Rebuilding life after loss often begins before you know what comes next. Coach Tracie Root tells Jeremy Van Wert how she moved forward after losing her husband while raising two small children, left a 17-year corporate career and built a community. She shares what helped: treating things as choices, learning to receive help and finding people to face fear with.
ᛉKey takeaways
- Tracie says that not knowing what the future holds is the common thread in her story and in many of her clients' stories.
- She credits five elementary schools in a childhood of constant moves with building her ability to adapt.
- She describes grief as something you cannot make different, only move through, one day at a time.
- Tracie says her inability to accept help held her back, and that learning to receive it changed how she helped others.
- She reframes “I have to” as “I choose to,” and says that even when something negative happens, how you respond is your choice.
ᛃ Moments in this one
ᚠHow five elementary schools built resilience
Tracie Root grew up in the Silicon Valley area, moving often because her father, a semiconductor salesman, kept moving up. She attended five elementary schools, including a stretch on Long Island, and says she was always the new girl.
She did not see the benefit until she became a coach. Constant change, she says, gave her the ability to fold into new communities and show up in rooms where she knew no one. She also credits her father's positivity and says her parents' divorce around fifth grade was part of that early training.
ᚢThe Dale Carnegie course that changed her career
After college, Tracie spent 17 years at one small consulting firm. During a stretch when her first husband, Paul, was often away working for a rock band, she says she was struggling with what could have been called depression, and one day she yelled at a client.
Her bosses called her in and, rather than punishing her, sent her to Dale Carnegie training. She learned to speak and teach, and later returned to help teach the class. It was her first experience of personal development that wasn't technical, and she still keeps her books from it. Jeremy called the response of her employer frighteningly rare in the corporate world.
ᚦRebuilding your life after loss of a spouse
Paul came home, and they bought a house, married and had their first son. Shortly after, Paul was diagnosed with cancer, and he died four years later, when their children were one and a half and four. Tracie says she was left with two small children, no family nearby and a job she kept going to.
About a year and a half in, she says she woke up a little and decided she needed to do something different because she was tired of survival mode. She started with feeling better in her own body, joined a health program with a coach and found coaching that way.
Of grief, she says it just is what it is and you cannot make it different. Her advice is to be in the moment today, because tomorrow it will be different. Jeremy offers individual therapy for people who are working through a hard season.
ᚨStarting over: from corporate to coaching and Florida
Tracie began coaching in 2012 and, within months, was thinking about her own business. She wanted more time with her children and to live closer to family. She did the math on cost of living, her salary and her side income, and decided to move to Florida that December.
The decision came with another: she short-sold the house in the mountains that she could no longer manage alone. She says the move wasn't scary because she was moving toward something. She gave her boss of 17 years three months of notice and says the job ending was about a new life, not a new job.
The first months of self-employment were hard, she says, since she did not yet know how to work for herself. A friend she had known since she was 17 became her husband, and the family moved back to California before the school year began.
ᚱCoaching women to be bold and authentic
Tracie helps women be bold. She recalls an early client telling her she was too loud on a call, and writing “be quiet” on a Post-it she carried from client to client. Many of her clients, she says, also feel they must fit into a box at work.
The idea of bold came from a conference, where she wrote the word on a sticker and wore it. She says she can look and sound bold, but needed to embody it inside. Being authentic, she adds, matters in business because clients are attracted to who you really are.
She also describes her aim as raising adults, not children, and says coaching taught her to listen.
ᚲAsking for and receiving help
Fear and anxiety, Tracie says, showed up when she needed support and did not know how to ask for it or accept it. After Paul's funeral, a woman from church offered food, and she turned it down. She still thinks of that day, and says it taught her that her inability to receive help was holding her back from being more generous herself.
Her point for coaches and anyone else is that you cannot help others if you do not value help yourself. She says that courage is not having no fear but acting anyway, and that the people you trust make that easier.
ᚷWhy community matters and how Gather moved online
Tracie started Gather in Santa Cruz as an in-person space, opening in October 2019 after a Gallup poll she read suggested that Santa Cruz scored well on wellness but worst on community. Five months later it closed because of the pandemic.
She moved the model online as a membership, which has let members connect across time zones without geographic limits. Jeremy said modern people have lost community, and that many lack a group of like-minded supporters. If you want one, the Mindful Mutiny community offers real conversation, live Fireside Chats and a course library.
ᚹEverything is a choice: turning “have to” into “choose to”
Tracie says a mentor helped her see that she was upset about driving her kids to gymnastics because she had not used her own day well, not because of the kids. Her mentor asked what would happen if she did not make the school lunches or take them. Her answer was that she wanted them fed and enriched, so she chose to.
She calls this the lesson she would leave her children: even when you feel you have no choice, you do, because how you react is your choice. She says that goes hand in hand with resilience.
If you are in the middle of a change and not sure where to start, you can book a private 30-minute conversation with Jeremy.
This episode includes a discussion of a spouse's illness and death and a parent's death. Grief is different for everyone. If you are struggling, please reach out to a licensed mental health professional, someone you trust or your local emergency services.
ᚨ Questions people ask
How do you start rebuilding your life after loss?
Tracie says she began by deciding to feel better, first in her own body, and found a coach in the process. She also says to be in the moment, since grief changes every day and you cannot make it be something else.
Why is asking for help so hard?
Tracie links her difficulty to growing up without a large circle of support and to fear of looking weak or not having it all under control. She says she had to learn to value help to be able to give it.
What does 'everything is a choice' mean?
In Tracie's view, things you feel you have to do are things you choose for a reason, such as wanting your children well fed. She says even when something negative happens, how you react is your choice.
Why does community matter?
Tracie says community lets you be yourself so you can grow, and helps you act in spite of fear. She says courage means acting anyway.