Reflections on Turning 40!

In this episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast, host Doug Smith shares personal reflections and insights gained from turning 40. From expressing gratitude for life, emphasizing the importance of personal growth, to highlighting the significance of family and faith, Doug offers a comprehensive summary of his key takeaways over the years. 

00:00 Introduction and Purpose
00:32 Turning 40: Reflections and Gratitude
01:40 Life Lessons and Personal Growth
04:43 Finding Your Voice and Platform
12:34 The Importance of Family
15:53 Community and Personal Well-being
17:42 Health, Fitness, and Faith
21:11 Financial Foundations and Future Goals
22:36 Conclusion and Encouragement

The L3 Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Andocia Marketing Solutions. Andocia exists to bring leaders’ visions to life. Visit https://andocia.com to learn more.

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Transcript

Doug Smith 0:00

Hey leader, and welcome to another episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast, where we are obsessed with helping you grow to your maximum potential and to maximize the impact of your leadership. My name is Doug Smith, and I am your host, and we recorded this episode live from our Burgo Realty Studios. Well, leaders, today you're gonna hear a personal lesson from me on the reflections I've had since I recently turned 40. I called the lesson I'm 40 and I have something to say, and I hope it adds a lot of value to your life. And more importantly, I hope that whatever age you are, it's gonna cause you to reflect on your life and what you're learning in your current season of your life. So with that said, we're gonna dive right in. Here it is. I'm 40 and I have something to say. Hey leader, today I'd like to talk to you on the subject. I'm 40 and I have something to say. And that's right. Last month I turned 40 years old, which is weird to say. It's even harder to believe. And in a lot of ways, I still feel like I'm a 20-something, building the foundation for my life. But when I look around, I'm married to my high school sweetheart for 13 years now. We have five kids, uh, a house, and a lot of responsibility. And so I guess that lines up with being 40 years old and being middle-aged. And so I'm no longer a young leader. I'm a middle-aged leader, uh, but much more seasoned and experienced. And so uh I wanted to do this lesson because every year around my birthday, I try to reflect on where I am in life and the lessons that I'm learning that year. And especially when I when I transition into a new decade, I like to spend a lot of time reviewing and reflecting on the decade I just lived and really just dreaming about uh what the next decade of my life will look like. And so as I was turning 40, I was just reflecting on where am I and and what's important to me. And so I thought I'd share that with you today. And I hope that it encourages you and inspires you. And so we're gonna dive right in here. The the biggest reflections I have as a 40-year-old man. And the first reflection is this I'm 40 and I'm more grateful for life than I've ever been. And this is always the top lesson every single birthday because for me, you know, I had I've lost a lot of people in my life. You know, I lost my mom when I was 17 years old. I lost my mother-in-law when I was 19 years old. I lost both of my grandparents in my 20s. Uh, I lost my sister uh in my 30s when she was just 32 years old. And so the brevity of life and how short life is is very, very real to me. My mom uh was 55 years old when she passed away. I'm 40 today. If I only live as long as my mom did, I only have 15 more years on the planet. My mother-in-law was 47 years old when she passed away. If I only get 47 years on this earth, I only have seven years left. My sister passed away when she was 32 years old. And if I only get as many years as my sister, I'm basically living on borrowed time, which means each and every single day that I get is a gift, which is true whether you're 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, doesn't matter what age you are. Every day is absolutely a gift. And I think a lot of times we think about, oh my gosh, I just turned 40, I'm getting older. But getting older is a gift. How many people didn't get to turn 40 years old? They never made it to their 40th birthday. How many people never made it to the 30th birthday of their 20th birthday? If you know, my dream, I like, I hope I get to live into my 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. Like what a gift that would be to live that long and to get to see that much life and to have hopefully grandchildren or great grandchildren. Like what a gift growing old is. You know, one of my favorite quotes is by Mae West, and she said this, she said, You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. And I think if you live with this attitude of gratitude of being grateful for every day, whether you get 30 years or 60 years or 90 years, you just live so much more intentionally and you are so much more present, and and every day is so much more significant. And so uh I am 40 and more grateful for life than I've ever been. And one other quote I would throw out there on this subject that I just thought of was uh a book that greatly influenced me when I was younger was Today Matters by John Maxwell. And the thesis for the book is we over-exaggerate the past, we overestimate the future, but we underestimate today. That is so good. That changed my life. We over exaggerate yesterday, isn't that true? Hey, those were the good old days, the glory days, they're behind me, my best days are behind me. That's not true. We over exaggerate how good yesterday was. And a lot of times we overestimate the future. Oh, if I just get married, if I just get a house, if I just get, you know, whatever you're aiming for, then I'll be happy. And we overestimate how significant the future will be. But we underestimate today. And today is the only time that we get. And so, leader, I just want to challenge you. I hope that you're enjoying everyday life. I hope that as you're getting older and you're no longer a younger leader, that you're not saddened by that, but you're grateful that you've had a young leader journey, that you had a middle-aged journey, that every day you've gotten as a leader is a gift. The second reflection I would share with you is I'm 40 and I have something to say. I'm 40, I have something to say. Now, I shared this and a friend reached out to me and she said, Doug, uh, you've always had something to say. Which is true. I've always had a voice, but but why I share that specifically now, and especially now I'm turning 40, that's something God spoke to me when I turned 30. When I turned 30, I was doing a decade review, and I just remember I was just praying, and and God spoke to me and he said, Doug, in your 20s, I gave you a foundation to bode your life on. In your 30s, I'm going to give you something to say. And in your 40s, I'm going to give you a platform to say it. I'll say it one more time because it was so powerful to me. Doug, in your 20s, I gave you a foundation to bode your life on. In your 30s, I'm going to give you something to say. And in your 40s, I'm going to give you a platform to say it. And, you know, now that I'm two decades into that, I can say that so far that has come to pass and that has been true. In my 20s, I really do feel like I laid a foundation. In my 30s, as I reflect back on the past decade, I just wrote down a few things that have happened in my 30s. You know, when God said he would give me something to say. In my 30s, I got clear on my values. I went through two tough seasons with anxiety and physical symptoms. I lost a sister to a heroin action, uh, heroin addiction. I got promoted multiple times and now helping lead an organization. I helped lead a$25 million capital campaign for an organization. I recorded hundreds of podcasts, hosted three conferences. I wrote a book, which still needs published. I earned some money. I bought a house and we had five kids during my 30s. You know, that's a lot. And, you know, there's a lot of good times in there, but I had some really hard times in my 30s too. And I certainly do have a lot to say based on the the life experience that I've lived. Um, but you know, I often think about if I had uh if I had to know what I'd have to go through to have something to say, I'm not sure that I would have signed up for the journey. But nonetheless, I'm coming out of my 30s just saying, like, I've lived a lot of life for just having 40 years on this planet. And I feel like I'm finally confident that I have something to add to the world, that I can bring value to any room that I'm in. And so I'm really excited, you know, if as what God spoke to me comes to pass, if my 40s, he gives me a platform uh to share what he's put in my heart, I'm really excited to be able to impact a lot of people that way. So I'm 40 and I have something to say.

Will Host 7:04

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Doug Smith 8:05

Number three, I'm 40 and I'm more passionate about personal growth than I've ever been. This is huge. I'm 40 and I'm more passionate about passion uh personal growth than I've ever been. When I was 18 years old, if you know my journey, I had no idea. I barely graduated high school. I certainly knew it had no idea there was something called personal development or personal growth. And my mentor Larry Betancourt handed me a John Maxwell CD. And uh it was called Standing Tall. The lesson was called Standing Tall was Enjoy Stewardship Services. And I listened to it, and for whatever reason, something went off in me. And I didn't know it came with uh notes, and so I transcribed the whole lesson word for word, and I called Larry and I said, give me everything like this that you have. And he gave me binders full of Maxwell CDs. And so I spent the majority of my time in my 20s listening to John Maxwell leadership lessons. Literally, like two or three hours a night, my friends would come over and want to get drunk and hide, but like, no, we're gonna watch the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership on DVD. And uh, and they all kind of rolled their eyes and left. But I just sat there and I just I was so hungry for growth. And why am I passionate about this? Because growth is the promise that you can be more tomorrow than you are today. Growth is the promise that you could be more tomorrow than you are today. And so I got addicted to this whole cycle of okay, if I grow today, if I do something to grow today, I'll be better tomorrow. And here's what I know, leader, when you get better, everyone around you wins. If I grow as a leader, everyone that I lead in my organization is gonna benefit from that. If I grow and develop as a husband, my wife and my kids are gonna benefit from that. If I grow and develop as a father, my kids are gonna benefit from that. If I grow and develop as a friend or as a family member, like everybody wins when a leader gets better. And you can do something every single day to get better. And so that's my charge. I've been doing this now. I'm 40 years old. What is that? 22 years, I've been doing something every single day to grow and develop. It's listening to podcasts, it's listening to audiobooks, it's meeting with mentors, it's getting real authentic feedback from people who know you and love you and want to challenge you. But I'm more passionate about this than ever. Like when I look at where I started as an 18-year-old, barely graduating high school with basically no hopes or dreams for the future, to where I am today in my 30s, leading an organization, like like that is a large and a huge journey that I've taken. And it's been a journey of growth and growing every day. And so if I've grown that much in the past 22 years, I get really excited about where I could grow throughout my 40s. Who can I become? What can I do? What could I accomplish if I keep growing every day into my 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s? That's the excitement of personal growth. It's the promise that you can be more tomorrow than you are today. So, leader, get growing. All right, number four. I am 40 and I'm more confident in who I am and what I bring to the table. I'm 40 and I'm confident in who I am and what I bring to the table. And and I share this because I've spent a lot of my 20s and 30s being an insecure leader. And does that mean I'm insecurity free? Absolutely not. Still have lots of insecurities. But I will say that there's a shift. You know, I was a coworker was telling me, she said, I love my 40s, because the 40s is the age that you kind of get to where you stop caring about what everyone thinks of you. And and I can already see that. And I just turned 40. But but something a leader told me uh really helped me in my 30s. It was Eric Guy, uh, who's a mentor in my life, and he said, Doug, you keep asking me this question, like, am I a leader? And I was. I would quite it was what I constantly strived to to prove that I was. If I just do this, this, this, if I achieve this, this, this, then people will know, and I'll know that I'm a leader. But I'm not really sure. Am I a leader? Am I not? I guess we'll find out in time. And Eric just looked at me and said, Doug, stop that. He said, Doug, you are a leader. The question isn't, are you a leader? He said, the question is, what do you want to lead? See, when you when you're confident that you have the ability to lead and you can come in and lead something, you don't just start to like accept things or just hope that you'll be a leader one day. You actually take charge and say, like, no, I can do this. I can do this, I can step into that role, I can take the organization to where it needs to go, I can take this team to where it needs to go. And so it's been so freeing to grow in confidence in that and to say, I am a leader. I am a leader, I can lead. And so, God, what are you calling me to lead? And I can just give him open hands and saying, I'm ready. I'm ready. If you have an assignment for me to lead, put me in, coach. I am ready to lead because I'm a leader. So I know a lot of leaders deal with insecurity, so hopefully that helps you. Again, stop questioning if you are a leader. Just ask, what do I want to lead? Huge. Number five, I'm 40 and family is everything. I'm 40 and family is everything. No surprise here, right? But family really is everything to me. Um, this was instilled in me through really my in-laws, my father-in-law, and my mother-in-law. Uh, they really showed me what a godly family looked like, what a godly marriage looked like, my youth pastor. I saw this modeled a lot in my 20s, and it gave me a vision for having my own family one day and leading my own family one day. And so uh, you know, I've often joked, I don't have time to tell her whole story, but it took me 10 years as a teenager in a 20-something to grow into the man I needed to be for Laura to say yes to me. I had to grow up a ton, but she eventually did, and we got married when I was 27 years old, so we've been married now for 13 years, and um, we have five beautiful kids. We had all five kids, as well, at least I did. Laura started in her 20s, but we had all five kids in my 30s. So literally uh 10 years, we you know, Laura and I joke, she's been pregnant for an entire decade, which is crazy. But I'll just say this with family like if you would have ever told me we'd have five kids, I would have never believed you. But as we've grown and developed as a family, we got around this ministry called uh family teams, and they they really transformed the way that we view our family. And and basically the whole premise is the guy that started it, Jeremy Pryor, he lived in Israel for two years with uh an Israeli family or Jewish family, and he learned a totally different concept of family. And he said, you know, in in the Bible, and in in the East, basically their view of family is the family is a multi-generational family team on mission. Everything you do is about the family. Where in Western culture, in the US, it's all about the individual. Hey, we're we're a family, yes, but we're raising individuals to go out and be their own independent person and do their own independent thing. And he said that we're missing it big time. And so that gave us a vision of really just expanding our family and just saying, hey, what do we want our dinner table to look like 30 years from now? What would our impact of our family be five generations from now if we intentionally make fit put family first and intentionally train our kids and raise them right? Like imagine the impact the Smith family could have five decades from now. When you start thinking about that, it changes everything in the way that you parent. In fact, Jeremy's encouragement to parents is parent with your grandchildren in mind. Because when you do that, you'll get it right. Because if you just focus on the next generation, you can get frustrated and mess things up. But when you start to think long term, right? Starting with, hey, how many kids do we want to have? Okay, man, what do I want our family team to look like in 30 years? Man, I would love we have five kids now. And again, we weren't necessarily planning on having five, but five kids. Like, imagine how many grandkids we could have. Like, it would be amazing. And then imagine if all of those kids have kids and those kids have kids and they are all taught godly values and are all living for God and all taught leadership and and they're making a leadership impact in their cities, their nations, and their world. Like your family can change the world if you get this right. So family is everything for us. It's it's what we're putting all of our resources into and all of our training. And I could do a whole another lesson on how we're parenting, but I'll just stick with that. That I'm 40, and family is absolutely everything to us. It is the number one priority. It's more important than everything else. And of course, God's first, but God and our family. But uh, our family is a way higher priority than our careers or anything else. Our family team is everything. Next, I'm 40 and I'm fully known, fully loved, and fully challenged. I'm 40 and I'm fully known, fully loved, fully challenged. You probably have heard me say this a million times, but every leader needs a community in which they're fully known, fully loved, and fully challenged. You need this. Fully known, what does that mean? It means you have a place and a community around you where you can fully share anything that you're going through and you you can you feel okay and safe to do that. Fully loved, what does that mean? You're gonna be loved unconditionally, regardless of what you share. You could be going through the worst time of your life, you could have made the dumbest decision you ever made, and people are gonna love you right where you're at. But not only do we need note and love, we also need challenged, fully challenged. And you know, I always tell people that, you know, I sometimes I want a hug and a pat on the back, but what I need is a slap in the face, right? I need someone to literally, and I've had that happen in my life, a kid change my life by slapping me in the face, but slap me in the face and say, What are you doing? You're better than this. Why would you do that? You got to change this now. And we need fully challenged. And leader, I'll just say this. If you have a place where you're fully known, loved, and challenged, you just live life differently. You walk with a different confidence because you're not trying to strive for love or find love or uh or you know, meet all these things. Like you have it. You have community around you. You know, at light of life, we often say with people struggling with addiction, the opposite of addiction isn't sobriety. The opposite of addiction is actually community. And we are built for community, we are built for relationships. And so I would just encourage you, leader, if you don't have a community in which you're fully known, loved, and challenged, regardless of what age you are, you you need to make that your number one priority of finding that because it will change everything for you. But I'm 40 and I'm fully known, loved, and challenged. I'm so grateful for the men and women in my life uh who love me that way. It makes all the difference. Next, I'm 40 and I'm still focused on my health and fitness. Again, I've done lessons on this, but I grew up a very heavy kid, very out of shape, and my physical trajectory was not great. Uh, but in 2025, my father-in-law kind of intervened in my life and called me out and challenged me to be better. Again, that fully challenged. And he basically said, like, one area you need boundaries in and accountability is what you eat and how you're how you're living your life. And from 25 on, I've been pretty strict with my my health and fitness because I have a vision for health and fitness. For me, health is like I want to do everything within my control to live as long as I can. Like I want to live, if I can live in my 90s or hundreds, hundreds, that would be amazing. And can things out of my control happen to me? Of course. But there are a lot of things we can do with our health that are in our control. And then my fitness is important because I want to be able to be active when I'm in my 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. You know, I know I won't have the energy I do now at 40, but I hope that I can wrestle with my grandkids. I hope that I can still hike and do mountains and bike and things like that when I'm in my 60s and 70s. But a lot of that is determined by how I handle my health and fitness today. And so it's been a huge priority. Uh, I've been doing a lot of things recently. I'll probably do another lesson on that soon, but health and fitness are a major priority to me as I turn 40, as they as it has been for the past 15 years. Next, I'm 40 and my faith is still the foundation for everything I do. I'm 40 and my faith is still the foundation for everything that I do. If you knew my story, um I gave my life to Christ in middle school, uh, in seventh grade, fell away, got into drugs, and did all this crazy stuff for a few years, and then my mom passed away my senior year of high school. And in that moment, I met my wife and I rededicated my life to Christ, my senior year of high school, and I have never looked back. It's been 22 years of faithfully serving God and giving him all I got, and it's made all the difference. The only reason I am where I am. You know, I mentioned my my sister was younger than me. We were both headed on the same path with drugs and alcohol. And when my mom died again, I had people come into my life and then my life started going one direction when I started following Christ. My sister kept going down the same path. And um unfortunately, obviously, we lost my sister to an overdose. She got involved. But if it weren't for the grace of God in my life and me surrendering my life to God, it's likely that I would have been on the same path my sister was. Uh, you know, my friends constantly told me that they thought I was an alcoholic already and on my way to being a drug addict. And I'm just so grateful that I surrendered my life to God. It was the greatest decision that I've ever made in my life. And I tell people all the time, you could live a thousand lifetimes, living out your own plan for your life, and it would never compare to the one life that God has planned for you. And so my encouragement to you is if you haven't given your life to Christ, surrender your life to him. It's the greatest decision that you'll ever make. He'll be with you the rest of your life. One of my favorite quotes is actually from uh the play Le Miz, and the main character, John Valjean, is is singing, and the line goes this it said, I gave my life to God I know. I made that bargain long ago. He gave me hope when hope was lost. He gave me strength to carry on. And uh man, did God meet me when I was absolutely hopeless in my life. And man, has he given me strength to carry on in every season of my journey with the high highs and the low lows, and he'll continue to do that for the rest of my life, and he'll do that for you too. So, again, if you've never given your life to Christ, I can't encourage you enough to do that. If there's any if that's ever anything you want to talk to me about, I'd love to have a conversation. Feel free to reach out about that. Uh, two more things. The last one, as far as my 40 reflections, is I'm 40 and I have a great financial foundation. I'm 40 and I have a great financial foundation. Again, when I was 18 years old, had so many people come in and change my life. And I've mentioned my father-in-law Mike Style multiple times, but he sent me through Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey. When I was 18 years old, he paid for me to go through it. And in that, if you never heard Dave Ramsey has a plan called the Financial Peace Plan, and it's basically a baby step plan of how to manage your finances, and that really laid a financial foundation for how I should be managing my finances, finances, which I was never taught. And that foundation that I was able to build in my 20s, compounded in my 30s, and Laura and I still follow that plan today. Uh, we're now in a place where we've gotten a financial advisor, and so we're constantly getting coached on what to do with our finances. And I would just say if you're a young leader, listen to this, and no matter what Where you are, like, really encourage you to connect with Dave Ramsey and his stuff. If you've never learned how to manage money well, uh, if you're in a lot of debt, he'll help you get free from that. And he'll just help you get your financial life in matter in order, which is so important. And again, I really think you need a financial advisor as well, because you need a coach, you need coaches in every area of your life. Like it's so helpful that Laura and I have Ryan Walzak, who's our financial advisor, to coach us and say, Hey, this is what you should do with your money. And we could always disagree, which we often don't. He's he's brilliant. Um, but but we're so grateful for that coaching in our life, and it's made all the difference for where we are financially now. So get your financial life in order. And as we wrap up, those are the major things that I've reflected on as I turn 40. And I would just say this that I'm really excited about my 40s. You know, I said I know that God spoke to me that He'll give me a platform to share what He's put in my heart in my 20s and 30s, and I'm really excited about that. But the beautiful thing about a new decade is it's a brand new season to dream. And I'm really grateful for the last 40 years and everything that God's done in and through my life. But I know he's not done, and I'm really excited about what the next decade of my life will bring. And so, more than anything, I hope that this lesson encouraged you to just reflect on where you are in life, no matter what age you are. I hope that it's caused you to determine what's important in your life. And I also hope that you'll be dreaming. Dreaming about what your life could look like if you continue to grow every single day. Because remember, growth is the promise that tomorrow can be better today and you can be more tomorrow than you are today. So I hope this lesson encouraged you. I'm gonna be doing a lot more personal lessons. Uh, and so I hope that that'll add value to your life as well. Thanks for tuning in and we'll talk to you next episode. Thank you so much for listening to my lesson. I'm 40 and have something to say. Again, I really hope it encourages you to take time to reflect on whatever age you are and the lessons that you're learning at your current age. It's a really, really powerful exercise. You can find links to anything that I discussed in the show notes below. And I want to give special thanks to our sponsor, Andocia Marketing Solutions. They are the producers of this podcast. And if your organization has any needs with marketing at all, I wholeheartedly recommend their services. You can learn more about them at endosha.com. That's a-n-d-o-ci-a.com. And as always, I like to end with a quote, and I'll quote Mae West, who has my favorite life quote of all time. She said this. She said, You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. Well, leader, that's going to wrap up today's episode. As always, remember, don't quit. Keep leading. The world desperately needs your leadership. I'll talk to you next episode.