The terrible things I've seen

understand what you've seen. But I do have my own life experiences and I have my own story like we all do. And I want to try to take a question like this and all the other questions I have today on episode seventy and treat them like we were in the cab in my truck winds down, rolling down

a back road together and we're just talking. Or maybe a better analogy is we're sitting around a campfire, you know, late night, nothing but the stars staring at our boots, sitting up there on the rock, you know, burning campfire, and hey, man, can I ask you a question? How do I find my faith? I'm ex Canadian military? How do I find God after what I've seen. You know, those are the kind of questions that you would ask in a late night campfire with your buddy. And that's

how I want to answer it. Not that I would have the answer to this the right answer, but I'm going to have my way of helping navigate do that. That's what we're gonna do today. And if you have a question or on any topic, or a shout out or anything at all, email Granger Smith Podcast at gmail dot com. I would love to hear from you. I

would love to dive into it. We do this every single Monday, wherever you are, whatever you're doing right now, whether you're community work or you're over the road trucker, or you get your headphones in and you're in the middle of a workout or a walk, or maybe you're just driving and you got it cranked up in your car or your truck. Thank you for letting me come through your speakers. Thank you for letting us have this conversation every single Monday. Whatever platform you're listening on, I

appreciate you. Welcome to the podcast. This is episode seventy did Can't in Decent Times and long line of my fool of husping down on Back's rangy cool evage. Yeah you're that gation. First of all, can we talk about how this is episode seventy already? This is crazy to me. It seems like yesterday I was like, I wonder if I should start a podcast, and I believe it's it's been for those of you that have followed this journey. I think it's what two and a half years or

so since episode one. I guess I could look, but I don't know. I'm gonna read some questions from you guys, and it's just me today, which is fun. We can get into the nitty gritty. If you have a question for me, email Granger Smith Podcast at gmail dot com. It could be about anything in life, anything at all. Could be about music or life or marriage or kids or problems, or could could just be a shout out hey. It could be like what kind of mud tiers do

you use? It could be anything. This first question is from Peyton and it's a music question. It says, Hey, Grangeer, I I just wondering how could I get some advice to improve my voice in songwriting so I could make it when I get out of the army. By the way. I saw you at Billy Bob's this year and instantly, you instantly became my favorite artist, tend role model in

my life. So I figured i'd ask. I know it's a long shot, and you took the hardest route as an independent artist, which is the route I want to take. PS as it is in Texas is the best song in my opinion, and I was wondering if you could give First Calve a shout out on your channel. I got like thirty people hooked on it over here in Fort Hood. Shout out the First Calve, Peyton, thank you for writing buddy, Thank you for your service the First Calve.

I have a good relationship with First Calf because my first entertainment toward Iraq in two thousand and seven, First Calve was the majority that we saw over there deployed in Iraq. I believe we went to The first fob we went to was Warhorse and it was just full of First Calf. So I met so many really good men and women from First Calf over there, and at the time they were coming from Fort Hood as well, which is why it was such a cool tie for me.

So yeah, shout out to First Calve in my relationship with them. Peyton, thank you for your service. Yeah, I can give you a few a few little tricks. You said, first of all, how to improve my voice and the voice your Your vocal cords are a muscle. So if you want to improve that muscle, you really look at it like you would any other muscle on your body.

So if you want to have big biceps, you do curls right, And if you want to fine tune those biceps, you're gonna go lower on reps and higher and wait, if you want to super tone, then you're gonna want to go lower weight in a lot of reps. That's how you need to look at your voice. What do you want out of your voice? And work that like

a muscle. I remember early in my songwriting days, I would go sit in my pickup truck outside of my neighborhood and I would do this every night after dinner, be about eight, I'd give my truck, I would drive a few blocks till there were no more houses, and I would crank up the radio whatever I was listening to at the time, and I would sing for about an hour and a half and time it for ninety minutes, because that's about the amount of set I wanted to

sing ninety minutes. And I would do this and I would just sing at the top of my lungs for ninety minutes every single night to try to build something, some kind of stamina in my vocal cords. And I remember one night a police officer came and pulled up right behind me and turned on his lights, and I was thinking, oh, this is awkward. I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong, but I just thought this is weird.

So the officer walks up. Go down your window, you know, So I was like, yeah, hello, sir, and you know, it's like the typical what seems to be the problem officer And he said what are you doing? And I had nothing besides the truth to tell him. I said, Man, I know it sounds weird, sir. I'm sitting here in my truck. I do this every night because I'm practicing singing and trying to build up the strength of my vocal cords. And he said, you're doing what I said, Yeah, yeah,

I know it sounds crazy, but I cheer. I crank up the radio and then I sing along. I'm a singer and I sing along or I'm a wannabe singer, and I'm trying to get stamina in my voice by singing a lot of songs for ninety minutes. And he was like, did you know that in this spot where you're sitting, we've been we've had a lot of calls about lumber theft because of the new houses that are being built around here. And you look like a pickup truck that fits a description of somebody that was out

here stealing lumber. And I was like, no, I didn't know that, and I'm just sitting here singing. He said where do you live? And I said just just a couple of streets over and he said, let's go show me your house. So obviously he didn't believe me. So I was like okay, so fired up. My truck drove down, you know it. It was like a thirty second drive, and I hit the buzz the garage door, and as soon as my garage door started going up, he rolled down his window and goes, okay, cool, be safe out there.

It's like that's all that's the proof he needed to show that I actually did live there and I wasn't lying. So long story short, I did that for a long time until I started getting gigs too. That whether the gigs took over that exercise, and then over a decade of singing in gigs, then from there I would go, Okay, why am I so sore today? The next morning I would get really sore, and so then I would that I would try to alter my singing and try to put the voice in a different part of my throat.

I've told you, I think I've said on this podcast before. The lower I put my chin and the deeper I breathe in my adnomum instead of the top of my lungs and raising my throat up, the more depth I can get out of it, and the more strength I can get out of it, and more importantly, the more protection I have. It's like when you're running and you want to use the proper form when you're running, otherwise

you're going to pull a hamstring or something. Everything that applies in the body is the same with your vocal cords. So it takes practice, it takes endurance, it takes literally strength training, and it takes a knowledge of feeling the way that it's supposed to go. And unfortunately for me, that took years and years and years. For you, you know, I feel like some people are just natural singers and they just come out of the womb singing beautiful music.

I'm not that way. It took a lot of years to kind of find where to put my voice on a song. As far as writing, I get this question a lot, how do you write songs? The brain is a muscle to me. It might technically not be a muscle for all you, for the cerebral surgeons out there, but it takes practice, and it takes discipline, and it takes a thousand bad songs to find maybe one half good song. And I always in the songwriting discussion, I

always say start with an instrument. Start playing some kind of instrument, because that instrument will then create a spark that starts the fire of songwriting. And I love to start with guitar. That's me. I also like piano, but technically you could start anything with anything. I probably not violin. You probably can't write very many good songs to just a violin. Great instrument to play, but you need to start with some kind of the instrument that makes chords

and let that inspire you. And after that, after you're playing chords, it's just poetry. You're just writing poets. Everyone could write a poem. It doesn't even have to rhyme technically, just words to chords, and there's no bad way to start, or you could start that way, but it takes discipline, and you're in the army, you're in first calf. Discipline is the name of the game. So thanks for writing, anybody, and we could elaborate on another question later at some point.

Maybe next question comes from Justin. He says, Hey, Grangeer, this is Justin from Overton, Texas. I enjoy all of your content and I've been a fan of yours for many years. My question is a bit more broad and not so direct. Everyone seems to think that your job is all glitz and glam. I would be curious to know how you pay state taxes in the states that require it and all the states that you perform it. How does that work and how does it affect your

overall income? Yeah, good question, Justin. And so basically, it happens a gig by gig basis, we will play something in Minnesota, and when we settle up, when Chris, my tour manager, gets the money and the contracts signed, there's a tax form signed with that as well. At the end of the year, we'll get forty seven tax forms from forty seven different states or whatever we played that year, and it says the state, the city, and how much

income my touring company made in that state. Sometimes it's very little if it's just one gig, and sometimes it's a lot if it's a state that we've returned to three or four or five times outside of our home state of Texas. So it's that simple, it really is. Typically we get paid by a check and you know, there's a couple of signatures involved, and tax forms come at the end of the touring season. We make allowances, you know, for what we need to withhold for each state,

knowing that every state is different. Here's a question that says job denial advice, and that makes me curious. Say, hey, Granger, my name is Dylan. I'm from Laramie, Wyoming, and I was just recently denied a job in my dream career, law enforcement. I was wondering if you have any tips or advice on how to keep my head up. I've been trying to get in this field for three years and I've been faced with constant denial and this one, this most recent one, was the hardest because I don't

know the exact reason why I was denied. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I love listening to your music, watching all your videos, especially the Earl truck restoration, as I've been recently working on nineteen eighty eight Chevy truck. Being from Wyoming, That's why I love dirt Roads holds a whold special place in my heart. Keep up the good work eee. I appreciate it. Dylan, thanks for writing in. I'm sorry that you feel discouraged in your job. Hunt.

I admire your willingness to get into law enforcement and during this crazy time. Hats off for that. A couple things, and for everybody listening all of these I don't have all the right answers. I'm not going to give you all the right answers. I don't study these questions and I don't take notes, So everything I say needs to be taken with a grain of salt. And just remember this is like me and a buddy sitting in the living room having a conversation. You take what you like

and you reject what you don't. There's some things that I'm going to be very absolute in my opinion on there's others. I'm not going to know the right answer all of it combined, you take it or leave it. So me and you sitting in a room. My first thing for you, Dylan, is dialing in on when you said this most recent one was the hardest because I don't know the exact reason why I was denied. Find out.

Find out tomorrow. Whenever they open up at seven am, or whenever they open up, I would either have them on the phone, I would get them to reply to an email, or I would be waiting in the office and say, hey, sorry to bother you guys. I'm Dylan. I recently applied for a job. I got denied. For my career sake and for my future, I could really benefit with knowing why I got denied. I'm assuming this isn't some kind of you know, secret information that they

can't give you. I'm assuming that any decent person would say, yeah, let's see it says right here X here this is why. So find out find out why. That is going to be the key for you moving forward in your what you call a dream career. After that, after you find out what it is, man would uh, I would keep knocking down doors till you find define the one that's easy to open. And if that means you need more training, if that means you need more schooling, I don't know.

I don't know the application for law enforcement. If you need a little extra padding for your resume, like you need to be a mall cop for six months, or if you need to work for Brinks security trucks for six months. These are all things. Everything I'm saying requires a sacrifice, and everything in life that you really want requires a sacrifice for every every every time you come to a crossroads in life, you have two ways to go.

I'm not saying you only have two ways. I'm saying, when you have two ways, the harder path, the harder direction, usually leads to the greater yield, the greater reward. And right now you're at this crossroads. You could quit your dream as law enforcement. That'd be the easy way. Or you could grind it out and keep going even though you've been denied. Hey being denied. Let's see, did you say how many times just deny it? You said you've been trying for three years, So dude, three years. If

you look at it this way. In the music business, if you had been denied for three years in a row, you'd be like, that'd be like nothing. In the music business, it takes fifteen years to finally make some tractions. So you and me are not on different paths here. Three years is nothing. Look call me in ten years when

you're still getting denied. And if you're getting denied every time, you're finding out the reason and then you correct that reason, Like find out why you got denied this last time, and work to correct that and then hey, go back to the same department. Say hey, I'm Dylan. Eight months ago, I came through here, I applied for this position, and I was denied because of this. And I want to show you now how I have corrected that problem and

I've made myself better for you. Look them in the eye, and I dare someone to deny you that at that point, right, be diligent. Look them in the eye, speak clearly to them. Dress appropriately. It's appropriately you probably do if you're going to law enforcement, but dress dress sharp. Come in there, you mean business. This is my dream. Tell them that, Hey, mister so and so, I'm Dylan. I played eight months ago. I've been trying for three years. This is my dream job.

Last time I was denied. I was told this. I have since corrected that over the last eight months. I want you to re look at my resume and here we go again. Let there be silence, let him look at you back in the eye, and let him tell you that it's not going to work at that point. If it doesn't keep going, that's my advice, or don't. If you don't care, then don't. But if you really do it's your dream, go get it. Man. Take the path of most resistance, not the one of least resistance.

Thanks for typing in, buddy. Let me, let me, let me get around here, Here we go. I got time. We got time for another question. This question from Scott says girl dad advice in the subject line, Hey grandeer, my name is Scott. I'm from North Carolina. My wife is pregnant. We just found out today it's a girl. You're actually the first person I'm telling through this email this is our first baby. I'm so excited and so terrified. What advice do you have for first time dads, or

specifically first time girl dads. I'm a longtime fan and I appreciate all you do. Can't wait to see you in North Carolina. Thank you, Scott. Shout out to North Carolina, shout out to girl dads and this message. By the way, this email came in October sixth, so you might have already had her, but we're a few months late reading this. And ironically, October sixth is my daughter's birthday, London's birthday, so it's ironic you wrote about girl dad's advice on

London's birthday. I'm gonna I'm gonna recommend a book that I've said several times on here called Captivating, and the author is Eldridge. I've said this. There's a book for boys called Wild at Heart and a book for girls called Captivating. I would highly recommend Wild at Heart for boys. If you are a boy, or if you're having a boy, I would highly recommend Captivating if you're a dad raising a girl, if you're a woman raising a girl as well,

or if you are a girl. I just really like those books and they're written by Eldridge, and Captivating talks about how little girls are built differently, they have different needs and sometimes a man doesn't quite understand that. What I mean is boys need boys need to be they need to have an adventure. They need to have a mission. They are. They a lot of times naturally want to have you know, they want to be a superhero. They want to be a protector and they need that. Wild

adventure girls a lot of times. I'm not speaking for everybody. I'm just speaking what this book says, and good general advice here. Girls want to feel captivating. They want to feel like they're the only one in the room. When they talk, they want you to listen. They want to when they put on clothes, they want you to go, oh my god, you are so beautiful. They want you

to be captivated by them, not distracted. I had to learn that, and I read the book and then I started raising London and then I saw this is so true as I watched her and there's moments in that book and I tried to emulate when she was little. And I remember her being three years old and putting on her little Cinderella dress and twirling and watching it.

You know, she's looking down and she's seeing it twirl and she say, look, daddy, and it's like that's the moment when she's when she's twirling her dress and she says, look, daddy, you better not be looking at your phone. You better not be looking, you know, at the TV. It's important to stop right then and look at her and affirm

to her she's captivating. It's important for her right then, at three years old, so young, to start developing that where you go, baby girl, you are something that is so neat, that is so pretty, or you're so beautiful or wow, that's amazing, any of those adjectives that makes her feel wanted and special and needed and important and strong and beautiful and courageous and smart, all of those things where she feels that from her father figure. Because if you don't give it to her at a young age.

You all know that the way that this history ends, if the dads don't give it to him at a young age, they will find it from another man. Don't you want it to be you first? Don't you want to be the first person that tells her she's captivating instead of someone you don't get to choose. That is my advice. I grew up with two brothers. I didn't know the dynamic of girls, and I still don't totally. I mean a lot of times I refer back to Amber and I just go, hey, this is a girl thing.

I don't really know how to deal with this, can you please? She's so emotional, like London could just start crying because the wind's blowing a certain direction, and I don't know why she's crying, and then that crying turns into more crying, and I'm just like, maybe I don't know why you're crying, and but that's that she doesn't care if I know why. She just wants me to hold her and love her and tell her that she's important, that she matters. So there's that's the that's the young

girl advice. I think as it gets older, as she gets older, that advice expands. There's there's a lot more there's a lot more depth to that conversation when she becomes a teenager, and there's plenty of time for that.

The cool thing about having a baby is that there's there's nice there's nice timing that I believe God gave us nice timing in between each new life adventure, where there's nine months of pregnancy and it gives you plenty of time, and then there's the year of infancy and that gives you plenty of time to get ready for the year or two toddlers, which gives you the plenty of time into the young kids, so it's paced. Life

is paced just perfectly. Humans are paced just perfectly. I would say, above all, love her and just enjoy being a girl dad. There's nothing quite like it. It's amazing. It's a privilege. Although there's so many babies born, every one of them is a miracle and every one of them is a blessing. And when you hold that little baby girl and you look into her eyes and you see her look back at you, there's something so spiritual and special about that that can't be emulated in anything

else on the planet. So congratulations Scott, thanks for writing in such a cool question, and take a quick break. We'll be right back. Have some sponsors for the podcast today. I want to talk about I don't know about you, but I always feel like I'm looking down at my screen. It seems like now more than ever, and I will

try to put limits on that. Whether you're an average news watcher or in serious need of a distraction, unplugging yourself is easier said than done, right, So one of my favorite ways to rest my eyes and still get the contact i'm itching for is by putting on Raycon wireless earbuds. It's listening at its best, and whether you're watching your favorite news podcast or bringing up an audio book or powering through your workout with a pumped up playlist, a pair of Raycons in your ears can make all

the difference. I was actually just using Raycons this morning in the gym, listening to a strength training exercise and it kind of guides me through it. And Raycons are awesome. There's no dangling wires or stems to get in your way. Raycon's come in stylish colors, but always with a comfortable in ear fit for a more discrete look. Raycons are just built to perform anywhere, at any time. With water and sweat resistant construction and Bluetooth. It pairs quickly and seamlessly,

has an extended battery life for six hours. That's pretty awesome. You can unplug for a long time. The best part, Raycon makes great sound accessible to everyone with wireless earbuds starting at half the price of other premium audio brands. It's pretty awesome. Raycon's offering fifteen percent off all their products from my listeners, and here's what you gotta do to get it. Go to buy Raycon dot com, slash

Granger that's it. You'll get fifteen percent off your entire Raycon order, so feel free to grab a pair and another pair as a spare. That's fifteen percent off it. Buy Raycon dot com slash granger. That's buy Raycon dot com slash Granger. Today's podcast is also brought to you by Athletic Greens, the most comprehensive daily nutritional I've ever tried. I've been taking a morning shake after a workout for probably ten years that usually has some kind of protein

wave protein in it. I usually put a banana and apple, and I need something green, and it just makes me feel good that I can include greens in my breakfast so I don't have to deal with wondering how I'm gonna get vegetables for the rest of the day. Athletic Greens is a great compromise for that, because you're going to get all of those greens in a daily dose

of superfood powder. It's your nutritional essential. It's by far the easiest and most delicious nutritional habit you could add to your health routine daily to empower you to take ownership of your own health. It's one scoop and it actually tastes really awesome, and I don't know how it's so perfectly nutritional and actually I use it in a shake, but you could literally put it in a glass of

water and it's perfect tasty. Scoop of of Athletic Greens contains seventy five vitamins, minerals, and whole food sourced ingredients including multi Vitamin, the Multimineral, Probiotic Greens, Superfood Blend, and more. They all work together to fill the nutritional gaps in your diet, increase energy and focus, aid with digestion, and supports a healthy immune system, all without the need to

take multiple products. It's really awesome. Right now, Athletic Greens is doubling down on supporting your immune system during the winter months. They're offering my audience a free one year supply of Vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. If you visit my link today, you'll

basically never have to buy Vitamin D again. So whether you're looking for peak performance or better health, covering your basis with Athletic Greens makes investing in your energy, immunity and gut health every single day really simple, tasty and efficient. Simply visit Athleticgreens dot com slash granger and joined health experts, athletes, health conscious go getters around the world, and me who

make a daily commitment to their health every single day. Again, go to Athleticgreens dot com slash s granger and get your free one year supply of Atom D and five free travel packs. Today podcast is also sponsored by ship Station. If you sell your stuff online, you're definitely in the right business. More people are shopping online than ever before. I could attest to that with EU apparel. That means a lot of orders are coming in and a lot of orders you'll need to ship out fast. That's why

online sellers like you need ship Station. No matter how much stuff you sell, ship Station makes it easy to manage and ship all of your orders from the sales channel faster, cheaper, and more efficiently. Import orders from any sales channel, ship with any carrier, access discounted shipping rates, automate just about any shipping task, and you'll spend a lot less time on shipping and a lot more time

growing your business. No matter what you're selling Amazon at Sea, your own website, ship Station funnels all of your orders into one simple interface that you could manage from anywhere, anytime, even on your cell phone. You'll even get access to amazing discounts with major carriers like ups FedEx usps easily

compare carriers and choose the best solution every time. With ship Station, small businesses can now access the same rates usually reserved for Fortune five hundred companies without all the big contracts or commitments and all that kind of stuff. It is no wonder that shipstation has five star reviews more than any other shipping software. You could ship more and less time. Just use my offer code granger to get a sixty day free trial. That's two months free,

no hassle, stress free shipping. Go to shipstation dot com, click on the microphone at the top of the page and type in granger that shipstation dot com. Enter the offer code granger make ship happen. Here's another question about songwriting. It's from Bart from Cherryville, North Carolina. Shout out to North Carolina. Bart says, as a songwriter myself, how do you write? Do you write down a line and go back to it later. Do you just start a song

and finish it? Do you write every day? Do you have a certain amount of songs that you try to write. I have listened to your music for years and love it and purchased your projects, including Country Things. Yeee. Thank you, Bart, thanks for writing. And I guess I guess I could never answer the songwriting question enough because I will probably answer it different every time, and I've almost answered it pretty much in this podcast. But I'll say to you

to your specific question, how do you write? You write a line, do you go back to it later? And my answer to you, Bart is all of it. Everything you said. I wish that it was the same pattern every time would make it easier, but my songwriting is different every time, depending on the inspiration behind it. I can't control the inspiration. It just happens. Sometimes i'm Sometimes there's an idea I really want to write, and so

I try to hash out that song. Sometimes there's an idea that I didn't intend to write, It just came to me and so I start. And most times I'm writing two or three or four at once. So when I'm writing for an album, like right now, I don't have anything on my books, nothing, and I'm total clean slate since Country Things came out the album. But during the height of writing for an album, I could have seven songs going at once. One of them has a verse,

one of them has everything but the bridge. One of them just has a line and a bunch of melody. One of them has a title and nothing else. One of them has just a melody that's complete but no words at all. And that's typical. And sometimes one song will jump up and finish before the rest of them that I've already been working on way before that. So

there's just no rhyme or reason. Well, there is rhyme technically, but I let me walk you through an intentional writing day for me, meaning there's a clean slate throughout the year. On my phone, I have an iPhone and I use notes, the little yellow app for those of you with iPhone.

I use Notes, and I have a page on those notes that says song ideas, slash titles, and wherever I am, whoever I'm talking to, or maybe I'm watching a movie or a Netflix series or something, the wind blows a certain way, and I'll go, huh, that's a cool idea for a title. I mean literally, you could say the wind blows a certain way whatever. It doesn't matter what the title is. It could be if you take all your favorite songs and just read the titles. Some of

them aren't special at all, they just become songs. Some of them are very special. But I'll have this running list the old there's probably three hundred lines on this notepad, the oldest ones being from like two thousand and six, two thousand and five, So there's a fifteen year list going. And some of those poor ideas will probably never get written. Some of them. I came up with the idea last

week and now I'm already writing it. Some of them are seven years old, and I'll look back and I go, wow, I wrote that seven years ago. That's actually pretty cool. What I do then is I also have voice memos on the iPhone. Thank god for the iPhone these days. Right this used to be a tape recorder and spiral notepads. I'll use that voice recorder and I'll think of a melody like do do do whatever, and I'll pick up

my iPhone and I'll go do whatever. And then sometimes it could be a line that I that's tied to a melody, and I'll record that on the voice memo.

So then the day that I'm writing, I usually do my best writing in the mornings, I'll sit down, cup of coffee, no distractions, airplane mode on the phone, and I'll put a guitar in my lap, and I'll start hunting down the voice memos versus the notes, and I'll find which which voice memo matches which note meaning, which melody matches which song title or line, and I'll look

through depending on the mood I'm in. Maybe i'll start with melodies and I'll start listening and I'll get to melody number six and I'll go, ah, man, that sounds like today, and that's like rain. Maybe it's raining outside or something. The day can match the song totally. It's kind of raining outside. And by the way, sometimes the day that the song can match the day in an opposite way, like it's raining. But I'm gonna write a sunshine song because I really miss the sun. All right.

It's wintertime and I really want to write a summertime song, or it could just be summer, and I'm really inspired by that, so I write that. But I take the melody number seven and I go, I love this this, I'm really feeling this today, and then I start I keep that playing on loop and I'll start going through down the list of my notes, and I'll go not that one, not that one, not that one, could be that one, not that one, could not that one, maybe that one. Ooh, that's a good one. So then i'll

have three. Maybe I could be in a yes, And I'll try to sing that line to that melody in some way. And sometimes they they're perfect match, and sometimes they're not. Sometimes I have to force it. Sometimes I have to slow the melody down or raise the key or lower the key. It's a big math problem. And some days this process is like boom boom, boom, Wow,

there's a song. And some days I start that process and years go by and there's nothing more than just the original melody number seven and the line that I liked. It's a long game. I think I said that earlier to the guy trying to get the h the job in the police academy or the police department. It's these are long, long term commitments. It's it's never a quick thing.

You you put, you put the effort into this kind of career, and you you set your goals for a long long time and one day this is somebody told me this. Even the blind hog will find an a corn every once in a while. Take it like you will, even the blind hog go find an acorn every once in a while. Thank you, bart. Okay, let's go to the next question here, say grandeer, my name is Jason.

I'm from Summit Hill, Pennsylvania. Shout out to Pennsylvania. If for some crazy reason, the music industry was non existent come tomorrow, what would you do as a backup plan slash career moving forward in order to pay the bills and support your family? Have you ever put any thought into such a thing? Thanks for your time, See you down the road. So, Jason, you mean like twenty twenty,

because that didn't That pretty much happened. The music industry pretty much became non existent in twenty twenty and it still is in twenty twenty one. So yeah, buddy, absolutely, I think about it all the time, and I've always thought about it, And it's one of the reasons I that Ye Apparel is such a blessing because Ye Apparel is completely independent of my music. Meaning if I stopped putting out music today, I'm still in the apparel business.

I still have this miniature empire that me and my brothers have built, so so proud of that, and that's a great fallback plan. I have a I will say this, Jason, I have a thousand jobs. I have not counted them, but I have you know, my my job as an influencer, which includes well it kind of includes this podcast, you know, because I'll I read my my ads on this podcast and that definitely helps pay the bills. I have cameo which I'll go in there every day and do cameos

for video messages for people. I have my YouTube hustle that I have going on. I have e Life the Grangdersmith channel, which is this podcast is on the Grander Smith channel. Then I have the Smith My Family channel, so we have advertising through that. We also get paid through Google AdSense through those how many views we get. So those are, to name a few, just my few side hustles. I also have songwriting, which I just got

a Darryl Worley cut which is awesome. I don't know if you guys remember Daryl, but I just got the message today that song I wrote a long time ago is going on his newest album. So I have a lot of a lot of irons in the fire. I work with a lot of different people doing a lot of different things, and if the music business crashed for the rest of twenty twenty one, that's the backup plan. If your question meant to be if you hadn't done music to begin with, what would you be doing now?

That's another kind of common question, and maybe that's more of what you meant, Jason, Then I would say, and I have a degree in history, and that would probably lead me to being a coach. I really like I really like coaches and what they did for me in my life and the ability to inspire young people through athletics and life is definitely a passion of mine. And I could see myself and Little Town High School being the history teacher and the football coach. I could definitely

see that, and I would enjoy that a lot. I would also enjoy being in agriculture, being in farming, being in ranching. I'd love that to love that aspect. So the problem with being an agriculture at a at a manageable scale is that you these days you almost have to inherit the big farm in Iowa or the big

ranch in Texas. You almost have to just inherit it from your family line to get into it, because no one wants to go and you know, drop millions of bucks and a farm in Illinois and start from scratch, you know, farm and corn. So yeah, I think I think those are your answers. Jason, thank you for writing in and shout out to Pennsylvania. Love you people in Pennsylvania. Here is a question that that I saw come through and this question is from Chad. He said, I'm trying

to find my faith. How do I find my way? I'm an ex Canadian military and how do I find God after what I've seen and did in the line of duty? I look forward to your podcast and YouTube channels. Thank you, Chad. Thanks for writing in. Don't know where you're from. I'm assuming Canada. Thank you for your service, and thank you for your question. Let me go back to saying that guys, I don't have I don't have all the answers. I would just treat this as me,

me and you, Chad, we're just buds. We're cruising down the road in a truck, windows down and you asked me this. Hey, Bud, I'm trying to find my faith. How to find my way? How do I find God after what I've seen and did in the line of duty? And the reason I even give that. The reason I have to say that is because I don't know what you did and saw in the line of duty, and I can't begin to act like I know about that. And it's a terrible price that we have to pay

for the freedom that we enjoy. That the sacrifice is made by men and women like you come with the repercressions of the devastating mental health issue that follows the fact that you're asking me and wondering is awesome and so encouraging, because the other path is the total self indulgence. Everything you buy chakes you faster and faster and faster and gets you drunker and drunker and drunker, or you're

slipping into a terrible depression of some sort. And so you're asking what I think, in my opinion, is the right questions, how to find my faith, how to find my way? If you're asking me, Granger Smith, I'm going to say all of your answers are in the Bible. And then you come back to me, as in our conversation in the truck, and you say, the Bible's so big and it's so boring and ominous, and what is it?

And where do I even start? Like there's all these pages in there, and I don't know, don't understand it, and don't like everyone just choose their own religion, and isn't it all the same? Like, isn't God just there? And you just it's all the same and it doesn't matter, you just pick one. Why does it matter to find the Bible? I'll tell you why it matters. The one of the many reasons why it matters is you have been called to search for it, which is why you

emailed me. Whether you like it or not, or whether anyone listening to this podcast right now wherever you are, disagrees with me, it's the truth. Chad was called to write this email to fill a void that he feels like he is missing that he can't fill with a girl, or with a child, or with a pretty sunset or a vacation a Disney World or a red camaro or a skydiving or the bottom of a whiskey bottle. There's

something more. And all of us are built with a God shaped hole in our soul, and there's only one thing that could fit a God sh aped hole, and that's God. It's really hard to deny that that truth. When you see a question like this from Chad, who's obviously looking for that to fill that void in his soul. So at this point, the windows are down, we're cruising. You ask me where do I even start? And I say, you start in the New Testament. Start in Matthew chapter one.

That's a good place to start. You could start at the beginning. You could start at Genesis, the Old Testament. But the Old Testament, there's a lot of things in the in that Bible, in that big, confusing, multi paged mass of a book, there's a lot of things in there that are not they're not written excuse me for a young seeker, if that makes sense. There's a lot of things that are solid food when some people still

need breast milk. And that's not in any way demeaning to you, Chad, but you need breast milk right now. You need the basics, the most broken down version of food to digest. And so I would start in Matthew. There's a million devotionals you could read. There's a million YouTube videos or pastors or churches you could go to. But it's funny. My bust Dripper Bull brought this up to me and he said, it's almost like if you don't.

If you don't start with the story of Christ, then you're risking walking into a church as if you're walking into a movie that's already played halfway through and you have to try to catch up. So I would say, open up that book to Matthew, and before you even touch a word of it, you say, God, it's me Chad. I know that I haven't really talked to you before, and I know that I'm searching for you, and I don't know if I'm worthy even to talk to an

almighty creator. But if you're up there, if you're listening, I want to read this book and try to understand it. Can you help me understand it? Can you if this is real? Can you make these words real to me? Can you make this fit that heart shaped void in my soul? Can when you do that for me? And then start and keep an open mind about it, keep your ears open, keep your eyes open, and soak it in because Chad, what you're going to find in there is all the answers, a million times more than I

could ever begin to even start with. But you saying, how do I find God after what I've seen and did in the line of duty? Your answer is in that book because in that New Testament, everything that you did is forgiven. Everything is forgiven everything. And there's people in there that wrote those books that did a lot of bad things. They saw a lot of bad things,

and through that word they were saved. And I'm trying to pick my word words here because there's some Like I said, it's breast milk, right, And I want you. I hope you wrote this to me on November the ninth. I hope that you write back in in a couple months after this podcast airs and you say, hey, I did it, and be honest with me. I did it, and it wasn't for me. I didn't get anything out

of it or man read. I started reading it and I realized, as I'm trying to understand it, I realized, I think this book actually understands me, and the questions I had, they're answered right here. And I know it was written a long time ago, and I know that that these words have been historically proven to be true and not changed because the Dead Sea scrolls that we

found recently, these words are real. They're not just some medieval translation that some king decided to I realize that, and I realize that although it was for a lot of people. That kind of sounds like it's talking straight to me, and that is that little peace that fits straight into that God hole in your soul. And don't let me be the testimony for you. You be your own testimony. Because proof in this stuff, proof in this faith doesn't just come because you just randomly believe it.

It comes because you feel the transformation inside you, like I have gone through in the last two years. You feel that change, you feel that restoration, and you go I know it's real, not just because of some fairy tale or because what people tell me, or because what they say I'm supposed to believe what I don't see, not because of that, because I feel it, because I feel that void has gone and I feel peace when I have seen things that I shouldn't. I'm speaking for

myself me, Granger Smith. I have seen things that my eyes should not have seen that I can't erase. And the only thing that will give me peace from those visions that human eyes should not see is that word, that truth in that book. Thanks for writing in Chad. I love you, bro. I hope this I hope this podcast means something to you, and I hope It gives you a little bit of a call to action, a little bit of urgency, and I hope you're right back in and I'll remember your name and I wish you

the best. Thank you, guys. That's all I got. Seey'll next, Monk. Thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith Podcast. I appreciate all of you guys. You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel. Hit that little like button and the notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload a video. If you have a question for me that you would like me to answer, email Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. Yi