Unlock Your Potential Through Healing Your Past (feat. Doug Dane)

Foreign. Hi, I'm Susan Drum, and welcome to the enlightened executive, where your personal evolution sparks your leadership evolution. Each episode we feature groundbreaking techniques and strategies to help you get the edge in personal and leadership effectiveness. This episode is brought to you by Meritage Leadership. At Meritage, we help strengthen leaders and empower teams to achieve high performance. Go to maritageleadership.com to learn more. Today we're talking about breaking free from adverse experiences from our past and how to thrive both personally and professionally. And I'm grateful to introduce my guest, Doug Dane. After a traumatic past filled with emotional, physical and sexual abuse, Doug beat the odds to find success in his own life, experiencing freedom, healthy relationships, and the abundance he always wanted. Inspired by his troubled childhood and the steps he took to overcome the typical trajectory for someone in his shoes, his first novel, Mistaken Identity, paints a pathway to personal freedom and provides 30 simple life lessons that can help anyone begin their journey to break free from a traumatic past, helping them find a better, happier life, both personally and professionally. So welcome, Doug.

Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

Well, I'm very curious to hear your story and I think it'll add a lot of color around how our past shows up today or how we can actually make sure that we start over and rebuild so that it doesn't influence us in ways that we don't want it to.

Yeah, definitely. We dredge up the past, too.

Well, tell me about your journey. Right. What, where were you then? Where are you now? And what was most impactful along the way?

Yeah, I mean, in the context of what we're talking about and the work you do. I grew up in a very, probably, I guess I'd say a poor family. Parents were both violent alcoholics. It was a really dark place. I landed and I landed this family. I got adopted as a six month old baby. And so for the first number of years of my life, it was experiencing, witnessing trauma, emotional abuse, physical abuse, watching all kinds of violence with my parents, police visits. I mean, it was. It was a dark time. And then 13 through 15, I end up in this ring of pedophiles and sexually abused for two years that ends at. In a kidnapping at 15. And then, you know, like all people, you know, you turn to coping mechanisms. So I turned to drugs and alcohol and I was working in a factory at the time. And I just, I'm watching, I'm looking around and I got these ideas that I'm sharing with my buddies in the factory about I want to start a business and I want to be in sales. And they're all looking at me like I got, you know, three heads, you know, and they're teasing me and. But I kept working there. And I'm watching people really struggle. I go, this isn't for me. So I quit that and I got into business and failed miserably. I had no, I had no experience, no acumen, no nothing, no education. I mean, I barely made it into grade 10. I quit grade nine three times, barely got into grade 10. And so no, no, nothing to start up but just a. I don't know where the desire came from. And anyway, I started a couple business, went bankrupt within a year and racked up a bunch more debt. And then I landed on my feet. And then I went to a seminar with a guy I'd never heard of. His name was Bob Proctor. And that seminar changed the course of this fledgling business career. And I learned a few things, primarily about success and earning money. Because I had just gone bankrupt. I had failed miserably. And I didn't understand why I couldn't earn it. I read a book called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. And there's a. There's a promise. In the book, he says it's mentioned no less than a hundred times. If you figure out the secret, you'll be swept on to success with that. I'm going to make a million bucks by the time I'm 25. Of course I was bankrupt. And so that seminar got me understand why I wasn't earning money. I had no idea had anything to do with where I had come from. So fast forward, you know, I was 23 at the time. I think when I started in the business, 39, age 39, my marriage breaks down. I wrecked it. I was very bad in relationships, very successful in business. I've always been a fairly intelligent guy on the outside, you know, I looked like I had it all together, was doing well, I was enjoying life and you know, nice home, nice car, nice trips, earning a lot of money, more than most people. I was a leader in my field here in the industry. I was in, in Canada. And by all accounts, I was, you know, successful and I was a leader. I was in leadership positions at the time. And the marriage falls apart. I go for counseling. And the lady suggests to me from my family history questions that maybe there's something in my past that was traumatic and abuse. I go, so everything I told you up until now was all blocked out. It came out at age 39 through this counseling. And I put the story together. I hired A private investigator. I got social services records, police records, school records, interviewed family, friends, neighbors, and this whole story just came out. And then I went public with it. I was in the front page of the national news here in Canada, was on television and some other TV shows and books and I just had a, I had a real passion to speak about it because when I went public first off, actually when I, when I got the story straight and clear in my mind, there was so much evidence right there to go. Well, no wonder, yeah what I was doing, no wonder I was feeling the way I was feeling towards my, myself and why I was, I was struggling with all the emotional and physical problems that came as a result of that. And that just gave me great understanding and it was really cool because my perception on the story was now clear. And so my perception towards me changed very fast. And it's like literally the, the shame, the trauma, all the negative feelings, all the negative feelings towards my parents, towards the pedophiles and sorry, everything, it just almost like fell away. It was, it was miraculous. And then I carried on and I kept going and became more and more successful, but there was still, there was still something eating at me and I didn't know what it was. And then it took me a number of years to figure it out. And then I figured out and what I coined or call a mistaken identity. So I had a very mistaken viewpoint about myself and I was still carrying around in my subconscious and in my conscious, still doubt, worry, a lot of second guessing, stuff like that. So I hadn't eliminated everything. So I went from here to here and then from there to here, but I was still stuck from back here, you know, and like I said, dredging up the past and others dredging up the past for you, they like to do that. So that's kind of the. Now here I am. The book came out in April and I've spent, you know, 30 years mentoring and coaching salespeople, managers, leaders, been a leader myself. And now I wanted to help other leaders and entrepreneurs and just everyday people understand why they're mistaken about themselves. They are mistaken about themselves. They've made mistakes, they're mistaken about what they believe. They're mistaken about the way they operate and it's causing them problems and they think there's something wrong with them and there's not, there's just something wrong with what they believe or wrong with the way they're, they're operating.

So I would say they're telling themselves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell me, could you crystallize for Me? What was your mistaken ability? What did you believe about yourself then and what do you know now?

So I. I was in a. I just got goosebumped with that question. I was in this guided meditation with a couple of clients. They wanted to speak at one of my seminars. I go, I'm not having you speak unless I know what this is. I'd never done one. I'm going, all right. I'm going to do this silly guided meditation, right? Because I didn't. I grew up in the corporate world, and, you know, we didn't do this kind of stuff. And so I was in this meditation, and I came out of it, and I had this experience. And they said, can you tell us what you saw? And I go, nope. They go, you. You won't or you can't? I said, I won't. They said, well, you write it down. I said, I'll write it down. And so I wrote down on a piece of paper. And so in this meditation, I met God on a beach. And he said, doug, I'm going to hand you the keys to change the world with your voice and your words. And it was like. It was a scene from the movie Contact. Remember the Contact movie with Jody Foster, Matthew McConaughey? Do you remember that?

Yeah. Yeah.

At the end, she's on the beach. That's where I was. And not long after, there's a. There's a chapter in the book. I got a note. Somebody came to me in a coffee shop. They said, excuse me. I don't mean to interrupt. I don't want you to think I'm weird. I don't want anything. I just saw you over there at the cash register, and, you know, she goes, God told me to write you this note. I didn't really believe in God. She goes, I'm supposed to give you this note. I go, okay. So I get this note, and it's pretty much what I've been saying to myself, because I've been saying, I got these stories I want to tell. And so I had all these experience telling me that, Doug, there's more to you. You're gifted. Your story is a gift. You're supposed to help a lot of people. And I really. I had a strong passion, a desire. But I know now, you know, I mean, me, I don't really have much to say. Even when I went to write the book, I go, what's. Do people really want to read this book? You know, I was just doubting, you know, you. I think we all see ourselves here, like, if you connect yourself to your higher self. If you can stop looking at your mistaken identity, you get, you get glimpses of, of your true self, you know, and if you glimpse at your true self, you see your true self doing things or achieving things. And you, you see these views. And so the biggest thing for me was just continually talking myself out of the very thing that was pulling me.

Yeah, I think, you know, I write about in the leaders playlist that we talked about before in my book, they how our childhood affects our leadership today and our life today. And one of the ways that that happens is we develop a certain set of beliefs and assumptions and a story around who we think we are based on what we had to overcome or how we survived. And that comes with a superpower. It sounds like it drove you to be very successful in business, but it also comes with a liability and it's not constantly being updated. So I find when working with leaders that they're still holding the same version of themselves and as you put it, a mistaken identity than who they are today. But they've had these beliefs that like, this is just the way it is. Right, Right.

Yeah. I love the two terms you use, asset and liability, because I often talk about your personal equity. So, you know, in a home, the home might be worth a million and you owe 500,000. So that's the value of the asset. And then you have the amount of liability of the debt and so you have $500,000 in equity. And so we have a lot more personal equity. But we, we put way too much debt on our shoulders because of our past mistakes and how we feel about ourselves. So what I discovered about this mistake in identity, I was studying a lot about self image because through the work I do and have been doing for the past eight or nine years is really all around mindset and understanding. Not just mindset, but how your mind actually operates, how it works. It is a machine. That was proven in the 50s and 60s. It is a machine. It directs your brain and nervous system. I didn't know that. And when I discovered that I was taught that, I got really excited that I could, you know, direct my control and direct my, my thinking. Well, what runs this machine and your mind is like, like a thermostat would be similar to your mind. It's got a program and it, your self image is basically running the show. It runs your life, it runs your perspective, it runs your judgment, it runs your decision making. It runs everything. And when I discovered that, I really got to figure this out, not just for Me, But I had all these people coming to me that saw the story and saw what I was able to achieve. And what's interesting to digress, when people said to me, wow, look how amazing you are, how well you've done, I always minimized it. I go, it's not that big of a deal. But it is a big deal. I mean, it's a good story. And so I started studying self image. And what I realized was with self image, you can't, you can't just arbitrarily make up a new self image in order to, you know, become a better leader or, you know, launch a business, whatever it is, the new image you're trying to form has to be based on some level of truth, and you must be mistaken about the image you hold yourself. Otherwise you'll drive yourself crazy trying to create a new self image. And so I started looking for, okay, what's the mistake? Where am I wrong? And that's where this mistake and identity idea was born. And what came out of it was basically, is that, you know, when you were little, you arrived here and you were perfect. You know, a little baby and you're happy and playful and everything is great. And then you start imitating the adult. So the first thing happens, you're an imitation. Then when the adults know they've got your attention, then they start drilling rules, values, beliefs, biases, prejudices into you. You have no authority. You don't know any better. You just accept it from mom and dad and from teachers and religious leaders. And then what happens is you start judging. You learn to judge yourself very quickly because the adults judge you. So if you don't follow the rules, you get judged. In my case, I got a lot of trouble and I got, I got hit. And so if you don't follow the rules, then you get judged. They're judging you, they're judging each other, they're judging the neighbors, they're judging your siblings. You're judging, start judging yourself. So at a very young age, you started judging you, minimizing you judging yourself. And the parents did a two. They'd say, who do you think you are, Susan? Thinking you're going to do that? And so all these things get sort of drilled into us and we just, we just go with it and we just accept this self image and then we just carry on. And obviously, like, I was mistaken about me and who I was and who I wasn't, so that I made mistakes and caused problems. I judged myself for that. And then because of two other factors, there's a huge compulsion to conformity in our society. It started in the, around the 50s when commercialism came around. This, all this judgment of course is at play. Keeping up with the Joneses shows up and it creates this fear of what other people think in this fear of criticism. So you know, you're growing up in your life and you're going, you're feeling it, something's off track. You don't know what the right track is, but you feel off track. And it's just because you're mistaken. The parents were mistaken about you, they made mistakes. You're mistaken about you. You've made mistakes. But you've also learned to judge and criticize yourself and others. And you've been taught to live in the past and worry about the future. And that causes a lot of problem for us. A lot of stress, a lot of anxiety.

Yeah, all that. The only real saving grace is to live in the present. It's like everything else is, is a problem.

It's essential because what I didn't know about this mind, this machine, it's got three major rules. Do not worry about the future because you can't control it. Yeah, sure. Keep an eye on where you're going or where you want to get to.

Have a vision.

Yeah, have the vision. That's right. Definitely. Do not talk about the past. Think about the past. Dredge up the past, Everything, anything in the past, if you need it, will show up when you need it, if you need it as you go forward. But most importantly, live your Life literally in 24 hour blocks. And actually that's all we do mostly. I don't know what time you got up this morning, but I got up around 6am and I'm gonna go through my day today and do my best. And then I'm gonna probably fall asleep. I'll get tired around 11 and I'll go to bed and I'll wake up back up at 6am that's my 24 hour window. I might not wake up tomorrow. All I have from 6am on till the end of the day, if I make it through the day. So our mind only works if you're operating in the present moment. That's the proper use. That's where the stress leaves. If you've just one day at a time, you reduce the stress.

Now I will say there is some benefit to looking at the past. And the benefit usually is not living in the past, but looking to the past so that we can change what belief is operating in present. And so I think there is it's not like, oh, just ignore what happened. Sometimes people say, well, do I have to go all the way back to childhood to uncover, you know, the playlist running me? That's what I. I talk about. And you don't have to go all the way back. But my sense is that's where the origin is. And for many leaders, they get better clarity about what's impacting them by looking at that and the assumptions and beliefs that they created. I'm not worthy. I'm not good enough. You know, I'm trapped. I'm not safe. Whatever those core beliefs were that drove you initially, getting crystal clear on those can then help you change them. Right. And so until you know, if you don't know what's happening, you have no power to access or change it, no question.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, if I had not dug up that story, this would be a different conversation for sure. What I mean by that, like in the book, for example, I take you through three parts. Learn, unlearn, relearn. So the first stage is, okay, let's learn about this mistaken identity and a little bit about your story, as much as we need to. So we have an intellectual, objective view on the story, because that's important. You got to. You got to be able to look at it. Because if you can change your perception on the story and not take it personally, then instantly your perception on you changes. And so, yeah, I think we have to gather the facts and gather the evidence and. And put the story together.

Let me pause you right there because I want to ask you about that first part, because in your story, obviously, once you're getting all the records, the police records, you're seeing the, you know, trauma you experienced from your parents and pedophiles, how you, you. Because you sort of glossed over it, but how were you able to, like, let that go? Because for many people, that anger around that or the shame around that would continue to live on. And you were like, well, I just. Once I saw that I could, you know, just let the past go.

Well, yeah, I'm glad you saw me there. So there's a few techniques that my. The counsel at the time, one of my mentors, taught me. And so from the very beginning, she saw me as a business person. And so we took a very business like approach to a data collection. Okay. And because she taught me about Doug, your. Your emotions are running, your thinking. Like, it's a chapter of my book called the Elephant in the Room. Your emotions are like an elephant. And we've been really taught to operate from our emotions. Our emotions run our thinking, and that's not proper use of your mind. And so she taught me this concept of emotional neutrality and intellectual objectivity. And so. And the third one was not taking anything personally because what happened to me, it had nothing to do with me. It just happened to me. And I mean, I got adopted in that family. I think I saved a little boy's life because I survived, but another little boy might not have. And so it wasn't about me. So with those three new rules, I guess, new standards, new policies, I was able to approach the story from that perspective. And it wasn't a little boy assembling the story. It was a grown up man taking a look at this little boy's life. And that's what made it so easy.

Yeah, yeah. Great, great. Tell me more about techniques that you talk about. In the book. You said there's 30 simple strategies. What advice do you have for leaders who either have significant trauma that they're looking to overcome, or maybe it's just minor trauma, but they, they're starting to notice how whatever happened in their childhood is also showing up in their leadership in ways that they don't want it to?

Yeah, I mean, there's a, there's a number of things. I mean, each chapter is a little piece of the story to kind of make a point. And then I, I make the point and I try to change your mind about what you believe or how you operate or, you know, a new rule, if you will. I mean, chapter one is called stop judging. The biggest problem, really the only problem we have in our world is judgment. If we could eliminate that or reduce that, you know, towards others and towards ourselves, we'd be in a lot better shape. And we were just taught to judge. And so most, I think pretty much all of us suffer to some degree or another where we're, we're judging others and we're judging ourselves and people can feel it. You know, I know I've judged people over the years and I'm still practicing not doing it. So that would be definitely a big one. I talk a lot about. There was a piece of scripture, again, I wasn't, I'm not religious, didn't really have a relationship with God at the time. But I kept hearing this piece of scripture called the truth shall make you free. And I like the idea of what that offered, you know, and so I remember reading a great book by Neil Donald Walsh, conversation with God. He said, just tell the truth to everybody every time about everything, and you'll be free. I go, that's a good idea. And so, as a leader and in my work, in fact, a new person just came on board. She goes, doug, you know, I love about working with you because you're so transparent and honest. I don't have to guess at anything. And so truth is very powerful, and it sets you free, but it also sets people you're working with free as well. Grow up is another chapter. We got to grow up. We. We act out too much. We. We have this adult childhood syndrome. We act out, you know, we get upset, we stomp our feet, we get angry, we take revenge. We act childlike because of those issues as a kid. Now, let me look at the table of contents here. There's probably a number more. We lie a lot. You know, chapter two is called you're a liar. I was taught to lie, and I had to lie to survive. It became a habit for me. And even little white lies, that goes back to this idea of truth. But you did mention. You did mention the word shame. So chapter four is called you should be ashamed. I didn't know this. I looked it up in the book. Each chapter starts with a quote or something else. In chapter four, it starts with a definition of shame, and it says shame is a noun, and it's. It's an emotion. Actually, let me read the exact description here, because I think shame is useful, but it's not something you carry around a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety. So shame is good to bring your attention to, you know, a mistake you've made, but it's not something you're supposed to drag around for your whole life. And we were told we should be ashamed, and we tell our employees, you should be ashamed. Or, you know, we. We have this. We just. We have this way. We are taught to live, and we. We transfer, just like parents with leaders. As leaders. We're just like a parent.

Absolutely.

Yeah. We just pass. If you got children, you're doing it to your kids, you're doing it to your employees, you're doing it to anybody that looks up to you. And we have to be a leader in every part of our life. So we have to learn to lead ourselves better, and then you lead others better.

Yeah. I think leaders should take some time to really think about how do they see themselves? What is your identity? Yeah, And. And write everything down, including what are the beliefs you have about you, what are the beliefs that you have about you that you think are empowering, and what are the beliefs that you have about you that are disempowering, get it all out. And because when you see it in print, when you write it down, it'll really hit you in a new way. And then you want to think about, for those ones that are disempowering, what is the story that you're telling yourself that's creating that belief? Because again, it's just a belief. And if it's a belief, it can be changed. Right. So what's the story or what's the version of the facts that you're choosing to put your attention on? And is there, what I like about your book is, is there a new version of the story that you can be telling yourself about what that means?

Well, it would be nice to get to the truth of who you really are and get rid of the lies that you've been told. There was a. When the story first came out, I was working with my counselor. Two books she gave me. It's a little blue book. I think you still get it. It's called All About Me. And you basically just take inventory about all areas of you in your life and your beliefs and all that. And then a book that literally saved my life. It's called the Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Yeah, he had a, he had a companion book or a follow up book. It was basically a workbook. So once you understood how you made all these agreements or you were mistaken about yourself, then he got you to go through and take inventory of all the agreements. And he said something, it's so good. He said, we've been given so much knowledge, we've lost who we truly are. And so he, he basically disseminates this knowledge that you acquired about yourself and these agreements and literally the power of the pen. Like you can't, you can't write without thinking. And a pen forces you to think. We're so used to doing self help in our head and talking to ourselves. Your cellmates yapping over here and your roommate yapping over here. And you just, you just create all this confusion. There's nothing better than just getting your pen out and jotting those things down. Now, a lot of people don't want to do that. And what I realize is that if you don't do this right, you will continue to suffer or your release of it will be incremental. But if you do not face this mistake and identity and get connected to your true self, it's a long road. And I took, you know, I'm 59 now. It took me literally till I was about 57 where I finally got it. I did the book. I thought, this is so freaking. Freaking simple and. And easy. And it could have been so fast. I. I just. I dragged it out. And my mentor, Bob Pro. You're making this so hard. It's not complicated. Just let. Let it go. He said, just let it go. I said, it's not that easy, Bob, because, well, you. You think it's not easy, Just let it go. And there's a chapter in the book about that.

I love it. I love it. So what's one other piece of advice you would give leaders to take an action step today or tomorrow to help shift and know their true selves?

Well, that's a big question. One action step.

Yeah. That starts along the journey.

Yeah. You know what I would do if you're listening to this? Grab a pen, hit the pause button. I was taught by Bob Proctor, my mentor, to ask really good questions if you want a good answer. He said, spend a lot more time coming up with a good question than wasting time trying to come up with a lousy answer. And he said, you can literally Google your mind with good search terms. So I would get my pen out and I would write this question out. I would write out, list all the ways I'm mistaken about myself and all the things that I believe about myself to be true that I could and would do if I could just stop doubting myself. I would make up a question like that and see what. Just entertain the idea of what comes up. But we got to start asking ourselves some serious questions. And the last question that you have to stop asking, and this would be the final thing, stop asking the question, what's wrong with me? You'll never get an answer because there isn't. The question is, what's wrong with the way I've been taught? What's wrong with what happened to me? What's wrong with what I believe? What's wrong with the habits that created my ammo that's causing me problems today? That's a. Those are better questions. But stop asking what's wrong with me, because you'll never get the answer.

Great advice. Well, thank you, Doug. I really appreciate you coming on the show. Thank. Can you tell me where people can learn more?

Yeah, absolutely. The book is called Mistaken Identity. I mean, you can go. If you go through my website@dougdain.com will get your email address, and we'll actually send you the workbook that goes with it. There's a workbook in this book. This is a more of a system and a process, not a book you read. It's a, it's a literally a program in a book over 30 chapters, 30 days or so. But if you go through my website, we'll, we'll send you a workbook. So you have to mark this up and then you can order it through Amazon or, or wherever you like. Of course, you can find me anywhere online on social. Doug Dane D O U G d a n e.com well, if you like.

This episode, you're not going to want to miss my interview with Spring Washam, who's a pioneer in bringing mindfulness based healing practices to diverse communities. Let's all lead the way. Hope you enjoyed today's episode and I'd like to point you to the next important step. Hit the subscribe button to get notified when we release new content. I'll see you on the next episode of the Enlightened Executive.