A Smashing Success | Episode #449

Right Thinking with Steve Coplon | Guest: Henry Smith

This week's show is called "A Smashing Success" with guest Henry Smith. Tune in and hear Steve interview Henry, a young, budding entrepreneur, and know why Steve firmly believes that the future is safe with rising stars like Henry securing the future. You will be captivated when you hear what Henry is doing with his life and how he got there.

In "A Smashing Success," Steve Copelan interviews Henry Smith, a 21-year-old entrepreneur and founder of the burger restaurant Smashers. Henry shares his journey from experimenting with burger recipes during the COVID-19 pandemic to launching a successful food truck and restaurant.

The discussion emphasizes financial literacy for youth, highlighting Henry’s plans to incorporate educational initiatives into his business. They also explore themes of work ethic, mentorship, and community service, advocating for the skills and potential of younger generations. The episode concludes with an optimistic outlook on the impact of young leaders like Henry.

https://www.talknetworkradio.com/hosts/right-thinking

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:14):
There must be lies starning brighter somewhere. Got to be birds.
Why I am high ton a sky poor blue.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Good morning, welcome to Right Thinking with Steve Copeland. I'm
your host, Steve Copeland, and thank you for tuning in.
Let's have a great day.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Good morning everybody. Glad to be with you. Well. Today's
episode number four hundred and forty nine, Right Thinking with
Steve Copeland is very pleased to announce that this week's
show was called a smashing success with guess Henry Smith.
Tune in and here Steve interview Henry, a young budding
entrepreneur and no hy Steve firmly believes that the future

(01:02):
is safe with rising stars like Henry securing the future.
You will be captivated when you hear what Henry is
doing with his life and how he got there. Henry,
I'm so glad you called me a little while ago
and said that you're finally freed up a little bit
to do an interview. So thank you, Henry. Glad to
be with you today.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Well, thank you for having me on, Steven, And this
conversation has long over duree, so I'm excited to chop
it up with you.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Well, Henry I told you when you called me that
I gave you plenty of time and didn't bug on you.
But I think it's really important to get a little
background here of how we met where we met, because
it was a big day for me. So I want
to start off with that and say that, Henry, I

(01:49):
came into your restaurant called Smashers because my grandson, Willie,
it was his graduation from the fifth grade moving up
into school, and I went to his graduation and he
said after its that would you take me to Smashers?
And I said, absolutely, Willy would have Smashers. And he goes,

(02:12):
you know what Smashers is? So it's Willie's favorite hamburger restaurant.
But so I took Willie to Smashers and he was
like just loving me for agreeing to take him to
go to Smashers. And when we walked in there, about
five minutes after we got there, Willie kind of gave
me an elbow in the side and said, hey, Papa, Papa,

(02:35):
I think that's him. And I said him. He goes, yeah,
Henry Smith, the guy that owns the restaurant, And I said, oh,
you look, you really think so Willie and I looked
over on the wall and I saw I saw some
newspaper articles and it had your picture and and I
knew it was you, And so I did what I do,
and I stood up and I walked over to you,

(02:58):
and I introduced myself. And from that moment on, great
things have started to happen for me, Willie, and I
know for you. So tell me go back to that
moment when I introduced myself to you and then you
met Willy.

Speaker 4 (03:11):
Yes, sir, it was a very authentic interaction.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
And I'm glad Willy's a big fan of our burgers
because I'm a big fan of Willie.

Speaker 4 (03:17):
He's definitely a bright young kid.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
Just off our brief few interactions, Yeah, I immediately start
a conversation with you. And when you got into the
right taking foundation that is very similar alignment to the
things that I.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Want to stand on, especially when Smashes grows and scales.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
I don't have a charitable arm that is all about
preaching financial literacy, So to connect with you on that
front was pretty amazing, especially spreading financial literacy to the youth.
And it wasn't the first time, but I think it
was maybe the third time that you guys came in
just when Willy placed an order.

Speaker 4 (03:52):
I believe it was for a milkshake, and he hand
me a.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
Ten dollars bill and I allowed him to tell me
what the change was going to be, and he said
it probably within three seconds.

Speaker 4 (04:02):
It was pretty neat to see. And you know, I
already had a lot of.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Respect for you, but I know you have been a
big part in raising Willie. And yeah, it was just
a lot out alignement and we immediately connected on the front.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
I appreciate that. Well, for those of you that are listening,
you might not really know all that we're talking about.
So I want to tell you what Smashers is. I
want you to know what Smashers is, because Smashers is
a It's not just a Hamburger joint by any means.
I'm gonna let I'm gonna let Henry talk more about
in a second. But I think what I really want

(04:34):
to start at is, Henry, you're like twenty two nown
or still twenty.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
One, twenty one. I'll turn twenty two in de summer.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Okay, Well, that's an important thing. Tuck that away here
by its listening, because as I as I said in
my announcement, You're going to feel better better future. I
think that most everybody in our society is very worried
about how fast things are moving, and a lot of
the stuff that I'm concerned about is reading literacy. Reading

(05:07):
is one of the main things that I hang my
hat on for saying that that's the secret to life
for everybody is reading. And so more and more people
are getting into not reading, graphic novels, internet audio, whatever
you want to call it. And so this connection that

(05:28):
Henry and I have based on Willie me taking him
to Smash's restaurant that day, it opened up a whole
lot of stuff and it's going to come out into
this show as we continue here. So, Henry, you're twenty
one years old and you have a restaurant that you founded.
Can you give a little background on I mean, I

(05:50):
know you're from the Eastern Shore in Virginia. Here tell us,
tell us what how you got? What do you actually have?
Let me say it like that right now? You have
your recent shore location truck, yes, down for the third season.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
Is it a food truck or a restaurant food trailer? Yeah,
food truck. I seasonal operation in the summertime with Cape Charles.
It's at the very bottom of the Eastern Shore. That's
the business I started in hired all my buddies and
really didn't think much of it.

Speaker 4 (06:20):
I knew I had good product, but my plan was
to go to college.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
But after the senior year of high school, I strongly
disliked high school and just what they were teaching me.
So that's when I started thinking about the business and
starting a business, and that's the reason why I started Smashers.
So after seeing the results of the first summer, I
went off to college, but the only thing I could
think about was Smashers, and I showed up to about
five classes in college, dropped out after one semester, took

(06:49):
smashs all in and then I believe those two years
after that, maybe one and a half as well.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Then I started the restaurant and now we have.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
A restaurant Cape Charles food trailer as well as a
brand new food truck for the roads.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Okay, so you have a food trailer, a food truck,
and you've got did you just say that You've opened
up your food truck over in Hampton, Yep, got a
brand new one, yes, sir, Yeah, that's just in the
last couple of months, because when I first met you
that was in the works. Yes, sir, but you have
an actual restaurant that's an awful premium outlet that is

(07:23):
i'll call that a high rent district because it's a
lot of people want to get in there, because it's
a wonderful place in Offolk where they have a lot
of really quality stores and there's this new strip there
that's full of restaurants. I mean, it's probably about sixteen
restaurants there on that one long, long block with the
front and the back to it, and you you're the
corner of the inside of that aisle all the way

(07:46):
down and you've got outside seating and stuff. So the
thing that's so unique about your restaurant that I had
to point out to a buddy mine that I took
in there the order when you go up to the
order window, and where the menu is it painted on
the wall as if it's a full sized food truck.
It's got the wheels of tires and stuff. Okay, so

(08:08):
how did you get started in your first food truck?
You know, you talked about you didn't like college too much,
et cetera, but you only went to five class. That
sounds like me. How did you get started with getting
your first one off the ground?

Speaker 4 (08:22):
Yeah, it was a lot of trial and error in
the beginning.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
I didn't even have the vision of a business in
mind until perfecting the original smasher, which is our burger
that carried us pretty much to this point. I would
come home from boarding school. I went to boarding school
in high school and during the COVID times as well.
That's when I made my first burger. I know, simply
off a YouTube video, and I happened to be starving

(08:45):
at the time. I was a very lazy kid too,
so it wasn't like me to cook. I never really
cooked anything previously besides maybe a growed cheese. And I
saw this YouTube video and just the thumbnail alone, the
burger looked so good. So I decided to go to
the store. Maybe my first smash burger was half bad.
I realized, you know, it would be such a flex
to cook for my friends and family to be able

(09:06):
to say I have a good burger.

Speaker 4 (09:07):
And that's really the start.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
And I started making my first couple of batches and
showed off to my dad. He said it wasn't half bad,
and I just got hyper obsessed with trying to perfect
all the tiny, finite details of what goes into a
smash burger. And after multiple people, multiple friends, even inviting

(09:29):
people just to try my burgers and watching their eyes
light up, being like, oh my goodness, Hinry, you made
this because at that time in my life, I wasn't
really you know, there was really nothing to be proud
about without producing. I'm not asking for sympathy there, I'm
just being fully transparent. And that's when people were like surprised,
and that fulfillment that it gave me was something that
was foreign to me.

Speaker 4 (09:50):
And then I just went all in.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
My dad had a really good friends for my recipe,
so I kind of stole it and yeah, that's when
I was like, Okay, then you start thinking of the name,
the slogan. That's the fun part of business. And when
the door's open, that's when you actually have to do
the work. It's much more difficult. And like I said,
I hired all my buddies and it was not like
a conversation where I.

Speaker 4 (10:12):
Was like I'm going to book this time.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
For you, come in for a thirty minute slot, let
me sit down and interview. It was we're watching an
NFL game, I turned to my buddy and say, hey,
what are you doing this summer? And then you want
to work for me. That's how the situation went. So
they were all my best friends, people that grew up with,
people that do pretty much sits out of the womb.
And that first summer was very pivotal for my life,
just because I can't emphasize how lazy I was, but

(10:40):
watching myself work eighty hour weeks sixty eighty hour weeks consistently.
We were open five days a week in that first summer,
but on those two off days doing the admin task,
it was very difficult to show up every single day.
But my brain got to save me in action and
realized I still had tank left, still said more in

(11:00):
the tank if I needed to use it, And that's
where that self belief came in.

Speaker 4 (11:04):
And then ever since that point.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
I would say, I've always had sort of a delusional
sense of optimism about the whole process and growing just
why can't I do it? So that was really the
inception of Smashers of how it started.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
The whole concept of a smash burger was new to me.
I didn't know what a smash burger was, So I
got to tell you a little side here. So Willie
turned eleven on July the twenty third, and I think
his mother gave him a smash burger cooking set. Yeah,
it's awesome, all right. It's got a pressor. It's like

(11:42):
a big spash word. That's just a big square spash word.
And anyway, the bottom line to it is is that
there's something really special about a smash burger different from
a regular hamburger. And if you give us a little
history about s hashburgers in general, and how you can't
you know, you already said that you were making some

(12:04):
that were so good. But what's the little history lesson
here on smash burgers as being something different?

Speaker 4 (12:10):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
So, typically how burgers were made, especially before the fifties,
was it was just sort of a burger puck get
throwed on either a grill or a flat top. What
you lose in that is the crust, which is the
whole appeal of a smash burger. A common misconception I'll
get into this real quick before I get into the
beauty of a smash burger, is that you're smashing all

(12:31):
the juices out, but you only smash when it's a
raw ground beef patty and you we ball them up.
Some people may make it a little bit less of
a smash. We like to go straight from ground beef
ball straight to flattop. But when you smash it down
on the raw ground bet patty, I assure you there's
no juices leaving.

Speaker 4 (12:51):
But the whole point in the smash burger is when
you flip it.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
And there's a specific way to tell when it's ready
to flip. You scrape super deep into the flattop and
flip it.

Speaker 4 (13:00):
It develops that nice crust.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
It's actually called a Malleard reaction, and it's when you
flip it and it develos that that crust or a
barrier that juices try to rise in the burger, but
it hits that crust, so they've maintained within the patty.

Speaker 4 (13:14):
It produces a much better, in.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
My opinion, cheese to meat to bun ratio, especially when
you stack them into a double uh and overall just
a nice almost a crispy crunch aspect to the burger
that you lose and just throwing in.

Speaker 4 (13:30):
A puck on a grill or a flat top.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
And I personally, once you have a really good smash burger.
It's very difficult to go back to the standard in
my personal opinion.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yeah, well really really, he's in love with it. I mean,
Willie's just all about your smash burger. But when when
it was cooking on Sunday, we actually opened up the
cooking set over his mother's house on Sunday this past week,
and there wasn't any parchment paper in the hit and
Willy Willy is uh really really always knows the way

(14:05):
he wants things to be, and he got he got
a little bit upset because there wasn't any parchment paper. So, uh,
what's the purpose of the parchment paper? Is that what
you call it that you put on top?

Speaker 3 (14:18):
So parchment paper just assures that the ground b patty
doesn't stick on the smasher, because if you do it
in a saucepyle the grill or you don't smash it completely.
Sometimes when you pull up a smasher and if you
don't twist a little bit at the end, some ground
beef will pull with it. So the parting paper just
ensures that separation between the presser and the burger.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
So on top of the burger, while it's cooking. You
put a piece of parchment paper and then you take
this big spatule that I called it. You call it
a presser. It's like four inches wide in about six
inches long with and it's a heavy steel thing. It
doesn't have any flexibility to it whatsoever. It's a it's
a it's a heavy construction utensile that you can really
press down on making the smash. Well, are smashburgers all

(15:05):
over the country.

Speaker 3 (15:06):
Now, yeah, it is a growing trend. I'm fortunate for us,
but we plan to act on it quick. A lot
of restaurants, even mom and pop shops are just switching
their regular burger to just a smash burger just because
of the appeal of the word.

Speaker 4 (15:20):
But smash burger.

Speaker 3 (15:21):
There's a chain called Smashburger that started in two thousand
and five in Denver, Colorado that has three hundred locations,
and I would say they were they recognized the trend
extremely early on and they capitalize heavily on it.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
But it's everybody's going towards it. Got it. So what
I figure out on my own and then it was
kind of confirmed, was that the appeal of the smash
burger is the crispiness of it's it's a little bit
crisp to it. They're really thin. But it's amazing how
flavorful of finnburger can be and still has the juice,

(15:55):
and especially yours. Now, now, William's the critic, of course,
and we've been to I think three other restaurants. I'm
not going to call him by name because I don't
want to embarrass them, but not a one of them
ranks up to yours. I mean, you are the best
smash burger around now. Norfolk, Virginia. Norfolk Outlet Mall off
of Northampton Boulevard is where the location is. I haven't

(16:18):
been to the truck over the Eastern Shore, but I
you know, everybody knows that burgers are. I mean, that's
all American. You can't get any more all American burger
and hot dog. Fourth of July. You know a lot
of people when they're having their fourth they're like cookouts.
They they want to do all sorts of fancy stuff
and all. But when my wife asked me what do
we want to have this year? I go, you know what,

(16:39):
we're gonna around hamburgers and hotbogs because it's all American, right,
when I traveled across country. Willy was born in Oregon
and he moved here maybe three years ago with his family,
and I used to travel. I've been to all fifty
states with the Foundation, and I've been off fifty states,

(17:00):
but not in a prison in all fifty states. But
my Right Thinking Foundation has a national curriculum, and we're
going to talk about how that relates to you in
a minute. But there was a place out in Idaho
that I found once by myself, and you know, I
was just sitting there thinking for a second. I think
it's called Shorty's Burgers. I'm not sure the name exactly

(17:20):
right now, but when I went in there, it was
a family restaurant and oh my gosh, their burgers were
absolutely fantastic. And the thing that made their restaurant incredible, though,
was it was an Idaho And I don't know if
you've ever had Idaho potatoes fresh into French fries like
two minutes after they're coming off the farm. You know,

(17:42):
there's nothing like it. And so I fell in love
with that place, and then in two other occasions I
went back through there. And for me, I like to
meet people, and I'm in off of Virginia. I travel
across country and if I've got somebody with me. I've
got a couple family members and my friend Jack that
travels with me. When we're driving across country and I

(18:03):
pull into a burger place that I've been there before,
and the people know me and they know my name
and I know their name, and Idaho, it's like, while Steve,
they remember you, well, I remember them, they remember me
because it's all over the love of the burger, you know,
in the in the fries. But your milkshakes, your milkshakes
are the best around. And I love milkshakes, and so

(18:24):
does Willy. So tell me about your milkshakes.

Speaker 3 (18:27):
Yeah, so our milkshakes. That's the only thing frozen our
restaurant is the hands scooped ice cream. We go above
and beyond for every menu item on a to source
the highest quality ingredients. So we use Blue Bunny ice
cream and they have been a big fan favorite. And yeah,
it's it's a very simple recipe. It's just hand scooped
ice cream whole milk, and yeah, it's a phenomenal product.

(18:52):
Depends on the flavor that you get. But we might
have some syrup syrup options for the strawberry. We have
a strawberry puree in the cookies, and cream or chocolate.
We have a slight chocolate drozell around the cop But yeah,
I agree.

Speaker 4 (19:03):
With you there. I love our most shakes too. Oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
So my but my buddy Dennis that I brought in there,
he loves hamburgers more than anything else there is, and
so I took him in there once over the summer
and he never had a smash burger. It was new
to him. But he loved your fries, he loved your burger,
he loved the milkshake. And so how good your product

(19:28):
is is? It goes without saying for me, I think
I've made the point with everybody it's listening that you
got you got a great, great burger. But your burger
you offered as the original. Do you do a triple
or just a double?

Speaker 3 (19:41):
We do a single double triple, and we have a
super Smashers, which is a four four patty burger. I
surprised how many people were to that, especially from the
Navy base.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
Oh yeah, no, no, I've been in there probably six
seven times now, and I was looking at a picture here,
I'll see if I could pull it up for you
people people listening, they're not gonna see. But uh, okay,
So this is a picture of my wife and Stella,
Willy's sister. Yeah, their first time coming in there. And
this is me and Willy on one of our occasions

(20:12):
where we're just you send me that picture, yeah, I'll
send it to you. But but but Henry, what I
want to say about you though, that that is why
we're together today, is that I think you're one of
the one of the most polite persons I've ever met.
And being young and having this kind of personality and

(20:32):
respect for other people that you have, it's amazing. The
first time I met you, though, you told me something
that I could not believe, because I mean you you
are like you got full charisma, full energy. You love
what you're doing. You know you're a walking success because
you found something that you can apply your passion to.
But you told me that when you were in high

(20:53):
school you've already said you didn't like college, dropped out
because it was not for you, so to speak, But
you told me that your parents were worried about you
because you were basically a couch potato, that they didn't
know what you were ever going to do with yourself. Yep,
that's hard to imagine for me to hear that from you,
because you were you were just you know, a picture
of energy and excitement. What turns you around.

Speaker 3 (21:17):
Yeah, I'll give you a little bit deeper of a
backstory too, because it is relevant. So growing up as
a kid, I was always top of my class, whether
in social hierarchy, in sports, and grades even and that
all came to a halt around thirteen years old. Everybody
sports was a big thing for me. I love baseball, football, basketball.

(21:40):
It was a very small school, so it was pretty
easy to shine. But regardless everybody started getting bigger, tall,
or stronger, I stayed the same. I was a very
late bloomer, and in that gap of I would say
sixth grade to almost pretty much senior year of high school,
I sort of just gave up on everything in high school.

(22:01):
When I started in ninth grade, everything was easy as
far as grades. I always made a's and b's, and
my first report card in ninth grade I received my
first C. And I guess that sort of broke the
seal and okay, this is possible. And I sort of
gave up for that reason because I was lazy, and
also I believed a lot of the knowledge that they
were trying to teach me I didn't find to be

(22:21):
interesting in or applicable in my future life. I'm a
big fan of math history as well, but some of
the other subjects I sort of knew I wanted to
be an entrepreneur or at least somewhere around in the
finance space.

Speaker 4 (22:34):
But I sort of.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
Gave up in that gap, and I developed a deep
sense of insecurity about myself, about my life, my day
to day, who I interacted with, how I articulated myself
that drop and it sounds so artificial, but in status
from thirteen years old to seventeen eighteen years old, it
developed this sort of deep craving to prove myself. That

(23:00):
was sort of the fuel I drived to start my business.
And through that business, you know, in the food industry especially,
it builds character. And I would say I credit that
a lot to sort of who I am today.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
You told me that when you asked me what I do,
and and that's another thing about your personality. You came
in to do your normal running to the store, by
the way, your staff in the in the Nofolk location
where I only what I've been to. You got phenomenal
people working for you. They're they're they're like you. Maybe
that's because they're your friends and things, but everybody in

(23:37):
there is just really really polite and just good to
be around. And the place is packed sometimes, I mean packed.
It's just really good. But you told me when I
told you about my foundation and I mentioned Napoleon Hill,
Think and Grow Rich, where you lit up like a

(23:59):
light bulb and you said, that's what turned me around.
That's what you know financial literacy. When I told you
that I have a financial literacy grit from across the
country in prisons, you just seized on to that. When
you came across I Think and Grow Rich. You said
it changed your life, And my am I remembering that correctly?

(24:21):
What happened? What happened to you? How did you get
a hold of the book, and what did you know?
What happened?

Speaker 3 (24:27):
So it was sort of a club. So in high school,
like I said, I wasn't a fan of the education
in high school, but I fell in love with exploring
financial literacy, anything around the finance space. So I started
watching YouTube videos, credit cards, investing, real estate, you name it,
anything that involved numbers. I was just a big fan
of Actually, fun fact, my first sentence and my senior

(24:47):
speech was I like money, and it continues to talk
about the old spot finance space.

Speaker 4 (24:52):
But yeah, Think and Grow Rich was a very pivotal
book for me.

Speaker 3 (24:54):
I actually I think I might still have the note.
I don't know if I could repeat it verbat but
it was something along the lines of I will be
a millionaire by the age of twenty three. And that's
one of the big segments in the book is just
keep repeating that self as hard as sort of sculpting
reality with your mind. I know that's mainly talking about
the financial space, but I think anything any aspect of life.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
I think it's very powerful.

Speaker 3 (25:19):
What you can do when you genuinely believe something and
you keep repeating it. That book, and as well as
Twelve Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson. Where are two
very very important books for me to read at the time.
And yeah, they have paid off dividends for sure.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
I'm gonna I'm gonna read you a There's a daily Thought,
the Napoleon Hill Thought of the Day, that is I've
been reading them for years. You know. It's a free website.
You can sign up nap Hill dot org. Anyway you
get you get a daily thought and I'm gonna read
you today's thought because it's it's right in what you're
keeping here. Okay, so this was the Napoland Hill thought

(25:59):
for today. I read this morning. Clarity of purpose shapes
your future. If you don't know what you want from life,
what do you think you will get? Most people drift
through life without direction, never realizing that the future is
not something that simply happens. It is something we create.
The few who achieve great success or those who know

(26:19):
precisely what they want and build a clear plan to
attain it. Your goals must be definite. They should be specific, measurable,
and tied to a deadline. Break them down into steps
you can act on daily. Know exactly what you plan
to accomplish, when you intend to achieve it, and how
you will get there. Review your progress regularly, adjust when necessary,

(26:42):
and never stop moving forward. Quote. A definite major purpose
makes life worthwhile end quote. Napoleon Hill recommend it reading
that that quote relates to from the book Think and
Grow Rich, Chapter two. Desire the starting point of all achievement.
We couldn't have done a better commercial for Napoleon Hill.

(27:02):
Thinking with you already saying what I just read in
your own words. Yeah, you know you set your goal
to be a millionaire when you turn twenty three. You're
going to be twenty two in December. That you said December. Okay,
Well I had a food truck when I was twenty four. Yeah,
and I dropped out of college twice. I wasn't sure

(27:25):
college was going to be what I wanted to do.
And it's not because I wasn't a good student. But
I went through the exact same thing as you said
you did. When I started my freshman year. I kind
of just skated and partied and had a good time
and relied on my natural my natural intelligence so to speak.
Never study, never did anything serious when I was in

(27:46):
high school, and every counselor and person along the way
they said, Steve, you're you're just not living up your potential.
I mean, I tested high and everything all the way
from elementary school, et cetera. But things came kind of
easy for me, and I didn't really apply myself. But
math was my thing, just like you, and so I

(28:09):
just love mathematics, and mathematics was a gift for me
because I you know, like when you complimented Willie for
coming up with the change as quick as he did.
I want to just tell you something. It's not math.
But when Willie was out in Oregon, WILLI sent me
a book and this was this is a great story.
It's it's right in line with where we are right now.

(28:29):
It was called fart Wars, and it was it was
it was a takeoff on Star Wars, but it was
a it was kind of a parody on the on
Star Wars. And I got in the mail. I didn't
have any advanced notice, and it was from Willy and
he'd asked his mother to send it to me because
somehow he had a copy of it. And so what

(28:51):
we did, he was like in the second grade. Maybe
we we read it over the phone for four five
nights in a row. We would, we would. It was
a chapter book, and Willie was a was a really
good reader at an early age. So he'd read a paragraph,
I'd read a paragraph, he'd read a page. I'd read

(29:12):
a page. He'd read a chapter or whatever it was.
But we we'd spend about an hour on the phone
reading the book together, and it worked out real well
for my daughter Lindsey, because she had tied eye to do.
She's an entrepreneur. All my kids are entrepreneurs like you,
and so it's in our blood. I've been an entrepreneur,
you know, my whole life. And so we read bart

(29:32):
Wars and it was real funny. It's a good book.
And so then I said, hey, will and you want
to read something else together. And for the next year
we read thirty seven books. I would buy a book
for myself and have it shipped to him a copy,
so we both had the same book. And there was

(29:53):
a series of books out there that were, you know,
step into reading level two, three, four, five, et cetera.
And then and there was a who h Q which
had about one hundred and fifty books in the library
that were chapter books a little more advanced. And they
were all biographies or histories of famous people. And Willie

(30:14):
just he history is his thing. I mean, he's just
unbelievable and geography. Don't get into a conversation with Willy
about the capital of Tanzania or somewhere, because he knew
we won't, you know. But he's always challenging. He just
he's like that. And so we read thirty seven books together,
and at the end of each of those first books,

(30:37):
on the back inside cover or the back cover, there'd
be four more books in the series, and I'd say,
what's the next book, Willie. So we built thirty seven
books and I got them downstairs because you know, I
still have this library. That was so wonderful. Anyway, That's
that's the thing about reading and just But people that
don't necessarily want to go to college. It doesn't mean

(30:57):
they're not superstars intelligence and people. It might mean that
they're not being challenged. They might not be interested in
something or whatever. And so I think a lot of
people that used to go to college that people that
didn't there was a separation there where not being educated.
They'd call it with college graduates versus people that weren't.
Some people, you know, they like to they like to

(31:20):
feel maybe that they're a little better than other people.
Sometimes that's just human nature. But anybody that's listening you
ought to be catching on that it's not just about
your education that you get. It's about your character. It's
about humility, and it's about whether you can get along
with other people. I think it's you know, there's a

(31:40):
comment that I picked up once. There's a lot of
jobs phdus floating around out there. You know, a lot
of people make careers out of college. I'm not down
in college by any way at all. But what I'm
saying is is that if a person never goes to
college and they've got a great work ethic, that's what
I want to talk about for a second, is work ethic.

(32:01):
I don't get into politics. I'll tell you real quick
what my whole thing on politics is because a lot
of people, you know, current events right now are just
all over the place with the division in the country.
I've always tried to let people know that I've always
tried to vote for the for the people that I
like their character, like like who they are. But as

(32:22):
the world's gone further and further with the political parties
and the hostilities and things like that, it's it gets
kind of touchy. But the platform that a politician has
are the things that they say, if you vote for me,
these are the things that I believe in that I'm
going to work forward. It's called you know, it's called
their platform. They lay them out and let's say that
there's nine rungs like a ladder on a political candidates

(32:47):
platform could be we're talking about president, because that's the
big one. On any given day, I like to say, well,
you know, I think that I'm I agree with five
of them on this guy's platform, maybe four. I think
the other guy I like better. And whether the five
or four is one party or the other never matters

(33:09):
to me, because I know, I know what it is
that I believe in life that starts with a close
relationship with the Lord. It all starts there for me,
my whole life, and in respect for other people and
things of this nature. But I just I just like
to get rid of the politics because the places that
I go and where I try to help people to

(33:32):
have a better life, to rebuild their life. You know,
I don't want to get hung up with people not
wanting to get to know me because they think that
I'm some political persuasion that they don't agree with. I
could care less about that. What I'm really all about
is I think that the truths that people need to
hold on to, not politically, but just in life. It's character, integrity,

(33:59):
and work ethic. Those are three right off the bat,
you know. Treating other people kindly and respectful, that's all
part of it. And so you know my first book,
and I gave you a copy of it. From the
lip to the p it's a pretty far distance. It's
lessons in charity, integrity, doing what you say you're going
to do. That was my first chance to get out
there and put some of my basic pillars in the

(34:20):
world that this is I think. I think there's nothing
stronger than a person that developed good character and have integrity,
and right along with that comes responsibility and accountability. And
so then the next big thing. And I got a
book that's been ready to publish for about two years,
but it's an audiobook, and I have to turn it

(34:40):
into a textbook, not text like a school book. It's
got to have a audible. Started anew a new policy.
They had so many people scamming them with putting up
audiobooks that were just junk garbage that they required you
to have a kindle version of your book before they'll
publish your audiobook. So I got this. I got this

(35:01):
nineteen chapter audio book that's a couple hundred pages or so.
It has to be the transcripts have to be cleaned
up so it can be a regular book and that's
taken me forever. I'd like to get that finished. But
but what I'm really getting at that book is about
the work ethic. The name of it is The Value
of a Dollar, My Memoirs and how I learned the

(35:22):
work ethic. One of the things that I've already said
about you, Henry, is that you know, you got a
great personality. You shared respect to everybody, and you're you're
good to be around. You light up the room. But
the work ethic is I think one of the single
most important things that we all need to have in

(35:43):
order to have a good life. What's your thoughts on
the work ethic?

Speaker 3 (35:47):
Yeah, and speaking as somebody who's very lazy, work as
a muscle.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
You need to exercise it.

Speaker 3 (35:54):
You're not going to jump into the deep end of
working eighty hour weeks consistently.

Speaker 4 (35:58):
I think purpose is a big part of it.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
I think you need to if you're an entrepreneur or
if you work for somebody else, the vision of the
company is something that you believe in, something that you
want to work on. I think there is an enormous
amount of entitlement in the world, and I would say
a lot of it is in my own generation. I

(36:21):
think work ethic today and my generation is what will
separate you from a winner from a loser. There is
a lot of people that expect things to just be
handed to them, whether that be the things that were
instilled from them with how they were raised or another reason.
But back to my point, work is a muscle and

(36:43):
it's something that needs to be exercised, and once you
find purpose and passion, it's very.

Speaker 4 (36:49):
Easy to work a lot harder.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
I know that wasn't the best answer, and I kind
of went on tangents there, but no, I'm just saying,
easy person, Yeah you just need to continually work at it.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
Ironically, but yeah, no, saying that it wasn't the best answer,
I'm going to totally disagree with you because the term
work is a muscle is a unique slant on it.
I'd I've heard all sorts of body parts being described
as a muscle or whatever, but work as a muscle
is a unique expression. But it's a beautiful expression to

(37:23):
start off with. And knowing that you believe that you
should do something you love and you work hard at it,
you know, and pace yourself. You know, you said you
can't always work an eighty hour a week. But yeah,
your work ethic is unbelievable. So when I tell people
about you, I've told a lot of people about you
about what you're doing. A lot of them say, well,

(37:45):
how could you have ever started a restaurant that young
by himself? How could you've ever done all that? So
whatever you'd like to share, were your parents in the
food business restaurant?

Speaker 4 (37:55):
No, they do happen to be both entrepreneurs.

Speaker 3 (37:57):
My dad as a golf car rental company and Cape Charles,
and my mom owns a nutrient management company. She essentially
goes out to farmers, tests what's in the soil and says, yes,
you can plant, No, you can't plan it none. I
believe my mom was a bartender, but that's all the
food industry experience they've had. And they gave me a
forty thousand dollars personal one with a zero percent interest

(38:17):
rate in the beginning. So these are kind of funds
that are not accessible to majority of people. That is
a big reason why I'm here today, because not only
were they able to give me that loan in the beginning,
but when I signed the lease on my restaurant, they
were able to act as guaranteurs not just displaying that
they were able to sign their name, but displaying their
sense of belief that I can make something happening at

(38:39):
the restaurant, so I don't want to get things twisted on.
My parents haven't played a huge role, but as far
as figuring it out on the operations end, just general
scope of business that I'm not going to take all
credit because there has been so many leaders on my
team that have been such a huge influence on my
restaurant and where we are today. But starting that restaurant

(39:02):
was a huge leap, especially going from Kate Charles to Northfiet, Virginia,
not knowing anybody out here. Doing interviews in the beginning
was almost like I would be the one getting interviewed.
I would almost it could be a teenage kid. This
is their first job and I'm interviewing them, and I
wouldn't say anything about the job description.

Speaker 4 (39:20):
I was so nervous, I was shaky voice.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
I walk around the restaurant essentially give them a tour,
be like here's the grill, here's going to be the friars.
I wouldn't say anything about what they would be doing,
and then I would almost be like, so do you
want to work for me, like please. Like that was
how it came off. And it's been a long point
to get to where I am. If anything, this last
year has been a leadership journey for me. But yeah,
my parents played a huge role, especially in the beginning,

(39:46):
because the financial assistance they've offered, and not only that,
but the wisdom they've instilled. I if I put my
parents toe to toe against any other set of parents
in the world, I can promise.

Speaker 4 (39:56):
You ninety nine point nine nine nine percent they're coming
out on top.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
Just and how they raise me, my brother and sister,
And it's the little things, you know. It's difficult to
realize in the moment growing up on how amazing they
actually are because sometimes you disagree, sometimes you buught heads,
but at its core, they've always wanted the best for
me and my siblings and I can't thank them enough.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
They are phenomenal. That is absolutely beautiful. I'm gonna do
something right now that I've been doing for years and
it's one of my favorite things to do. And I'm
on a phone a lot with help desk and technical
people or whatever. I mean, that's what we all have
to do in computers, and there's always a help dest

(40:37):
that you got to call, you know, and when you're
talking to people that are in customer service help desk.
So what I like to do when I'm talking to
someone that I know is probably a younger person, I
mean somewhere you know, less than thirty or twenty five
or whatever. After I had this wonderful experience where I
just really want to thank them for how wonderful they
helped me solve my problem or gave me the information

(40:58):
that I needed, I asked to speak to their supervisor
so that I can tell their supervisor what a great
job you did for me. And they like transferring you
to their supervisor whoever you're on the phone with, of course.
But but I came across this probably about five years ago,
and and I'll do it right now with you. So, Henry,
I don't know how often you get a chance to
see your parents or or talk to them. I know

(41:22):
it must be almost daily probably, but often. But give
me a favor, and the next time that you talk
to your parents, I want you to give them a
message from me, tell them that they did just an
incredibly wonderful job of raising their son. Because I've I've
met you down and and I just really want them
to know that they were great parents. Now, and you

(41:44):
already said the same thing that that's how you feel.
But I like, I like passing that all that because
that's like a that's like a really double, a really
double for me, like your burgers, you know, like because
I'm giving you a thank you and a compliment that
I think that you're just a fine person, but I'm
also acknowledging that your parents well did a great job,

(42:06):
and that makes parents feel so good. When now and
I've had people that I've actually had the opportunity, I've
done this with many, many people, but every now and
then I got to talk to somebody again, did you
give your parents the message that I asked it to
to go? Yeah? And I said, what did they say?
They said, that was amazing that you wanted them to
know that about me. I really appreciate that. But Henry,

(42:28):
you know, when I was trying to write the little
brief thing, what I want to tell people too is
how it happened to day. So I got a letter
that I wrote to you on June the eighteenth, where
I dropped off a package of books and things. Once
you've told me you were in Napoland, Hill, I just
want to give you a little package. And I remember
I gave you a picture of you and Willie because see, yeah, yeah,

(42:53):
I want to tell you about Willy there for a second. Everybody. So,
Willie's eleven years old and he's never wanted to take
a job before. I mean, will he's not to that
age yet. But he said to me, do you think
I could work here? And I said, yeah, you probably
could one day. And he goes, well, I mean soon,

(43:15):
And I said, I mean it's his dream come true
to have a guy like you that he connected with,
that just got such a good rapport with him, that
cared about him in a burger place, you know, a
Paradise burger place, you know. So I said, but will
he they have they have age child labor laws where
children aren't allowed to work in public until they are

(43:38):
a certain age. Goes why, and I said, because you
know historically sometimes people have used kids, worked them too hard,
didn't treat them right, or whatever. And he goes, he
taught me somewhere where he knew that somebody was like
thirteen or twelve years old and they were working. I said,
but that was a family business, and they do have exceptions.
They do have exceptions for family members to be able

(43:59):
to to be in their parents' restaurant and maybe do
you know, like a little cleaning and sweeping or whatever.
And I said, would you like to really work at Smasters?
He goes, yeah, he goes, I could work the register.
And that kicked me. That hit me so hard, because
you know, he wasn't thinking about taking a mop yet
or a broom. But I said, what do you mean,

(44:20):
WILLI the regler? He goes, well, I'm good with money.
I know how to do all that. And I said, well, Willie,
I know that that Henry will want you to work
for him someday and that one day you might even
have your own location or something, you know, And he
got all excited. But uh, yeah, so you know my
life with Willie. Willie's got a sister named Stella, and
I love her just as much too, and I got

(44:41):
another grandson named Max, and you know, they're all crazy wonderful.
But this whole thing me coming in with Willie because
that's the one place that he just really wanted to go,
meeting you that day, and I impressed Willie like no
granddad can ever impress their kid because I was able
to start a com conversation with you and introduce you

(45:01):
to him, and he was a little shy with you,
and each time that he's been around you, he's been
a little shy. But let me tell you, you are you
are a person that he greatly greatly respects and admires
because you're young, you're doing phenomenally large things and yeah,
you're You're amazing to me. When I was wrote this letter, though,

(45:23):
I told you that I'd like to interview you because
you know, I'm impressed with you, because you're the you know,
you make me feel good about today's youth in the future,
because there's so much going on where they're not known
for their work. I think some people you know, and
you said you would love that, and so you said,
but I need about a month or so because I'm
really incredibly busy, And that was in May, and so

(45:44):
it was May twenty seventh. So the letter I wrote
you that I put in the package was June the eighteenth,
and I said, I started off, Hey, dear Henry Will,
he loves your smash burger. Now let me tell you something.
I'm on the coattails. I'm hanging on to Willy here
because I'm getting closer to you because I'm putting Willie
up there in front and center, you know what I mean.
It's like, it's hey, I like hanging with young people.

(46:07):
And then he kept asking me. He's asked me several
times if I've connected with you yet to record an
interview for right Thinking with Steve Copeland. I told him
that you needed about a month before we would get together,
so it went on like that, but he must have
asked me. So that was in May and this is September,
so it's been a full four months. But I drop
in there. I've seen you a couple of times, but look,

(46:29):
you are one of the hardest working young men I've
ever seen. Starting up with business is not easy, and
you do it with a smile. All your employees they
love you. They tell me you're the greatest guy in
the world to work for, and just the whole thing
about it is great. And so what I'm saying, though,
is that for all you listening. So I didn't push

(46:53):
Henry for an interview. I wanted to do what we're
doing right now, you know, since I offered it in
the beginning. But I got a phone call today, and
it's one of those things that you really need it,
you know. All of a sudden, his name pops up
on my phone, Henry Smith, and he started off with
I owe you a owe you a huge apology, and
I said, no, you don't, No, you don't. And he said, well, hey,

(47:15):
I'm it's really bad, raindy day and things are really slow,
and I'm just at home painting right now in my office,
and if you want to do that interview today, I
could do it today. So I cleared my schedule and
here we are. But Henry, I think I've said most
of my observations about what I think about you, you
as a person, your work ethic, what you've gotten from

(47:37):
your parents, your burgers, though now I've yours is the best.
And my friend Dennis that I brought that day, I
think I've already said it. He is a connoisseur of
burgers and he loved it, and he paid special attention
to your French fries. You told me that day, though,
that you're going to be changing the oil that you
fry him into something different. Did you make that change?

Speaker 4 (47:59):
You wouldn't believe it. We haven't yet.

Speaker 3 (48:01):
But one of my biggest frustrations in running a business
is how quickly I love to move.

Speaker 4 (48:05):
I like to get things done. If there's something on my.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
Plate, I love to knock it out immediately, and working
with other companies that don't have the same philosophy and
move very slow is very frustrating. But however, we just
purchased a brand new fry their top of the lines.
They were required to be a direct connection in the
beef tallow we plan to switch over there.

Speaker 4 (48:24):
We have a big French for our campaign.

Speaker 3 (48:26):
That we're going to go on and hopefully I don't
even want to put a date on it because every
time it gets delayed, but hopefully two to three weeks
we'll have something and there's gonna be a new French
frise seasoning. I'm glad your friend loved our fries. We get,
you know, lovers and haters there. I believe that they
could definitely be improved, especially maybe a little bit better

(48:47):
seasoning as well as how they're cooked. But we have
a big improvement and a big campaign come in with
the French fries and a couple of things too. To
what you said previously, First off, I greatly appreciate all
the kind words you've given me. This has been and
thank you so much, Steve, seriously, genuinely. I will pass
along to my parents. I think I'll be happy to
hear that. And number two is I do appreciate what

(49:09):
you said about this meeting happening now. However, you are
giving me a lot of grace for how long I
delayed this interview and this.

Speaker 4 (49:16):
Is long ever due.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
Maybe not an apology apology is worth, but I do
want to take accountability on, you know, not squeezing out
a time block just to have a conversation with you
because of how much I enjoy speaking with you.

Speaker 4 (49:29):
And once again, yeah, this is great.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
Oh hey, you're totally welcome. So I was telling Henry
I actually needed an extra five minutes from when I
said I need an hour, and then we got online
here on, so I need five more minutes. I needed
five minutes because when I write the announcement that I
read to start the show off with, it goes out
on Sundays at eleven thirty. Everybody on the mailing list,
and Henry, I don't know that you know it, but

(49:52):
I don't have any idea of all the listeners that
listen to the right thing with Steve Copeland. The reason
is we do it on a platform I'm called Spreaker,
but other platforms pick it up, and my producer doesn't
have the ability to track what other platforms do. He
gave me a print out two years ago that said
I was in twenty eight countries where what that meant

(50:15):
was at least one person had listened to the show
or downloaded it, and at least I know that happened.
But but if you google Right Thinking with Steve Copeland,
I think there's as many as twenty six or seven
different podcasts that it comes up on. It's then Audible now,
and you can go to Audible podcasts and google Right

(50:35):
Thinking with Steve Copeland and they have it all the
way through. And that's a good way to listen to it.
Because I do Audible every single day. I do a
couple hundred books. I do at least one hundred boks
a year or so. I never not listened to some books.
And Audible has a speed thing that you can you
can just pump it up by, you know, like a
you know, like point, you know, like a five you know,

(50:56):
like double speed you know too, and a quarter speed,
thirty speed you know, like two point three times as
fast as normal, and you just get your level of
where you feel comfortable with listening. And a lot of
young people really really talk fast these days, and older
people generally don't talk as fast, so you have a
range in there. But you know, Google podcast, iHeartRadio. I mean,

(51:19):
it's all over the place, and so I hope a
lot of people listen here. But you're doing everything right,
and I appreciate you thanking me. But so anyway, I
only had five minutes to put together how I was
going to introduce the show today, and I do my
normal thing. I'll google scripture for the topic that I
want to talk about. I'll google famous quotes, I'll i'll

(51:40):
love I'll just think of a word phrase that I
might want to grab on to. Like I've never ever
in my life before used the phrase budding entrepreneur, and
I thought about that budding And so I got a
little list here, and I'm going to read them all
out because they all apply to you. But I just

(52:00):
want people to know that I love what we're doing.
And again, you know, just being able to hang a
little bit here with with somebody as young and brilliant
as you are, Okay, So I put in the phrase
young successful entrepreneur because I knew that the show was
going to be what I came up with the title
of smashing success because it's a smash burger, you know,

(52:22):
a little little you know, like I'm really creative or nine. Anyway,
I put in young successful entrepreneur and it and it
gave me these other words that emphasize talent with success.
Wonder kind. That's a word that's not used but so much.
I think that comes from a German word. Maybe it's
a person, especially a child year past that who is

(52:45):
exceptionally talented in a particular field. Now that's not that
wasn't a rising star. I brought that into the future
because you're you're you're rising a person, uh, a person
who is achieving great success and it's likely to become
very successful in the future. Absolutely slammed dunk. You know
you're well on your way there, budding business prodigy. That

(53:08):
didn't really apply to you, because you're an entrepreneur. That
sold entrepreneur that I knew that, you know, you just
put this together yourself. So prodigy though, let's see what
it said. A highly gifted young person who was shown
early and impressive entrepreneur talent. You're creating your own journey,
your own path here. You've carved it out for yourself

(53:28):
in the wilderness. I got that young business mogul. That's
a little bit later when you have like fourteen or
twenty stores. Hey. I met a guy in Chattanooga, Tennessee,
and his name is Aj Goodwin, and three weeks ago
I got introduced to him and he's got his own
podcasts and he and his mother are doing a chain
of nonprofits that they've started in Murphysburg, Tennessee called Special Kids.

(53:55):
And it's a little family story that goes behind it.
But the grandmother had a grandchild. AJ's mother. Her mother's
who the grandmother is, had a sister and they had
a child that didn't get all the special care needs
that he needed at a certain age, and he passed at

(54:16):
seventeen years old. And one of the biggest things that
Special Kids is doing is they want to provide it's
a nonprofit and they open up their second location in
Chattanooga three weeks ago. They want to go national. They
want to have them in every city in the country.
They want to have at least one hundred of them
out there, and and aj is in the McDonald's burgers.

(54:39):
So I'm I'm into. I got a network with burger people,
so I don't think I'll ever go hungry. But so oh,
you know, I meant to tell you that, you know,
I want to it's a question. You ought to know
this because you're a burger guy. The burger king is
getting married. And do you know what his girlfriend's name is,

(54:59):
dairy queen. That's who the idea of the dairy queen.
That's right, but her, but her first name is actually Patty,
Patty and you and you know what ringing gab her
is an engagement ring. You know, I told us the
will the other day and he made me feel like
an idiot because because he goes ha ha an onion ring,
he gave her an undier ring. So my wife says,

(55:19):
you better get some new material, Papa will. He is
too old for that kind of mess nowt But anyway,
the bottom line is is that the Special Kids nonprofit
that I went to Chattanooga just to go to their
ribbon cutting. One of the things they want to make
sure that all special needs kids and it's one of
the it's an area across the country that it's it's
just too many not getting what they need. And if

(55:39):
a if a child is born with certain conditions, some
of those conditions, if they don't get all the all
the all the surgeries or all the help that they
need in their like first year of life, they're not
gonna be able to live to a full life. And
and they're gonna it's a lot of stuff. So yeah,
I know, you know, doing things for others is just
probably the greatest thing we can do for ourselves here.

(56:00):
But so the other words that talk about your growth
and potential, this is a good list here. Up and
coming innovator a person who is emerging and showing great
promise and creating new products or services. Enterprising youth a
young person who was energetic, ambitious, and resourceful in business.
You got that at spades. A budding startup founder that's

(56:25):
close to what I use those words budding someone who
was in the early stages of building a successful new company.
Emerging business leader. Probably in the next five to seven years,
you're going to be in this category for sure, because
you're going to be a full leader in the industries.
Emerging business leader a young person who is beginning to
show qualities of leadership with the business world. More descriptions

(56:47):
help young trailblazer someone who was a leader in a newer,
emerging field at a young age. Young risk taker and enterprising,
young person who was willing to take significant risk for
potential rewards. Early career business tycoon a person who has
achieved great success and wealth in the business world very
early in their career. But you know, money is just
a tool, and success comes in different measurements, And what

(57:13):
would you define as what your definition is of true
successes for yourself.

Speaker 3 (57:19):
I think a lot about my parents, sort of in
the restaurant industry, A lot of these days happen, but
where you sort of get overwhelmed with the amount of
stuff that it's on your plate and things get a
little rough.

Speaker 4 (57:30):
I think about all they've done for me.

Speaker 3 (57:32):
And it would not be deserving to them if I
didn't try my hardest, so making them proud, making myself proud. Financially,
like you said, money is sort of the only quantifiable
measure of success. I want to be financially secure, but

(57:52):
I want to build something that is so much greater
than I could ever be and step back and say
that I built that That is how I'm measuring success,
especially as far as mash just goes, and going back
to what you said about how good it feels to
do things for others.

Speaker 4 (58:09):
We started a YouTube channel.

Speaker 3 (58:11):
We have gained very significant growth on our social media
exposure in the last couple of months, and on YouTube
you're able to get compensated if you hit certain benchmarks.
It always have been a passion of mine, obviously of
financial literacy and spreading financial education, but breaking it down
to how I wish it was taught to me when

(58:34):
I was younger, breaking down some specific terms communicated in
a certain way is I started creating these long form
YouTube videos. I just posted my first one two days ago,
and I planned to do bi weekly videos about teaching
financial literacy the core fundamentals to my team my current employees.
Not only that, but a lot of them do not
come from the financial situation that I did. They did

(58:54):
not have the best cards like I did growing up,
So being able to compensate them what that means getting
out the credit card debt, maybe helping that person get
their first ever vehicle based off that YouTube video, the ads,
maybe in the future doing sponsorships. I get a lot
of inspiration from the financial YouTubers that I'm currently watching,
but I want you to know that that was inspired

(59:16):
from just our first initial conversation and.

Speaker 1 (59:20):
Yeah, wow, wow, what an honor. Yeah. So one of
the things that I've learned over the last thirteen years
going into prisons five hundred times and just working with
people that made some mistakes maybe you know when we're
trying to help them. Recidivism is what it's called. When
somebody is incarcerated, they get out, and the cycle starts

(59:41):
over again on them. You know, they have a rough time,
they commit a crime, they get convicted, and they go back.
So I learned really early out in my prison work,
what is the very best way to reduce recidivism as
the goal? And once they get into the system and
they've been convicted and they go in, the odds are

(01:00:01):
against them. It's very difficult. The national percentage of people
that are incarcerated that get out and go back is
around seventy percent. And so I came up with the
answer for myself and that's where the rest of my life,
the rest of my career. In about a year, I'm
going to be retiring from most of my consulting jobs

(01:00:22):
and business type positions, and I'm going to be one
hundred percent focusing on the nonprofit foundation right thinking, and
the answer to the best way to reduce recidivism is
to get to the youth before they screw up in
the first place. And so it's all about the youth.
And that's another reason why I'm just so so privileged

(01:00:44):
to have you be on here at twenty one years old,
with who you are, what you've already done, your character,
your goals, just your focus, your articulation, everything we've talked about.
So Henry, I'm just so glad that really wanted to
go to your restaurant that day, and it's going to

(01:01:04):
be a beautiful thing. Tell everybody your YouTube channel so
people can become followers of yours.

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
So it's a at Smashers CC as in Cape Charles.
That's where we post all of our short form content.
But on the long form side is strictly financial literacy
teaching my employees.

Speaker 4 (01:01:22):
And any like.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
Subscribe anything that you can push that to help us
get to that compensation goal would be greatly appreciated.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
At Smashers CC. That's the whole thing, yes, sir, Like
if you just go on the on the internet. Can
you just sign in just using that to get in,
like you.

Speaker 4 (01:01:39):
Can go on YouTube right now.

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
You don't even have to be signed in even if
you would push you know the metrics.

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
Okay, So thank you. I want to help in any
way I can. Plus, if there's ever any conversations you
want to have to get some ideas about financial literacy.
That's what I've done my whole career. So as we
close today's show, and and I've fulfilled something that I
really really wanted to do, because I say, Willie puts

(01:02:07):
a lot of pressure on me. Have you interviewed him yet?
I come, you haven't interviewed him yet? And I'll say
he's a busy guy, Willie. We're gonna do it eventually,
but will he's been keeping tabs on it, wants to
make sure I don't lose touch with you. So we've
done it today. We'll do more of these and if
you want to teach some financial literacy to the audience
that I that I can reach, maybe some of your
audience will switch over or join up with mine too

(01:02:30):
to get some other things that I have to offer.
But you know, I go to scripture all the time, myself.
That's that's my that's my safe place, so to speak.
Is that when I was starting the show and talking
about where I am politically, what I try to do
is just say, hey, you know, I don't care what
political party you are. I don't care what you've done
with your life up to now. I'm here for you.
You know, you tell me what you want to tell me.

(01:02:51):
We go from there. That's how I do it. In prisons,
I never ask anybody what they did. I love them
no matter what, and I'm here from here on out
for him. And so I just like to to really
help people get to the truth and the things that
I emphasize, or the qualities or the attributes of character, integrity,

(01:03:12):
hard work, respect, those kind of things. And so as
I was coming up with my research that I did
in less than five minutes, usually I put hours into
it to bring you on and honor you the way
I wanted to because I because I'm so proud of you.
When I when I went into scripture for a young
successful person, it's amazing when you do on the internet.

(01:03:34):
I just put in the thought, you know, young success
scripture for young successful person. I got a whole lot
of stuff that I scanned through real quick and it
says scripture provides direction on character, humility, purpose, and how
to properly Stuart Blessings, Well, I can check those boxes
off for this interview that you did every one of

(01:03:54):
those every one of those qualities beautifully. While success often
focuses on achievement, the Bible redefines it by emphasizing his
strong faith and service to others. Again, everything that I'm
talking about that I think is what makes a person
a good person, that leads to their personal success. And
I'll just give you a I think it's got four qualities. Here.

(01:04:19):
Here are some scriptural passages that I want to read.
The passages that offer guidance in these areas guidance on
character and humility, wisdom and guidance, purpose in stewardship, perseverance,
and strength. These are the attributes the qualities that a
person must develop within themselves through their faith and their

(01:04:40):
love of other people and their ethics. Proverbs sixteen three.
Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will
be established. That's the best that I can close it
out with and say that no matter what it is
you want to do in your life, it's not about you.
It's about your service to the Lord. When you're admitted

(01:05:00):
it to the Lord, He's going to open up every
door imaginable and take you through whatever it is that
your dreams are all about. And just I think you
know where I'm coming from. I know where you're coming from.
And I just want to thank you again today for
just being the man that you are and the wisdom
and the maturity that you've gotten at such an early age.

(01:05:21):
It's the future of America and the world. And I'm
sitting here talking to you right now, and God bless you.
I just thank you so much for today.

Speaker 4 (01:05:29):
Well, thank you as well, Steve.

Speaker 3 (01:05:30):
I greatly appreciate your time, and once again thank you
for the enormous amount of come word you've given me.
And I love these kind of conversations. Anytime you want
to do this again, I will happily. I will try
to carve out a time and send you a perfected
hour block on a day that I have and to
make sure that this situation doesn't happen again. But once again,

(01:05:51):
I can't thank you enough. This has been a great conversation.
Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
You're welcome. We'll do it more and We went kind
of a long today, which is fine, but but we
could do it. We could do a thirty minute. I
think young people mostly want shorter. We could do a
thirty minute on a certain top of it. We both
agree to ahead of time and just put out some
wisdom and we can call it. The series can be
wisdom young and old, because you're young and I'm old.

(01:06:16):
So with that said, God bless everybody and look forward
to seeing you next week. Thanks henrybody, everybody have a
great week.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
Thanks for listening to right Thinking with Steve Cooper. I'll
look forward to being with you again next week. And
remember it, don't quit plan ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
It will get better.

Speaker 2 (01:06:35):
God bless you and have a great week.