Nearly two years ago, Sheryl Sandberg’s life changed significantly when her partner of 11 years, SurveyMonkey chief executive Dave Goldberg, died suddenly during a vacation in Mexico. As she grieved, Facebook’s chief operating officer began adapting to a life you never wish for. In a bid to regain some normalcy in not only her life, but also her children’s lives, Sandberg focused on “option B,” a new way of living that overcomes grief, adversity, and once again instills joy.
This is the basis for Sandberg’s new book, aptly titled Option B, which she wrote alongside psychologist and University of Pennsylvania professor Adam Grant. Although written by two people, this 183-page publication reads like it’s coming from the vantage point of Sandberg, a cathartic way of recounting her experience with the reader. Along the way, she infuses anecdotes from personal friends and others she encountered, along with research insights from Grant. For the sake of simplicity, the book is written as if Sandberg is narrating.
‘Kick the shit out of Option B’
Above: Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant.
From the onset of Option B, you’re transported into Sandberg’s world from the time she meets Goldberg, their wedding, his untimely death, and the aftermath. She talks about the proverbial elephant in the room when people ask “How are you doing?” and how to deal with people who haven’t experienced such a loss. The book is an engaging read when you’re witnessing Sandberg pour her heart out, upset about not having Goldberg with her and how she’s trying to compensate for her loss.
Reading it like you’re there can be somewhat overwhelming, so you can treat Option B as a way to judge how you’d fare recovering from such an event. And grief doesn’t have to be from someone’s death, but perhaps dealing with sexual assault, trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder, or the like.
June 5th: The AI Audit in NYC
Join us next week in NYC to engage with top executive leaders, delving into strategies for auditing AI models to ensure fairness, optimal performance, and ethical compliance across diverse organizations. Secure your attendance for this exclusive invite-only event.
We all know Option A: It’s our main course of action that we hope will be executed flawlessly. But life can be unpredictable, so if something should happen, we must be prepared to fall back on a contingency plan — this is Sandberg’s Option B.
The book also includes a good amount of research to provide a better overall picture. For example, Sandberg cites findings from psychologist Martin Seligman around the “three Ps” that can stunt recovery: personalization, pervasiveness, and permanence. This concept is one of the main things that Sandberg repeatedly emphasizes throughout the book.
In the beginning, you’re saddened by Goldberg’s passing, but as you progress chapter by chapter, you begin to heal alongside Sandberg until the very last one, where it’s almost as if peace has finally been found.
For one, but not for all
Option B doesn’t read like a typical self-help book. Sandberg and Grant acknowledge that it’s an attempt “to share what we’ve learned about resilience” rather than a magic pill to lessen the pain, grief, and anguish someone is feeling. “We don’t presume to have experienced every possible kind of loss and setback ourselves. We haven’t,” the authors explained. “There is no right way or proper way to grieve or face challenges, so we don’t have perfect answers. There are no perfect answers.”
Before people can criticize her by claiming that she’s telling them how to mourn a loved one, overcome tragedy, or surmount other bad news, Sandberg comes out and acknowledges that this is her trials overcoming grief. She admits she’s in a privileged position, with an extended support group of family, friends, and colleagues. Factors like this can be of great help during the recovery process, although not everyone has that. But Sandberg believes that at the end of the day, it’s about resilience.
“This book is about the capacity of the human spirit to persevere. We look at the steps people can take, both to help themselves and to help others,” she wrote. “We explore the psychology of recovery and the challenges of regaining confidence and rediscovering joy. We cover ways to speak about tragedy and comfort friends who are suffering. And we discuss what it takes to create resilient communities and companies, raise strong children, and love again.”
While we may all identify with the tragedy that befell her family, there are some parts where Sandberg can seem unrelatable, such as going to SpaceX headquarters to watch a rocket launch and then its subsequent return on a drone ship. This doesn’t seem like necessarily something an average family or parent could really do.
Fortunately, examples of this kind are few and far between in her book, and you’ll be captivated enough by her humanity to forgive the occasional elite act.
Helping others
Sandberg and Grant don’t stop at just a book — as a companion to Option B, they’ve established a community that’s also on Facebook where people can find others going through similar problems: coping with grief, dealing with health challenges, helping kids build resilience, overcoming a family crisis, and more. The site even publishes stories about related topics. Like the book, this community is aimed at helping people “build resilience” so that anyone can learn to come back after a tragedy.
Sandberg said that she will donate all of her income from book sales to fund the nonprofit Option B project.
Option B is now available in stores and online.
