This as-told-to narrative arises from an in-depth conversation with Bruce Adams, a fifty-two-year-old executive residing in the suburban town of West Hartford, Connecticut. Adams serves as the chief executive officer of the Credit Union League of Connecticut, a prominent trade association that provides advocacy, representation, and collaborative support for credit unions across the state. In October 2024, his life took an abrupt and terrifying turn when he suffered a serious heart attack—a medical emergency that forced him to step away from his demanding role for half a year while he undertook a gradual journey of recovery and rehabilitation. The following account, which preserves his reflections and insights, has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
It began on what seemed an ordinary yet unusually tense morning. Adams sat at his desk in his home office, participating in a virtual meeting with members of his team as they worked intently to finalize the logistical arrangements for an upcoming trade show—one of their organization’s major annual events. Immersed in the details of scheduling, vendor management, and presentation materials, he was busy multitasking when he decided to rise briefly to fetch a bottle of water. He recalls that he had hardly taken ten steps before his breathing became erratic, shallow, and uncontrollable. Within seconds, he was hyperventilating and overwhelmed by an alarming sense of physical distress, compelling him to lie flat on the floor.
Fighting panic, Adams texted his girlfriend a short, disjointed message describing the strange symptoms: cold sweats, an oppressive though not crushing pain in his chest, but no typical radiating pain down his arm. It didn’t feel like the textbook description of a heart attack, yet something was deeply wrong. Alarmed, his girlfriend immediately called 9-1-1. In those same tense moments, Adams managed to send terse messages to his colleagues—first to his chief operating officer, notifying her that he would not be returning to the meeting, and then to his public relations officer, signaling that something urgent was happening.
Upon arriving at the hospital, doctors quickly determined that Adams was experiencing a particularly severe form of cardiac event often referred to in medical circles as a “widow-maker” heart attack, a condition typically involving the sudden and near-total blockage of a critical coronary artery. Diagnostic imaging revealed five significant blockages, leaving no option but emergency coronary bypass graft surgery. He was swiftly transferred to the operating room, and, after an extensive nine-hour operation, he awoke in the intensive care unit, alive but profoundly disoriented.
Before being wheeled into surgery, Adams had a brief window in which he was able to speak with his girlfriend and several friends and colleagues who had rushed to the hospital. It was during these final exchanges—when he faced uncertainty about survival—that he allowed himself to express his emotions fully for the first time. Until that point, he had remained almost eerily focused on practicalities: ensuring that the PR representative was ready to craft an appropriate public statement and managing details of an event he might never attend. In hindsight, he recognizes that his reaction reflected the ingrained habits of a leader accustomed to control—perhaps tinged with an exaggerated sense of personal indispensability.
As the CEO of a membership-based organization preparing for a large-scale industry event expected to draw hundreds of participants, Adams had assumed that his absence would leave a conspicuous void. Yet, in an almost humbling realization, he understood that while he was pivotal to the organization, he was not irreplaceable. The show, as he later reflected, would proceed regardless. Still, in moments when one’s life feels so precariously suspended, the mind magnifies every responsibility and every unfinished task until it seems the world itself might pause in one’s absence.
When he began recovering, Adams divided his six-month hiatus into two distinct phases. The first three months focused primarily on physical healing—post-surgery rehabilitation, medication adjustments, and regaining strength. The latter half of that period, however, became an emotional and psychological restoration. During those months, he came to appreciate more deeply the profound fortune of having time and space to recuperate. Gradually, contemplative questions began to surface: What did survival mean? Why had he been granted a second chance when the outcome could so easily have been fatal? As he metaphorically described it, he began to consider why he had “walked away from the plane crash.”
To explore these existential questions, Adams sought the guidance of a therapist specializing in trauma, medical crises, and near-death experiences. He had already valued therapy before his heart attack, viewing mental health maintenance as comparable to routine car care—a necessary “oil change” for the mind and spirit. Through their sessions, the therapist helped him confront difficult truths about his priorities and guided him to envision a life rebalanced around essential dimensions: being a parent, a professional, and an individual who also deserves time for rest, leisure, and play. The ordeal, painful as it was, had underscored with brutal clarity the finite nature of life—an urgent reminder that we have only one opportunity to inhabit it meaningfully.
Returning to work, however, presented another kind of challenge. While Adams was away, the organization had relocated to a new office space, meaning that on his first day back, he lacked the simple passwords and access badges that once symbolized his authority. He did not even know the layout of the new premises or the location of the restrooms. That disorienting unfamiliarity made him feel less like an experienced executive and more like a newcomer starting from zero. Fear quietly shadowed his return: Could he resume work at the same pace or intensity? Would his absence have left him obsolete? Would colleagues perceive him as a burden rather than a leader worthy of his salary line? These anxieties lingered for several weeks—manageable but undeniably real.
Then, in a moment of insight, he recognized that the very reason his team had thrived in his absence was because of the systems, trust, and structure he had carefully cultivated before his crisis. The same leadership practices he had championed—empowering capable professionals, documenting processes, delegating responsibility—had ensured continuity. His colleagues had not merely maintained operations; they had excelled during a period of acute uncertainty when no one knew whether he would live or die. That realization demanded humility and respect. Adams knew he needed to honor his team’s achievement while simultaneously affirming to himself that he still had unique contributions to make. Reconciling those two truths—acknowledging independence without surrendering one’s own relevance—proved a delicate but essential balance.
His first board meeting after returning epitomized this tension. Typically, as CEO, he would guide discussions of financial performance, strategic initiatives, and organizational direction. But after six months of absence, his role had shifted. The acting CEO, his COO, sat beside him, carrying the weight of leadership she had borne throughout his hospitalization and convalescence. The entire board had experienced its own version of trauma during that uncertain period, uncertain how to plan for succession or continuity. Adams, though he had stayed loosely connected through periodic updates, had promised his COO that any decisions made in his absence would have his full support. He had reiterated to her that his role during those months was as a friend and advisor, not as a shadow authority. That mutual trust smoothed their reintegration when he returned.
After his return, conversations with association members and industry peers often included kind remarks about how admirably his team had functioned while he was gone. Though initially tinged with insecurity, these compliments soon became sources of deep gratification. They confirmed that he had succeeded in building something larger than himself—a self-sustaining organization capable of resilience under intense pressure. That affirmation strengthened his evolving philosophy of leadership: to guide from behind rather than lead from the front, to serve as coach and enabler instead of perpetual operator. Today, Adams views that transformation not as a diminishment of authority but as an elevation of purpose. In the end, he rediscovered that true leadership is not measured by constant presence or control, but by the capacity to empower others to flourish, even in one’s absence.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/ceo-had-heart-attack-experience-returning-to-work-2025-11
