--- title: Sheryl Sandberg Tells What She Learned From Husband's Death description: Speaking to a crowd of students through occasional tears, she told the graduates how much tragedy had taught her about resilience. canonical: https://time.com/4336391/sheryl-sandberg-facebook-uc-berkeley-commencement-speech-husband-death/ author: Charlotte Alter article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-05-14T19:09:34.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T17:33:08.450Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Sheryl Sandberg Tells UC Berkeley Students What She Learned From Her Husband's Death og:description: Speaking to a crowd of students through occasional tears, she told the graduates how much tragedy had taught her about resilience. og:url: https://time.com/4336391/sheryl-sandberg-facebook-uc-berkeley-commencement-speech-husband-death/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9fbe0a9e6dea25fe/698893395f570fb194b20ede/sheryl-sandberg-commencement.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: sheryl-sandberg-commencement og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Sheryl Sandberg Tells UC Berkeley Students What She Learned From Her Husband's Death twitter:description: Speaking to a crowd of students through occasional tears, she told the graduates how much tragedy had taught her about resilience. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9fbe0a9e6dea25fe/698893395f570fb194b20ede/sheryl-sandberg-commencement.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Sheryl Sandberg Tells UC Berkeley Students What She Learned From Her Husband's Death  by [Charlotte Alter](/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent May 14, 2016 7:09 PM CUT  Sheryl Sandberg speaking at the University of California Berkeley commencement on May 14, 2016. Sheryl Sandberg speaking at the University of California Berkeley commencement on May 14, 2016.Jennifer Leahy  by [Charlotte Alter](/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent May 14, 2016 7:09 PM CUT Sheryl Sandberg gave the commencement speech at UC Berkeley on Saturday, one year and thirteen days after her husband Dave Goldberg died suddenly last year. Speaking to a crowd of students through occasional tears, she told the graduates how much that tragedy had taught her about the importance of resilience. Sandberg, the bestselling author of _Lean In_ and COO of Facebook, has written [Facebook posts ](http://time.com/4321778/mothers-day-2016-sheryl-sandberg-facebook/ "undefined")about the loss of her husband, but has not yet spoken publicly about his death. Here’s how she described that day: --- > “” --- His death, she said, plunged her into a “deep fog of grief—what I think of as the void—an emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even to breathe.” But that wasn’t the only thing that happened after Dave’s death. “I also learned that when life sucks you under, you can kick against the bottom, break the surface, and breathe again,” she continued. Sandberg went on to describe the three “P”s of bouncing back from setbacks, according to psychologist Martin Seligman: personalization, pervasiveness, and permanence. Once you understand the three Ps, Sandberg said, it’s much easier to fight back against the negative thinking that can make it difficult to stay resilient. The first “P” is personalization, the belief that we’re at fault for whatever setback we’ve experienced. She describes blaming herself for not catching his condition sooner, even though there was no way she possibly could have known: --- > “” --- The second “P” is pervasiveness, the belief that any tragedy will affect everything in our lives. Sandberg recalls being unable to imagine to see through her grief when she first came back to work. --- > “” --- She also acknowledged that for less fortunate women, the loss of a partner can have even more devastating consequences that often affect the finances of the family. The third “P” is permanence, the sense that any hardship will last forever, and that sadness multiplies into itself. --- > “” --- Ultimately, she says, the death of her husband taught her the importance of gratitude for what she does have. “It is the greatest irony of my life that losing my husband helped me find deeper gratitude—gratitude for the kindness of my friends, the love of my family, the laughter of my children,” she says. “My hope for you is that you can find that gratitude—not just on the good days, like today, but on the hard ones, when you will really need it.” And that, she says, is her message to the UC Berkeley Class of 2016\. Career accomplishment is all well and good, but gratitude and resilience are the most valuable lessons that can be learned. Here’s how she ended the speech: --- > “” --- ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4336391/sheryl-sandberg-facebook-uc-berkeley-commencement-speech-husband-death/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4336391/sheryl-sandberg-facebook-uc-berkeley-commencement-speech-husband-death/"},"headline":"Sheryl Sandberg Tells UC Berkeley Students What She Learned From Her Husband's Death","datePublished":"2016-05-14T19:09:34.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T17:33:08.450Z","description":"She spoke to students about the importance of gratitude and resilience","url":"https://time.com/4336391/sheryl-sandberg-facebook-uc-berkeley-commencement-speech-husband-death/","keywords":["Commencement","Death","Sheryl Sandberg","resilience"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9fbe0a9e6dea25fe/698893395f570fb194b20ede/sheryl-sandberg-commencement.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Charlotte Alter","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9fbe0a9e6dea25fe/698893395f570fb194b20ede/sheryl-sandberg-commencement.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"sheryl-sandberg-commencement","caption":"Sheryl Sandberg speaking at the University of California Berkeley commencement on May 14, 2016.","creditText":"Jennifer Leahy","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/commencement/","name":"Commencement"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4336391/sheryl-sandberg-facebook-uc-berkeley-commencement-speech-husband-death/","name":"Sheryl Sandberg Tells UC Berkeley Students What She Learned From Her Husband's Death"}}]}] ```