How to Keep Going When Life Breaks You with Rickey Smiley

This is where purpose meets power and story-spark transformation.

“Mick 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 Unplugd. Ladies and gentlemen, we are back with another exciting episode of Mick Unplugd, and today is going to be one of the most personal episodes I've had, because I'm talking with a guy

that you all know, but he changed my life for he didn't even know it. There was a moment in college where I wanted to give up, and Ricky Smiley changed my life, ladies and gentlemen, I present the legend, the goat, Mr. Ricky Smiley. Man, thank you for having me, man. Appreciate that, Brooke.

Thank you. Man, it's good to have him, but I really appreciate you having me. No, I'm honored to be here, man, and I'm going to go straight to this place. Point. Yeah.

You know, Ricky, we go to college.

“We graduate in everybody think life is good, right?”

Like you did the thing. You went to college. You graduated.

Now the world is about to open up to you, but the reality is, man, that wasn't happening

for me. I saw all my friends struggling to get jobs, and I'm 22, like, man, if I go back home, it's going to be over. But I can't go back home, right? Like, I can't go to college, and then come back home and do it everybody else back home

is doing. Yeah. So, man, we're, like I said in the intro, I just wanted to give up. And I would go back and watch comic view, I would listen to the print call tapes. You just never know when you need that thing.

And then I started studying Ricky Smiley, the man, not the comedian, but the man and the father.

“And that changed my whole outlook on who I was supposed to be.”

I realized, I always knew I was supposed to be something, but I never knew that I could

see it. Yeah. You allowed me to see it by studying your path, your journey that we have a lot of similarities in. And then watching you just mature into Ricky Smiley, man, I'm proud of it for you, but

I needed it for me. I needed to see that somebody look like me can go through life and be that. So I thank you, brother. No, man. Thank you for having me.

And, you know, a lot of people talk about those kind of view days, a lot of people. I, you know, that I meet a hey, man, I was up watching comedy, you know, when I suppose it been sleep. It's a poem's been in the B.A., he's getting trouble.

First man, I'm late watching comedy, yes.

So yeah, it's definitely a B.E.T. coming view, it's definitely a historical institution for comedians. I was my first job, you know, my first job in entertainment, you know, you know, it was B.E.T. Working for B.E.T., so great for putting that opportunity. Yeah.

Yeah, but it's going to be that in the prank phone calls, you know, gave you some hope and put some, I hope that it puts some smiles on your face. You needed it. When you go through, I don't want to call it despair. I was just, I was trying to figure out who I was supposed to be.

And it was internal conflict. And the laughter just helped me realize like, hey, man, everything's all right, like you're able to laugh. Yeah, you're, you're able to put two feet on the ground and whatever you want to go. Like, people don't get to enjoy that.

Yeah. And then like I said, I started to study you and I was like, all right, it's, it's okay. Like, there is a path to make just good things happen and you can come from a Christian home and like I was raised like you were raised and you know how to do the right things. And when you get pull certain directions like, you know where your center is and I was

proud of you because you were a person that publicly, we're okay talking about your faith at a young age, you were okay talking about your upbringing at a young age. And I didn't have that conflict anymore and I needed that for you. Yeah. Well, you know, that's my job, you know, is, you know, to, you know, to give people hope

to be a mentor, you know, to try to walk up, walk the this path that I can walk, try to do things the right way and hopefully that's somebody see it and learn from it, you know, because, you know, you're a myself and myself, we had mentors as well, that we love and respected and kind of gave us something to aim to, you know, to reach for, yeah, all whatever.

So, yeah, you know, shout out to my mentor, my grandparents and my parents and my teachers, yeah, especially teachers in middle school in high school, you know, when you're real development happened, you know, so, you know, shout out to them, you know, I'm from South Birmingham, you know, Alabama, old-fashioned home training where, you know, those teachers and instructors will tell you to sit up straight, don't you, which amount of

table manners, watch it, raise your teeth, sit up straight, me, I, like, it's a lot of

that with that came from.

Yeah. And I'm so proud of it, man, because you've been that mentor for me as I got older, I had kids, or I adopted my kids, but understanding what is slight to be a father, again, you got to do a lot of things publicly, right, and you do so much privately, we'll talk about that later, too, that people don't realize, but, you know, growing up in that era

or raising kids in the era where it's like, you can't discipline your kids, you know, you can't do these things and I'm watching Ricky smiley like, I'm raising my kids, the way that they're supposed to be raised. Yeah. And I love that authenticity of you, and like, when did, I'm not going to say, when did you

know, but like, what made you say you're committed to being Ricky smiley and you're going to do it your way with child raising and all that? The problem in today's society, everything that's right is now wrong, and everything that's wrong is that's right. Right.

“Just trying that I think that what my grandparents and my parents did for me, it worked”

for me. Yeah.

It was critical to my development, and if they worked for me, it should work for my

kids because it still works. Yeah. Discipline and structure and teaching kids, children respect and teaching them, you know, to be humble and respectful and, and stuff, it's still work. Yeah.

So, since it's in nowadays and everything is all, oh, oh, don't hurt that my hurt of feelings. Right. Oh. It ain't all.

Get down. Don't do that again. Right. That didn't kill them. That didn't kill my granddaughter to get down and don't do it again.

Do you understand? That's it. Yeah.

“So, that's not a abuse to have no hurt to get down.”

I don't have to negotiate her getting down. Yeah. Get down. Yeah. I'm your grandpa.

Or I'm your dad. Get down. And that's the end of it. You'll be fine. If I hurt your feelings, fine.

Because the world is going really hard to feel them. When you get out here and meet some of the people so, you know, I just tell them where it is. Like my grandparents told me it didn't kill me and so it's not going to kill them. Right.

I'm not compromise and I'm not get down. If you get down, I'll give you a cookie. If you get down, I'll give you a juice. I'm not giving you nothing. It's not a negotiation.

Get down. Right. Period. Right. And that's it.

Isn't it crazy? Like we knew it's kids. Like, I think parents forget kids know right and wrong. They do. They know right and wrong.

They're just testing your limits on whether you're going to allow them to do. And you set that standard for your children. Again, that's why I appreciate you because it allowed me when my kids were, you know, preteen to teen to say, "Now I'm going to talk to you like an adult, but I'm still your father."

Right. Right. And I'm, Ricky's, "Well, I'm not going to repeat myself if I say it what has been said." Yeah. I think sometimes we get caught up in trying to get kids what we did not have as opposed

to giving them what we had. Right.

“That's the key to success for your child.”

If you like who you are, then give the kids what you had as opposed to what you didn't have. Now the clean version and we watch Ayanna, Benzant, fix my life and not the field with a little bit of psychology mixed in there and say, "Hey, okay, I can, you can tweet some things."

But then basic foundation, you know, we went to church. We're going to be sitting here for an hour and a half. I would 45 minutes sit down, be quiet, be still, no, they don't have children's church. You don't have to be in the tent all the time. You have to learn to sit down and be quiet and be still.

Like we had to do a church and no, you not get an iPad, we're not taking an iPad. In the church as a pacifier, we're not going to have an iPad all the time in the car as a matter of fact. I don't have iPad in the car because half of these kids can't tell you how to get home. Nope.

Because they're so focused and so busy looking at an iPad, they can't point to anybody

to make a little turn right there, stop at that stop saying, "Go straight, third house

right." Like none of that, so, you know, I'm, I try to give my children and grandchildren a lot of what I had, as opposed to what I didn't have. The same manners and home training and discipline and instruction that I got and I would see, I give to them and I hope that it makes them respectful adults, you know, and productive

Yeah.

“So I'm going to get to this amazing best-selling book in one second, but I usually start”

my show by asking my guests what's your be cause and because I've read this book four times, like I feel it in there, but I classify your be cause as that thing that's deeper than your why, right? Like, to me, your why is super-ficial. People talk about all the time, I got to find my why, well, you know what your why is.

It's the reason that makes them or that thing your why, that's really important. So if I were to say what's your why and then I say, but why is it your why, why is it important? That Senate starts with, well, because I care about that because that tells me who you are. So if I were to say Ricky, 20, 26, man, what's your be cause?

Why do you continue to do all the amazing things that you do for communities, for children,

mentoring other people, like, what's your be cause? Uh, you know, I do it because I love what I do, you know, I love the help people that I would change somebody like, I hope that I was able to make somebody like better. Uh, I wake up just to do that, you know, it's a responsibility, it's something that

“you have to do, it's my life, it's what I, it's who I am, you know, giving and helping”

and mentoring is who I am as a person, and, you know, you know, our job is to bless people and to help people, help people, bless people, mentor people, you know, cause life is not just about you, it's right, you know, and, you know, people did not make everything about them, you know, I grandparents and parents and great uncles and teachers, they made personal sacrifices, so we could have what we have, and you just have to pay

it for it, and that's why you live, you know, wake up every day to serve guys and God

in the new guys work, you know, start out my morning show with praise, great, you know, the first 14

minutes of the show, it's just giving God the praise and, you know, a lot of time God puts you in some positions, so you can see what you're going to do with it, so you can see if he can trust you, and I tell God a long time ago, hey, if you get me out of

“this rut right here, I promise you I'll serve you to the day I die and try to make somebody”

like that because of the things that you bless me with, yeah, yeah, but we have to also understand that, you know, you're about that you bless is not going to appreciate that come to the territory, that's a dark side of it, so at this age or whatever I'm starting to realize a good balance between good people and appreciative people and bad people and not so appreciative people and how to navigate through that and find people to help and mentor

and love and bless that actually appreciate what you're trying to do with them and it's really hard, yeah, yeah, you didn't, I needed to hear that, yeah, I needed that, I needed that

so much, man, because you're right, like you never understand people's intention because

you feel like I'm talking about me, you just want to do good, you just want to do good and even when you kind of feel like they don't appreciate it, you still want to feel good and now I'm starting to look at it because you just reminded me that I could have gave that good intention somewhere else. Absolutely, man, when I, when I, when I tear you, I got a a text message, a entitled text message, like it was real entitled and I sent them an

itemized, itemized copy of everything that I'd done to help them and sent it to them and hit their blood, but the one thing I'm always doing is protect my piece, you know, nobody had nobody on this earth had to do anything for you, nobody, anybody think enough of you and can, I'm real loyal to people that have helped me, man, I wish I can have some of my teachers still be living a day, I would have been in the last, and one of the last teachers I had,

I mean, I made sure she was straight, I made sure she had everything she needed, you know, I gave her something every month and I sent her her cigarettes and her Kavasi A, because it was she drank, but she'd be in the time she wanted to get on the plane and go anywhere, I sent her and made sure that she got to and from the airport and then something that is all about because man, those teachers, when the napock is in pocket, because everybody couldn't afford to go to

the ring and brother's bar in them and Bailey's circus, right? We all couldn't afford to go to the zoo, don't you just want to napock's and pay for us to have some of the things that we had, and you didn't have money in the lunch room, you couldn't get a train ship, and those

for you, you're mom, grandma, I'm paid them back eventually, but, you know, they made personal sacrifices with their own money for us and stuff, so, you know, I hope I'm answering, you know,

“answering your question, you were given up. That's what it's all about, absolutely. Yeah, yeah,”

helping people in the loving people, but, and also understanding that everybody's not going to appreciate to be prepared for the disappointment and it's like, yeah, but you don't know how those people are going to act, right? So, you know, God put it on your heart and help somebody to just do it, you know, and I don't look for anything in return. Yeah, you're going to help 20 people, 20, 20 people, I promise you, six or seven going to come back and say, thank you,

yeah, I really appreciated you and some you'll never hear from again, right, or some of you will

this only if they need something. And I'm telling you, you taught me that, man, like, I, when I tell you, I studied you, I studied you, and it's speaking of study, I will make a confession, I'm going to look right in this camera right here, because everybody that knows me knows this. I've only cried five times in my life. I'm talking about tears down my eyes cried, when my grandfather passed, when my mama, my grandma passed, my granny passed. The other two times,

I was reading this book right here. This book, it was therapy, it is therapy, I'm not even going to say was because I shouldn't say I read it like I read the Bible, but there's, there's moments where I need to connect. Yeah. And this, this book, ground to me, man. So, everybody, I want this to be zoomed in, side show, Ricky Smiley. So much so that I usually do this at the end, but I'm going to do it now. The first 50 people that message me side show, I'm going

to get you a copy of this book. I'm buying you. I'm sending it to you. Thank you. And I really mean

“that, right, because here's the thing. I knew you, not personally, but I knew you. Yeah.”

I didn't know you. And there's, there's a lot of parallels in my life in your life, but I, I understood because publicly you've talked about, you know, the, the journey you've talked about the losses. But I think seeing it from your viewpoint in a different way, man, like the journey of when it started with your father, which I didn't know, April 11th, right? Yeah, April 11th. 74 and 1974. It kind of started and I've, I read this book in the first time I cried, man,

I cried for you because that's a lot, like when you read this book, you're going to understand. And I promise you it's not like a sad story. Like you just understand more about Ricky, right?

I cried because, you know, we've always heard growing up in church. There's a saying God never

gives you more than you can bear, right? He's never got, I said, well, I don't know about Ricky. Yeah, I don't know about Ricky, because there are moments where I'm just sitting there and I had to start reading and I was like, I can't hear another, I can't read another situation. Because again, there's things I just didn't know. Pro, so when I thank you for the book for writing the book, I thank you for the therapy, but dang, bro, like I didn't know Rick.

Yeah, darling McCourt told me, darling, you know, God's been singing, darling. Of course,

“she told me, at my son's, you know, I think it was out there, she said, man,”

she said, you built forward tough. Yes, I'm talking about forward tough. Like, um, you know, I had to, I had to be strong for my other children and my mother, you know, and my son's parents, you know, his mother and father, you know, his sister, you know, I had to be strong for them, I had to, I had to walk through that, or whatever. And then I had to deal with my grief privately, right, you know, only thing I could think to do was praise, and it's all I noted,

I'm trained, and I, you know, I never, I never would have gotten through all of that,

if it was not for my Christian foundation in my faith, right, you know, man, but God, you know, God walked me through that and, um, I often think about all of the mothers that have lost sons,

the kids that lost their children and their homeless, and they don't have no, I've

“ran the mothers that bear their son that don't have money to pay for a casket in a tombstone.”

I'm talking about mothers that have lost their sons, that's three years old, two years old. I was talking to a mother last week, who two year old daughter died in a sleep. In my daughter's was on the tennis court, have a tennis practice, and I was walking back and forth in a parking lot, and let's speak up on trying to uplift them another mother. And let her know about God, we'll see you through all of this. Wow. And, um, you know,

sometimes I'm letting you go through stuff, man, when you could be there for others. That's, that's a thing. Yeah. You know, um, and I think God for just allowing me to start the healing process, you know, to start a feel like I could take a deep breath to start to see the son again, or to feel the warmth of the son. Yeah. And I, I don't think that was the little things like that for granted. It's not even a decent big deal. Yeah. You know, uh, so

it's not, you know, about me and the parking help somebody heal, be there for some, with somebody

“to have someone to talk to. Mm-hmm. And that's what, that's my, uh, that's my job. I just let”

God use me. And, and so you were talking through where I was going to ask like my first question

about the book was, did you know what was going to be a healer for others? And it sounds like at some point you did. When did you say, I'm going to write a book? Oh, I was having a conversation with my business manager and then she got my purpose on the phone. We had the same conversation and they was like, you got it. We got to write this. We got to write this up. We got to put it in a book and uh, and it started from there. Okay. And because all of the stuff, you know, the,

the mirror between my dance, death and how he died and watched my, and I sat there, watched my grandparents go through that. And then I became my granddad sitting on the front row, bearing my son. Mm-hmm. It's so many, it's, it's, the book is really, really deep and uh, and I would encourage anybody to get it. If you're going through the grief process, it's definitely going to uh, open you up and it's definitely going to help you out. So not only that, and this is something

nobody in the world knows um, and I'm saying it to you. I'm going to look at you and your eye and tell you, it helps you prepare for grief too. Wow. Ricky, my father died April 1st, two Wednesdays ago. Mm-hmm. Now, sorry for your loss, just this past. It's just 10 days or minutes. Seven days ago. Um, now we didn't have a great relationship. I hadn't seen my dad in 15 years at once at my granny's funeral, and we hadn't talked, we hadn't done anything.

And I didn't feel the certain way, and it's not because he wasn't in my life anymore or anything, but I was prepared. And this helped me prepare for that, and I didn't realize it. Obviously, I knew you and I were going to have this conversation, and I wanted to tell you that that not only is it for healing, it is also for preparation, like reading this book helped me understand fundamentally.

I never heard that. That's a, that's a personal, have somebody ever said that to me. Thank you for that.

Yeah, because again, when you're writing something, you're writing it with intent, right? But you never know what someone needs, right? Right? And it helped me prepare, obviously I didn't know my dad was going to die, and he wasn't dying or anything like that. But it helped me with the right mental framework. And so now I want, I'm going to talk to men specifically here. You can't be too big. You can't be too proud. You can't have too much ego.

One to grieve, one to seek help, to seek help for that, and two to talk to other people.

“And again, that's what this book allowed me to understand was that, put your ego aside.”

Being a man doesn't mean you've got to be tough 24/7. You still have responsibilities, but you also need to make sure that you're okay so you can handle those responsibilities. And I got that from Ricky Smalley. Yeah. And it's tough, man. When I tell you it's tough, man, it's, it's, it's, I, man, you know, it's crazy because, you know, when you, when you go out

This is the same kid, he's the youngest, I'm asleep in the bed with you, and now you just never thought

that it would end up like this. And especially being a public figure, being somebody that have responsibility to get on that microphone because you got eight million listeners who all and a lot of them have lost their kids. And they're dependent on you and the praise break in order to get through. And they worried about, you know, my son died on the Sunday. When I was back on the air, because I don't want to lay in the bed thinking about that. Let me just

go do my morning show to give me some therapy and help me a little bit and then, you know, I can deal with that later. I had to make some tough decisions doing that time. Yeah.

It was, it was, it was tough. It was the worst and darkest days of my whole life. Yeah.

“But you came through it and you're coming through it and I think I know for for me personally,”

a lot of folks that I know, like we just wanted to show you love by being there, like even if we couldn't physically be there. Yeah, thank you. But to like Ricky Man, like we're with you, we love you, um, keep doing the show, keep keep smiling, even when it's tough and you talk about that in the book and I want to go there next to. But, you know, we need, we need Ricky. Yeah. Because we've all gone through something. And like I said, I don't know if you realize it

enough, man, but like people follow you, people model themselves after like people need you. And so it's like, I need to make sure Ricky can be strong because I'm going to need to be strong one day. And I'm going to need to look back at how Ricky is doing. Yeah, one thing about life, man, that was going to happen. Right. Yeah, that was going to happen. That was going to happen. That was going to happen. That was going to not get you doing. In like you said, read in my book,

“we'll we'll get you prepared. Well, because we all got to leave it. That's what our Reverend”

John King was preaching about Sunday. You know, we all go leave here. We're not going to leave forever. You know, and, and then you need to prepare your family for your death and get things in order and in place and change our world up every month or two, you know, as much as you need to. Why are you staring at me? Why are you staring at me? Why are you staring at me? I'm just just saying it saying it. I need to. It's so important as a man not to leave your family in

because they already going to be going through the group process. So you don't want to leave them in chaos and have everything organized. Like I have my mom, you know, my step that and get this stuff together. And she came over one day, she put it envelope in my hand. Yeah. Okay, I mean, it didn't happen to me. Here you go. Yeah. And of course, I opened it up right there and started reading through this stuff or whatever, looking at some asking questions or whatever. You know,

just a mess with a bit. Yeah, death is a part of life, but you don't expect for your children and die. You don't. You don't expect for your children and die. And, you know, I also talk about therapy in the book in the importance of going to therapy because when I went to therapy, my son opened it up, talking about it. This, it went just that. This went all the way back to my childhood. You know, my mom is a Greek and the things that happened after the Greek, you know, process that I

deal with and then all of a sudden it happens to me. You know, because I always looked at my

granddad and stared at my granddad and like I cannot believe that he went through that and he buried his son. And I was real close to my granddad. Yeah. You know, and then I became him. And that's something to parallel, right? Yeah, to parallel. It was so crazy. Exactly. And then that what was really sad to see my uncles who picked me up from the airport go through this all over again because they went through this with my dad. Yeah. And now they lose their nephew. Yeah.

You know, and they picked me up from the airport when I flew in Birmingham all three of them was in the car crying. And all the thing I get thanked to do was turn the radio up. It was on on 987 kids, the R&B station to lighten the moon. When I got home, it was an NFC, quite aFC playout.

“I know, all I remember the Bengals was playing out. Yeah. And when I got in the house, I just turned”

the game up, turned the volume up to have it to lighten it a little bit. You know, get people distracted a little bit, get them watching the game, get their mind off of that because it was terrifying. It was awful. It felt bad. It was dark. It was cloudy. It was raining. And just some football. It just rained just a little bit of just lighten it a little bit. And I just had to manage stuff

men because a lot of times we feel too proud. And I was. I didn't, I didn't go to therapy the first

time till I read the book through the first time. And I realized that I need help. Yeah. And it's okay to admit that. And I travel a lot. And then I realized, oh, there's tele therapist. Like I don't have to be at home. Like I can do this on the call or on a zoom or whatever now. And it helped me understand me a little bit. It helped me understand some times how I make the decisions that I make, the emotions that I have and what brings out the good, the bad, the indifferent. But again,

I'm going to keep giving Ricky Smiley his flowers while he's here. He helped me understand that. Yeah. And so for everybody, not just the man, but I think for everybody. Having some type of regular therapy call session and whatever regular means to you. It doesn't mean weekly daily month, quarterly and like whatever is good for your spirit. Yeah. You've got to sit down and talk about it.

“You have to get it out. Right. You have to cry out. I can't tell you how many days I set on the”

steps that go down into my kitchen. I set on that step and cry for days. And I was just in the house. I can look up at the ceiling and see the cries engraved in the paint. Because I just remember crying and looking up and just crying out this in the house by myself. This is when when those funeral directors say when the flowers had with it, when the car just stopped coming in the phone calls coming and like a year later, it really hit me. Now only different between

with my son and that a year later, you don't have no casket, no flowers, no obituaries, no condolences. And you are stuck with by yourself. Just you. In the house by yourself, just you having to relieve it all over again. So yeah, you better go get some help because that's like running into a brick wall. Yeah. Because what is my life now? Yeah.

You know, like in the blink of a second, your life change. You know, it's horrible. It is. But God.

But God. But God. You know, in the book you talk about, you know, you're obviously a public figure, comedian, radio show, a lot of things you do in the community. And your job is to part of your job, one of your jobs, make people laugh, make people smile. But on the inside, you're dying. And a lot of times, I mean, and this is even before Brandon, right? Like a lot of times, people didn't know the things that you were carrying on the inside. And you've got teams. And you've

got to be the source for everybody. Yeah. Talk about that, man, because I don't think people understand that enough, especially of person like a Ricky smiley. Yeah, you literally don't stay doing joke, doing comedy, performing while you crying on the inside. I remember my performed at the

“the casino right outside of Cleveland. I had did a comedy show there at the branded. I think”

it was my first time going on stage. Man, I cried from from downtown Cleveland all the way to the

casino. And I know that driver had to be uncomfortable. And I mean, I was booing in the drivers. I can tell he wanted to ask what was wrong, but he was in between that. I said, I might not want to bother him. And I said in the car, and cried, when then they're dressing on the crowd, some more. And cried all the way up until they was introducing me to go on stage. I blew my nose, I'm very sure, nothing was in my nose and got myself together. And when on stage,

and killed. Yeah, killed them. Wow, hard-broken on the inside. Same thing happened. I was at some comedic level. And I just was outside crying back, back behind the comedic level, just crying it out and trying to get it out of my system. So I can go on stage and perform because I still

“have to work. Yeah. I still have bills that need to be paid. I have other people sitting in the audience,”

you know, that that stays for cancer and sitting on dialysis, you know, you know, coming out to see you perform. Yeah. And you have a responsibility, much has given, much has required, you know, have to make sacrifices. Yeah. And you just can't sit in the house. You got to continue to keep moving and keep working and stuff because that's going to help you here. It's not going to solve it, but it's going to help you. Yeah. Going to the radio station, Wednesday, Thursday,

and that Friday, uh, really helped me out. It really, really, really helped me out of that. You know, I had a lot to do. I had a lot of responsibility, had to make sure my other children was trying to make sure my mother was straight. And, um, I had to, I had to push through it. Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff. So something else in the book. But everybody knows this about Ricky Smalley.

Roy Wood, this, this, this, this Roy Wood, Julia. You was there. Roy is on the show, too.

And you and Ruben stood it. No, no, sons of Birmingham. Yeah. Roy and I became from the right same radio station. Nighted by the 7 jam. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And you were still rolled tight. Roll damn tight. We'll talk about that one another day. Yeah. Tell you. I do it. There's a thing. So I'm a tar heal and a bulldog with tar heal. Okay. We, we had a bunch of, you know, we come from. We didn't hit no much in sports right now. But I'm a bulldog. I had an uncle who played there.

“Yeah. We, we, we trying to be alright. Okay. Trying to be alright. You all going to do something?”

You all going to be back? I don't know. We, I don't know. That's a whole, another conversation. But that's a, it's a different kind of generation. Yeah. I don't, they got to find the right kind of coast to coast. This generation. This is not the Nick Saban generation. And these guys are different from the guys that I saw play at them. Yeah. They're, they're a little different or a little weird. So you got to find somebody that might understand their culture. Some to get them to play

because these kids are different in entitled. I'm trying to figure out why the back up to the

back up isn't title though. Like the third string dude is the first one in the portal. It's like,

why? Yeah. Yeah. They need to get all that type of football. This is kind of just football. It's just not the same. No, it's not. It's not. It's not. Well, Rick, man, what all do you have

“coming up next? What's Ricky working on? I think I got some opportunities on. I think”

HGTV. I'm still performing all over the country. Right. I do this scare. You're amazing karaoke night or whatever. My karaoke night is amazing. Where are we doing that? I think I have the Nick show in Orlando this Friday. I would have, but I kind of do karaoke all over the country. I do it in Nashville, Birmingham, Orlando. Okay. I've put a lot of their here in Atlanta. I've got love doing karaoke. I just think it's so much different from coming to show us so much fun.

You know, I got my grandkids and my twins growing up. I would have it. So I always looking for

it. Did it? Yeah. So nothing like parenting. Then my identical twin daughters, they're so much fun. They give you so much light in my granddaughters. And my grandson. So I get a real big kick out of it. Doing the morning show every morning. Probably going to do another comedy special in 2021. I hope y'all like foolish foolish. You could check that out on Hulu. Yes. It's actually funny. I personally like that kind of dispersion. That's my personal favorite comedy special directly by David and

Ann Antalbert. And they say that it produced by them. I really appreciate that opportunity. So yeah. I have, I have uncensored coming out on TV one. Okay. I request my only uncensored coming out all the time. Yeah, it's actually pretty good. I probably won't watch it because I don't like watching myself. Yeah. But I did watch footage now. And I wanted to sit back and lay out because because of jokes. Yes. I watched it put a joke right and get my lay up on. Yeah,

“whatever. From beginning to end. It's funny. It hits hard. Yeah. Right. And that's what I love about”

Ricky because you give, you give us different like, and this isn't a knock on any comedians by any stretching imagination because comedy, stand-up comedy is hard. Right. Period. Period. Right. But there are moments where there's like little laws in a special, right? Yeah. The joke didn't quite hit my video. It felt like Ricky's playing drums. Give it the rhythm, given it to you. It's gold, baby. Yes, sir. Yeah. But you know, just so many different opportunities. I suppose

to be doing some stuff with country Wayne, went on him to call me. I really want to do some scenes on a country Wayne's show because I'm a big band of it. I'm like, I can just bartend. Just have me in the background, bartend. I just need to do something with country Wayne. I think his skits are hilarious. I would love to do something with Daisy Banks or whatever. You know, I just want to have fun. I just want to have a great time and make people mad and I start to secure my legacy

and continue to do radio. Hey, the legacy is secure, bro. Yeah. I know you because when it's you is hard to see your legacy is solidified. I can promise you. I know me and college, my same group of homeboys still talk about little Darrell to this. Actually, one of the Antoine I'm talking

special. We need something. We have a birthday party this fall from La Darrell. La Darrell is in his 40s now. We got a wife in a son. He married to a heavy sail, white woman, and he got

“a little mixed baby. So we have a birthday party with him because he and his, I think it would be”

three or four or something. But I'm throwing a little Darrell birthday party. So make sure y'all come out. Look, Mick on plug is bringing the cake. We're going to have the birthday party. That's crazy. Yeah. And I still do it on stage. But now he and that, I do it in a different way, but it's funny as you do. But my SNAP this man must stand up kind of in the right now is rich. It's so rich. This is the funniest I ever been because I've been through so much. I have

so much to talk about and the funniest part about getting older and talking about the young generation and how they scared the hell out of us. I got some funny stuff. So, you know, if you ever get a chance to see me perform live, man, I give you a show from the beginning to the end. When I went to

“Charlotte, when I went to Ronnie, the improvs, Charlotte to the company's own from beginning to the”

end, hold out upon it. Absolutely. And, you know, my younger son is in school in Miami and I was told you're going to be doing a show on coral springs. Yeah. Sometime this summer, so I'll come through there. Yeah. I'm going to come through. Wait in school. He's at University of Miami. Okay. He's marine biology. Oh, nice. He can swim. Yeah, I get on the old. Yeah, because I deal with that ocean. Yeah. That's one of my favorite things to do.

He's to be out on the ocean. I swim with sharks. In stingrays and all that stuff, man. I love the ocean. I watch all. Yeah. I'm out there. I get my ankles in and then I'm like, all right. Good. I'm going to go back into the shade this umbrella because I'm going to swim whenever I dive off into that deep blue ocean in swim, man. I just, I just, I just, I think God ain't got eight up. I get, yes. I'm not going to woo

it. Yeah. All right. I'm going to get you out of here on this. Well, first, again,

we're going to zoom in here. The first 50 people that message me side show. I'm getting your copy of the book. You all know I do that anyway. You know I name the book side show. No. Do you ever know why? All right. So the, the name side show came from the song side show. Okay. By blue magic. Let the side show begin. Hurry, hurry. Step right on in. Can't afford to pass it by, but guarantee to make you cry. So the side show, the song is about a clown. That's performing, but he said on the

“hand side. That's, that's, that's what side show. That's why I got the, the topic. Oh,”

side show from, but all those trials and tribulations that's going on in my life and the things that I have happening just going on and still have the ability to go on stage and perform and get on the radio and make people laugh like why you crying on it. And then I surprised doing commercial break doing a radio show. Go and cry out and come back and crank jokes. Right. That's my job. Right. So that's what it's taught me. I mean, the title side show. I didn't know. Yep. Now I like it. I like it.

So first 50 people getting a copy. If you number 51, go to Amazon, go to Barnes and Nobles, go to your local bookstore, support local to, but get the book. I can promise you what's going to change your life. It's changed my life. If you are grieving, you definitely need it because it's going to help you help me prepare, which again, bro, like, there's some fundamental principles

here that you go through that, that's amazing. So thank you. Everybody go get this book. My last

question for Ricky Smiley is this. No. I know you cook. You throw down. Oh, yeah. What I could piece to do with you by that. Yes. Oh, chicken and dumplings, call the greens out of my going that I grew. Okay, macaroni and cheese, the Bahamas style macaroni and cheese. Ooh. Yeah, you haven't had macaroni and cheese unless you had it in the Bahamas. Oh, as you make the Hammians make good macaroni and cheese. And they don't just do cheese. They season their

macaroni and cheese. It's like, when you can swallow it and still taste it, that's good macaroni

and cheese because it's seasoned. I did a gumbo. Yeah, I always have to add gumbo or whatever,

you know, because I'm a fan of, you know, Cajun cuisine, lobster biz. I did lamb chops. We had

balsam, but take this out because I don't let anybody bring nothing. I don't like people

“bringing, right, just don't bring nothing, everything is here. That's to be coming in and”

that with all that aluminum father's painting, crock pots and, right, you make my nerd, man, you messing up the order. We don't have a tight tight. I mean, you, that's where it is. Oh, I just, my mom said, I did it to get to make the pental beans. I was going to make some pental beans, but we had our big, big, big Easter dinner in the day before that, the Easter bunny came Peter Cotton tail came through, hung out with the kids. We did a little Easter egg.

Easter Easter and Thanksgiving is a really big deal. I got my house, so yeah, the food was good. And do I want to open up a restaurant? Absolutely not. After what y'all did, the Miss Tina, the Shawn did, the Gladys Knight, and having all these bloggers show up to judge your food and criticize your food, y'all talk about candy and tired, and anybody that

“opened up a restaurant y'all want to go in there and make videos, I would never. Now, if I do a”

restaurant, I'm a, the days that I decide to cook, I'll send out the email, the people that I want to,

because you'll fill it up anyway. I'm going to invite people that I want to come, but I will never

open up to get publicly humiliated. The way they did, I don't care if the food, the gumbo or whatever was not good for you to go on in a net and just do stuff like that to people. I see people do that with candy. I see people do it to sweetie pies, and every time I went in all of these establishment, the food was good. Amazing. Everybody gumbo is different or whatever. And by the way, gumbo is not just about the room. It's a season in and the house. Anyway, that's the whole of the pie cash show.

Yes. Oh gumbo, because I'm trained by executive chef. So that my, to Kurt Boudreau, you know, who really spend a lot of time in the kitchen, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen with him learning how to cook and prepare food like an executive chef. I'm not, I'm on a cater. It's a different between a caterer and an executive chef. We're learning to take a minute from him, like cutting exercises and all the stuff and wives and the dudes and the dump. A lot of people

don't know so I learned a lot of stuff. So, but what I'm on right now is my seafood pie pie.

I made it for the first time. It was a hit. Yeah, man. I'm going to make a seafood pie pie,

and I make sure you get one. You don't want to make a video. And on the top, I did the crust with the, I used the cheddar biscuit from Raya Lobs and you go buy it in the box and make the biscuit and you put it on top of the seafood pie pie. You got some other? I wish I did it, because I was so hungry right now. I got really used the right now. So I put a little, you know, the shrimp, but people don't understand the importance of just making sure that you,

that you get the seafood flavor. I would have, I'm really getting really, really, really good with seafood. So I'm learning a lot, trying to expand my taste palette and then really getting the kitchen and

good. But I will make a recipe book to teach you how to cook, but I'll never open up the restaurant

for you to come in there and curse me out, curse my employees out. I'll push over cash registers and all that kind of stuff when they come in there, dress wrong, because you can't tell nobody how to dress. You're ready to come in a rickety smile to the restaurant. You're going to be dressed with dinner. You know, I'm a classy person. And I was raised with class. And I don't want to deal with the public because everybody don't have the same home training. You got that right. You got that.

I know I said a whole lot. No, no. So I don't, I don't know if this is meant for me to tell you, but I'm telling you anyway, cooking with Ricky Smiley. I don't know if that's the book. I don't know if that's the Instagram show or channel. I don't know if it's the TV show, YouTube, whatever. If I give you a food show, I do it. I get some cameras. I'm a do that one day. That's a good idea. People can suddenly see you. I'm going to do a cooking with Ricky Smiley.

And then I have guests on whatever, but I have to have me a couple of sushi because cutting up all those onions and those bean peppers, I had a cooking show on Fox O, but man, when you start prepping and you got to do it. You got the shoe. Then you got to clean up the kitchen. Man, that's like that. It's two in a part. Two in a hundred dollars an episode.

“You heard it here first, cooking with Ricky Smiley. If you want to be a shoes, a”

sushi, send your resume. Don't just think you're going to show up. I will vet the resume for you. I got your coat. Ricky, brother, I love you, man. Thank you so much for everything you've met

find them. But most importantly, get the book. Sorry, show. Get the book. Thank you, man. You got it.

“That's another powerful conversation on Mick Unplug. If this episode moved you and I'm sure it did,”

follow to show whatever you listen, share it with someone who needs that spark. And leave a

review. Some more people can find there because I'm really rush. And until next time, stay driven,

stay focused, and stay. Unplug.

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