Learning, Launching and Leading - Doug Smith’s Journey AlongTheWay 32

The leader simply said, Doug, have you prayed about this? And I said, No, that was sort of pray about just stupid. And he said, Hey, I just encourage you pray, give God one chance and see what happens. I went into devotions next day and I said, God, if you don't speak to me today, I'm done. I'm out. You'll never see me again. Later, I did one of those things where it's like, God, I'm just gonna open up my Bible. And I opened up to Isaiah 49. He said to me, You are my servant, Israel, and you will bring me glory. And that was how I felt for the first time in my life. I thought I had potential. I thought I had purpose. But then I was, you know, I was in closets, washing water pictures, I had no core responsibilities. And I thought, God, I thought you were going to use me in great ways.

Welcome to along the way. I'm John Matarazzo. Your host and fellow traveler, thank you for joining me along my way is I try to become more like Jesus every day. I love talking with fascinating people and learning how God has met them along their way. Like we just heard Doug Smith saying to God, I thought you were going to use me in great ways. We all desire to do great things for God. But the process is often painful and humbling along the way. If you keep your eyes on Jesus that he will lead you on the right path, and in His timing, you will get to the right destination. Doug Smith is a man that is passionately running the race set before him, and he is encouraging others along his way. If you want to hear how you too can learn from opportunities that launched you into your purpose, so that you can lead others into their potential, then you'll really enjoy my conversation with Doug. I'll get to that in just a moment. But I want to make sure that you know that you can hear all of my episodes, even the ones that you've missed by visiting my website along the way dot media, or simply subscribing to along the way on your favorite podcast app. I've also started a subscriber list and if you would like to join on to that there's a link in my show notes. You can always find me on Facebook and Instagram. Just search for along the way. My email address is John along the way at gmail. com Look forward to hearing from you. And now, here's my along the way conversation with Doug Smith.

So Doug Smith, thank you so much for joining me along the way. It's a pleasure to have you, John. It's a it's an honor to be here. It's been fun. I know. We talked about probably a year and a half ago, your dream of launching this podcast and absolutely, you actually launched it and dive in and to see the passion that you have behind it and how energized you are. And even just the doors that God's opening up for you. It thrills me because I know I mean, I'm a podcaster as well. Right? So excited for you. So Way to go, man.

Wait, yeah, we'll talk about your podcast in a minute. But I want to go back to what you were just talking about. I remember being on Mount Washington with you. And you sharing the vision for this leadership group that you've started l three leadership, which I am now a part of. And you were asking me kind of like what makes me tick. And I was talking about this podcast and you were a big encouragement until the fact that I actually was able to get it started. Your words are kind of just ringing in my brain. I'm like, Okay, I gotta get this. I gotta get this going. So thank you for the encouragement. Definitely. Yeah,

you did it. How many people are out there today? Probably listening to this thinking, I want to start a podcast and they're just sitting there. Yeah, way to take action on your dreams. Yeah. And

if you do want to start a podcast and you're listening, you can feel free to ask questions of me for sure. I enjoy it and talking about it. So. But Doug, podcasting is something that has been big in your life, and it has actually kind of opened up some doors for you. But before we get to that, I want to talk about your story. Because you haven't always been where you are now. So obviously, obviously, that's the case. But could you just tell me about your journey and how God has brought you to where you are now?

Sure, yeah. When I share my story, I'd like to start off with where I am today, because I think it gives context to where I've come from or where I grew up. So again, obviously My name is Doug Smith, married my high school sweetheart. For seven years. We've been together for 17 we have Two little children, Sophie and Olivia, Olivia is three and Sophie is one. I'm currently the Director of Development in charge of all the fundraising for a local nonprofit that serves a homeless called light of life rescue mission. And I've been there for eight years. And as you alluded to, I have a leadership development organization called l three leadership. And we could talk more about that later. But we're impacting leaders all over the place. And I share that because if you look at my life now, you would probably never guess what my life looked like, just 17 years ago, which I'll share but growing up, I grew up in a pretty normal family. We were Catholic family, we went to church, I hated church never connected with it at all. And then in middle school, two significant things happened. One was I had a friend invite me to a youth camp. And so it was actually called Slippery Rock Baptist camp. It still exists today right off the Slippery Rock exit. And I went there and heard the gospel for the first time in a way that related to me and made sense to me. And I remember at the end of the week, my counselor sat me down and he said, Doug, would you like to make Jesus the Lord of your life? And I said, Yeah, and we know down right there in the bed and prayed and Jesus came into my heart. I instantly felt called to ministry. And I started going to church with my friend that invited me. I started going to church every week. I actually had a crush on the pastor's daughter that's the main reason

not a bad reason. But God does things to get you there.

I mean, back I was so I wanted to spend so much time with her I joined the choir now I cannot sing in a by join the church choir, cuz she played the organ to the piano. I just wanted to be able to see her forehead over the piano and that may sound kind of creepy now but so I feel called to ministry I'm all in with God. God stars Connect me even the pastor there started mentoring me and and all of that was going really well. But at home, my mom developed a rare nerve disease. If you've ever had your feet fall asleep, she had that 24 hours a day, which ultimately led to her being in bed all the time being in a wheelchair. And my dad as a result also had to work two jobs to get us by with all the medical bills and things that were happening with my mom. So from having a normal family life to no boundaries and being able to do what I want, which is a middle schooler, I thought was the greatest thing ever. But as a result of that started hanging out with the wrong crowd, and in the summer of eighth grade, started doing drugs. By the end of that summer fell completely away from God wanted nothing to do with church, and basically determine the summer of eighth grade that I would never amount to anything. And so I said, Hey, you know, I'm going to stop trying and school and I'm just going to enjoy life. And basically just decided I'm just going to live to party every single day, ultimately found out that my mom had these pills called oxy cotton switches, synthetic heroin, and I found out if I sold those in school, I can make a lot of money. So started dealing those out of school. And really just, you know, I thought I was living the life and beginning of my senior year of high school, my mom got really, really ill and in October of 2002, my senior year, my mom ended up passing away. Now when she passed away the last six months or Her life were absolutely horrible. I saw her suffer more than then they want you to see someone suffer. So when she passed, I was somewhat relieved. But one thing kept eating away my my mind in my heart. This question kept coming up when my mom died that I'll never I don't know if she knew Christ and I and I may never know. And I remember getting high and drunk every single night and I you know, when I'm out with my friends, everything was okay. But when I went home, it was just me my pillow at night. That thought would haunt me, you're never going to know you're going to be 90 years old one day, Doug. And you're not going to know if your mom had a relationship with Christ. And I'm like, why is this bothering me? I don't even care about God, like, stop it. But I couldn't get that out. So three months past three months of that tormenting question and out of nowhere along the way, a woman called me who ended up being a distant relative of mine. And she said, Doug, I know you don't really know me, but I felt like God tapped me on the shoulder this morning my devotions and wanted me to let you know that I was a nurse in the hospital with your mom and I led your mom to Christ three weeks before she died, and I God bless you that I didn't I don't remember anything else that she said, I just remember crying, my niece hit the floor. And at that moment I said, God, whatever you want for the rest of my life, I'm yours I surrender. Two weeks later, I happened to get invited to a Bible study that was led by a mom in our school district. And 150 kids would go to this Bible study every single week. It wasn't a youth group. It wasn't affiliated with a church. It was just a mom with a passion. And she felt like God tapped on the shoulder and said, start this Bible study. So I go and to follow the same pattern. My whole life is followed. I saw a beautiful girl sitting on the couch and I said, I'm going to Bible study every single week. Little did I know that the girl that I thought was beautiful. Her mom was the one that led the Bible study. And when I walked out that night, I was a senior in high school. That girl, her name is Laura. She told her mom, she said, Mom, that's one of the most influential kids and leaders in our school, but he uses all of his influence and leadership for drugs and alcohol. If ever gets a hold of God, if he ever follows God, he could change the world. And for whatever reason, her mom decided to start having me over for family dinners. They expose me to a whole nother way of life. And so her father is the director and Dean of Admissions at Carnegie Mellon. So he became a father figure in my life. And he told me he's like, Listen, you're going to go to college, which I don't know that I would have had he not encouraged me to do something with your life. And for the first time in my life, I started getting vision of in Christ what I that I could do something I could have a call and I could have purpose. So fast forward, Laura ended up the girl and I'll just say this now fast forward, Mars, my wife. So for the sake of the story along the way, when I went home from Bible study that night, first night, I was hanging out with all my high school friends, and I said, fellas, I met the girl I'm going to marry no joke. Actually, I forgot that this happened. Someone reminded me and so I actually called my shot that I would marry my wife so what's up, there you go. You never know what a happened along the way.

It's very true.

Very true. Yeah. So. So Laura ended up inviting me to a youth camp that summer. And I went, and that's when I would say I truly rededicated my life to Christ and went all in. And at the camp, I heard about an internship at a church. And in my mind, I thought, Oh, if I interned at a church, Laura's going to think that's really attractive and you know, increase my odds of marrying her. So I signed up for the internship, not knowing what to expect, and I ended up interning there and I met the most influential man in my life, Larry Betancourt, he was the youth pastor there at the time. And he saw potential in me, he started pouring and leadership into me. And he was the one who really grew and developed me, I would say, in my early 20s, and as a result, I always tell people that he's been the biggest influence in my life. So Larry and my father in law, Mike who I mentioned, they became mentors and father figures in my life. They got me through college, I ended up graduating from Robert Morris ended up on staff at victory, working in youth ministry, and an absolutely love that for four years and then Larry left To help to launch a church, and he asked my he asked me to go with him. And so we did. And so we went to the church plant, but he couldn't pay us. And so I had to find a job or raise my own salary. And long story short along the way, randomly got a phone call from woman in light of life rescue mission where I work today. And she said, Doug, I felt like, job opened up here. And I feel like you are the command for the position for a year. Why don't you come and just see what it's like, and then as soon as Larry can pay you, great. And that's how I ended up with light of life and a year into that really felt called to the north side of Pittsburgh, really fell in love with the homeless ministry, and obviously have been there since. So that's kind of a 30,000 foot view of my along the way journey.

There you go. So what exactly is it that you do for light of life now?

Yeah, so light of life. I'm the Director of Development at light of life. And so I'm responsible for all the fundraising. So we have a $7 million budget and so we're responsible for about $6

million of that. Wow. So you go and you it's your job to go and connect people to the vision of helping the homeless population in Pittsburgh. Yes. Through a faith based ministry. Yep. Which is awesome. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Would you mind just sharing a success story from that?

I mean, my favorite, it's an oldie but a goodie. We have a guy on staff and if you serve it, if you've never been to the mission, I tell people you have to come down. We tell everyone whether it's someone walk into our through our doors for a meal or someone in our long term program or a volunteer donor. Once you walk through the doors of the mission, you'll never be the same. But if you come down and you end up serving, you're you're almost guaranteed to meet Hutch and Hutch is one of our kitchen staff. But his story is incredible. And we actually have a video that you can watch on this on YouTube. But Hutch is making such an impact at the mission but if you rewind his life, he grew up in Pittsburgh had all kinds of issues ended up becoming an alcoholic and basically wanted to die. He ended up trying to drink himself to death one night, end up literally in a in a ditch on the side of the road. And it thought he was gonna die. He woke up and basically was like Lord Jesus, man, I've run from you for a long time. But if you get me out of this last, you know, Jay, I think he was a jackpot in his life. I'll dedicate the rest of my life for you. Long throughout his life, he ended up having to go to prison, someone at prison mentioned light of life, he ends up getting out, going to light of life for a year having his life totally transformed. He thought he would graduate in a year, his year was up, and he thought he was gonna have to leave and they said, No touch, we want you to stay, you need an additional six months. And that six months, our kitchen manager who still our kitchen manager today said how much we want to bring you on staff. And I tried, you know, I've cooked for one, I can't cook for the masses. And he said, we'll teach you and he's been on staff since and what I love about him is every day, I mean, he's been where the men and women who walked through our doors have been and he is daily impacting them, encouraging them and helping them along their way and their journeys. And for me, that's the greatest thing is not Not only seeing the lives transformed while people are at light of life, but when you see them years after they've graduated our programs still making a difference daily in the lives of those who walk through our doors. I mean, for me, it doesn't get any better than that.

That's really cool. Yeah, I love the ministry that you guys do. And that's really cool that you get to be a part of that. Doug, you have some really great opportunities to meet some really great people through your fundraising efforts. And God has really opened up some really interesting doors for you. And one of my favorite quotes that my pastor often shares is when God wants to bless you, he brings somebody into your life. And when God wants to protect you, he takes somebody away from your life. But you've had a lot of great people that God has brought into your life. You mentioned your father in law, and Larry Betancourt and now through your l three leadership, you're providing somewhat of that for a lot of other people. Can we talk about the leadership and the vision that God gave you for that?

Yeah. So it goes back to when Larry Betancourt when I was 17 years old handed me a john Maxwell CD. Now I never knew there was I thing is personal development. And if you don't know john Maxwell, he's his leadership, author, speaker, trainer, world class. And I listened to the CD. And literally, I got so excited by the content that I transcribed the entire lesson by hand, not knowing that it actually came with notes and fillings that would have been that would have been great for later to give me notes too. But I felt like Neo in the matrix after I listened to that, and I called her and I said, Give me everything you got. And so literally for two or three hours at night, I would listen to personal development with john Maxwell, and just develop this passion for developing people and adding value to people daily. And my life was transformed through that leadership development. And Larry, who also saw leadership potential and me he would do two things he would bring in leaders from the community and have them speak to us. And he would challenge us and he'd say, hey, it's great to learn from their content, but you should also take them out to coffee, and ask them to mentor you. And he said, when you do make sure you go with a list of questions, don't waste their time. And so he's like, what I expect of you is everyone we have committed, you're going to ask a question. So I started doing that and fell in love with it. And I did that for 10 years. And I love these learning lunches. And all of a sudden all my peers start saying, why don't you guys spend time with John like, That is incredible. I wish I could, you know, in my mind, I'm thinking, well, you asked, because they probably say yes. But no one's no one had the courage to ask. And so I thought, here's an opportunity to add value to leaders. What if I started recording my conversations with leaders? So in 2012, I launched the LC leadership podcast, just to simply give back and do for others what John did for me. And at the same time, I started getting around this vision that's been in Pittsburgh for probably over 50 years of making Pittsburgh famous for God. And I spent a lot of time with a man named Rick carpenter who kind of pioneered this movement under Sam Shoemaker back in the 60s. And every time he would talk about what they did. And basically in the 70s, they've gathered a bunch of leaders just to see what God would do and they committed and they said if will develop leaders and follow them for 15 2030 years will ultimately be developing leaders in all sectors of society and will make our city famous for God by developing those leaders. And so I got around them like that is exactly what we feel called to do. So I spent an hour and a half on the phone with Reid and said, I feel called to do what you did for your generation for mine, what should I do? And he just said, just start gathering people and see what the Holy Spirit does. And so four years ago, we gathered on Mount Washington, we prayed over our city. And I said the same thing that Reed said to his crew. And I said, Guys, I don't know how it's going to happen. But we're going to develop leaders, we're going to follow them. And we're going to develop them for the next four years or for that as long as we can see. And if we do that, we believe that will make our city and our world famous for God. And so we launched three leadership officially. And what we do now is we do we have a podcast still with 229 episodes in. We have mastermind groups of which you're in one that meet all throughout our city. We have events, we have a one day Leadership Conference, and we're about to add a whole lot more in January. So that's kind of the background Rounding history of all three.

Very cool. So you've been doing this podcast for a while and you bring in some really awesome people that have been on your podcast and some other opportunities as well actually, for us, as you know, members of L three to be able to kind of rub shoulders with them, be able to ask questions. Who are some of the most influential people that you've had a chance to rub shoulders with in a conversational way like that?

I mean, no one's going to replace Larry and and Mike in my life. I think there's something about the first people that influence you. But I would say you know, people always ask Who are your favorite interviews? I don't I don't necessarily have a favorite ones. I think leaders that I've interviewed that have impacted my daily life a lot probably would be carry new Hof interviewed him twice. And I know you have a question later about books, he wrote a book called, didn't see it coming. It's about all these areas that leaders don't see coming, but then these areas end up derailing them and so you should become aware of them. So when they're coming at you, you can actually deal with them. We're going through it in my mastermind group right group right now, and it's greatly influencing them. But I think overall, just you know, people can be impressed by the people I've interviewed. But what I've come to realize is people are just people, and God will use. God can speak to everyone, and he will. And so I would say every interview I've had God used in some way to speak to my heart, and that you shouldn't be intimidated by anyone. I mean, people are just people I love that my pastor said, he said, Doug, is that there are no special people are there are no great men and women of God, there's just a great God. And I think when you have that perspective, it allows you to just be more open and for God open up more doors, because you realize they're, they're not any more special than you either shout, Oh, God.

Yeah, that's really cool. You've done some really great interviews with, like, people like Ken Coleman, who works with Dave Ramsey. And I really have appreciated some of the interviews that I've listened to you do. And as an interviewer, you need to be able to really listen to what people are saying. And so when it comes to listen to listening to what people are saying, Do you remember the first thing that heard God speak to you.

Oh, wow. Yeah. So when I love this question, actually, I thought all your questions were excellent, by the way. So thank you for sending them. I think you're doing an excellent job. You're a great listener talking about Ken Coleman not to get off track, horrible listener. And in fact, I had a mentor, give me feedback on interviewing. And he said, Doug, you don't actually, you're so quick to move on to the next question that doesn't actually sound like you're listening to them. And you're missing opportunities to go deeper on subjects. And that was a game changer for me. So if you're listening to this, and you do interviews, listen and get coached because I thought I was a good listener, a good interviewer, but until I had that feedback, I wasn't. Yeah, well, I

think that's just a great skill in life. Whenever we're having a conversation. I think so many times, we are more worried about what we're going to say next. I mean, even if it's the person at Starbucks, you're worried about your order, more than the interaction there. And so if we take that, that extra second or two to listen, I think there's a nugget that God has for us within everybody else. Yes,

I love that.

Yeah. So what is it that you remember it God speaking to you early on?

Yeah. So this is probably the most significant. And now, when I was thinking about this was probably the first real time but I was in I just started interning at the church. I was living a double standard life and I gotten busted, right. And so I was drinking anyway, I won't go into the entire story, but I got to a point where I'm like, this internship is stupid. I'm quitting. I'm working for free. Lars is not impressed. Like, what am I doing? And, and because I'm passive, I was passive aggressive. I literally pasture Larry, the supervisor. He went on a sabbatical for the first time, like four years and I waited till he got on the plane to send him an email telling him that I quit. And fortunately, like a good mentor and father figure would, he calls me, he said, You're not quitting. You're gonna wait till I get back and quit to my face like a man. But until then, I'm going to have you connect with this other leader and keep working.

He, he connects with this other. Love that. Isn't that incredible? Yeah. We all need men like that in our lives

men of God. I don't I would not be here for for conversations like that with Larry. So he connects me with this leader. And the leader simply said, Doug, have you prayed about this? And I said, No, that was sort of pray about this stupid. And he said, Hey, man, I just encourage you pray, give God give God one chance and see what happens the next day. I said, Okay, God, I literally I went into devotions next day, and I said, God, if you don't speak to me today, I'm done. I'm out. You will never see me again. Later. I literally and I'm, this was my experience. I'm not saying that you could have the same experience. But I did one of those things where it's like God, I'm just gonna open up my Bible. And I opened up to Isaiah 49. And I pulled it up here so I could read it. But I in Isaiah 49 three, it says, he said to me, You are my servant, Israel, and you will bring me glory. And and that was how I felt for the first time in my life. I thought I had potential I thought I had purpose. But then I was, you know, I was in closets, washing water pictures, I know core responsibilities. And I thought, God, I thought you were going to use me in great ways. And the next verse says, and I replied, but my work seems so useless. And I've spent my strength for nothing and to no purpose. And I was like, that's me, like I'm in the Bible, like, right, exactly how I feel, everything I do is worthless. In the next verse change my life is the reason I'm here today. And it said, yet I leave it all in the Lord's hands. I will trust God for my reward. And God spoke to me at that very moment. And he said, Doug, stop looking to people for your reward. Stop looking for a core responsibility. Stop looking for Larry to give you a promotion, stop. Just stop looking to people. Trust me for your reward. Trust me for your journey and trust me to take you what where I put in your heart to take you and that that's all I needed to hear. And I still go back to that to this day and just saying, God, I am resting in you. And I'm not looking to the left. I'm not looking to the right My eyes are solely focused on you. God, and I trust you for my reward. I trust you for my planet. I trust you from my journey. And that was the first time and I mean, that was enough to get me through even to where I am today, to be honest with you, I go back to that often.

That's pretty powerful, Doug, I love that God speaks that directly to us through His Word, which was written thousands of years ago, and he can cause it to open up and be right where we need it.

Yeah, yeah. It's amazing. One of my favorite teachers always says, you know, people will like, people go crazy, but like, man, I want God to speak to me. I want God to speak to me. I want God to speak to me. And he was like that in his early Christian walk. And he was like, oh, Lord, speak to me, Lord, speak to me. And then he said, God, just nudge him and his spirit. He said, I did speak to you, in my word, go see what that says. And if I want to say anything else to you, I will. That's great.

So helping other people find their purpose, or, you know, your purpose seems to be something that's very core for you. So how did you really make that decision to say that this is not just a hobby, that this is really your purpose.

I mean, I would just say from the from the day, Larry gave me that john Maxwell CD, and I caught the vision to add value to leaders and to add value to people every day. That's been my purpose from day one. And that keeps me going. And I would say, in some ways, I think l three is my purpose, long term, but I feel like where I am right now with light of life is my leadership lab in the place that God's using to develop me. So in some ways, I would say I'm still in hobby form, when it comes to my purpose, but I feel like God's developing me for my ultimate purpose, if that makes sense.

Yeah, that's good. That's good. What are some difficult steps that you've dealt with, or maybe detours that you've had along the way?

I'm always my biggest detour. So the biggest challenges in my life have been me. I'm the one, you know, consistent pattern in every problem that I have. However, I would say the biggest challenges were very, very similar. There were two seasons in my life where there were leaders that came into my life that were the exact opposite of Larry. So Larry, in my life was the first person to say, Doug, you can do great things. You can do all things through Christ, like God has a plan for your life. It's going to be awesome. You're going to impact people, you can do it, go for it. And my father in law was the same way. And then I had two leaders and looking back, they're perfect the way they are. But because they were so opposite, I didn't understand their personalities. And so I viewed them as very cold, I viewed them as viewing me is you're worthless, and there's no God will never use you in a significant way. And so, the first time that happened to me, there was a two year period where I did not know how to deal with that. And so instead of actually, I was passive aggressive. I was gossiping about the leader that I was under, and never actually did anything to deal with the issue. And I was miserable for two years, I literally thought I would never do anything again. I end up leaving that job. I had like an identity crisis, or midlife crisis when I left the church that I was at, and then end up at a new organization and literally, you would like God put the exact same person in a different person's body. It had that be my leader. And again, I could go into details with that. But what I had to learn to do is basically I had a situation blow up with a leader where I really had to come face to face and learn how to have hard conversations, learn how to be honest with people, and not be passive aggressive and not gossip and not love gossiping about leaders. And that has changed my life. But it was also like I would, I like what people say like, I wouldn't go back to that season of my life for millions of dollars, but I also would pay millions of dollars for the lessons that I learned from those situations. So

whenever we have situations like that, yeah, I don't want to live through those again. But it's the lessons that you learn are priceless. They really are because you grow as a person. That actually leads me really well into my next question that I had planned. What has happened? I don't know you've talked about some of this stuff already. But what has happened in your in your life that have showed you that Jesus was walking with you, but you didn't realize it until much later?

Yep, both of those seasons.

I look back. And it's funny you like God knows what he's doing, right. And you know, a prayer that I pray often. And I encourage people to pray as God developed me as quickly and as solidly as possible, because I want to grow into who you called me to be as fast as I can. But I don't want it to be so fast that I actually don't develop the character to sustain it. So God help me to be solid. And when you pray that I promise, you got to answer that. But he won't always I'll answer that in the way that you want him to. And I think their seasons are our lives where we are just getting, especially when you're young, it's a season of development. It's not fun, and God has to smooth away all the rough edges in our life and really make us holy and make us like him so we can do what he's called us to do. And they're not fun seasons, but they're necessary. And again, you may not see God in them. I just always think about Joseph, my favorite Bible story. And I was just thinking about Joseph from prison, right? And he was going through all kinds of crazy stuff, but it consistently said the Lord was with Joseph right. And it wasn't until he got out of prison that he realized the purpose and Sometimes we don't always see the purpose of what God's doing now, but always looking back, it's like God, you were right there the whole time. And I was just totally blind to see you.

I really hope that by the conversations that I have here and the people that are listening to them through this podcast that we are more aware of where Jesus is walking with us, because he's always there. He never is going to leave us. He's never going to forsake us. He says, lo, I am with you always. So you know, there's no moment that he's not with us. But there's times where our hearts are burning, and we're just not aware. And I really want to be more aware. So thank you for having conversations like this with me, I appreciate that. But if you imagine yourself taking yourself out for coffee at a younger age, okay, you've rubbed shoulders with some really great people in your life and you took them out for coffee. If you were to go back and to take yourself out for coffee at that younger age. What advice would you give yourself?

Number one, similar to the same story stop being passive aggressive. Stop gossiping. Don't let people come to you, and gossip about everyone and think it feels good because people agree with you and don't turn people against leaders that you don't see eye to eye with. Man. I just think back to man, I think the enemy was able to use me in so many ways because I didn't learn how to deal have hard conversations. And I love gossip. And anyway, so that would be one stop being passive aggressive, stop gossiping, and have straightforward conversations. The other one is just enjoy the journey. I think I'm so focused on getting to the next place that I missed the first place. And he talked about his influence me I remember interviewing Matt Keller, and a question that I always asked me to know actually, he answered this, I said, Is there anything else you want to leave leaders with and you just said, enjoy the journey? It's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. And I think we get so consumed with the vision in our hearts and trying to make it happen, that we don't release it to God and trust him to make it happen. And enjoy the moment we're in. Now. Instead I would just say, enjoy every moment stop waiting to get to the next season and enjoy this.

Do you think that younger Doug would listen to yourself?

That's always a good question. I mean, if it was me from the future, yes, yeah. So, but if someone I had to learn the hard conversation thing the hard way.

Yeah, with a situation that blew up in my face, but I feel like that was the divine smack in the face I needed in that season. Yeah, if you could, I know you, you said that you had this call from a relative that got a chance to talk to your mom and leader to Christ before she passed away. If you could talk to yourself from that time period. How do you think you would have dealt with it?

I would just say go all in with God go all in and you can't even imagine the life that God has planned for you. Psalm 113 verse seven, it says he lifts the poor from the dust and the needy from the garbage dump and he said, some among princes, even the prince of his own people, and I would just say Just trust God and never look back. You are, you're in for the surprise of your life and don't say, don't spend five years worrying about whether or not Laurel marry you, or if you'll ever have a wife because I think I literally wasted five days, five years, every single day worrying if I'd be married, specifically the law. So you get married and you have kids, and it's awesome, Doug, so couldn't stop worrying and enjoy your season.

That's a great advice. What is God teaching you in this season of your life? I know you're you're married now for seven years. You think you said earlier? You have two beautiful daughters, you post about them on Instagram quite a bit, how his father had changed you and how his married life changed you and what is God teaching you right now? I know. That's a trifle question.

Yeah. So to two questions. So what God's teaching me now, I would say just this is so simple. I was actually having this conversation with a friend the other week just to remain in him to remain him the whole john chapter 15 just remain in him abide in me abide in me. He says it over and over again. And I looked at My friend and I said, Is it really that simple? Like it every season of life, we just need to remain in him and abide in him. Because again, I would say, YMY that's what he's teaching me. I think I learned over the past year that, you know, it says in Proverbs that we make plans, but the Lord determines our steps. And specifically, in the last year, I had plans and I was certain this was what I was going to do. And this was my next step. And then God, you know, had a plot twist in my story. And it's like, okay, God, I didn't get it at first, but I'm learning to trust him in that journey. And I think oftentimes what I love about Jesus his life, it said, he would always say his time had not come yet. Right? It's time and not come yet. And I think we live in a generation where we want to be discovered and not developed. And even me now, it's like, you know, 34 and it's like, Am I past the season of development yet? Right? Like, what am I going to start stepping into the next season of my purpose? And I think guys just saying your whole life is going to be a life of development, and interest me for it and Hey, listen with everything again. It all goes back to it. With everything in your heart, trust me for it. And trust me in my timing. I think we try to rush things too much in our culture.

What advice do you have to slow down?

I you don't want me to answer that I'm not qualified to answer that. I mean, I would just say get away. So the best advice I've heard that I do try to listen to is Rick Warren had this saying, I heard it in 2008. And it was game changer. He said divert daily. So he said, If you work with your mind at night, do something with your hands. For him, it's gardening. So for me, I enjoy cooking dinner with my family, etc, just something that is totally opposite for what I do during the day. He said withdraw weekly, so do a Sabbath. I'm not great at this, but I do try to unplug one day of the weekend and just be a family disconnect with my phone and try to make memories that way. And then he said abandon annually and he said, Listen, you have to go on a vacation every year. You owe it to yourself, the rest of you get, I would say I've tried to stick to those things. And they help but it's still really hard for me.

So how is fatherhood changed you?

The people always say Oh, You know, it doesn't make you realize how much God loves you. You know, like, Yeah, you do, but it made me realize how selfish I am. And that it's not about me. That's, that's been the biggest thing. And just, I think I learned very early on with our first child that my mother in law setup as she said, Doug, the secret of life is to give your life away. And I think the more I grow not just as a father, a husband or a follower, I mean, as a follower of Christ. It's just that is so true. And it's not about me, it's not about what's in my heart. It's about me adding value to people and giving my life way for the kingdom's cause. And so that's what I'm learning through my kids is how to give my life away and it starts at home.

And that's real leadership. It really is. Yeah,

yeah. We like to say, you know, three leadership losing the right to think about yourself, and so it's true.

Very cool. So Doug, you're a big reader. I want to ask you what are some books that you would recommend for people that are interested in leadership or books that have impacted your life?

Yeah, ones that we would consistently recommending it, Adele, three levels that have been game changers. I mentioned one already didn't see it coming by Carrie new Hoff. That's a much Read the power of the other by Dr. Henry cloud. It's all about not doing life alone. That's one of our core values as leaders do not do life alone, way too many leaders are living life isolated. And that's not okay. That's why we think everyone needs to be in a mastermind group. What's the other one? Michael Hyatt has a book called Living forward. The book in and of itself isn't isn't necessarily a game changer. But the practice they make you go through and the book is creating a life plan. And I know everyone that I've talked to this, gone through it and l three and created their life plan. And oftentimes, even if they have a spouse, I've included their spouse and that that's been a game changer for them in their life plans. basically looking at your life from the end to now and say, Hey, am I fear? What do I want people to say about each area of my life? And then you basically backtrack and say if that's what I want, if I want to be married for 75 years and my wife and her to say he was the best husband ever? What do I need to do daily my marriage to make sure that's the end of habit? That exercise has been a game changer. So Doug, you've talked about l three leadership and we We've mentioned that a few times throughout. Throughout our discussion here, I want to give you an opportunity to really kind of give a commercial for L three x. I know I've enjoyed it. But I want to give you an opportunity to talk about that and invite people to check it out. Sure. So you heard this a valid theory. And I would just say, again, as I just mentioned, leaders, we do not want leaders to do life alone. And so if you're looking for a community of leaders that will help you grow and develop, you can't encourage you enough to join all three. We have a lot coming up in January, with mastermind groups, we're going to start doing online calls where we're going to give you access to people like Kerry new Hoff, to do an actual video, call with him, do some q&a with him and different leaders like that. So lots of great opportunities coming up. We have a one day Leadership Conference that's coming up in March here in Pittsburgh, l three, one day, I'd encourage you to connect with that. And if you're just listening to this and you're just interested in just learning more, I encourage you to download our podcasts and get a feel for who we are and what we do.

Yeah. Very good. Very good. And what's your website? lc leadership.org And I'll make sure that I provide links for that in the show notes as well. Thank you. Absolutely. I know I've been blessed by being a part of that and the influence that you've had on on my life. And so thank you for what you're doing, Doug. I really

appreciate that. Well, thank you. And as I mentioned, the beginning man, thank you for launching this podcast along the way, and I'm believing God's going to use it in significant ways and everyone listens.

I'm grateful that Doug is so passionate about developing leaders the way that he is his heart to see Sam shoemakers vision of Pittsburgh, being more famous for Jesus than for steel is inspiring, and I love that he is actually doing something about it. Oftentimes, people grab a hold of a vision, but not everyone takes steps to see it come to completion. Big visions take big faith and big action. I appreciate Doug sharing his testimony with me. Hearing that he was rather purposeless and caught up in the drug and party lifestyle is hard to imagine if you meet Doug today. He's one of the most driven individuals that I have ever met. And that drive as it tendency to be contagious with the people that he comes in contact with. It's great to hear that those traits are able to be developed in our own lives. It's not something that you either are born with or not, you can always develop that hunger and desire for growth. When Doug was given that john Maxwell CD, he had two choices to listen to it or to let it sit in the case, but when he did listen to it, he changed his life forever. There have been some messages that I have heard that I have decided to transcribe as well. They are transformative, but only if we let them. Who knows where that would be today if he had decided to pass on the opportunity to listen to that life changing CD. You know, that makes me think about my own life. What CDs books or other resources that I've been given by someone that is trying to invest in me that I haven't followed through with and I'm just letting it sit on my shelf. I just took a moment to look at the bookshelves around me and the stacks of books on my desk. And there are at least five books that I bought or have been Given that I haven't really followed through with reading them yet. Now, to be fair, as a producer of a daily TV program, I have a lot of books that I've been given a lot. It can be a little overwhelming at times. But developing a daily reading habit has been one of the best things that I was challenged to do by my life coach. I don't have to read a book a week or a chapter a day. He said, just start with three pages a day. And you know, when I set myself up for success to help myself just get started. You know what, most days I find myself reading more than three pages this year, I have finished more books than I have read in the past several years. What are you doing to invest in yourself and your leadership ability, Doug chased after the leaders in his life and ask them to invest in him that set him on a course in life for success. As I said in the conversation, when God wants to bless you he brings someone into your life when God wants to protect you he takes someone out of your life. Doug has been extremely purposeful with taking advantage of the opportunities to rub shoulders and to have coffee with great leaders. Who has God brought into your life that could change your life if you pursue them. When we have conversations, let's make sure that we're listening to the person we are talking with and not be distracted by what your response will be. If you are trying to add value to others, and they are trying to add value to you, then we can really make this world a better place. I like what Doug said. And it's kind of his

prayer, because I want to grow into who you called me to be as fast as I can. But I don't want it to be so fast that I actually don't develop the character to sustain it. So God helped me to be solid.

And he really described the mentality of our culture very well when he said,

We live in a generation where we want to be discovered and not developed.

That is so true. We don't want to do the work to reach our goal. We just want to achieve our goals right now. I've heard so many stories of overnight successes that were really years in the making. Don't beat yourself up over things that are taking time to develop. Remember, you are being developed as quickly as possible and as solidly as possible, but only if we let God lead us through the process where we might have to start the process all over again. It's better to do it right the first time. So let's let God be God and lead us where he wants us. Doug is often quoting something that he is heard or is read. And the advice of divert daily withdraw weekly and abandon annually is really helpful. I personally need to get better at diverting daily, I can get stuck on the same task and stay in that same vein. But we really need to switch things up and give ourselves a break and develop some other interests. But I'll start small and work my way up. Just get started. That's the important part. One of the last things that Doug talked about is that it's not good to do life alone. Small groups to your church mastermind groups through leadership organization or Any other shape that it might take. It's important to remember that you aren't designed to do life all by yourself. There are people that God has put in your life to help you become the man or woman that God has designed you to be. Let's be purposeful in developing ourselves so that we can add value to others. For more information about Doug Smith, you can check out his website l three leadership.org. And definitely check out his leadership podcast l three leadership, I'll be providing links in the show notes. Thank you for listening to along the way. If you've enjoyed joining me along my way, please share this episode with a friend who you think will be encouraged by this podcast. Also, please give the five star rating and review along the way on iTunes that will help more people discover along the way. And you can subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcast. You can follow us on Facebook and Instagram and at my website along the way dot media. You can always email me at John along the way@gmail.com. I hope that you enjoyed this part of my journey and may you realize when Jesus is walking with you along your way