Author: Laurent Kreutz

People who know me have always asked the same question when I was facing adversity in my life: “Laurent, how do you stay so calm?”. My co-workers would often ask the question when leading the company through difficult moments, when business seemed to collapse with no end in sight, with employees’ livelihoods at stake and […]

My mom called me via FaceTime once I was out of the Intensive Care Unit and in the hospital room.  I was lying on my bed, the bed tilted to a 45-degree angle. I answered the phone and saw my Mom’s face, half relieved to see me, half frowning her brows in an expression of […]

A funny thing about being in a vulnerable state is that you revisit events from your past and shed a new light on it. One of them had a tremendous impact on me. It happened when I was 6 years old. I was living in Spain at the time, in the suburbs of Madrid. Our […]

I mentioned in my previous posts (here and here) how my last surgery did not go as expected. During the entire experience, I was tired. I was in pain. The nurses were trying to put peripheral venous catheters on my arms. Several times in fact as they were falling off. I guess my internal bleeding […]

I woke up from my surgery on Saturday around 11 am or noon. My wife was there at my bedside. My ileostomy closure surgery was scheduled at 7 am that morning. The surgeon had told my wife that everything had gone well. Having little body fat made things easier for surgeons apparently. I was now […]

I mentioned in a previous post that I was going to have surgery again. And that I was feeling grateful and excited, feelings that I could create by living from my future self. Having said that, I still had some expectations on how the surgery was going to go and on the outcome of that […]

Last week, I recorded my first ever podcast. I was being interviewed. I shared my learnings from my experience at L’Oreal. And my new coaching activity helping executives going through cancer. It was an interesting experience. But not very comfortable. I still have progress to make if I want to start doing my own podcasts. […]

I read James Clear’s book Atomic Habits. I highly recommend it. He shows how tiny habits practiced every day can have a tremendous impact on your results. But there’s another learning from the book that I love. Whatever you have in your current life is a lagging indicator of your past habits. Your wealth is a […]

Tomorrow I’m going back to the hospital for surgery. It will be my last surgery and then will start a long phase of recovery and adaptation to the reality of my new body. I am excited and grateful. I know I will have pain. I know that it won’t be easy. I know that I […]

I woke up after 5 hours being under anesthesia. I was lying on a bed in a corner of the intensive care unit. Tubes plugged to my hands through intravenous catheter. Tubes in several parts of my abdomen all hooked to devices and pouches with fluids. Tubes in my nose delivering oxygen.  My wife was […]