1183. Never Quit: Homeless Teen to Johns Hopkins
Discover Your Talent–Do What You Love
Don Hutcheson
5.0 • 619 Ratings
🗓️ 24 June 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
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Summary
Dr. Christopher Smith is a Board-Certified practicing physician who completed his residency and fellowship at the world-renowned Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Smith currently lives in Pennsylvania and is a partner with Quantum Imaging and Therapeutic Associates. He dedicates time and resources to raising awareness of homeless children and finding solutions to help them overcome their situation.
"Around the age of four, there was a big turning point in my life. My father lost his job at the steel mill. After that my parents struggled financially for the rest of my teenage years. We really had difficulty maintaining housing and lived for months at a time without basic utilities like heat or electricity.
"By the time I was 16, my family and I had moved at least a couple dozen times. That year my family got evicted one more time and we had nowhere to go. It was my senior year of high school. My parents and 6 of my siblings stayed in a small motel room. I slept in the truck the entire year, and this was in Utah. It was so cold in winter that sometimes my hair would actually freeze at night.
"But I had decided that there was no shortcut in life. I had to work through it and through all these difficult circumstances. I was willing to take risks. I made mistakes. I failed. But that was okay. I kept trying. That's part of the experience, the process and the idea of not quitting when you fail.
"A lot of years of my life were very difficult, but I always tried to maintain a positive outlook on my life. I still always try to see potential, the good in the world now.
"The statistical odds of me going from sleeping in a truck as a teenager to completing my medical degree at Johns Hopkins Hospital are so astronomically high that I personally think there was some intervention in my life, somebody looking out for me with the purpose of helping me view my past in a different light and of being able to share that with other people, inspiring them to learn from my past. That was my ultimate reason for writing the book Homeless to Hopkins and a children's version because children in poverty are often the most invisible homeless people of all."
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, world. Welcome to discover your talent, do what you love. I'm your host, Don Hutchison. |
| 0:16.7 | Every Tuesday, I interview someone from around the world who's discovered their talents to do work they love to create a life of success, satisfaction, and freedom. |
| 0:26.9 | Today, I'm delighted to bring you our featured guest, Dr. Christopher Smith. |
| 0:32.0 | Welcome, Dr. Smith. |
| 0:33.8 | Thank you. |
| 0:34.4 | Thank you for having me, Don. |
| 0:35.9 | Are you using your talents doing work that you love? |
| 0:39.6 | Yes, thank you. I am. Here are a few words about Dr. Smith. He is a board-certified practicing |
| 0:45.3 | physician who completed his residency and fellowship at the world-renowned Johns Hopkins Hospital. |
| 0:52.4 | He currently lives in Florida and is a partner with quantum imaging |
| 0:56.1 | and therapeutics. He dedicates his time and resources to raising awareness of homeless children and finding |
| 1:02.5 | solutions to help them overcome. Chris enjoys making new memories with his family, walking barefoot on |
| 1:08.6 | the beach, traveling and photography photography so that's a summary |
| 1:12.3 | of your amazing life chris tell our listeners around the world just for a couple of minutes what you're |
| 1:17.1 | up to now that has you're excited and motivated thank you don so right now i'm very excited because i just |
| 1:23.2 | recently published my life story called homeless to hop, and both an adult and a children's |
| 1:28.1 | version. And I wrote it to really inspire people, because what I'm up to now is I want to |
| 1:33.9 | help people to overcome whatever difficult situation they're in to inspire them to do better. |
| 1:39.6 | I've recently been speaking as a keynote speaker, fundraisers to raise funds for homeless organizations |
| 1:45.6 | to help them fight the problem of homelessness both in families and adults. |
| 1:50.0 | Excellent. It's such a vital issue. Well, as you know, Chris, as we've discussed, everyone's |
| 1:55.1 | life is about turning points or passages from the day we're born until we leave this plane of |
... |
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