In this special episode, we’re talking to widower Sue Deagle about experiencing and talking about grief and loss – not just the negative aspects but how it can also be beautiful, freeing, and empowering. This is a conversation that applies to and will be useful for everyone.
This special episode shines the light on something we don't often talk about candidly... Experiencing grief and loss – and not just the negative aspects but how it can also be beautiful, freeing, and empowering.
Today's guest, Sue Deagle is a veteran c-suite executive, mother, and widow, rewriting the story of loss and vibrant living.
Losing her husband to a sudden heart attack when he was only 50 changed her worldview and she, in turn, wants to change people’s relationship to loss (whether they are the ones experiencing it or they're consoling someone else).
She shares about:
- navigating loss with children
- collaborative leadership
- the “veil of the ordinary” being removed
- preparing for loss and grief
- what to say and do when someone you know is grieving
- keeping loved ones' memories alive
- moving on with strength and purpose
"I want everyone who's experienced loss to live as vibrant a life as mine. It is possible and you are not alone."
This episode applies to everyone. It will make us better leaders, and consolers, and will come in handy the next time we experience a loss of our own.
—
Veteran c-suite exec, mother, widow, rewriting the story of loss and vibrant living at The Luminist. She brings loss (in all its forms) out of the shadows, shining a light on the parts of the human experience we avoid at all costs, but are our greatest teachers for living a full, expansive, love-filled life.
Learn more: suedeagle.com
Sign up for The Luminist newsletter: theluminist.substack.com
Connect with her on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sue-deagle
- I am Celine Williams and welcome to the "Leading Through Crisis" podcast, a conversation series exploring resiliency and leadership in challenging times. My guest today is Sue Deagle who is a C-suite veteran and the creator of "The Luminist," a newsletter changing the conversation around loss, grief, and vibrant living. Welcome, Sue.
Thanks. Thanks so much for having me.
It is a pleasure. I am excited to talk to you today. Just from our pre conversation, I was like, "Oh, this is gonna be very interesting. I can already tell." But before we dive in, the name of the podcast is "Leading Through Crisis." When you hear that phrase, what comes up for you?
Yeah, so two things come up for me. I've had a 30-plus year career as a defense contractor an executive in the defense contractor space, a US defense contractor. So, of course crisis is what the Defense Department in the US is about, right? Deterrence a lot, but also crisis. So, and the fact that we served that client for years, and I'm retired now, just newly retired, but coming to the aid of soldier, sailors, and airmen in crisis and supporting them, that's what we did. We operate military bases around the globe at that company. You're always just aware of what could happen, right? And how you can support people when that crisis kind of kicks into gear. And then being a publicly held company, when there are moments in time where your top line or your bottom line, maybe that corridor had some challenges in it, you know, how do you lead through the crisis of what Wall Street's expectations are? And that's just kind of keeping on doing what you're doing, but also finding new ways to really spur growth. So that's an important thing to think about, crisis. Like, businesses are rarely a steady state thing, right? There's always something coming at you and something happening. But the real way now that I am more focused on changing this conversation around loss in our culture is I think about my family. So seven years ago, my 50-year-old husband died suddenly of a heart attack. Healthy, happy, great, blueberry-and-kale eating kind of guy, really watched his health, went to the doctor like so many men might not do. So just a real caretaker of himself. And he had a sudden heart attack from a, just the way sort of fate handed life to us. And I was 48 at the time, and my kids were 11 and 13. So often what I say about leadership, and especially leadership in crisis, is everything I really learned about leading came from that period in time when I was leading my family. And that comes from feeling your emotions, but also setting an example of strength. That comes from helping everybody know that we're gonna move through things, not around things. So all of those concepts I learned about really that crisis time, the first year or two after Mike's death and raising the kids, that's really my foundation in leadership now. And I benefited from having led teams and led people in my career, but when the rubber really hits the road, you're accompanying people in life. Like, leadership is so much of an accompanying exercise. And sometimes people look to you and they need you to set the, "Hey, here's what's next." But a lot of times people are perfectly capable of doing that themselves. They just need the boost. They need an arm around the shoulder, they need a I'm here for you part as we go through this together. Leadership is a shoulder-to-shoulder exercise, in my mind, not as much of a lead from the front one.
So first off, I'm sorry that you had that experience.
Thank you.
Loss is challenging. And it definitely brings up all of the emotions and all of the-
Yes.
It's gonna put all of those, whatever version of leading, whether it's leading yourself or leading others, it puts it all to the test for sure.
Yeah.
And I love that, I love your perspective on leading shoulder to shoulder, not leading from the front. And I think that that is something that we don't talk about a lot. Because even when we talk about leading by example, which to me, that really is an aspect of leading shoulder to shoulder. People always think it's still that following that leader as opposed to walking with people.
Yeah.
And I'd love to hear more about your experience, or when you think about like leading shoulder to shoulder, and when you think about leading in that way, what is that for you? What does that, I mean, I'm just gonna say, what does that for you? What does that look like for you? What does that mean to you?
Yeah, beautifully said, and you make such a great point about like, leading by example, it's a funny thing. Like, I think people would think, okay, I was 48 when my husband died, kids, 11 and 13, that I was leading from the front, like setting the example. And of course, I was setting the tone. I was saying, "We're gonna get through this. Daddy built the," I always used to say to the kids, "Daddy built the basement in the first floor of your house, and we're just finishing off the second floor together, but he already made you who you are." And I felt like leading from the front. If I was going to lead from the front, I wasn't going to be turning around and looking at how they were doing, right? Like, are you with me? Is this resonating for you? So to me, that shoulders to shoulder is a lot of listening. And I think we think as leaders sometimes, like that we're doing people a favor by listening, but we're learning so much ourselves. And I reflect back on that, like in mentee-mentor experiences. So when I have mentees, we'll get on the phone for an hour and talk about things. I feel like I'm the one benefiting, like I'm the one learning so much from a mentee, whether it's a different philosophy, whether it's where they are in the organization. You get different perspectives and modes of thinking. And so it's sort of the same with the kids, like, it was a very much a listening sort of taking in their grief, but also just watching them process how they process the loss of their father. You know, people often ask me, "Well, did, did the kids go back to school right away after Mike died?" And both of my kids, they wanted to go back to school. They wanted to be in a place where they were surrounded by people who were supporting them, exclusively supporting them. And in fact, my daughter, who's 19 now and a very bold, you know, she's gonna take on the world, watch out world, she actually said to me, "Well, why would I sit here at home with all these sad grownups? Like, I wanna go to school." And if I was leading from the front or deciding what was best for them, I would be like, "You're staying home for a week." But that would've been the wrong answer for them. So that listening to me is what shoulder to shoulder is about. "Okay, I may not agree with you completely, but why are you thinking that thing? Why do you wanna proceed down that route?" And then we can just say together, okay, grown up brain to kid brain, or in a work sense, executive to people in the field, let's talk about it. "Oh, okay, now you're right. We're gonna do it your way." That to me is a lot of shoulder to shoulder, that openness to what everyone is bringing to the table in terms of what we should do next.
I think it's such a great example because we, look, we all do this, right? We think that the thing that would work best for us is the thing that's gonna work best for someone else.
Yes.
'Cause we are in our brains. So we're like, this is the way the world is. I wanna spend time with grieving adults and feel support and have them validate the grief that I'm feel, whatever it, and I don't mean that. I mean, having lost my parents, I'm saying that was-
Yes, you know.
There are times where you just want that, people to be feeling what you're feeling in some way, shape, or form.
Yes.
And that's okay. And that might not be someone else's experience, right? Your kids are like, "I wanna go be a kid." Like, this doesn't change the fact that I've lost someone and I feel these feelings, but I don't wanna not be a kid, or I don't wanna not be in a place that also brings me joy or that I feel seen in a different way, or whatever it is. And it's a great reminder that everyone is going to need and want and experience different things. And if you are not with them shoulder to shoulder, if you're not hearing what they're saying, if you're trying to, sorry, leaders out there, but we see this all the time, if you're trying to push your idea as the right, this is the way to do it, you're missing out, they're gonna miss out. There's so many other potential and possibilities when you do listen.
That's such a great point. I love that. I hadn't really thought like, there's not one right way. Even in the business world there's not one right way.
No.
You know, we have to be open to all these different paths. Like, I was thinking about this like, like when you put a coordinate into Google Maps, you have a destination that you're going to. And then it'll give you the scenic route, the non-toll route, the fastest route. Like, so that happens to us all the time, and we pick these routes. But then when we're trying to move forward with something and leading in a group, we're like, "No, there's only just one route, it's my route." No, no, like, there's all these ways to get there that give you pluses and minuses along the way. There's never one right way.
Never. And I think it's hard for people, I think it can be hard, not always. But I think it can be hard for people to recognize that if they don't have an experience that shows 'em otherwise, right? They're like, "Sure, theoretically that makes sense, but I still my." But once you have an experience where it's like, "Oh," and excuse me, not that we all want people to go through to have to experience grief. That's not, you know, but when you have an experience with loss, with grief, whatever that looks like, you see very quickly that everyone goes through it differently. And people grieve differently. And it's like a microcosm for anything else, which is, this is not gonna be the same for everyone. It's not gonna look the same for everyone.
Right.
When you're in it, you're like, "Oh, okay."
Yeah, like, oh, like, that lived experience, like, and the kids kind of give me that coaching too, because they they were raised up in a different time. Like, I grew up in western Pennsylvania in a dying steel town, and I had like a scarcity mentality. "No, I have to become a executive and always provide for the family." And the kids, we live in Northern Virginia, they had a different kind of life. And when I try to sometimes impose some rules that worked for me when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, they're like, "What are you talking about? Like, that's just not how the world works now." But that openness to knowing that experiences are relative. Like one of the biggest things I did after I lost Mike was I just read a ton of books and not just books about grief, which are helpful, but I like the stories more. Like, I like to see how did Joan Didion process her grief. You know, how did, you know, Dave Grohl has a great memoir about his days with Nirvana? How did he process the grief of... All of those help? Matthew McConaughey has an amazing memoir called "Green Lights." And he really makes this point about, it's all relative to the circumstance you were in. You look back at these times in your life and they built that, sort of that decision matrix in your head. But the place you're in right now is the decision point. And as leaders of our families or our teams at work, that's what matters, the in the moment, and recognizing everyone else is bringing all these different life experiences to the table. And so their input is too.
Absolutely. So I am very curious, how all of these aspects of who you are, of the work that you've done, of what you've experienced, how this has come together into "The Luminist." And I'm just changing a little bit, but there's a, because I think it's such a, I mean, obviously they're experiencing, you know, experiencing loss, making changes, retiring. But how did this come to fruition to "The Luminist" and what is it that you, what is it, like... What are your hopes for it? What are you doing? It's such an interesting concept and change. And you clearly are vibrant yourself and have so much energy, and tell me about it.
Yeah, well, I could talk about this all day, and thank you for asking that question. I mean, when it comes right down to it, I really wanna change our relationship to loss. Like, we try to pretend that loss doesn't happen to us. Like, when we think of loss, okay, what are the characteristics of loss? Despair, destruction, damage. Yup, valid, 100%. But, like, the other aspects of loss are it's inevitable. Isn't that weird that it's inevitable, and yet we never talk about loss?
Uh-huh.
It's cyclical. It's cyclical. Sometimes we're in our peaks, and sometimes we're in our valleys, it's cyclical. And then it has a longevity component. Like, our losses, they imprint who we are, and they extend through our lives both in ways that make us stronger and ways that challenge us. So those are just like sort of the clinical parts of loss. And then for me, when my husband, you know, effectively just disappeared, how did I get from that terrible, terrible point in time to where I am today? And there are a few things that got me there. Right out of the gate, I had a dear friend say to me, "We can't see how today, but things are going to be great again. They're going to be a different kind of great, but your life is gonna be great." And I trusted him, and he knew me and my family, and I couldn't see how it was gonna be great 'cause it's pretty awful. But he just planted that seed, right? That there are different ways of living our life, even though the path we imagined just got blown to smithereens. So he gave me hope. Then the second thing that happened was Bruce Springsteen has another great memoir. And in his memoir he says, "One of death's last gifts to us is it removes the veil of the ordinary from our eyes." So we don't see life in that same way. And in the months after Mike's death, like I live in a very wooded area, I would be up in trees and walking through nature and crying, grieving, and I reach out, "What does that leaf feel like?" Like, you start to see things in a way that you didn't see them before, because that veil of the ordinary is gone. And you see everything around you differently, and then that translates to seeing people differently. Everyone is going through their losses, that cyclicality. And everyone has a warmth and a heart and something to share with you. So it made me far more connected to human beings. Like I was never, I was always like, "I'm all alone this world. I got this. I never have to ask for anybody's help. I'll help you, but you don't have to help me." So it broke that whole idea for me that we are just like tiny little planets here. We're actually all in this together. And it gave me just such a passion for human connection. And then I was finishing up a job at IBM, and I needed to find a new job 'cause that job was winding down. This was like a few months after Mike died. So I found a new job at another defense contractor, and that job ended up being a savior. Because it allowed me to do the things I was good at while I was grieving at the same time. And it was with people who didn't know Mike. They just knew, like, strong leading Sue. And I could have this carved out place in my life where I could just be myself. And our workforces around the world were deployed in the Middle East and in Europe, Greenland, the Pacific. So I got to go and spend time really hearing what people had to say, really listening, really just being curious about their lives and how amazing they are. And that just continued to build that connection. So it was this combination of like hope, taking the veil of the ordinary away, connecting both with nature and with other human beings that gradually, over time, that brokenness that I had had just changed my worldview. And now I'm like, oh my gosh, life is, I always say that life is like fizzing with electricity. Like there's so much that we're all here for each other. We're all here for this beautiful world that we're in. And I live an amazing life. It is not the white picket fence, 2.5 kids, rocking chairs with my husband that I thought I was gonna have. But all of our lives are an active imagination. And even the life I imagined with Mike was just an act of imagination. So I have a new life that is an act of imagination. And having kind of come to this point in time and feeling like, "Oh my gosh, I have an amazing life." Yes, I have longing that lingers. My children will always not have a dad, right? But we count all of the things that we came through in life and we look at loss no longer like the devastation and the damage. Loss is freeing, that veil of the ordinary. Loss is empowering. When we count the things we have survived, we're like, "Oh my gosh, look at where we've come to." We are empowered. And there's meaning tremendous meaning in sharing this message. So I want everybody, I want everyone to realize they have the power to live as vibrant a life as I have. And I can't not talk about that. Like, I can't not tell people, "Yes, you are in the throes of loss. It's gonna be a year, two years, your brain is gonna repair itself. You're gonna make connections. You're gonna have hope, over time. And you will get to a point where you see the world differently." That is possible because that's my experience.
Hmm. I love that. And I think it is important for people to know that and to hear that and to understand that. And especially because, and this is my opinion, you may disagree, but loss happens in many ways. It's not only from death. You end a relationship, that's a loss. You leave a job, you get fired, whatever, that's a loss. And you go through a process of grief inside of all of those things. Your kids move out from home, that's a... Like these moments of change, big change, where you're losing familiarity, we go through periods of grief. And we don't often think about the impact of that or what that really means unless it is death, which we don't talk about because it's one of those taboo subjects that we just don't get into.
Right.
So people are losing and grieving, not only when people die, but in other ways. And none of it gets talked about because we don't connect loss of whatever relationship job with death, even though the grief may be experienced differently, but it's still grief.
Yeah, I completely agree with you there. Like, think of all the things. I just became an empty nester. My daughter just finished her freshman year in college. So when she left in set in August, I was like, "Okay," because I am a person experienced with loss, I knew that sitting around and feeling sorry for myself was probably not the way to go. So I planned what I called the empty nester world tour. So I went to Houston and saw an aunt and uncle, and then I went to Colorado for business. And then I went to Munich for this Ideas Festival. I was like, "No, I am on the empty nester world tour." And everywhere I went there, "Oh, what do you, oh," and I would just blah, blah, blah, tell people what I was doing. So we could have this conversation about being an empty nester. So actually, that is a loss I chose to have. I raised my children to launch them from the nest. So we have those kinds of losses too when we make choices. And then we have losses that we don't choose. You lose your identity, you lose your youth, you can lose your health. You can lose your way of life. I mean, there are so many ways to talk about loss, you know, not just the big daddy of death. There's all these other ways too. And what immediately happens when we enter into one of those losses is we're like, "Oh, this doesn't happen to anybody else. I'm all alone. I'm alone. I can't like talk to anybody." Meanwhile, everybody could tell you there's six different ways they've had a loss in the last decade. And if we open that conversation, not only in the crisis times for the podcast name, not only in the crisis could we support each other better, but we could prepare better. We could make sure our friends are gonna be there, like that we're picking the right friends, that we're picking the right environment, that we're doing self discovery so that we know like when the harder times come that we know ourselves and we know like me, like, "Oh, I need to go on this empty nester world tour that's gonna help me." It's not going to eliminate my sorrow, but it's gonna be helpful. So this building of community and connection and this self-discovery of ourselves make us better when we experience the crisis, and it also makes us better consolers. Like, and I feel that's a really great place to start whenever you're thinking about loss. Like if loss seems overwhelming and you're like, "Oh, I don't wanna think about this, this is too stressful." A great way to think about it is how do I be a better consoler? It helps you like think about loss in an adjacent sense. Like, it's not happening to you, but how if something happened to you, how would I console you? And because we run away from people, like they have the hardest moment of their life and we're like, we don't know what to say, so we're not gonna say anything. "Oh my God. Really?" Like, how about, "I don't know what to say, but I love you." That would be a perfect thing to say. "Or my heart goes out to you," or anything, saying anything. And I always say about consoling, in my case with Mike, just like being a witness to someone's sorrow, just being, again, shoulder to shoulder with people. That's a really big deal. Telling a story. Like, when people used to tell me stories about Mike at work that I didn't have insight to, it was just another piece of Mike. They gave me a little bit of mike back. Or ask a question, like sometimes people are like, "Well, I don't wanna ask you about your mom because that might make you sad." You're not gonna forget that your mom is no longer here. And you might wanna tell a story about your mom that would like warm your heart her bring her back to you in that moment. We want to do those things. But everyone is so busy thinking that the highest order priority is to not upset someone, that they kind of lean back and don't do anything. And I'm just very against that. I think the least you could say from a consoling point of view, like say something, it matters.
Yes, all of that times a hundred. I could not agree with that more because, people just, and I've done it, you know, I've done it myself in the past with certain things, where I'm like, "I don't know what to do about this." And I hope I've learned to not do it and I'm better about it now where it's avoiding. 'Cause it's like, someone lose, you know, someone suffers a pregnancy loss. And I'm like, that's not a, like, I don't know what. If your mom dies or if your someone in your family dies, I got that, I can have that conversation. That one is one where I'm like, "I don't know what to say now." I think I have a better sense of what I would say or just stepping into it. But there have been absolutely times where it's like, "I don't know what to do in those moments." So I love that idea of thinking about it from a consoling perspective. And it reminds me of, excuse me, having done a lot, I've taught a lot of workshops, courses on emotional intelligence. And one of the things that I always say there, there's a point to where I'm going, is, if you are only practicing your emotional intelligence, if you're only trying to manage your emotions or whatever it is in moments where you have to manage them, you're never going to manage them well, ever. You have to practice when you don't need to do that. It's like working out. You have to practice consistently, not only in the moments where shit has hit the fan. And it's the same with this. It's like if you are only going to be thinking about loss or what to do with it when it has happened and you're not thinking, "How could I be a better consoler at some future point when someone needs it," that point's gonna show up and you're gonna be like, "Uh, uh-oh, now what?"
Right, you're never bench pressing 300 pounds if you didn't just do some like light bicep curls with some 10 pounders. Like you have to like break yourself into that. And it's, Charles Duhigg just came out with a new book called "Super Communicators."
Yes.
And he has this, like, he really describes really well about how do you make better connections? How do you ask more emotional questions? Instead of asking, "Where did you grow up?" you ask like, "what's the favorite thing about where you grow up?" But he has this vignette about his father passing away. And he was really thinking about it, and he had some friends who offered their condolences, but he was like, "I wanted to talk about it more." But nobody could meet me there. And that's fair. Like emotional contagion is a thing. There is a valid reason we are afraid to step into console, but we just have to say, "Okay, I'm worried that if I step into console, I'll be upset myself." Fair, but we have to prioritize the person who's actually suffering and kind of lean into that. And with that practice, not just at the moment of crisis, you have to break yourself in.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny because I think, and I imagine you have had a similar experience, but I think back to one of the people, when my mom died, one of the people who was, like, will forever stand out as just an exceptional human in my life was someone who was very close friends with my mom and who was really happy to have conversations about her with me. And it was like, my mom was bananas. We would talk about how bananas my mom was. We would tell funny stories about my mom. Like, she was there with me when my mom died. We would talk about that, like all of it was on the table in a way that-
So good.
I will never forget that. And she was in it with me. And that it like-
A gift.
I mean, it is a gift. And that's exactly it. Like, that is a gift to give someone.
Yeah. So much so. I mean, and then you're celebrating the richness of your mother's life. Like, we joke around, my husband's mom, I had never met her. I never had a mother-in-law 'cause she died before I met Mike. And we used to call her Saint Maryanne as a joke because-
I love that
when someone dies everyone becomes a saint, right? And now the kids and I kind of joke around, "Oh, Saint Daddy" you know? But we keep it real, we're like, "Oh, he would've hated this thing that we're doing." He is an active part of our lives. Like, we discuss that, "What do you think about? Oh boy, this wouldn't have gone so well if Daddy was here." He lives inside of us. When my daughter graduated from high school last June, it was great ceremony, it was so much fun. And I got to the end of it, and I was standing with her and I was like, "Oh my gosh, I haven't thought about Daddy this whole ceremony." And I felt like guilty. And she said to me, "Well, of course, you haven't thought about him, 'cause he lives in our hearts. You don't have to think about him," like he's with us all the time.
Yeah, yeah.
And I was like, "Oh, those are wise words," right? That we have those experiences where we keep our loved ones alive. They are alive in our hearts, they're alive in our minds, their stories, you know, the hair that they passed down to us, all these things, right? And I think it makes for a richer life when we can still talk about that and not let fear overcome us. And I'm validating the fear. It's a real fear because we don't-
Absolutely.
And we don't teach each other in society how to do this. And that's a little bit of what I'm doing with "The Luminist." Let's get it out there and talk about it. And I'll get feedback like, "Wow, that was so vulnerable what you said." And I'm like, "It didn't feel vulnerable to me." Like, that is my life. Like, this processing grief, this figuring out how to deal with your loved ones that are gone and move on with strength and purpose, like, that is what Mike would want us to be doing. We live in honor of him every day.
I love that. Sue, where can people go to learn more about you and also sign up for "The Luminist," 'cause I have a feeling-
Yeah, perfect.
They're gonna wanna do that.
So if you're a Substack person, and if you already are subscribed to a number of substacks, you just put "The Luminist" into the search, and it'll pull up right away. Or you could just go to my website, which is suedeagle.com-
Which will be linked in the show notes. That will be, we'll have a link.
Yeah, there's a place to sign in there. And then also if you're LinkedIn person, if you connect with me on LinkedIn, I put my newsletter out every Saturday on Substack and then the following week on LinkedIn. So that's a real easy way. Sometimes, you know, I laugh. I'm 55 years old. Our demographic, sometimes we're not sign uppers for newsletters or we don't like to join, we like to just view from afar. So if you're that kind of person, totally in on that and just connect with me on LinkedIn, and you'll get the newsletter every week as well.
Amazing. We'll have all those links in our show notes. It has been a absolute pleasure to talk to you. I have really enjoyed this.
Thank you. This is so great. I really appreciate it.
At some point I would love for you to, I feel like I could talk about this with you for 14 hours.
Yeah.
So at some point, if you'd like to come back, please come back. I'd love to talk more about this.
That would be great. All right, thanks so much.
Thank you.
Take care.
[Celine] Thanks for joining me today on the "Leading Through Crisis" podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a minute to rate and review us on your podcast app. If you're interested in learning more about any of our guests, you can find us online at www.leadingthroughcrisis.ca.