As he stood backstage at the Grand Ole Opry in July, preparing to be inducted as the hallowed hall's newest member, Luke Combs reflected on the career that led him up to that moment. A self-described "everyman" who's still learning to dance and doesn't have much of a taste for the flashier things in life, the singer hopes that his rise to the top will inspire his fans.

"I have a moment in my set where I play two songs by myself, just me and the guitar, and I tell the crowd, 'This is how this thing all started: just me and a song I helped write,'" Combs explains. "That's what it all kind of boils down to."

When he first moved to Nashville, the "Beer Never Broke My Heart" singer never dreamed that his career would skyrocket to such a high echelon. "All I knew was that if I could pay my rent and have enough food to eat doing music, then that, to me, was the definition of 'I've made it.' Everything else on top of that was the whipped cream, and the banana, and the cherry. As long as I had the ice cream, you know, for lack of a better reference here.

"You can tell that I like ice cream," Combs jokes, patting his stomach.

"But I think I would never have seen this coming in a million years, not because I didn't believe in myself, [but because] it just is something, to me, that doesn't seem possible," he continues. "I know that I'm standing up here today, so I think I'm living proof that it is possible."

The country star reminds his fans of this fact during every set, because he wants them to walk away from his shows knowing that anything they want to achieve is possible, no matter how unlikely it may seem.

"If I can do this, you can do anything," he points out. "There's a whole lot of love that goes into it. There's a whole lot of hard work that goes into it. You have to have the right people. You have to treat your fans the right way. You have to treat people in the industry the right way.

"You have to treat everyone with respect, and I think that's the hidden thing that gets lost in the making sure you're wearing the right clothes and making sure your music looks cool," Combs explains. "It's the relationships with people, and fostering them, that leads to things like this happening ... So I think my biggest takeaway would be that you can do anything, as look as you have the right people there to help you achieve your goals."

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