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Music.

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Hey, hey, so welcome to the inaugural podcast of OwnGuard Solutions.

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Man, that almost sounds weird to say.

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I’m now your co-host, Jim O’Brien, and I have with us today our other new co-host, Denis Haynes

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to our podcast. And it’s weird.

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It’s weird not to start it out and say the self-initiative project anymore,

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but here we are, OwnGuard Solutions.

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Kind of the same, a little different. You’re on board now. What’s going on?

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It’s come a long way from the first time we did the first podcast for The Self-Initiative Project. Yeah.

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I was a part of that one, and here I am, it’s about years later, part of this one.

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Yeah, and I was just trying to think before we came on here.

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I think we launched that part one of gun safety.

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It was either April or May of 2018. That’s how long it’s been.

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Oh, six years, yeah. Yeah. And then we did at least one, I think we did one

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on taking care of our aging parents.

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Aging parents, yeah, which I also did a post on.

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Yeah, just recently launched that. So go check that out on our blog if you haven’t yet.

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And then it seems like there was another, but nonetheless, been a minute since we’ve done this.

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And the other unique thing for you listeners, you don’t get to see us right

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now at least, is that unlike previously where I was recording these in my office

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on a microphone and a mixing board,

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we’re literally sitting on a couple of couches in front of my digital recorder.

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So doing this a little bit differently too. So hopefully this one will come out.

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I’m gonna try and see gonna wing it doing old

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natural this time around so yeah

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we started own guard solutions for similar reasons

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where you know the reason i think why we’ve why we’ve started it what we say

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is that we have the belief that being safe and prepared is always better and

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that hopefully with our our information and tips and advice that we put out there for everyone that

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we can help you and your families be safer and better prepared as well.

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I think it’s good to let everyone know, you know, how we came about this, right?

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Because I think it was around Christmas that we were sitting around talking

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and said, you know, it’d be good for us to go into business together.

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I don’t think we said that.

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And we thought about a couple of things and then we thought it was like an epiphany.

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Like, what are we thinking? Why don’t we do what we do?

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Right? Let’s start giving advice. I mean, Jim reminds me of all the times I’m

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at the range out there helping people, giving free advice, family calling us

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about stuff that we do every day.

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And we thought, you know, let’s expand this. Let’s take it beyond the family.

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Let’s build on what we have, at least what Jim had, and let’s take it from there.

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So I think that now that we’ve decided to provide a greater service, right,

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and it just happens to be a business, I think more of this is just our desire

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to serve the community, right, and try to keep everyone safe.

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I like to think of it as that more than a business.

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I just think that, you know, we do this anyway, right?

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So why not put it on a larger scale? I think you make a great point.

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Well, I know you make a great point. I’ve said that before.

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And that I think, too, that it’s important to give back to the community.

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And as you said, we’re doing this every day. We may not be shooting or something

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every single day, but we’re thinking like this.

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We’re giving random folks, friends, families. I got friends that ask me stuff

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all the time because they just don’t know.

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So why not make it a bigger scale and give back to a larger community and do

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some good in the process, hopefully, as well?

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Not everybody thinks of safety the way we do, and I realize that,

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but I think there’s an opportunity to expand horizons in some cases and then

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enhance in others, right, for those that are thinking about it more frequently than not. I think so.

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And, you know, we have enough friends that are in this space with safety and

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law enforcement and whatnot that we’re able to share some of their expertise

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through this form of ours.

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Right. So it’s not just us coming up with stuff.

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We are, you know, have some background, people with history,

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people that do this for a real living.

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Right. That we can provide a forum for them to share knowledge with you guys

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through us. So I think that that’s a good thing, too. Yeah.

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And we’ve been fortunate enough to have some really good guests on in the past.

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And to Dennis’s point, I think this is an opportunity to have some more guests

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on that are experts in the space, as he said,

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and really hopefully reinforce all the information and tips and advice and tricks we’re giving out, too.

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Too, because I think that’s a benefit, too, to hear it from folks that might

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be perceived as experts.

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Because, you know, I’ve said it a lot over the years is that I’m not former

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law enforcement or former military.

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I know you’re former Marine, but I’m not. I’m just average Joe or average Jim.

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You’re more than average Jim. I’m just average Jim in this place.

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But I have taken my safety and

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my preparedness and I still have more to

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do and go but I take that very seriously and I’m I think that way and so I think

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it’s important that everyone does yeah I do I think one of the things I really

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enjoy about what we’re doing now is you know the self initiative project was more podcast and,

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I think with on guard solutions it allows us.

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To communicate in different venues, right, with the webpage and the blog posts, the social media.

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You know, we just really have expanded. And I like that, right,

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because not everyone listens to podcasts, right?

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But I think now we have a variety of different ways that people can get the

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information that we’ve been trying to get out there.

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Yeah, we got a little something-something for everyone now. Yeah,

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absolutely. We’ve got the blog. We’ve got the podcast. podcasts. We have, what is it now?

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Technically five social media outlets that, you know, you have your choice,

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your smorgasbord to go to and choose from however you like to consume that content.

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We hope to fill the voids that may have been present before and have a little

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something, something, as I said, for everyone that comes to check us out.

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And as I said, in our YouTube video and some other things that we’ve got some

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really cool, exciting stuff coming up that we haven’t quite gotten ready to

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talk to about because we’re still in the planning and preparation stages,

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but that’s coming up right around the corner, as I’ve said before.

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Yeah. Yeah. You know, and then it’s a continuing learning, right?

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So anyone that joins us, hopefully they find enough interest in the things that

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they do see that they continue to come back, All right.

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As you mentioned, we have a lot of things up. We can’t put everything up at one time.

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You know, we have stuff seasonal that we talk about. All right.

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Situational. situational. One thing that we’ve learned is that we’ve agreed

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and recently learned that safety is more of a personal level.

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It’s got to be customized.

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What’s safe to one may not be safe to another and vice versa.

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That’s something that we started to take a look at and try to fit the needs of every lifestyle.

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Everyone is not out there willing to board up their house and sit it by the

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door with a shotgun. All right.

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So, you know, you got to think about that. And I think that’s one of the things

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that we’re able to bring to the table is, you know, kind of look at really what

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other, what everyone wants to look at and not just people that own guns, right?

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Guns not always a solution. All right. So I think that’s, that’s another thing

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that we’ve been able to look at and kind of sit back and say,

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you know, let’s look at this, you know, especially with on guard our solutions.

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Let’s look at it a different way.

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No, that’s another good point. And I absolutely hate to continue saying that to you.

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I come up with a lot of good points, too. You do once in a while.

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Every once in a while, a squirrel gets a nut.

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You know, yeah, I think tailoring the content to think about a wider demographic,

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a wider audience as well is key.

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And the key parts of that is realizing that everyone has different lifestyle

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and a different background and experiences that they’ve had in their lives and the context,

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you know, everything, what, what presents itself one way to me may look or appear

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completely different for you.

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So being able to recognize that and then hopefully address some things.

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And look, we’re under no delusions that all of our content is going to appeal

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to everyone or that we’ve covered every subject that might appeal.

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But hopefully in time, across all the different outlets that we have and the

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information and tips and advice that we’re trying to get out there,

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you’re going to find hopefully more than a couple of things that may resonate with you.

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And hopefully, you may not act on it necessarily,

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but if it can get you to think about something you hadn’t necessarily before,

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and then if you do decide to incorporate the tips and advice and information

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we’ve disseminated out to you, that’s a win in my book.

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And if we can help anybody along the way, that’s fantastic.

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I think you nailed it. And that’s part of our philosophies we’ve already stated, right?

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The key thing is what we’re looking for people to do is to recognize and take

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action. Take action is key, all right?

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Just to sit there with the knowledge and not take action on it,

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it’s not going to do you any good.

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And I think, you know, that’s the thing that we’re trying to really get out

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there as we stated before. We’re trying to promote, you know,

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safeguarding yourself.

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And then secondly, we’re trying to get you to take action, all right?

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Simple things, lock your door at night, right? Which I’m always amazed at how

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many people, I could tell some stories I won’t, but I’m always amazed is that

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how many people don’t lock their doors. Don’t lock their doors,

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don’t lock their car doors. Even when they go to bed at night. Yeah.

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And then they wonder why someone was able to get into their car and windows

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are not broken or anything because they left the car unlocked.

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Yeah. And they left valuables out in plain view. So there you go.

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Just little things like that to take action and to think about, right?

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I mean, we all watch the news. We all see what’s going on. But because it’s

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so far away, it’s not personal, right?

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And until it happens to them, does it become personal? And that’s what we’re

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trying to get people to take action and be proactive.

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It’s a good point. Well, I didn’t want to make this a long podcast,

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but I thought since we’re in the process, and I’m completely transparent with

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this, we had a five-year solid run pretty much with The Self-Initiative Project Podcast.

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There was a lot of great content there and we had on a lot of good guests,

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I guess Denis included, and we didn’t want to lose that. We wanted to transfer it off.

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So what you’ll see as you listen is most of those podcasts are still going to

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be introduced as the self-initiative project podcast.

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It just doesn’t make time or money sense

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to go back and try to re-record all of

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those so don’t be as shocked when you see that but we

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wanted to also start getting in some new content

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into the mix too while we transition those

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podcasts over to OwnGuard Solutions but no

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matter again we have enough outlets and enough types of

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content for you that i think you’ll find something that

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you’re going to enjoy and hopefully uh improve your personal safety and preparedness

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weirdness along the way so thanks for joining us today and uh keep checking

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back we’ll keep adding podcasts and posts and everything else as we go along

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and thanks so much. See you soon.

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Music.