Unlock Freedom in Every Part of Your Life

Freedom.

Yeah.

I guess you remember which movie that came from when Mel Gibson was playing William Wallace and their conflict was going on between Scotland and England. Well, when we talk about freedom and we think about freedom, it is a very multifaceted topic. And today we're honored to have as our guest my good friend and business colleague, Howard Partridge. He's one of my heroes and one of my dear friends. And we're excited for you to listen to this podcast about the topic of freedom.

Welcome to becoming wiser with Dr. Robert A. Rohm, author and world renowned public speaker, as he shares stories involving his experiences and lessons learned in a good spirited, positive and fun way. Here's Dr. Robert A. Rome.

My good friend Howard Partridge is an expert on this topic of freedom because he knows how multifaceted it is. Welcome, Howard, and share some thoughts you have about freedom.

Well, thanks for having me. You know, I never, I never knew that I was an expert on this. I didn't know. I knew that. I know that I am so passionate about this, and I didn't realize how passionate I was until you asked me to do this podcast. And I just started, you know, my brain just started unloading all the stuff that I've written in the past about it that I've talked about. And that's in my mind, that's in my heart, and I just, it's just like, it just, just fell out of me. And I, I can't tell you how honoring it is and how privileged I am to even be called on to speak on a subject like that. But like you said, it's, it's multifaceted. So as I started thinking about this, obviously right now we're talking about national freedom, right? Because July 4th, Independence Day is coming up, and I think this drops on July 3rd. And so, you know, that's on everybody's mind. We're in a political season right now. And so the first thing I think about is, I think about the freedom that we have here in America. That the United States of America is.

The most unique and most.

Nothing like this has ever occurred in human history. A nation like this that was started with the kind of, you know, foundation of, of freedom and, and, you know, the, the right that you have to, to worship, the right that you freely. The right that you have to own property. I have a colleague that has a bunch of businesses and he, he's international. They do a lot of stuff in the uk you can't own property over there because the monarchy and the government owns all the property. Very little that you can own over here. You can buy property. You know, you can. You can be a gentleman. You can. You can own your own property. You can become an entrepreneur. And I think that's one of the most.

Unbelievable things about the United States of America is that you can become an entrepreneur, you can pave your own way. Capitalism, it creates wealth and freedom, and that's how this nation was.

Founded and how this nation grew. And, you know, being a business owner, a person who, by the way, started out poor and was able to learn how to build a business and become financially independent and just live a dream life, is incredible to me. You can't do that in other countries. The.

The.

The opportunity is not there. So we have national freedom that we think about, but that doesn't help us much if we're not free spiritually. So there's spiritual freedom, which you and I have a similar faith where, you know, in fact, I was looking at scriptures this morning, thinking about this podcast, and. And there's a lot to be said about freedom in. In scripture, in Galatians, it says it was for freedom that you were set free. Only don't. Don't use that freedom for yourself, but use that freedom to serve others. So there's freedom to be found in serving right. And with freedom comes responsibility. See, a lot of people today, they want to have all this freedom, but.

They want everyone else to pay for it. Okay, listen, freedom ain't free. That's for sure. William Wallace, Braveheart happens to be my. My favorite movie of all time, like my most favorite movie. And he paid for that freedom with his life, you know, and the freedom to have a family, the freedom to. To live without the control of the English government, which is the same way that America was started. But then there's mental freedom. One of the things that's. That's prevalent in our culture today is mental health is such a big issue. Emotional health. And I think today, you know, everybody. Everybody.

Suffers from what our mutual friend, the late, great, legendary Zig Ziglar, called stinking thinking. We all need a checkup from the neck up. And the fact is, is that. Is that every single day.

You'Re gonna have.

Thoughts that you gotta control. You've got emotions you've got to. To respond to instead of react to. This leads to relationship issues, leads to health issues. So there's. There's. I started thinking about this. I started thinking about Mr. Zigler's wheel of life, right? So you have seven core areas in every life. You got spiritual, mental, physical, family, career, financial, and personal, and there's a sense of.

Freedom and there's a sense of being stuck in each of those areas. And Mr. Zigler said that success is living a balanced life. Right. I could make a ton of money and have a great business, but if my life is messed up, if my relationships are messed up, if I. If I leave my family behind, you know, there's no balance there. And so if you think about that wheel, and there's some. You got a flat tire, right? So it's, it's. It's big on one side and. And not so much on the other side. It's not a very smooth ride. So if you've ever been stuck in the sand in a. In a vehicle, you ever had a flat tire, you're not going anywhere anytime soon. And it's not going to be a smooth ride if you try to ride on that flat. Right? So those are all the things that are going on in my mind. There's just so much in each area to talk about.

You know, as you were mentioning those different areas.

I have always lived in America, so I have always experienced the freedom you're talking about as far as national freedom. And I have traveled all over the world. I've been to six continents. I've been everywhere except Antarctica. And I have seen how the government's philosophy or restrictions, like you mentioned in England. I love to go to Cancun, Mexico. Mexico's a mess in the reasons because of the government restrictions and the way they handle ownership. The government owns everything there. So you're right. This whole idea of freedom has been a really, a recent phenomenon in with America, just, you know, about 250 or so years old. And freedom is wonderful, but it's also dangerous. You know.

My wife and I were talking about this the other night. People are constantly saying, well, if there really is a God, why is there evil in the world? And the reason there's evil in the world is because there's love in the world. And love and evil and freedom. They're all wrapped up together. I'm free to love you. I'm free to encourage you. I'm free to be a good person, but I'm also free to create a lot of havoc for myself and other people. And I think so far what we've talked about has been the. The kind of freedom that really everyone wants, and that's freedom in their heart to. To really know that they can grow and develop and have a successful life. How has that played out? You mentioned how you were at one time so broke you couldn't pay attention. How did all that unfold in your experience?

Well, so let me go somewhere else first, because as you were talking, I was thinking about the fact that God gave us free will. Right. And I've thought about that a lot.

It would have been easy for our creator to create robots.

Wouldn't be hard for him. In fact, he created animals. They just live by instinct. They don't have not made in the image of God. And so.

If he makes robots.

Then that's easy. But if you have a child and that child decides to love you on their own free will, they're not, they don't have to love you. Then how does that feel when they do love you?

Yeah, right.

And so, yeah, so as far as, you know, being an entrepreneur and, and, you know, that kind of freedom.

You know, I'm in the, the small business world and I, I got kicked out of the house. There were seven kids crammed in a little 7, 600 square foot shack. The roof on that house was so bad that every time it rained, we had to get all the pots and pans to catch the leaks. And I got in a fight with my stepdad and I got kicked out of the house. My real dad, that I'd only met twice my whole life, had left when I was a year old. He lived in Houston. And so I got on a Greyhound bus, went to Houston, Texas, became a waiter. And I made a little bit of money, but really just enough to kind of pay the rent. And then I met my wife, Denise Conjet. Antoinette Pinella. Now that's Italian, she's from New Jersey. I'm from lower Alabama. Okay, it's going to be a good match. And when you marry an Italian family, you don't get wedding presents, you get cash. And we got $3,000 cash in wedding money. And there was a friend of the family, same age as me at the time, 23. I was 23 at the time, same age as me. And he's tolling around a little red Mercedes convertible. And I said, I want to know what that guy does and I want to know if it's legal. Well, turns out he had his own business. So I used that entire $3,000 to start my first business out of the trunk of my car. And I made good money, but I wasn't free.

And I wasn't free because I was a slave to that business. I worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And then I learned what I call today the secrets of a phenomenal business, which My friend Michael Gerber says the secret is the system. So we started building systems in that business. And, and then I learned some other types of slavery. As we grew that business, our, our debt grew. And then I, I, I learned that that is a good way to enslave yourself to other people. And so I got consultants and I started, you know, taking the Dave Ramsey route and got myself debt free.

So my journey has been where I ended up creating a business that's turnkey. I still own it today. Well, this November will be 40 years I've been in business. And 25 years ago, people want to know how I was doing it. So I started coaching and training. Today we have coaching clients in 100 different industries and 20, 20 different countries. But the thing is, is the, the way that we help people and the way that we help business owners is we help them to stop being a slave to that business. The message is, you don't have to be, you don't have to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You, you can find people, you can.

You can build systems. So we lead them to do that so that they can have what we call a predictable, profitable, and maybe even turnkey business so that they can actually have the freedom that they want and that they deserve. So then there's relationship freedom, right? There's, there's, you know, family relationships, there's, there's friends and, and colleagues. And, and so the thing is, is that we have to know that we're free. If we're not free spiritually and we're not free mentally, then none of this other stuff is going to work. In fact, I heard a great story one time, a powerful story.

It was during World War II. Guy that I go to church with, he was preaching, and his father was in a group of US Soldiers who were captured by the Nazis. And they were in a Nazi prison camp. And so they had the guards, the barbed wire fence, the whole, the whole deal. And they woke up one morning and all the guards were gone and the gates were wide open. They were, they were free.

So, Dr. Rome, guess what they did.

They probably just stayed right where they were.

They did. They, they sat there because they didn't know if it was some kind of sick joke. They didn't know if they went out into the town, the townspeople are going to come out with pitchforks. They sat down. And the saddest thing today is, and this is what I'm passionate about, is people don't know that they're free. They don't take advantage of the freedoms that they do have. And.

The fact is, is that there is plenty of opportunity, but people are so like, caught up and stinking thinking and exact anxiety and all this, like. We went to see the movie Inside out too, you know, and of course, that movie is all about this, this young girl who, who has all these emotions and how the emotions are, you know.

Running her life and everything. And, you know, there's joy, she's the hero of the movie, you know, and there's anger and there's sadness and there's fear. So in Inside out too, they introduced some new characters because now the little girl has become a teenager. They introduce anxiety and jealousy.

Anxiety and jealousy. And with our media culture, the state of our political situation, the government, our education system, all of those, corporate America is pushing this agenda that is enslaving people instead of empowering people. Because the message is, the message is, you cannot be trusted. God trusted us. He gave us our own free will because he said, you know, you're made in my image. You're, you're, you're free to create. You're free to, to, to produce and multiply. And.

But our government seems to think, well, we need to be more socialist. We need to make decisions for you. You're not capable. Well, the reason that people are not capable is because they've been enslaved and they have not been, they're taken away from our freedoms left and right. So I'm really passionate about that and passionate about not just our national freedom. Why are millions of people trying to get into this country?

You don't see, you don't see a bunch of Americans lining up to try to get into some other country, do you? And these celebrities that, that, that, that say that they're going to leave if the election turns out a certain way or whatever. None of them have left.

None of them have left. I wonder why.

You know, I remember back in the, back in the 70s when I first started reading Zig and learning about Zig and one of the chapters in his book, I, I can still see the title because it caught me off guard. It said, be careful not to get snapped. And I thought, snap. What kind of word is that In S N I, O, P? Of course you're familiar with that concept. And for those who are not familiar with it, snap. S N I, O, P. Susceptible to the negative influence of other people. And that was like the very first thing I ever learned before I ever met Zig. Got to work with Zig, spend time with him. It just stuck with me. And Maybe it's like our minds are real good on first things and last things that we hear. And that was the first thing I ever heard or read that Zig taught. And we live in a world full of people who have been snapped. They limit themselves by their own limited thinking. You mentioned it earlier. To avoid stinking thinking. And we have to have a check up from the neck up to avoid stinking thinking and hardening of the attitudes. But not all people are in an environment where they can be free if they are in an environment where there's communism, for example, or socialism and, and, and I'm the kind of person, I want everybody to, to love each other on everybody, to get along. I've jokingly said we're all socialist to start with because, because we all need someone to take care of us when we're born and when we need to be fed and, and clothed and changed and clean and have a roof, somebody has to take care of us. But then we move into the greatest experience of freedom. Learning to stand on your own two feet and grow your own personal life, your spiritual life, physical life, mental life, social life, in all areas, however, and that may last 50, 60 years. I'm enjoying that period of time in my life and so are you. But there may come a day, hopefully not soon, that somebody has to take care of me again. And we call that the sunset years of life. Or maybe your family has to come back and, and take care of you as you're coming to the end of your journey. So I'm smart enough to know that socialism is, is not all bad. But I do think that capitalism in the sense of stand on your own two feet, learn to be free and build your own life with God's help. Nothing better than that. What do you think?

Nothing better. In fact, Jesus himself himself said, the truth shall set you free. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. The problem is today is that we're being lied to. Andy Andrews wrote this book.

I don't remember the name of it, but I was on his podcast last year, I think it was about a year or so ago, and he had a book coming out or that just come out about World War II, the Nazis and all that, and how that happened. How did we, how did 11 million people get killed? And the answer.

They were lied to.

So there's a truth out there that will set you free.

And.

Yet we are deceived by the lie, by people saying, oh, this will give you freedom. Maybe just a little bit of this, this drug Right here, this. This will help you. You know, alcohol, that'll. That'll make you feel better, right? And so all these lies, I. I watch a lot of documentaries, and I. I came across this documentary called Woodstock 99. So 30 years later, after the original Woodstock, and the long and the short of it is that these, These young people who were in the rock scene, that was the MTV days and all that stuff, and they got really angry. And.

While it was true, while it's true that the promoters of the event didn't take care of the sanitation, didn't take care of, you know, a lot of things that they should have taken care of instead of just leaving. What these kids did is they burnt the place to the ground. I mean, they set it on fire. They were angry. There was, you know, all sorts of really bad things that I only want to say on this, this, this podcast today that happened. And the people who were at the original Woodstock, including the guy, the guy who, who had the idea to do the original, that was involved in the original Woodstock, was also the same guy who brought. Brought it back 30 years later. And they were talking about how back in 69, it was just all about peace and love and all this kind of stuff. Let me tell you something.

What happened 30 years later was a result of the lies.

That you call peace and love back then, right? I'm sorry to be the one to say this, but it's the truth, and the truth will set you free. Because when. When spiritually speaking, one of the best things that I ever heard you do was at one of my conferences where you talked about the Ten Commandments and how the Ten Commandments were created not to. To. To. To enslave you, but it was because it was good for you as a person or it was good for the nation of Israel. Okay, so one country that was better than the usa, you know, at least one in history, you know, and because God is good, God is love. He loves us. And when you. When you know the truth and you have the courage and the strength to follow the truth, those are good principles. You know, Proverbs is full of wisdom and principles. This podcast is called Becoming Wiser Podcast. And Proverbs starts out with the idea that of wisdom, that we're searching for wisdom. And the fact is, is that all of us have done some foolish things. You know, in First Kings, he said, and God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure and breadth. And of mine, like the sand on the seashore, so that Solomon's wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the People of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt, for he was wiser than all other men. And it opens with proverbs, opens with the proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel. To know wisdom and instruction. To discern the sayings of understanding, to receive instruction and wise behavior, righteousness, justice and equity. To give prudence to the naive, to the youth, knowledge and discretion. A wise man will hear an increase in learning. A man and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel, understand a proverb and a figure. The words are the wise and their riddles. And then if you.

Keep reading through proverbs, one of the things that I do in my Bible is every time I go through proverbs, I put little W's next to wisdom. Quotes, have wisdom in it. I put F next to where it talks about foolishness. Can I tell you something? There's a lot of Fs in that Bible. I'm telling you, there's a lot of Fs in that Bible. So a fool thinks I can.

Do something that's going to enslave me.

Yet be free, and I demand that freedom. I demand that freedom.

You got it. You can have it. But what's the consequence of foolish thinking, foolish actions? And, you know, and all human beings, you know, my company is phenomenal business coaching because I believe all human beings are phenomenal, right? We're made in God's image. Zig Ziglar said, you're born to win, designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, endowed with the seeds of greatness. After all, God don't make no junk. You're a phenomenal product.

Made according to his image. However, we showed up on this world, in a fallen world that was deceived, okay? And so we have something called the flesh. We have the spirit, our soul and the flesh, right? And as Darren Hardy once put it, he said, we're all flossomed. In other words, we're. We're awesome creations, yet incredibly flawed. So in the flesh, and our emotions that get wrapped up in that, and we decide to do our will because we think that we know best. And we don't heed this wise instruction because we don't have the spirit of God that is. That is influencing our mind, will and emotions, we just run amok. And what's going to happen? They're going to burn. You're going to burn the place down, period. So I have not heard anybody in this documentary talking about Woodstock, 30 minutes, 30 years later, that the ideas, the lies, what you, Mr. Ziggler, also said Zig also said, you are what you are and where you are because of what has gone to your mind. You can change what you are and where you are by changing what goes in your mind. So the things that people put in their minds back then, although it was fun, it was exciting, it was whatever it was.

Whatever you plant.

You'Re going to get fruit. What's the fruit 30 years later? Anger, anxiety, hatred. Burn the place down. Hate other people. But that, that was no surprise to God. I mean, scripture said that what it would be like in the latter days. So I don't want to go to preaching. Here's what I want to say. What I want to say is that those of you who are listening, every single person listening here.

Wants freedom. And the way that people normally would, would talk about freedom is I want to be able to do what I want to do when I want to do it. I want to be able to be who I am. Okay, that's fine. But with freedom comes responsibility.

And if you're gonna try to make up some kind of identity because it's how you feel that's going to hurt other people.

You may have to cut this part out of the podcast. I don't know. But.

When I went to that movie, which is basically a children's movie.

The preview, one of the previews was the most ungodly, evil thing that you could ever put in front of a human being, much less a child. I was so angry. I was so angry. But Jesus said, be angry, yet do, don't sin. So try not to sin. But the point is, you're talking, you're.

Covering so many excellent points, and you and I know that there are at least eight different kinds of freedoms that you've written about and talked about. And where is no way in the world we're going to cover all eight of them. I mean, while you were talking, I began to think about Hitler's right hand man was a guy named Goebbels. And Goebbels is famous for saying, if you tell a lie long enough and hard enough, everybody will believe it's the truth. And so, you know, we've got to be wise, We've got to be smart. We've got to understand that freedom is not getting bound up in things that are going to own us. But freedom is us being able to say yes, but sometimes saying no. It's being able to be included, but it's also being able to walk away. Listen, Howard, we've got, we've just barely scrapped. Scratch the surface here Promise me that. That we can put a comma here and continue this. I think there's a lot more here that people would really, really enjoy if we sort of break it down maybe into some of the different kinds of freedom we've talked about. National freedom, spiritual freedom, mental freedom. That's been my favorite one because it took me 10 years to develop mental and emotional freedom. And that's a story for another time. Physical, family, relationships, career, financial and personal freedom. So all of those are just so, so powerful. So promise me we can continue this.

We will. We'll do. We'll do a series, and we'll look at each one of these areas. And then one of the areas I really want to focus on, because it's my wheelhouse, is there's so many people today who either have a job that they hate, they have a business, or they're. They're. They're an entrepreneur. They're stuck, and they don't understand that there are things that they can put in their mind that will help them get free, that'll help them get unstuck. So if you're not being the person you want to be and you're not where you want to be, as Mr. Zigler said, you can change, and we'll help you. So I'm going to commit to seven more, eight more episodes to break down each one of these. Okay. Wow.

That's so powerful. Thank you so much, Howard, for being with us today. And I know this is going to lead to great things for everybody. I want to thank all of you who've been listening to this podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Rome. It's Becoming Wiser. We call the podcast Becoming WISER because at 75 years of age, I have discovered if you make good, wise choices and good, wise decisions, you will have the life that you want. But if you don't make good, wise choices and good wise decisions and hang around the right kind of people, then you'll suffer for it. Well, I want to do life. Life is a lot like a game, and if you play the game well, you win well. So I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. We look forward to keeping in touch with you and letting you know about future opportunities, how you can become wiser as well. Thank you for joining us. God bless you. Have a great day. Bye. Bye.

For more information about this podcast, please visit www.becomingwiserpodcast.com.