Transcript of Who’s In Your Circle? Steve Smith on Mentorship

Ladies and gentlemen, this is an amazing episode with Steve Smith Senior. We actually talk more about business, and we talk about life. Steve Smith was somebody that he said if he could reinvent himself or play the game today, he would play it like Steve Smith. I'm just so proud and honored of the man that Steve Smith is. In this episode, you're going to hear some really cool stories, and you're going to hear Steve Smith talk about emotional intelligence and break it down. Ladies and gentlemen, I present The Goat, Steve Smith Senior. You're listening to Mic Unplugged, hosted by the one and only Mic Hunt.

This is where purpose meets power and stories spark transformation. Mic takes you beyond the motivation and into meaning, helping you discover your because and Becoming Unstoppable. I'm Rudy Rush, and trust me, you're in the right place.

Let's get Unplugged. Steve Smith.

How are you doing? Good morning. Good afternoon.

I appreciate you, man. You have no idea what you mean to me because there's something about you that is also in me. And you said this, being an older sibling, being the person that people looked up to, I didn't have a plan B, bro. If I was going to change the life of my mom and my sister and my brother, there wasn't representation in my household. There wasn't representation in those four walls that were going to show me how to change. I have a plan B, and I know that that's something that you've always said, too, man. Yeah. Was it?

Football was it. Football was it. For some people that's watching this and some people who put athletes in a category, the opportunity to get a scholarship, an athletic scholarship, I believe, is no different than getting a scholarship for academics, right? Because I'm very aware there's a lot of sports, now in football, who there Their whole structure is built off of having a athletic but also intelligent athlete so they can utilize and have a lot of flexibility. So like soccer, golf, some of the women's sports, that stuff is happening where they get guys who financially can afford to go to college But they also have great grades. And so where I'm going with that is no plan B was playing football. My whole eggs were in the football basket. However, what I've been able to experience and learn and be able to be mentored and taught from people in business-wise, man, yes, If I couldn't catch a football, I wouldn't have got my foot in the door. But understanding my intelligence and my willingness to learn keeps me in the door. And so, yes, I am a football player. Yes, I went to school. And what's crazy is I did not do the typical psychology.

At the time, I actually did family consumer studies. And they They had this crazy myth that one day people would be willing to... They would forfeit a gallon of gas to go get a gallon of milk. And so they were teaching us about how the consumer consumes.

Dude, that's why you are who you are, man. I tell people all the time, just about the fire that you have, the energy that you've played with. But more importantly, what you were just talking about, right? You're going to be the best no matter what it is. And to me, that's your plan A, is to dominate no matter what it is that you do, to give your all, and to learn the little details that most people don't have the patience to go do, to be different, to make a name for yourself, to make a brand for yourself. And, bro, it shows in everything that you do. So kudos to you for that, bro.

I appreciate that.

You talked about something that I think is critically important, the power of mentorship. My mentors are celebrity chef Robert Irvine and Damon.

It's like flex, but continue.

No flex. But they told me, right? Sometimes we talk about taking the stairs, and it's cool to take the stairs. But when the elevator is there, the smart person takes the elevator, right? Because nobody cares about all that you went through to get there sometimes. You still need to know the journey. But when the elevator is present, take the freaking elevator sometime. And that's what mentorship has done for me. It's like, Hey, I don't want you to make this mistake because I've already made it. Let me tell you what the journey is like, but press the elevator to the top floor so you can just go there. To me, that's what mentorship and getting in front of these rooms are. It's like, you still need your journey, but every lesson, you don't have to learn when somebody else can tell you what they've learned. Yes.

I'll tell you a quick story. Man, just by my building in business, so I started doing rental properties. I started Right after I retired, like '06. And so I'm doing these rental properties. And how I got started was I went to look at this property, and man, the property was so dilapidated. It was ridiculous. But it was a duplex. I grew up in a duplex, so I'm very aware of that. And so I'm looking through, and man, we do an inspection to go look at the property. And Section 8, because I was on Section 8 as a kid, so trying to stay in that realm. I tried to do a lot of programs with my foundation or just business-wise. My niche is... I'm a poor black kid who was unsubsidized Nice. Now, they call it snack, but... Right. Latchkey kid. And man, so a lot of the things I do are about the things that I experienced or did not have at my disposal. So I go in there in the Section 8 house, and she has the oven open on, and the tub still has water in it because of it not draining properly, not having any heat.

So she was using an oven to heat the one bedroom. And, bro, it broke me. It broke me that this landlord had reduced all these people to live in those conditions where they deserve more. Just because they are receiving assistance doesn't mean you lessen their respect of who they are as a human being. And man, so from there, I was so pissed off and angry. Man, I had a buddy of Mike Salomon. He came to my house. We sat in the basement, and I talked to on, right, about these things and laid it out to him like, This is what I want to do. Man, out of my group of people, even my mentor, he was like, No, I don't like it. You're at the end of your career. You shouldn't do this. You I shouldn't do that, bro. Then another person said the same thing. But this guy knew Mike Salomon. He was a home builder. He was like, Man, you know your numbers. If your numbers are aligned, do it. Man, I did it and ended up having some good stuff happen, having some bad stuff happen. But I rolled the roller coaster and then went into COVID, and that's That's when it showed me.

In business, I have three phases. The first five years, that's risky. Then two years later, which is the seventh year, it starts to shape out. In year 10, though, it's either the real deal or it's not. Yeah. And man, I learned that, bro. And it's been awesome. It's been awesome.

Man, so everybody that's watching, I mean, I've been a huge fan of Steve Smith forever, so I knew some of these things. You know that business mind that he had, did you? That's what I'm talking about, man. When I say you go all in in everything that you do, that's it, man. When did that become a part of who you were, or is that just always been part of that? It's No plan B?

I've always been that way, but here's the caveat. But I only do a few things, and I only do those things. It may seem like I'm doing 100. I may be doing really 50 or 75 things, but they're all intertwined, and they're all on the same page. So I'm not doing... I'm doing golf. I do football, but my golf is in between. Then I do my football, which is every week. I have those days that's slotted for studying, getting ready, preparing, and then recording. And then some of the other things I'm asked to do, I really weigh now, what is it going to cost me time-wise?

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I used to be like that. And then somebody told me a long time ago, just remember, no is a complete sentence. You don't have to justify it. You don't have to feel bad about it. No is a complete... And once I adopted that, I just started to understand, because then I realized some people just want you to say yes, or at least hear them out so that it begins to tug on your heart. And I've just been really quick to just say, Hey, I don't have it in me right now. No.

Yes, sir. I feel you.

So you talked about the one or two things. And again, there's so many things that I appreciate about you. And I think your journey. Post-career, I've gotten to see it a little bit on how you keep things simple. I remember it was one of your first analyst roles, one of the first days, and you were all set and people were going back and forth and you were like, Hey, guys, you can say all that, but the truth is this guy is just better than the other guy, and he knows it. It ain't about technique. This guy is just a better player. You can be cute, but he's just better.

Sometimes it is. Sometimes we get caught up in our head trying to overanalyze because there's so many great analysts out there. There's also so many comments about people, how they should or shouldn't do, what they don't like about them. The people that like you, they generally don't comment. They heart, they thumbs up, they watch and continue to move on, press on through their day. The haters, the people who have something to say, they're going to make sure they take the time to leave a comment. But what's crazy, we're in a world right now where people desire to leave a comment about your line of work and put you down But if you were to do that to them, it gets so offended.

Yes, sir. See, this is personal for me. I need coaching and mentoring from Steve Smith right now.

The kettle calling the pot black. Okay.

No, I need it. So, again, we have so much in common. You've got that, I guess we call it the dog, right? You've got that fire inside. I know that there were times that your team didn't share that same fire that you had. How do you, and this is for the viewers and listeners, the business leaders that are watching, how do you take your competitive fire, that streak that you have, and I don't know. When you see that your teammate doesn't have it and you want to be disappointed, but you also understand maybe that's just not them, and so you start to act a different way. How do you handle that? This is you coaching me right now.

Well, one, every situation is different. And here's the thing that I do believe. When you're a tough critic on your teammates, that can wear them down. So I would say a lot of my teammates who love me, also when they play with me, were annoyed by me, were irritated because of doing that. And it wears on people, right? Where they say, you get more bees with honey, right? But, man, ultimately, the best way you can do it is start to really analyze yourself and say, Okay, why am I reacting in that way? And then it goes to a deeper question, What am I really feeling? What's really going on? What And because you could be triggered or somebody can do something unintentionally that reminds you of another situation, and you don't even know it. And then they cross heads. And the only thing that you know is rage, disappointment, anger, all that stuff. So for me, man, I've really started to take the approach. I'm going to wait. Sometimes Sometimes I will wait a long time. There's other times where if I receive an email that I'm not liking the vibe of the email, so I already know I can't respond to Immediately.

I got to let a couple of days go by and think about it a few times. If I'm thinking about it a couple of hours later, I'm still irritated. I could be irritated, but that wasn't their attention. They didn't wake up and say, Hey, I want to I irritate you. However, what was in there that made me feel that way, that's what I got to focus on. And once I go through that long process and do that, man, I really started to be able to say yes and no, and no my own temperature.

I know you didn't do this purposely, but you just broke down the pillars of emotional intelligence, man. And that's what I speak about. That's what I get hired to Hey, don't tell people I'm intelligent.

No, shh.

Hey, but you are in the emotional intelligence, man. It's self-awareness, knowing who you are, the self-regulation, right? The taking the minute to pause or the day to pause, the motivation behind it, the social skills of communication. And the one I struggle with the most is empathy. I am probably the least empathetic person in the world.

And it sucks because you want to feel it, but you're also like, Well, got to get my hustle on. Got to move on.

Yeah, that literally is me, man. I work on that more than anything else. It's just being empathetic, showing empathy. Because when you have that grind, when you have that don't, when you don't have a plan B, sometimes empathy feels like excuses. I feel like People are giving me excuses, and I know they're not. And that's why I have to work on it every day, because it's like, if I know this is the end result that we need to get to, let's just get there. Yeah, I want to pause and listen to you, but that train ain't stopping. We still got to go. Now, I want to go to your career. Again, you played the position that my uncle played, so I feel like I know why receiver, even though I didn't play. Bro, the things that you did, that another person, your size, that had to go through the same journey that you had, would not have been able to do it. That's just me being honest because there isn't another Steve Smith. People can say what they want to. They can get mad at me, or they can go look at the facts. The facts show, the data shows there hasn't been another Steve Smith.

Do you look at it that way, too?

I would say there's There's not another Steve Smith because we all want our own names. Not that I am so unique to the world. Now, I'm unique in overall because there's no one else like me. However, there's also no one else like you either. So this isn't about who's better. So what I realized is just You just be who you are, man. You just be who you are. And that's going to be some good. And we know, damn sure, it's going to be some bad, too. So you guys surround yourself around people who really can walk things through with you, and you can trust them. And they can trust you.

That's the key. That's the key. That is totally the key. We watched the game of football today, and it doesn't seem like you retired long ago, but it seems like the game has changed so much since you retire. The things that you did on the field, just from, these are the words of Mick and Mick only, from totally punishing your opponent in a good way. People get suspended for that now, or they get looked at in a negative... But it's like, hey, sometimes C Smith just knows he's better than the person on the other side, and he doesn't need that opponent to think that he's got a chance to hang with him.

Or that goes... Here's the other part I got sidetracked on. When you go in the Hall of Fame and you go in the Hall of Fame, or they have your individual numbers and your name on the back of your jersey because they want to identify who you are. And so if they are already saying that we need to identify each player in each position, then, yes, there also will never be another Randy Moss. There are people who maybe look like him from the eye test. But there are things about Randy Moss that when God created Randy, it was only unique to him.

Yeah.

So for me, if there's another me, if there was another me or if there were other players like me, then I no longer would be needed. I would have lost my job because they can just go out. When I do something stupid, they can just go out on a corner and just grab another one.

Yeah. One of the things that I thought made... You talk about a Randy Moss. I would say you, Randy Moss, Chris Carter, had this unique skillset. And this is why my uncle said, If he could reinvent himself, he would be Steve Smith. Forget the feisiness. Forget that dog that you had. You had such a canny ability to not give tales when the ball was arriving. You would almost prepare to catch it at literally the last moment. So the DB didn't know the ball because you know playing the position, right? Dbs know when the ball is coming because the eyes raise and you start to put your hands You had this ability, last moment, bam, I showed. Tell us about that, bro, because that's a skill that most people don't have.

Yeah, it's just studying my opponents. A lot of opponents would look at your eyes or try to hit your arm. I remember studying Nate Clemens. He was with San Francisco after he had left Buffalo. I just remember studying him and watching him. And it was one of those things with him. He knew when a ball was coming, and so he rarely turned around, and he would just hit his hands. So that forced me at that time to learn a new technique, because if I didn't, I didn't eat that week.

Yes, sir.

So it was things that I picked up that I started to do. And so in football, man, You see players that have up and down seasons because every year, it's a new habit for you to break. Every single year. There are going to be things that you do well, and there are going to be things that you want to cover your eyes just because you created a new habit that you weren't even aware of because there are scouting reports and players who watch all your film to see what bad habits you have.

Yes, sir.

Also to see what good habits you have.

Yeah. And again, And that's why I love how you break things down simple. And I think I know people look at you as an analyst and they may say, Oh, well, Steve's hard on these players. But you're trying to give advice. You're actually trying to mentor them through the platform norms that you have.

Actually, I'm not. That's the crazy part. No, I'm not. I'm not trying to mentor anybody through my podcast and through my crafts. I believe mentorship is reaching out to each other and conversating. Man, sometimes I have been harsh. And so now for me is I'm trying to have that balance, too, because I am a pessimistic Paul, right? Not much optimistic Oscar. And so trying to find that balance And so what I catch myself doing is a lot of times when I do my nose, I'm saying, why is this player not going to perform well? Devil's advocate. Why did he perform well? And so I'm trying to see those balance. And the new age guys, they prefer the compliments laid on more than the criticism. Just trying to I find different words in different ways that I'm comfortable with. How I can critique but not criticize.

Okay.

Right. And give guys the benefit of the doubt. However, if the film tells enough of the story, I can't give you what you didn't earn.

Steve Smith senior is always going to tell the truth. If anything else, you're always going to tell the truth, bro. Yes, sir. You also have something that's dear to my heart. You are always active in the community. You're always trying to I don't want to say leave things better than you found them, but find ways to make impact. I think in community, you do that really well. I want to talk and give you the floor to talk about BHA for a minute because I'm a huge fan of what you're doing there and the mission behind it.

What a BHAC is the acronym for Behavioral Health Urgent Care. This urgent care is basically we do assessments. And in the assessments, and in that assessment, you're held for 23 hours. It's all volunteer. But also we have some places where most of the time people with mental health go to the emergency room. And so if you go to emergency room and you are arrested or accompanied by a police officer, now that police officer must sit in the same emergency room with that patient for however long it takes. And sometimes it could take up to 13 hours. So now these police officers who were probably off five hours ago, he still or she is still at the hospital waiting for a clinician because at the emergency room, the emergency room for mental health and emergency room for medical help. There's a difference. Yeah. There's a difference. And so by having our BHA, now police officers can drop this person off and they can go home. And then once they're assessed and there's a plan in action or the next steps, then they call the police and then they go back. And so even if they did a crime, they get the opportunity to be evaluated if it's mental health versus just going to jail, right?

Having a plan assessment. We do kids from ages four all the way to 80-year-old. And the best part about it, because a lot of the things I do is things I experience with no insurance. So if you don't have insurance, don't matter. Come on in. If you do have insurance, we'll take that, too, right? And so working with Medicaid, working with some of people in a city, in a county, man, I've learned a lot in it. I've learned a ton, and it's been awesome. Based off that, we've created hygiene kits. And so given some of these folks hygiene kits, being able... They're on the street, some of these things that they have going on, the basic necessities they don't have. So I've learned a lot in the mental health, and it all stemmed We have a medical clinic as well. But it was the first time the medical clinic in COVID, we had received in the first eight months, 1,600 hours of clinical work. And we had 6,000 medical patients, but everybody wanted to come in for counseling. And then that's when we knew that it needed to be a stand-along.

Yeah. Dude, that is so impactful, man. And again, kudos to you for addressing a need and doing something about it, because a lot of times when you and I were growing up in our community, it wasn't a thing. And even if it was a thing, you didn't want to talk about it. You didn't want Absolutely not. I go there and do it, right? So I thank you more than you know about bringing that to awareness. I'm a huge mental health advocate. I do a lot in the mental health space as well, too. But a lot of that stemmed from people like you saying, It's okay to talk about it. And then that led me to understand that, Wait a second. I didn't talk about the things that were going through my head, which was great. If people would have knew the 10 to 20-year-old me, they would have literally thought I was crazy. Some of the things that was going in my head. But I didn't have that outlet, and I just felt like the only way to get out was to get out. And so that's what I did. And so, again, I applaud you for that, bro.

I applaud you for that. And I usually start the show with this, but I'm I'm going to end it with this. I like asking my guests, what's there because? That purpose, that mission that you have. Simon Sinek said, Start with why. And you ask people what their why is, and they'll tell you whatever. I like going a little bit deeper. What's your because? If I were to say what's your why? And then say, but why, you usually say, well, because, A, B, and C. I care about what happens after because.

Because at the age and stages that I'm at right now, I'm just learning some new elements and some new layers about me that I've never really approached before. I'm really going in with such... I just got LASIK, so it's a great analogy. I'm going in with such a new vision.

It.

The blurriness. It's been two weeks now. The blurriness is starting to come away, and I'm starting, Oh, So that's what it looks like. That's what it looks like, clear, huh? Yeah.

To wake up and not have to put glasses or contacts on must feel great, bro. I've been in glasses or contacts since I was 20.

Man, do all this the first time, so I'm not really sure.

There you go. Well, Steve, man, I appreciate your time. I know how busy you are. You mean the world to me, brother. Keep impacting, keep doing the amazing things that you do, and just know that you always got somebody in your corner, bro.

Appreciate it. Thank you so much.

You got it. And to all the viewers and listeners, remember, your because is your superpower. Go unleash it. That's another powerful conversation on Mic Unplugged. If this episode moved you, and I'm sure it did, follow the show wherever you listen. Share it with someone who needs that spark, and leave a review so more people can find there because.

I'm Rudy Rush, and until next time, stay driven, stay focused, and stay Unplugged.