Business Lessons Learned From My Recent Open Heart Quadruple Bypass Surgery

By Bob Lovinger, President and CEO/Flexxbuy and Coach Financing

Life sometimes seems redundant. As a business owner, manager or executive, you wake up every day pretty much understanding your mission.

For me, all that changed on February 28th when I work up with what I thought was indigestion. I thought so little of it, that I went off and played two hours of tennis. When it didn’t go away, I started exploring ChatGPT looking for confirmation that nothing was wrong and that there was nothing to worry about. Instead, the message was clear. Go directly to the ER.

I really didn’t think I was a prime candidate for a heart attack. It doesn’t run in my family. I live a pretty healthy lifestyle. I never smoked. I never drank alcohol. I’m not diabetic, though I can certainly lose weight. I don’t eat mammals. I’m active.

That said, there are aspects of my life that should have been improved years ago.

I’ve been an entrepreneur for over 35 years which means I’ve had over 35 years of stress, worry and sleep deprivation. I hope it doesn’t sound familiar. 

After undergoing a battery of tests and making a very long story short, I had my quadruple bypass surgery (know in the inner circles as CABG x4) on March 5th thus beginning the most horrific stretch of my life. I was in the hospital just about two weeks all told. I had more tests and procedures than I could ever recall. 

In my mind, I would leave the hospital with my new cardiovascular system, running at full tilt. There’s not  a way to describe how significantly I underestimated the recovery. While I’m on the other end of the most challenging aspects of it, I now understand it will continue for some time to come.   

While I would never want to do this again and really don’t recommend it, this has been the best business lesson I could have had and I want to share just a few pointers that could really help you one day.  Whether it’s an incident like the one I had or something else, if you live long enough, shit will happen.

If this would have happened a year ago, my business would have been in trouble. I was irreplaceable. I was essential. Being out of commission for any extended period of time would have been detrimental. I’ve worked through every vacation and event I’ve had my entire career.

Fortunately, whether it was a premonition, a sense of mortality or just having a great team around me, I’ve spent the past year intentionally leveraging out most of my operational functions. I simply decided that my role is best served as the prime visionary and product architect. It’s what I do best and what I enjoy doing. Not all business owners and managers have that luxury. Fortunately, I did. 

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been on top of every aspect of our business, including the most annoying aspects of it. I’ve since corrected that by removing myself from every support and sales email group. And what I learned was that no one really needs me to stick my nose into every single thing that goes on. My team got it. As an old school control freak, this hasn’t been easy. My health scare really put it to the test.

Here are a few lessons I can pass on. Take them for what they’re worth.

Lesson 1, Focus your attention on what’s important, not what’s urgent. If you allow it, everyone else’s monkey will be on your shoulders. It’s hard to grow a business like that.

Lesson 2, if you were suddenly out of commission, would your business survive, thrive or crash. Great leaders make certain that their business has redundancy. If you or anyone else was suddenly unavailable, can someone else can step in and fill the void. Make this happen.

Lesson 3, your mental health is most essential in the health of your business. There’s a difference in dealing with stress and being consumed by worry. Stress has never bothered me. It’s actionable. Worry is a total waste of time. It’s basically making shit up until it’s real in your head. End that cycle.

In the end, I feel extremely lucky. My event could have gone entirely different. Flexxbuy had its best month ever in March despite my limited participation. And, I learned a lot about our systems and the quality of our team. I really have the best team.

I hope you never have to endure what I went through or anything like it.  But just in case…