A huge problem in the house

I've actually full disclosure, I've already recorded it. I've brought in some of my great buddies, some of the regulars that have been on this podcast, and we came together. I had to film it before and had to mix up the order a little bit because we have this baby coming. In fact, by the time you listen to this podcast on Monday, we will have already had it, or there was a complication or I don't know. I don't know, I don't know the outcome. All I know

is I'm doing this podcast by myself today. I'm gonna be the only one today because literally tomorrow morning, Amber and I are going to the hospital to deliver little baby Mavericks. So given this to you solo and with a lot of anticipation going on in my head. So as I as I go through this. As I roll through this episode, I'm gonna have a little heightened anticipation

on what's going to happen to me tomorrow. I don't know how that's gonna affect the way this podcast goes, or how it's gonna affect the way that I answer these questions. If you're new to this podcast, I answer your questions. Usually I have guests with me. Sometimes I'm solo, and you email your questions to Grainger Smith Podcast at

gmail dot com Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. Ask me anything, ask my guests anything, and we roll through it as if we're sitting in the cab of a truck sitting around a campfire, and you just say, hey, man, you matter. If I ask you something, something I've been thinking about. It could be about life or love or music or hard times or good times, or your boss or your career, your relationship, whatever it might be, we

get into it right here on this podcast. I love it, and I'm so blessed to have had this many episodes. That means that I did those many I did so many episodes because you guys kept listening enough for me to want to do more, and every day I look, I don't. Every time I look at the ranking of this podcast, it's usually really high on the all music podcast like it's sometimes it sits around the top twenty of all genres of all music podcast, which is blow

me away. And I'm very I'm just very blessed to have this kind of platform. And and that's a testament to you guys that listen. If you're if you're listening on the way to your work, or or you're listening at home, or you're over the road trucker, or you're a police officer in your in your car, I know, there's all different people that are listening to this. And there's also all different formats. I know people listen on Apple or Spotify or YouTube, anywhere you could find this podcast.

There's different people listening on different platforms. So shout out to all you guys. If you are on Apple, by the way, go ahead, you could. You could rate this podcast, and you can give me a comment that helps me to kind of get a pulse on what you're thinking. So yeah, I'm going to jump right in here to question number one. It says, Hey Granger, I'm Matthew. I'm from enom Claude Washington. I think that's how you say it, guys, enom Claude Washington, are you going to do another live album?

I love your podcast and your music. I just want to say thanks and for you and your family and your band. I appreciate you, Matthew, thank you for writing. I love this question. I love that we might do. First of all, I love that you said another one, because we do have a live album. It's called Live at the Chicken. It came out I believe in two thousand and ten something like that, ten eleven, something somewhere around there. And I guarantee you, Matthew, we will do

another one. I don't exactly know when, but I would think. Actually texted my brother recently, I said, hey, man, we should do another live album. So the question to you, guys is, and which you can comment if you're on iTunes or YouTube or any one of these formats that has a comment section, what is a good venue where we should record the next live album? It has to be vibe and cool and different, good acoustics, great crowd.

Where should we do that? Be thinking? Okay, thinking and go to my socials and let me know if you can give me an idea and I'll be thinking in the meantime. But yeah, thank you for writing, Matthew. I appreciate your brother. Shout out to Washington too. By the way, we're about to head out there and do a bunch of shows coming up really soon, so we'll see you guys in the fall. Next question, another music related question,

comes from Sydney. It says, hey, Granger, how many guitars do you have and which one is your favorite and what would be the best one for a beginner. I have recently counted because we moved and we moved into this new house where we are now, so I recently took an inventory and it sits the number sits around twenty. I have around twenty guitars because I might have forgotten one or two, might be twenty one, might be nineteen, but it's somewhere in there. I have several favorites. I

have a favorite for the road. I have a favorite which is my John may Or Martin. It's my road dog. And Todd, my other guitar player, has one just like it. And then Fish, my other guitar player, has a very similar one too. So we have those because they're just indestructible on the road. They sound great. They you could plug them into anything and they sound great. They're built really well, they play really well. Then I have my favorite wallhangers. I have my favorite sentimental ones. I have

my favorite historic ones if you watch the Smiths. I have a Gibson that I recently acquired that is really really awesome. It's a Jay forty five and it's from nineteen forty six, so really old. And I have, of course the ones that I grew up playing, and I have some some of the ones that have been very important shows of mine, very important seasons of my life. So my guitars are my girls. I love them. They all play different, they all feel different in my hands,

they all sound different to different songs. I've recorded different ones on different songs that I needed a different feel to. So very sensitive about these guitars and very passionate about it. To you, Sidney, to answer your question about what would be the best beginner guitar, it kind of depends on how serious you want to get, if you want to get if you're like man, I am dead set on learning this guitar. I already have a little bit of background in it, and I already have these plans with it.

Then you might want to spend a little extra money. You might want to spend five hundred bucks or more. You might want to go between five hundred and one thousand dollars. If you're like, I'm desperate to learn this, I have to. It's a passion. If you're like, I'd like to give it a shot to try it, I don't. I don't really have any music background, and I don't really know how this is going to go, and I don't have plans for lessons, then don't. Don't spend over

four or five hundred bucks. Don't do that. You could go to your local guitar shop and look in the two two to three hundred dollars range. Anything below that it's a toy. Anything one hundred dollars range is a toy. But you want to go two to three hundred bucks.

And then you want to tell the guy that you buy it from in the music shop that you want nylon strings, and he's gonna look at you like you're crazy, But you want to take the steel strings off of it and replace it with nylon strings that typically go with a classical guitar, and the guy's going to go you don't want to do that. Who told you to do that? Go Granger Smith podcast told me to do it?

And so a normal acoustic guitar, it's the strings. The steel strings have little metal balls at the end of them. The nylon strings don't. So you have to tie knot. You literally have to tie not, just like a fishing line, that's what it feels like. Tie out at the end of the string and run it through and then that

knot will serve as the little metal ball. This will save your fingers and it will allow you to play more, and it will keep you in the game longer, because if those steel strings on a cheaper guitar are harder to push down, and it's gonna start cutting your fingers before you have callouses built up, and you're gonna get blisters, and you're not gonna want to play, and you're gonna throw it in the corner and you're gonna get mad.

You're gonna say I can't do it, when in reality, it was just because you were playing a cheap guitar with strings that were crushing your fingers. That's my advice, and I know, I know I've kind of explained that before, but I'm sticking with it. That's what I used to do. That's it skip around here, and at this point, I don't know how deep we're about to go, but we're about to go down a rabbit hole. I'm gonna click on this one. It says take the reins, Hattie Granger.

My name is Will. I'm a twenty year old part time diesel mechanic, part time student. First, my question for you revolves around my desire to get married. It's something I've been praying for for years. I'm very passionate about it. The question I have is how much should I be How much should I be sitting back waiting for the right woman without letting her slip by? In other words, should I take the reins and put myself out there or expect to just know when God brings the right

one into my life. I love your podcast. My brother and I are going to see you at Tailgates and Tallboys in Taylorville, Illinois. Thanks will, appreciate you, buddy, Thank you Will. Yeah, we already played Taylorville. So this this email came July nineteenth, So I hope, yeah, I hope you had a good time. It's a good question, and I see I see similar questions a lot on this podcast. The answer always will revolve to me, will kind of revolve around your age. So twenty, you're twenty years old.

That tells me there's this is not desperate, you know, there's just you're not. You're not. You're not in need of a wife right now. Right every man needs a companion, every every woman needs a companion. But you're not. You're not, you know, crushing the time clock right now saying, man, I got to I'm I'm pushing fifty years old. I'm still single, So this is a different story for you.

Will your question says, basically, should I be sitting back waiting for the right woman or should I actually put myself out there or just expect that to know and God brings the right one into my life. Okay, let me kind of walk through this my thoughts. I'm not, guys, I'm not. I don't always have the right answers, maybe even rarely, but this podcast is not about right or wrong answers. This podcast is about Will. You're my buddy and you're saying, hey, Grangel, can I get some advice?

And this is this is buddy advice. Buddy advice is not always right, it's not always wrong. It's just buddy advice. So this one, I'm gonna tell you we, as Christians, because you brought up God. As Christians, we never sit back and let God do something for us, because that's not just not the way God works. God works through us through through humanity. His will is acted out through men and women. And part of the way that He acts that out, that he enables his will to happen,

is through our desires and through our wants. And I love this subject and it might not even be the first time I bring it up and today according to

these questions, but it goes something like this. If you're living for God, if you're in his word, if you're fervently praying, if you're you're you're being obedient to the best of your ability according to the word that you're reading, and the and the prayers, the sincere prayers that you're that you're you're telling him and you're and you're feeling

gratitude and you're giving him thanks and you're trusting him. See, trusting him and having faith in Him doesn't mean you kick back in a chair and say, now I trust you God, So now do it it means that when you trust him and you have faith, and you're in his word and you're deep in prayer, then at that point you do whatever you want to do. You literally go out and do whatever you want to do. And you're thinking, whoa hold on, granger, what you don't just

do whatever? Yet, yeah, you do if you meet those requirements. So as the Bible says, those that delight in the Lord, right, if you're delighting in the Lord, then he will give you the desires of your heart. So you do whatever you want to do because he will make your want tos. He creates what you want. He creates that desire in your heart to do whatever you want. So, if you're delighting in the Lord in your all those things I said,

then he's going to give you a want to. He's going to give you a desire he's going to get He's going to say, he's going to create the the your ability to discern what you want to do or not, and then you can trust it. You could trust that desire.

Does that make sense? So what I'm trying to say is if you're chasing after him full strength and you're doing all these things, and you see a girl and she's beautiful and she's sweet, and her family's great, and you go, this girl's amazing, and then you realize, yeah, God brought her to me because I was on a path. I was heading down this path. So let me give you some points of action here. You're a part time, yeah,

part time diesel tech, full time student. So during this time, you're hanging with friends, you're going to church, you're in a small group, you're hanging with your buddies, the diesel tech buddies. You're studying like crazy. You're putting all that into full swing, like this is your effort, this is what doing well, this is your this is your life. And along that path when a girl comes around, which

they do, this is how it happens. There's like fifty to fifty in this world, men and women, right, something like that. So that's gonna happen. You're gonna run into a girl and she's gonna be at church, or she's gonna be a waitress, or she's gonna be bringing her diesel in for you to fix it. Or she's gonna be a well a student at school, she's gonna be in the faculty, she's gonna be a friend, of a friend or you're gonna you're gonna break your ankle, and

she's the nurse at the hospital. There's this is gonna happen. And then when you have your eyes open and you're focused and you're on the right path, you're gonna know that she's the right one. So when you say put yourself out there, are you talking about like dating apps and stuff? Because no, I don't think so. I wouldn't. I wouldn't say that if me and you were sitting around a campfire and say, what do you mean by put yourself out? Take the reins and put yourself out there?

What do you What do you mean? Because dating apps are stocking people on Facebook? Is not That's not the way that this is gonna happen. It can, it does, but probably not will. It's probably gonna happen in real life. So live your real life. Do what you do, do what you love to do, love God, put him first, and then do what you love to do, which is diesel trucks and school and hanging out with your buddies. And if you're following that in that path, then she's

gonna come. So I appreciate your emailing man. This question comes from Timothy, and it says. The first thing it says is I'd like to remain anonymous. So I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna pretend like I didn't say that. Good morning Granger. Me and my kids love your music and the family chain and Yeee apparel and your open faith. My question is, I'll try to word this well enough that you could figure it out. How do I talk to my wife about getting off social media her phone

to be a mother to my kids? Right, So here's some info. Here's what's going on. He says. I'm thirty five, she's twenty six. We have three kids. We've been married for five years. Our youngest is two, our oldest is ten. And throughout the day we talk on my breaks and she is constantly irritated and aggravated with the kids and complaining about something they have done and how they act. Even when they're on the phone she's on social media. I end up getting off the phone because she's not

talking to me and she gets upset. And when I'm home, the kids are on my hip one hundred percent of the time because she goes outside with because when she goes outside with them, she's on her phone. I'm skooping down here, and I'm and my kids are really annoyed by this, and I believe them because every minute when we're in home, Uh, this is what she's doing, unless we're sleeping, Unless she's sleeping or we're having intimate time,

she's on the phone. I'm sorry, this email so long, and I try to talk to her about her phone, and she gets defensive and makes it a big dramatic scene. Uh, says we'll just get rid of Facebook. But that only lasts one day. I could really use some advice. Sorry guys for paraphrasing on that email, but yeah, I get the gist. I get the gist. People are addicted to their phones, people are addicted to social media, and this is that there's a couple of ways we could we

could tackle this if we were hanging out. We all know that this is a problem, and this is not I hope you know this is not just a problem in your house. This is this is a problem in every house. I don't know many people in my life that say I'm never on my phone. I never, I'm not. I just don't ever get on my phone. Everyone is,

and these phones are made addictive on purpose. They everything about them and the way they're the built in this in the the operating systems and all social media apps are built so that you return to them over and over and over again. In fact, the swipe up you know, you need to swipe up to on every social media app that literally comes from swiping a slot machine at a casino. So as addictive as a as a slot

machine as a casino is. This is this is what people are doing with their phones, and these social media companies and these phone companies, they know it. So they're trapping us. So the fact that your wife is doing this is it's it's not really that she's a weak person. She's fallen into it. She fell into a trap, and

so you need to help her with this. Part of the way you could help her is to make sure that you're not falling into the trap, right, I mean, we can't just keep looking at everyone else and not realizing that we're doing the same thing and your kids might be doing the same thing. That doesn't change the

fact that it's still a problem. So one way to tackle it is when she's not on her phone and when she's playing with the kids, or when she's talking with you, reinforce how awesome she is because she's so focused. Like you'll say, Babe, this the last twenty minutes, this conversation has been amazing. You are You're focused, you're engaged. I just there's a lot of people in my life,

but I love talking to you. I love talking to you because you're so You're just you're easy to talk to, especially when we don't have our phones around, you know, like phones, it's just easy to so like you're reinforcing to her in her mind that my husband loves when

I'm when we're actually having a real conversation. The other thing is it's just a conversation about you putting the problem on yourself first instead of blaming her, because you can't blame her for this, So instead you go, Babe, could I talk to you about something I think I'm having having a problem with looking at my phone all the time, and I need you to help me to get off of it. So what are some things that

we could do to help get off of it? For example, I know a couple that when he comes in from work and she comes in from work, they drop their phones in a little basket at the front door. So it's like you have your phone out during the day, but when you come into the house, you drop it into a basket, and there's a certain time during the day, like an hour during the day when they can go and get their phones out of the basket. And that's extreme,

but it's something there's always a way. There's always a way with this kind of stuff. And then I think it starts with communication. Deleting Facebook. Getting rid of Facebook never helps, as you said, it only lasts one day. I've seen people there's different apps that could help you

that could help monitor your your log in time. Some people will delete the passwords or log themselves out, Like every time you get off Facebook, you log yourself out, so that when you get back on Facebook, you have to log in. And it's annoying and you don't want to do it every five seconds because you've got to keep logging in. But that takes discipline to do that. There is an app that John Marlin our guitar Player,

my guitar Player not. We use this a lot, and it was gosh, I wish I could wish I could remember the name, but there's so many If you type in you know, screen time Management screen management, those kind of apps. But this one was a tree, and you when you close your screen, it's it starts growing a tree, and if you open your phone within a certain amount of time, it kills the tree. So you see like

the little leaves withering. But the longer you leave your phone closed, the tree grows and like blossoms and gets bigger and grows flowers and and you when you just see your your home screen, it says I'm growing a tree, and it says the time, and it's just it's a stupid way to make your mind. It's like a game. So you go, oh, I can't open my phone. Like the tree's never been this big before. It's looking really good. So there's anyway, there's all there's all kinds of mind tricks.

It it boils down to this. If you're on a diet, if you're wanting to start a diet, one of the best things to do on the diet is clear your pantry and clear your cabinets of cookies and sweets and all the things that you don't want to eat. Because it's nearly impossible for anyone to be on a diet. And you walk into the kitchen and there's warm chocolate chip cookies just came out of the oven on a plate right there in the kitchen, and you're on a

diet trying not to eat cookies. It's almost impossible. So you get rid of it and you don't cook cookies and you keep them out of the house. And it's the same thing with any kind of addiction. And that's what phones are, their addictions. So don't blame her for this, don't put the blame on her, encourage her when she's not on it, and try to clear the house from the addiction. Including you put it on you first, because

I know you have the same problem. I know you do because you wrote me this email on your phone. I'm not calling you out. I'm just saying all humans are part of it. I'm one of them. Everyone. So limit the time. Limit the screen time. You can also limit a lot of these modems like WiFi modems. Could limit the Wi Fi so then you have to log back in and request more WiFi. We do it with our kids. We only give them a certain amount per day.

When it's up, they have to request more from us, and most of the time we're going to say no. So that's something you guys could both do together. Just a thought, take a break, be right back. Podcast today is brought to you, guys by Athletic Greens, the most

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twenty years old. I'm from Spanaway, Washington. That's the second Washington we've had today, about forty minutes outside of Seattle. I love that you have such a big, beautiful, amazing garden. Growing my own food is something I'd love to start doing. However, my experience with plants has been mostly with potted succulents. I would love some tips, tricks, best advice, and product recommendations on starting and maintaining a garden and how to start seeds. It would be best if I could start

my seeds indoors. Washington is cold and very rainy much of the year. Keep killing it with your music. I hope to come see you at a show at your show in Seattle in November. Best wishes to you, Amber, London, Lincoln, and baby Maverick. Thank you so much. Teagan appreciate it. So this is this is It's going to be an interesting question because Washington and Texas are very different, and I don't know a lot about growing in Washington. But it is except we have a lot of succulence. It

is interesting that you're wanting to start with seeds. I love gardening, and your subject line of the email is Granger's gardening one on one, which is interesting. I love gardening just as much as I like eating the produce from my garden. I like just maintaining it, and I like the process of setting it up, and I love getting the soil ready, and I love making my own mulch, and I love the watering process and the bug maintenance.

I would say this, Tiagan, not knowing your setup at home and how much space you have, there's a couple interesting things you could start right away. The first thing I would recommend starting before anything is worm farm. And worms could be so beneficial to any garden or plants or flowers, whatever you're whatever you're doing, or just for your soil for your lawn. And I'm pretty sure you could do it in Washington or Texas or anywhere in between. So,

once again, not knowing your setup, I have. I have a worm farm that I got a couple of years ago. Those that watch the Smiths with me can probably remember when I got this this setup. But it's a it's like a green bin. I forgot the name of it, but it's a it's like a green bin and it funnels inward. So if you're watching me on YouTube, you can see my hands. It funnels. The top is fatter,

and it starts it starts funneling down inwards. And so you you put your I started with some regular soil and then you as you start composting on top of that, you put your kitchen kitchen scraps in there, and the worms will will eat eat their way up, and then it pushes the good soil down, down down, and like the worm cast things and they go to the bottom. And then you could actually harvest the very bottom that dirt and put it straight into your garden or your flowers,

and it's amazing. It's the best fertilizer you could possibly get, and I love getting mine. Actually just was out there before I started this podcast today and was noticing it's time for me to harvest that fresh dirt, and so I'll go be able to take it and put it out there. So I would start with that, and then the second thing you could do that's like back to back with the worms is composting. And every time you have kitchen scraps, you might already do this, but there's

several ways I use the worms. I have pretty much three different composts. I have the worms, and then I have a tumbler, and then I have just a big open bin. So the big open bin, and I have two different sections of that so that I could use

a shovel and move you know, some compost over. But we'll get just start simple when you start with your kitchen scraps, and that's like your banana peels and your apple cores, and your coffee grinds, and your grounds, and your paper towels, eggshells, any kind of fruit scraps, anything that's not meat or bread or dairy is great. And you just you can get a tumbler like you can go to any hardware store and get you a tumbler like I have, and it's sits on the metal frame

and it spins. You might have seen this. You asked me for gardening one oh one, So forgive me if you already know this kind of stuff. But man, composting is great because you're you're turning your kitchen scraps into straight soil, which is amazing. And these black tumblers, they take the heat of the sun and it heats that compost up really hot and breaks it down quicker than

it would in a normal nature setting. And then this is setting you up so that when you do have your garden, you have worms, you have worm castings, which is the fertilizer, and the worm juice which is like straight fertilizer concentrate. And then you've got your compost, which is your dirt. So you're you're creating the perfect environment for your garden. And then the other thing I do

is mulch. I make my own mulch, whether it comes from different scraps that are too big for the compost, or grass clippings, or if I cut down a tree and I'm using all the sawdust and the chippings from the tree, that makes really good mulch. And so then the mulch goes on top once you once you get your plants in the ground, the multch goes on top. That's going to protect you in Washington from the heat,

the sun, the cold, the rains. It holds in the moisture from the from the water, so it keeps the weeds out, it fertilizes it all at the same time. It's incredible. So these are like the basics of gardening. And so once you have these kind of basic ideas set up, I would I would probably do a raised bed for you and start. Start with a simple raised bed. You can go to your hardware store and get you a metal metal container. I did that this year, and

I'm probably I'm going to do it next year. Super easy. Instead of cutting up your backyard and making rows, you could just sit there and do a raised bed. You could do a lighter raised bed that you could actually move and move it into your garage, so then you could beat the winter, and you could you could beat the freeze if you have like an early freeze or a late freeze something like that. So other than that, if you actually want to get into plants, then it's

going to really depends on your preference. What do you like? What do you do you like potatoes or tomatoes or strawberries or are you like berries? Do you like peppers? Like Ora Okra's ocre needs some extreme heat, so you're only going to get that a short time of the year. But anyway, at this point, I would love to see a picture of what you get started taking. Thank you for emailing. Here's a question that this is a different turn says. The subject says, having moral integrity in today's world.

Having moral integrity in today's world, Hey Granger, I'm currently a freshman at Kansas State studying Mechanical Engineering College, and life in general has been pretty rough with the last year or so. I've lost a close friend, had my younger brother and father both go through rehab for substance abuse, and endure a toxic relationship. I feel now that I'm stronger than ever in My family is now closer than ever too. I see a lot of my peers dealing

with their problems through drugs, alcohol, and lustful relationships. It often seems like I'm the odd man out with my moral values. My question for you is this, and what ways do you still maintain a social life and still uphold your own moral values? And how do you truly embolden those values so that no one person or circumstance can sway them. Best regards, Connor. Connor shout out to k State and Manhattan, Kansas. That is a party town, buddy.

I could feel your sentiment coming out of this party town of Manhattan Mechanical Engineering. You're a smart dude, so let me break this down for it as if me and you are buddies in a campfire. You've had a rough year. You lost a close friend and your brother and your father have both gone through rehab for substance abuse and endured a toxic relationship. You've had a lot of stuff going on, and you feel closer than ever to them. Now you are struggling than ever and closer

and closer to your family than ever. That's awesome. That's awesome. Let me lay this out for you. In my opinion, with your with your younger brother and your father both going through rehab for substance abuse, I would stay far away from that kind of influence with your friends because it's hereditary at this point, could be, could be. So that's helping me answer the part of your question that says,

how do you still maintain a social life? Well, I think your social life, because of your family history, needs to look differently than what you might think it's going to look like. Like if you're thinking, I'll just be a designated driver and I'll just go to these parties with everyone, and I'll be like the good guy and make sure everyone stays in line, and I could take everybody home. Man, I don't think connored. I don't think that's something a task that you should be taken on.

Could you? Yes, you could. You're probably the smart dude and strong willed and capable. But we're going back to the cookie jar thing. You know, we're going back to the you're on a diet and there's there's a warm chocolate chip cookie right there, and you got this and it's hereditary for you. Why would you want to be in the room with the chocolate chip cookie when you're trying to be on a diet. It's the same thing, it's the same. This is like the same conversation with

the social media. So a couple of things here. You're asking me having moral values, having integrity in today's world. Well, if you ever say the word moral to me, to me, if you ever say the word moral, I'm going to ask you where are you getting your moral basis from? Like, where where are you deciding what morals are? And by what standard are those morals? Are they from the Bible? Are they from a really nice self help book? Are they from Sigmund Freud's psychology? You know, where what morals

are you talking about? Because if you just say, you know, like worldly good moral So what is that is that? Is that obeying the law? Is that staying within Kansas law? Uh? So my point is it's very gray. You got to know. If you're gonna say morals, you gotta know a concrete level of what those morals are. Like this is what I could do and this is what I can't do. There's no gray. The Bible tells me where where my black and white is. It doesn't it doesn't allow me

to fall into gray. There is no gray. So for you, my first piece of advice is if I'm gonna I'm gonna dissect your question. When you say I see a lot of my peers dealing with their problems through alcohol, drugs, and lustful, lustful relationships, let me say that again. You say I see a lot of my peers dealing with their problems through drugs, alcohol and lustful relationships. Yes, brother, you need new friends. You need to change your friends. Change them out. They are having an impact on you,

even if you don't know that they are right. You've got to change your environment because your environment makes you. If I meet your five friends, I'm going to know who you are. Through your five friends, you will not be the odd man out. As much as you think it. That's not what humans do. We are always a product of who we hang around, what we do. The society we're living in the in the environment, the civilization, the city. We are a product of our environment. That's how we

are built. So unless you change that environment, unless you change your friends, you will be dealing with the same problems with drugs, alcohol and lustbul relationships period. There's no way around it. You will be that. You will be those guys. You might be a slightly better version of them with the same problems, solving it with the same remedies. Some of them might be really bad at it and you're not so bad. But it's the same thing. So you got to change your friends. You gotta hang out

in a different circle. You gotta find a new group. You gotta go to a different organization. You gotta go down the other side of the campus at k State. You gotta get out of the least with your roommate. Man, I'm gonna live on my own or I'm gonna I'm going to get a pot luck roommate. You gotta change the script. Why am I sounding desperate right now? Why

is my voice getting desperate to you right now? Buddy, I'll tell you, Connor, it's because you told me your younger brother and your father are going through rehab for substance abuse. This is in your blood, man, and now you're hanging out with these dudes. I'm not knocking you. I'm saying this as a friend around a campfire, connoring you need new friends. Now, I want to tell you what suggest that you go. You know me. You know

you listen to this podcast. You know me. I'm gonna tell you that I would suggest you go to church. You find a good church in Manhattan, and Pastor Chad, who's a guest on this podcast all the time, could help you. I guarantee you there is an awesome church in Manhattan, Kansas with some awesome people and probably possibly a future wife for you waiting for you there. Just saying, but that is a place you can go and get involved and become a member. Say what can I do

to help serve you? Guys? Are y'all going out on Saturday and you're giving out backpacks to little kids that need them for elementary school? I'm in all. You're going out next Tuesday. You're going out to help the lady down the street because she had a tree fall in her yard and you're using chainsaw and you're cutting up her tree to clear her front yard for this widow lady I'm in. That's what a church will help you do. And then you're out there and you're like, man, I'm

got this chainsaw. I'm helping cut this tree down for this lady. And these dudes I'm doing this with are cool. They're good guys. I bet you those aren't the guys that are going out with drugs and alcohol and lustful relationships trying to get me in trouble. Bro you're a freshman in case that you got a lifetime ahead of you. You gotta change these things right now. You gotta get this stuff lined up. You got a big future in mechanical engineering. You're gonna have a good You're gonna be set,

You're gonna have a good life. You're gonna get a good job. The world needs mechanical engineers right now. You're gonna have a good set job with a good education from a grit university. But you got to make some changes. If you want to see that fulfillment, go down to your local church. See what they're doing. Change your five, Change your five friends. Start with that one, two through four five, Change them out. Man, where do I go

after that? After that rant? I'm not sure if I'm just like debating, if I should read this question with the subject line why I got to now right? It says why. I'm fourteen, But when I was eight years old, my mom and dad both passed away in a car accident. I went into foster care, where I got the best family I could ever ask for, And in December of twenty eighteen, my foster dad died serving and then in

twenty nineteen, my foster mom committed suicide. Your music has saved me, but my question is why is God taking everyone I love away from me? I'm tired of this life. I'm ready to give up. Question comes from a fourteen year old named Cooper. Cooper first thing I'm going to say. First thing I'm going to say is there are there are hotlines set up for people to talk to you, and I would really want you to go speak to a counselor and pour your heart out to somebody. You

said you mentioned God with the upper case. So I'm gonna tell you that to go to Christian counseling, go to your local church, and just pour your heart out to these very qualified people that are set up for this, that have heard stories like yours. You're not alone. You're not the first one that this has happened to, and that doesn't take away the fact that it's so hard and I'm so sorry. A fourteen year old shouldn't have this kind of stuff. But there's a strength in you.

You're questioning too, There's a strength And part of it comes from you saying that music saved you. Part of it comes from you capitalizing the g in God, which is something. Part of it is saying that you got the best foster family you could ever ask for, which is a blessing. Part of it comes I know that you loved your mom and dad, which is what we're part of. This pain is coming from when you were eight years old when that happened. So I would ask

you this, Your subject is why. So you're questioning why God? Why God? Why are you doing this to me? Why are you taking everyone a love away from me? And through counseling through your grief, through a lot of people, trained professionals that you need to talk to. On the other side of that, on the other side of all those people, here's me. Here's me. And I would say, Cooper, is God is talking to you. God is preparing you through this suffering. He is, he is making a he is.

This is profound, right, this is a profound story. And so the way I see it, Cooper, is that a story like this of so much pain and tragedy and suffering, to a person of faith that believes in God only has a good story, a good ending, a good ending, And God is setting you up for something big. He's going to put you in a place. It's just me thinking out talking out loud. He's putting you in a place where one day you'll be able to make an

impact because of your story. You'll be able to sit in front of people and no matter what someone throws at you, no matter what kind of loss they have, no matter what kind of disability they've they've endured, no matter what kind of hardships they've had to go through, you could look at them and say I lost my parents in a car accident, and then I got a

great foster family and both of them died. And then everyone at that point is listening to you because you have the floor, Cooper, you have the floor, You have the upper hand of suffering at that point to them for them to listen to you. So then I say, Cooper, what will you do with that? What will you do with the chance to have the upper hand and a conversation to people that are hurting? Would you say to them, I gave up. That got the best of me. It

was the end of me. One loss was hard, a second loss was harder, and then the last common losses, I just gave up. Would you be comfortable telling a panel of people in a room of suffering people that or would you say something like that? Happened when I was fourteen, and by the time I turned twenty five, and I knew that God brought me through this suffering. He didn't eliminate the suffering. He brought me through it. He carried me through it. That's where the power of

God is. And you look at this room and you go and now I'm here to help you. I'm here to walk you through it. I'm here to tell you how I did it, How, Cooper, how I did it. I'm here to tell you how the most painful childhood can turn into the most fruitful life. Because now this is you talking, Cooper, still talking for you. Because now I'm married, beautiful wife, beautiful kids that I have treasure that I love. And guess what my daughters eight, and I remember when I was eight, I lost my parents

in that car accident. And my son is fourteen, and I remember when I was fourteen and I lost my foster parents. And so now I love them and I cherish them, and I build them up, and I encourage them, and I lead them on a path towards God, and I teach them about integrity and honor and truth. And now they're great humans. And now I could stand in front of this group and I could help them, and I could help them through their suffering, all because I

kept moving forward. I trusted God that he was carrying me through this all because I suffered. And now not only am I better because of it, but my family is, and now all these people. Because then, Cooper, you'll have a platform that no one else has. None of that might help you right now, but a counselor can and some some people could come that that are trained for this. But after that, after that, after after you get through the day by day, because right now it's a day

by day thing. It's it's a if day by day is too much, then it's it's hour by hour. And if that's too much, then it's minute by minute if that's too much, it's the next breath. That's all you have, the next breath. But once you get through that, then I want you to listen to what I told you will listen. I want you to listen to this, this potential story that you have of redemption, of restoration. A

local church could help you through this. A good, a good, solid local church, not a weak one, not a not a not a weak gospel church, not a cowardly church. There's a lot of those. A strong passionate pastor that has that has a shepherd's heart, that wants to that wants to grow. You know, that's there's one of those in your town. There always is. I appreciate you guys. It's uh it's different when I sit here and go on rants by myself in a room, but these these

solo podcasts are kind of good for me too. So I'm just a few hours away. I'm about to go to bed, and then I'm literally a few hours away from heading to uh the hospital and bring this little baby into the world. This is a baby that and and some somehow, some way this will be He'll know this, But this is a baby that's coming into this world because another is not in this world. This is a sibling that's coming into the world because of a sibling

that died. It's very special. It's heartbreaking, and it's very, very very special. I don't take that lightly. I don't take that as a fluke or as an accident or as a strike of luck. This is it's a really big deal to me, so into our whole family, and it's just the beginning. This is just the beginning. This podcast, episode ninety eight's just the beginning. So love you guys. Thanks for listening. Email me. I hope I can answer it for you. See you guys next episode. Yigee, 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, gribe with 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 Graingersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. Yie