Episode 45 with Danny Bader - Back to life

I'm first of all, Danny, thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us, for sharing what everyone is about to hear in a moment. I'm sure. As I always do with all of our, yes. I'm going to ask you to please introduce yourself to our audience.

And, um, for the past 15 or 20, I guess, past 20 years or so, I have been committed to personal development and, um, corporate training and, um, doing my best just to support people on. Wonderful journey. We call life even with its ups and downs through my speaking and through my writing and online courses and things that we'll probably chat about here. So I'm happy to be here with you, Brian and conscious action, I think is such a cool term.

Um, I know I'll use that going forward because I think it's, um, it's what it's all about. Really?

I took a few different jobs that I didn't necessarily like. So I kind of bounced around a little bit. And when I was 28 years of age, I had a tragic accident. Um, I was working in construct. Roofing putting roofs on houses and a friend. And I, he owned the business, him and his brother. He and I were lowering a metal ladder at the end of the day. And we saw some electric wires. We'd been working there all day and we'd put the ladder up in the.

And we were going to lower it at about four o'clock in the afternoon. And I kind of looked up at the wires and said, are we going to clear them? And he said, yes, we did it this way this morning. And I kind of felt that that feeling of discomfort, like, I don't know if we should do this. And we went ahead and did it. And we hit the electric line only by about an inch was the margin of error and the electric line that we hit. It had about eight to 10,000 volts of electricity in it.

And that electricity raced down the metal ladder. And we were on the, on the bottom of it, positioning it to lower it. And it went into both of our bodies and it killed both of us. And I came back to life that day after about eight minutes, probably I was dead and tragically. My friend did not, he did not survive that accident. And he left behind a wife and three young children. So, um, you know, losing him was a real big, tragic.

The interesting thing that happened that day is when the electricity hit me. I had an absolute calm and a peace. Um, I wasn't scared, I wasn't yelling for help, but I was still conscious in some capacity. And I saw the other brother. So the two brothers one was on the ground with me and the other one was up on the roof and he heard the noise from the ladder and the electricity to pop. And I saw him coming down the ladder and I was yelling to him. Hey, get your brother, get your.

So I was conscious of him coming down the ladder and I, and I was conscious of me speaking to him, but I wasn't scared. I wasn't yelling, help me save me. And then I guess the best way to describe it, the best way is to describe, because I've described it many times is my soul, my essence, my energy, my life force, my spirit, my consciousness, it, it left my body and it went somewhere else. And I didn't go through a ton of, or experience.

That many people who have had near deaths have experienced. And, um, I remember one time a woman was talking to me and she said, no light, no tunnel. And I said, no, it was as if my, my energy, my force just let, just left my body and was joined with its source. And she was kinda nervous. And you know, you just like, oh my gosh, this is a crazy story. And she said, no light, no tunnel. And I'm like, no, she said, are you sure? And I kind of laughed.

I said, listen, you can have your net near death experience. This is mine. There was no light. And there was no tunnel. But what I believe is that we all have our brain and our heart and our lungs and they make this body go. But I believe that there is a divine energy in all of us that really makes us go. And when it's time for that divine energy to return back to its source that I call. Um, I'm a Christian, so that that's my beliefs. You may call it something different.

Um, when it's time for that energy to go back to its source, there's not much we can do about it. And that's what happened to me that day. And I was joined with this God, and it was such a Brian, such a loving and peaceful and comforting and calming and, and joyful experience. But those words don't even do it yet. Because those words are words that we use here to describe our human feelings. And I was beyond that. I was absolutely beyond it.

So I had, I had that proverbial choice as I communicated with this source to either stay and continue on there or to come back. And I express concern for my mom and for my girlfriend, who is my wife now of 20. I better watch, or I should know that right. 20, 26, 27 years. Um, at any rate, when I expressed concern for them, I was right back in my body. That's when I was conscious again in my body.

That's literally when I came back to life and I wrote a book about it, which I'm sure we'll talk about the thing that had happened after that is what really kind of cements this experience. I was laying, um, spread Eagle on my back, but I felt as though I was on my side, you know, in a fetal position and I couldn't move. So I heard the brother who I yelled at, coming down the ladder. He was maybe 15, 20 feet away and he was working to revive his brother.

I could hear him smacking his face and saying, come on, come on, wake up, wake up. And I couldn't move. And then about a minute or two, I regained my motor skills and I crawled over on my hands and knees and I came up next to him and he looked at me and he said, how are you here? And I said, I don't know what you're talking about, but let me help. So I did, you know, mouth to mouth on my friend and he was doing chest compressions and then the police and the paramedics arrived.

So they looked at me and I looked reasonably okay. Reasonably healthy. They didn't see the little holes in my feet or the, or the holes in my hands or the holes in my boots and everything else. So they said, okay, get away. We got this. So I moved away and I sat down against the. And I'm sitting there. My, I realized my feet are killing me and I looked down and I have little holes in my work boots, and then I take them off and I have holes in my socks with black, around the white socks.

And then I take my socks off and I have four holes, one in each side of each foot. And the one on the left inside of my foot was kind of like. You know, there, there was an, the first line of the book back to life. It's written through the eyes of a young man named Jake, which I wrote, you know, fictitiously very much based on reality. And his first line is why is there no blood? And that's, that's what I was thinking is I looked into this hole because the electricity had cauterized everything.

And then the brother who was coming down, the ladder came over to me and he said, what happened? And I said, I guess we hit the wire. And he said, yes, I know I heard it. I said, yes, I know I saw you coming down the ladder and I was yelling to you to get your brother. And he looks at me and he says, what are you talking about now? Now mind you, this is first time we've talked since the accident and probably to his remembering eight minutes of human time.

And I said, I saw you come down the ladder. I was yelling to you. And he said, no, he said, you didn't say anything. I said, no, I, I saw you. I was yelling to you. He said, no. He said, I came down the ladder and I came to you first. You were on your side and I rolled you over. He said, your eyes were all rolled back into your head, all white, the eyeballs foam all over your mouth and no heart rate or no respiration, no breathing.

And he said, I did CPR on you for several minutes, trying to bring you back to life. And then I gave you up for day. And he said, I, I I'm thinking we killed Dan. And then he ran across the street to make the phone call for the emergency, the nine one one then ran back past me and then got to his brother and was working on him for a few minutes. So that was what happened in those. Eight or 10 minutes.

And then the journey afterwards, you know, I was in, I was in one hospital and then they flew me to another hospital for, I was in there for 10 days and I got out and my friend was dead and he was buried. So now I had to re-engage with life. And that was where I had a really, really difficult time getting through that.

Like you were there and then your experience of that time was very different than the experience of what was actually happening here in this realm and the physical, like surface of this earth as you're carrying with you. Um, How of that actually was having at the same time for men that I do believe that there's different layers of reality. That is in a sense, a confirmation of the lived experience of dance. Um, I would love for.

For you to, to share a little bit more, you know, before we get into what was your experience after the hospital and after

And then now do you want to keep going or do you want to go back and then me going, but wait, what about my mom and my girlfriend concerned for them? If I stay here and I'm dead, this is really, really, really going to hurt. And when I express that love and that concern for them, that's when I was right back into my, into my body. And I've heard many people before.

Cause you can imagine, I I've talked to, they say there's only about 5% of the, of the population, the adult population that, um, have experienced this near death. And anytime I speak with people that may have had one and I've certainly read books and listen to different podcasts. They don't have been people that have experienced almost SIM almost exactly what I did. And they describe it the same way.

So for me, I always believed that there was a, a divine nature to us, but it was a, it was a belief more of Catholic education. You know, this is it. This is what you're supposed to learn. This is, repeat it, write about it, select the right, you know, multiple choice, answer, get your grades. Now it's more of a note. Th that there is that energy inside of us. So in the human nature, right there, there is time sunsets minutes go by hours, go by what I experienced over.

There was none of that, none of that.

And I think my stair, from what people used to tell me was very, very distant, very blank. So I get out and, you know, my, both of my feet are in bandages, so I'm on crutches. And what would happen then is people would ask what happened to you? And then friends would start to come visit me because I was living with my parents and. Where it happened is I just couldn't, I couldn't get past the guilt that I had about what I, how I contributed to this accident. And my friend was no longer.

You know, and, and his wife didn't have a husband, his children didn't have a, a, um, a father. So, you know, I started to do what you would naturally do. I wasn't working. So, you know, I'm getting help from, from priests and, um, psychologists and just trying to sort it out, you know? Experimenting with aganda antidepressants. And I'm like, wow, I don't want them because I don't know if I'm feeling better because I'm feeling better because I'm feeling better because I'm on this pill.

So it was just this journey of trying to figure some things out. And, um, you know, I, I started to drink way more than I should just to try to deal with it, you know, and some drugs as well. Um, so it, it was just this, you know, I was trying to put on a good face, but inside I was very, very damaged and hurting. And then that ultimately just kept sliding down where I made the decision that I was just going to go to the outer banks of North Carolina.

And this was in October and I was just going to take my life. I, I didn't want to deal with that pain anymore. So I went down there and, and, um, you know, my plan was to get a hose and just put it in my tail. And drive onto the beach and running into the window and put the window up and, you know, just let that the exhaust just kind of, you know, end my life again and end the pain. Wow.

I mean, all these crazy thoughts, right? Who cares if you're, but it was weird. And as I was looking and going to grab one, this woman came by in the aisle and just kind of spooked me and said, hello. They just, just kind of knocked me out of what I was thinking about. I'm like, what am I doing? Am I can't, I can't buy that. So. I left. And then I went and got drunk and I was walking back to my motel. Now you've got to understand the outer banks of North Carolina is beautiful beach towns.

And in, in 1992 was not very built up. And in October, our summertime is over. So very quiet, very desolate, a lot of stores and restaurants starting to close up. So I'm walking back to my motel and I see this phone booth on the corner of the parking lot. And, and, you know, back then phone booths or. Glass read things like young people, they don't even have any concept of what they're like FaceTime, Venmo. I'm like, oh no, you don't get it. You had to go into this glass box and call somebody.

So when I looked at it, it was, it was, it was crazy. I'm looking at it. I'm going, where did that come from? I'd been there for about three or four days staying in this motel and it was shiny and under a lamp. And I'm just like, You know how Hollywood, if we make you, we'd love to make a movie out of this, they could do a good job. Cause it's almost like the divine light is shining on this phone booth. So I go in, you know, in drunk and call my mom and she said, when are you coming home?

We can't wait to see you. And you know that part's in the book and people will ask about the book. The majority of it's factual. Some of it is fictional just to kind of get the story in there, but. I said to her and I had, you know, a huge lump in my throat. I said, you know, I'll be home in a few days. I love you too.

And that phone call really saved my life because when I walked out of the phone booth, a little voice in my head said, I wonder what it's going to be like when I get better when I get through this. So in your wonderful title of your podcast, conscious action, that was the first time I was really conscious of saying, all right, let's get through. Let's get to a better place. You know, you, you it's is going to be okay.

I was, I was very much probably unconscious of that fact, but what I was conscious of was all the negative, where I was, how I screwed up, why it was my fault, why life's not going to get better. I don't deserve to be happy. Nobody understands that I was conscious of all the reality of the situation, but the negative side of the reality of situation versus to say, yes, this is tragic. And this side.

And not, but, and here's what I can do to move through this and support everybody and get support for myself. So that was a very pivotal moment. Very pivotal moment.

Um, um, when, when we have that support, that might be enough to get us to not go through with that or to stay here. And I think that, you know, sometimes we have those wake up calls and we have you call it, um, like nice in terms of coincidence, I call that the synchronicities. That's the word that I relate to, uh, right on. It's just the word that I was taught when I was younger.

When I noticed things and it's like, wow, you know, that person that walked by or that track that went on, it had them like something written. And that was what I needed at that moment to, to read or something like that. And that is incredible. So you go through that and then. You went home.

So that kind of gets you more back in life, but I was still, you know, I was still fighting a lot of, of negative and scary thoughts. Um, So, yeah. And let me just back up to, when you talk about anybody that has experienced those, those thoughts of despair, and, you know, it might be better if I'm not here anymore, just to understand that, that, that, that, that that's, it's, it's okay to have those thoughts. Um, and it's not okay to act on them.

So stop be really knowledgeable that knows that you care know that you are loved, know that you have a divine source of energy inside of you. And then just take one action to, to let somebody else know how you're feeling, whether it's a family member, whether you, you die on anonymous, suicide hotline or something, but you've gotta just settle, say a prayer to your God of your choice. And just realize that that there is a way through this. There is a path through this.

You do matter, you are loved and, and there is. You know, there, there is a piece of divinity inside of you. And if you can just get to that, you'll you'll, you'll be good. You'll be okay.

Um, and to be able to understand that, you know, you can go through all this different experiences and what comes on the other side of that is more understanding, more wisdom. Um, And more compassionate towards others like that. I think that it's the more that we understand that on ourselves, we can understand that on other people and to be able to, to understand that we have the tools necessary to actually go through all of this because we are resilient. You got it.

Yeah. I would love to share a little bit more of this side of things. So you go through all of these experiences and you start turning them into, in a sense, let's call it a positive, which is this, you sharing this and you being able to help others that would you be able to share? What was that transition period? And. What's the thing that sparked you into, I actually can, you know, build on this.

So you don't have to share the same experience as a person, loss of a child near death experience divorce. There are many experiences in life that are all going to put us into that same space of where we got to fight and we gotta become resilient, like you said. So I remember being on an airplane. And I met this young lady we're sitting in the back and we're flying home from Chicago. So it was, it was night. It was like a Thursday night planes dark.

And we started to talk a little bit and I usually would kind of feel people out, so to speak, you know, should I tell them my story or, or is it going to be, I don't know too much. I can just get a sense of who I would tell. So I shared it with her and she, she looked at me and I never talked to her after our flight or anything else.

And she, when I was telling the story, she just looked at me and she, she had kind of teary eyes and she said, You have to tell this story, because I had talked about, I was working on a book of it and she said, you have to, you have to tell this story and you have to write this book. It will really help a lot of people and I'll never forget it. And that was her. And that was what really said to me.

Okay, you have to start to put this out here and, you know, I still have doubts and, and sometimes I still do whether it, you know, am I really helping people, do I still have the ability to help people? Um, but that's kind of. That's what kind of set me free. And then I got, I got into different trainings and those kinds of things. And then I wrote, the first book is, is called well, I wrote it back. It was called back from heaven's front porch when I first published it.

And then we did a, a second edition that we just released. There'll be more consistent with my brand and back to life. So, so that one is called back to life, the path of resilience. And, um, this picks up with the young man named Jake. So kind of takes you through Jake's story. Take your, see the phone call in there and being on the beach in North Carolina and then Jake's journey back.

And it introduces in here five principles that I uncovered on that journey and I called them Jack rabbit JCK or BBT. And it's just a to develop vision, to be still, to know thyself, to seek. And to evolve and grow and change. So it walks you through how Jake learns these principles from, from different people.

And we just did a matter of fact, just today, we launched an online course, that's called back to life and it's a series of about 26, 27 videos where I'm, you know, short videos, I'm teaching a lesson and then there's exercises or questions and things for the, um, you know, for the participant for the student to do all around them, becoming more conscious of. Of what areas of their life needs some focus and attention and how to generate that focus and attention, you know?

Cause a lot of times people go, you know, they'll say to me, they're stuck in, what should I do? I said, we got to do the work and they go, yeah. But w what do you mean? How do you, how do you do the work? So really I walk people through and say, here's what doing the work looks like. You know? So they'll have they'll, there'll be, there'll be doing some work for sure. Yes.

You know, health and wealth and family and everything else. And I've been doing that for a number of years and it's served me very well. What I've recently learned is, and I do this work, right? I, that first trade of really believing in yourself, I still wasn't where I needed that. I still did not believe in myself. I still did not believe that I could. I deserve to be happy.

I didn't necessarily believe that I could take this business and these books and this speaking and the podcast, you know, and make significant money from it. And I didn't know if that was right. So, you know, when people say, do you always, does your vision always become reality? A lot more of it does now because I've really done the work or. Forgiving myself and understanding that I got to make sure that I hold useful thoughts up here.

Because you could have the biggest bull vision in the world about all these wonderful things you're going to do. But if you go to war, you know, you don't believe that. And you got some shitty thoughts going on up here. It's not going to work. So yeah, vision, vision for me is the key. You know, we sell some t-shirts too. And we have one that says I BWV, it all begins with vision.

So I would encourage people, you know, right now, as we step into the year 20, 21 and with all its risk and it's uncertainty and it's fear, there's still a lot that you can control that. So sit down and say, if I have a really good 20, 21 with what I can control, what, what does that look like? And put, you know, put the pen to paper.

And again, in that online course, that's a whole series developed vision must have gosh, five or six videos in their video, a little bit of, less than video, a little bit of lesson. So if people go, how do you write a vision? That's, that's, that's all in there.

What is our immediate environment and of course, with all of its challenges, but we can still allow ourselves to take the steps necessary that we want to be able to achieve that. And as you say that it's really important to understand, you know, you can have a huge mall crisis vision that it's amazing, but. If I see you mentioned if you have doubts about it and if you don't have any steps and goals to make that happen, it's unlikely for it to happen by itself.

Sometimes, you know, life has a way of making things happen, but for the majority of us, we do need to have that. It's like, I have this vision of that. Okay. How can I break that down into. Yeah, can I make that go by this time next year, I'm going to be doing that and little by little getting into that place. And, you know, it's, it's really important. And I think that, and I would love your, your take on this.

I think that it is really important in times, like what we are going through right now with so much upheaval and so much change and so much unknown. To understand and to give ourselves the choice of understanding that we are blessed to be here, to be alive. And when need to understand that this life is so precious and that we name to.

Yeah. When you were able to share a little bit on that, we talk this time about that, about, you know, like there's a difference between like living your life and being alive.

They're just caught in that, you know, I wake up, I go to work and even now at home and I watch TV and I, you know, I sleep and then I do it again. And there's not that sense of let me really engage with people and in myself and my own development. So, um, yeah, being alive I think is, is really, really important. And it's good that you talked about. You know, in, in, in being alive, even in the difficult times, there's a lot of choices that we can make.

And, you know, people always think the positive thinking positive thinking is discounting that that life is shitty. Right? And we all know what that means. No positive thinking is not saying that this crappy time in our life doesn't exist. Positive thinking and positive focus is saying yes, given this challenge. That I don't like, and I wish it never happened. And I'm sad about given that here's what I'm, here's where I'm going to go here. Here's who I'm going to get to help me.

Here's how I'm going to think about it. Here's how I'm going to learn to catch myself when I'm thinking badly. And I start feeling sorry for myself, or I start thinking negative. Cause you're got to do that. I mean, you're human being. There's so many people walk around with positive thoughts all the time, but, but the key is how do I, how do I catch myself? And then what's my strategy to go home. You know that that's not serving me. Let's let's get back on track here.

That's that's the key I think, to be in fully live, but you're right. Life is very precious. I've got the quote back here from valley Dalai Lama that says there are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow. So today is the right day to love, believe, do, and mostly live and be alive. So yeah. What good point, Brian, I agree with you 100%.

And this is something that I talked to a lot of my workshops that quite a lot of people, they wait to change their perspective on their lives around. They wait until they hit rock bottom completely. Oh, sure.

I'm one of the things I know that some people need to go through that, but one of the things that I encouraged everyone, none of the time is why wait until that moment, this moment right now, if you're listening to this, that you use this moment to be the catalyst for you to live fully your life right now.

And it could be, you know, a suicidal thought it could be a suicidal experience. It could be, um, you know, days of bingeing with drugs, it could be an overdose. It could be anything, but you know, that, that, that wake up call is there. That brings into consciousness. It says. This is not right. And there's, there's a possibility to move through it because as you said, we are resilient people. And, um, you know, I think it's just so important for us to remember that.

In all of the roles that we're in, whether it's father, whether it's work or whether it's right, or whether it's podcast, cast, host. So for them, I offer them the principles. I slow them down. I give them some science, statistics, some stories around these principles and the majority of people go, yeah, it makes sense. I shouldn't be doing that.

And then it's just, you know, the push to say, okay, what would it look like if you did, when could you begin to do it and we'll use, so then you, you know, you buy into that commitment, but you tell them that it's more of a lifestyle. You know, that's when people want, you know, if I wear my Jack rabbit t-shirt or they're like, what's Jack rabbit and I used to try to explain it, and now I just say, it's a lifestyle and they go to me and I said, well, what does lifestyle mean to you?

And they say, well, it's kinda how, how somebody lives. Like, it's what they do. It's how they think. I said, well, that's all Jack rabbit is, and it's based on these five principles, you know? And you've probably done all of these at some point in your life. The question is, would your life be more enriched? More resilient. Would you be more alive or, or living in your case if you started to implement these principles more often? And that's the key and I say, just experiment with them.

Just take one or two, because life's an experiment, right? We go, I'm not feeling too good. Oh, I, listen, I listen to Brian or I listen to Danny or I read a book or I'm going to try what they talked about. Just try it for a little bit. And it's either going to serve you well, most times. Or you're going to go on. I don't know if that's for me. I want to, you know, experiment with something else, but that's the key I'm, you know, I'm, I'm always experiment.

I'm pretty solid in my principles now, but I'm always experiment, experimenting with some different things in terms of now to apply, apply those principle.

He was a professional football player here and that career ends suddenly and he's just kind of lost in life and he's like many of us. And, um, so I think reading is really good. And I think that video is great. Video audio. Most of our content now about it says about 80%, 98, 80, 80 5% of our content is consumed in video. So I am forever going out to YouTube or Ted talks just to search for whatever I need, whether it be around inspiration, whether it be around meditation, mindfulness.

You know, a, a gratitude or if I just need to, to know how to fix something in my house, there's the video that the amount of information that we have available to us that can support us in our lives is tremendous. And it's just a click away, you know? So I would say do some more of that. I don't watch, I don't watch television hardly. I watch some sports, you know, in the United States, the masters golf tournament will be this week.

And I enjoy to watch that and some other football games and things. And so every now and again, movies, but I mostly like to read.

And then the other tip I would say is learn to get very good at paying attention to what's going on between the ears here, you know, all that chatter and, and, and get very good at saying, wait, that's not what I want. And here's how I shift it. That's a tip we all have to do is understand what's our life has lived between our ears up there and in most of it's uncovered. We've got to make ourselves conscious of it, catch the negative and go, oh, okay, cool.

It shows up I'm a human being and here's how I'm going to move through it. So some tips for people there. Yes.

So I go up a little bit further and I tell my sister, I said, I gotta get off. I had to go back and see this guy or whatever. So I turn around and I come back down the road and there's no cars. It's very dark. And I put my window down and I said, Hey, I said, get in the car, come on. What? You can't be walking on this road? And he said, oh no, thank you, my friend. I'm okay. And he, you know, he had an accent, so, and I said, no, I got to get in the car. He said, no, no, no, I'm good.

I'm in, he kept walking, kept walking down. All right. So I go down now. So now I've got to turn around and go back the other way, but I'd still am. So I put the light on, in my car so that he could see, and I pull it in. And as I was coming up my way, he knew the car was coming. So he crossed the street to get on the other side, away from me. So that was good because, and I looked and I said, you have, you have got to get in the car. Where are you going? Let me help you out.

So, uh, it was great experience. He got in the car, Mario. His name is. And he was just walking and taking the bus somewhere and he was headed to stay with some friends for one night and then head to Maryland. Um, he was, uh, in from Chile, Argentina down that way. So we had a nice conversation and as it turns out, he was so. And the place that I dropped them was probably less than two miles from my home.

So it was just, he was so happy and I just felt good helping somebody else because he, he would have walked for. Another hour, hour and a half, but very dark and dangerous. So that was my, my last one. I think I probably did a couple today. I would trust them. I don't remember them, but that was a good one. I was happy to help them now.

I think, I think they, we, all of us need to work on clearing a lot of the bullshit. So that, then that, that love that's naturally in there. And we know it's in there because we've all experienced it, that will, that will come out and that will make this world better as it needs to be.

So going to download our podcast called back to life, uh, maybe pick up the book back to life available, Amazon Barnes and Nobles and all those places. And, um, the online course that I spoke about back to life is on there. We just launched it. Um, it's priced very, very low in terms of the, the Dell development. Cause I just want as many. To get it, you know, because I know it will, something in there will help them. So I would say go to the website, that's the best spot.

And, um, you know, Facebook and Twitter, you can find me on some of those as

Um, can't wait to, to continue seeing what you're going to continue doing. Um, and for everyone that listened to this episode, that will love to know what resonated with you. How did you find Danny's story? Um, what did you learn from. So. I was going to say what actually you learn from it. What do you remember? You know, you got