Exclusive interview with Melissa Dlugolecki, podcast host, business (and grief) coach, and friend

Hey, Melissa. Hi. I, um, I got tough news 2 days ago, uh, and I'll, I'll keep the person anonymous. And I know we're going right into the throes of it, which is not how you should do an interview or podcast, but I think we should because something happened yesterday. It was a 10-year anniversary. I wanna talk about that. I got a call from a friend of a friend who said she just lost her husband. The two of them were working there in their 50s. She and her husband are in good health, physically fit, and effervescence from the sky. And they both work from home, but they have different offices on the other sides of the house. And, hey, see you in a little bit. You know, kiss each other goodbye, so to speak. And they both walked to their offices. And my friend, female, uh, they had an appointment they were both going to together like 4 or 5 hours later and said, gosh, He must be alive. He's still in the office. In the office. Goes in, he's passed away. It's totally a total shock. And she's now in the throes of it. And, and you know what is happening? And I had to bite my tongue because I've learned from you. People are reaching out, saying, I'm so sorry. How can I help you? What do you need from me? There's already— we're 48 hours into this, and there's a burden placed on that person. You're the expert on, on grief. What do we do as the griever? And what do we do as the people trying to support the griever when it comes to these situations?

Oh, well, thank you for sharing. And while I know we don't typically start interviews like this, I think you and I do. So that's right.

That's right.

We kind of just, we, we've always connected on the deeper conversations. And Thank you for sharing. Sending so many prayers to your friend and, and her family. Thank you. Um, so in the book, right, that, that we have coming out, I really do speak into this a lot. It's that understanding everyone has really good intentions. So anyone who wants to help, you have a good intention.

Mm.

But now how do we allow your intention to be actually helpful? Because it's counterproductive if that good intention is conveyed in a way that isn't helpful. And so that's what I really seek to do, is to help position people. And I think positioning is an important thing. So position people to win. Now, when somebody is in intense trauma, decision making is incredibly burdensome. Any— if you think about, like, if you feel like you have a massive weight on you, any decision or question is going to add more weight. And so when we're supporting somebody in grief or trauma, we want to actually look at how do I alleviate the weight that they feel rather than add weight. Does that make sense?

I totally make sense.

Yeah. So different ways you can do this. And I think there's a chapter in the book called Authentic Grieving. And I think what's very important is to give any supporter permission to support in a way that's authentic to them. So if you love cooking, make a meal. If you love writing, write a card. If you like getting things done, just go do her laundry. Don't even ask. Just go do it. Yeah. Bring groceries, drop them off, leave them at the step. Like, if these— and be unattached. And I think that's also a very important thing, too, is that sometimes when we're supporting in grief, we want the other person to acknowledge us for our support. And I would encourage anyone who wants to be supportive to completely detach because we don't know where someone is in any moment. And if we're fully making it about the other person. It's that this helps them in the way that it helps them, in the time that it helps them. It has nothing to do with me.

So brilliant. Yeah, it's so brilliant. But let me ask you this: if, uh, if I show up to her house and say, hey, I'm doing your laundry, um, that may feel for me like I'm being invasive, that I'm inserting myself inappropriately. Should I ask for permission? Say, hey, my wife and I want to come by and just do the laundry. We're actually on our way now. Just permission to come in. Don't even need to talk. Is that kind of the way to position?

Yes, 100%. Of course, we're not going to just let ourselves in someone's house. Right, right, right. And be okay if it's a no. Yeah, if it's a no. But hey, I'd love to, you know, do your laundry, organize the house, like, you know, cut your grass, whatever it may be, mow your lawn. I think also looking at things that maybe for this particular case, her husband did. That there, that might be a void now, right?

That's so great.

Yeah, right. And so that could be cutting the lawn, that could be, you know, I'm just going to come do this, would that be okay with you? Um, I'd love to.

I know he was the grocery shopper guy, he, he'd like that and he'd go and do it. So now that's a void, right?

And that could be very triggering for her to then need to go to the grocery store. So it could even look like something not as invasive You know, laundry is a little bit more of an invasive, uh, example, but you, it was really just an example, a hypothetical, but going grocery shopping and then just dropping the groceries.

It's so, so interesting. Like in, in our house, I, I pay the bills. You know, we all, my wife and I have different roles and one of my roles is to pay the bills. We were talking about this. If I left the planet today, um, there's this sudden burden and also a lack of ability to know what to do. It's not like you can pick it up the next morning.

No.

You know, so let's talk about your book real quick because this is atypical that I do an interview pre-release, pre-title. You got a working title. I want to know what it is. I want to know what your book is about. And then I want to move on to a different story that's going to be deep. Okay, so tell me about the book.

Working title is Scar Tissue.

I love, I love it.

I love it.

I know what it means instantly.

Exactly. And it really speaks to— and where this became a working title is we were kind of— the book unfolded, right? The initial vision. I think the book took on its own personality and purpose and kind of showed us what was needed, which was a fun process to go through, like listening to how this was gonna develop.

Yeah.

And what became clear is that this is actually probably not for the immediate griever in that first you know, few months where they're very raw, because this is a little bit more solution-oriented. So this is great for people supporting grievers, and this is great for people maybe with less intense grief journeys, because a big purpose of the book is to redefine grief to not just be a loss of a life, but a breakup, an empty nest, a job change, a move, an identity change, um, a loss of a future you envisioned, a loss of a pet. And very tangible tools that demystify the 5 stages of grief. Because I don't believe that there are these 5 linear stages, and I think that, uh, disservices people when we have this perception of like, well, why am I not in that stage yet? It doesn't work that way. And it's very tangible, practical tools that you can use. And the intention of Scar Tissue is to understand that the scar tissue that's surrounding our pain and our wounds and our traumas actually has power in it.

Interesting. What would be the power in the scar tissue?

Well, there's a lot of— I mean, there's so much. Grief has been one of my greatest teachers and the most painful thing, but it humbled me like no other. It showed me life in a way that I'd never seen before. Um, it allowed me to be in radical responsibility for my healing in a way that I didn't even understand how to be in radical responsibility for my life. And that was power in the scar tissue. I think for a lot of people, it can drive purpose, it can drive mission, it can drive vision. But there's feedback in our experiences. So if we're looking at the scar tissue surrounding, you know, let's say, a difficult breakup or a divorce, within the pain of it, there's like little, like, gems in the scar tissue. Mm-hmm. Show us how we need to grow, what we want and need in our future, and what not to repeat.

Interesting. It's that sometimes one thing is scar tissue. And as I've gone through this journey with your book, reading it and digesting and learning from you, is it heals. It doesn't return to the prior state. There's always a scar that will be there. There's always a reflection. It's almost like an integration. And when you said that, I was like, my God, I think I get it instantly. I remember you saying something really profound, but also powerful. When your daughter Layden passed away, it was a year or two later. And someone connected to you said, aren't you over it now? Or something to that effect?

Yeah.

Can you tell me a little bit about that story?

Oh, well, one of the, one of the gold nuggets and the scar tissue of my grief was really learning not to take things personally.

Amazing. Not easy.

Because, you know, one of the most painful things was when somebody said, "At least she wasn't older," you know? And that— and again, coming back to the beginning of intent, the intent was to try and make me feel better.

Right, right.

But that was not what I wanted to hear. I had someone say, "Oh, Melissa, it's been a year. Like, aren't you over it? Like, isn't that when it gets better now?" Yeah. And I was like, there's not some clock. And I think that's important for people to understand. Year 2 and year 10 this past year have been the most painful for me. Um, year 2 I think was the most painful because what's one day of 365 to 366 really do? But what happens is that first year you're on everyone's radar.

Yeah, because there's the first of everything. The first birthday, the first Christmas. Christmas. Yeah.

Yeah. Mother's Day.

Yes.

They should move on. They have lives, right? And that's a big part of it. But year 2, you're like, wait, where's everyone going? Yeah. And now you're actually left to feel it, in my personal experience, on a deeper level. Because a lot of the people surrounding you alleviated a lot of the pain, as I was talking about alleviating some of that weight earlier. When you're trying to support, that's ultimately what your support group does is they alleviate that weight. So when the support group leaves and they're like, okay, you got this, and no one's intentionally leaving, it's just part of the natural evolution of people have lives and then they have their own griefs and they have their own families and they've had their own challenges. That was a really, uh, difficult thing to feel as though I was being judged for not being over it yet, but understanding that this person just loved me and they were in pain seeing me in pain, so they want to know when my pain would end so their pain would end.

Your, your daughter passed away 10 years ago yesterday. Yesterday. And you just said that was one of the most difficult periods Mm-hmm. What is it about this, uh, that I want to say I get it, but I don't get it. What happens at 10 years, or what happened at least for you at the 10-year anniversary?

I think a couple of things was that I took a little bit of a break from the podcast and from my grief, almost like I had been so in it. I ran marathons and I was fundraising all the time and I was talking about all the time and I started the podcast. And I actually needed almost like a little break from hanging out with my group all the time and talking about it. And so this past year, I returned to it, and that was with the book. And so the book, obviously going to these places, and as you know, I was procrastinating. I needed, I needed support in getting into the depths of the emotion. So I think relaunching the podcast and the book just stirred up a lot again and deeper places than I had gone. And secondly, there's something about 10. You know, it's like I could have a 10-year-old, you know. Yeah.

That's what I was thinking. A reflection on what ifs. Mm-hmm. What would have happened?

Double digits.

Double digits.

You know, and 10 is just like, it's like a decade. And then there's also this sadness of how have I lived 10 years of my life without her? Mm. Like, it feels so long. I remember when I— when Layden passed, in the first couple of years, somebody telling me about their loss, and it had been 10 years. And I remember being like, oh, they're so far out. Like, they're not— like, almost like, I can't imagine being 10 years out and, like, still feeling it.

Yeah.

You know, so it's almost like this reflection of myself. Like, I think about my daughter every single day. I mean, her picture's hanging up right, right behind my computer.

Do you see the, the, the grieve supporters kind of rally at times over the years, or is it a constant fade from the support around you and around people who are grieving?

Oh, this is such a great question. And I think that there's an element that relates to the book where I talk about being the coach of your own grief team.

Yeah.

And it's this strange level of responsibility. And what I would say is that the supporters kind of follow the way I lead my team. So that's interesting.

So, so what do you mean? How are you leading them?

Well, for a while it was running marathons and fundraising and every, you know, so they had a specific activities, right?

Yeah.

But if I send out an email campaign and let people know this is what's going on, this is how I'm feeling, they respond. But I said this about entrepreneurship too. Entrepreneurship is very humbling. I tell my clients this all the time. No one is waking up today saying, how can I hire Melissa? Like, no one's waking up, how do I hire Melissa? No one's waking up, how do I support Melissa in her grief journey today? Most people forget the dates. I sometimes, like, get confused on dates.

Yeah.

So just like in entrepreneurship where if I would like people to work with me in my business, I have to put something out there. It's actually what I found to be true in grief. Now, in the beginning, more people come to you, but over time, you actually— not from a victim standpoint, but from a responsibility of like, hey, these are my needs, can someone help me meet them? Or this is what I'm experiencing, like, is anyone available to help me with this? Or this is coming up, would, would you be open to, you know, going to dinner or going to her memorial tree, or it would really mean a lot to me. And so over time, it's given me the space to really practice voicing my needs in a way that I probably didn't before, unattached to outcome, not pressuring people, and not from a victim way of like, poor me, but like, this is my true need. This is my true feeling. This is my true human experience. Can you help me?

Yeah. And if you disregard it, if you ignore it, how can anyone else notice it? I was flipping through like one of those motivational poster things somewhere and this one landed with me. I'm going to totally mess it up, but it said something like, there is no one coming to save you. There's no one giving you a free lunch. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps. Do what you need to take care of you. Effectively what you're sharing, but it also sounds like it doesn't need to be that callous. No, it sounds like you can say, hey, listen, I just need someone to talk to right now. And the first person came to mind, something like that.

Exactly. It can be very light lifting. And a concept that was very helpful for me, and that's in the book, is not only are you the coach of your team, but you have to understand the positions people can play because you don't need 9 quarterbacks or 8 different running backs. And not everyone— like, I, I use the example all the time. I'm from Boston. Tom Brady was arguably the best quarterback in the history. Everyone laughed when he tried running the ball.

Right, right. It was a joke. Yeah.

So if Tom Brady had been put in the position of running back, he wouldn't have succeeded.

Right.

This is the same thing in our grief. If I asked my brothers to be my teammates of listeners, which is a very hard role to play. Most people think they can be a listener, but a true listener doesn't interject. They don't say, at least they don't try to fix it. They don't want to problem solve. They're just listening. Typically can't be absorbing it.

They're not— it's not in one ear out the other either.

I don't think they're holding. It's like they're holding.

That's the word. Yeah.

You're so, you're so talented.

You should write a book.

Yeah. It's like we can kind of dump and that person can hold it. Yeah. Holding.

Awesome.

It's a very hard thing to do.

Yes.

And particularly for me, it wasn't going to be the 1-degree closest people to me. It was almost like 2 degrees. Yeah. Like my cousin's wife could listen and hold like no other. But I think it would've been harder for my cousin because it would've pained him so much because of how close we are.

I wanna talk about This is amazing. I, I wanna talk about entrepreneurship specifically. That, that's the community I'm usually talking with. And you, you said something, you teased a little bit. You can grieve about job transitions.

Wow.

You can grieve over that lost client that meant everything to you. And this one day they just walk away and now your business, at least it feels devastating.

Yeah.

But at the same time, if I call you up and say, Melissa, I really need you to hold something for me. I lost a major client. It almost sounds like that's your problem, Mike. I lost my daughter. You know, like, I, I, I almost feel like I'm offending people with, with how insignificant my challenge is.

Uh, I love this. What, what do I do? Okay. I wanna close the loop on the teammate thing really quickly, Mike.

Of course. Of course.

Sorry. It trickled off and then I wanna go into this, but what I was saying is that in grief, you need to position people for what they can actually do. So not everyone can listen, but my brothers were excellent distractors. So if I had begged my brothers to listen and they couldn't do it, I might have been in a position of, how come you're not helping me? But it's more or less so like, that's not the language I speak. It's like your grief language, like your love language. So I had to ask them to help me in the way that they could. So I just want to encourage anyone listening, it's just like an entrepreneurship. You got to put people in positions to succeed based on their skillset. It's the same thing in grief, but I know it's such a powerful thing.

And, and I think in the book, at least, uh, the last iteration, you were categorizing distractors, the holders. Okay.

Yeah.

So now let's move on to, uh, my situation. Yeah. Let's think this is about me. Okay.

Yeah. So what I say is that one, don't deprive the person of supporting you because it can feel really good to support people. I love when somebody asks me for support.

Oh, interesting.

And so that's a way of connecting. So I would say don't deprive people by assuming how they're gonna react. Let them have their own reaction. Mm-hmm. Secondly, I don't think there's a hierarchy in grief, and I believe as a bereaved mom, if there were a hierarchy, I would be up top. I see it as a depth. So there's like a depth chart. So it's not a hierarchy like anything's better. But if you were to take the depth of my grief for Layden, it's going to go really, really deep. I'm still going to grieve if I were to lose my dog. She's like, Mom, I can't not honor my grief and say, well, Melissa, you lost your daughter. You can handle losing your dog. No, these are two different things. My friend went through this. Our daughters were a month apart. And she was having a really tough time with her daughter not sleeping through the night, and it was just keeping her up. And I'm sure new moms can relate, or dads. Like, she was at a breaking point, and she hid it from me for a long time because she didn't want to feel like she was upset about something that I would give anything to have.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, but they're two different things. Her experience and my experience are two different things. And so what I, what I offer is that this is a really good space to learn to allow things to be in their own experience and not make it right or wrong. I also always use this example, which I think is a little bit more relatable, particularly in my generation. We grew up with like a lot of awareness around not having leftover food, right? Like the Ort reports or something. I'd go to something and like It was, you know, you take your lunch and then it was like they celebrated how much the least amount of leftover food there was or something at like this. Yeah, but I remember hearing, Melissa, finish your food, there are starving children in Africa. Both like, that is true, but me finishing my food and having a stomachache is not going to solve world hunger.

There's no correlation.

There's no correlation.

Maybe the argument is waste, that we as a society could be more efficient. But it's almost like blaming the victim kind of thing. Yes. So how did your girlfriend come to you and start being honest that she was struggling with the baby that wasn't sleeping through the night? I mean, is there a way to break the ice on that conversation? Because I could see her feeling bad. In comparison?

I think that what happened was— and this was a while ago, so I might be incorrect— but if I, if I remember correctly, I actually think I hadn't heard back from her or something, and I might have asked one of our other friends like what was going on. Yeah, I think my other friend told me, you know, and, and I think then I reached out and gave that permission. I know I had a group of 7 girlfriends, we all went to college together, and They have like 187 kids between the 6 of them. And the actual last day of Layden's life outside of the hospital, I think 4 or 5 of us were all together for mom's like little Saturday breakfast. And we didn't know we were going to the hospital. In fact, we didn't know we were going at that time. And we ended up going that night in an emergency case. But that day we spent with my girlfriend. So we have a very tight-knit group. It was probably one of the hardest spaces to navigate, um, and continues to be hard. Um, and they started like a group chat without me. Yeah. To, to talk about their kids because they needed to talk about their kids and the potty training and this and that.

Right, right.

They wanted to give it to me. Yeah. And at first, at first I was like, wait a minute, that's loss compounding loss.

Yeah.

And then it was like, actually, no, you got— I couldn't handle being in that. But then it came to a point where I went to them and said, guys, I want to be back in the chat. Like, I know we have two, can we just have one now? Like, I'm ready. And it would actually mean a lot for me to be able to like keep tabs on your kids. But I had to again be in the driver's seat of that.

It's unfortunate, but it's just the reality that the griever has an additional burden of managing the people around them. Yes. Forever.

Forever.

10 years later and there's still dialogues you have about it.

So that was the biggest theme, I think, of scar tissue is the level of responsibility and ownership that comes with our— it's opportunity. And also that opportunity is only available through responsibility and ownership that we don't want. But if we take it, the growth opportunities, the way in which I communicate, the way in which I don't take things personally, the way that I look at everyone is that they're carrying a story, the compassion that I have. I don't know that I ever would have accessed that without my grief. And I always say, I'll give it all back to have laid in. Yeah. But if Plan A isn't an option, how can we make Plan B the most beautiful it could possibly be?

I, I think you are writing one of the most innovative books in this space. The first time I've discovered or I'm familiar with a book that doesn't talk about the journey of grief, doesn't necessarily talk about the integration of grief. Those are all talked about, but the management of the community of grief, and it's never explored. And you've put it all in your book. We got to wrap things up. There's no website to go to. There's no Amazon page for the book yet. And maybe it won't be Scar Tissue. If the Chili's come back, Red Hot Chili Peppers come back and say sorry, that's a song. But it probably will be. Where can people go in the meantime to follow your journey to learn from you? So they can navigate their own grief, be it entrepreneurial grief or anything else?

My website is speakingofmelissa.com. That's going to have kind of the different things I have going on, link to my podcast. I hang out a lot on Instagram, like a lot. If you want like a play-by-play of my day and my Instagram stories, my My username is Melissa Dugalecki. There's really no one else with that name out there, so I just, it's just my name, Melissa Dugalecki.

Brilliant. Thanks, Melissa.

Thank you.