How fitness saved a life and became a livelihood

Bulletproof Radio, a state of high performance.

You're listening to Bulletproof Radio with Dave Asprey. Today we're going to talk about some pretty deep stuff, going to jail. We're going to talk about addiction and we're going to talk about what you could do stuck in a jail cell versus what most people do in a jail cell and what different mindset happens there. And my guest today is Doug Bubst, who's been on a bunch of media outlets lately and he talks about something called the Adversity Advantage. It's the name of his podcast. I was just on there, I'm talking about Fastest Way. And I was really impressed with the interview. So I'm like, hey, you should come on my show. So we're going to get to talk to a felon, drug addict, at least a former drug addict about, you know, what do you do if you have an infinite amount of time locked in a room. By the way, I'm not talking about the pandemic, just to be really clear, I'm talking about jail. But sometimes they feel similar. Doug, welcome to the show, Dave, man.

Thanks for having me and for that nice little intro.

What I like about your work is that you talk about self destructive cycles people get stuck in. But before we get into the psychology of things like this, tell me a little bit about your story. So, so why did you get thrown in jail?

You have like three days. No, I'm kidding. Well, you know what's interesting is you, you said a moment ago that I have a show called the Adversity Advantage. But when I was younger, I did everything to use adversity to my complete disadvantage. And I was battling a lot of insecurities, trauma, pain in a really unhealthy way. My parents got divorced when I was five. I love sports, but was as unathletic as they came. I never had a girlfriend in grade school and I was always looking for my, for my first way to escape as I think about it. And initially it was through food. As I, as I remember I was eating like cinnamon buns and pasta, a lot bacon, not the good kind of bacon, sausage, like the most unhealthy processed food. And by the age of like 10, 11, 12, I started to gain weight at a young age. So I started asking myself questions like, why am I the only one whose parents in my friend group are divorced?

There used to be a lot of shame around divorce. It feels like that's pretty much gone. Like half of people do it, right?

But back then it was like literally out of my friend group, I was the only one because people weren't getting divorced as frequently. And then I was like, well, what's wrong with me? Why am I wearing husky pants and not a lot of other people around me are. And combine that with, I didn't have the best quote unquote genetics. I started getting pudgy. So of course more, more layers of insecurity, more layers of fear, anxiety, depression, that sort of thing. And I was bullied in school. And when I was 14, one of my friends offered me a hit off a marijuana pipe. And as you alluded to a minute ago, I did go to jail. And I never thought that this first hit of marijuana off a marijuana pipe would lead to me going to jail. I never thought it would start the destructive pattern, but it did. And here's why. When I took that first hit, I felt this huge monkey come off my back. I felt all my fears were gone, all my insecurities. I didn't have to worry was going to find love. I didn't have to worry what my parents relationship was going to look like. I didn't have to worry how I was going to do in school. You know, I was able to numb the pain. So what happened?

Anxiety went down, right?

Anxiety went down, fear went down. I was able to be myself. And then you keep chasing that feeling like it wasn't that. I love the taste of pot. I love the feeling that it gave me. That's why, that's where a lot of kids, especially a lot of people, they go down that rabbit hole because they end up doing it for the wrong reasons. They end up doing it to mask pain. And you can only get high off pot, you know, so much before you have to move on to something else, which is what happened to me. And so I began smoking every day. And then once you're a teenager, smoking every day, you, it becomes a kind of an expensive habit. So I ended up selling a bid on the side to support that, end up creating tension in my, in my family. And my mom and I got into some disagreements and on my 16th birthday I was kicked out of her house and shipped to live with my dad full time. Because at that time we were living 5050 with both my parents changed schools immediately, thinking that that would change my habits, that I would change my friends. And really it just created more layers of trauma, insecurities and pain in my life. And I barely graduated high school because all my friends and I would do is we would ride around, listen to music, get high, eat junk food, and we would just, we would skip class to get high. And by the time I graduated high school, and keep in mind, I was a smart kid. I had aspirations. I mean, I, I wanted to be a lawyer when I was a kid. I wanted to be an FBI agent. I want sports, I want to be an astronaut. It wasn't like I was the kid who just didn't care about myself at all.

You weren't a slacker.

No.

Although you sure sound like one, right?

I mean, I was. I mean, I was in some ways, but in other ways, I still had these, these dreams in my head and I'm like, man, I think I could be something. But my self esteem was so low, it held me back.

Okay.

And as soon as I graduated, I started to actually sell pot to make money. And I met a guy and ended up picking up, you know, a few pounds of pot a week to sell and was flipping, you know, upwards of like $10,000 with the pot a week. And now I was learning how you can make money in the drug game. And what happens when you start selling drugs. You meet more people that are doing drugs. Got introduced to cocaine, did a line of cocaine, and my addictive behavior caught up with me. And one line turned into two, turned into three, and then ended up getting to the point where I was doing an eight ball coke a day. Problem was, here I am like 17, 18 years old, and I had anxiety. Coke and anxiety go about as well together as someone trying to lose weight. And he pizza every day just doesn't work right. And what ended up really bringing me to my knees, Dave, was, was OxyContin. I was like 18, 19 years old, and a friend of mine offered me a 5 milligram Percocet. And that same feeling that I had when I first started smoking pot was the same feeling that I had when I got, took that 5 milligram Percocet. I didn't take it. I snorted it. That same monkey came off my back. All my fears were gone, Anxieties, that sort of thing. And then the 5 milligrams turned into 10, turned into 20 all the way until I was doing 3, 400 milligrams milligrams every single day up my nose to support my habit. I couldn't get out of bed some days without doing 150, 160 milligrams I mean, I was spending hundreds of dollars a day and half my left nostril was missing. I mean, I didn't have a bowel movement for nearly a month.

Wow. So you really wrecked yourself, man.

I did. And one of my biggest setbacks ended up becoming. I mean, in the time I thought was one of my biggest setbacks became one of my biggest blessings. And in Cinco de Mayo of 2008, I was riding around with a few of my friends to make a drug deal. Had a half a pound of pot in my trunk, $2,000 in cash in the glove box, and there was a cop running radar. So I thought it was a brilliant idea to flash my high beams at the police officer because I had a busted headlight that I had been too lazy to fix because all I cared about the time was doing and selling drugs. Flash the high beams at him. Gives him, of course, a reason to pull me over. Pulls me over, comes up to the car. I stammer to pull out my license and give him the registration. One thing leads to the next. I'm out of the car in handcuffs. He's searching it because he suspected suspicious activity. Finds the pot, finds the money, and I'm in the back of this police officer's car. And all the bad choices that I had made in response to my circumstances started to come to a head because I was like, how did a kid who just wanted to be loved, how did a kid who just wanted to be good at sports, how did this kid get here, right? And I was thinking about all of my unfortunate circumstances. I was thinking about the divorce. I was thinking about all the kids that picked on me. I was thinking about the girls that rejected me. And then I was thinking about my response and how that destructive pattern started and where it got me to. And at that moment, like, my heart was in the pit of my stomach. Obviously, my heart's racing. I mean, everything you can imagine. I thought my life was over. I'm taken to jail, and I'm charged with a felony possession with attempt to distribute marijuana. And a few months later, I end up going to court. And you would think, though, during this time that I would try to get my life together. No more pain, more trauma, more anxiety. So I continue to do more drugs. I go to court, is September of 2008, 20 years old. And the judge sentences me to five years, suspends everything, but 90 days, five years probation, 200 hours community service, all kinds of fines, and drug classes. But he looks at me, he's like, doug, you're young. You're 20 years old. This felony conviction is going to haunt you for the rest of your life. He's like, I'm going to make you a deal. I'm like, deal after you. What a deal after you just told me that. He's like, if you complete everything without messing up and you get through your probation, you don't miss any appointments, you don't fail any drug tests, you do your community service, I'll take the conviction off your record and give you a pbj. I'm like, all right, whatever, man. Like, I didn't think I was going to see my 25th birthday, so take the deal. I leave court, report to jail a few weeks later. It was, ironically, a week after my 21st birthday. And what was interesting, though, was as much as I was. I was, you know, I was obviously, I was scared, I was anxious, I was fearful. All the stigmas you think about of what happens in jail was going through my mind. Being this kid was who was unconfident as they come. And then on top of that, I had this horrific opioid addiction to kick. So it's. What's funny is that I. When I walked through jail, I cried because I didn't want to go in. And when I left, I cried because I didn't want to leave, because a massive transformation happened.

And so you were in for 90 days.

90 days.

Do you remember the judge's name?

Yes. Yeah, Judge Waldron.

So shout out to Judge Waldron. That's the kind of judge that we're supposed to have, right? He did use such a solid there. There's something horrific about throwing young people, especially under 25, but especially even more under 21, in jail. Your prefrontal cortex isn't done yet. And as you've already said, you know, addiction is addiction. It's a disease. And locking people up maybe isn't a good strategy, but maybe 90 days is not a bad strategy. So what'd you do in 90 days in jail? How'd you from getting your ass kicked?

Well, I mean. I mean, I guess I mean a lot in that short amount of time. And what happened was I walked in there, and I was scared for my life because, like I said, I was unathletic. I was unconfident. I was the kid who ran away when people would get into fights. I was the kid who never stood up for myself. So I was like, man, I'm like a recipe for disaster in here. And I detox cold turkey from the opiates for three weeks, which was like having the worst case of the flu, like, every symptom you can imagine. But the worst part of it was you feel like you're trying to crawl out of your Own skin, like. And as I look back, it was the old me leaving so the new me could become new. And my soon to be cellmate was sitting there at the Scrabble table and he looked like a more jacked version of Brad Pitt from Bike Club. And he's like, what are you doing here? And I told him a little bit why I was there. I told him I got busted selling drugs. He's like, all right, man. He's like, well, when you get through your detox, you're going to start working out with me. I was like, yeah, right, man. Because at the time I could have been a model for Pillsbury. Like, I was so out of shape, there's no way I'm going to work out in jail. And. And that night I saw him working out and he's doing all these pull ups, like thousands of push ups, running, working out for like hours straight. Who is this guy? And I've been a trainer now for almost 10 years, and to this day, he's still one of the most fit guys I've ever seen. And, you know, a few days later, we're in the cell and we're just talking and he's sitting there and he's like asking me more questions about why I went to jail. Like, well, what happened to you? I was like, ah, my parents got divorced or I was picked on, or I the girls didn't like me. And he said, dude, quit being a victim, man. He's like, you got yourself here. He's like, there's plenty of people that went through the situations that you went through that aren't in jail. And I'm like, yeah, I guess you're right. In that moment, Dave, I didn't get what I wanted to hear, but I think I got what I needed to hear because for the first time in my life, I felt truly empowered because there was this guy who had. He had no skin in the game in my life. He wasn't like a family, he wasn't a close friend at the time who gave me some hard truth. And we just started to build a little bit of like a friendship in there. And after him pestering me about it after, you know, it was like a few weeks went by or something, I decided to give exercise a try. And I remember the first time I went to work out, I was in front of a bunch of grown men in the common area of jail. He's like, all right, Doug, do a push up. I get down and do a push up. Couldn't do one, couldn't Even do one for my knees. I collapsed right on the ground. And I was like. He was like, why, why can't. I was like, why can't I do a push up? And he looked at me, he's like, because you're, you know, you're fat. And I hated that word. And I know that word. People don't like that word. But for me, it. It motivated me because I hate it.

It's a real thing. I was a fat kid. It's all right. People who don't like it, get a therapist. It's okay if you're fat, you can change it. But to try and hide it with another word is not realistic.

Right? And. And so he's like, I don't know what else to tell you, man. He's like, your core's weak. You're not strong. He's like, you're loaded with belly fat. He's like, so you can't even hold yourself up. That's why you can't do a push up. I'm like, that makes sense, right? And so I went to go walk up and down the stairs, like in between sets to take a break, and I could barely walk up and down the steps without being out of breath because I was also smoking at the time, a pack and a half of cigarettes a day. And it motivated me because I was like, man, what the heck have I let myself come to? I was completely, you know, sober from all the drugs at this time. And I remember we. We set a goal to do a set of 10 push ups and run a mile during my time in jail. And he agreed to train me in there every single day for the. For the remainder of my sentence under a few stipulations. One was he set. He gave me like a little meal plan in there that I had to follow, like as much as you could in jail, like, cutting out a lot of the processed carbs, making sure that I was eating my protein and stuff like that. And then I had to show up.

I couldn't quit.

And what happened was just after time, after a few days, I was able to do one push up. And I was like, wow, I never thought I could do a push up. Now I can do one push up. Then what happens? You want to do more of that? Then I was able to do two push ups, three, four, and so on. And then alongside of that, now I was starting to actually run at night. So I would do like the body weight workouts in the morning at one time, and then I would run at night and I would Hold a, a stack of, or a deck of cards, like, you know, playing cards. And every time I would run a lap, I would pass a left, a card for my left hand into my right hand. I count laps in there. And that started building up too. I was able to start running like three or four laps without being out of breath. Five, six and so on. And then by the end of my 90 day sentence, I was able to do that set of 10 push ups and run that mile. And I felt this light bulb go off in my head that for the first time in my life, I was finally going to be able to change my life. I had this different swagger about me. I was walking with my chest out, my shoulders back. I was finally able to get comfortable being uncomfortable. I was finally able to face my fears and face my emotions really head on and learn to channel a lot of that pain into something good. Because we all have pain. We all have a dark side to our past. But it's like, how are you dealing with that? That's what counts, right? You can either let it just sit there and rot inside of you, or you can transfer it into something positive or else you end up transferring it onto somebody else. And I also, for the first time, did the thing that I knew I should have been doing all along. I mean, I knew I should have stopped using drugs. Drugs. I knew I should have started taking care of my health. It just seems so insurmountable. But that's why I love the fact that I just started with doing one push up because you build off that and you build self confidence instead of saying, hey, let's start with 50 push ups. Like, no, start with one. And the other thing it did for me was it gave me discipline and consistency, something that I never had in my life. I was never disciplined about anything. I had 20 jobs by the time I was 21 years old.

Right?

I mean, I couldn't stay disciplined or stay consistent with anything. And when I left, I cried. The last day I was there, I literally cried because I was like, how am I ever going to repay you? And he said, don't mess up and pay it forward. And when he said pay it forward, I had no idea what that really meant. I had never read a personal development book in my life, so I didn't know what being of service man or giving back. And he gave me a workout plan that I still have framed in my place today. So I never forget where I came from. That's big for me. I never, ever, ever want to forget where I Came from.

And is he still in jail?

No, he got out and him and I, we actually had, had stayed in touch for a little while and then, you know, I think he went kind of back and forth and we actually grabbed a few workouts together out on the outside, which was awesome because I was able to keep up with him doing his workouts, which before it was like me doing the little novice workouts and he was in there doing his thing and, and I was motivated and it was more, as I look back when I got out, it was more to not let him down because I felt like this, this unsung, a this unexpected angel came into my life and helped me save my own, helped me save my own life when I think really he was putting a lot of his energy, could have been in saving his own to save mine. And I stayed on the plan he gave me, lost a bunch of weight, got to a place fitness wise where I wanted to help other people use fitness to change their lives. And I became a personal trainer back in April of 2011. So, you know, we're recording in what, the first week of March. In one month it'll be 10 years. And I felt this new high come within me because I felt like I could now pay, pay it forward and pass the torch and show other people what the power of fitness has done for me to them. And, and by the by, literally by the grace of God, as I look back, I built a really successful personal training business out of this wellness center and built relationships with my clients and started to, to slowly tell my story and be like, you know, this is fitness saved my life. And I was in jail and people really started to CL because they were like, wow, like this kid's hyper honest, he's being vulnerable. And people were like, you know, me too. Like, I've been depressed, I've been anxious, I was picked on, I was, you know, overweight and I felt like crap, like, and I could relate to people on their deepest level of pain.

Do you have a girlfriend now?

Do I, I did. I mean, not. I'm not in a relationship now. I mean, I have had a girlfriend.

All right, so you can date too, man. You did all of it?

Yeah. And, and, and, and time flew by and, you know, I. Things started to happen and things started to unfold and I haven't touched the drug, the drugs I was abusing since. And it was, it was in April. No, it was, no, I guess it was the fall of 2013. My probation was up and one of my clients was an attorney. So we wrote the judge a letter for modification of my sentence and he granted me my day in court in January of 2014. I went before him and he held up his end of the bargain. He saw that I completed everything that. That he had given me without messing up. And he took the felony conviction off my record, gave me the pbj. And I never realized how much one's life can change in a matter of seconds. From being shackled as a felon, not being able to vote, not being able to leave the country, not being able to do all these things that I legally couldn't do right to now being a free man. And it inspired me to continue to share my story and ended up publishing my first book, From Felony to Fitness to Free, to help other people make the most their second chance, turn negative into a positive and inspire people also to focus on how far they've come come and not how far they have to go. And also the. The power of choices, man. Like, as I look back and the reason I love the notion of adversity advantage is I made so many poor choices. Whether, I mean, obviously my situation was horrible, but I made so many poor choices in response to that. That made my situation a hundred times worse based on how I handled it. That's what happens to people, right?

Did you hear my podcast with Joe Polish a while back?

I. I don't, but there's. I've been a few people that have been asking me if I.

You gotta check that one out, Joe. Joe's a really close friend who's a massive, massive addict. And you know, you hit rock bottom in different ways. But he's like, all right, you know, I've got nothing. And he started a company, you know, cleaning carpets. And now he's one of the most sought after marketing guys, Internet marketing guys, really close friend. He's taught me a lot about how to do marketing for Bulletproof. His genius network thing is been real transformative for me. But he talks so openly about addiction as well. It's an interview you like. The reason I like talking with you, I like talking with people who've been addicts, is that the patterns that you talk about, these destructive cycles, everyone has them, right? Varying causes, varying degrees, but people respond differently. And it's when you've got some. When you learn something from hitting rock bottom in jail versus hitting rock bottom the way many people do, in all sorts of different ways, emotionally, psychologically, health wise, whatever, it sometimes takes a wakeup call. And I want to know, though, okay, so you're saying you're bullied. You had the divorce when you're five, which is really traumatic for kids, especially depending on how the parents handle it. Right. If you could say, pick the four things that were the biggest cause of the trauma that messed with you. Give me the four of them. In order from the most impactful to least.

I mean, I would say being bullied and being picked on was number one, because it was during a time where I was trying to build connection with people. And then also as a byproduct of that, it inhibited my ability to get girls, I think, because I felt like crap about myself, especially when I was around a group of people. The second thing was definitely the sports, because I loved sports growing up. I mean, I was the kid who watched espn, I was the kid who collected cards, I was the kid who tracked stats. But I was also always the kid who never made any of the teams. And I was just like, what's wrong with me? Why are all these other kids just gifted better than me at this stuff?

So you had bullying and then failure at sports.

Failure at sports. And I think my, as I look back, my parents relationship, I think definitely was hard. I mean, they hardly communicated. It was a rough divorce. So watching that. And then, you know, my dad was. I mean, I love him and I've. We've come a long way, but he was extremely hard on us growing up. And, and that, and that was, that was tough to, to deal with. And then I would say lastly, like, what really got it going for me, as I look back, is my inner circle, the people I hung out with. Like, I thought what I was doing was normal. Again, I believe our, your environment can create a false sense of normalcy. Right. Like if you're around 10 people that are just making poor choices all the time or doing drugs, you're going to think that's normal because that's just how you.

It's who you are. You're a kid. You have nothing else to compare it against. Right, Right.

Yeah. And, and like, I had a lack of identity. And like, it's like looking back now, I always tell people, if you don't develop your own identity, you'll develop it from other people. Right. Because you'll try to fit in. And, and I think I just see that so much now. Like, I wouldn't have done a lot of the things I've done now if I wasn't for my, the people I surrounded myself with. I wouldn't have started a podcast. I wouldn't have written books. I wouldn't have had the courage to talk to people like you. So it was definitely the people I was around. I'm not, I'm not blaming them. Like they didn't force me to do anything.

Your friend circle, you were there for a reason.

Yeah, but I think one of the things that's hardest for people to do is to leave their friend group when they're trying to make a change because they're like, oh my gosh, I've hung around this person for 15 years. We've partied together, we've done all this stuff. But it's like, just remember, like people are choosing not to grow with you. And that's, that's a choice that's on them, that's not on you. And you know, it's like, do you want to be the person who's 40, 50 years old looking back and saying, man, I'm so thankful that I had the courage and overcame my fears to step away from that circle and stepped into a new circle that was with people that had common futures and not common past. And now I have a family now I feel great about myself, I'm doing all these things. Or do you want to be that person that's 40, 50 years old and being like, man, I wish I would have done that. That's what happens, right?

Yeah.

Short, like a short term fear is a lot easier to overcome than long term regret for not making the changes you wish you made a long time ago.

So when you say you're bullied, I mean we can beaten up or they just mean to you, like, what does that look like?

I feel like I was like the scapegoat out of the kids and like I said, emotional. And I started to develop this identity around me based on these, the lies that people, other people were telling me. Then I started to believe them. I started to believe that I was ugly. I started to believe that I looked like this person, I looked like that person. And so what's that do? It completely crushes your self confidence.

It, it's really, it's really crazy what that does some people. You know, it puts you on a spiral that you went on. I know a lot of entrepreneurs who are bullied. I see a lot of them at, at 40 years of Zen. You know, we come in and spend five days and we go through all that stuff. The number of people who are financially successful running companies. Cause they're still proving that they're good enough to the seventh grade bully. It's a lot of people and it's always pain until you're like, that's not why I'm an entrepreneur. I don't have to respond to that anymore. I can actually do it because it is of service to others. And then it's easy to be an entrepreneur. But when you're like, if I fail, I'm not good enough, and then I'm going to go right back into seventh grade mode. It's brutal. I mean, I got bullied a lot, too, but it was. I got the emotional stuff. I also got the physical stuff. But the one thing I learned about bullies is they're bad at physics because I was always bigger than they were. So eventually I'm like, guys, you have a fat kid sitting on you, probably punching you in the face until you stop moving. But I never threw a first punch. I was like, you know, so I was maybe not a nice kid, but when you're bullied all the time, that's how it works. So a lot of my early success was that, you know, I'm good enough, I'm not going to fail. But it creates so much pain. So I'm. I would love to see a lot less bullying because, I mean, look what it. Look what it did for you. Nothing good, right?

And you look back and you're like, well, would I have done differently? I don't know. Because, you know, now it's like, yeah, I would just tell kids to work out and hang out with the best and just know that the way someone treats you is on them, not on you. But if I was like, 12, 13, I don't know if. I mean, I might have understood that, but I don't know if I would have actually done that.

Dude, when you're 12 or 13, your brain isn't fully formed. My kids are that age. Right. And you're there just learning how relationships work. And, you know, you have to fail a few times at things like that. And you can tell them, but the feelings are so strong at that age. So this is why, you know, teachers have to step up when there's bullying. And I know a lot of teachers aren't empowered to step up. You know, they're not allowed to stop it by whatever policies they have. But I'm hopeful that things will shift a little bit more towards that because it's a lot easier to catch it at that age than it is to, you know, catch it when you're 20 and in jail for sure. So you've managed to stay clean for 12 years. Do you ever worry that you're gonna relapse?

No, I mean, the interesting thing is, you know, one of the hardest things, I think, for people to do in recovery, at least in my experience and talking to people, is to reattach behavior to emotion. Meaning, like, I use drugs in response to. To negative emotions that I thought like anxiety, depression, stress, fear. And I was like, all right. It was second nature to be like, okay, I'm anxious. I'm gonna.