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GRIEF AND LIGHT
This space was created for you by someone who gets it – your grief, your foundation-shattering reality, and the question of what the heck do we do with the shattered pieces of life and loss around us.
It’s also for the listener who wants to better understand their grieving person, and perhaps wants to learn how to help.
Now entering its third season, the Grief and Light Podcast features both solo episodes and interviews with first-hand experiencers, authors, and professionals, who shine a light on the broad spectrum of experiences, feelings, secondary losses, and takeaways.
As a bereaved sister, I share my personal story of the sudden loss of my younger brother, only sibling, one day after we celebrated his 32nd birthday. I also delve into how that loss, trauma, and grief catapulted me into a truth-seeking journey, which ultimately led me to answer "the calling" of creating this space I now call Grief and Light.
Since launching the first episode on March 30, 2023, the Grief and Light podcast and social platforms have evolved into a powerful resource for grief-informed support, including one-on-one grief guidance, monthly grief circles, community, and much more.
With each episode, you can expect open and authentic conversations sharing our truth, and explorations of how to transmute the grief experience into meaning, and even joy.
My hope is to make you feel less alone, and to be a beacon of light and source of information for anyone embarking on this journey.
"We're all just walking each other HOME." - Ram Dass
Thank you for being here.
We're in this together.
Nina, Yosef's Sister
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To sponsor an episode, please contact: info@griefandlight.com
To be a guest on the podcast, please visit: https://www.griefandlight.com/podcast
GRIEF AND LIGHT
Start Where You Are: Megan Gluth-Bohan's transformation from struggle to success
Megan Gluth-Bohan's path to success has been anything but a straight line, shaped by her challenging upbringing and personal struggles. Growing up in rural Iowa below the poverty line, Megan faced dysfunction, trauma, and difficult circumstances. She struggled with alcohol and drug use, which led to her getting kicked out of college. However, she eventually turned her life around, went back to college, and graduated with a degree in history. Megan's journey continued with law school, where she faced the devastating loss of her first wife to ovarian cancer. This led her down a path of grief and self-destruction, but she eventually found hope and healing in the Pacific Northwest. She met her second wife and started to rebuild her life, eventually becoming the CEO of a company in Seattle. Megan Gluth-Bohan shares her journey of overcoming addiction and building a successful career as a CEO. After getting sober, she took a job as a lawyer and eventually became the president and CEO of a chemical company. She bought the company from her boss and navigated the challenges of leading a business through a global pandemic. Megan emphasizes the importance of self-accountability, personal discipline, and taking care of oneself as a leader. She believes in human-centered capitalism and values the humanity and grit in each person. Megan encourages others to keep going and shares her contact information for further connection.
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Click Here to Watch on YouTube
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Takeaways:
- Success is possible even when starting from challenging circumstances
- Grief and loss can lead to self-destructive behaviors, and they can become your starting point
- Finding hope and healing takes time and gradual progress
- Support from loved ones and community is crucial in overcoming challenges
- Moving to a new environment can provide a fresh start and opportunities for growth
- Self-accountability and personal discipline are important qualities for leaders
- Human-centered capitalism values the humanity and potential in each person
- Sharing personal stories and experiences can inspire and support others
- It's important to keep going and not give up, even in the face of challenges
Megan Gluth-Bohan's Social & Website:
Nina Rodriguez Social & Website:
Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddis
Thank you for listening! Please share with someone who may need to hear this.
Interested in Sponsoring our Podcast?
Please message us at info@griefandlight.com.
I think it's important to not look at something that looks messy and not see that there isn't something beautiful there too. We just need to be really careful that we look at others and ourselves for our potential too, for what could be. It is true that I hadn't destroyed my life yet. It is also true that I didn't create my life yet. Both yet's are true. And we have to remember that, especially when we're in a place that's really dark. Just cause you're not in the light yet doesn't mean you're not going to the Yet is a really powerful word on both sides of the equation. You just lost your loved one. Now what? Welcome to the Grief in Life podcast where we explore this new reality through grief-colored lenses. Openly, authentically, I'm your host, Nina Rodriguez. Let's get started. Can our life's biggest challenges be the very thing that shapes us into the best version of ourselves? Today we will hear from Megan Gluth -Bohan whose path to success has been anything but a straight line. From her roots in rural Iowa to becoming the sole female owner and CEO of a top chemical distributor, Megan's leadership story shows that success is possible even when starting from the most challenging places, when you embrace the power of your potential. Megan experienced great personal tragedy at her lowest points, yet thanks to her own commitment to self -accountability and compassion from those around Megan rose from rock bottom to the sweet by getting honest with herself. She rewrote her story and has emerged as a powerful example of inspiring and empathetic leadership. And with that, I'd like to give a very warm welcome to the grief and like podcast, Megan Bo Han. Thank you so much. It's an honor to have you, Megan. Thank you for your time. And I know that your story is one of many pivots and many turns. So why don't we just take it all the way back to the beginning as I understand it, your childhood. where you began to develop your perception about life and what you wanted in your life and what you didn't want in your life though. Tell the listeners whatever your heart feels like sharing from that point. Sure, sure. So first of all, thanks for having me here and thanks for creating a place for just like authentic and genuine conversation about these things. I'll do my best to be really open about that, but also, you know, I have a tendency We'll need to roll through this. So if you have questions of something, go ahead and ask. I grew up in the middle of the country in a small town in rural Iowa. And I grew up below the poverty line. And I grew up in a situation where I definitely had people around me who loved me. But there was also a lot of dysfunction and trauma and just really difficult things. I tell people. The best way I can describe it is if you do the ACEs score, the Adverse Childhood Experiences score, I probably score pretty high on that. And so I think if you look at my life now and you look at my life then, I'm not sure that the line, I'm not sure I would have connected it. I think so. That it's often easy to assume that when you grow up in a circumstance like that, that there's a forebond conclusion about where you end up. And this isn't that forebond conclusion. I grew up, I... made it through school and went to college. First thing that sort of gave me an opportunity to be out on my own and to make my own choices and I absolutely blew it. I'm in college, I have no coping skills for the emotional baggage that I'm carrying around for the way that I saw the world, all the things that I knew but could not say. And so I started very early on, a lot earlier than I probably should have, high school, a little before that. using alcohol and drugs to sort of cope. And I say sort of cope because it's not even coping, it's like avoiding is sort of maybe a better word for it. And I got to college and I prioritized that over my academics. I prioritized that over, you know, sort of good behavior. And ultimately I ended up getting kicked out of college, my first go round there. And that's a tough blow, that's a tough lesson like that. me into a state of being unable to obviously just move to another four -year institution. I have to go then at that point and get a job and work and sort of put myself back together. I'd made a mess, a trail behind me, a mess of bad decisions. I had to clean some of that up. And the time came for me to do some community college and put together enough of a transcript to go back to college. And when I did, I was accepted and I graduated from college with a degree in history. which took me like seven and a half years from the time I graduated from high school. So just an interesting. And there I'm sitting with a history degree. So everybody knows like if you have a history degree that you either go teach or you take the LSATs. I took the LSATs because I didn't want to teach. And when I was accepted to law school, I learned that I didn't have the financial aid package to make that happen. I didn't have anyone in my life to co-sign, know, willing or able to co -sign on supplemental loans. And so a friend of mine's dad co -signed on my law school law. It's amazing. And it is amazing. It was like $160 ,000 of debt. Like, I can't overstate the generosity and the faith that he had in me. And I always tell his story as part of my story because it changed my stars. It changed where I would land in the world. While I was in law school, again, I bring the presence just sort of this underlying, under the surface, always simmering, like default coping with a substance. Just sort of always there brewing. Law school makes you very busy and makes you very avoidant. So in and of itself, that could become its own avoidance and its own drug. Absolutely. But my first wife, midway through my second year of law school, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. And thus began a two and a half year struggle in her illness. that ultimately resulted in her death. And it was a very long period of just grief and hardship and hurt. And we can obviously delve more and more into that. There's some real raw shit in that time in my life. But after she died, then for me, that was the ultimate sort I didn't care anymore, you know, like it was like it's time to just, you know, avoid everything. And I would have labeled myself and probably like a really high functioning alcoholic. And in fact, it was the reason that I didn't want to get help for a long time, because I didn't have all those traditional consequences that people who drink do, except that I didn't love myself. I didn't like myself. I didn't like the woman that I was. And I was not anywhere near the person that I was capable. of becoming. And eventually, and again, there's an acceleration point here, there's a lot that happens, right? But eventually I met my second wife and she said to me, we were dating and she said, I really like you, but I don't wanna be with an alcoholic and I think you have a problem. So I did exactly what you do. I told her, know, F you, you know, like that kind of. I'm fine. Everything's fine. And anyway, after a couple 48 hours, something like that, I called an aunt and uncle who are just near and dear to me who both, you know, have achieved sobriety in their lives. And like, guess the only person who didn't think I had a problem with me. Anyway, I ended up, she took me to my first AA meeting and I haven't had a drink since and she and I have two beautiful children together and life has come. quite far since then. And in that story too, it comes to this place where I end up moving to Seattle and I become the general counsel for a company here that I later lead as the CEO and then I buy and now I've made a couple acquisitions and I've put together a bit of a thing here. found by... There's a lot there. No, no, I mean, there's a lot in every point and thank you for sharing so vulnerably and so openly that if you look at it as the very long overview and the long arc of where you started and where you are now, but there is so much nuance and so many pivots and so many realizations along the way. So first of all, I'm deeply sorry about the loss of your first wife. I know that had to have been incredibly life altering and all the other changes as well and just even dealing with law school. and a terminally ill partner at the same time graduating and having to navigate the caretaking and everything that entails. And I also know there's a bigger dialogue about law school students in particular speaking up about that numbing factor, that head in the game is so intense that you don't deal with all the other things that are going on internally or externally. So I'm actually happy to hear these conversations coming to the surface. I think it's very important. heard you say in a different conversation, taking it back to when your wife passed away, that you said all the oxygen left the room and everything that was left was the stillness and the grief is what was left. I don't know if you are familiar with Dr. Gabor Mate's work where he am deeply familiar. I absolutely adore that man. Me too. Me too. So he says, don't ask why the addiction, ask why the pain. So in this case, it's with the alcohol was numbing so much probably that was going on in there. Like you said, you were not equipped at that time. So walk us through that time period a little bit of how you processed and navigated that particular reality because I know there's a lot there. Yeah. The grief of that part of my life starts on the day that we found out she was sick. You have to understand if I can tee this up for you, like it's a beautiful summer day or, you know, spring day and in the Midwest and there's so much hope and I am so single -mindedly focused on what I've got to be doing in law school. And that's what I'm, you I also had a job and like, you know, I'm just trying to do all of that and everything is fine. And I have finally reached a stage in my life where I feel like, A, I'm out of the closet. I live in a safe place where I can be out of the closet. Like there was a lot of that for me and I found this person and I'm going to have this future and it is possible for me to have a family and have all of this, right? So, so imagine me coming in with that from a background of just instability and all of that. And I'm living so deeply embedded in this hope, in this structure of what I feel. And she ends up being taken to the emergency room due to what they thought was probably a ruptured ovarian cyst. upon further examination, they decide that they're going to have to do a hysterectomy. So we're staying overnight in the hospital, and this is exhausting and confusing, We're super glad we found out you have this problem and super glad we're getting it taken care of and everything's going to be okay. And we're literally like two days after this surgery, we're packing up in her hospital room. We're taking her home from the hospital. And the doctor comes in The look on her face, like just sadness and dread and just off. The woman was gray and she came and she sat down on the side of the bed and my wife leans forward and says, are you okay? Like, what's wrong? And she puts her hand on her arm to comfort her because the doctor is crying and she said, God, you have cancer, you have ovarian cancer. And I'm sitting on one of those vinyl chairs that's next to a hospital bed. All I can do is just look down at the chair. And to this day, I can remember the way the scenes felt and the way the chair felt underneath. You want to talk about grief. When does grief begin? For me, that moment, everything I thought I knew, every plan I had, every bit of justice about the world, every sense of what's fair. Young women do not get this. You know what I mean? Happen, right? Right. And like, how can you blow up? I just got good. Like, things are fine. I was resting into things being fine. I was learning to trust the justice of the universe. And now you tear it apart. Like, what the fuck? You know? Like, and it was devastating. It was devastating. And it turned out that her cancer was, it just had a relentless nature to it. And so for the next couple of years, I did, I maintained, I needed to continue going to law school. We needed like money, so I'm still working and we had to do all that. I have no idea how we pulled that off or I pulled off what I pulled off. I didn't miss any chemo treatments. I was at every doctor's appointment, I have binders of notes that I would take at all of the appointments, different drugs we were trying, different results. I can look back on that period of time now and go, what trauma, what trauma, and also what grief. because you always know in the back of your head that the life you had before, like even if she survives this, it's gone. Never. It's over. Yeah. You're never gonna live without wondering if it's gonna come back. Like all of the certainty that I ever had about the universe has been nuked. And I'm never gonna get that back. And I remember graduating law school and thinking like, okay, like we're on the upswing, things are gonna be okay. And three days before I took and sat, for the Minnesota State Bar Exam, we got a call from her doctor and said her cancer had metastasized to her liver and her lungs. Grief again, right? Like brand new, like again, like even the hope, the small semblance of hope that I built again, blown over. And I don't remember to this day taking the Minnesota State Bar Exam. I have no idea how I passed that bar exam. Studied for it, I did. Listen, when you're living in a certain state of trauma and you're living a certain kind of life, like law school and studying for the bar exam was some of the easiest shit probably that I, like, all I gotta do is memorize this, right? Sure. It puts everything into perspective and at the same time, kind of zone out of your life. I don't know that was necessarily your experience, but it sounds like it. just go on autopilot and you're like, this is what I gotta do. I'll just do this, this, this. And then at the end, you're just like, how did I, how did that happen? That's right. And so I passed the bar exam. And in October of that year, she presented me for admission to the bar of the state of Minnesota, which was really cool to have. And then she died on Christmas Eve. A few months after that. And that is when all the oxygen went out. I thinking this moment is so anti-climactic. for what has been happening, for how loud and horrible the last few years have been. For your listeners that have been there when a person dies, there is a notable change in the room. And I remember wishing or thinking that that moment would have this comforting heavenly lift, but it didn't. It's just silence. And that silence is so, so, so loud. And it lingers for, and I could, you know, I could also picture it because you said you came from humble beginnings and that has its own traumatic energy to it, right? And how you were able to overcome so much in your life and you were amazingly supported by your father's friend who, I mean, thanks to this person, this other opportunity opened up and you're, so you're on the up and up through adversity, through hurdles, through life's challenges. So here you are I made it, everything's gonna be okay, and then not, right? And then life throws you this big curve ball. that's, what was her name? Kristen. Kristen. So honoring Kristen in this moment and her memory and thank you for sharing her story with our audience because this is how we get to remember them, right? And that, know, Kickstart's very strong demarcation in time of the before and after. So this is very strong demarcation of life in the after. And so walk us through there on and how you met your second wife and how that shifted everything, which you alluded to earlier. I think it's worth noting right now too, like, so this is prior to the legalization of gay marriage. This is prior to like a lot of, so there's a lot of bullshit around her death and also she died on Christmas Eve, right? So there's this moment where, you We were at home, she died in our bed at home, which is the way Velma must wanted it to be for her. And I can't sign to have her body taken out of the house, because I'm not next of kin. Like was just, there was all this shittiness around that. also then pastors are kind of busy. Like there's just this lack of like, and then there's like Christmas lights outside and there's Christmas music going on and there's You turn on the TV and you hear the music for the Lexus commercial and it just like, was so surreal, Nina. It was just like, what is happening? Like your wad just stopped and then jingle bells, jingle bells. Yes, it was so weird. And I still look back on that and go, huh. I always say that because I feel like people who've been through a moment of grief, they, like the thing that you know is like, you know that your world in some ways ended and the world is going on around you and there's a time in your life where that's not fucking comforting that the world is going on around you and you stop. At all. In fact, it's deeply upsetting. And so I want to note that because it was really important, especially because it was Christmas, that I just think it's important to mark that and normalize it as being kind of angry. around that and the injustice of everybody else's like a Lexus with a red bow on it, like, know? But that said, people rush in and they come to help and I have said in a thousand different places, like everyone was there and I was all alone. It was so lonely. It was so lonely and it was so hard. And it felt like a black hole in my life. Like everything was just caving in on me. I could not find comfort anywhere. I could not sleep. I could not eat. I could not rest. It was terrible. And it's so important to talk about the depth of that. And again, normalize it and really take a minute to mark it because until you do, then you Unless somebody says how bad dark is and how dark dark is, then you don't always get the chance to believe them about where light is. Do you know what I mean? Absolutely. Yeah. So I want to say that the darkness was really, really, really dark. And I kept moving. I don't know how it happened, but like eventually I decided to like go walk in the woods. And eventually I decided to take a trip out west to visit some friends and I'm still depressed. and I'm still drinking to avoid my pain and I'm, you know, maybe I'm having a couple extra glasses of wine so I can go to sleep at night. All of this is happening, but I'm moving. I'm not moving well, I'm not moving with intention, I'm not reading self -help books, but I'm moving. I have a grief therapist that I'm lying to about how I feel, because she's like, how many drinks are you having every day? And I'm like, just the one, you know, like, listen, I did all all the things that you think you would do if you were presented with this situation, like you don't do that shit. You're just barely getting through the day. And that's how it was. And I made the choice to leave Minnesota. I was driving back and forth between work and our house. And I just finally was like, I can't make this same drive. can't do, I can't do this. And I moved out to the Pacific Northwest, which ended up being a really, really good move for me. Cause I needed to be outside. And all of a sudden I started doing more than just moving. through the day, right? I was rowing and I was hiking and I was making friends and I found myself having like genuine belly laughs. Like, now here's the thing, I'm still drinking, I'm still coping inappropriately. I didn't move from darkness to light, Nina. I was adding more light into still darkness. Like this was gradual and this is over a period of a couple of years that I'm doing this stuff. And eventually, I meet this woman through mutual friend and I'm not interested in a relationship. I'm kind of liking being by myself and not having anybody tell me what to do or how to, you know, whatever. And I all of sudden have this realization one day, like, I think I could risk this again. I could risk this vulnerability of love and joy. Renee Brown talks about this all the time, like the ultimate vulnerability is joy, right? it is. 100%, yes. I'm gonna love Renee. in a street. Yes. And especially afterwards, because speaking for myself, it almost feels like you're betraying something or someone or just by even feeling joy. So it's like, how dare I? Should I? Is this even okay? So the fact that you can even play with the idea, that's a big deal. That's a very big deal. It's betrayal. It's also risk. And the last time I got comfortable and let myself feel good, look what happened. You know what I mean? Like, and I had a lot of that garbage rolling around in my head for a long time too. Why bother? It's just all going to be taken away from me. But it's one of those things that I wasn't like some, just committed every day to a meditation cushion at that time in my life. Hey, listen, I sit there now. But in these days, like as light was slowly entering, it wasn't entering in the ways that you think it would. There was these little persistent strings of hope that were coming in. And if they hadn't been there, then I couldn't have been in a position to then meet my current wife and to feel that, like, huh, maybe I could take this risk again. And so it happened really gradually and really unassumingly, I guess. And I told a friend this once who was going through a divorce She said, am I ever gonna feel any like joy again? And I said, listen, said, this is what I know. I know that you don't know how or when, but one day you just stop dead in your tracks and you go, huh, I'm not sad all That is so true. could feel very overwhelming. also heard you say that you moved to the Pacific Northwest. So fun fact, I lived in Portland, Oregon for 11 years and I love me the Pacific Northwest. And I heard you also say that you were outdoors and hiking. I believe that being out in nature is one of the ways the light shines through. bit by bit. And I love that you said this happened over time. It wasn't like this one big aha moment where I'm happy again. It was these tiny strings of hope, as you said, I love that phrasing, tiny strings of hope, all coming together over time. That's very, very powerful. is. No, I think I'd love to have thought probably before I ever actually went through anything that, you know, if something bad happened, I'd just pick up a copy of When Things Fall Apart by Payma Children and I'd read that shit and I'd be all better. Like, and that's not, that's not like, People who've been in grief understand there's a point at which you're just like, so wrecked. Like that to chew your food feels like a major life accomplishment. That's where I was. And so yeah, it did. It wove itself together. These little hope strings wove themselves together slowly bit by bit. Now, now I can look back and go, that wasn't really that slow. Like good for you Meg, like getting yourself back together after like two and a half years. Like, all right, you know? But when it's happening, it never looks like that. Grace is always something I think we see in a rear view mirror. It's just happening, it doesn't look like that. Yes, yes. I love the word grace. It didn't take on meaning until after I suffered my personal loss of my brother. And grace, that numbness for me that I felt in the beginning was grace. I could see it now in the rear view mirrors and say that was grace in action because it helps you move through the... Think of it the times when you're like, how did the world not stop? Why is my world completely stopped, but everything else is going, how am I supposed to function? So it's interesting to see it all come together years later. So at this point, were you working in the company that you're working at now? I wanted to, I had actually moved originally to Portland. And the reason for that is because I was moving from the Twin Cities, and just some of your listeners will know this, but a lot of people liken the Twin Cities to Portland, Oregon. And so I was like, well, I'm gonna go there. This'll feel cool. It'll feel like kind of a small town. That's kind of my vibe. I was raised in that. And at the end of the day, like I was a business lawyer. Portland maybe wasn't my city. Like Seattle definitely was. And I had family in Seattle. I love Seattle, yeah. So I moved to Seattle. I met my wife in Portland and I told her, said, listen, I'm going to move to Seattle. A couple of poignant things had happened. She told me that she really liked me, but she wasn't going to be with an alcoholic. And so I had gotten sober and I had about two to three months of sobriety. And I was like, I got to get out of here. Listen, I love Portland, but for me it was basically an outdoor bar. listen, is. And, and so I just needed to make some like life changes and, kind of get around some people The very same aunt and uncle that sort of helped me sober up. living in Seattle. So it sort of worked for me. I call a friend of mine from law school. said, Hey, I'm going to go up to Seattle and interviewing at some law firms. Do you know anybody who's practicing in Seattle that I can ask about these firms? I kind of want to check their culture and all that. And he says, I don't, but my wife used to work for a guy out there who has this chemical company. You should call him because he's well connected. He might know something about these firms. And he and I sat down and had coffee and are completely different people. He's a nearly seven foot tall West Point grad, former professional rugby player from New York. And I am five, four, small but mighty rural Iowan. We are different people. But we hit it off. We had just sort of an interesting conversation and he called me the next day and offered me a job. Wow. As the company's lawyer. And I thought, well, what the hell? What am I doing? You know what I mean? Just got sober and I'm leaving town and I'm going to be living in my own old basement until I learn enough about Seattle to figure out I'm going. Like, fuck it. Like, let's do it, you know? And I thought I'd work here for like a couple months. And I came here and I immediately fell in love with the business and I loved what we were doing. And so a few years after being the lawyer, I get promoted to president and then the CEO. And then at a point where he wants to sell his company and retire and I'm at a point where I want to take off. And so I basically just said, if I can figure out how this financing is going to go, can I buy your company from you? And he said, yes. And I bought 55 % at first, a majority, with the idea being that I kind of wanted some training wheels. Like I had never done this before, obviously. This is a huge amount of financial debt. You have to understand like A little bit, yeah. he was doing. When I bought the company was doing $48 million a year in revenue. Like we, I wasn't taking a lift here. We wanted him to be around. Right. We signed the paperwork for the 55%. He's going to hang out and a freaking global pandemic hits. And now he's at a point where like he, he's ready to be done. Cause once you get to a certain season of your life, you maybe don't want to leave all your chips on the table. Right. Sure. And so the very next year I bought out the rest of I'm now I'm by myself and I'm doing it alone and I'm navigating leading a company through the ups and downs of. And the middle of the pandemic. my goodness. Yes ma 'am. Like it was, it was a lot. How did you, how did you, how did you center yourself in that decision? If you look at it from my perspective, right? Like he knew what he was doing and obviously, you know, he's in the better end of the situation just because of the risk factor with what you know, at that moment, because obviously the rest of it hasn't played out at that point. So how did you center yourself? How did you find your ground to say, I'm going through with this no matter what? First thing I did was ask him to stay. Are you sure you don't want to do this? How about you just stay? Like, how about you just stay? You know, he had faith in me and he wasn't wrong. Cause if I'm honest and I look back on it now and this is the way I run this business now and it's the way I sort of run my life. Like my gut knows, Nina. My heart knows, my gut knows. I knew I was gonna be okay. I had done harder. And this is the gift of grief and going through shit in your life. Like you can live a life that doesn't have any of those challenges. Some people actually get to do that. I'm not one of them, but there are people who don't have any challenges. But when you do face them, it adds a fortitude to you that is real because you do survive it and you do come through stronger on the outside, but you know Like if you're paying attention to yourself, you know that you're stronger. You know you can do things. And so it does give you this inner knowing that people who haven't had to face that, they're not bad people, but like they just don't have the same knowing that you do. Right? No, I can do this. And so I had that and there have been moments and this was one of them in my life where like I look at it and I go, all the shit. All of this awfulness has been buffeting me and strengthening me for this moment right here. Because it's not just about me at this point, Nina. Right. My wife and I have two small children at home. This cannot fail. There are families. There are people working for this corporation. Everybody's looking at me to have equanimity and balance and strength and wisdom and to know that things are going to be OK and to lead us through a time in the economy that no one has ever seen. Nobody knew what was going to happen, yeah? or how long or right? No, and we still are figuring this out. And you have two choices in that moment. Like you either shit or get off the pot. Do you know what I mean? Like there really isn't anything else. And so it was just like, knew, I knew I could do it. Getting sober to help with this, I had developed around myself and my own personal being a really high level practices around keeping myself centered and grounded and being accountable to myself and being a person who is self-reflective and who knew what I was capable of and was able to push myself and held myself accountable. So all those things obviously come into play. But underneath all of that is just this inner knowing like, can do this, I'm going to be okay. And that's something you get from grief. You really do. Would you say that intuition, faith, belief in something bigger than you, all of the above What would you say that knowing is all of the above? Yeah, it's like a soup. And everybody names that differently. Some people would say, you know, it was me and God and my faith in God got me there. I'd like, dude, get after it. Like, whatever it is that speaks to you, like, I definitely have some really strong beliefs in how we're all carried and fueled and things like that. I really do. I think that same energy, though, like fuels our own intuition. and our own awareness of our own power and our own inner knowing and a trust in ourselves and our own capacity and the fact that we are held. Again, if you don't ever get tested in these really terrible moments that you never would wish or hope for yourself, then you don't know it's there. Maybe this is your experience as well, but I feel like when you somebody so close and when your reality and what you thought life would be gets shattered, you become like a blank canvas and you get to paint whatever the future is going to look like. And at least that's an opportunity. I say this carefully because some people, you know, thrive afterwards and find their footing and others do not, unfortunately, right? So I am very curious what makes the difference. And one common element that I've heard through different conversations is that moment when you say, okay, now what? And then you tune into your fill in the blank, like faith or intuition or whatever, bigger belief or whatever that thing is, you tune into that thing within and start seeing the yin and yang, the inside matching the outside. And then you hang on to that and you move forward with that energy. However, whatever that looks like each person's correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm also hearing that from from your story and it sounds like it was very powerful and it led you in the direction of this incredible opportunity with the company and you were saying before that that your current wife was I like you but I like me more in terms of this particular boundary and that's completely healthy. That's completely fair from her part. Was this happening at the same time that you bought the company or was this before you bought the company or trying to get like a gauge for that all worked out? She kind of gave me that ultimate, I'll call it an ultimatum although she probably wouldn't use that language. I think she would say, it was just a declaration of her own personal boundary. Understandable again. Right on, you know? Sure. But I took it as an ultimatum and in some sense it certainly was. That happened about a year, less than a year before me starting at the company. So again, I get sober, I've got three or four months of sobriety, I start this new job, and then out eight or nine years later, I buy the company. Wow. So you have to understand too that like I do have a period of time, I consider coming sober like a new awakening in my life and a new awareness. You don't have any consciousness altering substances in your life anymore. Everything gets real, real quick. There's no place to hide. from your shit. And some people overeat, some people use sex or gambling or whatever. Well, I was in a recovery program working on the 12 steps and working on developing a manner of living where I was looking honestly at all of these things. And you can say what you want. A lot of people recover from addiction in a lot of different ways. And I don't have a particular horse that I'm trying to sell here. For me, it was Alcoholics Anonymous. For me, that was the thing that got me where I wanted to be. But there was no sympathy in that room, any of those rooms for me and my sad, sad story. Because guess what? It wasn't the saddest one there, Nina. For all my tears and all my trauma and all my shoulda, coulda, woulda's and this is terrible and then this happened to me and I'm the worst victim and I'm unique. I deserve this drink. I deserve all of this pain. The things that I heard people talk about in those rooms, the level of pain that I saw people rise above and still put their lives together and be good parents and be good citizens and be good workers. That was changing for and I tell people all the time, I don't. So to this day when I hire people and people come to work for me, I don't care where you went to college. I don't read anybody's resumes. I'm not interested if you went to Harvard. I don't give a shit. None of that matters to me. I want to know where what have you been through? Where did you come from? What's your hustle? What's your what's your story? It's your grit. Yeah. Yeah. Because I sat with people in that room that had been in prison three times that I would trust to help me run this business more than the Harvard MBA. Because I knew what they were capable of overcoming. I just think that marks a moment of when you pivot, when you make a change. Because you're right, some people don't make it through their grief stories. And grief story can be a lot of different things. And it doesn't mean that something's wrong with them. Sometimes grief carries with it the illness of depression, and we do not recover. Sometimes grief carries with it the illness of addiction and we do not recover. And I don't want to shame anybody or whatnot. But sometimes grief carries with it the opportunity to recover. And that's a magical moment when that happens. Absolutely. Powerful, powerful words. I wish I could underscore those very, very strongly here because that is very true. Grief carries with it the opportunity a lot of things with the recovery part. understand that when you showed up for the first time, you were like, am I doing here? Like, I don't belong here. I really enjoyed that story. So I don't know if you mind sharing that. Yeah. Because it's such a reality check and it sounded like it was a very pivotal time when you said, okay. So this is the reality and it doesn't look like what I thought it would. Yeah, no, so I get dropped off by this girl that I'm interested in at an AA meeting. So let's be super clear. I got this aunt and uncle that are like, you should go to AA and I'm like, whatever, what do you know? And I get this grade, it's giving me this ultimate, ultimate, I'm sitting in this church basement drinking shitty coffee out of a styrofoam cup, you know? And I'm sitting there, I'm combative, okay? In AA, you can always choose to pass, right? Like you don't have to share, but sometimes the people like chairing the meeting will call on you. So this woman calls on me and she's like, would you like You share. You're supposed to say, hi, my name is Meg, I'm an alcoholic. Well, I'm not going to say that, you know? So I'm like, hi, my name is Meg, and I don't know what I'm doing here. So now everybody's kind of leaned in. So women's meeting, by the way. So there's a lot of like powerful female energy in the room, and they're just great women. And I get this woman sitting behind me, and I won't share her name. I just adore her. But she's kind of rough and tumble, and she doesn't mince any words or whatever. And I was sitting there like, listen, you know, I'm here. I got some people in my life who who think I drink a little too much. I think I do sometimes, but like I get up for work every day and I'm paying my bills and I'm not drunk at work and I'm not drinking during the day. And this woman goes, yeah. And I've never been arrested. And she goes, yeah. And I'm pissed, right? Cause they read the rules at the beginning of the AA meeting. One of them is no cross talk. You're not supposed to talk when anybody else is talking. I'm like, this bitch is talking. Like, know what I need to shut her up. Somebody take care of her. I've never been in a car accident yet. I've never been to jail. And this woman just keeps giving me the yes back here. You know, now I look back and I'm I'm turning around. I'm like, what is your problem? You know what I mean? Like, she was so right. She kept saying it to everything I said, you know, until finally I ran out of things. I couldn't say anything more. I ran out of all this stuff. But the truth was that I was waking up every single day knowing that the woman that I was, in that moment, it was not who I was supposed to be. It not who I wanted to be. It wasn't the woman that was in my heart, like that I had a vision for. I was living a life that wasn't meant for me. Like, and it was beneath me. It was beneath what I had been called to. And she knew that, she saw that too. And she just wanted to needle me and push me a little bit. Now later I learned she's got like 20 years of sobriety and she comes to those meetings to sit there and, and say, That's right. Give people a reality check. Well, thank you for sharing that. I particularly love that story because I feel like it illustrates that sometimes the reality of certain pitfalls we fall into as humans doesn't necessarily look like what you think it would look like. If we met you on the outside looking in and I didn't know anything about your story, you would find like, you know, successful even. But I wouldn't guess necessarily that you were struggling with something personally. And yet... So many people that we meet and when you dig into their story and when you ask the deeper questions and when you sit down with them, I learned not to judge the book by its cover. People have their own things that they're dealing with and it's interesting to me because a lot of conversations are like, I'm not an alcoholic because da da da. And our perceptions of what that looks like are probably the extreme imagery that we see like in movies or something. And if we took a deeper look at the yet, the maybe you're living in a corner somewhere, but the actions you're taking today over time could lead you there. And so it's a powerful, powerful image that we could identify with these moments probably a lot more if we reframe them this way, if we said, okay, well, what actions am I taking right now? Where is this leading me? And just because I'm not there yet doesn't mean I'm not heading in that direction. So it sounds like that was a very powerful pivot point You said, this is not who I'm meant to be. What do I have to do? You also got this ultimatum and fast forward nine years, I think you said, now you purchased the company in the middle of that. You're the thingy of acquired two companies and you just went through a merger and all these things and my goodness. So talk about a transformation. Yeah, it's been a huge transformation. You know, to piggyback on what you said, like we... You're right, look at like the outside. Don't ever look and assume there's some like, there's not a crack there, right? Like you could look at my life and go, things look pretty well put together, so I'm sure it's fine. Conversely too, I think it's important to not look at something that looks messy and not see that there isn't something beautiful there too. I tell people all the time, some of the smartest people I know did part -time, you know what I mean? And we just need to be really careful that we look at others and ourselves. for our potential too, for what could be. It is true that I hadn't destroyed my life yet. It is also true that I didn't create my life yet. Both yet's are true. And we have to remember that, especially when we're in a place that's really dark. Just because you're not in the light yet doesn't mean you're not going to the light. Yet is a really powerful word on both sides of the equation. 1000%. I love, love, that. All of these experiences have shaped you into the leader that you are today and how you lead your teams in your company. And maybe share a little bit about what that looks like in practice, Megan the CEO, the hot river, or Megan the bishop woman. I always say that the first part of that is that I have a high degree of my own self accountability and my personal disciplines and things like that. I am a daily meditator. Prioritize things like exercise and eating in a way that serves my body. I prioritize taking decisions for my own health and vibrancy. What I consume in this world, both with my eyes and my ears, as well as my mouth, I'm diligent about all of that. Because I think before you can lead and before you can do anything, you have to, you got to take care of yourself and get your own house in order. But I think the people who work for me and with me will tell you I'm very down to earth. I'm honest, I'm plain spoken. I have a lot of equanimity, a lot of pragmatism. People know where they stand with me, Nina. I I don't make them guess, I don't do mind or mood games. I'm very clear and I like to meet people exactly where they're at and tell them where we're going. One of the gifts that I've had in my life is that when everything has fallen apart, like now I know it's important and I don't waste a lot of time as a leader in the unimportant and I do what I gotta do. I'm also a person who makes a lot of big decisions every single day. People do need leaders to lead. And sometimes you gotta just be decisive and you have to have some fortitude and deal with whatever's happening, come what may. And so I try to do that as well too in a way that is predictable and stable and steady. And I think that's what people need. Well, it sounds like in doing your own work and through your life experiences, your business partners, your employees and everybody who works with you gets to benefit from that. And I think that's the inherent power in the opportunity that comes grief and challenge and trauma, adversity we have to face in life. So thank you for doing the work. Thank you for answering the call. Every person that unlocks that for themselves, that ripples out to everybody around them. And if I were an employee and a company leader would be saying, hey, this is how I am and this is my story and there's no shame around it. Actually, I turned it into this and it's a yes, we can and no judgment, no shame. We're all human. We get to do this It's more important to value the humanity and the grit that fire within each person. That's what people are looking for nowadays that from an outsider's perspective, looking at the result of the workforce even and all these really strange things that are happening right now in our country and our economy and our world. What I am perceiving is that there's this undercurrent of people's craving, needing, very thirsty for being seen and being treated as human above all, right? And we can be successful, we could probably be even more successful if we approach each other, our workspaces and society from a human to human connection and from a, we're not perfect, I'm not perfect, but let's do this thing. That's right. That's right. So that's amazing. That's really, really inspiring story. Thank you. Thank you. I call it human centered capitalism. I don't make any secret or apology for the fact that I'm a capitalist. I have to make money. I have to make money because now there's many, many families who need me to make money. That's how they pay their rent or their mortgage or buy shoes for their kids. And they want bonuses and benefits and I want to give it to them. So I'm unapologetic about my desire to run a profitable company. When's this book coming out? Yeah, right. But I also want to be centered around humanity. And here's the deal, here's the cool part for anybody who's wondering like whether, like we can run into our shame. I got a lot of, you know, parts of my story I'm not proud of, but here's the deal. Like the more that we share that and the more that we say that, I can't tell you the number of people who reach out to me. Some of them very, very powerful and very, very important who say things like me too. Me too, yeah. It's worth it then. And that normalization is powerful beyond words and it unlocks quietly sometimes, loudly for others, but it unlocks something within each person and each story shared, I wholeheartedly believe shines a light for other people that you may not even know need it. So thank you for sharing your truth and your story. It's very powerful. I know we just touched like the tip of the iceberg here, I think we got enough to where the listeners can see how something so challenging can be turned into something so beautiful and powerful and helpful and inspiring for others. Thank you very much. I want to give you open floor to say anything that maybe is on your heart and we didn't cover and also how people can get a hold of you. Sure. Whenever I get an opportunity to say whatever I want to say, just say keep going. Keep going. Just keep going. And again, if all you can do today is brush your teeth, like that's enough. That's Best way to connect with me is through my personal website, www.megangluthfohan I'm sure that's in your show notes, but if you reach out to me, the response is there to be fielded. People send me messages all the time and LinkedIn and things like that. I'm not very good at replying to those. I'd love to hear from you. I really, really do value people's stories and the connections. So I appreciate that very much. Thanks for having me today. Thank you, Megan. And as a final question, what would Megan today tell Megan, let's say back in college? Two things. it's going to be okay. You're going to be okay. And, don't drink Southern comfort. Sounds good, really good advice. That's awesome. Thank you, Megan. It was an absolute honor. And yes, I will link all the information in the show notes. Thank you for being here and thank you to the listeners. Thanks so much. That's it for today's episode. Be sure to subscribe to the Grief and Light podcast. I'd also love to connect with you and hear your thoughts and your stories. Feel free to share them with me via my Instagram page at griefandlight. or can also visit griefandlight .com for more information and updates. Thank you so much for being here, for being you, and always remember, you are not alone.
