Hope After the Fall: Overcoming Mistakes and Discovering Purpose with James W Smith

James W Smith: I'm doing great.

Mike Forrester: Awesome. Well, what does life look like for you today on the professional side of life?

Mike Forrester: So you're kind of like air quotes retired, right?

James W Smith: That's the way to put it, you know, um, uh, she, she says I should have kept pastoring, you know, but, uh, that's where I am, but I'm enjoying it. I really, I really am.

James W Smith: Well, the personal side is great. You know, my wife is doing well. Uh, we, like I said, we go out, we travels. She rides with me to church on Sundays. We make sure we go out to eat. Nobody wants to, you know, come back to try to cook. Uh, the kids are all grown. The grandkids will come over every once in a while. You know, they don't like being around us too much because we want them to do the right thing. So they go home. But, but that's kind of where, where, where it is. You know, we, we, we'll take a [00:05:00] trip. We, I think we've taken two. We wrote, we've ridden out. I think about three times, uh, this year. Like, we went to, you know, Williamsburg, been to Wilmington, uh, you know, Asheville, and what have you, and sometimes it's just a matter of just riding out, you know, to go out to eat. We'll do that on a, on a regular basis. As a matter of fact, I was just talking to my wife a few minutes ago, I said, you want to go to breakfast tomorrow morning? You know, that, that kind of thing. And we just enjoy ourselves, but life is really good. I have to admit, I can't complain at all about a thing. I've just been, I've been blessed.

Mike Forrester: That is cool.

James W Smith: Family has been blessed and I have nothing to say, but thank you.

Mike Forrester: Yeah.

James W Smith: For the life.

James W Smith: Well, uh, I'd always said I wanted to be a doctor, but, uh, I went to a school in, in, kind of in the country, you know, rural, didn't have all of the, uh, I guess, information that you probably needed to have and so I didn't have the best background in the sciences. So when I went off to, to [00:07:00] college, uh, I decided I was gonna major in accounting, and that's what I was doing. Uh, and I, but I had a friend who decided to go to law school, and the law school was at Sabe University where we were attending, and so he went in on a combined program. The combined program was you got to go in at the end of your junior year, so you could graduate, uh, from undergraduate school and do one year of law school. And so, he told me about it. I said, Hmm, that sounds exciting. You know, I knew some lawyers in the hometown. And I said, Hmm, I think I'm gonna, uh, apply to go to law school. And so, that's what I did. And so I didn't go to, to undergraduate school thinking about law, but after talking with him and finding out, seeing the guys over at the law [00:08:00] school, and they, they looked like they were having a good time, I said, Oh, I think that's, that is where I want to go. So I applied, and I was accepted. And so I entered law school. And, uh, um, graduated from undergraduate school with my, uh, Bachelor of Science in Commerce, and I received one year of law school at the same time. So I actually finished law school, uh, in six years, you know, finished that at law school, that's six years rather than seven years, four years, and then an additional three years. I did it in six years and of course, uh, that's where I was. I came out and, uh, uh, worked over in Raleigh as Deputy Director of Wake County Opportunities. Uh, I went down to college [00:09:00] and I taught there for, for, uh, a while, and then I, uh, took the bar, and, of course, passed the bar. Went back to my hometown, uh, where was a very small town and I was the, um, actually the first and only African American lawyer to practice in my hometown, Louisburg. And at the time I was really the youngest African American lawyer practicing in the state of North Carolina. You know, I was 26 years of age. Uh, and you know, just enjoying life. I thought I was on top of the world. Little cocky, you know, how we can get. And so, uh, that was me. I, I had developed a reputation of being a very good lawyer, but I was cocky, you know, you couldn't tell me too much. And I, I knew I had made it and only, only [00:10:00] one from my family, uh, who had, you know, had done that. Uh, nobody else had gone to law school or accomplished any, you know, second, I, I call, uh, any, any degrees other, further than the first four years of college. I had a aunt who did that, but other than that, you know, that was my life. Got off into, into gambling with a few other lawyers who were, uh, gambling. I was playing poker and I started playing poker. It was a long story behind it. But, uh, when I first started, I was, I really enjoyed it, you know, because I knew a little bit about gambling. You know, even in high school, I would go down to Louisburg. We were from the rural area, but we would catch the bus and ride down to the city of [00:11:00] Louisburg and go to the pool hall and, you know, play some pool and, uh, play for 50 cents or a dollar, you know, that kind of thing. Enjoying myself. I was having a, a great time. And so when we, I got into poker, it was just a, a step up for my gambling, you know, but I already knew about gambling and of course I, I really enjoyed it. We had lots of fun. We had a little, uh, I call circles that we, uh, went and we'll go from one town to the other one where the guys were living and, uh, their significant others would, you know, fix, you know, the drinks and the meals and, you know, we get there on a Friday and might not leave until sometime Monday, you know. Take a nap on the couch if we wanted to take a nap and, you know, if we got broke, uh, other lawyers or bondsmen, cause [00:12:00] they're all professional, will let you have money. You know, uh, I would let them have money. So we were just having fun. Uh, won money, lost money, no problem. And I think somewhere along the line, it, the, it, the love of it kind of took hold the, you know, it was like, I really needed to be there and, uh, I didn't know when to stop and, uh, found myself going down, going down and going down. And what I know, knew anything, I was, had lost everything that I had accumulated. Properties, uh, my wife of five years, and I separated, divorced. And, uh, It just was a downhill sparrow, and so, um, I became relatively depressed, and [00:13:00] just didn't see my way out, or didn't think I had a way out, you know, I'm certain there was a way out, but I didn't think I had a way out. So I almost, I contemplated committing suicide, and I'll never forget, I got up that morning and pulled my pistol out of the drawer and headed to the office, got to the office and sat there and was really contemplating just taking my life because I just felt like I had messed completely up, didn't know how to, how to deal with it. At least at that time I didn't know how to deal with it, you know, if, if it was now, I'd have been perfect fine, you know. But, but at the time I didn't know how to deal with it, uh, but my mom, I'm an only child, and my mom kept coming into my, my mind. Well, what would my mom do? [00:14:00] How she's gonna make it? And I think that kind of helped me abandon that idea And so I just got out of my car, start riding around, I guess it was probably about 10 o'clock, was getting hungry because I just left my house without eating any breakfast that day, because I was just really down, it was, uh, and I got on 85, started riding, riding, and ended up at a restaurant in a little place called Oxford, North Carolina. And while I was eating, I just looked out of the window, and here is the Uh, Central Carolina Bay and obviously my mind just started roving, you know, just like it's a, Oh boy, if I could just get my, my hands on 50, 100,000 dollars, I could just pay off all my bills, [00:15:00] uh, pay off all my debts, get some of my properties back, and then I could just start all over like nothing happened, you know. Crazy thinking, but that was what was going through my mind. I rode, I got out. And just rode by the bank a couple of times and kept riding through the city just thinking. And then something just hit me. It said, heck, get caught or not. You know, I pulled right up to the front of the bank, hopped out, ran in, said, stick up, give me your money. They threw a bag of money over. I put it in the car, took off. When I tell you the next story, you're gonna laugh. The next story is really funny. I drove about a, I drove about a, I guess about a half a mile. And, uh, got pulled over by, uh, uh, a police officer. [00:16:00] Now, I was known all through the five county area, the district, what we call five county district, which is the Nassau Judicial District. Mainly because I had, I had run for district court judge, so I was very popular. Everybody knew me. Uh, if the law had been like it is now, uh, I would have been the first African American district court judge in the district back in 1976. I ran the primary and I got 47 percent of the vote, you know. The opponent got only 40%, but in the runoff, you know, I got beat with another white gentleman who was a lawyer in another county. Um, So everybody knew me, and when this, um, officer came up to the car, obviously, the [00:17:00] bag of money had exploded. Uh, they had put some dye in the bag, so it had exploded. And I was trying to figure out why my car was shaking, where all of the smoke was coming from. My eyes started running water, then I, when I looked in the bag, I realized what had happened. I got out, took the bag of money, and I threw it out across the street, across the field, and just got back in the car and was sitting there. And so, when the police officer came up to me, first thing he said is, Lawyer, uh, are you okay? And he could tell that my eyes was running water. I said, Yeah, uh, I'll be all right. He said, You sure? I said, Yeah, I'm, I'm sure. He, he knew me, you know, I, and I recognized him. He said, Okay, you know, go ahead on. He let me go. I pull off and I get, I [00:18:00] guess I went for about another, Uh, half a mile, you know, it's kind of hard to determine that distance. Uh, half a mile to a mile. And I got pulled over by the Highway Patrol. And, uh, uh, I just got out of the car then. And was walking back to the, to the back of the car and the Highway Patrol stopped a little ways back. And by that time, the officer who had seen me before came by and hollered at the one and said, I just stopped him, he's okay. And the Highway Patrol told me, Okay, go get on back of the car, go head on. This is honest truth. It's, it's, it's funny. I told you it'd be something to laugh at. And so I got in the car. It all started coming together, you know, I, I knew that they knew who it was, they knew me. And so I just decided, you know, [00:19:00] to go to my former partner's office and we had already separated, gone our separate ways, and that, that was because of my gambing, too. And, uh, but I went to his office, told the secretary what had happened. My former partner was not in, he was in D.C. at the time. And so, I, when I said to her what happened, she said, What? I told her, I said, I threw my whole law practice down the drain. She said, No. She didn't believe me. You know, she just didn't believe that. I said, yeah, I threw my whole law practice down the drain. And, uh, she said, No, you didn't. She thought I was, really joking. And so I said, call, uh, Frank Ballance. He was a lawyer in another, uh, town that was about 18 miles away. So she called him. He came up and by the time he came up, uh, one of my friends who was a doctor came [00:20:00] over, uh, you know, cause everybody was getting called and you know, all this crazy stuff had happened.

Mike Forrester: Right.

Mike Forrester: Congratulations.

James W Smith: Thank you. And of course, uh, I ended up getting my Doctor of Ministry. In between all of that, I got called to a church that nobody thought would ever happen with the background that I had. Stayed at this church, Traditional Missionary Baptist Church for 32 plus years.

Mike Forrester: Wow.

Mike Forrester: Yeah. I was going to say, let's, let's jump back a bit to like, so you were feeling depressed. I mean, it sounds like there was a desperation for like, I'm in a hole. I don't see a way out. And then it was like, okay, this is not a logical step, but it seems like the only step that's available to me. As you look back at it now, like, do you see that there were other options? And how do you, you know, talk to other men that are like, Oh my gosh, James, I don't know what to do with this situation. How can you see beyond the, you know, the stress, the desperation, kind of, uh, the walls are closing in type of, of feeling, how do you look for stuff beyond that where it's like, this is a viable option, but you're just kind of closed [00:28:00] off almost like a horse race, uh, a race horse rather with like blinders on, how do you look for those other alternatives?

Mike Forrester: Gotcha. So does the, the self reflection and the self awareness, does that [00:34:00] help in that kind of situation? So if we go back and it's like, Oh my gosh, James, you know, you're facing those same things. Do you think having been, you know, self aware and reflecting on the situation where you were at would have been a helpful component even when you're confronting that challenge? Or is that something that's helpful only when you're, you know, not in that, in that valley, in that challenge, you know,

Mike Forrester: Yeah, I think there's certain parts of like, the journey that sometimes, you know, I know just like you talked about James, I was not in a place to hear the truth, much less to act on it. Even if I did go, Hey, yeah, that sounds good. Um, you know, I, I needed to get to a point where it's like, I was willing to hear it and then to take the appropriate action. Um, but, you know, it's like, still like that self awareness. I thought I knew myself. I was that prideful and egotistical that it's like, What can you tell me, James?

James W Smith: I know.

Mike Forrester: You know, um, you, you've been there, you get it.

Mike Forrester: Yeah. I can look back and see that there were times where I just repeated the same mistake over and over. It was like, are you not learning the lesson? Nope. Apparently not. So it comes back to that same like self awareness you're [00:38:00] talking about, right? It's like if, if I had looked back and gone, Huh, I continue to be in the same place out of the same, same thing. It's almost like going into a roundabout and just circling, and circling, and circling, and going, Yeah, I'll, I'll get to where I'm going. No, you won't. It's not until you exit from that roundabout and quit doing the, you know, groundhog day repetition.

James W Smith: Exactly right, exactly, that's exactly right.

Mike Forrester: So you ended up continuing on, got into the pastorate and then, um, you know, through this stuff, how have you, you know, seen like that change for you continue? It doesn't sound like you stopped like, Hey, I'm out. I'm done. It sounds like you continued to grow. Like what?

James W Smith: Oh, I, I did, uh, in between.

Mike Forrester: Okay.

Mike Forrester: I, I guess like how did you continue to grow, you know what I mean? Like what tools, how did you, you know, like on your shirt there, you know, your, your three things are encouraging, inspiring, and transforming.

James W Smith: Yeah.

Mike Forrester: How did you continue to transform yourself and your life from that, that spot?

Mike Forrester: What is CLE?

James W Smith: Continuing Legal Education.

Mike Forrester: Okay. Thank you.

Mike Forrester: Yeah.

James W Smith: Yeah.

Mike Forrester: Well, I love the way you took action and went to find out what's going on, right? You didn't just like your mom had talked about, right? You didn't just roll over, let it happen. You went and figured out, Hey, where, where do things stand and what do I need to do? So yeah, taking action makes a huge difference.

Mike Forrester: Right.

James W Smith: And in my mind I'm saying to myself, They want to see am I persistent. And I applied the following semester, and I was accepted.

Mike Forrester: There you go. Oh man, James, I appreciate it.

James W Smith: No problem.

Mike Forrester: Hey, how can men connect with you outside of this podcast, my friend?

James W Smith: Well, they can, uh, go to my website, which is WWW.DealByMe, everything is deal by me, .com. Okay? Now you might want to know how to, what, what a deal by me come from.

Mike Forrester: Yeah.

Mike Forrester: Awesome. Well, James, I appreciate it, my friend. Thank you very much.

James W Smith: No problem. I enjoyed being with you.