Intentional Living: Finding Meaning and Inner Growth from Grief with Nick Shaw

When William died, he was here one second, gone the next. I mean, it's that fast, right? It can happen in the blink of an eye and it gives you a real appreciation that this is it, this is the one life we have to live and so we need to be more intentional with how we're going to live it.

Hey there friends. Welcome to Happiness Squad. This is the podcast dedicated to helping you unlock your full potential by mastering the art and science of happiness. We bring on the best leading experts on these topics to help you unlock your true potential and live with more joy, health, love and meaning in your life. Your host is no other than the star combo of Ashish Katari and Anil Ramjiani who are both on a mission to provide you with an unfair advantage to be the masters of your experience and leaders in your industry. Get ready to be moved, challenged and enlightened on this podcast. It may change your life. Thanks for being here and joining the squad.

Hey Happiness Squad. It's great to have you with Asha, Sh and I as we host guests.

Who are industry leaders helping individuals and organizations to unlock inner happiness and flourishing. Have you ever imagined your child as your teacher? Our next guest shares his beautiful story that I imagine will resonate with each of you. Meet Nick Shaw, an accomplished executive, coach, author and speaker known for his profound insights into personal transformation, self discovery and authentic leadership. In 2009, Nick and his wife Susie lost their nine year old son in a tragic ski accident that changed both his and the lives of his wife and two sons forever. Through much reflection and soul searching, Nick has realized that the need to help others find ways of living more intentional and meaningful lives. With the 2023 release of his debut book, My Teacher, My Son Lessons on Life, Loss and Love, Nick invites readers to embark on an introspective journey of their own. Nick is the co founder of Mirabox Leadership Lab, an executive coaching and leadership development consulting firm. Utilizing individuals real life experiences, Mirabox's goal is to help senior level leaders and executive teams bring about meaningful change in service of their personal and organizational growth. During this heartfelt and inspiring episode, Ashish, Nick and I delve into the journey that led Nick on his mission to help those that typically turn inwards into despair after a tragedy or breakdown in their life. Nick shares several lessons that he's learned from William as well as how to jumpstart your life again through love, community, intention and gratitude. Stay tuned till the end where Nick shares his definition of happiness following this tragedy as well as so much more and learn about the William, Be yourself Challenge. We hope the tips and practices that we share can help you as a parent and non parent equally because it was truly eye opening for me. Join us and I as we welcome Nick to the Happiness Squad podcast.

Ashish. Nick, it is an absolute pleasure to be here. Nick, I've not met you properly and I know Ashish and you've spoken before this, but when I was looking into your story, it really touched my heart. I just want to start out with that because as we share the first question with our listeners, Nick, I'd love for you to start by telling us a bit about your background and what prompted you to write your book. My teacher, My Son.

Sure. Well, first off, very happy to be here with you guys. It's, you know, I'm really looking forward to our conversation. My background, so what I do in my day job, so to speak, I'm an executive coach. I'm co founder of a leadership development company, company called Mirrorbox Leadership Lab. I work with executives and teams to help them be more effective and be better leaders. Essentially why I wrote this book. So this book spawned from a tragedy. Just almost five years ago now, while on a ski vacation in Big Sky Montana, my nine year old son William died in a freaking tragic ski accident. And as you guys can imagine, this sent me, my family, into just a spiral of uncertainty, a spiral of chaos. It's just our world was shattered. And as I was going into the depths of grief, I had an instinct to try to figure out how can I make meaning out of this situation, this event that seemed so random and so senseless and so that was something that drove me to then really use this experience as a way of learning how I could live my life differently. And as I captured my thoughts and my feelings, I just felt I needed to share it with the world because from my experience as a coach, I've coached many people who I feel what I call being on autopilot and just kind of floating through life not as fulfilled or as happy as they can be. And I thought the lessons that I learned, why not share that with the world to help people find more meaning in their lives.

Thank you Nick and Nick, your book by father My Son has a title that is as you and I were sharing, like I call my son, my teacher, my biggest teacher. And there is so much that we can learn from. When you sent me a copy, I as I said I couldn't stop reading it because it pulled on so many strings and it also grounded in me the journey that you were on and Actually, in certain ways, gave conviction, you know, around the work that we are doing at Happiness Squad. Because a lot of people think about happiness as just an emotion. It's, you know, it's what you feel when you get what you want. Yeah, sometimes when you get what you didn't expect to get, which is good, right? Oh, my God. Like. But they don't think about this as is a core way of being. These practices that, by the way, not just help you be happier, but actually help you be more adaptable, be more resilient. And oftentimes we don't start to start to learn these things till we actually have a tragedy that hits us. We don't turn inwards till then. So the question I have for you is as you describe in your book, Bring it to Life for our listeners, you, your own journey, Nick, from that tragic day of how you were able to cope with it. Something that, you know, so many families break apart, they never recover. Individuals never recover from some of this. But not only were you able to move through that, but you actually grew from it. You know, you tell the story about your Bodhi in the book. So talk to us a little bit about what helped you really cope with. With such a tragic loss and overcome that pain and sadness.

Yeah, I think there were a couple of factors because initially, when, you know, in the sort of days, weeks and even early months after something like this happens, you go to pretty dark places. You know, I was cracked open, you know, which means all aspects of who I was were just raw and exposed. And when that happens, your initial reaction is to want no part of that. It's scary. It's scary to sort of delve into aspects of yourself that are just either you buried or just are negative or whatever the adjective. And so initially you look away and as we know, the more you push something away, the harder it comes back at you and the more you fight it, just the darker and darker and deeper and deeper into despair you go. And I remember I was in a particularly dark moment where I just didn't know how I was going to get through this. And you can imagine your head goes to some pretty dark places in those moments. But there was this sort of, kind of in the back, maybe came from my subconscious. There was this sort of. It was quiet at first, but eventually this. Something more hopeful started to emerge for me. And this mantra came to me, which is, what would William want? What would William want from me? What would William want for our family? Would he want me to do something silly and cause more suffering? For either myself or my family? Would he want us to be in a total state of despair for the rest of our lives? Would he want our family to break apart? Would he want his younger brother Kai to suffer even more? And the answer is a resounding no. And so that was a big part of that, was having a mantra, a purpose, something to look towards, to pull you out of it. Because when I came up, when that sort of came to me, I realized the only way I could honor William is by doing the work, is by actually taking a look at those aspects of myself that I didn't want to look at and actually facing them head on. That was one piece that helped me, I think. The other piece that helped me, I think my profession as a coach helped me because as a coach, as you know, you're a little bit more knowledgeable in aspects of human behavior and practices around resilience and things of that nature. I also, through different periods of my life, was a meditator and a journaler. So those things all helped me process everything.

Yeah. You know, I love the chapter and you know that you have WWW what would William want? Right. It is so powerful because it's powerful. And it spoke to me, Nick, for a couple of reasons. I think the first one is when anybody goes through something as tragic as what you went through, but frankly, oftentimes also something not so tragic. Right. Like, I mean, you know, the focus becomes so much on me. What do I want? And it's the suffering, right? My loss. It's so much focused inward. And in that moment when you are turned inward, there is just. It's hard. You're going through a hard time. It is a dark period. And I think you can, you know, people become so much victims. You feel helpless, hopeless. All of these, will I ever get through this? Right. These things of that nature. But I think that is something which was so beautiful in what you just said is that you actually tuned from less what I want. But what would William want?

Absolutely right.

And I think that that me in literally in that moment, there was also this notion of finding meaning in life. Right. What would he want me to be? What would he want our family to be? And it's so beautiful because it orients us to something bigger.

Yeah. I mean, that's a beautiful sort of synthesis of. Because I never thought about it that way. Sort of this taking focus off of myself. And I believe that went into victim note plenty in those early days, of course. Right. Focusing on something bigger. And for me, bigger was how I honor William and how do I help my family pull through intact?

Yeah. You also talk about, you know, it crystallized for you your purpose in life. And you said, you know, my purpose in life to learn so I can teach. Yes, right. It really, I mean, I know as I heard, you know, your first part, we had very similar journeys in the first part of our lives. Right. Your father was a McKinsey senior partner. I mean, I'm very familiar with the McKinsey life. The first half of your life, you spent so much of your time training other McKinsey people.

That's right. That's right.

In your old job. Right. So I think we've in to some extent and we've walked the. I gained the 30 pounds and you've gained the 30 pounds and we've kind of went back to, back to back to back, all that craziness. Right?

Yes.

So talk to us a little bit about this event. To some way was kind of, as it said, it shattered everything, your identity, kind of what you were doing. It forced you to reimagine your life, to define that purpose, to learn. So I can teach. So talk to us a little bit more about that.

Yeah. So I think for me, one of the biggest lessons that I've taken from this. Well, number one, it's just how fragile life can be. Yes, right. I mean, when William died, he was here one second, gone the next. I mean, it's that fast. Right. It can happen in a blink of an eye. And it gives you a real appreciation that this is it, this is the one life we have to live. And so we need to be more intentional with how we're going to live it. I think a big part of that, and I see too few people doing this in our society, it's just pausing, slowing down, taking stock of what's going on, checking in with yourself. Are you happy? I think that's a question that too many people don't ask themselves until it's too late. So me, this notion of pausing, I had to pause. I had to take a six month leave of absent. I had no choice but to pause. And it was extremely uncomfortable at first because I've been so used to the fast paced life that I know you're familiar with. But in that pause, you know, by asking these important questions, by looking at who you are and what you're about and what you aspire to be and what your purpose is, that is the recipe to find meaning. And again, I think more people need to learn how to do that. And it doesn't mean you have to take six months off, but I think you can even pause, have micro pauses throughout your days, weeks and months.

Absolutely. And this is why this work is. You know, it's so resonant that like when I read your book, I was like, oh, my God. Right? There's so many of these things that you just kind of tuned into and kind of did, right? This notion of how fragile life can be. How many of us, if you're listening, dear friends, think about this for a moment. How many of you spend most of your time planning for the future or living in the past versus in the moment? And some of us do it by like, hey, I'm gonna work really hard. I'm gonna take vacation two years from now or a year from now, but I just need to work through right now, right? Or it might even be a day thing, right? Like, hey, I'm not gonna work out today, I'll work out tomorrow. We live in this illusion that we have timeless lives. We don't know we could lose in a moment what we have in a day, what we have. And so this notion of living with present in the present moment and treating every moment as if it is our last and it is somebody else's last, right? I'm reminded of the story, Nick, I'm sure you've read it too, because we've read Viktor Frankl and we've been down similar journey of reading in our own discovery pathways too, right? And I'm reminded of this story I read. I don't know exactly where I read it, but it was a story which is set in World War II. And it's about this Jewish girl and her younger brother who were about to be put on a train, right, to one of the concentration camps. And they had lost their parents. They didn't know where they were. They were very young. And this boy was playing on the platform, right? He didn't know the horrors of what he was about to go through or anybody else was going through in that moment. And when they got on the train, he had forgotten his shoes. And it was the dead of the winter. And his sister got so upset at him to say, how can you be so irresponsible to not take care of your shoes? And, you know, it was a story where she was reflecting, she survived the camps, he didn't. And she said, that was the last exchange I had. And I could never forgive myself that my last exchange with my brother was not an exchange of love, but of chastisation. And it's a reminder of being in the present. Right. Treating every moment as if it's a loss. Let's not push things out because we don't know it. Right? We just don't know it.

It's a beautiful story. It's an unfortunate but beautiful story that you just shared. That's one of the reasons I decided to write this book. One of the things when I lost William, I was. And as a parent, I would imagine this is common. You try to put yourself in their shoes. What was it like in that split second right before it happened? Right. And it caused you to question, like, what was it like for him and what will it be like for me? And then I started thinking, well, what was he thinking right in that minute second, whatever, before he died and he had just skied on the top of the mountain, had the run of his life, he was doing it with his father, who he loved and looked up to. I'm almost positive he was happy. Whatever that last thought, he was happy. And then when I think about the things I used to think about for way too much of my time, I then fast forward to what will my last thought be like? And I kind of realized that if left to chance, my last thought might not be like William's was. It will be worrying about something completely.

You know, stupid would be irrelevant.

Yeah. And so. And I said, that's tragic, right? That for that to be the last thing that you might experience in your life. And I know we can't control, we don't want to over control it, but I think if we have practices to be more mindful, more present, at least gives us a shot of having a more hopeful last thought.

I'm just reflecting as I listen to both of you. So both of you are fathers. I'm not a father, I am a son. And Ashish and I, Nick, had a conversation. I remember it was back in April of this year and Ashish was like, you know, Anil, we're doing a lot of this work around happiness and around how people can integrate in their lives. But you know, there are times are going to come that aren't so happy, where the universe doesn't work for people. It may seem like it works against them when it comes to the loss of a child. And I still remember this conversation where I was sitting Ashish. And the reason why it's meaningful to me is because what Ashish opened up in my eyes when we had that conversation was I was like, you know, it's not what you do that actually defines who you are, it's what you do. After the moment. And if you give me permission, the reason why I say this is I'd love to read the poem that you wrote in your book to your son, Nick, for our listeners. My teacher, my son, at birth, you taught me to live my truth. In life, you taught me the beauty of imperfection. In death, you taught me the power of love. And I share that with the listeners for a couple reasons. But the main one is life is fragile. And in moments of despair, whether you're a father, a mother, a parent, or not, these are moments where you give yourself the space to reflect. You give yourself the moment knowing that you can build that resilience. You can build that ability to bounce back. That's a choice that you have. It may take work, it won't come easy, but the lesson that you learned and the way you shared, that I just thought was absolutely beautiful. And when I think about how you honor him and how you're looking to teach others, on the back of that, there are a couple areas. I know there's your family, Nick, that I'd like to discuss a bit more. There are leaders that you're working with, but there's also a foundation that you started. So not to get ahead of myself, I really would love to understand. Nick, how did you. After the passing of William, with your other two sons and your wife, how are you able to help pull each other through? How were you each able to support each other during this moment and bounce back, not only you as a father, but your wife as a mother and your sons as children, to really not only honor William's memory, but then really come back together as a stronger family unit?

Yeah. So there's, I guess, a couple ways that that unfolded. I. In the earliest moments after this happened, I mean, even in the hours, days. Right. My wife and I were pretty resolute in the fact that we were not going to let this destroy our family. I mean, we just. We looked each other in the eye. Even the way she addressed me when she first found out, which I think is one of the most beautiful things I've ever experienced. So when. When I was. I was in the clinic, I had found out that William died before she did. And I was waiting for her to come. And when I told her, she obviously initially had an emotional reaction. She broke down. But when she composed herself, the first words she said to me were, it's not your fault. And that. I mean, just wrap your head around that. There could have been so many other reactions, but that set the tone for how we were going to survive and endure as a family. She knew how hard I was going to be on myself because I was with William when he died. And she knew what I needed to hear. And then from that moment on, we just. We had to fight for our relationship. We had to fight for Kai. We eventually would have to fight for Bodhi when he joined us. So that was one piece of it. We set the intention that we are going to pull through. We're going to do it for our family. We're going to do it because it's what William would have wanted. I think the other piece that was helpful is that, you know, grief is intensely personal. And I believe it's unique for every different person, which meant that my wife did it very differently than I did it. My wife's an extrovert, I'm an introvert. She. She was a lot more emotive than I was, but there's never any judgment about that. We gave each other the space to grieve in the way that was how we needed to do it. And there was never, you know, why aren't you this way? Or why aren't you that way? So that. I think that was another important part of it. You know, with respect to my younger son kai, who was 6 at the time, I say this in the book. You know, if this was going to happen, being six years old was a perfect time for it to happen because he was old enough to remember his brother, but not old enough to really understand what's going on, which meant he looked at it from a very sort of naive, but also a very resilient way. And so he modeled for us many times on the importance of being resilient through this awful situation that happened to us.

Nick, as we were exchanging, you shared this insight, right? The nine practices. My book is a how to. But you lived through them. And I could feel it through the stories and how all of these kind of came to life for you and kind of so helped you. Right. But even this particular one, when I read it, I had a chill that went through me. Like, literally this notion of, I can imagine what you must have been feeling in that moment. The complexity of emotions going through you. Right when she walked in and you knew. We can talk cognitively, but talk about your feeling of when her act was that of forgiveness and of saying it's not your fault.

Yeah, it was. Honestly, the first feeling or emotion I had was relief. I mean, I was scared to death, you know, as I was waiting for her and realizing that I was gonna have to break the news. And because I was with William, I was envisioning all the worst possible things. Right. Oh, she's gonna hate me. She's gonna divorce me. This is the end. You know, everything, it all went just profound guilt. It was just. It was tearing me apart. And so in that moment when she said that, it was a tremendous relief. You go through so much with something like this happens. Any little thing can push you over the edge. And if she had had a different reaction, which would have been understandable, I don't know what it would have done. So it just, it took one thing. It just gave me a little bit more breathing room to make it through.

Yeah. And that was the choice. Right. It's to me, I can't wait to meet her. And I know we will. We get a chance to do that. I was like, it really made me. In that moment. We were actually. We were skiing back then. I was in Breckenridge and I was like reflecting, you know, would I be able to do that?

Yeah.

Something that she just. And it's in the moment. Right. You know, afterwards we always, you know, we're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But like in that moment and I'm just. I have so much respect for her and also admiration for the bond of love and the foundation that you must have in place with her all the way through it.

Absolutely. I mean, and again, that was. They're micro moments. Right. And that was a micro moment that had a. A massive impact on our ability to heal and to come through this as a family.

Yeah. And you end that chapter with your learning, your insight. Right. Which is choose love and self love. Because even if she didn't say it's not your fault, we know internally what stories. Right. Keep coming up. And the second one is choose forgiveness. Choose forgiveness for self. And the other, because forgiveness is critical. Right. Towards healing.

It's the only way forward, to be honest with you. And it's about being more compassionate with others and ourselves. I mean, at the end of the day, one of your practices is fuel up with compassion. And honestly, I had to build that muscle in this process. I have historically not been the most self compassionate person. I'm my own worst enemy, as many people are. And if I had gone down that road again, things would have been different or could have been different. But self compassion or getting to that point, because it's what William would have wanted, helped me pull through.

Yeah. It's really, really beautiful. You know, the other story in there that so spoke to me, Nick, was the power of community.

Yeah.

So talk a little bit about that, because, again, you know, I mean, you had that there, but it was because, consciously or unconsciously, you had built it. You talk about dig your well before you get thirsty.

Yeah.

So talk about the role the community played for you in this, in all of you coming forward.

Sure. That whole experience, how the community rallied around us was. It's just a thing of beauty. I mean, I got to experience one of the most beautiful aspects of humanity I'd ever experienced. So it's a bit of background. I grew up in New York City. Like, community was not something I grew up with. You know, New York City, you live in apartments. You go into your apartments, the world is shut out, and you're in your own little bubble. So I never experienced community like that. And that was a question mark. We live in a small town, only 5,000 people. The Nexus of the town is the school. So everybody. Most of the people in our town have children. How are they going to look at us? Here is a family who lost a child. I mean, many people might want to look away because it's uncomfortable, right. Because it's too close to home, so to speak. But the Carlisle community did the exact opposite thing. They embraced us. They did everything in their power to make us feel less alone and every. And small acts. It was, you know, doing our laundry, making meals. It was taking care of all of the details around planning William's funeral. I mean, it was just. It was beautiful. And it's interesting because I've been reflecting a lot on my experience of writing this book. And the book has. Each chapter starts with a poem. And the first poem I wrote was called Love Manifest. And it was the love of the community. That sort of, I believe, allowed me to tap into a side of myself. I mean, I've never written a poem before. It allowed me to tap into a side of myself that I think were the earliest beginnings of this book. So it's kind of the community, the love that I experienced was the impetus for this book.

Would you read that for us?

Sure. Yeah. Let me just call it up real quick.

I have it in front of me, but I'd love to hear it in your voice. And I know our listeners well.

Love is small green ribbons affixed around town. Love is a community enveloping a grieving family. Love is travelers near and far coming to pay their respects. Love is a moment of lucidity amidst the fog. Love is connecting in a way you haven't before. Love is a wife being strong when her husband is falling apart. Love Is the smile on a six year old's face as he sees a picture of his brother. Love is the pain I feel in my heart. Love is the gift my son gave to the world.

Hi friends. We hope you're enjoying the tips discussed in this episode. If you're on the career treadmill, seeking the next promotion, experiencing stress and anxiety, or reach the top of your career and wondering if the sacrifices to get there were worth it, Ashish and I have been there and we're ready to support you. The happiness squad rewire program is designed to integrate the nine hardwired for happiness.

Practices into your day.

Within five minutes form proven habits to experience more success, resilience, satisfaction and creativity. You won't be alone in your journey. Check out the rewire link in the show notes. Make happiness your competitive edge to achieve your goals. Now back to the episode.

You know, I just listening to that, I just have to say to both of you, I know. Hey guys, we've gone off script for the listeners. I this. What's, what's beautiful about this conversation is this is not a head conversation. This is a truly heart led conversation because what you just shared there, Nick, is beautiful. It's powerful for one's loss to basically not only build a community, bring that community together, but to unlock things in you that you didn't even truly realize. And back to your point of, you know, what would William want? He would want this, he would want that community to come together. He would want you to be one with them and for them to be part of you. I think, you know, I would love for you maybe to share with us a little bit like how are you leveraging the power of what if? So one of, one of my coaches back in the day said to me, you know, hey, it's beautiful and ill sometimes when you worry.

Anil, before you go there, can I just read a little bit on the love manifest? It's the last part of Nick's book and it just spoke so deeply to me. But I think it's. The words are so beautiful.

Of course, yes.

And I think it's again a reminder of the day to day moments that we forget, you know, we think about love on Valentine's Day when you're teenagers. Well, I guess you think about love all the time when you're teenagers, but that's not really love.

That's something else.

Right? That's something else. And. But you think about love, you know, in moments like birthdays and anniversaries, et cetera. And we don't really Talk about love in workplaces, we don't really talk about love in everyday interactions, we don't really talk about love when we are talking to our neighbors, right? That's not what's present. But I wanted to read this because it again, deeply, deeply touched me. And here's what you wrote. You said love, which is such a deep part of our humanity, doesn't have to be reserved exclusively for the most sensational moments of our lives. It can thrive beyond the magnificent and the tragic if we allow it to. Love can flourish in our everyday interactions and our mundane moments. We are bound together by our shared humanity. The problem is that we forget it sometimes. We forget that inside of us is a longing to love and be loved. We let our ego driven fears determine how we see others, often subsuming or diminishing their humanity. And you invite us, right, to remind ourselves when we are engaging with another, remember that there stands another human being, Someone just like me. Someone who likely shares the same basic needs that I do. Someone who will be filled with happiness when something great happens and someone who will be devastated by a tragic loss. If we could remember this and open ourselves to others, acts of love and kindness with abound. I just wanted to read that because it was so beautifully put and it's such an important reminder of the power of love and also connects so deeply to the present moment. Conversation we had earlier.

I think sometimes the word love almost does a disservice to love because we tend to frame it as this, as you say, as teenagers would, or this big thing and we have holidays to celebrate it. But it is just about connecting one human to another, right? It's about seeing, understanding, empathizing, being with another. And especially now, I mean, we all know that the horrible atrocities are going on around the world. And for what? Because we don't see another human being, we see another. We just see another, you know, and why. And if we can just remember. And I recently made a post about this, like even my worst enemy, right? And I don't have a lot of enemies. I don't think I have any enemies, but let's assume I did. I know beyond a shadow of doubt that if my worst enemy lost his child, he would feel the exact same thing I did. Because we're both human, right? But we forget that because it's our fears, it's our ego, it's, you know, self preservation or whatever. And I don't know if we could bring more of that into this world. I think, as I say, I think the world would Be a better place.

No. And I mean, it just comes up for me, you know, like what you're saying right now, like, even if we shift a little bit and we think about right in the middle of and we take ourselves to the Middle east, we can talk about this as a conflict. We can talk about the atrocities. Right. That Hamas did. But in this moment, there are so many parents, There are so many parents who lost their children in Israel, and there are so many parents who are losing children in Palestine, right, in Gaza. I mean, there is so much tragedy happening right now, and it doesn't matter who you are, but the pain is the same. Right? And love is as hard in those moments is also something that we can leverage and harness. As hard as this as has, like, on the two ends of the spectrum, it can be.

Absolutely. And I think that's where we have to find a way to not let our egos, our fears, get in the way, because those are the things that get in the way of our capacity to love.

No, I agree with you both. I just on the back of that, you know, we had a beautiful guest, Shawna Shapiro with us, Nick, a few weeks back, and there was a story she shared with us about how it took her time to be able to say out loud to herself, you know, good morning, Shauna, I love you. Ever since she said that, the reflection I've had on the back of each of you have just said is, it's so easy for us to use vulgarity. How quick are we to raise our middle finger if something rubs us the wrong way, someone does something us the wrong way. It is so easy to use vulgarity. Why is it so difficult for us to say love or I love you and just be intentional about it? It costs us nothing. But yet we have this tendency. And you know, what disturbs me sometimes is it takes a tragedy sometimes for people to appreciate and to be able to say such things.

Things.

And that's just, you know, it's just, how can this become the norm? How can integrating that type of self compassion, that type of kindness, that type of gratitude start to permeate daily? And we don't need a tragedy in different parts of the world in our lives for us to be able to express that emotion to each other. That's where I wanted to go with my next question for you, Nick, is the power of what if, right? So if we are able to take what we're all seeing, what we're all experiencing, and go from worrying to wonder. And as you both have just mentioned, people are going through and struggling and coping with pain and difficulty every day. What would be your advice to our listeners? How can they start to imagine the power of what if? How can they start to imagine a change they can make in their own life or in the lives of others to come out of that pain stronger, with more kindness, more love, rather than more despair, more hate and more fear?

Yeah.

Especially when asked looking forward, because I can imagine if you looked back, there is a lot of like, I don't think that's a place. You know, past is the past.

Yes.

Especially looking forward.

Yeah. And actually what I have to say, it relates to that because I think it is about leaving the past in the past. And to do that, you have to accept what happened and accept what is. This took me a long time to get there in my journey of grief and processing and making meaning. But it's only when we accept what is that we can actually move forward. And I was guilty of this. I was fighting what is. I was not accepting what is. I was bitter about what is. I was the victim about what is and what happened to William and our family. But if the only way forward is to finally one day is just to get to that place and accept what is, it doesn't mean you have to be happy or that you can't be upset by what is. But the more you fight it, the more you take yourself out of the present moment and even the possibility to think about sort of the what ifs for the future. And I know that's not an easy place for a lot of people to get to initially. And I guess my counsel is don't try to get there too quickly because it's a process. You're not going to get the acceptance of what is right away. But at some point, if you have any hopes of making that shift, that shift in mindset, that moving forward type of a way, you have to get to acceptance.

Yeah. And such an important way to think about. Right. Especially both reconciling, accepting, surrendering. You have a chapter on letting go.

Yeah.

Right. Really surrendering. Truly, truly surrendering to what is. Because there is no what if anymore in the past. What is is what is. Right. You can ask questions all day, you want about what if and why. And I think they don't really go down. They're just. They don't go anywhere. They can't go anywhere. But what if is such a powerful question because what if opens up a range of possibilities that you get to choose from. What if I did X? What if I did Y. Right. And it's so important, you know, I think, Nick, also for in, you know, you do a lot of coaching work and you do a lot of leadership development work. That is such a powerful question for leaders. That's what if we don't dream enough? We don't ask that question enough. We like to tell people what to do.

Yeah. We put our blinders on. Right. We look to the past to inform how we should be in the now or in the future. We close off possibility. And that's a beautiful. That's the power of what if. It dares you to think out of the proverbial box and explore new possibilities. I mean, it's one of the most powerful coaching questions. That and why, I think, are the two most powerful coaching questions there are, you know.

Yeah. And the other part of this, which is also so powerful with the what if? And it comes from these moments remind us, or even hearing about these moments for some, those who are lucky to hear this. Right. Remind us that we think we are in control. We're not. We're not. Like, that's part of the reason we don't want to ask what if. Right. They're like, no, no, no. But something could happen that I can't. I didn't think about. But we are not. We're not in control.

Yeah. I mean, I will tell you from my experience, we are absolutely not in control. We are absolutely not in control. And I played the what if? Game I replayed that day a gazillion times to see if I would have done anything differently. I wouldn't have. There's nothing I would have done that day. If you had asked me to repeat that day a million times, I wouldn't have done a single thing differently. But a random series of events, and I have a chapter dedicated to this came together and caused what happened to happen. And there is nothing I could do to prevent it. We are not in control. And the sooner we can accept that. So back to the topic of acceptance. Then I think possibility can emerge.

Yes. And we can move with that. And by the way, it is also not about friends. So we're not in control. Everything is random. And hence I should do nothing. That is also not. You should take away from this. Right. No. So talk a little bit about that, Nick.

Yeah. To just throw caution to the wind is not a wise strategy either. I think it's about being more intentional with how we choose to live our lives. Which does not mean you become a control freak. Because I. I've been known to be that as well. But just being more intentional about the choices we make can create these more hopeful what if scenarios for our future. But yeah, I don't think we just throw caution to the wind because then we just give up.

Yeah, but ground yourself in this recognition that you're not in control. You're not in control of the outcomes. You do not control what you get. But you know what? You 100% control. 100%. You control what you give that you are in control of.

Absolutely. You control what you give, how you, how you show up, how you show up, what your attitude is towards whatever happened. That's the only thing we can control.

And. Yeah. And that is the way forward. Right. We don't control what happens to us. We can control what meaning we give it.

Absolutely.

And that is the power. Right. That's like timeless wisdom. So one of the only, one of the few. But it's not the only. But one of the three main messages from the Gita. Right. One of the Hindu scriptures is Karmanyeva du karaste ma faleshu kadachan, that you should focus on your actions, but don't worry about the fruits, the outcomes, because there are so many factors out there that get into something happening or not. So choose your actions. Choose your actions and focus on them.

Ashish and I had a conversation on this just the other day about the universe. And for those of our listeners that listen to the episode with Sri Kumar Rao, the universe truly is our friend in the moment. It may not seem that way, but sometimes it's a matter of not asking what's being done. To me, it's what's being done for me or for others. And Nick, you're just an amazing example of that. And one question we always start our recordings with or podcasts with, Nick is what is your definition of happiness and how has it changed since your younger years for you? We actually wanted to adapt it because I do feel what you've just shared with us from the bottom of your heart has been beautiful. So I'd love to know, how has this event in your life changed how you define happiness?

Yeah, it's a great question. I think before this event happened, before we lost William, happiness was a thing to achieve, it was a goal, it was a milestone, it was something sort of tangible. I think for me, what's changed in my view or my framing of happiness is, you know, happiness is they're moment to moment experiences that if we pay attention, you know, we can actually have those experiences and we can't hold on to them. Too tightly because they do pass. And I have this expression in the book, you know, life is a series of peaks and valleys, and so if we hold on too tight to the peaks, then we're going to be miserable in the valleys. Happiness is moment to moment, and when we have it, we should be grateful for it. And when it's not here, we should focus on what is here. And I think that eventually will be the path back to more experiences of happiness.

And on that, you know, back to what we can do here, what we can do now. You've done something beautiful. In William's honor and memory, you started a foundation to help children grow their awareness. I love that because awareness is at the center and the heart of our nine practices. Could you just briefly, before we wrap up with a rapid fire Nick, just share with our listeners what you are looking to achieve and the purpose behind the foundation in Williams name.

Yeah. The foundation is called the Williams Be Yourself Challenge. Let me tell a quick story about why we have the be yourself because it's an important part of the story. When William was just shy of eight years old, my wife takes the boys to a Unitarian church in our town and they have this great programming for kids and they did an exercise asking, asking the kids to come up with a mantra for their coming year. Now William had grappled with anxiety. He was in therapy and not even 8 years old. What William wrote down as his mantra in bright red marker on a note card, which we still have, is be yourself. I mean, you know, people always said he was an old soul. And for not even 8 year old to sort of declare that and not only declare it, but live it. Because he did live it in that in his eighth year, he was starting to come into his own and really embrace it. Be yourself. And so we thought what better way to honor William is to obviously name this foundation in honor of him and his mantra, but also help other kids find the courage to be themselves because we see it in the news. There's a lot of tragedy that happens because people aren't afforded the right, the luxury, the space to be themselves, however that unfolds for them. And giving kids the courage to do that, I think is important. How do we get to a place where we can have more love? Well, you got to start with the kids, right? You got to teach them to be themselves. But not only be themselves, but embrace others who are being themselves. Right. That's really why we started this. Not for profit. And you know, right now it's very much been more of a Local community thing. And our aspiration is to grow beyond Carlisle, beyond Massachusetts, and, you know, get it into the world someday.

Yeah. Well, my friend, you know, be yourself requires knowing yourself. Right? Brings back to self awareness. And listen, it will be our pleasure, Nick, to really help support you and partner with you to take this to so many places and really get, you know, really use it to kind of make a difference and honor William's life and what you all are trying to do. I love the three elements of knowledge, community, and movement that are part of what you're trying to teach and what you're trying to make happen. But really, if more and more, I even imagine the power of this is we have a huge teenage mental health crisis. And they're all. And a big chunk of it is because they're trying to be someone like someone else who would be more accepted, more famous, more popular, more whatever. And this challenge of just be yourself, be your beautiful self.

Yeah. There's a big need for it, and I think that's what we hope to help out with.

William and I are soul brothers in another life. And I'll tell you this. Before I met Ashish, my hashtag was actually know you to be you. And I just want to say for him to figure that out at that age, it took me 40 years. So if we can help the youth learn that much earlier in their lives, I have the what if? And looking forward is incredibly bright and beautiful. So we just want to ask a few questions, Nick, as we wrap up. So the first one is, what is your favorite song that you like to play when you want to turn your frown upside down?

Yeah, I'm a big fan of the Lumineers. I don't know if you guys know the Lumineers. They're kind of a rock folk band. And the song's called Jo Hei. And it's a song that anytime we would come on, we'd just sing it as a family. And it just brought a smile to our face. Yeah.

Nice. What's the activity that you love to do with Kai and Bode and Susie?

All four of us? I think we love spending time at the beach. We love paddleboarding. I mean, really, anything outdoors is stuff we love to do, whether it's hiking, biking, paddleboarding, being at the beach. So those. Yeah, that's connecting with nature.

Love it. Love it. It's a really important thing to do. And the last one, Nick, is what is your favorite book?

Yeah, as you can see, I have a lot of books behind me.

Yes, I do.

No, I'LL pick one and it's a book that kind of inspired me. It was kind of the book that sort of helped me get inspired to write my own book, because when I first my book started as poems and the book that sort of inspired me was the Prophet by Khalil Gibran, which is a series of poems that have lessons in them. So that's kind of what inspired me to write poems and turn them into lessons.

I just have to say to our listeners, if you've not had a chance, my teacher, my son, I highly recommend it. We're going to share more about the foundation of the Be Yourself Nick, thank you for coming on, for sharing your story with us again through tragedy. You've created something incredibly beautiful and I just want to say thank you for sharing that with myself, Ashish and our listeners. So thank you my brother.

Thank you guys. It's been awesome to talk to like minded people.

Amen.

Thank you.

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