My Story: How Ordinary People Doing Ordinary Things Made an Extraordinary Difference

And if you've been listening to us for a while, thank you so much. It means the world to me, I would love it. If you would leave us a rating and review on apple podcast or whatever app you listen to podcasts through, that really does help us to grow our audience and reach more leaders, which is our whole focus here at L three leadership. So thank you in advance for that.

And today's episode, you're going to hear me share my story, which I've never done fully here on the L three leadership podcast . And throughout my story, actually share lessons that are practical for your leadership and your life that I really think will challenge you and cause you to act. So make sure that you listen to that. I really think it's going to add value to your life, but first, a few announcements.

This episode of the healthy leadership podcast is sponsored by bear tongue advisors, the financial advisors at bear tongue advisors, help educate and empower clients to make informed financial decisions. You can find out how bear tongue advisors can help you develop a customized financial plan for your financial future by visiting their website@beartongueadvisors.com .

That's B E R a T U N G advisors.com securities and investment products and services offered through LPL financial member FINRA, and SIPC Barrett's young advisors, LPL financial, and L three leadership are separate entities. I also want to thank our sponsor Henny jewelers, their jeweler owned by my friend and mentor John Henney , my wife, Laura, and I got our engagement and wedding rings through Henny jewelers. And we just loved our experience.

Not only do they have great jewelry, but they also invest in couples. In fact, every couple of that comes in engage. They give them a book to help them prepare for marriage. And we just love that. So if you're in need of a good jeweler, check out Henny jewelers.com and with all that being said, let's dive right into the episode. Here's my story. Hey leader, in today's episode, I'm going to be sharing my life story with you.

And I don't think I've ever shared my full life story here on the L three leadership podcast. So I'm really excited to do that. And you know, it's Thanksgiving week, this week, and a lot of people were spending time just thinking and reflecting on what they're grateful for. And gratitude has been a huge practice in my life.

Over the last year specifically, I've been using the five minute journal on my phone and every morning I'm prompted, write down three things that I'm grateful for, and this has been huge. And it's interesting, you know , as I reflect on my life for what I'm grateful for , um , overwhelmed with the amount of gratitude I have for the people who have made a difference in my life. And I share my story a lot publicly.

And as I've been sharing my story publicly for the past, you know , two years, a theme that I see over and over again that I share when I'm sharing my stories, which is what I'm talking to you about today is this, this is the pattern. I'm convinced that the only way to change the world or to change someone's world is when ordinary people do ordinary things that make an extraordinary difference. I'll say that again.

The only way to change the world is when ordinary people do ordinary things that make an extraordinary difference. And so, as I share my story today, I'm going to be pointing out and showing you that ordinary people did ordinary things that made an extraordinary impact in my life. And I'm extremely, extremely, extremely grateful for them.

And my hope is that it'll cause you to reflect on your life and for you to think about the ordinary people that did ordinary things that made an extraordinary difference in your life. And that you'll be grateful for them, not just in, in and thought, but did you actually do something intentionally to thank them for the impact that they made in your life? Maybe you give them a phone call and just say, Hey, you did this in my life. You know, it could have been 20 years ago.

And I just want to say, thank you. It made a difference. Maybe you write them a thank you card and just write out what you want to say, but do something, you know, I love what Gertrude Stein said. She said this , she said silent gratitude. Isn't very much use to anyone. So I hope that this lesson again, will cause you to let someone know that you're grateful for them.

And secondly, I hope this lesson will encourage you and challenge you to double down on the amount of ordinary things you do to intentionally make a difference on a daily basis. Because here's what I know. If you'll be intentional with doing ordinary things, you'll create extraordinary moments in the lives of others. And that's really the goal of this lesson. So I hope that you enjoy my story, but more importantly, I hope that you'll do something with the inspiration that you receive from it.

So let's dive right into my story. I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and growing up. I had a pretty normal family life until I got into middle school. And in middle school, two significant things happened in my life. The first was I had a friend that invited me to the summer camp. It was a Christian camp and I went with him . And for the first time in my life, I heard the gospel shared and it really resonated with me and connected.

And at the end of the week at that church camp, the camp counselor sent me down. He said, Doug, would you like to make Jesus the Lord of your life? And I said, yes. And I knelt down and I prayed a prayer and Jesus came into my life and I instantly felt like I was supposed to be a pastor. And I wanted to go into ministry. It was incredible. And the friend that invited me, his family started bringing me to church with them on weekends. I loved it.

And I went to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, as much as I could because I wanted to go into ministry. The pastor of the church became a mentor to me. And it was a wonderful, wonderful two years. And again, I want to weave this theme of, of ordinary people doing ordinary things to make an extraordinary difference throughout my story. And I just want to point out that, you know, had this friend, an ordinary person not done an ordinary thing, invite me to a camp.

You may not be listening to this podcast right now. There's power in inviting people to be a part of something. And I'm extremely grateful for that friend that invited me to the camp. And not only that, this family that brought me in and treated me as their own and brought me to church every single week I wanted to go, they would bring me, they would pick me up at my house. They brought me to their family. They would take me out to dinners and lunches with their family.

It was absolutely wonderful. It was an ordinary family doing ordinary things that made an extraordinary difference in my life. The other thing that happened in my life that was significant in middle school was my mom got diagnosed with a rare nerve disease in her legs. If you've ever had your feet fall asleep or have what people call pins and needles.

She started having that 24 hours a day to the point where she ended up using a Walker and then ended up in a wheelchair and then ended up in bed most of her life. And as a result of that, you know, my mom was basically in a bed. My dad, as a result, had to get two jobs to get our family buy . And so I went from having normal family life to no family life, and I was able to do whatever I wanted.

And as a result of that, I started hanging out with the wrong crowd and I started getting into drugs, fell totally away from church and determined that I would never amount to anything and didn't want to go to college. So I stopped trying to go to school. In fact, I had to go to summer school every single year just to get to the next grade in high school. I found myself just living for the party and living for fun.

I found out that my mom had these pills called Oxycontin was just synthetic heroin. And I found out there was a market for those at school. So I would sell them. And literally I was just crazy all throughout high school. And I thought I was living the dream until my senior year of high school. It was October of 2002. My mom ended up passing away.

Now when my mom passed away, I had seen her suffer so much specifically in the last six months of her life, that it didn't really bother me, that she passed. In some ways I was, I was actually relieved, but what did bother me, and I didn't know why this bothered me was, I didn't know if my mom had a relationship with Christ and that drove me crazy. Literally I was getting drunk and high every night and I'd come home and my head would hit the pillow.

And these thoughts would hit me that you're never going to know if your mom knew Christ ever. You're going to be 70 years old one day and not know if your mom knew Christ. And that just tormented me day and night. But again, I wanted nothing to do with God. So I didn't know why that bothered me. Well, fast forward, three months after my mom died, I got a call from a distant relative out of nowhere. This I did not have a relationship with this relative.

She's much older than me, but she called me one Saturday morning out of the blue. And she just said, Doug, I know you don't really know me, but I felt like God tapped me on the shoulder this morning and wanted me to let you know that I was on staff at the hospital. Your mom was at. And I ended up leading your mom into a relationship with Christ a few weeks before she passed and think, God wants you to know that. And I don't remember anything else that she said.

I remember my eyes filling with tears, my knees hitting the floor, my arms opening wide and me just saying, God, whatever you want for the rest of my life, I'm yours, whatever you want. And let me just point out that this was another ordinary person doing an ordinary thing, right? This woman took a risk calling a 17 year old kid to tell him that she had heard from God and that she , she led his mom to Christ.

If she didn't make that phone call, she didn't do the ordinary thing of making a phone call. I would not be on this podcast today. I don't know where I'd be. It's scary to think about. And so again, it was just an ordinary person doing ordinary things that made an extraordinary difference in my life. And I'm extremely grateful for that. That was the turning point of my life. Two weeks later, I randomly and I'm putting air quotes up.

I randomly got invited to a Bible study that was led by a mom in our, in our school. It wasn't affiliated with a church, but 150 kids would go to this Bible study every single week. And I had heard about it, but I never really wanted to go. But again, someone invited me, her name was Anne ready . She was an ordinary person. What did she do? She invited me. She did an ordinary thing. Little did I know that that was going to make an extraordinary difference in my life.

So I go to this Bible study, I walked down the stairs and literally heard this woman. Her name was Judy Steidel teaching the Bible. And I felt like I was back in middle school in that passion that I had for God in middle school got reignited . I also was pretty passionate about this cute girl that was sitting on the couch. Uh , her name was Laura and I decided that as a result of her being there, that I would go to Bible study every single week, which I did.

Uh , but what I didn't know was it was Laura's mom that led the Bible study. And I went home that night, that from the first Bible study, and I told my high school buddies, I said, listen, I just met the woman of my dreams. I met the girl that I'm going to marry, and you may have already inferred this from her name. But I called my shot the very first night I met Laura. It was Laura and I ended up marrying her 10 years later. Now that's a whole nother story. I could do a whole podcast on that.

Took me 10 years to become the man I needed to be for Laura to say yes to me, but we're not going to go there. She went home that night from Bible study and she told her mom, and this is huge. She told her mom, I can't believe Doug came to Bible study tonight. He's one of the most influential kids in our school, but he uses all of his influence for drugs and alcohol. If he ever got ahold of God, he could change the world.

So what she told her mom, an ordinary person doing an ordinary thing, sharing vision of what someone's life could be with someone else. And as a result, for whatever reason, her mom, Judy Sydell started bringing me over for family dinners. I had no business being a part of their family. They started bringing me to church. They started modeling a different way of life to me. And that changed everything for me. I saw what a godly family looked like.

I saw what a godly mom looked like a godly husband, a godly dad, godly children. It was incredible. It was an ordinary family that did an ordinary thing by inviting me into their home. That made an extraordinary difference in my life. So I'm now starting to go after God again, but I'm still partying all the time. And I remember getting in trouble in high school. You know, it was shortly after this and got called to the assistant principals, vice principals office. His name was Walter Minsky.

He called me in a buddy down and he looked at us and this was just interesting. He looked at me and my friend. He said, guys, I'm sick of seeing new year, but he said, let me tell you something. You are leaders, you are leaders and people follow you. And you can either use that for good, or you can use it for bad and you've been using it for bad. I want to encourage you and challenge you to use it for good. And we walked away and we actually laughed. I mean, my friend looked each other.

We were like , can you believe he thinks we were leaders where the leaders like, isn't that the funniest thing ever. But do you know that sparked something inside of me? And you know that, that little word of encouragement I'm talking about almost 20 years later right now on a podcast. And I actually got to go back and I spoke at my old high school and I got to thank him for that.

So you never know when ordinary words of affirmation from an ordinary person can make an extraordinary difference, but this, this vice-principal was planting seeds of greatness. In me saying, you're a leader. You can do great things. If you'll just choose to, he made a significant difference in my life. If you're a leader, you have no idea. The influence that your words have speak life into people, speak leadership into people, speak giftedness into people. People need encouragement.

If they're breathing leader, you have so much potential to make a difference with your words, just ordinary words. So I ended up graduating high school. Thank God, barely. And as a result I was hanging out with Lara's mom and her family. And Lara's dad actually became a father figure in my life. He is the Dean of admission at Carnegie Mellon university. And he said, Doug, you're going to go to college. You're a leader. You can do great things.

And he gave me a vision of a different way of life, a different path than I ever saw possible. He would meet with me and he said, Doug, dream big and go for it, dream big and go for it. You can do anything I'm behind you. He modeled for me what a godly father and a godly husband looked like. I'm so grateful for my father-in-law. He was an ordinary person. He still is doing ordinary things to make an extraordinary difference. So grateful for them.

So after high school, I ended up going to this youth camp called Jack camp, where I met a guy named pastor Larry Bettencourt . And he talks about an internship. I didn't even know what an internship was. I just heard that I'd be working at the church and I thought, Lord , I would think that's attractive. So I signed up for the internship. I started interning and it was terrible. I was working for free and my only job was to fill water pitchers and set up and tear down.

And I hated it for awhile and I wanted more responsibility. But pastor Larry said, Doug, it's not that we didn't want to give you more responsibility. Uh , you weren't capable of doing anything else, which that was comforting, but Larry became a huge, huge mentor in my life. And I remember it was about three quarters of the year into the internship. And I was living this double standard lifestyle.

Uh, during the week I was serving at the church and serving in the youth ministry, trying to help kids. And on weekends, I'm partying and getting drunk and high with all my buddies. And there was this kid from church. He wanted to come over to my house one day and I had the party house. I was always having parties at my house. And this kid from church comes over and I told all my high school friends. I said, listen, while, while this kid's here, I'm church, Doug.

And you know, I'm a goody-goody , but as soon as he's gone, it's on. But they all were getting drunk and high on my front porch. Well, he comes over, he sees my friends. He grabs me, literally grabs my shirt, pulls me into the bathroom, slaps me physically in the face. And he said, what are you doing? I said, what do you mean? What am I doing? He said, what are you doing? He pointed my friends. I said, that's just what they do. Those were my friends.

And he said, I know exactly what you're doing. I know the lifestyle you're living. You have three days to tell pastor Larry. And if you don't, I will. And I wanted to kill this kid and he just left. And when he left, I bawled my eyes out and I cried the whole weekend because for the first time in my life, I was around people who believed in me. I believe that God had a good plan for my life. I believe that I could do great things, but I thought that was all over now.

I thought I would, I would tell pastor Larry, I thought I would tell him when he would say, I'm sorry, you got , we gotta kick you out of the church. You're out and you can't intern anymore. Et cetera. That Sunday I walked into the room and I saw pastor Larry and I shared what I was doing. I couldn't even look him in the, I was bawling my eyes out and I looked up and I expected him to say, you know, get out. Instead, he had a huge smile on his face and he said, Doug, I love you.

And I believe in you. And the Bible says that righteous man falls down seven times, but gets back up again, get back up again. And he said, but let me qualify that. He said, I can't let you continue to lead and live the lifestyle that you're living. So you have a choice to make, what are you going to do? And for the first time I drew a line in the sand in my life and I said, that's it I'm done. I'm done with this whole lifestyle. I'm done with my old friends.

I said , all my old friends down and said, you're not going to see me at the parties anymore. I'm not having parties anymore. If any of you want to grab coffee, great, but I'm done. No one wanted to have coffee. By the way, we'd go to a movie. They just want to keep doing what they're doing. So after that happened, I reached out to the kid to slap me in the face. And we went out to coffee and I just said, thank you so much for being willing to literally slap me in the face.

I think that might have transformed my life forever. And we started talking about friendship and he said a quote to me, I'll never forget changed my life. He said, Doug, let me tell you something about friends. Friends love each other the way they are, but real friends love you enough. Not to let you stay where you are. Huge. I'll say that again. Friends love you the way that you are, but real friends love you enough, not to let you stay where you are. And that's when it hit me.

I had all the friends in the world who loved me. If I was becoming an alcoholic, loved me. If I was becoming a drug addict, both of which I was, they loved me. If my life was going nowhere, but real friends, real friends were willing to grab me by the shirt, pull me into a room and slap me in the face because they knew I was made for more. And I'm extremely grateful for him.

And again, I just want to point out it was an ordinary person who did an ordinary thing that made an extraordinary difference in my life. It was a, that was willing to call me out. It was a youth pastor that was willing to love me unconditionally and see past my mistakes and give me vision of what my life could be and did tell me to draw a line in the sand. It changed my life and you know what happened next?

I had some lonely weeks cause I didn't have a ton of new friends yet that were good friends for me. And I remember I was lonely. And at the time I was going to community college here and I had a professor named Gary Grassinger. I still am friends with him to this day. And I reached out to him and I told him the situation that I was in. I said, Hey, I just left all my old friends behind. And it's really hard because I don't have that many friends right now.

And it's a really challenging season of life. And he looked at me and he said, Doug, if you could fast forward your life 10 years and see where your life will be as a result of the choices that you're making and then fast forward your friends' lives and see where their lives will be. If they keep making the decisions that they're making this wouldn't be such a tough season after all. And for whatever reason that clicked with me and it gave me a vision and said, Hey, you're on the right track.

Keep making this , keep making the right decisions. Keep going in 10 years. That's the vision in 10 years, you'll be able to help all your old friends in 10 years, we'll be in a much better place. And do you know what that's exactly what happened? But it was an ordinary college professor sharing an ordinary word of encouragement that made an extraordinary impact on my life. Your words matter leader. I'm going to say it over and over and over again.

So I ended up graduating from college and after college, I worked at victory family church and youth ministry for about four years. And at the end of that four year period, pastor Larry came to me and he said, Hey, we would love for you and Lara to help us plant a church called champion life church. And we thought it was supposed to be our next step, but he said, listen, I can't pay you. So you're either going to have to raise your own salary or get a job.

So I immediately started looking for a job in business. It was just something I wanted to do. And I had a consulting job lined up, but it wasn't able to start for a month or two. And so I didn't know what I was going to do. And one day out of nowhere, literally out of nowhere at seven 30 in the morning, I get a call from a woman who had attended the church that I was on staff at Pryor . And she just said, Doug, Hey, I know you're looking for a job.

And I work at this place called light of life rescue mission. And we just had a job open up yesterday and we think you'd be great for it. Um, and I know you're only looking to stay somewhere a year until the church can pay you. So why don't you come check it out and see if it's for you. We ended up interviewing, I knew a little bit about light of life. Our youth ministry had served there twice, but , um , really didn't think much of it. Anyway, got interviewed, got the job.

I was the volunteer coordinator and you know, I thought I'd be there for a year in jet , but about a year into my time there, I really felt like God was calling me there. I fell in love with light of life. I fell in love with who we were serving. I fell in love with the area and I really felt like I was supposed to be there. And so I decided to stay in transition from the church plant. At the same time my sister came to me. I have a younger sister.

I didn't mention she's two years younger than me. And we were both living the same lifestyle in high school, except for when I got that phone call. After my mom died, my life started turning around and going one direction. My sister, unfortunately just kept going down the same path. We were both going so fast forward. I'm a year into my time at light of life. My sister comes to me five months pregnant with my nephew and she was crying and she said, Doug, I need help.

And I said, well, what do you mean you need to help? And she said, I need help. I'm a heroin addict. And I had no idea what to do. And you know, I had done drugs, but I never got into heroin. And so I reached out to our program director at light of life. And I just said, can you help? And for nine years, nine years light of life, walk to me, my family and my sister through my sister's addiction. My sister ended up homeless twice in that nine year period. She ended up having another boy.

So she has two kids. She ended up in our program three different times. And the third time she was in our program, she was clean for 17 months. And it was absolutely wonderful. I felt like I had my sister back for the first time in over 15 years because of the battle with her addiction. Um, but unfortunately after those 17 months , um , she ended up making support decisions, relapsing, and I lost my sister to a drug overdose in December of 2019, which is absolutely devastating.

But what I do know through my sister's journey is that as a result of being at line of life, my sister rededicated her life to Christ there. And so as a result of that, my is not just in my past, she's in my future. And I'm extremely grateful for that. And I'm extremely grateful for light of life and the staff that poured into my sister and my sister's kids' lives day in and day out for nine years. I'm so , so, so grateful for that.

And as I look back on now, 10 and a half years of being in light of life, what I'm absolutely amazed. That is the only reason that I'm at light of life right now is because an ordinary woman, Cindy Shaffer did an ordinary thing called and talked to me about a job to lead to an extraordinary difference, not just for me, but for my entire family, my entire family, my entire family, my entire life has been changed. There's a result of one woman offering me a job. I'll say it again.

That the only way to change the world is when ordinary people do ordinary things that make an extraordinary difference. And I know I just shared an 80,000 foot view of my story. And if I'm honest, I sort of shared another thousand stories of ordinary people who did ordinary things that made an extraordinary difference in my life.

But if I had to close this lesson, just with being grateful for one more person, that person would be God, because God's the one that wrote the story that I just shared with you. You know, I tell people all the time this, I said, you could live a thousand lives, writing your own story. And it would never compare to the one story that God wants to write for you. But you have a choice in that. You have to give him the pen. You have to let him write the story.

And as I shared, when I went down on my knees with my own , I got that phone call from my relative. And I said, God, whatever you want for the rest of my life, I'm yours. That's when in my life I gave God the pen to write the story of my life. And looking back, that was the greatest decision that I ever made. And if you've never made that decision to go all in with God and to give him the pen of your life, into surrender your life to him, I want to encourage you to do that today.

Today could be the day that changes your life forever, surrender your life to God. And if you want to talk more about that, I'd be happy to talk. You message me, email me. Let's talk, but I'm extremely, extremely grateful for the extraordinary God that we serve. And I'm so grateful for all of the ordinary people that he's put in my life and all the ordinary things he had them do that made an extraordinary difference in my life.

Now, as I said in the beginning of the lesson, if this, if this story inspired you, I want you to reflect on your own life, who are the people that, that made an impact on your life that you need to thank make a few phone calls this week. Write a few, thank you notes. It'll change their life as much as they've changed yours. And secondly, start living intentionally. You never know what one word of encouragement can do. One act of kindness. You never know the extraordinary.

You may think it's so ordinary, but as the status of the ordinary things that ordinary people do that make an extraordinary difference. I hope my story encouraged you. I hope it challenged you. Thanks for listening. And I'll talk to you next episode. Hey leader, thank you so much for listening to my story. I hope that it challenged and inspired you. And more importantly, I hope that you'll go and call or write five to 10 people that have made an impact on your life.

Let them know how grateful you are for them. It'll change them, it'll change you. And it would just be awesome. And you can also find links to anything that I mentioned in this episode, in the show notes@lthreeleadership.org forward slash 2 93 and leaders always, I want to encourage you that if you want to 10 X your growth this year, I want to challenge you to either launch or join in L three leadership mastermind group.

Mastermind groups have been the greatest source of growth in my life over the last six years. And if you're unfamiliar with what they are, there's simply groups of six to 12 leaders that meet together for at least one year in order to help each other grow and hold each other accountable, go after their goals together and to do life together. So if you're interested in learning more about masterminds, go to L three leadership.org/masterminds.

And as always, I like to end every episode with a quote and I'll repeat the quote that I shared earlier, because I thought it was so powerful. Gertrude Stein said this. She said silent gratitude. Isn't very much use to anyone. And I hope again that this episode encouraged, you know that Laura and I love you. We believe in you and just know that the world needs you to keep leading, keep making a difference. Don't quit. We need you we'll talk to you next episode.

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