79. Doug Bopst on Hitting Rock Bottom, Going From Felon to Fitness Coach, and Using Adversity to Your Advantage

Dec 6

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Today I am joined by Doug Bopst—an award-winning personal trainer, author, speaker, and business owner. Those credentials and accolades are a result of his own transformation. He is 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.

Doug's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dougbopst/?hl=en

Doug's Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-adversity-advantage/id1496406333

Doug's Books: https://www.amazon.com/Doug-Bopst/e/B01F43E89G%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

This week's DBT Skill is the STOP skill. Learn more with this adorable animation or read this article.

Doug and I dive into the following topics…

+ Doug's personal journey from addict and felon to a fitness coach, podcaster, and motivational speaker helping others transform their lives

+ What it’s like to hit rock bottom and the steps Doug took to turn his life around

+ How you can use adversity to your advantage to fuel your journey

+ Using fitness to transform your mental health and specific tips to implement

+ The extreme impact habits have on overcoming the challenges you face

+ Why you should be focusing on how far you’ve come and your immediate action steps rather than how far you have to go and your end goal

+ So much more!

SHOP GUEST RECOMMENDATIONS: https://amzn.to/3A69GOC

Episode Sponsors

🛋This week's episode is sponsored by Teen Counseling. Teen Counseling is an online therapy program with over 14,000 licensed therapists in their network offering support with depression, anxiety, relationships, trauma, and more via text, talk, and video counseling. Head to teencounseling.com/shepersisted to find a therapist today!

About She Persisted (formerly Nevertheless, She Persisted)

After a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, 18-year-old Sadie recounts her journey by interviewing family members, professionals, and fellow teens to offer self-improvement tips, DBT education, and personal experiences. She Persisted is the reminder that someone else has been there too and your inspiration to live your life worth living.

Want to create a podcast video just like this? Check out veed.io! It streamlines the process of adding audio, subtitles, photos, and more!

a note: this is an automated transcription so please ignore any accidental misspellings!

Sadie: Welcome to she persisted. I'm your host Sadie Sutton. Every Friday, I post interviews about mental health, dialectical behavioral therapy and teenage life. These episodes break down my mental health journey, teach skills to help you cope with life and showcase testimonials from individuals, including teens, just like you, whether you've struggled yourself or just want to improve your mental fitness.

This podcast is your inspiration to live a life you love and keep persistent.

This week on she persisted.

Doug: And I remember in that moment, I'll never forget this. Like everything came to a head for me, like all the bad choices, all the bad decisions, all my circumstance, everything I was like, cause I was wondering like, how did this kid who just wanted to be loved? How did this kid who just wanted a relationship with a girl?

How did this kid, I just want to be good at sports. Like how did this kid who just wanted these simple things and basic human needs in life? Like how is he now in the back of a cop car facing felony drug charges? And a lot of it came down to my own choices and my own behaviors, which is why I'm such a, an advocate now for really being careful of the habits and choices that you make on a daily basis, especially when you're faced with.

Hard circumstances where it's a lot easier to fall into that trap of addiction, substance use that sort of thing.

Sadie: This week's DBT scale is the stop skill. Stop is an acronym that stands for stop. Take a step back, observe and proceed mindfully it's from the distress tolerance modules. That means we're using this skill when we're in crisis mode, when we're really struggling and you need to survive and get through the moment.

So we're starting by stopping physically, mentally. You're not reacting. You're freezing. And while your emotions are having giving you those urges to act without thinking you are staying in.

The next thing you're going to do is take a step back from the situation you are taking a break. You're letting go. You're taking a deep breath if possible, you're physically removing yourself from the situation and then reentering it later, which we'll talk about sometimes that's not possible. So you're mentally taking a step back and you're not letting your feelings make you act impulsively.

Observe you are noticing what's going on inside you and outside you. What's the situation like what are your thoughts and feelings? What are other saying or doing? And lastly, you're going to proceed mindfully. You're going to act with awareness and deciding what to do. You're considering your thoughts, your feelings, the situation, and other people's thoughts and feelings.

You're thinking about your goals. And you're asking your wise mind, which actions will make it better or worse. So this is a skill when you use, when you're in crisis mode. It's great for when you're having a conflict with another person.

If you're struggling with anxiety, anger, all of these things, this is the perfect scale to use. And the key here is proceeding. Mindfully can impact the situation and not just continually avoiding. So that P is crucial. So without further ado, let's dive into the episode.

Hello. Hello and happy Monday. Welcome back to she persisted. If you're new here. Welcome. I'm so glad you're here. Making sure that you send me a DM on Instagram to say hi, introduce yourself. If you're a returning listener. Welcome back. I can't wait for you to hear this week's episode. This is so weird. I just recorded the intro to last week's episode, and I'm like immediately recording this week's episodes intro.

It feels a little weird for sure. Like normally I am so last minute with all the podcast stuff, obviously I'll do interviews in advance, but when it comes to like editing and intros, like that's like the day or two before episodes go up, but we're trying to be more effective and plan in advance so we can relax this week on break.

So hopefully next week, by the time you're listening to this episode and I've gone back to college, I had a restful relaxing Thanksgiving. That was stress-free and I hope you had the same experience. We'll see we'll update anyways, this week's episode is an amazing interview with Doug Bopst. He is the host of the adversity advantage podcast, which I will, of course, Lincoln today's show notes.

He has an amazing story about how he went from a felon to being a fitness coach and just went through an extreme season of personal growth, , took the insights he had and shared them with other people. So we'll dive into his story. He's the author of three bucks, which will also be linked in today's show notes.

And I just can't wait for you to dive into this episode because it's so inspirational. There are so many tactile tips and tricks that you can implement in your life. And it's just an amazing reminder that no matter where you're currently at in your journey, you have so much potential and so much power to change your life. So I hope you love this interview as much as I did. And if you want to connect with Doug, you can follow him on Instagram at D O U G B O P S T at Doug Baupost.

And of course that will be linked in today's show notes as well as his podcast. So without further ado, let's dive into it.

Thank you so much for joining me today on She Persisted. I'm so excited to have you on the show.

Doug: Yeah, thanks for having me and for the kind words and anytime I can ha have any, anytime I have an opportunity to, to share some wisdom or parts of my journey to help other people I'm totally down for it.

So thank you.

Sadie: Of course, of course. So I want to start setting a foundation and hearing your story. So listeners kind of know who they're getting advice and input from and you have an amazing journey. So I'd love to hear that. So walk me through from the beginning to where you are now with doing tons of mental health advocacy work, having a podcast, all of that.

Doug: Yeah. So Sadie, it's funny, like, you know, before we recorded, you were talking about my podcast. My show is called the adversity advantage, where I interview people from all walks of life, on how they've taken something painful in their life in many cases and turned it into something magical. And I'm a trainer.

I've been a trainer for almost 11 years. I've done a lot of speaking. I've written some books and doing a lot of advocacy work now for things like mental health addiction, that sort of thing. But it wasn't long ago that my, my life was in complete despair. You know, I was incarcerated on felony drug charges back in 2008.

And at that time I was suicidal. I was heavily addicted to opiates. I had no hope in my life. I didn't think I was going to see my 25th birthday. I had no self-confidence. I was 50 pounds overweight. Like everything about me was broken. It was broken physically, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. And growing up, I used adversity to my complete disadvantage.

And as I look back and like, wonder, like what led to me becoming incarcerated, it was just, it was really just my inability to deal with my insecurities pain trauma in a way that's healthy, which is why I'm so passionate about that subject today. And some of my insecurities and painful moments where my parents got divorced when I was five, I never had a girlfriend in school.

I loved sports, but I was the worst athlete. Like I never got picked for certain teams and I was bullied. I went through all kinds of abuse and eventually I, I looked for the first way possible to numb that pain. And originally it came in the form of food as I look back. You know, very unhealthily growing up cinnamon buns and you know, like breakfast, sausage, a lot for breakfast, pop tarts, cereal, tons of pasta, fast food, you name it.

And honestly, what was hard about that is this is I wasn't really eating much different than my friends. Like that's just kind of, I think what kids do is they, they hang out and they get some fast food or their order, some pizzas, or you'll spend the night and have a sleep over. And the next day you'll have like a, you know, a high sugar breakfast.

But I think I just did it a little more in excess. And my genetics at the time just didn't serve me because I started to gain weight at a young age. And so now I'm wearing Husky clothes when I'm, you know, barely a teenager, not even. And now it's another layer of insecurities and what's wrong with me or why this, why that?

And in tons of uncertainty and fear of my life and what became my biggest opportunity to numb all this pain was. And when I was 14. Now mind you, I always like to preface this, especially now, because pot is legal in so many areas that it's not that I was smoking it. It was why I was smoking it. That that really mattered.

And it, I never thought in a million years that my first hit off a marijuana pipe would lead me into being incarcerated. Nobody does like, if, if that was like the consequence that was guaranteed, I think you'd see a lot less people. Yeah. And I took my first hit off a marijuana pipe when I was 14 and I felt this massive monkey come off my back.

Like I didn't have to worry about my anxiety. Didn't have to worry about, you know, being the, the chubby kid. And I have to worry about not having a girlfriend. I have to worry about all those insecurities. I talked to you about a minute ago. I didn't have to worry about cause now I was just numb. And I was like, wow, like this is awesome.

I feel it. And so now I had to keep chasing that feeling. Right. Because I didn't want to deal with the stuff. And also like, as a kid, like you you're really like, there's a lot of talk about mental health now, and I'm definitely for that. But as a kid, like you're unaware of a lot of that stuff and how it's really impacting you because you're just so focused on like living in you're in school.

And yet you have like certain friend groups and you're not, you're not thinking about that stuff. And I started to smoke every day and it started to create tension in my household because we, my parents had split custody. So we would go to my mom's house half the time, my dad's house, half the time and on my 16th birthday, after a couple bad decisions on my end, I was, I was kicked out of my mom's house for getting busted with a little bit of pot.

And I think that she thought in that moment that her kicking me out was like the best thing for me. Cause she's like, okay, I'm going to kick him out. He's going to go live with his dad full time. He's going to change schools. So hopefully find new friends and stop using But that just created more baggage in my life, created more trauma, more insecurities, more like what's wrong with me?

Why doesn't my mom love me? Like, why

Sadie: should I, that support? Right?

Doug: And so I go to this completely different high school. The next day I changed schools and continued on the path, kept smoking more pot, kept doing what I needed to, to fit in, met a new group of friends and, and barely graduated high school because all my friends and I would do was ride around, skip class smoke pot.

And that was like the lifestyle back then. And shortly after I graduated high school, I started to like, once I, once I realized that I wasn't going to go to school, like go to a four year university, like a lot of my friends did. I was like, all right, well, I can go to community college, but I'm also going to start selling pot to make money because the other addiction that I had that I, it took me a while to realize was this.

Now I had this addiction to being wanted and needed. Because I had started to, as a teenager smoke, you know, sell a little bit of pot to support my habit, but now I was selling it to actually make money on my phone was ringing off the hook. Like people needed me because, because I was the kid who never got picked for the teams or didn't have a girlfriend, like I really didn't have this sense of, of being wanted.

This was like a, a new addictive feeling for me. And as you start to sell more drugs, you start to meet other people who are doing other drugs. So I got introduced to cocaine at a very young age. I was like 17, 18 started doing Coke. And then, you know, one line of Coke turned into me doing an eight ball of Coke a day.

And the problem was like a kid with as much anxiety and fear that I had at that time. Like doing that much Coke in a day or doing any coconut day. Yeah, it just go, that goes about as well together. And it goes about as well. Together, if someone is trying to lose weight and eat pizza every day, it's just not going to serve them in the longterm.

And eventually that all came to a head and I started to develop massive panic attacks, which back in 2000, I call it 2005, 2006, something like that. Nobody was talking about mental health, nor would I had no idea what a panic attack was. So I couldn't, there was a time where I couldn't get high anymore without having this massive anxiety attack.

I was in the hospital multiple times as a matter of fact, cause I thought I was dying. And you would think at that point after. You know, seeing all my friends, some friends of mine go to college, seeing the fact that I'm now selling drugs and I'm now doing Coke and I'm having all these, these mental health issues that it would actually force me to say, okay, like maybe it's time to actually deal with your stuff.

Maybe it's time to change your friends. Maybe it's time to change your habits. But that was too hard for me because I think a lot of people, when they hit that point in their life, Sady where their self-esteem is shattered, or they just don't have the self-confidence or they don't have the ability to think for themselves because they have created their own identity based on the identity of other people, because they haven't been able to stand true and what they are.

I think when you're in that situation, the, the idea of changing. Friend groups and doing something different seems very insurmountable. And that's what it was. It's

Sadie: also like very comfortable. It's like you now know this, this environment, the situation, however, toxic or negative, it may be it's, it's your comfort place.

And if you leave that it might get worse before it gets better. So I remember the exact same thing when I was suicidally depressed. I was like, yes, this is the worst I've ever felt. But if I try and change anything, it might be worse before anything changes. Right.

Doug: And so I continued to hang out with the same people and, and run around the same crowd and do the same things I had been doing before, even though it was causing, you know, massive despair at my current life.

And eventually, like what really did me in was a five milligram Percocet got offered to me by one of my friends and the same feeling that I got when I took that first hit off a marijuana pipe was the same feeling I got when I took a five milligram Percocet. And, and the crazy thing is, is that. I didn't realize how addicting painkillers were now.

I didn't think it's not like, I, I didn't think that it was me putting spinach in my system or anything. I knew that what I was doing was bad at anytime I snorting a pill, I was like, this can't be good. Right. But I didn't realize how fast that addiction can develop. And over a span of, I dunno, I don't know if it was weeks or months, but very short amount of time, five milligrams from an to 10 a day, turned into 20, turned into 40 all the way up until I'm doing three, 400 milligrams every single day, just to support my habit.

And my life started to fall apart very quickly, you know? And, and this came in the form of my, my current relationships. I had friends that, you know, I had my F I, a group of friends that I would do all these drugs with that maybe were the best influence on me. But I also had other friends that like, Doing drugs that they were like worried about me or like, can you please stop?

Like, you're such a good kid. Like, why do you, why are you doing this? And I don't think, I don't think it's funny when I wrote my first book, people who I went to school with messaged me. And they're like, I honestly didn't realize like how bad you felt about yourself. Like, I didn't know any of this because I was so ashamed of how poor I thought of myself that they didn't

Sadie: realize that.

So it just gets normalized. Like there's no relation to what other people are thinking about. You're like, wow, this is really low self-esteem. You're like, this is just my internal monologue. This is just

Doug: the right. And I think, you know, I always say that our environment can create a false sense of normalcy in that.

Totally. If you're surrounding yourself with people that are doing drugs all the time, or they're pessimistic or they're partying, I mean, you can just fill in the blank. You're going to think that's normal, whereas. If you're hanging around people on the other end of this spectrum, right. That are challenging themselves to be better.

They're making healthy choices, so on and so forth. Like that's going to be normal and you're not going to tolerate like anything different, anything differently. Right. And, and eventually everything came to a head on Cinco de Mayo of 2008. And by this point I was selling tons of pot, 10 pounds a week. And I was riding around with a few of my friends to go make a drug deal, had a half pound of pot in my trunk, a couple thousand dollars in cash in the glove box.

And I guess I didn't realize that Cinco de Mayo is one of the biggest drinking holidays of the year. So there's police officers running radar all over the place. And I had a busted headlight that I had been meaning to fix for quite a long time. But the thing is like, once you're in that, in the thick of addiction, All you care about is when you're getting high, who you're doing it with, what song are you gonna listen to?

What are you going to eat after? Like, like it's insane that it becomes like a religion when you're in the thick of addiction, that everything revolves around that one thing. And there was a cop running radar. And so I thought it would be a brilliant idea to flash my high beams at him and was like, oh, I'll flash my high beams, Adam.

And think he just won't see my busted headlight. They gave him a reason to pull me over because I flashed my high beams at him. And that's like the signal to like, let somebody know there's a cop coming. Right. Get, I get pulled over. And as soon as I get pulled over, my heart just sank in the pit of my stomach.

Cause I just knew, I knew it was over. Like I knew at that moment, my life was over. I really thought it was all said and done and pulls me over. I stammered to hand in my, my license and registration. One thing leads to the next. He pulls me out of the car and ends up starting. And finds the half a pound of pot and the $2,000 in cash in the car.

I'm in handcuffs in the back of the cop car. And I remember in that moment, I'll never forget this. Like everything came to a head for me, like all the bad choices, all the bad decisions, all my circumstance, everything I was like, cause I was wondering like, how did this kid who just wanted to be loved? How did this kid who just wanted a relationship with a girl?

Hard circumstances where it's a lot easier to fall into that trap of addiction, substance use that sort of thing. And I was booked taken to jail and charged with the felony intent to distribute possession with intent to distribute marijuana. Went to court a few months later. And at the time I thought the judge threw the book at me, but it ended up becoming a big blessing for me because he sentenced me.

We first, he found me guilty. You know, I had every reason to be guilty. I got caught with money scale, the drugs, everything else. And so he sentenced me to five years. It sends me to five years. Everything's suspended at 90 days, meaning if I do the 90 days and if I mess up. I wouldn't have to go back and do the full five-year sentence.

Gave me five years probation 200 hours, community service, all kinds of fines, drug classes, but he's like, Doug, I'm going to make you a deal. And I'm like, deal. I'm like, after what you just told me, like, what's the deal. He's like, if you complete everything without messing up, no miss probation appointments, don't fail.

Drug tests, you do your community service, you do everything. I'll take the felony conviction off your record at the end of your five years of probation. And at that time, like I was 20 and I didn't think I was gonna live to see 25. I had already buried several of my friends. I was like, well, isn't the world supposed to end in 2012?

Like I was like, there's no way I'm going to make it through the end of this time period. And I just said, okay, like, whatever, like I knew I was going to get high when I left court anyway. So it just, I was like, all right, well, whatever, we'll see what we can do. And I ended up reporting the jail a few weeks later, which ironically was a week after my 21st birthday.

And the craziest thing about this whole story is this is. I cried when I went to jail because I didn't want to go in. And when I left, I cried because I didn't want to leave. And here's what happened. So when I get to jail and I report getting ready to walk into the gates of the detention center, I had every fear.

You can imagine, like every stigmatized fear or everything that people think about when it comes to jail, like was definitely going through my mind, especially being the kid who was unathletic, unconfident, you know, uncoordinated, like you name it, like fearful, like always ran away from fights. Like it was going through my head.

Right. And I had so much anger, so much resentment, so much guilt, so much sadness. All the emotions were going through me. Plus I had this horrific opioid addiction to kick because I still had this crippling addiction to Oxycontin. And I went through the gates reported to jail. And the first thing I had to do is detox.

And so I detox cold Turkey. The opiates, which it felt like the worst, having the worst case of the flu for like two to three weeks straight, like everything uncontrollable, brutal bowel movements, vomiting, you're shaking, anxiety, depression, sleepless nights pain. But the hardest thing for me was this feeling of like, you're trying to crawl out of your own skin.

And as I look back, I think it was the old me trying to leave so that the new me could become new and whole. And my soon to be cellmate was sitting there playing Scrabble at one of the tables. And he looks like a more jacked version of Brad Pitt from fight club. And he was like, he's like, you're gonna start working out with him and you get through your detox.

And I'm like, ah, no way, like, have you seen me? I'm like, I could have been a model for Pillsbury at the time. There's no way that this has happened. He's like, all right, man, because he could just tell that there was something off with me that my shoulders were rounded forward. I spoke very softly. I just came across as very unconfident because of.

And shortly after I saw him working out and he was doing thousands of pushups, hundreds of pull-ups running all these laps in the gym, like, who is this guy? Like hours of working out. I'm like this guy's a fricking machine and we got to talk. And when he started to develop more of a relationship, like a friendship, if you will.

And he just kept asking me questions, he was like, well, why are you here? Like what happened? And as I started to unpack more of my story, I just was telling him like all the bad things that happened to me. I said, oh, my parents got divorced. Like girls rejected me. I got cut from these teams. I was bullied and de.

And what he said to me was the last thing I expected him to say, because I think in these moments with your opening up like that, we want to be coddled, which I think there's a time and place for that. But I think. I think it's just a lazy, inevitable, like I think sometimes we just need like that silver bullet, like that cold, hard truth right there avoid what's real.

And especially from somebody who had had no scare, he had no real skin in the game. So it wasn't like, you know, he had to worry about like me being like, well, I'm never talking to you again. Like, you know,

Sadie: he was like, I'm being your free trainer.

Doug: He was like quippy to was like, that's the PG version of what he said, you can fill in the blank of what you think really said, but what do you think he really said?

He said, you know, quit being a wuss. And I just looked at him perplexed. I said, what, what do you mean? And I was like, how dare you take away me. Take, try to take me out of my, the victim mentality. He was like, you're blaming everybody for your problems. But yourself. He was like, there's plenty of people that go through the situations or experience things that you did that aren't in jail.

He's like, am I right? And I'm like, yep. And he was like, You got yourself here. He's like, it's on you to get yourself out of this, this whole music, you have two choices and he like, you can be a man or you can be a worse, you, it can be a worse, go cry in the corner and say, well, it was me. Blame everybody else for yourself.

He's like, most people will do that. Be pessimistic, go cry in the corner. He's like, if you want to do that, that's fine. He's like, or you can be a man and look yourself in the mirror and say, I got myself here, like, and it's on me to make the choices, make the sacrifices Duetto. It takes to get myself out.

And I felt him powered as much as I didn't want to hear that. I felt empowered for the first time in a long time, or maybe even in the, for the first time in my life, because I had this person, like I said, who had no skin in the game? He wasn't a member of my family. Wasn't a close friend. He wasn't like a probation officer or whatever, like telling me the truth like that.

And I had just, I had gotten all the drugs out of my system at this point and I was starting to think more logically. And I was like, okay, Like I thought I knew how to figure life out up until this point. And here I am addicted to drugs. I was selling drugs. I'm in jail for a felony. I've had 20 jobs, I've damaged.

So many relationships I go on and on with this, like this rap sheet of all the bad things that I had done in my life because of my behaviors and choices. And so shortly after that, I decided to, to give exercise a try and I remember to get down. I remember getting down and do a pushup. Could barely do a pushup, could barely do one for my knees and with his encouragement training me in there every single day.

During my 90 day sentence, I was able to do a set of 10 pushups and run a mile. And the mile was a big thing too, because I could barely walk up and down the steps when I first got in there because of my health situation. And also because I was smoking like a pack, a pack and a half of cigarettes every single day.

So my lungs were just completely destroyed. And I felt for the first time in my life that I was really honestly for myself, To change and transform because I, now I had this new level of self-confidence. I didn't have, I was talking to myself in a different way. We worked on like the way I talked to myself, we worked on like how to, how to walk, like how to have your shoulders back, chest up, like be proud of who you are.

I started to develop self-discipline I started to get, be able to get comfortable being uncomfortable. I started to actually like follow through with the things that I knew I should've been doing all along. That's how I think. True. Self-confidence true. Self-worth true. Self-esteem comes from, is from just doing the things, you know, you should be doing on a, on a regular basis.

Like I knew I should have been making different choices. I knew I should have been taking care of my body, but I just didn't do it. But I think what happens is that we think so far out, like I was always thinking about, I need to lose 50 pounds, but it wasn't like, I just need to lose eight pounds. I need to lose two pounds.

Or I see my friends doing 50 push. I'm like, how am I ever going to do 50 pushups when I can't do one, instead of focusing on that one pushup. And that's where that mindset searched to shift for me was when I was in jail. And I was like, wow, like here I am barely able to do a pushup because I was so out of shape.

And when I left, I looked at my cellmate and I said, how can I ever repay you? And he just said, pay it forward and don't mess up. And he gave me a workout plan that I still have framed in my place. So I never forget where I came from and, and got out lost a bunch of weight and then got to a place fitness wise, where I wanted to help other people use fitness to change their lives.

And that's when I became a trainer and By the grace of God built a pretty successful personal training business and found this new high, I think of wanting to help others and pass the torch of the lessons that my cellmate had told me on the power of fitness and how that can be a catalyst for change to helping so many other people do the same and, and time flew by.

And I didn't mess up. As far as the orders, the judge gave me and in a J and J in January of 2014, I went back to court for modification of my sentence and went before the judge. And he granted me my second chance. He took the felony conviction off my record, and I never realized how much one's life can change from being somebody who was kind of shackled as a felon to now being a more free man.

And that inspired me to, to write my first book called from felony to fitness, to free, to inspire people, to make the most or second chance or negative, turn a negative into a positive and focus on how far they've come and how far they have to go. And since then, I've just been on an absolute tear. To share my story and to help other people to know that, you know, it's okay if you make mistakes.

It's okay. That if you made choices in your past, that aren't aligned with where you want to go, but what counts is like, what you do after that, like your past can either drain you or it can invigorate you, right? Your mistakes can either bring you down the rest of your life, or it can fuel you to be a better version of yourself.

And that's ultimately what has been my message, you know, over the last, you know, seven years or so, or eight years since I've been sharing my story, I've written a couple of other books along the way and been on some, some amazing podcasts to share my story in different media outlets. And this is all what's really inspired my podcast just to bring it all full circle, which is the adversity advantage.

Like I finally was able to use adversity to my advantage when I was in jail and it changed my life complete.

Sadie: I love that.

Today's episode is brought to you by teen counseling therapy. One of my favorite things in the world, what literally changed my life. And teen counseling is a great way to dip your toe in the water for therapy, without having to deal with the anxiety of meeting with a therapist in person. Because I can just be a lot if you're first starting.

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If you had to boil down that shift of using adversity to disadvantage you, to then advantage you, what would like the top three shifts, habits, mindset, behavior, things. What would those be?

I know it's a huge question, but,

Doug: I think the biggest thing for me was personal accountability and responsibility because I would focus. And so many people focus so much on the situation in itself and they have this, oh, why is this happening to me or why that's why they say that to me or why they do this.

And then, and then you end up becoming like addicted to that cycle. And then you end up justifying your behaviors on the backend because of that situation. Instead of looking at it and saying like, I can't change the past, I can't change the situation, but I can change how I respond to it. And, and that's, as I look at it now, like the adversity is it, what broke me?

Right. That my parents getting divorced or even getting bullied or. Bad luck with girls like that didn't break me. It was how I responded to it. Like it wasn't like a girl rejected me and I was like, oh, I'm going to jail. It was like, no, a girl would reject me. I would go get high or sell drugs or whatever.

And those behaviors is what led me to go into jail. So I think, you know, having that shift of taking full ownership, and I know sometimes that's hard because life's hard. Life's challenging. Life sucks. Sometimes it really does. But the only way to get out of that is to take responsibility for how you respond moving forward.

Right? Because there's a lot of, there's a lot of things in life you can't control, but what you can control is how you choose to act and respond during that situation. And then also along those same lines is, is no one's coming to save you. Like, I think we're all, when we're in these hard moments or we're struggling, we're all looking for someone to come save us and rescue us.

The fact of the matter is like, no one's coming. And I think once you. We're Linquist relinquish control or their power away from yourself and give it to somebody else and wait for someone else to fix you. Like you lose. And so that's, that's a big one. That's that's, that's kind of all goes into number one, I'd say number two, like own your choices.

Like your choices can either make or break you. Like my choices back then were blame other people for my problems, not manage my emotions in a healthy way. Do drugs, sell drugs, eat fast food, not move my body hanging around crappy people. I was lazy. I was, I mean, I could go on and on with the bad things that I did.

I mean, I was like, I was a good kid, but because of my bad habits, it made my life worse. Right. And so now, like I still go through hard times and that's the thing that people don't understand. Or maybe sometimes people would get twisted as they're like, oh, like you just don't get it. Like, you know, your life must be so good now it's not much.

I mean, it's much better because I've made different choices, but I. I find myself in challenging times. Like we all still experience heartbreak or anxiety or depression or stress or times where I'm not sleeping or times where things are really uncertain. Like what's happened in the past couple of years.

Like the amount of uncertainty in so many people's lives that, but what's changed is how I respond. It's not me looking for a drug to numb pain. It's like, how can I go now find some space to go, go for a run. Or maybe it's a walk for some people to gather my thoughts, like kind of like help mitigate that, those painful emotions and, and, and change your state of mind and kind of reduce the half-life of the adversity.

Right? Cause once you, I find that once I'm, when I'm going through something really hard and even like, sometimes you'll want to like respond to a text right away, or you want to respond to an email or do something. I find that once I go for a run and I come back, I'm like, eh, it's not that big of a deal.

I'll respond later. Right. Everybody I'm sure can relate to that. So own your choices. Like your choices can either make or break you. And I would say the other thing that was pivotal, I mean, there's so many I could go on and on because I love talking about this. Just never stop investing in yourself.

Yeah. Like learning, like wanting to heal, like, and like being excited about getting better, because I think there's this narrative, there was a narrative for a long time that if you admitted you were working on yourself or you had mental health issues, that that was like, there was something wrong with you.

Right. But like, I always, what really helped me was if I broke my leg, I go see a specialist to fix my leg. I wouldn't just not fix my leg. Right.

Sadie: Oh, I got this tough

Doug: through it. Yeah. But when it comes to mental health, for some reason, or just different personal things, we're going through where you're forced to open up and be vulnerable about like something really part personal and emotional, it becomes a different thing.

Yeah. When I say investing in yourself, it could be a variety of things like listening to podcasts. It could be reading books, it could be listening to audio books. It could be just going to conferences and networking and meeting different people. It could be going to therapy if you need it. And, and I think people need to be careful too, that, that healing.

Some people become like super obsessed with like healing where their whole life revolves around the, and while I think it's important to work on yourself, and this is why I want to say it. I also think there's a point where you need to just live a little and use a lot of the lessons that you've learned in these, these practices that you've either developed or read about or learned about.

And just seeing like what works otherwise, it just becomes this constant cycle where you don't move forward and you're like, I'm healing, I'm healing, I'm healing, but maybe part of the healing, part of that next step for you is taking the knowledge, taking the wisdom that you've learned. And applying it and then choosing how you respond to whatever that next situation is in a, in a different way that supports reflect some of the stuff that you've learned.

And then I would say the I'm going to give a bonus one here, because this is just coming to me. And I think it's just so fricking important when it comes to getting yourself out of a hard situation. And it's my favorite quote for, for many reasons, but it's remember how far you've come and then how far you have to go.

Cause it's easy to look at what you don't have in your life. It's easy to look at, like the weight you haven't lost. It's easy to look at the relationship you don't have. It's easy to just, you know, future trip, like, because so many people will do that because we're so caught up in comparison. We're so caught up in getting like a five-year result tomorrow that that's all we focus on.

The future and all we don't have, and it honestly can be very intimidating and overwhelming for people, especially when they're coming out of something like addiction, especially when they're coming out of a depression or whatever, because like, think about it. Like when someone, how intimidating is it that you're somebody who's used and abused drugs for the past 15 years, and then you all of a sudden stop and you're like, oh, like, like, how am I going to make it 10 years if I, if my track record proves otherwise.

But if you do what I did and I just took it day by day. And to be honest, like the odds were very stacked against me between the amount of people that relapse after drug use or the people that go back to prison or whatever, just based on like my previous track record of how I behave in the past. Like, like things were against me for a while.

But I knew I had to lean into that 10% and have blind faith in that and go all in and be relentless every single day. Like whatever it takes, like literally do whatever it takes to become a better version of myself that day. Do whatever it takes to do. The things that I knew would give me a chance, a chance to make it to that next day and to continue to improve as a person.

So that's where that mindset that focusing on how far you've come and then how far you have to go is, is pivotal. Because now you can look at some positives in your life. You can look at what you CA you have achieved instead of what you haven't achieved, because when you're in that state of mind and you're already like bad off, if you're looking at everything else is negative, whether it's things you haven't gotten in your life, maybe it's like a fitness goal you haven't reached, or I can make up, go on and on with examples.

Like your life will get darker. So hopefully

Sadie: that helps. I agree. Yeah. No, I think that's so universal to whatever people are going through and I think it'll be really helpful to make those mindset shifts for sure. I want to talk about the connection between fitness and mental health. We talked broad strokes about how that impacted you.

And I think most people know, like it increases your endorphins. Like it's good to get outside and get that vitamin D, but obviously you have so much experience, not only with yourself, but training other people and seeing that shift. So big picture. What are the impacts of getting active working on your fitness goals and your mental health?

Doug: Well, I think there's a lot to be said with, with fitness because when you move your body and you get your, you get your, you get outside of yourself and it's just like one thing that you're doing to keep a commitment that you're making to yourself. And you're, you're, you're doing something to better yourself, like at the end of the day, like I think the, the way for us to feel better as human beings is to continually strive to become better.

And I think when you do work out, you feel better because you're like, it's just a natural, biological, chemical reaction in your body that the endorphins are going and you're moving towards a goal and you're showing yourself some self-love. And I think that's the easiest way to show yourself that you care about yourself is to like, take care of your body and achieve a goal.

Right. And I think, yeah, and I also believe that you end up feeling better after doing something like that. The challenge is you because you. Especially if you're somebody who's used to numbing yourself with like other substances or things or not doing it like afterwards, you're like you get that natural endorphin rush.

And you're like, I'm so proud of myself that I actually did the thing. Like I actually went and worked out or I actually didn't spend time on social media or, you know, going and eating a pizza to deal with my feelings. And instead I went and went for a walk or whatever. And then I think on top of all, that is you work these non-physical muscles while you are doing fitness too, you work the discipline muscle, you work the perseverance muscle, you work the adversity muscle where now you're teaching yourself that when you're going through a hard time, like these are some tools you can use to help get out of it.

So, I mean, there's, there's so many different benefits to exercise that I think it's pivotal. To do it because it's going to improve your energy levels. It's gonna improve the way you sleep. It's gonna improve the way you feel about yourself. I mean, you're going to, it's going to improve the way you look, you know, and not just like from a weight perspective, but you're gonna be able to look at yourself in the mirror and just say, be like, wow, I'm proud of myself for taking care of myself today.

Sadie: Yeah. A hundred percent for listeners who want to invest in their physical health, invest in their fitness, but are really getting caught up in that one month, one year, five year mindset. What are your tips that they can implement today? Tomorrow? The day after?

Doug: I think what I was going to say before too, is that is to start small.

You know, I think there's a lot of people that come to me, who I haven't worked out in, you know, in a while, Weeks months, years, and they try to go back to the person. They were like 10 years ago maybe, or they try to go to what the person on social media is doing. And, and I often will say, just, just start with like a five minute walk, start with a 10 minute walk and then build off of that.

Because what tends to happen is we'll see, people will see this like 90 day transformation program and they'll see this cleanse or something that's, it's it's can be pretty intimidating and they'll try and do that, but they don't realize that they haven't built the foundational habits before to help them, to help them get to that point in a way that's consistent and it's meaningful.

And so somebody who's like future tripping about like, worrying about what's going to happen in the future. I just say, okay, like commit to whatever works for you with where you're at right now. So that could be going on a 10 minute walk twice a week, and then what's going to happen when you go on that walk, you're going to feel better.

And you're like, oh, like I want to do more of this. So maybe the next. It's a 12 minute walk and then the next week it's a 15 minute walk. And then sure enough, like a month or two later, you're now running like two miles, but where did that start? It started from those simple steps, right. Instead of going backwards where you're like, oh, I'm just going to run a 5k like this week, you know, I'm going to try and get in shape.

So I'm gonna run a few miles then what happens if you haven't run in 15 years?

Sadie: It's a terrible experience. Never

Doug: again. You're never going to want to do it again. And so it's such a touchy subject too, because everybody's built different, but I always tell people, like the best fitness program you can do is the one that you're going to stick to.

Sadie: That's huge, you know? Yeah. A hundred percent. Are you more subscribed to the philosophy of doing something every day fitness wise? Or are you like let's aim for like three workouts a week? Like kind of, what's your thoughts there?

Doug: I guess depends on the person. Like I use the, the walking twice a week because I'm looking at it from a perspective of maybe somebody who hasn't been able to get into any sort of fitness routine. And, and I think one of the biggest mistakes I see people make is that they try to go from zero to a hundred.

So those they'll say, oh, I'm going to go to the gym five days a week when they haven't been going to the gym once a week for like 10 years. So that's why I always like to use that example of twice a week. I mean, listen, if you're a seasoned gym goer and you can handle going five days a week consistently, then I'm not going to stop you from exercising five days a week, because I do believe that there's a lot of benefit to moving your body every single day.

But you know, I think for the average person, I think if you get in three solid workouts a week, I think you're going to feel hot, better off than most people. And I think there's, there's going to be a lot of room there for you to progress for you to progress and become somebody who's pretty fit.

Absolutely. Me personally now, I mean, I'm somebody that it, health is medicine to me and not the, in a, in an addictive way. But if I'm like trying to process something I'm going through, I'm trying to prepare for an interview, or I'm just trying to just take a break from life, get going for a run, going to the gym is it's an easy way for me to, to channel that pain into something positive.

Right. And I think there's a lot of parallels with fitness and like roll life when it comes to how you manage pain, because in life like we, when we, when we go through, we have to go through painful moments and push ourselves to the limit. And sometimes, and maybe, maybe it's different risks in a relationship, or it's taking a chance on a job or it's having a hard conversation.

Like we have to push ourselves to become that, to get to that next level of ourselves, right. To get to that next version of ourselves. And if you don't do that, you'll just stay the same forever. So, and with physical fitness, this is the easy example. Like in order to, for me to build a bigger bicep, I have to train my Mo my biceps still failure.

I literally have to tear down the muscles and then they recover and they get bigger. Or if somebody wants to run faster, you literally have to run. And so you can't run anymore and you collapse maybe so that you, then you recover, then you try again and you run, you try to hit that same time. So that's just that's life, right?

Yeah. And, and when it comes to mental health and fitness, like you just, you have to do things on a daily basis that challenge you mentally, physically, emotionally. And I think you develop this sense of this unperceived sense of self-confidence and self-esteem. After you do these things, because a lot of these things that work aren't convenient, they're not easy and they can be challenging.

Like I'm an anxious person. I have add, I have a squirrel brain sometimes, and I can't sit still. So for me to meditate for 10 minutes is fricking hard, really hard. But when I'm done, I feel like a million dollars. Right. And there's some, there's certain days where I'm just completely, you know, dead as far as my energy levels.

And I don't feel like exercising, but when I go for like a light run and I just give it my best for that day, I feel like a million dollars and I'm done. Or I don't like having sometimes hard conversations with people because it can be hard. I'm like I'm a people pleaser at heart sometimes where I don't want to hurt someone's feelings, but when I stand up for who I am and what I want to do, and there's peace in that.

So it's hard. It's funny because I, when I talk about fitness and mental health, Sure. There's plenty of benefits as far as the dopamine and the endorphins and, you know, keeping them the commitments you make to yourself and how you feel afterwards and all this stuff. That, from our neurological perspective, I might not be the best at explaining, but we all know that it works right where we're put, where I know it really helps me is that I just feel better after I do it, because I know that I'm not cheating myself out of something that I know I should be doing to better myself.

I'm staying consistent. I love that.

Sadie: That's huge for listeners who want to continue to consume your content follow along, where can they be? Yeah.

Doug: So I think the best place to connect with me honestly, is on my podcast. The adversity advantage, where I interview people from all walks of life and have really cool conversations on different topics of adversity.

Bring on subject matter experts as well on mental health. And then it's, you know, apple podcasts, Spotify, or on YouTube, and then I'm most active on Instagram at Doug or my website's got some stuff on it too. It's Doug boats.com and thank you. And hopefully people get a lot out of this episode.

Sadie: No, they will and I'll pass along any feedback and, and individuals that had helped.

And I, and I'm certain that people will be inspired and motivated to implement these small daily chefs.

In case you skipped to the end. Doug and I dove into his personal story. We've talked about what it was like to hit rock bottom, what steps he took to turn his life around the mentors, involved in its journey, what he's doing now with the podcast and as a fitness coach steps that you can take to implement fitness practices in your life to improve your mental health and so much more.

If you've enjoyed this week's episode, make sure that you share it with a friend or family member who you think it would resonate with. Tag me on social media. If you're listening at she persisted podcast, I'll make sure to give you a little repost and a shout out. And yeah, I hope you loved it. And I'll see you next Monday.

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