Second-Chance CEO: How Crises Made Me a Better Leader, Mentor, and Coach

By Tom Caporaso

This isn't just a business book-this is a people-business book. 

Too often, executives place ambition and effort on the opposite end of empathy and cooperation. This is detrimental to your company and to you as an individual. Happiness and performance are not mutually exclusive. CEO and e-commerce expert T

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
• Release date: May 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9781544532578

Tom Caporaso

Tom Caporaso is an experienced customer engagement expert who serves as the CEO of ebbo. With over thirty years of experience and thought leadership in this area, Tom's life experiences inform his business development practices, stewardship, and success. He currently lives in Connecticut with his wife, twin daughters, and son.

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To my wife and best friend, Michelle.

There is no one else I want to be on this ride with.

You inspire me every day.

Copyright © 2023 Tom Caporaso

All rights reserved. Reprinting or reusing any or all parts of this book is permitted and encouraged, but only with the written consent of the author.

Second Chance CEO

How Crises Made Me a Better Leader, Mentor and Coach

isbn hardcover: 978-1-5445-3259-2

paperback: 978-1-5445-3258-5

ebook: 978-1-5445-3257-8

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 Team Philosophy

Chapter 2 Lead by Example

Chapter 3 Manage with Empathy

Chapter 4 Think like a CEO

Chapter 5 Get Comfortable with the Uncomfortable

Chapter 6 Stay Humble, Stay Hungry

Chapter 7 There’s No Such Thing as Overpreparation

Chapter 8 Trust Your Gut

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Every morning when I look in the bathroom mirror, I see the long scar that stretches right down the middle of my chest like a rough zipper.

I was twenty-nine years old when the surgeon cut me open, cracked my sternum, and performed open-heart surgery. That was over two decades ago. I hadn’t even been aware of a problem with my heart. It was only when a friend told me he was having a physical that I thought, Well, I should probably get one, too.

I was reasonably fit. I was a young executive who worked hard and played hard; I’d not long before been inspired to complete a marathon by my dad, who was a runner. But the doctor said, I think I hear a murmur. You’d better get it checked out. Then the specialist put a camera down my throat and said, You’ve got a hole in your heart.

The quarter-sized hole was losing blood where it shouldn’t. I needed open-heart surgery.

It’s a scary thing, being told your body might kill you. It knocks you off your stride. It also makes you question what you want to achieve and where you want to be—and how you’re going to get there.

You can’t help but look at what you’re doing and wonder if you’re doing it right. Or even if you’re doing the right thing at all.

I wasn’t unreasonably worried. I had enough time before the operation to get into better shape, and I knew that would help my rehab. But I couldn’t avoid concluding that I wasn’t as indestructible as I thought.

Pivot Point

In my late twenties, I was 100 percent sure nothing could stop me. I was dating the woman who became my wife. I was moving up in my work and telling my bosses whenever I got the chance that I could go higher, quicker. I was a hard-charging guy with a clear career path mapped out in my head that led to the C-suite and the CEO’s office.

I was impatient to get there.

It felt as if I was treading water, as if everything I was doing was going through the motions. It was just the downtime that was necessary before I could move on to the next stage.

I wasn’t living in the present because in my mind I was already rushing ahead into the future. What I was doing in my career wasn’t as important as where it would lead me next.

But sometimes when you think you’re going along fine, life kicks you in the gut.

You’ve got a good job, you’re rising up through the business—albeit a bit slower than you’d like—and you’ve got excellent prospects. You’re in decent physical and mental shape. Your finances are looking good. Maybe you’re settling down, having kids, raising a family. You’re growing into the future you’ve imagined for yourself.

Then—bam!—you’re laid out on an operating table, your life in someone else’s hands, unable to think straight and barely able to catch your breath.

I recovered quickly after the surgery. I was up on my feet the day after the operation and back in the office after about three weeks. Today, my heart is fine and I’m fit and active.

But every morning when I get up and start thinking about the day ahead, I see the scar bisecting my torso.

That scar reminds me that there are bigger things to worry about than what’s going on in the office, what stage my career is at, or how close I am to another raise.

It reminds me that I’d better get something good out of today rather than wasting it looking forward to a future that might not happen.

That’s what open-heart surgery, or any medical scare, does. It’s a stark reminder that there’s not always a tomorrow.

Only an idiot would ignore a warning like that.

Open-heart surgery divided my life into two clear phases: before the operation and after it. Or what I sometimes call Tom 1.0 and Tom 2.0

Surgery forced me to reconsider my attitude toward myself, my family, my friends, and my work.

Second Chance

A lot of people will tell you that there are no second chances. They’re usually exactly the sort of hard chargers I was when I was younger. They tell you that if you don’t grab the chance now, it’s gone. I’d likely have told you the same thing.

I would have been wrong. And they’re wrong. I became a 2.0 version of myself, with bugs removed and enhancements added. I got a second chance.

It made me a better person. A better partner, a better friend, a better worker…and now a better CEO. Being wheeled into the operating theater on that gurney taught me more about being an effective manager than any number of years at my desk or in meetings.

It would be exaggerating to call it a near-death experience—in fact, I was serenely confident throughout that I would come through the surgery fine, which probably says more about my attitude at the time than about the seriousness of the operation—but it had a similar effect.

I got to hit reset. I got to take a look at myself and decide what was important to me: where I was going, what I was doing, and how I was doing it.

I shifted my priorities. For years after the operation, whenever I had to do a big presentation or anything else that made me nervous, I wrote in big letters across the top of the front page OHS.

Open-heart surgery.

Those three letters reminded me that, however intimidated I might be by whatever I was slated to do, it wasn’t that serious. It couldn’t go that badly wrong. It didn’t threaten my very existence. It didn’t even deserve any undue fear. In the great scheme of things, it’s likely not even a footnote.

Crisis #2

Those three letters gave me a sense of perspective. Just like my scar does every day. I’d learned a hell of a lesson.

As if that wasn’t enough, a few years later I got the chance to learn the same lesson again. This time from Dr. Death.

Our twin daughters were born very prematurely. They needed constant attention just to keep them alive. They were left with serious medical conditions.

Enter Dr. Death.

That was what my wife and I named one clinician. Dr. Death took an extremely negative view. He didn’t pass up any chance to tell us that the road to recovery would be long, and perhaps even endless. It would take many years before we could even tell how badly damaged the girls’ bodies and brains might be.

I’m sure Dr. Death thought he was only being honest, but that’s not what a parent wants to