The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Unmasking the Hospital Clown: Lessons in Leadership from Eddy Smits

Starting point is 00:00:00 You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. I'm Moses Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, that makes it official. Welcome to the show.

Starting point is 00:00:45 We certainly appreciate you guys having us. As always, for 16 years and over 2,000 episodes, we've been bringing the Chris Voss Show, and we'll just keep right on doing it because, damn it, you can't stop us. I don't know what that means. Anyway, guys, be sure to refer your show to your family, friends, or relatives. Go to Goodreads.com, 4Chest, Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com,chesschrisfoss chrisfoss1 on the tiktokity and all those crazy places on the internet dear amazing young man on the show we're going to be talking with eddie smiths and eddie has a book that came out 2015 called model c which is a has an amazing story

Starting point is 00:01:20 we're going to be talking about i think you'll be inspired by what he has to say today and what's inside his brain. His brain he'll be sharing and all that good stuff. I don't know. That's the first time I've referenced someone's brain on the show. I don't know. Yeah, we're just going to have his brain. We're going to remove it, Eddie, and just talk to it. I think it's in a cartoon show about the future

Starting point is 00:01:41 where they have just brains in jars and shit. Eddie Smits is a TEDx public speaker and author and a licensed NLP practitioner. He is a certified management drives trainer, a certified cognitive behavioral life coach, and a certified master mindset life coach. He also has a bachelor's in pedagogy, which I believe is pedagogy. That means he pedals bikes? No, what is pedagogy? Close, close.

Starting point is 00:02:10 You're close. No, it's actually educating children. That's the art of educating, actually. The art of educating. I love that. My mother was a teacher. It's teaching, actually. And we'll get into it.

Starting point is 00:02:23 He was a professional clown for 22 years and helped inspire a lot of people i'm an unprofessional clown for the last 60 years on the podcast as a hospital clown he visited more than 10 000 sick and palliative palliative children to do this job he had to display extraordinary leadership he also became an expert in authentic communication. Since 2012, he's been active in the field of personal development, where he applies an innovative approach to coaching using techniques of a hospital clown combined with positive intelligence to increase mental fitness.

Starting point is 00:02:59 Welcome to the show. How are you, Eddie? I'm very good. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And I'm really excited thank you thank you thanks for coming and i'm really excited to talk to you about this because this is really a heartwarming story that you have give me your dot coms where do you want people to find you on the interwebs it's easy it's just

Starting point is 00:03:15 eddysmiths.com so that's my website and you'll also find me at linkedin but i think yeah that's two best ways eddie give us a 30 000 overview of what you do there on your website, what people can find you're up to these days. Yeah, actually, I've been, it's like you said in the perfect bio of me. So I get all my stuff, still get all my stuff from my years as a hospital clown. I learned so much about people, about myself. And there, at some point, I had the idea of, hey, I'm working here with these children. I'm doing so much for the children, for their parents, giving them extra things in very hard times. You know, I literally performed for children who had a few days to live.

Starting point is 00:04:09 And then I had something, look look if I can do this job if I inspire people like that if I do this which takes a lot of guts actually why can't I use that in my real life or why can't I use that in my business or why can't I lose it my family and it turns out you can. You just need to do the same things, but not as a clown, as yourself, of course. But the techniques you use and the attitude you have as a hospital clown can be used in all other areas of one's life.

Starting point is 00:04:39 So that's what I'm doing. And I imagine it does take a lot of leadership to be a clown. You know, I've, I've often seen like celebrities go into hospitals and I think when we were young, we used to go in and sing.

Starting point is 00:04:55 We were kids. We used to go and sing for, I think church. I know we did rest homes. I can't remember if we did hospitals, but I've always admired the beauty of giving in that way and and giving hope because hope is you know i think one of the greatest things that makes the human race exemplary i was thinking about this the other day and but but i i'm not sure i have the character

Starting point is 00:05:20 and the wherewithal to do it inside of myself to endure that sort of witnessing that sort of loss every day i thought about doing that in in in dog shelters and stuff like that how how how how are you able to you know do that maintain that and you know and and in in the face of you know what is lost you know smiling at child, trying to make a child laugh and be happy knowing they only have two days to live? Yeah, it's a very good question, actually. And it's, I'm not going too deep in it, but it's actually the clown figure, the clown mentality that helps you. For a clown, it's all play.

Starting point is 00:06:00 It's all, we all look at things in a kind of different way, in a way that's an honest honest way that's a truthful way and even in the darkest day of children and families you know as a clown you accept hey this child is going to die that's you accept it like it is while as an adult especially as a parent you don't accept that yeah but the fact yeah but the fact that we accept it as a clown puts us in a position that we can move on you know we can just look at it as it's maybe it's a little bit unfair to say that but we haven't we have it easier to look at a child who is sick who is going to die because in the clown's mind it's it's not so bad a clown finds another perspective in even dying which is of course the worst case but a clown finds another perspective and that's one of the things that when i work with people i try to see things in another respect perspective when

Starting point is 00:07:00 somebody goes broke right that's also very bad but as a coach i try to see in another perspective and that's exactly the thing that a clown does in the hospital and for for an outsider it seems very hard how can you in heaven's name see that in another perspective but as clown you do and it helps because it helps the child it helps the family it helps everybody to to see it in another way and to cope with it much better so that's the job and that's why a clown gets away with it in in that kind of way it's pretty interesting so it's i wouldn't so would you say it's compartmentalized? It's really you need to accept it first because parents often don't accept it.

Starting point is 00:07:55 They fight with it. They are angry with it. It's all normal, of course. But once you accept it, then you can move on. Once you accept you are broke, then you can figure out a solution how to get past it and how to get better and how to get money again. It's all the same. Once you accept that you've broken your arm, okay, now I can learn to write with my other hand or now I can learn things that will help me to get over that. So acceptance is one. A clown, and that's the beauty of a clown, you know, he accepts everything.

Starting point is 00:08:24 If you say to a clown, hey, you look like an idiot, he says, thank of a clown you know he accepts everything if you say to a clown hey you looked like an idiot he says thank you you know he accepts it and that's the first step and that's why we are one step ahead of of the rest actually does does you know recently a my dog passed away last week and i knew that this day that day was going to come because my in February we'd in February of 2004 we'd had her diagnosed with leukemia and so we were given about three to four months we got about six months it's right now September for those of you watching this 10 years from now I had I've been studying a lot of stoicism marcus aurelius meditations epitetus you know these guys talk a lot about death seneca and i've been reading about memento mori and one of the

Starting point is 00:09:15 you one of the lines you use with me you didn't fully say it is what it is but you said you said you know it is what it is. You inferred that, which is a line that a lot of people from stoicism do. But studying memento mori, accepting death, Marcus Aurelius' quote, death smiles at us, we might as well just smile back or something to that effect. That's really helped me for the first time in losing a pet recently,

Starting point is 00:09:44 and I've really gotten through it much better. And part of it is because Memento Mori talks about accepting the fact that death is natural, death is coming, you must accept it. Did you do any of that sort of study, or is that kind of a mix? I learned it the hard way because when I started as a hospital clown, it didn't exist here in Belgium. Yeah, you had one organization was a little bit into it but you guys in america were ahead of us with with those things with patch adams and and his whole movement but we had to learn it i know we started with two clowns in the day back in the day

Starting point is 00:10:21 and we know nothing about it but here also the the clown helped us because as a human being, you have fear, you don't dare to do things. But as a clown, you just go for it and you jump into it, you know. Often it didn't work, right? But the more you did it and the more you got into that work, the more you found things that how you could do things and how you could make things acceptable and and how you could talk about it and you know very often especially in the last days of the life

Starting point is 00:10:53 of children parents wouldn't allow us with them wow yeah yeah so it was it was and that's that's why i say we had we needed a lot of. We had really to convince these parents that we could do good with the children. But actually, you don't know. Actually, you don't know. It can go either way. But there is the jumping in things, which you need as an entrepreneur, which you need if you want to do things. You just need to jump into it. And once you jump, you can't go back you know

Starting point is 00:11:25 it's like you're at what at the side of a pool and and you think ooh the water is cold but once you jump yeah then you jump and you go into it right it's not feeling in the water with your toe and with your hands and ooh it's cold no no you just jump jump into it and then you swim. You have to, you know, even if it's cold. And that's what a clown does, and that's why you can learn so much from that clown in real life because most of the time in real life, if you think too much about things, you're not going to do it.

Starting point is 00:11:58 But if you jump into it, yeah, then we are in it. And then when challenges and problems come to us, we will solve them, you know. But you can only solve them, you know. But we can only solve them when you're in the water. I always say to people, you only can start to swim when you're in the water. You can't swim when you're out of the water. Yeah. You know, I've got kind of a comedy brain.

Starting point is 00:12:21 Some people think I'm funny. I think other people think I'm just stupid and it's funny. But both work. I'll take both absolutely i remember you know one of the ways that i react to dark moments when i have some sort of clarity is with comedy so i mean even now right now i'm suffering covid my dog just passed last week and i started writing covid jokes today what's funny about having covid that's that's what i'm doing today i started writing jokes in the morbid sense of it and then yesterday i wrote let's see my dog last my dog you know i lost my dog last week i've got covid this week my other dog's sad i'm quarantined sounds like i'm in

Starting point is 00:12:58 a country song and people on my facebook are like, are you okay? You should really be in some serious pain right now. And years ago, I remember my father, he started having his heart attacks, his strokes, started that decline, that thing where you're coming to the end and everything's going off the rails. And he hated being in the hospital. He hated doctors and he hated, and he loved life and he loved his family. And I hated doctors and he hated and he loved life and he

Starting point is 00:13:25 loved his family and i remember he had one of his massive strokes it was one of his last ones and he called me or i called him i think i called him from the hospital and i talked to him and from the moment he picked up i could hear the terror in his voice. He was scared. And my father was a bit of a narcissist and didn't let off a whole lot of emotion. But I could tell he was scared. And he sounded just really in fear. And so I started telling him jokes. I just went right to it.

Starting point is 00:14:01 I didn't really think about it. It was kind of my way of dealing with it myself. As a comedian, I kind of process that in a way of trying to turn that around. And so I started telling him jokes. And he drugged for a little bit, but then he started laughing. I was joking about, oh, are you hitting on the nurses there? You asked anyone out? How's that going?

Starting point is 00:14:23 He's married. And I started joking about hospital food, just stuff you can do off of the thing. And pretty soon I had him laughing. And so he went from scared, fearful, just afraid of the end, which is probably inevitable at that point, to laughing. And so somewhere in the midst of it, I've always pondered that moment in using comedy to give hope, using comedy to give levity to, is levity the right word? To give levity to life, and even though it's fragile at that moment, to be able to laugh at it. What are your thoughts on that?

Starting point is 00:14:58 And then what are the things you're usually trying to achieve when you're working with a child? Are you trying to entertain, give hope, laughter, maybe all of the above? I think you have a very valid point there. You know, whatever happens to you or the world or whatever, the moment people start telling jokes about it, that's the

Starting point is 00:15:17 moment they start to heal. Even like when 9-11 happened, which was a disaster in every way, but you have to cope with it. You have to accept it. You have to come over it. And at some moment, people started to tell jokes about it. And that's the point where they are healing and where they are looking forward.

Starting point is 00:15:39 They're not looking backwards anymore. And so humor is something that can really help with that at the other hand it's it's always difficult to use humor I always say humor is like a scalpel you know that what the things that surgeons use you can save a life with it with a scalpel well but you can also kill somebody with it it's just the way you use it and that's the thing you have to figure out as a hospital clown that was the thing we had to figure out okay what kind of humor works how do we use that humor because when you use a wrong it has the opposite effect of course that's for example when you use

Starting point is 00:16:17 when you tell a joke too soon after something bad happens oh when it's too soon it's too soon you know but then again you know so i always say to people you know if you don't spit it out if you don't do it if you if you don't throw yourself in it you won't know and and here again the clown doesn't have a fear of that he just jumps even if he smacks his face into the wall doesn't matter picks himself up and he goes again and even if he goes again to the wall picks himself up and goes again and he tries and tries and tries until he finds something you know that that he can work with and and that's with all things that with the people that i work with also sometimes we do we do something and it doesn't work okay then we use

Starting point is 00:17:07 the next thing that doesn't work we use the next thing and the next and the next until it works and at some point it will work and the longer to go back to the clowning the longer you were in the in the clown the more experience you had the sooner You know, I could, at the end of my career as a clown, I could go into a room and within 10 seconds, I would have the kid laughing, jumping in bed, whatever he had. Yeah. Yeah, because you see the surroundings, you see the parents, you see the look at the kid's face.

Starting point is 00:17:39 So you take that all in very quickly, where in the beginning you need to try out things, but at the end you come into a room and it goes really fast. But there is always a way in, and that's the important thing a clown does. It connects. And the moment you have that connection, you can do anything. And connection is the beginning of communication, and from there on you go so tell us how did you grow up what influenced you how did you get into working as a clown and then into the

Starting point is 00:18:13 hospital field yeah so i'm from belgium grew up there in a little town i had a great parents i had a fine childhood i played a lot. And for me, trouble started, trouble, and with trouble, that's good trouble, started when I was, when I ended high school, that was at 17, 18 years old. I really didn't know what to do. So I studied for a teacher. And, but in that period, it was a little bit dark in that way that I had a great thing of why are people so mean to each other? And I also had a thing about this stuff. I still have a dishonesty of people. I couldn't figure out why are people not just honest about things.

Starting point is 00:18:56 You know, hey, you want to go for a drink? No, no, I can't because why don't you say no? I just don't feel like it. Or why don't you say, no, I just don't feel like it. Or why don't you just say the truth? And that being said, I was a teacher for a little while. And I couldn't cope with the whole structure. I wanted to be more creative. And at that point, I got the idea. I found myself always happy when I was playing theater, you know, when I was performing for people.

Starting point is 00:19:24 So I started my own little theater, children's, when I was performing for people. So I started my own little theater, children's theater. I even started with puppet theater. Yeah. But at that point, that wasn't really commercial anymore. There was not much demand for puppet theater. So I needed to come up with something that intrigued children and that was connecting with children. And in that period in Belgium, there was a clown on TV, and he had great success. And that triggered me. I said, okay, what's the thing with this clown thing? Why does it attract children?

Starting point is 00:19:57 And that was the point where I went into it. And from there on, I threw myself completely in clowning I I worked with with very good clowns then I got the opportunity to work in hospital and and that was and I learned and learned and learned and you know the beauty of clowning is to start with the red nose and with the paint and with the red shoes and with the with all this stuff and you end up the end of your career just a little red nose just a little bit red on your nose that's it so you find out that it's not the red nose and not the clowns another thing that makes the figure attractive you find out that what's behind it that

Starting point is 00:20:39 makes it attractive and once you figure that, I think then you want to go fast. It's more, it comes from the inside. It comes from a deep desire of inspiring and helping people. And from there on, that's what clowning is, actually. You know, you want to help people. You want to inspire people. You want to tell the truth, but you are telling it in a way that you can get away with it.

Starting point is 00:21:04 You know in in old middle ages clowns told the truth about the king and about the queen and they got away with it right because they did that they were laughing with it yeah and that's also what intrigued me and still to the day to this day you know i'm. I will tell you the truth, but not many people can cope with the truth. But you need the truth to go to the next step. If I'm in a coaching conversation and I say, hey, you have to do 10 calls a day and you're not doing 10 calls. You only do two. That's just straightforward.

Starting point is 00:21:41 You have to do eight more calls, period. It's not, hey, maybe, yeah, I know you had a calls period yeah and it's not hey maybe yeah i know you had a bad day and and and so it's okay but no no you just you did two you gotta do ten so tomorrow you'll do ten okay and you know it's it's it's all that what's what's what keeps me i'm i call myself still a clown most people don't understand that and they think clowning is all about being funny and being no no there's there's a there's a much deeper underlying thing there and and that's why I try to explain in in in my coaching that's why I try to explain on stage just want to perform not

Starting point is 00:22:22 perform and speak for people and but it takes a little explaining because yeah nobody really understands what a clown does and a lot of people like yourself one of the questions how can you do it with palliative children how can you that's because it's underlying it's not that no i want to make the skit laugh no no it's much more much deeper much profounder and and 99 of my job is trying to explain that to people and then giving them these things so that they can use it in their own life and yeah that's that's my calling that's that's what i love to do so we talked about how this transcends into leadership. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:23:08 And there was something else we discussed on your website here that we were talking about. Communication. Authentic communication. Yeah. And tell us how this translates into that and how people can, you know, if they coach with you, they can utilize the skills that you learned through being a hospital clown to the boardroom. Yeah. In leadership, there's one golden rule in clowning, in hospital clowning.

Starting point is 00:23:35 I mean, that is. And that is, it's not about you. It's about the kid that's there, and you have to follow his lead. In the beginning, you make the mistake of clowning. You come in and you want to entertain with balloons or magic or whatever you have and but the more you clown the more you follow his or her lead and see what the child needs right does she even like balloons maybe she's scared or he's scared of balloons etc etc now as a leader you must do the same i mean you can't just push your thing to the people you are leading

Starting point is 00:24:07 because you don't know if they are going to accept it or what i do with it so you have to know the people first and then you figure out okay how can i help them to achieve what i want to achieve or what i want them to be or to do. So here it's exactly the same. You have to remove your ego and you have to say, okay, how can I help these people? Not how can I obligate them to do this and this and this. That's a totally different view. And a lot of leaders don't really listen to the people they lead. And the moment they start to listen, you know, that's the moment they know how they should know how to lead.

Starting point is 00:24:54 So it's exactly the same as clowning. So that's a very, very important thing. You have to put in your mind, okay, as a leader, it's not about me. It's about people I lead. It's about my company. It's about my brand. It's about all these other things,'s not about me. It's about people I lead. It's about my company. It's about my brand. It's about all these other things, but not about me. Once you have that out of the way, then you are leading. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:25:14 I mean, it's service to others, right, when it comes down to that? It's service to others, yeah. And the second thing I always do with people is, and that's actually, let's say, the adult side of clowning is the no nonsense. Please use your common sense. If people come up to you and say, hey, I'm going to let you earn 50k a month. I'm going to do that in three months. Then common sense has to kick in.

Starting point is 00:25:44 And that's actually also what a clown does he starts laughing with it and he says no no I don't want to no no we can't it's not 50k we want in in three months we will we will do 200k no we'll do a million K right so of course he laughs with it but as in real life please use your common sense and people don't use that enough and everybody has it that's that's that's the thing you know every variation of it let's put it that way they don't have a variation about people that don't have a full deck of common sense yeah i know i know but still you know yeah you have it somewhere you have it. Somewhere you have it. Everybody has it. But not everybody uses it.

Starting point is 00:26:26 That's the thing. Everybody has it. They're just not using it. I like that. That makes complete sense. You know, I love these ideas for inspiring people. Is that my phone? Oh, sorry.

Starting point is 00:26:41 They wanted to get on the show. Yeah, yeah. Hey, he's on the show. That's what happened. Yeah, yeah. Hey, he's on the show. Let's get on. It's not a Colin show, folks. I put my phone off, but apparently my computer still does this thing. So let's talk about the services that you have on your website that you help people with your training and experience.

Starting point is 00:27:03 You know, you work with over 10,000 kids that's just amazing and inspiring and such a beautiful story tell us about the coaching and stuff that you whatever you offer on your website so that people can take advantage of it so at first when I started as a coach you know I had a mistake that I should have known by doing the clown work is you have to look at the one who is in front of you, right? You have to have a conversation with him or her. And then you decide, one, are we going to work together? Because there has to be a match

Starting point is 00:27:46 somewhere there has to be a click and if there's a click you know then you see the person you talk to me okay and you ask okay what's your goal what do you want to where you're going to go to because that's what the words coaching literally means right it comes from the english word coach where this coach this carriage brought you from a to b so that's also what a coach needs to do has to help to bring you from a to b and mostly he does that by just holding a mirror in front of you there's forgive me i don't know who it's who is from but as a coach who says the land post technique. So what's the land post technique?

Starting point is 00:28:31 It's just going to stand in front of a land post and spelling out loud what your problems are and how you think about things. You have to verbally say it. So that's what I do now with people. I have a conversation. I'm looking at, okay, where you want to go. You're at point A now. Establish that where you are. It's also very important because a lot of people don't know where they are.

Starting point is 00:28:49 And if you don't know where you are, then you can't go. If you don't know you're at place A, you can't go to place B. It's like with a GPS system, right? You have to know your location before you can go to the location you want. So that's important. Yeah, that's important. Yeah, that's important. I establish them with them. And from there on, we go.

Starting point is 00:29:08 We decide, okay, we want to work together or not. The way we want to work together, we have a conversation every week. And every week, I give feedback on what they did and how they did it. And from there on, we go and we go and we go further. And with all due respect, I think that's the only way to coach people.

Starting point is 00:29:27 If you have a program, that's all well, but you have to be able to deviate from the program because when your coachee doesn't need some things, you've got to put it away. If you're trying something with a child in hospital, like a balloon, and the child doesn't like the balloon, okay, you have to put the balloons away and try something else. Ah. So sometimes you got to get good at finding what entertains and how you can serve them the best.

Starting point is 00:29:56 And I do exactly the same with my coaches. I find out how can I serve them best. And sometimes it's just listening to them for one hour without saying one word that's sometimes yeah that's sometimes the best you can help people they want to talk they want to that's that's a lamppost technique right so they talk and and but there's a big difference when you are figuring out thing in your head and then when you speak them out loud it's a world of difference when you speak them out loud you really are confronting yourself with yourself and you always you already are telling the solution to yourself right but when you keep

Starting point is 00:30:40 doing things in your head and thinking about things, it doesn't work like that. So sometimes I really mean that. Sometimes I don't say a word. And at the end of the conversation, hey, they say themselves, they say, hey, that was helpful. That was helpful. That was insightful. And I go, okay, see you next week. See you next week.

Starting point is 00:31:01 Yeah, but they needed that at that point. Exactly. next week. Yeah, but they needed that at that point. I feel, okay, they just need to express themselves, to talk about things that they are busy at that time. And that's what I do then. Sometimes there are some exercises that I do with them. So you have to

Starting point is 00:31:17 feel, you have to see, you have to connect with them and see what they really need. And at some point, they need this. The next week, they need something else. And that's why I don't keep fixed programs anymore because you don't help people. Some people you help very good,

Starting point is 00:31:38 and others you don't help with fixed programs. So that's how I work at this point with a coach. And I know, I really know, I realize that it's very hard to sell, but I'm doing it anyway, because I know that's the best way to help people. This is pretty amazing. I love your inspiring story, how you've helped people do things, et cetera,., etc. How can people onboard with you? How do they reach out to you and get involved with you and see if you're fit? Just through my website. Do me an email.

Starting point is 00:32:11 Call me on WhatsApp, whatever. We'll have a conversation, and that conversation is just a conversation. And from there, we will see if you are fit or not. Sometimes they really want to work with me. Yeah, I want to work with you. You want to work with me. I say, okay, we have a conversation. And after that conversation, I have to be honest, and I have to tell them, okay, I don't think I can help you.

Starting point is 00:32:36 Or in the baddest case, I won't help you. It's not that I can't, but we do not click. I have no click with you. That's something I couldn't do in a hospital. You know, some children were very nice to work with. Others were, let's say, like it is spoiled brats, right? But even with the spoiled brats, we did our thing, and at the end, we still accomplished something but as a coach i can i can

Starting point is 00:33:08 say to the spoiled brats i'm sorry i'm going home so as we go out give people your final pitch out in your dot com so people can find you on the internet yeah just pitch people and yeah it's it's just eddysmiths.com. That's my website. Connect with me on LinkedIn. Please say something to me. Just don't do only a connection request. Please start a conversation. Even if you think, no, no, I don't want to coach. I don't have an event where you can speak.

Starting point is 00:33:38 That doesn't matter. Just connect. I love to connect with people. I love to have a conversation, even if it's very short. I have I think 5,000 people on my LinkedIn which is not so much but from these 5,000 I still need to talk with 4,000 people so please talk to me.

Starting point is 00:33:53 Pretty amazing stuff you got going on here. Give us, did we get a.com from you as we're going out? I'm a little faded with COVID here. It's just eddysmith.com. Eddie, it's been wonderful to have you on and honor. I mean, I'm so glad

Starting point is 00:34:09 that you gave smiles and hope to people. You know, this life is a treasure. This, I believe, as an atheist, I don't mean to push my things on people, so I don't know why I said that, but I believe that what goes on

Starting point is 00:34:21 between birth and death is the most important thing you have, and you've won the lottery in the universe to actually get life. Because when you really study it, getting to be alive is one of the hardest things and against the odds of just about everything in the universe that can happen to you, and staying alive after that. And so giving people in their last moments of life, hope, smiles, joy, is what's going to make all the difference

Starting point is 00:34:48 in what they remember and what they experience. I mean, there's no reason to... And not even only when they are about to die, during their whole life. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, that's the thing. If we could learn to serve each other and better as human beings

Starting point is 00:35:04 instead of fight each other, that would probably be great. Thanks, Eddie, for that's the thing. You know, if we could learn to serve each other better as human beings instead of fight each other, that would probably be great. Thanks, Eddie, for coming on the show. Thanks, Madis, for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Voss, Chris Voss, one of the TikTokity, the most crazy places on the Internet. Be good to each other, damn it. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time.

Starting point is 00:35:23 And smile. And smile. I like that.

The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Unmasking the Hospital Clown: Lessons in Leadership from Eddy Smits

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