Heart Attack Wake-Up Call: Chose Purpose Over Programming with Sean Clarke (part 1)

Heart attack survival is not just a medical story. For Sean Clarke, it was the beginning of an entirely new life. In this first segment of the Reignite Resilience Podcast's conversation with retired military and corporate leader, professional speaker, and purpose mentor Sean Clarke, cohosts Natalie Davis and Pamela Cass take Sean back to January 2024, when a two-in-the-morning wake-up call sent him to a Canadian emergency room with symptoms he had been ignoring for five days. What followed was 33 hours in a hospital, two additional heart attacks in the emergency room, a young man dying of a fentanyl overdose in the bed beside him, and a doctor who told Sean he had a couple of hours left to live. 

Sean Clarke spent 30 years building a career that moved from military data systems to corporate IT leadership, project delivery, and program management. He was on track to become a CIO. He had a great team. He was delivering results. And then, at 2 a.m. on a Monday morning, everything stopped. 

This segment goes deep into the Gen X programming that had Sean back at his desk by Monday morning after leaving the hospital on Thursday, and the moment his own team showed up at his door with a fruit basket and an ultimatum. It explores what happens to identity when your entire sense of worth is wrapped up in a job title, what cardiac rehabilitation actually looks like from the inside, and the three weeks after the heart attack when Sean sat staring at his inbox and asked, for the first time with full weight: is this really what I am here for? 

The answer to that question is what changed everything. 

In This Episode: 

• The five days of symptoms Sean ignored before a 2 a.m. wake-up call sent him to the emergency room 
• What it is actually like to have two heart attacks in a Canadian emergency room while waiting 10 hours to see a doctor 
• The Gen X and military programming that had Sean back at his desk four days after leaving the hospital 
• Why his number two showed up at his door with a fruit basket and told him in no uncertain terms to stay home 
• The moment three weeks later when Sean stared at his inbox and finally asked: is this what I am here for? 

This is a conversation about survival, identity, programming, and what it takes to stop waiting for a crisis to give yourself permission to live differently. 

Connect with Sean Clarke: 🌐 wolfvector.ca 🔗 LinkedIn: search Sean Clarke or click the link here📚 Book in progress: Finding Purpose at the Cemetery Gates and a second project on childhood trauma and the power of a name 

Connect with Reignite Resilience: 🌐 reigniteresilience.com 📘 Facebook | 📸 Instagram | 🎥 YouTube: Reignite Resilience Podcast 📧 Subscribe to the weekly newsletter 

Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who has been waiting for a sign. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 3:06

All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way to reignite the fire within. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm. And now here are your hosts, Natalie Davis and Pamela Kemp.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

Welcome back to another episode of the Reignite Resilience Podcast. I'm your co-host, Natalie Davis, and I'm so excited to be back with all of you. We are actually recording this at the end of the week. So I always feel like it's a great way to just wrap up a week. So of course, joining us is Pam Cass. Hello, Pam. How are you?

SPEAKER_02 4:01

I am fantastic because it is Friday. I've lived the last couple of weekends. So I'm just looking forward to maybe having, I don't know, like an hour off this weekend to just do nothing would be kind of fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

So an hour would be a treat.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

It would just be glorious.

SPEAKER_03 4:19

It would just be literally flew in today. And the gal sitting next to me, she was so adorable because I've been, I'm a little bit among a what we call it, like a window of travel. Like it's just, it's travel season. And and she looked at me when we landed and she goes, Well, at least you'll enjoy your weekend. I said, I'm flying out on Sunday. So I'll enjoy that's cute. You're so pretty. That's adorable, but I enjoy it. I'm grateful for it. But here we are on Friday. And it is, it's like it's rewarding. We've accomplished an entire week and now we have whatever it is that people look forward to on the weekends.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And you and I are both in that industry where we work sometimes seven days a week, but we love what we do. And so it makes it a little bit easier. And then, of course, you know, because we both have multiple jobs, what do we do too? Is we do a podcast. And that's probably my favorite thing is the having the podcast where we can bring people in from across the world and learn new strategies for adversity. So we have a guest today. So I know, I'm so excited. I'm gonna jump in. So today we have joining us Sean Clark. He is a retired military and corporate leader with more than 30 years of leadership, operational, and project delivery experience across military, public service, and private sector environments. A recipient of awards for delivering excellence and innovation, Sean began questioning his own purpose after a heart attack nearly ended his life. The experience led him to make bold changes, leave the corporate world, and pursue a new mission, helping people find purpose, discover the freedom to define success for themselves, and live with passion. Today, in his fourth career, Sean is a professional speaker and mentor to founders and business professionals who know something needs to change, but have not yet made the move. Through real stories and practical lessons forged over a lifetime of leadership, he challenges people to stop waiting for permission and to make the move they have been postponing. He lived it, he led it, he learned from it. Thank you so much for joining us today. And what our listeners don't know is you had eye surgery this morning, and then we make you come on exactly to have your camera on because that's how we roll.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

I'm like, I'm expecting, okay, well, this will just be audio, so maybe I can have an eye patch or something. And then, oh, well, we have the cameras on, and I go, Oh my goodness, I gotta get out of this t-shirt. I got no product in my hair. Thank goodness I brushed my teeth this morning. Oh my geez. We appreciate that.

SPEAKER_03 7:01

Well, we're I am so honored that you were still able to join us. So this is amazing, Sean. I'm glad that you were able to do that, and I'm glad the procedure went well.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Yeah. Yeah, it did. It did. Anybody who's had their eye laser surgery to fix their eye knows, knows it's like watching like uh 25 atomic bombs going off one after the other. So you wander around, you're all like, Yeah, who am I? Where am I?

SPEAKER_02 7:24

Oh my gosh. Well, you know, Sean, take us back. And if you want to start before the heart attack, that would be great, kind of leading up to it. But then that's a significant event for somebody to go through. So I'd love to hear kind of how that transformed you and made you just walk away and have a new mission.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Yeah, a lot of people don't do that. But you know, before, like the heart attack happened two years ago in January. And prior to that, let's just say the last 30 years before that, I always thought that what am I here on this earth for? Well, you know, it wasn't what am I here for? It was I want to be, you know, I want to be a captain of industry. And that was the first goal. When I left the full-time service in the military, I thought life was so great, it would be so great in the corporate world. It would be awesome. I didn't have to wear a uniform every day, and I and I didn't have to, you know, shave every day and all of this stuff. Well, problem is is, you know, next thing you know, you get into the corporate world and you can't show up in shorts and flip-flops and a t-shirt. You have to wear some kind of a uniform. But I worked through all of that. And this was in the like in the mid-90s that I that I made that shift. And this is when IT was just starting to become IT. That was a long, that was a little, that was a while ago. And I had already been prepared in the military where we were working with computers before people knew what computers were. We were working, I was working in data systems and things like that. So I moved right out into the IT side of things. And it was great. I started off, you know, I said I'm gonna start off the bottom and just started working, became team leader, uh, worked through and got myself into like a networking group. And then like through the rest of my career, I moved over into project delivery and and program delivery and and once again was leading people, you know, managing projects, managing programs, leading people, you know, without having the fancy job title to do it. And loving every minute of it. And as I was going through every stage, I left corporate, went into consulting, had my own company. I love that. But I thought I would be on a fast track to be an executive. You know, the I call it the fancy office, you know, the big leather back chair, driving the Mercedes. I still want a Mercedes, but I, you know, driving the Mercedes and think I'm living the life. Problem is I got a chance really kind of early on in my career to see how that other side lives. And I go, I don't want to work 80 hours a week. This is nuts. So even early on then, I knew I was still wanting to get up to a certain level, but it was all dealing about management. And everything was looking well going up into January 2024. I was on a track to on a track to be a CIO. I had a great team. We were delivering, and all of a sudden, bam, at two o'clock in the morning on a was it Monday morning? It was Monday morning, two o'clock on a Monday morning. I just woke up and I'll tell you, good news never comes at two or two in the morning. It's always bad news. I told my wife I gotta go to the hospital. Now, I've had the symptoms for a few days before that. Now, I usually say, you know, well, I'm a guy, and just because of that, I'm not very bright. I've I had I had the symptoms about five days before, but I thought I hurt myself in a gym. Wow. And the really uncool thing was on the Sunday, like on that Sunday, I was playing guitar in a band in one of the mega churches here. And just as I was getting ready for a big musical solo, the big chest pain hit and just crushed me while four HD cameras are on me, were live streaming TV, everything else like that. So I just go, okay, well, you got to finish this, right? So I finished that off, finished the set, and I went back and I cried. And so I said, Well, maybe I'll just take an aspirin and we'll go on away. Well, 12 hours later at the hospital. In Canada, you have to wait in the emergency room. Anybody who's listening who's from Canada knows, okay, you got to go to the emergency room, minimum, eight hours. Minimum. So we knew what we were getting into. We have go bags by the front door in case we have to go to the hospital. And you got books and you got the battery chargers for your phone and water. I was 10 hours in the emergency room, had two heart attacks in the emergency room while I was there, and finally got to see a doctor. And anybody who's been in an emergency room, when it finally gets to maybe eight in the morning, is pandemonium. The experience is not cool at all. Right beside us was a patient, my son's age, was losing his life to a fentanyl overdose. And we were, you can't see it, but because it's all shower curtains, I was privy to that. We are privy to that discussion with the medical team and the machines and the sounds and the smells that come along with that. And then the doctor coming in, and you know, you're being poked and prodded, and you know, running an ultrasound. And there's always this frown. You go, is everything okay? And I knew the answer was not that. And the doctor came back and said, Yeah, it's a good thing you came in. You had a couple hours to live. We're running all the books right now. We're bumping a whole bunch of people, you're going straight in to get your get a stamp put in your heart.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

So um that's exactly what happened is uh a bunch of people got bumped on the schedule, and you're awake through the whole thing, and and there's like flashing lights, and and at the time I was a smoker, so like I'd already been like 12 hours without having to smoke, and I was going a little stir crazy. And I just told the nurses that I would just go through their I knew where their stuff was. I'd just grab a cigarette and go have a smoke on my own. Well, stupid thing number two when that happened, right? Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

Given everything that's going on, correct, that would probably not have been the best decision.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

So 33 hours from when I stepped in the hospital, 33 hours I walked out. I walked out alive. And in Canada, there's studies done by the Heart and Stroke Association. 80% of men between the ages of 40 and 55, they survive. They walk out. Problem is there's 20% that don't. The statistics for women are worse because it's worse. There's less survivor. I think it's uh 70% survive because they have their heart attacks later. And you see, you're in your room, you're going, oh, there's a person beside you, they're in pain. And you see, every once in a while, you see um a stretcher being wheeled by, and there you don't see any anybody sticking out. It's a sheet covered, everything else. So you see that, and it really impacts you. And you're going, wow. At the time, all I'm thinking is, I got to get through this. People say, Oh, you're so brave. You went through this. No, no, no, no, no, no. Anybody who's been in this situation knows what I'm talking about. You are making deals. You're making deals with God, you're making deals with the bedpost, you're making deals with the doctor, the machines, you're making deals with anybody who's gonna listen or anything that's gonna listen. All you want to do is live and survive. And so 33 hours later, they wheeled you out in the wheelchair, and then I got up and got in my truck and drove home. Stupid thing number three. And it just kind of left me. I was just tired. That's all I was. I was just tired, you know. And this is before the survivor syndrome, because hey, you know, I've had friends in the last couple of years just eating supper and then they died before they had hit the hit the plate, right? Massive heart, lots of heart attacks. So yeah, I got home and just got some sleep. And so I got home, I think it was like a Thursday at about, you know, six o'clock in the evening. Monday morning, I'm back at work. That's the biggest mistake of my life. And maybe we can answer some questions and then uh we can go from stupid thing number 10 or whatever that I did in that in that timeframe.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

So I guess what was going through your head when Monday morning rolls around? You had had the week you had had heart attack, 33 hours, drive yourself home, which I'm like, holy cow. And then I'm just gonna go back to work on Monday. What was kind of going through your head when you decided to make that decision?

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Well, I can tell you it wasn't rational thought and it wasn't being stupid. It was it was programming. I'm like a Gen Xer, right? And all through my, you know, from my childhood life, all the way up through my teen years, my father programmed me. You go to work. Yeah. If you don't work, you want to do that. And he is from the generation, you know, the boomer generation, where your identity is so closely connected to what you do, it becomes dangerous. And then I've got the military background. And the same thing happened in the military. You know, I was in the Rocky Mountains in uh 1991, and there was a we were running, Western Army was running a recruit school and a trade school for signalers in the Rocky Mountains and a place up in the Rockies. It was just beautiful. I was in an accident on a Saturday, a really bad auto collision. We got hit so hard from behind, I thought my teeth were gonna fly out of my mouth. But Monday morning, Monday morning, I'm out leading my troops on PT with uh, you know, a handful of painkillers and off I was. That's just the way it was. If you, you know, the mentality was you go to work. And so I was not thinking, I was following programming, just muscle memory, go back to work. I go, I gotta get my team, I gotta talk to my team. Problem is, is I already trained the team too well. My, you know, quote unquote, my second in command, my number two, had already figured out 40 some odd hours earlier that I was off the grid and just immediately jumped in, told the team, okay, everything goes through me. I'll let I'll try to find Sean. I don't know where he is because I just fell off the grid. I'll find him, but do your jobs, do your meetings. You got problems, give me a call and wrote everything through me. So the team just took over and went back to work. And I go, Oh, I gotta get back to the team. No, they were still working, but I had to go to work.

SPEAKER_02 17:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

And the reaction, my manager, you could only imagine what the and then fill in the uh the performance.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. But you're a Gen X. I mean, I when you said that, I was like, I raised my hand, I was like, you know, we drank water out of a hose, and if you cut your arm off, it's like rub some dirt on it, you'll be fine. Yes, exactly. Suck it, suck it up, buttercup, get back out there, do it. And it's like and the identity thing, I think, is the one that like resonates with me the most is because that becomes who we are. And it without it, who am I? And so when you talked in your bio about helping people redefine success, I think that is one of the hardest things for people when their identity is whatever. I'm a mom, I'm a whatever realtor, business person. And if you don't have that, then what worth do you have?

SPEAKER_01 18:06

And just think what happens when you retire. Your identity is a range. Most people die. Most people die after they retire. That is what the data shows us. Absolutely. You don't have a plan, and all of a sudden now after the party's done, you're sitting and you're going, well, who am I? Because for how many years? 30, 40 years you've been working corporate, you've been tied up in that identity. And luckily, I figured that out a little earlier than 2024. But that's part of the thing that I'm looking at now is what is your identity? And your identity was never in your job. And that's the problem is that's that's the way corporate is, that's part of the secret, the secret language of corporate of the corporate side.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

Yeah. It's what keeps the corporate community and culture thriving, right? Is because there are so many individuals that have this philosophy. I think now we're seeing this new generation that is coming in that you know has a different set of values. And if there's not alignment there, they're not wanting to get plugged in, right? Their life is really structured around experiences and PTO. Right? It's it's completely taken a shift. But I think if it's an overcorrection, we won't know until we're on the other side of it. But for decades, this was the philosophy. It's you're sick, you still show up for work. You had surgery. Can you get up and drive? Yeah, get in to work. Yeah. Why not?

SPEAKER_02 19:31

As a Gen X, or I'm thinking about my kids. My kids, all of their sick, they still went to work. Sorry, I'm sorry, kids. I love you. Don't do it. Go home.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

And then we wonder why. Then we wonder why. Why were we always sick at work? We always had a cold, right? Because we're sick.

SPEAKER_03 19:53

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 19:56

Shaven, did you recognize the programming at that point when your boss was like, what the bleepity bleep are you doing here? Did you realize like at that moment that the programming had really settled in and that you were doing things, things that probably didn't really align with what you wanted and what you needed? Or was that later?

SPEAKER_01 20:17

I told him to go fill in the profanity himself. Oh, we had that kind of relationship, right? Okay.

SPEAKER_03 20:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Yes. It was my team. It was my number two, my number three, and the rest of the team. People that I really cared about, people that really, I mean, the employer-employee relationship, and we we were close. We were bound by similar experiences. And they were the ones that said, no, no, no. If you are going to continue this, we're not going to show up to work. Oh, wow. And I go, Oh, this is pretty serious. And then my number two showed up on my doorstep. Oh, a lovely woman, but you do not want to see her upset or angry because she showed up with a fruit basket and then just let me have it. And I said, Okay, well, what if I just work half days? Or then I found out. And then I found out I could only last a couple of hours anyway, right? I mean, that was the thing. I mean, that you go through such an internal trauma and your body takes a long time to recover. I could only last a couple hours anyway.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

Sometimes it takes those people that are gonna force you to do it because we won't do it for ourselves. We're like, no, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm just fine. Everything's fine.

SPEAKER_03 21:25

And it speaks volumes to the culture that you created, Sean, right? As you said, like you're so tight-knit. The reason that they took that step, took the extra steps to encourage you not to come in was because you were so close and you had a great sense of culture in that. Otherwise, they would have said, sure, get to your desk, we'll be here. We don't care.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

That's why I built every team that I've ever had. You build some depth. And because if your team, and it doesn't matter how big it is, it could be eight people, it could be eight hundred people, if they cannot operate with you not being there, quite frankly, it's I call it a leadership failure. You know, you haven't built resilience, corporate resilience. All you've done is just built dependence. So there you go.

SPEAKER_03 22:06

Exactly. What you've created is something that still requires you to be there, and that's not true leadership. Yeah, you're failing yourself and those around you. Yeah. So you decided to take the time. What did that look like, Sean? You you finally gave in. How long did that last?

SPEAKER_01 22:23

I actually it was like my number two was ruthless and held me accountable, and I was not really allowed to really do a lot, which was fine. And a few days afterwards, like during that week, the week after I came home, I started my cardiac rehab. We have one of the very, I think it's either the only one or one of two medical fitness facilities in Canada. And it's totally wrapped around a whole cardiac care unit. And it is anything you could ever want in a fitness facility. It's got a track, it's got functional fitness, it's got bikes, rowing machines, big weight setup, it's got classes, all kinds of classes. And it's really neat because like today I'm 60 and I'm one of the youngest people there, which is neat. So, like when I go and go to my fitness classes, number one, I'm 60, number one, I'm the only dude in the class, and you know, and I'm surrounded by older, older ladies who are just warriors, right? I mean, there's no quit in any of them. And it's really nice because we all band together as a family. But I went through their cardiac program there, so I would, you know, twice a week. So I would go to classes and then they hold you by the hand and walk you in your socks around the track, and I'm like, go on me for crying out loud. I was doing MMA three weeks ago, right? And sparring, and I don't need this, right? And I was I was like a cantankerous like grandpa Simpson yelling at leaves falling, right? So it's it took a while to get into the slope of things.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

So you didn't just settle right into it, I see.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

No, I was very, very cynical and it's very shameful behavior when I look at it now.

unknown 24:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

Well, you didn't know how to do that. You didn't know how to slow down and let somebody take care of you. That's not so much NX, we don't understand what that is. It's foreign.

SPEAKER_03 24:14

Yeah, your reality changed so quickly and outside of your control, right? That's the other piece, is that you had this new reality that was yours that you didn't choose or create or want at that time. And so there's some resistance in that.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Yeah. And you're gonna love this. I mean, like it was like three weeks later. I'm staring at my computer screen, I got like all these emails, and I'm looking at what was so important four weeks ago. Like it was like this had to happen or the whole world was gonna collapse, type of importance. And I'm looking at these emails, going, Are you kidding me? Really? This isn't important. You know, this is what the heck is this? And then all of a sudden the question came Is this what I'm put on this earth for? Is this what I'm Really here for just to grind it out in a job that number one, like it's not helping people, and it's just making somebody else's dream come true. Like, what is my purpose? What am I here for? Now, the research shows everybody who's gone through that traumatic medical experience. Well, this is a heart attack, you know, heart attack is a is pretty big and pretty number one, right? But people have had strokes and they've had other types of these medical, let's call them interruptions, right? My life is going, life is going, life stops. In the military, we call that a stoppage, a life stoppage. And we laughed about it when you're 20. You know, when I was 55, it wasn't too funny anymore.

SPEAKER_03 25:38

Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Life stops. You had that, you got you got that interruption in your life. Everybody has that. And then, you know, and just doing some reading because, well, that's the curiosity in me. Just about everybody has this question. And I go, okay, everybody's got the same question. Is this what I'm here for? And then now's your decision time. The decision happened right away. No, because I was still going, is this what I'm really here for? Is this what I'm really here for? Is this my purpose? It was a few days later, I go, No, this is not my purpose. This is not my purpose. What is it? And that started a journey. Now, the sad part with the research is some people will start that journey, most will just keep thinking, keep thinking, keep thinking, and then start falling back into the old routines. You know, that comfort, those habits, that programming of showing up to work when you've just had a heart attack, going back to all of that. And that is, I think, the saddest part. And that when I started reading all of that, I go, something's gotta be done. Something's gotta, somebody's gotta get out there and spread the word. And so that started my journey of just figuring out myself, and then I can start talking to people about that journey.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

Yeah, because we we don't want people to have to have a stoppage in their life in order to figure out that there's some higher purpose that they are on this planet for. So that's where you are. You're in that journey to help people.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

And then, like, forget about, you know, let's not bring into the picture, you know, the the trauma and the post-trauma that comes with this, which is, you know, when I was reading it in the manual from Heart, the Heart and Stroke Foundation that they gave me. It's normal. I even talked to a cardiac psychologist. I had no idea that discipline existed. But there are physicians who are trained in you know in psychology to deal with the trauma inflict on a person from a cardiac event, which I found was like, wow. And he was cool. He's on my Rolodex. He'll talk, he'll talk to me for a few minutes when I want to talk to him. He was like super cool about this. So there's that, and then there's survivor syndrome, because like when like it happened to be 58 years old, and anybody, anybody who's 58, they've had friends who've who've died from heart attack, from stroke. And you know, my friends, the one one person I knew, like like I said, he he was at the supper table and boom, boom, he was dead before he hit the plate. I played with this guy in a band. You know, his son is a good friend of mine because we play together in a band, and all of a sudden he's gone. And then you take a look at all these, you know, heck, last February, a guy I served with, countless theaters of operation died in his backyard of a heart attack. So it's it's pretty big and it's uh it happens to a lot of people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

Yeah. And well, uh, when you were talking about you had multiple signs leading up to it. And so when you were having those signs, what were some of the things that were going? What were you telling yourself about those signs?

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Well, like I said, I thought I injured myself in the gym doing uh chest flies. I thought I just pushed, push the weight a little bit more because you go, oh, you know, it's a little tight. But I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna tell you the for men, because the symptoms are different for women, right? For men, it feels like somebody's stepping on you or grabbing your heart and squeezing it, and then squeezing it harder, and then your left arm goes numb, just like in the TV commercials. Get to the emergency room fast, do not do not wait.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:02

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

And take baby ospurin right away.

SPEAKER_03 29:05

Baby ospran. Sean, you mentioned the two other just additional items that you had to work through in terms of the trauma and then the survivor's guilt. Talk to us a little bit about that because I think those are real and they can, I think, appear and continue to have a presence in an individual's life simultaneously or in tandem. So talk to us a little bit about you in that space and how you were able to work through, especially with the help of a cardiac psychologist. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Yeah, I didn't know that even existed until two years ago. Nor did I. And when I talked to him, when we started, and we just started the conversation just like we're starting it now. And he goes, you know, you you went through all of this, you know. So and then so what's on your mind? And I said, You know what? I'm always asked, I got the question, why me? Why am I alive? And this guy is not. And he goes, Well, that's he just looked at me, he goes, that's just the way it is. And he was kind about it, but firm, that's just the way it is. And he goes, You know the numbers because you read them in your class. 20% of men in your age bracket are not going to make it. And there's a whole bunch of reasons why they don't make it. And once, of course, me being, you know, the ex-scientist and everything else, I go and I dig into the research. Oh, yeah, there's lots of reasons why they don't make it. And it all depends where the blockage is in one of those three arteries. And I go, well, you know, the trauma, I just keep thinking about the activity of that young man who died. And he said, once again, he says, You've been down this road, you've been training, everything else. Like you've been in the military. People die. And there's not a darn thing anybody can do about it. And it was, he just with the just with that. Now, was it a deep-seated trauma? You know, that there's a lot of people they they go through that. No, no, it wasn't. But talking with him got me through that. And it was a very frank and earthy discussion. You know, it wasn't, you know, he knew I was Gen X, so there was no hugging involved. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 31:08

That we, you know, you can leave your emotions at the door. That's fine. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

But anybody who's gone through this and you have that nagging through your mind, pay a little bit of money and get to a professional, and they will help you through. There's so many different treatments for the type of trauma, like for all kinds of different traumas, so many different types of treatments, breathing exercises, meditation exercises, self-soothing, they call it. And a professional can just walk you through it. And there's all kinds out there. If you're Gen X, they'll be frank and earthy. And if you're not, they there's the people who whatever style you require, they are there to help you.

SPEAKER_03 31:49

Finding that person that can be supportive in whatever style you need. If you need the hugs and the Kleenex, that's I'm sure that person is out there. If you need the stern, firm guidance, what you called it earthy and frank and earthy, I think. Frank and earthy, I like it. I like it.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

That's lovely. Thank you for joining us today on the Reignite Resilience podcast. We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas to fuel the flames of passion. Please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like or download your favorite episodes, and of course, share with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you again next time on Reignite Resilience.