Welcome to C , yours , beers, knowers and doers, a podcast about intuition. Do you know what that is? Intuition to me is that inner sense for knowing that something is true and yet I have no proof, but there's so many definitions and there's so many ways it can come and what you need to bring together and share with you some amazing guests. You have some amazing life stories and also some insights into how intuition can come in . I'm looking to gather those crows in the trees.
I hope you're one of them. I hope that this podcast inspires you to be more connected to your intuition and I hope that by doing that we make the world a better place. Thanks for coming on this journey with me. My guest today is an athlete, is a harmonica player, a father, an advocate, an inspirational person, a person who has tenacity. He's taken that tenacity in and created a place of change. He's a person who is deeply interested in helping and serving others. He is a public speaker.
He's a motivator. My guest today is Sean Smith .
Don't dis my ability. I'm so excited that you joined us today, Sean , because just in our brief time together I'm on your page and I know that many other people are going to resonate with what you have to say today. So can you start with just telling us a little bit about yourself and you can start in the beginning because sometimes that's where people will connect
therapist by trade much. What are you really is ? It is interesting is why I do it . I specialize kicking or any shoulder they were seeing which represents a group of individuals with a disability label, but for whom the term disability doesn't quite fit because their assets exceed any Devon speaker and the reason I use the is because I identify as being rivers .
I was diagnosed with ADHD and kind of type at age 30 prior to my diagnosis would be four years to finish, three years of high school, 32 attempts from meeting parents were writing around weight and gleaning failing grade 10 math four times. I managed to get snuck into college after high school or my grades up 10 university and graduated on diagnosis .
Look walking 2.3 GPA, have a ton of life experience, and then decided to get a sense and start a medication for ADHD, which basically took my clock process from pilot the fiber out . All of a sudden the , the pieces of the puzzle came together in a way that they never could before. I was thinking shirt example, I tie my shoes the wrong way. Look , we're attacking the right way. Until I started taking medication , I couldn't remember the directions. I, I couldn't do basic math.
I , uh , another way I describe it is that I feel now I was wrongly in prison without any, any way of getting out or wouldn't mitigation. Basically it was, you know, being thinking of your brain as , as an addict , you go in and you turn that light on. Um , it's kind of like all of a sudden you've got this flashlight in your hand because we'll get into the corners that haven't been like before. And so once you've kind of seen what you've seen, you can't unsee it.
And so your, your thought process just grows and evolves. And so that's, that's what happened with me. And then I went back to a top grade as a mature student. I realized that I wasn't done , uh , which I needed up until that point, but I was quite smart. I took five classes or [inaudible] GPA of 3.7 and then 2010 patient counseling Saint program at UNB on academic probation, graduated here. They're at the top of my box , had a time, don't have life experiences.
My 20th job , um , I've literally done everything from shovel crap to a McDonald's and w I was a blackjack dealer and a taco per summer. I was a Sheriff's officer. You're in better timber to murder trials. I was at there a big foster parents gave me a routine residential true solution for at forever youth in Northwest territories. I've been around a lot of places. I've been a lot of different people.
But I realized pretty early on that the helping industry is really what I like to do because of cable to connect people on certain either realism and for them to know that you know, I was somebody who wasn't going to blow smoke, you know, what do you see is exactly what you get for better or for worse sometimes. And I, after I graduated my master's , I worked in nonprofit sector for awhile by clearly to do industry.
I then decided to stop waiting for an opportunity to create my own found don't just my ability four years ago. And I like to brag that I been able to do something that no other company, which is keeping employee for longer than 18 consecutive months.
So I really , I really kind of use a lot of my different experiences to work with families and youth who are more diverse individuals with autism, ADHD and visible disabilities and help them to use their, their passion or their , their unique gift as a context for communication. And whether it's turning into business or some kind of curriculum to help them learn. Rockwood , they do, you know ?
So how wide is your client base? Like I would assume that you are not limited. Like me, I'm not limited by proximity. Like do you , do you do this work over the internet? Do you do it over the phone as well or do you need to be in person with people to help them?
I do in person. I've had offers to do it in other ways, but as it be answered by counselor or certain legalities and escrow issues that arise , uh, we're doing online. Uh, but my preference really is doing it based on , based on finance, where I haven't been at based impact. But it also depends on what isn't doing site of different revenue streams. So the counseling and psychotherapy that that's local, but , um , paid speaking engagements, that's,
that's international . Great. Awesome. Okay. So I mean that's how I met you was at a speaking engagement and like, okay, this guy gets it . This needs to be in every single school. This needs to be syndicated . This needs to be, I was like, Cindy, could you record this? Like it, right .
Sadly, no, but it is , um , to get the listeners an idea, it was just your depth of understanding of the fact that these quote unquote issues are actually super your traits like we talked about before, the call was like finally somebody gets it. I think there's unintentional warping of the mind based on categories that people get put in, four words that they hear or police systems that are imprinted on them from really young through the school system. And then you get it when you go into a job.
So when I heard your message I was like, okay, somebody sees it . This is not a disability, right? Name your company for Pete's sakes. But your messaging , what's got you here ? Like you've lived it. So even just being an example on the state for somebody who's like, no, this needs to be made or put in front of much bigger audience. So that part reason I was excited. You said yesterday. So in terms of your , wow, your super power, we, we also touched on this a little bit.
You're ability to put into words. What you see, feel, know, do is is incredible to me because you were very succinct and exact on what you're saying as well. Somebody who wouldn't have picked up like me that you had intentioned if it's because you speak very intelligently and very succinctly my head and onto paper, right?
So the avenues which you're taking career-wise uses all your strengths, which is another thing that people need to realize that you don't have to work in anything that isn't something you're not good at. How am I got to be
a great communicator? Was being part of the startup community and , and you know, having to own my pitch and my story and figure out how to tell it. What's the best way to call it. But the best way to find that out is not the right way. It's the to try things out and get feedback and work on it, right? So you hone your message and that's what takes practice. A lot of practice and you've just, you've got to put yourself out there and be vulnerable in order to get stronger that way.
But it's the having the mindset of knowing you're, you're good to move forward, right? Like you the best way for me to learn to cement something up . So I actually moved from screwed things up a lot because I'm going to learn more from that than I will my success. Right. If you talk to any successful person, successful. I just tried a different way how many times? I notice a lot of things. Um , for me, I learned a lot from my kids.
Uh, it's really faculty have a son, daughter, two years, pardon the age and to watch them and be at home with them when they were younger and watch them was interact and play houses . Really reflection of how they perceived nestled parents. It was really neat to kind of repeat. It would be a counselor and psychotherapist and Gilda . Just take a step back and watch that and kind of dissect it. But my daughter was a sporting event and we are in the locker room.
I noticed to working around and saying your name please, let's try and focus and try to get ready. And I realize that she, you know, she would put [inaudible] on and then she looked around the room and she just kind of scanning and it reminded me of myself when I was younger and you know, my parents, teachers would say, your , your husband clause or your daydreaming.
I realized that after I started taking medication, I was diagnosed that all, all of that information that I was, you know, everything that I observed, I was just kind of just storing up until that point. And so when I was really doing was I was reading people, I was reading their body language or facial expressions, which now helps me as a, it's like their business and entrepreneur.
But the story of my daughter was, you know , recognizing that I was getting frustrated with her for doing what I did as a kid and realizing that, you know , I shouldn't be frustrated or this is gonna help her later on. I just need you not to take step back and take a breath and let her do that because I know that it's going to be her that much more a person later. And she's already very authentic , um, to , to people's feelings. So it's, it's a neat to see her in me.
Exactly. And that sensitivity, that ability to read a room is something that people don't necessarily connect as an intuitive skill. But it's, it's very much an intuitive skill and an empathy when it's on steroids. Sometimes it can be a detriment because people want to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders because they haven't learned how to let it go. They think it's bad to let somebody else be , I work with that regularly.
It's just, I tell people, it's like you've taken a library book off the shelf. They have to put the library book back on the shelf because it's not yours to carry. But to be able to be in tune with that at that young age. And I think many kids are, and it just kind of gets stamped out from the no hurry up and get to put the stuff on. Like from all the ways we have to be in order to exist in society. Efficient gets stuff done.
But it's, it's something that you can read a room or read your client and know what the best approach is for that person based on the insight on how they operate. It's extremely powerful being in sales or counseling or or management. There's so many different avenues for that skill sets to be used.
Intangible assets can't really measure it, but it's there and , and you are somebody who has it, you know immediately when someone else does and you're just going to be for forever . It's Fort worth or the complete opposite exact opposite direction. Right.
I know the thing we are going to [inaudible] or not, but that's, that's also , I know that everybody's not for me, but I think it , it takes that insight maturity as well to kind of acknowledging and recognize that because I think when you're younger you don't really, you know that it's there and you know that you feel the style . You don't really know what to do with it because it is , aren't really talked about. Right.
It's kind of an invisible thing that just kind of happens in a room without people knowing unless you do. Right .
Unless you do. Sometimes you can see another just like you did and your daughter, but if you're not paying attention like you were paying attention, it is daydreaming. It is lolly gallery . It's not scanning, it's not processing. So I think that's a gift that you had that day. Pretty awesome. Yeah dude , that not the truth. Kids are good teachers too. How do you get your intuition or does it come through to you and you discern what yours XE
more through visual and some auditory. It seems kind of a mixed bag. It's hard to describe because it just happens so quickly . Right? And if somebody were to say, you know what, what do you think about this person? When I say that I almost have to dissect every little thing, which is hard to do because it's all happened so quickly that to do, to kind of go reverse and you a play by play of what led up to that is hard. And I think that's where the intuition comes in, right?
People will see what we see and experience what we experienced just on a different level. So then how, how you been somebody that you are intuitive or that you're an empath and that's where again, it gets really tricky and people are either going to get you in and understand that or they're going to continue to to walk groups and those people are not for you. They are one group is another way of looking at it from a perspective of they're looking at prove you wrong.
Right, right. And I always tell people, nobody can argue with a good instinct. What's the argument? There is not cause gut instincts always room for each individual. You don't have to explain it cause you may not know why. It just is. And we've been taught not to listen to that instinct at times because again, it doesn't fit in the rule book or society expects me to continue doing this work even though it's making me sick or you need the pension or whatever.
And it's something that yes, people either get it or they don't. But I think everybody's gone in . It's whether or not they stuffed it in a box.
Yeah. I think part of your compass kind of plays into it as well. Like anything else, powers can be used for good and evil. So it really can go both ways. I don't think I've met anybody who's on the other end, but I think part of what we can do is to promote individuals and do , you're doing through the podcast by really engaging in conversation to let people know that there are other people like us out there.
Here we are to normalize it because it's , I kind of compare it to somebody who has an invisible disability, you know, the , the only way to find someone like us is to be vulnerable and open up and to start a conversation. But more often than not, it has the Austin intended effects because you realize that any one , one rolling in trying to have a conversation with someone , you realize how little they are like you and so it actually pulls you further away and maybe less reluctance.
Maybe we'll never have those conversations because you meet a lot of idiots or jerks, right? You don't want to waste our time with them. So it's kind of like speed dating with people to try and find people that we're going to get,
we're going to get along with. Um, you've got to kind of go through the process to send that intuition go hand in hand. Sometimes we'll throw our discernment out because of the shiny, bright and shiny and they look good on paper. There's lots of lessons that come. You don't listen to your intuition. I find it, I always think too , it makes life simpler if we listen to our intuition.
But I know there's cases when I veered off the path and I am supposed to do that, but then you know , three minutes later I'm not supposed to do that. But was it brilliant awareness of just the fact that, okay, I listened to Ray or is run with intuition and it's not that people who are aren't necessarily empathetic, don't have any intuition. It's to separate those two is two different skillsets . Sometimes it's like it'd be a broad brush.
Most people aren't in [inaudible] , so they must not be connected to their intuition. How does not have that vignette known ? Some people without as much empathy can be highly intuitive and aware of energy and just not have that other people were hurt ever. So individuals on the autism spectrum , that's option could be true, very intuitive, but the embassy often is okay. No I'm not. I'm not off my rocker with that discernment. Okay , so thank you so much again for today.
I think this has been great to expose people to what you do. I need to get you more platforms to speak on. That would be my wish is to get you there. Get your messaging in more places everywhere would be my wish for you. I appreciate you. Well thank you Ken for today. Again, if you are looking for Sean , look up, don't dislike validity .
Thank you so much for giving us your time today. We truly appreciate our guests for sharing their stories and insights about how intuition has impacted their lives and I'm so grateful for Peter trainer for his time and giving me this original music. It's now your turn. It's your turn to listen and act on your own intuition and help make the world a better place. Until next time. Keep seeing being, knowing, and doing. If you liked this podcast, please share it.
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