We ran through the woods, over the whoopti-do's on the trails with joyous screams of laughter… the kind that makes you smile from the edges of your mouth, clear up to your eyes. We're all around 10-12 years old… zooming around the trees and bushes. I'd run down a whoopti-do, catching speed, and then run up another and I'd launch through the air to the next one.

It was a little weird though, I couldn’t make out the faces of the other kids I was playing with, but it didn’t seem to bother me. Don’t even know how many of us were there, but we were having so much fun.

The next thing I know, the doctors are asking me, “Does this hurt? Now, does this hurt? What day is it? Do you know where you are? Do you know your name?

Me: No, No, Friday, I’m in a hospital, Paul. – “Uh, hey doc, how’d it go- is my shoulder all fixed up?”

Doc: “Well, not sure, we had a complication…”

[PAUSE]

You see, I was forty years old and went in for routine shoulder surgery to remove an impingement in my AC joint (shoulder) so I could make this particular rock-climbing move with an inverted hand jam.

Turns out, I’d flatlined five minutes into the surgery, and for the next five and a half plus minutes of CPR on the operating table, thirteen people worked feverishly to try to bring me back. They were about to give up and call my TOD (time of death).

And I came back, … from playing in the woods with my friends, though I didn’t know who they were. One thing’s for sure, we were happy. And I wasn’t afraid. And ever since then, I’m still not afraid, of death. It was weird. I died. I kind of felt like I should freak out, you know, at least a little. I mean, I did just die. But I couldn’t. I didn’t.

The rest of that day, Friday, was rest and tests, tests, and more tests for me. By all observations, my doctors said I was perfectly fine. Barely a trace of heart trauma enzymes registered. And, I felt fine, emotionally and physically. I should've had damage to my sternum, ribs, and heart. Alizah, my better half, came back to the hospital after getting the good news/bad news call from the doctors- your husband is alive, but he died. We’re hanging out in the recovery room together. She’s in a bit of shock. We’re kinda just taking it all in when the anesthesiologist comes to check on me. Everything’s fine in the convo, and then he just bursts into tears, sobbing replaces his ability to talk. I say, “I’m okay. I’m still here and I feel fine.” He gathers himself, gives us the deepest I’m sorry (and relieved) look, and then leaves us to be together. It was pretty surreal.

I felt really bad for Alizah. She got all the emotional trauma out of this. Me, as far as I know, I’m just still happy to be on this earth, and especially, that I’m still with her. That night, she slept in the terribly uncomfortable reclining chair next to my hospital bed. My only discomfort, well other than terrible heart-wise hospital food, my low back was super sore. Apparently, they’re not very gentle with you when they move you around during CPR. Go figure. The part of me that should have hurt, felt perfectly fine, my chest, my heart.

It’s Saturday now, and the second chair of Swedish heart surgery comes to check on me. She’s completely baffled and says it’s more like nothing happened to me. But she also says, I can’t be released until Sunday for some regulatory reason for people with a heart issue. My day included testing… testing and testing again, a repeat of yesterday, well, until I went to fall asleep that night.

I’d insisted to Alizah that she go home and get some good sleep and that I would see her tomorrow. Laying in the (hospital) bed alone in the room, one massive feeling and awareness landed on me. Consumed me. Not fearfully, but more like in a heavy state of complete and inescapable awe. I could’ve never seen her (Alizah) again on this earth. I could’ve never been with those I loved on this earth, again.

I don’t know how many hours I sat in that space, but then, I blurted out these words, “That would’ve fucking sucked!” Sometime thereafter, I finally slept.

Death wasn’t the terrible thing. It was not being amongst people you love, who love you. That’s what death meant. On the other side, was joyous laughter and play, a place that triggered no fear whatsoever. But there, I would be apart from those I love on this earth.

The faceless angel that Crystal, from our favorite Sushi place, gave us after our yellow lab George died. I’d never talked with anyone except a select few about the faceless children I’d played with. — The faceless angel that Crystal, from our favorite Sushi place, gave us after our yellow lab George died. I’d never talked with anyone except a select few about the *faceless* children I’d played with.

Monday comes and I’m back to work. People walked into my office, “why are you here at work today, shouldn’t you be taking time off?” I responded that I was fine and that this was a far better alternative than the alternative. And I only told a couple of my close circle peeps about the woods. I made my follow-up doctor’s appointments. Wednesday came, and I was seen by the Chief of Cardiac Surgery at Swedish hospital. After the full battery of tests and stuff again, I apparently had the healthy heart of a 30-year-old in a 40-year-old body. At the end of our appointment he said, “if you wanted to have another surgery tomorrow to finish it up, I’d say go ahead. But, I’m guessing you’ll pass on that (with a smile).”

A few days later, I had my follow-up with my shoulder surgeon. I wanted to thank him for bringing me back. Dr. Charles Petersen, back then he looked kinda like how Clint-Eastwood-looks-today. And he sounded like him too. Here’s what he said to me after I said thanks for bringing me back Doc.…

“Oh hell (or well), we didn’t bring you back… you came back on your own. We were trying to figure out how we were going to tell your wife.” I’m sure I gave him a rather puzzled look because, he said it again, “You came back on your own.” And, all in a Clint Eastwood-like voice and cadence!

After a pause of, oh shit, surprise, I said, “anybody ever tell you that you sound like Clint Eastwood?” He responded with a sideways wry smile. And I followed up with, “well thanks anyway.”

Then he said, “you can thank me for not letting the EMTs put you into a coma.” Again, my face must’ve had that WTF look. He continued, “It got pretty tense and heated when they barged in and wanted to put you into an induced coma. You were awake, and I was prepared to get into a fight. That EMT was a big musclebound numbskull. That had me a little nervous. But having you possibly die twice was not going to happen.” We laughed a little together and I thanked him for that.

Between my death and that appointment, I’d simply considered things as, they brought me back. They’d done just enough to get me back from a bad reaction to an anesthetic cocktail. Heck, we all sign the release forms. But it wasn’t the case.

“I came back on my own.”

And so it’s been, for the last 16 years, since my deathday, August 27, 2004 (I have a birthday and a deathday), I’ve always just figured both the Devil and God didn’t want me yet. And that’s been my normal. Yes, I realize it’s not normal, but it is my normal. Hmmm… I haven’t told this story much. It’s kind of weird to write about it now. I guess it’s okay though. I was a potential TEDxSeattle speaker for this year and I was going to talk about my deathday in relation to not being fearful of the other side. I just missed the cut. Maybe next year TEDxSeattle!

And since my deathday, I haven’t been consumed or obsessed by the fact that death wasn’t scary at all. Instead, I’ve never lost sight in that I could’ve never been with the people I love on this earth, again. I pretty much figured I simply didn’t belong in heaven, or hell, yet. That is, until a few days ago.

A couple of dear coach friends, Andrew Moss and Andrea Clough, and I have been doing some work in our mini mastermind group to make a small seminar/coaching experience event about “Getting Out of Your Own Way.” It was my turn to be in the hot seat, and the question was, “where does my focus and presence come from with respect to belonging in my coaching and OrgDev work?” Was it from an event, how I was raised… etc? From grade school through my professional life, for me, it’s always been about the heart and emotions (both before and after my deathday).

I explained to them that, regarding belonging and togetherness, I’ve always just figured it’s just the way I’m wired. I touched upon various examples throughout my life, in some podcast interviews and my own writings. I kind of feel I’ve just always been this way. And that’s what I told Andrea and Andrew. They weren’t buying it and called bullshit on me. I just gotta say, I know how deep and sometimes tough it is to work with one great coach, who kindly calls you out to go to your tough and scary place, so that you move with it, or past it, to be better and go farther than you’ve gone before. Try doing that with two great coaches at the same time!

Well, since I had just recently revealed to them (a week or two before) that, yeah, I had died before, this led Andrew to press me on, “what about this dying thing?” That surely could change/transform life. So, we dived into that experience, my dying. And, I went into the story that you just read above. And they pressed. And I pushed back to stay in the ordinary. And they kept seeing something more in the story and in connection with my life and work. Andrew wasn’t going to let me stay in the safety of my ordinary. He called me out.

And then Andrea challenged my interpretation of the story from her vantage point, “Paul, you chose to come back.” For what was on this side, the here and now with loved ones. They mattered more than the other side, of being in playful and joyous laughter in the woods. Hmm… one of my heavens on earth, walking along for hours on end in the Alpine forests of Washington state, with my dog, family, and friends.

I had never considered that I was the agent of my coming back, even though my doctor was crystal clear about it. “You came back on your own.” They were going to call my time of death.

Now it was my turn to break down. Tears welled, ran down my cheeks and I lost my ability to speak for a bit. I put my hands on my cheeks and under my glasses in a useless effort to cover my tears. The place where I went for that 5 ½ minutes 16 years ago, was flashing again before me, I could hear the joyous screams of laughter and the children playing in the woods.

But I came back. I came back for the ones I love, that love me.

The biggest thing for me on my deathday: I could’ve never seen Alizah and the rest of the people I loved again on this earth. It wasn’t about no longer being afraid of death.

So, with regards to my emphasis and focus on belonging in the workplace, I’m still not sure how I got it and it’s been part of my core for a long time. My mom has a story about me when was five years old. As she tells it, I vanished from my own 5th birthday party. She was in the house wrangling party kids and I was nowhere to be found. After overcoming some Paul instigated “where’s my child” trauma-to-parent and doing a neighborhood dragnet, she found me. I’d left my party to go hang out with the one kid who couldn’t come. Yeah, I got busted, but the kid who couldn’t come to my party mattered more to me. You ever been that kid? Not the busted one, the one that was brokenhearted because he or she couldn’t come. I have. A few years ago, I was that kid during an M&A with my former company. That’s another story.

So, for sure, my deathday deepened my awareness for how important belonging is for us. Side by side with death, being with who I loved and belonged, mattered more. A life worth living is a together life, being with those you love and who love you. In my personal and worklife, and now as blurry as that gets, I’ve fostered making them both a place where I love the people I’m with and, I graciously accept their love for me. I want the same for you.

I want to leave this with you. You’ll spend 2080 hours a year working. And if you work in a place where you’re not with people you love, and who don’t love you, you’re in the same place where I was for 5 ½ minutes. You are spending your life away from the ones you love. And even if that work world looks amazingly purposeful, joyous, and fun, in the end, if there’s no love there, again, you’re away from the ones you love. That’s 2080 hours, 1/3 of your days, yearly, just living a slow but daily death. That’s just humanly wrong. Never seen or seeing. Never hearing or heard. Never affirming or affirmed. Never belonging.

I don’t know if I’ve been given a divine gift or not, but I’ve been to a place where I’d never be with the ones I love. I’ve been there. And there’s no reason for your working hours to mimic that existence.

You don’t have to live that death. Every day, you can choose, find, create, and live in love and belonging at your work. This matters even more as we endure this COVID19 pandemic. The heart does not resurrect alone. To return to life, we must be a place for each to feel, own, and care for each other in compassion. We must be the reason for each other to want to come back on our own.

Come back on your own.

Come Back on Your Own, 5 1/2 Minutes CPR or 2080 Hours, Flatlined is Flatlined

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