how the whole place works.
00:04:42.940 We, of course, got to know how the Texas legislature worked.
00:04:46.600 But, you know, being a freshman up in Congress, you don't know how that works.
00:04:49.940 So a lot of it is the same. That's the good news.
00:04:53.080 So I didn't have to, you know, wear my, I guess, training wheels all that long.
00:04:57.900 So, but it is a learning process. But it's been great.
00:05:01.740 The most interesting thing people ask me all the time, you know, is it just the swamp up there? Is it crazy?
00:05:07.620 We all know five to ten members of Congress because of our phones, right, on social media.
00:05:13.060 But there are hundreds of people who go there every single day, in my opinion, for the right reason, to represent their districts, to fight for America, to fight for the good.
00:05:23.160 And, you know, I'd like to say right now, I mean, we're at a great time in America and not to shut down, but we're in a great time in American history of having control.
00:05:33.000 The Republicans haven't control the House, the Senate and the White House.
00:05:35.740 And like we did this summer and passed on one big, beautiful bill, doing good things for America.
00:05:41.740 Yeah, well, that's outstanding.
00:05:43.100 You know, interesting, when they go up there, they get selected to be on committees.
00:05:49.160 And the Speaker and the House and some of the rules people, they make the decision, the leadership makes the decision.
00:05:55.220 And Craig has been put on the Energy and Commerce Committee.
00:05:59.460 And I did a little research yesterday.
00:06:02.060 Over 60 percent of all of the federal spending goes through that committee.
00:06:06.840 So that's a pretty powerful committee.
00:06:09.100 I'm sure you're one of, you know, how many is on there, 20-something people on there?
00:06:12.500 Oh, no, there's way more than that.
00:06:13.660 It's total Republicans and Democrats.
00:06:15.300 There's over 50 on there.
00:06:16.960 50 on the committee.
00:06:17.940 Yeah, but it's the first time in over 20 years a freshman got put on Energy and Commerce.
00:06:21.660 Well, that's quite the honor.
00:06:23.100 It's a great honor.
00:06:24.100 There's three of us on there.
00:06:26.120 Gabe Evans from Colorado, Julie Fedorchuk from North Dakota, and myself.
00:06:30.420 I, of course, had the background of being the energy chair in the Texas State House.
00:06:33.800 That helped me.
00:06:35.100 But you still have to go and state your case to a lot of members who sit on the steering committee of why you deserve or should sit on that committee.
00:06:42.100 Let me take a pause for our first sponsor, and that is We Heart Nutrition.
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00:06:55.000 I have been taking their supplements every single day for almost two years.
00:06:58.580 I've seen a big difference, not just in how I look and feel like hair, skin, and nails, my immune system, but also in my blood work.
00:07:05.660 My iron is up.
00:07:06.760 All of my levels are looking really good, and I attribute that to We Heart Nutrition.
00:07:11.240 I've been taking prenatals and supplements from other companies for years and years, and always I would hear that I'm a knee maker.
00:07:18.540 I don't have enough vitamin D, or I don't have enough vitamin C.
00:07:21.960 Well, now I go to the doctor, and that's just not the case.
00:07:24.420 I don't know who else to credit that to except for We Heart Nutrition.
00:07:27.580 It's because all of their ingredients come in the most bioavailable form, so their supplements actually work.
00:07:33.040 You're actually absorbing the ingredients in each of them.
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00:07:40.920 They donate a percentage of every sale to pregnancy centers across the country.
00:07:44.740 They've raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for these pregnancy centers.
00:07:48.720 Jacob and Kristen, who own this company, they're amazing.
00:07:51.380 We've had dinner with them.
00:07:52.760 They're just a genuine Christian couple that want to glorify God with making really great products for your body.
00:07:58.580 They've got some new products.
00:08:00.120 They've got an immune supplement.
00:08:02.340 They also have a probiotic.
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00:08:14.740 You're the perfect person, then, to talk about the first subject, and that's the government shutdown.
00:08:22.580 Obviously, even those of us that don't work for the government, it affects all of us.
00:08:27.340 As you know, I've got a son that works for the government.
00:08:29.720 That's the U.S. attorney in the Western District, so it's affected him.
00:08:33.800 It affects a lot of people, and a lot of us, you know, we don't totally understand it.
00:08:39.440 So kind of walk through why was there even a shutdown to start with?
00:08:45.400 Yeah, good question.
00:08:46.560 So let's go back to this summer, like I said, and passing the one big, beautiful bill.
00:08:51.320 That was priority number one, and credit to Speaker Johnson and Leader Thune and President Trump for getting that done.
00:08:58.480 And that was transformative legislation.
00:09:01.440 Normally, there's one or two committees that have input.
00:09:05.120 There were 11 committees, and some of the old-timers told me, you know, this is historic.
00:09:09.660 We've never had 11 committees have input on one bill.
00:09:13.360 Wow.
00:09:13.700 And it strictly was President Trump's agenda, and Speaker Johnson had been going down to Mar-a-Lago and laying this out with President Trump long before either of them got elected.
00:09:24.300 All last year, while Speaker Johnson was traveling around helping to elect Republicans, he was also going to Mar-a-Lago to continue that relationship, and they knew they were going to win.
00:09:35.160 I mean, there was no guarantee.
00:09:36.940 Right.
00:09:37.340 But they had it in their heart.
00:09:39.200 They knew they were going to win.
00:09:40.220 And look, Speaker Johnson is an extremely religious person.
00:09:44.340 He says, there's divine power here.
00:09:45.780 I'm telling you, it's going to happen.
00:09:48.100 It's really, to hear Speaker Johnson tell the story really is special.
00:09:52.460 But so they laid all this groundwork out knowing that they were going to win, and then once they did, we knew from day one, it's all about the one big, beautiful bill.
00:10:01.120 It's all about transforming how government operates, and through our committee, getting rid of the waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid.
00:10:10.560 You may see Democrats saying, oh, they're taking people off Medicaid.
00:10:13.760 No.
00:10:14.500 We took people off who don't deserve to be on Medicaid.
00:10:18.300 Able-bodied Americans who are sitting at home receiving Medicaid that shouldn't.
00:10:22.680 Nope.
00:10:22.840 And so, and then illegals who are receiving Medicaid out in California, that shouldn't.
00:10:28.600 So that's one thing our committee focused on.
00:10:31.960 But having input of 11 committees, the Speaker is saying, look, give us the very best.
00:10:36.460 If we can make cuts, where should we make the cuts?
00:10:39.020 So getting that passed was priority.
00:10:41.620 Now the priority is getting the budget done.
00:10:44.040 And we're just behind.
00:10:45.120 And keep in mind, while the Senate was passing the one big, beautiful bill, look what they have to go through.
00:10:49.860 They have nominations of ambassadors, the President's Cabinet.
00:10:55.500 I mean, hundreds of undersecretaries in all the Cabinets have to be approved by the Senate.
00:10:59.780 So they had to go through the nominations as well as all that.
00:11:03.080 So right after a President gets elected, it's a lot of work, mainly on the Senate.
00:11:07.220 So they're behind putting the budget together.
00:11:09.400 So where we got is the budget was coming due, right, in fall, and we needed to have a new budget.
00:11:16.640 Keep in mind, we're still working on the Biden budget.
00:11:19.220 Right, right.
00:11:19.940 From last year, right.
00:11:20.820 Yeah, okay.
00:11:21.440 And so we had passed all the appropriations, have passed out of the Appropriations Committee, all the different bills.
00:11:28.820 I think there's 12 bills, have made it to the House floor, but the Senate hadn't passed all theirs.
00:11:34.420 So we just need more time.
00:11:36.000 So all we said was, so a continuing resolution, September 19th, gave us more time to put together the budget.
00:11:42.980 So actually, I mean, this may be why the Democrats are fighting it, because we remain on the Biden budget they passed the last two years during this continuing resolution.
00:11:53.540 Normally in the past, also continuing resolutions, you can have add-ons.
00:11:57.260 Whoever's in charge can say, oh, let's add this and this and this.
00:12:02.060 So that's why you hear the Speaker calling, it was a clean resolution.
00:12:05.600 More pork, right?
00:12:06.140 More pork, exactly.
00:12:07.840 And so it was a clean, continuing resolution.
00:12:10.360 The very bill that they passed, we passed in March, the very bill that Chuck Schumer said, we've got to do this.
00:12:16.900 We cannot shut down the government.
00:12:18.460 We've got to pay our troops.
00:12:19.760 We've got to pay our TSA agents, our air traffic controllers, our staffs.
00:12:24.160 That's what they're holding up now?
00:12:25.440 And so when we pass that September 19th, not a peep.
00:12:30.300 Every Democrat voted against it, by the way, for no reason whatsoever, other than they disliked it.
00:12:35.780 Yeah, because they'd already voted for it at one time, right?
00:12:37.280 Correct.
00:12:37.620 And that's the ironic, ridiculous thing.
00:12:39.580 I want people to make sure you understand that, is that these Democrats had already voted for the exact same spending bill.
00:12:46.020 Exactly.
00:12:46.760 And now they've all voted against it.
00:12:48.000 If it wasn't a clean one, like I said, they had every right to—
00:12:51.660 So we're not doing that.
00:12:52.700 Right.
00:12:52.940 Right.
00:12:53.260 Exactly.
00:12:54.180 But it was clean, and all it said was, let's continue with the discussions of putting together the budget.
00:13:00.240 So the argument has been, well, we want to have these enhanced Obamacare subsidies that we put together in COVID.
00:13:07.980 Right.
00:13:08.380 Now, was that an argument y'all had on the floor?
00:13:10.800 They didn't even hear that, Ron.
00:13:12.360 They didn't even hear that argument from the Democrats when we took the vote September 19th.
00:13:16.680 Totally manufactured by Chuck Schumer and the Democrats.
00:13:19.140 So Chuck Schumer took this vote back in March, okay?
00:13:23.440 And they raised, you know, he got a lot of negative feedback over it.
00:13:28.380 And so there's no secret that AOC is looking at primarying him in a couple years.
00:13:35.340 And so apparently he didn't want to hear from him again.
00:13:38.780 And so he didn't want that negative feedback.
00:13:41.180 And so he forced his caucus, the Democrats in the Senate, to vote against it.
00:13:47.100 And this is where we are.
00:13:48.000 And they're going to take the 15th vote today, 15 votes on passing a clean, continuing resolution,
00:13:54.160 just to keep the government open so we can continue to negotiate putting together the budget for this year.
00:14:00.560 Now, they manufactured this, oh, but the Obama tax credits expire in December.
00:14:06.080 And keep in mind, we took this vote in September.
00:14:08.680 Yeah.
00:14:08.800 So December from September is a lifetime in Congress.
00:14:13.060 Yeah.
00:14:13.460 So, and keep in mind, we're talking about Obama tax credits, Obamacare tax credits.
00:14:18.640 So those go through our committee.
00:14:20.740 All those health bills go through energy and commerce.
00:14:23.020 We didn't have time to even discuss it before they shut down the government.
00:14:27.740 So reopen the government, have it go through our committee, have all the members discuss it.
00:14:32.040 Exactly.
00:14:32.560 And it's not even the original credits.
00:14:35.400 They want the enhanced credits.
00:14:36.900 That's so.
00:14:37.840 Which is, I want to tell people, it's up to 400% of the poverty level, which for a family of four,
00:14:44.040 it's for like $160,000 you could make and still get a credit.
00:14:47.960 It's just, it's just crazy.
00:14:49.780 A fellow member put it perfectly the other day.
00:14:51.940 Like, okay, we have Obamacare, right?
00:14:54.200 Which not one Republican voted for.
00:14:56.340 So we have Obamacare thrust upon us.
00:14:58.720 It's not working.
00:14:59.640 It was going to save us a bunch of money, Craig.
00:15:01.160 What happened?
00:15:01.860 It was going to save Americans a bunch of money.
00:15:04.300 It's not working.
00:15:04.800 So what they do five years ago, Democrats, again, not Republican, voted for tax credits
00:15:10.000 on Obamacare.
00:15:11.020 Yeah.
00:15:11.120 The last five years.
00:15:12.200 Right.
00:15:12.860 That's all we'll need.
00:15:13.760 They could have made them, never, they could have made them permanent.
00:15:16.960 They were in charge.
00:15:17.860 But even Democrats said, hold on, let's just make it for five years.
00:15:21.000 Right.
00:15:21.420 So now their five years is up.
00:15:23.420 And now they want to extend them some, not even all Democrats want to extend them.
00:15:27.420 And what does that tell you if they need to extend these?
00:15:29.800 It's not working.
00:15:30.480 They're admitting it's not working.
00:15:31.860 It is not working.
00:15:32.720 So tell me what's going on now.
00:15:34.000 We're going to be, when this comes out, we'll be at day 43 or 44 of the shutdown.
00:15:39.900 So tell us what's going on.
00:15:41.160 Give us a little bit of behind the scenes info.
00:15:43.620 Yeah, behind the scenes.
00:15:44.760 Well, I just came, Speaker Johnson was nice enough to have me at one of his press conferences.
00:15:48.760 He's been holding daily press conferences, repeating the same line.
00:15:53.760 We are willing to negotiate.
00:15:56.120 We're willing to talk to the Democrats.
00:15:58.800 We're willing to do all that once government is reopened.
00:16:02.500 So the Republicans in the House voted to keep the government open.
00:16:06.300 The Republicans in the Senate have continued now 15 times to either reopen, keep the government open or reopen it.
00:16:14.280 And the Democrats consistently vote against it because I say they want to talk about extending these Obama tax credits.
00:16:21.320 It's manufactured.
00:16:23.000 It doesn't make any sense.
00:16:24.440 Right.
00:16:24.660 I appreciate Speaker Johnson holding the line.
00:16:27.440 I think a super majority of Republicans in the House agree with him that, look, reopen the government.
00:16:36.380 We have nothing to negotiate.
00:16:37.880 Speaker Johnson has nothing to negotiate.
00:16:39.340 Yeah.
00:16:40.080 Because we voted to keep the government open.
00:16:42.080 Right.
00:16:42.500 We voted to keep the government open.
00:16:44.220 And we hold the majority.
00:16:46.100 It's the Senate that needs 60 votes.
00:16:48.020 That's what some people don't understand.
00:16:49.900 We have the majority rule in the House.
00:16:51.580 They need 60 votes in the Senate.
00:16:53.000 So they do need five or six Democrats to come across.
00:16:56.100 Are you hearing anything about whether or not they'll get rid of the 60 vote on this issue, this particular issue?
00:17:01.920 So I know President Trump asked him to look at that and has talked about being in favor of that.
00:17:07.020 It just would never pass the Senate.
00:17:08.880 The challenge is, is that gun kicks as hard as it shoots.
00:17:12.420 It's a gray line.
00:17:13.780 Because it could come back around.
00:17:15.260 And we stopped a bunch of bad stuff in the past from Obama and from Biden.
00:17:19.400 As some people have said, that if the Democrats, and when the Democrats, I mean, look at it, history does repeat itself.
00:17:25.940 History has a long arc.
00:17:27.040 That's exactly right.
00:17:27.920 So that one day the Democrats will take control of the Senate again, hopefully not in our lifetime.
00:17:32.080 Right.
00:17:32.420 But one day they will.
00:17:34.120 And then what could happen?
00:17:35.740 A lot of bad things.
00:17:37.180 If you take away that 60 vote threshold.
00:17:38.820 So do you think that, and I'm sure there's talks going on behind the scenes, or always seems to be, do you think we're going to, I mean, before Thanksgiving, do you see anything happening?
00:17:49.620 Look, like I said, I appreciate Speaker Johnson so much because he's holding the line.
00:17:54.040 And again, we have weekly conference calls and almost everybody in our conference is in agreement that we voted to keep the government open.
00:18:02.060 There's nothing for us to negotiate.
00:18:03.300 So everything's happening over the Senate.
00:18:05.140 You know, the good news for us is we're in our districts.
00:18:09.420 We are, I'm able to, you know, rather than a normal week where I'm in D.C., I've been in my district.
00:18:15.000 I've been able to meet constituents.
00:18:16.400 I've been able to go to club meetings.
00:18:17.900 I've been able to go to lunches and breakfasts and dinners that normally I wouldn't be able to make.
00:18:22.220 So we've made the most of it by being able to be in the district and travel around and meet with constituents.
00:18:27.200 Yeah.
00:18:28.140 And let me, let me, one of the things that some people get confused on too is that the Constitution requires that the Senate and the House get paid.
00:18:39.680 That's not a statute like a law.
00:18:41.420 It's in the Constitution.
00:18:42.580 However, some senators and some congressmen have said, hey, during this time, just hold my, don't pay me during this time.
00:18:50.580 Is that true?
00:18:51.040 I submitted a letter.
00:18:51.800 I submitted a letter, so I didn't get paid on the first like normally.
00:18:54.900 So, yeah, I think a lot of members of Congress have asked and said it.
00:18:58.120 And I think that's the right thing to do during this time because other people don't even have a choice of that, right?
00:19:02.580 No, supposedly legislation already written when we get back to remove our salaries.
00:19:07.400 For that to be a vote when we get back, I certainly would vote for it, sure.
00:19:11.520 When others aren't getting paid, you know, we certainly shouldn't get paid.
00:19:14.280 Yeah.
00:19:14.560 And, well, most of these people, though, when they come back, they'll get their back pay.
00:19:18.140 Everyone, everyone.
00:19:18.900 Yeah, when we reopen the government, everyone will get their back pay.
00:19:21.980 And they'll kind of get that all at one time, probably.
00:19:23.840 They'll get caught up, and then they'll get back on the regular schedule.
00:19:27.160 That's exactly right.
00:19:27.560 Yeah.
00:19:27.880 Well, thank you for coming in and being a part of this.
00:19:31.060 You know, Craig is a very close friend of mine, and he's doing a great job in D.C.
00:19:35.820 And, Craig, tell people if they want to kind of follow what you're doing in your office,
00:19:39.740 how can they best kind of keep up with you and, you know, maybe send you questions?
00:19:44.400 Yeah, right.
00:19:44.660 Well, you can sign up for my newsletter.
00:19:45.920 You can go to my website, my government website, craiggoldman.gov, and go, you know, I have
00:19:52.320 a newsletter we send out.
00:19:54.040 We don't send it out daily or monthly, just as there's news.
00:19:57.060 I don't flood people's inboxes, because I personally don't like that when someone just
00:20:01.480 floods my inbox just because you can.
00:20:04.380 So when there's news, and, you know, that's the best way to do it.
00:20:07.340 All right.
00:20:07.640 Well, thanks for being here.
00:20:08.420 Thanks for having me.
00:20:08.980 I really appreciate it.
00:20:09.300 I really appreciate it.
00:20:09.940 Take care.
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00:21:24.220 Really appreciated Congressman Goldman being on, and I hope you enjoyed that as well.
00:21:33.520 Let's move on from the government shutdown into the recent elections.
00:21:37.480 And I know that concerned a lot of people on the conservative side.
00:21:42.200 And we're going to go through that.
00:21:43.960 And then I'm going to tell you why it's going to be okay.
00:21:46.360 All right.
00:21:46.620 I just want to make sure everybody understands it's going to be okay.
00:21:48.820 Uh, but it was interesting that in the Virginia governor race, the, uh, the, the Democrat won
00:21:55.360 by 10 points in the New Jersey race, won by 13 points.
00:21:59.280 And in New York city, uh, Mandani got 50% out of three, three major candidates that were
00:22:07.300 on the ballot.
00:22:08.720 Uh, so let's go one by one on these and kind of talk about them.
00:22:11.660 First of all, Virginia is a blue state.
00:22:13.240 I know that, uh, if you were like me on election night, 2024, uh, when we saw the first Virginia
00:22:19.740 results come in, we thought, okay, we've got a chance to win that state back.
00:22:23.760 And it ended up not being in the Republican category, but Trump did get within six percentage
00:22:30.660 points.
00:22:31.140 And that's probably the closest that anybody's gotten since, I don't know, President Bush
00:22:35.720 probably got closer to that may have even won it.
00:22:38.200 I don't remember.
00:22:38.900 I should have looked, looked at, looked that up, but interesting.
00:22:42.800 Interesting that the reason behind the Virginia change and governor Yonkin did a good job.
00:22:49.820 And when some Sears did a good job, okay.
00:22:51.920 They both did a good job, but there's hundreds of thousands of federal employees that live
00:22:57.300 in Virginia and most federal employees are liberal.
00:23:02.200 That's what's happened over the years.
00:23:03.780 The, you know, the Democrats, when they've been in power have glutted the federal government
00:23:08.420 with people that were loyal to them.
00:23:10.100 And that, you know, that's what happened.
00:23:12.860 They, it was hard to overcome all those people that live in Virginia, right around DC.
00:23:18.380 And I think when some Sears did a good job, as she said, she's not going anywhere, but
00:23:23.980 let me tell you what that shows.
00:23:25.280 Okay.
00:23:25.560 And this is a very, very important point.
00:23:28.280 We have gone through redistricting.
00:23:31.420 You've heard, you know, this prop 50 in California pass, so they're going to be able to change
00:23:35.740 some of their districts, probably make it more blue.
00:23:37.780 Texas did some redistricting and what have you.
00:23:40.220 And the complaints out of the minority community and primarily been the black community, although
00:23:48.540 Hispanics sometimes have made this argument as well, is that, look, we need to be able
00:23:53.820 to elect someone to elected office that looks like us.
00:23:57.880 And therefore, if, if you don't, if you try to separate, you know, to, um, I guess, you
00:24:06.080 know, separate us so that we don't have very many of the minority in a particular district,
00:24:10.860 we can't, we can't elect somebody that looks like us.
00:24:13.920 I'll tell you what, that is 100% hogwash.
00:24:18.820 Virginia has a very high population of minority voters, a high population of black voters.
00:24:26.420 They had the absolute opportunity to elect a black woman, a black woman to be their governor.
00:24:36.520 Not only would it have been the first, uh, female governor in history for Virginia, it
00:24:43.880 would have been the first black female governor.
00:24:47.360 And so don't come tell me that we want to elect someone that looks like us.
00:24:52.640 That is hogwash.
00:24:53.440 You want to elect someone, listen to me, liberals.
00:24:56.720 You want to elect someone that believes in the same policies you believe in.
00:25:00.120 And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
00:25:02.100 Just don't lie about it because that's what you've been doing.
00:25:05.640 And don't try to make that case in court that we need to elect someone that looks like us.
00:25:09.720 You want to elect someone that votes like you.
00:25:12.560 And Winsome Sears was not going to do that because she understands the American dream.
00:25:16.540 She came here as an immigrant out of Jamaica with her dad and nothing.
00:25:23.100 Their family didn't have anything.
00:25:24.720 She worked her way up and she lived the American dream.
00:25:28.840 What more could, what more could someone that comes from maybe a disadvantaged community want
00:25:34.260 than to have that representing them?
00:25:36.100 But no, because she didn't believe in killing babies right up to the ninth month,
00:25:41.380 because she didn't believe in giving away free stuff to everybody,
00:25:44.640 you said that she's not good enough for you.
00:25:47.080 You wanted to vote for this white lady, which is fine to do that.
00:25:51.340 I don't care.
00:25:52.480 All right.
00:25:53.020 But don't say it.
00:25:54.460 Don't tell me that you want somebody that looks like you.
00:25:57.600 You want somebody that votes like you.
00:26:00.420 And that's all there is to it.
00:26:01.780 And that's what happened in Virginia.
00:26:03.020 That's the best case I could ever make for that.
00:26:05.880 I don't want to ever hear that of any of my friends on the other side again,
00:26:10.860 that, oh, you're discriminating.
00:26:12.260 No, we're not discriminating against you at all.
00:26:14.700 Not at all.
00:26:16.000 But we are discriminating against because of your policies,
00:26:18.240 but not because of, you know, your color of your skin or your ethnicity or anything like that.
00:26:23.400 It's because your policies stink and they're bad for America.
00:26:26.840 And I'm hoping that more and more people will understand that.
00:26:30.100 Now, now that I've gotten off that tirade,
00:26:31.940 it is interesting that 48% of the people that voted in Virginia said the economy was their number one issue.
00:26:43.600 And of those people that said economy was their number one issue,
00:26:48.340 62% of those voted for the Democrat candidate.
00:26:53.120 And so, and it probably has a lot to do with the government shutdown.
00:26:58.000 A lot of those people haven't been getting paid the last few weeks.
00:27:01.360 And that's why this was orchestrated by Chuck Schumer.
00:27:04.580 And, and again, the last episode that I recorded here,
00:27:07.960 we showed the Congresswoman that was kind of saying the quiet part out loud that,
00:27:12.720 hey, the, the families that essentially is paraphrasing,
00:27:16.340 but the family's suffering gives us leverage.
00:27:18.620 And they absolutely use that leverage to gain the votes.
00:27:24.360 So anyway, let's move on to New Jersey, New Jersey, 13 points different.
00:27:28.920 Again, Trump got within six points of that in 2024.
00:27:31.840 That's why we had so much hope and we had a good candidate.
00:27:35.860 But the number one issue, this is so crazy.
00:27:39.220 The number one issue that voters said was the cost of electricity in New Jersey,
00:27:46.180 which is some of the highest costs in the country.
00:27:48.360 Now, if that was their number one issue and New Jersey has been run by governors,
00:27:54.940 I mean, by Democrats, governors and Democrat legislature for the last 30 years,
00:27:59.980 if that was their number one issue,
00:28:02.040 why did they elect someone that is going to continue the same thing?
00:28:05.720 I don't get that.
00:28:06.720 But of the people that said that, uh, 65%, 60% of them, you know,
00:28:13.980 or 60 something percent of them voted for the Democrat candidate.
00:28:17.580 So it's just, it's, it's crazy.
00:28:19.960 I don't understand it.
00:28:21.140 So what it tells you,
00:28:22.420 what it really tells you is that identity politics is still at play.
00:28:29.420 And the machine, the Democrat machine in New Jersey is very strong.
00:28:34.280 I get that.
00:28:35.280 No question about it.
00:28:36.720 And so it, that is what happened.
00:28:39.500 And again, they offer free stuff to people and people like free stuff.
00:28:43.960 And that's one of the problems in our society is everybody wants something for nothing.
00:28:48.240 So that's what happened in New Jersey.
00:28:50.500 Uh, you know, we'll see how it goes.
00:28:52.540 I was, I was disappointed in that.
00:28:54.120 I wasn't so much surprised that we lost.
00:28:56.220 I was disappointed in the margin that we lost by, but I'm telling you,
00:29:00.480 there's a silver lining in this.
00:29:01.820 And if you'll stay with me, I'm going to tell you about it.
00:29:03.460 Okay.
00:29:03.720 Don't, don't turn off that dial because there's a silver lining in all this.
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00:30:19.860 Now let's get to New York city, New York city.
00:30:28.460 Here's what you have to take out of that.
00:30:30.360 Yes.
00:30:31.320 Uh, man, Donnie, uh, that's how you say his name.
00:30:34.240 I think so.
00:30:34.720 Man, Donnie.
00:30:35.300 Yeah.
00:30:35.820 Man, Donnie ended up with 50% of the vote, but you know what that also means?
00:30:41.160 50% of the people voted against him.
00:30:44.140 So half the people voted against him.
00:30:48.380 He got less of majority than the people in Virginia, New Jersey got the governor's got.
00:30:52.760 And so half the people said, you're not the person.
00:30:55.460 In fact, 41% of the people went for an independent candidate and former governor Cuomo.
00:31:02.040 Now I didn't like him either, because if you remember when the New York state assembly passed a bill several years ago that allowed abortions right up to the time of birth, you know, the governor touted that.
00:31:17.100 In fact, they lit up New York city with everything pink, you know, celebrating the killing of babies.
00:31:23.240 And so I wasn't a governor Cuomo fan at all.
00:31:25.720 In fact, I, I, it was such a, the choices in that weren't good.
00:31:29.740 There was a Republican candidate in there, but he never had a chance.
00:31:33.060 Uh, I guess Cuomo would have been the lesser of two evils, but I don't think that's going to work out to our advantage.
00:31:39.580 It would have as much as Mandani is.
00:31:42.400 I just, I'll bet you this is the case.
00:31:45.340 Stay tuned.
00:31:46.320 Now here's something to be interested in.
00:31:49.440 The people that were born in New York, people that were born in New York city, basically lived there all their life.
00:31:54.520 55% of them voted for Cuomo, but 40% of the electric electorate under age 45, that's that 40% of the entire electorate is under age 45 and 65% of them voted for Mandani.
00:32:11.560 That is, I mean, that's kind of the, that's what happened right there.
00:32:15.500 And, um, I think that New York is going to be in for a rude awakening.
00:32:20.260 I think president Trump thinks so too.
00:32:21.960 Let's listen to what president Trump had to say about it.
00:32:24.940 You know, I'm so torn because I would like to see the new mayor do well because I love New York.
00:32:31.180 I really love New York.
00:32:32.300 When I left New York for Washington, New York was doing really well, but there were some bad signs.
00:32:39.060 The bad sign was a guy named de Blasio.
00:32:41.660 So the signs of de Blasio, that was the beginning and it was bad.
00:32:46.000 Uh, this one, we're going to look for a thousand years.
00:32:49.400 Communism has not worked to just communism or the concept of communism has not worked.
00:32:55.460 Uh, I tend to doubt it's going to work this time.
00:32:57.840 Did you see his victory speech?
00:32:59.080 No, it's literally never worked.
00:33:00.340 Yeah.
00:33:00.540 I thought it was a very angry speech, certainly angry toward me.
00:33:04.160 And I think he should be very nice to me.
00:33:05.600 You know, I'm the one that sort of has to approve a lot of things coming to him.
00:33:08.540 So he's off to a bad start.
00:33:11.520 I'd forgotten about de Blasio.
00:33:13.380 Man, what a disaster he was.
00:33:15.040 Thank goodness he was out of my memory.
00:33:17.160 Uh, but that's true.
00:33:18.700 Communism doesn't work.
00:33:20.120 Socialism hasn't worked.
00:33:21.220 I mean, do we not need to look just back at Russia?
00:33:23.960 The whole thing fell apart.
00:33:25.580 I mean, come on parents.
00:33:26.700 If you're not telling your kids about that, you need to educate them about that.
00:33:29.960 Right?
00:33:30.200 They don't, they don't, they may not remember what happened, uh, during that time and how
00:33:35.700 it fell apart.
00:33:36.520 Make sure you're teaching your kids history, real history.
00:33:39.380 Now, let me tell you why I think there's a silver lining in all of this.
00:33:43.060 All right.
00:33:43.760 Because here's what happened is we elected or those places, Virginia, New Jersey, some
00:33:49.260 other places, New York city, and some others elected probably the furthest left candidates
00:33:54.660 they could have elected.
00:33:56.280 Excuse me.
00:33:57.000 And that means that what in their mind, they're thinking they have a mandate to govern as far
00:34:04.320 left as possible.
00:34:05.340 So you're going to see even more woke policies being put into place or trying to be put into
00:34:10.520 place.
00:34:11.000 You're going to see an upping of the rhetoric on the trans on all of those types of things.
00:34:17.200 And in my opinion, that is going to help us in 2026 because it's just going to more and
00:34:25.080 more expose the radicalness that's taken over the Democrat party.
00:34:29.960 And I guarantee you the people that are most worried today are moderate Democrats.
00:34:35.480 And there's a few out there left.
00:34:37.420 Okay.
00:34:37.960 There's, there's still some out there.
00:34:39.320 There's not many, but there's a few out there.
00:34:41.600 And so I believe that assuming that the economy does well, we get past all this tariff stuff
00:34:50.040 that what, what these elections will do for us is it will help people realize just how
00:34:56.580 crazy some of these policies are that these new elected officials are going to put in.
00:35:01.060 And what that also should do is it should tell people like you and me, the grassroots that
00:35:08.500 we need to be paying attention, that we don't need to relax.
00:35:12.300 We have to make sure it's time for us to gear up again, folks.
00:35:15.640 Okay.
00:35:15.900 We're coming up.
00:35:16.760 We're almost at the end of this year.
00:35:18.360 I want you to enjoy your holidays and enjoy time with your family and what have you.
00:35:23.560 But when we turn that calendar, we have got to get really engaged in the political process
00:35:30.360 of getting the people that we believe have the right policies elected.
00:35:34.980 We got to get them through some primaries first, and then we got to make sure next November
00:35:39.080 that we get them through the elections because we need to keep the house and the Senate.
00:35:44.120 There's no question about that.
00:35:45.460 And we need to do that at the state levels as well, not just at the federal level.
00:35:50.760 So we got to get back up and get to work.
00:35:53.300 And the other thing that we need to do is we need to stop our infighting.
00:35:57.120 Okay.
00:35:57.500 It just drives me crazy.
00:36:00.620 I mean, the Democrats are doing it.
00:36:02.000 I know it's just driving some of them crazy, but we do it on the Republican side too.
00:36:05.900 Why can't we be like Ronald Reagan and say, look, if you're 80% with me, you are with me.
00:36:13.000 And if we need to negotiate the other 20%, we'll do that.
00:36:16.820 But we have such a purity test.
00:36:19.100 If you're not 100% with me, then you must be some crazy liberal.
00:36:23.140 Or if you're not 100% with me, you must be some, you know, crazy, you know, in the far, far right.
00:36:29.320 So let's make, let's quit our infighting.
00:36:32.540 That's happened so much.
00:36:33.660 It happens here in Texas all the time is that when you have a party that's in the majority,
00:36:38.620 they feel like they don't have to fight the opposition party anymore.
00:36:42.120 So they just look to fight on the internal side.
00:36:44.600 And that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
00:36:47.760 Cause it ends up making the majority party become the minority party.
00:36:53.660 And we don't want that to happen.
00:36:55.500 So let's focus on what we agree on.
00:36:58.800 All right.
00:36:59.100 We can discuss what we don't agree on and civilly debate it, but let's focus on what we agree on.
00:37:05.220 And when it comes to election time, let's put our disagreements behind us and get behind the candidate that our primary voters have chosen and get them elected.
00:37:13.900 That's very, very important.
00:37:15.340 I also would say, and Congressman Goldman earlier in the, uh, uh, our session today talked about it and that is we need to expose the fallacy of Obamacare.
00:37:30.060 You remember president Obama and all the Democrats saying how this was going to save healthcare costs is going to keep the cost, you know, the rising cost of healthcare down.
00:37:39.360 That has been one of the biggest lies ever portrayed, uh, by our government.
00:37:43.320 But costs have gone straight up.
00:37:45.760 And if you buy your own healthcare, like I've had to do for our family, since we're not part of a big company, it has gone straight through the roof.
00:37:52.700 And the reason that the Democrats want these enhanced subsidies to continue is because they know that they're going to get a huge backlash for selling this bill of goods to the American people.
00:38:03.840 It has not saved us money.
00:38:06.340 Now we can, we can go in there and fix the system.
00:38:09.880 The Republicans can, but it's going to require, you know, a whole lot less government control of the system because it just does not work.
00:38:19.160 And at the end of the day, it also brings down the quality of care.
00:38:23.580 The more government controls it.
00:38:25.280 And we've experienced that in our families.
00:38:28.260 You've probably had that in your families where, where people have been on the government part of the healthcare and it's just, you know, just not as good.
00:38:35.320 A lot of doctors aren't taking Medicaid anymore.
00:38:37.860 Okay.
00:38:38.300 Because of the reimbursement rates and things like that.
00:38:40.580 So the Republicans need to expose the fallacy of Obamacare.
00:38:45.480 And then the other thing we really need to do, and I call on President Trump to do this, is we got to get past the tariff issues.
00:38:51.360 All right.
00:38:52.240 I personally understand why we're doing it.
00:38:54.700 And I think reciprocal tariffs make a lot of sense.
00:38:57.060 If they're going to do it to us, then their goods need to be tariffed the same way.
00:39:00.960 But we need to get past that and get settled.
00:39:03.080 And wherever we're going to end up, let's get settled on that.
00:39:05.280 I know the Supreme Court's talking about what powers the president has on that.
00:39:09.400 I'm not exactly sure how that's going to come out.
00:39:11.460 There's some belief that there's skepticism by the Supreme Court on that, but I'm not sure that's the case.
00:39:17.100 When I read the Constitution and the legislation that's put that in the past, it gives the president pretty broad powers, but we'll see what the Supreme Court says.
00:39:28.420 But I want you to know that it's really been the first year or first, I guess, 11 months of President Trump's presidency has been pretty darn good.
00:39:38.180 And I know it seems like it's been longer than that, but it's been pretty good just during the first year.
00:39:43.940 And we just celebrated a year of his election last week.
00:39:48.480 So listen to what President Trump has to say about pretty much his first year in office.
00:39:53.520 Really hard to believe, but just think of it.
00:39:56.080 One year ago, we were still in the middle of a presidential campaign.
00:40:00.600 Can you believe that?
00:40:01.460 It seems like 10 years have passed since that time, since we've done so much.
00:40:06.560 We have really done a lot.
00:40:08.380 It's frankly a very different world.
00:40:10.640 America is back and America is respected, perhaps like never before.
00:40:14.960 Our economy is roaring.
00:40:16.180 Our border is secure and our country is poised for greatness.
00:40:20.060 We are doing better than anyone ever thought possible.
00:40:23.140 And no president has ever come even close to doing what we've done in nine months.
00:40:28.320 Thank you very much.
00:40:29.380 That is such a true statement.
00:40:32.700 I was talking to my son the other day about this, is that like him or not, President Trump
00:40:39.900 will be one of the most consequential presidents in history so far.
00:40:44.400 Now, again, I didn't say you may say one of the worst.
00:40:48.400 Other people may say some of the best.
00:40:50.120 Let's put that to the side.
00:40:51.620 It will be consequential because this man is taking the presidency like nobody else before him.
00:40:58.540 And, of course, being a conservative and, you know, believe in some of the things that I believe, I'm liking most of what he does.
00:41:08.140 But even if you don't like him, you have to admit it's been pretty consequential and probably changed the presidency forever.
00:41:13.360 We'll see in the next one.
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00:42:09.280 That's adelnaturalcosmetics.com, code Allie.
00:42:16.580 Now let's go to the fun part.
00:42:18.540 I love doing this, and these are questions that come in from you, the audience, that you respond to a request by Allie on Instagram.
00:42:28.820 And I don't have very many that I'm going to be able to go over today.
00:42:31.720 But, again, you can email me those at ron at ronsimmons.com.
00:42:36.240 And, again, if I haven't responded to your email yet, please email me again because it just got lost in the shuffle a little bit, and I apologize for that.
00:42:44.800 All right.
00:42:45.100 The first question is, my husband refuses to advance his career to provide because it's not his passion.
00:42:53.600 So I think what I'm hearing you is whatever work he's doing is not his passion, right?
00:42:59.400 I think that's what you're saying.
00:43:01.880 And if that's the case, I say to that that your passion above your work should be providing for your family.
00:43:12.320 I talk about this in my book, Life Lessons from the Little Red Wagon, in that I had a very good career in a wealth management company.
00:43:20.260 I enjoyed that.
00:43:21.300 But that wasn't a passion for me.
00:43:23.640 I didn't grow up thinking, man, I can't wait to grow up and get out of college and be a wealth manager.
00:43:28.520 I just – that wasn't an issue for me.
00:43:30.800 But what I did have a passion about is making sure that I lifted my family out of financial mediocrity.
00:43:38.040 That was really important to me.
00:43:40.080 And, therefore, the means that I got there was less important than the ultimate goal.
00:43:47.040 And I would say to you, lady, I feel sorry for you in a way, but I think that you and your husband have to sit down and have some serious, straightforward talks.
00:43:59.760 I get it.
00:44:00.400 I want him to have a – it would be great.
00:44:02.680 If everybody could be in a situation like Allie Beth where she actually doing what she does is her passion and the fact that she can make a living doing that is really a bonus on top of that.
00:44:15.920 She would be doing it anyway in some form or fashion because communicating is her thing.
00:44:21.920 But most of us don't get to do that.
00:44:23.720 Most of us, you know, end up doing a job that we're qualified to do and are good at, but we may not have a deep-set passion for that.
00:44:33.200 What I would advise you to do and your husband is sit down and have a talk about that.
00:44:37.760 And so what's the most important thing here?
00:44:40.420 And hopefully the most important thing is providing for your family.
00:44:44.280 And if that's the most important thing, then find the career that allows you to do that the best.
00:44:49.400 And if you've got a passion outside of that, find a way to feed that passion outside of what you're doing to provide for your family.
00:45:00.160 All right?
00:45:00.580 Don't make your family suffer because your passion doesn't pay you enough money.
00:45:06.280 That definitely shouldn't do that.
00:45:08.300 Second thing is – and I love this one.
00:45:11.420 This says, we own our own home.
00:45:13.240 We're 38 and 42 years old.
00:45:14.940 We don't have a mortgage on the house, and we don't have any debt, which that is fantastic.
00:45:18.840 I mean, you're one of the one-hundredth of one percent of the people in the country.
00:45:24.200 So first of all, congratulations.
00:45:25.780 Great job.
00:45:27.020 And then your question is that you have about $160,000 in the bank.
00:45:30.380 What do you do with that?
00:45:31.540 Well, again, in general is all I can tell you because I don't have all the fine information that I would need to make a good recommendation on that.
00:45:40.920 And I'm not going to give you investment-specific advice.
00:45:43.680 But generally what I tell people is you need to make sure that you keep 90 days' worth of your living expenses in a money market-type account that you can get to immediately.
00:45:53.200 The other money, if you don't need to use it within the next year or two, then you want to invest that in a longer-term strategy.
00:46:00.260 I think the best strategy to do that in is a broad-based U.S. equity, either mutual fund or exchange-traded fund called an ETF, like an S&P 500 ETF.
00:46:13.200 I think that gives you the broad base.
00:46:15.480 And over the long run, over pretty much any 10-year period since 1929 when they started keeping these records, that has been the best return that you could get would be that type of diversification.
00:46:26.940 So I would do something like that.
00:46:28.500 I wouldn't get into – if you've got something that you're really interested in, like maybe you like to – you want to buy a rent house or something like that, okay, you can do that, all right?
00:46:39.860 But that really takes a lot of your time and effort as well.
00:46:43.500 Investing in an S&P 500 index fund doesn't require much of your time.
00:46:48.300 You just let that sit and ride that out.
00:46:51.240 That's what I would do if it was me.
00:46:53.320 The next question is, I've lived with my parents.
00:46:55.840 I'm 23 years old, live in Texas.
00:46:58.300 Thank goodness.
00:46:59.620 I'm a nurse, and I'm saving for a house.
00:47:03.040 Well, first of all, thanks to your parents for allowing you to do that.
00:47:05.720 Hopefully, you're not having to pay them much rent, although I assume that you're helping them a little bit for groceries and things like that.
00:47:12.340 So you should be able to save most of your money.
00:47:14.980 First of all, don't go spend it on a huge expensive car payment, all right?
00:47:19.360 So, yeah, you should be able to save 50% of your take-home pay, set that aside for your mortgage.
00:47:24.460 I would put that in a money market account.
00:47:26.400 Don't put that in something that takes on any risk because you've got a specific thing you're saving for in probably a specific period of time.
00:47:33.220 That's what I would do if I was you.
00:47:35.620 And then how do we steward retirement culture well?
00:47:38.140 That's a really good question.
00:47:39.560 And, you know, I think what they're asking is, what does retirement really look like?
00:47:45.000 And a lot of you listening to this are way away from that, but some of you aren't.
00:47:48.120 We run into a lot of Allie's listeners that are closer to my age and what have you.
00:47:52.800 And I think what you have to do is you have to realize is that there's nothing biblical about retirement.
00:48:01.620 Now, I think there is something very good about you feeding back into your community and into your family.
00:48:08.200 And being in a position where you don't have to go to work 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week allows you to do that.
00:48:14.800 But what I would say is that you need to make sure that you're doing something that still has significance.
00:48:23.020 And that's different from being successful.
00:48:25.200 You can be successful financially, but do you have significance?
00:48:29.620 And significance is where you're feeding back into someone else so that they can be something greater or do something greater than what they would have done without you being a part of that.
00:48:42.400 Whether that's, you know, and for Lisa and I, it's the simple things.
00:48:45.820 Like when Allie's out speaking and her husband goes with her, maybe it's Lisa and I helping with the kids.
00:48:51.940 Or like last night, Allie had a talk and her husband couldn't go, so I went with her.
00:48:57.000 Or maybe it's Lisa's down helping with our oldest son's kids this week because he and his wife had to go to D.C. for some meetings that he had.
00:49:06.880 But it's whatever that is that puts you adding significance to others.
00:49:13.320 But don't be just where, okay, I'm retired now.
00:49:16.320 I don't do anything.
00:49:17.520 Do not get into that.
00:49:18.520 And you can't play golf every day.
00:49:19.760 And I love golf.
00:49:20.740 In fact, when I leave here today, I'm going to play golf with my son-in-law, which is going to be great fun.
00:49:24.760 But I have to have other things that are significant.
00:49:27.700 And if you wait until you retire to think about those things, it's hard to catch up.
00:49:33.840 You need to be planning those things while you're still working.
00:49:36.480 What do I want to be engaged in that I will think is significant and will add value to the people that I'm around?
00:49:43.580 That's what I would say on that one.
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00:50:45.940 What can I do now to have a solid relationship with my future adult children?
00:50:51.460 Well, while you want to have a very good relationship when your kid's a little with them, God didn't put you here to be their friend when they're little.
00:51:01.500 All right?
00:51:02.240 And it's a balancing act because you don't want to be overbearing either.
00:51:05.480 And I certainly have been guilty of that in the past.
00:51:07.960 But if you just want to be your buddy to your little kids, then they're not going to have the same respect for you when they're an adult.
00:51:17.320 What you need to do is when your kids are young, that you need to certainly love on them, care for them, but never cross the boundary between parent and child.
00:51:30.060 Don't become child to child or parent to parent because if they see you that way, they will not have the same respect for you when they also become an adult.
00:51:40.900 Because when they become an adult, then they still want to have that parent-child relationship.
00:51:49.540 All right?
00:51:50.320 And certainly it's different.
00:51:51.920 There's no question about it.
00:51:53.300 You are treating them differently.
00:51:55.280 And while I consider myself very close to my adult children, I still think they look at me as their dad and not their buddy.
00:52:03.680 And they probably will, you know, have different types of conversations with their buddies than they do with me.
00:52:12.140 Although we have a lot of fun conversations.
00:52:14.080 We certainly can talk about adult things that we couldn't talk about when they were little.
00:52:17.680 But that relationship needs to stay that way.
00:52:21.460 What I would say to you also is don't squelch the fire in your children.
00:52:28.040 You know, Allie and our two sons were totally different.
00:52:33.780 And our sons were very easygoing, a lot like their mom.
00:52:38.560 Allie was a little bit more like me, a little bit more outgoing, a little bit more challenging.
00:52:42.120 And my wife was really, really good at, even though it was against her nature because she wasn't that way, allowing Allie to be who she was with still being the mom, though.
00:52:56.200 I mean, she had to pull the mom card many, many times.
00:52:59.000 And then also, Lisa impressing upon me my need to not treat Allie the same way I treated the boys because it was just a totally different scenario.
00:53:12.820 And so while I had to be strict sometimes, I hope that I'd never put out to where it would just totally squelch her, right?
00:53:22.260 And it would have a long-term scarring effect on our relationship.
00:53:26.740 It hasn't.
00:53:27.740 It's our relationship, as you know, has been, as you guys know, is great.
00:53:31.500 But it's really because of things that her mom taught me and taught her during that time.
00:53:36.640 So I would just say, remember the parent-child relationship, but don't squelch who they are.
00:53:42.460 Okay, last thing, last question is, how do I, how do you raise an Allie?
00:53:48.200 Well, talked about that a little bit on the last one.
00:53:50.340 But I think, first of all, you know, God creates us all, creates us individually in His image, in our own, in His perfect plan, in our imperfect selves.
00:54:02.700 And I think what you do when you have a child that is, has that outgoing spirit and has that ability to, you know, probably do some things that you couldn't even think about doing when you were her age,
00:54:18.560 is you have to make sure that you never tell them that there's something they can't do.
00:54:24.560 So Lisa and I, with all of our kids, would always say, you know what, it's possible.
00:54:30.260 It's possible.
00:54:31.040 Let's figure out how do we, what do we got to do?
00:54:33.140 And then help them take the next uncomfortable step.
00:54:36.120 We talk about that in the book as well, is how do we help them take the next uncomfortable step?
00:54:40.180 If we just impose upon them the limits that we had on them, like, okay, well, we never could have ever spoken before thousands of people before,
00:54:50.720 then it would, that would automatically get her thinking, well, if they didn't do it, you know, they're my parents.
00:54:56.280 Certainly I can't do it.
00:54:57.260 We just never did that.
00:54:58.440 So you got to leave open every possibility, even though some of them seem crazy.
00:55:02.620 And certainly some of them will be like, there's no way we could ever afford that.
00:55:06.460 Okay.
00:55:07.100 You cannot squelch that.
00:55:08.700 If there is, if that's your child's gifting, and that's something that they believe they're called to do,
00:55:15.200 then it's our job to help them do that as much as possible.
00:55:19.080 And they're going to stumble along the way.
00:55:20.980 And it's our job to be right there.
00:55:22.940 Once they've fallen, help them dust theirself off and get moving again.
00:55:26.800 And that's the role that we play.
00:55:28.400 So anyway, I hope that helps.
00:55:30.360 The last thing as we wrap up today is what is the, you know, every, every time I do these,
00:55:35.140 I have a final deal called wisdom from the wagon.
00:55:37.540 And it refers back to my book, life lessons from the little red wagon.
00:55:42.700 And I guess if what I'm thinking about is I hear a lot when I get questions from Allie's audience,
00:55:50.260 I hear a lot about things that are going on in their young lives.
00:55:54.260 And there are things that, although we're in a different time, there are things that Lisa and I experienced as well.
00:55:58.440 But let me just tell you something, and I didn't, I've never used this term when I was,
00:56:03.600 when I was a young married, but I've heard Allie use it and my other kids use it.
00:56:08.220 And that adulting, adulting, I will just tell you that was hard work.
00:56:12.960 It is hard work.
00:56:14.340 If you thought becoming an adult, it was just going to be, everything was going to be rosy.
00:56:18.460 That's not the way it is.
00:56:19.360 It's hard work.
00:56:20.060 And I'll tell you this too, and this isn't that exciting, but it doesn't get any easier.
00:56:24.680 You know, I'm 65 years old and I have complications.
00:56:30.420 When I say, I say, to say complications, complexities is the right term.
00:56:34.580 Complexities in my life that I never dreamed of.
00:56:37.460 Now they're, they're good things, right?
00:56:39.440 I got three children, six grandchildren.
00:56:41.480 And so things get more complex as you get older and as your family changes and as your family grows and what have you, but that's okay.
00:56:50.920 Now I have a lot of experience I can draw on that I didn't have when I was 30 years old or, or 40 years old or 25 years old.
00:56:57.420 So it helps me to have that experience, but you have to begin now when your kids are little
00:57:05.200 and when you're younger to make those hard choices so that as you get older and your kids grow and your family dynamic changes that you will have been through that.
00:57:17.600 If you just try to take the easy way out on every scenario, it's going to end, you're going to end up it, not where you want to be in the long run.
00:57:27.260 Okay.
00:57:28.100 And you know, life is a journey.
00:57:29.980 I guess there's really never an end until the Lord calls us home, but it's so much better.
00:57:35.200 I'm so thankful that we had to make some tough choices when we were younger.
00:57:39.980 You know, we had to decide that we wanted our kids to go to public, uh, private school.
00:57:44.140 And no matter what that cost us, we were going to figure that out.
00:57:47.120 And believe me, we didn't have a lot of money.
00:57:48.940 I was going to let my kids pick the college of their choice that they felt the best with.
00:57:53.520 And I was going to do whatever I had to do to make sure they could do that.
00:57:57.340 And, you know, they could have both gone, uh, the two that went to college could have both gone to in-state Texas schools, had a great education.
00:58:04.440 And it would have been a lot less expensive, but that's not where they felt like they should be.
00:58:08.860 And both of them made the right choices.
00:58:10.980 All right.
00:58:12.120 And, you know, it cost us a lot of money, but it was the right thing to do.
00:58:16.560 But we made those hard choices.
00:58:18.040 We had to give up some other things for that to happen.
00:58:20.140 You know, with Daniel, with our son that has autism and epilepsy, there's a lot of choices that we've had to make that we could have taken the easy way.
00:58:27.660 Like we've seen people do, but we make the hard choices.
00:58:30.600 If you make the hard choices now, okay, when your family's young, it'll be much better for you in the long run.
00:58:37.260 I promise you that.
00:58:38.460 Thanks for listening.
00:58:39.200 Always.
00:58:39.720 Thanks for supporting Allie.
00:58:40.780 Please continue to pray for her and, uh, for all that she has going on this fall and her family.
00:58:46.600 And we, we, I know that she feels those.
00:58:48.460 So thank you very much.
00:58:49.220 We'll see you next time.