📍 Hello, Dan. How are you doing? Thank you for joining the show. I'm very well. Thank you. How are you doing today? Very good. Very good. Thank you. I am super excited to talk to you for many reasons. Number one I've read your profile. I've seen some of your content online. To say that you are inspiring is very insulting because your life and the adversities you have faced and who you have become today is nothing but awe inspiring.

 

And I can't wait to have this conversation with you because I know it's going to be so valuable to my listeners.

 

Thank you for saying that. It's an honor to be on the show.

 

Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to jump right in. You're 28 years old. You're living a healthy lifestyle. You go for a regular optometrist appointment.

 

They send you to the hospital, and very soon, you find out there is some type of a brain hemorrhage happening. What's going on through your mind at that moment?

 

I've been having these headaches for a few weeks, so I was quite perplexed with what was causing them, and I've been to A& E, which was Accident and Emergency in the UK, and they thought it was vertigo, they sent me home.

 

But I was in a tube one day, the tubes had a zigzag around London, and the vision started to get spotty and starry and started to fade to black. It was a race to get into the non Hillgate station. First I arrived at the station, stepped onto the platform, and the lights went out. I couldn't see, I was blind.

 

So I'm going to ask you, Mark, able sighted person your whole life, all of a sudden you're thrust into the depths of blindness in a tube station in London, what would your first thought be? What would you think and react? How would you respond?

 

I would be petrified. I would be scared because of the physical limitations I have, but also I would be worried what's happening to me.

 

Yeah. I'll tell you what I did, Mark. I did absolutely nothing. I thought, and I stood there and I thought some more. After the longest three minutes of my life, my vision came back. And I carried on with my day. The next day I went back to A& E and got them to check it again. Told them what had happened, there was something wrong here, I was blind, and I had two seizures, this is not normal.

 

They sent me home and bed with vertigo. But they told me on the way out I came out as a check in an optometrist, right? And when the optometrist carries me to the exam, he stops the exam. Which is not casual, he excuses himself from the room, and he comes back a few minutes later with a sealed envelope which he hands to me.

 

He tells me to go directly to Moorfields Hospital, which I did. Mark, tell a lie. I stopped at home first to grab a Jack Reacher book by Lee Child, the phone charger to invite to eat. I went to Morfield Hospital, had 'em that seal novel. They ran the same test there, then escalated to turn cross hospital. It turns out I had a dangerous ability of pressure in my brain caused from a non-cancer system, my penland.

 

It was preventing the fluid from my brain drain my, the fluid. It was preventing the fluid from my brain draining as normally would. So I was escalated to churn cross hospital or up cherry cross hospital. I had to have brain surgery tomorrow. My life was going to change altogether. So after a frantic back and forth with folks in Canada, the last text message my mom received reads the last text message my mom received reads.

 

I'll see you soon, Mom. I think I'll have a new haircut next time I see you. Mom's in the air flying to London on June 21st, 2014 on the operating table. Something goes horribly wrong and I have massive bleeding in the brain. Brain hemorrhage. Then the cyst bursts from the operators. So Mom lands and finds him in critical condition.

 

I was in a coma for four weeks. I was in and out of consciousness for months after this. 200 days, touch and go. When I was said and done, I was learning how to walk, talk, and smile again. But that initial, them telling me that I was having the brain, like the brain surgery was like, I was relieved to know we knew what it was, but I was also a bit scared of brain surgery, right?

 

This is a bit of a scary operation to have. And lo and behold, it goes sideways on me on the operating table. And I was, In a bad way off the hop, mom lands and finds men in a coma worst, not the worst case scenario, obviously, but pretty damn bad. And, I wake up four weeks later, my mom, dad, and brother are on the bed.

 

I'm trying to talk, but I can't talk because my tracheotomy had fried my vocal cords. They weren't sure I'd be able to talk again. And I point at my brother, I go, you, give me a pen and paper. Write down, get. Me the hell out of here. And I showed him and he goes, what do you want me to do? But you looked at the 13, who's those is you can't walk my leg and actually in a coma, I couldn't walk.

 

So we didn't do anything about that, but like this one zero to 16 for me and like an instant mark. And I wake up being told all this stuff had happened to me because I was in a coma, I didn't know. And now your reality is this. You've had a brain hemorrhage, you're in the hospital, and you're not going back to work for a while.

 

And life got pretty small, pretty quick, and pretty focused pretty fast. But it was this is devastating. This is a healthy, active guy, no, no ill issues before this. To cling into life in the ICU. It was wild, man.

 

It was wild.

 

At that moment, what is the predominant feeling in your heart? Is it fear? Is it anger? Is it confusion as to why this is happening to me? All of the above.

 

Angry with why it happened, why this happened to me, in a tempered way. I don't want to say I was an angry guy, but like I was obviously not pleased with the situation, but I never spoke poorly of the brain haemorrhage.

 

I said, I wish this didn't happen, it was the worst I ever said. But I was really like, what was me, eeyore about it, because I knew that was a losing mindset. The brain haemorrhage didn't kill me, it came pretty close. These, I had to use ice blanks above and below me to keep my core temperature down in the coma.

 

So the violent shivering, this lasted on and off for about a week. I feel like this is horrible to watch. I had a breathing tube put into my nose, and I had to rip it out in the coma. To put mitts on my hands. I couldn't rip it out, and I'd work on these mitts for days, and then I'd get the breathing tube out for a five minutes of reprieve.

 

And they put it back down when they have to extra maybe before they're feeding me food because maybe my lungs don't have stomach. So anger, confusion, frustration. But I quickly realized that it was what I thought about this. It mattered more than what it was because the parameters didn't kill me. And if I thought it would be bad, then it'd be bad.

 

If I thought it was like an opportunity to get back to things and I was pretty determined to do that. So I was very focused and very driven to get going off the hop, but it was a wild vibe, man. It was a wild vibe.

 

What's really intriguing to me is the fact that. Even while this was almost happening live as you're still connected to the tubes as you're still laying on the bed You already had the mindset that this is not the to harbor Anger and resentment is my in my mind is a losing mindset because I have talked to people who have gone through some sort of similar experiences and this level of understanding and acceptance Comes much later on.

 

So what kind of a person were you before this happened? Because that might have come to do with you being. In that mindset right at the moment, right?

 

Yeah, for sure. I'm always a bit scrappy, a bit undersized, a bit dated girls way outside my league and always proving myself that I'm better, good enough to be here.

 

Proving you wrong is what you put in my vibe and I think I really embrace that off the hop. The way the nurse got me talking again when she took me down to the park. She sat me in front of these kids playing football across the park, Mark. And she goes, Dan, those kids across the park, they don't think you're good enough to talk.

 

They don't think you're good enough to talk, Dan. And I found out pretty quickly that's a big trigger for me. And I yelled some profanities across the park. I'll spare you and your listeners. But I found out pretty quick what motivated me and I hammered that. Proving you wrong was part of my vibes.

 

You think this is going to take me down? No, like I really relished the fight and I realized that if I let it destroy me, it would. But if I didn't let it destroy me, then I can make it through this. And I battled tooth and nail, clawed my way through this. I didn't think I'd make it out of this mark.

 

There were times I was hanging out with my fingernails. I And I wasn't sure I'd be able to hold on, but I wasn't going to let go. Wasn't going to let this thing win on my account. It was going to let it take me. If it's going to take me, then take me, but it's not going to let go. And eventually the DOM broke and eventually stabilized and got to rehab and started building myself back up.

 

But it was. Leveling men, like pretty smart, pretty active, worked in tech, pretty vibrant social life. And all of a sudden you're dejected to a hospital bed. You can't walk, talk or smile. And it became pretty quick. The first night in the hospital, Mark, there was a conscious, the first time the hospital was, it was horrifying.

 

It was haunting. The ICU is a pretty dark place at night. The doctors are there during the day, your family's there during the day. It's like a happy, we're building you back up and that's great. But in the night time, the night staff's on board. All the family goes away, the doctors go away. And the wails of the patients are haunting.

 

Because their lives are in shambles. And this was super dark to deal with and the first few nights I didn't get a week of sleep because I was just hearing the whales and moans and screaming out the walls. But I realized look dude, you got to choose how you go through this now. If it's the worst thing in the world, it's the worst thing in the world.

 

But if you can position it, like you can navigate through this and you can shift your mindset and take this on board because it's a wild experience. I hope to never go back to the ICU again, but like I embraced and soaked it in I want to never be back here again. And. Yeah, it was harder than all hell.

 

I don't know how I made that shift, but I think I had that dog that fight me from when I was a younger guy, always proven that I was good enough to be there on sports teams with girls. I was relished that underdog mentality. And I figured, this is no different, but it's what you think about the matters.

 

As an old saying, it's not the size of the dog in the fight. It's the size of the fight in the dog. That is always that's winning. I'm curious, so the nurse that took you to the park, do you think she recognized something in you that it would be motivating for you to have her egg you on, like these kids never think that they can talk, or do you think that's something standard that they do?

 

No,

 

my dad and mom built like a little profile of me in the ICU when I was a blob in the ICU, not in a coma, just to show that I'm a real person. Dan loves sports, works in tech. Travels through, lived in Sweden, lived in Ireland for a number of years, he has a girlfriend here. They made me a person.

 

Yeah.

 

And the idea was like, and they said they played lots of sports growing up. So I think she read that file and was like, you know what, this can work for this guy. He's a competitive dude. And she took a risk with that because that kind of backfired on her. But like that. Galvanized me and I just took off running the races.

 

Like I'm not going to be here. Let me show you what's up, brother. Y'all across the apartment. Like, how dare you talk to me this way? Mind you, that was not a clear sentence. It was like a cacophony of words and jumbles and swears and gestures, but it really crystallized how I can motivate myself is like proving you wrong as part of this vibe and that's a toxic place to have motivation come from over the long term, but like for short periods of time.

 

Hey man. Ride that wave that comes, hammer that wave. And she did.

 

Now, obviously this is a very difficult question to answer, but do you think that if she hadn't used that route, there would be some other route for you to get that motivation?

 

Honestly, I think I would have come back to that pretty quick. Like the proving you wrong is a big part of my vibe and if she didn't hammer it, I would have Distilled it out later on, but like now I've transitioned my motivation from proving you wrong to now service, line in the hand. Your success is my success.

 

When motivation comes from this dark place of proving you wrong, it works well for a short period of time. But once I beat you, once I win, the motivation disappears, it was never there. It vanishes, like evaporates. But when I'm, when my success is based on your success, motivation can last for a lifetime service.

 

So I'm now trying to transition motivation more from that holistic place than the dark place it came from. But don't try to judge the motivation that comes right the way that comes and hammer it man. Cause the next wave may not be for a while. It's a random wave on the surfboard and you can wait for the waves to come.

 

I don't like this wave. Okay. They're going to be way for another while. So you've got to pace yourself and base it off that, but take the way that rides now and hammer it, man. Don't judge the wave. Take the way the

 

rides. Yeah. Thousands of lessons to be learned here. The two that, strike the most is number one, when somebody truly knows the little things that make you work, they can utilize that to help you, the profile that your parents created, the nurse was smart enough to see through that, understand you and be able to push certain buttons to able to get you to react a certain way.

 

And the rest is history. Sometimes all it takes in life is somebody who truly cares about you and who knows you a little bit to help you get to the next level. And the second thing is. Don't judge yourself. If the motivation comes from a place of something dark, that's okay. It's temporary. It gets you moving in the beginning.

 

And then we can change the type of motivation and the source of it and continue the path. So I love that.

 

Exactly.

 

So what was life after? Now, you have started to speak, you're moving around, you're functional, you're starting to walk again. Where are you now? What is life like?

 

Walking took a while to get back to walking, so I'm going to touch on this for a little bit.

 

I had to wear a splinter on my left leg. Splint's like a cast to rub your leg muscles and gently tease it out. That's the baguette that was sold. My leg had atrophied in the coma, that's why I need the splint to stretch it out. They used a Botox injection in my leg to loosen up the muscles, when the needle was about this big.

 

Felt like about this big, probably about this big. But I'd wear a splint over my leg. And the first thing I'd wear the splint through the night. No issues, don't stress, this will be easy I thought. This will be easy. Boy was I wrong. The second night after 20 minutes it was painful. After 30 minutes it was dreadful.

 

After 40 minutes it was unbearable. I'd buzz the nurse to take the splint off my leg. But I'd tell the nurses, tomorrow we're doing this for an hour. I'm a walker, I can handle the pain. Big talk. So the third night they're wrapping my leg. Tie it off at the ankle. Give me the clicker, the nurse call button.

 

Go patrol the Wilson ward. Now the Wilson ward was an L shape. So short on this side, long on this side. Short on this side, long on this side. Leave me in the hospital room that smells like only a hospital room can smell sanitized, sterilized. It's clean, but you're wondering what sort of atrocities have been committed under the guise of that lemony zestness.

 

After 10 minutes it looks painful. After 20 minutes it looks dreadful. After 30 minutes, the leg is unbearable. I started passing the clicker back and forth trying to distract myself from the pain. Now you can see I've got an eye patch on now, which is covering up for dull vision, which I have now, a hold over from the brain injury.

 

Which means I see two of this clicker going back and forth. As the pain ratchets up, my throat is getting more enthusiastic. Till eventually, inevitably, it's gone. I drop the clear to land on the hard little wooden floor three and a half feet down on the ground. Sugar, I say. Mark, I didn't say sugar. I look over the edge of the bed.

 

I can see the clicker on the little wooden floor on the ground. If I can get it that clear, I can stop this pain, I can end this monstrosity. Only problem was to fall from that height. Might break my arm. In fact, I figured what a 50 50 chance you'd break my arm. Coin flip. Not the best odds, I change tack.

 

I'm trying to try and do this flip, but it's tight off of the ankle, not the hip. I can't reach that far down, I'm not that flexible. Help! L by L. The world of wolves is in an L shape, right? Short on this side, long on this side. Short on this side, long on this side. They're the far end of the ward. They can't cue me on for help.

 

I decide to flip the coin, drop down and grab the clipper, even if I break my arm. The splint's gotta come on my legs from one, two, and three. Blow myself off the edge of the bed, and I crack down in a heap. The arm mark holds. And I hammered the clicker, expecting the nurse to come bursting into the room to come and rescue.

 

They kind of stroll in five minutes later. What are you doing in the floor, love? First of all, I say, that's a fantastic British accent you have there. Where are you from again? I didn't say that, did I, Mark? Let's get this I was going to say, no way you said that.

 

So what happens to you and how you respond to the matters, right? The reason why I told you this story is I learned three lessons from this experience. First lesson being, let's not pass the clicker back and forth. That's a bad idea. Second lesson was to tie the splint off of the hip, not the ankle. That way you can untie the shoe without having to go forwards.

 

And the third and probably most profound lesson I learned was Let's always be solutions oriented from this point forward. When things go sideways in life, how do you resolve your issue, how do you fix your issue off the hop? Then backtrack and figure out why it happened, but off the hop, how do you resolve your issue?

 

With the help of the Splinter, the Sir Walken, and all those little wholesome things. On the Zimmer frame, which is a four post walker you can lurch forward on. Then I moved over to the Ferrari. A Ferrari is a four wheeled walker in Ferrari Racing Red, that I can zip around in, I was going fast.

 

Greased Lightning. I'm going to walk, I'm not going that fast. Then we moved up to Naked Walk. Know what's a Naked Walk, you may ask? I'm walking without sport or aids. The reaction I got from people when I told them I went for a Naked Walk the other day was so profound I kept the term. Then I walked into Tuning Broadway.

 

So Mark, forgive me, I asked you on our pre call, have you been to London before? Yes I have. Have you been to Tuning Broadway? Yes I have. Alright, perfect. Let me set the scene for your listeners, just in case you aren't familiar. Tuning 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 boys are busy. Walk with a cane, walk with an eyepatch. After four months in a wheelchair, I'm relieved a man be on ice. I turn the corner to walk on the high street for the first time. Immediately get slammed into by someone. Stagger back a few feet.

 

Someone scurries past me on the right hand side. Thought I was done with the rats. Someone had been stabbed on the sidewalk over here. I'm thinking this is a pretty wild place to learn how to walk. After a few days of 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 I'm in the worst place in the real walking world, but maybe it's the best. If I can walk here, I can walk anywhere. The two probably didn't change, right? I went from the worst to the best in my mind and my mind reflected that.

 

What are you looking at in your life that convinces you it's the worst? It convinces you it's the 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. Iron Mike Tyson famously said, everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

 

Now your punch may not be a brain hemorrhage, right? Facts. Will be a job loss, a breakup, a diagnosis for you or a loved one, you will take that punch in the mouth, how you respond. I'm offering a compass, not a map, but a compass. It always points towards the true norm. We'll look at things like mindset, perspective, and hacks.

 

Hacks that allow you and your team to be better than yesterday and tomorrow. My name's Demo Quinn. And the reason why I told you that story about learning to walk in Tootin Bravo is when you change the way you look at the world is gonna get changes. And you don't need a brain hemorrhage to understand that.

 

So I shared that story with you, Mark, just so you can see the perspective shit that I did myself to make this the worst, not the best. And how it was a mental game more than a physical game. I look forward to those walks, the bump into me, crash past me, good, bring it on, you're making me better with this.

 

The strike made me better, I craved it, I look forward to it. Before, I was so jaded by this, so frustrated because, can't they see I'm trying to walk here? But that subtle mind shift made all the difference because the game didn't change, right? But the way I looked at the game changed entirely. And that made all the difference.

 

But, then I moved up to walking with a cane and a stick and London is an abrasive spot to learn how to walk, right? It's quite hectic, quite visceral, quite a lot of output and input coming your way. With the brain, it's all magnified by 10, because the sounds, The busyness is quite jarring and dejective, and it's quite frustrating, but like that made all the difference, man.

 

So that's the Walkington Broadway.

 

Fascinating. Let me ask you this question, and I'm being 100 percent honest. Why, how did you escape the lure of playing the victim card? Why, if I'm playing devil's advocate, Yeah. It's so much work to have a mindset shift to look at these crazy inconsiderate people who are just running into you when it's absolutely clear that you are struggling to walk.

 

And now you have to have this mindset shift and I have to think about it positively. And now you have to think about, yeah, this is the greatest place for me to train because if I can walk here, I can walk anywhere. It's so much easier to just play the victim card. You yourself right now are.

 

on a journey in life where you're educating others and empowering others and it's hard work. Why? Why? Why do that?

 

Yes, that question, but they say the odds of you being a human being are 400 trillion to one, which means you're more likely to win the lottery. Like a million times you're going to have a life in the first place.

 

 

 

I was given, I was lucky enough to get a life with this hand. This book was my DNA, right? When it happened, what happened, no matter what, I couldn't have avoided this. I'm not going to whinge about the hand I was given. I'm going to play the hand I've got. So how I could fight through this this is my bad, man.

 

I'm not going to let it slide. I'm going to fight for this. I'm not going to set up for the life I have. I'm going to chase the life I want. Everything now, like I've got issues of double vision, I'm more impulsive and more direct. I need more rest and recovery than I did in the past. But I get to do this.

 

I get to do this. If I didn't have this issue, it wouldn't be me. Dan McQueen lives because it had this blue in my radar and my DNA. So I made that perspective shift pretty early on and never looked back. Everything I face now is I guess we're leveling up. I've got a cyst on my eye, left eye, that I've got to remove this week from the doctor.

 

They're going to numb my eye and then slice the cyst. And it sounds really lovely because needles in my eyes, literally needles in my eyes. But I get to do this. I get to do this. And I can't whinge about what had happened. Wishing something didn't happen is not an adequate way to resolve it.

 

Acceptance, acceptance, now this is a big part of this, Mark. Acceptance is key. If you don't accept it, you can't take steps to improve it. If you winged about it for six months and then decide the next day, I'm going to, I'm going to take a step forward. You've lost six months about winging about it. It's not fair or sure, but it's not personal. Don't think that you're that special. That's personal to you. It's shit happens in life, man. So I just made that choice very early on. I've never looked back. And I can't look back because my mindset is calcified around this image of I get to do this. Everything in life I get to do this, I'm leveling up now.

 

The challenge, good, bring it on. I love that fight, that underdog, the fight, the size of the fight and the dog, right?

 

Yeah.

 

Maybe you don't have that, and how do you build that up is a question that comes to get asked. You can foster resilience, right? By proving, keeping promises to yourself.

 

Building a stack of unenviable proof that says you do what you say you're going to do. How do you do this? Great question mark. I go swimming three times a week in the pool. I get in the pool, I set an intention for the laps I wanted to do. At the start this was like 5, 10 lags, tops. Now it's 40, 50, 60, 70.

 

If I make an intention, I have to, I owe those laps, it's a promise I made to myself. Save one exception. If there's a backstroker in my lane, I will bounce out of that lane so damn quick you will make your head spin. Those bloody pesky backstrokers, don't get me started on them. Meditation. I meditate for 20 minutes every morning now.

 

But I start with 2 minutes. Then 4, the next week 4, then the next week 6, then 8, then 10, then 12, then 14, then 16, then 18, then 20, 22, 24, 26. I ratcheted this shit up until now that my new standard is just, I just do this. But I've got that unenviable stack of proof that I've meditated for the past, 7, 8 years that I know I can do this.

 

I cold shower in the morning, in Vancouver, Canada is not the coldest place in the world for sure, but it's not warm. First few times I hated this. It was stressful. It was abrasive. It was grimy. It was cold. Uncomfortable, but now I crave that hit the head of dopamine.

 

I need that struggle If you're going to struggle willingly in life You can handle it much better when you go when you get thrown a curveball, right? so Prove that you say you do what you're thinking to do by keeping promise to yourself I know for a fact now that if I say I do something i'm going to do it.

 

I was on a cruise off piste here. I was on a cruise last month for my mom's 70th birthday first night on the cruise We had a big night lots of drinks over served. No doubt over served. No doubt big dance party You It was yoga class the next morning. I was going to go do it with my mom. She goes, Dan, I'm not going to do yoga tomorrow.

 

I'm like, cool, I'm going to go. Because I said I was going to go. And I went and it was horrible. I was hungover and it was just not worth going. But it was I said I was going to do it so I owed that. I had to owe that to myself. So my soul, it's I've got this mindset. Now I'm like, I do what I say I'm going to do.

 

And that, that can help me navigate through this difficult stuff. That's a bit of a rant for you.

 

Absolutely. Today's July 30th. And I was literally talking to a client before talking to you and she will know what I'm talking about. And this was exactly the same topic that we were talking about, which is that there's an incredible psychological advantage to committing yourself to doing something and following through it.

 

The tactical advantage, tactically speaking that hungover yoga session that you did for 30 or 45 minutes, probably did little to nothing to your actual physical health. But the fact that you woke up and the fact that you went to it, despite feeling a certain way, because of no other reason, other than the fact that you had made a commitment to yourself and the weight of that is worth in gold.

 

So I love that. It's huge. So let's talk about, the victim mindset again. And. Overcoming that, building up the resilience, but before we get into that, what do you think in an alternate universe in being 100 percent honest to yourself and to the listeners in an orange universe, which this hadn't happened, and you were just in London.

 

And the lights went out and then it came back on, you went to the optometrist, it was something simple. None of this happened. What would your life look like?

 

That's a good question. It would have been quite different than this. Had to go from the time in, in, in London, like working in tech probably would have scaled that career quite faster than I was now because I was working with big clients before I went in the break. And then I came back, I just heard the bottom and we're going back up. It would have been a lot different, but this experience as devastating and hard as it was to navigate through, it's just forged me into the person I am today. Iron sharpens iron, right? And I'm so grateful that it happened because I'm me because of this. Now I've got this mindset of steel of just rock solid minds that I do what I say I'm going to do.

 

And I was I wasn't a bad guy before this happened, Mark, but I was a bit loose with some stuff and a bit. I couldn't have been better. Now I wake up every day with intention, and motivation, and focus, and drive, and commitment, and I'm a better person now because of this. Everything is better in my life because of this now.

 

I've got some massive dejectors, massive outliers. Don't lose it, it's still there. But I wouldn't take it back now knowing the lessons I've learned about myself. Which is easy to say because you cannot undo it, right? There's no magic button we can do this. But I wouldn't take it back.

 

The lessons I've learned have been so valuable. I love who I am today, fully and completely. It's made me who I am today. I relish the struggle, the strength, the grind, like the fight. It's forged me into who I am today. And I think you can't wish it was different. You got to accept how it is and navigate the space.

 

Only by understanding the parameters and the limitations can you improve it. You gotta challenge those notions, right? Like I used to, perfect example, a challenge like I used to shower this bath mat in the shower 'cause it was a bit unstable with my feet. But this expensive bath mat in London, it was like a hundred pounds, whatever.

 

I told my folks one day, I'm not using the bloody mat, bath mat anymore 'cause I hanging up every day and when I went to work and hang on the wall every morning, I'd see that. And I know that they're not good enough to stand in the shower. And I resented this thing beyond all belief. And then one day I decided I'm not using the Batman.

 

And guess what? I was fine. So I ditched the Batman. I used to walk with a stick, a cane. Went back to Vancouver one time, forgot the stick, and I managed just fine, so I retired the cane. Used to wear a contact lens, and my left eye had blocked the vision. Went to South Africa on a safari. Thought dusty dirt would get in my eyes, so I left the contact lens at home, and I retired the contact lens.

 

Only by challenging and risking failure can you test the limitations of your new parameters, and can you advance yourself. Now don't do this in a stupid way. We can get hurt or hurt others, but like you're going to challenge yourself to push the boundaries to know where failure is so you know where you can play.

 

And this is something you challenge on a regular basis, every day, but every week, every month reevaluate, can I push through this? Do I need the Batman? No. Do I need the cane? No. Do I need the eye patch? No. But by pushing the bounds, can you get back to where you want to go? And risking failures?

 

I feel a lot. No mark all the time. But those feelings are starting to reduce down a lot less. They used to be missed by a country mile. Now they're missing by little bits here and there. And I'm hitting sometimes, but only by chasing down what's possible. And when I get in this place, you're going to challenge yourself to push through this.

 

You got to challenge yourself to step up and get through this challenge yourself every day to be better than yesterday. It's a mindset that's forged through hours, months, years of struggle and strife. And then my mindset is bulletproof now. What do you mean come out with? I lost my job last summer or two summers ago.

 

Mark. My brother goes, knowing you Dan, this will be a minor bump in the road. And he's right. Went for a few drinks, decided I'm a keynote speaker tomorrow, which means I need a computer today. Went down and bought a computer that afternoon. It wasn't over the job loss in an afternoon, but I reduced the amount of time to acceptance.

 

And that is the key I want you to listen to take away with this. Accept stuff. Now acceptance is tough to hear because when you don't know my story Dan, you're right I don't know your story and it's probably very difficult and very strife intensive. But listen to what I'm telling you now.

 

Everything I've been through, acceptance is the biggest takeaway I can give you. If you can accept it, you can improve it. If you can't accept it, you can't improve it because it's not real. You're not working with the parameters. I'm working on a new keynote now Mark called AAA Framework. Accept, acknowledge, accept, adapt.

 

Accept. Accept. Acknowledge. You're gonna believe this happened to me. Acknowledge that I had a brain hemorrhage, right? That's the first thing. Accept I had a brain hemorrhage. And adapt. Modify your life to fit your new parameters. I've come up with a whole bunch of hacks to help me navigate life now and help make life a bit easier.

 

To limit my strain and strife, like I wear a moop strap now, which is Tracks your rest, recovery, and strain. And I swear by this in the morning, I wake up, how did I recover? So today I recovered with a 96 percent recovery rate, Mark. So guess what, I'm sending it hard in the pool tonight. I'm gonna cane it.

 

To the cows go home in the pool because I got the bandwidth to do it, but I can't do this if I've got a red recovery or a bad sleep, I can't adapt my parameters because I can't strain myself to this. My battery is not capable of handling that strain. You can bet your ass I'm going hard in the pool tonight, brother.

 

If I dare say, a lot of times, things are not happening to us. I think the way you're looking at it is things are happening for you. Perhaps the version of the person you are today, what you're offering to the world today, through your experience, through your expertise of having overcome these things.

 

It's almost that these unfortunate things happened for you as opposed to you. And I think that's where the real mindset shift is.

 

You're a hundred percent right with that, Mark.

 

I love that you bring acceptance as well, because a lot of times we are not honest with ourselves. Unfortunate things happen to us.

 

And we have a tendency to blame circumstances to blame our luck, but honesty is where it's at. Acknowledging what has happened, accepting truly what has happened, but then having the courage to look past that, to forge a path of your own that is uniquely yours. I think that's where the strength lies.

 

Where do

 

you find that focus? Because you're so focused on becoming better next version of yours every single day. Now, someone who's listening to this, Who has a goal? Who has a dream? Who has something they want to accomplish? In today's world, there are so many distractions, right? They come in the form of people, things, social media, whatnot.

 

How do we maintain that focus so that we are not just charged up a minute today and then tomorrow we are cold and just watching TV all day? How do we do that?

 

Set goals for yourself that are achievable and attainable and limit the goals so you don't stretch too far outside of your comfort zone, make the goals hittable, winnable, small, hittable wins, and then scale from there.

 

Ratchet it up. That's the new norm now. Hit this goal, ratchet it up. I'm here now. Hit the next goal, ratchet it up. I'm here now. Like I skied last two winters ago, a goal I set in the hospital was on the even bars. I grew up skiing, a ski racer, a ski instructor. And the doc and the nurse is asking what I want to get back to doing, I'm in a wheelchair at this stage and I go, I want to see him and they said, okay, I was in a wheelchair working on the boards.

 

I couldn't walk. They weren't sure I'd be able to walk. I needed the rest of my life. There's no way that'd be skiing him, but I said it out loud. They go, okay, sure. Asked when I want to make this happen. Said 10 years from the last feature was on 2022. So that was a couple of seasons ago, late in the year into March, which is spring conditions about the season, the shop, they get waxed, they get sharpened, but they couldn't adjust my volumes.

 

Yeah. Those are a tool you worked on. They told me for live illusions. I couldn't touch 'em. Not a big deal. The Biden's hold your feet to the ski, so they break off if they don't and they can twist your knees pretty bad. Took a style of March 31st. Landed on sun with some boys, Andrew and rj, but the basic , super skyr that takes you up to the hill.

 

And I remember the old hack as a ski racer. 'cause I was up that day. I was up the hill three times a week. Do the last one on the goland. That way you can mess your skis and your poles and the doors to close behind you. You can go up hands free and do up your jacket, do up your gear. Get your gear wear.

 

Looking good. We're riding up the gondola, right over the first tower, big forwards, big back. Start thinking to myself, what if he doesn't come back? You're gonna look like an absolute idiot. Get to the top of the grouse mountain, sky riding, close your eyes if you don't mind. Put a limpicle in your cheeks.

 

We're gonna walk through the station. Clomp clomp. Open the doors into a wall of sunshine. Big inhale. Smell the fresh air, the trees, the snow, the change of environment down the stairs. Clang onto the snow. Crunch crunch. It's soft back, don't you know it's spring? Open your eyes, please.

 

Warmed up with the boys, Andrew and RJ, on a couple hills, and then I ripped it, like I never missed a day. I was an instructor for a while, so I knew how to teach skiing, so I recognized this old exercise you do where you pretend to have poles in your hands like this, so everybody still knew, everybody's acting like a duck.

 

And I skied like I never missed a day. The muscle memory is there. I was visualizing this the whole way through. For months I was visualizing this, like three pumps to the pole, and do a left hand turn again, and again. And I skied like I never missed a day, Mark. This is an audacious moonshot goal that I said out loud.

 

There was no way they thought I'd be doing this. And I skied. I didn't think I could do this. This is audacious. But I hit it. How? Because I ratcheted it up. I knew that I could, I was pretty mobile. I was pretty flexible. I started visualizing the skiing in my mind. And I knew that I could do this. Had that moment of questioning on the gondola ride up, but I navigated through that.

 

I believed in myself that I could navigate this. Goals started earlier than me, Mark, like in the wheelchair. It took 45 minutes in the wheelchair, then 35. Then 30, then 25, then 20 then 15. But it was arduous, difficult grinding. But I ratcheted these up after weeks and months of trying this, the wheelchair was horrific to get in and outta it was so difficult.

 

Every bone and muscle in my body ache from doing nothing to now being told, Hey, get up, move your abdominal muscles, put yourself in the chair. But just pick small goals. You can win, small with the wheelchair and end up with the skiing, man. And now if I say it out loud, if I say I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna do it.

 

Big, I'm shooting big because goals are something to shoot for, nor star. No, goals aren't everything, right? Because like at the start of a 100 meter race, everyone's goal is to win the 100 meter race. And not everyone does, so that obviously can't be the reason why this worked. But they give you something to shoot for and aim at and to dream for, right?

 

But building that goal and have something to aim for and just work towards that incrementally. And if you can't make the goal, maybe you miss, that's fine. Take a step back and go one step below that goal or two steps below that goal. What's the thing? We'll work on the balance board. I bought a balance board to build up my core strength and balance perceptions on the before skiing.

 

Cause that's quite big for that, but ratchet it up, man, ratchet it up before, you got yourself in a position where you can be successful and goals help me navigate this. I had this one of the more storable goals. It's in the wheelchair, just learning how to walk and I was trying to get myself back for a home visit after the hospital for five months.

 

The only thing that stood in my way were the stairs leading back to my flat in Hammersmith. Mom goes, oh, there must be a hundred. There was actually 44 steps, Mark. 44 steps stood between me and a chance of a weekend away, a weekend out of that dreary hospital. 44 steps didn't sound like much, but keep in mind I was freshly out of a wheelchair.

 

It seemed like a rather tall order. I began training the steps in the hospital, building them up to 44. 44 was all I needed to get back to the house, to get out of the hospital for a weekend. And I made it up those 44 steps because that's what it was, not a hundred. 44 It was 44 steps, man, and made myself the best blt sandwich I've had in my life back at the flat Because I made my way up those stairs, man And it was one of the best memories I had because I was down 100 so it was 44 What's the actual goal here?

 

What do you actually need to do to accomplish this not 100? It's 44 How do you want to see? Is skiing is a big audacious goal. We'll start with the balance board. So with the stretching, the gym, dynamic stretching, build a course I have with squats and deadlifts, ratchet this up, man.

 

Yeah.

 

And before, you can hit your goals, but don't make the goal so audacious you can't hit them.

 

But ratchet them up to the point where they're like, the next step is I'm going to go skiing. And damn it, I'm going skiing. It was pretty damn good.

 

Having a big vision, but then having small attainable goals that are bite sized that you're going to accomplish, you feel good when you do them, you keep the momentum going.

 

And sooner or later you have achieved your vision. Love it. Let's talk about things in a little bit of a different vein. And a lot of this is from my personal experience and working with some entrepreneurs and those who are trying to do difficult things, obviously what you have achieved and what you are still achieving on a daily basis, you're Surpasses anything that I have ever done, but I have had my fair share of trying hard things.

 

And I consider myself fairly motivated guy. I consider myself a fairly disciplined guy. I consider myself a fairly educated guy. Yada. There are times when the motivation runs out. There are times when the strength wears out. There are times when it's in the middle of the night and I'm by myself laying there, the dark thoughts come in.

 

Am I good enough? Am I going to be able to make it? Am I just fooling myself? Imposter syndrome. Did you ever have thoughts like that? And if you did, how did you work your way around it? Because I would assume the harder the objective, the darker the thoughts.

 

Those are very valid feelings and I've had those for sure.

 

They're for a season. They last for a few days and they go away. What am I doing? This is a date. This is ridiculous. I think you can see this is insane, but let it play out, let your mind spin. And then we'll maybe we did this. I could make it through this one. Then I can do this and then that, and then I'm skiing.

 

Don't just be impulsive and reject it. Let it breathe, give it some oxygen, validate it. Cause there, there are scary thoughts and they've got some valid points behind it. But they don't know you, they don't know what I'm capable of. Give me a few days, give it a week. And let's see if it's still there.

 

And just meditate on it and just breathe and and eventually it lines up. But how do you

 

not get sucked into it? Because, I agree with you that, there is a way to let it breathe and let it play itself out and perhaps even consider the worst case scenario. And you're like, okay, this is the absolute worst case scenario.

 

Anything that happens between here and the worst case scenario, it's not as bad. But some of us have a tendency to really let it spiral. And it really sinks us in, like in a black hole, almost in a whirlpool. What are some things we can do to do a pattern interrupt? To not let us just drag down the depths of hell of our dark thoughts.

 

I call this the pity spiral. Where you're like, woe is me, this isn't fair, why did this happen to me? And hey, I got down that pretty spot, pretty far down. I never went fully dark. I was never fully woes me about this. So I can't speak to how to get out. If you're at the bottom of that pit, I can't do it because I wasn't there.

 

It's not, it wouldn't be authentic for me to say that, but I just know that there's some good that will happen with some bad stuff. You ever heard the video Jock Wellington called good. You heard that Mark?

 

I know about Jock, but I didn't know the video.

 

So essentially it just goes. It's this video called good.

 

I recommend all your listeners to check it out on YouTube called good Jocko link, and it's phenomenal video. And he talks to like all these bad things that happened to you. It was good. I can then do this good. I can now do this. I went to a cafe in shepherd's bush a couple of years ago when I was living in the shepherd's bush in London, had my headphones on, tried to have them for this call that I couldn't find a mark.

 

Apologies for that. My phone, second, I left the house, the phone, the headphones go power off, low battery, and I went good. I'm close by the house. I can charge the headphones. We'll go back to the cafe. Had it been at the cafe headphones would be dead and I'd be with headphones for the whole time. But that instant reframe of good, there'll be some good that happens from bad stuff, right?

 

If you can ingrain that in your vibe and your mind, like you're unstoppable. I can't speak to if you're down the pitty spiral fully because it was never down that mark. But don't allow yourself to slide down that rail. There'll be some good that comes from the situation, right? This brain hemorrhage, devastating.

 

On paper, dead to rights, I should have been dead a few times. Like all my seven, had my nine lives for sure, I've used up seven of them. So it's this is dark, this is dreary, this is bleak, this is impossible. But, there's some solace and some good that comes from it. At least I can talk. I had a second setback, Mark, I'll tell you about that in just a second.

 

After a year of building myself back up, walking, vocational rehab, Speech and language therapy, physical therapy. I built myself back up in two days a week at work, two days a week at work at Hootsuite. Shout out to Hootsuite, they were phenomenal through this whole process. Thank you Hootsuite so much.

 

Three half days a week. And I meet one of the two before I went to work and she'd go off on a walk. One day I didn't show up, Mark. She calls my flat, no response. My flat, about five minutes from the shepherd's or from the Goldlock Road tube station, she finds me unconscious on the floor, rushed to the hospital of emergency brain surgery.

 

The she's in my brain had blocked, need no hydrocephalus or water on the brain. I wake up the next day, you hear the beeping noise, the heart monitor going up behind me. Beep. What happened? What happened? Then had a second brain surgery. What do you mean? We got the blockage? Be at a second brain surgery.

 

All my progress is washed away. I've worked for a year to get back to work, to put this behind me, to leave this behind me and take the step forward in my life. And this thing dragged me back down. I was devastated. All that work was washed away in an instant. All that progress, all that positive vibe were gone.

 

I described my recovery like a W mark. So the first setbacks down here, climbed back up about halfway. Second setbacks down where the first one was much lower. The depths of the human experience, rock bottom. Rock bottom or bedrock. I can build up from here. I know how to rehab better. This didn't happen overnight.

 

I was down, I was down the piggy spiral for a good month and a half. But slowly but surely I realized, you know what? I can rehab better. I know how to do this. I lost the gains from rehab, but I know how to do the games again. I know how to build back better and rehab better. So slowly I got to work and started taking small steps to improve my lot and get back to there.

 

I wasn't entitled to go back to in person rehab because I'd already done that in the files. I don't need to have that vein woman had to fight tooth and nail to get me back on some periphery rehab. We could call in and have some chats with them. It started in the gyms, rebuild myself back up and one foot in front of the other one step at a time.

 

This was devastating. Mark, the brink of the human experience. We're like, death, just laughing at me. Like you thought you were getting out of here, but you're going nowhere. I talk about recovery. Now I'm like joking terms because this thing tried to get me twice. It tried to claim me twice. I laughed in his face.

 

Now you think you're better than me. Hell no, brother. But this was devastating. This flattened me and then stretched me to my absolute breaking capacity. Why are you trying to work down? You can't even get back up. This is not letting you, it's not releasing you. It's not letting you go. You can't escape this.

 

This is for life. But slowly but surely my mind started to shift and tilt and turn. I realized that I could take steps to improve my lot. I could rehab faster and better. And I took one step at a time, one step at a time, day by day, inch by inch, row by row, gym, swim, ramp myself back up. I mentioned swimming. It's a big part of my rehab vibe now cause it's low impact way. I used to give talks for my old rehab center, Wilson Rehab Center in Roehampton and Tudin railway. They've located now in Roehampton. I gave this talk for them and talk about swimming and how important that was for me. I had one comment from a listener saying, you know what, Dan, I was a big swimmer before the brain injury, but after the brain injury, I stopped because it was so difficult and strenuous to do, but it was, I just stopped doing it because it was so frustrating.

 

After him hearing me speak, he goes, I'm going to start swimming again. That was probably the single best comment I've ever heard from my talk because I've changed his mindset. I'm going to try again. I would say, try this most important bit. You can control your effort. You can control your grind and control your fight.

 

If you try, if you stop trying, Hey man, I'm sorry to hear that. If you keep trying, it's going to break. It's going to improve. It's going to go. I'm not going to not be successful because I didn't work hard enough. It's because I wasn't good enough. But I'm always gonna try and you gotta have that fight inside you to try if you give up and say hands up fine You got me man.

 

Look I want to do that a few times like second step back dude I was dead to rights again You had to be kidding me, give it some time to breathe. Let it breathe I know how to rehab better. I can take the next step better. I can most of the time feel better. I had eye surgery last year, about this time last year.

 

Had two surgeries in the right eye, one in the left eye. Trying to correct the delusion I've got from brain injury, right? It's quite debilitating, quite strenuous. Two videos play in my mind like this. One's on a tilt and one throbs now. It's devastating. My dad goes, if the last surgery was changed, it was getting better.

 

It was getting better. And the last surgery buggered everything up. My dad goes, do you regret having the eye surgery down? I go, yeah, absolutely. It's changed everything. But the more I thought about the more I realized, you know what? I was taking the next step. I was trying to prove my law. There's a story by a story called the Fox, the boy, the horse and the mole.

 

Can't remember the author's name now, but it's quite a well known story. And a boy's walking through a thick wood. He yells back at the horse. He goes, I can't see a way through. And the horse says, can you see your next step? Voice says, yeah. The horse says, we'll just take that. The answer is you've been taking the next step and it backfired, but I'm always going to chase that next step because that's how you improve your law.

 

That's how you chase life. I'm not going to set up a life. I'm going to chase life at one and a half. I'm not going to set up for anything. Chase it, man. You can't lose that fight. You can't say, Oh, I guess I'm missing. I'm zero up here. This is where I'm at. Fight again and again. It's exhausting.

 

It's tiring. It seems impossible at times, but if you just stop fighting. You're letting it win for you. I was never going to let this beat me on its terms. I was going to, I was going to fail because I wasn't good enough to do it, but I wasn't going to ever give up on this. And that's an exhausting mindset to have, but I don't have much of a choice. I've got to fight this every day like this because this is how I got back from that today. And I continue to fight the fight every day. But the next step is we have to chase the next step is we have to pursue the next steps we have to die on that hill for. Now we're talking with some eye doctors now about a neuro ophthalmologist.

 

So a brain and eye doctor. Guess how much school did I do a million years? I forgot why it's changed the eyesight so much. They don't know, which is always wicked to know because that's sweet. I'm the test case. That's great. That's great. But I'm going to chase this down because I don't want to set up for this.

 

I said that I've got now, I want to try and correct it. I'll just, if I can probably won't be able to fix it. I've had three searches in the eyes and it hasn't worked, but Hey, I'm going to at least try and prove it a little bit, I'm chasing this down. It turned my head a lot to the left. Now you'll notice it's an inbuilt.

 

Twitch, because I can't, I don't trust the left eye, even though I'm wearing the iPad, the left, turn to the right eye, but I was taking the next step, Mark, and that's what you got to fight for.

 

Yeah, I think this is where the biggest lesson lies. There's so many golden nuggets that you have given to us on this podcast, but the absolute biggest lesson here is that while we may not know the next logical tactical step, let's not obsess over figuring out the long term plan. What really matters is the person within us.

 

That wants to fight and it's not going to give up now, as long as we have the power and the resilience and the ability to put up a fight to take the pain and we just take that small step forward, your success is inevitable, is the desire to fight that keeps us going and that just cannot be taught.

 

That has something that comes from within. So whatever our life circumstances are, whether we hit our job or we're in a bad relationship or we're, suffering some type of devastating loss at the end of the day, it is the fight within us that keeps us going. So let's not obsess over the long term vision or the greatest plan that will solve all our problems.

 

Let's summon that energy within us to bring that fight to the ground. And let's just take the next step forward.

 

The next step, Mark. The next step is everything.

 

Next step is

 

everything. The next step is just just, can you take the next step? Yeah, then take it. And the perspective changed from that step because you're through the trees now.

 

You can see the way through. Before it was like a wall of trees. You couldn't make it through. But now you can take the next step. Yeah. And I'm not going to say it's easy because it's not. But it's calcified in my mind that's the next step, man. Everything is the next step. Like I'm not there yet. Cool.

 

I'll try again. Fall down seven times, get up eight. Like I'm not going to be denied, but I'm not trying. I'd be good enough. Sure. But I'm not going to fail for lack of effort. Fall down seven, get up eight. And that's calcified in my mind. It's just come up with now that I can't overcome?

 

That sounds super arrogant and cocky, but I believe that with my heart. I'll just pivot and adapt. I'll pivot and adapt. I'll adapt. I'll take the next step. Doesn't matter how low down I get, I'll take the next step and go up this angle. Or go around. But the next step is key, Mark.

 

How you do anything is how you do everything.

 

So when you have built yourself up to be able to be a fighter, and you've overcome some obstacles in your life, as insurmountable as they may be, you're no longer afraid. of another obstacle that comes your way. Pain of the past, the mistakes that we have made in the past will always haunt us. The uncertainty of the future will always scare us.

 

But I guess the biggest lesson that Dan has given here today is that without worrying about the mistakes and the pain of the past and the uncertainty of the future, focus on the next step. Focus on what is at hand. Dan, it's been a pleasure. I literally have goosebumps from talking to you. And I know the listeners that are listening to this today will definitely listen to this podcast, take away something valuable, and hopefully apply it very instantly in their life.

 

Thank you so much for being on this show.