PLEASE NOTE: UNCOMMODiFiED Podcast episode transcriptions are raw text files and have not been proofed or edited. They are what they are … Happy Reading.

© UNCOMMODiFiED & TIM WINDSOR

What if the collapse of your reputation, your career, or your carefully curated identity wasn't the end of your story, but what if it was the beginning of your destiny? We live in a culture obsessed with optics, titles, and applause. We, we polish the outside while sometimes we're quietly eroding on the inside.

Many of us are one hidden addiction, one untreated wound, one silent struggle, away from discovering how fragile our existence can really be. Here's a deeper question to consider. Is redemption even real or is it just a word we make ourselves believe so we can feel better? What if redemption isn't about image repair?

But what if it's about rebuilding your life, one kept promise at a time to yourself and others? What if the darkest chapter of your story could become the light that grows empathy, courage, and a fierce commitment to invest in others who are suffering silently in a way that you [00:01:00] might once had suffered?

This Uncorked conversation is all about collapse and reconstruction. It's about discovering what lives on the other side of shame. It's about transforming private pain into public service. It's about redemption. Now, this is romantic rumination, but as a rugged responsibility. Hey, my friends. Welcome back to the Unmodified podcast.

I'm Tim Windsor, and today my guest on the show is Doug Smith. Doug, welcome to the show.

Thank you. That was such a compelling introduction. I would listen to every word of this podcast if I heard

you know what, I'm going, I'm gonna listen to everywhere of this podcast, Doug. We're gonna have a good time having it, and I appreciate that. Listen a bit about Doug listeners so you can get introduced to Doug as I've been. Doug is an award-winning author of a book called The Path of Rocks and Thorns, leadership Lessons from a Prison Cell.

I'm sure we'll hear a little bit about that on the show. He's a specialist in trauma informed leadership. And development. He brings more than a decade of experience to this conversation in mental health and justice policy. Having served in the [00:02:00] Texas House of Representatives and is a senior policy analyst for the Texas Center for Justice and Equity.

He's also taught social policy at the University of Texas at Austin. Drawing from his own lived experience with mental illness, substance use disorder, and in incarceration. Doug now works across Texas to prevent the incarceration of people with mental illness while developing the leadership.

Capacity of individuals shaped by trauma and adversity. And this is going to be a powerful conversation. Now I like to uncork all my conversations with a bit of a drink. Doug, this will be a little bit different because, uh, in the past, maybe an alcohol not such a good idea. Substance not such a good idea.

So what are you drinking, Doug?

I am drinking my own adult beverage, which is Topo Chico, which is my favorite drink. It's a sparkling. It just tastes good. It tastes good on your, on your tongue.

Awesome. I love that. I am

drinking a non, a non-alcoholic beer, actually, and it's [00:03:00] very good, by the way, 'cause um, I, I've been looking for good non-alcoholic beers for a long time, and some of them, Doug, are just shite. So this, I'm, I like this one. I,

I love it. Are you doing that on my behalf?

I'm doing it on my behalf as well as on the spirit of your behalf, Doug.

I'm doing, doing it for two reasons. So that's the good way to do it. So, Doug, listen, I want to ask this question to get started. Um, I'm really looking forward to this conversation. So I'd like you to take us back. , Obviously you, you've written this book.

Uh, we've already tipped our hat a little bit maybe to our listeners about what this conversation might entail. But I'd like you to start with this. Where does this story really begin for you?

Hmm. Yeah, I think it starts where it starts with most people who are justice involved. You know, I realized when I was writing my own story, I thought I'd be writing about leadership, but you can't write about leadership without discussing your own identity. 'cause that's what [00:04:00] leadership is and, and how that identity gets shaped. Most people involved with the justice system, particularly those who get involved. In their juvenile years, have some type of trauma in their lives, and mine was five years old and then again at 12. And trauma shapes you, it shapes the way that you see the world and it shapes the way you see yourself. And unless you get the type of recovery supports that you need.

Then that trauma stays unresolved and carries into your adulthood. So yes, it started there because it wasn't healed, and that's the nature of traumas that the people you need to be there to say, that shouldn't have happened and let me heal. They're not there for you.

Hmm. So this trauma that. Your story sort of begins within, , doesn't get resolved. [00:05:00] So it doesn't get solved, it doesn't get fixed, it doesn't get resolved, and it starts to have, uh, unintended consequences in your personal life. how does that start to play out for you, and where does it take you in this, journey, Doug?

Yeah, good question. So for me. Particularly after my father left for me, I just turned all of that inward, right? It, the things that happened to me or that sense of abandonment must be about me. Right? And that's a, that's a survival skill. Kids do that all the time because if if they allow themselves to be angry, then that might threaten other attachment figures, right?

They're just not gonna go there. So I just turned it inward and. That manifested in deep, deep depression, um, suicidality. I made my first suicide attempt when I was 12 years old. , I survived it, but it also went unnoticed and I remained [00:06:00] suicidal, isolated, and, you know, it just wasn't noticed. I had a, uh, by that point my mom was a single mom.

With three kids a job and you know, her life. And it was, it was easy to miss. And that really did a number on me throughout my life because I, began to see myself in a particular way, and that got fixed and I lost friends, and I felt deep, deep shame. Uh, I stopped trusting people. I could have friendships, but there were only short duration friendships, so Yeah.

And that's kinda lays the groundwork for what comes later. You know, it that's the strange thing about childhood traumas that you could still do marvelous things in your life. Right? It's just that the wound doesn't get healed.

Yeah, so you have this wound that you're carrying, you start to move through [00:07:00] your adolescence and then into your, young adult life. You're beginning to find your way and figure out what it might look like. And yet you've got this, you've got this whole thing brewing under the surface that, isn't going to just sit there forever.

And so it starts having this consequence for you and people around you, where does your story start taking you as you move into your, early adult years?

Yeah, that's a really good question because I've oftentimes found myself confused, about that as well. , You know, because two things were true, two things. The one thing is that I was on a path of destruction. The other thing that's true is I was incredibly resilient in building a life and career for myself , without much support from anyone, and those two things were happening at the same time.

Right? I would have bouts of depression that might land me in a psych hospital but then I take it and then I go become [00:08:00] a suicide hotline counselor.

Hmm.

Right. I'd have deep, deep, deep, deep periods of depression where I'd overuse alcohol, but then I'd go and work in like our local drug court program. And those things were running parallel with each other.

This path of destruction, with this path of, of real growth and and achievement. And I've, I've come to really realize that one was the real me and the other one was. The false me, because it was all of that stuff I had built up about myself early on those lies. I told myself how things get, you turn it backwards, so there was a real self that was utterly resilient, successful, capable, deeply caring, and then there was this false self that was driving me towards destruction.

Hmm. so you have these things that are happening simultaneously on one level, you're, a bit on a path to destruction. You, you're [00:09:00] dealing with Tremendously difficult depression, and yet you're still trying to find your destiny. You're trying to, work out all of this pain out of yourself and also you're using it as a catalyst to help others.

So it's, there's just this really interesting thing that's happening in your story, which, which is interesting 'cause I think a lot of people. , Who come through deep trauma and have these kind of experiences. It's often the place where their, maybe their sense of destiny starts to appear. And now there is a, there's a bit of a battle.

In ourselves and in our story between I I, am I gonna find that path of destiny or am I gonna continue down that path of destruction? And usually that comes to some kind of climax event where, where these roads come together and then we have, we, we have to face something in ourselves. And is that part of your story?

Yeah, eventually it was [00:10:00] the, it does come to that point. Um. See this, there's this thing, I, I always knew that I was going to die at age 40 , right? Even as a young kid, I just knew that age 40 was when I would die. , Very strange. But that was the thought in my head. And, so, you know, I get into my thirties and, things are spinning out of control, you know, lots of.

Psychiatric treatment mixed with lots of psychiatric medications, some of them addictive, that bled into, alcoholism and then ultimately street drugs. , So I got addicted to crack cocaine. I, um, and in the two years that I used crack cocaine, I was in the ICU six times I was. And police cars multiple times.

Jail cells. I was in the rubber room inside of a county jail and I ultimately [00:11:00] committed four counts of robbery to get money for crack cocaine and um, and so on my 40th birthday, I was in county jail on my way to prison. Having lost absolutely everything, the right to be with my child, my entire career, um, every single thing that I built was, was gone.

And so I died at 40.

Huh. Okay. So you had this overwhelming sense from the time you were young that you were gonna die at 40. Obviously growing up you saw that contextually as your physical death. You now recognize that actually this premonition, well, I will call it a premonition. I'm not sure what we'll call to call it, but I'm gonna call it a premonition.

. Was of an event that actually was true, but it was not your physical death. It was the death of everything that you had built, everything that you [00:12:00] had cobbled around you to create some kind of sense of yourself and some normalcy for your life. it's now, it's now dying.

S now, uh, I mean it's true like addiction is really kind of a form of, of suicide, right? It's a form of death. It's, it may be that stand in for you to prevent your suicide, but it really is what it addiction really truly means is something inside you, wants to die and needs to die. , And when I got to prison, that is what happened is that that false self that had been clinging to me for years since I was a young child died.

It was the false self that died.

Hmm.

Yeah.

so when, just before this experience where you, you end up in jail. Just [00:13:00] help me understand again, so I'm tracking with this, this journey. What are you doing for a living at the time?

Oh, before I, on 

my way to prison, 

what are you do what, what are you doing? Like in the midst of all this pain, you're still working it all out.

What are you, what are you doing for a

I got my master's in social work. I,

I.

I fell in love with social work 'cause I, you know, I was working at the suicide hotline. I ended up working in a homeless shelter. The people that I was hanging around, they were doing all this cool work. I was like, that's social work. I love it. You could work on the streets or you could go work at the capitol.

And so I got my degree in social work and, uh, ended up falling in love with social policy. And so I, went to work at the state capitol working on things like social welfare policy, childcare policy, workforce development, things like that. So yeah, I, um, learned how to pass some really good bills.

Oh my gosh. That, I mean, [00:14:00] so, so when this, when your life now starts to crash and burn and you're coming to this, this, just this moment of death,

Yeah.

are people around you? The people in your circle family or at your work, are they, is this sort of like, oh yeah, I saw this happening and I knew this was going on, or are they just like Absolutely like dumbfounded because this just comes out of the blue for them?

Gobsmacked all completely blown away. No one expected that in my life, not one person. Um, I think that's actually a byproduct of learning to hide all the pain,

Right.

If, if I'm, it's that thing where I'm out here being successful and hiding how I'm feeling, right? Like, I'll go to work in a state of major depression and plow through and put [00:15:00] on a face.

So they, they can't see it because I'm really good at hiding it.

And so they're not seeing this downward spiral. 

And 

Wow. Out of the blue for them, not out of the blue for you. You come to this moment of crisis, you end up in jail. How long do you end up spending in jail, Doug?

Um, I, I got a 15 year sentence and I served five years, eight months.

Okay, so you, you serve five years, eight months in jail. are you having tremendous. Growth experiences in jail. Is jail a place that you start finding something that you may not have found if you weren't incarcerated, or does that happen after you get outta jail for you?

That's really interesting. Um, so a couple things. I immediately got into service. I volunteered as a sexual assault prevention, trainer, which was really a big deal because that's, that's [00:16:00] done through, people who are incarcerated. They do that, uh, people incarcerated do that training because no one's going to ever report sexual assault if an officer tries to convince them to do it.

So we, I started teaching, I served in the chapel. I was on the drama team,

Huh.

uh, you know, 12 step sponsor, , you know, things like that. So I just, I got into service. So what I realized was happening was that I'm simply doing what it is, that's natural for me. It's natural for me to be in service doing things that are meaningful.

And I've proven that to myself time and time again. I'm just doing what's natural to me. What is allowing me to do it though is, and I learned this right away, is that prison is actually something that strips you [00:17:00] of all other forms of motivation, right? Like you cannot. You can't earn your release. You know, it might, you might be able to do that in Canada, uh, parole in Texas, there is parole, but it's like you learn pretty quickly that you can't earn it.

There's some sort of calculation they make that you have no part of. So there was nothing I could do to earn release. I couldn't earn the. Warm esteem of people because I'm wearing white. I'm offender number 1 5 5 3 9 9 7. No different from everyone else and as, as much of a risk in the eyes of the officers as anyone else, no one's gonna treat me differently.

So I can't earn esteem, I can't earn money. Um, your former guest, uh, Emily O'Brien, who's amazing by the way, was Yeah. Was saying that she earned $7 a day or something like that. We don't earn any money in Texas [00:18:00] prisons. We did not do that. So I can't earn a living. I can't be a father. I didn't see my daughter for five years, eight months I wrote to her, but I can't get the choice of that.

So like every single thing that I built, was torn away and I couldn't rebuild it. And there was no other form of motivation other than to just simply be myself, and myself was someone who likes to get into service and. So that was it. I was finally able to do it because everything else was stripped away.

Wow. So, so you're having this experience that all this stuff is being torn away from you. Things that you probably thought were very important to your psychology and to your personhood, but now you're finding the real dug inside of all that. You're, you're making some decisions about what that's gonna look like.

Um, do you [00:19:00] know, so when you go into the system like that, do you go in knowing that you're only gonna serve a portion of 15 years? Or do you you just know you got a sentence and, and you have no idea how that's gonna actually play out.

Yeah, the, the Texas panel system is, uh, exasperating in that way. We, we have a parole system, You'll, you do come up for parole at different intervals. For mine, it was like I had a 15 year sentence and I came up for parole at about two years based on the calculation. , but you don't meet with a parole commissioner.

You give them all of your certificates from whatever it is you're doing, thinking that, that might convince them of, oh wow, look at this person's motivated. Uh, they don't really look at them. They do an interview and. You're not even me with a commissioner. The clerk gives the notes and commissioners, uh, they review about 80,000 people every year, so they probably spend a couple [00:20:00] minutes reading it.

I was turned down for parole four times.

Oh my gosh. So you're having this experience, you're, you're finding some things obviously eventually we'll talk about later. I mean, obviously you, you come to a point when you're out, you write a book and there's this idea of leadership lessons in a prison cell, so you're learning some things. so let's park there for a second.

So what are some of the things that you are learning. That you believe now that you more than likely would not have learned if you hadn't been incarcerated.

Yeah. This doesn't seem cliche. I think it's a lesson that shouldn't, it should be a universal lesson. I got it when I was in the class of a prison volunteer, and he was, he was this accountant who lived near the prison. He. Started to come and do classes and things like that with people just to, you know, he was getting over his own [00:21:00] alcoholism and things like that.

His own sense of the burden of, his career, A deep sense of unhappiness. And so he came to volunteer in prison and I took his class and I just watched him. Did the class and then wanted to do more. So we did the training to become a volunteer chaplain. Started serving, uh, multiple hours throughout the week, all the way up to, every single day for a half day and on the weekends.

And I asked him, you know, how is it that you're able to run your business? I don't understand. And he says that since he started doing that, he's had to work less. More gets done in his office and he makes more money

Huh. 

Wow. 

was it. Yeah, so I think that's the lesson that I take from that is it's, it's getting used to this sense of being [00:22:00] absent motivation, you know, that is to say like, I'm doing what I'm doing.

Because I know what I'm doing is where I'm gonna find that deepest sense of wellbeing. I have this, motto. It's on my business card. It says, the time you spend and investing in others is the best use of your time.

Hmm.

Right?

Wow.

By the way, that is a powerful lesson, and all of us need to learn it. And again, listeners, I often sort of break away and chat with you on the side, and I wanna do that right now. As you listen to this conversation and Doug's story, I, I just really encourage you to, to ask yourself why are you listening and why are you gonna stay with us?

And you know, the one thing I'm, I am just thinking Doug, is, is that it is, it's unfortunate that a lot of people. Uh, like yourself and like others, you know, the thing that they need to find themselves often is these deep traumatic [00:23:00] experiences like this. Wouldn't it be a great if we, if we didn't need some form of incarceration, which by the way, I think can happen whether we go to jail or not.

Um. Because incarceration to me, when I think about it, just from a metaphoric perspective, you know, it, it's the same process obviously that, uh, that a caterpillar goes through. In the chrysalis to reform, is a incarceration, of, , of something. , And then actually through that compression and through that containment comes something different.

And I think. I think of my own life, you know, I think there's been times where I've, I've felt very constricted and maybe constricted 'cause of choices I made or constricted 'cause of circumstances. But I, but if I'm really honest with myself, I think it's in that constriction. It's in that. Sort of imprisonment in that point in which we feel, , less [00:24:00] powerful, more restricted, that sometimes actually the greatest transformation and growth can come.

And that to me is a very interesting thing about the human experience and the human journey. Yeah.

But I know you're interviewing me, but like when you feel that you felt that constriction before and you've gotten to know that feeling, like what have you learned from, like, what has it been telling you when you actually listen to it?

Yeah. That's a great, that's a great question. You know, I love it. Now I get, to be a guest on my own show, Doug. I appreciate that. You know, I think what it's, what it often brings me to a point of is that I recognize that the power I think I have over circumstance are others. Is a bit of a fantasy, and that in those moments I begin to realize that my power of choice and [00:25:00] accountability and responsibility is only actually within my reach. I think that's the lesson that I've continued to learn in moments where I felt constricted, I felt contained, uh, limited maybe. I think that's been the greatest lesson that I've learned from those times, and it's caused me to embrace a greater responsibility, to become. who I inherently and intuitively who I am.

Which is interesting 'cause you sort of describe it in a similar way. You know, you, you come to this point where you, have this idea about service to others, and you also realize that potentially this is just part of inherently who you were made to be. There's a sense of, there's a sense of destiny in the middle of this destruction that's happening, which I do think is a really.

Interesting arc of a lot of our experience. We might have it in different ways. And I, I mean, I really appreciate the thoughtfulness of this conversation and even the way you articulate your own journey, Doug, [00:26:00] and, and, so you're, let me just turn this back for a second. So you're having this conversation, you're having this thing happening.

You're starting to have this sense. You now get to a point where you get paroled. Now you, come out. Can I help me understand and help my listeners understand? What's that moment like? Like you, you walk outta prison and you know, of course in the movies, you know the sun's shining and there's rays of light and, uh, I, I don't know if that's what it is or not, but when you walk out and you are, you recognize that you're gonna have some freedom now, a measure of freedom, is that exhilarating or is that horrifying?

I love the question people ask, like, what's your favorite day in prison? And everyone's like, oh, the day I get out, I'm like, no, that is not it. My favorite day in prison. I was actually a trustee and I got to drive through East Texas, you know, with my boss following, and I remember my favorite day in prison was like rolling down the window and [00:27:00] listening to Johnny Cash East Texas Road.

That was my favorite day in prison, uh, the final day in prison. Oh, wow. I mean, I've never experienced, I can't even imagine going through that again because. You just hear these nightmares about people, people changing their minds, like the parole commission saying on the last day that they're gonna change their minds.

And so hanging over me was this, fear like someone was, uh, gonna rush out and bring me back in, or the police are gonna stop our car on the way home and say we made a mistake. Like, uh, that's how I felt. Even when I got home, my mother, bless her, let me stay at her town home, you know? And it's kind of a nightmare 'cause she remembers how I was before I went to prison.

But she allowed it. And I remember I'd be working at the computer upstairs in the [00:28:00] evening and every time I saw a lights come into the driveway, you know, it was a town hall community. But so every time I saw lights come in. I would rush to the bathroom to brush my teeth. 'cause I knew when they took me to county jail that it would be a couple days before I'd be able to brush my teeth.

So yeah, so that's what that was like for me. It was just a, a fear that they made a mistake 

and 

my gosh. What, what a terrible fear to live with. so now you're in a stage of rebuilding. You come out, you have a, you know, you've, you've had a, some measure of healing. Obviously you've had some personal restoration. You've, you've come to a greater sense of who you are. You've, you've shed a bunch of weight, emotionally, psychologically, . What what does your first year look like and how do you start moving forward and finding yourself more into the place [00:29:00] that you are now your life?

I mean, I think that's really where the story gets very interesting because how I approached the first year actually laid the groundwork for everything that came afterwards and you know, it was, I had one job. Getting out when I got outta prison, and that was to find a job and I realized like I needed to do everything possible to find that job.

It was 2014 we're in Texas. Uh, I would go to job fairs and no one would hire me. No one, right? But ba on the basis of my criminal record alone, um, I got a. A caseworker from the Veterans Commission. I was in the Air Force back in, you know, right out of high school and she tried to take over and she would do these reconnaissance missions where she would go talk to the employers and talk me up in order to get them to at least consider me.[00:30:00] 

And she, she'd come back completely deflated. She's like, I don't know what to do. Like, you're not gonna make it through the screening here. and I finally did find a job. it was a second chance employer. Uh, the term second chance employer. What that essentially means is that an employer who wants to pay people low wages and will take anyone,

Okay.

that's a second chance employer, I hope, I hope, I hope employers can just be employers who hire people based on their qualifications.

You know, we don't need a 

second chance employer 

sounds a little bit like, uh, indentured Slavery doesn't 

Exactly, but I, when I got that job, I'm gonna sound like, , it's like a story your parent would tell, but it's true. I, in order to get to that job, I would have to wake up at five 30 in the morning. I would to ride my bike to the bus stop, put my bike on the front rack of the [00:31:00] bus, take it about 10 miles away.

Remove my bike and ride another five miles to the warehouse where I earn $9 an hour. Uh, you can do the conversion in Canadian dollars, $9 an hour in 2014. Um,

and that was one of the best jobs I've ever had. I've never been more grateful to find a job 

I like. Wow. And I'm employed. I started paying $10 a month to, um, for my student loans, which hadn't been paid. I started paying a, a few bucks of that to my ex-wife for child support. Right. And, yeah, I was like, I was on the road $9 an hour. . And so I started writing about this experience, just how difficult it was because I'm not even talking about how hard it was to find a house, right?

So I just [00:32:00] realized the magnitude, how high these barriers were, and. I wrote about it and I got it out into the public, created a blog and things like that. And it got noticed by a criminal justice reform organization in Austin. And they invited me to interview, uh, which was essentially a chance for me to, show my skills at bill analysis.

And they called me one week later and they said, you know how to pass a bill and you know what the inside of a prison cell looks like. You're perfect.

Oh my gosh.

I got hired and we spent the next six years, we decreased the number of people in prison by about 25, 30,000 people. We made it easier to find housing. we created one of the strongest occupational licensing acts in the country, making it so people could actually get licenses for [00:33:00] meaningful employment.

we lowered. Employment barriers made it. So checking someone's record isn't the most important thing you do in a screening. we had huge success and so it started with me just going through it. As you said, I just had to go through reentry. Not got disheartened. I had to live through it.

So, so all of a sudden you have a collision of these two, of all these worlds. So you've got your history. You know, of understanding how legislation works and how policy's driven, and how people are convinced to make political choices, uh, and move these things forward, that crescendos and collides with this experience of prison.

And these two things start to cooperate somehow together in this wonderfully strange way because now you have a lived experience that makes you. [00:34:00] Much more empathetic and understanding. 'cause now you have been on that side and now you bring all this together and it starts to not only have redemption for you, Doug, it sounds like, but now it's like your story and your experience becomes the redemptive, catalyst for all of these other things.

I mean, that is, that's transformative. That is so 

Yes, yes. I love it. Yeah, no, it's exactly that. you know, you, you mentioned the caterpillar to the butterfly, and you know, there's lots of metaphors you could take with that, but there is something about having to go through it, right? Like to not avoid the tragedies of your life.

Yeah.

You know, to not try to drink away your mental illness. Right. To actually go through it, to heal, to, to grieve. And, you know, I, I used as a metaphor in [00:35:00] the book Dantes Inferno.

Hmm.

And the reason we used, we did a book club with it. And the reason why we were enamored with it is that in the poem, Dante had no escape from hell.

There was no way he could go up. His only way to go back up was to go all the way to the deepest core of hell in order to climb. And there's a lot more to say about Dante's Inferno, but that was one that, that I really grabbed and pulled to myself. 'cause that's it. We, we go through. If we do it without anesthetizing ourselves or trying to avoid it or feeling sorry for ourselves, if we, if we can just go through it, there's something on the other end of that that is magnificent.

Yeah. Absolutely. So, when did you write your book and when was it published?

 it was published last year in July. [00:36:00] Um, after, you know, we had success at the Capitol, all that, I went and became a leadership development trainer and coach. You already said that in my, my bio and working with communities across Texas.

So you know, I just got this wild hair that I was gonna write a book, and I, I will tell you, it was just a lark. That's it. I read a leadership book about a Navy Seal who talks about his, battles, the, um, mistakes he made and how he owned those mistakes. I was like, that's great.

I can do that. Right? I can make, uh, you know, I can create that story arc

Mm-hmm.

. But I realized there was like, the story arc starts somewhere, and where that started was somewhere really, really dark and painful. And I couldn't write, uh, I couldn't personally write a, a book about leadership that was authentic to me without describing what happened

[00:37:00] Yeah.

So if people wanna track that book down, what's the best place and waited for them to do that. Doug?

Amazon, I think is probably the best way, 

um, 

And so again, if you're listening, that title is The Path of Rocks and Thorns, leadership Lessons from a Prison Cell. I, I, I wanna ask a question about the title, the Path of Rocks and Thorns. 

Yeah. 

so when you look back in your experience. I have two questions about that. And by the way, y your answer could be, I don't know.

I never thought about it like that, so that's okay too. So I'd like to understand a little bit. I, I love, writers in, in the way that they craft their storylines, but also their titles. I find them fascinating. So what is a rock and what is a thorn and What is the redemptive opportunity that each provides,

Yes. Well, uh, part of it is Christian imagery. Like it's not a book of Christianity, but it's a, [00:38:00] it's a parable. It's the, of the sower. Some seeds go onto the rocks, some seeds go into the thorns. Right? And, but the seeds are always available. That sense of who you truly are and that access to something divine is available to anyone, right?

, Irrespective of whether you are suffering with shame or you descended into criminality, drug addiction, things like that. The seeds are always there. And so that's it. It's also, I mean, I, I was. Addicted to crack rocks and I 

was in prison thorns.

Okay. so there's a double metaphor here. And by the way, I really, that's interesting 'cause that parable, you know, he is quite fascinating in the sense that. oftentimes, I think about that parable actually. I use it a little bit when I train leaders about, , communication,

Hmm.

and I talk about the importance of pressing down our, our ideas into preparing that soil and pressing it down.

And that if, if what we're saying [00:39:00] isn't taking root, it isn't. A good idea just to blame the soil and that there, you know, but I also think that I like the, the title partly because I do think sometimes our experience makes us a little harder and harder to receive certain things.

Lessons, but also maybe harder to receive an understanding of who we really are and receive love and affection and acceptance from others or ourselves. So I think it's a really powerful metaphor. And again, if you're listening in, I do think you listen for a reason and I'd encourage you to. To grab Doug's book and, and read it.

And you know, what a powerful story of redemption, Doug. I mean, if you look at your journey and then you look at what you've been involved in. So, so now let's talk about today For Doug and then in the future. So when you look at where you are today and where you would see the, the arc of this story, or we would like to get the arc of this story.

to be going, what's two, three years in the future? Look like Doug, at least for Doug's mind right now.[00:40:00] 

Yeah. Well, I feel like I have barely touched, the depths of what it means to be a leadership trainer and coach. Um, I think it can be very spiritual. I think it's connecting people with who they, who they truly are. I got some additional training on top of my social work degree, but in trauma informed coaching because I'm, really interested in how people with unresolved trauma, adapt to workplace with just extreme hyper vigilance and what you can do within a workplace to reduce that without having to, to heal someone's trauma.

So there's, the depths of this are just really exciting. Um, I'm even retraining right now, on other dimensions of leadership development. So I wanna just keep having this fun. I wanna like keep expanding, you know, my reach, get in, I'm doing great in nonprofits. it'd be great to, you know, expand into [00:41:00] a wider range of audiences.

But I am doing what I like to do. Yeah. So that's my long-term plan. I'm 57, so my long-term plan is to do exactly what I'm doing right now until I don't wanna do what I'm doing anymore.

Wow. I love the arc of, your journey. Um, I, I do wanna correct you though, because Doug, I think you're 17

Oh.

because I think

I don't know how you got that.

because I think you died at 40. 

That's right. Ugh. 

I 

am 

gonna 

carry that with me.

I think you're 17, Doug. 

Wow. You're exactly right. I'm 17.

I'm giving you, I'm gonna give you the I'm gonna give you the gift of a revelation that you've got. You've had some new life. Um, Doug, first of all, I just wanna say, I mean, I, I. You know, I've done a lot of conversations with people over the years, and all of them are wonderful and fascinating in different ways.

, I, I was really looking forward to our conversation today. You and I had a very [00:42:00] cursory conversation, and when my listeners know that, we don't script conversations. We, we find them as we go. You know, we have a general arc of how we maybe, what, we would like to generally talk about, but we don't, I don't provide a list of questions.

we don't. Orchestrator construct the conversation. I, I've, I always say, and you'll recall even in my email to you, I said, you know, the conversation we're supposed to have will find us. And I really feel like that has happened as we've, had this conversation today, and as you've, you know, very carefully, but also very honestly, told your story, not just curated that story for, you know, for theater.

Because I think sometimes people can curate their story for, for theatrical effect. You haven't curated your story, you've just honestly shared your journey. and I believe that'll be very powerful for the people who have listened and who choose to listen. And again, if you're listening in, you might be thinking of somebody [00:43:00] who needs to hear this conversation.

I'd thoroughly encourage you to find them and make sure that they do. 'cause I do believe that. When we talk about this idea of redemption, uh, it seems to me that redemption has, the power of reverberation beyond ourselves into the lives of others. It's very clear, Doug, that your story. Your redemption has, has brought redemption for lots of other people.

As you began to apply your experience and your wisdom and your skill to, to the creation of, uh, changes in policy that would benefit people, um, that is just, uh, powerful to me and I really appreciate you sharing so honestly and thoughtfully about your journey. So let me ask you this.

So when you go into a room today, I mean, one of things that's, that is interesting to me is how, how we find and live our unique, authentic selves. I think trauma [00:44:00] often, Covers all that up and we can't find our unique identity and hope. And then oftentimes it is through pain and trauma that we find it, again, through that constriction, we find new birth.

but when you go into a room of people today and you are, , bringing, the most UNCOMMODiFiED Doug, that you can bring, the unique expression of Doug Smith, that you believe you were born to bring and had some destiny to bring. Though you tried to thwart it for most of your life, you couldn't run from it.

What are you doing or how are you experiencing ? Those people in that room that you know potentially is transformative to them?

Hmm. I think I sort of know, I know something about them. 

I just, have a sense of what they are capable of,

hmm.

the aspiration they bring when they walk into the room. And I've seen so many people that I've worked with [00:45:00] do things that are beyond their imagination. Like start their own organizations or, create their own departments, you know, things that they never even imagined just through a switch in their head that made them realize who they truly are.

And I know that we're gonna have a conversation , gonna talk about leadership stuff, but then I'm gonna, I'm gonna pause and we're gonna have a conversation. Or invite people to do like what I call coaching in front of the room,

where people will share what's standing between them and what I know about them.

Hmm. 

That 

pure 

Wow. that is powerful. And I, and I really love that. And that sounds like a wonderful gift that you bring into any room or you give to people. Being able to see in them or for them what is opaque to them. what a wonderful gift actually, because so often, you know.

Our lives make it difficult. We, we see through this sort of [00:46:00] dim veil and we can't get a sense of who we are or where we're going when anybody else can help us see clearer. that is a powerful gift and I, I appreciate the expression of that. And. as we finish this conversation, I wanna thank you, Doug, for sharing space with us and coming on the show.

Real privilege to have this conversation with you. Again, if you're listening in, I just encourage you to ask yourself why? Why are you still listening? For what purpose? it's surely not just to be entertained. I'd encourage you to ask yourself, how do you unc cork this conversation and, and move it out into your lives or into the lives of somebody else who needs to hear it?

And as you do, do me a favor. Email me at tim@uncommodified.com or DM me and let me, and let Doug know how you're processing this conversation, and what it's starting to stir in you. You know, maybe you're in a season. Of incarceration, maybe not in a prison, but maybe you're in a season of feeling bound up and constricted and maybe you're beginning to lose hope that there's any good that [00:47:00] can come of it, and maybe, hopefully you can start to see that through constriction, through limitation often comes an opportunity to grow and change and to become and morph into the real.

A being that we were created to be. Doug, thanks for your time. Thanks for listening in. Cheers. Have a great day.

Thank you.