Stronger After The Storm

EPISODE 48 - Planting a Tree For Someone I'll Never See-Why I'm building something that outlasts me There's a particular kind of tree I love planting — the ones that'll stand in a parkland for hundreds of years after I'm gone, long after anyone remembers who put them in the ground. In this episode I talk about why I started Stronger After the Storm alongside my forestry wo...

Ep 47: The Hard Days Still Come - Expecting the waves and knowing you can handle them There's a moment out on the hill, knapsack full, heat rising, when I know I've gone past the point I should have stopped. This episode is about that moment — the voice that tells you to push on anyway, and what it actually takes to say "I need to take five or ten" instead. I talk through the d...

Episode 46 — Why Support Matters | Giving and Receiving Help After a Heart Attack  It's always been easier for me to give support than to receive it. I found that out properly after my heart attack — twice, in two very different situations.  When I got home from hospital, my daughter tidied the cottage up and stayed the night to make sure I was okay. She'd done exactly the same thing mon...

  Ep 45: Men, Vulnerability, and Real Talk   Something changed in me after my heart attack that made it a bit easier to talk about the hard stuff. I don't think it was courage — not really. It was something different to that.  In this episode I look back at my own relationship with being open: the conversations I could always have with my dad, the bonds I built years ago in the Merchant Navy,...

Episode 44 — One Year Stronger | Reflecting on a Year of Stronger After the Storm A year ago I sat at my desk with my finger hovering over a button. Do I press it or don't I? I'd spent weeks building it — recording at home, editing in Audacity, no idea what I was doing, no YouTube, no plan beyond wanting to tell my story and hoping it might help someone. August 26th, 2025. I hit publish....

Episode 43 — What I'd Tell My Younger Self | Lessons on Delegation and Letting Go If I could sit down with the man running those hotels — before any of this happened — I know exactly what I'd tell him. Not slow down. Not stop dreaming. Something else entirely. Master the art of delegation. I mastered nearly every part of that industry myself — cruise liners, cleaning, stocking bars, cook...

EPISODE 42 — Learning to Respond, Not React | Steadying Your Triggers After a Heart Attack  I've always known how to stay calm under pressure — behind a bar on a chaotic night, running a kitchen where every second counted. But it took a heart attack to teach me to use that same skill on myself.  This episode is about the gap between reacting and responding. A recent moment at work where I sna...

Episode 41 —  A Different Kind of Strong | Redefining Strength After a Heart Attack Before my heart attack, strength meant one thing. Throwing full kegs of beer around with ease. Lifting heavy timber. Wrestling hung trees to the ground. Strength was physical, and it was everything. After the heart attack, that felt gone. I thought all my effort would need to go into protecting a weak, fragile hear...

Episode 40 — Why Me? | Letting Go of Blame After a Heart Attack After my heart attack, when the question hit — why me — I already knew part of the answer. Years of running hotels. Two kitchens. Lots of staff. Six in the morning until one or two the next day, seven days a week. I'd looked in the mirror and known something had to change. I gave up the hotels, went back to forestry, and thought...

Episode 39 — Who Am I Now? | Finding Your Identity After a Heart Attack When I got home from hospital after my heart attack, I walked through the front door, sat on the couch, and looked at my family photos on the wall. I thought I'd seen them for the last time. Within days the fear and anxiety hit. I'd lie on the pillow every night listening to my own heartbeat, asking it to keep going...

Episode 38 Helping Others Without Losing Yourself In this episode I talk about something that crept up on me without me realising it — the weight of carrying other people's struggles when you've been open about your own. When you've been honest about what you've been through, people start opening up to you. That's a good thing. But I found myself pouring out more than I wa...

Episode 37 - Saying Goodbye To The Life Before There's a part of recovery nobody really talks about. For me, it looked a lot like grief — but nobody had died. This week I talk about saying goodbye to the life I had before the heart attack. Not just the man I was on the inside, but the shape of my days. The pace I kept. The quiet assumptions about how it was all going to go. There's even...

Episode 36 | The Gap Between Knowing and Doing After everything I'd been through — the heart attack, the recovery, the lessons — you'd think I'd be the first to stop when my body told me to. This week I wasn't. And it caught me out. In this episode I talk about something every man who's been through a cardiac event wrestles with. The gap between what you know you should do...

Episode 35 - You're Not The Same Man After A Heart Attack — Here's Why That's Okay You survived the heart attack. You did the rehab. You went back to work. But something underneath has changed — and nobody warned you about that part. In this episode I talk about what it really feels like when you start to realise you're not the same man you were before. The shift in how you thi...

  It took me 11 years to talk about this.  After my heart attack, I didn’t just carry the physical recovery — I carried everything that came after it.  The fear.  The silence.  The questions I didn’t know how to answer.  Tonight, I want to tell you why.  This isn’t a polished version of the story.  It’s the honest one — the part that took years to say out loud.  If you’ve been through something si...

Episode 33 Telling Your Story When You’re Finally Ready A lot of men go through something life-changing… and then stay quiet about it for years. Not because they’ve forgotten it.  Not because it didn’t matter. But because sometimes it takes time to process what really happened. In this episode of Stronger After The Storm , I talk about why many men stay silent after a heart attack, why there is no...

Episode 32 - The day I Felt Normal Again - Moments of Calm That show How Far You've Come. After a heart attack, you wait for a big moment that tells you you're getting better. A clear sign. A obvious marker. Something you'll recognise immediately. But it doesn't come like that. In this episode of Stronger After The Storm, I talk about the morning I sat in my garden with a quiet...

Episode 31 — Getting Older Without Fear -  Making peace with aging after a heart attack After a heart attack, aging stops feeling like something in the distance. It moves closer. It becomes something you think about on quiet mornings, looking at photos of your family, wondering things you never used to wonder. In this episode of Stronger After The Storm, I talk about the quiet fear that crept in a...

Episode 30 — Music, Memory, and Healing After a Heart Attack After a heart attack, music doesn’t always feel the same. Songs you’ve heard for years can suddenly hit differently.  They bring memories.  Emotions.  Moments you haven’t thought about in a long time. In this episode of Stronger After The Storm , I talk about how music became part of my recovery — not as a distraction, but as something t...

Episode 29 —Small Wins: How I Measure Progress After a Heart Attack    After a heart attack, progress doesn’t always look the way you expect it to.  There are no big milestones.  No dramatic breakthroughs.  Just small wins… every day.  In this episode of Stronger After The Storm , I share how my understanding of progress changed during recovery — and why the small, often unnoticed moments became t...

Episode 28 —The First Holiday After a Heart Attack The first holiday after a heart attack doesn’t feel the way you expect it to. What used to feel relaxing can suddenly feel uncertain.  New surroundings.  Different routines.  And that quiet awareness that something has changed. In this episode of Stronger After The Storm , I reflect on what it was like going away for the first time after my heart...

  After a heart attack, recovery doesn’t just change your health.  It quietly changes your relationships too.  Some friendships grow stronger.  Others slowly drift away.  In this episode of Stronger After The Storm , Dougie reflects on the friendships that changed after his heart attack, why this happens during recovery, and why it’s sometimes a natural part of rebuilding life.  Serious illness ca...

 Episode 26 — Going Out for a Drink Again. Finding Your Limits After a Heart Attack Returning to everyday life after a heart attack happens gradually.  For many men, one of the first social milestones is going out again — meeting friends, sharing a drink, and feeling a little closer to normal life.  In Episode 26 of Stronger After the Storm, Dougie reflects on the first times he went out after his...

 Episode 25 – Mind Over Heart: A Simple Toolkit for the Head Noise   After a heart attack, your body can look fine — but your mind may still be on high alert.  In this episode of Stronger After the Storm, I talk about the simple tools that helped steady the head noise in the early weeks of recovery.  Not to silence it. Not to control it. But to stop it running the show.  I share:  • The difference...

Episode 24 Heart Attack Myths vs. Reality: Why the “Hollywood Heart Attack” Can Delay Recognition and Increase Anxiety What does a heart attack actually feel like? In the movies, it’s sudden collapse and dramatic chest-clutching. In reality, for many men over 50, it can be a quiet storm of pressure, fatigue, nausea, or confusion — symptoms that are easy to dismiss. In Episode 24 of Stronger After...