Episode 30: How to support someone through grief

Louise (01:44.236)

This week, my guest is Gen Kobayashi. Gen is a forward-thinking strategist with more than 20 years experience in the marketing industry, having worked in integrated creative advertising, media strategy, and PR. He started live as a media strategist and then moved into creative and brand strategy. And most recently, Gen was the EMEA CSO at the WebEx Shandwick Collective. Hi, Gen, how are you doing today? Welcome to the Nabs Podcast.

Gen Kobayashi (02:11.09)

Hey, Louise, good to meet you. Great to be here.

Louise (02:13.506)

Really nice to meet you and how are you doing today?

Gen Kobayashi (02:16.138)

Yeah, good. Thank you.

Louise (02:29.602)

Good. Now we will preface this by saying we’re going to be talking about grief. So if you’ve got any sensitivities around that topic, then please take a moment to think about when you’d like to listen to this and any support that you might need afterwards. And also on a lighter note, I have a cat at home and Gen has a dog at home. So you may hear some pet noises throughout this recording. How’s the dog today?

Gen Kobayashi (02:56.394)

Calm, calm, as long as no one comes anywhere near our front door, I think you won’t hear from him. But if he does, if someone does come near the front door, you’ll hear from him. He might pipe up, so apologies in advance.

Louise (03:08.61)

Alright. Do you know what? I might kill two birds with one stone, send my cat to your house, because my cat’s currently going very loopy. Yeah. The NABS dog cast. Right. So let’s go into something completely different now. Let’s go straight into it, because you have a mental wellness challenge around grief that you’ve written beautifully about. We’re going to talk about this in quite a lot of detail. So tell me your story.

Gen Kobayashi (03:15.624)

That’s a good idea. Could be interesting. And then record that.

Gen Kobayashi (03:38.826)

Um, yeah, so you quite rightly put that, well, thanks for saying that I wrote about it beautifully. I sort of just put pen to paper back in 2021. So a few years ago now, when my sister-in-law passed away, she passed away with stage four cancer in 2021. And it was, it was sudden, it was brutal and it sort of tore our family apart. To kind of be honest about it, it hits all as you would expect.

My wife and her sister, Nikki, who passed away, were very close. I actually don’t have any brothers or sisters, so I’ve never been able to relate to having a sibling in that sense.

They were unbelievably close and I’ve known, you know, I’ve, I’ve, had known Nikki, you know, for, years, you know, my wife and I’ve been together as sort of, you know, 20, 20 odd years. So I’ve known Nikki for as long as I’ve known, I’ve known, my wife, Emma, and, they were, they were more than sisters.

They were best friends and, they really were the similar age group, the similar age. were two years apart, and, she was, you her and her husband Martin and their kids were very much part of our lives and we were part of their lives. We would go on holidays together, we would spend time together. So when she passed away, it was, yeah, there was the, there’s been a hole that’s been left in our world.

So I, you know, I just decided to put pen to paper, so to speak, and start putting some thoughts down and how I just… I just wrote from the heart about how I was feeling and how this felt for me and how it felt for my two young kids at the time, how it felt for my wife. And I had lots of nice messages, obviously back from it.

And I think people were glad that someone in a relatively senior position at the time, I was CSO, Engine Creative, formerly known as Engine Creative, now known as House 337.

And I had lots of encouraging messages and actually lots of messages of support around the topic. Just, I think people were happy to hear from a senior person in the industry talking quite openly about the pain and the hurt that we went through at that time and we still go through, but in slightly different ways to this day.

And yeah, I hope we can all talk more about grief. And I think it’s one of those issues that one of those things in life that everyone faces and everyone will face at some point in their life. And to be honest, I had faced grief obviously before.

My aunt passed away when I was younger and other family members had died, you know, friends of ours have died and passed away. So it’s not like this was a new thing, but I think for us, it was, and for me, it was probably the closest, the closest member of my family and my immediate circle of friends and family that, that, that passed away. So was a real, it was a real shock to the system.

 

Louise (07:24.706)

First of all, I am so sorry to hear about what happened to your sister-in-law. It’s, I mean, it’s always tragic to lose a loved one and a particular kind of tragedy when it’s a younger parent with a family that they’re leaving behind. How are her husband and kids doing?

Gen Kobayashi (07:44.97)

They’ve been amazing, really. Like, really resilient and actually they’ve had to wrestle with something so enormous that I am in awe of them constantly and how they manage their life and their worlds. #

Obviously, the time there was, Mimi was, you know, six, gosh, would have been, yeah, she would have been, you know, 15, no, 14, sorry. And Otto was 11 at the time.

So really young kids, young kids to go through what they went through, to lose the shock of losing, of losing your mum at that age is just… is just unbearable. yes, it was, it is, and it was difficult, but actually Mimi, for example, has been an amazing, she’s my niece and I’m so proud of her.

She’s, she’s actually confronted it really well and actually recorded her own podcast on grief with her school at the time. And wanted to talk more to her school, you know, her school classmates and the rest of her school about what she was going through.

The school was really great and supporting her and encouraging her to get her voice out there and encouraging other pupils, know, other young kids in her school who’ve gone through something similar to talk about it. Because I think we all know that talking about it sort of is the is the only way really to kind of to help to help in this process.

And it is a process that everyone goes through and everyone grieves in different ways. But I think the one unifying thing is, is, you know, trying to be as open as possible about it. But yeah. So as I said, they’ve, it’s been tough for them. Of course it’s been tough and it’s hit them. It hit them at the worst. You know, if you think about that time as well, it was COVID we were still going through. So you had all sorts of disruptions around school, you know, massive exams being sat at the same time. And, you know, this was, it was, it was a real kind of…

Gen Kobayashi (10:03.858)

It was a real sledgehammer at the time, they are continuing to be brilliant. And Martin, he’s just been brilliant in holding everything together, obviously with the help and support from the rest of the family as well. So everyone pulled together and actually close friends have been really supportive and family members have stepped in. So yeah, you sort of rally around.

 

Don’t you know that that happens, friends and family kind of come together and you’re sort of amazed by that at the time. And I think it’s a good reminder of how important that is, having that circle.

Louise (10:44.312)

I think that rallying around is so important and not just in terms of your friends and family, but also your work as well. Maybe we’ll talk about that work aspect now, reflecting on how you received any kind of support from your management and your colleagues.

What that looked like, how you were feeling and how that was kind of met and responded to. And also, I think interestingly in your position, not only were you doing the grieving yourself for the kind of the sister that you never had, who just one day was taken away from all of you, but also you’re supporting your wife and you’re supporting your kids and you’re supporting Martin and his kids. So you’re in this kind of sandwich almost of grieving yourself and supporting….

Gen Kobayashi (11:28.778)

Mm.

Louise (11:37.868)

…people around you who are grieving. How people around you kind of reacted to your news and how they gave you any support and anything you felt that you would have liked in terms of additional support that wasn’t there for one or other reason.

Gen Kobayashi (11:54.994)

Yeah. And I think it’s very, I mean, so at the time, as I said, I was, was a different company at the time, they were, Engine were hugely supportive. And I had a brilliant sort of management team that rallied around me. And I kind of genuinely was allowed to shut off and allowed to spend time grieving and spend time with my family.

And I think the gist of, I mean, the gist of that article that I wrote back then in 2021 was I sort of didn’t intend it to, didn’t intend for the article to be actually be about grief, but grief was the thing that sort of spurned it on. It was actually more about not waiting for a bereavement to, to switch off.

It was actually about switching off and it was about the importance of really switching off. Actually that moment in time when we lost Nicki, it was the first time through an external force, obviously not through my own decision. It was the first time that I did actually, I quite literally sort of removed all my applications from my phone.

So I couldn’t, I couldn’t be contacted. You know, there was no Slack on my phone. There was no Teams, no, you know, kind of

 

Louise (12:53.334)

Mmm.

Gen Kobayashi (13:20.598)

…emails and I genuinely did sort of switch off. And that was obviously that was that was needed at the time. And, you know, I genuinely believe that there isn’t, that there isn’t enough, there often isn’t enough space for that.

But going back to kind of the support and the help, I think, I think a supportive working environment when it comes to going through a bereavement, a loss is such a, at that scale, someone so close to you, thankfully, touch wood doesn’t happen very often, right?

We’re not hoping that, unless, you know, something terrible, really terrible has happened on an ongoing basis, it’s not, you know, a regular occurrence, hopefully.

So I think the workplace really needs to kind of really reflect the severity and the significance of…

Louise (13:57.549)

Right.

Gen Kobayashi (14:15.914)

…the mental state of that person that’s going through that at that point in time and recognising the fact that this isn’t a common occurrence. So because of that, you need to obviously, great to have policies in place and great to have kind of systems in place, but you also need to take a level of individual case-by-case basis.

And I think actually my previous employer at the time when this happened, however many years, four years ago, they really did recognise that. actually, Louise, you made a really good point, which is they recognised the fact that, you know, she was technically, you know, she wasn’t my biological sister, but she was my sister-in-law.

But she was my, you know, she was, she was absolutely intertwined with my family life. And knowing that I had to support Emma, who had lost her sister, her only, you know, brother or sister.

They recognised that I would be supportive and again that was the first time I’d been in that position before, I hadn’t thankfully been in that position before, you suddenly realise as you said Louise you’re dealing with your own grief and your own kind of pain but you’re also you know… Emma was, you know, absolutely kind of incapacitated in a sense of you know there was she needed absolute time for herself as well so you know I was, you know, doing the childcare, doing all of the stuff that has to go on whilst everything stops, quite rightly.

Yeah, the organisation I worked for at the time were really great about actually understanding the individual needs. And I think that’s so important. I think that actually has to be the start point. And as I said, think policies and universal systems in places is hugely important for obvious reasons, but I think being able to assess the situation on a case-by-case basis and have some room for human interpretation of that individual’s case is hugely important. And that has to be the foundation of it, I think.

Louise (16:22.38)

This is so important because you hear about a lot of policies or you read policies where the bereavement policy is if you have lost… and then they will name perhaps two or three types of relative, but that doesn’t take into account maybe other relationships that you might have or other responsibilities that you might have. So it’s your situation, which is devastating and requires time and thought and support. That kind of just bespoke

Gen Kobayashi (16:33.801)

Yeah.

Louise (16:50.198)

…support idea is really, really key. And you’ve got to use so many….

Gen Kobayashi (16:53.482)

I think you make that such a great point. You know, technically, and I’ve seen those policies where you on paper, on paper, don’t, actually, think technically I probably didn’t deserve, you know, technically by the book, I probably wasn’t entitled to that time by the book because I don’t think anywhere is written necessarily. And I don’t know the policy well enough. I’m sure it’s changed now many years ago.

Sister-in-law I doubt is at the top of the list, actually, as you said, having that interpretation to understand that is critical.

Louise (17:24.108)

Yeah.

Louise (17:29.558)

Yeah, absolutely. And this is where it helps as a manager to have those active listening skills as well, which is something that we teach on our Managers’ Mindset course. So they’re actually really able to just hold someone as they’re telling you what’s going on and really drill down to understand the support that they need.

 

Gen Kobayashi (17:49.77)

Yeah.

Louise (17:51.852)

What was really interesting about your piece was this takeaway that you had about the importance of switching off from work. And a few years on, is that something that you’re still doing? And are you still processing those tangible effects of grief on how you want to live your life and how you support your family?

Gen Kobayashi (18:13.438)

Yeah, think in short, yes, those things are stuck, because grief never, you know, as anyone who’s lost anyone, it never really goes away, does it? It’s just there and it just changes exactly that. And I think so, so yes, it’s stuck with me and obviously it…

Louise (18:25.867)

It just changes.

Gen Kobayashi (18:34.836)

You know, you have to, you have to learn to navigate that grief and it changes, the context changes, everything changes around it, but you still have to learn to navigate that in terms of the importance of kind of switching off.

Yes, to an extent, but being honest, I think, you know, you know what it’s like if you’re working in a, in an industry like ours, where it is high pressured and it is demanding. It’s very, it can be very demanding. it’s, it’s something you consciously have to think about doing and taking time.

So I try to where possible, but I’m not going to sit here and say that it’s super easy to do that because that’s the reality of the demands of the job is it’s difficult. I think the other thing that I’ve quite practically taken away and you talked about manager training.

At the time, I think that would have been great for me. I think actually going through it, I’ve sort of had to learn. I learned through it myself, going through the pain of losing someone. I had to sort of learn on the job, so to speak.

There are things that I now look back on post that event that happened when we lost, four years ago, I look back on the way in which I’ve interacted in my previous lives and different agencies and where I’ve gone, do you know what, God, I’ve not handled that. I historically didn’t handle that particularly well or God, if I could turn back time, I would have changed.

And actually even outside of work, to, know, friends or, you know, kind of family where I feel like maybe I have been guilty of saying some saying some phrases or not saying things that I wish I could have changed and sort of turned back. It’s the stuff like, you know, saying things like, can’t imagine what you’re going through, as a statement, is such a trigger sort of phrase, I think to anyone that’s lost, you know, anyone or, you know, the sort of, oh, well, at least they had a…

Louise (20:45.302)

Yeah.

Gen Kobayashi (20:59.016)

At least they had a long life or at least that, you know, they died peacefully. It’s like, well, there’s nothing at least about this, but those people, it’s well-meaning and I absolutely do not blame people saying that. But it’s again, it’s like education and putting things out in the open and openly talking about grief. If we don’t do that, people won’t know what to say or what to say. And I think that is, you asked, you asked about what have I learned since then. I feel as though I’ve learned…

Louise (21:02.346)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Louise (21:21.76)

Yeah, exactly.

Gen Kobayashi (21:28.714)

…some real kind of practical ways in which you could help people that you either work with or just friends, you know, doesn’t mean we’re talking in a work context, but generally in life.

Louise (21:40.834)

So I want to know about the practical ways that you would help people now, but I also want to completely agree with you about the phrases, having been through this myself. So I lost my dad during the pandemic in 2020. So the year before the devastation that hit your family. Thank you. It’s just awful. Awful, obviously, made more awful by people saying, time’s a great healer. I mean, I can tell you five years on, time, not an amazing healer.

Gen Kobayashi (21:55.498)

I’m so sorry. Such an awful time as well. Crazy times.

Gen Kobayashi (22:05.524)

Terrible.

 

Gen Kobayashi (22:09.15)

Yeah.

Louise (22:10.368)

It’s a different experience for me personally, it’s a different experience grief now from what it was, but I still have periods of intense longing and missing my dad and the milestones and the anniversaries are still incredibly difficult. And I feel irrevocably changed as a person having lost my dad. So time’s not a great healer. I’m going to take that phrase and chuck it in the bin. But you are right. You don’t blame the people for saying it because we’re not brought up to talk about grief properly.

Gen Kobayashi (22:29.066)

Yeah. I think.

Louise (22:39.658)

And to have those active listening skills, it’s almost like you need to wait until you get into the workplace, find out about an organisation called NABS who offers the training, then go on it. No one teaches you this stuff at school, or least they never used to when we were at school.

Let’s talk about those practical steps that you’ve learned about that you would implement now if someone on your team or a colleague was grieving.

So for me, because we’ve had a few people at NABS sadly lose close family relatives since I lost my dad, then I would just give them some time to talk, and we would just sit and I have a couple of colleagues in particular who’ve just sat down and gone, blah.

And I say that entirely respectfully because I’ve done the same to other people as well. And if that’s what they need just to sit and go, blah, and just to get it all out, I will listen and that’s what they need. And then that is how I’ve supported them. And I don’t try and placate them because there’s no placating. They just want to be heard. So that’s my takeaway. What are some of the things that you would do?

Gen Kobayashi (23:32.362)

I think, yeah, listening, as I said, just listen, giving people the space to talk is a lovely way of putting it. I also think it’s also incumbent on the listener to be, you know, the employers to really listen to what people are going through and understanding what is this case, the implication of this case, rather than the default kind of, well, let’s refer to policy 3.6 and, you know, this is what the chapter says. So this is what we’re going to do.

It’s like, actually, actually listen to that person. And actually, I think a practical piece of advice is, you know, ask if that person a) is comfortable with, you know, the, you know, the company, the organisation telling, telling, telling people widely at this point, or do they want to keep that to a minimum number of people? How far are they willing to talk about it?

And I think that has to be the start point, right? Is what, ‘cause this is, this is your grief. This is, you are going through this horrific situation. Let’s start by really understanding your perspective first, and then we can work out how we can best support you.

Louise (24:29.1)

Yep.

 

Gen Kobayashi (24:50.634)

…around you and I think encouraging that conversation to happen I think is so vital, and terrible stories of people kind of coming back after bereavement, even if it’s the loss of mothers coming in with a in pregnancy, those situations and…

Louise (25:15.234)

Yeah, yeah.

Gen Kobayashi (25:18.632)

…you know, hear stories of people, women coming back or men coming back into the workplace and it just, no-one says anything and kind of, you know, like this sort of blank, you know, kind of, what’s the word, you know, sort of complete silence, definitely silence as they walk back in, which is people again, I’m sure it’s because it’s through no intention to make people feel that way.

But I think, you know, having the encouragement and the understanding to go, it’s okay to talk about this. Are you okay? What can I do? You know, kind of even a small gesture rather than kind of, let’s just sweep it under the carpet and pretend it hasn’t happened because it’s too awkward for me to talk about that.

I think you’ve hit upon such a big issue in our industry because it is and that’s why I think what NABS do is brilliant and I think we need to be promoting this more and we need to be telling the rest of the industry as much as possible what you, the services you guys offer, what NABS, you know, as an organisation offer is hugely valuable because it’s such a huge task that has to happen, because what you’re dealing with is a societal issue.

Forget about the advertising and marketing services industry. I’d hazard a guess it’d be pretty similar if it was…

Louise (26:34.667)

Exactly.

 

Gen Kobayashi (26:43.466)

…if you worked as a civil engineer or if you worked as a graphic designer or if you worked, I don’t know, if you’re a barber, it’s a societal problem. It’s not just an ad industry problem. is a societal problem. We don’t like talking about difficult things. No one likes talking about it, especially not the Brits. We’re terrible with confronting any kind of awkwardness. You’d rather avoid it. So I have to say this is a huge issue that I’m almost a bit like, well, it’s…

Louise (27:02.304)

Indeed,

Gen Kobayashi (27:13.078)

We need organisations like yourselves to actually tackle this because I think individual companies can, you know, the power of an individual company is obviously huge, but any support outside of that official organisation, those channels, I think just massively needed because it is such a big problem. You’re trying to shift a behavioural, a societal problem as well as an industry problem is massive.

Louise (27:39.414)

Yeah, exactly. But we try and influence as much as we can. If we’re trying to influence the industry and that’s our job and we make some better conversations happen and help some people then it’s the start of hopefully a ripple effect. And you’re right, we are dealing with so much complexity here, but that’s why we are responding by not just doing the management training, but also we’re holding grief sessions throughout the year as well.

So people can come and either have a safe conversation about grief or learn some active tools to help people, to help support people who are going through the grieving process. And it’s, it’s work that I think will go on and on because it’s, you know, as you say, it’s an issue that sadly it touches us all.

Gen Kobayashi (28:21.802)

And there’s a lot being written, sorry just to jump back in on that, know, outside there’s a lot that’s been written, not just, obviously there’s a ton of, I’m sure there are a ton of, I haven’t read all of them, but there’ll obviously be a ton of books out there and papers that have, you know, official academia that’s been written on grief and how to process grief. But actually there’s some really brilliant.

 

internal, not internal, industry voices that have been really vocal about this topic as well. It’s not just, you know, I wrote that piece, but there’s people like Caroline Parks who I really recommend. She’s, she’s read, she’s written some amazing stuff within the industry who actually Emma, my wife is very, is friends with her. She used to, they used to work together at rap a while ago, but she’s, she, she lost her sister as well.

So who I actually used to work with many years ago as well, Gemma, they, Carolina’s written some amazing kind of really practical advice, like kind of really practical tools and ways in which management can help in that sense, know, stuff like, you know, make sure you kind of jot that, make sure you put a calendar reminder, if you’re a manager, a line manager of someone who’s lost someone, just put a calendar reminder in your Outlook, in your work. I remember that this is an anniversary. This is a key point.

And it’s such a sort of, I know, I agree. I wish it was my idea. was not. But Caroline sort of talked about that. And I thought that was a really smart sort of thing to do. And there are some really practical tools out there and you should just read up. People should read. There’s so much out there that you can pick up. And I think just constantly remind ourselves never to diminish anyone else’s grief. Don’t assume anything.

Louise (29:46.702)

That’s such a nice one.

Louise (30:11.074)

Definitely not.

Gen Kobayashi (30:13.098)

And don’t, you know, don’t, you know, don’t feel as though you, you can’t talk about it, especially if you’re in a management position, if you’re in a leadership position, you have every right. In fact, it’s incumbent on you to be the person that brings it up. You know, it might be hard and it’s obviously goes against so many kind of much easier to sweep it under the carpet, but it’s your job. You’ve got to confront it and you’ve got to talk about it.

Louise (30:27.683)

Yeah.

Louise (30:38.53)

Yeah, absolutely. So what we’ll do is we’ll link to your piece, we’ll link to some of Caroline’s pieces that you mentioned, and I also wrote something for Campaign a few months after I’d gone back to work, reflecting on my experiences. So we’ll link to all of that as well, as well as all of the NABS training that can help to support you have these conversations and help you to support grieving people around you.

That idea of not diminishing someone’s grief and taking it for what it is on an individual basis, I think is possibly the strongest theme that’s come throughout our conversation. If I could ask people just to have one takeaway from this, it would be that, because it does look so different for everyone.

I, you know, reflecting back on the, not just the mental effects that losing my dad had on me, but the physical effects as well. made me extremely tired. I just needed to sleep all the time. And I was very, very anxious and very, very low, but that would look completely different for someone else. And I wouldn’t assume that somebody else needs to go to bed for two weeks in the way that I felt that I wanted to, but you know, have a small child and a job ultimately couldn’t do that.

But having said that, what I really appreciated from my employer, and I was at NABs at the time, was really being listened to and supported. They sent me a card and some flowers after it happened, and that was really lovely just to know that they were thinking of me. And I would give a big shout out for this because I’m Jewish, so we have certain customs around how and when we grieve.

Gen Kobayashi (31:36.681)

Yes.

Louise (32:05.098)

And that was entirely not just respected, but expected like, yes, you will take a week because that’s what your religious beliefs tell you that you have to do. So of course you’re going to do that. And I could talk very openly about that as well. So I would give a big shout out to any managers supporting the grieving. Find out if your person has any religious or cultural requirements that’s going to inform the way that they’re grieving, because you definitely need to factor that into the process as well.

Gen Kobayashi (32:12.264)

Wow, yeah, that’s yeah…

Gen Kobayashi (32:32.746)

That is such a, yeah, so important, isn’t it? So again, as you said, it all seems to be coming back to that really understanding the individual, doesn’t it? And kind of tackling that first. But yeah, yeah.

Louise (32:50.23)

Understanding the individual, definitely. Before we go on to slightly more uplifting later and the, although having said that, there is something uplifting about being supported properly when you’re grieving. I don’t know if you think that and it might sound a bit strange…

 

Gen Kobayashi (33:06.174)

Yeah.

Louise (33:10.496)

I guess it comes back to what you were saying about when you’re supported by your community and it just makes you realise that the magic of connection and how people can really be there for you. So when in Judaism, we do something called sitting shiva.

So we take a week and we just kind of sit on low chairs and people visit us, and there are prayers, and you’re not allowed to do anything for yourself. So you’re just in this bubble of grieving. And a friend visited me with some homemade tahini biscuits and I will never forget those biscuits. And it’s just a really small touch like that.

Gen Kobayashi (33:36.286)

It’s small things, but it’s a real gesture, isn’t it?

Louise (33:39.16)

Just small things. And then when I came back to work, just people checking in with me and not just the minute that I got back, but people who remembered a couple of weeks down the line, know how you’re getting on at the moment.

Gen Kobayashi (33:47.752)

Yeah. That’s the other, that is, that, I think Louise, you just, you, you hit on something there that I remember was kind of rather than the, yeah, the immediate kind of impact. It’s the kind of remembering and that I guess goes back to the anniversaries and all that sort of stuff, but it’s, it’s so important to remember it is it’s unfortunately a process that, that you just now will continually….

Louise (34:06.166)

Yeah.

Gen Kobayashi (34:14.642)

…have to manage and go through, right? For the rest of your life. It’s like, it’s on that where necessarily and where, you know, wherever possible. What amazing, amazing to have a group, whether it’s colleagues or friends around you to support you because of that understanding that it’s a long, this is now a process for the rest of your life, right? It’s a life thing now.

Louise (34:17.569)

Absolutely.

 

Louise (34:36.128)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I do actually feel supported in this conversation as well. It’s always… heartwarming… is probably completely the wrong word for this, but do you know what I mean? Like this sense of, you’ve got a kindred spirit and grief and it really helps to have these conversations.

Gen Kobayashi (34:51.122)

Yeah, yeah, just a talk.

Gen Kobayashi (34:57.096)

Yeah. And I think I’ve actually really, as I said, there are many things that happened afterwards that I felt, you know, I’ve learned from this experience. If there’s anything positive to come out of it, you know, you know, I feel like maybe I’m better equipped as a manager or as a friend or as a leader or as a family member to be able to help someone else that I genuinely, I put my hand up and say…

Louise (35:17.846)

Yeah, yeah.

Gen Kobayashi (35:26.602)

I think historically, think I’ve been guilty of your whole, you know, all the stuff, all the trigger words we’ve just talked about, you know, whether it’s kind of, at least dot dot dot or I can’t imagine dot dot dot. I’m sure I would have been guilty of that. And I feel and I feel terrible for it. But in a way, want to make sure that.

Louise (35:40.642)

Yep.

Gen Kobayashi (35:47.772)

No-one else needs to go through that. And there are all sorts of regrets that I think broadly about, you know, about fragility of life. I mean, this is a different, I’m a danger of bettering into a completely different podcast now, but like the conversation I had with my kids, what we had with our kids, it was actually me, I had to have the conversation when Nikki died and telling my daughter and my son about that.

I think was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Having to tell them they weren’t going to see their auntie who they loved, who they love very much ever again. Retrospectively, we could have done it. I could have prepared them so much better at that age. And the fallout, the mental fallout.

 

Louise (36:17.655)

Hmm.

Louise (36:33.164)

Yeah.

Gen Kobayashi (36:36.564)

…that certainly my daughter had because she was, you she’s slightly older, she’s 13 now and she processes it and she’s okay. But at the time she was, you it really hit her really hard. And I think it comes back to this sort of not wanting to talk about death and wanting to talk about…

Louise (36:56.013)

Yeah, yeah.

Gen Kobayashi (36:58.12)

You want to protect kids and want to protect people. Naturally, if you love people, you want to protect them. And I wanted and we wanted to protect them as much as we could. And I think we weren’t as honest with them as we could have been about the reality that Nikki was in and the reality of cancer at the time, because we didn’t want to upset them. But now you’re picking up the pieces in very much a different way afterwards, matter of fact, because you’re kind of…

Louise (37:15.117)

Yep.

Louise (37:18.562)

Yeah.

Louise (37:22.666)

Hmm.

Gen Kobayashi (37:26.41)

We weren’t straight up and honest and now, you know, I’m going through some other things at the moment, but you know, my stepdad hasn’t been well. He’s been in and out of hospital. He’s had kidney failure, also had heart problems and dealing with cancer as well. I’ve learned from that situation whereby we are now so open with them about this is the situation. He’s gone back into hospital.

 

Louise (37:49.463)

Yeah.

Gen Kobayashi (37:53.288)

…got new treatment, you know, we’re not hiding anything from them because I don’t want to be in a position where I’m having to turn around and tell them again, hit them with a bombshell that we didn’t go through because at least we were on that journey with Nikki every step of the way.

As far as they knew, it was like, she’s gone. And it’s like, what? Like, you know, that’s a learning for me and I’ve got, I wish I could turn back time and change that. But at least again, hopefully won’t do that again. And, know, make the same…

Louise (38:00.429)

Yeah, sure.

Louise (38:06.637)

Yep.

Louise (38:10.317)

Yeah.

Louise (38:18.574)

No, and do you know what? By sharing it now, anyone listening will hopefully take some inspiration from that as well and use your experiences they see fit should they face a serious challenge as well. And I’m sorry to hear about your step-dad and I wish him all the best on his journey.

So having had a very serious conversation, but with some uplifting bits in it…

How does the advertising community lift you up? Let’s look to an uplifting way to end our conversation.

Gen Kobayashi (38:50.154)

It sounds really cheesy and corny but I think they are, think they are an amazing, our industry is a small place, it is such a small industry, it’s you know kind of like a tiny industry in of itself and it is a community of people that know each other and I think that you are never far from people who are willing to help and I think that’s come through, know, that certainly, certainly, you know, what I went through and by the sounds of it, amazingly, what you went through as well with your dad, you suddenly realised they are that I don’t know, maybe I’m biased, maybe I’m drinking the Kool-Aid by the gallon because I work in the industry, but I’d like to think the advertising industry or the marketing industry, because we are human-based… marketing is a human endeavour, right?

The business marketing is how can we understand humans better to help sell more products or, you know, get them to want to buy a certain brand over another brand. And I’ve always thought that marketing and advertising is absolutely human endeavour. Because of that, I’d say I’d like to think empathy, human empathy.

Louise (39:50.915)

Right.

Gen Kobayashi (40:10.3)

…is sort of hardwired into most of us who work in this industry or else we’re probably in the wrong industry should we go into kind of mechanical engineering potentially, I don’t know. But like, that’s no disrespect to any engineers who are listening, which I don’t know if they will be. But I’d like to think that because of that, we get people and the best people in our industry get people. And if you get people…

Louise (40:25.292)

you

Louise (40:32.003)

Yeah.

Gen Kobayashi (40:36.68)

I think you’re naturally quite empathetic and you care about people. And I’ve seen that, you know, in our, in our world first-hand from people that I’ve worked with, they’ve shown an unbelievable amount of love and support considering, you know, you know, they’re not family members, they’re your colleagues, but God, it’s felt like that at times, certainly over the last few years where I’ve really felt it, further back as well.

So as long as we keep being a human-orientated industry, I think hopefully we will attract those sort of people that are you know willing to be supportive and lift you up as you say.

Louise (41:16.598)

What’s one thing you’ve learned about how to support yourself?

Gen Kobayashi (41:23.836)

Don’t put yourself at the bottom of the list constantly. think, and I think again, without kind of going, keep going back to those last, those last few years, you know, the last few years dealing with the aftermath of, you know, losing Nikki, I think it was very easy for me to put everyone before myself and kind of, especially because, you know, I was dealing with the fallout of my daughter Layla and the kids, you’re supporting, I mean, the grieving parents, Liz and Malcolm, who parents who are my father and mother-in-law, they’ve lost their daughter. So you’re supporting them, you’re supporting.

And I think it’s, you’ve got to take, you’ve also got to make sure you’re looking after yourself. And I think if you can’t look after yourself, you’re never going to be able to look after everyone else that needs looking after and God, we’re living in a world where lots of people need looking after at the moment. So you can’t do your job unless you’re looking after yourself.

Louise (42:21.111)

Yeah.

Louise (42:25.888)

Absolutely.

Louise (42:33.59)

It’s that old phrase, isn’t it? You’ve got to make sure that your own cup is full before you fill up everybody else’s.

Gen Kobayashi (42:38.762)

Yeah, 100% true.

Louise (42:42.604)

Well, it has been really lovely speaking to you actually and really lovely reflecting on what we’ve been through and how we’ve been supported and how we can support other people as well. I wish you and Emma and the whole family all the best as you continue your journey. And we will pop all links, as I said, into the show notes. So you’ll be able to go and read more and find out more and get the support that you need. And again, you’ve been absolute delight. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Gen Kobayashi (43:10.334)

Louise, thank you so much for inviting me. It’s actually, been cathartic in of itself, just having this conversation. So thank you.

Louise (43:21.155)

You’re welcome. I’m so glad.

 

NABS Managers’ Mindsets

NABS grief page

Caroline Parkes’ post about grief

Gen’s piece for Campaign about grief

Louise’s piece for Campaign about grief

NABS Advice Line