BW 130: How One Widow Turned Grief into Advocacy and Success - with Beata Stylianos
Dec 19, 2024[TRANSCRIPT]
🌟 Turning Grief into Advocacy and Resilience with Beata Stylianos 🌟
Beata Stylianos, CEO, real estate professional, and advocate, shares her inspiring story of navigating widowhood, managing her late husband's business, and creating impactful change in her community.
Beata's journey includes:
- Balancing personal grief with raising her daughter.
- Taking over her husband's company while learning to lead through adversity.
- Advocating for widow-focused legislation and community support.
- Practical advice on real estate, asset protection, and building a resilient future.
💡 Whether you’re navigating early grief or exploring new possibilities after loss, Beata’s story will leave you empowered and hopeful.
👉 Links Mentioned in the Episode:
💬 Let us know what resonated with you most in the comments below!
Chapters:
00:52 Beata's Background and Career
02:07 Meeting Her Husband
05:42 Coping with Loss and Business Decisions
09:54 Support Systems and Challenges
16:57 Advocacy and Civic Engagement
24:14 Real Estate and Protecting Assets
28:13 Community Projects and Final Advice
33:03 Conclusion and Membership Invitation
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#WidowSupport #GriefJourney #HealingTogether #LifeAfterLoss
Resources:
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Join the Brave Widow Community:
If you're feeling overwhelmed and unsure of your next step in your grief journey, now is the time to take action. The Brave Widow Membership is here to provide you with the support, guidance, and community you need to heal and rediscover joy. Don’t go through this alone—join us today and start moving forward with confidence. https://www.bravewidow.com/join
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Hey hey, I’m Emily Tanner. I was widowed at age 37, one month shy of our 20 year wedding anniversary. Nathan and I have four beautiful children together, and my world was turned completely upside down when I lost him.
Now, I love my life again! I’m able to experience joy, achieve goals and dreams I thought I’d lost, and rediscover this next version of me.
I did the work.
I invested in coaching for myself.
I learned what I needed to do to move forward and took the steps.
I implemented the tools and strategies that I use for my clients in my coaching program.
This is for you, if:
- You want a faith-based approach to coaching
- You want to move forward after loss, and aren’t sure how
- You want to enjoy life without feeling weighed down by guilt, sadness, or regret
- You want a guide to help navigate this journey to the next version of you
- You want to rediscover who you are
- Join the Brave Widow Community: https://www.bravewidow.com/join
- Schedule a consult with Emily: https://calendly.com/bravewidow/widow-consult-call?month=2024-08
Introduction and Guest Welcome
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[00:00:00] Emily: Hey, and welcome back to another episode of the brave widow show. I am here with Beata and she is going to share her story and insights that she has for you. So Beata, welcome to the show and thank you for being willing to come on today.
[00:00:16] Beata: Emily, thanks so much for having me and I'm really grateful to have this opportunity.
[00:00:21] So thank you for what you're doing to shine a light on the stories of widows.
[00:00:27] Emily: Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. I know for me, stories of other widows helped me. Giving me hope that my life wasn't always going to be like that. And I know I hear a lot from others that are out there. So if you don't mind, if you would just introduce yourself, share a little bit of your background, and then we can dive into your story, wherever you want to start.
[00:00:50] Beata: Wonderful. Thank you.
Beata's Background and Career
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[00:00:52] Beata: So I'm the CEO of mission critical technologies. It's a company that my late husband co founded. I also am in the real estate space and help widows in on that front in the D. C. area. So I'm CEO, real estate agent, as well as a mom to a college bound young woman.
[00:01:16] Emily: You're not busy at all, are
[00:01:17] Beata: you? No. I think that's, that's all of us. And especially for the demographic of widows. There are, according to the U. S. 2020 census, There's just under 12 million of us. Yeah. And that's a large demographic and that's a large group of us that that needs more voices.
[00:01:40] That needs more voices like yours, like mine, and everyone who's listening. Whatever that may look like. Um, yeah you asked me, and I'm so grateful because you said that I could start, where I want to start. Where would you like us to start? Because we talked before we started the recording and you talked about visiting D.
[00:02:01] C. and about the monuments and so where would you like us to start?
[00:02:06] Emily: Yeah.
Meeting Her Husband
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[00:02:07] Emily: Maybe we could start just briefly where you met your husband. And some of the things that you really liked about him and that you were drawn to about him.
[00:02:20] Beata: So I so appreciate it because like now, I'm at a place where I'm really, I could be joyful about that time and honor the legacy.
[00:02:29] Yorgos Stylianos was was my husband for almost 10 years. And we we had met in Los Angeles. A block away from Mission Critical Technologies, and it was a Thursday, and both of us, he was really stressed. I was I was newer to Los Angeles, and I just I was meeting friends, and so we, we met.
[00:02:56] At a lounge area. And I say that because he ordered a Coke and I ordered a chamomile tea. And the, it's a Thursday night and Thursday night was happening when you go out and meet people and and she just looks at us like, oh my God, you know what? These people are so boring or, what's going on.
[00:03:17] But. I just, I was drawn to him. I was drawn to his intelligence and I was actually drawn to him before he even said a word because it was the way he was crossing his legs. In a suit, he was wearing a suit and a red tie. And I'm like, this looks like someone who's interesting. That's stereotyping.
[00:03:43] Yeah. And so and then we talked for a considerable amount of time. And then the friends that I came with had gone there, they're like, okay, we're not, we get the hint, we're leaving. Okay. And that's what started it. A chance encounter. And to be honest, it was in Beverly Hills.
[00:04:01] It was Los Angeles and it was on Wilshire and Santa Monica by the former CAA building. So that's where we met.
[00:04:10] Emily: And what did you end up liking about him? The more that you got to know him and the more that you learned about him.
[00:04:17] Beata: I liked that he was smart it was very obvious and that he had intelligent things to say about what was happening in the world.
[00:04:28] And he had he had information and and a background in physics that I did not have. I came from an international relations background and yet I appreciate science. Like that's the place that I come from I'm Polish American and we have a lot of great Polish scientists, physicists, mathematicians, so I really respect the field and so that, that was part of it but you ask, the real reason I think that we really connected was because he was from Greece.
[00:05:03] My family was from Poland, and there was a similarity in cultures and traditions that resonated for me. So even though we were from different cultures, there was like this bridge and due to our customs, the music, the dancing, the love of the sciences. And he came from Greece, the birthplace of democracy.
[00:05:27] Athens. Yeah. Yeah, so it was amazing. It was amazing. And that's as amazing as it is, it's still, it is hard to still because to talk about it because he is no longer here,
[00:05:42]
Coping with Loss and Business Decisions
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[00:05:42] Beata: We would have been married for ten years.
[00:05:44] He had died in in April 20th, to be exact, of 2012. And our wedding anniversary our ten year wedding anniversary would have been May 18th, 2012. So things happened really quickly after he died. And I had to be very effective in my decision making despite this great loss, so he had this company that he had co founded and I had to make a choice pretty quickly whether I was going to retain the ownership of that company or if I was going to market it and let it go.
[00:06:26] And on May 18th, I made the decision, because I was asking myself, I was speaking to the priest that married us, Father John Bacos, I was, speaking to people's opinions that I really respected, and then ultimately, I knew it had to be my decision. We and on May 18th, I woke up like a calling or and I'm like, I'm keeping it.
[00:06:53] I'm keeping this company. His parents worked really hard and gave 60, 000 in the early 90s to start this company. They gave the capital so that the company could meet their first payroll. And I'm not going away.
[00:07:11] Emily: That's pretty incredible because I know just The process of being widowed, you already feel like you've taken on so many additional responsibilities and tasks and, maybe things that he did before that you had to figure out because you weren't used to doing them, but to think about taking on the role of leading this company, like that's huge.
[00:07:34] Beata: It was huge. And yet it also was what what others needed, what I needed and it was a blessing in the sense to that now I feel okay, I've done this, and I'm part of these communities and these groups of people. Of widowed persons and widows in particular. And I really, I hope that by having this conversation and for others, if they have an opportunity or if there's a business that their late husband was a part of, I really encourage others to, to take a look.
[00:08:16] Ultimately, it has to be your decision. And yours alone, but there's so much that I gained out of it. I got a us top security clearance. I got a NASA badge. I got to work with agencies like DARPA, the creme de la creme of federal agencies, and I got. To just continue his his legacy, and it's not for everyone, but again, I, if, I really encourage us to look at that, and I feel, too, that there has to be more infrastructure and support to make that happen.
[00:08:54] And so that's why I've been really advocating in Washington, D. C. and on the Hill is this something that the Small Business Administration is there some programming that could be funding could be allocated or people like me who would want to be mentors and just and help because finances and resources is a big deal for us.
[00:09:15] Emily: Yeah. And I know a lot of widows in the early days struggle with that, or, they're not used to having to take on that type of leadership role, or maybe they're having to go to back to work for the first time, or they're thinking about starting a business for the first time. And it's. A difficult time to navigate those first few months, for sure, and I definitely think most widows, we have the ability to be resilient and adapt and to step up but having that critical infrastructure and support is so important.
[00:09:47] Did you feel like you had a lot of good support in those early days from family and friends and people around you?
Support Systems and Challenges
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[00:09:54] Beata: I'm so glad that you asked the question because I want to be transparent and honest and there were people that I had that were strong supporters, and there was one in particular, one person in particular, and he's I don't know why but I know you could do this.
[00:10:10] And sometimes that's all you need. Is that one person? And I was lucky because I had engaged with a leadership coach and I was, I brought in team members that I chose. So I did, but I also had to find the people that would be supporting me. And sometimes, there were a lot of mistakes that I made too.
[00:10:37] There's a lot of decisions that a lot of choices that I would do differently. And what I will say is that what made it difficult was the added difficulty was because of the way that Yorgos had died. He had made a choice to leave us. Because he died by suicide and the stigma that's associated with that that choice it created an extra layer and of just what I, we had to navigate as a company, what I had to navigate on the family and personal front.
[00:11:15] There were people who were making decisions for me. Or or making decisions. He died by a heart attack and it's no, I wanted to be mindful in terms of where we were. But I also wanted to tell the truth and that wasn't always possible just because of the stigma.
[00:11:36] And so that, that cost me in terms of leadership and everything, because once you break certain amount of trust, then people think what, it's a domino effect. But now I've, we've really taken the time and things have changed. We're not where we need to be, but things are changing.
[00:11:57] And so I am grateful to be able to be part of that change.
[00:12:03] Emily: I love you being so open about sharing that part of your story because so many other widows feel that they're alone, that, they have lost a spouse to suicide or addiction or other things that come with its own version of a stigma and its own judgment from people that are around them, or even a reduced level of sympathy that they relate to.
[00:12:27] feel that they experienced. So I think it always helps to hear that someone else, went through something very similar. How did you manage to juggle, if you can even remember those days, trying to balance everything you had going on and still trying to find time for yourself to process your own grief and your own loss of what you had planned for your future.
[00:12:53] Beata: I want to be honest. I don't feel like I did balance. And I think too, there's this expectation for us sometimes to balance, at times it's just like how to survive the day and how to move through it. So you're, you may be Thriving on a certain level, but you're I have a I had a young daughter who had just lost her father at the age of six years old.
[00:13:21] And so I had to navigate and make sure that she got what she needed and that she was also protected. And what, one of the things that was important was mindfulness techniques and I had practiced meditation for for years beforehand, not consistently, but I had a strong enough meditation and spiritual practice that I'm, that was the one thing that I wouldn't budge.
[00:13:51] Like I always made time for that, even if it meant waking up at 4 30 in the morning. So that was one. Two, it was my daughter. And three, I just you just do it. You don't, you're, you don't even, I didn't even have on some time to think about the pain. Cause there was work. On the flip side, there was work and work that had real impact.
[00:14:16] Both. For for my communities, but also when you're working with agencies and like NASA and others, there's real implications for all Americans and for the world on climate, working on the International Space Station. teams as a subcontractor. So we were part of the mission that got the 3d printer up on the international space station.
[00:14:45] Wow. And so there was, there's that grief, but there's also look at that, that, that hope and that joy and what we're able to discover and find out and for all of humanity.
[00:15:00] Emily: Yeah, amazing.
[00:15:03] Beata: Yeah. And even though he had he had immigrated to the United States from Athens, he came from a region in Northern Greece called Epirus.
[00:15:12] And he didn't, they didn't have electricity when he left. He literally read his books and did his homework by one of those lanterns. And so he said he would be in the mountains and at night, in the evening, he could see just like the sky and all the stars. And he's I just want to be part of that.
[00:15:34] I want to be part of that. And what is there? What is my purpose? So I just felt like I was fulfilling, helping to give a voice for his childhood dreams too.
[00:15:46] Emily: Oh, that's so amazing. And it's just incredible to think about someone who lives in a place with no electricity, who's literally dreaming of the stars.
[00:15:57] And then to see, years later, those things come to life and to get to be part of that process in honoring him and his legacy in such a beautiful way. That's really remarkable.
[00:16:11] Beata: Thank you. And I'm so grateful, Emily, because you're helping me, we've just met, but you're helping me carry that legacy and that light.
[00:16:20] And there have been so many people along the way so many people that I've known and people that I haven't known. And even the people that haven't been nice to me and weren't my supporters, they have made me that much more stronger and that much more resilient. And even for that, I'm grateful for.
[00:16:41] Emily: Now that you've had some time since he died, how are things different for you? Or as you've just evolved and grown over time, how do you think about things differently? What is life like further down the road here?
Advocacy and Civic Engagement
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[00:16:57] Beata: I do want to say Once Yorgos died and I, too, I would reflect okay, what were we doing?
[00:17:05] And we were politically involved, but he really was the face of that involvement. I had a young daughter, and and that was important to me. But yet I didn't engage. In civic, in civic engagement. And when he died, I'm like wait a minute. That's when I learned social security benefits.
[00:17:27] So my daughter was six. So she, we visited the social security office and we filled out the paperwork so she could collect benefits. I learned that once she turns 18, those benefits are no longer available. When I did some, just some researching, I learned that one of the presidents Ronald Reagan, actually changed that.
[00:17:52] And I'm like, wait a minute. I love Ronald Reagan. I registered because of him to vote in high school, but yet there's, he implemented, he made a change in social security that has a huge, has an impact on my daughter and on so many others. I said, let me get more involved, let me do more research, let me have conversations with my Congress a person, who at the time was Congresswoman Karen Bass out in L.
[00:18:20] A. And and so that's one of the things that has changed, is I'm learning more and more, even now, that I have more of a voice than I ever thought I did. And I'm like, if I have that voice, I'm not the, we all have that voice. And that's one of the things that has changed, just my civic engagement has really increased and grown.
[00:18:49] And it actually makes, I'm happy, too, because of that. Aristotle was one of my favorite just one of my favorite Greek philosophers. And he talks about happiness. And the politics and the ethics and and Plato, the Republic, and I'm like what are you doing? You've read this is, those were, that was like my first love.
[00:19:12] My first Greek love was Plato, literally. That's the first Greek that I fell in love with. But then what are you doing? It's, it doesn't just end there. So that's one, one of the things that's changed. And there's all the secondary losses that we all know. It doesn't matter how you lost your husband.
[00:19:31] It's okay, this is coming up or my there's this a sporting event and they're not here or the back to school night or so that's changed. That's part of the change. And sometimes that part doesn't get easier. We just, I just, I'm like, okay how, what could I do smarter or more mindfully that could just get me through it?
[00:19:57] Emily: Oh, that's so good. And I'm glad that you've been able to Rediscover joy in its own way and that you've been able to have the courage to reach out to people like your congresswoman then and have those conversations because I think one of the things that happens to so many of us is. When we lose our person, we lose a lot of confidence and we lose a lot of confidence in our own ability and our ability to make decisions.
[00:20:25] And we certainly don't feel like we can change the world or make much of a ripple, but you're doing that. You've done that. And I think that just speaks a lot to your own character and your ability to say, even if it's awkward or weird or scary I'm just going to go for
[00:20:42] Beata: it. And I think, I know that all of us, if we make that choice we're able to do that.
[00:20:50] And I think it's I, because I was thinking about our conversation today and I think too, it's the stereotypes of widows, how are we, widowed persons in general, represented in the stories, in, in Hollywood, amongst ourselves? within our own communities.
[00:21:09] Emily: Yeah. I hated being called a widow.
[00:21:11] I thought that was like 90 year old sad people. Like widows aren't in their, thirties, forties, fifties no, it doesn't make any sense. But now I love it because I don't love the fact that I went through that, but I love what it means because I know that. Widows have to be so incredibly resilient and as a community, they're so generous and willing to give back and that we have such a sharper focus of what's important now in life.
[00:21:42] And so that term and that identity just means something so much different than it used to mean before.
[00:21:50] Beata: Yes. And so what is, as I was listening to you, I was reminded of the first widow that I knew was my Polish grandmother, my babcia, Josefa. Who would, do you remember who the first widow you knew or met?
[00:22:05] Emily: I think it was probably one of the old ladies at church that I just knew where you're like, okay you're in your 80s or 90s, like that's expected. My, my grandmother actually was widowed as well. And my aunt more recently, but my grandma, I think she was like right around 60 or so, and my grandpa died.
[00:22:28] And so I was really young. I remember the funeral. And my dad being upset, but I don't really remember a whole lot other than that. It was just in my mind. My grandma was so old, right? That I was like, Oh, okay. Yes, that's what happens when you get older is you die. And I didn't really think much else about that.
[00:22:46] Beata: You bring up an interesting number and that's, you said your grandmother was 60. When she had experienced the loss of your grandfather, and the average age in the United States for a married woman to become widow is 59 years old, I think it's 59. And 7 out of 10 married women will lose their spouse at least once.
[00:23:13] So I was 39 when Yorgos had died. , that's not part of the plan when you're walking down the aisle and, and you see the priest and everything. And we, I had actually two priests. I had Father John Bakos, who was amazing, a Greek priest, he's since retired, and then he gave a very kind courtesy and he allowed for a Polish Catholic priest to be part of the ceremony as well.
[00:23:42] So it was really we were on our feet for a long time and standing, like Greek weddings are like, and I'm like, I can't faint. I can't, don't buckle your knees. I like remember that. And I remember too, Yorgos was saying something like, he was murmuring like, you look so beautiful or something. And I'm like, like now I have to pay attention.
[00:24:05] Emily: I love it. You've really had to show commitment to your relationship to stand through that wedding. Oh, that's amazing.
Real Estate and Protecting Assets
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[00:24:14] Emily: I know too, you mentioned that you also do some work in real estate and I'm not sure if you did some of that at all before, or that's something that's been more recent, but do you mind to share a little bit about that?
[00:24:27] Beata: Yeah, I have my father before he retired, he was a builder. He built homes. And so I had and I had a real estate agent at previously and I was licensed in California. And there was just some work that I was involved in here. And I said, wait a minute, there's I've been involved in multiple transactions and there's like things that could be done more effectively.
[00:24:54] For us, and it's not just this real estate property, this home is, it's just more than that. And people didn't, agents didn't know how to act sometimes or so I'm like, let me go ahead and re engage in this field, because real estate investments have allowed me to do my advocacy, to be on the hill, they've given me some freedom and they've given the opportunity where I could send my daughter to an independent school.
[00:25:25] So I decided, let me see what I could do in this space and even work out a referral system or do something where I'm working with other agents or working with myself and just navigate helping those who are going through loss, that type of loss to to help them. And to guide them. And in particular, I got re reengaged because I was hearing stories about widowed women in particular, who their homes were being targeted, because usually the home is your largest financial asset.
[00:26:01] So there were stories that I heard of basically con jobs or scammers. And and that really upset me. I heard three stories in particular from someone in the space. And I said, you know what I don't know what I could do, but let me get my light, my real estate license. I could help people on the ground.
[00:26:22] And I could also on the higher levels in terms of be on the hill and lobbying different, both senators and Congress persons to, to make them aware that this is happening. And that, because it's really the laws that need to change. But we also have to, for the laws to change, we have to change too.
[00:26:45] And we have to acknowledge that it's happening and not turn away and not say, Oh that's not going to happen to me because, I have this lawyer or, I'm really well set up or my husband took care of that. It's people are going to do what they're going to do and they're going to be ruthless.
[00:27:03] It. And so those standing by too have it have a, have an opportunity to be part of this. And I think that's true about men and husbands and or in terms of, we talk about prevention in the healthcare space and in different spaces. This is about protecting assets. And no one wants to think that they're going to die and, we, and, but the fact is we are, you have a living trust or you have a will and there's things that you could do ahead of time and just to make sure that your loved ones are protected or have some guardrails set up.
[00:27:45] And it's the setting up of the guardrails that I hope that that hope. In my lifetime can't can be accomplished.
[00:27:55] Emily: Yeah. So what if people are interested like they want to contribute they want to know how they can help they want to, lend their voice. How do you suggest that they get started, or maybe connect with you.
[00:28:08] Oh what's even the right, like first step for them to look into that more.
Community Projects and Final Advice
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[00:28:13] Beata: I could tell you on the real estate side, I'm part of the National Realtors Association, and we have over a million of us, so I'm working on that side, but one thing that people could do is there's this beautiful community project that Ashley Manning out in Charlotte, North Carolina has started, and we are also part of the It's a Valentine's Day project for widowed persons.
[00:28:39] She is not a widow herself, but I've been so inspired by her and we have collaborated together and I've brought the project to DC, but I would say it's such a beautiful thing. That when the community comes together, they nominate a widowed person. It doesn't have to be a woman. It's just a widowed person, and they get a bouquet of flowers on Valentine's Day, a day that You know that sometimes they feel forgotten or or, and it's so I would say go to Ashley Manning's site and I could provide that for you and because I think those are the kinds of community outreach that is going to start and start change.
[00:29:27] Because she sees us, right? She sees us in a beautiful way and she's brought together communities, not just in her neighborhood and her community, but in DC, like the school that my daughter attends. We did it last year and we're doing it again in 2025. And so it's just, we see you, we hear you. And that's where the conversation needs to start.
[00:29:56] Emily: And for those of you that are watching or listening, we'll put all the links and everything in the show notes. So you'll be able to go back and find that do you have any final like words of advice or encouragement? to widows who are maybe struggling or in those early days or just feel like they're stuck and don't have a way forward.
[00:30:18] Is there anything that you would tell them?
[00:30:21] Beata: First of all, like there's days still that I feel stuck. There's times that I'm like, okay, why am I not able to do this, or why it's been 12 years come on now grief stop knocking on my door, or, so I would say
[00:30:36] it's, Finding your helpers how to find your helpers and saying no, because we have a tendency to say yes. And so one, maybe not in the beginning. People did, but just saying, being okay with the uncomfortable feeling of saying, no, I can't help you, or no, thank you so much, but I can't. Now is just not a good time.
[00:31:06] Finding your helpers, knowing when to say no, and three, I would just being grateful. Me and my daughter, we do Gratitudes daily. However, it's just, and doing a Gratitude list. And it's one thing, too, to share them, express them verbally, but having a journal, like a family journal of Gratitudes, and it's a part of our history now and it makes it it makes it more tangible, and it documents it.
[00:31:39] That despite this loss and despite this change that that we're still moving forward and we're so grateful. We're so grateful to you Yorgos, Sofia's dad, my husband, my friend, for the time that we did have. And we're so sorry that you were in so much pain that you felt that, that was the choice you made.
[00:32:03] That's why I'm really proud of the legislation that I had testified to support the passage of. It's in Montgomery County, and it's the Suicide and Firearm Education Bill. And it requires gun store owners to provide suicide prevention material at the point of the sale of the consumer good of the firearm.
[00:32:31] So for me, the legislation and just doing what I can that, and so you have to find your, you find your own path. Ultimately you find it.
[00:32:43] Emily: Yeah, I think that was some really great encouragement and suggestions and insights that you shared there. So thank you so much for coming on the show and being willing to share your story.
[00:32:55] I really appreciate it.
[00:32:57] Beata: Thank you, Emily. I'm so grateful and it's an honor to be your new friend in DC. Yes.
Conclusion and Membership Invitation
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[00:33:03] Emily: Are you a widow who feels disconnected? Do you feel like you're stuck or even going backwards in your grief? Widowhood can be lonely and isolating, but it doesn't have to be. Join us in the Brave Widow membership community and connect. We teach widows how to find hope, heal their heart, and dream again for the future.
[00:33:24] Find your purpose and create a life you love today. Go to bravewidow. com to get started.
