If I faced God today and he said, I give your old life back, but you don't get anything that you've gained from that to this stay forward, I would say no.
Episode four fifty one with Granger Smith follow him everywhere at Granger Smith, TikTok and Instagram. So first, musically, a couple big hits. It's hard to we can't play clips anymore. But Back wrote song oOoOO, I can't even do it. This is my back wrote a good song.
You got it.
We used to sing that, dude like well part of that in a big medley when the idiots were our in our prime. You know, he's got a couple of books, and I guess the Kid's book is the new one. That's really what the focus is, and we get to it later on. But Up Toward the Light tells an inspiring story to bring a message of hope and strength to children navigating laws and grief and a lot of what we talk about. I want to say it dominates it,
but we talk about a lot the loss of his son. Yeah, because when we talk about a lot of stuff in this I really like Granger. Granger also works for the same company now doing a radio show. I guess before we come on.
Yeah, we lead right after him.
Yeah right, Yeah, it's weird because his is the Overnight show, so you but think it comes on way after us. I mean it kind of leads into us in a lot of places, you know, kind of took a hiatus, maybe a forever break away from music and now mostly just you know, giving his message of faith and his story with his family and Earld Doubles. Junior still lives, right.
He's still doing stuff.
Yeah.
YouTube panel, Yeah good.
So I liked this. I like Granger a whole lot. I thought that he was very vulnerable and very generous with his cues and his a's and that's weird. Also, before we start the we should do some kind of trigger warning, right.
Yeah, because he goes into some pretty detailed details about the passing of his son that even me, like listening to him talk about it, I never heard it in that amount of detail, but for some people who maybe.
You're right, he does talk about like physic you're right. Good trigger warning. I didn't think about that. Yeah, okay, trigger warning. It does get difficult to listen to. But for a specific reason.
Yeah, I think that's why we decided to leave it in there because I think it's important to hear about like his story, and it's a big part of his story, but it's also could be difficult for.
Something to hear.
Good call but Granger Smith, Episode four point fifty one. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. I like to start the conversation with where we just left off. In personal life. We're talking about biten fingernails because I lied to my wife and said that I didn't lie and lie and lie. I might have said, I'll lied, Okay, I did lie to her. I lied about biting my fingernails because she
doesn't like me to bite my fingernails. So I said I smashed it with a weight and so I got a bad hangnail that ripped the hangnail out it bled. She's like, oh, are you biting your fingernails? And I was like no, I was left and weight baby trying to get pumped for you. And she knows I like that.
But why is that a thing? Why is biting your nails a bad thing?
To two parts? One, it's just gross because everything you touch is now in your mouth. Meanka get yeah, and you can't even really wash your hands under your nails. Effect of work you can try. And then two, when you bite your fingernails, the little hangnails could grow on the side of them because you're starts to grow back, and it's just really painful and you have to rip them out and that hurts, or you can let it grow and it hurts, and it's just overall not a
good deal. I like it though, that's my favorite. I've had the list hobbies as of today, biting my fingernails top three.
So I don't think those two negative reasons though, outweigh. If it's your something.
You passionate about it, I think about starting a foundation for nell bitters everywhere I'm thinks. I'm thinking about making a move like you did and leaving all this to go and work with nel biters and really pump pump that message. Yeah, be impactful about nel biting.
Yeah, it just give out hand sanitizer as part of the thing.
Yeah, I shouldn't do it, because again it's stupid. And I did. The tasty stuff, the bad taste you put on it, and you like put it on your fingernails. It's like Neil polished but it's clear, but it tastes so bad. But then I just developed a strategy so often do of biting without tasting.
So I walked in here today and had no idea.
That this was a thing, me doing a show.
Well, no, no, not that that biting a nail, biting nails was such a thing that there were remedies that people will sell. Yeah, so that so that you could not do something that you actually don't mind doing. I love it, man, it's I don't get it. I don't understand that.
I would say, mostly because of the health ramifications. If you have a lot of journals and you put in your mouth and young kids that that's usually used for young young kids, the taste thing or me?
So, could you hold like a convention and talk about.
Hold I go on schedule for next week and everyone a lot of people would show up Vancouver who was sold out? All nail biters that you really?
Could you do? Could you do it? Oh?
I'll mean disgusting. I don't want to hang out with el biters.
They're gross. Evidently enough people buy the nail polish.
And nail biters are losers. Man, to be with a loser, Uh, that's me. That's mean. How you been buddy? Really, it's awesome to see you know, what's funny about doing I don't even let you answer the question. But what's funny is like I like you so much and like respect what you do and how you do it, and also consider you. Like we don't get to hang out enough
to be friend friends, but like a buddy friend. Which is that next level that I feel comfortable when you come over that it's like, oh cool, I get to go do this and not have to worry about it if I like the person or thank you man or And you know this because with your new career you got a couple of them. There are times where I feel like I have to be extremely on just in case because I don't know the skill set of the
other person or how they feel. I don't have to do that with you, which means I can even take long breaths.
M dude, that's a compliment. Thank you?
Yeah it really if you could feel I honestly feel that way about you.
Yeah, that's cool, thank you.
So how have you been?
Honestly what? I'm in a good place, better than I deserve, I should say.
Is that a thing that you say?
Now?
Because I had a coach that would always say how's it going? They always go better than I deserve? Do you really feel better than you deserve? I?
First of all, it is a thing because it's a great conversation starter. What do you mean by that? What? What do you deserve? You know?
I think you might have to know good though. If you say that, like if feel like better than I deserve, I'm like, I wonder what he stole?
So yes, so it could be just a thing that you say. It is a great conversation starter alluding to, well, what is it that you deserve? But on top of that, I am just actually in a good place. I really am.
Was there a place we'll call it your live stock market because we've seen each other a couple of times since, and I don't feel like you've retired. I feel like in this world of messaging whatever it is, sure, music, Jesus speaking, singing, sports, whatever, the messaging is like, it's all a version of that. And where I do a radio show or a podcast, or I do a sports show, we shoot a sports like TV show. But it's all the same, even though it's not. And it's all fulfilling
to me in different ways. And there are seasons where things are way more fulfilling to me than others, but there is now a fluidity to if you're brave enough to go try it, you might just be good at it and get to do it all. And that is something that I've seen you really thrive at because obviously you have massive success in me music, and I don't feel as a fan like you've stepped away. Even though you're in the weeds, You're not ten thousand feet above
it like I am. You may feel that way because you're not maybe writing as much, performing as much, but your music always lives, so I can go to it anytime. It's like when Tom Petty dies, for example, he hasn't died to me. I didn't. I don't know Tom Petty. Sure he's still alive to me. Granger Smith, like the music artist I really enjoy, is still living just as he was to me. But now you've decided to focus a lot of other energy on a lot of other things.
And so as the stock market of life seasons ago, did it go down at all after you decided to kind of leave in your mind a lot of your energy from music and put it somewhere else.
The stock market as me as a product, not specifically music, because you're just talking about.
Just you as a person. Do you feel like you took it down, you went down and questioned what you were doing, or if you could lose it all? Or did he get worse for you emotionally scary?
Even, Yeah, I get it. I live in a place now. It's funny. I was just having this conversation on the way here, literally that if I died tonight in my sleep, it would be enough. Today would have been enough. And I didn't live in that world. For all of my music career and probably most of my life on top of that, it was always it's not enough yet. I haven't gotten it yet. I'm still searching forward. I'm pushing
forward and I'm almost got it. I've got all this stuff, but I want a little bit more and I don't have that at all now. So does that mean the stock market of my life has gone down? Probably? But I think, but I think I like it to be down. That's think. That's kind of the.
Point, which which then I think it's up.
Yeah, the way however you look at it, Yeah.
Meaning I would judge the stock market of my life in the fulfillment that I have, And sometimes my fulfillment comes from things that I shouldn't be fulfilled. I shouldn't chase to be fulfilled by Yeah, those things that are very professional, non meaningful, ego based, award based, databased, short term, goal based, and at times, but like, I've been married now a couple of years, and it's been difficult for me at times because I was never with another person.
I don't I have the emotional and I don't even mean this is a joke, but the emotional knowledge of like it probably not like a fourteen year old because I never it was just me, never had to be in an intimate relationship with anybody. And it's been very hard. And there are some of the things that I thought were so important. I don't put as much energy into
going after those. I still do. I still care about a lot of things, but there's been a shift in my value system a bit because now I have another person and I'm learning how important that is and how hard If I work at that, the payoffs are even bigger. So I could go well personally, I think it's up. Professionally, maybe not as high as I would be, but as
long as I'm fulfilled, that's my stock market up. That all comes to what I'm fulfilled with because I am not the place where I know with what I was chasing, I'm never going to be satisfied. And that's not a good place to be because it and I'm still there in ways, but it didn't matter, it doesn't matter. I'm not going to be that monster it's been to me forever is never going to be full And at least I can acknowledge that now that there's nothing I can
do professionally that's going to make me go, I feel complete. Yeah, and that's that's that's nice to admit. But it's almost like a little like am I am I quitting or giving up? Or am I just maturing?
Yeah? And that's the that's the American culture, that American dream that's just so ingrained in us. It goes, don't quit, don't give up, keep going, keep pushing forward. Amazing, that's amazing that we have that. You know that that's a gift that we have that kind of drive And that's really what settled the West was that mentality. But at what level does that become dangerous? And is that outstride
or contentment? And I think that that's kind of a word that we're talking about here, is can you be great? You drive, you push forward, you chase, but can you be content with what you have? Now? That's the question. If the answers yes, then continue to chase and drive. If the answers know, then you need to pull back and start releasing some things.
And my answer is no, but it's not no anymore. There's a difference to me because there's a bit because of my wife. There's a bit of growth in realizing that there are other priorities than those extremely fleeting entertainment or chasing a love that is not real through people I don't really know, just so I feel like I've accomplished something, because I feel like I've never accomplished anything again. That thing never gets fed or briefly and then it's
hungry again. And I've been able to learn through her that the things sometimes that maybe I didn't even know existed with that are valued, like quality time, like that's there's that's currency, that's that's real, substantive, like the ability to have that and it go well means way more than I thought it would. So I've been able to shift a little bit of that. I just need to succeed to that, not all to that, and I wonder with my version of this have and you say you
could die tonight, and I hope that doesn't happen. But have you shifted a bit of your Okay, I gotta do this professionally too. Now I'm doing something that creates a healthy contentment and fulfillment and me and I feel better because of it.
Oh yeah, yeah, consolidating what I do to all the way down to the things that matter, the things that are meaningful to me.
Things are now, how about that? Yeah, because I'm sure they're different than what that mattered five years ago to ye, what matters now to you that maybe didn't matter as much five years ago.
Now I'm able to speak into lives and add an idea of hope in a world that a lot of people don't have any and so they chase other things to try to replace it. So if I can come in on a personal level, And you know, this is crazy, because I'm coming from a world where the more people I talk to, the better. So it's talk to a lot of people with a small, vague message, or talk to one person with a very impactful, deep message for
a long period of time. And I go to bed that night feeling fulfilled from one one coffee I had. I had coffee with a guy last week who lost his son. I live in Austin, he lives in Dallas. He's like, I'll do anything. I'm forty four days into this. I need to talk to you. I need I need to have coffee. So I'm looking at my schedule like I don't know the guy. It doesn't really make sense, but I know this is this is why I'm here. I need to be open to stuff like this. So
I say, yeah, Tuesday, will meet. He drives to temple. We meet.
What made you say yes? I want to get to the story, But what made you say yes? Other than just going I just need to do it? What because you thought about it. It's probably harder to do it than not do it. Why do you say yes to that?
I said yes because I've done it enough times to know that there is more fulfillment in that than whatever the rat race thing I was supposed to be doing on a Tuesday. So I meet the guy and we set this coffee shop for four hours and I talked for about twenty minutes out of the flour and listened
the rest of the times. He's just unpacking unpacking unpacking, and then but the times I was able to speak, the short time I could, I knew things to say that would impact him in a way that on his drive back to Dallas, I know he's gonna be thinking about it. And then I leave there and I'm like, I've missed out on whatever else I was doing today.
But that one guy that actually matters. I don't know why I can't articulate what you know in a cosmic way, why this one conversation mattered than me getting on a podcast and talking to thousands and tens of thousands, But it just.
Did, probably the promised intimacy because you're actually there seeing something to that the effect of the person, and the same way you could play music and watch people react and have a great night as well. But again, you're right, it's a big, vague, broad message for a lot, or a nuanced specific message for one. And it's pretty cool to see how that has changed inside of you. I would imagine at some point you still like the other
because I watch you speak sometimes what you do. Yeah, and yeah, it's definitely a specific ish message, but and you're definitely trying to affect people that are watching you. But it has to be tailored a bit more generically than if you're just talking to a person across from you. When you speak, to speak or your church, your preacher, whatever, how are you defining do you do sermons? Would you go yours a sermon?
Yeah, it's mixed like sometimes it's a church like literally this this coming Sunday is a sermon, Okay, Sunday morning, but it's not always. Sometimes it's a youth conference or whatever.
When you speak and you leave that, what is that feeling like? Because you haven't set across from them and got their specific nuance needs a reaction, But you still just went and took your message and your feelings and were vulnerable and shared to people who are needing and wanting. That described the two, The difference between the.
Two similar to concerts music. I could walk off from the message and and think, man, I don't know if I don't know if I did, I don't know if that mattered at all. I think that might have been horrible. And then there's other times I walk off and go I think I nailed it. I think I nailed that. It's interesting that I get the it's I get the
same type of feeling. But but I do know that the sword is sharper with the message that I'm giving now as opposed to just a more generic I'm just going to play a concert and make you smile, which is great. It's great. I always thought of myself as being able to make people take an emotional journey three
minutes at a time. But what I what I know now is where that the goal is to really affect people on an intimate level, so that if they are hurting past the point of I don't even want to live anymore, then this could affect that person in a positive way.
And I think all are needed, and I don't think one's more important than the other. And I don't think you're even saying that I'm saying, I'm not. You're you're right, and I don't want to be a misconstrue. What you're saying is I don't believe that your message, and most people will hear that. But I think all are needed, and sometimes to be better at being able to have
empathy or understanding that comes with extreme difficulty. Like any of the empathetic skills that I have, any of the understanding that I have that I can help with has always come through. It's really crappy stuff happening, and even with you know like a river the book and your tattoo says River, and you know your son and how that tragically changed your life and your whole family's life,
And you would never wish that on anyone. The tools and the skills and the empathy that you gained from that, that you could go back, you'd never want to have to gain those if you were to ask, No, you don't want to gain it. You don't want It's terribly tragic. But what it seems to me again, from ten thousand feet up, you've taken those that skill set and now you're using it. Specifically the guy you met with for coffee.
You know what I told that guy in the brief time, the twenty minutes. I told you that I was going to say only a few things that would matter, And I told him something that's only been a recent thought in my mind that i've worked through just recently, and I've never said this in a public setting, and I haven't fully unpacked it yet. But the truth is this, if I faced God today and he said, I give you River back, I give you your old life back, but you don't get anything that you've gained from that
to this day forward. Right, you don't get any of that, You just get River and your old life. I would say, no, take I can't. I can't go back there even to have River back, because I was broken so much that the new growth that came from that death really from me. I'm not even I'm not. I'm talking about just me. I'm a new, different person and I can't go back into that old self again because I just see things differently.
Now, Hank Tight, the Bobby cast will be right back and we're back on the Bobby Cast doing it.
In that example of retrospectively, if let's say that was positioned to you beforehand, and it was you're gonna gain all these empathetic you're gonna be able to help, but you probably pick a different answer.
Yeah, that's impossible. I would say no, absolutely no, Like I'm good, I'm good.
But it took real tragedy and for you to go through it, never be all the way through it, never like it's it's never going to be easy. Yeah, it's never going to be. But to spend so much of your time now dedicated to helping others who have been in similar situations or just in broadly difficult times. I
don't think myself included. I couldn't, I wouldn't couldn't do that, Like I and you gave up a lot to do that, And I think that is a it's a very noble thing to do where you're not asking for the praise. But it's like if I sit here and don't praise you, I would and praise you as just like I really appreciate you, Like I would feel like I wasn't being honest while I was talking to you.
Yeah, and I and I and I appreciate that. And at the same time I was also I'm so stubborn that it's like that's what it took, no for sure for me to finally be broken.
It took also gotta be real stubborn to make it in the first time in your first career. Like if you're not nuts, you don't do a nuts job and not make it. If you're not nuts, you got to have a screw loose. It's gotta be the right screw.
You gotta have a screw loos to even go and try to be an artist, a country music artist, much less one that's going to find success once much less one's gonna find success in the like a niche ish part of country music, which is the Texas scene, and then be smart enough to strategize how do I turn this into a national thing while not being turning off your old like you were able to walk this road professionally, really unlike any other artist I've seen, because there's so
many people that come from where you come from musically that when they do it, they get turned on pretty hard because people go, yeah, oh, it's like the Australia top poppy syndrome. Oh yeah, you're a little Oh you're too tall, We're gonna cut you down. You're now not one of us anymore.
Huh yeah.
In that version that season for you, when you were just really killing it doing country music like you're one of the only guys I really didn't feel that from from the Texas red dirt whatever you want to call it, that scene, and then you didn't have whatever the Nashville version is going, this guy thinks he's better than us, and he's going to come and try to be a Texas artist, like you were able to navigate all that
so perfectly. That took real stubbornness because every step of the way was met with I probably wouldn't do it this way. No one's really done it like this before. While you're doing comedy and comedy music, and you've taken that stubbornness and you've put it here and it's a beautiful thing as long as it doesn't make you mentally unhealthy. Sure that it makes me mentally unhealthy at times, but
I found what does being stubborn? Absolutely I'll commit to something and I know I'm wrong at times, and it's like, I'm not going to quit because I don't like to cut my losses, even though I feel at times like it's, uh, probably the best thing to do, because I need to prove to either like the kid version of me or like an adult version of somebody who was not good to me as a kid who's not even around anymore. But without that stubbornness and having a bit of scrutlois,
I wouldn't made it here. But I've seen you take that that stubbornness. It's now in a different place and it's a different stubbornness. And the fact that you can say, and I'm kind of moved by this, that if you were good today, you'd be good. I can't believe that because that kind of person. To be an artist, you got to be like it's it's all irrational. Everything's irrational
to think you can be an artist. People are gonna pay money and stream your stuff and stream your music, and that they should come to your show and they should get a sitter and they should try to think you're good enough that people. That's irrational, it is, and you gotta be nuts to think you can do that, and you did it.
And literally to be mad at them if they don't.
Or to be mad at yourself because they didn't. Yeah. Yeah, but now you've taken that stubborness and you've put it in a way it's actually changing lives, and it's I wonder how long you can do it until you start to be like I almost did. I did news for like early on, I did some TV news stuff and I couldn't be around the sadness all the time. I was strong enough and it kept doing comedy and I was doing TV. I didn't have it. I didn't have the guts for it. Didn't have And what you're doing
a lot of what you're doing isn't flowers and candy. Yeah, and are you going to be stubborn? And how long until you're you're like, I want to go back and do some music again. You know how, when when does the stubbornness here? Will you let that stubbornness go back there a little bit?
Yeah, it's framed. You framed it well because stubbornness would be the one thing that would make me turn back again. But I could see to right here on the show and say to tell you with confidence, as far as I know, I cannot see myself being an artist again.
But will you be so stubborn because you said that you won't allow it even though you want it.
But yeah, the reason you framed it that way is because stubborn people do stubborn things. But as I sider on this couch today, I say, I just can't foresee going back in a place where I'm needing the attention so much that and that's really what it is. As an artist. I need people to love me on a level that they want to hire the babysitter and leave everything behind and stream my music and come to the concert. I need that otherwise I'm not succeeding. And as I
recognize that, and I have to be consistent. When I say that I need to be consistent with writing books that I feel the same way. If I write a book, I can't expect a certain amount of people to buy it. Otherwise that's an inconsistency in my argument here. So I need to say I'm writing books for the one. Can
I really live up to that? That's difficult, but that's the ar Can I write a book and know that I'm going to put all this effort just so one life is changed for the better because of it, Because that's a good goal.
But it's a mass A book's a mass product though if it books like like you're speaking to a crowd.
So then you've got publishers involved, and you've got a certain amount that you that they need to sell to make an overhead. So can I be consistent and go, you guys, do what you got to do. But I'm out of the rat race. I'm going to do this for the one. Now I'm humans. I don't know. I don't totally know the answer to I don't know if I could consistently go, it's only about one, It's only
about one. But as I said here today, I could tell you with confidence that I don't want to go back to the music business.
Do you have enough money to do this and do passion and keep the same lifestyle that you've built, So.
That's a money thing. Is a new question, and it's a good thing to introduce into this conversation because that's another thing I have to be consistent with with my contentment in today has to be so financial contentment today without worrying about is this sustainable? I could be responsible about that and go, well, can we pay bills? That's irresponsible, But is a lifestyle sustainable? Then I have to go maybe not, and that's probably okay.
The Bobby cast will be right back. This is the Bobby Cast.
Have you had to have that conversation with your wife or most importantly before you have that with yourself at a level where you really spend time thinking about it.
I have myself for sure. I think about it all the time because the more I give up with a lifestyle, I don't feel any worse about it. In fact, I feel more free. It's really interesting.
Counteretitive, Yeah, yeah.
And so amber Man just, by the grace of God, she's just she doesn't need a lot, thankfully, but it would be very difficult if she did.
What about the platform you've created. Let's say you do this for a while and you're changing lives, but you're becoming a little less famous. There's a little less shined. Great because now I think people attach themselves to you because of who you are, what you do, and how you say it. But I think they give you a chance a lot of times because you're freaking grange Er Smith,
your celebrity in their mind. The longer you do this and you focus on what is fulfilling to you and matters to you, that platform does not stay as tall as it was, which then could affect even the amount of people that you're able to closely change.
Yeah.
Have you had that?
Yeah? And I think about it. Yeah. It's interesting because I've been doing a lot of mission work in the past past a few years. I've been able to travel to a lot of remote places, for instance, like the mountains of Cuba. And when I go into the mountains of Cuba, no one knows Granger Smith, no one cares. I'm just one member of a small team that's going into the mountains to bring medicine to children and to give a message of hope about Jesus. So when I go in there, when I leave there, I crave it.
I'm like, that was no one knew about country music, or even river or anything about me. I was just a guy with a message. And because of that, that's the only really data point I have on what would it be like for no one to know you? But just from that alone, I'm like, that's pretty cool, just to be a part of the team. No, no greater or lesser.
You know why it's cool though, because it's not normal. Right now, Okay comes a lot more normal.
Okay, I would say the life of Okay. Let me look at it this way. As I was in country music, I would always look at the older guys and go, that's like, that's the trajectory. You could either go to the to this guy, or you could be this guy, or you could be this guy. But but all of them are kind of you know the guy, the nineties country guys. You could see him at festivals, you know, at the three o'clock spot, And I would think about that a lot, like which one of those guys am
I going? Am I going to be? Now? I look at a little church and a pastor, I say, little, you know, anywhere between one hundred to a thousand, and he's got it's just one shepherd and his other his other pastors that work there and his flock. And I see those guys, and now that's that's kind of where I look now, whether or not it's an author pastor that's written a lot of book and travels, or he has no popularity and he just has a little church
and he travels the world that when he can. And I'm like, Okay, I see that, and I go, okay, that that feels like home.
So you can see that and go if that's it, that's cool. Yeah, that's man's that's extremely temporarily very healthy of you. It is. I'm not saying it's not always going to be sure, but I know I change all the time with what's.
A good argument that you're making, Like, well you think that now, talk to me and tend you talk to me in twenty years. That's a good argument you're making.
My issue within myself has always been in my manager, someone that I talk with a lot, Corn Capshaw. Him and I have spoken a lot about platform and giving, and I would feel like if I did just went and did more unsoldish things. I've been a very selfish person and not in the way of like I need to be me, me me, but like everything's always been I'm an artist in a different way product and it's always how can I make the product better? How can I sharpen it? What do I got to take care
of here? So it's been very I'm the sun in the heliocentric universe. I felt that way for a long time. And also I didn't have a family, and so I was even as a kid I grew up, it was just me surviving. And so what if I was a little less selfish and I took thirty percent of the time forty percent of the time and didn't do as much artist ry whatever you call it, and did more
of let'll just call it general giving. And the conversation that I had with Korn, who was given so much, and he referenced somebody that's very famous that he has worked with, and he said, it's gonna have to be what fulfills you either way, because there's no line, there's
no right answer for this. But if you lose your platform, there is the possibility you actually lose the ability to give as much as you want to give, and you have to find that line of if you decide to take eighty percent of your time and go and give and go and do things, well, that's eighty percent of the time that you're not able to sustain what people even care for you about, so you can give more. And I think my struggle has been finding that line.
So the question is it becomes is it a heart issue or an impact issue, because if you're trying to it can be both. It can be both, it can be both, but it always starts with the heart, not the impact. So you know, for instance, when Jesus was watching the people come on and tie and give all the money and all these all the people at all this money and they're given, and he's looking at he's with the disciples, and that one lady comes in with two small copper coins and he says, you see that
woman gave all that she had. That is from the heart. That's what matters. And so it's interesting to think about that because we you and I both will think bigger platform, bigger impact, bigger help affect more people, fact more people help the world. But when I've gone and experienced you know, the like a trip to Cuba, like I said, and I'm just impacting in a very small way, but on a personal level, I my heart is much more enlarged
by doing that. Interestingly enough, as opposed to let's raise as much money as we can and give a billion dollars to starving kids in India. There's a disconnection there, and that's something that I still want to unpack. But it's it's interesting to think, Yeah.
It feels like you're closer to your line than I am mine because I can't find mine right now. Like I don't know, because I want to do a lot of things and help a lot of people, but I don't want to lose my ability to have that line to get to them. And I don't know what it is. I can't really I'm still searching for my line.
Well so partly. And this is what I had to learn after losing riv is I don't I don't get to decide what happens in my life. There's something out there, there's something else that's I can't control it all. And so when I thought I had the wife and the three kids and everything was great, and then and then
all that falls apart. That's a that's a slap in the face that wait a minute, you mean, I don't have control over everything, and so to think that I need to plan because I need to have control over my giving and my philanthropy and my in my books, and I need to control that and my and the money that we have to live on, or do I live day to day and go, I'm going to give my heart today and trust that there is there's something else that's that's driving everything and not me.
And theory that sounds awesome, well if it is me.
So to test the theory, we have to see how do how do we experience that in life? So your experience so far, what you've just what you've said is that when you do try to make a big splash and give, you feel like there's something.
Else, something a little more personal. But I still want to reach a lot of people, and there's a threshold, but I don't. I don't know where it is. I can't find it right now.
What do you love to do when as far as giving.
Back, it's very selfish? No, no, no, But my love to give back is very selfish, okay, And and that I only really understand stuff that's happened to me. So food insecurity okay, sure, But I don't for the most part see those people, right, But I know what it was like for people that didn't see me, and when they gave us food, it changed my life. So I don't think I need to be there because they weren't always there for me.
What is the thing that you do to fulfill that desire for the needy?
That one would be a financial Okay, yes, great, So.
The challenge would be, let's go to Cambodia and go in a slum when instead of a lot of money, we have a meal. We go to find a family that needs a meal. Maybe that's the disconnect you're talking about. Then maybe that's the gray area.
Maybe like I've been to Haiti and done, you know, and and you know, we we built a freaking orphanage over there, you know. But I wasn't an orphan and it felt good to know I help people, but there wasn't a personal like it's super personal, like I know what that feels like. So therefore I feel selfish because I'm like, what why am I?
Like?
Why can't I like help birds or something? Because I wish I just had something in me that was like I just want to help something that's not I think I'm just trying to fix young me. I think that's what like, I'm working inside of a time machine and I'm trying to be trying to get to a younger version of me and be there in that way that people were there for me. A hospital like work a lot with Saint Jude. I was in the hospital as a kid a bunch okay, didn't have cancer, but without
people helping it just wouldn't. That church being there and bringing mells and and Saint Jude is a natural thing to walk into here. However, it's been a different level with me and us because of my experience of being in a hospital, as in the hospital as a kid and depending on others, which is what that hospital does.
Now.
I do get to meet different patients, but again it's that doesn't feel very personal, except I guess the personal thing is that it's I. That's why I say it selfish, I feel like I'm helping me even though it's not really me.
What were you missing? What was the young version of you missing during those times that now you're trying to.
Fill Generally, probably I mean stability, love, and it's you know, I didn't know my dad mom was an adict, so it's kind of just by myself mostly not physically always, but it was. It was definitely emotionally like I was. It was very alone. We also didn't have money. So if it weren't for people like helping out food like I mentioned, like I needed that school supplies like that wouldn't have happened. So that's what I try to do.
And a lot of times I just feel like I can fix it in a lot of ways with just we make more money, so I can help raise more money or give more money. But then there's this like a personal connection that's not quite there.
Do you go to Arkansas a lot? Do you do you ever find kids where you go? That's that was me.
Oh yeah, and I help them as much as I can immediately with what, uh, well money, here's just money, here's here to take money.
How do you feel when you do that, like.
I need to do it more? Never good, but like I need like it's still not.
Enough, Like it's not enough. Yeah. Interesting, How do you feel.
After the coffee and you talk for twenty minutes? He talked for almost four hours, which is the purpose of it, right, Yeah, how I mean, what does that feel? Did you do you feel like I just did enough, or that's inspired me to do more like this, to give up more tuesdays on my calendars packed for situations like this.
How do you feel over time? That's that's definitely changed because coming right out of being an artist, it was like, you know, it's hyper sensitive to my schedule and very aware of the rat race and you know, making the big impact. And I think I learned that the those those type of conversations, I was starting to leave them more and more saying that was enough. I did what I needed to do today, and if I don't wake up in the morning today was enough. That was I
didn't just wake up and start thinking that. But I feel that more than I do when I go speak. In fact, it's crazy because I'll go speak at a youth conference and a bunch of kids everywhere, and I'll leave and go was it enough? I don't know. There's a disconnection, there's a personal disconnection.
Did you what's your parents situation? Are they alive or were they together?
Dad? They were together lost at in twenty fourteen, older fifty or sixty one.
So too young but old enough for you to have a full life with them?
Yeah?
Yeah, were they loving? And supportive to you. Yes, so you have that language.
That you learned.
Sorry, we had to show last on my voices. Looky, I don't really have that length. Like the personal thing. I'm like, I'm not good. I can do it on stage in front of thousands of people. Well, then, like, I don't think I could have this conversation if we didn't have Mike's in front of us. M which is weird. I don't think I would be vulnerable enough. But because this is a show, I'm not doing a show, but
it is a show, so it's not real. So I would have trouble sitting with a guy for four hours going I feel you, I understand you, let me help you. Because I don't know. I couldn't communicate that we do this got it? And I think that's probably where a little bit of my disconnect comes. I don't skilled at I think it's been a learning part of my marriage is that communication. Like I said, I'm like fourteen, like a teenager, I'm not ten anymore, which I was when
we got married. That did not have the skills loved or had no skills and being intimate. And I'm not talking about like sex. I'm talking about like two people. Yeah, and maybe my development here helps me there, And that's so great.
So how far have you come since you got married? Been in out ten miles? So that what you're saying is with experience, with practice, that that personal connection gets easier and grows with practice.
But also, yes, and we're doing it wrong because that's where I learn what's trying to learn anything? Really? But it's like when we I used to think every fight we got into, we're about to get divorced. Yeah, yeah, because I've never been in a fight. I was never with anybody. And now I've realized that the fights that we get into are actually like classes and like learning each other more. We tend to not get into that same exact fight again. Sometimes I have, you know, have
biting my fingernails. That's not a fight, but she's like, stop biting your fingernails. But there are like fundamental ones that it's taken that really uncomfortable situation for me to learn and to get better at and then to communicate the next time in a more effective way. And I think that's how I've traveled these yeah, these miles. Now professionally, I'm I'm I'm I'm a Methuselah. Sure what, Yeah, Like I've been through I've been through it all, done bad contracts.
I've accomplished things that I didn't think I was accomplished. I've not accomplished things I've written, I've done I could act, So I have that I've done a ton and I'm very educated and I can help people and I feel good. I guess it for three hours to get people advice, but when it and I think that's where I'm missing my my line. But I feel okay about that. I'm getting there because I'm actually getting better at on a more micro level here. Then that's the only way I would have start.
You know that a big difference between me now and me ten years ago is one of the I guess one of the many reasons is I'll see a guy like in the parking lot and he'll go, hey, Granger, yeah, and I'll see it on his face. I know something's going on. Hey man, I talked to you just for a second. Man, I'm really going through something. I lost this or that I don't know what to do. And you're the only guy that I like to listen to. That the only guy I could hear and this this
is the difference. I'll go, we'll talk for a little bit, I'll get a little bit of a read on him. I'll pull up my phone, pull up the context page and say, put your number in here, let's talk. Man. That is so far from the I would so I would hold my number. I wouldn't give my number out.
I wouldn't.
I'd be so worried about my personal space and like my time. And now I'm like, hey, man, call me. And it's really stepping off of a ledge for me to say that. But the more and more I do it, I get used to it. And surprisingly, for the most part, people respect that. If I give them my phone and say write your contact in or I'll text you, they're pretty respectful. I don't think I have anyone that has been disrespectful of that. But it has been interesting to build.
I have a lot of people that kind of build these little relationships just from texting. It's interesting.
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor, Welcome back to the Bobby Cast.
When you're writing, and I haven't looked at a single, No, I haven't even I don't know any I haven't looked at a single even worry about it. But my question is because again I feel like I can just talk to you about whatever, and I don't have like tiptoe around the line, right sure, otherwise I want to be like, how about your money? Like I really feel like I can disask that, because I think people wonder that when you write, and not so much like up toward the light,
which we can get to it. But when you write like a River, it's very it's extremely at times personal, and you have to re refeel things and sometimes discover things that you didn't feel the first time. Yeah, or at least not fully because it was so painful that you're not you can't take it all in all at once.
It's like a fire hose coming at you when you write a book like like a River, and you have to re experience some of the things by writing about it or even thinking about if you're going to write it about it or not. How difficult was that to kind of travel back through and try to communicate properly because you've had a little distance from it. It still sucks, but now you not just feeling, You've got to feel it and communicate it and yet still take yourself through
it again. So you can't communicate it.
When I first was kind of putting together the outline for it, I realized early on, this is going to be more than I thought, because the first literally the first chapter is we lose River, and then I've got a bunch of I've got a bunch more chapters, and it's all the aftermath. Really, the book is really the
aftermath of losing him. And as I was doing the outline, and this is this chapter, then i'll say this, i'll say this, I'll say this, and I completed it, and I knew there was a piece I was intentionally missing because I just didn't want to go there, and it was the time when I was, you know, almost killed myself suicide. But the story wasn't complete without it. So at some level I was like, my wife didn't know
about it, no one knew about it. It's like it needs to be a chapter because this part doesn't make sense down here without the connector. And the connector was the dark night that I had, and so going there was something. And then not only going there, but then I called Amber and I told her I got to tell you. I literally waited till the book proposal was done,
and they're going to pitch it to publishers. And the book proposal had a chapter summaries, and as it was going out, I was like, I better call Amber and tell her that's how long I waited. And she cried and then she said, well, you better call your mom. Mom didn't know, and then Mom said you better call
your brothers. No one knew about this, So it was not only writing it and thinking through it as I was writing it, but then telling the world about the most embarrassed seeing the most vulnerable moment in my life when I almost killed myself.
So if people were to read the book and you didn't put that in, they wouldn't have known it wasn't in. They still would have felt, this is impactful book, this has taught me a lesson. They wouldn't have known that it was not in. Yet you put it in because to you, did it not feel like you were being or you were giving the honest version of your thoughts, feelings, emotions about what happened?
Correct? That was that was the hinge. That was the pivot moment in my trying to fix myself, and then that was the pivot into surrender.
I can't fix my Was that uh, dealing with the addiction? Was it? Was it a mental emotional like the bottom for you? Was that the bottom that made you just made you go. If I don't go up from here, it's going to be over over And that was it?
If I don't know how to better define a bottom, but that's bottom as I've ever been.
Yeah, why did you shoes not to commit suicide? Like what was in your head? They says, Okay, I need to fight this. It's more than an urge. This urge is not the correct word for it. But why why did you not do it?
Yeah? I want to say I want to tell you without sounding weird, because it kind of gets a little weird. But I'll just describe it the best I can. When I reached this in Boise, Idaho, we were playing back to back shows December of twenty nineteen. And you know when you play back to back shows, you don't travel in between, so there's kill a lot of time the bus isn't moving. I went with the band and had a few drinks way too many. Was feeling normal again.
Went back to the bus six months after losing River, feeling okay, like feeling like a human being again. Went to my back lounge and saw like all my self help books, my little marijuana pin, all the little things that I had done to create a world to make me feel normal, instantly recognizing things aren't normal. Then I realized, well, this is probably the first time I've been drunk since
I've been therapy. All this, I've put all these barriers in place to try to protect me from my slideshow, which is this PTSD idea of I would just see River in the pool, floating face down. I would pick him up. His face is purple, his eyes are open, just looking in all directions. His hair's messed up, his
limbs are dangling like a rag doll. I'm doing CPR, wondering if I should press harder on his chest or if it might break his bones, and then thinking maybe that's the least of my worries right now, Like all these ideas. Then I see the doctor walk in. He tells me no chance. I hear those ambulances screaming down that quiet road. I see my son Lincoln's hand on his brother's lightning me Queen coffin his best friend's funeral.
All these things were just haunting me, not just the grief of losing a child, but the shame and the guilt that I was there and failed. All of it was culminating that night, and Boise and I had the most vivid what I called the slide show, just panic attack, trying couldn't stop it. Hit that weed pin as hard as I could. I was already way too intoxicated, and realizing there was no hope, grabbed the nine milimeters pistol that we had in the drawer, put it in my mouth.
And this is when it gets weird. I realized that I had I thought, a thought that my mind didn't generate. I knew it was a foreign thought, as if as if there was something else thinking for me or providing information to me. I think that's the best way I could describe it. In that moment, I realized I was not alone. Basically, something else was with me that night, and I heard in the thought was a voice that said, this is the way to rest, this is the way
to peace. Just squeeze the trigger. And it was it was realizing that I was under attack the first time. It had never occurred to me in my whole life as a cultural, nominal religious person, had never occurred to me that there was an enemy that I'd been stalked and and it just about killed me that night.
But to realize that there's an enemy at a time when you're realizing button isn't really working, that to separate, to be able to do and go, this is not me at a time and again it's a lot of irrational thoughts are happening, yeah, And to have the one rational thought, So.
The one rational thought caused the next thing to happen. And that's when I said, Jesus, please, please save me, Please Jesus save that. Just it was like a knee jerk. It's like an old pulling back on the old Sunday School knee jerk reaction. But when I said it, the Slade show stopped. It's actually stopped. Everything stopped, that weird pain that the voice. There was just enough rest for me to drop the gun, to fold the floor, and I just cried myself asleep on the floor of the bus,
saying please Jesus saved me. Because what changed was I went from shame and guilt and panic attack to all of a sudden fear of an enemy that I didn't even know.
I was surrounded by the fact that you can have that rational thought in the midst of that storm of complete irrationality. To be able to not do it.
Is the only reason I'm sitting in this chair right now. I would have been another statistic that you read on the show.
I don't really read a lot of those statistics. Those stakes don't make me happy. But yeah, to me, that is that is just wild. That again, that is a time where you've obviously at the temporarily lost control, yet you still felt something still got There's still a bit of control that got through. That. Why it feels crazy is that usually in that situation, I think a lot of people don't have the opportunity to have or find the rational thought.
I don't give myself credit for that because I know this, No, I don't either. I know the statistics, and I know it's rare.
That you can even recognize the difference in the two That is so I, yeah to I would be extremely grateful, and you are, and that I think this is one of the ways that I think I could kind of that shouldn't happen. I don't know how you got a clear thought in your mind went at a very non clear thought time, and I do see almost I can feel why that would change fundation mentally, right, fundamentally the reason you do what you do.
Right. You can't be the same person after a night like.
That, Yeah, because I don't think you feel the same way because something new has something new has reached you. Yeah, that has not reached you before. And again I'm gonna say this, I don't think you would ever wish that would happen to you in a million years. No, however, and I'm not even you can say I'm wrong. However, I bet there's a thankfulness to you that that happened. Because of all the things that's been able to happen since then, which again feels like the opposite of what
should happen. You shouldn't be and you would never wish that on anybody to go through. But again, because that happened, you've been able to find fulfillment. It feels like general fulfillment in helping others. Would you am I somewhat right on that.
I died that night. Spiritually I am not the same that that night marked a death for me. And you can't live the same when you're when you're a new person in that sense, spiritually, you can't go back, and you can't even want it back even that's why I don't even want that life back.
I guess my point is that, and I'll move off this because you're also really funny, and I haven't even got to be funny with you because you're like super funny. It's like you're like one of the funniest guys. In the same way we talked about River and you said, if I could go back what I've gained and what I've lost, you can't compare the two. But the person I am now because that happened, I feel like you're
now able to find fulfillment. Because that moment happened, at that terrible night, that moment with that gun where you almost killed yourself. You are able to find fulfillment now because that is the trigger that kind of started it all and you would never wish to anybody else. But without it, I don't know that you'd be here now. Do you think you'd be here now in the same way?
Oh no, not even close. I'd be promoting a new single.
So it's gonna say it's because it's not the same. It's like, are you thankful for that? It's not even the question. But without that, you wouldn't be here, but there's got to be an appreciation for what you've gained from it.
So after that night, though I it wasn't that was the catalyst, But but then I was on a new mission to find out what actually happened it like, is there a practical is there what mechanism? It actually happened in my mind? And why did I drop the gun? So that that was a new mission and can you activate it again? Can you get back to it, and can you get back to it more? And can you use that to that that's what came. That became the new journey.
Yeah, right, maybe that that's the new goal. That's what it feels like to me.
And so through that, through unpacking that is then what I was able to take that and go out to other people and have these conversations.
Yeah, you've lived the life of many and it's really cool that you're taking that and and helping because I don't know, I don't know, I don't know that I would do that if I just try to do this, build another house. You know.
That goes back to our conversation about being stubborn, because I too, am very stubborn and I can't there's no way I could sit in your shoes and look at somebody in my shoes and go, I don't know if I could do it, because the answer is you don't know if you can. But when it comes down to it, if you're broken enough, you will.
How's the radio stuff going?
You know? I like it? I like it a lot.
Do you like it more or less than you did three months after you started, when the honeymoon was finally over.
I like it more now, Yeah, with more understanding of what we're doing.
Yeah, what about that to you? I hate to keep yousing the same more, but what fulfills you about doing the radio show now?
So, going kind of along the same lines as what we've been talking about, I'm speaking to people in the middle of the night, and it's really one on one. I get to talk to people, and I imagine a dude with the zeer buds in stocking the shelves some grocery store, making the delivery for Amazon, and he's alone and maybe having some of these thoughts, maybe on the verge of some of the things that I've been through. And then there I am speaking to him and it's sporadic.
You know, there's a lot of music in other conversations, But there are moments when I could actually have a normal conversation with someone, not in up a robotic way, not in a you know, some kind of like you know, I'm just reading out of a cookie cutter, and you feel.
That, yeah, it's your show. You wouldn't read out of a cookie cutter. They may I think everybody knew this about you when you started. They may go, here's what we're gonna do this cookie Cutter at the beginning, so you can kind of get your bearings and under you. You're not cookie cutter, and anything you've ever done, I don't think no one thought you were really cook cutter. And I think people in this world are actually quite impressed with what you've been able to do with that.
And also I think what you're about to do even more inside of that world, Like it's just like untapped in this area for what you want to do. It's crazy to see how like naturally, I don't want to say talented, because yeah, you get it's hard. It's a lot of hard work, and you have grown in other areas, but like you're real good, and good means that you can do whatever you want it's crazy to see how much you have understood what needs to be done but
then figured out ways to do it differently and still connect. Like, given some of the stuff that you're thinking about thinking about doing, I hear about right like they're like, I'm like, that's such a freaking good idea. Then it's inspiring to me who's been like I'm seven hundred years old in
this business. Yeah, So I hope you're enjoying it because you're really good at it, making a difference in a way that really no one has, and connecting in a way that no one has because you're just being you. And the only way we have to connect individually is by being ourselves because really only us there is.
Yeah, And I appreciate that encouragement, and I have to always remind myself but if it's just today, today's enough. If I could keep that, and you have to fight for that, you have to dig for that kind of mentality of I'm content today. If today, if today's all I got, then that's enough. And there's all these great ideas, and like I said, we responsibly plan and prepare for great ideas and we dream about them. But if it was only today, would that be enough, and I have to say, yes, that's crazy.
Because I don't say that. I mean, like, fifty more years, man, one hundred more years, and then it won't be enough either. But hopefully one hundred years I'll find the enough but I haven't yet.
So are you to kind of go with like if you could figure out how to freeze yourself and then oh for sure restall? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's you.
Absolutely. I have those thoughts all the time. We quick we talked about the book before you got here, like the in the promba. But don't tell me, tell me about Up Toward the Light. Give me your version of why you did it the difference because I've written a kids book too, and I actually know the difference. For me, it was I just there are words I used in my kids book. I don't even really know that text. You know, it's telling a message differently you have kids,
I didn't. I did it because I selfishly I wrote a kid's book, donated all the money. But I did it because I wanted a kid to get a book with the message of it's okay to be different. Yeah yeah, why why up Towards What was the message here in this book?
Well? It's it's a true story, not the kid version of it, but the the adult version was what I went through therapy with. And I remember my therapist this is way before the Dark Knight and Boise, and it was part of the reason I got I lost my mind in boys because I thought I had worked so hard in therapy. But he said, at one point, therapist, he said, what do you want to be for your family? Who do you see yourself? How do you see yourself in relation to your family? And I said, I want
to be a rock. You know It's like that's the reaction. I want to be a rock, you know that everyone could lean on me. And he said, and who does the rock lean on? I was like yeah, And he goes, let me encourage you to think of yourself maybe as a tree, because then you could bend. You have strength, and you're strong and you have roots, but you could also lose limbs and lose leaves and could be more flexible.
And I was like, yeah, I like that. So he goes, my challenge to you, I want you to go outside. This is it on site and you're in Tennessee.
I went to one too.
Yeah, yeah, he said, go out in the woods, and I want you to have a conversation with a tree and write it down and see what you learn. It's like, it's kind of weird. But I went out in the woods and I probably sat for like forty five minutes before I knew anything. I found a tree first of all, just like a normal, average tree that I could relate to. And then I sat there with a pin and pad, and eventually I was like, okay, high tree, I'm granger. It's like high Granger.
Probably felt pretty goofy at first. Yeah, I had to talk to a chair. Okay, okay, good, Yeah, so you could relate to this and so. But what I ended up realizing through that conversation with this tree was that that we we have a tendency to folk on everything that's providing nourishment down here.
You know, roots, the soil. We can lose, our leaves, we can shed our branches. That's great. But if we only focus on that, just a nourishment the people surrounding us, that you know, everything we've built down here, we lose the ability to grow up toward the light, which is the only way to really grow. The only direction a tree grows is up. But if we only focus on what's below people. We've lost, people, we've learned from things that we've built. We totally lose that perspective.
When you said, what is the rock lane on my unhealthy answer would have been on a rock, I don't need a lean I'm strong enough on myself.
True right, Yeah, I feel you.
That would have been what I would have said, And then I would have been I wouldn't even need it for him to say it back. I would have been like, that is not what the answer should be for a healthy person of me. Yeah, but that would have been my visceral. It was like from a rock, what do I need? Yeah, I don't need anything. I'm the one. I don't need anything and I don't have to. Uh yeah, that's why I go to therapy twice a week. Well, we go and then I go, Look, i'd be here
all day. I'm proud for you. I'm not proud of because I feel like you're much to me. I like I look to I look up to you in a lot of ways. I'm really proud for you that you've been able to in this version, in this season say the things you say, like I'm good basically that's that's
that is inspiring to me. So I don't know, man, just keep on doing that because I listen, I watch what you're doing, watch what you're saying, Like even professionally, you know, we're we work together in a way, you know, and it's really cool to see what you're doing there in the in that world and you're able to do
it from home and be it's awesome. So continued success, I don't need to say that because you're just going to have it and you're gonna be stubborn about having it wherever it is, and that success is here fulfillment and that's awesome. We you know the books, we'll put in the notes too, and I appreciate you just sitting and talking with them and never I didn't really plan for it to go like this. So that's what's great about talking with somebody that you trust, is it can just go wherever.
So cool.
Yeah, I think that's it. Grantual, appreciate you, buddy.
Thanks man, all right
Thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production