My final (?) comment on my surgery

Last week I ventured out into public professionally for the first time since my operation. It’s been about three and a half months since the diagnosis and operation to repair the faulty valve in my heart. Everyone I met was wonderfully supportive.

It’s good to be among colleagues who are also friends and to have a work environment that is also a positive social environment. It got me thinking about how important friendship is, even at work.

In my work with clients I emphasize the importance of a supportive network of positive relationships. My surgery and the experience afterwards was a reminder that it’s not only at work that supportive networks are important. A Wall Street Journal Article this weekend quoted an Australian university study of more than fifteen hundred women over fourteen years. It found that that the women with the most friends lived an average of 22% longer than the women with the fewest friends. That’s an enormous difference, and it’s repeated over and over with very little variation in the scientific literature.

Sometimes I hear people at work say “I’m not here to make friends”. Well sure, that’s not why you’re coming to work. However, it’s foolish to forgo the opportunity to build a supportive network in your work environment. We know that having fewer friends will make your personal life much more difficult, not to mention the professional effect of missing out on the support of your colleagues .

I’m extremely grateful for all the support I received from all our friends, clients and colleagues. Genevieve and I spent the last month of my recovery “getting away from it all” in Europe, (that’s us in the picture at Versaille in Paris). We traveled around, exercised every day and caught up with family and friends, even staying with some of our old clients who crossed that line and became our good friends as well. When I left Minneapolis I still couldn’t lift my carry-on into the overhead locker. Now I feel brand new after a month of fresh air, lots of exercise and constant contact with people who care.

This is an open thank you to everyone who was so wonderful. Speaking professionally, it’s given me encouragement to keep doing what I do. Speaking personally, it’s given me a sense of humility and gratitude for the great people I’m surrounded by.

This will probably be the last posting specifically covering my operation and afterwards. Now it's time to get back to a full focus on work. One thing I do know...over the next period of my life it's time to pay this forward with everyone I can.

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