I Nearly Died at 28 and Didn't Even Know It

I Nearly Died at 28 and Didn't Even Know It

What I Learned Could Save Your Life—and Everything You've Built

At 2:30 AM, I woke up drenched in sweat. Nauseous. Feeling like death.

My wife drove me to the ER. There was a line. By the time we got close, I felt better.

We left.

Big mistake.

The next morning, I was at my desk as usual, convinced I'd dodged a bullet.

I had no idea I'd just survived a heart attack.

A year later, after a grueling physical, the doctor looked me straight in the eye: "You won't make it to 30 if you don't change."

Twenty-five years later, an angiogram at the Cleveland Clinic revealed the brutal truth: my right coronary artery had completely dissolved years before. My body had built its own bypass system through sheer will to survive.

My success habits nearly murdered me. And I was completely blind to it.

Here's what I've learned...

If you're a CEO of a $10-75M company and your business depends on YOU making every critical decision, there's a pattern I need to share with you that could save your life—and everything you've built.

But it requires looking at your situation from a completely different angle.

The Success Habits That Become Success Traps

You know the feeling. Exhaustion that you wear like a badge of honor.

Sleepless nights that prove your dedication.

The belief that pushing through when others quit is what separates you from the pack.

I used to think the same way. Until my body forced me to see things differently.

58.97%
of CEOs are at high cardiac risk
10-20%
experiencing heart attacks annually
50-72%
of CEOs report feeling isolated in their roles

But here's what's really interesting: most of us don't see it coming because we're so focused on what's directly in front of us.

Every "I'll sleep when I'm dead" mentality becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Every "Only I can handle this" decision creates the dependency that eventually destroys both you and your company.

Your decision-making capacity deteriorates gradually. Your company becomes dependent on a leader who's slowly burning out. Your best people leave because they can't grow.

Sound familiar? I'm betting you're reading this late at night, aren't you?

Why Smart Leaders Miss What's Right in Front of Them

You're not some Fortune 500 CEO managing shareholders and board politics.

You're a middle market leader where every decision has YOUR fingerprints on it. Whether you built this from scratch, inherited a family legacy, or earned your way to the top—the buck stops with YOU.

That brilliant mind that created your success? Sometimes it becomes the very thing that limits your perspective.

Here's the challenge: You can't read the label from inside the bottle.

The patterns that might be constraining your growth aren't external threats. They're often the exact behaviors that built your success:

  • Your reluctance to delegate critical decisions (which limits your company to your personal capacity)
  • Your need to personally oversee everything (creating operational bottlenecks)
  • Your identity as the indispensable leader (making your company difficult to scale or sell)
  • Your confidence in your own judgment (which can blind you to systematic issues)

These patterns are invisible because they look like strengths. And they compound daily.

The Isolation That Comes With Success

Here's something most people don't talk about: 50-72% of CEOs report feeling isolated in their roles. You have fewer and fewer people to talk to who really understand what you're dealing with.

Employees tell you what they think you want to hear. You can't share your real concerns with your spouse because it would worry them. Your friends don't really understand the weight you carry.

You end up carrying everything alone.

Meanwhile, 56-75% of business leaders report significant burnout. The divorce rate for CEOs is higher than the general population—and for women CEOs, it's twice as high within three years of promotion.

Success can be isolating. And isolation makes it harder to see your own patterns clearly.

Why Traditional Solutions Often Fall Short

You've probably tried various approaches. Hired coaches. Brought in consultants. Reorganized teams. Implemented systems like EOS, Scaling Up, OKRs.

Some helped. But many just added complexity without addressing the core issue.

Why?

Because most solutions focus on managing your current patterns more efficiently. Very few help you step back and see which patterns might need to change entirely.

The real challenge? You've become the single point of failure in your own success story.

And this isn't your fault. Nobody taught you how to scale yourself. Your success literally trained everyone around you to depend on you. The system created the problem, not your character.

The patterns that built your success might now be constraining it. And that's hard to see when you're in the middle of the storm. You're inside the bottle.

The Accountant Who Changed My Perspective

Late 30s. Height of my career. Every morning, same corner: Winchester and Diaz.

Same man. Well-dressed. Suit and tie. Holding a sign: "Accountant seeking work."

Every. Single. Morning.

Every. Single. Morning.

I'd drive by in my expensive car on the way to the business I owned. Same thought would hit me: That guy is educated. Probably smart. Maybe no different than me in many ways.

Why is he on the corner... and I own a successful company?

But for some good fortune could that have been me?

That question haunted me because it revealed something uncomfortable: maybe the difference between success and failure is thinner than we like to admit.

That fear can drive us to create success habits that become success traps. If you're the only one who can make decisions, no one can discover your vulnerabilities. If you're the only one who sees problems, no one can question your solutions.

Your intelligence becomes both your greatest asset and your biggest blind spot.

What if the issue isn't your business...

What if it's not your team...

What if it's not the market...

What if it's simply that you need a different perspective on the situation?

I'm Brad Adams. Here's What Crisis Taught Me About Perspective

My father died when I was 19. His last gift? Teaching me to always ask "what's really going on here" beneath surface chaos.

That gift nearly destroyed me.

By 27, I was CEO of a growing company, convinced I could handle it all. My body disagreed. Heart attack at 28. Doctor's exact words: "You won't make it to 30 if you don't change."

But the crisis taught me something valuable: Being indispensable isn't strength. It's often a sign that something needs to change.

Years later, when my wife died, leaving me with three young daughters, I learned something that transformed how I think about leadership: The urgent isn't always important. The important isn't always urgent. And the intelligence you're proud of can sometimes work against you if you're not careful.

The moment I was forced to step back and see my situation from the outside, everything became clearer.

Three Geniuses Who Shaped My Approach

Joseph Granville, legendary market analyst: "If it's obvious, it's obviously wrong." This reinforced my natural tendency to look for what others might be missing.

Peter Drucker, at the graduate school named in his honor where I earned my MBA: "What's really going on here?" He taught me to use penetrating questions to drill past surface stories to find underlying patterns.

Tony Robbins, through his trainer's academy: People create limiting patterns and stories to avoid uncomfortable truths. The underlying question is always: "What's really going on here?"

Three brilliant minds, same guiding question. That cemented my approach.

Why I See Things Differently

Most people think I'm an extrovert because I can be engaging when needed.

Reality: I'm actually an introvert who's been forced outside the normal patterns that can trap successful leaders.

Crisis does that. Near-death experiences do that. Having to rebuild everything from scratch does that.

While others are focused on performing, I'm usually pattern-hunting. While they're talking, I'm listening for what might be constraining them. Under pressure, things tend to slow down for me. What feels overwhelming to others is clear to me.

I don't see better because I'm smarter. I see differently because I've been forced outside the patterns that most successful people stay within.

Some "Impossible" Breakthroughs That Illustrate This Approach

When I started my business, I engineered a joint venture with General Motors that had never been done before—and hasn't been replicated since. People thought the idea was crazy.

GM executives approached me when they heard I was trying to buy a struggling subsidiary. They couldn't own it themselves—they knew their corporate bureaucracy would kill a small business; they wanted me as the buyer and their partner.

We brainstormed a structure nobody thought was possible: GM purchased the manufacturing assets, I bought the financial assets. They got equipment returns, I got operational control. Everyone won.

The business had been losing $1 million on $2 million in sales. People said I was taking a huge risk.

With me being able to focus on the business full time, we made it profitable In two months. GM got great returns and kept funding our equipment needs. We enjoyed great profitability and the luxury of no capital constraints. The business went on a growth tear.

Ten years later, I bought all the equipment back for a fraction of what they'd paid.

Years later, when fraud from an acquisition cut our sales 50% overnight, my team and I completely re-engineered the business model while bank lawyers were breathing down our necks. Result? More profitable at half the revenue than we'd ever been at full capacity.

The pattern? Every crisis taught me: How you see the problem often IS the problem.

This Isn't Traditional Coaching

Most coaches help you manage your current patterns more efficiently.

My approach is different. I help you see which patterns might need to change entirely.

A Method That Actually Gets Implementation

Here's something I've learned: Most CEOs make decisions in consultation with their senior team. Then those decisions get passed down to everyone else, who often pick them apart for what they lack. Implementation suffers because people weren't involved in creating the solution.

My approach includes not just people with authority, but team members who will be impacted AND influential people throughout the organization—even if they're lower in the hierarchy and have no formal authority. People listen to them.

When both the impacted and the influential have input on decisions, implementation rates improve dramatically.

A landmark study by Nielsen and Randall proved this: Employee participation in decision-making directly predicts whether procedural changes actually occur. Classic research going back to 1948 confirms the same pattern.

This works because it's based on seeing the real dynamics, not just the ones on the org chart.

Breaking Down the Barriers That Limit Performance

Most companies have people working in silos, departments that don't communicate well, teams pulling in different directions.

Roland Berger studied over 100 global businesses and found that 80% of companies with pronounced silos faced higher costs and lower profitability.

I help break these barriers. Sometimes it's surprisingly simple—I once organized company-wide competitions where employees from different departments who'd never met became teammates. They had fun, but my real goal was building relationships that improved business operations.

Scaling You First, Then Your Business

Here's a key insight: Most CEOs organize their time based on where they are now. That often makes them the bottleneck.

I work with you to organize your time as if you're already at the next level. Put yourself where you need to be, and the organization tends to follow.

Focus on what only you can do. Drop other things entirely—don't just cut them back.

When you scale yourself first, everything else becomes more possible.

What Other CEOs Have Experienced

"Brad sees things I can't see. Not just in my business—in how I think about my business. He's been able to reduce our administrative headcount by a third while greatly improving customer satisfaction. More importantly, I make better decisions with far less stress. He's my trusted advisor on high-level decisions."

— E. Rick Baldini, CEO

"Brad is one of the most innovative and dynamic entrepreneurs I know. His foresight into what's next is unsurpassed."

— Steve Robinson, CEO, Reimagine

"Brad is a thoughtful and insightful entrepreneur, whose many years of experience will benefit any business owner."

— Andy Graham, Managing Director, APG Partners

"If you're thinking about working with someone to help you take your company to the next level...Brad Adams is someone you want to work with."

— Jack Canfield, Co-creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul

The Research Behind This Approach

This isn't just theory. It's based on documented patterns:

Decision Implementation: Studies show that involving impacted employees in decision-making dramatically increases whether changes actually get implemented.

Breaking Down Silos: Companies with pronounced silos face 80% higher costs and lower profitability compared to organizations that foster cross-functional collaboration.

CEO Health and Isolation: 58.97% of CEOs are at high cardiac risk. 50-72% feel isolated in their roles. 61% say this isolation negatively impacts their decision-making and performance.

The patterns are clear once you step back and look at them.

What Happens If These Patterns Continue

Let me paint a picture of where current trends might lead:

Three years from now, you're still carrying the same load, but it's gotten heavier.

Your key person just gave notice. They said they couldn't see a path for growth.

Your biggest competitor just landed your three largest clients. Their CEO figured out how to make his company less dependent on him personally.

Your doctor is asking pointed questions about your stress levels and sleep patterns.

Your family has adjusted to your absence from important moments.

Is maintaining current patterns worth that trajectory?

The Ignition Call Approach

I don't do discovery calls with every curious CEO. My approach is designed specifically for middle market leaders who sense something might need to shift and want a different perspective on their situation.

This isn't about me convincing you to work with me. It's about determining if we're a good mutual fit.

Your Ignition Call provides immediate value:

  • You'll gain clarity on which patterns are helping versus hindering your growth
  • You'll see your situation from a completely different angle
  • You'll identify what might need to change before constraints become crises
  • You'll know exactly what your next steps should be

Why offer this clarity at no charge? Because I've seen too many capable CEOs get trapped by patterns they couldn't see clearly. The trends are accelerating. Waiting often just makes the patterns stronger.

Self servingly, it's the best way for me to find clients with whom I can really make a difference.

And I learn something from every CEO I talk with.

What if we're not a fit? You still get valuable perspective on your situation. Most CEOs tell me this conversation alone helps them avoid problems they didn't see coming.

What if we are a fit? I work month-to-month with no long-term commitment. You can stop anytime for any reason. You're not making a big commitment—just exploring what's possible.

Why I Only Work With A Few CEOs Each Year

I limit my practice to 8-12 CEOs annually because what I do requires deep engagement with complex patterns that take time to understand and shift.

Current situation: I maintain a brief waiting list. Next availability depends on the needs of current engagements.

The patterns that used to develop over years now seem to accelerate much faster.

You Might Be A Good Fit If:

You Might Be A Good Fit If:

  • You own or lead a business generating $10M-$75M annually
  • YOU carry the ultimate responsibility for major decisions
  • Your personal reputation is closely tied to company performance
  • When the company struggles, you feel it personally
  • You're open to seeing your situation from a different perspective
  • You'd rather understand what's really happening than stay comfortable with current assumptions

This Probably Isn't Right For You If:

  • You run a large corporation where decisions flow through committees
  • You can easily deflect responsibility to boards or other structures
  • Someone else ultimately owns the consequences of major decisions
  • You're convinced you can see everything clearly from your current vantage point

Complete Your CEO Pattern Assessment

I don't schedule calls with every CEO who's interested in this work.

First, I'd like you to complete a brief assessment. It takes about 3 minutes and helps me understand if my approach might be relevant to your specific situation.

Based on your responses, I'll either invite you to schedule an Ignition Call or let you know this isn't the right fit right now.

What Happens Next:

Within 48 hours, I'll review your assessment personally. If I believe my approach could help you see your situation more clearly, I'll invite you to schedule an Ignition Call.

If I don't think we're well-aligned, I'll let you know respectfully.

Either way, you'll know where things stand.

This approach isn't right for everyone. But if you're ready to see your situation from a completely different angle, let's find out if we should have a conversation.

👉 Complete Your CEO Pattern Assessment

Takes about 3 minutes to complete

Two Different Paths Forward

Path 1: Continue with current patterns. Hope they don't become constraints. Stay within your current perspective and see what happens.

Path 2: Step back and gain a different view of your situation. Understand which patterns are helping versus hindering. Make changes before they become necessary.

Your business—and your life—will reflect whichever path you choose.

The Choice Is Yours

Right now, you have options.

Tomorrow, some of those options might not be available.

The key employee won't wait for you to see why they're considering leaving.

Your biggest competitor won't pause while you figure out their advantage.

Your health won't wait for you to reduce the stress.

Complete the assessment. See your situation from a different angle.

Sometimes the most important insights come from the outside looking in.

👉 Complete Your CEO Pattern Assessment

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