It was meant as a joke on his taxes a few years ago but the IRS has never corrected him so Mike Smith still lists his occupation as "professional teenager."

"Why do I still talk to high schools?" Smith asked a Powdersville High School gymnasium full of students from at least a half-dozen Upstate schools.

It's because he was an under performer in high school, a 2.4 GPA with no real good goals.

When he went to college, his basketball coach challenged him to do something meaningful for people, dropping him off near an encampment of people who were homeless. Smith started talking and found out they needed socks, so he took a big box of socks from the athletic department and "made it rain tube socks."

He challenged the students to do their own thing, not for fame but for themselves, and offered them a way to find the time. He asked them to grab their neighbor's phones and look at how much time they spend on those phones, he estimated 20,000 hours per person in a matter of a decade. Mastering skills can often be done in 10,000 hours, Smith said.

A professional athlete and skateboarder who runs charities and founded a high school, Smith showed a video of him interviewing his idol, Tony Hawk. The biggest name in skateboarding, Hawk told the students that being famous shouldn't be a goal but a side effect of mastering some sort of talent or pursuit that others find valuable.

Smith is a social media influencer who hates the word influencer, he prefers leader. His social media channels have hundreds of thousands of followers.

Madison Holtzclaw, a D.W. Daniel High School senior, said she saw one of Smith's videos at an assembly two years ago and didn't know he would be at the program today.

Smith is part of the Jostens Renaissance Education program, which at Powdersville High included several hours of inspiration and a dance competition between students and teachers. The educators split off for some of the time to learn about new trends with Phillip Campbell, a former principal and college baseball player.

Bone cancer survivor and high school student Alayna Cobb was given a $2,500 scholarship from the program, as was her teacher Elena Rogers, of Next High School in Greenville County, for nominating Alayna.

Holtzclaw said some of the ideas for helping schools sounded really good, like letting students who succeed take ownership of something small but visible like painting a ceiling tile or putting graffiti with inspirational words on a hallway.

"My friends are all talking about wanting to do something to make something of yourself," she said.



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