The Edge Breakfast - AMA: Brad Smeele - from Pro to Quadriplegic

Episode Date: February 23, 2026

Former pro wakeboarder Brad Smeele joins the show to share the story behind his book Owning It and the 11.5-year journey since a filming accident left him a quadriplegic. He explains why he wrote the book himself using a mouth stick, recounts the crash and rescue, and describes grief, rock bottom, and learning happiness. Brad discusses friendships, caregiving, accessibility, his wheelchair tech, breath-hold freediving, travel, and lessons on mindset, presence, gratitude, and asking for help.

This is a podcast from Rover. He was one of the world's greatest wakeboards, especially New Zealand, has ever produced. And for the last 10 years, has been a quadriplegic, Brad Smaela, the book owning it I have read in the past. It is a real honour to have you on the show and for you to tell your story to people that maybe have never heard it before on the edge. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's cool. It's been a wild journey. it's actually 11 and a half years now since the accident actually happened and

it seems like a lifetime ago and then yeah coming up on I think about three years since the book came out yeah yeah it's honestly since my last proofread I haven't even touched the thing

I haven't looked at it I just Is there a reason for that Is it hard to look back on or was it It was more it took me six years to write the thing And then the last year was just so full on. I think I read six different versions of it

that had been trimmed up and trimmed up. Six years because you wanted to write the book yourself and because obviously not being able to have the function of your hands, you had to write this entire book with your mouth. Wow. And not dictating it with holding a mouthstick in my mouth that's like a stylist that I type on my phone. Initially, my God, that's incredible.

My physio bill, I mean the bill wasn't too bad because they hooked me up, but like the amount of time I'd have to go to physio for my jaw and for my neck because I'd be like a woodpecker, like one letter at a time until Apple introduced swipe to type, and that must have doubled my word count permanent. That must have been a game change today. It really was. That keynote.

You would have been like, yes, come on. Can you tell me why you decided to do that when you could have dictated? Why did that mean something to you to write it out? Well, because first of all, the publisher had offered me a ghost driver. And a lot of people take them that are able-bodied. Yeah, and for me it was that there's so many things that I can't do anymore on my own that I'm like, well, maybe this is something I could have a crack at. Even though my English teacher would have lost a shit laughing.

I know that I was a best-selling author. but yeah so then in order to like why I chose to write it as opposed to dictate it was I think just the way I had to kind of process it as I was going maybe my brain and mouthwork at different speeds and and I wanted to get really descriptive and creative and like really put myself in my shoes at the time because it's all written first person present tense so 16 year old Brad has to be 16-year-old Brad's mind, and so I kind of had to throw myself under the bus a little bit as well. Brad pre-accident, you know, may have been a little bit of a, I don't know.

Ladies man. A little bit of a ladies' man, free spirit, traveling the world. And I couldn't vanilla that down at all. Like I had to really tell it how it was and how my frame of mind was at the time, so that then when it came to the accident and when it came to all the struggles afterwards, that's when you know, people would really feel that change and the evolution I went through. You mentioned the accident there, and it's probably a story you've told many, many times, but for people that haven't followed your story, can you take us back to that day,

the day I guess your life changed? Yeah, well, I mean, when most people think wakeboarding, you're behind the boat, you just crash into the water. I don't know of anyone that's broken their neck, wakeboarding, crashing in the water. I mean, there's other injuries that can happen, but we had gone to the more extreme, end of it similar to freestyle motorcross where they're doing backflops and landing down a big landing ramp

because we wanted to like when you're behind a boat you're limited to that flat plane of a lake so what goes up must come down it's not like snowboarding you're watching the Olympics at the moment they got a nice big slope to land down so we had gone to this more extreme

version of wakeboarding where we're riding behind a cable system similar to your like T bar on a ski lift kind of thing on a mountain and it would tow you back and forth across the lake, just one person at a time. But that way you can go to multi-level sort of, you know, you'd have a lake and we'd have a peninsula with a pond

kind of dug into the peninsula, maybe two or three metres above the lake level. Right. So we're now doing like step-ups and step-downs and kind of, you know, there was a ramp out of the pond. And then I think I went over maybe a 20 or 30-meter land gap and then landed down a big landing ramp. But it's not like the new freestyle landing ramps that are inflatable.

This was a big wooden structure. Old school. And I was trying a new trick that I had landed once before, and it was a trick that won me trick of the year that year. And so it was a double backflip variation where I do a backside 180 at the end, and I land backwards down the ramp. First of a lander, and I was trying to land it again for this new movie that we were filming. It was going to be the biggest film of the year.

All the pressure was on. And for context as well, I'd gone 10 years of struggling to make it as a pro-wakeboarder and, you know, barely getting paid. And finally I'd landed this trick. I'm getting the recognition. I'm getting sponsors coming in my way. And I'm like, if I can just stamp off this movie section with this one trick, then I'm away.

I'll finally actually maybe get some money coming in and be, able to call myself an actual professional wakeboarder that is living off it. And then, yeah, the last day of filming, I ended up bailing out halfway through it through the trick because that was how I learned it. Like I would, you know, again, watching the Olympics and things like that, if you see someone do a flip and they tuck into the, you know, tuck into a ball, you can spin really fast. If you open out, you can slow it down. And so I'd do the first half of it.

of the flip, tucked, and then I'd open out the second half of the flip. So I knew I had time to do a second flip if I stayed tucked. And so I had, that was how I learned it, but it was also a bailout point if something went wrong. And it just, something felt wrong off the top of the ramp. I'd maybe cut a little too hard. I'd stood up a bit harder than, that I'd intended and gone bigger than I'd wanted to. And so I was like, okay, I'll bail out of this one.

and then as I opened out, I realized I'd bowed out a split second too late and I was going to over-rotate, most likely land on my head or my back. But I had tension on the rope that I was hanging on to still. So I tugged on the rope and turned my flip rotation into a spin, spun 270 degrees. So I was 90 degrees short. And so I landed with my toes facing down the ramp, tumbling forward as opposed to the nose of the board facing down the ramp. and it all slowed down.

I tried to save it. I was like, okay, how can I get out of this? Maybe I'll tuck and roll. I've got to save my face in my modeling career. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, tucked, but only got my head under. And then my shoulders smashed into the ramp and forced my head into my chest and shat up my vertebrae. And I was knocked unconscious and left floating face down in the water.

And that is the last time that you had any feeling or movement from your neck down. Yeah, I mean, feelings are funny one. I feel a lot below my level of injury, but most of it's pain. Right. So it's quite frustrating. And what was the moment when you woke up and you said you were unconscious? And I'm guessing the camera crew and family and a war. Was family there, friends there who got you out of the water?

Yeah, my teammates. And one of them, my friend Chad, he, the guy I looked up to my whole career, one of the legends of the sport. And he and I, a couple months earlier, because I was managing the property that we were training on, it was our team training facility. I'd managed to score the on-site manager job just through working hard.

And a lot of what we were doing was high risk. A guy a couple months earlier, one of our teammates had broken his femur. Oh, no, no, tibial plateau. Both sound quite painful. Yeah, yeah. And so when, that happened where I was like okay we need to do a water safety course and so both chad and

myself went along and did that and part of ironically part of that course you know CPR all that sort of stuff but stabilizing a spinal cord injury in the water was one of the things we learned wow and I'd made sure he was going to be there that day because I knew what I was doing was high risk yeah and didn't realize it would be exactly that him having to come out with he brought a stand-up paddleboard out me. My friend Dean had got to me first and he'd flip me over. I was eyes wide open, blue in the face. He thought I was already dead.

And then they pulled me half up onto this paddleboard and we're going to try and do CPR straight away. Probably wouldn't have worked. Like you're floating on a stand-up pedal. Yeah, and then I always joke about the fact that something deep down must have known and my buddy was about to put his mouth to mine because I woke up and started breathing on my Yeah. No, no, no, no, I'm good, bro, I'm fine, fine, no.

I'm alive. And so that's when, I mean, my initial thought was, you've been here before, just be patient, it'll come back. Because five years earlier, I'd had a whiplash injury where I'd had spinal shock that had, like, paralyzed me for maybe 20 or 30 seconds. And I woke up sort of looking up at the surface of the water, like slowly floating up, and I was like, I can't swim, can't move. It didn't take very long and it started coming back.

I had a pretty severe concussion and stuff. So I revisited that and I'm like, okay, it's going to come back. You know, just stay calm and then over time it didn't. And we got back to the shoreline and I'm panicking about, where's my wakeboard? And they're like, dude, it's on your feet. And then like, but when they pulled me up on the beach, I'm like, oh, take my board off, take my board off. My feet are hurting. And they're like, dude, we just took it off.

It's already got, you know. And that's when I'm like, okay, this is clearly. Obviously, your story is a long one in terms of being in hospital and people coming to see you and you being hopeful like anyone would be that, you know, you're different to what the doctors are saying because you always hear those people that defy all the odds and all the stats. The part for me that I found hard to understand in reading your book was how you go from someone who's in the top 1% or 0.1% of, um, what you're doing in athletes and your movement and how you push the boundaries to having that completely taken away from you. What that does to your mindset going forward of going, this is my new life now and how can I live it when I don't understand any of it because my life was unbelievably different.

Couldn't be more different. Yeah, I felt like I had to mourn the loss of myself of the Brad that I knew. and that was something that I really struggled with and I was really lucky to have Susie, this woman who had been part of my life beforehand through just the Pilates studio that I go to for strength and conditioning training

and she helped me through a few other minor injuries before that and then this injury happened and I got back to New Zealand and she's like, I'm going to come see you every week and we'll work through this. Wow, what a woman. And the initial plan was let's get you walking again. Obviously, everyone comes in with utmost positivity and belief that that will happen. And we had to believe that.

And that was part of, I guess, self-preservation as well as believing that I can make things better in that way. Because I think at the time, that was the only way I could see things getting better. And so, yeah, first thing we started working through was. grief, even that I struggled to look my own mum in the eyes because I saw what I was putting her through. And so I had to work, work through that. And Susie was a massive help. It took about three years for the first me to reach the first turning point where I actually... Three years, did you say? Yeah, where I actually accepted it. And I was like, okay, I'm going to stop looking backwards at what I used to have and, you know, trying to get back to all the things I

used to love, okay, and that I used to be able to do, and now it's okay, let's look forward, what can I do, what is possible, what am I grateful for? And that was, I had to hit rock bottom in order to find that turning point. So, yeah, I couldn't fathom how I would be happy or be able to live a, you know, fulfilling life without my physical ability. And part of that journey was also figuring out that what the real goal was because my my belief was the goal was moving again that's how i'd be happy and then i kind of realized well actually happiness is the goal it's not moving like maybe i can get to happiness without moving um and that just becomes a a mental shift and a huge kind of learning and understanding of what i have control of um you know obviously

things like presence, you know, getting too caught up in the past or future is going to either give you anxiety or depression. Yeah. And yeah, just gratitude, just kind of staring at my mind where I wanted it to go. And but I guess early on, I wanted it to go back. Yeah, I mean, of course you would. Yeah, it was my only safe place that I felt like I could get back to and be happy. So, yeah, there was a huge journey.

I couldn't have done it without help and support from not just Susie, but friends, family and everyone around me. Triggering for some as well, potentially, this part of the conversation, but there were moments where you were just like, I'm done. Like, I don't want to live anymore. Yeah. And I think a thing that a lot of people in the situation you were in would probably be considering, being like,

what have I got to live for if I don't have the life that I once did? And now you're this incredible motivational speaker for so many people, you're impacting changing so many lives the thought that that could have been your reality is so crazy how do you get through that? Well yeah well the thought of like

I don't want to be here anymore and I'm like well how like you know yeah true even if I could push a button or pull a trigger like I can't and that was even a bigger part of the

the mind battle with that and you know and it was even as you remember from the book probably that there was where I went to in my mind that I'm like, okay, if I really wanted to, like, exit from

this reality, I figured out how I would and then that's kind of where I end up at the end of the book and end up finding passion and progression and stuff like that through, you know, sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool and holding my breath. And I was like,

okay, I can push myself again. I can go from a couple minutes to three minutes to four minutes for five minutes, like holding my breath and feel like I've got that little part of athlete Brad back. And that was a really big part of the journey was when I reached that breakdown and that rock bottom point. And I started looking forward.

It was like, okay, what are the things that I could do that I'd have a similar experience to everyone else and things like skydiving and scuba diving. And scuba dive doctor said, no, like medical risk from breathing. compressed gas underwater, yada, yada, yeah, I kind of tuned out. You're like, yeah, but I'm not a normal person. I push the limits pretty hard. Yeah, yeah, I'm like, wait, did you say it's from breathing off a tank underwater? What if I hold my breath?

He's like, yeah, that kind of eliminates the medical risk, but you can't swim. I'll figure that part out. Me and my buddies are, you know, pretty tight. They won't leave me down there. And yeah, and then we just started practicing. And so, yeah, yeah, and that's what I think is quite interesting as well. I was so dead set on going scuba diving and I was so pissed off when he told me no.

But it led me to something more fulfilling and that gave me more purpose and progression again. I think the thing I find so inspiring about you and I think this is such a rare thing is you got to the top of your game in weightboarding and then it was all ripped away from you. You know, and it's taken away and I think most people would therefore

just sort of plateau in life and sort of accept it and just live. but the fact that you've then gone, you know what, I'm going to get to the top of my game and something else, and you have been an inspiration. You're probably more remembered now for your inspirational talking

than you are for your weightboarding. That to me is like incredible. Do you sort of take stock of that? Have you thought about that at all? Because it is amazing. Yeah, thank you. And I've definitely thought about that and obviously I understand that

the impact I've been able to have, even if somehow if I blew up as a wakeboarder and got a much bigger reach and stuff like that, like it's still quite a self-fulfilling job and role, whereas now I have the ability to positively impact a lot of other people's lives. That was the whole reason for writing the book. You know, anyone who's written a book knows you don't really make much money off it unless you're selling, you know, hundreds of thousands of books. books.

But yeah, it's, it's the messages that I've received from people who've read it, you know, some of them are going as far as saying, hey, I'm, I'm not sure if I'd still be here if I didn't find your book. Those sorts of ones is like, that's why I spent six years writing it. Yeah. And I mean, so often people will say, oh, I don't think I could have ever, you know, gotten through it or, you know, done what you've done. But I think we don't give ourselves enough credit for how.

strong we can be when we really have to. And I think, yeah, it's been really... Really... It's such an interesting one, because, you know, even the thought of if you could go back and change things, it's like, you know, I know I have a much bigger impact now, but obviously I'd probably still go back and want to be...

Of course. Six foot two pro athlete Brad. But no, it's just... been an interesting journey that's taken me places I never knew I'd go and I mean part of it like you know you look at it as a choice of me me choosing to do all these things but if I didn't choose to then I'm still in the wheelchair exactly still in pain I'm still going through everything that I would you know would be going through anyway so why not make something good of it and do the best that I can from it yeah wow can you tell me what just I just want to hear about your friendships but have you

have the same friends pre the accident and post? And how has that changed? Because I imagine that would be a huge thing to get you through and especially male friendships. I know female friends

can really gather around each other and they're known for it. But when the going gets rough, sometimes guys can shy away and it gets a bit scary whether it comes to mental health with their friends and stuff and I just would love to hear

about the male friends in your life. Yeah, I mean, my male friends have been amazing. It's actually the only ones they let me down with female friends, but that's probably because they were any interested in me for my body and what I was able to do and that sort of stuff.

And so, yeah, it's funny. Even with my family, we've always been a really close family, but I think just growing up in the era we did, like saying I love you to each other wasn't a huge thing that we did until after the accident. And now we say it all the time. you know, brother, sister, mom, dad, everyone, they said to each other, like it's not just to me. And same with my friends.

We've just connected in such a way that has become so cool. Like we've got, you know, my old school friends and we'll catch up for a curry night every couple of months and, you know, golf day once a year and, you know, boys weekend away and just things like that. And I find, you know, most men as we get older and, you know, into. our 30s and and you know I'm verging on 40 next year and so I think later in life you start to really value those male friendships and and and then yeah we just like even uh brant who's here with us he's brought me in today he and I go back to the very early days of my wakeboarding when I was probably 13 years old he was one of the good bad influences in my life we're only one of those two of those sometimes yeah I had two of those

both about five years older than me so we just had a blast and they opened my eyes to being out of travel and pursue wakeboarding and so and Brandt's now one of my caregivers just on that then Brad with all these great mates and you talk about travelling and scuba diving

what are some of the things that you've done in the 11 and a half years that you've been a quadriplegic that people would be really surprised by because I think a lot of us mope around or we think we can't do this and can't do that and then the fact that you're a quadriplegic

with no feeling or movement from your neck down and you're scuba diving and going on these trips. It's like if you want to do it bad enough, you'll find a way. Yeah, like I've gone back to the States like five or six times since my injury. I mean, I haven't gone back in the last five or six years and don't plan on it.

But, you know, I went back a bunch. I went back to go and revisit the side of the accident. I went and hosted the Wakeboard Awards because when I won trick of the year, Yeah, I was in the swano unit. So I didn't even get to enjoy it. I can get to feel the vibe and get the chairs and everything. So getting to go back and surprise everyone, you know,

coming out on stage and hosting the Wakeboard Awards and things like that, going to Aussie a bunch. I've done some, yeah, been flown overseas for some talks. Did you ever get the skydive thing? Not yet. But one of my buddies that I wakeboarded with most of my life was, is now a tandem skydive instructor.

So he's been playing around with different rigs and, you know, different harness systems, ways to pull my legs up so that they don't drag on the ground when we come into land. I don't think you'd feel it. Yeah, I wouldn't feel it. But no, it's, I think the free diving

is probably the most out there one. Yeah, for sure. And one of the dives that I did, the last time I went back to Florida was into a vertical. entry cave 36 feet down about 12 or so meters down

and I sat down there for about three or four minutes just in this beam of light coming into this cave, crystal clear water it was... Very aerial of you. Yeah, it was straight from the Little Mermaid. But it was, I think that's one of the

cooler things and just going on other random adventures, you know, even just getting in my lightweight sort of regular wheelchair and get my friends to drag me to the top of Rangitoto. Your friends aren't amazing, by the way, as well. Even hearing about Brandt, who you said, was a weight border, was a weight border,

and that's how you knew him as now a caregiver. I think that's an incredible journey with a friendship, how that would have even come about, I think. That's really cool. Well, I mean, we used to hang out on Sundays watching UFC and motocross anyway. I'm like, you may as well get paid for it. Cool, though, that you get to hang out with the best value.

And people can't see what we see, but you in the chair, And how are you able to move around on your own in your chair? Because it is quite fascinating, like watching you do what you do. Incredible piece of cat. Yeah, I've got a what's called a sip and puff control. So it's just a straw, like what you drink through, basically. And if I puff hard into it, it drives forward.

And if I continue to puff, it will continue to accelerate until I stop puffing. Oh, cool. And then that's when, so I think it's got like a timer in case I pass out or something and just crash. Yeah, you just keep rolling. And so it's kind of like cruise control, like it locks that speed. And then I can use a soft sip or a soft puff to turn left and right. And then a hard sip stops and then reverses if I continue to sit. And then I've got a button in my headrest for changing modes.

And it's like an emergency stop button if I need it. And the chair can raise up. Like I'll go to concerts and I'll go, you know, most venues will have a little wheelchair area. like, you know, reasonably good seats and stuff, but sometimes you want to be down in it. You know, you want to be in the crowd. Right. So I can be six foot tall again.

My chair raises up and I can be down amongst it. I usually park myself in front of the sound booth and just, yeah, just get amongst it. How has that technology changed in the 11-5 years? Because was it, has it always been that technically advanced or? Yeah, and it's funny. It depends which country you get injured in or that you get your chair in depends what sort of control you get. for the most part. Like America is usually the sip and puff control.

New Zealand's more of a head control where you've got paddles on each side of the headrest. And then Australia, they tend to use a chin control, which I don't know why. It's just a preferred thing, but I'm glad I got this one, and it hasn't advanced much. Yeah, I mean, I do get new chairs every now and again,

and, you know, there's different new features, and the new one that I'm about to get, it's a bit more off-roader. something that can it's like an everyday chair that can also go a bit more off-road which is great for our property we've got a little one hectare lifestyle block

that veggie garden and chickens and stuff like that I mean and my brother bought and live together at so because that must be game changer because it's like literally part of your body right so you kind of like the features of the chair like must improve your life expedition like I've got a full off-road chair

I can go on the beach on but I've got to transfer into that and it can take like like 20 minutes or so to do that. What are those little moments that we wouldn't even really think about that we take for granted that are just a real struggle or hassle for you that, like getting in and out of a shower, like things like that that we take for granted? Something that, you know, like quite often people are like,

oh, it'd be so nice to have like a servant or like a maid or someone do everything for you, it's not all it's cracked up to be. When you can't do it yourself and you have to have people, people do for you, do stuff for you. It is, yeah, infuriating at times. And it's something that I have to really try and, like, a lot of the times I close my eyes and just kind of woo-s out and just let them trust that they're going to do the right thing. But I think that's also part of it is I've got to be very on top of my own care because someone does something wrong and I end up with a pressure sore or I'm stuck in bed for weeks. So I find I'm constantly watching and making sure

things are done right, but I also have to be conscious of the fact that most caregivers don't have a pro-athlete mindset and don't look at things the same way as I do. And so that's been one of the bigger challenges, I think, is navigating that. Relationships is quite challenging. I think just, you know, any form of intimacy or, you know, even just reaching out and not being able to take someone's hand or, you know, like there's so many things. and you're out and about and you're seeing it all in front of you

that everyone else is able to do and it took me a couple of years to feel like that wasn't all just directed at me. It's just people living their lives and it's like I had to learn to be okay with seeing people do things that I couldn't do anymore. But yeah, that's one of the more challenging things. I think just, I mean, even just navigate

accessibility with certain buildings and like one of one of the cooler moments that I had with my friends it was sort of just this moment that stood out to me when when I had this initial idea or thought of like being a burden on people around me but like a year and a half after my accident my buddy dean who was the guy that got to me first in the water and flipped me over he was getting married and so they invited me over to Sydney for the wedding but it was on a three-story houseboat in the harbour. and the service was on the top floor. And his dad actually ended up in a wheelchair as well,

so they got this stair climbing wheelchair to get us to the top. Because we were both using it, my friends, there's like eight of them gathered around my wheelchair. It's like 200 KGs without me in it. And they carried it all the way to the top floor, just so I could be there for a half hour to watch the ceremony, and then they carried it all the way back down. So that was like this visual moment of like my friends are willing to carry the burden, you know, and that was kind of, that was huge.

Yeah. But yeah, just, I mean, anything like that, accessibility is a challenge. And just kind of getting through the day, picking and choosing what you yell out to ask for. Like you get a little scratch, a little itch something going. And I'm like, oh, can I get through this? Like, do I really need them right now? Wow. Well, I guess then to wrap up, I mean, your story is such an incredible one and there's so much more we can get into.

But I guess for people listening then, what's the lasting thing that you'd like to leave them with? Because you are a really inspiring person from what you're able to do as a quadriplegic. What's the message that you'd like to leave with most people? I think, I don't know, one of the most powerful things I've learned is around how strong are my mind. are and what we do and don't have control. And when we really sit with our thoughts and get introspective and start to learn about ourselves, we can really change and shape the way that our emotions affect us. And I came across, like, I'm a very visual sort of person.

And so I, like, you know, we'd learn all these things along the way. And, you know, you'd have this kind of tool belt of things that I could, like, lean on, say if I felt jealous or if I felt ungrateful or if I felt frustrated or whatever it was that came up, I would be able to pull this learning that Susie had taught me. And I think the first thing is like the life hasn't gotten easier. I've just gotten better at navigating it. And a lot of the, and the challenges haven't stopped coming up. I've just gotten better at working through them. And so for me, I see it as like when you get a message on your phone and the notification pops up. So whenever I feel something or go through something and I notice it straight away,

so that metacognition, like knowing your own thoughts and understanding them. So like if, again, if I feel jealous all of a sudden, and straight away, it's, bing, this notification comes up and it reminds me of the lesson or, you know, the whole grass is greener kind of concept like, you know, your grass doesn't get greener just by looking at how green everyone else's is and complaining about it. So having those little things to draw on to then kind of work through them, it just would get me through it faster and faster the more I learned and the more I would sit with them. Because quite often we want to push our troubles to the side and ignore them. And when you're able-bodied, you can go for a run or go to the gym or even,

have sex or you know drink alcohol or whatever it might be we all have these different vices or different things that we lean on to work through them and to not have to necessarily sit with those troubles but if you if you do sit with them and you do learn with about them then um you just get better and better at working through them and kind of yeah that was that was one of the one of the most powerful things for me and then also just don't be afraid to ask for help like you I didn't get through this alone. I had plenty of people helping me, and I think we all need it.

Yeah, that's true. Wow. Yeah, owning it is the book, if you do want to hear Brad Smellers, full story. That did take six years to write. So if you want to put aside a few weeks and get amongst that book,

it's still out in stores. Man, just thanks, man. Thanks for coming in and sharing your story. Again, a real inspiration and a reminder. to just, I guess, take stock in your life and look out for what you're thankful for because you're able to find so much beauty in a situation that some would find so devastating. So, yeah, man, it's just...

Yeah, gratitude's so powerful, man. Thank you. Appreciate you guys having me, and yeah, get me back on. I don't live far away, so... Yeah, we'll be back, and we've got plenty to talk about it. You unfortunately just missed down and guessed the fart with Clint, so we can do that again. Well, hey, we can play that one because I've got a colophobic.

me bag these days. I've never been closer to my own farce and it's like, I have less control. I think Clint needs one of those. Brent Smalley, thank you so much, bro. Cheers, guys.