Latest / The Trauma Therapist / From the archives: Just Be Yourself with Doug Dane

Transcript

From the archives: Just Be Yourself with Doug Dane · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Today we even another episode from the archives with one
0:03
Speaker 1: of my incredible guests. Enjoy. Welcome to the Trauma Diver's Podcast,
0:11
Speaker 1: a show about the incredible people dedicated to helping those
0:14
Speaker 1: of experienced trauma. My name is Got macpherson and my
0:17
Speaker 1: mission is to raise the awareness of trauma and to
0:20
Speaker 1: inspire each of us to help those around us. Okay, five, four, three,
0:27
Speaker 1: two and one, our folks, welcome back to the podcast.
0:30
Speaker 1: I am very excited to have as my guest today,
0:32
Speaker 1: Doug Dane. Doug welcome, Thank you, glad to be here.
0:37
Speaker 1: All right, awesome. So Doug is a survivor who has
0:40
Speaker 1: risen above a past filled with kidnapping, physical, emotional and
0:43
Speaker 1: sexual abuse and violence to experience a life of freedom, gratitude,
0:48
Speaker 1: thriving relationships, and abundance. Now acting as an international keynote
0:52
Speaker 1: speaker and mindset mentor, he has turned his personal experience
0:56
Speaker 1: into a duplicable system to help people discover their true
0:59
Speaker 1: identity and live a life for you. Guilt or Shame
1:04
Speaker 1: outlined extensively in his debut novel, Mistake and Identity, A
1:08
Speaker 1: Guide to letting go of a past that's holding you back.
1:11
Speaker 1: With his first hand experience toe. He's on a mission
1:14
Speaker 1: to guide those struggling to overcome a troubling, troublesome past,
1:17
Speaker 1: bright our future for themselves, their families, and the world. Doug,
1:21
Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcasts. As I'm reading that, I'm thinking
1:26
Speaker 1: this is for me. Let's go before we get going
1:29
Speaker 1: here show with the listeners. Where are you from originally
1:33
Speaker 1: and where you are currently? Yeah?
1:36
Speaker 2: So, I'm born and raised in the city about an
1:38
Speaker 2: hour outside Toronto called the Itcher, Ontario, Canada, And I
1:43
Speaker 2: divide my time now between Toronto and New York. Say,
1:46
Speaker 2: I'm here in New York right now, and just go
1:48
Speaker 2: back and forth every two to three weeks. My partner's
1:51
Speaker 2: here and so and my daughter's in Canada. So I
1:55
Speaker 2: go back and forth and spend time between the two,
1:57
Speaker 2: which is really really fun.
1:59
Speaker 1: Okay, Doug, how the heck did this start? How did
2:04
Speaker 1: all that start?
2:06
Speaker 2: The story? The book? What?
2:08
Speaker 1: Yeah? How is it that we're sitting here right now
2:11
Speaker 1: talking about this? What happened? Yeah?
2:15
Speaker 2: No, that's an interesting question. The story that is in
2:22
Speaker 2: the book came out in two thousand and one. I
2:26
Speaker 2: was thirty nine at the time, and I had wrecked
2:31
Speaker 2: another relationship. So for me coming from you, my past
2:35
Speaker 2: abuse and the resulting trauma of that, and all, of
2:38
Speaker 2: course the jump that goes along with in terms of
2:40
Speaker 2: how you feel about yourself. That would all that was
2:43
Speaker 2: pretty much all blocked out most of my life. I
2:47
Speaker 2: early on, around twenty three, I got into business. I
2:50
Speaker 2: had come from a very poor family as well, and
2:54
Speaker 2: you know, I was working in factories and gas stations
2:57
Speaker 2: and McDonald's and things like that, and into business and
3:01
Speaker 2: I failed fairly quickly. I went bankrupt and trying to
3:04
Speaker 2: figure it out. But then I became successful in business,
3:09
Speaker 2: sort of earning money. It's kind of a separate story,
3:12
Speaker 2: but so that was nineteen called nineteen ninety one through
3:17
Speaker 2: to two thousand and one. I was succeeding, but I
3:21
Speaker 2: didn't feel good about myself. I was nervous. I suffered
3:24
Speaker 2: my anxiety, depression and a lot of disease, you know, illness, challenges,
3:29
Speaker 2: things like that, and just not feeling good about myself. Now,
3:34
Speaker 2: you wouldn't have known that because on the outside I
3:37
Speaker 2: was a really good actor. I had to be a
3:38
Speaker 2: really good actor when I was little to survive, and
3:40
Speaker 2: I became a very good actor to try to continue
3:43
Speaker 2: to survive. And try to thrive as well. Anyway, of course,
3:47
Speaker 2: I wrecked a lot of relationships. My second marriage had
3:50
Speaker 2: failed or I wrecked it, and I was in separation counseling,
3:54
Speaker 2: and I luckily I came upon a woman who was
3:58
Speaker 2: wise and experienced. She started asked me some questions, and
4:02
Speaker 2: she saw that, you know, there must have been some
4:04
Speaker 2: abuse in my background. I go, I said, there wasn't
4:06
Speaker 2: any abuse in my background. I mean I grew up
4:09
Speaker 2: an alcoholic home and I remember a little bit about that,
4:12
Speaker 2: but most of it had been blocked out. And so
4:14
Speaker 2: she got me to do an investigation. She said, look,
4:17
Speaker 2: your way is not working, You're struggling, you don't feel
4:20
Speaker 2: good about yourself. There has to be something in your
4:22
Speaker 2: story that's causing this, and so a good idea for
4:25
Speaker 2: you to go back then figure it out. So we
4:29
Speaker 2: didn't do a lot of therapy around the story. I
4:32
Speaker 2: just did a lot of investigation around the story, almost
4:35
Speaker 2: like an intellectual observer, you know, because in my business skills,
4:39
Speaker 2: and she was smart. She applied almost a business approach.
4:42
Speaker 2: We had goals, we had a plan, and I investigated
4:45
Speaker 2: this story. I met the social workers that placed me
4:49
Speaker 2: in that home when I was an infant for adoption.
4:52
Speaker 2: I got my birth records, my adoption records, I hired
4:55
Speaker 2: a private investigator. I found my birth moment ever met her.
4:59
Speaker 2: I met my birth mom's family. I met the police
5:03
Speaker 2: detectives that investigated the ring of pedophiles and the sexual
5:07
Speaker 2: abuse that I was caught up in from thirteen through fifteen.
5:10
Speaker 2: So the detective that interviewed me after my kidnapping, I
5:15
Speaker 2: met with him, had coffee with him, family friends, teachers, neighbors,
5:21
Speaker 2: and I just I put this whole story toget and go,
5:24
Speaker 2: oh my god, no wonder I've been feeling the way
5:27
Speaker 2: I've been feeling about myself, you know. And my counselor,
5:31
Speaker 2: Ellen was her name, She said, what do you want
5:34
Speaker 2: to do? I said, I want to go public. I
5:36
Speaker 2: want to go big, and she what are you going
5:37
Speaker 2: to do? I think I'm going to I'm then going
5:40
Speaker 2: to submit an article to the GWELP Mercer, which is,
5:42
Speaker 2: you know, the time where I was living one hundred
5:44
Speaker 2: thousand people. She goes, I thought you were going to
5:45
Speaker 2: go big, and I said okay. So I started sending
5:50
Speaker 2: it everywhere Oprah, People Magazine, anybody I could think of
5:53
Speaker 2: that was big. And anyway, the national national newspaper, the
5:58
Speaker 2: Toronto Starr in Canada picked it up and it was
6:00
Speaker 2: on the front page of their lifestyle section on a Saturday.
6:04
Speaker 2: And I remember picking it up eight o'clock that morning
6:07
Speaker 2: get my coffee, and by the time I got back
6:09
Speaker 2: to my inbox with my email, my website were in
6:12
Speaker 2: the article because I had written it, and I had
6:15
Speaker 2: like six hundred emails in my inbox, and you know,
6:18
Speaker 2: all these people thanking me and saying I was brave,
6:22
Speaker 2: and a lot of people that had went through my
6:23
Speaker 2: story were thankful that I went public and they felt
6:28
Speaker 2: better because they could relate. And what that did for
6:32
Speaker 2: me is my story it talking about it or writing,
6:35
Speaker 2: but it normalized me. It didn't normalize what happened, but
6:38
Speaker 2: it normalized me.
6:39
Speaker 1: Wow. And then hang on, let me just interject. This
6:43
Speaker 1: is yeah, I mean, this is incredible, and you're saying
6:48
Speaker 1: so much here. I want to make sure we touch upon.
6:52
Speaker 1: So you had said you mentioned a couple of times
6:55
Speaker 1: you blocked out what had happened upon your childhood and
7:02
Speaker 1: the abuse there, and you jumped a little too when
7:05
Speaker 1: you were in business, and so are you saying that
7:13
Speaker 1: throughout your childhood and into what your eighteens and twenties,
7:17
Speaker 1: you had not at least intellectually understood that you had
7:22
Speaker 1: been traumatized. That's correct, That is correct. Okay, So okay.
7:28
Speaker 1: And was there ever any thought, oh my god, my
7:34
Speaker 1: childhood was fed up. I need to get help or
7:36
Speaker 1: anything like that. No, nothing, okay. And it wasn't until
7:42
Speaker 1: and you said you were a good actor, you were
7:44
Speaker 1: able to survive. And it wasn't until you met that
7:47
Speaker 1: therapist who sounds incredible. She was like, something's going on here,
7:55
Speaker 1: you know when she started talking about that. Can you
8:02
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the recognition of having having
8:07
Speaker 1: experienced what you did experience? Oh my god, I was
8:10
Speaker 1: involved in this. What was that like for you to
8:15
Speaker 1: come face to face with that understanding?
8:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's a good questions. Interesting because by
8:22
Speaker 2: that point I was fairly obviously disconnected emotionally from all that.
8:29
Speaker 2: But it was something that she said, if she was
8:31
Speaker 2: talking about, you know, being you know, mistreated in my
8:36
Speaker 2: in my home by my parents because they were both
8:39
Speaker 2: really struggling, violent alcoholics, and and what really struck me
8:43
Speaker 2: she said, to ask you a question. I said sure,
8:46
Speaker 2: And she said them, how would you feel if that
8:52
Speaker 2: little boy was your son? And then boom, it hit
8:56
Speaker 2: me and I got I got emotional, and I wasn't
8:59
Speaker 2: sad for me the adult. I was saddened for that
9:03
Speaker 2: little boy. I felt really terrible for him. And then
9:07
Speaker 2: it gave me percent I go, yeah, he was really mistreated,
9:11
Speaker 2: Like that's just wrong what happened to him. That was
9:14
Speaker 2: the first real connection, and then there was a few
9:16
Speaker 2: more times like that where you know, we had these
9:19
Speaker 2: conversations or she posed these these questions, like the kidnapping.
9:24
Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't see it as a kidnapping, you know,
9:28
Speaker 2: I got you know, I just I got in this
9:30
Speaker 2: guy's car and we drove across the country, snapped out
9:34
Speaker 2: on a Sunday night. I had a different perception on it.
9:37
Speaker 2: So she brought a normalized, justified perception to what happened
9:43
Speaker 2: because I was minimizing what it happened, which essentially was
9:46
Speaker 2: minimizing me in my own worth and all that. So
9:49
Speaker 2: that was really how it started to happen.
9:53
Speaker 1: Now, so you mentioned kidnapping, and to the degree that
9:58
Speaker 1: you're comfortable speaking about the so you were involved in
10:01
Speaker 1: a pedophile ring.
10:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I am so at thirteen. I literally I
10:09
Speaker 2: kicked my mom out of the house. I picked her
10:11
Speaker 2: up one day or she was beating my dad. I
10:13
Speaker 2: picked her up, I threw outside, phoned the police, which
10:16
Speaker 2: was you know, the police were always at our door,
10:18
Speaker 2: and they took her away and she never came back.
10:23
Speaker 2: And so by that time, my dad, he was he
10:26
Speaker 2: was pretty rough shape. He was arthritic and you know,
10:28
Speaker 2: broken down from alcohol and the effects of being a
10:32
Speaker 2: warb that all that stuff, his own stuff. And I
10:34
Speaker 2: was running the streets, you know, skipping school, and you know,
10:39
Speaker 2: the the schools were looking for me. They come knocking on,
10:42
Speaker 2: you know, my dad's door. And we ended up hanging
10:45
Speaker 2: out this radio shack store of downtown Kitchen where I live,
10:50
Speaker 2: and we got hooked up with this the manager there,
10:54
Speaker 2: and he invited us over to his house one night
10:56
Speaker 2: for a party. And we got there and he said
11:00
Speaker 2: there was going to be girls and booze, and like,
11:02
Speaker 2: I'm thirteen, right, And we get there and his wife
11:05
Speaker 2: was leaving for the night, she was going out, and
11:07
Speaker 2: that was the beginning. The man, his name was John,
11:10
Speaker 2: invited my friend up to stairs to his bedroom. I
11:13
Speaker 2: knew what was going on, but you know, I stayed
11:17
Speaker 2: in the living room and then it was over and
11:18
Speaker 2: we walked home, you know, kind of silently. And that
11:20
Speaker 2: was the beginning. And so this man, along with a
11:23
Speaker 2: couple of boy scout leaders and another guy in the
11:25
Speaker 2: music business, was four of them, and they crowded at
11:30
Speaker 2: least what we knew of from the investigation, twenty three boys.
11:33
Speaker 2: Undoubtedly more, but there was twenty three boys in the investigation.
11:37
Speaker 2: And so yeah, I got hooked up with this guy
11:39
Speaker 2: named Randy, and I was his kid. That's what they
11:42
Speaker 2: would call their favorite boy. I was his kid. And
11:44
Speaker 2: so for a couple of years I was we were
11:47
Speaker 2: hanging out with these guys, and it was a very
11:51
Speaker 2: obviously confusing time because it felt good physically, and as
11:56
Speaker 2: an adolescent, you know, I thought, just me and my friend,
11:59
Speaker 2: my next door neighbor who also got caught in this,
12:01
Speaker 2: I thought we were just exploring gay sex. I mean,
12:04
Speaker 2: they gave us the book The Joy of Sex, and
12:06
Speaker 2: they showed us the passage that you know, what we
12:08
Speaker 2: were doing was normal. And then looking back on the records,
12:13
Speaker 2: I thought this was I was a little boy thirteen
12:16
Speaker 2: through fifteen, and this was a man well turned out.
12:19
Speaker 2: He was twenty six, he was just a young man himself,
12:22
Speaker 2: you know, And yeah, so that's basically I spent a
12:26
Speaker 2: couple of years of that, and then the kidnapping is
12:29
Speaker 2: where it ended. When the detectives arrived at my door
12:31
Speaker 2: on a Sunday night when we got home and you know,
12:33
Speaker 2: throw these photographs at me, and they, you know, they're
12:36
Speaker 2: kind of threatening me to reveal other boys because one
12:40
Speaker 2: of the other men the boys got leader, one of
12:43
Speaker 2: the dads had caught him, and the dad was out
12:45
Speaker 2: in his car with a gun trying to catch this guy.
12:47
Speaker 2: So it was very serious, you know. And they left
12:51
Speaker 2: that night, and my dad, of course wasn't equipped. They
12:54
Speaker 2: didn't speak to my father and my brother, so I
12:56
Speaker 2: was just kind of left in my basement alone and
12:58
Speaker 2: then I just I turned to rugs and alcohol, to
13:02
Speaker 2: quitting school to kind of cope. And that's kind of
13:04
Speaker 2: what the next fifteen through twenty three was just drunk
13:07
Speaker 2: and stoned and partying and trying to cover up how
13:11
Speaker 2: loudly I felt about myself. But again, this whole I mean,
13:15
Speaker 2: I just thought, of course, was those these are memories
13:18
Speaker 2: or facts I've got all blocked out?
13:22
Speaker 1: Now? Was your meeting Ellen? The therapist you spoke of.
13:27
Speaker 1: Was was that the big turning point for you?
13:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's interesting. Yeah, I had. I had
13:37
Speaker 2: been in therapy before, because this is my second marriage
13:42
Speaker 2: that had failed. Of course, you know, I had wrecked
13:44
Speaker 2: all my relationships. And it was bizarre because I was
13:48
Speaker 2: in such inner conflict because at the heart of me,
13:51
Speaker 2: I felt I had integrity and I had standards, and
13:54
Speaker 2: I was very honest in work and in business, you know,
13:58
Speaker 2: very honest, but obviously dishonest over over here. So I've
14:03
Speaker 2: been in therapy. I remember when I met Ellen. I got,
14:05
Speaker 2: Oh my god, same old questions, same old friggin rissoli.
14:08
Speaker 2: Here we go again, other therapists asking the scabeold questions.
14:12
Speaker 2: There was something different and her plus her requirement of me,
14:18
Speaker 2: which was, if you want to work with me, you
14:21
Speaker 2: have to study this book. And she handed me the book,
14:24
Speaker 2: The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, and I credit
14:28
Speaker 2: that book literally for saving my life. I mentioned it
14:31
Speaker 2: in my book, and she said, if you want to
14:34
Speaker 2: work with me, you're going to have to study this book.
14:37
Speaker 2: And we're going to work with this book, and you're
14:38
Speaker 2: gonna have to apply what's in this book. And that
14:42
Speaker 2: was a that was a real it was a real
14:45
Speaker 2: turning point. It was one of the biggest ones. Of course,
14:48
Speaker 2: the article what book, What about that book?
14:51
Speaker 1: Doug was so resonanced.
14:53
Speaker 2: Well, it just it was funny because she goes, read
14:56
Speaker 2: the book. It's not a little book. I went and
14:57
Speaker 2: got it like like a two hour read. I came
15:01
Speaker 2: back the next week. She goes, you read the book.
15:02
Speaker 2: I go, yeah, what do you think. I go, It's
15:03
Speaker 2: the dumbest thing I've ever read. She was read it again,
15:06
Speaker 2: So I go read it again. I come back next
15:09
Speaker 2: week and to read. I read it, but it's really weird.
15:12
Speaker 2: She just read it again. But it was weird for
15:14
Speaker 2: me because the author is a he's a Mexican Toltec
15:18
Speaker 2: spiritual leader, noguall from an ancient tribe, and so I
15:22
Speaker 2: just was uncomfortable with spirituality and all that stuff. But
15:25
Speaker 2: when I got into it, I go, this is so
15:28
Speaker 2: freaking simple. He just explained so well, how we got
15:32
Speaker 2: condition when we were little, and we made these agreements
15:36
Speaker 2: with ourselves. We were domesticated like an animal. Literally, we
15:40
Speaker 2: got judged, we started judging ourselves. We made these agreements.
15:44
Speaker 2: We live with those agreements. And that's why we're struggling
15:46
Speaker 2: and we're in what he called a fog. I go, man, man,
15:49
Speaker 2: that's me, and so I just love the simplicity of
15:53
Speaker 2: it and the fact I just had to replace all
15:56
Speaker 2: my agreements with the four he gave me, which was
15:58
Speaker 2: be impeccable with my don't take things anything, don't take
16:02
Speaker 2: anything personally, don't make assumptions, and just do your best
16:07
Speaker 2: each day. So I adopted those agreements, and it really
16:11
Speaker 2: gave me an understanding. No wonder I felt the way
16:14
Speaker 2: I felt about myself, No wonder in spite of the
16:18
Speaker 2: you know, the things I've been through, why I was
16:21
Speaker 2: doing what I was doing. So it it let me
16:24
Speaker 2: off the hook. But it also got me to take
16:27
Speaker 2: responsibility because you know, I could have carried on with
16:30
Speaker 2: a real victim mentality because I was for a long time.
16:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to remind everyone I'm speaking with Doug Dane,
16:38
Speaker 1: whose books called Mistaken Identity a Guide to letting go
16:42
Speaker 1: of a past that's holding you back. Will of course
16:44
Speaker 1: have that linked up at the show notes page here
16:47
Speaker 1: at the Trauma thepispodcast dot com, as well as the
16:49
Speaker 1: four agreements too. Why did you write you talked about
16:54
Speaker 1: that article you wrote. Why did you write that? Talk
16:59
Speaker 1: about that process of saying yourself, okay, I want to
17:01
Speaker 1: write this well.
17:04
Speaker 2: Through through assembling the story and through the four agreements,
17:10
Speaker 2: I realized that I was living a lie. I was
17:14
Speaker 2: lying to myself, I was lying to others to cover
17:17
Speaker 2: up who I was or wasn't and I was handled
17:21
Speaker 2: a lot of lies. And so I wanted to tell
17:25
Speaker 2: the truth. And I got inspired by an author, Dave Pelzer.
17:34
Speaker 2: He's got he had three books, a child called it
17:36
Speaker 2: Lost Boy, and a man called Dave, and you know
17:41
Speaker 2: you had a really rough story as well. And so
17:45
Speaker 2: I related, and I go, I'm going to write my story.
17:49
Speaker 2: And I just realized, and so I when I first
17:54
Speaker 2: told somebody about the story before. So at first it
17:59
Speaker 2: was my girlfriend the time, then it was my sister
18:03
Speaker 2: in law that was the second person. And just with
18:06
Speaker 2: those two people and then a few more, as I
18:09
Speaker 2: told my story, it opened the door for them to
18:12
Speaker 2: share their story, and all of a sudden they were
18:16
Speaker 2: and I go, this is what I talking works. I
18:18
Speaker 2: got to talk. So that's what motivated me to write
18:22
Speaker 2: the article, and then of course that led to speaking engagements.
18:26
Speaker 2: It was on television, it was in a couple of books,
18:30
Speaker 2: and and then people kept saying, hey, Doug, like, you know,
18:33
Speaker 2: will you tell your story shirt? And then because of
18:36
Speaker 2: the publicity, people go, people approaching me go, how'd you
18:40
Speaker 2: do it? And I go, I know what I did,
18:44
Speaker 2: but I couldn't tell you how to do it?
18:45
Speaker 1: How do you do? What?
18:47
Speaker 2: How did I go from that story going public? And
18:52
Speaker 2: then you know, freeing myself and letting go of all
18:56
Speaker 2: the negative emotions like I have no no negative emotions
19:01
Speaker 2: or feelings or followed or trauma from any of it.
19:06
Speaker 2: One part in the book talks about how I hired
19:08
Speaker 2: a PI to find Randy, the man that abused me,
19:11
Speaker 2: because I wanted to know his story, like something must
19:14
Speaker 2: have happened to him for that to situate in him,
19:17
Speaker 2: and so I want to meet him. And just at
19:19
Speaker 2: that time, you know, I hired him, I was coaching people.
19:21
Speaker 2: I wanted to hug him and coach him and see
19:24
Speaker 2: like was there.
19:25
Speaker 1: Was there any I mean, there's so much, There are
19:30
Speaker 1: so many elements to this story. How did you? And
19:37
Speaker 1: of course trauma impacts people very differently, and of course
19:40
Speaker 1: it sounds like it impacted you very severely. I mean,
19:44
Speaker 1: you talked about failed marriages and relationships and alcohol abuse.
19:47
Speaker 1: But how what helped you specifically work through the and
19:56
Speaker 1: process the trauma that you had experienced.
20:05
Speaker 2: How would I answer that? I think? I think well,
20:10
Speaker 2: I mentioned the book. One of my friends was reading
20:11
Speaker 2: one of the articles on my adoption. She goes, you
20:16
Speaker 2: feel you feel grateful that you were adopted. I go, yes,
20:20
Speaker 2: I'll explain that. I said, well, now, knowing what I
20:24
Speaker 2: know and through the four rograms, different things I was
20:27
Speaker 2: learning because I really embarked on this pursuit to understand
20:34
Speaker 2: my perspective on my adoption. For example, is that I
20:38
Speaker 2: could have landed in any home. I mean, the fact
20:41
Speaker 2: is I was given up for adoption as a baby,
20:43
Speaker 2: ended up in foster care. Six months later I get adopted.
20:46
Speaker 2: I could end up in any home, and whatever home
20:49
Speaker 2: I would have ended up with, I would have been
20:50
Speaker 2: a different person than I am, And so that gave
20:54
Speaker 2: me objectivity. You know, I was also you know, as
20:58
Speaker 2: a business person, I was trained to be objective and
21:01
Speaker 2: use my intellect problem solve and to get ahead and
21:04
Speaker 2: so and again again. Because Ellen, somebody that I began
21:07
Speaker 2: to trust, approached my therapy the same way as a
21:12
Speaker 2: as a third party. I was really observing this little boy,
21:17
Speaker 2: you know, and she was. She said that, she goes,
21:19
Speaker 2: you got to You've got to parent this little boy,
21:21
Speaker 2: and you have to nurture him and take care of
21:24
Speaker 2: him and help him make him feel you these Okay,
21:26
Speaker 2: And so I think just I just brought objectivity to
21:30
Speaker 2: it and then really don't take anying personally. So very
21:34
Speaker 2: quickly I stopped taking the abuse personally. It didn't happen
21:37
Speaker 2: because of me. It just simply happened to me. In fact,
21:41
Speaker 2: I saved the little boy's life because it could have
21:45
Speaker 2: been another little boy that land in that family. And
21:49
Speaker 2: I survived and I'm thriving, you know. And so objectivity,
21:52
Speaker 2: I think I learned emotional neutrality. I just brought these
21:57
Speaker 2: skill sets to the story and to my perception of
22:04
Speaker 2: the story. Yeah, and my judgment.
22:07
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean that's really interesting. It sounds like there
22:09
Speaker 1: was a confluence, a very fortuitous confluence of elements and
22:14
Speaker 1: events and meeting people that really worked well with your
22:20
Speaker 1: skill set and who you were to help me move
22:22
Speaker 1: through this process. All right, So how do you get
22:26
Speaker 1: to the point where you're writing this book Mistaken Identity yeah.
22:32
Speaker 2: Well, so about eight years ago, twenty fourteen, I again
22:36
Speaker 2: I was I found myself still, you know, doubting myself
22:40
Speaker 2: and you know, nervous and uncomfortable, and by this time
22:44
Speaker 2: so twentusand and one to twenty fourteen. So for thirteen
22:47
Speaker 2: years on again, off again. People are you know, seeing
22:51
Speaker 2: the story on online or scene there at whatever, and
22:55
Speaker 2: they're pursuing me. Go, Doug, can you help me? And
22:58
Speaker 2: I go, yeah, I really want to help help you.
23:00
Speaker 2: And so I really want to understand how to transfer
23:03
Speaker 2: what I did because I didn't want to send people
23:06
Speaker 2: to therapy. I didn't think that is the I don't
23:09
Speaker 2: think that's the answer for everyone. I think it's helpful,
23:12
Speaker 2: but ultimately that's not the solution or my solution. And
23:16
Speaker 2: so in twenty fourteen I just happened upon I just
23:19
Speaker 2: like everything I suppose that you said, I kind of
23:21
Speaker 2: stumbled along another person who became probably my biggest mentor.
23:25
Speaker 2: His name was Bob Proctor. He passed about a year ago.
23:27
Speaker 2: He was world famous in the person development space, and
23:31
Speaker 2: I went to work for him and we became friends
23:33
Speaker 2: and he mentored me. I started to understand the hour
23:36
Speaker 2: of my mind and how my mind actually controls my
23:40
Speaker 2: brain and my nervous system and my thoughts and my feelings.
23:42
Speaker 2: I didn't know that. No, he taught me that. So
23:45
Speaker 2: as I started to understand that that was the final
23:49
Speaker 2: the final phase, if you will, to really the letting go,
23:54
Speaker 2: and Bob kept telling me goes like, Doug, just let
23:56
Speaker 2: it go, let it go, go, Bob, you don't understand.
23:59
Speaker 2: He just laughed and I said, no, you didn't go
24:01
Speaker 2: through it. I went through a bottom. Okay, Doug, whatever
24:03
Speaker 2: you say. He just kept saying, Doug, it's so simple,
24:07
Speaker 2: yet you're making so complicated. You can just let it
24:10
Speaker 2: all go. That's not that anyway, and.
24:15
Speaker 1: He reject For one second, here, can we just put
24:18
Speaker 1: a little focus on this your one statement there? You said,
24:23
Speaker 1: he taught you that your mind was in control of ABC.
24:28
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that?
24:30
Speaker 2: Well, we we have we have a gift that was
24:35
Speaker 2: given to us called our mind. Our mind operates our
24:40
Speaker 2: brain and nervous system. That was that was discovered in
24:44
Speaker 2: the late eighteen early nineteen hundreds William James, one of
24:47
Speaker 2: the greatest still greatest psychologists of all time. I mean,
24:50
Speaker 2: he discovered that and all of the work that Bob
24:54
Speaker 2: had learned in his you know, fifty years or so,
24:57
Speaker 2: you know, studying the mindset, in psychology, in religion, all
25:01
Speaker 2: these different things. He discovered that through one of his mentors,
25:06
Speaker 2: how the conscious and the unconscious mind actually operate, and
25:11
Speaker 2: how your thoughts and feelings direct the physical state. You know,
25:15
Speaker 2: our body is and the instrument of the mind. And
25:17
Speaker 2: so if you we generally, I think most people just
25:21
Speaker 2: kind of live in a very reactionary way to what's
25:25
Speaker 2: going on around them. You know, they're out the outside world.
25:27
Speaker 2: Things happen, people do things, they they see things, they
25:31
Speaker 2: experience things, and they just kind of react. And we
25:33
Speaker 2: all have this this conditioning from our environment, and we're
25:39
Speaker 2: brought up, you know, with certain programming, and we see
25:42
Speaker 2: ourselves a certain way, and we just kind of habitually operate,
25:47
Speaker 2: you know, day to day without thinking too much, and
25:50
Speaker 2: if you're struggling, you know, you just kind of think
25:52
Speaker 2: this is your lot in life. And that's the way
25:54
Speaker 2: that well, I discovered that I could actually take control,
25:57
Speaker 2: take possession of my own mind, use what's called accurate thinking,
26:01
Speaker 2: and I could start to control what I was thinking
26:04
Speaker 2: about and control what was coming at me or what
26:08
Speaker 2: was in me. I could look at it a different way.
26:10
Speaker 2: I could be objective and whatever you think determines how
26:14
Speaker 2: you feel. You're feeling set up, how this body feels.
26:18
Speaker 2: Like a lot of people I now know a lot
26:19
Speaker 2: of people suffered from anxiety depression. It's just quite simply,
26:23
Speaker 2: they are they are worried about their future and they're
26:27
Speaker 2: thinking way too far ahead, or they're looking at their
26:30
Speaker 2: past with guilt and resentment, and it causes them worry,
26:34
Speaker 2: doubt and fear, and it presents itself in a state
26:36
Speaker 2: of anxiety, which moves to depression and it ultimately turns
26:39
Speaker 2: into disks E. So I didn't know all that. I
26:42
Speaker 2: learned that and that really made a big difference for me.
26:46
Speaker 2: So I started to calm down, became more relaxed, more equable.
26:52
Speaker 2: My anxiety disappeared. I mean I just got more and people.
26:57
Speaker 1: Go because being more conscious and intentional about your your mind.
27:03
Speaker 1: And when Bob was saying let go that go and
27:05
Speaker 1: you're like, Bob, you don't know how did that unfold
27:09
Speaker 1: for you?
27:10
Speaker 2: Well, he just kept repeating it because I kept repeating
27:13
Speaker 2: the same old story. Yeah, I got kind of sick
27:17
Speaker 2: of saying the same story over and over, and I go,
27:20
Speaker 2: I keep telling the same story. He just laugh and
27:24
Speaker 2: so he just kept reminding me that because what I
27:28
Speaker 2: learned from a mindset perspective is the way the mind
27:33
Speaker 2: operates is it's creative and automatic, and it's goal seeking.
27:37
Speaker 2: It'll help you solve your problem and get where you
27:40
Speaker 2: want to go. But it only operates under certain rules.
27:43
Speaker 2: One you must be in a relaxed state. Number two,
27:48
Speaker 2: you can't think too far ahead. And number three, you
27:52
Speaker 2: definitely don't look backwards on the past because there's nothing
27:55
Speaker 2: back there to help you go forward. If there is,
27:58
Speaker 2: your memory will bring it up. And well, I was
28:00
Speaker 2: just talking about the past, thinking about the past. By
28:05
Speaker 2: doing that, that would trigger emotions about the past. It
28:08
Speaker 2: would bring back the guilt and the resentment and the
28:11
Speaker 2: shame from the past. So if you think about the past,
28:14
Speaker 2: you literally live and feel the past. Well that caused
28:17
Speaker 2: you to struggle to go for he said, Doug just
28:20
Speaker 2: he said, he goes, stop talking about the past, stop
28:24
Speaker 2: talking about it, stop thinking about it. Just stop it.
28:29
Speaker 2: It was a great we ever seen that. We were see
28:31
Speaker 2: a video with Bob Newhart Mad TV where he's he's
28:35
Speaker 2: playing a therapist or a psychiatrist.
28:38
Speaker 1: Yes, Bobart, he jumped in and stop it, right, I
28:46
Speaker 1: remember that.
28:47
Speaker 2: Yeah. And one of the things Bob said, he said, Doug,
28:50
Speaker 2: he said, you know, your mind is a machine. That
28:53
Speaker 2: was proven. Your mind is a machine. You're the operator.
28:58
Speaker 2: He said, you're not operating the machine proper by thinking
29:00
Speaker 2: about the past. I go, you're right, And so he
29:05
Speaker 2: just kept reminding me to think properly because I was
29:10
Speaker 2: in charge of my thinking and I was in charge
29:13
Speaker 2: of how I was feeling and all my results. He goes,
29:15
Speaker 2: it's all your fault. Do you know what I mean? He goes, well,
29:19
Speaker 2: you're responsible for your thinking. So if you're suffering, it's
29:23
Speaker 2: all your fault. You can't blame the store anymore. So
29:25
Speaker 2: you're an adult, you're forty nine years old, but you're
29:29
Speaker 2: in charge now. And he was just you know, he
29:31
Speaker 2: was able to kick my butt in a very kind way.
29:35
Speaker 2: All right, he was right?
29:38
Speaker 1: How did he? This is? This is awesome, Doug. So, okay,
29:42
Speaker 1: talk about the book how that came about.
29:45
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I'm having all these conversations, and you know,
29:48
Speaker 2: working for Bob, I was running his uh coaching of
29:53
Speaker 2: this we had at the time when I was there
29:56
Speaker 2: we had you know, two thousand plus people, you know,
29:58
Speaker 2: coaching people on this informa, and of course so I
30:01
Speaker 2: was helping them with their businesses, and of course I
30:03
Speaker 2: was doing my own coaching, and I talked to thousands
30:05
Speaker 2: of people. I you know, look, I got my calculit.
30:08
Speaker 2: One day I figured out I probably I mean five
30:11
Speaker 2: days a week I was talking to people. I just
30:13
Speaker 2: went eight years times you know, fifty two weeks times
30:18
Speaker 2: five and usually you know two three people individually, thousands
30:21
Speaker 2: of people, and everybody have struggling with the same thing.
30:25
Speaker 1: I go.
30:27
Speaker 2: Everybody has a self esteem problem or they they have
30:31
Speaker 2: themselves wrong. They don't believe in themselves, they don't feel
30:35
Speaker 2: good about themselves, they have a low opinion themselves, they
30:38
Speaker 2: have an inferiority complex, they have low and just like
30:41
Speaker 2: everybody I talked to in a lot of successful people, right,
30:45
Speaker 2: they were doing really well, and I was the same way.
30:48
Speaker 2: I'm going, oh my god, and I just can't. It
30:52
Speaker 2: was in my journal I remember reflecting back on this.
30:56
Speaker 2: I think everybody has what's called a mistake and identity.
31:00
Speaker 2: It's not going to prison of their own making. The
31:03
Speaker 2: real villain is their conditioning and their upbringing and the
31:07
Speaker 2: system that now keeps them stuck. But the key to
31:10
Speaker 2: their freedom lies inside. If they could just understand their
31:14
Speaker 2: story and why they see themselves the way they see themselves,
31:18
Speaker 2: they could break free. And so then for eight years,
31:22
Speaker 2: I'm writing this book in my head. But it's not
31:25
Speaker 2: like I wanted to write a book. I was writing.
31:28
Speaker 2: I was trying to create this formula. And so just
31:31
Speaker 2: as I coached people, I just start to test the
31:34
Speaker 2: ideas and I'd share with people, Oh my god, and
31:37
Speaker 2: people have these breakthroughs. And so I was assembling this
31:40
Speaker 2: kind of as I went. And then Bob said, what
31:42
Speaker 2: are you going to write your book? And I said,
31:43
Speaker 2: I didn't want to write a book, even up until
31:46
Speaker 2: you know, just over a year ago, I was not
31:49
Speaker 2: looking to write a book. But the book was a
31:52
Speaker 2: great way to get the message out. And so anyway,
31:57
Speaker 2: I talked to somebody and I got a published and
32:01
Speaker 2: I said, look, I said, I'm not writing this book
32:04
Speaker 2: unless it's a really good book. It's got to work.
32:07
Speaker 2: If you get into this book with me and you go,
32:09
Speaker 2: Doug your off track, you can keep the money. We'll
32:11
Speaker 2: just walk away. I don't want to write a book,
32:15
Speaker 2: but I want to put a book out that helps people.
32:18
Speaker 2: And it's not just a book, it's a handbooks. It's
32:21
Speaker 2: got directive, it's prescriptive. It gives you steps to take
32:26
Speaker 2: to let go. As Bob said one of the chapters
32:29
Speaker 2: called let it Go, dedicated to him, is that this
32:32
Speaker 2: can happen really fast. I dragged it out way too long.
32:36
Speaker 2: I made it way too hard. I thought it was complicated.
32:39
Speaker 2: It wasn't. Bob was right, it's simple, it's easy.
32:45
Speaker 1: Why does it not seem it sounds it is simple?
32:50
Speaker 1: But it's not. I mean a lot of people aren't
32:51
Speaker 1: doing it as you're Honestly, I'm thinking to myself, I
32:54
Speaker 1: got to get this book sincere to do because I
32:57
Speaker 1: have definitely I have limiting beliefs about myself, and I
33:02
Speaker 1: was identifying a lot with what you're saying. But yeah,
33:05
Speaker 1: why aren't we doing it? Why is it so hard
33:07
Speaker 1: to let go of our the story of our past?
33:11
Speaker 2: I think there's three reasons. One, as you mentioned, we
33:15
Speaker 2: have these we have these limiting beliefs, and I think
33:18
Speaker 2: we just have enough evidence and the longer we go
33:20
Speaker 2: through life, we have more accumulated evidence that you know,
33:25
Speaker 2: there's just something wrong with me, okay, And there's all
33:29
Speaker 2: these great books and great podcasts, all these great things
33:32
Speaker 2: out there, but it doesn't work for me. It'll work
33:35
Speaker 2: for you guys, but it won't work for me. Right,
33:37
Speaker 2: I think that's number one, number two, you know, since
33:41
Speaker 2: the early reason it's true. Yeah, our our mode for
33:46
Speaker 2: our mental well being. It's been a paradime since the fifties.
33:52
Speaker 2: I mean, my mom got hooked into it. You know,
33:54
Speaker 2: drugs she went through at the time, you know, for
34:00
Speaker 2: rounds of shock treatments, tills. We've been we've gone down
34:04
Speaker 2: a certain road with psychology and mental well being. It's
34:07
Speaker 2: a paradigm and we just we've been following that for
34:10
Speaker 2: quite a long time and that's just what we do
34:13
Speaker 2: and it's kind of normal. But clearly it ain't working
34:17
Speaker 2: because the numbers only get worse. So if something is wrong,
34:21
Speaker 2: So I think we're just we're locked into a viewpoint
34:26
Speaker 2: of mental health and what life is like if we've struggled,
34:32
Speaker 2: even if you come from a good family. You know.
34:34
Speaker 2: The other thing is, out of all the people I
34:36
Speaker 2: talked to, half statistically have been through abuse. The other
34:39
Speaker 2: have haven't, but they're still suffering from the same mistake
34:42
Speaker 2: and identity for different reasons, you know.
34:45
Speaker 1: And then.
34:47
Speaker 2: I guess the third reason is these days, it's it's
34:52
Speaker 2: very easy to choose the victim mentality. It's convenient, it's
34:59
Speaker 2: a lot more comfortable. We don't like the discomfort of
35:02
Speaker 2: the perceived suffering to get to where we want to go.
35:05
Speaker 2: And so I think we just we just kind of
35:09
Speaker 2: uses a great excuse to, you know, stay stuck. I
35:12
Speaker 2: did that. I think it's just easier.
35:18
Speaker 1: Who's this book? Four?
35:23
Speaker 2: Definitely the initial strong motivation was, you know, there's just
35:28
Speaker 2: so many young people that get in trouble like I did,
35:32
Speaker 2: and they really struggle, and then they grow into adults
35:34
Speaker 2: that struggle, and they raise children that struggle. So anybody
35:37
Speaker 2: that's gone through any form of abuse, you really need
35:40
Speaker 2: to understand and change your mind and your perspective on
35:45
Speaker 2: what happened to you the story. And that's what the
35:48
Speaker 2: book does. It gets you to just because I change
35:50
Speaker 2: my perception, and so I'm modeling that you don't have
35:54
Speaker 2: to look at your abuse as a bad thing. I
35:57
Speaker 2: look at as a gift. I really truly do. That
36:02
Speaker 2: is for people. So half the population has gone through that,
36:05
Speaker 2: and then those people and many other people ninety five
36:09
Speaker 2: percent of our population grow up. They're conditioned and they're programmed,
36:14
Speaker 2: and they're they're judged, and they're criticized their teas, and
36:17
Speaker 2: they just form a perception of themselves that's not true
36:21
Speaker 2: or not accurate. And they struggled in their life in
36:26
Speaker 2: any area, maybe struggled most of their life. And so
36:30
Speaker 2: I was talking to a lady of the day, thirty
36:33
Speaker 2: seven year old woman on the outside. Do you think, man,
36:35
Speaker 2: she's got it together, beautiful, healthy, she's got a successful business.
36:40
Speaker 2: And she was going through the book over thirty days.
36:42
Speaker 2: The books designed to actually go on a journey for
36:45
Speaker 2: thirty days, and she goes Doug Medius in the month
36:48
Speaker 2: of February. That's when we were talking about, I went
36:51
Speaker 2: through the month of February because February twenty twenty three
36:55
Speaker 2: has been the best month of my life ever. And
37:00
Speaker 2: then she went on to talk about what she had
37:02
Speaker 2: let go of. She let go of worrying what people thought.
37:04
Speaker 2: She'd let go of, you know, being insecure, she'd let
37:07
Speaker 2: go of you know, covering up her face with makeup
37:09
Speaker 2: because she had acne problems when she was young. She
37:12
Speaker 2: just was letting all this stuff go. And so it's
37:15
Speaker 2: really like you said, you got to get a book.
37:18
Speaker 2: It's for everybody. And if listen, if you're not happy
37:21
Speaker 2: in life, if you're struggling in some area of your life,
37:24
Speaker 2: if you don't feel good about yourself, there's nothing wrong
37:27
Speaker 2: with you. You just believe some things that are wrong
37:31
Speaker 2: and you just got to change your mind about how
37:34
Speaker 2: you see yourself so you can be yourself. That's what
37:37
Speaker 2: the book is about. Just be yourself. Let go of
37:40
Speaker 2: this past that's holding you back because you're using it
37:43
Speaker 2: as a reference point to predict your future and you're
37:47
Speaker 2: wrong about yourself.
37:50
Speaker 1: I you know, interview a lot of people on here,
37:55
Speaker 1: many of them have books, and you know, almost all
37:59
Speaker 1: of them sound really really interesting. But I don't always
38:03
Speaker 1: say I'm going to go get this book, but I'm
38:06
Speaker 1: getting this book and I sincerely mean that. All right, Doug, Wow,
38:12
Speaker 1: I mean Jesus, you're so freaking inspiring. How do people
38:15
Speaker 1: get in cant So are you doing coaching now?
38:19
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean I've been. I've been in the industry
38:23
Speaker 2: of mentoring people in their own personal and career development.
38:28
Speaker 2: So whether it's people that you know, are you want
38:31
Speaker 2: to grow a business? Or people are just like I
38:33
Speaker 2: was there are stuck personally. So yeah, I do a
38:37
Speaker 2: lot of a lot of group coaching and individual mentoring
38:40
Speaker 2: of people as well, and I'll continue to do that.
38:44
Speaker 2: What I really want to do is I want to
38:46
Speaker 2: get the message it's in this book. The book is
38:50
Speaker 2: a messenger. I want to get the message that's in
38:52
Speaker 2: the book out any way I can, whether it's you know,
38:55
Speaker 2: speaking publicly like this or on you know, doing keynotes
38:59
Speaker 2: or whatever. But I'll just continue just I want this
39:02
Speaker 2: people to get this message straight in their minds. And
39:06
Speaker 2: my big goals are really changed the world because the
39:09
Speaker 2: world needs a change. So you can find me at
39:14
Speaker 2: dun Dane dot com. That's my website. You can you
39:18
Speaker 2: can order the book through there, or you can of
39:20
Speaker 2: course order it through you know stores are online. You
39:25
Speaker 2: can find me on social just type in Dug Daane
39:27
Speaker 2: da any go to the website, contact me, reach me there,
39:32
Speaker 2: get the book. I'm also running a program where you
39:37
Speaker 2: can actually go through the book with me. So you
39:39
Speaker 2: get the book and then yeah, for sixty days you
39:43
Speaker 2: can hang out with me as I take you through
39:46
Speaker 2: the book and I get on falls live and I
39:49
Speaker 2: help people and answer their questions and hot seat coach
39:52
Speaker 2: and put them in front of everybody else and put
39:54
Speaker 2: them on the hot seat. And yeah, I just, I just,
39:57
Speaker 2: I just want people to get the message and feel
39:59
Speaker 2: better a book themselves.
40:01
Speaker 1: Awesome, Doug, I'm I'm uh so glad I got to
40:05
Speaker 1: meet you today and I'm really excited to share this
40:09
Speaker 1: with my audience. Thank you so much for joining me today.
40:12
Speaker 2: My pleasure. Thank you very much.
40:13
Speaker 1: Take care,