In tonight’s episode, I welcome two guests with very different but equally practical missions. First up, screen time strategist and author Ruby Ryba joins me to talk about intentional digital habits and her forthcoming book, How to Stop Scrolling. We dig into the behavioral science behind phone addiction, simple environmental tweaks (like charging your phone outside the bedroom), configuring Do Not Disturb modes, and replacing mindless scrolling with goals, joy, and rest. Ruby shares how to spot internal and external triggers, set boundaries that stick, and model healthier tech use for our families—all without demonizing the phone as anything more than a tool.
In the second half, local entrepreneur Dannie Mendoza steps into the studio to talk energy, community, and giving back. We get into Texas energy basics, why solar—done right—can be a long-term solution, and how to avoid common pitfalls in bills and installations. Danny also previews community projects, including the EP PopCon, the Golden Vox small-business spotlight (which I’ll be hosting on weekends), local Rotary efforts, the downtown Halloween event, and veteran support initiatives pushing for a VA clinic in Eagle Pass. It’s a conversation about saving money, strengthening community, and creating opportunities right here at home.
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(00:00:36) Cold open of poetic lines and warm-up banter
(00:02:52) Show intro from Asylum Studios and host welcome
(00:04:19) Tonights lineup and housekeeping before first guest
(00:09:07) Value-for-value, website, and urgent escrow appeal
(00:09:24) Guest intro: Ruby Ryba, screen time strategist and author
(00:10:35) Icebreakers: status quo mindset and mint tea over coffee
(00:12:01) What is a screen time strategist and why it matters
(00:13:51) The moment to write How to Stop Scrolling
(00:16:38) Behavioral science + storytelling for habit change
(00:18:01) Practical tactics: bedroom charging ban and modes
(00:20:56) Goals, joy, and rest: replacing default scrolling
(00:22:43) Identifying triggers: external, social, and internal
(00:26:12) Modeling healthy phone use with kids and others
(00:28:36) Conversation etiquette: phones down, presence up
(00:30:17) Social media, comparison traps, and connection quality
(00:34:22) First step if overwhelmed: alarm clocks and on-ramps
(00:35:36) Phones as tools, not villains: aiming for indifference
(00:38:17) Weekends off-grid, quiet time, and baby steps
(00:40:39) Closing thoughts: agency, book and newsletter links
(00:44:56) Break and musical bumper
(00:49:02) Hour two: host origin story and show tagline roots
(00:52:44) Guest two: Danny Mendoza Jr. joins in-studio
(00:55:19) From astronomy to energy: TNE Energy origin
(01:01:17) Why solar matters: grids, AI demand, and costs
(01:09:09) Understanding your bill: power plant to ERCOT to you
(01:14:18) Owning power: solar maintenance, warranties, and delivery
(01:19:32) EP PopCon: giving back, community hope, and guests
(01:40:17) The Golden Vox: spotlighting local businesses
(01:50:39) Announcement: The Golden Vox show joins the roster
(01:54:03) Community drives: VA food pantry and downtown Halloween
(01:58:34) Rotary, golf, and civic engagement opportunities
(02:00:36) School food, local sourcing, and keeping money local
(02:01:54) Wrapping up: partnership cadence and closing plugs
(02:06:02) Sign-off and credits
- Wayne Rankin
- Rosanna Rankin
- Carolina Jimenez
[00:02:19]
Unknown:
3117888732476789764376. Block when I have plucked the rose. Tebow very hot. Long and still for that which hunger nurseth the disease. In faith, I do not love thee. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? When I have plucked the rose,
[00:02:53] Unknown:
Transmitting live from the asylum studios deep in the bowels of Southwest Texas, it's the Joe Rouge Show, the show where we talk about anything and everything, where nothing is sacred, nothing is watered down, and nothing is PC.
[00:03:13] Unknown:
Alrighty. Hey folks, this is Joe Roos. It is great to be with you once again, transmitting live at the Asylum Studios from the pimple on the backside of Texas, the beautiful city of Eagle Pass, and doing the very best that we can to bring you the best quality talk radio we could muster without all the bluster. Welcome to the Joe Ruse Show. Hey, folks. It's, I think it's Monday. I lost track this week. It's been one of those, it's been one of those weeks already and it's Monday. It's, it's gonna only imagine what the rest of the week is gonna have for us. And I hope you guys had a great weekend. I hope you were able to catch the show yesterday for our Sunday Bible study show. There's always a lot of fun.
Yesterday we talked about the dispensation of innocence, which was, a very interesting study. So I hope you guys were able to catch that. Had a lot of fun with it, and, we'll be continuing on with that later next Sunday. And, we have, quite the show for you tonight. We have, we have two guests waiting in the wings for us. We're gonna bring on our first guest here momentarily. He's gotta do some usual housekeeping. And then our second guest is sitting here watching over my shoulder to make sure that I do what I told him I'm gonna do. So, we'll, we'll introduce him momentarily.
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Alright. Now, tonight's guest is Ruby oh, I gotta turn that off. I forgot. Sorry. Let me fix that really quick. There we go. Now, tonight's guest is Ruby Ryba, a screen time strategist, which is interesting. I've never heard of that one. And that when I saw the profile, I said I I need to I need to talk to this young lady to find out what this is all about. She's also an author, a coach who helps people build intent, intentional digital habits that actually work for their lives. She's a former high school math teacher turned digital wellness advocate. Ruby blends behavioral science, storytelling, and practical tool tools to guide people in reclaiming their time and attention. Currently, she's writing her first book, How to Stop Scrolling, which empowers readers to take control of their phone, through self awareness, boundaries, and meaningful alternatives. Her work is rooted in the belief that anyone can change their relationship with their phone if they're intentional, reflective, and willing to set boundaries with the virtual world. Ruby, welcome to the show. It's great to have you. Hey, Joe. Thanks so much for having me tonight. No. It's a pleasure. Truly is. Let me turn the banner off there.
Alright. Well, so so a a, a screen time strategist, that's that's interesting. We're gonna get into that in a second. I have, I I have a couple of questions that I like to ask every guest when we first start the show. I don't know if you've had a chance to check any of my shows out, so you might be prepared for this or not. I don't know. But, the first question is, what is something that most people don't know about you but should?
[00:10:43] Unknown:
Something that most people don't know about me. I, I don't think it's too apparent that I am always questioning the status quo. So maybe that's something that kind of, leads into a lot of my thoughts and ideas. So I'm always questioning the status quo. Alright.
[00:11:03] Unknown:
And, your go to beverage to help you unwind at the end of the day?
[00:11:08] Unknown:
Oh, probably like a mint tea with honey.
[00:11:13] Unknown:
That's good. That's good. I like that. Yeah. You know, actually, I'm trying to wean myself off of coffee. I'm doing better. I'm doing a lot better. Okay. That's hard. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm used to I'm used to doing like two sixty four ounce coffees every day. Yeah. No. I can't give up the caffeine. That's too hard. Yeah. No. I'm not giving it up altogether. No. I need it. Okay. Fair enough. But I'm weaning myself down from that. So this is this is number three today. So I'm I'm very proud of myself. But what I've substituted it with though, speaking of teas, I I I've been substituting it with, some green tea with with, raw organic honey and fresh lime. And it's absolutely amazing. It's great. The only reason why health too. Oh, yeah. The only reason why I'm not doing this, I ran out. So I thought I still had some in the fridge, but, in the cabinet, but I don't. But, so that's great. So, man, I love I I never thought I would say I would love tea, but I love tea. So, well, Ruby, you describe yourself as a screen time strategist.
What exactly does that mean, and how did you find your way into that particular field?
[00:12:11] Unknown:
Yeah. That's really the best way that I could put it. I've never heard of the term either. I just came up with it myself because I felt like it best described what I do. I've thought about technology, what the trade offs are as early as when Facebook was coming out in, like, 2007, 2008. It just always seemed so addictive. You know, it there always just seemed to be a little bit of danger. You know, whenever something is feels too good to be true, it is, they say. Right? And so it's always just something that I've paid attention to. But recently, you know, with in the past decade or so, this is just really accelerated, you know, what what we what we saw twenty years ago.
And I felt more urgency to almost crack this. I felt like there must be a way that this can be solved, if you will, or best practices. I I I, I majored in statistics. I'm always kind of looking for procedures, operating procedures, and I felt like this is solvable. This is hackable. And so I really started thinking about it. And then that just turned into me helping others with this issue, because it's something that I was so passionate about that I kept coming up in conversations at dinner or whatever, where people would be talking about something that their phone was doing, and then I could say, oh, well, have you ever considered blah blah blah blah blah? Because this is what I think about all the time, and they come back to me and say this is really useful. So when I started to realize that my interests were helping and serving others, that got me started to think about coaching people, writing this book, etcetera.
[00:13:45] Unknown:
Alright. Well, you actually answered my next question, so we're gonna skip on ahead. Alright. So let's talk about the book then, since you mentioned it. So you're you're you're working on writing this book, how to stop scrolling. At at what point did you decide that you needed to write the book?
[00:13:59] Unknown:
I can tell you, I can't remember the exact date, but I can remember what happened. I was in Saint Louis. I was visiting a friend, for the weekend. And I woke up early that day, because I have small children, so I will always wake up early. And the other people did not have small children, so they were all sleeping in. So I said, okay. Let me take a walk. So I took a walk. I went to get coffee. And as I always do as much as possible, possible, you know, I'm intentionally trying to not use my phone if I don't need it. We we all seem to have this gravitational pull towards pulling pulling it out, but when I noticed that I try to ignore it. So I went to go get my coffee and as I'm walking out of the coffee shop, I see across the street the store. It was called Provisions and it just looked lovely. It had interesting books, it had interesting like trinkets and pillows, and I thought that is a store that I want to go to later. And so later on after lunch, I said, ah, there's a store I wanna go to. We went there. I met the owners. I looked at the books. It was as expected or maybe even better than expected. Just a very fascinating shop.
If I had been on my phone when I was walking out of the coffee shop, I would not have seen that store. I never would have gone to it later with my friends, and we would have missed out on that opportunity. And so that just puts so concretely to me how your universe, your life can kind of split off into alternate realities based on what you do. And it just showed me so concretely what the loss could have been that day if I had been staring at my phone looking at nothing of particular value when I was heading out of that coffee shop. So that was the day, the moment that I decided, okay. This is important enough that I wanna turn it into a book. Well, that's great. You know, I recently,
[00:15:36] Unknown:
I've had I had one of those, one of those eye opening moments myself. And I decided that I spend way too much time in front of a screen. I spend too way too much time, in front of a computer, you know, my job, doing the show, and and with the phone, always always in constant communication. So what I started to do now is on the weekends from Friday night until Sunday morning, I shut the phone off. I turn on do not disturb, and I just put it to the side and leave it there. And then, I'll check, because unfortunately, my job requires me to be on call twenty four seven, so my regular job. So, I'll check it periodically, but I'm not getting the constant alerts, notifications, and things like that that's drawing me to the phone. So I just find my way over at some point. But it's really very important though, because like you said, you know, you miss out on so many things. Since I've been doing the do not disturb thing on the Friday to Saturday nights or Sunday mornings, I find I have more time in the day to do the things that I really need to do, or the things that I really want to do. And it's I don't have that constant interruption, so that I agree with you on that. Now your book blends behavioral science and storytelling. How do the two elements work together to help people, make lasting change?
[00:16:47] Unknown:
Well, I think just as we were doing right now, by sharing what I've personally gone through or people that I've worked with have personally gone through, it helps the reader feel understood and heard and not alone. You know? I think there's almost this stigma about screen time where we wanna claim that we are in more control than we are. And so that's definitely something that I try to break down by showing people, look. This happens to everyone, and here are some really easy, manageable solutions that you can inject as quickly or as gradually as you want into your life. So offering different sort of entry points and also consistently reminding my reader that this is a very to be human is to be addicted to your phone unless you've put,
[00:17:36] Unknown:
obstacles in place because that's exactly how these devices were designed. Yeah. That's a great way to put it too. You know, we're addicted to our phones. And you you talk about several exercises that you that you do. Can you tell us one of your favorite exercises or reflections from the book that listeners would be able to try, you know, right now to to become well, don't turn the phones off now if you're watching on your phone. Alright? We want you to watch. But, you know, just become more intentional with their phone use.
[00:18:01] Unknown:
Sure. So in my book, I go through a few domains. The first is the physical space, and about how to set up your physical environment in a way that encourages phone use that's aligned with your values. And I'll give you my favorite from physical space is to not charge your phone in your bedroom. It's really simple, but it makes a huge difference. I try to start my day and end my day with silence. And since making that shift, I have just seen such a huge difference because with all the content that we're consuming, we often don't have time to think or to have our own inner dialogues or inner monologues.
And, of course, that is sometimes why people reach for their phones. When you are having an anxiety riddled inner monologue, you might want to avoid that and turn on the go to your phone to tune that out. Although it's been proven that avoidant behavior actually increases anxiety rather than decreases it. So when you are anxious about something to ignore it, to avoid it, and to go on your phone instead, it's not gonna help you. It's only gonna make things worse. But anyway, going back to physical space for a number of reasons that I could go on and on about, beginning and ending your day without your phone is an incredible thing to do. Another thing that I talk about in my book is phone configurations. So you, Joe, were mentioning how you put your phone on do not disturb Friday night to Sunday morning. That's a really great intentional way that you've made a decision that during those times, you wanna interact with your phone on your terms. You will go check, but when you want to, not when the notification calls you to your phone Mhmm. And you've made that adjustment.
I love do not disturb modes. I have a work mode. I have a nanny mode. I have also a date night mode so that I can filter what can come in and what can't. Thinking about which of your apps should even have their notifications turned on in the first place. Do you need badge notifications? There's so many little things that you can actually customize so that you're only getting what you need. So that would be that would be a part of phone configuration. And then once you've made this space both physically and digitally, the big question is, what do you wanna do with your one life? Right? What do you wanna spend your time with?
And that really can take time, to answer that question. And when people don't know where to start, I encourage them to think about goals, joy, and rest. Those are three categories that we all probably can pour more into. So what are your goals, big or small? And then how can you break them down and then turn them into something that you do? What brings you joy? How can you incorporate that into your life? And then what do you find restful? Because a lot of people focus on, I want to use my phone less. I don't wanna use my phone during x. But then my follow-up question is, okay. Well, then what do you want to do during that time?
So I, I live close to New York City, and I take the train in sometimes. And last week, for example, when I went in, I had a bunch of thank you cards to write. So I brought thank you cards with me, and I wrote them on the train. It takes a little bit of preparation and forethought and planning. Mhmm. But by doing that, you know, I was aligned with my values. This is something that I wanted to get done, and so I did. So you you have to go from the goals to then the actions and then prepare yourself for that, and that takes more effort than just taking out your phone and scrolling for the the hour train ride, but I think it's worth it.
[00:21:35] Unknown:
I agree with you. I I used to do the same thing. I I'm from New York originally, and, so, I used to, I would commute. I lived on Staten Island. I would commute from Staten Island to Manhattan, every day. And, you know, exactly like you said, you know, just I would try to use that time in the commute to be more productive and instead of because I because look, everybody does this. You you know, you get up in the morning, what's the first thing you grab? You grab your phone. Mhmm. Most people do anyway. And then you sit there for who knows how long scrolling through fake book, and scrolling through, all your, you know, InstaHams and YouBoobs and all that stuff, and you know, just you and you don't realize how much time you actually lose sitting there doing that when you can be using those early morning hours to do things that are much more healthy for yourself. Like, maybe go out for a walk. Take, you know, take the dogs out for the walk instead of letting them run around outside. You know, you know, maybe go to the gym, take a run, do something a little, you know, better for yourself than just sitting there, you know, sucking down your coffee and running off, you know, through all your all your notifications on Facebook.
So so that's that's yeah. I agree a 100% with you on that one. Now, you'd also talk about identifying triggers for phone use. Now, what are some of the most common triggers that people, would face? And and what would you say is a really is a is a realistic way to interrupt those?
[00:22:58] Unknown:
So I guess there's external triggers and internal triggers is where we'll start. And amongst external triggers, there's environmental triggers, triggers of habit. Like, let's say you often scroll your phone while you eat breakfast. So then that's just it's something that you've coupled together. There can be social triggers. You're at dinner and someone else takes their phone out, so you take your phone out. And then there's also internal triggers, which are often boredom. You're waiting in line for coffee or discomfort.
You're at a networking event, and you feel like you're the only person that no one's talking to, so you decide to take your phone out. So you are like, no. It's not that no one's talking to me. It's that I'm not talking to anyone. You know? Great point. And in terms of these triggers, there isn't really a one size fits all. I think what you wanna start with is just being aware that they're occurring. So it's it's a bit of a slower process. I mean, with some things, you can intentionally, block the trigger if you know that it's if you're aware of it already. So, again, I guess that means you do have to start with awareness. But if you're aware that you often eat breakfast and scroll your phone, then maybe you put your phone in another room when you're eating breakfast. Or if you are aware that you often take your phone out at dinner, maybe you put it in your bag before you sit down. So awareness is first. And then once you're aware, you can decide if it matters to you or not. Because, also, one thing I wanna say is that my mission is not to say no one should use their phone ever. My mission is that people should use their phones as they serve them.
And so, you know, you can evaluate it and say, okay. Fine. Sometimes I take my phone out while I'm waiting for my my coffee or I check a couple emails and reply to them. If you're okay with that, that's totally fine. You know, it's it's your choice. It's just that I want it to be your choice, not your phone's choice where you're taking your phone out because your phone dinged at you. But going back to the triggers, yeah, awareness. And then once you decide which ones you're not okay with, try to think about ways that you can put obstacles into place. With some things, it's very hard to do that. Like, if it's a social trigger and you notice someone else takes their phone out and then you do, you might even notice it after the fact, but that's still getting somewhere. Sure. And it it can just take time. Yeah. And and I know earlier you mentioned you have young children. My kids are older. My I have my daughter's just turned 29
[00:25:16] Unknown:
a few days ago. My my son is 26. But when when they were kids, that was when, like, cell phones really started becoming what they are now. You know, the smartphones were coming out, you know, the first iPhones and and whatnot. And, you know, their mom and I realized that this was gonna be an issue because, of course, the both of them would come to the phone come to the table at dinner with their phones, and so we established a rule very early on, no phones at the dinner table. And we would take the phones and put them in the other room, and we would have conversation. As awkward as it might be, we would have conversation.
And, it worked because they do they do that now with their children, and, and I think it's great. It's it's that's the the best thing to do. I think people spend way too much time on the phones, and and it it it really does affect, especially in a family setting, the the the the interaction between the family. It's it's and it could be detrimental to the family. You forget how to talk.
[00:26:11] Unknown:
Definitely. So And a lot of people that are in your your children's generation, they also have difficulty even making eye contact Yes. Because they're not used to having in person conversations.
[00:26:25] Unknown:
Yep. And and, of course, everything has to be documented. Every the phone's always up, you know, in your face. Cannot stand that. I hate that. It drives me crazy. Now, so how how do you, personally model healthy screen habits at home, especially as a mom since we're talking about that?
[00:26:42] Unknown:
Yeah. I think I mean, that was definitely a big motivation for me is that when you have children, you really need to crystallize your values so that you could model them to your kids. And I do think that phone use and phone behavior is a practice. You know, you don't it's not a destination that you reach, so I'm always trying to improve myself. But, definitely, I mean, it's the same for us. We don't have phones at the table. We're not yet at the age where they're asked I mean, they don't have their own phones. They don't have any of their own personal devices, which is how it will be kept. But I think with your phone, I almost feel like you need to follow your gut. So if I'm with my kids and I feel like I'm on my phone and I shouldn't be and I feel like I I I'm missing something Mhmm. Then I should listen to that gut reaction and put it away. But, I mean, in in general, I don't have my phone out when I'm with them. And if I do, I would tell them first. I would say, hey.
Give me one sec. I just need to call this person or I need to reply to this message. And then I also indicate to them when I'm tuning back in. So I say, hey. Give me one second. I go on my phone, and then when I come back in, like, mentally with my presence, I say, okay. What's going on? Like, what are we doing now? Etcetera. Because I think that's honestly like, as an adult myself, I find that to be the most annoying or heartbreaking or however you wanna put it is when you're talking to someone and then you realize that somewhere while you were talking, they started going on their phone. I'm like, excuse me? You know? And I would never wanna do that to my kids. So and I would never wanna do that to anyone, period. So, I mean, honestly, I I guess I would say that my phone behavior towards my children is the phone behavior that I use towards any human, and that it is a tool. I even have, like, a flowchart in my book at some point where it's like, when you should use your phone with other people. First question, does it need to happen right now? And then you go to the flowchart, don't do it. Or That's good. Does it need to does it need to happen now? Tell the person that you're about to use your phone why do it and then return to the conversation. Because, like, sometimes it feels like we all need that that, and I if I'm with close friends and I'm talking to them and they take their phone out, I'll literally I won't be, like, mean, but I'll be like, oh, what are you doing? Like, I'll just express interest. And then if, like then they look like an idiot if they're just, like, on Instagram. So I'm like, okay. Like, why? Like, what? Yeah.
And and I think I mean, I like to think that that helps with their awareness. You know, they probably it's just muscle memory to them, and they don't realize it, and most people aren't gonna call them out on it. But I will. Yeah. That's good. Now now it's interesting because what I do,
[00:29:18] Unknown:
whenever I'm in a conversation with somebody and my phone rings or I get a notification or something, I perp I intentionally do not even look at it. Because the the conversation that I'm having, I want the person I'm speaking to to understand that they have my full attention. Mhmm. And if I'm with somebody and they just whip out their phone, they start doing whatever it is they're doing, I just stop talking. Yep. Me too. You know, I'll just stand there and wait. You know, and then when they put their phone down and they realize that that I'm not speaking anymore, they'll they'll look generally look up. And I'm like, oh, are you are you done? Right. You know? Yeah. There's no point in talking. They're not paying attention. Exactly. Exactly. And it's, so those are little things that I do too. So it's it's interesting. It's it's so funny how the the things that you talk about are things that that, you know, I I do and I'm sure other people do as well, without realizing that they're doing things that are beneficial for themselves. And it took you to put a book together for this. So this was great. This is fantastic.
Now social media. We talked about social media, the Instagrams, the fake books, and all that stuff. How do you think, how has social media changed our sense of community, belonging, and, how do you think we can rebuild more authentic forms of connection? We kinda touched on it a little bit, but Yeah. I mean, there's so much to that.
[00:30:33] Unknown:
I mean, I think there's, you know, I feel like a while ago, a year or two ago, it started trending to be like, remember, it's it's just a highlight reel. Right? So people would say it it was almost like people would feel like it's okay to go on Instagram because they've realized that it is a highlight reel. They acknowledge it's a highlight reel. But I honestly think that that's not enough. Because even when you know that you're looking at someone else's highlight reel, you cannot help but compare that said highlight reel to your own life. So there's something called upwards comparison and downwards comparison. And with upwards comparison, you are comparing someone's best situation to your worst situation. So that's like me looking at, like, a woman with her perfectly clean house or something while I'm, like, doing the dishes. And I'm like, like, how? What? You know? And she sometimes is doing the dishes too. But in that moment, I'm comparing my low to her high, and it doesn't feel good. And social media has created, like, so much upwards comparison that we, as humans, are just not wired and ready for. A little bit of upwards, upwards comparison can be great for us. You know, you see someone that's better than you at a sport or you see someone that's working really hard, and it can motivate you. But when you're just being blasted with upwards comparison, it's basically like being told you're not enough. You're not enough. You're not enough. Interesting. And that's not gonna help anyone.
And we we also end up not actually having downwards comparison can be healthy too. You know? It's not to say you look at people and say, oh, I'm so much better than them. But once in a while, noticing that the hard work or whatever you've done is paying off can feel really empowering and fulfilling. And so one issue that I have with social media is that it creates this disproportionate, upwards comparison versus downwards comparison. Also in terms of, I mean, communication, I think when people are asked why do you use social media, the most common answer is to stay in touch with friends and family. But then the content that you're consuming is, like, 95% influencers and stuff. It's not your friends and family.
So that kinda sounds like a lie that people tell themselves, and I'd love for them to get real and say, is it? Or, you know, is it the the entertainment or or whatever? And even if you are connecting with someone okay. Let's say someone gets engaged and, like, like the post and say congratulations. Is that really a meaningful connection compared to actually talking to them on the phone or seeing them in person and hearing about the engagement story? You know? So I think the quality of the engagement isn't great. And then, again, goes back a little bit to what we were talking about earlier, but we're just losing a lot of in person communication, which can be so meaningful and connecting.
[00:33:26] Unknown:
Yeah. Because I'll I'll I'll say I'm guilty of of this at times too, because I I would rather send that little congratulations or happy birthday or whatever it is, than actually speak to the particular person, because I don't want to. You know?
[00:33:42] Unknown:
It's just it's just easier just to send just to send that and not engage in the conversation. And maybe, you know, if it's people that you're not too close with, let's say it's coworkers or distant cousins or whatever, you know, it it does broaden the number of people that you can stay connected with. But I think the issue is if that completely replaces true personal connections. That's that's when it starts to become problematic.
[00:34:08] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. Now for somebody that's listening right now who who totally is overwhelmed by their screen time, what's the very first step that they could take today to get it under control?
[00:34:23] Unknown:
Plug your phone in outside your bedroom. Yeah. I would start with that. That's probably my favorite. And buy an alarm clock. You can buy one for $5. Yeah. Well, I I still have an alarm clock, believe it or not. Yeah. I do too. I I I love clocks, actually. You know, I try to have them in every room because that so in my book, I talk about on ramps and slippery slopes. So on ramps are things that get you onto your phone. So when you go to check the time, that's an on ramp. And then, ideally, you check the time and you put your phone down, but that can be really hard due to slippery slopes. So those are the things that keep you on your phone. So if you notice a consistent on ramp, you wanna try to replace that with a tool that only does the one thing. So, you know, we're not gonna have 50 tools. I'm not gonna have, like, a calculator and a timer and, like, a YouTube playing tablet or whatever. You know? Like, it's great that the phone does a a million things, but something like checking the time or maybe you check the weather often or maybe you need a timer because you cook a lot. If there are these things that you do frequently, using something that's not your phone can be really helpful. So I do have a clock in the kitchen. I have a clock in the bathroom because I don't wanna be brushing my teeth, check the phone, and then, like,
[00:35:30] Unknown:
I'm on my phone forever. See a notification that grabs your attention, and you stand there for ten minutes looking at that. Exactly.
[00:35:35] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah.
[00:35:37] Unknown:
So, now you you you also said that that our phones are tools, not villains. Explain can you explain that perspective for us?
[00:35:44] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I try to I'm not trying to make the phone or technology out to be bad. I think that technology is really helpful. You know, we were just talking about how we can connect with so many more people than we used to. I can FaceTime people on the other side of the world. There's lots of great stuff. It's not inherently bad per se, I don't think, but we want to use it to serve us as a tool. And I think that when you start to have an emotional attachment to your phone, like, a lot of people, they start to get anxious when their phone battery goes down. Mhmm. And or they they feel anxious if they don't have their phone with them. Those sorts of things indicate that you're a little too attached to your phone, and I think you want to, you wanna be aiming for indifference. You don't have to hate your phone, and I I don't hate mine. Like, it's just like, you know, you wouldn't you shouldn't and wouldn't have feelings towards, like, a tape measure or a ruler or a level, you know. And and it's I think it should be as ridiculous to have a feeling towards your phone. So if that's what I mean by by the fact that I think it should be a tool and and but not necessarily a villain. It's It's not your friend, but it's not a villain. It's just a tool. Yeah. I agree. I I I was one of those people that when the smartphone first came around, I got my first few and, you know, I was like, oh, this is the greatest thing ever, you know. Whatever. I I would actually
[00:37:06] Unknown:
I actually was one of those people that went out and bought the extra battery packs, you know, the chargeable thing, so you could just plug it in, so it keep it charged all the time. I don't really care anymore, to be honest. You know, I I went I went one weekend. Remember I told you, like I said, I put the phone on do not disturb. Right? I didn't realize that the battery was almost dead from Friday. And when, when Sunday morning came around, I was went to go turn pick up the phone, turn off the do not disturb, it was dead. You know? But, hey, I don't care anymore. I really don't.
The the the the less distraction, the less, interruptions I get throughout the course of the day on on the weekends is is great. Like I said, my kids are older. You know, they don't live with me anymore. They're they're raising their families back back up in New York and Pennsylvania. But, you know, it's just me and my my two dogs. But I value but I I do I value that time with those two. They're great. They're my they're my they're my little family. They're my kids. You know, I baby them. I take care of them. I spoil them. I take them on road trips. You know, it's, you know, I spend my time with them, but I don't and I I appreciate not being interrupted all day. It's people think I'm crazy sometimes, but it's no, it's the truth. It because I need that time to quiet myself.
I need that that that time to, just kinda reflect on everything that you've been through during the course of the week and where you're going during, you know, for the weekend ahead, which is my reason for doing it. So great points, man. This I I, you know, I wasn't sure what to expect with with this conversation tonight. And, this has been really this has been a this has been a treat. I'm enjoying this very much. So,
[00:38:39] Unknown:
so, I just wanted to add Sure. One one thing for any listeners that feel intimidated by what Joe is just describing because I feel like, you know, Joe has come a long way with his phone use from someone that needs a battery park a battery pack to now spending weekends away. Baby steps, You know? Yeah. So, you know, just spending time away from your phone for five minutes at a time if that's new to you. And before you know it, you'll be spending a lot of time away from it. And I I I do think that as soon as you start to see the value of it and it doesn't feel like an obligation, you'll start flying. But I just wanted to I just wanted to put that in there because as if I was listening and I hear Joe going with his dogs and phone free all weekend, I might feel like, oh my god. Can I do this? And you absolutely can. Yeah. Absolutely. You know what does drive me crazy though? Is that because of technology is so interconnected with everything
[00:39:29] Unknown:
now, if I leave the house without the phone because the phone is connected to the car, and as soon as you pull out of the driveway, you get that that alert pops up on the screen, hey, your phone's not with you. You know, you you sometimes I I do too. Sometimes you, oh shoot, I forgot my phone. I gotta go get it. No. Leave it there. Just let it go. Hit the cancel button, you know, just Yeah. Ignore it. Just go do your thing. You don't need the GPS, you know, you don't need that stuff. Learn learn how to drive around your neighborhood without GPS. You know, it's Totally. Much better for your brain anyway. It keeps you thinking. Mhmm. And and actually, I read a study someplace not too long ago that, that actually doing that, by going around without GPS, actually looking at either a map or just getting lost in your in your community, and just finding your way around, actually helps with your memory, your retention.
It helps with, it's it stimulates, I forgot. Oh, man. I I if I if I would have thought I was gonna go into this, I would have clipped the clip the article. No worries. Maybe you can put in the show notes. Yeah. That'd be great. I'd be really interested to look at it. It's it's a fascinating study. So it helps. It it it does. So to to I I look at those things and I try to take those things into consideration when I'm planning out my little excursions without the phone. Mhmm. So, those things are important.
[00:40:39] Unknown:
Definitely.
[00:40:40] Unknown:
So, what do you what do you hope the audience takes away from this conversation tonight?
[00:40:45] Unknown:
I think I hope they take away that they can make a change if they want to. You know? So if you're feeling frustrated at all in any way about how how you're using your phone, how long you're using it, what you're using it for, you do have agency. You need to think about what it is that you want, and then go get it. And it's totally possible with PhoneU. So I've seen it again and again and again. Is there anything we haven't covered tonight that you wanna bring up? I don't think so. I mean, there's so much we could talk about. I really enjoyed being on your show, and, you know, we could always dive into new topics next time. Absolutely. But, you know, if people are interested, they can take a look at my book, which is coming out in March, and they can sign up for my newsletter.
Howtostopscrolling.com is where you can find out about my book and sign up, and I can send you weekly tips. So maybe that could help as well. Sounds great. Now, who's somebody that you respect right now and what are they doing that inspires you? Someone I respect. So many people. Well, I have these two neighbors, Jeanette and Steven. They're in their early eighties, maybe 82 and 85. And it's funny, we were actually talking about phones a couple of weeks ago at dinner, But I think what I really respect about them is how they take care of their physical selves and how that really, allows them to continue doing what what they wanna do. You know? So she goes swimming every day. He's on his bike every day. And when I went out to dinner with them, like, they were making healthy choices. And Oh, nice. It was just, like, really interesting to see how small, consistent actions lead to a long, full life.
[00:42:35] Unknown:
That's great. You know, my my my regular job, I work in a nursing facility. So I I unfortunately get to see how Yeah. People who really didn't take care of themselves, can potentially where they can potentially find themselves and what conditions they're in. And, this is not a knock on where I wear them. They they could do a fantastic job in patient care. They do spot on stuff. But, it is a reminder to me, you know, because I am in my fifties. You know, I'm not I'm not so far removed from, from some of the residents we have in our building. And, you know, I I it's the motivation to really keep keep yourself moving, keep yourself healthy, keep doing things, and and, you know, you really you really do need to keep going. You can't just sit around all day sitting on your phone Mhmm. Or your tablet or your computer and just, you know, wasting the day. You gotta get out and move and do things.
And, and like you said, leave the phone behind. And that this is great. Ruby, thank you so much for this tonight. I really do appreciate this. And, what I'd like to do is, I have your email address. I'm gonna, I'm gonna have Angela put a bookmark next to it. This way, when, your book comes out in March, I'd like to get a copy of it and then, kinda go through it, and then have you back on the show again and, and talk more detail about what you have in the book and, and go from there if that's okay with you if you like that. That'd be great, Jo. Yeah. I'd love that. Alright. Outstanding. So I know you already kinda gave out some of the information, but where can they go to get your book, your social medias? If you have anything you wanna give out, go right ahead. Yeah. So, howtostopscrolling.com
[00:44:06] Unknown:
is where you can learn about my book, sign up for my newsletter. I also blog occasionally at rubyrebarights.com, and I think that's about it. Yeah. I like to keep it simple. Howtostopscrolling.com
[00:44:17] Unknown:
is the best way to find me. Alright. And it's actually, it's a good website. I looked at it today, and, it's very it's simple. It's direct. It's Yeah. It's it's minimalist, which I like the minimalist stuff. I really do. Actually, well, it's growing on me. Let's put it that way. I'm starting to like it and appreciate it a lot more, because it's way too much stimulation out there. You don't need all these flashing thingamajigs all over the place. That's how I feel. Yeah. That's why if you look at my website, it's very basic. You know, it's it's really not much. But, but again, Ruby, thank you so much for being with us tonight. I really do appreciate it, and, God bless you. And I hope that, the book is a seller for you. I hope you do a good job with this. Thank you so much. Thanks, Jeff, for having me. Have a great night. You're welcome. You too. And I'll talk to you soon. Alright.
Ruby Reiba Reba. Sorry. Said it again. Wrong. I'll get it one day. You know, you you figured I'm doing this for long enough, I should be able to get names straight, but I don't. So I apologize. Alright, folks. Well, so we're gonna take a quick break here. We come back from the break. We're gonna have Danny Mendoza Junior joining us here in the second part of the show tonight. And, we're gonna, just like I said, just take a quick break. So listen, don't forget, this is a live show weeknight 7PM central time. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share it with your friends, your family, and your followers. It's very important to do that. It helps the algorithm, keeps us moving along, keeps us getting noticed. And I wanna say thank you to the new followers we have on Rumble. Thank you so much. And for the couple of people we picked up on Youboob, thank you very much for that. We really do appreciate it.
And just just keep moving along here. And and to the folks that are watching on x and fake book and yeah. I call it fake book for a reason. And I I wanted to mention that to Ruby too, but I I slipped my mind. But, FakeBook and YouTube and x, Twitch, all those places that we're streaming on right now, thank you guys for watching. I see the numbers really, really nice, so I appreciate it. Alright. With all of that said, let's take that break, and we'll be back in about, three minutes. See you in a bit.
[00:46:32] Unknown:
Love the flow. 69. Now it's time for new believable people, and we must do it. If we don't control insiders, this will be over and over. To lead by an egg, big fat love, find common ground, to hold the spread America first. America first. Yanny non fatal. We want to build a much better Believable people. And we must do it. Non fatal communication. Very much higher. America first. To lead lead it by an end. Insiders fighting for insiders. Time to stop. Insiders fighting for insiders. More of insiders fighting for insiders. Time to stop.
Insiders fighting for insiders. America first. Love the flow. 69. Now it's time for new believable people, and we must do it. If we don't control insiders, this will be over and over. To lead by an end, big, fat, love, find common ground, to hold the spread America first. America first. Yanny. Non fatal. We want to build a much better believable people. And we must do it. Non fatal. Communication. Very much higher. America first to lead by an end. Insiders fighting for insiders. Time to stop. Insiders fighting for insiders. More of insiders fighting for insiders.
Time to stop. Insiders fighting for insiders. Insiders. America first. Love the flow.
[00:49:03] Unknown:
Alrighty. First hour is in the books. Welcome back. This is Joe Roos. This is, the Joe Roos show. Ruby Ribo. On the show with us earlier, interesting conversation. I didn't expect that at all. But then again, this is the Joe Russo. You never know what you're gonna get. That's why we always say that nothing is sacred, nothing is watered down, nothing is PC, it's an anything and everything show, and we try to do the best we can to bring you the best quality talk radio that we could muster without the bluster. Somebody actually asked me where that came from, like where where did I come up with that? That that is something that that we came up with back in 2016, on the show I did back up in New York with my friend Jay and and, our our other friend Joe.
And, we had a lot of fun with that show and there was a there was a night that that Jay didn't wasn't able to come to the show because he was, he wasn't feeling well. Let's brighten you up a little bit there. So, he, so he wasn't able to come on to the show that night. I think he had he had hurt or something like that. Or, oh no no, he was babysitting his daughter and he decided that Yeah. You could pull that down. Just pull all of it down. I'm giving instructions here I forgot to do because I went to get coffee on the break, and the dogs tripped me coming in. And, because when they tripped me, I had to go get go clean it. So the break ended before I was able to, take care of all the stuff I needed to take care of.
Let me just send this really quick. The things we do on a live show, folks, This is how we do it. So anyway, so as I was saying with, with Jay, so I knew he was I knew he was watching and listening to the show. So I, I sent that little call out at the opening of the show, and that kinda like became one of our little tag lines, you know. So that's that's where it came from. That's the answer to the question that I got the other day. But, and that was directed towards him, because I would I would say to him, I would I would say the line, and then at the end of the line, I would tell him, let's call in so we can hang up on him.
You know, which we did regularly. So but we and we did that for there was a Danny don't laugh. There was a reason for it, because the the whole purpose behind it was is because what Jay would do when we were doing the show, Jay would have the board in front of him, the the mixing board, and, we called it the captain's chair. He he was in the captain's chair the whole time, and what he would do is if he didn't like what you were saying, he would mute you. And you wouldn't even know it, because you'd still hear it in the cans, but you aren't being transmitted. And he used to do it to me all the time. So any opportunity I could to get back at him, that's what I would do. That's that's that's the kind of fun we have. And the way the show was laid out, we had three people on the show, it was me, Jay, and and Joe. And, Joe was the libertarian voice of the show, and Jay was the, the left voice of the show, and I was the right voice of the show. So we kinda played off each other, and we would argue, man. We would get into it. We would we would tussle.
It was it was a lot of fun, but, you know, at the end of the day, it was a show. We had a lot of fun doing it. We were best buddies and we hung out afterwards. We had pizza. And, you know, it's a good thing. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. But, you know, with all of that said and done, I do miss it. I do miss hanging out with Jay and and Joe, and and, one of these days, we're gonna have a reunion show. I think that I think that should be in the works. What do you think, Danny? You think we should do that? You think we should do that? I think I think you should. Okay. Alright. So that's that's the voice from the darkness over there. So we're gonna let let's bring Danny Mendoza in. Danny, welcome to the show, buddy. I'm really glad you're here. And, there's a ten second delay up up there. So if you were looking on the monitor for any reason, it's gonna be a ten second delay. Hopefully, you'll pop up there. There you go. Look at you up there in a big screen. Look. You check you out. Hey. Looking good. There you are. You At least trying to. You hand you handsome little w there, buddy.
[00:53:09] Unknown:
Same same to you, Joe. Same to you, man. I know. A lot a lot of brotherly love here. Yes. A lot of yeah. None of that homo stuff. None of that. No homo here. So It's a good way to start it. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:53:25] Unknown:
Absolutely. You know, my friend Mike, my friend Chris and I, we used to do, all kinds of like like skits and things like that, when we were kids with with the video cameras and stuff. And they would they were the big shoulder mounted things. And, it it it was well, you know what? I'm not even gonna get into it, but it's just because people just would not understand. So We're gonna need to hear the whole context together. Yeah. Exactly. It's gonna take way too long to get into all that stuff. But, so Danny Mendoza is the, CEO, CFO, Yes. Of of all of these different organizations. But the but the the the first important one for me at least right now is is that he is the CEO of TNE Energy Yes, sir. Which, we are very happy to be partnered with right now and, excited to see what, what kind of damage we can do together as as a team. And, so, Danny, welcome to the show. I'm glad you're here. And so it's almost didn't happen. Yeah. True. But I tried to get this thing put together as quickly as possible. Thank you for the coffee. It's delicious. Oh, you're welcome. I didn't need it. I had a run before I got here. That's why I looked this You had the runs before you got here?
I had a run. Oh, okay. Because I because I have I have wipes I have wipes over there for you.
[00:54:37] Unknown:
Not yet. Even though I should be taking some prune juice, I guess. Hey. Nothing you gotta be healthy. You know, you gotta be healthy.
[00:54:45] Unknown:
Absolutely. Absolutely. That's what we were talking about earlier. We were talking about, phone health, electronic health. So now we're gonna talk about bowel health. No. I don't think so. Yeah. I'm not I'm not an expert in that. Let let's let's pass on that conversation. But, but, Danny, so tell us about T and E Energy. Tell us how you got started with it when it when when you really, like, threw yourself into it and, decided that this was the direction you wanted to go with the business.
[00:55:12] Unknown:
So I've been in the energy industry for over fifteen years, believe it or not. It's actually started in Central Texas. Okay. So, as a good buddy of mine, Johnny Wong, give I'm a give him a big old shout out because if it wasn't for him helping me start I had to borrow money to start in the beginning. So, actually, I'm a big gamer. Okay. I actually put my Wii U as collateral, which is kinda funny. I was like because, I was like I think it's still in college when I first started. Okay. And I, I was trying to go for astronomy. So that's actually my what I was trying to major in Alright. When I was in college. And then, business was actually my minor.
So, it was very interesting how it all worked out. But, when I first moved in, you know, the college life, everybody knows this, I I I wasn't, I didn't I didn't get a dorm or anything like that. I had to, you know, get my own apartment, move in, stuff like that. Nobody told me how to buy energy. One of the things that I noticed about that's common in America is that everybody uses energy, but nobody knows how to buy it. And That's a great point. Yeah. Yeah. So and they do that often. They'll they'll tell you exactly where to buy, like, the cheapest tomatoes and stuff like that. Or, hey. This is the best place to buy this. But when you start talking about energy, they're like, oh, like, no. I don't even wanna touch it. And it's like like, you use that every day. That should be the one you touch. So I was living with my wife, in, in efficiency.
Okay. And, the energy bill was, like, $450. That should not be for
[00:56:53] Unknown:
No. No.
[00:56:55] Unknown:
You know what? That shouldn't be for anybody anywhere. That that's just absurd. Well, things have changed. So this was we're we're talking about, like, you know, I wanna say, like, twenty years ago. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it was the the the whole entire thing was way different back then. Mhmm. I remember the Kilwa price being $6.09 cents. Like, it's 6¢ or 9¢. Yeah. I was like, and, but when I was paying for it, I didn't know how to buy it. So even then, I still paid more than what I should have. And, that's where it started. That's where the idea started. Because when my buddy told me, hey. You should go to this company. And I was like, oh, I can choose? It's like, yeah. Nobody told you. I was like, no. And then when you look at these kids today, when they go out, they don't know. What whoever they would get recommended by whoever, they don't even pay attention to the price. They'll just get it. Yeah. That's true. Because I'm, you know, you know, I'm from New York. You you know that. And,
[00:57:43] Unknown:
you know, in New York, you don't have a choice where you get your energy from. It's it's one company. You've you have no say in it whatsoever. There's no shopping around for it, so you just accept whatever it is that that it is. So when I came here and and they were like, I I think I went to H E B one day, and it was like like booths set up with all these different energy companies. I was like, what the hell is this? You know?
[00:58:04] Unknown:
Yeah. This is new. I was like, well, that's deregulation. I feel like it's a good thing. It it puts, it puts the power back, to the to the people and the companies to compete. Mhmm. You know this. If you keep one company, they're gonna be like, this is the price, and that's it. Nothing you could say about it. Mhmm. And so, it even though a lot of people probably don't like our, you know, privately owned because it's not publicly owned Right. And, our our grid here, it's actually considered one of the best in the world. Mhmm. And so I I studied a little bit on that, especially after the freeze happened. And, I was literally stunned because ours needs a lot of improvement.
But to say that it's the best, like, anywhere else you go, that is crazy because we are behind on a lot of technology on that stuff. Mhmm. And, we're not building any new power plants, and there's a lot of people moving to Texas. Yeah. That's true. So and then, there's a there's a new one that I didn't consider. I already knew all the rates are supposed to be going up no matter what. And, I didn't consider AI. So I have a team. It's not just me. There's a lot of people that, you know, I work with that deals with energy. I actually work with Mantis Innovation. Okay. They're considered one of the best for commercial in Texas and in the nation. I think they're number two in the nation if I'm Oh, wow. So they do outside of Texas too. Okay.
Got lucky how I partnered up with them. This was in Waco, Texas when I was in Central Texas. I got to meet a lot of great people, so I don't wanna I don't I don't I wanna say God blesses me and he favors me, so I wanna stay in that favor. Yeah. That's that's good. That you should. Yeah. So, I got to meet a lot of great people. And, yeah, they they literally told me, hey. Did like, prices are about to go up. I was like, well, I already knew that. And I was like, no. No. No. No. They're gonna go up, like, quickly. And I was like, why? And they're like, well, AI is like, all these data centers that they're making Yeah. It requires a lot of energy, and there is no there's no extra, power being put into it. So someone has to pay for all that, and it gets it gets pretty heavy after you, like, look at all the data and stuff like that. So and then I like I said, it's not only me, so I have other experts that are on the field.
But yeah. No. It's it's actually going in a in a route to where well, I mean, in California, I had a so there was a story, here locally. There's these guys that are going out there. By the way, we we offer residential for your home Mhmm. Commercial for your business, and then we also offer solar. Now out of all those three, the one that's gotten hit the most and the hardest has been solar. But that is the answer, by the way. No matter which way you slice it, if you wanna keep pricing low and you want to own the energy, which is crazy to even say solar is the answer. The only problem is nobody knows how to do it yet. It's only, like, 25 years old. So what'd you expect? And then it's like True. True. It's juju magic to the majority of the people. They don't understand how it even works. But the idea is that you can own that right now. And when I suggest people, it's like, look. If you can own the energy, own it.
So, going into the story of this one, there was a a competitor of mine that came by, talked to one of my clients that already has solar, and he comes from California. And he all he does is solar. Okay. So and he works for this company. I forgot the name of it. But, my client was like, hey. Come sit down because we're already getting solar with you, but this guy is, like, you know, talking game. Let's see what he says is true. And what I was there for is, one of the things that a lot of peep salespeople do is that they kinda over exaggerate on a lot of stuff. Kinda have to tell the people exactly how it works. Mhmm. And someone, oh, well, I don't want it. It's like, well, you're gonna miss out because trust me, as time goes on, you're gonna want it. The idea of this being cheaper, it's you're buying a power plant. It's not cheaper. It's a little bit more expensive, but it's not to where it's like, oh my god. It's so much more expensive. No. Only when you do it wrong okay. It's just like anything else. Like, if you buy something cheap You get what you pay for. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, whoops. I have to spend more money now. Like, I was like, okay. That's usually what happened. Okay. It's Yeah. That was you're right. You're absolutely right. Okay. Well, with energy, really, you're gonna go cheap on that? It's like it's like the worst idea you could do. The reason we had the freeze and the reason 10% of the population have and this is this is what we were told when we were looking into it is the windmills did not work under extreme cold weather. Now there are windmills that work under extreme cold weather, but those cost more. Mhmm. And when they were told to buy those, they were like, well, it never gets cold here.
So why would we buy them? And this is they went cheap on energy. Look. 10% of the population lost their energy. So, yeah, it's it's kinda crazy to go. But, anyways, he was telling me the story. I said, hey. Gave a lot of stuff. He over exaggerated and played on some stuff, but, nothing too horrible or bad. And then I asked them because I'm really curious on energy rates everywhere else, and I always try to double confirm. Usually, people don't lie to you either because why would they lie about it? I was gonna say that there's no point in lying about it. They don't gain anything from it. Well, California's kilowatt rate is about 70¢.
[01:03:14] Unknown:
70¢? Yeah. Hold I'm complaining about what I have. Well, no. Okay. Well,
[01:03:20] Unknown:
here's the bad news for you. It's supposed to be higher. Oh, I know that. Yeah. Yeah. It's supposed to be right now after the freeze happened since they lost, I think it was a billion dollars, if I'm correct on that, if I still remember because it was a while back. They they took out a loan to pay for that because it's a private grid. By the way, during that time frame, China bid for it, believe it or not, and the US government bid for it. So they decided to take it alone. They said, no. We're not gonna sell it to these guys. I was like, so we got lucky on that one too. Most people don't know that that was, like, an actual thing. China could have bought our energy grid. That would have been that would have been crazy, man. It would have been disastrous. I think so too. Yeah. No. Because you don't want so we're not the we don't have the best energy grid because, you know, the government or the government owns it because, technically, China's a government too. So it's just one of the worst ones. Yes. I agree. Yeah. So, and they would have made a lot of money too because there's a lot of money in Texas when it comes down to energy. And this this goes with solar. So when he said, hey. 70¢, I started laughing, and my client was like, woah. Everything you said was was true?
I was like, bro, like, what do you think I was just, like, saying it just so I can get the sales? I was like, this is actual data. And whether you like it or not, it's going in that direction. Yeah. I I was like, I've been in the energy industry for fifteen years when I got into solar, like, seven years ago, and I started kinda learning from it, you know, little by little. And so, teeny energy started focusing more on solar. And there's huge profits in in energy. So so much in profits that even the client can get some capital.
[01:04:49] Unknown:
That's how much money When when you and I were talking about this, well, we talked about it more than just once. We we talked about it a couple of times actually. When we talked about it last week, and you really went to more detail last week about it. I mean, I I was blown away by it. Now I am looking forward to getting panels and and getting hooked up to the solar here eventually. Well, it's the it's the only solution. I had a I just wanna talk to Pat. Big old shout out to Pat. He's one of the he's the GM for,
[01:05:15] Unknown:
the the mall, the Pet's mall. And he literally told me he bought a house in San Antonio with panels and generator. And I told him, hey. Is that as bad as they say? Like, that it's I'm obviously, I was just, you know, instigating all of that. Yeah. I know. But I wanted to confirm. Because if if you talk bad about it, he doesn't know my stance on it. Mhmm. So I was like, hey. Is it as bad as they say? He's like, no. Actually, it was like the best purchase I ever had. And then and then I came out and said, see, that's what people need to be saying. Most people don't even say that. I was like It's true. He bought a house with panels and a generator. And I've said this before, and I'll say it again. A house if you own a house and you own the energy, that's better than a house with no energy. Exactly. I agree. So I agree with you. Especially when you get an electric bill like I got. Yeah. It was a good bill too. I saw it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was a juicy one. Yeah. No. But you're actually believe it or not, you're on the lower tier as horrible as that sounds.
[01:06:13] Unknown:
Everything I do is lower.
[01:06:15] Unknown:
No. Don't say that. Don't say that. No. So, yeah. So we help out regular homes. You know, on average, they can with the companies that we partner up with, they can normally say, like, maybe about 10%. 10 to 30% is, like, usually max. Hey, Mike. Thanks for watching. Appreciate it. Hey. Oh, by the way, that's Mike Chad. Big old shout out to him. We're gonna be talking about it here in a whole second. That that guy's gonna be on your podcast. Oh oh, that oh, that's the guy. That's the guy. Alright, Mike. That's the guy. Walk into here, buddy. I hope you're ready for this. Yeah. So How many of errors that we got going on? Commercial, I've had a bunch of them. So Jersey Mike's, Central Texas, those are under our company, which are under man Mantis Innovation, but they're like I I know, big shout out to Bobby.
I knew him before he became, like he rose up the ranks at Jersey Mike's, and it's, they saved a lot of money with us. Mhmm. Then, here in Eagle Pest, I've actually helped out a lot of people already. So, like I said, it's it's not a bad thing when they buy it wrong. Nobody knows how to buy this stuff, so it's okay. Mhmm. And then don't feel bad about it because, like, there was this one it's it's called Gummies. Big old shout out to Gummy. That's like that's the nickname. He saved about something was, like, 60% Okay. Off of his bill. So it went from, like, a he was paying, like you said $2.50 on yours.
You know, his was, like, a thousand. So
[01:07:36] Unknown:
so he ended up he ended up paying $5.50. It was $2.50 this time, but last month, it was it was much more. It's closer closer to 500 Okay. Last month. That sounds accurate. And I'm still I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing different that it came down a little bit. It's just the weather?
[01:07:52] Unknown:
I don't know. I really haven't changed any pattern in any kind of stuff. Well, it's the weather. It's the heat and the AC. So 60% of your usage from the build comes from the AC. Mhmm. So if you don't have good AC system or anything like that yeah. And usually the worst systems is that I tell people this all the time. The worst system is the window unit. Right. It's the worst system. Second worst system is the mini split. It's still really good. It's way, way better than the, what's it called in the window unit. Yeah. Of course. And then the AC unit is just king no matter which way you select it. Yeah. The central air unit. And the newer you have it, the better. There's even new technology that allows you to use, you know how they turn on and they turn off? Mhmm. So there's a little chip that we actually offer when they go solar. You can add it to I think it's up to, like, maybe a five year, seven year old AC unit.
And, when the power shuts off, there's still current in there. So what this chip does is it uses it. I see. And so it stays on for an extra, you know, maybe thirty minutes. That's how much energy is being wasted, by the way. That's crazy. I know. That's really that's insane when you think about that. No. It is. It is. Because all all these little things add up, and then you're talking about window units. You're talking about, insulation. You're talking, like, it all it all these things add up, and your biggest expense is your AC.
So no matter which way you slice it across the board, they already have data for this and stuff like that. Oh, yeah. I that's is isn't it broken down like that on your bill also? I think it's I think it is. Well, some of them break it down, but the majority of them don't. So oh, and then that's another thing. So people don't know how to read the bill. I'll teach you guys a little bit on how to read the bill so nobody else can kinda skim you from it. There's the little numbers. They don't they do this purposely too. So they'll tell you, hey. Our kilowatt rate is 10¢. Mhmm. And you're like, yay. 10¢.
And then you're like, wait. Why does it say why did I pay so much if it was 10¢? Well, there's a whole system that goes on to get energy to your home. So for example, it starts at the power plant Right. And then goes to the delivery service here. It's AP. You go to Central Texas, it's Encore. You go to Houston, it's a different one. I think it's Northeast something. And, like, everywhere else you go, there's, like, few different, delivery services. Okay. But you get it from the power plant. They make the deal with the power plant, usually wholesale it, and then they deliver it to you. And then there's a middleman before it actually gets to even you. There's a middleman between the let's say, you're you're getting TXU and the delivery service. The middleman's called the ERCOT.
[01:10:18] Unknown:
Okay.
[01:10:19] Unknown:
And so, they're the ones that turn on turn off your light. And they're the ones that kinda I don't wanna say regulate because they don't really do that. It's more like a like a checks and balances, I guess you could say. So that way nobody just owns the whole entire thing. I see. Which is actually pretty good. So everybody by the way, this is how much money there is in energy. All these people get paid. Yeah. Okay. So, and the wrong business. That's what I well, I mean, I gotta like it. Like I said, I was in astronomy, so that's the only reason.
So, and and then comes the deal that only you see, which is in front of TXU. But all that has to happen before the energy gets delivered to you. So the kilowatt rate that TXU does with, you know, the line as it goes over there, it could even sometimes skip, but it goes all the way through. That's why you get the kilowatt rate that you do here. Mhmm. And then you have issues after that. Because then you're like, hey. The lights went out. Who do I call? It's not TXU. It's AEP because they deliver it. So and then when the light gets turned off, it's not TXU that ordered the shutoff. It's ERCOT. ERCOT ordered the shutoff because they noticed you didn't pay. This is like I said, it's checks and balances, so not one place has all so Tx, you can't just say, we're gonna turn off your power. They can't do that. They have to go through ERCOT and ERCOT has to say, okay. They didn't pay. Okay. Yeah. And then as soon as you pay, they actually turn it on immediately, usually within fifteen to twenty minutes because it's a must. Mhmm.
[01:11:41] Unknown:
But sometimes it might take, like, an hour or two depending on, you know, if there's outages and stuff. Yeah. It gets so if you look at that whole Or if you piss off the person that you called and and sort of yelling at them because they shut your tower off. By the way. You can't No. I know. No. You I know you. I'm saying you call call TXU. You curse them out. Bang. You shut my power up.
[01:11:58] Unknown:
It was not even them, by the way. They're like, oh, I know. But I'm That's why they tell you, just pay it, bro. Like, so but if you see where all that money comes from, solar gets rid of all that. It's just you? Solar? Because you're the power plant, by the way. You're the owner now. You're the owner of the power plant even of the delivery service of it. Mhmm. When you think about it, it's all there. It's all that lines and grids and all that stuff, and it's on your freaking roof. It's actually kinda mind boggling when you really sit down and think about it. And then it's your job to hire the delivery guys to fix your stuff. That's where you get a lot of issues because peep most people don't know, well, who do I call? And it should be the the deliveries the delivery service should be the, solar company that you bought it from. That's supposed to be the delivery service. Okay. So they're supposed to maintenance your stuff, and then it depends on the contract that you made with them. Some of them do, some of them don't. And then, I mean, just like a house, you sometimes have to pay if some some of the stuff messes up. You can insure it, though. You can actually add it to your insurance. So it's kinda even more insane when you think about it from that point. And then they do have a twenty five year warranty, but it's only good if the the solar company is still active.
So if that goes bankrupt, well, now you gotta find a new one, and good luck if they want to if they know how or they even want to because they don't they don't make any money off of that. And usually, they'll have to charge you, which is why we we came up with a maintenance side for solar. Okay. And and but that's a whole different other even I had to take a step back because, oof, the expenses on those things, they get kinda crazy. Wow. So, but we partner up with somebody that can handle it. So the idea is to bring solutions to Eagle Pass. So that's how that's All of that, folks, just to get to the punch line of Yeah. Yeah. Bring solutions to Eagle Pass. Yeah. That that that's our job. Our job is to provide solutions, for all people who who decide to get, energy consumption. Because one of the biggest thing that I noticed was if you don't have power, you fall behind.
And and this has been proven throughout civilizations. The civilization that has the most power reigns supreme. Yeah. I mean, that's kinda what the bomb was. The when we dropped it on here to Shamrock, it's just a bunch of energy, raw energy. Exactly. It's kinda scary when you look when, you know, you think of it as ever. So but, yeah, that's what that's what my T and E energy company is for. It's, that's why we call it, you know, providing affordable energy to progress civilization. That's what it's for. If if you if if a business is able to save $500 Right. They're able to do more. Of course. If in your house, you can have the energy running all the time and prices are low or at least, you know, they don't go crazy Mhmm. And you're the owner of it, then you can do more. Of course. I think so. And that's You have more money in your pocket. You have more buying power. You can do what you need to do. Exactly.
[01:14:46] Unknown:
So that's that's the point. That's what we're here to do. Well, I am looking forward to, getting my panels and and whatnot set up here. So so, as as my sponsor, you know, I'm Yeah. We got I gotta give you a deal now too. Yes. You do. Yes. You do. Especially, you want me to keep on bragging about this thing and Exactly. Saying how great you guys are. I mean, I need to, you know, experience it Yes. For myself. That's how it works. So you so in addition to T and E energy, because you spread yourself pretty thin. You do a lot of stuff. Mhmm. You're all over the board. I know you told me over the weekend that you're usually up till two, 03:00 in the morning working on stuff. So, I mean, God bless you for it.
Usually at two or 03:00 in the morning, I am camped out on the couch with with the kids watching some kind of weird movie on on Tubi or something, you know. But, Some good Halloween movies going on right now. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You know, I've been watching I've been watching these old nineteen sixties horror movies. I I watched one the other night was it last night actually? I put it on, and it was the weirdest movie I I'd ever seen. It was called the, the the Screaming Skull. It was so weird and, Sounds odd. And what I what I what really what really triggered me to say, okay, this might be a mistake, was, you know, back at back in in in those days, they would do these horror movies, they would always, lead into the movie by having some kind of a commentary from the off camera voice.
And one of the this one was it was a slow shot into, like, a funeral home, and there's this casket laying there. And the the the the voice over guy is saying, talking about this movie, it's, you know, it's the first movie of its kind, and and, they have an arrangement with the theater owners that if anybody dies from shock, that their funeral service will be paid for, and then the lid to the coffin opens and it says, reserved for you.
[01:16:39] Unknown:
And I was like,
[01:16:41] Unknown:
I'm like, alright. Let's see what this is all about. It was the weirdest freaking movie I've ever seen. And you took a shower with that type of or, like, description. Even I would've been, like, at next. Yeah. I know. Right? So but so so I'm watching this thing and it's I mean, it's not a bad story. The story basically was that this guy, he was he was a widow, a widower, and, he remarried. And when his first wife passed away, she she owned the home they were living in and the grounds. It was like a mini mansion type thing. And, and and she left that to him, and then he remarried somebody who's who was some, like, insane.
And but she had, like, a ton of money, and the plan was that he was going to make her go crazy by thinking that the ghost of his ex of his of his dead wife was haunting her to the point where he's either has to have her committed or she commits suicide or something like that, and the whole thing falls apart, turns around on him. I got it. Not a bad idea, you know, for a movie. Executed wrongly. But it's not but not not executed
[01:17:46] Unknown:
well at all. It was like a movie that I saw recently. It was called Jack in the Box. I don't know if you heard of it. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard of it. I feel like it had a lot of potential, and they squandered it. That's what it felt like. Because the idea is good. Like, if you watch the movie, it would be creepy, but I feel like they I mean, they just I mean, they had low budget. You can tell. Yeah. And, if they would have brought in some some good, like, directors and stuff like that Oh, sure. I think that would have been a great new spooky stuff that goes on. Well In in that tone, though, that's why, we actually had some, this is the the one that you're talking about, the EP Popcon.
We're on the third year already, but on the second year here, we actually brought, Butcher's Bluff. It's like a horror theme, director. Like how I segued. Yeah. I know. Yeah. I had a feeling. I was like, you know, maybe he's playing it on that for him. So, this actually was this actually was created for, the people here at Eagle Pass. So for those that have supported our like I said, there's a lot of money that goes into solar. So most of this is actually funded by our solar company. Mhmm. So, I, you know, I wanted to give something back to the people, and and I wanted to prove certain things that people here in Eagle Pass. For some reason, I don't know where this thought process comes from, but they say that you can't do.
So one is you can't give stuff to the people, which I was like, that's that's wrong. Anybody can. But they're like, nobody here in Eagle Pass is willing to do it. Oh, well, I'm here in Eagle Pass. I live here. I was like, I can do it. I was like, and then, two's like, well, no one's gonna support it. All these people are well, it's free to the public. I'm giving. I was like, so, you know Anytime anytime anywhere you are, you put the label free on something, people are gonna respond. Well, and they said they weren't I'm not saying that I'm not saying that it's a negative. It's not a negative at all, but you'll you'll get their attention. Yeah. Well, they said that they weren't gonna support this one, but people wanted this here too. Remember, you gotta have something that people want. You can give away free nonsense, and people are just gonna be like, I don't want that. Sure. I was like, but if you if you got something that the people want, you're able to give it to them, then might as well do it and do it in the best form that you can. So then that's another reason why I ended up doing this. It's like, hey. You know, that's that's two. There's two things that they said that couldn't happen that just happened. Yeah. That's true. And they're like, oh, no businesses are gonna come by and help. And I got a whole list of businesses here that
[01:20:03] Unknown:
so I was like, there's What I would like to have been I would have strikes. You're out, sir. I I would have loved to have been the fly on the wall to look at their facial reactions when you showed them the list. Well, okay. Well, you said nobody's gonna help out. Nobody's gonna contribute to this thing, but there's one, two, three. Yeah. I was like, no. Not only that, it was like it was the first year we tried it out. They're like, nobody's, gonna, like, go the second year. And they would I even have the data for that too.
[01:20:28] Unknown:
So it's just, you know, it's I don't know where these weird ideas are coming from. Like and I don't know why they're here. They're not real ideas. Right. So, you gotta push what's real. And then, that we we I created this really the first time around as a marketing. It's supposed to be marketing. Like, people here is like, well, marketing doesn't work. I was like, marketing is very important for any business. Anyone that says they have enough marketing or they don't need marketing, they have no idea what they're saying. If you look at all these other bigger businesses, they understand that marketing is the lifeblood of any business. Absolutely. And you must do it. There was I had read this book.
There's this I think it was was it Bentley or Bugatti? I think it was Bugatti. So Bugatti's theory is we wanna have an omnipotent is that how you pronounce that? Omnipotent? Omnipotent. Omnipotent marketing. That's kinda crazy to think about. Yeah. But the majority of people do know what Bugatti is. Mhmm. That's the point. The point is you want everybody to see your product at least one time. Mhmm. And that's what marketing is. And, yes, it'll cost money, but the returns are insane. And so this one, the first year that we did it, it tripled my my, investment. Nice. So I was like, oh, I guess it's a real thing. And so then I did it again. And right now, I mean, it hasn't completely tripled, but there's there's other things that pop up that are not just monetary wise.
And so this is where you say you spread it thin, but it's you get all this extra work. There's there's eyes that see it now that, hey. I like what you did. Let's do something. Right. And then all of a sudden, it just amplifies everything. And if it's I I strongly believe that if it's under good cause and, you know, obviously, God first, it it works. So, yeah. That's what we did. Like, this year, last year, we brought Peter Dante. I don't know if you know who he is. No. Name sounds familiar, but I'm not sure. He comes out in a bunch of Adam Sandler movies. Okay. Have you seen any of them? I'm not a Adam Sandler fan. Okay. I don't blame you either.
I I actually found I'm really I like a lot of comical stuff. I thought his stuff was really goofy too, but it's still funny. So, like, I was, you know, I'm able to keep up with that stuff. But we brought him disagree on that. Yeah. Well, yeah, we'll go with that. I was like, no. Really, I am sound as a hit or miss with people. So because he's just too goofy sometimes. It's like childish goofy. But it's I I still find it. I don't wanna say the r word, but yeah. That's that's why I laugh at it. Listen. Yeah.
[01:23:04] Unknown:
The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play. Yeah. That's that's how you that's how I saw yes. That's exactly what I saw. Yeah. So, this time we brought Napoleon Dynamite because,
[01:23:15] Unknown:
we had the elections and the runoff. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, like I said, the whole point of the popcorn is to give to the people. So give them a win. I was like, because, sometimes they need to see that in order for them to believe. Mhmm. I was like, and bring in hope. And that's one of the biggest things that I like bringing to the people because it's it's not seen often, and I think we need more of that. And as soon as all it takes is one person, and then the thing starts rolling. So like I said, it started off with a marketing mindset, and then I noticed something bigger. Like, some of these artists that we bring really move the people. So it wasn't me bringing the hope. It's just the people when they see, Peter Dante or when they see Napoleon Dynamite because that's what we brought the second time around.
It it moves people, especially the kids. That was the one that, like I don't get starstruck, so I don't know why. I don't either. Yeah. It's it's odd to me, but I saw the peep like, some of them were shaking. Some couldn't even speak. Yeah. No. It was weird. Like, I was like, woah. And but the biggest part was, like, there was, like, these five kids that were from Camino Real, and, they had, like they were under this mentorship program that that he tried paying me for. I said, no, man. It's for the kids, so go ahead. They can take and then some of these artists are like, no. No. I won't charge for them because I know, you know, you know, what what they're coming for. Like Right. Exactly. For, Napoleon Dynamite, I think he gave away a bunch of them for, the kids that were on, the projects.
Like, the the the housing authority brought the kids. We took pictures with them, and and he gave he gave away stuff. We didn't charge for that. Right. He didn't charge me either. But if you know a little bit of a a big old shout out to him, by the way. Fernando Ramirez, he's a great guy. I got to I got to speak with him during that time. They're you get to see that they're just human just like, you know, you and me, and they they go through different opportunities. And some some say they get lucky, but I don't think it's luck. I think it's just work. Mhmm. But a friend used to be in the projects too, believe it or not. Right. And so when he was tell talking to the kids, he was telling, hey. You have a you have a choice. You don't have to stay there. You can work and do the right thing. And, you know, it's a different message. Absolutely. It is. So and and it comes from someone that they see on TV. So it becomes, to them, I guess, something really big.
So, Peter Dante did the same thing with the five people from Camino Real, and believe it or not, Joe big old shout out to Joe, by the way, because he brought them. He he literally told me he said, hey. Those those kids, 180. Like, they went from Yeah. To doing great. I was like, what the I wasn't expecting that. Remember, we it started as a marketing strategy, for my solar company and for all these businesses because I was trying to show them, hey. This is how you do marketing. You must give. You might not get the money right then and there, but the people don't forget. And if you do a really good job, they'll give you the money as time goes on because they're gonna support your business or they're gonna tell their people about your business. That's what it started off as. And then I noticed that there's actually, like, something deeper to that when you give. And I was like, woah. That was like, if anything, that's why I started doing it after that. It's a lot of work.
It's just
[01:26:24] Unknown:
you keep on saying give and, you know, as as every time you say it, a verse pops in my head it it pops in my head, you know, it's give and it shall be given unto you. Mhmm. You know? And, verse goes on from that, but I'm not I'm gonna mangle it right now. But the the important thing is give. Yeah. And, you know, we Eagle Pass, it's it's a it's a growing city. It's it's, what do we have? Just a little over 30,000 in population right now.
[01:26:50] Unknown:
Well, that's what they say. I think we're bigger. Think we're bigger than that? No. I think we're like at 50, and then plus all the traffic here, easy over a 100. You know? Yeah. Okay. So we'll just say so we'll say 40. Yeah. Just for argument's
[01:27:02] Unknown:
sake. And, even but even though it's 40,000 people in this quote unquote small town, you know, it's it's still really is a small town. Everybody knows everybody. Everybody's somehow connected to each other. I mean, I mean, for crying out loud dude, I I met somebody the other day and I found out that this person was is is like a cousin to somebody that I know that's that's married to somebody that I know that's a cousin to that person and this and it's like, incest had to be somewhere along the way. I I I don't know. You know? Somebody had somebody had a hook up with somebody That was a good theory to prove that. You know, somebody had a hook up with somebody's cousin somewhere along the way. That is scary. Right? Like Yeah. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. What's your last name?
[01:27:50] Unknown:
Right?
[01:27:51] Unknown:
No. So so Well, you had that on. Right? The mayor here? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. No. Because, that's, that that's kinda what I was trying to get to that we are a pretty small town, but most people don't know. Even though we are small and mostly everybody knows everybody, it's weird because, like, there's still people that you don't know. And it and it's like, yo. Like, that guy's really important. You gotta know who he is.
[01:28:12] Unknown:
Well, I I learned I learned it the I I learned it like the like the example that I like to give is, I'm from New York. You know that every everybody knows I say it all the time. But, you know, in New York, you you can get lost in New York easily. 8,000,000 people in the in the city of New York alone, not including the outer boroughs, just 8,000,000 people in New York City. You know, anonymity is beautiful Mhmm. In that regard. Here, man, I was I was pumping gas when I I first moved here. I I was pumping gas, and as I'm at the pump, my phone rings or or dings, whatever it was, and I look at it. It's a text message from somebody that I know of a picture of me at the gas pump.
[01:28:57] Unknown:
That sounds about right. And I'm like
[01:29:01] Unknown:
And you're like, okay.
[01:29:02] Unknown:
They didn't even say hi, though. No. They just it was a picture of me at the gas pump. And I was like, okay. And they were like, oh, they they just wanted to know if I knew you were there. Who? The person that took the picture. I'm I'm I'm purposely not stating names because I don't, you know. But, you know, the person that took the picture took the picture of me at the gas pump and sent it to somebody else who wants to make sure that they knew that where I was. And I was like
[01:29:28] Unknown:
Okay. Really? You know? Sounds like girl problem. Naya. Well,
[01:29:38] Unknown:
I I I It sounds like you go past ladies too. Yeah. Well, this is when I first got here. I'm a get killed now for that. No. No. This this is when I fir when I we first moved here and and, when I first moved here with with my now ex wife, it's yes. I'll I'll go with it. Are you? No. It was it was one of her friends
[01:29:56] Unknown:
saw me at the gas pump. I had a feeling. I had a feeling. Saw me at the gas pump, sent it to her, and she sent it to me. And, you know Now, man, and, like, there's a it's so weird because, remember, I was in Central Texas. Texas. Yeah. Literally moved back because of my wife. I was like, and then I've met a bunch of people that are living here because they moved back because of their wives. That's crazy. That's insane. No. But each one has, like, a valid point. So I mean Yeah. And then if you if you wanna be a providing husband, I mean, you you gotta do what you gotta do. Of course. But my point the whole point of the whole story was is that even though it's it's 40 plus thousand people
[01:30:33] Unknown:
community, it's still a community. Everybody everybody's involved in everything. Everybody knows everybody. And the things that you're doing with with Popcon, you know, that's that's community. That that's building the community. It's that's maybe not even building. It's more like strengthening the community. It's bringing people who already are here, who are already involved in each other's lives in one way, shape, or form
[01:30:56] Unknown:
together. Well, see, this is weird that you mentioned that because that was the point. The point of rumor was to give back to the people. Mhmm. And then to showcase the strength of the people. Because, I don't know. This is another idea that I've been trying to fight is they think that the power is not with them, like, that they can't do anything. And what I'm trying to to establish is, like, look. I'm just a regular. I don't I'm not a politician. I don't do crazy stuff either. I was like like like, big you know, I'm not a multimillionaire, at least not yet. I was like, so what they can do is relate. And so even though, yeah, I do wear a suit every now and then, I actually prefer the suit.
I like to see. Well, when I was in Central Texas, my business was already settled. I'm I'm gonna tell you I'm gonna give you a piece of advice that,
[01:31:40] Unknown:
when I was working as an investigator in New York, when I when I first sat down with the the the deputy for that department that I was in, and, he he always wore a shirt and tie, you know. We didn't have to. We could've, you know, polos, khakis, whatever, jeans. That's, if you if you're listening and you hear char that's Charlie barking in the background. And I'm telling I'll tell you why. Because it's it's it's 08:30 central time, and Charlie knows that this is usually when we start to end the show. Okay. And I'm I'm serious. If you ever if you ever go back and watch the other shows, you know, at 08:30, he starts barking at the studio door to let me know that it's time to shut up and and get get their dinner ready. Because I leave the show running inside in the living room for them so they can watch the show. Oh. And that's how he knows. He he he just knows. Anyway, so I I so, I I sat down with him one day and and he said to me, just very I don't know why he brought it up, why it came up, but he just looked at me and goes, remember this one thing. It's very important.
He who wears the tie, wears the power. Oh, very interesting. Very interesting. Yeah. So I don't fault you for wearing a suit. There's no reason not to. You you you
[01:32:59] Unknown:
you I actually wear a red tie too. So that's you're not wrong on that. So yeah. That's that's very interesting that you mentioned it because I I I read it. And that and it does make a difference. A lot of little a lot of little things
[01:33:13] Unknown:
add up. And It does. And that's why after after he told me that, whenever I had to do an interview with, with the subject or or witness to it to a matter,
[01:33:24] Unknown:
I always made sure because we had them scheduled, and it wasn't like a random thing. Mhmm. I always made sure that that was the day that I wore the shirt and tie. You know, just it's just that projection of I know what I'm doing. Mhmm. You know, I got my shit together. Well, it's also a form of respect for people because they they see that, hey, you came to play. Yeah. Like, you know, you're not just goofing around or something like that. So and I take this seriously. Yeah. And so, like, today, the way I'm dressed is because I literally had to work out before I get I'm too close to my goal. I cannot do that. No. No. No. No. You're fine. You're fine. Yeah. Usually, I don't take, like, stuff in in the evening because I do a lot of like, I every Friday, I have family night, so we watch movies. That's why I was like I'm telling you, like, when you're talking about the movies, oh, yeah. We know about that. I haven't seen that one that you said, but, yeah, we we do watch it. But going with that instance, like, the the whole point of is is to give back to the people, give the power back to them. And so I'm trying to showcase that to people saying, hey. We have city officials, and they're doing their job right. We gotta do our job.
We gotta back up certain things. So we gotta make sure that things move forward in the direction that we wanted to make. Right. That, you know, it is we're a republic. Most people forget this. That's true. I was like, so and the power literally says we the people. Mhmm. So and I believe, and I wanna say I know, that the people here in Eagle Pass, I wanna say it's, like, about 90 to 95%, they're all good. Mhmm. I don't believe they're lazy either. I was it's just that I feel I don't know where this idea came from where, you know, they think they can't do things. And it's so odd to me because I was like, in Central Texas, man, everybody thinks they can do everything. I'm assuming New York too.
It used to be that way. It's it's getting become more dependent now on government for things. That's weird, though, but I don't know where this thought process is coming from. I'm not pointing fingers. Maybe it's just we got lazy or, like, in in in manner of understanding what we're supposed to be standing for. But no. Like, I wanna showcase to the people, hey. Look. If I can do it, anybody can do it. That's right. I was like, you know, I'm not, like, you know, six five, you know, blonde eyes. I bought it. I mean, blue eyes. You know? I was like and, you know, it's not like I have, like, a million dollars backing me up or anything like that. But, you know, I believe that, you know, with the with the grace of God and maybe favors you, and you do the right things Agreed. And then you follow the constitution, you can stir the economy and not only the economy, but just civilization in a direction that everybody wins. Yeah. From your kids to their grandkids to even you. I was like, so, I I wanna showcase to the people. That's that's actually one of the reasons why we're we're we already got the third one ready, August.
And I'm actually trying to do it better than I did the other two years too. Trying to host even meetings. I haven't been able to get it, man, that it's I'm trying to get them good stuff. Yeah. I I don't want just to host the meeting and looks all raunchy. I I was like, I want them to see what Eagle Pass has to offer and that anybody can do it. It's not just me. So, that's like the the the goal of of this thing now. It's to showcase to the people, hey. We can bring in really good stuff here. Yeah. So even bringing Peter Dante, who who would have thought any of these actors would come to Eagle Pass?
I didn't even know Eagle Pass existed until No. Most of them say that, by the way. I was like, Dante actually was born in, LA, and he was born in a a border town. So he actually felt at home here. Oh, that's good. It was very interesting to see that. Yeah. And he was actually born into real poverty, like like, legitimate poverty. Really? Yeah. We we we don't know poverty like that. Yeah. I don't I I don't know too much about him. I I mean, like I said, I know the name, you know, but I I don't know him personally. Like, I like I couldn't say I know much about his background or anything like that. No. He he talked to me a little bit, and, big old shout out to Dante because, like I said, he's a giving man, man. Like, you you would think that he has so much and he would stop giving. Man, that guy outworks even me. Mhmm. Like, he wakes up working.
He's almost asleep working. Like, he'll literally pass out while he's working. It's just crazy to see, like, that even though here he has that type of capital and he's got it set every single time. Interesting. Yeah. So yeah. No. It's very it it it's a different caliber that you end up noticing that it's like, hey. We're kinda so relaxed here too. So, like, really anybody that does anything here, you can get it done.
[01:37:51] Unknown:
There's not that much competition. That's true. That that is true. I I I will say that. I like Eagle Pass. I I do. I, you know, I since I've since I've been living here, I haven't had any bad interactions with government, like, at all. Like, everybody's been super helpful.
[01:38:07] Unknown:
Different, obviously. It's an adjustment from living in the city, you know, like New York to compared to this. Sounds like night and day, man. It's it's it's very, very different. Sit in Austin for a whole second. I do like the pace they have there. It's quick. I I like that. I actually prefer
[01:38:22] Unknown:
things moving quickly. Yeah.
[01:38:24] Unknown:
But, I also love the country. So Yeah. I love also not being around people. I understand you. And when you said it I think you said it in the other podcast. Yeah. Yeah. I understand you a 100%, man. Yeah. It's me too. Sometimes you just have to decouple from everything and just We stayed in Salado for two weeks with the fam I was pushing business during that time frame anyways. Mhmm. But we stayed in, Airbnb,
[01:38:50] Unknown:
and it was in the country. Nice. Salado's beautiful. Yeah. Y'all Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Check it out. Alright. Let's, let's move on to, the Golden Vox. Oh. Because we have because Charlie is gonna continue to bark, and I gotta feed him, and it's almost time. So so let's get on to the golden vox. Now the golden vox is The golden vox is a voice it's supposed to stand for golden voice, and it's supposed to be for the businesses of Eagle Pass.
[01:39:16] Unknown:
Now I wanted to be Texas as we grow, but I had envisioned that in the beginning because I'm gonna say a little story. I was like, you know, Chocha's barbecue? Yeah. Okay. I remember it when it was in the food trucks. Mhmm. Big shout out to Chocha, by the way. He uses everything from my energy company. This is why I always boast them. Besides that, his food is actually legit. It is. It's actually, it's very good. It is. Well, there was a time frame And if he ever wants to send any samples over to the show so he could do it, you know, think about that. Well, he's to oblige. He's actually part of the golden box. So may you might go to him or he might come to you. One or the other. Or it could just be, you know, over media or whatever. But, so I created the golden box for that because, like I said, the story was with Georgia.
When I one of my business part or one of my coworkers back then said, hey. Do you like, barbecue? I said, I said, I don't think you know who you're talking to. I was like
[01:40:16] Unknown:
Alright. Before you go any further than that one, I I I have to I have to put this out there. If if you are listening to this show, and you do not like barbecue, turn it off. You're not welcome here.
[01:40:33] Unknown:
Well, okay. So Oh, wow. Look at everybody hanging up. Check it out. No. No. I'm just hanging up. No. I was like, so no. It it when he told me, I was, of of course, I'm like a a connoisseur on that. Is that how you pronounce it connoisseur. Yeah. Connoisseur. Yeah. Like, it's it is insane. Like, I've gone to a lot of places. I've like I said, I've been blessed. I've been favored. So I've gone and eaten a a like, I don't know if you ever gone to before it closed down, so you might have missed out on this, but it was Valentina's
[01:41:00] Unknown:
in Austin. Yeah. No. I didn't believe it.
[01:41:02] Unknown:
Man, it was really good. Like, now I they're brisket. I heard that supposedly their tacos were better, but, I mean, when I'm there, I'm gonna eat brisket. And then I the one place I haven't tried yet is Snow's, but I've tried the one in Belton. I've tried, also Frank's. Those are supposed to be the top ones in Austin. Mhmm. So but I I can't stand in line at three in the morning. Like, I can work, but I'm not I was gonna say you're up anyway. What's the difference? Well, because I I don't no. Not for food. Like, you know and okay. If I can maybe hire someone to do it for me, I'd I'd go with that. But now, but Your own personal DoorDash. Well, there was there's three of them here. Okay. There's three barbecue places here that are, like, legit that they're, like they got establishments and stuff like that. Right. Not counting the other ones, because there's a bunch of them. A lot of people Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I'll start with Wagon Wheel.
So when was in his food truck, they said Wagon Wheel was the best. Mhmm. And the the first exposure I had for barbecue here was actually Orly's. And then and then it was choices. Okay. So like I said, my, now I'll guess I'm going with with pronunciation or my pallet. Is that what it is? Pallet. Pallet. There you go. So my my pallet, literally is for top tier meat. Like, I've I've had like I said, I've had the pleasure to to have these type of meats. So when I went to Orley's, I was like, their big thing that they have there that's good is their potato. Okay. Their potato was great. And so when they showed me, I was like, this this is top tier. I was like, I can't even believe this is an Eagle Pass. Like and I told Chocha. I said, Chocha, how come Wagon Wheel's number one? Oh, well, you know, they work more with the city and stuff like that. So, you know, they More promotion. Yeah. More promote marketing.
By the way, this is why marketing's important. Exactly. So what I told Chocha, I was like, well, I'm gonna tell everyone that I know that yours is legit because I've eaten at these other I'm not saying Waguay was not legit. But whenever I became a big aficionado for, you know, churches, and I started eating there almost every other weekend. And then there was one Sunday he was closed. Remember, this was when he had his food truck. Mhmm. And so I was like, you know what? Everybody keeps saying the wagon wheel is awesome. Let me go to wagon wheel. I went to wagon wheel and maybe they just had the wrong badge. Maybe they just had biggest keys consistency. As you get up in the tiers, they don't care. It's is it consistent? Right. Is it the same every single time? I was like, and maybe, I guess, that was a bad day that they had there.
Which happens. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's why so I'm not talking bad on them. It's just also, like, there's there's qualifications to be the best. Like I said, there's you know, you gotta do it consistently. That's one of them. Two is the meat has to be moist. Even if you put it in the microwave when it comes out, it can't be dry. Or chewy. Or chewy. And that day, I had it, and it was like, every my kids are they also rate stuff. And then my wife rated it too. Now what, now what I will say is that while we had really good turkey, when because I ate all the meats. Anywhere I go, I always eat the meats. I don't care how expensive it is. I'll eat the meats. I mean, I I I go like, in San Antonio, they have El Salvador.
They have some I think it's a golden scorpion, gold flaked two tomahawks. I think it's put into a scorpion looking thing. Interesting. Delicious, by the way. I'm sure. So but it's, like, about $300. So
[01:44:39] Unknown:
Tomahawks alone are about Okay. By the way, the kids had that. My kids had that. You know?
[01:44:44] Unknown:
He he's over here. He's talking about all this food, that stuff that he gets. He's bragging about how much money he spends on these things. No. It's just I told over here struggling trying to pay my my more my escrow, my mortgage.
[01:44:56] Unknown:
No. I'm just saying, like so I've been blessed. And I spend it on certain things. I don't spend it like I don't have a fancy car, man, but I do eat at fancy places. There's a give and take. Of course. Alright. I'm just teasing you. Yeah. I know. I know. But I'm just saying so everybody understands that, like, I I really do like food. That's why I have to work at. I'm just like you guys. I have a definite I just do a little bit more disciplines. That's about it. But I told Chocha, I said, no, man. Like, I tried them all, and yours is the best. Mhmm. Like, it it should not be voted as you're not the you're not even and so I went on a literal side quest just to tell everybody about churches, and that was marketing. Mhmm. And I did it through my solar company. My solar company is actually partner up with him. And so anytime anybody goes solar with us, they get a big meal from Chochas. Oh, nice. His staple items that he has on there. That's awesome. It's like about a $120 worth. That's So yeah. That's a nice gift. Yeah. And and that's, like I said, a thank you. Mhmm. And then like I told him, man, there's a lot of profits that go in in solar when done correctly.
So then he got his establishment and helped him with the energy to keep the rates low. He has panels too. We help him with his energy bills and any questions that he has and stuff like that. So but, ultimately, his is, like, one of the best. And this this there's a lot of this here. I don't wanna say what you make. There every there's a lot of that here. My audience knows. Yeah. Okay. Good. Good. I was like, there's a lot of people here that have top quality stuff, man. Like a lot. And so, for example, my, I think, would have been the second.
He passed away. I don't know if you heard about that. No. I didn't. Yeah. He passed away. So his was different, though. His his barbecue was sugary, so it was it was a lot sweeter. Okay. Okay. So mine is I don't really like sweet, but the kids do. And he actually said, he said, I don't compete with Chorche. I just do it because I know the kids like it too. So I do it it's like a family meal. Yeah. He does his own thing. So as to not to compete and not to be anything, but the way Chorche makes his
[01:47:02] Unknown:
brisket, it's like science is behind that. No. I've I've had his brisket. It is it is delicious. Like,
[01:47:10] Unknown:
I Top tier, man. Anytime somebody says that that's where they're gonna get food, I'm like, oh, okay. At one point, when he would do competitions, he got number three Yeah. I heard in Texas. No. I saw his he has a he has a throne room, bro. Well, he deserves it. All his trophies, mostly first and second. Nice. And I was like, woah. Do people know about this? I was like, because if they knew, I'd be like, there's no doubt that you would just be number one. How do you know you're number one? You compete. Mhmm. And then random people decide if you were good from different areas in Texas. When he had more time because he was on the food truck, that's what he would do. Now he has an establishment. He can't really leave, but he'll leave once or twice a year, and he still wins. Like
[01:47:56] Unknown:
But but that's good, though. That's also good for his business as well. You know, you you you're exposing more people to
[01:48:03] Unknown:
your product. Well, I've been trying to help him with the marketing side. I was like, I know you don't believe in too much of that, but you need it. I was like, and I'll back you up, bro. I mean, that's what it's supposed to be like. Like, you know and so, by the way, the only reason I was saying that story was because, Golden box. The golden box. We I ended up adding him on the golden box, and he started talking because there's some people who are like, well, he doesn't open on these days. I was like, do you even know how hard it is to do what he does? You're asking to kill him. Basically. Yeah. I was like, you you remember the golden goose story? Yes. Okay. You don't kill your golden goose. Right? No.
Exactly. Exactly. And you gotta give the voice to them. So that's what I ended up doing. I ended up giving them and then it got to a point where it got really good. Big old shout to Ruben, by the way. Ruben helped me establish that because I don't have the voice for it or the time because that's a lot. Like you said, I stretched myself thin. So I I spread the wealth out. Mhmm. Ruben was the one that's doing it, but we came to a few disagreements because there's a few the golden box is supposed to be for businesses only. Mhmm. And you're supposed to keep it in those terms. So, let's just say Ruben had different ideas. I was like, bro, that's not what the golden box is about. I was like, that's something else. So we have to part ways in a friendly way. And, no, we respect each other. We still talk to each other. We actually talk a lot a lot more than we did before, actually.
No. Because you get to see that only because you have disagreements doesn't mean, like Of course. It that's healthy. You can't always agree with everybody. It just doesn't work. No. And and like I said, everyone's different, so everyone brings something else to the table. Yeah. So, like, we we've been helping out a bunch of community events. This is where I wanted the golden box to go to on the business side is help the businesses establish themselves. Say, hey. This is our side of it. Right. Like, I don't open on these days because, well, I go with my kids. Like, you know, or, hey. I have a life too. Like, that's like You do you do need to have time for yourself. Otherwise, you're gonna burn out, and then the the product suffers from that. Mhmm. And, it all depends on also the tier. Because some people, like, see the product and be like, hey. This is so good. You could easily make it into a multimillion dollar tier. But they're like, no. I'm comfortable here. Mhmm. So I don't want anymore. I was like and this is where I think a lot of people also don't understand that some of these businesses reached that level that they wanna be in, and they don't wanna be in it. So just be happy that they're even producing that because that's a delicacy. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So, there's a bunch of businesses like that on here. But, just to cut it short on that part, yeah, the golden box and, well, we looked at you. That's right.
[01:50:33] Unknown:
So that that that was our announcement here that we're gonna end the show with that, starting, I think, this weekend? Or is it next week? This weekend. It starts this weekend. This weekend, I will be adding the golden box to the, catalog of Joe Root shows. And, so we're gonna be we'll be hosting our first guests this coming Saturday. So we're excited about that. We're looking forward to it. And, it's gonna be a lot of fun. It's another part of this partnership that that Danny and I are getting into. And, it's an exciting thing. It it truly is. And I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to meet more people here in the community. You know, when I first started this podcast, it was really I wanted to do just something related to the local community, but it kinda took off on its own. And, one thing I've learned in when you're doing stuff like this is you gotta let it grow. You gotta let it go where it wants to go.
And, you know, we've had some good successes, you know, we're still growing. We're still building. We're still trying to get there. And I think that the partnership that we're going into right now is gonna be huge, not only for for for me, but it'll also be big for the people that are gonna be involved with us as we're going along here at the this is a
[01:51:40] Unknown:
it's a it's really a privilege to be doing it, and I and I really appreciate that, you know, you decided to come on board here with us and and and take us on here. Well, you're gonna have big business owners now come and talk that are literally leading the way here in Eagle Pass. Yep. And they're gonna say their side of things. And so that's I I I feel like that's very important. By the way, that's why we had a lunch a bunch of listeners because the golden box was for the golden voice for the businesses, but also to showcase that anybody can build a business. Mhmm. They're very much needed. As and if you thought you couldn't do it, remember, it's giving back to the people. That's right. They say the power's with you. If you wanna build whatever you wanna build, whatever crazy idea you have, hopefully, is legal. But whatever crazy idea you have, you're in the illegal ones, they do them anyways.
That's it. By the way, just letting everybody know, it's hard either way. So everybody's looking to do the legal app. Each each side has its own perks and its own downfalls. So Well, no. You're gonna still work, and it's still hard. If you think that just doing the illegal one is gonna be easier, you're wrong. So anyways, but it's to showcase that to the give the power back to the people. Say, hey. Wow. Look. Cho just did it. I mean, I guess I can do it too. That's right. Or say, hey. You know what? Now I understand why he he I can never do what he does, so let me go support him because I want his, you know, his his top tier meet here in Eagle Pass. I was like, you know, I don't want it to go out of business. Right. And that's the voice that people get. There's a bunch of them that we had. We had, like, about 25 of them that were already saying it. That's awesome. And so yeah. No. And so with you on there, I think it it adds to it. So, also we have a huge involvement, that in essence brings you also different type of clientele. Like, I'm bringing you, the VA. Yep. By the way, that was, Mike Chop. Oh, that was the, that was the video. We can close out with that. So there's a, there's a bunch of, there's a bunch of community events that Eagle Pass has that most people don't know. By the way, here's, here's the issue. You ready for this one? I'm a I am just building another company and some yeah. It's a it's a marketing side. I'm I'm finding solutions for Eagle Pass. Okay. I was like, and I'm I'm putting them so that way people can see them, and then I'm hoping people will copy it and make it better than mine. So that way I don't have to do it. And then the solutions provided. I was like, remember, it's the power back to the people. That's right. So but, I'm planning on making a marketing one because, like, my job is already He's gonna be your next guest, by the way, and he's actually gonna be on your legitimate show. It's not the, the golden box. He's not he's not a business owner. I was like Much fun. At least not that I know of yet. I was like Either way. Yeah. But here's his here's his card, by the way. You could barely see his stuff. But, it's Miguel Chavez. Yeah. Veteran service officer. Can you pass it over? Oh, here you go. I got the better lights on this side. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So that way everybody can see it.
[01:54:23] Unknown:
We're doing We'd be nice if I held it the right way.
[01:54:26] Unknown:
Well, well, the the the marketing company that we're establishing here is to showcase marketing as needed, especially when you want to help, events. So there's a few events that are happening here in Eagle Paz that nobody knows of because there is no marketing company, and nobody tells everybody, hey. You gotta bang the doorbells and go like, yo. You know, this is what's happening here. All eyes here. I was like, so one of the events is the VA, the VA food drive.
[01:54:52] Unknown:
So I I think I had sent you a flyer on that. You did. Okay. Somewhere. Yeah. And so Oh, no. You sent it to me through Instagram, so it has all the little annotations and stuff, so I can't put it up there with other people's faces. For I'll I'll give you the PDA format. So,
[01:55:06] Unknown:
and then we're we're asking for, help from businesses. So volunteers, there's there's different ways that you can do it. And we're actually gonna come up with a flyer here shortly. But, one is you can tell friends and family members to say, here's the VA form. All they gotta do is show up, to the event. The event's gonna be on 11/13/2025 from 7AM till 12PM. Okay. And it's gonna be at the Maverick County Food Pantry, 1823 South Veterans Boulevard in front of, Memorial, you know, where the tax office is. Yes, sir. Yeah. So, and Miguel Chavez has been trying to do this for, like, about two or three years, and it's to bring in something even bigger, which is the VA clinic. Mhmm. And it all starts with little things that the community can do. Right. By the way, some of these bigger, politicians have known about it, but this is what I wanna tell the people.
They can know as much as they want, and they can have all the power they want. But until the people move, nothing happens. And this is a great example because this has been here for about two to three years, and Chavez needs a lot of help. So I told him straight up. I said, hey, bro. I'm gonna back you up on this. I'm I'm gonna go to every everything I got, all my marketing, my companies, everything, and they're gonna back you up because vets are extremely important. This is not a left leaning thing. This is not a right leaning thing. This is an American thing. Exactly. And so we gotta do what is right, and it's to support them. So, yeah, we're my companies are the ones that are helping do this push in this movement here. And I told Chavez, I said, look. I'm a back you up from now all the way till we get it all done and even after that. I was like, because I used to do this when I was in Central Texas. I know. It's it's a lot bigger in Central Texas, though. So oh, well, then we're gonna do that. We're gonna help out with that. We do do do do we do do do we do need donations, so I'll be giving you my number so they can go and talk to me. It's starts as little as $100. Okay. There's different tiers that we have, and then it goes as high as 2,500 plus. I am in that category.
So, you know, it's it's to push for this. And then there's another event, and I I think you had him, Paco. Paco. Yep. Yeah. He was on last Wednesday. Yeah. Here you go. So we're also, helping push that out because I did not know that we never had a, what's it called? A Halloween, downtown.
[01:57:24] Unknown:
I thought we did host one, but I guess we never did. This is the first one. I I don't well, I don't I think this is the first one that the library is being getting involved with. There has been a Halloween event. I think you mentioned that once before, but this is gonna be much bigger than what that Halloween event was. Well and and what this is where I wanna say, what better places to secure
[01:57:42] Unknown:
our our children where it's safe? And not only that, but help businesses grow then the mall downtown. I was like, and then the community still gets involved. So it could be one of those things where everyone's involved from businesses to the homes, the the civilians, all the way to That's right. You know? And it it's it's a beautiful thing when you see everybody moving like that. Well, if you have this in a PDF, send it to me so I can Yeah. I'm a send you that too. That's why I can do the graphic on it. And then another guest that you're gonna have on here that's also gonna come on your show, but also in the golden box, is for the Rotary Club. A lot of people don't know that, you know, we have a Rotary Club. There was a a big event, that that we had, and this this literally is like an ethics committee for those that don't know. Although there is one in Eagle Pass. Yeah. There is. And I and I feel like it's it's very much needed here. So you're gonna get to interview the president of him, and he owns businesses, by the way, too. So yeah. No. Big big big events that are happening. Yeah. I went to that one. They were showcasing homes, beautiful homes, by the way.
But there's a lot of events. Like, they have a big golfing tournament. I didn't even know that. Did you know that? No. I didn't. Yeah. And so that that's, by the way, that's what my company If it's not miniature golf, I don't know anything about it. Well, I mean, it's a big a lot of big business owners go to that. Yeah. And so this is this is where I'm, like, trying to get the community involved. Like I said, they might know these things, and they might have these policies in play, but nothing happens until we do something. That's true. That's America. That's America. So oh, and then one last thing. I don't know if you heard about this one, but there's a lot of people complaining about the food and the school systems.
[01:59:18] Unknown:
Yeah. You and I had talked about this, briefly. And it and that it stems all the way back to the Obama administration Yes. And that horrible, horrible decision they made to make inedible one one grade above dog food. All it takes is for the community to come together. Yeah. So stuff like that. I'm hoping that people get to understand that that's where the real power is at. Yeah. I agree with you. And I I think all these things are gonna be great. I think this is gonna bring bring a lot of really positive attention to Eagle Pass and, hopefully, some some some additional revenues.
[01:59:54] Unknown:
And, you know Well, look, we're a lot wealthier than we were before. I I don't I can't see the justification.
[02:00:01] Unknown:
If the budget was lower, then I'd be like, okay. I get it. But it's actually higher. So I was like, yo, what's where is it going? Well, when I when I say wealthy, I'm not talking about the government. I'm talking about the people. Oh, the people. The community. You know, to get more opportunities into the community, more job opportunities, more businesses investing in the community.
[02:00:18] Unknown:
Well, that's the thing. All of those things. If we bring in the VA clinic and these food drives, it brings attention, brings in military. That's additional revenue. That's right. I was like, and then it'll bring in extra jobs too. Now if we also talk about the food, like, for example, like, Peters was telling me about this too real quick just so I can end it. But Peters was telling me, hey. We can't even offer our services because of that law. I was like, so it took $400 away from us every morning, which that's people that
[02:00:50] Unknown:
Peters could have employed. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And that money would stay here instead of wherever it's going because they're we're obviously buying it from somewhere. Right. But it's not from here. So what we wanna do is stuff like, hey. We wanna buy it from here and give our kids an actual good choice, an American choice. I and and but but I agree. Because, again, it's great above dog food. I mean, I I think we were I think you and I were talking that the the the prisons get better quality food than the kids get. So I think it was a dollar 54 compared to, like, 50 or 54¢ for the for yeah. It's pathetic. It's pretty crazy. Completely flipped around it, if not more. Yeah. Alright. Well, Danny Mendoza, thank you, buddy. I appreciate you being here tonight. That was Totally was a lot to talk about. And listen, you know, you know, next time next time you come on, because this is gonna be a regular thing. This isn't gonna be just a one off. This is gonna be at least twice a month you're gonna come on and, we'll get that we'll get all that squared away. This way, you're the only one. So we can actually get more into some of the conversation. Actually spend two hours talking about whatever we wanna talk about. Yeah. You know, or more. It doesn't matter to me, but, Charlie met up's kinda but but Well, no. I understand. I gotta go home with my kids too. So I hear you. Alright. So let's, let's start to wrap this up. Right, folks? So thank you, Danny, again for being here tonight. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. For, folks, don't forget, head over to the website joeroos.com.
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We are going to have the c the co CEO of the company of for Minds on the show in November. So make sure you get on board with that. Mines.com. You could find us there at Joe Roux. Been on there for years. Great platform. If you wanna check us out on Fakebook, you can go over to Joe Roux Show. Insta Instagram is not Joe Roux. No. It's it's not Joe Roos. So with that basically well, what happened was I got banned before I even finished opening the account. So I used the same email address, the same phone number, just put the word not in front of my name and it they let me work. And then TikTok, joe dot roos, which I don't really get on TikTok much to be honest with you. I I I think there's something really weird about a guy that's on TikTok, so just I don't mess around with it too much. Getter at Joe Roos as well. Shout outs to our executive producers, Wayne Rankin, Rosanna Rankin, Carolina Jimenez, Marissa Lee, and anonymous Angela. Thank you guys for all that you do. Your time, your talent, your treasure, appreciate everything that you guys do, so thank you so much for it. Also, I wanna give a very special thank you to John Seeley who, sent over a donation yesterday of $25. Thank you so much for that, sir. Greatly appreciated. And as I said, all the donations that we get, anything that we get through through the GoFundMe for the for the, escrow shortage, any donation we come from the audience, all is going to the escrow shortage. We wanna get this thing cleared away. So, so if you have the means to do it, we would appreciate it if you would consider that. If you wanna help us out with donations, a one time donation, any amount, recurring donation, any amount. If If you wanna be a producer of the show, associate producer starts at $17.76 a month. Producer is $18.36 a month, and executive producer is $25 or more every month. You all get the shout out on every show. You get included in all the show notes, any emails and stuff that we send out because you are producers of the show. Your your donations help us do this. So you get the credit as the producer for it. And the executive producers actually get to come on the show with us like we do every Wednesday with our Wednesday with Wayne segment. He comes on and talks about all the stuff that he likes to do. So, so we look forward to working with you guys in that way. If you wanna donate cryptos, you can do that also. All of our wallet information is on the website as well. And a special thank you to the folks that are listening on the modern podcast apps like Podcast Guru, fountain.fm, True Fans, such, because you guys are streaming stats to us, which is fantastic. And stats are basically just micro payments of Bitcoin, pennies, really, when you think about it. But, every little bit that we get helps, so we appreciate that tremendously. All you have to do is hook up your crypto wallet to the app and you can start streaming the stats to us, let us know you're out there. Alright? And look, I'm an old guy and if I was able to do it, you can do it too. Trust me. It's easy. Alright. Modernpodcastapps.com, podcastindex.org.
Alright. I think, I think that should just about do it. You hear Charlie hang howling in the background there. So with that said, thank you again for taking the time to be with us tonight. Head over to the website, joeroos.com. Joeroos.com. Send us over any questions, comments, carers, concerns. Let us know what you're thinking. Alright folks, make Texas independent again. Go podcasting. Keep a steady stride, and more important, keep talking. Good night folks.
[02:06:43] Unknown:
Smile.
[02:06:47] Unknown:
Who cares about the clouds if we're together?
[02:06:52] Unknown:
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather. Happy trails to you.
3117888732476789764376. Block when I have plucked the rose. Tebow very hot. Long and still for that which hunger nurseth the disease. In faith, I do not love thee. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? When I have plucked the rose,
[00:02:53] Unknown:
Transmitting live from the asylum studios deep in the bowels of Southwest Texas, it's the Joe Rouge Show, the show where we talk about anything and everything, where nothing is sacred, nothing is watered down, and nothing is PC.
[00:03:13] Unknown:
Alrighty. Hey folks, this is Joe Roos. It is great to be with you once again, transmitting live at the Asylum Studios from the pimple on the backside of Texas, the beautiful city of Eagle Pass, and doing the very best that we can to bring you the best quality talk radio we could muster without all the bluster. Welcome to the Joe Ruse Show. Hey, folks. It's, I think it's Monday. I lost track this week. It's been one of those, it's been one of those weeks already and it's Monday. It's, it's gonna only imagine what the rest of the week is gonna have for us. And I hope you guys had a great weekend. I hope you were able to catch the show yesterday for our Sunday Bible study show. There's always a lot of fun.
Yesterday we talked about the dispensation of innocence, which was, a very interesting study. So I hope you guys were able to catch that. Had a lot of fun with it, and, we'll be continuing on with that later next Sunday. And, we have, quite the show for you tonight. We have, we have two guests waiting in the wings for us. We're gonna bring on our first guest here momentarily. He's gotta do some usual housekeeping. And then our second guest is sitting here watching over my shoulder to make sure that I do what I told him I'm gonna do. So, we'll, we'll introduce him momentarily.
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Alright. Now, tonight's guest is Ruby oh, I gotta turn that off. I forgot. Sorry. Let me fix that really quick. There we go. Now, tonight's guest is Ruby Ryba, a screen time strategist, which is interesting. I've never heard of that one. And that when I saw the profile, I said I I need to I need to talk to this young lady to find out what this is all about. She's also an author, a coach who helps people build intent, intentional digital habits that actually work for their lives. She's a former high school math teacher turned digital wellness advocate. Ruby blends behavioral science, storytelling, and practical tool tools to guide people in reclaiming their time and attention. Currently, she's writing her first book, How to Stop Scrolling, which empowers readers to take control of their phone, through self awareness, boundaries, and meaningful alternatives. Her work is rooted in the belief that anyone can change their relationship with their phone if they're intentional, reflective, and willing to set boundaries with the virtual world. Ruby, welcome to the show. It's great to have you. Hey, Joe. Thanks so much for having me tonight. No. It's a pleasure. Truly is. Let me turn the banner off there.
Alright. Well, so so a a, a screen time strategist, that's that's interesting. We're gonna get into that in a second. I have, I I have a couple of questions that I like to ask every guest when we first start the show. I don't know if you've had a chance to check any of my shows out, so you might be prepared for this or not. I don't know. But, the first question is, what is something that most people don't know about you but should?
[00:10:43] Unknown:
Something that most people don't know about me. I, I don't think it's too apparent that I am always questioning the status quo. So maybe that's something that kind of, leads into a lot of my thoughts and ideas. So I'm always questioning the status quo. Alright.
[00:11:03] Unknown:
And, your go to beverage to help you unwind at the end of the day?
[00:11:08] Unknown:
Oh, probably like a mint tea with honey.
[00:11:13] Unknown:
That's good. That's good. I like that. Yeah. You know, actually, I'm trying to wean myself off of coffee. I'm doing better. I'm doing a lot better. Okay. That's hard. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm used to I'm used to doing like two sixty four ounce coffees every day. Yeah. No. I can't give up the caffeine. That's too hard. Yeah. No. I'm not giving it up altogether. No. I need it. Okay. Fair enough. But I'm weaning myself down from that. So this is this is number three today. So I'm I'm very proud of myself. But what I've substituted it with though, speaking of teas, I I I've been substituting it with, some green tea with with, raw organic honey and fresh lime. And it's absolutely amazing. It's great. The only reason why health too. Oh, yeah. The only reason why I'm not doing this, I ran out. So I thought I still had some in the fridge, but, in the cabinet, but I don't. But, so that's great. So, man, I love I I never thought I would say I would love tea, but I love tea. So, well, Ruby, you describe yourself as a screen time strategist.
What exactly does that mean, and how did you find your way into that particular field?
[00:12:11] Unknown:
Yeah. That's really the best way that I could put it. I've never heard of the term either. I just came up with it myself because I felt like it best described what I do. I've thought about technology, what the trade offs are as early as when Facebook was coming out in, like, 2007, 2008. It just always seemed so addictive. You know, it there always just seemed to be a little bit of danger. You know, whenever something is feels too good to be true, it is, they say. Right? And so it's always just something that I've paid attention to. But recently, you know, with in the past decade or so, this is just really accelerated, you know, what what we what we saw twenty years ago.
And I felt more urgency to almost crack this. I felt like there must be a way that this can be solved, if you will, or best practices. I I I, I majored in statistics. I'm always kind of looking for procedures, operating procedures, and I felt like this is solvable. This is hackable. And so I really started thinking about it. And then that just turned into me helping others with this issue, because it's something that I was so passionate about that I kept coming up in conversations at dinner or whatever, where people would be talking about something that their phone was doing, and then I could say, oh, well, have you ever considered blah blah blah blah blah? Because this is what I think about all the time, and they come back to me and say this is really useful. So when I started to realize that my interests were helping and serving others, that got me started to think about coaching people, writing this book, etcetera.
[00:13:45] Unknown:
Alright. Well, you actually answered my next question, so we're gonna skip on ahead. Alright. So let's talk about the book then, since you mentioned it. So you're you're you're working on writing this book, how to stop scrolling. At at what point did you decide that you needed to write the book?
[00:13:59] Unknown:
I can tell you, I can't remember the exact date, but I can remember what happened. I was in Saint Louis. I was visiting a friend, for the weekend. And I woke up early that day, because I have small children, so I will always wake up early. And the other people did not have small children, so they were all sleeping in. So I said, okay. Let me take a walk. So I took a walk. I went to get coffee. And as I always do as much as possible, possible, you know, I'm intentionally trying to not use my phone if I don't need it. We we all seem to have this gravitational pull towards pulling pulling it out, but when I noticed that I try to ignore it. So I went to go get my coffee and as I'm walking out of the coffee shop, I see across the street the store. It was called Provisions and it just looked lovely. It had interesting books, it had interesting like trinkets and pillows, and I thought that is a store that I want to go to later. And so later on after lunch, I said, ah, there's a store I wanna go to. We went there. I met the owners. I looked at the books. It was as expected or maybe even better than expected. Just a very fascinating shop.
If I had been on my phone when I was walking out of the coffee shop, I would not have seen that store. I never would have gone to it later with my friends, and we would have missed out on that opportunity. And so that just puts so concretely to me how your universe, your life can kind of split off into alternate realities based on what you do. And it just showed me so concretely what the loss could have been that day if I had been staring at my phone looking at nothing of particular value when I was heading out of that coffee shop. So that was the day, the moment that I decided, okay. This is important enough that I wanna turn it into a book. Well, that's great. You know, I recently,
[00:15:36] Unknown:
I've had I had one of those, one of those eye opening moments myself. And I decided that I spend way too much time in front of a screen. I spend too way too much time, in front of a computer, you know, my job, doing the show, and and with the phone, always always in constant communication. So what I started to do now is on the weekends from Friday night until Sunday morning, I shut the phone off. I turn on do not disturb, and I just put it to the side and leave it there. And then, I'll check, because unfortunately, my job requires me to be on call twenty four seven, so my regular job. So, I'll check it periodically, but I'm not getting the constant alerts, notifications, and things like that that's drawing me to the phone. So I just find my way over at some point. But it's really very important though, because like you said, you know, you miss out on so many things. Since I've been doing the do not disturb thing on the Friday to Saturday nights or Sunday mornings, I find I have more time in the day to do the things that I really need to do, or the things that I really want to do. And it's I don't have that constant interruption, so that I agree with you on that. Now your book blends behavioral science and storytelling. How do the two elements work together to help people, make lasting change?
[00:16:47] Unknown:
Well, I think just as we were doing right now, by sharing what I've personally gone through or people that I've worked with have personally gone through, it helps the reader feel understood and heard and not alone. You know? I think there's almost this stigma about screen time where we wanna claim that we are in more control than we are. And so that's definitely something that I try to break down by showing people, look. This happens to everyone, and here are some really easy, manageable solutions that you can inject as quickly or as gradually as you want into your life. So offering different sort of entry points and also consistently reminding my reader that this is a very to be human is to be addicted to your phone unless you've put,
[00:17:36] Unknown:
obstacles in place because that's exactly how these devices were designed. Yeah. That's a great way to put it too. You know, we're addicted to our phones. And you you talk about several exercises that you that you do. Can you tell us one of your favorite exercises or reflections from the book that listeners would be able to try, you know, right now to to become well, don't turn the phones off now if you're watching on your phone. Alright? We want you to watch. But, you know, just become more intentional with their phone use.
[00:18:01] Unknown:
Sure. So in my book, I go through a few domains. The first is the physical space, and about how to set up your physical environment in a way that encourages phone use that's aligned with your values. And I'll give you my favorite from physical space is to not charge your phone in your bedroom. It's really simple, but it makes a huge difference. I try to start my day and end my day with silence. And since making that shift, I have just seen such a huge difference because with all the content that we're consuming, we often don't have time to think or to have our own inner dialogues or inner monologues.
And, of course, that is sometimes why people reach for their phones. When you are having an anxiety riddled inner monologue, you might want to avoid that and turn on the go to your phone to tune that out. Although it's been proven that avoidant behavior actually increases anxiety rather than decreases it. So when you are anxious about something to ignore it, to avoid it, and to go on your phone instead, it's not gonna help you. It's only gonna make things worse. But anyway, going back to physical space for a number of reasons that I could go on and on about, beginning and ending your day without your phone is an incredible thing to do. Another thing that I talk about in my book is phone configurations. So you, Joe, were mentioning how you put your phone on do not disturb Friday night to Sunday morning. That's a really great intentional way that you've made a decision that during those times, you wanna interact with your phone on your terms. You will go check, but when you want to, not when the notification calls you to your phone Mhmm. And you've made that adjustment.
I love do not disturb modes. I have a work mode. I have a nanny mode. I have also a date night mode so that I can filter what can come in and what can't. Thinking about which of your apps should even have their notifications turned on in the first place. Do you need badge notifications? There's so many little things that you can actually customize so that you're only getting what you need. So that would be that would be a part of phone configuration. And then once you've made this space both physically and digitally, the big question is, what do you wanna do with your one life? Right? What do you wanna spend your time with?
And that really can take time, to answer that question. And when people don't know where to start, I encourage them to think about goals, joy, and rest. Those are three categories that we all probably can pour more into. So what are your goals, big or small? And then how can you break them down and then turn them into something that you do? What brings you joy? How can you incorporate that into your life? And then what do you find restful? Because a lot of people focus on, I want to use my phone less. I don't wanna use my phone during x. But then my follow-up question is, okay. Well, then what do you want to do during that time?
So I, I live close to New York City, and I take the train in sometimes. And last week, for example, when I went in, I had a bunch of thank you cards to write. So I brought thank you cards with me, and I wrote them on the train. It takes a little bit of preparation and forethought and planning. Mhmm. But by doing that, you know, I was aligned with my values. This is something that I wanted to get done, and so I did. So you you have to go from the goals to then the actions and then prepare yourself for that, and that takes more effort than just taking out your phone and scrolling for the the hour train ride, but I think it's worth it.
[00:21:35] Unknown:
I agree with you. I I used to do the same thing. I I'm from New York originally, and, so, I used to, I would commute. I lived on Staten Island. I would commute from Staten Island to Manhattan, every day. And, you know, exactly like you said, you know, just I would try to use that time in the commute to be more productive and instead of because I because look, everybody does this. You you know, you get up in the morning, what's the first thing you grab? You grab your phone. Mhmm. Most people do anyway. And then you sit there for who knows how long scrolling through fake book, and scrolling through, all your, you know, InstaHams and YouBoobs and all that stuff, and you know, just you and you don't realize how much time you actually lose sitting there doing that when you can be using those early morning hours to do things that are much more healthy for yourself. Like, maybe go out for a walk. Take, you know, take the dogs out for the walk instead of letting them run around outside. You know, you know, maybe go to the gym, take a run, do something a little, you know, better for yourself than just sitting there, you know, sucking down your coffee and running off, you know, through all your all your notifications on Facebook.
So so that's that's yeah. I agree a 100% with you on that one. Now, you'd also talk about identifying triggers for phone use. Now, what are some of the most common triggers that people, would face? And and what would you say is a really is a is a realistic way to interrupt those?
[00:22:58] Unknown:
So I guess there's external triggers and internal triggers is where we'll start. And amongst external triggers, there's environmental triggers, triggers of habit. Like, let's say you often scroll your phone while you eat breakfast. So then that's just it's something that you've coupled together. There can be social triggers. You're at dinner and someone else takes their phone out, so you take your phone out. And then there's also internal triggers, which are often boredom. You're waiting in line for coffee or discomfort.
You're at a networking event, and you feel like you're the only person that no one's talking to, so you decide to take your phone out. So you are like, no. It's not that no one's talking to me. It's that I'm not talking to anyone. You know? Great point. And in terms of these triggers, there isn't really a one size fits all. I think what you wanna start with is just being aware that they're occurring. So it's it's a bit of a slower process. I mean, with some things, you can intentionally, block the trigger if you know that it's if you're aware of it already. So, again, I guess that means you do have to start with awareness. But if you're aware that you often eat breakfast and scroll your phone, then maybe you put your phone in another room when you're eating breakfast. Or if you are aware that you often take your phone out at dinner, maybe you put it in your bag before you sit down. So awareness is first. And then once you're aware, you can decide if it matters to you or not. Because, also, one thing I wanna say is that my mission is not to say no one should use their phone ever. My mission is that people should use their phones as they serve them.
And so, you know, you can evaluate it and say, okay. Fine. Sometimes I take my phone out while I'm waiting for my my coffee or I check a couple emails and reply to them. If you're okay with that, that's totally fine. You know, it's it's your choice. It's just that I want it to be your choice, not your phone's choice where you're taking your phone out because your phone dinged at you. But going back to the triggers, yeah, awareness. And then once you decide which ones you're not okay with, try to think about ways that you can put obstacles into place. With some things, it's very hard to do that. Like, if it's a social trigger and you notice someone else takes their phone out and then you do, you might even notice it after the fact, but that's still getting somewhere. Sure. And it it can just take time. Yeah. And and I know earlier you mentioned you have young children. My kids are older. My I have my daughter's just turned 29
[00:25:16] Unknown:
a few days ago. My my son is 26. But when when they were kids, that was when, like, cell phones really started becoming what they are now. You know, the smartphones were coming out, you know, the first iPhones and and whatnot. And, you know, their mom and I realized that this was gonna be an issue because, of course, the both of them would come to the phone come to the table at dinner with their phones, and so we established a rule very early on, no phones at the dinner table. And we would take the phones and put them in the other room, and we would have conversation. As awkward as it might be, we would have conversation.
And, it worked because they do they do that now with their children, and, and I think it's great. It's it's that's the the best thing to do. I think people spend way too much time on the phones, and and it it it really does affect, especially in a family setting, the the the the interaction between the family. It's it's and it could be detrimental to the family. You forget how to talk.
[00:26:11] Unknown:
Definitely. So And a lot of people that are in your your children's generation, they also have difficulty even making eye contact Yes. Because they're not used to having in person conversations.
[00:26:25] Unknown:
Yep. And and, of course, everything has to be documented. Every the phone's always up, you know, in your face. Cannot stand that. I hate that. It drives me crazy. Now, so how how do you, personally model healthy screen habits at home, especially as a mom since we're talking about that?
[00:26:42] Unknown:
Yeah. I think I mean, that was definitely a big motivation for me is that when you have children, you really need to crystallize your values so that you could model them to your kids. And I do think that phone use and phone behavior is a practice. You know, you don't it's not a destination that you reach, so I'm always trying to improve myself. But, definitely, I mean, it's the same for us. We don't have phones at the table. We're not yet at the age where they're asked I mean, they don't have their own phones. They don't have any of their own personal devices, which is how it will be kept. But I think with your phone, I almost feel like you need to follow your gut. So if I'm with my kids and I feel like I'm on my phone and I shouldn't be and I feel like I I I'm missing something Mhmm. Then I should listen to that gut reaction and put it away. But, I mean, in in general, I don't have my phone out when I'm with them. And if I do, I would tell them first. I would say, hey.
Give me one sec. I just need to call this person or I need to reply to this message. And then I also indicate to them when I'm tuning back in. So I say, hey. Give me one second. I go on my phone, and then when I come back in, like, mentally with my presence, I say, okay. What's going on? Like, what are we doing now? Etcetera. Because I think that's honestly like, as an adult myself, I find that to be the most annoying or heartbreaking or however you wanna put it is when you're talking to someone and then you realize that somewhere while you were talking, they started going on their phone. I'm like, excuse me? You know? And I would never wanna do that to my kids. So and I would never wanna do that to anyone, period. So, I mean, honestly, I I guess I would say that my phone behavior towards my children is the phone behavior that I use towards any human, and that it is a tool. I even have, like, a flowchart in my book at some point where it's like, when you should use your phone with other people. First question, does it need to happen right now? And then you go to the flowchart, don't do it. Or That's good. Does it need to does it need to happen now? Tell the person that you're about to use your phone why do it and then return to the conversation. Because, like, sometimes it feels like we all need that that, and I if I'm with close friends and I'm talking to them and they take their phone out, I'll literally I won't be, like, mean, but I'll be like, oh, what are you doing? Like, I'll just express interest. And then if, like then they look like an idiot if they're just, like, on Instagram. So I'm like, okay. Like, why? Like, what? Yeah.
And and I think I mean, I like to think that that helps with their awareness. You know, they probably it's just muscle memory to them, and they don't realize it, and most people aren't gonna call them out on it. But I will. Yeah. That's good. Now now it's interesting because what I do,
[00:29:18] Unknown:
whenever I'm in a conversation with somebody and my phone rings or I get a notification or something, I perp I intentionally do not even look at it. Because the the conversation that I'm having, I want the person I'm speaking to to understand that they have my full attention. Mhmm. And if I'm with somebody and they just whip out their phone, they start doing whatever it is they're doing, I just stop talking. Yep. Me too. You know, I'll just stand there and wait. You know, and then when they put their phone down and they realize that that I'm not speaking anymore, they'll they'll look generally look up. And I'm like, oh, are you are you done? Right. You know? Yeah. There's no point in talking. They're not paying attention. Exactly. Exactly. And it's, so those are little things that I do too. So it's it's interesting. It's it's so funny how the the things that you talk about are things that that, you know, I I do and I'm sure other people do as well, without realizing that they're doing things that are beneficial for themselves. And it took you to put a book together for this. So this was great. This is fantastic.
Now social media. We talked about social media, the Instagrams, the fake books, and all that stuff. How do you think, how has social media changed our sense of community, belonging, and, how do you think we can rebuild more authentic forms of connection? We kinda touched on it a little bit, but Yeah. I mean, there's so much to that.
[00:30:33] Unknown:
I mean, I think there's, you know, I feel like a while ago, a year or two ago, it started trending to be like, remember, it's it's just a highlight reel. Right? So people would say it it was almost like people would feel like it's okay to go on Instagram because they've realized that it is a highlight reel. They acknowledge it's a highlight reel. But I honestly think that that's not enough. Because even when you know that you're looking at someone else's highlight reel, you cannot help but compare that said highlight reel to your own life. So there's something called upwards comparison and downwards comparison. And with upwards comparison, you are comparing someone's best situation to your worst situation. So that's like me looking at, like, a woman with her perfectly clean house or something while I'm, like, doing the dishes. And I'm like, like, how? What? You know? And she sometimes is doing the dishes too. But in that moment, I'm comparing my low to her high, and it doesn't feel good. And social media has created, like, so much upwards comparison that we, as humans, are just not wired and ready for. A little bit of upwards, upwards comparison can be great for us. You know, you see someone that's better than you at a sport or you see someone that's working really hard, and it can motivate you. But when you're just being blasted with upwards comparison, it's basically like being told you're not enough. You're not enough. You're not enough. Interesting. And that's not gonna help anyone.
And we we also end up not actually having downwards comparison can be healthy too. You know? It's not to say you look at people and say, oh, I'm so much better than them. But once in a while, noticing that the hard work or whatever you've done is paying off can feel really empowering and fulfilling. And so one issue that I have with social media is that it creates this disproportionate, upwards comparison versus downwards comparison. Also in terms of, I mean, communication, I think when people are asked why do you use social media, the most common answer is to stay in touch with friends and family. But then the content that you're consuming is, like, 95% influencers and stuff. It's not your friends and family.
So that kinda sounds like a lie that people tell themselves, and I'd love for them to get real and say, is it? Or, you know, is it the the entertainment or or whatever? And even if you are connecting with someone okay. Let's say someone gets engaged and, like, like the post and say congratulations. Is that really a meaningful connection compared to actually talking to them on the phone or seeing them in person and hearing about the engagement story? You know? So I think the quality of the engagement isn't great. And then, again, goes back a little bit to what we were talking about earlier, but we're just losing a lot of in person communication, which can be so meaningful and connecting.
[00:33:26] Unknown:
Yeah. Because I'll I'll I'll say I'm guilty of of this at times too, because I I would rather send that little congratulations or happy birthday or whatever it is, than actually speak to the particular person, because I don't want to. You know?
[00:33:42] Unknown:
It's just it's just easier just to send just to send that and not engage in the conversation. And maybe, you know, if it's people that you're not too close with, let's say it's coworkers or distant cousins or whatever, you know, it it does broaden the number of people that you can stay connected with. But I think the issue is if that completely replaces true personal connections. That's that's when it starts to become problematic.
[00:34:08] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. Now for somebody that's listening right now who who totally is overwhelmed by their screen time, what's the very first step that they could take today to get it under control?
[00:34:23] Unknown:
Plug your phone in outside your bedroom. Yeah. I would start with that. That's probably my favorite. And buy an alarm clock. You can buy one for $5. Yeah. Well, I I still have an alarm clock, believe it or not. Yeah. I do too. I I I love clocks, actually. You know, I try to have them in every room because that so in my book, I talk about on ramps and slippery slopes. So on ramps are things that get you onto your phone. So when you go to check the time, that's an on ramp. And then, ideally, you check the time and you put your phone down, but that can be really hard due to slippery slopes. So those are the things that keep you on your phone. So if you notice a consistent on ramp, you wanna try to replace that with a tool that only does the one thing. So, you know, we're not gonna have 50 tools. I'm not gonna have, like, a calculator and a timer and, like, a YouTube playing tablet or whatever. You know? Like, it's great that the phone does a a million things, but something like checking the time or maybe you check the weather often or maybe you need a timer because you cook a lot. If there are these things that you do frequently, using something that's not your phone can be really helpful. So I do have a clock in the kitchen. I have a clock in the bathroom because I don't wanna be brushing my teeth, check the phone, and then, like,
[00:35:30] Unknown:
I'm on my phone forever. See a notification that grabs your attention, and you stand there for ten minutes looking at that. Exactly.
[00:35:35] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah.
[00:35:37] Unknown:
So, now you you you also said that that our phones are tools, not villains. Explain can you explain that perspective for us?
[00:35:44] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I try to I'm not trying to make the phone or technology out to be bad. I think that technology is really helpful. You know, we were just talking about how we can connect with so many more people than we used to. I can FaceTime people on the other side of the world. There's lots of great stuff. It's not inherently bad per se, I don't think, but we want to use it to serve us as a tool. And I think that when you start to have an emotional attachment to your phone, like, a lot of people, they start to get anxious when their phone battery goes down. Mhmm. And or they they feel anxious if they don't have their phone with them. Those sorts of things indicate that you're a little too attached to your phone, and I think you want to, you wanna be aiming for indifference. You don't have to hate your phone, and I I don't hate mine. Like, it's just like, you know, you wouldn't you shouldn't and wouldn't have feelings towards, like, a tape measure or a ruler or a level, you know. And and it's I think it should be as ridiculous to have a feeling towards your phone. So if that's what I mean by by the fact that I think it should be a tool and and but not necessarily a villain. It's It's not your friend, but it's not a villain. It's just a tool. Yeah. I agree. I I I was one of those people that when the smartphone first came around, I got my first few and, you know, I was like, oh, this is the greatest thing ever, you know. Whatever. I I would actually
[00:37:06] Unknown:
I actually was one of those people that went out and bought the extra battery packs, you know, the chargeable thing, so you could just plug it in, so it keep it charged all the time. I don't really care anymore, to be honest. You know, I I went I went one weekend. Remember I told you, like I said, I put the phone on do not disturb. Right? I didn't realize that the battery was almost dead from Friday. And when, when Sunday morning came around, I was went to go turn pick up the phone, turn off the do not disturb, it was dead. You know? But, hey, I don't care anymore. I really don't.
The the the the less distraction, the less, interruptions I get throughout the course of the day on on the weekends is is great. Like I said, my kids are older. You know, they don't live with me anymore. They're they're raising their families back back up in New York and Pennsylvania. But, you know, it's just me and my my two dogs. But I value but I I do I value that time with those two. They're great. They're my they're my they're my little family. They're my kids. You know, I baby them. I take care of them. I spoil them. I take them on road trips. You know, it's, you know, I spend my time with them, but I don't and I I appreciate not being interrupted all day. It's people think I'm crazy sometimes, but it's no, it's the truth. It because I need that time to quiet myself.
I need that that that time to, just kinda reflect on everything that you've been through during the course of the week and where you're going during, you know, for the weekend ahead, which is my reason for doing it. So great points, man. This I I, you know, I wasn't sure what to expect with with this conversation tonight. And, this has been really this has been a this has been a treat. I'm enjoying this very much. So,
[00:38:39] Unknown:
so, I just wanted to add Sure. One one thing for any listeners that feel intimidated by what Joe is just describing because I feel like, you know, Joe has come a long way with his phone use from someone that needs a battery park a battery pack to now spending weekends away. Baby steps, You know? Yeah. So, you know, just spending time away from your phone for five minutes at a time if that's new to you. And before you know it, you'll be spending a lot of time away from it. And I I I do think that as soon as you start to see the value of it and it doesn't feel like an obligation, you'll start flying. But I just wanted to I just wanted to put that in there because as if I was listening and I hear Joe going with his dogs and phone free all weekend, I might feel like, oh my god. Can I do this? And you absolutely can. Yeah. Absolutely. You know what does drive me crazy though? Is that because of technology is so interconnected with everything
[00:39:29] Unknown:
now, if I leave the house without the phone because the phone is connected to the car, and as soon as you pull out of the driveway, you get that that alert pops up on the screen, hey, your phone's not with you. You know, you you sometimes I I do too. Sometimes you, oh shoot, I forgot my phone. I gotta go get it. No. Leave it there. Just let it go. Hit the cancel button, you know, just Yeah. Ignore it. Just go do your thing. You don't need the GPS, you know, you don't need that stuff. Learn learn how to drive around your neighborhood without GPS. You know, it's Totally. Much better for your brain anyway. It keeps you thinking. Mhmm. And and actually, I read a study someplace not too long ago that, that actually doing that, by going around without GPS, actually looking at either a map or just getting lost in your in your community, and just finding your way around, actually helps with your memory, your retention.
It helps with, it's it stimulates, I forgot. Oh, man. I I if I if I would have thought I was gonna go into this, I would have clipped the clip the article. No worries. Maybe you can put in the show notes. Yeah. That'd be great. I'd be really interested to look at it. It's it's a fascinating study. So it helps. It it it does. So to to I I look at those things and I try to take those things into consideration when I'm planning out my little excursions without the phone. Mhmm. So, those things are important.
[00:40:39] Unknown:
Definitely.
[00:40:40] Unknown:
So, what do you what do you hope the audience takes away from this conversation tonight?
[00:40:45] Unknown:
I think I hope they take away that they can make a change if they want to. You know? So if you're feeling frustrated at all in any way about how how you're using your phone, how long you're using it, what you're using it for, you do have agency. You need to think about what it is that you want, and then go get it. And it's totally possible with PhoneU. So I've seen it again and again and again. Is there anything we haven't covered tonight that you wanna bring up? I don't think so. I mean, there's so much we could talk about. I really enjoyed being on your show, and, you know, we could always dive into new topics next time. Absolutely. But, you know, if people are interested, they can take a look at my book, which is coming out in March, and they can sign up for my newsletter.
Howtostopscrolling.com is where you can find out about my book and sign up, and I can send you weekly tips. So maybe that could help as well. Sounds great. Now, who's somebody that you respect right now and what are they doing that inspires you? Someone I respect. So many people. Well, I have these two neighbors, Jeanette and Steven. They're in their early eighties, maybe 82 and 85. And it's funny, we were actually talking about phones a couple of weeks ago at dinner, But I think what I really respect about them is how they take care of their physical selves and how that really, allows them to continue doing what what they wanna do. You know? So she goes swimming every day. He's on his bike every day. And when I went out to dinner with them, like, they were making healthy choices. And Oh, nice. It was just, like, really interesting to see how small, consistent actions lead to a long, full life.
[00:42:35] Unknown:
That's great. You know, my my my regular job, I work in a nursing facility. So I I unfortunately get to see how Yeah. People who really didn't take care of themselves, can potentially where they can potentially find themselves and what conditions they're in. And, this is not a knock on where I wear them. They they could do a fantastic job in patient care. They do spot on stuff. But, it is a reminder to me, you know, because I am in my fifties. You know, I'm not I'm not so far removed from, from some of the residents we have in our building. And, you know, I I it's the motivation to really keep keep yourself moving, keep yourself healthy, keep doing things, and and, you know, you really you really do need to keep going. You can't just sit around all day sitting on your phone Mhmm. Or your tablet or your computer and just, you know, wasting the day. You gotta get out and move and do things.
And, and like you said, leave the phone behind. And that this is great. Ruby, thank you so much for this tonight. I really do appreciate this. And, what I'd like to do is, I have your email address. I'm gonna, I'm gonna have Angela put a bookmark next to it. This way, when, your book comes out in March, I'd like to get a copy of it and then, kinda go through it, and then have you back on the show again and, and talk more detail about what you have in the book and, and go from there if that's okay with you if you like that. That'd be great, Jo. Yeah. I'd love that. Alright. Outstanding. So I know you already kinda gave out some of the information, but where can they go to get your book, your social medias? If you have anything you wanna give out, go right ahead. Yeah. So, howtostopscrolling.com
[00:44:06] Unknown:
is where you can learn about my book, sign up for my newsletter. I also blog occasionally at rubyrebarights.com, and I think that's about it. Yeah. I like to keep it simple. Howtostopscrolling.com
[00:44:17] Unknown:
is the best way to find me. Alright. And it's actually, it's a good website. I looked at it today, and, it's very it's simple. It's direct. It's Yeah. It's it's minimalist, which I like the minimalist stuff. I really do. Actually, well, it's growing on me. Let's put it that way. I'm starting to like it and appreciate it a lot more, because it's way too much stimulation out there. You don't need all these flashing thingamajigs all over the place. That's how I feel. Yeah. That's why if you look at my website, it's very basic. You know, it's it's really not much. But, but again, Ruby, thank you so much for being with us tonight. I really do appreciate it, and, God bless you. And I hope that, the book is a seller for you. I hope you do a good job with this. Thank you so much. Thanks, Jeff, for having me. Have a great night. You're welcome. You too. And I'll talk to you soon. Alright.
Ruby Reiba Reba. Sorry. Said it again. Wrong. I'll get it one day. You know, you you figured I'm doing this for long enough, I should be able to get names straight, but I don't. So I apologize. Alright, folks. Well, so we're gonna take a quick break here. We come back from the break. We're gonna have Danny Mendoza Junior joining us here in the second part of the show tonight. And, we're gonna, just like I said, just take a quick break. So listen, don't forget, this is a live show weeknight 7PM central time. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share it with your friends, your family, and your followers. It's very important to do that. It helps the algorithm, keeps us moving along, keeps us getting noticed. And I wanna say thank you to the new followers we have on Rumble. Thank you so much. And for the couple of people we picked up on Youboob, thank you very much for that. We really do appreciate it.
And just just keep moving along here. And and to the folks that are watching on x and fake book and yeah. I call it fake book for a reason. And I I wanted to mention that to Ruby too, but I I slipped my mind. But, FakeBook and YouTube and x, Twitch, all those places that we're streaming on right now, thank you guys for watching. I see the numbers really, really nice, so I appreciate it. Alright. With all of that said, let's take that break, and we'll be back in about, three minutes. See you in a bit.
[00:46:32] Unknown:
Love the flow. 69. Now it's time for new believable people, and we must do it. If we don't control insiders, this will be over and over. To lead by an egg, big fat love, find common ground, to hold the spread America first. America first. Yanny non fatal. We want to build a much better Believable people. And we must do it. Non fatal communication. Very much higher. America first. To lead lead it by an end. Insiders fighting for insiders. Time to stop. Insiders fighting for insiders. More of insiders fighting for insiders. Time to stop.
Insiders fighting for insiders. America first. Love the flow. 69. Now it's time for new believable people, and we must do it. If we don't control insiders, this will be over and over. To lead by an end, big, fat, love, find common ground, to hold the spread America first. America first. Yanny. Non fatal. We want to build a much better believable people. And we must do it. Non fatal. Communication. Very much higher. America first to lead by an end. Insiders fighting for insiders. Time to stop. Insiders fighting for insiders. More of insiders fighting for insiders.
Time to stop. Insiders fighting for insiders. Insiders. America first. Love the flow.
[00:49:03] Unknown:
Alrighty. First hour is in the books. Welcome back. This is Joe Roos. This is, the Joe Roos show. Ruby Ribo. On the show with us earlier, interesting conversation. I didn't expect that at all. But then again, this is the Joe Russo. You never know what you're gonna get. That's why we always say that nothing is sacred, nothing is watered down, nothing is PC, it's an anything and everything show, and we try to do the best we can to bring you the best quality talk radio that we could muster without the bluster. Somebody actually asked me where that came from, like where where did I come up with that? That that is something that that we came up with back in 2016, on the show I did back up in New York with my friend Jay and and, our our other friend Joe.
And, we had a lot of fun with that show and there was a there was a night that that Jay didn't wasn't able to come to the show because he was, he wasn't feeling well. Let's brighten you up a little bit there. So, he, so he wasn't able to come on to the show that night. I think he had he had hurt or something like that. Or, oh no no, he was babysitting his daughter and he decided that Yeah. You could pull that down. Just pull all of it down. I'm giving instructions here I forgot to do because I went to get coffee on the break, and the dogs tripped me coming in. And, because when they tripped me, I had to go get go clean it. So the break ended before I was able to, take care of all the stuff I needed to take care of.
Let me just send this really quick. The things we do on a live show, folks, This is how we do it. So anyway, so as I was saying with, with Jay, so I knew he was I knew he was watching and listening to the show. So I, I sent that little call out at the opening of the show, and that kinda like became one of our little tag lines, you know. So that's that's where it came from. That's the answer to the question that I got the other day. But, and that was directed towards him, because I would I would say to him, I would I would say the line, and then at the end of the line, I would tell him, let's call in so we can hang up on him.
You know, which we did regularly. So but we and we did that for there was a Danny don't laugh. There was a reason for it, because the the whole purpose behind it was is because what Jay would do when we were doing the show, Jay would have the board in front of him, the the mixing board, and, we called it the captain's chair. He he was in the captain's chair the whole time, and what he would do is if he didn't like what you were saying, he would mute you. And you wouldn't even know it, because you'd still hear it in the cans, but you aren't being transmitted. And he used to do it to me all the time. So any opportunity I could to get back at him, that's what I would do. That's that's that's the kind of fun we have. And the way the show was laid out, we had three people on the show, it was me, Jay, and and Joe. And, Joe was the libertarian voice of the show, and Jay was the, the left voice of the show, and I was the right voice of the show. So we kinda played off each other, and we would argue, man. We would get into it. We would we would tussle.
It was it was a lot of fun, but, you know, at the end of the day, it was a show. We had a lot of fun doing it. We were best buddies and we hung out afterwards. We had pizza. And, you know, it's a good thing. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. But, you know, with all of that said and done, I do miss it. I do miss hanging out with Jay and and Joe, and and, one of these days, we're gonna have a reunion show. I think that I think that should be in the works. What do you think, Danny? You think we should do that? You think we should do that? I think I think you should. Okay. Alright. So that's that's the voice from the darkness over there. So we're gonna let let's bring Danny Mendoza in. Danny, welcome to the show, buddy. I'm really glad you're here. And, there's a ten second delay up up there. So if you were looking on the monitor for any reason, it's gonna be a ten second delay. Hopefully, you'll pop up there. There you go. Look at you up there in a big screen. Look. You check you out. Hey. Looking good. There you are. You At least trying to. You hand you handsome little w there, buddy.
[00:53:09] Unknown:
Same same to you, Joe. Same to you, man. I know. A lot a lot of brotherly love here. Yes. A lot of yeah. None of that homo stuff. None of that. No homo here. So It's a good way to start it. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:53:25] Unknown:
Absolutely. You know, my friend Mike, my friend Chris and I, we used to do, all kinds of like like skits and things like that, when we were kids with with the video cameras and stuff. And they would they were the big shoulder mounted things. And, it it it was well, you know what? I'm not even gonna get into it, but it's just because people just would not understand. So We're gonna need to hear the whole context together. Yeah. Exactly. It's gonna take way too long to get into all that stuff. But, so Danny Mendoza is the, CEO, CFO, Yes. Of of all of these different organizations. But the but the the the first important one for me at least right now is is that he is the CEO of TNE Energy Yes, sir. Which, we are very happy to be partnered with right now and, excited to see what, what kind of damage we can do together as as a team. And, so, Danny, welcome to the show. I'm glad you're here. And so it's almost didn't happen. Yeah. True. But I tried to get this thing put together as quickly as possible. Thank you for the coffee. It's delicious. Oh, you're welcome. I didn't need it. I had a run before I got here. That's why I looked this You had the runs before you got here?
I had a run. Oh, okay. Because I because I have I have wipes I have wipes over there for you.
[00:54:37] Unknown:
Not yet. Even though I should be taking some prune juice, I guess. Hey. Nothing you gotta be healthy. You know, you gotta be healthy.
[00:54:45] Unknown:
Absolutely. Absolutely. That's what we were talking about earlier. We were talking about, phone health, electronic health. So now we're gonna talk about bowel health. No. I don't think so. Yeah. I'm not I'm not an expert in that. Let let's let's pass on that conversation. But, but, Danny, so tell us about T and E Energy. Tell us how you got started with it when it when when you really, like, threw yourself into it and, decided that this was the direction you wanted to go with the business.
[00:55:12] Unknown:
So I've been in the energy industry for over fifteen years, believe it or not. It's actually started in Central Texas. Okay. So, as a good buddy of mine, Johnny Wong, give I'm a give him a big old shout out because if it wasn't for him helping me start I had to borrow money to start in the beginning. So, actually, I'm a big gamer. Okay. I actually put my Wii U as collateral, which is kinda funny. I was like because, I was like I think it's still in college when I first started. Okay. And I, I was trying to go for astronomy. So that's actually my what I was trying to major in Alright. When I was in college. And then, business was actually my minor.
So, it was very interesting how it all worked out. But, when I first moved in, you know, the college life, everybody knows this, I I I wasn't, I didn't I didn't get a dorm or anything like that. I had to, you know, get my own apartment, move in, stuff like that. Nobody told me how to buy energy. One of the things that I noticed about that's common in America is that everybody uses energy, but nobody knows how to buy it. And That's a great point. Yeah. Yeah. So and they do that often. They'll they'll tell you exactly where to buy, like, the cheapest tomatoes and stuff like that. Or, hey. This is the best place to buy this. But when you start talking about energy, they're like, oh, like, no. I don't even wanna touch it. And it's like like, you use that every day. That should be the one you touch. So I was living with my wife, in, in efficiency.
Okay. And, the energy bill was, like, $450. That should not be for
[00:56:53] Unknown:
No. No.
[00:56:55] Unknown:
You know what? That shouldn't be for anybody anywhere. That that's just absurd. Well, things have changed. So this was we're we're talking about, like, you know, I wanna say, like, twenty years ago. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it was the the the whole entire thing was way different back then. Mhmm. I remember the Kilwa price being $6.09 cents. Like, it's 6¢ or 9¢. Yeah. I was like, and, but when I was paying for it, I didn't know how to buy it. So even then, I still paid more than what I should have. And, that's where it started. That's where the idea started. Because when my buddy told me, hey. You should go to this company. And I was like, oh, I can choose? It's like, yeah. Nobody told you. I was like, no. And then when you look at these kids today, when they go out, they don't know. What whoever they would get recommended by whoever, they don't even pay attention to the price. They'll just get it. Yeah. That's true. Because I'm, you know, you know, I'm from New York. You you know that. And,
[00:57:43] Unknown:
you know, in New York, you don't have a choice where you get your energy from. It's it's one company. You've you have no say in it whatsoever. There's no shopping around for it, so you just accept whatever it is that that it is. So when I came here and and they were like, I I think I went to H E B one day, and it was like like booths set up with all these different energy companies. I was like, what the hell is this? You know?
[00:58:04] Unknown:
Yeah. This is new. I was like, well, that's deregulation. I feel like it's a good thing. It it puts, it puts the power back, to the to the people and the companies to compete. Mhmm. You know this. If you keep one company, they're gonna be like, this is the price, and that's it. Nothing you could say about it. Mhmm. And so, it even though a lot of people probably don't like our, you know, privately owned because it's not publicly owned Right. And, our our grid here, it's actually considered one of the best in the world. Mhmm. And so I I studied a little bit on that, especially after the freeze happened. And, I was literally stunned because ours needs a lot of improvement.
But to say that it's the best, like, anywhere else you go, that is crazy because we are behind on a lot of technology on that stuff. Mhmm. And, we're not building any new power plants, and there's a lot of people moving to Texas. Yeah. That's true. So and then, there's a there's a new one that I didn't consider. I already knew all the rates are supposed to be going up no matter what. And, I didn't consider AI. So I have a team. It's not just me. There's a lot of people that, you know, I work with that deals with energy. I actually work with Mantis Innovation. Okay. They're considered one of the best for commercial in Texas and in the nation. I think they're number two in the nation if I'm Oh, wow. So they do outside of Texas too. Okay.
Got lucky how I partnered up with them. This was in Waco, Texas when I was in Central Texas. I got to meet a lot of great people, so I don't wanna I don't I don't I wanna say God blesses me and he favors me, so I wanna stay in that favor. Yeah. That's that's good. That you should. Yeah. So, I got to meet a lot of great people. And, yeah, they they literally told me, hey. Did like, prices are about to go up. I was like, well, I already knew that. And I was like, no. No. No. No. They're gonna go up, like, quickly. And I was like, why? And they're like, well, AI is like, all these data centers that they're making Yeah. It requires a lot of energy, and there is no there's no extra, power being put into it. So someone has to pay for all that, and it gets it gets pretty heavy after you, like, look at all the data and stuff like that. So and then I like I said, it's not only me, so I have other experts that are on the field.
But yeah. No. It's it's actually going in a in a route to where well, I mean, in California, I had a so there was a story, here locally. There's these guys that are going out there. By the way, we we offer residential for your home Mhmm. Commercial for your business, and then we also offer solar. Now out of all those three, the one that's gotten hit the most and the hardest has been solar. But that is the answer, by the way. No matter which way you slice it, if you wanna keep pricing low and you want to own the energy, which is crazy to even say solar is the answer. The only problem is nobody knows how to do it yet. It's only, like, 25 years old. So what'd you expect? And then it's like True. True. It's juju magic to the majority of the people. They don't understand how it even works. But the idea is that you can own that right now. And when I suggest people, it's like, look. If you can own the energy, own it.
So, going into the story of this one, there was a a competitor of mine that came by, talked to one of my clients that already has solar, and he comes from California. And he all he does is solar. Okay. So and he works for this company. I forgot the name of it. But, my client was like, hey. Come sit down because we're already getting solar with you, but this guy is, like, you know, talking game. Let's see what he says is true. And what I was there for is, one of the things that a lot of peep salespeople do is that they kinda over exaggerate on a lot of stuff. Kinda have to tell the people exactly how it works. Mhmm. And someone, oh, well, I don't want it. It's like, well, you're gonna miss out because trust me, as time goes on, you're gonna want it. The idea of this being cheaper, it's you're buying a power plant. It's not cheaper. It's a little bit more expensive, but it's not to where it's like, oh my god. It's so much more expensive. No. Only when you do it wrong okay. It's just like anything else. Like, if you buy something cheap You get what you pay for. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, whoops. I have to spend more money now. Like, I was like, okay. That's usually what happened. Okay. It's Yeah. That was you're right. You're absolutely right. Okay. Well, with energy, really, you're gonna go cheap on that? It's like it's like the worst idea you could do. The reason we had the freeze and the reason 10% of the population have and this is this is what we were told when we were looking into it is the windmills did not work under extreme cold weather. Now there are windmills that work under extreme cold weather, but those cost more. Mhmm. And when they were told to buy those, they were like, well, it never gets cold here.
So why would we buy them? And this is they went cheap on energy. Look. 10% of the population lost their energy. So, yeah, it's it's kinda crazy to go. But, anyways, he was telling me the story. I said, hey. Gave a lot of stuff. He over exaggerated and played on some stuff, but, nothing too horrible or bad. And then I asked them because I'm really curious on energy rates everywhere else, and I always try to double confirm. Usually, people don't lie to you either because why would they lie about it? I was gonna say that there's no point in lying about it. They don't gain anything from it. Well, California's kilowatt rate is about 70¢.
[01:03:14] Unknown:
70¢? Yeah. Hold I'm complaining about what I have. Well, no. Okay. Well,
[01:03:20] Unknown:
here's the bad news for you. It's supposed to be higher. Oh, I know that. Yeah. Yeah. It's supposed to be right now after the freeze happened since they lost, I think it was a billion dollars, if I'm correct on that, if I still remember because it was a while back. They they took out a loan to pay for that because it's a private grid. By the way, during that time frame, China bid for it, believe it or not, and the US government bid for it. So they decided to take it alone. They said, no. We're not gonna sell it to these guys. I was like, so we got lucky on that one too. Most people don't know that that was, like, an actual thing. China could have bought our energy grid. That would have been that would have been crazy, man. It would have been disastrous. I think so too. Yeah. No. Because you don't want so we're not the we don't have the best energy grid because, you know, the government or the government owns it because, technically, China's a government too. So it's just one of the worst ones. Yes. I agree. Yeah. So, and they would have made a lot of money too because there's a lot of money in Texas when it comes down to energy. And this this goes with solar. So when he said, hey. 70¢, I started laughing, and my client was like, woah. Everything you said was was true?
I was like, bro, like, what do you think I was just, like, saying it just so I can get the sales? I was like, this is actual data. And whether you like it or not, it's going in that direction. Yeah. I I was like, I've been in the energy industry for fifteen years when I got into solar, like, seven years ago, and I started kinda learning from it, you know, little by little. And so, teeny energy started focusing more on solar. And there's huge profits in in energy. So so much in profits that even the client can get some capital.
[01:04:49] Unknown:
That's how much money When when you and I were talking about this, well, we talked about it more than just once. We we talked about it a couple of times actually. When we talked about it last week, and you really went to more detail last week about it. I mean, I I was blown away by it. Now I am looking forward to getting panels and and getting hooked up to the solar here eventually. Well, it's the it's the only solution. I had a I just wanna talk to Pat. Big old shout out to Pat. He's one of the he's the GM for,
[01:05:15] Unknown:
the the mall, the Pet's mall. And he literally told me he bought a house in San Antonio with panels and generator. And I told him, hey. Is that as bad as they say? Like, that it's I'm obviously, I was just, you know, instigating all of that. Yeah. I know. But I wanted to confirm. Because if if you talk bad about it, he doesn't know my stance on it. Mhmm. So I was like, hey. Is it as bad as they say? He's like, no. Actually, it was like the best purchase I ever had. And then and then I came out and said, see, that's what people need to be saying. Most people don't even say that. I was like It's true. He bought a house with panels and a generator. And I've said this before, and I'll say it again. A house if you own a house and you own the energy, that's better than a house with no energy. Exactly. I agree. So I agree with you. Especially when you get an electric bill like I got. Yeah. It was a good bill too. I saw it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was a juicy one. Yeah. No. But you're actually believe it or not, you're on the lower tier as horrible as that sounds.
[01:06:13] Unknown:
Everything I do is lower.
[01:06:15] Unknown:
No. Don't say that. Don't say that. No. So, yeah. So we help out regular homes. You know, on average, they can with the companies that we partner up with, they can normally say, like, maybe about 10%. 10 to 30% is, like, usually max. Hey, Mike. Thanks for watching. Appreciate it. Hey. Oh, by the way, that's Mike Chad. Big old shout out to him. We're gonna be talking about it here in a whole second. That that guy's gonna be on your podcast. Oh oh, that oh, that's the guy. That's the guy. Alright, Mike. That's the guy. Walk into here, buddy. I hope you're ready for this. Yeah. So How many of errors that we got going on? Commercial, I've had a bunch of them. So Jersey Mike's, Central Texas, those are under our company, which are under man Mantis Innovation, but they're like I I know, big shout out to Bobby.
I knew him before he became, like he rose up the ranks at Jersey Mike's, and it's, they saved a lot of money with us. Mhmm. Then, here in Eagle Pest, I've actually helped out a lot of people already. So, like I said, it's it's not a bad thing when they buy it wrong. Nobody knows how to buy this stuff, so it's okay. Mhmm. And then don't feel bad about it because, like, there was this one it's it's called Gummies. Big old shout out to Gummy. That's like that's the nickname. He saved about something was, like, 60% Okay. Off of his bill. So it went from, like, a he was paying, like you said $2.50 on yours.
You know, his was, like, a thousand. So
[01:07:36] Unknown:
so he ended up he ended up paying $5.50. It was $2.50 this time, but last month, it was it was much more. It's closer closer to 500 Okay. Last month. That sounds accurate. And I'm still I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing different that it came down a little bit. It's just the weather?
[01:07:52] Unknown:
I don't know. I really haven't changed any pattern in any kind of stuff. Well, it's the weather. It's the heat and the AC. So 60% of your usage from the build comes from the AC. Mhmm. So if you don't have good AC system or anything like that yeah. And usually the worst systems is that I tell people this all the time. The worst system is the window unit. Right. It's the worst system. Second worst system is the mini split. It's still really good. It's way, way better than the, what's it called in the window unit. Yeah. Of course. And then the AC unit is just king no matter which way you select it. Yeah. The central air unit. And the newer you have it, the better. There's even new technology that allows you to use, you know how they turn on and they turn off? Mhmm. So there's a little chip that we actually offer when they go solar. You can add it to I think it's up to, like, maybe a five year, seven year old AC unit.
And, when the power shuts off, there's still current in there. So what this chip does is it uses it. I see. And so it stays on for an extra, you know, maybe thirty minutes. That's how much energy is being wasted, by the way. That's crazy. I know. That's really that's insane when you think about that. No. It is. It is. Because all all these little things add up, and then you're talking about window units. You're talking about, insulation. You're talking, like, it all it all these things add up, and your biggest expense is your AC.
So no matter which way you slice it across the board, they already have data for this and stuff like that. Oh, yeah. I that's is isn't it broken down like that on your bill also? I think it's I think it is. Well, some of them break it down, but the majority of them don't. So oh, and then that's another thing. So people don't know how to read the bill. I'll teach you guys a little bit on how to read the bill so nobody else can kinda skim you from it. There's the little numbers. They don't they do this purposely too. So they'll tell you, hey. Our kilowatt rate is 10¢. Mhmm. And you're like, yay. 10¢.
And then you're like, wait. Why does it say why did I pay so much if it was 10¢? Well, there's a whole system that goes on to get energy to your home. So for example, it starts at the power plant Right. And then goes to the delivery service here. It's AP. You go to Central Texas, it's Encore. You go to Houston, it's a different one. I think it's Northeast something. And, like, everywhere else you go, there's, like, few different, delivery services. Okay. But you get it from the power plant. They make the deal with the power plant, usually wholesale it, and then they deliver it to you. And then there's a middleman before it actually gets to even you. There's a middleman between the let's say, you're you're getting TXU and the delivery service. The middleman's called the ERCOT.
[01:10:18] Unknown:
Okay.
[01:10:19] Unknown:
And so, they're the ones that turn on turn off your light. And they're the ones that kinda I don't wanna say regulate because they don't really do that. It's more like a like a checks and balances, I guess you could say. So that way nobody just owns the whole entire thing. I see. Which is actually pretty good. So everybody by the way, this is how much money there is in energy. All these people get paid. Yeah. Okay. So, and the wrong business. That's what I well, I mean, I gotta like it. Like I said, I was in astronomy, so that's the only reason.
So, and and then comes the deal that only you see, which is in front of TXU. But all that has to happen before the energy gets delivered to you. So the kilowatt rate that TXU does with, you know, the line as it goes over there, it could even sometimes skip, but it goes all the way through. That's why you get the kilowatt rate that you do here. Mhmm. And then you have issues after that. Because then you're like, hey. The lights went out. Who do I call? It's not TXU. It's AEP because they deliver it. So and then when the light gets turned off, it's not TXU that ordered the shutoff. It's ERCOT. ERCOT ordered the shutoff because they noticed you didn't pay. This is like I said, it's checks and balances, so not one place has all so Tx, you can't just say, we're gonna turn off your power. They can't do that. They have to go through ERCOT and ERCOT has to say, okay. They didn't pay. Okay. Yeah. And then as soon as you pay, they actually turn it on immediately, usually within fifteen to twenty minutes because it's a must. Mhmm.
[01:11:41] Unknown:
But sometimes it might take, like, an hour or two depending on, you know, if there's outages and stuff. Yeah. It gets so if you look at that whole Or if you piss off the person that you called and and sort of yelling at them because they shut your tower off. By the way. You can't No. I know. No. You I know you. I'm saying you call call TXU. You curse them out. Bang. You shut my power up.
[01:11:58] Unknown:
It was not even them, by the way. They're like, oh, I know. But I'm That's why they tell you, just pay it, bro. Like, so but if you see where all that money comes from, solar gets rid of all that. It's just you? Solar? Because you're the power plant, by the way. You're the owner now. You're the owner of the power plant even of the delivery service of it. Mhmm. When you think about it, it's all there. It's all that lines and grids and all that stuff, and it's on your freaking roof. It's actually kinda mind boggling when you really sit down and think about it. And then it's your job to hire the delivery guys to fix your stuff. That's where you get a lot of issues because peep most people don't know, well, who do I call? And it should be the the deliveries the delivery service should be the, solar company that you bought it from. That's supposed to be the delivery service. Okay. So they're supposed to maintenance your stuff, and then it depends on the contract that you made with them. Some of them do, some of them don't. And then, I mean, just like a house, you sometimes have to pay if some some of the stuff messes up. You can insure it, though. You can actually add it to your insurance. So it's kinda even more insane when you think about it from that point. And then they do have a twenty five year warranty, but it's only good if the the solar company is still active.
So if that goes bankrupt, well, now you gotta find a new one, and good luck if they want to if they know how or they even want to because they don't they don't make any money off of that. And usually, they'll have to charge you, which is why we we came up with a maintenance side for solar. Okay. And and but that's a whole different other even I had to take a step back because, oof, the expenses on those things, they get kinda crazy. Wow. So, but we partner up with somebody that can handle it. So the idea is to bring solutions to Eagle Pass. So that's how that's All of that, folks, just to get to the punch line of Yeah. Yeah. Bring solutions to Eagle Pass. Yeah. That that that's our job. Our job is to provide solutions, for all people who who decide to get, energy consumption. Because one of the biggest thing that I noticed was if you don't have power, you fall behind.
And and this has been proven throughout civilizations. The civilization that has the most power reigns supreme. Yeah. I mean, that's kinda what the bomb was. The when we dropped it on here to Shamrock, it's just a bunch of energy, raw energy. Exactly. It's kinda scary when you look when, you know, you think of it as ever. So but, yeah, that's what that's what my T and E energy company is for. It's, that's why we call it, you know, providing affordable energy to progress civilization. That's what it's for. If if you if if a business is able to save $500 Right. They're able to do more. Of course. If in your house, you can have the energy running all the time and prices are low or at least, you know, they don't go crazy Mhmm. And you're the owner of it, then you can do more. Of course. I think so. And that's You have more money in your pocket. You have more buying power. You can do what you need to do. Exactly.
[01:14:46] Unknown:
So that's that's the point. That's what we're here to do. Well, I am looking forward to, getting my panels and and whatnot set up here. So so, as as my sponsor, you know, I'm Yeah. We got I gotta give you a deal now too. Yes. You do. Yes. You do. Especially, you want me to keep on bragging about this thing and Exactly. Saying how great you guys are. I mean, I need to, you know, experience it Yes. For myself. That's how it works. So you so in addition to T and E energy, because you spread yourself pretty thin. You do a lot of stuff. Mhmm. You're all over the board. I know you told me over the weekend that you're usually up till two, 03:00 in the morning working on stuff. So, I mean, God bless you for it.
Usually at two or 03:00 in the morning, I am camped out on the couch with with the kids watching some kind of weird movie on on Tubi or something, you know. But, Some good Halloween movies going on right now. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You know, I've been watching I've been watching these old nineteen sixties horror movies. I I watched one the other night was it last night actually? I put it on, and it was the weirdest movie I I'd ever seen. It was called the, the the Screaming Skull. It was so weird and, Sounds odd. And what I what I what really what really triggered me to say, okay, this might be a mistake, was, you know, back at back in in in those days, they would do these horror movies, they would always, lead into the movie by having some kind of a commentary from the off camera voice.
And one of the this one was it was a slow shot into, like, a funeral home, and there's this casket laying there. And the the the the voice over guy is saying, talking about this movie, it's, you know, it's the first movie of its kind, and and, they have an arrangement with the theater owners that if anybody dies from shock, that their funeral service will be paid for, and then the lid to the coffin opens and it says, reserved for you.
[01:16:39] Unknown:
And I was like,
[01:16:41] Unknown:
I'm like, alright. Let's see what this is all about. It was the weirdest freaking movie I've ever seen. And you took a shower with that type of or, like, description. Even I would've been, like, at next. Yeah. I know. Right? So but so so I'm watching this thing and it's I mean, it's not a bad story. The story basically was that this guy, he was he was a widow, a widower, and, he remarried. And when his first wife passed away, she she owned the home they were living in and the grounds. It was like a mini mansion type thing. And, and and she left that to him, and then he remarried somebody who's who was some, like, insane.
And but she had, like, a ton of money, and the plan was that he was going to make her go crazy by thinking that the ghost of his ex of his of his dead wife was haunting her to the point where he's either has to have her committed or she commits suicide or something like that, and the whole thing falls apart, turns around on him. I got it. Not a bad idea, you know, for a movie. Executed wrongly. But it's not but not not executed
[01:17:46] Unknown:
well at all. It was like a movie that I saw recently. It was called Jack in the Box. I don't know if you heard of it. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard of it. I feel like it had a lot of potential, and they squandered it. That's what it felt like. Because the idea is good. Like, if you watch the movie, it would be creepy, but I feel like they I mean, they just I mean, they had low budget. You can tell. Yeah. And, if they would have brought in some some good, like, directors and stuff like that Oh, sure. I think that would have been a great new spooky stuff that goes on. Well In in that tone, though, that's why, we actually had some, this is the the one that you're talking about, the EP Popcon.
We're on the third year already, but on the second year here, we actually brought, Butcher's Bluff. It's like a horror theme, director. Like how I segued. Yeah. I know. Yeah. I had a feeling. I was like, you know, maybe he's playing it on that for him. So, this actually was this actually was created for, the people here at Eagle Pass. So for those that have supported our like I said, there's a lot of money that goes into solar. So most of this is actually funded by our solar company. Mhmm. So, I, you know, I wanted to give something back to the people, and and I wanted to prove certain things that people here in Eagle Pass. For some reason, I don't know where this thought process comes from, but they say that you can't do.
So one is you can't give stuff to the people, which I was like, that's that's wrong. Anybody can. But they're like, nobody here in Eagle Pass is willing to do it. Oh, well, I'm here in Eagle Pass. I live here. I was like, I can do it. I was like, and then, two's like, well, no one's gonna support it. All these people are well, it's free to the public. I'm giving. I was like, so, you know Anytime anytime anywhere you are, you put the label free on something, people are gonna respond. Well, and they said they weren't I'm not saying that I'm not saying that it's a negative. It's not a negative at all, but you'll you'll get their attention. Yeah. Well, they said that they weren't gonna support this one, but people wanted this here too. Remember, you gotta have something that people want. You can give away free nonsense, and people are just gonna be like, I don't want that. Sure. I was like, but if you if you got something that the people want, you're able to give it to them, then might as well do it and do it in the best form that you can. So then that's another reason why I ended up doing this. It's like, hey. You know, that's that's two. There's two things that they said that couldn't happen that just happened. Yeah. That's true. And they're like, oh, no businesses are gonna come by and help. And I got a whole list of businesses here that
[01:20:03] Unknown:
so I was like, there's What I would like to have been I would have strikes. You're out, sir. I I would have loved to have been the fly on the wall to look at their facial reactions when you showed them the list. Well, okay. Well, you said nobody's gonna help out. Nobody's gonna contribute to this thing, but there's one, two, three. Yeah. I was like, no. Not only that, it was like it was the first year we tried it out. They're like, nobody's, gonna, like, go the second year. And they would I even have the data for that too.
[01:20:28] Unknown:
So it's just, you know, it's I don't know where these weird ideas are coming from. Like and I don't know why they're here. They're not real ideas. Right. So, you gotta push what's real. And then, that we we I created this really the first time around as a marketing. It's supposed to be marketing. Like, people here is like, well, marketing doesn't work. I was like, marketing is very important for any business. Anyone that says they have enough marketing or they don't need marketing, they have no idea what they're saying. If you look at all these other bigger businesses, they understand that marketing is the lifeblood of any business. Absolutely. And you must do it. There was I had read this book.
There's this I think it was was it Bentley or Bugatti? I think it was Bugatti. So Bugatti's theory is we wanna have an omnipotent is that how you pronounce that? Omnipotent? Omnipotent. Omnipotent marketing. That's kinda crazy to think about. Yeah. But the majority of people do know what Bugatti is. Mhmm. That's the point. The point is you want everybody to see your product at least one time. Mhmm. And that's what marketing is. And, yes, it'll cost money, but the returns are insane. And so this one, the first year that we did it, it tripled my my, investment. Nice. So I was like, oh, I guess it's a real thing. And so then I did it again. And right now, I mean, it hasn't completely tripled, but there's there's other things that pop up that are not just monetary wise.
And so this is where you say you spread it thin, but it's you get all this extra work. There's there's eyes that see it now that, hey. I like what you did. Let's do something. Right. And then all of a sudden, it just amplifies everything. And if it's I I strongly believe that if it's under good cause and, you know, obviously, God first, it it works. So, yeah. That's what we did. Like, this year, last year, we brought Peter Dante. I don't know if you know who he is. No. Name sounds familiar, but I'm not sure. He comes out in a bunch of Adam Sandler movies. Okay. Have you seen any of them? I'm not a Adam Sandler fan. Okay. I don't blame you either.
I I actually found I'm really I like a lot of comical stuff. I thought his stuff was really goofy too, but it's still funny. So, like, I was, you know, I'm able to keep up with that stuff. But we brought him disagree on that. Yeah. Well, yeah, we'll go with that. I was like, no. Really, I am sound as a hit or miss with people. So because he's just too goofy sometimes. It's like childish goofy. But it's I I still find it. I don't wanna say the r word, but yeah. That's that's why I laugh at it. Listen. Yeah.
[01:23:04] Unknown:
The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play. Yeah. That's that's how you that's how I saw yes. That's exactly what I saw. Yeah. So, this time we brought Napoleon Dynamite because,
[01:23:15] Unknown:
we had the elections and the runoff. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, like I said, the whole point of the popcorn is to give to the people. So give them a win. I was like, because, sometimes they need to see that in order for them to believe. Mhmm. I was like, and bring in hope. And that's one of the biggest things that I like bringing to the people because it's it's not seen often, and I think we need more of that. And as soon as all it takes is one person, and then the thing starts rolling. So like I said, it started off with a marketing mindset, and then I noticed something bigger. Like, some of these artists that we bring really move the people. So it wasn't me bringing the hope. It's just the people when they see, Peter Dante or when they see Napoleon Dynamite because that's what we brought the second time around.
It it moves people, especially the kids. That was the one that, like I don't get starstruck, so I don't know why. I don't either. Yeah. It's it's odd to me, but I saw the peep like, some of them were shaking. Some couldn't even speak. Yeah. No. It was weird. Like, I was like, woah. And but the biggest part was, like, there was, like, these five kids that were from Camino Real, and, they had, like they were under this mentorship program that that he tried paying me for. I said, no, man. It's for the kids, so go ahead. They can take and then some of these artists are like, no. No. I won't charge for them because I know, you know, you know, what what they're coming for. Like Right. Exactly. For, Napoleon Dynamite, I think he gave away a bunch of them for, the kids that were on, the projects.
Like, the the the housing authority brought the kids. We took pictures with them, and and he gave he gave away stuff. We didn't charge for that. Right. He didn't charge me either. But if you know a little bit of a a big old shout out to him, by the way. Fernando Ramirez, he's a great guy. I got to I got to speak with him during that time. They're you get to see that they're just human just like, you know, you and me, and they they go through different opportunities. And some some say they get lucky, but I don't think it's luck. I think it's just work. Mhmm. But a friend used to be in the projects too, believe it or not. Right. And so when he was tell talking to the kids, he was telling, hey. You have a you have a choice. You don't have to stay there. You can work and do the right thing. And, you know, it's a different message. Absolutely. It is. So and and it comes from someone that they see on TV. So it becomes, to them, I guess, something really big.
So, Peter Dante did the same thing with the five people from Camino Real, and believe it or not, Joe big old shout out to Joe, by the way, because he brought them. He he literally told me he said, hey. Those those kids, 180. Like, they went from Yeah. To doing great. I was like, what the I wasn't expecting that. Remember, we it started as a marketing strategy, for my solar company and for all these businesses because I was trying to show them, hey. This is how you do marketing. You must give. You might not get the money right then and there, but the people don't forget. And if you do a really good job, they'll give you the money as time goes on because they're gonna support your business or they're gonna tell their people about your business. That's what it started off as. And then I noticed that there's actually, like, something deeper to that when you give. And I was like, woah. That was like, if anything, that's why I started doing it after that. It's a lot of work.
It's just
[01:26:24] Unknown:
you keep on saying give and, you know, as as every time you say it, a verse pops in my head it it pops in my head, you know, it's give and it shall be given unto you. Mhmm. You know? And, verse goes on from that, but I'm not I'm gonna mangle it right now. But the the important thing is give. Yeah. And, you know, we Eagle Pass, it's it's a it's a growing city. It's it's, what do we have? Just a little over 30,000 in population right now.
[01:26:50] Unknown:
Well, that's what they say. I think we're bigger. Think we're bigger than that? No. I think we're like at 50, and then plus all the traffic here, easy over a 100. You know? Yeah. Okay. So we'll just say so we'll say 40. Yeah. Just for argument's
[01:27:02] Unknown:
sake. And, even but even though it's 40,000 people in this quote unquote small town, you know, it's it's still really is a small town. Everybody knows everybody. Everybody's somehow connected to each other. I mean, I mean, for crying out loud dude, I I met somebody the other day and I found out that this person was is is like a cousin to somebody that I know that's that's married to somebody that I know that's a cousin to that person and this and it's like, incest had to be somewhere along the way. I I I don't know. You know? Somebody had somebody had a hook up with somebody That was a good theory to prove that. You know, somebody had a hook up with somebody's cousin somewhere along the way. That is scary. Right? Like Yeah. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. What's your last name?
[01:27:50] Unknown:
Right?
[01:27:51] Unknown:
No. So so Well, you had that on. Right? The mayor here? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. No. Because, that's, that that's kinda what I was trying to get to that we are a pretty small town, but most people don't know. Even though we are small and mostly everybody knows everybody, it's weird because, like, there's still people that you don't know. And it and it's like, yo. Like, that guy's really important. You gotta know who he is.
[01:28:12] Unknown:
Well, I I learned I learned it the I I learned it like the like the example that I like to give is, I'm from New York. You know that every everybody knows I say it all the time. But, you know, in New York, you you can get lost in New York easily. 8,000,000 people in the in the city of New York alone, not including the outer boroughs, just 8,000,000 people in New York City. You know, anonymity is beautiful Mhmm. In that regard. Here, man, I was I was pumping gas when I I first moved here. I I was pumping gas, and as I'm at the pump, my phone rings or or dings, whatever it was, and I look at it. It's a text message from somebody that I know of a picture of me at the gas pump.
[01:28:57] Unknown:
That sounds about right. And I'm like
[01:29:01] Unknown:
And you're like, okay.
[01:29:02] Unknown:
They didn't even say hi, though. No. They just it was a picture of me at the gas pump. And I was like, okay. And they were like, oh, they they just wanted to know if I knew you were there. Who? The person that took the picture. I'm I'm I'm purposely not stating names because I don't, you know. But, you know, the person that took the picture took the picture of me at the gas pump and sent it to somebody else who wants to make sure that they knew that where I was. And I was like
[01:29:28] Unknown:
Okay. Really? You know? Sounds like girl problem. Naya. Well,
[01:29:38] Unknown:
I I I It sounds like you go past ladies too. Yeah. Well, this is when I first got here. I'm a get killed now for that. No. No. This this is when I fir when I we first moved here and and, when I first moved here with with my now ex wife, it's yes. I'll I'll go with it. Are you? No. It was it was one of her friends
[01:29:56] Unknown:
saw me at the gas pump. I had a feeling. I had a feeling. Saw me at the gas pump, sent it to her, and she sent it to me. And, you know Now, man, and, like, there's a it's so weird because, remember, I was in Central Texas. Texas. Yeah. Literally moved back because of my wife. I was like, and then I've met a bunch of people that are living here because they moved back because of their wives. That's crazy. That's insane. No. But each one has, like, a valid point. So I mean Yeah. And then if you if you wanna be a providing husband, I mean, you you gotta do what you gotta do. Of course. But my point the whole point of the whole story was is that even though it's it's 40 plus thousand people
[01:30:33] Unknown:
community, it's still a community. Everybody everybody's involved in everything. Everybody knows everybody. And the things that you're doing with with Popcon, you know, that's that's community. That that's building the community. It's that's maybe not even building. It's more like strengthening the community. It's bringing people who already are here, who are already involved in each other's lives in one way, shape, or form
[01:30:56] Unknown:
together. Well, see, this is weird that you mentioned that because that was the point. The point of rumor was to give back to the people. Mhmm. And then to showcase the strength of the people. Because, I don't know. This is another idea that I've been trying to fight is they think that the power is not with them, like, that they can't do anything. And what I'm trying to to establish is, like, look. I'm just a regular. I don't I'm not a politician. I don't do crazy stuff either. I was like like like, big you know, I'm not a multimillionaire, at least not yet. I was like, so what they can do is relate. And so even though, yeah, I do wear a suit every now and then, I actually prefer the suit.
I like to see. Well, when I was in Central Texas, my business was already settled. I'm I'm gonna tell you I'm gonna give you a piece of advice that,
[01:31:40] Unknown:
when I was working as an investigator in New York, when I when I first sat down with the the the deputy for that department that I was in, and, he he always wore a shirt and tie, you know. We didn't have to. We could've, you know, polos, khakis, whatever, jeans. That's, if you if you're listening and you hear char that's Charlie barking in the background. And I'm telling I'll tell you why. Because it's it's it's 08:30 central time, and Charlie knows that this is usually when we start to end the show. Okay. And I'm I'm serious. If you ever if you ever go back and watch the other shows, you know, at 08:30, he starts barking at the studio door to let me know that it's time to shut up and and get get their dinner ready. Because I leave the show running inside in the living room for them so they can watch the show. Oh. And that's how he knows. He he he just knows. Anyway, so I I so, I I sat down with him one day and and he said to me, just very I don't know why he brought it up, why it came up, but he just looked at me and goes, remember this one thing. It's very important.
He who wears the tie, wears the power. Oh, very interesting. Very interesting. Yeah. So I don't fault you for wearing a suit. There's no reason not to. You you you
[01:32:59] Unknown:
you I actually wear a red tie too. So that's you're not wrong on that. So yeah. That's that's very interesting that you mentioned it because I I I read it. And that and it does make a difference. A lot of little a lot of little things
[01:33:13] Unknown:
add up. And It does. And that's why after after he told me that, whenever I had to do an interview with, with the subject or or witness to it to a matter,
[01:33:24] Unknown:
I always made sure because we had them scheduled, and it wasn't like a random thing. Mhmm. I always made sure that that was the day that I wore the shirt and tie. You know, just it's just that projection of I know what I'm doing. Mhmm. You know, I got my shit together. Well, it's also a form of respect for people because they they see that, hey, you came to play. Yeah. Like, you know, you're not just goofing around or something like that. So and I take this seriously. Yeah. And so, like, today, the way I'm dressed is because I literally had to work out before I get I'm too close to my goal. I cannot do that. No. No. No. No. You're fine. You're fine. Yeah. Usually, I don't take, like, stuff in in the evening because I do a lot of like, I every Friday, I have family night, so we watch movies. That's why I was like I'm telling you, like, when you're talking about the movies, oh, yeah. We know about that. I haven't seen that one that you said, but, yeah, we we do watch it. But going with that instance, like, the the whole point of is is to give back to the people, give the power back to them. And so I'm trying to showcase that to people saying, hey. We have city officials, and they're doing their job right. We gotta do our job.
We gotta back up certain things. So we gotta make sure that things move forward in the direction that we wanted to make. Right. That, you know, it is we're a republic. Most people forget this. That's true. I was like, so and the power literally says we the people. Mhmm. So and I believe, and I wanna say I know, that the people here in Eagle Pass, I wanna say it's, like, about 90 to 95%, they're all good. Mhmm. I don't believe they're lazy either. I was it's just that I feel I don't know where this idea came from where, you know, they think they can't do things. And it's so odd to me because I was like, in Central Texas, man, everybody thinks they can do everything. I'm assuming New York too.
It used to be that way. It's it's getting become more dependent now on government for things. That's weird, though, but I don't know where this thought process is coming from. I'm not pointing fingers. Maybe it's just we got lazy or, like, in in in manner of understanding what we're supposed to be standing for. But no. Like, I wanna showcase to the people, hey. Look. If I can do it, anybody can do it. That's right. I was like, you know, I'm not, like, you know, six five, you know, blonde eyes. I bought it. I mean, blue eyes. You know? I was like and, you know, it's not like I have, like, a million dollars backing me up or anything like that. But, you know, I believe that, you know, with the with the grace of God and maybe favors you, and you do the right things Agreed. And then you follow the constitution, you can stir the economy and not only the economy, but just civilization in a direction that everybody wins. Yeah. From your kids to their grandkids to even you. I was like, so, I I wanna showcase to the people. That's that's actually one of the reasons why we're we're we already got the third one ready, August.
And I'm actually trying to do it better than I did the other two years too. Trying to host even meetings. I haven't been able to get it, man, that it's I'm trying to get them good stuff. Yeah. I I don't want just to host the meeting and looks all raunchy. I I was like, I want them to see what Eagle Pass has to offer and that anybody can do it. It's not just me. So, that's like the the the goal of of this thing now. It's to showcase to the people, hey. We can bring in really good stuff here. Yeah. So even bringing Peter Dante, who who would have thought any of these actors would come to Eagle Pass?
I didn't even know Eagle Pass existed until No. Most of them say that, by the way. I was like, Dante actually was born in, LA, and he was born in a a border town. So he actually felt at home here. Oh, that's good. It was very interesting to see that. Yeah. And he was actually born into real poverty, like like, legitimate poverty. Really? Yeah. We we we don't know poverty like that. Yeah. I don't I I don't know too much about him. I I mean, like I said, I know the name, you know, but I I don't know him personally. Like, I like I couldn't say I know much about his background or anything like that. No. He he talked to me a little bit, and, big old shout out to Dante because, like I said, he's a giving man, man. Like, you you would think that he has so much and he would stop giving. Man, that guy outworks even me. Mhmm. Like, he wakes up working.
He's almost asleep working. Like, he'll literally pass out while he's working. It's just crazy to see, like, that even though here he has that type of capital and he's got it set every single time. Interesting. Yeah. So yeah. No. It's very it it it's a different caliber that you end up noticing that it's like, hey. We're kinda so relaxed here too. So, like, really anybody that does anything here, you can get it done.
[01:37:51] Unknown:
There's not that much competition. That's true. That that is true. I I I will say that. I like Eagle Pass. I I do. I, you know, I since I've since I've been living here, I haven't had any bad interactions with government, like, at all. Like, everybody's been super helpful.
[01:38:07] Unknown:
Different, obviously. It's an adjustment from living in the city, you know, like New York to compared to this. Sounds like night and day, man. It's it's it's very, very different. Sit in Austin for a whole second. I do like the pace they have there. It's quick. I I like that. I actually prefer
[01:38:22] Unknown:
things moving quickly. Yeah.
[01:38:24] Unknown:
But, I also love the country. So Yeah. I love also not being around people. I understand you. And when you said it I think you said it in the other podcast. Yeah. Yeah. I understand you a 100%, man. Yeah. It's me too. Sometimes you just have to decouple from everything and just We stayed in Salado for two weeks with the fam I was pushing business during that time frame anyways. Mhmm. But we stayed in, Airbnb,
[01:38:50] Unknown:
and it was in the country. Nice. Salado's beautiful. Yeah. Y'all Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Check it out. Alright. Let's, let's move on to, the Golden Vox. Oh. Because we have because Charlie is gonna continue to bark, and I gotta feed him, and it's almost time. So so let's get on to the golden vox. Now the golden vox is The golden vox is a voice it's supposed to stand for golden voice, and it's supposed to be for the businesses of Eagle Pass.
[01:39:16] Unknown:
Now I wanted to be Texas as we grow, but I had envisioned that in the beginning because I'm gonna say a little story. I was like, you know, Chocha's barbecue? Yeah. Okay. I remember it when it was in the food trucks. Mhmm. Big shout out to Chocha, by the way. He uses everything from my energy company. This is why I always boast them. Besides that, his food is actually legit. It is. It's actually, it's very good. It is. Well, there was a time frame And if he ever wants to send any samples over to the show so he could do it, you know, think about that. Well, he's to oblige. He's actually part of the golden box. So may you might go to him or he might come to you. One or the other. Or it could just be, you know, over media or whatever. But, so I created the golden box for that because, like I said, the story was with Georgia.
When I one of my business part or one of my coworkers back then said, hey. Do you like, barbecue? I said, I said, I don't think you know who you're talking to. I was like
[01:40:16] Unknown:
Alright. Before you go any further than that one, I I I have to I have to put this out there. If if you are listening to this show, and you do not like barbecue, turn it off. You're not welcome here.
[01:40:33] Unknown:
Well, okay. So Oh, wow. Look at everybody hanging up. Check it out. No. No. I'm just hanging up. No. I was like, so no. It it when he told me, I was, of of course, I'm like a a connoisseur on that. Is that how you pronounce it connoisseur. Yeah. Connoisseur. Yeah. Like, it's it is insane. Like, I've gone to a lot of places. I've like I said, I've been blessed. I've been favored. So I've gone and eaten a a like, I don't know if you ever gone to before it closed down, so you might have missed out on this, but it was Valentina's
[01:41:00] Unknown:
in Austin. Yeah. No. I didn't believe it.
[01:41:02] Unknown:
Man, it was really good. Like, now I they're brisket. I heard that supposedly their tacos were better, but, I mean, when I'm there, I'm gonna eat brisket. And then I the one place I haven't tried yet is Snow's, but I've tried the one in Belton. I've tried, also Frank's. Those are supposed to be the top ones in Austin. Mhmm. So but I I can't stand in line at three in the morning. Like, I can work, but I'm not I was gonna say you're up anyway. What's the difference? Well, because I I don't no. Not for food. Like, you know and okay. If I can maybe hire someone to do it for me, I'd I'd go with that. But now, but Your own personal DoorDash. Well, there was there's three of them here. Okay. There's three barbecue places here that are, like, legit that they're, like they got establishments and stuff like that. Right. Not counting the other ones, because there's a bunch of them. A lot of people Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I'll start with Wagon Wheel.
So when was in his food truck, they said Wagon Wheel was the best. Mhmm. And the the first exposure I had for barbecue here was actually Orly's. And then and then it was choices. Okay. So like I said, my, now I'll guess I'm going with with pronunciation or my pallet. Is that what it is? Pallet. Pallet. There you go. So my my pallet, literally is for top tier meat. Like, I've I've had like I said, I've had the pleasure to to have these type of meats. So when I went to Orley's, I was like, their big thing that they have there that's good is their potato. Okay. Their potato was great. And so when they showed me, I was like, this this is top tier. I was like, I can't even believe this is an Eagle Pass. Like and I told Chocha. I said, Chocha, how come Wagon Wheel's number one? Oh, well, you know, they work more with the city and stuff like that. So, you know, they More promotion. Yeah. More promote marketing.
By the way, this is why marketing's important. Exactly. So what I told Chocha, I was like, well, I'm gonna tell everyone that I know that yours is legit because I've eaten at these other I'm not saying Waguay was not legit. But whenever I became a big aficionado for, you know, churches, and I started eating there almost every other weekend. And then there was one Sunday he was closed. Remember, this was when he had his food truck. Mhmm. And so I was like, you know what? Everybody keeps saying the wagon wheel is awesome. Let me go to wagon wheel. I went to wagon wheel and maybe they just had the wrong badge. Maybe they just had biggest keys consistency. As you get up in the tiers, they don't care. It's is it consistent? Right. Is it the same every single time? I was like, and maybe, I guess, that was a bad day that they had there.
Which happens. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's why so I'm not talking bad on them. It's just also, like, there's there's qualifications to be the best. Like I said, there's you know, you gotta do it consistently. That's one of them. Two is the meat has to be moist. Even if you put it in the microwave when it comes out, it can't be dry. Or chewy. Or chewy. And that day, I had it, and it was like, every my kids are they also rate stuff. And then my wife rated it too. Now what, now what I will say is that while we had really good turkey, when because I ate all the meats. Anywhere I go, I always eat the meats. I don't care how expensive it is. I'll eat the meats. I mean, I I I go like, in San Antonio, they have El Salvador.
They have some I think it's a golden scorpion, gold flaked two tomahawks. I think it's put into a scorpion looking thing. Interesting. Delicious, by the way. I'm sure. So but it's, like, about $300. So
[01:44:39] Unknown:
Tomahawks alone are about Okay. By the way, the kids had that. My kids had that. You know?
[01:44:44] Unknown:
He he's over here. He's talking about all this food, that stuff that he gets. He's bragging about how much money he spends on these things. No. It's just I told over here struggling trying to pay my my more my escrow, my mortgage.
[01:44:56] Unknown:
No. I'm just saying, like so I've been blessed. And I spend it on certain things. I don't spend it like I don't have a fancy car, man, but I do eat at fancy places. There's a give and take. Of course. Alright. I'm just teasing you. Yeah. I know. I know. But I'm just saying so everybody understands that, like, I I really do like food. That's why I have to work at. I'm just like you guys. I have a definite I just do a little bit more disciplines. That's about it. But I told Chocha, I said, no, man. Like, I tried them all, and yours is the best. Mhmm. Like, it it should not be voted as you're not the you're not even and so I went on a literal side quest just to tell everybody about churches, and that was marketing. Mhmm. And I did it through my solar company. My solar company is actually partner up with him. And so anytime anybody goes solar with us, they get a big meal from Chochas. Oh, nice. His staple items that he has on there. That's awesome. It's like about a $120 worth. That's So yeah. That's a nice gift. Yeah. And and that's, like I said, a thank you. Mhmm. And then like I told him, man, there's a lot of profits that go in in solar when done correctly.
So then he got his establishment and helped him with the energy to keep the rates low. He has panels too. We help him with his energy bills and any questions that he has and stuff like that. So but, ultimately, his is, like, one of the best. And this this there's a lot of this here. I don't wanna say what you make. There every there's a lot of that here. My audience knows. Yeah. Okay. Good. Good. I was like, there's a lot of people here that have top quality stuff, man. Like a lot. And so, for example, my, I think, would have been the second.
He passed away. I don't know if you heard about that. No. I didn't. Yeah. He passed away. So his was different, though. His his barbecue was sugary, so it was it was a lot sweeter. Okay. Okay. So mine is I don't really like sweet, but the kids do. And he actually said, he said, I don't compete with Chorche. I just do it because I know the kids like it too. So I do it it's like a family meal. Yeah. He does his own thing. So as to not to compete and not to be anything, but the way Chorche makes his
[01:47:02] Unknown:
brisket, it's like science is behind that. No. I've I've had his brisket. It is it is delicious. Like,
[01:47:10] Unknown:
I Top tier, man. Anytime somebody says that that's where they're gonna get food, I'm like, oh, okay. At one point, when he would do competitions, he got number three Yeah. I heard in Texas. No. I saw his he has a he has a throne room, bro. Well, he deserves it. All his trophies, mostly first and second. Nice. And I was like, woah. Do people know about this? I was like, because if they knew, I'd be like, there's no doubt that you would just be number one. How do you know you're number one? You compete. Mhmm. And then random people decide if you were good from different areas in Texas. When he had more time because he was on the food truck, that's what he would do. Now he has an establishment. He can't really leave, but he'll leave once or twice a year, and he still wins. Like
[01:47:56] Unknown:
But but that's good, though. That's also good for his business as well. You know, you you you're exposing more people to
[01:48:03] Unknown:
your product. Well, I've been trying to help him with the marketing side. I was like, I know you don't believe in too much of that, but you need it. I was like, and I'll back you up, bro. I mean, that's what it's supposed to be like. Like, you know and so, by the way, the only reason I was saying that story was because, Golden box. The golden box. We I ended up adding him on the golden box, and he started talking because there's some people who are like, well, he doesn't open on these days. I was like, do you even know how hard it is to do what he does? You're asking to kill him. Basically. Yeah. I was like, you you remember the golden goose story? Yes. Okay. You don't kill your golden goose. Right? No.
Exactly. Exactly. And you gotta give the voice to them. So that's what I ended up doing. I ended up giving them and then it got to a point where it got really good. Big old shout to Ruben, by the way. Ruben helped me establish that because I don't have the voice for it or the time because that's a lot. Like you said, I stretched myself thin. So I I spread the wealth out. Mhmm. Ruben was the one that's doing it, but we came to a few disagreements because there's a few the golden box is supposed to be for businesses only. Mhmm. And you're supposed to keep it in those terms. So, let's just say Ruben had different ideas. I was like, bro, that's not what the golden box is about. I was like, that's something else. So we have to part ways in a friendly way. And, no, we respect each other. We still talk to each other. We actually talk a lot a lot more than we did before, actually.
No. Because you get to see that only because you have disagreements doesn't mean, like Of course. It that's healthy. You can't always agree with everybody. It just doesn't work. No. And and like I said, everyone's different, so everyone brings something else to the table. Yeah. So, like, we we've been helping out a bunch of community events. This is where I wanted the golden box to go to on the business side is help the businesses establish themselves. Say, hey. This is our side of it. Right. Like, I don't open on these days because, well, I go with my kids. Like, you know, or, hey. I have a life too. Like, that's like You do you do need to have time for yourself. Otherwise, you're gonna burn out, and then the the product suffers from that. Mhmm. And, it all depends on also the tier. Because some people, like, see the product and be like, hey. This is so good. You could easily make it into a multimillion dollar tier. But they're like, no. I'm comfortable here. Mhmm. So I don't want anymore. I was like and this is where I think a lot of people also don't understand that some of these businesses reached that level that they wanna be in, and they don't wanna be in it. So just be happy that they're even producing that because that's a delicacy. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So, there's a bunch of businesses like that on here. But, just to cut it short on that part, yeah, the golden box and, well, we looked at you. That's right.
[01:50:33] Unknown:
So that that that was our announcement here that we're gonna end the show with that, starting, I think, this weekend? Or is it next week? This weekend. It starts this weekend. This weekend, I will be adding the golden box to the, catalog of Joe Root shows. And, so we're gonna be we'll be hosting our first guests this coming Saturday. So we're excited about that. We're looking forward to it. And, it's gonna be a lot of fun. It's another part of this partnership that that Danny and I are getting into. And, it's an exciting thing. It it truly is. And I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to meet more people here in the community. You know, when I first started this podcast, it was really I wanted to do just something related to the local community, but it kinda took off on its own. And, one thing I've learned in when you're doing stuff like this is you gotta let it grow. You gotta let it go where it wants to go.
And, you know, we've had some good successes, you know, we're still growing. We're still building. We're still trying to get there. And I think that the partnership that we're going into right now is gonna be huge, not only for for for me, but it'll also be big for the people that are gonna be involved with us as we're going along here at the this is a
[01:51:40] Unknown:
it's a it's really a privilege to be doing it, and I and I really appreciate that, you know, you decided to come on board here with us and and and take us on here. Well, you're gonna have big business owners now come and talk that are literally leading the way here in Eagle Pass. Yep. And they're gonna say their side of things. And so that's I I I feel like that's very important. By the way, that's why we had a lunch a bunch of listeners because the golden box was for the golden voice for the businesses, but also to showcase that anybody can build a business. Mhmm. They're very much needed. As and if you thought you couldn't do it, remember, it's giving back to the people. That's right. They say the power's with you. If you wanna build whatever you wanna build, whatever crazy idea you have, hopefully, is legal. But whatever crazy idea you have, you're in the illegal ones, they do them anyways.
That's it. By the way, just letting everybody know, it's hard either way. So everybody's looking to do the legal app. Each each side has its own perks and its own downfalls. So Well, no. You're gonna still work, and it's still hard. If you think that just doing the illegal one is gonna be easier, you're wrong. So anyways, but it's to showcase that to the give the power back to the people. Say, hey. Wow. Look. Cho just did it. I mean, I guess I can do it too. That's right. Or say, hey. You know what? Now I understand why he he I can never do what he does, so let me go support him because I want his, you know, his his top tier meet here in Eagle Pass. I was like, you know, I don't want it to go out of business. Right. And that's the voice that people get. There's a bunch of them that we had. We had, like, about 25 of them that were already saying it. That's awesome. And so yeah. No. And so with you on there, I think it it adds to it. So, also we have a huge involvement, that in essence brings you also different type of clientele. Like, I'm bringing you, the VA. Yep. By the way, that was, Mike Chop. Oh, that was the, that was the video. We can close out with that. So there's a, there's a bunch of, there's a bunch of community events that Eagle Pass has that most people don't know. By the way, here's, here's the issue. You ready for this one? I'm a I am just building another company and some yeah. It's a it's a marketing side. I'm I'm finding solutions for Eagle Pass. Okay. I was like, and I'm I'm putting them so that way people can see them, and then I'm hoping people will copy it and make it better than mine. So that way I don't have to do it. And then the solutions provided. I was like, remember, it's the power back to the people. That's right. So but, I'm planning on making a marketing one because, like, my job is already He's gonna be your next guest, by the way, and he's actually gonna be on your legitimate show. It's not the, the golden box. He's not he's not a business owner. I was like Much fun. At least not that I know of yet. I was like Either way. Yeah. But here's his here's his card, by the way. You could barely see his stuff. But, it's Miguel Chavez. Yeah. Veteran service officer. Can you pass it over? Oh, here you go. I got the better lights on this side. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So that way everybody can see it.
[01:54:23] Unknown:
We're doing We'd be nice if I held it the right way.
[01:54:26] Unknown:
Well, well, the the the marketing company that we're establishing here is to showcase marketing as needed, especially when you want to help, events. So there's a few events that are happening here in Eagle Paz that nobody knows of because there is no marketing company, and nobody tells everybody, hey. You gotta bang the doorbells and go like, yo. You know, this is what's happening here. All eyes here. I was like, so one of the events is the VA, the VA food drive.
[01:54:52] Unknown:
So I I think I had sent you a flyer on that. You did. Okay. Somewhere. Yeah. And so Oh, no. You sent it to me through Instagram, so it has all the little annotations and stuff, so I can't put it up there with other people's faces. For I'll I'll give you the PDA format. So,
[01:55:06] Unknown:
and then we're we're asking for, help from businesses. So volunteers, there's there's different ways that you can do it. And we're actually gonna come up with a flyer here shortly. But, one is you can tell friends and family members to say, here's the VA form. All they gotta do is show up, to the event. The event's gonna be on 11/13/2025 from 7AM till 12PM. Okay. And it's gonna be at the Maverick County Food Pantry, 1823 South Veterans Boulevard in front of, Memorial, you know, where the tax office is. Yes, sir. Yeah. So, and Miguel Chavez has been trying to do this for, like, about two or three years, and it's to bring in something even bigger, which is the VA clinic. Mhmm. And it all starts with little things that the community can do. Right. By the way, some of these bigger, politicians have known about it, but this is what I wanna tell the people.
They can know as much as they want, and they can have all the power they want. But until the people move, nothing happens. And this is a great example because this has been here for about two to three years, and Chavez needs a lot of help. So I told him straight up. I said, hey, bro. I'm gonna back you up on this. I'm I'm gonna go to every everything I got, all my marketing, my companies, everything, and they're gonna back you up because vets are extremely important. This is not a left leaning thing. This is not a right leaning thing. This is an American thing. Exactly. And so we gotta do what is right, and it's to support them. So, yeah, we're my companies are the ones that are helping do this push in this movement here. And I told Chavez, I said, look. I'm a back you up from now all the way till we get it all done and even after that. I was like, because I used to do this when I was in Central Texas. I know. It's it's a lot bigger in Central Texas, though. So oh, well, then we're gonna do that. We're gonna help out with that. We do do do do we do do do we do need donations, so I'll be giving you my number so they can go and talk to me. It's starts as little as $100. Okay. There's different tiers that we have, and then it goes as high as 2,500 plus. I am in that category.
So, you know, it's it's to push for this. And then there's another event, and I I think you had him, Paco. Paco. Yep. Yeah. He was on last Wednesday. Yeah. Here you go. So we're also, helping push that out because I did not know that we never had a, what's it called? A Halloween, downtown.
[01:57:24] Unknown:
I thought we did host one, but I guess we never did. This is the first one. I I don't well, I don't I think this is the first one that the library is being getting involved with. There has been a Halloween event. I think you mentioned that once before, but this is gonna be much bigger than what that Halloween event was. Well and and what this is where I wanna say, what better places to secure
[01:57:42] Unknown:
our our children where it's safe? And not only that, but help businesses grow then the mall downtown. I was like, and then the community still gets involved. So it could be one of those things where everyone's involved from businesses to the homes, the the civilians, all the way to That's right. You know? And it it's it's a beautiful thing when you see everybody moving like that. Well, if you have this in a PDF, send it to me so I can Yeah. I'm a send you that too. That's why I can do the graphic on it. And then another guest that you're gonna have on here that's also gonna come on your show, but also in the golden box, is for the Rotary Club. A lot of people don't know that, you know, we have a Rotary Club. There was a a big event, that that we had, and this this literally is like an ethics committee for those that don't know. Although there is one in Eagle Pass. Yeah. There is. And I and I feel like it's it's very much needed here. So you're gonna get to interview the president of him, and he owns businesses, by the way, too. So yeah. No. Big big big events that are happening. Yeah. I went to that one. They were showcasing homes, beautiful homes, by the way.
But there's a lot of events. Like, they have a big golfing tournament. I didn't even know that. Did you know that? No. I didn't. Yeah. And so that that's, by the way, that's what my company If it's not miniature golf, I don't know anything about it. Well, I mean, it's a big a lot of big business owners go to that. Yeah. And so this is this is where I'm, like, trying to get the community involved. Like I said, they might know these things, and they might have these policies in play, but nothing happens until we do something. That's true. That's America. That's America. So oh, and then one last thing. I don't know if you heard about this one, but there's a lot of people complaining about the food and the school systems.
[01:59:18] Unknown:
Yeah. You and I had talked about this, briefly. And it and that it stems all the way back to the Obama administration Yes. And that horrible, horrible decision they made to make inedible one one grade above dog food. All it takes is for the community to come together. Yeah. So stuff like that. I'm hoping that people get to understand that that's where the real power is at. Yeah. I agree with you. And I I think all these things are gonna be great. I think this is gonna bring bring a lot of really positive attention to Eagle Pass and, hopefully, some some some additional revenues.
[01:59:54] Unknown:
And, you know Well, look, we're a lot wealthier than we were before. I I don't I can't see the justification.
[02:00:01] Unknown:
If the budget was lower, then I'd be like, okay. I get it. But it's actually higher. So I was like, yo, what's where is it going? Well, when I when I say wealthy, I'm not talking about the government. I'm talking about the people. Oh, the people. The community. You know, to get more opportunities into the community, more job opportunities, more businesses investing in the community.
[02:00:18] Unknown:
Well, that's the thing. All of those things. If we bring in the VA clinic and these food drives, it brings attention, brings in military. That's additional revenue. That's right. I was like, and then it'll bring in extra jobs too. Now if we also talk about the food, like, for example, like, Peters was telling me about this too real quick just so I can end it. But Peters was telling me, hey. We can't even offer our services because of that law. I was like, so it took $400 away from us every morning, which that's people that
[02:00:50] Unknown:
Peters could have employed. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And that money would stay here instead of wherever it's going because they're we're obviously buying it from somewhere. Right. But it's not from here. So what we wanna do is stuff like, hey. We wanna buy it from here and give our kids an actual good choice, an American choice. I and and but but I agree. Because, again, it's great above dog food. I mean, I I think we were I think you and I were talking that the the the prisons get better quality food than the kids get. So I think it was a dollar 54 compared to, like, 50 or 54¢ for the for yeah. It's pathetic. It's pretty crazy. Completely flipped around it, if not more. Yeah. Alright. Well, Danny Mendoza, thank you, buddy. I appreciate you being here tonight. That was Totally was a lot to talk about. And listen, you know, you know, next time next time you come on, because this is gonna be a regular thing. This isn't gonna be just a one off. This is gonna be at least twice a month you're gonna come on and, we'll get that we'll get all that squared away. This way, you're the only one. So we can actually get more into some of the conversation. Actually spend two hours talking about whatever we wanna talk about. Yeah. You know, or more. It doesn't matter to me, but, Charlie met up's kinda but but Well, no. I understand. I gotta go home with my kids too. So I hear you. Alright. So let's, let's start to wrap this up. Right, folks? So thank you, Danny, again for being here tonight. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. For, folks, don't forget, head over to the website joeroos.com.
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We are going to have the c the co CEO of the company of for Minds on the show in November. So make sure you get on board with that. Mines.com. You could find us there at Joe Roux. Been on there for years. Great platform. If you wanna check us out on Fakebook, you can go over to Joe Roux Show. Insta Instagram is not Joe Roux. No. It's it's not Joe Roos. So with that basically well, what happened was I got banned before I even finished opening the account. So I used the same email address, the same phone number, just put the word not in front of my name and it they let me work. And then TikTok, joe dot roos, which I don't really get on TikTok much to be honest with you. I I I think there's something really weird about a guy that's on TikTok, so just I don't mess around with it too much. Getter at Joe Roos as well. Shout outs to our executive producers, Wayne Rankin, Rosanna Rankin, Carolina Jimenez, Marissa Lee, and anonymous Angela. Thank you guys for all that you do. Your time, your talent, your treasure, appreciate everything that you guys do, so thank you so much for it. Also, I wanna give a very special thank you to John Seeley who, sent over a donation yesterday of $25. Thank you so much for that, sir. Greatly appreciated. And as I said, all the donations that we get, anything that we get through through the GoFundMe for the for the, escrow shortage, any donation we come from the audience, all is going to the escrow shortage. We wanna get this thing cleared away. So, so if you have the means to do it, we would appreciate it if you would consider that. If you wanna help us out with donations, a one time donation, any amount, recurring donation, any amount. If If you wanna be a producer of the show, associate producer starts at $17.76 a month. Producer is $18.36 a month, and executive producer is $25 or more every month. You all get the shout out on every show. You get included in all the show notes, any emails and stuff that we send out because you are producers of the show. Your your donations help us do this. So you get the credit as the producer for it. And the executive producers actually get to come on the show with us like we do every Wednesday with our Wednesday with Wayne segment. He comes on and talks about all the stuff that he likes to do. So, so we look forward to working with you guys in that way. If you wanna donate cryptos, you can do that also. All of our wallet information is on the website as well. And a special thank you to the folks that are listening on the modern podcast apps like Podcast Guru, fountain.fm, True Fans, such, because you guys are streaming stats to us, which is fantastic. And stats are basically just micro payments of Bitcoin, pennies, really, when you think about it. But, every little bit that we get helps, so we appreciate that tremendously. All you have to do is hook up your crypto wallet to the app and you can start streaming the stats to us, let us know you're out there. Alright? And look, I'm an old guy and if I was able to do it, you can do it too. Trust me. It's easy. Alright. Modernpodcastapps.com, podcastindex.org.
Alright. I think, I think that should just about do it. You hear Charlie hang howling in the background there. So with that said, thank you again for taking the time to be with us tonight. Head over to the website, joeroos.com. Joeroos.com. Send us over any questions, comments, carers, concerns. Let us know what you're thinking. Alright folks, make Texas independent again. Go podcasting. Keep a steady stride, and more important, keep talking. Good night folks.
[02:06:43] Unknown:
Smile.
[02:06:47] Unknown:
Who cares about the clouds if we're together?
[02:06:52] Unknown:
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather. Happy trails to you.
Cold open of poetic lines and warm-up banter
Show intro from Asylum Studios and host welcome
Tonights lineup and housekeeping before first guest
Value-for-value, website, and urgent escrow appeal
Guest intro: Ruby Ryba, screen time strategist and author
Icebreakers: status quo mindset and mint tea over coffee
What is a screen time strategist and why it matters
The moment to write How to Stop Scrolling
Behavioral science + storytelling for habit change
Practical tactics: bedroom charging ban and modes
Goals, joy, and rest: replacing default scrolling
Identifying triggers: external, social, and internal
Modeling healthy phone use with kids and others
Conversation etiquette: phones down, presence up
Social media, comparison traps, and connection quality
First step if overwhelmed: alarm clocks and on-ramps
Phones as tools, not villains: aiming for indifference
Weekends off-grid, quiet time, and baby steps
Closing thoughts: agency, book and newsletter links
Break and musical bumper
Hour two: host origin story and show tagline roots
Guest two: Danny Mendoza Jr. joins in-studio
From astronomy to energy: TNE Energy origin
Why solar matters: grids, AI demand, and costs
Understanding your bill: power plant to ERCOT to you
Owning power: solar maintenance, warranties, and delivery
EP PopCon: giving back, community hope, and guests
The Golden Vox: spotlighting local businesses
Announcement: The Golden Vox show joins the roster
Community drives: VA food pantry and downtown Halloween
Rotary, golf, and civic engagement opportunities
School food, local sourcing, and keeping money local
Wrapping up: partnership cadence and closing plugs
Sign-off and credits
