How to Thrive in Conflict w/ Dan Tocchini

🤔 Our Greatest Challenges are often caused from a Victim Mentality and Toxic Self-Loathing. But, when we take responsibility for our commitments, healing begins. Therefore, tune into this powerful episode with the impactful Dan Tocchini and discover how to Bring Order from Chaos and Release the Beauty Within.

 🌟 What We Discuss with Dan:

👉 ⁃       The Revelations of a Near Death Experience 

👉 ⁃       The Toxin of Self-Loathing 

👉 ⁃       Making a Commitment to Heal

👉 ⁃       Learning to Love a Hard Conversation

👉 ⁃       Never Giving up on Those We Love

👉 ⁃       Creating Possibilities from Obstacles 

👉 ⁃       Ordering Chaos and Releasing Beauty

🌟 About Dan:

Dan Tocchini is a seasoned transformationalist with decades of experience in developing high-performing work cultures. Dan has had the privilege of working with industry giants like ESPN, Microsoft, and Interstate Batteries, as well as founders and teams from Virgin Hyperloop, One Hope Winery, and Smarty Pants Vitamins, and non-profits like Homeboy Industries, World Vision, and Straight Ahead Ministries. As a founder or executive leader of a high performing team looking to take your organization to the next level, Dan's expertise lies in strategic executive leadership development, conflict resolution, organizational change management, turnaround consulting, and restructuring. Through personalized coaching, hands-on training, and proven methodologies, Dan works with founders and their teams to take their organizations to unprecedented levels of meaning and productivity engineer the transformation needed to exceed your business objectives while deepening your sense of meaning and purpose.

🙏 Thanks, Dan! Reach out, connect, and follow Dan:

👉 -       https://www.linkedin.com/in/dantocchini/

👉 -       https://www.instagram.com/dan_tocchini/

 
🌟 Resources Mentioned in the Podcast: 

👉 ⁃       http://takenewground.com

Pre-Order my Latest Book: "Unbreakable Alliances: A Spy Recruiters Authoritative Guide to Cultivating Powerful & Lasting Connections" HERE

Unlocking the Power of Trust: Keynote Speaker Robin Dreeke Shares Secrets to Creating Allies - Robin is the former Chief of the FBI's Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program. With over 30 years of experience in recruiting spies and building trust, Robin is the world-renowned speaker you need. Don't miss out on the opportunity to learn from a true expert. Contact us now to book your event! Click HERE to book a time to chat.

🤔 Take Robin's FREE YouTube Keys to Communication Online Course HERE.

😃 Check out Robin's Speaking, and Training Services HERE.

Transcript

Dan: 0:04

If I attack myself or I attack you, there must be something I'm afraid of in this conversation I. I just started owning these things and exploring them, and I committed to suffer.

Robin: 0:16

Our greatest challenges are often caused from a victim mentality and toxic self-loathing, but when we take responsibility for our commitments, Healing begins. Therefore, tune into this powerful episode with the impactful Dan Tocchini and discover how to bring order from chaos and release the beauty within. Welcome to the Forged by Trust podcast. I'm your host, Robin Dreeke, professional speaker, executive coach, former US Marine spy recruiter, bestselling author, and your trusting communication expert. Coming up next on the Forged By Trust podcast.

Dan: 0:45

If you wanna feel better, if you want to know what it takes to lead, then you better learn and feel good about leading. You better learn to have hard conversations. So if, if I keep working with who I am, if the possibilities are gonna emerge, and usually they emerge as threats first, and then they open up as possibilities, I gotta face into them.

Robin: 1:07

The Forge By Trusts podcast is a show where we explore the essential skill of forging trust for building an innovative culture and exceptional leadership. Join us as we delve into the behavior, skills and communication techniques required for success and learn from the best in the industry. Our guests include spies, spy recruiters, master interrogators, best-selling authors, thought leaders, and innovators who will share their insights on building teams, partnerships, and exceptional leadership by Forging Trust Today's episode, how to Thrive in Conflict is with a deeply impactful, Dan Tocchini. Dan is a seasoned transformational with decades of experience in developing high performing work cultures. Dan has had the privilege of working with industry giants like e, s, espn, Microsoft, and Interstate batteries, as well as founders and teams from Virgin Hyperloop One Hope Winery. And Smarty pants, vitamins, and nonprofits like Homeboy Industries, world Vision and Straight Ahead Ministries. As a founder or executive leader or high-performing team looking to take your organization to the next level. Dan's expertise lies in strategic executive leadership development, conflict resolution, organizational change management, turnaround consulting, and restructuring. Through personalized coaching, hands-on training and proven methodologies, Dane works with founders and their teams to take their organizations to unprecedented levels of meaning and productivity engineer the transformation needed to exceed your business objectives while deepening your sense of meaning and purpose. During today's episode, we talk about the revelations of a near-death experience, the toxin of self-loathing, making a commitment to heal, learning to love a hard conversation, never giving up on those we love, creating possibilities from obstacles and ordering chaos and releasing beauty. All right, Dan, thank you so much for taking time outta your incredibly busy day and journey to spend it with me, my audience, and the Forge by Trust

Dan: 3:03

podcast. Well, thank you for having me, Robin. It's a real pleasure to be here. I always enjoy talking with you and I'm looking forward to it. Thank you.

Robin: 3:12

And oh my gosh, if, if people could see, the few seconds ago before we started a recording, just as soon as your face hit my screen. I just lit up. You have this amazing energy that just emanates from you, and I know it comes from this really profound background and journey you're on, and we're gonna go through that in a second. But I'm just so thankful for having you part of my life, and I'm so glad that you've decided to grace all of us with yours. And so with that, Dan, the title of our episode today is How to Thrive in Chaos which life is full of. And that's pretty profound statement right there. And pretty tall order. So where did that journey begin that we needed to come out of chaos?

Dan: 4:01

Well, I, I mean there's a couple, there's the personal aspect and then there's just the fact that life is chaotic. You know, there's if, if, if, if you get out in the world, there's so much diversity, it's chaos, it's people living and doing. And there are different concerns and some of them aren't. So, Let's say life giving some concerns are dark and so you've got all these competing forces going on. But particularly for me as a young boy, I grew up in a home with my mother was a schizophrenic and it didn't hit till I was about 12 years old. So,

Robin: 4:34

okay, Howard, I gotta stop. Slow down. Where do we grow

Dan: 4:37

up? I grew up in Northern California. Okay. And in the, Wine country that's now known as the wine country. When I was a kid there was, it was NAPA only, but I grew up in a little town called Petaluma. And and my mother and father, my dad, my grandfather actually settled in Sebastopol, which is about 16 miles northwest of Petaluma. And then my dad settled in Petaluma.

Robin: 5:02

Oh, wow. And where'd your grandfather

Dan: 5:03

come from? He came from a little town called PO in Italy, just outside of Luca, Italy. Wow. Close family, very close. Catholic family grew up very close, you know, would go to my grandfather's every, every weekend or every week. And and then at about 12, my parents, you know, my mother had a, her, my youngest brother, my younger brother he's. Nine years younger than me. And just after that the episodes with the psych, with the manic depression and then psych the schizophrenia came on. Yeah. So what did

Robin: 5:43

that look like back then, if you don't mind me asking? Ex it, it's a challenging thing obviously, to go through. So what did that manifest like in the house and what did that do?

Dan: 5:53

Well it's kind of, did you see a beautiful mind? No, I didn't. Okay,

Robin: 6:01

so the, that's the only clips of it, not the entire thing. Yeah.

Dan: 6:04

I saw it once was enough for me and it was a fairly clean kind of idea of what it looks like, what it's like. But you don't know who's, you don't know what's going on for the person and they're, they're doing things that make no sense at all, but makes sense to them. Right. And you're, they're not predictable. All, all of a sudden, you know, one day it's really, things are very clean and in order and the next day depressed in bed. And then she started hearing sounds and, and so there was a, and, and mood swings. And my dad was gone a lot. I think that was part of it. You know, there was, there was a lot of course, very complex situation, but in talking with my mother and What did your dad do? My dad was, he is in the movie business. He has movie theaters. Oh, and, and then, you know, exhibition of the. Motion picture theaters. My grandfather opened the first talking motion picture theater north of San Francisco, and was involved in, you know, the establishment of United Artist Theater Circuit. He built a number of their first theaters, I, I think four, their first four theaters.

Robin: 7:09

Wow. So he immigrates from Italy and starts movie theaters. Where'd that come from?

Dan: 7:14

Well, he was in, he was, he was a, He and his brother started a produce market. We're part of the founders of the produce market in San Francisco and they opened up grocery stores and he lived north of the Bay and they had grocery. He had set up grocery stores and got into real estate over a period of time and built a movie theater for some guys who were supposed to come out, I think from the east coast somewhere and, and open it. They were gonna be his tenants and they didn't show up. So he ended open, ended up opening the theater and learning the business and liked it so much that he sold his grocery stores and went into the theater business. Wow.

Robin: 7:53

Yeah. And so, and then he had your dad.

Dan: 7:56

And my dad kind of followed in his footsteps and took the business to a whole nother level. And, you know, and he was, and my dad liked, my dad was big into gambling. At that time he was a co he'd go play low ball and so he was, he'd play cards as a hobby and, and was gone a lot. And I, I think the pressure of raising three boys and a girl with my mother and, and then other things within their relationship were so dynamic. In talking with her later years, we talked about this. She felt like she didn't have any way out and she felt like what she had made up about the situation altered her body chemistry. That's what, oh, and she said she just noticed that, you know, she would go off into these different realities and it was a way for, to escape the pressure of what she was feeling. At least that was part of it. That's what she described it

Robin: 8:49

as. Oh, so you had chaos in her, your life, pretty early. Early, yeah. And it sounds, as you described it, it doesn't sound like it. Made you feel very safe. Are those people around you safe or predictable? Either correct.

Dan: 9:00

No, I knew. I just love my mother's you know, I love my mother and father. I love my brothers and sisters, and I just didn't wanna lose her. So I pursued her while she was in the hospital and I was, became kind of the go between, between her and the psychiatrist. At one point I had talked my father into letting me give it a shot because the psychiatrist he'd flown in and hired and give what a shot. Yeah, to connect with her. She was catatonic at the time. She'd go in and out of catatonia and hurt herself. She'd kind of pull her hair out or do things to hurt herself. Never hurt any of us, never was violent to a, toward us. In fact, you know, and looking back, I was, she kind of became a me, she's like a, a hero to me. She, I could tell what it took for her to take care of us. And she did, was really tough because she was, you know, struggling with this. Oh my God. And anyway, she, I. Was able to reach her by visiting her in the hospital. And and I had read the, I started reading books on how to commu, you know, how can I connect with her? And, and I read these. Neurolinguistic programming books would, it wasn't very popular then. And I read some work by a guy named Charles Sch Raz, which he, he was, he wrote a book called The Myth of Mental Illness, and his frame was, these people aren't mentally ill. These these know schizophrenics or they're, we, they're using a language. That they kind of made up to deal with reality and that if we, you know, we need to learn to speak the language with them or find out what they're doing, she would symbolize, she would do all kinds of really weird stuff, but I could tell it meant something to her cuz there was a consistency in what she would do. Like she'd move a salt shaker or, you know, Reorganized the plates and then sit back like you see, you see like she was saying something to us and it would freak out my, my dad and my brothers and sisters, and they would leave, leave the table and I would move things around trying to figure out what she was saying. Right. Did you ever, did you ever figure it out? Well, I learned to communicate with her, yeah, I did. In fact, wow. As I got older, I became, there was a cycle that would happen. She would go, if she went into a cycle, didn't take, she took lithium, which helped her. She could live, she lived a very, no, she actually lived a life of her own on her own till she was 82 when she died. Wow. And, and in the later 30 or 40 years of her, of her life, 30 years of her life, she only had a couple of episodes. Right. She, she may not, and she wouldn't take her medicine. She wouldn't take the lithium. Right. And she told me one time, I asked her like, like, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? She goes, well, it's just so nice. Nothing. I feel so good when I'm there, you know, so, you know, and so I, there it was a process of, of really negotiating with her to take, to do her meds. And we as a family would work on that. And, and I, I, there was a cycle. She would go off on a, you know, on one of her, Trips and she would disturb her neighbors and pretty soon she'd get, some of the kids would go over and try to work with her and, and then I'd get a call from a family friend and he would say, you need to go talk to your mother. And then I'd go over and sit with her, and then I'd get her to admit herself on a 51 50 in the hospital on her own volition. And then that would be the start. And then I would go in and later on, you know, I became the one that basically, unless I signed off, she wouldn't get out. Right. So I could talk to her about doing her. Staying on the meds. Right. And that worked out well. I mean, we, and then she, like I said, she died at 82 and she did. Well, I, I, she had a great sense of humor. She's very bright. And I asked her, why didn't she ever get married again? She goes, oh, nobody wants to marry us. I was like, she had a great sense of humor. And what a soul. Very brilliant, very bright, very intuitive. Had no, no, it seemed like she had no, Approval needs. She'd say whatever she thought and Right. Of course that could be problematic.

Robin: 13:06

Right. So your parents separated then?

Dan: 13:09

Yeah. They were divorced. They divorced when I was 18 and and then my dad remarried some 10 years later and been married ever since. And my mom and my dad and and his wife, Amy, all the family just reconciled. Well over the years, we Oh, good. Had holidays together. My dad bought her a home, took care of her over saw, you know, they were good friends.

Robin: 13:32

So. All right. So we're, we're going through some interesting times in high school learning to communicate with your mom. Yeah. And what did, at this point in life, what were you thinking you were gonna do with it?

Dan: 13:44

Nothing. I wanted to get away from it. Pretty angry, rebellious. I. Didn't want to deal. What, what was

Robin: 13:50

making you angry and

Dan: 13:51

rebellious? Oh, the, the situation between she and my father and judgements I had of my dad and of just different circum circumstances. And I found myself lying and cheating and I got into drugs and, you know, doing illegal things like gang life type of stuff. And really. I, I figured I was gonna be dead by the time I was 30 at some point. It was. And why was that? Oh, just I was so angry. You know, I, I could tell that where I was headed, I don't know. And most people can, when they're in a situation that has a short term gain, but a long term pain, you know, you're, you're settling for short term. Relief, but you're creating long-term grief cuz I'm breaking relationships. I'm lying, I'm cheating, I'm leading a double life. I marry my wife and I'm, you know, I have a movie theater, a couple theaters and I'm laundering mo money through their, I'm, people aren't coming to the theaters. I'm dealing drugs and doing really illegal things and sh. She eventually finds that out when, after our, my son was born about a year into it and basically drew the line and said, look, we can't do, we have a life we have to take care of, and I can't do this anymore. I, I, you know, I, it's not gonna work for me, so you gotta make a choice. And that's when things started to, I, I decided to turn, although I felt quite hopeless, things were as chaotic as they could be. My wife wants to leave my parent. My dad doesn't wanna talk to me cuz I'm, I'm lying. I'm, he knows I'm a drug addict and the dealer and he doesn't want to get him home. How old were you when all this was happening? 26, 25 right in there. That's a lot. Yeah. And Was just really, I mean, I'll never forget the feeling, like I didn't think I could do anything legitimate. And I, I was always an avid reader. Reader, and I was articulate and I could sell, but I didn't, you know, I had no idea that I could make a living. So that was a, that was a big deal. That was a lot of the fear. That was the chaos was a way for me to cover up what I was doing from people to a certain degree, but eventually they would find out. So I had this. Kind of self-loathing. When are they gonna find out who I really am and then not want to be with me? That kind of thing. That, that, that dark side.

Robin: 16:19

So what was it then that really turned that moment, made that moment happen

Dan: 16:25

for you? I had a, a big faith experience. I got, I got in a head-on car accident. My son was, I was not yet born yet. So it, it, it happened just before I stopped all the drugs and I got in a car wreck and had a, and, and, and,

Robin: 16:41

and if I could pause there a second too. You, you, you're pretty remarkable. Dan, cuz you're brushing through things that are really difficult and challenging to stop doing and first to realize, if you don't mind just a second, the drug addiction. That is a rough thing for people to break.

Dan: 17:02

Yeah. Well, it's rough because I was investing in something that brought no meaning. Right. Except that it would temporarily relieve my suffering. In a sense, it would numb me. Right. But investing like that, there was no meaning. I, I had a, I felt despair. There was no meaning. There was no reason to stand up. I loved my wife, but I didn't feel like I was, like, she didn't know me and so how could she love me? So she probably wouldn't want to have me. Right. If she found out who I really was in my, you know, my own mind. Right? And and so the thought of leave losing her in this, so I had this. I died and came back. I died. They actually, you know, tied the little tag on and I, all right. So

Robin: 17:56

let's, let's, let's go through that event then. So, so we're, we're in a little self-love thing going on, you know, just a little medicating through drugs. Yeah. We're married, we're afraid our wife is gonna see us for who we really are, and we're afraid of losing her.

Dan: 18:11

And so, and have a little boy. I love to just like, you know, But I don't think I can get up to being his father. I'm Terry inside. I'm very scared right outside. I'm projecting arrogance and confidence. Like I think it's confidence, but it's coming across as arrogance. Right. Cuz it's really a cover for the fear that's going on in me and my wife is the one that brings that to my attention multiple times. Right? And she has me, I end up doing a training called, it was a lifespring, was a company called lifespring and. That was extremely powerful for me. It started me looking at what it would take to take responsibility for the future I'm committed to. And so,

Robin: 18:53

and when did we take this training? Was this this before the

Dan: 18:57

accident? I had taken it before the accident, but it, it really didn't, it, it affected me, but not like I, I'm a little stiff neck, so nice. Before the accident two years before the accident, I get in the accident. I have this faith experience. Now I'm, and I come back. And I actually experienced what I, I, you know, I'm a very kinesthetic guy, so it wasn't visual.

Robin: 19:23

We're gonna, and we're gonna get into that in a second. I'm just trying to paint the picture of, of where, what the sequence of events are happening. So I had

Dan: 19:29

done this training miracle. Two years late. Two years later, I get in the car wreck. My wife had this car.

Robin: 19:36

And tell me about the car wreck. How did this car wreck happen? I had on,

Dan: 19:39

on the freeway going home from a, a new a Academy Award party at my dad's house. I'm driving home. I, I've got some cocaine in the car. I'm high and I get hit head on, on the freeway. Two guys drunk, going the wrong way. Cars are 20 feet apart, engine 20 feet under the car. Wow. So they take me to the hospital. I've, I've femur, compound fracture, but broke my jaw five different places, teeth knocked out. So, Both lungs collapsed with a, you know, I can barely breathe. There's a big five inch rip in my diaphragm and the lungs are between, down there. There's, I'm bleeding internally. I lost four, five pints of blood in the whole process.

Robin: 20:25

How did they, they find you, I mean, how fast, how were they able to get to you so fast and you didn't die?

Dan: 20:30

I, it's pretty remarkable. There was a highway patrolman pretty close to me, and I had. Woke up in the car and was trying, I was pawing my way, trying to find out. He opened the car door and said, stop. Don't do anything, you know, just wait till the ambulance gets here. The ambulance comes, they take me out and then they get me to the hospital. They phone my, I give them my wife's number, then she comes to the hospital. So, and this is in 81, so my, you know, this, this is two years before my son's born and, and then my son's born and at the time I'm still. I'm doing some work with lifespring, but I'm still dabbling in the drugs and I, and I'm still doing, I have a theater that I still work with and doing the stuff I was talking about, I'm still doing that and that's when my wife really gets what's going on and says, look, you gotta stop this.

Robin: 21:24

So where was the near, near-death experience? Was it this, that accident right there? Or was it another one? That was

Dan: 21:28

the accident? That was it. Would you share it please? Well, so I, I died in the, died on the table. They brought me back and then I died again after the operation and they kinda, I died and they took the tubes out and wheeled me out and, and started the, I remember pulling the, Cover over my head, but before I did that, I had this experience like, you ever go to sleep and just before you sleep, you're in that state where it's like really comfortable. You don't even feel your body. You're just really comfortable. It was like that, but on like on steroids, like times 10 and I felt this hand going through my head speaking to me. I heard a voice. I didn't have any sight. I just felt it and heard this voice saying, do you wanna stay with me or do you want to go? Back to work. You have a lot of work to do if you go back, but you can stay with me. And I said, I thought about it and I had kind of a view of I wanted to have kids and I saw a family and I saw these different things and I said, well, I want to go back. And I was back in my body and pulling the cover over and look in this, I hear this nurse saying he's alive, and then she's. Wheeling me quickly back in the room and they start putting tubes back in me and, and the, there's a breather and then I go back out. And when I wake up, this, the set, the, the, in the operating room in the ho in the intensive care room. I can't remember who I am. And I don't remember who this woman is or people there, but I'm on a breather cuz I can't talk cuz it's a long, it's, it's breathing for me and I'm, I'm trying to figure out, and that goes on for like three hours before my memory start to return. Three hours. Yeah. Wow. And I, cuz I'm watching the clock and I'm, all I keep saying is, I keep saying, I dunno why I'm saying this. Palms together, palms apart, palms together, palms apart. Just surrender. And when I start to get my memories back, I remember who I, my wife is, my dad's there. Okay. I, I start to, things come into focus. I realize, I remember what happened. I got in a wreck. I remember I, you know, the them wheeling me back and all that starts to come into focus. And the words Palms together. Palms apart, was a surrender exercise we did at Life Spring. Years before. Huh? And I, and it was about surrendering, like the, if you want to order chaos, if you wanna bring order, you wanna bring something into being, you have to be with what is first. Ah. And so I started to realize at that point that's what I needed to do to recover, just be where I'm at and really engaged that. Right? And so I did, and I was, they thought I'd be in the hospital for four or five months. I was out in three weeks. And then I spent a week at home, which was probably the worst week of the whole time because the body's waking up. Right. But the whole time that, that theme of surrender was with me and

Robin: 24:41

the body's waking up. That's an interesting statement. What did, what do you mean the body is waking up? Well, you,

Dan: 24:45

I got hit on a head on, right? So that I got hit in the chest and you know, I sternum touched my spine, collapsed my lungs. Broke my jaw. Right? So it's a trauma, right? And so the nerves are coming back alive and my leg was like this huge, cuz it was, they had the. Drive a pin through the hip, down to the knee and put the bone back together on it. Okay. So they kind of, they pulverized my, my, my thigh muscle and so all, and so they're, when the body's, after a few weeks, it starts to wake up, it starts to come out of the numbness, right? So I'm hurting all over and the legs throbbing. I, I can barely sleep. And, and that was a whole, that's where the surrender really came in, where I could

Robin: 25:26

Plus you're probably going through withdrawal too at this point. Yes.

Dan: 25:30

Well, yeah. Kind of funny. You don't feel that because with all that pain, but Right. Cocaine, there's not really a withdrawal. It's more of a si there's, there is in a sense that you're gonna be edgy and that kind of thing, but, but it's not like heroin where you have a physical Okay. Withdrawal, but you feel it. And so I, for a long time now, over a year, I'm not doing drugs. Right. Cause I'm recovering, but at the end of that year, I, that's, so now we're in 82. Danny's born in 83. I, it starts up again. I start doing drugs again. I start doing cocaine again. Why do you think that happened? Despair. Still wrestling with my own loathing, feeling like, you know, now I've trashed my body. It was a really, you know and I've hurt myself, so, you know, I'm not gonna be playing as many sports as I used to. I can't, cause I do, like, I'm was athletic as well. Right. Ironically. And I'm, you know, I, it's like a pause. I still. Didn't believe in my, that I could get something done that I, I didn't, I, I, there were so many lies that had to get cleared up still. Right, right. And I held them against me rather than get them clear. Look, to play the victim is so much easier than getting responsible and at least in the short term. Right. And, and being a criminal is a negotiation, like life's a negotiation. So if I'm a victim, I have a different stance in how I negotiate my life than if I'm responsible, if I'm relating to it responsibly. So if I'm relating to it as a victim, I'm always using my past to determine and to justify what I'm taking from others. Now, And, and so I can perpetrate against them cuz after all I've been done wrong to, I'm entitled Right to do what I feel like others have done to me. Right. Right. And so, you know, I was born with this situation with my mother. I was misunderstood. I mean, I had a whole story like I could right. And, and that that was a, and that, and, and the chaos of that was a cover. Like I could get dramatic and it would take people's attention off of me, or I could produce a dramatic situation and it would be about that, not me. Right. There was a lot of different. Pathologies, right, that I was exercising UN and quite unconsciously at times, and as I started getting responsible for having something new happen, like a family that worked and a business that was legitimate and that I would express my deepest desires. That produces a different world and a different sense of meaning so that there's a struggle there. I, it's so tempting for the short, it's like a drug addict. I could have the short numbness and feel good for the moment, but then Adam, I come down, I'm despairing. And, and so

Robin: 28:25

what? And, and so what flipped that switch from being a victim and wound collector to problem solver

Dan: 28:30

when my wife said to me, You are, you could, you know, we've got a son and I can't play this game with you anymore. I, I ha I'm gonna be responsible for him. If you aren't willing to do what it takes to do that. I gotta live without you. I don't want to, and I want you to be his father, but, You know, you've got you. I can't make you do it. I'm take, I'll, I'll take him and I'll divorce you. And that's when I really started. And ironically, you know, one night I'm sitting in and I'm chopping up some cocaine, it's rain outside and I'm, my wife's in bed and Danny's asleep and it's late at night and I'm lamenting this while I'm doing this cocaine. This is how screwy we can get right. And I, I sit back and I read John three 16. I just happened to look down. She had the Bible open, and God so loved the world that he gave his own only begotten son. And so I just thought to myself, I wonder what that means, you know, just kind of in a cocaine days. Mm-hmm. I wonder what that means, like what would it be like to have to give my son up and, and I, this, I, I'm not visual as I said, and all of a sudden I get this vision. Of her walking away, holding my son's hand when he is about four. In this case, he's only a year at this point, but I see him about four, and they both turn around and look at me and he says, you could have been my daddy crying. I want you to be my daddy. And she said, but you know, like, like, no. And they turned around and walked off and it was so real that it, it convicted me. That's all I can say. It punks are green. I walked out and I dumped about two ounces of cocaine on the lawn in the rain. And I looked up and promised God, I said, I will. I will stand and I remember seeing in the raindrops faces of people falling on me. I'll never forget it and I didn't know what it meant, but I just knew that this would, this was what I needed to do and I didn't say anything to Eileen. I just told her I, I need to go to this place called Koch Enders and do this for a week. And, and I'll be back. I'm not gonna say anything cuz I so many times in the past you say you're gonna quit and you don't. Right. So I go to Koch Enders and I come back and I start. Doing, putting to work. What I learned at the trainings that I had done, what I'd read in the scripture about being responsible and things I had worked through, and you know, I just started owning these things and exploring them, and I committed to suffer. If it meant suffering, then that's what I would do, that what was more important to me was to have a meaningful relationship with my wife and my son than to. Appease my momentary suffering, my pain. And I remember I decided that whenever I felt like I was gonna do the drug, I would pray. And that worked for me. And I would, you know, I went to AA or CA meetings for a while, but then, you know, I, I started doing my own business. I started getting involved with. I, you know, the training company I had done, I went back and started working for them and I wanted to learn that cuz I really enjoyed that. And then I started studying very deeply all the things I wa I was interested in for the sake of benefiting my family. And that the goal was to have a family. That I decided that success for me would be that we would have children, and that those children would wanna live, they would want to be with me throughout their life. And if they wanted to be with me throughout my life, if they wanted to share life with me, I had succeeded even like, so if we were poor, they would, we would, we would right joyously be together. We would be together in a way that would generate possibility. We'd learn how to work if when they got married, they'd want their kids to be in, you know, they'd want me to be their grand, the grandfather, et cetera. And, and Eileen and I talked about these things as a vision. It's a great,

Robin: 32:27

perfect, simple vision in life, isn't it? When, when you de complicate life and just make it about the only thing that matters, and that's good, healthy, strong relationships to those people who care about life is yeah. Poet journey. So we have a, a beautiful transformation, hard one that's happening. What was next?

Dan: 32:47

Well, I, I fell in love with. Being with people and making a difference with them because every,

Robin: 32:54

alright, so that's what a beautiful state I fell in love with being with people. What, what made you fall in love with being with

Dan: 33:01

people? I, I could see similar struggles that people were having, that I struggled with and I felt like I could stand with them in a way that they would see a possibility that they maybe didn't see in that moment. Right. And that, not that I could do it for them, but that I could be a catalyst to support them if that's what they really wanted. That I, like, I could make a difference, right? And that every time I successfully did that and saw somebody do something they didn't think they could do, but they longed to do, I just, I was happy for them. It was the joy for them was a payoff was worth doing and, and even if they didn't, Acknowledged me. It didn't matter. It was like they were, they were doing it, and I got to be part of that. What I don't.

Robin: 33:58

And so what did your wife start seeing in you that was different, do you think at this

Dan: 34:02

time? She told me, she always saw this in me. She told me she was sad because I didn't see it in me. She used to sit and look at me when I was in that state and she'd say, what are you thinking? It looks so sad. And I'd get so mad at her. I'd get contentious because she'd be exposing me to me and I'd stomp out and throw a little tantrum, go leave, get in the car and drive off. And she'd, and she'd say, I don't know why you do that to yourself. Why? Tell me what you're, what's going on? I knew if I told her, if she knew. She'd never wanna be, I'm not who she thinks I am, but I wasn't who I thought I was. There was this dark side and it didn't have to be the bigger side and, and I began to connect with how the dark side could be an ally instead of an enemy. When was the

Robin: 34:52

first time you had the courage to let go of the shame of sharing?

Dan: 34:59

Well, when my wife asked me, I came to her and committed. I, I confessed, I had committed adultery a few times with nine times through the first 10 years of our, his, our history every year, and I'd go have a fling. I never knew why. I didn't understand it at the time, but when I confessed it to her, She started naturally asking, well, who you know sh who is it? Who are the people like? And then she starts asking very detailed questions about the third question. I got really angry and got up to storm out and she said, oh, so you were just using me one more time. Like, who are you confessing for? Question and stop me dead in my tracks because I had I, when she said it, I realized, wow, she's right. Here I am again using her, doing it. It's really for me, I'm trying to relieve my guilt instead of reconnect with her. Right? Because you just don't wanna see who you've been up until now. And, and that's who you need to see. So I turned around and I sat down and we went through the whole process. And by the end of an hour and a half, two hours of confessing, I'm sweating. And she, we decided that I asked her to forgive me. She said she would, but she didn't know if she wanted to stay with me, which I understood. I had to face that. And then we agreed that since we had Danny. We needed to develop a respectful and honorable relationship because he's gonna be affected by it, because we both have been affected by broken families, you know, divorce and so on at the time. And so I slept in a separate bedroom and the, the agreement was, I would sleep there. And then at some point, if she felt like it wasn't gonna work out, I would leave and we'd work something out. Or if she felt like she was ready to go and she wanted to stand with me and again, and recommit, she'd let me know to come back to the bedroom. So we'd meet in the morning and talk over coffee and breakfast, and then I'd go off to work at Life Spring, and then I would come home. And then at night we play with Danny and like that. So at one point I asked her, Well you know, we're eating away at our savings. We've got about, cuz we bought this home and we're paying the rent and what I'm making isn't enough and I'm working 70 hours a week. And, and so I asked her, you know, is there some way you can help? And then we'd get in an argument and it would sound something like, well, yes, I, I want, I, I I wanna help. I said, no, you don't, you, you just said you didn't want to help. I, she goes, I didn't say that. And we'd argue and then I. Dark side, I'd throw a tantrum and leave. Right? And then I'd go down, work with people on how to communicate. Then I'd come back home that night and we'd talk to Danny because we would play with Danny so we wouldn't talk and then go to bed the next morning, this happens again, and I leave even quicker. The second morning again, same argument. You don't want to help. Yes I do. No, you don't. I came home that night again, the second night we played with Danny. Went to bed the third morning. I come in, she's got a tape recorder on the counter. And I go, what's that for? She goes, well, Mr. Trainor, it seems that we're not communicating well. And you say one thing and I say another, we're missing something. So I thought I'd use the tape recorder and we could see what we're missing instead of you storming off and me staying at home and wondering what's going on. And you know, I said, okay, well go. Let's do it. So she puts it on and sure enough, we start talking about 20 minutes in and we're arguing, we forget, it's on. I'm getting ready to blow out. And she goes, don't run away. Let's just hear what the recorder says. So I said, okay. I, because I said, well, you didn't say that you're not willing to help. You said you, you said you are, but you're not. And so you play the recorder and it says this, well, Eileen, look, I, I don't know how long we can go like this. I, we gotta figure something out. She goes, I'm willing to help Dan. I'm just not willing to leave Danny at the babysitters. I said, so you don't want to help? She goes, I didn't say that. She goes, oh, that's what you meant. So I turn off the tape recorder and I, I say to her, yes, okay, you're right. You didn't say you didn't wanna help, but like I said there, that's what you meant. And she starts to cry. And I think in my mind, I'm angry that she's crying cuz she's trying to manipulate me. So the street in me, the street sense goes, okay, if you're willing to help, what are you willing to do? Let's like, And so she goes to her purse and pulls out a business plan for a daycare that she wants to build in our house, and she shows me the numbers. And it would not only make enough to make a rent, but we could save money. I'm shocked. I'm dumbfounded. I'm astounded at the prejudice in me and we, this opens up a number of conversations that deepens our relationship. Now mind you, we're sleeping in separate rooms. Now we're talking at night and in the morning, and I'm listening. I'm doing a lot of listening. I'm under, I'm realizing, I don't know this beautiful woman I've lived with. I only know her in relationship to what she does for me. That's all narcissistic. I see. I am. Yeah. And, and she says to me, don't hate yourself or you won't. You won't hear me. And I realized that my self-loathing is a racket that I use to, to stay away from, from what I think I can't get up to. So I engage in these conversations and I realized, she asked me one time, why, what, what was the adultery about? Like, let's talk about that. And I, I, and so we started looking at patterns and I would do it every se like September. Every September for like eight years, nine years in a row. And it would be with a woman, not, it wasn't an ongoing thing, but it would be with a woman. And she goes, have you ever thought about what that's about? And I go, no, I haven't. So I, it was really troubling. I I, it was really, there was a pattern there, so there's something connected to it. Right? Right. So I, I just started thinking about it and I realized at one night I sat up in bed and it was my mother. I remember the first time I remember finding out that my mother was, Crazy or schizophrenic? Schizophrenic was in September. Huh. And I remember saying to myself, I can't trust her. I can't trust women. And I started feeling in me that I, what did I feel when I did these things? I felt like, I could still go out and be relevant to other women. So when Eileen left me, or if she left me, I could always take care of myself. She couldn't devastate me that kind of thinking. Wow, criminal thinking. And from that time on, I never, ever again. Did I even, I think women are beautiful, but I just don't entertain those thoughts. It's not even, it's like all of a sudden I got really clear and I got really devoted to her. And her trust in me is, you know, it went right up. And it's interesting to note that just a week or so after those conversations, I come home one night and there's a note on my bed, come back to bed. I'm committed to this relationship. Right. And it came out of that series of conversations. I am

Robin: 42:43

completely dumbfounded by the gift of your wife to you.

Dan: 42:46

Oh, you have no idea. You have no idea. She's a remarkable woman. She is the most tenacious person I've ever met, you know, and, and I do see, you know, she grew up in a, a home where her father beat her brothers and never touched her. So she had, she wrestles with survivor's guilt. And, but she will not give up. I mean, that's her to a strength and her weakness. Yeah. And we, and that was part of our codependency cuz she, she wouldn't, she wouldn't walk out on you. Yeah. And she needed to. And when she did, it's what opened up the whole conversation.

Robin: 43:20

Universe has a, a phenomenal way of doing the right things at the right time with the right people, doesn't it?

Dan: 43:26

Oh man. I'm telling you.

Robin: 43:27

Geez. So Dan, bring us up to To, to what you're doing now, bring an order out of chaos because boy, you've lived in chaos. Matter of fact, I don't think I should be talking to you guys ever be talking to your wife. She's

Dan: 43:41

doubt brought order outta chaos. No doubt. No doubt. She's, you know, in fact, Eileen heads up the, I have a company called Take New Ground, and it's right. It's a consulting firm and we do turnarounds and conflict resolution and we do all kinds of different things to start and help companies turn around, start companies. Established boards and leadership teams and the kinds of conversations that work. How to negotiate, basically create agreement. Cuz leadership is all about causing results through people, right? So if you can't, if you wanna feel better, if you want to know what it takes to lead, then you better learn and feel good about leading. You better learn to have hard conversations and we have found that. The possibilities, the greater possibilities live in the conflict that most people want to get, try to work around instead of get into and understand and then utilize to open up the next possibility. And my life has been, you know, like you can, like, those conversations are what led me in into this work. Those that, and I studied all kinds of modalities, et cetera. That I could exercise and work with in my own life and in my own businesses, and then go out and support other founders to do the same thing. And I met up with Adrian in a very similar way, so, yeah. And you've had Adrian on your call, so Yeah.

Robin: 45:07

And he's his episode has already aired. And so what, what a, what a what a duo and what a, what a group you have brought together. So for those that are listening, what are like a few things people could do right now to help themselves so they can help others to bring some order to chaos?

Dan: 45:25

Well, the base, the baseline principles is take responsibility for what it is you're committed to having. Most people hear that though, like to take the blame. It has nothing to do. It's the exact opposite of blaming yourself, right? So blame, shame, and credit are all part of a system that looks to the past to justify, rationalize, et cetera. Responsibility has to do with the future. Like what future am I committed to and how can I stand now wherever I'm at and have this bring forth that future now in this moment? And so that's a very different set of questions than blame, shame and credit it. Responsibility is a stand for what I'm committed to. And that what I have right now is perfect. It's what I, it's the, it's the resource for that future. And if I was standing in that future, looking back now, how would I engage these circumstances from there versus engaging them from some past victim story or justification or whatever For why I'm here now, like, and when I listen to people, you can listen to yourself. When you sit down to give an account to your spouse or to your, your manager or the, your employees, you're working together, how much of the conversations about justifying how you got there and how much of the conversations about understanding what's wanted and needed to bring, like what worked, what didn't work, and now what's wanted and needed to have this turnout now to have this future that you, I say, matters to me? Turnout now.

Robin: 47:07

And you're doing the gold standard right there. You're asking the what questions, not the why

Dan: 47:12

questions. Well, actually we're asking the who questions, right? Who is it? Cuz it's a who, right. Then what comes out of who. Right? Right. Like when I started, when I started being willing to consider. What I was doing to myself and hating myself, like, Hmm, I wonder what the benefit of that was. Who do I become when that happens? Right? And what I started to realize is when I start to, there are certain things that come up for me. Like if I want to, my first, my first thing is to attack. Whereas many people, or if I attack myself or I attack you, there must be something I'm afraid of in this conversation I. I wonder what it is. So that mechanism, when it comes up is an ally. It informs me that now I, I, rather than attack, I should, this, the opportunity's here to get into an inquiry to see if what I'm afraid of is really going on or not to see what's possible with what's going on right now. And I, rather than try to defend myself, what I'm afraid it is. And that takes some real practice and, and of course surround my, you surround yourself with people who think like that, then great. What people tend to do is surround themselves with people who buy into their stories about why they can't and justify the why it's okay to to settle for what little they have. Absolutely poetic. And I don't, I'm not talking about quantitatively like family wise, like Right. You know, my daughter, I had a, a situation with her when we were younger and she was going goth and everything and you know, I. We're having a party at my house and we're celebrating it. My son's best friend's there and they're all friends, my daughter, his friend, and my son. And we are celebrating this guy, his father's 50th birthday. And after we have dinner, my son goes off with his girlfriend and do homework and Eileen sits with her. His his friend, that's her friend, they're play, they're gonna hang out together and we're eating dessert. And my wife gets this premonition, this kid's through, forcing himself and my daughter, she goes upstairs and catches him doing it. So you can imagine the drama that ensues and how uncomfortable it is. So we, as best we can get them out the door. I go up to talk to my daughter and she just basically, fuck you, I'm not talking to you. Sorry about that. Yeah.

Robin: 49:38

I wanna know where your wife hangs her superhero Cape. I, I,

Dan: 49:42

she's pretty amazing, but I, in the long run, I just told my daughter, I'm gonna get, you know, I need to talk about this. She goes, I'm not talking to you about it. I, and I said, well then I'm gonna pick you up every day after school and. You know, and work with it. And the first day I come home with her, I go, okay, so let's talk what you got for homework. And she looks at me and she goes, oh, is this your way of being a good dad? Is this what you think you're gonna do now? You're just gonna come in here and do this? And I was like, oh, she got me. She nailed me. And I said, probably, yeah, that I don't want to be here. And I am. You're right. And three months it takes. And one day I'm completely desperate. I'm run out all the techniques, nothing's working. This is the who. I've done everything. I know what to do, right? And I've even called friends. And so we're, I just keep declaring to her my commitment and on the way to dance class and the snow. I pull over. I'm desperate. I look at her and I just break. I say, I get it. I'm a horrible father. I don't know how to, Love you. I don't know what it's gonna take. I see you getting colder and colder. It's been three months. You're angry cuz I've not, all you get to do is go to school and go to dance and I'm always taking you and we're doing this and I, I get, it's not working and I break and I just tell her. But I want you to know one thing, I'm never given up. I'm never given up. I was put on this planet for this. You are my daughter. I love you. I see that there's a possibility and I can't get to it, but I want you to know I love you. Even if you turn me down. I love you. And she jumps out of her chair, puts her head in my chest, and tells me how much she loves the way I love her. And all I think is women. I have no idea what she's talking about. She's weeping in my chest. She says, dad, dad. I didn't know how to tell you. I mean, it wasn't Derek's fault. I let him on and, and I didn't know how to get out of it, and I didn't know how to tell you about it. And I don't want you to hate him, and I don't want you to hate me. And I, you know, Bubba and we talk for two hours. She, we never get to dance class. We go home. She gives me her diary and so I can read the stack of diaries and the stuff she was messing with. And from that moment on, we're like this. She brings, I never told her to bring her boyfriends home. She has three boyfriends. She brings home. She marries the third one. Right. She wants them to meet me. It wasn't, you know, all of a sudden, you know, we connected and I, and I realized that. It was who I was for her that made the difference not what I was doing. And she told me The way you failed for me, ca it communicated my, your love for me. That made a difference and you wouldn't give up. So it is those kinds of life lessons. You know, I, I think. We have a tendency that if something doesn't work, we just give up. Right? So if, if I keep working with who I am, if the possibilities are gonna emerge, and usually they emerge as threats first, and then they open up as possibilities, I gotta face into them.

Robin: 52:39

Yeah. Dan, I could talk to you as, as we know, we've done this before, all day long, nonstop, but we gotta close it up. What's something I didn't ask you that I should have asked you, you wanted to make sure you shared before we go?

Dan: 52:51

Ah. Well, okay. Do you have a podcast? Well, yes we do. Thanks for Robin. It's called the Naked Leadership Podcast. You should check it out. It's on Apple. In fact, you could put it in the link below.

Robin: 53:04

Absolutely. And it will be on the show notes. And speaking of the show notes, damn, where can people go to find out more about you and what the great things you and Adrian and your wife are doing together to save the world? Because that's what she's doing now.

Dan: 53:16

That's what she's doing in my world. A new ground.com. It's take new ground.com and there's all kinds of stuff you can look at there and you can also reach out and connect with us. I, I'm on Instagram. I think that'll be there in, in the Yep. Below. And so is Adrian and Adrian Kaler. You can get ahold of him. He, he was on another previous episode, but we're available. We'd love to talk with you and it's our privilege to jump in the middle of chaos and order. Like our job is to order chaos and release beauty. That's what we see our

Robin: 53:48

job to do. I absolutely love it, and you did it during this episode as well, man, who wouldn't want you in their lives. So it's perfect. Dan, thank you so much for coming on, Sharon. The bravery to share your story and be so transparent and vulnerable is inspiring for the world. So just that alone, I thank you for, but I thank you for so much more. Thank you.

Dan: 54:07

Thank you Robin. I really appreciate it. Always enjoy talking to, you're such a bright light. Thank you. Likewise.

Robin: 54:14

Thank you for tuning into another episode of Forged By Trust. Remember, if you want to forge trust, it's not how you make people feel about you that matters. It's how you make them feel about themselves. If you are interested about more information about how it can help you forge your own trust, building communication, interpersonal strategies, as a speaker, your coach, or as a trusted advisor for you or your organization. Please visit my website@www.peopleformula.com. I'm looking forward to share my next Forge by Trust episode with you next month when we chat with the inspirational Carol Metz Murray, as we discover the leader within.