he's a pretty cool person too but before we get started you know what we do on a dr joy show we take it down with the really deep breaths are you ready inhale ex inhale exhale a pleasure to have experience to life traumatic instances for many people surviving one heart attack pals but this time it's been about thirteen years since my first heart attack i got the foam i said eighty percent of my heart had died so we will who ok so if we think of a heart which is the hardest working muscle in the body and they said that eighty percent of your heart has died that means you only have twenty percent that's a lot right so there's no place to bypass to i mean normally you have a blockage right a bypass around the blockage to another healthy part of the heart right or they do a stint there is right or they put a stent in in this case that wasn't possible because there's no place to bypass to there's no reason to stand there's no miracle drugs to send me home on so they have a nice list of things they couldn't do but then we you know we looked at our what else was out there we found other opportunities ok but i want to also talk about your book you  your heart failure a gift right and why is that i like to drive my wife crazy well according to your book and ladies and gentlemen you all should get this book ok we'll talk about we can get it later the gift of tells us dory and it's very vivid so is it an easy read it's an easy read but it's got it's chock full of nuggets life nuggets that this man has written and put together for us so take us to the way you you had the you a grabbing the sink is right in your beautifully appointed bathroom and westville new jersey get that and then next thing you know you're on the floor you exhausted and i was just looking out the window i'm thinking of passover now being told that passover that window i was right and i thought you know they're passing over me today because i've been taught but when i was lying on the floor and i was being shaken i thought might be the angel that's going to get me actually my wife and she would scream at me why are you sleeping on the bathroom floor which is a fair question i don't normally sleep there right shifting while i'm doing there and i really didn't know what was going on or how to answer her and i don't understand the panic  her eyes so she ran off to call nine one one and then they talk about orc you know in a joking manner yours is like a little privacy in the bathroom before i knew it there was twenty first responders in the bathroom e u and i was the center of attention right right and you and and and you you were conason of that there were people around you but you kind of had an out of body experience well i think about that a little bit further in the book but no at that point i was just it's called the heart success you know used to call the heart failure unit but they changed the name because it was right they deal with people with heart failure failure patients write what they call themselves heart success myself a minute so many just told me how to deal with things and the lessons i learned while i was in the hospital i really was one of the best gets my life did you feel as though through your fifty five days while you were in the hospital did you have feel like you wanted to give up i never want to go but for anyone and that makes me think of how certain people i thought i was going to die not one which i guess is understandable yeah eighty dead twenty percent alive right but either on to dance around lucky or i just never thought my thought was a i time right so and i never gave up on me some days were difficult but you just did that one task in front of you that they ask you to do to get to the next day or just accomplish that one thing and one of the more important things to talk about in the book is being able to shift your perspective and that's where you might i might have talked about having an out of body experience right i try to leave my body and look down to a situation unemotional way so i'm not so upset about it and just do what i have to do that day to get to the next day right and i talk about the book looking at the problem as if it was your best friend's problem so you can be a little more effective you tell your best friend you're going to make it just do what they tell you to do in three months you know it's all going to be behind you so you took a deal see your own medicine really right now it really does of your own advice it's right you really got to remove the emotion yet or take a different perspective and what it but that's extremely hard to do it's hard to do when you're in a cause you're so wrapped up in the right another part of the book which might or rather this is something you have to me when i was in college where they gave everyone in class a sheet of nobody wrote about the majority of these paper which is the white space around the black right and the blacked out to me represents your problem your obstacles in life sometimes that's all you see right you have to back up a little bit to see the rest of the picture oh actions and then from your actions there results right because you know you doing something and then from that doing that thing that action there's going to be a result so if you want a good result or a result of success that means your thoughts and feelings have to be positive and the results don't have to be huge result no oh any anything that's good it could be from the smallest miniscule thing to fifty five days because when you first come on you're in intensive care yeah like in the most intensive intensive care right all clocks no windows you know nerves twenty four seven by your bad right just got out of this traumatic surgery right just a little a college  feeling you can hear the people around you but you can't move yet and they're talking about your they're telling you move your fingers and toes so and you really want to do it and then eventually you're able to and then they remove the ventilator  i asked you if you had a phone and you said your phone was in the other room yeah i said ok so what's that and i pointed to the bag there and you said those are the extra batteries can you explain sure i mean i guess most people don't are hooked up  my all that would stop and i might stop by carry extra batteries with me of course so these last long time they won't last ten hours ok i have pictures with me yet for more at home that home i can plug into a machine that's plugged into the wall so the you of the harder things about daily life is you have a wall in there where the wire goes in right bandage and my wife was tremendous there's better than the nurses possible she changes my dressing for me every three days with all kinds of gloves you i can lay on the beach i can do anything else i want to do you can't take a bath got it you know you can take a shower if you put it in you know in plastic laughing and can you have a disconnect from it for a certain period of time i never have and no i don't  anyone want to hear i have another controller in that bag as well so if something went wrong i could replace the controller but you would want to be off the machine for more than fifteen minutes so you want the transplant list yes i'm on the list for now a new york ok so i'm on the list and the list is a tricky thing because it doesn't work by how long you're on the list that we're going to ask you how does that process where how do we get dan one nigger from whatever number you are do you know your number the number because it's hard becomes available right and then if you match it by size weight proteins blood type right it will now go to the sickest person on the list so that matches ok so there's people unless they're called one days they're in the hospital waiting there you know that doesn't work or they can get an elven right whatever reason so they would get a heart before i would get it and if no one's in the hospital and are comes in that matches me that it would go to right then i don't even need a heart you know so you never know what the future holds science amazing so yes it is you know and we just got to go with the flow right and i'm going to talk about that you're right that doctors now say no it's still better you get the heart transplant but it's getting now your younger daughter who you adopted wrote an essay about her experience while you were in the hospital and tell us a little bit about that essay that's what inspired the book and it was a powerful you're in the hospital people are excited when you first go to hospital excited when you survive the surgery but you know the weeks go by and you kind of just detach from your family she has music lessons she has schools you everybody has their lives and you're in the hospital trying to accomplish that little thing you get to the next day right which is exciting for you but not so exciting that you set up you know to the world right but so she was going through her own experience of her father the story last birth parents or don't know you know who they are what happened now she sees her father who's wants to be i know i feel like my people male chauvinist nine hundred fifty i feel like i'm the supposed to be the man in the house and i am being carried down the steps i'm looking at my daughter holding her stretcher and over and hold her and say everything's going to be ok but i couldn't you had a bunch of people around me you don't you know you're you've lost control of your life right doing what they're going to do and they're taking out the door so they take me down the stairs they take my door i can just picture her standing there watching her father go out the door not knowing what happened right her mother's upset her mother's angry your mother doesn't know what's happening to her family structure right so she wrote an essay how she went to school the next hospital and then that's what you started did you start writing the book when you were in the hospital i didn't start writing it but i thought to myself you know these are the little things in life absolutely that's reshaped the little things she had came to me after surgery and her mother express your feelings well she didn't know how to handle the stress of what was going on and we just had a moment together i said i'm you don't have to say anything i know i know i know how you feel about me it's fine i know you love me i know this is difficult for you find a friend in our local towns club where she was taking lessons she once walked in and she started to tear up and the owner saw her there realized what was happening offered her after school job no money just come teach the kids right min ours in right and she did it every day now she still works there years later well that's great and she she loves this let's talk about fear which ladies and gentlemen fear is like a terrible emotion to have i call it say something bad is going to happen and that would just be from your own saw right maybe you saw a family member die or maybe you know you're just imagining bad things happening in the future and that creates the fear so if you say in the moment there's nothing to be scared of be present right you can be in danger that something different writers the thing to be fear is an illusion yes it's a difficult thing to do and i'm not saying it's easy and there's a lot of components to it but when i was lying there in that moment if you're where your feet are a lot of people say there's nothing to be scared it's only your thoughts that make you scared because you think the sign a bad outcome and that you and that can be anything where they said like you lay in a hospital it could be whether you lose a job right you lose your home you know something that's perceived to be non pleasant event let's talk about something pleasant a little about kindness and forgiveness you you state those elements in your book was some acts of kindness that you experience well i probably have to i mean a lot of them but the biggest ones were the nurses yeah and the nurses and for just wonderful people right circle resent them because they're to the ones telling you what to do not get out of bed you can't walk to the bathroom yourself you've got to call me if you want to do this you've got to take the other you don't do this so you really going to tell yourself right now all right so i remember the first time they were to move so they're getting me out of that i'm still hooked up to a wire i have things coming out of my neck right to id poles i have oxygen on i've got all this are just wonderful people and i really appreciate i still go back and visit them to try to tell them what they meant to me well no that's great so you have through this experience you you probably have a lot of points elements of gratitude a lot of gratitude and you mentioned forgiveness or yes forgiveness is one of the keys because it's the social with living in the present moment if you're angry about something whether it's with somebody else or you angry when who did you have to forgive well if you're angry with other people ok you can't be living in the present moment that's right that's your thinking what could i have done differently so do you have one lesson that you learned that is most important about overcoming obstacles we talked about a little bit already but it's perception and i don't know who said this but a lot of people have stopped it you look at something differently the book if you want a miracle in your life be a miracle and in the life of others what do you mean by that well that's something my father taught me a long time ago and he another one of the best lesson i learned in the book is every morning wake up and you ask yourself there live in a good universe order living even of oh yeah and that will change your day if you can answer in the affirmative if i was cut off while driving here and i believe i live in a good universe so thank god i missed me i'm going to be on time for my interview what a great that's true but being a miracle i went to the five k for the new jersey sharing network where the organization educates people on organ donation right and also i don't know if it's the right word they go out to like the organs and bring them to the hospitals when they're need chaplains i went to their five k and there's ten thousand people there and i was one of the team leaders and i got to stand on stage look at these people and i walked among some later and i got to say hello to people and i realize everyone there was touched by organ donation whether they received a heart or they gave part of a living oregon relative or a stranger or someone in the family died and they gave the gift of an organ is somebody else right i realize i'm walking amongst ten thousand miracle and i said i thought to myself  inspiration to others and for you to share your story i call it the shattered glass impact because yes it happened to you but now when you share your story it's not about you it's about the nuggets that when you share your story other people can take away the positive things that they can take away so thank you for sharing your story where can we get the gift of heart failure it's available on amazon yeah in either go to amazon and look up to an get to hard for i can get it is a paperback like you see here where it's also available to download here phone or i pad ok well everybody has that and i want to thank you once again now ladies and gentlemen we are going to encounter obstacles every day maybe some days more than others because that's life dan has showed us how to turn off the cold into opportunity and that