The Mental Game of Recovery with Daniel MacQueen
Show Notes:
Taking three steps backwards and one step forward is something you may be familiar with as a brain injury survivor.
Today's guest Daniel MacQueen knows this process all too well. After an optometrist appointment to identify the cause of his persistent headaches was cut short, he was handed a sealed envelope and told to go directly to the hospital. What followed, was emergency brain surgery. On June 21, 2014, Dan's reality was shattered by a devastating brain hemorrhage. With no map to guide him on the grueling path to recovery, Dan had to rely on his grit, perseverance, and resilience to relearn everything he once knew: how to walk, talk and even smile.
In today's episode Dan shares how he overcame these difficult challenges through his many recovery hacks. Dan also takes the time to talk about his experiences and tips on managing the mental game of recovery. Lastly hear about the importance of making both short and long term goals as a survivor. Don't miss out on this very inspirational episode!
Key Points From This Episode:
[00:02:26] Dan shares his life changing brain injury experience
[00:04:33] Dealing with the inconsistencies in recovery
[00:06:11] Getting through the tough moments
[00:08:17] The mental game of recovery
[00:13:50] Dan shares his many hacks for getting through recovery
[00:19:30] How to accept the idea that “life is not fair”
[00:23:13] Dan shares his tips on creating short and long term goals
[00:28:42] Dan's final message
Follow Dan on Twitter: @macqueendan
Follow Dan on IG: @macqueendan
Check out Dan's website: www.macqueendan.com
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Podcast Introduction
[00:00:00] Bella: Hi everyone. I'm your host Bella Page, and after suffering from post-concussion syndrome for years, it was time to do something about it. So welcome to the Post-concussion podcast where we dig deep into life When it doesn't go back to normal, be sure to share the podcast and join our support network.
[00:00:21] Bella: Concussion connect. Let's make this invisible injury become visible. The Post-concussion podcast is strictly an information podcast about concussions and post-concussion syndrome. It does not provide nor substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
[00:00:51] Bella: Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast. The opinions expressed in this podcast are simply intended to spark discussion about concussions and post-concussion syndrome.
[00:01:06] Bella:
Episode Introduction
[00:01:06] Bella: Welcome to episode number 96 of the Post-Concussion Podcast with myself, Bella Paige, and today's guest, Daniel McQueen. At 28, Dan was leading a healthy, active life, after an optometrist appointment to identify the cause of his persistent headaches was cut short. He was handed a sealed envelope and told to go directly to the hospital, what followed was emergency brain surgery. In 2014, Dan's reality was shattered by a devastating brain hemorrhage with no map. To guide him on the grueling path to recovery, Dan had to rely on his own grit, perseverance, and resilience to relearn everything. He once knew how to walk, talk, and even smile.
[00:01:46] Bella: Dan has survived two emergency brain surgeries, weeks in a coma, and months in rehab in a hospital. What he found out along the way might surprise you, there is nothing like a brain injury to refocus the mind driven by a positive mindset, Dan battled through excruciating rehab exercises to rebuild his life and return to the job he loved.
[00:02:07] Bella: He's grateful for the doctors who saved him and the friends and family who supported him. Now he wants to pay it forward. The tools Dan used to build back his life can be used by anyone facing challenges. Through his talks, Dan has inspired many.
[00:02:20] Bella: Welcome to the show, Daniel.
[00:02:23] Dan: Hi. Lovely. Be here Bella. Thanks for having me.
Dan shares his life changing brain injury experience
[00:02:26] Bella: So to start, do you wanna tell us a little bit about your brain injury experience?
[00:02:31] Dan: I'd love to thank you. So my brain injury happened in 2014 and jolly Old England. I was having these headaches that were horrible and they were getting worse after a few weeks, I was taking a lot of painkillers, popping 'em like candy, but they weren't doing anything for the pain. I went to a and e twice, which is accident, an emergency in the uk. They thought it was vertigo and they sent me home, but they told me if the headaches were to continue, I should get my eyes checked in an optometrist.
[00:03:00] Dan: So as the middle exam, the optometrist, Mr. Patel, stop the exam. Full, full stop. So we gotta stop it for you here. I want you to go directly to Moorefield Hospital, which I did. Well, sort of. I first went home to grab a book by Lee Child and bite to eat and also grabbed a phone chargers. I figured I'd be in for a bit of a wait and why I have a phone in case you know, something were to happen, which, you know, little did I know my life would change after this moment.
[00:03:26] Dan: So I called my manager and mess with friends, emailed my folks in Canada. They were in the flight to come to to London when I woke up, I was on the operating table on June 21st, 2014 when I had a brain hemorrhage. My mom lands in London and finds out I'm in critical condition. I was in a coma for four weeks, but was in and outta consciousness for months after that. It was really dicey when I was in a coma that had to keep my core temperature down below 40 degrees. Otherwise there'd be brain damage. So these ice blankets above and below me to keep my core temperature down which led to violent, shivering lasted on and off about a week. My family says this is a horrible to watch.
[00:04:05] Dan: When all was said and done, I was learning how to walk, talk, and smile again. Months of arduous rehab and building back up, and it's been an ongoing journey ever since. That's kind of the Cole's notes version of the brain hemorrhage though, Bella .
[00:04:20] Bella: Yeah, for sure. I always like that you add the, walk, talk, smile again cuz I think that smile again part of it is really important, but also probably one of the hardest parts actually. ,
Dealing with the inconsistencies in recovery
[00:04:33] Bella: And so do you wanna talk and walk us through a little bit of like dealing with the inconsistencies of being in recovery?
[00:04:41] Dan: Yeah, for sure. Like, I mean, it's very able body, healthy guy, otherwise healthy guy, no issues through my whole life and in an instant I am bedridden. I can't move, I'm in a wheelchair, it takes me 45 minutes to get in the wheelchair, and then 40, then 45 again, then 47, and then 50, and then 35. And then just these, these days are so frustrating because I'm trying really hard here. I realize that the effort was the biggest thing that I can control.
[00:05:08] Dan: I always say control the controllables. So I may not have the same output or the same, um, result, but I have the same output every time. I would try my hardest I'd try, and that's what you can control. So stop worrying about you know what, uh, I don't wanna be prescriptive here, but like, what I found helped me is, is not worrying about what happened with the result, but always put the effort in to make the result happen.
[00:05:31] Dan: And it's just, it's a big mental game because it's so frustrating when you take three steps back and yesterday took one step forward and it's just like, but you gotta have those highs and lows because it's gonna be a very difficult uphill battle.
[00:05:44] Bella: Yeah, I find that is a lot, like I always explain it as a rollercoaster and you're like blindfolded while you're on the rollercoaster. It goes up, it goes down, it turns left, it turns right, and you don't always know what's gonna come next. Then I really like that control the controllable. I know there's definitely moments where it feels like you can't control anything and those moments are really tough and trying is also something that like sounds easier than it is.
Getting through the tough moments
[00:06:11] Bella: So like you say, you should try, but trying every day eventually kind of feels like, but what if I don't want to, or what if I don't have the effort? Or what if like, my head's not in anymore because I'm exhausted of not getting results? What happens in those kinds of moments? Do you have any advice?
[00:06:30] Dan: Yeah, I think like, I've really experienced, I described this as kind of like, this is kind of a weird analogy I'm gonna go with it though. Cause I've said it once or twice before and I think it lands. We'll try it today and see if it works, but it's kinda like you're pushing up against an egg yolk and it's not breaking and you just keep, you're pushing harder and harder against it. It's not breaking, not breaking, and all of a sudden it just breaks and it seeps into everything and it becomes just so light and easy.
[00:06:51] Dan: But you're pushing up against that seeing, no result, no result, no result. And then suddenly it just goes in. It's everywhere. And it was always there. It's like it was meant to be there. And that's kinda like effort for me is this like you push, you push, you push. You may not see anything, and then one day, one day it just breaks through and you've got a lovely hash brown with that egg yolk in it, which I find helpful, but it's just, that's kind of the way you go to approach this recovery is just keep putting in the work day after day because it may not see results. Some days you may take three steps back, but one step forward, three steps back, one step forward, and you keep going forward every day because you don't know when that breakthrough's gonna happen.
[00:07:26] Dan: And when it does, man, you feel good that you've done something positive and you've made it progressing and you've had a, a big positive impact here, which is, something I think is quite key for my recovery and something that I really try to pass on through my talks.
[00:07:38] Bella: Yeah, I think it's a lot harder than it sounds, because of all the effort that has to go and I do always like to say like, you don't always know what's going to work, and for me, I don't. Like the switch just flipped. But I don't know what flipped the switch. And like that's where like all that effort comes into play. It was always like doing therapies and all these things. And don't get me wrong, there's definitely moments where I gave up. There's definitely moments where I refused to try at all and all those moments cuz like it's not a straight line as you've talked three steps back, one step forward, that does happen a lot.
The mental game of recovery
[00:08:17] Bella: And so I find for me, the mental game of this was huge. And so do you wanna talk a little bit on the mental game of recovery?
[00:08:26] Dan: Yeah, for sure. Mental is the biggest thing for me, cuz I, when I first had this happen to me, I was in a wheelchair for three, maybe four months. And when they first asked me what the biggest impact was, and I said physical, no doubt. But after time it was for sure mental and for sure the social element with friends and family and like just understanding how to like have that gentle social cues and stuff like that. But the mental game is so important for this because whatever you think about it is kind of the game. And I'll share one story that kind of shows me my perspective and how I, I fostered this, that's walking into Broadway, so in London, Broadway, south London. And it's, it's up and coming, which means it's a bit dodgy. Think loud sirens, think dirty, hectic people bustling. It's, it's a chaotic mess. I'm walking there with a cane in an eye patch. I've just learned how to walk I'm outta the wheelchair and I turned the corner between bash by someone.
[00:09:22] Dan: I stagger back a few. Someone scurries past me on the right hand side, someone's been stabbed on the sidewalk over here. After a few days of this, I was thinking, man, this place sucks to walk. This is the worst place to learn how to walk in the world. And then one day my perspective shifted. Maybe this isn't the worst place to learn how to walk in the world. Maybe this is the best place to learn to walk in the world. If I can walk here I can walk anywhere but It went from the worst to the best in my mind and my mood reflected that.
[00:09:57] Dan: I'm saying you can change the way you look at things in your life. Is it the worst or is the best? I actively went and thought about how can I make this? How can I turn down this suck in the situation? You know, when you're in the hospital and just learning how to walk. You spend a lot of time in the bed on your backside. And I thought, how can I make this less sucky? How can I turn down the suck a little bit with this? And I kept listing like, well, why is this the worst? And I thought, well, it's difficult, it's dirty, it's hectic, it's busy. It's, you know, can't they see I'm trying to walk here? Can't they see I'm trying here. And then I thought, well, maybe if you're wanting to walk, you'd wanna walk in an environment that's trying and testing. Because if you can walk there, you can walk anywhere. And when that shift in perspective happened, I began to look forward to my walks, bump into me, crash past me. Good, bring it on. If I can walk here, I can walk anywhere.
[00:10:44] Dan: And when that switch goes, you look forward to the strife that contact the adversity. You kind of, you relish it and it becomes something that really defines you and helps you build back better. This is a very active, proactive thought process in how I approached this and, and made this happen. I'm not saying it was easy to do, but like when that shift happened, it just became simple for me.
[00:11:06] Bella: Yeah. I love mindset, changes and all that. Like you said, like you had to work towards getting there, but once you could be in that mindset, it made a really big difference. And I find I'm like that for a lot of things like mine's a little different, but it's more like it could be worse. I think of that a lot of the time.
[00:11:25] Bella: Like, I'm not, like, it's not that it wasn't terrible, but because I have recovered, from a lot of things when I'm out in public and people are freaking out about things or I have friends call me about stuff and I give such a different perspective. And I think sometimes my different perspective is the fact that like this isn't really that bad. Like this is gonna be over tomorrow. This isn't something that's chronic. Like we're talking about it today. Are we gonna be worried about it tomorrow? And they're like, well, probably not. I'm like, okay. So like, it's not that we're not worried, but do we need to be worried this much? Does it need this much of our energy? Does it need this much upset? Does it need to cause this many problems? If by tomorrow this isn't a problem anymore? And I think being able to change your mindset is really big.
[00:12:09] Bella: I do really wanna talk about some of your hacks for living post brain injury and concussion but before that, we're gonna take a quick break.
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[00:13:30] Bella: Welcome back to the Post-Concussion podcast with myself, Bella Paige, and today's guest, Daniel MacQueen. So, something I really wanted to get into is some of Daniel's hacks. So Daniel has been a survivor for some time now and has developed hacks for kind of getting through recovery and all that has to do with that.
Dan shares his many hacks for getting through recovery
[00:13:50] Bella: So do you wanna kind of walk us through some of those?
[00:13:53] Dan: I'd love to, Bella. Thank you. So I've got a number of hacks that have kind of helped me get back to life in a way that was meaningful, and kind of make it less strenuous and difficult for me. The first one I'll share with you, Bella, is what I call icebreakers. Now icebreakers, it's not a social break. Think of yourself walking in one direction and you're breaking the ice and you find someone who's walking your direction at the same speed and you fall in behind them. So let them break the ice for you. So you're kind of drafting off them In this like public space in London, there's a lot of busy sidewalks that are quite busy and hectic and it's quite a lot to take on as I'm sure you know. When your listeners know with the brain injury your fatigue levels are quite high. When you have a chance to draft off someone, you can reduce that strain and be better for a bit longer, which I think is really helpful. So I call that icebreakers, which is quite a cool one.
[00:14:45] Dan: Another hack I can share is I really enjoy, like everyone's got a phone, right? Everyone's got one of these with them all the time. I think everyone's within arm distance to this at all times now, but use the phone to kind of help you, like set timers and alarms on your phone, so a timer, for instance, like I'll go take a nap in the day and I'll put my timer on for like 15 minutes and I control Instagram for 15 minutes when the timer was off, take a nap or get back to what you're doing. You got a little window, do something there or an alarm on my phone. So I'll be, I don't know out for a walk and I'll remember, I need to message Bella about the podcast tomorrow. So set my alarm for, let's say 4:47 when I know I'll be home and I can action something and I'll set the alarm. Very little note on my phone in the note section. An alarm goes off my phone in order to check the notes to see what that alarm was in relation to and that helps me to break up the day and remember things because you gotta write things down. When they come to you, you always think, oh I'll remember that for sure. You never will. Always write it down on your phone and set the alarm because that's so key. I always forget that stuff, even at nighttime sometimes when I'm having a great idea and I think oh, I'll remember that in the morning. I'm pretty comfortable now. I don't need to get that down. Always write it down because it will go in a second. You're like, I thought I had that locked. What happened? You always forget and if you write it down, the worst thing that happens is like, yeah, I remember that in the morning. But it's never like, that was not worthwhile writing down for sure. Those are some of the hacks that I got. Bella, I've got a whole bunch that I speak to, that kind of helped me navigate life and they're all designed to make life a bit easier, less strenuous.
[00:16:13] Dan: I'll share one last one with you, if you don't mind, Bella. And that's, what I call betting on the ponies. So in London you hit the tube everywhere to get around the city, and the tube's quite busy. When you gotta stand on the tube, it's quite draining on your, on your vibe and your battery. I always kind of describe it, like my battery now is about 75% as a top top rating thing. So every, every second of the day drains the battery down. If you can take little breaks along the way, you can save your battery. So betting on the ponies when you get on the tube and you try to identify people getting off at certain stops.
[00:16:45] Dan: On way back from my office in Tower Hill going back to West London. I kind of gamble on where people are gonna get off based on how they're dressed. So dressed up in a suit and tie and they get off in Central. Maybe they're gonna get off like midway through the journey and I can get their seat in, take a break. Cause that break helps you so much with this recovery. And I get on the tube and I go, I was super obnoxious. And I go, yeah, yeah. and I'd identify people that I'm gonna stand in front of, like, Manal. I got a few, few seats over here, but you'll notice a gamification of this. Like, I'm having fun, which is a big thing for me.
[00:17:17] Dan: Like, I, I enjoy life. I'm having fun with this. And when you have fun with stuff, it becomes a lot less strenuous and arduous. You're not, ah, this sucks so bad. I got like a bad battery. And you can find icebreakers if you can find, you know, a pony to bet on. You're making your day a bit more fun to make it through the day and enjoy it. Enjoy life. I'm not saying this is easy to do, it's not easy to do any of this stuff, but it's simple to have the mindset of like, I wanna be better than this. How can I be better by making myself have fun, by taking off the strain and relaxing a little bit? So what's some of my hacks there? Bella?
[00:17:49] Bella: I really like all of them. The use the phone. I'm big into that too. I have alarms with names on them for some things that I need to do every day, for like medication and things. Cuz even if you have to do it every day, sometimes you forget and then I also text myself. I do that a lot.
[00:18:05] Dan: Okay.
[00:18:06] Bella: So, so I just text my own number and then it's on both sides of the screen, but it's fine. And then as I get those things done, I will delete the text. So, for example, if I needed to remember to get eggs, text my sister about something, call this vacuum, you know, like something I'm like, you know, you wanna do this if you have spare time. Or like, I'll be in a conversation with someone and they mention something. I'm like, oh, I wanna look that up. So I'll text myself it so that like later when I actually have time to sit down, a lot of the time I'll just scroll through my texts, be like, oh, what could I do right now? Or, Whenever I'm like, oh, what am I forgetting? I can look through those texts, and kind of like your notes, like it's just a different place, but I find that helps me a lot.
[00:18:47] Bella: I also really like, your gamification strategy. I found therapy as a game was something I really enjoyed. I was like, mind games for like cognitive rehab. I like things where like, I knew I was getting better. Like I wanted to time myself or yeah, I wanted to like kind of compete with myself. And I think it's really important to compete with yourself. Like figure out where your base level is if you're doing therapy and competing with yourself cuz you don't wanna compete with others cuz you never know what somebody else's situation is. As we always say here, you know, a few chapters of someone's life, but you don't know the whole book. So, very important to remember that when in therapy and things like that.
[00:19:27] Bella: But I really like a lot of those strategies.
How to accept the idea that "life is not fair"
[00:19:30] Bella: Something that you said to me that really stuck when we were talking before was, it's not fair and it's not easy, so you don't wanna explain a little bit, why you shared it's not fair and it's not easy, and kind of go from there.
[00:19:45] Dan: Yeah. Thanks Bella. I think it is not fair, like I know. When this happened to me, you can definitely go down what I call the pity spiral. Why me woes me? This isn't fair. This isn't fair. It's like it's not fair. Get over it. Like it's not fair. Like it, it's not fair. It happened, the card came up. It's not fair. You're to ask yourself one question and what, what do you expect to have happen with this? I lost my job this summer, Bella. I was working at Hootsuite, a tech company for nine years, nine years is a long time, right? I gave myself an afternoon to lick my wounds, go for a bit of a boozy lunch.
[00:20:23] Dan: I decided then and there. I'm becoming a motivational speaker today. I'm picking up the computer later today, and I'm starting this tomorrow. My acceptance of this dramatically reduced from the first brain hemorrhage probably took me a month, accepted. I had a second setback halfway through this journey that took me about a week. This job loss took me about an afternoon, a lunch to kind of settle in and accept it. It's not easy to accept it. I'm not saying it's gonna be easy to, but it's simple. What I mean by this is like, if you know you want right, just go right. It just happens to be straight uphill right now, which isn't fair, but it, it's what you've got, it's not your fault, but it's your responsibility to get back to this. Like, it's not my fault that I had a brain hemorrhage, but it's my responsibility to get back to the best life I can and be the best person I can, because that's in my capacity to do. I know I can do that. I can be better.
[00:21:13] Dan: And the way you keep promises to yourself. So the way I keep promise to myself is I always just, I swim quite a lot, right? What's one of my hacks? I swim quite a lot for exercise. When I get in the pool, I always map out how many lengths I wanna do. I've got a lap counter, which counter laps, whenever. I think, even if for a second, that fleeting moment, I have to do those many laps.
[00:21:34] Dan: Usually I'll do about 60 on a Monday or Tuesday, and I'll do about 40 on a Wednesday. But if I think for a second, like, oh, I can do 70 today, it's like, well, I'm doing 70 then, and I've gotta do it. I'll keep those promises to myself to make sure that I hold myself accountable. That's how you build self-confidence by keeping promises to yourself because I'm the type of person that says I'm gonna do something and I do it,
[00:21:56] Bella: Very impressive that you can hold yourself that accountable. I'm definitely a little bit more the opposite, like hold yourself accountable, but also give yourself a break. Like I found I used to like kind of eat myself alive. Be like, no, you're gonna do this. And you know what, like, it's okay if you don't actually like, you know, like your body is telling you no, like you have a symptom flare up but don't give up. Like I think that's a huge thing. Like maybe tomorrow, don't let it like discourage you or maybe take that break and start again and, don't let that break discourage you. It's okay to take breaks. It's okay to step away, but as long as you know that you stepped away for the right reasons and that you didn't just give in that you knew that, you know what today is not that day, but maybe tomorrow. And I think that can be really helpful.
[00:22:40] Bella: And so do you wanna talk a little bit about goal setting? , both short and long-term? Cause I think a lot of people struggle with that. I know for myself I kind of stopped, really long-term goals cause I find they're a little bit too, I just know so many things can happen now. Like I've had my life turned around multiple times. The snap of your fingers as you have too and sometimes for me, long-term goals are really hard to set, but shorter term goals aren't so bad because like less bad things seem like they can happen in a shorter period of time, so I do better with that.
Dan shares his tips on creating short and long term goals
[00:23:13] Bella: But do you wanna talk about your view on goal setting and how you do that?
[00:23:18] Dan: For sure. Yeah. Goal settings played a big part in my recovery, to be honest. I've got a couple examples. I'll share two, two goals that I've had and just the first one's like a short-term goal, you know, the length of time it takes me to get into a wheelchair, that first took 40 minutes from the bed to the wheelchair, then 35, then 30.
[00:23:35] Dan: The goal is to reduce it and keep improving, and there'd be some days where I'd go back a step and I'd go back five minutes and it would take me that much longer. But the goal was to like, okay, I'm gonna try and get in the wheelchair on 30 minutes today. Did I make that? Yes, no. If no, and then like, okay, what did I learn from it? Well, I fatigued quite a bit near the end, so I gotta try and get in there faster because I tire out if I don't make it in there faster. You're always kinda learning from these mistakes and kind of improving and iterating on them. That's an example of a short-term goal.
[00:24:01] Dan: Long-term goal I've had was skiing. So I had this brain injury, in 2014, right? And I remember working on the even bars with my rehab team shortly after the injury. I was in a wheelchair working on the even bars. Now, even bars are just what they sound like. Even bars you hold when you're unstable on your feet. And the rehab team asked me what I was most looking forward to get back to doing. And I was, you know, in a wheelchair. I used to play a lot of sports. I used to play, soccer and volleyball, hockey, softball, skiing. What were the most difficult to get back to doing? I thought skiing would be the most difficult. Balance, core strength, depth perception, double vision, which I still have, would make things interesting, engaging obstacles at speed. If I could see, again, I'd have to be in a pretty way physically, I thought so. I told them I wanna ski again. They paused and kind of nod in agreement., Okay. They said. But I'm sure it was a simple exercise designed to get me thinking about future goals has been burned in the back of my mind as something I'm gunning for.
[00:25:05] Dan: So I was asked when I wanted to make this goal happen. I said, 2022, 10 years from the last ski trip that I went on in Morrison, France. We picked a date. March 31st. Real spring light conditions. So we went up on the slopes. It was great. We learned an old hack going up the gondola to be the last one on the gondola.
[00:25:24] Dan: That way you can rest your skis in the door so we can have your hands free to do up your jacket, do your boots adjust your gloves, what have you. Now we're on the gondola we're heading up and you can feel it swaying back and forth. And I'm thinking on the way up. You know what if it doesn't come back to me? What if I can't remember how to ski? This is gonna be really embarrassing. I've made a big deal about this. Well, this is happening. We gotta see what happens. Now, if you could just close your eyes, please close your eyes for just a second. I want you to feel a bit of cool within your cheeks here.
[00:25:57] Dan: Okay? We get to the station, we dock. We're gonna walk through the station into a beautiful wall of sunshine. It's a gorgeous bluebird day. Take a big inhale through your nose and smell that Alpine air. It's fresh. It's clean, it's crisp. We're gonna walk down the stairs. Clang, clang, clang onto the snow crunch crunch, crunch. It's soft back. It's Spring Lake. We're back on the slopes, and we walked over to do our boots up and bindings up, did a few practice laps, and then we ripped outta the park. I skied. I've got a great video too. I can share with you a Bella if you want and I skied, like I remembered, I could ski and I remember this old hack as an instructor, you put the poles in your hands like this, keep your lower body active in your upper body still. But that was the first time I'd gone fastened the brain injury and I made this happen. The happiest day I've had since brain injury was skiing this day. It was phenomenal. It's an example of like a long-term goal, and I didn't think this was possible when I called it out. Like I didn't think this was possible to do. I said it out loud because I wanted to have something bold to aspire to, something to aim at. If I could only get back to dping this, wouldn't that be something? And there I am skiing.
[00:27:08] Dan: That's an example of how I use long-term goal to kind of have something to aim at. Audacious, bold, like I didn't think it was possible, bella and I did that. And that's something, I'm gonna go back up this year again. I'm not sure when, but probably later in the season.
[00:27:22] Dan: So we're gonna see how that goes. But that's an example of how I use long-term goals to kind of have something audacious to aim for and track it down. Even if I didn't make it skiing, now the person I became that could be possible to be able to ski was someone I wanted to become. And that's what I want your listeners to take on board is this hasn't been audacious to aim for and track it down one step at a time. I call it chop wood carry water. And that's my term for work. Whenever I think like, do I want to do this? Chop wood, carry water, meditate, chop wood, carry water, go for a walk.
[00:27:50] Dan: Chop wood, carry water, go to the gym. Work on the balance board, build this up. Like it's, it's all forward progress. And then sometimes it's not forward progress, like those steps back are real. But you gotta keep the process is the game here, keep going forwards again tomorrow, again the next day. And sometimes you gotta take a couple days off, that's fine. But you know that when you're feeling better, you go back to it. And I skied last year and I can't tell you how happy that was for me.
[00:28:14] Bella: I love, your big skiing goal and congratulations on completing the goal. And it is true sometimes having those like big dreams, even if they're far away, they can really like, kind of encourage you to keep going and they kind of help you on the really hard days, be like, you know what, but I'm gonna ski. And so I love that. And thank you so much for sharing. And is there anything else you would like to add before we end today's episode?
Dan's final message
[00:28:42] Dan: Yeah, thanks Bella. I'd just like let it be known that I'm now a motivational speaker found on the circuit macqueendan.com. You can contact me for any booking for events online or in person.
[00:28:52] Dan: I speak about perspective resilience, adversity mindset. I'm trying to change the way you look at your injury, because that's really the game for me. The perspective's so key, that story of constructive optimism, the worst, know the best. I can bring that to you, or at least I can show you how I found it in myself. Maybe you can find it amongst yourself and just keep going. Honestly, just keep going. Today, may not be a good day, but just, you know, try again tomorrow and just try. I say try, that's the most important bit, but always try know that you left it on the field. You're not gonna fail because you didn't try hard enough.
[00:29:24] Bella: Thank you so much for joining us today and sharing some of your life post brain injury.
[00:29:30] Dan: Thanks, Bella.
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