 Howdy everyone welcome to the next session. I want to introduce to you Ian Smith This is a man who has stood up to tyrants in his state. You know, I love that they try to shut down his gym They try to shut down his employees and try to shut down him But he wasn't having any of it and he stood right back up and his story inspired a lot of people even in Texas To not shut their businesses. So he's had a he has a wide national effect He's also very knowledgeable about globalism and the effects of globalism on masculinity in the family And he sports an Odin beard worthy of any frost giant killer Good afternoon. I am very happy to be here for my second year at the 21 convention last year I spoke amidst the COVID quote-unquote crisis and in the middle of a very nasty and and lengthy battle with the entire state government of New Jersey I gained notoriety two and a half years ago on the national stage because Somebody came along into my life And told me that I wasn't allowed to provide for my family. I wasn't allowed to do my service Which I am extremely passionate about to the community and Basically told me that everything that I hold of value and all value that I can provide Was no longer needed wasn't necessary My business partner and I decided that we were gonna reopen our gym and well, I guess the rest is history and I've come today to share with you Some of the things that I've learned along the way What we did two and a half years ago was probably One of the most proud moments of my life one of the biggest accomplishments that I've ever had as a young man however Before I tell you about that before I tell you about the lessons I've learned I'd like to also tell you about my greatest failures as a man and my darkest moments as a man Because this isn't a highlight reel And I'm by no means a perfect man In fact far from it, but I am a trying man, and I am a growing man And I think that that's an important thing for all of us to remember today And I hope that after I tell you the stories of how I wound up here that I can leave you with a lesson or two And maybe answer some questions for you about Masculinity and what it looks like in today's modern world It's a question that I only began to ask and be asked Two and a half years ago when I decided that I wasn't gonna close my gym. So Once again, my name is Ian Smith Pretty regular childhood Nothing out of the ordinary I was raised by a single mother who did her absolute best To raise me well. She did a pretty good job But I think as all of us here in the crowd and everybody watching understands that You can't raise a man being a woman But there's something else missing as I was growing up. I always looked around for some sort of example how to be a man and I started to form my identity and I Decided that I wanted to be tough But I didn't know what that meant. I decided that I wanted to be strong I didn't know what that meant. I decided that I was opinionated and that I had Strong beliefs, but I didn't know how to express them. So as a young teenager. I grew wild I grew restless and reckless When I was in college 19 years old 20 years old, excuse me. I was a hard part of your Had no respect for anybody Authority good or bad I didn't really have a set of values only what served me best in that moment. I Was good at getting what I wanted and That usually meant stepping over or on people to do so Something I'm not proud of Always got my way one way or another and And it eventually wound me up in in a lot of trouble in April of 2007 I woke after a night a very typical night At college. I didn't leave the campus that night Looked like any other normal college night for a kid who lives on campus 20 years old having everything paid for them student loans Barely focusing on school doing the bare minimum to get by trying to make make the most of that time there Drank in excess what was Considered normal for me was definitely in excess looking back at it and I went to sleep that night The next morning I woke In a hurry late to work didn't really have a real job It was doing something for my parents Woke up with about a half hour to get there and took about an hour to get there So woke up in a rush. It was the end of the school year. So I threw some stuff into my car. I Got in it and I just started barreling toward my destination About 20 minutes later I Became the sole reason For an automobile accident in which took the life of a 20-year-old man Barreled through a stop sign going well in excess of the speed limit Well in excess of what was posted and well in excess of what was even reasonable Why because I was a selfish asshole and I didn't really care about anybody else in the world around me I just needed to get to where I was going Blew a stop sign and t-boned that young man. He was dead on site I Remember the accident very vividly and it's probably something I'll never forget and came to after the collision and Didn't really know what happened. I still remember the song that was playing on the radio skipping and I was looking around and there was a big gash across my forehead and the first thing that Led me to realize something was terribly wrong Was blood dripping down over my eyes so that I couldn't see I ran my tongue across the front of my mouth felt several teeth missing and in that moment. I realized that it was serious hopped out of the car and Ran over to the other vehicle What I saw Was the worst thing that I've ever done Saw a young man trapped in a vehicle that had collapsed on him with absolutely no chance of helping Fast-forward went to the hospital For some reason or another I sustained minor injuries a couple missing teeth a lot of glass in my forehead, but I was otherwise, okay Still smelled like alcohol because I had drank so much the night before that it was pouring out of my pores And there was still alcohol present in my system So not only did I do something terrible and Make a huge mistake I'd look like a genuine piece of shit in the process nine o'clock in the morning, and I still had a above the legal limit blood alcohol level the next weeks go by and Trying to deal with this feeling bad for myself asking why How did this happen? How did I not see it coming? Why didn't I just roll over and go back to bed that night or that morning? And you know the only way I can describe how I felt In those couple weeks afterwards My phone would ring and it wouldn't even elicit a response. I wouldn't even look to see who was calling. I was just there Trapped in my head reliving those moments and Being in a place of hopelessness and hatred for oneself My mom came up with the idea. She's a public school teacher or was That I should speak about what happened And I didn't want to do it but Being the selfish asshole that I was at the time. She said, you know what it might look good for your sentencing I said, okay Went they put me up in an auditorium full of 500 kids Had no idea what I was gonna say I just got up there and I told my story and afterwards The principal of school came up to me and he said, you know I've been doing this for 20 years. I've never seen an auditorium full of high schoolers dead quiet So I've done auditoriums for years and years and years. I mean I've done presentations for years and years and years for these kids and he said you captivated them Do you mind if I give your number to some of my colleagues? said sure wound up speaking at 25 schools before I Was sentenced to five and a half years in prison and Right before I was sentenced It's a very strange feeling when you know you're going away. There's this sort of ticking clock over your head Feels like very hard to stay motivated to stay focused to even give a shit You know, I had already felt bad enough about what I did And now it kind of seemed like my life was over too 20 years old facing down ten years in prison for What was totally Something that I never meant to do that was an accident that if I could change places with that young man, I would didn't matter though justice had to be served and Couple weeks before I went away never slept very well I would sleep a couple hours a night no matter what I did I'd always relive that scene getting out of my vehicle walking up to the other vehicle and seeing a young man trapped dead I Went into the mirror I assume I went to the bathroom and it was we hours of the morning And I remember kind of having a moment Where I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I was still still pretty banged up I looked like two-faced kind of from Batman I had hit the windshield with one side of my face so I had all these scars and Cuts all over it and I was missing teeth on this side but pretty normal looking on the other side and I I looked at myself and I actually started to laugh Because I thought look at you you fool Look at what you've done. Look at what your arrogance and your selfishness And your lack of concern has done you thought you were tough You thought you could handle the world by yourself You thought you had all the answers you thought you were Invincible Now you have nothing your life will go nowhere and you look like a fool in that moment. I Remember thinking to myself What now? Where do I go from here? What do I do? How do I make this better? Can I make this better? Should I even try and I sat there looking at myself for a while and I came to the conclusion that not only should I Change my life. I had a responsibility and a duty to do so I had a responsibility to the young man who was killed Because my my recklessness and carelessness and if I didn't Strive to be a better man and if I didn't strive to somehow repent from my sins that That that would be an insult To the young man who passed away and an insult to his family and to everybody that I hurt By doing what I did so I resolved that in there that I would figure it out I didn't know what that meant. I didn't even know who I wanted to become what my values were or How to get there fast forward 21 years old The gavel bangs. I'm sentenced to five and a half years in state prison. I Don't remember a whole lot that day a lot of crying Kind of like being at your own funeral You're surrounded by family and nobody really knows what to say. It's not a whole lot to say people are just trying to be there for you and Before my sentencing a Family member of the young man who passed away came up to me outside of the courtroom and Said to me are you Ian? I said yes. She handed me a card and she walked away opened up that card and in it just said We don't hate you We hate what you did and I Remember feeling a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders Because that was forgiveness like I've never experienced and And I felt an even greater sense of responsibility moving forward because somebody had given me that gift That probably wasn't very easy for that person to write And to say the gavel bangs I hear my mom's scream as I'm sort of ripped away from her and off I go 21 years old kid from the suburbs who's Pretended like he was tough his whole life, but really wasn't Getting thrown in with the big dogs in in one of the roughest County Jails in Jersey You know and and that's never fun. You go in and you might get two shoes One's probably the wrong size your pants are probably three times too big and they're still wet from whatever laundry the prison offers and you know you're kind of sent in to this Holding area, and I was just trying to take it all in and I remember sitting there a couple days in and It was actually a weekend and I had made a friend in this older gentleman who was getting ready to to serve 18 years and I remember we were we were playing cards, and I I was like man a week went pretty quick like I wasn't too bad and And then I started to compute how many more weeks I had to do And I remember feeling like the walls were closing in And I couldn't breathe and I started to just absolutely panic because it was hundreds compared to that one So I was shipped off eventually to state prison and the first year Was about learning how to survive Prisons are a little micro societies They all operate a little bit differently depending on the demographic and who's in it and what the ratio of Groups are in there and that was my first experience With tribalism I had never experienced it, you know, I wasn't I wasn't in a fraternity in college. I wasn't a On sports teams or anything growing up. I didn't have that that bond Between men where You're willing to go to Really really far extents to protect each other and to make sure that not only are you okay? But that you're thriving as well And I remember watching it all watching the way different groups Gangs races religions Whatever way they were divided how they would interact amongst each other and with each other And I studied and I and I just watched and watched and watched and watched and eventually after many mistakes Annoying correctional officers was one, you know, I didn't have a pillow and I kept asking this guy for a fucking pillow And eventually I wound up just with a knife under my mattress and in solitary confinement instead Because nobody gives a shit about your comfort nobody gives a shit Whether you're happy, you've been stripped of everything and In order to gain in order to have anything you have to gain respect first you start at the bottom in prison And it took a while for me to understand that I was at the bottom because I was used to living a somewhat comfortable life You know, I lived middle-class life and I really had to struggle that hard. I never really wanted anything that bad I was never really deprived of anything to the point of discomfort and Hunger and all of these all of these feelings that I've never really felt before Feeling alone feeling desperate feeling completely powerless Being told when you're gonna eat what you're gonna eat how much you're gonna eat When you sleep when you wake up when the lights turn on when the lights turn off Where you can go who you can be around with what you dress like What type of materials you can read what type of television you can watch what type of communication you can have with the outside world? You don't get anything you have to earn all of it. So About a year in sort of figured my way through things and I was approached many times To join these different groups. I just kept saying no hip saying no kept saying no Eventually I ran into a little bit of trouble with this particular group and wound up in a little bit of scuffle and because of that I wound up in solitary confinement Not a fun time When you don't know who you are Being alone is a very scary thing Very very scary thing being alone and being unable to be distracted Was one of the scariest things I've ever had to face down That was 22 years old And I knew nothing about myself. I Didn't know what my fears were. I didn't know what my dreams were I didn't know what my values were and everything that I thought I was was just sort of a projection There was not a whole lot of substance to it. I may have said things and acted certain ways But I never lived any of these things And I remember how loud The silence was and how intimidating it was But I'm actually very thankful and grateful for the opportunity Because I had to sit with myself for weeks No contact nothing to do. You're gonna sell 24 hours a day You might come out to make a phone call every three days for about 15 minutes Well, other than that it's 24 hours a day. Just you and your thoughts and Eventually I Started to use the time well at first. I would just try to sleep because I was trying to be distracted and I was trying to escape Because there was all these nagging questions That were that I could hear that I didn't want to answer that I didn't want to address Or that I was too scared to even think about and eventually I got myself a pen and a paper and I started to write some things down Started to answer some of these questions and I took the time to figure out What I wanted What I wanted to be What I wanted to do and the mark that I wanted to leave on the world