2:19:53 Yeah, absolutely. We get one shot at this and I'll tell you, you know, by supporting these entrepreneurs at mystore.com, I don't know if we've said this before, Alex, quite a while ago, back in 2017, our real president had me at the White House for a manufacturing summit. Do you know when a manufacturing business goes under here or moves overseas or whatever, you take a whole bunch with you. You take a whole bunch of products. I used an example of a snowmobile company back in the day. They left here because the economy got bad. I forget how far back it was, but when they left,
2:20:33 Nine other companies went with that. It involved like, I think 10,000 employees when you spread over the fasteners, the person that made the seats, the person that made this, it's like, you know, it's just like with my pillow, there's the cotton manufacturer, there's the fabric manufacturer, there's the patented fill made in Wisconsin. All these things, you have no idea if you can keep the manufacturing, keep the business. But let's, you don't talk about yourself. And I read your book, it's amazing, people can find it at mypillow.com or mystore.com, promo code, Alice, get a discount and support us both. But spend a few minutes on yourself and your process, like how you grew up, when you found God, and then how you did all this great work, because you're an example to us all.
2:21:21 Well, you know, I was a functioning addict in every way. You go back to, I was put into a new school when I was like nine years old or seven years, I guess seven years old. And my parents divorced back when divorces weren't common. It tells you how important that the families can be, the family unit too back then. But back then, so I got put in a new school and I felt different, felt like an outcast. And anyway, it manifested into, I only went to college for I think one quarter. I would either show off to people or I wouldn't talk. I was kind of one or the other. And I was actually, it's funny when you read my book, one of my biggest fears was speaking in public or talking to people because, and I found out later, it's because I had fear of rejection. Well, you don't get rejected if you don't talk. But I became a very functioning addict.
2:22:11 I prayed back in the 80s, I had bad things going on and I prayed and I was, I ended up getting my, my thought, my dream was, you know, getting married, having kids. It was a 20 year, 20 year marriage functioning addict. But during that time, I was also an entrepreneur. I would do problem solution. My sister flooded a, a third story apartment complex with a waterbed and I became a carpet cleaner. I was in treatment once and for the D-dubs I would get in the 80s and I was in treatment talking to this guy and he told me that he had from California and he did these, remember I'm in Minnesota, he goes, yeah we have this lunch wagon business, you pulled open the side and people bought stuff on it, off it. So I called my friend up, I said, hey, I said,
2:22:53 I'm you come up with money for a truck. We're going to be, we're going to go into the lunch wagon business. We built it into a big business all the time, having a parallel track of addiction. And then I ended up getting it. I never, never had anything handed to me. I had to build it from scratch. Like I got into the bar business and bar and restaurant in, and I had one bar for 13 years, which wasn't a good place for an addict. But, uh, um, And people perceive addicts as people on the streets with, down and out on the streets with homeless or whatever. Well, that's not true. It doesn't matter how many forks you eat with, addiction affects everyone. And- No, I totally agree. What was your transformation? Because you're really an amazing- My transformation, and I'll tell you this, everybody, on January, I invented my pillow in 2004.
2:23:43 and I started crack cocaine in 2000, and I quit crack cocaine and everything overnight on January 16, 2009. Now I prayed to God and I knew that he had this big calling and I knew that calling, that would be gone if I waited one more day. Was that my bottom? Well, people say, I made sure I didn't have any money or anything, that it would be the greatest comeback ever, that with God all things are possible. Well, when I quit that day, I woke up in the morning and I prayed the night before that I would never have the desire again for any of these addictions, alcohol, crack, cocaine, you name it. And it was gone the next day. Now that was a miracle in itself. And I actually thought that that's the day that I was saved. And then it wasn't until, and by the way, when I woke up that day, my pillow was just a blip on the radar because everything had been taken from me or lost by myself.
2:24:36 If you fast forward, I didn't find Jesus until, and as my Lord and Savior, a complete surrender, till February 18th, 2017, everybody. And everyone says, come on, Mike, you always wore your cross on TV or whatever. Yeah, I always wanted to be that guy. And I'll tell ya, back in the day, back on January 16th, 2009, before that, you guys, I was in the streets of Minneapolis. It was the spring of 2008. And I came out of the bedroom and I was up for 14 days and three of the biggest drug dealers were standing there and they're looking at me, they're going, I go, what are you guys doing? You know each other, they had never met, but they knew of each other. They said, Mike, we're cutting you off, you've been up for 14 days. I said, what is this, an intervention? They go, call it whatever you want.
2:25:25 And now they cut me off and I waited, it was 2.30 in the morning when the last guy that was watching me went to sleep. I was scraping the crack pipe and carpet farming and I headed down the streets of Minneapolis and I get down there, I couldn't buy crack anywhere. They had gotten the word out, right? So about three o'clock in the morning I come back upstairs and he's standing there and he goes, how'd that work out for you? And I was all upset and he goes, here's what he said to me. He goes, man, you've been telling us for years that you're gonna quit someday all your addictions and you're gonna come back and help us out of this world we're living in, this drug world we're living in.
2:26:06 And he said, give me your phone, I'm gonna take a picture so you remember that. You've been telling us you're gonna write a book someday too. And he said, here's for that book. Well Alex, this is that picture. If I can see it, if I turn it, it's the good Mike, bad Mike here. And there's, anyway, that's on the cover of my book. Two of those guys then that did that intervention, they actually worked for me and they're born again Christians. So, and what man of God. Incredible, the story is for anybody going through this, Sometimes it's overnight, but most of the time it's a long process and God worked with you and people around you got touched because God had a plan for you. It's what you're saying. Yeah, and I'm saying this too is that people, they see example. Like when I was at the White House in 2017, I'd already been saved by the grace of God and I went live and here I'm sitting next to the President of the United States and all my friends at home
2:27:02 My crack friends back in the day are going, what is this crack addict on TV? Jesus has to be real because this is a miracle. I never thought I'd be within five feet of the White House, much less become friends with our great real president. But I want to say this, anybody out there in addiction, everybody, I set up and it's free. It's the LyndaleRecoveryNetwork.org. It's free. I spent millions setting it up. My original thing was to help addicts, and then all of a sudden I got put into this election platforms, which if we don't have a free country, nothing matters. But you can get set yourself free. Right now, where we're at with Hope
2:27:47 in this country and fentanyl pouring across the borders and I think it's 300 some people dying every day from fentanyl maybe if it's even higher now right now if you have someone that's feeling hopeless and alone and it's turned to addiction or addictions got worse go to Lyndell recovery network org it's free and and I can't say enough about that and it's time Mike Lindell, I love you. We appreciate you. MyPillow.com forward slash Alex supports you, supports us, supports us all. Everybody needs to go there. MyStore.com, Alex, all of it. We love you. Great plan. The Holy Spirit's with you. The force is with you. We appreciate you, brother. And we know you can't give up. You'll never give up. Have a great week. Congratulations on last week's huge events, sir.