July 12, 2024 • 47 mins
In this episode of the Growing Our Future podcast, host Aaron Alejandro interviews Robert Smith, a magician and consultant in the fair industry. They discuss the importance of gratitude, the positive impact of organizations like FFA, and the power of storytelling and advocacy. Robert shares his journey from being a magician to creating unique experiences at fairs and expos. He also talks about starting the Fair Game podcast to document stories from the industry. The conversation highlights the resilience and adaptability required to navigate challenges and find opportunities for growth. The conversation revolves around the impact of the podcast and the importance of connection and empathy. It emphasizes the role of the podcast in providing an outlet for guests to share their struggles and process their emotions. The conversation also touches on the concept of personal branding and the need for gratitude and resilience in leadership. The importance of accountability and taking responsibility for one's actions is highlighted, along with the significance of empathy in dealing with criticism. The conversation concludes with a discussion on the challenges faced by students during the pandemic and the need for educators to adapt and support them.
Story Notes:
- The Power of Gratitude and Renewed Hope
- Building Experiences in the Fair Industry
- Storytelling and Advocacy for Connection
- Turning Challenges into Opportunities
- The Value of Podcasts for Storytelling
- The Power of the PodcastGratitude and Resilience
- Taking Responsibility and Embracing Failure
- Empathy: A Shield Against Negativity and Criticism
- Supporting Students in the Face of Pandemic Challenges
Learn more at MyTexasFFA.org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Growing Our Future podcast.
In this show, the Texas FFAFoundation will take on a
journey of exploration intoagricultural science, education,
leadership development andinsights from subject matter
experts and sponsors who providethe fuel to make dreams come
true.
Here's your host, AaronAlejandro.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening or
whenever you may be tuning in tothe Growing Our Future podcast,
listen.
Number one thank you forstopping by and number two,
thank you for allowing us tobring the podcast to you.
You know, we always tell peoplethat if agriculture has taught
us anything, it's taught us this.
If you want to know what thefuture is, grow it.
(00:52):
If you want to know what thefuture is, grow it.
Well, to do that, you've got toplant seeds, you got to nurture
them, you got to harvest themand then you got to share them.
Well, to plant those seeds, wecreated a podcast platform to
bring subject matter experts,people who have these incredible
experiences and insights, on toshare with us seeds of
(01:13):
greatness, and today is nodifferent.
I'm going to tell you a littlebit more about how I got to meet
this man, but we're honored tohave Robert Smith join us today.
Robert, thank you for joiningus on the Growing Our Future
podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Thanks for having me, Aaron.
It's an honor to be here withyou.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
So again, we're going to get into a little bit more
about Robert here in just asecond.
I want to share a littlebackstory there of how we met.
But, robert, every guest thatcomes on here, I like to start
every podcast off the same way,and I like to start with a
simple question that's relatedto gratitude.
So I'm just curious, robert,what are you grateful for today?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
You know that is a solid question and in doing my
own podcast you know we hear alot of advice of, as podcast
hosts, we should have asignature question.
And while I don't have thatjust yet on my podcast, when I
saw that that was your signaturequestion I gave it a lot of
thought because I wanted to makesure that it was something that
would give some level of valueto your listeners, to you, to
(02:15):
the conversation.
And when you gave me thatquestion about a week ago, I
didn't know the answer becauseI'm like, do I go with the
standard?
I'm grateful for my wife andson, I'm grateful that I got air
in my lungs Like, yeah, I'mgrateful for all those things.
But I didn't know untilyesterday exactly how I was
going to answer that.
And now I know and I can tellyou today I am grateful for FFA
(02:41):
and here's why I'm grateful forFFA.
(03:05):
No-transcript these kids and GenX looks down and goes what's
wrong with these kids andmillennials look like we all, we
all do it.
But having that conversationwith her renewed my hope for the
future of america.
In large part, that was thatwas happened because of ffa,
(03:26):
because of the skills andtalents that it allowed this
young lady to develop.
I was able to have thisconversation with her and say
you know what?
I don't think that what we seeon tick tock etc is actually
representative of gen z.
I think someone like EllaUnderberg, who is the state
(03:49):
president for New York FFA Ithink she's representative of
Gen Z and I think it's 85 or 90%of Gen Z looks and sounds a lot
more like her than they do someof these weirdos on TikTok just
going off.
So a lot of that is because,like, the foundation of that
comes from FFA, because of herinvolvement with that
organization and while I wasnever involved with FFA I grew
(04:12):
up in the suburbs, I'm a citykid Someone like her, I think,
really can renew an old, grumpy,44 year old's hope in the
future for America.
So yeah, I'm grateful for FFA.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Thank you, robert, and, by the way, I agree with
you and I can't tell you howmany times I've heard people say
exactly what you just said.
We invite people to come to ourannual Texas FFA convention.
So our convention is thelargest youth-led convention in
the state.
We'll have about 17,000 peoplethere for an entire week.
It ranks in the top five of allconventions in the association
(04:45):
conventions in Texas.
But I tell people it's kind oflike bring a friend to church
day.
I said bring somebody and letthem see convention.
And they say exactly what youjust said.
They said I've never been toldyes or no, sir.
Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am.
I've never had so many kidsshake my hand, firm handshake,
look me in the eye, say theirfirst and last name.
(05:07):
They said Aaron.
It's almost like it rejuvenatesour hope for this country.
Yep, absolutely did.
And I tell people that all thetime I said, yeah, it's a noisy
world out there and we don'talways get to see the good
things because all we get tohear is the noise.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
But it's awesome when I hear people that have a
chance to meet people like ellayeah, when I think you know you
say there's so much noise, wedon't often hear the good things
.
I think part of that's becausethe we've bred so much anger
into this country that it's easy, and now we all have phones
that we can put it out, we can.
Gary vaynerchuk talks aboutthis, you know, and says social
(05:47):
media didn't change us, itexposed us.
If you were the type of personthat you spread positivity, you
now have a device in your pocketthat you can instantly spread
positivity globally.
But if you were, if you were,you know, a jerk, if you spread
anger and negativity, you alsohave that same device.
(06:07):
And unfortunately, thesealgorithms are kind of trained.
It's like we all slow down tolook at the car crash because
for some reason, we all havethis desire to see carnage, and
so we're training the algorithm.
The algorithm is not somemystical portal, it's responding
to us, and so I think that'swhy we see so much negativities,
because it's a natural humandesire to see it.
(06:30):
And I'm like no, you know what,I'm going to change my
algorithm.
I'm going to go look for thingsfrom FFA.
I'm going to look at, you know,for more posts and feeds like
that, and I will get it, becausethat's how the algorithm works.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
If you want positivity, go find it.
It's there Absolutely.
And I agree with you, by theway, and I do appreciate what
you said, and I agree also thatthere are so many things to be
grateful for.
One of my board members is theson of the late great
motivational speaker, zig Ziglar.
So Tom Ziglar is on thefoundation board and Tom and I
have a lot of these discussionsabout where we're at today and
how we see things.
We were talking about gratitudeand that's kind of you know,
(07:12):
one reason I really hone in ongratitude.
I think it's an importantmotivation.
People that are grateful seemto be more energetic, they seem
to be more inspired, they'relooking for something good.
And Tom Tom was on the EastCoast and he was talking to
these college kids and he askedhim.
He said what is the opposite ofgratitude?
(07:33):
And he kind of let it sit infor a minute.
I got to guess.
Let me hear it.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Entitlement.
That's what it is.
That's what he said, is it?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
It is.
He said the opposite ofgratitude is entitlement.
And look at what happens toyour attitude when you go from
being thankful for things andappreciative to that's not fair,
or that's mine, or give that tome.
It just changes the wholedynamic of how you feel, how you
see things.
So when we talk about seeds ofgreatness and growing the future
(08:07):
, I think we have a lot to stopand be grateful for.
I tell people that on February6, 1966, a bouncing baby boy
came into this world and theywrapped me in this incredible
blanket of freedom and libertyand a country full of
opportunity, and I have so muchto be grateful for that.
(08:27):
I can choose what I want to eat, what job I want, if I want to
go to church or what sports.
I'm just the incredible giftthat I've been given, and when
we just stop and pause for aminute, it really is a great
place to start.
So thank you for helping mestart the podcast with what
we're grateful for, because it'sthe kind of seeds that I think
(08:51):
can build great futures.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Well, and I would just challenge your listeners
who are listening to this,before the end of the podcast,
answer that question foryourself.
Keep listening, we're gladyou're here, but figure out
today, wherever you're at,whether you're driving in your
car, whether you're sitting onthe back porch of your house
having a cup of coffee listeningto this figure out in the next
20 or 30 minutes what are yougrateful for today?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Awesome.
Thanks, robert, that's perfect.
Okay, so let me start heretalking a little bit about Mr
Smith here here.
So a few years back, a goodfriend of mine now was a lady
who was the CEO of theInternational Association of
Affairs and Expos, Marla Calico,who has been on this podcast,
(09:34):
and Marla invited me to come outand be part of the keynote
speaking panel at theInternational Association of
Affairs and Expos convention inLas Vegas.
I'd never done anything likethat and it was a real honor for
me.
I go out, had a great time.
Well, as a result of that, allof a sudden my phone starts
ringing and I start gettinginvitations to go to state
(09:58):
association, fair associationgroups.
So, anyway, I'm traveling tothe great state of Arizonarizona
and I was there and I'm thereand I'm doing the keynote, and
then I'm doing this workshop andthere's this, this guy, and I'd
already kind of walked throughthe career area and I'd seen,
you know, I remember back when Iwas a kid growing up, I saw the
(10:19):
movie big and, uh, tom hankshad this.
There was a voltar machine, youknow, and I want to be big.
You know, I want to be big andthat's it right there, look at
there and I'm walking I've got.
I've got a little model ofzoltar right here I see this guy
, but his his gig was called theconjurer.
(10:40):
Yeah, I was just real intriguedby that.
So, anyway, anyway, I go do myworkshop.
Well, little did I know.
The conjurer himself is in myworkshop.
And so after the workshop,robert Smith came up to me and
we got to talking and, like allgreat friendships, all great
networks, all greatrelationships, they start with a
(11:02):
great conversation.
And Robert and I started adialogue that day and we were
talking about the importance ofadvocacy and what it means to
advocate for agriculture, andtalk about the positive things
in our world and why it'simportant and what are best
practices on engagement, and onething led to another.
Now here we are, years later.
(11:23):
We've kept up with each other.
When our travel paths cross, wetry to get together when we can
.
Robert has an incredible podcastcalled the Fair Game Podcast
and where he talks to people.
By the way, and I will letRobert really share more about
this than I, because I don'tknow, but I found a whole new
(11:45):
world with fairs and expos thatI did not know existed.
It is amazing everything thatgoes into putting on a fair and
expo, and if you'll go back andwatch the episode with Marla
Calico.
We talk about that a little bitmore.
But Robert is one of thosevendors and his brand has
expanded beyond just being thevendor.
(12:07):
He's also now kind of aconsultant to help people
improve their brand presence,improve their effectiveness and
communicate in their fairs andexpos.
But anyway, that's how Robertand I met and so he honored me
by having me on his podcast atone time and I told him that and
we tried to do this before, butI said I really want to go back
(12:27):
and get you on the growing ourfuture podcast.
Robert, I know that you didn'tjust fall into that chair, you
didn't just happen into thatchair.
Something tells me there was ajourney that brought you into
this role that you're in, intothe world that you work in, into
the world that you work in,into this passion that you have
for communication, marketing andadvocacy.
(12:49):
Kind of give us that background, walk us through that, tell us
how you got to.
Robert Smith Presents.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Well, I started my career many years ago as a
magician and I was not theconventional type of person.
When I graduated from collegeit was not that well, I'm gonna
go get the job and I'm gonna.
I just didn't have that firefor that I.
I knew there was somethingdifferent out there and when I
realized, wait, I can get paidpretty good money to go do magic
(13:18):
tricks at fairs, you know, fouror five months, seven months
out of the year, I I was like,okay, that sounds a lot better
than than going to nine to five.
And as that develops, thebusiness side of me took over
and I start seeing, well, it'shard, really hard in the
industry to be a magician,because there's 10,000 magicians
and there's always somebodythat'll do it for 50 bucks less
(13:41):
a day than you do, and it drivesthe price down.
And, being where I'm located inNew Mexico, there's not a lot
of fairs.
I need to be able to get intothe Midwest and East Coast and
Florida and markets like that,and it's very brutal to compete.
So I said, well, I needsomething that's going to stand
out, that nobody else does.
And so Conjure Fortune Machinewas an idea that was hatched
(14:01):
really by some of theentertainers at Triangle Talent.
It's one of the agencies thatsupplies the fair market with
entertainment.
Guy's name is Richard Renner,he's out of Kansas City and we
were trying to come up with aunique way to do magic and he
says, well, you should do thisConjurer or this fortune machine
.
He didn't come up with the name, just like in the movie Big,
and I was like, well, that'sridiculous, that doesn't make
(14:22):
any sense.
And then the agent, mark Sparks, was like, oh no, you should
definitely do that.
And so I said, okay, these guyshave way more experience than
me.
I deferred to them and startedbuilding this thing, and now
Conjure Fortune Machine took meto places I couldn't imagine,
and we've developed otherattractions along the way that
(14:43):
have been very successful.
And so I've kind of realized myjob wasn't to do magic tricks.
My job was to provide anexperience for people in the
fair industry, and I guess, atfairs and as a business owner,
that's when I realized, okay,that's where the money is.
It isn't.
Look at me, I can do a coolmagic trick that makes you go,
wow, it's.
(15:03):
How do I provide experiencesfor people?
And along that way, aseverybody recalls, there were
the dark years 2020 and 2021,where the entire events industry
, pretty much globally, was shutdown.
And that was a rough time and ithad gotten into.
(15:24):
I want to say it was September,october of 20.
I was starting to feel lonely.
I was like we're locked downEverybody's, we're in our homes,
there's no fairs going on.
I was.
I was feeling isolated and I'mlike, well, we got this glorious
thing called the internet and Igot microphones and I got I
know how to talk to people and Igot a webcam and whatnot to be
(15:47):
able to to do zoom.
And so I got with 20 or 30friends in the industry and I
started the favorite gamepodcast and the whole purpose of
that was to tell our industrystory from all sorts of
different perspectives from theperspective of a fair manager,
from the perspective ofconcessionaires you know, I had
Dominic Palmieri on who'sfantastic guy.
(16:09):
He's with RCS out there inCalifornia.
They were in Houston, causethey do Houston show and they
were, I think, like six or sevendays in 12 days to go, and
Houston pulled the plug, saidyou're done, they had how many
hundreds of thousands of dollarsof stock on hand that they just
they cooked it and they gave itaway or whatever they had to do
(16:30):
.
They gave it away to thehomeless people, the people in
need, or whatever, and they justtook the loss on it and moved
on.
Stories from entertainers,stories from all sorts of
different vendors, because, likeyou said, the fair market just
has such a depth of people thatare involved in it, stories from
all different places.
And along that way I realizedthere's really something to this
(16:54):
podcast, there is real value toit.
Am I getting thousands oflistens?
No, am I getting severalhundred, a couple hundred on an
episode?
Yes, and does it help thosepeople at that time?
Did it help them kind of feelless alone and less isolated?
Yes, and so that kind of youknow, along along the way, just
(17:17):
before covet in in this journey,I discovered a guy named gary
vaynerchuk and and yourlisteners may know him as g Gary
V he's a marketing brand expertwith the creative agency
VaynerMedia out of New York andhe always talks about, you know,
document don't create.
And I always wondered like whatis he really saying?
(17:37):
Like that didn't, and it didn'tget to me until I started the
podcast.
The podcast was nothing morethan just documenting these
stories, preserving them for alltime, as long as you, as
Spotify or YouTube or my websitestay up and as long as I've got
the files, we've got adocumented history of what all
of us were feeling in the middleof that pandemic.
And now recently, we've decidedyou know what?
(17:59):
Because it's been a year and ahalf for two years since we've
done an episode.
I said I've got some time,we're going to go back.
We're doing 45 new episodesthrough 2024 with the Fair Game
podcast starting on February13th.
The first episode is going todrop and we're not telling
pandemic stories this time.
We're just telling the story ofawesome people in an awesome
industry that services thisnation that so often goes unseen
(18:21):
.
Was that a good, short-windedanswer for you?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yes, it was awesome.
I mean I want to stay with this, but I do want to go a little
further back.
So you grew up in New Mexicoand you decided to go to college
, and what was your degree in?
Tell us a little bit about thatreal quick.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Yeah, so I grew up in New Mexico.
I was born in New Jersey butwhen I was about 10 months old,
my parents, somewhere before Iwas born, had taken a trip west
and they loved New Mexico, theyloved the climate, they loved
everything out here, and so in1980, we moved out west and I
grew up in New Mexico, ended upstaying in-state for school,
went to Eastern New MexicoUniversity, which is right there
(19:00):
in Portales, not far from youguys.
I mean, you're always you'reall about Texas, Tech, right and
guns up and all that, and E&MUisn't.
But I don't think you know, 75or 80 minutes away from just on
the New Mexico side, fromLubbock, it's a.
It is an agriculture town andhonestly, if I was to think
about it, that's probably thefirst time that I was exposed to
(19:23):
agriculture.
Like, obviously, growing up, Iate food, Like I know my food
came from farms and whatnot.
But I remember walking acrosscampus at night to the computer
lab or something like that.
And keep in mind this was inthe late 90s, so there were not.
There were no iPhones, iPads,you know, Wi Fi wasn't really a
thing.
You had to have an Ethernetconnection at that point.
(19:43):
But I would walk across campusand because of the number of
dairy farms that were all aroundtown and the ethanol plant that
was on one side of the town.
Depending on which way the windblew, you were either smelling
manure or you were smellingethanol.
That's.
That's what I was like.
Oh man, I'm in an ag town forsure.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
That's funny.
Here's something I don't thinkyou know about me, but I
actually used to do.
Dr Vaughn was the head of theag science department ag ed
department at EMU.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
And I used to go out and do workshops over at EMU,
long before you got there, bythe way.
So you know Peeville.
You know the sign out on thenorth side of town when you come
into town that says welcome toPortales, home of I don't know
however many people that got.
You know 10,000 people andthree or four old grouches.
That's their welcome to.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Portales sign.
So yeah, so I think that'sinteresting and I think that you
know again, robert, what I likeabout this podcast is listening
to people's stories, becausereally, if you listen to their
stories, there's really some,some words of wisdom and some
seeds of greatness there, andyou just shared some number one.
I always tell people, if you'lllisten to these guests, listen
(20:57):
to these guests, they arelistening, and when we say
listening, we're not justtalking about with your ears,
we're talking about your eyes.
And listen to what you justshared.
Okay, you, you had this career.
Nobody, nobody saw COVID coming.
Nobody saw COVID coming, and wehad to make some choices.
(21:18):
At that moment, I think thepopular word was pivots.
We had to make pivots, and sowe're all trying to Key.
Ross pivot, you know.
So here's the thing.
Some people what they heard wasgloom and despair, yeah, and
that's what they saw.
Some people saw and heardopportunity to be empathetic, to
(21:44):
say that maybe there's anotherway here, and I think that
you're sharing your story,robert, of how you decided to
take a technology and make it aplatform for empathy, a point
that we could share in themoment together.
There's something that Robertshared with me and I don't know
if it's him or his wife thatsaid it, but I thought it was
(22:05):
always good is that we might bein the same storm together,
together, but we're notnecessarily in the same boat
together yeah, that was Sarahthat was because she was.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
She was dealing with that.
Yeah, my wife's uh is aelementary school assistant
principal and that was one ofher observations is, and
honestly, it may have, she mayhave picked it up from somebody
else.
So if we're, if somebody goes,wait, that's a so-and-so quote,
sure credit whoever.
But it was Sarah that broughtit to my attention and I think
it was a really astuteobservation, especially during
(22:37):
that pandemic.
Right, well, that's what I'mtalking about.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
So again, if I'm a student right now in a classroom
.
You're going to have somechallenges, you're going to have
some storms in life and oh, bythe way, if you don't want them,
I can take you to a place thatit never rains.
I can take you there.
It's called a desert and nothinggrows, but you show me somebody
that's had a little challengein their life, a little
(23:01):
challenge in their business andI guarantee you I can show you
somebody who's took that rainand made something grow out of
it.
And Robert is a great exampleof that.
He took some challenges and hefound a niche and he found a way
to kind of leverage that as acommunication tool.
And to your point, robert, youknow, I tell you know, one of my
favorite books is a book calledSame Kind of Different as Me.
(23:24):
It's a true story of a homelessman and a family in Fort Worth,
texas, and the family, finallythe husband wants the homeless
man to speak in his church andthey show up and there's just a
handful of cars in the parkinglot and the father goes inside
and he comes back and he saysI'm too embarrassed, I'm ashamed
(23:45):
.
And that old wise man just said, listen.
He said God's got in there.
Who God wants to hear thismessage?
He goes inside and he gives themessage.
They opened up the back doorsto the church true story.
And by the time he finished itwas standing room only in that
church because people heard himand started flocking in.
(24:05):
We never know who needs to hearwhat you're broadcasting.
We don't ever know who's goingto take something from this
podcast.
Our responsibility is that Godgave us an incredible gift here
to share, and that's our job isto share.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Well, and I look at it when I think about the
podcast, you know I'm obviouslyfair game and growing our future
.
We're not Joe Rogan, you knowwe're not getting hundred
million, multimillion dollardeals, we're just having these
conversations and for posterity.
And you know I've got oneepisode that had 23 listens, 23.
Did it make a difference forthose 23?
Maybe, maybe not, but I tellyou what.
(24:43):
Who it really made a differencefor was every one of those
guests that came on the podcastduring the pandemic, because it
gave them an outlet to talk,gave them an outlet to verbalize
it and talk about the hurt andthe disappointment and the
struggle, and maybe for somebodythat helped them process a
little bit better the stress andI don't want to use necessarily
(25:05):
trauma because I feel likethat's kind of an overused
buzzword, but for some people,people it certainly was.
And if that gave them theoutlet, then here I am, I'll do
it.
Turn the mic on, let's go.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
And what I say to that.
Thank you, because you didn'thave to.
That's the whole point of this.
I hope there's a young personout there listening right now.
I've still got a Sunday schoolclass that gets together.
We still get together.
I bust the age curve of thatclass because I'm probably the
youngest member in there.
There's a lot of widows,widowers, in that class, but I
(25:39):
refuse not to help us bring cometogether during that time of we
needed connection.
I used to tell people throughthat time, robert, I used to say
I will be physically distancedbecause he's telling me that
that's what we've got to do isbe physically distanced.
I said I refuse to be sociallydistanced.
Yeah, I just I refuse to buyinto that and I believe that
(25:59):
technology and things like thisallowed us an opportunity to
keep going.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
So yeah, well, and the conversations we had had.
You know, anybody who goes andlistens to fair game podcast, um
, you hear what we publish butunless you're involved in
podcasting, you don't.
You probably don't click that.
I mean, you and I were probablytalking for 20 or 25 minutes
before we even started therecording and on mine it was 20
or 25 minutes afterwards andthat stuff, you know, because
(26:25):
it's outside of the recordingonce we've signed off.
None of that will ever see thelight of day.
But I can tell you this theanxiety and depression and
struggle, real struggle, and Iwish we could have put some of
it on the air.
People didn't want it, theydidn't want that all out public,
but they were willing to openup to me.
Those were some of the mostvaluable conversations and you
(26:49):
said before you know, ourfriendship started on a good
conversation.
My friendship with a lot ofthese managers started finding
out that there were somestruggles with alcoholism that
had come back.
There were struggles withdepression.
There were.
Those were the.
And, all of a sudden, that'swhen I realized ah God, that's
how you're using me.
(27:09):
That's that's the purpose ofthis.
It's not for me to put out apodcast that gets thousands of
listens.
It's for that 12 minutes thatwe talk afterwards.
And that person says to meyou're not recording anymore,
right?
No, I shut the recording off.
Sounds like you got somethingon your mind.
I just need like, I need toknow it's going to be okay.
You know, this is what's goingon.
(27:29):
And they would open up.
And that's when it was like, oh,this is my, this is my servant
role to the community.
Is this 10 or 12?
It's not the hour we just spoke.
It's this seven minutes thatthey're going to open something
up and go.
And then there were severalguests that broken, broke down
into tears at the end of it andI'm like man, they were all
smiling and laughing and jokingon the show, but then when it
(27:52):
came down and the rubber met theroad, it was like they were
hurt, they were in dark places,and so that's when it was like,
wow, the ability to listen, theability to articulate, to help
them process some of the griefthat they were going through.
That's what the podcast was forand you guys will never hear it
because I, like I'm some ofsome of the times the recording.
(28:13):
I had to stop recording some ofthe times it was still
recording.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I won't, I just won't put that stuff out, you know
well, the point is is that lifeis not a solo project, correct?
We were not created to be thelone ranger and none of us is as
strong as all of us, and whenwe go through challenges like
that, it's nice to have a groupthat you can kind of lean into,
uh, share with, learn from, andthis podcast and your podcast is
(28:38):
no different, so that's why Iappreciate you, you coming on.
Uh, robert, one of the thingsthat I'd like about what you do
and kind of your strategy behindthings is you've got a gnat for
trying to pay attention.
Again, look and listen.
Marketing promotion.
I ask the kids all the time.
It's funny.
(28:58):
I ask the kids.
I said tell me about yourbusiness.
And they always tell me.
They say I don't have abusiness.
I said, yeah, you do, you're ityour personal brand?
I said, yeah, you do, you're it.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
I said your personal brand.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
I said what's your customer service?
Do you show up to work on time?
Are you friendly?
You know, and we go throughexactly that.
Give kids some tips.
Give us all some tips.
Ag teachers, all of ourlisteners.
Give them some tips on how tolive their brand in an effective
way that helps them share theircompetitive edge, but also
helps them share how they canpour in and help others.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
I think, just like we started off the top of the show
, I think you need to batheyourself in gratitude every day,
like wake up every day.
Listen, I have plenty of thingsI can be grumpy about every
morning.
Sometimes I am.
I'm a 44 year old witharthritis, my joints hurt, my
back is not what it used to be,my vision is not what it used to
(29:53):
be, and I still wake up everymorning and I look over and I go
okay, my wife's still there,that's awesome, we got another
shot.
Let's see what you know.
So that's a tip.
No matter how, and it's got.
It sounds so cliche.
Oh yeah, gratitude, like that'sa buzzword.
No, it's real.
Like.
It's not a buzzword, it's apractice.
It's medicine, it really is.
It's medicine for the soul,it's a practice.
(30:17):
I like it.
Yeah, I would also say I hopethat people young people
listening to hear this failfaster.
Young people listening to hearthis fail faster.
There's too many people thatspend so much time trying to
avoid failing.
I don't want to fail, or theynever get started because they
(30:38):
fail.
You know, I heard somebody sayonce that the real definition of
hell is you die and God showsyou the life you could have had.
And it's like I heard that onceand I went oh, but you were too
scared of failing.
You were too scared someone wasgonna laugh at you.
You were too scared someone wasgonna say mean things and then
(31:03):
comment on Instagram and so youdidn't start.
And so I would say fail faster,go try it.
You're going to fail.
I promise you you will get morefrom the people who have
succeeded, from your actualpeers, not the little blah, blah
, blah, blah, blah naysayers onInstagram who have nothing
better to do with their lives.
Your actual peers are thepeople you are aspiring to be
(31:25):
like, the people that have madeit right.
They will give you more respectthan you can possibly imagine
if you try and fail and you keepgoing.
And then to I say to thosepeople who are like oh man, but
my, the people that you know, myfriends at school.
They always say mean thingsabout me.
I would say the answer to thatis empathy me.
(31:52):
I would say the answer to thatis empathy.
What is?
Imagine the, the, the level ofpain someone has to be in to be
like I'm going to go on theinternet and I'm going to crap
all over people that you know,random strangers, because I
don't like their video.
Man, what a rough place to bein.
Deploy empathy.
And all of a sudden you'regoing to start to click and be
like wow, I'm almost like myskin is almost impermeable to
any criticism because it justdoesn't matter it, just so that
(32:15):
negativity that gets dished outon the internet.
Deploy empathy.
That's kind of where my thoughtis for young people, for ag
teachers, any teachers.
I kind of have some intimateknowledge on this because my
(32:37):
wife was in the classroom formany years and is an assistant
principal.
Just know that a lot of thosekids that you're struggling with
that you may want to throw upyour hands and go this kid's a
lost cause.
Nope, they're not.
They're not.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
There's something they need that you're not
delivering and it's your job tofigure that out you know, I love
that what you just said, Robert, one of the things I like to
share as I ask audiences.
I don't know about New Mexico,but I can tell you in Texas,
friday night football's a bigdeal.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
It's religion in Southeast New Mexico, so that's
like we call that far West Texas.
Southeast New Mexico is farWest Texas.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
But I like to ask the question have you ever been to
a Friday night football game?
Everybody chuckles.
I said yeah, I went to one andI said there were seven coaches
on the sideline.
At halftime three more coachescame out of the press box and
then I found out there werethree more coaches that were out
scouting other teams for futuregames.
I said now do the math on that13 coaches For what?
(33:36):
For one night of one season ofa kid's life?
To do what?
To compete on a football field.
That kid's about to have tocompete for their entire future.
What are we doing to competefor their minds?
What are we doing to competefor their attention so that we
(33:58):
can share with them things thatwill get them through the
competition of life, right?
So when you said that, I thinkthere's a lot of genius behind
that, that there is a I can tellpersonal stories.
There was an Aaron Alejandrositting in your classroom that
felt inadequate.
That wasn't certain, thatwasn't sure, that came from
broken circumstances.
(34:19):
There was somebody there thatneeded somebody, that was
willing to take the time to sayI'm going to compete for your
attention.
I'm going to compete for yourattention because I want to
share these seeds of greatnessfor you, and I was very blessed
along my life's journey to havethose people that were willing
to share and pour into me andtell me not always what I wanted
to hear, but what I needed tohear People that were willing to
(34:42):
say let me make you better.
And because so much has beengiven to me, I guess that's why
I enjoy getting to go out andshare that with others.
I was in Wyoming and I wasspeaking up there at the Farron
Expo and I'll never forget it.
I was leaving and it wasactually Utah, and I was leaving
and this gentleman said, well,where's your next gig?
(35:03):
And I said well, I don't knowwhat you're talking about.
He goes where do you speak next?
And I said, well, I don't know.
And he said well, how do youmake a living if you don't know?
And I said this really isn't myjob.
I just enjoy doing this because, again, to whom much is given,
much is expected, and I justfelt like I need to give back
(35:26):
and so when I get an opportunityto share, I just want to go do
it and, like you said, find thatperson that needs a little
extra, find that person thatneeds to have somebody compete
for their attention yeah, well,and I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
There's a there's a group of kids that are coming up
through the ranks right nowthat are going to need a lot of
it.
Um, right now sarah's seeing itkind of next year will probably
be the actual reset year wherekindergartners come in and
actually hit the reset button.
Because if you think when, whenanybody who's going to go into
kindergarten, first or secondgrade, even third grade, but
(36:03):
let's say K through two the yearthe pandemic hit and we shut
everything down, those first twoor three years are not about
the ABCs, they're not aboutcounting, they're not about
recognizing colors, they'reabout learning how to learn,
they're about learning oursystems, they're about learning
lining up, learning aboutrespect for others and how to
start communicating.
When someone takes your redcrayon but you wanted to use it,
how to regulate emotions, allthose kinds of things.
(36:26):
And right now, at elementaryschool, teachers all across this
country are seeing is there isa block of students that are now
moving.
That were the COVID kids thatdid not get that development.
They may be in fourth grade now, but they're still functioning
on a kinder or first grade levelbecause they didn't, because
they were not in school.
We saw very similar results with9-11 babies.
Sarah could trace the kids thatwere where mom was pregnant
(36:49):
when 9-11 happened and thatstress and trauma.
And all of a sudden there wasthis little group of kids that
went through grade level bygrade level where behaviors were
just outrageous and then thekids before were fine and the
kids a year or two after werefine.
But this middle group was, andwe're now dealing with it.
So I can tell you there needsto be a whole lot of empathy.
(37:11):
Our education system needs torestructure what, what they're
teaching and how they're doingit, because the catch-up for
these kids is going to belifelong.
You will have these kids whoare third graders now, that
don't know how to associate withpeople, that don't know how to
interact, that don't know how toself-regulate.
They're only 10 years frombeing out in the real world.
That's not a lot of time tocorrect that.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Well, I think there's a lot of really good stuff here
and I don't think it's new.
By the way, I like to tellpeople I don't think there's
anything new set under the sun.
You know, you read the Bible.
They face the same challengeswe face today.
They just looked a lotdifferent.
But there are things thatremain constant and one of those
is resiliency, and if we cantrain young people to be
resilient today, they can bestronger tomorrow.
(37:54):
Absolutely, we just have to beaware of what this is all about,
which is what you're sharing,and we have to be willing to
compete.
And if we're willing to beaware and compete, maybe we can
plant seeds of resiliency thatmake those kids stronger down
the road.
So those were some really good,good words, robert.
(38:15):
We're going to start wrappingup here, but I'm thinking about
leadership development and youknow I like to give students and
teachers things that strategiesthat can help them become
stronger and better leaders.
If you were going to share someleadership tips, what, what
might be some leadership tipsyou'd share with young people?
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Be prepared to take responsibility for everything.
If you're going to be inleadership, be prepared to take
responsibility for everything.
That includes the failures ofyour team members.
I get this from Jocko Willink.
If any of your listeners wantto look into him, he's former
navy seal super good dude, um.
(38:59):
But he talks about leadershipand the amount of power that is
in accountability.
When one of you know you talkabout when he was on the seal
teams, when he was, you know, aplatoon commander or whatever
the role was, if somethingwasn't happening right, he was
the guy, not he.
You know he didn't go.
You know, ream out his guy infront of everybody.
(39:21):
He pulled him aside and said Ithink I've made a mistake.
I didn't.
I must have.
I didn't.
I don't think I communicatedthis appropriately to you.
He damn well may havecommunicated it correct, but he
took the ownership and said thisis on me.
If you're not performing toyour highest, this is on me.
And and I think there's a lot ofpower and accountability like I
(39:41):
go back to and carrie v talksabout this too I go back to the
scene at the end of eight mileum, if that movie with eminem,
where he's in the rap battle andinstead of going and rapping
about all of his opponent'sweaknesses, he puts all his
stuff out on the table and he'slike yep, I'm a bum, I got a
(40:02):
friend who you know, shothimself in the foot live in a
trailer with my mom and blah,blah, blah.
He puts it all out on the tableand then he hands the mic to
the other guy and the otherguy's like I got nothing to say
about him and so eminem wins thebattle.
Right, I think, if you, if youcan wear your losses as a sense
of a badge of honor, don't beafraid.
(40:23):
If you're out there and you'relike, yeah, this is my weakness,
put it out there, put it out tothe world because, right, I'm
speaking mainly to young leaders, but certainly older leaders
can take something from this.
(40:43):
Young leaders, what you're goingto find, if you're willing to
just put your weaknesses outthere and articulate them, it
takes their power away.
And now you're not stuck,you're not stuck going.
Oh well, you know, last time Ispoke in front of people, I lost
my train of thought and I feltlike an idiot and I was a
blubbering mess.
No, next time you give a speech, go stand up and say you guys
are probably expecting me to bea blubbering mess like last time
(41:05):
.
Oh bam, we just addressed that,that 800 pound gorilla, and now
we're moving on.
Um, I think lifetime value.
You get a lot of respect if youjust put it out there, and
everybody's got something.
Everybody's got a weaknessevery.
If you just put it out thereand everybody's got something,
everybody's got a weakness.
Put it out to the world.
Be accountable for yourbehavior.
Be accountable for what youneed to be as a leader.
(41:26):
Yeah, that's what I'll give forthat one.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
That's some good stuff.
I'm taking notes.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
That's a good thing.
We recorded this.
You can go back and listen.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
I'm telling you that's good stuff, robert,
listen.
Hey, I just again want to tellyou thank you.
It's an honor to get to knowyou, it's an honor to get to
work with you, it's an honorjust to share some of the
dialogues that we have.
Where we're fleshing out, we'reboth trying to find what are
best practices, what are beststrategies.
You share good stuff with me.
(41:59):
I try to share some stuff withyou, but you know what?
It's just another example.
Like we said, life's not a soloproject and none of us is as
strong as all of us, and I hopethat we're all stronger today
because of your effort to sharewith just not your audience, but
now with our audience.
So thank you so much for joiningus today.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
Thanks, aaron, you know.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Robert every now with our audience.
So thank you so much forjoining us today.
Thanks, aaron.
Um, you know, robert, everyguest gets one last fun question
.
So now you get the fun question.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
So the thing you didn't send this one in advance.
You sent me the the pre, theprep work, but I did not.
It just says fun question onyour rundown.
So here's the.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
What I'm nervous I'm just curious what?
What's the best concert you'veever been to?
Speaker 3 (42:43):
oh my god, best concert.
Okay, um, let's see, was it?
Was it boys to men?
Was it boys to men or was itboys to men?
I've been, I.
So here's this.
I'll give you the story realquick.
I've been a motown fan, like amonstrous motown fan, since I
was like 11 years old and one.
So it would have been 2008,2008.
(43:06):
That summer, sarah and I wereliving in orlando, but we moved
back to albuquerque so we stillhad annual passes to disney.
Well, it turns out that october, boys to men was going to be
playing at Epcot.
They have this annual food andwine festival and so they were
going to be playing.
Well, of course, when they dothese concerts, they do like
three concerts a night.
They're like 25 minute showsand so we go and we're sitting
(43:29):
out because we wanted to befront row.
Because it's first come, firstserve when you go to these shows
, we want to be front row.
So we're sitting out herewaiting for like three hours and
people are coming up to usgoing.
Man, I wouldn't come all the wayto Disney world just to sit
there for three hours, and I'mlike I came all the way from
Mexico for this, so we'd go allthe way in for the first show
(43:50):
and we get front row.
And then, of course, when theysing all made love to you they
hand out roses to the girls onthe first couple of rows and
Sarah would get a rose from oneof them and then they'd clear
the theater and we'd get back inline for the second show.
But what would happen is is wegot to the front of the line for
the second show, we would stopand we now became the first
people in line for the thirdshow, so everybody else would
(44:11):
file in past us and the thirdshow we would go in, we'd have
front row again and we wouldcollect all these.
She would get these roses again.
So we did four shows in twodays, hopped on a plane, went
home.
It was amazing.
And to this day, right up therein this box, right there, yeah
(44:32):
that's the stuff that I had, thepictures from the show, uh,
autographs from boys to men andthe four roses are still in
there and there have been liketwo others that have been added
from other concerts when they'vebeen in albuquerque.
So am I a little obsessed withboys to men hey, that right
there robert, I've asked thatquestion to a lot of guests.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
That could be one of the best answers yet so that
means boys to men abc, bbd.
Let's go, man, yep yep, I knowit well.
That's awesome, that's goodstuff and I love it.
And I think too, you know,asking that question to guests
just shows you how unique we allare.
Yeah, everything from Metallicato Harry Connick Jr to R&B, to,
(45:17):
you know, a die-hard parrothead I love you know, jimmy, I
love Bruce.
I mean it's, you know, kingGeorge is always a popular one.
But the point is is, I thinkit's also unique to hear
people's perspectives, and sothank you for sharing a very
unique story yeah, my pleasureso we'll all know that if we
(45:39):
ever show up to a Boyz II Menconcert, just look for you and
Sarah and we'll know where thefront row is.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Look for the very bald dude with the shiny white
head right up front where BoyzII Men is singing.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
That's hilarious, robert.
Thanks for being here today.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Ladies, my pleasure man.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Thank thanks for joining us for the growing our
future podcast.
Uh, again, we're just sograteful for the guests that we
have that are willing to come onand just share their, their
experiences, their insights,their expertise and and this
incredible platform that we havethat allows us to be engaged in
classrooms, radios, you know,wherever it may be being viewed.
(46:24):
Thank you so much for joiningus.
Remember, if you want to knowwhat the future is, grow it.
Grow the future you want, butyou got to plant those seeds.
You got to take care of thoseseeds.
And then do me a favor when youharvest it, share it with
others.
Share it with others so theycan plant great trees behind you
(46:45):
.
Until we meet again, go out anddo something great for somebody
.
You're going to feel good aboutit and along the way, we just
make our communities, our stateand our country a better place
to live, work and raise ourfamilies.
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the
Growing Our Future podcast.
This show is sponsored by theTexas FFA Foundation, whose
mission is to strengthenagricultural science education
so students can develop theirpotential for personal growth,
career success and leadership ina global marketplace.
Learn more at mytexasffaorg.
Welcome to the Growing Our Future podcast.
In this show, the Texas FFAFoundation will take on a
journey of exploration intoagricultural science, education,
leadership development andinsights from subject matter
experts and sponsors who providethe fuel to make dreams come
true.
Here's your host, AaronAlejandro.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening or
whenever you may be tuning in tothe Growing Our Future podcast,
listen.
Number one thank you forstopping by and number two,
thank you for allowing us tobring the podcast to you.
You know, we always tell peoplethat if agriculture has taught
us anything, it's taught us this.
If you want to know what thefuture is, grow it.
(00:52):
If you want to know what thefuture is, grow it.
Well, to do that, you've got toplant seeds, you got to nurture
them, you got to harvest themand then you got to share them.
Well, to plant those seeds, wecreated a podcast platform to
bring subject matter experts,people who have these incredible
experiences and insights, on toshare with us seeds of
(01:13):
greatness, and today is nodifferent.
I'm going to tell you a littlebit more about how I got to meet
this man, but we're honored tohave Robert Smith join us today.
Robert, thank you for joiningus on the Growing Our Future
podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Thanks for having me, Aaron.
It's an honor to be here withyou.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
So again, we're going to get into a little bit more
about Robert here in just asecond.
I want to share a littlebackstory there of how we met.
But, robert, every guest thatcomes on here, I like to start
every podcast off the same way,and I like to start with a
simple question that's relatedto gratitude.
So I'm just curious, robert,what are you grateful for today?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
You know that is a solid question and in doing my
own podcast you know we hear alot of advice of, as podcast
hosts, we should have asignature question.
And while I don't have thatjust yet on my podcast, when I
saw that that was your signaturequestion I gave it a lot of
thought because I wanted to makesure that it was something that
would give some level of valueto your listeners, to you, to
(02:15):
the conversation.
And when you gave me thatquestion about a week ago, I
didn't know the answer becauseI'm like, do I go with the
standard?
I'm grateful for my wife andson, I'm grateful that I got air
in my lungs Like, yeah, I'mgrateful for all those things.
But I didn't know untilyesterday exactly how I was
going to answer that.
And now I know and I can tellyou today I am grateful for FFA
(02:41):
and here's why I'm grateful forFFA.
(03:05):
No-transcript these kids and GenX looks down and goes what's
wrong with these kids andmillennials look like we all, we
all do it.
But having that conversationwith her renewed my hope for the
future of america.
In large part, that was thatwas happened because of ffa,
(03:26):
because of the skills andtalents that it allowed this
young lady to develop.
I was able to have thisconversation with her and say
you know what?
I don't think that what we seeon tick tock etc is actually
representative of gen z.
I think someone like EllaUnderberg, who is the state
(03:49):
president for New York FFA Ithink she's representative of
Gen Z and I think it's 85 or 90%of Gen Z looks and sounds a lot
more like her than they do someof these weirdos on TikTok just
going off.
So a lot of that is because,like, the foundation of that
comes from FFA, because of herinvolvement with that
organization and while I wasnever involved with FFA I grew
(04:12):
up in the suburbs, I'm a citykid Someone like her, I think,
really can renew an old, grumpy,44 year old's hope in the
future for America.
So yeah, I'm grateful for FFA.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Thank you, robert, and, by the way, I agree with
you and I can't tell you howmany times I've heard people say
exactly what you just said.
We invite people to come to ourannual Texas FFA convention.
So our convention is thelargest youth-led convention in
the state.
We'll have about 17,000 peoplethere for an entire week.
It ranks in the top five of allconventions in the association
(04:45):
conventions in Texas.
But I tell people it's kind oflike bring a friend to church
day.
I said bring somebody and letthem see convention.
And they say exactly what youjust said.
They said I've never been toldyes or no, sir.
Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am.
I've never had so many kidsshake my hand, firm handshake,
look me in the eye, say theirfirst and last name.
(05:07):
They said Aaron.
It's almost like it rejuvenatesour hope for this country.
Yep, absolutely did.
And I tell people that all thetime I said, yeah, it's a noisy
world out there and we don'talways get to see the good
things because all we get tohear is the noise.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
But it's awesome when I hear people that have a
chance to meet people like ellayeah, when I think you know you
say there's so much noise, wedon't often hear the good things
.
I think part of that's becausethe we've bred so much anger
into this country that it's easy, and now we all have phones
that we can put it out, we can.
Gary vaynerchuk talks aboutthis, you know, and says social
(05:47):
media didn't change us, itexposed us.
If you were the type of personthat you spread positivity, you
now have a device in your pocketthat you can instantly spread
positivity globally.
But if you were, if you were,you know, a jerk, if you spread
anger and negativity, you alsohave that same device.
(06:07):
And unfortunately, thesealgorithms are kind of trained.
It's like we all slow down tolook at the car crash because
for some reason, we all havethis desire to see carnage, and
so we're training the algorithm.
The algorithm is not somemystical portal, it's responding
to us, and so I think that'swhy we see so much negativities,
because it's a natural humandesire to see it.
(06:30):
And I'm like no, you know what,I'm going to change my
algorithm.
I'm going to go look for thingsfrom FFA.
I'm going to look at, you know,for more posts and feeds like
that, and I will get it, becausethat's how the algorithm works.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
If you want positivity, go find it.
It's there Absolutely.
And I agree with you, by theway, and I do appreciate what
you said, and I agree also thatthere are so many things to be
grateful for.
One of my board members is theson of the late great
motivational speaker, zig Ziglar.
So Tom Ziglar is on thefoundation board and Tom and I
have a lot of these discussionsabout where we're at today and
how we see things.
We were talking about gratitudeand that's kind of you know,
(07:12):
one reason I really hone in ongratitude.
I think it's an importantmotivation.
People that are grateful seemto be more energetic, they seem
to be more inspired, they'relooking for something good.
And Tom Tom was on the EastCoast and he was talking to
these college kids and he askedhim.
He said what is the opposite ofgratitude?
(07:33):
And he kind of let it sit infor a minute.
I got to guess.
Let me hear it.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Entitlement.
That's what it is.
That's what he said, is it?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
It is.
He said the opposite ofgratitude is entitlement.
And look at what happens toyour attitude when you go from
being thankful for things andappreciative to that's not fair,
or that's mine, or give that tome.
It just changes the wholedynamic of how you feel, how you
see things.
So when we talk about seeds ofgreatness and growing the future
(08:07):
, I think we have a lot to stopand be grateful for.
I tell people that on February6, 1966, a bouncing baby boy
came into this world and theywrapped me in this incredible
blanket of freedom and libertyand a country full of
opportunity, and I have so muchto be grateful for that.
(08:27):
I can choose what I want to eat, what job I want, if I want to
go to church or what sports.
I'm just the incredible giftthat I've been given, and when
we just stop and pause for aminute, it really is a great
place to start.
So thank you for helping mestart the podcast with what
we're grateful for, because it'sthe kind of seeds that I think
(08:51):
can build great futures.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Well, and I would just challenge your listeners
who are listening to this,before the end of the podcast,
answer that question foryourself.
Keep listening, we're gladyou're here, but figure out
today, wherever you're at,whether you're driving in your
car, whether you're sitting onthe back porch of your house
having a cup of coffee listeningto this figure out in the next
20 or 30 minutes what are yougrateful for today?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Awesome.
Thanks, robert, that's perfect.
Okay, so let me start heretalking a little bit about Mr
Smith here here.
So a few years back, a goodfriend of mine now was a lady
who was the CEO of theInternational Association of
Affairs and Expos, Marla Calico,who has been on this podcast,
(09:34):
and Marla invited me to come outand be part of the keynote
speaking panel at theInternational Association of
Affairs and Expos convention inLas Vegas.
I'd never done anything likethat and it was a real honor for
me.
I go out, had a great time.
Well, as a result of that, allof a sudden my phone starts
ringing and I start gettinginvitations to go to state
(09:58):
association, fair associationgroups.
So, anyway, I'm traveling tothe great state of Arizonarizona
and I was there and I'm thereand I'm doing the keynote, and
then I'm doing this workshop andthere's this, this guy, and I'd
already kind of walked throughthe career area and I'd seen,
you know, I remember back when Iwas a kid growing up, I saw the
(10:19):
movie big and, uh, tom hankshad this.
There was a voltar machine, youknow, and I want to be big.
You know, I want to be big andthat's it right there, look at
there and I'm walking I've got.
I've got a little model ofzoltar right here I see this guy
, but his his gig was called theconjurer.
(10:40):
Yeah, I was just real intriguedby that.
So, anyway, anyway, I go do myworkshop.
Well, little did I know.
The conjurer himself is in myworkshop.
And so after the workshop,robert Smith came up to me and
we got to talking and, like allgreat friendships, all great
networks, all greatrelationships, they start with a
(11:02):
great conversation.
And Robert and I started adialogue that day and we were
talking about the importance ofadvocacy and what it means to
advocate for agriculture, andtalk about the positive things
in our world and why it'simportant and what are best
practices on engagement, and onething led to another.
Now here we are, years later.
(11:23):
We've kept up with each other.
When our travel paths cross, wetry to get together when we can
.
Robert has an incredible podcastcalled the Fair Game Podcast
and where he talks to people.
By the way, and I will letRobert really share more about
this than I, because I don'tknow, but I found a whole new
(11:45):
world with fairs and expos thatI did not know existed.
It is amazing everything thatgoes into putting on a fair and
expo, and if you'll go back andwatch the episode with Marla
Calico.
We talk about that a little bitmore.
But Robert is one of thosevendors and his brand has
expanded beyond just being thevendor.
(12:07):
He's also now kind of aconsultant to help people
improve their brand presence,improve their effectiveness and
communicate in their fairs andexpos.
But anyway, that's how Robertand I met and so he honored me
by having me on his podcast atone time and I told him that and
we tried to do this before, butI said I really want to go back
(12:27):
and get you on the growing ourfuture podcast.
Robert, I know that you didn'tjust fall into that chair, you
didn't just happen into thatchair.
Something tells me there was ajourney that brought you into
this role that you're in, intothe world that you work in, into
the world that you work in,into this passion that you have
for communication, marketing andadvocacy.
(12:49):
Kind of give us that background, walk us through that, tell us
how you got to.
Robert Smith Presents.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Well, I started my career many years ago as a
magician and I was not theconventional type of person.
When I graduated from collegeit was not that well, I'm gonna
go get the job and I'm gonna.
I just didn't have that firefor that I.
I knew there was somethingdifferent out there and when I
realized, wait, I can get paidpretty good money to go do magic
(13:18):
tricks at fairs, you know, fouror five months, seven months
out of the year, I I was like,okay, that sounds a lot better
than than going to nine to five.
And as that develops, thebusiness side of me took over
and I start seeing, well, it'shard, really hard in the
industry to be a magician,because there's 10,000 magicians
and there's always somebodythat'll do it for 50 bucks less
(13:41):
a day than you do, and it drivesthe price down.
And, being where I'm located inNew Mexico, there's not a lot
of fairs.
I need to be able to get intothe Midwest and East Coast and
Florida and markets like that,and it's very brutal to compete.
So I said, well, I needsomething that's going to stand
out, that nobody else does.
And so Conjure Fortune Machinewas an idea that was hatched
(14:01):
really by some of theentertainers at Triangle Talent.
It's one of the agencies thatsupplies the fair market with
entertainment.
Guy's name is Richard Renner,he's out of Kansas City and we
were trying to come up with aunique way to do magic and he
says, well, you should do thisConjurer or this fortune machine
.
He didn't come up with the name, just like in the movie Big,
and I was like, well, that'sridiculous, that doesn't make
(14:22):
any sense.
And then the agent, mark Sparks, was like, oh no, you should
definitely do that.
And so I said, okay, these guyshave way more experience than
me.
I deferred to them and startedbuilding this thing, and now
Conjure Fortune Machine took meto places I couldn't imagine,
and we've developed otherattractions along the way that
(14:43):
have been very successful.
And so I've kind of realized myjob wasn't to do magic tricks.
My job was to provide anexperience for people in the
fair industry, and I guess, atfairs and as a business owner,
that's when I realized, okay,that's where the money is.
It isn't.
Look at me, I can do a coolmagic trick that makes you go,
wow, it's.
(15:03):
How do I provide experiencesfor people?
And along that way, aseverybody recalls, there were
the dark years 2020 and 2021,where the entire events industry
, pretty much globally, was shutdown.
And that was a rough time and ithad gotten into.
(15:24):
I want to say it was September,october of 20.
I was starting to feel lonely.
I was like we're locked downEverybody's, we're in our homes,
there's no fairs going on.
I was.
I was feeling isolated and I'mlike, well, we got this glorious
thing called the internet and Igot microphones and I got I
know how to talk to people and Igot a webcam and whatnot to be
(15:47):
able to to do zoom.
And so I got with 20 or 30friends in the industry and I
started the favorite gamepodcast and the whole purpose of
that was to tell our industrystory from all sorts of
different perspectives from theperspective of a fair manager,
from the perspective ofconcessionaires you know, I had
Dominic Palmieri on who'sfantastic guy.
(16:09):
He's with RCS out there inCalifornia.
They were in Houston, causethey do Houston show and they
were, I think, like six or sevendays in 12 days to go, and
Houston pulled the plug, saidyou're done, they had how many
hundreds of thousands of dollarsof stock on hand that they just
they cooked it and they gave itaway or whatever they had to do
(16:30):
.
They gave it away to thehomeless people, the people in
need, or whatever, and they justtook the loss on it and moved
on.
Stories from entertainers,stories from all sorts of
different vendors, because, likeyou said, the fair market just
has such a depth of people thatare involved in it, stories from
all different places.
And along that way I realizedthere's really something to this
(16:54):
podcast, there is real value toit.
Am I getting thousands oflistens?
No, am I getting severalhundred, a couple hundred on an
episode?
Yes, and does it help thosepeople at that time?
Did it help them kind of feelless alone and less isolated?
Yes, and so that kind of youknow, along along the way, just
(17:17):
before covet in in this journey,I discovered a guy named gary
vaynerchuk and and yourlisteners may know him as g Gary
V he's a marketing brand expertwith the creative agency
VaynerMedia out of New York andhe always talks about, you know,
document don't create.
And I always wondered like whatis he really saying?
(17:37):
Like that didn't, and it didn'tget to me until I started the
podcast.
The podcast was nothing morethan just documenting these
stories, preserving them for alltime, as long as you, as
Spotify or YouTube or my websitestay up and as long as I've got
the files, we've got adocumented history of what all
of us were feeling in the middleof that pandemic.
And now recently, we've decidedyou know what?
(17:59):
Because it's been a year and ahalf for two years since we've
done an episode.
I said I've got some time,we're going to go back.
We're doing 45 new episodesthrough 2024 with the Fair Game
podcast starting on February13th.
The first episode is going todrop and we're not telling
pandemic stories this time.
We're just telling the story ofawesome people in an awesome
industry that services thisnation that so often goes unseen
(18:21):
.
Was that a good, short-windedanswer for you?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yes, it was awesome.
I mean I want to stay with this, but I do want to go a little
further back.
So you grew up in New Mexicoand you decided to go to college
, and what was your degree in?
Tell us a little bit about thatreal quick.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Yeah, so I grew up in New Mexico.
I was born in New Jersey butwhen I was about 10 months old,
my parents, somewhere before Iwas born, had taken a trip west
and they loved New Mexico, theyloved the climate, they loved
everything out here, and so in1980, we moved out west and I
grew up in New Mexico, ended upstaying in-state for school,
went to Eastern New MexicoUniversity, which is right there
(19:00):
in Portales, not far from youguys.
I mean, you're always you'reall about Texas, Tech, right and
guns up and all that, and E&MUisn't.
But I don't think you know, 75or 80 minutes away from just on
the New Mexico side, fromLubbock, it's a.
It is an agriculture town andhonestly, if I was to think
about it, that's probably thefirst time that I was exposed to
(19:23):
agriculture.
Like, obviously, growing up, Iate food, Like I know my food
came from farms and whatnot.
But I remember walking acrosscampus at night to the computer
lab or something like that.
And keep in mind this was inthe late 90s, so there were not.
There were no iPhones, iPads,you know, Wi Fi wasn't really a
thing.
You had to have an Ethernetconnection at that point.
(19:43):
But I would walk across campusand because of the number of
dairy farms that were all aroundtown and the ethanol plant that
was on one side of the town.
Depending on which way the windblew, you were either smelling
manure or you were smellingethanol.
That's.
That's what I was like.
Oh man, I'm in an ag town forsure.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
That's funny.
Here's something I don't thinkyou know about me, but I
actually used to do.
Dr Vaughn was the head of theag science department ag ed
department at EMU.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
And I used to go out and do workshops over at EMU,
long before you got there, bythe way.
So you know Peeville.
You know the sign out on thenorth side of town when you come
into town that says welcome toPortales, home of I don't know
however many people that got.
You know 10,000 people andthree or four old grouches.
That's their welcome to.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Portales sign.
So yeah, so I think that'sinteresting and I think that you
know again, robert, what I likeabout this podcast is listening
to people's stories, becausereally, if you listen to their
stories, there's really some,some words of wisdom and some
seeds of greatness there, andyou just shared some number one.
I always tell people, if you'lllisten to these guests, listen
(20:57):
to these guests, they arelistening, and when we say
listening, we're not justtalking about with your ears,
we're talking about your eyes.
And listen to what you justshared.
Okay, you, you had this career.
Nobody, nobody saw COVID coming.
Nobody saw COVID coming, and wehad to make some choices.
(21:18):
At that moment, I think thepopular word was pivots.
We had to make pivots, and sowe're all trying to Key.
Ross pivot, you know.
So here's the thing.
Some people what they heard wasgloom and despair, yeah, and
that's what they saw.
Some people saw and heardopportunity to be empathetic, to
(21:44):
say that maybe there's anotherway here, and I think that
you're sharing your story,robert, of how you decided to
take a technology and make it aplatform for empathy, a point
that we could share in themoment together.
There's something that Robertshared with me and I don't know
if it's him or his wife thatsaid it, but I thought it was
(22:05):
always good is that we might bein the same storm together,
together, but we're notnecessarily in the same boat
together yeah, that was Sarahthat was because she was.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
She was dealing with that.
Yeah, my wife's uh is aelementary school assistant
principal and that was one ofher observations is, and
honestly, it may have, she mayhave picked it up from somebody
else.
So if we're, if somebody goes,wait, that's a so-and-so quote,
sure credit whoever.
But it was Sarah that broughtit to my attention and I think
it was a really astuteobservation, especially during
(22:37):
that pandemic.
Right, well, that's what I'mtalking about.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
So again, if I'm a student right now in a classroom
.
You're going to have somechallenges, you're going to have
some storms in life and oh, bythe way, if you don't want them,
I can take you to a place thatit never rains.
I can take you there.
It's called a desert and nothinggrows, but you show me somebody
that's had a little challengein their life, a little
(23:01):
challenge in their business andI guarantee you I can show you
somebody who's took that rainand made something grow out of
it.
And Robert is a great exampleof that.
He took some challenges and hefound a niche and he found a way
to kind of leverage that as acommunication tool.
And to your point, robert, youknow, I tell you know, one of my
favorite books is a book calledSame Kind of Different as Me.
(23:24):
It's a true story of a homelessman and a family in Fort Worth,
texas, and the family, finallythe husband wants the homeless
man to speak in his church andthey show up and there's just a
handful of cars in the parkinglot and the father goes inside
and he comes back and he saysI'm too embarrassed, I'm ashamed
(23:45):
.
And that old wise man just said, listen.
He said God's got in there.
Who God wants to hear thismessage?
He goes inside and he gives themessage.
They opened up the back doorsto the church true story.
And by the time he finished itwas standing room only in that
church because people heard himand started flocking in.
(24:05):
We never know who needs to hearwhat you're broadcasting.
We don't ever know who's goingto take something from this
podcast.
Our responsibility is that Godgave us an incredible gift here
to share, and that's our job isto share.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Well, and I look at it when I think about the
podcast, you know I'm obviouslyfair game and growing our future
.
We're not Joe Rogan, you knowwe're not getting hundred
million, multimillion dollardeals, we're just having these
conversations and for posterity.
And you know I've got oneepisode that had 23 listens, 23.
Did it make a difference forthose 23?
Maybe, maybe not, but I tellyou what.
(24:43):
Who it really made a differencefor was every one of those
guests that came on the podcastduring the pandemic, because it
gave them an outlet to talk,gave them an outlet to verbalize
it and talk about the hurt andthe disappointment and the
struggle, and maybe for somebodythat helped them process a
little bit better the stress andI don't want to use necessarily
(25:05):
trauma because I feel likethat's kind of an overused
buzzword, but for some people,people it certainly was.
And if that gave them theoutlet, then here I am, I'll do
it.
Turn the mic on, let's go.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
And what I say to that.
Thank you, because you didn'thave to.
That's the whole point of this.
I hope there's a young personout there listening right now.
I've still got a Sunday schoolclass that gets together.
We still get together.
I bust the age curve of thatclass because I'm probably the
youngest member in there.
There's a lot of widows,widowers, in that class, but I
(25:39):
refuse not to help us bring cometogether during that time of we
needed connection.
I used to tell people throughthat time, robert, I used to say
I will be physically distancedbecause he's telling me that
that's what we've got to do isbe physically distanced.
I said I refuse to be sociallydistanced.
Yeah, I just I refuse to buyinto that and I believe that
(25:59):
technology and things like thisallowed us an opportunity to
keep going.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
So yeah, well, and the conversations we had had.
You know, anybody who goes andlistens to fair game podcast, um
, you hear what we publish butunless you're involved in
podcasting, you don't.
You probably don't click that.
I mean, you and I were probablytalking for 20 or 25 minutes
before we even started therecording and on mine it was 20
or 25 minutes afterwards andthat stuff, you know, because
(26:25):
it's outside of the recordingonce we've signed off.
None of that will ever see thelight of day.
But I can tell you this theanxiety and depression and
struggle, real struggle, and Iwish we could have put some of
it on the air.
People didn't want it, theydidn't want that all out public,
but they were willing to openup to me.
Those were some of the mostvaluable conversations and you
(26:49):
said before you know, ourfriendship started on a good
conversation.
My friendship with a lot ofthese managers started finding
out that there were somestruggles with alcoholism that
had come back.
There were struggles withdepression.
There were.
Those were the.
And, all of a sudden, that'swhen I realized ah God, that's
how you're using me.
(27:09):
That's that's the purpose ofthis.
It's not for me to put out apodcast that gets thousands of
listens.
It's for that 12 minutes thatwe talk afterwards.
And that person says to meyou're not recording anymore,
right?
No, I shut the recording off.
Sounds like you got somethingon your mind.
I just need like, I need toknow it's going to be okay.
You know, this is what's goingon.
(27:29):
And they would open up.
And that's when it was like, oh,this is my, this is my servant
role to the community.
Is this 10 or 12?
It's not the hour we just spoke.
It's this seven minutes thatthey're going to open something
up and go.
And then there were severalguests that broken, broke down
into tears at the end of it andI'm like man, they were all
smiling and laughing and jokingon the show, but then when it
(27:52):
came down and the rubber met theroad, it was like they were
hurt, they were in dark places,and so that's when it was like,
wow, the ability to listen, theability to articulate, to help
them process some of the griefthat they were going through.
That's what the podcast was forand you guys will never hear it
because I, like I'm some ofsome of the times the recording.
(28:13):
I had to stop recording some ofthe times it was still
recording.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I won't, I just won't put that stuff out, you know
well, the point is is that lifeis not a solo project, correct?
We were not created to be thelone ranger and none of us is as
strong as all of us, and whenwe go through challenges like
that, it's nice to have a groupthat you can kind of lean into,
uh, share with, learn from, andthis podcast and your podcast is
(28:38):
no different, so that's why Iappreciate you, you coming on.
Uh, robert, one of the thingsthat I'd like about what you do
and kind of your strategy behindthings is you've got a gnat for
trying to pay attention.
Again, look and listen.
Marketing promotion.
I ask the kids all the time.
It's funny.
(28:58):
I ask the kids.
I said tell me about yourbusiness.
And they always tell me.
They say I don't have abusiness.
I said, yeah, you do, you're ityour personal brand?
I said, yeah, you do, you're it.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
I said your personal brand.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
I said what's your customer service?
Do you show up to work on time?
Are you friendly?
You know, and we go throughexactly that.
Give kids some tips.
Give us all some tips.
Ag teachers, all of ourlisteners.
Give them some tips on how tolive their brand in an effective
way that helps them share theircompetitive edge, but also
helps them share how they canpour in and help others.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
I think, just like we started off the top of the show
, I think you need to batheyourself in gratitude every day,
like wake up every day.
Listen, I have plenty of thingsI can be grumpy about every
morning.
Sometimes I am.
I'm a 44 year old witharthritis, my joints hurt, my
back is not what it used to be,my vision is not what it used to
(29:53):
be, and I still wake up everymorning and I look over and I go
okay, my wife's still there,that's awesome, we got another
shot.
Let's see what you know.
So that's a tip.
No matter how, and it's got.
It sounds so cliche.
Oh yeah, gratitude, like that'sa buzzword.
No, it's real.
Like.
It's not a buzzword, it's apractice.
It's medicine, it really is.
It's medicine for the soul,it's a practice.
(30:17):
I like it.
Yeah, I would also say I hopethat people young people
listening to hear this failfaster.
Young people listening to hearthis fail faster.
There's too many people thatspend so much time trying to
avoid failing.
I don't want to fail, or theynever get started because they
(30:38):
fail.
You know, I heard somebody sayonce that the real definition of
hell is you die and God showsyou the life you could have had.
And it's like I heard that onceand I went oh, but you were too
scared of failing.
You were too scared someone wasgonna laugh at you.
You were too scared someone wasgonna say mean things and then
(31:03):
comment on Instagram and so youdidn't start.
And so I would say fail faster,go try it.
You're going to fail.
I promise you you will get morefrom the people who have
succeeded, from your actualpeers, not the little blah, blah
, blah, blah, blah naysayers onInstagram who have nothing
better to do with their lives.
Your actual peers are thepeople you are aspiring to be
(31:25):
like, the people that have madeit right.
They will give you more respectthan you can possibly imagine
if you try and fail and you keepgoing.
And then to I say to thosepeople who are like oh man, but
my, the people that you know, myfriends at school.
They always say mean thingsabout me.
I would say the answer to thatis empathy me.
(31:52):
I would say the answer to thatis empathy.
What is?
Imagine the, the, the level ofpain someone has to be in to be
like I'm going to go on theinternet and I'm going to crap
all over people that you know,random strangers, because I
don't like their video.
Man, what a rough place to bein.
Deploy empathy.
And all of a sudden you'regoing to start to click and be
like wow, I'm almost like myskin is almost impermeable to
any criticism because it justdoesn't matter it, just so that
(32:15):
negativity that gets dished outon the internet.
Deploy empathy.
That's kind of where my thoughtis for young people, for ag
teachers, any teachers.
I kind of have some intimateknowledge on this because my
(32:37):
wife was in the classroom formany years and is an assistant
principal.
Just know that a lot of thosekids that you're struggling with
that you may want to throw upyour hands and go this kid's a
lost cause.
Nope, they're not.
They're not.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
There's something they need that you're not
delivering and it's your job tofigure that out you know, I love
that what you just said, Robert, one of the things I like to
share as I ask audiences.
I don't know about New Mexico,but I can tell you in Texas,
friday night football's a bigdeal.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
It's religion in Southeast New Mexico, so that's
like we call that far West Texas.
Southeast New Mexico is farWest Texas.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
But I like to ask the question have you ever been to
a Friday night football game?
Everybody chuckles.
I said yeah, I went to one andI said there were seven coaches
on the sideline.
At halftime three more coachescame out of the press box and
then I found out there werethree more coaches that were out
scouting other teams for futuregames.
I said now do the math on that13 coaches For what?
(33:36):
For one night of one season ofa kid's life?
To do what?
To compete on a football field.
That kid's about to have tocompete for their entire future.
What are we doing to competefor their minds?
What are we doing to competefor their attention so that we
(33:58):
can share with them things thatwill get them through the
competition of life, right?
So when you said that, I thinkthere's a lot of genius behind
that, that there is a I can tellpersonal stories.
There was an Aaron Alejandrositting in your classroom that
felt inadequate.
That wasn't certain, thatwasn't sure, that came from
broken circumstances.
(34:19):
There was somebody there thatneeded somebody, that was
willing to take the time to sayI'm going to compete for your
attention.
I'm going to compete for yourattention because I want to
share these seeds of greatnessfor you, and I was very blessed
along my life's journey to havethose people that were willing
to share and pour into me andtell me not always what I wanted
to hear, but what I needed tohear People that were willing to
(34:42):
say let me make you better.
And because so much has beengiven to me, I guess that's why
I enjoy getting to go out andshare that with others.
I was in Wyoming and I wasspeaking up there at the Farron
Expo and I'll never forget it.
I was leaving and it wasactually Utah, and I was leaving
and this gentleman said, well,where's your next gig?
(35:03):
And I said well, I don't knowwhat you're talking about.
He goes where do you speak next?
And I said, well, I don't know.
And he said well, how do youmake a living if you don't know?
And I said this really isn't myjob.
I just enjoy doing this because, again, to whom much is given,
much is expected, and I justfelt like I need to give back
(35:26):
and so when I get an opportunityto share, I just want to go do
it and, like you said, find thatperson that needs a little
extra, find that person thatneeds to have somebody compete
for their attention yeah, well,and I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
There's a there's a group of kids that are coming up
through the ranks right nowthat are going to need a lot of
it.
Um, right now sarah's seeing itkind of next year will probably
be the actual reset year wherekindergartners come in and
actually hit the reset button.
Because if you think when, whenanybody who's going to go into
kindergarten, first or secondgrade, even third grade, but
(36:03):
let's say K through two the yearthe pandemic hit and we shut
everything down, those first twoor three years are not about
the ABCs, they're not aboutcounting, they're not about
recognizing colors, they'reabout learning how to learn,
they're about learning oursystems, they're about learning
lining up, learning aboutrespect for others and how to
start communicating.
When someone takes your redcrayon but you wanted to use it,
how to regulate emotions, allthose kinds of things.
(36:26):
And right now, at elementaryschool, teachers all across this
country are seeing is there isa block of students that are now
moving.
That were the COVID kids thatdid not get that development.
They may be in fourth grade now, but they're still functioning
on a kinder or first grade levelbecause they didn't, because
they were not in school.
We saw very similar results with9-11 babies.
Sarah could trace the kids thatwere where mom was pregnant
(36:49):
when 9-11 happened and thatstress and trauma.
And all of a sudden there wasthis little group of kids that
went through grade level bygrade level where behaviors were
just outrageous and then thekids before were fine and the
kids a year or two after werefine.
But this middle group was, andwe're now dealing with it.
So I can tell you there needsto be a whole lot of empathy.
(37:11):
Our education system needs torestructure what, what they're
teaching and how they're doingit, because the catch-up for
these kids is going to belifelong.
You will have these kids whoare third graders now, that
don't know how to associate withpeople, that don't know how to
interact, that don't know how toself-regulate.
They're only 10 years frombeing out in the real world.
That's not a lot of time tocorrect that.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Well, I think there's a lot of really good stuff here
and I don't think it's new.
By the way, I like to tellpeople I don't think there's
anything new set under the sun.
You know, you read the Bible.
They face the same challengeswe face today.
They just looked a lotdifferent.
But there are things thatremain constant and one of those
is resiliency, and if we cantrain young people to be
resilient today, they can bestronger tomorrow.
(37:54):
Absolutely, we just have to beaware of what this is all about,
which is what you're sharing,and we have to be willing to
compete.
And if we're willing to beaware and compete, maybe we can
plant seeds of resiliency thatmake those kids stronger down
the road.
So those were some really good,good words, robert.
(38:15):
We're going to start wrappingup here, but I'm thinking about
leadership development and youknow I like to give students and
teachers things that strategiesthat can help them become
stronger and better leaders.
If you were going to share someleadership tips, what, what
might be some leadership tipsyou'd share with young people?
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Be prepared to take responsibility for everything.
If you're going to be inleadership, be prepared to take
responsibility for everything.
That includes the failures ofyour team members.
I get this from Jocko Willink.
If any of your listeners wantto look into him, he's former
navy seal super good dude, um.
(38:59):
But he talks about leadershipand the amount of power that is
in accountability.
When one of you know you talkabout when he was on the seal
teams, when he was, you know, aplatoon commander or whatever
the role was, if somethingwasn't happening right, he was
the guy, not he.
You know he didn't go.
You know, ream out his guy infront of everybody.
(39:21):
He pulled him aside and said Ithink I've made a mistake.
I didn't.
I must have.
I didn't.
I don't think I communicatedthis appropriately to you.
He damn well may havecommunicated it correct, but he
took the ownership and said thisis on me.
If you're not performing toyour highest, this is on me.
And and I think there's a lot ofpower and accountability like I
(39:41):
go back to and carrie v talksabout this too I go back to the
scene at the end of eight mileum, if that movie with eminem,
where he's in the rap battle andinstead of going and rapping
about all of his opponent'sweaknesses, he puts all his
stuff out on the table and he'slike yep, I'm a bum, I got a
(40:02):
friend who you know, shothimself in the foot live in a
trailer with my mom and blah,blah, blah.
He puts it all out on the tableand then he hands the mic to
the other guy and the otherguy's like I got nothing to say
about him and so eminem wins thebattle.
Right, I think, if you, if youcan wear your losses as a sense
of a badge of honor, don't beafraid.
(40:23):
If you're out there and you'relike, yeah, this is my weakness,
put it out there, put it out tothe world because, right, I'm
speaking mainly to young leaders, but certainly older leaders
can take something from this.
(40:43):
Young leaders, what you're goingto find, if you're willing to
just put your weaknesses outthere and articulate them, it
takes their power away.
And now you're not stuck,you're not stuck going.
Oh well, you know, last time Ispoke in front of people, I lost
my train of thought and I feltlike an idiot and I was a
blubbering mess.
No, next time you give a speech, go stand up and say you guys
are probably expecting me to bea blubbering mess like last time
(41:05):
.
Oh bam, we just addressed that,that 800 pound gorilla, and now
we're moving on.
Um, I think lifetime value.
You get a lot of respect if youjust put it out there, and
everybody's got something.
Everybody's got a weaknessevery.
If you just put it out thereand everybody's got something,
everybody's got a weakness.
Put it out to the world.
Be accountable for yourbehavior.
Be accountable for what youneed to be as a leader.
(41:26):
Yeah, that's what I'll give forthat one.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
That's some good stuff.
I'm taking notes.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
That's a good thing.
We recorded this.
You can go back and listen.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
I'm telling you that's good stuff, robert,
listen.
Hey, I just again want to tellyou thank you.
It's an honor to get to knowyou, it's an honor to get to
work with you, it's an honorjust to share some of the
dialogues that we have.
Where we're fleshing out, we'reboth trying to find what are
best practices, what are beststrategies.
You share good stuff with me.
(41:59):
I try to share some stuff withyou, but you know what?
It's just another example.
Like we said, life's not a soloproject and none of us is as
strong as all of us, and I hopethat we're all stronger today
because of your effort to sharewith just not your audience, but
now with our audience.
So thank you so much for joiningus today.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
Thanks, aaron, you know.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Robert every now with our audience.
So thank you so much forjoining us today.
Thanks, aaron.
Um, you know, robert, everyguest gets one last fun question
.
So now you get the fun question.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
So the thing you didn't send this one in advance.
You sent me the the pre, theprep work, but I did not.
It just says fun question onyour rundown.
So here's the.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
What I'm nervous I'm just curious what?
What's the best concert you'veever been to?
Speaker 3 (42:43):
oh my god, best concert.
Okay, um, let's see, was it?
Was it boys to men?
Was it boys to men or was itboys to men?
I've been, I.
So here's this.
I'll give you the story realquick.
I've been a motown fan, like amonstrous motown fan, since I
was like 11 years old and one.
So it would have been 2008,2008.
(43:06):
That summer, sarah and I wereliving in orlando, but we moved
back to albuquerque so we stillhad annual passes to disney.
Well, it turns out that october, boys to men was going to be
playing at Epcot.
They have this annual food andwine festival and so they were
going to be playing.
Well, of course, when they dothese concerts, they do like
three concerts a night.
They're like 25 minute showsand so we go and we're sitting
(43:29):
out because we wanted to befront row.
Because it's first come, firstserve when you go to these shows
, we want to be front row.
So we're sitting out herewaiting for like three hours and
people are coming up to usgoing.
Man, I wouldn't come all the wayto Disney world just to sit
there for three hours, and I'mlike I came all the way from
Mexico for this, so we'd go allthe way in for the first show
(43:50):
and we get front row.
And then, of course, when theysing all made love to you they
hand out roses to the girls onthe first couple of rows and
Sarah would get a rose from oneof them and then they'd clear
the theater and we'd get back inline for the second show.
But what would happen is is wegot to the front of the line for
the second show, we would stopand we now became the first
people in line for the thirdshow, so everybody else would
(44:11):
file in past us and the thirdshow we would go in, we'd have
front row again and we wouldcollect all these.
She would get these roses again.
So we did four shows in twodays, hopped on a plane, went
home.
It was amazing.
And to this day, right up therein this box, right there, yeah
(44:32):
that's the stuff that I had, thepictures from the show, uh,
autographs from boys to men andthe four roses are still in
there and there have been liketwo others that have been added
from other concerts when they'vebeen in albuquerque.
So am I a little obsessed withboys to men hey, that right
there robert, I've asked thatquestion to a lot of guests.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
That could be one of the best answers yet so that
means boys to men abc, bbd.
Let's go, man, yep yep, I knowit well.
That's awesome, that's goodstuff and I love it.
And I think too, you know,asking that question to guests
just shows you how unique we allare.
Yeah, everything from Metallicato Harry Connick Jr to R&B, to,
(45:17):
you know, a die-hard parrothead I love you know, jimmy, I
love Bruce.
I mean it's, you know, kingGeorge is always a popular one.
But the point is is, I thinkit's also unique to hear
people's perspectives, and sothank you for sharing a very
unique story yeah, my pleasureso we'll all know that if we
(45:39):
ever show up to a Boyz II Menconcert, just look for you and
Sarah and we'll know where thefront row is.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Look for the very bald dude with the shiny white
head right up front where BoyzII Men is singing.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
That's hilarious, robert.
Thanks for being here today.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Ladies, my pleasure man.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Thank thanks for joining us for the growing our
future podcast.
Uh, again, we're just sograteful for the guests that we
have that are willing to come onand just share their, their
experiences, their insights,their expertise and and this
incredible platform that we havethat allows us to be engaged in
classrooms, radios, you know,wherever it may be being viewed.
(46:24):
Thank you so much for joiningus.
Remember, if you want to knowwhat the future is, grow it.
Grow the future you want, butyou got to plant those seeds.
You got to take care of thoseseeds.
And then do me a favor when youharvest it, share it with
others.
Share it with others so theycan plant great trees behind you
(46:45):
.
Until we meet again, go out anddo something great for somebody
.
You're going to feel good aboutit and along the way, we just
make our communities, our stateand our country a better place
to live, work and raise ourfamilies.
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the
Growing Our Future podcast.
This show is sponsored by theTexas FFA Foundation, whose
mission is to strengthenagricultural science education
so students can develop theirpotential for personal growth,
career success and leadership ina global marketplace.
Learn more at mytexasffaorg.
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