Most People Don’t Build a Great Life—They Accept One (Here’s How to Change That)

In this episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast, Doug Smith shares a powerful talk he gave for Keller Williams titled How to Build a Great Life.

Doug walks through the principles that have shaped his own journey—from a difficult upbringing to leading a nonprofit, raising a family, and developing leaders—and challenges listeners to stop simply “accepting” life and start intentionally building one that truly matters.

This episode goes beyond career success and focuses on what it really means to win in life: strong relationships, purpose, growth, and intentional leadership. Doug provides practical frameworks and actionable steps to help you clarify your vision, grow daily, build meaningful connections, and become the leader you’re capable of being.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re just going through the motions or unsure how to reach your full potential, this episode will challenge you to take ownership and start building a life you’re proud of.

Doug Smith – Host, L3 Leadership Podcast

What You’ll Learn

•  Why most people accept life instead of leading it
•  The difference between success vs. a great life
•  How to create a life plan that actually works
•  The “dream big + pay the price” framework 
•  How to become the obvious choice in your career 
•  The power of mentorship (and how to get it)
•  A simple system to handle failure: Admit it. Quit it. Forget it.
•  Why teachability is your ultimate competitive advantage 

💡 Key Takeaways

•  You don’t find a great life—you build one intentionally
•  Big dreams require a clear price—and the willingness to pay it
•  Your daily habits are campaigning for your future
•  Feedback is uncomfortable—but it’s the fastest path to growth 
•  Who you surround yourself with will determine your trajectory

📚 Resources & Mentions

• Living Forward
• Today Matters
• Tuesdays with Morrie
• The Ride of a Lifetime
• L3 Leadership
• Light of Life Rescue Mission

🤝 Connect & Learn More

•  Speaking & Coaching: DougSmithLive.com 
•  Podcast: L3 Leadership Podcast

🤝 Sponsor

Andocia Marketing Solutions – https://andocia.com

The L3 Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Andocia Marketing Solutions.
Andocia exists to bring leaders’ visions to life. Learn more at www.andocia.com

🎙️ LISTEN ON ALL PLATFORMS:
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SUBSCRIBE TO:
@l3leadership
@dougsmithlive

Transcript

Doug Smith 0:00

Hey leader, and welcome to another episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast, where we're 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 a Burgo Realty Studios. Well, leader, in today's episode, you're going to hear a talk I gave for Keller Williams entitled How to Build a Great Life, and I cover a variety of topics that I think will add a ton of value to your life, all with the idea in mind of how you can actually build a great life. And let me just say this too, I love speaking at organizations. If your organization is ever looking for a keynote speaker, I'd love to be considered. You can learn more about my speaking at DougsmithLive.com. Again, that's DougsmithLive.com. And with that being said, let's dive right in. Here's my talk how to build a great life. Well, hey, just a little introduction of myself. If you didn't get to meet me last time, and there's a reason I'm just sharing all this stuff, which I'll get to. But this is my family. So if you can count it up, we have five kids, uh, all under nine. They're all odd numbers right now. So uh nine, seven, five, three, and one within the next week. Uh, we leave tomorrow. We're going on a Disney cruise, first time we've ever been on a cruise. Um thank you, thank you. I don't know if you have clap, but uh really, really excited. We're gonna have a lot of fun. Uh hopefully we don't get sick. And that's pretty much all you need to know about my family. I married my high school sweetheart, uh, which I'll get into, but that's our family. Uh next slide, Martin. I work at Light of Life Rescue Mission, so this is my full-time vocation. Uh, I'm the assistant executive director there, so really responsible for running the day-to-day operations of Light of Life. We're a nonprofit ministry that serves the homeless men, women, and children of our city. So on average, we'll see about 3,000 unique individuals who are experiencing homelessness walk through our doors each year. And we help them with everything. This is actually, how many of you have seen this building? Anyone, when you're driving home, right, from a Steeler game or anything, you drive right by it. Uh it's it's a crazy story on how we got that piece of property. Uh, but anyway, we're grateful. But this is our emergency shelter. We have a couple buildings, but uh every day of the year, up to 85, I'm sorry, up to 85, yeah. Men, women, and children could stay here every single day of the year. We serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the year there as well. So if you ever want to have a volunteer day, get involved, come down and serve with your family. Great way to get connected and uh and give back, but also have a really meaningful experience. Uh, oftentimes people come to us and they think they're gonna make a big impact, which I'm not arguing that they can't, but what I love seeing is they actually are the ones that end up impacted by the people that we serve. And so, really, come and see, come check us out, lots of ways to get involved there. Uh, just a context, leadership-wise, I've been there for 15 years next month, which is crazy to think about that. I haven't even been working that long. But 15 years, I started entry level as a volunteer coordinator. I was the worst volunteer coordinator in light of life history. I have no administrative skills, and I was supposed to coordinate volunteers, and so volunteers got mad at me all the time because I messed up their schedule. I scheduled too many volunteers. Um, but my boss saw potential in me and she said, Hey, you seem to be really good with people. Have you ever considered fundraising? Which, and if you ask anyone in fundraising if they've ever considered fundraising, they would tell you no. We all stumbled upon it accidentally. So she threw me into the deep end and said, made me a major gift officer. And so I just started raising money, just making it up, and that ended up going pretty well for me. Uh, ended up spending most of my career at Light of Life in fundraising. Um, we grew our annual budget from around 4 million to now up to 12 million over the time we've been there. Uh, and we ran a $25 million capital campaign. Um, so we completed that maybe two years ago. So, just for the scope of what we do, um, kind of give you some context there. And then lastly, I'm very passionate about leadership development, which I'll share some of my story today. Some of you heard a little bit of my story uh last time I shared, but uh I had a young, or a young, I was a young leader once, and I had a mentor coming to my life, Larry Betancourt, who Marnie knows very well. And I was 18 years old, wasn't headed anywhere in life, and he handed me a John Maxwell CD. And for the first time in my life, I was exposed to personal development, which is really what today is all about. It's about you developing you to get better, and when you get better, everything around you is going to get better. The people around you, the people you develop, your family, everything gets better when you get better as a leader. And so he handed me a John Maxwell CD. I listened to it. I felt like I this was before podcasts were really big. And if you've ever seen the movie The Matrix, when he learns Kung Fu, like that's what I felt like. I'm like, I I called him instantly. I'm like, give me everything you have on leadership development. And for years I spent uh hours a day literally listening to leadership development lessons, podcasts, videos, everything I could get my hands on. And eventually I got to a point where it's like, hey, I really want to do for others what Larry and John Maxwell and other people who have influenced me have done for me. So I started a company called L3 Leadership. Uh, we have a podcast, so L3 Leadership Podcast, which Jim mentioned. Uh we're we uh I have over 400 episodes. I've interviewed tons of great leaders, lots of if you like even the personal lesson I'm giving today, I do a personal recording or I try to every month on the podcast. So that's a great way to connect. Um I just reposted, I've interviewed Mike Tomlin multiple times. So sad that he's going. Whether or not it's the right call, I won't comment on that. But but man, awesome, real deal leader. Love what he did uh for our city. And so uh that's a little bit about me and really all that you need to know. Uh, but the reason I share that is because what I'm gonna be talking to you about today is how to build a great life.

Will Host 5:27

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Doug Smith 6:28

I would build a great life. Really encourage you all to take notes. Uh it sounds like Jim, I talk really fast and I tend to give people a gallon when they need a teaspoon on subjects. And so uh you there will be time for QA. If you need me to slow down, you're not gonna offend me. Just say, hey, can you say that again? Slow down. This is really informal. Like, you know, don't be afraid to interrupt me. Uh if you want me to go deeper on anything, let me know. Because again, I'm gonna hit a lot of subjects. But my goal today is really just to add value to you. And the reason I give this talk, How to Build a Great Life, is one, uh, if you all the things I just shared with you of what I've what I'm doing with my life currently, if you would go back to when I was a teenager and Marnie knew me then, you would have never said or thought or imagined that this would be my trajectory. Then I think I shared my story here last time, but I'll just kind of give you the highlights. Grew up right down the street in Bradford Woods, so very familiar with this area, had a normal life until middle school. In middle school, got into drugs and alcohol, uh, summer of eighth grade, and basically determined that I would never amount to anything. I quit trying and had to go to summer school each year just to get to the next grade. My mom had a rare uh nerve disease in her legs, so went from having a normal family life, like pre-middle school, to no family life uh in middle school on because she ended up in a wheelchair. My dad had to work two jobs to get our family by. So I had no boundaries, which is how I got into drugs and alcohol. Uh, and again, I thought that was really cool as a teenager, but it's not really cool if you're trying to build a great life. So partied all throughout high school, my senior year of high school, my mom ended up passing away. And I won't go into the whole story, but basically, faith became a part of my life through my mom passing away, and that was really like the turning point for me. I ended up meeting my wife uh at a Bible study that her mom led. I got invited to in high school, and her mom, and you'll hear a lot about the power of mentorship throughout my story and the the need for you to be mentored and to be a mentor, but for whatever reason, my wife's mom felt led to start inviting me over for family dinners. And her dad was that was for 45 years the dean of admission at Carnegie Mellon University, a really really sharp guy, and he became like a second father figure to me and really said, Doug, you're a leader. First time I ever heard that, you're gonna do something with your life. If you'll just be intentional, you could change the world. And I'm so grateful for that. And and I just want to encourage you as leaders in the community, you know, hospitality's been something that's been on my heart. I know you guys host a lot of stuff. Um my life was changed as a result of hospitality and like people inviting me in to do life with them. And most people only see one model of family in their lifetime. They only see one good model of leadership, right? They only have one job, one boss to look forward to. But as a leader, you have an opportunity to bring people in and show them an entirely different way of life. And that's what my in-laws did for me. They showed me what a good family looked like, they showed me what a good husband looked like, what a good wife. They basically gave me a vision as a young man of how I could change my life and that if I would just be intentional, perhaps one day I could be living the life that they're living. Little did I know that I was gonna marry their daughter and and end up basically living a life like that. But it didn't happen. What I'm here to talk to you about today isn't that didn't happen by accident. That didn't happen overnight. It wasn't easy, right? It required me leading myself intentionally, and a lot more than that. And again, I'm not gonna teach on faith, but I will say that without faith, none of this would have happened in my life. But so faith is a big part of my life. But John Cotter, uh, a great leadership speaker, he once said this, he said, most people don't lead their lives, they accept them. Most people don't lead their lives, they accept them. And that's my challenge to you today. Like, I want you to walk away from here, and maybe you're already leading your life, but I want you to stop just accepting what is in your life. I want you to stop just accepting the way your marriage is or the way your income is in your business, or the way that your parent, like whatever it is that you're just kind of going through the motions and hoping that it turns out all right, I want you to stop because nothing happens through hope. You can't hope your way to a better life. You have to build a great life. In fact, I often say that you don't find a great life, you build one. And why I want to talk about just a life, I'm not here to talk to you about how to build a great real estate business, but I feel like if you learn these principles, the natural outcome of it will be building a great business. But I'm here to talk to you about how to build a great life. And this is really, really important. Um, I was recently with a young leader, very sharp young man. I say young, he's probably like five years younger than me. And I'm 40 by the way. Anyway, I don't know why I said that. But he was a younger leader. Thank you, thank you. And he spent um he spent like 10 years working at a prestigious club. That's all I'll just leave really, really general for a purpose. But he worked at this prestigious club, prestigious members, like you have to have a ton of money just to even get into this club or be a member of it. Um, and again, he's around all these highly successful people. And so, you know, I'm always trying to learn from successful people, and so I'm like, wow, what an opportunity. You got to be around 800 of like the highest leaders, the biggest leaders in our city, etc., most influenced. I said, What did you learn? Like, what's the biggest lesson that you learned while you were part of this? And he said, I think it's important, Doug, that you know that you can have everything but not really have everything. I think it's important that you know that you can have everything and not really have everything. Or in other words, you can really have nothing. You can have everything on the outside. And he said, out of all of them, the members that that he rubbed shoulders with, I said, How many of them actually do you feel like had everything? Like they had a they didn't just have a great business or a great bank account, they actually had a great life. And he said, five. Five. Five people, five members, five families out of over 800, he respected enough to say, yeah, they they did it right. They had a great life. They just didn't have a good business or a good bank account. Another example that I love, uh, I heard Zig Ziggler share this story that there was a young man uh when Zig Ziglar was uh in his prime that came up to him and he basically was asking him to mentor him, and he said he was working for a really successful businessman, and he said, Zig was asking him, What do you want in life? Like, what do you want? And he said, I want to be that guy. Like, I want to be my CEO. He's amazing, he has it made, he has the best life ever. What he didn't know is Zig knew this guy personally and knew a lot about his personal life. And so Ziggs thought, maybe it's time to do some training. And so he said, Well, what is it about him that you love? And he said, Oh man, this guy has everything. He has all the money in the world, he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, he has a huge mansion. Like, he just named all this stuff. And Zig said, Okay, let me paint like a broader picture for you. Like, hey, do you know that this this man's married, like, he's on his fifth marriage, and and his fed his kids don't even talk to him, and he has no relationship with his children? He's like, Did you know that? He's like, No, I didn't know that. He said, Oh, by the way, this guy also does not take care of his own health, and he's in horrible shape. He's probably has a few years to live if that because he doesn't take care of himself. And then he just started going one area of his life after another, basically pointing out that, hey, this picture, this mirage that you think is great is really not that great. And at the end of the conversation, he said, Hey, knowing what you know now, do you still want to be like him? And the young man was like, Absolutely not. Absolutely not. He had no idea. And I think so many times we get an idea or a picture of what a successful life is, uh, and really we think it's stuff, it's money, when in reality it's none of those things. So that's why I'm here to talk to you about today. How do you actually build a great life? Not so other people can look at you and be envious, but so you can actually say, like, man, I I'm not just successful in one area, I have great relationships all around me, I'm making a difference, I have a great family, I have great finances, all of those things. And so I'm gonna be sharing a bunch of principles with you on basically at least what I've learned through my journey of building a great life. And again, happy to dive into anything deeper that you want, but really encourage you to take notes. And so, principle number one is this is the only life that you get. Surprise. This is the only life that you get. Now, I know it's easy to recognize that, but do you really recognize that you only get one life? Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you view it, I had to learn this at an early age. I would when I was when my mom died, I was 17 years old. Two years later, I didn't talk about this, but my mother-in-law, whose Bible study I went to, she had lung cancer that went through her brain, and she died two years after I met her. She was 47 years old. My mom was 55 years old. I've lost some other family members, but a few years ago, 2019, I lost my younger sister, Sarah, uh, she was 32 years old to a heroin overdose. Struggled with heroin addiction for 15 years. 32 years old. So for me, uh this knowing that life is short is really real to me. And if I only get as many years as my mom got, I have 15 years to live. If I only get as many years as my mother-in-law got, I have seven years to live. And if I only get as many years as my sister had, I'm already living on borrowed time. And when you live like that, you live differently. And so uh I love this. If you've ever read the book Tuesday with Maury, Maury Schwartz said this is a great book if you haven't read it, Tuesdays with Maury. He said, Everybody knows they're going to die, but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently. Everybody knows they're going to die, but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently. And I saw this quote, I don't know if this is on a tombstone or where I got this, but it's always stuck with me. It said, first, I was dying to finish high school and start college. And then I was dying to finish college and start working. And then I was dying to get married and have children. And then I was dying for my children to grow old enough for school so I could go back to work. And then I was dying to retire. And now I am dying, and suddenly I realize I forgot to live. I forgot to live. And I don't know if you can relate to any of those, but I can. Right? I remember those high school days where you felt like your senior year was gonna last forever. But man, what'd I do to go back and just hang out with those boys one more time, knowing it was the last time we were gonna hang out, right? To go back to those memories. Don't wish your life away. You only get to do this once. My favorite quote about life, I share this all the time, is by Mae West. She said, You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. So how do you do it right? My encouragement to you here in your homework would be I'll give a lot of homework and a lot of resources. And again, I'm happy to send out links afterwards. Um, but if you've never put together a life plan, I could do a whole seminar on this, but a life plan, and a life plan is literally what you do, and there's a book I'd recommend called Living Forward by Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkovie. It's a little fluffy, but overall it's good. Living Forward by Michael Hyatt. The important part is the exercise and Daniel Harkovie. But a life plan is when you go away, and you actually, I would encourage you to go away, but you do something where you get off site and give your time time to yourself time to reflect, and you basically take every category of your life, so business, relationships, marriage, family, children, spiritual, etc., and you say, okay, at the end of my life, when I'm 80, some years old, or however many years you get, if I'm able to actually share what I want my life to look like and to be able to have said about the way that I lived in this area, what would I want that to look like? What do I want that to look like? What do I want my wife to be able to say about me at the end of our life on the way we steward I stewarded our marriage? What do I want my children to say about me? I just heard I heard John Maxwell speak at a conference last year. This I bawled at this. He his father died, his he always said that he hit the lottery when it came to parents. And he his dad died just a few years ago. He was 94 years old. His dad was the biggest influence in his life. And he said, when my dad was dying, it became obvious, and we were in the hospital room with my dad, and I cleared out the room, and I said, No one come in here. I need some time alone with my dad. And he said, for the next five hours, he spent literally sharing 29 lessons with his dad that his dad taught him and enabled him to live the life that John Maxwell is living. 29. Can you uh like as a dad? Like I I'm just tearing up thinking, man, if I'm on my deathbed and one of my kids did that, is there any better way to leave this place? Right? Like, that's unbelievable. I told my father-in-law that because you know I would do that for him. He's like, five hours, dear God. He goes, five minutes is fine. Just tell me I did a good, you know. Um, so it depends on who you are, I'm more of a feeler. But uh, but man, how powerful would that be? What do you want your life to look like in the end in every category? The way you stewarded your money, the way you stewarded your spiritual life, the way you stewarded your health and fitness. And what's beautiful is once you complete your life plan, you have a picture and a roadmap for where you want to go. And then you start actually systematizing and say, okay, if that's the end I have in mind, if that's what I want to accomplish, what do I need to do this year, what do I need to do this quarter, what do I need to do this month, what do I need to do this week, what do I need to do today to actually take steps to getting there? If you just do that alone, I promise you, you're gonna say you're you'll be 95% of the way to building a great life. You actually have to do the stuff you say you're gonna do, but that's a whole nother story. But put together a life plan. How many of you guys just have does anyone here have a life plan? Has anyone ever done that exercise? Yes! Awesome. I love that. How would you agree? Has it been helpful? Yeah, so put together a life plan. This is the one and only life that you'll get. John Maxwell wrote a book that changed my life called Today Matters, and the thesis of it was we over we exaggerate the past, which is true. We overestimate the future, but we underestimate today. Today is all you have. Today is an opportunity to take steps toward the life and the dreams and the goals that you have. And so take today seriously, because you're not promised one tomorrow. Number two. Dream big and go for it and determine to pay the price. Alright, just said and pay the price on the slide. Dream big and go for it and pay the price. When I first started getting around my father-in-law, he would constantly just say to me, Doug, dream big and go for it. Dream big and go for it. Dream big and go for it. I my biggest dream, my dad's a bus driver from North Allegheny. That was my dream. Like, I just thought, hey, I had no ambition. I'm like, I'll just do what my dad did. And there's nothing wrong with being a bus driver. Like, my dad's still driving a bus. It's awesome. But that was as big as I dreamed. I never dreamed I'd be doing something like this or raising money for the home. Like I had no idea. But Doug, just dream big. When you're doing your life plan, why if you're gonna dream big, if you're gonna dream, you might as well dream big. What's in your heart? You get one life. Write out your dreams. Who cares? Even if it's just you, it's not like you have to publish a book with your dreams. But whatever they are, write them down. Whatever, and even if they seem unfathomable and you have no idea how you'll get there. One of the things I'd encourage you to do in this area is do you have a bucket list? A bucket list, a list of things that you want to do before you die. I re I've had a bucket list since I was 17, and every year it's like I want to check off two or three items of my bucket list. Now, usually. End up doing it. Why? Because I actually have something that I'm looking at saying, okay, how can I actually get this done? Some of the things I may not be able to get to for another 10 years, but some things I can do this year. What are some things you've done? Some things I've done on my bucket list. Uh Laura and I love tennis, so we all we haven't completed the full bucket list, but we want to go to all the major titles in tennis. So we've gone to the US Open in New York, we've gone to Wimbledon, and we think we have an idea of how to get to the French Open. Laura works my wife works for a French company. Australia's gonna be tough. Australia's gonna be tough, but we're gonna get there. It might be 10 years away. Yeah. But some of it was like I want to, I wanted at one point when I was really young, I wanted to meet John Maxwell. And again, I'm the 17-year-old teenager. Uh I had no idea that if that would ever happen or how that would happen. And I don't know how long ago, six years ago, I had a private lunch with John Maxwell at his golf club. I mean, I was ready, I'm like, God, take me now. Like, I've done it like that. That was more that was pretty much at the top of my list. And so it all went, you know, life only can go downhill from there. But but I had lunch with him. And like it only would have happened if I would be intentional. And really it happened because a mentor I had in my life knew that I love John Maxwell. And he, man, he opened a door that I couldn't open for myself. And and he made a way for that to happen. Do you think I'll ever forget that? I'll do anything for that man who opened that door for me. But if that wouldn't have been on my bucket list, I don't know if it would have happened. Again, be intentional. Create a bucket list, dream as big as you can, and you'll be surprised what you can accomplish. And then pay the price. So, and you'll hear me mention John a lot, John Maxwell, but no one's probably had a bigger influence on my life. And when I was a young leader, I remember hearing him share the story, and I think of it every single year. And every young leader I meet with, I tell them the story. Basically, he had a young man come up to him in the middle of a speech or in an intermission, just like this. And this young kid was like, John, like I want to do what you do. And John was like, What do you mean you want to do what I do? And he said, Well, man, you have a pretty sweet gig. Like, you get to come here, people paid all this money to come here. You get to basically suck on a cough drop, teach people about leadership, add value to their life, uh, make people laugh, like I want to do what you do. And John just thought, okay, it's similar to Zig, like, it's time for some teaching. And he looked at the young man, he said, Young man, I totally understand you want to do what I do. Like, I can I love what I do. But the question isn't, do you want to do what I do? The question is, do you want to do what I did so you can do what I do? Do you want to do what I did so you can do what I do? Right? John paid a huge price to get to where he is today and the influence that he has and the impact that he's made. Huge price. And he went on to say, small dreams have small prices, big dreams have big prices. But if you have a dream, if you're dreaming big, find out what the price is. And if you don't know, find someone that's paid the dream, paid the price. I don't know much about real estate, but hey, there's people that are probably doing what you want to do or experiencing the volume that you want to experience. Why don't you learn what price they're paying to actually do that? Because they're probably doing something different than you're doing, right? What is the price that you need to pay? And then once you know the price, it's up to you to determine whether or not you're willing to pay the price. No one can do it for you, no one can do that work for you, but you can do it. You can do anything. You'd be shocked at what you're able to do with your life if you would just apply yourself. But you gotta start with a big dream and you gotta start with finding out what the price is and whether or not you're gonna actually pay it. John said, people who I die who idolize the privileges of leadership often fail to notice the sacrifice involved. Right? It's so easy to look at successful people and be like, oh, it must be nice to be them, or oh, they're just lucky, or they were born on third base. You don't know. You have no idea what the price they paid is until you ask them. Stop idolizing, find it out, and pay the price yourself. Dream big, go for it, pay the price. Next principle on building a great life that I would share with you is become the obvious choice. This was the best career advice I ever gotten. My friend gave it to me, TJ Christensen. He said, Doug, in your in your life and career, you just have to determine to become the obvious choice. I just love that phrase. Because whether you know it or not, you're always campaigning. I just read a great business book. Uh, if you've never read the uh Bob Iger, who's the CEO of Disney, he wrote a book called The Ride of a Lifetime. Best business book like biography that I've ever read. Highly, especially if you love Disney and like Star Wars and stuff, like and leadership. How this guy became CEO was crazy, and then how he got convinced Steve Jobs to let him buy Pixar, and then all the it's just amazing. So great storytelling. But there was a period of his time where he had worked for the previous CEO, and basically things were not going well with Disney. And at the same time, the board was like, This guy's out, and Bob expressed his interest in becoming the next CEO. And there was a knock on him of basically like, hey, you were you were the number two the whole time all these things were going wrong. Like, why should you have that seat? And this young leader came to him and said, uh, Bob, are you ready for your campaign? And Bob said, What are you talking about? And he goes, Well, you're trying to become CEO, like you're basically running a campaign. You need to look at it that way. And he went on to say, like, how many board members are for you? He's like, probably three or four. How many are against you? Probably three or four. How many are in the middle? Uh, three or four. We're only going to focus on the people in the middle, right? And so he gave him the whole strategy, but the whole goal is like, you're always he was campaigning for to be the CEO of Disney long before he got the seat and long before he was even in the number two seat. Because here's what I know is you're you're climbing the ranks, you're doing whatever you do. People are watching you long before they give you an opportunity, or long before you get into a successful spot. They're talking about you. I'm in a leadership. I used to be the person who people would open up doors and give me seats of leadership, and I've just been recognized in my life. Now I'm in a season where I have an opportunity to give other people seats. And we have conversations around our executive table of, hey, who are the up-and-coming leaders and why are they standing apart? They don't know we're talking about them, but we're basically lining them up and seeing what they're going to do with the responsibility they're given if they're willing to become the obvious choice. Your job and your campaigning is you want your name to be the first thing that they think of for whatever opportunity you're going for. And you do that by how you live your life every single day. Again, don't accept your life, lead it. It will set you apart. How do you become the obvious choice, in my opinion, when I talk to young leaders? You have to deliver the goods. Deliver the goods. And I got this from there was a grocery store sign that said the 57 um 57 keys to success. Number one, deliver the goods. Number two, the other 56 don't matter. Right? Deliver the goods. The other 56 don't matter. If you can't deliver the goods, nothing else is gonna matter in your career. You have to be someone that can close and deliver the goods. And if you show up and deliver time after time after time after time after time, I promise you, you will be the obvious choice and you will set yourself apart. You're always campaigning to become the obvious choice. Next principle. And I think I put more principles on the side, so I just want to make sure. Yeah, be teachable. Be teachable. This also plays into becoming the obvious choice, but the number one quality that I look for and I that I try to actually live out is teachability. I believe teachability is the key to everything. Right? Have you ever dealt with someone who's unteachable? Is there anything more frustrating in the world? Right? They have they never admit or acknowledge they have blind spots, they never admit or acknowledge that they're wrong. It's so frustrating. You correct them and they just say, you don't know what you're talking about, I don't need to do that. There's no hope for an unteachable person. There's no hope. And let me just tell you this: when when you no one likes getting feedback, candid feedback. Well, unless you start to really value growth. But you have to be able to handle feedback and criticism well. For me, I always share a story. One we we run Light of Life on an operating system called EOS. I don't know if any of you are familiar with traction, entrepreneur operating system. Um, but in that you basically live in a 90-day world and you have quarterly retreats. Well, every quarter, one of the questions that we added as an organization that was so helpful for us is is there anything causing division, disunity, or distrust in our team or the organization? Is there anything causing division, disunity, or distrust in the organization? If you're looking to build a great culture here, you need to be asking those questions. Because I promise you, there's opportunities every day for division, disunity, and distrust. And if you don't nip those things in the bud, they're gonna cause wreak havoc on the culture that you're trying to create. But anyway, I'm having this retreat. So I at the time I was the director of development, so I'm leading my team's retreat, and there was one of the team members, it was her first day. So, you know, obviously want to make a good impression. It's like great, she'll get to experience a retreat, get to know us, have fun. Um, but when it came to this question, I asked the team, I said, hey, is there anything causing division, disunity, distrust on our team? Uh, this one girl on our team named Corinne, she's awesome, still great friends with her today, but she said, Doug, you and this wasn't like a like a one-on-one, like, hey, let me just come here, come here, let me just tell you something. Like, this was in front of the whole team and in front of a new team member that just started. She said, Doug, you are causing division, disunity, and distrust. And so I'm like, oh man, what am I gonna do with this? I mean, inside it's like I experienced feelings just like all of you. I'm probably 10 times more. I'm a huge feeler. I'm like anxious, my heart sunk into my stomach, and basically I'm like, I have no other option. And so basically I said, Crit, I'm sorry, you're fired. And I sent her home for the day. And she never came back. And that's how I dealt with that. I'm just joking. Sorry. I'm I'm horrible at setting. I need to figure out a better way to like set that up. Yeah, yeah. Like, no one gives me feedback in front of people. Uh I did not do that. Um something a leader gave me this once and it was so helpful. He said, Doug, lead with curiosity. Lead with curiosity. Here are three beautiful words for you to use all the time. Help me understand. Help me understand. If you don't, and you can use this in every area of your life, but hey, I could have just been like, what the heck? But hey, Corinne, that's that's not great, but help me understand, like, hey, what is it, what am I doing that's causing division, disunity, and distrust. So instead of having a big reaction, I asked that. And basically she said it's the way that you're communicating to marketing and your expectations of us. And and again, it was like it was actually really minimal things that I could change very, very easily, but the impact that they were having was negative. Like, one example, this is just small, it was funny though. Um, I would always be Corinne reported to me, and so she'd always come to me with issues and problems, and again, I'm like a 30,000-foot guy, like visionary, and um, she'd give me this problem. I'm like, Corinne, this is easy, like just do this, this, and this. And she eventually said, Doug, if you say something's easy one more time, I'm gonna kill you. Because why? Because I'm not the one doing it. Like, she has to carry out and actually do the work. So, also, leaders, remember that you don't always know the price that your people are paying to do just the things that you think are easy. I've never said that again. Um, it's not easy. Hey, let's walk through this together. But that was an example of something that I was able to change that made a significant difference. And unfortunately, I have not been brought up. But what if I would have responded maybe politely in the moment, but did fire her or did kind of cut her off? Do you think anyone would ever be brave enough to give me feedback again? There's a leader named Nanny Stanley who said, if you don't receive feedback and criticism, well, you'll soon be surrounded with people who have nothing to say. And that should be your greatest fear in life. It should be your greatest fear at work, it should be your greatest fear of marriage, it should be your greatest fear in every area of your life. If people don't believe that they can actually share something honest with you, you're in hot water and you need to figure out how to fix that immediately. And if you don't know if you're that person or not, one, consider if actually anyone gives you feedback, and if not, take that under consideration. But ask people, hey, do you just honest, open, honest spin? Like, do you feel like I'm teachable? How do I react when people give me feedback? Can you can you give me like an honest evaluation of how you think I operate? And and become teachable, I'm telling you. It'll set you apart and it'll make you so much better. My wife and I, we have a weekly family team meeting. I used to call it staff meeting, it's not as fun. Um, and it's still not fun. To be honest with you, I share this all the time. If you don't have a family team meeting, if you are married, I really encourage you to or your family. But um, but basically it's just an hour and a half meeting every week to go through details of our crazy life and five kids. And so, uh, which I always hate, but I love the outcome of it. Uh, and one thing we do in there is we do, we call it uh three to one. So it's like we we and this would be great to do in your workplace too, but like, hey, we name three things that we saw in each other do that week that we specifically liked that we want to encourage. It can't be general, like, oh, you're a great mom. It has to be like, hey, when you sat and wrestled with Caleb, like I just loved watching that, that one-on-one interaction. And we encourage each other three times, but then we do one thing that's one thing that's one thing that drove you crazy and made you want to kill me. And um, it's not always fun conversation, but imagine every week getting feedback from your spouse or your boss or whoever of one area that you can improve in and get better at. Imagine how much incrementally better if you do that week after week after week after 52 weeks, you had 52 opportunities to improve your marriage or to improve your workplace. It's an awesome thing. You can't do that if you're not teachable. Be teachable. Next is handle failure well. Handle failure well. This is similar to be teachable, but you want to develop a pattern and a reputation. I'm sorry, you want to develop a reputation for someone who handles failure well. And for me, handling failure well is summed up in three pretty quick words. Admit it, quit it, forget it. Admit it, quit it, forget it. Um we all fail, so again, it's don't you're gonna fail. It's just gonna happen. And actually, the more fail, the more you fail, you actually have a greater odds of success because you learn more and you learn faster than other people. But you're gonna fail, but when you fail, owner, own it. I heard someone great once say, never ruin an apology with an excuse. That's really hard, but it's really good. I don't know if you've ever messed up, but I've gone to that in my leadership. Like, I admit completely, like, hey, I totally failed on that. A great example, I when I first became the development director, it was my first big leadership role, and I had no clue what I was doing. You know, I had thoughts that I could be a good leader one day, but I had no idea. And so I had to present to the board for the first time. I'm 33 years old, this was seven years ago, and I go to this board meeting, and I didn't know what how to communicate to a board. So one of our vendors created like this really in-depth marketing report about all of our uh fundraising. Tons of data, graphs, charts, great information. I'm like, the board will love this. Numbers, which I so I hand out these reports to all the board members, and they start looking at them, and like they're all shaking their head. I'm like, this is great. The only problem was then they said, Doug, like help me understand this report. And they started asking me specific details, and I could not answer one question. One. I'm like, I don't I basically just said, I have no idea. I thought you guys would appreciate it because it has good numbers and bar graphs in it. I didn't actually say that, but like that was basically how I fought. So they're like, Well, you need to go figure out all this stuff and get back to us. And I remember I still remember it was my walk of shame. Um, I walked out of the board meeting, and the way we you had to I had to leave for the night was basically walk past the board meeting with like all the glass windows. So I'm like this, walking out of work that day. What I didn't know, my my current boss he said, Man, when you did that, I was just thinking, I'm screwed. Like, what did we do? We put this kid in leadership, and basically that's what the board, when I left, that's what the board said to RED like, really? Like, are you sure we put the right person in the right seat? And so I could have stuck my head in the sand and been like an ostrich and just said, I'm just gonna keep moving on. Um, but instead, I heard that quote never ruin an apology with an excuse and admit it, quit it, forget it. And so I called every single board member the next morning. And I said, Listen, that was a total failure. I messed up, I'm so sorry, and I need to learn. And there was a few of them that I specifically asked. I said, Can you help me learn how to communicate to a board so that this never happens again? Will you mentor me? And all of them accepted my apology. Three of them took on the responsibility of mentoring me, and I still remember all the breakfasts. I had a bunch of breakfast and they said, Here's how you report to a board, here's the information that you need to keep them up to date with, here's the templates that you like they gave me a roadmap. I've never had a problem with the board again, ever. But if I would have stuck my head in the sand, I would have never learned the lesson. And now the board knows that I'm willing to acknowledge failure when I messed up, that I'm not perfect, that I dropped the ball, and that I'm teachable, right? And it's enabled them to trust me over time. Handle failure well. Admit it, quit it, and forget it. Okay, I was just gonna ask, how are we doing on time? Is this helpful? Is anyone getting anything today? Um yeah, I'll go to the next one. Stop asking if you're a leader. This is a short one, but stop asking if you're a leader. This was huge for me. Anyone, is anyone willing and brave enough to admit that you're insecure or have been insecure in your past? No one raised their hand when I asked that first. In the past, how many of you in the past at some point in your life have maybe even if it was way back in middle school when you had zits, right? Like, all right, all of us have experienced insecurity. Um I don't know if it was because of the way I grew up or because I thought it never amount to anything. I've always been insecure. Um, well, and I'm trying to get to a place where I'm not. I don't think we'll ever get to a place where we're fully confident, but huge insecurities. And my biggest insecurities that haunted me from 20 till basically 37 and a half was like, Am I a leader and do I have what it takes? And I think most insecurities driven by that question, like, do I have what it takes to be a good person, to live a good life, etc. And finally, one day a mentor came to me and said, Doug, like you're you're constantly asking people, like, do you think I'm a good leader? Do you think I can lead? Like, stop asking if you're a leader. He goes, in fact, the question isn't, are you a leader? The question is you should be asking, is what do you want to lead? The question isn't are you a leader? The question is what do you want to lead? The reality is all of you you probably are aware and self-aware of your of what you're good at and what you're not at and your skill sets, etc. Step in fully to who you are. I am a leader. I actually it freed me up, it's like I don't have to be leading what I'm leading. Like I can lead anything. Not literally, but it's like it opened up a world to me. Where before it was like, oh, I hope I don't mess up because they might not view me as a leader, and I don't even know if I can do this, and maybe I should step back and maybe instead now I can lead with confidence. Like, okay, yeah, there's always things that I need to do to improve as a leader, but I don't have to question do I have what it takes or am I enough or am I a leader anymore? And I don't know what that is for you. Maybe it's selling real estate, maybe it's leading a team, whatever that is. Man, let go of those insecurities. Stop asking if you have what it takes. You do have what it takes. Just do it. Right? I don't see a lot of teenagers in this room like you all are old enough to have track records of success. You've done it before, you've done things before, you can do it. Stop asking about your insecurities and just start stepping into your strengths. Next is get on a personal growth plan. Get on a personal growth plan. And I never want to take for granted that everyone is, but the opportunities you have to grow in this world are crazy. Podcast, YouTube, there's too many opportunities to grow. But what are you doing every single day to grow and develop? For me, I talked about Larry who gave me the John Maxwell CD. Again, I commute every day to City for about an hour. What am I doing? I'm listening to podcasts non-stop. I've been working there for 15 years, 15 years times an hour a day, times however many days that is. Like, that's a lot of personal growth time. That's a lot of time to soak in information. But for me, it's like what podcasts are you listening to? What audio books are you listening to? What books are you reading? Intentionally, intentionally. What mentors, which I'll talk about in a minute, what mentors are you meeting with? Who who are who are you meeting with that are doing things better than you? What conferences are you going to? And I know Keller Williams provides tons of opportunities for growth for you. So I'm not going to spend a ton of time on this. But find time to grow every single day. That's basically all I'll say. Next, this is probably this will add a ton of value to your life if you do it. Develop your network of mentors. So going back to Larry in my life, he would bring in leaders just like this. Like this was the same setting. I was interning at a church for him with Morty. I used to fart in her office. That's how talking about immature and insecure. That was me. Um I've grown up. I don't well, I still, anyway. I'll move. Yes. I almost killed Morty once. Anyway, sorry. Um when we talk about mentors. Larry would bring in leaders like this, and he would have them share. And he always told us, he said, listen, if you connected with that person, like follow up with them and ask them out to coffee, or ask them to mentor you, or ask them for advice. And he goes, I can't promise they'll say yes, I can't promise they'll say no. Know, but you should do it. And he gave us this process, which I'm about to give to you. So if you're taking notes, uh, this has served me so well. So, first, um, this is developing your network of mentors. The first thing I would encourage you to do is to develop a bucket list of people that you want to meet with. I mentioned John Maxwell was at the top of my list. It was true. Who do you want to meet with? And it could start local, like, well, and I'll get to that in a sec, but any put anyone you want to on the list. Name your hero. You want to meet Brad Pitt, etc. Whoever it is, add to a bucket list. And then basically just start meeting with people, reaching out to people. It could be, and I guess I'll just use this as a bonus. This is how I started my podcast. Larry told me to start meeting with these leaders, and every month I would start getting meetings with leaders. And about five to ten years into that, all my peers started saying, Doug, I can't believe you got a meeting with Marnie. Can you believe that? Like, I wish I could. And I said, Well, have you ever asked? And 99% of the people said, No, I have never asked. And so I thought, well, here's an opportunity. And so I started, when I started approaching people, I'd say, Hey, I would love to meet with you with the process I'm going to give you, but could I also record our conversation? So that not only does the conversation, the value you add to me, add value to me, but then anyone who will listen, it'll add value to them, which is an increased way to get a meeting with someone. Because it's like, oh, now I can make an even bigger difference. But start where you are. My first podcast interview was my father-in-law. I didn't have a huge network. I didn't know how to get to Mike Tomlin or Mike Sullivan or Clint Hurdle. I didn't know if I ever could. But I started with who I knew. And at the end of every before every meeting, basically, I ask people, hey, can I get I always start with 30 minutes. Is there any chance I could have 30 minutes of your time? It could be on Zoom, it could be for coffee, whatever. If you're willing to meet with me, I will send you a list of questions in advance. Again, don't just accept your life, lead it. I'll send you a list of questions in advance so you know I'm not going to waste your time. And and that'll be that. So 99% of the time you'll probably get a yes from this, I would say, at least with the people you know. When you start getting bigger names, it's harder. But get the meeting. When you get the meeting, show up early, right? Shake their hand, thank them for their time, print out a list of the questions, and just start going through the questions. And and also, this is more of an interviewing hack, but let lead with uh your curiosity too. In my early days, because I was insecure, this is more of a podcasting thing. I remember Ken, this guy named Ken Coleman, who works for Dave Ramsey, he gave me this feedback. He said, Doug, um, I said, give me feedback on my interviewing. He goes, You're so focused on getting to the next question. They're like, man, it sounds like you're not really listening. And and basically he's like, You're insecure. Uh he's like, you're insecure about what I he's like, I hope you're not insecure about what I think about you. You're not insecure about the audience, like the audience isn't here. And I was insecure about whoever I was interviewing, especially if it was a big name. But and so I do come with questions, but you may say something to me in a meeting with me, and I'm like, wait a minute, like let's let's go down that path. Like, tell me more about that, right? And and so let your curiosity lead you. Thank them for the meeting. The pizza's here, so I'll start to wrap up. But uh thank them for the meeting, send a thank you note. This is huge for me. Please don't, and oh, this is a pet personal pep peeve. I hate when people just send thank you notes to just say, like, thank you. I'm like, you just wasted your time. Like, write something meaningful in there. A more meaningful thank you note is thank you so much for your time. Here are the top three takeaways that I had from our time together, and here's what I plan on doing as a result. If you write me that thank you note, I'll keep that forever. I have a rainy day file where I keep all my notes, so this is another hack. Keep a rainy day file. If people write you notes of encouragement, keep it in a file. So one day when you have a rainy day, you can encourage yourself. But send them a meaningful thank you note, and then if you want to meet with them again, which you may not, but if you do, wait three to six months and say, hey, it's been three months. Here's what I did with what you told me to do the first time. Can we meet again? If you do that, there's no one that's not going to meet with you because nobody does that, right? You become the obvious choice to meet with a mentor. Everyone wants to mentor someone like that. If you'll follow, and then I at the end, I forgot this part, this is the most important part. At the end of every meeting that I have, at the end of every podcast I do, I say, Who do you know that I should know? This would be a great question in real estate. Who do you know that I should know? Who are three people that you think that I maybe I haven't interviewed yet that you think would be a great interview? That question, and I always say that either A, I can use your name for when reaching out to them, or that you'd be willing to personally introduce me to. That question has opened up more doors than I could ever possibly imagine. But if you'll follow that process and do it every month, make it a goal of like once a month, I'm gonna meet with someone like that. Once a month. I'm gonna meet with a top real estate agent and Keller Williams, or I'm gonna meet with Jim and just ask him for his feedback and wisdom if you can get a meeting. Like, do it and just start doing that once a month. And who knows, maybe you'll start a podcast one day and it'll be awesome. But develop uh a network of mentors. Um, if we do QA or you want more lessons, I don't know how far I am, but I've shared a lot this morning. I want to make sure you guys have pizza. So we'll wrap up for now. But thank you and look forward to talking to you in a few minutes, Marty. Hey leaders, thank you so much for listening to my talk, How to Build a Great Life. I hope that it added value to your life. And as I said in the beginning, if you're ever looking for a keynote speaker for your organization or a conference that you're hosting, I'd love to be considered. You can check out more about my speaking at DougsmithLive.com. Again, that's DougsmithLive.com. Or I also want to give a special thanks to our sponsor, Endosha Marketing Solutions. They are the producers of this podcast. And if your organization has any marketing needs whatsoever, I wholeheartedly recommend their services. Or you can learn more about them at endosha.com. That's a n d-o-c-i-a.com. And as always, leader, I like to end every episode with a quote. And today I'll quote John Cotter, who said this. He said before most people don't lead their lives, they accept them. I love that quote. Don't be a person that just accepts your life. Lead your life, leader. That's gonna 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.