You're listening to TED Talks Daily. I'm Elise Hu. The thing about grief and loss is, unlike a physical injury where you might wear a cast that people can see, emotional pain isn't always as obvious. In today's talk from TED at BCG 2020, bereavement reformer TILAC Mundadi lays out a vision for companies to better support us through grief

with something he calls a culture of empathy at work.

About three years ago, I lost my daughter.

She was sexually assaulted and murdered.

She was my only child and was just 19.

As the shock wore off and the all-consuming grief took over, I lost all meaning and purpose in life.

Then my daughter spoke to me.

She asked me to keep living.

If I am not around, she will have one less heart to continue to live it.

With that, my partner, Susan, and I started our desperate climb out of this deep hole of trauma and loss.

In the journey back to the land of the living with grief,

we unexpectedly found a rather unlikely and pretty helpful ally, my work.

At first, I wasn't even sure if I should go back to work. I had a lot of self-doubt.

As a senior executive, I'm responsible for thousands of employees and billions of dollars.

After all that trauma, is my mind still sharp and creative enough for that job?

Can I still relate to people?

Can I get past their resentment and regret, I felt,

about all the time I spent working instead of being with my daughter?

Is it fair to leave Susan home alone dealing with her own grief and pain? At the end, I made the decision to go back to work, and I am very glad I did.

We all experience grief and loss in our lives.

For most of us, that means at some point,

getting up and going back to work while living with the grief.

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