Hello, world. Welcome to discover your talent, do what you love, number 277. I'm creator and host, Don Hutchison. Every day I interview someone from around the world who has discovered his

talents to do work he loves to create a life of success, satisfaction, and freedom. Benjamin saw the

oncoming car hurtling straight toward him at a deadly speed as his head crashed into the windshield.

For a split second, he felt indescribable peace. He was 20 years old. Decades later, he's still learning from the experience. Today, I'm delighted to bring you our featured guest, Benjamin Allen. Welcome, Benjamin. Thank you. Thank you. It's our pleasure. Benjamin, are you using your talents doing work that you love? Yes, I am.

All righty.

We want to hear the whole story.

The death of Benjamin's wife and two children through an HIV infection became the watershed experience that reshaped his life.

Lydia was infected in 1982 at the birth of their first son, Matt.

Three months after Brian's birth in 1985, the family discovered Lydia and the

children's HIV plus status. Brian died in 86, Lydia in 92, Matt in 95. After Matt died in

1995, Benjamin returned to California, Mendocino. Two years later, he went to Thailand to teach

English. It was there, he met his wife,

Rachel Flower. Benjamin and Rachel resided in Sydney, Australia for five years. They moved to

Inclined Village near Lake Tahoe, Nevada in 2006, and Benjamin began his work with people on their

grief work. So, Benjamin, that's a summary of your life to date. Tell us what you're

working on now that has you engaged. What I'm working on now is with people that are living with

loss in different capacities. One is one-on-one with individuals, one is speaking, and I've written

several books around loss, one, my own

personal journey, but also another book, a workbook on how someone can go through their, it's

a personal guide through their own living with loss. I prefer living with loss than grief work,

but most people talk about and can identify with the term grief work.

But that has a lot of baggage for people.

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