‘I was 45 when I had a heart attack because I was overdoing it at work’

To say I loved my job was an understatement, it was my whole life. I’d always dreamed of working in television, and I adored the glamour of jetting off to Cannes Film Festival, and meeting celebrities while working on shows such as Strictly Come Dancing, or mingling with people such as Julian Fellowes, the Downton Abbey creator. 

Work hard, play hard was the mantra for everyone back in the 1990s when my media career began, and being a natural social butterfly, I lapped it up eagerly. It was a fun scene, with plenty of socialising, free drinks and canapes. I even smoked back then, we all did really. You’d think that losing my own father, Bill, to a heart attack when he was just 40 and I was five, might have made me more health conscious, but the arrogance of youth, eh? You feel invincible. Dad had died suddenly in August 1977, the same week as Elvis, and it was as if the whole world was mourning him.

My mum was pregnant at the time, so she faced raising my four brothers and me by herself. I remember very little about dad, apart from him carrying me around and the smell of his leather jacket. Mum told me I was a whirlwind of energy, just as he’d once been. 

I liked knowing that and if anything, it made me work even harder, and be constantly on the go. Even when I had my daughter Mirabelle when I was 34, and then my son Truman when I was 37, I didn’t ease up.

But having two kids did make me feel a change of career was needed. Media is great when you’re footloose and fancy free, but by 2011 I wanted to use my skills to launch my own company. The Impact Guru – which I still run – is aimed at business people who want to be the best leaders. 

Of course, I went 100mph making it a success. I had high-powered people and blue chip companies all wanting my services and I frankly said yes to everything. I was always hungry for more clients. Settling up multiple meetings a week, flying to places to give motivational speeches, running my own accounts. It was juggle, juggle, juggle. 

“Slow down, you’re going to make yourself sick,” my husband Adam, 63, a film producer, would urge me. As would the kids. Yet I didn’t listen. I just kept on spinning those plates crazily, cramming everything in. For more than five years.

It was around the end of 2016 when it occurred to me I was overdoing it. Dashing around so much I’d sometimes have to change my shirt from sweating. 

Then in 2017 I knew something was quite wrong. I was at Amsterdam airport and found I couldn’t quite get my breath. I was also a bit dizzy and sick. I blamed the heat and rushing around.

But then it happened again on landing back home. Perhaps it was airports? Friends suggested it might be asthma symptoms. Adam asked about the trip and I mentioned the weird feeling and promised him I’d have it checked after I got back from America in three weeks’ time.

But in New York my breath started becoming laboured, and what’s more my left arm was numb. I ignored it and still went to a CrossFit class. But while I was exercising I felt definite tightness in my chest and my skin changed colour. I had to get outside because I felt like I might be sick. Was I really that unfit?

I assumed I must be – and even went and finished the class. Anxiety started creeping in, and I thought of my dad. But I was reluctant to see a US doctor because of the expense. 

So when I got back to the UK, it was six weeks since I’d first noticed these symptoms and I rang my GP. I told her I’d been on a long flight, that my own father had died relatively young from a heart attack and that I had chest tightness. She told me to get straight to A&E. 

Panic took over then. Adam and I walked from our home in Spitalfields, east London, to the Royal London Hospital, me stopping to catch my breath every so often. We’d arrived by 10am and I was referred to a heart specialist for tests.

I said to the cardiologist, “I’ve got a work meeting at 3pm, so I need to be out by then, please.”

She looked horrified and said: “You do know you’re being treated for a heart attack don’t you?” 

I was just gobsmacked. I was 45, my kids were still at primary school. I didn’t even feel that ill! Could I really be that close to death? The cardiologist explained that it was relatively mild, but still serious and I must stay in hospital.

The penny finally dropped. I immediately cancelled all my meetings and the week spent on the ward forced me to take my foot off the pedal. My life and my family were more important than work.

I needed keyhole surgery for a blocked artery and the doctors inserted a stent to open it up. I started seriously considering my lifestyle. Heart and cholesterol issues are often hereditary, and my occasional smoking and carrying an extra stone hadn’t helped – neither had the almighty work stress I’d put myself under. 

Being put on statins for the rest of my life was a further wake up call. I no longer felt invincible.

Since then I have forced myself to calm down at work, not rising at ungodly hours to pack more in. I quit smoking, reduced alcohol and started walking 10,000 steps a day. If anything, I am now grateful for my heart attack as it made me put work into perspective. I’m now an ambassador for the British Heart Foundation. I still love my job, and business is still thriving – just not at the cost of my health anymore. 

As told to Susanna Galton

For more information about Esther’s work, see www.estherstanhope.com. If you have any concerns on the health of your heart, visit the British Heart Foundation or call The Heart Helpline on 0300 330 3311.