Steve Smith Sr.'s Comeback Story

00:00:09 Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Comeback Stories. Darren Waller. Here, my man, Donnie starkins to my left. We have an incredible guest here with us today. Guy has played sixteen years in the NFL. I was blessed to be a part of two of those as his teammate. Sure fire Hall of Famer when it's his time, five Pro Bowls, three time All Pro A thousand catches, almost fifteen thousand yards receiving Steve Smith Senior, the one and only man. Welcome. What's up man? How are you doing? I'm doing great? Man. It's really exciting to have you here. Man. I knew from the jump, like when making a guest list, I would love to have you on. So it's exciting to have you here today. Man. Yeah, that's cool. You know that everything you're doing and how you're doing it, you know, so it's an honor, you know when you you know, a lot of people don't know, but you know, you know, if you are one of the guys that you know, I consider a friend or I trust, you know, you can always call me. So you know, anytime you need something from me, you know my answer is always I got you. So yeah, I appreciate you, man, to just give some people some context coming into the NFL. You know, I played in a triple option offense in college and it wasn't really like a big It wasn't exciting at all, and I didn't really have any real greatness in front of me to look around to on a day to day basis. And I got to the Ravens and just being around you, I was just like it was a wake up call for what greatness looked like, and like in an intensity of that kind of level and just that level of focus and the competitive nature, like you were the one that woke me up. And I was like, Okay, that's what greatness looks like. If I'm gonna do it. Somehow, I got to be on the path that this dude is on. So I had to acknowledge you for that, for setting that path and setting that standard for me. And now I'm one of the guys on my team that kind of sets the standard and you are a guy that I constantly think of as far as setting an example for me. So I appreciate that. Man. Man, I just like watching you play though, I mean just seeing everything. Um, you know, I think, uh, I think, um my wife, she's going to take They're going to tennis. So I had to say a little you know, doesn't doesn't matter what I'm doing. You always got to acknowledge the wives the better house. So man, it's it's one of the things that's really cool about ball. But also as I sit back and reflect, it's one of the things that you miss about ball is uh, you know those aha moments and um, you know there's a lot of aha moments with you, Darren, and I sit back and I watch you play, and um, you know. And I've always said this in every locker room, my man, every receiver room, my man. You know I care about when I'm sitting back. You know, you know that you know the story. When I'm sitting back at the house. When I retired, I want to make sure that when you're catching passes, I don't say that I know that football player. I know that man, right and I know that man you are. And I've always you know for me, and you know what I am who I am. He's who I be, whether you like me or not. But every locker room, my men, every receiver's room, I end, Um, you know, I probably should have did a better job but man, I'm I'm I checked guy's hearts right, and I think that's extremely important because when you're checking the guy heard, um, you know if you can count on them. And I know this may come across the wrong way, but not every football player is great, and not every man in the locker room you could depend on them. You can't trust their heart. Um. And so I'm just being one hundred being real. Um. Some people may be watching this now, and that's fine. They can say, you know, who do you think you are? Who you know? What makes you special? Um? You know, God says each and every one of us is special. So I take that serious. And you know, as you know, as I play, I always went forward. Um. You know when I trash you as a dB and when I take your professional soul, when you go up to meet the Lord, they're gonna ask you who sent you, and I'm tell them Agent eighty nine. So that's that's just kind of how I go about it. That's how played ball. M I played for keeps that. So I love the most about you, man, Like there's nobody, there's nobody like you. I think there never will be. And I love this. I think this is a great opportunity for people to see another side of you, the man in the uniform. And that's why I think this is going to be such a great conversation. So I want to start by diving into you know, what was life like growing up for you? Where did you grow up, what was your family situation like, what did your environment look like? To take us through your early life? And you know, I rep it only lonely hats. Everywhere I got, I got a dresser full of me. You know, you never see me repping anything else but Ella, because that's where I'm born and raised, That's where I'm from, That's who I am. That that has shaped me and molden me um the unfortunate part about that shape and mold as I become an adult, as I become a father, as I become an advocate in the community. I tell you, one of the biggest things that's difficult about growing up in the inner city of any city is when you are a young man, young woman and lower income, you have to jump through so many more hoops to get by, and yet you lack the basic necessities and resources. And I think that's one of the extremely tough things about the inner city and I see it here in Charlotte, where I do a lot of my business and also philanthropy, because I'm ingrained here. My family's here, my wife here, my kids, and so I think that's extremely important. I don't do a lot in LA because I don't live in LA. I can't be there. I can't touch it, I can't watch it. And so if I can't touch it and watch it, and that means it can't be something that's essential or something that I built into because I don't want to be an absentee father, and I don't want to be an absentee philanthropists or business owner or entrepreneur. So that's that's why I do a lot here in Charlotte. But grew up in LA. Mom, you know, she struggled, single mom. I saw my dad on the weekends. He did the best he could. My mom did the best he could. My grandma and grandpa leaned in and taught me my aunts and uncles. My mom is one of thirteen. So between my grandfather and grandmother who had my mother, who my mother obviously had me, and then I had my kids, there are sixty five of us kicking, and um, it's a it's a It's always a very entertaining family get together because it starts off well, but somebody always does something to just make it go sideways. Now I hear that. Um. You know, one thing that we like to talk about on here is UM I'd like to ask, like, what is there an early memory of pain from your younger years that you can look to The may put you into survival mode or made you feel like you had to grow up faster, or you know, it just changed the way that you looked at the world. I mean, my mom was a single mom. I was a last key kid, so I always I had to grow up faster. Um, you know, growing up in there, the city around you know, I was born in seventy nine. So with that, you know, you have the crack epidemic. You have just all those things that you you have to go through, um that a young man shouldn't go through. It didn't have time to really uh, to to sit and be be still, to um, to just do the kid things. And so I make sure that my kids are allowed to be kids. Yeah. I made some mistakes, but just um, you know, I don't think you know, by the time by the time I was seven or eight years old, I was washing dishes, and you know, I'm not killing them like you on the Hype department. So my mom got a stool. You got to imagine that one In the first or second grade, I'm washing dishes, right. I learned how to wash dishes by probably about the fifth grade. Man, I was able to cook, clean, I was mopping. Um, I was doing a lot of things. Uh that a young man. Now that I'm older, I understand it. But I wasn't allowed to be a kid. We did. We didn't have the family structure to be a kid. You know, I had to I had to grow fast. I hear that. I know there's there's probably two sides to that, as not being able to enjoy the childhood joys. But on the other side of that, I feel like there's also like an instillment of a certain level of discipline that has carried you through your life, through your career, into your into your family today. Would you said your mom was like the main teacher for you growing up? Who was the first teacher that you could look back to. Was it your mom, a relative, or a coach or somebody like that. I think everybody, I really believe everybody was a teacher. My mom taught me some things that I wish she didn't. My dad taught me some things I wish she didn't. The streets taught me some things I wish it didn't. My grandfather taught me a lot. A grandpa taught me a lot. I lost my grandpa November two thousand and eight, two thousand and seven, and then I lost my grandmother coming up the week the Saturday before Father's Day. She died. Actually, she her heart stopped at eighty nine years old, and I was on my way to la UM. We were gonna stop and see her as we were out there, and she passed. So Um. There's a lot of people that I learned, good, bad, and things I wish I wouldn't have learned. Yeah, like everything that we learned, everything that we experienced, serves a purpose, and I know that it served to help you progress your career, just progress as a man. Can you take us through what your early football journey was through. I disagree with that a little bit. Talk to me, man, Talk to me. I don't think at ten years old I should be have seen some of the stuff I've seen and that didn't didn't teach me anything, but harden my heart now, like the first time, just being one hunter talking to my dog right in, Donnie, I've let you beat my dog for the day, all right, yea. The first time everyone want to kill somebody was probably about eight or nine years old when it was my mom. She was dating a dude named Teddy. Teddy had a little bullshit as Jerry Curl. Y'all had to edit that out because I'm not supposed to be cuss so you be, you broa, No, I'm not supposed to y'all got oh right, right, right right. So Teddy had a Jerry Curl and Teddy was a crackhead, and Teddy got paid. Teddy did some things, and Teddy was not my father, and so he my mom confronted about some things and he beat her up, and neighbors called the damn nuns. And I just remember, um my son had set you know, my my youngest right now, duce seven years old. He'd be eight July second, and I cannot imagine his little heart having so much rage. That's not healthy, that that shouldn't be the standard. And because I had some of that happened to me at such a young age, you know, the me mentally and physically in my brain and trying to create all those things that you are going through as a kid, formulating you know how to love and how to process. Man, some of that got rewired at an age it shouldn't have been rewired. And that didn't help me. Man, it hurt me. It hurt me at times that that even when I look back now that when I look at my kids to imagine what some of the things that I experienced at before the age of twelve or thirteen, Man, it's taugh. I feel you on that. I appreciate you bringing that perspective too, because there are you know, I feel like there are certain things I've been through in my life that I feel like the perspective that I brought up works for me. But there are people like you just said, that go through things that you know, they can't learn from. They just have to feel and they have to carry with them because at ten, you don't really know how to process it, like you said, you don't know how to overcome it in a way or to let that go. Yeah, exactly, I appreciate you, like, like you shouldn't be at ten years old processing gown folk stuff, right, You shouldn't like it, you know, on my podcast and I want to have you on mind. One of the things that we talked about is I had a secret man I was I was sexually abused, and I held that secret till I was pretty much in my thirties when I you know, when I retired and started doing some counseling that I realized that I was sexually abused. And basically the story is my mom's friend, her her good friend, she had a daughter and the son, and the son made me and his little sister have sex. I was in the I think I was in the third grade, and he watched us, and my counselor said, whoa, we win And we had to unpack that. He said, you know that that's not normal, that's that's that's abuse. And the craziest part is, you know, this is before cell phones pagers. I was afraid every time the house phone rang and look up straight. I grew up in a I grew up with a mother who was struggling, was on section eight. We she did the best she could. I was with a one. I was with a mom who the bill collectors were always calling, so our phone was always ringing, and every time the phone rang, I thought it was such and such saying that this happened. Can you imagine? Can you so think about it? Can you imagine every time your phone has a notification in today's age, like every time the house phone rang, you know, to tents up like that, Bro, You know that. That's how I felt in Baltimore the first few years that I was there, because I was failing almost every drug test, and I thought somebody at the anytime a coach called me, I was like that feeling that you just described is how I felt every time my phone lit up for three or four years, three or four years as an adult, a young adult, right, what is a third grader? Post to Phil So, By the time I was a fourth grader in elementary school, I learned how to hide secrets. Go ahead, Donnie, I see it. An, that's fascinating. Your story is fascinating. Um. Just learning more about your story, it all makes sense to see how you fought on the field. UM. I often hear people label it as a chip on your shoulder, but it's obviously something beyond the chip. Um, exactly like some people saying it said, chip Man, I listen, here's my day today. I woke up this morning. First of all, me and my wife are totally opposite, right, and and and D knows this. I get up early. I have my cup of coffee. Right, So this is Steve Smith Senior, the infamous chill man. I'm up. I'm up at so. First of all, my clock is thirty minutes ahead of my wife's. So when I'm supposed to get up at sixty eleven, right, I always use out numbers. I don't know why I figured it out. Later sixty eleven when I wake up, because my clock is thirty minutes fast, it's five thirty eight. So I get up, brush my teeth, I get I get dressed for my workout. And I'm sitting in in in the kids in my family room, watching a little sports, catching up up on stuff and folding clothes. I'm doing towels and underwear and socks, fold that up. Then I have my cup of coffee as like my little energy drink, just you know, little a little criminal sugar drink it. And then I'll go upstairs and get on my peloton and I'll do a ride from that. From that ride, I'll get up take my dog for a walk, you know, listen to an audio bug, or listen to some music whatever I'm feeling that day, gospel, R and B, jazz, wraps, some trap music, you name. Then after that, I get showered and I start my day. I get up at six six o'clock in the morning, fold clothes, whatever it needs to be done, or you know, sit down and talk journal broke. By seven o'clock, I am ready to go. You're talking about some people like and I wonder what's going on? Try me if you want to at seven am. But that's happen. That's my day. We always think about morning routines, man, and you you got to the answer before we even ask the question. But you know it's part of the system, right, it's the foundation. I always say, when the morning, when the day, When the day, when the week? It's all about momentum. But even going back, going back to your childhood, it's fascinating to hear more in depth, and thank you for sharing and being so real and raw about the sexual abuse. There's for me personally, there's nothing more fulfilling than sitting here with you and Darren and hearing two men, three men talking about this stuff like this is how we change the conversation and give people permission to do the same, because I always say we're only as sick as our secrets. So to be able to get it out there and really own the wound. Until you can really own the wound, only then can you write the ending of the story. Until you own it and you do some work and you work through it, that wound owns you. And they say ninety five percent of our day is operated from our subconscious mind, which means ninety five percent of our day is in our thinking. And then also going back from ages zero to seven is where all of our programming happens, so all of our programs, all of our stories, So basically our programs are running our subconscious So you know, just to hear everything that you went through at such a young age, but then also to hear a shift in your perspective when you mentioned your family and you say they were doing the best they could, right, that's like you're not the victim anymore. You're not holding resentments. You are seeing them as doing the best they could with what they had. And what that does is it frees us up from any kind of self pity and victimization, which clearly is why you are inspiring others being of service and a man of faith like you are today. It's fascinating. Man. I'm just grateful to have this conversation with you. I appreciate it. What would you say? What was the shift for you? As far as the other one thing? I wanted to mention that you talked about in your childhood, that all of that helped you on the field, but that it really kind of jacked you up with the struggles off the field, right, I've heard you mentioned that before, so yeah, it allowed you to have that boulder, that chip, whatever you want to call it, but off the field is where you would struggle from all that, from the childhood wounds basically, well, off the field, what it did is it closed me off right How I can look at a guy like Darren, love on them and then come in the next day and I'll just be like, man, I'm feel like they're on nobody to day. God, I'm good. And you know people people would be would say or or like, man, Steve, you know it's wrong with Steve today And it was just the emotional roller coaster right, not knowing why. And so today is I sitting from you in front of you via zoom. The interesting part is I know who I am finally, and I'm comfortable who I am. I'm comfortable sitting in my messiness, but I'm also comfortable sitting I know who I am, I know what I need, and I'm okay with asking questions. And I have enough friends and allies in my life that they do affirm me. They ask the right questions, and they're helping me achieve, you know, to get where I need to go to be a whole man, a whole husband, a whole father, a whole uncle, a whole nephew. I hear that, and it's like from young kids, especially kids that love football, it's like to know who we are as a man is not at the top of our priority list. We think that who we are as men has something to do with something that we can put into our bank account. The stat line that I read off at the beginning of the intro of the show, you know, just things like that, when it's like it has nothing to do with these transactional things or these things that we can touch. It's like it's what's inside of us. And I feel like that's why this is so important to shift the perspectives of young people, because it's like, what if a ten year old here's you saying this and they may be going through a similar situation or holding on some of the pain that they hear. It's like, I feel like it's on us now as men that have succeeded in this platform and have seen some great things happen to be like this. This ain't everything like it can still be hard. So what you're what you're saying is what you're getting to and I'll let you have it. As we're talking about heart questions, we're talking from the heart. Right, if you ask a man a heart question, ask a man how he knows, you know, I still get teary eyt man, or what you're you know when we did are sit down and hearing your father said that you'll always be my horse. Like when you ask men, what is your what did your father? Well, who is your father? And what did your father show you? My follow up to that is what did your father show you with his words? And also what he did he show you with his actions? Right? My dad all about to jump on in answer, my dad, Uh, he showed me grace from the very beginning. Looking back, I didn't know what it was at the time. He was always like a voice of reason, and I was like, how is he so mild manner when I'm you know, the principles calling the house every week in middle school because I can't sit still in class. I've gotten arrested three times. I've gotten suspended at every single level of athletics I've ever participated in. But the whole time he's like, you know, I'm still in your corner, um. These are things that you can can learn from. He's like, you get and he always talked about, you know, you know, getting caught on a humble when it's like I'm not, I don't I'm not dialed in. I'm not locked in and being disciplined and trying to you know, grow in my character. I'm just trying to, you know, live life and do what everybody else is doing. But I can't do what everybody else is doing because I'm not everybody else. So he was guiding me along that path without kind of beating me over the head with a hammer, but still holding me to a high standard. I tell you one of the things that has really changed my perspective, and soon I read something that has said this and has really made me think about how that would have helped me, which is an unqualified compliment. To sit with it for a little bit, Man', I only can speak for all the way I grew up, man I I UNI unqualified compliment in my home would have never existed as a child, because that was not the standard set by my grandparents to tell my mom. So my mom didn't know how important that was. And the reason I know is because I'm just learning how important it is today. And what I mean by the unqualified compliment isn't about qualification or disqualification. It's about what it does and how it builds up. Because because I never received or rarely received unqualified compliments, it hurt me to when I received a qualified compliment, I never stopped to acknowledge the compliment because I was always achieving and trying to reach for the next. So I never really saw and listened and thought about how beneficial unqualified compliments are when you're younger to when you become this adult that you're able to receive them in a healthy way. I heard you say also in your back in the day growing up in LA that you can never really relax, which again I feel fascinating. It's fascinating to me to hear that, because that's not how I grew up. I grew up. It was pretty easy for me growing up. But just the fact that you couldn't relax, that you couldn't trust, that you couldn't trust another guy, or like, another guy comes into the locker room and you don't want to open up your heart to them, you know, or be honest or acknowledge them, but you can. I can just see how it can make us hard, right, We're trying to protect ourselves, but really our heart is closed. And if your heart's closed, you can't receive love. And if you can't receive love, you really can't give it back away. M you would like me to argue with you, No, no, no, no, I just touched it on your point. But I feel like, what since this has comeback stories, what was the bottom? Like? What would you say, was like your your bottom? I've been out of it, man, I've been at the bottom a few times. Man. One of the things is I was at the bottom when I got to Baltimore emotionally, just that you know, you gotta understand and it's gonna happen to you thereon. Hopefully it won't. But at some point, if you know, when a team decides that they don't want you, that process in which how you are handled in that process of being released, because what it says is you aren't good enough. You gotta you gotta remember you get on the football field, you know everything about you. You're prepared for, you're ready for. Sometimes you can win, sometimes you can lose, but you're never really prepared to get released. You made you know in the back of your mind, you know, is the not for long league right, prove something every year guaranteed contracts can also be they can cut you and still have to pay you, like hey, there me in Carolina. But then now you you know, everybody wants to date you when you're married, then when you're single. The numbers doing them. So I had fifty, I had all these teams always wanting and we had to you Steve, you know, a week then I'm become a free agent. These fifteen teams, it would go down to five and only three gave numbers that were actually you know, contracts that was worth my time, right because otherwise were well we we you know, I've talked to him and I said I want him, So we got to give him a number. We know he you know, a thirteen year vet who's you know, made a Pro Bowl a year and a half before. We you know, we offered him a million dollars a year. Man. Well, I'm not taking that, right, And I'm not saying I'm not taking it because I expect more. That's just the market, right, Yeah, if I if we if you can want it Bentley, but Bentley doesn't have Honda prices, so that that's unrealistic. And I'm not a Honda at that time, so you know, now I'm a Tesla. I don't need gas, right, So when I got released, that was that was it was confirmation. See, you weren't good enough, Steve. You you really actually aren't as good as they say. And that's and that's the that's the greatest Carolina Panther ever saying that. So it's like for somebody that's listening, I hear like, no matter what the achievements are, the same way you talked about the compliments, you want to get to the next one. Like the achievements, you want to get to the next achievement. And then it's like when one thing happens like somebody's nine people can say amazing things about you, that tenth person says something negative. My mind is going straight to that tenth person. I'm holding onto that, and you you see me. I'm I came in the Baltimore you know, not even a man on a minshion, but my my my caremeter was at negative ten, right, and so I was on that. I like to say, I mean I was on that house money right. When you when you on house money, you spending somebody you know, made my kids do all the time. You spend somebody else money, you know whatever? Right, you know it's like Amazon. You know you got Amazon, man, You you just cart cart cart cart, and then thing don't here it is you look up and you know twenty five items later. Yeah, So um, I mean that that that was it, and then just how it manifests itself in Baltimore and what it did and how I conducted myself. I carried myself, and it was I spent a lot of energy. I spent a lot of energy trying to do things that really were weren't even there. I was trying to prove something that I didn't realize I already proved it. It's that same not enough story. Darren's talked about it with his core wound of you know, people telling him he wasn't black enough growing up, right, So that not enough story and so much in today's world, it's the image of perfection that we're chasing, which isn't even a real thing. So we keep chasing something that's not real and we're never going to be. It's just validating the not enough story even more so until we can love ourselves and find it from within instead of trying to seek something outside of ourselves and fill a void. We can't fill ourselves, So it's like get right on the inside. But a lot of that is the work right and the therapy and the outside help that that we get. Can you talk a little bit about that, because I know you've talked about that being instrumental in your career and doing it before it was maybe a thing, and then also how that helped you in the in the transition out of football and the transit you know, without me not playing football right when I when I played, I always told everybody, I said, man, and I'm done playing. I'm done right, I'm gonna take a trip with y'all boys in training camp, I'm seeing you a picture. And when the boys were in training camp, I said to all the guys that I was with, I said the picture. We were in Hawaii, I said, I told y'all go have fun in practice. But what was interesting I was away from the game. We were in Hawaii, but I was such like a grumpy person to be around. And what was interesting is as So I went to Hawaii and then my family because my my one of my boys, my oldest was in college, so he had to go back to college for training. My daughter was in high school, so she had to go back for volleyball. So Boston, who was there, me and him went to Tokyo. But yet before I went to Tokyo deuced Steve Smith Jr. Was just like his dad, you know. He said how he felt and everybody laughed, and I took their laughter the wrong way and kind of was like rude. And so I went to Tokyo for I think seven or eight days with my son and then another buddy of mine and his son as like a father and son trip. And I had a great time in Tokyo. But at night I was literally having a conversation with my wife. We were on a pinnacle of divorce because I was such an unpleasurable person to be around. What was the shift? What was the story you had to start telling yourself or stop telling yourself in order to start to come back from that and find this purpose beyond. Had to unpack a lot of baggage. That's what I had to do. Yeah, it's like we don't even know how much it's weighing us down. Like you know, a therapist I have before like basically like having me do like a visualization of like my baggage and like just like literally like a stupid piched image. But it's like me walking around with all these suitcases and like you know, or like a barbel on my back, trying to go around and do all these things and jump through hoops for people. And it's like if you get that image of that, like that's exhausting when you look at it. But it's like we it's an injury that you can't see though, and so it's like we don't think we can't see it, so it's like we're not aware that it's there. But in order for it took therapy, it took all kinds of things. It took rehab, for thirty days, like completely away from my world as I thought that I knew it and viewed it for me to recognize all the things of the baggage that I was there, like you know for me, Like I remember in sixth grade, I had a girlfriend and we were gonna meet at the middle school club and met at the middle school club and she was with an eighth grade dude and I was just like crushed. And from then on I carried this mindset into relationships, like you know, I'm not going to feel the way that I felt before. If anything, You're gonna feel that, not me. It's just like and I look at it. I'm like twenty, I'm about to be thirty now, and it's like just recently, like the last year, I'm really starting to see strides in me letting go of that baggage. But it's been there, and I'm carrying in every relationship by going to like and wondering why my relationships ain't working. I had did intensive where me and my counsel went out of town and we did a trauma egg and then he sat two chairs in my hotel room and I had to talk to my grandfather and grandmother who passed and tell them what I missed about them, and then talk to my mom and dad in these empty chairs of some things that I need to unpack. And man, it was tough, right and in just a trauma eg is, I basically go through my life story and then I write down all the trauma. But I put it in the egg, in this egg, and it was a big old poster board and so I had to write in it, and man, it was that was crazy. It was you're talking about two days after doing all that. My counselor, who was doing a lot of the work, he was like, Hey, let's go grab something to eat. I'm like eat, like hungry. I am tight, you know, and you know, but what was interesting is, um, this is how I knew I was, you know, he was like wow. When we ate, I just kind of played in my food a little bit. But when we had to go back to our hotel rooms, it kind of like decompressed. I told him that I didn't want to go back to my room, and we walked around the hotel, walked around the grounds where we got in the car and we just kind of left. And because I wasn't sure how I was going to respond, to what was going to happen. So I was afraid to actually go back in the room for a few hours by myself because I had never done anything like that before and I never felt some of the anger, some of the hurt that I had, So it was it was definitely tough. It's not easy work, it's dirty work, but it's definitely worth it. And I think, you know, hearing Darren's story, just what he just shared in yours, it's it's a lot of it's about awareness, you know, to be able to let go. I would say let go or be dragged, right, but we awareness is really what loosens the grip on what's weighing us down. We don't know if we don't know, and that's why having outside help, having therapists and coaches and people that are going to be able to to ask those hard questions and be able to bring you to that place in a safe space, whether it's through a trauma egg or bringing you through a visualization in a bubble, whatever it is, so you can go there, because it's really just your mind going there. Your body's obviously in the present moment, but the only way we get through it is to go through it and sometimes we have to walk through the fire. But when we walk through the fire, on the other side is liberation and freedom, and it's really freedom from ourselves because these are the stories that we're telling ourselves. But um, you know, I think a lot of people run from this work or they've just never been exposed or introduced to it. So again, these types of conversations, I believe are what can really change the world. And for for you two to have this conversation where once again people might put football players on this pedestal like they're the masculine of all men and tough as nails, and to me, this is a sign of true strength. Someone us ours tough as nails and and then some of us are not. And you know what, it's okay. I think the biggest thing that I struggle with watching ball sometimes be who you are. Right. Too many guys try to try to not to be an end. The guys who aren't try to like they try to say that what that guy is it? You know? I mean it's funny, is you know now now that I'm back home and just chilling and going to my kids games, I get all the time right and I have to check myself. I was at a basketball game a couple of weeks ago, and some dude walked past me and said I thought he was bigger than that. I'm just kind of like why, like why, and I just don't, like, I don't get it, and it put me on alert a little bit because I'm like, well, if he thinks I was bigger and he's walking by and saying that, what else, you know, where's this going to lead to? Because man, I'm just a dad trying to watch your son at a basketball game. I'm not interested in whatever you're trying to say, and I'm really just kind of just keeping things. You know, I'm just chilling, bro. Let you know, let me live, don't you. You know, every single day I gotta that guy, I gotta push down. And you don't want that guy to come back, right, you know? I really don't, Which is why I think even your morning routine is so sacred and so special just to be able to so that version of you, the best version of you, is operating throughout the rest of your day. Because what I hear is someone that someone made that comment to someone that hasn't done the work. They're gonna take it personally. They're gonna react, and if they're reacting from a place of hurt, like that comment hits your core wound of the not enough you know, the reactions aren't always pretty. It almost did. It almost did, because he kept lingering around and they were looking at their phones, like is that him is at him? And then he goes to my wife, Oh, I was just looking at his shoes, and I look back at him and was like, I think that's like somebody trying to um. When I look at people in today's day and I'm like, when they do things that are kind of like like why are they doing that? Why they feel like they need to do that, I feel like it's kind of like we're talking about our insecurities. I feel like their insecurities are so loud that they feel like they have to do something to get them in a position of power. Like maybe him getting a reaction out of you gives him some power that he doesn't feel in his day to day life because he doesn't really know who he is, or he's not willing to go through the uncomfortability of when you would ride around in that car with your with your inner wounds open, afraid to go back to your room, but you were going through it. He's not making that choice to go through it, so he's resorting to decisions on a lower level to like, let me get a reaction out of this guy so I can be in control. Here's the dangerous part. Man, I would I would have lowered myself and game everything human And that's and that's that's the problem. Like I would lower myself and be like, all right, you know, well you know I would tell them, man, put you if you you think you can handle these waves in this ocean, put your both in the ocean on me, and and I got I really have to stop because that's you know, what I'm trying to go through. And what I'm what you know when I'm just internally tough for me is man, you know I I you know, like I said, I get up, but set seven o'clock six thirty in the morning. I'm about that life, right, and so you know when a guy is challenging me, like you know, I dking out when I first retired for a whole full year because the first year I quit where I retired, I worked out and my body start to tingle. Bro When I say tingle, tingle, like the hairs on my own. I'm I had those goose bumps and I had to stop working out because my body said, no, this guy who we like this guy, and it started saying, we're going to play and playing ball, Steve is disrespectful, Steve star for who you are, Steve disregard for you know, like what I teach my kids, respect and family and all that stuff. And I'm I'm doing all of that. I'm glad aside because playing ball, Steve, my you know, is for me. You know, I go on that locker room and I put on that uniform, I'm I come out. You know, I you eat, You're on my team as an offense, I ride with you. But if you are a defender on the same team, I don't ride with you. And then when we play on Sunday, Man, that's that's you've taken off the governor, the governor of Man. I can I can let loose. You know. There's times I'm ashamed, but now I kind of laugh about it. Man. There's times where I want that dude, a dude to hit me and say, I'm not scared of you. The next play man, it'd be a curl or run a route and I would box, I would hit a dude, and it's underneath this chin trap. Three or four hits under this chin trap, eight yards into the route like boo boo, boo boo, and run my route and it's kind of terrible. Dog Like I was a dirt back. But I feel like playing ball Steve served a purpose in your life for the time that you were in there, Like you you had to be him, man, that was you doing the best that you could with what you had. You know, I think about meditation for me, it's like the way somebody presented to me was It's not about just being like that monk like perfectly still for like eight hours, but it's like the repetition of noticing yourself going to a place and just being aware of you go into that place and bringing yourself back. So it's like, so I like, it's like, how do you, like do you struggle with like the playing ball Steve coming back, because like I see it as you can honor and respect that playing ball Steve by like when you want to go there, it's just like recognizing yourself and be like all right, brothers, like let's just come back. Like that's all that meditation is. To me that that man, that that Steve. Uh, that Steve has come out once or twice. UM. I can't say why, um, because there's a little sensitive subject um with UH. I would just say being a dad, how about that being a dad of a daughter. And so that Steve came out, that la Steve came out, La Steve with a book bag, Steve meeting somebody. Steve came out and that wasn't right? Do you have like mantras, affirmations, anchors um pattern interrupts things that you use today to bring you back to your body when when things like that happened, Like what what are what are some of your practices? Um? In the moment, in that moment, I was all the way gone. That's the right, um, you know right now? UM. You know TV has allowed me to to some degree, It's allowed me to really focus on you know a lot of my sit downs people are surprised at I'm very intentional. Um, I'm very well researched. Um. And the other part of me comes out, the inquisitive Steve, the young Steven, like why, like you know, what does that mean to you? Why is your favorite color red? Or why is your favorite color? Um? Teal blue, you know. So so those things. So for me is I'm always uh reading. I I really enjoy reading informational books. I'm not a fictional book reader. I like information, so I love I love reading that growing. Um. I'm just I'm just an inquisitive overthinker process. Um. And then I love and I'm a note taker, all right, So I love taking notes about anything, right and so so that that's that's what really keeps me going and asking a lot of questions and um, and I'm a people reader too, so that's the other bad part. Like I can I can read a room, and then by based on reading a room, I may say something and not say something to affirm, to confirm what my thoughts are about what's going on. So a lot of times when I ask a question, I already know the answer. I'm just seeing how you reply to dictate are you being your authentic self? Or are you selling me a bill of goods? And then if you're selling me a bill of goods, then I'm fool with you at all, because now I know that I can't trust you. I can't trust you with a him and G sounds, so I don't I'm not gonna trust you with anything, so I can walk past you. If I don't trust you, I can walk past you. Look at you, Look at you, Dan Yaye. You say good morning? I said, nah, I'm good bro, because I'm gonna let you know now. It's not that I dislike you. I just know who you are. It's fascinating. Do you feel like, well, what would you say to someone? This is kind of a two part question. You can answer two different ways. First to the athletes. The athlete that it's about to be a rap for them, whether it's a college, their college, college careers, over their high school careers, over their pro careers, over what advice would you give to that person that's about to that transition is about to happen, whether they know it or not. Oh, you won't hear. Here's here's where I go. The truth of the law. What do you want the truth of the law. I don't want the truth. Paint both of them, Paint both of them, paint both of them for us. Okay, the truth is the honest, unfiltered truth. If your careers are about to be over and you just realize that you screwed bro, Sorry, that's an unedited that's just reality. Right if you're if you're playing sports, you already know where you ad You know why I always ask every athlete, do you know your weakness? If you don't know your weakness, that's your problem. Because your opponent knows there's a scouting report out on you. Won't you go read it? The lie would be man, you know, just you know, just keep trying and you know maybe you'll you'll latch onto a team. That's the lie. The truth hurts. I mean in any situation where the truth was presented to me in my life, it hurt. But on the other side of that, that's like you'll be appreciate that the truth was brought brought to you. The reason I say the truth is in ball players is because in any sport, there's an evaluation, and there's always been an evaluation. A guy gets cut, or a guy has benched, or a guy doesn't he knows that. See how many times we sat in meetings and you were checked out and you didn't want to be a practice, you didn't take notes, and then you get out on the field and for some miraculous reason, you're discouraged because you thought you were just gonna figure it out. And you you applied nothing to help yourself on the field. Yeah, that's self awareness, right, Like there's times me and you want to feel And I used to say, dog, what are you doing? Like what I'm like? Bro, you out here moping, and you set yourself up seven hours ago, seven hours before we stepped on this field. You put yourself behind the eight ball, right obviously by doing you know, the stuff you were doing. But then in meetings a book full of nothing, the boy out here doodling, you know, trying to he writing down his raps, but here to play football and then upset that football wasn't going well. Sounds like it, will you say all about to say it sounds like there needs to be I mean with a lot of people in the world today, like the elimination of like this spirit of entitlement, Like somehow if I just show up, then somehow things are going to be presented to me or somehow I earned them, as opposed to you know, we don't really know how how things are gonna play out, how how how God has this thing going for us. We present ourselves in the best way we can with our preparation, our effort, and our attitude, and then things happen, and we have to be tough enough to live with the results. But there's so many people in the world with that spirit of entitlement thinking they can show up like just because I'm here and I put my time in like that I should get these thing did you? But here's your question. Did you put your time in talking to me? Are you? Are you saying hypothetically no, that was a real question at the time when my career wasn't going the way that I wanted to, I was not putting the time in. I appreciate your honesty, But the old Darren that I saw in the locker room, bro, you were swaying up and down. You was putting it in that time though. Ye zero self awareness. And and you see what I'm saying that, like if you are you're asking me to talk to a person prepare can five their career and give them some advice like I give it to you like this as in any profession, like who goes who goes on a family trip with no you know, bump navigation? Just say that's the nation who goes on who goes on the family trip? No money, no gas, no driver's license, no cash, no dabit card, No nothing, You're just gonna get in the car and go go where like that. That's that's not realistic. And so like when you are when I'm talking to these young guys. I used to talk to young guys and they say, many every guy, you know when you get up the old head everybody, man, I'm I'm I'm gonna follow you. I'm gonna do everything you do, guarantee you. And and Darren knows, man, we had guys every year and he's one of them. Every year, I'm like, all right, I'll leave you. Man the dude's last three fold days. Because I've used to get up every day and go I would announce when I come into the locker room, I'm not playing with y'all today. Somebody gonna get cut covering me. So be prepared. Your mama, your daddy, your family, get ready to pack your bags because Age and eighty nine is gonna tell y'all newe nobody can cover me today, Wayne defense Coordinator and deem ds Hey, I'm letting you know nobody can play with me today with an emphasis on today, because it's like you're invested in the process of today and not worried about the result of when I'm getting there. But it's like, if I'm in today, tomorrow is gonna be a today as well. If I keep showing up like this today, then everything's gonna fall the way that it should. But if I'm worried about the result, then I'm not taking care of the process. Yeah, and then the next day I come in, I would say, I'll let your boys live today, don't bother me. I'll do my work today, but I'm not gonna And then and then something in practice, so I'll be taking the day off and then all of a sudden, I put that red mouthpiece, bring it out of my sock, right, remember the U was you there? You weren't there yet? Huh? My first training camp in Baltimore with Shocky Shaky Brown. No, that was here before me. Yeah, But just like going against guys, I would tell guys, man, I'll kill your career today, dog, don't do it. I remember being in in practices. I remember like one of the first OTAs. I think it might have been like Asa Jackson or somebody like trying to pop it off with you, and then you just like went into a different place and I was just being I was like amazed by that confidence. I didn't know that a person could have that level of confidence or a spirit or belief in them So because I didn't really believe in myself that much at the time. Like, what would you say to somebody that really has no idea of what confidence confidence is or how to build it. How do you think they should start in that journey? Does it start with that self awareness? Yeah, it starts with that self awareness, but I think it believes my preparation. My confidence comes in my You know what I do every day? Right, So I'm running. I'm running. I'm averaging about a mile and a half each day when I when I run and I bike in twenty thirty minutes between sixty eight miles, right. And there are some days where I can tell the way my body feels that I'm not gonna be able to get almost two miles a day. So I have to be okay with that. If during that process, I may push myself and my body will say, boy, I told you to slow down, and so I will. I slow down. But what's crazy is when I slow down and listen to my body, my pace actually gets better. It's when I try too hard to run at a pace that is unsustainable. So I know my own threshold. So when I pace I'm talking about is I'm trying to hit at eight fifty four mile run when actually, when I calm down and just run my pace and allowed the surface and I'm running outside, allowed the surface to dictate the hills nine fifty four nine fifteen, nine thirty mile run, I hear a lot. I hear a lot of life lessons just in that picture that he just painted, just from people trying to run at a pace that they can't sustain, or trying to move at a pace that somebody else may be moving, or not their own pace that they can create in their own life for them to be able to get to where they need to be to at the perfect time that they need to get there. You know what I'm saying. Let me let me tell you how. Let me tell you how I found that out. So my dumb self, I try to go, you know, I try to run with some folks that don't look like me. Right, they built, They ain't no no football players more. They gazed after Thanksgiving they won twenty Right, man, I'm running and we are ten minutes into the run, and I'm going and I'm you know, I'm running like like I make cut shape. I'm running though, right right, I hit I think I ran four hundred and fifty miles last year, right, And so I'm running and I'm running with these dudes. I'm like, what why am I so tired? So we run the first mile and they say, hey, Steve, you want to stop? And so I'm kind of like I want to stop. You know, let's let's turn around, but let me get a little you know, let me let me stretch out my hamstrings tight. So I looked at me. I looked at my monitor, Bro, eight fifteen minute mile. I was way beyond what I'm used to. I was in I was so uncomfortable. When I say uncomfortable, you know when you're uncomfortable, Bro, I can feel my sock flipped over, and that was causing my calv to get tight. I can feel my my my my tights underneath. I had a little roll in my right leg thigh and that was like restricting, like my shirt was. I was just feeling everything. I didn't like the wind blowing in my ear. You know, you know I always wear a hat. My hat was uncomfortable, like my body was saying if you don't know your role, boy, you you're gonna You're gonna get a flat tire. And I felt my whole body uncomfortable because I was trying to do something that was out of the scope of my line of work. I was I was outside as you know, as they say, I was outside of of my bank account, my emotional bank account. And and God has such a great sense of humor. What got me to be able to slow down? As I was running? And it was, you know, a public place, and so a dog came in and jumped on me, so I was able to it stopped. So everybody got to stop. It's like, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, I'm okay. And boy, I was still in all oxygen out the air. So I end up running the fastest time I ever ran. And I was hurting for three and a half days hamstring, quad hip growing. Uh, you know, I planned a FASCII just kicked in. I mean everything in my body was hurting because I tried, you know, I tried to keep up with the Joneses instead of being okay and comfortable where I was. And ever since then, I listened to my body right every conversation we have, I think comes back to the four agreements, which two of them I heard. One of them was be impeccable with your word, which you didn't say specifically. But I think from a preparation standpoint, keeping the promises we make to ourselves, that's where our confidence comes. Like the the you know, the ones that are following through on the things they say they're going to do every single day, you know, you become unshakable, and then the noise, the inner critic, the outside noise, it doesn't even fez us. And then they'll always do your best the agreement number four. Today might look a little different than tomorrow. Fifty percent might be your best today, but if you're the power of awareness allows us to really do an honest self assessment on where we're at today. And it's like power versus force, like we letting I teach yoga, and I see it all the time, like let the practice meet you where you're at. You don't need to do what the person next to you is doing. Your body is completely different than their body. To practice with purpose us in practice with intention means to let the practice meet you where you're at today and making a decision today that you think is gonna help you, but that hurts you tomorrow is a terrible decision. So, especially when we're trying to play the long game and take care of our bodies and take care of our minds. And you know, if you can't move your body, the mind starts to get my mind starts to get really messy. So really, yeah, I will tell you one thing that you're mentioning that that I realized is be careful of the negotiations you've had with yourself. You've negotiated things unconsciously that you'd even realize you did. You've negotiated well, if I won't do this, but i'll do this, or I'll you know, you know, you start to do little things and negotiate too. All of a sudden you find yourself. As they say in the Pickle Compromise, Yeah, it's almost like the self sabotaged voice creeps in there for that negotiation piece. I'm a master of self sabotage. But Steve, it's it's proven, it's in there, it's in the record books. Um, but you're aware of it today. Yeah, absolutely absolutely. But Steve, I want to ask you, you know, do you with all the things you've been through in your life and all the you know, the roller culture of what life has been. Do you feel like you're closer to knowing, like what your purpose is and why you were here, why you were sent here to be honest earth? Nah. I mean some people may say that I believe that I'm here to serve, right man, And I think, um, I believe that that God gives us these things, and in whatever he gives us, um, that we have to cherish it and utilize it in a way and conduct ourselves and and and really uh handle it with care. Because then the reason I say that is because man, you know, he doesn't give you all of something just for you for you to keep it and benefit you. Because He may give you something like like I feel like he may give you something at the age of fifteen or twenty two that may be used to help someone or even help yourself to help someone else. At forty two, I feel like I see him more in his purpose today. Damn, you were fun to watch on the field, but just to see what you're doing now and how just your your honesty and vulnerability and how much you're doing in your community. Back in North Carolina. But just how you've you have turned your wounds into sacred wounds, right, and then in doing that, when we share our story, we not only liberate ourselves, but we liberate other people. There's people that are gonna be listening to this podcast that are going to hear your story that are going to be so inspired and it will bankrupt their story that I'm alone, nobody understands or there's this shame because this thing happened to me, Well, it happened to him too. And once we start to see ourselves and other people, especially people that maybe we've put on a pedestal, man, there's a whole lot of Again, it just like bankrupts that story. If there are people that have been through this. You're not alone, No, you're not, You're not. I mean, I was talking to my wife the other day and you know, I'll just emotionally tired, you know, I've been processing some other things, and I was emotionally tired, and I felt alone because what I was dealing with required me. So I was alone because what I was dealing with it was it was it was heavy, emotionally heavy. And so what I tried to do in reflection that is be transparent with her right, not allow silence, Not allow silence to separate me from the outside world, because that's solitude, and isolation is exactly whether the devil goes to work where the internal dialogue becomes so negative, right, you can you can isolate yourself and and mess around and run the best forty ever known and mankind that to combine and destroy your life. You can have so much negativity, you can run a four one one in the forty with so much negativity, which takes you down the rabbit hole. And then and then that that goes you know, that goes to to whatever um whatever you are medicating with. I feel I feel like no type of healing happens in isolation. That was as a technique of mind that you know, I still have to combat because I think, you know, I don't want to be a burden on somebody else or that you know, for some somehow I've shown people that I'm in my mind. I can think that I've done something superhuman and that I don't want people to see me fall down again because I fell down enough in their face and it's like I don't want them to see that anymore. But it's like it takes a village, it takes community to hold us up. No matter how strong we are, no matter how many you know, feats of strength we can, you know, show to the world. We need people around us. And I still have that thought into today where it's like, if I do something I didn't necessarily like that I did, I find myself kind of weezling off into my little corner, into my little cave, and it's like, I can't do that. Well. What we're doing is people don't like to say it, right, but we're cheating something. We're always cheating something, whether we're cheating our addictions, or we're cheating our family, or we're cheating a time we could be studying versus playing video games time we could be preparing for something else that but we're deciding to take a nap, like we're always cheating something that I really believe our biggest issue is we don't want to We don't want to really be known for what we're really doing. Like you know, sometimes we like to master truth, like we're all selfish. Right, I've been married, I'm married to my wife. I've been married for twenty two years. The truth of the matter is that Why am I married? Because I don't want to be alone. I don't want to die alone. That's the truth. You don't get married to spend money. You get married because you want to spend the rest of your life for so long you don't want to be alone. And to be honest, that's selfish. It's a different kind of selfish, but it's the truth. Yeah, it's still it's still in us all to a certain capacity. You know, in some ways it may serve us. In a lot of ways it doesn't. But it's more so about like there's no way we're gonna get to a place where that self synerness is completely eradicated. It's more so about like can I move into that direction every single day of that of that selflessness and moving in that direction, taking that next to foot in front of the other. It's not going to be a perfect ending or perfect picture where it's like everything I do in my day is just unselfish, But it's about you know, how can I move in that direction? Yeah, Like you got to be selfish, Like I hate to say it, like if you got to use a bathroom, you need to be selfish or going into the bathroom because next to you does not want to be next to someone who's relieved themselves and sitting in it. And you know, I mean that's that's truth. Yeah, yeah, I mean just this has been I mean, this has been amazing, bro, Like this has been way better than I even imagine. And it's like we didn't even like, you know what I'm saying. We have notes and it's like, you know, I was gonna be like, yo, take take me through your football career. But it's like this has been amazing because it's like football didn't lead anything that was going on here today. It may have filtered this way in at some points, but I'm appreciative of the fact that you know, I could just you know, push this notebook to the side and we could just we're just talking as men that know each other and appreciate each other. So I want to ask go ahead, I'll say this, man, and then I gotta go because I actually gotta I gotta, I gotta hurt, and i'd say this, and and I want to tell you because I want to. I want to give you an unqualified and qualified compliment. Man. It's so nice and and it's so nice to see the man that you become it is, it's it's it's cool, man. It's cool to see who you are, what you've been through because a lot of people would have quit and you didn't quit. There's so many there's so many people who have comments and the way you have conducted yourself else you have required an example and you are that example. There's two things that goes on with Tom the bad news time flies. The good news. You get to be the pilot, and they're just cool to watch you be that white man. So I just wanted to tell you. I'm not proud of you to say that I have something, but I'm proud to know you. I know, Darren Waller, the football player, Darren Waller th man. I appreciate you. Man. I still I still remember when I was suspended from the league. You know, I didn't really have communication with any former teammates like that or any coaches that were, um, you know, from the Ravens or anything like that. But I was in Atlanta back home, you know, and Steve was there for a Thursday night game. The Saints was playing the Falcons in Atlanta, and he reached out to me to you know, go to dinner, and he was just you know, wanted to talk to me and was checking up on me and was you know, that was one of the only times where I felt like, you know, somebody from you know, anybody met from the game of football was there for me in that moment in time where you know, I didn't even really have something that could benefit them at the time. But you showing up and wanting to do that with me and sit down with me in that time, you know, that made me feel seen. It made me feel you know, acknowledged, and like you saying that right now took me back to that place and I'm just reflecting. Man, It's just like a lot of emotions swirled up in me. Man, So thank you, Bro. I appreciate you well. I appreciate and thank you. But you are helping me because when I reached out, I was going, I was like, all right, I'm going to Atlanta. What do I usually do? I sit in my hotel prepare right, And I was like, man, who do I know in Atlanta that I can sit and break bread with and all the guys there in my in my room, in my in my receiver's room, I always tell them right. My numbers stayed the same for almost ten plus years. I always tell you, if I give you my number, you can always hit me up. There's some guys I look at dude straight as I nah, you know I'm not gonna call you. You're not gonna call me. So I used to be straight forward. And you know, we know some of those guys in that locker room who it was. Um. And I always let people know where I sat, and I wish I didn't as as as bluntly and I'm filtered. But you know what's cool is Kamar was in town a couple of months ago, uh Darren, and he hit me up. I said, all right, let's do it. We had lunch, we had dinner, picked him up and had dinner. Man. So that's one thing about me is and if you if you if I say you one of my guys, you say I'm one of your guys and you can call me up. You know, I tried to be exactly what somebody say. Man, he's that guy I love to have um in the dark alley. And the reason I'm like that is because I know when I was younger, when I was going down the dark alleys and I didn't have no i'ma be honest I didn't have no Steven Smith to call on, so I try to be that guy. Well, I appreciate you showing up for people and to the world in the way that you do, in the way that you faced your pain and all the things that you could have continued to carry around with you, but you let them go, not only for the people in your life, but most importantly for yourself. Man, So thank you. I appreciate you for being here and making the time. Man, I don't want to hold you up any longer, but this has been special. Hey, Donny, you gotta go one man, you gotta go. Donnie a real one man gets I know he is. I could tell. But here's the difference. You know, it's hard to it's hard to have a co host who's willing to listen. And I'm not saying in podcasts, I'm just talking about it in life, right. You know, you need people that can affirm you, ask questions and help you achieve. And Downie seems like a guy out that affirms. But he's one that seems like he asked the questions. And you know, accountability. You know, I'm learning that. Man. As a teacher, you want to teach, but as a coach. The best coaches are the best listeners, right, And I think you mentioned it just inviting in curiosity. The best coaches and the best listeners are the ones that are genuinely curious in their present in those conversations. So it's been it's been part of my work. So I appreciate that compliment. And it's been easy to listen, especially to you two going back and forth with just the connection and the loyalty and the really some unconditional love and what I see as like true men in their purpose. It's it's a beautiful thing. So it's been easy to sit back and enjoy the show. I appreciate it. Now I'm about going to TV and shress somebody don't do what you do? Man, Hey, you get to play with one of those you, Hey, you get to play with I love playing. Uh Renfro is my guy. That guy's listen. I always when I saw him play at Clemson, I see him when he got drafted. Man Renfro is gonna play in the league for like fifteen years. He's gonna come back to South Carolina. He's gonna own a long care business, and nobody's gonna He's a d A trillionaire exactly, shout the Renfro. Yeah, I like that, kid. Man. So you're doing the hell of a job. Bro. Appreciate it, man, appreciate you making the time. Bro, it's been amazing for you anytime. You know that. Thank you. Six