Crowns, Crashes, and Comebacks: The Alex Smith Story

What happens when life's carefully constructed plans crumble? For Alex Smith, the journey from small-town athlete to Miss Oklahoma to entertainment industry executive has been anything but predictable. In this raw and revealing conversation, Alex shares how she transformed unexpected setbacks into powerful comebacks through the cultivation of faith.

Growing up in a community with just 32 students in her graduating class, Alex had mapped out a future in sports until an injury forced her to reconsider everything. Reluctantly entering the pageant world, she ultimately claimed the Miss Oklahoma crown on her third attempt, launching her into a year of high-profile appearances and opportunities. But when the pageant spotlight dimmed and she didn't place at Miss USA, Alex found herself adrift, wondering what came next.

The turning point arrived through a chance encounter with speaker Tim Story, who offered advice that would become her north star: "You can either sit in the setback, settle in the setback, and cement in the setback, or you can pick yourself up and make your setback into a comeback." This mindset shift propelled Alex forward, eventually leading to her current role as Vice President of Speaker Relations for the Aspire Tour, the world's largest business conference.

Alex doesn't shy away from discussing her darkest moments, including the death of a former boyfriend in a car accident that tested her faith to its limits. Through prayer, journaling, meditation, and sound healing, she's developed daily practices that strengthen her spiritual foundations. Perhaps most compelling is her story of crisis management at her first major event, when a headline speaker canceled at 4 AM, forcing her to mobilize every contact in her network until securing NFL legend Emmitt Smith as a last-minute replacement.

For anyone navigating uncertainty or rebuilding after disappointment, Alex's journey offers a powerful reminder that faith doesn't eliminate fear—it simply needs to be slightly larger than our fears in the moments that matter most.

Chapters

• 0:02 Introduction to Alex Smith
• 2:19 Journey to Miss Oklahoma
• 6:35 Life After the Crown
• 8:54 Finding Direction Through Faith
• 12:25 Career at Aspire Tour
• 16:45 Crisis Management and Faith
• 22:55 Finding Strength Through Loss

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome back everybody to the truth about addiction. Today's interview is from a recent live event and, if you guys don't know, I have a monthly recurring live event in Los Angeles where great speaking meets live music, called heart conscious creators. It's amazing, and this particular interview was really cool because the woman I'm about to tell you about is actually in a very fancy position where she books big speakers on big stages. She is the vice president of speaker relations for the Aspire Tour, which is the world's largest business conference, and I got her on my stage to share some of her stories. So this episode will capture the interview that I did with her at my recent speaking event.

Speaker 1: 0:57

More about Alex Alex Smith is a dynamic entrepreneur and businesswoman excelling in celebrity talent management, business development and creative marketing. With a strong foundation of values, passion and determination, she has built a successful career focused on forging meaningful connections and driving impactful collaborations. In December 2016, alex achieved two significant milestones she graduated with a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Central Oklahoma, finishing in the top 10% of her class in just three and a half years. On the same day, she was crowned Miss Oklahoma, usa and went on to compete in the Miss USA pageant airing live on Fox. During her reign, alex authored Adeline's Dreams, a children's book dedicated to her niece. The book inspires young readers to believe in their potential and pursue their dreams without fear, regardless of their circumstances, without fear, regardless of their circumstances. With a passion for creating lasting relationships and transformative experiences, alex now focuses on bridging connections across the entertainment and business sections to propel creative and entrepreneurial success. Let's dive in. Yeah, I think it was honestly probably the best year and worst year of my life.

Speaker 3: 2:47

I talk about that a lot. I'm very transparent about Miss Oklahoma and the glamour that comes behind the scenes of it, but I grew up in a really small town. I graduated with 32 kids. I was a sports girl athlete basketball, golf I knew that that's what I wanted to do. Unfortunately, I had an injury that kind of didn't propel me into the direction that I really thought. I was going to go in college and that was hopefully play a sport. The next door neighbor was a former on board for former Miss Oklahoma for years and years and years and she was like Alex, listen, there's so many amazing things that can come from competing, just try it out one year. And I was like no way, not happening, not doing it. I'm not a girly girl, I can't even walk in heels.

Speaker 3: 3:35

So she encouraged me like probably for a year and a half before I finally jumped in. I competed in a really small pageant and then went on to try my first year at Miss Oklahoma. First year I was top 10 and I was like that's good, I'm good, I did it, there's no need for me to do this again. Second year my parents actually talked me into it and I did not think that I came from like a pageant background, but I think that they were just excited I as I was for like a new opportunity, new experience. So it jumped in. My second year I was top five and then I was like you know what? I'm fourth runner up, that's good.

Speaker 3: 4:17

I'm done. Most girls compete in pageants for gosh from when they're in their youth to all the way up until you're 28. At the time I was 21 years old, you know, went to college, was going to graduate with business administration and marketing, knew that that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be, you know, a boss babe. So I didn't necessarily see the lines like crossing over of my last year in school and also competing for Miss Oklahoma one more time to try to win this title. And I was on vacation in Red River with my family and I was with my dad and my dad's like are you going to try one more year? And I was like, absolutely not. He's like I'll sponsor you because you had to raise money in order to compete for the pageant. And I was like I'm not, no, but maybe, maybe, if my dad does, I don't have to go door knocking. This might be a good, good chance to try.

Speaker 3: 5:09

So I ended up thinking on it for three months. I signed up one like a local, you have to win a before you can be in. It won a local about a month before and I'm standing on stage and fourth runner I was called. You know we're in the top five and I think there was 29 girls, maybe that year from Miss Oklahoma. Top five is called fourth runner-up. I'm like oh, my name wasn't called, I did better than last year. Third runner-up is called I'm like, I'm doing way better than last year. Second runner-up.

Speaker 3: 5:40

And before you know it, they're like can the top two go to the middle and stand in the middle? And this was a girl that had competed for six years, she was a veteran, as they say and I thought in that moment, I know it's going to be Agriana, like I know it. And there was like this click of a moment. I look over, I see my dad. He's standing up and he's walking to the back of the room and I'm like great timing, dude. Like, and after saying that all of this is going through my mind and they say in the winter is miss or is northwest oklahoma, alex smith, I dropped to my knees. I'm like what in the?

Speaker 3: 6:17

world. I am 22 years old. Oh my god. I often made the decision to not walk across the stage at my old. I often made the decision to not walk across the stage at my college graduation and compete. So I had one option or the other and I chose that night to compete for Miss Oklahoma. I ended up winning and not really just like set my trajectory. So to kind of, I wanted to give you guys the backstory because I had just not been in this world until I was in it. And then, when I was in it, I went from, you know, being a public figure in the state of Oklahoma and at the time there was so many activities and Oklahoma was booming and it still is, which is amazing. But I got to go to Thunder Games, I was courtside, I met all of these people, I did interviews. I was flying to New York to walk on runways, to work with coaches, and then I competed in May for Vegas. I didn't make top 10. And as soon as your name's called, it's over as soon as the winner's called.

Speaker 3: 7:19

All of this that you've worked up for is just suddenly over A year of your life. You prep and you don't win Miss USA, and you literally leave with, like your dresses and everything hanging and you're like now what? And that's where I was. So I had no idea what I was going to do. I was lost, I say for probably six to nine months. After that, I was quite literally rooted in the fear and not really knowing, like, what to do. Next I actually attended a conference and it was the first of its kind in Oklahoma very similar to this, and there was a guest speaker there and his name was Tim story. And Tim story changed my life. I decided to invest in this conference. I went Afterwards he was standing there. I walked up to him and I said I don't know what I'm going to do with my life.

Speaker 3: 8:12

And he's like okay, well, let's break it down. And what's your name? Well, I'm Alex Smith and I was a former Sokohoma and I just gave up my title.

Speaker 3: 8:25

Now there's a new girl and I'm just rambling, rambling, rambling right, and he's like okay, well, you can either sit in the setback, settle in the setback and cement in the setback, or you can pick yourself up off the ground and make your setback into a comeback. So what are you going to do? Let's figure it out and from there that really set my trajectory um for the next five years and even to where I'm at now wow, okay, I think it's so important some of the things you're saying.

Speaker 1: 8:58

So so there is a there's a darkness and there's often a dark period before the light, at least in my experience. You know and funny that my book is called breaking the circuit, because what I mean by that is the neural circuitry of the brain. But also I think pain is a circuit breaker and it's interesting that it got you to go to this conference and be desperate enough to just walk right up to this person and you didn't know how big of a person he was and say what you said, and in that window of opportunity you heard something that mattered.

Speaker 1: 9:37

Did you have any relationship with a God of your own understanding before that?

Speaker 3: 9:42

point. Yeah, I did. I grew up in a pretty religious household. I did, I grew up like in a pretty religious household. I would say we were Baptists, like growing up.

Speaker 3: 9:50

And then my senior year, my kind of idea of who I thought God was was changing and I didn't know how to question it. I didn't know what route to go down and I kind of spent my college years really in the unknown. I attended Life Church in Oklahoma City at the time and Pastor Craig Rochelle he teaches more on non-denominational and I was like this will suffice, this will do good for where I'm at in my life right now. And then it wasn't really until meeting, really meeting Tim's story and even afterwards kind of trying to understand what is source, what is light.

Speaker 3: 10:32

Where do we all come from? And I love the interview that you just had because it's like at the end of the day, we all come from one thing. Whatever that one thing is, you know, if it is, whatever we decide to call it, we should still believe in it and believe that that has something greater for us tell me how the faith of your childhood has expanded from entering into this world that you're in now, with not just Tim's story but many other big, huge names.

Speaker 1: 11:07

Many of them talk about God and faith. So what has that done to your idea of God?

Speaker 3: 11:14

Yeah, I think it's only expanded it to where it has been and where it honestly continues to go, and it's opened up so much even deeper connection with people. I'm not going to go and it's opened up so much, even like deeper connection with people. I'm not going to lie. There's been times in my life where my faith has like ebbed and flowed. There's been times where I'm like is there a God? I've never had anything super significant that's happened in my life. I always say you know, I grew up in like a very good background, didn't lose any grandparents, you know, or they passed away before I was born. So I have never gone through a period of like grief or not understanding. And it wasn't until I had a relationship After, during and after Miss Oklahoma.

Speaker 3: 12:00

I was in a relationship with somebody who I thought deep down like I'm going to marry, but I was still trying to figure myself out and what was next for me and I had basically all of these outside validation points and my world was rocked about a year I'd say six months to a year after he ended up passing away in a car accident and that was the first time where I was like holy crap, like what do I do now A person that I thought you know I was going to marry and I was going to be with, and now he's gone and we were separated at the time of his passing but I had just entered into therapy and so that was the first time that I really was like okay, now's my time to kind of start searching for what faith is in my life. Like, what does that look like? How do I get out of the, you know root of fear? And it was going through you know Tim's stories program and even diving deep into it now. But it's like Tim always taught me, like fear is false evidence appearing real. It's not real, and let your faith be bigger than that.

Speaker 3: 13:06

So find it wherever it's at, if it's been instilled in you since you were a kid, whatever you can grasp onto and for me it was prayer, for me it's prayer and journaling, and I can always go back to that and always know that I'm safe in that. And so now, being in front of all of these people and getting to hear their stories and motivationally, I think that that's something that is just continuing to propel me to continue to search deeper and to find, like, even more meaning of it and what's your meaning and what's your meaning? It's like I love to explore, whereas before I think I was shut off to that. Whereas before.

Speaker 1: 13:44

I think I was shut off to that. There is nothing, as you heard, in my story and that's only a piece of my story that has taken me to my knees in terms of my faith being shaken, than the loss of a loved one.

Speaker 1: 13:55

And I think you know, in all the things we can control in the world, you can't control when you lose the people you love. And everyone here is on borrowed time, and so what are we doing when it's not dire to cultivate certainty that we will be okay? And you know there's so many ideas about prayer. I don't know what prayers for you, but I'm very curious and I try to focus prayer on what god or source or love, whatever it is, would would have me be. You know, what would you have me be today? What would you have me know today? How can you expand my vessel so that I'm ready to handle the blessings you want?

Speaker 1: 14:48

me to receive because it's so easy to pray for things and for outcomes, but then that kind of god is very, very small, very limited. So when you, what are you praying for?

Speaker 3: 15:06

A lot of the same. I think that it goes beyond that too, and extends into almost like if I wasn't, or if I could withdraw from fear, who would I want to become? What does that person look like? Who is Alex? What does she stand for? What are her morals? What are her values? What are her beliefs? How can she care for the people around her? How can she show up in this world? Um and so, even when I'm praying for others, I'm thinking the same thing for them, like what does their highest self look like?

Speaker 3: 15:35

that's who I want them to become, and that's the version of them that I want to pray for and and I want to root for.

Speaker 1: 15:40

Okay, so now you have this amazing title of being VP of Speaker Relations for the Aspire Tour right, and as someone who's putting on her own small productions, the level of organization and time management which I'm doing okay with stunning, by the way.

Speaker 1: 16:05

Not great is intense, right. And so let's play a game here. How many things do we have to control? We got to control the speakers, the sound check, the run of show, the lights, the chairs, the breaks, the coffee, the snacks. I mean, oh my god. And yet things are not going to go according to plan. So take me into this world. That's got to be on the one hand. So highly controlled, to run well and put it in tandem with having faith. Yep, how does that?

Speaker 3: 16:41

work. Yeah, this takes me back to actually our first event in Dallas. So I had done business development for a while. I got to see you guys here. I had done business development for a while. I was working for a bank in marketing and then I stopped. I started working for Tim's story for a little bit and then I was approached by Eddie Wilson and Andrew Portal and they had this idea we're going to start Aspire Tour. We're going to start the world's largest business conference and we would love for you to be a part of it. We would love the connections that you've built over the years. We see stuff on LinkedIn, etc. I'm like. I'm like, okay, sounds good. Well, where are we at with it? What's the budget look like? And they lay all this out and I'm like this looks like Fyre Festival 2.0. There is not a chance that I am joining this.

Speaker 3: 17:35

No way and I went back home and I admire my parents' advice and so I went back home and I admire my parents uh advice, and so I went back home. I was telling my parents and my mom's, like you know what, at the end of the day, what is the worst thing that could happen if you decide to join this, and what's the best thing that could happen?

Speaker 3: 17:49

and so we go over that and I was like all right, I'm gonna join. So for a year, we prepped for this tour. I was flying to Florida, I think, got me an Airbnb. They're based out of there. I was in to Florida, they got me an Airbnb, they're based out of there. I was in Oklahoma and Dallas splitting time while also coming out here and flying to meetings with talent. And so, as I'm in Florida, we're prepping.

Speaker 3: 18:08

Our first show is the top of 2023, march in Dallas, and we have four speakers and Kevin O'Leary is going to open up the day. I'm like this is great. Everyone the running show is sent, everything is in order. We fly to Dallas. The event setup is perfect. The night before Marcus Limones comes in at 11 PM, I meet with him. I'm going over just details of the show, what it looks like, what we plan on doing for the next day, and I was supposed to hire security to get Kevin to and from his room because we were. It was at a convention center where the hotels were at the same spot, and I'm like, waiting around for this text of like when his plane is going to land, I don't get a text. I'm like, okay, it's 11, 15. Now it's 11 30 now it's midnight. Now, surely this man isn't flying in and speaking at 8 am the next morning and at 1 am I finally am like, okay, I am so fearful that he isn't going to show up tomorrow or that I'm going to get a text. But I also have so much faith that this event is going to be such a success because we've been putting so much time, effort, energy into it.

Speaker 3: 19:22

That night I shot his assistant a text and I said hey, I don't know what's going on. I don't know where the plane is, but security has to go to sleep. We have to be ready by 530 downstairs the next day. Audio and visual you, you know headsets on and I'm, you know, I'm a little worried about, like the, where he's at, what's going on and I get no response. So, two o'clock, I finally end up going to bed.

Speaker 3: 19:50

5 30, I have to be downstairs, for whatever reason. Um, that night I went to bed and I just prayed about it. I said you know what's all going to work out exactly as it's meant to be? Um, and I just had the faith in that. Four o'clock, for whatever reason, I had to go to the bathroom. I get up, I look at my phone I see email and it says urgent Kevin O'Leary is not going to be attending your event and I'm like, are you kidding me? It is four o'clock in the morning and so I am up now. I'm like, I'm up, I don't know how I'm going to get a hold of you. Know our owners. What do I do? This is the first speaker out the gate. It's not like.

Speaker 3: 20:28

This is like a 2 o'clock speaker. It's the first speaker, so I have lived in Dallas for a while. I started getting on the phones. On the phones I had formerly had a connection close to Mark Cuban. I had a couple of the Dallas NBA players. I started just sending out fire texts at five o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 3: 20:49

Hey, who is speaking? I need somebody. I need someone urgent, urgent, please someone answer their phone. I'm not getting any feedback back. I'm like okay, finally I get a hold of one of the players. He's like no, we have a game. He's like, okay, finally I get a hold of one of the players. He's like no, we have a game. He's like we're headed off somewhere. I don't think any of us like count us out.

Speaker 3: 21:05

I'm like okay, who else, who else, who else? So ended up getting connected to Emmett Smith and turns out Emmett Smith was on his way to another event and said you know what, I'll swing by, I'll do it. I can only do it for 30 minutes versus the 40 minutes, but I'll take the slot. I'm like okay, it turned out better than expected. Talk about Dallas, the fans of Dallas, you know, former amazing, you know football player.

Speaker 3: 21:36

It's like the roof was so loud when we said hey guys, kevin O'Leary is going to be on the screen because he ended up doing like a 10 minute virtual with us. There was an issue with this plane. He apologized in front of our 3,000 audience and then we said you know what? On that note, we got a backup speaker and it's Emmett Smith and he walked out and the crowd just went crazy and I just remember thinking like the only way I got through this was going through.

Speaker 3: 22:05

It was I could have sit in my bed and I had, you know, a backstage help at the time who is a roommate of mine and she was our production coordinator and she was like Alex, like you did every single thing. You could have sat on your bed and you could have cried, but you decided to just push through that fear. She was like you were so fearful of what the audience was going to think, what the owners were going to say, because it was the first time that I was actually in the job that I'm in and using the connections that I had made, and it turned out, like I said, so much better than I could have ever expected, and I think about that scenario all the time because I'm like man. If I would have stayed rooted in that fear like my faith would have never grown. And since then I mean what's? 10x times that.

Speaker 1: 22:51

Such a good story, right, because it's not about not having fear, right? That's just ridiculous. It's that your faith in that moment was just a little bigger than your fear, and also there's a lot we can do. When we're in fear, there's a lot of actionable things we can't do, and you went to work right, and so the finesse of these very uncertain things that show up in our life is how do we take as much action as we can and let go of the results? We can only do what we can do.

Speaker 3: 23:23

The rest is up to whoever is up there, out here in here Right, yeah. And we had a backup speaker too that day from our personal team. That would have stepped up and would have been just as good, and I think that that was the thing I could could have easily just like stopped in it and and settled in it and I remember back to like what Tim had told me is like either be cemented in it or move forward and turn it into a comeback, and I think that was the biggest comeback of my career.

Speaker 1: 23:56

I want to ask you one final thing, and you said something really important, which is that you had it real good and you didn't know a thing about loss, and then you lost the person you thought you were going to marry not that you didn't have faith then, but compared to Alex sitting across from me today, what would you right now want Alex, the day she found out that he passed away, to remember?

Speaker 3: 24:36

I think just to keep going is the biggest thing I saw. You know there's this trend the other day on social media that was talking about if you could have coffee with your younger self, and one thing that I wrote in there is that, like you know, you may have all these questions, but you won't be questioning it today. You won't have those questions because those questions to me are just, in my faith, like, yes, every day, you know, I have the uncertainties, but now I've almost come up with the steps to kind of like your you know your 12 steps. It's like I come up with steps in order to take my place or to take myself from if I am questioning to where I can maybe not necessarily not question, but be more solidified in the thoughts that I have, and that's just like through my everyday routine.

Speaker 1: 25:31

Before you go, can you tell the audience one thing that you do to cultivate your faith muscle every day.

Speaker 3: 25:42

I'm getting better at it. I've been in and out of a mood recently, but meditation. Yeah. I've had some dear friends introduce me to some amazing, just sound healers and that is something that I've been implementing into my daily routine and it has honestly changed my life and changed the way that I think and changed the way that I show up in the world.

Speaker 1: 26:07

I love that. Thank you so much oh my god, no-transcript.