SPECIAL EDITION: Leadership Lessons from the Heart - A Personal Story

In reaching my one year open-heart surgery anniversary this month, I wanted to share the lessons I learned during this time that directly relate to leadership with you. For those who want the short version of the lessons, they're right here below. For others, who want more of the story, keep on reading. 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

1 - The stories you tell yourself may not be true.

2 - I get to be in charge of who and what I share with others.

3 - Successfully empower others to help you (personally and professionally).

4 - Ask for what you need.

5 - Ask what not why.

6 - Be honest with yourself and be open to your emotions as they come up.

7 - Ask questions and trust others.

8 - Believe in something bigger than yourself.

9 - Life is great and there are "s" shows everywhere.

10 - Continue to be grateful, positive, and celebrate small wins.

Bonus - Bravery and Grace

AND FOR THE EXTENDED VERSION... 

When you go in for a regular checkup and you hear the words, "your aortic stenosis has progressed from critical to severe and you need to have open-heart surgery", you feel like you're in the movies you see with the pictures of people's past life swirling around their heads. I couldn't breathe - not because of my stenosis or the required mask - because of my fear of the unknown. Why did this happen when I did everything right?

My father passed away from a massive heart attack at thirty-six years old when I was in high school. As you might suspect, the stories I put around heart health or disease came from the worst possible outcome of the heart. So, the stories I told myself was that if I ate healthily, exercised regularly, never did drugs, and didn't smoke, my heart would be healthy. 

As I reflect on the one-year anniversary of my open-heart surgery, I am astonished at the number of lessons and learnings that came up during my journey and how they so often (almost always!) are connected to leadership and the development of leaders. Let me dive in a bit deeper...

10 LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM THE HEART

Lesson #1: The stories you tell yourself may not be true.

I truly believed if I followed the rules of a healthy lifestyle, I would not have heart issues. What I didn't want to realize is that I don't have control over my genetic disposition. Sometimes the stories we tell ourselves are a way to cope or our armor that has been built up over time that allows us to protect ourselves. A great quote from Byron Katie, "When you argue with reality, you lose, but only 100% of the time". 

Another story I told myself is that only unhealthy people have heart issues. As someone who struggles with body image and doing the "right thing", I knew that people would judge my heart issues as someone who didn't take care of themselves. And they would say, "Of course she has heart issues because she is overweight", or "she didn't keep herself in shape". Never were my stories about giving myself and my Dad grace and that maybe, just maybe the stenosis was heriditary and we didn't have any control over it. Check in with yourself on these stories. Unpack the awareness and possible truths. Don't just believe the stories that allow us to beat ourselves up in the process. As much as you give others grace, give yourself grace, too. 

Lesson #2: I get to be in charge of who and what I share with others. 

Find your circle of trust and share what you choose to share. From my perspective, if you share what you want with the people you trust, your information becomes the story you get to tell. The trusted people you share it with are not going to reshare without your permission. Allow the time to share to be your own. 

Of course, you need to share your absence with your work team and/or boss, but you still have the authority to choose what you share with them. For our business, I not only wanted to share with our team, but I also needed to share my absence with clients and have a plan for while I was out. 

Lesson #3: Successfully empower others to help you (personally or professionally). 

As many of us recover from over-achieving tendencies, we have a tendency to say and believe we can do it all and we don't need other's help. Give authority over to your teams, trust they will do their best, and let go. The Leadership Delta team shined through the process, even receiving comments afterwards that nobody saw a shift in marketing, service, and leadership development facilitation. It's amazing what people can do with the opportunity and belief to do their best when someone also believes in them.

This leads into Lesson #4 pretty quickly: Ask for what you need.

Many times we stop ourselves from asking for what we need because we don't want to be overbearing or we fear people may think we are too demanding. In reality, it is better to have clarity then not because when it's not done the way we would like it to be, we may feel resentment, frustration, or anger. This ties into thinking you can do everything. I needed to let go of control and ask for what I needed help with professionally and personally.

I was able to ask for what I needed because I was beyond the idea of trying to figure out the "why" this happened to me.

Lesson #5: Ask what not why.

Tasha Eurich has hours of research on self-awareness and it was shown that the most successful, self aware leaders are those that do not focus on why, but what. For me, it came down to letting go of my why did this happen to me when I did everything "right" and "good" for my heart and focus on what was I going to do to get my heart healthy in a new way. When I read what I wrote, it makes it seem like it was easy and simple, it was not.

Lesson #6: Be honest with yourself and feel the emotions as they come up. 

Emotions signal messages - they are the storytellers, they allow you to develop actions, and they give you data points on the future. Crying from certain emotions is even healthy for you. Own your emotions and learn to recognize them and lean into them.

I'm not great at taking the time to stop and name the emotion. However, I also know how important it is to take that time. I had my coach along side to give me the space I needed to be heard and seen with my emotions pre- and post-surgery. She respectfully asked the right questions and allowed me time to feel the emotions so I could better understand the root of the emotion and respond rather than react.

Lesson #7: Ask questions AND trust others.

Since I am not a doctor and especially not a cardiologist, I needed to trust the  experts and ask questions. At one point, I thought I could have a less invasive procedure instead of open heart surgery and all of my recommendations came back not agreeing with my own summation (again, I'm not a doctor) on what I could do to fix the problem with my heart. Apparently, I don't have all of the answers so seeking out expert advice was critical for my success. With the stenosis progression and my young age (yes, they kept telling me I was so young...), the other procedure was not a viable option long term. I accepted the reality of open-heart surgery, the long-term effects, and lifestyle change of being on a blood thinner for life or at least until they find a new medicine that will work with mechanical valves (they're working on it). I was ready. I knew my heart was in the right hands, literally. 

Lesson #8: Believe in something bigger than yourself.

As leaders, we talk about believing in serving others, the vision, the team, the strategy, the community. The list goes on and on but it's not just about us. For me, going into surgery, I was not afraid. For me, I know that I am here on Earth on lease. There is a plan for me and my time on Earth is already known. My strong faith led me to be at peace the morning of June 9, 2021. However, what I didn't know was how much my life was going to change.

The surgery went well and I was out of the hospital in six days. My life was changed from managing my eating (less vitamin K for thinning blood), to a change in workouts, to the scar forever implanted on my chest, to hearing the mechanical valve tick-tock (I joke about being the crocodile in the Peter Pan story - you will always know when I'm around), and to being alive differently today than on June 8, 2021. 

Lesson #9: Life is great and there will be "s" shows all around.

Even though there were changes in my life, the summer of 2021 was moving in the right direction. Everything I had planned with my clients and travel went as expected. Even speaking at the TeamWomen Leadership Conference in August was successful without a hitch. I was moving on from my heart surgery, just as I had planned. And then September hit and reminded me that there will be "s" shows. I had dizzy spells and cognitive challenges that brought me to the ER on one occasion and caused me to reschedule a development session with a client. My INR (blood regulation) was off so I had to start giving myself anticoagulation injections -  2/day until we could move the needle - this has happened a few times. I had doctor appointments from eyes, to neurology, to the combination of neuro-ophthalmology, to finding an internal medicine doctor. And then, on October 25, I woke up to both hands being in excruciating pain and trying to figure out a whole new problem to solve. We canceled our vacation in November. From October through February I slept in 90-minute increments where I could shake out my hands to try and sleep again. Then in February, I had double carpal tunnel surgery (immediate pain relief).

Sharing this part of my story is not to have you feel sorry for me. I want you to know life was still wonderful, but there were definitely "s" shows all around. I thought that getting past my major surgery would be all life handed to me that year but life had other plans and I am here to tell you I continue to survive these challenges AND I can say I have a great life. 

Lesson #10: Continue to be grateful, positive, and celebrate small wins.

At one point, I told my husband if I would have known it was going to be this hard, I don't think I would have had the heart surgery. I had the choice because life is about choices, but yet, what I was missing was how positivity and gratefulness can really shift your mindset. Looking at the small wins and celebrating those wins to get you to the next potential obstacle. Am I positive and grateful everyday? No. When I hear myself becoming less positive, I shift my mindset. Research shows the more we can shift our mindset in a positive direction, the neurons will automatically lead us into that direction of positivity and gratefulness. 

It's amazing how leadership lessons show up everywhere, not just at work. 

Thank you for allowing me to share my story. My hope is you can take one thing from my leadership lessons from the heart and start to or continue to apply it to your very own story. As always, I am open to sharing my story and answering questions so please reach out if you want to know more. It's not a taboo subject for me (anymore). I welcome your thoughts, feedback, and questions if it serves you today or someday in the future.

I dedicate this blog to my husband, Nurse Dave. He was my rock (a little too controlling and bossy at times 😊), but an amazing partner and continues to be my biggest supporter. I appreciate you.

And last but not least, Lesson #11: I can say it best through Brene Brown's quote - "Loving ourselves through the process of owning our own story is the bravest thing we'll ever do."