The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - How To Use Your Disadvantages To Overcome Anything In Life With Former Felon Turned Award Winning Author, Speaker, & Entrepreneur; Doug Bopst

Episode Date: June 21, 2021

#367: On today's episode we are joined by Doug Bopst. Doug Bopst is an award-winning personal trainer, author, speaker and business owner. He is also a former felon and drug addict, sentenced to years in jail due to his poor decisions. He chose to use that time locked in a small cell to beat his demons and reinvent himself thanks to a combination of faith, family and fitness. To connect with Doug Bopst click HERE To connect with Vanessa Fitzgerald click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) Check Out Lauryn's NEW BOOK, Get The Fuck Out Of The Sun HERE This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential  The Hot Mess Ice Roller is here to help you contour, tighten, and de-puff your facial skin and It's paired alongside the Ice Queen Facial Oil which is packed with anti-oxidants that penetrates quickly to help hydrate, firm, and reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, leaving skin soft and supple. To check them out visit www.shopskinnyconfidential.com now.  This episode is brought to you by Nutrafol Nutrafol’s goal is to empower women to embrace the beauty of their hair growth recovery with Nutrafol Postpartum by targeting the root causes of postpartum thinning hair-like the physical stress of childbirth and emotional stress of parenting, as well nutrient depletion. Visit www.nutrafol.com and use promo code SKINNY to save $15 off your first month's subscription and free shipping.  This episode is brought to you by BETABRAND and their Betabrand dress pant yoga pants. To try these pants go to betabrand.com/skinny and receive 20% off your order. Millions of women agree these are the most comfortable pants you’ll ever wear to work.  This episode is brought to you by Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning space offering more than 25,000 courses. Join the millions of students already learning on Skillshare today with a special offer just for our listeners: Get two months of Skillshare for free. That’s right, Skillshare is offering The Skinny Confidential listeners two months of unlimited access to over 25,000 classes for free. To sign up, go to www.skillshare.com/skinny Produced by Dear Media 

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. This episode is brought to you by Get the Fuck Out of the Sun. That's right. My book, my second book. It's launched. It's here. It's pink. It's matte. It's cute. You will want it on your Instagram feed. It has all the skincare resources and value that you could possibly want. It's like 40 magazines in one. I hope you guys love it. I wrote it for you. It's available on Amazon, Target, Barnes & Noble, and where all books are sold. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire.

Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to The Skinny Confidential, him and her. Whatever it is to kind of reduce the half-life of the adversity when you're in those moments and then prove to yourself that you can get through hard times and work that muscle. I believe you have to work emotional and mental muscles just as much as physical muscles.

You got to work the faith muscle. You got to work the adversity muscle. You got to work the belief muscle. You got to work the adversity muscle. You got to work the belief muscle. You got to work the discipline muscle. And you got to work that hope muscle and just know that whatever you're going through right now, and it sucks, but whatever you're going through right now, just know that it's happening for a reason. Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential, him and her show. I am Lauren Bostick, my husband across from me, Michael Bostick. I'll just introduce you for the day. We have Doug Bopst on the show today, and he is an award-winning personal trainer, an author, a speaker, and a business owner. Why we wanted to have Doug on

the show today is because he has an incredible story, you guys. He's a former felon and drug addict, and he was sentenced to months in jail. He also talks about his demons, his addiction, and reinventing himself. He's so inspiring. And I think this story is just really, really great for anyone who's experienced adversity and wants to come out through the other side. Michael is actually the one that introduced me to Doug. We met during the lockdown through Zoom, which we've all been living in Zoom. And I went on Doug's show, The Adversity Advantage, and just really got along. We had a great conversation. And I thought to myself, hey, Lauren, you should go on this show, talk to Doug. And then in addition to that,

have him on our show. I think, you know, right away when I started talking, I'm like, this guy's got to come on and tell our audience his story, because it's so incredible. Like Lauren says, he comes from a lot of adversity, and he's really pulled himself up by his bootstraps and, you know, made something pretty significant of his life. And it's not been easy for him. And you'll hear that in this story. And I think it's so relatable because so many people, they have hardships in life, they have struggles. And Doug's message is very refreshing because he points out that you can have those struggles and disadvantages and still do something big with your life. And he's clearly done that. So I'm excited for everyone to hear this episode. There's a lot in it. There's a lot of gems. I'm glad we got to do this in person in Austin when he came out. Doug, thanks for coming

out. And one thing that Michael and I hate, and that is bullies. We do not like bullies. And his story involves a lot of bullying. So I think that this is a really important episode, especially with the world that we're living in right now. So we discuss bullying, we discuss addiction, recovery, and transforming your life to be the best version of yourself. With that, let's welcome Doug to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. This is the Skinny Confidential Him and Her. Doug, yeah, you should move out here, man. It was a good choice. We don't regret anything. People ask like, oh, the world's opened it back up.

Like, are you glad you went to Austin? I'm like, yeah, I haven't looked back once. We love it. Yeah, it's like the perfect combination of like the country a little bit because it's Texas. Yep. And then it's more progressive where there's a lot of culture here. There's the art scene. There's music scene.

There's a lot of podcasters out here. So it's almost like its own little entertainment industry has moved here. Which is pretty cool, right? It is cool. It is. And it's also like I feel not that I can slow down work-wise, but I can slow down with my family here. I really make moments throughout the day, like whether that's walking the baby and doing a conference call or just going outside and putting our feet in the grass, it's different than LA. Well, I think also just the people here are so nice. It's a different energy. And you're talking about back and forth to LA. Lauren and I,

we grew up in San Diego, so it's a little bit outside of LA. We obviously spent a lot of time in LA. But to me, LA is a very difficult place to go unless you have a purpose to be there. It's a city with a lot of transits, people moving from other places to go and try to find a career or be somebody. And if you don't really find that out there, it could be a really difficult city to be a part of. Yeah, I can imagine that. I've heard that it can be hard to raise a family. You get a lot of people that move out there for the entertainment scene or they want to get to Cali. And then they have a shift and they're like, I want to have a family.

I want to get married. Like, is this really the place I want to be? And I'm not judging people who choose that, but I've heard there's a lot of people that just have had a hard time with that. And especially with everything that's happened with the pandemic, where one of the draws to moving out there was being able to experience the nice weather, go to the nice restaurants, go to the beach.

And when COVID happened, and that was unfortunately taken away from a lot of people, the draw became significantly less. And people really had to lean into, I think, what they really appreciated about LA and California. And there was a lot of people that were like, maybe I don't like it as much as I thought I did. And people made that change. Yeah. Highest cost of living. It got pretty, in my opinion, oppressive and difficult during COVID. And listen, I'm not going to get political on this show because people get mad at me when I do it. I beat it with dead horse. But I just think you got to let people make their own choices, man. And out here, you just feel like people aren't in this box of fear or freaking out. It's a little bit more open-minded. They let you live your own life. I don't regret it at all. But anyways, thanks for making the trip out here. It's my pleasure. I'm excited for this.

All the way from Baltimore, we have Doug. And I've been on Doug's podcast, So Has Michael. You guys have to go listen to those episodes. He interviewed us separately. Thank God. I would love to get some context on how you grew up and I want to go way back to when you were little. Yeah. So what's interesting and I'll start off like this is, you know, y'all both came on my podcast and my show is called The Adversity Advantage. And I'm also a personal trainer. I've written a few books and I speak, but growing up, I used adversity to my complete disadvantage. And what I mean by that is I was battling so many insecurities in the most unhealthy way. My parents got divorced when I was five, right? Grew up in Baltimore. Parents got divorced when I was five. I suffered every

form of abuse you could think of. I was bullied and I was picked on in school. Never had a girlfriend in grade school, not even in high school. I loved sports, loved watching sports, loved playing sports, loved collecting baseball cards, football cards, but I was a terrible athlete. So you can imagine all these insecurities that I was stacking at such a young age. And I was looking for any way I could to escape. And as I look back initially, it was through food where I would just eat cinnamon buns for breakfast, tons of pasta, pizza. And to be honest, it was nothing different than what my friends were eating. But I had terrible genetics to combine those two things. And probably the distress that I was enduring just from my own choices in my environment, I started gaining weight at a young age. I started wearing husky pants when I was a kid. When you say abuse, do you mean abuse by other people or abuse by yourself to your own body? It was a combination of both. I was bullied in school, hardcore. I was made fun of. I was told that I looked like I had Down syndrome. Oh my God, you're lucky you didn't go to school with me. I would have beat their fucking ass. Yeah. And I started to believe all that. Not that I thought I did, but I was quite heavier than I am

now. And I didn't have any definition and I was just a pudgy kid. So I started to somewhat believe that. And the combination of not having girls... Because let's face it, growing up as a guy, part of your validation comes from how good you are at sports and if girls like you. And I never had girls that were really into me. So I just had this mindset that maybe I am this ugly kid. Maybe I am this piece of crap. And look at me. I'm having to wear different clothes than other kids.

Look at me. I'm getting cut from these teams. And so I had this ball of anxiety, this ball of fear just stored up inside of me, just ready to burst. And what initially burst the big bubble for me was when I started smoking pot. Now, mind you, I'm a former convicted felon. I've spent time in jail. And I never thought in a million years that when I took that first hit off a marijuana pipe that I would end up in jail. Nobody does, right? Because if they did, they wouldn't do drugs. And that's where it starts for a lot of people. It doesn't just start with you going out and getting arrested.

It starts with something. Now, I'm not here to say that somebody should or shouldn't smoke pot. What I am here to say is for me, it wasn't a gateway drug. I had gateway pain and trauma. So when I took my first hit off a marijuana pipe when I was 14, I felt this monkey come off my back. I felt like I could be at peace with finally with the person that I was. I didn't have to worry if I was ever going to find love. I didn't have to worry if I was ever going to be successful. I didn't have to worry if I was ever going to make a team again. I could just be myself. And so what happens is you have to keep chasing that numbing feeling. I had to keep chasing the high. It's not like I love the taste of pot.

I loved how it made me feel. So one hit led to two, led to three, led to four. And sure enough, I'm smoking weed every day because now I've built a tolerance. And at this point- And what age was this? So I started smoking when I was 14. When I started smoking it every day, it was shortly after. 14, 15 years old, I'm smoking weed every day. And so now I'm starting to have to sell a little bit on the side to support my own habit. That was going to be my next question. I was like, 14, young, how do you afford to do that every day?

And I got a job when I was young, just washing dishes and working at local eateries and such. But it wasn't nearly enough money to support a daily pot habit. And it created some tension in my mom's house with me and her because she was the one that initially I think had noticed a lot of my bad behavior and stuff. And so I actually ended up getting kicked out of her house on my 16th birthday. She found a little bit of pot that I was weighing out to sell to a friend of mine, was kicked out, sent to my dad's house to live there full time because we had split custody and changed schools within 24 hours. Now they thought that that would have me change my habits, change my friends, change my environment, change my choices. But all it did

was create more trauma, more pain, more insecurities. Like what's wrong with me? Why am I getting kicked out? And as I look back, like my mom did the best she could in the situation, right? But in that moment, I was a wreck. So I changed schools, make new friends with the people doing the same stuff that I was doing before, barely graduate high school because all my friends and I did was we would ride around, smoke pot, listen to music, cut class to get high. And so I barely graduated. And shortly after I graduated high school, I wanted to become almost like a professional drug dealer. And so now I'm selling pot to make money where I'm picking up sometimes a pound of pot at a time, two pounds of pot a week to sell to make money. And where are you going to do this? So initially, it was just through connections I

had made in school. But then when I got out of high school, I ended up meeting a guy through a friend who was like a professional quote-unquote drug dealer. Because when you start moving that kind of weight, that's a whole different ballgame. You're dealing with people that they're taking that seriously. Yeah. It's coming in from Canada. It's not just coming in from a random person at school anymore. You're getting like vacuum sealed bags of pot to sell that are worth thousands of dollars. I mean, I want to say this.

This is what I would say off air or on air. It is very entrepreneurial of you though. Oh, well, drug dealers are the original entrepreneurs. I mean, I honestly like you have to respect the hustle

and the entrepreneurship that's involved. Well, the thing, I mean, listen, I think like, I mean, if you were to just, if you were to say like this, this area is not an illegal area of business. You would blow it the fuck out. No, no, no. It's not.

No, I'm not saying me. I'm saying there is a hustler mentality. There's obviously taking something like, that's what entrepreneurship is, right? It's taking something that's worth something one place and turning it into a bigger profit someplace else, right? And it's like learning how to create that value in between. And it's crazy to think about all this now because I kind of know where this is going, especially as you see this all legalized all over the country and people doing

like massive, massive terms in prison for it, which is a whole nother thing that I've been going on a tangent about. And I think at the end of the day, as I look back, it helped me in my entrepreneurial journey today, either whether it's as a trainer, whether it's as a podcaster, the importance of relationships, the importance of being reliable, taking care of other people, having your phone blow up. And that almost became another high for me as I look back was feeling wanted and needed. Because like I said, I never had the girlfriend in school, so I never had that quote unquote feeling of being wanted by somebody. My phone would blow up all day and I would get excited that I would have hundreds of missed calls or whatever it was from if I was out and not able to answer my phone.

And what also happens is when you're moving that kind of weight, you meet more people that are doing drugs and harder drugs. Right after I graduated high school, I started selling more pot and I started experimenting with cocaine. And my addictive nature caught up with me where I was just looking to take anything, anything that made me feel outside of myself. And I started starting coke and that turned into a daily habit. And then I ended up getting to a point where I was snorting like an eight ball Coke a day. Wow. Can we talk about like the in between there? Like how do you start snorting Coke? How did you start to know it was a problem? I feel like when people come on and they tell their story about drugs, it's like, oh, I started coke, then I started doing this, and I started doing that. Get really micro with me of that in between of

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place for you to go and get real experience. And an annual subscription is less than $10 a month. So from an education perspective, cost perspective, less than $10 a month, you can barely beat that. Explore your creativity at Skillshare.com slash TSC and get a one month free trial of premium membership. That's one month of a premium membership at Skillshare.com slash TSC. Again, Skillshare.com slash TSC. initially happen was I was moving more weight with pot. And then whoever I would meet with pot sometimes, whether it was somebody I was getting it from or selling it to, would have other drugs. And so there was somebody who had a little bit of Coke and he was like, hey man, you want to try some Coke? And initially my gut was like, dude, do not touch this. But then my mind was like, come on, do it. Don't be a wuss. And he's like, you're going to be the cool kid. Because I was always trying to fit in too, right?

I was always trying to be whatever, do whatever I could to fit in and be in the cool crowd because to myself, I wasn't cool. So I needed to look cool. And I thought to me, that was the thing to do. And I remember I was in a car with, we were in the, I was in the car with my friends. We were riding around smoking pot. And I felt super awkward because I was afraid to tell my friends I had a little bit of Coke. And I was just, I remember saying to one of my friends,

I said, hey, I got some Coke. And he was like, give me a line. I was like, oh my gosh. And there was a sense of relief, but also a massive sense of fear. Cause I'm like, where is this going? And then I pulled out like a little bit of Coke we had. I had like a little CD case in my car.

Cause back then we still listened to CDs. Yeah, those are the days. Yeah, you pulled out a little bit of Coke we had. I had a little CD case in my car, because back then we still listened to CDs. Yeah, those are the days. You pulled out a credit card and you would chop up a line on the CD case, roll up a dollar bill or whatever it was, and then you'd snort it and put it up your nose. Now, when I first started snorting Coke, I felt this massive feeling of euphoria that I could do anything, that I had the ability to ask. Isn't half cocaine, no laxatives? And aren't you in the, in line for the bathroom about to shit your pants? Just be real. Some people cut their Coke, would cut their Coke with,

with laxatives. Adderall, right? Adderall it's been cut with. I think Isotol, I think if I remember correctly, it's been so long, but there was a lot of people back then that were selling just really good quality Coke. And you could taste it. It just had this taste to it that you could tell if it was just pure blow. It kind of numbs your gums, huh? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like it gives your gums a numb. What do they call it? Gummies? A nummy. A nummy. You would literally take your finger off and take the residue off of the Coke that was left in the CD case and you would rub it on the inside of your gums, your lips,

and your face would go numb. And it was insane. It was a great feeling. It was this euphoric feeling. But the problem is, just like anything like that, what goes up must come down. And so I would get this feeling of euphoria and then I would crash.

And so I would have to feel that feeling again and that's why when I'm selling drugs, I have almost endless amounts of cash to spend that I would have to just buy more Coke to support my habit and then I wanted to be the cool kid because once people found out, oh, Doug's doing Coke,

then I began getting me more text messages, more phone calls for people wanting to hang around me. And then again, it's the same thing with the pot. Pot was one hit, two hit, three hit, same with Coke. One line turns into needing to do two lines to get the same effect, three lines, four lines, and then it snowballs into me doing a gram a day and then an eight ball a day. But the problem with Coke and me was, like I said a few minutes ago, I had crazy anxiety. And cocaine and anxiety go about as well together as somebody trying to lose weight and eat pizza every day. It's not going to happen. Not going to happen.

And so I started getting these massive panic attacks. And what happened was there was one night I was super high on Coke, super high on pot, and I was driving around by myself. I remember this night to this day. I was smoking cigarettes at the time too. My heart started racing. Now, mind you, I'm a lot heavier than I am now. So my health wasn't great.

I wasn't exercising. I was eating't great. I wasn't exercising. I was eating like crap. I wasn't taking care of myself. Heart starts racing. My face goes numb. I start getting this pain in my chest. And I sincerely thought I was having a heart attack because at the time,

I think I was like 18 or 19 at this point. I mean, I had been to several funerals at this time in my life from friends, not just people I heard about or knew, people that I hung out with, either for drugs, drinking and driving, car accidents. And what was interesting was I'd never thought that I was going to live to see my 25th birthday because of going to these funerals. And also we idolized, I remember that poster that had all the rock stars who died at 27. That's who we looked up to because we were like-

Like Morrison, Hendrix, Joplin. This is like, if we can't party and get high anymore, what's the point of living? So I'm in the car. I thought of having a heart attack. I ended up, at the time, I had been kicked out of my dad's house right after I graduated high school. He kicked me out and I'm bouncing around from couch to couch. And my friend had just gone away to college and he had let me stay on his couch and his parents were there and we were really close. And I remember walking in and screaming that I thought I was dying. And she was just like, any parent was like, what? Because I mean, I'm a teenager. There's like no I'm dying. Help, help. And they're like, sir, you need to sit down. And I'm like, I'm dying. And they're like, sir, sit down. And I'm sitting down. I had no idea what was going on. They take me back into a room. They like strap me up and give me these tests, IVs and stuff. And they're like, what kind of drugs are you on? I'm like, I'm not on drugs. And they're like, come on, just be honest. I remember just telling them, I'm like, this is

what I'm on. This is that, this and that. And they're like, come on, just be honest. I remember just telling them, I'm like, this is what I'm on, this and that. And they're like, you just had a panic attack. And I didn't know what a panic attack was because this is back in the mid 2000s, right? Mental health wasn't talked about like it is today. And I had no idea what a panic attack was. I mean, I knew what anxiety was, but I didn't know what a panic attack was.

I literally felt like I was gonna die. And they're like, you just need to take better care of your health. So you would think that would make me stop doing drugs, stop selling drugs, get a real job and change my life, change my friends. And it didn't. And I leave the hospital, keep doing drugs, but I now had this fear because what happens with people that have anxiety and anxiety attacks sometimes, I don't know if anybody who's listening to this has experienced it. Now the fear became, when am I going to get another anxiety attack?

And so- I had a roommate that had that same issue, yeah. And so my logical mind was like A plus B equals C. It was like, okay, if Doug gets high, he's going to have a panic attack. So that was my fear. So what would happen every time I got high? I'd have a panic attack. I'd be riding around with my friends, smoking weed, doing coke, panic attack. I'd have to pull my car over, let them drive. So embarrassing. And I had this book on panic attacks. I look back and I can laugh now, but my friends would be like, just read your book. Nobody understood it.

Well, didn't they have the audio CDs that you could listen to to get you through it? I remember my roommate had one of these things. He had to put the CD on. I won't put them on blast, but I know the result. Again, when you're in the middle of a panic attack, you're not pulling out your novel and saying, hey, let me just take a break here. You're just fully in it. It's a weird thing to watch.

Yeah, you're fully in it and you literally think you're dying because you have all the sensations of it because you almost feel disconnected from your body. Your heart's racing. You get these weird pains. You get blurry vision sometimes. body. Your heart's racing. You get these weird pains. You get blurry vision sometimes. You get your heart's racing. And when you're somebody like me that was just eating so much fast food, doing copious amounts of drugs every day, smoking cigarettes, there was a chance that I thought I was going

to die. And everyone around you probably makes it worse because they're sitting there like, what the hell's wrong? Or they just chill. And I'm like, I can't chill. That's the worst thing to tell somebody with anxiety is just to chill. But what people don't know is that there's a certain percentage of people

that pot can cause paranoia. And so I literally just smoked myself almost to death. Like I was smoking a quarter ounce of pot a day along with the Coke. So one day I'm hanging around. And no alcohol is involved in this? No alcohol. No, I wasn't a big drinker back then.

I could take it or leave it. And so one day we're in one of my friend's garages and I'd still been having these panic attacks, still doing the Coke and still smoking the pot and selling the pot. And he's like, just try this. I didn't know any, it was a five milligram Percocet. And I had no idea where this Percocet

was going to take me. And this is the perfect storm because of the anxiety. Exactly. And the cocaine hangover. Yeah. So I had learned that I needed to do whatever I could to hang out with the same group of friends because since my family dynamic was kind of broken, and you see this a lot, I clung to this group of kids as my family, if you will,

because I had just missed this sense of community at home and had a torn relationship with my parents that they kind of filled that void for me. So I didn't have the confidence in myself to make the logical decision and say, all right, I'm gonna stop using drugs and I'm just gonna go change my friend group. I needed to continue to do what I could to still get high and hang out with them. So he hands me this five milligram Percocet and I take it. I just took it,

swallowed it. And the same five milligram, actually, I can't remember if I swallowed it or snorted it at this point, but it doesn't matter. The same feeling that came when I first started smoking pot came again when I did the Percocet. And then I started snorting painkillers every day because now I was like, I could take that Percocet and I could still get high with my friends without having a panic attack. What does it feel like to snort Percocet? Does that burn your nose? Does it hurt or does it feel like nothing? Initially, yeah, it can burn a little bit when you're not used to it. And so the Percocets, a lot of the Percocets, like if you get your wisdom teeth pulled

or you have an injury, there's a lot of filler. I think it's called acetaminophen. I think that's how you pronounce it. It's like Tylenol. So it can actually just clog your nose. Like it fills up. That's why, like, I don't know if you've ever heard of just OxyContin, which was like the pure Oxy,

like Purdue Pharma, like where it would have OC on one side and then whatever milligram the pill was on the other side. That was like the cream of the crop back in the day. So the five milligram Percocet, if you snorted it, there might be a little filler stuck in your nose and it was harder to snort. And yeah, initially it might burn, but your nose builds a tolerance. And so again, same trajectory, five milligrams turns into 10, turns into 20. And I'm getting all these pills now from different drug connections I'm meeting along the way from selling drugs.

And now I'm having all this money because now I'm selling even more pot because I'm going to the strip club regularly. Because again, my first sense of- Because you're not taking the pot anymore? You're just, or are you still? I was, but I was making so much money that I needed to find ways to spend it. And it was simple. It was drugs, strip clubs, and fast food.

And I look back, and I could have saved so much money back then because I was spending, at one point, several hundred hours a day on my painkiller habit because the 10 milligrams led to 20. And then I was snorting like 300, 400 milligrams a day just to support my habit. When you're doing that, like when you're in the moment, like picture yourself back there, is it something that feels normal to you at the time?

Or do you say to yourself, this is a problem. I need to get it under control. I'll figure it out Monday. You know, when you come to me and you're always like, I got the juice and you're like, tell me you got the juice on. And you're saying that in reference to like the gossip, the skinny, the juice. Every time you say it, I think you also got that juicy butt. That is because of Beta Brands dress pant yoga pants. I am looking cute in my loungewear. Thanks to them. I cannot get enough of their black pants. I am telling you they come in other colors, but I am a fan of the black. I am still in the midst of losing some baby weight. So they

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of these pants. You're going to go to betabrand.com slash skinny for 25% off. Enjoy. I love this question. And this is why. And I've talked about this before where there comes a time where initially you start doing drugs for the fun of it to fit in to get high and then the pendulum swings. And now you're doing drugs to maintain your habit and numb the pain, numb the shame of the person that you've become. Now, back then, I think part of me, of course, knew that I shouldn't be doing what I'm doing. But a big part of me was like, dude, this is how you're gonna survive. Like you can't manage your emotions without doing this.

You're not gonna be cool unless you continue to do this. Like this is who you're meant to be. And your identity is almost wrapped up in that. And sure, like there was definitely glimpses back then where I was like, I need help. I need to stop this. But the wanting of wanting to numb my pain and my emotions and be the cool kid and fit in far outweighed it for me at that time.

And I think our external world is a direct reflection of how we feel about ourselves internally. So I had been doing so many drugs and selling so many drugs and damaged relationships. My health was out of control, no girlfriend, damaged relationships with my family, but I felt like shit about myself. I felt so horrible. So those decisions would reflect that. So I would make decisions that were in line with somebody who felt like crap about themselves, doing drugs, selling drugs, hanging out with people that brought me down, just blowing tons of money at strip clubs.

And not that I have anything against that. Like I said, that's what works for people. That's what works for you. But I was doing it for the wrong reason. I was literally doing it to fill this void of love that I had. And everything just kind of, it came to a head.

And one of my, I thought at the time, biggest setbacks in my entire life became my biggest blessing. Because like I said, I'm 19 years old, 20 years old, snorting three, 400 milligrams of Oxycontin a day. Which is a shitload. Wow. Yeah. Like to put in perspective, what, they give you like five milligrams or so when you get your wisdom teeth taken out?

Yeah. So it's, and what would happen is this. So these these are right it's it's fives or 7.5s and you're taking like one or two for like serious pain after like surgery yeah i remember looking at one of my clients he just had like his hip replaced or something and he had like a pill bottle and we were sitting there just watching watching tv and he had given him these percocets or whatever it was for his hip i said how many you're in? I forget the number. Maybe it was like 30. And I was like, you know, I would take at least a bottle of those a day up my nose.

Holy shit. Wait, I have a question. Why, and I don't know like if this is an appropriate question. Tell me if it's not. Go ahead. Why up your nose and why not smoking or taking it in your mouth?

Or sometimes I know people progress to shooting. Was that just the way that you wanted to do it? There's a deeper rush you get. Okay. I was wondering if there's a reason. There's almost like stages, right? So I would say, and this is just based on my own experience, you get one high if you eat a pill.

Then the next level I would say is probably chewing it up maybe. And then you snort it and then you can smoke it and then you can inject it. And to me back then, I never did heroin. So I was like, Ooh, I'm okay. I'm not doing heroin. I've heard that from a lot of people who do pills. They think they're okay. You know what's scary about like when you were just telling me that story about your buddy that had the the hip replacement i know people that have never had issues with addiction like well into their like later in life right like professional men and women that go and get surgery and get or at least they were prescribed oxy or percocet and develop a serious habit yeah i don't think people realize someone who had to go to rehab and he's like has never drank in his life and he started...

Yeah, he developed a habit from this and he couldn't believe it. And the reason I point that out is I don't think people realize how strong the substance you're talking about is. Yeah, and I had no idea. And to be honest, I knew I wasn't putting spinach in my system, right? But I had no idea how fast I would get addicted to this stuff. That's why I brought it up because I don't think most people think that about... It's not the same... If you start... Listen, I'm not an addict, obviously, and I never lived in your shoes, but... You're a love addict to me.

It seems like people... You're addicted to me. That experiment with pills when they do, that escalates way faster than the other stuff. Yeah. Well, I think because it does a few things, right? You get this euphoric feeling of the rush and then it numbs the pain at the same time. And I think for me, it was much deeper than that. It numbed the pain, gave me this euphoric rush. I was able to maintain my sense of community. I was able to manage my anxiety. I was able to not have panic attacks, not be embarrassed when I was around my friends. I was able to just completely check out and in the simplest way possible. And things really started to get bad for me.

Like I said, I was doing three, 400 milligrams a day. Half my left nostril was missing, missing. It was just so corroded from snorting so much stuff. And it was to the point where I had to snort like 150, 160 milligrams just to be able to get out of bed. And there was definitely times where I wanted to get help and I wanted to change. And I think nobody wants to be in the position that I was in. The problem is that we lacked, or I lacked, I should say, the confidence or the faith or the hope that I could do it, that I could change. And so Cinco de Mayo 2008, I was riding around with a few of my friends to go make a drug deal. Had a half a pound of pot in my trunk, a couple thousand dollars in cash, and I had a busted headlight that I had been meaning to fix. Back when you're doing drugs, all you care about is who you're getting high with, when you're getting drugs, what you're doing, what you're going to eat after, what's the music you're

going to listen to. That was it. So changing my headlight was not at the forefront of my mind. And so a cop's running radar. Again, it's one of the biggest drinking nights of the year. I decided it would be a brilliant idea to flash my high beams at him to hide the fact that I had a busted headlight. Oh God. And in reality, that's like a warning that a cop's like running radar, I think, right? So he pulls me over.

I like stammer to get my registration and my license out. And one thing leads to the next and he pulls me out of the car and searches it. And in that moment, I thought my life was over. My heart's obviously racing. It's in the pit of my stomach. Just, it was crazy.

And he puts me in handcuffs, puts me in the back of a cop car. I remember sitting there and vividly remember this. And every bad choice I had ever made in my life just came to a head in that moment. I thought about the way I responded to all my circumstance. I thought about the way I dealt with a divorce. I thought about the ways I dealt with the girls rejecting me. I thought about the ways that I dealt with getting cut from the teams, the bullying, everything. Because I was wondering, how did

you get here? That's the number one question is, how do I get here? How does this kid who just wanted to be good at sports, how does this kid who just wanted to be good at sports, how does this kid who just wanted to be loved, how does this kid who just wanted to fit in, how does he in the back of a cop car now facing felony drug charges? So taken to jail. And at this point, when I'm taken to jail, any dreams that I had at all were shattered. Because growing up, I did have some aspirations. I wanted to be an accountant or an FBI agent or an astronaut. I mean, in the sports, I had dreams as a kid. And so I'm taken to jail. I'm charged with a felony possession with intent to distribute marijuana, which is funny. It was a felony back then. Now it's obviously we were talking-

Now it's an essential business. Yeah, exactly. And then a few months later, I end up going to court. Now, again, you would think in that moment, after I get arrested and I'm charged with a felony, that I would decide to make a change. But no, it built more layers of insecurity, more anxieties, more fears, because now I'm like, oh, crap, I might go to jail. And there was no way I would last in jail. So I go to court in September of 2008, and the judge looks at me, and he sentences me to five years in jail,

but suspends everything but 90 days. So what that means is I had five years hanging over my head. If I messed up, if I failed a drug test, if I missed a probation appointment, if I got under charge, whatever it was, I could potentially go back and serve that full five years. Gave me five years probation, 200 hours community service, all kinds of fines and drug classes.

But he looks at me and he says, Doug, you're young, I'm gonna give you a break. I'm like, break? I'm like, that's a break? So he convicts me of the felony. And he's like, you're young, you're 20 years old, this felony can haunt you for the rest of your life. Because back then, like I said, it was much more stigmatized. Being a convicted felon back in 2008 was not a good thing. And so he's like, if you complete everything without messing up,

no missed probation appointments, no failed drug tests, you do your community service, everything, I'll take the felony conviction off your record at the end of the five years. And I was just like, all right, man, whatever. I just thought to myself, I was high in court. I had gotten high before I went to court. I was going to get high when I left. I was like, whatever. So he gives me a few weeks to gather my stuff and end up reporting to jail. It was about three weeks later, October 21st, 2008, I reported to jail. Ironically, it was a week after my 21st birthday. Yeah. And so the crazy thing is this, and I love telling this story, is when I went into jail, I was crying because I didn't want to go in. And when I left, I cried because I didn't want to

leave. What? Yeah. Hold on. I have a really big obsession with jail. I love watching jail shows. Ask Michael, what was jail like and why did you not want to leave? Hold up. Let's talk about healthy hair and let's talk about hair growth. So during postpartum, I've talked to so many women, they all feel the same. It is like so crazy how your hair gets thinner after you've had a baby. I don't know if you guys have felt like that. I felt like I see definitely more shedding after Zaza, which is why I've been obsessed with finding a product to make your hair look luscious and healthy, all the things. So enter Nutrafol Postpartum.

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but then you'll be able to see the thicker, stronger hair with less shedding. So consistency is key here. You can grow stronger, healthier hair and support the Skinny Confidential Hem and Her Show by going to Nutraful.com and using the promo code SKINNY, you're going to save $15 off your first month subscription. This is the best offer anywhere, and it's only available to U.S. customers for a limited time. So you get free shipping on every order. Get $15 off at Nutrafol.com. That's spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L.com, promo code SKINNY. Again, Nutrafol dot com promo code skinny. So initially, I didn't want to go in. I'll start there. Initially, I had all these fears. What's going to happen to a guy like me? All the fears that you think about, I had. What's going to

happen? And then I had this horrific opiate addiction I had to kick. So when I walked through the gates of jail and I get checked in, I started to detox cold turkey from the oxy because there was nothing in there to save me. I couldn't get more pills. And what that feels like for anybody who's listening, for me, it was three weeks of pure hell. It was like having the worst case of the flu, uncontrollable bowel movements, vomiting, insomnia, anxiety, pain, like everything. And the other inmates know what you're going through? Oh yeah. Because that was like common.

People would go in there and they would be detoxing from drugs at times. And one of the hardest things to be honest, I mean, you want to get like the nitty gritty of jail was having to go to the bathroom in front of another person. So awkward, so uncomfortable. And then having them kind of look at you like, what's he going through? And I was kind of timid and nervous, like, man, I don't want to offend this guy. I don't want to bother this guy. But the worst feeling of it all was this, was the feeling of where you feel like you're trying to crawl out of your own skin.

And as I look back, I felt like it was the old Doug that was leaving. So a new version of me could be born. And my soon-to-be cellmate was sitting there at the Scrabble tables playing Scrabble. I love to play Scrabble in jail. So in jail, some of the stuff we would do for fun, we would watch some TV, we'd read the Bible. I heard they watch Housewives. I don't remember it. Was 48 Laws of Power in there? I don't remember. So what I read of Power in there? I don't remember. So what I read, I read American Gangster. That was a big thing for me.

Because I was still going into jail. I still had the drug dealer mindset. I was like, yeah, screw jail. Okay. What else? You said there was other extracurricular activities. So we would play Scrabble, which I really became good at. I bet you're good.

They called me the Scrabbler. Next time I see you, I want to play Scrabble with you. She's like, I will destroy you in Scrabble. Play P-Knuckle, which is a card game, spades, chess. It sounds like Michael's kind of time. Could use a good game of P-Knuckle. But the other thing too was exercise.

And initially, I didn't start working out. So my cellmate is sitting there at the Scrabble table. And this guy, I like to say, I mean, just to give people some context, looked like a more jacked version of Brad Pitt from Fight Club. This guy was shredded. And I've been a trainer now for over 10 years. And this guy is still to this day, one of the most, if not the most fit person I've ever seen. And he looked at me, he's like, so what are you doing here? And I'm like, I got caught selling drugs. My shoulders were rounded forward. He could just tell that I was kind of quiet and he could just tell I was completely messed up

from the detox. And you could just tell I needed like a kick in the butt. And he was like, well, when you get done your detox, you're gonna start working out with me. Like, all right, buddy, whatever. And to my mind, I'm like, if you see me, I could have been a model for Pillsbury at the time. And I remember like it was either that night

or a couple of nights later or whatever, I see him exercise. He's doing thousands of pushups, literally thousands of pushups, running all these laps, climbing the walls in the jail. I'm like, who is this guy? What's he doing? And I remember one night we were sitting there talking, and this is the conversation that changed my life. He said to me, he's like, so what do you do? What happened to you? I started telling my story, kind of like I'm telling now. And I started blaming my parents for the divorce. I started blaming my girls for rejecting me. He's like, so what do you do? What happened to you? I started telling my story, kind of like I'm telling now. And I started blaming my parents for the divorce. I started blaming my girls for rejecting me. I started blaming people for picking on me. Well, he looked at me and he just said, he's like, quit being a bitch. Now, I know people listening to this, I know that could offend some people, but number one, I was in jail. And number two,

it's the context of the conversation that was important. That's your next book title. Yeah. Quit being a bitch. It's not offending people. They got to quit being bitches. So what happened was I was just like, huh? And not that I could have done anything about it. This guy would have completely crushed me if I tried to take a swing at him. But he's like, dude, you're blaming everybody else for your problems, but you. He was like, you chose to respond to your circumstances that way. There's just plenty of people whose parents get divorced. Plenty of people get picked on. Plenty of people this, plenty of people that, and they're not in jail.

He sounds like he's a stoic. Yes. I mean, I think probably in some way, right? And so I remember looking at him and it wasn't what I wanted to hear, but it was what I needed to hear because now that the drugs were out of my system, my logical brain started to kick in more. I was like, huh, until this point I've had like 20 or 21 jobs. I've damaged relationships. I'm in jail for a felony. Obviously what I thought I was doing wasn't working or what I thought worked isn't working. I was like, maybe he's right. Maybe I need to finally stop being a victim because that's what happens is this. And I know it's hard for people to hear this. No one's coming to freaking save you. And no one is coming to save

you. I remember I was asked a few years back by somebody and I was very blunt. They said, do you think the government's doing enough to help people with addiction? I said, listen, I'm not a politician. I was like, that's not my job. But what I can tell you is this. Most, if not every single person that I know who's recovered from addiction, it wasn't because the government saved them. It was because in that moment, they made a choice. Now, again, I don't think that addiction's always like a choice.

But what I do believe is that the only way to get out of it is to change your choices. That's the secret sauce, right? So it might not always be a choice. A lot of us are built different biologically. We have trauma. We have different environments. But in order to change the game, in order to rewrite the story, in order to change the way your story ends, you got to change your habits.

And it's not easy to hear because being in the victim mindset becomes almost like an addiction because it's easy to play the victim. And what he said to me is this, he's like, you have two choices, Doug. You can be a man or you can be a bitch. He's like, you can be a man, look at yourself in the mirror and say, you got yourself here and it's up to you to change. Or you can be a bitch, go cry in the corner, say woe is me? He's like, most people will do that. And I felt empowered for the first time in my life because this guy had no skin in the game. This guy was just my cellmate. And so I was like, you know what? Maybe I'll just give this exercise thing a try. And I remember it was getting, I remember I got down to do a, to do a pushup in

front of a bunch of grown men, super embarrassing. And I couldn't even do a pushup from my feet. Couldn't do one for my knees. Could barely walk up and could barely walk up and down the steps to like take a break because I was smoking cigarettes before I went to jail. And I remember this, this is another turning point for me. Again, some more quote unquote, tough love. He said to me, I said, why can't I do a pushup? He's like, cause you're fat. And I was like, huh? Like what? He's like, dude, he's like, I don't know what else to tell you. He's like, you're fat.

He was like, you have fat, you have belly fat covering your core muscles. You don't have any core strength. So the reason you can't do a pushup is because your core can't hold you up. You're collapsing. I hated that word fat, hated it, made me cringe. And I swore to myself, I would never be called fat again.

It was just a trigger for me. And so we set some goals and he agreed to train me in there during my... Where is he now? I get that question all the time. So him and I actually, when we got out, when I got out, we ended up doing some workouts together. I was able to keep up with his workouts. And we've kept in touch here and there. And I've kind of lost touch with him. Is he single if he has Brad Pitt's body? I don't think he is single, actually.

Listen, if he's a better looking Brad Pitt, how could he be single? I know. He's more jacked than Brad Pitt. He's definitely freaking, he was shredded in jail. So anyway, we set these crazy goals. What was he in there for? So the cool thing was, him and I were in there for similar things, except we were both in

there for drug-related crimes, but his was more, I think, possession-related. We're possession where he would go and break in, I think, to homes, I think, if I remember correctly, and take stuff when they weren't there to sell it, to be able to buy drugs. So we were able to relate on that level. And he had been in there for 10 years. Oh, wow. and he just happened you talk about like god's timing or the universe whatever you call it he just happened to be in there on what's called a detainer meaning i think he had like violated parole or probation in

maryland and so was awaiting to go to court back to court in maryland because he wasn't he was in prison in a different state so i got super lucky to cross paths with him and we set these goals that back then seemed like it would be like me trying to climb Mount Everest today it was like do a set of 10 push-ups and run a mile by the time I left my sentence and with his motivation and encouragement training me in there every single day I was able to do it I was able to do that set of 10 push-ups and run a mile and I finally had this light bulb go off in my head that I was ready to finally change my life. I finally had this sense of accomplishment, this sense of meaning, this sense of purpose, this discipline that I had built that I never had before. I was finally actually doing the things I know I should have been doing all along, just taking care of myself.

But I just never had the confidence to do it. That's what I think happens to people, is people, they see these, I don't care if it's drug related, I don't care if it's fitness related, I don't care if it's money related, they see these insurmountable, I don't care if it's drug related, I don't care if it's fitness related, I don't care if it's money related, they see these insurmountable goals and they go from point A to point Z. That's where they want to go. But they forget they have to go from point A to point B to point C and so on and so forth. Do you think part of the reason that you didn't want to leave jail was because you started losing weight and looking so great and you felt great and you were scared if you got out that you were going to do drugs and go back to gaining weight. Absolutely. That was part of it. So when I left, my cellmate gave

me a workout plan that I still have framed in my place today. So I never forget where I came from. And I cried because I was like, how am I going to live without this guy? Literally, what am I going to do? This guy literally changed my life. And I was afraid. I was like, all right, well, my track record of being by myself up until this point was terrible. And the only good time I had was when he was in there on me. Are you walking out super buff? No, honestly, I was only really able to run a mile and do like 10 pushups and I lost maybe like 10 pounds or something, but it was enough to get the

ball going. And that's what I think some people need, right? Some people need to just get the ball rolling and develop some sense of confidence, which is why I was saying like, you just need to start stacking small wins. Because for me, like you can, like just like the drug addiction, like you can swing the pendulum that way where you're doing one hit leads to two and three like i was saying for me it was one push-up leads to two push-ups leads to three and so on and so forth and now i'm like wow like i never thought i could do one push-up i can do a push-up and in that moment it's all relative like that felt so big to me that i started stacking these wins and started developing confidence in myself and then when i got out i i had this this baseline level of confidence I never had because

I think before I was like at negative 50 with my confidence. And now I'm maybe at like a 10, right? 10 out of like 100. And so I remember looking in the mirror when I was leaving jail and I just told myself I was going to make it. Even though the odds were stacked against me, I knew this. I knew that, like I said, people have was going to make it. Even though the odds were stacked against me, I knew this. I knew that, like I said, people have two choices in the situation. If you believe you're not going to make it, you're not going to make it. I'm being serious because think about what's going to happen if you believe you're not going to achieve something. You're going to start telling yourself you can't.

You're going to start telling yourself you suck. You're going to start hanging out with people that also believe that mentality. You're going to start making horrible choices because you're like, I'm not going to make it anyway, so what's the point? But I knew if I could believe in that blind faith, really lean into that small percentage chance that I had to make it and just be relentless, relentless about doing everything I know I could possibly do every single day to become a better version of myself each and every day, gave me a chance to make it. Not a guarantee, but a chance. Kept me in the game.

And so when I left, I said to my cellmate, I said, how can I ever repay you? He said, pay it forward and don't mess up. And I didn't know what pay it forward meant. I'd never read like a personal development book at all in my life. So I didn't know what, I was like, all right, man, thank you. And I was scared, but I got out. And thankfully I had that to lean on because you got to find what drives you. I think people need to really lean into what makes them go. For me, it was proving people wrong. It was, you know, kind of like looking at the people who bullied me or the girls that rejected me or even my old self and saying, told you so. Told you so. I think this is such an important conversation. It's an inspiring conversation because to your point about people thinking they got to go from A to Z, we've touched

on this before. It's like, you might look at somebody that's further in the fitness path or further in the business path or financially a little bit more sound and you're like, and it's overwhelming, right? Because you're seeing an end result or a byproduct. It's one of the things social, like if you don't know how to contextualize social media or this podcast or YouTube, whatever you're watching, people can get lost in the context as you're looking at a byproduct of a lot of the steps that you're alluding to, right? Like somebody had already, that had taken those A, B, C, D steps. But if you're somebody that looks at this and you're like, I need to get there tomorrow. That's just not how life works. Right? And so this is an important

conversation because I think in anything in life life it starts with that first step and building momentum and I'm way more inspired to teach people how to build a little bit of momentum as opposed to teaching them what it's like to get to the end of the road because you could tell somebody like we'll take a podcast you could tell somebody like once you hit x amount of numbers and this make all this money but like that's not helpful to anybody because it doesn't give them the actual tangible steps and tactics to actually take that first step to build momentum. And momentum is what's going to carry you to that end result. Right. So once you got out to now, you've obviously changed your life. What did that in between look like? So I got out and then stayed on the plane

that my cellmate gave me, lost a bunch of weight. You look amazing now. Thank you. For everyone that was mean to you in high school, they can suck a dick because Doug looks hot. You look ripped. You're very good looking. Are you single?

I'm single. He's single, you guys. He's smart. He's ready to rock. And he can train you. I mean, geez, what a packet. So I got out, lose a bunch of weight. And then I got to a point fitness-wise, because I had started to see the physical benefits and the mental benefits, and I was starting to see the emotional benefits of now I was more motivated to change other things in my life. Now I was like, maybe I'll go back to school or maybe I'll change my friends because what tended, here's one of the hardest things for people when that went with personal growth. I don't care if you're looking to out, outgrow

people that aren't involved in health. I don't care if you're trying to outgrow people that you use drugs with, it's leaving them behind. And what happened to me is I would start to be around my friends that I'd hung out with and it was just awkward it's like an awkward first date and when you have nothing to talk about that's how it felt for people that felt with the people I was around for a while because I had nothing in common and were they still do were they still they were still doing a lot of the same stuff and I still wanted to because I felt bad I was had this codependent thing where I was like I can't leave them behind I'm not going to do drugs I'm not going to break the law but I'll still spend time

with them and it just got to a point where I really started to change behind. I'm not going to do drugs. I'm not going to break the law, but I'll still spend time with them. And it just got to a point where I really started to change my life. I lost a bunch of weight. I was eating healthier and I was more concerned of where I was going to get my healthy meal or what was in the next men's health magazine than I was about whatever they were doing. And I had to make a tough decision because I was living with my grandparents at the time. When I got out of jail, my grandparents took me in. They were like a saving grace to me.

They said to me, they're like, you can live here. You can pay no rent. We'll give you some spending money, but you got to take care of yourself. You got to have a job. You got to make your bed. You got to bring receipts for everything that we give you money for. You got to exercise or you're out. And it was kind of that tough love with accountability that I needed that I got from them. And so it gave me a little bit of a grace period to really turn my life around too. And so what would happen is, going back to my friends, is I would find more joy laying on the couch, watching Dancing with the Stars and the Food Network with my grandparents than I would hanging out with my friends. And isolation was tough back then. But I really had to lean into knowing

that I wasn't comfortable with myself for the longest time, which is why I did whatever I could to fit in with the wrong people, which is why I did everything I could to mask the pain with the drugs. So I had to make a short-term sacrifice and spend time alone on the weekends by myself and just having this gut feeling

that more people would appear along the way as I progressed in my life. And I think a lot of people struggle with that, right? And I think it's a lot harder. You feel a lot more alone when you're hanging out with people you shouldn't be hanging out with than you do by yourself because you're making the conscious choice to do so to better yourself. And so I lost a bunch of weight. I stopped hanging out with my friends that I was doing drugs with, end up deciding that I wanted to become a trainer to now help other people use fitness to change their lives and kind of pass the torch on for my cellmate. And I applied for a job at a local

wellness center. And I literally had to beg for my job because at the time I was still a convicted felon. So I had to check the box. I had to have the conversation, but I literally said, and I think anybody listening to this, I've gotten to this point in my life because I've had the whatever it takes mentality, being tenacious. And I literally said to the hiring manager, I'll do whatever it takes to work here. I'll pee in a cup every day. You can have all my probation paperwork. I'll do whatever it takes.

Just give me a chance. And thankfully, after talking to HR, after having different conversations, they gave me a chance, they gave me a job and took it and I ran with it and it became a new high for me to help other people use fitness to change their lives because I could relate to them. I could relate to every single person who came in there because most people, let me tell you a little secret.

It's not the weight that most people care about. It's how they look in the mirror. People want to be able to look at themselves in the mirror and be happy with the way they look. And the weight loss is just a byproduct of that. Which I'm so glad you said because Michael didn't understand why postpartum was so hard. And that was one of the things that was so hard.

You feel like you're not being the best version of yourself. Even though you had a baby, it's still hard. It's a mindfuck. And Michael would be like, you look great. You're fine. Didn't we do like 80 episodes dragging me through the mud on this? I'm not done. How many more do we need? We're going to do a lot. Now, today, I know that you help a lot of people. Amy Drezner raves about you, who was on this podcast. She's a recovering addict. She works out with you. I know you work out with a lot of people on Skype. You have a podcast. You wrote a book. Books. Tell us about what you're doing now. After I became a trainer and I realized I could help all these people use fitness to change their lives, time flew by. And in January of 2014,

we wrote the judge a letter of modification for my felony conviction because a few months before that, my probation was up and he granted me my day in court. And in January of, I think it was January of 2014, yeah, he took the felony conviction off my record and gave me the PBJ. And it's completely, I think it's, I believe it's completely off my record now. And I cannot, and I just cannot emphasize enough how much my life changed in that moment from being shackled as a convicted felon to now being a free man and being able to do all the things that come with that. And so it inspired me to share my story.

And I wrote my first book, From Felony to Fitness to Free, to inspire people to make the most of their second chance, turn negative into a positive, and focus on how far they've come and how far they have to go. And ever since then, I've just been on a mission to help other people use adversity to their advantage, which is the name of my podcast. And I do that through my content. I've written a couple other books. My work, Train People, and you mentioned Amy, just helping people really use the power of fitness to better themselves. And also the adversity advantage thing is something that is very meaningful, especially now. I started my podcast right around when COVID started.

I was like, what better time to help people use dark moments in their life to improve themselves than now, because here's the thing. I don't believe it's adversity that breaks us. It's the way we respond to it that breaks us. I always like to think about adversity as a golf ball-sized problem. Maybe it's a breakup.

Maybe you lose a job. Maybe it's something family related. But then if you, you go off the rails and you start drinking every day or you start doing drugs or you start eating pizza and chocolate and all these things like that becomes even, you create more problems as a result of that. And that now is using adversity to your disadvantage. So my whole notion of using adversity to your advantage is like, what can you do? Work out, surround yourself with good people, meditate if that's what works for you, spirituality, listen to podcasts, like whatever it is to kind of like reduce the half-life of the adversity when you're in those moments, and then prove to yourself that you can get through hard times and work that muscle.

I believe you have to work emotional and mental muscles just as much as physical muscles. You got to work the faith muscle. You got to work the adversity muscle. You got to work the belief muscle. You got to work the discipline muscle. And you got to work that hope muscle and just know that whatever you're going through right now, and it sucks, but whatever you're going through right now, just know that it's happening for a reason. And you can either be that person, like who do you want to be? Do you want to be the person that says, woe is reason. And you can either be that person, like who do you want to be? Do you want to be the person that says, woe is me?

And you end up responding to this horrible situation in a negative way and it becomes a terrible situation three months from now? Or do you want to be the person that looks back and says, you know what? Like it was hard, it sucked, but I'm so glad that I wasn't a victim.

I didn't blame other people. I controlled what I could. I took care of myself. I was kind to other people. I surrounded what I could. I took care of myself. I was kind to other people. I surrounded myself with people that brought the best out of me. And I maintained faith in myself. And now I've learned so much great wisdom, so many tools, tips, become a stronger version of myself that I can now pay it forward and help other people.

I am going to voice note you when I'm going through something that's hard. Doug, can you leave our audience with a tool that you use every single day? Could be a couple tools to help your wellness and you could get as micro as possible here. To help with my wellness. So the first thing I do, and this isn't exactly a tool, but I think it's relative for people, is I focus on what works for me. Because there's so many things out is I focus on what works for me. Because there's so many things out there. There's so many different products. There's different practices.

There's different forms of wellness, different modalities. And people always ask, what's the best form of exercise you're going to do? What's the best program? It's like the one you're going to stick to. Like really do what works for you. So if you're somebody that thrives off doing yoga,

do yoga. If you're somebody that likes to run, run. If you're somebody who likes to do strength training like me, do strength training. But personally, what I do is I'm consistent. That's my biggest tool is just being consistent. Because there's days where I don't feel like training. There's days where I don't feel like going to the gym. Because most people think that because you're a trainer, you're in a health, you love exercise.

I just like the way it makes me feel afterwards. And I think it's during the days where you're feeling off and you're feeling half, like half, 50%, you're playing hurt. Sometimes in life, you got to play hurt. Sometimes in life, you got to play hurt. It's hard. It sucks. You just got to, it doesn't matter if you have your 100%. It just matters that you give 100% in that moment. That is a great tip. Where can everyone find you? Pimp yourself out. You have inspired me. Tell us your Instagram, where your books can be found, your podcast. Yeah. So the podcast is The Adversity Advantage. And I believe you can go to adversityadvantagepodcast.com and you can subscribe that way. It's on Apple, Spotify, I think CastBox, wherever you listen to podcasts. My books are all on Amazon. You can go to dougbopes.com and

check out more about me, my story, or if you want to buy my books that way. Instagram, I'm at dougbopes and I'm pretty frequent there. And just, yeah, I'd love to hear from you. Can anyone who's struggling DM you? Yeah. DM me if you're struggling. Again, I'm not like a licensed therapist, but I'm happy to point you in the right direction to the best I can and share my own experience. And because listen, what works for me isn't going to work for everyone else.

If I can just leave the audience with this, is that in life, there's really no other choice. The moment you relinquish control to somebody else saying, oh, I'm going to wait for my spouse to leave me or I'm going to wait for the government to save me or my parents, you lose. You have to control the controllables. You have to control what's in front of you. And it doesn't mean you have to go from sitting on the couch to running a marathon. It just means you go from sitting on the couch to going for a 10-minute walk. So one of the things that I always tell people is if somebody calls me and says,

hey, I'm thinking about using right now, or I'm thinking about doing this or that, I say, here, do me a favor. I said, I'm not going to tell you what to do or what not to do. I'm not your parent. But go for a 20-minute walk or run and do as many pushups as you can. Then decide. Get that endorphin rush. Get yourself feeling a little bit better and seeing what happens. Because for me, that mitigated a lot of the pain, a lot of the craving. And the key to recovery, the key to life is learning to reattach behavior to emotion. So this is the last thing I'll say. So when I was doing drugs, my emotion was anxiety, do a drug to feel better. Depressed, do a drug. Stressed, do a drug. But in jail, I was forced to take all the masks off and deal with my emotions head on. And if I dealt with them in

an unhealthy way, I would have ended up in solitary confinement or beat up. So I had to change the way I dealt with that. So my new thing became when I got out of jail, when I got anxious or stressed, because all that stuff still happens, which changes the way I've dealt with it. So I would look for ways to go for a walk. I would look for ways to exercise or call a mentor, listen to music. And again, that reduces the half-life of the adversity to be able to use it to your advantage. If only your bullies can see you now. Doug, thank you so much for coming on the show. You're an inspiration. Come back anytime. Thanks, Doug. And thanks for making the trip, brother. You're welcome. Thanks for having me. Hold up. My book is out. It's here. I'm going to do a giveaway. I am going to send a signed

copy to one of you. It's called Get the Fuck Out of the Sun. It's available on Amazon, Target, and Barnes & Noble, and of course, all small bookstores. All you have to do is tell us your favorite part of this episode with Doug on my latest post at Lauren Bostic, and someone from the team will drop into one of your inboxes and send you a signed personalized copy of the book. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. And with that, we'll see you next time.