Why You Need Friends that will Literally Slap You in the Face

Episode Transcript
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Doug Smith (00:00):
Hey, leader, and welcome to another episode of
the L three Leadership Podcast,where we are obsessed with
helping you grow to yourmaximum potential and to
maximize the impact of yourleadership. My name is Doug
Smith and I am your host. Andif you are new to the podcast,
welcome. I'm so glad thatyou're here, and I hope that
you enjoy the content andbecome a subscriber. If you've
been listening to the podcastfor a while and it's added
value to your life, it wouldmean the world to me. If you'd

(00:21):
leave us a rating and review onwhatever app you listen to
podcast through, that reallydoes help us to grow our
audience and reach moreleaders. So thank you in
advance for that. Well leader .
In this week's episode, you'regonna be hearing me be
interviewed by my friends Tom oBoyle and Nate Devlin on their
podcast, which is called TheScattered Seeds Podcast. If you
have a subscribe to it, Iencourage you to check it out.
And in our conversation, you'regonna hear me share my story. I

(00:42):
talk about the importance ofhaving good friends. I share
what we're up to at light oflife and what's happening in
the city of Pittsburgh as itrelates to homelessness and so
much more. I think it's gonnaadd a ton of value to your
life. So let's dive right in.
Enjoy.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
You are listening to the Scattered Seeds podcast
where every life has a story

Nate Devlin (01:04):
To hear somebody's story and to hear how the story
of Christ and the Gospelintersects with somebody's life
so that their story is taken upinto the story of Christ. I
don't , there's no better storyto hear.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
It's powerful when God has brought you through
something. 'cause not only canyou go, this is what God has
brought me through. Maybe itcan touch that one person.

Thomas O'Boyle (01:24):
I was a week away from leaving my career in
the media and about to embarkon the communications job,
which I now occupy here at thechurch. Never underestimate the
sovereignty of God

Speaker 2 (01:51):
From dealing drugs to feeding hundreds. Today's
guest has gone from being a badinfluence to someone whom the
Lord is using to reach othersdaily. Doug Smith is currently
the Assistant ExecutiveDirector of Pittsburgh's Light
of Life Mission, working withpast guest Jarrell , Gilliam
and Hutch to bring help to thehomeless of the greater

(02:12):
Pittsburgh area. So join Tom,Nate , and Doug as they explore
the path the Lord has led himon and the slap in the face
that helped him find it.
Welcome back to the ScatteredSeeds podcast, where every life
has a story.

So, Doug, welcome to The Scattered Seed
Podcast. Hey , it's great to

Doug Smith (02:31):
See you . Honored to be here. Yeah , I've been
following you guys for a while, so love the work that you do.
Oh, thank you. And fellowpodcasters, I always love talk
and shop with you guys. Yeah .
What's ,

What's the name of your podcast?

Doug Smith (02:39):
The L three Leadership Podcast.

L three Leadership. Yep . L three .
What are the three L's? Yeah , .

Doug Smith (02:44):
That's what everyone always asks. Yeah.
Learn, launch, lead . So webelieve leaders should be in a
continual cycle of those threethings. Learning , uh,
launching whatever's in theirheart, and then ultimately
leading wherever they are .
Okay .

Yeah. Is that an independent organization that
you started,

Doug Smith (02:58):
Or It is, yeah.
Yeah. Okay . I started around2014.

Okay. Any collaboration with Pittsburgh
Leadership Foundation

Doug Smith (03:05):
Or , yeah , so it's actually, so I guess how L
three started, and I can sharemore of my story later, but
basically, my life was headednowhere really, really fast. I
was a drug dealer on my way tobe a drug act alcoholic. My
life turns around throughChrist, and I ended up on staff
at this church, victory FamilyChurch in Cranberry, pastor
Larry Benor . I don't know ifyou know him through your
Geneva Connections, but I

Know that name. I could trace it, I'm sure. Okay
. But it's a very familiarname.

Doug Smith (03:28):
Yeah. He handed me a John Maxwell cd and , uh, I
never knew there was such thingas personal development,
personal growth. And I listenedto it, and I felt like I was
neo in the Matrix. Itranscribed the entire lesson.
I said, gimme everything yougot. And so this passion for
personal development just wentoff in me for years. Literally
two or three hours a night I'dbe listening to personal
development and eventually gotto a place where it's like,

(03:48):
Hey, I wanna start doing forothers what, you know, John
Maxwell and others have donefor me. 2012, I went through
the Pittsburgh LeadershipFoundation Collaborative, and
it was the first time I heard,for those listening, if you're
not familiar, Reed Carpenterand Sam Schumaker, the whole
vision of Pittsburgh being oneday more famous for God than
steel mm-hmm .
And every time I'd get aroundthat my heart would just
explode with vision. And somuch so that I called Reed

(04:10):
Carpenter and I said, Reid, Ifeel called to do for my
generation what you did foryours. What should I do? Mm-hmm
. And he justsaid, Doug just started
gathering people and see whatthe Holy Spirit does. And so
there was 20 of us on MountWashington. We prayed over the
city and I said, Hey, I don'tknow what it's gonna look like,
but we're gonna develop leadersin our city, and we believe if
we'll invest in , developleaders in all sectors, that we
can ultimately win this cityfor Christ. And so that was,

(04:34):
yeah , almost 10 years ago now.
And so we have a podcast thathas over 400 episodes. We do
mastermind groups. We've had aone day conference a few years.
And so, and that's all a sideproject along with, you know,
full-time job. And

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So that was the short story of the long arc of
your life. Yeah . So let's getinto the , the details.

Doug Smith (05:50):
Yeah. Yeah. So , uh, I grew up in Wexford, went
to North Allegheny and had apretty normal family life, I'd
say till sixth or seventhgrade. And two significant
things happened at that point.
One is I got invited to go to aBaptist camp, which still
exists, slippery rock baptistcamp, right off the slippery
rock exit. And for the firsttime I heard the gospel and my
camp counselor brought me intothe cabin and just said, Doug,

(06:11):
do you wanna make Jesus Christthe Lord of your life? And I
said, yes, now down rightthere, and prayed and invited
Christ into my life. Mm-hmm . And so
instantly felt called intoministry. I wanted to be a
pastor. This was in seventhgrade. Wow. And they started
bringing me to a church here inCrafton called Middletown Road
Baptist Church. And I went to achurch picnic right after that
camp, saw this beautiful girl.
And I said, Hey, I, I think Icould go to this church every

(06:32):
week. Yeah . .
And so I did. I had a crush onit . It turns out it was the
pastor's daughter. Oh . And ,uh, I joined the choir. I mean,
'cause she played the piano andI could see her forehead
sticking out from over thepiano. So Yeah . You know ,
anything I could do to bearound her. But the pastor
started mentoring me, and itwas, it was a beautiful thing.
But at the same time, my momgot diagnosed with a rare nerve
disease. If you've ever hadyour feet fall asleep or have

(06:52):
pins and needles, she startedhaving that 24 hours a day
neuropathy, or what? Yeah ,polyneuropathy. I'm not exactly
sure what the term is, butYeah. It wasn't Ms. A lot of
people ask that, but thedoctors ultimately didn't know
how to treat it. Yeah. So sheended up using a walker,
ultimately ended up in awheelchair and really ended up
in bed most of her life. Sodramatically shifted the way
our family did. Family. I wentfrom having family nights every

(07:15):
week to my dad working twojobs. He was a bus driver in
our school district. He woulddrive for giant eagle trucks on
the weekend. So he was neverhome. My mom was in bed all the
time, so I had no boundaries.
As a 13-year-old, which is a13-year-old, it's like the
greatest thing ever, .
But summer of eighth grade, Iremember being in the woods
with a bunch of friends. Thiskid pulls out a pipe and I'm
like, oh man, this is what theytell you about in school.
That's when I first starteddoing drugs. And by the end of

(07:37):
that summer, fell totally awayfrom God, wanted nothing to do
with him , and basicallystopped trying in school,
determined that I would neveramount to anything, had to go
to summer school every singleyear just to get to the next
grade. In ninth grade. I foundout that my mom pipe, was it
crack? No. No. Oh, thank God.
No. No . But , uh, it was justmarijuana. But that's
marijuana. That's what Istarted with. But then I found
out my mom had these postscalled Oxycontins. And so it's

(08:00):
basically synthetic heroin. AndI found out there was a market
for those. So I would stealpills from my mom and sell them
in our high school. Got intoacid and basically was just
parting all throughout highschool. Fast forward to my
senior year, my mom had gottenso ill October of 2002 that she
ended up passing away. And whenshe passed away, this was so
strange to me. I , I grieved,but not in the sense that she

(08:20):
was gone. I was actuallyrelieved. 'cause the last six
months of her life werehorrible. I saw her suffer
unimaginable things. And sowhen she passed, what did
bother me and what I did grievewas I didn't know she had a
relationship with Christ. But Ididn't know why that bothered
me. 'cause I didn't care at allabout Christ. Mm-hmm
. But every nightI'm getting drunk, I'm getting
high, and I'm , my head wouldhit the pillow at night and
these thoughts would just cometo me like, you're gonna be 70

(08:41):
years old one day and still bebeing tormented by the fact of
you not knowing if your momknows Christ. And so that
torments me for about threemonths. And then one Saturday
morning, literally out ofnowhere, this woman calls me ,
uh, it turns out I'm related toher. She's a lot older than me.
I had no relationship with her.
I was 17 years old. And shecalled me and she said, Doug, I
really felt like the Lord putyou on my heart this morning.

(09:03):
And he wanted me to let youknow that I was actually a
nurse in the hospital with yourmom. And I led your mom into a
relationship with Christ a fewweeks before she passed. Wow.
And I think God wants you toknow that she's related to you.
She's related to me. Yeah . Inwhat , in what way? To this
day? I don't know. Okay . Ithink she's my cousin. So we're
, we're friends on Facebook.
Yeah. I thank her every year.
Yeah. 'cause that phone call,when she said that my niece hit

(09:24):
the ground, I don't rememberanything else. She said, tears
going down my face. And, and Ijust said, God, whatever you
want for the rest of my life,I'm yours. How old were you
then? I was 17. That was thefirst time for me that I
learned that one God loved meso much that he would have
someone call me. Two. He lovedmy mom so much. I know a lot of
us pray for loved ones whodon't know Christ. And the
reality is when , even whenpeople lose people and they're

(09:44):
not sure, I tell them, listen,God loved that person so much.
Like God loved my mom so muchthat he sent, probably so many
people were pathing . Forwhatever reason, it was this
woman, Chrissy, who got theopportunity to lead her to
Christ. Wow . And so that wasthe turning point for me. And
then two weeks later, again,another God moment, got invited
by a girl to a Bible study.
This Bible study was started bya mom in our high school. I

(10:05):
found out she was a mom, justhad a passion. She felt like
God led her to start this Biblestudy five years before I went
there. And she was scared todeath to start it. She ends up
doing it. 150 kids were goingto this Bible study from North
Allegheny every single week.
Wow . They actually had toreset the foundation of their
house because of how many kidswere going. Wow . It was just a
mom with a passion for Christ.
Huh . So I walked downstairs, Isee a beautiful girl sitting on

(10:26):
the couch. And I thought, I'mgoing to Bible study every
week. And so I don't know howyou guys are, but it wasn't the
same beautiful girl. It wasn'tNo things didn't work out with
a pastor's daughter. Yeah .
Right , right . But , uh, but Idid. So I saw this beautiful
girl. It turns out it was themother's daughter. I went out
thing for daughter sake , . I know. But I do
wonder, I'm like, how many menactually follow God because of

(10:47):
a beautiful woman they sawsomewhere , uh, that followed
God, probably a lot of ,probably a lot . Yeah.
Right. Um, so to , to wrap upthe story, basically I walked
home from that Bible study,reignited a fire for God in me.
Mm-hmm . And Iwent home that night and I told
my high school friends, one, Icalled my shot. I said, I met
the woman I'm gonna marry,which was the girl on the
couch. Spoiler alert. That's mywife today. Wow. My wife, she
left Bible study that night andshe went up to her mom and she

(11:08):
said, I can't believe Doug cameto our Bible study tonight.
He's one of the mostinfluential kids in our school.
But he uses all of hisinfluence for drugs, alcohol,
partying, et cetera . If heever got a hold of God, I think
he could change the world. Andfor whatever reason, her mom
felt led to start bringing meover their house for family
dinners. Uh, her dad is thedean of, or was he just
retired, was the Dean ofadmission at Carnegie Mellon

(11:29):
University for 45 years. Andthey became a family that
basically adopted me as a17-year-old and showed me an
entirely different way of life.
They showed me what a godlyfamily looked like. They showed
me what godly father and ahusband looked like. They
brought me to a Victory FamilyChurch where I ended up
interning. And that was reallythe turning point, this family
taking an interest. And I guessthe last thing I'll say here is

(11:50):
I was sharing my story withactually my , my tax advisor
who went to high school withme. And he said, Doug, you
know, I , I've known you for along time, and how many people
do you think that were in yoursituation actually make it out?
Mm-hmm . And I'm an optimist bynature. I'm like, 50%. And he
said, I, I would probably guessit's more like five. Yeah. And
man, that broke my heart. And Ihad a younger sister who was
living the same lifestyle thatI did. She kept going down the

(12:10):
same path. She ends up being aheroin addict. Unfortunately.
And again, this is more thelight of life story, but she
ends up being a heroin addict.
She came into our program atLight of Life, ends up giving
her her life to Christ at Lightof Life, which is amazing. But
we lost my sister to anoverdose in 2019. Mm-hmm
. Um , which isdevastating. But what made her
go that way and me get out thereality is one, God obviously

(12:32):
getting a hold of God early.
But two, it was other peopleshowing me another way. And I
think that's the number one waythat kids need to get out. When
I think about kids in hardcircumstances, they just don't
have someone in to show themanother way or model another
way of life. Mm-hmm . And youknow, for me it was my
mother-in-law andfather-in-law. It was my youth
pastor. And without those threepeople, I would've probably
continued to go down the samepath. How

Did you kick the substance? So did you have to
go to rehab or did you justcold Turkey

Doug Smith (12:57):
Or? No, it wasn't cold Turkey. . Right
after I graduated, I went on asenior trip where I basically
got high and drunk every dayfor 14 days. And then went
through a church camp the weekafter. And that's when I would
say I really rededicated mylife to Christ. I heard about
an internship at this church.
Mm-hmm . And Ithought, oh man, if I'm working
at a church like Laura , mywife, it wasn't my wife at the
time. I'm like, she's gonna besuper impressed. She's gonna

(13:18):
think that's like the hottestthing ever. Yeah. Which she
didn't, I didn't even know whatan internship was like. Again,
barely graduated high school,start working at this church
serving youth ministry duringthe weekend on weekends. But on
Saturday nights I'm going downto Pitt and getting drunk and
high. My house was the partyhouse. Dad was rarely home. And
my mom was obviously gone atthis time. So I'm living this
double standard lifestyle forabout nine months into the

(13:38):
internship. And no one knows.
Wow. And I'm having to party inmy house. And there was this
kid that was super annoying tome at the time, but he always
wanted to hang out with me. Andso I said, you can come over to
my house. Well , I was having aparty that night. I told my
friends that were partying'cause I'm like, oh, I'm gonna
reach them for Christ. Hey,this kid from church is coming
over while he comes over, I'mchurch Doug . But as soon as
he's gone, it's on. This kidcomes over, my friends are

(13:58):
getting high and drunk on myfront porch. He comes in, he
goes past them, sees me, grabsme legitimately buy the shirt,
pulls me into my mom'sbathroom, physically slaps me
in the face and says, yeah , nojoke. No joke. I like

Speaker 6 (14:13):
This kid. .
Yeah.

Doug Smith (14:16):
Slaps me in the face and said, what are you
doing? And I said , well, whatdo you mean? What am I doing?
Those are my friends. I'm gonnareach 'em for Christ. I don't
do what they do. Yeah. And hesaid, Doug, I know exactly what
you're doing. I know thelifestyle you're living. Wow.
And you have three days to tellPastor Larry who was leading
the internship. And he said, ifyou don't, I will. And he left.
And I wanted to kill this kid.
Wow. And not only was I angry,I was deeply saddened. And I

(14:38):
actually cried the entireweekend because for the first
time in my life, I actuallyfelt like God had a plan for my
life. I felt like I hadpotential and could actually do
something with my life. And Ithought, as soon as I admit
this, I'm done for it. Yeah .
They're gonna kick me outta thechurch and I'm just gonna keep
going down the same path. I goto the church. Three days later
I meet with a youth pastor. Icouldn't even look him in the
eye. I'm crying. I stutter outthe lifestyle I've been living.

(14:59):
And I looked up and I expectedhim to say, get out. Yeah.
Instead, he had a huge smile onhis face. And he said, my
nickname then was Bubba. But he said, Bubba, I
love you and I believe in you.
And he said, the Bible says arighteous man falls down seven
times, it gets back up again.
Get back up again. But then hequalified. He said, but I can't
continue to let you lead andlive the lifestyle you're

(15:19):
living. Mm-hmm .
So you have a choice to make.
So what are you gonna do? Thatwas the, the draw a line in the
sand for me. That was enoughfor me. And I met with all my
high school friends and I said,you're not gonna see me at
parties anymore. I'm not havingany more parties. If you wanna
go to coffee or movies, great.
No one ever did. So there was aperiod of separation that I had
to separate, you know, in a ,they talk about new places. Yep
. People with things. That'swhat I had to do. And so I had

(15:40):
some lonely nights. But thebeautiful thing is God ended up
bringing some of my bestfriends in the world into my
life. And I remember meetingwith a kid that slapped me.
Never forget this. And I said,Hey, I hated you, but I think
you may have changed my lifeand I want to thank you for
what you did. I told him what Idid with my friends and he
shared a quote with me that Ishare all the time. Changed my
life. He said, Doug, let metell you something about
friends. Friends love you theway that you are, but real

(16:02):
friends love you enough not tolet you stay where you are. And
that's when it hit me. Youknow, my high school friends
were my boys, right? Mm-hmm. But they were my
boys. If I was on my way to bean alcoholic. But a real
friend, a real friend waswilling to literally grab me by
the collar, slap me in the faceand say, you're better than
this. Mm-hmm .
And if it weren't for him andthe grace that a youth pastor
showed me, I would've been backon that slippery slope. Wow .
So that was kind of the turningpoint for me as far as saying,

(16:23):
I'm done with all of thisstuff. I'm not looking back.
And I never, did

You stay in touch with him? Yeah . The , the
slapper. Oh

Doug Smith (16:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
. Yep . I thank him.
Gratitude's a really bigpractice . Does he still

Slap you or ?

Doug Smith (16:32):
No, he lives far away, thankfully.

Yeah . .
Yeah .

Doug Smith (16:36):
I don't let him know anything that's going on
in my life or I keep him at adistance.

He , he might enforce change. .
. That's right.

Doug Smith (16:43):
Yeah. I learned my lesson there,

. Wow. So that's high school. What
happens after high school? Doyou go to college?

Doug Smith (16:50):
Yeah. So my father-in-law, I don't know if
I would've gone to college. HeCMU guy, well , my
mother-in-law pretty soon afterI started attending bible
study, got diagnosed with braincancer. It was lung cancer that
went through her brain, had atumor. And so that was a whole
journey that we went throughwith her family. And we lost
her in 2004, I think. I juststarted going to community
college. 'cause that was theonly option I had. And , and

(17:11):
Mike was really big on my rolein my life. But at the funeral,
all these people were here andthe president of Carnegie
Mellon's there. And he gives aspeech and he thanks me. And he
said, Doug, I just wanna thankyou for your part in our
family. Hopefully I can talkyou into going to CMU. One day
I'm like, I barely graduatehigh school. I can go to CMU.
Like, this is it. I'm gonna goto Carnegie Mellon. What do I
need to do? I talked to mywife's brother and he's like,

(17:31):
just talk to dad. Ask him. Sohe's shoveling snow one day and
of course I'm trying to be afuture in-law and help. And I
just said, Hey Mike, what do Ineed to do to get into Carnegie
Moen ? And he justlooked at me and laughed and
said, I think you should applysomewhere else. . So he
broke all of my dreams. And uh,that was the end of that. But I
would've never survived. So Iwent to community college for
two years, which I loved. Andthen went to Robert Morris,

(17:52):
ended up on staff at VictoryFamily Church and Youth
Ministry afterwards. Mm-hmm . And then had an
identity crisis in the middleof that, which ultimately led
me to going to light of lifewhere I've been for 14 years.
And I'm happy to dive into anyof those stories . Yeah .

Let's go into the identity crisis. . Yeah
. Really? That sounds like,what , what was that? This was
right after graduating highschool.

Doug Smith (18:10):
Uh, no. So this is

Mean Ministry will do that to you.

Doug Smith (18:13):
Yes. Yes. So I'm in youth ministry, young 20
something in ministry. What didI wanna be a mega church
pastor. What was

Your degree in it ? Robin

Doug Smith (18:20):
Morris . Oh , business. Business. Okay . Just
as general as possible. Okay.
And I wanted to be the pastorof Mega Church . Why? For me it
was about influence. My hero atthat time is John Maxwell.
Yeah. I'm seeing what John'sdoing. I wanna make a big
impact with my life. If I hadto summarize it, if I'm able to
speak to, you know, thousandsof people every week, that's
how I can make the biggestdifference. Yeah. I think
especially in today's world,you know, you look on social
media now, what kids wanna beYouTube influencers and Yeah.

(18:42):
There's a money element tothat. But I think more than
anything, people wanna make animpact. I , I guess I'll just
share openly. So , oh yeah,I'll , I'll say this. So there
was a hire of someone over meand I didn't necessarily get
along with this person. It wentfrom one pastor who I was under
Larry Bettencourt , who waslike, Hey, you can do anything
to a leader. That I felt likethe impact he had on me was,
you can't do anything, you'reworthless. So I went back to

(19:03):
almost the beginning of where Iwas in high school. Okay.

So you'd been there a couple years, had

Doug Smith (19:07):
Been serving, been there a couple years.
Understand . And I loved it.
And then I call it the gracelifting for about two years. I
really just didn't enjoy itanymore. I would walk around
the offices with my head down,not, I had no passion. I end up
leaving the organization 'causeLarry asks me to help him plan
a church champion Life churchin Chippewa, which is still
there today. So we leave, we'rein Chippewa, we started in
Black Hawk High School is wherewe started .

Okay. Yep . Mm-hmm

Doug Smith (19:29):
. So I went there and he's like,
Hey, I want you to come withme, but I can't pay you. And so
I was looking for a job inbusiness, et cetera . And the
identity crisis was, I wentfrom being on staff at a big
church to a startup with nopeople, to making money, to not
making money. How

Old were you then?

Doug Smith (19:42):
27. 26. 27 20 .
Okay .

Were you married

Doug Smith (19:45):
Yet about to get married? Yes. So,

So you're about to get married. You leave a steady
job with income and aninfluential church in the
community to obscurity with noincome. Yep . So big confidence
Boost . Yeah. Yeah.
Okay.

Doug Smith (19:58):
So looking for a job in corporate. Had a
consulting gig lined up, butthey're like, Hey, we can't
start you for four months. Iwalk out just God moments
again, going back through mystory. Mm-hmm . I
walk out this interview, it was7:30 AM from the consultant
company , uh, at Panera Bread.
Monroeville, my phone rings. Itwas a woman that went to
Victory. She was on staff atLight of Life. She was the
development director at thetime. And she said, Doug, I

(20:19):
know you're looking for a job.
Uh , a position at Light ofLife just opened up for the
volunteer coordinator. Whydon't you come work for Light
of Life for a year and then youcan go work on the church when
they can pay you. I ended upinterviewing, got the job, and
for around six months, I'mworking at Light of Life. I'm
doing this church thing and I'mjust depressed. 'cause I'm
thinking, I see no path in memaking an impact. I actually
told my friend this , um, youknow, I'm ashamed of that . I

(20:39):
said it this way, but becausemy dream was to work in a mega
church , I said, man, what am Idoing working at a homeless
shelter? But by the end of thatfirst year, I had totally
fallen in love with light oflife. And I fell in love with
the work that we do. And I fellin love with the north side . I
fell in love with our city. Soabout a year into my time at
Light of Life, I startedgetting that spark back. And I
was a horrible volunteercoordinator. Let me just be
clear. Like the worst I am , Ihave no administrative

(21:01):
capacity. But you're all vision . Yeah . Well, my boss
said, Hey, you're really goodwith people. Yeah. Why don't
you get into fundraising? Andthey threw me into fundraising.
And now I've been there for 14years. Ended up being the
development director. But thatwas really a game changer for
me at the same time. And youknow, I mentioned my sister
earlier a year into my time atLight of Life, my sister came
to me, she was five monthspregnant with my nephew mm-hmm

(21:22):
. And she said, Ineed help. And I said, what do
you mean you need help? And shesaid, I'm a heroin addict. Wow.
And , and I had heard rumorsthat she had done that and I
had no idea what to do. 'causeI had never gotten into that.
And so I reached out to ourprogram director and for nine
years Light of Life walked me,my family and my sister through
her addiction. She was homelesstwice. Had two kids in that
time period. Wow. In ourprogram three different times.

(21:42):
Third time she was in ourprogram, rededicated her life
to Christ , as I mentioned, andwas clean for 18 months, which
was amazing. I felt like I hadmy sister back for the first
time in 15 years. Wow. Um, butlike I said, unfortunately ,
um, she ended up relapsing and, uh, she had overdosed 32
times in her lifetime, which iscrazy. And that 33rd time , uh,
we lost her. But, you know, Iguess a few takeaways from,

(22:04):
from that, as I share that isone, you know , uh, mark
Batterson always says, Godwants you to get where God
wants you to go more than youwant to get where God wants you
to go. Mm-hmm .
And like, I had no idea that onthe other side of light of life
would be my sister being helpedby our program and re and
giving her life to Christ. Ihad no idea that I had
fundraising ability in me. Ihad no idea that one day I'd be

(22:25):
helping lead the organizationoverall. Mm-hmm .
And, and ultimately this willjust be the identity piece. A
few years ago, I felt like Ireally realized that that dream
I had of being a , a leadpastor, God fulfilled in me
working at light of life, lightof life, we're connected with
300 churches instead of beingat one church, I feel like I
could see what God's doing allover the body of Christ in
Pittsburgh. I'm connected inthe business world, I'm

(22:46):
connected in the governmentworld. It's beautiful. But I
would've never seen that. Andthen with my sister, you know,
if you would've told me at anypoint in my life that I would
know someone, let alone afamily member who would ever be
in need of a homeless shelter.
Yeah . I would've neverbelieved you. And Right . What
I've come to learn through mysister story, and now 14 years
of meeting the men and womenwho walk through our doors
daily is we're all one or twodecisions away from being the

(23:08):
exact same place these men andwomen are at. Yeah . We're all
one or two paychecks away.
Right . From being the sameplace. Yeah . And when people
realize that, it changeseverything. Mm-hmm
. And I , I tellpeople, if you had to go
through a fraction of what someof these men and women have had
to go through, you'd be luckyto be in the same position Yeah
. That they're in. And so wereally encourage people to get
to know the people's story. Thework we do is life or death.

(23:29):
Right. Like Right . Yes. Wehave stories of testimonies.
We're not gonna post all of thepeople we lose on a YouTube
post. You're gonna see storiesof transformation. We have
plenty and God's done amazingthings, but we also lose people
all the time, which isdevastating. We always say we
stand on the gates of hell andas long as someone's breathing
when they walk through ourdoors, there's hope. Right. And
then lastly, the faith-basedelement of what we do, because
Christ is the center of what wedo. My sister is now in my

(23:51):
future and not just in my past.
Mm-hmm . And so even when welose in the natural light of
life, we still win eternallywith Christ. And so it's just
cool how God kind of wrote thatwhole story and brought it all
together. Mm-hmm . Yeah .

I found that the people that are attracted
to light of life have had thatkind of very dramatic turning
point in their lives where theyreally see both the problems
and the victory with greatclarity. Right. Yeah. Because
Jarrell Gilliam was a pastguest on the A podcast you Yeah
. Used Gill's story andsermons, you know .

Yeah. He and I also did the , the Pittsburgh
Leadership Foundation. We arein the same cohort. Oh,

Doug Smith (24:27):
That's awesome.

Oh, you were, I didn't know that. I love j
Yeah. Jarrell iss great. Iremember some of the stories he
told on on our podcast. It justseems to me that the people
that are attracted to it have avery acute understanding of
standing at the gates of hellas you just explained it, that
both empowers them and givesthem empathy for the kinds of

(24:47):
situations that people face.
Yeah. Does that make sense toyou?

Doug Smith (24:50):
Oh, for sure. The real heroes of Light of Life
are our program staff. Right .
The things that they do on aday in and day out basis. But I
would say no matter whatposition someone has in the
light of life, it's a calling.
So a similar Right . Churchministry, if you're not called
to it, you're never gonna last.
Right. And especially the workthat we do, when I look at our
program staff, I mean, thethings that they deal with on a
daily basis, you could pay them$5 million a year, but if
they're not called, they're notgonna do it. And so I'm just so

(25:12):
grateful that we have peoplethat God taps on the shoulder
and say, I need you here. Yeah.
And , uh, it's been amazing tosee them do the work they do.

Right. Do you feel like you're now in the place
that God made you to be?

Doug Smith (25:23):
Yeah. So when I went through that identity
crisis, one thing that washelpful is my pastor said, Doug
never put a period where Godputs a comma for me. Why did I
have an identity crisis? It'sbecause I was like, I'm gonna
be a megachurch pastor. That'sit. There's no other option.
That's it. Right. That's why Iexperienced disappointment from
that transition in my life.
I've lived loosely with openarms of saying, God, I'm very
content with where you have menow, but if you're calling me

(25:44):
to something else, just makethat clear. I'm never again
gonna say, oh, I'm gonna be theexecutive director one day of
light of life, or I'm gonna dothis with L three leadership.
Like, okay, God's been faithfulenough in my journey and
written a beautiful enoughstory that I just trust him of,
Hey, I'm where I'm at supposedto be right now, but if you
want me somewhere elsetomorrow, just let me know.
Yeah. But

You really like the work you're doing. Oh, I
love

Doug Smith (26:02):
It. Love it, love

It. Yeah . So what's the next big project for
Light of Life? ?

Doug Smith (26:06):
Yeah. Well , yeah, Jarrell , if you've had him on
the show, he has no lack ofvision. . That is for
sure. That man is a visionarythrough and through. So right
now, the thing we're focused onis historically, I would say at
light of life, we've been morereactive. And what I mean by
that is, you know, we've beenaround for 70 years and we
would wait for people to cometo us, say , you need food,
come on in, you need shelter.
What we haven't done as much ofis being proactive and helping

(26:27):
prevent homelessness. Onething,

Policy

Doug Smith (26:29):
And yeah, policy plays a part, but then also
just preventative. So we'vestarted a lot of outreach
services over the last fewyears. So we have a , a food
pantry that's now providingover 10,000 meals a week,
serving 167 families onaverage, and over 60 other
partner agencies. We have a , adonation center that literally
has served over 40,000 peoplethis year already by providing
in kind items. And then we justacquired a furniture bank. So

(26:51):
now we can actually furnish ahome for a family in need for
$275. It's incredible. Mm-hmm .
So our next big project iswe're actually about to sign a
lease on an outreach hub that'sreally , really close to our
current location. That's huge.
And so we'll be able to bringall of those outreach services
under one roof. Mm . That'll bea big thing. And then I think
the other thing we're lookinginto is just how can we expand
housing for people in need?

(27:12):
Whether that's buyingadditional transitional
housing, whether it's findingan old building or an old
church that someone may haveand saying , Hey, could you
turn this into a shelter andrunning it. So we're really
looking at how can we expandour services beyond, you know,
the , the two buildings webuilt in our capital campaign,
I would say were the foundationfor what we needed to do, the
work we do. And now we canreally focus on scaling and,

(27:33):
and expanding our thumbprintbeyond just the north side.
Yeah .

Jarrell had a piece in the Post Gazette over
the summer talking aboutPittsburgh being at a critical
juncture. We must decidewhether to prioritize solutions
that transition individuals outof homelessness or go the way
of San Francisco and theTenderloin and that kind of
thing. And I think he's right.
I, I cycle a lot and I've beencycling a lot this past summer

(27:57):
with my son who just moved backfrom California here. We would
usually cycle out toMcKeesport, but some days we
would go the other directionand the number of homeless
encampments. Yeah . That are inPittsburgh, you would pass
three to four encampments of10, 20, 30 people. Yep . Some
of which had bars right infront. I remember one

(28:17):
particular tent that we passedthat literally had alcohol
outside on a stand. And it wasshocking to me. And so when I
read that piece, I thought he'sright. I mean, we might be on
the cusp of something. Can youexplain for our listeners,
'cause everybody sees thatmm-hmm . And I
think for the typical suburbanperson in the North Hills or
the South Hills, they encounterit and they're fearful of it.

(28:40):
They say, what, what is goingon? Yeah . This is, this seems
like chaos unleashed what'sgoing on right now in the city
of Pittsburgh and what are waysthat it could be fixed?

Doug Smith (28:50):
Yeah. So homelessness is very, very
complex. A lot more complexthan people think. Yeah .
Again, I think most peoplethink, oh, they just made ,
made bad decisions, or Oh,they're just a drug addict. But
the reality is Darrell took oneof the city council members out
for , uh, outing with ouroutreach team. And so our
outreach team goes out to thoseliving in camps to build
relationships. Mm-hmm . And I think
they ran into five or sixindividuals. And literally the

(29:11):
solution that would be neededto help that person get out of
homelessness was different forevery single one. And they need
teams around them and resourcesaround them. So I think that's
one understanding that'scomplex, but even how people
get there, do you know, Darrelloften uses this example that I
love of Niagara Falls. If youlooked at Niagara Falls and
just said, Hey, how would weever stop Niagara Falls from
flowing? You'd say, it'simpossible. It's , there's too
much force. But in the 18hundreds it actually did stop

(29:33):
flowing. And it's because ifyou went upstream, the
tributaries I believe froze upand basically stopped all of
the flow. And so what we sayis, if you go upstream from
homelessness of what's actuallycausing it, those issues need
dealt with. In 2022, I believethe country had over a hundred
thousand opioid overdosedeaths. Yeah . Through the
year. So that's a huge issue.
You have lack of affordablehousing in Allegheny County for

(29:54):
every a hundred familieslooking for housing. There's
only 37 units available thatare affordable. And so that's a
huge, huge issue. You haveinflation and just everything
going on. Again, we're all ,uh, most people are one or two
paychecks away from havingexperienced homelessness. You
have an eviction rate onaverage, there's 40 evictions a
day in Allegheny County that'sover 200 a week. And so, and
then you have, I didn't evenmention mental health and the

(30:16):
mental health thing. Even postcovid we've seen go to another
level. Mm-hmm .
Um , we think it's because of alot of the fentanyl and
different things that they'reputting into drugs, we're just
seeing mental health issuesthat we've never seen before.
Mm-hmm . And tobe honest with you, like I
don't think many organizations,including psychological
hospitals, et cetera , areequipped to actually handle,
you have all these differentissues coming together causing

(30:36):
people to experiencehomelessness, I would say, as
far as the encampments andthings in our city . So one, we
have to deal with all of thoseissues and hopefully we can do
more on the preventative sidefrom stopping the flow of
people experiencinghomelessness. And then just as
far as what we can do in ourcity. Yeah. The best way I
heard it described there wasthis guy, he was an executive
director of a mission in SanAntonio and he was on one of

(30:56):
the news stations, and this waswhen Trump was president in
2016. I guess Trump saw him andhe said, let's see if we can
hire that guy. The White Housecontacts him and says, Hey, can
you write a white paper on howto solve homelessness
nationally by tomorrow night at6:00 PM The guy does it. He
gets hired by Trump for aperiod of time. And then the
transition worked for Biden fora period of time and that
ultimately didn't work out wellfor him. So he left, his

(31:18):
conclusion was, I don't thinkyou can really make a huge
impact on this throughpolitics. So he's actually
created a documentary that weare just showing private screen
, got get the invite . Mm-hmm . Yeah. So he
partnered up in Hollywood andthere's actually a documentary
this phenomenal and a moviecoming out called No Address.
And I'd really recommend if youwanna kind of get on the
documentary side, if you want areal understanding of, hey,

(31:39):
what's actually happening inhomelessness in our country and
what are solutions that thatreal missions and other
organizations are doing tosolve it, you need to see this.
And again, we have severalprivate screenings coming up. I
think it'll be available to theworld in spring or summer of
next year. The movie's comingout in February. Mm-hmm
. That's more ofa side note. But he made this
comment to me once, he said,Doug, if your city is making it
easier to get high and harderto get treatment, you're headed

(32:02):
in the wrong direction andyou're gonna end up like in La,
Philly, San Francisco, etcetera. If your city is making
it harder to get high andeasier to get treatment, you're
heading in the right direction.
And that's where, you know,Jarrell would say, I think in
the city of Pittsburghspecifically, we're at a
crossroads. What I will saythat's been very positive in
our city is Jarrell has done agreat job of being a bridge to

(32:22):
other organizations. You know,the mayor often says when he
came in is like, we're one ofthe most isolated cities as far
as organizations in the world.
Everyone's doing their ownthing and no one's working
together. He's brought peoplearound the table. Organizations
are coming together saying,what can we do about the
problem? So I'm optimistic inthe sense that I do believe the
mayor wants the right solutionsand wants the right things to

(32:44):
happen. And he's getting theright voices around him, I
would say. And so we're hopefulthat we'll go in the right
direction. I know that's thedirection he wants to go. And
yeah, a lot of things impactthat. But for us it's like
we're gonna keep doing whatwe're doing and have been doing
for 70 years and makingadjustments as we go. So

Is it your assessment that on balance,
we're at a 50 50 split rightnow in terms of addiction and,
and treatment in terms of themore or less, so we're, we're
right on the cusp of going onedirection or the other.

Doug Smith (33:09):
Yeah . And the easier to get high, it's
probably going a little bit tothe wrong direction. I mean,
that's just my own personalopinion. So we're 50 , I don't
have a lot of data

About that . 51% .
Yeah . Yeah . Is your , is youranecdotal, so there's still
time to make adjustments, butif we don't, I think so
Momentum's gonna swing

Doug Smith (33:22):
And then it's coming around people, you know,
Dre talked about in hisarticle, housing First is a ,
is a really big push from thegovernment. Yeah. I

Didn't understand what that meant.
Yeah. So

Doug Smith (33:30):
Housing First is basically let's just, let's
just get people off the streetand put 'em into housing, which
again is important. But HousingFirst actually statistically
has only worked for about 25%of the homeless population.
What they've done with HousingFirst is they put people in
homes, but they don't put anywraparound services around
them. Jarrell always says theopposite of addiction isn't
sobriety, it's community. We'rereally big on community light
of life. Like we want you tohave a healthy community to be

(33:50):
a part of, even if you'reliving in a camp, if you're
with other people, it's stillcommunity. If you're in a camp
with community and then you getpulled out and you're put in a
house, it is great. You have ahouse, but now you're alone and
isolated, the odds of youmaking more poor choices od et
cetera, go through the roof.
And so what we would advocatefor is what , uh, I forget who
called it this, but HousingPlus, we had

A guest recently who was Vlad who
talked about the lack of socialcapital. I mean, he's an
economist, so that's thelanguage he put it in. But a
lot of homelessness resultsfrom a lack of social capital.
It , it's, they don't have anetwork Right . To rely upon,
you know, maybe it's family orwhatever that network might be
that would enable them to getthe help they need.

Doug Smith (34:31):
Well , and , and that's why we have a street
outreach team. It's therelationships. 'cause believe
it or not, people do want tostay on the street. It's not
like if you just went to everycampus and said, Hey, who's
ready to get the services? Noteveryone's gonna go with you
until we say the light bulbgoes off. And for us, I don't
know when the light bulb willgo off. I don't know how long
it'll take, but when it goesoff, we wanna have the
relationship with you where youcall and say, Hey Lloyd, from

(34:52):
Street Outreach at Light ofLife, I'm ready. I don't wanna
live like this anymore. Canyou, can you help me? Can I
come in for a night of shelter?
Can I get into one of yourlong-term ? Can you help me get
housing? That's where thesocial capital comes in. And I
think we need to do a lot moreon the relational side. I
always use the example, therewas a guy that we helped, he
was in the street. He wasactually a mayor of an
encampment for 17 years. He wason, on the street and one , he

Was the mayor of an

Doug Smith (35:13):
Encampment mayor.
Yeah. Yeah. They had their ownsystem . They like the mayor.

Yeah . I mean literally.

Doug Smith (35:16):
Yeah. There's leadership within camps. Not
every camp, but this one. Theyhad their own way of getting
food and all these differentthings and you never wanted
help until one day for whateverreason he did. So our street
outreach team was able to workwith other organizations. We
were able to get him housing onthe north side. He actually
volunteered with us for manyyears. Mm-hmm .
Uh , yeah. It's like, that'sone example. 17 years on the
street is a pretty long time.
Yeah. But the light bulb wentoff and we were helping him get

(35:37):
off the street and he's nowhelping people that were in the
same position he was. Wow . Andso that, you know, for us is
ultimate win. So

You have people in your organization that
actually try to meet with folksin the encampment and try to
bring them back into some sortof solution. Yeah. Is the
problem now so overwhelmingthat there's so many of them
and so few of you that it justcan't?

Doug Smith (35:56):
I don't think so.
Not in Pittsburgh. So that'swhere we're hopeful for our
city. We're not at a pointwhere it's like LA where it's
like, you know , what is it60,000 or a hundred thousand
people in ? Yeah . Yeah . It'snot Skid Row .

It's clearly not that many.

Doug Smith (36:06):
Yeah. So I would say that's where we're still
hopeful with overall in ourcounty. If I had to guess the
actual number, 'cause again,the way they count isn't always
effective, but I'd probably saythere's three to 4,000 people
experiencing homelessness. Yeah. And , but again, that doesn't
mean there there's three to4,000 people in a campus's .
Yeah . But you , that's peoplestaying in shelters, that's
people couch surfing with theirfamily staying in abandoned

(36:26):
buildings that no one see ,like Yeah.

Yeah. But your capacity to deal with it is
what, a couple hundred tops.

Doug Smith (36:33):
Right. That Yeah .
And that's where we need otherorganizations and that's where
we need to grow and work. It'sgonna take all of us. The
reality is the city's not theanswer. Light of life's not the
answer. Bethlehem haven's notlike it's all of us coming
together Yeah . And trying totackle it . So we may have
different philosophies of care.
Yeah . Um, but again, sometimesyou need that, right? Like some
light of life might be a greatplace for one person, but the,
the other shelter down thestreet may be a , a great place

(36:55):
for someone else. And so that'swhere it takes a lot of unique
approaches and a lot of peoplecoming around

Help . But in its totality, the system
doesn't have enough capacity todeal with three or 4,000.
Right.

Doug Smith (37:05):
And that's where I think we're looking for
creative solutions.

So that's why you want the housing first,
housing

Doug Smith (37:08):
Plus housing , I would say yes.

Yeah. Housing plus

Doug Smith (37:11):
That , that's part of it too. It is gonna take
multiple strategies andmultiple organizations all
working together to really puta dent in this .

And is that starting to crystallize? I mean
those organizations talking toeach other and some sort of
buy-in on the part of policymakers who are saying, this is
enough of a problem. We have to

Doug Smith (37:28):
Yeah. I think , I think the right people are at
the table where they are in theprocess. You know, I can't
really speak to at this point,how far

Does , uh, homelessness spread into the
suburbs? Is that something thatthat occurs or is it mostly
concentrated in the city?

Doug Smith (37:39):
It's probably more than you would think in the
suburbs, but you don't see itnecessarily. If someone
experiencing homelessness maybe someone who has nowhere else
to go, they're couch surfing .
Like they're , they're stillconsidered Right, okay .
Homeless. Yeah.

Okay. Because obviously the addiction and the
drugs are gonna be in thesuburbs. Folks are doing what
they can to hide it. But alsoit's, many times it's
celebrated. It's not, it's nothidden. My suspicion was we're
not seeing homelessness in thesuburbs, but that can't mean
that it's not here.

Doug Smith (38:03):
Oh, for sure. And and with opioid epidemic, yeah.
We're seeing a much youngerpopulation, a much more
suburban population, just'cause of the drugs and how
easily accessible they are. And

Yeah . Do suburbanites tend to migrate
then to the city? Mm-hmm . Yeah . Because
of drugs. Yeah. Okay. And itjust concentrates there. Yeah.
Okay. Hmm . This is a, not onlya noble but a biblical endeavor
to serve those who are addictedand enslaved by addiction and
who become homeless. What isyour sense of how the church
intersects with all of thiswork? What does the church need
to do to be helpful?

Doug Smith (38:31):
Yeah. I think they could do more. Uh , I know one
thing in Drone and Ice Heart isto help equip churches to have
their own shelters. Whetherthat's on a rotating basis of
like, could you turn in a partof your church to a shelter for
a month and house 15 people. Ithink being educated is one
thing . I think that's imp Likeyou guys are having questions
like, Hey, what is, what'sreally going on? Yeah. I think
a lot of people are askingthose questions. Mm-hmm . Uh ,

(38:53):
we get them all the time as faras how churches can help,
specifically a light of life.
So we, we have thousands ofvolunteer opportunities every
year. If you've never been tothe Mission, we'd love to come
give you a tour. Then obviouslyfinancially supporting the
mission's, always a hugeblessing to us as well. We're
primarily run by privatefunding, so individual
churches, businesses,foundations. We get a very
little government funding.
We're very grateful for that.

(39:14):
But yeah, asking the church,what can we do in our
community? Is there ahomelessness issue in our
community that we don't knowabout or don't see? And how can
we help with that? Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm
. I think thatcould be a , a great charge to
the church.

Well, let's talk about leadership. 'cause that
seems to be the other thingthat you're very passionate
about. And you got this podcastthree L What are the three Ls
again? Learn,

Doug Smith (39:29):
Launch, and lead.

Obviously that was a , an interest from the time
you read Maxwell. Yeah. Why thefascination about

Doug Smith (39:36):
Leadership? For me, I think leaders are the
ones that make, make thingshappen. When you influence a
leader, you're not justinfluencing one person, you're
influencing everyone thatperson influences. Sure . And
so I think it's the quickestway that you can make an impact
in the world. And for me, I'vejust always related with
leaders. That's who I likespending time with. What

Kind of leaders are you trying to develop? What
, tell us about the three Ls.

Doug Smith (39:52):
Yeah. Learn launch , lead learning is all about
personal development andgrowth. I don't think we ever
have a finish line in our lifewhere we've arrived or need to
stop learning and every levelof leadership you go to, you
know, I , I'm in my fourth orfifth position at Light of
Life. Every time I've steppedup in leadership, the learning
curve there has been so, sohuge. Mm-hmm . And so this is
why, and , you know, peerlearning is so important.
Getting mentors, I'm huge onmentorship, but I talked about

(40:15):
people showing me another way.
When I started interning at thechurch, Larry, the youth
pastor, would bring in leadersfrom the community such as
yourselves, and they wouldshare with us. And after they
spoke, Larry would say, Hey, ifyou connected with them, you
should ask them out to coffeeand then bring a list of
questions. And this is actuallyhow the podcast started. He
would say, you should come witha list of questions and ask
them ahead of time. And he gaveus this whole process, follow

(40:36):
up with a thank you note. Andso I started asking leaders out
once a month for, I did it for10 years. And after 10 years,
all my peers started sayinglike, wow, you could spend time
with all these cool leaders. Iwish I could. I'm like, you
probably could if , if you justasked, yeah , you'd be
surprised. We'll spend timewith you. But that's when I saw
an opportunity. I thought,well, what if I started
recording my conversations withleaders instead of just me
having coffee with them. Mm-hmm . And share them
with the world. And that's howthe podcast was born. But

(40:57):
again, learning, learning,learning, learning, and then
launching is, hey, at somepoint you gotta go to the next
level. At some point, if youhave a dream in your heart, you
have to launch it and go forit. So that's what launch is
all about. And then lead isjust how do you make an impact
in the world? At the end of theday, it's great that if you
learn and you have a greatposition in your organization,
but what are you gonna dobeyond your four walls, whether
that's your house or whetherthat's your church or your

(41:18):
nonprofit or business. That'sgonna make a huge impact. And
that looks different foreveryone. But we really
encourage people to , toultimately go after their
biggest contribution they canmake with their life . Mm .
Mm-hmm

.
What are you currentlylearning?

Doug Smith (41:28):
About a year and a half ago, almost two years now,
I got promoted to assistantexecutive director. So I went
from leading a team to leadingan organization. I'm Darrell's
only direct report , so Ioversee the entire leadership
team. It's the first time in mycareer that I've ever had to
really take a deep dive intofinance, take a deep dive into
operations, take a deep diveinto hr, take a deep dive into
programs. That's a hugelearning curve for me. I had

(41:49):
opinions, this is reallyhelpful, , I had
opinions of what I thoughtabout all those areas. Mm-hmm
. And what wecould do differently. But
Jarrell was super helpful whenI got into this role, talk
about learning. 'cause I waslike, Hey, I wanna , I wanna
take a learning tour. I wannago in each department and spend
time there. And he said, Doug,let me give you three beautiful
words that you should leadwith. First. He said, lead with
curiosity. Here's the threebeautiful words. Help me
understand, help me understand,and then don't say anything.

(42:12):
Just listen. Mm-hmm . Hey, help me
understand. Like, why do we runthe shelter like that? Help me
understand why you talk to thatperson that , like, instead of
me coming in and saying, Hey,I'm just gonna learn as much as
I can. And then once I have afull understanding and I buy in
with the team, then I can startto make changes with them, not
to them. And so we're reallybig on, we call it do with
versus do to , we don't wannajust do to , to leaders. We

(42:32):
want to do with them and comealongside, get buy in and lead
together. So I would say that'sprobably the biggest learning
curve for me, is learningorganization versus the sales
department. Mm-hmm .

Speaker 7 (42:41):
How do you lead in a family? Oh,

Doug Smith (42:43):
Yes.

Speaker 7 (42:44):
Yeah . Have four kids.

Doug Smith (42:44):
Yeah. Fifth on the way. When ,

Speaker 7 (42:46):
When's your wife due?

Doug Smith (42:47):
January.

Speaker 7 (42:48):
And what , what's your wife's

Doug Smith (42:49):
First ? Laura .
Laura. Yeah. I'm verypassionate about this. So I'm
married to my high schoolsweetheart. You guys heard my
story. It took me 10 years togrow into the man I needed to
be, for her to say yes to me. Ialways say she's smart,
. Yeah. She's very smart. Yeah. Um , so I'm grateful for
that. We've been married nowfor, we're going on our 13th
year of marriage, five kids.
And my wife is an executive ata software company. So she
oversees North America salesfor a company called Avala .

(43:11):
And so we have very busy lives.
A few years ago we, we foundthis organization called Family
Teams. They're based outtaCincinnati, Ohio. Guys name's
Jeremy Pryor. And they'vereally helped shape our, our
whole philosophy on leading ourteam. And it's really seeing
your family as a team. He hadactually spent two years living
with a Jewish family in Israel.
And he said what he learnedthrough that experience is,

(43:32):
Western culture will tell youit's all about the individual.
Raise each of your kids asindividuals. Send them out to
make their own individualcontribution. And that'll be
great. He said, but biblically,you'll never see that. And you
won't see that in Jewishfamilies either. What you'll
see is this whole notion of amulti-generational family team
on mission. And it's everythingthat every individual does is
ultimately to come back andcontribute to the family at

(43:53):
large. Mm-hmm .
And so it really gave me thisvision of if we're intentional
with leading our family, right?
Why are we having a lot ofkids? I read the statistic that
if you had four kids and ageneration biblically is marked
by 25 years, if you had fourkids and each of those four
kids had four kids and so onand so forth, over the course
of 12 generations, which is 300years, your family tree would
populate the earth with morepeople than the population of

(44:14):
New York City in the course of300 years. Mm-hmm
. And if everyone had thiswhole vision that got passed
down of, Hey, it's all aboutour family team, you could
literally make major change.
And he argues that you can makemajor change within five
generations. If you really doit right, your family could
have a huge impact running foroffice and all these different
things. And that's kind ofshaped our philosophy of why we

(44:35):
wanna have a lot of kids and ,and how we wanna lead our
family team. As far as how wedo it. Honestly, like the , the
number one tip I always givepeople is we have a weekly
family team meeting. This alsocame from family teams. And so
I hate it 'cause I'm not adetail person, but I love the
outcome. My wife and I meetevery Saturday morning on
average for an hour and a half.
And we go through everything.
We go through our calendar, wego through our finances, we go

(44:57):
through our family, we talkabout our marriage, we talk
about our kids, we plan. Andthat keeps us on the same page
and keeps us grounded and keepsour marriage healthy in
general. That's been a gamechanger for us.

How long have you been doing that? Oh ,

Doug Smith (45:10):
Uh, it's probably been five years, six years. I
feel, I mean, you guys havekids. I'm like, yeah, at some
point this all just blurstogether. I'm like, what, what
day is it? What year? ?
So , but it for a while , atleast five years. Yeah. Yeah.

Are you the leader of the family or is it
more you're the coach becauseit's the team? Or how does that
play out?

Doug Smith (45:26):
I view Laura and I as the leaders, we're the
leaders of the family. We'rethe coach . And yeah, I mean,
right now our kids are eightand under. We see ourselves and
say, we need to coach and raisethese kids up to be awesome
adults. Jeremy Pryor alwayssays, don't parent for the next
generation parent for yourgrandchildren. And if you
parent for great grandchildren,you'll parent your kids'
rights. And that's alwayssettled. Well with us, Jeremy
Pryor, the founder, familyteams. Oh, the fa Yeah .

What

Place does the Bible have in this schema?

Doug Smith (45:48):
For us, it's essential to everything that we
do, you know ? Mm-hmm . We , Imean, we go to church every
week, every Saturday night wehave, we try to have a sabbath,
a Shabbat meal is what we callit, and have a
multi-generational, so we tryto do a mini Bible lesson. And
again, our kids are so young,but mini Bible lesson, and we
reward kids based on theirbehavior and character. And so
, you know , I , for us, like Ialways look at Laura's family

(46:09):
talking about being modeled ina different way. Laura can
remember, and her siblingsbeing three or four years old,
and her mom always said, castthis vision of like, Hey, you
guys are gonna be worldchangers for Christ. Like
you're gonna change the world.
And that's really what we wannado, is like we, we pray over
our kids and we cast thisvision of , Hey , if you follow
God, you're gonna make hugeimpact. And we're just
believing God that you'll beworld changers as you grow up.

(46:30):
And we're doing our best to ,to raise them that way. Well,

You're very, you sound like you're very
interested in culturalengagement. You sound very
optimistic. You can't be afraidof engaging the culture and
therefore risking some level ofconflict. You can be
optimistic, but you also haveto not be conflict averse. In
your experiences with all theleaders that you've talked to,
is that, are those necessaryqualities if you're actually

(46:52):
gonna be a leader that's gonnasee change? Do you have to have
optimism and a willingness toget in the scrum? A little bit.

Doug Smith (46:57):
Yeah. On the optimist side, I would say yes.
I mean, what do leaders do?
They , they provide a visionfor a better tomorrow. I mean,
at the end of the day, nomatter what you're leading,
Hey, our team could be bettertoday than it was yesterday.
Hey, I can be better tomorrowthan I was yesterday. Hey, our
organization could be ournation, could be our , like,
that's by nature part of thedefinition of leadership, in my
opinion. Yeah . On the optimistfront, on the thick skin, this
is the area. So if I had to ,to evaluate myself, I would say

(47:20):
historically, I've been alloptimist. And the growth area
for me in my thirties has beendeveloping a tough skin. So
when you say that it resonates,and I don't know how this will
play out. I, I felt like everyyear I do a yearend review, and
then at the end of everydecade, I do a decade review
and I write like these 30 pagereports on my life. And I ,
when I turned 30, I felt likeGod spoke to me, said, Doug, in
your twenties I gave you afoundation to build your life

(47:42):
on. In your thirties, I'm gonnagive you something to say. And
in your forties, I'm gonna giveyou a platform to say it. So
far that's worked out. I I I ,I always tell people that, Hey,
that sounds really nice. If Ihad to , if I would've known
what I've had to go through inmy thirties to have something
to say, I wouldn't have signedup for it. It's not been fun.
Right. Um, but we'll see howthat plays out. But I say all
that to say, I think God isdeveloping a thick skin for me,
and I do the things that I'mlooking into now. I'm like,

(48:05):
okay, I've, I've hesitated tolike put myself out there to
risk. I care a lot about myreputation. I'm naturally a
people pleaser. But I thinkthat's the next level of growth
for me. I've grown in it a lotin my thirties, but I think
publicly doing that is gonnagonna be a really challenging
growth season for me. Yeah. If

You're gonna have a platform from which to say
something, you become a target.
Yeah. Because you're elevated,everybody sees you and
everybody wants to shoot you .
Yep . If you're gonna actuallybe effective in moving the
needle and casting vision andbeing a leader and helping
people to, to be motivated toimplement that change, it is
coming after you . Yeah. Andyou have to be able to not only

(48:44):
withstand it, to be able tostand what you're envisioning
in terms of where you're going,requires the capacity to stand.
I just love the way in whichPaul talks about it in the
epistles. I think it was inEphesians, he just over and
over again stand. Mm . You know, um, having done all that you
can to stand now stand firm.
Yeah . Just to stand, stand,stand. And so this necessity to
be unmovable in terms of aretreat, but also the capacity

(49:07):
to advance requires a certainlevel of, I'll just say
toughness. Yeah . To be able topush through things and make a
way forward. And , um, yeah.

Doug Smith (49:16):
Being an optimist, it's easy to think like, I want
to think that everyone willalways think well of me and
think the best of me. Likethat's what I want. Right. I've
been listening to this guynamed Patrick Beda and he's
just really challenged me.
There's this book I'm readingright now because of him called
like the 33 Strategies of War.
And it's like, man, there'ssome evil people out there,
, who, you know, andthe Bible says, man, we have an
enemy that comes to steal,killing to destroy. And that's

(49:36):
a reality. Mm-hmm . That's true. And so I think
the optimism in me has to alsodeal with the realism of, Hey,
life isn't this warm fuzzy.
Everyone's great. Those thingsare happening. And I , I'd say
the only, the one thing that'sreally helped me in my
thirties, I had the opportunityand privilege of having lunch
with John Maxwell and I askedhim about this people pleaser
thing. 'cause this was me,especially in my mid thirties.
And he said, Doug, I had thesame problems as you did. And

(49:57):
my CEO Mark Cole had the sameproblem. And he said, I came to
Mark one day. I said, mark, thegood news is you're a great
leader and everyone loves you.
The bad news is your leadershipisn't good enough to get them
where they need to go or theorganization because you care
too much about what they thinkabout you. Yeah . And he's
like, well, what do I do withthat? And John's like, I had to
make the decision early that Iwould always love people, but I

(50:17):
would not depend on their love.
I would say that again. 'causethat changed my life. I'll
always love people, but I won'tdepend on their love. And for
me, what I recognize in that ispart of the reason I'm afraid
to put myself out there isbecause I'm way more dependent
on the love and admiration ofothers than I like to admit.
Mm-hmm . And I ,hopefully, I'm speaking for a
lot of people, but that's areal challenge for me. But in
the times where it has gottentough and I had had people
speak against me, that's reallyhelped. It's like, well , hey,

(50:39):
I'm gonna love you anyway. AndI was a

People pleaser too. What do you really Yeah, I
had that same problem.

Doug Smith (50:44):
What'd you do about that?

Uh , I grew up . I

Doug Smith (50:48):
Grew up, okay.
Yeah . Say more.

It's not my podcast. It's your . But
, um, well, you had to gothrough some, you had a Oh ,
well, I got, you know, I have astory that I actually did share
. Let his podcast , podcastepisode 100. Yeah. Yeah. He
tells a story. Yeah . Okay .

Doug Smith (51:03):
You had to go through some pain.

Oh gosh. Yeah.
Enormous amount of pain. Ithink that's actually, we've
been, my wife and I have beenengaged in the periphery of
light of life for a , a longtime. It's gotta be at least 25
years. Wow . And we've beengiving for a long time. And
we've been doing the foodcollection here for a long
time. That's kind of thepredicate for the question I

(51:26):
asked earlier, which is I thinkpeople who have had enormous
change in their lives, and I amin that category , uh,
everybody's story is different,but I'm definitely in that
category. Um, have had to facethemselves, have had to look in
the mirror, have had to do avery, very candid assessment of
who they are before God. And,you know, have that metanoia

(51:51):
moment of I'm going to eitherchoose life or choose death.
Hmm . And I had that veryprofoundly in my life, not
really wanting to face realityabout what you are doing. You
know, the slap story that youtold the people when I had
difficulty, who figurativelyslapped me. I didn't have

(52:11):
anybody physically slap me, butdid that to me were far more
beneficial friends than thepeople who said, oh, you're
fine. You're doing, you'redoing well. You're walking with
the , you're discoveringyourself or something. Yeah .
Yeah . You all that crap thatyou , you learn is crap. And
the person who told it to mestraight and said, this is

(52:32):
where you are and this is whereyou need to be, was a far more
beneficial friend Yes. Thanpeople that wanna please you.
And that is a predominant sin.
It is very, very hard to speaktruth into people's lives.
Yeah. I have learned, hopefullywith wisdom and through God's
grace, that that ultimately iswhat brings about learning and

(52:55):
launching and leading. Yeah.
You cannot ignore your own sin.
Hmm . You don't realize howmuch the darkening effect of
sin can be on your mind. Yeah .
For me, that is one of the biglearning curves that I had from
leaving Tom 1.0. Hmm . Wow . ToTom 2.0 , uh, in my life. And I

(53:15):
, I credit God's grace, JesusChrist with that change, but
light of life has always had a, a special allure to us,
Louise and I both, where thechange element is so front and
center at a place like light oflife, when you get to the
precipice of hell, yeah. Youhave no other choice but to

(53:37):
change. I've been therepersonally.

Doug Smith (53:39):
Another thing I'm passionate about, I think I'll
add value to listeners, is wetalked about this, I think
leaders hit a point of pain andusually some point in their
journey. And if they caneither, like you said, go the
healthy way or unhealthy, andif they go unhealthy, and my
pastor told me once, he said, Ithink only about 2% of
Christian leaders actually makeit to their finish line intact
and actually fulfilling thecall of God on their lives. And
that as a young 20 somethingalways scared me. And I , so I

(54:00):
, I'm really interested inlongevity. For me, it's all
about community. So I lead oneof the mastermind groups. I
lead, I call it a pastor mind .
There's 13 of us all ministryleaders in our city pastors.
And , uh, the vision for thisis that every leader needs a
community in which there arethree things fully known, fully
loved and fully challenged.
Fully known means, Hey, I havea place where I can show up and

(54:20):
, and share my stuff. I canshare the worst of me. And
number two, I'll be fullyloved. Just like that youth
pastor loved me and said, Hey,you've fallen. It's okay.
Mm-hmm . But thenalso fully challenged.
Sometimes I don't need a hugand a high five, sometimes I
need a slap in the face,literally or figuratively. And
that, that's what this groupdoes. And so we've been meeting
for three years and to seethese guys come together, it's

(54:41):
been a beautiful thing. We'vecried together, we've laughed
together, we prayed together.
And one of the guys that wassharing with us, we, we brought
in a pastor from Florida thatmentors me, and he said, guys,
when you're struggling withsomething, like you don't have
to tell everyone. You don'thave to go on a podcast and
confess all of your sins, butyou do have to tell someone. He
said, the people you need totell are the people in this
group right here. Why? Becausethey couldn't care less. And
it's because they couldn't caremore. Man, I found that to be

(55:04):
so true. And , and to see theseguys that we've been meeting
now for three years, every oneof them has come to me in tears
saying, I didn't know how bad Ineeded this group. It was like,
what did you need? And at theend of the day, it was
friendship. And I thinkleadership can be so lonely
sometimes. And so that's why Iencourage you , like, it's so
rare to have someone speak thetruth and love to you, like you
said, but if you as a leader,unless you intentionally seek
that out, it's rare that it'sgonna happen to you. So I , I

(55:25):
don't know what you guys did tointentionally seek that out,
but for me, it's been thatgroup and through mentorships
that I have found, given peoplean open voice to speak into my
life anytime with anything thatthey see has been super
fruitful.

And the best friends have that, that
slapping incident that youdescribed wa was the pivot
point for your life.

Doug Smith (55:43):
And I'm talking about 20 years later.

And so it , you look back on it and you say,
this is the most beneficialthing that ever happened to me.
One story I told in my podcastwas my relationship with Jack
Welch. Hmm . Okay. Supposedlythe greatest manager and
executive in the history ofYeah . You know, and I wrote a
book about him and , um, don't, how don't read his leadership
books.

Doug Smith (56:03):
. I've read one what's, what's that
called? It's Yellow.

No . That any , it's been a long time at any
cost. It was the contrarianview of Jack Welch. But , um,
Jack Welch, you threatened tosue me 12 times. You know, in
the course of the book I was, Iwas writing about him . It
turned out that those incidentsin my life, I gave God great
thanks for bringing that to mebecause it , it was the fiery
furnace that I needed that wasa pivot point in my life. And

(56:31):
so you , and you're

Doug Smith (56:31):
Gonna make me listen to the podcast to get
this whole story right. ,

. I

Doug Smith (56:35):
Have , I I interview people all the time.
I have like 30 questions.
Anyway.

Well ,

You know, do what you wish. Right . Thank
you for sharing your story.

It's a powerful

Story. Yeah.
I'm glad he slapped you.

Doug Smith (56:45):
Thank you. Thank you both. And thanks for
scattering seeds all over overthe world through this podcast.

, thanks for littering. Yeah .
you said? Yeah . Yeah .

And keep up the good fight at Light of Life.
Yeah . Say hi to Hutch too.

Hush .

Doug Smith (57:02):
He's every, I've never met a volunteer who,
that's not their number onestaff member.

Yeah . Yeah .
That's great . Well , he's apast podcast, I guess too .

We had Hutch, we well, we went to Light of Life.

Yeah , we did.

And did the podcast there two ago .

Doug Smith (57:13):
I think I do remember this two years ago. So
, quick story to end on Hutch,if you don't know Hutch, Hutch
is one of our graduates in ourprogram. Yeah. And he is on
staff now. He's a , he works inour kitchen. He's phenomenal.
Yeah . One of the greatestpeople. We, we had a podcast
for a short period of time inlight of life, kind of like you
did at the end. Like, Hey, isthere anything else you'd like
to say? And Hutch goes, well, Idunno if I'm allowed to do this
or not, but if there's anysingle ladies out there

(57:34):
listening, I'd love to tell youout for a burger. And he
started going through thiswhole pitch all it was so
beautiful. Unfortunately wehaven't been able to find him a
wife yet. But , uh, so ifyou're a single woman out there
listening, great

Man name much

Doug Smith (57:48):
Hu . I love you.

That's

Great. Yeah.
Thank you all . Thanks Doug.
God bless you .

Speaker 2 (57:59):
I have fought the good fight. I have finished the
race. I have kept the faith nowthere is in store for me the
crown of righteousness, whichthe Lord, the righteous judge
will award me. On that day.
Paul spoke those words toTimothy near the end of his
time in ministry. It had been along road and a hard one filled
with trials, tribulation, andmoments of pain. In fact, as he

(58:23):
was writing this second letter,he was sitting in a prison cell
in Rome. But Paul was contentbecause the Lord had sustained
him. During the interview, Dougbrought up the statistic that
many who are in leadershippositions in the faith, whether
it be pastors, nonprofitworkers, or other positions
tend to burn out sometimesbefore the work is fully done,

(58:44):
leaving the task to others.
Even the prophet Elijah passedhis mantle onto Eisha. So how
can a leader keep going throughthe fiery trials? How did Paul?
First and foremost, it comesthrough the acknowledgement
that we can't, without Christ'spower, sometimes we get so
caught up in the desire tofulfill the call and to please

(59:06):
those we are serving or toplease the Lord that we start
drawing on our own strength todo it. And sometimes we start
overdrawing from our ownstrength to do the work rather
than resting on the Lord andstanding in faith. We have the
promise that faithful is he whocalls us. He will do it. And I
can do all things throughChrist who strengthens me.

(59:28):
Jesus himself told us that ourrole is to be a branch that
cannot produce fruit unless itis drawing from the strength of
the vine. So acknowledging thatwe can't carry things without
him and being content with thereliance on Him that produces
in us is a large step forwardtowards actually being able to
be resilient enough to walk thepath laid out before you.

(59:49):
Another step is surroundingourselves with others who are
pressing onto the mark of thehigh calling. EU was the last
of job's friends to speak, buthe was the one who pointed his
friend back to the Lord. It wasa bit of a proverbial slap in
the face. Though sometimes youdo need a friend who will give
you a physical slap in the facetoo, though that is thankfully
much less common either way.

(01:00:11):
This journey is not one we wereever intended to complete on
our own and out of our ownstrength. After all, God
himself told Paul, my strengthis sufficient for you. So don't
despair. If the path is hard,it's a chance to re yourself
even more strongly in the Lord.
Who is your strength to do yourcall and your shield against
the enemies along the way. Weare called to do great things,

(01:00:33):
whether it's to lead one dyingwoman to the Lord, or to feed
hundreds who have nothing elseover the holidays. Each of us
has a purpose in God's granddesign. And we have the God of
the universe ready to step inand give us the strength we
need to obey him. We just mustsurrender our striving and our
ambition. But as Paul said,that's how we gain Christ and a

(01:00:56):
relationship with him is worththe laying down of every
accolade and plan that we cancome up with. So my question,
dear listeners, this holidayseason is, are you ready to
rest in his strength and lethim lead you all the way to the
end of your race? He's waitingfor you. If you wanna know more
about how to start arelationship with Jesus or how

(01:01:16):
to grow in your faith, you cancontact our show at info at the
scattered seeds podcast.com.
Thank you for joining us foranother episode at the
Scattered Seeds podcast. Wehope to have you back next time
on the show where every lifehas a story.

Doug Smith (01:01:35):
Well, hey, leader, thank you so much for listening
to my conversation from theScattered Seeds podcast. I hope
that you enjoyed it as much asI did. You can check out the
Scattered Seeded Podcastanywhere you listen to
podcasts, so I encourage you todo that. I also wanna thank our
sponsor, Ann Dosha MarketingSolutions. They are the
producers of this podcast. Andif you are looking for help
with your organization'smarketing, I cannot recommend
them enough, you can check themout@indosha.com. That's

(01:01:57):
A-N-D-O-C-I a.com . And asalways, leader, I like to end
every episode with a quote. AndI'll quote Jim Rohn who said
this, he said, the challenge ofleadership is to be strong, but
not rude. Be kind but not weak.
Be bold, but not bully. Bethoughtful, but not lazy. Be
humble, but not timid. Be proudbut not arrogant. And to have

(01:02:18):
humor, but without folly . Lovethat quote. Well , that's gonna
wrap up today's podcast. Asalways. Remember, leader, don't
quit. Keep leading the worlddesperately needs your
leadership. We'll talk to younext episode.

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