Success Won't Silence Your Soul: A Veteran's Story of Healing with Douglas James

Douglas James captivates listeners with his raw, vulnerable journey from a traumatic childhood to becoming a wildly successful entrepreneur and devoted family man. 

Growing up with a father battling addiction, mental illness, and violent tendencies, Douglas witnessed domestic abuse, experienced homelessness, and endured neglect that left deep emotional scars. His powerful testimony reveals how joining the Navy at 17 became his escape route—leading to a decade of military service and eventually building businesses that generated over $70 million in revenue.

Yet despite external success, Douglas discovered a profound truth: "Success does not silence your soul." No amount of money, business achievements, or material comfort could heal the wounds inflicted during his formative years. The true transformation began when he embraced faith and learned that forgiveness wasn't about waiting for his father to change, but about allowing himself to be changed.

Douglas shares the breakthrough moment when he sat with his father and offered forgiveness—not because his dad deserved it, but because holding onto resentment was poisoning only himself. This act of spiritual surrender created space for healing while still maintaining healthy boundaries. His practical approach to managing resentment through prayer and mindfulness offers listeners tangible tools for their own healing journeys.

For anyone carrying the weight of past trauma or struggling with forgiveness, Douglas' story proves that breaking free from resentment can lead to both spiritual freedom and worldly success. His testimony reminds us that our legacy isn't measured by financial achievements but by the healing we embrace and the cycles we break for future generations.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Douglas James
• 3:47 Childhood Trauma and Family Dysfunction
• 9:39 Military Service and Running from Pain
• 11:44 Finding Forgiveness Through Faith
• 16:04 Forgiveness in Daily Practice
• 20:00 Musical Outro: Breaking the Circuit

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome back everybody to the truth about addiction. Today's episode is yet another interview from my live monthly event in LA Heart, conscious Creators, with an amazing man. I met earlier this year and it was unbelievable not just the professional success he's had at a young age, but, more than that, the personal overcoming of adversity that I really knew nothing about until this interview. It was breathtaking to listen to how he's worked through some really hard things, the level at which he was willing to be vulnerable, and what he's doing with his life today. So I cannot wait for you to listen. In the meantime, check this bio out.

Speaker 1: 0:46

Douglas James is a traffic and sales expert who has built and scaled consulting and coaching businesses to over 70 million in revenue. Over the past decade, he's spent more than 25 million on paid ads, selling high ticket offers up to 50K and has mentored 15,000 plus entrepreneurs, professionals and veterans on scaling online. An Inc 5000 entrepreneur, douglas has been featured on Fox, nbc, yahoo, entrepreneur and more. He's also a strategic investor in AI, blockchain, real estate and commodities and supports nonprofits like Pencils of Promise and RIP Medical Debt. Today, he's the founder and CEO of LeadFiai, a cutting-edge SaaS platform that reveals the buying power of leads in real time, revolutionizing how sales and marketing teams target high-value prospects. Let's get right into it and please, if you are enjoying the podcast, let me know, share it with a friend, leave a review, give me a comment. Book a free discovery call. Link is in the bio. I'll new reprieve.

Speaker 2: 2:07

Breaking the.

Speaker 1: 2:10

Douglas James, get your butt up here.

Speaker 3: 2:17

Now you know, you ready baby.

Speaker 4: 2:22

Thanks for having me.

Speaker 3: 2:24

Always great to see you. I know, know, it's so great to see you. Doug is also a new friend. I met him in miami, yeah, yeah, in march, and he's. We were cracking up, man, we're. Then we're not, we're not going that route, although maybe something funny will come up. Who knows it, always does you it. But I was like we're not going that route, although maybe something funny will come up, who knows, it always does.

Speaker 3: 2:48

But I was like we're going to be friends and I'm so glad you're here. Can you please just tell everybody who you are so they can get to know you for a second.

Speaker 4: 2:56

Yeah, hey guys. Douglas James, I live in San Diego, I got a beautiful wife, two daughters. I'm a 10-year US Navy veteran. I've been in digital marketing for 11 years now. I'm a paid traffic expert and online high-ticket sales. So I am in the online coaching marketing space, if you're familiar, and now I'm in software and different AI technologies. Very cool, yeah.

Speaker 3: 3:22

And doing Very cool.

Speaker 4: 3:25

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 3:25

And doing very well.

Speaker 4: 3:27

Yeah, we're doing okay.

Speaker 3: 3:30

Okay, big topic, so we're going to go right in.

Speaker 4: 3:34

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 3:34

When I ask you about imagining somebody that you have carried a resentment toward, who's the first person that comes to mind?

Speaker 4: 3:47

I don't know if the vibe today is just everyone's going to have daddy issues, that's okay. I mean, yeah, as soon as you told me about what we're going to be talking about, my dad is the primary person that came to mind, and my dad is the you know, primary person that came to mind, and you know. So I mean growing up, forgiveness definitely is not something that I grew up with.

Speaker 4: 4:12

I definitely had to learn it, you know, because you know, growing up we lived. My mom worked, you know, 12-hour shifts at night. She was a respiratory therapist. My dad was in and out of jobs, odd jobs you know, auto mechanic repairman, kind of like that, and he never really had anything stable for his life and he actually became unemployed probably around maybe 25 years ago, you know. And my dad, my mom, has been the breadwinner of the family and my dad has been really troubled, you know, throughout his whole life he's struggled with alcohol abuse, drug abuse. He was technically clinically ill. He's a paranoid schizophrenic on a minor scale.

Speaker 4: 4:56

So growing up I would see things in the home I had a crazy freaking group of freaking guys. It's actually taken me a lot of time to be able to share this without like breaking down. But I mean there was times where, you know my dad would do things like put the screwdriver on top of the door hand doorknob and so he could hear if it falls. He would say the cops are coming in the house. He could. There's listening devices. You know he was physically abusive. I watched him beat my mom many times growing up as a kid. Um, he was physically abusive to me as well and um, verbally abusive, and I mean he had a, an addiction to, like I said, drug and alcohol, but also to gambling. So he constantly was. You know, he would take me on a school night, tuesday, wednesday night, across the lake. I'm from New Orleans, louisiana. We grew up in a town called Covington, so there's this big lake called Lake Pontchartrain. It's the largest lake with a bridge across it I think in the world. It's like 30 miles long. Anyway, he would go to New Orleans and drink and drive, go to the daiquiri shops and go to the casinos and leave me and my sister in the car on a school night 10, 11, 12 o'clock at night and we're playing Snake on the old Motorola phones while he's in there gambling.

Speaker 4: 6:21

And there's times where my mom on our nights off, she would go with my dad and go gamble and go do all the things and leave me and my sister and we would be left with like we didn't even know if we were going to eat. We would. We would go to bed hungry that night and sometimes I got woken up around 2, 3 am to eat mcdonald's because they picked us up food and sometimes they did it and I woke up the next morning, hungry, you know, trying to get ready to go to school. We didn't have hot water, my, we had to put a pot on the stove. Uh, I just I never wanted when I had a family. I wanted to give my girls everything that I didn't have growing up, you know so. So my kids big drivers to what I've done in my life. But, yeah, I mean, we had a big bucket in the bathroom half you know rooftop water, and it would put a bucket of boiling water so that we could shower and bathe, because my dad refused to pay the bills and he spent all the money on drugs, alcohol, gambling.

Speaker 4: 7:30

I remember I was 14 years old and my parents had to file bankruptcy. They went over a hundred thousand dollars in credit card debt and we were homeless for about a week, living out of our car, and it took my grandmother and my uncle to come together and they helped us get into a home and paid. My uncle paid the rent, I think, for six months. My uncle was very successful, no-transcript. You know this is what you're supposed to do, you know.

Speaker 4: 8:30

And all of those things, man really haunted me, you know, as I got older. But it was, it was when I was 16 years old. Uh, my dad, I started to come into my own as a young man, and I started to really realize, like, what's right and what's wrong. Right, you start to have these thoughts, and I approached him one day and I just he came home drunk and I'm like dad, I don't agree with your behavior, I don't like the way you treat my mom, I don't want you to put another finger on her. I confronted all of his different behaviors and, uh, he took a swamp. And he took a swamp, and, ever since that moment, I left.

Speaker 4: 9:06

I went and moved in with my grand my best parents at the time for a short period of time, and then I moved in with my uh, my grandparents, and then, um, you know, those behaviors, though, were still haunting me, and, and you know, I found myself, 17 years old, working at Target for two months, and I shoplifted like a few thousand dollars in electronics, and I thought it was right and it felt good wow, I'm getting all this cool stuff. I'm not, you know, paying for it. And, uh, you know, I, I just it was not making the connection I had. My dad had a problem with boundaries. I had a bomb problem with boundaries and I found myself falling into different boundaries, thinking things were right, even though I'm like I took this big step, I ran away from home and all these things, but I'm still troubled.

Speaker 4: 9:50

So it kind of got to the point where I needed to make a big shift, a big pivot, and my grandma and my mom came to me and they were basically like look, you're going to go to college, you're going to go uh, you're, you're going to go to college, you're going to go to the military, or you're going to get the fuck out of our house is what it kind of came down to. I graduated with a 1.4 GPA. I cheated on all the smart kids, um, so I ended up joining the military and it was my way of like, cool, I'm going to run, I'm going to go to the military, I'm going to focus on myself and just try to be the best human I can be. And I did. I really did, man.

Speaker 4: 10:28

I spent 10 years in the military. I made rank faster, record speed. I helped a lot of people, I did a lot of good. I built schools for kids in Papua New Guinea, fiji and the Philippines. But what I realized was and through all that success and I got into business. Right, I'm going to turn this, I'm going to go back to this point. But I got into business, created a nine-figure company, found my wife, I had two beautiful daughters. All these amazing things were happening because I was focused on success. But what I realized is success does not silence your soul.

Speaker 3: 11:04

Amen.

Speaker 4: 11:05

Right, I was running for so long I was running with this pain. No amount of money, business deals, sex with my wife nothing was going to cure the turmoil that was inside of me and I had to figure out how to release it. And I did not know, and it wasn't until I literally turned everything over to God. My faith has been the number one factor in my growth and where I'm at today, and what I started to learn is you know to learn is you know forgiveness. Forgiveness is not approval. Right, forgiveness is release. Forgiveness is freedom. Right In the Bible it's Colossians 3.13, it says forgive, as Jesus has forgiven you.

Speaker 4: 11:57

And I struggle with that so long because I'm like wait, I thought you're supposed to forgive someone when they come up to you and say they're sorry, like right, somebody kicks you in the shin, they steal your wallet, they cut you off in traffic. Hey, sorry about that. Oh, I forgive you. No big deal, right? But that's not what forgiveness is about. Forgiveness is not about waiting for other people to change right, forgiveness is about allowing God to change you. And that's where I learned you know. So it's spiritual warfare. And forgiveness is not weakness, forgiveness is strength. So I had to push that pain, give that pain to God, forgive my dad, not because he deserved it, but because Jesus paid for it, paid for it with his life. So, through my faith, that's how I've been able to overcome this.

Speaker 4: 12:55

And when I made that shift, we were in New Orleans for Christmas one year and I sat my down, my dad down, after dinner and I just I just said, daddy, you know, um, I'm really sorry that you've been so troubled, I'm really sorry that you had you. You you've had this very troubled life and I know that you weren't the perfect dad, your perfect husband, uh, but I love you and I forgive you. And I have found through my faith and I started to preach to my dad, I started to tell him about my experience and what started to happen in that moment is I saw a twinkle in my dad's eye that I'd never seen before. It's almost as if the Holy Spirit just kind of came over that moment, came over that meeting, and I remember my dad just stood up in the middle of me speaking and he just gave me the biggest hug that I've ever had in my life. He's never, never hugged me like that before and I just felt like we were just floating there for a minute and then my dad just started to pour out and cry and and tell me how sorry he was and and admit how imperfect he was.

Speaker 4: 14:08

But I, but I, what I realized in that moment? It's like, okay, I forgive you, daddy, but you know, this doesn't mean I have to. I have to remember with grace, I can't forget, but I have to remember, because after that moment and after that time went on, my dad continued to still have these behaviors right, that I can't have around my children, yep, right, and I would hear back from my mom about what was going on my kids. I'm really thankful for that, because my kids don't know the version of me before, because that pain would show up in how I led, that anger would show up how I would communicate to my wife and how I would communicate to my kids and deep down, it was that pain that I had to release and give that forgiveness. So for me it's like a burden off my chest, a weight off my chest, and I'm so thankful.

Speaker 3: 15:11

I mean, I don't even know how to ask anything, because that was just unbelievable and so thorough and so deep and so beautiful. And I'm so glad I got to know that part of your story because I know how faithful you are and I've wondered what type of crisis that was born from, as it often is. And now I know, are there ways today that the resentment shows up around your dad? And if so, I'm hearing that you go to God to help remove it, to help free yourself from it If and when it shows up, and maybe it's not about him, but with whomever. What is a practical application?

Speaker 3: 16:06

You know, to me prayer was so off-putting for so long because I grew up in an atheist home, and so my journey with even saying God out loud has been revolutionary, and I can totally say it now, and I don't really care who's offended. And I can totally say it now and I don't really care who's offended. But I understand if it doesn't make you feel safe, because it depends on what you learned in your formative years, right. But I do now think that prayer is a type of spiritual technology, right, that can really reverse engineer the place we're living from. And so is there a prayer that you say when resentment pops up. Is there a regimen, a spiritual habit or ritual that you do that shifts your energy, that the crowd might be able to use?

Speaker 4: 17:04

There's certainly a spiritual. Yes, there is. I know that there is a spiritual. You know, this is all spiritual, this is all things that we can't necessarily see, but we feel and we know to be without a shadow of a doubt. But I know that there's this psychological element as well, you know, and uh, resentment is, is a bitch um, resentment is like poison that you decide to drink to in hopes to that.

Speaker 4: 17:32

It hurts the other person but you're really just hurting and damaging yourself. You know, forgiveness is the ultimate freedom, right? Um and uh, you know what, when you release that and forgive, right, uh, it's like clinically shown depression, anxiety, physical illness, all these things go down. So it's like it's it's like hello jack's out the box. We can't put him back in the box. You should forgive, right, let's not try to. You know, act like we're not going to forgive someone just because they. They might have done some, really after things for sure, but you have to find that space.

Speaker 4: 18:07

So, for me, I'm caught because I'm in business and because I deal with so many personalities. I've ran the company with over 100 employees at one point. Um, you know I I've dealt with some of the most difficult people trying to transaction in business. Um, yeah, I do have some resentment and sometimes I really have to catch myself and be like lord, you got to take this one, because I'm about to say something I don't mean and discredit myself, which I have, you know. So I'm a human being, but I just have to stop and pray that. You know, lord, whatever is not of you, lord, that is in me. I need you to take this right now, because this is not of your peace, your salvation, your forgiveness, your, all these things, and anything that is not of you is the other entity that's trying to destroy me and take something from me. So I have to constantly remind myself of that, right and when I think about the psychological component of this.

Speaker 4: 19:08

We're all built for survival, right? So when something's not going right, if we're not happy with a certain outcome, we immediately are built for both for survival, like I need to eat and sleep and run. That's all you care about. So any kind of goals, dreams, aspirations, anything you're trying to thrive, to achieve, you really have to develop a new mindset around how you think and approach situations, right so, because I mean, ultimately, you guys, I know we like our arms and our legs, but technically you can live without those things. You know the body only needs the brain and the spinal cord and the major organs. I have friends that got blown up in Iraq and Afghanistan that came home.

Speaker 3: 19:56

Peace, peace I love you.

Speaker 4: 20:09

Yeah, it sucks to not have those things, but your banish doesn't need it, you know. So you gotta really dig deep here. And this work that you know Samantha talks about Samantha talks about it's not Fugazi, it's not something you know, it's real stuff. I had to do a lot of work because I got two kids and when I get older, what's the story that those kids are going to be telling about me? Right, we talk about legacy. We talk about what are we going to leave behind me? Right, we talk about legacy. We talk about what are we going to leave behind? Honestly, yes, I have all these amazing things that I want to leave behind, but ultimately, what are my kids going to say about me when I'm gone? If that story is locked in and straight and positive, I know that there's a lot of good that's going to fall behind that right.

Speaker 3: 20:53

So thank you so much, dog.

Speaker 2: 21:13

Oh, give it up for Douglas. Don't need a crucifix to take me to my knees. Whipping my mistakes to jump over the grief. Breaking the circuit, making it worth it. Oh, sick and tired of the voice inside my head Never good enough, it's leaving me for dead. But perfection's just a game of make believe. Hey, gotta break the pattern, find a new reprieve. Breaking the circuit, making it worth it.

Speaker 2: 21:59

Oh, hide and break to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I got left aside. I can be brave and afraid at the same time. Practice self-compassion starts to calm my mind, taking tiny steps to loving all of me. Just the process, cause it's gonna set me free. Breaking the circuit, making it worth it all. I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I got the love, love, life. Gotta gotta gotta break it or fake it till we make it. Gotta gotta gotta break it. Come on, one, two, three. I am ready to make a change. Come on, I got the life. I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's an oar deep inside. I got the life.