#130 The only guarantee in life

wherever you might becoming. It also streams on AfterMidnight dot com. So however you find, you found me maybe TikTok. Thank you for being here. This is where I answer your questions. You could email me anything. We could talk about any subject as though we're sitting around a campfire or in the cab of a pickup and you say, hey, man, I got something that's been on my mind lately. You mind if I run it by you and then we walk through it. I'm not always right, but we'll walk

through it as though we're friends. Right, You email Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. I'll put it in the queue and we'll get to it. Okay, first question says subject line creative block, need help. Hey Granger, longtime fan and listener of the podcast. Love everything you do, Keep it up. My name is Levi. I'm nineteen years old. I work the night shift from eight thirty pm to five am Sunday through Thursday night, and I haven't found the urge to pick up my guitar and write like

I used to. I have other projects that I work on, including having the opportunity to be a segment producer for a live fundse raisor event that went really well, thank God. But since I started the job, I've had writer's block and it's driving me crazy. I also recently moved to Brooklyn, New York from a small town in Ohio, so it's hard to adjust. It is seasonal, so it's going to end soon. But I can't help but feel like I should be working on more of the things that I

want to do. Should I quit and start working on my music and other projects? Thank you for your time, Levi. What's up, buddy? Thank you for writing. Uh, it's a it's a great question. I deal with writer's block. I think I think everybody, every creative deals with writer's block. Everyone that has to write anything is going to have this kind of obstacle. So a couple of things going on with you, the change of environment that that can

affect you positively or negatively. You could go into a new place and suddenly feel creative and start writing like crazy. You could also go into a new place like you're doing and feel nothing. All this will change over time. It also could happen when you're really busy. You could you could have the same result. You could You could get really busy and feel like I have nothing. Maybe my brain is too clogged up, I have nothing to

write about. At the same time, you could also be really busy and suddenly the doors open and you have so much creativity you can't stop writing. I've seen all of these scenarios play out with me. The most important thing is have your phone, your notes, and your voice memos ready to go at any time, because when you're in a block, you could still have titles come to you, or melody ideas come to you, or different lines that fall out, but you need to write it down right. Then.

You could also dream about it and you get up the next day and you go, man, I had the weirdest dream. And then you remember it and jot some of it down. So then when the creative doors open back up, you go to your phone and you start going through the list of things that you said and the recordings that you've mumbled into your phone during your writer's block. I have found with me that I could go for I've gone as long as two years without writing anything, and then usually what happens is all of

a sudden, the floodgates open and I'm writing everything. It's actually what I'm doing right now. I've written an entire album in about sixty days, and before that I hadn't written in a year and a half. Luckily, I'm used to this process and I've been doing it for twenty five years, so I know me. So I don't get discouraged in the writer's block. I just wait. And that's

the best thing you could do is wait. You could you could be busy, you could be completely bored, and you could still have writer's block, or you could have the floodgates open. So trust yourself, trust the process, Trust that you are a creative that you will eventually write again. You will eventually think of melodies on your guitar again. I don't recommend quitting. That's what you're asking, Should I

quit and start working on music? Not necessarily, because you could quit and still have writer's block, and then what are you gonna do. You've got all this time in the world and you're stuck. One thing you could practice is practice starting songs and finishing songs, even if they're not good. You could write a song and be like, this is terrible, but since I'm in a block right now, I'm gonna go ahead and finish it even though it's

not good. Just for the practice of starting and finishing a song to get it under your belt and start another one. You could then go back years later, and I've done this many times years later and look at those bad songs and think that was a bad song, but that second verse is actually pretty cool, or there's one thing I did in the chorus that I really like, and then that can become an entire new song for me. I've done this many times, including Beary Me and Blue Jeans.

That was a song that had floated around for seven or eight years, and then one day, as I was thinking about titles, I was like, man, look at that title bearing me in blue Jeans. That's a terrible song that I wrote, but maybe there's something there, and then within an hour the song in its current state was born. So you're doing all the right things. Don't just up and quit what you're what you're doing right now. The best thing to do is wait, take notes, and wait.

It'll open back up. Thanks for the thanks for the Thanks for the email, Buddy, and I wish you the best on this. All right, here's one that says Texas or but that's the subject line. Hey Granger, I'd like to remain anonymous. I'm seventeen years old. I'm from a small town around Clemson, South Carolina. I want to go to college in Texas so bad, and I've talked to my parents about it and they're just not for it because it'd be so far. But they also would support

anything I do. So I know. I'm only seventeen, I'm almost a senior in high school. But I don't want to leave home and end up wanting to move back while I'm in college. I desire to see what life looks like outside of here, but I value my family a lot here. At the end of the day, I know that I need to do what's best for me in my future. I'm just not quite sure how. Thank

you all right, Anonymous, that's a great question. I'm going to lean towards taking that step that makes you nervous, and I'm going to lean towards you taking this adventure and leaving your home state, leaving your hometown, going across the country, a new adventure, new friends, new contacts, new experiences, all that will help grow you. You could judge yourself by what makes you a little bit nervous. So things that make you nervous, sometimes you lean into those things.

Those are the hard things. Lean into harder decisions. Right, you come to a fork in the road, take the harder path. And if you do that again on another path and it forks, and you take the harder one, and you do that seven or eight times in a row, then you look back and you've made seven or eight hard decisions that it forks in the road. Your life, by then, by seven or eight of these turns, is dramatically different than people around you. People are going to

look at you and go, this person is different. Their life is interesting, it's exciting, it is very evolved in a way that mine is not. And you could always trace that to that person making the harder decisions, leaning into things that made them a little uneasy. If you take the easy path every time, you're going to have a very easy, normal life. And usually things that come easy don't last very long, and things that come hard

last longer. Rights, it's it's just life. And I'm not saying do this at every single time you ever make a decision. You can't do that. But this one, right here, this sounds like something you take the harder path and then separate yourself from the pack. The whole caveat in this whole thing is that once you make that kind of decision and you say I'm gonna take a leap, I'm gonna go away from the family, away from my hometown, if you have the opportunity to do it, it it looks

it sounds like you do. You could still turn back. You can go for one semester and go this is not for me, this is not what I thought. I need to go back. I need to rewind, go back to South Carolina and start over. You could make that kind of decision. Now, it's harder as you get older, it's harder and harder to go back on a DECISONI and start over again. But at seventeen eighteen. You can make mistakes. You could dare mighty things right now, and then you can always go and start over, take the

easier path the leader. Does that make sense? That's where I would lean. I don't want your parents to get upset and you to leave their nest. But at the same time, I think that's what's best for you in the situation, to leave the nest. Fill out your wings, try to fire a little bit. If you fall, you go back to the nest. It's a good question. All right, I'm gonna scroll. I'm gonna randomly scroll here. Here's the subjic Cline says, reading slash interpreting the Bible. Hey, Grangeer,

shout out from Missouri. First, I just want to say I'm a big fan of yours. You're such a positive inspiration in my life. I'm in college right now, and within the last year I have become a lot more serious about my faith. I love watching sermons and listening to podcasts in the mornings, but I struggle when it comes to actually reading the Bible. I don't know where

to start or how much to read. I also feel like I have tried to read it and I'm just not good at interpreting it and I missed the whole message. Please help. Yeah, great question. As far as where to start. First of all, I think I think it's important that

we read the Bible. If you are listening to this and you think I don't have any faith, I'm not a Christian, I have no reason to read the Bible, I would I would challenge you on that and say, even if you're a non believer, you're not a faithful person. You're not you know, I hate that word, but you're

not religious at all. I would challenge you on that question and just say, if there was a book that has impacted the world so much, that has has been put in the hands of more people than any other book in history, that has shaped culture, that has shaped humanity, that has built nations, that has broken nations, that has caused that has caused peace, that has become part of the embedded culture that we live in in so many different places in the world for so many decades, so

many centuries, so many millennia, then I would ask you, if there was such book, would you read it out of curiosity? Would you read a book like that? Well, the book I'm referring to is an existence. It's the Bible. So if you're a non believer, I would challenge you and say, would you not just read it as a piece of historical literature. It's not offered in schools, it's not offered in any really any program. Would you go and seek it out and go? You know what? This

is such a huge part of humanity. This has shaped our culture so much, this book that I would love to read it just to see what it's all about and then walk away from it if you want. That would be my challenge. But that's not your question. Here is where would you start? You know it's important, but where would you start? Well, I would say you could start in a few different places. One you could start in Genesis, that's where the book starts. You could start

in Matthew, which is where the New Testament starts. You could also start in a place like John Luke, any place in the Gospel. You can't really go wrong. So if you start with John one, the beginning of the Book of John, and read it through, and once you finish, go to Luke, go to Mark, go to Matthew. If you finish all those, move on to acts. Finish that keep on moving forward through the New Testament, finish that

start back over in Genesis. I think you would find it interesting if you actually started at where things start, the beginning of any of the books. What's important is to find a Bible that has a some kind of reference guide to it, or some kind of teaching guide to it. So, for instance, say you start with a Book of John, find you a learning bible that has a preference on where John came from, who wrote it, when they wrote it, why they wrote it, how they wrote it, and how it got out to the people,

and then eventually how is it collected? Why is the Book of John part of this canon? And there's so many teaching teaching books teaching Bibles that will walk you through that as you're reading it. Sometimes they'll have a couple pages before the book starts to say this is where it came from, this is the timeline, this is when it happened, this is who John was when he

wrote it. And some of them also will walk through as you're reading and say, what you just read, here's what he meant by that, here's the connection with that. You could find these anywhere. You could do it right there on your phone, You could do it on your iPad, you could do it on your computer, or you can go get a good old paper book. And I would highly recommend that this is a route you take. And I would also recommend that you just start in slow blocks.

Don't look at the Bible and go, how am I going to read that whole chapter today? It's so boring to me and I don't understand it. Well, don't read the whole chapter. Read a paragraph, aim lower, aim lower than you're doing. Read one paragraph and then google that paragraph and try to get some kind of context on what that means, and then you could help interpret it yourself through the context that you're reading through the study guide. There is a great YouTube channel called the Bible Project.

It's really good. It's animated and they draw it and they do the timeline, they do the maps, they do who wrote it? And why all this stuff in the Bible Projects. So once again, say we're reading the Book of John, YouTube the Bible Project Book of John. It's going to come up. It's got a couple million hits on it, so you can't miss it and click on that watch that video before you read, or after, or both or in between. But the animated idea as they

draw it out for you. Super simple will help you understand. Oh, that's why i'm reading, that's where this came from. That's who John was, that's why John was inspired to write it, That's how it got out to the people later. Those kind of answers are important to me. I'm a history major in college. I don't like to read something vague and misunderstood and have no context to it. I love to know the history, where it came from, how it

got to my hands. And when you hold any Bible, it's also important to know how impossible it was that it ended up in your hands, and how many people died so that it could be in your hands, the blood that was shed so that those words could now be in your hands, and this free country is unbelievable. It blows my mind and it should yours too, and I would encourage you to do this great question. Okay, next question, subject line says cowardly like behavior. Hey, I'm Andrea.

I'm from Hebron, Illinois. Is that how I say it? I've been in a lot of actual relationships with men, but one thing is pretty common amongst them all. Why do men have a fear of telling women they don't want to be with them, they either ghost us or just come up with another excuse. This last dude told me my roommate, told my roommate everything instead of telling me anything. That last thing it says, this dude told

my roommate everything instead of telling me anything. Yeah, Andrea, I think I don't disagree with you, and I hear you, and I think it's a good question, and I think the best answer I can give is humans are hesitant to break someone's heart, and we will go to great links to not break some one's heart with the truth. And so many times the truth is the heartbreaking caveat

in the situation. So a guy is gonna feel more comfortable telling your roommate how he feels or how he doesn't feel towards you because it's not going to break her heart. It's not going to break the roommate's heart, so he gets it off his chest and he might think maybe she'll slip some of this information to her, And I'm out. I agree with you that this is cowardly like behavior. I don't disagree with that at all.

I'm just trying to explain better why you're seeing it and why it happens and why it could happen again. We do this since we were two years old, since we're toddlers. We try to be we try to use scapegoats, which is, by the way to the last question, a cultural biblical reference scapegoat. But we try to use scapegoats to get us out of feeling the pain of the heartbreak that we want to actually say. That's why two year old blame other people for the very thing that

they took or stole or lied about. And that doesn't change as we get older. We would rather tell someone else than to tell the person because they're going to see through us. They're going to know we're telling the truth through our eyes, and we don't want to see that heartbreak back reflected to us. Right, So that's why we do it. As humans. You can encourage this in a relationship. If you start seeing that, you could say, hey, are you not into me? Just be straight up with me,

Be straight up with me. Are you not into this? Because I could take it. I need you to tell me and then let them dish it out to you. Right there. It's a good question. I wish you the best. Let's grab another this question subject, client says, need help feeling lost. Hey grand your My name is Sidney. I'm from Michigan. I'm having a very hard time dealing with the feeling of grief and emptiness. On March twenty ninth, twenty twenty, I lost my brother in law and my

nephew in a boting accident. As the date approaches closer, things just seem to get harder. Ever since receiving that phone call, I've always felt this empty hole in my life that I cannot ignore. I feel a lot of anger towards God for what happened, and I'm having a hard time letting that go. I know that void will never be feeled, but I need some advice on how to overcome the anger and be thankful for the memories that I hold on to. Thanks Sidney, Thank you, Sidney.

Great question, and shout out to Michigan where you're from. I love that state you are. You're talking about something that happened two years ago, almost to the day, and it's understandable as the date comes around that you're going to feel more sadness, more grief around the date the anniversary, the seasons are changing exactly like they were then In twenty twenty. The holiday that we're coming around is the same,

the feeling is the same. You're wearing the same kind of clothes that you were wearing in twenty twenty when this happened. There's all kinds of references that are going to remind you that it's kind of like, have you ever gotten food poisoning? And then it's so hard to go back and eat that same food that made you sick. So say it's pizza. You get food poisoning at some pizza place, and then for months after that you're like, I don't really feel like pizza, but we know it's

not the pizza. It was the poisoned pizza that made you sick. It was that one slim chance of the freak accident that you got that one slice of pizza that was bad. So you can't blame all the rest of the pizza that you could ever have in the rest of your life. But that's the association we make with it. So you are associating that date March twenty nine, twenty twenty, with everything that's going around you right now, with the seasons. This is springtime. Oh yeah, that's what

happens in spring, is I get sad. That's what happens when I eat pizza, I get sick. When really that's a weak correlation, but that's what we do as humans. Our brain makes that connection. So that's what you're feeling, and that's why these anniversaries are so hard. But I will tell you this, Sidney, every anniversary that goes by gets a little less painful every time. So the first

one is the hardest. You very rarely would be on the second anniversary and go, this second one is harder than the first one, and it might not be my much, but you got to take that as a stride forward. You got to look at the second anniversary and go, this hurts. I'm sad, but here's your benefit. But it's not as sad as the first one. I was wrecked on the first one. Now I'm ninety percent wrecked on

the second one. And by the third anniversary you might say, this time around, I'm eighty per recked, but you're making progress. It's very rare you'd be on the fifth one and go, this is the worst of them all. I'm feeling more sadness, more grief ever on the fifth anniversary of their death than I was on the first, So you got to take those those little victories in your mind and use them and go I'm sad, but this sadness is a

reflection of the love that I had for them. And if I didn't love them the way that I did, I would be way less sad. But I wouldn't have the love. And you wouldn't trade that. You wouldn't trade that for the world. You wouldn't trade their love so that you could hurt less. No one would say that, we'll take the pain, we'll take the grief, We'll take the sadness because we had the love. So what do we do with this kind of information? How do we

process this? Well, we move forward and we say I loved them a lot, and because I loved them a lot, I also grieved them a lot. But I also know that every year that goes by, that grief will start to fade and the love will still push through. I'll still have the love that I felt, and I'll have less grief every year that goes by as I move forward.

So you don't move on, and you're right about that, You're never going to fill that gap that they left, but you'll start experiencing more of the joy that you had with them, and those tears will turn to smiles and you'll get to March twenty ninth, ten years from now, and you'll go, wow, this is the day I miss them. I love them. They loved this and this and this, and they love this kind of food and they loved this kind of hobby and I celebrate that with them.

They were great. I know you're gonna think that's Sydney, because your question, even though it's such a great question, is not a new one, and humans will go through this. And if you're listening and you haven't, you will. It's a guarantee you're gonna lose a parent or a grandparent, or a cousin, or a sibling you're going to or a friend. It's just a matter of time. Because the one thing we all have in this life guaranteed is we all have an expiration date. We just don't know

when it is. So we move forward. We love as much as we can, and although that causes a lot of grief, the love is more powerful in the long term. We'll take a break and be right back. Podcast is brought to you all today by ship Station Online. Shipping isn't slowing down anytime soon, So is your business ready to keep up the pace well? With ship station, you'll never worry about shipping again, So make the switch to a solution that handles all your shipping needs quickly, affordably, painlessly.

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slash granger. Okay, if you want your question answered on this podcast, just email me Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. Super easy. I'll put it in the queue. Don't worry about what you're going to say. Make sure you want to. If you want to be anonymous, make sure you tell me early on. Sometimes people say things like, what's up. My name is Fred, and I'd like to remain anonymous. I'm just reading it real time, so I might accidentally

read your name if you put it that way. My other request is try to keep it about the length of your phone, so if the question goes past one phone length, it gets difficult to read that on the podcast. So I don't need every single detail. I just need the gist of your question. Like me and you are in the cab of a truck, and you pour out whatever you have to say, and I'll walk through it the best I can do. Not take my advice as

the truth. I'm just telling you the best I could believe it in real time, and every once in a while, I'll be honest with y'all. Every once in a while, I was turning off the camera and I'll walk away and I'll think I probably had a better answer for that, or I should have maybe said this, that would have been a better way to do it. So if you hear that and you hear me say something and you think to yourself, that's not a good answer, I would

have definitely told them this. Just remember I'm reading it real time. My brain is only working in real time as I'm reading it. I literally read the question and I answer it as I'm thinking about it while I'm reading it. All in real time. This podcast is not cut up, it's not edited. I don't go back and change anything I don't feel in a word or say something wrong and replace sit So give me a little grace on that I'm gonna do. I'm doing the best I can in real time, not always right, but working

with you. Okay, you guys, your questions are so good that you have now made this one of the top podcast in all of the music genre in the world, which always blows me away. And I just want to thank you for that. I want to thank you for not not needing me to come up with my own content every single Monday. That would be difficult to write a script and have a new topic and talk about

something or have a new guest every single Monday. Instead, I come in here, I turn on the computer, I hit record, put the camera on and read your questions. So thank you for sending them and thank you for listening, Subjecline on this. This next one is I'm fed up. It says, hey Granger, I'll stay anonymous. I like that. See right at the top. Me and my brother, both above twenty years of age, seem to butt heads a lot.

We both seem we both seem that we have our own best way of doing things, and we don't want to give in. How could I do my part in helping myself get along better with him? Do I need to do everything his way? I'm a believer in Christ and I want to do the right thing. I appreciate the time you take for sharing your time. Well, buddy, thank you. This is this is a great question. I've got two brothers of my own. I work with both

of them every day. Tyler, my middle brother, is my manager, he has been since two thousand and eight, and my younger brother, Parker, is the CEO of EEE Apparel. So I see both of them in all kinds of ways almost every single day we talk. The best thing we have learned how to do is stay in our own lanes when it comes to working. I don't think that's what your question is. It doesn't sound like you're working together. But the best thing we have done for ourselves is

stay in your lane. Like my lane is the podcast and the Smiths and midnight radio show and writing and recording and singing music. Tyler is managing the touring and the music all the business side, so he's the one that's picking the tour dates. He's approving offers on tour dates. He's doing the paperwork behind the music. He's making sure we negotiate the best deal with a record label or

the publishing company. He's reading, he's getting the offers from agents that are wanting me to act in a movie. And so he's looking over the script before I see it. So Parker, he does. He stays in his lane with Yege Apparel, and he's making sure we have the best apparel for the spring and summer and fall launches. And he's doing the day to day he's managing the team of marketing and social media and all that. He's managing that.

So all three of us get in those lanes, like Tyler's gonna help with the song every once in a while, I'm gonna help pick a tour date. I'm gonna help decide what's the best T shirt for the summer launch. Parker's gonna be reading a movie script. But as we get in those lanes, we majority of the time we stay in what we do and we try not to get out of it. You know what has helped me anonymous tremendously with my brothers is journaling. This has helped me in a lot of things in my life, but

I will. I will journal every single morning. I use an app called day one that helps me because every morning I get up and I do my morning routine, and part of that routine is I'll do a quick journal. It's digital. No one's gonna read it in me, so I don't have to worry about grammar or how I say it. I'm talking to my future self, and I could say something like this, had a tough day with Tyler today. I said too many things that I might regret.

I talked over him and didn't let him share his feelings. I engaged in a disagreement when I probably could have walked away. I need to get better at this. Well. The truth is, if I'm writing that out, I'm more likely not going to do that same thing again the next day and then a year from now when I read it, because I'll always go back and read the previous years, I'll think to myself, am I still doing that? Am I still interrupting him? Am I still engaging in

something that I should have walked away? I'm better than that. I have to be better than that. And so as I look back on my past entries, it helps me improve in the present. Then you go back to just some basic conversation tools. There's a great book called How to Win Friends and Influence People. It's an old book and it's just a great It's a great resource for human relationships. And brothers are a big human relationship because

we see him all the time. So to dig into your question a little bit, do I need to do everything his way? No? No, But you could word it differently, like, for instance, hey man, I think we needed to get Dad a new pair of boots for Christmas, me and you. And instead of saying, dude, that's a terrible idea. He already has boots. We want to get him some blue jeans. Instead of saying that, you could go, huh, that's a

good idea, Dad. You know Dad loves boots. It's let's think about that for a little bit, right So then all of a sudden, it opens up a whole new conversation. I'm just using a very mild example. I don't think you guys argue about Christmas presents. But I'm just trying to think of the most mild example that I could think of. Right now, If you open the conversation up

and listen more than you talk. It's hard for me to take that advice when I'm literally sitting in front of a microphone and having no conversations with another human. But this is so important in everything that we do. Listen more than we talk. In fact, you could say listen seventy percent of the time, talk thirty. That book might even say it. That might even be the math that they use talk thirty percent of the time, listen more.

It's so important in conversations if we try to talk over people, if we're just if you're listening to somebody and you're the only thing you're doing is waiting to hurry up and say, well you need to say You say that, well I gotta I can't wait till you shut up, so I could say what I need to say. That gets you nowhere. Listen to them, Listen to everything they have to say, and instead of jumping right in with your next thought, let it sit for a second

in silence. You think we need to get new boots. Think pause, Wait, dad loves boots. That I mean, I think that's a great idea. Dad loves boots. And inside you you're thinking, man, we ain't spending two hundred dollars on boots when he doesn't need them. And so instead of saying that, even though you're feeling it and everything in you says that, Wait, listen, it'd be interesting to see what happens, right, And then you're also journaling this,

so you could get there. You could learn your brother this way, because it's interesting when you put it on someone like that. If they say, Man, we need to get dad new boots for Christmas. Me and you need to go fifty to fifty and you go hmm, wait, silence, Yeah, that's a good idea. Dad loves boots. Wait listen. It'd be interesting at that moment if he doesn't jump back in, because so many times humans will do this, They could

jump back in and go or something else. I mean, did you have a thought and you can go wait silence. I was kind of think about blue jeans and then they go, yeah, blue jeans is a pretty good idea too. I mean, it's crazy how you could flip a conversation so quickly, going either direction. It depends on what path you take. Man, that's a stupid idea. But he already has boots. That's expensive. I don't want to pay two hundred bucks. It's interesting if you listen seventy percent of

the time. I challenge you to do this, mister anonymous. I challenge you. And the great thing is with a brother, because you see him all the time, you can have a daily challenge. So challenge yourself. Wake up in the morning and aim small, aim for one day at a time, and try to add up the days that you can

go without an argument or without a big disagreement. So you wake up in the morning, you go, today, when I see him, I'm gonna listen more, I'm gonna talk less, and I'm going to let the situation handle itself and see how it plays out, and see if that turns into an argument still. And then when you do, and you go to bed that night and you look back on your day and go, I was with him and nothing, really, we didn't argue about anything. Day one. Cool, I've got it.

Let's see if I can go for day two. See if I can go for two in a row. So you wake up the next morning, you go, okay, we're going for two in a row. Now after about four days there's an argument, but you go, cool, four days. That's good, that's progress. And the argument on the fourth day wasn't as bad as it was in the past. It takes a lot of self discipline to do this, but it's an interesting experiment. I'm definitely not saying that I have this mastered. All I'm saying is I feel

your pain. I've been in your shoes and it's something I still wrestle with. But these are the thoughts I've come up with after so much time, and it's important. Good question, brother. Scrolling around here, this subject line says girl advice. Hey granger. My name is Nathan. I'm seventeen years old, live in North Carolina. I was hoping to get some advice on a girl I like at school. I used to have a crush on her my freshman year. Then she dated a couple guys, but she's single right now.

I don't have a class with her, but sometimes I pass her on the way to one of my classes. I'm a follower for christ and she is too. She's incredibly smart, athletic, and beautiful. But for some reason, I feel like she wouldn't give me a chance, or she's out of mind league. I'm more of a shy person, intend to overthink. Thanks for the time and advice love the podcast Nathan all Right, brother got a crush. Going back to the first part of your email says you

used to have a crush my freshman year. She dated a couple guys, so it doesn't sound like you guys have ever had a thing. Okay, so this is fresh. Even though you've liked her in the past, you kind of waited as she had boyfriends and now there's an opportunity. You feel shy and you're overthinking. Nothing about this story so far is weird or wrong. You are okay to be shy. I mean some girls like shy guys. You know why, because shy guys only only talk thirty percent

of the time, maybe less. So that's a good thing. You could listen to her seventy percent of the time. That's good, right, So that that's not a character trait that you have being shy, that is going to limit you to less girls. What that does is it opens the door to more girls that like a shier, less outspoken guy. That's not a bad thing. My advice in this it's obviously weighing on you enough that you emailed

the podcast and you're thinking about it a lot. So I think the best thing to do is get it out in the open. I think the best thing to get it out in the open is to stop her in that hallway that you pass her and just go hey, and this is tough, Okay, I'm going to tell you something here that's difficult to do. And so it's a lot easier for me to give you this advice than for me to actually do it. You got to build

up a lot of courage, and it's difficult. But I would stop her in that hallway and say, I'm Nathan, can I just tell you something. I just I see you all the time I walk past you, and I think you're so beautiful, and I would love a chance to get a coffee with you or just sit down with you, if you'd ever be interested. And you might not be. I'm shy, and this is hard for me to say, and I'm nervous right now, but I just wanted to get it off my chest that I that I see you and I would really love to sit

down with you sometime. Then it's on the table. You just played your ace card, then, Nathan, right, so you give your your ace card and you see what she's got in the deck. Maybe she's got a handful of ass. I don't know, but let's see what's in her deck. At that point, she might say something like, oh, thank you, I'm really busy right now. I'm so sorry, okay, and you go, I totally understand, but I just needed for

my sake, I needed to tell you this. I needed to get it off my chest, and so thank you, and then boom, you walk off, gone, don't look back, do not look back, You're gone, and then maybe take a different route to the next class, right so you don't have to see her. And then you wonder, is something changing with her? Is she thinking where is that boy, Nathan that said that to me? Because she might stop you a couple weeks later and go, hey, I was thinking, yeah,

maybe coffee w'd be nice. It might happen. Sometimes it happens. You got to give them a little time to think about it. Or the other scenarios are she goes no thanks, and you never hear from her. Okay, what's good about that? Well, now you know. Now you know, let's close that door. And then the third scenario is she says, I would love to when can we go? You got to know, Nathan, that's the least likely scenario that she immediately says, yes,

I would love to. Actually, that's the least likely scenario, so don't expect that. I think the good bed is that she says, I'm really busy. You're so sweet, thank you, but maybe another time. Okay, but cool, now the door is still open a little bit, be present, keep an eye out, don't be a weird stalker. Don't go start liking everything on Instagram that she posts. Sit back and uh and see what happens. It's like, it's like you're fishing and you got a line in the water and

you leave the pole. You're gonna go somewhere else, but you got the you got the line in the water, and so what you want right now is is the line in the water? Right? And if she says no, good, that's a good answer too, because because then you don't have to email the podcast and wonder what to do next, because the only answer is there's more fish in the in the river. Right. Okay, good question, brother, Good luck to you. Septic one on this one says which road

to travel? Hey Granger, I'm from PA. I'm new to the podcast. It's been so helpful in many aspects of my life. I've cut up on all your episodes, but I have a question that I don't think has been answered yet. I'm twenty six years old and many things in my life are starting to become real and adult like, such as a new car, student loans, owning my own insurance, a real career, etc. My issue is I've been dating this guy who I know and we've been best friends

since the fourth grade. He was married for five years, but that ended in twenty twenty. After that, we got together and things have been great. We recently decided to progress our relationship and moved into his house. We're both very good at compromise and communication. However, since I moved in over the New Year's holiday, everything around me still feels like his ex and his defense. He did get rid of a lot of photos and decor around the

house that was tied to her. I, on the other hand, can't get the idea out of my head thinking that this house was purchased when they were together for the life they were going to create. I'm afraid it's going to affect me worse mentally and our relationship negatively. What do you think I should do? Moving? But that's not in the cards. This is his dream home. Thank you kindly. This question comes from Lisa. Lisa, good question. I have only one answer for you. You You need to move out

out of this house. There is no other answer I can give you. This is not going to get better in this current situation. I am not advocating to get him and pack him up and move him out and sell the house and you guys move into another. That is not the other answer. The only answer for you is you need to move out and get your own place. You do not have to break up with them, you don't have to leave them, you don't have to not

be friends with them ever again. But you need to get in an apartment or a duplex or a condo or a house. You need to get out, go live with the friend, Go sleep on someone's couch if you can't afford it, somebody in your town that you could ask them, Hey, I need a place to crash for a few months, Can I sleep on your couch. I'm saying that if you have no money to get your own place, this is your only way. This is the only way to save this relationship you're in. The reason

you're feeling that is valid. You're looking around and seeing the ex wife, you know, and part of their dream home that they had together. That's valid that you're not wrong to think that. And that's why you can't do it, because there's something deep down inside you that is screaming, this is not right, something's not right, And I'm telling you it's not going to get better. You're not going to be able to resolve it. You're not gonna be

able to get that thought out of your head. You're not gonna be able to say, Okay, I've finally reconciled that this was her house and his house together. But I'm finally better now. I'm finally good with that. And that's his dream home. That's weird. That's weird. That's weird on his part too. I gotta say that he knows that, and he's living in the weirdness, like, hey, come in, move in with me. Where to me and my wife's dream home. This is not right. There's nothing about that

that makes sense. And that's why you feel weird and you're valid in it, and I don't. Honestly, I don't understand unless he feels weird and he's not telling you, I don't understand how he thinks that's cool. Are normal. Money is not an issue. Don't let finances play a part in this decision at all. Like I said, go live on somebody's cought Go live on their hammock in their backyard. That's better. Get a tent, live on the side of the road in a tent. That's better than this.

So don't ever use that excuse to say, well, we're just kind of strapped for cash right now, and this is the best scenario. No, for what kind of best scenario is that? Living in misery, living in jealousy, living in weirdness where you can't get this thought out of your head. You gotta go. You don't have to get rid of him, not yet. I think eventually you will, because that's weird. But that's a different conversation. That's a different email. It's not what you're asking. But those are

my thoughts. Thank you, Lisa. Scrolling randomly scrolling here, see if I could find one. Okay, the subject line says not a relationship question. Hey Granger, I was wondering if there's a way that you could post a guitar tabs to some of your songs, maybe on the Eye Nation fan club. Okay, that's a good question, and you're right, it's not a relationship question. Typically there's other companies that will make guitar tabs and post them on different websites.

Somebody that's listening if you've seen that comment below this podcast and let them know. But there's like Google, Granger, Smith guitar tabs, something will come up. They're not always accurate because it's a third party doing that. So it's something that I just I'd be totally honest. I can't. I can't do it because it's just it takes, uh,

it takes too much time. First of all, as musicians, especially in the country world, we don't we we could write guitar tabs, but we don't speak that language always. We speak the number system, so our we don't say a flat and B and C. We say four chord, five chord, six minor chord, and that's how we speak. Usually the rest of the world wouldn't speak in the

number system when it comes to music. So writing out the tabs, putting the lyrics, putting the dots, putting the notes, putting the chords is a lot of work and I don't have this space. I'm lucky that a lot of companies will come in and do this and make these tabs for me and then post them online for anyone to see. So that's that's the answer to your question, and that that's that's always the answer, because I get

I do get that question a lot. And my advice to you, honestly, this is my honest advice from coming from a once upon a time, brand new guitar player wanting to play George Strait songs. My advice to you is to train your ear to hear what those chords

are without needing to read them as a crutch. So if you don't know, if you cannot do what I'm talking about by your ear, then you take a guitar and you play the song and you move your your finger up the low e string until you find the matching note and then you find the corresponding chord to it. It's so good for your ear to do this to train yourself that I don't need to read the tabs. I could do it by ear. I could find everything.

And then eventually every song you hear on the radio, you'll be able to pick it out by your ear, and you'll train yourself and get better and better. It's a muscle that you train and that muscle get stronger. I would encourage that. Otherwise you're going to be reading guitar tabs the rest of your life and you get stuck in that rut. Then you need them and someone says, hey, can you play this at my wedding? And you go,

do you have the tabs? And they're like no. How much cooler would it be to say, yeah, give me a few days, let me listen to it, I'll figure out the cords, and then I'll play it at your wedding. That's so much better, so much more beneficial as a musician. Last line, you say here, can't wait to see you in Duluth, Minnesota. By the time you hear this podcast, I will have already gone there last Saturday. So yeah, buddy, I can't wait to go to Minnesota. I can't wait

to go to all these towns. We're going to be touring a lot this year, so I can't wait to see y'all on the road. You find all those dates at grangersmith dot com. I love you guys. Thank you for listening to the podcast, and we'll see you next Monday. Ye thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith podcast. I appreciate all of you guys. You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube,

subscribe to this channel. Hit that little like button and the notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload a video. If you have a question for me that you would like me to answer, email Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. Ye