Episode 140: How To Work Through Grief as A Small Business Owner
Trigger Warning: If you're not in the headspace to deal with loss and grief, then please feel free skip this episode. Also, if you are in a space where potentially you will need help for dealing with grief, please reach out to your GP and create a mental health plan.
In this coaching episode, Fiona shares her experience in dealing with the death of her parents and the steps she went through to move forward with her business through the use of the Buyer’s Cycle analogy.
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
On losing her father
On losing her mother
Dealing with grief (Buyer Cycle Analogy)
Awareness
Research
Evaluation
Purchase/Commitment
Advocacy/Sharing
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources mentioned in this episode
If you need help, you may reach out to these organisations:
Episode transcript:
If you are going through a period of change, which grief inevitably changes everything, or loss in some kind, you want to get to the point of evaluation and really confront reality. And think, am I going to deal with this now? Or am I going to deal with it later? And sometimes it's fine to deal with it later. But know that it has to be dealt with either way.
Hello, and welcome to Episode 140 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast, I can't believe there's been 40 episodes since the 100th episode. Time flies or does not when you're on lockdown. But today is a coaching episode. And it's a little different. It's not necessarily a business related one. But I think more and more. So much of the work that I do with people is about aligning life and business, I don't really think there's much of a total separation of those things. I'm someone who does not necessarily believe in the idea of work life balance, I think, work and life need to integrate in a way that works well with your values and your belief systems and the lifestyle that you want to create. So yeah, I guess it is about a kind of very personal matter, and something that everyone will go through- every single person on the planet. But yeah, just sort of talking about it in relation to my business. And in relation to anything that you might be going through, and how my story may help you. Hopefully it does.
But before we get stuck into that, I wanted to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians on the land on which I record this podcast and the same land that was so nourishing and has been so nourishing to me through so many parts of my life, particularly those challenging moments, and that is the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation and I pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been seated.
So today, like I said, it's a coaching episode. That's really where I dive deep into one element of business, or life and how they intersect. And today, it is a deeply personal one, but one I have been, if I'm really honest, putting off doing for months, I often talk about this, it comes out in all sorts of ways, even podcasts in my work that I do in speaking gigs. And I thought, okay, it's going to happen, this is the day this is the episode for this to come out. So let's get stuck into it.
So this coming Sunday, if you're listening to this in real time, the 10th of the 10th is... or would have been is I guess, would have been I'm not really sure the molecular, my dad's birthday. So my dad Frank Killackey was an incredible dad, who's an incredible man, so why so just beautiful. And he left us in 2019. And I thought as kind of an honoring his birthday and honoring just what a deep thinker he was, and what an incredible philosophy he had about life and living and change and permanence and spirituality, that I thought I would dedicate this episode to him. But in this episode, I will be talking about grief and I will be talking about loss. So I just wanted to put out a trigger warning. If that is something that for whatever reason, you don't need to hear 40 minutes about and you just you're not in the headspace to deal with that right now. Then please feel free to switch off come back to this at another time. Also, if you are in a space where potentially you will need help for dealing with grief that you are going through or a loss of some kind. please reach out to your GP and create a mental health plan and see a grief psychologist. I am neither of those things. Another great place to start if you're in Australia is beyondblue.org.au. And they have a grief and loss fact sheet that you may want to work through. So I just wanted to put that out.
The other thing I want to say is, this is obviously my story. And I'm going through it. And I'm talking about things as they happened in my life, which may be very, very different. The way that I've been brought up, my belief system, my culture, everything may be very different to yours. So I want to keep in mind that I know that in different cultures, different religions, different philosophies that people have on life, they will deal with grief and loss and death in a certain way that may or may not differ from the way that I have dealt with it. So I wanted to put out that trigger warning. And of course, if you are thinking it right this second, and you're like I need someone to talk to, there is always Lifeline if you're in Australia on 13 1114. But yeah, I would absolutely recommend going and speaking to somebody, don't keep grief bottled up. And these are the sorts of things that I'm going to get into today. And so I want to put out this warning first. And then the kind of disclaimer, I guess, as well that I am not a psychologist, I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm not someone who specializes in mental health, or grief or loss. I'm not a grief or bereavement counselor, I'm just going to talk about my experience and how I dealt with grief as a person. But also, as a small business owner, someone running a business, and how loss and grief have impacted my business but also how I've worked through things and it just in the off chance that somebody is listening who needs to hear this right now.
So let's get on with this episode then. So like I mentioned, it is my dad's birthday on the 10th of the 10th, which I think is also world Mental Health Day, which is actually really aligned because my dad was somebody who just had such a great outlook on life, and someone that you could turn to and ask virtually any question. He always had this beautiful Irish storytelling answer to give you and just as a very calm person, very, very calm. And when he left us in the end of 2019, he had ill health for quite some time. So it wasn't necessarily surprising. But it was unexpected, and unexpected in that he met he was up that morning, having coffee, reading the newspaper, doing the crossword talking to everyone as usual. He was living in a nursing home at the time. And I got a phone call. And I was down at the beach, I'd literally just gone on holidays. And I got a phone call from my sister saying the nursing homes told us we should get back there. And I said Is it serious? And they were like, Well, they've asked us to come back. So you know, better safe than sorry. Even if we go up there and nothing's wrong, you know, better to have gone up there and not had any regrets.
So we left we went up and we sat with my father for about eight hours until he passed and I had called priest because I was raised Catholic. My parents were very, they had strong, very strong faith. And it was very important for them to have like last rites and stuff. So I'd called family priest, and he's a lovely, lovely man. And he went and sat with my father and talked to my father. And he was the last person to talk to my father because by the time we got up there, Dad was sort of, you know, he was sort of, like resting, I guess, and non communicative. But I remember always that the priest said, he was so calm, he was so calm, he was so ready to go and he was so at peace with his life, he lived an incredible life. And he said that just before dad passed, he and dad were looking at photos of the family and the grandkids and everything. And dad was sort of smiling and looking at everything that he had helped create. And so I guess that brings me back to that dad was a really wise man and really calm and taught me so much. But his loss was not the first loss that I have gone through in the last few years whilst I've been running a business as well.
So we went through many losses, my husband and I and and my you know, family as well, from the loss of a much wanted child in pregnancy through to my mother who passed away in 2017. And again, she was that was very sudden, it was sudden and unexpected. She was kind of not feeling well, decided I'm fine, but let me just get checked out. And she passed away in an ambulance between my parents house and the hospital. And so it was very, very unexpected. And that like I'd had other family members passed away and extended family and had gone through this this pregnancy loss but when my mother died it just like it was just like a bomb going off.
My mother and I were incredibly close. We weren't so much when I was growing up. I was like, such a cow. And horrible. When I look back, I'm like, Oh my God. But we had become very close as I become an adult. And as I become a mum especially, and we've moved back from London after having my child, and we lived with mum and dad, and we lived in them before we went to London as well. And I had just created this wonderful relationship with my mum, where I called her pretty much every day, if not twice a day, sometimes. Anything I saw on the news, anything that happened in my business, I would just share it instantly with mum, she was like my go to, and they live around the corner. Part of the reason that we live in where we live in North Warrandyte is because it was around the corner from where I grew up. And so I would just go there all the time, so much so that my husband actually said "You think your mom's sick of seeing you like all the time?" And I was like, "No.", because I'd call her about everything. I go over there all the time. Like it wasn't uncommon for me to be there, three or four times a week just sitting, chatting, making coffee. And it was like this sudden friend, but also deeper than a friend because they know you from literally first like you were in them had just instantly gone it was just this instant vanishing. And I had never experienced anything like that. And I think if you you know I'm no, I'm incredibly lucky and fortunate to have had that relationship with my mother. I know lots of people don't.
But I feel like if you are lucky enough to have somebody like that, in your corner, who is your biggest cheerleader? Who is your go to for sorting out everything from how do I make a Pavlova through to really, really deep things like how do I get past a miscarriage, just take that person that accepts you 100% and is completely unconditional to have that taken away from you is out of this world hard. And that was the first and to this point now in my life, the hardest thing that I have ever had to go through. And to pull this back to kind of the podcast is that I was running a business. And so my mother passed away at the start of 2017. I started this business at the very end of 2015. And kind of properly started it the start of 2016. So I had sort of been I was I was coming up to a point I know I'd only been here like a year and a half in business. But I'm just coming up to a point where the clients were starting to come in, I had system set up, I was making good money. And I actually remember just before she passed in that week before she passed, circling, like the date in my diary, and being like, life is really good right now it is really good. I have this beautiful son, I have a great business that's working. I really enjoy meeting all these different people. And then this happened. And I literally had booked in so many clients. And at that point, I was doing a lot more consulting. So I was worth going into, like a physical space and working with digital agencies and big corporates and all of that. And I sort of had to go, Whoa, whoa, like, I can't just carry on like, this is not, I can't be that that person. And it's totally fine for some people to be that. But for me, it was not. I couldn't see how I would start working again. I also couldn't even see things like, how can I update Instagram and I remember looking at my phone, and the thinking, "Man, social media is just a completely useless thing.", like and I don't think that now but I remember in that headspace just thinking, what is this all for? Like, what are we doing with our lives, and it kind of spun me into this, you know, oh my god, what's going on?
And so I knew I had to take time out. And so I guess what I'm talking about grief today, to put it into some sort of framework or or way that I can package up all this emotion and present it in some way that may be useful for you. I am kind of kind of use the buyer cycle, which I know seems really crazy. Oh my god, grief and the buyer cycle. but hear me out.
So the buyer cycle is sort of the five stages that people will go through to transact with a business. So you've got awareness, you've got research, you've got evaluation, purchase, and then post purchase, which becomes advocacy if it's done well. So I guess that first point - awareness was, I was actually aware, acutely aware of the fact that I would not be able to run my business. With this having just happened like I just wouldn't, and so I had to take time out. And that was the first thing I had to take time out and I had to decide that it was fine. If I lost all my followers. If I lost a whole lot of income. That was coming in, I just had to think in this moment right now, I need to stop, everything just needs to stop. And I need to grieve. And I need to sit with my father, and other family members and my husband, and I just need to process what has gone on.
So I guess, if you are facing grief or loss, and again, I'm not an expert, please seek out an expert in in psychology, psychiatry, a GP, a bereavement counselor. But I guess the first thing to think about is, what legacy do you want to have? And where are your values.
So for me, my number one value always is freedom. And so I needed the freedom to dissect my feelings, I needed the freedom to process what it was, that had just happened, I needed the freedom to not think about updating social media, I needed the freedom to not have to get up and get dressed, and get in the car and drive 45 minutes to perform work. Now I have to say, we didn't have a whole lot of savings, I didn't have like, "Oh, well, that's easy for you to stop work, because you know, you've got all this money sitting in the bank or something." I didn't, I literally was taking a chance of going, Wow, I've just locked in all this work all these great paying clients. And I need to tell them what's going on. And I need to suggest to maybe, you know, ask if they can wait, but if they can't wait, I'm happy to recommend a whole bunch of other people that could do it. And so that's what I did, I sat down and I thought I looked at all the work that I had coming up for like the next eight weeks, really. And I contacted every single client and I said, "I'm really sorry, this is what's happened. I totally understand you know, your business, you need to keep going with your marketing strategy and your brand strategy. And, you know, you're launching this thing, you know, here, there and everywhere. And I totally understand if you can't, if you can't press pause right now." And I fully expected to lose most of them. And I thought it's fine. You know, right now what's really important is to sit a lot of the time with my dad, just sitting at the house, having cups of tea, going through things, sorting out my mother's clothes, all those things with my sister, and other siblings. And so I contacted, I wrote to every single client and I said this is a situation, I don't know how much time I need. But right now I'm going back to those values of freedom. And I absolutely need to align to that value of freedom, I need the freedom and space to just try and think straight.
And so unbelievably, all of them waited. And quite a few of them wrote back and said I have been in your position. "My father died or I've been in your position my mother died or I have been there with you take all the time that you need." So I think that awareness was a big part of it. It was that first stage of what do I need right now.
So if you are going through this, and you run a business, look at your business structures and look at maybe it's not that you can take five weeks or six weeks off, I think I ended up taking about five or six weeks. Maybe it's not, that's just not possible. Maybe you run a cafe or you run something else that's physical. So you might look at it and think, where can I cut down? Where could I close the shop for half a day, here and there? Where could I bring somebody else in to work with me? Where could I ask friends and family? Could somebody else take on this load right now? Maybe it's asking for meals to be cooked? Maybe it's asking for someone to come and clean the house. Maybe it's asking someone to take your kids out for a bit. And I know depending on where you are situated in the world, maybe we're in lockdown right now. But it's about getting aware of what you need right now. What do you need? And what are your values? What do you want to, you know, with my son as well, I didn't want to be showing, okay, this heartbreaking thing had happened. And I need to cry, it's okay to cry. And you know, my mother has just passed away. And I needed to, to be the example that I want him to know that if at some point and I will die, you know, everyone does, that it's okay to stop that the world outside can just rest for a minute while you find your feet again. And so that was the first stage it was the you know, if I think about it in terms of the buyer cycle awareness.
So no matter what you're going through, what kind of loss or grief really sitting down and getting aware of what do I need right now. And it might seem really selfish, but what do I need? Because these things can impact people differently. And some people they want to work, they want to have that distraction. They want to nothing is good or bad. It's just what you need. So that is the first thing, the really awareness part. What do I need? What is the legacy that I want to leave? And what is going to help in this situation right now? What do you most want? And yes, for me, I know that at the time, I think I lost about 400 followers. And I just thought, who cares? Like, really, who cares? I really important things. And I will always feel great that I took that time. And that I, and that's me again, you know, this is not good or bad. This is just my situation. With my father passing that loss. It was over summer. He passed literally a couple of days after Christmas. And it was much more calm, you know, we knew what was coming, we had time with him, we had time to say goodbye, we had time to, you know, have these beautiful conversations, whether he could hear us or not, it was a completely different type of grief. And, and also because he had had so many health issues, we knew that if he had continued to live, there would be even more dents on his quality of life. So it wasn't any less heartbreaking. You know, he's my dad, he was an incredible role model. But it was his time to go. And it felt like that.
And with my mother's death, it was very, very different circumstances. She was younger, she was fit and healthy playing golf, loving life, not super duper healthy, she was older. But yeah, it was just different. So I think if you're in that situation, or maybe you're a friend of somebody, or maybe there's someone at your work in your business, maybe one of your staff that's going through this, really stop and think what do they need right now? Like right now? What do they need, what's something practical, or maybe it's they need some time off. And really just be there because these are the moments in life that we will never forget, ever. These are the milestones and then kind of markers of, you know, the before and after situations. So that's the first thing, the awareness.
I think the second thing that has really helped me with my journey through grief and loss, and it's not a journey, I think that ever ends like you it gets easier in some parts. But you know, you can get a reminder out of the blue, maybe you're in the supermarket, and you suddenly see a brand that this person in your life always had or maybe, you know, if it's a loss of a different kind, maybe something else reminds you and triggers you and you're back in that space.
So in my grief journey, which is continuing - the second thing and it co back to the kind of biocycle was the stage of research. So I am by nature, a researcher, that's what I do. I like I was studying I majored in sociology and I really did think about becoming a professor in sociology, I loved it research and, and all of that. And so I went into a state of research I went into, how can I get through this, what's been written about it, what podcasts are out there, who are experts in grief, what did different spiritualities and religion say about different things.
So I was brought up Catholic, but I would very much say my parents were very spiritual, rather than religious in inverted commas. And so I had that, but I and I'd read so many books on Buddhism and, and all these sorts of different philosophies. And so I sought refuge in that, and I went into a research stage. So similar to the buyer cycle, if you've got awareness, then you got research. And I dove into that stage, I literally, I looked up grief forums, and, and all sorts of things. And I found so much help in that. And one of the things that I came across was a woman who had written a few books on grief, and she'd actually lost both of her parents in her early 20s. And so after my mom died, I was reading her books, and I somehow ended up on YouTube with this kind of person who was talking about grief. And she said that the best thing that she did was to see a psychologist. And so I thought, okay, you know, maybe that's something that I need to do.
And so in that research stage, I guess I was looking for answers I was looking for this monumental thing has just happened, how have other people dealt with it, because nothing is new, you know, death in particular, and loss has been around since the dawn of time. And whilst we may think that our loss is unique and different, and of course it is because we have that relationship that is no longer here, Earth side. This being philosophers and ancient people, and writers and authors and playwrights and people creating theater, and so much creativity that comes as a result of loss and grief and people working through that journey. And so that's what I just I read everything I read anything I could get my hands on. And so I went into that, and like I said, that youtuber had said, you know, the best thing she did we see a grief psychologist. So I guess I went into this point of evaluation of, which is the next stage.
So in the research, I've been really thinking, How can I get through this? How can I move through this? Who else has successfully done that? And how have they done that? And then I guess the next part was the evaluation. So I was really in this point, confronting reality and thinking, I have a business to run. I can't be away from that business forever. I can't just take like two years off. I've spent time building it up. And I also I didn't think at that time, you know, do I continue with this business? Or do I just go back to getting a job. There was so much going through my mind at that stage. And of course, as well, my mother, in the eulogy that my eldest brother, Owen wrote, it was just so beautifully written. And it's summed up her life in just really a beautiful way. And I'll always be thankful for him for doing that for both of my parents, actually, he's a great writer. And he put that together. And I remember just listening to it, and the feedback as well. So my mother, we had a funeral for my mother and hundreds of people turned up.
And so many people said, Oh, how she really lived. And she did, she had this incredibly full life. And I guess at that point, I was thinking, you know, she traveled all over the world. She'd rallied against racism in New York in the 60s in San Francisco, and she'd been very much a huge feminist, and she hitchhiked across Europe. And she was proposed to numerous times and she said, No, because she was like, I've got my life to live, I'm having too much fun. She went back to uni in her late 40s, even though she had four kids that she was looking after with my dad, she worked as a psychiatric nurse. So she worked with women, predominantly women in maternity roles, that were really, you know, finding it difficult to adjust to motherhood. She worked as a bereavement counselor, so she worked with parents of terminally ill children at the Royal Children's Hospital, just so many things. She She was a golfer, she'd got holes. In one, she was the president of the local Golf Club, the women's division, just so many things, she traveled extensively. And she had this incredible life, she had lots of friends who had lots of different groups that she was socializing in, she loved sports, she'd always be yelling at the TV when she was watching sport. She just had a great life.
And I think that also, at that point of kind of the evaluations, we've gone from awareness, research evaluation, I had to think, what do I want my life to look like? What do I want my family to be like? What kind of values do I want to guide my children? All of these things came up, where do I want to leave? Like, you know, all this stuff. And I think that happens when you have a life-changing moment like that, whether it's grief or loss, or completely something else that happens.
So I guess the next stage is the evaluation. And that's really where I had to confront reality, and think, am I going to stop and deal with this? Regardless of what kind of impact it has on my business or career? Am I gonna make time for processing this stuff. And also looking at, you know, in that case, my mother's life, my dad also had an incredibly full life, amazing eulogy, beautiful funeral, and lived a very, very, very full life as well. And so I guess, in that evaluation, I had to think, really, and I sound so cold, but really think about the pros and cons of all different parts of my life, including my business, like, what are the pros of continuing this business? What are the cons? What sort of work do I want to do, and this is really where I guess it changed. It shifted from my business was called originally, Fiona Killackey Consulting Proprietary Limited, and that's still the company name. But I shifted quite a bit to, I want to do more business coaching, I want to do more stuff than I can work remotely. I'm not traveling in and out of the city, I want to have a lot more time with my dad, while he's still here. We had to sell the family home, all of these things were going on.
And so in that evaluation stage, I had to really sit down and go, again, what are my values? What do I want right now? And am I going to deal with this now or later. And so I decided to find a grief psychologist, I found an incredible one. She really, really helped me and I worked with her on and off for a couple of years, was an incredible woman. And I remember the first session that I had with her and I was literally like, okay, she's gonna give me the answers. I'm gonna get through these. I'll be like, fine in a couple of months. Like, how long does this take?
And I remember literally saying that, I don't know if I said it that bluntly. But I kind of was like, you know, I'm crying. I'm upset all the time. You know, how long does this last? Like tell me. So I know exactly. It's kind of like lockdown. Like, tell me a date. And then I can work around that. And she said, this is gonna last as long as it's gonna last and you might be crying in another year. She's like, the intensity might reduce, but the pain and the loss that you've gone through isn't necessarily going to leave you. It's not a quick fix overnight.
But I also remember her saying, you will either deal with this now, or later. It's not now or never, it's now or later, because what you're going through, and no, she's somebody who specializes in this area and has done for 20 years plus.
She said what you're going through will either come out now if you choose to deal with it, or it'll come out in two years, or it'll come out in five years, or you'll be coming to see me in 10 years because you've never dealt with the issues - like grief has to be worked through. It can't be some that you put on the shelf, I'll deal with it later. I'll deal with it later. So I guess in that evaluation stage, I had to think, am I going to be in a guess? I can't think of other words to use. I'm just riffing here. There's no real notes. But I can't think of any other word.
But it was almost like, do I want to be a victim? And be like, this has happened to me, the whole rest of my life is just gonna be defined by this, or am I going to be the victor? And I guess there's not like a winner or loser in this situation. But I had to go, I'm in the evaluation stage. What work Am I going to commit to doing? In business? It's a similar thing you can, you can sort of think, Oh, God, our businesses have this gigantic thing happened to it. And of course, some businesses, really, there's no getting back, and my heart goes out to those people. But sometimes in some businesses, things will happen. And we focus so much on that, as opposed to, what can I rebuild? How can I start building this thing back up? And in my case, I was thinking, my best friend has died, my mum. And of course, it's a natural progression, our parents will usually die before us. But I had to think, am I just going to sit in this really horrible state of life? Or am I going to find ways to work through it. And like I said before, my mom was someone who lived life, she lived it, she traveled,, she is the kind of person like I remember her telling me I was in she had a beautiful Irish accent as well. You know, I was standing behind this man with a mohawk today at the ATM. And I just went into a great conversation with him. And I was like, why how it is like, because I just was fascinated by his mohawk. And I asked him how he puts it together every day. And she's like, we ended up talking for a good 15 minutes about life.
And so she was that type of person, she wasn't someone to be like, "Oh, you know, I'm a woman in my 60s, there's a guy with a mohawk in front of me, you know, I'm not going to talk to him for whatever reason."
She was somebody who never judged people on their appearance, or, you know, she really did teach us massively, that everybody is equal - every single person and that you should never judge or have prejudice or whatever. And so she had lived her life fully, fully, fully. And the other thing that the kind of psychologists work with me is, what would your mother think? Would she want you to to sit here and be crying all the time? And? Or would she want you to get on and live? And I'm like, 120%, she would be wanting me to get on and live my best life that that is what she would want.
And so that was the point of evaluation, if we kind of come back to the sort of biocycle that was, what am I going to do now? What are the pros and cons of different situations with my business? So if I shift things, and I become more of a business coach, less consulting, if I produce things like ebooks and courses, how could that help me come back to that value of freedom? And what do I want from life and so the evaluation was really where I kind of decided this is a step forward, this is what I'm going to do. So if you are going through a period of change, which grief is inevitably changes everything, or loss in some kind, you want to get to the point of evaluation and really confront reality. And think, am I going to deal with this now or am I going to deal with it later, and sometimes it's fine to deal with it later. But know that it has to be dealt with either way.
So then I guess it's kind of going to the purchase decision or the kind of purchase in the biocycle framework. So we've gone through awareness we've gone through research, we've gone through evaluation, I guess the purchase was in this framework, which I know sort of so weird to think about grief and loss in terms of the buyer cycle but in terms of that purchase is really when the commitment happens so I had to get buy in from others so I had to sit down kind of map out my revenue streams, what would happen if I reduce the consulting? What would happen if I worked from home what sort of office would we need to set up what sort of website would I need to create if I was going to go into the business coaching much more and, and what sort of activity would I need to do to drum up more of that business.
I was already doing business coaching, but it wasn't maybe as big a pie in the financial like as biggest slice of pie in the financials, then like consulting which you know, is often paid very, very, very well. And so I had to sit in that kind of purchase stage and think I need buying I need to say to my husband, I need to see a grief psychologist and I'm going to be out of the house one night a week or one night a fortnight and it's going to cost this much and I also need to spend heaps of time with my dad because my dad was moving into a nursing home and I had to say that this is really important. I need you know, we have young children, anyone that is in a relationship with someone who has young children or If you're raising them yourself, like massive hats off, you know that time is very precious, you don't get much of time to yourself. So I had to think and really get buy in from everyone around me and say, this is this is what I need. This is what I need right now. And I had to take that leap, I had to think, okay, I am not going to do so much consulting, I'm going to change up some stuff, I'm going to change up how many days my son's in childcare, I'm going to, you know, do all of these things, I'm going to change the way that I worked as well, because my son was going into school. The next year, he started in 2018, my eldest and I had to really sit and think, Okay, well, how do I change my business? So it's going to work. So when I'm there, you know, most days to pick him up, and everyday to drop him off? Like I had to rearrange things. And it came from that evaluation of like, what is most important to me? What am I going to commit to, and the purchase was really where I committed to that change, and I committed to maybe putting my family you know, higher priority, I mean, they'd always been a high priority. But I'd lived overseas for years, I'd sort of done whatever I wanted. And I had to bake my dad, particularly because he was now by himself, a top top top priority, absolutely top.
So that is kind of the purchase part of really putting all this stuff that you've worked through, into some sort of action, you know, really, really taking action. And deciding that this is important to me, I've gone through and I'm going through this grief loss journey. And so what do I need? What support do I need from everyone around me to make these changes that have come as a result of asking myself what's important in my life? What kind of legacy do I want to have? What are the values that I want to live by? So that was really the purchase stage.
And then the post purchase or kind of advocacy stage was where I had to be willing to talk about this stuff openly. And I guess this is really part of the reason that I'm doing this podcast episode. It's not talked about enough. It really is not.
I had friends who I would see them say, like, three months after my mom had died, and they would not mention it, they would never bring it up. We would meet for hours at a time like a dinner. And they would never say, "How are you going? you know, how's your dad going? Anything like that. And I think it's the same with like pregnancy loss. I know that we lost a baby very early on, it wasn't, you know, people think, well, it's so early, you know, they have all sorts of, or, you know, things like, Well, yeah, at least you know, you can get pregnant and these other things, which I guess they think helps at the time. But I think the post purchase was really sharing, this has happened, this has happened to me, and it's really painful. And I've gone through it, and I'm there for somebody else, if they are going through it as well, because this has been my journey, this is what's helped me. And of course, it's just my journey. It's not, I'm not like this is the blueprint for everyone.
But it was really, you know, sharing this knowledge and deciding that it was okay to have like a pivot party. I know, when I worked at a digital agency ages ago, we used to always say pivot party pivot party, because you'd be switching gears all the time. And now obviously, pivot has such a different meaning with COVID-19.
But that post purchase stage was really, you know, the post commitment stage was really about sharing with people and opening up a safe space to have these conversations and saying, this happens. And it's really awful. And this is what's helped or this may help you. And one of the most beautiful things that came out of this was my relationships with other people who I didn't know a lot of them before this, telling me about what had helped for them.
And I'll always remember this beautiful woman, Catherine, she knows who she is, I don't know, she listens to this podcast. And she contacted me and said, this has happened to me. And I'd love to have a coffee with you. And we met and she gave me the most beautiful children's book because she's like, I understand that you have a young child. This is a book that explains loss and grief. And I was just floored with how beautiful this woman was to go out of her way to contact me someone she didn't know and get a coffee and buy a book and come and give me her time and her space to say I've been there, I've walked that path. Here's what's worked for me. And I had that from all sorts of people from from strangers. I remember the beautiful Laurinda and Fatuma from Collective Closets. They also you know, we I remember we met for a drink and they brought this beautiful plant this beautiful orchid and they talked about their own their own grief journey. And that's what comes out of this if we can talk about these things and not hide them and think that they need to all be behind closed doors because everyone on the planet will go through some sort of grief or loss. No matter who you are, no matter what your relationship is with your family,
It could be you don't talk to your family, but maybe your best friend passes away, or your pet, your animal that has brought you so much joy leaves you and there's a huge gaping hole in your life. And so I wanted to, in that part in that kind of process, really share my knowledge and share what has happened. And so in 2017, I created a website called whenyourmotherdies.com. And in that website are books that people have suggested that helped as well as the books that I've read. There's also podcast episodes, there also, stories. But the big thing, I guess, that I found really helpful from other people and that, that I know, so many people found helpful from this site is the letters. So what I did was that I kind of put a call out and said, if anyone has gone through the passing of their mother, and would like to write a letter to somebody who is just going through it, please get in touch. And I had a number of people write beautiful letters, some people whose whose, you know, mother had died very recently, some people, there was one person, I think her mother had died 20 plus years ago, and were people that had really tight relationships with their mothers and those people who had strained relationships with their mothers and, and I think that's the thing more people can open up, maybe my story isn't right for somebody because they had a very different relationship with their mother. Whereas somebody else's letter, who maybe had a strained or different relationship with their mother, is the right thing that they need to hear right now.
So I think, in that post-purchase was really about, okay, I've gone through this, and I'm still going through it, but I'm not as intensely sad, I guess about it as much. I can see it as a point at which I've changed my life has changed because of this. And a lot of the things that I've learned about myself and the empathy, more empathy that I have now for other people who have gone through this have made me you know, maybe a nicer person in because I've seen things now that I can't unsee and I've felt things that I can't and feel and so I would hope that I would be more empathetic and open to other people's journeys in this space. The other thing that it's allowed me to do is to cultivate more resilience. I mean, I often think about when I used to imagine my parents passing away and I would be just so sad, and it would be the quickest thing to bring me to tears and, and I heard from quite a few people after they died saying you know, oh my god, you know, the thought of my parents dying just makes me feel sick. And I feel like I want to vomit.
But I mean obviously I used a rattling framework in this but I I think the grief and loss journey is one that every single person has to travel alone I remember writing lunch lady asked me to write an article about grief because they'd seen me talking about it. And I wrote, and I wrote this thing, saying that, you know, grief is like a train. And we all have our own ticket to get on the train. So we don't know how long we're going to be on there. When I know when we're getting off, our journey is very different to the person sitting next to us on the grief train, but no less meaningful or important or sad, or hopeful or resilience building.
So I don't even know how you're going through this. And I think we can get used to anything and using years ago when I studied sociology at uni, like 20 years ago, oh my god. We had to read all these books like Nietzsche and, and all these different philosophers, and young and dusty esky. I remember in a Dostoevsky book at the start of it, camera which book it is, but it talks about men can get used to men and women and all genders can get used to any situation and I feel that's the same and obviously losing my parents is really hard and horrible but it's it's nothing in comparison to a lot of horrible situations that people have lived through let's I know my privilege, but it was still really really hard but it has taught me resilience. It's taught me I'm stronger than I think I am I can get through things and also it's putting things in perspective. It's like really do I care if I lose a few 100 followers on Instagram because reality like what is that versus this is my life. My mother has died very different very big perspective there. But it also made me really be more present with people and be like you don't know what's going to happen and I have also had my best friend died when I was 21 in a car accident. So it's not you know, all of these parts of life are teaching us things. They're all lessons and one of the podcasts that I actually mentioned on whenyourmotherdies.com and I've mentioned before I'm sure is the on being podcast with John O'Donoghue, the the late, great Irish poet. And in that he talks about how when these things happen to us, it's like our world is torn. And we have to go into that other side, like imagine a page tearing, and you have to go into like one part of it. And you can no longer ever see that the page has not torn, but he's like by passing through that into the other side. We feel things more deeply we emphasize more and we have this fuller life even though this horrible thing has happened. So I know that's a lot and very different to, you know, a podcast about a marketing framework.
So I hope that if you're listening to this, and you run a small business, or you don't run a small business, anyone listening to this, who's going through grief and loss right now or maybe has gone through it in the past and haven't felt like they've dealt with it, I hope that what I've talked about today is helpful and useful for you. And also that it gives you some hope. And I can always feel my dad in my ears as I say this because he used to always say you have to have hope you have to have faith.
He had a really crappy kind of challenging childhood and or teenagehood and he had many things happened to him that could have got him down. But he always used to say, I have hope and I have faith and those things have carried me through. So I hope that they carry you through Thank you for listening to this episode. If you know someone who may find some use in it, please share it with them. And of course if there was something that really resonated with you or if you would like to contribute to the letters on whenyourmotherdies.com or contribute you know, a book that you've read that you thought was really useful not know when your mother died, but for any other grief or loss. please get in touch the best way to do it is either through email hello@mydailybusinesscoach.com or you can just hit me up on Instagram at my daily business coach. So yeah, that is it. And I guess just you know, honoring my beautiful parents, Frank and Carmel who are no longer with us but taught me so much and through their teachings was also part of the reason that I could get through this grief journey that I guess I'm still on. Thanks mom and dad.
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you want to get in touch you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram at @mydailybusinesscoach.
