You Choose with Billy Garton Jr.
You Choose with Billy Garton Jr.

#018 - Michael Smoak - 6 Questions You Need to Ask Your Parents Before They're Gone

August 18, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

The Hardest Conversation You'll Ever Have

Michael Smoak's father, Michael Lee Smoak, died in January 2024 after a seven-month decline that turned a healthy, active 70-year-old into a bedbound man who needed to be bathed and fed. But Smoak insists that his father's death was "the worst thing I've ever been through, but the best thing that ever happened to me." That paradox organizes this conversation: how the most painful experience of his life became the foundation for everything meaningful he now does.

The Breakup That Saved Him

The story begins before the diagnosis. In March 2022, Smoak ended a five-year relationship. He was 26, living with his partner, and the decision to leave meant blowing up the life he had built as an adult. He moved back into his parents' house to "lick my wounds and figure out where I want to live next."

Within a month of moving home, he noticed his father looked thin and low-energy. His dad said he was sick and nobody knew why. Smoak dove into researching his father's condition, meeting with holistic and Western doctors, translating medical jargon, managing protocols. Two weeks after the breakup, his father stopped him as he was leaving the office and said: "I know you're here for kind of a shitty reason, but I think you're also here to help me with this. And I think God put you here."

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:00) **Opening: Grief as a Catalyst** - Michael Smoak states his dad's death was the worst thing he's been through but the best thing that ever happened to him, setting the core thesis.
  • 2 (03:03) **Introduction of Guest Michael Smoak** - Host Billy Garton Jr. welcomes Michael Smoak, known as Higher Up Wellness, framing him as a builder-in-public who transforms victims and inspires bravery.
  • 3 (07:52) **The Reductionist Mindset: Self-Development vs. Self-Actualization** - Michael explains the difference between layering achievements on a poor foundation and peeling away the non-essential to reach one's essence.
  • 4 (11:19) **God's Undeniable Presence: The First Story** - Michael tells the first story of experiencing God's undeniable hand in his life: the timing of his breakup and his father's illness.
  • 5 (17:37) **God's Undeniable Presence: The Second Story** - Eight months after his father's death, Michael receives a text that feels like a direct hug from God, confirming his path.
  • 6 (21:02) **The Moment of Surrender** - Michael describes the specific moment he surrendered his father's life to God, experiencing a supernatural peace that transcended understanding.
  • 7 (26:53) **Purpose is Found in Pain** - Michael explains his controversial statement that his dad's death was the best thing that ever happened to him, defining purpose as helping others through what you were delivered from.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

If your parents are still alive, watch this for a time sensitive message. If they aren't, watch this for your own current or future children. If neither of those are true, watch this to touch that beautiful place inside of you that is connected to everything.


There are questions I've held about my father, about his first marriage, about who he was before he was my dad, that I have not had the courage to ask. Not because I don't want to know, but because there has always been more time.


This conversation woke me up.


Michael Smoak didn't have more time. He had 7 months to both ask and deliver everything to his father before it was over.


Today, we went to the places most people spend an entire life avoiding. The exact questions to ask your parents before it's too late, the two moments that made God undeniable to him, why your father was once a little boy full of fears and dreams and what changes in you the second you remember that, the reason he never missed a single post while his dad was dying, the six things he believes a man must have in place before he is ready for a wife, what he still wants to know from his mother, why the death of a father is the only coming of age ritual men in this culture are given, how to feel grief all the way through instead of letting it quietly run the rest of your life, and what he would say to anyone still telling themselves they'll have that conversation next year.


I have had conversations on this show that moved me. This one changed the way I look at my own father, and it changed what I'm going to do about it.

 

If your parents are still here, this episode is a phone call you have been putting off. Please make it.


I hope you enjoy, and if you do, let me know by liking, commenting, and subscribing to the show.


I am committed out of my mind to bringing you conversations that alter the direction of your life, leading you to a deeper sense of belonging in the context of the world.


Follow Michael - https://www.instagram.com/higherupwellness

Get Tickets to 'The Purpose Progression Tour' - https://laylo.com/laylo-higheruptour/m/wpPOi3

Follow the show - https://www.instagram.com/youchoosepodcast/

Follow Billy - https://www.instagram.com/billygartonjr


Chapters

02:58 What Alex & Leila Hormozi Are Really Like

08:31 Self-Development vs Self-Actualisation

11:09 The Moment God Became Undeniable

14:05 Something Was Wrong With His Dad

17:39 Grief Is an Ocean

24:06 The Prayer That Changed Everything

26:03 Why Surrender Is So Hard for Men

27:54 How to Actually Find Your Purpose

28:21 What to

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