Grief, Poetry, and Resilient Leadership: Carl Manlan on Love, Loss, and Legacy

What does grief teach us about how to live, lead, and love? What happens when the work we do in the world meets what we’re carrying inside?

In this episode, host Nina Rodriguez sits down with development practitioner, global thought leader, and poet Carl Manlan, author of i can breathe, for a moving conversation on grief, legacy, resilience, and meaning.

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Video available here

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Carl reflects on how loss reshaped his understanding of resilience, leadership, and what it means to honor those who came before us, and the grief that arises from life changes, transitions, and the unexpected losses that quietly reshape our lives. His poetry became a necessary language for grief, a way to express what policy, strategy, and everyday conversation often cannot.

Nina and Carl explore grief as an experience rooted in love, memory, and connection. They discuss how creativity and poetry can support healing, how personal loss deepens our capacity for service and leadership, and how parental and intergenerational influence continues to shape the way we show up for ourselves and our children.

This episode is a gentle reminder that grief is not just sorrow. It's also about legacy, memory, and the courage to keep breathing. Carl’s poems chart the path between losing and learning to live with loss, offering honesty, tenderness, and the wisdom of someone who has walked this path.

This conversation explores:

• Why “you only grieve what you love”
• Poetry and creativity as vessels for grief
• The connection between loss and leadership
• How upbringing and parental influence shape resilience and service
• Finding joy, gratitude, and meaning alongside grief
• Parenting and legacy: what we pass on to our children emotionally
• Creativity as a survival tool
• The symbolism behind Carl’s poetry and imagery
• Creating space for future generations to express emotion

Key Takeaways:

• Grief is the echo of love; we grieve because we have loved deeply
• Grief is sensory and embodied, living in memory, feeling, and the body
• Poetry and creative expression can hold what logic and language cannot
• Loss can clarify purpose and inspire deeper service
• Honoring loved ones keeps their presence alive; legacy is lived, not just remembered
• Children learn how to carry grief by observing how we do it
• Beauty and sorrow can coexist
• Grief deepens our appreciation for life and what truly matters

Connect with guest, Carl Manlan:

• carlmanlan.com
• Book: i can breathe
• Inside the Blueprint Podcast

Connect with host, Nina Rodriguez:

• griefandlight.com
• @griefandlight

Chapters

• 0:00 Preview & Intro Song
• 0:31 Introduction: Carl Manlan's Bio
• 2:04 "You only grieve what you love"
• 4:35 Expressing Grief Through Poetry in "i can breathe"
• 7:50 TANGO: a poem reading by Carl Manlan
• 9:31 The inspiration behind the poem, TANGO
• 10:49 Finding Joy in Grief: Embracing the Gift
• 12:17 Navigating Loss and Renewal, Continuing the Legacy
• 18:40 Guiding Children Through Their Own Grief
• 21:07 Groundedness and Service: A Life Perspective
• 27:21 Creativity as Currency: Lessons from Childhood
• 33:50 The Role of Resilience in Life and Leadership
• 39:34 PESO: a poem reading by Carl Manlan
• 40:36 BAOBAB: a poem reading by Carl Manlan
• 43:55 The inspiration behind BAOBAB; A Symbol of Strength and Hope
• 49:33 The People Who Shaped Carl's Life
• 54:10 Inside The Blueprint: Creating Space for Future Generations
• 1:00:44 Living a Life of Service and Possibility

Transcript

When you wake up every day, it's an act of resilience because there's no guarantee, is zero guarantee that you go to bed and the next day you'll be alive. 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. Hello and welcome back to the Grief in Life podcast.

My name is Nina and I am your host. What happens when the work we do in the world meets what we are carrying within? Today I'm joined by Carl Manlan, a development practitioner and bridge builder who has worked at the intersection of financial inclusion, human sustainability, and purpose-driven leadership. His career has spanned renowned global institutions and the private sector, connecting policy with lived,

on the ground realities across emerging markets. But beyond the titles and institutions, Carl is deeply curious about what lives beneath the systems, the emotional lives we carry, the griefs that shape us, and the inner alignment required to lead, build, and belong in meaningful ways. And that curiosity has found expression in his new book. It's a newly released book of poems titled

I Can Breathe, born from a deeply personal journey through grief and his search for inner light. He is also the co-host of Inside the Blueprint, a podcast that he co-creates with his daughter, Claire, where intergenerational leadership and wellbeing comes into focus. Let's get into this conversation, Carl. Welcome to the Grief and Light podcast. Thank you, Nina. It's a beautiful introduction.

Well, it's an absolute honor to have you and your resume is very impressive, both your lived experience and your professional experience. But before we delve into any of that, I would love to ask you, how do you define grief and what is your relationship with it? And just start wherever you'd like. I define grief as an experience. Last two years ago,

There's a very good friend of mine who lost her father. And as we were talking, I said to her, the feeling that you know now are new to you. She paused and she said yes. So it's an experience. You don't really know when it will hit you, but when it does, you acknowledge that this is something completely different. It hurts, of course, because...

The grieving part is very much connecting to all our senses. know, the touch, the smell, the seeing, and being able to have someone if it's someone that you lost, or something if it's something that you lost. And it can be, we grieve many things. So to me, that experience is something that I came across it the first time when I lost my grandfather.

And it was a very new experience for me because when I was at age 10, my father, my grandfather was my God. And he represented all these things to me. And it was a very interesting moment where I thought that sometime in life we have this moment of giving and taking. And he was buried on the day of my first communion.

So you have this 10 year old who's walking into church with this beautiful hymn on this blessed day that God has given us and I'm questioning my own faith. I'm questioning what it means to be in that situation. So grief to me is an experience. And of course, when I was 10, I wouldn't have been able to express it this way, but I had different experiences that made me realize that grief is the other side of love. You only grieve what you love.

You can't just grieve for the sake, no, you have to have loved that thing, that person, whatever it is for you to be able to grieve. So that's what it is to me. That's a beautiful explanation. I love the concept of it as an experience. And it sounds like it's an experience to be carried and integrated into your life. And I know that your poems are dedicated to grief and life in general.

So how did that come about? What was it within you that felt like your grief needed expression in this form? So I always wanted to give my children an opportunity to understand who the grandparents were. Because they passed away before they could really understand what it means to actually have a grandparent. And I started with a memoir. That was the original idea.

And then last year, I went to San Miguel de Allende at the Writers Conference and my first workshop was in grief. And I had around the table about 15 or so people. And there was this man that I always remember his story because that's the moment where I really felt that this is an experience that we all share.

So this man says every time I introduce myself, I'm in a dilemma. Because when I say that I have three daughters, people are looking for a third one. When I say that I have two daughters, I feel that I betrayed the memory of my daughter. And I was like, you know...

It is such a difficult thing and I don't know what it feels to be a father who buries his child. I don't know what it is. So it's another form of grief that I am grateful that I've not experienced it and I pray that I don't have to experience it. But that moment listening to his father

I felt that I had to now write in a different format. And that's how I started writing. So basically, the book was in me in a different form or format. And from that conversation, I started writing the next day. And I basically say to Judith Hill, who was giving the workshop, when I land in Dubai next week, Tuesday,

I'll send you whatever have." That's how the book was born. That's amazing. for those who may not know, San Miguel de Allende is in Mexico. So you went to this writer's workshop in Mexico and it almost feels serendipitous that you met this man who shared this incredible story of his truth about his daughter's earth side and heaven side and how he loves them all equally. And that changed the course of your book. So I love these.

points of connection that, like you said, alter our initial intention. And I love asking authors where they started because like nine out of 10 times, one set out to write turns out to be completely different than what actually came out. So I absolutely love that. And I'm so curious if we could preface the rest of the conversation, if you would be open to reading Tango from your book, would that be okay? Okay.

And the reason for that is that one stands out to me because I always say grief is not this or that it's this and that. And I feel like tango embodies that wisdom. Yeah. Okay. Tango. Life and death. Death and joy. Joy and grief. Grief and peace. Peace and love.

love and life intertwine. Each tango, life, death, and I tangled. In San Miguel de Allende unspoken words found attentive souls. Untold stories found listening souls. Our lived life, our coming death, found thirsty souls. Our grief united us.

Writing at last, silence long kept loud inside. Finding our shared humanity, now knowing all along we were together. Complete stranger bound by grief, bound by distance, a surprise shock of unity. No one is alone in grief. To tangle with grief is to be whole in transition.

grief is passion. For our audience, could probably see why I connected with that one so much. I love it. Thank you so much. And in your own words, what was the inspiration behind that? mean, beyond the obvious. It was that meeting. You know, it was listening to all these strangers that decided to go to San Miguel de Allende, selected this workshop.

randomly, not randomly, intentionally or not, and find all of us expressing grief differently. But that was unity. It was unity around something that we all carry, we all brought to San Miguel de Allende, and we're willing and able to share it in a way that resonated with the others. I mean, the other stories, of course, were as powerful.

but it's the story of that man and me watching someone who has been suffering in silence or been suffering united with all of us. And you know, we often speak about how love unites because we have this very sort of joyful experience of what love is. But I found over time that there's also joy in grief.

It's sort of counterintuitive, but there is joy in grief because

The reason why we grieve is because we have those so powerful memories of what that love was. That we then have this moment where we just smile at the idea of what it was. And of course, our senses remind us that we will never live that experience again. And I think that's where the difficulty, the challenge comes. But once you overcome that and you accept that

It was a gift.

Being for a day, for a week, for many years, it was a gift. And we have to embrace those gifts for what they are. They are temporary in nature. You know, and to me that became a very powerful element around breathing. And I think, you know, if you think about the title of a book, I chose, can breathe because Weber reads the title. He's talking, he or she is talking to herself or himself. I don't say you can breathe, you know.

It's I. And it's such a powerful thing to realize that as long as you're breathing, there's an opportunity for you to exist and to do something different, to contribute, to love, but also to accept that because you are able to love, you are also able to grieve.

stated so beautifully and absolutely. And even in the, for those of us who have experienced personal losses, we take breathing for granted when things are normal and we just, it's not something you think about. But when you lose a loved one, even breathing becomes something we have to consciously work at. You know, it feels like the world's run out of air. So being able to transmute these experiences,

and be an active participant in your life with time and with care and by leaning into the grief. It makes a big difference. And your book, as we've already heard a bit, plays with the delicate bounds between loss and renewal and finding beauty in the most challenging of human experiences and even finding prosperity that blooms from the ashes of grief. So you touched on that, but can we go a little bit deeper? What does that mean to you and why was that important to talk about? What comes out of grief?

So.

I was 22 when my sister calls me and she says, Daddy was not at the office. And it's strange because my father never missed a day in the office.

And a few hours later, she calls me and she says, we found the body. Well, they found the body.

And of course it was a painful, difficult moment.

But I had this moment when I said to myself, I have to continue where he left off.

I didn't know what it meant. But it was that moment where was like, you know what? It feels that it didn't finish what it started. And I want to start where it left off. And fast forward three, four years later.

A friend of his offers me an internship. And I literally started where he left off. I studied finance and economics and I ended up working in health. And the first 10 years of my career were in health. Then the following 10 years went financial services. And my mother's dream was for me to become a banker.

And I started working in financial services a couple of months after she passed away. And my last interview, or my second last interview was a week after I buried her. So to me, looking back at these experiences, and I know what, I lived the experiences that had wanted me to live. So I carried forward the things that they had dreamt about, not necessarily intentionally.

but that's how life turned out to be. sometime last year,

I was terminated. And when that happened...

It almost as if I was coming towards the end of a cycle.

And the day it happened, the person who wrote the foreword sent it to me on that day. So the day over in the book, if you look at the date of the foreword, that's day I was terminated.

So when that happened, I was like, you know what? I have to finish this book.

So when I woke up the next day, I just plowed into it and just finalized it and then it was out in November. And then now I'm working in a completely different field, which is not related to what my parents were doing. So that's what it means. Like you have to get to a place in life where you accept those challenges that come your way. You accept those things that you don't necessarily understand why they happen, how they happen.

But you read the signs in a way that you accept. That you know what? This has ended. But this friend of mine sitting in Argentina had no idea.

But for some reason she sends it to me on that day. And that's what really to me this means is like you need to really appreciate that life has these challenges that are thrown at you. And if you take them with a sort of light heart, you take them with the fact that actually there's another door. You haven't seen it yet, but you have to trust that

That door was waiting for you to enter, but you had to be pushed out because you're probably taking too long to get out for you to be able to enter. So that's to me is a power that grief allows you to see, to experience. Because I accepted that it's part of a journey that I will be grieving, but I cannot stop a grief.

because I'm still breathing. And that is to me the most powerful force that we have. And sometimes we say things like when we have a cold, we often say, my nose is blocked or I can't breathe. But it's the same thing. It's just that these are temporary. So you have a solution. You get a nasal drop or you put steam, whatever it is. So you find a solution.

and you unblock your nose and you carry on so that you can continue breathing. So we have these small reminders of life that, your breath can stop. This afternoon, I was at the office and my wife calls me and we have the coach of a basketball where my son plays that just passed away. He had a heart attack. And, you know, you sort of look at

Anyway, he's young, athletic. There were no signs per se, but he just passed away. And she sent me a message later to say that our son was in tears. So he's experiencing grief in a way that he understands what he means, but he's grieving because that person meant something to him.

And our role as parents is to help him understand that, yes, these are emotions that you have to express. And you have to learn from these things that life is preparing for you to find something. And you sort of have to make sure that we speak about these emotions. Because that's often the challenge that in many families, we only speak about certain things.

We don't speak about grief. We don't speak about money. We don't speak about sometimes violence that exists in the family. And we carry on our lives with this burden of things that are never been spoken about, that are not being touched. But it's our responsibility as parents to ensure that our children experience a full range of emotions that they have access to.

Thank you very much for your openness, first of all. Second of all, I'm deeply sorry for your losses. I know that you've understood the role in the bigger picture and how life unfolds. And obviously this book is a testament to that. And also, you know, that 22 year old version of you that got the news, I'm sure that part's somewhere in there hurts because... it hurts. And the life that you maybe wish you would have had with your dad, like you said, it just...

ended. So suddenly the same way that the basketball coach, I'm sorry about that loss too, it just ended. And I think that's what's so shocking about particularly sudden losses. It's like, wow, that was the end of the life. And it puts things into such perspective. And it sounds like it's done that to you. And one thing that I want to highlight is, and our listeners by now can tell there's so much wisdom in your words and in your messaging.

I took the time to listen to a lot of the videos that you've done, interviews, your TEDx talk, everything, your podcast. And what I perceive is this is a human with incredible groundedness, like grounded energy and a deeper understanding of life. And you've accomplished business-wise and professionally some incredible achievements that some people could only dream of if you're welcome to touch on those if you'd like.

But what stood out to me is that that's not, it doesn't seem, let me choose my words carefully here. It doesn't seem like that is what defines your life. It seems like you are okay with whatever happens because you understand that Carl will be Carl no matter what, if that makes sense to you. So that's what I picked up on, right?

A lot of it I would, I'm curious if it has to do with maybe some of this grief or where did that understanding come from? Because it sounds like it's something you carried as a young person and throughout your life. So I had very loving parents. I think that is the foundation of who I am.

They taught me things that may appear simple, but it was never about me.

that I had to understand that my role was about helping the other person. So my father was a medical doctor and my mother was a nurse. And very early, think my father realized that I would never become a doctor because it's one of these things where it took me to his practice. He was an internal medicine specialist. There was this tube going down.

someone's throat, I looked at this, I just couldn't stand it. But almost every day after school, I had to wait for them because there was always someone, some patient that they had to take care of. So you grew up with this thing that, okay, so surely, yes, I'm important to them, but I'm not that important because they are committed to save someone's life. That's what...

the oath was. And then you sort of grew up with a sense that sometimes you really not the priority because they'll forget me at school. And then they'll get home and then they realize, oh, he's not here. Well, because, I was still at school. So you grew up with this sense that we love you, you're important, but you're not the center of the world. That's one. Number two,

A lot of my education was in public schools. So my parents were very conscious about the fact that I had to understand the society in which I was growing. And that privilege was access to education. That's it. And they very, very care with me that your only inheritance is your education.

And this is probably why I don't stop studying. I don't stop learning. don't stop learning. That's really the central piece of who I am. And I, whoever I've worked with before, I said to them, guys, I don't do titles. I don't do any of this stuff. And really, my time in this space is limited. I will do what I can while I'm here. And then, you know what? Next something else will come.

So a couple of days ago, a former colleague of mine sent me that message where she got the role that we've been working on for more than a year. But I mean, I left the organization and she got the role. She still remembered to reach out to tell me that she got the role. It was a really a great moment of joy for me because the intentionality about

your career, your life is what makes a difference.

And that really, that's what it is, that there are so many things that I just don't worry about. And my focus is how can I be of service because that's how I was raised and that's what my parents left with me. So that's really what my interest is. Anything else? Not really.

Thank you for that. And thank you to your parents for their wisdom that they shared through their lived experience and how that was inherited, like you said, by you and the way in which you live your life. I'm smiling as I'm listening to you because just yesterday I was talking to my mom about how she feels about the loss of my brother. And it was only the two of us who lost my brother. And I said, you seem to be doing

okay. And that's a broad statement, right? Because I'm, with all the nuance that grief has. And then she says, I just realized that my life is not about me and neither was his. Those were not her exact words. I'm paraphrasing here, but I hear a bit of an echo in what you just said about our lives. Yes, we are us and we have responsibility and we have our free will and choices and all the things. And also there was so much of our lives that is about being of service to others.

about being joyful, even though you work for something, somebody else gets it, or the evolution is not necessarily how you envisioned it and how things play out and honoring that, meeting what is as it is. that's just coming through so much here. And you talk about your early upbringing, there is, and your TED talk, which I absolutely loved. I have a quote here, let me find it. Your TEDx talk, says,

their creativity is their currency. And you were talking about the women that you saw essentially being entrepreneurs without the title, if you will, without the public title. So could you just take us back to that version of you and how that shaped so much of how you see leadership and mentorship in your role today?

So growing up in Abidjan, these women would come and knock on the door and ask for empty bottles, plastic, glass. So fine, mean, I would just sort of give and not really think about it. Then we'll get, my mother would buy peanuts on the street. And those peanuts were in recycled bottles in a plastic glass. And I started making a connection between

these two. was like, So the circular economy, the recycling, the making sure that you can do.

with what you have was already embedded in my everyday life, in things that were around me. And these very courageous women that find purpose into something that was discarded.

So you fast forward and you say to this life which we live now where marketing, mean, companies, those big companies have found a way to make us believe that it's our responsibility to recycle the bottles that they've given us, that we paid for. And I found it amazing. It was a genius. The marketing person that came up with this was a genius. That you go to a store, you buy a bottle.

And then you and your family will now have space in your house where you sort of put different items and then you walk to the store to give it back for free. Or maybe you get a few cents here and there. But these women were doing it already. And they were not, but there was no marketing plan. It's just that they, they realized that there's a business to be made. There's somebody who was selling peanuts. She can either put it in a small plastic.

or she can find a bottle, but she doesn't have access to the bottles. So this group of women decided, know what, we're going to be part of this value chain and we will supply the bottles that where the peanuts will go. So you can find peanuts in bottle of different beverages that exist from alcoholic beverages to sort of sugar based beverages. And to me, first growing up and looking at this, I never really connected those dots.

And then as I sort of left the country and started thinking about what was it like growing up about entrepreneurship, I was like, these women were ahead of the curve. And my then sort of like, what if we had given them the tools for that business to grow? Meaning maybe a van to be able to carry this thing easier, because they will have these massive logs on their heads.

that they will just carry around and you're like, there's so much potential and creativity on the continent. And people always have a solution to the problems. But the thing is, we often don't pay enough attention to those problems that they solving. And we're trying to import solutions, we're trying to import things. And to me, that's another form of grieving. Because you look at a continent of 1.4 billion people,

that has a lot of resources and still can figure out really how to make do with what we have. And we focus intently on what we want. That sort of focus on the future deprives us of a present that we have in a way that really sometimes saddens me. Because if we're paying more attention to what we have and do with what we have,

It's not that we will be transforming the whole world, but people will probably be a little bit more happier. Now with technology, it's harder to raise children nowadays with technology because my kids can compare themselves to anybody else around the world. And I remember we traveled and we found these teenagers similar age to my kids. They were trying to wear the same type of clothes. They were watching the same series.

And I remember growing up, there was this series, I don't know if you watch it as well, called Scooby Doo, with the dog. So I was growing up in Abidjan. My wife is from South Africa. We all watch the same cartoon.

And that, if we were able to sort of share that experience back then when we didn't have the internet, now that we have it, imagine what it could be if we pay a little more attention to what exists around us, what we have around us, and how do we sort of transform.

the lives that are around us without really focusing too much on this future that we may never see.

wise words once again. And to be clear for our listeners for context, we're talking about the continent of Africa specifically. A lot of our listeners actually don't know this, but I used to work in a political think tank focused on Western hemisphere affairs, but still it gives you a global context of how things are intertwined among different countries. And one thing that was very clear is that even, this is like more than 10 years ago, but even then there was a lot of eyes on the continent of Africa and the different countries within Africa because

there is, like you said, so much potential and there's so much ingenuity and resilience and creativity. And you talk a lot about these themes throughout your speeches and also it sounds like it's played a role in how you showed up as a leader in different countries. So your understanding, global, also lived experience from your youth to your education is just all tied together. So what is the role of resilience and leadership?

And what role has that played throughout your life? Maybe even weave in grief if that's relevant. You know, I was born premature. I tend to think that the resilience was already there from the start. You you sort of fight for something that you don't even understand. But you you are told later that when you were born, both your mother and yourself had a hard time actually

breathing and staying alive. Okay, so that's step number one that you don't even know, but you already started fighting for this. And then I remember one of my aunts used to always laugh at me because I spoke very late compared to other children. So I think this was probably a gift because if you can't really express yourself, you have to listen. You have to sort of...

absorb more than the others because, you know, the words just don't come naturally. And then one of the things probably that allowed me to be probably a little bit more grounded was the fact that I really, really dislike reading. My parents tried everything. And one day, as you know, it's okay. What I'm going to do, I'll read the dictionary because I don't want to read, but fine, I'll read the dictionary. So the dictionary became

my source of words and connecting with words. And I think that's probably one of my greatest source of resilience. Because I am very particular about the definition of a word. And often when I speak to people I say, what is the etymology of this word? Because if you understand the etymology of a word, you will be careful how you use that word. For example,

Empower. It assumes that you do not have power, so somebody has to give it to you. But we are very happy talking about women's empowerment. I was like, guys, just go back and look at the word. Or you talk about transmission. It became one of my favorite words because transmission means giving a mission. And when you're a parent, you want to give your children a mission as early as possible.

And I had wished that my parents understood that and gave me that earlier because they left early. So my focus then becomes one way. I don't know the day it will end, but I want to make sure that I have given as much as possible that I could before it happens. And someone told me a couple of days ago that actually this is a strong sign of trauma.

You know, that urgency of wanting to do things. And I like, you know, when I, when I said this to my wife, she's like, what are you going to do about it now? Because I have this sense of urgency and I can understand where it's coming from. and it's something that I'm trying to work on and sort of know what you probably have to slow down and sort of just do. So the resilience piece has different threads that have come through. But ultimately.

When you wake up every day, it's an act of resilience. Because there's no guarantee, there is zero guarantee that you go to bed and the next day you'll be alive.

And once you accept that, you say, know what, whatever I can do today, I'll try and do it to the best that I can. Because tomorrow, I have no guarantee that tomorrow may come. So we have to get to this place where we are comfortable about the idea that today might be the last day. And I reached a point in my life where

I am comfortable with that idea. It's not that I want it to happen, but I'm comfortable with the idea. And I pray that when it happens, I would have done everything that I was supposed to do here in the time that I was given.

want to let that statement breathe a little because there was so much beauty and wisdom in your words right there. I really was receiving them and it's so, true, even just waking up as an act of resilience. And thank you for sharing that through line of how it's played out in your life and in different ways. When you were talking about the origin of the words that reminded me of your poem, Peso, I'm curious if you would be reading that one.

Yes, because actually I want to know. yeah, it is, will read it and I know peso can mean different things and you know, you have the currency peso and then it doesn't exist in many countries now, but you know, Spain had the peso and I think peso was an element as well, weight. So let me find it. You know, peso in Spanish and it means weight or it could be dollar.

It could mean different things. And I just love the way you played with the words in this one.

Okay, so here we go.

PESO. I do not have to carry the peso of tomorrow. You have to be with me in the moment of our today. I do not have to lift the burden of tomorrow. You have to be with us in the past of our today.

I go with you together, knowing tomorrow never comes. As tomorrow is a place where only today matters.

I completely forgotten about it, but it fits with what we just spoke about. Yeah. It reminded me of that. It's beautiful. Thank you so much. And another one I liked, if you don't, one more and that's it. I'm not going to have you read. No problem. No problem. I'm happy to read them. Is a baobab, please. baobab. So baobab is a tree that is very, very,

strong and mighty. So here we go. Grief is a seed. Prosperity a baobab. A woman standing strong and free.

Standing on the shores of Cote d'Ivoire, I remember the sweetness of a pineapple, the bitterness of a student life. I remember the rich cocoa farms, blossoming with the labor of love, rooted in the bitterness of cocoa prices, the sweetness of a transformation, a promise rooted in the past, sorrow,

woven in the fabric of all despair.

Scent of growth beyond compare is approaching. Sending on the shores of South Africa, I remember the sweetness of a watermelon, the bitterness of a student life. I remember the rich vineyards, blossoming the labor of love, rooted in the bitterness of history, the sweetness of a transformation, a promise rooted in the past.

sorrow, woven in the fabric of all despair. Scent of rainbow beyond compare is approaching. Standing on the Ethiopian highlands, I remember the sweetness of the history, the bitterness of a whispered echoing the drought that scared the world. I remember the rivers where new life was fed.

blossoming with a boldness of vibrant fabrics. Rooted in the bitterness of coffee, the sweetness of the aroma, as history reminds us seas of hardship. Roots belonging sprout new hopes. Standing on the shores of Togo, I remember the sweetness of the nanabends, the bitterness of a generation who failed their mothers.

I remember the beating heart of trade in West Africa, where trade routes winding through villages ease pain through the divine work only women can be trusted with. Rooted in the bitterness of grief, the sweetness of struggles etched in lines so deep, for children to keep the promise of a grand design beyond compare.

imagined by the Nana Bens. Grief, the seed buried deep within, stands at the root of the baobab, when new hopes begin. Prosperity, a woman, a grace.

Thank you so much. I know I put you on the spot there, but I really, really liked that. And there's so much there. There's so much there in that poem about the sweet. Yes, the bitterness, the past, the bitter and the bitter sweet past of the history and the hope, the seed of hope mixed in with the grief. There is so much there if you care to share beyond the words we just. Yeah. mean, the Kodiwa is where I was born.

And, I left on the 25th of January, 1998. I can never forget the date. And I have not lived in Cote d'Ivoire since then. So I've been a migrant for more than, I mean, I crossed a page where it's half of my life has been now outside. So I've been a migrant all this time. To a student, for work and so on. So I think about that time where.

growing up, cocoa prices, farmers, and here is me today working in agriculture. And that challenge of a country built on cocoa, but you still have that bitterness of a cocoa if you ever tasted the fruit, which is not. And then the things that could have happened that for some reason were not able to be done. And then being a student in...

I was a student, my first year of university was in Abidjan. It was a difficult year because students and teachers and civil society were always at odds with the government and there was a lot of strikes. And I moved to South Africa, there was Zimbabwe in between, then I moved to South Africa. And I was a student again in South Africa. So I restarted university three years after I finished high school.

And back then, of course, to me was okay. All my peers, I think most of them were finishing university and I was just starting. So you have this moment where you ask yourself, will I make it? Because people are finishing, they are starting and you are at ground zero.

I look back.

And I was like, you know what, everybody has their own pace. You don't have to compare yourself to anybody. But of course, back then, you look at this and you say, okay, let's start. And then Ethiopia, I lived there about actually 11 years ago, and maybe more, a little bit more. And I was fascinated by this country.

It was the first time that I was living there, but I was fascinated by the country, by what it was able to do and getting into a different culture. And the other schools we've experienced with coffee is a big part of the culture. So I come from a place where cocoa and coffee are big part of an export culture. It's not something that you experience where people come around and drink coffee and not the same way they do in Ethiopia.

But he also has that very difficult history of where I grew up with that song, We Are The World. And I get to others and I'm looking around and say, okay, clearly they learned from that lesson so that it will never happen again. So you see a sense of possibility, a sense of it's possible to have Africans taking charge and ownership and agency about that transformation.

And in Togo, the Nana Bens to me were probably, again, fascinating women. The nickname Nana Bens came from the fact that they were so wealthy that they were only driving Mercedes-Benz.

That's how they got the nickname of Nana Bens. And they really dominated in the seventies the trade. And I remember being in living in Togo and looking at the legacy of these women. I was just in awe of what was possible in a country that has only 8 million people.

But really, these women saw an opportunity and really delivered on that promise. So that is a sign of possibility. So I look at all these experiences and really the Baobab is the best expression of what this represents, the best visual expression of what this represents. And it's a seed by Vienna. A seed has to germinate.

a seed needs to be nurtured and sometimes conditions might be hard, difficult, but Baobab is still standing strong, tall, majestic. And that's really how all these experiences remind me of the fact that we are such a small piece of something which is so much bigger than us. And that's really the story behind this poem.

and the role that women have played in my life. My mother was very instrumental, same as my grandmother, who's not present at all in this book.

And it's by design because I think she deserves her own space because of what she represents to me. And I remember once I carried holy water from Lourdes in France, all the way back to Abidjan. And when I gave her that bottle,

That joy?

was really, really indescriptible. To see my grandmother that happy for water from Lourdes, because she really was praying the Virgin Mary constantly. And she never made it to Lourdes. And I remember traveling then, and I know what, I wasn't living in France, but as I know what, I'm going to carry this water.

to where I'm going and then I'll make sure that I get that water all the way to Abidjan. And I gave it to her. And that's, know, for me, it was one of these moments where you realize that it doesn't take a lot. It's just the intentionality of being of service that needs to always, always take precedence.

We're thankful to her and everything that she continues to bring in through the world through you. I'd like to give you the opportunity to share her name as well as your father and your mother, if that would be something that you would like to in the conversation. And if not, that's okay. So my grandmother was named Asyaiyue Marie Madeleine. So in Ani, which is an ethnic group where I'm from, her first names means

the earth has ended because she was the last born of her family. So that was a name that my younger sister actually carries. And then my father's was Cassie. First name was Cassie. And then my mother's first name was Afala. I don't remember the meaning of the name actually. Maybe she never told me, or maybe she told me I forgot.

So these are, and then my grandfather was who features in the book, his name was Kablan. And I don't remember what it means. And that's only from my mother's side. From my father's side, I never met my paternal grandmother. And I met a few times my paternal grandfather, but not really connected as I had from a maternal side.

But all these individuals really shaped the person that I am today in many different ways. And I'm grateful to them because they were loving individuals. And I think that is something which is key. You have to have experienced love in its purest, simplest form for you to understand what it is when you lose it.

I'm not saying that everything was perfect, not at all. But the intentionality of making sure that I understood that I had them supporting me was meant a lot. And I think when I was writing the dedication, I didn't want to sort of get the one which sort of, okay, to the usual.

But really, what I envisaged was really this collection is dedicated to those who carry the breath of good Samaritans who came before them so they could become. And I became, because of all these people.

Thank you for bringing them in the conversation with us. I believe this is how we get to honor and continue to honor them by saying their name. Thank you. And I saw that in the opening of the book about the good Samaritans and how you dedicate your poems to those good people in this world that shine a light for us through generations, really. So thank you for bringing them. And I cannot end this conversation without bringing your amazing daughter, Claire, into this conversation and your son Liam as well.

In the minutes that we have, if you could touch on your podcast called Inside the Blueprint that you do with your daughter Claire, tell us a little bit about that and where people could find some of your work.

incredibly grateful to be Claire's father.

Because for some reason, I have a responsibility to guide, nurture, and sort of allow this young individual to be the best she can be. And the podcast was born from observing her.

Being a very creative and artistic person. And I was in a, in a studio recording some short videos. And then she was sitting opposite me and she was busy giving me guidance on how should enunciate, how should smile. So I looked at her and said, you know what, why don't we do a podcast together? So initially she said yes. And then she said no.

I'm not going to do it. And then I remember asking a brother, younger brother, why do you think she doesn't want to do it? And she said she's scared, but I'm sure she will come around. And then it took a while, a few weeks. And then eventually after asking a few times, and she said, okay, yes, I'll do it.

And it was born really out of the idea that we have to build those bridges in a way that they enter in their own way into a world that is welcoming them. Growing up, I don't know if it was the same for you, you have to be seen but not heard.

Okay, guests will come, you come, you say hello, you greet, and then you just disappear. Not to be heard. As I used to ask my friends, because know, sometimes the teachers will probably come and say, he doesn't really participate in class. I said, but you, I mean, much later, said, at home, you cannot speak to adults. You want me now in class to be speaking to adults. It's the same setup. So that ability to be able to communicate.

To express yourself is something that we have to create a space. And that was my way of creating space for Claire and making sure that she feels comfortable to have conversation with adults. And that's how it was born. And I enjoyed this conversation because I discovered things about her that I didn't know. For example, that she liked interior design. I no idea. And then we invited someone that actually does this kind of work.

It's really my way of making sure that I create space and agency for her. And then my son likes different things. He's a very different person. He's into sports, he's into sort of a quiet moment. So with him, it's really quality time and presence that he prefers.

you probably have it, it's a different way of being. So yeah, so you can find it on YouTube inside the Blueprint podcast. Also on my website, carlmanlan.com. But most importantly, to me, it's an invitation to every single father out there to really make time for the children. Because we don't raise children for ourselves, we raise them for the world. So you want to make sure that they get at home.

the space and the understanding that love is what that really would take them to places they never ever imagined. And it's critical because I see a lot of young people

that often do not have that environment at home and they carry those with them, the same way we carry grief. But when you carry grief from a place where you couldn't find love at home, it's a very complex life that you're going to live. And I want to make sure that I can give to my children more love than I receive from my parents. And it's all the criticism of my parents. They gave what they could.

But I feel that I have to make sure that I am very intentional about how, what and when this happens.

something tells me you're doing just that and then some. And I have seen some of the videos with Claire and she's a natural. She commands at her age, her young age, she commands the microphone and the conversations and she does a wonderful job interviewing as well. The production's amazing and I love that it co-hosted with both of you and the way that you let her lead. sounds like...

from this, what I've gathered in this conversation about your grandmother and your mother and that through line also lives in her. That's very evident. I'm sure Liam as well and the way that you live through Liam and your grandfather and your father. So it's just this beautiful continuity, the beautiful seed of grief and hope, the baobab, a side note on the baobab. I remember being a child learning about the baobab and when I saw that tree,

something in me woke up in my heart and I said that is the most beautiful tree I've ever seen in my life and I've always had this affinity to it. I don't know what it is. Maybe we'll figure it out someday because there's just some beautiful affinity. all that being said, thank you for the beauty of this conversation, how meaningful it is. Your wisdom shared, your poem, it's funny you said earlier for somebody who didn't like to read, you're now an author. See how life unfolds.

And before we close out, would just like to give you the floor to include anything that maybe you want to have included in this conversation. And if not, we will get ready to close. things. First, thank you for what you're doing.

Because you could have chosen any other topic or any other focus, but you chose a focus that touches every single person in this world. Regardless of gender, race, it touches all of us. And to give you opportunity to have a conversation about grief, which is not about tears, which is not about sadness.

is a unique gift, especially that you mention your own loss. The second thing is

Everyone has a possibility to focus their energy on the other.

And that's what I want my life to be. And that's what I try to do every single day. That the energy that I have has to be of service of something which is bigger, better than me. And that's really a gift that I have, that I received. And I feel that there is no other way to live my life than to be of service to others.

Fully received. Thank you so much for everything you just said and for your words of wisdom and everything that continues to live through you and through your children and your work. As a final closing thought, what would Carl today say to the version of Carl, that young 22-year-old who got the news of losing his father?

You honored them.

Thank you, Carl. It has been an absolute honor. Thank you for all you do and thank you for being you. 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 you 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.