Transcript of The Last Rocketman: Fear Is Information Not Instruction with Dan Schlund New

And welcome back, my friends. I am your host Lisa Lacey, and this is Notes from the Edge, where we talk about the things and have the conversations we should have been having all along. And here we're going to talk about the things you ain't talking about. And today my guest is Dan Schlund, and he has flown 100 feet above the ground with no parachute and a rocket strapped to his back. But the most dangerous journey of his life began after he came down. Rocket Man Dan Schlund spent a decade flying jetpacks at events over 25 countries, 6 continents, and during that career he survived devastating burns, extensive skin graft surgeries, and a crash that left him with a broken neck. After the injury, he didn't simply lose his ability to fly. He lost everything— his income, marriage, and the identity he had built around that career. And guys, we talk about identity so much in here. He eventually rebuilt, creating National Set Medics, a multi-million dollar company providing medical professionals with film and television production 10 years and £40 later— hey, I'm on £50 in menopause, we're even— he purchased the jet pack and completed one final flight for The Last Rocket Man, his book and documentary of his extraordinary story.

And his message is simple, but it is not shallow: courage is a skill, friends. Not a personality, not an identity. Fear is information, not instruction. And you do not have to be fearless. Remember, sometimes the fear doesn't go away until you do the thing. To do extraordinary things, you just have to be prepared. Dan, welcome to Notes from the Edge. How are you, my friend?

I'm doing great. It's nice to meet you. We had a fun little pre-talk, and I'm looking forward to diving into it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been looking forward to having you on as a guest, um, all week. So let's talk about the person beneath performance, because we talk a lot in here about roles, masks, identities, performance, not being authentically who we are. So when the flying stopped, that, that stopped, and man, it sounds like you really hit a, a rock bottom. Um, who, who did you become then, and how did you realize that you had built an identity around that career that, that wasn't actually you? When did you discover the real Dan?

Well, I had, I had a life plan once, once I became Rocket Man. And just to give your audience an idea, we say rocket belt, jet pack, but basically what it is is I wear a backpack which is 3 tanks, rocket fuel, and I have 2 handles. And when I turn those handles, I'm able to take off and fly just like a helicopter. I can hover, pirouette, land, all that stuff. And we've taken it over 100 feet in the air, up to 80 miles an hour on, on one show. It's crazy. So just to give your audience an idea of what is, or what are they talking about, and that's what it is. So I was one of only 11 people since 1961 to ever professionally fly what we call a rocket belt. So once I got that gig, I was thinking, okay, this is going to be my—

this is my life.

This is my life. I love it. I'm traveling. I'm not making a lot of money, but, you know, I get to travel the world and I get to do all these things and live this rock star life. It's pretty darn fun. And then I thought, okay, where am I going to parlay this? Because I need to parlay it into something else. And, um, we were working on a TV show that never came to fruition. And then I thought, well, you know, let me do a speaking career. And after my final crash in 2013, my anxiety was beating me up. My, you know, marriage was falling apart. Had no, had no money in the bank. And I'm thinking to myself, what am I, what am I going to do? I've got to change everything I was. And then it was then that I realized that Being the Rocket Man was my identity. That was who I, I was and what I did. And so I was kind of lost there. And then I was kind of— because of the broken neck, I was fighting with, um, a dependency on pain medication, and I had to get off of that before I could move any— anywhere further.

So And it wasn't so much the, the fame, and— or at least in the small circle of, of people that I'd run into, there's— there was fame there and pictures and autographs and all that stuff was fun, but that wasn't really the motivating factor. That's not what I missed the most. It was just having an identity of this is who I am, I'm very rare in the world, and I can go and do something that not a lot of people did.

I think you highlighted something so important, and I want to circle back to it. So many times we have a plan for our lives, and we just know this is where I'm headed, this is how it's going to turn out. And what you're articulating to us is that life happens. Life happens. So Um, talk to us a little bit, just highlight a little bit about the accident. Was that in 2013? When—

well, there were, there were two. Okay, the first one was in 2011— I'm sorry, 2001. And I was just learning to fly. What you do is you start on the cable, and the first time you take off, you're like a firecracker at the end of a shoestring. You are all over the place. And without the cable, you're going to easily end up in the hospital. So it took about a year just to learn to take off, fly forward, and land, to control this 800-horsepower monster on your back.

Wow.

And then, um, I, I, then I got good enough to where I could get off the cable and I do my free flights. Well, on my third free flight, I bounced it, and the safety guy grabbed me from behind to keep me from flying off into space, and that just wrenched me into the ground, knocked me out cold, burned my leg. And this is, this is 1,200-degree superheated steam coming out these tubes, and the tube bent in towards my leg, and I was literally being cooked alive.

This was only your third time off the cable?

Third time off the cable.

Wow.

And I, I had 3 skin graft surgeries. I lost 185 inches of skin. Oh, in this thing, most painful thing that anyone could ever go through. 2 months in the hospital. And I, I got back and I said to myself, well, you know, and Kenny, who was the owner, he said, and my trainer, he says, you know, you can You can quit if you want to after something like this. And I considered it, but then I thought, if I quit now, I'm going to walk around with a scar on my leg feeling like a failure because I didn't get back on the horse. It didn't matter if I were to succeed and become Rocket Man. What mattered was that I got on it at least one more time and faced my fear. And that way my last experience wasn't a negative experience.

Oh, so I got—

so a couple years later I got back on it, did a flight, went great. Did 2 flights, went great. 2 turns into 4, 4 into 8, 8 and 16. Before you know it, 2005 is my first professional flight.

Well, good, good for you. Good for you. Now, the, the bigger accident, was that in 2013 when you broke your neck? Yes.

And then I had a fun career for a long time, flew, had some wonderful flights. And then in 2013, Guinness Book of World Records wanted to do some kind of world record flight. They didn't care. And I didn't want to do a height flight. I didn't want to fly over 150 feet. I didn't want to try to speed, you know, hit 90 miles an hour and that. I thought, just something simple, let me just do a slalom course, just fly through some, and as long as I land, I get the world record. And for some reason, that Rocket Belt ran out of fuel. Now it has a maximum of 30 seconds of flight time, which a lot of people don't know. You only have 30 seconds in the air, so you got to do a lot of stuff and land That is not a long time. No, it's a long time when you're in the air. I was gonna say, yeah, when you're looking at a, at a commercial, it's like, oh, that doesn't seem very long. But in that time you can do a lot. And it ran out of fuel at 24 seconds while you were in the air.

While I was in the air and moving forward. Now what's great, and all these crashes I'm talking about are in the documentary Okay, and you get to see this most beautiful footage of me running out of fuel from my POV, my point of view camera. You see me hit the ground, you see the dust fly, you see me flip over, you see my flight suit torn. It is horrific and it's a wonderful footage. You are gonna love it.

Isn't it amazing how now we can tell the stories and then at the time there's like, this is not fun.

This is not funny.

I don't want anyone to see this.

No, at the time I was not digging it, but if it's gonna happen, man, get, get, get film of it.

Get it on video.

And if that's gonna happen—

I'm so glad there was not video when I was in my active addiction. Yeah, so glad. So glad. So that is terrifying though.

That is terrifying. So it was It was a small broken neck. It wasn't serious to where I was gonna face paralyzation, but it was enough to, um, have to wear the stupid cone of shame, the collar of shame, for about 6 months. That was embarrassing on the airplane and awkward.

They're so awkward.

They are.

Yeah, and you can't, you can't find one that's cute. Yeah, no. Doesn't look cute.

Put some racing stripes on it, you know.

You could, you could. Well, okay, and then it was after that that everything kind of started being pulled away from you.

So during that time, all those years, the injury to my leg really struck me because we all have scars And the thing is, is when I— when you go through something like I did, you don't have necessarily have physical scars, but you get mental scars. And the anxiety over these years of flying were getting worse and worse and worse. And I was having the hardest time trying to deal with my anxiety. And then towards the end, the owner Kenny, who, who trained me, he and I were starting to have outs. The TV show wasn't going, and all I'm thinking to myself, if I could just hold on a little bit longer, then I'll hit this pinnacle. If I can just get through this, get a name for myself, then I could, you know, move on to something.

Then I could, right? Just then I could. Then it's gonna happen. Good. Yeah.

And I'm a religious guy, and, and I believe that God wanted to take me out of the Rockabilly because he had something better planned for me. I didn't know what, but he was like, nope, you're out.

We're gonna have you help people a different way.

Yeah. And by that time, after the crash, I've had enough. Kenny had enough. We just decided to go our separate ways peacefully. It was just good.

Good.

He wasn't going to have me, and, and I just wasn't going to do it. And, and I was just like, it's I've already— I already accomplished my dream. I already accomplished everything that I wanted to accomplish with that. So I felt accomplished. But now what?

Yeah, it's a big question. Now, who am I? Yeah.

Now at that time, I was, you know, kind of freshly married by several years. We, we had a son. And I'm thinking, okay, I've got to find a way to, you know, uh, be able to provide for the family. And in the night, in, in 1990s, I used to work on an ambulance in Los Angeles. I was an EMT. And I said, you know, I'm going to take a step further, I'm going to become a paramedic. I was just feeling that God was leading me towards being a paramedic. So I was a paramedic, and I was a paramedic when I crashed. So as soon as I landed, I felt tingling in these 3 fingers, but not this one. And I knew exactly where the injury was. So I self-diagnosed myself right there while I'm laying on the ground going, okay, this is, this is where I am. This is what happened. I knew what the paramedics were going to do next. And so I knew, I knew the whole gamut after that. And then I, um, was working on an ambulance. I was working for CareFlight out here in Texas, and I was running 911 calls in Ferris, Texas, a very small town.

Ferris is small.

Yeah, very small.

My dad's from East Texas, Tyler, Texas. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I was volunteering up at a fire department near my area, and and just kind of doing that sort of stuff.

But paramedics don't make a lot of money, so I don't know for what they're doing. Yeah, no.

So I, I said, you know, this is something I'm doing in California as well. I worked on the movie sets sometimes providing medical to both cast and crew. I says, yeah, I'm going to start that up again. And then I started it before the crash, and I would go out occasionally and work on some movie sets and TV shows. And then once I had my broken neck, I couldn't go on set. So what I thought was, hey, let me get my buddy to do it. And my buddy would go and he would do it, and I'd just split the cash with him. All right, you get half, I get half. And then pretty soon these producers are calling up, hey, do you have anyone in Florida? Do you have anyone in New York? Do you have anyone in Georgia?

So good.

I says, well, I'll find you somebody.

I'll find them. I'll say yes. Listen, friends, Dan said yes. First of all, he You saw a gap, you saw a gap, you filled the gap. And then when, I mean, that's how I got into corporate education. I didn't, I didn't even know what they were asking me for. I was like, yep, I can do that. I'll, I will find a way. I will find a way.

Every time I've been successful, it's because I jumped in with both feet and then I learned how to swim.

Yeah.

Which isn't the, which isn't great for everything. But you have to know when.

Sometimes I've leaped wrong. Yeah, I'll admit that. But you learn quickly, right? You learn very quickly. So, Dan, what is fear actually saying to us? Because you say that fear is information.

Fear is good. Fear keeps you alive. You have to have fear. If you have no fear, you're going to have a short life because you're going to do things. Fear is information. It tells you, okay, this is dangerous, you need to consider what you're doing. Not all the time is it saying don't do it, it's just saying consider. Now in my case, and it's— this is a very difficult question to answer because there's so many variables in this, but bottom line is There was a lot of fear flying that jet pack. Yeah, there's a lot of fear when you're running in an ambulance and, and you've got someone with a heart attack and it's up to you to save them. Number one, are you trained? Are you prepared? Have you, you know, prepared your homework?

Yeah, I've learned, got a mentor, got some education.

Yeah, I mean, even, even the best surgeons in the world had their first time slicing into somebody.

I just had a doctor on, uh, last week that was talking about when you have a complication as a surgeon, how to overcome that and get off the brain loop of that you're a failure in all areas. Yeah, yeah.

And, and all it takes is a, is, is a little bit of courage. And if you can just say, okay, I'm going to I'm going to step into the abyss and I'm going to figure it out as I go.

What I love about what you said though is there's a pause in that, right? Because if fear is— if it is fear is feeding us information, stop and think, be self-aware, make conscious decisions about the risks that you're going to take, not be on autopilot. Because see, so many people that are in fear One, they don't even know it's fear. Two, they're just on autopilot, right?

Right.

Yeah. Yeah. So if fear is information that gives us the opportunity to stop and critically think about what the next right steps for us are. So I love that. So you have survived so many injuries, catastrophic burns, a broken neck, and struggled with very severe anxiety Um, but you strapped on that rocket belt 10 years later. So, so what happened?

So here, here's kind of a redeeming story, and this is got a great twist to it. National Set Medics has really taken off, and in a decade right now we have 12,800 registered medics nationally. Wow. We've done 8,000 assignments, 20,000 time cards. Everybody gets paid on time. It's just a wonderful feeling. It's my new identity. I love doing it. Well, in the height of COVID uh, in the height of COVID we did really well because everyone needed a medic. So we kept medics working during a time when a lot of people weren't working. We were paying, you know, different people a lot of money. So I felt very proud of that. And then I ran— now Kenny had passed away several years before, uh, due to lung cancer, and I ran into his widow just by happenstance. She's like, yeah, I'm selling one of the jetpacks. And I was pretty, pretty flushed at the time, so I was like, well, geez, give me a price, I'll write you a check right now. So I bought that. I bought the training hangar. It's a great investment. And I said to myself, you know what, in the stunt world— because I'm a stuntman, that's where my origins are— you don't want your last experience to be a bad experience.

You've said that twice. It's so important.

Yeah, because what sticks in your mind is your last experience, and it loops, right? It loops.

Yeah.

And it makes you afraid of more things. So you can face your fears and overcome that, then you can face something else. You have the confidence. Yeah. So I said to myself, I'm going to fly this thing one more time just to show that my last flight wasn't a failure, because now I have the opportunity. And success If you want to have success, you need two things. You need risk and opportunity. If you don't have the opportunity, you can take the risk as much as you want, and vice versa. If, if you take the risk and there's no opportunity— I'm kind of backwards on that, but anyway, I had the opportunity, I was going to take the risk, and I said to myself, well, if I'm going to do this, let's make a documentary out of it. Let's make it kind of a nice show. Let's make, you know, make some money, get some, some money back from this. And I'd love to tell you how it turned out, but you have to see it to see if I survived.

All right, don't spoil alert. All right, yeah, you gotta see it. You gotta see if he survived, guys. You gotta watch the documentary to see if Dan survived. Did he live?

Did he not?

I love that. And I, I love this concept that has kind of fueled your life of, I don't want my last experience to be a negative one that keeps looping in my mind. So let me find a way to get back in the game. How can I get back in the game? Maybe not the same way, maybe a little bit differently. We will watch the documentary to find out how long your flight was. What exactly did you do that last time that you strapped it on?. But what I love about how you've led your life is you've said no to, I'm not going to continue this, to let this negative experience loop in my mind. And you're right, risk and opportunity. And man, friends, when an opportunity presents itself, say yes. You can figure it out later. Dan did. I did, and it paid off exponentially. Not only in, in dollars— I mean, the money comes if, if you're on the, the right energetic vibration and, and connected to whatever your source energy is— God, Goddess, Divine Source, Spirit, Universe, whatever that is for you. Um, but most importantly, um, you know, really facing your fears sounds so cliché, but have a relationship with fear.

Know where they are. Don't be on autopilot running your life out of fear without being aware of it. So let's talk about this, because you went from Rocket Man traveling the world, flying everywhere, to a very successful business owner, uh, building National Septmetics into a multi-million dollar company. So what did being the Rocket Man teach you, or how did it prepare you for leadership, for running a business? Um, and what can we learn from what you have learned in terms of having such a successful business so quickly? Really, that's quick.

This is my favorite question, and I, and I was— and, and I haven't been asked this before. You're, you're the first. When I was working for Kenny, I love him, he was a mentor, he did a lot of great things, but when it came to business, he was very frugal to the point of detriment. And there was, you know, some stuff I think I should have got paid for that I wasn't paid for. And it just created an animosity in me that grew over time. And I said, when I have my business, I'm not going to treat my medics that way. If there's a little bit of a disagreement, if it's reasonable, I'm going to give them the money. I pay them regardless if I get paid or not.

Yeah, um, you take care of the people that work for and with you. You take care of them. You have their back.

Yeah, because there's other— there's other set medic companies out there, and a lot of them— not a lot of them, but some of them— don't pay their medics. Or they say, oh, we're not going to pay you until we get paid, and then you have to wait and wait and wait. No, I don't I got a set schedule. Twice a month I send out checks. You get paid regardless. And I've been, I've been screwed out of, you know, tens of thousands of dollars, but I'm not going to take that on the medic. That's my fault.

Yeah, you're the leader.

My fault.

You're the leader.

Yeah, exactly. And then it was about how I talk to people. Um, very thankful because the way I look at it whether I'm Rocketman or I'm working at the fast food place, what I did when I was a teenager, or whatever, I'm a servant. And this goes back to more the religious part of me is I'm a servant and I'm here to provide a service. I was hired because they trusted me with their likeness, their brand, their company. And it doesn't matter how good of a pilot I was. If I wasn't a good pilot for this client— you're only as good as your last performance, your reputation is.

Yeah.

And, you know, they said they're spending tens of thousands of dollars to get me out there, and I'm making, you know, pretty good chunk of change. So I have to be focused and dialed in. On the ambulance, I'm a servant, you know. I don't care what your beliefs are. I don't care anything demographic. This person is in need. I am tasked to protect this person and to do the absolute best that I can to make sure this person survives and gets the best medical care possible. When I was working at Del Taco, when I was 15 and a half, those drinks, I made sure that they were topped off, that the ice was right, that there— because that was my task. And I was proud of everything from working at Del Taco to the ambulance to Rocketman.

Because I love that gratitude and being of service. Yes, make a great Catholic.

Yeah, yeah, that's, that starts— we're seeing that starting to be missed in today's society. The ones who have the work ethic— it's not what you know, it's your work ethic. Because you are either two things: you're an asset or you're a liability. Doesn't matter. And if you're more of a liability than an asset, you're not going to get that promotion. Are you complaining about you know, this and that, or do you just buckle down and do the work? Yeah, not that you can't have disagreements, but you know the people we're talking about that just sit there and bitch and moan, you know.

And it takes one of them to kind of suck the, the life out of the entire room.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And that's what we look for in our medics, man. If you complain a lot, all right, I'll hear you.

Might not see that's interesting hiring for attitude, not just for skill.

Most of it's attitude.

Yeah, because skill can be taught.

Yeah, what I like to say, it's, it's 90% attitude, 15% education.

So I love it. I love it. I love your math. Math was never my best thing. I was like, wait a minute, that doesn't add up right. Then we're at 105%, guys.

Hire for attitude always.

You can teach skill, my friends. You can teach skill if you're building a team. I love that, Dan. You hire for attitude. Are they willing? Are they curious? Are they ready? Are they, are they of service? I, I even say that when I'm coaching people to have healthier relationships. We are in service to one another. My, my hubby and I, we are in service. The people I love, care about, and serve. Now, not to the detriment of myself. I teach that too. If I'm running on exhaust Nobody's— you, you pour from your overflow, so everybody gets 105, I say 110% of you. So if you're at an exhaust and you need to rest, take that rest. But if you can be of service, be of service. Have the attitude of servitude.

Yeah, you know, everything we're saying, these platitudes and stuff, it's all blanket statements, but there are limits. You know, if you can't take care of yourself, how are you going to take care of someone else?

Yeah.

And so I, I like what you said. It's very well said and, and appropriate.

Yeah. Because, you know, people to get your overflow because then they're getting the best of you. So be of service to yourself first so that you can be of service to others. So your motto though, let's talk about your motto, Dan. Your motto is don't let your last experience be a bad one. Exactly. Speak into that for the people that are listening. Maybe they're, they're on that loop of— maybe it's even just a relationship. My last relationship was terrible. I'm scared to have another one.

You know, you, you look back and you say to yourself, okay, think logic, think logically, feel emotionally. You can feel emotional about something But you think logically when it comes to making decisions. Don't make decisions on emotions.

Yeah, use your frontal lobe too, guys. Yeah, yeah, that amygdala will get you in trouble sometimes.

Yes, right, because you're mad and you just want to launch into somebody and, and yell at them and stuff, but you might not know the whole story, and then you feel like an ass because you didn't you know, because you ripped somebody a new one. And, and I love that.

We don't know people's whole story, do we? No, we don't. So have some compassion, have some curiosity, have some willingness, but have the, the fortitude if it's gnawing at you to, to get back out there and try it again. Maybe try it again differently, in a different way. The next time, you know, learn from what happened before, but get back out there. I work with a lot of people who have been severely traumatized by previous relationships, and they're really scared to, to put themselves back out there, uh, for other ones. So we, we do skill work to, um, and get them in their frontal lobe, actually.

And that's where the preparation comes in. Know what to look for in red flags.

Yes, please.

What happened last time? What did you see? Trust your instincts. Yeah, they, they have a thing called women's intuition, which is spot on.

Yep. When we're listening.

When they're listening. Men have intuition too.

Yes.

But I don't think it's as finely tuned as women's intuition, tell you the truth.

It can be. It can be, but it's a skill too. It takes practice to listen to that still small voice. I'll tell you the best story I have of listening to my intuition. When I met my current husband, we were only 30 days clean, the both of us. Great idea. And I thought he was older because he grayed early. He has gray hair. Um, and he had a full beard. Well, we had already been chatting for a bit, and, uh, then I found out he was 16 years younger than me. And when I found that out, my initial reaction was, run from this as fast as you can. No way in hell this is ever going to work, right? And I still remember the moment because he was sitting on one end of the couch and I was sitting on the other end, and he had his arm up on the back of the couch And a little voice, and it was quiet, it was a quiet voice, said, 'Lean in, lean in.' So instead of kicking him out of my home and being like, 'Oh my, get out, you young boy,' I, uh, I put my hand up on the back of the couch.

And like I said, we had been chatting for a while and we hadn't touched each other yet, but our fingertips touched and it was pure electricity. So listening to that 'lean in' put me in the healthiest primary relationship of my life because I listened. But that voice was quiet and I could have very easily overridden it. And who knows? Because now we're celebrating 8 years clean together and, uh, have, uh, uh, so much fun and we still like each other. And, uh, that is the finest example of listening to women's intuition, uh, that I have.

You had an opportunity, you took a risk.

It was risky. All relationships are a risk, are they not?

They are all— yes, yes. But I mean, the, the secret to success is risk and opportunity. You had an opportunity, you took a risk. What if you decided not to listen to your intuition and not do it? Maybe be single, maybe, you know, struggling with with what—

maybe I'd be in prison. I mean, who knows? I was headed that way. I really was. We are each other's accountability partners, and we are each other's friends, and we fill each other's lives with ridiculous laughter that we could never put online, uh, which is great. Um, so yeah, but I, I— that voice, and that was the Divine saying, lean in, Lisa, lean in. And I listened, and I touched his fingertip, and it was electricity. And it's been electricity ever since. So yes, my friends, risk. Take the risk. When an opportunity presents itself, try saying yes, a soul, a soul level yes. And then you are capable of figuring it out because the opportunity was not presented to you by accident. And then I always tell people too, if there is a gnawing on your heart to do something else to be something else, to teach something else. It was not placed there by accident. That was placed there by the Divine too.

So listen, and that, and that dives into my second thing because I kind of have two little mottos. The other thing is, is it's okay to pivot. Yeah, in your 40s or your 50s, if you're in a position and it's not working for you, you can pivot. And not only can you succeed, but you can thrive.

Yeah. Yeah. I took a lot of heat in my life because I was a good pivoter. Every 2 to 3 years. Now, my corporate career was always there in the background. Hang on, Dan. I gotta plug up. I'm gonna keep talking though.

Okay.

Corporate career was always in the background, but like, I ran a Gracie Jiu-Jitsu martial arts training center. I ran a CrossFit box. I was doing all this other stuff, and my family would always be like, why can't you just stick to one thing? Well, I'm not built way. I'm just not built that way. So yeah, don't be afraid to pivot. It is never too late to pivot. So many of our guests started their journeys around 45 or 50 to get where they are now, helping people in the way they're helping people. So then, where can we find all of your juicy stuff? Where can we find your documentary, your book? Where can we find all of that?

Well, uh, best place to go is rocketman.tv.

Easy peasy.

Not .com, .tv. This is what the book looks like, The Last Rocketman. That's—

guys, you don't have to write this down. We're going to plaster everywhere with this. We're going to put all the links in here. But I love that it's easy to find. Well, Dan, before we close out, we always ask our guests 2 questions. Are you ready for the first one?

I'm ready.

All right. In your own life, what did you perform in order to survive, and how did dropping that role, that mask or performance, change your life exponentially?

Difficult question. Um, let me answer it the best way I can with what I— what's popping in my mind is that I, um I found my confidence and I feel comfortable in my own skin. I might be have the dad bod going, I may be, you know, but I'm, I'm okay with just being by myself. When I'm by myself, I like the person I'm with.

Yes.

And life is so much more about what I want, what I do You know, now I've got, you know, my son. My ex and I are great friends. We really get along good.

Oh, that's so important for your son.

Well, we made it, we made it a point. It's like, okay, it didn't work out between us, but we're going to continue to, we're going to continue to raise our son as a family and we'll get together for dinners, all of us. It's, it's really nice. Yeah, but I'm kind of getting off what, what you, what you had said. Um, and frankly, I kind of forgot.

What did you perform in order to survive?

A lot of prayer. I prayed a lot. And if, and if this was more of a, you know, Christian show, I'd tell you how I got down on my knees, face down on the floor, just prayed. But not just prayed, but I meditated. I would sit down, me personally, and I'd read the Bible and I would meditate and I was quiet.

Now, whether you believe in God or not, the universe, God, it's so important to get into your body and have that be great experiences where you're thinking about what you want, what comes next. And I love what you said This is the way I word it— same meaning, different wording. When you dig yourself— I dig myself. See, I spent 20 years drowning self-hatred in a bottle, trying to slowly kill myself. When you dig who you are as a person, when you know how you tick and click and you can articulate that to the people you love, care about, and are in service to, life changes exponentially. So enjoy your own company and use it to pray or meditate or whatever. That, that looks like for you. But that's your own personal quiet time to figure out where you're stuck and how you're going to get into forward momentum.

The, the quieter you are in your mind, the easier the answers come towards you of like, okay, and the strategies start to come through. Yes, it's silencing your mind.

So it is. I love that. I love that. All right, second question. You ready for it?

I'm ready.

All right, what do you wish we were having more conversations about and talking more about?

Um, you know what, I'm gonna say work ethic.

I love that.

Work ethic. I'm telling you what, the work ethic— not with everybody, you know, just the bad. Everyone hears the bad news, so that's what they focus on. Not everyone's like this, and I'm sure kind of a huge majority aren't. But man, when you don't have a good work ethic, you not only hurt yourself, but you hurt the person that hired you, that trusted you, the clients that trust you and depend on you. I just had a medic no-call, no-show for a huge show that we had. And now that, that hurts our reputation, that hurts.

And then everybody's in a hustle trying to figure out what to do next.

Yeah, makes us look bad, and most importantly, makes you look bad. And, and I hope that someday they send us a, um, from another company, an evaluation. How was this person to work for you?

Yeah, I'll tell you, the evaluations are going to be honest. I will say this, work ethic. I started painting— my, my father was a roofer. God rest his soul, my stepdad was a painter. I started painting spindles at 10, selling newspapers door to door at 13, working on a boat dock at 15. And I'll tell you what we did in this economy, we passed that work ethic. Now there was some trauma there, but boy oh boy, these people had some damn good work ethic. And we passed that on to my daughter who is a single young woman working 50 hours a week. She goes to work, she does a good job. She's one of their best workers and supporting herself in an economy that I feel like is trying to swallow us. Cool right now, but work ethic is so valuable. And guess what? It's where we spend a lot of our time. Why not put our best into it?

And you know, here's a little— here's the dirty little secret: it benefits you more than it benefits everyone else, because the feel of accomplishment, the feel of I did this and I did my best, yeah, will build confidence in you to take that step, to touch that finger and get that spark. It'll take that step to realize, hey, I need to change because I know I can work harder than everyone else. Yeah, I just need the opportunity.

So, and it opens up opportunities.

It does. And everyone— and you be— and you get a reputation. So you do. That's my, that's my take on it.

Well, Dan, thank you so much, Rocketman, for being our guest. We're gonna let everybody know where to find the book, where to find the documentary, so they can see not only this awesome crash video but this comeback video. What an amazing story. We value and appreciate all of our guests on here. Thank you for being one. And friends out there, don't forget to ask yourself the question in your own life. What are you performing in order to survive? And how can your life improve drastically if you were to consider dropping the role, the mask, or performance to be who you truly are? To do what Dan does, to find that quiet time so the answers will come way more easily. My friends, I promise you, you are not stuck. All right, my friends, this was our guest Dan Schlund. I am your host, Lisa Lacey. We'll see you at the edge.