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What I believe is common sense, I'm learning is not that common. The public has been left out of so many conversations on community issues, and as a publicly elected official, I want to change this. I want to invite my community in a new space, where you can listen in behind the scenes to the discussions that lead to the decisions that are impacting our lives. In a podcast I named Common Sense, I'm inviting the whole world to see these conversations happening in real time! Subscribe to listen in on these conversations!
What I believe is common sense. I'm learning it's not that common.
This episode is a little different than previous episodes for a really
important reason. Often when I'm asked to speak to a group
and offer encouragement, I tell the story of a man named Don
Smith. This story includes a lot of pain and a lot of
darkness. But along his journey, you also see redemption, you
see hope, and a whole lot of success. Don has worked with
me in private business for over a decade, and I share our
relationship on this episode to highlight some of the things that
helped empower him to defeat addiction, defeat a life,
a crime. And what you're going to see is the role that small
business and community can have in changing people's lives.
About a third of the people that work for me in my private business
come from the sober living community. What you hear on this
episode is the reason why this has become one of
my life's most important purposes. I hope you enjoy this
conversation with a man I deeply admire, my friend,
Don Smith. Don Smith, my boy. Good to see you.
Good to see you. And I'm so glad you're in here just to have this
chat. I want to tell your story. In fact, I tell your story a lot,
as you know, because I know you've had people that have come into stores and
seen you at place and be like, man, I've heard about you when I
speak at events many times, if I'm trying to encourage a group.
I share your story frequently because your story has
incredible impact. It's a story that has some real depths,
but real peaks. And it's a story of what you've
had to overcome and the role that community has in helping people
overcome incredible obstacles. So I want to preface. We'll talk about
some hard stuff today. That's okay. But I want everyone to
know, to hold on through the end of this conversation. It's a real happy story.
And there's a light at the end of the tunnel. We cover some
dark stuff. But I want people to know, man, where this thing is going.
So, man, I'm glad you're here today. You're always vulnerable. You're always, always
willing to chat. And I appreciate that. So thanks. All right, bud. So
we begin, our relationship began back in July of 2010.
Right. Walk me through. Was actually July
6, 2009. That's your dad's birthday. Okay. Yeah, that's right. That's
it. 2009. 2009. Yeah. That's a day I'll never forget.
It changed the trajectory. The trajectory in my life
forever. Sean Lund, who I'm sure
we'll go over some at some point, introduced me
that day, said, hey, I think I can get you a
job. I was doing at the time, I was doing door to door sales for
his brother Shane. And Sean brought me
to the mall and he said, look, I'm going to be really cut and dry
with these guys. I'm going to tell them the truth. And I said, well, I
expect no less. Well, I didn't know what the truth was going to entail. Well,
we sat there for about 10 minutes and gave you guys all the bad stuff.
Hey, he's got a lot of chaos in his life. He's not going to make
great decisions. He is an absolute mess to
manage. But, but if we can capture enough of the good
side, he's going to make you guys a whole lot of money. And
that was pretty much it. And you and Mark looked at each other, went,
okay, we'll take a shot. Yeah, the rest is history. Yeah, that's right. Town
West Mall. When you think about Town west and the food court nowadays,
but back then, man, we had stores and what people don't what. I love to
tell the story of how the Mattress Hub, my, my, my company that we
founded, how it began in malls and we just took advantage of
foot traffic. And that's a whole other conversation, a whole other story. But it was
in the food, the food court at Town West Mall. And I'll never forget,
Donnie, you come walking in now, you had how long you'd been in prison?
I have been. You'd done time. How long did you do before we met?
2009, I had already done a federal
sentence which was just a PV of 18 months.
And I had done and a consecutive 18
month sentence in the state. So I paroled to my federal
detainer and went and did that. So 36 months total with good time, about 30
months. You come walking into this food court, you had white shoes on, you remember?
White dress shoes on. And I remember thinking and you were. And you literally and
you, and you said, hey listen, I'm gonna give you the best I got. I
need a job, I need to work, I need to provide.
And we threw you in the mix. And sure enough, Sean wasn't lying, man. You
got right in and started selling and right out of the gate became one of
the top salesmen in the entire region. So that, that was
a fateful day. But there's a lot that came before
that. Like what helped me understand now your life
how did you get to that point to where you just finished over 30 months
in prison. You're sitting in a food court with me talking about needing a job
in a mattress company to sell mattresses. Like this life
of addiction, this life of crime. Like, how did you get to that point?
Well, you know, looking back now, I
could tell you exactly why. And I
guess probably it's connected to the how. But what had happened
with me is I was actually raised in a good home. Great. Your parents
are incredible. Yeah. Played sports my whole life,
at least in my youth, you know, and every
day was wrapped around athletics, soccer
in particular. But I had something happen to me
when I was 10 or 11 years old that was a traumatic
experience in my childhood. And what
happened was I held this. And it was this
vulnerability point here. It was a sexual
molestation. And what. And what happened was I held that in. You
know, I. My dad was my hero.
I didn't want to tell anybody about it. You know, kids don't know. And this.
This person told me, if you ever do, I'm going to kill you. I'm going
to kill your parents. So not knowing how that would
manifest itself. It did. And that's why I have such
strong beliefs and effective coping mechanisms for
trauma responses that lead to addiction, in my opinion.
Because all of that stuff that happened in my home, now, it was
semi broken. My dad was divorced, but I was raised by my
stepmother. I never really had a biological mother.
So knowing all that and now looking back,
it was really, I got into some things in high school
that were really, really bad and fell in with bad people. Cared more about
image than everything. Yeah. And started using drugs
and. And it led to incarceration little bit
by little bit, and then into big things. I mean, it's just
how it happened. Yeah. You're right about your dad
and your stepmom, who I know. They are wonderful. She's a faith filled
woman. A lovely, lovely lady. And you're right, this thing
kind of crept up on you. It began with
associations, it began with friendships, and then it became addiction. And
addiction grabbed a hold of you in ways that you
probably never thought could happen. Walk me through, Donnie, what that
drug of choice was for you. I know I'm asking you to be vulnerable, but
I want people to understand. Understand. I'll tell you. And you know, my
family's history. I have wonderful parents. And my parents made a
decision for me and my siblings to move us from an
area. We were very, very young because of a lot of addiction and a
Lot of crime. That was generational in my family. Sure. I've seen my
whole life a lot of addiction. I've seen a lot of violence
with family members and it caused me to
have more of a calloused opinion towards addiction. Yeah. When I saw the
brokenness that addiction created when years ago, it moved me to anger,
it moved me to judgment. It wasn't until really my
relationship with you and a few other people in our organization to where I
began to understand the dimensions and the complexity around addiction.
And it caused me to want to move, to be more
involved in trying to right the ship and help people right the ship in their
lives. Tell me about what drugs did to you and what that was like.
Um, so the drug addiction,
what it did to me personally was obviously it
impacted my ability to make a sound decision. And
when you start using drugs at a young age, it.
Everything biologically and, and in your
brain and, and so forth, it stops. You stop maturing. You know,
now that I have teenagers, I see, you know, man,
like my son Sean, he didn't figure it out until he was 22
years old, 21 years old. So what the drugs
did to me was it, it stunted my ability
to make a really sound decision. My, my
element, my tolerance for risk was
just off the charts. Any risk taking behavior.
My drug of choice was stimulants. You know, I never got
wrapped up into the benzos or the, or the
painkillers. You didn't want to slow down you wanted to speed up. Yeah. And that's
in my nature. You know, I do believe that some of this, you know,
I can understand how people can't relate a lot to
addictive behavior or addiction in general because they
don't understand the one, like I said, the trauma response
and, and for two, the, the neurological issues
that causes my, my biological mother is an addict.
So, so I think all those components together, what it led me to do was
just to make awful, awful decisions when it comes to risk.
And very self serving. Yeah. You know, I was just get for
me and get it for me now. Yeah. And that addiction
causes you to want to feed that addiction and you start making
decisions that are poor decisions to help feed
the, that addiction and to keep that turning. So you come
aboard, man. We have a wonderful relationship for a few years. Things
are going really well. You're having incredible success. You made me a promise
that day in the food court because I was tepid, I was
cautious. I wanted to take a shot on you because I saw capacity
and ability and I wanted to help you. Right. The ship. You made a promise
to me that day because I was asking you about, you know, things that you've
done in your past. A lot of white collar crime, a lot of fraud crimes.
And I said, I'm going to bring you into my organization. How do I trust
that you're never going to steal from me? And you made me a promise, Said,
I promise you I'll never steal from you. We'll talk about a little bit later.
But I had the United States Secret Service
confirmed to me that you never stole from me. Yeah, we'll get to
that. We had a lot of good years, and we're really, really
having a lot of success. And you were having success, but in the background, the
addiction still existed. And you had relapse after relapse
after relapse. And then. And it caused us to have to
part ways. Yeah. What was the year and what led to that?
And walk me through that decision and the fateful day that you and I
talk about frequently. Sure. So what happened was
2009, I was, of course, sober and clean. Still
hadn't addressed anything that would help
with coping mechanisms. Okay. That wasn't until later,
but. So at the time, what I was doing is I was on my own
free will out of what small sense of integrity
I think that I might have had. I tried to keep it together, but
the outside factors kept impacting that.
And with. With. When you are wired
differently, and I do believe that addicts are wired
differently, when you're wired differently, that doesn't take
accountability away. That's the changing. That's the element to
change. But what happened was I went back to those old
triggers and those old responses, and I started using again.
Actually, it was for the. The beginning of it was because I wanted to
perform more. I wanted to. I wanted to be part of something.
I wanted to be number one. You know, how my insatiable need to be the
best. So I would. I would tell
myself, hey, I've got to use. I've got to use. I got to have more
energy. I've got to do this. And what that led to was
another addiction, which was gambling. Yes. And then the gambling
addiction became so overwhelming that I couldn't pay
my new found. You know, I've got bills now. You know, I've got a car
payment. I've got rent. Couldn't pay that stuff. And you once told me, he was
like, man, you know, it was at the end there, you know, I was getting
ready to turn my. When I was. Didn't Know that when I was getting ready
to run, you're like, you're legitimately the only person I know that commits
crimes to pay his bills and a you know I had the
Escalade and all that stuff. So the gambling addiction
fueled the other I. Staying up, going to work, going to
gamble, coming home, going to work, going to gamble. It's all, all intertwined.
And, and so getting caught, getting indicted.
Yeah. Again, by the feds the second time. So let's
pause for a second. Yeah, it's a big deal. When I hear the term.
Let me back up. When I heard the term indicted years ago,
that would send a chill down my spine. I mean, that's a significant
word to be used by people that are trying to function and be normal human
beings in society. When the first time you've been indicted, when the first
felony that you caught, we had to terminate our business
relationship, you had to go about your ways and you. And you tried to feed
your habit and pay your bills through getting back involved in crimes. And
what happened? How did this thing devolve to where an indictment was
what came of this once on the. Radar, always on the radar. I
was doing such significant amounts of fraud
that it caught the attention of the Department of
Justice. When you start when there's that much money
and there's that. It wasn't just check writing scams. You know, I had taken, I
had taken my ability to communicate and used it for
evil, basically. And the impact it has
on society, the state says here, you go to the feds, and the feds say,
okay, we're going to play ball now. And so again,
that was my. The first time was kind of a tap on the wrist. I
kind of got wrapped up in something, but some postal things
made it federal. The second time was just because I was out there guns
blazing. So that's what happened. I got indicted. And it's a very
scary thing, man. Yeah, you're indicted,
you're, you get arrested, you go through court. Do
you take a plea deal? Yes, you take a plea deal and you're waiting
to go turn yourself in. And right now I still have you. You come back
and I'm giving you some employment. Try to pay the bills and set yourself up
to go. You're going to turn yourself in. How long you looking at when you're
turning yourself in? Remind me. I was just looking at four years
because I just, I pled it down to two. They knew, hey,
you've been working, you've been doing this. I think you could probably have a positive
impact on society. They really were giving me a chance. So I pled
to a four year no contest. Just. Hey. Two counts run
consecutive for aggravated identity theft. Two counts, four years.
That's what I was facing. Yeah. Four years. And
you were prepared and you were gonna go do it. And then something happened, something
broke. Yeah. What happened? What happened was I picked up again.
I had stayed sober for nine months while
I was out on pre trial services working at the Mattress Hub. I lived at
an Oxford house and I was doing all the things that I'm capable of doing,
but. But still not learning, still not applying the things
that keep me sober today. So I picked up again
when it was time to go. I didn't want to, you know, the fear of
going back, the anxiety. I went to my old
cover the pain mechanism of using, and that's,
that's why I always used was to cover the,
the ability to feel. You know, you just don't want the ability to feel.
Sometimes no matter how pain manifests itself in you, whether
it's sexual abuse, whether it's
violence that you live around, all those things are all just
the using is the symptom of the problem. You know, the real
problem exists in what you're trying to cover. Yeah. Yeah. And
you ran. Time to turn yourself in. I talked to you one day
you're heading down to Texas to turn yourself in. All of a sudden I get
a call. Nope, he bounced. He's on the run. What's that like?
Yeah, I, I just decided
to take matters. Like I said, my tolerance for risk, man,
was always at an all time high. Yeah. People
would be like, dude, I can't believe you're doing this. You know, like Evil Knievel
but in other ways.
So I got to, I got to Dallas actually,
and I was going to a Texas federal prison and I had gotten
self surrender. They gave me self surrender. They trusted me enough to get myself there.
And I, I got out in Dallas and said, nah, not going and came
back to Wichita. But you had such an impact on
me. You had reached out to me and said, hey man, what's
going on? They're looking for you. You know I found you. Yeah. Yeah. So I
actually called you and I remember it, I could see it
in my mind's eye today. I did it, Ryan,
honestly, because I think in some subconscious way I
wanted you to talk me out of it. And, and, but I did want
to say goodbye to you. There, there. There's always,
you know, the prodigal son. There's always that
spirit. You know, I was raised In a Christian home, I was raised to do
right. And I just wanted to
talk to one person in my life that brought me
some peace, you know, and that was you. And you talked me out of
it. Yeah, I remember that conversation. We're
on the phone. At that point in time, you had
your oldest son, you had two daughters, you had Sean,
and then you had two young boys, little boys. One Jackson
was. That's right. She was pregnant with Jackson. That's right. So Jeter was two
years old. Yeah. And Jackson. She was pregnant with Jackson.
I remember telling him, like, Donnie, bud, turn yourself
in or you'll be on the run forever. Your daughters, your.
Your sons, your kids, you'll be on the run forever if you turn
yourself in. I made you a promise that day. You did
that. If you turn yourself in and you do your time. And at that point
in time, we were looking at four years. Yeah. And they said if I didn't
turn myself in, I was looking at eight. Yeah. Turn
yourself in. If you do it, I promise you, every week, I'll
keep you posted. What we have going on here, I'll keep you ingratiated. What we're
doing, we'll do Bible studies together. Well, you go, it's. You'll. You'll be in
Texas, but I'll keep you linked into what's going on here. And the day you
get out, you walk back into a job and a career, you walk back
into protection, you walk back into stability, and we'll walk through this together.
And. And I tell people all the time, and when I speak in
groups, I tell. It was the greatest sales job I've ever done,
was to talk you on the run. Looking at four years into turning around,
going and turning yourself in and paying
your dues to. To amend the rights and to
get right with society again. And I didn't think
it'd work. I thought, you keep running, but you didn't. You
turned yourself in, you did your time. Tell us about that.
It was. It. Probably the single hardest thing I've ever done
is be in charge of giving your freedom away. But it wasn't
mine to have. You actually kept me on the
phone. Walking into the prison. I remember. Yeah.
To the. To the U. S. Marshal's office and
said, hey, here I am. Okay, I've got to go now, you know, and they
took my phone. It. You know, I
say meeting was, it changed the trajectory of my life, but that,
that. That probably was the single most defining moment.
And I went. I did my time. As you know,
they allowed me to get into a residential drug program, which I wasn't really
qualified for because of the length of time. I kind of fell into a space
where, hey, you get 18 months, you get a year off your sentence, and six
months at a halfway house. Yeah. So I, I got. They got me in there. That's a
God thing, man. Got me in there. I was right into
a drug program where I became, like a senior mentor in that program.
Actually gave a speech at the prison in front of the Warden and
all. I remember. Yeah.
Man. Yeah. You know, thinking back on that, you
emailed, you kept me in the loop, gave me. If. It gave
me a sense of belonging, which is, you know, at that point, it's what you
need, you know, and it got me through. It got me through the. It's
about 22 months when you take all the time off that they give
you the good time, the time for the program, and then the six months, at
halfway house, which I went to, but
it. Every. Every week getting an email from you
about numbers, which at that time, is what I live for. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, and it wasn't.
It was. Certainly wasn't as fearful. I
wasn't as fearful as I was, you know, to go face that when it was
happening. But also, my walk with God,
my real walk with God started there. Yeah. Yeah. You
had a reckoning moment in a prison cell to where you realize
that who you were is not who you wanted to be. And you didn't have
the willpower to change these things on your own, as you needed divine intervention. You
needed new life, new creation. I did. And that's what
broke these chains of generational rebellion, man.
That's what did. Was a spiritual moment for you.
Yeah. You get out, you come back to Wichita. You come walking in my
office. I didn't recognize you. You had lost, I don't know, 80 pounds.
Yeah, it was wild, man. You were all chiseled up. And. And.
And, man, we threw you right back into the mix, as we promised. Yeah. But
it was not easy. And this is the part. Donnie, please, man. This is
the part I want people to understand. Because historically,
in your life, when you finally got right and you finally started
moving in the right direction, the first barrier that came
up against you, you went back to the old trigger. You started using again. And
then the cycle repeated itself, and you got out of prison with a
scarlet letter F on your chest. Felon. And you had a
guy that was telling you, come on, I'll live up to this promise. We'll put
you back in the store. We'll get you stability. But, brother,
the barriers kept coming, right? Speed bumps were there,
but this was different. You had changed. You weren't going to
allow these barriers to get you back into using again.
What were you facing when you got out of prison? Walked into my office,
Paint the picture of what you were up against, from your. From
housing to financial to all of it. What were you up against?
When I got out, I had nothing. I had lost so much weight. I had
no clothes waiting for me. I had. You know, when. When you live
a life like I lived, where. When you're an
addict, okay, you. The people that you are
literally organically forced to be around, okay,
they can't give you anything. They can only take. That's right.
And. And I was accustomed to giving
and, you know, sin for a season. I had things, and when I got there,
I had nothing. Nobody. Nobody sent me anything. My daughters,
they kept me together. They did.
So when I got out, I had no money. Zero. Aubrey
came and handed me 500 bucks cash. You know, it's a humbling thing for
your daughter, your adult daughter to come give you money.
Maddie had at the time, had boyfriend that wore my size,
got me some clothes. So I got this. Care packages for my
adult daughters, and I went to take on at the halfway house and live there.
What I was facing was I hadn't had a driver's license in 20
years, literally. I mean, I was driving around
50, $75,000 cars with no driver's license. I
had no driver's license. I had $14,000 in
restitution, crime and punishment restitution that they had came back
that they didn't get while I was incarcerated. I had a
$200,000 worth of debt, and $55,000 of that was
with the IRS. So that because they went back to all those years, I didn't.
I mean, you know, that stuff just kept coming and coming and coming. I
decided. And this is a Jesus thing, okay?
When Jesus delivered me from picking back
up, okay, and made it to where I wasn't,
you know, powerless, so to speak. And I'll. And I'll
get into that, but I. I've never. The. The definition of powerless
doesn't apply to me. When you have the power of
Jesus Christ, okay? When he took that
from me, when I actually. When I made that real heart
change, Jesus looks into each one of our hearts. He knows
what what real change looks like. And then the blessings kept
coming. But what I had to do was put in the work, okay? And I
drilled down on my W2 job with you
and worked my way back, back from the halfway house that was taking
25% of my net income. Worked through that
and went to. I took $7,000 to get my driver's license back.
I was habitually revoked. Yes. Okay, like
10 driving on suspended and revokes. So I paid those off ticket
by ticket, by ticket, by ticket. And I made.
I made it a goal, a performance goal out of
each thing, each obstacle to this day, on my dresser in my
bedroom, I have the book, a little Serta book that
Skip Hill gave. Me that I kept notes of.
Paying down your debts. Everything, every goal. Scratch every
ticket. Scratch. Every debt, scratch. I filed bankruptcy.
I was chapter 13. I got in front of all my back child support.
I ended up getting. I had, you know, years
and years of not paying child support. I mean, literally $300,000 worth
of debt. And I paid it diligently.
Diligently. It took me about six years to get it all paid. Yeah. And
you did you get a paycheck money go to debt. You get a paycheck
money go to a debt. You were living in your daughter's garage for a period
of time on a bed. You gave me. I gave you a mattress. You were
living in your daughter's garage, working,
paying back debt. But this is the point where most people break again.
This is the point where most people say this is too much. And they go
back to doing what put them into the predicament to begin with because they
go back to what's known. They go back to the default button. They go back
to using to. To cover the callus. They go back
to using to cover the pain, to ignore the pain. But you
didn't. You. You stayed the course. Society
said, you owe us a debt and it was justified.
It was. And. And you said, and I'll pay it and I'll
pay it. And this is that. I think the point. Because I want to transition
a little bit as to why. Well, let me.
I want to. I want people to know what. What is now your story.
But this is part. We're going to talk about shortly
how this changed me too. Most people that have heard me
speak know that about a third of my workforce in private business comes from a
sober living community. Sure. I truly believe. And accountability.
I truly believe on the flip side of that coin, that when society tells
you, a judge tells you, our system tells you this is the debt you owe
to become right again in society and you're willing to do it,
that we need to do a better job of incorporating people back into
society and helping them to make amends again. And
this is why a third of our workforce is now from the sober living community.
This is something that's become ministry for us. It's something that's become part of my
life's purpose. And you're one of the reasons why you and several other people
that we'll talk about. But you did this. You paid it
off. You worked, you worked, you worked. You had an
insatiable desire to, to
live righteously and to have a positive influence on the environment
that you're in. You, I'm telling you. And you, and I laugh about it. This
thing, this concept of new life, new creation. It's funny because
sometimes you have to recount. I asked you to do it publicly from time to
time to recount your old life. Yeah. And you have a hard
time relating to it because it seems so foreign to you, doesn't it? It does.
That dude doesn't exist anymore. No. It's incredible. So,
so to kind of expand on that a little bit. So
I just, I was ministering a couple of days
ago, I did a favor for a friend and there was a
couple of people that I know from my old life. They're a new recovery
guy, works at Cessna now. He's really trying, you know, same
kind of, you know, background during the use. And,
and my best explanation always is to put Jesus first
and say, I can't break it down and
explain to you the spiritual transformation that would take place. If
you believe. But if you believe, let me tell you my story.
I tell my story and all these people know, this guy asked me, said,
how do you, what happened with you to where you even seem like
a different human being? And that's always a good segue for the Jesus conversation,
you know, because. Well, I'm. Yeah, but, but
for me, I'm just going to tell you this. It's, it's, this is the
metaphor because I'm a sports guy and I use sports metaphors. You know, you're a
Yankees fan. It's easy to be a sports fan if you're a Yankees fan.
And not lately. But anyway, I just, I, I say if
you stack enough wins, stack enough
wins in between your last fatal
mistake that you made, whether that's a relapse, whether that's a
violent episode, whatever's attached to it, if your last
bad mistake, what you can consider with your own best self
awareness is a bad mistake, stack enough wins in
between your, your most recent win and your last
fatal mistake. One of these days, you'll look back at your life and you won't
recognize it. And that's exactly how I feel. I tell
these stories, and they don't seem like me. Yeah. You know, well, I remember
you. I remember that guy. But this guy is incredible. This
guy inspires me. So you've stacked some wins. Tell us about the wins,
man. How many days sober? Tell us where your life's at right now and what's
been happening the last, what? 12 years. 12 years.
I have been clean from all illegal drugs, man, for 12 years. And I
don't know how many days, but it's on my phone ever
since that day, Ryan, that you talked me in there, I've been sober
since September 4th of 2013.
I never picked up drugs again. I also quit smoking
cigarettes that day and never picked those up again. But
what's been happening? Well, I paid off all my debt. How much total?
A little over $350,000.
I now, in truth, a lot of that was wiped away with a
bankruptcy. But 60 months of chapter
13, where they took out of your check, you can't change your job.
They violate it. They just like anything, they'll take it away.
So I married, literally,
I mean, a saint. Yeah. Way out
kick my coverage. A woman that agreed.
Not at my advice. I said, hey,
think this through. You don't want to do this. She's, you know, my age. She's
56. And she took on these two boys that I've been
raising. Yes, I had them. I had custody of
them. You know, full custody. I procured after, you know, X
amount of years of clean time. I also got gained custody of
my son Sean. Yep. Who. Yeah. Who's
now a United States Marine. He's a Marine.
Really? I told you I wasn't gonna cry today, but he made. He makes
me extremely proud. So I had custody of all three of my kids,
paid off all my debt, have excellent credit. I worked my way up from
a position that you gave me as a third
option in a sales floor that was for two. Only needed to.
Yeah. For two people. Worked my way up to a manager, then
worked my way up to regional manager over a collection of stores and
then became the director of sales for the
Mattress Hub. I am also a. I want to call it
a business now, Business Owner, llc, that.
It's called Salt and Light. Furniture liquidations, of course. Salt
and Light Reference. We want to be the salt of, you know, the earth
and the light of the world. My wife and I, we buy semis a
very very low price furniture, and we don't raise it above wholesale.
And we help out people that need, that can't afford
retail furniture, and we give a percentage of
that back to the sober community every month, too. Sure do. So,
yeah, those things have all happened. I'm bought. I'm now in my second home
that bought. I mean, life is good. I'd
say, man. Life is good. I'm proud of you. Thank you. What are the
components, man, of the successful recovery? Let's talk about recovery in general.
Talk about what we do in our company and why this moves our heart so
much to pour into people in the sober living community to give them a
chance the way you got a chance to give them and equip them with the
tools to have success. What are these components, man, of successful
recoveries? Well, again, my components were this, all
right? And it's hard to
explain to people until they are at
a point in their life where they have to surrender. And,
and this. It's not the cliche surrender that
the, the programs teach you. I have nothing
against the program. I went through it. But the, the surrender is
surrendering your, Your will, your life to God. I can figure it
out on my own. I, I really, you know, I could,
I could do good for or, or perform
for us for a time. But the trauma responses
that I, I know that I experienced, that
affected my decision making. I couldn't do it without God. I couldn't do it
without Jesus. So there's the first component. As you surrender, you say, hey, man,
I mean, I can't do this alone. So it takes self
awareness. Yeah. If you don't, if you can't, if you don't have the ability to
look at yourself in your own liabilities, which I'm painfully aware
of, that I still have your vices and your liabilities. If you
can't make an honest assessment of what's going on.
Right. You might not know why you make the decisions you make.
But the actual assessment, saying, look, that's. This isn't
fundamentally right. Yeah. Okay. Then you get, I. You ask
God, you ask Jesus for help. Guess what he's kind of figured out.
Yeah. Okay. So the first component is Jesus. The second
component is work, work, work.
God doesn't. When people say, well, God will provide. Well,
God doesn't provide the birds food. Okay, all right,
he does, but he doesn't tell them where it's at. They got to go get
it. Okay? So you got to put in the work. You got to be willing
to do the hard stuff. In a society that
kind of teaches a little bit different about what you
deserve. I didn't. I. I know I was saved
by grace. I deserve nothing. Okay. So I
surrendered to Jesus and I put in the work. And then when you
achieve real things, tangible things, when you achieve
those things, it's a reward. Yeah. That you can. That you
can't put into words, especially when you've been a massive failure. Stacking
wins. Stacking wins. And we talk about that a lot. When you stack, wins,
you gain momentum. You gain momentum. And absolutely. Other people start seeing you
stacking wins, they start believing. Believe in. When you start stacking, wins, you start believing
and that momentum carries. And then you rally community around you, rally
fellowship and other people around you to cheer you on and say, we got you.
And if there is a setback, we got you. We got you. Let's keep moving.
Let's keep moving forward. This has become ministry for you. This has become
ministry for me. I said. Like I said, a third of our workforce is in
the sober living community. We've had some incredible successes.
You've created a ministry out of this. Yeah. We have people
in our organization now that have similar tracks
as you. Now, I would. I would venture to say that nobody really has quite
the resume of Don Smith, who they used to call Gotti.
Nobody has that resume in as much as your
story does. But, man, we got a few people running around in our organization
right now that have had incredible success. Tell them. Well, there's a
couple of guys that I could speak specifically about. Emil
Fisher. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. You
know, without telling too much of his story, but I'll take
liberties because I know what he would tell. His is. His is a heart
change, too. A guy grew up, you know, around
these. These things. These influences
that were around him and. And whatever drove him to use what he used.
He's overcome opiates, and he's such a wonderful human being
and such a great person. He's. You know, when you.
When you strip away all the madness and all the drugs, man,
you get down to what the real person is about. Come on, you know. Yeah.
Because what we see often is the junkie. Yeah. What we see often is what
the junkie does to feed his habit. But when you're able to find success
and sobriety and you begin to see people, because broken people do
broken things. But when you start helping them repair their lives, you
start seeing them for who they are. That's right. And with you,
with Emil Fish here, a beautiful human being, man, who. I
mean, this dude. When he walks in a room, he lights a room, and
he just, he's a. I mean, you can see in his complexion, you
see in his. In a smile, you see what health looks like.
And that is, and I'm going to use this term sheepishly, but that
becomes addicting. And you start seeing what happens when people
have life change. And you've supported that life change and given them the stability of
what, work and a stability of a healthy environment. And now
Emil just got married. I just did his wedding ceremony
recently. He just got married. He's worked with us now for seven years
total. I've had to fire. I fired him three times in the midst of his
addiction. But we got him in a good place. He's doing well now. He's
also doing side businesses and side ministry to help to
grow himself. It's incredible. We have other guys. I think of Zane. Zane,
this is a guy who's been sober now for a couple of years, and it's
been really hard, but we didn't abandon ship.
Come on. I want to talk to some of my small business people. Listen, you
have to steward your company. There has to be accountability. There has to be
standards. And anybody that knows that our company, there are standards, there's
accountability. If you are trying, and if you are trying to live
in a sober living, we will support you. But if you are not sober, you
can't work here. That's right. You cannot work here. But if you are willing to
put in the effort, we'll put the infrastructure in place to support you. Absolutely. And
this is a guy who again, is now been sober
an extended amount of time. And he's flourishing. He's flourishing now. He's
in the process of where you were midway through. He's having to pay back bad
debts and old debts. But we're walking him through this and we're
encouraging him. And there is more. This
ministry of digging into the sober living community and
helping to find purpose and stability and training and growing them,
not just professionally but personally and mentally and emotionally and
spiritually. It's. It's rewarded us immensely.
Yeah, but there's also been pains because
anytime, as I said, when you deal with broken people, they sometimes do broken things.
And we've had. We've lost some of these people. Yeah. Tell us
about a couple. Well, one of the people that we lost
is my best friend,
that Sean Lund, recently to
Fentanyl, you know, you know,
he was my example for so many years.
And his, you know, at
least what we can gather, started as a physical pain because of
addiction, of food addiction. And his body starting to break
down. And he, you know, at first, painkiller after
13 or 14, 13 years of sobriety. Yeah. Back
was hurting, wasn't feeling good. Someone gave him a
painkiller. Yeah. And that painkiller led to more
painkillers, which eventually moved into fentanyl, which was an
addiction that he physically could not overcome.
We sent him to treatment, I think we sent him to treatment twice.
Relapse, relapse, relapse, until one pill and he
was found one morning. Yeah, I remember the call when you called me that
morning, 5 o' clock in the morning, you called me to tell me.
Yeah, you know,
I was prepared for the call. I told him. So
I. The last conversation we had, I took him to Scotch
and bought him lunch, you know, he called me, said, hey, man,
I'm hungry. Yeah. And I was like, well,
you know, I just happened to be on your side of town, if you're on
the east side of town. He said, well, I'm getting ready to walk to Quick
Trip and get a hot dog and a water. This is a guy that once
had $300,000 in his retirement account. Yeah. I said,
you know what? And this is during a sober time. He
had like 40 or 45 days back in. So we were talking again
daily because. When he wasn't working for us, he couldn't work for us at the
time because his addiction just limited his productivity. Yeah, yeah.
So he was, he had been about just clean 40 days, but he was having
a really hard time staying clean, you know. And I said, where do you want
to eat? And he's like, well, anywhere. And I said, yeah. And he said, the
Scotch, of course. I want an Ernie cut and I want
twice baked potatoes. Oh, yeah, he was gonna eat. Yeah. You know what I
mean? So I took him to the Scotch and I fed him in. The guy,
he just weeped in his plate, man. Broken, Broken.
And. And he told me, he said, man, he said, I've never
been so gripped by anything. He said, the other day
my dealer came by and I told him to leave
and I didn't want anything. And as soon as he left, five minutes later,
I was trying to call him. And he said while I was
making the call, I prayed to God to not let him answer.
He said, he said, I couldn't stop myself from making the
call, but I didn't want him to answer deep down. So it's such
a complex issue, and that's addiction for you, you know,
Mark Weiss, another guy we tried. I baptized him
at your church. That's right, man. This is a guy who actually did
four years in federal prison for bank robbery. Young guy, I think he was.
He was at K State when he robbed a bank. Yeah. A lot of trauma
in his history. A lot of brokenness. There was suicide in his family. It
was. But he was. And you told me.
He said, man, this guy, you met him, he was in a halfway house in
Wichita. And this was a guy said, he's incredibly talented.
And. And what did we do? We're like, okay, let's see if we can help
this kid. Let's get him some structure. Let's see if we can right size him.
And for a period of time, we did, man. Like, he was excelling and
having incredible success, but again, the
default button, he kept pushing and broken people started doing broken things. And he had
no catalyst for why he wasn't willing to surrender
who he was to become something better. And. And we lost him,
too. Yeah, we lost him to a fentanyl overdose. Fentanyl overdose, yeah.
So that's two. Personally,
obviously, Sean, I was the first time I've ever
faced grief in my life. You know, I mean,
everybody. I'm blessed. Everybody in my life is still alive, even
at my age. My parents, everybody, my sisters, Everybody's thriving. And when
he passed, there's no way to really prepare for that, you know? Yeah,
just. He's gone. Yeah, he's gone. Yeah. So,
yeah, we lost those guys to fennel, you know, and. And it's.
It's an epidemic, man. Yeah, it's killing a generation. There's over 200
people a day nationally that die from
fentanyl overdose. The fentanyl now that's invading our community
now is changing. There's this thing called tranq that's
making its way towards our community that is actually narcan resistant. I
mean, the opioid addiction is something that's rather significant,
and we are going to have to get aggressive in our strategies as
a community. I'm not talking about government. I'm talking about as a community and as
families to try to rescue people. But this
Sean and Mark also, with the success stories of an
Emil and a Zane and countless others in our organization, it caused us
to want to go deeper. It makes me want to rescue people and to
get people into better environments. You have a guy, we call him
Bobby. My kids call him Uncle Bobby. This is a guy that used to work
in my Oklahoma stores. Jackie's dad. Yeah, yeah,
we call him Jackie's dad. Your son's real dad. But this
is a guy who has been in and out of treatment and in
and out of addiction for years. And what did you, you moved this
guy into your basement? Yeah. To try to help this dude
get right with life. And you gave him purpose.
So, you know, again, I
want this. I know the heart of this human being.
You know, the things that move us to ministry, man, you know, I
have some. I have a belief, I have an observation of what you. Why you
do it. Why I do it? I do it because I see pain. And I
could I walk through that pain and that trauma. I believe
with you preempting, maybe, but I
believe that what grieves us most,
moves us to action. With you. And I, I,
I. I watched you grieve.
Yeah. Over brokenness.
So with. With Rob is a mixture of two. My wife is like you.
She's an empath, man. You know? And
she loves Bobby. Yeah. And I do, too, more.
I'm more of an accountability guy. Oh, yeah. Bobby under your roof. It
was hard for him. Well, he's been in and out of his addiction. We love
him. We support him. He can't work with us when he's using. No, he doesn't.
We. We fire him. And you fire him, and I'll even tell you, let's see
if we can work. You draw a hard line in the sand. If you're using,
you can't work here. If you are. If you're in sober living environments with structures
in place, we'll support you. We got him now in Minnesota. He's in a treatment
facility in Minnesota. And I think Bobby will be back with us shortly. And
we'll, for the third or fourth time, we'll try to give him some stability and
some supports. Yeah. Donnie. What?
I'll wrap this up, man. I needed people to understand
your story because your story is
more than just a story of darkness
to light, from brokenness to redemption. It's more than that.
It's a story of what could be. Of what
could be. When there's accountability in place, when there's
spiritual interventions that take place. When there's community
that is willing to support. And that's my role in many of this. I've
served as your boss, I've served as your pastor, I've served as your friend. And
I. Our relationship is really unique. But
in the context of your story, what enabled you to
find the stability you needed was you had a small business owner that
said, we'll walk you through this, man. Yeah. Because when you get out with the
scarlet F on your chest that, that felon on your chest. You have back
rents, you have back child support, you have back taxes, you can't get a
job, you can't get a driver. All of these different things. And people go back
to using, go back to crime because they got to pay the bills and they
got to eat. And the intervention is when business and small business
says, nope, we have a job to do to ingratiate you back
into society, and we can do that and provide that stability.
So that, that's the role here, that I want people to understand that even
stories as depth, the depth of your story
is that when community can right size something
and turn a trajectory that has generational impact
with your, with your two youngest sons, with
your Sean, now who's a Marine man and serving his country
with your daughters that you're helping to get into their own businesses. And you,
you have in your beautiful wife and your beautiful family, dude, like,
you are the American success story. And
no one would have ever pegged it where you've come from. Yeah, but,
but God, but community, but, but this is the
opportunity and the power. Yeah. And this is what moves me. When I see
addiction, when I see brokenness, when I see this, I, I think of you,
man, and what would have happened if you didn't get that opportunity
and the generational impact. So, brother, you're an inspiration.
Yeah. You're an inspiration. Thank you. I, I, I, I'll close
with saying this, okay. What the first,
the nucleus of this thing, okay, is the heart
change. Okay. But what, what needs to accompany that,
okay? For why small business is so important
is because we can become like a family. Yeah. But we can have accountability.
Yeah. Okay. We can have a standard and expectations,
but we can love you and show it at the same time. Time doesn't
always have to be a factor. So the small business component,
along with the heart change and the, and the willingness to look at
yourself. Look at yourself for what? Your inferiorities.
What, what, what causes these things. You know, I
have strong beliefs and my ministry is
expanding into this because I am a huge proponent
for not treating addiction in isolation. You know, you said something to
me the other day when we had lunch at the Petroleum Club.
You were telling me about how, how it's, there's so many
gaps, how you want to stand in the gap. Okay.
As a county commissioner, you want to stand in the gap where people can't figure
it out, where they say, yeah, well, we want to be here, but we're way
over here. How do we fix it? I don't know. Well, here's the thing.
We start treating addiction for what it is and, and that is a trauma
response. Where your brain recognizing addiction as a trauma
response. Where your brain is. The trauma is just a
symptom. Yeah. Okay. It underscores the need for, for
integrated trauma informed care. Man. Get these people to, to
figure, get. Teach these people the why. Yeah. Not the
how. They're fixing it. We know how. They're picking dope up, man.
Yeah. They're covering their trauma with it. Quit treating
addiction in an isolated situation. Just
treat the trauma. Yeah. When you do that. And I had the ability and
thank God every day for the blessings that I have. I
had the. I'm cognizant of those. I'm painfully self
aware. I'm still hard on myself. Like I'm trying to become a more emotionally
intelligent. Okay. It's a. That's a huge thing for me. I'm
not. I'm an emotional dum dum. So. So when you recognize
these trauma, the response is, man, don't
treat the how, treat the why. If we could treat the why
and give the people a foundation like you gave me to
go and win and stack wins, then guess what?
You're going to be a winner. Come on, man. Come on, brother. Bringing you
on to tell your stories inspired me the more. I'm going to keep telling your
story, people are going to keep walking into our stores and saying, wait, you're the
Don Smith guy. I've heard about your story. I've heard about your story story. Because
it's a story worth telling. It's a story worth telling because you need to know
the success you've had. You need to know the source of your success. Amen.
You also need to know that people need to see your success is.
We need people that are in the depths of their brokenness to know that there
is hope and there are people that have walked that and have
overcome it. Your story is an inspiration to other people and we're going to keep
telling. You, keeping your promise. You gotta. Bless you, man.