Speaker 1: This is cut to it with Steve Smith Senior at
Speaker 1: production of The Black Effect and I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: Steve Smith Senior and I'm a little John and this
Speaker 1: is cut to it. Good do it, Good do it.
Speaker 1: They's getting down to do it. Good do it. We
Speaker 1: asked the questions you always want to know, but no
Speaker 1: one ever asked, let's cut to it. You ain't heard
Speaker 1: am about it, then we're about to let you know.
Speaker 1: It's all. I just got back back in town, came
Speaker 1: back and I was up in though I was up
Speaker 1: in Big Sky. Was that Montana? Montana? Yeah, ain't a
Speaker 1: lot of brothers in. I was gonna say, school, Why
Speaker 1: don't you up in Big Scott? What was going on
Speaker 1: in Montana? What was going on in those Montana streets?
Speaker 1: The slopes, Montena slopes. I was. I was out their
Speaker 1: skin and it was good. It was fun. That's my
Speaker 1: um that's my happy place. Okay, it's my favorite place.
Speaker 1: It's just peaceful, man. It's uh, you're just on the mountain.
Speaker 1: No agendas. Uh, well, there's agenda not to fall and
Speaker 1: if you look to you know, try to avoid bears.
Speaker 1: Like last year we were out there and uh we
Speaker 1: left and there was a bear. Um, but it's um
Speaker 1: just a good opportunity, good good, good fellowship. There's about
Speaker 1: there's about fifteen of us, about three houses, five or
Speaker 1: six rental, all guys nice, all guys UM and these
Speaker 1: guys all most of them, majority of them, Uh you know,
Speaker 1: they went to college, like the core guys went to college.
Speaker 1: So there's some guys who went to Florida. And then
Speaker 1: I'm I'm friends with a guy that wanted core guys together. Yeah,
Speaker 1: went the four together. And then I'm friends with want
Speaker 1: of the core guys. Um, d C shout out to
Speaker 1: d C and over the ears is just they invite
Speaker 1: people that they feel um that brings something to the table,
Speaker 1: whether it's energy, uh, personality and also too, you know,
Speaker 1: are you trustworthy a little bit right? And so it's
Speaker 1: it's all good fun ski um. We eat play cards,
Speaker 1: tell jokes, talk crap to each other. So it's like
Speaker 1: it's like a it's like a Baschlard trip without the bachelornus.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no bachelors. It's it's literally it is
Speaker 1: four or five days of during the day's skin in
Speaker 1: the evenings and in the mornings you're catching up on
Speaker 1: work emails and it's just you just skiing. Man, it's um,
Speaker 1: there's some good skiers, there's some guys who don't belong.
Speaker 1: Give me the ski highlights, so ski highlight, um any
Speaker 1: new contraptions. So so so here here's what happened, right,
Speaker 1: And so when you say, man, Steve's a skier, like
Speaker 1: when I said, I just enjoyed skinning, that's my little
Speaker 1: happy place. So when I go back in my history, right,
Speaker 1: I had moonlight basin, I skied seventeen point nine miles.
Speaker 1: Uh that my max speed was forty five point eight.
Speaker 1: That was downhill. I was moving average speed sixteen ski
Speaker 1: Nissan total was sinned. So I was high as fourteen
Speaker 1: thousand four. Man, I ain't never and then just altitude
Speaker 1: nine hundred nine thousand, two hundred and fifty four and
Speaker 1: I hit twelve runs, seventeen slopes. That was day one.
Speaker 1: Day two, oh yeah, day two that's what I was.
Speaker 1: It was good, twenty three slopes, so we we showed
Speaker 1: improvement day too. Oh yeah. But but but the last
Speaker 1: day that's when I got after twenty two miles, I
Speaker 1: got as high as thirteen thousand. I was well. I
Speaker 1: switched over to this little thing called a snow snow
Speaker 1: god bike. It's like a ski it's like a tricycle
Speaker 1: for skiers and you put your feet in. I get
Speaker 1: to wear uh snowboarding boots. So if you ever skied,
Speaker 1: it puts a lot of pressure on your feet and
Speaker 1: you're locked in. Man, this snow this snow good bike.
Speaker 1: It was fire. It was skiing but without being locked in.
Speaker 1: But you have a little snowboard freeness. It's like a
Speaker 1: little hybrid eat bro. It was awesome, like is it was?
Speaker 1: It was nice, it was. It was good, especially after
Speaker 1: skiing for you know, seven eight nine hours every day
Speaker 1: and to have this one. So it was nice. Man.
Speaker 1: I enjoy skinning because it's just it's a quiet place.
Speaker 1: There's no economic status, there's no racial status. They're just
Speaker 1: you can either ski or you can't. And if you can't,
Speaker 1: only only person that really it impacts is yourself. So
Speaker 1: I enjoy it. I love it. Man. It's one of
Speaker 1: the few places, um, I could just be me right
Speaker 1: and you get on. You know, you're on the slope
Speaker 1: next to somebody and sometimes you have conversations, sometimes you don't.
Speaker 1: But it's Uh. Skiing is fun but also too if you.
Speaker 1: When you're on the ski lift. You can also people watch.
Speaker 1: You can see people who you can see who You
Speaker 1: can see people who have gotten on the slope and
Speaker 1: they realize they're green, which is easy, but they don't
Speaker 1: know they're on the blue, which is difficult or experience.
Speaker 1: Or they they're blue, but they thank they're black diamonds,
Speaker 1: and some of the black diamonds. I don't go on
Speaker 1: some of the black diamonds because of the name. So
Speaker 1: it's like that is that is that the most some
Speaker 1: black diamonds is that that's like a black belt of skin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: here's what it is. Yes, it's a black belt, which
Speaker 1: is you can get your ass. We here's some of
Speaker 1: the names of some of the black diamonds, bone crusher,
Speaker 1: sticks and stones, and the last one the wittoe maker. Oh,
Speaker 1: the widow make. Yeah that ain't that ain't good? No,
Speaker 1: that ain't good. I'm not going on that one. It's
Speaker 1: telling you if you do not belong here, you have
Speaker 1: found out, you will find out the hard way that
Speaker 1: you shouldn't have got on this. So maybe that's reserved
Speaker 1: for like your a length type of skiers. Ain't it
Speaker 1: ain't for me? That's all I know I'm not getting
Speaker 1: on anything that says you can die in their name
Speaker 1: tag widow maker. I enjoy the skin. It's nice, it's fun,
Speaker 1: it's um. You get up on that mountain clear air.
Speaker 1: Uh it was nice, and you know, it snowed a
Speaker 1: few days and it was clear. But one of the
Speaker 1: cool things is you go high enough. At one point,
Speaker 1: I was high enough that you felt like, if I
Speaker 1: can just take another ski left up, I can maybe
Speaker 1: touch the clouds on on the way up to the
Speaker 1: ski left. That's how high the mound was. It was
Speaker 1: pretty cool. And that's that's hot. That is high high.
Speaker 1: That's higher than stoop Dog. It's really I ain't never
Speaker 1: been there, but man, it was awesome. Man. I love it.
Speaker 1: I love it. It's it's just a great place. Man.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to it. And I think we got
Speaker 1: someone coming up who has their fair share of experience
Speaker 1: when it comes to skin as well. Well. Listen, if
Speaker 1: you're talking about the guy that I think you're talking about,
Speaker 1: I think so I'm gonna try sits compared to him,
Speaker 1: like I still got my training wheels on. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the cut to a podcast. Jeremy bloom um Man, Good friend. Also,
Speaker 1: are you loving time World Cup gold medalists, three time
Speaker 1: World champion, two time Olympia, former skier, farmer, NFL player,
Speaker 1: but also a Colorado University of Colorado outstanding playmaker. Thank
Speaker 1: you for coming on the cut to a podcast. Make
Speaker 1: yourself at home, get comfortable. Yes, man, We're gonna jump
Speaker 1: right into it. Listen when you're down. What makes you
Speaker 1: feel better? Ice cream cake? Okay, cream cream cookie dough oreo,
Speaker 1: you name it, um, chocolate chip cookies. I'm a big
Speaker 1: dessert guike. In fact, I learned how to ski by
Speaker 1: my grandfather throwing candy bars down the mountain. True story three,
Speaker 1: Ages three, four and five. The grand grandfather got off
Speaker 1: the lift through candy bars down the mountain, and if
Speaker 1: I was good enough to ski down and find them,
Speaker 1: I could eat them. So I've been a bit of
Speaker 1: a dessert guid my life. Have you tried that training
Speaker 1: on anyone else? Not yet, But but I have an
Speaker 1: eleven eleven month old daughter in the house. You will
Speaker 1: be learning the same way. What can what candy bar? Uh?
Speaker 1: He threw Snickers and Mars candy bars. Those were his favorites.
Speaker 1: All right, man? In place you would like to travel,
Speaker 1: but haven't done it yet? Where and why haven't you
Speaker 1: done it? I would say, I mean, I think Antarctica
Speaker 1: would be a bucket list thing. Obviously it's really hard
Speaker 1: to get down there. There's not a lot down there,
Speaker 1: but just to be able to go to all all
Speaker 1: the continents I think would be pretty special. So at
Speaker 1: some point I'd like to get down there. Um. The
Speaker 1: other one I guess would be New Zealand. I'd love
Speaker 1: to track and hike the Milford Sound down there. It's just,
Speaker 1: you know, really incredible beautiful landscape and you know, I
Speaker 1: love being outside and in the nature. So I think
Speaker 1: I think New Zealand and Antarctica are two on the list.
Speaker 1: And article is definitely on brand for you. Butther like me,
Speaker 1: ain't going to an article. I don't think a lot
Speaker 1: of people are putting that over on Brandford Jeremy Nough,
Speaker 1: What what's the most beautiful drive you've you've taken? Um?
Speaker 1: I would say, you know, you know, I was part
Speaker 1: of the United States key team for a bunch of years.
Speaker 1: We would compete. We'd start the season in Europe and
Speaker 1: we'd ski um the Pyrenees, like you know, in in France.
Speaker 1: We'd we'd ski the Alps, you know, in Switzerland, we'd
Speaker 1: see ski the Dolomites in Italy. Um, I would say,
Speaker 1: you know, nothing can compare to that, certainly nothing I've
Speaker 1: experienced in the United States, because the mountains are just
Speaker 1: so much higher, not from an elevation perspective, but the
Speaker 1: town's basically started sea level. And if the mountains go
Speaker 1: up to you know whatever, eight thousand feet, and they
Speaker 1: just they look like Mount Everest. So I would say,
Speaker 1: you know, driving in in the in the Alps or
Speaker 1: the Dolomites are the Pyrenees, it's just you know, otherworldly,
Speaker 1: it's pretty incredible over there. Um, are the Alps rowed
Speaker 1: like in Colorado and in Utah. I heard they're a
Speaker 1: little bit more dangerous. The Alps are are more there.
Speaker 1: There's less trees in the Alps, so there's not a
Speaker 1: ton of tree skiing. It's just like big mountains, open
Speaker 1: mountains and runs for days, and a lot of the
Speaker 1: ski area is in In Europe, you can ski from
Speaker 1: country to country, that's how big they are. Like you
Speaker 1: can ski from one country and go have lunch in
Speaker 1: another country and then ski back and take take the lifts.
Speaker 1: Um but you know, they do groop some of the
Speaker 1: some of the runs some of the mountains, but it's
Speaker 1: more off piece, more back country skiing than than typically
Speaker 1: like in Colorado. Is that why you have I'm assuming
Speaker 1: you have more injuries out there skiing out there, because
Speaker 1: I've heard that some of the some of the of
Speaker 1: the skiing out there is a little less um they
Speaker 1: have less warning, they have less you know, understanding where
Speaker 1: you are because you know you're in Colorado. You know
Speaker 1: a skiing utah a lot, and there's just like you
Speaker 1: know if you're going off, you know, off the trail,
Speaker 1: and I hear in Europe you you don't find out
Speaker 1: until your off the trail and down the hill you
Speaker 1: are spot on, Steve, That's exactly how it is. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're the land of regulations here in the United States.
Speaker 1: We have regulations for the regulations, and that certainly plays
Speaker 1: out in skiing. Like you don't have to be very
Speaker 1: intelligent or a good skier to follow the regulations in
Speaker 1: the United States. But yes, over and over in Europe, um,
Speaker 1: they they don't really tell you if you're going off
Speaker 1: peace or off mountain. You really have to pay attention
Speaker 1: to like the runs because you will find yourself so
Speaker 1: in the complete back country, and those back country runs
Speaker 1: would be a black diamond or or or harder blue.
Speaker 1: Then you would anticipate where you know and like Utah
Speaker 1: or Colorado, you can you'll see it as well lit
Speaker 1: and understand you go down this, well, this is now
Speaker 1: a mogul right and am I am I off base
Speaker 1: because going going to the Swiss helps is one of
Speaker 1: those that that's that's one of my bucket lists that
Speaker 1: I'm I'm going to do. But I'm also a little
Speaker 1: bit hesitant because of the runs just aren't well, uh,
Speaker 1: they don't have a lot of good direction. Now, you'll
Speaker 1: be fine as long as you pay attention. And you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta go to Zermatt. If you go to Switzerland,
Speaker 1: you've gotta skiser Mat. It's probably the best ski area
Speaker 1: in the world. Um, it's the Paramount Paramount pictures. You
Speaker 1: know the mountain from the Paramount. That's that's where the
Speaker 1: mountains you know comes from. It's it's it's in Zermatt, Switzerland.
Speaker 1: It's incredible. It's an incredible town. Um, I'm sure you
Speaker 1: will be great on skis. I don't know how much
Speaker 1: you've skiwed before I went to snowboarding with Troy palamalo
Speaker 1: Um and it was hilarious because he snowboards just like
Speaker 1: he played football. Like he's just absolutely fearless, like trying
Speaker 1: backflips when he had no business doing backflips, and you know,
Speaker 1: he's just you know, you guys are guys are fearless.
Speaker 1: And I've been skiing since two thousand three college. Did
Speaker 1: you ski when you went to Yeah? I skied out there,
Speaker 1: and then once I was done, once I graduated, once
Speaker 1: I left college, I started skiing. So I ski now
Speaker 1: and I go to Utah. I primarily go to Utah.
Speaker 1: I've been a breaking ridge. I think it was a
Speaker 1: breaking ridge. We've been a breaking ridge. That you were
Speaker 1: with me, you were you were with me when my
Speaker 1: GPS didin't regulated and just yet, no, when you're saying
Speaker 1: I was with Colorado Colorado, I still don't remember the name.
Speaker 1: So he was in I know it was in Veil,
Speaker 1: so I think it was breaking ridge. So we did
Speaker 1: breaking Ridge, um. But mainly I do the canyons because
Speaker 1: I have an epic paths, so that's that's where I
Speaker 1: liked going. And I'm one of those guys too, like uh,
Speaker 1: I don't need them, but I've had them long enough.
Speaker 1: I need some new ski boots. And then because I
Speaker 1: need new ski boots, I needed some new new ski pants.
Speaker 1: Just go to hold, just go to whole nine, get
Speaker 1: the whole Yeah, absolutely, like, yeah, I think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do that. I think the only thing I want. Said
Speaker 1: you look good, but you don't buy. I think I
Speaker 1: hear yeah he said yeah, but yeah, I didn't see
Speaker 1: something was a little really good on the left, Brothers,
Speaker 1: get off the left. I just I just drink. So
Speaker 1: all right, let's get into a man. Where are you
Speaker 1: from in the place you call your hometown. I'm from Loveland, Colorado,
Speaker 1: born and raised. It's northern Colorado, kind of outside of Boulder,
Speaker 1: and I went to school at the University of Colorado,
Speaker 1: played football there, made a couple of stints in the NFL,
Speaker 1: the Pittsburgh Steelers and in the philip the Eagles. So
Speaker 1: lived out on the East Coast for a little bit,
Speaker 1: and then, you know, for the last decade, I've been
Speaker 1: really focused on building a nonprofit Wish of a Lifetime.
Speaker 1: We grant wishes to nine hundred year old people. It's
Speaker 1: been just an incredible journey and then building a company,
Speaker 1: UM Integrated and we're enterprise software business, and we were
Speaker 1: recently acquired by a private equity firm by the name
Speaker 1: of Autex. It's based in Boston, and so it's a
Speaker 1: great milestone for everybody involved in the business and about
Speaker 1: thank you, about three employees globally. And now we're working
Speaker 1: inside of Audex to to build an even bigger business.
Speaker 1: So those two things keep me pretty busy. But I'm
Speaker 1: currently residing back in Colorado. UM and living in Boulder
Speaker 1: still feels like you just scratching the surface and all
Speaker 1: the things you're either doing or have done. You just
Speaker 1: a man of many gifts and talents. I'm grateful I've
Speaker 1: been very blessed and been able to, you know, just
Speaker 1: just try a lot of different things in life, from football,
Speaker 1: the skiing, to building a nonprofit, building a business, to
Speaker 1: being on the front lines of bringing name, image and
Speaker 1: likeness to to college athletes. Of course, I had my
Speaker 1: own battles with against Double A, you know, when I
Speaker 1: was in Colorado. Get into that, because I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't really realize the extent of what
Speaker 1: you have to deal with personally found you know, professionally
Speaker 1: and what it did, how it held you back, how
Speaker 1: it impacted you, um you know amateurly and and and professionally.
Speaker 1: You know how what it did to Yo psyche as well.
Speaker 1: So we'll get into that. But man, um man, growing
Speaker 1: up in Colorado the mountains, skiing, snowboarding, and you were
Speaker 1: destined to do extreme sports. But what what what really
Speaker 1: captured your heart and having such a strong desire to
Speaker 1: want to do sports at at such a young age
Speaker 1: and what was that age? Yeah, it really happened because
Speaker 1: it too defining moments in my life. The first was
Speaker 1: and I was born in nineteen eighty two. John Elwood
Speaker 1: was drafted in nineteen eighty two. We were a huge
Speaker 1: Denver Bronco fans, so from a very young age, I
Speaker 1: would watch the Denver Broncos play football every Sunday with
Speaker 1: my with my dad. So I wanted to be John
Speaker 1: Elway from a very young age. Of football really was
Speaker 1: the dream. First, I only grew to five ft nine,
Speaker 1: so the idea of being a quarterback was kind of
Speaker 1: thrown out the window and was moved to receiver in
Speaker 1: high school. And then when I was ten years of age, Um,
Speaker 1: I saw the Olympics for the first time the Winter
Speaker 1: Olympics and I saw skiing, and I saw a guy
Speaker 1: by the name of Edgar gross Berraun win an Olympic
Speaker 1: gold medal in front of his hometown crowd in Team France.
Speaker 1: And it was really at that moment. And you know,
Speaker 1: I've been skiing for about seven years, just casually as
Speaker 1: you know, with my family, it's really at that moment
Speaker 1: where I told my parents I wanted to skiing the
Speaker 1: Olympics and I wanted to play in the NFL. And
Speaker 1: then I wanted to dedicate my my whole life, you know,
Speaker 1: my my childhood an earlier adulthood to to you know,
Speaker 1: trying to live out both of those dreams. So I
Speaker 1: knew pretty young, um that I wanted to be a
Speaker 1: skier and a football player. What was your parents response
Speaker 1: when you said you want to do both of those things?
Speaker 1: That he said he wanted to dedicate his life. I know.
Speaker 1: That's why I want to ask, as from a from
Speaker 1: a standpoint, what was their response, because I know my
Speaker 1: mom would go somewhere, I want to dedicate my life
Speaker 1: to ski like that is that is such abnormal statement
Speaker 1: for a kid like I want to be a not
Speaker 1: I want to be a football player. I want to
Speaker 1: be a skier. But when you say I want to
Speaker 1: dedicate my life, I'm just I'm like, you know, just
Speaker 1: trying to get clean your room. Hey, brother, just trying
Speaker 1: to get accrustable. Seriously, what was the response? So, so,
Speaker 1: both my parents have always had a healthy disrespect for
Speaker 1: the impossible, and so you know, both of them said,
Speaker 1: you know you can do that if you attack your dreams,
Speaker 1: and they you know, they conditioned us at a pretty
Speaker 1: young age to know that life wasn't going to give
Speaker 1: us any handouts. You know, we weren't kids that you know,
Speaker 1: if we fell down and hurt ourselves, we weren't allowed
Speaker 1: to complain for too long. We were getting up putting
Speaker 1: some duct tape on it, and you know, we were
Speaker 1: were keep you know, we were going to keep moving
Speaker 1: and if we if we didn't succeeded something, we were
Speaker 1: never allowed to kind of blame other people. So, you know,
Speaker 1: we were conditioned at a young age to know that, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, life is hard. Accomplishing great things is really hard,
Speaker 1: and if you want to be world class and anything,
Speaker 1: you better work harder than anybody else, and you better
Speaker 1: go attack your dreams and goals, and so that was
Speaker 1: kind of the framework in which way you know, my brother,
Speaker 1: sister and I were raised, and so you know, at TWN,
Speaker 1: I knew that if I wanted to do that, I
Speaker 1: did have to dedicate my life, I did have to
Speaker 1: work harder than anybody else. And if I did that,
Speaker 1: and then when I went and attack it, then who knows,
Speaker 1: maybe I could acknowledge it. I love cut to It,
Speaker 1: and I love it even more when you download us
Speaker 1: and subscribe and you can follow us on social media
Speaker 1: to Smithie where where at at cut to It? On Instagram?
Speaker 1: What about twitter? At cut to It? Facebook? Cut to
Speaker 1: It feature in Steve Smith sing your what about online
Speaker 1: and you can follow Louis that cut to It podcast
Speaker 1: dot um where you can buy merch and you can
Speaker 1: subscribe to this wherever you listen to podcasts. I got
Speaker 1: all my answers questions, UM, yeah, I got all my
Speaker 1: questions answered. That's what I'm here for, a brother cut
Speaker 1: to a podcast dot com. How did you attack from
Speaker 1: that point forward? UM? I really focused on putting in
Speaker 1: more hours than anybody else. And whether that was kind
Speaker 1: of in at the regional levels of skiing in the
Speaker 1: early days where I was just competing with folks and
Speaker 1: kids in Colorado. I would observe what they did. I
Speaker 1: would I would see how they trained, I would see
Speaker 1: how long did they spent on it, and I would
Speaker 1: try to just do more um and and same in
Speaker 1: in football. I had to do more in football. I was,
Speaker 1: you know, I think I was born with more ability
Speaker 1: and skiing. From a very young age, coaches said, gosh,
Speaker 1: you you know you could ski in the Olympics. You
Speaker 1: have a you have a pretty pretty good ability. I
Speaker 1: was the smallest kid on every football field I ever
Speaker 1: stepped on, and most people outside of my inner circle
Speaker 1: would would would commonly say, like, what do you do
Speaker 1: and playing football? You're gonna get hurt. You're a good skier,
Speaker 1: maybe you got a future there quits quit football and
Speaker 1: go focus on skiing. But but again, you know, I
Speaker 1: watched guys like Steve Smith, you know, and and Steve
Speaker 1: knows this, but like, there was no receiver who I
Speaker 1: looked up to more my entire life, and Steve Smith
Speaker 1: and I watched thousands of hours. And Steve was nice
Speaker 1: enough to send me some some clips when I was
Speaker 1: at um at the Eagles on how to get off
Speaker 1: the line of scrimmage against press coverage, and nobody did
Speaker 1: it better period, Like I'll go to battle that one
Speaker 1: and and played you know, at five nine, but played
Speaker 1: like six ft four. I I tried to embody everything
Speaker 1: that's Steve that you you you brought to the to
Speaker 1: the football field, and that helped me a lot, because
Speaker 1: I don't think inherently just from a you know, a
Speaker 1: hype weight skill set perspective, I should have had success
Speaker 1: in college. I should have been drafted the NFL. I
Speaker 1: think I really had to try to overachieve and and
Speaker 1: try to work really hard, um to be able to
Speaker 1: having success that that I didn't support. Well, that leads
Speaker 1: me to you know one, first of all, I appreciate
Speaker 1: and I appreciate you telling your fans and our fans
Speaker 1: just the willingness that you had. And then also obviously
Speaker 1: the report that we had when you were you know,
Speaker 1: just coming out and just being drafted. And you know,
Speaker 1: I always I watched them and they were talking about this, uh,
Speaker 1: this low receiver, this low returner. What I saw was
Speaker 1: a guy who was dynamic, who was an instant impact
Speaker 1: player at Colorado. UM. I just love the way he played. UM.
Speaker 1: But really What caught my attention was all of the
Speaker 1: who blah, to get you on the football field, and
Speaker 1: we'll get we'll still we're still holding that tight. But
Speaker 1: with all the success that you had at such a
Speaker 1: young age, how much was football still tugging at you?
Speaker 1: Because you are now you're you're talking about at the
Speaker 1: By the age of fifteen, he became the youngest freestyles
Speaker 1: scared to ever make the US ski team. Hey, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're on the biggest stages, You're in all these different countries,
Speaker 1: and yet that pig scale was still called. It never
Speaker 1: stopped calling Steve ever, you know, not after I won
Speaker 1: my first World championship, not after I made my first
Speaker 1: hold on, hold on? How old were you? First years old?
Speaker 1: What what did that do for you? It was a
Speaker 1: surreal moment in my life because I won that World
Speaker 1: championship the same year that I was named as a
Speaker 1: freshman All American at the University of Colorado. And I'm
Speaker 1: sitting here at nineteen thinking of myself. I'm living out
Speaker 1: my wildest childhood dreams. And on on one hand, I
Speaker 1: was just over the moon excited because the feeling of
Speaker 1: being the best in the world, of knowing there's not
Speaker 1: a single other person on this planet who is better
Speaker 1: at what you do. Improving that I was able to
Speaker 1: do in skiing is an incredible feeling. But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, it really made me start thinking about life
Speaker 1: after sports, because it's like, Okay, I'm like nineteen on
Speaker 1: top of the world. It's not gonna last forever. Where
Speaker 1: am I going to put all this passion that I
Speaker 1: have um for football and skiing when when it's all
Speaker 1: over and I was really you know, that fear of
Speaker 1: living an unfulfilled life beyond sports really drove me to
Speaker 1: kind of plant a lot of different seeds outside of
Speaker 1: athletics over the next decade from nineteen or twenty nine.
Speaker 1: That ultimately led me to the path I am now um,
Speaker 1: but but anytime gosh, winning the world championship, being the
Speaker 1: best in the world and knowing that all the blood
Speaker 1: swept two years, long hours, you know, all the failures
Speaker 1: along the way, we're just avenged and I'm the best
Speaker 1: in the world was a really cool feeling. But from
Speaker 1: a mental standpoint, how are you? How are you balancing that?
Speaker 1: I had to learn how to balance it, really um,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't good at it in the beginning. It's
Speaker 1: and it's a bit ironic because in third grade, I
Speaker 1: probably you know, spent more time practicing my autograph than
Speaker 1: I did in math or science or any other subject.
Speaker 1: I always had this drive to be known in the world,
Speaker 1: to be famous in the world, and then I reached
Speaker 1: the level of notoriety and and and fame, and I
Speaker 1: absolutely hated it. I hated the fact that people I
Speaker 1: didn't know had a preconceived notion of who I was.
Speaker 1: And you know, I read too many press clippings at
Speaker 1: that age, and I would, you know, get really down
Speaker 1: on you anytime somebody would say something bad about me.
Speaker 1: So you know, I wasn't very good at at nineteen
Speaker 1: or twenty or twenty one. It took me a couple
Speaker 1: of years to kind of figure out how to deal
Speaker 1: with that type of spotlight. I think it's fair to say,
Speaker 1: you you are becoming one of the youngest freestyle skiers
Speaker 1: at age fifteen, your champion at nineteen, I'm going out
Speaker 1: on a limb. It's pretty safe to say you're really
Speaker 1: just discovering puberty, hormones, success failure. You're learning about your
Speaker 1: own heart as you are developing it and experiencing these
Speaker 1: things for the very first time. And yet you got
Speaker 1: these grown folk who don't even know you writing articles
Speaker 1: that impacts who people perceive you to be. And yeah,
Speaker 1: you barely know yourself based on this new Jeremy Bloom,
Speaker 1: you're Jeremy Bloom, the youngest freestyle on the Olympic team
Speaker 1: or the US ski team. A year and a half later,
Speaker 1: two years later, three years later, four years later, you're
Speaker 1: Jeremy Blue. Who's nineteen, who's eighteen. You're figuring it out
Speaker 1: as you go, but you are a young man experiencing
Speaker 1: grown men achievements and talking to grown men and women
Speaker 1: who are now judging you with the same critical I
Speaker 1: but not giving you that grace of a little kid.
Speaker 1: That you are so well said, and that that resonates
Speaker 1: with me. Every word you said resonates with me. And
Speaker 1: at eighteen or nineteen, to your point, you don't, you don't.
Speaker 1: I didn't know who I was at all, And the
Speaker 1: more that I would read these articles, to some extent,
Speaker 1: I would build my identity through what people were writing
Speaker 1: because I didn't know who I was. So I was
Speaker 1: very influence able, just like any eighteen or nineteen year old.
Speaker 1: So you know, I did obviously had to get to
Speaker 1: a point where I stopped reading the articles, and that
Speaker 1: was that was a big step for you know, for me,
Speaker 1: and I'm lucky. Look like you know, I've lived a
Speaker 1: life in a career where most the articles have been positive. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not a superpolarizing figure. Where I've done a lot
Speaker 1: of controversial things in my life, you know, most of
Speaker 1: them were you know, pretty positive. I couldn't imagine being
Speaker 1: someone who's a bit more polarizing at a young age.
Speaker 1: And and and not only you know, reading what's in
Speaker 1: the press, but to your point earlier point, if you
Speaker 1: have a Twitter handle, you know, now you've got a
Speaker 1: microphone and you can say whatever you want and tagged
Speaker 1: the person. It's um, it's no wonder that where why
Speaker 1: you know, mental health issues are you know, on are
Speaker 1: just skyrocketing, especially you know for young kids. How important
Speaker 1: was your support system and huge and how good was
Speaker 1: the support system? I was really lucky from a support
Speaker 1: system perspective, because both my parents have been very involved
Speaker 1: in my life and great advisors. Both my brother and
Speaker 1: sister have always kept me grounded and humbled. I'm the
Speaker 1: youngest and I've never been super cool to them no
Speaker 1: matter what I've what I've accomplished. And you know, my dad,
Speaker 1: you know, instill the behavior of being becoming a champion
Speaker 1: inside of me and my mom and still the behavior
Speaker 1: of giving back and being humble and and and trying
Speaker 1: to treat people great respect. And so I had, you know,
Speaker 1: I was very lucky with the parents that I had
Speaker 1: growing up to to instill those values. And then you know,
Speaker 1: I was really fortunate to just meet some exceptional people
Speaker 1: at a young age. I met John Elway when I
Speaker 1: was a really young guy, and I, you know, was
Speaker 1: able to communicate with him and be around him and
Speaker 1: look up to him. I get met guys like you,
Speaker 1: Steve and and Ben Roethlisberger and Hines Ward and these
Speaker 1: guys at a very young age, and so I was
Speaker 1: able to kind of emulate what what they were doing.
Speaker 1: And in skiing this the same thing was true. You know,
Speaker 1: you befriending world champions at the age of twelve fourteen.
Speaker 1: I've always been a big believer like, if you can
Speaker 1: surround yourself with people who are doing it at the
Speaker 1: highest level, and you you pay attention to what they're doing,
Speaker 1: and you're a sponge in the room, you got a
Speaker 1: great chance of maybe becoming them one day. And and
Speaker 1: and uh so I've I've I feel like I'm just
Speaker 1: a product of a lot of the great, amazing people
Speaker 1: I have been around in my life. Take us through
Speaker 1: this whole amateur status back in the day, n C
Speaker 1: double a, you're skinning playing football, like, take us through that.
Speaker 1: I don't want to press you, but you know, it's
Speaker 1: been it's been a while, so I just want to,
Speaker 1: you know, give me some statute of limitations. So I
Speaker 1: just want you to give your take of what you
Speaker 1: experience as the individual going through it. My situation was that,
Speaker 1: you know, I graduated high school. Um, I took that
Speaker 1: next year off to go competed in the Olympics. I
Speaker 1: just went to the Olympics. Where was the Olympics at
Speaker 1: that time? That you took a year, you took a
Speaker 1: gap year. I took in Salt Lake City, Okay, So
Speaker 1: you know, I went to the Olympics, and then I
Speaker 1: enrolled in the University of Colorado and I had a
Speaker 1: full ride scholarship there. When I enrolled in the University Colorad,
Speaker 1: I was nineteen. I was the number one ranks skier
Speaker 1: in the world and in an Olympian and the n
Speaker 1: C double A said, all right, well, if you're gonna,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna play amateur football for the color of buffaloes,
Speaker 1: you can't accept any money and skiing because that would
Speaker 1: make you a professional. But I said, well, wait, that's
Speaker 1: hypocritical because you allow other amateur athletes to be professional
Speaker 1: in one sport and an amateur and another couple of examples,
Speaker 1: Drew Henson made over one point five million dollars playing
Speaker 1: professional baseball and amateur football at Michigan. Rickie Williams did
Speaker 1: the same in Texas, and there's a bunch of other examples.
Speaker 1: And so I said, well, how is that any different.
Speaker 1: I'm a skier, you know, No, I don't play baseball,
Speaker 1: but I'm skiing for the United States. And anyway, they
Speaker 1: said no, no, no, and I sued them in Boulder
Speaker 1: District Court. Unfortunately, my my judge sided with the n
Speaker 1: C double A was reluctant to modernize the system and
Speaker 1: structure at that point in time. So I had to,
Speaker 1: you know, tear up all my endorsement contracts and any
Speaker 1: ability to make money as a skier and pay for
Speaker 1: my you know, it's very expensive to fly around the
Speaker 1: world and have coaches or whatever. UM. And I did
Speaker 1: that for two years, playing for the University color Otto, UM,
Speaker 1: not accepting any endorsements or accepting any victory money for
Speaker 1: skiing because I, you know, I had a dream to
Speaker 1: play for the car of Buffalos. And then after my
Speaker 1: sophomore year, I was just broke and I wanted to
Speaker 1: go to the two thousand and six Olympics in Italy.
Speaker 1: I knew I wouldn't be able to do it unless
Speaker 1: I accepted endorsements, and so I accepted endorsements. I told
Speaker 1: the unstable and I'm not leaving that after kicking me
Speaker 1: out of school, and they waited about six seven months,
Speaker 1: and right before fall camp my junior season, they declared
Speaker 1: me permanently ineligible for taking ski ski endorsement money. What
Speaker 1: did that do to I? Was? I was infuriated. I
Speaker 1: was so piste off. I you know, it was the
Speaker 1: hardest pill I think I've probably ever had to swallow,
Speaker 1: because here I was, I worked so incredibly hard to
Speaker 1: be in this position, UM, to to have an opportunity
Speaker 1: to play college football, to have an opportunity to skip
Speaker 1: for the United States. My coaches on both sides for Fine.
Speaker 1: I was having a lot of success in both sports,
Speaker 1: and an organization that I didn't know a single person
Speaker 1: that ever spoke anybody yet in Indianapolis took away my
Speaker 1: dream of being the number one receiver on my car
Speaker 1: to Buffalo team my junior and senior season. My sophomore year,
Speaker 1: I was the number three receiver behind two very good receivers.
Speaker 1: One went off went to play in the NFL, the
Speaker 1: other one was a free agent for a while. And
Speaker 1: that's really what I wanted to do. I wanted to
Speaker 1: be the number one receiver. I wanted to have a
Speaker 1: chance to prove that I could be number one receiver
Speaker 1: on a on a team. That development that I would
Speaker 1: have gotten my junior and senior year is is invaluable.
Speaker 1: I never got that And to think that it was
Speaker 1: all taken away from me by this, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of nameless organization in Midnapolis, n C double A who
Speaker 1: you know, the judge, the jury, the execution or what
Speaker 1: they say go. They don't have to be held accountable
Speaker 1: to anybody. Um. It was frustrating. It was really really
Speaker 1: frustrating for me, and it was hard to go back
Speaker 1: to the games. You know, I would go to some
Speaker 1: of the games watch from the stands and just it
Speaker 1: would eat me up inside, absolutely me up inside. And
Speaker 1: what way did they plant some of the seeds of
Speaker 1: what you're doing now some of you were with integrate.
Speaker 1: How much did that kind of I don't know, you
Speaker 1: probably didn't know then, but how did that point those seats? Well,
Speaker 1: the seeds that it really planned was I was going
Speaker 1: to dedicate whatever portion I needed to in my life
Speaker 1: to fight for name, image and like to fight for
Speaker 1: student athlete rights because I didn't want anybody. I didn't
Speaker 1: want another athlete to ever have to go through what
Speaker 1: I went through. And so I testified in Congress on
Speaker 1: d process in the n double a. UM. We put
Speaker 1: out a documentary last year on on on Vice called
Speaker 1: College Sports Game, which they did a phenomenal job telling
Speaker 1: story of amateurism. UM. I've answered every call from every
Speaker 1: state senator, worked closely with senators from California to Colorado
Speaker 1: to work on the image and likeness, and you know,
Speaker 1: unfortunately we got there, you know, and now we're living
Speaker 1: in in a time where student athletes have rights and
Speaker 1: not only do they have rights in another sport like
Speaker 1: I was asked for that they have rights in their
Speaker 1: own sports. So like you know, they can capitalize on
Speaker 1: their name, image and likeness and ability, and I think
Speaker 1: that's what's right. I know that it's going to create
Speaker 1: some complexities for athletic directors and and coaches. You know,
Speaker 1: you got the transfer portal now and people can freely transfer,
Speaker 1: and you got some other challenges. But but you know,
Speaker 1: ultimately comes down to a civil rights issue of those kids.
Speaker 1: That's their ability, that's their name, it's their image, it's
Speaker 1: their likeness. If they want to monetize it, to monetize it,
Speaker 1: they should be able to do it, just like you can. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they should be able to monetize it because the colleges
Speaker 1: are monetized. And what most people don't realize when they
Speaker 1: even think about those numbers is that you know, they think, well,
Speaker 1: you know, the n C double A pays for scholarships,
Speaker 1: or these schools pay for the scholarships and it comes
Speaker 1: out of the athletic department. Well that's not the case.
Speaker 1: In most of the big schools. You have individual donors.
Speaker 1: Had a scholarship donor Neiversity Colora who paid for my education,
Speaker 1: and individual Roy Durbin was his name. So the university
Speaker 1: Colorado didn't pay for my education and didn't pay for
Speaker 1: my education. Roy Durbin did. And so all the billions
Speaker 1: of dollars that's coming in through through college athletics and
Speaker 1: certainly football and basketball, all of that's going to who cool,
Speaker 1: it's going to the coaches, it's it's going to schools,
Speaker 1: and none of it, very very little, hardly any of
Speaker 1: it is going to the people on the field who
Speaker 1: the people buy tickets to go see. How about how
Speaker 1: about this my scholarship Stephen Angie Smith Wide Receiver Scholarship.
Speaker 1: Every year I get the new name and a plaque
Speaker 1: of the receiver they reached the benefit of my scholarship.
Speaker 1: The wide Receiver's meeting room at the University of Utah.
Speaker 1: Steve Smith, wide Receiver calling about seventy five the music
Speaker 1: that has played coming out of the tunnel before the
Speaker 1: home game at the University of Utah. Mm hmm. I
Speaker 1: wrote to check for being part of the school. I
Speaker 1: start to see, like, wow, now I get to see
Speaker 1: when I was the player, I didn't realize the tunnel
Speaker 1: wheel coming out of, or the or the seat cushion
Speaker 1: I was sitting in someone else paid for. I do
Speaker 1: believe the honor of pain. Because a complete stranger paid
Speaker 1: for my tush to be cushioned before the game, that
Speaker 1: I am responsible for reciprocating the same thing, Shaky Smith.
Speaker 1: I think he was a receiver. I don't think I
Speaker 1: ever met him, but it's the point of it's not
Speaker 1: about who he was, it was the purpose of who
Speaker 1: he could be, the same way the complete stranger said
Speaker 1: who I can be. And so I think it's my
Speaker 1: inherent right and duty to pay for that complete stranger
Speaker 1: the same way a complete stranger pay for me. Forward, Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: because if it wasn't for that complete stranger, there's a
Speaker 1: trickle down in fact that I don't want to know
Speaker 1: what I would have not experienced. I probably wouldn't be
Speaker 1: I know, for a factor, I wouldn't have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to be doing this podcast. I and they're going to
Speaker 1: be friends with you because of that complete stranger, because
Speaker 1: of that cushioncy good do it, Good do it. Let's
Speaker 1: get down to do it. Hey, Gerard, why did you
Speaker 1: get that T shirt? You mean? Oh yes, I got
Speaker 1: it from Cut to a podcast dot com, where we
Speaker 1: have exclusive merchandise. Shout out to our guys at seven
Speaker 1: or four shot. But yeah, you can go on, buy
Speaker 1: you a T shirt, subscribe to us wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to podcasts. What added pressure did you feel after getting drafted,
Speaker 1: having to walk away from skiing and then started, you know,
Speaker 1: a new venture in the area that you you believe
Speaker 1: exactly what you wanted, but you went to a place
Speaker 1: that it's a little brun It ain't like Colorado. I
Speaker 1: can tell you that you got drafted by the Philadelphicia Eagles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know a twenty three when I got drafted,
Speaker 1: that's in time. I knew how to deal with pressure.
Speaker 1: I had skied into Olympics, I played in big twelveth
Speaker 1: championship games. So it wasn't the pressure that I think
Speaker 1: got to me at all. It was it was the
Speaker 1: attention of being a rookie on a team without proving
Speaker 1: any of my worth and having all the cameras on
Speaker 1: me that bothered me. And that also bothered me at
Speaker 1: the University Colorado when I was a freshman, before I
Speaker 1: did anything because because of the two sport nature of it,
Speaker 1: and the last thing I wanted to do was you know,
Speaker 1: turn off my new teammates to you know, the the
Speaker 1: attention that I was receiving. So I try to do,
Speaker 1: you know, the best to minimize that. The biggest challenge
Speaker 1: I had in the NFL was I hadn't run with
Speaker 1: cleats on for two straight years. I underestimated the impact
Speaker 1: that that would have um And so the you know,
Speaker 1: the muscles that you used to to really sprint and
Speaker 1: be a receiver and cut and get out of brakes
Speaker 1: like the hamstrings and and some of the calf muscles
Speaker 1: that you don't use, and skiing just for underdeveloped, not
Speaker 1: at all, it's not at all. You're literally in a
Speaker 1: so like you know, like two years I not. You know,
Speaker 1: if I had to do it over, I just I
Speaker 1: would have crossed trained more during that two thousand, five
Speaker 1: thousand and six having up to the the Olympics, because when
Speaker 1: I got and it didn't happen immediately, but when I
Speaker 1: got into training camp and you know, Steve, like how
Speaker 1: many miles you need to sprint during those training camps
Speaker 1: and your body's got to be really well conditioned to
Speaker 1: take on you know that that type of situation, My
Speaker 1: answering just popped, you know, it reached the point where
Speaker 1: it didn't have the stamina and enter the mussels in it,
Speaker 1: and uh that that created a challenging situation for me.
Speaker 1: That's what I found so interested when we were get
Speaker 1: ready to talk with you, is that being a two
Speaker 1: sport athlete is one thing, but you were two sport
Speaker 1: athletes that use very very distinct muscle groups. Right, Like
Speaker 1: you just talked about your feet being in boots, Whereas
Speaker 1: when you're playing football, you're having to use so many
Speaker 1: foot movements, right, cuts, getting out of brakes, all that stuff.
Speaker 1: So like, how how are you able? I mean, of course,
Speaker 1: you know, unfortunately it ended with your hamstring, but throughout
Speaker 1: when you were playing in high school and in college,
Speaker 1: how were you able to balance these two sports from
Speaker 1: a from a physical standpoint that are so unparalleled. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a great point. You know, the physiology is completely different. Um,
Speaker 1: the anatomy is completely different. Um. But as I was
Speaker 1: growing up, I would I would always cross train. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, ski season would end in April May I
Speaker 1: was playing football, and it would happen that like you know,
Speaker 1: like like clockwork. And it wasn't until the n C
Speaker 1: Double A took away my scholarship and kind of forced
Speaker 1: me to focus only on skiing for for those two
Speaker 1: years that I just didn't play football anymore, and I
Speaker 1: just said, all right, I'm just gonna focus on on
Speaker 1: skiing and you know, being the best year I can be,
Speaker 1: and then maybe I'll have an opportunity to to go
Speaker 1: play football. And uh that you know, I paid the
Speaker 1: price for doing that, so you know I was able
Speaker 1: to balance that, you know, most of my athletic career,
Speaker 1: but but it had had a bit of a breaking point. Um.
Speaker 1: You know in the NFL, what what do you learn
Speaker 1: from pro skia and what do you learn from pro football?
Speaker 1: Football is obviously a team sport. You know, you win
Speaker 1: and die as a team. You can have your best
Speaker 1: individual game ever and lose and you're you're gonna feel
Speaker 1: pretty pretty crappy. Um. And skiings and individual sport, right,
Speaker 1: so you're either best in the world or not that day,
Speaker 1: and it's your fault if you aren't. So Um, there's
Speaker 1: kind of this singular accountability nature to to skiing. Um. Look,
Speaker 1: I don't think that there's anything like the Olympics, you know,
Speaker 1: walking and opening ceremonies and representing the country and being
Speaker 1: around the world's best athletes and lots of different disciplines
Speaker 1: to you know, living in the Olympic village for for
Speaker 1: three weeks to a month and meeting a lot of
Speaker 1: other incredible athletes. You know, it was the honor of
Speaker 1: my life to represent the country twice in the Olympics.
Speaker 1: That being said, football in America it's the biggest sport
Speaker 1: in our country. I mean it's it's every week seventy
Speaker 1: eight thousand people on on a national TV. And that
Speaker 1: excitement that thrilled, that pressure, that magnifying glass. You know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to it's hard to duplicate that. You certainly
Speaker 1: can't duplicate it in skiing because in skiing you have
Speaker 1: one big, big event every four years. It's not not
Speaker 1: every Saturday or every Sunday. How grateful are you to
Speaker 1: have you have the ability to focus in on one
Speaker 1: sport skiing and then how you know, and and basically
Speaker 1: because you had the opportunity to do that, you exhaled
Speaker 1: greatly in there. Well. You know, as I look back
Speaker 1: at my athletic career and some people have asked, me, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, do you think you would have had more
Speaker 1: success if you just focused on one Like if if
Speaker 1: if you didn't ski and you only played football and
Speaker 1: dedicate a kind of football and you know, maybe you
Speaker 1: could have won a Super Bowl, or maybe you could
Speaker 1: have you know, been an All Pro or you know whatever.
Speaker 1: And as I think about that, I wouldn't trade that
Speaker 1: for the experiences that I had across both sports. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I kind of look back at my athletic
Speaker 1: career and and and just feel incredibly grateful, um and
Speaker 1: humbled by whatever whatever I was able to accomplish, the
Speaker 1: journeys that I was able to go on, and people
Speaker 1: that I was able to meet in both sports. So
Speaker 1: I really wouldn't trade those experiences for anything. You know,
Speaker 1: even if I was a fourth time Olympic gold medalist
Speaker 1: and skiing, if I would have never played football, or
Speaker 1: if I would have been a multiple Super Super Bowl champ.
Speaker 1: I did something in athletics that no human being has
Speaker 1: ever done, um, skin the Olympics and be drafted into
Speaker 1: the NFL. And I think that that's pretty cool because
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of human beings on the planet,
Speaker 1: a lot of multi sport athletes, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's accomplishment that I hold you me or
Speaker 1: in the ear of my heart. It was the benefit
Speaker 1: to versatility the common thread for me in life is
Speaker 1: is I think I always think of things with the
Speaker 1: end in mind, and thinking about life with the end
Speaker 1: in mind, like we're not here for that long. But
Speaker 1: like talk to anybody in their eight nineties are alder,
Speaker 1: They'll tell you this thing goes really really fast, and
Speaker 1: I believe that, and so I think we have a
Speaker 1: very fine night period of time in our lives to
Speaker 1: go do the things we've always wanted to do and accomplish.
Speaker 1: And so I've always thought of myself as you know,
Speaker 1: more of a life experience guy, like I just want
Speaker 1: to experience as much as I possibly can on this
Speaker 1: this you know, little amount of time that that I'm here.
Speaker 1: And fortunately I've been able to have success in a
Speaker 1: lot of those areas, um and I've learned in all
Speaker 1: of them. And I think the common thread for me
Speaker 1: is is I get energy from other things, other challenges.
Speaker 1: If I only focused on one thing every day, I
Speaker 1: would probably get burned out and become disinterested. And so
Speaker 1: I think, you know, especially for kids, playing multiple sports
Speaker 1: is a great thing. I see kids parents saying, oh,
Speaker 1: you gotta specialize in one sport the age of eight, Like,
Speaker 1: are you kidding? Me at age of eight, like you
Speaker 1: really want to pick the kids should be playing everything?
Speaker 1: Um so, I I think you know, diversity is really
Speaker 1: helpful in our lives. Just talk about the the the
Speaker 1: evolution of your business, but then also how sports has
Speaker 1: helped you and how sports have hurt you in the business.
Speaker 1: So so sports has really helped me in business, primarily
Speaker 1: thinking about um having a deep conviction and belief that
Speaker 1: very few things are impossible and anytime you're building a
Speaker 1: new company, you're going to reach points in time. I
Speaker 1: certainly did. We did. Or it just feels like failure
Speaker 1: is inevitable, like the chap like the challenge is just
Speaker 1: too insurmountical, it rains it pors. I mean like we've
Speaker 1: almost failed three or four times to integrate the company
Speaker 1: I started a decade ago. And it was during those
Speaker 1: times that I really drew back into my athletic experience.
Speaker 1: I no, I reject that, and I'm going to use
Speaker 1: great tenacity. I'm gonna freaking figure it out. And we
Speaker 1: were able to do that. So how how did your
Speaker 1: employees and how did those people handle that grit and
Speaker 1: tenacity because they weren't you know, you own, you aren't
Speaker 1: on a gridiron. You're you aren't on the on the
Speaker 1: ski lift, right, You're not on a mogul. You just
Speaker 1: you out there with a with a stapler and and
Speaker 1: and and some white out and APN and some sticky notes.
Speaker 1: I've been super lucky to work alongside people who I
Speaker 1: would go into any rabbit hole with. And those people,
Speaker 1: you know, because business is the ultimate team sport. A
Speaker 1: single individual who controlled the great, great business, you really
Speaker 1: need functional leaders and every other business doing great things.
Speaker 1: And we had that. We had that to achieve. One
Speaker 1: of the things that the biggest leadership lesson I had
Speaker 1: to learn in building a startup and growing a business
Speaker 1: to the point where where we are now is you
Speaker 1: can't talk to everybody the same. Like if you're in
Speaker 1: front of a football team. You know, there's a common
Speaker 1: language to get people motivated. You know that people people
Speaker 1: have been called every cursework you can imagine it. Well,
Speaker 1: like there's just like you can't do that in this
Speaker 1: is It's got a lot of people who have never
Speaker 1: even been yelled at their whole life, you know. And
Speaker 1: and that engineers you think about so like in the
Speaker 1: early days of Integrate, I'd come in like drawn my
Speaker 1: experience from Mike Tomlin. You know what what what what
Speaker 1: would you read? Do you know? Like? What was some
Speaker 1: of my Olympics? And I got in trouble because you
Speaker 1: have the sales guys. Typically they're like, they think like athletes,
Speaker 1: so like you can treat them more like a football player,
Speaker 1: and they're like, they'll run through walls. But if you've
Speaker 1: got a bunch of engineers in the group and you're
Speaker 1: trying to inspire them like a football coach, they're gonna
Speaker 1: turn white. And uh so you know I had to
Speaker 1: I had to learn pretty quickly that I had to
Speaker 1: change the way that I spoke to the whole group
Speaker 1: and say different things different people and understand people like
Speaker 1: to ingest information a different ways. Talked to us about
Speaker 1: the forty hour rule. So this was my second Olympics
Speaker 1: and I came into the Olympics as a number one
Speaker 1: rank ski in the world, and um, I was skiing
Speaker 1: great and had a great first run and made just
Speaker 1: the tiniest mistake. Um you know, one inch split in
Speaker 1: the legs in the final run. That's all it takes
Speaker 1: in the square free sale skiing. And I didn't win
Speaker 1: that Olympic gold medal that I wanted, and I was
Speaker 1: just devastated. And I was sitting there in Trino, Italy
Speaker 1: and thinking about how in the world am I going
Speaker 1: to recover from this? And I came up with this
Speaker 1: the forty hour rule, and I said, I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: forty eight hours. I set my watch, I turned off
Speaker 1: my phone. I didn't talk to a single person, and
Speaker 1: I just said, I'm gonna do whatever I need to
Speaker 1: do forty hours and feel bad for myself or learn,
Speaker 1: you know, dissect what happened and and and try to
Speaker 1: come up with the common learnings. And after that fourty
Speaker 1: hour window, I'm done feeling sorry for myself from moving
Speaker 1: on a thousand miles an hour. And it was through
Speaker 1: that kind of mental conditioning, and now I use it
Speaker 1: in my life today. You know, you get bad news
Speaker 1: from a customer, will cancel a contract, you gotta deal
Speaker 1: with that, or he'll fight with the wife or you
Speaker 1: know whatever, and I'll try to be disciplined. It's not
Speaker 1: always forty hours. Sometimes it's longer, sometimes it's shorter. I
Speaker 1: think that helping the muscle, the brain muscle, to be
Speaker 1: able to move on from things and not look back
Speaker 1: is is a healthy one. You had the opportunity last
Speaker 1: year too. You know, you're featured in HBO film called
Speaker 1: The Weight of God. You know, take us through that
Speaker 1: process of why you felt it was necessary for for
Speaker 1: you to take part uh in that in that documentary
Speaker 1: to HBO. Yeah, this was a huge passion project for me.
Speaker 1: I had personal connections to this story. So Jared's Peede
Speaker 1: Peterson was a skier I grew up skiing with. We
Speaker 1: both went to the Olympics together. He's an Olympic silver
Speaker 1: medalist and he came to me at one World Cup
Speaker 1: just devastated, saying he fights demons. I had no idea
Speaker 1: what that meant at the age of twenty two or
Speaker 1: twenty three wherever I was. Ultimately, sadly, Jared took his life.
Speaker 1: He committed suicide UM a couple of years ago, several
Speaker 1: years ago. And after he took his life, I said, gosh,
Speaker 1: I need to get smarter on this, this the topic
Speaker 1: of mental health. I felt ignorant. I felt somewhat responsible
Speaker 1: because I wasn't there for him. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: the right things to say were UM and so so
Speaker 1: the m Brett Racken is the is the producer of
Speaker 1: the film. He he was doing a story on a
Speaker 1: Bob's letter. Um uh, Stephen Holcomb who who took his
Speaker 1: life during during the interview. While he was still doing
Speaker 1: the story that the night before they were going to
Speaker 1: meet together and he called me and he said, is
Speaker 1: there a bigger story here? I said, yes, we have
Speaker 1: to make this film. I called ten of my Olympian friends.
Speaker 1: All of them said I'll I'll be interviewed. Um. I
Speaker 1: raised a bunch of money for the film to get
Speaker 1: off the ground, and Brett and I we didn't know
Speaker 1: it was going to be called Away to Gold. We
Speaker 1: didn't even know HBO was gonna, you know, pick it up.
Speaker 1: We didn't even know if Michael Phelps is going to
Speaker 1: be involved at that point in time. We just knew
Speaker 1: that there was a story year to be told. And
Speaker 1: the story was, you know, had the goal of showing
Speaker 1: folks that even the best Olympians of all time, I'm
Speaker 1: talking Michael felt So, I'm talking Apollo on No and
Speaker 1: um you know, Lindsey Vaughan and and Bodhie Miller, Sashak
Speaker 1: and good analysts, everybody struggles to some extent. And we
Speaker 1: wanted to normalize the conversation about mental health, about you know,
Speaker 1: struggling and show people that it's not just you know,
Speaker 1: because you don't have money or you don't have fame,
Speaker 1: you don't have success, that you're dealing with demons and
Speaker 1: mental health issues. Mental health doesn't care how any trophies
Speaker 1: during the trophy and it turned out to be, you know,
Speaker 1: incredible documentary. We were up for Documentary of the Year
Speaker 1: in the Emmy's um changed a lot of lives. I
Speaker 1: still get a ton of feedback from people. I'm very
Speaker 1: proud of the story that we told in the Courage
Speaker 1: of you know a lot of Olympians to tell their stories.
Speaker 1: I mean, even Sean White on the documentary said that
Speaker 1: he's considered thought about taking his own life after I
Speaker 1: think his second or third third Olympics. So I think
Speaker 1: it's a it's a powerful story. M man, everything you've
Speaker 1: been through, everything you've experienced, looking back now today as
Speaker 1: older Jeremy Bloom looking back at young Jeremy Bloom, what
Speaker 1: would you tell him? He wouldn't believe what I would
Speaker 1: tell him, you know, And I'm sure you think about
Speaker 1: this too. I mean, you know, going back and having
Speaker 1: a conversation with our ten year old self, twelve year
Speaker 1: old self and just saying let me, let me walk
Speaker 1: you through what your life's gonna look like. UM. I
Speaker 1: try to remind myself that because I think I don't
Speaker 1: know why this happens. But sometimes I think we get
Speaker 1: numb to to our blessings, to the things that we've
Speaker 1: done in our lives. I'm not just talking in sports,
Speaker 1: but you know how we've given back and the life
Speaker 1: that we're living, and oftentimes we're our worst critic and
Speaker 1: we're hardest on ourselves, and we don't give ourselves credit
Speaker 1: for the things that we do with things that we
Speaker 1: work on. And I, you know, sometimes think about going
Speaker 1: back and sitting down with my ten year old and
Speaker 1: twelve around self and walking him through his life, and
Speaker 1: I just I'd imagine what that ten year old or
Speaker 1: twelve year old would say, and I think suffice to say,
Speaker 1: he'd be pretty pumped on where we are, and he
Speaker 1: wouldn't believe you. He would he wouldn't think it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be believable. I think one of the things that why
Speaker 1: we're wanted to a lot of athletes, no matter what
Speaker 1: you've played, how far you've played, I think they really
Speaker 1: we've been told to act like you've been there before,
Speaker 1: be humble, and be this that. I think we have
Speaker 1: stopped ourselves from actually embracing the celebration of some success
Speaker 1: because think about it, you have a forty eight our
Speaker 1: rule for when you fail, but you don't have a
Speaker 1: forty eight for ye Yeah, like you're freaking eleven time Olympian.
Speaker 1: I it's part the ground culture too, Like we don't
Speaker 1: we we we we we minimize success. We and we
Speaker 1: and we maximize you know what we do wrong? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's and that and that spans across I know,
Speaker 1: but I'm just I really like I'm sitting here thinking
Speaker 1: about it, like we don't. We've been told so many
Speaker 1: times to act like you've been there before. I'm forty
Speaker 1: three years old now, I don't know what it's like
Speaker 1: to score touchdown anymore. Right, I'm not saying that I
Speaker 1: want to go backwards and see how it feels. Like
Speaker 1: I asked myself, what if I really just through a
Speaker 1: forty eight hour party in my head, that possibly can
Speaker 1: change the dichotomy of the lands I see things of
Speaker 1: success versus all Right, I've done it, move on to
Speaker 1: the next thing instead, Right, and I'm not talking about like,
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about like a party, but I just
Speaker 1: mean a psychological it's taking time to celebrate what you've accomplished,
Speaker 1: with what you've done, or the or the or the
Speaker 1: positive things, because that's right I mean, And like I said,
Speaker 1: it's it's really just part of overall I don't even
Speaker 1: want to call the microwave generation, but just just culture
Speaker 1: in general that we just tend to minimize. We just
Speaker 1: tend to minimize the good things and we maximized, like
Speaker 1: I can't believe I did this. Oh, I can't believe
Speaker 1: I made that bad decision. Oh what? Oh? Woe is me?
Speaker 1: And we just don't take the time to look at
Speaker 1: the positive. I think that's really interesting. And you're right,
Speaker 1: we do fixate it on the things that aren't working
Speaker 1: on our in our lives or the things that we
Speaker 1: messed up on, and we don't give ourselves enough credit
Speaker 1: for the things that are going well in our lives
Speaker 1: and the relationships that we have and the support structures
Speaker 1: that we have, the friends that we have, the little
Speaker 1: winds in life. I completely agree with that. Man, look
Speaker 1: up imprint. Look up the definition of imprint. That's you
Speaker 1: You're leaving an imprint and that's really cool on the slopes. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: you are a unique person, you are well worth it,
Speaker 1: you are competent, and most of all, your lovable. I'm
Speaker 1: Steve Smith, singer, I'm Gerard Little John and this is
Speaker 1: cut to It. Cut to It with Steve Smith Senior.
Speaker 1: That Is Me is a production of Cut to It LLC,
Speaker 1: Balto Creative Media, The Black Effect and I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcast from I Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows from Cut to It. Executive producer Steve Smith,
Speaker 1: singr co host Gerard Little John, talent in booking manager
Speaker 1: Joe Fusci, Social media team Wesley Robinson and John show
Speaker 1: from Balto Creative Media. Cut to It is produced by
Speaker 1: Brian Baltaschevitch and Meredith Carter, with production assistance by Alex Lebrek,
Speaker 1: Production Coordinator Taylor Robinson. Theme music by Alex Johnson, lyrics
Speaker 1: and vocals by Anthony Hamilton. If you ain't heard about it,
Speaker 1: then we're about to let you know. It's all