Stream of Consciousness #51 - David McKee

In this episode, I sit down with David McKee for a conversation that unfolds the way the best ones do — naturally, honestly, and with a surprising amount of depth hiding in the quiet moments. We talk about resilience, mindset, the boiling‑water analogy, and the small internal shifts that can change the way you move through the world. David brings this grounded blend of psychology, neuroscience, and lived experience that makes everything feel both practical and human.
It’s less of an interview and more of a thoughtful meander — two people comparing notes on what it means to keep going, stay open, and show up for your own life. And toward the end, David shares a bit about his upcoming single “There You Go,” which carries the same heart and intention he brings to the conversation.

https://podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1768323039635344d43bab5cf

https://open.spotify.com/show/2ZHWgVJf5Dadq6c1jHFrNC?si=3acadd267f604189

https://open.spotify.com/album/0mvC9V1SPOLWMTOc417GB0?si=yVEJ1taESS-sW88_RdU0dA

Another Angle Coaching | Mindset & Business Financial Coaching

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, everyone. We are live with Stream of Consciousness with Dan. And today I'm genuinely excited for this one. David McKee, I'm so glad you're here. You bring such a grounded human approach to understanding the mind. And every time I've heard you speak or uh seen your literature, you make people feel capable instead of being overwhelmed. I appreciate the time for you being here today. And I'm really looking forward to digging into your story, your work, and the way you help people shift their perspective. So welcome in. And David, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Thank you so much. I'm doing great. I'm glad to be here. And thank you so much for the kind words. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day. I know you've got a ton going on, and uh we'll get into that later. But uh before we kind of dig into the psychology and neuroscience and uh all of that stuff, I just kind of wanted to get a sense of what you were like as a kid. Like what your hobbies where you grew up. I don't need a I didn't need a 15-minute autobiography, just some just some points of kind of what you looked like as a kid.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Yeah, sure. So uh I look uh I always get joked among my friends that uh outside of my receding hairline, that I look almost identical. So like I did when I was a kid, I had the same face, I have the same reactions to people, and that's always an ongoing joke. Uh my sister posted a picture from I think I was eight or nine and she was six or seven. And that's literally it was everyone was just like, we already joked about it, and it's actually true. Yeah, like you have not changed at all. So yeah, I look almost identical to what I just an older version, I guess. Um, but yeah, beyond that, I was a big I was obsessed with sports growing up. Uh I played soccer, I played uh baseball, basketball. Uh always loved that side of things. And then um I I always tell this story because it was a way of uh how I pivoted even at a young age. I I've gone through trauma and dealt with stuff. And this was on the lighter side of the trauma issue, but uh just physical pain is I had a knee injury in soccer, and my mom uh had told me this kind of goes my mindset of I wasn't ready to work when I was a kid. I was still having fun and enjoying that like uh community and being around people. So I hurt my knee, and my mom said, Okay, you've got two weeks. You have to find a job or find another activity, you're not allowed to stay home. So she kind of laid that uh gauntlet down. And I um, like I said, I played baseball and I'm a New York Yankees fan uh just growing up. And the school musical that year was Dan Yankees, and it just kind of uh, and a friend of mine was the lead in it. So I reached out to my friend. I'm like, hey, I can't go to work. Can you find me anything in the ends of? I'll be a tree, I'll be whatever you want. I'm like, I just don't want to go to work. And uh that literally was what really opened the doors to expanding what I do with music and how I teach music to people. So uh a great question because I've never asked that, but that literally was the tie-in of I was always sports-centered, and it was that injury that kind of like got me into the music world, and I've really never looked back ever since.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Yeah, well, it's I mean, it's a cliche saying, but you know, when one door closes, another opens, and obviously uh that door opened you to a lot of success. So uh I guess thanks for your knee being torn up, right? Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Exactly, exactly. The meniscus wasn't worth it, it was it was worth it all.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Oh man. Well, well, that's really cool. Um, were you a very uh because in your field, obviously, you need to be very hungry or thirsty for knowledge and curious. Were you a a a pretty curious kid? And uh maybe just talk about how you were as a student early on, because I mean, obviously, you have to have a lot of knowledge in your field. So I just wanted you to kind of touch on that a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Yeah. So uh I uh looking at it from the lens of now looking back, um, I realized it was one of the things that I I had struggles as a kid, like we all do. Uh, but I was recently diagnosed in the last five years uh with ADHD. And that really it clicked to me why, like essentially why I could kind of jump from thing to thing and just become obsessed with something new. And for me, it was no matter what the process or what the field, or if it was sports, or if it was work or anything along that line, I love the building of something. I love being able to like kind of start seeing the vision of where are we going long term and how can we really incorporate what we need to do to find progress to get to that goal. And uh, I I mean, I go back to I played video games a lot as a kid. I still do to Unwind Now. And I would play uh, whether it's Madden or any of the sports franchises, but Madden and like NBA 2K were and MLB the show were the three that I would play all every year. And what's funny is I really didn't get far down the line. I didn't like simulate or go out 20 years. I know I have friends who would literally do like 50 years of simulations and do all that. But what I would do is I would take a team that I thought could be good, or uh, if it was my team and my team was really bad, I would figure out I was like, how do we fix it? How do we do everything? And I would literally get the like I would be the GM, do everything in that within like a whatever that year or two. And I only liked it when we sucked. I liked literally going from bad to good. And then once I became good, I was like, I didn't I lost interest. I didn't want to keep doing it from that point. Uh so it was always I love that building side of stuff. And that really it's funny, like looking back now at that, I'm like, man, that it really makes sense of why I kind of the struggles I did have and the things that I was good at, that when I was in the situations where I could help build something for someone, it really helped. But if I was in the same monotonous thing over and over, and I come from the accounting world, I had to, I found out a really hard lesson that within the accounting world, a lot of accounting is repetitive. And if you're with a big company, you pretty much are doing the same exact thing, same routine month to month. There is no difference in your day to day. Like every month, almost every day, you can script that's going to be just like that or very close to it. And I ended up working luckily with smaller companies and got to do more. So uh, yeah, our month end was the same month to month. But then the other three weeks was you're working a little bit on management, a little bit on operations with the people. You're kind of like all over. So I I love being able to work with small companies. I had a couple bosses who looked out for me and and really saw what I could do, and they really helped guide me the right way. So uh yeah, it really gave me that view of man, you can I I love being able to make an impact on multiple levels, not just be kind of stuck to one. And it it really is a reflection of what I do with my company now. Uh, it's called another angle consulting is how do you look at stuff that everyone else is viewing the same? And how can you look at it a little bit differently and find your margins your way?

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Well, I might have to take a like DNA test because you might be my long-lost brother, because I am an accountant myself, so I know exactly what you're saying on that stand. And then I was the same way as a kid with video games. I would want every single one, Madden 2K, Tiger Woods Golf, any any sports video game I would want. And uh I just couldn't agree more. You would uh I I liked doing the fantasy drafts because I could kind of build my team like how I wanted to do it. Like that was fun. But no, I appreciate where you're coming from with uh you know picking kind of the worst team and you know seeing where they can go. So that's really that's really cool. Like I said, I might have to sign up for a uh a DNA test.

SPEAKER_03 7:14

We might have to sound good, sounds good.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Um so yeah, so let's talk about kind of your high school college years. Um after you graduated high school, what did you desi decide to major in? Excuse me, and where did you go to school? And uh just kind of talk about the process of choosing that major.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Yeah, so uh it's I mean, thanks for asking that. It's stuff I don't ever really get to talk about often, and I love kind of going back through it and thinking about this, just because naturally when we put intention to something, we start kind of reflecting. Uh for me, I ruminate a lot. I think about what went good, what went wrong, uh, what went good, what went bad on almost every situation, but kind of walking back through this of uh man, I realized after graduating high school, I had no idea. Well, I had an idea, but I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. And I was really conflicted between I had the business acumen and I loved the business world. Uh deep down, I saw the movie Jerry Maguire when I was a kid, and I wanted to be a sports agent and like go to law school. So that was kind of the plan is do business school for uh uh my undergrad and then progress to law school. I realized about two to three years, like sophomore junior year in high uh in college, that yeah, I was almost done with school at that point. I couldn't handle it anymore. And law school was just never gonna happen. But I was like, that's just I was like, it's just too much school. I'm done with the school thing. I want to kind of get out into the real world. But it took me a while to kind of get uh I ended up choosing business, accounting and finance, but I went to community college my first two years. And the whole reason for that was that I lived close to New York, I was in New Jersey and I was a performer. And I like like I said with the musicals before, I ended up uh just from wanting to avoid work, I ended up being very good. And I got cast in uh cast professionally and uh regional shows uh off Broadway, uh auditions for Broadway, um got cast in a movie when I was a kid that unfortunately never ended up getting made. But it was just like that was kind of very I was very much the performer, and that's really where I was going and kind of like pushing towards. And for whatever reason, I just uh well, it's not for whatever reason, I know the exact reason is uh the I'm I can be very sensitive and rejection, uh rejection sensitivity is something that that does bug me. And I knew myself well enough at that point that in acting, you're you're really good if you're 2%, if you're making it 2% of the time. Like you usually are getting rejected 99.5, 99.8% of the times, and you're waiting for that one kind of crack to kind of get through. And I knew that I didn't have the uh kind of fortitude to kind of keep getting rejected constantly, just to like like I knew I wouldn't be able to pick myself up constantly like that. I could do maybe a couple of times, but it would it would wear out. So that's where I kind of leaned into the business world. And um, I loved uh for me, I always have loved patterns and numbers. Um, and it it works with music, but then it also works with math very well. So for accounting, it was a natural, uh, just kind of uh push. I initially was going to go into management and I had a gem of an advisor in college that my mom went and uh spoke to my advisor, found out my advisor's name uh when I was getting welcomed. Uh, I ended up going to Palm Beach Atlantic University for my junior year, and that's where I finished uh my undergrad. And my mom found my advisor and it said, Hey, I'm in New Jersey and I can't afford a flight here if there's an emergency. So I need someone who's looking after my son. And she she just kind of took the bull by the horns with that. And my advisor was all up for it. And my advisor was tough on me, man. It's like I only had him for a couple classes, but he checked on me and he knew all of my teachers. So he was actively checking up on me. Like he took that, whatever my mom said, and went probably five times beyond what she ever anticipated. Uh, but I loved it. It's like I felt like I had a parent on campus and that I was kind of being monitored. Um, she had known it's uh, and again, this is it's an ADHD thing now that I know about it, but um, my mom knew that when I'm being held accountable, that I end up I perform better. Of like when I know someone's kind of watching, I I don't do well with micromanagement, someone right over my shoulder. But when I know someone's gonna review something by the end of the day, I do really well on it. I want it to look good as good as possible. And so uh it's it ended up helping me in immensely in that side of it, is that I had someone looking over me. I wasn't just kind of there to party or do whatever. And uh she, I mean, she she kind of ingrained that into me earlier of like, so a lot of my friends enjoyed the college experience way more than I did. Um, I partied a little bit, but very, very little compared to like my roommates and what I would do. I was known as the boring one. I was always doing my work and I was working three jobs to be able to pay for my college. So I was just doing whatever I could to keep my student loans as down as as much as possible. I I knew what was kind of at the end of the road for me. And so I was really just like hyper focused uh to kind of get through those years, uh, learn as much as I can, get to know as many people as I can. And that was just kind of my my focus from that point on.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Yeah, well, I've I can really resonate with that story, and it's kind of a good segue into what we're gonna talk about hereafter. Um, so like you're in college, and I had a very personal time where I completely drifted away from my family whatsoever. I just was like, I'm in college now. I don't, I'm not gonna answer your calls, I'm not gonna visit, like all of that stuff. And so, like for you, you had that advisor that you know held you accountable and um someone you you looked up to and wanted to impress and you know, study harder and work harder. So not to say that I w I didn't do well in school, but uh it was just really neat because I think that's it's just really special to have that that person in your life. So um absolutely so yeah, that was a really cool college story, actually. I was always working too. I was I worked at the golf course, I worked at the car wash. Uh I think it's important to have that in college because especially if you're only taking like 15 credits, it's like I then you're just what else are you gonna do but party? You know what I mean? Yeah, so uh so no, that was great. Um excuse me. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Where did you go to school?

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Um, so I got my undergrad at Wichita State. Okay. So go shockers.

SPEAKER_03 13:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

And then um I got my first job out of high school in Omaha, where I still am today. Uh and I got my master's at Creighton.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Oh, that's awesome. So you some big basketball schools then, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Yes, we were big rivals. So everyone's like, oh, you're going to Creighton. I'm like, I'm still Wichita State in my heart. Don't worry about that. Amen. Oh yeah. But so we do want to get a little personal, and you can you can tell me how personal you want to get. But you mentioned, you know, you had a mental health uh journey, and I always want to at least give someone the opportunity to talk about it. So someone out there, if it's one person, if it's one million people to hear it, I think it's important. So if you could just share what you're comfortable with, I would I would appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

I love how you phrase that. I totally agree that if any of this stuff can help one person, that's why I talk about it. Is uh I figure uh so I'll tell the story, but I preface it with um, I learned this stuff at 41 and I've talked to a lot of people over the last several years, podcasts, or just friends, or just trying to get to know people in general. And I've had people who are in their 60s and 70s tell me, I wish what you're talking about now, I knew in my 40s. So part of me, like there was this uh jealous part of me, is I figured a lot of this stuff out and I wish I knew it in my 20s. And then I realized, man, it's all perspective of how we see it. So when I heard these older people tell me that same thing, I'm like, all right, I gotta really live this and and spread it as much as possible to let people know. But um, so the mental health story comes deeply, uh deeply from when I was a childhood, it dealt with trauma early on. Um, my dad was a Methodist minister, and uh at the time it was in the 90s, 1990s, and uh he cheated on my mom. And in the church at that point, it's uh I know uh infidelity within a marriage uh or of a pastor, it's still, I guess, kind of like a shocking story. But man, back then it was like it was uh outside of murder, it was about as some of the worst things you could do. So it was just it was a career render for so many, and it was a career render for my dad. He didn't preach again after that point. Um, but he what what ended up happening was, and and again, like it broke apart our family, like it really changed our lives fundamentally. That um you have trauma like that, and I mean, there's other stuff that went on. I mean, he tried committing suicide. We witnessed to this kids, we saw the convulsions on the floor, and luckily he was resuscitated and he didn't die. But it was things like that that like I witnessed that very early, uh like 10 years and under.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Oh, 10 years and up. So you were very young. That's the yep.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Oh, yeah. It's uh I mean, just anything. You all all you notice that at that point is someone you love was there, and then you naturally just go to the question of why didn't they want to be with me? And I I I took that, and that's how I dealt with it a lot as a kid. Um, I see. Uh huh. You you you internalize it. You think, why, why wasn't I good enough? Like, why would I am I not good enough by myself that my dad wouldn't do that? And going into psych and neuroscience, it really changed my viewpoint on a lot of that because I really got to this uh framework of in life, we don't really usually intend to hurt other people. It's very rare that people are making decisions, and that that is their focus. I want to hurt this person. It's usually more so you're backed into a corner and you are really stressed out and have a lot of anxiety, and in that moment, you make a bad decision. And and in general, I mean, you're you talk about the sports side of things, is I always use this as an example. Uh, I'm a big basketball fan, and during COVID, they did the bubble in in Disney for that title that year. Um, during those season or during those bubble games, there were guys who were shooting 60% from three-point, which is unheard of. 40% is fantastic. Um, and and the only difference was there was no crowd that without that factor, like guys were shooting 20% better. Like, that's how much a crowd can can inhibit and like just get you stressed out or out of your mindset of like what you're doing when everything is flowing. So, stress obviously has an impact. And I always like to share this with other podcast guests to kind of reiterate the point. Um, so uh, and this is not a trick question, you don't have to like come up with like I would say whatever your gut reaction is, is like kind of go with it. Can you name me three really great decisions you've made when you've been really angry or really stressed out?

SPEAKER_00 17:42

I mean, ooh, I mean, not really. Yeah, yeah, good, good. So I mean, not good decisions. I mean, I've probably I've definitely made decisions, but not good ones.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Yeah, so on the flip side, can you name one to three things that and you don't have to get into them specifically here, but just like that come to mind. Can you think of the one to three things that you regret when you were really angry or upset or in that state? Things you said, text you sent that you wish you didn't send, anything along that line.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, sending things to friends when you're like if you're going through an uh you know an argument with your spouse and you, you know, you're kind of not talking to her, so you're lashing out at someone else who has nothing to do with it, like things like that. Yeah. Or uh just hurt oh just hurting other people, not physically or anything, but hurting other people where it's you know not even their problem.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Exactly. So uh so what I I essentially learned from all this is that we're in a heightened state, we're in a different chemical state when we're angry, stressed, react. Our brain is literally in a different mode completely. Um, uh for other people, as like most people know we're uh like 90 something percent of water is what makes up our bodies, our composition. So if that is a majority of what is in our body or what we're made of, um, if you take a stainless steel pot and you're boiling water for pasta, and before you boil the water, you've got the stainless steel pot and you've got the water. If you look down, you can see your reflection. You can see essentially through the water from the stainless steel kind of reflecting back to you. So uh obviously I'm I'm getting really granular here at this end on the science side. But the reason is is when you boil the water and it is fully boiling at that point, you don't see your reflection anymore. The chemical of the water is taking a different chemical state. That's uh that's us when we're angry. So it was something that uh I was able to frame back to my dad of he was really in, I mean, he was in over his head financially. He made some bad financial moves, thought he was going to get a promotion he didn't get, and then he had three kids and a wife at home who wasn't working. And he took drastic measures, and it got to the point where he was so stressed he thought, and this is how sad it was, that I talked to him after the fact, we reconciled after thing after years. But he had said he truly felt that he was more of a benefit to his family dead than alive. And anyone who's thinking in that frame of mind, it's just it's awful. And like, I wish like that's what I go back to is like I wish I was where I was now and could have helped him as a friend or or whatever the case was, that be there to have someone to talk to. And I just use the example because I know it happened to my dad, and my dad didn't have that close friend or anybody that he could talk to who would just say, like, hey, this is not a good decision. Let's think of something else, let's work together. He got so down in his and he dealt with manic depression and bipolar, and that got diagnosed after the fact. So a lot of this was not his fault. And uh, that was the things that I learned in the bad way is that mental health can really have that type of impact. And uh on my end, like I said, I learned years ago I had ADHD. And I realized, man, some of the things that I've reacted to too quickly impulsively, which are the ADHD, some of the ADHD triggers I deal with. I like I look, I'm like, man, I wish I was more uh kind to certain people or more patient with certain situations. Uh, because I I can kind of get in a mode where I'm just all work or all focused. And anything that breaks that focus, man, you you're gonna think I hate you. And it's it's not the fact at all. It's just me. I take naturally, if I'm so locked in focused on something, and something does break my focus, it takes me three to five seconds to kind of shift to be able to be like, okay, let me stop this and focus to this. And if you look at my eyes or my face during those three to five seconds, it looks like I am so perturbed or so angry. And it's like, and it's hard for people if they see that from someone, they internalize that. They're like, oh, they don't like me, or whatever the case is. And that's where I say I wish I had more patience because you know, I I've never felt that towards them. I've never hated anybody, I've never really been angry or like just want to take something out on someone. I'm really blessed that I go to sleep every night and any bit of anger that's kind of there kind of dissolves. I've always had that. It's just been something internally for me. I'm glad I don't hold on to that as much as I do. Uh and but yeah, it's just one of those things that um I did have little bits though of like whether you're talking about if you get stuck in traffic or somebody cuts you off. Um It's really the frame of I it was uh where I got the frame for my company name of another angle coaching is I had a mentor ask me, he's like, Have you been cut off before? And you just lose it. Like you just start cursing, like you're like, what the like like you just start going, what you could have lost or what could have happened. And um, my mentor asked me, he's like, All right, he's like, Dave, have you ever been looking at your phone unintentionally when you're driving? A text message pops up and it's really important, and you just naturally go. And he's like, Do you think you ever did that? And like he's like, like where you shift in and you're just like, Oh my god, like you're so scared, you feel awful. Someone's beeping at you, probably cursing at you, and you or you're like, I put my hands up and I'm like, I'm so sorry. Like, I should like it was literally that broke my whatever, my attention in that moment. And he was just like, Have you and so he asked me that and he's like, Have you ever actively tried to hit someone with your car just because you're pissed off? And I was like, No, that would be really just unhinged and kind of out there. And he was just like, That's majority of people. He's like, that's like 99, 98, 99% of people is no one's trying to do that. So if we can have a little bit more patience for people, the problem is that we deal in a society that's so high cortisol. Everyone's very stressed out, uh, on edge about almost everything, whether it's financial, whether it's personal, whatever they're going through. Uh, society's kind of bred this very high cortisol uh life that anything that kind of disrupts us, disturbs us, or triggers us, it has an exponential reaction and we're much angrier than what we really should be.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

No, that was one. There were so many uh good examples and great information in there. And uh before we get into further detail on another angle consulting, I definitely wanted to ask if I could use that analogy of the you know, seeing yourself in the pot of water or you know, when it's not boiling. Yeah, yeah, of course. Because I do I do a segment each Friday called Fridays with Dan. It's just an eight to ten minute segment where I just kind of reflect on how my week went. It could be as simple as watching a basketball game or whatever. And I always like to have a point of reflection, and I think that's just such a uh vivid analogy of you know what your brain is looking like in that moment. Like that was just really it really stuck with me because uh just for example, it's gonna make me sound like I'm crazy. No, it's not gonna make me sound crazy, but so we were at the grocery store yesterday and uh you know, at the cashier, and we were checking out, and my wife and I have separate bank accounts, so we always just split our uh bill in half. That's just what we've always done. And it was this older gentleman, I mean, probably like he at least looked 80. I don't know if he quite was, and had no idea what he was doing. And I was probably a little bit too rude and was just like, okay, I'm just gonna pay, you know, this. So it's like, I guess what just simple advice would you give to someone in those moments? Because we all have those moments.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Yeah. So it's something that really changed me um on a lot of this is trust me, I I still have if I get cut off, uh, and this is uh like a great way to kind of like push it out. So if someone cut me off, I'd say five years ago, four to five years ago, I would have been cursing, angry, probably for the rest of that drive or majority of that drive. I would have been on edge or just like it ruined whatever that next hour, couple hours, maybe day was. Um, we all get like that. We all react. And for me, I like to a game changer for me was learning it's okay to react. The game where you can really differentiate yourself and what we all have control over is how fast do we get back to cool, calm, and collected. Uh, because like we said with the that whole water analogy before, we're in a different state when we're angry like that. So, how can we get back to where we're not boiling anymore? And it's um one of those things that I I was very uh I'm I'm a very I think I can figure everything out right away. And I I'm I get frustrated when I don't. And I remember a mentor when I had asked, I'm like, hey, like, I I'm getting better. I I know, like I could see the clear, I don't get angry for as long anymore, but I was like, I still get angry. And I I always took that as it was black and white. And if I'm getting angry, I'm doing something bad. And he had said, it's okay to feel what you feel. He's like, he's like, how conceited are you, Dave? And I was like, I don't think I am, but like, what do you mean? And uh, and he shot back and let me know that it was more so the fact of it's like going to the gym, is what he kind of told me. He's like, he's like, Do you can you just go and bench press 500 pounds first try? And I was like, Well, no, that's like you got to work up and do that. And this is the same thing. So anything with the mind and what you're doing with this uh mindset coaching and training that I do is you don't figure it out right away. There's always something a little more you can learn. It's life. You can always get a little bit better. There are margins that you can get five, like whether it's a lot better, and then like little bits from there. But when I was going through that, I realized, okay, is it's not so much getting angry being the problem. There's the shade of gray of how quick can you get back to that cool, calm, collected state? Because that's where you make your best decisions. And I really zoned in on how can we, and I I love coaching this. This is what I love to talk about in uh podcasts or any type of media like this of uh this is what I like to give away for free to people, is we can we can literally find pockets that if you can put your if you send text or you say things when when you're in that angered state, put your phone away. Find something that I find it's a little different for everyone. For me, it's music or taking a walk or doing something active. Uh like sometimes it's like just making the bed or doing laundry, something that I see the beginning and end done, and I can kind of get back into a flow. Um, it's gonna be a little bit different for everybody, but it's what can you do to not make that text that is gonna be angry or the things that you're gonna regret later? How can you walk away from it and come back to it? Because majority of what people deal with with their problems and the stuff that they are still, uh like I say, is that they make a bad decision in one of those higher altered states, and then they are working off the reaction from that from that reaction for ages, whether it's getting in a relationship you shouldn't have been in or being stuck in a relationship because you think having kids is the answer, but you guys probably shouldn't have been together in the first place. It's it's always gonna be like a combination of multiple factors. I'm just throwing out hypotheticals, but it's how can we be our best selves and at that level as much as possible? And I know that when I'm angry, I don't make good decisions. I make probably the worst decisions I'm gonna make. So I found how can I isolate and just stay away from anyone when I'm in that mindset. Just like if I know, like, and I I I now I I found the boundary that I enunciated. I I communicate with the people I love that I let them know, hey, it's not a really great time for me to talk. Can I call you back in 15, 20 minutes, maybe a little bit longer? But I'm just like kind of going in through something and you don't want to hear what I'm talking about right now. And it's just it's so it's being able to find that is we all deal with it. It's how can we limit the exposure of the bad of what we're putting out there? And I really think uh if if we just even focused on that, like people talk about there not being a lot enough love and kindness and empathy in this world. If we can be have enough kindness and empathy towards ourselves that we can give ourselves the time to cool off, show off it's it's why they say cool off when you're like you're heated up like that. Yeah. And and then come back and do stuff the right way. Man, we would be so much further, I think, as a society, instead of constantly having to be reactive off our impulsivity or impulsivity of when we're angry, if we have to say this or we have to get this out. And it's like, no, you don't always need to. Sometimes it is good to take a beat and then wait and and reload and and come back later with a more kind of informed, uh, better approach.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

No, I again I don't know how this worked so well because I know I have another perfect example of yesterday. Like I said, we were my wife and I were both kind of in a bad mood after the store because the cashier, you know, couldn't do what we needed him to do. So we're like, whatever. But instead of you know, you could let it ruin your whole day, like you said, or let it ruin the next couple hours. And I'm a huge race car fan, so I love watching like the day, excuse me, the Daytona 500 was so I was super looking forward to that. And it I was just such in a bad mood. I'm like, I'm not even like looking forward to this anymore. But instead of you know, just sitting on the couch with my wife being angry and not at her, but just being, you know, in that state to find something to do. Again, for me, it's music. It is music for me as well. Just play a song. Just play one song, start to finish. It doesn't need to be anything crazy. Or maybe uh I also like to cook, so maybe just cook a quick snack. Cook a quick snack, just get your mind into a good place and yeah, and you will just be happier. Like it it sounds so simple on paper, but the the mind is so complex. Sometimes it's hard to just tell yourself to do that. Yeah, so um, so I really want to give you the chance to talk about another angle consulting and just kind of what it's all about, um, and how it came about, etc. The floor is all yours.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Yeah, so uh you coming from the accounting background, I think you'll probably understand a little bit of this more than most people would. Uh, but I had a back injury. So my mom passed away in 2014. Uh, my mom was, after everything that happened, my dad was just the guiding light of everything I did and uh taught me everything on down. It's uh she's still to this day, I talk about her every day. Um so she passed in March of 2014. And several months later, I was uh working with a pharmaceutical company, and uh they did not want to hire movers. And uh I was the only person who was under 30 years old at the time, I was 29. And uh I get they called me able-bodied man. I was the only able-bodied man there that could help out. So uh they asked me to move uh some bookcases and other heavy items from one floor because they were moving down a floor. And uh I the guy I was working with, I said, all right, we're gonna lift on three. And on three, he did not lift, and I did, and my back shelled. I felt a pop, and it was the worst, some of the worst pain I've ever felt down my uh lower right leg into my sciatica, all that. Um, so I tell that story because uh I had to go on workers comp and 48 hours after that happened, I started my own consulting company. Uh, another angle consulting that it came from that. I always loved that another angle review stuff from that. And uh it rings true more now than ever. I can't like at the time I was just picking a name that I thought really reflected me. And as I look back, I'm like, man, as like I I couldn't have picked a better name after doing this now for 12 years or just that 12 years. Uh, but yeah, it was 48 hours that I started my own consulting company because I was going stir crazy. I could not be home and I was a workaholic. I could not be home and just like watching TV all day. I was going out of my mind. So um I was like, how do I find a way that I can kind of make what I was making or close to what I was making before? And I lived in a beach town in New Jersey, and I knew that there was a lot of mom and pop shops that were there. And I reached out to them of what they were doing for accounting, just to try to kind of get a gauge of like what what was the local kind of get your finger on the pulse of what the local locality is, what they do, how they deal with everything. And I found out a lot of them were either being overcharged by accountants, overpaying bookkeepers, or a mix of that. And or they were living pay-to-pay check and they were doing it themselves and they just really didn't have much guidance. So I took an all-honesty approach of how can I truly serve my community and help? And I found essentially I would do a free assessment for anyone I met, and I let them know, honestly, I would review their bank statements, how many transactions were coming in a month, how much uh maintenance they were doing, did they have a month end close, all those kind of basic questions you go through. And as I I would go through, I would let them know, hey, and in a lot of cases with these, they just needed someone kind of overseeing stuff, uh, putting in the right categories, and that was about it. So a lot of these people, it was like five to seven hours a week, sometimes five to seven hours a month for some of their cases. They weren't like that that enthralled or that detailed. It was pretty easy and limited amount of transactions. So they were paying people in some cases, it was like five, like I said, five to seven hours a month, and they were paying someone 50,000 a year. And I told them, all right, this is what we can do on an hourly basis, and it's only the hours that you actually need me for. I'm not gonna be set here. And so I took on multiple clients and just kind of bridged that gap to essentially like 40 hours a week. So I could do something active, like in work. And I was able to help a ton of them that they were able to one have a financial clarity of what was going on with their business. They could help figure it out, make them make better decisions, more informed decisions. Uh, businesses that might most likely, from what they had told me, would have gone out of business if they didn't have this kind of intervention of what we did and then kind of figured it out. So I realized, man, there's there's something really here for that. Um, I uh fast forward to 2019 and I went back to work in a full-time capacity, helping a company who's uh chasing a private equity deal. And so I was more in a full-time capacity from there, but I still wanted to consult and help in some way. But at that point, I was doing my 40 to 50 hours of counting work every week. I really didn't want to do that on the side as well. I had some clients I still did it for, like those minor couple hours here and there. But uh, this was like obviously right before COVID. And as COVID hit, I it really dug me and it got me involved with music, is that I realized with what I went through, uh the trauma and just kind of uh from losing my mom, from the stuff that happened with my dad, and uh just a lot of bad because between uh man 2014 through those next five years, um, my mom I had never really dealt with any major death in my family. And at that point, my mom died in 2014. Uh, my one grandparent died in 2015, uh, my other grandparents died about a year later. And then my dad died two years after that. And it was just kind of a couple uncles, a couple aunts. It was just, it felt like everyone was just gone. And it was uh just really, really tough to kind of go through and bounce back from that. Uh, but that's where I realized, especially on the mental health side, especially after my dad passed, that I wanted to help as many musicians as I could. Uh, musician music was the focus, uh, and it was purely because uh COVID uh happened and everything shut down. And if we remember and we go back to that, musicians, their their life blood is coming from being able to perform live and being able to have that experience. And a lot of them, it's like people they're just making ends meet by performing in bars every week or every like multiple times a week and just being able to do that. And then that just all went away. So I really wanted to reach out any musician that was dealing with uh mental health andor writer's block. And that was what I took my consulting and started doing from that period of like 2020 to 2023. And I started working with a group of people out of Nashville and all throughout the music industry. I worked with some label uh groups, uh some uh major label artists, and just kind of had a good foundation of a lot of music was struggling. A lot of those creatives, they were really, really in a dark place and didn't know where to go. And uh that's where I really leaned in and dug in on neuroscience and psych and as like how can I, as a songwriter, be able to tap into those fields, know as much as possible, and help people walk through. And I really dug in on uh I always love to share uh neuroscience hacks. And one of the base ones that I did with anyone that I started with from the start was uh the power of your mindset and the quickest way to be able to shift from if you're in a negative loop or in a negative mindset completely, uh the one of the quickest ways you can get out of that is uh I call it last 10 first 10. And it's the last 10 minutes before you go to sleep at night, when you start really getting tired. Like I'm talking 10 minutes before you're about to like lay down. When you like hit that moment, if you're watching TV or doing whatever, and you're just like, oh my God, I'm so tired, I gotta go lay down. When you hit that, your brain is entering or already in a partial theta state. And uh same thing is when you first wake up, when you're still a little groggy. Um, is it's the first 10, is your still brain is still in that partial theta state. And those are the strongest that it's gonna be while you're awake. Otherwise, your theta is very strong while you're sleeping. Uh, but it's the cool thing with the theta side is it's very uh you're prone or suggestible to your subconscious. It's uh they say it's almost like you're talking directly to your subconscious, or you can. And uh that's why uh if you ever remember those uh kind of examples growing up of they say, uh when you first wake up, go into the bathroom and look in the mirror and say, I love you yourself, or like say your positive affirmations. That's that's where it's coming from, is you're in that data state. So um if what I would start doing with people is I was like, all right, start thinking of how everything could go right. Whatever's going wrong, like let's talk about it. But in those last 10, first 10, the negative doesn't exist. Like just in that window, that negative doesn't just. How is everything going to go right? What do you want to accomplish? How do you want to get there? And that's what you're feeding your brain right before you go to sleep and then when you sleep. And what I found, and it's I think it's a real big societal issue that people don't even realize. Uh, we have something in our brain called the default mode network. Of it's kind of when you're check out and you're just kind of on autopilot. You don't really realize it feels like you can look and like hours could pass by and you didn't even know. And a lot of people, it's like they get it when they play video games or something like that, that you start and you think you've only been playing for 30 minutes and four hours is gone. Uh, that's just like where when your brain and or when your body's in that default mode network. And the coolest thing about neuroscience that I've learned is that a lot of people, majority of people, in my opinion, are essentially their bodies are running the show and their brain is along for the ride. And life gets really pretty great when you can make the flip of that, when you realize that your brain is really in control and can dictate to your body what to do, how to react, and what to do. Uh, so a lot of those negative reactions and those visceral anger type of reactions, that's your body running the show and your brain along for the ride. And then your brain thinks about it later, like, oh no, I shouldn't have done that. And it's just one of those things of how can we put ourselves in more situations, let our brain control. And the biggest thing is just noticing it. Like the fact that you were bringing up those situations from yesterday, you actively notice it. Most people, it takes them a while to kind of like lock into that. So when you are noticing that or when you realize that, realize, okay, it's okay that I felt what I felt in that moment. Don't beat yourself up over it, but how can I get better quicker? How can I react faster and be in more of a frame of mind? And a big thing that I've found that helps me kind of bridge that gap is uh asking yourself the question when something angers triggers you. Because the anger triggers usually it's coming from, and this is the psychologist side of uh I don't want to overly uh like just throw the psych side of it, but a lot of it is like if something really bothers you and triggers you and gets like gets that reaction out of you that like you have to respond or you have to do something, it's usually something from your childhood that upset you. And it's that same familiar feeling, and that's what you're tapping into of why you need to respond. It's your inner child like screaming out for help. And it's uh, how can you kind of tone that down? And the big thing that I found is asking yourself, can I control this or can I not control this? And it's being okay, and this it takes a while, and it's why people call it self-work. Being okay with what you can't control, letting it go. And for me, I I use this example on the biggest level of uh to tell people that I didn't always have it right. I made so many mistakes. I wish I could fix these mistakes that I made or lived something differently because I missed parts of my life that I don't remember. I don't like have no concept of it. Um, I don't remember about two to three years after my mom passed away. Maybe little bits here and there, but I treated it, she was the most important person to me. And it was so painful, I didn't want to deal with it. I didn't want to do things that reminded me of her, and I didn't want anything, like literally, I didn't want to have any focus on that. So I was almost treating it like my mom, nothing happened to my mom, like she was on vacation and she'd be coming back Sunday. I knew the reality. I saw her body. I knew like it wasn't like I was tricking myself, but that's kind of how I treated it. Where my brother and my sister had a more healthy approach up front, and they dealt with it right away. They were really sad for months right after. I it looked like I bounced back fine, and all my uh anyone close to me was just like, oh, he's handling it great, he's doing well. And inside, every single birthday, every holiday that came up after that, I was slowly like dying a little bit. And it was just not getting better. Um, and where the power came from that is I was trying to control what happened. I could not control that my mom passed away. She was gone in the physical sense. And what I could do is honor her memory, uh, tell people about the great things that she was able to accomplish, the good things about me that I got from her, and then appreciate things in life that remind me of her and see it. And like when someone laughs like she does, appreciate that that you see that in another person, that like that sometimes that light can come from so many different places, and you realize when you start focusing your attention on that, uh, it really just expands so much. So learning to be able to let go what you can't control. Uh, I started saying that. As I trust me, I still have the I had this a week ago where I was frustrated about something and it took me probably to the end of the night. I do an honest um when I do my last 10 uh of that in that data state, I ask myself, uh, I've got a very clear picture of where I want to be in one, three, and five years. I'll ask myself at the end of every night, did I get further away or closer to that goal? And I don't beat myself up if I got further away from that goal, but that's my stopping it after that one night. Of I was like, okay, I stopped it. I know reacting in that way is not gonna get me close to that goal. We go back tomorrow. We we start again and we we come back better. So perfection is just not possible. Nobody's perfect, everyone's gonna make mistakes, everyone's gonna have pressure, anxiety, stress, sadness. Something's gonna happen. It's how fast can you get up? The thing we can control is how resilient we are. How fast can we back, bounce back? How fast can we get to that cool, calm, and collected? So if you channel in, our resilience can be our superpower, and that's something you fully can control, and it's everybody can control it. So when you can really tap into that, that's when you realize you can really start making these huge jumps that many other people struggle with while they're stuck in the same loops.

SPEAKER_00 43:30

Well, that's a lot to that's a lot to do to press on because there's a ton of information there. But um one of the coolest things I heard in that was kind of talking about COVID and music. So I just a funny story. I started learning the trumpet during COVID. That was my that was my COVID project. Everyone had that everyone had their COVID project, whether it was adopting a dog or getting obsessed with Legos or whatever. Yeah, that was mine, but no, it was it was so kind. of interesting to hear because yeah those musicians rely so much on performing live I mean I mean yes you can record in studio but if you can't promote the you know your your albums live or things like that it's it can be devastating and I love it because I've had probably four or five musicians on my podcast so far. I have another one coming up on Wednesday so I'd love to kind of send each of them an email and uh you know if they are in that situation with you know you said writer's block or things like that I would love to send them your way if that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

Oh that yeah that'd be great. It's uh I I love to take on anyone even if it's just a talk of like how can we do that. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 44:44

Yeah absolutely so I think this is actually a perfect time to take a quick break and we're gonna get into your music story that I know you've got some pretty s pretty exciting news to share. So yeah let's just take a quick break and then I'm gonna go off script and we're gonna do a really fun segment and then we'll get so pardon the interruption folks before David even explains his song I'm gonna play it for you. It is an amazing tune it's just got a vibe to it that I can't even explain so I won't even try to I just want you guys to listen to it yourself and then we'll get back into my conversation with David McKee. David, what have you got for us?

SPEAKER_01 48:36

You got it uh so in four days which we're recording this on 216 2026 on February 20th this Friday uh my first uh single There You Go will be out on all streaming platforms. Uh please check it out it's a mix of country pop, hip hop uh it's never not quite the direction I ever intended to go, but man, it's I had a couple of songs come out on the countryside and uh I went to college like we talked about in South Florida. So I really never heard much country music until I went to college. And I I kind of got a little bit of the hook of uh that it's uh some of the twang still isn't fully for me. I'm not I I say I'm not that southern I'm not I'm I'm a I come from an urban kind of atmosphere. So that's where you'll hear some of like the hip hop and the hip hop's more on the drums percussion side. But I've always been a big fan of guitar work and like a cool catchy guitar thing. And then so much of the lyrics and the personal side of it it's like I wrote a song recently and it will be on my album coming out this year that's for my mom. And the emotions that are behind it, I feel like I mean I the slide guitar that's usually only used in kind of country music, you hear the emotion coming off of it. So I like I've got a thing where man it it's an opening of the slide guitar and it it felt like for me it felt like an actual music representation of tears just coming out of just like hearing that emotion and that sadness in the moment. So yeah it's uh I I just got hooked and um the the album is going to be songs I wrote for other people. I've been a songwriter and a ghostwriter for the majority of the last like 15 years. I was an artist like we talked about when I was in musical theater and in my late teens, early 20s um blew out my voice, did not handle things the right way and uh I I really didn't have a desire and it was never kind of the goal to be an individual artist. But as I started kind of making some of these demos I had some very close friends who are like also from Florida who I met in college and I know that they're big country music fans. So I told them I like I'll send them my demos because I'm just like hey is this am I on the right track here or am I just fully off because I know it's just not my main source of music or what I usually listen to. And they I literally had two of my friends who are very close and have been so supportive and usually it's like you need to fix this or you need to try that. And they both responded the same way was you need to write an album of like you need to like this is like you you've hit that point. And so yeah it's it's a lot of music that I wrote for other people when I was doing some work out in Nashville and uh I wrote a couple new ones that are just kind of focused on what I've been thinking or what I've been going through. And uh yeah if if you like kind of what I'm talking about on this side of being able to find yourself, uh find the ways to better yourself and become the best version of yourself, that's what this album's all about.

SPEAKER_00 51:18

Oh well that's awesome. I cannot wait to listen to that single I always I always like to remind people all my listeners um just the power of music whether you're a performer or just appreciating it because music legitimately saved my life and um so it always holds a special place in my heart. But uh I like that you're talking about the slide guitar because you can really kind of you really bend those notes and the and the chords and things like that. It's really sweet and I again I I'm just a music maybe I have a music ADHD I don't know but I started playing uh it it's the Native American flute oh okay that's awesome it's it it kind of looks like a recorder but it's just a pen it's just a pentatonic so it's like it's actually really easy to play something that sounds pretty because it's just in a key and you can't really screw it up. Okay. But you can like bend the notes like if you put your finger like three quarters over the hole or one quarter of the hole. So that's kind of what it reminded me of with the slide guitar. Hey nice so that was neat and so yeah like I said we're gonna go off script and play one of my favorite favorite games it's fun and quick it's just called Mount Rushmore we're just gonna riff back and forth and name our top four it doesn't even have to be top four just kind of your four that you're really into right now so I'll let you go first.

SPEAKER_01 52:42

I'm gonna put you on the spot so are we talking I just want to make sure I've got the rules right are we talking all time or it can be all time right all time. All right we'll go all time because that's uh those are definitely my influences and where where this stuff kind of comes from for me. So I'll start with uh Dave Matthews band was uh the okay I can get I can get into that yeah yeah I mean a huge fan of uh I mean they get classified as the jam band but it was going to those concerts um that I realized so I don't I can read music slightly I like I was in band I I played the saxophone I I was in honors band so like I I can read music to that extent writing music like that I can't do per se it was always I could tell you what the melody was or I could be able to uh get stuff out and just say hey could you play this and it sounds like this and so I always had a vivid idea of what I wanted to say but I couldn't actually get it out and it went to a Dave Matthews concert and found out that every show is different. It's never you're never going to see 100% the same show. They jam, they do something a little bit different. And that's now how I actually create is that I will start with a basic chord progression and I will literally do a jam for an hour or two when I'm creating and I think of every possible I'll just hear where that chord is going everywhere where my brain is going ideas. It could be one measure it could be literally a chorus it could be a verse a bridge and that's how I create of just like hearing something over and over again I'm like all right then I would do this then I would go here and then I would do that. So this album that I just made alone has probably four or five songs that came from one of those jam sessions and I truly thank Dave Matthews because I didn't know you could create like that. And it took me going to one of his concerts that they were just having fun and ripping and that's usually where your best ideas come from so it really uh that's what I channel when I uh am in writer's block that I just jump in and try to come up with as many creative ideas as possible.

SPEAKER_00 54:32

Heck yeah no I I was already excited to listen to your album now I'm really excited if there's some Dave Matthew influences on there because they're oh yeah yeah they're just their instrumentation is it's just just beautiful I can't even put it into words but um so I'm I'm only 33 years old but I'm kind of an old soul the first the first vinyl I ever got was Blood on the tracks by Bob Dylan. Okay so so I think Bob Dylan has to be on my Mount Rushmore. People I hate when people say like he can't sing or things like that.

SPEAKER_01 55:09

I'm like yeah I mean he's not Celine Dion but his songs are so powerful they could be politically powerful they could be socially powerful um like the song Hurricane oh yeah um just such a powerful story he's a poet um so yeah Bob Dylan for sure is on my yeah it's uh if you I don't know if you ever caught it but uh Dave Matthews has his live track series on one of the live tracks it's all his uh essentially like we'll randomly select an album from one of their live shows that they did that year or that tour and he covered Hurricane and it was oh wow I so like I knew Bob Dylan very well but I didn't know the song Hurricane until Dave covered it and it it's really just kind of opened up my world to that whole angle of everything. So yeah very very cool Bob Dylan's the man.

SPEAKER_00 55:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 55:58

All right we got number two who you got I'm gonna go John Mayer of uh it's okay yeah hearing him play the guitar and most people uh correlate him with the pop side but I I strongly when he did his uh Western album it's like Western country uh did a song called Age of Worry which I think is now more prevalent than probably it was when it came out uh but it's very much along the side and I I I took inspiration of when I'm talking about the uh becoming your best self and doing that uh you can relate to a lot of what he says it's a very simple story of it's okay to be able to uh have your worries and and work through them instead of constantly worried about the judgment of other people. So it's uh it's a really cool way of being able to know what you have in your inside yourself and be confident and have that intuition to follow through.

SPEAKER_00 56:47

That's a good choice. I can't argue with that one at all. To me and this is what I love about music is like you can see what draws John Mayer to you but it he might draw himself to me in a different way. Like I just think he can take the simple but not a terribly complex you know riff and just make it so perfectly just a perfect vibe. So I yeah that's oh yeah so I'm gonna I'm gonna go 70s eighties now on you um and have a very funny story behind it. It's the band Supertramp. Oh okay and I'm not talking like Breakfast in America or the logical song or anything like that but I have the the the album Crime of the Century I don't know if you're familiar with that one. Oh you gotta check it out. There's some incredible c clarinet and uh whoever the pianist is I don't know is this incredible but so my dad took my mom on I don't know if it was their first date but one of their first dates to a Super Tramp concert and my dad's like oh my god this is gonna be freaking sweet you're gonna love Supertramp. It's gonna rock and my mom fell asleep at the concert. So Supertramp will always kind of have a special place in my heart.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

All right I love it. I love that great great nostalgia attached uh I'll I'll jump in with my third if uh yeah that's uh yeah go for it similar era maybe a little more eighties than seventies but I think they kind of flirted in that area um when I was a kid my mom raised me on music and it was uh I still remember my first couple allowances of what I saved up for and it was the classic queen albums uh for whatever reason my mom kind of realized I had a sound for that and most people always jumped because Wayne's world was big when I was a kid uh to Bohemian Rhapsody and that was like the big scene in that and again like I I love that but man I'm talking like uh bicycle radio gaga all those type of songs like that those just always I had them on all the time and uh it was just crazy for me to watch and like very cool that I mean you talk Bob Dylan and the and then the Queen obviously they've made movies about them uh in the past like decade but man yeah it's uh I I just I I listen to Queens so so much and I I really I think where I get stuff vocally and where I hear harmonies that really laid a good foundational level for me to kind of like follow that through all right well I'm gonna go a little I'm kind of going chronologically here.

SPEAKER_00 59:18

So there is a band called Say Anything are you familiar? Yeah yeah yeah oh yeah so it just brings me so in college not the best decision I ever made but like hookah was the big thing in college about the hookah bars hookah bars yeah and they would play the song Alive with the glory of love and that song just always brings me back to college just hanging out with my friends talking not a care in the world. Uh he's a very creative mind almost a little too creative his lyrics can get a little weird sometimes but um it just has a real nostalgia for me so I'm gonna go say anything as as number three. So we gotta round it out.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:04

I love that I don't want to jump too much off topic. I will get back to my fourth in one quick second but want to just throw the psychology and the neuroscience that you're talking about there of oh when you hear that song and when you uh jump back to that it's when your body has that visceral feeling it's wild but our body has actually replicate the exact chemistry that was going on when we heard that song when when there is something like it's like high school college or growing up um our body it's one of those things where our bodies remember people usually use it with trauma of the our bodies remember the scores kind of like the phrase that's used. But it's the same for the ups is your body uh and I think it's our society that we reflect on the negative so much. But when you start reflecting on the positives think about when you felt your best what were you listening to what were you doing? What were the things that you were doing it's why uh I'm sure if you light up a Madden video game today, you still get like for the first five to 10 minutes, you have that initial joy that you had when you were a kid. So it's that that's where music is so so beautiful because you can bring things in even at your lowest times you can listen to a song that you know like if you have like five songs what were songs that when I was low that made me happy you throw those on those will really help uh but to sidebar back to unless you want to keep rolling with that.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:12

Oh no I just wanted no that that's perfect because I can I can just picture the hookah bar that we went to like literally the exact place I would sit it was a Middle Eastern gentleman that uh ran the hookah bar and he made like these sandwiches and so like I can smell the sandwiches when I'm listening to that song. So there that's great that you brought that in. I really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:35

Yeah it's one of the things I love to tell people use that like have that saved and like I'm telling you if you're going through a rough time or just a period or just anything test it. Listen to that song and like watch how you naturally become like you still may be a little bit miffed or upset about whatever's going on but you're not as much it's like literally you're you're bringing it's one of those things where people talk about frequency you're naturally raising your frequency because you're bringing back to one of your happiest times. So I'll close mine out and uh I I just have to give him the credit because uh I won't say I was his biggest fan uh musically, but I would not have started making music if it wasn't for Michael Jackson. Uh pop music has always just been a lot of people will write it off and that it's just not as much or not as artsy of what you're doing. But what he was able to do and just kind of have no borders of I think it's the coolest thing and it's let me realize hey I'm nowhere near his level but I can kind of create whatever I want whenever I want in whatever genre. Sometimes we are better at certain genres but he was just one of those guys that no matter what his voice went with everything. And um I mean it's like I always like to tell the story I think it is trying to think of what song of his I'm blanking now. It's on the thriller album but one of the songs with the heavy electric guitar uh that it was uh Van Halen is playing the guitar on it and he's uncredited because at that time if if it was known that uh Eddie Van Halen was doing the guitar for Michael Jackson, uh it would have been an issue. So he did it uncredited. I think he did like the way the story or the urban legend goes is I think he did it for a six pack of beer or something like that that he uh essentially just played the guitar over it. But that's kind of where it was and but I love the fact that Michael Jackson didn't care but he also respected him for making that decision. I'm pretty sure it was Eddie Van Halen. Google it I may be wrong but I there's some famous guitarist who did one of his songs and uh yeah I'm not trying to throw you off in the moment but no you're fine because now I'm interested yeah yeah right uh but yeah it's it's just it shows that so many of the times people think you can't go into something or if you go to pop that you're selling out or you're doing anything along that line. Um pop music is what attracted me into country and that's uh really where my album came from is that I knew I could write good pop music but I didn't know if I should and music or country music was really the gateway to be able to do more emotional pop music uh instead of just kind of the bubblegum pop that you hear on top 40 stations.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:00

It was it was just beat it was beat it. I was okay okay there you go yeah beat it all right yeah it was beat it yeah oh man I cannot wait for this afternoon when I'm just working and hanging out and listening to music now. I'm pumped let's go so so my final one is it's a band called Jack's mannequin. Yeah yeah um so again very powerful just story for him in general he was diagnosed with acute limb oh it was some sort of leukemia I don't know exactly which one but uh so that's just an incredible story in itself and I mentioned kind of music saving my life it was one of their songs so um have it tattooed on my chest right over my heart so yeah that band will always hold literally like the the biggest place in my heart so I can sit here talk to I can talk to music talk to you about music all day but I do want to get to your book and I'm glad that we talked about I'm glad we did that segment though because that was really fun. Absolutely I had a blast um but I do want to get to your book because I can't wait to purchase a copy and read it. Thanks so um just talk about um the inspiration behind choosing to write it because it's a very big undertaking. Yeah yep um so yeah just kind of talk about what inspired you to do it and what it's all about.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:21

It's a really interesting bookend because the way you started the pod is I'm gonna say more or less kind of exactly what you said. I went with the mindset of or I went going in thinking that if one person reads this and it affects their life positively then it was worth it. I I fully aware of like who who am I or what am I doing and why does someone why should someone be listening to me and I get that it's uh on that end but essentially it's a mindset book it's called Navigate the noise and it was what I've learned of things that you can control, what you can't control, neuroscience hacks that can help you in your everyday life. And the reason in the call why I wrote it was I realized that especially post-COVID coming out of those last couple of years of the very end of like uh lockdown and then into kind of us going back to almost kind of pretending like it never happened or whatever the case was. Uh, and I realized with a lot of people that attention spans had severely gone down from where they were prior to where they are now. And and I say it now, like like do the test with yourself on Instagram or TikTok or whatever your social media choice is, is if something doesn't grab your attention, it used to be like 30 seconds of like if something doesn't grab your attention in 30 seconds, then you're lost. And now it's like three to five seconds that just because I essentially since we got cell phone and all that, because everyone got used to Instagram reels and TikToks and uh YouTube shorts or whatever the case is. And if it doesn't grab your attention right away, you're you're swiping in the next one. And uh that really does have an effect on what you look at and what how you react to stuff in real life. Of are you gonna then communicate with someone if you're out in social or are after a couple seconds of being a little uncomfortable or by yourself, are you gonna go to your phone and start just looking for the cheap dopamine fix that way? So it was walking through, uh not telling people I'm big on never saying what you can't do. Uh I'm not anti-phone. I'm the first person to say I'm on my phone, probably still too much. I've I've still limited it, but there's probably more that I can be doing in that aspect. Um, but so much of what we do is just tweak cheap dopamine, whether it's binging a show or if it's doing whatever, and it's an act of escapism of you're not comfortable with where you currently are and you're trying to cheat essentially find cheap dopamine. And uh something that I think has gotten lost in society is delayed gratification. When we were kids, you just can't be handed all the candy you want, or you're gonna be sick. You're gonna have like an issue. Like it's like your parents are looking out for you, even though that you might throw a temper tantrum because you can get exactly what you want in the moment. Yeah, but then it felt really good when you did end up getting it. So that is something that I feel like a lot of uh kids are losing because so many kids are being handed cell phones at a very young age. And they're from their experience with cell phones, is everything happens with that. And I also like to use the video game example. If you played the video games like that I grew up with, I know there's a little bit of an age gap. We're like eight years apart, but I think it's probably you're closer to me than most like kids who would be at the 20-year-old uh gap. Like, so I played like Sonic the Hedgehog and I played uh Golden, and I played like all those like adventure and like games where Final Fantasy was a big one of like, if you died, you went back to the like you had three lives, and if you were done with those lives, you went back to the beginning and started over again. And it was that constant of restarting, building, figuring out what you did wrong, and doing that, and then you got to the end and you you beat it, and you got that delayed gratification of man, that felt great. Now games are really uh designed of uh if you don't win, then oh, you just uh everything like you could just skip back to where you were before, or uh you could have save points and you could have stuff like that. Like save stuff didn't exist when we were growing up. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:45

I'm thinking of I'm thinking of games like Skyrim. I'm sure you're familiar with Skyrim. Oh yeah, yeah. You're like, Well, I just got beat by this dragon for the 97th time, but I'm right back here and I can try again. So yeah. And I really wanted to rip oh, I was just gonna say, I really wanted to riff off a point that you made on the phone thing, because I talked to another um another person similar in your field, and he gave a suggestion on your phone to turn it to grayscale mode. Is is there any uh just I just wanted your thoughts on that because I tried it and it is very difficult. It may so yeah, so I just wanted to get your thoughts. I didn't mean to put you too much on the spot.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:24

No, no, so I I what is grayscale mode? I don't overly use it, so I'm not not quite aware of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:32

And so, like I said, I turned it off because I couldn't do it, but there's a setting, and we can talk about it offline. We don't need to get into it. No, no, you're gonna but um so it's I mean, there's no color on your phone, it's all just you know, shades of gray on your entire phone.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:46

Oh, okay, all right.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:47

Regardless if you're scrolling through Facebook or TikTok or Instagram, it's all grayscale, so there's no color. And so I guess how how would that kind of affect your brain? Does it turn it off more or stimulate it less? Or I guess how would you describe that?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:03

It'll make it work harder. Of uh, we we associate stuff with colors and and constantly. So just uh a very quick reaction. Obviously, I don't know it all that well, but that is something that will make your brain work harder and like actually look for the right answer instead of auto-assuming because you see a certain color or whatever the case is. Uh, it's that old um they call it like the red car theory or or anything like that. And it's uh so essentially it's activating uh your reticular activating system, your RAS in your brain. And um, why they call it the red car theory, uh, I use it in other examples as well. But it's if you're looking for something specific. Uh Tony Robbins did it with Theo Vaughn on his podcast. So it's a very famous example. You can Google it or YouTube it and check out. I love Theo.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:44

I love Theo Vaughn.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:45

So yeah, so essentially what Tony tells him is, okay, he's like, I want you to find as many things in this room that are red. Look over, he's like, red, red, red. Anything that you could be red, you look for it and find it and let me know how many that you get to. And so Theo's like, okay, after about 10 seconds, he's like, All right, I'm ready. And he's like, Okay, how many blue items popped up? And he was like, he got so so thrown off. And he was just like, Okay, so it's and it's literally it's a take on what our brains do. So if you are looking for something, you're gonna hyper focus on it and you're gonna look at everything it is, and even to an extent that sometimes we lie to ourselves. And what Tony uses in this example is he's like, I'm sure there's some shades of brown that you kind of said, Well, that's red enough, or that's cherry wood, or that, or that's whatever literally Theo's like, Yeah, that there, there, and there. He's like, your brain is looking for that reward that you want to find more red stuff. So you start like pretending, oh, well, that's close enough. I'm gonna count that and you can go through that. And that's what a lot of us, that's what a lot of us do in life. And that's how we're viewing is you think that you're looking on that end of it. And it's more so of how can we have more of an open scope? And I talked about cortisol before, and uh man, we should do a part two because I could talk about this stuff forever. Um, but with cortisol, is uh, and why I bring that as an example is when we're stressed, our cortisol spikes, and that's where people talk flight or fright, however you want, anxiety, sadness, depression, any of those feelings, we're in that elevated, we have elevated cortisol. And when you have elevated cortisol, I like to use the example of when we're growing up, uh, and if you're in English or history class and everybody's taking their chance of reading their own paragraph, of it's jumping person to person, the teacher's randomly calling on people, and you lose sight of it for about five seconds, and just so happens that's when the teacher calls on you. And you are looking at your page and you're only looking at a small port, but everything, the vision becomes so small because the pressure's on and you're really like stressed out. So that's your flight or flight mode activated just in real time. And anytime we're feeling stressed, that is in play. And it essentially it narrows our focus, is you're hyper-focused on whatever you think because you're in you feel like you're in danger. Your brain is responding in that way. So, why I say get back to cool, calm, and collected when you see exactly what's happening and you know you're going to be called on and you're ready and you're prepped for it, you see the entire room. You're not stressed about that little thing and you're not hunched over, you're not into that mode. You actually can see everything. So, uh, what I love to do on my coaching side, it's part of what the book brings out, and it brings out this example as well of how can we eliminate more of the noise or navigate the noise as the book is called and lower our cortisol so we can see more of the room out there. And what why I like to say that is I fully believe that our best selves and the opportunities that our best selves will attract and bring about in our life are all right in front of us right now. We're just so narrow focused that we can't see it. So do the work, get your cortisol down so you can see everything and you can jump on those opportunities.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:36

Oh well. It's just like anyone who's not watching the video, I my brain just exploded because it's just filled with just amazing uh advice. Just yeah, so I love that. Uh so where can everyone buy where can everyone buy the book at?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:55

Sure. So it's gonna be coming out, I think it's in April. Uh we're in the publishing stage now. I'll make sure to get you an advanced copy, you don't need to buy one. Um, but yeah, that should be out in April. Uh, and like I said, the song coming out on February 20th, so it'll be a lot of releases for me this year.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:09

Okay, awesome. So everyone, please be looking out for that. Um I mean, just if when you're listening to this podcast just for an hour, probably an hour and a half, imagine reading an entire book and all the knowledge you can get. And uh just make yourself a better person and make our community better. Because if you're a better person, you're gonna make each other better. And that's kind of what kind of what my podcast is all about.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:33

So I love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:35

Well, I appreciate you talking about your book, and I kind of wanted to expand just a little bit more on just the emotional landscape of society today in regards to mental health. Because we um I am a chronic depressive, I've been diagnosed with chronic depression since probably 18, 19, something like that. And for a long time, I was not comfortable talking about it. I I felt like it was a discipl not a disability per se, but I felt like I'd be judged and people would be like, Well, why are you so depressed? You're a straight A student, you have a great job, you're pretty decent at sports, your music like I felt like I just I just couldn't talk about it. And I feel like it has shifted a little bit. So I just kind of wanted your your thoughts on that because again, I want to make sure all the listeners out there, if you are struggling, whether it's depression or in your case, ADHD or ADD or um what's the oh dyslexia, things like that. Um, to not make it your weakness and that there's help and support out there. So I just kind of wanted your thoughts. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:45

Yeah. So I mean, I'll share with you what I did with my ADHD is um I still do this daily. Uh I fine-tune what works for me and what doesn't work for me. Uh, there are certain things I need to have a strict kind of bedtime schedule and go to sleep at the same time, just about every day, every night. Uh, otherwise I deal with awful insomnia. And it was like, so I dealt with a lot of these uh symptoms that I I was having. And it took me actually putting my intention and my focus on it and figuring out, okay, what where are the patterns? What where where like when when I have awful mornings, it's usually because I stayed up late, whether two nights prior, and then I couldn't fall asleep normally the next night. And it was just finding like what works for yourself within that moment. Um, and yeah, I mean, it's uh thank you for sharing what with what you went through. Um, I mean, it's depression. I I first hand, I saw just how awful it can be. And um I it it was the hardest thing to explain. And that one of the harder things I had to deal with in life that I wish I could have gotten through a little bit more. I know my I I mentioned I did reconcile with my dad, but he struggled so much with his depression, and I knew when he was in his moments because I would go months without hearing from him. Otherwise, I was talking to him like two times a week, but then I would just go months of just no contact. And I did whatever I could to tell him repeatedly, there's no shame, there's no problem. I was like, I'm here with you. Like when you need, like, if you're going through your worst, I don't want you to think you can't talk to me, and I only want to talk to you when you're feeling good. And he kind of tricked himself into thinking that. He thought that it was such a weakness and it was such a problem that he couldn't show that side to him, which made it something that is incredibly horrible and isolating and scary, even scarier. He made it even more isolating because he just blocked everyone out. Anytime he was feeling any moment of it, he couldn't talk about it. And I saw what that did to him and how it ripped him apart and it forced him kind of maybe even into some of the bad decisions that he made. And I made that my point from that point on to kind of say, hey, I didn't know I had ADHD at that time, but it was uh now that I do, I talk about it just because of my command. If it could help anybody, I don't see it as a weakness at all. It's truly like a superpower that I I've been able to focus and figure out what I can control. And it goes back to like what we were talking about with that before. What can you control and what can you not? And when you can't control something, let it go, surrender it. Like you can't that you have no dictation to over what's going to happen with that. Fine. I I let it go. And those are the things that I realize I become less upset or less triggered over because I've already let go of it. I've it's got no reaction in me. So it's uh when it has that, but yeah, it's uh being able to, if you are dealing with one of those things, find someone you care about and talk about it. Um, I can tell you more than ever, especially the cool thing that's happening with mental health is more people are willing to talk about it and more friends are willing to listen to it, friends and family. So if you do think you're alone and you can't talk to someone, find the two or three people you're closest with and try to have the conversation about it because it is such an awful thing to handle alone. I've done the isolation thing I've done where you're just crying alone in the dark and you have no semblance of what day, what time, or what's gonna happen moving forward. And I I'm glad for those moments to some extent because it really kind of shaped who I am now. But I also get where that is such a danger zone for so many. So um, I for me, I realized I'm never gonna be in that spot. I let all my friends know, hey, it I'll be offended if you're going through something like that and you don't talk to me. Like it's like I was like, I'm not trying to guilt trip you, but I'm just letting you know, like if you're going through that, you've got an ally and we can talk about it at any point.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:18

Oh, I love that. And uh it's sort of a plug, but not really. So I've had the chance to interview a lot of people that I never in a million years thought I would get to talk to. Famous chefs, athletes, doctors, uh people like you just doing incredible work. And just for everyone listening out there, for every single interview I've had, if somebody goes through something, it it may not be to the level of ADHD. It may be something really, really serious, and or it could just be uh dealing with the loss of a parent or something, but everyone goes through something. Trust me, I've experienced that firsthand. It doesn't matter, like I said, who it is, it could be a famous musician, a famous athlete, um and just heed um just heed David's advice because people will listen. I promise, people will listen. There are resources out there for you. So, how can people um support your message, whether it's uh through your website or on social media, or uh what's the best way to spread the word of what you're doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:32

Yeah, so uh my main source, I don't use a ton of social media, but the one I am most active on is Instagram. So it's at David McKee84, my name and 84 at the end, as well as add another angle consulting. Um, you'll see a mix of what we're doing, uh uh clips of old podcasts that I've been on, uh, as well as the music and and releases that we have coming up, uh, some plugs for the book that'll be a little bit more heavy as it's coming out. Um, but yeah, feel free to reach out. If you're going through something, let's have a talk. Uh, if it's something that you're looking for coaching services or or songwriting, any of those type of services, let's start the conversation. Uh, and especially if you are feeling down and you want to start the conversation about that, uh, sometimes it is easier. It's it's the saddest thing. And I want to change that in our society of um the fact that I used to think it was easier to confide the worst things that happened to me to a stranger because they would have less judgment than someone who cares about me. And I want to really change that. The people who are around you and care about you, they want to hear it and they usually want to be there for you. We just have to be open to allowing them into that. And it's vulnerable and it's scary, and it it's it can be some of the harder things. But yeah, I I love that you shared what you shared. I appreciate it. And uh, yeah, man, it's uh you're doing the right thing by talking about this more.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:44

Well, thank you. I appreciate it. And uh so again, David, thanks so much for being here today. I learned so much. It was a thoughtful conversation, it was an important conversation, and just the way you break things down, and I can see it and hear it in your voice. Uh just the heart you bring to what you do. So I loved hearing about your journey, your book. Was surprised about the whole music thing. So that was cool. So I'm excited for that. And just the way you help people reconnect with themselves. So for everyone listening out there, check out everything we've talked about today. Thank you for spending this time with us. And we'll see you next time. Uh, please take care of yourselves and take care of each other.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:24

Okay, thank you so much, Daniel.