What would you do if everything changed in an instant?
Dan McQueen was thriving in tech, living abroad, and on the rise—until a sudden brain hemorrhage left him in a coma for four weeks. In this episode, Dan shares how he fought back from blindness, paralysis, and despair to walk again, speak again, and inspire thousands with his story of grit, mindset, and miracles.
If you’ve ever faced a mountain that felt insurmountable, this episode is the reminder: you are stronger than you know.
Transcript:
Speaker 1:
If you’ve ever struggled with fear, doubt or worry and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, sylvia Worsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, sylvia Worsham.
Speaker 3:
Hello Lightbringers, it’s Sylvia Worsham. Welcome to Released Out Revealed Purpose. And today is a very special guest. His name is Dan McQueen and he is here to talk to us about his brain hemorrhage story. And when I read his story I just thought, my goodness, this man has been through so much because you’re going high on life and then all of a sudden you have a medical diagnosis and complication and it just everything halts. And boy do I know what that feels like. I’ve been there myself. So, without further ado, dan McQueen, thank you so much for joining us on Released Out Revealed Purpose.
Speaker 2:
Well, Sylvia, thank you so much for having me on the show.
Speaker 3:
It’s a pleasure to have you, dan, and let’s just dive in. Dan, tell us a little bit about your story transformation, like why you do what you do in life currently and where you came from.
Speaker 2:
Sure. So I’m a keynote speaker based in Vancouver, canada. I speak about change management, resilience and motivation, and I speak about my experience after traumatic brain injury in London in June 2014. Let me set the scene for you. Let’s go back to London 2014, working in tech for a company called Hootsuite. Worked as an implementation specialist so post-sale train clients on the platform online. So I do three sessions a client. And I work in EMEA so Europe, middle East and Africa. So think a call with Saudi Arabia in the morning to a call to Italy in the afternoon, to a call to the UK in the early afternoon as well. Different strokes for different folks. Right, you got to adapt your session and your training session for that. I just got this new promotion at work.
Speaker 2:
Working as an implementation specialist, I started having these headaches. Headaches got progressively worse after a few weeks. I was on the tube one day, the tube said. I zigzagged around London lumbering towards the Nine Hill Gate tube station on the district line. It’s a slow roll the best of times. Headaches were so bad my vision started to go starry and I saw spots. I went slow to fade to black. It was a race to see who could arrive at the station, first me or the blindness. Arrived at Nine Hill Gate tube station, stepped around the platform, mind the the gap, and the lights went out, the curtain dropped. I couldn’t see a thing. Sylvia, I want to ask you, able-centered person, your whole life, all of a sudden, your throats into the depths of blindness. What do you think? What do you feel, what do you do?
Speaker 3:
I think I would freeze. I wouldn’t want to move because I don’t know where I’m at so a very smart decision, because I did the same thing.
Speaker 2:
The stale smell of the station stole my nostrils. The station’s swirling around me. I can’t move a muscle. I’m frozen in place and I waited. After the longest two minutes of my life, my vision came back and I carried on my day. But the next day I went strolling back into A&E. A&e is an emergency in the UK, like ER in Canada and the States. And what the hell is going on here? I was blind on a tube station in London. This is not normal. What’s happening with my head? Headaches are horrible. They ran some more tests and again they thought it was vertigo. They sent me home. On the way out they told me I could always get my eyes checked by an optometrist. That’s a fun thought, but why not?
Speaker 2:
Next day I found myself in Mr Patel’s chair. He was midway through a routine exam. When he stops the exam, excuses himself in the room and comes back a few minutes later with a sealed envelope which he hands to me. He tells me to go directly to Moorfield’s Hospital, which I did. Well, sylvia, tell a lie. I stopped at home first to grab a Jack Reader book by Lee Childs, a phone charger to bite teeth. Then I arrived at Moorfields Hospital, handed them the sealed envelope. They ran the same test there again, then escalated me up to Charing Cross Hospital. We’re getting somewhere. I’m thinking this is positive. This is a good vibe. We’re figuring this out right now.
Speaker 2:
It turns out, sylvia, I had a dangerous blood pressure my brain caused from a non-cancerous cyst in my pineal gland. This prevented the flu my brain drains normally would, causing the pressure to mount up, causing the vision issues, causing the headaches. Now it turns out I required emergency brain surgery tomorrow. Now it turns out my world’s about to change altogether. So, after a frantic back and forth with the folks in Canada, the last text message my mom received reads I’ll see you soon. Mom Think I’ll have a new haircut next time. I see you, love, dan. So Mom’s in the air flying to London on June 21st 2014. I’m on the operating table. Something goes horribly wrong and I have a massive bleed in the brain, a brain hemorrhage. I think the cyst burst when they operated. So mom lands and finds I’m in critical condition.
Speaker 2:
I was in a coma for four weeks but wasn’t out of consciousness for months after this. When I was in a coma, the headache came out at a core temperature down below 40 degrees, otherwise it’d be brain damage. So these ice blankets above and below me came out at a core temperature down. It’s a violent chivalry. I found this horrible to watch. Hooked up to 13 tubes and hoses to monitor various things and give me medicine, I was in critical condition. My parents were told I may not make it.
Speaker 2:
Four weeks later I woke up from the medically induced coma. My mom, dad and brother were on the bed Trying to talk, but I can’t talk. My vocal cords are fried from the medically induced coma. My mom, dad and brother around the bed trying to talk, but I can’t talk. My vocal cords are fried from the tracheotomy. Give me a pen and paper.
Speaker 2:
I say I write on the pen and paper and I go get me the hell out of here and show it to cam my brother. What do you want me to do? Dude, you’re one eyes. One eye is wonky as hell. You lost like 40 pounds of weight. You can’t walk. Your legs are actually in a coma. You’re in dire straits here, man. But my first instinct was let’s get the hell out of Dodge. This looks bad. I don’t want to be in the hospital. Luckily he did not heed my advice and I slowly came to realize what had happened to me, being told, dan, you had a brain hemorrhage. You were in a coma, you can’t walk, talk or smile. Right now, this is life right now and healthy, active guy, one day go into surgery. And then I wake up four weeks later being told, dan, you had a brain hemorrhage and this is now your new life parameters. So that’s the first story I can give you from me, sylvia.
Speaker 3:
Wow, I feel your pain. I’ve never been in a coma, and never for four weeks, but I do know what it’s like to be in a hospital room and to have been super healthy one day and from one day to the next, land in a hospital setting and just be faced with the most horrible diagnosis and just be blown away by that. So I’m like, wow, your poor mom that had to fly. That is probably the longest flight she probably took from Canada to the UK, just knowing that her son was in the OR.
Speaker 2:
And she landed and my dad had found out I was in a coma before she landed. So he called her and let her know what was happening. So she went to the hospital I’m in the icu clinging to life, and she’s just. I tell the story and I don’t really appreciate the gravitas. This must have been on them to see me in the state after they arrived in the uk and I was in that coma for four weeks like clinging to life. The doctors told my parents you may not make this yeah and have you ever asked?
Speaker 3:
your mom about it? Have you ever discussed?
Speaker 2:
well, yeah, we’ve talked about a few times because she’s helped me a lot with my speaking stuff now and she is quite emotional even talking about it now and I try to not talk to her about it because it brings back such horrible memories for her yeah, and she really feels those.
Speaker 2:
So it’s like I try to not bring that up as much as I can, because I lived it, but she experienced it through, like she saw. She saw the experience and to your child on a bed in a coma, clinging to life, being told he may not make this and one day he’s healthy, one day he’s not, one day he’s not. It was pretty provocative and pretty jarring to experience that and I can only imagine how difficult it must be for my parents to deal with.
Speaker 3:
How did you get back up? Because not everybody does. Some people dwell in these circumstances for a while. They stay stuck here. How did you move through this?
Speaker 2:
It wasn’t easy, but it was simple. It wasn’t easy, but it was simple. What I mean by this is I made a choice, like it’s not fair that this happened to me, but like I’m still alive, I’m still in my mind, I can still think and function well to some extent. I was quite slow for a while after the brain hemorrhage, my leg had activated. I couldn’t use the leg for a while. I made a choice that like I’m still alive by some miracle I’m still alive and now I’ve got to choose to go through life and to navigate this change in a way that’s going to help me be successful.
Speaker 2:
My friends who visited me in the hospital said Dan, it was never a chore to come visit you. You’re always positive and light and cheerful and fun. I put on a brave face to make it seem like I was okay, but inside I was really distraught and torn up about this. I shared this story recently on a podcast. I’ll share it with your group here.
Speaker 2:
Like in the daytime, the hospital is quite a cheerful place. The parents are there, the friends are visiting you, doctors are there cheering you on. When the night time comes, the night staff comes in. The doctors go home, the parents go home, the family goes home and you’re brought in this one room in the icu and you hear the wails of the patients. There’s life has been turned sideways and like I had to wear headphones after the first few nights because like it was so loud, I couldn’t sleep because the wailing and the crying was so pronounced. And like everyone in this room is in the dire straits of their life the worst experience they ever had in their life, no doubt.
Speaker 2:
And it took a lot of my mindset pure human mindset focus on the task at hand and I slowly realized that I’m still alive so I can choose to get back and get back better this. So like those goals took. The goal setting was quite big and I took the early stages of getting the wheelchair in 45 minutes, not 50. Next week I do 40 not 45 now. Think about this 40 minutes of me trying full send to get into a wheelchair. Every muscle, my bone aching, tearing, moaning, crying, screaming at me, and I’m doing it five minutes faster and then five minutes faster. You know I get showered in a wheelchair, got wheeled into the shower and I had to dry myself in the towel.
Speaker 2:
It was very humbling oh yeah to just know everything is taken away from you. And it was very much a mental game more so than a physical thing.
Speaker 3:
Sorry, give me a glimpse as to what my father went through when he ended up. As I explained to you prior to the podcast beginning for those listeners, my father had a meningioma develop because of agent orange in vietnam and he was a surgeon and he was at the peak of his career and decided to take it out. And when they got in there they didn’t realize how attached it was to the brainstem and such a precarious spot. It might as well have been cancerous it was that malignant of a case for them and he had a stroke after 24 hours of surgery. He was 63 and he had to retire early, but he was like you. He was determined to get back up and even though he couldn’t come back full time to surgery because he was a urologist, he came back part time because his spirit would not be broken. And it sounds like your spirit would not be broken either, am I right?
Speaker 2:
no, I was never broken and like it got pretty close some days. I made a choice early on in this process. Like I’m hanging on for dear life by my fingernails. I’m like what’s the point of holding on here is to keep getting these knocks and the setbacks and everything’s going crazy here. I’m not gonna let go. I’m not gonna let this thing take me. If it wants to take me, it can take me, but it’s gonna. I’m gonna go down swinging with this because to have a life in the first place is such a blessing and I’m only alive because this blip was my dna, because I’m only damn sorry, what was that because?
Speaker 2:
of what? I’m only alive, because this blip was my dna, because I’m only damn sorry.
Speaker 3:
What was that? Because of what?
Speaker 2:
I’m only alive because blip was in my dna. This, the pinot blanc growth, was in my dna. I’m only me because it was me. If I didn’t have that it wouldn’t be me. So I’m only alive because I’ve experienced this. I would experience this no matter what, nothing I could have done to mitigate this. I’m only alive because this was my dna. So I can’t wish it didn’t happen because then it wouldn’t be me. And I slowly got to realizing like look, you’re still alive here, you can build back up. Now. I want to share a story about the splint, if I may, with you, sylvia, to showcase how dire this was.
Speaker 2:
In the early days in rehab I had to wear a splint over my left leg to help stretch out the leg, to help adjust from the coma. The leg had atrophied in the coma, underwent an experimental Botox injection in the back of my leg with a samurai-sized sword needle to inject Botox into my knee to help loosen up ligaments. Now, the first night I wore the splint through the night. No issue, no stress. This will be easy. I thought this will be easy. Hinting, it’s not going to be easy. Right. The second night after 20 minutes it was painful. After 30 minutes it was dreadful. After 40 minutes it was unbearable. I buzzed the nurse take the splint off my leg please, I can’t handle the pain. Before they left the room I told her hey, I’m a walker, I can handle the pain. Tomorrow we’re doing this for an hour. I can handle the pain. I told her Big talk. So third night they’re up the leg, tied off of the ankle. Give me the clicker. The nurse called upon they go and patrol the Wilson Ward. Now the Wilson Ward was in L shape, so short on this side, long on this side, short on this side, long on this side.
Speaker 2:
Leave me in that house room that smells like only a house room can smell Sanitized, sterilized. It’s clean. But you wonder what sort of atrocities have been committed under the guise of Lemony Zestness. After 10 minutes, legs painful. After 20 minutes, legs dreadful. After 30 minutes, legs unbearable. Start passing clicker by my door trying to distract myself from the pain. Now I’ve got double vision, which is why I’m wearing the eyepatch today. Wasn’t wearing the eyepatch during this time, so I’m just groping at this clicker going back and forth as the pain rages up my throat, I get more enthusiastic right. So eventually, inevitably, it hits the ground Hard linoleum floor, three and a half feet down the ground. I look over the edge of the bed. I can see the clicker there lying on the floor looking back at me. If I can get that clicker I can stop this pain, I can end this monstrosity.
Speaker 2:
Only problem was fall from that height Might break my arm. In fact I figured about a 50-50 chance he would break my arm. Coin flip Not the best odds. I change tack. I’m trying to untie this, but it’s out of the ankle, not the hip. I can’t reach that far down. I’m not that flexible. Help, I’m yelling, but the ward, the wolves and the Janelle shape, short on this side, long on this side, short on this side, long on this side. They’re far in the ward. They can’t hear me. I decided to flip the coin, drop down and grab the cooker, even if I break my arm. Splints gonna come by like this party number one, two and three lower myself off the edge of the bed and I crashed down the heat, blankets, wires, cables.
Speaker 2:
It’s all ago. The arm holds and I hammer the clicker expecting the nurse to come, bursting into the room. Like the bathroom’s been put up, I kind of stroll in. Five minutes later. What you doing, my fellow love? First of all, I say that’s a fantastic British accent over there. Where’d you say you’re from again? No, sylvia, I did not say that let’s split up, because I’ll tell you all about this.
Speaker 2:
It’s not what happens to you, but how you respond to the match. The reason why I told you the story, sylvia, is I learned three lessons from this experience, the first lesson being let’s not pass the clicker back and forth. That’s a bad idea. Second lesson was let’s try to split up with the hip, not the most profound. Let’s always be solutions oriented from this point forwards, when things go sideways in life, which, sure, as you’re born, they will Focus on a solution-based approach how do you resolve your issue? How do you fix your problem? That led me to walk in the hallways of the Wilson on the Zimmer frame, moved up to the Ferrari, then I moved up to naked walks. Now, what’s a naked walk, you may ask? Nothing too provocative. I’m walking those border aides, I’m walking naked. But when I told people I’m walking naked in the afternoon, the look they gave me was so priceless I kept it going. Then came time to walk in tuning Broadway. Constructive optimism. Sylvia, have you been to London, england?
Speaker 3:
We were there in 2023. And when I lived in France, I visited twice.
Speaker 2:
Wonderful.
Speaker 3:
I’ve been there quite a few times, but most recently 2023 with my family. We took our oldest as a graduation present. We told him we could take him anywhere in the world and he chose London and Scotland, so we took a nice family trip.
Speaker 2:
So London, England, you’re going to understand the pace, the energy. The city’s quite bustling and vibrant in places, right.
Speaker 3:
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:
Now we’ll see a little more bespoke here. Have you been to Tooting Broadway?
Speaker 3:
No.
Speaker 2:
Okay, tooting. Broadway’s an area in South London, an area they call up and coming Think loud, sirens, drugs, gangs it’s dirty, it’s he, hectic and boys are busy. I’m walking with a cane and walking on an eyepatch. After four months in a wheelchair, I’m literally bambi on ice. I turn the corner to walk on the ice for the first time, immediately get slammed into by someone, stagger back a few feet. Someone scurries past me on the right-hand side. I thought I was done with the rats. Someone had been stabbed on the sidewalk over here.
Speaker 2:
I’m thinking this is a pretty wild place to learn how to walk. After a few days I’m thinking this is the worst place to learn how to walk in the world. Can’t they see I’m trying to walk here? Can’t they see I’m trying here? And then one day my perspective shifted. Maybe this is the worst place in the whole walking world. No, maybe this is the best. If I can walk here, I can walk anywhere. Now. Shouldn’t have. Probably didn’t change right, sylvia, but it went from the worst to the best in my mind and my mood reflected that.
Speaker 2:
What do you look at now in your life that convinces the worst, convinces the absolute worst? Hey, maybe it is. Maybe you can find a way to turn down the suck a little bit. Shift that perspective a little bit 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 it be a job loss, breakup 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 true north. Look at things like mindset, perspective and hacks. Hacks allow you and your team. It’s better than yesterday. Tomorrow. My name is dan mcqueen and the reason why I told you that story will end the walk in tune. Broadway is when you change the way you look at the world, the world look at changes and you don’t need a brain hemorrhage to understand that.
Speaker 2:
So I shared those two stories about the splint and walking to show you the uphill battle was to get back to walking, to get back to living a life somewhat normally. It’s really nice to get out of the wheelchair and to be a bit more mobile and free. Then I moved up to walking with a cane and now I walk without a cane now, which is pretty cool. I remember walking back into the ICU hospital a year later and seeing my ICU head doctor and she burst into tears when she saw me walk in because the prognosis for me did not look good. She didn’t think I’d be a living, let alone walking in with a cane, but still walking in. And it’s been an uphill battle, but it’s been a battle that I’ve been willing to fight every day and it’s taken a lot of mental fortitude and mental drive and stubbornness bull stubbornness. But that’s why I’m here today, because I’ve been able to navigate this change in a way. That’s been helpful.
Speaker 2:
And, sylvia, I had a lot of help. Friends and family, doctors were fantastic for me. Right, I didn’t do this on my own. I was not in a vacuum, like I was with people that helped me, support me and boo me up. If you don’t have that help man, I don’t know if you could get back to it today, because it is so jarring, it is so encompassing, it is so mentally taxing to navigate this on a day-to-day basis, to just know that everything is so difficult. So I’m like I can tell my friend, andrew came to visit me, I go, andrew, I’m trying to do this right now, but I can’t and I could walk through in my mind what I was trying to do, but I couldn’t do it because my body wouldn’t let me do that. And that was the most frustrating part was just knowing what I was possible to do in the past and I couldn’t do it then it’s always baby steps and I think most people miss that, especially coming back from a medical complication.
Speaker 3:
I think people because we live in societies and worlds where it’s the instant gratification and it’s gotta just poof happen. Some people quit for that reason and it is just baby steps and it’s mindset shifts and when you look at it through the lens of gratitude, hey, I’m alive. I could have easily died, could have easily like it could have ended. That was one thing I would always discuss with my father, who tended to have a little bit more of the opposite mindset. He was always viewing it as a problem and I said no, it’s a privilege. God granted you 21 additional years of life. He made sure you survived those 24 hours of surgery. You could have easily died on the surgery table each year you survived those 24 hours of surgery.
Speaker 3:
You could have easily died on the surgery table. You’re the same way. You could have easily died, and yet you’re here and there’s a powerful purpose behind your survival.
Speaker 2:
What do you think it is Mindset? And to share the knowledge that I’ve learned and the lessons I’ve learned and just how you can reframe things. That’s why we’re walking into Broadway. It’s all about this Perspective, like it’s how you view the world and that’s everything. Like I get to learn, the best place to learn to walk in the world Not the worst, but the best. That transformed my walks from getting bumped into me. Oh, this is so frustrating. Yes, you’re making me better. Thank you for the opportunity to learn and get better at this. And challenging and I’m not going to say it’s all easy pastures and easy going like it’s a lot of knocks and a lot of frustration, a lot of curse words and a lot of blatant, just anger and rage, but funnel that into fuel to drive you forwards. The way the nurse got me talking again so sorry to interrupt you, but the way the nurse got me talking again, they told my parents I may not be a talker. His vocal cords are fried from the tracheotomy. He may not be a talker. My parents have built this dossier on me.
Speaker 2:
Dan McQueen is a, an athlete, a master’s graduate. Here’s his girlfriend, demi. He lived in Sweden, now he’s in London. He works in tech. He read my file. She goes I’ll get this guy talking again.
Speaker 2:
Took me down to the park. There’s some kids playing football, soccer across the park. She goes dan those kids across the park, they don’t think you’re good enough to talk down. They don’t think good enough to talk and I found out pretty quickly. That’s a trigger for me and they held across the park.
Speaker 2:
Some profanities was playing on your team today, but like it’s motivation and don’t judge the motivation because you can’t have it. Come from this healthy, holistic, good, happy, go lucky place like ride the wave that comes. Because waves are so infrequent that if you pass away because you don’t think it’s good enough for you, you can miss the wave entirely. So motivation where initially came from that proving you wrong vibe. Now I I’ve transitioned that to service line in the hand. Your success is my success Because there’s much more of a long tail on that, because when I beat you, when I prove you wrong, motivation disappears like it was never there In an instant. It evaporates. When it’s service-based, when it’s long tail, that can sustain me for months, years, decades after the fact. So my message for your listeners is don’t judge your motivation by the way that comes. It’s not always going to be clean and pretty and neat. It’s going to be what it is and you got to ride that wave, because the next wave may not be for a while.
Speaker 3:
Now sometimes it’s just raw and real and sometimes it’s just sitting with it and understanding that it’s going to surface, and it’s actually a good thing that it does surface and not stay below where it can wreak havoc, and so I’m loving your story. I know our listeners are going to thoroughly enjoy it.
Speaker 2:
Any last minute tips that you want to leave with the listeners of Released Out Reveal Purpose If you could boil down my talk into one framework it’s better than yesterday, everything is better than yesterday. That wheelchair five minutes faster than before, walking in tundra broadway, just like. How can I do this better? Like it’s all about reframing stuff to be better than yesterday and everything one percent better every day over a course of years 365. But if you just get that mindset of this, how can I improve this one percent better today? And the same thing tomorrow and the day after that? You ratchet up your level of threshold and your level of normal, and that was what drives me today. I’m very intentional in my day, in my practice. I have a morning routine that I follow up with religiously, because if I don’t do that, I’m not as good as I could be, and I know for a fact that better than yesterday is better than anything else I can give you in your group today. So that’s what I would leave your group with today, sylvia.
Speaker 3:
That’s awesome Dan.
Speaker 2:
And if people wanted to reach you to book you to speak to their group, how could they find you? Sure you can find me mcqueendancom. That’s m-a-c-q-u-e-e-n. Dancom. That’ll be in the show notes and I’m a queen dan across the socials. Instagram linkedin are most active, but there you can also find twitter as well.
Speaker 3:
I’m not that active on there, but let me get that mcqueendan as well I think most of us aren’t as much anymore there, but I really wanted to thank you, dan, for your heartfelt story, for your vulnerability, for the lessons learned, because maybe someone out there listening needs to hear this. Maybe someone is facing a dark chapter in their life and they feel like the mountain is just insurmountable, and with this story you have given them hope and light. So I want to thank you for joining us today on Release, doubt, Reveal, purpose and, for all the listeners, remember Matthew 514. Be the light, have a wonderful week, stay safe, love y’all. Bye now.
Speaker 1:
So that’s it for today’s episode of release doubt reveal purpose. Head on over itunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on itunes will win a chasley grand prize drawing to win a 25 000 private vip day with Sylvia Worsham herself. Be sure to head on over to sylviaworsham.com and pick up a free copy of Sylvia’s gift and join us on the next episode.