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Turning Layoffs into Launchpads: David McKee's Mindset Mastery · Better Together

• speaker-0: Hey everyone, and welcome back to Better Together, the podcast where we share the stories, the lessons, and the practical advice from founders and leaders to help you grow your business. I'm your host, Sean Sunswold, and I am joined as always by my partner in business and in life, Kelly Sunswold. And today's guest is David McKee. And David's stories, admittedly, is probably one of the biggest plot twists we've ever had as a guest on the show. So three months after getting married on Halloween, David got laid off from his full-time job. Most would be unhappy. He called it Divine Redirection. He's the founder of Another Angle Coaching, where he works as a fractional CFO and mindset coach, helping small business owners and creatives get control of their finances and their headspace all at the same time. His path there started literally by literally driving around his hometown with a phone book, figuring out which mom and pop business could and could not afford a full-time accountant. And he built a business to serve them anyway. David also runs a nonprofit music label that happened out of COVID, and he helps creatives work through mental health struggles through that music. And he's got a book coming out later this year, also called Navigating the Noise. So today we're going to be talking with David about turning a layoff into a launch pad, why he calls it control the controllables, and how his family's mental health story shaped the way he coaches others through their own mental health struggles. So David. Thanks for being here. Welcome to the show. I'm super excited to have you on today. speaker-1: Thank you so much for having me. What an intro. I I really appreciate all of that. speaker-0: Yeah, of course, man. It's well deserved from what I know of you so far. So let's do this. Let's just kind of talk about what that initial story was. Let's go to the phone book moment, right? You know, you're driving around, you got the phone book, you're sizing up different businesses and looking at who can and who cannot afford a full-time accountant. So what made you kind of do that? And, you know, what made you trust your instinct to just keep building from that? speaker-1: Yeah. So it was twenty fourteen and I had a back injury. And as a result of that back injury, I had capp and fever after about forty eight hours. So I I don't sit well with a lot of time on my hands. As a result, I ended up ⁓ looking what could I do locally and how could I serve my community? And what I found was I was looking around. I knew there were a lot of sm ⁓ smaller mom and pop type businesses, and I knew how much I made as a normal accountant and every business that I had worked within. There was always a feeling like whether they only work at the CPA and they paid too much, or they were paying some type of bookkeeper, junior controller, controller. And it usually was above what they really could afford. So watching that and seeing that happen in business with other businesses that I worked with, I audited and went kind of went through ⁓ with my prior roles, I realized all right, there might be a little gap here. And it was my way of I was doing remote work in twenty fourteen before it became a real positive thing with or a real big thing with COVID. So I I jumped into that and then started working with these local businesses and asking them just the honest side of it of do you know what accounting is? And helping them not just view the numbers or do the work, but understand it and give them flexibility. I let them know, which is the honest truth. I say this in almost every client meeting and every interview I've done. I've worked with a lot of accountants and this is not saying anything bad about accountants, but I'd say about ninety percent of them are really great historians. They can really only tell you what's happened in the past. But How does that past affect right now? And then how do you leverage that for the future? And going through that and realizing that I always thought that way. And not a lot of accountants do. So that was my differentiator. I was able to kind of go to these businesses and ask, what's the plan? What's the game plan? Like, and a lot of them, it was just how can we get to next month or next quarter? And I realized just how essentially they were businesses. Like when people talk living paycheck to paycheck, these businesses were living month to month. And so this was something that I felt like I could help them get the confidence, get the knowledge. ⁓ whenever you have knowledge, there's power behind that. And how could they feel confident with their numbers and actually know what they mean when they pulled up QuickBooks, not just saying, ⁓ this is this number this month? Where were the differentiators? What could help them and where were the key underlying factors of where waste was going on expenses or anything along that line? So really dug in, and that's where I built my accounting side of the practice. And it really was only designed to be a part-time thing for me. ⁓ for the longest time I did it just because I was on Workers Cop. I mentioned the injury that I had. And I was just trying to bridge the gap of the money that I was making to I was making a whole lot less with Workers Cop overnight. How could I bridge that gap and and try to get back to even? ⁓ so yeah, it was ⁓ going into that and to bridge this story of that's what I did. It was always just a part-time side hustle ⁓ that people like to kind of call that until I had that layoff ⁓ last October. And when that happened, that's when I really won I had this just internal feeling in the past, anytime. Any if there was a layoff or any type of issue like that, I would have this not in my stomach type feeling of where's where's this gonna work? Almost like my body was demanding answers right now of how is this all gonna happen? How am how am I gonna lay this all out? And I didn't have that feeling. I should have, but I didn't. I just had this confidence of this is right path, right way, and I'm on where I'm supposed to be and something's gonna work out. And it was the best thing that ever happened to me. So it's ⁓ I've never been happier on that end and The coolest part about it is I've been doing this mindset coaching now, ⁓ since you mentioned during the COVID times, it started with music and then I branched out into business with the coaching side with the fractional CFO work. And by doing that, when I got laid off, I leaned into exactly what I would give my clients to do. I treated myself like a client and I walked through what can I control? And I'm big on that of when things are really bad, I think this is a great way to look at life regardless. But especially when things are bad, what can you control and what can't you control? Diagnose that and see where it's at. I looked at my view of that point and I knew what I could control is if I got an interview tomorrow, I don't want to be a sad sack. I don't want to be the person who's claiming or reactive or everything woe is me type mentality. I want them to feel the energy that I naturally have on an almost everyday basis. And I want them to know how excited I am to talk to them. So that's what I knew I could control. I could wake up every morning and and have that energy and be ready for when that moment came and be prepped for it. And that's I I I'm a big believer in we always have opportunities in front of us, but so many of us are either too upset, too sad, too anxiety ridden, or too depressed that we are so in a fear, flight or flight kind of mentality with our brain that our vision's just not big enough to kind of see those opportunities. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's really good. I mean, that was just That was a lot. And thank you so much for sharing your story. No, like in an awesome way. It's just like, you know, that that ⁓ that divine redirection, you know. ⁓ so let's kind of dig into that a little bit. So was that divine redirection clarity immediate or was that something that you had to kind of like work into your life? speaker-2: So definitely had speaker-1: work into it. It took a lot of ⁓ and it's a lot of the training that I do now is ⁓ how do we lower cortisol? I think that that's a big problem in society today. I think people are not really conscious of the fact that there's a lot of things in their lives that naturally stress them out. Whether it's as like whether no matter what side you are politically, if you watch news in America, a lot of it is really designed if you watch it, it's to get a reaction out of people. It's telling you how to feel that you should be angry about this or you should be outraged and these type of mentalities. And When you're a stressed out society, it's just easy to kind of fall into those type of patterns. So it was really working into I had that high stress for a long time in my life. And that's where I I related that stomach issue is I get a clarity in my stomach, and I've realized that more and more of if I get a twisting kind of sick feeling, I need to notice it. My body's trying to tell me something. And I kept waiting for that feeling after the layoff. And I just had this confidence in my stomach of that there was no. Anxiety, there was nothing. It was like I have been able to turn down, and it's why I call it navigate the noise from my book. I was able to tune down that noise that really should have been honestly what is going through my head. I knew in that moment I could worry about it. I could just I just be ruminating, like what what could have happened? What could I have done differently? ⁓ I've been able to really lock in over the last few years of that's a lot of wasted energy. That's ⁓ it's you really can't change the situation when you're in those moments. And if you are just obsessing over what happened, why it happened, you're burning a lot of energy and a lot of what you could do of where your opportunities could be. So I just went in with this honest mindset. ⁓ I told my father in law and and my wife ⁓ right before ⁓ the day before as I said, I'm gonna wake up tomorrow and I'm making a plan of I wanna see how I can have some success in every day. And initially I wasn't planning on just going full in and running this company full time. The idea was to try to get another nine to five. And I had said, what I'm gonna do is try to control my end. I'm gonna put in a couple hours where I'm applying for jobs, a couple hours where I'm doing music where that was something I knew I could see progress. ⁓ I could write a song and say, I did something today. ⁓ whereas it can be tough if you're doing nothing but applying for jobs all day long and you get no response, you could feel like a failure. It feels like nothing positive happened. So it's how do we set ourselves up for success that I like to have something that we look forward to? And then something that we can know, hey, I did it today, whether it's chores, whether it's making your bed, I'm big on making your bed first thing in the morning. You see something go from messy and not complete to complete to start your day. If you can do that, you're putting your brain in the possibility and in the framework and the priming side of seeing things get done and seeing things get completed. When you do that, you start looking for other things. ⁓ we have the ⁓ reticular activating system in our brain, RAS. And if you're looking for certain things, your brain is gonna find it. And I I let people know it's a lot of it's unconscious, but so much of us are hardwired with stress, fear, and anxiety. And that's what our brain is looking for in our day to day, if you're not really being conscious or intentional about it. So the more you can put intention on it and realize, Hey, I want today to be positive, I want to see the good that's coming out of this, you can put your brain in that situation where it's looking for the good and not so much the negative or the bad. Yeah. speaker-0: For sure. And that that stress side of things, like I don't think there's so many people I don't think they realize how much stress affects them. Right. And one of the things that you and I talked about in our initial phone call is just, you know, we've had some similarities and, you know, back issues and things like that. And one of the things you mentioned is when you got laid off that week, you know, that back pain that you had been free of for quite a long time just suddenly showed back up. You know, and so what You know, talk a little bit more about that, what that taught you around, you know, how stress lives in the in the human body. speaker-1: Yeah. So our our bodies hold the score that when we go through things, we can store stuff. We can I I used to be so I'll use myself as the example. For the longest time I was somebody who something bad happened to me. For example, my mom passed away in twenty fourteen, a couple months before I had that injury happen. And I tell everyone now, I handled it as bad as anybody could handle that. I ⁓ I stored it and I knew the reality of it. I s I knew obviously she was not with us anymore physically, but It was something that emotionally, I treated it almost like she was on vacation and I would see her again. So it was I up front, right off the bat, it looked like I handled stuff well. I always was stuck into this worrying about what other people thought. So I didn't want people to worry about me. So I had to put on this essentially inauthentic fake, I'm okay and I'm doing all right to make not let people worry about me. I was always had that kind of fear that would would happen. And it got tagged as I. got later in life and realized more around the neuroscience and and my body and my brain of like how I work, of I was a people pleaser. That was coming from people pleasing and that was coming from trauma when I was a kid. And I experienced trauma as a young kid. And you can resort to being a people pleaser after that because you see how chaotic things can be and you just want to be the peacekeeper. You just want to make sure everything's okay. And that's been me a lot of my life. ⁓ and part of it is I can see I I get joy out of seeing other people what they love to do. And not many pe no I know not everyone has that. It's ⁓ a lot of us just like to do what we like to do, and then we're kind of along the ride for other people. We can be kind of in, kind of out. But I get joy if I see other people liking something, whether it's music or a movie. If someone really enjoys it, I may not enjoy that much, but man, that experience levels up for me when I see someone else enjoying it that I care about. So it it ran into a lot of those factors that I realized, man, I was doing this people-pleasing thing to an unhealthy level. And It was one of those things I say, a lot of this is we've got to make the unconscious conscious. By the time we're thirty-five, about ninety percent of what we do is more or less automated in the default mode network of the brain. We're kind of doing the same thing, going to sleep on the same side of the bed, going to sleep around the same time during the week. If we have a meeting we're worried about the next day for work. We're looking at our phone right before we go to sleep. And then as soon as our alarm goes off, we ⁓ pull up our email or our calendar and we're seeing, ⁓ we've got to do this today. And it's like going right into that. And then ⁓ we do our shower, brush, ⁓ brush our teeth, go through that same routine. So so much of our life, same over and over and over again. So we kind of become unconscious to it and don't realize, hey, some of these things that we're going through may not be okay. And then we hold these, ⁓ when I say the body holds the score, we can have these type of traumas and these things happen, and our body remembers because there's muscle memory to it. So when that layoff happened, yeah, my back started hurting. And the old me would have been, here we go again. It's like everything's kind of imploding. Everything like I was having some good, but it's it's all back. The negative's here. And I I used to be really into just thinking back in like 2014 to 2019, some of the darkest years of my life, ⁓ it can't get any worse. It just can't get any worse. And slowly it kept getting worse. And it was just one of those things that I just didn't know what to do. And I had no positivity. And I was someone who I I could find the good in everything when I was a kid, but I lost that spark for whatever reason. And for me, it was c it was the high stress. I was able to come to the terms on comfortable terms. I was never really calm until I met my current wife. Of ⁓ she had an effect on me the minute I met her, of it had nothing to do with looks or anything along that. For the first time around somebody, I just felt calm that I could fully be myself and not. worry about what they were gonna think or say or anything above that. I just had that calmness. And that made me realize I've just been in low and high levels of anxiety my entire life in stress. And I think a lot of people live in that. And when I say that 90% by the time we're 35, so I I'm 42 now. So I was sitting there and I'm just like, okay. Like I started realizing all these things and these automatic thoughts. And so I started playing around on the neuroscience side of things of how can I brush my teeth with the opposite hand. speaker-0: Wow. speaker-1: One of the things I love, a hack that I love to share with people, ⁓ because today every people like quick results. And the unfortunate side of the brain is it's typically it's two months, like six weeks to eight weeks. If you do something consistently, then it becomes muscle memory in the brain. Sometimes quicker, like 21, 23 days for some people, but the majority rule of thumb is six to eight weeks. Like two months, if you're doing something every day, then it becomes almost like a habit and you and you're like it's clicked in. ⁓ but we live in the society where ⁓ people for New Year's. Want to get healthy and start going to the gym, and that tends to last 10 to 14 days, maybe a month for some people, and then it goes out. ⁓ so when you're doing this mindset training, it's no different than going to the gym. You have to show up every day, you have to try a little bit more and you have to set realistic expectations. But the one thing I love sharing is ⁓ what I call first 10, last 10. When the last 10 minutes before you go to sleep and the first 10 minutes once you wake up, your brain is in a partial theta state, and you can have ⁓ Direct conversation pretty much with your subconscious. And your subconscious is more willing to listen to what you're going through. Very similar to like if you're sleeping or something, you're more pliable. You're understanding, you're in dream mode. ⁓ I like to use this example. If you're in a dream and like in that dream theta mode while you're dreaming, the wildest things could happen in your dream. And in the moment, you're just, okay, this is this is normal. You don't think it's abnormal until you wake up and start actually analytically thinking about it. So you can talk to your subconscious. And in those last 10, first 10, I like to tell people, go no phone. Close your eyes if you pray or if you manifest or whatever your thing is, close your eyes and imagine what are you stressed about. Think about the things you're stressed about and how they all could go right. Think about every situation. If you have a big meeting tomorrow, ⁓ what could you say to portray confidence? What could you do? Like what how does the meeting positively work out? Because a lot of people, if you're wired in that stress, ⁓ flight or fright mode, you've really reasoned out every way it could go wrong. I used to do that all the time of how everything could go wrong and like. Essentially calculating the future, I was so reactive about what happened in my past that I was then portraying that into my future. And my present was just completely lost. So how can we live in the present, be in that moment, those last 10, first 10? And that's why I a lot of those things when I was younger, I would see those commercials of go into the bathroom and say your affirmations into the mirror right when you wake up. And that's the neuroscience behind it is your brain is still in partial data state. Your your subconscious is more suggestible to it. So it's one of those things of if you can do that for about a week, you'll start realizing I'm waking up a little bit happier. For me, I tested it because I didn't believe in this. I love to kind of test up and I'm like, I want to prove something wrong. So I'll try it just to prove someone wrong. And it's flipped my mentality about it because I started priming my brain at night of I was someone I I think because of the stress, I was tired all the time, always just fatigued. Always I could be up, ⁓ wake up, be up for three hours, do some work, and then I felt like I hit a wall and I just was exhausted. And so I started telling myself at night. You're gonna wake up when your alarm hits, you're gonna have so much energy. And then when the shower water hits you, you're just gonna even have another burst of energy. You're just gonna be, you don't even need coffee, you don't need caffeine, you're just energy is flowing out of you. And so it was literally priming the brain for little things like that. And then when my alarm felt went off, I wasn't yawning, I wasn't trying to hit it for a snooze for more time. I was like jumping out of bed, I was ready to go. So it was one of those things, if you can prep and and give your brain advanced notice, it really does help. And you can prime your brain for the good or the bad. Unfortunately, what I see a lot is most people are kind of stuck in this subconscious negativity that they don't even know it's happening. And I like to use the phrase that people are addicted to lives that they don't even like. And to me, that's just a sad thing that I wanted to change. Yeah. My gosh, like gold just came out of the last segment here. Like I love that ten minutes before you wake up and the ten minutes when you go to sleep and just really, you know, working on the mindset just you know, just doing something out of the ordinary. I mean, we are really regimented if we really look at our life. ⁓ and so thank you for that. I I wanna really lean into that and kind of go back because part of your story, obviously you've you've talked about here is mindset, your family, a late ADHD moment or a diagnosis moment. So take us back to kind of Your dad's bipolar diagnosis kind of reframed your childhood pain for you. So what is it like now professionally to help other people re s reframe their hardest stories, knowing that firsthand, like how long that really that process takes? It's ⁓ and it can take as long as you want it to be. It's something that I absolutely I try to share of how long do you want to carry the burden? How how important is that burden to you? And is that what you want to be known for? And it was those type of questions that challenged me. Of do I want to be the reaction of I'm upset at my dad for the rest of my life? And I got that when I was 20. Luckily, I was able to rehash and we were able to fix our relationship to an extent. ⁓ but he did a lot of things to hurt our family. And there was every reason not to open up that door. But it was the grace that my mom showed him that my dad remarried and then started having problems in his second marriage. And my mom ended up being a counselor to him. And my dad cheated on her. My dad didn't treat her the greatest. ⁓ obviously, ⁓ how that all worked out. But then my mom knew deeper than we did, my my brother, my sister, and I, of what he was struggling with mentally. And when I realized and I saw the bipolar diagnosis and then also manic depression, I started, that's what got me fascinated in neuroscience of why. Like, why did he make these decisions? That was that over-analytical side of me changed my life, realizing I could be as analytical as I want about this. But when reality came to it, He was someone who wasn't being treated the right way for mental illness and got himself backed into a corner. He got scared and he made a bad decision. And when I was able to break it down that simply, I realized that that's all of us. We've all been there. We've all been in those moments. And it's something that ⁓ if you don't mind, I'd I'd like to share with you guys because this is something that it really opened my mind to this. And it's what I love to do with clients to really just show them how simple some of these things can be. Obviously it's lesser or figure lesser to figure ⁓ ways of how this could work. But and either of you name me three really great decisions you made when you were very triggered, very angry, or very that's the exact reaction I tend to get is that probably yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's tough. It's you've got to think about it. And you've got to get into that. And it's if you rack your brain like I trust me, I tried for a weekend and I came up with one. I was a mentor of mine challenged me for three. And I wanted to prove them wrong, but I could come up with one and even then it was a little like I was like, it's it's pushing it. It's it was stretching it just to fit my narrative at the time. But then the sad side of it is then he asked me the flip side. It took me days to come back and I could barely come back with one. And then he said, All right, you're in that same state, very angry, very upset, anxiety redden, any of those situations. Have you ever done something, said something, texted something, did something that you regret in those situations and you wish you could take back almost immediately? A hundred percent. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: core of what I love to coach to people is we're in triggered hyper flight or fright states when we're in those moments. We don't make great decisions about in those situations. There's a reason if you're a sports fan that if why things get tougher in the fourth quarter in a basketball game at the end of the game, it's the it's the end. It's like you're you're in those moments. The first, second quarter might be easy, but it it starts getting tighter as things go. And the more pressure we're under, the more willing we're probably going to make a mistake or have that mind lapse or do whatever. So So much of what we do on a day to day and ⁓ how I coach is let's be cognizant of that. Let's know when we are in that. For me, it's I feel myself getting sped up. I can work and I can operate very fast. So the ADHD, when I got diagnosed with that, it made sense. ⁓ I read a book about it once where someone said having ADHD is like having the speed of a Lamborghini and the brakes of a 1950s car. And it's and I related to that a ton of it was I I could operate really fast in things, but then then if something went wrong, I felt like I was crashing. And it was that side of how do I get the up and down and realizing I have to really be cognizant for myself if if you're in the ADHD side of things, you have to have a set schedule. You have to be like really strict about what you eat. When you eat, why why you do what you do. And it's manageable, but it's one of those things of I didn't even know I needed to manage it. So I was just doing whatever. And some days I felt great. And then most days I just felt down or tired or whatever. So it's one of those, I'm big about becoming authentic, knowing everything about yourself. Why do we react the way we do? And if you have a reaction, whether it's a sickness or a thought or whatever the case is that you don't like, write it down. And then when it comes back up again, try to think. What am I going through when I when I'm having these type of situations? So when you to go back to when you mentioned the back pain flaring up after I got that layoff again, the last time I had a layoff like that was when I had that back injury in 2014 of going through that situation, I was just stuck. And because of the injury, it started off workers' comp. And I had asked the company to do a verification of employment for me because I was trying to refinance my mortgage with the less money that was coming in just to make stuff work. And this was a company I stayed. I was going to work every day when my mom was. dying of cancer and I I thought I was gonna be there for the long haul. It was always it seemed like that way. I asked for that verification of employment like six weeks after I get laid off and they or sorry six weeks after the workers' comp and they lay me off. Wow right off that. So it it was one of those things of that same kind of gut punch, wasn't expecting it, happened again. So that's what my body remembered. It wasn't that I was going through that same stage again. Your body remembers when you felt like that previously and it's gonna mimic those type of situations. But the good side is we can control these things. Is think about a song like if you were in high school, a song that just if it played at prom or if it was a song you just loved when you were growing up and you hear it now and you're just happy when it's playing, our bodies react the same way with that happiness. So how can we counteract some of those things? And a cool thing within the brain is if you are angry, sad, depressed, any of those nasty emotions, I like to call them, same part of the brain that processes that also processes gratitude. And it's a one in one out system. So you can't really be doing two at the same time. So a real quick hack that you can do. And it it takes time. And again, it's a a mindset exercise. The more you do it, the more you're cognizant of it, the better you get at it. But when I get into those states, I try to get really quickly of what are three things I'm really grateful for. And ⁓ I do the Tony Robbins priming every morning. So I do three things I'm grateful for every morning, purely just so I can remember right away, like, hey, if I start getting into if I feel that speeding up happening, I feel that anxiety kind of rising up my chest, let me breathe. What am I grateful for? And just knowing you can go in. And trust me, th those feelings come. They don't go away. Yeah. But it's something that we can manage. And most people think we have to just be, hey, like that anxiety takes control and that's it. Like we we've got nothing that we can do. There's a lot we can do. So we we can really lock in and make positive change with what we do day to day. speaker-0: Definitely. And and on so much of what you said there really goes back to something you've said a couple of times now of controlling the controllables. Right. You mentioned it just in, you know, with the ADHD and having a a system and a rhythm for yourself that you can be a part of, right? That you know when you're eating regularly, you know, you know what you're eating regularly. These are all things you're doing to kind of control what your output then will be. Like we always, you know, we think so much of control to controllables means if I do this now, then this will happen. But in your case, you're talking about like I need to eat regularly. I need to do, you know, have a set pattern so that I can perform and do my job the way that I want to do it. So talk a little bit more on the control to controllables piece of it. you know, how has that changed you you and your business and how has it helped you in coaching other people to learn some of those same things? speaker-1: Yeah, it's so I'm a big believer in the energy we bring. We we will match with other people with the energy that we have. If we're in a down mood, it's that misery loves company type of phrase of it's I still think if you're euphoric and happy all the time, you're gonna meet people around that, ⁓ that side of the spectrum too. So it's really being cognizant of who are the people around you, ⁓ who do you spend your time with? What are you thinking or or actively doing consistently? And it's taking Taking ownership and stock of your thoughts slowly and surely as you kind of go through of ⁓ a lot of us, I think if we're if we're put on the gun or put under pressure and asked, do we make or do we think negatively a lot? Most people say no. Almost all my clients say no. I I was someone who I said no for the longest time. I always thought ⁓ if you looked at me on the outside, I I had a successful job. I had a good amount of friends. I always from the outside looking in, it was pretty good, especially if you're looking at the social media side. It it seems like I was happy and everything was great. And I was as miserable as they came from 2014 to 2019. And I was the worst part about that was that people pleasing side is I was so worried that people would be worried about me that I couldn't even ask for help or or be in in those type of states. But the positive side is you learn when you control what you could control of, I can't control what other people are going to think. If they're going to think the worst thing about me, I've got zero control over that. And I could obsess about that, bite my nails, do whatever all night long. speaker-2: Eat junk food. speaker-1: And they're still gonna think that same thing either way. And ⁓ the thing that I like to share with people and encourage people though is we tend to think people are always thinking the worst, but I've realized in society and and the more people I talk to is we're really busy people and time is really valuable to all of us. And I can tell you on my end, I spend very little time outside of I'm working directly with somebody. I don't really think outside of that work or that day-to-day bubble. So There were these things where I'm like, ⁓ this person must be thinking this. And I assumed it. And like I look back down, I'm like, it's probably 95% chance that that's not true at all. But I was taking that five percent probably true as a certainty. And it just it can affect a lot of us. So I I know I'm kind of going to the extreme with some of that, but it's one of those things that it's we we are a victim of our own thoughts. And it could be the good side or the bad side. And for me, it just got to, hey, I I thought really negatively for a long time. And a lot of negative stuff happened around me that went that way. And I'm big on saying I don't, I'm not toxically positive, but when I say the control, what you can control is I will do right by my clients or do right for the people in my community or the people around me. And I have zero expectation that they're gonna give me anything back. And I don't want it. It's something I just am doing it because I think it's the right thing to do. And it's wild of how my business opportunities and everything else opened up and flourished once I fully embraced that mindset instead of. In the past, I was because and I think it's because of the stress and the high cortisol, I didn't present that way, or at least I didn't think so, but it was very transactional. Of I was doing this with the hope of this would get me this. And if we're always in that type of mindset, it's a really depressing way to be of everything has to be transactional, or it can't just be because someone has a good heart and is trying to help you. And I realized there's more people out there who are out there actively trying to help and and be the good and be the positive change. And that's also, I mean, it's a big reason why I started my music company of ⁓ it was a nonprofit. It was COVID, where I I've I've been in the music side, I was a performer growing up and just didn't pursue it. I was very the analytical side, I was too safe and I wanted to have a more safe paying job. So I went the accounting finance route. But I know I I performed for years and I I get the creative side of things. And when people couldn't perform at all, I'm like, that's like telling me I can't use my hands to type anymore. Like that's just it's I was like, it's just so awful. And it was one of those things I realized it was an industry of people that needed help at the time. And it was the cool side about it was that it came from that spot of me just trying to do some good and and try to help ⁓ like talk people through, go through what they're going through. But I I now work with an artist who's become literally like a little brother and one of the closest people I talk to all the time. And he's from New Zealand and we've never met in person. But we started doing essentially like Zoom, it was on Discord, the the app, but we would do production sections where we have our bassist, our guitar player, who's also our producer, ⁓ the artist ⁓ out of New Zealand and and me. And one of us is in New York, one of us is in California, one of us is in Tampa, and one's in New Zealand. And man, it was such a community that we were able to build together because we were still able to create, have that kind of studio type feel, even though the situation said we shouldn't really be able to do that stuff. So it's a a big reason why my company is what it is. Also the issue with my dad in the past, my company's called another angle coaching. How do we look at things We we have our issues in life and our problems in life, but if we look at them at another angle, sometimes it's me, man, these problems are better problems than I had five years ago, or the better problems than this person, or I wouldn't want to deal with that. And honestly, these aren't that bad. And trust me, I get frustrated every day. Like I still get those frustrations daily, weekly as they pop up. But that's my grounding moment of I go to what were my problems three years ago? Yeah. And what were problems ten years ago? And I know I I have this, I do this exercise every night when I'm in my last ten. That I actively think of. I I've really drawn out goals, manifested however you want to say it, but I've got this vision of where I want to be in one, three, and five years. And at the end of every night, it's not a beat yourself up session. It's not ⁓ like, hey, like let me pump myself up. It's it's nothing, it's just a factual type thing that I'll sit down and I ask, did I get farther, further away or closer to who I want to be in one, three, and five years? And if I got further away, I've a big, big, big believer in the aspect of. momentum of sometimes you have to take one step back to get those three steps forward. And that's okay, being okay in that moment. But what I like to say in those moments of when I know I didn't get closer during a given day, if I had a reaction of something I wasn't proud of or whatever the case is, it's not to beat myself up. It's for me to know, hey, in twenty four hours when I do this again, I don't want to have the same conversation. It's done. It is what it is. Can I fix it or what can I do to move on to pivot and get better based off what happened and what can I learn from this. And it's the honest accountability. I think it's a lost art in today of it's one of the things I I lead with. I know I'm not perfect. We're human. We're gonna make mistakes. ⁓ we fell into this part of society where everything always has to be getting better. Everything everyone has to be perfect. And that causes a lot of stress and a lot of anxiety for people. And I think that's just furthermore of a lot of that stuff that's going on in today. And I was able to unwind it for myself. And it's just immeasurable of walking through and knowing the facts of I went through a lot of pain and trauma ⁓ throughout my entire life. And I believe in that aspect of life happens for me, not to me. And if you asked me that 10 years ago, I've been like, how could any of this stuff happening for me be positive? It can't be for me. It's it's reactionary. And I was that very reactionary to it. I was bitter. I was like, why? Why am I in this? But I realized how that is negative energy and that's not controlling what we can control. That's trying to put stuff on to Stuff I can't answer or figure out ever. ⁓ but I realized I can take what happened and how can I find I mean, my mom passing away, I see her smile on my niece. My niece performs a musical theater the way my mom used to. So it's we can see these things, we can see the beauty and everything, or we can be cynical and look at the bad and everything. And after living through that bad for so long, I got exhausted from it. It just wasn't worth it anymore. And it hit this moment of why don't why don't I just try the positive thing? Because you know what? I'm I've had enough on this end. I I don't want to see any more of the negative. And the more I leaned into it, the more I started seeing this actual difference of I saw more around the room, these opportunities where I really do believe the opportunities were always there for me, but I was so stressed out. I love to use this example when I was growing up in school, I know you guys are about my age as well. So I I think you guys probably experienced this when you're in English class or a history class and everybody's like taking their turn reading from the book like paragraph by paragraph or however they're breaking it up. So ⁓ teachers are wasting time to be able to have us read that way because no one's taking that in, but we're all kind of just making sure we don't get messed up or or lose our place. So we're going through and reading these things. And for me, now it makes a lot more sense the ADHD diagnosis, but I'd be like hearing the clock ticket. I'm like, ⁓ looking at the clock. And then I get called and I would have my spot, but then I lose my spot. And when you're looking for that where you were going to pick up from. I can only see like a word or two at a time. And I it's like almost like your brain is like in slow motion paralysis, trying to like get back rooted back up like a computer, like you're just lost in that moment. And I think that's how I relate how a lot of people are in society right now of your vision becomes so narrow when you're that scared or that anxiety or just like triggered in the moment. And you are your vision expands. If you were ready and you knew where it was the whole time, you know where like you don't have to worry about that. You you see it and you're ready to go. So That's going back to the control what you can control. I realized resiliency is something in humans we can control. How fast do we get back up? We're gonna get knocked down. That is inevitable. How fast can you pick back up and how can you make positive change ⁓ from what you learned from what happened from knocking you down? Yeah. Hm. I think there's a famous nineties song about that. I get knocked down, I get up again. Like just put that on a bumper sticker and and and and ⁓ inspire yourself upon that. So I'm j all jokes aside, navigate the noise. This is the name of your book that you're writing. It should be out in October, possibly, right? Coming out maybe. Don't want to give anything away. So what inspired you to write write this? And what do you hope people get out of your book? It's ⁓ someone who's become a good friend of mine. ⁓ it was somebody I hired as a contractor to do guitar and production work for my music company. Great guy. And he I was giving him some kind of the coaching. side of it. He really didn't ask for it, but he was going through a kind of thing. And while we were in conversation waiting for the artist to show up in a session, him and I had about 15 minutes where we were just kind of talking and just kind of catching up. And I mentioned a couple things and I just was like kind of going through kind of what we're talking about to some extent, a very similar type of conversation, just back and forth and my knowledge of it of what I would apply to it. And he told me he's like, I don't read. And if he wrote a book, I'd read it. I'd he's like, I'd I'd what you how you talk and he's I'd appreciate that. He's like, but I don't read. So he's like, it would have to be from you or no one else. I took that as my sign of okay, maybe I should start putting this. And it was like something that I started three years ago. And I thought it was finished a year and a half ago. And then I added a whole new section of learning how to live with the ADHD that I have. And then one of the features of it is ⁓ reje RSD, rejection sensor dis ⁓ disorder. And it's one of these things that it's been a problem throughout my life, but there's a name to it now and I know how it happens. And if you have RSD, it's when you're met with some type of ⁓ pushback or rejection or anything in that moment in the brain of ADHD, if you have that RSD feature, for me it feels like an internal hurricane. Everything starts spinning and it's like everything I'm losing control. And it was a very lonely, sad, horrible feeling because I would try to talk about it. ⁓ I know it's my parents growing up and they didn't know. It's not their background, but they they didn't realize like what that was. And Because that wasn't understood by even my parents, I kept that internal. I didn't share that with anybody. It was just something I dealt with that was my own cross to bear, I guess. And finding out that this is actual something within ADHD and the way that the brain works, it's just that it's a very like kid-like feature. And it it also makes sense on my end of changing gears of if I'm put on the spot of something, the ⁓ task switching. It's I tell people like, hey, I don't I r I don't think negatively of almost anybody. I try not to say negative words about anybody now for years. So but I know my face can kind of I could be focused in on something. And if you ask me, you'll see my s eyes slowly and it's almost like I'm a dead face. And anyone who is looking at him in that moment can naturally just feel he doesn't like me or he has a problem with me. Like he like I'm just asking him a question and that's his reaction. And I realize that's something I've gotta be cognizant of of take him out. Like I'll tell people, give me just one minute of like I I don't want to present that way because honestly I don't feel that way. But I get that sometimes something physical can come across and people read up on the body language and they assume that that's where that's going. So it's something that I've gotten out in front of of I tell people, hey, I don't naturally ever think that way. So if you ever feel that way, let's talk because I it's not who I am. That's not how I operate. And I don't ever want to give off that impression. Yeah. So it it's learning through those things of like how how do we ⁓ I I know also I have a tendency to overexplain. So like that's a great situation of that. But it's one of those I I also want people to understand me. I want to know where I'm coming from. I was a closed book for a long time because of a lot of these things that I stored and I I didn't let out. I would let the good things out, but not negative things. ⁓ so it's one of those I I've I've learned sharing is is good on that end of. Let the people know around you. Be as authentic as possible. Let them know what you're going through, what you're struggling with, what you're happy with. It's been a game changer for me of of sharing those things because people at high levels have been able to share their problems with me. And I'm like, man, we've got similar problems. It's that life's not that bad after all of what we're going through. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. I and first and foremost, I appreciate you sharing all of that and being just as open as you have been. You know, and I Kelly and I have, you know, ADHD children. And so, you know, understanding that it's taken I know for me it's probably taken longer than it's taken her, maybe, I don't know, but you know, just having to sort of learn how the brain works for people with ADHD. ⁓ and I one of the things I appreciated all the things you've said is like the breaking down of exactly how your brain processes it. Because I you know, for somebody who's not, you know, it it it's really challenging. Right. So I I just appreciate your your candor and your approachableness, you know, in in all of that and sharing your story. speaker-1: Sure. So outside of make your bed, ⁓ the next morning, going through, and I I'll walk you through exactly what I went through when when I was thinking that. What can we control in that type of situation? We could control how fast we bounce back. It doesn't need to be we can feel the moment. We can feel all the emotion we should. That's that's normal. But allow yourself to feel that. But how quick can you bounce back? I've hit ⁓ the ADHD side of me has blessed me with I can read patterns really well. And I started putting together about maybe three years ago or so. That oddly, when something really bad happens to me, something great is right around the corner. And as bad as certain things have gotten, I've always gotten back up and I think my life's gotten better as time has gone on. And it's just knowing that reality of, hey, things are gonna happen. You're gonna get knocked down. I can control getting back up and being ready and being ready for the next moment. Yeah. It's sometimes it is outside of us and we've got to be okay with that. Of that's we can't. control what's happening there. But if we believe that if you believe in a higher cause, if you believe in God and you believe that you're on a path, trust the path. It's I I love to use this example. Imagine when you're like 13 or 14, right? And we're back in like middle school, about to get into high school, and you have the vision of who you want to marry or who like who you like in that moment is who you want to marry or however however your mind's working in that. And like what you want to be. And I look back to that I'm like, thank God I'm not Like that didn't happen like if we just instantly manifest I'm like, Thank God what I want at thirteen isn't it's nowhere near what I want now. And I think that that's a very normal thing to be okay with, that things had to happen. You had to have those breakups, you had to go through those hard moments to learn and bounce back. And the one consistent about all that is there's gonna be different people, but there's always gonna be you get knocked down, how do you get up? And do you wanna get up with pride and happy and and ready to go for the next challenge and be ready for it? Harrison Ford's teaching a moment to his one employee who ends up becoming like a son to him to some extent. And he talks about our hearts and how we have scars on our heart from all the stuff that we go through. And he says, What a beautiful gift that we have that we can keep scarring our heart, but we can keep going and keep operating. And what a waste it would be if we didn't have scars on our heart to show what we went through. Thank you for that. Yeah, no, that's really good. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. speaker-1: Geez, David, I have really enjoyed listening to you share your story, listening to you share about mindset. That's something that's really important to both Sean and I. And we've gone through personal mindset challenges and and and it's just always a good reminder. So thank you, thank you so much for sharing your story. Of course. Before we close out here, where can people find you? What's the best way to get a hold of you? Yeah, it's ⁓ I wanted to close with on my end that ⁓ if you could take one thing from anything that I said is ⁓ your mindset isn't a fixed trait that you're stuck with. ⁓ it's a state you can learn to run and it's coachable. And that's really what we do. ⁓ you can find me on Instagram at David McKee, David McKee84, sorry about that, and at another angle coaching. And ⁓ then if you check out ⁓ we have a new website up to actually test your cortisol ⁓ basic questions that come from my ⁓ personal personality test that's back to neuroscience. And it's navigathenoise.info. ⁓ if you go on there, there's a free test. And we do a free consultation for anyone who fills that out to just start the conversation of some of us aren't aware that we are stressed out. And this is actually taking indicators and going through and making sure the way you answer it, it's going to show you an honest assessment of where your current stress level is and what we could do to potentially talk and help fix that. I love that. I love that. Well, thank you so much, David, for your time. This is a fantastic episode. And if you're listening, please make sure you look up David, follow him on LinkedIn, Instagram, and go take that assessment as well. So thank you so much. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure talking with you guys.