“Am I having a heart attack?”

I don’t have time for this!

“A staph infection in my elbow?”

I don’t have time for this!

“Skin cancer?”

I don’t have time for this!

Three leaders.  Three busy lives.  Three different stories of how schedules were interrupted by health issues.  Two are my clients, one is my story.

Client number one owns a very successful dealer network for heavy duty equipment.  At an annual industry conference in the eastern US he started his day with a work out.  He has chest pains.  Nothing too serious, but enough pain and shortness of breath that he began wondering…

“Am I having a heart attack?”

Myriad thoughts came rushing through his mind:  “Is this what I think it is?  It’s probably nothing?  It’s indigestion.  What if it’s a heart attack?  This is totally inconvenient.  This is embarrassing.  I’ll miss the entire conference.  What about my team and my colleagues?  What do I do now?”

Then voice of a widowed friend who lost her husband to a heart attack ran through his head,  “I don’t care if you think it’s nothing – go get checked out!  You never know!”

So, against everything that told him this was too inconvenient, my client made the wise decision to go to the hospital.  Why?  Because of what his widowed friend said to him, and because he understands he has hundreds of people who depend on him to lead well.

So, he decided to lead himself well and go to the hospital.

And, it saved his life.

He did have a very minor heart attack, but they discovered a heart defect he did not know he had.  It’s called the “widow maker” because when it goes, it kills you.  This led to him scheduling heart valve replacement.  He’s now the healthiest he’s ever been and continues to positively impact the lives of hundreds of people through his leadership, because he led himself well.

Client number two owns a very successful construction and development company.  After returning from a holiday in Hawaii with his family he began to feel “off”.  He wasn’t quite himself, and his elbow was hurting.  Against every thought that would convince him this was nothing, and that he didn’t have time for an inconvenience like this, he went to the hospital and got it checked out.

He had somehow contracted a staph infection in his elbow.  His elbow ballooned up far beyond its regular size and shape.  The infection was so severe that oral antibiotics could not impact it.  Every day he had to go to the hospital to receive intravenous antibiotics.

“I don’t have time for this!  I’m too busy!”

Thankfully he made the wise choice to lead himself well and get checked out, then delt with it before it caused irreparable damage.

The third story is my own…

“Skin cancer in my ear?  What does that mean?  What do we do?  I don’t have time for this!”

It was a sore in my ear that would heal, then open up, then heal, then open up again, over and over for 6 months.  My wife told me I should get it checked out.

“I’m too busy.”

My buddy told me it could be skin cancer.  He had something like that and I should get it checked out.

One biopsy led to an operation under local anesthetic to cut out part of the skin inside my ear.  That didn’t get it all.  A second operation under general anesthetic led to most of the skin inside my ear begin cut out and a skin graft from my face being stitched into my ear.

We don’t know the results of that operation yet.

There is a simple lesson from all of these stories:  Make the time to deal with health issues before they become bigger than they need to.

It’s not nothing!  It’s something worth getting checked out.  Sure you don’t really have time for this, but you better make time for it before it steals more time than you have to give.

Leaders begin by leading themselves well because they know other people are depending on them.  It’s not just about you.