They stole $10K from me

That's true? Why is there no blue board? You want to tell everybody? I'll tell it. I'll tell everybody. We are in the new spot. This is episode ninety one, but it's a the inaugural episode of the new We're in the new podcast room. It has the we have the reclaimed wood behind us for those of you that are watching on YouTube, but it's a different We don't have the blue board. That's right. People have commented about the blue board. Does anybody else just watch the blue board?

I should paint. I should paint right there. So Bernie Calcoate guest today. Thanks for having me back, one of the one of the all time favorites. People love you man. When you're here very difficult to follow. You and Amber. Come on, y'all are just amazing together, and you have this EE nation following you, guys and fans of y'all for a reason. So it's been awesome to listen to you all the last couple of weeks. I'm always surprised that you actually listen when you're not on the episode,

that you still listen to the episode. Yes, I'm on it. I don't listen no way, man. I feel you on that, but it's hard for me to listen to myself. But yeah, I love you, know, Pastor, Chad and Amber and Tyler Parker. I love hearing you guys chop it up well. People email Granger Smith Podcast at Gmail their questions and they'll they mention you a lot like, Hey, Granger and hopefully Bernie, he'll say things like that, we answer questions on this

podcast for those that are new. Any anything under the sun, could be any kind of question, and we'll talk it through as if we're sitting at a campfire together, Me Burns and the person asking the question, they say, can I run something by you guys, and we'll just kind of walk through it. No notes, we don't have anything on this table, no notes or or I haven't really read these questions to figure out what I'm going to say,

and I like it that way. Yeah, we could just go off the cuff, so I have some ready for you today. Burns, all right, let's do it. But I want to start with my own. Okay, I got something. Okay, I got something for you. Man, this is good. Okay, this is so guys. I've known Bernie for twenty one years and he's always been the guy for me. And the reason he's on this podcast is so that he could also be the guy for you. But he's been the guy for me that if I if I'm struggling

with something it could be good or bad. We could we could maybe have not talked for a month, and I'll call him like, man, I got to talk to you about something, and he always will give me the sound advice that I need. He doesn't necessarily take my side. He'll just give me the advice I need to hear. And that's what I love about him, and that's why

he's such a great guest on this podcast. And so I'm gonna I'm literally going to walk you guys through something going on in my life that no one knows about except for Tyler and Amber and Chris, my tor manager, and now you and simultaneously everyone else on the podcast. So here's the deal. Okay, this podcast is coming out Monday. Ye, so right now as we're as we're recording it, it's

the previous week where before you're hearing it obviously. So on this coming Saturday, we're gonna be in Algona, Iowa. And this has been something that is there's been an issue without going to Iowa that's been boiling over for the past couple of weeks. Okay, Chris, this is a this is a it's called Freedom Fest. It's a festival, evidently a big festival in Algona, Iowa, and a lot of bikers go to this. It's kind of known to

be a biker rally type festival. Okay, Freedom Fest. That to me that it's on July third, Okay, right, fourth July, it makes perfect sense. Yeah. So Chris, my tour manager, advances these shows, and he usually advances about two weeks out. That means he gets the final details laid out for where are we going to park. I'm going to confirm

our start time. I'm going to confirm that you got all the information I've sent you last month, as far as how many people we have, how many meals we need, what time we need lunch, how long you know are our set's going to be. So during that advance of this particular show, something happened that hadn't happened in as

long as I've been touring. Okay, the guy comes back to Chris and he says, I just want to I want to go over this cool down with you and let you know that we will definitely be squeeging the stage after the cool down. Chris is like, okay, tell me more about this. I'm pulling up the exact email second. I don't have to paraphrase it, says. He says, the cool down is a big part of the rally. It happens nightly. It's essentially a wet T shirt contest parentheses.

Most choose not to wear anything at all. It happens on the main stage. The contestants are blocked from accessing any parts of backstage, and this they will enter and exit from the stairs. And then he goes on just to say, don't worry, we're gonna squege you the stage. It's going to be perfectly fine. But it's such a big part of the rally. I want to let you know what's going on. So I replied to Chris and I said, nix it. That's all I said. Let's nix it.

I said, you felt convicted enough to screenshot this, So tell them, tell them not to do it. And so it is a It caused a big problem. They're like, no, we don't, we don't nix it. This is a big part of our rally. This is this is what we do. These girls get up and they you know, they they get water host on the front of the stage and they dance around and they get judged by the audience. So in my mind, I'm thinking, this is Iowa Yee nation like these are. This is gonna be farmer families.

There's gonna be old couples, there's gonna be kids. There's gonna be people that you know, with very conservative values that trust me, and they trust that they're gonna that I'm not gonna lead them astray at a show. No matter what their thoughts are, I'm gonna stick with let's make this family friendly. So this goes This goes into like book an agency world, This goes into lawyer talk and they're going back and forth, and I just told Chris, like, well,

I guess I guess we're going to cancel. If it comes down to it, I'll just cancel, which really hurts me. These kind of festivals really pay the bills through all the club dates and everything else. And so I'm preparing myself that, yeah, we'll just we'll have to cancel. We'll have to figure out financially how to get everybody paid regardless, but we just can't have it. And they're adamant, and so it came all the way. This negotiation thing went on and on. They said, well, can we build a

stage twenty feet away? And I said, my stipulations are this. Either it happens before our buses arrive, which is going to be like eight am, or after our buses leave, which is like two am, or completely out of sight away from my stage. And they said no. They said, how about we build a stage twenty five feet away? I said no, I said, how about we cover all of your gear? I said, no, that doesn't change anything.

I'm not trying to protect my image here. I'm trying to protect the fans that'll be on the front literally the front road. Yeah, can you imagine if you walked into that, you're just wanting to see a show, you didn't expect that it's a fully nude with my kids. Yeah, so okay, I could tell you where we ended up, or do you want to comment now? Okay, you could jump in now if you want. I think I would rather hear where it ended up. Sounds like there's a lot on the line. Keep in mind, Lincoln is coming

with me. This has been planned from day one. Yeah, he's riding with me the all weekend. Okay. So so they come back and they said, my book and agent said it looks like we'll probably cancel. And I said, I just want to hear it from you, Braden, he's one booking agent. He's a great guy. I said, I want to hear it from you. They're choosing the girls over me, not necessarily me personally, but the headliner of the the headlining band. They're choosing the girls over the

headlining band, taking my ego out of it. And he said, let me let me just get that out of their mouth because I just wanted to. I'm curious. So they come back and the final thing they said was they said, well Granger will Granger take ten thousand dollars less of his pay and we won't do it at all. And so I said, yeah, I said true, if that's what, If this is a money thing, if this is that's what it's about, then yeah, well you could cut ten

thousand dollars. There's a lot, Yeah, there's a lot money. Yeah. And I said, sure, I'm not going to fight any more than that. Yeah, if that's what it's about. So that they said this is the first time in thirty six years they will not do the cool down at Freedom Test and I'll go to Iowa. Amen. So let me ask you, how do you feel about that decision? Well, how do you feel about your I struggle with it, and once again that you know, straight up on the podcast.

This is like a phone conversation between me and you, But straight up I struggled with it, and I you know, first I felt anger. First, I felt like, well, I'm just going to go on that stage. I'm just going to tell everyone in the crowd exactly what happened that they literally stole ten thousand dollars from my touring company, ban crew management, everyone that's involved in that that gets paid from that kind of thing. And and Chris was like, man,

you can't do that. There's like a safety issue involved, Like what do people throw things at you? Like what if there's bikers that come just to see that and they find out you're the catalyst of why they don't see it, they can get mad. And I was like, I should be so blessed to be persecuted in that way, right, But there's a fine line, sure, like you don't want to be stupid. Yeah, So I haven't totally you know, here we sit doing this podcast, what four days away

from this happening, So I don't know. I do know. I'm going to get off the bus and I want to shake that guy's hand and look him, look him in the eye, not to not to be mean, but I just want to. At first, I just want to say I'm glad we came to an agreement. I'm not going to apologize. I can't. I'm so sorry to put you through this kind of trouble. I'm not going to say that, but I do want to say, you know, thank you for being patient and coming to this agreement

with us. And then I want to have Lincoln with me so he could see kind of part of the motivation. So yeah, what's that I think? No, I think that this is part of the reason I think there's so many people that follow you, follow this podcast are fans of you, guys, is because you're one willing to talk about things like this publicly and how you're walking through

these things. It keeps, uh, it keeps the perception of you being just a real person dealing with you know, real struggles and trying to live, you know, the way that you feel convicted to live and stand true to those truths. And I think that everybody out there is kind of trying to do the same thing. Like, Man, I believe this, and now all of a sudden, I have this situation that is kind of I'm put into this position where I have to just so earn what

what what path do I take? And how do I stand behind what I believe but yet still be considerate of you know a lot of people that rely on you. And I think it want it needs to be acknowledged that Granger and Amber have to make these decisions and discernments on a very public stage most of the time. Nobody's like I'm not you know, in that grade of an arena to have to like and great of an impact on people's lives, fans and a big crew and

band and everything. So I think that needs to be acknowledged, just that you know, God has given you the strength and the the grace to navigate this. He's given you the tools as well. I think that there always is the opportunity for grace to shine through, right and knowing you, at the end of the day, when we get five years past this, you're going to want to look back on it and say, Man, did I exhibit grace? Yeah, that's great advice for me. Did did the people involved

feel like? Man? Because grace? Somebody put it this way, it's unmerited favor. Yeah, it's favor. It's favor that they did not merit. They didn't earn it. And so was their grace extended and given and shown and displayed through the way that you kind of navigated this. And and sometimes if people are just cold and their hearts are hard and they're very selfish and just all in themselves, they're not going to grace is offensive to them. So

they're just not right. They're not going to understand it. And it's not your place to make them understand. It's your place to just display it and live it out and I think the real and I'll sleep better at night doing that too. That's right. When we do give grace in that way, we feel peace and calm regardless of how they react to it, regardless if they're offended by the grace. We're gonna go to bed and layer ahead on the pill and go I felt good about today. Yeah,

I will be anxious to hear how this goes. But I want to say, just just if we're you know, if nobody's here and you're talking to me on the phone, dude, I think you did the right thing you and who knows what kind of conversations that this will you know, produce. Yes, there's still gonna be a world that just wants to go see girls get water sprayed on them and see them naked, and they're still gonna be that's still going to be in the world, like you not doing this

show or doing this show for less or whatever. It's not going to take that way. But we have to and I know you have to and feel a conviction to be a positive and godly example to your fans and leading them to that. I think you're absolutely right. People could be just well, this is not ee Nation. They would be real confused and you would probably get a lot of emails like, hey, man, I brought my

family see you. Hey, I came to see you. I've been listening to your podcast, right, Someone could have been listening to the podcast and then that's their first show. Yeah. So let me say I have to insert here that this is not a moral high ground battle for me. I'm not any better than these people. So you know this, but I'm kind of just saying it publicly on this podcast.

I don't feel any better better than they are morally, or I don't feel like I'm an inherently better person on the inside, or I was born better, or I was raised by better parents, or I have a better circle of friends, and therefore I don't partake. I'm not any of those things. What it truly comes down to is I have an authority above me that's different than they have, and I have a fear of that authority. My fear of God and what he expects from me

is much greater than their perception of me. Or I'm sure they think this guy's the biggest prude pansy. We've dealt with bands for thirty six years, and no one, no male testosterone singer has ever said I don't want to see that online stage. Who is this guy? Who does he think he is? So I realize that that is far less a concern to me than the fear of the God that I worship, and not for any like egotistical or self righteous reason. But I think that

you should be proud of that. If you are the first one in thirty how many every year, it's kind of cool, you know what I mean? It's kind of cool and kind of like, wow, how has nobody in thirty six six years had an issue with this? So to your point of who knows what conversations will happen? Who knows next year when the band comes in and goes, really, that's what you guys do, then they might say, well, last year Granger Smith actually opted out, and then they

can go us two, Yeah, we're opting out. Yeah, maybe that could happen instead of saying no one in thirty six years is said no, and then the band might go, I guess it's not that big a deal. The other thing I want to say, on the other side of the flip side of this whole deal, I want to say that it is. Still it still blows me away that we as a band are even worth something that if you take ten thousand out of the paycheck, we're

still going to play it. So I don't want to let that just slide like they're taking ten grand from me. That's a big deal. It still is a big deal. I'm blown away that we could because for most of my career ninety percent of it, we didn't earn over one thousand dollars. Yeah, one hundred percent of my career. So I actually remember my first one thousand dollars show and that was a massive deal. So I don't want to just throw that number out like I'm in any

way bragging. I do want to throw the number out, though, to say, the severity of what these people are doing, it's significant. I've never heard of someone taking ten thousand from any company like that because of a moral conviction. Yeah, it's crazy, that is. Yeah, So there we go. That's my question of Bernie too, right. I mean, you couldn't have thrown like a calvinist question like last week at me, right, I had to be I also think that you have honestly, man,

I know Chris, I know your band. I know, Tyler, You've got a great team that believes in you. And man, when you have that culture, it's it's not dependent on one decision of this and this it's like ride or die. Hey, I'll run through a brick wall, man, what do you? Let's let's go any nation. After last week's podcast and reading all the comments, man, they they support you, and I think they'll continue to do it regardless. That's awesome.

And yeah, shout out to Chris for catching that in the advance and go and screenshot it and be like, oh yeah, let's send this to granger So we're going to get into your questions. Guys. This is it's anything you email to Grangersmith podcast at gmail dot com. And I have a bunch that I have ready for Burns today and I wanted to kind of start with a kind of a looser, easier one. Here's one subject. Subject line is music. Okay, says hey Grainger. My name is Mark.

I'm a huge fan of your music. I'm a local musician from Wichital Kansas. I play guitar and I'm a singer. I've been playing music since two thousand and six. I've been in and out of bands since two thousand and eight. I've always had trouble finding the right people to make music with, and I've always had trouble finding the right

producers that could teach me more about making music. My biggest dream is to play music and make music for a living and then play I'll go to Iowa and have them take ten thousand dollars from My question is how'd you get into play music? How do you make kids out here? So this is this is another question Burns you and I have gotten before. How do you find band members? And what advice do you have for an inspiring musician as myself? And I love reading these

because you are also a musician. So first of all, I want to say that there's a different world than when I was kind of coming up, And there's a different world on the internet and YouTube. And when you say having trouble finding the right producers who could teach me more about making music, man, there's a lot of them on YouTube right now. Yeah, it's a different world. Now, how do we direct Mark in wichital Kansas shout out to Kansas? How do we how do we kind of

direct him to finding the right band? Yeah? I have one idea. I think there's still a guitar center in which talk Kansas. I'm pretty sure that's usually a good place. Go to guitar center and you go to any guy that's working the counter and be like, hey, my name is Mark, I'm struggling finding band members. Well, those guys at guitar so have seen every band member come through which ital Kansas. Yep, that's right at the counter. Yeah, yeah,

I think it's you. You got to get out and meet people, and you got to understand that probably the first three or four people you cycle through the band may not click, and you just gotta hey, let's just let's just jam. Let's get together and play. Let's get

together and play. If yeah, I don't think you get too far ahead, I think you've said this before in this answer, Like he said he wants to how do I, you know, find a producer to make music and I want to do music as a career, and maybe, you know, I think you can't jump too far ahead, man, like you got to find just start with finding the right people to play with, see what see what music comes, and see what the culture of the band is and

what everybody else in the band's desire and if they're like, yeah, we want to make a record too, And then you guys collect actively can find a producer and then a tour manager, and then you know, like, yeah, you don't put on the balcony before the foundation. That's perfect. And I want to say, Mark, you say, my biggest dream is to play music and make music for a living. So let's change that to my biggest dream is to

have fun playing music. Yeah, you switch that and stop worrying about making a living with it, because I know Bernie and I when we first started, that wasn't the goal. Wasn't I want to make a living with this. It was just like I want to do this, yeah, and I'll make a living around it so that I can do it, right, That's right. Yeah, So yeah, you're you're in the right place. Go to your local music store. If anyone's listening, I see a lot of questions like this.

If you're wondering about go to your local music store. Hang out with those guys, learn meet them, Meet the guys at the counter, tell them your predicament. They probably know someone, if not themselves, It could help you out. All right, let's go to what how about this one? It's called Texas road trip, says Hey Granger, this is Danny from Ludswisburg, Germany. I want to ask you what are your favorite spots in Texas for a road trip that my wife and I are planning to do soon.

We'd love to spend three to four weeks travel around the whole state of Texas, starting and maybe ending in Dallas, I'm assuming because of the airport, So that would be awesome to get to to get to know your must to go places. Of course, Georgetown and Austin's always on our list. I hope you like our snackpatrick package that we sent. Thank you so much, buddy, Yeah, you got you guys are awesome. And so I'm assuming Danny wants to wants to use Dallas as a hub. That's what

I like in and they travel around. Where are they coming from Germany? So? Oh from Germany, Ludswickburg, Germany, So you could use You could also use Houston, Danny, Houston's and other inter international city in Texas. Austin has very limited, so you could do Dallas, rent a car, go work your way. Yeah, that's what that's what he should do. Find to Dallas and work his way south until he gets to Austin, see the sites in Austin, go to like you should go to Fredericksburg and see all the

German heritage. I don't know if you want to see German heritage when you're coming from Germany. Totally. Yeah, schlitter Bond and the and the river down there. If I were you, Danny, I would I would go and explore the German heritage of Texas. Eat, eat a couple of restaurants and it might not be intriguing to you, but eat a couple of German restaurants in New Bronfels or Fredericksburg and meet a culture of people that settled there

in the eighteen hundreds from your country. Yeah, it's very interesting. Then you could work your way down to San Antonio, right see the river walk yep, Alamo, Go see the Alamo. There's there's a lot of cool things in San Antonio. And then from San Antonio hit I ten and you then you go to Houston. I mean, if they're going to be here, he said two to three weeks, So then you can go to Galveston. Go down to Galveston or go down to Poor Day and then work his

way up the coast with Galveston to Houston. Yeah, that's a long time, two three weeks and then and then fly out of Houston. Yeah, that'd be my thought. So then you're seeing a little bit of East Texas, a little bit of the hill country. You got to see the hill country because yeah, when you see some of the hill country, you're gonna think, oh, that's the Texas. When you see like the cattle, and that's the Texas I had in my mind. That's the ranch, the ranches

I had in my mind. And you'll see that on your on your way like out to Fredericksburg. Lukenbach would be cool to stop at Lukenbok. So yeah, I think that's good job, Bernie. Yeah, let's take a break. We'll be right back with some more questions. I podcast brought to you guys today by ritual. We deserve to know what we're putting in our bodies and why, especially when it comes to something we take every single day. Rituals Clean vegan friendly vitamin is formulated with high quality nutrients

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I've noticed that you got a little stubble today. Man, is this after the amber? The podcast question about? Are you trying to like I need to shave? Okay, we'll see. All right, I'm gonna kick it over to you. We have Bible question, we have softball question. We have some advice parents, finding friends, brain or soul. How much money should I have? I'm in a predicament head on collision costs my husband his leg, man of the house. And then we have no subject. Did any of those stand

out for the next one. I don't know if the softball question is about softball or if it's just like an easy one. It's just an easy one, but I love softball, playing the Men's softball League before I got injured like the third game because I'm old. But let's go with softball question said, I would like to begin by just being grateful, grateful for how much you give to your fans and your humble words of advice. I would wonder if you can give me some advice. I

would like to be anonymous. I'm struggling with mental health. I get anxious. I'm sorry, I read the wrong one. Okay, softball, actually hit the wrong one. But we'll keep going. Okay, keep going. It's interesting, like a slider in softball. Somehow sovereignty of God, I actually hit the wrong one. Maybe we needed to read this. I'm struggling with mental health. I get depressed quickly. But I've learned to live in the presence, in present, in the present, and I have

low expectations and higher gratefulness. I have a good, methodical morning routine which begins at six am, consists of what your podcast says, the warm, hot chocolate, etc. But it seems I'm a different person in the morning. How do I keep being that morning person? I know exactly what you mean, living with the purpose to do in God's will, but being the person that I would like to be. I would like to be more grateful. I would like to be nice to everyone I meet, and I feel

like I'm not as good or something. I don't quite know how to get along with others. Please give me some advice. Sorry, for my bad reading here. So okay, so we have an anonymous person. I'll respect that, and it is a she, and I could let me kind of paraphrase. She's struggling with depression and anxiety, but she's starting her morning routine getting up at six. Sounds like she's drinking some hot chocolate, doing some reading, and she

feels great. And then as the day starts going on, that starts wearing away, and she starts to become snappy and not nice, and she wants to be able to maintain and I feel that. I feel that in a lot of ways. Yeah. When we get to be by ourselves, usually we're pretty good. It's when other people, we have to interact with other people that it's like, oh, act, you know, I have to be kind of these people patient, and it starts to expose people, expose you know, what's

really inside of us. And there's a there's a real thing called decision fatigue. Yeah, the more decisions you make, you start wearing down. You only have so many you're capable of in a day, which is why some of the crazy billionaires of the world. You'll notice they wear the same thing every day, like they wear a black t shirt and black pants every single day like their whole closet. Is that because they've got it down to a science where they actually leave that every decision matters.

I believe that too, and taking the decision of what you're going to wear out m H gives you availability for one more decision that day. Amber and I talked about this yesterday because we're moving into this house, and I told her, I said, hey, these next few days, be aware of decision fatigue, because when you get a couch in and you go, maybe it should go the other way, may no, put the two chairs, and then you do that enough, we're gonna start getting snappy with

each other. We're just start getting frustrated with the kids. We're gonna we're gonna have a lot of decision fatigue. So I think you're feeling that in this in this email, and I think I think you're doing You're on a You're on a great path because first of all, you care, you you are aware that you're doing this, like the key becoming aware that you're becoming snappy. So what do you what do you burns? What do you tell of this person? Well, they mentioned depression anxiety, right, I think

those two words. One are very a lot more prevalent in this culture now than they ever have been. Two, I think there are words that can be used kind of flippantly sometimes. So if this is actual, like clinical depression, this is I would see a medical professional. I would see a therapist or a counselor, and I would maybe talk through the severity of this depression, knowing people that have struggled with depression all the way to like suicidal check you into a hospital. Level two. Hey, I just

get emo sad sometimes and like there. I think there's different levels of that. So I would I would talk to somebody, if you have a community of folks, if you can ask around. Hey, I don't think that these things need to be something that's kind of hush hush, like talking about mental health. Seeking help for mental health, we do it for everything else, for spiritual health, for physical health. We there's no qualm about going to a trainer because man, I feel like I need a dietitian

and I need things for my body. That yeah, I would suggest that and then past that. I mean, really, I think what's getting exposed, you know, throughout the day is just our you know, this person's you know, humanity and how what's on the inside and how much patience they have and how much compassion they have and humility and and so I don't know how to other than you know, going back to you know, the spirit of God, going back to God's word, being surrounded by community that

is pointing in that direction, and being prayerful. I just start to pray diligently that God would sustain you throughout the day and just see what happens. You know, starts.

I think you start simple. It's all great advice, and we're going to tell you every time that if you're struggling with anxiety or depression, to seek a medical help on top of your wise counsel and because there might be a medication involved that you need, you know, and I'm not qualified to tell you about that, but there's a doctor that is so I know that that sometimes

there's just something going on up there that medication can help. Absolutely, so there might be that I would I want to say one more thing, because I think Bernie wrapped it up perfectly. There's one more thing I want to challenge you with, and that during your morning quiet time and you feel calm and you feel peace, challenge yourself as you move into the day, to stay present and stay aware of yourself and your mood changing, and try to identify what's causing that. I say that because when I

challenge myself to that, I do a lot better. And when I start recognizing what's causing me to do that, then I see it in another situation. So for example, if I if I get mad at two people in a row in two different scenarios, my brain goes it sets off an alarm and goes, uh, oh, it's not them, right, there's a common denominator. What's going on. Then I'll go, ah, that early flight this morning, they got me okay. So that means if I did it twice, I'm gonna do

it three times, and I'm gonna do it. They're probably the rest of the day, somebody's gonna say something or text me or call me, or I'm gonna get an email or see a comment on Instagram and I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go off, I'm gonna get mad, and so then I go, it's not them. So my point is to you email or recognize when you're getting triggered and then try to place the trigger, like maybe it's caffeine, Maybe it's lack of sleep, maybe it's something else, but

you could start finding out. Ah, I know why instead of the it's not them, it's not their fault. The world's gonna do what the world's gonna do. You can only control yourself and how you react to it. So go into the day during your quiet time and just challenge yourself, like I'm going to go in and it's first the first time I feel myself triggering to not being nice, I'm gonna go up there, it is why am I doing that? And try to find something besides

the other person to blame for them. Yeah, good stuff. Yeah, mental health is definitely not something to take lightly. Now. Yeah, there's there's many, many layers to it. So we wish you the best and you know, hope that you can find some wise counsel and some help. This is an interesting question here. It's the subject line is parents okay, and this is the shortes say, Hey, grangdeer, I'm twelve years old. I'm from Lanigan, Saskatchewan, a small town in

Canada where I grew up. I have a divorced parents and I'm wondering if I should treat my step parents like my real parents. And if you don't have an answer, then how do I ask God? Wow? This guy's name is Ben, so Ben is twelve. He's in Canada from a He's twelve. He's twelve listening to the podcast Emailing Us and it's an interesting question. Yeah, I'm wondering if I should treat my step parents like my real parents.

What do you so? I'm guessing that mom and dad split and they both got remarried, or maybe one of them and so like that. Hey, yeah, yeah, first of all, which before you even start burns, let's just say I'm sorry, Ben. This is not on None of this is on you. And I hate that the I hate that this is the world and this is how it is, and that you even have to deal with this at all. Yep, because a twelve year old shouldn't have to be thinking like this. Yeah, Ben, I've been through this right about

your age. Actually, I didn't have to for for a long time. I didn't have to go through the parents, the step parents and the parents getting remarried. But I know that feeling of why did this happen? And how do I respond? Because it really is I mean, and this is like every question every situation that gets put in front of us, for anybody out there and for us for the same thing with the concert, it's our response. We can control our response. We cannot control You can't

control your parents. You can't control your step parents. What you can control is your response. I know you're twelve, so let's first stop and say give yourself some grace. You're still learning, like your brain is not fully developed yet. I mean, I don't know if ours are much Moss twelve year old, So just give yourself some grace, take a deep breath, and just you know, first of all, celebrate the fact that Granger picked your email. That's pretty cool.

Go tell all your friends. You don't have to say like what it was about, and that you just kind of like left your heart out for the nation to see. Let's just start with the fact that, hey, this is kind of cool. You live in a world where you're you know, country music idol. You have access to them, and you can like, yeah, let's get advice from it. What a world we live in. So past that, then give yourself some grace. As far as how to treat

your step parents. I think that if you start to think about what grace is, and you start to give that to yourself and lower the expectations of yourself that maybe you can also start to view your step parents that way. And my guess is is that they really love you, and they want you to feel safe, and they want you to learn, and they want to support you. And so if you can ever get to the point where you can give them that opportunity, I think that's

a great response. But there's a lot to navigate there and you're still learning. So I would just say give yourself some grace to make some mistakes, and that your parents should be older and more mature and be able to help you navigate. What do you think is? Yeah, I think I can't speak as well as you can about this, but I could say you can't go wrong Ben with just treating him with respect. And that kind of comes regardless on if they treat you good or bad.

Because let's put myself in this situation when I'm going to Algona, Iowa this weekend. I'm gonna treat this guy with respect. The dude took ten thousand dollars from me, and he obviously has a lot you know that he's going to say about me. But if I come in with respect, just treating him with respect. And and once again I could say you could you could treat in war,

you could treat the opposing enemy with respect. And so it has nothing to do with maybe you're maybe these stepparents are terrible people, maybe they're abuse of him in some way. It still doesn't change the fact that you could still treat them with respect. You don't have to respect somebody to treat them with respect. That's a good point. So treat them with respect regardless of how you feel. And you're going to get the best from that. You're gonna get the best version of them in response to

your respect you're giving them. So you know, use your yes sirs, and yes ma'am's, and and and uh obey that the best that you the best that you can if it's if it's obliging morally, and you're going to get the you're going to get that right back to you. So and I'm sorry you have to go through this. Brother. Yep. We have Bible question, we have finding friends, we have brain or soul, we have how much money should I have? Let's do how much money should I have? Hey, my

name is Derek. I'm from Battleground, Washington. First of all, when I say I love your podcast, music and family videos make my day. Thank you, buddy. I got a chance to see at the Clark County Fair in two thousand and eight with my wife girlfriend at the time. I have two questions for you. First, I'm twenty years old, I'm married, and I'm a kid on the way. I'm an electrician apprentice and almost able to become a journeyman. I make about sixty thousand dollars a year. It's awesome,

but I still always feel like I'm way behind. I feel like I don't ever have enough money in the bank, especially for how much I make. I don't feel like I spend a lot, but I just can't help but think that everyone my age has way more money saved up than and I'm way behind. Given my age and how much I make, how much money do you think I should have in the bank if I don't have car loans or any major bills. I just rent, which is ten which is ten seventy five a month. My question.

My second question is my wife is twenty four months to excuse me, twenty four weeks pregnant and we're having a boy and I still don't have a name picked out. Did you have that problem with your previous kids? How do you go about it? Thank you for everything else. I thought he was going to ask for recommendations on a name, and dude, I was gonna I had some names. He kind of did. I mean, he said, how do you go about it? There's not many Bernies in the world.

I'm just saying, like, if you want to contribute, you know, yeah, do that? I love it? Or rangers? You know. So this is kid number two at twenty twenty one years old? Is that what he said? Yeah? Pregnant and see is that what he said? I thought I'm the first party said for twenty years old, I'm married and have a kid on the way. Oh, kid, first, this is the

first one, first sixty thousand. There's a lot for twenty years old to me in my mind, maybe I'm out of touch, but that seems like a lot for twenty I made fifteen thousand dollars. Maybe I was going to say whenever I was that, I was going to say, that's about three times when I made Yeah, I think I made about twenty so yeah, and that's good. And when I was making twenty thousand. I was. I thought I was crushing it. I was like, man, I got

so much money. Hey, I mean I think you know perception and contentment is a big part of money management, right, I mean you knew me then I was at an apartment. It was like six hundred dollars a month, and that was I thought that was expensive looking at it now, like six hundred but then, but that's all I had to pay was that and then food and gas. Yeah, was that the first place you moved to Nashville? That

came so? Yeah, okay, so I was paying that and then I still had like five hundred bucks a month. I did left over. I thought you were rich man. When I came to visit you, I'm like, oh, we can't be friends. This guy's rich making twenty g's baby twenty here. Oh so so he's ill. Shall shoot him?

Over to Dave Ramsey, some of these questions, Yeah, I think a lot of it is money management and restraint, understanding what you have, what you're spending money on, and being able to exercise restraint to like, Okay, we don't need to do that, we don't need this to be happy. We need to live below our means and I mean, I can only speak to my own experience. I love

living below my means. I love you know, and Leslie and I have talked about wanting people to, by the way that we are generous, think that we have so much more money than we do. But by the way we live, I think we have so much less money than we actually do. So I don't know take that for a lot of that. So I'll get specific with you, Derek, because Dave Ramsey, who you could you could go and I'm sure he has YouTube videos or something, but he has a he has really good books. It's all about money.

So Dave would say, to answer your question specifically, how much money should I have in the bank, Dave would say one thousand dollars. Should have one thousand dollars as a safety net, and that's that's he calls it an emergency fund. One thousand dollars emergency fund. If you don't have one thousand dollars in the bank, that's okay. Not a lot of people do. So you just start building that thousand. But once you get to the thousand, don't

touch it. That's your emergency fund. Put it somewhere where you don't touch it. It's for emergencies only. It's for the house gets flooded and you need that extra cash. So you leave it and you don't touch it, and then you start building. After you have the thousand, your next step is you want to work toward. According to Dave Ramsey, you want to work towards three months of all your bills. So add up all your bills. You should. You got one thousand and seventy five a month for

your rent, so you take that times three. You take your cell phone, your wife's cell phone times three. You add all that up. Whatever that number is, then that's your next goal. So that's say that's fifty six hundred dollars, So that's your next goal. Have fifty six hundred dollars. That means that means you get in a car accident and you lose your job, and your wife gets laid off, and every worst case scenario happens, the pandemic hits, whatever it all hits. At the same time. Now you got

three months to live on. You have three months in the bank to live on, and you would think that three months ninety days is enough time to kick something else over, to get a new job, to start a new piece of income. So that's ye, once again, not my philosophy or it is, but it's from Dave Ramsey and that's being very specific. So a thousand dollars and

then once you get it three months. Second question is and before I go back to Burns, it's also being frugal and being having good management, which is not easy when you're twenty. I was terrible. It's not easy. You've got a lot more responsibility at your at your twenty than I did at my twenty, so it's not easy, and it's kind of a learned it's a learned trait and you'll just learn it and you'll practice it. You're

emailing me, so you care. So that's great. Baby names, Ferns, did you have baby names picked out at twenty four weeks pregnant? I don't think so, Yeah, I don't. I don't think so. No. Not for Boston. Stella came through foster care and adoption, so she was an emergency placement, so we decided her name after she came. And then Jet. I think the kids actually named Jet, but it wasn't. Uh, it wasn't till, you know, until he was almost here. Something I see with Derek is I see, And it's

just probably natural. When you're twenty, you you seem to be thinking a lot about whatever everyone else is doing. So you seemed that you, like you said, I can't help but think that everyone my age has a lot more money saved up and I'm way behind. And you're also kind of in situating that a lot of other people have their kids already named and you don't. Yeah, and so a lot of this I would just say, just pump the brakes a little bit, man, Yeah, and

people don't. People don't have most of our culture the way that we kind of you know, nobody has as much money as you think they have. Is that fair? Absolutely right? Like, yeah, I have ten thousand dollars less than everyone thinks. We just perceive things to be like, oh man, they did this, so they must have like all this, when actually they you know, like racked up another twelve thousand dollars on another credit card in order to do that. It's all perception. It's not reality. It's

not real. The best thing you can do, honestly is follow Granger's advice, because Dave Ramsey, after you get to that point, he will start attacking your debt and telling you somebody who has gone from you know, very much in debt and making no money and being very poor at managing it. That moment when you're just debt free, you don't have any debt, is a really great feeling. And Leslie and I went through the Dave Ramsey thing too,

and it was it was a catalyst for it. So yeah, we did two and was he called baby steps so something like that, the steps to yeah, yeah, freedom and then he has people calling this radio show and they'll announce that they're debt free, and it's like this big celebration. Then once you're debt free, including the emergency funds you've saved up, then you could really start some fun stuff, you know, like like child like your kids college funds

and different things. Yeah, yeah, you want to hit one more? Yeah, I just this one popped right up, so I want to read it says I'm in a predicament. Hey Granger, my name is Aaron. I'm twenty one from North Texas. I've been dating this girl for five years, and for the first year it was great. She let me hang out with my friends and do all the guy stuff. But now the past four years I feel like I've turned my back on all my friends because she doesn't

like them. Back in twenty nineteen, I had a good friend pass away and I missed out hanging with him because my girlfriend didn't like me hanging out with my friends. And now I'm afraid I'm going to miss out on another friend because she won't let me hang out and do what I want to do. Listen, He's I don't know, No, I'm trying to think. I'm trying to not jump straight to that, Yeah, don't do that you said last time,

And I'm trying to think. I'm trying to figure out, Yeah, I'm trying to think about this girl and what if this dude is just hanging out with sleeves balls and she's like trying to say, Hey, what's his name? Did

he say his name? And she loves Aaron. She's like, Aaron, you could be such a great dude, these guys, because I mean, I have been in a situation where I was hanging out with the wrong people and if I would have continued that, by the grace of God, I was you know, it wasn't a woman that you know turned me, but another way. So I'm just trying to see both sides of it. So one, Aaron, check yourself.

Are your friends like instantly, you know, throwing up in the middle of the night because you've drunk too much? Are you constantly doing things that have the police called on you? If it's just like, hey, I just want to go, you know, watch a game with the guys and hang out and there's nothing, where's it coming from? If it's if it's the girls insecurity, I would say, good,

you got a dumper. And also five years to date is a long time, ye, like we I think we dated like a year, two years maybe bingo, you're hitting everything. Just rewind it and listen everything Burn said, I don't have to say anything, but yeah, yeah, curature is just gonna say just Dumper. Like my first thought I read it. My first thought like this is we're sitting around a campfire where all buddies and Aaron's like, guys, gonna tell

you something. And then I'm kind of offended because I'm at the campfire with him, and so I'm now I'm one of the guys that she wants, you know, to get rid of. Yeah, but I say, my first thought is just dumper because that's crazy. But then my second thought is five years, Like maybe she's getting kind of pissed that you are still dating after five years and you're not making a commitment. Then I start thinking maybe Bernie's right, like maybe maybe some of the friends or

you shouldn't be hanging out with anyone. But then he says one of them passed away. So then I feel bad because then I feel like I'm being disrespectful for the one that passed away because he was a good dude, but that also created some kind of some kind of animosity or bitterness towards the girl, like, hey, I didn't get to hang out with him before he died because of you. And it's like, here's the answer, Aaron, and

I really believe this. It's not exact, but here's the answer. Communicate. Yeah, yeah, you got to communicate. This is the thing that we have become the worst at and we just want to text. Don't talk about this through a text if you are like you guys need to just sit for a while

and really dig into these things. And honestly, if you're not in that place and that's something you want to do, you probably need to dump her anyway, because she needs to go find a dude that knows how to communicate and wants to fight for the relationship, and if she's not willing to do that, you need to dump her because you need that. But you got to communicate all these things you're feeling. If she doesn't know this, you

guys are just like separating. So there's no use continuing unless you're trying to get back to the same path and move forward. Communicate. I had no words, man, that's it. That's it. I appreciate you emailing man. It always weirds me out when I see stuff like this because I've been I've been there, been in those kind of situations and usually without hearing. We need her to email this girl, Yeah, when did this come in? This came in May eleventh. We need her to email us and tell she's going

to tell us a different side of the story. Okay, but all that being said, if I'm totally on Aaron's side, if I haven't heard from her, I've been in situations like Aaron, and it's weird. If a girl starts not letting you hang out with your friends, it's just a bad sign. You got a dumper. Yep, Absolutely, let's let's get out of here. I would say get out early, but you've been in five years already, so right, I've never been in a five year relationship. Besides Amber, that's

a long time. We're gonna get out of here, guys, but at first, I want to kick out a few shout outs. Courtney Pattison, Katie k Amanda Rainier. Here's one says, Hey, I'm Shelley Haley from Center Texas. Shout out to Shout out to Shelley Sarah Miller. Shout out, we used to know Sarah Miller. Or I did at least your birthday. Shout out to Tommy shoonhard for his twenty second birthday.

His birthday is July fourteenth, or I'm early on that nice every time I do shout outs to have trouble with the names here, Alan Graham, I got that one from Alabama. Shout out, Thank you guys for listening, Love all y'all, and love you Burns YouTube man. See you next time. First podcast number ninety one, first podcast in the new spot. In the new spot. If it looks or sounds bad, I promise I'll figure that out after it's out and then I'll make those corrections. See you

next time. Love you guys, thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith Podcast. I appreciate all of you. Guys. You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel. Hit that little like button and the notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload a video. If you have a question for me that you would like me to answer, email Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com, Yigi