Episode 30 – Turning Pain into Purpose: Leadership, Sobriety, and Mental Health with Dan Flanagan

Todd Bertsch: 0:10

Welcome back to the Bolt Podcast. I’m Todd Bertsch and I’m thrilled to be your guide on this inspiring journey of personal growth and leadership. Together with my guests, we’ll dive into transformational stories, uncovering how small, intentional changes can create massive positive results in your life. From overcoming challenges and setting impactful goals to building lasting habits and living with confidence, health and positivity. We’ll explore it all, and if you’re ready to embrace a growth mindset and unlock the best version of yourself, then let’s spark that transformation today. Today’s guest is Dan Flanagan. Dan joined Group Management Services, a top-ranked PEO, in 2011, starting out as a sales rep and working his way up to vice president of sales for the Northeast region, and currently serves as a national director of channel sales. Dan is also the co-founder of the Brain Enrichment Initiative (BEI), a nonprofit that offers a 16-week brain wellness curriculum taught through peer-to-peer mentorship in schools across Northeast Ohio.

Todd Bertsch: 1:19

A graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, dan is married with two daughters and is approaching six years of sobriety. Dan credits this milestone to be a profound transformation in his life, further strengthening his commitment to giving back to his community and putting others first. His life is anchored in his faith, which he believes guides him to win, one day at a time and has been integral to his personal and professional success. Listeners, please enjoy my inspiring conversation with Dan Flanagan. Dan, welcome to the Bolt Podcast, my friend. Thanks a lot, Todd. It’s so good to have you on the show. It’s just good to reconnect with you. I know you’re good people. It’s been a while right, it has yeah it’s been years.

Todd Bertsch: 2:03

So it’s funny how and we were just talking about it, like how people come in and out of your life you meet somebody and we got introduced through a mutual friend who’s a major connector, matt Soulful, and then we just reconnected through the show and this amazing work that you’re doing. So I’m excited just to dig in and just have a really honest, open and great conversation.

Dan Flanagan: 2:27

Super excited to be here. Thank you very much for having me.

Todd Bertsch: 2:29

Yeah, absolutely. So. Let’s talk about this career, this impressive career trajectory that you’ve had at Group Management Services, better known as GMS. Right so started off and, man, you really just kind of worked your way up up the ladder right.

Dan Flanagan: 2:46

Yeah, well, it might seem that way, todd, I can tell you that my career started with a lot of failure.

Todd Bertsch: 2:51

Okay.

Dan Flanagan: 2:52

A lot of attitude issues, a lot of not following the process and sort of doing things Dan’s way.

Dan Flanagan: 2:59

I had some success in college selling Cutco knives and I used to drive my Pontiac Sunbird that literally every 40 miles I’d have to put a gallon of water in the radiator and I would drive to Middlefield, ohio, and I would call on the Amish Meaning when I say call, you’re not calling, right, they don’t have a phone.

Dan Flanagan: 3:18

So I’d knock on doors and I would peel through Middlefield and Holmes County over a couple of summers and sold a lot of Cutco knives to Amish and helped me pay off student loans and some debt and some things. But I came into GMS thinking that I sort of had a lot of the answers and what I found over the course of my first nine months is that I had little to no answers. I can tell you that about nine months in a significant event happened to me where I had to really look in the mirror. A significant event happened to me where I had to really look in the mirror At the time that I started GMS. I was living down in Akron off of Lover’s Lane and Burkhart Avenue, which is not the greatest of areas.

Todd Bertsch: 3:52

I know the area, do you? I grew up in East Akron, okay.

Dan Flanagan: 3:55

So you know.

Todd Bertsch: 3:55

I know Lover’s Lane Not so lovey.

Dan Flanagan: 4:06

Not lovey at all. I lived in a 400-square-foot apartment above a single mom who had three children and her husband was serving time in a federal penitentiary, and sort of rough beginnings at GMS, as far as you know where I was and where I was living. But one night I fell asleep, uh, sort of after drinking probably too many beers, fell asleep on my couch and at three in the morning I was woken up by just riddling of gunshots. And I remember I looked out my window and there was already caution tape sort of being put in place and there was a guy that was just gunned down right in the street.

Dan Flanagan: 4:39

So I put on a pair of shorts and I walked outside and this gentleman was a 24-year-old guy who actually unloaded on police three miles prior or whatever on the other side of town, went into a high-speed chase, got out of his car right at my driveway, started shooting at police again and they took him out. I remember sort of looking at this scene and I remember at that point really my life sort of looking at this scene and I remember at that point really my life sort of paused and I started thinking like what are you doing? Where are you at in your life, and there’s got to be more meaning behind this and a why. And so I walked back up the stairs and I remember walking into my bathroom, which was adjacent to my kitchen.

Dan Flanagan: 5:21

It was almost like the same room 400 square feet like on top of each other Right and I remember looking in the mirror and what I saw in the mirror was not what I wanted to see.

Todd Bertsch: 5:32

Like, literally, you, you took a look at the mirror.

Dan Flanagan: 5:35

Yeah. So and what I realized was is that I wasn’t seeing a lot of success in my early on in my sales career and I was getting a lot of no’s and a lot of rejection and a lot of things that weren’t going my way. And what I realized when I looked in the mirror and started to do some self-reflection was that it was all my problem. I didn’t have a good attitude, I wasn’t coachable and teachable, I really wasn’t living with a lot of humility, I wasn’t selling with humility, I wasn’t being authentic, I wasn’t having fun, and I’ll never forget it. About a month later, when I started going through this attitude change and some self-awareness and things, I was leaving the office for a proposal and one of my buddies looks at me and he was, like just go have fun, just be you Like. People love to be around you, people buy people. Just go have fun, right. And that day I sold my first deal.

Todd Bertsch: 6:27

No kidding.

Dan Flanagan: 6:28

And that was sort of it, and it’s sort of that was the affirmation right, yeah, and that, and I sort of kicked in gear there, but it really, you know, the success, or however you termed it, was really rooted in a lot of failure and I needed to figure out why I was failing, and a lot of it had to do with getting in my own way. Yeah, how old were you about that time? I was 26 when I started GMS, which was 2011.

Todd Bertsch: 6:52

So you had had some work experience, wasn’t your?

Dan Flanagan: 6:55

first job right, I had some work experience, yeah.

Todd Bertsch: 6:57

But, wow, I credit you for like doing that on your own. You know, a lot of people don’t have the capacity to literally stop, pause and take a look in the mirror, you know and then to make a choice to change, and you did that on your own accord, so I give you kudos for that. A lot of people wouldn’t do that.

Dan Flanagan: 7:19

Yeah, thank you.

Todd Bertsch: 7:20

So that was kind of a turning point for you. That was sort of a turning point right there.

Dan Flanagan: 7:24

Yeah, so I sold for seven and a half years as a sales rep and then I remember there was a posting for our sales manager job in our Richfield office, which really is our Cleveland, northeast Ohio market. And the last day of the interview process I get a call from our owner happens to be a very good friend of mine and he’s like hey, shooter, why isn’t your resume in my inbox? And I just said I don’t think I’m ready for this. You know I’m enjoying selling. I don’t think I’m ready to lead. He goes. I don’t think anybody’s ever ready, he goes, but I think you are.

Dan Flanagan: 7:58

And I want to see your resume within the next hour. So I remember walking back into the office and instead of making cold calls or following up with a prospect, I was sort of combing through my resume and getting it to look a little bit nicer and I shot it over. And then, yeah, from there I got promoted to the sales manager in our, in our, you know, northeast Ohio market or Richfield corporate office, led a bunch of sales reps for two and a half years and then I got promoted to VP of our Northeast region. We were scaling like crazy at the time and opening up new markets, and so then I took over. I had a Richfield team, a Pittsburgh team, buffalo team, philly team and a Detroit team.

Dan Flanagan: 8:36

I did a lot of traveling. I did that for almost three years. Then I had my second daughter and being on the road three, four days a week and having a three and a half year old. And then Cameron was born and my wife was at home a lot alone. You know.

Dan Flanagan: 8:52

I flew home from Philadelphia and she was sort of at wit’s end and I looked at her. I said I’ve been thinking about sort of changing what I want to do with my career, but stay at GMS and she goes well, what do you want to do? And I said well, we’ve got all these channel partners with CPAs and lawyers and bankers and all these things that have all these relationships that had been neglected when I went into leadership and I want to get back to doing that and then selling. And so I I proposed that to our CEO and our CRO and they liked the idea and I’ve been doing that for about nine months now and so working on our channels, our relationships and back to selling. And it’s been super rejuvenating and very timely for what is going on with my nonprofit and my personal life at home with my wife and girls.

Todd Bertsch: 9:45

That’s awesome, man. Again, you know being cognizant of where you’re at, and we talk a lot about living on purpose and being aligned with your North Star. You know, and really defining what success is. You know, and that’s what I love about this show and the conversations with leaders like you and others, like, how do you define success? You know, and I have a 26 year old son who’s just starting off, you know, in his career and trying to instill those principles, those core values of hey, it’s not just about the money, man, don’t chase the money. Like do the work, earn your stripes, the money will be there. Just find something that you love to do and where there’s a need right and how you can make an impact on the community and others. That’s where the gold’s at, that’s where fulfillment’s at, the money that will come, and money will only get you so far right. People always think the success is sort of the end game will come you know, and and money will only get you so far, Right.

Dan Flanagan: 10:44

You know, but it’s always think the success is sort of the end, the end game, and it’s sort of the win and where you receive the gratification. But to me it’s more about the process and you see success in the small wins, you see success through your failures, you see success through, uh, circumstances and adversities that you go through. You know the little triumphs to the times where you really kick yourself and say why did I do that or how did I do that. But it’s learning from those things that make you successful. And then when you get to that end of the road where you’re looking to win and achieve, you’re doing it because your mindset along the way and throughout the process really got you there.

Todd Bertsch: 11:28

Yep, it’s all about a mindset, and I’m sure we’re going to talk a lot about that. Good, now, this is great. I want to give just a little bit. Let’s just tee up a little bit about what GMS, who GMS? Is and what they’re about and what a PEO is. I don’t know that. A lot of people know what a. Peo is, and if they’re in town here they probably have heard of GMS. But just give the cliff notes on what your organization’s about.

Dan Flanagan: 11:57

So we’re what’s known as a CPEO, which is a Certified Professional Employer Organization. The IRS gives GMS that accreditation each and every year since 2014.

Dan Flanagan: 12:02

It really sets us apart from a lot of the other PEOs in the nation. 38 today are certified by the IRS. There’s about 500 that are existing. The PEO is really. We work with small to mid-sized business owners to really help them drive down costs, create efficiencies in their business, give them the HR expertise that they may not have or they don’t want to have. Yeah, Small business owner, they didn’t get in business to do HR and workers comp and benefits like the things we do.

Todd Bertsch: 12:31

You’re probably one of them, guilty as charged there it is.

Dan Flanagan: 12:34

Right and then shift of liability of having W-2 employees. So there’s four major benefits to a PEO that I think are our biggest components of our value proposition. One is buying power. We give that small business owner more scalability to drive down costs on healthcare. 401ks, we’re self-insured for workers’ comp so we’re able to provide some rate relief and some premium relief on what they’re already doing for their employees. From a benefit standpoint Efficiencies most companies are using payroll company third-party administrator for work comp. They manage their own unemployment. They got a broker, they got a 401k guy. They got somebody in the office doing HR. Or they’re doing it, or their spouse is doing it, or their kid’s doing it, or they’re doing it at night when they’re trying to drink wine and relax, or not doing it, or they’re not doing it at all.

Dan Flanagan: 13:24

Yes, yes, we consolidate all that and sort of become a turnkey functionality for a business where it all talks to each other. You now have a one-stop shop. We’ve been around since 96. So we know all the laws, the regulations. From an HR standpoint, we have clients in 50 states, so we know all the laws, and when things need updated and handbooks and job descriptions are just conveyed to a staff member of like, don’t ask that question in an interview because now it’s illegal, right? It’s hard for small business owners to stay up on those things.

Todd Bertsch: 13:53

Sure, yeah, you’re wearing a lot of hats. I’ve been there, man. I love the model Great. I wish I would have known about it when I first started. Yeah, you know, because I went down an avenue and built all those other relationships, you know, kind of the fractional right which you can do, and I was fortunate that I had people that were feeding me good, resourceful people that you and I have talked about. You know, using GMS as as a, you know, a PEO for us, and you know we just were already kind of set. We have a lot of small business owners too that listen to the show and I wanted them to be aware of this because I do think it’s a very cool model. And obviously, gms, you guys are what ranked 11th now out of 500 in the country. Like that’s amazing. You guys have had tremendous growth. You’ve won many awards for the best place to work, the culture Like that, just that doesn’t happen overnight, so you got some great leadership there, obviously.

Dan Flanagan: 14:47

Yeah, I mean, when I started, the PEO owned about 2% of small business America. As far as the market share there’s today’s, there’s 34 million small to mid-sized companies, so you think about 2%. Well, the PEO now owns 11% and Napio, which is our trade association in DC, projects that by 2030, a quarter of small business America will be using PEOs.

Todd Bertsch: 15:08

Wow, that’s a considerable jump.

Dan Flanagan: 15:09

Yeah, I think it has to do with sort of the generational changes in owners and the way that people think. Yeah, that makes sense, Our generation’s like we want to focus on what we’re good at. We want to stay in our lane. We want to surround ourselves with vendors and people that are experts in their lane.

Dan Flanagan: 15:25

Yeah, absolutely Makes a lot of sense, yeah, so it’s been a fun ride and, yeah, we had three offices when I started and today we have 24 offices around the country. We were about 400th as far as size when I started in the PEO world and today we’re 11th in the country. We’re the only privately held PEO in the top 20. They’re either publicly traded or owned by PEO money or firms right now. And so you’re right, it’s a cool story, it’s a local story, it’s a testament to the people within that building and now it’s buildings.

Todd Bertsch: 15:59

It really has nothing to do with me.

Dan Flanagan: 16:00

It’s just tons of gritty Right Really has nothing to do with me. It’s just tons of gritty, humble, hardworking individuals that are working for the greater good and that’s our clients and working for one goal and that’s to make them better as organizations, and so that we sort of always kept that mission or vision each and every day when we’re working, and I think that that’s really what’s gotten us to this point where we’re so large and so well-known.

Todd Bertsch: 16:27

Yeah, no, that’s awesome and I think you know when you told that story about the CEO coming to you and saying hey man. I, I, I see you, I can see the traits, I can see you as a leader put in your resume Like I love that you know that’s being attuned to your people and giving people opportunity, empowering people. So that’s what leadership is, in my opinion.

Dan Flanagan: 16:50

We did a ton of failing too, Todd.

Todd Bertsch: 16:52

Oh yeah, no, I hear you brother.

Dan Flanagan: 16:54

I remember we opened up Reston Virginia closed it down. We opened up Atlanta closed it down. I opened up Houston. I failed miserably, closed it down.

Todd Bertsch: 17:01

That’s how we learn, man, but then we sort of.

Dan Flanagan: 17:03

We took those mistakes and we learned from those things and we sort of shifted our philosophies and our strategies when we opened up new markets, you know, in the last seven, eight years and we’re certainly definitely not perfect at it. But we’ve learned a lot along the way and we’ve been able to scale our business outside of Ohio, which is nice. We’re really recognized now as a national PEO, just not an Ohio PEO.

Todd Bertsch: 17:28

That’s the only way. That’s the only way to grow. You got to put yourself out there. You got to fail a little bit and fail for whatever, however you want to put it Right, but at the end of the day, that’s the best way to learn.

Dan Flanagan: 17:38

So I agree yeah.

Todd Bertsch: 17:40

Well, this is, this was a great setup. No-transcript, voracious temper and attitude. I was very competitive, I hated to lose and, uh, I got thrown out of more baseball games than any kid I knew, more red cards in soccer than any kid I knew, and that became my brand. It was kind of the funny thing with my dudes. You know, like here’s Temper Birch, what are you going to throw? You know a softball game. I threw a trash can across the field Softball, men’s softball.

Todd Bertsch: 18:40

Who the hell does that? You know, it’s just like I’ll be night playing softball and that, exactly, exactly. And I’m just like, but nobody ever, everyone just kind of it became who I was and was kind of okay, Like nobody ever pulled me aside and said, hey, man, like I think you might have some potential, what if you just worked on a few of these things? But I grew up in the seventies. We weren’t talking about mental health, we weren’t talking about any of this stuff. You know, pat yourself on the butt, get back out there and you know, man up. So, yeah, different times, Right, but I’m in a great place right now and through positive intelligence program. You know, it changed my life and I would go all into it I talk about it on the show a lot, but similar story, man, you know similar story into it.

Todd Bertsch: 19:24

I talk about it on the show a lot, but similar story, man, you know similar story. And it’s amazing when you can be open and you can start to shift right from a fixed to an open mindset, from a negative to a positive man, your life looks so different, right, you put a different lens on and you can see the world in a whole different way. It’s happy, right, it’s fulfilling, it’s happy, it’s a good place to be.

Dan Flanagan: 19:46

So you’re experiencing joy now.

Todd Bertsch: 19:47

Yeah, and you said bliss, like that’s just, that’s a cool, cool way of saying it, but so yeah. So, speaking of bliss, it took a little bit more to get there. We talked about approaching six years of sobriety. I mean congratulations, man. That’s a big. And to be in sales anybody that’s been in sales, that is a right. That’s a tough. That’s a tough thing to say. You know what, like I’m done, like, so you know, share whatever you want. But there had to be a point right where you just said, or something happened. You’re just like I can’t do this anymore, man, this is not helping me get to where I want to be. It’s not helping my relationships, my career. I have two young kids. Like, how did all this come to be?

Dan Flanagan: 20:39

all this come to be Well. I mean, there was an event in May of 2019 where I really had to shut it down because I got to a point where I was really sick and tired of being sick and tired and I was also sick and tired of who I had become and how I was impacting the people that I love the most. So, may 6, 2019, I got committed in a program through Cleveland Clinic, went through an outpatient program there and had a very good counselor and started to really dive into the root causes of why I was the way that I was at that time. You know, for so long I probably had a lot of epiphany type moments Todd in my life where I should have woken up a lot earlier and I would wake up for like a day and then I’d be right back at my old habits two days later.

Todd Bertsch: 21:26

How many times laying on the bathroom floor right, thinking I’m never going to do this again.

Dan Flanagan: 21:33

If I could just get out of this night, my head’s spinning and right, yeah, yeah, I spent many of time on the bathroom floor, on my knees, my kitchen, crying out to God like how can I, you know, save me? Type of thing, you know. But I mean I would have if I want to stop drinking. I would have lost my wife, I would definitely not have my two little girls right now. I probably would have lost my job at GMS. There would be no creation of BEI. Who knows if I would even be here right now.

Dan Flanagan: 21:58

That’s how bad it got. So, you know, I got committed and I started to really focus on. You know, one thing that was really hard for me to wrap my head around early in sobriety was like, how am I going to be sober forever? Like, am I going to be 70 and still not drinking? You know, am I going to be at my girls’ college graduation and I’m not going to be drinking? I mean, these thoughts go through your mind and all this futuristic stuff. And so, with help of others and help of the program and getting into AA and getting back into my faith, I sort of built this. Just win one day at a time and just give it your all that for one day, and all you got to do is stay sober for today. It’s not anything about tomorrow. God only grants us today. Anyway, If we wake up today, to me it’s a good day and we’re going to make the most of it.

Dan Flanagan: 22:51

You know tomorrow’s not granted to any of us. We’ve also had loss in our lives and seen people that die or whatever, and they’re gone. And you know tomorrow’s not granted to any of us. We’ve all had loss in our lives and seen people that die or whatever, and they’re gone. And you know it’s just like that.

Dan Flanagan: 23:00

So I started, you know, living that way. I also needed to rebrand myself. I was always the life of the party. I think that that’s sort of my sanguine personality.

Dan Flanagan: 23:13

I’m pretty outgoing, but I cared too much about what others thought of me and I cared too much about, you know, just that, I guess really just what people thought of me and their reactions towards things or their opinions of me, and so I had to get to a point where I didn’t care about that anymore. I cared what God thought about me and what my wife thought of me and what I thought of myself, and that’s it. So I sort of then started figuring out, you know, like I had to really look back into my why, and I wanted to create a life for my girls. I wanted to create a life for my girls and or, at the time I didn’t even have girls, right, I wanted to create a life for my future wife and, hopefully, family that I wasn’t able to have myself and really look at that, why every single day. And there were some other things on there I don’t need to get into it. And there were some other things on there I don’t need to get into it, but things that kept me grounded and focused.

Dan Flanagan: 24:17

That helped me really focus on what mattered most, over what I wanted now. And what I wanted now was the drink. Like still today, I still have that itch sometimes.

Dan Flanagan: 24:30

Has it gotten better and have I gotten stronger and more courageous? Absolutely, but I still have that time and I immediately have built this mindset, or I have this mindset now where I focus on what do I want most and I want my kids to look up to me. I want to be a good dad and father and sibling and coworker and I want to be a good influence in the community, and all those things now trump what I want now and that’s the addiction. So, yeah, I mean you know there was a lot of things leading up to that. There was a lot of causes that got me to a point where I needed to make a life change and I sort of haven’t looked back at all. I’m trying to just stay in the moment and and build the life that that God sort of blessed me with or did bless me with, and and keep it moving.

Todd Bertsch: 25:20

Wow Again, congratulations, I mean. I don’t know how much you know about my story and and certainly on my site I’ve shared a little bit about it on the show.

Dan Flanagan: 25:30

But you, you, and I have a glimpse and I want to know more.

Todd Bertsch: 25:33

Very similar. I had the same thing started young drugs and alcohol. That’s the group that I surrounded myself with. Sure, it was around me. Of course. I made that choice turned into recreational no-transcript, you know and a turning point in my life where I just said I can’t do this anymore.

Dan Flanagan: 26:23

So that was your moment, that was my moment, the pinnacle of it was yeah.

Todd Bertsch: 26:27

Two weeks later I enrolled in college and I shifted my mindsets and my very addictive personality from being addicted to destroying my brain to being addicted to growing my brain. And it’s been beautiful.

Todd Bertsch: 26:42

And yeah, I’m not perfect and I’ll admit I am not sober. I did not go through a program, so I just want to put that out there. But I am very intentional about how I manage that and I track. You know what I mean? Yeah, so I think I’m on my way to probably becoming sober. To be honest, Each year it just becomes less and less important to me. At this point I am so enthralled and addicted to growth in my brain and everything I’m doing with the show and coaching and speaking. I don’t have the room for it and I don’t enjoy it like I used to.

Dan Flanagan: 27:25

Yeah.

Todd Bertsch: 27:25

And I, like you, I was kind of worried how people would see me. You know, I mean you and I are very similar dude, I’m just a little bit older and shorter, but but no, I mean seriously, I have the very same track. It’s beautiful man to wake up clear, clear minded and and just feel good. And so, yeah, I take that message out and share it. The main message there is that you can make a change at any point in time.

Dan Flanagan: 27:53

It doesn’t matter, you know it doesn’t matter when.

Todd Bertsch: 27:55

Just decide to make that choice. And I love how you say I just want to be the best person I could be every single day.

Todd Bertsch: 28:03

Just one day. And that’s what the mantra of this whole show is really encouraging people to become the best version of themselves. We all have what we need. It’s just a matter of chipping away to who we really are, you know.

Todd Bertsch: 28:20

But making that choice, and that’s the, that’s the tough piece. Usually it takes a traumatic event and sometimes rock bottom or life threatening, and some people, you know, don’t make it back. But that’s usually the time where you say, oh crap, maybe I should reflect, maybe I should make some changes. I don’t want this to happen again.

Todd Bertsch: 28:36

What I think I would love to see, especially with the youth and we’re going to get into your nonprofit here, and I believe what you’re trying to do is let’s get it down to a younger level and instill some different virtues and values in education about mental health and addiction to where it’s not a stigma, and I think we can get the kids younger so they don’t experience what we had to experience. Right, but no, dan, this is great man and obviously a lot of this, and we don’t have to go too deep into it. But faith is a big piece and we don’t talk a lot about it on the show and it’s funny not funny, but ironic. We’re in 20-some episodes now, and a reoccurring theme has been sobriety, so it’s becoming more and more of a popular more common thing in business and to be more open about it.

Todd Bertsch: 29:33

right and the challenges and faith. And, like you, I was one, you know, grew up Catholic, you know, went to Catholic schools and fell in and out of it, you know, as life progressed and it’s been on my radar as a goal.

Todd Bertsch: 29:47

You know the past couple of years and I’m happy to say like this year is the first year I’ve really just embraced and got back in and it just feels so good, man. And again, we’re not trying to talk about politics or religion here, but faith is important, whatever you believe or don’t believe. So, getting back to you, it’s important to you, it’s the cornerstone of my life. Yeah, it brought you.

Dan Flanagan: 30:12

In fact I wouldn’t be sitting here without it. You know, I was raised Catholic, was in church every Sunday, went to catechism and did the classes, and my parents always made it a huge priority that we learned who God was and who Jesus was at a young age, and so it was rooted early. But then when my life got flipped upside down and I’ll walk you through that a little bit. When we talk about BI, when I was 14, and I would say from the time of I was 14 till call it mid-30s, like 20 years it was very off and on and it was more off than on.

Dan Flanagan: 30:54

And looking back now in my six years almost six years in this journey that I’m on, I wouldn’t have made all the mistakes and I wouldn’t have done a lot of the things that I did if I lived the same way I do now, where my faith and my relationship with God is so, so important to me and it’s helping me let go and let God handle the things that I can’t control Right and the things that I don’t have the capacity to handle or control, and it’s really kept me grounded.

Dan Flanagan: 31:28

It’s helped me stay in my own lane. I sort of live by Luke 137, which is, nothing is impossible with God, and I’ve seen that in my life. I mean, I’ve seen miracles. My dad is a miracle, my brother’s a miracle. I’m probably a miracle with my sobriety. That’s how bad it got. I’ve seen some horrific situations turn into phenomenal opportunities or phenomenal outcomes by people giving their life back to God, and so, yeah, I mean we don’t need to get into this whole thing or whatever, but it’s very, very important to me and it’s truly what keeps me anchored every day.

Todd Bertsch: 32:09

Yeah, awesome, thank you for sharing that. All right, dan. So we got to talk about this cool shirt you have on here. Bei Brain Enrichment Initiative Really cool. You just launched this nonprofits a couple of months ago or this year, right yeah?

Dan Flanagan: 32:24

Yeah, we started working on it in 2021.

Todd Bertsch: 32:26

Okay.

Dan Flanagan: 32:27

Really about a year into my sobriety, a little year and a half into my sobriety and we just so we. My sister’s, my partner co-founder. She is a huge part of BEI. Bei would not be BEI without her. She developed the curriculum side she’s basically the educational side of the business and really built out the 16-week program that we’re going to be teaching to mentors in schools that then teach it to mentees, which I’ll walk you through that.

Todd Bertsch: 33:02

But this thing started at a very young age. Yeah, so you’re going to take us through that. Yeah, let me take you through that real quick. Take us through the journey, because there was a lot that happened. Yeah, there’s a reason why you’re doing this.

Dan Flanagan: 33:12

Yeah, so when I was one, my dad had his first panic attack. When I was five he was diagnosed with clinical depression and his depression got so bad that actually there was a couple years when we were six, seven, eight years old when we would go to California and we thought we were going to Disneyland, we were going to see my aunt and uncle, and it was because my dad was seeing a psychologist out there and his psychiatric professionals to help him with his depression. And as kids we had no idea. I grew up in Richfield on three acres in a very loving you know just a great home, good home life. You know two parents that were always around home, cooked meals every night, playing sports in the yard, and at age 14, todd. My dad just couldn’t break through his illness and we’ve gotten to the point where he needed to do something different and really get other help. So he got in his truck one day that Sean and I my younger brother were outside playing catch and he came over to us and said hey, guys, I’m going to be gone for a good amount of time, I’m going to go into a hospital and I’m going to get some help. And I, you know, being the oldest of three.

Dan Flanagan: 34:28

I sort of saw a lot of these things throughout the course of my early childhood where my dad would isolate himself and he had an office. They had a collection business and he was a college recruiter and he ran these companies from his barn. But he was in his office a lot and he was very isolated and secluded and I saw some of his behaviors when I was on the field, whether it was baseball, football, basketball where it was like wow, something’s different with him and I could sort of see some of the things that were transpiring that led up to this moment. But he ended up going into St Elizabeth’s hospital in Youngstown. He had a 37, 38 electric convulsives done on his brain and then he went through a nine to 12 month rehab program. He ended up living with my uncle who lived in Youngstown for a while. But I mean, I was at the in the prime of my life. I mean I was a three sport athlete.

Dan Flanagan: 35:17

How old I was four, I was almost 15.

Todd Bertsch: 35:19

Okay, so you were in high school, yeah. I was a freshman, freshman, yeah, okay.

Dan Flanagan: 35:23

And uh, you know pretty good athlete, good grades not great, but good grades great friends. You know sort of had life. You know life was good. Yeah, my younger brother, who’s you know two years younger than me, he you know good, good stuff going with him. My sister at the time was seven and we lost our dad for a year and a half.

Todd Bertsch: 35:45

That’s a long, that’s a long time it was.

Dan Flanagan: 35:47

And you know he was, he was really my hero. I mean he was a. It was a hell of an athlete. He was a hell of a coach. I mean I got to all the way to college baseball. I played division two baseball and he was my best coach. Even to that level, no one could compare to him as far as what he knew about the game and how he could make you better and and all these things. So I mean he was my guy and every day he was my guy, just like, you know, other kids’ dads, right? Yeah, so I lost my dad. My mom started working seven to seven from waste management to keep food on the table and make sure our mortgage was paid and all this. So we lived with her up until he came back in the area. They ended up getting divorced and I made a huge mistake, todd, in the fact that I probably should have stayed with my mom, supported her, been there more for her that I probably should have stayed with my mom supported her, been there more for her.

Dan Flanagan: 36:41

I went with my dad and you know that oldest child makes a move and then their siblings sort of follow, and then my brother followed, and then my sister sort of didn’t follow the exact path but she sort of then started disinserting herself a little bit and we bounced around a lot. I mean, I can remember one year when I was in, I think, junior year in high school, I lived in the hunt club in Fairlawn. I lived in the Highlands. In one year and in probably the 14th month of living there, we got evicted for the second time. We moved to Waihoga Lake Towers and across from Walsh. We were driving from Walsh basically to Revere every day, got evicted from there. Then we moved to Green and this was like a really bad patch of my dad’s depression and mental illness. We lived in this little apartment and my brother and I would drive to Revere every day from Green and every day and this is when I had my Sunbird, which is my first car, and we’d have to get off the highway at Viotem every single day and put a gallon of water in the radiator just to get into school. And so those life events really changed my, you know, changed the sort of the trajectory of where I was going, especially athletically, and and so I started making bad decisions and it was like one bad decision after another. And I mean I could tell you stories of senior year.

Dan Flanagan: 37:56

We got Avon Lake week one in football. They’re number one in the state and we were tough. We go to Avon Lake and it’s 7-7. At halftime I think we scored. First they scored, and then I threw a 40, 45 yard pass before halftime. That was dropped. It was 7, seven and the storm wipes just comes through Northeast Ohio wipes out every game. So instead of on the way back to the Revere talking about how are we going to beat the number one team in the state, we were already talking about how big of a party are we going to throw when we beat them, and we’re already talking about liquor and booze and weed and all this girl. You know, girl, it’s just craziness.

Todd Bertsch: 38:39

I was leading the wrong way.

Dan Flanagan: 38:42

The next morning we get up, I text my buddy, who’s a little bit older than me hey, can we get some jungle juice and some beer? And he’s like I’m at OU. And I’m like, oh no. So I walk into Acme Route 18 in Fairlawn, heist two bottles of booze, put them in my belt, walk out three hours before our walkthrough on a Saturday when we’re going back to Avon Lake. So the security guard follows me out basically says hey, I see something in your belt. Can you please come for? You know, show me what you got. I turned around, pulled out both bottles.

Dan Flanagan: 39:13

I could have easily ran from this guy. I didn’t got taken in. You know, I’m pleading with these guys. I’m crying, uh, you know, hey, I’m the starting quarterback. We got Avon Lake tonight. I got to walk through and they’re like we don’t care, you’re not, you’re not going home right now, so I don’t show up for the walkthrough. I get back home and I mean this is some of the embarrassing stuff that I went through too. I I ended up getting suspended for the year and coach Papano, who’s my head football coach at Revere, was in his 35th year. His last year was my senior year and he was looking at us like let’s make a run.

Todd Bertsch: 39:49

This is a yeah we could have.

Dan Flanagan: 39:50

We had athletes, we had size, we had speed. I mean we were tough. So he ends up appealing it. I get a three-game suspension. And then I got back in week four wouldn’t let me play quarterback, but I played defense. And then week five, we had Wadsworth come to Revere. They were undefeated, they were division one and we beat them 21-7 at Revere. And then we had some more wins and we got into the playoffs and we ended up losing the playoffs.

Dan Flanagan: 40:17

But basketball season comes around and this is all because of my decisions, todd, and where I really went wrong and what we’re trying to change with BEI. I’m sitting there during a JV game and I’m watching the students roll in at Norton and get into the student section and they’re all wearing orange and I’m like it’s sort of weird, but I’m not really thinking anything of it. Go back in the locker room, come back out of the locker room. We get in our lines, we start coming around locker room. Come back out of the locker room. We get in our lines, we start coming around and all of a sudden the whole student body is wearing orange jail suits. And when I get to the line the first time, this was like a minute into the game, take to the hole, get, get fouled. They all turn around and on the back of their orange jail suit says Acme hates you. And they would say Acme hates you.

Todd Bertsch: 41:05

Oh my God, dude, wow that just gave me talmage.

Dan Flanagan: 41:08

This happened at Manchester.

Todd Bertsch: 41:11

This was about you, like all this was about you. Oh my gosh, that is, that’s mean, that’s malicious man, it was horrible.

Dan Flanagan: 41:21

Wow, and now today, like that would really feel me and probably actually even help me, but it hindered me, man, and it hurt me and I didn’t have a lot of support at the time, high school.

Dan Flanagan: 41:31

Oh my gosh, a lot of life adversity early on in my life. And I had a choice to take this adversity and create an opportunity with it, or run from the adversity and bury myself. And I took the ladder and I started making all these decisions that were very detrimental to my future and detrimental to me and my family and embarrassing and letting down communities and anyway. So so that sort of happened and then in 2012, in my sixth month at GMS. A year prior, my dad and brother had moved to Arizona, thinking that the sunlight would help with their, their illnesses, my brother has been dealing with mental illness for really two and a half decades now.

Dan Flanagan: 42:25

Oh gosh, and I’m talking horrible schizoaffective disorder with delusional thinking and bipolar. And so they move out to Arizona and my dad was doing pretty good and then he loses his job and I start to see him start to slip and our conversations were shorter and shorter and shorter and one day he wrote out three letters to me my brother and my sister and he walked into a Catholic church in Scottsdale, arizona, not to get too graphic, but he had a knife in his hand and no one was in this church other than a women’s Bible study that was going on in the basement. This is also a huge testament to my faith because I’ve truly seen miracles. He walked in so sick he walked in genuflex at the altar. You know Irish Catholic guy goes into the bathroom, commits this act, he tries to stab himself in the heart and he misses and it goes through his lung. And this guy, this church is vacant, todd, at the time he walks in there’s a women’s Bible study going on in the basement. He starts screaming when this happens and pulls the knife out. You know, pretty gory scene, as you can imagine. This guy comes running into the bathroom and at the time my dad was like yelling at him like hey, just let me be, let me, you know, leave me alone. And at the time my dad was like yelling at him like hey, just let me be, let me, you know, leave me alone. And the guy grabbed the knife, took off his clothes and started wrapping up my dad and was like you just breathe and he runs out. There was a lady that was running upstairs heard all this commotion. She calls 911.

Dan Flanagan: 43:59

And the craziest part of this story is that when we flew out there my sister and I flew out there the next day I mean I didn’t have a dime to my name my best friend of this day gave me two vouchers and put me on a Southwest Airlines flight. We fly out there and we start to figure out through talking to some people in the church, like who saved my dad’s life? No one came forward. No one. I mean they put it out in the newspaper, the news, the church put it out to the parishioners and the people involved in the community. Nobody came forward. And I remember actually talking to my dad about a week ago about some of this stuff and I said do you remember the guy that saved your life? He goes. I don’t remember any of that he goes. Maybe it was you traumatized situation or I went into shock that I didn’t know what was going on. But I don’t remember a man and I don’t remember those things. But the lady did, but she remembered that when she called 911, he was gone. He never came back. One he was gone, he never came back, and so they put him on a stretcher, they patched him up, he was in ICU for a little bit and then we ended up getting him back to Akron, you know, a couple months later, and he lived with my aunt, my uncle bounced around.

Dan Flanagan: 45:14

You know, I’m at the beginning of my career, my sister’s getting her stuff going, my brother was, you know, doing his thing or whatever, and you know, that episode I think really sort of shapey in a way, you know, and then you would think actually that I would probably have woken up at that point and said, wow, like I got to start doing some things that are different, especially with my alcoholism. No, I just continued down the streak and then I got sober and then, about six to eight months into my sobriety journey, I’m leaving a meeting on the east side of Cleveland. I put on a Jocko Willink podcast. You’re probably familiar with Jocko. Oh yeah, us Marine SEAL. A lot about discipline, leadership, leadership, phenomenal, human being, inspirational. And he’s got this guy on, daniel Amen, who’s a world-renowned psychiatrist. Daniel Amen, who’s a world-renowned psychiatrist. He’s got the Amen Clinics, which he created brain-spec imaging, where they can go in and basically do an MRI of the brain and give you a true diagnosis of what’s going on. And he’s talking about this book that he wrote called the End of Mental Illness. So I ordered on Amazon. It comes that weekend.

Dan Flanagan: 46:17

I’m sitting there with a dictionary and encyclopedia. I’m certainly not the smartest guy in the room, especially today, but I’m looking through all this stuff and I’m like this is a blueprint. This is a blueprint to deal with every single type of brain illness that you can think of, from PTSD to anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, whatever it may be. And I started thinking about a conversation I had with my uncle and dad about six months earlier. They had started putting together this idea of mentorship and we can create some more peer to peer mentorship in schools. And I thought to myself, well, what if we did that? But we tied a curriculum into it that we developed that deal with brain wellness and tie it to mentorship. That deal with brain wellness and tie it to mentorship. So we did and my sister and my cousin Ann really developed this curriculum. You know I gave them a couple ideas but they ran with it educational backgrounds and they built this wonderful curriculum that our staff teaches to an eighth, ninth or tenth grader. Depends on the district and how they want this to work for four weeks and get them equipped to be a teacher, to really become a master, and then they then teach it to a young mentor which is a fourth, fifth and sixth grader. We call it a mentee and so mentor to mentee.

Dan Flanagan: 47:39

We sort of let go at that point. We oversee the program, make sure they’re following the process we’re taking and we’re looking at. Are we moving the needle on their behavioral health? Are they getting better from a social, emotional aspect? Are they dealing with their pain? Are they now fighting instead of flighting Things that I did the wrong way?

Dan Flanagan: 48:02

We want to see these kids do it the right way and really face their fears and face their traumas and deal with life adversity with somebody that is now working with them, that’s a little bit older and so cyclically over time. What I want to see is this movement where that fourth, fifth or sixth grader becomes that eighth through tenth grader Right, and now they’re the leader. They’re sort of becoming the teacher becomes the master. They’re learning skills that they wouldn’t have developed on their own. We wrap them with community partners that can give them access to fitness, exercise, science, fiscal wellness, therapy services. You know, as they cause there’s a gap between you know fifth grade and they call it eighth grade, where they’re like they might lose sight of the program. But we’re going to keep them engaged with partners in the communities that we go into to keep it rolling.

Todd Bertsch: 48:55

And that’s a incredibly important time too, right? I saw the stat there 50% of lifetime mental illness starts at 14 years old. So you’re talking about that age range of yeah, you know, fifth six. I mean my stuff started when I was 14.

Dan Flanagan: 49:12

Yeah, my dad lost his dad when he was 14.

Dan Flanagan: 49:15

My brother was 12 when he had a stroke, or he was 14 actually. No, he was 14 when he first had a stroke and I think that that’s when things went haywire in his mind and he started to develop these symptoms and signs of mental illness or brain illness. But there’s an awful stigma out there about this, todd. Oh yeah, you know, I think that all pain has purpose, and some of the suffering and pain that we go through in our life, I believe, has meaning, and so what I’m trying to do, and what Bree’s trying to do, and my dad and our team, is is say that it’s okay to feel these ways, it’s okay to be going through these things, it’s okay to be struggling in life or not getting what you need at home, but you can really turn this into a great opportunity where you can either get better yourself or you can bless somebody else and help them get better, and, in turn, you’re going to get better faster by helping somebody other than you, and so that’s that’s a beautiful model man and that’s that’s.

Todd Bertsch: 50:20

That is that is my living purpose. You know, teaching positive intelligence, the power of positivity, the power of cultivating a growth mindset, the frame or the golden piece of positive intelligence is finding the gift and opportunity in every situation, and that’s about being able to pause and reframe. Being able to pause and reframe right, just it’s the slowing down, the pausing, and being able to look in the mirror, just look at a situation and say, all right, I could come into it this way. Yeah, my negative oh is me and everyone’s against me. And we all, like you said, we all have struggles, we all have things we’re dealing with. Or I can look at it in a different, more positive way and say where’s the gift here? You know this is happening for a reason. I’m just going to embrace it, learn from it. You know, shift, pivot or see it as an opportunity to grow and help and maybe help somebody else better myself or better, you know, someone else.

Todd Bertsch: 51:16

So I love what you’re doing, man. Obviously you’re passionate about it. This it’s interesting, you know we look at kind of the journey, the map of our life, and this is all led right. You could see this from your history. It’s divine background, it’s all. It’s all came to this point and I think it’s beautiful too that this is a, this is a I mean non-profit, this is a family business yeah, you know and that, uh, you’re being able to.

Todd Bertsch: 51:42

You’re able to do this with your sister, which is cool. I’d imagine you guys have a really tight bond. It sounds like your family. How’s your dad doing, is he? He’s doing better?

Dan Flanagan: 51:52

that’s awesome man, you know he’s, he’s faced it and he’s gone through programs and uh, his spirituality is number one too and you know he still has his moments and still has struggles, like all of us do sure he, he’s come a long way and, you know, certainly even being open to me telling his story Like I, I, I got approval from him first to to even be able to tell that to people because it’s personal Sure.

Dan Flanagan: 52:15

I mean, that’s fair. He wants people to know. He wants because people are out there and they’re hiding it and this is a good way to bless people and give people hope that they can get better and they can become victors. And you know, forever, todd. I was a victim.

Dan Flanagan: 52:28

I was a victim in this circumstance and you know it was, it was the. When I got sober it was the 445s, the 5 AMs in the gym, you know, every morning for the last year and a half I do a cold plunge and I put myself through through pain, pain, right yeah, where I started to find myself and I started to really understand that I had been living like a victim. And woe is me and my circumstances, and and and but now and I still have moments, right, but it’s like now I try to be victorious every day and and and deal with you know my thoughts and and deal with the things that I’ve gone through and the traumas, and and be a victor for not only myself but for my kids and and my wife and people that I surround myself with.

Todd Bertsch: 53:21

Yeah, absolutely. It’s an incredible story, man, and that’s what this is all about, and you talked about it a little bit as we were setting up for the show. I mean, this is all about transformation and getting vulnerable and sharing stories, you know, and hopefully inspiring somebody to say, oh man, I’ve experienced something like this and you know, I haven’t really done anything about it and you know, I’m 40, 50 like this.

Todd Bertsch: 53:43

And you know I haven’t really done anything about it, and you know I’m, you know, 40, 50 years old. It’s not too late, man, anybody. You just, we all need help. Just raise your hand, it’s okay. We’re in a different time in society, right, and we all, we all need better people, especially this day and age.

Dan Flanagan: 53:57

We do, you know. So it takes a village, it takes a village man, it takes a village.

Todd Bertsch: 54:01

It takes a village man, it takes a village. Find your tribe, find good people. Ask for help. Dan, what’s the hope of this BEI nonprofit you put together? What’s the long game here?

Dan Flanagan: 54:32

Well, I mean we want of their kids and the behavioral health of their students, and a lot of the schools don’t have answers for it. They don’t really want to deal with it. They want to focus on what they’re great at.

Todd Bertsch: 54:43

Right right so it’s a lot of things that we want to do.

Dan Flanagan: 54:46

I mean, you know, first off, we want to change you know the way that our students view this and view their feelings and emotions and really give them a program to develop and get better. But it’s also an advocation for our schools. You know, our teachers right now are losing capacity by the minute, dealing with behavioral health issues of kids, with interruptions and what’s going on in classrooms. And we think that if we can come in and we’re certainly not experts but if we can come in with this program and they sort of outsource it and we can start to really work on the human beings and really get to the root causes of their problems, we think that they’re going to be better students.

Dan Flanagan: 55:34

And if they’re better students and they’re more attentive and focused and doing what the teachers are saying they need to do every day, we’re going to have better teachers and then we’re going to have better administrators and then we’re going to have better school districts and there’s sort of going to be this buildup effect of really we can really free up these teachers who are just trying to help their students get better at what they’re great at. If they’re a math teacher, science teacher or they’re teaching psychology, it doesn’t matter what it is If they’re constantly dealing with all these other issues, they can’t focus on the one thing. Yeah, so we want to change. You know the outcomes of the people. We want to help the districts, we want to help everybody in whole get better, like you sort of alluded to earlier of like just become the best versions of who they are.

Todd Bertsch: 56:22

Right and that’s it, and take this kind of on a national.

Dan Flanagan: 56:27

Yeah, I mean I don’t know, you know. Yeah, I mean it’s. You know how that goes growing a business. You start small and you know, see where it goes.

Todd Bertsch: 56:34

And so you’re in a couple of schools.

Dan Flanagan: 56:35

So yeah, so right now we’re working with Akron Public Schools, okay, and that probably took a while to.

Todd Bertsch: 56:41

This doesn’t happen overnight, right? No, no, no, no, no.

Dan Flanagan: 56:45

No, I have an amazing team. First and foremost, I have 11 board of directors that all fall into different professional realms, from social services and psychology to finance, and a lot of these people are connected and they’re community people, and so that they bring their relationships to the table. Yeah, so a lot of this is done through board. Okay. And their connections have given me an APS, or you know like I got five calls in the last two weeks from Stowe, talmadge, hudson and Revere.

Todd Bertsch: 57:14

That’s it, they’re calling me.

Dan Flanagan: 57:15

I mean, they’re starting to see that this is out there and we’ve been really working with APS for like three weeks. Wow, I don’t know if it’s our social that’s working or what, and who knows?

Todd Bertsch: 57:29

Well, there’s a need. There’s a need. And the funny thing is, you know you’re talking about this and I’m thinking about, uh, an email that I got from Gallup, you know, and all the polls that they do, seeing the exact same thing with employees, you probably see it, see it too right the number one, the number one issue you quitting burnouts all goes back to mental health being the number one top thing that employees are most concerned about, or employers as well. So it’s a national epidemic, right? We just went from COVID to mental health and a lot of the mental health came from COVID, and COVID helped bring mental health to light, you know. So it’s a weird paradigm shift. You know that’s happened with all of this, but I think we’re better off, you know, than we were five years ago in terms of just the awareness, the stigma, you know, I know myself as a business owner as a result of all this happening.

Todd Bertsch: 58:27

We’ve changed our policies. We’ve instituted two extra PTO days. We call them mental health days. Do whatever you want. We just want to give you extra time. We know everybody just needs some time and other things. You’re starting to see that more in companies and wellness programs that are integrating mindfulness practices and mental health into the wellness piece. So we have ways to go, but I think the awareness piece and what you’re doing and what other people are doing and just sharing their story and being vulnerable and putting it out there is going to have a tremendous impact. We even see it in the HR world. Yeah, I mean we have active shooter trainings now.

Todd Bertsch: 59:07

Yeah.

Dan Flanagan: 59:07

You know we’re doing more and more. We’re sort of articulating different trainings now that are geared towards this issue of. You know, this isn’t just a student, well, this brain illness stuff doesn’t discriminate, right?

Dan Flanagan: 59:21

You know it’s going on with 50% of our population under 14, but think about the 50% above 14. I mean, I know 60 year olds that are dealing with depression and anxiety. I have a, you know, 38 year old brother that is still dealing with these things by the minute, right? So it’s on all levels and who knows, you know, maybe we go from education to the private sector or whatever. But you know, my goal is to get good at what we do and the one thing and impact one life, and then that one life turns to two, to four, to eight, and then it spreads. And you know, great, if we stay in Akron, if not, we get into Cleveland and other cities or we go into a different state. Who knows? Right, I have no idea where it’s going to go. I state, who knows, I have no idea where it’s going to go.

Dan Flanagan: 1:00:09

I just know that we’re trying to make a difference, we’re trying to make an impact and we’re trying to move the needle on the behavioral health piece. And really what I think is unique about our program, todd, is it’s proactive. We’re getting out in front of this early. You know everything, not everything, but most things dealing with mental illness are very reactionary. It’s a lot of prescription medications it’s almost like it’s too late to the game type stuff we want to get out before they even have a symptom and just educate them on this can happen. And now, if it does, you have a model, you have a sort of a blueprint to adopt and integrate into your life that’ll sort of get you not get you away from it, but prepare yourself for it and really be ready for it. If it does happen and you’ll be able to succeed.

Todd Bertsch: 1:00:55

Yeah, it’s interesting. I just had a conversation with a woman yesterday who’s a mindfulness of kind of a trauma coach, and she said something that just resonated with me and she said you know, we’re really just trying to be proactive and not reactive and although it’s not a revolutionary phrase per se or philosophy, I was like, oh yeah, I mean that’s key and that’s what, being open-minded right, Having that growth mindset and being curious. We just have to just be open to hearing about these things and learning about these things.

Todd Bertsch: 1:01:33

But, yeah, if we can start with the younger generation right, our future leaders, and let them know it’s okay, and then have the resources for those who need it, things are going to get better, man. One person one shift right, as you saw in your life, as I saw in my life. These things don’t happen overnight, you know, but you just have to commit to one day we just say we just want to get 1% better every day, that’s it man, that’s it.

Dan Flanagan: 1:02:00

You do that for a year, you’re 37% better. If you do that for two and a half years, you’re now a different human being 15 minutes a day, 15.

Todd Bertsch: 1:02:07

The ROI is crazy man it is, but you everybody has to make that choice.

Dan Flanagan: 1:02:16

That’s the thing you cannot force somebody into any of this. That’s right.

Todd Bertsch: 1:02:18

So well said. Well, dude man, this has been awesome. Man, thank you for sharing your whole journey. I mean, you got really deep and personal and I know that’s not easy to do, but I appreciate that and I appreciate you and what you’re doing, and I love that you came back into my life. I believe that everything happens for a reason and relationships are critically important. I love, love what you’re doing. I know you’re going to have a tremendous impact and I love just how you turn yourself around, man. I can just. I mean you look man, you just you beam, you look blissful and happy, and to see somebody like that and I know I’m in that place too it’s, it’s beautiful, you know, to find your calling to just live life happy, you know and just enjoying every breath.

Dan Flanagan: 1:03:04

Anybody can do it.

Todd Bertsch: 1:03:04

Yeah, man, you know what I mean, absolutely so I appreciate you, man. Thanks for being on the show. Dan, thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Bolt Podcast. You’re on an inspiring journey of growth, transformation and joy, and I’m honored to be a part of it. If you found this episode valuable, please like it, share it with your friends and consider leaving a review. It means the world to us For show notes, resources and to subscribe to the weekly Motivational Monday newsletter. Please visit toddbertsch.com and don’t forget to follow us on social media at the Bolt with Todd B for more inspiration. Remember, real change doesn’t happen overnight, folks. Start small, stay consistent, and watch as your growth unfolds. See you next time.