🔤 Better Person Training (part 1)

How two little dogs taught me to love and grieve

Dec 26, 2024

Hey there! I’m Robert. Welcome to a free edition of my newsletter. Every week, I share 1 piece of advice 📖, 1 breakthrough recommendation 🚀, and 1 challenge 💥 to help leaders in tech achieve a growth mindset, transform their communication & influence, and master their emotions. Subscribe today to become the person and leader that people love, respect, and follow.

“Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love.

It’s all the love you want to give but cannot.

All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest.

Grief is just love with no place to go.”

— Jamie Anderson

Before Nibbler and Poppy came into my life in 2016, I was a mess.

Though I didn’t know it at the time.

They were like tiny little bear cubs at 8 weeks old

Looking back, I was hyper-focused on the opinions, judgment, and perception of others.

My self-esteem was tied to how much I could accomplish.

My self-worth depended on external validation.

I got Nibbler and Poppy around the time that I checked into therapy.

At work, I overcompensated, trying to lead through sheer effort, often burning out in the process.

I was subconsciously trying to fill the gaps inside me from a tough childhood.

Having dogs—living beings who depend on me for survival—made me a better person.

In this newsletter series, Better Person Training, I will share with you stories and experiences that have shaped me to be a better person.

Nibbler and Poppy taught me many things. Being their dad gave me tools to be a better person.

And one of the tools they gave me came from tragedy: how to grieve.

Nobody teaches you how to grieve. You don’t learn it in school.

There are no Grieving 101A classes in college.

Grieving comes from life experience.

I believe leadership is about learning to influence yourself: learning your specific playbook to pick yourself up during hard times, dust yourself off, and move forward.

That requires learning how to grieve in healthy ways.

Because if you have the privilege to experience deep love in this life then you will experience deep grief.

I’ve been navigating deep grief since I said goodbye to Nibbler last week.

There’s the heavy quiet at home, the absent pitter-patter of his paws, and the emptiness on adventures where he’d always been at my side.

It’s hard.

This week, I’m sharing with you my grieving process.

This Week’s ABC

Advice: What Nibbler and grief taught me about love that never leaves.

Breakthrough: The 5 stages of grief, my experience processing, and a poem on loss.

Challenge: A simple exercise to appreciate those you’ve lost, to love more deeply.

📖 Advice: Magic Requires Seeing

“That is, to know love, one will have to be in love.

That is dangerous because you will not remain the same. The experience is going to change you.

The moment you enter love, you enter a different person. And when you come out you will not be able to recognize your old face; it will not belong to you.

A discontinuity will have happened. Now there is a gap, the old man is dead and the new man has come.

That is what is known as a rebirth–being twice-born.” —Osho

Losing Nibbler, my companion for eight years, has been one of the most painful experiences of my life.

But grief, as much as it hurts, has also taught me to look for love in the most unexpected places.

During the holidays, I usually go on a climbing trip with Nibbler.

I was on the fence about going now that he’s passed away, and was feeling avoidant of rock climbing in general.

I started rock climbing after I got Nibbler, so he had always been with me on climbing trips. I knew I would be sad to not have him adventuring by my side.

I decided to go anyway, to lean into the grief.

It was an eventuality I knew I had to tackle at some point—might as well do it now.

I went on a road trip to Red Rock, Vegas.

For my first climbing session without Nibbler, I was at a boulder warming up, feeling a bit sad, trying to focus and having a hard time.

What's funny is that I saw a bird next to me as I was warming up. It kept walking around and hanging out with me.

It stayed for the longest time.

I eventually thought it was Nibbler in bird form so that his dad didn't have to boulder alone.

It was so sweet, and then another bird came (I saw that one as Poppy). And they both just hung around while I was climbing.

Literally in spots Nibbler would hang, by my water bottle or other things. It was the most beautiful thing to experience.

I proceeded to climb a little bit at that boulder, packed up my bags and moved to another boulder.

One of the birds revisited me and followed me. It made me so happy.

Non-bird Nibbler, hanging and taking photos of me climbing. What a good boy.

And then the same thing at another boulder.

Then another.

I really couldn't believe it.

I was shocked. Nothing like this has ever happened (maybe real Nibbler scared away birds 😂)

And it actually came up to me and took a treat from me!

Can you believe that?

What a beautiful experience.

I'll choose to believe it was Nibbler not wanting his dad to be alone for my first bouldering session and climbing trip without him.

Amidst the pain of grieving my little boy, there have been small, almost magical signs of comfort like this.

I remind myself that I just have to stay open to see them.

🚀 Breakthrough: When Nothing Makes Sense, Everything Still Matters

When people talk about the five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—it often sounds like a checklist.

Do these things—then the grief will be gone.

But grief isn’t linear—at least, not in my experience.

Grief, to me, is like an unpredictable guest.

Grieving is a non-linear process, you **will** oscillate from OK to NOT OK

Grief doesn’t care that I’m bootstrapping a new startup, juggling responsibilities as a caregiver, and leading a new transformation initiative at work.

It creeps up on me during quiet moments, and overwhelms me with sadness, guilt, shame, and fear.

It tests my emotional resilience.

I believe my grief is my own responsibility. I own my emotions.

Nobody else does.

It is my own responsibility to pick myself up, dust myself off, and move forward.

Nobody else’s.

So what does it mean to own your own grief?

For me, it means leaning into things that used to feel super vulnerable and scary (before I had Poppy and Nibbler, and before I went to therapy):

Support: Asking my loved ones for support and affirmations even if I don’t want to
Reflection: Writing and journaling about the experience, even if it’s painful and I don’t want to
Sleep: Making sure I sleep well even if I just want to doomscroll through old photos and videos of my babies instead, even if I don’t want to
Health: Hitting the gym, rock climbing, and eating healthy even if I don’t want to
Intentional Grieving: Looking at photos and videos of my pups, even if they bring tears to my eyes, even when it’s extremely painful and I don’t want to (yes, sometimes I want to, sometimes I don’t—grief is weird like that)

All of the things I know I need to do, to pick myself up, dust myself off, and keep pushing forward and getting after it in life.

That’s what Poppy and Nibbler would have wanted for their dad.

I’ve lost many loved ones throughout the years—my grandparents, my uncle…

Each time I learn a bit more about myself and my own grieving process.

My biggest takeaway?

Leaning into the grief is the healthiest thing you can do in the long run.

Crying your eyeballs out until the source of your tears is a desert, is the healthiest thing you can do in the long run.

Otherwise the grief stays within your body and can manifest in unhealthy ways.

My main barometer for how far I’ve progressed in the grieving process comes down to one question:

Can I think of them and feel gratitude, and not sharp visceral pain?

As I lean into grief, the proportion of times I can do so increases.

Progress.

During this period of time, I am heavily leaning into grief in a healthy way (even though, I don’t want to).

There are 5 stages of grief, and I’ve learned that during the grieving period I experience them in waves.

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.

They’re all cousins at a holiday dinner table bickering inside my heart—sometimes simultaneously together, sometimes alone.

Being acutely aware of them helps me process.

5 Stages of Grieving Nibbler

1. Denial: The First Wave

At first I didn’t want to believe it was real.

Even as I held Nibbler’s lifeless body at the vet, a part of me refused to believe he was gone. I whispered, “This can’t be real. Not Nibbler. Not my boy.” Denial was a shield against the unbearable truth.

2. Anger: The What-Ifs

I was hard on myself.

Why did I leave him alone? Why didn’t I get home sooner? Why didn’t I do more? Anger wasn’t just at the world—it was at myself, at fate, at every butterfly effect that led to that day.

3. Bargaining: The Silent Plea

I would’ve given anything for it to be different.

As he lay on the vet’s table, I begged silently, Please let him be okay. Take me instead. Bargaining is grief’s desperate attempt to rewrite reality, even when we know it’s futile. I knew this, yet I still felt it deeply—viscerally.

4. Depression: The Hollow Ache

I felt utter despair and emptiness.

The deafening silence at home, the absence of his tail wagging, the little sounds he made drinking water and eating food—all of it left a hollow space that felt impossible to fill. Depression was the weight of grief settling in, a reminder of what I’d lost. I had to accept that this heaviness was all part of the love I shared with him.

5. Acceptance: The Love That Remains

I had to be okay, with not being okay.

Acceptance doesn’t mean the pain is gone. Acceptance means recognizing that Nibbler’s love hasn’t left—it’s transformed.

Because fundamentally, love is transformative.

We become different people when we surrender to love.

It shows up in the birds that visited me, the memories that make me cry and smile, and the lessons I carry forward.

It shows up in the better person I have become, through the simple love of a boy and his dog.

I’ve been crying my eyeballs out, journaling, leaning on my community, and transforming the grief into gratitude: gratitude that I got to experience such a depth of love in the first place.

You wouldn’t know happiness without sadness

You wouldn’t know joy without pain.

My heart of hearts, my yin and yang, my Nibbler and Poppy. I’m so fortunate I got to be your dad (:

I wouldn’t know this depth of grief, without knowing the depth of love I had with Nibbler and Poppy.

As time goes on, I feel gratitude and joy.

And I feel that Nibbler and Poppy are still with me.

I've changed to be a better person because of them. So, they are always with me.

Thank you both for teaching me to be grateful for what I do have, and what I have had.

I love you so much.

What I Did This Week

I’ve learned over the years in therapy that creative expression can be a great way to grieve.

Writing in general, has always been therapeutic for me.

Poetry therapy in particular, has been a powerful tool for me to process hard times throughout the years.

This week, I’m sharing with you a poem I wrote on grief and loss to process.

I hope it helps somebody else out there.

When Nothing Makes Sense

Why is it when love becomes loss,
Your heartbeats’ lyrics mirror anxious footsteps?
They whisper “no” as they tiptoe
Around the corridors of pain and anger.
They run scared for the hills of distraction,
But can never beat the maze.
For weeks, months, and years they march on—
Until they hear a forgotten echo beneath the chorus of anguish.
Colors become colors, and the corridors become hallways of broken mirrors.
The footsteps stop as you search in the shards of glass.
Your eyes become bloodied hands,
Seeking that which you cannot know without time—nor understand.
The clock ticks wise and the echo grows in tempo.
It feels familiar yet unfamiliar—your melody’s shadow.
The footsteps march a new crescendo,
And the mirrors become whole, as you find your living memoirs.
You wear a lost smile, now found, with invisible scars.
Your symphony continues on,
Your heart’s broken sonnets become songs.
And the eyes of everything around you unshatters.
Because when nothing makes sense,
Everything still matters.

💥 Challenge: Reflect Intentionally

This week, I challenge you to think about a loss you’ve experienced:

Write about what the person (or pet) taught you.
Reflect on how that shows up in you today.

And hug your loved ones a bit deeper for me.

Happy holidays, and I hope you spend some time surrounded with love. ❤️

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