 Based on reading the book, you've had a turbulent past. Can you share with our audience a little bit about your journey as we start to unpack all of the skills you've learned along the way? Yeah, and I really appreciate you guys having me on the show and I guess just to say first, it's funny that I host a podcast today called The Adversity Advantage and fitness saved my life from the depths of despair when I was incarcerated. And before I kind of talk about how I went from there to where I am today, just to paint a little bit of a backstory for your audience, I used to manage adversity, insecurities, trauma, stress in the worst possible ways when I was younger. I was facing all kinds of insecurities such as my parents getting divorced when I was five. I was bullied when I was in school. I was picked on. I was told that I looked like I had Down syndrome. I loved sports, always had a passion for things like basketball, football, baseball. You name it, the problem was I was as unathletic as they come. So of course that creates even more insecurities. And I was always, I feel like looking to escape my pain in whatever way I could. And at first I think it was food. When I was 10, 11, 12 years old, I would eat breakfast sausage, bacon, cinnamon buns. I mean, things that kids would eat, but I would eat it, I think more in excess to numb the pain. And the first, I think the first real moment or chance that I got to escape was when I was offered a hit off a marijuana pipe when I was 14 years old. And it's funny like today, even sharing the story, how I want to say that POTS legal in many states these days, right? There's a lot of people that smoke it recreationally and that sort of thing. But for me it wasn't that I was smoking it, it was why I was smoking it. So when I first took that hit, I felt this monkey come off my back. I felt like I could be at peace with who I was. I didn't have to worry if I was ever gonna find lugs. I never had a girlfriend growing up. I didn't have to worry if I was ever gonna go to college. I didn't have to worry if I would be liked. I didn't have to worry if I was gonna be successful. All these fears that I had were gone when I took that first hit. And of course, and also I wanna say that there's a lot of people that when they first start smoking, they never think they're gonna end up in jail. Like for me, if I knew in that moment that Doug, you're gonna take your first hit, you're gonna end up in jail with a felony conviction off your record, I probably would have thought a bit differently about those choices. And then also on top of that, not only was I selling a little bit of pot to support my habit, I was selling it to make money. So I was picking up a few pounds a week and starting to really turn a profit. But the problem was I wasn't making any money because my profits were going up my nose because I started developing a cocaine habit. And what ended up happening was from the cocaine and my life just being in turmoil, I developed, as you can imagine, crazy amounts of anxiety. Everything kind of came to a head for me on Cinco de Mayo of 2008, which at the time in that moment, I thought it was my biggest setback, but it ended up becoming my biggest blessing. And I'll get into that in a minute. So I'm riding around with a few of my friends who could pick up some alcohol because he caught in Cinco de Mayo, one of the biggest drinking holidays of the year. You know, me who was as clueless as possible had a busted headlight that I knew about, but I was riding around with it because if it didn't involve me scoring drugs, buying drugs, or selling drugs, or just scoring drugs, buying drugs, or doing drugs with any kind of people or anything like that, nothing else mattered. And so that included my headlight and a cop was running radar and I flashed my high beams at the police officer to hide my busted headlight, gave him a reason to pull me over. One thing leads to the next. I'm out of the car and he searches it because I had a half a pound of pot and $2,000 in cash in the trunk that he found. So I got taken to jail and I was charged with a felony and tent to distribute marijuana. A few months later, I go to court. Let me rephrase that. The judge threw what I felt at the time was the book at me, but he ended up giving me a huge blessing. I ended up reporting the jail a few weeks later. He gave me a few weeks to kind of gather my stuff, get everything situated with my family, I guess. And my soon to be cellmate was sitting at a scrabble table during my detox and I remember just looking at him and him being like, you know, what are you doing here? And I was like, you know, I kind of told him what happened. And then he told me his story, we kind of relayed a little bit. And then he said, you're gonna start working out with me one day. And I was just like, dude, are you kidding me? Like at the time I could have been a model for Pillsbury. I was 50 pounds heavier than I am now. See, there's no way I'm gonna exercise. He's like, all right, man. And that night, I saw him work out, like do this thing he had asked me to do. And he was like a more jacked version of Brad Pitt from Fight Club is kind of how I describe him, just to give the audience some context. And he was doing thousands of push-ups, hundreds of pull-ups, running all kinds of laps, for like hours in this common area of the jail. And I was like, who is this guy? And I've been a trainer now for almost a decade. And he's still, I would say to this day, the most or one of the most fit people I've seen. And after him kind of nudging me and nudging me in our cell about exercise and then me kind of building more of a relationship with him and a friendship, I decided to kind of give it a try. And what was one of the real pivotal moments for me was when I was sharing my story and I was blaming people for my problems, I was blaming my parents, I was blaming the girls, I was blaming my friends, I was blaming the drugs. And he just told me, he's like, dude, you gotta stop being a victim. And he's like, you're blaming every single person for your choices, but yourself. And there's plenty of people whose parents got divorced, who got picked on, who went through abuse, who didn't have a girlfriend, then they're not in jail. He's like, did somebody hold it? You know, he pretty much was getting me to understand that no one held a gun to my head and forced me to use or sell drugs in a response to my problems. A few nights later, I gathered up some courage and got down and do a push-up, couldn't do a push-up for my feet, couldn't even do one for my knees. And with his motivation and encouragement and their training me and their everyday during my 90 day sentence, I was able to do a set of 10 push-ups and run a mile, which was one of the goals that we set. And I had this new sense of self-confidence, self-esteem, belief in myself that I never had, ever. And I don't think it was, it wasn't like, it wasn't because I just did push-ups and sit-ups, it was because of how they made me feel. It was the ability to stick to something that I knew I didn't really wanna be doing. It was my choice to get comfortable being uncomfortable and setting and achieving goals. All these things that really changed their way I was responding to emotions. I learned how to channel that pain into something positive and meaningful. And for those listening, like if you're experiencing some sort of pain, there's so much power in pivoting that negative energy and that negative buildup of whatever you have into something positive. As I stated before, I cried when I walked in the jail. I cried when I left, because I didn't wanna leave. I did not wanna leave jail. It sounds so weird. And I asked my cellmate, I was like, how can I ever repay you for helping to save my life? And he said, just don't mess up and pay it forward. And I didn't know what paying it forward meant back then. I hadn't really done any quote-unquote personal development works. I didn't really know what that meant. And he gave me a workout plan that I still have framed in my place. So I never forget where I came from, got out, lost a bunch of weight and then got to a place fitness-wise where I wanted to help other people use fitness to change their lives. And that's why I became a personal trainer. And so I wrote my first book from felony to fitness to free to inspire people to make the most their second chance, turn a negative into a positive and focus on how far they've come and how far they have to go. I wrote that, I believe it was back in 2014, 2015 when I published, I think, don't quote me on that. And then I got voted as a fitness hero by the Baltimore Sun back in 2015. And I was just been on a mission to share my story to help other people become the best version of themselves. And if you wanna change your life, it's up to you. All of us as young men find ourselves with a lot of energy. And if that energy isn't channeled in the proper places, then it becomes a destructive energy. All of us as young men get picked on, teased. However, you come home and your parents focus you to channel that anger into creating or perhaps take you to a class or take you to a martial arts class or give you good instruments so that you're able to express yourself and channel that into something that's productive. So was that missing in your life where that energy then had channeled into other places or were you with mom or dad and were they just hands off that you would figure this out on your own? My mom as I look back, I think was emotionally unavailable a lot, we split time and it was me and my two brothers, right? It wasn't just myself and she was working full time. We would spend the days after school at my grandparents' house because my mom wasn't getting off work until well after we got out of school. And then my dad and I, we always butted heads growing up. It wasn't the greatest living situation back then for me. And I really didn't feel that they understood what I was going through. And I think for me, I didn't really have the courage to speak up as much and say, hey, I'm getting bullied at school or people are telling me I look like I had Down syndrome, A, because I was embarrassed and B, because I didn't want to be the tattletale, right? And then I just didn't really, I never really felt comfortable talking to my, especially my dad, I never felt comfortable talking to him about things, you know, it was him and my stepmom. And so to look back and say that I have any opportunity to channel that into something positive, I mean, there really wasn't because, you know, like I said, I was, I played sports that kept me active, but as much as it kept me active, I was always also always the last one picked and wasn't making the travel teams and that sort of thing. So that, you know, created even more insecurities with inside of me. And not that that was a good excuse to go down this rabbit hole of addiction. But as I look back, I really didn't have that, you know, an opportunity to say, you know what, like I'm struggling right now, what can I do to take these, this aggression and these stress and put it into something meaningful? It's a very important for young people to realize that. And it's why I wanted to dig into that a bit because certainly if you're unable to change, channel that energy or you're looking for something you're not getting in your, with your family, you're going to search it out elsewhere. And that's where you begin to let in influences that certainly are probably looking for the same thing. And now we have several people who needed, who have negative energy that needs to be channeled in the proper directions. And rather than it being so, it finds its way into what you can do to comfort yourself in those moments, you know, and have food and video games are not going to do the trick. Certainly drugs will. Exactly. Yeah. And we've talked a lot on the show about, you know, you are the sum of your five closest friends in that we create norms in our peer group. And those norms inside the peer group may feel completely okay to you, but looking outside of that peer group, obviously doing hard drugs, snorting pills is not acceptable behavior. It's certainly not behavior that leads you on a path to light. So, you know, what was that struggle for you in that peer group? Because obviously again, we're going zero to 100 here. Yeah. You know, there are many people listening to the show living in states where weed is legal where they can smoke it and it's fine, but to get to a place where you're actually selling it, it's accepted in your social group to sell it. And then all of a sudden, you know, the harder and harder and harder drugs are on the table as options. Was there any moment that you went through self doubt around this group and feeling like, you know, I should escape this group or did it just sort of snowball without you really feeling the willpower to pull out? Yeah. I mean, there was definitely plenty of moments where I felt like I should roll. Problem was my self-esteem was in such, such low, my self-esteem was so low at that point that I didn't have the confidence that they think that I would be accepted in other friend groups. And so the rational person and the smart person, the person who had confidence and self-esteem in himself and the person who took care of himself would say, you know, probably a good idea to stop doing drugs and change your friends. But for me, I was like, I need to do whatever I can to continue this lifestyle because they're like family to me. And if I leave them, what are they gonna say about me? Or I feel some sense of loyalty to them because they've had my back in certain situations and all these other kinds of questions that go through people's minds. And I wanna remind people listening to this, if you can take anything from what I'm sharing is just make sure that you align people with yourself, that you have common futures and not common past, right? Because I think we get attached to people that we've had in our life that are bad influences because they've been in our life for 10, 15 years, but they're halting your success and they're preventing you from getting to where you wanna go. And just know that if you are wanting to better yourself and get to a place where you're living a healthier lifestyle, you're investing in personal development, you're kind of trying to make a difference in the world and make sure you're surrounding yourself with people that are shooting towards that as well. I stopped having things in common with them anymore. The chemistry of our conversations just changed, right? Our communication was awkward because it wasn't like I was interested in talking about getting high or who was partying where it was more like, once I got into fitness, it was like, well, how can I grow some chicken breasts or what kind of workout program are you doing? Was it going through my mind and my friends at the time weren't really into that. Well, what stands out for me in this is that you're in a situation where the drugs were easier to kick than the friends. Yes. That is why we started the show is the importance and the influence of relationships on our life. Like, yes, we all know that those drugs are bad and we all listening to this story know that that is a dead end and that is a very dark place to be on. So many people in our audience have negative influences on their life and toxic people in their life exactly as you said, they are loyal to and they stick with because of past experiences and the fear of what will happen if they are alone and they don't have that peer group. What steps did you take when you made that realization that not only do I not have anything in common with these guys, but if I keep on this path, I'm gonna end up back in that cell with that cellmate is gonna wanna kick my teeth in. And how did you then build up the strength to say no to these friends? Because I can't imagine that that was easy for them to just let you go as a friend either because they're used to the past they're used to those experiences and what you brought to that group. So what was that process like for you? So it started with like just simple things like I would just get annoyed and I would leave early because I would honestly be sitting there by myself maybe I'm looking at like reading something on my phone and I'm reading like a health magazine and I would, you know, I would get made fun of a little bit like in a joking way but the more I just started opening up my eyes and being like, you know what I think these I think people are just jealous of me that I've actually managed to, you know, leave that situation and quit the drugs and that they for some reason wish they could do what I'm doing, but just aren't. And then I also began to have this realization that I don't like to be alone. And I knew that that was part of my downfall was that I always had to be around people. I always had to be with somebody at all times whether it was parties, doing drugs, throughout my teenage years. And so I was living with my grandparents at the time and I ended up, I don't know what, it was just something just came of me that was like, you know what, I have two choices. I can either go and hang around the same people and there's a chance that I will end up back in jail or I can maybe spend some time with my grandparents, develop a deeper relationship with them, work on my health, spend some time alone and that will hopefully get me into another place. And so I ended up spending more time alone. The weekends I would stay in with my grandparents, watch things like the Food Network, dancing with the stars. And it taught, I learned how to cook by watching the Food Network and being around my grandparents and it inspired me to develop new skills and I ended up going back to college. And then I went to the, I joined a local gym because now like the biggest issue I think with people in confidence and going into the gym is what other people are gonna think of them when they're in there with, if maybe they're not doing a certain way and they're running fast enough. But I had been in front of a bunch of grown men in jail not being able to do a single push up from my knees. So I had squashed that, those fears were gone. Like I couldn't get any worse than that, right? And I don't, I'm not gonna say that the people I met in the gym are like lifelong friends of mine but what it did is it taught me to go up and talk to people I didn't know and develop conversational skills that I never truly had. And then a combination of that and exercising I started of course increasing my self-esteem, self-confidence and I always tell people if they're looking to find a new circle of friends they think about like where those people would hang out. Like is it at a seminar? Is it at a personal development conference? One easy place is at a gym because most people that are going to the gym are health conscious, they're goal oriented, they're positive, they're trying to improve themselves. I mean, you don't see a lot of people that are just completely hammered or stoned out of their mind benching. I mean, I'm not saying that people don't do that but most don't, right? Yeah, self-selects for the people you want in your life. Yeah, and so over time I began developing more confidence in who I was as a person being comfortable with who I was. It was easier to say no to certain opportunities. It was easier when my old friends would call me to not answer to say, hey, I'm busy or to say I'm not interested in doing that. It was easier if somebody said something to me like don't be a wuss or whatever to say, you know what, like, why are you, I don't even say, like, why are you coming at me like that? I'm trying to better myself. Like, do you want me back in jail? Like, is that what you want? Do you want me to come hang out with you and make a bad choice again so I go back in jail? And it really opens up a new level of perspective because now you're standing up for yourself and setting your feet in the ground somewhere and kind of pushing back. And I think if people can do that and it starts with being self-aware of yourself and being comfortable being alone because the fear people have is that these people will reject you, your old friends, whoever it is and now you're stuck alone. Well, I'd already been alone with my grandparents. I was cool with that. And I was just trying to take one step forward and slowly over time, the more confidence I built, the more courage I had to go to conferences, personal development things and I've met new people along the way. And I slowly started building a good, solid core group of people that were like-minded than me because I was putting that kind of energy out there. I was doing those things. So you start to align yourself with people that are doing the exact same things as you. It's just like if you wanna go, if you wanna start doing drugs, you'll find other people in your life that are doing drugs. Changing social circles is not like changing clothes. It's not like you take off this friend group and all of a sudden you got this new friend group, you just put on a new shirt. It does take time to build up that new friend group. It's not going to be easy but it's a very important process for you to start looking at what is the future that I wanna build for myself and how do I wanna help those around me build that same future for themselves versus how do I feel about the past and the fact that these friends aren't gonna be comfortable with you changing? You know, those friends who are drug users were not comfortable with you being Mr. Fitness now and being someone who conquered his addiction. Like that doesn't make people comfortable when they know the old you, they know the pre-jail you. So there is going to be tension, there's going to be people making fun of you judging you and it's gonna feel weird and awkward because it's like, wait, these people were my friends and they cared about me. I'm doing something wrong. I need to go back and switch to who I was but making that conscious choice and that effort is what allowed you to come out the other end of this. And when it comes to building these relationships, you know, you made some great points that look for environments that have the mindsets and the people that are who you want to become because we are the sum of our five closest friends and then realize that it's going to be a process of self-discovery but that's the exciting part too because now you're in control whereas you let the drugs choose your friend, friends you let what other people thought of you choose your friends, oh, I'm not cool enough, I'm not doing these things. Now you've instead taken back that responsibility and you've made it a choice to assemble the people in your life that you know make an impactful future. What I wanna talk about is something that you brought up that, you know, in my experience of losing my dad and substance abuse, there is this feeling of a monkey on your back and the drugs alleviating that monkey on your back. What I've experienced in that moment is that the chimpanzee is off my back doing the drugs, doing the substances but the gorilla is in the room the next morning. You're sacrificing your future and that weight gets heavier and heavier and heavier. And if you could speak to that for our audience members who, you know, might not be on the path to snorting pills, but they have friends who are doing these heavier drugs and that opportunity is in front of them, it's easy to get on that slippery slope and ultimately, yes, jail can clean you up but many of us wanna get to a place where we don't have to be in a cell to break these addictions. You brought up a really interesting point and it's like, I think if people can really figure out a deep enough why to the change they wanna make before life attaches it for them, they will win. And what I mean by that is no one thinks about when they're snorting that first pill that they're gonna get in jail. No one thinks about, if they snort that first pill, they get overdosed. No one thinks about that it could ruin a marriage until something bad happens, until someone close to you overdoses until you get arrested, until your husband or wife comes in and says, you know what, like I'm taking the kids, I'm out. And I think we really have to think about that. Like really take a deep inventory of ourselves and self-awareness of where our choice is leading us in our lives. And from that, like you said, when we use drugs and specifically when you're using them to numb pain, you have to figure out a way to continue to numb that pain. The pain's not gonna go away. Like when you lost your, you know, losing your dad or anybody else who loses a loved one or when you, you know, lose a job, whatever it is, that situation is still there. Like my crap for my childhood and my memories and not that I haven't dealt with all that I have, but a lot, I mean, the stuff is there. And it's like, how do you deal with it? Because people think that once you stop using drugs, once you stop drinking, all of a sudden life is easy. No, it's harder because now you actually have to look yourself in the mirror and say, why did I do this stuff in the first place? What relationships do I have to mend? How can I better myself? Where's my health at? And if you don't have a Rolodex and a tool belt of things in your life to deal with the discomfort and the pain in which why you were using the drugs in the first place, you're gonna be more likely to go back. So for that person that's sitting on the couch using and abusing drugs every single day, that feels hopeless, I just want that person to know that if anyone is gonna change, it's gonna be you. If anyone's gonna change you, it's gonna be you. It can't be your friends, it can't be your parents, it can't be a coworker, it's gotta be you. And really make sure that you are just doing everything you possibly can in that day to feel good about yourself in a positive way. Having things in your life like exercise, positive influence of people, meditation, podcast, breath work, I go on and on so that when that monkey you are looking in the mirror and you're seeing that monkey creep up on your back a little bit and there's the gorilla in the room, the gorilla starts to leave the room because you're now learning to deal with your pain in a healthy way. And I think when you can do that, you begin to reattach behaviors to emotions. Because what happens is we get emotional, we get anxious, we get stressed, we get angry and the default for a lot of people is drink, pill, coke, pot, but if you long enough for, I mean, I don't know the exact science and how long it takes to make or break a habit, but if over time you start to say, okay, I'm gonna now go for a walk, I'm gonna do some push-ups, I'm gonna call a friend whenever I feel that emotion, over time your new default will be like, where can I go find a run? Who can I call? That happened to me when I would get stressed out when I shortly after I got out of jail because in jail I had learned to reattach behavior to my emotions, my first instinct wasn't like, where can I get high? It was like, where can I go and run? Who can I call? Because I had rewired my brain. And also what people don't think about when they're doing drugs is like a short-term gain for long-term pain. Instead of when you're exercising and doing the healthier things, it's more of a longer, it subsides it a little less rapidly, but long-term you're now building, you're building equity in your health, you're building equity in your confidence and your ability to manage your stress, your pain and emotions in a way that's going to position you to be a better version of yourself in the future. And with exercise, you're building the neurotransmitters internally instead of taking them externally through prescriptions and drugs. We're playing with the same exact dopamine signals and we've talked about this with BJ Fogg that whether it's a good habit or a bad habit, it's wired due to the positive emotion you feel after doing that behavior. And you can either artificially evoke that positive emotion through substances or you can create it yourself and you can celebrate the second push-up and create that positive emotion that wires your brain to say, push-ups actually make me happy. And for anyone who's starting out, I wanna talk a little bit about building the willpower because staring down the barrel of that sentence, being in a cell with someone else who's pushing you around, certainly he helped you with some motivation and willpower, but it's not easy if you've never been able to run, you're not used to doing push-ups and being physically active. And how are you then able to keep that willpower and that motivation outside of jail because it feels like in those four walls, there aren't as many options, our willpower and motivation depletes when we're free men and there are a plethora of other options and things to be doing. I mean, there's a few. Number one is kinda swallow your pride, drop your ego and just know that every, and this sounds cliche because everyone says it, but in the fact that matters, it's true. Everybody started where you were. Everybody who ran a marathon had to start with walking. Everybody who made a million dollars had to start with making a hunt. I'm gonna go on and on with examples. And just know, just so just know that, just start with where you're at, focus on you. That's the first thing. Number two is really attach a deep why. So for me, when I got out of jail, I wasn't running it first or exercising to lose weight. I was running and exercising because I didn't wanna go back to jail. And I knew that that was like the deep meaning for me. That was the deep emotional why that I connected to. That was so beneath the surface that struck a nerve in me for some reason. I mean, obviously I was scared and terrified of going back. That I knew that if I didn't keep exercising and I wasn't consistent, there was a chance I was gonna go back to jail because the old Doug didn't exercise. The old Doug quit on himself. The old Doug made poor choices and I didn't wanna be that guy anymore. And I would also think about things like when girls rejected me being called fat or not making the teams. And that would fuel me because it was almost like I was gonna prove people wrong. And I think there can be some a healthy sense of that of proving people wrong. And also proving myself wrong because my track record up until that point was that I was a failure. I was a loser. I was an addict. All these things I would tell myself that I was like, you know what, I'm gonna prove it to myself I can actually do this. So those are two things to start with is to attach a deep emotional why. I mean, so many people talk about this. Two is to kind of start with where you're at. And then the third thing is just incremental progress. Consistency is everything. Consistency will trump trying to make some like dramatic statement every day of the week. So whether it's you just committing to walking 10 minutes every single day for a certain amount of time or if it's writing in a gratitude journal or if it's tracking your food or just drinking more water whatever the habit is consistency is key and you build off of that because what happens you talk about dopamine. So odds are if you've never walked a day in your life and we know the benefits of exercise and movement on the brain, if you walk for 10 minutes, you're gonna feel good and what's gonna happen you're gonna want more dopamine. So you're gonna want what would make you feel good. So you're gonna walk more. So the 10 minutes becomes 15 minutes and 20 and sure enough, you're running a 5K six months later and you're like, how the hell did this happen? And as you look back and you track your steps you're like, wow, it started with me walking for 10 minutes. I saw the benefits of this, I felt great. And then you build off of that and you start to build equity in this confidence bank of things that challenged you to be a better person and doing the things that made you feel uncomfortable because I believe that true confidence and meaning in our lives comes from doing the small things every day that we know we should be doing to help us feel better. And when I say, when I tell people, I say, when you're in a bad mood, you're having a bad day you're in a rut, whatever it is, go to the things that you know in your mind will make you feel better. We all know what to do. It's just a matter of doing it. And then the second part is the things that you're doing they must align with who you wanna be in the future. Absolutely. That deep Y is such an important part of unlocking the motivation and the willpower. You know, coming full circle and thinking about your relationships now as they stand we talked a lot about, you know, your family and your upbringing, how is your relationship with your parents now and whatever happened to that cellmate? Everybody asked about the cellmate. Well, first I'll say my relationship with my family has really come full circle. My mom and I clearly butted heads as a kid. She kicked me out when I was 16 and we worked on the relationship together and it started with me owning my stuff, not blaming her and saying, you know what? Like if this relationship's gonna improve it has any chance it starts with Doug Bopes working on himself. And if she's gonna come around based on my actions and seeing a change, I mean, she will, if not, that's on her. So I think a lot of people, they wanna improve the relationship with people in their lives. And it's like, you know, you come to me, you come to me, I'm gonna pull you, I'm gonna pull you, you need to change. It's like, wait a minute. Like, well, what are you doing? What's your part in this? Because a lot of times we neglect to do the work on ourselves and it can create even more strain in the relationship because all of a sudden we get almost upset that people aren't coming around. When really if you've broken somebody's trust for 15 years and all of a sudden you're feeling good for 10 days and you're like, why aren't you trusting me? Well, it takes a little bit more time to establish authentic trust if you've pretty much, you know, given people a reason not to trust you for 15 years. So you gotta continue to do the work yourself, show people with your actions and your behaviors, not just with words. And then I ended up walking her down the aisle. My brothers and I walked her down the aisle and I was obviously one of them who walked my mom down the aisle last year when she got married. So it just shows how things came full circle. My dad and I, my dad and I, like I said, we never really got along. But now, even the last few years, I've really made it a point to kind of accept him for who he is and just do my part to show up. I mean, I've forgiven him and gotten past a lot of what I was holding on to with him. And just knowing that some day it's gonna be the world's gonna end and he's gonna be gone. So just knowing that I have a choice now and how I'm gonna show up. And maybe the way that I acted my energy and my behavior will reflect on him. And it's created a more honestly, a more calm relationship between us. And even with my friends now, it's I'm so grateful that a lot of people have paid it forward for me and helped me out along the way that I do my best now to be the guy who's helping people around me in the best way I can. That's so important to take those lessons to heart and realize that you can't expect others to change if you haven't put in the work and changed yourself. And not in a change for one day, two days, a week, but core level change that we're talking about here and your behavior. Well, I think everyone's looking for someone to come save us. And I think at the end of the day, it'd be nice. I mean, it'd be nice if somebody, if you had all these problems and you had all these mistakes you've made and you could just press a button and boom, you were saved, it'd be great, right? But it's not reality. Reality is no one's gonna fix us. We can't fix anybody else. We have to put in the work. And it's our responsibility to act in a way that's going to bring those relationships closer together if that's what we truly want. And you'll know by the way you act. And it's a hard truth sometimes to hear. And I think one of the biggest things we can do is tell ourself a short-term hard truth versus a long-term life. We're lying to ourself over the years and saying it's their fault, their fault, their fault. I'm not doing anything wrong. It's gonna prolong the inevitable and people end up living our lives, relationships will get worse, we'll become worse. But if we're really able to sit to look at ourselves in the mirror and give ourselves like a cold hard truth and say, I've been a horrible friend. I've been a terrible son, whatever the case may be. And it's on me to not do the work to mend not only the relationship with them, but with ourselves. I think it starts with us. One of the things I try to tell people is you don't have to forgive other people as much as you have to forgive yourself. Because if you don't forgive yourself and all the bad choices you've made, you've made the mistakes you've made along the way, it's gonna be a lot harder for you to forgive anybody else because you're still holding on to all this resentment about who you are as a person and you'll never grow. Yeah, that's the monkey on your back. Yeah. And this cellmate, what's he up to? The cellmate, so yeah, the cellmate. So it was funny, when I got out, him and I would exchange letters and I remember one of the first letters we wrote, I was complaining and I was just like, man, it's cold. I don't feel like running. Because again, it's a process. It's not like when I first got out, I was like, all right, my life's changed. I'm gonna be a podcast host. I'm gonna be a trainer. It was a process. But I had that Y in my mind that I was gonna do what it took to not go back to, whatever it took not to go back to jail and to not let my cellmate down and he wrote me a letter back. It was like, you know, in a PG version, it was like, stop complaining. I don't train wusses. Go buy yourself a pair of sweatpants and get outside and run. And then over time, he got out. We ended up grabbing a few workouts together outside, which was cool, because I was able to actually not do Doug's like novice workout where he was training me. It was like, I was able to keep up with him and do a workout with him. And we stayed in touch. You know, I dedicated my first book to him and I owe the guy my life. And we kind of lost touch. I think he kind of went back and forth in the system. And it was fun. I was actually had reached out to him. I was like, man, I want to get you on my podcast someday. So it'd be cool. I tell the story from my perspective, but it would be cool to hear him being like, dude, you don't even want to know what this guy was doing when he was... But again, like I said, I still have the workout plan that he gave me. You know, we've talked a decent amount. I haven't talked to him on the phone, probably in a few years. I mean, I think we exchanged texts not too long ago. But yeah, we did where we were able to kind of reconvene. And he obviously knows how much he meant to me. And I think it's funny because I think now I've inspired him. Like he just has seen what his work did inside of me and how I've taken it and kind of ran with it. And the last thing I want to say on that it just came to me that I never believed when I was in jail or even when I got out of jail that I would be where I am today, ever. And a lot of people, they think when they're in that moment of darkness, they look at somebody, I mean, maybe like myself, maybe like you or Johnny or whoever and say, well, I'm never going to get there. Well, I bet like you guys, when you were kids or growing up or whatever didn't think you'd be where you are today either. But what happened was you just kept taking small steps, having little wins, it built your confidence. You met this person, met that person, this didn't work out, that didn't work out. And you just keep going and eventually you develop and cultivate your purpose along the way and things just kind of unfold organically. But it requires you to take steps in the right direction as far as your actions, who you're surrounding yourself with, what kind of things you do on a daily basis to carry yourself. And you will get to that point whatever you're looking to go. And it was more of the mindset for me, it was like, what's next? Okay, I can do a set of 10 pushups when I couldn't do one, well, what's next? I'm gonna run a 5K, well, what's next? I'm gonna start bench pressing, well, what's next? I'm gonna get a job as a trainer and then I'm gonna write a book and I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. And then sure enough, I look back and it just started with, well, what's next? And here I am talking to y'all, hosting a podcast, written three books and that sort of thing. So it's amazing what life can do and how life can unfold. If you're patient, consistent and you just make the right choices. I love that and we love asking one last question of all of our guests, what their X factor is, what skill set and mindset combination has unlocked success in your life? What do you think your X factor is? Being tenacious, I think is just not giving up whether it was, and a lot of it was as correlated into my career, whether it was being tenacious in not touching drugs again, being tenacious in my workout routine or when I was in jail, not giving up on myself, finding new friends, getting on different show, like podcasts or sharing my story or getting guests. It's just, there's so much correlation and I think in life, if you wanna get what you want, you have to get after it, you have to go after it. Doesn't matter what it is. Doesn't matter if you're trying to do a set of pushups or if you're trying to host a podcast. You gotta make decisions, you gotta go, you gotta just kinda fall a little bit, you're gonna fall a little bit, you get back up, you fall, you get back up, you get rejected here, you get rejected there and you just kinda go. I love that. Thank you for sharing your story with our audience and the lessons you've learned along the way. Thank you, Doug. Thanks for having me. I love this. Appreciate it so much.