The Leap That Changed Everything: From Finland to Founder with Doug Skoke
What would you do if everything on the outside looked fine—but inside, you were crumbling?
Doug Skoke opens up about his boldest choices: leaving a high-paying job that didn’t align, moving to Finland without a plan, and launching his own company, LFG Now. In this powerful conversation, Doug shares how emotional intelligence, introspection, and radical self-trust helped him transform his life—and the lives of those he serves.
If you're at a crossroads, this episode is your reminder that real success starts from the inside out.
Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments
Doug’s transformative experience living and working in Finland
Why leaving a high-paying job without a plan was the best decision
The power of journaling and mindset in overcoming fear
Building a company rooted in human connection and values
Understanding when it’s time to walk away
The impact of EQ vs IQ in life and leadership
Letting go of control and trusting the unknown
Why self-awareness means nothing without action
Words of Wisdom: Standout Quotes from This Episode
“You don’t need a backup plan when you’ve finally found alignment.” - Doug Skoke
“Every opportunity for growth comes disguised as adversity.” - Doug Skoke
“Emotional intelligence is what carries you through life.” - Doug Skoke
“Happiness is stitching together a bunch of present moments.” - Doug Skoke
“Journaling helped me meet myself for the first time.” - Doug Skoke
“We all have layers—what matters is being brave enough to keep peeling them back.” - Courtney Turich
“Doug, you made recruitment feel personal. You made it human.” - Courtney Turich
“Sometimes bold means surrender, not push.” - Courtney Turich
“You didn’t just bet on yourself, Doug—you went all in.” - Courtney Turich
“The universe is always talking to us—we just have to listen.” - Courtney Turich
About Doug Skoke
Doug Skoke is a proud Miami native with a career that has taken him across the country—and even as far as Helsinki, Finland. A dedicated father of two sons, Doug currently resides in South Miami, where the sound of “Dad!” remains his favorite daily reminder of what matters most. Known for his grit, authenticity, and deep curiosity, Doug brings heart and intellect to every relationship he builds. Whether navigating bold career shifts or leaning into life’s challenges, Doug thrives on meaningful connection, personal growth, and living by the Platinum Rule.
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A Team Dklutr Production
BLOG TRANSCRIPT
Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Courtney Turich: Hi friends. In today's episode, we're chatting with Doug Skoke, who's made bold moves and confident choices. A little about our huge hearted guest. He's a people person. He's driven with purpose. and also great at problem solving. As the founder and CEO of LFG now, Doug Skoke is on a mission to connect the right people with the right opportunities.
With grit, resilience, and a deep passion for building meaningful relationships. They thrive at intersection of talents and transformation. For those who believe people are our greatest asset, this conversation's for you. Let's dive in and welcome Doug Skoke to Bull Moves Confident Choices.
Doug Skoke: Oh, wow. Wow. Wow.
Let me just take that in for a minute. Thank you. This feels good. Yeah.
Courtney Turich: That gets you fired up, Doug? Oh, yeah.
Doug Skoke: Yeah, yeah. Just seeing you gets me fired up, so it doesn't even take narrative, but I do appreciate it very much.
Courtney Turich: Well, thank you. I am honored to have you here today. And I can't wait to learn more about you myself, Doug.
So I'm going to start off by saying, can you just share a little bit more about your story?
Inside-Out Identity and Purpose
Doug Skoke: Absolutely. It would be my pleasure. And in so many respects, I feel like My story is still, being written, and I've always felt like feeling vital and fulfilled has so much more to do with who I am on the inside and what I do on the outside.
So I'd like to address answering that question maybe from the inside out perspective.
Courtney Turich: I love it. So a little bit about me.
Doug Skoke: I am a native Floridian, born in Pittsburgh, moved to Miami was one years old, pero mi espanol muy mal. Proud Gator, University of Florida grad. I am a Gen X dad, doing my level best to raise two adopted Gen Y sons.
And that parenting journey has been unlike anything that I've ever envisioned. And I'm very blessed to have curated, uh, special and productive. relationship with my ex wife, who is an exceptional mom. My ride or die is Harley, the golden doodle, which I know you can appreciate being a doodle. We
Courtney Turich: love our doodles.
Doug Skoke: The best, the best. and I have insatiable appetite for self discovery. So for as long as I've been alive. I have been, and it doesn't come from a place of like ego, it comes from a place of just trying to figure me out for whatever reason I've, there's not an assessment that you could throw my way.
that I wouldn't be a dance partner with. I describe myself as, an ambivert, uh, an amber quirk, for anybody that's familiar with the MBTI, Myers Briggs Type Index. I'm an INFJ. I'm an Enneagram 4. My Clifton top five strengths are maximizer, achiever, responsibility, learner, intellection. My top three love languages are words of affirmation.
Don't forget that quality time and physical touch. So that's the inside out now on my professional journey, which would be the outside stuff. I'm in my decade of my professional journey. It's mostly been rooted in professional services, with the exception of when I graduated from the University of Florida, I was in the CPG industry.
I took a job with the E& J Gala Winery for my first few years. the red thread through all of the roles that I've had in places that I've been has been, sales as an individual contributor, sales leadership and consulting. And it's spanned fortune 500 companies to SMB size companies. And I've just forever had this passion for people and problem solving.
And I sort of fell into. The perfect industry to scratch those issues about, I'll call it eight years ago when I aligned with a boutique, uh, staffing and recruitment firm in South Florida and what I mean by scratching both those itches is this might sound a little woo woo altruistic, but the feeling that comes along with upgrading somebody's life.
In a meaningful way and also solving a critical business issue sort of simultaneously. Cause that's what we're doing in this wacky industry, right? Opportunities to extricate people from maybe there are, being underpaid or undervalued or, and they're in a toxic work environment where they want to flex some different skills.
The Leap into Entrepreneurship
So I'm able to take that person and then match them with a company. And that's the solving the critical business issue. Because they can't start a project or their sales are lagging or whatever the case may be. So that's the beautiful part of this industry. And I was, on a great ride with it for about seven years before the agency that I was aligned with.
wound down business operations, toward the end of last year. And then I made the bold move. Woo. Entrepreneurship.
Courtney Turich: Here we go.
Doug Skoke: I, here we go. So I am the founder and CEO of LFG now. I consider myself to be a, a high touch recruitment firm headquartered down here in South Florida. I'm typically engaged with, small to medium sized businesses.
who are receptive to working with, um, an outside. external hiring partner. And maybe it's because they're concerned their internal team doesn't have the bandwidth to do it. Maybe they don't even have an internal team to do it. Maybe they're frustrated with the quality of the candidate pool or a myriad of different reasons.
And, what I've learned through feedback from my clients is they really attach value to way that I operate, which is always mission commission results over rhetoric, uh, Approach over transactional. And of course people over everything.
Courtney Turich: Oh my gosh, Doug, this whole, story you just shared with us encapsulates who you are and what I envision of you.
When I mentioned that you are a huge hearted guest, you come from a place of authenticity and realness and the way you just explained yourself. From the inside out was remarkable. So thank you for that.
Doug Skoke: You're so welcome.
Courtney Turich: You also shared probably the most interesting explanation of being a recruiter to me.
I don't believe anybody has ever shared that what you're doing for somebody making their life better, but solving a business problem at the same time, you made that more real. And more personal. And that it's, I'm just not a transaction, for example, to some company that you're trying to place me.
That's big.
Doug Skoke: that's huge. And is a real, real driver for me. And I hope it comes through in my interactions, both on the candidate side, because there's two pieces to this, candidate side and the client side. I hope that the way I carry myself does come through and that in that regard, it is all about people.
It's not transactional, whatsoever. And what I have found really empowering about making this move Into entrepreneurship it's scary. Don't get me wrong. Like it's, I'm three months into this and it's a battle. It's
Courtney Turich: real.
Doug Skoke: It is. It is very real, but I can also be extraordinarily discerning about who I partner with.
Because in my mind, it is a partnership. It is not a transactional deal. So I feel like I am now completely empowered to align myself with the right kinds of clients and right kinds candidates. it feels great. Now the sun, moon and stars always have to align. I'm in the business of people.
What is the most unpredictable, like commodity, if you will, on earth is. It's people, right? Us. We're We're complex human beings, right? I'm not
Courtney Turich: complex. I think I'm, yeah, pretty simple. Just kidding. Yeah,
Doug Skoke: you're just simple. You're high energy and remarkable. When it all comes together, though, it truly is, beautiful, beautiful place to be.
For sure.
Courtney Turich: Well, thank you Doug for really just putting that all together. Before we jump into a question that I'm very curious about with you and for all of you out there, Doug and I met in this amazing community called the outlier project, which is all about putting people first. and we just connected, hit it off.
From the moment we met and it is because Doug is so authentic and I know people use that word so just easily, but Doug is always willing to sit down and have that in depth conversation with you. If you're going to open up, he'll give you the space. So, Doug, what would you say is the big, bold move, confident choice that took you professionally or personally to the next level?
Doug Skoke: Am I allowed to have two?
Courtney Turich: Absolutely. when we start reflecting on this, I believe we all have many.
Doug Skoke: Probably so.
Courtney Turich: So which one or what two would you like to share today? I'm all ears.
Doug Skoke: and it's not necessarily, well, it's not because that's not what I'm going to cite to the one that I just made in diving into the world of entrepreneurship.
We're going back decades well, the first one, it goes back decades, which comes to mind. I had mentioned on the outset that. I was in the consumer product goods industry for a few years right outside of college. Okay. So I was with the gallo winery and called you field marketing manager, but it'svery much of a sales position, and they place you the winery inside the distributorships that sell their product their wines as well as other whatever it is, beer, wine, spirits.
And my role within these distributors was always to be the advocate, the champion for the brand. I was like the brand person, right? rallying the troops around. And I was in the on premise division. So hotels, restaurants, country clubs, wherever the products were sold on premise, my career moved nicely for about three years.
A Bold Move Abroad That Changed Everything
I I was in North Carolina for a while, actually. And then moved to Georgia. I was in Atlanta. I was placed inside of a hugely successful massive distributorship in Atlanta, and that was a wonderful experience. And then one day his name is Ryan that I remember. Iwhatever his big position was, he asked me to come to the office and meet with them.
And he said, I've got a great opportunity. I said, What's that Ryan? He said, Well, the winery was always referred to as the winery. And I was Is looking to expand the portfolio in the Nordic countries. And he paused. I had no idea what that even meant. I don't even know how old I was at that time.
I said, okay. He says, well, we already have somebody in, Sweden. And we really need to get a winery asset to Finland. And we think that you would be a great person for this and Helsinki, Finland. So this is so long ago that not, know, we didn't have the internet. We didn't even have cell phones at that point in time.
I had no idea where Finland was. God's honest truth. Like I had no idea. I just sounded far away. So I immediately went to a bookstore and, took it like a world Atlas out, you know, and unrolled that thing. And, I'm looking at it and I'm like, Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.
There's Russia. Oh, there's Finland right next to it. Okay. So that was a massive decision. And I went and took the opportunity. And I moved there sight unseen. I'd never traveled out of the United States before. And I wasn't really a seasoned traveler. And I moved to a little suburb of Helsinki called Espo in the middle of the winter sight unseen.
And they put me up in this little apartment, which was the size of a big closet for a month or two while somebody helped me try to find, an apartment to live in. And that was a massively bold, exceptional bet on myself, sort of go with the flow. I have no idea what, this experience is going to teach me or tell me or expose me to.
And I was. as could be I'm a South Florida guy, you know, and I'm moving to one of the coldest place. It was amazing. I was there for about a year and a half and I learned so much about myself. Yeah. I journaled, my whole experience and I I go back through it atI've done it at least once every one or two years, just randomly and reflect on it and that journey and some of the adventures that I went on what it taught me, about me and what I could accomplish.
how inter reliant we are as human beings on one another. as independent as I, I'm ruggedly independent. I've gotten even more so the more that I've learned about myself. But you can't go it alone. I was forced. To understand, it's all fun and games if you're visiting somewhere, but when, boom, I dropped down, in Helsinki, Finland, there's really not many expats.
outside of embassy personnel. And I have to figure out now, phone going to the grocery, setting up a bank account, calling taxis. I had to be so reliant on other people and Europeans are so multilingual that it helped, but it's not. And learning Finnish is forget about it. It's a Hungarian based language that every word is like.
72. consonants or something like that? Like It's an impossible language. that was a huge, piece for me that and remember everyone,
Courtney Turich: there weren't smartphones back then.
Doug Skoke: No, absolutely not. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, And that, started me down this path of, cementing how important.
mindset is because there I days tha you loneliness set in and the voice like, what the hell are y how do we get back home? it forced me to go in and that's where the journaling came in to try to make heads and tails of, okay, what are these fears like, what's the underlying, message here behind these fears, which is it's control.
We all want control. I wanted to know. certainty. What's my exit strategy here?
Courtney Turich: Right.
When the Mindset Shift Begins
Doug Skoke: How's the next month going to go? And it was that my first real punch to the face. And key learning that we control almost nothing except our response to things. That's what I'm in complete control over. That was the kickstart for me and my mindset journey.
I learned through that.
Courtney Turich: So Doug, this is when you became very introspective with yourself.
Doug Skoke: For sure. I realized. That, when Imyself as an ambivert, which is a real word by the way.
for those of us that are, more introverted than extroverted, we have the ability.
to sort of flex our extroverted muscle when we need to or want to.
Courtney Turich: Right.
Doug Skoke: That's where you become an ambivert. So I'm not a full on introvert where I need 18 hours a day of solitude and but I do know as an ambivert, when I take myself out of that introverted state, whether I'm going to a networking event or a party, or I have to be overly sociable for some reason.
I'm able to do that and enjoy myself doing it, but I also know on the back end, it takes a tremendous amount of energy so that I'm going to have to replenish that. So I could, go both ways, and finding
Courtney Turich: that balance for yourself.
Doug Skoke: Huge, huge. I got to get to my second bold move though. Oh
Courtney Turich: yes, please.
I, please keep going. What is number two for you? Number one was fantastic.
Doug Skoke: So number two, now We're going to fast forward decades. I found myself and this wasn't that long ago, this is right before I said, I fell into this industry, the staffing and recruitment industry.
Well, this is what preceded that. it started maybe 10 years ago, but I found myself in an industry that was absolutely incongruent with who I am. It was not a good fit. And the decision and the key learning for this was I was chasing money. period. the industry itself, and I'm not throwing shade on anybody that's in the industry because I was surrounded by incredibly successful people in the insurance industry.
I had an opportunity to join a fortune 500 company, on the risk management and property and casualty insurance side at a certain phase of my life, which was only 10 years ago. And I was chasing money because I knew people in the insurance industry were so super successful. And hey, why can't I do that?
I had to first of all, study and get my license, my 220 broker's license, which was the hardest exam I've ever taken. And I'm not a great test taker. So I was already. Like day one, I'm already like, Oh my God, this business too complex for me. and then it was just incongruent for a lot of reasons.
I don't want to chew up more time on. but for anybody that's listening, maybe yourself in your own journey to where you're in an environment and you know, it's not necessarily the best environment and you're performing. But perhaps not at the level that you would like to be performing, and certainly not at the level that your CEO or boss thinks you should be performing.
I hit that for a couple years in the insurance. So it was getting uncomfortable. It was definitely getting very uncomfortable. and I had decided about two and a half, I guess, years into it, three years into it, that I had to extricate myself from this situation. But that's not easy to do because I don't even counsel people on leaving a job before they have traction with finding another job or even have secured another job.
So it's like a do as I say, not as I do. But I know myself at this point so well that I know and I alluded to my top five Clifton strengths. One of them is responsibility. What this means is in my hard wiring, I take psychological ownership over anything that I say or do. And I'm a maximizer also, which means my bar for performance is set at excellence.
Doesn't make me special. I'm just saying this is my hard wiring. This is who I am. So now I'm completely miserable. The CEO is Not making my life very easy, which I understand, right? I'm not performing at the level that, he would like. and I can't fake anything. So I did not have the ability to look for another job while still trying to perform at the level that I hold myself to and that I was expected to kind of thing.
So the bold move. Was I decided I'm going to tender my resignation and I had absolutely no plan from there. It was, gut wrenchingly, hard. I called a meeting with my CEO, had no idea what to expect. it was leading in this direction anyway. I felt like it was going to come to a head one way or the other.
It was going to be on my terms or their terms. like a pip or something like that performance. So I tendered my resignation. Um, my ceo he was really wonderful. Um, cause he appreciated me as a human being and the effort that I put forth and the relationships that I built and we sort of agreed it just wasn't a great fit.
Right. So he was very supportive of My exit tried to make it a little bit of a soft landing and just wanted to make sure that look go find what your passion is that and that was a beautiful message but that was a massively bold move. So that was when I'm like, okay, I'm extraordinarily spiritual as you know, when you talk about these abstract concepts like surrender and trust and okay, that sounds all woo and great, but what does that really mean?
Right. That's when my whole journey really started about eight years ago when I put that stuff to practice, because when I resigned without another job or a plan, I was essentially saying. To whatever higher power, I'm completely surrendering to this moment and I trust. That whatever's going to be in my path, lying ahead is going to be for my greater, higher good.
And I fell into the industry that I've been in now for the last eight years, which I think I'm pretty good at. and I thrive and it really fills me up.
Courtney Turich: Doug, there's so many people I'm confident that are in those shoes today, just following the money. And it's really a hard concept to pull ourselves away from that and to just surrender.
So what are words of wisdom you can give to us all on allowing yourself, how do you get to that surrender point?
Doug Skoke: feel like everybody is on their own journey, right? And you gotta get to the place or I had to get to the place. Where the fork isin the road. there's two paths and, I just had enormous belief. And trust because I know how I operate, which is I can't kick the can make pretend, give half of myself to something So the two things are, I had to know myself really, really well. That's extraordinarily important, which will get me, you know, the something else when you ask me the next question, probably. and then I don't have a good answer for you. We all get there in our own way, but it's extraordinarily powerful if or when you get to a point where you feel like,
all will be well in the end. And if it's not well now, it's not the end. And when I made that bold decision to, resign. I'm on a, to be super frank, it's 2025. I'm on a 20 year bender right now of the universe of my life. Just throwing body blows at me.
that was sort of I was already well down this road sort of getting beaten down in a good way. I welcome it. One of my tattoos, Amor Fati. It means the love of fate. it's a concept and stoicism that's rooted in. If you think about this and for anybody else that may be listening because you have thousands of people that are following your podcast, right?
Courtney Turich: Yes.
Doug Skoke: What it means is if you think on your life about every single opportunity that you've had to grow, to actualize, to become better, I promise you it has come to you disguised as adversity. That's what that is. So I've been on a long track here of dealing with adversity. So resignation piece of this story, that bold move.
I was already well down this path of, it's time to surrender
Courtney Turich: The process.
Doug Skoke: Yes.
Courtney Turich: And back to your point at the beginning of this episode is your story is still continuing. we're still in the midst of our story, our journey, we keep living our journey and our story.
So as we reflect back, Doug, what would you say to little Doug at his 18 year old self?
Lessons for Little Dougie
Doug Skoke: Little Dougie. Dougie Fresh?
Courtney Turich: Yeah, Dougie Fresh.
Doug Skoke: Little Dougie Fresh. I would say that, thatEmotional Intelligence, EQ, Is just as important as IQ that one gets you through school and the other gets you through life So the 18 year old little dougie.
Yes. IQ in school is important But EQ is going to be what carries you through life. And imagine having to spend at 18 years old as little Dougie at 18. Imagine having to spend the rest of your life with one person. And that one person is you. So there's no more important relationship to have little Dougie. Then the relationship that you cultivate with yourself, hard stop, period, end of story, work harder on that relationship with self in anything you do the rest of your life. That's what I would say. What do you listen to it?
Courtney Turich: Doug, that really resonated with me a lot. not until later in my life. I always would tell people I'm a street smart girl, not a book girl. And to your point, if we can just embrace what our strengths are as early as possible, that's when we start to let ourselves shine, but we've got to look inward and keep digging.
It's a never ending process. There are so many layers to each one of us.
Doug Skoke: It's an inside out job. You've heard that before.
Courtney Turich: Yeah. It
Doug Skoke: will always be that way.
Courtney Turich: Doug, this has been an incredible conversation. And again, I'm going to keep going back to the first statement. I said, saying you are huge hearted guests, getting to know a deeper level of you has been amazing today.
And I want to thank you for laying that on the table with all of us who are listening to this. What would you like to leave us all with today?
Doug Skoke: That
happiness is no more complicated than stitching together a whole bunch of happy moments. But what complicates it for all of us is we get so fixated on the end goal. You happy life that we gloss right over all of. The moments and the more that we can all stay firmly rooted in the present, the better off we'll all be.
Courtney Turich: Wow. That one got me probably because it hit close to home for me, Doug. Because you're right, we all finish, there's so many times I look towards the end result instead of being in the moment. So Doug, thank you for sharing your space, your energy with us today.
Doug Skoke: Thank you for inviting me in.
This was an absolute pleasure. I love it. I feel like we talked about this a long time ago, maybe. Everything happens according to plan.
Courtney Turich: does. And to all of our listeners, my listeners out here, please go be bold, be confident and be you. Thanks for being here today.
Doug Skoke: Thank you, Courtney. It's been an absolute pleasure.
