Featured in The Enterprise World’s 2025 issue, Dan MacQueen is a keynote speaker (DMac Keynote) whose story redefines resilience. After a sudden brain hemorrhage at 28 left him in a four-week coma, Dan fought back, relearning how to walk, talk, and rebuild his life. That journey became the foundation of DMac Keynote, where he now empowers audiences with real-world strategies for mindset, motivation, and navigating change. From tech professional to transformational speaker, Dan’s mission is clear: to help others tackle business or personal adversity.
The Unplanned Path
Dan MacQueen’s journey into a career as a speaker was not born from a long-term plan, but from a profound personal crisis. At 28, while living and working in the fast-paced tech world of London, his life took a dramatic turn. After experiencing severe headaches and a terrifying moment of temporary blindness, he was repeatedly misdiagnosed before an optometrist, Mr. Patel, discovered the true cause. On June 21, 2014, Dan underwent emergency brain surgery, which had complications, leading to a four-week coma.
His recovery was a testament to his resilience, forcing him to relearn fundamental skills like walking, talking, and smiling. With immense support from medical staff, family, and friends, Dan was inspired to “pay it forward.” His initial speaking engagements were at his former rehabilitation center, Wolfson, where he helped out-patients navigate life after the nerfed-up walls of the hospital. The trajectory of his career shifted after a successful keynote at Hootsuite garnered incredible feedback. When he later faced a job loss due to a major corporate restructuring, he made the bold decision to dedicate himself fully to speaking, founding DMac Keynote. This marked the beginning of his mission to share his story and inspire others.
Dan MacQueen’s Commitment to Mastery
For Dan MacQueen, being a keynote speaker is a deeply rewarding experience, yet it presents physical challenges. He lives with double vision, a lasting effect of his hemorrhage that requires him to be highly intentional with his movements and speech on stage. To overcome these hurdles, Dan has dedicated himself to deliberate practice, which he calls “earning the reps.” He has appeared on more than 80 podcasts and spoken at 25 events for business, government, and healthcare audiences, allowing him to hone his delivery.
Dan also acknowledges the difficulty of getting seen in the industry, where event planners need assurance that a speaker can deliver. He now knows how to connect with a crowd. He approaches his career as a long game, focusing on continuous improvement. His strategy is simple but not easy: speak well, keep learning, and get better. For Dan, success is built on a foundation of hard work, earning trust, and consistently showing up.
More than a Story
For Dan MacQueen, the most memorable and impactful moment of his speaking career didn’t happen on a grand stage, but at his old rehabilitation center, Wolfson. Following one of his talks, a man with a brain injury approached him and shared that he had stopped swimming after his injury because it felt too difficult. Inspired by Dan’s story and the joy he expressed, the man said, “I’m going to try again.”
This simple phrase profoundly affected Dan and became the core of his motivation. He realized his purpose wasn’t just to tell a compelling story, but to inspire people to take that crucial first step. For Dan, success is measured by these small but significant shifts in mindset, helping others find the courage to try again and live a little differently, one step at a time.
The Three Pillars of Change
Dan’s keynotes are built around three core themes: change management, resilience, and motivation, all drawn from his own life-altering experience. After waking up from a four-week coma following brain surgery, he faced the monumental challenge of relearning how to walk, talk, and smile. This firsthand encounter with radical change forms the basis of his message.
Acknowledging that not everyone has the same support system he did, Dan shares the practical lessons he learned that can be applied to both personal and business challenges. He describes resilience not as an innate quality, but as a muscle that is built over time by consistently keeping promises to oneself. His ultimate goal as a speaker is to provide the motivation people need to move forward, when business or personal setbacks sideswipe them.
Beyond the Website
Before every keynote, Dan MacQueen makes a point to connect with people inside the client organization to understand their true challenges, motivations, and concerns. He believes that to be effective, a talk must go beyond generic themes and address what truly matters to the audience. By gathering this insight, Dan tailors his message, connecting his personal story of resilience and change to the specific professional or personal obstacles his listeners face.
He never pretends to have lived their story, but instead uses his own experiences as a bridge to make his message personal and applicable. Dan also intentionally uses his “dry, dark sense of humor” to keep the atmosphere light and engaging. This preparation ensures that his talks are not only impactful but also uniquely relevant to every room he enters.
From Storytelling to Strategy
Dan’s impact as a speaker is best captured by the feedback he receives. An attendee at CyberQP once told him, “That wasn’t just a story about survival. That was a roadmap for resilience.” This comment resonated with Dan, reinforcing that his talks are not just about sharing an emotional story, but about providing practical tools and mindset shifts that people can apply to their own lives.
Another powerful piece of feedback came from a country manager at Spendesk, who noted how his team trained sales skills but not the mindset behind them. After hearing Dan speak, the manager said his team gained a “whole new perspective.” This is the ultimate goal of Dan’s keynotes: to shift perspective, build momentum, and help people become better than they were yesterday.
A Tactical Guide to Resilience
Dan MacQueen’s keynotes are powerful because they transform his personal story into practical, actionable insights. An attendee from the Manufacturing Safety Alliance of B.C. said Dan “reframed resilience in a way that finally clicked,” explaining that it’s about changing your internal narrative, not just pushing harder. This simple shift, they noted, has already improved their leadership under pressure.
Another attendee at CyberQP described his talk as “tactical,” praising Dan for helping them understand how their internal dialogue affects their team. This feedback highlights Dan’s ability to provide concrete tools for a mindset reset. Perhaps the most impactful feedback came from the National Brain Injury Conference of Canada, where a participant remarked, “I came in thinking I’d hear a talk about brain injury. What I got was a talk about being human.” This perfectly captures Dan’s core mission: to share universal lessons for dealing with life’s inevitable challenges, whether in a business, a hospital, or a home.
The Missing Piece
Dan MacQueen is a passionate advocate for SameYou, a brain injury charity, and is dedicated to bringing a message of hope to those impacted. He observes that while many people discuss navigating and leading through change, they often overlook the crucial element of mindset. Dan’s role is to provide that missing piece, believing that the most effective speakers are those who not only evoke emotion but also provide their audience with practical tools they can use long after the talk is over.
Drawing from his experience at Hootsuite, Dan emphasizes the importance of focusing on a clear value proposition. He uses the analogy of a streetlight: its function is to shine, but its true value lies in the safety and security it provides. He encourages others to frame their message in the same way, always asking, “What value are you actually bringing?” and starting from that point.
The Future is Bright
Dan MacQueen believes his speaking career is just getting started, with a bright future ahead that involves larger audiences and more impactful conversations. Having survived two brain surgeries, weeks in a coma, and months of rehabilitation, he rebuilt his life from the ground up. This profound experience is now the foundation of his mission: to help others tackle adversity.
Whether an audience is facing personal setbacks or leading a team through uncertainty, Dan’s message is that “the way out is through.” He views himself as a guide, ready to walk alongside people as they navigate their own challenges. His goal is to create more moments where someone hears his story and feels that they’ve received a message they truly needed.
Quick Takes
5 Key Takeaways to learn from Dan MacQueen’s journey
- Resilience is a Muscle, Not a Trait
- Focus on Being Better than Yesterday
- The Way Out is Through
- When you Change the Way you Look at the World, the World you Look at Changes
- It’s Not What Happens to You But How you React to it That Matters. -Epictetus
