0:00

I just show up as I am and

0:02

do my best and it's been so freeing to

0:05

get out of that stage and really just step into confidence

0:07

and hopefully I can help younger leaders get

0:09

there a lot quicker than I did .

0:10

Because , as you know it , took me a while .

0:13

["the L3 Leadership

0:16

Podcast"] . Hey

0:18

, leader , and welcome to another episode of the L3

0:20

Leadership Podcast , where we are obsessed with helping

0:23

you grow to your maximum potential and to maximize

0:25

the impact of your leadership . My name

0:27

is Doug Smith and I am your host , and today's episode

0:29

is brought to you by my friends and fair tongue advisors

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. We also recorded this live from the new Bergo

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or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts

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through . That really does help us to grow our audience and

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reach more leaders , so thank you in advance

0:58

for that . Well , leader , in today's episode you're gonna

1:00

be hearing me be interviewed by my good friend , Zack

1:02

Blair , who is the pastor of Hill City Church here in Pittsburgh

1:05

, and we have been doing life and ministry

1:07

together for over 20 years , and that's

1:09

what made this conversation that much more interesting

1:11

. You're gonna hear us talk about so many things

1:13

. We talk about mental health , we talk about parenting

1:15

, we talk about how to become good with people and

1:18

we talk about why friendships and relationships are

1:20

so important , and so much more . I think this

1:22

is gonna add a ton of value to your life . But before we dive

1:24

in , just a few announcements . This episode

1:27

of the L3 Leadership Podcast is sponsored by

1:29

Beratung Advisors . The financial advisors

1:31

at Beratung Advisors help educate and empower

1:33

clients to make informed financial decisions

1:35

. You can find out how Beratung Advisors

1:38

can help you develop a customized financial

1:40

plan for your financial future by visiting

1:42

their website at beratungadvisorscom

1:44

. That's B-E-R-A-T-U-N-G-Advisors . com

1:48

. Securities and Investment Products

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and Services offered through LPL Financial

1:53

member FINRA and SIPC . Beratung

1:55

Advisors , lpl Financial and L3 Leadership

1:57

are separate entities . I

1:59

also wanna thank our sponsor , Henne Jewelers . They were jewelry

2:01

earned by my friend and mentor , John Henne and

2:04

my wife Laura and I got our engagement and wedding

2:06

rings through Henne Jewelers and had an incredible experience

2:08

. And not only do they have great jewelry

2:10

, but they also invest in people . In fact , for every

2:12

couple that comes in engaged , they give them a book to

2:14

help them prepare for marriage , and we just love that . So

2:17

if you're in need of a good jeweler , check out HenneJewelers

2:19

. com . And

2:21

with all that being said , let's dive right in . Here's my conversation

2:23

with Zack Blair . Zack Blair .

2:26

Hey everybody , I'm here with one of my very best friends

2:28

in the world , Doug Smith . He's with L3

2:30

, with Light of Life , with so many other things . We

2:32

talked today about parenting , about leadership

2:35

, about investing in deep relationships , about

2:38

mental health Dude , we talked about

2:40

it all . It was awesome . This is one of the best

2:42

ones I've ever done , simply because this is one

2:44

of the best guys I know . So I know you're in

2:46

for a treat today . I've never said that before

2:48

, but you are . So we

2:50

both were under Pastor Larry Bettencourt , who

2:53

completely changed our lives right

2:55

, and we both call ourselves basically

2:57

children of him . So , super

3:00

cool man . But over the last 20 years , man , I've

3:02

appreciated your friendship more than

3:04

I could express and just

3:06

a few short words here , like you really mean a

3:08

lot to me . You do so much for not only

3:10

me and Lauren , and you and Laura do so much

3:12

for me and Lauren , but you've done

3:14

so much for the church , you've done so much for just

3:18

. You've always championed me and believed in me

3:20

. Like , just appreciate

3:22

you , dude Still do man ?

3:24

Yeah , extremely grateful for your friendship as well . Again

3:26

, you've been there in the darkest times of my life , the highest

3:28

points of my life , cheering me on and been a constant

3:30

source of encouragement . So it's been quite a journey

3:32

, man . And hey , our best days are still ahead . We're

3:34

still young . Yeah , we're still young . We haven't hit 40

3:36

yet . We're hanging on to our 30s .

3:39

That's 20 years of relationship , man . You

3:41

know we were both boneheads when we first came to

3:43

Christ , right , we were both kind of like all over

3:45

the place and you know . But Pastor

3:47

Larry believed in us and you know we

3:50

grew close and I remember , yeah , it's been

3:52

cool because , like , we have been there for each other in

3:54

the best of times and the worst of times , yeah , and

3:56

that's what friendship is .

3:58

Yeah , I still remember when I met you the week

4:00

we were at Jack 2023 , I think it

4:02

was the last day I came in . We were just laying on the floor and you were like , hey

4:04

, man , I had to share my story with you and that was

4:06

the beginning . And so it's been a lot of fun

4:08

man , got to be in your wedding , got to see you have

4:10

kids . I still we were just talking about this other day . I still remember

4:12

being in the backyard of our townhouses and

4:14

that season and you tell me , no , it was

4:16

going to be born man . It's just been a blast .

4:18

Yeah , I think that was the first time I ever grilled a steak

4:20

too . I don't

4:22

know , did I get to try it ?

4:23

I waited a long time . Yeah , I made you steak .

4:25

I was like this is like really dry , Like I had no clue

4:27

what I was doing .

4:27

I guess it wasn't my fault . I was going to make you a steak , yeah , no

4:29

, that's good , that's good , but I'm sure you've grown in your

4:32

steak .

4:32

Yeah , oh , I'm smoking . Now I'm doing

4:34

some fun stuff , yeah , yeah , man . So

4:38

, dude , just for everyone's context , doing

4:40

L3 , you're doing

4:42

light of life . I mean , man , there's

4:45

so much that's going on in your world

4:47

and I appreciate you taking time today , man .

4:49

Yeah , I'm honored to be here , man .

4:50

Yeah . So what's been going on in your

4:52

world ? What's the Lord been teaching you ?

4:54

Yeah , for me and you've been along

4:56

for the whole journey I feel like over

4:58

the past three years God's really taken me from a

5:00

place of being a young , insecure

5:03

leader and I'll just pause there . The young leader thing

5:05

. I know we always looked around all the things that

5:07

we heard around being a 20-something and

5:09

we're not really getting into leadership , but

5:12

I was a light of life . Yeah

5:14

, I guess it was three years ago now and I didn't get

5:16

invited to a meeting that was for emerging leaders

5:18

and I was like this is weird . I'm always

5:20

in those meetings and I went to our executive

5:22

director and I just said hey , why

5:25

wasn't I in that meeting ? He's like it's 35 and

5:27

under man .

5:29

And I've been in my heart . So I guess I'm like this

5:31

is a revelation , like I am not a young leader anymore

5:34

.

5:34

I made it .

5:35

I'm pretty adjusted .

5:38

But I would just say from that time Still at

5:40

the film-o though right yeah , it

5:42

wasn't , I wouldn't say it was like . At that point I

5:44

started growing in confidence . But I do feel

5:46

like for the first 15 years

5:48

of my leadership journey and even my Christian walk , man

5:51

, so much insecurity , so much striving

5:53

to prove myself and really just

5:55

operating out of everything I was doing to perform

5:57

and prove that I was enough , and I

5:59

feel like around 35 , 36

6:01

, God just started showing me the value

6:04

that I have and that , man , I don't have to strive

6:06

, and a lot of that came through a mental breakdown I had

6:08

, which we can talk about , but coming

6:10

out of that I just feel like God's really taken me into

6:12

a place where I know who I am . I know

6:15

who I am . Even more importantly , I

6:17

know how I'm gifted and wired . I know

6:19

how I value to the world . I don't

6:21

need all the accolades

6:23

, I don't need all the pats on the back . I'm

6:25

just very , very confident and very focused on

6:27

what I believe God's called me to do , and

6:29

that is a huge shift for me . I'm

6:31

no longer going into meetings or meeting with people

6:34

and saying I feel less than or

6:36

I hope in this meeting I can prove that I'm a great

6:38

leader to everyone . I just show up as

6:40

I am and do my best , and

6:42

it's been so freeing To

6:45

get out of that stage and really just step into confidence

6:47

and hopefully I can help younger leaders get

6:49

there a lot quicker than I did .

6:50

Because , as you know it , took me a while . What's the

6:52

root of that ? What's the root of the lack of

6:54

confidence In your life , maybe in

6:56

the common life ?

6:57

Yeah , I mean you know my story . So I

7:00

grew up really heavy kids , so there's insecurities

7:02

around body image . Never did

7:04

well in school . I think I had a 1.6 GPA

7:06

when I graduated .

7:08

What was that attributed to what

7:10

? Why didn't you do well in school ? Because you're really smart

7:12

.

7:12

Oh , I didn't try yeah .

7:14

How many books a year do you read ? Oh , I have no idea

7:16

.

7:16

Probably 20 to 40 . Yeah , 20 to 40 .

7:18

A lot of podcasts .

7:19

Yeah , it's interesting . But I think for me

7:21

and I've learned this from you , actually when

7:24

we were in youth ministry you have kids that will act

7:26

out or maybe aren't living up to their potential and

7:28

we see the potential , but

7:30

they may not . And it's people

7:32

like you Pastor Larry Bettencourt , my

7:34

high school principal , my father-in-law , mike

7:36

Stadel those were the first

7:38

seeds of hope

7:41

that were planted in me that maybe

7:43

I am smart , maybe I do have leadership

7:45

abilities , Maybe I can grow and develop

7:47

. And I never received that as a young

7:49

person . And so when I started getting

7:52

around all of those things , I basically in middle school

7:54

determined that I would never amount to anything . And

7:56

my dad's a bus driver and there's nothing wrong with

7:58

being a bus driver . But I just thought , hey , I don't have to try

8:00

in school to be a bus driver , so I'll just party

8:03

, live it up and jump into that

8:05

world afterwards . But

8:07

when I started getting those seeds of hope in me , it's like

8:09

, oh my gosh , I can actually do something . That's

8:11

when everything changed . And then my

8:13

senior year of high school gave my life to Christ after

8:16

my mom died . And really

8:18

getting around people like I mentioned Larry

8:20

, my father-in-law , et cetera that's what really helped turn

8:22

my life around and helped me to focus on my potential , and

8:24

I think so many people listening to this that struggle

8:26

with insecurity . Man , they just need to be

8:28

told who they are and what they're capable of , and

8:30

they do have hope for our future and they can do great things

8:33

, and I think our culture and our world

8:35

is desperately crying for that .

8:36

Yeah , I feel like discipleship is

8:38

rejecting the lie , locating the lie

8:41

, rejecting the lie , replacing it with truth , and

8:43

that's what a lot of therapists , counselors , also do For

8:46

me . I remember the lack of confidence started to come

8:49

in when I had an authority figure

8:51

telling me that I was stupid and I wouldn't amount to anything

8:53

, and did that happen to

8:55

you at all ?

8:56

Oh , yeah , yeah yeah , I remember my ninth grade teacher

8:58

.

8:58

I can't remember exactly .

9:00

He would always tell us like you're going to work at a gas station

9:02

.

9:02

Oh same thing , 6-grade .

9:03

It's so funny . It's like who ? Looking back , I'm

9:06

like who ? Who is this guy's boss

9:08

? Let me go talk to them . Right , but like yeah , who are

9:10

you to say that to a kid , and literally I mean

9:12

you think about the ceiling that creates in kids' lives

9:14

.

9:14

They believe it .

9:15

You believe it Because , again , you think these

9:17

people know what they're talking about .

9:19

Yeah , I remember that . I remember that was the

9:21

day that I stopped trying . Wow , like

9:24

well , if I'm stupid like he says I am , why would

9:26

I even try ?

9:26

Yeah , so when did the light ?

9:27

bulb turn for you ? That's

9:30

a great question . I don't

9:32

think it ever . I think I

9:34

pretended that it did . I'm speaking like

9:36

just kind of from , you know , without processing

9:38

it . I think I pretended like it did . But

9:40

I always carried that root of insecurity

9:43

with me and there was a moment that we were going

9:45

through the land deal and

9:47

I was meeting with an attorney and

9:49

I felt like this need to continually over-prepare

9:52

. So I prepared these legal

9:54

documents . Why would I prepare legal documents when I'm

9:56

paying an attorney , right ? To

9:58

prepare legal documents , for he's like who did

10:01

this ? And I said I did . And he's like what

10:03

? He's like you're really smart

10:05

. I was like oh , because

10:08

Lauren would tell me I was smart .

10:09

Yeah , but I'm like you have to tell me that You're my wife

10:11

, true

10:13

.

10:15

She's not to say that you know .

10:16

Yeah , but it's so good man I remember you telling

10:19

me I forget what study this was

10:21

, but like the number one way kids

10:23

in situations that

10:25

they shouldn't be in . The only way that they really get out is

10:27

if someone else shows them another way .

10:29

Different way .

10:29

yeah , I mean that's always impacted me , Because the reality

10:31

is , the only reason I got out was I gave

10:33

my life to Christ and I had three or four

10:35

leaders . Show me a different way . You're talking about discipleship

10:37

. Like I think you know and especially if

10:40

people are more mature listening to this

10:42

the opportunity you have to

10:44

show people another way . I think people grossly

10:47

underestimate their opportunities to do this If

10:49

they have kids . You have kids coming to your house every

10:51

day who probably need you

10:53

to speak into their life and speak out over them . They may not

10:55

be getting that at home . Your work , I mean literally

10:58

look around and I promise you there's a need that

11:00

you could help me and help deal with this insecurity epidemic

11:02

that we're facing in our world .

11:04

Yeah , yeah , but dude , even man

11:06

, I love that . I love that , and I'm just watching you

11:08

and I'm listening to you talk and

11:10

I'm hearing the . It's natural

11:12

, the intelligence , the ability

11:14

that you have to relate with people and that's one

11:16

of the more genius things I think that you have is

11:18

your ability to relate with people . I cannot picture

11:20

you as a kid , somebody not liking

11:23

you . Yeah , was

11:25

that always the case ? People love you . Yeah

11:27

, I would say . I mean , you're lovable man . Yes , like

11:29

you really are .

11:30

Yeah , and again , just back to the confidence

11:32

Like I do feel like God's always given me

11:34

the ability to relate with all people . So I've always been

11:36

able to connect with people younger than me , same

11:38

age as me , older than me , which

11:41

was great . But you could

11:43

be good with people and have no purpose and

11:45

be going in the wrong direction and have no one tell you that . I

11:48

always think this is going to the friend example , but

11:50

I had all the friends in the world

11:52

in high school and when I first started

11:54

walking with God , the most difficult

11:56

thing I ever did was walk away from my

11:58

old friends . And it happened because we have a mutual

12:00

friend . But I was having a party in my house with

12:02

all my high school friends . They were all getting drunk and high

12:04

. My house was a party house because my mom wasn't there , my

12:06

dad always was working and this

12:09

kid from church wanted to come over and I had

12:11

him over and I told my friends I'm like , hey

12:13

, this kid comes over , I'm church dug

12:15

, I don't do anything , but as soon as he leaves , it's on We'll

12:17

party . We came over , saw

12:19

my friends doing what they were doing , literally grabbed

12:21

me by the shirt , pulled me into another room , slapped

12:24

me in the face physically and said what

12:26

are you doing ? And I said what do you mean ? What am I doing ? And

12:28

he said what are you doing ? And I said well , those are just my friends

12:30

. He goes , I know what you're doing , I know the lifestyle

12:33

you're living , and he knew I was interning at

12:35

the church and he said you have three days to tell Pastor Larry

12:37

, and if you don't I will . And

12:39

I wanted to kill this kid because

12:41

all of a sudden we were talking back

12:44

about those seeds of hope that were planted

12:46

in me . For the first time in my life , at 18

12:48

years old , I felt like there

12:50

may have been another way of life that

12:52

I didn't have to keep going down the path . I

12:54

was on my way to being an alcoholic , I was on my way to being

12:57

an addict All these different things and

12:59

not doing anything with my life . And all of a sudden I

13:01

started hanging around the church and Pastor Larry , you

13:03

and I'm like maybe I can do something

13:05

with my life , and I thought

13:07

all that was gonna be over . And you know , when you wanna talk

13:09

about the power of encouraging word , I cried for

13:11

three days , so afraid

13:13

, because I knew I had to have a conversation with Pastor Larry

13:15

, who's overseeing the internship . Yeah , and what I was anticipating

13:18

was for him to look at me and say get out , you're done

13:20

, sorry . And I went in

13:22

. I couldn't even look in the eye . I still remember the conversation

13:25

. I'm looking down , I'm crying my eyes . I'll tell him what I've

13:27

been doing . And I looked up and expected him

13:29

, you know , pointing his finger at me , and

13:31

he had , of course , larry . He had a huge smile on

13:33

his face . He wasn't surprised , he knew

13:35

. And he said bubba , which is my

13:37

nickname . He said Doug , I love you and I believe

13:40

in you . And the Bible says that a righteous man falls down

13:42

seven times but gets back up again . Get

13:44

back up again . But then he qualified and he said but

13:46

I can't continue to let you lead and

13:48

live the lifestyle that you're living , so what are you gonna

13:50

do ? And that was , I

13:53

think , what a great conversation .

13:54

Oh well , I guess I'll just take it here

13:56

. You know , it's grace and truth grace and truth

13:58

.

13:59

You want to talk about people being loved , like I think

14:01

, for people to change . We talk about this in our mastermind groups

14:03

. We want everyone to be fully known , fully loved

14:05

and fully challenged in that moment . What does

14:07

that mean ? Fully known ? I was able , because

14:10

I knew that Larry loved me , to actually confess

14:12

a lifestyle I've been living that I wasn't proud of

14:14

. I was able to be fully known in that , even

14:16

though it wasn't something I was proud of . Then , fully

14:18

loved man , he didn't condemn me . He

14:20

had a huge smile on my on his face , and he basically

14:23

just said it's gonna be okay , but then , fully

14:25

challenged , he didn't let me stay where I was . And I

14:27

think this is where you know , being great

14:29

, good with people Is great , but you need people

14:31

who are gonna fully challenge you in your life . Yeah

14:33

, and he said I can't let you lead like this . What

14:36

are you gonna do ? And and that led me to walking

14:38

away from all my friends having conversations . I want

14:40

, by the way , talk about fully loved

14:42

, known , known , loved and challenged . Going

14:44

back to that kid , they slapped me in the face

14:47

and grabbed me . I had a conversation with

14:49

him and he said Doug , let me tell you something

14:51

about friends . He said friends love you the way that

14:53

you are , but real friends love you enough not to

14:55

let you stay where you are . Yeah , and that's

14:57

when I realized that , like you could have all the friends in the

14:59

world , but if they're not challenging you

15:01

to be better , they can love you and know you right

15:04

. All my friends that weren't walking with God

15:06

knew me , love me Even though I was on my way

15:08

to be an alcoholic , doing nothing with my life , etc

15:10

. And I had one friend , one

15:12

person that I had a good relationship with , that loved

15:15

me enough to literally , physically in this case Slap

15:17

me in the face . And so you know we can

15:19

talk more about relational skills , but when I think about it's

15:21

great to be loved by all , but you need you

15:24

know we talked about this we need deep friendships in

15:26

our lives , with people who will fully know us

15:28

, fully love us and fully challenge us . And you can be

15:30

as great as you are with people , but if you don't have that , you're

15:32

never gonna develop to your potential .

15:34

Yeah , yeah . So where did you get your emotional intelligence ? How

15:36

did you develop that ?

15:37

I think I was just wired . You know my parents they

15:40

were . They certainly were perfect parents . But I

15:42

tell people all the time my mom was always the life

15:44

of the party . So you know , when I think about my personality

15:46

, I remember growing up We'd

15:49

have oldie nights you know , this is very you know on

15:51

3ws , and so we would call in and we would just

15:53

dance and sing all night . I just have a blast

15:55

. My mom was always in the school

15:57

volunteering , and so she was just a life of

16:00

the party . So I tell people you know where I got

16:02

my love for life is from my mom

16:04

and then my dad . He's more introverted

16:06

, more reserved , but I've never

16:08

met someone who loves people so well . He would

16:11

do anything for anyone and he'll serve anyone

16:13

and why say anyone ? I mean anyone , and

16:15

he's . He always modeled that and he never Talked

16:17

to me about it . He never said , hey , watch this . This

16:19

is why I'm doing that . It's just his heart

16:22

, and so you know part of it . I think it's the way God

16:24

wired me . But to , I think , just that

16:26

mix of knowing how to love and serve

16:28

people and making it not about you

16:30

, but then also being a blast to

16:32

be around and trying to you know , have fun

16:34

. I think it was a combination of those and then just a

16:36

lot of up and down lessons along

16:38

the way .

16:39

Yeah , are you trying to teach your kids that purpose

16:41

?

16:41

only yeah .

16:42

Oh , for sure , man , yeah , how do you teach your kids that , like I'm

16:44

working on that some are more naturally emotionally

16:46

intelligent . I feel like the younger they get

16:48

, the more they're starting to think of . In psychology

16:51

there's this Term called the theory

16:53

of mind . It's really , it's really

16:55

fascinating , okay . So theory of mind

16:57

is basically I can , I can bet what that other

16:59

person is thinking right now . Right , I

17:01

can put myself in their shoes and I can , I can

17:04

think if I were in their shoes , this is what I'd be thinking . There's

17:06

actually a higher rate of autism with

17:08

. If you have less

17:11

theory of mind , you have more propensity to having

17:13

autism , which is fascinating . And

17:15

a lot of first-borns have a lower

17:17

theory of mind because you know they're

17:19

kind of cared for okay , too

17:22

much , probably For today

17:24

, right , but I don't know . I've just been kind of ruminating

17:26

on that and and I thought New Lawrence , hot

17:28

autistic children for a long time I was actually

17:30

thinking , and how many of those were

17:33

first-born children and more , and said

17:35

90% of them were first-born children

17:37

. And think about the autistic children that you know they're

17:39

Mainly first-borns , which

17:41

is really interesting , yeah , so the younger

17:44

is there and they're wondering what the other people are

17:46

thinking , naturally , right , so we have to

17:48

teach that to the older's a little bit more

17:50

emotional intelligence like the first-born is

17:52

like hey , come into the room and just tell

17:54

the truth . I'm just gonna tell the truth so , and so

17:57

is doing this right now . I'm gonna like okay , you

17:59

know , like let's not start the pot , that's natural

18:01

. You know how do you teach that ? I'm working

18:03

through that .

18:04

Yeah , I mean one . You're ahead of me , so I

18:06

learned from you . I remember just a sign for

18:08

a funny story , larry we talked

18:10

about past your Larry being a mentor yeah

18:12

, to both of us . And I remember when I first started having

18:14

kids I'm like , hey , past your

18:16

Larry , give me some , give me some advice on parenting . And

18:19

you just look , he's like , talk to Zach and

18:21

Lauren . They have more modern techniques .

18:33

But I would just to say for me people might not think that's

18:35

about parenting , but how to be a parent .

18:38

That's a laze , yeah

18:40

. So for me , the way we're training our kids doing the

18:43

best that we know how is right now . What's working

18:45

is so we have our Saturday night . We call it

18:47

a Shabbat dinner , but it's a family dinner and

18:49

after every Saturday night dinner we

18:51

basically get the Bible , we pull out a few scriptures

18:53

whatever's on my heart and then now

18:55

the kids are getting older and they're learning to read . They'll read the scripture

18:58

or I'll read it , and then we really just talk about it

19:00

. Yeah , and so that's been really really

19:02

helpful . And then after that

19:04

we basically do what we call manner lessons , and

19:06

the kids love this , for whatever reason manner

19:09

lessons , but we literally practice . So

19:11

we'll get up and we'll just think through different

19:13

skills . When we learn , say like , hey , like this past

19:15

weekend we were doing it , someone . Someone

19:17

rings the doorbell and answers the door . Show me how

19:19

you .

19:21

Would actually open the door and answer it .

19:22

Yeah , hey okay one , I'm someone you

19:24

know and love your grandpa .

19:25

Oh , we love you . You know hugs and say hey .

19:27

I'm a stranger , there's someone at the door that you don't know . How

19:29

do you interact ? What do you say

19:31

to them ? And so we just role play back and

19:33

forth different situations , and then , hey

19:36

, like the kids just went and delivered

19:38

some things to neighbors today and we had them do it

19:40

on their own , so actually throwing them in

19:42

situations , and then it's just a matter of

19:44

coaching in real life .

19:45

So , doc , this would be brilliant

19:47

to do for our foster girls . I never thought

19:49

about this . I don't know how I never thought about it , but

19:52

because they came into our world . Sometimes

19:54

they can think okay , well , anybody

19:56

that's that that knows that can learn . They're obviously

19:58

safe , so they'll run to them and hug them right

20:01

. But we're like , wait , if you don't know them

20:03

like we had to teach what one

20:05

you just don't hug everybody . You don't

20:07

ask them to just pick you up and carry you everywhere . I don't

20:09

know everybody . That is that that might

20:11

know my name .

20:12

Yeah , no , that's so good and especially , I

20:14

think , just with the platform , is that God's given both

20:16

of us , especially .

20:17

You know people are listening to this and that's not it

20:19

, so arrogant in it I'm like I don't know everybody that

20:21

knows my name . No , no , I mean .

20:23

I mean in a genuine way , though , yeah

20:26

again when you're I know I mean you're a church

20:28

it's like hundreds of people know you and

20:30

and I think you actually talked about this one point Like

20:32

, yeah , if you're on social media and even have posted

20:35

like one picture of your family , Everyone

20:37

on social media you know . You told me like thinks

20:39

they know everything about your kids . I mean

20:41

you can talk more about that . But that kind of like had

20:44

me in the mentality of like oh , people are gonna

20:46

start talking to my kids and they don't even know who they are and

20:48

they know things about them .

20:49

Like I'd be yeah

20:52

, yeah . Well , I told my kids , like , if you don't know somebody

20:54

, if you you don't have and they know things about you , you

20:56

don't have to talk to them . So it's like the opposite

20:58

of manners . Yeah

21:03

, it's like if you feel like I want them to be okay

21:05

with the feeling of discomfort , like so , if somebody

21:07

comes up to them and they're like hey , noah , how are you ? And

21:09

he looks at them , he's like I don't recognize this person . Hey

21:11

, judah , how are you ? I don't recognize this person , just say hi

21:13

, kindly . But you don't have to answer any questions

21:15

. You don't have to . You know , yeah , you don't have to . You don't

21:17

have to go any further than that .

21:19

That's so good , yeah , and I think what you're saying is true , like

21:21

going back to . So we do formal training

21:23

, but then it's just a matter of coaching , right

21:25

? And so I think we had our friend Matt Keller in

21:27

the other month and he just talked about there's two different kinds

21:29

of coaching . One is us sitting across from each

21:31

other , me telling you what to do and what was wrong with

21:33

what you did , and the others me coming Around the side

21:35

of you , putting my arm around you and explaining

21:38

like , hey , what do you think that person felt ? Or , and

21:40

so , even just little things

21:42

. I'm thinking with you . Know my two older

21:44

girls , I'll hear them interact

21:46

with either adults or you know

21:49

other people , and all they do is they'll start telling

21:51

them stuff about their life and you

21:53

know hey , I'm doing this , we're doing this at home , or hey

21:55

, we have this , and it's like that's

21:58

not you know , and really just sitting down with them and saying

22:00

you didn't ask them anything about them , and

22:02

like we shouldn't start conversations ever with us , like

22:04

we should be more curious about other people

22:06

. Yeah , and you want to talk back about

22:08

me ? I think I'm also naturally wired like this , but

22:10

I think one of the best ways to be good with people is

22:13

to genuinely become more interested in them

22:15

than you are in yourself . Yeah

22:17

, and if you do that and always put others first

22:19

. You know you'll be and I think that's what we're

22:21

trying to teach our kids of like hey , it's not about you , like

22:24

you don't have to tell them everything you're doing . Like become

22:26

naturally curious about other people and

22:28

that'll go a long way , but it's just coaching when

22:30

they , when they , do something they shouldn't .

22:32

It's just you got to get on that and right

22:34

, do it over , and it's what you're saying is it

22:36

expands beyond parenting . It expands

22:38

to just people our

22:41

age , even above right . Yeah

22:43

, learning emotional intelligence is one of the best things

22:45

. Angela Madden , one of her pastors said it

22:47

you're good with people and because you're good

22:49

with people , you're gonna be good at anything that you do , and

22:52

that's what I see in you . You know I really love that

22:54

about you . You and Lauren . I have that similar

22:56

wiring when you're with people . Yeah , and I

22:58

. You know you're one of the people I've watched for a

23:00

long time like okay , so how does Doug interact with people

23:02

? That's probably how I should interact with people , because

23:05

I was more of a firstborn only child . You

23:07

know , to me and kind of to myself a little bit more in my own

23:09

thoughts , I love being , obviously

23:11

, with people , but the asking questions

23:14

was not something that I learned at a young age , and

23:16

so Lauren said , said to me one time I'll

23:18

never get this . She said she's exactly . You

23:20

know , there's one thing that people really

23:22

always love to talk about , and what's

23:25

that themselves so she's like

23:27

just ask people questions you know , but on

23:29

on your side of it , because you probably

23:31

are so natural at asking questions , you

23:33

feel sometimes overlooked in conversations

23:36

because you're making it about other people all the time

23:38

.

23:39

No , but it's probably because I've always done

23:41

it . The interesting thing is , like I have a podcast

23:43

as well and I always ask for feedback

23:46

because I always want to get better and I

23:48

would say , pretty consistent feedback is like hey , I want to hear more

23:50

of your voice . Yeah , like I want to hear your

23:52

thoughts and opinion . And going back to even what we talked about in the beginning

23:54

of , like confidence , I think

23:56

I actually insecure out of insecurity , like

23:58

I would actually hide behind questions sometimes . Oh

24:01

, okay , so like hey , you , you know , you

24:03

don't need to hear anything that I'm going to say like

24:05

I'm not and I think I'm starting

24:07

to Reverse that . But that's really helped me , like when

24:09

I have people I'm interviewing saying like , hey

24:11

, tell me your opinion ? And I think I

24:13

was so insecure and afraid of like what if I say

24:16

the wrong thing , what if I say something dumb , or and

24:18

all I all it really was was I'm afraid of what

24:20

the other person thinks of me when I'm Trying to be in

24:22

. My friend said something the other day , again

24:24

just losing confidence . I did an interview with him and

24:27

I asked him for feedback , because I'm not usually on this side

24:29

of interviewing and

24:31

he said Doug , you don't have to apologize

24:33

for like your voice or anything you say . He's like

24:35

I hope you know that pretty much everything you say

24:38

is going to be awesome and

24:40

so just be secure in that . And of course

24:42

, can I say something dumb or it doesn't , yes

24:44

, but hearing that , I'm like what

24:47

if we all operate out of this ? everyone , I shouldn't say

24:49

everyone- If

24:52

we were confident in saying like man , I do have

24:54

something to say , and usually what I do say it's gonna add value

24:56

to people . I think we'd all be in a lot better place

24:58

.

24:58

I think the difference that we might be speaking

25:00

of is you've , you've , you've done a consistent job

25:02

of filling your heart with great things for so long

25:05

that it's like gushers , you know . You know where your kids

25:07

gushers you squeeze up what's on the inside is gonna come

25:09

out when you squeeze that gusher . You know times

25:11

of pressure reveal You're gonna lead well in

25:14

times of pressure . You know if you have something

25:16

to say in a situation . I want to know genuinely what you

25:18

have to say in situations like you know

25:20

, even receiving correction from a board

25:22

level , like what do I need to do better here

25:24

? Like I genuinely respect your

25:26

voice , but it's it's because of

25:28

the nature , your heart for people , but

25:30

it's also because I know that you're a man of

25:32

growth . You know , I remember one time we were sitting down

25:34

at Eaton Park and you were like

25:36

well , what's your growth plan ? I'm

25:38

like what's a growth plan ? What are you talking about ? What's a growth

25:41

plan ? You know , yeah . And so you've , dude

25:43

, you did a EOS with your family , yeah , just

25:45

recently , yeah , your family .

25:46

Before we move into that , we can . I do

25:48

want to ask you a question , because you talked about how

25:51

you know you wouldn't have said that you were

25:53

. Your natural strength of yours would have been being

25:55

good with people , and then you need to grow . I remember

25:57

those conversations early on in our relationship

25:59

, and one I just want to celebrate you

26:01

like to see . You know I don't think

26:03

people have any idea like to see where you were

26:05

in 2005 interacting with people

26:08

, and correct me if I'm wrong , but I think I remember

26:10

you saying , like man , if I preach a message

26:12

, like you would immediately jet like into

26:14

your office Because you were afraid , not afraid , but maybe

26:16

didn't want to talk to people and to see how far

26:18

you've come .

26:20

And actually , sometimes you forget about that man

26:22

. Yeah , oh , you got me in the feels there . I forgot

26:24

about that , oh , oh , it's been beautiful now , yeah

26:26

oh , and it's interesting .

26:27

Man like and again , I don't know how familiar people are with the predictive

26:29

index , but people can look at

26:31

personalities like me or Lauren and be like

26:33

, wow , they must be so good with people and

26:36

I would say we are to a point . But

26:38

people like you are actually more wired

26:40

. Introverted people are more wired to actually

26:42

be better at relationships , because I don't . This

26:45

sounds bad , but you'll actually take the time to listen

26:47

and go deep with people where

26:49

more my personality Like I just want to high five , everyone

26:51

vote influence . Now five , you want to one . Great

26:53

, but a compliment that I've heard

26:55

about you over and over again is man

26:58

, I've never met someone like Zach

27:00

when who makes me feel

27:02

like when I'm sitting across from I'm the only

27:04

person in the world , that means the world to me , oh man

27:06

, I've heard this at least 10 to 20 times probably

27:09

in the last two years about you specifically

27:11

. So to Remember you and the running

27:13

to your office days to now people

27:15

are saying Zach's probably the best relational leader I

27:17

know . I mean teach me like

27:20

what . I and I guess for the audience , like

27:22

how have you ? You

27:24

talked about learning how to ask questions , but how else do you

27:26

feel like you've grown in that ability

27:29

? And like what have you learned about being great with people

27:31

? Because clearly you know it's been exponential growth

27:33

.

27:35

You know , I was overwhelmed by

27:37

the amount

27:39

of people in a room right and

27:41

Touching and remembering everybody's name

27:44

, and so I air on the side of going to

27:46

the one and being with them . You , you call that

27:48

out perfectly . You know , sometimes I'll have regret . I'm like

27:50

oh man , I didn't even say hi to anybody else . I just

27:52

talked to so-and-so this week at church and we

27:54

talked before church , we talked after church and I didn't

27:57

even get to say hi to really anybody else .

27:59

You know , and investing in that , you

28:03

know , I just want the Lord did everybody . You're right , yeah , that's

28:06

covered anyway .

28:08

Yeah , and , and Lauren's dad , Lawrence . So

28:13

I just there was a moment

28:15

where I realized one

28:18

of the deepest pains that I had would

28:20

revolved around friendship and

28:22

I wanted to just be a good friend

28:24

and the Lord began to really deal

28:27

with my heart , specifically about , you

28:29

know just how important people are

28:31

and how important relationships are and

28:33

specific , and so I

28:35

Just fell in love with the individual you

28:37

know and Fell out of love

28:39

with a , with a crowd , so to speak . Yeah

28:41

, just all about the person . I just I don't know , it's

28:44

just a hard thing , and Lauren taught me how to be , you

28:46

know a little bit better .

28:48

You know our wives dignify us in certain areas

28:50

10,000 , you know yeah , and

28:52

you know you talk about deep friendship . So you know we

28:55

haven't gone into it yet , but I had a mental breakdown 2020

28:58

, mid-darkest season in my life . Didn't know if I'd ever be able to

29:00

work again . And so who did I reach

29:02

out to ? I reached out to what I consider like my deepest

29:04

, closest friends . Yeah , which would be you . You

29:06

know partial area , a few other people and

29:08

literally Connected with you all individually

29:10

, separately . But you all basically said the same thing

29:12

to me , given my personality

29:14

. You said , doug , you've been neglecting deep friendship

29:17

for a long time . And I was

29:19

kind of like at first . I was like , really , because

29:21

my personality , I'm like I have tons of friendships , like

29:23

I don't feel like community is a lack in my life . And

29:26

I remember past your Larry saying , like Doug , like who

29:28

are the people that don't know you as Doug Smith

29:30

from light of life or L3 , or like man ? They

29:32

just know you as Doug and like they're literally just

29:34

your friend . And I was like man , there's probably like a handful

29:37

of those . He's like man , don't neglect

29:39

those . And like go deep . And I certainly have not been

29:41

perfected that , but it's something I've been trying to go in like

29:43

do you have any systems

29:45

for keeping close with I

29:48

Basically just being keeping and

29:50

investing in deep friendship , because I think you're you're really

29:52

good at this .

29:53

The way that I , the way that I kind

29:55

of frame it is , in every season You're gonna have three

29:57

to five really close friends

29:59

, you know , and then you invest

30:02

in those relationships , right , and everyone

30:05

else like you can , you

30:08

can connect with , but there's three to five . You

30:10

have to have that three to five . You know , if I

30:12

counsel somebody and like you got to have a brother , you got to

30:14

have a pastor and you have to have a

30:16

counselor during this , you know , during

30:18

this time , if it's a really difficult time , but like

30:20

a brother and I'm talking about , you know , not a physical

30:22

brother , but like , but a

30:25

friend that sticks closer than a

30:27

brother , you know , yeah , so

30:29

I try to . I try to just focus on

30:31

a couple , a couple relationships at a time

30:33

. It's difficult for me to like remember

30:35

everything and try to text everybody , but I do

30:38

at least once a month . Just

30:40

, I keep a log in my phone to people I'm praying

30:42

for . You know , I keep a log in my phone

30:44

of , of of friends that I want to make

30:46

sure that I follow up with . You might be going through grief or

30:48

different things like that and I

30:50

just kind of follow . You know , like somebody pops up on

30:52

my heart and I've been thinking about him Especially two or three times

30:54

. Man , I'll shoot him a text right away . You know

30:56

, I'm like , hey , I've been thinking about you and it's funny

30:59

, the dog , because like lately , I feel like the Lord has really

31:01

specifically been leading me to pray for people

31:03

, and in very , in very specific

31:05

manners . You know , and I'll let

31:07

them know about that , you know , my friend , my

31:09

friend Juan , I just I actually prayed over

31:11

a voice text and he was like you had no

31:14

clue how much that meant to me , wow

31:16

, and so like , when I'm in prayer , if somebody pops up on my heart

31:18

, I'll just put a voice message on and you

31:20

know , and just pray for him there .

31:21

I love that yeah the other thing again

31:24

now , turning this in my podcast . The

31:28

other thing , man , I would just say that that I've really admired

31:30

and learned from you in the area of relationships we're talking

31:32

about being good with people . When I

31:34

went through that hard time , you , you pass

31:36

your layer and all those people , man

31:38

, when I needed you , it at least

31:41

my observation was like you guys dropped everything , whatever

31:43

you were doing , your agenda , and , man , you showed

31:46

up like you and Lauren showed up at our house , took care of our kids . You

31:48

and I went out , we had fun , yeah , and

31:50

you dropped everything . And the

31:52

unfortunate revelation I had in that I'm like man

31:55

, I'm so busy so often and

31:57

I'm like if Zach would have called me and

31:59

had the same need , would have I done the same thing ? Is

32:01

a challenging question for all of us . But from that

32:03

time on and again not been perfect

32:05

with it , I've really and I think you may even

32:07

say I would love to hear you speak about this like showing up for people

32:10

when , like they need it most . Man

32:12

, over the past two or three years it's

32:14

been since then , I feel like there's probably been 10

32:17

to 20 opportunities where people call me and men

32:19

like they were going through it and I want to say

32:21

I was like what would Zach do ? But man , that example

32:23

you provided for me , man , I showed up

32:25

and it's just like man , that was a divine

32:27

appointment that person's life that they'll never forget . And

32:30

yeah , was I so busy ? Like what do I literally

32:32

have on my calendar ? That couldn't be cancer . It's so

32:34

important that I can't show up . For anyway , I

32:36

would love to hear you talk about this from a relational

32:38

standpoint . So good it okay so .

32:40

So I do think that some of that is from

32:43

Professionally being exposed to

32:45

very difficult times with people like my job as a pastor

32:47

is to be there for people in the best times and worst times

32:49

. If I Define my

32:51

job as anything else , if it's about preaching , if it's

32:53

about this , it's wrong . It's about being

32:56

there for people in the best times and worst times . So of

32:58

course , I use that to inspire what

33:00

community to , so that community can be there

33:02

for people in the best times and worst times . That's all I'm

33:04

doing , right . And so Pastor Jim

33:06

taught me this principle and I just , I just

33:08

love it . It encapsulated

33:11

so many of my feelings and

33:13

learnings through the years . You know , going into the hospital

33:15

room , being there for people when they lost

33:17

a teenager . You know I'm gonna get emotional

33:19

even thinking about some of them . So I gotta , you know , but

33:22

we can get tissue . Yeah , we

33:24

got some somewhere . But people remember

33:27

two things when you're there for them , when

33:29

you're not . When I left youth ministry

33:32

I didn't have many kids

33:34

say this message changed my life . But

33:36

I had a lot of kids who said you were there for me when my

33:38

dad died and I'll never forget that . You know

33:40

you're there for me . You came to my game . Why

33:43

did you come to my game ? You know all these kids . You came to my

33:45

game . Like that is what changes

33:47

people's lives and what I started to realize

33:49

, like there was a shift in me that

33:51

I started . It started

33:53

to take place when we had a . This

33:57

was like a god moment in my life . You

34:00

know , when we started in ministry , doug , you

34:03

know I don't know if I got it in it

34:05

, for I didn't get in for all the wrong

34:07

reasons . There's a part of me that was codependent

34:09

. I wanted to fix everybody's problems and I felt

34:11

like good . When I fix problems , you know , to me , yeah

34:13

, part of that is on health , growing

34:16

up and all that stuff . You just figure it out . But you

34:19

know we all see the masses in our mind , right

34:21

? And I'll never forget Jill

34:25

Wyndham praying over me and saying

34:27

you know , you're a father to

34:30

many , and that I felt

34:32

like that dropped in my heart . I'm like , no , that's

34:34

who I am . So much so that

34:36

it began to change my life . And I was also

34:38

reading a book about , just

34:42

essentially the the orphan spirit . You

34:44

know that we all carry about around

34:46

. And there was

34:48

a young girl in our youth ministry

34:50

, there was a young boy in our youth ministry and

34:53

there were several others , but those two in particular

34:55

, who didn't

34:57

have a father in their life and their

34:59

lives were just in shambles

35:02

. And the Lord called me and Lauren

35:04

to them . And the

35:06

Lord spoke to me like you're

35:09

them spiritually , wow . And

35:12

so I had to open up and receive the

35:14

love of the Father in order to learn to be

35:16

a Father , and that completely

35:18

changed my life . Wow , yeah . And

35:21

so it became then less about how many

35:23

people came to the ministry and more about like

35:25

man , if one person has helped , great

35:28

, yeah , that's all that matters to me .

35:29

Oh , it's interesting , man , and even just talking to people , man

35:32

, and again , I'm all about wide impact too .

35:35

Like man , let's reach as many people as possible .

35:37

But in the little experience and I don't

35:39

have this huge wide thing , but even talking

35:41

to leaders with huge wide impacts , it

35:43

does seem like nothing . Wide

35:45

impact is not even close to the comparison

35:48

, fulfillment wise , of deep impact . Yes

35:50

, and when leaders , even if they've led , you

35:52

know 50,000 people , what

35:54

they remember and they talk about , you know post

35:56

career-wise , is man . Here are the 12

35:58

people that I really poured into and look what they're doing now

36:01

and they get way more excited about the deep impact than

36:03

wide . And I think our culture , just we live in this

36:05

culture that's obsessed with the wide and the wide is

36:07

great and again , some people are called to it , but I

36:09

think if we all focused a lot more on deep , we'd make a

36:11

lot bigger impact .

36:12

And we'd be a lot more fulfilled . Is that maturity , like

36:14

, is that okay ? So if I put it this way , for

36:17

me it might've been maturity . Is

36:19

it maturity , like , if I care about

36:21

the wide , am I thinking about

36:23

me ? Am I thinking about if I'm thinking

36:25

about the deep , am I thinking about them ? Like

36:28

Jesus cared about the masses

36:30

, the multitudes , obviously , and then he cared

36:32

about the individuals . You know , yeah

36:34

, yeah , I mean I mean that's maturity

36:37

. Or if it's just to be a both and or- yeah , on

36:39

the motivation .

36:39

I mean you know I always joke , I wanna be a

36:41

mega church pastor in my twenties . Like I'm like , oh

36:43

man , if I just let a church like this , it would be the greatest thing

36:46

ever . You know , this is my natural progression

36:48

, it's the only thing I had in my mind . And

36:50

then , like , I left the church world and

36:52

I ended up working in a nonprofit serving the homeless and

36:55

I had a conversation with you . I was having an identity

36:57

crisis for like six months Cause all

36:59

of a sudden , oh my gosh , how am I ever gonna

37:01

have a wide impact and reach thousands

37:03

? And it's just so funny , man , it's like you

37:06

know , one of our mentors , john News , always said never put a

37:08

period where God puts a comma .

37:10

And never just and then you put a period at the end of that sentence

37:12

. I'm just kidding , pastor John , I love you . Yes

37:15

, I'm sorry , I'm just kidding .

37:16

But man , I was so focused and I put a period

37:18

I'm gonna be a mega church pastor .

37:20

Yeah , yeah .

37:21

And now I've been at the rescue mission for 13

37:23

years which I would have never imagined and

37:25

really God fulfilled all the desires in my

37:27

heart to have that impact

37:30

. It was just interesting in a way that I just

37:32

never thought possible and I think you know you talked about

37:34

motivation , getting into ministry Like for

37:36

me , it's like whatever drew us in great

37:38

and I think I get it .

37:39

It's a good way to put it .

37:40

Yeah , as God matures us more . You know , when Jesus

37:42

in the beginning of his ministry , he said like come and see man

37:44

, wide impact , like see the scope of this . But

37:47

as the disciples grew , he eventually

37:49

said come and die right . And like require

37:51

a praise and say like man , I want you to give your life to this . And

37:53

it was more about deep impact . So yeah

37:55

, I don't really have an answer , but I think as you grow and mature

37:58

, you care less and less about wide and

38:00

you just care more and more about man . How am I gonna

38:02

change a few people's lives forever ?

38:05

Yeah , this might be too deep of a question , doug . Okay

38:07

, I don't know if I've ever asked you this Like do you

38:09

ever regret it all ? Do

38:11

you care to regret about not being a

38:14

pastor on staff at a church ? Like , is there ever

38:16

a moment where that happens ? Cause from the outside I don't

38:18

see why you ever would , but I

38:20

also see that you could . You know .

38:22

Yeah , this might be the period of the comma

38:25

, you think too . So , like right now , where

38:27

I'm at , I'm like what I love , and this

38:29

was just me personally , and I'll just speak to you cause I think

38:31

a lot of I think there's a problem in the church

38:33

that at least people that get into ministry . I think to

38:36

your point on motivation . A lot of us could have

38:38

impure motivations when we're in our 20s . We

38:40

see people on platforms and we aspire to

38:42

that and maybe that's what got us into ministry

38:44

. But , as you know , once you start getting into ministry

38:46

and seeing what it's really all about , or maybe you get into ministry

38:49

or you plant a church or something and it's not blowing up like

38:51

you thought it would like , you have to deal

38:53

with the reality that a lot of people get wounded , a

38:55

lot of people get hurt by that cause . They didn't hit

38:57

their expectation and they leave ministry , they leave God

39:00

and all of these things , and I just

39:02

think , man , they just need to follow . I

39:04

know it sounds like really simple , but , man , just follow the plan

39:06

that God has for you and let him write a beautiful story

39:09

and stop getting so focused on

39:12

an outcome . So I think for me , as

39:15

I moved into nonprofit world right now

39:17

, the way I'm wired we talk about a wide impact

39:20

. I think all I really wanted and when

39:22

I wanted to be a major church pastor was to

39:24

help people . In the way I'm wired I'm more of a kingdom

39:26

person , like big picture , like wanna see

39:28

what's going on , and the interesting thing is that light of life we're

39:30

connected to 300 churches in the Pittsburgh area

39:32

and I feel like daily I get an

39:35

eagle eye view of what God is doing in the body

39:37

of Christ in every church and for

39:39

me that is so beautiful and so I tell

39:41

people now , like man , if God wants me

39:43

to be a pastor at a church or lead a church , like I would

39:45

have to hear from him directly , like

39:48

the way . But I never think like oh

39:51

, I say that's why I said the period thing . I'm like I

39:53

wonder if I do close myself off sometimes

39:55

cause I'm so fulfilled in the season

39:57

I am in . But I would just say there's

39:59

no regret , like I just have come really comfortable

40:02

with where God has brought me to and really happy

40:04

with the story he's written , versus the story

40:06

and narrative that I wanted for

40:08

myself .

40:09

Yeah , yeah , no , I totally go with what you're saying . Like

40:11

there's a scripture where Paul says Godliness

40:13

plus contentment is great game . That's the only

40:16

scripture I hated . You

40:18

know , like I don't agree with that . You

40:21

know , contentment , how could I ever be content ? Like

40:23

just more , more , more , you know ? But like man

40:25

, there's a fulfillment that comes when we can

40:27

actually be present . But there in

40:29

present , over here , right now , where we are

40:31

, we love , where we are , we're waiting direction

40:33

for the next season , whatever that looks like

40:36

. If it's stay , stay . If it's go here , go

40:38

. Whatever God does .

40:39

Yeah and I would say like I'm still super driven

40:41

Like the contentment thing , like I'm

40:43

always wanting more , which I guess I have

40:46

to guard myself for so and I think

40:48

that's good . I would just say , on the contentment , though

40:50

, I have a piece of my heart with where I am .

40:51

That's exactly what it is .

40:53

And if I never get to the more that I see

40:55

, I'm okay with that .

40:56

Like I remember , that's

40:58

the best way to put it I've ever heard . Okay , I'm not

41:01

even joking , I'm thinking about it because Paul

41:03

said you know , he worked harder than all of his brothers

41:05

, so he wasn't lazy by any means . Nevertheless , you

41:07

know not about the grace of God in me . So he worked hard

41:09

along with the grace of God , and so contentment

41:11

doesn't mean laziness , and I think that I might have

41:13

, but it's contentment is I'm

41:17

good , no matter what , yeah , no matter the outcome .

41:19

And like my job is . Like you know , I quote John Maxx

41:21

all the time , like his definition of

41:23

success , I think is just so beautiful . Success in life is

41:25

knowing my purpose in life . What did God call

41:27

me to do ? It's growing to my maximum

41:29

potential . Hey , we have a part to play . You said Paul worked as

41:31

hard as he could , like we should do

41:33

, and work as hard as we can to do what God's called

41:35

us to do , and work as though it depends on us

41:37

, but pray as though it depends on God . Then

41:40

the last one is just so seeds the benefit others Like just

41:42

make a difference in the lives of others . And

41:45

I remember a mentor telling me once he said Doug well

41:47

, actually , john Maxx all told him this . He said

41:50

, doug , if God wants to make you a name , let

41:52

him do that . Man , that was life

41:54

changing . If God wants you to have a major chart , let him do

41:56

that . If God wants you to have a wide impact , let

41:59

him do that . Yeah , do it . Be faithful with what he

42:01

puts in your hand . That's your only job . Be faithful , be

42:03

faithful , be faithful . And another story

42:05

that really helped me and I might butcher this , but

42:07

JR Tolkien . He's the guy who

42:09

wrote Lord of the Rings . He wrote an essay

42:11

about a tree . I'm not gonna remember this . Tim Keller

42:13

shares a story , but it was about a

42:15

painter and he was trying to paint this painting

42:18

of a beautiful tree his whole life and

42:20

he ended up dying and the tree was only half

42:22

finished and when he died he went to heaven

42:25

. And when he went to heaven , the first thing he saw was a

42:27

completed picture of the tree and

42:29

I think for me it was just hey , our ultimate completion

42:32

is in Christ , and I don't think we have any

42:34

idea of the impact we're actually making and

42:36

how God is using us , and I think when we try

42:38

to define how God's using us and measure it , we

42:41

just miss out on the beautiful thing that God's created , the

42:43

one day we're gonna see and when we get to heaven and hear

42:45

. Well done , my good and faithful servant .

42:47

Yeah , yeah , so JR Tolkien , yeah

42:49

, jr Tolkien , what was that called ?

42:51

Something with a tree .

42:51

This is where Something with a tree . Okay , my details

42:54

, just Tim Keller Tolkien tree . You

42:56

should find it . It's beautiful , it's hilarious . Yeah

42:58

, did you read a lot of Timothy

43:00

Keller ?

43:02

I got exposed as work through the Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation

43:04

, which you're part of right . What

43:06

do ?

43:07

you do with PLF ?

43:08

We help lead , I help lead their emerging leaders

43:11

collaboratively creature .

43:12

So we have leadership collaborators . So you're not a emerging

43:14

leader , but you're leading the emerging leaders . I now lead

43:16

the emerging leaders .

43:17

I'm in that season .

43:18

Yes .

43:21

But when I went through the collaborative it was under different leadership

43:23

and it was my first exposure to Tim Keller

43:26

and that actually really helped me

43:28

navigate . The like do I regret with pastors

43:30

, cause I was still kind of in that identity regret

43:32

phase or phase

43:34

of like what am I doing ? And basically

43:37

the whole premise is just like all work is ministry

43:39

. Like that revelation Bruce

43:41

Bickel said ministry is not a job

43:43

, ministry is who you are , where you

43:45

are . That quote changed my life Cause

43:47

I realized I don't have to be a pastor , I don't have to have

43:50

, like man , whatever

43:52

God called me to do . That's my ministry . Like

43:54

period .

43:55

That was life changing for me .

43:56

So I would say the greatest like impact

43:58

that Tim Keller had on me was that revelation

44:00

.

44:01

Yeah , his work on work , evan

44:03

, every good endeavor . Yeah , evan

44:05

Adams did a great

44:07

podcast with us here .

44:08

Yeah , listen to that , because Evan is brilliant

44:10

he really is .

44:11

I mean , he probably read that book in three minutes . He

44:14

knows he's like oh , I had some extra time , this 400

44:16

page ? You know , I have this good friend of mine

44:18

. How do you do that ? There's no way you . You

44:20

know he's speed reads .

44:21

Well , he's funny man he told me which is inspired . I

44:24

actually just tried this , evan , if you're watching , he's

44:26

like man . I was the kid when I was seven years old . He's like my

44:28

dad and I think he was adopted . His dad started

44:31

giving him personal growth books at seven years old

44:33

. He's like I read see you with the top , isaac Ziggler

44:35

. I read think and grow rich . So the other

44:38

day , you know I want to pay my kids for growth . So

44:40

I gave Livium like live , this is the 25 ways

44:42

to win with people . Which on Maxwell , and

44:44

she started reading the first chapter and she asked me what five

44:46

words meant . I'm like this , I'm done .

44:48

We're not ready for this yet . So , evan , you're just an anomaly

44:51

prodigal . He's a little different man . It was

44:53

really good though .

44:54

Like it was .

44:55

It was really good . Have you interviewed him on your podcast

44:57

?

44:57

It's been probably 10 years , but yeah . He

45:00

was one of the early episodes .

45:01

Just his understanding of kingdom

45:03

and work and how that places the glory of God

45:06

. And you know we're doing the

45:08

classical high school together . We're starting that

45:10

. It's been really fun . He's a really fun relationship

45:12

, specifically when we talk about like books

45:14

, like that . So , it's not people , not a lot of people want to

45:16

talk about CS Lewis . Abolition of man is

45:18

like one of my favorite books and

45:21

I talked to somebody else who was on the board and she's

45:23

like I didn't understand a word and

45:25

Evan and I are like oh , it's so good . It's

45:27

like I don't know , maybe I'm just more wired to

45:29

read stuff like that . This

45:32

person is genius and trust

45:34

me in like amazing ways too . That's

45:37

cool . So , plf , what

45:39

are you doing with that ? You're leading emergency emergency

45:42

leader of merging leader collaborative

45:44

.

45:45

They have collaborative for senior leaders and for emerging

45:47

leaders .

45:48

Okay , and so then you're also with L3

45:50

, you lead the Pastor Mind group . We call it right

45:53

. How many guys do we have in that group ?

45:54

I always say 15 .

45:55

I think 12 or 13 , yeah , it was , you know

45:57

, maybe 15 . It might be going up whatever , but

46:00

with that , you're doing a

46:02

lot of work with leaders here in Pittsburgh . What

46:04

are you noticing ? What are the trends that you're starting to see ?

46:07

I would just say , the thing I'm the

46:09

most excited about with L3 is our Pastor Mind group . So

46:12

and again , man , for me

46:14

you have two groups , two Pastor Mind groups .

46:17

No , I didn't launch the second one because I have no capacity

46:19

.

46:19

But if anyone's watching this and would like to become president

46:21

and run L3 , let me know Seriously

46:24

. But yeah

46:26

, so for me , like unity is always really important

46:28

to me and then to his longevity , like

46:31

I want the . I remember a pastor

46:33

telling me that he believes only about 2% of Christian

46:35

leaders make it to their finish line intact

46:37

and fulfilling what God called them to do .

46:39

And like I'm like .

46:40

I have to do something to change that . You said that to you , pastor John

46:42

.

46:42

Yeah , I figured that was awesome , so good . Yeah

46:45

, it's true , though .

46:46

Yeah , and so for me , I'm like what can I

46:48

do to unite the body of Christ and leaders Cause

46:50

I feel like God's place is special call in my life for leaders

46:52

and bring these people together

46:55

and so they could be fully known , loved

46:57

and challenged ? And to bring these

46:59

pastors and ministry leaders together and

47:02

now , two years later , hearing them just

47:04

say things , you know , in tears , sometimes saying

47:06

I didn't know how bad I needed this , and

47:09

when you ask them , what did you need ? It's like so simple , it's

47:11

like friendship , and you know this isn't

47:13

necessarily all leaders listening to this , but leadership

47:15

can be lonely , and I remember Henry Cloud saying

47:17

that he believes there's

47:19

some data point that 80% of executives or

47:21

CEOs don't have a single person

47:24

that they can name , that they can confide

47:26

in , and so I think this is a huge epidemic

47:28

. I think every leader needs to be in a mastermind

47:30

group with people in which they're fully

47:32

known , loved and challenged , and I think our group has been part

47:35

of that . And to see these guys come together , pray together

47:37

, man , go through issues together

47:39

, collaborate on just kingdom

47:41

objectives for the city

47:43

, it's just been awesome man , yeah , yeah , and

47:45

to have healthy

47:48

conversations .

47:49

And I remember going into that and feeling just

47:51

a little skeptical because in the church world sometimes it's

47:53

like how many people you running ? You know it's like a Southern

47:55

thing and I'm like , is it really about that

47:58

? Like , if we're going to be talking about , like you

48:00

know , here's all the

48:02

glory that I'm experiencing who's

48:04

going to beat it ? You know , in the conversation , like

48:07

I'm just not into that . I'd rather develop

48:09

some friendships and learn from these guys and have

48:11

each other's backs and what's happened for me in

48:13

being a part of that group . People will come from

48:15

different churches a lot of times . You know and we

48:17

know this Like I wish I would have known this

48:20

as a church planner that when somebody

48:22

comes into the church and they're bashing another

48:24

church , they're going to leave the church the same

48:26

way they left the prior church . Came

48:28

in talking about the other church . You know , it's

48:30

just a principle . You know , unless God gets ahold

48:32

of them and I'm sure that that happens , it's just . I

48:34

just haven't seen it too much , you know . But

48:38

when people come in , I'm like , hey , that's my friend . Yeah

48:41

, we get together once a month . We prayed together just

48:44

the other day , you know , and

48:46

that's been special , so thank you for that gift , yeah and

48:48

I think this is so important .

48:49

you know , as I've gotten to know ministry leaders and

48:51

leaders in general , a lot of people are part of collaboratives

48:54

or groups like that nationally . So

48:56

, hey , I got friends in New York , I got friends in this state , this

48:58

state , this state , but locally you

49:00

never see this happening .

49:02

And so again , I think that's the whole point .

49:03

It's like people have preconceived notions . People think they're

49:06

judging each other . They hear things from different

49:08

people . Well , I'm like when's the last time you had coffee together

49:10

and so again the unity

49:12

part , and if you're a pastor listening to this or watching

49:14

this , I really encourage you . If you want to talk , like I

49:17

would need someone to lead it , but like you need a group like

49:19

this that can hold you accountable , and so everyone

49:21

needs to be .

49:22

I fully agree with that . Are

49:24

you skeptical of pastors who don't have friends real

49:26

close by ? I would

49:30

say Skeptical might be a strong word , huh .

49:32

Yeah , skeptical is probably not the wrong word . My heart just breaks for them

49:34

.

49:34

Because I know how bad they need it .

49:35

I've been a mastermind group now for 10 years

49:38

and I can't imagine doing my life a leadership . And

49:40

where do you get correction Like , hey

49:42

, where do you have a safe place ? Yes

49:44

, we pray for each other when we're friends , but one of the

49:46

beautiful things , I think , is the hot seat . So hot

49:49

seat's just an opportunity to troubleshoot issues . So

49:51

, hey guys , here's what I'm going through , here's an issue I'm going

49:53

through in my organization , and then you have 12

49:55

other people who do similar things to you

49:57

that can pour into you and talk to you about that and may

49:59

have wisdom and insight that you don't Like

50:01

if a leader doesn't have that and they're trying to figure it out

50:04

on their own , good luck . And

50:06

again , the friendship piece like leadership is tough

50:08

.

50:08

It's so beneficial , I think , from understanding

50:10

the backgrounds of each of the guys . Everybody

50:13

has a completely different background . You know , one person

50:15

grew up in Baltimore . You know another

50:17

person was all over the place

50:19

like am I really going to be in ministry ? And

50:21

then all of a sudden takes over a church and

50:23

is just unbelievable , you know , doing

50:26

a great job . Another person is just . You know

50:28

, I just respect everybody , but everybody has different

50:30

backgrounds . So when we approach a situation , they're

50:33

speaking to it from their perspective

50:35

and background , where you and I had some very

50:37

specific training in our background

50:39

. So we might approach something the same way

50:42

with Pastor Larry and Pastor John being our spiritual

50:44

fathers . You know , yeah , it's been really

50:46

fun .

50:46

Yeah , having different perspectives is huge . I remember when I came to Light of

50:49

Life , we're very diverse as an organization

50:51

and I remember I would just say stuff

50:53

out loud . That for me was , you know , abc's

50:56

Common Sense , and people were like , what are you talking

50:58

about ? And like they would start to challenge me

51:00

pull me in a room , can you ? give

51:02

me an example of that no , but

51:05

based on , what I want to express to people is do you

51:07

have people around you that think differently

51:09

to you , completely different ? Like one

51:11

of my old boss I affectionately

51:14

by the time we ended working together . I called her

51:16

the other side and literally it was a joke

51:18

, but it was serious . Like no matter what I believed

51:20

, she believed the exact opposite

51:22

. Oh , wow , and so like if I ever needed to know , like

51:24

hey , you know , here's my belief , or like

51:27

thought on this , like what's the opposite side of this man

51:29

? I had someone and we look at our culture today . It's

51:31

crazy . Everyone just only talks to people

51:33

who talk like them , think like them , look like

51:35

, et cetera . It's like man , when is the last time

51:37

you're in a room with people different than you that can challenge your

51:40

positions and actually help you grow

51:42

and intellect in every other area of your life ? Because

51:44

even if you don't end up agreeing , you're

51:46

going to be better for the conversation .

51:48

Was it hard for you to receive

51:50

correction ? No Younger

51:55

leader , or what ?

51:56

yeah , I've , it's funny . Oh

51:58

, this is one criticism of me from one person

52:00

, but I think it's funny , so I share it . But he

52:02

said , like I , actually he's like you're

52:04

probably the only person on the planet that I could say

52:06

this to , but like you're too teachable I'm

52:10

like so yeah , I mean literally in every one-on-one

52:12

I have in every meeting that I have , every podcast

52:14

that I do . After this conversation I'm gonna say

52:16

what . Something that makes me better , but my

52:19

view on that .

52:20

One I would rather lean on the teachable side

52:23

than not teachable .

52:24

I can tell you that . But imagine

52:26

if you ask that , like Laura and I have our weekly

52:28

family team meeting every week . Hey

52:30

, what are three things that that you saw in

52:32

me as a spouse that I do well with , that you

52:34

love Specific . And then what's one thing

52:36

that annoyed you that I could do better

52:39

? Imagine getting 1% better in

52:41

your marriage every single week . Imagine being able

52:43

to grow in your profession every week . And if you don't ask for

52:45

it , two things like if you want feedback and

52:47

make a teachable , if you don't ask for it , I'd

52:49

say 90% of the time You'll never receive

52:51

it . Yeah , you know blind spots . And then you'll be

52:53

blindsided when people actually come to you

52:55

with feedback , because it's usually Because it's come

52:57

to a point where you're in trouble . Yeah and

53:00

then two how do you react when people give

53:02

you feedback like all you should basically say

53:04

, even if you don't fully agree or take all of it

53:06

is thank you .

53:07

Mm-hmm .

53:08

That's it , thank you , and then take it home

53:10

, chew on it and say , okay , you

53:12

know , we always the Bible school Dr

53:14

Phil Richards always say have enough senses a cow

53:16

, eat the sticks , or eat the hay , spit

53:19

the sticks . So okay , hey , what do I need

53:21

to approve ? But or apply ? But if you

53:23

do that every day and in every year of your life

53:25

, like you talk about part of your purpose

53:27

being growing to your maximum potential . I don't

53:29

know a much better way to get there .

53:31

Yeah , so I'm gonna press on you . Yeah

53:33

, press on you personally . So like if somebody comes with

53:35

a correction and they have no relationship with you , does

53:38

that bother you ? No , that doesn't bother

53:40

you at all .

53:40

No , okay , I mean , I guess , I guess it depends

53:43

on what it is Okay .

53:44

No , I certainly like take that into

53:46

account .

53:47

I I heard different you said that so quick

53:49

.

53:50

No , it doesn't bother me .

53:50

Okay , so that's because I'm like God spoke

53:52

through donkey's , like why couldn't he speak through

53:55

? You know , I remember Keith Moore , who I listen to all the

53:57

time . He was just talking about correction

53:59

and you know , a prayer that I took from him , that I literally

54:02

pray almost every day , is God , develop me as quickly

54:04

and as solidly as possible . And

54:06

if that's really my prayer and I pray that because one , I want to

54:08

grow to my maximum potential as fast as I can , but

54:10

solidly . Man , I don't want to be so fast

54:13

that I outgrow my character and

54:15

I can't sustain the growth , so

54:17

pray that God's gonna answer it , and he may not always

54:19

answer in ways that you want him to . Sometimes He'll

54:21

put you in situations or experiences that you

54:23

would rather not go through , but it's what's needed

54:25

to develop your character . Other times , who have someone

54:28

call you out on something and Out

54:30

of the blue , I don't know , it's

54:32

actually been funny because I feel like , because

54:34

I've been teachable like this , I

54:37

was just texting , oh , I was texting someone yesterday and

54:39

they gave me a piece of feedback on something coming

54:41

up and I was like that's brilliant , thank you so

54:43

much for the feedback . And they said that's such a Doug Smith thing

54:45

to say , but man , I just feel like we would

54:48

all be better . And if someone doesn't know me , like if

54:50

I think it's a dumb criticism , I'll probably bring it to

54:52

other people who do know me well and say , like , is

54:54

there any truth in this , or do you see this like , oh value

54:56

that makes a lot of sense . I don't accept all

54:58

feedback . Okay , if that's what you're asking yeah

55:00

, so you know .

55:03

Oh , yeah , you know you .

55:04

You said I'm a horrible husband . Okay , like you have .

55:06

No , you have no idea what goes in my four walls Like

55:08

yeah , let's ask Laura that yeah you know .

55:11

So if it's something crazy like that , but

55:13

if someone's like hey , the way you said that in

55:15

that meaning , or the way you talk to that person

55:17

, or when you said this , you could have said

55:19

it a different way , or you didn't take into account this audience

55:22

, I'll eat that up all day .

55:24

Yeah , make me better . Yeah , okay , I

55:26

think I was saying I was thinking refer , referring to

55:28

, maybe , moments that you could have been in , when somebody says

55:30

you said this . Therefore , this

55:32

is what that's telling me about you . You need to work on

55:34

this because it's a hard issue . You're like what are you

55:36

talking about ? Like that's way too deep here . Yeah

55:38

, just give me the feedback so you create

55:40

purposefully spaces for feedback

55:43

and then you evaluate it by asking

55:45

other people hey , what do

55:47

you think about this ? Is this something ? A lot of times ?

55:49

If I feel like it needs to go to other people a lot

55:51

of times I'll just evaluate it internally . I might throw

55:53

by Laura , but you know that's . That's

55:56

way more rare than the times I just say okay .

55:59

Here's what's going on . I work with a leader who's not teachable

56:01

in your estimation , fire them .

56:06

I mean basically , henry

56:09

cloud did this great talk and you can . I

56:11

don't know if you have show notes , but you can link to it .

56:12

I'm not thinking of anybody when I ask that question , I'm

56:15

just yeah , it's a good question .

56:16

No , there's a . There's a video Henry cloud to did

56:18

a teaching called the good . I think it's called like

56:20

the good . The wise , the evil

56:22

do good the wise and yeah yeah . And it's

56:24

basically like what do you do when light comes

56:27

? Wise people when light comes , or

56:29

correction or feedback , we'll take it and

56:31

basically do what we were just been talking about the receive it

56:33

. I Think , oh

56:35

, foolish , foolish people , don't

56:37

Evil people , they're never

56:39

gonna hear it . And that's where he said basically , like for

56:42

the people who are never gonna hear it , or dangerous , like you need guns

56:44

, lawyers , etc . There are

56:46

people like that . But for the foolish

56:48

, sometimes you just have to understand , like

56:50

one , they may have never been trained . Like

56:52

again , why do I receive feedback ? Because I've

56:55

listened to enough and had a lot of Mentors in my

56:57

life tell me to do that . So you have to determine

56:59

, like , why isn't this person teachable or

57:01

why are they hearing it ? And sometimes it may just

57:03

be the way that you're saying it . So

57:06

a question that Henry asks in that is saying

57:08

hey , what do I need to

57:10

do ? Or how do I need to communicate to you in a

57:12

way that you actually like hear

57:14

this ?

57:15

And they may say you can ask that question straight

57:17

up . Yeah , that's great .

57:18

Just ask it and they may say well , like the

57:20

way you said that , or you know

57:22

when you're going , you know , and it could be

57:24

you , to be honest . Yeah they may not be receiving because you're

57:26

not good at giving it . Yeah , and so do they know you

57:28

care for them . Do they know you love them ? Because , yeah

57:30

, I would say that I'm rare in that case , that I

57:32

don't care about it like that as much . Yes , but

57:34

, most people won't listen to you if they don't

57:37

feel cared for and loved , etc .

57:38

So Okay so I'm just gonna apply

57:40

that okay real quick to things that

57:42

I've been noticing lately . I do a lot of marriage

57:44

counseling and the concerns

57:46

like that concern can be viewed

57:49

as criticism from the other you know , and

57:51

so we've been teaching people like , say hey

57:53

, this is a concern that I have . It's not

57:55

a criticism , because what I've noticed is if

57:57

you somebody grows up with a , a

57:59

critical parent , you know somebody

58:01

who's just always look at you know you're never good enough

58:04

. You did this wrong , you did this wrong . You look

58:06

at the five things you did wrong instead of the the one

58:08

big thing they did Right . They

58:10

become then they hear that voice with them all

58:12

their life . So then when they get married they

58:15

bring that criticism into their marriage and

58:17

so now they're their own inward critic and

58:19

anything that you say that could be Interpreted

58:22

as remotely negative is automatically

58:25

viewed as this person is criticizing

58:27

me , this person's tearing me down . So I've

58:29

been in in times with people where a husband has

58:31

raised a concern , but it is I could

58:33

see it in the wife's eyes , or vice

58:35

versa the wife has raised a concern

58:37

, I see it in the husband's eyes , where he's

58:39

taking it as a straight-up criticism , but

58:42

all she's saying is I love you and

58:44

I I see more in you . Or

58:46

all he's saying is I love you and I see

58:48

more in you . You know , and that man

58:50

that's fantastic asking the question

58:53

how can I say this in a way that

58:55

you can hear ?

58:56

yeah , well , and in that situation , another

58:58

one that's really helpful , that we use at light of life all the time

59:00

and having hard conversations , is , if

59:03

we're having a conversation right now , if we're having conflict or

59:05

we have an issue with each other , basically it's

59:07

like a Zach , here's

59:10

my thoughts on this , or whatever . Can you repeat back

59:12

to me what you heard me say ? Yes , before

59:15

you respond , yeah , one , you're

59:17

gonna make sure that they actually listen to you , but oftentimes

59:20

, like to your point , like you , you

59:22

may have think you communicated like hey , I just need

59:24

you to grow in this area . And they could be like well

59:26

, I'm a terrible husband , I'm a terrible father , I'm

59:29

terrible at my job , and you can . And

59:31

at that point , that's when you can correct and ask that

59:33

question of like how can I say this in way like I

59:35

didn't mean it , oh , you're a great husband , you're great like

59:37

all I really . And then a great question

59:39

, like in most conversations , is what do

59:41

you want ? Like , what do you want for

59:43

you , what do you want for the other person and what

59:45

do you want for other parties involved ? If

59:48

you can both get on the same page about that and listen

59:50

to each other and do that back and forth . And then they

59:52

respond . You say hey , what I heard you say was boom

59:54

boom , boom boom . I just you'll have

59:56

much better conversations and you'll come

59:58

to much better solutions much quicker . Yeah

1:00:01

, and if you make that a habit , you're

1:00:03

yeah , you'll be going .

1:00:04

Yeah , except for life that that approach

1:00:06

Saves me big time . We

1:00:08

you helped me in a situation , approach

1:00:11

a person that I needed to , I

1:00:13

needed to confront in a healthy way , and you were there

1:00:16

as a mediator . And when , when I said something

1:00:18

, I said it wrong because I was nervous and I didn't

1:00:20

want them to Misinterpret

1:00:22

and it was like I was so nervous . I didn't want them to

1:00:24

misinterpret the way that I said it . It

1:00:26

came out completely wrong and you're like , hey , what did you

1:00:28

hear here ? And it was the exact opposite

1:00:31

.

1:00:32

No , that's not what I meant .

1:00:34

No , this is what I meant . That's brilliant

1:00:36

, it's absolutely brilliant .

1:00:37

Well , it's your point , and again , I guess we're on hard conversations

1:00:40

now . But yeah , if you , if conversations

1:00:42

aren't going well , bring in a third party like

1:00:44

bringing someone in who is good at facilitating

1:00:46

those things and just Hashtag out and then , once

1:00:48

you see their example or learn how to have them , then you're

1:00:50

you're set to have them on your own .

1:00:51

Yeah , yeah . And so are there every time where

1:00:54

you're just like , okay , I'm not gonna have

1:00:56

a tough conversation with this person because they are evil

1:00:58

. How do you tell that ?

1:00:59

Oh , I haven't had to deal with a ton of evil

1:01:01

.

1:01:05

Ask a question that I have to answer . Well

1:01:08

, there was an individual that I

1:01:10

wanted to tell . I wanted to tell

1:01:12

to this person's face that they

1:01:15

were demon possessed and Ben

1:01:17

said no , you're not , you're not gonna do , don't do that

1:01:19

.

1:01:20

You have to have . You know . Yes , lauren as

1:01:22

well .

1:01:22

I was like . They were like what are you gonna say ? I'm gonna

1:01:24

tell them , a demon possess this one man

1:01:33

. So yeah , but yeah .

1:01:34

I would say , if they're even , don't even have a conversation , right .

1:01:37

Well , and when it comes to , when it's comes to garden

1:01:39

culture within the church and that was a context of that conversation

1:01:41

, you know this is . You know mark

1:01:43

epper said when I , when I see division

1:01:45

, I call it what it is . It's demonic

1:01:47

, you know , and so we see that we have to protect

1:01:49

that . I was very

1:01:51

hard on this scripture as well , like it took me a lot

1:01:53

, a lot of awareness , but when , when you have a

1:01:56

divisive person , you Warn

1:01:58

them once and then , after that , have nothing to do with them

1:02:00

, and I was like no way , like I

1:02:02

want to give people a chance , but they

1:02:04

made their choice to be divisive and there

1:02:07

that route of division is gonna , is gonna bite

1:02:09

you . You got to deal with the littles , or the littles eventually

1:02:12

become big , you know , and if they

1:02:14

continue that divisive behavior , you have

1:02:16

to , you have to , you

1:02:18

have to deal with that . And so there's

1:02:20

various ways of doing so . You know , and I think

1:02:22

each different way might

1:02:24

, might , and each , each different

1:02:26

Scenario might necessitate a

1:02:28

different approach .

1:02:29

Yeah well , that and that's with evil people , but that's probably

1:02:31

the majority people is not their norm . The

1:02:34

norm is probably just gossip . Man

1:02:36

, you have an issue with someone , yeah and again . The

1:02:38

reason I've been able to get skilled at this is

1:02:40

I had a basically

1:02:42

had a co-worker that I didn't get along with and

1:02:45

I tried to get that person fired and it blew up in my face

1:02:47

and I was passive , aggressive , I gossiped all the

1:02:49

time . I let all the gossip come to me yeah and

1:02:51

basically I was forced Without

1:02:53

going to the whole story , I was forced to have a hard conversation

1:02:55

with them first time I ever had to have one of my life

1:02:58

. Took an hour to get through , but

1:03:00

from that moment on I made the commitment I'm never

1:03:02

gonna gossip again . Wow , and my perfect no

1:03:05

right . But I'm never gonna gossip again . If anyone

1:03:07

comes to me , I will do what my mentor did me

1:03:09

and say take out your phone right now , call Zach

1:03:11

and say Zach , I have to have a conversation with you

1:03:13

and you , as a leader in your organization

1:03:16

, you have to nip that about . Like Dave Ramsey

1:03:18

, I haven't been this extreme , but he has the no

1:03:20

gossip role . Like you get caught gossiping twice , you're

1:03:22

fired . Yeah , like there's something to

1:03:24

that . When it comes to maintaining

1:03:26

a healthy culture , you really , really have

1:03:28

to keep an eye on this and train people . Matthew

1:03:32

18 just said if you have a problem with someone , go to them and have a

1:03:34

conversation . If that doesn't work , bring someone in . Like we

1:03:36

should be way more skilled than we are as individuals

1:03:38

at having hard conversations .

1:03:39

Yeah , and sometimes it feels justifiable . You

1:03:42

know , if you see somebody who's taking advantage of somebody

1:03:44

, you know , and you're like , oh my goodness , I can't . People , I

1:03:46

can't believe people don't see this . Or you know the situation like

1:03:48

that . I remember there was a situation that was popping

1:03:50

up and it's when you're , when you have a

1:03:52

relational staff , when you love each other

1:03:55

and you're doing life together , it's easy to let things

1:03:57

fly . As a leader . Yeah , remember the Lord dealing

1:03:59

with my heart . Like , hey , pray

1:04:01

for this . Like this is a family member who's gone

1:04:04

off the deep end . Don't talk about this person

1:04:06

, but pray for them . You know , and I had to

1:04:08

apologize to the staff and I didn't

1:04:10

say anything that was like , you know , earthshattering

1:04:13

bad .

1:04:14

I just gave , I laughed

1:04:16

you know , like this is crazy , you know like

1:04:18

normal conversation .

1:04:19

Yeah , but I had to apologize and same

1:04:21

, you know well , kudos you for doing a man

1:04:23

.

1:04:23

And again , just on the correction part , hey

1:04:25

, man , I mean gods are greatest corrector like

1:04:27

if God prompts you something in your heart , again

1:04:29

it's listening to those little corrections . If

1:04:31

you start to , if you would have just ignored

1:04:34

that man , that could be the start of a path of you

1:04:36

just justifying and overlooking one thing after

1:04:38

another . And I know so . My Encursion

1:04:40

would just be like if God's prompting you have a conversation

1:04:42

or to confess sin or whatever , yeah , don't

1:04:45

ignore that , because you want to talk about correction and teach

1:04:47

ability and growing your life . Like that God should

1:04:49

be . Someone told me said Doug , let

1:04:51

God be the architect of your growth . And if you'll

1:04:54

do that and be open to God's correction and teaching , whether

1:04:56

it's through Spirit or people , let's go

1:04:58

.

1:04:58

Yeah , yeah , so good man , that's so good

1:05:00

, so real quick . I know that we've

1:05:02

jumped around , but , Doug you

1:05:05

, you helped me in a season where you

1:05:07

know you had gone through you alluded to this earlier

1:05:10

. You went through a difficult time crisis

1:05:12

, you know , with mental health and you know

1:05:14

I think we all go through this time . So

1:05:16

I mean , it was , it was a dark season for me . You

1:05:18

know , in 2020 , you know we're

1:05:20

booted out of our , our place . We

1:05:22

don't know what to do . You know the word lays this like

1:05:24

he lays this this

1:05:27

meeting house . You

1:05:29

know houses and we couldn't

1:05:32

afford to meet every week up on the hill but like

1:05:34

, and who wants to do that anyways ? Kids are bringing

1:05:36

snakes in . You know it's a true

1:05:38

story , like somebody's like when a kid grabs a

1:05:40

snake and was like look , you know , like , oh

1:05:42

, we're that church now .

1:05:43

Yeah , like that's right .

1:05:45

But like it was just such a tough season

1:05:47

and thank

1:05:49

God for Ben coming in right at that

1:05:51

season too and just the

1:05:54

things that we had to endure , you know

1:05:56

there was . You know there were issues

1:05:58

, people were upset about things . A guy

1:06:00

accused me of being a part of Antifa

1:06:03

at that time because I was praying with just

1:06:05

for the sake of the context of the conversation

1:06:07

, I was praying with a man with

1:06:09

brown skin in the city and

1:06:11

he had a mask on . So somebody was like I don't know what you're doing

1:06:14

at that Antifa rally . I'm like , hey

1:06:16

, no , no , we were just praying , you know

1:06:18

, and that was . That was what we were going through . Man

1:06:20

, it started to break me down , though you know some things , even

1:06:22

personally against our character , that were not true

1:06:24

, and you were there for

1:06:26

me in those times , you know so earlier you were talking about

1:06:29

would I ever ? Would I be there Like

1:06:31

dude ? You were . You've proven that time

1:06:33

again . But at the end of

1:06:35

that man , I felt like a shell of myself . You

1:06:37

know . I felt like I just like dumped every

1:06:40

, every neurological

1:06:43

, inspirational , chemical out of

1:06:45

my brain .

1:06:45

You know , and I can't move .

1:06:47

You know , and I probably did but you gave me the book Leading on

1:06:49

Empty by Wayne Cordero . I

1:06:52

downed that thing . I did not want to

1:06:54

, I did not want to . At that point I just

1:06:56

kind of wanted to lay on a couch , pretend

1:06:58

, open up my mouth for a while , you know , and

1:07:00

watch , binge , watch Netflix , you know . But

1:07:03

man , you really helped me in that time , you know

1:07:05

. But you went through it too . And Leading

1:07:08

on Empty , how did that book really impact your

1:07:10

life ?

1:07:11

Yeah , just I mean for a quick context , the

1:07:14

fall of 2020 , I

1:07:16

started having anxiety attacks and basically

1:07:18

what happened with what was

1:07:21

? One anxiety attack led to anxiety attack

1:07:23

every night , which led to a season of anxiety for an

1:07:25

entire month , which led to me

1:07:27

ultimately being in a meeting for work

1:07:29

and I remember finishing Leading the

1:07:31

meeting and I just said I can't do this and

1:07:33

I shut my screen , try to

1:07:35

sit down for like a half hour , bounce back , open

1:07:38

my computer and I couldn't even read an email . I couldn't

1:07:40

respond to an email and I'm like there's something terribly wrong

1:07:42

with me . I called my executive director

1:07:44

and basically just said something's wrong . I don't

1:07:46

know if I can work . And then he's like , why don't you take two

1:07:48

or three weeks off ? And then I started freaking out . I'm like there's

1:07:51

something wrong with me . I don't know if I have disability

1:07:53

, like am I gonna be able to take care of my family ? And

1:07:56

the anxiety from my heart basically went

1:07:58

to my head and it felt like someone was squeezing

1:08:00

my brain like 24 hours . I don't know

1:08:02

how else to describe it . To people , you know , I say mental

1:08:04

breakdown . Is that the actual scientific Like I have

1:08:06

no idea , but something was terribly wrong , but

1:08:09

when you're desperate you'll do anything

1:08:11

necessary to get help

1:08:13

. And so , again , going back to the teachability , I'm

1:08:15

like , whatever I have to do to get through this , I'm willing to do

1:08:18

it . So I literally did everything . I connected with a

1:08:20

local therapist that you connected me with . He

1:08:22

was life changing . I met with all

1:08:24

my friends , which we talked about , the neglecting deep

1:08:26

friendship . I read all the books I can . You know

1:08:28

you talked about lead on empty . One of the

1:08:30

things that helped me the most in the season

1:08:32

was recognizing that I wasn't the only person

1:08:34

on the planet

1:08:36

that ever experienced this and went through

1:08:38

it . When I read Wayne Cadero I

1:08:41

think it's in the first chapter he said , hey

1:08:44

, I had my doctor basically tell

1:08:46

me Wayne and again , I don't know the scientific

1:08:48

stuff behind this , but he said , wayne , you basically run

1:08:51

off serotonin . When your body gets depleted

1:08:53

of serotonin , you start running off adrenaline , which

1:08:55

that was me . Then when you stop running

1:08:57

on adrenaline , you start having anxiety attacks

1:08:59

and start running on anxiety and if you keep going

1:09:01

hard against anxiety , you're

1:09:03

eventually gonna have a mental breakdown . And that's where

1:09:06

Wayne had gotten and he walked through his experience and

1:09:08

the whole book is basically what he learned and things

1:09:10

that he now has in place to never go back

1:09:12

to that . So it was him

1:09:14

. I remember reading Brian I think it was Brian Johnson

1:09:16

.

1:09:16

Yeah , Johnson , when God becomes real . It's one of the best

1:09:18

books , I feel like from a spiritual perspective toward anxiety

1:09:20

.

1:09:21

Yeah it's like , here's another spiritual giant that

1:09:23

went through this . Lou Giglio had a three

1:09:25

month season where he couldn't get off the couch and

1:09:27

he said if you would have told me I would ever be

1:09:29

, he's like , when I tell you how to get off the couch , like I did

1:09:31

not leave my house for three months . He said , if

1:09:33

you would have told me that I would ever preach again , I would

1:09:35

have told you , literally , that I had a better chance of riding

1:09:37

a bicycle on Jupiter . Like , literally

1:09:39

how he felt . I

1:09:42

met with another pastor , mentor , and he

1:09:44

said Doug , I can't name a leader , friend that

1:09:46

I know who hasn't gone through what you're going

1:09:48

through Like . And I said am I gonna be okay

1:09:50

in tears ? And he said you're gonna be okay , you're

1:09:52

gonna get through this . So knowing that I wasn't alone was

1:09:54

really big . And then just dealing

1:09:57

with a lot of junk . Like nine months prior I

1:09:59

had lost my sister to a heroin overdose and

1:10:02

working through therapy . You know , as a Christian one

1:10:05

, I thought I grieved . Right , like the Bible says , we

1:10:07

don't grieve like those without hope . And

1:10:09

when I lost my mom , my mother-in-law , it made my sister

1:10:12

like . I thought I grieved because it's like , hey , they're

1:10:14

my future , not in my past , like I

1:10:16

get it . It's sad they're gone , but I saw them suffer

1:10:18

a lot and so I thought I was fine until

1:10:21

I wasn't . And my therapist said , doug , like you

1:10:23

keep talking about grief Like you never . He

1:10:26

said you can't say goodbye to something you never said hello

1:10:28

to . And he said I don't think you've ever grieved any

1:10:30

of the losses in your life . And he encouraged me to

1:10:32

go to all the grave sites of all of those I lost and

1:10:34

basically spend time with God and write in

1:10:36

my journal letters to each of them , and that was

1:10:39

so healing for me . I

1:10:41

ended up getting on medication again

1:10:43

, doing whatever it takes and

1:10:45

I can continue to go down the list . And another one

1:10:47

was just recognizing my negative

1:10:49

core beliefs that I wasn't

1:10:51

enough , and so it was really probably

1:10:54

, you know , immediate . It was probably a six month

1:10:56

journey before I started feeling like I

1:10:58

was getting out of that , and it took

1:11:00

about two years for me to get off medication and kind

1:11:02

of feel like completely back to normal again .

1:11:04

Yeah , and what did you do ?

1:11:05

you have caffeine at all , yeah

1:11:07

, so one of the great questions in that season was there's

1:11:10

Pastor John . He said Doug , and you have

1:11:12

to ask in every season what does healthy look like

1:11:14

for me in this season ?

1:11:15

Okay , that's a great question , and so beautiful

1:11:17

.

1:11:17

So I got off coffee , like coffee was a

1:11:20

big thing in my life and basically I've been on tea since

1:11:22

. I had one week where I had coffee recently , which

1:11:24

was cool , but it only lasted a week . But

1:11:26

I've been on tea for a period of time . Like

1:11:28

I work out six to seven days a week , pretty

1:11:31

intense workouts for , I think , two or

1:11:33

three months . I just walked , I let myself

1:11:35

sleep in . Rest has become

1:11:37

really important to me .

1:11:39

So I remember taking a really nice hike with you .

1:11:41

Yeah , yeah .

1:11:42

Up in Porterville or wherever that was . It was awesome

1:11:44

. We need to do that again .

1:11:46

Yeah , and we don't take time to , I mean , just walk . And

1:11:48

it's funny because I'm like , oh , I'm going to make this part

1:11:50

of my life now from now on . Now I'm back into my like

1:11:52

normal drive , but I'm like , man

1:11:54

, there was so power and taking an hour and a half walk

1:11:56

in my neighborhood with a friend and

1:11:58

I missed that . To be honest with you , I need to get back to that .

1:12:00

But what does ?

1:12:00

healthy look like in this season Like great question

1:12:03

to ask in every season . And if you start feeling

1:12:05

those warning signs , maybe you're having

1:12:07

anxiety attacks . That's when it's time to stop everything

1:12:09

, like don't keep driving into that , because

1:12:11

that's what ultimately led me into the

1:12:14

situation I was in .

1:12:15

Yeah , is there a difference between ? You don't have to answer this

1:12:17

. Is there a difference between like clinical depression and

1:12:19

then like man ? I don't want to say

1:12:21

I brought this on myself , but like I've opened

1:12:23

myself up to way too much here .

1:12:26

Yeah , because people ask me about this . Like I

1:12:28

know other people have experienced , like I didn't have

1:12:30

depression through this .

1:12:32

So like I , still it was anxiety .

1:12:33

Yeah , it was a physical . It

1:12:36

was a physical anxiety in my heart . And when I say

1:12:38

like , it physically went to my brain , I

1:12:40

never was suicidal of like , oh , I can't

1:12:43

live like . But there were times where I'm like

1:12:45

, whatever is physically going on my body , I

1:12:47

don't know if I can live like this forever , like

1:12:50

I don't . And that's where

1:12:52

, like my number one question , I'm really vulnerable

1:12:54

. But like , for like three or four months , I remember asking you

1:12:56

like am I going to be okay ? Is this ever

1:12:58

? And I didn't know , am I ever going

1:13:00

to get on the other side of this ? But again , the encouragement

1:13:02

of friends and people of saying like , yes

1:13:06

, you will , that was crucial .

1:13:07

I remember you asking me that and I just like from

1:13:09

my , from the outside , I remember thinking , yeah , man , you're

1:13:12

going to be totally fine . And even asking you

1:13:14

you got a lot of scans

1:13:16

in your body , right ?

1:13:17

You got everything checked and everything you're

1:13:19

.

1:13:20

you're in tip-top shape , you know . But like , did

1:13:22

that help at all , or yes ?

1:13:24

Cause your mind goes crazy of like , what could this be ? Yeah

1:13:27

, so yeah , I got MRIs on my brain , I

1:13:30

basically any test that I could do . I'm like maybe I have

1:13:32

cancer . Anyway , there's one so

1:13:34

I won't share . But yeah

1:13:37

, it's scary cause it's like man , what can I

1:13:39

do to stop this ? Is there something in my body that shouldn't

1:13:41

be there ? So I'm all for like exploring

1:13:43

all options , but when you find something's wrong , it's like

1:13:45

, okay , maybe there's something in me and

1:13:48

so , and again , it's like I had to do the hard

1:13:50

work . Again the negative core belief like

1:13:52

my . My pastor told me , pastor

1:13:55

John . He said , doug , like in middle school

1:13:57

and high school , like you , basically watched your mom

1:13:59

die slowly over time and

1:14:01

you medicated through the pain through drugs

1:14:03

and alcohol . Then you got saved , which is great . But

1:14:05

then you've been medicating your pain through performance

1:14:08

for the last 20 years .

1:14:09

And that hit .

1:14:10

And then it's like well , why am I doing that ? Well , it's

1:14:12

because I'm trying to prove that I'm

1:14:14

enough , cause I don't believe I am . How

1:14:17

do I deal with that ? And so I really had to wrestle through

1:14:19

going back to even the beginning of our conversation and confidence

1:14:21

man , I had to get to the point where it's like there's

1:14:23

no evidence that I'm not enough , like I have all the evidence

1:14:25

to the world that I'm enough . I just don't actually believe

1:14:27

it . And so I don't have to be John Maxwell

1:14:30

or Dave Ramsey or Craig Rochelle or the rock or

1:14:32

Arnold Schwarzenegger , like I can just be me

1:14:34

and I'll just share it , cause maybe it's impacted

1:14:36

people when I share it . I remember calling

1:14:38

my dad and I'm a

1:14:40

words of affirmation guy in the love languages Like I

1:14:42

just tell me I'm awesome , I'm good . And

1:14:45

I remember telling and my dad never told me he

1:14:47

was proud of me growing up , et cetera . I

1:14:49

always wanted him to , but his love language

1:14:51

is acts of service . So , he'd always open the

1:14:53

fridge and say , Doug , look at all the food I got .

1:14:54

I'm like great , I'm not , I'm not , I'm not . Same dad

1:14:56

, yeah , same , yeah , my dad's the same .

1:14:59

And now , looking back , I'm like man . My dad told me he loved me and he's proud of me

1:15:01

every day . But I call him and I said

1:15:03

, dad , you know , I don't know if I'm going

1:15:05

to be a work again , I don't know if I'm going to be able to be

1:15:07

the development director at light of life anymore . And

1:15:10

he said , doug , you know , people

1:15:12

come up to me all the time and they say , man , you must be so proud

1:15:14

of your son . And he said , yeah , I'm

1:15:16

proud of my son , but I'd be just as proud of him if he

1:15:18

was cleaning toilets , like he's my son .

1:15:20

And he goes , doug , I don't give us what your title

1:15:23

is Wow .

1:15:24

And dude , I lost it .

1:15:25

Oh , I'm like it

1:15:27

was such healing . And he didn't say that cause he

1:15:30

knew like the psychology behind it , or

1:15:32

like it was real .

1:15:34

And I felt like that was just God's like icing

1:15:36

on the cake of like man , stop

1:15:38

operating out of this place of lack and insecurity

1:15:41

. And you're not enough Like yeah , I

1:15:43

love you even more than that . What a good man . Oh

1:15:45

, my dad's the best Shoot .

1:15:47

Well , was there a correlation between

1:15:49

the age you were whenever

1:15:52

you were having those those

1:15:54

anxiety attacks and the age

1:15:56

your mother was whenever you started

1:15:58

to see her suffering ? Was that ?

1:16:01

I don't think so .

1:16:02

Also .

1:16:03

Yeah , I mean , when I

1:16:05

look back on it , on like the warning signs

1:16:08

, one is like , yeah , I didn't take time to grieve my

1:16:10

sister , you know for anyone who's lost anyone if

1:16:12

you're a fixture like me , or we were talking about being codependent

1:16:14

, wanting to control and fix everything , basically

1:16:17

my sister . I got a call at 1130 a night from

1:16:19

my dad and he basically said Sarah's

1:16:22

gone . And so I

1:16:24

basically was like I have to go save my dad . So I started

1:16:26

driving over to his house . I cried for 30

1:16:28

seconds and said , sarah , come on

1:16:30

. And then my dad was a mess when

1:16:32

I got there , took care of him , stayed up all night , slept

1:16:34

at his house for three nights , planned the funeral

1:16:37

, put together a message , put together two fundraisers

1:16:39

for my nephews , raised tons of money and

1:16:41

, as my executive director told me , he's like you basically just

1:16:43

went back to work , taking no

1:16:45

time . And , man , I just jumped

1:16:47

in . And so , man , like that , I never

1:16:50

stopped then . And then just the drive . It was the

1:16:52

first time I was in a leadership position , significant

1:16:54

, leading a significant department with high demands , high

1:16:56

pressure , reporting to a board . I had

1:16:58

just blown my first board meeting , which is the whole nother

1:17:01

story , which was hilarious . But

1:17:03

man , I was having cold sweats every night , one , waking

1:17:05

up saying like my sister's gone

1:17:07

, she's gone . And then two was

1:17:09

I was making two pretty significant decisions

1:17:12

within our organization , not as significant as

1:17:14

I thought they were . But I'm like if these two decisions

1:17:16

are wrong light , of life's gonna

1:17:18

go under and it's not gonna exist and I'm gonna be

1:17:20

on the front page of the post-Cazette and it's gonna

1:17:23

say this is the man that took it down Like , which

1:17:25

is so outrageous to think about now it was like changing

1:17:27

a vendor or something like that . Yeah , it was changing a vendor

1:17:29

and we were rebranding our organization , which , like again

1:17:31

, could have been anyway . Without going

1:17:33

to the deals of that , it really wasn't that big of a deal

1:17:36

. But I think you know the reality is

1:17:38

and I remember

1:17:40

a leader telling me when I was younger that's a seasoned leader . He said

1:17:42

, yeah , like if I leave my organization it

1:17:44

burns to the ground , like I don't care . And he wasn't

1:17:46

. He didn't mean that in an unhealthy way , of

1:17:48

course he cares , but he was just saying I'm

1:17:50

not gonna let that weigh on me and

1:17:52

ruin me . And so that was a change in my

1:17:55

leadership where I basically you know , when I got

1:17:57

healthy like when I say I don't

1:17:59

care , it's like I'm not gonna allow the

1:18:01

weight of any work responsibilities I have

1:18:03

to come home with me and take away from

1:18:05

my family time to make me lose sleep

1:18:07

. Like my father-in-law said , doug , like there's

1:18:09

very few things to lose sleep over , you

1:18:12

know , and nothing's as bad when you go to sleep

1:18:14

as it is like in the middle of the night , like when you wake up again

1:18:16

. That's so true . Like just go to bed , get a good night's

1:18:18

sleep and you'll be , fine and man operating

1:18:20

like that the past couple of years , like where

1:18:23

something else would have crippled me in fear . Now

1:18:25

I just show up and say we're gonna do our best and

1:18:27

forget the rest and have fun .

1:18:28

That's what we tell the kids all the time . Yeah , do the best

1:18:31

, forget the rest and have fun . I love it . Do you

1:18:33

have a nighttime routine so that you get proper sleep

1:18:35

?

1:18:37

No , I would say I'm a pretty good sleeper . I try

1:18:39

to get . Seven to eight hours is my ideal

1:18:41

, but I fall asleep like large jokes

1:18:43

. We try to watch movies every

1:18:45

Saturday night with the kids and I

1:18:48

usually last literally three minutes and I'm out of

1:18:50

cold Like I just fall asleep really easily

1:18:52

.

1:18:52

Oh man , I don't know how you people do it . I love it

1:18:54

. But I mean like I'm two nights in a row five

1:18:56

hours of sleep . I get so tired about

1:18:58

seven or eight o'clock at night I'm like , oh , I'm gonna sleep good

1:19:00

tonight , and then like , go to bed , can't

1:19:03

sleep , just hello everybody .

1:19:05

That's crazy . Yeah , I hate it , and you've experimented

1:19:07

and tried a bunch of stuff . Yeah , it works for a season

1:19:09

.

1:19:09

It works for a season , you know , like if I take

1:19:12

I was taking magnesium , three and

1:19:14

eight with apigenin and

1:19:16

L-theanine and man that put

1:19:18

me out . It was great and I'd wake

1:19:20

up the next day not groggy , you

1:19:22

know cause it's not a sedative like

1:19:24

a benadryl or a nyquil or something like

1:19:26

that , so I would do that

1:19:28

and it's all natural . It's just amino

1:19:31

acids , protein or magnesium

1:19:33

and amino acids . So I was like no

1:19:36

, this is good , this is healthy . It worked for

1:19:38

like two months , you know .

1:19:39

No one's like hey , you know .

1:19:41

So I have my vitamin D as well on

1:19:43

top of that , and I slept for another good

1:19:45

two months , and now I'm back

1:19:47

to the pattern of five hours of sleep , and that's

1:19:49

it . We were also foster parents and

1:19:51

the kids had a very hard time , you know

1:19:53

so that started to interrupt the

1:19:55

circadian , rather than a little bit , you know .

1:19:58

That's frustrating .

1:19:58

It's just a season , yeah , yeah , yeah , you know they're getting

1:20:00

so much better as they feel safe and they feel you know

1:20:03

, cared for , and they also learned they can pull

1:20:05

blanket up over top of their you know , over

1:20:07

top of their shoulders . They don't need to

1:20:09

scream for us to get that , you know . But hey , it's

1:20:12

an honor , you know it's an honor to do that for them

1:20:14

and to teach them . Here's

1:20:16

how you do it , baby . You know , like

1:20:18

, okay , gonna go

1:20:20

back to bed now . But man

1:20:23

, that's Doug . I really appreciate

1:20:25

your friendship . You are just

1:20:27

. You mean so much to so many people .

1:20:29

Well , thanks man yeah .

1:20:31

I'm just really happy for where you are in life . I'm proud of you . I'm

1:20:34

happy for you in so many ways .

1:20:35

Thank you , man , right back at you .

1:20:37

Any last words before we cut her off ?

1:20:39

No , that's a great conversation , man . We covered , I think , everything

1:20:42

. Just again grateful for your friendship . This was super

1:20:44

fun . I mean , just given the history . You're going back to relationships

1:20:46

, so invest in deep relationships . Let's just leave

1:20:48

it that this is the outcome of deep relationships

1:20:51

we had fully known , fully loved , fully challenged , and

1:20:53

lots of laughs and fun memories that a

1:20:55

lot of times we can't share . On this yeah , yeah

1:20:58

.

1:20:59

Yes , dude , that was a blast , so thanks so much for being

1:21:01

with us today . Honour man , you did great Table talks .

1:21:04

Well , leader , thank you so much for listening to my conversation

1:21:06

with Zach . I hope it added value to your life . Again

1:21:08

, you can find ways to connect with me and Zach and links

1:21:10

to everything that we discussed in the show notes at L3leadershiporg

1:21:14

forward slash 412 . And

1:21:16

as always , leader , I like to end every episode with a quote , and today

1:21:18

I'll quote John Quincy Adams , who said this if

1:21:21

your actions inspire others to dream more

1:21:23

, learn more , do more

1:21:25

and become more , you are

1:21:27

a leader . Keep leading . Well , leaders , I

1:21:29

say it every episode , but know that my wife , laura and I love you

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. We believe in you , and don't quit , keep

1:21:34

leading . The world desperately needs

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your leadership .