I had grand plans of starting this blog with a powerful post about the value of networking and the massive impact it can have on your career and trajectory into senior management but something else overshadowed that intention which was much more important to address and could have the same impact on your career – although not quite so positive…

Every now and so often I am reminded with a bolt of lightening about the fragility of life.  Today was one of those days.

A close friend’s husband was found dead in his hotel room on Thursday- no warning, no reason and no explanation.  It was not suicide, he was not on drugs and was a healthy and happy individual.  Possibly a heart attack but no-one is really sure.  His legacy is a devoted wife, 6 year old step son and a very young baby.   This is the second shocking and unexpected death of a father at my son’s school this year – the last one was a victim of asthma and left behind a wife and four young children.

Life is so incredibly precious and we all take it for granted at some stage.  We work all the hours in the day, stress about our deadlines and scream at people we shouldn’t.  And where does it get us?  All it does is distance ourselves from those we love and create a chemical reaction within our bodies that has the power to kill us.

We have the choice to take back control of our ridiculously busy lives – we just need to make the choice to do so.  Even in our careers where there is so much pressure put on us, how we react to situations is often the key to much less stressful life.  As I said, we just need to make that choice.

This month is the Heart Foundation’s Go Red for Women campaign which encourages us all to keep a check on our old ticker and watch the stress levels – timely advice don’t you think?