Mindset Before Surgery

Before my open heart surgery, I realized something very important. You can’t always control the situation, but you can control how you prepare mentally for it.

There were definitely moments of fear, uncertainty, and a lot of unknowns. What helped me most was going back to the same mindset tools I’ve taught athletes, executives, and teams for years.

The first thing I focused on was deep breathing. Slowing my breathing down helped calm my body and clear my mind when things started speeding up emotionally.

Visualization also became important. I kept picturing myself getting through surgery successfully, recovering, and getting back to the people and moments I love most. I thought about sitting at home with my dog Puffins, enjoying the simple things we often take for granted.

Meditation helped me stay present. Instead of thinking too far ahead or getting lost in fear, I focused on one moment at a time, one breath at a time.

Positive self talk mattered too. I reminded myself that fear is normal, but belief still matters. I kept telling myself to trust the process, trust the people helping me, and trust my mindset.

Most importantly, I leaned into gratitude. I thought about family, relationships, purpose, and all the things still worth fighting for. That mindset helped carry me through some very difficult moments.

These tools did not remove the challenge, but they helped me face it with more calm, clarity, and strength.

Continue Your Mindset Journey

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Healthy Mindset App Podcast, where host Mike Hartman, a performance coach and former professional athlete, brings his passion to help athletes and workplace athletes achieve their dreams and goals while being mindful of everything else in life. Mike also uses this platform to share his targeted assessment application, healthy mindset course, meditation and goal setting technique for the athlete and workplace athlete. We're glad you're here. Now let's dive headfirst into this episode of the Healthy Mindset App Podcast. Here's your host, Mike Hartman.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Welcome back to another episode. And I can't thank the amount of uh people that reached out to me. And um, I've touched a lot of people with recently what happened to me. So if you haven't heard, go back and listen to the last podcast. I ended up having sepsis and then uh open heart surgery. I'm very fortunate to be sitting here doing this podcast today, and I'm fortunate to be alive with the amount of support and the amount of the people I had in my corner through this whole ordeal. It's been a little over three months now since I've had my surgery, and I'm just getting back on my feet, and thanks to a great team, and I've did that all before, but people were asking me, what did you do to try to overcome this? And I even mentioned, even in the article that's on the website, I mentioned that I really struggled with it. I've been in the coaching business for 20 years, and I mentioned the in the article that I just gave a talk to about a hundred anesthesiologists and nurses at the hospital here in Charlotte at Hrium Hospital. Some of the um anesthesiologists and nurses were in the audience, and some of them were actually um watching it from uh in a in a room at the hospital. So I was uh grateful to be able to do that, but I didn't realize that soon after that I'm gonna be in that same situation. So it's one thing to talk about it, and the next thing is is living that experience. So some of the things that I did was I said, okay, I need to do some deep breathing exercises. Like I had to slow my breath down and be calm because I had anxiety in the hospital. And you could use this even within your business, you could use it as an athlete, but it's important that you have a clear mind. It's so important that you focus on even when I was doing this uh long inhales and controlled exhales. So I'm not going to get into breathing techniques now. I just wanted to share some of the things that I did. We have all of these tools for you. So if anybody wants any of these breathing techniques, just reach out through our website. Uh, the next thing I did was visualization, and we did that a lot as an athlete. Uh, going back to 1986, right around 1986, I've learned I was learning learning imagery. I had no idea what that was. Uh, I had an injury, and the Buffalo Sabres sent me to Chicago to get treated for that uh injury, and one of the things I did was visualization and imagery, and I just visualized myself uh getting through the surgery. That's what I did. I saw myself, okay, it's gonna be successful. And then sometimes my mind would take me to, oh my gosh, what happens if I don't survive this? Or I'm in intensive care and I don't come out of this. Like, what do you what how do you become positive? But I did. I did everything I can to say this is gonna be a successful surgery, I'm gonna recover, I'm gonna heal, and I'm gonna be back home uh with my family. I'm gonna be you know, around my friends, my family, my kids, my dog puffins, Cheryl, who I mentioned uh so many times, and well, she's family, but just going home and just doing some of these uh visualization techniques that I've learned as an athlete, you could apply the same thing to whatever you're doing, whether it's preparing for a meeting, preparing for a big game, or or it could be anything that you want to use visualization for, and I could help you with that as well. I did do meditation, and I've been doing meditation for several years now. I truly believe in it. One thing it does is it helps calm my mind, it brought me back to uh just relaxation and clarity, and it just really is amazing. So, if you haven't done meditation before, uh please try it, it helps you stay present instead of uh getting lost in fear about the future, and and that's what I needed more than anything at that time. Um, I had to focus on the moment, one breath, one step at a time, and it was great for me using meditation, going through that process. The other thing I want to talk about, another I call these all tools, and was positive self-talk. So I had to replace the panic with belief, and that's the one thing I did. I had to remind myself that okay, I'm strong, I'm prepared, I have a lot of support, I'm capable of getting through this adversity, which thank goodness I did. And at the same time, I had people helping me. It was like being on a team. I mentioned the doctors and friends and family, and uh friends are still my teammates, but a lot of my former teammates were there for me, and uh they're still there for me. So the positive self-talk really was something that was good, and people might think I'm crazy. Uh, maybe my lips were moving, and the nurses are coming in and they're saying, What are you doing? I said, I'm just doing some self-talk, positive self-talk. And the last thing is we talk about this a lot, and you hear it a lot, is it's called gratitude and purpose. So I was thinking about the people and the moments, I was thinking of good experiences, um, the things that I want to enjoy when I do get out of the hospital, uh, focusing on really what I was fighting for through this whole thing, and is was to be healthy. And there's only so much you can control. So I was beyond grateful in my life for some of these things that did happen to me. I was grateful for just even uh being able to get home after being a month in the hospital and having a coffee and having my breakfast, having my yogurt, having my toast, and having my dog puffins next to me. I have a golden doodle and just the the littlest things, and because people will ask, hey, what are you grateful for? And they think about it, and I'm grateful for my family, I'm grateful for different things, but until you face adversity, you real you realize exactly what it is that you're grateful for. So I'm gonna continuously share about seven minutes of tips going forward uh through story. That was my story, and uh, I greatly appreciate everybody that has uh sent me messages, um, listened to the podcast, and they're using that what I said in that original uh podcast that I did. You have to go back an episode and also look at the article that's on the website. And it just for me, my purpose is to help people in lead. So if I could help you, um I'm here to do that. So I appreciate you. Thank you again for all the support and looking forward to next time.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

We're so glad you joined us for this episode of the Healthy Mindset App Podcast with your host, Mike Hartman. If you're enjoying the show, please feel free to rate, subscribe, and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcast. That helps others find the show, and we greatly appreciate it. To dive deeper and learn more about the Healthy Mindset program, or to get in touch with Mike, please visit our website, Healthymindsetapp.com. Thanks again for listening, and we hope you'll join us again in the next episode of the Healthy Mindset App Podcast. Until then, be well.