➡ Dr. Steve talks about the current state of despair many people are feeling about the country’s future. He introduces his guest, Kyle Stone, an author who has written a book about the values that make America great. Kyle believes that the pessimism people are feeling has been a long time coming and is due to a shift away from the country’s foundational values. He suggests that to overcome this pessimism, people need to take action and return to the virtues of wisdom, temperance, justice, and courage.
➡ The text discusses the importance of returning to foundational principles that made America great, such as faith, education, critical thinking, and honoring the country’s history. The author emphasizes the need for effort from everyone to maintain these values and freedoms. The text also highlights the importance of gratitude and the role it plays in motivating individuals to preserve what they value. The author encourages everyone to ask themselves what they can contribute to restore liberty and freedom.
➡ In 1776, George Washington, despite having a small and ragged army, decided to attack the Hessian troops across the Delaware River. He was worried about his army’s size and the expiring enlistments, but his victory in this battle changed the war’s course. It boosted reenlistments and caught France’s attention, which eventually sided with the colonists against the British. This victory and Washington’s persistence played a significant role in the Revolutionary War’s success, changing the nation and the world positively.

Hey, gang. It’s me, Doctor Steve. And you know, I want to be totally honest with you here. I’m going to be completely transparent. Sometimes I, too, verge on despair. That’s right. Even me, your patron professor, here to help you stay sane during these insane times. Yes, even sometimes that insanity just starts to weigh down on me as well. And if that’s you, you should know you’re not alone.

A recent Pew research study actually found that six in ten adults today are feeling very much the same way right now. They’re feeling very pessimistic, very despairing about the current state of the country, about our future. And then I meet someone like my guest today, and all that despair fades away because he reminds me of the fact of that we have patriots, by the literal tens of thousands, who are rising up every day to take our nation back, to return our nation to its godly foundations, and who are rising up and fighting for the core beliefs that have held us up for generations.

In short, they’re transforming their anxiety into action. And that’s exactly what my guest today has done. I want to introduce all of you to my good friend and now accomplished author, Kyle Stone. Kyle was in our mastermind group over the last couple of years. He’s a close friend of this channel, and he is now the author of a brand new book, the values we hold dear, inspiring stories to reclaim America, which you can get simply by clicking on the link below.

So, Kyle. Dude. Dude, you did it, man. This is amazing. This is a beautiful book. Welcome, my friend. Thank you. I appreciate it. Oh, it’s great. I know you’ve been working on it for so long, and I couldn’t wait to see it. Now we have it, and it’s just beautiful. I mean, the COVID is absolutely gorgeous. The type, setting, everything. It’s a beautiful, beautiful book just to keep right, right by, on a coffee table, right by someone’s bed lamp or something akin to that.

You know, I wanted to begin by getting your take on the surge of pessimism that’s going on in our nation today. It’s certainly understandable. I know. I’ve been getting. I’ve noticed a lot of people were seeing the Baltimore bridge collapse as sort of a symbol of the cultural structural rot that’s infecting our country. What are your thoughts? I mean, you’ve just written this amazing book where you took a deep dive into the sacred values of our country.

What are your thoughts on the current rising pessimism, this malaise that seems to have overcome so many of us. My current thoughts are pretty much that. It’s been a long time coming, and it’s been by design. Long time coming, and it’s been by design. The optimism of America was woven into our fabric from the very, very beginning, from our. From our founders. But that doesn’t mean that they, too, didn’t face their challenges, and they weren’t scared and probably pessimistic, particularly when they were facing down the barrel of a british soldier or whatnot.

Unfortunately, though, compared to what happened to our founding fathers today, we’ve become a little bit more complacent, soft. We have social media. We have Netflix. We have instant access to goods and foods and service, and we don’t really think about a lot of where those things come from and how we can operate as a family without them, because they’re just always there. But our founding fathers, they had something that I think we need to get back to and ground ourselves back onto in order to get ourselves into moving out of the pessimism and moving into hope and optimism once again.

One of the stories that I remember and I wrote in the book was the signing of the Declaration of Independence. That was a very. It wasn’t. Let me put it this way. It wasn’t a jubilant moment at that time. It wasn’t like the founding fathers were jumping up and down, saying, yes, we’re free, we’re free. Quite honestly, they were quite scared. Elbridge Dairy, Massachusetts. And I’ll read the quote here.

It says, do you recollect the pensive and awful silence which pervaded the house where we have been called up, one after the other, to the president of Congress to subscribe to what we believe, or what we believed by many at the time to be our death warrants? It was a very, very scary moment. But they also recognized something that despite the fact that they were putting themselves, their livelihoods, their families in jeopardy, they had rooted themselves in something, which you taught me, which is the four fundamental pillars of virtue, wisdom, temperance, justice, and courage.

And so they took those and they embodied them. And with that, they took action. And with that action, because they were able to recognize that wisdom encompassed timeless truths. And they understood that temperance required sacrifice of the immediate for the. For the long term benefit. And they understood that equal justice under the law, because they were being persecuted quite a bit, was so important that they decided that they needed that all of those virtues and courage to stand for those convictions, no matter what.

And so, yes, we are in a time that’s very interesting. It’s very scary, but at the same time, the only way to break out of that pessimism in my, from my perspective, perception is we need to take action. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. Turning that anxiety into action. Absolutely love. That was riveting, actually. I was like, I was picturing them seriously, though, I was picturing them in Philadelphia, just, just 40 minutes away from where I am right now.

And you’re talking about how quiet and solemn it must have been. They could probably hear the, the etching of the, the quill pen when they’re, I mean, wow. Yeah. Please. No, no, there’s another part to it which was a little bit funny. I don’t have the quote in front of me, so I’ll have to paraphrase it. But the only laughter that they had was joking when one of the members of Congress and said, said something effective, Mister Jerry, you’ll have an advantage over us because you will basically hang faster because he is heavier set than I will because I’ll be dangling from a string or something like that.

So they were, you know, they were pretty. They were, they were mocking each other’s weight. Yes. Exactly as they were doing it. You’re going to go quick. I’m going to be dangling there because I’m so scrawny. I love it. Well, you mentioned something there that I think is, is huge. And I remember Sebastian Gorka saying something like this to me once. We had interviewed him, actually, for our insiders club a couple of years back.

He said, despair is un american. Now, you know, he’s a, he’s an immigrant from Hungary. Right. Despair is un american. You, you point out that, that pessimism is not, that is not our heritage. Our heritage is not to be doom and gloom. And what kind of drives me crazy was so much that that passes as conservative talk today is how doom and gloom it happens to be. I’m curious if you know how, how and why that negative trend, as it were, started.

And can you, can you just flesh out a bit for us more how and why despair really is un american? Well, I think there is a part of human nature, right? I mean, we all have our joys, our sorrows, our wisdom, our stupidity, you know, the economy of our personalities. And so there has always been a sense of, from my perspective, a thread, pessimism that has existed in all societies, in all nature.

It’s just part of human being, a human being. But I think that it really picked up probably about five generations ago, and that’s where things started to become. We started to move away from our foundational like our religious foundations are foundations that promoted piatas, love of God, family and country as well. Right? So that’s a greek word, if I remember correctly. And they. The issue has been that we’ve, as our education system, as our corporate systems, as our, I would even say government systems, as they’ve grown and evolved.

This pessimistic seed, if you will, kind of grew and it grew weeds in our garden. And we have failed to weed our garden over time. And we’ve let it, let it kind of grow and grow and grow. And that pessimism is now we look out and we’re like, oh, my goodness, our garden here, it has, you know, weeds in it. Now we’ve got to actually do something about this.

And we. But we were asleep at the wheel, if you will. We were asleep at the hoe, I should say, with the hoe, we just didn’t get a chance to really reflect upon who we are because we weren’t taught it. I think one of the conversations I things remember having with you, we’re both, both New Englanders, both from Connecticut, and we were both approximately the same age. And you said something once that struck me, which was our generation, particularly in grammar school, was the last generation that had any semblance of some sort of patriotic education.

Our generation was the last one. And I think when that got routed out, it still existed in different areas, like perhaps the military, but pretty much when that got routed out, that kind of really, really impacted our society. And it has impacted our society in the last 50 years. And unfortunately, we are now seeing those weeds in our garden. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. You’re so right. Yeah. Guys, if you don’t know, Kyle and are both kinetic cutters at our background.

And so, yeah, we had similar state education, as it were. And it was actually a very good nationalist education. It was excellent. I still remember reading about all the founding fathers. Nathan Hale, I remember was, you know, I have. I only regret that I have but one life to give our country. If you talk to young people today, they have no idea who Nathan Hale is. No idea.

It’s insane what’s happened. Gang, if you’re just joining us, Kyle Stone. I’m interviewing Kyle Stone. He wrote this wonderful book, values we hold dear, inspiring stories to reconnect America. I’m curious if you think, I mean, this is really a call to return. It’s what I love about. It’s part of this whole massive retraditionalization we’re talking about so often on this channel. Do you think, I mean, are you optimistic do you think America could return to these foundational principles? And how will that happen, do you think? I have to have hope.

I’m like you. I have to have hope. If we don’t have hope, then what’s the purpose of living? Right? Right. We weren’t put here on this earth to just go along, to necessarily get along, or to just scrape by. That is fundamentally what the american experience has taught us. What it does require, though, is it requires effort. It requires effort on our part, all of our parts. I think you hit on something you said just a little bit earlier, that even in the conservative circles, there’s gloom and doom.

And I think that’s. That’s a shame, because that you’re right. We were not built on gloom and doom. We were built on a can do attitude. I’ll give you an example. One of my favorite stories in the book is written about is from a gentleman called Haim Solomon. Haim Solomon was a polish integrate immigrant, a jewish polish immigrant that immigrated to America in 1775 after he was forced out of his homeland.

He was very accomplished. He was a broker, he was wealthy, and he came to America. And what inspired him, because he came right about the time the revolutionary war started, and he joined the sons of liberty almost immediately, and he saw that America was a land of hope, and it was a land of opportunity for everybody. Now, I’m not saying that we haven’t had our problems. We have certainly had our problems.

I get that. With slavery and civil rights and everything. That’s not. And indian rights and mistreatment of Hawaiians and everything. I get that. But fundamentally, we were built as a people that were good people, that wanted to do the right thing, that wanted to be free, to be able to do the right thing. But that takes effort. That takes us to a place where we have to do go beyond just voting.

You know, I think in years past, we used to be able to get away with just going to the ballot box once every two years, four years, or whatever. It is. Not anymore. It is incumbent on. And that’s why you do what you do. And this is part of the reason why I’ve written this book, is to say, hey, look, we understand that it’s not easy to break out of your shell, particularly when you’ve got such busy lives.

But if we return to some of the foundational things that made our country great, and that’s part of what the. One of the things that I have or how this book started was actually a yard sign. And when I was yard sign, I had I remember that. Yes, yes, yes. And I’ll read some of those values, but they start with things like, we believe in God, faith, miracles, and objective science.

We support the US constitution and learn accurate Us history. We honor the US Declaration of Independence. And founding fathers, we stand for old glory. We believe in education and critical thinking, not indecor nation. Those are just a handful of them. Yeah, I love it. But you take those foundational values and you couple them with the virtues that the founding fathers learned from Plato, from Aristotle, and even, I would even say, from the divine, and practiced and internalized their lives.

Which means it’s incumbent upon all of us to do things to make our communities better, serve others, serve our nation in the military, or as a first responder, for instance, educate our children, the rearing of the children in such a way that they understand why the american flag is important, why our history is important, why it’s important to continue to stand up and have certain rights, like freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, et cetera, et cetera.

Those things are fundamental. Those concepts and those values are fundamental. For us to be able to continue to exist as a country, it was done once before. It was done. That’s the introductory chapter, is, we’ve been here before, right? We have been here before. I was just going to read. And now we’re here again. Can it happen again? Yes, but it’s up to each and every one of us.

And so I’m asking and pleading with everybody in the audience, what is it that you can bring to the table to restore liberty and to free yourself from bondage? That is fundamentally the question that you need to ask yourself. And this book does have a number of ideas, and some of them are very simple. Yeah, this first one is really simple. Gratitude. Gratitude. Gratitude is super important. Why is it important? It is important because gratitude heals the soul.

That’s one reason. That’s a big reason. But also, it’s also something that you can use to inspire and to motivate you in some ways. I don’t want to say it can be a weapon, but it can build that fire in you to like what’s important to me. What am I grateful for? I’m grateful for my family. I’m grateful for my kids. I’m grateful for my home. I’m grateful for the freedom to be able to travel.

I’m grateful for the freedoms to be able to have freedom of speech. I’m grateful for these things. Okay. Do you want to lose them? No, I don’t want to lose them. Then what are you going to do about it? Right. Right. I love it. Right. On the beginning pages, you have the Samuel Adams quote. It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men.

One of my favorite quotes, and then another person had a great quote. It was wonderful. Bondage is easy. Freedom takes passionate effort. Author that would be Kyle Stone, and I love it because in aesthetics, we have a similar principle. Ugliness is easy. That’s why we’re celebrating a cult of ugly today. Ugliness is easy. Beauty is hard. Beauty is fragile. Anything that’s worth building could easily fall apart again.

That’s the nature of the fallen world we’re living in. And yet we’re always trying to raise up, rise up to God. And I love that. Bondage is easy. Freedom takes passionate effort. I just wanted to read a couple of the chapters here. You have the introduction. We’ve been here before, which is wonderful and epic. Signing. That’s chapter three. That’s the Declaration of Independence. And then what I love with each of these chapters is you have one of the values that we’re holding dear.

So in this one, take courage in supporting liberty. That’s the lesson that you. The takeaway, as it were, from the Declaration of Independence. Signing. I like the Thomas Jefferson. I can’t live without books. Yes, that’s Tom. That’s chapter six. And then the value is read, learn, educate via the lens of truth, reason, and virtue. I mean, these are just such rich chapters. I love chapter seven, wisdom of our fathers.

And then the value is honor the founders in the US Constitution. Chapter eleven, a hero’s hanging. Step eleven is that values embrace responsibility, reject victimhood, a woman’s great legacy. Men and women are equal in hoisting a shield to protect families and the nation. It’s a beautiful book, Kyle. I mean, you just. This is just absolutely beautiful. I mean, I get. I get emotional looking at this thing because I know, I remember, you know, I saw it gestated and going through all of its various forms.

I remember reading a couple of the drafts you had there, and I was just, you know, can you give us, like, an example, maybe, of just something? I mean, you already have. I know, but something else in the book that you find really inspiring in terms of these values that we hold dear. The first one that comes to mind is the how. And this one is in the beginning, um, how nervous General Washington was when it came to in 1776, when he’s sitting and sitting in Pennsylvania, cold.

His troops are all cold. They’re sitting around fires. And he makes the decision to cross the Delaware to battle the hessian troops that were stationed there. And in his particular situation, he. His troops were. Many of the enlistments were set to expire at the end of the year. Just like, six days away. Literally six days away. His army was already really ragtag and small, and so he was really concerned about whether or not they could pull this off.

He wrote to his brother, actually, and his brother, he confided, he said something effective. The game is about up. Meaning that while he was presenting himself to his troops, like, with confidence, and, yes, we are going to continue fighting for freedom and for liberty and for our country and for our families. The reality was he was nervous, and he took a big, big risk on moving the troops in the middle of a nor’easter on Christmas day, with ice all around, managing, by a miracle, because by all rights, they should have been caught.

They should have been alarms for the Hessians, but they weren’t. And he managed to win that battle, which changed the course of the war because it helped reenlistments significantly, and it also made France sit up and take notice. At the time, you know, France was bruising. They weren’t too pleased with the colonists nor the British, because they had just, you know, ten years earlier lost the french and indian wars.

So they weren’t too pleased. But all of a sudden, you know, between the diplomatic actions that were happening in France, as well as noticing, oh, okay, well, these guys have some gumption. Maybe. Maybe we can stick it to the british one more time with the colonists. Maybe we can get them on our side. So. So. But they did. And that now we all know that, you know, that wasn’t the end of the battle.

There was a ton of other battles that happened, and there were a lot of losses on George Washington’s part, but he persisted. He persisted. He persisted. And that persistence and that confidence and that ability to continue to go in the face of overwhelming odds, because statistically, they should have lost that war. The revolutionary war should be a footnote in history, but it’s not. It changed the nation, and it changed the world for the good.

And I want to emphasize that very strongly. It changed the world for the good. This grand experiment changed the world in ways that they could not have imagined for the good. And that is why it’s important to keep these values, to keep our rights, because without them, we’re merely going to be serfs again. And that’s what we’re heading towards the road to serfdom. Right. Who is the author of.

Hayek Hayek Hayek, right. Road to serfdom. That’s what we’re on. We can’t afford to be on that. If you want your children to grow up in a freedom and a prosperous society where they are able to succeed, it is important that we continue on that legacy of Washington. Absolutely. Love it. Gang, you got to get this book. This is amazing. And it’s been written by one of us.

Grab Kyle Stone’s book, values we hold dear. Inspiring stories to reconnect America. Get a bunch. Get some for your family, for your friends. Just start fighting back to save our freedoms with inspiring stories. Nothing, nothing. Nothing can fight for freedom better than inspiration. So make sure you grab this book. It’s absolutely, absolutely wonderful. And you know what I love, as I read through the book and as I listen to you, Kyle, I’m just, I’m reminded that to be an american is to build.

We are builders, and we build on the foundation of faith, family, and freedom. We don’t rest on faith, family. We build on faith, family, and freedom. And this is a, this is a book that I think just inspires all of us to get building again. And that’s what’s so wonderful about it. Well, thank you. Thank you for the plug. And may I also just say that there should be also links down below that will give you free guides for ideas.

So we’ve got rebuilding the republic, grandparenting with purpose, and parents toolkit to help you as well. So just go. Go ahead and download those. And also, the book is on audio format as well. So if you like, if you like listening. And quite frankly, the audio is actually my favorite because I got a fantastic voice actor by the name of Andy Kaufman, who just has a beautiful voice.

And then I also had music written to incorporate into the beginnings of the chapters, which actually just kind of indicate, you know, kind of the time period and whatnot, that it was, that it was, that the chapter is related to. And so I think it’s a fun listening experience as well. That is wonderful. There’s a multi sensory. I say that’s phenomenal. And the website, too, is valueswehlddear. com.

It’ll be linked down below, of course. Valuesweholddear. com dot Kyle. Congratulations. Well done. Thank you. Well done. Appreciate it. And thank you. And thank, I also want to say thank you to your partner, Ralph, your business partner and your CEO. He was, yeah, that man. Because he was the one that pretty much said you should write a book, and I was like, huh? And, yeah, here it is.

Yeah. Yeah. Ralph’s a genius in terms of discerning gifts and then drawing them out and then seeing him put into action. He loves. He. His favorite expression is to speak in the darkness. That genesis one kind of ideas. Speak into the darkness and see the light awakened. So well done, Kyle. Great job. Thank you. .

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