Nicholas T Smith

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back, everyone, to the Tron podcast of randomness of Nothing. I'm your host, Rashad Woods. Today we have a very Special guest today, Mr. Nicholas Smith, all about the power of positivity and how to become a giant in life. I love some of the speeches I heard, and he's an author, speaker, and all around, really good guys from our beautiful state of Utah. Welcome to the show. [00:00:18] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you. It's good to be here. [00:00:20] Speaker A: It's great. So, you know, first of all, I got a chance to listen to you speak, and you were. You're coming from a place of experience, because it's not like you're just telling people how to be. You came from things that happened in your life, and you realized where you were at and where you wanted to be, and you pulled yourself up and you're inspiring people with your books, your speeches, and your. And your. Your company as well, too. So please, tell me about yourself. [00:00:41] Speaker B: Yeah, so I was. I. I'll go through, so, a little bit of history here. So number nine of 11 kids. My dad died when I was two years old, and my mom was mentally ill. So we struggled, you know, oh, my goodness. Like. Like a lot of people do. But, you know, during that developmental period, I didn't get the care that, you know, a healthy kid could have, of course. And so, you know, throughout life, I didn't realize what was happening in my life until I had some awakening. And so it was in 2009 that I was broke. I was bankrupt. I was. I was struggling. Struggling. Somebody said, you got to meet this guy named Steve Hardison. So I reached out to him. He calls me, calls me back when I'm in the parking lot of a welfare center getting food for my family. So I just lost my house. [00:01:27] Speaker A: Just. [00:01:27] Speaker B: I feel as. As small and insignificant as you can even imagine, you know, so these patterns from childhood kind of bled through to create all that, but I didn't know that at the time I was blaming life. I was upset. And I talked to this guy, and he metaphorically puts me on his shoulder and stands up and shows me who I am. You know, he tells me. Not tells me things, but shows me. Me through. Through his experiences. [00:01:51] Speaker A: And. [00:01:51] Speaker B: And I remember asking him a question. I said, can you. And he said, yes. And I said, how. How can you say yes if you don't know what I'm going to ask? And he said, there is nothing you can ask me that's bigger than me. And that landed so hard. I put it into my book, the Giants and the Smalls as. As one of the statements. So that book came from the seed of that conversation. So I was listening to who Moved My Cheese? By Spencer Johnson, and I was driving to work every day, and I was seeing these people living these giant lives. I'm like, why? Why are they living these giant lives? I feel insignificant and small. And this book downloaded, it just poured into me, and I'd capture it on my microphone and. And while I'm driving to work, I would record this book, run home, transcribe it, read it to my kids. But it became the foundation of everything that followed. I started waking up at that point. So in that conversation, to my behaviors and my patterns and how I was creating everything in my life, and I had no idea of that. You know, I wasn't taught that when I was a kid. We didn't have money growing up, you know, I'm lost in the mix, you know, on nine. Nine kids, my mom couldn't. Couldn't give us the attention. Right. She was struggling with her own stuff. And so I learned that she did the best she could with what she had. But I, you know, I. It was up to me at that point to parent myself and to learn all these things. So that's a. That's a brief history. [00:03:11] Speaker A: And the thing is about it is like, you know, that's an experience that, you know, you hear too often. People could really fall off the rails because a situation like that, I mean, you've read stories really sad once where, you know, ends up foster system, criminal behavior, you know, and obviously you went through your own struggles, but the fact that it didn't lead, and I don't want to assume that you're here where you are right now instead of somewhere else is a testament to willpower and strength, because unfortunately, a lot of people don't have that hindsight to say, I got to find a way to pick myself up, you know, from. From a very dire set of circumstances. [00:03:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:43] Speaker A: So that's. It's crazy. I hate to cut you off. Go ahead, please. [00:03:45] Speaker B: Oh, well, I just, you know, just the thought of that is, you know, I don't know how we didn't end up in foster care with that. And so, yeah, that is a blessing. [00:03:54] Speaker A: Right. [00:03:55] Speaker B: Because to. To wake up is one of the hardest things people are ever going to do. [00:04:00] Speaker A: For sure. [00:04:00] Speaker B: An easy journey. [00:04:02] Speaker A: Not at all. Not at all. And, you know, and I think the most interesting part is, you know, that to lose your. Your father at such a young age and to not have, you know, you know, that direction that structure and have to grow up that fast, you know, with. With. With the limited resources that were available to you. It's. It's a testament to your willpower and strength that you started to pass on to other people. And one of the things I thought was interesting was when you gave that speech, you know, I saw on your website was the difference between achievements and accomplishments, because sometimes people conflate the two. Right. And so I want to hear your definition. I don't want to speak for you, so please. [00:04:34] Speaker B: No. [00:04:35] Speaker A: What if you already figured out the. [00:04:37] Speaker B: The book. The Art of Accomplishment was my first book. And. And accomplishments are little things you hit along the way. So if you look at the word purpose, right? The word purpose means per, meaning forward, and pose, meaning to pause. And so people get all hung up on their purpose. I don't know what my purpose is, but purposes are made up. They're. They're created. You'll have myriad purposes in life. So accomplishments are all those purposes. Achievements are the results of those purposes. Achievements are the trophies. You know, like you. You performed a certain way, so that's an ach. [00:05:09] Speaker A: Right. [00:05:09] Speaker B: People get so hung up on the achievement that they start to judge themselves by the achievements. Not, of course, accomplishments. [00:05:14] Speaker A: 100, 100. [00:05:16] Speaker B: And so to shift the mindset to creating myriad purposes, as many as you can get, and. And to accomplish those. You know, my favorite definition of the word perfection is from the Latin perfect. It's the etymology on it, and it means to perform and to complete. [00:05:31] Speaker A: Right. [00:05:31] Speaker B: And so we think flawlessness. And. And when you really look at perfection, it's. It's doing something and finishing it. Accomplishment is that whether it's successful or not doesn't matter. Right, Right. [00:05:42] Speaker A: So I think. [00:05:43] Speaker B: Yeah, go ahead. [00:05:44] Speaker A: No, I just. I love the way that you define that, because people sell themselves shorts of what they've really done. [00:05:49] Speaker B: Yeah, they do. They do. Because we look at the achievements because the world teaches us you're. You're only successful based on your achievements. Right. But look at what it took for you to be who you are today. You look at this show that you're on, Rashad. It's incredible. 70 plus interviews, right? And you're. You're doing this, building this amazing thing. You're raising, you know, I. I believe a family. And. [00:06:11] Speaker A: Yes. [00:06:11] Speaker B: You know, it's. It's like. It's an accomplishment. This is an accomplishment. All these things made you you, and you wouldn't be you the way you are today without any of them. [00:06:19] Speaker A: Right. It's a testament to willpower. And strength. And, you know, that's one of the reasons I created the show was because the world is bigger than your zip code. The world is bigger than, you know, going to the grocery store. [00:06:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:29] Speaker A: Going through the same, you know, green light. Or you can memorize. It's. You can drive and not even know the names of the streets, but you know where to turn. And so you become predictable. Right. And then your predictability becomes your world. So it's very easy to get. Sometimes it's good just to drive to somewhere you're not familiar. So that way you actually have to pay attention to markers, locations where things are at. It sounds corny and cheesy, but sometimes it could be the town next to you. Right. It could literally be five miles away. And you're like, I don't know what's around here and. But it's therapeutic, right? Because you're like, okay, this is a little bit different. I gotta be a little more sensory. I can't go on cruise control, so to speak. Right, right. So, you know, just briefly. And I don't want to over talk you. You know, I did martial arts for a long time. [00:07:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:14] Speaker A: I have a brown belt and taekwondo, I have a black belt in Tang Soo do, which is both Korean styles, but they're stand up striking arts. And so great teachers, great instructions. But I said, okay, I want to do something different. So kind of to our point, I started doing jiu jitsu and Muay Thai and everything that I was good at didn't matter. Yeah, yeah, everything I was good at didn't matter. And so like, you have to suck. I love the way when I watched your videos when you're like, dude, you have to learn how to suck to be good at something. Yeah, I suck at this. I really actually suck. [00:07:45] Speaker B: Right. [00:07:46] Speaker A: And it's humbling, but it's therapeutic too. [00:07:48] Speaker B: Well, okay, you're using some amazing words here. [00:07:51] Speaker A: Okay. [00:07:51] Speaker B: Humbling means teachable. And so, yeah, it is, it is humbling because now you're teachable. Because if we got it figured out, there's nothing to learn. And the beauty of automation is the mind is designed for automation. So when you look at the neurobiology and how when you do something over and over again, you're going to create automation out of it. You know, my, my favorite quote from the book is, to get what you want out of life, you got to be willing to suck at something long enough to get good at it. [00:08:15] Speaker A: Yep. [00:08:16] Speaker B: And you look at, speaking of that is Dyson, the guy that created the vacuum, had 5,000 vacuums that didn't suck right before he got one that did. And now it's a multibillion dollar company, right? [00:08:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:31] Speaker B: But it's a law of nature that you've got to fail. And the word failure means a negative yield from your efforts. That's all it means. Exactly what you did didn't work. So try something else. Acorns. You know, the, the oak tree lays 10, 000 seeds a year. Only one takes sea turtles. Lay a thousand eggs. Only one lives to adulthood. There's, you know, the sun puts out so much energy, only a billionth hits the earth, but it's enough. That billionth is enough to provide all the life that we see today. [00:08:58] Speaker A: Beautiful. [00:08:59] Speaker B: Yeah. So don't, don't be afraid of failure. Lean into failure, because failure is the process. You don't think God could have just made it a one on one, Right? [00:09:07] Speaker A: Right. [00:09:07] Speaker B: Like, look at us. How many. Not to get dirty here, but how many sperm were lost to create you? [00:09:13] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. [00:09:15] Speaker B: God could have done a one for one, but he didn't. And there's a lesson in that for us. You know, you are meant to fail. It's part of the process. [00:09:23] Speaker A: It sure is. [00:09:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:24] Speaker A: Sure is. [00:09:25] Speaker B: So go be willing to do it. [00:09:26] Speaker A: And I think, you know, like, I'll stick to martial arts because that's kind of my wheelhouse. We laugh at the person that gets knocked out. Right? We laugh because it's a good meme, it's a good clip, you know, Ha, ha ha. You know, there's some knockouts last night in MMA, in ufc, but it's like, you do realize that that guy or that woman is at the pinnacle of their profession. They're the, they're one of a very select group of people that get to do this for a living. Whether, whether, whether somebody loses the super bowl. Right? And you're like, you know, you get all. And they're like, listen, man, I'm still one of only like, you know, 500 people who get to do this every single day, you know, so that's such a valid. When, when you realize that they're at the peak of their profession or an actor who didn't win the Oscar. They're still one of the top 10 people at their profession in that year. Maybe not all time, but at that given moment, they're still one of the best at their profession to get a chance to be nominated for something. They may not have gone home with the golden trophy, but how many people can say they've got an Oscar Nomination. A Tony nomination. And. [00:10:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Wow. [00:10:26] Speaker A: Right. And so you start. When you start measuring that, you're like, man, you know, they've still accomplished a heck of a lot. [00:10:32] Speaker B: That's so good. Right. Because. But then we judge ourselves by their standards. [00:10:36] Speaker A: Yes. And, yes. [00:10:39] Speaker B: I think the biggest thing I've learned is when this man said to me in the parking lot, I can, you know, and he clarified later, years later, he said, it's not only that I can do it, but I can enroll others to be able to do it with me. And so there's. There's really nothing off the table that we can't do. [00:10:54] Speaker A: Right. [00:10:54] Speaker B: But when we start to measure ourselves against somebody else, what happens is we look at our reality as it is and we look at their. The ideal. Right. Either that ideal or our own. And then we measure ourselves in that gap there. And all suffering is created in that gap between reality and what we think should be. If you look at anxiety, Lisa Feldman Baris says that anxiety is when you think you're not measuring up to the ideals you think others have for you. Right. And Brad Blanton says that those ideals that you think they have are your own ideals projected on them. So you're really just measuring yourself. So that gap is all made up, of course. [00:11:29] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:11:30] Speaker B: You know, just one more thing on there, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, is, you know, the word passion means to suffer. The suffering that I'm talking about in this gap is all that judgment that we give ourselves for not measuring up to our ideal. And you turn that into a passion. [00:11:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:43] Speaker B: You don't care about losing or feeling or suffering. You're like, I want this. [00:11:48] Speaker A: And then what happens is, too, is, unfortunately, social media is taking place where they see something all like these. These body influencers. Right. And like, people got to understand something. First of all, like a lot of these people, and I'm not disrespecting the ones that do it legit, there's a lot of people who are literally juiced to the gills. Right. Let's just call it for what it is. Right? Yeah, just call it for what it is. Right. And. And people. People only see the image in front of them and they say, well, I don't have that. Well, first of all, you know, it starts in the kitchen. Right. The first way to get in shape is going to start in the kitchen. I'm far from a nutritionist or a bodybuilding expert, but don't measure yourself against that. Measure it to how you fit in your clothes. Measure how you want to make it. Look at the beach. Measure how you want to fit, you know, and lose certain amount of pounds and weight. And a lot of times, people, unfortunately, I always look at it like this, and this is how I've gotten kind of gotten to a better mind state. People like, we'll see, like, a new musical artist, and they're like, oh, they're brand new. They're out of left field. It's like, no, that person was performing, you know, at birthday parties and weddings and with 300, 400 people in attendance, and they like. Or they say, hey, man, I was waiting tables, you know, trying to get a break, working, you know, full time. And they finally got a break. But you only see the end result when you see them on Netflix or Amazon or Disney. But you didn't see, like, hey, for 10 years, I was a starving artist, quote unquote. You know what I mean? [00:13:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, to tell on myself, you know, 15 years is. Is how long it's been 16 years since I had that conversation in the parking lot. I got divorced in 2019, got diagnosed with anxiety disorder. In 2017, my world completely fell apart again. I didn't learn the lessons in 2009, it wasn't one and done. And then in 2020, we went to launch this book, the Giants and the Smalls. And Covid hit. March 17, we were doing our launch and Covid hit and shut down the entire world. And I tell. Tell people it was like our. Our Kickstarter took off like an albatross. Have you ever seen them run across the beach or the water and they, like, jalopy and floppy and they can't. They can't move. And then finally they get off the shore somehow, and then they soar. And our Kickstarter campaign went, like, every day. It was like, oh, my gosh, this is all. This is terrible. [00:13:56] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. [00:13:57] Speaker B: And then it just. It just launched, you know, and. And still, I'm not out of the woods yet. I work every day to. To build. You know, I've done my podcast for five years now. I built a community on online, and. And it doesn't feed my family. I still work full time. Some of us, you know, you and I talked about this. Don't come from a wealthy family. Most of us don't come from a wealthy family. It's a small percentage that do. So this idea of, oh, I came from a poor family. I get it, because I came from a poor family. [00:14:27] Speaker A: Right. [00:14:27] Speaker B: But it's. It's whatever you justify in you Stops you. [00:14:31] Speaker A: Exactly. Right. No question. And you know, you start to put ceilings on yourself and then what'll happen is, is that you gravitate towards those personalities that feed your negativity. Right. It sounds corny, it sounds cliche. Right. But it really does. Right. So like again, I always use martial arts as analogy because when you go to the door, your ego stops. Because you will find out real quick inside of any marsh, any place with any shred of credibility. You're going to find out who you really are and who you are because there's, there's some tanks in there, Right? Right. And they don't care where you came from. They don't care. Your income status and your zip code don't matter when you're going of to try to train. It's, you know, it's a very, very. It's just like sports. It's a place where, for all intents purposes, doesn't matter who your father, who your mother are. If somebody wants to whoop your butt, you're going to get your butt whooped. Right. Because at the end of the day, if they're more talented, you, that's all that matters. So whatever baggage you're carrying on a personal level, you better put to the door, you better, you better leave it in the car, so to speak. So what I did want to talk about was just your company as a whole. So I love that when you said, you know, a giant can take small steps, but it seems large. Right. So how did you get to the analogy of giants and smalls as a whole? [00:15:40] Speaker B: Yeah, so it was, it was that experience in my car back in, in 09. You know, I'm driving to my, my brother's work, he's an hour from here. I was commuting, listening to who Moved My Cheese? And, and I thought, man, I love the style of this. It's a kid's book, but it's for adults. So that, that inspired the idea. And then thinking about what would I write about, I. It was seeing people live what I thought were giant lives. You know, it can't be that they just all inherited it. [00:16:07] Speaker A: No. [00:16:08] Speaker B: Right. [00:16:08] Speaker A: No. [00:16:09] Speaker B: And so that was the first use of the word giant. Why are they living these giant lives? And that's in the book. Those are the questions I was asking in the book. So this book is a story about me, but it's not like this story is about every person. This is your story. This is your inner world. And the small was me thinking how insignificant I was in comparison to them. [00:16:29] Speaker A: Right? Right. [00:16:30] Speaker B: Everything they have is the same stuff I have access to. [00:16:33] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:16:34] Speaker B: Same universe, the same possibilities. So I. I didn't want to teach my kids that, you know, you can't. You can only do things in your box. You know, I have a mentor who said, every time you believe a belief, it becomes limiting by the nature of believing it. You just boxed in the universe and said, that's it. [00:16:51] Speaker A: Right. [00:16:51] Speaker B: And so, you know, I had a son. I have a son who just graduated Special Forces training in the Marine Corps. [00:16:57] Speaker A: That's amazing. [00:16:57] Speaker B: One of the hardest things anybody could ever do physically, mentally. They just gasped him yesterday. [00:17:02] Speaker A: I've talked to Marines, you know, and I'm sitting back and saying, like, you want to talk about, like, what your day was versus, you know, theirs? [00:17:09] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:17:10] Speaker A: And to make it a commitment like that at a young age. Right? [00:17:13] Speaker B: At a young age. He's. He's 18 years old. [00:17:15] Speaker A: Unbelievable. [00:17:16] Speaker B: And he went straight from high school into BRC training, and he just. He stuck it out. This kid, he wanted to quit. He was on a fractured foot. You know, he couldn't get a check because he'll boot him out if he does. So he's going through on a broken ankle. I guess the gas that they put him through yesterday was so intense that he wanted to jump off a cliff. Like, I didn't know this. So you talk about hard things, and my son and I. I feel proud of him because he's the one that did the work. I. I feel like I was able to help him install in his mindset something that would help him do that. [00:17:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:51] Speaker B: I don't get credit for that. That's him. He did that. I didn't do that. I've never been gassed, but, no, no, I wanted to teach my kids. You are responsible for your life. You can create anything. You can imagine all the resources around you to create that. And that's my entire program is. Is you already are equipped by God with everything you need to create anything you can imagine. The only thing in the way is some old programming and your own judgments. [00:18:19] Speaker A: Right. It was like, you know, obviously making this podcast is nowhere close to serving the country, you know? [00:18:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:25] Speaker A: Very credit to him and everyone else that puts their lives in line for our country. And that's a beautiful thing I had to get out of my mind, you know, similar to you that, like, oh, man, you know. You know, am I going to suck at this? Are people going to judge if I. If I create a podcast? And even if it people who I didn't even know, you know, and then it was like, dude, if I suck, so what? Yeah, so who cares? Right? Right. Like, you know, it's almost like. It's like when the dude, a couple years ago that William hung, dude got on American Idol and he was terrible and it was like he still got up there and he didn't care. Like, we can laugh, we can joke, you know, and the Internet can be a cruel place, you know, I get all that. But listen, man, if you're. If at the end of the day, somebody's like, I'm gonna shoot my shot, I'm going to shoot my shot. And I would rather. Listen, I would rather have gotten. People can say they'd rather get knocked out in the ring than be in the bleachers and stands. [00:19:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:11] Speaker A: Because at least they were in the ring getting knocked out. You know what I mean? And you'll hear from boxers or professional, they'll say, man, or NFL players. You'll hear it and they have CTE and they'll be like, you know, would you do that again? They'd be like, I chased my dream. And you're like, wow. Like, wow. You know, like, you know, there was not an inch of regret from a lot of those people. Right? Because they didn't. They got a chance to chase what they wanted to do. And, you know, right or wrong, that's what they did. They didn't put that limitation on themselves. And they made up their mind to get up at 6 o' clock on Saturday morning, 6 o' clock on Sunday mornings, and do the things that people weren't willing to do, you know, to get where they wanted to get. Now, about your book. Right? So, like, is there some things that are. That are specific? Where can people find it? And just a little bit more about that book. [00:19:52] Speaker B: Everything is on my12journeys.com. So that's, that's where we run our programs. We install a new operating system. And so everything in your world is a shadow of whatever you think you are, whoever that is. Right. So we, we help shift that for people. The book is on there. It's down at the very bottom of the page. [00:20:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:09] Speaker B: It's also on Amazon. So if you go to Amazon and search up my name or. Yeah, you just Google it, it'll pop right up. Nicholas Town Smith. But yeah, I went, I went to Amazon for global distribution because it was hard to just manually ship things. So I went, oh, my goodness. Yeah. [00:20:25] Speaker A: And I think, you know, what happens to you. Obviously you can speak on this. You get to a certain age bracket in life and Sometimes it could be the house mother, it could be the dad busting his butt to provide food on the table for his kids. You sometimes can think that's all you are. Right. And it's very easy to just, I'm just going to go to work, take the kids to soccer practice, baseball, whatever. Then Saturday's hit. Maybe I'll catch a movie, cut the grass, you know, hold the barbecue in the backyard or shovel the snow. And then your world becomes very small. Right. It becomes very limiting. And then you could again to the beginning. You can kind of autopilot the things you do. You're pumping gas, you're not really paying attention, you know, and it becomes to the point where if you're not careful, that will become. It will go from, from, from. From what you do to all you do. Right. And it's. And that's a scary place to be, particularly when you. When it starts affecting you mentally, because then there will be negative things that will come from that. You're going to gain weight, you don't feel like working out. You'll think it can lead to, for lack of a better term, comfortability in your own world, which is fine if that's all you want to do. But when you start measuring your failures, you think you're a failure because that's all you do. That's when bad things can happen to you. [00:21:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. What I hear in that is we don't sit still. The body atrophies when you don't use it, it loses it on purpose for efficiency. [00:21:46] Speaker A: Yep. [00:21:47] Speaker B: We don't have to sustain that. So people, easy people, aren't lazy. They're. They're efficient. The mind is geared toward. Toward laziness, we'll call it. [00:21:55] Speaker A: Correct. [00:21:55] Speaker B: But you don't sit still. It's not like you gained something, you got it forever. And so you either have to be constantly working towards something or constantly working towards something because you're gonna go backwards. You're not gonna. You're not gonna just stay where you are. [00:22:09] Speaker A: Right. [00:22:09] Speaker B: Unfortunately, that's a, That's a life principle, is, Is what you're not using. You will lose. [00:22:14] Speaker A: And it's a beautiful analogy for companies, too, right? Because you talk about companies that evolved versus companies that didn't evolve. Right. [00:22:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:20] Speaker A: You look at, like a Radio Shack, you look at, like a Circuit City, and you realize that they didn't evolve. And the reason why, you know, Apple kept going is because they go from one little, you know, archaic computer, which was ahead of its time at the time, to then okay, now they're going to home computers. Now they're coming to phones. Now they're coming to tablets. Now they're coming to devices. Now it's television and streaming. So they kept evolving, right? So. Right, you keep evolving. Right. And so there's, there's another analogy that I talked to a previous guest. He was actually from Romania. It's also knowing your position, so to speak, like Burger king, you know, McDonald's are globalized fast food joints. Right. But the first fast food joint actually was White Castle. Right. But White Castle, the reason why White Castle has survived since when it first came out, the first burger fast food joint stayed in slain. It said, hey, it's still owned by family, it's still private. And they sell like their, their burgers and grocery stores and everything. So they carved out a niche and then they get movies made about it. Right. Like, oh, you go to White Castle, right. It's late after hours joint. But they were like, listen, I can't compete with these conglomerate massive Happy Meal places, but I'm going to stay in this little respective lane here and not overshoot my moon. And then next thing you know, I, I over expand it. [00:23:32] Speaker B: Yes, it's huge. Can I speak to that a little? [00:23:34] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:23:35] Speaker B: Yeah. This is huge because I, you know, you hear this. Oh, you can do anything. You can be anything. I don't think that's fully true. [00:23:42] Speaker A: No. [00:23:43] Speaker B: Okay, let's be, let's be real. I will not walk on an NBA court and shoot a shot and get recruited right out of the gate. It is not happening. [00:23:53] Speaker A: Right. [00:23:53] Speaker B: But in my lane, like you said, in my gifts, Pablo Picasso says that the meaning of life is to find your gift. And, and the purpose of life is to get give it away. In my gift, I can do anything. [00:24:04] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:24:05] Speaker B: In my gift. [00:24:06] Speaker A: Yep. [00:24:06] Speaker B: Now the challenge is for people. This is where they get stuck is what is my gift. And you start to see these patterns through life. It's almost like you can't see it as you're in it. The beauty of faith is you get to step without seeing fully the picture. But if you reflect back, you'll have a noticing of all the things that kind of led you to be where you are today. [00:24:25] Speaker A: One question, question. [00:24:27] Speaker B: And then in that lane, yes, you can do anything. [00:24:30] Speaker A: Well, it's, it's, dude, like I said, I could talk karate and all this other stuff all day. I tell people all the time, when you train in martial arts, this is a God's honest truth. I say I don't have to beat you. In here because you could probably, you know, you. You're not the best guy when you walk in. Most some guys I've trained with have been pros. Right. Do this for a living or do it on the side and you could tell the scars in their face. I said, I don't have to beat anybody in here. I just got to be able to defend myself against somebody who's out of shape. Right. [00:24:53] Speaker B: So, like, you would whoop my butt. [00:24:56] Speaker A: I'm not saying yes or no. I don't know what you know. I don't want to find out like, every martial artist. But, like, when you start coming in that perspective, you're like, man, yeah, I'm getting blown away by this other black belt. [00:25:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:07] Speaker A: But it's like, I don't gotta beat you, man. I just gotta be like, if somebody gets out of pocket and I have to defend myself, that knows nothing. [00:25:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:15] Speaker A: I at least have a get out of jail free card to get right. So when you. To your point, if you're. When you measure your skill set in that regard, right, you're like, I'm good. I'm perfectly good. Like, I just have to be regular dad that I can, hey, handle myself on a small civil scenario. And life is good. And I love the point where you say, you better find out real quick what you can make it at and where you can be, you can. You can achieve in your particular skill set and realm, because then you won't chase things that are unreasonable for yourself. [00:25:46] Speaker B: But don't deny that you're on the right path, because I couldn't have foreseen this. And if I had foreseen all the things that went into making me who I am today, I would have given up. It would have been so overwhelming that I would have quit. And so don't try to see the path. Trust that the path you're taking is going to lead you exactly where you need to be. But step. You have to step. And I look back over the 15 years from 2009 to here, I was in a completely different industry. I had a completely different mindset. I went to one course that opened my mind, and then this series of events started happening. And over 15 years, it was an adaptation and an evolution. [00:26:25] Speaker A: Right. [00:26:25] Speaker B: And who I am today. And it was a lot of hard work. Tears, sweat, defeat, all of that. All of that. [00:26:32] Speaker A: It's just like making a podcast. Like people. Like, when I first started this, I don't think people understand the work you actually have to do. People have no idea. Right. All they see Is, you know, like, people like, oh, you just slap on a set of headphones and, you know, you get a chance to just. No, you better know what you're doing. It's editing. It's getting guests. It's making sure you have compelling content. It's promoting the content. It's making sure that people want to listen to it. Right. You know, anybody can go in the kitchen and cook. Not everybody's going to get people to buy it and actually make it a sustainable product. And, you know, you want to talk about failures. How many times do food companies have to put people in test rooms as allergies? Is it going to kill somebody? Is it going to pass food and safety standards? There's a multitude of things that have to pass in order for something to be coming to market. It didn't just end up on your shelf and you throw it in your. In your grocery cart and you're autopiling it on the way out the door. [00:27:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:22] Speaker A: And so to your point, I'm sure there's some food scientists right now probably crying home to their husband or wife, like, I gotta. I'm under pressure from Pillsbury to create the next X, Y and Z. And I get my butt kicked because everything's sucking when people are in this test room. And it's not passing mustard. [00:27:38] Speaker B: Right. [00:27:38] Speaker A: You know. [00:27:39] Speaker B: Right. [00:27:39] Speaker A: It's just the truth. [00:27:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:42] Speaker A: But it's. It's amazing. So I want. I always ask people this, you know, you're. You're so smart and you're so accomplished. Where can people find Nicholas Smith? [00:27:50] Speaker B: Yeah. My12journeys.com. So if you go to my12journeys.com, you see everything we're up to. And, you know, our podcast is on there. We've done 330 episodes. [00:27:59] Speaker A: So wonderful. [00:28:01] Speaker B: And just a lot of resources there. A great community. The Tribe of giants. Also on YouTube, on Wake up with Giants TV. That's our podcast. Podcast. [00:28:08] Speaker A: That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. [00:28:09] Speaker B: Come. Come check it out some. It's for you. Everything we do, it's like a Brian Adams song. Everything I do, I do it for you. [00:28:16] Speaker A: Everything about that movie was great except Kevin Costner's accent. [00:28:19] Speaker B: Yeah, right, right, right. [00:28:22] Speaker A: You didn't notice it as a kid, like, right? The movie. I didn't notice the movie as a kid. And then all of a sudden, you know, I got a little older. I was like, you know what he did? Kind of pack it in on that accent halfway through the movie. Yeah. [00:28:32] Speaker B: That's funny, dude. [00:28:33] Speaker A: It's still a great movie. [00:28:34] Speaker B: Rewatch. [00:28:34] Speaker A: Yeah, still A great, great, like, you know, God bless the soul of. Oh, gosh, Alan Rickman, you know. Yeah, y. It's great. And that's a great song, by the way, too, you know. It is a good song. It's a great song. I gotta tell you, like, I love the positive energy. You bring out the people that you're helping. And you came from a, you know, authentic place of perspective, what you went through. So you're not faking the funk when you're telling people that, you know, ultimately chase your dreams and get those negative thoughts out of your head. [00:28:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm right there with them. I'm right on the bridge with you. Right side by side with you. I'm not the guru. I'm the guide that will go first. [00:29:03] Speaker A: Exactly. Oh, for sure, for sure. You know, it's almost like, you know, I went across, you know, a suspension bridge in Vancouver and, you know, I've told. When people saw the pictures, they're like, I would never go across that. And I'm not saying I'm some daredevil. I'm not saying I'm the greatest accomplished dude in the world, but I'm like, that's why I wasn't on the bridge with you, man. [00:29:18] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:29:20] Speaker A: Because you weren't going to do it right. [00:29:21] Speaker B: If you're willing to step, I'll step with you. [00:29:23] Speaker A: Exactly. So it's been a pleasure, man. That's like I said, I can't thank you enough. East side, Utah. Thank you. Nicholas Smith. [00:29:30] Speaker B: Thank you.