6 things I learned from 🦿 becoming bionic 🦿

Four months ago, I had a bilateral total knee replacement — yes, two knees, one go. For weeks, I literally had no good leg to stand on! The experience was humbling, intense, and surprisingly full of lessons that go from operating room to office. Here are six things I’ve taken from that journey that apply just as much to work and leadership as they do to recovery:

1. 🔍 Do your research. Whether it’s surgery or a major strategic decision, the basics apply: understand the “why,” vet your experts, and know your options. It reminded me how critical it is in professional life to challenge assumptions, weigh alternatives, and make informed calls. (As someone who helped UNICEF put forward insights on precision health, it was an experience to be a beneficiary of it, complete with customized prosthetic and a robot-assisted surgery.)
2. 💪 Pre-hab matters. I can’t overstate the value of preparation, and that is not just the strategic planner in me talking. For surgery, that meant strengthening my quads and my pre-work was not, on reflection, enough. Professionally, this is the work you do before the work — whether it’s onboarding, scenario planning, or deep learning. It's the foundation for resilience.
3. 👥 Build your team. No one gets through big challenges alone. At home, in friendships, and at work, I leaned heavily on my team — those who supported me, covered for me, and kept things moving. The same principle applies in any workplace: surround yourself with people you trust, and invest in them. Your team is your lifeblood. (Shoutouts to Ian Thorpe , Nathalie Goossens, Stuart Campo , Meg McLaughlin , Michiel van Amerongen and especially Jay Huber !)
4. 🏋️♀️ Rehab is not optional. Recovery isn't passive. Like learning new skills or leading change, it takes consistent, sometimes painful effort. Skipping the hard reps never pays off. In professional transitions, it’s the same — the follow-through is where transformation actually happens. 
5. 📉 Setbacks ≠ failure. Progress isn't linear. Some days not only felt like regress, they were. The degrees of range of motion went backwards, one element of recovery resolved only to have some new challange emerge, including having to learn to walk again and properly, and still working on standing up straight. A one-year-old can beat me! But I also learned that momentum is built over time, and what looks like a step back might just be a necessary pause. This influences how I view setbacks at work, particularly at volatile times like now: backward steps are not as signs of failure, but part of the curve of growth. That is afterall, a central STEM principle. 
6. 🆔 Identity is not static. I’ve been active my whole life. Redefining what strength and resilience look like post-surgery challenged how I see myself. Professionally too, we’re all in the process of becoming — and that’s okay. Reinvention is a feature, not a bug.

Becoming bionic wasn’t on my vision board, but it’s given me perspective I wouldn’t trade. If you’re facing a big pivot — in health, career, or leadership — I hope some of these insights resonate.