Doug Smith on My Father-in-Law Pranking Me + Overcoming My Mental Health Battle

Episode Summary: In this episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast, Doug is interviewed by his long-time friend, Dan Herod for his podcast, Hope Between The Lines. They delve into relationships, mental health, grief, and more.

About Doug Smith: Doug Smith is the Director of Development at Light of Life Rescue Mission and Founder and CEO of L3 Leadership. He is the author of his eBook, “Making the Most of Mentoring”, a step-by-step guide to help you build and cultivate relationships with mentors. He blogs at dougsmithlive.com, he is the host of the L3 Leadership podcast, and he is a sought-after public speaker. He is married to his high school sweetheart, Laura, who currently works as an Account Executive at Ivalua. Together, they love family, personal growth, travel, working out, and serving others.

3 Key Takeaways:
1. Doug shares a funny story of a prank his father and brother-in-law played on him years ago. 
2. He talks about grief and mental health and shares his personal experience with these matters.
3. Dan and Doug discuss how perspective can change everything and how we should highlight our accomplishments.

Quotes From the Episode:
“It’s been the trying things in my life, the hard seasons that I’ve gone through, the dark seasons that have helped me grow the most.”
“Suffering comes to all of us, it’s what you do when suffering.” 

Resources Mentioned:
The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan
Hope Between The Lines Podcast

Connect with Doug:
Website | Twitter | Facebook | Linkedin | Instagram

Episode Webpage: https://l3leadership.org/408
L3 Mastermind Groups: https://l3leadership.org/mastermind
L3 Leadership Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/L3Leader/
Follow us on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/l3-leadership
Rate This Podcast: https://ratethispodcast.com/l3leadership

Transcript

Doug Smith: 0:07

Hey, leader, and welcome to another episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast, where we are obsessed with helping you grow to your maximum potential and to maximize the impact of your leadership. My name is Doug Smith and I am your host, and today's episode is brought to you by my friends at Beratung Advisors. We also recorded this live from the new Birgo Realty Studio. If you're new to the podcast, welcome. I'm so glad that you're here and I hope that you'll enjoy our content and become a subscriber. I know that you can also watch all of our episodes on YouTube, so make sure you're subscribed there as well. And, as always, if the podcast has impacted your life, it would mean the world to me. If you leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcast or Spotify or whatever app you listen to podcast through, that really does help us to grow our audience and reach more leaders, and there is a link in the show notes that makes it really, really easy for you to leave in rating and review, so just go ahead and click that and it'll take you just a few moments. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Well, leader, in today's episode, you're going to hear me being interviewed by my friend, Dan Herod for an episode that originally aired on his podcast that's called Hope Between the Lines, and in our podcast we actually have a lot of fun. He actually asked me to share a funny story, and so I shared a story of when my father-in-law pulled an incredible prank on me after I broke up with Laura, my wife, one time, and it was absolutely humiliating but a huge win for my father-in-law, and I hope that I'm able to pull something like this off when I am a father-in-law one day, and so you'll hear that story. And then, most importantly, you'll hear me talk about how I overcame my mental health battle in 2020. For those of you who have been around or along for the journey for a while know that I went through a really dark season in 2020, and it was the hardest season of my life. But I learned so many lessons when I went through that, and I think if you were in the middle of a tough season mentally or just going through a tough time, I really think this podcast has the potential to help you immensely. But before we dive into that, just a few announcements.

Doug Smith: 1:50

This episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Beratung Advisors. The financial advisors at Beratung Advisors help educate and empower clients to make informed financial decisions. You can find out how Bear Tongue Advisors can help you develop a customized financial plan for your financial future by visiting their website at beratungadvisors. com that's B-E-R-A-T-U-N-G-Advisors. com. Securities and investment products and services offered through LPL Financial. Member of FINRA and SIPC. Beratung Advisors, LPL Financial and L3 Leadership are separate entities. I also want to thank our sponsor, Henne Jewelers. They're a jeweler owned by my friend and mentor, John Henne, and my wife Laura and I got our engagement and wedding rings through Henne Jewelers and had an incredible experience. And not only do they have great jewelry, but they also invest in people. In fact, for every couple that comes in engaged, they give them a book to help them prepare for marriage, and we just love that. So if you're in need of a good jeweler, check out HenneJewe lers. com. And with all that being said, let's dive right in. Here's me being interviewed by my friend, Dan Herod. Enjoy.

Dan Herod: 2:51

Well, Doug Smith, welcome to Hope Between the Lines.

Doug Smith: 2:54

Honored to be here.

Dan Herod: 2:56

Dude, I am excited for this chat and I need to tell the world what I appreciate about you. I have known you. We met what? 17, 16 years ago, yeah, through. Yeah, it's been a minute right.

Doug Smith: 3:12

Oh my gosh, yeah, I guess it has. Yeah, it's 2008-ish. I want to say yeah.

Dan Herod: 3:16

So it was one of those cool moments where cool connection and then over time, just you know, life led us two different ways and, as of late, we've been able to reconnect and kind of talk life with each other and a couple of great phone calls. But here's one thing I really appreciate about you you are one of the most intentional people I personally know. I love your intentionality. I love the fact that you live with an understanding of the value of time in a way that is very healthy and also super encouraging man.

Doug Smith: 3:54

Well, we really appreciate that and you've always known this. I appreciate your voice and I'm sure everyone listening to this you have the sexiest, I think. When I met you I said you have the sexiest voice in youth ministry. Yeah, that may have expanded internationally. Oh my gosh.

Doug Smith: 4:07

You may have the sexiest voice on the planet. You've been such a great friend for many years I think it was years. You know we had monthly phone calls where you were a constant source of encouragement and you know I hope I was the same to you. I know you went through some really challenging times as well and it's just such a great joy. You know, 15 years later I know we're not at our finish line yet, but to still be going strong in ministry and making a difference for God in the kingdom is just awesome and it's been a joy to follow you and call you friend.

Dan Herod: 4:35

Well, yeah, and we. This is how life is, it's best lived with others, it's best achieved with others, and that's what I'm grateful about relationship and friendship. It is literally the vehicle for all great things in life. It is literally a ship that can carry anybody anywhere for some really good things. And so I I got to tell you about a pretty funny elementary childhood story, Mine. I was telling my kids this story the other night and they LOL'd. But I don't know if you heard of, heard of like spit takes. You know those are like somebody is drinking and then something funny happens and then they spit out.

Doug Smith: 5:18

Oh, for sure.

Dan Herod: 5:18

Yeah, so I think that's called a spit take. So in elementary school, chilling at the lunch table got my friends to my right, to my left, and I'm trying to enjoy some 2% milk out of those cartons and my friend next to me tells me a joke, but he says it right. As I'm drinking I completely showered the person across the table. Oh man, it was absolutely bad.

Doug Smith: 5:49

That's beautiful.

Dan Herod: 5:50

Yeah, and now it is, but yeah, not at the time. No, they were not happy with any of that. But do you remember the joke? Of course I don't, but I just know that it was good enough to to create a spit take. And yeah, I don't know if you've had any moments that come to mind in your life where you're like man that was really interesting or that man. I'm glad that happened now, but maybe not then.

Doug Smith: 6:18

Yeah, man, the one that came to mind as I was thinking about this I was dating my wife. So you know listeners don't have a full context for my story, but I was. My life was an absolute mess until I was 17. Met my who would be my wife, and I literally know it would take me 10 years to grow into the man I needed to be to marry her. But I had gotten really close to their family and there was a period of time where I felt like God dealt with my heart to break up with her for a period. Oh, I thought it was going to be forever. Obviously that didn't happen. But I break up with her and that was the beginning of what we call the dark years. And I knew her family so well that I guess I'll share two brief funny things. One I felt I knew her family so well that I had to take every member of her family out to explain myself.

Doug Smith: 7:05

And all I was trying to do was was basically say I don't have a piece of my heart. I feel like God's leaving me to lay this down for the time being. But I was not that articulate when I was a young man and I met with her father, who would one day be my father-in-law, and I said I said when I'm around Laura and your family, I feel like your dog Carnegie, tied to a tree and I feel like I can't go anywhere in my life. But when I'm not with you guys, I feel like I'm free to run around the yard and it's awesome and clearly that didn't translate and I just don't have a piece about being in this.

Doug Smith: 7:40

And so he looked at me and, long story short, he got super ticked. He leaves the breakfast and, thank God God dealt with his heart on the way there to his house. Hey, that's your future son-in-law. Keep investing in him, even though you probably want to kill him now. So fast forward.

Doug Smith: 7:56

I don't know, maybe six months we had been in this habit of taking guide trips with his other son and my other brother-in-law. And so we go away and the first night we were at a hotel. I'm usually the first one to get ready. I usually shower pretty quick. And so I'm in the hotel, I take a shower you know they're out in the room waiting for me to be done and I get out of the shower and I reach out for a towel and man, there are no towels. And I thought, ok, like no big deal. There was kind of like two bathrooms. So I thought maybe the towels are just in the other room.

Doug Smith: 8:28

And so I stand out butt naked and I'm like I open the door and I look around for a towel. I don't see any towels. But I see a letter on the ground and my father-in-law and brother-in-law who weren't that at the time had left me a note and in so many words. I said Doug, do you think that you could break up and break my daughter's heart and my sister's heart without suffering any repercussions? You're wrong. We've taken all of the luggage, everything that you could possibly use to keep warm, and you are all alone and you're going to stay there, butt naked, freezing and shivering by yourself for hours. We're going out to dinner, and so they went out to dinner, left me in the room up on myself, and I can't even tell you the rest of what they did to me that night, but it was absolute torture. All right, it's just great, and now that I'm a father of daughters, I greatly look forward to being able to pass that on to the next generation.

Dan Herod: 9:17

So yeah, no doubt, Like you've married in a good stock. I think there's something special and really powerful when love gets tough, and I feel like that's a layer that's actually missing in our culture right now and in this point on the historical map called time. I think it's beautiful when love acts and this is going to sound pretty contradictory but when love punishes, Because what it's actually what your father-in-law and brother-in-law were communicating is, oh no, she's worth way too much to be treated that way and you will not do that again that that's actually beautiful, and I think we might be better off if we had more leaders defending love in some in more consistent ways. So I have Go ahead.

Doug Smith: 10:22

First of all, yes, I agree with you. Only you could take me shivering naked in a bathroom and turn it into like this deep, poetic lesson. It's been probably 20 years since that happened and I have not once thought of that as tough love or a loving thing to do. But you're right, and so I feel like I owe my father-in-law an apology and a thank you, rather than just bringing it up and saying I can't believe you did that.

Dan Herod: 10:47

Yeah, well, now that I mean both of us are Fathers of and if anyone were to mistreat my little girl, it doesn't take much for emotion to start rising within me, because I know what my, my little girl deserves and the sense of injustice should anyone mistreat her is real inside of me. And I know you appreciate that too as a dad, and I think it's supposed to be that way. And I think it's supposed to be that way, I really do Going so this is where my mind goes.

Doug Smith: 11:25

Listeners don't know me, so I feel like, because of your deep voice, you should put yourself out to hire to dads who want to intimidate boys who may mistreat or just need to intimidate their daughter's dates, et cetera. Like getting a phone call from you like Liam Neeson style and saying I have a very particular set of skills. Yeah, if you mess with so and so's daughter, I will find you.

Dan Herod: 11:47

Yeah.

Doug Smith: 11:48

I would pay you for that service.

Dan Herod: 11:49

Okay, I love that idea. That's great. That's great. So when we were doing monthly phone calls years ago, I was just loving the pace that you were living. And then, over time, paths went different ways and I know you have walked through some pretty tough stuff in your story and I'd love to learn, like how? How has your story twisted in turn since we last connected regularly, and where? Where did you find the hope to keep going through the dark moments?

Doug Smith: 12:29

Yeah, it's a great question. I was on a podcast the other day and someone asked me, doug, what's been the greatest source of growth in your life? And I think they wanted me to say you know, this book, this mentor, this leader and all of those things clearly have been influential in my life, but when I really reflected on it and I you know I hate to say this, but it's been suffering, right, and it's been the trying things in my life, the hard seasons that I've gone through, the dark seasons, that have helped me grow the most. And so when I think back about my journey, you know there's many things that I could share to answer your question, but most recently in the fall of 2020, I went through the darkest time of my life and, just to kind of give leaders context, I had gone on vacation this was in the middle of COVID and had a really two weeks of an incredibly relaxing vacation. I thought I was in a good place because I'd been going pretty hard, and I came back and the night I came back from vacation, I had learned that I had lost a cousin to COVID and I wasn't really close to this woman, but for whatever reason that threw me into a panic attack.

Doug Smith: 13:31

Now, I had had seasons of panic attacks in my life, maybe just two other seasons that you know. I had a month or two of severe anxiety and so initially I just didn't think much of it. Then the next night I had an anxiety attack and the following night, and so all of a sudden I entered into the season of panic and I thought, okay, I think I can get through this. Maybe this will just be, you know, a few weeks. What do I know to do? Going back to the other two experiences, Well, about a month into it they weren't stopping. And about a month in, I don't know how to describe this other than saying, if you've ever had anxiety attacks, they're the most frightening things ever. You feel like you're going to die. Yeah, you're heart beating out of your chest. You know, multiple times I went to call 911 because I thought I was dying. Well, that physical feeling on my heart moved from my chest to my mind and my mind literally felt like someone was like squeezing my brain I don't know how else to describe it and it was incredibly terrifying.

Doug Smith: 14:29

And I remember, at work I was leading a meeting one day and because of that feeling like, I got to the end of the meeting and I just remember saying, like I can't do this, I can't do this, like I can't even be president or lead. And I went home and I couldn't even look at an email and I realized there was something terribly wrong with me, and so I reached out to our executive director, my boss, and I told him what was going on. He said you need to take, you know, an indefinite leave. And then I started getting more anxious, thinking oh my gosh, I can't even read an email right now. Am I ever going to be able to work again? Am I, you know? Do I have, you know, disability insurance? Can I take care of my family? All this starts, starts racing through my head and I got, you know, so freaked out, and so I committed to taking a week off. And again, this was so tormenting to me, and when you're desperate, you'll do anything for help. And so when I say I exhausted every measure I possibly could to get help, I did, and you know what I think would be helpful for your listeners just to share through that journey.

Doug Smith: 15:29

What I learned was I started going to therapy for the first time. I'd never gone to therapy before. You know, for me my excuse, frankly, would have been I have tons of community around me. I'm in multiple, you know mastermind groups that I've been doing life with men for for years. You know I don't feel like I need that therapy, but little did I know how much I needed it. I started meeting with mentors, I started reaching out to friends and and literally doing everything, reading every book that I could on burnout and what to do. In the middle of that and through that experience, I learned multiple things. But before I go to the lessons learned, I guess I'll all rewind. So that was the fall of 2020. If I rewind nine months prior to that, it was December of 2019.

Doug Smith: 16:14

And I don't have time to share my whole story, but I was a drug dealer in high school. Doing drugs headed the wrong direction. Christ came into my life and turned it around, which was beautiful, and I had a younger sister who basically just kept going down the same path. We were both going and, long story short, she ended up. My sister ended up being coming a heroin addict. She was homeless and I worked at a rescue mission that serves the homeless. She was in our program multiple times, thankfully rededicated her life to Christ, but always just had this struggle and unfortunately, in December of 2019, I got a call. It was 11 o'clock at night. My dad called me and he just said Doug Cyrus gone. She overdosed. She had overdosed 32 times in her life, which is crazy, but you, just you know. You always know the call could come, but you don't know what you'll do. When you did Well for me, as my boss and mentors related to me, they said Doug, you know, your sister passed away.

Doug Smith: 17:10

I basically drove to my dad's house, cried for 30 seconds literally that's the only tears I shed rescued my dad my dad was a mess, as you could imagine helped him, slept on the couch for three days with him, planned the funeral, put together a message for the funeral, put together fundraising for my nephews I have two nephews and tried to raise as much money as I could for their future and, as my boss said, you basically then just went back to work and as I started and I didn't think anything of it, I felt fine and you know, for me, I always justified feeling fine by the fact that, hey, I knew my sister knew Christ.

Doug Smith: 17:44

You know, when I was even younger, I lost my mom, like, and that's actually how I rededicated my life to Christ is I found out my mom had a relationship with him, and so I always had this piece of like hey, I don't have to grieve like everyone else grieves because of Christ. Well, literally did. I know that wasn't true and so so I started getting help and I realized that my therapist said Doug, I don't think you've you've ever grieved the loss of your sister, and I'm going to go so far as to say I don't think you ever grieved losing your mom or your mother-in-law or your grandparents. And he said Doug, let me just tell you about grief. He said you can't say goodbye to something that you never said hello to.

Dan Herod: 18:24

Wow.

Doug Smith: 18:25

And so that was game changer for me. He said, doug, what I want you to do is I want you to go to the grave sites of everyone that you've lost in your life and I want you to write them letters and just see what God does with that experience. And I, honestly, had never even gone to any of their grave sites Because, again, it's like, hey, they're not there, it's just a stone in the ground bowl. Well, I went there and, man, I lost it. I started journaling, I wrote letters to each of them.

Doug Smith: 18:49

God met me in a really special way in that moment and for the first time in my 35 years, at the time I grieved and I breathed and I let it all out. And my pastor said, doug and I know I'm tying this all together, but, man, this is just kind of the progression my pastor said, doug, when you were a teenager, your mom was sick. She had a red nerve disease and you watched your mom die slowly over the course of seven or eight years, and you medicated the pain of that through drugs and alcohol all throughout high school.

Doug Smith: 19:21

And he goes. Then you lost your mom and you became a believer and started following Christ, which is wonderful. But then you just simply went from medicating through drugs and alcohol to medicating through performance, yep, and that hit me like a ton of bricks and I realized, man, that is the train I was riding for the past 15 years, and trying to perform to deal with the pain that I had never dealt with ultimately led me to a place of burnout, which was another huge thing. So lesson one was there was ungrieved losses in my life that I wasn't aware of, I didn't know how to deal with, et cetera, and I think so many people listening to this. One of the most beneficial things my therapist had me do on ungrieved losses was he had me create a trauma assessment and basically had me order my life from ages zero to five, five to 10, 10 to 15 and write out any traumatic experiences that I had in those time frames. And it could be as simple as, hey, you know, in second grade so a girl called me fat or whatever, and man that's. And you know you start adding these stories up to it. So I lost my mom, I lost my sister. We all have experienced probably way more trauma and traumatic events than we ever imagined. That's right. And if we don't learn how to handle those properly and grieve that and heal from those we are, you may not hit rock bottom today, but there is coming a time where, if you don't deal with that, you're going to have to go through something similar to what I want to. And let me just tell you like I pray that no one ever has to experience what I experienced in that season. So number one is just deal with your stuff and go to a therapist, go to mentors, get poured into, do whatever exercises.

Doug Smith: 21:03

The second area when it came to the burnout issue was I was super worried that I'd never be able to work again. You know you were encouraging me. Hey, doug, you're super intentional, you use your time and I prided myself on all of those things. And now I couldn't even read an email, wow. And I said to my therapist I'm like am I ever going to be able to work again? Like, is my capacity gone? He said something so crazy. I expected him to say like, oh, like, you know, you'll figure it out, but he just said, doug, what I've learned about capacity is usually when people are dealing with what you're dealing with. It's not a capacity issue, it's unrealistic expectations that you have of yourself internally that are causing you to have no capacity. And that's when it hit me like I was running so hard not only to prove that I was something, but also on capacity, oh, I had expectations that were so ridiculous In the area of leadership.

Doug Smith: 21:56

I literally thought, if I'm not John Maxwell and have his leadership influence, I'm not a leader. If, financially, I'm not financially independent like Dave Ramsey, then I'm not financially independent. If I don't look like the rock or Arnold Schwarzenegger physically, then you know, that may sound like I'm joking, but like that was the standard, so people could compliment me on any area. Oh, you're a great leader. No, I'm not. And the weight that put on myself.

Doug Smith: 22:20

And then, just in a practical day to day, I just becoming a director at our nonprofit and, man, I was making decisions for the first time that were significant. And I thought, man, if one of these decisions is wrong, the whole organization is going to go under and it's all my fault. And I was waking up with cold sweats in the middle of the night. And man, god never intended us and our bodies to handle that amount of stress, and so I really had to learn to let go of the unrealistic expectations in my life and the other thing I'll say with that. I'll just share a few more things and then we can go to the next subject.

Doug Smith: 22:52

But in the area of trying to prove myself through performance, I had to do this exercise where I found out like what is the core negative, root belief that's driving that behavior. And at the end of the day, when I did the assessment, it was the fact that I don't believe I'm enough. And so my therapist had me do this whole exercise where he had me write down all the evidence that I had that I wasn't enough. And, long story short, there wasn't much, and the things that were there were just things I needed to heal from. And then he had me write all the evidence that I had that I wasn't enough, and what I found out was man, I have all the evidence in the world that I'm enough, and I remember calling my dad this was life changing for me. Now, if you're familiar with the five love languages, I'm words of affirmation. So just tell me I'm awesome and I feel loved.

Doug Smith: 23:40

So I always wanted my dad to tell me he was proud of me and he loved me. But he was, and I didn't know, so I was older, he's active, service and gifts, and so he would open the fridge and be like, look in the fridge at all this food I got for you. And I'm like so what else are you supposed to do that? But looking back now it's like that was him saying Doug, I love you. And I called him and I was actually scared that I was gonna not be able to work again.

Doug Smith: 24:03

And I said, dad, I don't think I'm gonna be the director of development at Light of Life anymore. Like I don't know what I'm gonna do and I wasn't really even looking for advice. And he just said Doug, let me just tell you something. He said people come up to me all the time and they said you must be really proud of your son. Like he's doing all these great things. You must be so proud. And my dad said I always tell him the same thing. Like, yeah, I'm proud of him, but I would be proud of him if he was cleaning toilets. And he goes Doug, I don't give a sh what your title is right. And man, I cried like a baby.

Dan Herod: 24:36

Absolutely.

Doug Smith: 24:37

Cause. For the first time in my life, I am enough, not because of any other reason than just I am breathing and living and God created me and I have value. And to hear that affirmation from my dad was helpful. And then one last thing I'll just throw out is just I reached out to a bunch of friends and they all were gracious and spent time with me, they took walks with me, they dropped everything they were doing, which I'm so grateful for, and they all said the same thing separately. I don't know that it was planned, but they all said Doug, one observation we've had is you've been neglecting deep friendships for a long time, and for me it's like I have quote, unquote thousands of relationships and friendships. But my one mentor is like Doug. Who are the people that don't know you as Doug at Light of Life or an L3 or all this other stuff you're doing? Like who knows you as just that?

Doug Smith: 25:23

that punk kid Bubba, who had a little bit of potential that maybe could be developed one day and they're like that's who you need to spend time with and I haven't been perfected at that. But that was game changing. So that was one of the hardest times of my life and I would say it took me two years, honestly, to get back. I ended up getting my medication through that, which, again, I'm not a doctor but I know a lot of people were opposed to medication. Medication was helpful for me. I can say that, fortunately, like I have been able to get off of that and I feel back to my normal self.

Doug Smith: 25:52

But it was a two year process of just saying am I ever gonna get out of the season? Is there ever gonna be another side of this? And I really didn't know, but I kept my hope in that I'm gonna do everything it takes on my side to get as much help as I can and I'm gonna trust God that he'll get me to the other side. And I would just end by saying being on the other side now. I talked about suffering being a great teacher I'm sharing.

Doug Smith: 26:15

I shared this message that I'm sharing with you, which is probably why I just talked for 10 minutes All the time, and I am shocked at how many people come up to me and say, doug, I either feel like I'm on the verge of what you went through or I'm in the middle of it and I need that hope. And it's so funny and it's a biblical promise that God comforts us in our trouble so that one day we'll be able to come for those who are going through the same thing we are, and I've seen that come through and I am a better person because of what I've gone through. I'm a better leader because I've gone through a better father, husband and, hopefully, friend, and so never want to go through that again, but extremely grateful for the person that God formed on the other side.

Dan Herod: 26:51

Yeah, absolutely. There is a sense in every step that a person takes, where every step can be a fork in the road, and I think there's something beautiful and powerful when a person discovers that they can choose to lean in to the adversity. They can choose to trust God, who is greater than the adversity, and they can embrace the reality like, hey, my circumstance doesn't define me, this doesn't measure my identity's value. My dignity is immutable because God said so. And when a person is able to look up and discover that God has always been ready to help them and they don't have to try and fight this out on their own and that's what I heard loud and clear as you just shared part of your incredible story you had help and you are okay receiving it. That's beautiful and that's powerful, doug.

Doug Smith: 27:53

Yeah, no, thank you for that insight. And again, if you're listening to this and you're in something similar to Dan's point, there's nothing wrong with asking for help, in fact, the Bible. The enemy's greatest lie will be that you're the only one going through this. Everyone else is living in victory, except for you. If you bring this up, everyone's gonna think you're weak or not a strong Christian, and nothing is farther from the truth. I think our culture has been taught an improper view on suffering and I think we're taught that we should never suffer, but the reality is suffering comes to all of us. It's what do you do when you're suffering, and the beautiful thing about the body of Christ is God's. Surround us with people like you and great friends who can walk us through the journey when we're going through tough times and hopefully, we're gonna be the same for them.

Dan Herod: 28:35

Yeah, that's incredibly well said, and here is a core conviction that I have been able to discover through my own story is that there's always hope. I mean, it doesn't matter what is going on, it doesn't matter what has happened, and the reason why there's always hope is because God is good and he is so powerful, he is so connected to every single resource that exists in all of creation and he will command it all for our good, and not will he marshal resources to help you and I live and thrive and heal. He's also going to take every single thing that happens and to make it good for us. I don't know how he does it, but the Bible says he does it in Romans 8-28. In that actual word, you know, causes all things to work together. The variant there, the Greek word, is soonergeo, which is basically synergy. God creates synergy through the calamity. I don't know how, but that's what he does because he is good.

Dan Herod: 29:36

Doug, I am inspired by your story. Holy smokes man. As we land the plane on this incredible conversation, I do have to ask who are you proud of today?

Doug Smith: 29:51

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of people I'm proud of you, I'm proud of the impact that you're making. I'm just really proud. You know, I think I've just been thinking about this. I think that the more you grow in leadership and you know the more people you're able to help, the less you care about your success and the more you care about seeing others succeed. And so, you know, I can name very specific people that no one would know in this podcast, but for me it's just anyone who's willing to grow and develop into more than they were yesterday. Like that's who I'm proud of. We're all trying to get better every day. And then the other thing that came to mind when you said that this is when I work out, I throw on YouTube motivational videos with, like you know, the rocker, whoever talking, and Matthew.

Doug Smith: 30:35

McConaughey speech came up on one and he said you know, people ask me who my hero was, and my hero is me in 10 years. And then, you know, he said hey, 10 years past. And people said, are you your hero yet? And he said absolutely not. You know me. And my hero still made 10 years away, and he just talked about that continual growth. And so from that sense I would just say I'm also learning to be proud of myself.

Dan Herod: 30:57

There you go.

Doug Smith: 30:58

And I know that sounds that may sound self serving, but I think so many people deal with insecurity and so many people battle bad thoughts about themselves. I was insecure for so many years and I feel like just in the last year or two, god's really brought me to a place of of confidence for the first time in my life. And in saying things like that, it's like man. I'm proud of the person who had to walk through everything with God and again, that's the key, it's like it wasn't me doing anything. I, you know I did my part, god did his part, that's right. I'm just proud of the man I've become and, you know, I hope that I'll continue to be proud of of who I become daily over the next few decades.

Dan Herod: 31:33

Absolutely, absolutely. I could not agree more on your thought about being proud of ourselves, because what's the opposite of being proud of ourselves? For most people it's being ashamed of ourselves. And the enemy of our souls is a master at speaking the language of shame and huge difference between guilt and shame. Guilt says I did bad, shame says I am bad. And guess what? The spiritual enemy of our soul wants us to believe? That we are rotten to the core. Guess what God says to us In him we are being made new. So I think we can lean into the promises of God and trust him, but also affirm where we've come from, right. There's a book that I'm reading right now called the Gap and the Gain, by Dan Sullivan.

Doug Smith: 32:21

Oh, come on, I was just going to go there, let's go, and like.

Dan Herod: 32:25

It's incredible and for those of you listening that aren't unfamiliar, the 32nd rundown is there's reality, which is the floor of the room, and then three feet up is how far you've come. But then there's your ideals, which is the ceiling of the room, right, and so the space between the floor and three feet up, what you've achieved is great. That's called the gain. That's real. But then the space between where you are in the ceiling, that's called your the gap. And too many of us live in the gap. We meditate on the gap instead of celebrating the gain. And if we would just celebrate all that God has done, like where I was yesterday, thank God, is not where I am today and where I was five years ago Wow, that is like four states over, metaphorically speaking. God has brought me so far and he's brought you so far, and that's the gain right there, and that's what every single listener can be proud of is look at what God has done in me so far.

Doug Smith: 33:27

Well, and Dan, just on that. You know, probably 10 years ago now, at this point I didn't have the concept of the gap in the game, but I was living in the gap and man, I always. I remember one time I got depressed and man, I didn't even want to talk to my wife and thankfully she's awesome and said why don't you go spend time with God? Yeah, of course that's your advice, but it was the right advice. It's great advice.

Doug Smith: 33:47

And so, man, I shut myself in a room, I turned on worship music and, man, I just felt led to read the book of Philippians, and I'm going to forget what verse it is. But in chapter four it basically just says there's one key verse. I'm going to forget the rest of it. But it said thank him for all he has done. And it was an NLT version and God dealt with me, said Doug, I want you to in my heart, I want you to journal everything that I've done in your life, from the time that you gave your life to me till now, and I was probably 28th of time. And, man, I just started journaling.

Doug Smith: 34:14

Going back to the game, man, I got a page into journaling and I was like three months into my walk with God and, man, I just started crying and I said, man, how can I ever not be grateful? How could I be living in depression and be ashamed of who I am and how far I've come when God has done so much for me? And I think, if people listen to this, want something practical to take away from that, take some time to take an assessment and just write down everything that you've accomplished, how far you've come, and when you look at it actually on paper, you'll be shocked at how far you've come and what that'll do for your heart and spirit.

Dan Herod: 34:46

That's so good. Well said, my friend, and I can't thank you enough for joining me for this pretty incredible conversation. I know I've learned from you. My heart is full just with inspiration, but also just practical steps that I can take as a man, as a husband, as a father, to just get healthier and to stay closer to God, but also to trust people more. Doug, thanks so much for making this conversation incredible.

Doug Smith: 35:19

Well, leader, thank you so much for listening to me being interviewed by Dan. I hope that you enjoyed it and that it added value to your life. You can find ways to connect with me and Dan and links to everything that we discussed in the show notes at leadership. org/ 408. And, as always, leader, I like to end every episode with a quote, and I'll quote Jim Rohn today. He has so many great quotes and he said this once. He said don't wish it was easier, wish you were better. Don't wish for less problems, wish for more skills. Don't wish for less challenge, wish for more wisdom, and I just think that is so good. Well, leader, know that my wife Laura and I love you, we believe in you and I say it every episode. But don't quit, keep leading. The world desperately needs your leadership. We'll talk to you next episode.