When I was discharged from the hospital late the next day, the cabdriver asked me, “Where do I take you?” I couldn’t remember the name of my street. I handed him the discharge paperwork with my address on it, arrived home and slept for a long while.

Being so young, I had not even considered that having a stroke was a possibility. But I have since learned that they are on the rise among younger people. My doctor did not directly link my stroke to overwork, but said it could have been aggravated by stress, overexertion and exhaustion.

After being released from the hospital, I felt helpless and humiliated over my loss of control. My aura of invincibility had shattered. But I slowly recovered. Every night, I’d practice spelling polysyllabic words, like “arachnophobia” and “Czechoslovakia,” backward; I’d do complex math problems; I worked on relearning memories that had been disrupted. I practiced yoga and meditation. The more I accepted my imperfect mind, the more I settled into a place of contentment.

Thanks to the support of my colleagues, I returned to work, but by necessity my frenetic daily sprint had to slow to a crawl. Now I made time for pauses and reflection — and my work, and my life, became richer as a result.

Because of the stroke, I reset my professional priorities. With each new career opportunity — from writing books to starting a company to consulting on various projects — I learned the value of a calendar and how to avoid overcommitment.

I began to own my calendar and live by it. I scheduled everything in it: work commitments, exercise, walks, social gatherings and even sleep time. I continue to do so to this day. I now have a daily mental reset hour that is usually every afternoon around 4 or 5. I walk with my wife, I breathe, I smile, I meditate and say hello to random people and animals, and I write in a journal or draw.

Even today, as I run multiple ventures and travel frequently, I still make time to untangle from the digital world and plug back into what really matters: time with people I love, time for creativity and time in nature. As for my career, I look at it as a series of meaningful projects stacked one on top of another, none of them too consuming or overwhelming.