From Bank Robbery to Cancer Survivor: Dan Riley’s Unbelievable Journey
Welcome to Inspired Mentor, solution focused therapists born in different decades who openly and honestly discuss their perspectives on the issues surrounding men's mental health and the things that stigma says we don't talk about.
Gary Johannes:As always, we have been joined today by Ben, Doug, and Peter, who are ever present, and we have a fantastic guest with us today. With us today, we've got Dan Riley, an author from Santa Fe. It's just I believe he says he'll introduce himself probably later. His book is Seize Your Second Chance, and it's been making some waves from what I can understand. But it's not about motoring his book or his podcast.
Gary Johannes:We're gonna have a deep dive into the powerful story behind the book and what inspired Dan to write it. So let's get straight to it. Dan, welcome to the show, and please introduce yourself and give us a little insight into who you are and what your story is. I'm really listening. If you're enjoying these conversations, don't forget to hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast platform so you'll never miss another episode.
Gary Johannes:Dan, over to you.
Dan Reilly:Thank you, Gary, and and thank you to Peter and Ben as well for giving me this opportunity and inviting me along. My name is Dan. I'm 55 years old. I live in Santa Rosa, California in The United States, which is approximately 60 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge in the San Francisco Bay Area. I currently am a volunteer and facilitator for the West Coast Esophageal Cancer Education Foundation support group.
Dan Reilly:And I I've I've lived in California for about the last thirty years. For the last twenty well, let me back up a second. Let me tell you a little bit about myself and my background. I'm married to my best friend. My wife and I have been together for about two and a half years, but we've been together for about fourteen years.
Dan Reilly:And we're a blended family. We have three adult children between the ages of 21 and 26. I've worked in the retail banking industry for about the last twenty two years, and I think that's kinda really where my story might start. I've also had an interest in health and fitness for well, really starting at the age of 17, but then reconnecting with it again at age 48 following a series of three life altering traumatic events that I that I never saw coming. Reconnecting with my health and fitness became more than just a hobby.
Dan Reilly:It was really a lifestyle change to reclaim control over my life, to to build that resistance excuse me, resilience and rediscover that part of myself that I I feel like I I've almost forgotten. A renewed sense of focus has become the cornerstone of my life, and it's now how I navigate through life. But it wasn't always. Thankfully, I did take some time to focus on myself and commit to healing long after I was faced with an esophageal cancer diagnosis. And that experience could have broken me, but instead it became a very powerful catalyst.
Dan Reilly:So let me take a a step back and share those three life altering traumatic events that really put me on the path where I am now and some of the insights that gained along the way.
Gary Johannes:We we were really excitedly looking forward to those. But one of the things which means straight away is you're gonna tell us about three life changing events, and we're all working in the industry of well-being and therapy. And most people have a single life changing event, and that's generally enough for most lifetimes. So we're really intrigued to hear about three situations you've been through and still been able to write the book. So, you know, we're really looking forward to that.
Dan Reilly:I'll tell you, I'm the type of person that I have a tendency to resist. I dig my heels in, and I will push back until the weight becomes too heavy of a burden. And that is what happened in my case. As I mentioned, I have been in retail banking for about the last twenty two years as a vice president. In February, one Saturday afternoon, about fifteen minutes before closing, an intruder came in with the intent to rob the bank, in which case he did.
Dan Reilly:I saw the person coming into the bank believing he was just another one of our clients. So I met him in the lobby of the bank where I where I briefly greeted him. He then pulled out what appeared to be a nine millimeter handgun out of a paper bag that he was carrying underneath his arm. And the distance between myself and him was less than four or five feet. And as he stretched out his arm, he had that gun pointed right at my chest.
Dan Reilly:There's a picture. I I think I sent you a picture. But in that picture, by the by the time that that picture had been snapped, I'd already taken a step back. And so in that initial moment when that was happening, life had a a tendency to spindle, manifest into something that was superficial. It was it was it was not real because things like that in in life don't aren't real.
Dan Reilly:They don't happen in life. Right? So I thought. So my initial reaction when I first saw that was I thought, I think my brothers are playing a prank on me. This wouldn't happen.
Dan Reilly:And I really thought that that was a a prank for split second until I saw his eyes. Now luckily, when I had approached him before the weapon, he had clothes and garments that were pushed up over his face and his nose. And I thought it was a bit unusual to be bundled up having multiple layers of clothing on in early September. So I when I approached him and greeted him, I then asked him to remove those garments from his face, in which case he did. He pulled them down under from his nose, tucked them underneath his chin, had a brief conversation with me, and gave us all some instructions.
Dan Reilly:Kinda happened like it does in the movies where he said, everybody get down on the floor. This is a robbery. That really happened. But by the time he approached the teller window, he forgot to put his garments back up over his face. Luckily, because ultimately in the end, that's what got him caught.
Dan Reilly:He was a fortunately, he was a career criminal, and he was only out for one thing, which was the money in the bank. So very traumatic event. I then had to work with law enforcement over the next several hours. That weekend, it was a Saturday. So that weekend, my wife had gone to visit family about two hours away, and I was the only one left in the house that weekend.
Dan Reilly:So I went home. And, by the time I got home, it was about 08:00. I had stopped off at the corner store, and I picked up couple bottles of wine, couple packs of cigarettes, vats of ice cream, and potato chips, and all sorts of snacks and sugar. I went next door, and I I got a big extra large cheese pizza. It's my favorite thin crust.
Dan Reilly:And between 8PM Saturday night and 4AM Sunday morning, I consumed all of that. I never went to sleep. I didn't call anybody. I didn't text anybody. I sat in my house with the doors locked and the lights off, wondering if I was gonna be safe.
Dan Reilly:And so I fed that anxiety with all those things from the corner store that night. And that was really how I was kinda living my life to that point anyway. It was a way that I I buried and suppressed all those emotions throughout my life. My grandmother had bouts of depression as I was growing up because my mother passed away when I was six months old, and my mother was an only child. And my grandmother when when my grandparents lost my mother at just before her 20 birthday, it life shifted for them.
Dan Reilly:So I saw depression, anxiety up up close in my earlier years. But this moment at the bank was a moment that I could get out of my mind. I didn't know how to deal with, so I didn't. I left it alone. It was was like a very heavy rock Mhmm.
Dan Reilly:That I just stuffed in my backpack and continued on my journey. It was easy to ignore it because if I didn't ignore it, excuse me, if I ignored it and didn't talk about it and share it, it didn't exist or did become real to me. Three weeks later, we had our first California wildfire in fifty years. Devastating. In the middle of the night, about 01:30 in the morning, my wife and I and kids had to evacuate our house.
Dan Reilly:Fire was just over the ridge, and it was a very, very windy October night. The fire was moving very quickly. But at 01:30 in the morning, you don't have a sense of seeing something like that. My wife was alerted and and ran downstairs because neighbors were driving through the neighborhood blaring their car horns, and we thought because it was a a holiday weekend, we thought it was just kids partying in the neighborhood. It turned out that it was concerned neighbors alerting us to evacuate.
Dan Reilly:And so we had to evacuate for eleven days. And so we were out of the house not knowing if the house existed and not knowing if everything that we owned had survived, but we did know that we were okay. So that was February. During the fires, while we had evacuated and living with our best friends, stores were closed. The world had shut down to us anyway because it was on fire, and this is even before the pandemic.
Dan Reilly:So sheltering in place and n 95 masks were the really the first time that I heard that lingo, that terminology. And so we sheltered in place safely while the wildfires were burning. But one evening at dinner, I passed down. I nodded off, and my friend, Greg, who's in the medical industry, had noticed that something was wrong. I thought it was just from stress.
Dan Reilly:The stress of not knowing if everything that you value Yeah. Is safe. We didn't know if we were safe because we had we had to pick up and move multiple times. So I just thought it was the stress of being exhausted. He realized that I was having trouble breathing.
Dan Reilly:And so a little after 9PM, he decided he was gonna take me to urgent care to get me checked out. The problem was is that there was no facilities available. Fires were burning. People were seriously hurt. I was embarrassed that I was even being considered to be looked after by by doctors or nurses because I felt that there were so many other people that really needed their attention.
Dan Reilly:Low and behold, about midnight that night, we found a local regional hospital, and they did some tests and it turned out. Then I had COPD. COPD wasn't just from all the things that I was inhaling, the toxins that that were in the smoke and the air and the ash that had been falling during that period. But it was my lifestyle prior to that. I didn't take care of myself very well.
Dan Reilly:About six months later. About six months later. Life was continuing to go on. The fires were now extinguished, and we were looking to rebuild. Our community was looking to rebuild.
Dan Reilly:Luckily, our house stood still, but there was a lot to recover from. So during that time, my my wife was really concerned about the things that we had just gone through and my own health, and she was trying to encourage me to lose some weight, change my diet, be more active. And I had all these excuses. I said, how are we gonna find time to be active and go to the gym and find a workout routine when we get home at 07:00 at night, we're so exhausted. We barely have enough energy to eat dinner before we go to bed.
Dan Reilly:And she came back with, well, let's go in the morning. Said, I'm not a morning person. I can't get up that early. She said, well, we're gonna figure it out, but we're gonna do it together. So the first thing that we're gonna do is we're gonna we're gonna eat healthier.
Dan Reilly:Problem was we didn't know what eating healthy really meant. I mean, you see all these diet plans that are available, and there's so much information out there that's actually even contradictory to each other that it was just overwhelming. It was overload. So I said, that's too much trouble. I don't know what I'm do and so I chose not to.
Dan Reilly:She was very persistent. And so one week, we decided we were gonna eat fish and vegetables every night for dinner. That was gonna be our diet plan, fish and vegetables. We didn't change how or what we eat throughout the rest of the day. We didn't plan.
Dan Reilly:We didn't meal plan in advance. We didn't do anything different other than fish and vegetables for a week. And I love fish and vegetables, but it got old really quick. So that game plan was not sustainable.
Gary Johannes:I think I think you just described most people's lifestyle. It's like, I wanna get fit. I can't do this, and I can't do that. And, oh, I don't do mornings or I don't do evenings. And every diet plan is, oh, but but but so I think you're amongst or then was amongst everybody else.
Gary Johannes:Certainly me.
Dan Reilly:That was that was it. And at at the time, I was let's see. I was in my late forties. So I was about 48 years old. I was not living a very healthy lifestyle, know how, and didn't have the time to learn.
Dan Reilly:I was considered by my doctor morbidly obese, 35% body fat. I was eighty pounds heavier than I am now, and I had no intention of changing anything. I just looked at life as if it was a natural progression of what we go through. We're young. We have we build some experience and gain some insights along the way, and then we'd be into our third chapter in life, and things just happen.
Dan Reilly:We just get older. My my wife kept insisting that I had a different I could make different choices in life and map out a different plan. So with her encouragement, with the encouragement of our dear friends who housed us during the time of the fires, I decided to open up and listen to my inner circle. And my wife and I, we decided to join a gym. And my good friend, Greg, who is in the pharmaceutical industry, had been a fitness coach in the past.
Dan Reilly:And so I did reach out to him for help, but I knew that he had resources that I could dive right into. And he had a friend, and his friend's name was Ace. And Ace is a professional bodybuilder, also a fitness coach and gym owner in the area. So I had an opportunity to meet Ace. And Ace and I, we talked for a little bit, and I really connected with Ace.
Dan Reilly:There's something about Ace that put me to his his friendship, so to speak. And so he agreed to train me. And I I for the first, I I spent three years with Ace every week. But I'll tell you that first ninety days, I only did it to appease my wife. I even told because at the time, I was drinking two bottles of wine with dinner every night.
Dan Reilly:And that very first introduction when I sat with Ace, and he said, well, let's see if let's see if we can get you down to one bottle a night. And I think that would be pretty good progress. And I thought, I'm actually working my way up to three bottles a night. We're going in the wrong direction, but let's see what happens because I have no intent of continuing this on past ninety days. I was gonna give it ninety days.
Dan Reilly:I was hoping to lose 10 pounds, and then I was gonna be done. And so that I could at least show my wife that I made the effort. As I started to work with Ace, I felt physically different. Having a very simple plan, fifteen minutes of cardio, four to five exercises that I would perform in three sets became very doable. I don't wanna say easy because mentally, there's so much that goes into committing to that.
Dan Reilly:But the physical activity, as long as you show up, you're gonna be successful. And so I started to physically feel different. Just noticed, and their acknowledgment and recognition gave me the inspiration and motivation to keep moving forward and keep working on myself. Ultimately, I ended up losing about 75 pounds over the course of about eighteen to twenty four months. And I felt good.
Dan Reilly:I was eating healthy. I learned how to eat healthy. I come from a very large Irish Italian family, and and those Italian food is is America's comfort food, but it's not always it's not always health. And it's not always in portions that that are really designed for individuals. Right?
Gary Johannes:I think the biggest question I've got right now is are you still eat just eating fish and vegetables? Is that how you did it? For $3.04
Dan Reilly:So I am still I am still eating fish and vegetables, but now it's a little different. Now I'll I'll I'll I'll share I'll I'll share what I'm doing now. But the more that I worked on myself and the more that I worked with ACE, I felt good. So I realized that there's gotta be something more. Once I lost all that weight and I started feeling good, I realized, you know what?
Dan Reilly:Maybe I can go out and help somebody else. So I started putting a coaching plan together to help other people like me who live a very busy lifestyle. I was gonna coach and help them lose weight. And then I realized I had so much more work to do because every time I tried to tell my story, I started to break down and weep. I couldn't tell my story without becoming too emotional.
Dan Reilly:And it wasn't because the story was sad. I felt this overwhelming sense of gratitude as where I the little bit of progress that I felt like I had and I had such passion to share that with other people. My own story became overwhelming. So I realized I had more work to do. This time, it wasn't physical.
Dan Reilly:This time, it was mental. And so I reached out and consulted with a therapist. Wasn't the first time I've been to therapy. I've been to therapy in in the past. I'm I'm I'm divorced.
Dan Reilly:So our family went through family counseling, mediation. But this was really the first time I met with therapist for me. It was about me. In those other sessions, it was about family and group and dynamics. This time, it was just about me, which was incredibly uncomfortable, but incredibly exciting at the same time.
Dan Reilly:Because I knew that I was in a safe environment, but the things that I felt like I probably needed to talk about, I never talked about openly out loud to anybody else other than my father.
Benn Baker-Parker:How did your therapist approach that, Dan? Was that a a question and answer kind of situation, or was it that they sat in silence and just listened? How did your therapy work?
Dan Reilly:Yeah. So, you know, they ask those open ended questions, those discovery questions. Tell me a little bit about yourself. And so we started off that way. We I started telling her a little bit about my background.
Dan Reilly:She wanted to hear about my family dynamics. I shared that my mother had passed away when I was six months old and and, the sense of emptiness that I had a tendency to carry around throughout life. She wanted to hear about the relationship that I have the relationship that I have with my parents. I have very, loving parents. I'm very grateful for them.
Dan Reilly:And so when she asked those discovery questions, was really just tell me about you. And then we started diving into kinda each one of those those sections of things that maybe I just never really acknowledged in the past. One of the things that she mentioned is every time I had a traumatic experience in my life, like seeing my grandmother suffer from anxiety and depression, actually having to be hospitalized because of it, Going through electric shock therapy back in the seventies and eighties for it. The the disconnect, that I had with some some family members growing up because of those dynamics.
Benn Baker-Parker:Yeah.
Dan Reilly:The the the end of my the end of my first marriage, and the trials that that, that we went through then. So all these things in therapy we talked about. And each one of those, she said, was like a rock that I stuffed in my backpack of life, and I just continued on. And what we need to do now is we need to put that backpack down, and we need to unpack it. We need to pull out each one of those heavy rocks that you've been carrying around, and we need to examine it.
Dan Reilly:I told her that was too much. I don't know if I could do that. Go ahead. She said when we do that, when we bring close to us, when we bring it forward, it becomes less scary. And after session, I believed her.
Dan Reilly:I knew she was right. That's the reason why now I can talk about these things openly. One of the things I learned from her was how to journal. I'm a very poor writer. I'm a banker.
Dan Reilly:Math and science make sense to me. So putting things down on paper was not something I was accustomed to. I didn't wanna do it. She told me to go get a journal and start journaling. I refused to even buy a journal because I didn't wanna tell anybody I was journaling.
Dan Reilly:So I bought a spiral ring notebook instead. I figured if I'm writing in a notebook, it's not the same thing as journaling. Yeah. And now I have stacks of spiral ring binders with with notes. And what I did is cultivated those note notes over the course of four years, and I put them in my book.
Benn Baker-Parker:Wow. Okay.
Dan Reilly:Seize your second chance. And the book is really about taking that next opportunity in life. And when you're presented at a crossroads, for me, I could either panic or I could change the course of my life. I chose to do something different. And it wasn't as easy as just saying it.
Dan Reilly:Took work and months of work and and and the time that the bank robbery occurred, that was September 2017. Here we are in 2025. So it's only been now that I've been able to talk about this openly, and there's a lot of work that went into that. But journaling and writing those things down, what I did is I recorded the insights as I went through this journey because that was the legacy that I wanted to leave to my children in case something happened to me. Through that journey, through the transformation that I went through after those three very traumatic events, unbeknownst to me, prepared me for an esophageal cancer diagnosis, which I just got in May of twenty twenty three.
Dan Reilly:Stage three esophageal cancer, which is I had a about a four inch tumor, 10 centimeters. Had to give you an idea, 10 centimeters. Your esophagus is about 20 centimeters. So my tumor was half the size of my esophagus. But the work that I did, not knowing I was preparing for a cancer journey, the work that I did according to my thoracic surgeons, and I had two of them, told me that's what saved my life.
Dan Reilly:Losing the 75 pounds, changing my lifestyle to be more healthy and active, prepared my body to physically get ready for that surgery, and that very harsh treatment that I went through for about six months. Today, I believe I have a very I have a very abundant life ahead of me. Thankfully, I took time to focus on myself and commit to healing prior to my diagnosis and reconnecting with my health fitness because that's that's what's ultimately changed the course of my life, that saved my life. And now I'm in a position where I have so much energy that I'm like a wellspring wanting to bubble up and give back. And through that, it's not just about the book and the story that's in the book, about those three traumatic wake up calls, about my transformation, about the esophageal cancer diagnosis and awareness that I'm trying to raise.
Dan Reilly:But I have so much energy now that I'm looking to to give back in ways that I never thought I I never thought I had the capacity to give back to. But honestly, what I really hope to keep doing is having more conversations like this. Yes. Not just about raising awareness of cancer, but having more conversations, sharing stories like this because I didn't come out unscathed. I didn't come out unharmed, but I did come out on the other end alive.
Gary Johannes:Right.
Dan Reilly:And I have my scars. And at this point now, what I'm really hoping is that I can share my story in hopes it's it's gonna help someone else.
Gary Johannes:Well, one of the things we set out to do from day one, and the reason we call it inspired meant was we can't change everything all the time. But if one person who is struggling in any shape or form listens to you and how you've got through it, maybe lose some weight or have some resistance or resilience or whatever it is, so one person connect to that and change their forward momentum to a more positive track, that's the only reason we do that. And we can't do that alone. So we're very grateful that you shared that story. We're gonna ask you some questions now.
Gary Johannes:I don't know what the other guys do. We don't have any plans as as you always as we tell everybody. But I'd like to maybe understand, most people would fall over at any one of those. I I've spoken to people who've been in those confrontational situations where that's changed their life and altered their life negatively. I've been talked to clients who have had lost everything through fire, famine, or flood, and they never really recovered themselves.
Gary Johannes:And as a cancer survivor myself, I see so many people who once they've been in that situation, they're always sitting there waiting for it to come back, and they never lived their life because they're still waiting. Which one of those things has led you to hear? Or or was it a build up? Or, you know, because you took action at the end, but would you have took action if you only had one?
Dan Reilly:Wow. That's a great question. I don't know if I would have taken action if I would only had because after the robbery, I took no action. In fact, I really didn't take any action after the the three wake up calls for six to eight months, I think. I don't think I would have taken any action if it hadn't been for my inner circle of of of family and friends that were allow that to just live in my head quietly because as long as it stayed in my head, it didn't exist in real life.
Dan Reilly:So I don't know. One of the things that I was inspired by to actually to commit to was when I was writing the book, I realized that if something should happen to me at this point, and I lived through those those nights where you can't sleep dreadful thoughts of taking my last breath, and what is got what is that gonna what is that moment gonna look like for me? I talk about that very candidly in the book. But I don't if it wasn't for my cancer diagnosis, I don't know if I would have actually have would have completed the book. And I think that I would have made some small lifestyle changes because of the way that it makes me feel physically, But I don't know if I would have had a purpose, a committed purpose.
Dan Reilly:I'm very driven right now for the work that I'm now in life, which is bringing awareness to esophageal cancer, raising money for research, and really talking to the medical community as well as family members, patients, caregivers, and other survivors on a regular basis. That's the work I'm truly passionate about. So would I have gone through the transformation if it was just one incident? I'm not really sure. Would I be doing what I'm doing now if it was only for one of those?
Dan Reilly:I'm not I'm not really sure. What I do know is that I didn't go from zero to 60 quickly. I took baby steps because I in the very beginning, it was easy to ignore and to do nothing because going to zero to 60 for me was quite frankly impossible. I knew I couldn't do that successfully. But one of the things that helped through Ace's fitness coaching, through the therapists' conversation and and consulting, I also opened up it with my spiritual faith.
Dan Reilly:I'm a Catholic growing up, so I went back and I sought spiritual counseling from our local priest. So when I put those things together, the physical transformation, the mental transformation I work I did with the counselor, the spiritual transformation work I did with my local priest, and you put those things together is what brought me here. And each one of them shared with me baby steps. How you could take small incremental steps to improve over time instead of trying to take big leaps and bounds, trying to start a health and fitness journey when when you're, you know, you're you're still not ready to do that. So running out tomorrow to do a five mile hike or five mile run when you've been so living a sedentary life doesn't really work too well.
Dan Reilly:Same thing with the journey that I went through. I had to take those small incremental steps, and I think that's what helped. And one of those things that put me and gave me the capacity to do that, starting to journal little by little. I started with writing on post it notebook pages, and then I transitioned those into, spiral ring binders.
Gary Johannes:How And
Dan Reilly:that helped. And continuing to talk to somebody.
Benn Baker-Parker:How deep did you go on your journaling, Dan? Did you was it, like, you know, a quick bullet point, something that stuck in your mind for the day, or was it whatever your thoughts had popped up? Was it, you know there's lots of different variations of Journey. Now how deep did that go?
Dan Reilly:Yeah. It it it went pretty deep for a while. Like, I purposely didn't write things down that were too deep because I didn't want anybody else to see them, much less myself. But sometimes I would have something that popped up, and I would always write it down on a on a quick post it note, and then I would put it aside in my binder for later.
Benn Baker-Parker:Okay.
Dan Reilly:Sometimes I would revisit that if I had a thought driving down the road or I do some of my best thinking in the shower first thing in the morning or if I somebody else told me a story that I connected with. I then took that that that I wrote down, and I began to elaborate. And when they became three and four post it notes at a time, I then transitioned those to the journal and then started writing really just in bullet point form, not even in in full on paragraphs and sentences just to get it down on paper. And then sometimes I would go back and I would share that and get some input. But really was I had a thought.
Dan Reilly:I wrote it down. If I didn't think about it again for a month or two, I kinda felt like I was done with that. If it was something that continued to surface, I I dove into that a little bit more. And so some of those early childhood stories, I dove very deep into because those were things that I I had not acknowledged earlier on, and I felt like I had a a lot of work to catch up on to do that. Through my cancer diagnosis and treatment, I actually wrote in real time.
Dan Reilly:So as I was going through it, I was writing. That was a that was quite the different experience because I would go to treatment or I would go to a doctor's appointment. I would immediately come home and write down what just occurred. So I didn't wanna lose that. I would go pretty deep.
Benn Baker-Parker:Can you talk about in your in obviously, you mentioned it in relation to your book, how to craft a legacy, how to build your resilience and improve your positive thinking in your mindset. How do you do that? What what what's your strategy for that?
Dan Reilly:At the moment that I thought I was going to die, that I was not going to be here for my children in my golden years. Everything else in life became irrelevant. The things that bubbled up to the surface were a sense of feeling loved, a sense of peace, belonging, not feeling helpless, realizing that life challenges all of us in different ways, and we can embrace those challenges where we can resist against them. And when I resisted against them is when they became worse for me. So what I wanted to leave behind were those insights that I learned through life, that if my children were ever in a situation that was very stressful, caused a lot of anxiety, and they were at a crossroads, I wanted to put something down on paper, not just as my way of something that was endearing of family stories to leave behind, but real true lessons that they could take away and maybe use this as a playbook or as a guide.
Dan Reilly:One of the things that I I talk about in the book during the time that I was with my, or one of the therapists that I was with, I was really concerned because I thought I had PTSD from from these events that I had been through, which originally inspired me to or I I don't know if it inspired me. Maybe inspired my wife to continue to encourage me. But but really what then gave me the capacity to be open was when I found post traumatic growth. I'm not post traumatic growth is something that I came across as I was going through the counseling sessions with with my therapist because I wanted to know if I had PTSD, which she claimed that I didn't, but there was some resemblance of things that I had gone through, that resembled PTSD. So I wanted to know what the opposite of PTSD was.
Dan Reilly:And what I learned was the opposite of post traumatic stress, post traumatic growth. And doctor Richard Tedeschi out of in in North Carolina, I believe in 1992 or 1993, him and his partner, doctor Calhoun, had discovered post traumatic growth. And when I found the five pillars of post traumatic growth, I used that as my guide, as my road map for my transformation. That's what helped me. So I went from a period of high anxiety and high stress, not taking care of myself, not even understanding what self care actually meant specifically for men, then going through a transformation, a physical transformation of losing 75 and feeling healthier, feeling the energy that I now have to get.
Dan Reilly:The mental work came from not just working with my therapist, but have a better understanding of post traumatic growth, and that left the road map. The road map of those five pillars is what I used then as this this guide. And and pillar number five is is deepened spiritual awaken. And, basically, what that really what that really means to me is being able to have a better understanding of my emotional landscape. I was an angry kid growing up.
Dan Reilly:I got into a lot of fights, but I think that was the way that I was the way that I let that energy go. And and now today, it's it's different. I I'm still eating fish and and vegetables for dinner. Not every night, but it's definitely part of my well balanced plan and lifestyle change. So through a healthy lifestyle, you know, eating single ingredient foods, paying attention to healthy proteins and complex carbs and the right fruits and vegetables to eat.
Dan Reilly:Still journaling. Having conversations like this, praying every morning. Those are the things that sustain me and allows me to that passionate work that I'm I'm so committed to to following through with.
Gary Johannes:Thank you. Dan, we're getting really near to the end now because we've already been going nearly an hour, forty nine minutes. So I'm gonna change it up a little bit and ask actually Peter because what actually from that amazing story, what struck him? What Before
Dan Reilly:I jump
Gary Johannes:in Peter, if you were to And
Peter Ely:thank you for your
Gary Johannes:take what you got from that and maybe a check for anybody listening from that.
Peter Ely:Incredible. I've looked at a traumatic incident, not a bank I've been through a traumatic incident and did exactly the same thing. Went home Right? Did exactly the same thing. But in that story, I don't know if you reckon for me, hero, because you were so calm when that guy walked in.
Peter Ely:You got him to drop. And that's what you caught him with. You story. And I love that. You acknowledged your wife because coming through your story seems so important in everything that taught.
Peter Ely:And and I think that was amazing as well. So yeah. That that was that's kind of to it. That was kind of things that I took away. I have two questions for you before I give my kind of a bit of a test, if that's right, Gary.
Peter Ely:My question of you is this. You've obviously been through, and we now we talk about our solutions in life. How we move forward. So what brings you joy now, and how do you keep connected to that every single day?
Dan Reilly:What brings me joy now is the passion that I have from this journey. I am a facilitator for cancer support group. In fact, we just had our support group Zoom call last night. I get a chance to talk to people from around the world and hear their stories, offer some insights and hope. We have two thoracic surgeons on that call so people can call in and ask doctors directly about their own experience.
Dan Reilly:I'm also an executive committee member for the organization, and the work that we're doing throughout the country right now is I'm I'm so connected with. And and what I found is that the esophageal cancer community is actually a very small community. So I feel like I can actually truly make an impact by sharing my story, continuing to have conversations, and talk about what matters most. And in in in my world, it's all about early detection. Early detection saves lives, and that is the message that I'm standing on my soapbox talking about through my megaphone.
Dan Reilly:But I would also just like to say that talking to someone and and my wife first, it was my wife and then my therapist to unpack that backpack for the life altering events that essentially cleared the the way for the storm that that I went through. So life is gonna continue to throw us challenges, and when they come, we just wanna be prepared for them. I feel I believe that I have the capacity to take on that next challenge, whatever that may be. Hopefully, it's not another cancer diagnosis, but if it is, I'm in a good place mentally and physically and spiritually to take on whatever I get thrown. And I'm sure to to I agree.
Dan Reilly:You a 100% record that and share that with my kids in hopes that I'll be able to leave those insights behind as as my legacy.
Peter Ely:Lot of men to do. But, you know, once we do it, we know the benefits of it. But you you talked about all of the things that we talk about to our client, Gary, and Ben recognize it. The baby steps. Loved the fact that you said, going to 60 miles an hour, it was too much.
Peter Ely:And it's very much what we talk about, and you take each individual step as it comes. So you you are almost the the poster for a solution focused approach for changing everything. And I'm sure whatever comes up, you will definitely be able to manage it. Amazing. Sorry.
Peter Ely:Yeah. Gary, what was your question again? You you're on mute, mate.
Dan Reilly:Thank you.
Peter Ely:Yeah.
Gary Johannes:Well, I think you've just rounded up beautifully. So I think you've answered the question about what did what stuck out for you and what you're saying. It was a great question. I'm gonna move on to Ben because I'm trying to hurry up us up a bit because we're nearly out of time. So, Ben, what what part of the story really resonated with you, and what tips would you give to anyone listening?
Benn Baker-Parker:So I think I I'm gonna take the entire story because there's so much in there. And I think what comes out of that is a really important lesson that we often overlook those simple simple things, worthwhile lessons in life that are probably the smallest overlooked, that actually teaches a really important and valuable lesson that and to quote Wayne Dyer's, if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. And if we focus on the positive element of it, and we take it in a bite sized chunk, doesn't matter what comes your way, you can overcome it. And more importantly, you can grow from it and become resilient on the other side. And, okay, that's sometimes difficult to appreciate when you're in that moment.
Benn Baker-Parker:You know, when you have just had your bank robbed or you you you're running out your house in the early hours of the morning because there's a wildfire there. They're not the times that that perhaps is gonna always kick in and the reflection's going to occur. But if we take the time to reflect and look at it properly, and look at what we can take away in the positive, we can build that growth and that ability to be resilient in the
Dan Reilly:future.
Gary Johannes:Yeah. That's cool. So for me, what Dan was stuck out was I mean, it's an amazing story, and you've been through so much and come through the other side so well. But, actually, so much of it was done with others in mind. In fact, with others as the driving force.
Gary Johannes:And, interestingly, some of us are very self led. We're almost selfish, but we're self led. Other people, and I see myself this way a little bit, you're definitely this way. It's about appeasing or actually pleasing other people. What you do, you do it for other people.
Gary Johannes:Because if it was just to do it for you, you probably wouldn't do so much. But to keep everybody else well or on track, then you'll do it. So you took up doing the exercise and the weight loss to appease your wife, and then you realize, if it's still I'm enjoying this. But you've done it for someone else, and then it's like without the my peer group, my local group, my caring group of friends and family, that's what moved me forward. So some of us have got to recognize that we do things for other people rather than ourselves, and it's okay to do things for other people.
Gary Johannes:It can still move us forward. And I think a lot of people think we've gotta do it for ourselves. Gotta get up. Gotta do it for ourselves. Actually, it still works if we want to help other people or please other people because we catch it.
Gary Johannes:We get it. So, you know, I think your story's great, and this podcast will resonate with so many different people in a slightly different way to many of the other podcasts we've done. So I really enjoy that. We're nearly out of time then, so you've got thirty seconds to tell us about your book and how people can contact you on social media or any other way they wanna get a hold of you, what you can be got by. So
Dan Reilly:Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for inviting me. This has been exhilarating and inspiring, and I'm so glad that we got a chance to connect. You can see more information on www.danielpriley.com. There's some great resources there, not only about esophageal cancer, but also about the book.
Dan Reilly:There's a universal link that you can click on, and you can actually even read the first 20 pages. There's a sneak peek. So if you're curious and you wanna take a look, take a look at those those first 20 pages. This has been so incredible. And the one thing that I will say, Gary, just to wrap up, is you're absolutely right.
Dan Reilly:In the very beginning, I think I did it to appease other people. But then once I hit 60 miles an hour, I was on autopilot, and now they can't stop me. And that's that's what's so inspiring because I really feel that this is so much bigger than me. Hopefully, it's about making real change for all of us.
Gary Johannes:Well, thank you. And we're really pleased you got off the start line so you could get up to 60 miles an hour. So, guys, do you wanna say a farewell?
Benn Baker-Parker:Yeah. Thank you, Dan. Really inspiring the story. Loved every minute of it, and thank you for coming to another podcast.
Peter Ely:Yeah. Thank you very much.
Benn Baker-Parker:You know, I'm sure
Peter Ely:was a fantastic spend a bit more time reading the book starting my book.
Benn Baker-Parker:Getting to a bit more about
Peter Ely:your story. You've inspired me a little bit.
Dan Reilly:Thank you so much, Ben.
Peter Ely:Harder. So thank you. Thank you very much.
Dan Reilly:Thank you, Peter. You're so kind.
Gary Johannes:So that's it today for today's episode of Inspired Men Talk. Dan, thank you so much for sharing your journey and the story behind Seize Your Second Chance. Bad book. It's been truly inspiring to hear about your experiences and the lessons you've learned along the way. Certainly, someone you know, I've already started looking up, you know, the five pillars.
Gary Johannes:That's gonna help. That's gonna be great. Just so every anybody listening who's tuned in to this podcast, if today's conversation with you, please share this episode with a friend who might need some inspiration right now. And don't forget to hit subscribe or to follow us on, whatever podcast system we're using so you'll never miss out on one of these powerful stories and practical insights. We'll be back soon with another incredible guest.
Gary Johannes:Until then, take care and thank you, and keep moving forward. Look how far down can come. We can get up to 60 miles too. Thank you. Bye bye.
