#but she hardly has a normal or well-adjusted growth period???

[corpocyborg]

jacob/renesmee & the werewolves as a whole in twilight 😂

Soulmates as a horror concept.

You WILL love this person. It doesn't matter who you loved before; any feelings you had, any promises you made, they will become inconsequential as soon as you lock eyes with the stranger Fate has picked for you.

There's no way to stop it.

There's no way to say "no."

You will meet someone and with a single glance, both of you will become someone new, someone who's now bound to this stranger whether you like it or not, want it or not.

Trapped in a dance together until the day you die.

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 128

This is another chapter that I started with one intention and it kind of dragged me the other way. I started with what Miys says at the beginning as a kernel, and...

Yeah, avoiding spoilers, you get...*waves frantically* this.  Which I am excited about seeing where it goes.

Kudos to @baelpenrose​ and @mustachebatarts​ for this chapter. You’ll both understand when you read it :)

Tyche nodded sleepily as Alistair handed her a cup of coffee, mirroring my own struggle to wake up.  It was the beginning of Alpha shift - roughly 6:30am Terran Pacific NorthAm time - and we were starting our week with an extremely rare mission brief. Parvati and Hannah seemed either anxious or excited - possibly a combination - as the last brief they had received was ship-wide when we announced the lighting changes. Neither of them had ever been in one of the Council-only meetings that preceded such announcements.

Due to the growth on the Council - both among administrators and among Mentees - it wasn’t feasible to hold this meeting face to face in the room ordinarily used for such things. As a result, each Councilor was joining from their respective office, along with auxiliary staff who needed to be privy to the information discussed. For someone like Grey, that would be themself, Antoine, and their current admin, Nora. In my case, it was everyone who reported to my office.

“Has everyone joined?” I asked in my role as Parliamentarian for this meeting.  No one liked the position, so it rotated.

“Still waiting on Huynh, Charly, and Ivan,” Eino replied.

“We’re here!” an entirely-too-awake voice greeted.

Ignoring the laugh that Alistair and Hannah were suppressing, I forged ahead. “That’s everyone then. Good Morning, Council. Today is January 23rd, 2051 Terran-relative time, 45th day of Von cold season Year four Pre-Colony. We are currently two Terran years from Von. Miys has requested that we gather this morning for an important mission update so that we can prepare. Miys, you have the floor.”

“Thank you, Wisdom. Good day, Human Council.” I couldn’t tell if Miys had practiced or was operating on multiple minds, but the resemblance to a human public-speaker was startling. “As stated by Councilor Wisdom, the Yjq is currently two Terran years from your destination. We requested to address you in order to advise that navigational adjustments will be necessary within one Terran year of the planet you call Von.”

Murmurs erupted on the conference, but no one actually interrupted, so Miys continued. “Due to the density of systems in this portion of the Galaxy, the final Terran year of the journey cannot be made at our current speed.  The Yjq will need to drop out of relativistic space and complete the remaining leg in realspace.”

“How does this immediately impact the human population?” Grey asked first, hardly letting Miys finish their statement.

“With the sensors operational, there should be no noticeable difference in the transition,” came the answer. “However, there will be the introduction of potential physical hazards once we are in realspace.”

After a pause of silence, Xiomara spoke up. “Are you talking about the potential of being attacked?”

“Galactic law prohibits acts of violence against aide or rescue vessels.”

I heard an explosive snort before an extremely dry voice joined in. “Miys, that is the opposite of an answer,” Evania argued. “And we all know that criminals are famous for their adherence to the letter of the law.”

An alert chirped on my data band, and I almost choked when I saw Arthur’s message: “Oh, I LIKE her…”

“Once we are no longer in relativistic space, the Yjq is due to rendezvous with an Ekomari escort within thirty Terran days.”

“And what is the tactical benefit of that escort?” Evan pushed.

Rather than Miys, Charly responded. “Ekomari are very aggressive, but even more bound by a code of honor.  They view preying on the weak - including rescue and aide vessels - the most disgusting behavior imaginable.  This extends to the point of stopping their own attacks once the enemy is considered defeated.”

“Only an extremely overconfident or suicidal crew would try to go up against an Ekomari squadron that is escorting us,” Arthur finished.

“That is satisfactory. No objections.”

Approval in her tone, Xiomara launched the next question. “What about the thirty days we won’t have an escort? What is normally done on that leg of the journey?”

“Optimally, there is no such period during such a relocation.” I heard every person in my office inhale with dread at that statement. “During this time, there is always an increased concern that pirates and scavengers will attack in an attempt to be the first beings with artifacts from the newly present species.”

“Souvenirs… They want us for souvenirs…” Tyche muttered.

“We will discuss our options once we have all the information,” I stated loudly, trying to keep the meeting going before everyone panicked. “Miys, what other information do we need to know about the final year of the journey?”

“Once we are in realspace, long distance scans and data mining operations will begin for more accurate information regarding Von.  This information will be communicated to the entire Council so that any changes or updates to colony plans may be adjusted and finalized.  That is all for now.”

“Thank you Miys. You may remain in the meeting, as we may need your input regarding Galactic regulations, statistics, or laws.”

“Of course, Wisdom.”

I nodded and took a deep breath. “Xiomara, I’m pretty sure that you and Evan have a lot to say on the matter at hand.  Are there any objections to Health and Safety taking the floor?”

After a round of negatives, I conceded the floor. “Thank you, Sophia. Council, clearly there is a pressing matter in our future, here at the end of a tumultuous era, just as our goal is in sight. We cannot allow thirty days of risk to derail us now. For all that we have striven to show humanity as capable of peace and change, we now need to reach down to the roots of our very existence and ensure that we will not be undefended in that month.”

“Miys, the Ark is equipped with scouting probes and evacuation shuttles,” Evan followed. “What are the chances that we can repurpose those into our own small squadron for defensive purposes.”

“Doing such would invalidate the protection the Yjq is afforded by Galactic Law.”

“Excuse me, what!?” I sputtered, completely caught off guard.

“Hospital ships are only protected so long as they are incapable of defense, to prevent opposing forces from attacking each other under the guise of aide,” Charly explained in a mournful tone.

Evan and I groaned heavily. “At least tell me that the odds of any attackers completely blowing up the ship are low?”

“They would only be able to do so by detonating our drives from the inside.  To do so from the exterior would require more force than a coronal ejection from a white dwarf star.”

That was reassuring at least.

“So we would be safe as long as they don’t board the ship,” Arthur acknowledged.  I could see where his next question was going, but Evan beat him to it by a mile.

“Since we are not Hujylsogox, and are only the cargo of the Ark, there are no prohibitions against us defending ourselves in the event of a forced boarding, correct? Only you, yourself, would not be able to fight back.”

“This is correct, Commander Josue. I am not allowed to interfere in such a matter.”

Interesting wording.  Noah was telling us, as officially as allowed, that it would not fight the intruders, but also would not stop us from any actions we took. I smiled as I felt a confirming nudge in the back of my mind.

“Well, those weapons demonstrations were certainly not just for fun,” Huynh growled.  I could hear Charly cackling in the background before he confirmed to her that, yes, she can play with the construction exos.

“Let’s be organized about this,” Xiomara insisted. “For those comfortable with helping defend, we need to set up anti-boarding drills to start six months out at the latest. For those on the ship who are against violence, sort them into who can provide medical aid and who needs to do evacuation drills.  Eino, Arthur - can you assist Sophia’s team with that?”

“We can,” Eino confirmed, echoed by Arthur.

Parvati and Hannah glanced at each other silently before the former jumped in. “I recommend that at least one person with weapons training is assigned to each evacuation group, as a worst case defense.”

“I second that,” Xiomara agreed in a clipped tone. “Any objections?” A brief, silent pause. “Good. Add that to the strategy.”

“Miys, we need a list of what species are most likely to be found on pirate vessels.  Knowing their biology will go a long way to developing defense strategies,” Arthur requested.

“I like it,” Evan approved. “Ekomari may be honorable, but humanity has survived this long because we aren’t ashamed of taking cheap shots.”

“It is safe to assume that boarding parties will not have electromagnetic vision, as it has been advised that it is quite rare in the galaxy,” Grey pointed out. “We can use this to our advantage, most likely.”

“If we’re lucky to be in the light part of the cycle…” Tyche muttered.

“Administrator Reid has a point,” Pranav admitted, startling her. “If we are in the dark part of the cycle, we will be at a distinct disadvantage.”

“The lights are artificial,” Huynh sighed. “We can turn them on.”

“If I may interject,” Miys responded. “It is not as simple as you seem to believe to increase the light emitters on the entire Ark, Councilor Huynh.  The drain on the ship engines could permanently damage them.”

I could feel Charly’s eyes rolling in my soul when she picked up from there. “We can try to make some plans for that contingency. Pranav does have a point.”

“So that’s anti-boarding drills, evacuation drills, aid teams, threat assessment, and at least a start on evaluating where we stand from a defensive perspective. Once Sophia, Eino, and their offices coordinate who is which group, we’ll pull back up to determine who will be leading which initiatives,” Xiomara recapped. “Sophia, anything else we need to cover?”

“I think that’s the priorities right now,” I confirmed, effectively ending the meeting.  Once I closed out the channel, I turned to those in my office. “So, how do we feel about this?”

“Like you are going to be in one of the evacuation groups, stuffed as far back in the ship as possible,” Tyche stated drily.

“If we get boarded,” I pointed out. “It may not happen.”

“Madam Reid, you are on this ship.”

I scowled at Alistair before turning to Parvati and Hannah. “Reach out to Arthur and Eino to schedule that meeting.”

Hannah looked unsure. “Why are they being loaned to us for this? Eino’s a Councillor.”

The door of my office hissed open and the rhythmic thud of boots walked in. “Because your office, specifically Tyche, handles all ship staffing, while I am being used for physical ability assessments, and Eino literally has nothing to do as head of Education in all this.” Arthur nodded his head in thanks when Alistair handed him tea.

I just pointed at him and nodded. “Besides, this way Xiomara is indirectly involved.” I glanced at Parvati before winking. “It was a clever move, I have to admit.”

Parvati smiled and shook her head. “I can’t even say you’re wrong. That’s exactly why she did it, honestly, on all counts.”

“And that is part of it, too.” Tyche waved. “Work more closely with your fellow future Councillors, and you learn to read what they aren’t saying.  Our office works very closely with Xio’s and Grey’s, so we have to know how best to keep that going.”

Arthur just held his arms wide and shrugged. “I have to respect Xiomara’s tendency to keep her fingers on all pulses.  She’s almost as bad as Sophia that way.”

“Hey!”

“It’s true,” Alistair sighed. “You are profoundly nosy.”

Hannah groaned and threw her head back. “We are never going to be on the Council at this rate.”

“Excuse me?? That’s the point of all this!” I gestured around my office energetically.

“Yes, because you will totally retire,” Hannah said slowly, nodding her head like I was a toddler. “Of course you will, Sophia. We all know it…”

Parvati snickered, covering it badly. Arthur gave me a pointed look, and I could hear him repeating ‘obsessive, compulsive perfectionist’.

I was saved, for certain, weird values of salvation, by Tyche.  She just glanced down at her nails, studying them, before calmly glancing at me. “Charly is dangerously close to getting approval from Sebastian for her proposal of kink night at the Undine.  Think really hard if you want to be on the Council for that, Sophia.  It would be an event, meaning it would come to this office.”

“Yep, retiring soon,” I squeaked.  Laughter erupted around me as my face heated up. “I’m all for sex positivity, but I just can’t fathom the logistics of that. Nope. Not gonna be me. Y’all have fun. Enjoy. All yours.”

<< Prev   Masterlist  Next >>

[stillebesat]

Scales (5/7)

Sanders Sides: Logan, Deceit, Virgil, Roman, Patton Blurb: Deceit hadn’t expected his absence from the Mindscape to be noticed by the others��until Logic knocked on his door. Fic Type: General Warnings: Shedding (snake style), Minor Injuries, Minor Pain, Touch Starvation, Death Talk Taglist in Reblog.

To Catch Up: Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2  Chapter 3

His scales?

But...but HOW?! 

Deceit shot to his feet before Logan could stop him, growling under his breath as his vision briefly blurred, but he couldn’t just sit still for this! “That’s impossible. HOW?!” He stumbled away from the others as Logic reached for him, instead heading to the window, wishing the sun was up so he could at least feel its heat through the glass.

“Kiddo,” Patton had also moved to his feet, hands outstretched. “Perhaps you should sit back dow--”

“But it doesn’t make sense! Nothing’s changed!” Deceit ignored Morality’s advice, continuing to shakily pace the floor. “My scales have never changed like that before! They should still be snake scales! They’ve always been--” 

He flinched at the electric touch lightly wrapping around his left wrist, forcing him to stop before he antagonized the scales there. He jerked his head up, wobbling as he struggled to breathe, his human eye focusing on Anxiety. 

“It’s obvious what’s going on isn’t it?” Virgil said, the shadows under his eyes pitch black. “It’s because you’ve been--”

Deceit hissed, going stiff. “Don’t you dare say accepted.” Just because they considered him to be Fa--Family didn’t mean that--that Thomas--He was a DARK SIDE for crying out loud! A BAD GUY. You don’t get accepted for being that after a simple name reveal!

...Right? 

Virgil huffed, letting go. “When did you last shed? Before or after you told us we could call you Lyal?” 

Deceit gritted his teeth lightly brushing his wrist to ensure the shed there was alright. It wasn’t like he could lie though, Logan already knew the answer. “...Before.” 

“And what changed afterwards?” Roman asked, a small smile playing on his lips, his eyes nearly glowing like they did whenever his Creativity was sparked. 

Deceit looked away. “You...invited me--”

“To dinner!” Patton said, clapping his hands together. “We started including you more.” 

“And you said yourself that you experience changes in your shed when Thomas is experiencing a period of growth himself and we are all a part of Thomas are we not?” Logan asked, resting a hand on Deceit’s non-scaled shoulder.  “Ergo, Thomas is growing to accept you because we are including you. It is a major change, Lyal.” 

“But...dragon scales?” He whispered, allowing his shaky legs to collapse him to the floor. He half curled in a ball as Logan knelt with him. “I--I---” It was too much. It couldn’t---he couldn’t! 

“They’re not all bad you know. I mean…It probably doesn’t mean much coming from me since I...well...fight them.” Roman said, carefully brushing Deceit’s scaled cheek with his fingers, leaving burning fire in their wake. “But she--the Dragon Witch--she does have her moments of...of being okay on occasion and you’re-” He gently rubbed his thumb under Deceit’s unblinking eye. “Probably more like Toothless than Smaug.” 

Logan raised his eyebrows. “Toothless? But Lyal obviously still has all his tee--”

“He means Dee’s like the Dragon named Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon, L.” Virgil interrupted. “With how he appears all dangerous at first...but turns out to be--”

No, no no! Deceit did not like where this metaphor was going. He bared his teeth, raising his human hand, ready to grab at the air though that hand had never been as good as his scaled one in silencing the others. “Call me soft and or cute Annie, and you’ll--”

“Not be making threats right now, LyLy.” Patton scolded, shaking a bright yellow finger in front of his scaled eye. “We need to solve one problem, not cause more.” 

“Agreed.” Logan said, adjusting his glasses. “Which means, we need to listen to Roman in order to help you. If your scales have changed to dragon scales then by all means he would know best on how to have us help you.” 

“Us.” Deceit echoed faintly, dropping his hand “But--”

“We’re family.” Logan said, his eyes glittering with careful humor as Deceit made a face. 

They really needed to stop using that word in relation to him. He wasn’t--

“And FamILY sticks together!” Patton declared. “Ro, how do you help the Dragon Witch? What do we need to do for Ly?” 

“But what if this is wrong?! What if it--” Deceit drew in a shuddering breath, ducking his head. “It could go wrong.” He whispered, leaning into Logan. “You don’t know--I’m not a Dragon Witch, I can’t--” 

“Lyal.” 

Despite himself, the tone of Roman’s voice had Deceit looking to the Creative Side as he placed a hand on his heart, holding his other one out to him.

“On my honor as a Prince and as Thomas’s Creativity, I promise, you won’t be harmed.” Roman offered him a smile that was softer, somehow more vulnerable than he’d seen on the Creative Side before. “I know what I’m doing.” 

How could he promise that?! They were going off the assumption that Deceit’s scales worked in the same way as a figment in the Imagination! It wasn’t going to--

“After all…” Roman pulled back his hand to run his fingers through his hair, messing up the princey styling as he fidgeted in place. “I did...I did base her off you--you know--since--well you are--were? A bad guy.” 

Patton gasped, eyes going wide. “You did?!” 

Roman flushed, “I was twelve okay? I was mad at Fibber on the Roof here for something I can’t even remember now so I--I created--her based off of you, but I didn’t know that you had snake scales and dragons were so much cooler! So--so there has to be some truth to your scales working the same way as hers.” Roman offered him a shaky smile. “Right?” 

Deceit opened his mouth to deny it, but he didn’t know what to say. Hadn’t his own words confirmed his scales were no longer snake ones? Hadn’t his room had betrayed him in the humidity not helping him? And Creativity--Roman was confident about this...this dragon process.

But what if it all went WRONG?! What if he lost his hand because of this! Or his eye?! He was already a freak among them. He was already--

“How about a small test.” Logan offered into the silence as Deceit continued to hesitate. “Perhaps a small spot on your shoul--”

“NO.” Deceit drew in a shuddering breath as the others stiffened. “I--I mean--yes.” He had to get the shed off somehow. “To the test. But not there. Not my arm.” 

He needed his arm and if this didn’t work he didn’t want to chance losing any mobility there that he hadn’t already possibly lost. “Ro--” He swallowed over the lump of terror stuck in his throat. “Roman can--try it here.” He pushed away from Logan, though the Logical Side refused to fully release him, and gestured to his side, holding his arm out and away to give Creativity access to the area. No one ever saw him shirtless anyways, so if--if this didn’t work, it wouldn’t be a big deal to have the scales be malformed there. 

“I can work with that.” Roman offered him a more confident smile as he snapped his fingers and held out his hand, a pile of opalescent dust appearing in his palm. “Usually the Dragon Witch just buries herself first and I help out later, but overall it’s a simple process for a little test.” He said. “I just press this against your side--”

“This being?” Virgil asked, shoving his hands into his hoodie pockets. 

“Volcanic ash.” Roman said. “It draws out the moisture from the shed. Once it’s dry and flaky, we use some brushes to remove it and then a cloth with some mineral oil to shine the new scales right up. Easy.” 

Easy enough. Deceit drew in a shaky breath, closing his human eye though his snake one remained fixed on Roman’s brightly burning hand as it neared his side. He really hoped this would work. “Do it.”

“Gently.” Logan cautioned, shifting his position so he was fully behind Deceit. A slight pressure on his shoulders urging him to lean back against his chest.

Patton took Deceit’s human hand squeezing it. “You’re gonna be okay, LyLy.” He whispered.

Still. Deceit couldn’t help but flinch as Roman pressed the dust against his side, near his navel, his breath hitching at the warmth emanating from the spot. Much warmer than he expected it to feel. 

Virgil’s vibrant heat signature leaned forward. “How long does it take to know if it’s working?” 

“Not long.” Roman reassured him. “Give it a minute.”

A minute. Deceit opened his human eye staring down at the spot, trying to ignore how hard his heart was pounding, how tightly he was squeezing Patton’s hand. A minute to know when it had taken him six days to realize something was wrong. A minute to discover if this volcanic ash would help him or--he didn’t want to think of the or. 

“And--” Roman relaxed his hand, allowing the ash to fall away from the shed and onto the carpet. 

Deceit made a soft sound in the back of his throat as he released Patton’s hand to gingerly touch the spot, warm now from the pressure Roman had placed on it, but no longer was the same shade of sickly green as the rest of his shed. Instead it had blackened like burned timber. 

Was that good? Was it bad? While it did feel unnaturally warmer, the spot wasn’t itching like past shed periods to indicate that it was ready. So this had to be bad. The scales had o be ruined there now! It hadn’t worked! IT HADN--”

“Dee.” Virgil’s voice interrupted his spiraling thoughts, causing him to look up.

Anxiety’s eyeshadow had darkened again, to the same shade as the spot as he pulled Deceit’s hand away from his side. “Breathe.”

BREATHE? Deceit inhaled raggedly, clutching at Annie as Roman quickly brought a small currying brush up to his burning side, gently massaging the spot in small circles. 

“That’s normal, Lion King. I promise. The skin always gets darker, the Ash--it makes it darker. It’s fine. It’s fine. I promise. It’s normal.” Creativity said as flakes of skin fell away under his careful movements. 

Deceit tensed, pressing against Logan, a soft hiss escaping him as he watched Roman work. This hardly felt normal. It felt all WRONG! Normally the shed just...peeled off. It didn’t flake like this! 

“Nothing’s gone wrong, Lyal. It’s working exactly like it does for the Dragon Witch.” Roman continued to reassure him, flashing him a smile as the brush changed to a cloth that he carefully rubbed along the spot. “See?” He pulled away, revealing a set of brand new scales gleaming under the light.

To Be Continued Chapter 5

[gogle-news]

Top 10 Best Netflix Drama Shows Right Now

In this article I have discussed about Top 10 Netflix Drama Shows.

1.Mindhunter

Official it is created by Joe Penhall and basically show run by David Fincher, Mindhunter is probably the best show, time frame. The arrangement depends on obvious occasions and follows the beginning of the FBI's criminal profiling unit in the late 1970s. Two FBI specialists from the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit—Holden Ford and Bill Tench set out to meet detained sequential executioners to check whether they can comprehend why they did what they did, to help make a profile for the FBI to get these sorts of executioners. The show is systematic, uncontrollably charming, and shockingly entertaining, and Fincher himself coordinates various scenes all through the initial two seasons, bringing about stupendous bit of filmmaking also. It's an addictive arrangement that will not go down simple or very much worn ways, rather discovering fresh out of the plastic better approaches to account stories that have been told on many occasions, and subsequently offering completely new understanding into human conduct. Gracious better believe it, and it's delectably engaging.

2.Crazy person

Made by: Patrick Somerville The restricted arrangement Maniac is not normal for whatever else on TV, made all the better by the way that True Detective and Bond twenty-five helmer Cary Fukunaga coordinated every one of the 10 scenes. The arrangement happens in a marginally further developed adaptation of Earth wherein two discouraged and depressed people played by Emma Stone and Jonah Hill—participate in a psyche bowing pharmaceutical preliminary intended to fix them of their ills. The preliminary sees them intellectually living out different various dreams and situations, which at that point offers Fukunaga the chance to traffic in different sorts as Stone and Hill play various variants of themselves in everything from a Coen Brothers-esque wrongdoing story to a Lord of the Rings-like dreamland. It's as a matter of fact somewhat lopsided, however the exhibitions are incredible and it's a really one of a kind turn on a science fiction show.

3.The West Wing

Made By: Aaron Sorkin A tribute to great individuals attempting to carry out their responsibilities well, the arrangement isn't just an amazingly captivating look "off camera" of the White House, it's additionally a clever parody, a moving dramatization, and a beguiling romantic tale all folded into one. In all actuality, the show goes downhill after Sorkin leaves, yet while Season 5 is straight up awful, the arrangement bounce back for its last two seasons as it subsides into another, somewhat extraordinary imaginative voice under new show runner John Wells. Be that as it may, man, you'd be unable to discover anything superior to those initial hardly any seasons. Also, that cast! In case you're searching for something that is savvy, fun, and somewhat addictive, advance toward The West Wing.

4.The Crown

Made By: Peter Morgan The Crown looks at the early rule of England's Queen Elizabeth II. The arrangement is flawlessly coordinated in lavish yet staid tones, as youthful Elizabeth recently wedded to Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh first lives as an advantaged princess before changing into the situation of Queen. From that point, as her grandma alerts her, there will be two Elizabeth inconsistent with each other: one who is a young lady with her own deepest desires, and one who is a regal, whose life will be loaded with obligation and penance.” So in any condition the crown should win”.

5. Haunting of Hill House

Maker: Mike Flanagan Quiet and Gerald's Game movie producer Mike Flanagan conveys his most eager Netflix venture yet with The Haunting of Hill House. Motivated by Shirley Jackson's original phantom story, the arrangement persists practically none of Jackson's account, and spotlights rather on the spooky existences of the wilting Crain family. Skipping to and fro between the late spring the Crain's spent in the main frequented house and the long periods of sadness and family injury they suffered in the repercussions. Flanagan has demonstrated in past works that he has a talent for upsetting visuals and very much created alarms, yet his extraordinary accomplishment in The Haunting of Hill House is the manner in which he integrates the panics with a rich, interlacing story of family tinged with catastrophe. Driven by a staggering gathering, the arrangement veers between enthusiastic disclosure and snapshots of frightfulness that give you full-body chills. It's the most moving and fair depiction of mortality and melancholy this side of Six Feet Under, yet it'll give you a mess more bad dreams.

6.Anne with an E

Made by: Moira Walley-Beckett Despite the fact that Moira Walley-Beckett's retelling of Lucy Maud Montgomery's great Anne of Green Gables stories inclines vigorously into the darker side of Anne's vagrant childhood and the tormenting she encounters in school once she finds a good pace Island, Anne with an E is a cheerful one. Anne is cheerful, amusing, and at last a magnificent investigation of young life.The new season is loaded with triumphant minutes and blissful subplots, just as scenes of distress and hardship. Everything indicates an inspiring season that finishes up with Anne Shirley-Cuthbert, and each one of everyone around her, looking towards the extent of conceivable outcomes in an ever-augmenting world.

7.Hap and Leonard

Created by: Jim Mickle, Nick Damici In view of Joe R. Lansdale's arrangement of books, Hap and Leonard is a magnificently entertaining, activity pressed, and extraordinary tale around two impossible companions one a white, nonconformist cattle rustler, and the other a dark, gay, Vietnam vet who live in East Texas during the 1980s. They regularly get into scratches and unintentionally end up in the center of a wrongdoing they never anticipated exploring, however the arrangement is as dull, profound, and deep as it is hyper, vicious, and frequently diverting. The show strolls a troublesome line in every one of its energetic 6 scene seasons, adjusting silliness and grievousness as its saints, lowlifes, and the perfect scene all pop vividly off of the screen.. The southern singed talk and novel elements additionally assist make with happing and Leonard a magnificently special pearl of Peak TV.

8.Breaking Bad

Made by: Vince Gilligan It's completely conceivable that Breaking Bad will stand out forever as the most persuasive TV drama ever. Maker Vince Gilligan follows through on a solitary story circular segment throughout five seasons: Taking science instructor Walter White from Mr. Chips to Scarface. That circular segment tracks, however en route we get a drawing in, twisty character-rich story that can waver between profoundly passionate and edge of your seat exciting. The show starts with the easygoing White getting a terminal malignant growth analysis and picking to go into the precious stone meth exchange to assemble some cash to desert to his family. End and Catch Fire Made by: Christopher Cantwell, Christopher C. Rogers It's such a disgrace, that more individuals didn't watch Halt and Catch Fire. It debuted on AMC back in the mid year of 2014 and ended up running for four seasons. Despite the fact that basic recognition has been out of this world particularly for seasons two, three, and four the appraisals were not, so I should demand that you take to Netflix to watch this misjudged diamond. The show starts in Dallas in 1983, covering the beginning of the PC.

9.The Assassination of Gianni Versace

Made by: Ryan Murphy The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story isn't the give you think it is. The constrained arrangement was showcased as a show about marvelousness, glamour, and acclaim, yet truly it's an American Psycho esque representation of a binge executioner .It focuses on issues identifying with homophobia and self-loathing. In 1997, style creator Gianni Versace was shot dead by a man named Andrew Cunanan .For reasons unknown, this was just piece of the story, and The Assassination of Gianni Versace unfurls in reverse in time as it tracks Cunanan's different homicides and dives into his own life, attempting to see exactly what made this youngster turn so brutal in such an open way.

10.Guardian

Made By: Jed Mercurio Guardian should accompany an admonition. There are a few stretches of this twisty new spine chiller arrangement that are so nervousness actuating, with such deplorable pressure, that I nearly needed to leave the room. I could have delayed it, sure, yet I would not really like to quit watching it. I simply needed to scowl and sink as far down into the sofa as could be expected under the circumstances, my heart beating as I endeavored to legitimize that the story couldn't generally do either, correct. Netflix's six scene arrangement originates from Jed Mercurio, and first disclosed on the BBC . It follows the account of a metropolitan cop, David Budd,a war veteran who utilizes his unique preparing while off the clock to help diffuse a potential dread based oppressor attack in the underlying fifteen minutes of the game plan. In any case, Bodyguard isn't keen on turning out to be Jason Bourne or Jack Ryan, at any rate not yet. What makes the arrangement work including those ultra-tense minutes is the manner by which well Madden sells his boss character as a man who additionally has profound enthusiastic associations and a sympathetic heart. As David is entrusted with being the guardian for a Conservative Home Secretary, Julia Montague, the show truly increases its strain. At last, the show presents a thrilling ride that really exhibits Madden as a significant ability, one who is fit for not simply driving Winter fell’s banner men in Game of Thrones, yet driving this breakout arrangement and others or even a specific film establishment.   Read the full article

[preciousmetals0]

China’s Valentine’s Gift; Earnings All a-Twitter

China’s Valentine’s Gift; Earnings All a-Twitter:

China’s Valentine’s Day Gift

Well color me happy, the market is on a four-day winning streak!

Following on the heels of yesterday’s impressive payrolls data, the major market indexes are retesting all-time high territory. Today’s driver was news that China will cut retaliatory tariffs on some U.S. goods in half.

What’s more, the adjustments will take place on February 14. That’s one heck of a Valentine’s Day present, President Xi Jinping. I’m sure President Trump really appreciates it.

According to China’s Ministry of Finance (not to be confused with the Ministry of Silly Walks), the tariffs were slashed to “advance the healthy and stable development of China-U.S. trade.” Not the warmest of Valentine’s Day cards, but considering the pair had more than a yearlong argument … it will do.

The next steps in U.S.-China trade relations now depend on how further talks proceed. China noted that it hopes to collaborate with the Trump administration to get rid of all tariff increases.

To quote Harold Zidler from Moulin Rouge!: “Everything’s going so well!”

The Takeaway: 

Is it time to ’Murica things up around here a little bit?

I think it is.

I’ve said it since the beginning: All that holds the U.S. economy back are the trade war tariffs. We saw that pressure ease up a bit at the beginning of the year with the signing of the “phase 1” trade deal. And now, we should see it ease even further as trade relations between the world’s two biggest economies continue to normalize.

That calls for a nice loud “Ooh-rah!” And we’re seeing it in the markets today. (I can’t be the only one with the Hulk Hogan theme song in my head right now, brother.)

The Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are all inching closer to all-time high territory, as Wall Street cheers falling risks to volatility and more normalcy in global trade relations.

Let’s hope it stays that way. (Don’t jinx it, Mr. Great Stuff!)

Now, I won’t say there aren’t still risks involved here. It’s quite possible that China is pushing harder for a trade war resolution due to the economic impact of the Wuhan coronavirus. I’d bet money on it.

Clearly, the U.S. has the upper hand. The pieces are now in place for America to come out on top of this long-winded, whimpering trade war.

We’re on the verge of a whole new America — a country stronger and more durable than China can shake a stick at. America 2.0, if you will.

And when it comes to finding where to invest in America’s future, no one has a head start like Paul Mampilly. In fact, he just released a video interview where he lays out his battle plan detailing the best way to invest in America 2.0.

If you click here now, you can learn how you could benefit from Paul Mampilly’s No. 1 stock to buy for the new America.

The Good: For the Birds

Who would’ve thought that Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) would emerge as the “choice of a new generation” in social media?

That may exaggerate things a bit, but Twitter’s latest trip to the earnings confessional was certainly impressive. Yes, earnings missed expectations by $0.04 per share, but revenue topped $1 billion for the first time. And daily active users came in at 152 million — blowing past Wall Street’s estimates.

During a call with investors, CEO Jack Dorsey said that he sees “Twitter more as an interest network [rather] than a social network.” I think Dorsey sells Twitter short with this statement.

Think about it.

Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) struggles with numerous social issues and antitrust investigations. Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) is still trying to monetize the younger generations. Meanwhile, Twitter took action to clean up its image on irresponsible advertising and user-base toxicity.

Twitter clearly isn’t perfect, but it’s a far cry from Facebook, which has barely given token responses to either issue. As Twitter continues along this path, I expect it to gain even more market share in social media.

The Bad: Hitting the Wall

I’ve never been a fan of Peloton Interactive Inc. (Nasdaq: PTON). The company’s video-imbued stationary bikes just don’t appeal to me at all. I’d rather ride (or preferably run) outside.

But I get Peloton’s popularity. I also get that these kinds of workout fads eventually die. Judging from the company’s recent quarterly report, the company isn’t dead, but it’s seeing a slowdown … one that I think will accelerate this year.

By the numbers, the company beat earnings expectations but missed on revenue. Sales growth slowed from a 103% gain in the fiscal first quarter to a 72% gain in the second quarter. Subscriber numbers rocketed 96% higher on the quarter, but that was still a slower pace than the first quarter’s 103% spike.

These numbers all look rather impressive, but there’s some important context to be aware of. This slower growth occurred not only during the holiday shopping season, it happened during peak workout and New Year’s resolution season.

Investors punished PTON shares today for slowing growth. I wonder how much they’ll punish the stock once everyone gives up their subscriptions this month. We all know most resolutions to get healthy die a horrible death in February. I foresee those Peloton subscriptions following the same path.

Fiscal third-quarter numbers will be a wake-up call for PTON investors on the reality of this fitness fad.

The Ugly: Bump and Run

Thanks to Tesla Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA), I get to use one of my favorite words twice in one week: flabbergasted.

During TSLA’s three-day run from last Friday through this Tuesday — when Tesla stock surged nearly 40% and short sellers lost billions — more than 22,000 investors bought TSLA for the first time on free-trading app Robinhood.

I was floored … nay, I was flabbergasted! Essentially, a bunch of millennial “under-the-desk” investors (Robinhood’s primary demographic) not only spiked TSLA stock, but also royally burned short sellers. It was as delicious as it was scary.

However, TSLA is now paying the price for this little bump and run. The stock has plunged roughly 23% in the past two days, effectively resetting this week’s gains. Not only that, but we’re seeing the resolution of a technical pattern called — what else? — a bump and run.

I won’t go into the technical details (you can find an explanation here), but the chart below essentially illustrates the pattern:

If Tesla follows the traditional bump-and-run pattern, temporary support lies in the $600 to $650 region. Then, once the bargain-hunting dries up, the shares will dive further due to more profit-taking. Many investors are up 100%, 200% … even 400% on their TSLA positions right now. They won’t let those gains go to waste.

Now, I said “traditional,” but Tesla is far from traditional. The stock has a cult-like following. In other words, buying support could hold on long enough to invalidate this pattern, or at least drag it out for some time.

To break out of this reversal, Tesla needs more good news: deliveries, production numbers, new model news, et cetera. Bargain hunters looking to catch a falling knife won’t cut it.

Welcome back to another edition of Great Stuff’s Reader Feedback!

In this weekly column, I read your emails and … provide feedback. It’s kind of in the name, huh? My wife says I tend to overexplain things … I think she’s on to something.

Anyway, let’s dive right in to the ol’ mailbag!

First up, we have Gary F. and his take on Tesla:

Read your e-article today on Tesla earnings report, et al. results. Let me share: I am not a bear or bull. I am a trader. I have mostly taken the bull side when trading Tesla and always with options trades. I have recorded many profitable trades over the last six months, especially when I was patient when entering with buying call options or hedging with put options.

My bias has been to keep a long call position — even when buying puts or placing a spread in the options with consideration of the wide price ranges Tesla stock has traded in over that period.

Got to love the volatility. I am strictly a price movement/timing specialist trader, but do enjoy reading some of the rhetoric and banter between the bulls and bears. It is useful to know their position views. This along with the analysts that feed both sides of the market.

What I also know is that earnings reports and forecasts based upon them are the MOST inaccurate way and misleading way to judge a business. That in terms of the business as a profitable entity with sustainable growth and market viability.

Tesla is no different in that regard from any other company. There simply is no uniform reporting method used or required by the SEC beyond some standard category numbers. Therefore, a company can use any of dozens of accounting (legal) reporting methods when submitting data. Talk about biased reporting!

Tesla is likely to stay on an upward price bias for the remainder of the next three quarters of 2020. BUT, not without some large price adjustments along the way.

Keep feeding the bears so that profitable trade opportunities will exist repeatedly in 2020.

This guy trades. Gary, you are dead-on with your “large price adjustments” remark … especially since you sent this in before Tesla’s plunge this week. I’m not sold on the upward bias for 2020 yet (as I noted above), but if you’re trading options, that hardly matters.

Thanks for writing in!

Garfield W. also wrote in about Tesla:

I love the way the info was presented. I do know that TSLA will hit $1,000 shortly, no doubt about that. Where will the rally end? Maybe after it hits $4,000 a share. Who knows? But what options (insurance) do we have to hedge this one? What goes up must eventually come down. I look forward to your thoughts on this.

Sorry, Garfield, but it looks like you’re going to have to wait a bit longer for $1,000 TSLA. (I’m trying really hard not to make lasagna jokes, by the way. I’m sure you’ve heard them all.)

As for options insurance? There are two simple options (Options on options? Ugh.): First, you could buy TSLA puts as a way to profit from any declines in the shares. Second, if you own TSLA stock, you could sell covered calls to earn some income while you wait for the stock to rebound.

As always, be sure to check with your broker and do your homework before trading any options, however — and be sure to consult Banyan Hill expert Chad Shoop!

Finally, Mike B. explains it all on “socially responsible” investing:

This week, you asked for insight into the responses received with respect to how much social responsibility plays a part in investing. I am one of the respondents who answered “Not at all.” 

Perhaps the responses that you received are framed, based upon interpretation of the question asked. I interpreted the question to ask if I considered a company’s social responsibility in making investment decisions. My answer is, emphatically, “NO.” The only “green” that concerns me is the dollars generated in my bank account. 

If a company has a sound business plan, a strong management team and operates with a solid potential for growth within its market, I will invest regardless if that company has a “progressive” mission or a “traditional” mission. 

That is why my portfolio has both big oil and renewable energy companies, and both tobacco product producers and biotech firms developing methods to treat cancers. Turning greenbacks into more greenbacks is what I consider “green investing.”

Thanks for writing in, Mike! Your perspective is dead-on. I was somewhat interested in Great Stuff readers’ opinions on corporate social responsibility, but more interested in whether “green” companies were a growing part of their portfolios for investment reasons. You know, turning green into greenbacks.

Note to self: Be more careful with poll wording in the future. Thanks again!

If you wrote in and I didn’t get to you, it might be because you cursed too $%*?@#! much. I still really appreciate the feedback, even if they won’t let me publish it.

And if you haven’t written in yet … what’s stopping you? Drop me a line at GreatStuffToday@banyanhill.com and let me know how you’re doing out there in this crazy bull market.

That’s a wrap for today. But if you’re still craving more Great Stuff, you can check us out on social media: Facebook, and Twitter.

Until next time, good trading!

Regards,

Joseph Hargett

Great Stuff Editor, Banyan Hill Publishing

[goldira01]

China’s Valentine’s Day Gift

Well color me happy, the market is on a four-day winning streak!

Following on the heels of yesterday’s impressive payrolls data, the major market indexes are retesting all-time high territory. Today’s driver was news that China will cut retaliatory tariffs on some U.S. goods in half.

What’s more, the adjustments will take place on February 14. That’s one heck of a Valentine’s Day present, President Xi Jinping. I’m sure President Trump really appreciates it.

According to China’s Ministry of Finance (not to be confused with the Ministry of Silly Walks), the tariffs were slashed to “advance the healthy and stable development of China-U.S. trade.” Not the warmest of Valentine’s Day cards, but considering the pair had more than a yearlong argument … it will do.

The next steps in U.S.-China trade relations now depend on how further talks proceed. China noted that it hopes to collaborate with the Trump administration to get rid of all tariff increases.

To quote Harold Zidler from Moulin Rouge!: “Everything’s going so well!”

The Takeaway: 

Is it time to ’Murica things up around here a little bit?

I think it is.

I’ve said it since the beginning: All that holds the U.S. economy back are the trade war tariffs. We saw that pressure ease up a bit at the beginning of the year with the signing of the “phase 1” trade deal. And now, we should see it ease even further as trade relations between the world’s two biggest economies continue to normalize.

That calls for a nice loud “Ooh-rah!” And we’re seeing it in the markets today. (I can’t be the only one with the Hulk Hogan theme song in my head right now, brother.)

The Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are all inching closer to all-time high territory, as Wall Street cheers falling risks to volatility and more normalcy in global trade relations.

Let’s hope it stays that way. (Don’t jinx it, Mr. Great Stuff!)

Now, I won’t say there aren’t still risks involved here. It’s quite possible that China is pushing harder for a trade war resolution due to the economic impact of the Wuhan coronavirus. I’d bet money on it.

Clearly, the U.S. has the upper hand. The pieces are now in place for America to come out on top of this long-winded, whimpering trade war.

We’re on the verge of a whole new America — a country stronger and more durable than China can shake a stick at. America 2.0, if you will.

And when it comes to finding where to invest in America’s future, no one has a head start like Paul Mampilly. In fact, he just released a video interview where he lays out his battle plan detailing the best way to invest in America 2.0.

If you click here now, you can learn how you could benefit from Paul Mampilly’s No. 1 stock to buy for the new America.

The Good: For the Birds

Who would’ve thought that Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) would emerge as the “choice of a new generation” in social media?

That may exaggerate things a bit, but Twitter’s latest trip to the earnings confessional was certainly impressive. Yes, earnings missed expectations by $0.04 per share, but revenue topped $1 billion for the first time. And daily active users came in at 152 million — blowing past Wall Street’s estimates.

During a call with investors, CEO Jack Dorsey said that he sees “Twitter more as an interest network [rather] than a social network.” I think Dorsey sells Twitter short with this statement.

Think about it.

Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) struggles with numerous social issues and antitrust investigations. Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) is still trying to monetize the younger generations. Meanwhile, Twitter took action to clean up its image on irresponsible advertising and user-base toxicity.

Twitter clearly isn’t perfect, but it’s a far cry from Facebook, which has barely given token responses to either issue. As Twitter continues along this path, I expect it to gain even more market share in social media.

The Bad: Hitting the Wall

I’ve never been a fan of Peloton Interactive Inc. (Nasdaq: PTON). The company’s video-imbued stationary bikes just don’t appeal to me at all. I’d rather ride (or preferably run) outside.

But I get Peloton’s popularity. I also get that these kinds of workout fads eventually die. Judging from the company’s recent quarterly report, the company isn’t dead, but it’s seeing a slowdown … one that I think will accelerate this year.

By the numbers, the company beat earnings expectations but missed on revenue. Sales growth slowed from a 103% gain in the fiscal first quarter to a 72% gain in the second quarter. Subscriber numbers rocketed 96% higher on the quarter, but that was still a slower pace than the first quarter’s 103% spike.

These numbers all look rather impressive, but there’s some important context to be aware of. This slower growth occurred not only during the holiday shopping season, it happened during peak workout and New Year’s resolution season.

Investors punished PTON shares today for slowing growth. I wonder how much they’ll punish the stock once everyone gives up their subscriptions this month. We all know most resolutions to get healthy die a horrible death in February. I foresee those Peloton subscriptions following the same path.

Fiscal third-quarter numbers will be a wake-up call for PTON investors on the reality of this fitness fad.

The Ugly: Bump and Run

Thanks to Tesla Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA), I get to use one of my favorite words twice in one week: flabbergasted.

During TSLA’s three-day run from last Friday through this Tuesday — when Tesla stock surged nearly 40% and short sellers lost billions — more than 22,000 investors bought TSLA for the first time on free-trading app Robinhood.

I was floored … nay, I was flabbergasted! Essentially, a bunch of millennial “under-the-desk” investors (Robinhood’s primary demographic) not only spiked TSLA stock, but also royally burned short sellers. It was as delicious as it was scary.

However, TSLA is now paying the price for this little bump and run. The stock has plunged roughly 23% in the past two days, effectively resetting this week’s gains. Not only that, but we’re seeing the resolution of a technical pattern called — what else? — a bump and run.

I won’t go into the technical details (you can find an explanation here), but the chart below essentially illustrates the pattern:

If Tesla follows the traditional bump-and-run pattern, temporary support lies in the $600 to $650 region. Then, once the bargain-hunting dries up, the shares will dive further due to more profit-taking. Many investors are up 100%, 200% … even 400% on their TSLA positions right now. They won’t let those gains go to waste.

Now, I said “traditional,” but Tesla is far from traditional. The stock has a cult-like following. In other words, buying support could hold on long enough to invalidate this pattern, or at least drag it out for some time.

To break out of this reversal, Tesla needs more good news: deliveries, production numbers, new model news, et cetera. Bargain hunters looking to catch a falling knife won’t cut it.

Welcome back to another edition of Great Stuff’s Reader Feedback!

In this weekly column, I read your emails and … provide feedback. It’s kind of in the name, huh? My wife says I tend to overexplain things … I think she’s on to something.

Anyway, let’s dive right in to the ol’ mailbag!

First up, we have Gary F. and his take on Tesla:

Read your e-article today on Tesla earnings report, et al. results. Let me share: I am not a bear or bull. I am a trader. I have mostly taken the bull side when trading Tesla and always with options trades. I have recorded many profitable trades over the last six months, especially when I was patient when entering with buying call options or hedging with put options.

My bias has been to keep a long call position — even when buying puts or placing a spread in the options with consideration of the wide price ranges Tesla stock has traded in over that period.

Got to love the volatility. I am strictly a price movement/timing specialist trader, but do enjoy reading some of the rhetoric and banter between the bulls and bears. It is useful to know their position views. This along with the analysts that feed both sides of the market.

What I also know is that earnings reports and forecasts based upon them are the MOST inaccurate way and misleading way to judge a business. That in terms of the business as a profitable entity with sustainable growth and market viability.

Tesla is no different in that regard from any other company. There simply is no uniform reporting method used or required by the SEC beyond some standard category numbers. Therefore, a company can use any of dozens of accounting (legal) reporting methods when submitting data. Talk about biased reporting!

Tesla is likely to stay on an upward price bias for the remainder of the next three quarters of 2020. BUT, not without some large price adjustments along the way.

Keep feeding the bears so that profitable trade opportunities will exist repeatedly in 2020.

This guy trades. Gary, you are dead-on with your “large price adjustments” remark … especially since you sent this in before Tesla’s plunge this week. I’m not sold on the upward bias for 2020 yet (as I noted above), but if you’re trading options, that hardly matters.

Thanks for writing in!

Garfield W. also wrote in about Tesla:

I love the way the info was presented. I do know that TSLA will hit $1,000 shortly, no doubt about that. Where will the rally end? Maybe after it hits $4,000 a share. Who knows? But what options (insurance) do we have to hedge this one? What goes up must eventually come down. I look forward to your thoughts on this.

Sorry, Garfield, but it looks like you’re going to have to wait a bit longer for $1,000 TSLA. (I’m trying really hard not to make lasagna jokes, by the way. I’m sure you’ve heard them all.)

As for options insurance? There are two simple options (Options on options? Ugh.): First, you could buy TSLA puts as a way to profit from any declines in the shares. Second, if you own TSLA stock, you could sell covered calls to earn some income while you wait for the stock to rebound.

As always, be sure to check with your broker and do your homework before trading any options, however — and be sure to consult Banyan Hill expert Chad Shoop!

Finally, Mike B. explains it all on “socially responsible” investing:

This week, you asked for insight into the responses received with respect to how much social responsibility plays a part in investing. I am one of the respondents who answered “Not at all.” 

Perhaps the responses that you received are framed, based upon interpretation of the question asked. I interpreted the question to ask if I considered a company’s social responsibility in making investment decisions. My answer is, emphatically, “NO.” The only “green” that concerns me is the dollars generated in my bank account. 

If a company has a sound business plan, a strong management team and operates with a solid potential for growth within its market, I will invest regardless if that company has a “progressive” mission or a “traditional” mission. 

That is why my portfolio has both big oil and renewable energy companies, and both tobacco product producers and biotech firms developing methods to treat cancers. Turning greenbacks into more greenbacks is what I consider “green investing.”

Thanks for writing in, Mike! Your perspective is dead-on. I was somewhat interested in Great Stuff readers’ opinions on corporate social responsibility, but more interested in whether “green” companies were a growing part of their portfolios for investment reasons. You know, turning green into greenbacks.

Note to self: Be more careful with poll wording in the future. Thanks again!

If you wrote in and I didn’t get to you, it might be because you cursed too $%*?@#! much. I still really appreciate the feedback, even if they won’t let me publish it.

And if you haven’t written in yet … what’s stopping you? Drop me a line at GreatStuffToday@banyanhill.com and let me know how you’re doing out there in this crazy bull market.

That’s a wrap for today. But if you’re still craving more Great Stuff, you can check us out on social media: Facebook, and Twitter.

Until next time, good trading!

Regards,

Joseph Hargett

Great Stuff Editor, Banyan Hill Publishing

[pat78701]

Why Sheryl Sandberg Decided To Speak Openly About Losing Her Husband

Nearly two years ago, Sheryl Sandberg poured 1,743 words of raw emotion into a Facebook post that essentially made everyone on the internet cry.

Her husband, Dave Goldberg, had died suddenly at the age of 47, not even 30 days earlier. The calendar marked the end of the traditional Jewish mourning period for spouses, but she hardly felt done with grief. Sandberg wasn’t even sure she would hit publish, the Facebook executive told HuffPost last week. She wrote feverishly, put it aside and went to bed.

The post was her desperate attempt to connect with friends and coworkers from whom she felt increasingly isolated in her mourning. “I woke up and thought, this is so bad. And I hit post,” she said.

The writing is pure heartbreak. Sandberg writes over and over about her sadness. About mothering her children while they screamed and cried in pain. “I have lived thirty years in these thirty days. I am thirty years sadder. I feel like I am thirty years wiser,” she writes. “When tragedy occurs, it presents a choice. You can give in to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to find meaning.”

Though she didn’t realize it at the time, Sandberg’s essay marked a clear tipping point in her journey back from the hell of a shocking loss. By opening up about her feelings, Sandberg was inviting others to support her ― including colleagues and friends who’d been unsure of what to say. The post offered guidance.

And that guidance formed the basis for Sandberg’s next project. Her latest book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, out Monday, tackles a universal yet enduringly under-discussed subject: grief.

While her Silicon Valley peers have worked for years on technologies that would extend life, Sandberg’s project offers up a path to happiness based not on fantasies of immortality but on the reality of the sorrow of life itself.

At the time she first posted about Goldberg’s death, Sandberg had already returned to work at Facebook, where she’d been chief operating officer for nearly a decade. She was feeling increasingly lonely.

A notoriously outgoing and collaborative manager, she was surrounded by familiar colleagues and friendly faces. Yet, with the exception of her boss, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, no one at the office seemed to know what to say to her. 

“When I came back to work there was a real feeling of isolation,” she said. “It felt like no one was talking to me.... The chitchat ground to a halt. People looked at me like I was a ghost.”

Just a few years ago, Sandberg wrote Lean In, exhorting women to be ambitious, to ask for what they want, to be their full selves at work.  

“Losing Dave brought that home for me,” she said. “My whole self was so sad.”

She found herself increasingly holed up in a conference room with Zuckerberg, hiding from the awkwardness of the office. “Mark was the person I turned to,” Sandberg said. 

Sandberg, who first met Zuckerberg when he was a 23-year-old CEO struggling with his role, has long been credited with guiding him to maturity. But this time he was helping her.

“Mark is one of the first people I called when I lost Dave,” she said. “Mark planned the funeral.” He and his wife, Priscilla, were frequent visitors to Sandberg’s house in Menlo Park during the days and weeks after Goldberg’s death. They played with Sandberg’s kids. Zuckerberg helped her son with his math homework, she said.

At work, Zuckerberg was supportive in a very traditional way, telling Sandberg to take as much time as she needed. But, crucially, he also encouraged her actual work. In one of her first meetings after she returned, Sandberg was a bit out of it, she writes. She even misidentified a colleague, and instead of criticizing her or saying something about how he understands she’s still adjusting, Zuckerberg insisted she would’ve made the mistake before Goldberg died. And, even better, also told her she made a great point in the meeting. In short, he made her feel valued.

Sometimes people just need someone to tell them they’re doing OK, and that is key to helping a colleague in grief, Sandberg said. She wanted to feel like she was still a productive worker. “I had no idea how he knew ― I am older and I didn’t know how to do these things. I don’t think this is me teaching him, it’s him teaching me,” she said.

Typically, no one knows what to say to someone who is suffering a loss or an illness or a trauma, Sandberg said. “You want to silence a room? Get cancer. Have a friend or a family member who goes to prison. Lose a job,” she said. “We isolate ourselves.” 

In her post, Sandberg offered guidance on what to say.

“When people say to me, ‘You and your children will find happiness again,’ my heart tells me, Yes, I believe that, but I know I will never feel pure joy again. Those who have said, ‘You will find a new normal, but it will never be as good’ comfort me more because they know and speak the truth,’” she wrote in her post.

“Even a simple ‘How are you?’—almost always asked with the best of intentions— is better replaced with ‘How are you today?’ When I am asked ‘How are you?’ I stop myself from shouting, My husband died a month ago, how do you think I am? When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day.”

Sandberg was opening up about death in a real way. For many who’ve struggled with grief, to read an honest piece from the accomplished executive, about a subject so taboo and painful, was a revelation. The post today has more than 400,000 shares, close to 1 million likes and tens of thousands of comments.

The effect for Sandberg was immediate, she said. “Everyone started saying, ‘How are you today?’” Sandberg said. People started telling her about their own experiences with loss.

“I felt connected to a larger experience of life. There’s so much hardship out there,” she said. “The grief didn’t change, but the isolation did. I felt so much less alone.”

When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day. Sheryl Sandberg

Like Lean In, the new book is part memoir. She writes of the agony of telling her two young children, just 7 and 10 years old, that their father was dead. “I have terrible news. Terrible,” she told them. “Daddy died.”

“The screaming and crying that followed haunt me to this day,” she writes.

The book is also a practical guide for handling grief and adversity. With her coauthor, and friend, psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant, Sandberg lays out anecdotes ― she’s spoken with rape survivors, people who’ve gone to prison, refugees ―  and research on perseverance and resilience.

Acutely aware that she’s a billionaire privileged beyond all imagining, Sandberg is extremely careful to write about the suffering of others. In conversation, she acknowledges her privilege repeatedly. When asked about her struggles to parent as a single mother, she demurred. “So many people have immense hardship.” 

In Sandbergian fashion she has also launched a website, OptionB.org, where people can turn for support and guidance in the face of loss.

Surely, an unintentional side benefit to Sandberg’s latest project is that she’s essentially made the case for Facebook ― it offers human connection ― at a time when the social network is under criticism for increasing political polarization.

The new book and website is an attempt to open up conversations about difficult subjects on a mass scale, furthering Facebook’s ostensible mission.

Sandberg found her husband, already dead, on the floor in a hotel gym in Mexico where the two were celebrating a friend’s birthday. Sandberg had unwittingly spoken her last words to him, “I’m falling asleep,” while laying poolside earlier that day, ending a game of Settlers of Catan they were playing on their iPads. That afternoon she had told her son she’d have to talk to his dad before they could make a decision about buying new sneakers.

An autopsy would later confirm that Goldberg, who was CEO of Survey Monkey and a well-known Silicon Valley figure, had a fatal cardiac arrhythmia, caused by coronary artery disease, while running on the treadmill.

They were married for 11 years; friends for longer than that.  

Now she’s dating again. “I never wanted to,” she said. “I wanted to spend my life with Dave. That’s a choice I don’t get to make.”

Sandberg, who is 47-years-old, used to joke about getting older. No more. “There’s only two choices we grow older or we don’t,” she said. “I took it for granted I would grow old and Dave would grow old. It never occurred to me we wouldn’t,” she said.

Finding growth and ultimately joy is the project of Option B. Sandberg makes a point of emphasizing this aspect. The title echoes something a friend told her after Goldberg’s passing. 

When Sandberg was sad she couldn’t bring Goldberg to a school event and had to find someone else to fill in. “But I want Dave,” she said to her friend, as she recounted in her post and again in the book. “He put his arm around me and said, ‘Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of Option B.’ “

A chronic over-achiever, Sandberg has definitely lived up to that plan. After Goldberg’s death, she was just struggling to make it through the day she said. But with this book it’s clear that the Harvard MBA, former Google executive is just as ambitious as ever.

Still, things have changed. Sandberg said she travels much less than she used to. Long gone are the days of hosting women’s dinners at her house, she said. “Dave covered when I would have a women’s dinner,” she said. “I don’t do those things anymore.” But she quickly added: “So many people have so much hardship. That’s not what I mourn for. Of course, I had to make big changes.”

And when asked her about her career goals, she pivoted, saying it’s important to live your dreams and find things you want to do. “Even small silly things,” she said. “I’m a really bad piano player and I sing worse, but in those moments I can’t think about anything else. I won’t pretend the grief doesn’t still hit.”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2q942Yp

[exfrenchdorsl4p0a1]

Why Sheryl Sandberg Decided To Speak Openly About Losing Her Husband

Nearly two years ago, Sheryl Sandberg poured 1,743 words of raw emotion into a Facebook post that essentially made everyone on the internet cry.

Her husband, Dave Goldberg, had died suddenly at the age of 47, not even 30 days earlier. The calendar marked the end of the traditional Jewish mourning period for spouses, but she hardly felt done with grief. Sandberg wasn’t even sure she would hit publish, the Facebook executive told HuffPost last week. She wrote feverishly, put it aside and went to bed.

The post was her desperate attempt to connect with friends and coworkers from whom she felt increasingly isolated in her mourning. “I woke up and thought, this is so bad. And I hit post,” she said.

The writing is pure heartbreak. Sandberg writes over and over about her sadness. About mothering her children while they screamed and cried in pain. “I have lived thirty years in these thirty days. I am thirty years sadder. I feel like I am thirty years wiser,” she writes. “When tragedy occurs, it presents a choice. You can give in to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to find meaning.”

Though she didn’t realize it at the time, Sandberg’s essay marked a clear tipping point in her journey back from the hell of a shocking loss. By opening up about her feelings, Sandberg was inviting others to support her ― including colleagues and friends who’d been unsure of what to say. The post offered guidance.

And that guidance formed the basis for Sandberg’s next project. Her latest book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, out Monday, tackles a universal yet enduringly under-discussed subject: grief.

While her Silicon Valley peers have worked for years on technologies that would extend life, Sandberg’s project offers up a path to happiness based not on fantasies of immortality but on the reality of the sorrow of life itself.

At the time she first posted about Goldberg’s death, Sandberg had already returned to work at Facebook, where she’d been chief operating officer for nearly a decade. She was feeling increasingly lonely.

A notoriously outgoing and collaborative manager, she was surrounded by familiar colleagues and friendly faces. Yet, with the exception of her boss, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, no one at the office seemed to know what to say to her. 

“When I came back to work there was a real feeling of isolation,” she said. “It felt like no one was talking to me.... The chitchat ground to a halt. People looked at me like I was a ghost.”

Just a few years ago, Sandberg wrote Lean In, exhorting women to be ambitious, to ask for what they want, to be their full selves at work.  

“Losing Dave brought that home for me,” she said. “My whole self was so sad.”

She found herself increasingly holed up in a conference room with Zuckerberg, hiding from the awkwardness of the office. “Mark was the person I turned to,” Sandberg said. 

Sandberg, who first met Zuckerberg when he was a 23-year-old CEO struggling with his role, has long been credited with guiding him to maturity. But this time he was helping her.

“Mark is one of the first people I called when I lost Dave,” she said. “Mark planned the funeral.” He and his wife, Priscilla, were frequent visitors to Sandberg’s house in Menlo Park during the days and weeks after Goldberg’s death. They played with Sandberg’s kids. Zuckerberg helped her son with his math homework, she said.

At work, Zuckerberg was supportive in a very traditional way, telling Sandberg to take as much time as she needed. But, crucially, he also encouraged her actual work. In one of her first meetings after she returned, Sandberg was a bit out of it, she writes. She even misidentified a colleague, and instead of criticizing her or saying something about how he understands she’s still adjusting, Zuckerberg insisted she would’ve made the mistake before Goldberg died. And, even better, also told her she made a great point in the meeting. In short, he made her feel valued.

Sometimes people just need someone to tell them they’re doing OK, and that is key to helping a colleague in grief, Sandberg said. She wanted to feel like she was still a productive worker. “I had no idea how he knew ― I am older and I didn’t know how to do these things. I don’t think this is me teaching him, it’s him teaching me,” she said.

Typically, no one knows what to say to someone who is suffering a loss or an illness or a trauma, Sandberg said. “You want to silence a room? Get cancer. Have a friend or a family member who goes to prison. Lose a job,” she said. “We isolate ourselves.” 

In her post, Sandberg offered guidance on what to say.

“When people say to me, ‘You and your children will find happiness again,’ my heart tells me, Yes, I believe that, but I know I will never feel pure joy again. Those who have said, ‘You will find a new normal, but it will never be as good’ comfort me more because they know and speak the truth,’” she wrote in her post.

“Even a simple ‘How are you?’—almost always asked with the best of intentions— is better replaced with ‘How are you today?’ When I am asked ‘How are you?’ I stop myself from shouting, My husband died a month ago, how do you think I am? When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day.”

Sandberg was opening up about death in a real way. For many who’ve struggled with grief, to read an honest piece from the accomplished executive, about a subject so taboo and painful, was a revelation. The post today has more than 400,000 shares, close to 1 million likes and tens of thousands of comments.

The effect for Sandberg was immediate, she said. “Everyone started saying, ‘How are you today?’” Sandberg said. People started telling her about their own experiences with loss.

“I felt connected to a larger experience of life. There’s so much hardship out there,” she said. “The grief didn’t change, but the isolation did. I felt so much less alone.”

When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day. Sheryl Sandberg

Like Lean In, the new book is part memoir. She writes of the agony of telling her two young children, just 7 and 10 years old, that their father was dead. “I have terrible news. Terrible,” she told them. “Daddy died.”

“The screaming and crying that followed haunt me to this day,” she writes.

The book is also a practical guide for handling grief and adversity. With her coauthor, and friend, psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant, Sandberg lays out anecdotes ― she’s spoken with rape survivors, people who’ve gone to prison, refugees ―  and research on perseverance and resilience.

Acutely aware that she’s a billionaire privileged beyond all imagining, Sandberg is extremely careful to write about the suffering of others. In conversation, she acknowledges her privilege repeatedly. When asked about her struggles to parent as a single mother, she demurred. “So many people have immense hardship.” 

In Sandbergian fashion she has also launched a website, OptionB.org, where people can turn for support and guidance in the face of loss.

Surely, an unintentional side benefit to Sandberg’s latest project is that she’s essentially made the case for Facebook ― it offers human connection ― at a time when the social network is under criticism for increasing political polarization.

The new book and website is an attempt to open up conversations about difficult subjects on a mass scale, furthering Facebook’s ostensible mission.

Sandberg found her husband, already dead, on the floor in a hotel gym in Mexico where the two were celebrating a friend’s birthday. Sandberg had unwittingly spoken her last words to him, “I’m falling asleep,” while laying poolside earlier that day, ending a game of Settlers of Catan they were playing on their iPads. That afternoon she had told her son she’d have to talk to his dad before they could make a decision about buying new sneakers.

An autopsy would later confirm that Goldberg, who was CEO of Survey Monkey and a well-known Silicon Valley figure, had a fatal cardiac arrhythmia, caused by coronary artery disease, while running on the treadmill.

They were married for 11 years; friends for longer than that.  

Now she’s dating again. “I never wanted to,” she said. “I wanted to spend my life with Dave. That’s a choice I don’t get to make.”

Sandberg, who is 47-years-old, used to joke about getting older. No more. “There’s only two choices we grow older or we don’t,” she said. “I took it for granted I would grow old and Dave would grow old. It never occurred to me we wouldn’t,” she said.

Finding growth and ultimately joy is the project of Option B. Sandberg makes a point of emphasizing this aspect. The title echoes something a friend told her after Goldberg’s passing. 

When Sandberg was sad she couldn’t bring Goldberg to a school event and had to find someone else to fill in. “But I want Dave,” she said to her friend, as she recounted in her post and again in the book. “He put his arm around me and said, ‘Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of Option B.’ “

A chronic over-achiever, Sandberg has definitely lived up to that plan. After Goldberg’s death, she was just struggling to make it through the day she said. But with this book it’s clear that the Harvard MBA, former Google executive is just as ambitious as ever.

Still, things have changed. Sandberg said she travels much less than she used to. Long gone are the days of hosting women’s dinners at her house, she said. “Dave covered when I would have a women’s dinner,” she said. “I don’t do those things anymore.” But she quickly added: “So many people have so much hardship. That’s not what I mourn for. Of course, I had to make big changes.”

And when asked her about her career goals, she pivoted, saying it’s important to live your dreams and find things you want to do. “Even small silly things,” she said. “I’m a really bad piano player and I sing worse, but in those moments I can’t think about anything else. I won’t pretend the grief doesn’t still hit.”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2q942Yp

[repwincostl4m0a2]

Why Sheryl Sandberg Decided To Speak Openly About Losing Her Husband

Nearly two years ago, Sheryl Sandberg poured 1,743 words of raw emotion into a Facebook post that essentially made everyone on the internet cry.

Her husband, Dave Goldberg, had died suddenly at the age of 47, not even 30 days earlier. The calendar marked the end of the traditional Jewish mourning period for spouses, but she hardly felt done with grief. Sandberg wasn’t even sure she would hit publish, the Facebook executive told HuffPost last week. She wrote feverishly, put it aside and went to bed.

The post was her desperate attempt to connect with friends and coworkers from whom she felt increasingly isolated in her mourning. “I woke up and thought, this is so bad. And I hit post,” she said.

The writing is pure heartbreak. Sandberg writes over and over about her sadness. About mothering her children while they screamed and cried in pain. “I have lived thirty years in these thirty days. I am thirty years sadder. I feel like I am thirty years wiser,” she writes. “When tragedy occurs, it presents a choice. You can give in to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to find meaning.”

Though she didn’t realize it at the time, Sandberg’s essay marked a clear tipping point in her journey back from the hell of a shocking loss. By opening up about her feelings, Sandberg was inviting others to support her ― including colleagues and friends who’d been unsure of what to say. The post offered guidance.

And that guidance formed the basis for Sandberg’s next project. Her latest book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, out Monday, tackles a universal yet enduringly under-discussed subject: grief.

While her Silicon Valley peers have worked for years on technologies that would extend life, Sandberg’s project offers up a path to happiness based not on fantasies of immortality but on the reality of the sorrow of life itself.

At the time she first posted about Goldberg’s death, Sandberg had already returned to work at Facebook, where she’d been chief operating officer for nearly a decade. She was feeling increasingly lonely.

A notoriously outgoing and collaborative manager, she was surrounded by familiar colleagues and friendly faces. Yet, with the exception of her boss, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, no one at the office seemed to know what to say to her. 

“When I came back to work there was a real feeling of isolation,” she said. “It felt like no one was talking to me.... The chitchat ground to a halt. People looked at me like I was a ghost.”

Just a few years ago, Sandberg wrote Lean In, exhorting women to be ambitious, to ask for what they want, to be their full selves at work.  

“Losing Dave brought that home for me,” she said. “My whole self was so sad.”

She found herself increasingly holed up in a conference room with Zuckerberg, hiding from the awkwardness of the office. “Mark was the person I turned to,” Sandberg said. 

Sandberg, who first met Zuckerberg when he was a 23-year-old CEO struggling with his role, has long been credited with guiding him to maturity. But this time he was helping her.

“Mark is one of the first people I called when I lost Dave,” she said. “Mark planned the funeral.” He and his wife, Priscilla, were frequent visitors to Sandberg’s house in Menlo Park during the days and weeks after Goldberg’s death. They played with Sandberg’s kids. Zuckerberg helped her son with his math homework, she said.

At work, Zuckerberg was supportive in a very traditional way, telling Sandberg to take as much time as she needed. But, crucially, he also encouraged her actual work. In one of her first meetings after she returned, Sandberg was a bit out of it, she writes. She even misidentified a colleague, and instead of criticizing her or saying something about how he understands she’s still adjusting, Zuckerberg insisted she would’ve made the mistake before Goldberg died. And, even better, also told her she made a great point in the meeting. In short, he made her feel valued.

Sometimes people just need someone to tell them they’re doing OK, and that is key to helping a colleague in grief, Sandberg said. She wanted to feel like she was still a productive worker. “I had no idea how he knew ― I am older and I didn’t know how to do these things. I don’t think this is me teaching him, it’s him teaching me,” she said.

Typically, no one knows what to say to someone who is suffering a loss or an illness or a trauma, Sandberg said. “You want to silence a room? Get cancer. Have a friend or a family member who goes to prison. Lose a job,” she said. “We isolate ourselves.” 

In her post, Sandberg offered guidance on what to say.

“When people say to me, ‘You and your children will find happiness again,’ my heart tells me, Yes, I believe that, but I know I will never feel pure joy again. Those who have said, ‘You will find a new normal, but it will never be as good’ comfort me more because they know and speak the truth,’” she wrote in her post.

“Even a simple ‘How are you?’—almost always asked with the best of intentions— is better replaced with ‘How are you today?’ When I am asked ‘How are you?’ I stop myself from shouting, My husband died a month ago, how do you think I am? When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day.”

Sandberg was opening up about death in a real way. For many who’ve struggled with grief, to read an honest piece from the accomplished executive, about a subject so taboo and painful, was a revelation. The post today has more than 400,000 shares, close to 1 million likes and tens of thousands of comments.

The effect for Sandberg was immediate, she said. “Everyone started saying, ‘How are you today?’” Sandberg said. People started telling her about their own experiences with loss.

“I felt connected to a larger experience of life. There’s so much hardship out there,” she said. “The grief didn’t change, but the isolation did. I felt so much less alone.”

When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day. Sheryl Sandberg

Like Lean In, the new book is part memoir. She writes of the agony of telling her two young children, just 7 and 10 years old, that their father was dead. “I have terrible news. Terrible,” she told them. “Daddy died.”

“The screaming and crying that followed haunt me to this day,” she writes.

The book is also a practical guide for handling grief and adversity. With her coauthor, and friend, psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant, Sandberg lays out anecdotes ― she’s spoken with rape survivors, people who’ve gone to prison, refugees ―  and research on perseverance and resilience.

Acutely aware that she’s a billionaire privileged beyond all imagining, Sandberg is extremely careful to write about the suffering of others. In conversation, she acknowledges her privilege repeatedly. When asked about her struggles to parent as a single mother, she demurred. “So many people have immense hardship.” 

In Sandbergian fashion she has also launched a website, OptionB.org, where people can turn for support and guidance in the face of loss.

Surely, an unintentional side benefit to Sandberg’s latest project is that she’s essentially made the case for Facebook ― it offers human connection ― at a time when the social network is under criticism for increasing political polarization.

The new book and website is an attempt to open up conversations about difficult subjects on a mass scale, furthering Facebook’s ostensible mission.

Sandberg found her husband, already dead, on the floor in a hotel gym in Mexico where the two were celebrating a friend’s birthday. Sandberg had unwittingly spoken her last words to him, “I’m falling asleep,” while laying poolside earlier that day, ending a game of Settlers of Catan they were playing on their iPads. That afternoon she had told her son she’d have to talk to his dad before they could make a decision about buying new sneakers.

An autopsy would later confirm that Goldberg, who was CEO of Survey Monkey and a well-known Silicon Valley figure, had a fatal cardiac arrhythmia, caused by coronary artery disease, while running on the treadmill.

They were married for 11 years; friends for longer than that.  

Now she’s dating again. “I never wanted to,” she said. “I wanted to spend my life with Dave. That’s a choice I don’t get to make.”

Sandberg, who is 47-years-old, used to joke about getting older. No more. “There’s only two choices we grow older or we don’t,” she said. “I took it for granted I would grow old and Dave would grow old. It never occurred to me we wouldn’t,” she said.

Finding growth and ultimately joy is the project of Option B. Sandberg makes a point of emphasizing this aspect. The title echoes something a friend told her after Goldberg’s passing. 

When Sandberg was sad she couldn’t bring Goldberg to a school event and had to find someone else to fill in. “But I want Dave,” she said to her friend, as she recounted in her post and again in the book. “He put his arm around me and said, ‘Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of Option B.’ “

A chronic over-achiever, Sandberg has definitely lived up to that plan. After Goldberg’s death, she was just struggling to make it through the day she said. But with this book it’s clear that the Harvard MBA, former Google executive is just as ambitious as ever.

Still, things have changed. Sandberg said she travels much less than she used to. Long gone are the days of hosting women’s dinners at her house, she said. “Dave covered when I would have a women’s dinner,” she said. “I don’t do those things anymore.” But she quickly added: “So many people have so much hardship. That’s not what I mourn for. Of course, I had to make big changes.”

And when asked her about her career goals, she pivoted, saying it’s important to live your dreams and find things you want to do. “Even small silly things,” she said. “I’m a really bad piano player and I sing worse, but in those moments I can’t think about anything else. I won’t pretend the grief doesn’t still hit.”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2q942Yp

[grgedoors02142]

Why Sheryl Sandberg Decided To Speak Openly About Losing Her Husband

Nearly two years ago, Sheryl Sandberg poured 1,743 words of raw emotion into a Facebook post that essentially made everyone on the internet cry.

Her husband, Dave Goldberg, had died suddenly at the age of 47, not even 30 days earlier. The calendar marked the end of the traditional Jewish mourning period for spouses, but she hardly felt done with grief. Sandberg wasn’t even sure she would hit publish, the Facebook executive told HuffPost last week. She wrote feverishly, put it aside and went to bed.

The post was her desperate attempt to connect with friends and coworkers from whom she felt increasingly isolated in her mourning. “I woke up and thought, this is so bad. And I hit post,” she said.

The writing is pure heartbreak. Sandberg writes over and over about her sadness. About mothering her children while they screamed and cried in pain. “I have lived thirty years in these thirty days. I am thirty years sadder. I feel like I am thirty years wiser,” she writes. “When tragedy occurs, it presents a choice. You can give in to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to find meaning.”

Though she didn’t realize it at the time, Sandberg’s essay marked a clear tipping point in her journey back from the hell of a shocking loss. By opening up about her feelings, Sandberg was inviting others to support her ― including colleagues and friends who’d been unsure of what to say. The post offered guidance.

And that guidance formed the basis for Sandberg’s next project. Her latest book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, out Monday, tackles a universal yet enduringly under-discussed subject: grief.

While her Silicon Valley peers have worked for years on technologies that would extend life, Sandberg’s project offers up a path to happiness based not on fantasies of immortality but on the reality of the sorrow of life itself.

At the time she first posted about Goldberg’s death, Sandberg had already returned to work at Facebook, where she’d been chief operating officer for nearly a decade. She was feeling increasingly lonely.

A notoriously outgoing and collaborative manager, she was surrounded by familiar colleagues and friendly faces. Yet, with the exception of her boss, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, no one at the office seemed to know what to say to her. 

“When I came back to work there was a real feeling of isolation,” she said. “It felt like no one was talking to me.... The chitchat ground to a halt. People looked at me like I was a ghost.”

Just a few years ago, Sandberg wrote Lean In, exhorting women to be ambitious, to ask for what they want, to be their full selves at work.  

“Losing Dave brought that home for me,” she said. “My whole self was so sad.”

She found herself increasingly holed up in a conference room with Zuckerberg, hiding from the awkwardness of the office. “Mark was the person I turned to,” Sandberg said. 

Sandberg, who first met Zuckerberg when he was a 23-year-old CEO struggling with his role, has long been credited with guiding him to maturity. But this time he was helping her.

“Mark is one of the first people I called when I lost Dave,” she said. “Mark planned the funeral.” He and his wife, Priscilla, were frequent visitors to Sandberg’s house in Menlo Park during the days and weeks after Goldberg’s death. They played with Sandberg’s kids. Zuckerberg helped her son with his math homework, she said.

At work, Zuckerberg was supportive in a very traditional way, telling Sandberg to take as much time as she needed. But, crucially, he also encouraged her actual work. In one of her first meetings after she returned, Sandberg was a bit out of it, she writes. She even misidentified a colleague, and instead of criticizing her or saying something about how he understands she’s still adjusting, Zuckerberg insisted she would’ve made the mistake before Goldberg died. And, even better, also told her she made a great point in the meeting. In short, he made her feel valued.

Sometimes people just need someone to tell them they’re doing OK, and that is key to helping a colleague in grief, Sandberg said. She wanted to feel like she was still a productive worker. “I had no idea how he knew ― I am older and I didn’t know how to do these things. I don’t think this is me teaching him, it’s him teaching me,” she said.

Typically, no one knows what to say to someone who is suffering a loss or an illness or a trauma, Sandberg said. “You want to silence a room? Get cancer. Have a friend or a family member who goes to prison. Lose a job,” she said. “We isolate ourselves.” 

In her post, Sandberg offered guidance on what to say.

“When people say to me, ‘You and your children will find happiness again,’ my heart tells me, Yes, I believe that, but I know I will never feel pure joy again. Those who have said, ‘You will find a new normal, but it will never be as good’ comfort me more because they know and speak the truth,’” she wrote in her post.

“Even a simple ‘How are you?’—almost always asked with the best of intentions— is better replaced with ‘How are you today?’ When I am asked ‘How are you?’ I stop myself from shouting, My husband died a month ago, how do you think I am? When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day.”

Sandberg was opening up about death in a real way. For many who’ve struggled with grief, to read an honest piece from the accomplished executive, about a subject so taboo and painful, was a revelation. The post today has more than 400,000 shares, close to 1 million likes and tens of thousands of comments.

The effect for Sandberg was immediate, she said. “Everyone started saying, ‘How are you today?’” Sandberg said. People started telling her about their own experiences with loss.

“I felt connected to a larger experience of life. There’s so much hardship out there,” she said. “The grief didn’t change, but the isolation did. I felt so much less alone.”

When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day. Sheryl Sandberg

Like Lean In, the new book is part memoir. She writes of the agony of telling her two young children, just 7 and 10 years old, that their father was dead. “I have terrible news. Terrible,” she told them. “Daddy died.”

“The screaming and crying that followed haunt me to this day,” she writes.

The book is also a practical guide for handling grief and adversity. With her coauthor, and friend, psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant, Sandberg lays out anecdotes ― she’s spoken with rape survivors, people who’ve gone to prison, refugees ―  and research on perseverance and resilience.

Acutely aware that she’s a billionaire privileged beyond all imagining, Sandberg is extremely careful to write about the suffering of others. In conversation, she acknowledges her privilege repeatedly. When asked about her struggles to parent as a single mother, she demurred. “So many people have immense hardship.” 

In Sandbergian fashion she has also launched a website, OptionB.org, where people can turn for support and guidance in the face of loss.

Surely, an unintentional side benefit to Sandberg’s latest project is that she’s essentially made the case for Facebook ― it offers human connection ― at a time when the social network is under criticism for increasing political polarization.

The new book and website is an attempt to open up conversations about difficult subjects on a mass scale, furthering Facebook’s ostensible mission.

Sandberg found her husband, already dead, on the floor in a hotel gym in Mexico where the two were celebrating a friend’s birthday. Sandberg had unwittingly spoken her last words to him, “I’m falling asleep,” while laying poolside earlier that day, ending a game of Settlers of Catan they were playing on their iPads. That afternoon she had told her son she’d have to talk to his dad before they could make a decision about buying new sneakers.

An autopsy would later confirm that Goldberg, who was CEO of Survey Monkey and a well-known Silicon Valley figure, had a fatal cardiac arrhythmia, caused by coronary artery disease, while running on the treadmill.

They were married for 11 years; friends for longer than that.  

Now she’s dating again. “I never wanted to,” she said. “I wanted to spend my life with Dave. That’s a choice I don’t get to make.”

Sandberg, who is 47-years-old, used to joke about getting older. No more. “There’s only two choices we grow older or we don’t,” she said. “I took it for granted I would grow old and Dave would grow old. It never occurred to me we wouldn’t,” she said.

Finding growth and ultimately joy is the project of Option B. Sandberg makes a point of emphasizing this aspect. The title echoes something a friend told her after Goldberg’s passing. 

When Sandberg was sad she couldn’t bring Goldberg to a school event and had to find someone else to fill in. “But I want Dave,” she said to her friend, as she recounted in her post and again in the book. “He put his arm around me and said, ‘Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of Option B.’ “

A chronic over-achiever, Sandberg has definitely lived up to that plan. After Goldberg’s death, she was just struggling to make it through the day she said. But with this book it’s clear that the Harvard MBA, former Google executive is just as ambitious as ever.

Still, things have changed. Sandberg said she travels much less than she used to. Long gone are the days of hosting women’s dinners at her house, she said. “Dave covered when I would have a women’s dinner,” she said. “I don’t do those things anymore.” But she quickly added: “So many people have so much hardship. That’s not what I mourn for. Of course, I had to make big changes.”

And when asked her about her career goals, she pivoted, saying it’s important to live your dreams and find things you want to do. “Even small silly things,” she said. “I’m a really bad piano player and I sing worse, but in those moments I can’t think about anything else. I won’t pretend the grief doesn’t still hit.”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2q942Yp

[repwincoml4a0a5]

Why Sheryl Sandberg Decided To Speak Openly About Losing Her Husband

Nearly two years ago, Sheryl Sandberg poured 1,743 words of raw emotion into a Facebook post that essentially made everyone on the internet cry.

Her husband, Dave Goldberg, had died suddenly at the age of 47, not even 30 days earlier. The calendar marked the end of the traditional Jewish mourning period for spouses, but she hardly felt done with grief. Sandberg wasn’t even sure she would hit publish, the Facebook executive told HuffPost last week. She wrote feverishly, put it aside and went to bed.

The post was her desperate attempt to connect with friends and coworkers from whom she felt increasingly isolated in her mourning. “I woke up and thought, this is so bad. And I hit post,” she said.

The writing is pure heartbreak. Sandberg writes over and over about her sadness. About mothering her children while they screamed and cried in pain. “I have lived thirty years in these thirty days. I am thirty years sadder. I feel like I am thirty years wiser,” she writes. “When tragedy occurs, it presents a choice. You can give in to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to find meaning.”

Though she didn’t realize it at the time, Sandberg’s essay marked a clear tipping point in her journey back from the hell of a shocking loss. By opening up about her feelings, Sandberg was inviting others to support her ― including colleagues and friends who’d been unsure of what to say. The post offered guidance.

And that guidance formed the basis for Sandberg’s next project. Her latest book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, out Monday, tackles a universal yet enduringly under-discussed subject: grief.

While her Silicon Valley peers have worked for years on technologies that would extend life, Sandberg’s project offers up a path to happiness based not on fantasies of immortality but on the reality of the sorrow of life itself.

At the time she first posted about Goldberg’s death, Sandberg had already returned to work at Facebook, where she’d been chief operating officer for nearly a decade. She was feeling increasingly lonely.

A notoriously outgoing and collaborative manager, she was surrounded by familiar colleagues and friendly faces. Yet, with the exception of her boss, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, no one at the office seemed to know what to say to her. 

“When I came back to work there was a real feeling of isolation,” she said. “It felt like no one was talking to me.... The chitchat ground to a halt. People looked at me like I was a ghost.”

Just a few years ago, Sandberg wrote Lean In, exhorting women to be ambitious, to ask for what they want, to be their full selves at work.  

“Losing Dave brought that home for me,” she said. “My whole self was so sad.”

She found herself increasingly holed up in a conference room with Zuckerberg, hiding from the awkwardness of the office. “Mark was the person I turned to,” Sandberg said. 

Sandberg, who first met Zuckerberg when he was a 23-year-old CEO struggling with his role, has long been credited with guiding him to maturity. But this time he was helping her.

“Mark is one of the first people I called when I lost Dave,” she said. “Mark planned the funeral.” He and his wife, Priscilla, were frequent visitors to Sandberg’s house in Menlo Park during the days and weeks after Goldberg’s death. They played with Sandberg’s kids. Zuckerberg helped her son with his math homework, she said.

At work, Zuckerberg was supportive in a very traditional way, telling Sandberg to take as much time as she needed. But, crucially, he also encouraged her actual work. In one of her first meetings after she returned, Sandberg was a bit out of it, she writes. She even misidentified a colleague, and instead of criticizing her or saying something about how he understands she’s still adjusting, Zuckerberg insisted she would’ve made the mistake before Goldberg died. And, even better, also told her she made a great point in the meeting. In short, he made her feel valued.

Sometimes people just need someone to tell them they’re doing OK, and that is key to helping a colleague in grief, Sandberg said. She wanted to feel like she was still a productive worker. “I had no idea how he knew ― I am older and I didn’t know how to do these things. I don’t think this is me teaching him, it’s him teaching me,” she said.

Typically, no one knows what to say to someone who is suffering a loss or an illness or a trauma, Sandberg said. “You want to silence a room? Get cancer. Have a friend or a family member who goes to prison. Lose a job,” she said. “We isolate ourselves.” 

In her post, Sandberg offered guidance on what to say.

“When people say to me, ‘You and your children will find happiness again,’ my heart tells me, Yes, I believe that, but I know I will never feel pure joy again. Those who have said, ‘You will find a new normal, but it will never be as good’ comfort me more because they know and speak the truth,’” she wrote in her post.

“Even a simple ‘How are you?’—almost always asked with the best of intentions— is better replaced with ‘How are you today?’ When I am asked ‘How are you?’ I stop myself from shouting, My husband died a month ago, how do you think I am? When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day.”

Sandberg was opening up about death in a real way. For many who’ve struggled with grief, to read an honest piece from the accomplished executive, about a subject so taboo and painful, was a revelation. The post today has more than 400,000 shares, close to 1 million likes and tens of thousands of comments.

The effect for Sandberg was immediate, she said. “Everyone started saying, ‘How are you today?’” Sandberg said. People started telling her about their own experiences with loss.

“I felt connected to a larger experience of life. There’s so much hardship out there,” she said. “The grief didn’t change, but the isolation did. I felt so much less alone.”

When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day. Sheryl Sandberg

Like Lean In, the new book is part memoir. She writes of the agony of telling her two young children, just 7 and 10 years old, that their father was dead. “I have terrible news. Terrible,” she told them. “Daddy died.”

“The screaming and crying that followed haunt me to this day,” she writes.

The book is also a practical guide for handling grief and adversity. With her coauthor, and friend, psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant, Sandberg lays out anecdotes ― she’s spoken with rape survivors, people who’ve gone to prison, refugees ―  and research on perseverance and resilience.

Acutely aware that she’s a billionaire privileged beyond all imagining, Sandberg is extremely careful to write about the suffering of others. In conversation, she acknowledges her privilege repeatedly. When asked about her struggles to parent as a single mother, she demurred. “So many people have immense hardship.” 

In Sandbergian fashion she has also launched a website, OptionB.org, where people can turn for support and guidance in the face of loss.

Surely, an unintentional side benefit to Sandberg’s latest project is that she’s essentially made the case for Facebook ― it offers human connection ― at a time when the social network is under criticism for increasing political polarization.

The new book and website is an attempt to open up conversations about difficult subjects on a mass scale, furthering Facebook’s ostensible mission.

Sandberg found her husband, already dead, on the floor in a hotel gym in Mexico where the two were celebrating a friend’s birthday. Sandberg had unwittingly spoken her last words to him, “I’m falling asleep,” while laying poolside earlier that day, ending a game of Settlers of Catan they were playing on their iPads. That afternoon she had told her son she’d have to talk to his dad before they could make a decision about buying new sneakers.

An autopsy would later confirm that Goldberg, who was CEO of Survey Monkey and a well-known Silicon Valley figure, had a fatal cardiac arrhythmia, caused by coronary artery disease, while running on the treadmill.

They were married for 11 years; friends for longer than that.  

Now she’s dating again. “I never wanted to,” she said. “I wanted to spend my life with Dave. That’s a choice I don’t get to make.”

Sandberg, who is 47-years-old, used to joke about getting older. No more. “There’s only two choices we grow older or we don’t,” she said. “I took it for granted I would grow old and Dave would grow old. It never occurred to me we wouldn’t,” she said.

Finding growth and ultimately joy is the project of Option B. Sandberg makes a point of emphasizing this aspect. The title echoes something a friend told her after Goldberg’s passing. 

When Sandberg was sad she couldn’t bring Goldberg to a school event and had to find someone else to fill in. “But I want Dave,” she said to her friend, as she recounted in her post and again in the book. “He put his arm around me and said, ‘Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of Option B.’ “

A chronic over-achiever, Sandberg has definitely lived up to that plan. After Goldberg’s death, she was just struggling to make it through the day she said. But with this book it’s clear that the Harvard MBA, former Google executive is just as ambitious as ever.

Still, things have changed. Sandberg said she travels much less than she used to. Long gone are the days of hosting women’s dinners at her house, she said. “Dave covered when I would have a women’s dinner,” she said. “I don’t do those things anymore.” But she quickly added: “So many people have so much hardship. That’s not what I mourn for. Of course, I had to make big changes.”

And when asked her about her career goals, she pivoted, saying it’s important to live your dreams and find things you want to do. “Even small silly things,” she said. “I’m a really bad piano player and I sing worse, but in those moments I can’t think about anything else. I won’t pretend the grief doesn’t still hit.”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2q942Yp

[chpatdoorsl3z0a1]

Why Sheryl Sandberg Decided To Speak Openly About Losing Her Husband

Nearly two years ago, Sheryl Sandberg poured 1,743 words of raw emotion into a Facebook post that essentially made everyone on the internet cry.

Her husband, Dave Goldberg, had died suddenly at the age of 47, not even 30 days earlier. The calendar marked the end of the traditional Jewish mourning period for spouses, but she hardly felt done with grief. Sandberg wasn’t even sure she would hit publish, the Facebook executive told HuffPost last week. She wrote feverishly, put it aside and went to bed.

The post was her desperate attempt to connect with friends and coworkers from whom she felt increasingly isolated in her mourning. “I woke up and thought, this is so bad. And I hit post,” she said.

The writing is pure heartbreak. Sandberg writes over and over about her sadness. About mothering her children while they screamed and cried in pain. “I have lived thirty years in these thirty days. I am thirty years sadder. I feel like I am thirty years wiser,” she writes. “When tragedy occurs, it presents a choice. You can give in to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to find meaning.”

Though she didn’t realize it at the time, Sandberg’s essay marked a clear tipping point in her journey back from the hell of a shocking loss. By opening up about her feelings, Sandberg was inviting others to support her ― including colleagues and friends who’d been unsure of what to say. The post offered guidance.

And that guidance formed the basis for Sandberg’s next project. Her latest book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, out Monday, tackles a universal yet enduringly under-discussed subject: grief.

While her Silicon Valley peers have worked for years on technologies that would extend life, Sandberg’s project offers up a path to happiness based not on fantasies of immortality but on the reality of the sorrow of life itself.

At the time she first posted about Goldberg’s death, Sandberg had already returned to work at Facebook, where she’d been chief operating officer for nearly a decade. She was feeling increasingly lonely.

A notoriously outgoing and collaborative manager, she was surrounded by familiar colleagues and friendly faces. Yet, with the exception of her boss, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, no one at the office seemed to know what to say to her. 

“When I came back to work there was a real feeling of isolation,” she said. “It felt like no one was talking to me.... The chitchat ground to a halt. People looked at me like I was a ghost.”

Just a few years ago, Sandberg wrote Lean In, exhorting women to be ambitious, to ask for what they want, to be their full selves at work.  

“Losing Dave brought that home for me,” she said. “My whole self was so sad.”

She found herself increasingly holed up in a conference room with Zuckerberg, hiding from the awkwardness of the office. “Mark was the person I turned to,” Sandberg said. 

Sandberg, who first met Zuckerberg when he was a 23-year-old CEO struggling with his role, has long been credited with guiding him to maturity. But this time he was helping her.

“Mark is one of the first people I called when I lost Dave,” she said. “Mark planned the funeral.” He and his wife, Priscilla, were frequent visitors to Sandberg’s house in Menlo Park during the days and weeks after Goldberg’s death. They played with Sandberg’s kids. Zuckerberg helped her son with his math homework, she said.

At work, Zuckerberg was supportive in a very traditional way, telling Sandberg to take as much time as she needed. But, crucially, he also encouraged her actual work. In one of her first meetings after she returned, Sandberg was a bit out of it, she writes. She even misidentified a colleague, and instead of criticizing her or saying something about how he understands she’s still adjusting, Zuckerberg insisted she would’ve made the mistake before Goldberg died. And, even better, also told her she made a great point in the meeting. In short, he made her feel valued.

Sometimes people just need someone to tell them they’re doing OK, and that is key to helping a colleague in grief, Sandberg said. She wanted to feel like she was still a productive worker. “I had no idea how he knew ― I am older and I didn’t know how to do these things. I don’t think this is me teaching him, it’s him teaching me,” she said.

Typically, no one knows what to say to someone who is suffering a loss or an illness or a trauma, Sandberg said. “You want to silence a room? Get cancer. Have a friend or a family member who goes to prison. Lose a job,” she said. “We isolate ourselves.” 

In her post, Sandberg offered guidance on what to say.

“When people say to me, ‘You and your children will find happiness again,’ my heart tells me, Yes, I believe that, but I know I will never feel pure joy again. Those who have said, ‘You will find a new normal, but it will never be as good’ comfort me more because they know and speak the truth,’” she wrote in her post.

“Even a simple ‘How are you?’—almost always asked with the best of intentions— is better replaced with ‘How are you today?’ When I am asked ‘How are you?’ I stop myself from shouting, My husband died a month ago, how do you think I am? When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day.”

Sandberg was opening up about death in a real way. For many who’ve struggled with grief, to read an honest piece from the accomplished executive, about a subject so taboo and painful, was a revelation. The post today has more than 400,000 shares, close to 1 million likes and tens of thousands of comments.

The effect for Sandberg was immediate, she said. “Everyone started saying, ‘How are you today?’” Sandberg said. People started telling her about their own experiences with loss.

“I felt connected to a larger experience of life. There’s so much hardship out there,” she said. “The grief didn’t change, but the isolation did. I felt so much less alone.”

When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day. Sheryl Sandberg

Like Lean In, the new book is part memoir. She writes of the agony of telling her two young children, just 7 and 10 years old, that their father was dead. “I have terrible news. Terrible,” she told them. “Daddy died.”

“The screaming and crying that followed haunt me to this day,” she writes.

The book is also a practical guide for handling grief and adversity. With her coauthor, and friend, psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant, Sandberg lays out anecdotes ― she’s spoken with rape survivors, people who’ve gone to prison, refugees ―  and research on perseverance and resilience.

Acutely aware that she’s a billionaire privileged beyond all imagining, Sandberg is extremely careful to write about the suffering of others. In conversation, she acknowledges her privilege repeatedly. When asked about her struggles to parent as a single mother, she demurred. “So many people have immense hardship.” 

In Sandbergian fashion she has also launched a website, OptionB.org, where people can turn for support and guidance in the face of loss.

Surely, an unintentional side benefit to Sandberg’s latest project is that she’s essentially made the case for Facebook ― it offers human connection ― at a time when the social network is under criticism for increasing political polarization.

The new book and website is an attempt to open up conversations about difficult subjects on a mass scale, furthering Facebook’s ostensible mission.

Sandberg found her husband, already dead, on the floor in a hotel gym in Mexico where the two were celebrating a friend’s birthday. Sandberg had unwittingly spoken her last words to him, “I’m falling asleep,” while laying poolside earlier that day, ending a game of Settlers of Catan they were playing on their iPads. That afternoon she had told her son she’d have to talk to his dad before they could make a decision about buying new sneakers.

An autopsy would later confirm that Goldberg, who was CEO of Survey Monkey and a well-known Silicon Valley figure, had a fatal cardiac arrhythmia, caused by coronary artery disease, while running on the treadmill.

They were married for 11 years; friends for longer than that.  

Now she’s dating again. “I never wanted to,” she said. “I wanted to spend my life with Dave. That’s a choice I don’t get to make.”

Sandberg, who is 47-years-old, used to joke about getting older. No more. “There’s only two choices we grow older or we don’t,” she said. “I took it for granted I would grow old and Dave would grow old. It never occurred to me we wouldn’t,” she said.

Finding growth and ultimately joy is the project of Option B. Sandberg makes a point of emphasizing this aspect. The title echoes something a friend told her after Goldberg’s passing. 

When Sandberg was sad she couldn’t bring Goldberg to a school event and had to find someone else to fill in. “But I want Dave,” she said to her friend, as she recounted in her post and again in the book. “He put his arm around me and said, ‘Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of Option B.’ “

A chronic over-achiever, Sandberg has definitely lived up to that plan. After Goldberg’s death, she was just struggling to make it through the day she said. But with this book it’s clear that the Harvard MBA, former Google executive is just as ambitious as ever.

Still, things have changed. Sandberg said she travels much less than she used to. Long gone are the days of hosting women’s dinners at her house, she said. “Dave covered when I would have a women’s dinner,” she said. “I don’t do those things anymore.” But she quickly added: “So many people have so much hardship. That’s not what I mourn for. Of course, I had to make big changes.”

And when asked her about her career goals, she pivoted, saying it’s important to live your dreams and find things you want to do. “Even small silly things,” she said. “I’m a really bad piano player and I sing worse, but in those moments I can’t think about anything else. I won’t pretend the grief doesn’t still hit.”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2q942Yp

[rtscrndr53704]

Why Sheryl Sandberg Decided To Speak Openly About Losing Her Husband

Nearly two years ago, Sheryl Sandberg poured 1,743 words of raw emotion into a Facebook post that essentially made everyone on the internet cry.

Her husband, Dave Goldberg, had died suddenly at the age of 47, not even 30 days earlier. The calendar marked the end of the traditional Jewish mourning period for spouses, but she hardly felt done with grief. Sandberg wasn’t even sure she would hit publish, the Facebook executive told HuffPost last week. She wrote feverishly, put it aside and went to bed.

The post was her desperate attempt to connect with friends and coworkers from whom she felt increasingly isolated in her mourning. “I woke up and thought, this is so bad. And I hit post,” she said.

The writing is pure heartbreak. Sandberg writes over and over about her sadness. About mothering her children while they screamed and cried in pain. “I have lived thirty years in these thirty days. I am thirty years sadder. I feel like I am thirty years wiser,” she writes. “When tragedy occurs, it presents a choice. You can give in to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to find meaning.”

Though she didn’t realize it at the time, Sandberg’s essay marked a clear tipping point in her journey back from the hell of a shocking loss. By opening up about her feelings, Sandberg was inviting others to support her ― including colleagues and friends who’d been unsure of what to say. The post offered guidance.

And that guidance formed the basis for Sandberg’s next project. Her latest book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, out Monday, tackles a universal yet enduringly under-discussed subject: grief.

While her Silicon Valley peers have worked for years on technologies that would extend life, Sandberg’s project offers up a path to happiness based not on fantasies of immortality but on the reality of the sorrow of life itself.

At the time she first posted about Goldberg’s death, Sandberg had already returned to work at Facebook, where she’d been chief operating officer for nearly a decade. She was feeling increasingly lonely.

A notoriously outgoing and collaborative manager, she was surrounded by familiar colleagues and friendly faces. Yet, with the exception of her boss, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, no one at the office seemed to know what to say to her. 

“When I came back to work there was a real feeling of isolation,” she said. “It felt like no one was talking to me.... The chitchat ground to a halt. People looked at me like I was a ghost.”

Just a few years ago, Sandberg wrote Lean In, exhorting women to be ambitious, to ask for what they want, to be their full selves at work.  

“Losing Dave brought that home for me,” she said. “My whole self was so sad.”

She found herself increasingly holed up in a conference room with Zuckerberg, hiding from the awkwardness of the office. “Mark was the person I turned to,” Sandberg said. 

Sandberg, who first met Zuckerberg when he was a 23-year-old CEO struggling with his role, has long been credited with guiding him to maturity. But this time he was helping her.

“Mark is one of the first people I called when I lost Dave,” she said. “Mark planned the funeral.” He and his wife, Priscilla, were frequent visitors to Sandberg’s house in Menlo Park during the days and weeks after Goldberg’s death. They played with Sandberg’s kids. Zuckerberg helped her son with his math homework, she said.

At work, Zuckerberg was supportive in a very traditional way, telling Sandberg to take as much time as she needed. But, crucially, he also encouraged her actual work. In one of her first meetings after she returned, Sandberg was a bit out of it, she writes. She even misidentified a colleague, and instead of criticizing her or saying something about how he understands she’s still adjusting, Zuckerberg insisted she would’ve made the mistake before Goldberg died. And, even better, also told her she made a great point in the meeting. In short, he made her feel valued.

Sometimes people just need someone to tell them they’re doing OK, and that is key to helping a colleague in grief, Sandberg said. She wanted to feel like she was still a productive worker. “I had no idea how he knew ― I am older and I didn’t know how to do these things. I don’t think this is me teaching him, it’s him teaching me,” she said.

Typically, no one knows what to say to someone who is suffering a loss or an illness or a trauma, Sandberg said. “You want to silence a room? Get cancer. Have a friend or a family member who goes to prison. Lose a job,” she said. “We isolate ourselves.” 

In her post, Sandberg offered guidance on what to say.

“When people say to me, ‘You and your children will find happiness again,’ my heart tells me, Yes, I believe that, but I know I will never feel pure joy again. Those who have said, ‘You will find a new normal, but it will never be as good’ comfort me more because they know and speak the truth,’” she wrote in her post.

“Even a simple ‘How are you?’—almost always asked with the best of intentions— is better replaced with ‘How are you today?’ When I am asked ‘How are you?’ I stop myself from shouting, My husband died a month ago, how do you think I am? When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day.”

Sandberg was opening up about death in a real way. For many who’ve struggled with grief, to read an honest piece from the accomplished executive, about a subject so taboo and painful, was a revelation. The post today has more than 400,000 shares, close to 1 million likes and tens of thousands of comments.

The effect for Sandberg was immediate, she said. “Everyone started saying, ‘How are you today?’” Sandberg said. People started telling her about their own experiences with loss.

“I felt connected to a larger experience of life. There’s so much hardship out there,” she said. “The grief didn’t change, but the isolation did. I felt so much less alone.”

When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day. Sheryl Sandberg

Like Lean In, the new book is part memoir. She writes of the agony of telling her two young children, just 7 and 10 years old, that their father was dead. “I have terrible news. Terrible,” she told them. “Daddy died.”

“The screaming and crying that followed haunt me to this day,” she writes.

The book is also a practical guide for handling grief and adversity. With her coauthor, and friend, psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant, Sandberg lays out anecdotes ― she’s spoken with rape survivors, people who’ve gone to prison, refugees ―  and research on perseverance and resilience.

Acutely aware that she’s a billionaire privileged beyond all imagining, Sandberg is extremely careful to write about the suffering of others. In conversation, she acknowledges her privilege repeatedly. When asked about her struggles to parent as a single mother, she demurred. “So many people have immense hardship.” 

In Sandbergian fashion she has also launched a website, OptionB.org, where people can turn for support and guidance in the face of loss.

Surely, an unintentional side benefit to Sandberg’s latest project is that she’s essentially made the case for Facebook ― it offers human connection ― at a time when the social network is under criticism for increasing political polarization.

The new book and website is an attempt to open up conversations about difficult subjects on a mass scale, furthering Facebook’s ostensible mission.

Sandberg found her husband, already dead, on the floor in a hotel gym in Mexico where the two were celebrating a friend’s birthday. Sandberg had unwittingly spoken her last words to him, “I’m falling asleep,” while laying poolside earlier that day, ending a game of Settlers of Catan they were playing on their iPads. That afternoon she had told her son she’d have to talk to his dad before they could make a decision about buying new sneakers.

An autopsy would later confirm that Goldberg, who was CEO of Survey Monkey and a well-known Silicon Valley figure, had a fatal cardiac arrhythmia, caused by coronary artery disease, while running on the treadmill.

They were married for 11 years; friends for longer than that.  

Now she’s dating again. “I never wanted to,” she said. “I wanted to spend my life with Dave. That’s a choice I don’t get to make.”

Sandberg, who is 47-years-old, used to joke about getting older. No more. “There’s only two choices we grow older or we don’t,” she said. “I took it for granted I would grow old and Dave would grow old. It never occurred to me we wouldn’t,” she said.

Finding growth and ultimately joy is the project of Option B. Sandberg makes a point of emphasizing this aspect. The title echoes something a friend told her after Goldberg’s passing. 

When Sandberg was sad she couldn’t bring Goldberg to a school event and had to find someone else to fill in. “But I want Dave,” she said to her friend, as she recounted in her post and again in the book. “He put his arm around me and said, ‘Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of Option B.’ “

A chronic over-achiever, Sandberg has definitely lived up to that plan. After Goldberg’s death, she was just struggling to make it through the day she said. But with this book it’s clear that the Harvard MBA, former Google executive is just as ambitious as ever.

Still, things have changed. Sandberg said she travels much less than she used to. Long gone are the days of hosting women’s dinners at her house, she said. “Dave covered when I would have a women’s dinner,” she said. “I don’t do those things anymore.” But she quickly added: “So many people have so much hardship. That’s not what I mourn for. Of course, I had to make big changes.”

And when asked her about her career goals, she pivoted, saying it’s important to live your dreams and find things you want to do. “Even small silly things,” she said. “I’m a really bad piano player and I sing worse, but in those moments I can’t think about anything else. I won’t pretend the grief doesn’t still hit.”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2q942Yp

[rtawngs20815]

Why Sheryl Sandberg Decided To Speak Openly About Losing Her Husband

Nearly two years ago, Sheryl Sandberg poured 1,743 words of raw emotion into a Facebook post that essentially made everyone on the internet cry.

Her husband, Dave Goldberg, had died suddenly at the age of 47, not even 30 days earlier. The calendar marked the end of the traditional Jewish mourning period for spouses, but she hardly felt done with grief. Sandberg wasn’t even sure she would hit publish, the Facebook executive told HuffPost last week. She wrote feverishly, put it aside and went to bed.

The post was her desperate attempt to connect with friends and coworkers from whom she felt increasingly isolated in her mourning. “I woke up and thought, this is so bad. And I hit post,” she said.

The writing is pure heartbreak. Sandberg writes over and over about her sadness. About mothering her children while they screamed and cried in pain. “I have lived thirty years in these thirty days. I am thirty years sadder. I feel like I am thirty years wiser,” she writes. “When tragedy occurs, it presents a choice. You can give in to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to find meaning.”

Though she didn’t realize it at the time, Sandberg’s essay marked a clear tipping point in her journey back from the hell of a shocking loss. By opening up about her feelings, Sandberg was inviting others to support her ― including colleagues and friends who’d been unsure of what to say. The post offered guidance.

And that guidance formed the basis for Sandberg’s next project. Her latest book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, out Monday, tackles a universal yet enduringly under-discussed subject: grief.

While her Silicon Valley peers have worked for years on technologies that would extend life, Sandberg’s project offers up a path to happiness based not on fantasies of immortality but on the reality of the sorrow of life itself.

At the time she first posted about Goldberg’s death, Sandberg had already returned to work at Facebook, where she’d been chief operating officer for nearly a decade. She was feeling increasingly lonely.

A notoriously outgoing and collaborative manager, she was surrounded by familiar colleagues and friendly faces. Yet, with the exception of her boss, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, no one at the office seemed to know what to say to her. 

“When I came back to work there was a real feeling of isolation,” she said. “It felt like no one was talking to me.... The chitchat ground to a halt. People looked at me like I was a ghost.”

Just a few years ago, Sandberg wrote Lean In, exhorting women to be ambitious, to ask for what they want, to be their full selves at work.  

“Losing Dave brought that home for me,” she said. “My whole self was so sad.”

She found herself increasingly holed up in a conference room with Zuckerberg, hiding from the awkwardness of the office. “Mark was the person I turned to,” Sandberg said. 

Sandberg, who first met Zuckerberg when he was a 23-year-old CEO struggling with his role, has long been credited with guiding him to maturity. But this time he was helping her.

“Mark is one of the first people I called when I lost Dave,” she said. “Mark planned the funeral.” He and his wife, Priscilla, were frequent visitors to Sandberg’s house in Menlo Park during the days and weeks after Goldberg’s death. They played with Sandberg’s kids. Zuckerberg helped her son with his math homework, she said.

At work, Zuckerberg was supportive in a very traditional way, telling Sandberg to take as much time as she needed. But, crucially, he also encouraged her actual work. In one of her first meetings after she returned, Sandberg was a bit out of it, she writes. She even misidentified a colleague, and instead of criticizing her or saying something about how he understands she’s still adjusting, Zuckerberg insisted she would’ve made the mistake before Goldberg died. And, even better, also told her she made a great point in the meeting. In short, he made her feel valued.

Sometimes people just need someone to tell them they’re doing OK, and that is key to helping a colleague in grief, Sandberg said. She wanted to feel like she was still a productive worker. “I had no idea how he knew ― I am older and I didn’t know how to do these things. I don’t think this is me teaching him, it’s him teaching me,” she said.

Typically, no one knows what to say to someone who is suffering a loss or an illness or a trauma, Sandberg said. “You want to silence a room? Get cancer. Have a friend or a family member who goes to prison. Lose a job,” she said. “We isolate ourselves.” 

In her post, Sandberg offered guidance on what to say.

“When people say to me, ‘You and your children will find happiness again,’ my heart tells me, Yes, I believe that, but I know I will never feel pure joy again. Those who have said, ‘You will find a new normal, but it will never be as good’ comfort me more because they know and speak the truth,’” she wrote in her post.

“Even a simple ‘How are you?’—almost always asked with the best of intentions— is better replaced with ‘How are you today?’ When I am asked ‘How are you?’ I stop myself from shouting, My husband died a month ago, how do you think I am? When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day.”

Sandberg was opening up about death in a real way. For many who’ve struggled with grief, to read an honest piece from the accomplished executive, about a subject so taboo and painful, was a revelation. The post today has more than 400,000 shares, close to 1 million likes and tens of thousands of comments.

The effect for Sandberg was immediate, she said. “Everyone started saying, ‘How are you today?’” Sandberg said. People started telling her about their own experiences with loss.

“I felt connected to a larger experience of life. There’s so much hardship out there,” she said. “The grief didn’t change, but the isolation did. I felt so much less alone.”

When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day. Sheryl Sandberg

Like Lean In, the new book is part memoir. She writes of the agony of telling her two young children, just 7 and 10 years old, that their father was dead. “I have terrible news. Terrible,” she told them. “Daddy died.”

“The screaming and crying that followed haunt me to this day,” she writes.

The book is also a practical guide for handling grief and adversity. With her coauthor, and friend, psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant, Sandberg lays out anecdotes ― she’s spoken with rape survivors, people who’ve gone to prison, refugees ―  and research on perseverance and resilience.

Acutely aware that she’s a billionaire privileged beyond all imagining, Sandberg is extremely careful to write about the suffering of others. In conversation, she acknowledges her privilege repeatedly. When asked about her struggles to parent as a single mother, she demurred. “So many people have immense hardship.” 

In Sandbergian fashion she has also launched a website, OptionB.org, where people can turn for support and guidance in the face of loss.

Surely, an unintentional side benefit to Sandberg’s latest project is that she’s essentially made the case for Facebook ― it offers human connection ― at a time when the social network is under criticism for increasing political polarization.

The new book and website is an attempt to open up conversations about difficult subjects on a mass scale, furthering Facebook’s ostensible mission.

Sandberg found her husband, already dead, on the floor in a hotel gym in Mexico where the two were celebrating a friend’s birthday. Sandberg had unwittingly spoken her last words to him, “I’m falling asleep,” while laying poolside earlier that day, ending a game of Settlers of Catan they were playing on their iPads. That afternoon she had told her son she’d have to talk to his dad before they could make a decision about buying new sneakers.

An autopsy would later confirm that Goldberg, who was CEO of Survey Monkey and a well-known Silicon Valley figure, had a fatal cardiac arrhythmia, caused by coronary artery disease, while running on the treadmill.

They were married for 11 years; friends for longer than that.  

Now she’s dating again. “I never wanted to,” she said. “I wanted to spend my life with Dave. That’s a choice I don’t get to make.”

Sandberg, who is 47-years-old, used to joke about getting older. No more. “There’s only two choices we grow older or we don’t,” she said. “I took it for granted I would grow old and Dave would grow old. It never occurred to me we wouldn’t,” she said.

Finding growth and ultimately joy is the project of Option B. Sandberg makes a point of emphasizing this aspect. The title echoes something a friend told her after Goldberg’s passing. 

When Sandberg was sad she couldn’t bring Goldberg to a school event and had to find someone else to fill in. “But I want Dave,” she said to her friend, as she recounted in her post and again in the book. “He put his arm around me and said, ‘Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of Option B.’ “

A chronic over-achiever, Sandberg has definitely lived up to that plan. After Goldberg’s death, she was just struggling to make it through the day she said. But with this book it’s clear that the Harvard MBA, former Google executive is just as ambitious as ever.

Still, things have changed. Sandberg said she travels much less than she used to. Long gone are the days of hosting women’s dinners at her house, she said. “Dave covered when I would have a women’s dinner,” she said. “I don’t do those things anymore.” But she quickly added: “So many people have so much hardship. That’s not what I mourn for. Of course, I had to make big changes.”

And when asked her about her career goals, she pivoted, saying it’s important to live your dreams and find things you want to do. “Even small silly things,” she said. “I’m a really bad piano player and I sing worse, but in those moments I can’t think about anything else. I won’t pretend the grief doesn’t still hit.”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2q942Yp

[porchenclose10019]

Why Sheryl Sandberg Decided To Speak Openly About Losing Her Husband

Nearly two years ago, Sheryl Sandberg poured 1,743 words of raw emotion into a Facebook post that essentially made everyone on the internet cry.

Her husband, Dave Goldberg, had died suddenly at the age of 47, not even 30 days earlier. The calendar marked the end of the traditional Jewish mourning period for spouses, but she hardly felt done with grief. Sandberg wasn’t even sure she would hit publish, the Facebook executive told HuffPost last week. She wrote feverishly, put it aside and went to bed.

The post was her desperate attempt to connect with friends and coworkers from whom she felt increasingly isolated in her mourning. “I woke up and thought, this is so bad. And I hit post,” she said.

The writing is pure heartbreak. Sandberg writes over and over about her sadness. About mothering her children while they screamed and cried in pain. “I have lived thirty years in these thirty days. I am thirty years sadder. I feel like I am thirty years wiser,” she writes. “When tragedy occurs, it presents a choice. You can give in to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to find meaning.”

Though she didn’t realize it at the time, Sandberg’s essay marked a clear tipping point in her journey back from the hell of a shocking loss. By opening up about her feelings, Sandberg was inviting others to support her ― including colleagues and friends who’d been unsure of what to say. The post offered guidance.

And that guidance formed the basis for Sandberg’s next project. Her latest book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, out Monday, tackles a universal yet enduringly under-discussed subject: grief.

While her Silicon Valley peers have worked for years on technologies that would extend life, Sandberg’s project offers up a path to happiness based not on fantasies of immortality but on the reality of the sorrow of life itself.

At the time she first posted about Goldberg’s death, Sandberg had already returned to work at Facebook, where she’d been chief operating officer for nearly a decade. She was feeling increasingly lonely.

A notoriously outgoing and collaborative manager, she was surrounded by familiar colleagues and friendly faces. Yet, with the exception of her boss, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, no one at the office seemed to know what to say to her. 

“When I came back to work there was a real feeling of isolation,” she said. “It felt like no one was talking to me.... The chitchat ground to a halt. People looked at me like I was a ghost.”

Just a few years ago, Sandberg wrote Lean In, exhorting women to be ambitious, to ask for what they want, to be their full selves at work.  

“Losing Dave brought that home for me,” she said. “My whole self was so sad.”

She found herself increasingly holed up in a conference room with Zuckerberg, hiding from the awkwardness of the office. “Mark was the person I turned to,” Sandberg said. 

Sandberg, who first met Zuckerberg when he was a 23-year-old CEO struggling with his role, has long been credited with guiding him to maturity. But this time he was helping her.

“Mark is one of the first people I called when I lost Dave,” she said. “Mark planned the funeral.” He and his wife, Priscilla, were frequent visitors to Sandberg’s house in Menlo Park during the days and weeks after Goldberg’s death. They played with Sandberg’s kids. Zuckerberg helped her son with his math homework, she said.

At work, Zuckerberg was supportive in a very traditional way, telling Sandberg to take as much time as she needed. But, crucially, he also encouraged her actual work. In one of her first meetings after she returned, Sandberg was a bit out of it, she writes. She even misidentified a colleague, and instead of criticizing her or saying something about how he understands she’s still adjusting, Zuckerberg insisted she would’ve made the mistake before Goldberg died. And, even better, also told her she made a great point in the meeting. In short, he made her feel valued.

Sometimes people just need someone to tell them they’re doing OK, and that is key to helping a colleague in grief, Sandberg said. She wanted to feel like she was still a productive worker. “I had no idea how he knew ― I am older and I didn’t know how to do these things. I don’t think this is me teaching him, it’s him teaching me,” she said.

Typically, no one knows what to say to someone who is suffering a loss or an illness or a trauma, Sandberg said. “You want to silence a room? Get cancer. Have a friend or a family member who goes to prison. Lose a job,” she said. “We isolate ourselves.” 

In her post, Sandberg offered guidance on what to say.

“When people say to me, ‘You and your children will find happiness again,’ my heart tells me, Yes, I believe that, but I know I will never feel pure joy again. Those who have said, ‘You will find a new normal, but it will never be as good’ comfort me more because they know and speak the truth,’” she wrote in her post.

“Even a simple ‘How are you?’—almost always asked with the best of intentions— is better replaced with ‘How are you today?’ When I am asked ‘How are you?’ I stop myself from shouting, My husband died a month ago, how do you think I am? When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day.”

Sandberg was opening up about death in a real way. For many who’ve struggled with grief, to read an honest piece from the accomplished executive, about a subject so taboo and painful, was a revelation. The post today has more than 400,000 shares, close to 1 million likes and tens of thousands of comments.

The effect for Sandberg was immediate, she said. “Everyone started saying, ‘How are you today?’” Sandberg said. People started telling her about their own experiences with loss.

“I felt connected to a larger experience of life. There’s so much hardship out there,” she said. “The grief didn’t change, but the isolation did. I felt so much less alone.”

When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day. Sheryl Sandberg

Like Lean In, the new book is part memoir. She writes of the agony of telling her two young children, just 7 and 10 years old, that their father was dead. “I have terrible news. Terrible,” she told them. “Daddy died.”

“The screaming and crying that followed haunt me to this day,” she writes.

The book is also a practical guide for handling grief and adversity. With her coauthor, and friend, psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant, Sandberg lays out anecdotes ― she’s spoken with rape survivors, people who’ve gone to prison, refugees ―  and research on perseverance and resilience.

Acutely aware that she’s a billionaire privileged beyond all imagining, Sandberg is extremely careful to write about the suffering of others. In conversation, she acknowledges her privilege repeatedly. When asked about her struggles to parent as a single mother, she demurred. “So many people have immense hardship.” 

In Sandbergian fashion she has also launched a website, OptionB.org, where people can turn for support and guidance in the face of loss.

Surely, an unintentional side benefit to Sandberg’s latest project is that she’s essentially made the case for Facebook ― it offers human connection ― at a time when the social network is under criticism for increasing political polarization.

The new book and website is an attempt to open up conversations about difficult subjects on a mass scale, furthering Facebook’s ostensible mission.

Sandberg found her husband, already dead, on the floor in a hotel gym in Mexico where the two were celebrating a friend’s birthday. Sandberg had unwittingly spoken her last words to him, “I’m falling asleep,” while laying poolside earlier that day, ending a game of Settlers of Catan they were playing on their iPads. That afternoon she had told her son she’d have to talk to his dad before they could make a decision about buying new sneakers.

An autopsy would later confirm that Goldberg, who was CEO of Survey Monkey and a well-known Silicon Valley figure, had a fatal cardiac arrhythmia, caused by coronary artery disease, while running on the treadmill.

They were married for 11 years; friends for longer than that.  

Now she’s dating again. “I never wanted to,” she said. “I wanted to spend my life with Dave. That’s a choice I don’t get to make.”

Sandberg, who is 47-years-old, used to joke about getting older. No more. “There’s only two choices we grow older or we don’t,” she said. “I took it for granted I would grow old and Dave would grow old. It never occurred to me we wouldn’t,” she said.

Finding growth and ultimately joy is the project of Option B. Sandberg makes a point of emphasizing this aspect. The title echoes something a friend told her after Goldberg’s passing. 

When Sandberg was sad she couldn’t bring Goldberg to a school event and had to find someone else to fill in. “But I want Dave,” she said to her friend, as she recounted in her post and again in the book. “He put his arm around me and said, ‘Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of Option B.’ “

A chronic over-achiever, Sandberg has definitely lived up to that plan. After Goldberg’s death, she was just struggling to make it through the day she said. But with this book it’s clear that the Harvard MBA, former Google executive is just as ambitious as ever.

Still, things have changed. Sandberg said she travels much less than she used to. Long gone are the days of hosting women’s dinners at her house, she said. “Dave covered when I would have a women’s dinner,” she said. “I don’t do those things anymore.” But she quickly added: “So many people have so much hardship. That’s not what I mourn for. Of course, I had to make big changes.”

And when asked her about her career goals, she pivoted, saying it’s important to live your dreams and find things you want to do. “Even small silly things,” she said. “I’m a really bad piano player and I sing worse, but in those moments I can’t think about anything else. I won’t pretend the grief doesn’t still hit.”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2q942Yp

[pat78701]

Why Sheryl Sandberg Decided To Speak Openly About Losing Her Husband

Nearly two years ago, Sheryl Sandberg poured 1,743 words of raw emotion into a Facebook post that essentially made everyone on the internet cry.

Her husband, Dave Goldberg, had died suddenly at the age of 47, not even 30 days earlier. The calendar marked the end of the traditional Jewish mourning period for spouses, but she hardly felt done with grief. Sandberg wasn’t even sure she would hit publish, the Facebook executive told HuffPost last week. She wrote feverishly, put it aside and went to bed.

The post was her desperate attempt to connect with friends and coworkers from whom she felt increasingly isolated in her mourning. “I woke up and thought, this is so bad. And I hit post,” she said.

The writing is pure heartbreak. Sandberg writes over and over about her sadness. About mothering her children while they screamed and cried in pain. “I have lived thirty years in these thirty days. I am thirty years sadder. I feel like I am thirty years wiser,” she writes. “When tragedy occurs, it presents a choice. You can give in to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to find meaning.”

Though she didn’t realize it at the time, Sandberg’s essay marked a clear tipping point in her journey back from the hell of a shocking loss. By opening up about her feelings, Sandberg was inviting others to support her ― including colleagues and friends who’d been unsure of what to say. The post offered guidance.

And that guidance formed the basis for Sandberg’s next project. Her latest book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, out Monday, tackles a universal yet enduringly under-discussed subject: grief.

While her Silicon Valley peers have worked for years on technologies that would extend life, Sandberg’s project offers up a path to happiness based not on fantasies of immortality but on the reality of the sorrow of life itself.

At the time she first posted about Goldberg’s death, Sandberg had already returned to work at Facebook, where she’d been chief operating officer for nearly a decade. She was feeling increasingly lonely.

A notoriously outgoing and collaborative manager, she was surrounded by familiar colleagues and friendly faces. Yet, with the exception of her boss, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, no one at the office seemed to know what to say to her. 

“When I came back to work there was a real feeling of isolation,” she said. “It felt like no one was talking to me.... The chitchat ground to a halt. People looked at me like I was a ghost.”

Just a few years ago, Sandberg wrote Lean In, exhorting women to be ambitious, to ask for what they want, to be their full selves at work.  

“Losing Dave brought that home for me,” she said. “My whole self was so sad.”

She found herself increasingly holed up in a conference room with Zuckerberg, hiding from the awkwardness of the office. “Mark was the person I turned to,” Sandberg said. 

Sandberg, who first met Zuckerberg when he was a 23-year-old CEO struggling with his role, has long been credited with guiding him to maturity. But this time he was helping her.

“Mark is one of the first people I called when I lost Dave,” she said. “Mark planned the funeral.” He and his wife, Priscilla, were frequent visitors to Sandberg’s house in Menlo Park during the days and weeks after Goldberg’s death. They played with Sandberg’s kids. Zuckerberg helped her son with his math homework, she said.

At work, Zuckerberg was supportive in a very traditional way, telling Sandberg to take as much time as she needed. But, crucially, he also encouraged her actual work. In one of her first meetings after she returned, Sandberg was a bit out of it, she writes. She even misidentified a colleague, and instead of criticizing her or saying something about how he understands she’s still adjusting, Zuckerberg insisted she would’ve made the mistake before Goldberg died. And, even better, also told her she made a great point in the meeting. In short, he made her feel valued.

Sometimes people just need someone to tell them they’re doing OK, and that is key to helping a colleague in grief, Sandberg said. She wanted to feel like she was still a productive worker. “I had no idea how he knew ― I am older and I didn’t know how to do these things. I don’t think this is me teaching him, it’s him teaching me,” she said.

Typically, no one knows what to say to someone who is suffering a loss or an illness or a trauma, Sandberg said. “You want to silence a room? Get cancer. Have a friend or a family member who goes to prison. Lose a job,” she said. “We isolate ourselves.” 

In her post, Sandberg offered guidance on what to say.

“When people say to me, ‘You and your children will find happiness again,’ my heart tells me, Yes, I believe that, but I know I will never feel pure joy again. Those who have said, ‘You will find a new normal, but it will never be as good’ comfort me more because they know and speak the truth,’” she wrote in her post.

“Even a simple ‘How are you?’—almost always asked with the best of intentions— is better replaced with ‘How are you today?’ When I am asked ‘How are you?’ I stop myself from shouting, My husband died a month ago, how do you think I am? When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day.”

Sandberg was opening up about death in a real way. For many who’ve struggled with grief, to read an honest piece from the accomplished executive, about a subject so taboo and painful, was a revelation. The post today has more than 400,000 shares, close to 1 million likes and tens of thousands of comments.

The effect for Sandberg was immediate, she said. “Everyone started saying, ‘How are you today?’” Sandberg said. People started telling her about their own experiences with loss.

“I felt connected to a larger experience of life. There’s so much hardship out there,” she said. “The grief didn’t change, but the isolation did. I felt so much less alone.”

When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day. Sheryl Sandberg

Like Lean In, the new book is part memoir. She writes of the agony of telling her two young children, just 7 and 10 years old, that their father was dead. “I have terrible news. Terrible,” she told them. “Daddy died.”

“The screaming and crying that followed haunt me to this day,” she writes.

The book is also a practical guide for handling grief and adversity. With her coauthor, and friend, psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant, Sandberg lays out anecdotes ― she’s spoken with rape survivors, people who’ve gone to prison, refugees ―  and research on perseverance and resilience.

Acutely aware that she’s a billionaire privileged beyond all imagining, Sandberg is extremely careful to write about the suffering of others. In conversation, she acknowledges her privilege repeatedly. When asked about her struggles to parent as a single mother, she demurred. “So many people have immense hardship.” 

In Sandbergian fashion she has also launched a website, OptionB.org, where people can turn for support and guidance in the face of loss.

Surely, an unintentional side benefit to Sandberg’s latest project is that she’s essentially made the case for Facebook ― it offers human connection ― at a time when the social network is under criticism for increasing political polarization.

The new book and website is an attempt to open up conversations about difficult subjects on a mass scale, furthering Facebook’s ostensible mission.

Sandberg found her husband, already dead, on the floor in a hotel gym in Mexico where the two were celebrating a friend’s birthday. Sandberg had unwittingly spoken her last words to him, “I’m falling asleep,” while laying poolside earlier that day, ending a game of Settlers of Catan they were playing on their iPads. That afternoon she had told her son she’d have to talk to his dad before they could make a decision about buying new sneakers.

An autopsy would later confirm that Goldberg, who was CEO of Survey Monkey and a well-known Silicon Valley figure, had a fatal cardiac arrhythmia, caused by coronary artery disease, while running on the treadmill.

They were married for 11 years; friends for longer than that.  

Now she’s dating again. “I never wanted to,” she said. “I wanted to spend my life with Dave. That’s a choice I don’t get to make.”

Sandberg, who is 47-years-old, used to joke about getting older. No more. “There’s only two choices we grow older or we don’t,” she said. “I took it for granted I would grow old and Dave would grow old. It never occurred to me we wouldn’t,” she said.

Finding growth and ultimately joy is the project of Option B. Sandberg makes a point of emphasizing this aspect. The title echoes something a friend told her after Goldberg’s passing. 

When Sandberg was sad she couldn’t bring Goldberg to a school event and had to find someone else to fill in. “But I want Dave,” she said to her friend, as she recounted in her post and again in the book. “He put his arm around me and said, ‘Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of Option B.’ “

A chronic over-achiever, Sandberg has definitely lived up to that plan. After Goldberg’s death, she was just struggling to make it through the day she said. But with this book it’s clear that the Harvard MBA, former Google executive is just as ambitious as ever.

Still, things have changed. Sandberg said she travels much less than she used to. Long gone are the days of hosting women’s dinners at her house, she said. “Dave covered when I would have a women’s dinner,” she said. “I don’t do those things anymore.” But she quickly added: “So many people have so much hardship. That’s not what I mourn for. Of course, I had to make big changes.”

And when asked her about her career goals, she pivoted, saying it’s important to live your dreams and find things you want to do. “Even small silly things,” she said. “I’m a really bad piano player and I sing worse, but in those moments I can’t think about anything else. I won’t pretend the grief doesn’t still hit.”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2q942Yp