Dan MacQueen on the Brain Injury That Changed Everything

00:00 Sometimes life doesn't nudge you, it yanks the rug out from under you. Dan McQueen was living his best London life, fast-paced job, global travel, Friday night pints, and then one morning he lost his vision on the tube. Within days, he was having emergency brain surgery. That's just where the story begins. What followed was coma, setbacks, and the kind of soul level reset that you can't plan for. 00:27 Dan's story isn't about toxic positivity or skipping past the pain. It's about fighting like hell to come back, again and again, and choosing to be better than yesterday, even when everything feels impossible. 00:57 Mind the gap. And the lights went out. I couldn't see a thing. I was blind. I'm Maciel Hooley and this is the Life Shift. Candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever. 01:23 Hello, my friends. Welcome to the Life Shift podcast. am sitting here with Dan. Hello, Dan. Hey, Matt. Thank you for having me the show. Well, thank you for wanting to be a part of the Life Shift podcast. This is, I say it every time, but it's really this journey that I never knew I needed and just having the opportunity to talk to people about these pivotal moments in their lives that really changed everything. For me, the show, the Life Shift stems from my own experience as an eight-year-old. 01:53 My dad had to sit me down and tell me that my mom was killed in a motorcycle accident. And at that moment, my parents were divorced. They lived states apart. And I lived with my mom full time. And so when he told me that, was like nothing that I had ever imagined for my future was going to be possible. It's like everything changed in that moment. And growing up, I just didn't have the tools. Nobody around me had the tools to really process that and figure it out. And so I was just wondering, do other people have these? 02:22 singular moments in which from one second to the next everything has changed and so turns out we have a lot of them and Some of them are good and some of them are not so great But it's what we do with it. So now I get to talk to people like yourself about These moments that have changed us and and then we learn to live a different way because of them So thank you for just coming on this healing journey that that I call the life shift Not a problem. I thank you for having the show 02:49 So before we get started and jump into your story, maybe you can tell us 2025, Dan in the world, how do you show up in the world? How do you identify these days? I'm a keynote speaker based in Vancouver, Canada, talking about change management, resilience and motivation. Big swimmer, I'm going swimming tonight. Swim three times a week. Enjoy the sunsets as best I can in the summertime. 03:16 really geared towards making the speaking career kick off and get going. Surface underlines everything I do. I want to add value much like yourself, some perspective on these difficult times and how you can navigate through them. I'm making an impact in this world. I'm really driven to leave an imprint and show what's possible. I had a lot of help to get by where I'm at today, so I want to show you what's possible so you can find yourself to navigate this change and navigate this knob that you're facing. 03:45 That's how I show up in the world in 2025, man. Sounds like you're giving a lot of value to people. I would imagine that a lot of that is, one, exhausting, but also, two, very rewarding. Would you agree? I would agree, yes. It's a bit of both at the same time. Yeah. And sometimes that exhaustion from something that fills our cup feels a little different than exhaustion from the things that we dread and we don't want to encounter ever again. 04:14 I hope that you're finding that balance for yourself as well. Yeah, I think just taking time to exercise, get into my body, get into my mind, mental health space, like meditation, has helped me a lot navigate this time now. And just really being attuned to that has allowed me to not get burnt out and continue on the path towards an impact. 04:37 before you tell us your life shift moment, maybe you can kind of paint the picture of your life leading up to it and like who Dan was in the before times. Yeah, sure. So I just studied a master's in Sweden. did a leadership for sustainability master's in Malmo, Sweden. I've got a European passport. So for me, it was free to study in Sweden, which is pretty cool. So I decided, you know what, let's take this studying over to Europe and enjoy Sweden for a year, which was great. Lots of late nights in the library. 05:05 Lots of research in the Swedish culture was pretty fun. It was a lot of fun times there. I really enjoyed myself. Decided after that master's, I'm going to move to London to keep the party going in Europe. Got a job in tech working for a company called Hootsuite, a social media management company. I work as an implementation specialist post sale, implementing you on the platform, training your group up, training teams in the MIA Europe, East and Africa. So Saudi Arabia in the morning, Milan, Italy in the afternoon and you know. 05:34 York in the evening. And I'd run through clients through this process. We had about four different, three different calls to clients. And I'd run through about 15 clients at a time. And I'd run through that process. And it was a freaking awesome job, man. Like I loved the job. It was super fun. You were kind of the rock stars of the company. Run in sessions, run your own schedule. We had a cake at the office. So on Friday nights, we'd polish the cake off and spill it to the pubs afterwards. 06:00 It was a fast and loose time in my life, man. Late night bus home after the pub, four o'clock in the morning, you You had paid once in London, right? Once in London, once a month. Took me a few months to figure this out, So I was having beans on toast by the end of the month, scraping to get by for the next paycheck. Life was fast, like the loose. Five-a-side ball hockey in London. I was playing sports in London, traveling around Europe the weekend before the game was in Lithuania. 06:28 I was sure have had headaches and the headaches got pretty bad. I was on the tube one day. The tubes had a zigzag around London, lumbering towards the Nytone Gate tube station on the district line. It was a slow roll at the best of times. Headaches were so bad, but vision turned spotty and I saw stars. Slowly started to fade to black. It was a race to see who could arrive at the station first, me or the blindness. Arriving at the Nytone Gate tube station and stepped onto the platform, mind the gap. 06:58 And the lights went out. I couldn't see a thing. I was blind. Now, I want to ask you, Abel said I got your whole life. What do you think? What do you feel? What do you do? Blinded on a cheap station in London. Oh, yeah. I would panic instantly. I don't even know what I would do. But I imagine it would not be a good experience. Yeah, a panic was there. Worries, scared, uncertain what I was going to do. I stood like a statue. 07:25 I froze and I thought and I thought and I thought some more. The still air of the station is in my nostrils. I can't see a thing. But there's noise, commotion, smells all around me. After the longest two minutes of my life, my vision comes back and I carry on with my day. The next day I go storming back into A &E. A &E has accident emergency in the UK like ER in Canada and United States. And I told them I was blinded at a troop station in London. What's going on here? This is not normal. 07:54 What the hell is wrong with me? They ran some more tests and again they thought it was vertigo that sent me home. On the way out they told me I could always get my eyes checked by an optometrist if the headaches would have continued. It's a odd I thought but I'm a doctor and I don't plan to play with now. The next day the heads came back with a vengeance. I found myself in Mr. Patel's chair. He was midway through a routine exam when he stopped the exam. He excused himself from the room and he comes back a few minutes later with a sealed envelope which hands to me. 08:23 He told me to go directly to Moorfields Hospital, which I did. Well, Matt, tell a lie. I stopped at home first to grab a Jack Regent book by the child, phone charged in a bite to eat. Then I arrived at Moorfields Hospital, handing in the sealed envelope. They ran the same test there again, then escalating me up to Cherry Cross Hospital. We're getting somewhere, I'm thinking. This is positive. This is a good sign, right? Now it turns out, Matt, I had a dangerous buildup pressure in my brain caused from a non-cancerous system of penicillin. 08:52 This prevented the food from my brain drain in Hollywood, causing the pressure to mount up, causing my vision issues, causing the headaches. Now it turns out, I require an emergency brain surgery tomorrow. Now it turns out, I was able to change altogether. So after a frantic back and forth with folks in Canada, the last text message my mom received reads, I'll see you soon mom. think I'll have a new haircut next time I see you. Love you. 09:19 So mom's in the air flying to London on June 21st, 2014 and on the operating table. Something goes horribly wrong. They have a massive bling in the brain. A brain hemorrhage. Then the cysts burst when they operated. So mom lands and finds them on critical condition. I was in a coma for four weeks. Was it not a consciousness for months after this? Things were really tight so it just shouldn't go. When I was in a coma I had get my core temperature down below 40 degrees otherwise it'd be brain damage. 09:49 They used ice blankets above and below my knee by core temperature down. This led to violent shivering. Hooked up to 13 tubes and hosed them onto various things to give me medicine. I was in critical condition, my parents were told. I may not make this. I woke up four weeks later after the coma. Mom, dad, and brother were on the bed. Trying to talk, but I can't talk. Give me a pen and paper. A gesture. Write on the pen and paper, you'll get me. 10:19 out of here and pointed my brother in the camp, make this happen, get me the hell out of here, dude. And he's just like, do you want me to do, dude? You're one-eyes monkey as hell. You're lagging at your feet in the coma. I was in a wheelchair. Tubes and nose are coming to my body. Like I am dead to rights, Being told, hey, Dan, you had a brain hemorrhage. You're just waking up from a coma that was four weeks long. This is a new parameter right now. One day active, healthy guy. Four weeks later, I wake up from the coma being told, hey, Dan, this is what happened to you. 10:49 And this is your new reality. So life got pretty real, pretty quick. And boy, did that slap. Yeah, I can't even imagine. And all the little pieces where you like you went to the doctor and they sent you away, but then you decided to, you know, go and get your eyes checked and he gave you the sealed envelope, which is very that was like something that stuck out. Why was it sealed, sealed from you? 11:17 so that you didn't know. went and looked at it, so I gave it to them and they had opened it there. So I didn't play doctor on the way home. And I wasn't going to. Like, I'm not going to open this up and be like, well, I'll Google this myself and see what this means. Like, let's just you have fear? Oh, yeah, man. When I was told I was having an emergency brain surgery, was like, that last text message read pretty cool, right? But like, I was bricking it, man. Like, this could be my last memory. I don't want to them be some punk ass punk that like whined away as he goes into the night. No, let's have a little pizzazz, a little bit of jam and. 11:47 But dude, I was terrified. Brain surgery is not casual, right? That's a big surgery. And it went totally sideways on me. Right, and you couldn't have known that either. mean, but to be fair, you could have sent however you felt, I'm sure, and not had to add the little pizzazz, but I could see why someone would do that. After your surgery, you said you were in the coma for four weeks. Do you remember any of that? Did you come in and out or were you? 12:15 totally sedated for that entire time. Yeah, I've got one dream that I remember being in the coma. was on a submarine and there was a massive aquarium on the submarine and I couldn't understand why there was a submarine that had an aquarium on it. We're already underwater, dude. But I'm walking around the submarine, just being like, what is going on here? Why are we underwater with a submarine with an aquarium on board? Does this make any sense? That's the one memory I've got from the coma. And then 12:44 ended out consciousness and kind of woke up four weeks later being told, I'd done, this is what happened to you. Go. For me, I think I would have a really hard time accepting that. Did you accept it? Did you fight against it? Did you try to find different solutions? Like, what was your reaction? Because I think I would probably, I'm probably a little weaker. I would probably have fallen apart for a while. 13:14 and then been in denial for a while. So how did you react? Yeah, it's a good question, Matt. And I'll be honest with you, like this was not an ideal situation. And I realized this wasn't good. But the worst I ever spoke about it was I wish this didn't happen. That's as far negative as I allow myself to go. I knew if I went down the pity spiral, which is the woes mean this isn't fair, you may never come up from that spiral. 13:43 You may be down there for life. It may be depression that just takes you over because you're right, it's not your fault. It wasn't my fault this happened to me, but it happened. So I quickly realized I've got to get a mindset around this to help me navigate this change and climb back up from the depth of this experience. Now, before I talk about the climb, let's talk about the suck for a little bit here. So I used to wear a splinter on my left leg to help me stretch out the leg muscle. When I get frozen at an angle in a coma, non-viable, I was in a wheelchair for the first four months. 14:11 The first night I was splitting through the night, no issue, no stress, this will be easy I thought, this will be easy. Hinting it's not going to easy right, Matt? The third night, they wrapped the leg, tied up with the ankle, give me the clicker. They go patrol the Walsam Warden, now the Walsam Warden is in L shape, right short on this side, long on this side. After 10 minutes, the leg's painful. After 20 minutes, leg's dreadful. After 30 minutes, the leg's unbearable. I start passing the clicker by and forth, trying to distract myself from the pain. The morning the eyepatch, they had to counteract the delusion of gut, Matt. 14:41 wasn't wearing this at the time, so I'm just groping at its clicker. As the pain raps up, my throat's got more enthusiastic, right? Until eventually, inevitably, it crashes on the hard living floor three and a half feet down the ground. Sugar, I say. Probably not sugar. I do not say sugar. I look over there to the bed. There's a clicker down on the floor looking back at me. If get that clicker, I can stop this pain I get in this monstrosity. Only problem was to fall from that height. Might break my arm. 15:12 In fact, I figured about a 50-50 chance I'm gonna break my arm. Coin flip, not the best odds. I change tack. I'm trying to untie the split, but it's not up the ankle, not up the hip. I can't reach that far down, I'm not that flexible. I start to flip down, grab the clicker. Even if I break my arm, the split's gonna come my way. That's part number one, two, and three. Lower myself off the edge of the bed. Crash down an absolute heat, blankets, wires, cables, all to go. 15:42 Yarm! 15:44 Holtz. And I have the clicker. Expecting the nurses to come bursting into the like the bats have been put up. They kind of stroll in five minutes later. What are you doing to fill it up? First of all, I say. That's a fantastic, pretty exact name. Where'd say it from, man? No, Matt didn't say that. Let's get this split off my leg because I'll tell you all about this. It's not what happens to you, but how you respond to the mess, right? It's not what happens to you, but how you respond to the matters. The reason why I'm telling this story to learn through this is from the experience, Matt. The first lesson being 16:16 Let's not pass the trigger back and forth. That's a bad idea. Second lesson being let's the split up of the hip and up the ankle. That way you're to have time to show this happen more often. And the third lesson was let's always be solutions oriented when this happens in the future. When things go sideways, which sure as your born they will, let's focus on a solution based approach. How do you resolve your issue? How do you fix your problem? With the help of the split, so let's start walking always the Wilson. On the Zimmer frame, which is a four post walk that you kind of lurch forward on. 16:45 Then I moved up to the Ferrari. Now Ferrari was a Ferrari, like a walker in Ferrari racing red. So I called him my Ferrari. I was moving fast, man. Turning and burning. Grease lightening. I mean, I'm not going that fast, but for me this is fast as hell, Then it up to naked walks. Now what's a naked walk you may ask? I'm walking without sport raids. But when told friends and family I went for a naked walk, they were so aghast. I kept the term going. Get your clothes on. What are you doing, man? You're like, dude, I just survived this. 17:15 Let me do what I want. Let's go. Then came time to walk in Toon Broadway. So Toon Broadway is an area in South London, an area they call up and coming. Think loud sirens, drugs, gangs. It's dirty. It's hectic. And boy, is it busy. I'm walking with a cane. I'm walking with an eyepatch. After four months in a wheelchair, I'm literally Bambi on ice. I turn the corner to walk down the high street for the first time. Immediately get slammed in by someone. 17:45 stagger back three feet. Someone scurried past me and ran inside. I thought I was done with the rats. Someone had been stabbed on the sidewalk over here. I'm thinking this is pretty wild place to learn how walk. After a few days in this, I was thinking this is the worst place to learn how to walk in the world. Can't they see I'm trying to walk here? Can't they see I'm trying here? And then one day my perspective shifted. Maybe this isn't the worst place to learn how to walk in the world. Now maybe this is the best. 18:15 If I can walk here, I can walk anywhere. Now, Tootin' Robbin didn't change, right? But it went from the worst to the best in my mind, and my mood reflected that. What are you looking at in your life? You're convinced it's the worst. Convinced it's the absolute worst. Hey, maybe it is. Maybe you can find a way to turn down the suck a little bit. Shift that perspective a little bit. I.R. Mike Tyson, Famously Said. 18:45 Everyone's got a plan till they get punched in the mouth. Now Matt, your punch may not be a brain hemorrhage, right? Facts. Will it a job loss, a breakup, a diagnosis for you, a liver bone? You will take that punch in the mouth, I respond. I'm offering a compass, not a map, but a compass. It always points towards true north. Look at things like mindset, perspective, and hacks. Hacks that will allow you and your team, better than yesterday, tomorrow. And the reason why I told you that story will end in a walk in Toon Broadway. 19:14 is when you change the way you look at the world, the world that could change us, and you don't need a brain hemorrhage to understand that. It's very big of you, and I can't say that I have ever had too much success with when I'm in a moment like that in which I can shift the perspective. Were you always someone that maybe looked at things in that way, like growing up? 19:42 Or you've changed kind of the way that you're able to shift your perspective in that way. I've always been a glass half full kind of guy. Okay. Pretty good upbringing. Pretty good upbringing, always hard work works. You can work through your problems and get through this issue. And I leaned into that full bore. Now, if you're a pessimist, I can't tell you to shift your mindset on that. But the belief in that I can overcome this and I can think my way through the problems is what 20:11 allow me to navigate this change successfully. And not wallow in the what exactly and what I could be doing what it could have should have. Right. What it could have should have is not there. It's like it is what it is. It is the easier route. It is. It is easier. But like, where does it get you? Nowhere. In a bigger mess. I realize I realize that acceptance was key to this. Right. So. Acceptance is a hard word for people to handle because they don't want to accept stuff. Well, if I don't accept it, it's not real. 20:41 Okay. Then you also can improve your lot. Unless you accept the new terms, you're not working on a real playing field. You're working on a fake playing field that's not real. Until you agree on the new playing field and accept it, you can't improve and adapt your situation. And the faster you get to acceptance, the faster you can improve your lot and make change and improve your lot. That's my thought process on this, and that may not be true for you, but that's what I've lived and experienced and I share my story on that. 21:09 Yeah, no, I think it's admirable. I try to put myself in that situation. I've never been in that situation. I mean, I guess if we think about me at eight years old, I had no tools to be able to do that. So I can't really fault that eight-year-old version of me for not seeing what it was at the time. But it's very admirable that you would face this and then choose to find the way through and find it. 21:37 better. mean, I think that's the only choice. But at the same time, seems against what the easy route is, is to wallow and what I'm sure other people might do in the same situation. These whimsical stories now that like, Oh, look at this. What's the lesson here? What's this like at the time? But the point of contact man, it was survive. Hold on to survive. It wasn't this solutions oriented way. It wasn't like the constructive optimism way. was like, how do I fucking do this? Right? Like, how do I 22:07 live life and the dots line up after you look back at the situation. Well, I must admit this because this is how I acted, but you got to fight through it. You can't allow it to take you. I made it a promise myself. But you can. You could. But I promised myself I was going to let go of the wall. I was going to hold on. If it came and took me, it came and took me. But I was going to let go. Because you survive something that a lot of people probably don't, right? Yeah, I think I'm on my, you know, six or seven chance of life here, man. Like it's not. 22:37 a it's a small number of people that would be able to make it through this, right? But like, I'm lucky that I was able to make it through this. And not everyone who's had a brain injury can get to where I'm at today. Like the injuries can dictate where your recovery goes to and you can plateau certain areas, right? I'm lucky because my injury allowed me to climb back to where I'm at today. So I don't make it seem like I did all this by myself. Like I have a lot of help. The injury allowed me to recover. I had a lot of stuff in my favor that allowed me to get back to where at today. 23:06 Yeah, but like you say, though, I think there's something to be said with that positive mindset and the mindset to maybe not positive, but at least acknowledgement and moving forward and that you want to do X, Y, Z after the fact. I think there's something to be said with that, because I think if if you think I know I've I've stayed in a spiral for way too long in my life in pieces of my life and because it was easier, but I could have made the decision to change. when I did, 23:35 things changed. So I think there's something to be said by by you feeling that way. think you're right. But you have to choose this every day. I choose this. I choose to fight the day every day, always forever. And that's relentless and that's exhausting and that's tough. But I'm choosing to do this. You get to do this. The odds of being a human being are 400 trillion to one, right? That's a staggering number of zeros. You won't have to win the lotto 10 times in your lifetime in your life in the first place. 24:05 This card was my hand. Blip was my DNA. I couldn't have mitigated this no matter what I did. I'm only damn clean because the Blip was my DNA. Am going to muck the whole hand because I don't like this card? No, man, I'm going to play the hand. The of me having the hand are so staggering, so astronomically small. I'm going to play this hand, and start looking at life from this perspective like I get to do this. To struggle, to strive, to cry, to win, to laugh, to love, like... 24:33 all the stuff I get to do this. To help? To help, serve, live, to love, to laugh. It's all I get to do this stuff. It's not easy, man. But it's an honor to try and to get the opportunity to learn and do this. When you can shift your mindset to that abundance mentality of this is one opportunity to learn and live and love and do this, what are you going to whinge about? It's a bad day? What's a bad day for you? It's like, 25:02 Someone coming off in traffic, I was looking for this meeting, like, is that a bad day? It's just like a day. Bad day was when I couldn't walk, talk, or smile in Tootin' and Bawing when I was like clinging a leg from the coma. That was a bad day, man. Yeah. Do those experiences, like, do you look back at before the surgery, before the stepping off the tube, were you someone that was choosing each day or were you more of like autopilot, kind of like a lot of us exist in the world? 25:29 I lived pretty fast in this lifestyle in London, I'll be honest with you, it was pretty autopilot. But it was- Like we take it for granted kind of thing. Yeah, my 20s, I'm in London, having a good time ripping it up. I'm not worried about tomorrow, I'm like, let's have a good time. And that reality came crashing down after that brain hemorrhage happened. And then, it took everything in my mindset out of the gutter of like, isn't fair, isn't what was me. 25:56 I'm not making it seem like this is easy to decide this. wasn't easy to be like, this is great. This is fucking awesome. was like, no, this is horrible. But you choose how you face it. And that's how you can get out of this rut and divot that you find yourself in. The mindset of this is so key. I can't underscore that enough. I get to do this. The worst know the best. What are you looking at? Tell me the worst of the best. Like you can reframe it to serve you. Constructive optimism is so key for this. How about the people around you? Were they? 26:26 Similar, supportive? Oh, massive support, Family came over to live in London for two years to help me get back on my feet. Brother came to visit me lots from Berlin and also New York. Doctors were phenomenal. Friends and family were amazing in London and also in Vancouver. My parents had moved house when this happened, so we're in the house right now. But they got moved in by friends and family because like this hemorrhage happened and they're all systems go to London. 26:52 So we relied on so much help to get us on our feet and to navigate this change. was amazing to see the support we received. And it was an army of support and help and love and assistance. was remarkable to see. Really touched by our... With a community like that behind you, does that also give you more incentive to kind of want to progress and want to do more things like for them as well as for yourself? But does that give you more incentive? 27:22 Absolutely. So I've talked about motivation in like three parts. Proving you right is one part. I'll talk about that now. Proving you right, proving you wrong in service. And I'll walk through all three of them in a second here. But the first is proving you right. My friend Claire Nash came to visit me in London. She came up to visit me before she went to Scotland. I was in a wheelchair at the stage. She was, Danny, you're doing so well. You're recovering. You're doing so much work here. I'm like, yeah, I'm working hard, but like I can work harder. 27:51 I can make it seem like I'm working hard, I I can work harder in my vibe, right? She went to Scotland for a week. She came back down and I was walking at the stage. was in the wheelchair when she left, but I was walking when she came back down. I wanted to prove her right. The first horseman of motivation. The second one's proving you wrong. The way the nurse got me talking again, took me down to the park. Some kids playing football, soccer across the park. goes, damn, those kids across the park, they don't think you're good enough to talk, dad. 28:20 They don't think good to talk. I found out pretty quickly that's trigger for me. And they all the crowds that park super fast, displaying your team today. But proving you wrong was a huge part of my vibe. And the last horseman of motivation is service. Lending out your success is my success. My success is your success. This is the most altruistically like good place that motivation come from. But you can't judge the motivation man. It comes from where it comes from. Don't be picky about it. Ride the way that comes and flog that horse. 28:47 Don't spare the horses on this, right? Like you want to ride that motivation as far as you can, as fast as you can when it's available, because it's not always going to be there, And when it's not, you're in the doldrums of stagnation. Momentum and movement is so key. you stop, stopping is not death, but it's not easy to get back up again once you stop rolling. So flog those horses of motivation and run to the way it's come on them. Did you, speaking of that, did, as you were, I'm guessing the answer is probably yes, but 29:14 as you are progressing, as you are moving through the world in a different way, in the way that you choose to, did you have major setbacks? Did you have moments where things got dire again and you were like, oh shit, I gotta start from a lower level now? Yeah, so a year after this happened in July 28th, 2015, I had a second setback. And I was going to work two updates a week, three updates a week, back to the office, being social. 29:45 I used to be mom with the tube before I went to work in the morning. She'd go off on her walk and I'd go in the office. One day didn't show up. Calls my cell, no response, walks up to my flat. Knocks on the door, no response, opens the door. There I am on the floor, unconscious. She dials 999, which is like 911 in Canada and States. I rush to hospital, I wake up the next day. The beeping noise in the heart in my mind went off behind me, know, beep, beep. 30:13 What happened? happened? What happened? Well, Danny, you had a second setback. What do mean? Was the shunt in my brain from the first brain surgery a block leading to hydrocephalus or water on the brain? It's very rare they tell me less than 10 % of cases. Lucky me, I thought. I'm working for you to back to the office. You're the one that's behind me, And my progress is washed away in an instant. I just grabbed my recovery like a W, right? The first setback's down here. Kind of scamper back up. 30:43 The second setback is not where the first one was, much lower. The depths of the human experience. Your hopes and dreams are stinkered at. You thought you had a chance, but you ain't going nowhere. You're right back where you belong, on the bottom, scraping the barrel air. You ain't going nowhere. The mindset of navigating this knock was excruciating. It sucked. It was arduous. was downright debilitating. 31:12 rock bottom or bedrock, right? Rock bottom or bedrock. I realized the gains from rehab were lost, but I knew I could do them again because I just had done them. This was not an overnight thought. This was like a month into this, was like, damn it, I can rehab better. this before. I just did this last year. I can do this faster, right? So I started getting to work, chopped wood, carried water, chipping away at my old block and like, I can do this. I get to do this again. 31:39 Shifting that mindset of like, can do this faster and better. And I started getting momentum and building steps up and certain getting back to the office and building myself back up. Taking big leaps and claims and navigating this change. like, dude, the doldrums of life was that second setback. The depths of the human experience for me. I have never been lower in my entire life. But rock bottom or bedrock, right? Shift your mindset, shift your perspective and navigate this change. It's not easy to do. No. 32:08 But that's the way forward. Yeah. And you had a little bit of like a proof of concept. Like you're like, I've done this before. I've been in a really terrible situation and I made it to a place where I was feeling better. Let's say that word where I was feeling good. I don't know what, you would define that. So, but at the same time, you're like all that work for here I am again, right? So I can see where you would have this battle, but 32:33 proof of concept knowing you could do it and knowing that you have the community around you that would probably cheer you on in the same way is probably helpful. Did you still have that group or were they like over it by then? No, I still have the group for sure. They were very supportive the second time and I couldn't go back to rehab again because I didn't rehab them right. So I had to this all remotely. I'm going to fight tooth and nail to get me like vote like independent vocational therapists and future language therapists like remotely. 33:00 I had just done rehab at Wolfson, so was like, you already done this on the system, you can't go back. Well, yeah, but a second brain injury. So they wouldn't let you do what you had done before. to rehab, yeah, no. And like I didn't need it entirely because I could walk this time. It was not really the badest belt that I was, but like the mental knock this was, man, was like the carpet was pulled from my legs. Like you're getting back to work to put this behind me. I was turning it and burning it, baby. And I get saying, you're not going anywhere, dude. You're right back where you belong. You're on the bottom. get scraped in the barrel. 33:30 So yeah, there was a setback. Yeah. But now that rise up from that setback, did that feel different than the first time for you once you started the momentum? Oh, 100%. I took leaps and bounds and gains and made massive progress faster because I'd just done this, right? So I knew I could do this faster before. But it was not easy, but it was simple. It was simple to decide that I'm going to continue to try and keep going. But it was redoing speech language therapy, redoing 33:59 cognitive functions and thinking and re-learning my job again was all so difficult to do. I feel like I was further behind than I was this time last year. It was so frustrating to see this happen. I chose to fight this fight every day. Every day you get to choose. If you can show up and fight it or you're going to succumb to the woes of the day and the whims of the day, you got to choose to go into the battle every day. That's not easy to do. I don't want to make it seem like that's an easy choice to make, but like... 34:27 That is the choice and that's your choice and that's what you have do every day. I think where a lot of people might or people that I've talked to my own experiences, I think sometimes in moments in which we feel that things are particularly hard and we're not quite sure where to go next, we think too far ahead. Like we instead of like the next step or the next day or the next whatever small increments, we think that's where I want to be. 34:58 I can't get there. And then we kind of shrink back into ourselves. And a lot of people that I've talked to are like, it's more of the next minute, the next hour, the next day, and build up from there and not planning for five years from now, I need to be this. I got two for you on that one. So aim small, miss small, pick a small windmill target to hit, land and expand, and ratchet up. And better than yesterday. 35:27 Better than yesterday, I've heard that one a lot too. Aim small, miss small for your targets, for your goals. I'll walk one block this week, two blocks next week, three blocks next week, four blocks the week after that. Right, I hit this up, right? Aim small, miss small. And then better than yesterday. Everything in my day I'm trying to improve and streamline from the day before. And that's just life, right? You just learn lessons like going to the pool, don't leave your bag in the open. Like you might get your stuff in the neck. Just like. 35:53 Like lessons you learned like, I learned that before, but I forgot the lessons. Oh, well, don't forget that now. But even if it's 1 % better, it's still better, right? And better than yesterday is something you can do because every... You're telling me your day was perfect yesterday? No, you can improve one thing. Maybe have lunch before the call and not be angry and dehydrated on the call with your boss. Like, maybe prepare the deck the night before and not be stressed the night of, like the day of. 36:23 Learn from these mistakes and ratchet these things up. small, miss small. But 1 % better every day. Better than yesterday is important to learn. Those two concepts, you take on those on board, look what you'll be in a year's time. Do you credit, this is going to sound wrong and the wrong words are going to come out, but do you credit this hemorrhage and these things for your perspective now? 100%. I was always a pretty stubborn guy, pretty bullheaded, pretty I'm going to make it work my way. 36:52 But this has told me that hard work works. And if I believe something enough, I can make it happen. 100%. This has shaped my mindset entirely. And that's why I speak now, because I had so much help to navigate this change. And we don't have that help. But if I can just tell you what I've learned through this process, this is gold, Unless you've been through this process, you don't know the lessons I've learned. I can pull back the curtain and show you what's going on here. 37:21 It's not that complicated, it's simple stuff. Aim small, miss small, better than necessary. Like this stuff works. Hard work works, but like you gotta put the work in and the reps in, you can't just wish it was different. You gotta improve yourself day in, day out. Intentionally go through the day and like make this happen, right? It would be nice to just wish it and it happened, but I guess we've got to put in the work once in a while. No, I agree. I think it's so important. And it sounds like when you were describing the work you were doing with Hootsuite and the way that you were... 37:50 working with post, he said post sale clients. So you were probably like helping them use the tools better. That was in service, but what you're doing now is in service in a different way, right? It's more, I guess, heart centered, more you want to help them live better lives versus use their tools in a different way. Yeah, it was service. And that's it. Very astute observation. It was a farmer. used to call it a farmer. I'd farm the crops, farm the clients, grow the accounts. 38:20 Now as a speaker, I'm also hunter and a farmer and hunting is a real delicate skill. Something I did not appreciate before working as a hunter myself, but it's about service as well. Service unilies everything I do, right? It's about adding value, about changing perspective, about like, what's your problem? I can solve this issue for you. I can shift your perspective. What's the issue you're facing? Well, like, have you thought about it this way? What about this way? What about this way? Sharing stories and lessons learned from the front lines of like despair and hopelessness, like. 38:47 Maybe seeing Kletcher and you're like, oh, that resonates with me. small, miss small is a good idea, but initially it's a good idea. how are you looking at life, man? Like, is it that complicated? No, it's not that complicated. Simple, not easy. Well, I mean, I always think of this for myself. I like I said, when we first started out, I never expected this journey to be or this conversations on the podcast to be a healing thing for me. I thought it was just going to be like these conversations about important things, which they are. 39:17 I didn't realize how personal and how much I would change from it. Do you find the same in serving others in this way that you are growing in ways that maybe you couldn't have imagined? sure, man. Like it's very cool to share stories and like especially when I want to podcast a few times, I can go deeper than just a surface level conversation what happened to me. Like day and day how I my life and how I navigate change going forwards like that's allows me to think about how I'm doing myself. 39:44 I listen to a lot of podcasts. When they ask questions on podcasts, I think about myself, how would I answer that question? That's a great question. Like Finding Mastery by Michael Gervais, great podcast. If your audience wants to take that award. I really recommend this podcast a lot, Finding Mastery. I consume a lot of content now about mindset, motivation, mental health, like how you can navigate this change and let it serve you, right? Because it's all about the perspective, the worst and the best. 40:11 That makes all the difference, man. That made walking in Shinboei tolerable and also advantageous to have the difficult time. How you look at the world. And I can tell you how you do it based on that. Are you in this speaking part of your journey, are you speaking in person as well? Are you just mostly doing podcast rounds and things like that? I'm most ideally in person. I speak in person mostly. 40:38 Do you have a lot of people come up to you and like, I feel like that would like come up to you, tell you their stories and how that might be like really fulfilling for you to hear their stories and how things that you said resonate with them in their journeys. For sure. Like I gave a keynote in Kelowna last or in May. And a few people come to me after the visit and be like, damn, this happened to I had a car accident. My brother was in this car accident. My mom's got leukemia or know, only source of all like 41:06 what they're going through is just like, that's so touching that they see themselves in my story and what I've experienced and how they see the lessons I shared. Like, I felt the same way. Well, does this make sense now? Like, this is cool. But like, it's all simple patterns and recognition about like, it's the same stuff. It's just like life is a pattern. If you can start seeing the patterns, you can start identifying the kind of maximizing and ratcheting this up, aim small, miss small. But it's about understanding those patterns after repeatedly failing. 41:35 And when you get good at it, can fail only a few times, but I still fail a lot. But I start learning as we go. I'm trying to reduce the amount of times I fail now and learn lessons faster, but this is what's happened. But I will learn eventually, which is cool. No, I mean, I can imagine how how there's like these these parallel trains of like you bettering yourself. But by doing that, you're bettering others. 42:01 because of your story and helping them see things and patterns that they didn't necessarily see before. But then by you seeing them recognize those things, you're also in tandem getting better from that. So it's like these trains that are kind of like, I don't know what the visual is in my head right now, but they're next to each other and one's going in front and then the other one's going in front. And it's kind of like this symbiotic kind of relationship that you have with what you're doing now. Do you see it in a similar way or am I totally off base? 42:29 No, we're pulling each other forwards, man. It's been helpful to do this. And when I speak to you stories on stages, really allows me to think about how I want to frame this and present this. And I think more deeply about what this meant at the time. Like I said before, at the moment of contact, you're worried to survive and take a nice breath. You're not worried about this whimsical lesson here. What's the lesson here? Stop the lesson, man. The lesson will show up afterwards when you make sense of life. That little whimsical story about passing the clicker back and forth. Like in the time, it was like... 42:59 This clicker is my everything. Afterwards, I understood what the lessons were for me to understand. Don't pass the clicker. Tie it up at hip. Be solutions oriented. That made sense after the fact. The point of contact, I want that clicker. That's only the matters, But it's just how you reframe things and look things from that perspective. And these patterns show up in different ways in life. And like, oh, I've seen this before. What did he last? Oh, yeah, did this last time. Let's start doing this. Let's do it this way. Different time this way. 43:29 And you start to break it down and unpack this in different way and help you be successful. What's the hardest part of telling your story? Or is there a hard part? I get sick of myself. How so? Well, I'll tell them the story. It's like, I'm done with the story. Let's talk about the hacks and the fun stuff that's more afterwards. But you got to set the context, right? Every time it's like when I'm speaking here, it's like. 43:58 What's the story now? What happens? Like, well, this brain hemorrhage happened in this coma and this split. But the fun stuff for me is like, well, how do you your day today? And like, what do you say to be better than yesterday? Like that's more current, the live piece that I enjoy talking about more so. But that's all part and parcel for what I signed up to do and enjoy shedding the perspective and just dive into it. So it's all good now. What I get from your story that is long. 44:27 longer tail than maybe I first would assume is how you got through and how you looked back and saw that your mindset was shifting and the people around you and one thing better and get better at it and the examples of like the horseman as I said to kind of like motivation to get you to the next level. All those things you do consistently. 44:56 Right? Not you particularly, but anyone does consistently. They grow, they become bigger. sure, for sure. They become habit. They become second nature. Right? Like they all become these things in which our life, if we were to do those regularly, let's say every day for a year, we look back a year later and we look back at what that version of us would be surprised at how far we've come. It's an ongoing thing and it's a constant battle every day to like, reframe your mindset and like go into the change. Do you find it a battle every day? 45:27 100 % man, if I don't battle, I'm I'm not living my life as best I could. So you go in intentional like when you wake up in the morning, what's your what's your just like, let's face whatever's whatever's coming our way. More routine, get that roll in. Arm up for the day, get on that day. And take it on. It's a very routine based system that I approach life with them. That's a bit boring at times. But like, that's how I can maximize my battery and my juice. Right. 45:57 And you have these self-care practices too, which are probably pivotal in keeping you on track. want to share a story about eye surgery I had a little while ago. Yeah, of course. So I'm wearing the eye patch today. I wasn't wearing the eye patch two years ago. But I had on the left eye, first surgery on the left eye, third surgery I've had on the eyes since the brain surgery. I've got double vision, remember? The idea was to correct double vision and straighten the eyes. And this surgery backfired tremendously. 46:27 Turn my head a lot to the left now, because I don't trust the left eye. I'm looking through the right eye now. It's undone my vibe significantly. My dad goes, Dan, do you regret having the eye surgery? Yeah, it's changed everything. It's changed everything. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I don't regret having the eye surgery. I was taking the next step. Reminded by this book by Charlie Monger, The Boy, the Fox, the Horse, and the Mole. A boy's walking through a thick wood. 46:56 yells back at the horse, he goes, I can't see a way through. The horse says, can you see your next step? The boy says, yeah. And the horse says, well then just take that. Just take that. That's what I was doing with the S, you're taking the next step. And sometimes that next step's gonna backfire on you and you're be okay with that. Failure is first attempt at learning or in this case, third or fourth, but I can only make me. 47:23 accepting the gains if I accept the risk and the failure at times. And this wasn't one step back, man. This is about 20. On stage now with the eyes, it's like a total gong show. I'm maybe I'm like a maniac and, you this podcast, looking at the screen is impossible. I'm trying to move ahead, not like a drunk boxer, but like it's quite challenging to do. But like, I was taking the next step to improve this lot. That muscle of trying to improve myself. 47:50 Not selling for life, God, but chasing life I want is what I want to instill in your group. Better than yesterday, all was, every day, all was forever, right? Like it's a continuous chase because you get to do this again, But the eye surgery was quite a knock and that was two years ago. Remember the surgery, hopefully this fall and who knows? I mean, it's probably not gonna crack the illusion, but hopefully it'll straighten the eyes. The left eye, I saw the left eye did line up with the right eye. 48:17 Because right eye what I trust, the left eye I don't even look through at all. So it's just like nothing eye. It's wrong with the eye patch today. But it's this ingrained head tilt that's like, I gotta calm that down a little bit and just mellow out a little bit, which is difficult to do, but it's never out of the woods yet. Dude, you're never out the woods. Well, and if you can keep, even when things knock you in that way, if you can keep your head in the direction that you want to go, not literally, but just like in the... 48:45 you know, knowing that you want to take the next step to make the next day better, then I think you're more equipped to face those setbacks or large step backs, as you describe. Like it feels like you are more equipped than someone that is just kind of on autopilot when something were to happen like that. Like the first thing you had versus this, you know, like your hemorrhage versus this, would you say there's a different approach after? Oh, 100%. Yeah. 49:14 And that story is like how I get up for myself, like how I frame this in my own mind. Like I was taking the next step and like sometimes that's gonna backfire. But you can't choose, lose the muscle chasing the next step because that's how winning's done. Don't settle for the life you've got. Like you've got to chase the life you want now. And chasing is gonna lead to failures from time to time. That's part and parcel for the game and you have to be okay with that. And look dude, I'm not gonna say it's easy to do this. It's not easy, but it's simple, right? 49:43 choose that you want to go this way and just go that way, no matter the costs, but you got to choose that every day. that's, it's hard, but it sounds like it's bloody hard, but it's like, when you get the mindset, right. It's okay. The practice I think is important. I think. And I think also there's something to be said if you, if you implement an approach like that or change your mindset and you see a win or you have like a 50:13 like success from that, it makes it a lot easier to take the next to do it again, and then do it again. And then when you hit something, it's like, okay, well, it works 10 times before this, this one time, it didn't quite work. Let me move forward again. 100%. If today 2025 Dan could go and bump into the version of you that stepped off the tube in the panic, is there anything you would want to come up to him and say? 50:44 Be patient and trust the process. It's gonna be a road ahead, but trust the process of hard work works. And I'll see you on the other side. Do you think you would have listened? I think so. If my former self told me, if my future self told me that, I'd be like, yeah, okay, this guy knows what's going on. Like that's the game, right? It's like trust the process and keep working. Like that's what I can tell your group is like the process is what it is. And that's getting better every day and just better than yesterday and every small miss small. Yeah. 51:12 No, I mean, I think like you say, it's like these aren't hard concepts. But I do think for a lot of people, they are hard to get started. I think once you get started, though, it's a lot easier to continue. Momentum is so key for this. What I'm to hack is momentum. that's to keep things in motion or easier to keep things in motion than to stop and start again. Keep things perpetually in motion. And you're amazed at how much more you can accomplish. So like, come on from work, throw a lot of laundry in. 51:41 Get dinner on the boil, then sit down and take a load off. Don't sit down and take a load off immediately, because getting that dinner on the boil will be difficult, laundry will difficult, but keep that wheel moving, man. You can start stacking wins and start stacking stuff in your favor. But the process is the process is the process. Stacking ones is huge. And trusting yourself. I think there's probably a lot of trust that you've had to build within yourself to make these decisions and to take the next step. Oh, it's like I... 52:10 I know myself quite well now. I mean, I knew myself before, but I'm the one who called the optometrist to say, check my eyes, this is kind of wild. But you gotta believe that in yourself. People don't, experts don't always know what's going on. You gotta trust your body and trust your gut. And I believe that wholeheartedly now. I trust myself 100%. Yeah, well, you can hear it in your story and the way that you tell it and what you want to impart on people listening. I think it's really important. 52:40 that we all take a moment to listen and figure out how we can be better every day, be a little bit better, even if it's, like we said, 1%. We're trying to make progress and we're trying to change things and change our perspective. So I appreciate you bringing your story and sharing what you've learned from your own story with all of us. think it's really planting seeds, which I think is so important for a lot of people. 53:09 Well, thank you for having the podcast, but it's been a pleasure to speak with you if people want to like Connect with you tell you their story hear your speaking gigs like what's the best way to find you get in your space get in your world Yeah, thank you. So McQueen Dan m a C Q you en Dan calm It'll be in the show notes to have to check out that website there. This is my demo reel story from stage and also some testimonials and some logos I've spoken in the past awesome. How do you feel if someone's listening and they 53:39 really resonate with something you said and it relates to their personal story if they reach out to you and just tell you that. I encourage people to do that. I think there's so much value in reaching out to other people and just saying, hey, I heard you. It made me feel seen, whatever it may be. I think there's a lot of progress that can come with that. If someone's in their own space feeling very alone, just by reaching out and taking that action is so valuable. So thank you for allowing. 54:08 them to reach out to you and to connect with you. % brother. Thank you for having me on the show. Well, I appreciate you. I appreciate everyone listening. Again, this is the journey I never knew that I needed. And I thank each guest for healing a little part of me that I guess I still needed healing. So thank you, Dan, for being a part of this and listening to my wacky questions through the LifeShift podcast. All right, everyone, I will be back next week with a brand new episode. 54:45 For more information, please visit www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com