Leading Through Grief- How to Integrate Family Crisis and Leadership Vision

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What happens when the leader, who is used to casting vision for thousands, is suddenly brought to his knees by a family crisis? Today we're talking with Brad Hoffman about the quiet dismantling of identity that happens when you trade your planned retirement for the second cradle.

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We're moving past the pressure of productivity and exploring a theology of weakness that might just be the strongest leadership tool you've ever owned. Success isn't about the output today, it's about the presence.

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Welcome to Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Nurturing through Adversity. In this podcast, we will delve deep into the challenges and triumphs of grandparents raising grandchildren as we navigate the complexities of legal, financial, and emotional support. I invite you to join us on a journey of exploring thoughts, feelings, and beliefs surrounding this growing segment of our society. Drawing from real stories and expert advice, we will explore the nuances of childrearing for children who have experienced trauma and offer valuable resources to guide you through the intricate journey of kinship care.

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We'll discuss how we can change the course of history by rewriting our grandchildren's future, all within a supportive community that understands the unique joys and struggles. This podcast was made especially for you.

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Welcome to a community where where your voice is heard, your experiences are valued, and your journey is honored.

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I've spent so much of my life trying to keep my work self and my grandma self in separate boxes, afraid that if they touched, the whole system would collapse.

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But talking to Brad Hoffman today made me realize that the most powerful leaders don't compartmentalize, they integrate. Brad is a pastor and a leader who lost his daughter to cancer and is now raising his grandchildren. And his insight on running the race set before you, even when it's not the race you chose, hit me right where I live.

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If you're tired of pretending you aren't hurting while you're leading this conversation, is your permission to breathe. Brad, it's such a pleasure meeting you. You've spent decades building visions and shaping strategies for organizations.

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Before you became a grandparent, raising grandchildren. Now you're a pastor, a podcast host, you're raising two of your three grandchildren. Among many other things I'm learning how do you lead an organization with clarity when your heart and your schedule and your batteries being stretched across generations right here at home.

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Well, Laura, it's good to be with you as well. And thanks for the opportunity to be here. And I think there are a couple of things that come to mind with that question and just the reality of where we live. I think one of the things that is primary to me For a leader is to care for the caregiver. The idea of self care and the practices that fuel us spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically. And it can be many things, but it is about the reality that I have to be full in order to give well the idea of leading well that is whether it is the walks, the silence, the prayer, the Sabbath. The idea is if not protecting the inner life, then everything else suffers. And ultimately what I've also learned in recent years is that I, I have to focus on what only I can do. Delegate the non essentials, release my desire for perfection.

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Right. And that there are things that others can do to help carry and. And I guess maybe it's less about control and more about trust for me. So that's also huge. Reframing is important to me how I reframe my day and it accordingly.

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What are the things that, you know, how I describe my wins are. Success isn't necessarily productivity, but it's presence and being present and providing or prioritizing maybe the relational component more. It's more important to me. Relationships probably are more important to me now than they've ever been in my life. But the last thing I think is so important for me as a leader, both in, in caring for my grandkids and our family, but also leading an organization is that I have to keep dreaming, stop dreaming. If I stop dreaming, I'll stop flourishing and what happens. And I think this, this is true.

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Dreams have a sense of disappearing in hard seasons and you have to be intentional about continuing to dream, open hands and trust towards God in the future that he has for you. But those are just a few things that I think of as a leader. How do you do that? That things change. But I'm curious, do you do that within a day or a week?

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How does that work for you? It's daily and weekly. So when I think about daily it's the typical easy stuff. Both my wife and I exercise on a regular basis. And so whether that's cardio or lifting more balance, mobility at my age. Right.

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And checking those things out. But I think it is the physical output, this physical work that that helps the body. But I think from the mental piece, that's a daily rhythm as well as weekly. So I think in terms of one of the practices I do is I do reflective journals, journaling. And so it's either in the morning or in the evening. During that day I like to do it in the evening. I prefer to do that because it allows me to reflect on the day and what it does Is it helps me to see God at work in the day.

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If I just walk through my day and I don't take note of what's happened in the day, I feel more isol, I feel less effective, I feel less present. And so the idea of being able to journal helps me to note that I see God in the moments, the simple graces of the day, where those successes might have been, where presence has become very real. And then dreaming is about conversations with people, and it's also about sitting down and praying and thinking through. And part of that is organizational leadership and not about supporting, but leading and looking at where you want to go, what you want to do where, and recognizing that not only always, those dreams come about. I'm a. I'm a collaborative leader, so I have to be in relationship. I have to have conversations, I have to hear insights and what people are thinking and going through.

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My. My famous line is, I always have ideas. They're never the best ideas, but let's put them on the table and let's dream together. And in a sense. So I think it's part of a rhythm, it's part of a routine, but it's part of. It's some daily, some weekly, some seasonally. In terms of reflection.

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We spoke earlier about the importance of community, and I do think it's so important to connect with other members of this community. Today has been a gem for me to be able to meet you, and I encourage through the podcast for us to do that with each other, because that is my little flame. My flame is lit by the conversations that I have with others about these difficult things that we have. I think that's very important.

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And you mentioned something else. I think that's very important. I believe that all of us that are doing this hard work are called to be leaders in some way. We are leading this generation of young people that we are in care of to live a greater legacy. And the most successful leaders I find are those who can reimagine, I call it my toolbox, when we have these unexpected changes in the way we thought life was going to be for us. Yes. Well, I think in reimagining the toolbox. So those would be.

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Those would be the things that. Well, let me ask you, how are you defining toolbox? Well, my toolbox is changing all the time.

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Sometimes I find that there are different forms of technology that help make my life easier. There are others that make it more complicated.

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So I have to change my technological toolbox to work for me. I think that my routine as you said there are certain things that are very important to my routine. Exercise for me is one of them. The way I run my mornings so that my family runs efficiently and so that my personal life runs efficiently and so that my relaxed life and meditative life runs efficiently. That toolbox changes, obviously. I got thrown a whole lot of things four years ago, and now we found we had to make a strategic move to get more support and help for the children.

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That's changed my toolbox, and it's getting better. I think we're always improving that, finding what we need to make our life better and easier and simpler and more restorative. Those are all words I think of more practical, more efficient, more supportive, more restorative. And I think that it probably will keep changing until I die, because the kids are going to get older. They're going to need different things. I'm going to get older, and I'm going to need different things and situations.

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But I always keep my mind to being open and creative because what I thought I couldn't do, my gosh, four years ago, now I go, I can do anything. I just have to keep my mind open to what that might be. Maybe we might be traveling with the children. After I had the loss of a child, my husband lost his wife, previous wife, to cancer. We put our lives together and we wanted to do things that we had done separately for a long time. And we'd had a very hard life getting to where we were. So we were going to travel, and that's what we were going to do the rest of our life. We had it all planned out. A third of our life was going to be in Montana and in this little retirement cabin we'd built in the wilderness. And then a third of our life was going to be traveling around with family in the United States, and a third of our life was going to be a traveling overseas.

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And my husband said, well, I guess we're never going to travel again. And I said, don't say that, because you just don't know. Maybe it will be a wonderful opportunity that comes up and the children will travel with us again and our whole picture will be changed. We'll sell this house. We'll. You know, that's what I mean when I refer to toolbox.

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I have a friend, a really good friend, who has this comment that how he's had to. He's in his mid-70s now, and his comment is, you have to reinvent yourself every seven years or with every new season that comes along.

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And so what does that look like to reinvent yourself. And I think from that standpoint, you have a trajectory, right? You're living a trajectory and recognizing that there are disruptions that change the trajectory of your life. I think sometimes people in my situation, or even in our situation, can be bitter as to what they've lost and not see the blessing and the beauty of what they have. And I think for me, it is recognizing the beauty and the blessing that I have. And I go back like, there's a passage in Scripture in Hebrews, chapter 12, verse 1, that talks about running the race that is marked or set out before you. And I've often commented that this is not the race that I chose to run, but it's the race that was set before me. And I've just got to run the race well.

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And so how do I do that? And that comes back.

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The way I approach, I think, has shifted. One of the things I have shared on numerous occasions is I never ask why. So why did my daughter have cancer? Why did my daughter die? Why am I raising grandkids?

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The question was never why, but it always became about how.

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So how do I live into this day? Well, how do I live well, how do I live well into the lives of the kids and the people that are placed in my stewardship and entrustment? And so it's not necessarily about living the why, but living the how. What I have learned is if I. If I spend my time living the why, I'll never know the how.

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But if I do live in the how, I will maybe get glimmers or glimpses of the why. So I think what changes in that toolbox, the way I. The way and see situations. But the last is I.

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I recognize the significance, importance of relationships more than. Than ever before.

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One of the things that I've spent focused on Christmas Eve, when I mean, we do services all day long, and, and you're doing a talk and you're talking to thousands of people. And the idea is that you are having this conversation. And my talk centered around the fact that, that this year will look different than next year and this year looks different than last year. Be completely present with the people around your table this year, because this is the gift that you are given this year and how important those relationships are. And I recognize sometimes we try to live too far ahead, right. Instead of living present.

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And so I think those are all pieces of that toolbox for me. And yes, I'm having to learn different things. I'm doing kindergarten all over again and trying to figure out parents Square and schoology and all the different applications that go into, you know, you just, you. You have to. You have to be free to pivot. And I'm not sure we always are. Right.

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No. Moving away from rigidity in many different forms, I think is really important.

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That's how you survive a lot of these transitions. Absolutely. I have some questions that I've asked. Asked everyone, or am asking everyone that I'm interviewing these days. The systematic question that I want to ask you, Brad, is as we look at this blueprint for spiritual formation in our culture, what do you think is the one systematic flaw in how we train leaders to balance public vision with a family crisis such as the ones that we've been through?

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You know, that is. That's such a good question. And there are a lot of different ways that you can answer that, but for me, I think. I think we teach leaders to compartmentalize instead of integrate. And what I mean by that is, if you're, if you're reading leadership information, if you're reading text, if you're being trained, so much is centered around competence, vision effectiveness. Yet we rarely teach leaders how to carry grief and trauma and disruption and how that is a part of their calling and. And how we live that out. We don't teach leaders how to live or perform while hurting. They lead while exhausted. They. They.

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They try to cast vision silently while life's falling apart.

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Right. And yet what does our system do? It rewards productivity, what we call resilience, but not honesty, information. And so I think that is probably one of the things that we. We try to teach compartmentalization instead of integration in that. And maybe what's missing in that model is, is the permission to slow down.

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The permission. The permission to grieve and to know how to grieve and having. Having the right language for grief and.

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And maybe it's for us developing. I've been playing around with this a little bit, is a theology of weakness. And what does that look like for us as it honors the dependence upon the world? So beautifully said.

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Some of the leaders that people respect the most are the ones that can share their grief, honestly.

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And I think that that is very important. Something we don't see very often.

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Well, you look, if you, if you follow social media, it's. It's. We get glimpses of all the good things, right? And somehow you wish on social media there were feeds for when life stinks and how you're living that out, you. Know, But I would like to see that. What do you think this is? The taboo question I have for you today, what do you think is the one thing that nobody tells a leader about the shame or exhaustion of starting over as a parent, as you have after the loss of your daughter?

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I think the thing that nobody says, and this isn't like a negative, but it's a.

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I think there's a quiet dismantling of your perceived identity as you kind of rebuild into this new calling. And you saw yourself as one thing, and you had this identity that looked this way. And I say that from the standpoint of, before Angie got sick and passed, I was a grandparent to five grandkids, and now I'm like a grandparent to three and kind of like a parent grandparent to two. So the identity changes in that relationship to that generation and how I. How I see myself. And I don't think there's.

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It's. I don't call it regression. I think it's just a defining.

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And I'm not sure that's.

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I'm not sure that's really talked about much. Right. But it's just one. That's one thing that, that, that no one seems to tell you, you know, that identity changes and shifts. Nothing wrong with it as long as you see it rightly. There's no, no, no shame in that. But it, it is. And I don't think legacy becomes redefined. And, and it's not like, oh, I'm getting to do this over again. It's. No, I'm. I'm just honoring my daughter and I'm honoring her husband. I'm honoring family. I'm loving these kids and, and I want to do what's right for them, and it just kind of redefines it for me.

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I agree. I'm trying to figure out what that new identity is still for me, and hearing the conversation in my head about it, there's no way to get around it than to recognize it for what it is. And you go back. I find that you go back and remember what it was like before in the last past life that you had. And.

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That'S what I thought it was going to be. But there was no other way to get to where we are now.

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I look at the path and go, could I have chosen differently? Could I have done anything differently to get to this identity that I am now? And therefore, what is it?

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And how do I fully accept it, and how do my children accept it? Because as you. I have other grandchildren and I have other children, and I can't be everything to all of those grandchildren in the way that I wanted to be before. So it's very interesting. True.

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If you were a COO of the country writing a national toolbox policy for leadership, what non negotiable rule would you implement to protect a leader's soul and family during a major life transition such as the one we've been through?

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I think I would mandate, I'm gonna call it like protected margin or even some sort of accompaniment during the transition, during the phases, during the change that's there. And it's something that's not obviously performance based is not because of what you've earned it. But, but I think every, every leader that is walking through disruption, family disruption, whether it be illness, death, caregiving, fostering, kinship, grand families, any other sort of trauma that may be out there ought to have some sort of workload adjustment, ought to have some sort of companion or spiritual director with them, have access to counseling. And I'll liken it to this. When our daughter passed and I was flying back and forth from, from Houston to Richmond, we brought her back and she passed a few days after she came home. My team around me, just because I'm the, I'm the one that speaks on Sundays to services. And so I'm the main speaker and the team around me closest came to me and said, hey, you're not going to do this for the next month. We want to give you space to be with your wife and the grandkids and we will adjust. If you need more time, we'll give you more time. And I think part of it was it, it gives you the space to calibrate, which gives you the permission to step into the new future that you have. And I don't think just because we give somebody three days for leave or this and we have nothing for, for, for grandparenting leave or anything like that, but I mean, if we were cognizant about creating margin for people in the seasons, that they need it, because everyone will need margin at some point. And so if we're intentional about providing and creating that for people in order to recalibrate and refocus.

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I agree. I agree. Thank you so much for sharing your time, Brad. And we want to wish you many blessings and love and grace during this time as your family heals from the loss of your daughter. I'm so thankful to have connected with you and your community. I hope we create a larger, more supportive one for kinship caregivers all over the country, all over the world. Absolutely.

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It is very, very essential, very needed. So I do appreciate your time and appreciate your work and what you're doing. I appreciate your story and what you've learned and gained and.

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And the. The mission that you now have set before you. I mean, you've done a lot of change yourself. I mean, I mean, just if you look at the story, not only grieving the loss of a child, but at the same time transitioning across the country to care well for. For Graham's and family dynamic.

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Absolutely absolute. Wish you the best and. And the grace as well. So look forward to talking more in the future.

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So. Thanks, Brad. Thank you.

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I want you to step into the reflection room with me.

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Brad mentioned that we often ask why, when we should be asking how. Take a look at your calendar for this week. Are you living in the why, staying stuck in the bitterness of what was lost?

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Or are you living in. In the how? What is one simple grace you can note in your journal tonight to prove that you are present in the race you're actually running, not the one you planned.

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Join us next week as we step into a world of sanctuary with Ellie Moss. Ellie is the creator of Lickity Pop, and she's joining us to share how story and play aren't just tools for grandchildren.

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They are the survival mechanisms we need to navigate the heaviest chapters of our own lives. We'll explore how to build a world of color when the second cradle feels gray. We are 2.7 million strong. Still nurturing and still here. We are dismantling the old identities to make room for a deeper calling. Trading the why for the how and leading our families with a grace that only comes through the fire.

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Your heart is the most important asset on the balance sheet.

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Keep nurturing, keep leading, and I'll see you in the next boardroom.