Doing this every morning changed my life.

have been rolling in and I get it. I get them, and I stored them and I say, oh, this is a career question, or this is a girl question, this is a music question, this is a touring question, and I kind of get them all put together and then depending on who my guest is, I'll go through that list and pick the right ones for that episode. This is a great one, and these are good questions. And my brother Parker is helping me today. Love having Parker on.

He's so he's so good at going through these questions with me and like having a good thought behind it, as if we're in sitting in the truck driving down the road and two buddies are having a conversation about a question, or even better yet, we're sitting at a campfire chilling. Here comes the question and we get a long form, thoughtful answer. And I love this podcast and that's that's so much of what this podcast is is just having a conversation with you guys and answering your question.

So thanks for that. Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. Ask me anything. That's what we're gonna do today. I've been pretty pumped today because we've been also been talking about touring, and on this podcast, I'm gonna talk about some of the dates that are starting to come in. We're seeing more and more. There's like a run, a five show run. We're doing it in April. There'll be some in May, and then June, more and more July.

It is starting to look like, hey, we're gonna be busy and then after that we'll be on the road. We're becoming to your town. So pumped about that. We'll get the podcast back on the road again, back on Wildflire just like it started. It's all coming full circle. This craziness is almost over. This is episode seventy seven. Thanks for listening. Great shift podcast, did kids in decent much tires and long line of five, fool of husband dined back. It's crazy, cool wagation. Good to have whole

Parker back, brother Parker helping answer some questions. I want to start out with some really profound, deep questions. The subject line is Parker. It says, Hello, I'm Mariah from Michigan. Shout out to Michigan love the podcast. Number one, Why is Parker single? Number two? How old is Parker? So she sent this and I immediately put it into the Parker folder, waiting for you to be back so you could answer these profoundly interesting questions for the world. Well

we could. We could switch it and we'll start with number two. I am twenty seven years old. Question number one. I have not ever been somebody to get in a relationship just for the sake of being in a relationship. I don't see myself as someone who enjoys just having someone else's company just for its own sake. I date.

I haven't been on a date in probably over a year, because if I'm going on a date with someone, it's because I have vetted them and I see qualities in them that could be a potential wife and mother to my children and grandmother to my grandchildren. Vetting by social media or mutual friends. I gotchau and so I just have I just have standards that I put in place before.

I don't date casually. I date to marry, and so if I go on one date with you, and I don't see myself marrying you, then I don't go on a date with you again. So that's why I've been single for most of my life. You you could have when you're twenty two. That's probably different. When you're twenty seven, that's changed, right, You would casually date when you're twenty two, like just have fun because you weren't. Yeah, just because

I was just a completely different person. So that's more of just a matter of you're like dating just for the social aspect of it, to like go to like go to dances in college and formals and just because you're always around them and like hanging with friends and it's fun sort of thing. But yeah, when you when you're out of college and like you're a young man and you have work and responsibilities, I don't just do it casually. So what's something that you would see on

say Instagram or Facebook. What's something that you would see that's agreeable, like, ah, this person has potential. Well, I personally have six non negotiables that I have written down here we go. No, And this may sound pretentious, and I don't mean it to be said that way. I don't think I'm that great of a guy by any means. But it's the most the person that you end up with for the rest of your life is it's the most arguably the most important decision, one of the most

important decisions you'll ever make your whole life. It determines the generations of thousands of people that come after you, of your kin and your grandkids. And yeah, and it's the person that you will be with more than anybody else for the rest of your life. Like they are, they become You become one flesh when you get married, right,

So anyway, my non negotiables are sweet. It's the six s's wow, sweet, secure, social, sweet, secure, social, spiritual, servient, and smoking hot, which sounds sounds really that Really it just means beautiful. And by servient servant could be taken

the wrong way. I really don't mean that in a way like I want you to like be my slave and like do everything for me, but just servient and like God gave you a servant heart and you genuinely enjoy being a caretaker and being a mother and the person that and I deserve, I mean I don't deserve. I enjoy caring for others as well. So I don't

mean that in that way. Well speak, I'm your brother, so I can tell you that you're not saying this, but in coming up with those six non negotiables, you're also I'm assuming you're holding trying to hold that same

standard to yourself as well. So I like the old saying of there's a guy who he was like kind of known for being the single guy who didn't date just to date, and when I think he was like thirty three or thirty four, he finally found the girl that he was going to marry and he said, there's a quote that he said that when I became the man I knew I was capable of becoming the woman I was worthy of appeared m So that's just kind of like my never ending quest thus far to become

the best possible man that I know I'm capable of on earth, and then a woman that I could potentially be worthy of would come into my life through that. Dude. That's awesome. Okay, so those are the six that not negotiable. What are what's something that you would see on social media from a girl that you'd think she's out really if you're I mean, gosh, it's it's so it sounds kind of pretentious for me to say you're out, Like

I really don't mean it like that. But I could say just some of the things that I may look for in terms of like if I'm going on, like say your social media, which I don't like to just judge someone based on their social media, Like I don't like to do that either, But if someone showed me a girl's social media page, I would look for pictures with her and her family to see if she has a good relationship with them, not a lot of overfiltered selfies.

When the girl has a lot a lot of selfies or a lot of like risque pictures and like bathing suits and stuff, then it it's typically a sign that like maybe you're not the most secure, maybe you're trying to get social validation through likes versus a girl who's just genuinely knows her worth and knows her value is not going to rely on likes on social media to validate herself. She'll post a picture with her grandma and it'll get six likes, and she's just like I literally

don't care, Like that's totally fine with me. Yeah, that sort of thing I would say what a good judge, I could say, is and this is disqualifies probably the music business because if you're like a girl singer, most of your pictures are probably gonna know, yeah, you on stage or something. But if it's a personal page, it's a good indicator. With how many pictures on your Instagram are you with someone else, like a friend, like your arm around somebody, you're doing something kind of activity with

other people. That's a really good indicator. If you see someone on social media and every single picture is them with friends and they're smiling, and they're with family or friends or dad or mom, or sibling or niece or nephew or or you know whatever, that's a good indicator that this person, this person is pretty secure in themselves because they've established a group around them that they love

and trust. The opposite is if you see someone that's not not in the music business or whatever, that every single picture is them by themselves in some kind of pose. You got to wonder, like, why why do you don't have any pictures with friends? Yeah, agreed, Let's move to a question. And by the way, if you have any question for me, anything at all, email Granger Smith Podcast at gmail dot com I'll check these, I'll kind of categorize them and throw them into the podcast with my guest.

This one. The subject matter or subject line of the email is business advice, says Hey Granger, your my name is Clay. I'm from Tennessee. Shout out to Tennessee. I'm seventeen years old. I just started a business this past summer making wood flags, and I'm soon going to be making gun holsters out of KAIDEKX thermoplastics. I'm wanting to eventually start making all tactical items such as police s,

gear racks, consalment flags, concealment coffee tables, gun holsters. I'm also wanting this to eventually be a full time business. Just wondering if you had any advice for someone trying to run a successful business. And I put this into the Parker category because you do run a successful business at Ee Apparel. And the first thing that comes to

my mind, Clay, well, you know, congrats man. You've got a lot of ambition, and you're a step of head already with having this kind of ambition and wanting to run a successful business, and you're only seventeen. So the first thing that pops out to me is you're seventeen, and when I was seventeen, I was playing high school football and singing on the weekends and didn't have that kind of ambition like you do. So that's really cool.

And then at the same on the flip side of that, I would say, whatever you do in life and business and dreams and goals, whatever you do, don't skip over being seventeen. Don't let this year fly by because you're planning for the future. The most important thing you could do right now, and this is maybe contrary to what you might think, I'll say the most important thing you could do right now is just soak up being seventeen.

I can't tell you how many songs I've written about being Saideen are being eighteen or being in being that age group and the girl you're dating at the time, or the friends that you have, or the trouble you're getting into with your buddies, you know, the late nights, the early mornings, that just enjoy that because you're only seventeen once and so it's so awesome that you have

these dreams and goals. But don't worry about it and don't let it become so much of a focus that you're skipping out on just being a seventeen year old. Enjoy making this stuff, like you're making these holsters and wooden flags. Do that and put it on social media and perfect that craft. But only do it out of love of it and the fun of it. Don't already start preparing yourself for being twenty seven or twenty eight, you know what I mean, right, Yeah, Yeah, and while

you're doing it, enjoy the process. Don't be worried about It's hard to say that to a seventeen year old, but yeah, try to not try to not have a monetary goal in mind of why you're doing it. Like once I have ten thousand dollars of sales, one thousand dollars, five hundred dollars, you know, whatever it may be. Yeah, that's just good life advice. And then on the business side,

I can't really attest. I was thinking yesterday about how people ask us all the time about business advice, and I was like, man, I can only speak for what I'm just so fortunate enough to have been in a brand where we were in a different spot where our marketing kind of outgrew the product, and it was like the brand just took off and it's just been us trying to create quality product to catch up with it.

But if I could do it again, I would just say it comes down to two things from a business sense form, and that's do you have an A plus quality product that's there's a million different people out there doing that these days. Do you have a product that you know we call it? We try to say, what is the word remarkable? Well, it's something that's worth remarking about. When someone gets that, wholester is it? Is it thing that it's going to just say, Wow, I'm going to

tell my buddy about this. And so you got to have a great quality product and then you have to market it in an interesting way. See, you have your product, and then you need to get that product in front

of eyeballs for the least amount of money possible. Right So, whatever that may be for your customer or your position in your life right now, whether that may just be posting on your Instagram or going to going to tailgates, or walking around the high school or walking to a local gun club or whatever that may be, focus on those two things and have persistence and don't give up and be focused on the journey and not the outcome. Yeah,

I would say immediately. What you could do is start an Instagram page that's separate from your clay personal page and make it, you know, quote unquote your business page and concentrate I've heard people say this, like, especially in the photography world and the video world, concentrate on your top nine. Your top nine post on your Instagram are your most important post at all times. So whatever your

top nine is, most people won't scroll below that. So get these awesome holsters and wooden flags and position them in really cool spots. Like sometimes with EE Apparel, we'll literally use an old stump and put a hat on top of the stump, and we have a couple where there's snow in the background, and then a couple where there's like wildflowers or green grass or just make it

look really cool in that environment. And take take a couple angles, you know, edit it, color it a little bit so it looks it looks really sharp, and make your top nine on this new business page all the different varieties of what you can do and make them awesome, make them cool enough where people go, that is the

coolest wooden flag I've ever seen. And then I would go to your local police department and bring a prototype of these gear axts that you're talking about or one of the things that you've made out of thermoplastic and go talk to a deputy there and just say, can I show you something? You know, my name is, I'm seventeen. I'm trying to start a business, and I'm trying to

get into making tactical items and police gear racks. Could I show you a couple of things I've been working on, See what you think, how if you would actually use it? And could I give you guys one for your department? Start it with that way, and then if they like it, then say, oh, by the way, we follow my Instagram page and share it. And that's the beginning of all this, while keeping in mind to just enjoy being seventeen. But that's the beginning, Parker. Set it right, enjoy the process.

Don't think about mass producing or just think about making the best, coolest, best quality items you can and make only like four or five of them, perfect them. If it's not right, make another one, Get really cool pictures and fill that top nine of your Instagram. You do all that, You're off to the races, all right, here's the let me pop up another one. I'm trying to build up into some of the heavier ones here. I'm gonna read this cold. I don't know what this says.

I'm gonna read it cold. The subject matter is life advice. It says, Hey, I would like my name to remain anonymous. He says, I just wanted to say that, even from a big city, I still find your music very relatable and meaningful in certain ways. Listening through a shuffle of every single one of your songs since the late nineties is great because it touches on so many aspects of life. I'm seventeen. Here we go again, seventeen years old and about to go to college. I'm planning to go to

med school and be a doctor. I would love to know what advice you have for dating. I have absolutely no experience, never been to a school dance or asked a girl out. I've always thought it was too early to be dating, and that I should focus on school, albeit my school's valed victorian, but at the cost of me being a bit uncomfortable socially in certain situations, like maybe talking to a girl or being at a party with a girl. But now I'm looking to change that.

I don't want to just be single until I'm like thirty years old or something. Thanks so much for your time. Why right, No, right, This is a good transition from what you just talked about being twenty seven and still single. So I think you to remain your name remains anonymous. I think, first of all, it's okay if you're still single at thirty. Dude, you're about to be a doctor, a val Victorian, super smart guy. There is nothing wrong with you having not dated or been to a school

dance or asked a girl out. There's nothing wrong with that at all. So, first of all, change your mindset from thinking you're missing out or you're not living appropriately, because that is what the world wants to tell you, and that's what so social media wants to tell you. Sitting here next to a twenty seven year old, I

didn't get married till I was thirty. My brother Tyler is single and he's what thirty eight, So yeah, we come from a family of waiting for the right girl, and to be honest, when you find a girl, and you will, eventually, you're gonna find someone that's compatible with you, and it's going to appreciate your vulnerability and you saying and all the girls out here could listen, could and probably agree by you saying, I'm really nervous right now. I've never asked a girl out. I've never been on

a date. Probably most girls listening would think, well, that's pretty sweet, Like I have a chance. This is great, Like I could I could come in and I'll show him everything for the first time, Like I'll go and eat, we'll eat dinner for the first time together. I could be his first kiss ever. That's that's really attractive to the girl that you're wanting to be with. Okay, if a girl is not attracted by that or is turned

off by that, she's not the right girl for you. Dude, you don't want a girl that's been like I've been dating since I was eleven years old, So you don't want that. You're you're mister val Victorian and mister doctor. You're gonna go along your path. You're gonna go to medical school. You're gonna focus on you. You have to put you number one. You are number one in your life right now, because eventually, when you find a girl and you get married, you're no longer number one and

this is This is guys and girls both. You have to be selfish when you're single, and people go selfish, that's that's rude. You don't want to be selfish when you're married, so you want to you want to focus on yourself, develop yourself, focus on school, get your good grades in medical school, get that land, that good job.

If along the way you meet someone, that's great. But if you get all that and you focus on yourself, you're going to be ready to open up and give the rest of yourself to your spouse eventually when the time comes. And then when you're forty, you're not going to have any kind of regrets. You're not going to say I wish i'd focus more on school. You're going to say, I'm ready to give my life completely to you. Yeah, it's like what we're talking about. You become the man

that you can become. Focus on your mental health, your physical health, your spiritual health, get your finances in order, and when you do that, the woman that you're worthy of will appear. The type of girl that you're looking

for will probably be probably a peer. There's you know, at seventeen, you'll probably only have so much to offer, right but you know, I was a loser at seventeen, pretty much like to get the girl of your dreams, Like, you know, a supermodel girl that's twenty four, that's everything

that you could dream of. Probably is not going to go for a seventeen or a twenty or twenty one year old guy in college that hasn't nothing to offer, that's overweight, that's just studying all the time, that has no time, that has no money or no way to no way to provide for potential children. But the more you develop yourself and and as time goes by, you will be in a better place to attract that type of girl and then really to bring I think about

it all the time. It's a it's a line of you know, having faith too and trusting God and knowing you know. I struggle with it as well, saying you know, you alone are sufficient, Christ, You are all I need. You know, That's my prayer every night. It's like, Man,

I want somebody to share life with. Man, I want children and more than anything, but but I know that this is your plan and you alone are sufficient if I don't find anybody, And so always having that in the back of your mind, knowing, hey, no matter, true confidence that life comes from knowing no matter what I know, I'll be Okay. That's so good man, so good. So once again, you're seventeen. Enjoy being seventeen. Focus on yourself, get done what you need to get done now, and

don't worry. There's a lot of people in your same boat that have not dated or asked or grow out or been to a school dance at age seventeen. There's a lot of you. It might seem like you're the only one, and you probably look at TikTok and think, wow, I am a loser. You're not. You're normal. So just remember you're normal and you're doing everything right. The fact that you're even asking these questions, the fact that you even emailed this podcast because it's on your heart. You're

on the right path. Man. Hang in there, and congrats on being Valvatorian. That is an unbelievable accomplishment that I couldn't even come close to doing, never would in a million lifetimes. So you got so much going on for you. And I always say when I talk to law enforcement or our veterans, our active duty military, I always say thank you for your service, but we also need to say that to medical personnel and not just nurses. We need to say it the doctors too. Thank you for

your service. And you haven't done it yet, but what you're about to do. Thank you for what you're about to do is sacrifice a decade, just shy of a decade of your life to medicine, to learning a craft, a trade, so then you can go into the field and heal people and make people's lives better. And that is a massive sacrifice that might get overlooked because you're really smart and you're gonna make money doing it. And because you're really smart and you're gonna make money doing it,

people go, oh, privileged. No, that's a massive sacrifice that you were making, you're preparing to make, and God puts you on this earth with your brain to be valedictorian so you can go into that medical field and make a difference. So thank you for your service, buddy. You're going to be just fine. Let's see, here's a this is almost on the same line. This question says, good morning, Granger and Parker. He just happened to know you're here.

I'm coming to you from San Bernado County, California. My name is Chance and I'm also a smith. My question is I heard that you are looking for a charity for different launches while I'm a volunteer out of Southern California and we have a nonprofit here that's the Silver Valleyfirealliance dot org. Check it out. It is to help us get out and get new gear in our neighborhood neighborhooding, neighboring, excuse me, departments. If you could help out, that would

be amazing. Your Cali friend, so that's interesting, and anyone else that hasn't an idea of charity. We usually every time a new launch is coming up, we have this discussion internally, and Ye Apparel will always support a different charity for every big launch. And there's something we haven't done yet, Silver Valley Fire Alliance. So that's awesome. Thanks for the info. And God knows California needs Southern California needs firefighters and gear and equipment. So yeah, that's that's

pretty cool cool. I have time for another We have one more question before for a break. This is my name is Dylan. I'm from Shawnee, Oklahoma. Shout out to Oklahoma. Just wanted to drop in a line and say thank you for being in encouragement to so many people through your many different social media accounts. I personally feel as though we are truly friends sitting in your truck having a conversation, which is what I want this podcast to be. So thank you, says I also appreciate how much you

respect our military and first responders. As an EMT, I could say, it's nice to know people there's still good people out there and who appreciate what we do. My question is this, when the Country Things win? Is the Country Things Vinyl album going to come out? My wife tried to order me one for Christmas, but it was not on yigie dot com website or Amazon. Please help. My wife got me a record player for Christmas and I really want this album. Thank you, Dylan, s are

we gonna do that? Didn't we already do that? I thought? I don't remember. I think we went through them and sold out. We did a short run and we did like five hundred of them and sold out. So I'll say, first of all, Dylan, thanks for your service, thank you for being an EMT, and shout out to Shawnee, Oklahoma, love that town, and also thank you for appreciating the music so much. That you wanted to be on vinyl. That is a good question. I don't know the answer.

I'd have to ask Tyler, and I don't know where we are if we're going to reorder vinyl. But if we do, I'll announce it on this podcast and social media and maybe we'll do like another short run this song. The reason we don't is the reason we don't just have them in stock is because we order them. Looking at it right here, the Remington vinyl We ordered a bunch of those on the Remington launch and then we

got stuck. They didn't sell very well, so we got stuck with it, just piles of them in the warehouse. We still were like, how are we going to get rid of these vinyls? And the things we finally got rid of them, people start saying, where's your vinyls? Yeah? It's hard, y'all. It's hard running not only apparel but music,

music memorabilia because it's so expensive. I don't know how much a vinyl record for us would be fourteen or fifteen bucks, you know, it's like pretty high for us for our cost, and so to go in and order five hundred and it's kind of taking a risk that they might sit on the shelf. That's a long way to answer. I don't know, but thank you for caring. Man. We'll take a quick break of you right back. This podcast is free to you wherever you're watching or listening,

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dot com. Speaking of touring, we do have some tour dates that are just like starting to come in in April on April twenty second, Shy and Wyoming April twenty third, inmand Kansas April twenty fourth, Manhattan, Kansas April twenty fifth, Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Then there's that's a little run. We're gonna do. We're gonna then there's nothing really until June, and then we're gonna be shooting out to We're gonna have some Texas dates in June, including New Bronfels on

the twelfth, Rockdon, Illinois is on the seventeenth. I know we're doing Countryfest and cat at Wisconsin on June twenty fifth, So there are dates starting to fill in as this crazy mess is starting to clear up and people are starting to feel more confident and shows are booking, So I'll keep you guys up to dated, up to date on that too. This question comes from Mark from Pensacola, Florida.

He's thirty years old. Shout out to Florida. He says, my wife and boys love your music and how God is using you amber and your family in such a positive way. I'm reaching out because I just landed a new job and will likely be bringing in much more money than my prior job. Congrats man, he says. My family and I are followers of Christ and we want to be good stewards of our money. We know having money is a blessing, but we don't want to get caught up in loving it to a point where we

become materialistic. It feels in this season, especially many people who are struggling with job security and finances and we want to remain humble through it all. I'd love to hear some tips or life lessons with what you've learned going on from going paycheck to paycheck to having a little bit more freedom financially and how to be wise with it. Thanks for advice, ee ye, thank you, Mark.

It's a good question and it comes up a lot, especially internally, like what do you do And we spoke about it a minute ago that you know, first of all, Gee Apparel, we feel like we exist because the community and our fans and friends choose to support us. So we always want to be able to give back to the community every single launch and throughout the year. It's very very important to us on a personal level. It's it's always good to think about it and ten percent increments.

So if you get, you know, your paycheck at the end of the month or every two weeks, and it's you just want to take ten percent of that and give it back to your church or local charities that you trust. So that's a really good way to start. And the fact that you're being you're wanting to be good stewards of your money is most of the battle

right there. The fact that you even care and you're thinking about it already makes me think that you're going to continue to remain humble no matter what, because, as we all know, dude, you got this good job. It's awesome. You can get fired next week, or you can get some kind of disability that takes you out of it, or a pandemic hits like it did for us, and all of your tour dates go away. So we don't worry about tomorrow, but we financially prepare for it, but

we don't worry about it. So there's a big difference. And so you prepare like it could all be gone tomorrow, and you live your life in a humble way knowing that it could all disappear tomorrow. And you also live a life of complete gratefulness knowing that in a way, and I'm sure you're an awesome dude, and you work really hard and you really so, I'm sure, but in a way, you don't deserve it in the same way that I don't deserve it. I don't deserve any kind

of human success that we've had. But when we get it. I put gratefulness at the top of the list instead of thinking, well I did the man, I did good. Look how good I'd done. Instead of that, I put gratefulness to the top, like wow, wow, we're really really feel grateful And you could verbalize it, you could say it out loud, but it's it's a big part of leading to answering your question. Yeah, I think that's a

great answer. I like to I like to think that you know, we're just vessels that money can just pass through and we you, you, us, whoever is doing okay, who is more than just can pay the bills anything. Everybody knows you get that security, You can pay your mortgage, you can put food on the table, you have water.

You know, anything past that is not going to bring you any more happiness, right, So, just trying to view yourself just as a vessel of you just so happen to be offering a good or service to the market, so that you have some leftover money, give it back. You know that's going to come through you and it's just going to pass and it's going to be nothing but good to go back into the economy, go back into the market. So, yeah, everything you said right, there's

a number that came out. Some kind of research team did this number, and I think it was sixty five thousand or seventy thousand dollars collective household income. If you make sixty five or seventy thousand dollars a year collective between you and your spouse in your in your house, that is the max that you need to meet all your needs and to not have any kind of financial worries. Something like that, like, that's the max you need unless you're just buying a house that's too big or a

card that's too big. And so a lot of people will actually look at it that way, like if I make seventy thousand in my house, that's then I'm rich and that's all I need. And anything after that is you know, I'll use it for experiences. I'll spend it on experiences instead of junk, instead of buying more junk that you can't You can't pull a U haul behind your hearst. Do you hear that a million times? You cannot take you haul to your to your grave. So

it's better to spend the money. If you're not going to go to a charity or donate it, it's better to use your money to buy experiences with you and your kids and your wife and things that are that will last a lifetime. So you're on the right path. Man. Congrats on the job, the new job, and we we truly wish you the best. Here's here's a question. It says, Hey, Grangeer, I found you on YouTube first, and since then you've become one of my favorite two artists. Who's the other.

One says, I go first to Pandora or just to play your music, and I love it. I remember a video of the Smiths where Amber asked you about how you didn't you don't cough on stage and you mentioned it came from the core cadets at Texas A and M. Did you or did you just go through the core program at A and M. Also, i'm the history major myself. I didn't go to A and M, but I love history. It says at the end here it says you mentioned your grandfather was a pilot, and sadly we're losing the

Greatest generation more and more each year. So it's good to know that we have plenty of people who appreciate the subject and want to ensure we aren't the generation who has to repeat history due to not learning from it. And I saved this question because Parker was in the Core. Also, neither one of us served in the military. But we're in the Core cadets at A and M, which is a what did they call that, it's n R O TC. Yeah,

n RTC. It used to be A. A and M was a military academy until I believe the sixties or seventies when they opened it up to a regular university.

Is it used to be only military academy. So when they opened it up to everyone else, they offered at A and M the Core to opened up to an option called d n C, which is Drill and Ceremony, which means you can go and join the Core and you could go into the military and they'll pay for your school and your books and they send you off to officers training and boot camp and all that stuff.

Or if you go dn C, that means you're only doing it for the camaraderie and the discipline and the work ethic and the military environment in college for your own growth. Akay, you're a crazy person. Yeah, so you're yeah, you're crazy. So Parker and I and our dad did the Core and it's funny. I don't remember saying that on the Smiths about coughing on stage, but coughing and sneezing because of the core. We would have to, you know, every morning formation, we would we would they call it

getting crapped out. We'd have to go like on a run or do push ups or whatever, and then we'd have to be up on the wall and they would inspect us or talk to us, or yell at us, or discipline us in some way. And while we're standing against the wall, you just have to be locked on forward, just eyes locked on, glazed over, looking straight ahead. Can't look at can't look any direction or look at an upperclassmen. You can't move, you can't sway, you can't scratch an itch,

God forbid. You cannot cough or sneeze. You cough for sneeze while you're doing an inspection. Like here you and all your buddies are going to do push ups till you just about die. So you just learn how to not cough for sneeze. And think about that. Sometimes on stage I'll think like a sneeze is coming on, or maybe maybe I'm at a meeting, you know, and somebody's talking in the meeting. I mean, maybe it's something important and I feel a sneeze coming on, and I'll just

go straight back to the core. I'm like, don't you sneeze? Don't you sneeze? Smith, And I could get it where like not even my nose moves, and it's just a mental exercise. Do you do this, Parker? Can you do this? You can? I know you can. I don't. I don't ever really think about it with sneezes when you didn't sneeze in the core. No, but no, I was really

I was a good freshman in the court. Your freshman year is the year that you're that's like your your intro year where you're the follower, where anything you do that's wrong, you're you're in training, so you have high

standards that you have to follow. But uh, it's the being a freshman is is the ultimate training of not letting your outer surroundings affect what's going on internally, keeping a thousand yard stare, your perfect hands, the exact way, standing at attention, not sneezing, not coughing, not moving your

mouth or blinking or turning around. It's really a great lesson probably for you in concerts with you know, thousands of people screaming random things that you throwing things at you, things going wrong, and you just have to stay internally calm and laser focus to get the job done, which obviously is why. And in ROTC programs they're doing that so that you can stay calm in a life or

death combat situation. Yeah, but not so much. I don't think I hold back sneezes, specifically from my training in the Core. I don't think I really ever hold back a sneeze. Honestly. I'm just not in a situation where if I sneeze, something bad happens. Granted, I don't know. I don't know if like it looks bad if you sneeze on stage when I say a meet like I'm

in a meeting. Of course, there's nothing wrong with sneezing in a meeting, But I just it's almost like a fun challenge in Trouble, it's like a fun challenge like, oh, can you completely suppress this? And you can, you definitely can. Amber doesn't understand that, but she could too if she tried. On stage. I do remember a few times I sneezed, and I'll do it like almost as a joke because Todd, my guitar player, he notices everything I do that's out

of the ordinary. But sometimes I'll just turn my back to the audience and sneeze really big, like onto the ground, and he'll start laughing at me. But it's really rare that I'll ever anyone will see me sneeze or cough on the stage. I could do it off Mike, But that's a funny thing. That Probably what I learned from the core that I use more than that every day

is when we had to greet our upperclassmen. We had to stick out her hand and offer her hand like a handshake, and you squeeze as tight as you can in the firmest handshake you could imagine where you're You basically want to crush every bone in their hand. That's the goal. And if if they do it back to you at the same time, you're okay. If you beat them to it, you could actually hurt them, which is good. If they beat you to it, they're going to hurt you,

which is bad. So both of you had the mindset of I got to just intensely shake his hand as hard as I can and at perfect attention with your eyes now your eyes if you're meeting them, are locked right on his and you're speaking clearly. And that's the only time they ever let you look them in the eyes, the only time you can look them in you. It's called the whip out. Yeah, it was when you're shaking their hand and you look them straight in the eye,

never breaking it, and you speak clearly and loudly. And that is missing so much in culture. I see it all the time with little kids, like you get a limp handshake. They're not looking at you, they're looking down. They're not speaking clearly, like what what are you saying? And that's to meet you don't mumble, especially for meeting someone. So I think about it. When you're in the core at A and M. We would meet upper classmen, and

these guys are intimidating. You know, they come at you and if you mess up, you're going to pay for it, and you have no choice. There is if an upper classman that you've never met walks down the hallway or into the hallway or out of his room, you have to immediately meet him immediately, so there is no hesitation.

So that translated to my life, Like I've walked in a lot of rooms with semi important people, and it never crossed my mind to hesitate in that moment to go and meet them, look them in the eye and shake it. I remember when I met George W. Well, I was like, that was probably George w was probably the most intimidating person that ever walked into a room that I was in, because he just has this booming personality. Unlike you see on TV. He's actually pretty tall, big presence,

loud voice. So when he came in the room, like my heart was pounding. But I snapped him too freshmen in the core mode and gave him my best handshake, tried to crush his bones in his hand, you know, and looked him straight in the eye and said nice to meet you, sir, you know, like in a clear presence. And I attribute that to the core, which is it's pretty cool. That's a long way of answering the question of do I call on stage. I'll see this question. This is not a question. This is a thank you

from Edward said thank you from Eddie and Arkansas. It says that he was in the Marine Corps stationed in Okinawa and that's the first time he went to a country bar. And heard the country boy song in Earl Dibbles Junior. So that's awesome, man, he said. About six months ago, I discovered your podcast and I've listened to everything. The title of this is to thank you, because once I started listening to your podcast, I've tried to be as good as you. I don't necessarily like that that

sentence because I'm I'm a work in progress. But thank you, buddy, he said. I've changed my morning routine and started reading the Bible and turning my phone off and I just sit and enjoy the morning. This has really changed my life for the better. By doing this morning routine. It makes every day so much better. Thank you for all your due, dude, Eddie, thank you man. That's awesome. God,

somebody's listening. Anytime someone says they listen to the podcast and they've heard all the episodes, I think, Wow, somebody's actually listening. Because I sit in front of this mic and I don't always know. I wonder if people like listen to thirty seconds and then move on. So, yeah, Parker does the same thing. I get up at five thirty. What do you get up at five? I five thirty five thirty. I get a pit five thirty. It's every since Daylight Saving time, it's turned into five point forty

ever since, I still haven't. It took me about a week, so I used to have it was six that week. Dude. It's hard to day a savings time. But I get up at five thirty and my alarm goes off five thirty, and then I have I had this, you know, morning routine, and a big part of that routine is reading the Bible and no phone, cup of coffee, no one's up, everything's quiet. Do you still meditate? I do not. I do not, even though on this podcast I advertise headspace

a lot. I haven't done it probably six months, because I've been kind of replacing it with just pure honest prayer, quiet, you know, Like I'll get I'll get up five thirty and I'll go in there and I'll get like a cup of coffee, and I'll get my stuff set up on my little table in the barn. And before I cut, before I touch the coffee, it's still hot and steaming. So before I even touch it and take my first sip,

I close my eyes. Then I start praying, and it always starts with like, dear Father, you know, your I'm so grateful for another day, you know, to start another day. Sustain my life for your purpose. And whatever happens today, whatever I do, let it manifest for your promise, your purpose,

your will. And then and then I'll more thanks. I try to do all my thanks at the beginning before I ask anything, you know, if you could get that out of the way, then then I make my meaningless requests, you know, my little human request, and then I usually finish it with somewhere around saying I'm about I'm about to jump into this word. I'm about to jump into this Bible. And I know that this is the living words. That's because that's what you said. This is the living words.

So let this word come alive to me. Let me learn it more about you today, let me see something I haven't seen before in a new light that helps me to be closer to you, to seek you more. And that's kind of replaced meditating and because and I probably there's nothing wrong with using them. I loved my meditation out, but I kind of run out of time if I do that for an hour and then the kids are up, and so there's a there's actually this

apper here. It's called Logos Logos Bible and I started this and it's really awesome, and this is going to freak some people out, but I've been reading the Bible on my iPad and I know some people are like paper people, and I get that. But I read there's this pastor that I follow on social media and he says he does this, and so I started looking into it and sure enough, it's this really awesome program called Logos and you could start reading plans. And so my

reading plan is McShane reading Plan. I think that's how you say it, m c h E y n E. And the McShane reading plan is in one year, you're going to go through the Old Testament once, the Psalms twice, and the New Testament twice, and so it just every morning. It's like, lately mine has been one chapter in Genesis, one chapter in Matthew, one chapter in Nehemiah, and one

chapter in Acts. So what's that for. I feel like it can make it easier to read because it's it's bright, the words are bigger than they are on a Bible where they're a little bit smaller, which kind of adds a little bit of a potential disconnect. I feel like, I've never done that before, but that could help. Here it is and you hit next at each page, and so now we're in Matthew. And the cool thing is

these little numbers right here, like the little letters. You tap the letter and it goes that's the reference for that verse, and it says the same thing in Luke as it does in Matthew years and you could jump to that reference. Sometimes there's a word you could you could check out the Greek or the Hebrew translation for it, which is just really cool. So I've really dug this,

and I've dug this. I'm on day sixteen right now of this program, and you can see I'm fifteen completed out of three hundred and sixty five, and by the end of the year, I'll be like, wow, I've read the New Testament twice, Psalms twice and on. It's pretty cool. The question that everybody has when they hear that is how do you build the discipline to wake up that early? That's my number one question. When I say that, I'm sure that's yours, It's like, well, cool, I would love that.

Of course, my life would be better if I did that, because it's all about having a mental check in in the morning before you get your busy life going. How do I feel right now? Why do I feel that way? And how can I talk to my creator in a one on one quiet place. But I can't get up there early because I don't have the discipline and not hit snooze. Okay, well, so first question is why why do you do it? Answer for me, mornings are much clearer. My brain is much clearer and relaxed in the morning.

At the end of the day, it's trashed. My brain is trashed. I've made too many decisions I've thought about to me that I'm worried of whatever. My brain is trashed. So the key to getting up early is going to bed early. Like that's the key. Yeah, you don't wake up at five point thirty if you go to bed at midnight. Yeh, you just don't. No human, that's not right. Like humans need seven to eight hours to sleep minimum. That's just it. So you got to go to bed earlier.

So you start by getting up early the first time, and you feel terrible all day and then you're ready to go to bed early, so you're automatically on schedule. And the theory behind it is some people are like, dude, I can't I have to go to bed at midnight or I have to go to bed at eleven thirty. Okay, and this is scheduled. It's not sick. I'll say one thing real quick. I heard someone say the other day, you don't have to do anything people, You literally don't have to do it. No, I got I got a

mortgage de Bay. You don't have to pay your mortgage. I have to go to work tomorrow. You don't have to go to work tomorrow. It's like life is just about thinking about the consequences that happen. It's like, I don't we don't start working here until nine. I don't have to wake up at five thirty. I could wake up at eight forty every day and rush here. I don't have to even come here and do this. I could go work at Starbucks if I wanted to. But

it's about asking yourself why. Well, it's because I genuinely know my life will be better if I wake up at five thirty. In the moment, it's hard to get over that feeling of being tired. But I know for a fact that when I wake up and I have my quiet time and I go work out, and then I come to work my life and my everything about my life is better and I'm more fulfilled and satisfied. Yep. So Tyler always says this or other brother, but and

he always puts it right about seven pm. I mean he might even say five pm and on after that is trash time for the brain, like there's you're probably not doing anything productive in your life after seven pm. Intellectually you're just kind of existing. You eat dinner, You're doing some just like easy TV watching or Instagram scrolling or TikTok scrolling or watching YouTube, but none of it's really You're not doing any work for your You shouldn't be, because if I try to do work at eight pm,

I'm not gonna I'm not gonna accomplish anything substantial. And some people are listening right now and going no way, like that's my best my best time in every videographer and photographer, and it seems to be creatives for whatever reason late at night love doing that. So I'm a creative. And I'm saying my brain just the way I'm wired, is better in the morning because I'm fresh off asleep and i haven't made any decisions the day has not stressed me at all, and I'm completely fresh. I haven't

eaten anything yet. I'm just drinking coffee. So that's my best time. And if you if you get it right now, at nine o'clock every morning the five thirties, it's like a nightmare. So you got to build into it. And if you would have asked me four years ago, I would have said the same thing. You're crazy. But you build into it and then you just it becomes your life. You get used to it. So the point being at night, if you think you're so busy that you have to go to bed at midnight, then I go back to

this time. Block your day, meaning for seven days in a row, write down each hour what you're doing, and be disciplined enough for seven days to be honest and go. From four thirty to five, I sat here and looked at Instagram. From five to five thirty, I talked to my girlfriend on the phone. From five thirty to six, I ate a snack. You'll realize when you look at that that man, there's like five hours of this day

that I'm just kind of wasted. And I know there's people that listen that work sixty hours a week that's awesome. We work super hard. Like when I'm on tour, we have crazy schedules. But even in the craziest craziest of schedules, like for me, when I'm traveling, there's airplane time or airport time. What am I doing in the airport time? Like there's you could always find these windows of Man, I shouldn't have been just sitting there scroll on Twitter.

I should have been on Headspace. So anyway, Eddie, appreciate you. Dude. I'm just I'm glad somebody's listening. And I'm glad that you know you're a marine so you understand it. But I'm glad that someone looks at it and goes, dude, I'm gonna get up early and read little Bible and start my day off, and then here's your testimony. It

makes my day better. I love that, dude. I mean, if you're the only one listening, you're the only one that's ever done that, that's listened to this podcast, then to me, this podcast has been a success because I could truly say that the last two years of us doing it every single morning, I'm talking about it. I do it on Sundays, I do it on Saturdays, I do it every day. If I'm on tour, it's becomes

I have to refigure. If I'm planning a show and getting off the stage literally at twelve thirty, then my next morning is not five thirty. At seven thirty. So if I'm staying up late working on stage, I set my alarm seven hours from when my head hits the pillow. So if my head hits the pillow at eight at one am, I'm setting my arm for eight am, and that still works for me. Yeah, everybody will go, well, if I can't do it five thirty, I'm not gonna do it at all. It's like and they'll say, well,

you can't do it. That's that's exact time. Every day. It's like, no, but you just work it in because life happens. I get my eight hours. You like to get your seven hours. People always tell me it must be nice to not have kids. You just wait, buddy, all that's going down the joints. I love being here with you because you have kids and you still do it. I got kids, and you know, I get up at

five thirty and they're usually rocking by seven. By six thirty to six forty five, they're coming in and rocking. So my window is five thirty six thirty. I have that window, and that window's going to end. It's cool. Thank you, Eddie. Appreciate all you guys for asking questions. H Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. If you have anything, If you want to see more Parker, hear more Parker,

put in the comments more Parker. If you think Parker's stupid, crazy, If you think I'm crazy, If you think we have bad ideas, put that in the comments. Yeah, love you guys. Ye thanks for joining me on the granger Smith 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 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. Ye