What's up everybody? Welcome to the show, Howdie, Thank you for joining us, Thank you for watching and listening. Oh man, Deep subjects today, getting into some deep deep stuff. Time versus money? Which is more valuable? And when should you quit your job if one of those things is getting in the way of the other. It's like the lifelong question. It's something that everyone struggles with, man, woman, Every kind of human goes through this struggle of time versus money.
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this podcast possible for everyone. It's free for you to listen to, and it's really important that I deliver the best quality content to you. So I have some deep stuff to get into today. Thank you for listening, Thank you for watching. Welcome to the Greater Smith Podcast. Yeah, yea, did chidel my tired school's long line of my fool of husband go back to ranger cold on evage. Yeah, you're catch you up in my world a little bit
Country Things. Volume one, which released a couple of weeks ago, will be followed by Volume two, which comes out here. I'll make the announcement on the podcast right now. Black Friday, which is like, what is that, November twenty seventh, whatever the Friday is, it's like the twenty seventh, I believe of November eight new songs. You don't have to wait very long in between Volume one and volume two. The whole Project sixteen songs total, my tenth studio album. I
think it's my best stuff yet. Volume two notables. We got two Earl Dibbles junior songs. We've got some good classic versions of what I you're used to me writing in the past. We've got some really good show burners, really good live show stuff, some good surprises in there.
So I know, I feel confident guys are going to like this Volume two and so excited to tell you about kind of our launch are leading up to that and the promos that we're going to do, including all culminating about that same time, I'll be giving away my truck.
So I just made that announcement on that my YouTube channel that we are giving away my old Silverado pickup truck and when I've driven for the last ten years, and it will probably that's probably the biggest moment of my professional career, is letting go of my most prized physical possession, my truck, the closest thing to me that I own, and so that's a really big deal. And
there's a lot of ways. There's a lot of reasons that I'm comfortable with parting with it, but one of those reasons is knowing that it could go to someone that could it could significantly add value to their lives, and that possibly I could even stay in touch and get updates on how she's doing and how she's driving, and see pictures, and I will deliver this personally to
the winner. So everything, and I've just said we will make the official announcement for that on how and why and where and how to register and how this giveaway is going to work to talk about how I'll deliver it. We'll deliver all of that information to you guys coming up soon. But I'm just I'm just kind of laying the groundwork right now on this podcast for you guys. It's just there's really exciting times, so many videos. This podcast, as you know, comes out every Monday. So please do
me a favor right now. And the best thing you could do for this podcast for me is tell a friend.
So if this podcast gives you any value at all, because it's free for you to listen or watch, but if it gives you any value whatever platform you're watching on right now, whatever podcast, app or YouTube or whatever it is, subscribe to this page and tell a friend just say hey, you should check out Monday's My Boy, Granger does this podcast and he talks about all kinds of things in the world and then life, and it adds something to my life. You should check it out
one of these days. Or if anyone says, you know there's a common question like what podcasts you're listening to, just say, oh, Grangersmith podcast every Monday. That that will help grow this podcast more than any kind of ad, official advertisement, or however much I talk about it. You guys, that word of mouth, friend to friend is the best thing that could possibly happen. So do me that solid and I'll jump into these questions like I typically do
on Mondays. These questions come from Grangersmith podcast at gmail dot com. So if you have a question, go to Grangersmith podcast at gmail dot com, shoot me a message, tell me your name where you're from. You can stay anonymous if you want, and I throw these into a folder. I do not read them until I'm on the air, so whatever you're about to throw at me will surprise me and I will have to stutter my way through
these questions as I read them without screening them. So try to keep it PG if you can for that exact reason too. And I'm scrolling right now, and I'll stop right here. And this message is from Bobby. Bobby says, Hey Granger, this is Bobby from Bismarck, North Dakota. Shout out to North Dakota fans. Big fan of yours and I have met you through meet and greets and cameo a couple times. Very excited for the new album. I'm in a very frustrating time in my life and i
feel as if I'm stuck. I'm searching for some kind of advice to help clarify my gut instincts. I'm currently a power plant worker in western North Dakota. I've been grinding at it for eight years now. It pays exceptionally well and has been a financial blessing, but it comes with some real sacrifices. I have an eighty seven mile commute.
I'm working twelve hour shifts with rotating days and nights, lots of overtime, waking up at three point thirty in the morning and getting home at seven point thirty at night. When I'm on the day shifts. I've always I'm always tired when I'm not home, and excuse me, I'm always tired and not home nearly as much as i'd like, moving closer to work is not an option. Long story short, I'm thirty one years old. I want to start a
family with my wife soon. I don't want to be known as the dad that's always at work or always tired. I don't have many other options to work a normal life in my hometown without losing at least half of my income. How could I feel good knowing I would be taking a huge financial risk to quit my job to be the dad and the family man I want to be, But giving up the job that would provide everything that we want or need. It's time or money. I can't have both. Man. What a way to start, Bobby,
What a way to start? So shout out, first of all to Bismarck, North Dakota. Anybody listen from there, and shout out to power plant workers. I know there's a lot of you guys. It's a perfectly legitimate question, Bobby. It's a question that I'm sure a lot of people will search for an answer for that their entire life. And that includes me, right, that includes me, And most people can fall into that category money or time. And I can tell you what I've learned in my life.
You say, it's money or time. I can't have both. So at that point you say, well, which is more valuable money or time? And there is an undisputable answer to that. Time is infinitely more valuable than money because you could always make money, you could always have more of it, you could always spend it, you could always lose it, but you always you could always make more, or win more, or earn more, or inherit more somehow. But you can only have so much time. Time is finite.
It is ticking away, and you and me and everyone else are on the clock and it never stops ticking. It will never stop. And you and me and every other human on this planet has an expiration date. Now, the key is none of us know when or where or how that expiration date exists. It is part of what makes it human, is part of the beauty of
this world. Because if you take away that aspect, if you take away the finite time in our lives and it's just endless here on earth, then it takes away joy, It takes away hope, it takes away peace, because can
you imagine on this earth an endless amount of suffering forever? No, what makes it special is knowing that We only have this precious time, this small window of time, and we mess up, and we try to fix it, and we mess up a little more, and we try to patch it up and fix it some more, and then we have some wins and we have some losses. But it's all confined in this one small unit of maybe eighty years,
some people less. So you have to make a decision brother on time versus money, knowing that time is way more valuable. I want to dispute a couple of things that you said, Bobby. First of all, I want to throw out there that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with you continuing forever at this power plant. You're making good money. You got a little bit of a long commute. I could fix that commute, that eighty seven mile commute. Hey, you can knock out some podcast You could listen to
some audio books. So right now I would suggest that, like right off the bat, utilize that eighty seven min I'll commute both ways right and hey, you could learn another language you could learn. Think of all the audiobooks you could listen to, whether that's nonfiction or fiction, or you want to learn some kind of trade or skill, or or engulf yourself in this podcast, or listen to a million of my albums. There's a lot of things you could do. I would say, whatever you do on
that commute, don't waste that time. So right off the bat, make you a little power list like okay cool. It's say it's Sunday and you're going into work on Monday. Make a little list like okay, cool. Tomorrow my commute, I got eighty seven miles there and eighty seven miles back. What am I going to do? Okay, I'm going to listen to this particular audiobook on the way there and on the back on the way back to kind of decompress.
I don't want to think too much on the way back, so I'm going to go to like a class sick nonfiction and try to dig into like a classic writer and just kind of relax, decompress a little bit after work, and utilize that. Don't don't listen to political radio or news. It's like sports talk radio. I mean, it's fun every once in a while to get into that. I love sports, and I get addicted to listen to politics, but it's
not good for the brain. So don't dive to Don't use all eighty seven miles to just waste away listening to random radio stations and ran. You know, like, really focus in on that time, and that's for now, that's what you could start today. I understand your concern. You're still you're still super young at thirty one, and you're ready to start your family. I always tell people it is never the wrong time after you're thirty to start
that family. It's never. What I mean is it's never going to be a better time in your life than right now for you in terms of your relationship with your wife and your relationship with your work, because that could always change. It's always changing. So hey, go ahead and start that family, and then you have you still have a lot of time to figure out what you're
gonna do at work. It's it's legitimate that you're thinking, and it's actually proof that you have a lot of integrity that you're actually thinking this far ahead about your family and your future and the dad and the husband that you want to be that you're aspiring to be. Brother.
That is, there's so much integrity in that because you're already thinking as the provider and the molder and shaper of your children, as a father, that's present and there, and so I already know that whatever happens in your life, Bobby, you're gonna be just fine whether whether or not you work this job and your heart worker and that's that's what you do or not, because you're the kind of guy it's going to make that decision that, hey, I am going to keep this job because I want my
kids to live in this community and go to this school. And in order to do that, for them to have to be set up to succeed, they're going to need this kind of education and to get that kind of education, I need to be working this job to make this kind of money. That is a legitimate reason to stay. And then if you're worried about it, then you go, all right, I am going to be when I'm home, I'm going to be super present. I'm going to be super focused. I know that I'm going to be. I'm
going to be tired, but I'm not. When I'm home, I'm not going to be scrolling around on my phone, wasting away on social media or or some kind of email chain that I get stuck in, or watching some mindless TV show. When I'm home, I'm going to be focused on my wife and my kids. Hey, it's not easy. It's not easy to say that. I struggle with that too when I'm out on the road and I'm working, and I have the same struggles you do, because I think, man, is it worth being out on the road. You should
I stay home more, be home with my kids. And then I try to justify it by saying this, I want my kids to grow up and go. Dad worked really hard. Dad was very passionate about what he did, and he put us first. Not necessarily. That doesn't have to mean Dad switch jobs so that he didn't have to work so much so he could be around us
all the time. That doesn't always equate to Dad was looking after us, because sometimes that means Dad was looking after us so much that he worked extra hours and he worked really hard, and when he got home, he was all about us and he was so involved in our lives. And then he provided us with a lifestyle that we might not have been able to have if
he hadn't have worked so hard. So you see, there's this there's this push and pull, and that's what I'm trying to tell you that there's not a right answer to I'm not gonna sit here and go, yeah, Bobby, quit your job, man, quit your job and get something local, because you've already said there's not very many good options.
But what you can do since you you could first of all say yes, time is more valuable than money, and so when I do have time, I'm going to take every minute and invest it back into my family and myself, whether that's on my drive time, whether that's on my days off when I am home, or whether that's getting as much vacation time as I can for my boss. But there's a million reasons you're asking the right questions. I think you're absolutely in the right direction.
And please do a follow up on me in this podcast. Will you write back in five, six, seven months from now and let us all know what you ended up doing. And then I'll read this back on this podcast and say, hey, we have an update from Bobby in North Dakota and this is what he's decided to do. But I'm sure we're all really interested to find out. And I'm proud of you man for keeping your head straight and keeping it in the right place. See what else we have here?
Have you hear voices in the background, This a busy, busy day at the Yegey Farm. We are buzzing, man. We are trying to get these orders out. We got people, we got alarm system people here installing things. We got phone calls being made. It's always crazier at the form. Okay, I'm gonna go here to This is Austin. Let me see. I see if I can find out where Austin's from. Now I don't know it, says Hey Granger. I hope all is well with you. My name is Austin. I'm
currently seventeen. I'm turning eighteen towards the end of October. I recently got interested in your podcast, and I'm hoping for some good life advice. Like I said, I'm almost eighteen, finishing high school in May. I have zero interest in college. Rather, I really want to get into two blue collar work, specifically alliance repair, which I have done a lot of internships in. I know that pays good and I really enjoy it. I've been dating this girl for almost two years.
We get along absolutely great, agree on everything big, small and political. I'll love her family and she loves mine. Likewise, her family loves me and my family loves her. Christianity is a big part of both of our lives, and if everything goes as planned, we want to get married in about a year, I'd be nineteen. We have no intentions of having any children at any point in the foreseeable future. I have a couple questions. One, what are your tips for a young adult slash teenager wanting to
start their life? What should I be focused on in life? Anything I should be doing or avoiding to have a successful life. I have no interest in partying drugs all that which most people do during their late teens and twenties, and I'd rather start working a full time job, which I mentioned before. In your opinion, how does one know when it's the right time to get married? Do you think people should wait until their thirties to get married
like most people suggest? Any advice about becoming an adult would be great. Thanks? Ye yee, all right, Austin, great questions, Buddy. I'm gonna dig in here with you, and I'm gonna first of all say that, just like I told the last question, budd, your heart is in the right place. You're absolutely thinking right. It sounds like you've got a great girl, you have a good path for you for your future. I think that's amazing. But I'm gonna go ahead and pump the breaks right now in the marriage thing.
I'm gonna pump the break right now. And that does not I know that that's not the answer you wanted to hear. And I know you built this girl up and she sounds like she's awesome. You love her family, she loves you, her family likes you. Guys agree on everything, you have the same religious beliefs. But the biggest problem is when you're planning on getting married, you're going to be nineteen, and that there you have so much life.
You have so much to I don't want to say so much to learn because I don't want to act like I know more than you. But you have so much more to experience, and it is not fair to either one of you to cut that experience short and jump into marriage. Because you're going to have marriage the rest of your life. You're gonna have that opportunity. You're maybe gonna have her. I mean, there is nothing wrong with dating this girl for a long time at your age.
If you're thirty years old asking me this question, I'd say, buddy, let's do it, let's do it, let's get married. But you are putting a disadvantage to yourself and to her by depriving her of her twenties with her friends, so that she can go out and have girls' nights and experience life and mess up and make up for the mess up and learn from the mistakes, and then and find out how to be a woman, because she is going to be completely different at eighteen than she is
when she's thirty one. She is going to be a different person. And you are too, in so many ways. You're going to be a different person. And Amber and I talk about this all the time. I got married when I was thirty and we laugh. We go back and forth and we laugh, and we say, this wouldn't have worked if you met me when I was nineteen because I was a different person. I didn't know how to handle adversity like I do now. And none of this is a knock on you, dude. You sound like
a very mature guy. You got a lot of stuff figured out. It sounds like you're ahead of your years. But there is nothing that could take the place of this next decade coming up your twenties. Nothing could take the place of that. And you will deprive yourself if
you jump into wedlock too early. And this is a time, the only time in your life because you've been you've been a young kid and then you're a teenager and you're just entering your adult life now and you're going to deprive yourself of that adult life and not have not have that ability to be selfish. And there's that word like everyone's like, oh, dude, you should never be selfish. Well yeah, you need. You have to be. You deserve
to be right now, to be selfish. And the last question I had from Bobby is the opposite of what you're asking. See, Bobby has to be he has to be not selfish. He has to be the provider. He has to be put himself and his dreams and his goals and his money and his life second to his family. You are the opposite right now. You need to put yourself first, your life, your dreams, your goals, your job that you're thinking about getting into. What did you say
you wanted to get into Appliant's repair. You need to put that and your goals to jump into Appliant's Repair first and you need to focus on that and make sure that you win. Number one. It's you. It's all about you. Austin, and then a few years go by you could still keep the same girlfriend. A few years go by and you decide to marry her. You are now second. Your goals for Appliant's repair are second to hers. Your time with your friends is now second to hers,
and you can't deprive yourself of that right now. I know that you said you have no interest in partying drugs at all, which most people do in their late teens and twenties. I'd rather start working a full time job, which I mentioned before, and man, you got your priority set. It's great that you have no interest in partying in drugs, it's great, but you're also making that decision at seventeen years old. And it's impossible to predict when you're seventeen
how you're going to act in your twenties. And it's very admirable that you that you already know that you want to turn against bad things in your twenties, but you're going to suppress that before you even get there, instead of being twenty three years old and having a couple of too many drinks and then going WHOA, that was bad. That was a bad idea, And you are making that decision as a single man and not as a married man with a baby on the way. There's
a big, big difference. And then when you're thirty one, thirty two, and then you got a baby on the way, you go, Yeah, I've had a few drinks too many times, and I've been to a party and I've made a couple of mistakes, and I'm glad I will never do that again, because you never want to wake up and go. I don't know, I'm forty five years old. I've never
done anything bad. I've never even had a drink, and I wonder if maybe I should have been out to like my buddy's house and gone and got in the tailgate of a truck and had a few too many beers and woke up passed out next to the campfire. I'm not saying that's good. I'm not advocating for that. I'm not saying anything like that. I'm just saying, you don't want to wake up at forty five and go. I suppressed that because I thought that's I thought that
that was wrong. Does that make sense at all? Maybe I'm maybe I'm not making sense, but I think the bottom line, austin your head is straight. You sound like a great guy, you could do whatever you want. You do not have to listen to me, but I would always advocate in waiting until got about ten more years for you. And if she's a great girl, if she's the one, if she's everything you say she is, then she is going to agree with you and wait right alongside you till both of you are ready. I'll take
a break, be right back. Sponsor for today's podcast is Raycon. You know, whenever you're listening to this podcast or maybe a Country Things volume one, you know the best way to listen is using a pair of premium wireless earbuds, especially if you can get them at less than half the price of the other guys. That's why I recommend wireless earbuds from Raycon. And they actually seal in your ears really good and it blocks out all that extra noise.
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socks forever. So you can get your ten dollars off your first pair of features when you use the code granger at features dot com. That's Features, that's f E E t U r ees dot com promo code granger ten dollars off your first pair. Here's a question from Joe says, Hey man, love the podcast, Love the Music. My girlfriend of two years is being deployed and will
be gone until late next year. We haven't spent very much time away from each other, and seeing as we live together, my question is, with you being on the road so much, what's your secret to keeping good communication with your wife and family even when it's not easy to Joe, first of all, want to say to your girlfriend,
thank you for her service. Thank you for the sacrifice that she's making for all of us so that I could have freedom of speech on this podcast, and we could maintain a lifestyle that is unprecedented in world history because of people like your girlfriend. And I always like to throw in girlfriend's boyfriends spouses, they fall into that category. Two. So Joe, thank you for your service as well. This is going to be a tough time and there's no
way around it. What you're entering right now is statistically it kind of leans towards people breaking up. So as long as you know that statistically, you're going you're fighting uphill battle and you want to set up your foundation with her if you truly love her, you want to set up your foundation as strong as you can get it knowing that nothing is going to break. So beyond communication like that's that's down the road on your steps
to do. First step is you sit down with her and I would look her in the eye and say, Babe, I want to tell you before you leave. I would take her two hands and I'll look her right in the eye and say, Babe, I want to tell you. I know you're leaving. I will not forsake you. I will not mess things up because I love you and I want to prove that to you. I want to prove that I am your man, you wherever you go in the world, whatever happens. If we talk every day, awesome.
If you skip a couple weeks, if we don't hear from each other, I want to tell you you could trust me. I got your back. I will not lie to you. I will not sneak around on you. I will not mess up this relationship. Now, Joe, you got to say that if you mean it. If you don't mean it, I don't know enough about you through this. If you don't mean that, just let's make this easy and just cut this off right now. Let me just
say that, cut this off right now. If you don't mean that, if you can't say those words and absolutely mean it, then just say, babe, let's take some time off. Whenever you get back, we'll try to rekindle it. If you truly love her, if this is the woman that you're going to marry, then I would give that little speech to her, and you would hope that she can give that speech back to you. That is better than that'll set you up for any kind of communication that
you're gonna have in the future. And then once you got that, once you got that trust, then you're not sitting around wondering like haven't heard from her? Or she's thinking I haven't heard from him, what's she doing? Whose house is he at? What party is he at right now? That just get all that out of your head, so then the communication is much more easy. You can even skip a day you don't hear from her, she doesn't
hear from you. She's not worried. She's not thinking you're out cheating on her, you know, because she trusts you. So start with that, and you're asking what's the secret to me and Amber? That's where it starts. I trust her and she trusts me. Period, we ain't gonna mess up. I will not mess up on her, She will not mess up on me. We trust each other. So I'm not sitting around on the bus when I'm on tour going why does she not answer me? And I texted
her seventeen minutes ago. I know she's around her phone. Why is she not messaging me back? Or she's and she's not thinking that about me, Like I know he's off the stage by now and he should be texting me. And the reality is that happens sometimes maybe I got off the stage, maybe my phone ran out of battery, maybe I'm I got into something with my tour manager and we couldn't make it back to the bus, and I got stuck in the green room and the parking lot was full, so I couldn't go to the bus.
I didn't make it back to the bus. Blah blah blah blah. I didn't get to my phone, and I didn't get to text her before she went to bed. That ain't no big deal. Amber doesn't worry about that because she knows I'm fine. I am not messing things up.
That's just what she knows. So you see my point, Joe, set it up where that's the foundation, then communication will be easy FaceTime if you can text, phone calls and just don't make it where it's the ultimatum, like, hey, if I don't hear from you every day at six pm, then there we're going to have a big problem. I
see that around me all the time. I see that with guys around me, and I see guys that get stuck in this rut where every time the scene changes in their life, they got to call the girl again, like all right, babe, we're getting to the gas station. I'll call you when we get back out of the gas station again. Bye, Hey babe, we're back back out of the gas station. And then oh, we're gonna walk into the hotel lobby. Let me give you a call whenever I get into my room. Hey babe, I just
made out of the the lobb but meant to my room. Dude, that is exhausting. Don't be that guy, None of y'all. Don't be that. You don't doesn't need to be that way. There's nothing you need to say to that person if you just talked to them three minutes ago. There's nothing new to say. That's just a trust issue. That's worrying about where that person is because you don't trust them. Does that make sense? I answered your question probably the opposite of how you thought I was going to answer it,
in completely backwards way. But to me, that foundation before she leaves is the key. Joe. Let'll skip around here. Let me skip it on the questions once again. Guys, if you want to email me Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com, shoot me a message. If I don't get to your question. Now, hold up, I'm holding them in a pin here. I'm holding them in this file. So you actually don't I said at one point, send another one you don't even need to do that. These aren't
going anywhere. I'm not deleting them. They're just going to be here till I get to it, and I will get to it. Okay, here's one. This says Hey Granger, my name is Dylan from Shawnee, Oklahoma. Shout out to Oklahoma. I've been I hope you and your family are doing well. I have been a faithful follower of you for at least the past two years, maybe longer, and subscribe to both of your YouTube channels. My question comes from something you said last week about your hiring criteria for your
band and crew. My question is this, have you ever thought about doing a type of internship or something similar for those people who have interest in working in the music industry so they can get a taste of what it's like before making their career choice. I know, as a firefighter slash e MT, I always encourage those people interested in my career to do a ride along or two so they could see what it's like. No, it's not always like it is being on you know, the
heroes portrayed on TV. Thank you for all the music and being vulnerable, and I'm super excited to get the new album. Keep up the good work. Ee, yeah, Dylan, we do think about that. We do think about internships now. I would assume that a ride along if you're thinking about being a firefighter, a ride along is super important. If you're thinking about being the in the music business, a ride along in the tour bus is that's easy work from us, So that that that would probably make
you addicted to it a little bit more. The reality is you don't start firefighters starting the in the truck. Musicians don't start in the bus. You start in a crappy, stinky van, And that would be a better way to get into what it's like to get into the business as a band or a musician getting into a terrible van and driving across the country that way, trying to sleep, bouncing down the road while your drummer's driving. But we do think about that, we think about internships. We actually
haven't done anything now, especially during this COVID time. But our bunks and our bus situation is always limited, and if you throw another person in the mix, that really it throws off the dynamic of the crew, you know, to kind of puts it off balance a little bit. So what we would rather do is have like a weekend show and bring somebody to the show and then they stay in a hotel and they kind of get to be part of the day and the show day,
but they don't do actually traveling overnight. So yeah, that's definitely something in the works. And I've also asked my tour manager Chris to consider interns for him to do some of his because he has a lot of just daily work, paperwork and stuff like that. So I've encouraged him to reach out to intern companies and maybe get some people to help him out. This one is from Dana says, Hey Granger, First of all, thank you for
your music and your podcast and your videos. You make my week better and I look forward to every single one of them. I'm so thankful that you allow us a glimpse into your family, the good, the bad, and everything in between. It allows us to feel like we know you. Thank you, Dana, I appreciate that so much. Says to my question, have you ever thought about reaching out to Black Rifle Company about collaborating with them a
eeee coffee flavor? Perhaps with them being veteran owned. I feel it would be a great fit for you and pretty please make a yee gun Holster. That's Dana from Illinois, and then she says pronounced Renee with a D. So, as I've been saying it wrong, I will now say Denay. Thank you Denay, and sorry that I mispronounced your name until until I read that at the end. My daughter was the one who told you they were there as
her favorite song last year in Milwaukee. She told you about her uncle, my cousin, who'd just gotten back from Afghanistan, and you had Remington on the setlist that night, but you changed it for her, so she still talks about it. Thank you, Yeah, thank you Denay. Yes, I do know those guys at Black Rifle Coffee Company. We know them very well. Matt Best, who works with them, has been in the Haller music video and we have a podcast planned with Black Rifle Coffee with their podcast that they have.
Matt Best is going to come beyond this podcast and I'm going to be on theirs and maybe we will collab on a yee coffee flavor. So comment below. Yee coffee from Black Rifle is something you'd be interested in and what do you think that would taste like? That's the question, So in your comments, man, what do you think yeege coffee would tastes like? Thank you to nay. I think that's a great idea. Sorry for mispronouncing your name.
Alexander says, Hey there, Alex from Oklahoma. Will there be a return of Donnie Cowboy love all your stories and helpful advice? Yee thank you, alex Yeah, dude, Donnie Cowboy, I'm Donnie. He is one of my characters, along with Earl Dibbles and Bobby Wayne and Freddie and Dwayne, and Donnie is one of my favorites. You guys might know him from the song Parked out by the Lake or
some other videos that Donnie's had. Donnie is He's one of my favorites, and he hasn't taken off like Earle did, And so it's hard to kind of beat a dead horse when Earl Dibbles just always does well. We put out content with Earle, people like it. You put out content with Bobby Wayne or Donnie and some of these other guys, and sometimes it takes a little bit for that to gear up. And so it's hard for me as a content creator to put too much time into things that I know don't work as well as others.
That being said, yes you could count on a return of Donnie, but I'm just kind of explaining why you don't see more of Donnie. But he's one of my favorites. And anyone else listening if you haven't heard, oh, you just google Donnie Cowboy or go to YouTube Donnie Cowboy, but you could find his work. And if you know Earl Dibbles, who's beer and dip, Donnie is coffee and cigarettes to Earl's beer and dip. And he loves nineties country music. I know a lot of people just like
Donnie as well. There's a lot of family members just like Donnie. Thanks for the question, Buddy, let's scroll, I got here we go, Johnny Nichols, Johnny says Granger. I know you've toured Texas extensively. What's your favorite barbecue joint and what's your go to beer? It's Johnny from Iowa Colony, Texas. What's up, buddy. Shout out to the Texas folks. Shout
out to Texas barbecue folks. It's so funny because we get these discussions about barbecue so much because we could get to travel the country and we see the Carolina folks who are so serious about their barbecue. The Memphis folks are so serious. The Kansas City folks are so serious. The Texas folks are so serious. It's hilarious to go back and forth and people say that they have the best barbecue, when in reality, it's just all personal preference.
Because to me, if you go to the best life, you go the best burnt end place in Kansas City, you're gonna sit down and you're gonna go, oh my god, these burn ends are incredible. And then your cruise over to Memphis and you go to what's it called Rendezvous for all your Memphis people. Rendezvous, I think that's what's called. You get the ribs there and it's like those little
dry ribs, incredible. And then you go out there to Carolina and you get you a good old pool pork with some of that thick honey sauce and all the crazy fixings they do in Carolina barbecue. I mean, they don't go they're not shy with the fixings in Carolina, and it's incredible. And then you come to Texas and it's once again totally different. But if you go to the best place, it's incredible, and they're all it's different,
and it's almost not even the same food category. And I know they all end with BBQ, but it's not the same. It's very different. So I'm here to advocate that I love barbecue, and I love the best of all of those places, and it's hard to even compare. That's like saying, like football and baseball, they're just so different. They're totally different sports. And you can't compare the these details and the long drawn out innings of baseball to
the tightly timed quarters of a football game. It's totally different. That being said, Johnny to your question, I judge Texas barbecue in my mind by their brisket. So I love Louis Mueller's brisket in Taylor, Texas. I love Blacks in Lockhart, Texas. I love Heart eight out there and was that out
there in Stephenville. There's a handful of them. And really, if you catch any of the best places, I've never been to Franklin's in Austin, by the way, but if you catch any of the best places on their best day when they have a really good cut, it could be the best barbecue you've ever had. But I typically will judge a Texas based barbecue point by their brisket and you can do the You could do the pool test.
Basically you take you take like a pencil pencil linked slice of that brisket and you hold it up and it should that brisket should stand up on its own weight without falling. But if you take your other hand and you just kind of barely pull on that brisket on that pencil pencil thickness, it should easily come apart, like like bread, like white bread comes apart that easily. You should hold stand up on its own but come apart, and it should have a nice pepper bark on it.
I'm not I'm not all about crazy rubs and crazy sauces. To me, a piece of brisket should live alone without sauce and with only with pepper seasoning, without craziness. So if you could do that, and you could hold up on the brisket test with pepper pepper bark, and then anything else after that is gravy. Yeah, ignore the pun. You could have great sauce, so you could have great sides. But Texas Barbeque has to nail the brisket, and I would go to Louis Mueller's and Taylor Texas to get
mine right now. That is not a paid sponsorship. Take a quick break. We'll be right back checking emails from Granger Smith podcast at gmail dot com. This question comes in from Jennifer says, Hey, Grangeer, this is Jennifer from Maryland. Let me first say I love you and Amber and watching you you make life easier. I knew of you, but never watched much about you until the passing of Riv. The journey since then, well, you guys have handled it
with grace. I recently went through a separation after twelve years together. My step son is thirteen years old, so you could see I've been in his life a long time. I'm struggling with the connection we used to have when we live together. I try to visit three times a week, do activities with him, always get food, we talk, we play video games. But it seems his opinion of me has changed since I decided to end things. His opinion of me has changed since I did decide to end
things for everyone's happiness. We are coming on a year since I've moved out, but I have helped with school appointments financially, but I do not know how to navigate with him. I know the relationship may not be like it was before due to changes, but I want the best we can get now, even if it's different situations. Great question, Jennifer, and I'm trying. I was trying to really dive in to when you just you said you decided to end things for everyone's happiness, So every no
one has reasons for separation. Unfortunately, it's very normal. What you're going through is probably pretty common, and there's probably a lot of people on this podcast that could relate to a story similar to yours. Thank you for the question and trusting me with your answer. Here's my first thought. My first thought as well, I said, my first thought is I think you're asking the right question and your
heart is in the right place. And I love when you guys ask me questions and you show your heart right off the bat. It allows me to navigate the question better when I know that, Okay, your heart's in the right place. So what I see from this question is I see a thirteen year old boy more than
anything in the scenario. And you have to understand you know this, Jennifer, that if regardless of the separation, you would be having trouble connecting to a thirteen year old boy regardless, right, I mean, imagine how you were connecting with him when he was four or five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. But everyone knows that something happens when you're thirteen. You change, you go through puberty, you're entering into adolescence manhood, and
you're in a really awkward stage. And add a separation to that, and he's confused. He's just not He's not mentally developed enough to handle the magnitude of what's happening at home. And so what I'm trying to say is what is happening to you is natural and normal and completely ordinary in your situation, and it doesn't sound like it has anything to do with you right now or anything you can do to fix it. You're going there three times a week, you're doing any activities with him,
You're getting food, you're talking, you're playing video games. It's you have to be completely open to him and empathize with him about this separation. Meaning, hey, buddy, I know, I know it's got to be tough, right, I know it's got to be so tough that me and your dad separated. And I just want you to know that I'm really sorry and I want to I want to be there for you in this weird time. And if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. If you don't want to, if you don't want to bring
it up at all, that's fine. But I want to. I want to let you know that I want to be a part of your life forever because I helped raise you and I want you to know that no matter what you do, I am going to be there for you and Jennifer I in my opinions, as parents, and you are his parent, even though not biologically his parents. Our duty is to be there for the child forever, no matter what. But that is not reciprocal for the child.
It's not it's not a rule. It's not necessary for the child to have undying, unending, never ending love for a parent because they didn't choose that situation. The parents did in some way, and you did, certainly by entering too into a relationship with a one year old little boy baby, and your dad entered into it by conceiving this child with the other woman. But the only one that's innocent and all this is the boy. He had nothing to do with any This is just his life,
so he could choose. He could completely be justified in choosing that he doesn't really care about you, Jennifer, but that should not affect your relationship with him or how you feel about him. Continue to pursue him, continue to go over there three times a week to do activities, to get food. Even if he's apathetic and doesn't it acts like he doesn't care. Because you're slowly making a difference by proving with actions not words, that you are
there for him, and one day he might be. It might take all the way to twenty two years old. He's gonna go da gum, Jennifer. Never gave up on me. They're all my idiot teenage years through separation with my dad. This woman never gave up on me. And it'll click and then that's it. He'll accept you forever and that's what it is. But it might take some hard years. It might take some times when you go, hey, do you want to go out to eat? You want to play video games, you want to go do to anything,
and you're thinking, gosh, he hates me. He hates me. Now the answer, he's just thirteen. He's thirteen, and he's going through a lot and he doesn't know how to process it. So just stay on him, keep chipping away, be relentless. If this is what you want, pursue him. He deserves that. He's had a tossed up childhood, so he deserves you staying and good on you for even wanting this. So stay on him, be relentless, pursue him, and he'll open back up to you. I'm gonna end
with that one. Thank you guys so much for listening and watch. Please subscribe if you haven't did this podcast, If it adds any value to your life at all, tell a friend subscribe to this podcast and we'll see you next Monday. Ye