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Grief.
 
 

It’s personal, it’s universal and according to Los Angeles-based serial entrepreneur Melissa Saleh, it can be transformative in affecting the way we show up in life and at work.
 
 

It was more than a decade ago that Ms. Saleh received the news that her child’s heartbeat had suddenly stopped on the day they were supposed to be born.
 
 

“It’s been 10 and a half years. I will remember that moment for the rest of my life,” she says.
 
 

She recalls the time following that loss as “isolating” and “brutal,” but she had to go back to work and run a company.
 
 
 

“To be honest, my company, for that first year, saved me, because I had something,” she says. “I had something that was mine, that I had created, that I could keep alive. It wasn’t my daughter, but it was something, and my work really gave me a reason to wake up.”
 
 

At the time Ms. Saleh, who was also a former employment lawyer, was the founder of a company that helped startups launch digital platforms. She was hiring, doing payroll, handling client contracts and more.
 
 

“I created this company and I wasn’t going to let that die too,” she says.
 
 

 
 
 

This wasn’t the first time Ms. Saleh has experienced grief at work. Right before starting her company she had miscarried quietly in the bathroom at another job.
 
 

She let the co-founders of the company know what had happened, but let them know that she was okay and would not be taking any time off.
 
 

Two weeks later she was fired.
 
 

“Clearly, things were just not going smoothly for me, but I was not going to stop working,” she says.
 
 

That’s when Ms. Saleh started her company.
 
 

It wasn’t just to feed her entrepreneurial spirit. She wanted a family, and she wanted a job where she could feel she was in control of her own destiny, and no one could fire her.
 
 

It was after losing her child in the hospital that she realized no matter how she structured her work life – whether she was working for others or running the show – there were few people or companies that were equipped to deal with grief.
 
 

“Fundamentally, the corporate capitalist system was not made for the messiness of human life,” she says. “During traumatic circumstances ... there’s this expectation to figure it out, get through it, join a Facebook group; but don’t bring it to work.”
 
 

 
 
 

Ms. Saleh says that if companies could support grieving workers, both the company and the individual could come out stronger.
 
 

She says that there is a narrative in the corporate world that a resilient, gritty person just gets up after being knocked down by grief.
 
 

“I completely reject that, you don’t move on, you are changed forever. You must transcend and grow into the new version of you,” she says.
 
 

She says that when people are given the time and resources to truly feel their feelings, and have a proper grieving process, they come out as a different person who approaches life and work differently – in a good way.
 
 

“Healing and grieving can be almost as brutal as the loss, but suppression is what kills the growth,” she says.
 
 

Next week, I’ll share more of Ms. Saleh’s story, how you can find empowerment in overcoming grief and what companies are doing – even if it’s small steps – to support this universal experience.
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

20 per cent
 
 

According to hiring platform Greenhouse, between 18 and 22 per cent of the job postings on the site are ‘ghost listings’ – jobs posted with no intention of the company filling them. Why? Dead-end postings can help companies look like they are growing and allow them to amass more followers on social media or emails for mailing lists.