Episode 106 - Faith, Family, and Ducks with Al Robertson
Today’s guest comes from a group that you almost certainly have heard of. Their values are faith, family...and ducks. Not sure if you guessed that third one, but if you did, then you’re probably a fan of Duck Dynasty, the television show about the Robertson family and their business.
What started as a one-man job making duck calls out of Louisiana Cedar trees has now exploded into a multi-million dollar business and cultural sensation. And today, we’re talking to Al Robertson to hear the story of how it all started.
Hear Al talk about Duck Commander, his life in ministry, and the power of forgiveness. As always, thanks for listening.
Useful Links:
Alan & Lisa Robertson on Duck Dynasty
Episode Transcript
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Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. This is one that I've been looking forward to a lot as a father of three boys and just a guy that's been tracking with the Robertson family for maybe as long as you all have. We've got Alan Robertson, who many of you will know is better known as Al on the show today. And we're excited to talk to him about family business, his business, God's business. The doors that the Robertson family have opened and the impact that they've had. But I want to start with you, Al. Al, thank you. First off for joining us. It's a great pleasure to have you. Tell us a lot of it about you. And who are you?
Al Robertson: Man, that's like the the ultimate question, right? Who are you? Well, you know, and I have a bit of an identity complex anyway, my family, as you know, if you're familiar with the family. You know, everybody has big beards and long hair and bases. Looks like some kind of ZZ Top reunion tour. And then you got this beardless brother. So I'm known as two things when I travel around the country, I'm known as the beardless brother, which is my Twitter handle. So I've obviously embraced it. And also the preacher, because I spent a lot of years in ministry and I still do a lot of preaching. So I would say that's probably in my family. That sums me up. You know, and I feel like when I was on the show, people were asking a lot of times what the show was like. And, you know, everybody had comparisons they made now is used to say, compared to The Munsters, you know, because you got Marilyn Munster who's beautiful and normal. But she had an identity complex because she lived with a family monsters. So she thought something was wrong with her. I can completely relate to Marilyn Munster. I'm The Marilyn Munster of the Robertson family. So that's who I am. I'm Marilyn Munster of the Robertson clan.
Henry Kaestner: Well, we've never had a response quite like that on the show. All right. So tell us. You know, pushing the family a little bit. Yes. You're the one that doesn't have a beard. You guys grew up together. I think you all live in the same community and still do. Is that right?
Al Robertson: Yeah. Mom and dad, they still live in the same house that we moved into forty five years ago. And, you know, we moved it's on the river just south of Monroe in western Louisiana. And it was 1976. Dad was a brand new Christian, doing great. But just, you know, not sure what he wantsed to do. Basically had his life, you know, like most college kids do. He lost his way spiritually. But, you know, his life was kind of laid out. He had a masters degree in education and physical education, had been a football player and a coach. And so his mindset was, of course, I got to go teach and coach. The problem was he didn't want to do that. He had this passion for wanting to build a duck call that sounded like a duck. And he wanted to live off the land while he built our business. And so when we moved out there on the river, that was the mindset, there were seven acres. Mom and dad didn't have much at that time. Dad had been doing a little bit of teaching since he came to Christ. And so my grandparents who were retiring, there were two houses on the property. And so they took one house. And mom, dad and our family at that time was just three boys took the other.
And basically granny and pop providet the down payment for them to get the loan. And the idea was that mom and dad would take it from there. And so that was the setup. And we moved down there and we started fishing, the lifestyle river commercial fishing, and we had nets out and man. I understand now why Jesus picked four out of his twelve disciples were fishermen because fishing is a faith based business. When you're depending on it to eat, to pay your bill. Yeah. And so we would kneel down in front of that boat. No many amorning. And I would pray very specifically that while we're asking you, we need 300 pounds of cat today. Catfish to be able to pay this note or whatever. And so we would pray and we would go out and we would raise nets. And it was just like it was in the Bible. And Jesus would pull a big fish deal. You know, we would catch enough. It was never too much. It was always just enough. And so my theory is that the Almighty was giving us a little manna philosophy to trust in him, too. You know, those early, difficult days as we were building our business. So it was very humble. It was very organic, was very real. And that's how I grew up. And so, you know, I was twelve when we moved down there. And so that was just my lifestyle was just kind of coming into my own, you know, about to be a teenager. But I was just part of the workforce. You know, we didn't know anything about ocea child labor laws. Back in those days, we just had everybody pull together and do what you had to do.
William Norvell: So as you get into this a little bit. Tell us a little bit more about the family business. You know, just kind of how you got involved in it and how you started working in it. And walk us through a little bit that.
Al Robertson: So like I said, we were kind of all pulling together and figuring out what to do. It was a classic, I guess, just idea that was a long side of someone's home. I don't know if there's anything more American in terms of just having a vision to succeed than that. You know, just. An idea I think it'll work. I'm willing to work hard, I'm willing to try to be innovative, and that's what it was. And so Dad figured out how to make a Mallard hen call that sounded more like a duck than any other call. Problem was, we didn't have much of a client base. You know, there's I mean, duck hunters. So at that time, there were probably, I don't know, seven or eight hundred thousand duck hunters in the whole nation. But there was no national duck call company. Everything was very regional. So it was almost like somebody that makes fishing lures, you know, in some part of Missouri or some part of California. And so it was very regionalized and that's the way duck calls were. So, you know, there's really nobody could ever see a path to nationalize this, you know, but we're paddling them. We're trying to make a little money here and there and we're getting better at making them. And so I had my job and I made reeds and I'd cut duck call end pieces together. And so I would work in the summers. I was there. I went to school and my grandpa and my dad did the heavy lifting while we were in school, but when we got home from school and we would go right out and cut calls or do whatever. So it's just the whole family was doing it together. It was really neat. You know, the summertimes were always very special to me because mom and my granny would cook, you know, our meal together. So we'd go work in the morning and we'd come in and eat lunch. Dad was big on naps. Of course, you know, we weren't because we were kids, that he would go nap and we'll get to go do what we want to do, go fishing or something like that. And then we'd come back and knock out a little more work. And we started all over. So it was very almost like a farm community style. We were just making duck calls. And so we started out the first year, just turned very few, sold a few. We were really living off the fishing and living off the land. But then every year that went by, we just kept growing the duck calls and dad kept inventing a new call or something new and something innovative. So out of all the duck calls that are out there, there are several species of ducks. And my dad and then probably I would say half of the calls that are made for the other ones. And again, we were duck hunters. So we knew what they sounded like. We knew what they were supposed to sound like. And that was always the guiding force. You know, Dad's motto for Duck Commander was the call that sounds like a duck. And then, you know, the personalities came out. We started filming as the business grows and all of a sudden you'd kind of built this cult following of people that just were drawn to that sort of dynamic personality. They loved the hunting, of course. Then the beard started out because, you know, dad grew a beard mainly for concealment and warmth during the winter. It wasn't anything other than that, you know, but now it's so iconic as part of our family, which is kind of funny. But I worked for the business later on just to help try to buy myself a vehicle cause mom, dad didn't have a lot of money. I worked two or three other jobsvevenvwhile I was going to school. So I learned very early on that if you want to succeed, you have to work really hard to put money in your pocket.
So all those lessons, of course, have come back to me now as a business owner, a person who has employees that work for me. It really helps me understand and then try to relay that to them. Every generation has a different way of looking at them. But certainly mine back in the 70s was you had to be one to put some hours in to make a difference.
Henry Kaestner: So I'm fascinated by that all by the way. When you say concealment, is this to make it so that it's harder for the ducks to see you as fitting in with the whole camo thing?
Al Robertson: Exactly.
William Norvell: I'm thinking Henry's never been duck hunting before now.
Henry Kaestner: Well, actually, this is something our audience probably doesn't know. I'll suggest that neither Justin nor William known either. But up until now, this mirrors a lot of my family history as well. Our family histories then diverge quite a bit and maybe it was around the beard. Although I tell you, my Uncle Clark had an incredible beard. But we were also in the duck hunting business. My Uncle Clark and the Reed family, my grandmother's brother, were big on the eastern shore of Maryland and Chesapeake Bay and had the largest decoy business, antique decoys, regular decoys. And he did have an epic beard, but I'm fascinated to find out. So we never did a TV show. And I think it's partly a function of the fact that Uncle Clark, while he had an epic beard, did not have an epic beard. But talk us through about how you go from a family that's doing the duck calls and having this fishing business and all of a sudden it becomes something pretty big.
Al Robertson: And by the way, I mean, just you tell me that's amazing because I'm thinking you were that close to being decoy dynasty. And, you know, it would have altered everything you knew. So what happened with us was when I say, you know, I just described, you know, the first probably 10 years of the business but it actually took 30 to build it up, where basically it could support adequately mom and dad. And by that time, my grandparents, of course, were gone. But, you know, I went into ministry, so I still helped. You know, it's funny, all those early days of the business that was growing. Jason and Missy were married by now. They were working for mom and dad. And so we would have you know, there were only five or six employees. And so they were still trying to turn everything out.
And we would get to be Wal-Mart order, which, by the way, Wal-Mart we're always grateful to, because they basically provided our road to nationalization because, you know, they had all those sporting goods departments in all those Wal-Mart stores. And so that's basically how we got the name out there. And we had the brand, we had the look, we had the personality.
And of course, we did about I don't know, I guess we'd done 25 or 30 hunting videos. We would do one every year. And so we were really, like I said, building that base. But Wal-Mart became that avenue and other sporting goods chains too, but mainly Wal-Mart. But what happened was over the course of that time, you know, I would do a ministry but we would have a night where we would really need to get an order out to Wal-Mart.
There was no way those five employees could pull that off. And, you know, there's always deadlines. So mom or dad would call me and that was a hey Al we need a packing party. And I knew what that meant. So I would call church members and say, look, who wants to go out to Phil and Kay's? And he's going to cook a ribeye steak tonight because he would cook these legendary whole rib-eyes. So there's a rib-eye steak for whoever will spend three, four hours packing in calls or packaging, you know, whatever we're doing. And so people loved it.
So it just became like this fun fellowship, you know, from what I was doing with the church, that I was still plugged into our family and our business. And so that went on for another 10 or 15 years.
Henry Kaestner: So it started off not as a TV show, but as dinner theater.
Al Robertson: That was it. You're right. And we were the entertainment. Yeah. You know, we would tell stories and funnies, just like you see on the show.
Si came along when he retired from the military. So he went to work for dad. And by this time, they were about to get in a transition because now the videos are really doing well. The hunting brand was well, dad had taken it as far as he could go. Dad didn't understand really the idea of partnerships and, you know, franchises and working with a company like Real Tree or Vanilla Shotguns or somebody else. And so Willy. He's the third brother. He can always had the horse trader sort of way of doing business.
And so he kind of was the natural one, Jace is more like Dad. He's just kind of stick to it let's kill ducks. You know, if someone wants to buy a duck call, how great they know where we are, they'll reach out to us. And I was in ministry, so I was the oldest. And so Willie said, you know, I think we could partner with some of these great companies and build some relationships and do some things together.
And so that's what really built the brand into the next phase. And we'd already done a lot of videos and DVD. And then because of Willie having that ability to do that, he went to work for dad and eventually took over the business with corey. Mom and dad still own part of it, and Willie owns the majority. So we're still in it together. But Willie saw that and he always wanted to be on TV. He just had this thing. He kept trying out for Survivor and Amazing Race and all this stuff. And so he finally got an opportunity. I always say he never met a TV camera he didn't like. But so the folks at Benelli shotgun. We had a sponsorship with them and they were providing the shotgun. And they had an idea about the commercials first. And then they said, look, let's go on Outdoor Channel. We could do a show and it will be a hunting show, but it has some reality elements to it. And so that's really where all this began, because we did three seasons of it was called Benelli Presents Duck Commander. And it was the family, but they had about 75 percent hunting at about 25 percent reality, what the business was like, the wives you know no one hadever really seen our wives because, you know, it was just me and hunting videos. And all of a sudden you're seeing the wives, you're seeing Willie and Corie had business meetings. And how that works with Dad who is not sure about all this. And so it kind of became its own little reality show, even it though it's basically around us hunting still. And then that's when someone took notice and said, hey, we think you guys could be a national TV show, on regular cable television, regular hour show, not even be about hunting, just about your family. And so dad sort of famously now and Willie approached him about it. You know, Dad was gonna have to be on board with wanting to do it. And everybody kind of knew he was probably the least excited about doing something like that.
And he said, well, I'll say right now, I don't think this will work because I don't think anybody is going to care about us outside of hunting. But he said if the almighty is behind. It might just work. And so that's what happened. And the next thing you know, we've got a show that started modestly that first season. But by the time you get to season two or three, it was a juggernaut. You know, hit on television.
You know, it made a big impact with people. And some of it was that I was telling you about earlier was that authenticity, that reliability, that this is like my family and, you know, my so and so is just like your uncle sign. Know, we kept hearing comparisons like that. And then the spiritual component was there wasn't a preachy or religious show, kind of a wacky show, really. But because of the prayer at the end, because dad would quote Bible verses, sometimes they would even know he was quoting a BIble verse. People are like, whoa, they took notice. And so then I was there and it was like, wait a minute, this is a lot like my family. So I think that's why the appeals there, even though we've been off the air now for three years, I still get notes almost every day because of our podcast knows that we're doing the say. Look, I just want you to know I still love your show and your family. We've been off air three years.
Who says that to a show that especially reality show, that's been off the air for as much time, but it resonated and connected at a deep level. And so as a family, we realized, wait a minute, we feel like God is on this whole thing. To build a platform for us to whatever we're going to do next is going to be super important because it seems that he's built this, you know.
Henry Kaestner: All right. Two questions. One, would you join up for The Amazing Race and have Willie as your teammate?
Al Robertson: Absolutely not. Never. We would lose
Henry Kaestner: Maybe it will know more in the answer to this question. You get the whole family out there on Survivor who makes it to the end?
Al Robertson: Now, that is a good question. I would have to say it would probably be dad or Jace because they have the best skills of survivability. We've often said in light of current climate of pandemics and everything else that, you know, if anything ever happens, there's a big shutdown of anything. We're all heading out to Phil's house. And that's where we're gonna hang out because we can survive. So probably Dad, even at 74, could survive more than the rest of us could.
William Norvell: That's impressive. I'll shift us a little bit. That's an amazing story of kind of how the television show came up. Take us into. How did that change the business? I'm assuming it changed it a good bit. And also, how did it change your family dynamic? All of a sudden you're on TV, you're getting notes from everyone. Everyone recognized you from. There had to be a shift in some way, I would imagine, in the family dynamic.
Al Robertson: Great questions both. First of all, let me speak to the business side. So the most duck calls we had ever built in a season were sixty thousand. I think that had been a high watermark before the show took off. And, you know, that's not a ton of duck calls. But I mean, it was great. They were having to success between the other partnerships they had with hunting gear and all the other things. You know, people were leaving successful life, but not a lot of money by any stretch of the imagination. And then the show hits and obviously A&E marketed it beautifully and it stuck and it happened. And then it was a mushroom cloud for the business and they're having to be on the show. Lisa and I were not on the show originally the first three seasons, which basically is the first year, because in cable they'll film two or three seasons in a year. There's only like ten episodes as well. But Willie is like Al I need help. You know, I was still thinking about possibly starting to be on the show, but I couldn't do that and stay in full time ministry. And so he said, I need help with the business. I mean, it's just blowing up. So just to give you numbers that sixty thousand jumped to one hundred eighty thousand. And then that hundred eighty thousand jumped to half a million. That half a million jumped about 850. And then our top year. That's kind of the peak of the whole popularity was 1.3 million duck calls.
And I've already told you that there's less than a million duck hunters or so. Obviously, we were selling duck calls to people who were never gonna blow it at a duck.
It was just a piece of who we were, you know, and we laugh because, you know, there would be some mom that would buy, you know, 10 duck calls because her 6 year old girl is having a Duck Dynasty themed birthday party this Saturdays. You want to have some really cool party gifts, you know? So that boy, have we come a long way from blood in the eye duck hunters to girls birthday party.
William Norvell: That wasn't the plan all along? Girls birthday parties weren't part of strategic partnerships?
Al Robertson: That would have been the ultimate marketing. Right. In fact, it's funny when all that was happening. You read these comments on the Internet and some of them were you know, this is all just completely fake because I read it because, you know, they just heard somewhere that dad was educated. I heard that this guy had a PhD in marketing and they've planned this whole thing to make this big boom. But it's not even real at all. They all live in some mansion and they are bop, bop, bop, bop. It was so funny just and we were all laughing because we're like, boy, if you only knew how there was no planning for this. But that's what happened. We left our work at the church, went back to work for a duck commander and we were appearing on the show. But my primary job along with my wife's was we were working the business hard with some other people who were there, we were just trying to get product out the door.
I mean, those couple of Christmases during that element, imagine everybody wanted to get their stuff to give to their kids or their husband or dad or whatever. And so it was hard work and it was crazy work, but it was exciting. We compared it to drinking out a firehose, you know, it just was you couldn't wait to see what new thing was going to happen. And so that's kind of what happened to that business-wise. Family dynamic wise I think we were all so tied into doing the show together. It was really cool because now the show provided an atmosphere for us to work in. But we got to be together every day. In fact mom. That's the thing that she laments the most. Now, the show is ended is that, you know, her family is not around. In fact, we're all spread out everywhere. No, she doesn't like that. You know, she likes it when we were all there.
We'd be doing a family dinner scene. And so she'd cook us something special and have over here we'd be over there eating and chatting and talking, and they would come over and film the stuff. So I think it was really tied and really close.
But then, like any family, the more the pressure of the appearances and just crazy, everybody wanting a piece of me. When you're kind of doing this national, who are these guys? Then all of a sudden it's very difficult because everybody's been pulling a lot of different directions. And we manage it well, I think, because of our faith and because the closeness that we had. But I mean, I would be not being honest about if I didn't say those were some tough days. And when you're trying to figure out what's most important. Where do we go from here?
Once the show kind of was look like it was going to be a landing place to stop, then what do we do? Because, you know, we had some people want to do some kind of continuation or maybe a spin off here or spin off there, but they only wanted certain family members and ultimately we just as a family decided we would just shut it down completely and then see where we landed. You know, I mean, Willie and Corey still run the business, but nobody's hardly their day to day anymore from the family. But we still have our core employees that we started with before this happened, plus some I'd say we're probably about 30 or 35 employees now. It swelled up to probably hundred and fifty or so during the peak of every day, but it started out they had about twenty or fifteen. It was definitely a small business. Still is.
But our new normal in terms of sales, because my son in law does duck calls now. My oldest son and I think he built three hundred seventy five thousand dollars last year, he and a couple of guys.
So, you know, we've landed at a place that was bigger than when we started. But it's kind of back to being a traditional hunting business again. It's just some famous people that lot of people recognize that do it. And what they've done with the warehouse, which is where everything was, basically they turned that into a gift store and a tour because a lot of fans still come here frequently, which is great. And so they wantpart of that experience. And so I guess we'll always be kind of like with the Mount Airy, North Carolina, that was Mayberry.
You know, we'll always kind of be that little place in West Monroe that ifyou happen to be going down at 20, you know, hey, let's pull in there and take a picture under the sign and see if we see one of the Robertson. So it's happening a lot. Mom and I opened up a bakery called Miss Kay Sweets and Eats. And I did it mainly for my daughter. My youngest daughter is a pastry chef and I wanted her and my grandkids to be close by because that's how I grew up. And so she did. And they run the place. It's going really well. And it's another stop. It's another place for fans to come together. Of course, been a lot of locals come to that. We really did it just to provide another opportunity for, you know, this kind of ongoing deal where people want to kind of come be a part of it.
Henry Kaestner: So typically, I'm reluctant to ask about a faith driven entrepreneurs personal life. We've been talking about how you guys worked in their life, maybe in their own spiritual journey a little bit. But I get a sense that it's going to be easier to ask you about it, because so much of us know a lot about your personal life. But then even further than that, you've written a book about it. You've talked about some of the challenges that you and your wife had in your marriage. And out of that has come a couple of books one called A New Season About Your Life in Marriage. And then also you've got the duck commander devotional for couples. Can you spend a little bit time and unpack that a little bit about how you guys have navigated some of those challenges.
Al Robertson: Sure. And one is I'll tell you, we had just written another book that came out just recently called Desperate Forgiveness, which is sort of a sequel to a new season.
But I'll start out new by the sort of running joke when we first started writing books. Of course, the publishing world, you know, saw the opportunity because merchandising for that was. I mean, at one time, Wal-Mart could have been called Duck Dynasty Mart.
You know, for about a year, we set a record, according to one other CEO, back in those days. He told us that no entity or whatever you would call it, I guess no brand had ever been number one in girls, boys, men and women in terms of like t shirts and things like that until Duck Dynasty. But that said, we were number one for a season or for a quarter.
So we had all four departments and I looked at that. You know, you think about it, it would have to be something like this. They could appeal to Junior as well as mom and dad and even grandma, grandpa. So it was just one of those weird, perfect lightning in a bottle in terms of merchandising.
But we laughed about it because they were saying all right. You guys got to write books. And so, you know, only thing we need to tell is the story that God had been working at us. So the books started coming out, talked about that Willie and Corey's first book more talked about the business and how they met. But then the dad's came out and he just told everybody, you know, I was a heathen. I was a terrible person. I was a drunkard, you know, and here's what God did for me. So everybody kind of just started following that pattern. And when Lisa and I came over in 15 and I had joked, you know, the Robertson family, you know, they're not like some of these other reality TV show families. We're going to put TMZ out of business because we're just telling all our own stuff.
You can't dig up any dirt on it because we just write in a book and you say, here it goes. But my approach and Lisa's, you know, since we've been in ministry sp long was we wanted our story to be a story that would be able to help other people.
And I'll never forget, when we were on Sean Hannity's radio show promoting the new season, we were both in studio with him and he looked at us and he said, why woul dyou guys tell all this stuff because, you know, there's like abortion is in there and adultery and, you know, just a lot of stuff that's heated. People love your faith. I mean, he was genuinely perplexed, like, why would you talk about. And so I looked at Sean and I said, listen, wewant to help people. Like there's people out there that really respect us and love us, like you said, but they don't know what we've been through. And they may be going through that. And I want them to know that you can be delivered to. You don't have to live in this place, you know, where you're at. And he was still kind of looking at me with a furrowed brow, you know, and he said, well, there are things that I've done in my past I won't even tell my wife about. And Lisa immediately said, Well, I'm glad I'm not married to you, Sean HANNITY. And so we all laughed at me, all the producers were laughing. But there was a lot of truth in that.
The idea is that from our perspective, when you can detonate your own time bombs, you take away a weapon of the evil one to use against you. Because, look, it's always going to be used against you, especially the more you try to hide. And that was what happened with Lisa and I. Lisa Had been sexually abused as a child by an uncle. And this went on from 7 to 14. And so you can imagine we got married young. I mean, I was 19. She was 18. And we had so many issues those first 15 years of marriage. And we couldn't get to the base of why she was struggling so much with dishonesty, even though I knew about the abuse. But I never made the link to somehow that was going to now shape character in her that she didn't think she could have a relationship with anybody else. This is how you please the man and this is how you're supposed to be. And so it just wreaked havoc in our relationship. And so when our marriage almost completely fell apart. Fifteen years in I'm in full time ministry. I'm associate pastor. She's the associate pastor. We're in a big church as our family church. And you can imagine just a bomb that went off when that happened. And yet, you know, we look back on it now 21 years later and say, you know what? That was what finally set us free. Because when she was able to look inside me along with her and see where we were and where we wanted God take us and what we need to do. It changed us. And so in the new season, we tell it and I got to tell as we do most books with ghost writers. And so we set out with our writer Beth for a week. And I mean, at the end of that week, I was so emotionally drained because I wanted the audience to not just read the story, but to feel the story with us that we lived. And so we had nothing that we told it all. We told exactly what was thinking, what we were feeling. And I can't tell you how many people now, after about five years ago, how many e-mails I've gotten, how many people I've talked to, and people in places where we speak, how many people say, your book helped save my marriage because I had no idea how I would be able to forgive my spouse because our story is similar to yours or whatever. Or we'll speak at a pro-life event. People have said, oh, you know your book, you help me, because I didn't think I could ever get past the guilt of having an abortion. But now, because of reading what you did and how you escaped and what God has done in your life, I know there's hope. And so that's why we did it. You know, which is what we were telling Sean. and you know we did the same thing with desperate. The beauty about desperate is it was four years later. But it was 20 years after it all happened now four years later for the next book. But we were able to tell about all this. People like that, we've now been able to walk alongside to help find some sort of redemption, to find a way to forgive and find a way to put a family back together. And so in desperate, we tell those stories along with some biblical stories. So it's been a really great journey in terms of, you know, what God's done in our lives and then for us to be able to do a lot of marriage stuff. We just filmed a video for Samaritan's Purse last week because our event, of course, that postpone. And we were able to just tell our story. I'm getting all these e-mails now from all these soldiers, you know, because they have a like a wounded warrior type event. They do for marriages. And, you know, just to see our story. You know, 600, 700 couples, it provides that hope, you know, and that possibility. So that's been very rewarding for us. I love it because I get to work now with my wife. And we at one time didn't think we'd be together now, 21 years later, we're together every day. So it's a true blessing for me.
Henry Kaestner: So tell us what you're doing now with you talked about the fact you had shut down and see how it all worked out. And you're doing some stuff with your dad, by way, as we'd launch this new Faith Driven Athlete podcasts. I think that we're all clicking each other, realizing that your dad would be an awesome guest on that. At some point, I maybe even teamed up with Terry Bradshaw. A lot of people don't even know that Terry Bradshaw was the backup quarterback to your dad at Louisiana Tech. True story.
Al Robertson: Yeah, dad was very talented. You know, you hear stories about your dad. You're never sure, although I did know that he was ahead of Terry Bradshaw. But Tech played Alabama in 1966, and dad was the quarterback and that was his sophomore season and that was Bradshaw's redshirt freshman season. But they played Alabama. And Bear Bryant was the coach and Kenny Stabler was the quarterback. So he sent me the game film of that. And it was amazing dad and I watched it together. And it was first time we've ever watched him play football together 50 years after the fact. But I watched him and I was amazed. I've heard Bradshaw do interviews and talk about that. And he compared his release to Joe Namath. When I watched him, it was like Dan Marino, you know, just a guy with a super quick release and there was evidence that he was a lot better than his surrounding talent, especially for 1966. So I watched him and I said, I get it. Now I know how you started ahead Bradshaw. Hewill say openly now he doesn't think he could have beat dadout. If Dad had not decided to leave. The way dad tells that he just went in one day, had one more year of eligibility. Bradshaw had two, and he went in and told Bradshaw that I'm hanging up the cleats. Right? So he called him Blonde bomber. He said, I'm hanging up my cleats. I don't care about it anymore. He said, You do and you're good enough to make it. He said, So you got it. And that was it. He walked away. He wants to hunt and fish. Of course, at that time he was not a Christian. So a lot more things going on his life. But Bradshaw says to this day I'm so glad he did, because that opened the doors for me. And of course, it turned out pretty good for both. But yeah, dad was really good athlete. No doubt about it. And the beautiful day now is that dad and I get to work together. I started a production company with my cousin about three years ago. We'd done a movie, called Torchbearer, and it kind of got stuck in limbo. But it's a documentary that's really good. So we thought out of that business we may be doing some movie stuff. And so we started this production of them together, but nothing really came of it until about a year and a half ago. We were approached by Blaze. At that time it was CR TV. Well, now it's Blaze TV. They've merged with Glenn Beck's group. So we're producing the show on Blaze For dad called In the Woods with Phil. We also produced a podcast that myself and Jace and dad are on called Unashamed with Phil Robertson. And then we have a couple of other shows on Blaze as well. So I love it. You know, I get to I'm with dad at least two days a week, sometimes three, depending on our filming schedule, their short format shows. His show is in the woods right now. We're doing a special called In the Quarantine with Phil, which is kind of funny. With his survival skills. He claims that he was the very first social distancing or 50 years ago. That's where you're probably right there, buddy. And so the show is on really, really well. And it's done great on Blaze. And the podcast is amazing. We've got a lot of people, mostly like you guys were described. We have a lot of young men and it's just straight Bible. Blaze is the process and said, look, we got a lot of great conservative political stuff and all that podcast, you know, but we would love to have something more spiritual and biblical. I said well you have come to the right place mmy friend. And so that's what we did. And that's just what I call it. Bible study. Robertson style. Funny stories, you know, stuff like that. We'll have guest on from time to time and especially family from the show. So a lot of our fans, you know, that were there, a lot of these young men grew up watching our show. They were teenagers or middle schoolers. And, you know, so they grew up with the family and loved us. And so now that they're kind of looking for their own way, it's and fiercely they're able to find out what it's all about. So it's just one more great step for us and Plank in our platform, so to speak.
William Norvell: Amen, that's amazing. Al, as we come to a close. That's a great transition though to what we always love to ask our guests. As you've told us throughout this podcast, it's just amazing how living God's word is and how it continues to tie people together through families and business. And we would love to offer that to our guests. And we just love to say, you know, is there a passage of scripture that could be something you're meditating on and this season your life could be something God told you this morning, just that you would be willing to share with our audience and see how how God's word can sort of transcend through our audience as well, through your experience.
Al Robertson: Absolutely. And I appreciate you asking.
You know, we've been teaching and do some stuff out of the book of John, and there's so many things that are motivating. But one thing that's just has really spoken to me and I find myself using it quite a bit is the story in Luke 7 where Jesus remembers being anointed by this woman in the Bible. Versions will say a sinful woman as if we're not all sinners, but this woman who had this, you know, bad reputation and she comes in and of course, the scene, you know, it's almost like people are looking at it like what is this? Because she's crying at his feet. She's wiping his feet with her tears in her hair. And yet she's obviously just in a broken position in your memory. There's a guy that invited Jesus over Simon. You know, he's sitting there and he's looking at this. And the more it goes on internally, the more it really is upsetting because he's like, you know, I didn't invite him here for this.
And so he even just has a thought. You know, like mad. I mean, if this guy keow who this woman was, he would be he must not be a prophet. You know, and I'm paraphrasing. But you remember Jesus looked at Simon and he said, Simon. I'm going to give you a little parable here. So he does. And he tells him that two guys that owe and one's bigger, one less. Who would feel better about being relieved of the debt? He said, well, the one who had the bigger debt. And he said, you judge correctly. And he said, you know, I came here. You didn't wash my feet. You didn't pour all of my head. You didn't greet me with a kiss. And here's this woman who doesn't own this home. And she's been doing all that the whole time I've been here. And then here's what's been speaking to me. He looks it's Amen and he says to the person who has been forgiven much they will love much to the person who's been forgiven a little. They will love little. And it was very obvious who's talking about it. Simon verses this woman.
And that really is spoken to me because, you know, you think about how willing we are to be forgiven or to offer forgiveness to other people in a corner. What Jesus says in that text that directly tells us how much we're willing to love people and put ourselves out there for people.
And so I think about that just in the whole Christian circle. And we have to be people who will embrace that forgiveness and be willing to offer to other people if we're ever going to love anybody. Otherwise, we just kind of close off our walls, close off our business, closed off ourselves to where we don't have anything to offer anybody else.
And so I really think a lot of has to link to that idea that I'm just a doesn't matter what my status is, my bank account is anything else. How much do I embrace the forgiveness of God and be willing to offer that to other people?
That's going to determine whether I would love folks or not love boats. And so that has just kind of driven me everyday when I get up and just kind of go through my life and mostly my walk. God, how much do I embrace your forgiveness today? Because anytime I have fear now I'm worried about. I'm not trusting God. I'm saying, you know, God, you may not can handle this one. But then I say, well, how am I gonna love anybody if I'm living my life in fear?
And I think in the current climate, we're in it's even a better message, you know, for how we should respond. So sorry for this sermon. But that's you know, you get what you're asking for.
Henry Kaestner: We wanted it and were grateful for it. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Al, this has been a great treat. We're blessed because of it. Our audience is just grateful for you and your time and your faithfulness. See your ministry and your vulnerability and transparency. And that was a great one. Thank you.
Al Robertson: You're very welcome.