It’s been quite a few months since my last update on how my summer has gone. If you need a refresher, be sure to check out my post: Summer Summer "Break" & Gratitude. It’s been a ride!

Recovery Updates

As I start to approach the 5 month mark since my arm surgery, it’s incredible to think how far I have come. I was at 4 weeks for my last post and was barely able to bend or extend my arm. Since then, I have had multiple rounds of physiotherapy and daily movement to get back into some sense of normal activity. I’m lucky that I was able to invest in a bike trainer to be able to ride inside safely during my recovery. Since then, I have been soaking up as much of the “nice weather” (I use that term loosely) in Greater Vancouver as possible. This has included some pretty epic bike rides around the Tri-Cities, as well, trying out night-riding for the first time!

While the physical side of my recovery has been progressing, I am admittedly really struggling with the mental aspect. I’m starting to transition from the recovery portion of my injury to the integration, where I truly get to understand how this accident will impact my life in the future.

In particular, this is my first surgery in which I have had a metal implant for a part of my recovery. This implant is also unique in that it’s relatively easy to feel where the metal was drilled into my elbow. Not fun!

A New Mindset

With everything I have gone through this year (aforementioned injury, craziness of the tech industry), I have found that I ave developed a bit of a better mindset in my life. In particular, I don’t sweat the small stuff as much as I used to.

This is particularly becoming more apparent in my day-to-day work. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still working hard and contributing as much as I ever have to the company that I work for. But what i’m finding is that I’m much more mindful of the work that I do day to day, what my priorities are and where I’m focusing my efforts. I mentioned earlier in the year that I moved to an individual contributor role, which has made it a bit easier for me to put some guardrails around the work that I’m doing.

I recently finished reading The Good Enough Job and it has provided a lot of good context for me and how I think about work in my life. In particular, I’m no longer going to tie my work so closely to my identity. Instead, I’d like to focus my identity on areas that I have a bit more control of in my life…

Yearly Values Exercise

I traditionally take some time over the holiday break each year to do a ton of reflection, and that normally starts with a revisiting of my core values. Each year I tend I find to “refresh” my core values, revisiting what I had as my focus for the current year and see if they need to change or be updated. Given the above and my focus on finding my identity, I was inspired to do my yearly values exercise a bit early this year.

For 2024 I have settled on 3 core values that really speak to me in the current phase of my life:

• Adventure - I like exploring new areas, new challenges and the learning opportunities that come with them.

• Order - I thrive when there is structure in my life and things are in their right place.

• Wellbeing - I take care of my mind and my body and encourage others to do the same.

I’m really excited to see how these new values weave through my life in the next year, and how they can help me solidify a new identity outside of work!

Well… I have completely messed up the summer of 2023 for the Hansen family. Nice one, Dylan…

These are the thoughts that ran through my mind on the morning of July 4th. Nearly 24 hours after I took the plunge and purchased my first ever dual-suspension mountain bike, I found myself on the forest floor of Bert Flinn Park in Port Moody, BC, clutching my broken right arm.

2022 Trek Top Fuel 7 - such a wicked ride! For 30 mins…

I don’t recall exactly how the injury happened. I was 30 minutes into what was the best mountain biking session of my life. Armed with my new Trek Top Fuel 7 and a newly-purchased FOX full-face helmet, I felt invincible. I did a few basic trails to get a feel for the new ride, and headed off to some more advanced trails to tackle some of the lines and features that I had been working on so far in 2023.

The end of Belle’s Trail got me. I passed a raised skinny feature, stopped, moved my bike backwards and thought “I should try this one!”. As I did, I lost my balance on the feature, heard a snap and suddenly found myself with a severe injury: distal humerus fracture (a complete break of the bone right above the right elbow), an injury that would require a significant surgery a few days later.

---

After a successful surgery at Royal Columbian Hospital, I have been spending the majority of the past month at home recovering. It certainly isn’t the summer our family had been planning, however, given this is our first full year in our new house we had planned to stay close to home regardless. Throughout my recovery, I kept a note of mantras that I discovered that kept my mind in the right space throughout my time at home:

8 hours in the emergency room

1. This happened doing something you love - Mountain biking has been such an amazing experience for me in 2023, something that I look forward to continuing as my body allows.

2. Brain is OK - I’m incredibly lucky that my head and/or neck weren’t injured during the accident.

3. Pivot - Advice that was passed to me from Rupert’s soccer coach. Pivot! Gotta change your plans for this summer and adapt.

4. Recovery won’t be linear - This is my 7th surgery before 40, so I’m well versed in the recovery process. There have been, and will be, many ups and downs throughout my recovery and I need to be able to roll with it.

5. Our bodies are always healing - I learned this from The Art of Mountain Biking Podcast, our bodies are always healing and recovering. In my case, it’s just doing more of that recently!

6. Post traumatic growth - As above, The Art of Mountain Biking Podcast podcast discussed looking at any trauma experience as an opportunity for growth.

7. This is the way - We watched a lot of Mandolorian during my recovery!

---

As I write this, 4 weeks after my accident, I find myself (surprisingly) filled with gratitude. I generally don’t deal with injuries well as I have blogged about, so the fact that I have been navigating this challenging time with a positive mindset is fairly new for me. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that I’m currently reading Learned Optimism, or my new look on having control in 2023, or something else. Regardless, I’m there are many things I am grateful for after this experience:

The boys are getting used to the playground by the hospital…

• Family: My family understands that this is an accident and that, while many of our summer plans will be derailed, we’re going to make the most of it. It’s been wonderful to have support from my wife and the kids (who have been the best helpers!).

• Sue and Shiela: Two amazing individuals that first discovered me after my accident, helped me orient to the right trailhead so that an ambulance could pick me up, and watched my bike for me.

• Apple Watch: My watch detected my fall and prompted me to call 911. This was beneficial as reaching my phone was challenging, and, quite frankly, I probably would have tried to get my family to pick me up to take me to the hospital instead - which wasn’t the best idea at the time.

• Colleagues: My colleagues have been super supportive during my recovery period - allowing me to take a week and a half away to rest and sending me a very nice gift basket with treats. I couldn’t wait to get back online to see them and to see many of them in the office!

• Our Home: As mentioned, this is our first full year in our new home. I’m grateful for the space that we have (I could sleep in our basement without disrupting anyone’s sleep) and I’m thankful for central air conditioning during the summer days!

• Indoor Bike Trainer: Finally, I’m grateful for my new indoor bike trainer setup that will allow me to continue to ride safely and keep my fitness up during my recovery. As an added bonus, I now have a good riding setup for the cold winter months in Metro Vancouver. I plan to write a post next about my setup!

---

It’s much easier to write this post as I look back on the past 4 weeks of my life (both for mindset and the fact that, you know, I can actually type better now!). I have been doing reading on the psychology of recovering from sports injuries, I can’t help but be optimistic on the lessons I learned during this experience. I’m ready to come back stronger! I’m also hoping to find humour in all of this: I named by bike Snap! Will never forget this experience as long as I ride it.

It’s been a hell of a year so far. I wrote back in March about my big milestone of reaching 10 years at Salesforce, however, what I didn’t mention in that article (which I didn’t want to) was the ongoing turmoil in the technology industry.

It’s been well documented that a number of organizations have faced layoffs in the past 6 months, as many companies re-align after the COVID-19 pandemic and deal with economic uncertainty and the possibilities of a recession. Salesforce wasn’t immune to these layoffs, as noted in the media, and it’s been challenging to see so many colleagues and friends have to exit the company.

A good chunk of my time in the past few months has been spending time with employees that have been impacted by the layoffs (not only at Salesforce but in other companies) to offer help and support as they navigate a really challenging time. This felt natural to me: as a people leader and as someone who sees themselves as a multiplier, I wanted to make sure that the folks that I had worked with were setup for success in their next journey and offered my help where I can.

As the dust has started to settle with these changes, a lot of my focus has turned inward on the impacts to the next phase of my career, how much control I have and ultimately trying to focus on positivity.

Losing Control

As part of the recent layoffs and company restructuring, I have been forced to change my role and apply my efforts and experiences to new areas of the organization. For now, and for the first time in nearly 10 years, I am no longer considered a “people leader” and am now an “individual contributor” (more commonly referred to as an “IC”). By no means was moving to an IC part of my career plan or career journey. I had always considered myself to be “climbing the corporate ladder” and moving up the rungs, hopefully, eventually getting to a Vice President level role at an organization. VP roles, generally, lead larger organizations so my natural path was likely headed down that route.

Now, I find myself back on the IC track. It’s taken me a bit of time to realize the impacts of this, but ultimately, I’m approaching it with an open perspective and an opportunity to flex muscles that haven’t been flexed in a while, as well, to be able to learn new skills. The new opportunity I have as an IC is really cool, and affords me an opportunity to work with some of the best and the brightest technologists in the company. I also moved-up in the org chart as well, which I will take as a win for my professional growth!

My biggest lesson through all of this has been around control. I quickly came to realize that while I can influence and control my career, to some extent, sometimes life throws you curveballs that you need to adapt to. Your career path should be driven by you, however, the path will wind and turn and you’ll need to be flexible to adapt to the turns on the path. Going forward, I’m looking at my career journey less like a ladder, and more like a jungle-gym, which will give me a new perspective on what growth means and the opportunity to try new things.

Gaining Positivity

I am, and always have been, a bit of a pessimist. I’m usually of the mind of thinking about the glass being half-empty, assuming things are going to go wrong, etc. and then being pleasantly surprised when they do go right. This mindset has helped me be extra prepared for basically everything in life (savings accounts, emergency preparedness kits, security cameras, always packing extra clothes - you name it!), but also has a toll on my day-to-day mental health.

So you could imagine the challenges I face under the climate of workforce instability, less than a year after purchasing a new home. I have been really lucky to work in technology for my whole career, which has been relatively stable. During the tough times of 2008, I was still relatively new to the industry, didn’t have multiple mortgages or kids to feed. In 2023 the game has changed, and this whole experience has had a damaging affect to my mental health.

With all that being said, as part of this journey I have tried to follow my regular routine to support my own mental health and wellbeing:

• Getting regular exercise (5-6 times per week).

• Practicing yoga daily.

• Meditating daily.

• Writing in my gratitude journal daily.

These activities have really helped support me during these tough times, and are really helping me turn the corner on my mindset going forward. In particular, my gratitude practice is something that I’m doubling-down on each day. Not only in my journal, but also starting to frame my life from a lens of positivity vs. negativity. I actually have a goal each day to lead with positivity, which is probably my toughest challenge of all this year, but something i’m continuing to work on for my own mental health.

---

I’m really proud of how I have been able to navigate these challenges so far this year. I can look ahead to better times and see myself looking back at this as a real growth moment for me, and something that will ultimately make me a better person in the long-term. It doesn’t mean that it’s easy now, but it’s already getting a bit easier day-by-day. I’m warming up to the fact that I don’t have as much control as I thought I did, and to balance that, I’m putting positivity as a priority in my life.