After 10 minutes of life, painful after two minutes like dreadful. After 30 minutes, leg is unbearable. I start passing quicker, back and forth. Try to shock myself in the pain right now. One thing I haven’t told you is from the brain J got devolution, which means they get the play scene two of you, which means I can’t see the quick going back and forth at all. I’m feeling this out man and this is my lifeline which I didn’t really appreciate. And as the pain ratchets up my throat is getting more enthusiastic. Right. So eventually, inevitably, I dropped the flickering lines on the hard floor. Shit. Look over the edge of the bed so they could put their line on the floor. They come back to me. But can we get to that quicker? I can end this pain. I can end this atrocity. Only problem was the fault for not having my brake my arm. I thought in fact, I figured about a 5050 chance we break my arm, a coin flip, not the best odds I changed tack. So I’m trying to do the splint, but it’s in the ankle, not the hip. I’m not that flexible. I can’t reach the entire help. Oh, well, the war of the worlds was now shaped right short on this side, long on this side, short on this side, long on this side there’s fire in the war that came for help.
Cheer me out for help. I said I’m gonna flip the coin. I’m gonna go for that Splint because that’s the only thing in this world that matters to me right now is that Splint my, break my arm, so be it. This Splint needs to come out like now, not in 30 minutes, but right now, throw myself off the edge of the bed. The to screen podcast is owned and made possible by ethical marketing service. If your business is struggling with Google or Facebook ads, maybe you’re frustrated, figuring it out or there’s a performance issue. Ethical marketing service has worked on hundreds of accounts and we can help in this area. We offer a 30 day money back guarantee if you would like to find out if we can help. It’s a free no salesy consultation call and the link is in the description. Enjoy the episode. Thomas Green here with ethical marketing service on the episode. Today, we have Daniel mcqueen. Daniel, welcome. Thank you so much for having me very much. My pleasure. Would you like to take a moment and tell the audience a bit about yourself and what you do? Yeah, for sure. I’m a motivational speaker based in Vancouver BC Canada, I’ve been doing gigs remotely, speaking about adversity mindset and resilience, something that’s quite dear to my heart after I suffered a traumatic brain injury in London in 2014.
Um, so that’s kind of who I am. What I’m doing with the show today. Ok. Well, um, in, uh, looking at your content and everything, um, you, you’ve got some great uh, speeches. I love, I love the, um the motivational talks. I think you’re great. Um Would you like to, for those that haven’t seen them yet? Would you like to share perhaps a bit about your story or what that might look like? Yeah, for sure. Of course. So my, my sweet places in London, England, Jo uh on the tube one day going to Notting Hill and my vision face to black. I make my way to the platform and I realize I can’t see shit and I wait a few minutes thinking, what am I gonna do here? This is pretty wild. After three minutes, the vision comes back, but I knew something’s wrong here. This isn’t a normal batch of headaches that I was having. I’ve been having headaches before this, that were getting worse.
And I’ve gone to A&E twice or A&E once really? They thought it was vertigo and they sent me home. But then this happened in between. So the next day I went back to A&E like, hey, there’s something going on here. This is not proper what’s going on here and they run the same test. They thought it was vertigo. They sent me home, but they told me on the way out, I can always get my eyes checked in optometrist. Should that continue? Right? An Opto that sort of the eyes and extension of the brain. So many of the exam, Thomas he stops there, stops in mid with you, right? He leaves himself in the room. He comes back a few minutes later with a sealed envelope and he goes, you need to go directly to Moorfields Hospital which I did. Well, tell a lie. I stopped at home first to grab a jack reachable by the child a bite, eating the phone charger. I figured I’d be in for a little weight. Maybe we went to Moorfields Hospital that ran the same test and we have to chair and cross hospital. It turns out I had a dangerous building of pressure on my brain caused from a non cancerous system. In my head. My pal plan turns out it require emergency grades to do tomorrow.
It turns out my world would change altogether. So the last text message with my mom in Canada, I’ll see you soon. Mom. I think all the New Yorkers said next time I see it. So mom was in the air flying to London on June 21st 2014. I was on the operating team. Something went horribly wrong and had a massive bleed in the brain, a brain hemorrhage. Then the cyst burst when they operated. Oh my minds and find them in critical condition. I was in a coma for four weeks. Wasn’t that a conscious? For months after this things were dicey, attention should go. When I was sitting down, I was, we had to walk, talk and small again. It’s kind of good set up point for us that uh intense. Um And thank you for sharing it the uh the sealed envelope. What was the um what was the story behind that? Did you have to forward that on and someone else opened it or what does it say? Yeah. So I gave it to the morfi as I guess that was like the eye measurements they had gotten which indicate a massive pressure in the brain because the eyes are an extension of the brain, right? So like he ran that test, they were off the charts. He goes, yeah, we need to get this escalated.
Mr Patel actually need to go to visit him and uh specsavers I think it was um Shepherd’s Bush branch or Hammersmith branch, but he caught all this after it was missed by a niece. It was pretty serious to be found. Do you feel any frustration or anger to the people that sent you home twice? No, because what good is that gonna do? They asked me when this happened like, do you wanna follow up with like any uh any uh malpractice suits or whatever have you been like, no, because this card was my hand, the scars in my hand and it was, didn’t go off and look, mistakes were probably made, mistakes were made here. But at the end of the day, it’s not gonna undo what happened to me and they saved my life a number of times in the hospital.
So it’s like I kind of realized like I rather move forward in my life and like, we will, what could have should have kind of stuff because that’s not so way to live your life is what it could have should have. I, so I, uh, I decided to just move forward with that. It makes sense, exemplary behavior. Uh, exactly what I expect from everything I know about you so far. Um, the question, it, it might be, uh, a bit of a dumb question. But, um, I, I’ve never spoke, spoken to anyone as far as I’m aware who has been in a, in a coma for four weeks. Um, and the question is, is there, do you have any conscious knowledge that you’re sleeping at any point? Are you, is there any, is it, or is it just like going to sleep one night and waking up the following morning? But someone tells you that a, a longer time has passed? Yeah. So I, I had some weird dreams in the, in the coma. One that sticks to mine was, I was in a submarine and on the submarine there was a massive aquarium and I couldn’t understand why there was a massive aquarium on the submarine while I was underwater.
Like this doesn’t make anybody sense. You guys are underwater already. So, oh, I don’t know what that means. You can read me that way. You will. Uh, I had a feeding tube put down my nose to feed me and I hated the feeding tube and I rip it up once, twice, three times. I put mitts around my hand. So I couldn’t rip it up. But I would work on these mitts for days inching my way down so I could break through the men’s. And once I get breath, the mens, I’d rip up the cord. But every time they’d rip up the cord, I ripped the cord. They have to put it down. You have to ask to make sure it was my, my stomach and my lungs. So I lost a ton of weight. Um, I just remember having that moment of just once you get it out of your nose for like two seconds, you bliss. And then, then the process of putting it back down there it goes again. So it’s not fun. But no, I can’t say I remember too much beyond that. It was, uh, a hazy moment in my life and I woke up from the comedy is my mom, dad, brother on the bed and, and I go to my brother, I go, you trying to talk, but I can’t talk.
My vocal cords took a little while to come back and, oh, give me a pen and paper. So I’m trying to talk and talk. And the old, here’s a pen and paper right on the pen and paper. I would get me out of here and share it with the came. They, yeah. But you, let’s make this happen out of here now because like, I look around with this, like in a foreign country, this looks expensive. Let’s get the hell out of dodge. I just got like flight mode off the hop or fight mode off the hop. Like I was like, let’s get out of here now. No, I say I was in the hospital for months after this. So it was pretty good. You didn’t try to bust me out. Well, the um everything that you’ve sort of shared is a little bit intimidating but at the same time, the hard work comes when you wake up, right? So uh what’s that process like of you? I think you described it as adversity. But what is that like? Yeah, like it’s the hard work is when you wake up for sure.
Like can you stay alive in the com? But you’re not, you’re not, you know, know what you’re doing there. You’re just, you’re just along for the ride, you’re on the, the, the ships up the station, the track, the cars on the track. If you’re, you’re on the track, you’re on the car, you’re in the ride rather. And um when you wake up, you kinda realize, like, look, this isn’t a good situation. What happened to you? Like the brain hemorrhage is not an ideal situation that being said, like I couldn’t walk, talk or smile right now. I couldn’t walk, talk or smile for the first few weeks. Um Then you had a brain hemorrhage like you were in a coma. Like this is not good. You’re like conscious now. But like, we don’t know what your recovery look like, but like I realized quite early on like it’s not what happens to you but how you respond to the matters. It’s not what happens to you but how you respond to the matters and that’s not my line, that’s an Epictetus line. A stoic philosopher. Mhm And it’s kind of understanding of like step will happen like, but it’s not good or bad. It’s what you think about it, right? It’s not what happens to you, but now you respond to the matters.
And so I was very intentional not letting myself put on the pity spiral. And the pity spiral is what I call the bulls me. What it could have should have vi like, well, this isn’t fair, this is fair. It’s like you’re right. It’s not fair, but you gotta follow up one more question. That’s, and what and what do you expect to have happened now because it’s not fair. Well, this never happens to Jim or this never happens to so and so and so cool and, well, one of us, like, you just kind of run the ants pretty quickly. It’s like, what are we gonna do, man? And I realized it was like, I can’t be pretty bad about this whole situation. I gotta kinda like take it in a ride and move on with this and that’s what I’ve tried to do and I’m trying to know. Well, um yeah, I think that’s a great attitude. Uh I kind of feel a little bit like I’m not taking that piece of advice on by asking this next question, but I’m just interested, which is why I’m asking, uh, did you ever do any investigation into the cause or was it, is it not possible to realize what the cause was? Well, I had a genetic code in my vibe that was um, a growth in my pen penal gland, which is what drains the food in your brain.
You know, that is also the third eye which is like a bit bit uh mystic on you there. This would prevent the fluid from my brain drain that cause the pressure to build up and cause the pressure in the eyes. This is in my genetic code and this is like a ticking time bomb. It gonna go off eventually the weekend before this, I was in Lithuania. I’m certainly the outcome would have been different. Actually much to my surprise. Lithuania is very beautiful and modern country. Very beautiful city. Check it on summertime, but like, I couldn’t have done anything to mitigate this, this happening. I mean, maybe they could have caught it when I went to A&E but they didn’t. And such is life. So how long before you’re walking and talking again? Well, the walking took maybe a couple of weeks. They told my parents initially like, look, you may not be a talker anymore because his vocal cords are fry from the breathing tube that was put down there. Um He may not be a talker anymore. And the Kiwi nurse goes, I’ll get him talking. She’s talking to my parents a little while. She kind of my vibe. So I’ll get him talking again. Took me down to the park in my wheelchair and she goes, those kids across the park down.
Yeah, play football. They don’t think you’re good enough to talk then they don’t think good enough to talk. And I kind of realized that truck of Gore and I realized that that’s a big motivator for me. And that’s, that’s a big trigger for me. So like even now to this day, I know like if you want me to do something, like tell me I can’t do something and be like cool, I will go scorched earth on your ass to make sure this happens. But that took a few weeks and then walking took maybe 34 months from the initial hemorrhage. What had happened is that like an atrophied in the coma? So it would have bent at an angle and it was nonviolent with my left leg. So it was not functional. There were a split one hour in to help stretch out the leg muscle, which was horrifically painful. Now, the first night I wore the lin through the night, no issue. Those dresses will be easy. I thought this will be easy. The second night after two minutes was painful. After 30 minutes, it was dreadful. After 40 minutes, it was unbearable. He took the splint off. On the third night, they wrapped my leg. Give me the click of the nurse call button. They go patrol the Wilson ward.
Now the Wilson Ward was an L shape so short on this side. Longer on this side. Ok. Short on this side, longer on this side and leave in the hospital that smells in the hospital. You can smell sanitize sterilize, it’s clean but you want, what sort of atrocities has been covered up under the guise of this clem lines smell. Hm. After 10 minutes of life is painful. After two is like dreadful. After 30 minutes live is unbearable. I start passing quicker back and forth. Try to stop myself in the pain right now. One thing I haven’t told you is from the brain J I got devolution which means they get the pleasure seeing two of you, which means I can’t see the clear going back forth at all. I’m feeling this out man and this is my lifeline, which I didn’t really appreciate. And as the pain ratchets up my throats get more enthusiastic. Right. So eventually, inevitably, I dropped the clicker and lines on the hard little floor. Shit. Look over the edge of the bed as the clipper there lying on the floor, looking back at me. But can we get to that quicker? I can end this pain? I can end this atrocity. Only problem was to fall from that height might break my arm.
I thought in fact, I figured about a 5050 chance we break my arm. A coin flip, not the best odds. I changed tack. So I’m trying to do the Splint but it’s in the ankle down at the hip. I’m not that flexible. I can’t reach the entire help. Oh, why the war of the wolves was now shaped right short on this side, long on this side, short on this side, long on this side didn’t fire in the war that came here for help. Cheer me out for help. I said I’m gonna flip the coin. I’m gonna go for that Splint because that’s the only thing in this world that matters to me right now is that Splint, my, break my arm so be it. The Splint needs to come out like now, not in 30 minutes, but right now, blow myself up to the bed, crash down the heap. It’s a yard, tail blankets, wires, cables, it’s all go yarn D holds and the hammer of the clicker expecting the nurses to come bursting into the room and become arrested. You kinda stroll in five minutes later. What are you doing on the floor of exactly the sound of their absence? Um But I told him, let’s not worry about that cause one time, like please, I’ll tell you all about this.
It’s not what happens to you, but I respond to the message, right? I learned three lessons from this experience, right? The first being, let’s not pass it quick or back and forth. Pretty evident. One there. The second one is this is the splint tip at the hip, not the ankle, that way I can this happen influence. And the third and probably most profound was that always, always, always these solutions oriented from this moment onwards, going forwards, how can you fix your problem? Not what your problem is, look back and understand why it happened after the fact. But in the moment of decision, the moment of pain, the moment of strife be solutions oriented and how can you fix that? And I’ve cared that over me from that moment onwards, which is pretty cute, but that’s it to kinda show you how painful his leg was to get back to walking, right? I would flip a coin if I could break my arm to end the splint on my leg. That’s how painful this was to wear on a nightly basis. For one hour. It was arduous, difficult, strenuous. But like I wanted to improve my law, I wanted to show that I’m trying here. I rehab during the day and spent the night and tried to take step four.
But like it was, it was a crime. It was a crime. No, two ways about it. Like this was, I never wished for anything in the hospital. The Splint, that would be like the office Spice Splint, I can of the Spice Splint because that’s how painful this thing was. I was willing to break my arm to get the spun out of my leg. Bit of a rant for you there. I think the story is amazing and, uh, you tell it great. I, I wonder at what point do you realize or think about the fact that your story can help others or teach others all the time. Uh, so I’m a speaker now. So I think like the lessons I’ve learned. This experience is like they’re not whimsical little. This might be helpful. This is like mic drop like holy smoke. This is how you look at life now. It’s, yeah, it’s how I look at life and I had a lot of help to get back from it today. Right? A lot of help. My parents came from Vancouver to London for two years to be there in rehab and all this stuff. Work was super supportive. I had everything in my favor working towards me to help me get better.
If you don’t have that man, you’re screwed like you are screwed. Like I have struggled so mightily through this process and like I had a lot of help if you don’t have the help in your hoops. That’s why I’m driven to talk now because I wanna share the lessons I’ve learned with you because like this isn’t impossible. It may look impossible. There was moments in time when I wasn’t sure I’d make it out of his life 100%. 100%. I was hanging on the wall. I don’t know if this breaks for me, man. I don’t know. It breaks for me, but I kept holding on because I’m like, you’re not gonna let go the wall, you’re gonna hold on until you can’t hold on any longer. And eventually I got back off the wall if you don’t have to help your hoop. And that’s why I’m giving the talks now because I want to share lessons to learn. You might not leave, leave them left, left in the side of life. Right? Well, um, as if one brain surgery wasn’t enough, you’ve actually had two. So, um, how, how did the second one come about? Yeah. So this is, uh this is a tough moment. So after a year of rehab, right?
I use the first brain image out of the hospital in six months back at home, rehab and doing vocational occupational therapy, physical therapy, trying to get my strength back, my leg learn how to walk with a cane, walk with a cane and eye patch and build myself back up and back to work. Two happy days a week, three, happy days a week not doing much at work. I’m kind of looking at emails and I’m being so coming into the office and then at sec third, second setback happens and by setback, I mean, I was found unconscious, my flap by mom, the shuffle of my brain had blocked in the hydrocephalus of water on the brain. It’s serious business is resulting on myself an ambulance ride, another bad haircut for the brain surgery and a new medical bracelet just to order this day, just check for block vp shuns. So I woke up in the hospital bed, hearing the beeping noise, the hurry monitor, go up on me, beep, beep, beep. What happened? What happened? What happened? Well, then you had a second brain surgeon like, well, what do you mean? Well, be it. We got the blockage but there was a blockage in your shunt.
And you know, all my progress is washed away. I’ve been working for a year to get back to work a year to build my life back up from this huge tragedy, right? We got the block that we got the blockage. But like this felt like the cart was rip in my legs. Like all my progress was washed away in an instant like it was gone. It was never there. Like I was so low at this stage of the game. I can’t tell you how difficult this was navigating to like, keep my mindset pure. Can I go down the pity spiral, the world d situation, the situation. But it’s not fair. You’re right. But by saying it is not fair and wishing it didn’t happen some adequate way to resolve it or get better. You’re just, you’re prolonging the inevitable like the, the work that you put in to get through this, right? I stayed down in this P spiral for about a week, right? It was pretty low for about a week. I scrub my like a w so the first step back was the first tip of the W I climbed back up to work halfway up back to w and the second setback where the first one was much lower. I call this the depths of the human experience, right? Where all your hopes and dreams are snickered out where like everything in your life you thought was good. No, if I get a chance or bud, like now we got you back down here, but you’re not going anywhere, you’re not going anywhere.
And it took every ounce of my mental strength to knock down. The part would be negative and BS me and like, well, screw this I guess the, the world up to get me, but it’s not fair. You’re right. But guess what, no one’s coming to save you, man. So eventually after about a week, I kind of got myself back up together and I realized, you know what I’ve done this before. I know how to do this. I know how to rehab. The progress made me wash it. But my mindset how to do this is not gone. I know how to think all this and to navigate this in a more pragmatic way, especially start back with rehab and I go back to do that. And so eventually build my way back up and incrementally build myself back up to work after a few months or a few months after the set back, go back to work and I’ve been climbing ever since then. But like it’s the mindset is so key for this, right? Because like, like there was a moment where I was like, is this maybe I just throw my paper, I guess the world’s up to get me now. But like I’m, I’m stubborn. Probably the biggest reason why I’m here is I’m stubborn and like, you know what, I’m not letting this beat me.
And now I talk about the brain image in such lighting and joking life because it’s like a man, you ain’t shit like you should, you try to get me twice and you didn’t get me. So like I’m gonna talk about you and disrespect you in front of everyone laugh in your face like I talked with such a respectful tone but like it’s not because it was light or easy just because like I wanna let it know that like you ain’t shit, man. Like you try to get me like yeah, almost got me there bud. There’s this one my left leg where with the splints got uh the thighs covered in tattoos. Now, I’ve got that all covered in tattoos. There’s one tattoo of one to get that I didn’t get yet. It’s this, uh Grim Reaper with the, with the Hawaiian shirt on. This is not today and I still wanna get that. So I think as I go back to London, I’m gonna get that with Danny Quipp in, uh, in East London. So that’s my next buy for the tattoo. But, uh, to remind you like you’re stronger than you think and reminded the death like a not today, brother, not today, but this was all mental. And I translated that into the physical games as well.
It’s an amazing story and, uh I’m very glad that you did. Um, have, have you ever, uh received any feedback from others in terms of uh what your story has meant to them? Yeah. So I’m a speaker now, but like the reason why I’m a speaker is because I started to give this talk to my outpatient group of Wilson rehab center. Shut up Wilson reap center. And after the talk, one time, I got feedback from the the organizer saying, like Dan, after your talk, one of our participants used to swim all the time said he’s gonna try to go back to the pool because it took so much longer to get back and swimming ready because the mid four, he tried to do that again because like that was really difficult. And one of their patients said your phrase no, doesn’t mean forever. It just means right now. It was really helpful and like that, that’s important to me to have that because like, I, I had a lot of help to get back up to where I’m at today, right? Like you don’t have that help, man, you’re, you’re finished. And if I can give you those lessons, I’ve learned like by now, like, hey, maybe you can get yourself up to where I’m at now.
I’m like, I’m not back to that yet. Like I’m still climbing them, but like, what do you with that? I can’t overcome or, or deal with like, what are you gonna intimidate me with? It’s like cool. You think this is the scary thing? Like I’ve literally walked it back twice from the brink of existence. I’m like, what are you gonna scare me now? Like this is like scary for me. Like, no, I don’t know, I, I wanna, I wanna chase it. I wanna earn it. I wanna, I wanna improve. I wanna better than yesterday, but I’m chasing now. Right. It’s like every damn gonna be better than yesterday with my talk with my methodology, with my start up sequence. Like I meditate every day. Like, so I have a start up sequence for the day. My, my morning routine is very rout routine based today wasn’t as, as extravagant as it was because this interview is a bit earlier than I would have liked, well, bit earlier than I normally get up. No disrespect because you’re in the UK. But, um, I woke up, showered, cold, showered and showered, cold and then meditated for like 20 minutes.
But I mean, every day now is like a routine based thing, right? That’s like better than history kind of vibe. I’ve been through trial and error, but through trial and through rare, I’ve buggered up a few times and that’s why I know that meditation is a key part of my life, but I don’t meditate not as crisp as I could be for the podcast, which is like, you know, I’m gonna live forever in front of millions of people, no doubt. Um So I wanna be fresh, I wanna be sharp and I wanna like put my best up forward and that’s through meditation and through trial and error. Well, um I think that you, when you’re focused on your recovery, my perception is that you’re focused on only that my question is around. Did you, have you ever spoken to your parents about, uh, their experience for all of this. Yeah, they’ve helped me, my talk quite a lot. Like they, honestly, I have a tough time going through the talk that I give and, like, reliving the stuff that we talk through and, like, I’ve got pictures and slides. They kind of go through like those IC U units and like they say, it was horrible when I was in a coma. They, they keep my core temperature down below four degrees. Otherwise be brain damaged, right? So my this ice blanket above melo me and led to violence shivering for about a week, violent shivering for about a week.
I was in a coma, violent shivering. They say this is one of the worst things ever in my life. Like hook up to 13 tubes and hoses my the doctors constantly to my brains like look, you may not make it through this, send recommendations here. You may not make it to this. And if so what quality of life is you gonna have? We don’t know when I go to the hospital. It’s like when I got out of the IC U, it’s like I couldn’t walk well. The nurse told my friend Milo the we like, yeah, he may not be, he probably won’t be able to walk an anesthetic for the rest of his life. Like this was dire, this was grim, this is horrific. This is a atrocity to live through for my parents. I apologies by talking about it all the time. But I need you to know if you find yourself down in a dark hole. There’s a way through this and you can navigate this and get out of the hole because I did these tests. I’m going a bit off here, but apologies did these tests maybe last last year, this time at a brainer clinic in CBC, a very hopin clinic. Actually, we talked to them last week.
Neuro connect neuro connect and R BC. These brain scans with this little cap on put gel in there and like they read out these terms like cat dog cucumber pair like and then they look at your brain like see if you like there, there’s a connection there and see if there’s a connection between the two of them. My results came back as an average for my group, which is really good for a guy with a brain, right? Two brains like average is pretty damn good, right? But I was expecting him to be some big outliers, some big ups and downs some big I’ve recovered. So while there’s gonna be some big outliers here, some big ups and downs, right? But shockingly average is what I read into this and I kind of looked into more of them and I realized like, you know what, this is actually pretty good because that means that I’m no smarter better than anyone that I’m speaking with. I’m just driven and have chosen to go forwards. I’m not smarter or gifted, I’m just driven to go forwards. And that means that you can do this too. That means that everything that I’ve done is not by gifted, by work. And that means that you can do it too. That means that you can do it too. And that’s why I’m driven to talks because look, this may look dark and bleak and it may look impossible.
But like if you just keep putting 1 ft in front of, you can’t even through this. And that’s like my, why is pretty big with this? Right? And the why is, is so huge and it is me driven to share this message because you can do this too. Why not? Well, on that note, at what point do you decide to become a speaker? And what’s when you step out for the first time amongst people? What’s that like? Yeah. So I was giving this talk, I mentioned to uh my outpatient group for about a couple years before I became a full time speaker. Now you want a quarter to them like new outpatient group. And I go live to the Wilson Re Center and I got a lot of values in that. And like, I could see, I like light up with them with certain phrases and terms of phrase and hacks that I would give and share some of this and they really kind of live a life with us and I dove full time into speaking after last year, I let go my H job in tech, my tech job at H and I was like all part of a corporate restructuring, like foreign who lost their job in that day.
I was in the wrong side of a spreadsheet and asked to see the door. My whole job across the company got let go and I was there for nine years. right? So it’s been devastated by this. But I realized after boozy lunch, I’m a motivational speaker tomorrow, which means I need a computer today. So went down a few drinks and went down to the store to become a new computer cause I’m a speaker tomorrow and I may have played up the fact that I was a bit devastated by the job loss for a few months to like, you know, get some time in band with an air cover, maybe, maybe not. But I kind of realized that like, what a great opportunity to do this full time, like I wouldn’t have had the balls to quit my job and dabbing this full time, how to not go let go from my job, right? So every negative situation is almost, I don’t wanna say there’s a silver line and everything. But like, if you look at it in a certain light, like why not like this? I’m only speaking out because I got let go from my job, which was a job I had for nine years, which is security, which is a safety blanket.
Now I’m doing what I’m really called to do my passion. My, my purpose in life is to speak and I to share this knowledge and these lessons learned. So it’s like if you hold on long enough everything, bad blocks into the wood place that will show you some good with it. Right. And that’s tough to hear when you’re down in dark hole because you don’t know my situation down the OK, I get it. Maybe your situation is the worst in the world and the toughest of it for sure. Maybe it is or maybe you can shift your perspective a little bit. Maybe this is not the death ball. You think it is, maybe if you hold on a bit longer, it will open up and show you the whole new world over here. Right? That’s why I speak and that’s what I’m going to do here. And have you got any aspirations? Uh Speaking wise. Yeah. The, you know, the ted stage of a can and um I caught up with a friend of mine a couple of months. It probably last year about this time. You hear me talk at hootie before I let go. Um And he was dad. I want to see you at MS G. I mean, that sounds pretty good. That’s audacious as hell. The more I thought I was like, yeah, MS G sounds pretty good. So like, I’ve got big aspirations. I got big ambition. I got big fire. Like, why not?
Why not? If you do a TED talk, please do, send it to me. I’d love to watch that, but I do have a follow up about swallowing the hairy frog. What is this? So, this is a, this is a good story. Um, motivation or moment is to be part of my vibe, right? With the brain jury, you gotta have momentum to keep things going to keep things carried over from like when you’re active and doing stuff. Right? So Monday morning for work, I would used to go swimming before work and that’s what I called. Well, I don’t know why I call it a small frog, but I would wake up at five o’clock. Go to the pool, swim blas and I go to the pool for like a 9 a.m. start. So it was a pretty early morning on the lift, going down to the, the, the ground level with my hr manager one inch and had all these bags. There’s two bags that I swim with this big bag. So, what’s all this for dad? Like? Well, I went to this morning for work and she goes, oh, you swall Perry frog and go, excuse me. So you swallowed every frog and you know, that’s, that’s not a thing. So, here’s the dog. Yes. Swallow the frog. Yes. She’s combined them into one and created this swelled hairy frog.
So I created this mug for that, this frog that’s combing his hairy back to remind her how much smack she talks and he gave it to her as a gift. Swelled air frog. So not going onwards my morning, morning, early morning ros on a swell frog, but it’s to, to, to kind of indicate that momentum is a big part of your vibe. And swell air frog is doing the most will pass in the day, first thing in the morning and that’s swell Air Frog. Thank you for that. You referenced your morning routine a couple of times. I am trying to implement something uh because I spoke to a, a previous guest who gave me a good uh a good breakdown. What would you recommend as the best practice regarding morning routines and what has it meant for you? Well, I first and foremost, sleep is the most important thing for me. I’ve got a bootstrap which is uh like a wearable fitness tracker that like help me track my sleep, breast recovery strain and sleep is the 12 and three for me. For brain. You guys sleep is the most important thing. So if I sleep poorly, I’ll put my routine to sleep more. First and foremost, like I’m not like I’m not like r or down with this routine, like I will adapt it depending on how I slept.
But normally I would wake up, go for an exercise, go for a shower and the shower cold. Come on, meditate for 20 minutes. Have a full breakfast on my day and spend my day that way. And it’s routine based because I want to eliminate the bandwidth I’m using to think about my routine in the morning. I want to just kind of diving and stuff and jump into things and do that. Meditation is a non negotiable. It’s almost every day. There are some days I will miss it, but we’ll do it later in the day to kind of catch up but do it kind of works for you. You gotta have trial and error is how I figured this out. So trial works best for you. But sleep is the 12 and three for me and that’s how I track the trapper. I’m happy to report that I slept 98% last night and I had 90% recovery, which is phenomenally high ratings on both accords. So like I’m, I’m doing something right here, man. Glad to hear it. Is there anything that I should have asked you about today? No, I think you can be a lot of good stuff, man. Like I like the main thing I want to get across yours is like it’s not what happens to you but how you respond to the measure. It’s not what happens to you, how you respond to the matter. It’s like you’d be hard pressed to find the situation is dire.
A not you, let me, let me back that up. Life will throw stuff your way. That may seem impossible to now get overcome may seem impossible. Blake, don’t, don’t give into it. Don’t let it get that final straw. Don’t fail. Force. Like, hold on, hold on, hold on. And eventually it will break. Even you will break or, or you’re dead and you know, either way, either way. Right. Hold on and it broke man. Like I can’t tell you how, how dire thought was how, how dead to rights. I thought I was like, I’m, I’m grouped here. I’m like, I don’t think I can get through this situation, but I held on and I held on and I get through the situation. It’s the part of everything I do now is just like this, this vibe like that’s all you got. Bring it up. But like I, I’m, I relish the underdog vibe that I’m not good enough vibe and like, let me show you how we can do this and navigate the situation. So that’s the message I wanna get your across your audience is out there. It’s a great message and I love to hear you talk, which considering what your job title is, that’s a fairly good thing, right?
I hope so for people who want to follow you or get in touch. Where do they go? Have you got a website mcqueen Dan M ac Queen dan.com mcqueen Dan across the social Instagram, Twitter link um linkedin and youtube. Ok, Dan. Well, thank you for being a great guest today and thank you for telling your story. Appreciate your time. Thanks so much.
