Trading Secrets - 48: Drug Dealer Restarts His Career Post-Incarceration, Shares $$$ Behind the Drug Business

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

Check out The Restart Roadmap: Rewire and Reset Your Career now!   In this week’s episode, Jason sits down with best selling author, award-winning personal trainer, public speaker and host of the Adversity Advantage Podcast, Doug Bopst. Although Doug’s accomplishments might give the impression that he’s always had it figured out, his path to success was anything but typical or easy. Doug admits he truly believed that he would be dead by the age of 25. At just 21 years old, Doug was sitting in a jail cell after being arrested and convicted of drug charges. How did he get caught? How much was he earning and spending as a top drug dealer? He shares the catalysts that altered the trajectory of his life forever and how he finds the strength to continue pushing forward in another episode that you cannot afford to miss.   LinkedIn.com/SECRETS to post your job for free! Coinbase.com/trading for $10 in free bitcoin Novo.co/secrets to sign up for FREE Fahertybrand.com code SECRETS for 20% off   Host: Jason Tartick Voice of Viewer: David Arduin Executive Producer: Evan Sahr Produced by Dear Media.

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. Today we're getting real, talking to a former drug addict and even convicted felon, but who has turned his life around, is now considered a hero by many. His name is Doug Bost, and he is truly an inspiration and has an unbelievable story. When Doug was just 21 years old, he was pulled over, arrested, and sentenced to months in jail after being found guilty of possession with intent to sell. While serving time, Doug made the choice to challenge himself and turn his life around.

Reflecting on his past, he's claimed that if he hadn't got arrested, he'd likely be dead. He has faced considerable setbacks, but fought through them and is now not only thriving personally, but is also helping others change their lives. He was voted as one of Baltimore's 12 fitness heroes by the Baltimore Sun. He's a best-selling author with three, not one, not two, not three, well, yeah, three, three books. I got to say, by the way, I'm working on one. I don't even know how he did three. What a pain in the ass. but as an award-winning personal trainer, public speaker,

and the host of a podcast I had the pleasure of being on. One you guys should all check out. His guest list is incredible. Adversity Advantage podcast. Doug, thank you so much for being on Trained Secrets. We appreciate it, man, and it's good to see you again. Jason, man, what up? I always love talking to you.

Always, always a pleasure. And our last conversation was great. We were talking a lot of business. But I want to talk a lot about like kind of the struggles you endured and really the pivotal lessons you learned that put you in the position you are today. Because I think some people endure struggles and people think about their struggles. But it's always like, and I wrote about this in the book a little bit, it's like, what is your breaking point?

And not only what is your breaking point, but how do you avoid that breaking point? So you could proactively get in the position you need to without being arrested, right? I mean, this is serious stuff. So I want to talk about it, Doug, and I love your open and honest vulnerability. And I appreciate you being here today. But before we even get into that moment, that changed your life forever, you know, when did you start using drugs? When did you get involved in drugs? And when did using drugs go from a pleasurable here once in a while activity to a prop? That's a great question, and it's one that I've pondered, you know, over the last 13 years or so. And so when I think about my choices that I made, I think what it really boils down to is how we face moments of adversity, right?

And it's funny, you know, you mentioned I have a podcast called The Adversity Advantage, but growing up, I had a podcast or growing up, I used adversity to my complete disadvantage, right? And so what that looked like was my parents got divorced when I was five. I was bullied and picked on in school, suffered all forms of abuse. I loved sports, loved collecting sports cards, love playing sports, love watching sports, love reading the newspaper. The problem is I got cut from all the sports teams. So this like mountain of insecurity started to stack on top of me. I had no self-esteem.

I was unconfident. I was depressed. I was anxious. And the first like real opportunity I got to numb the pain that I was enduring was when I started to smoke pot when I was 14. Now, I want to preface this by saying, because everyone's like, you know, a pot, it's not that bad. Potts legal now. And I want people to think about this because I didn't at this time. Like I never thought in a million years that when I took that first hit off the marijuana pipe that I would end up incarcerated for felony

and drug charges. Like nobody does, right? And if people thought that, if people knew that, they wouldn't end up, you know, making those choices because the reward isn't worth the risk. And when I took that first hit, I felt this huge monkey come off my back. I felt that I could finally be at peace with myself. I didn't have to worry if I was ever going to have a girlfriend because I never had a girlfriend in high school. I didn't have to worry what my parents' relationship was going to look like. I didn't have to worry if I was going to have success. I didn't have to if I was going to ever make a sports team or lose the weight that I'd started to gain as a teenager and that sort of thing. And so I became addicted to the feeling, Jason. It wasn't

necessarily the pot. I was addicted to this feeling of just numbing out and forgetting about my problems and being okay with who I was. And that one hit led to two and then started to smoke every day. And then I'm on my 16th birthday. At this point, I'm selling a little bit on the side to support my habit because when I'm making six, seven, eight hours an hour, you know, you're not able to support a dayway pot habit. Right. So, I have so many questions right there because you talked about you started selling and the $6 to $8 an hour

and then you even talked about the cost of a daily pot habit. Before I get into those, I do want to jump under my first question that came to my mind, which is you said that you had a tough upbringing. You had dealt with a lot of challenges and pot put you at ease.

And I can say for myself and probably other people listening that still to this day at 33, I can't sleep well, pot will put me at ease. But there's other things I do, of course, to mentally really focus, right? I've gone to therapy and I've done other things that allows me to connect with myself and be my best self. Doug now would tell Doug at 14, dude, you don't need this pot.

What you could do is this. What is this? I think looking back, it's tough because I'll give you the answer that I, I would give, but I also want to say something else about it too. Because I've been asked this question before. So certainly I would just say, you know, Doug, like change your friends. You know, you don't listen. You don't need to listen to what those kids are saying about you. Like, don't worry. You'll eventually get a girlfriend or listen to your parents. Like, get some help and, you know, start walking. Get into fitness. Like focus on where you're at in your own fitness

journey. Find some hobbies that you actually like and enjoy and can build off of that. Like, keep trying at sports. Like all those things. But I look back and I'm like, would a 14-year-old me really want to hear that? Like, I don't know. And here's the reason I say this, man, is because if you would ask young Doug at that time in his life, like, what would make you happy? And my answer would have been this, clear as day. I want a hot girlfriend.

I don't want six-pack abs. And I want to be athletic. And I got to say, like, throughout the course of the last 10 to 15 years or so or since I've been in recovery, I've achieved. that. Like I've gotten in really good physical shape. I've dated some pretty women. I've gotten a lot more physically athletic in the way that I can play sports. And there was still a point in my life where I wasn't totally happy. Gotcha. So you're saying like be really identify and understand what it is that you think is going to drive happiness because it might be some of those, you know,

bullshit materialistic things. And then you get those and then you're still not happy, which makes a lot of sense. Yeah, but I think also like the other thing I wanted to add that just came to my mind is like really getting to the root of why because I was just going and just doing drugs and yeah, I had all this anxiety, had all this fear, had all these insecurities. But I didn't really take a lot of time to unpack where they were coming from. It's easy for me now to look back with all the work I've done on myself. And like, boom, perfect recipe, right? Parents, divorce, bullied, not good at sports, trying to fit in. Like I can see how that would all play out. But back then I just was so clueless as to. to why I was feeling so insecure and so anxious. Interesting. Now, you're being vulnerable with me here, Doug, and I appreciate that. I'll be a little open with you.

So I, and this is like a straight up, dead-ass, honest truth of mine. I have never, once in my life, met a drug dealer at any age, 14, 15, 16, 20, 25, 33, and actually paid for a good, of any sort, like a weed or anything. Now, what I have done is I've gone to, legal, like I've gone to, like, legalized shops, like in Colorado and looked at the edible

section and bought something. So that I've done, but I've never bought anything like with cash or with a drug deal. I've never done that. So you had mentioned earlier that the finances, the money behind this addiction, even we eat, can get really pricey. So first tell me, what, tell me about the price. So anybody that's listening that is oblivious, what does it cost? to get marijuana. Like, what are the different, I know you could sell like an ounce or an eighth or like there's percentages of an ounce.

Like, what are you selling? What are the price points? And how do you make money off it? And also, what were you spending before you started selling? So a couple things there. I would say at first, initially, you're just trying to buy whatever you need to get high.

So it starts off with just buying a gram, you know, because you're not, at this point, you don't have that big of a habit. At least I didn't. So I was paying like something like $20 for a gram of pot. And this is back in the early 2000s. I have no clue what prices are since then because I haven't smoked or done drugs since I got out of jail.

But then like once you start to develop this daily habit and I think he'll like this, this is what happens is you're like, all right, like how can I finagle my way into smoking for free? So I would be like, all right, I could buy like an eighth for 50 bucks, right? I could sell like a gram and a half for like $40 to somebody. And then I'm only paying $10 for two grams, right? It's a lot better than $20 for one gram, right? And then like when you start to get like an addict like I was,

you're like, well, maybe I could just pinch off a little bit and they would never know. So now instead of selling somebody like a gram, it's like 0.8 for $20, right? And then now you start to finagle your way into getting more pot. And then eventually, as the habit grows and as you start to get addicted now, like me, because I had this emptiness inside of me where I wanted to feel loved. I wanted to feel wanted. I wanted to feel needed that I didn't get from all the things I had tried, that now I had started to pick up that feeling from selling drugs.

So every time someone was like, yo, dog, you got a gram? I was like, yes, I'm feeling needed. I'm feeling wanted. I'm feeling love. And that almost became more addictive, addicting than the drugs in itself. And so then I would, but then I would start to pick up more. So it would be me picking up now a quarter ounce. And I'd be like, all right, I know if I get a quarter ounce and say it's like 80 bucks or 70 bucks,

depending on who I was getting it from, I could split it with somebody who wants an eighth, but sell them that eighth for 50. So now I've got an eighth to myself for $20. So now you see how I've gone from spending $20 for a gram to now if I'm paying $70 for a quarter, selling half of it to a friend for $50. now I've got an eighth for $20. Okay. And now I'm, like, working my way up.

So you see how this works? I see how it works. And I got to stop you there because I got a question there because I'm going back to my days of watching American gangster, right? And what do the FBI want? They don't want the little guy, man. They want the guy at the top. So you go from the guy that's buying a gram.

You then go from the guy that's purchasing an eighth. You then go from the guy that's purchasing an ounce. So where are you going to get these big, packages of weed, like these big amounts. So the smaller amounts, and you'll see where this is going, initially started just from friends that I knew, right, who would get it from somebody else, right? And then the more you start spending time with the people that are getting it

from somebody else, the more you somehow will get connected to that somebody else at certain points. And I got lucky that right after I graduated high school, a friend of mine who had a big connection was going off to college. And I was just down this path of despair where, barely graduated high school. I started getting into things like cocaine and, um, and other things that I had gotten a call and he was like, hey, Doug, you know, I'm going to college and there's a lot of people that are going to be needing pot around here. And I'm like, I trust you. Like, do you want

my connect? I was like, yeah, sure. And, um, and so I went and met with this guy. He kind of had a conversation with me. He was like, all right, these are the rules. Where do you meet? Like, where do these things happen? Is it like the thing like, two cars pull up in the back? fucking alley like I see on TV going to a Tim Horton's like where the hell are you going where are you meeting so we'll meet at a restaurant okay we just have a conversation like a normal conversation right gotcha now we're talking breaking bad shit you know breaking bad will they go to that little diner you know and he dies because the splendor yeah okay so we're at a restaurant I'm with you here yeah and then it progressed to like once I started to pick up some weight from him I would go to

his house because he was a guy that was like no talking on the phone. Like now I'm hearing people can buy drugs on like apps and stuff. I'm like, wait, what? Okay. And yeah, there was no talking on the phone, no texting about anything related to drugs. It was like the deals were done inside of his house or inside of my apartment. Like, and that was it. And it wasn't like he walked in with duffel bags. It was like very like planned out. Like he walked in with grocery bags or something. And that was like be kind of blended in with that like golf course like we would put these big packages of pot in our golf bags and we could go out and exchange stuff on a random hole on the golf course like it just it all depended on the situation but when you get to that point like

I was picking up pounds so I pick up a pound and it was like 3500 how much is it cost for a pound $3,500 and you're paying cash or like obviously we talk about business a lot a lot of things are financed. Are you paying cash up front, or is he lending it to you? No, he lented to me, which is where I got in trouble because I, at that point, had gotten so far off with some other addictions of mine, Coke, oxy cotton, that now, now I was not only getting high on my own supply, which for those have listened to Biggie's song, Ten Crack Commandments, it's a no-no. and B, I was spending all the money that I was making from selling the drugs on pills. So I was just putting all my profits up my nose.

And then I got really sloppy with my drug dealing over time to where I got robbed. I had people like threatening to pull guns on me. I had people walk out with copious amounts of pot. And so I became indebted to this guy super quick. And the story just gets way worse from there. And so how much did you, so the guys from. you the money, you're using the profit you're making to buy other drugs. How much at this point have you sold, like how many pounds have you sold before it starts to get to be sloppy?

I would say it got to the, it got really sloppy. I mean, maybe like six months to a year in. Okay. It got sloppy fairly fast. I mean, there's people that that sell drugs for decades, like heavy drugs for decades. And for me, like it slowly progressed, but where it got, bad what is when I was like 18, 19 years old, and I got hooked on oxycodone. Interesting. And the reason I say this is because at the beginning of our conversation, I talked about the feeling I got when I first started smoking pot. Well, eventually, I couldn't get high enough anymore to numb the pain.

Like, I was smoking a quarter ounce of pot a day on my own. Wow. Yeah, and it wasn't working as the coping tool it once was. So a friend offered me a 5 milligram percassette. that led to 10 milligrams a day, 20, 40, all the way up until I'm putting, you know, 3, 400 milligrams of oxycodone up my nose every single day. Wow. So that coupled with the fact that, you know, my mind was just in complete disarray

from all the drugs that had been in my brain. I started to just, you know, trust people more than I should have. I started to get involved with the wrong crowd. I started getting greedy with who I sold to. I started to make deals. I knew I shouldn't have made with people I shouldn't have really been around at all. I just knew these people had reputations for being sketchy and burning people, but I wanted to be the king.

Did you ever consider, like, wanting to be the king? Do you ever think the way I could be the king is if I start selling these drugs I'm super addicted to and start selling oxycodone and cocaine? Yeah, and it wasn't like I wanted to be this massive, like, kingpin, so to speak, but I saw myself as a career drug dealer because, like I said, it started getting bad my late teenage years. And at that point, we had buried several of my friends from drug-related deaths, drinking and driving, stuff like that. So I thought that that's just where my life was eventually going to end up anyway. So I was like, well, I might as well just go all in on this.

Plus, I was so addicted of that feeling of being wanted or having like 4,500 missed calls when I was away from my phone for a few hours that I couldn't let that go. I couldn't let go of the lifestyle. And I just thought that that's what I was going to do is just continue to sell drugs to make money. And I was going to just say, screw the rest of my family and all these other relationships that I had with good people until I got arrested. Until Cinco de Mayo, when I got caught, like, that was the first time that I was like,

man, I don't know if I can do this anymore. Like, what's going to happen from here? That is, that is so crazy. And I want to talk about the story where you got caught because that was the life-changing pivot for you that did everything. It totally restarted and reset your entire life. A few questions, though, before we get into that,

so the guy that you buy these pounds from, where does a guy like that get pounds of weed? Like, are you dealing with, like, mafia shit? Like, how do you get pounds? do you grow at yourself at that point? I don't think I ever met directly the guy he got it from. Me and him became really close because, you know, like, once you get to that point where you're only, when you're selling that much pot, like, you feel really insecure around

people who don't have that much pot because, like, you're like, all right, like, are these people going to judge me for what I'm doing? And then, like, to me, like, I felt like I wanted to be this guy. Like, he was somebody I looked up to because he was selling more than me. And from what I understood, he was like the third guy to touch it from. from British Columbia. Wow. So he would get it from somebody, like, I think, up in Philly, if I remember correctly.

And then that person would go up, like, towards the border and meet somebody and get, you know, a ton of it from Canada. That is so wild to me. All vacuum, vacuum sealed bags. It was like you couldn't smell it at all. It's crazy. Oh, my gosh. What a freaking world. It's nuts.

And so the one thing, too, I want to get into, before we get into you being arrested, is you mentioned, you were robbed. Tell me about what those experiences were like and was, and I talk about this and I know I'm trying to draw a weird parallel, but I talk about this that are people that are unhappy in their jobs, they're unhappy in life. And it does take these moments in their life that completely shattered them like glass for them to rethink and reset what they're doing and why. And unfortunately, it takes those moments of being shattered. I'm wondering what it was like being robbed, if you could tell us a story and how that wasn't the breaking point for you, how it took being arrested for you to change. Tell me about that. So there were several experiences where I got robbed.

One was there was a guy I was meeting to sell stuff to. Again, this guy that I knew I shouldn't have been associated with. I mean, I'm not saying that the people that I was hanging out with in the first place were good, but like the person that this guy just had a reputation for for robbing people. But again, I wanted to move a pot as quickly as I could because it makes me look good. It makes me look like this big, you know, kingpin type person. And then I can go get more. And so I went and I meet up with this guy. And so, you know, initially like when you're doing drug deals, you try to do it as smart as you possibly can. Like you're not meeting in a convenience store parking lot to exchange big amounts of drugs.

Right? You're doing it in somebody's house. You're doing it. it like i mentioned on a golf course you're doing it somewhere that you know it'd be really hard for somebody the average person to catch you and so we were at this gas station okay like and it was of course not a not a good idea i get in the car and this guy just looks at me he just stares at me i just knew in my gut i was like something's going to happen i think i'm going to get robbed and at this point i'm like 50 pounds heavier than i am now i'm pretty uncoordinated like i'd never been into a fight like i always got my friends to to fight for me and I was like, I'm going to get robbed.

He was like, hey, man, I need to get that. And I was just like, get what? He was like, I need to get that. And I was like, oh, yeah, you can have that for like two grand or whatever it was. And he was like, no, you're going to give it to me. And I'm like, no, I'm like, no, I'm not. He's like, you're going to give it to me or I'm going to get the gun out. And I was just like, oh, shoot.

My heart just went in the pit of my stomach. And I was like, all right, like, here you go. And then he just took it. And I got out. And I called my dealer. and I just said, hey, man, like, we need to meet. He comes over, and I tell him what happened. And, of course, he's, like, angry at the situation because, you know, he had lent me the stuff.

So now, like, it's hurting the money I'm able to give him back. And nothing really ended up happening. He had threatened to do something, but, you know, I really didn't want to do anything because I was terrified at that point. And then, like, you would think at that moment, I would say, you know what? Like, it's just time to be done. Like, I just, I've seen that I'm addicted to, to opiates at the same. point, I've damaged so many relationships. I have a lot of good brain cells in me. I was a smart

kid. I knew I had some potential deep down. Maybe it's time to just change it up. But I didn't. I kept selling. I'm indebted now to this guy, a couple thousand dollars, because at this point, I had started to snort all my profits. So I was barely breaking even in the first place. And a couple more guys that I knew I shouldn't have been spending time with where I thought at this point friends of mine because we had been hanging out for a little while doing like harder drugs, one of the kids just takes like a half a pound of pot in my apartment and just walks out. And I thought he was messing around with me. But he literally took it, laughed.

And I was so, such in shock that I didn't even know what to do. And he just drove off. And I never heard from him again. And I was, this is kind of funny. I ironically went and talked to my grandparents at this point because I was done, man. Like I was in the whole like at this point. Now it's like, you know, close to $4,000. And this is at the age of what?

Like 18, 19, 19, 19, 20 years old now. I mean, that's some serious fucking money at 19, 20 years old, right? Yeah. And I just said to my grandparents, they knew what I was doing. Like, people knew who I was. Like, I had a reputation. And this is nothing to be like raggedosious about it. Just people knew what I did.

Sure. And I just told him, I was like, I'm done. Like, I just want to be done. I was like, is there any way you guys can just give me the money? to pay off this drug dealer. I just want to start over. I was like, I want a fresh start, but I owe this guy money.

And they were like, no. And they're like, we're not supporting like your illegal endeavors. Yeah. And of course, in that moment, I was completely hurt and felt disrespected. I was like, they don't care about me, blah, blah, blah.

But, you know, I got myself into that mess. And frankly, I think if they had given me the money, I'm not so sure I would have actually stopped. And, you know, shortly after that, is when I got arrested and, you know, things, and when I got arrested, believe it or not, I thought it was going to be the greatest setback I ever faced in my life, but it ended up becoming my greatest blessing. How much cash do you think from drug dealing, right when that, that cop's pulling up?

I know you spent the shit done. Give me an estimate. How much in U.S. dollars do you think you just took in? I'm not talking about your cost or anything. Do you think you took in over the course of your years of drug dealing before that cop pulls up to your car? Rough estimate. Rough estimate?

Probably 100 grand. Okay. So 18, 19, got 100K of cash inflow. Obviously, a lot of outflows. You got to pay for the weed. You got to pay for your other drug use, but 100K. So then the cop pulls you over. Cinco de Mayo.

Walk us through why he pulled you over. And one thing that's fascinating is I always have had a weird interest in, police work and criminal like minds. And like if you look at anything I watch on Netflix, it's, it's CSI thriller related. And so in high school, I had an opportunity to do a police internship. And so for 10 weeks, I got to do an internship with the Amherst Police Department. And we did ride-alongs and we met with them. And we did all, we did rotations in all the different areas. And one of the things the cops told me is if they have any type of intuition or, Or have a feeling as though they're, that's like a drug dealer that's on their watch list.

What they'll do is they'll actually follow that person around and they will wait for the smallest thing for them to arrest them on. And they said even so much, I'll never forget, I'm 16 learning this. And I'm like, what? Even so much as if you have those, you know, those like scent things, those little things you dangle from your windshield, if they're dangling that's technically illegal and they could pull you over for that and they showed us. one case where they pulled over this guy who was a drug dealer just for his little scent thing. Everything else was right. And they found like 200K of cocaine in his car. So tell me about what it was that made them pull you over and explain the whole story to us. Well, I have had stories like that happened to me where they followed me around. And then, you know, you're looking in your rear of

your mirror and your like hearts racing. You're like, all right, if I go left, hopefully they go right. Then I go left and they follow me like, darn. Then I'm like, all right, let's go right. And then they make it right. And then finally, like, they turn off. And I were like, whew. But, dude, I wanted to get caught, man. I wanted to get arrested. And I think just subconsciously, I was done. I gave him every reason to pull me over and arrest me. So what happened was Cinco de Mayo 2008, one of the biggest drinking nights of the year, right? Of course, me, I didn't realize that. And also, I had a busted headlight that I had been meaning to fix for such a long time, right?

And all my friends' parents who knew I was selling drugs, they were like, dude, you're riding around with all this stuff in your car. And you have a busted head. Like, that's a reason for them to pull you over. But like when you're in the thick of it, man, and the thick of addiction,

and the thick of selling drugs, you don't care about anything else. It's like a religion. It's kind of crazy. So I'm riding with a few of my friends to make a drug deal, have a half a pound of pot in my trunk, $2,000 in cash in the glove box.

and I see a cop running radar. So what do I do? Like, I think that I'm going to hide the fact that I have this busted headlight by flashing my high beams, the police officer. So I flash my high beams at him, gives them a reason to pull me over because what do you do? What are you doing when you flash your high beams at somebody? You're letting them know that a cop is around, right?

Cop pulls me over. Again, my heart's in the pit of my stomach. I just knew at that point, like I was like, man, it's done. Life's over. Like I stammer to get my license out, my registration. Were you high or drunk at this point or no? I wasn't drunk. I was high though. And we were on our way to go pick up some oxy cotton. And a few friends of mine and I. And one of my friends in the back seat had an open container, which I honestly didn't know until we got pulled over. And he just, you could smell the scent of alcohol. And it gave him a reason to ask me if he could search the car. And so he asked

me, he's like, can I search your car? And I just said yes, which I wasn't supposed to say yes. You're supposed to say no, right? And pulls me out, puts me in handcuffs and puts me in the back of the cop car and just see him like going through my, or he goes through my car. He finds the money, finds the pot near under my spare tire. How much money and how much pot? Half a pound of pot, $2,000 in cash. Wow. And it was so you hit it under your spare tire, like under your truck, where you lift the trunk up and under where the, spare tires, it was hit under there? Yep, it was hit under there, which I thought was a great hiding spot, but, you know,

the police are pretty smart when it comes to that stuff. Wild. And so then they take you in at that point, I'm sure, right? Yeah, they take me in. And in that moment, man, I just remember, like, how did I? I was just thinking to myself, like, how did I get here? Like, all the bad choices, all the memories kind of came to a head. Like, how did a kid who just wanted to be loved?

How did this kid who just wanted to have a girlfriend? and how did this kid who just wanted to fit in? Like, how is he now in the back of a cop car in handcuffs facing felony drug charges? And it just came down to my choices and the ability to manage adversity, which is kind of why at the beginning of the conversation, that's why I brought that up, because there's plenty of people that went through what I went through that didn't end up in the situation that I put myself in.

And I go to jail. I get booked and I'm charged with a felony, possession with the tent to distribute marijuana. because they found a scale too, which made me super guilty. I mean, the pot in the cash already kind of gave them a heads up that I was selling drugs, but the scale just kind of sealed the deal. I had bail. My dad bailed me out.

What was your bail side of that? I forget. Maybe it was like a thousand bucks. It was something substantial, but it wasn't like crazy high. I get out and now I'm facing felony drug charges. I end up getting arraigned and having to go to circuit court. Because with a felony, like you're not in district court anymore. You're now moved to circuit court with all the big cases.

Yeah. And you would think, though, at this point that I would turn my life around. I'd like, all right, Doug, time to get it together. You're facing felony drug charges. Like, you need to somehow get a lawyer. You've got to beat this because otherwise you're going to have this felony conviction on your record and you're going to end up going to jail. But now I had more pain, more trauma, more insecure.

I was terrified of what was going to happen next. Plus, I owed this drug dealer now $5,000. I had worked my way to kind of pay him off a little bit, and now I'm in the whole, like, $5,000. Because the half a pound that you had, the cops take. So now he's got, you're out of that, too. Yeah. So I'm out of that, too.

I'm out of the money. And I remember meeting with him, like shortly after I got bailed out. And of course, his biggest concern is, did you wrap me out? And I'm like, no. Do the cops try and get you to rat them out? Is that? Yeah, yeah. They press on you.

Yeah. And I was just like, no, man. I was like, no, I'm good. And he was like, all right, well, you'll get a lawyer. And he was like, you'll work it off. Like, just take your time. And I was like, okay. And I believed him.

And then, like, some time goes by. And he kept, like, bugging me for the money. And I'm like, dude, I'm trying to get a job. Like, now I have to check a box that, you know, I've been charged with a felony and I've been arrested and all that stuff. and I'm not no longer selling drugs where I'm making decent money. I'm now making like the same salary I was making before, like $8, $9 an hour working at a restaurant.

And I end up walking into my apartment. And one of my roommates was like, dude, I just saw your boy like my dealer at a bar. And he was like, he told me that the next time he sees you, if you don't have his money, he's going to put a bullet in your head. Yeah. And so I panic, Jason. Like, I start freaking out.

I'm like, oh, my God. Like, because I feel a little betrayed because I didn't rat him out. And B, I'm like, oh, my gosh, am I really going to die over this? Is this a guy who is, you know, looking back on it? Is this a guy that is capable of that? Like, do you feel like that was a real threat or was it an empty threat? It was tough because I knew that he, I thought that he had run around, like, with his connections to the drugs with a rough crowd.

So I don't think he would have been the one to do it. but I think he probably knew somebody. And so now I'm crazy panicky, as you can imagine. And I end up getting this call from my little brother not too long after. And he was a guy that worked as a kid but saved every penny he ever made. And he calls me. He's like, hey, I heard about what happened. I was like, yeah, with the arrested thing, I was like, yeah, I thought you knew.

And he was like, no, if like, your dealer, like, wanting to kill you. And I was like, yeah, man, I was like, it's all good, though, like, things will work out. He was like, well, I want to help you pay him off. And I was like, dude, don't get yourself involved in that. He's like, no, I want to give you the money. He was like, I want to keep you alive. And I was like, all right, man, like, if you want to help me, like, by all means, goes to the bank, gives me $5,000 in cash. I meet this dude for dinner, pay him off.

And that was it. But now I owe my one brother five grand. But you would think, like, after all. this man that i would change right so and so now i'm like manipulating my brother to give me more money so i can get high keep doing drugs and telling him what i need money for and then i started getting my other brother involved for money and now i and i just created this crazy um amount of debt between my two brothers and i and it damaged our relationship for a period of time by because the time i got by the time i had gone into jail i now owed both of them 10 grand so this and this is all happen

while technically you should be in jail because you're out on bail. Exactly. Wow. And then you got lawyer expenses too. I mean, what is the lawyer cost rack up to to defend you? Well, I think back then it was going to be like five grand. But, you know, me being the stupid 20-year-old that I was at the time, I put like 75,000 miles or something on my car without changing the oil.

So my car blew up like three weeks after I got out of jail. and I needed a car. So my grandparents were like, all right, we're either going to give you money towards a lawyer or we'll give you money for a car.

I was like, well, I can't sell or do drugs without a car. So I took the car. And then my dad just happened to know like a general practice

lawyer in the county that I had been arrested in. Like he wasn't a criminal defense lawyer. And so he just came like to represent me in court. But, you know, everything worked out the way that it was supposed to,

man, I went to court in September. I was high in court. I was going to get high when I got out. I had no desire to change, man. Because like I said, I thought I was going to die by the time I was 25. Like, I truly believed that.

And the judge ends up looking at me. And it was my first time being arrested as an adult. And he convicted me, found me guilty of the felony, possessed with the tent to distribute marijuana, sentenced me to five years in jail. Holy shit. Suspended everything but 90 days, meaning if I messed up,

failed a drug test, got another charge, did anything bad, I could potentially serve the full five years, five years of probation, 200 hours community service, all kinds of fines and drug classes. But he looked at me,

he's like, Doug, you're 20 years old, you're young. This felony conviction is going to haunt you for the rest of your life. If you complete everything without messing up, no misprobation appointments, no failed drug tests, like nothing.

I will take the felony conviction off your record at the end of the five years. And I looked at him, I was just like, all right, man, like I didn't believe I was going to make it. Because I said, my belief in my ability to live past 25 was next to nothing. Oh my gosh. So he convicts you.

He tells you that he's giving you a shot, which a lot of judges don't do that. At this point, are you, is it a sense of relief that you're going to prison for almost five years, given all the shit that's going on outside the bars? Yes and no. I mean, I knew that in my gut that if I didn't change, I was going to wind up in either dead or in jail for a lot longer than the 90 days that I had gotten sentenced to. But I still had no desire to change. Like when I was supposed to report to jail, because it gave me a few weeks to gather my belongings and say goodbye to my family. And ironically, I reported about a week after my 21st birthday.

And my family was, like, waiting for me in the parking lot to say goodbye. And I was almost late reporting to jail because I was too busy getting high for the last time. Oh, my gosh. So what the big golden question, everyone's got to be saying. First of all, I'm saying, what the fuck, Doug? The second thing they're saying is, what was it? What was the breaking point for you where he said, I'm going to change? So the crazy thing is this is I cried when I walked into jail because I didn't want to go in.

And I cried when I left because I didn't want to leave and here's what happened. So mind you, as this guy, you can imagine, I don't know if you can visualize what I looked like back. Then I'm 50 pounds heavier than I am now, like 40% body fat, could barely jump like three inches off the ground. Like I could barely run, couldn't do a push up. I was so unathletic. I'm like, all right, I'm going to get beat up. I'm going to get picked on, like, all the things were going through my mind of what was going to happen to Doug. And on top of that, I had this horrific, horrific opiate habit to kick.

So my first few weeks in there, I detox cold turkey, which felt like the worst case of the flu. Like, I mean, everything. And then my soon-to-be cellmate, who actually just passed away a few last week, he was sitting there playing Scrabble and he was like, you're going to start working out with me when you get through your detox. And I was like, yeah, right, man. Like, if you see me, like I could have been a model for Pillsbury at the time. And he could just look at me. He could see Jason that there was something inside of me that needed to change.

You could tell my shoulders are rounded forward. I talked very quietly. I just had no self-confidence. I was like almost walking around like a zombie. And shortly after that, I saw him work out. And he was like a more jacked version of Brad Pitt from Fight Club. And he was doing thousands of pushups, hundreds of pull-ups, like running all over the common area. I was like, who is this guy?

And so shortly after that, we're talking in the cell and he's asking me more questions about my life. He's like, so like, why are you here? Like, what happened? I was like, well, my parents got divorced when I was five and I got bullied. And I was like blaming everybody but myself. And I guess the PG version is he looked at me and he was like, dude, quit being a victim. And I was like, what do you mean? He was like, you're blaming everybody for your problems, but yourself.

And it wasn't what I wanted to hear in that moment, but it was what I needed to hear because for the first time of my life, I felt empowered. And the drugs had been out of my system at this point. And I mean, I started to be able to think a little bit more clearly. And I was like, man, like, he's right. Like I had 21 jobs by the time I was 21. and I damaged so many relationships. I'm incarcerated for this felony drug charge.

And like, obviously, I didn't know what I was doing. He's like, you got two choices, Doug. You can either be a victim, go cry in the corner, say, well, was me. And blame everybody else for your problems. He's like, most people will do that. Or you can be a man, man up. Look yourself in the mirror and say, you got yourself here and it's up to you to change. He's like, it's your choice.

And that inspired me to give exercise a try. And I got down on my knees to try to do a pushup, couldn't do a push up. I could barely walk up and down the steps because I was also smoking like a pack to a pack and half of cigarettes a day. And with his motivation and encouragement, I was able to do a set of 10 pushups and run a mile by the time I left my 90 day sentence because he trained me in there every single day. And after I got done with my sentence, I finally felt like I was ready to change my life because I had this new level of self-confidence I never had because I was a guy that I was mortified of exercising in front of people because of the way I looked because of what

people would say. And here I am in the most vulnerable state I'd ever been in exercising. Couldn't do a push up from my knees. But we started with one, worked our way up to two. And then just slowly built all the way up until 10. And I just started to walk differently. I started to talk to myself differently. I started to see a lot of the pain that I had been through is something that was meant to happen to me so that I could change in the way I was starting to change. And when I left, I cried, man, because I felt like this guy, he felt the need to help me change and save my life before saving his own. And I asked him how I could ever repay him. And he said, don't mess up and pay it forward. He gave me a workout plan that I still have framed in my place. So I never

forget where I came from and got out and continued on the path to fitness. Wow. It's almost like the strangest contradiction that, like, mom and dad, you know, like parents weren't waking you up. Grandparents. That didn't do it. Your brother's lending you money. Didn't do it. A guy putting a bullet in saying you put a bull in your head didn't get you to change. But it is your cellmate. Your cellmate in prison that draws that out of you. Because I think the common perception of jail is, you know, you got to defend yourself. You got to work for yourself. You're going to have to fight. You can't be, you know, taking advantage of. Not that it's going to be like a full rehabilitation for you. And it was just that, which is just unbelievable. When you look at your, because I want to get into what you did to pivot up, when you look back at your jail time, other than the sunshine and roses of finding yourself with the cellmate, was there any really dark moments?

Or did those dark moments actually help propel you to keep moving in the way you not move? Like in jail, were there any other dark moments? Yeah. Yeah, of course. Like, I had, I'd written letters home because my mom wouldn't come visit me for a long time because she was just so pissed off at me. And of course, I felt completely betrayed and devastated that she wouldn't come.

So there was that. I started to understand a lot of the demons that I'd never face. Because you got to remember, like, when you're somebody like me who was just numbing pain for so long with doing drugs and selling drugs, I was. you know, suppressing a lot of the negative emotions and everything. So I had to be, I was finally able to see myself like naked, like spiritually, emotionally, mentally, where I had to now face these demons that I had been pushing to the side for so long. And I learned how to reattach behavior to emotion. I talk about this in the sense where before I went to jail, my default,

when I got anxious, stress, depressed was stress, drug, you know, anxious, do a drug, depressed, do a drug. Where in jail, I wasn't able to really do that, so I was able to use fitness as this new behavior, where if I was stressed, I would go for a run. If I was anxious, I would go and we would work out and do push-ups. And the reason I bring this up is because there was a moment that really pivoted things for me, especially in my fitness journey in jail, was my dad came to visit me with my with my brothers one time.

And I don't know if anybody here who's listening has been in jail. You maybe you've seen it on the movie, but it's true. Like there's the glass wall or the plastic wall, whatever it's made out of. It's clear.

And on one side, there's you and the phone. The other side is them and they have the phone. And my dad was, this is after I'd gotten started working out. My dad was yelling at me. Like, you're going to rehab.

Like, you need to do this. And I was just like, screw rehab. I found fitness. And you just kept yelling and yelling and yelling and yelling because that was like his way of trying to get me to listen to him

was just yelling at me. And I just remember, thinking of myself like, why are you yelling at me? I'm in jail. Like, how much worse can things get? Like, what do you want from me? And I remember just hanging up on him because I just was like, man, he has no power over me right now, walked out, said to my cellmate, I was like, man, let's work out. And that was when I was able to like really pivot and see the, this, this good side of pain, like being able to channel these negative emotions into something positive. And the story, Doug, it's just truly remarkable to see where you

were and where you are today and the many, many, many times over and over and over, you had that chance to kind of restart and reset yourself and you didn't, but then you found yourself. And to see that from this experience, you go to jail, you're in a worst position thinking you're going to be dead by 25 and you turn your life around. And then all of a sudden, you got Forbes, you got men's health, you're on the today's show, knocking at your door. What happened from getting out of jail to being in the national media spotlight occurred that people wanted to hear about your story? So after I got out, again, like the first few weeks or few months, the reason I didn't do any drugs is because I didn't want to let my cellmate down because I just saw how much this guy

had come into my life and helped me unconditionally. So I kept on the plan that he had given me when I left, ran, did push-ups, did all the things. And then I got to a point fitness-wise where I lost a bunch of weight. And I wanted to help other people use fitness to change their lives. So I became a personal trainer in April of 2011. And I found this new high. in helping people change their lives through fitness because I could relate to them because I was talking to people that wanted to feel better about themselves. I was talking to people that weren't comfortable in the clothes they were wearing. I was talking to people that were insecure about their health, about, they were insecure with who they saw in the mirror. And I could totally

relate to them. And I was able to just connect with them on an emotional level that some other people weren't because I had been in their shoes. And it was blessed enough to build a pretty successful personal training business. And then time flew by. And my probation was up at the end of 2013. And ironically, I had trained some attorneys. And I had an attorney helped me write a letter for modification of my sentence because I completed my end of the bargain that the judge had asked me to do. And he granted me my day in court. So in January of 2014, I went before him. And this was like, I had, like, the owner of the gym, I had family, like, people, like, in the courtroom. And he held up his end of the bargaining.

He took the felony conviction off my record. And I never realized how much one's life could change in a matter, matter of seconds from being like shackled as a felon and now being a free man. And that inspired me to write my first book from felony to fitness to free to inspire people to make the most their second chance, turn negative into a positive. And really, like, make people aware that life's about the choices that you make. And then I've just been on a tear ever since between writing a couple other books and sharing my story that I hit a point. I think it was back in maybe 2018, 2019, where the drug epidemic was getting really bad, like really bad with opiates and heroin and everything that I had told my story locally a lot.

Like people had gotten word of who I was by the local news. I was voted as a fitness hero, like you said in the intro. But I was like, man, like I have such a unique story. and that I didn't go to AA, I didn't go to N.A. I didn't go to treatment. Like, fitness literally saved my life in jail. And there's a lot of people that I think can relate to what I went through that I think if I time it right, I could get some great press. And just through some connections that I had, I met a guy who, you know, we were around the same age. I saw he was a publicist and worked with like health brands and had actually proposed to his wife on the today's show.

I was like, all right, this guy definitely knows how to hustle, right? And I, PR, as you know, is not guaranteed, but I just had a conversation with him. I'm like, dude, like, I've done local press. I don't want local press. I want to help people. Like, this is why I'm, like, investing. Like, I pulled money out of, like, a Roth IRA to help to invest in this because it was so meaningful to me.

And he was like, dude, I think you have a good shot. And I believed him. And then, like, shortly after I hired him, he was like, hey, that today's show wants to come spend two days with you. Are you cool with that? Like them? And I'm like, of course. He's like, well, they're going to be following you around. So they, like a couple, like a reporter and a video person came and came to dinner with me at my grandparents. They came to the gym. They talked to, you know, my, talk to my grandparents and like film me running. They came here, like an in-depth interview with me

at my condo. And then that parlayed into other media outlets and podcasts and that sort of thing where I just, I hit the timing, right? But I also, I'm just doing this because I want to help people. Like, I'm not honestly, like on the back end. Like, I'm not here to sell anybody anything. I'm just trying to just spread a message of hope, like deep down, like, and pay it forward. Like, literally, like, pay forward the gifts that my cellmate gave me when I was incarcerated to help other people.

Yeah. I mean, it's an unbelievable story. You think about your cellmate, who you said has recently passed. When you think about your cellmate, you think about what you've just achieved to date since you made the turnaround. When you look into the future, what's it look like for Doug? I think it's continuing to pass the torch.

I mean, I'm working on another book right now where, because I wrote my first book from felony to fitness to freeback in, I guess it was like 2014, 2015. It's been some time. But a lot's changed since then, you know? And so I'm like, all right, I want to pick it back up from where I left off there

and kind of bring it to current day and let's just see where it evolved. and I think I'm a better writer than I was then. So I'm definitely working on that. And I really want to have an impact with like kids, man, like high school kids, middle school kids and just trying to help them in a way, whether it's through my story or just, you know, some of the wisdom that I've learned along the way to help them use like hard times

to their advantage and that they're not going to let, you know, hard times that defeat them like they defeated me for so long because I think now there's a growing drug problem, a drug epidemic. that continues to get worse by the year. I think last year over 100,000 people in the U.S. died of a drug overdose, and I'm afraid it's only going to get worse.

Well, Doug, the work you're doing now is incredible, and there's nothing that I think shows credibility like someone who has literally gone through it, who's been arrested, who's had the dollars and hearts and family ripped from them only to serve time in jail to make the full turnaround, literally from rock bottom to where you are. It is really cool.

And so we got to get your trading secrets, Before we do, though, I know you said Roth IRA, I heard some money talk there. Have you officially paid back everyone that you owed money from the drug dealing mishaps? Oh, yeah. Beautiful. And all the relationships have been repaired with your family and brothers? Yeah, for the most part. I mean, I would say, like, my dad and I don't have the best relationship.

I mean, it's better now, like, than where it was when I got out. But my mom and I have a really good relationship now. Like, I actually was one, like me and my two brothers, like, walked her down the aisle. when she got remarried and we've actually like had a come to Jesus moment together where we both kind of forgave each other for the way we handled things when I was younger and um kind of helped her more understand like what I was going through at that time awesome amazing well Doug this has been a phenomenal episode we appreciate you being on here but we can't let you leave without giving us a trading secret and a quick story I'll tell is we had uh Zach from the bachelor on who runs release recovery

and really helps with people that are overcoming addiction because he had an addiction. And I'll never forget when someone came up to me and was like, I want you to let you know, you saved my family member's life. I was like, what did I do? She's like, that podcast you put out with Zach, I listened to it, and I knew that my sibling needed to go to rehab.

And that was the straw for me that made me confront him. He's in rehab, and he's undergoing the treatment he needs. So I think with your story, Doug, every time you tell it, it's wild that you can really save a life. So maybe this is part of your trading secret. Maybe you saved a life already with the story you just told and someone listening. But before you leave us, what would a trading secret be from you, Doug? I would say the trading secret that I'm going to leave people with,

because this is going to work for whether you're going through. It's going to work, I think, for a variety of things that people struggle with, is I believe that there's like three A's that you have to do when you're faced with adversity, right? I think the first one is awareness. Like you have to be aware of what you're going through. So if you're feeling anxious, if you're feeling stressed, if you're feeling low energy, if you feel like, you know, you're having digestive issues, like whatever it is, right? Be aware.

The second thing is really important. All right. I know you're going to like this. It's acceptance. Because I think what happens is when we start to feel anxious, we start to feel depressed, we start to feel stressed. We're like, why is this happening to me? Like, I shouldn't be feeling like this.

I'm already successful. I shouldn't be anxious. like I have good things going from I shouldn't be depressed like whatever right and what happens is you start to spiral downward right because now you get caught up in this victim mindset and that becomes like an addiction in itself and now a bad hour turns into a bad day turns into a bad few days turns into a bad week right just so you have to accept that part of life is these ebbs and flows right sometimes you're going to feel off sometimes you're going to feel anxious right and that's okay the third a is important as well and that's action And when I say action, it's you have to do something that's going to make you feel good that's also aligned with the highest version of yourself and that's healthy, right? And so like the reason I bring this up is like for me, like back in the day, I certainly struggled with insecurities, anxiety, depression, and I use drugs to self-medicate. Now, I still struggle today.

There's days I'm anxious. There's days I'm depressed. I mentioned my cell may passed away last week. like that's been hard for me but the way i handle it is much different like i'll go on a walk i'll get on a podcast like this and and and give and share my story and try to help people i will listen to music i'll go to the gym i'll read a book like like things change right and so that would be like something that i think can be pretty applicable for for most things that people are struggling with awareness acceptance and action i love it all i love the action too because so many people can drum it up in their head of

of being aware and accepting it, but can they take the action? At what point will they act on the change? And for everyone, it's different. And for Doug, certainly, for your story, it was different. But you did it and you changed it. And you put action into place. Anyone that's listening that needs to do that, hopefully this serves as motivation for you.

Doug, when people are listening to this, they're going to want to know more about your fitness plan and your training. And of course, adversity advantage, the podcast said I had the pleasure of being on. where can everyone find, you know, the books they have going on in the podcast. People want more Doug. Where can they find more Doug? So I guess the central place is Dougbobes.com where it has like the links to everything. It's got the links to the books.

It's got the links to other interviews. I mean, I love this interview. We went into detail about stuff I really don't talk about, like the drug dealing day specifically, like the ins and out, which was cool. So if people want to dive into some more of my content, they can find stuff there, the podcast, the adversity advantage, it's wherever you listen to or get your podcast from, then I'm most active, I would say, on Instagram, at Doug Bopest on Instagram, and then I have TikTok and other stuff, but I'm not as active there.

Doug Bopst, everybody, go check out his Instagram. He's got a bunch of training stuff on there, too. So, I mean, between the books, the podcast, his IG, you'll be able to find all the stuff he has going on. I think he has some links in his bio, too, that allow you to maybe connect. with them deeper, maybe gets a one-on-one consulting. And if you reach out to Doug, I can promise you, I'll respond to you. So, Doug, thank you so much for being on this episode of Turing Secrets. It was one we won't forget and one that will hopefully truly, truly make an impact because

we do all this work under the restart umbrella. And I don't know that there's a story that defines restart better than yours. So we appreciate your time. And thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me, man. I loved it. Awesome. Good stuff. We'll talk soon. Thanks, man. Making that money and money, playing on me. Making that money and money living that dream. Making that money, money, money, pay on me. Making that money, money. Living that dream.