50 | Managing Your Business In the Midst of Loss

Jun 12

Let’s discuss the challenges of managing a business while coping with a personal loss. Because good grief… it’s a challenge!

Today I share some personal experiences with my father-in-law passing away and unpack the importance of having an SOS plan to survive the seasons. I also discuss the benefits of outsourcing and the importance of communicating with clients during difficult times.

Life throws curve balls at various crisis levels, so even if you’re not in the “thick of it” right now, it’ll come. It’s sadly a fact of life. Listen to how you can be prepared and if anything know: you’re not alone.

This is hard because it’s simply… hard.

Listen to Bob Hamlet’s Song “I Wanna Be”

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Episode Transcript

Hello friends. Welcome back. It is just Danny. Today I have a client who is a communications coach, and I think she would probably say, don't ever say that again, Danny. One of her things of not to say is just, Like you're not just Danny. I'm not just Danny, but hey, I'm here. It's me. And I wanted talk a little bit.

I don't know what life has been like the past few weeks, but also some key takeaways and some things that really pertaining to those who are running their own business. Solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, business owners, you name it. You know when, when you're setting up a vacation, it's just, you don't just log it off, you have to prepare for a vacation.

Right? But in this particular case, my family has recently experienced a loss. My father-in-law passed away late May and. It has been something that has , in some ways his health was failing for a while, but it [00:01:00] definitely happened very quickly and I was dealing with a lot of things all at once, but also trying to figure out how to navigate my life as a mom, wife, daughter-in-law.

Hamlet family member and business owner. A little background. So my father-in-law was just bigger than life character. A prolific songwriter, absolutely loved Jesus. He had a long history of ministry.

But his health has also been failing him. He's been struggling with health issues for a couple years, on and off to different levels. About a year ago, he was diagnosed with lymphoma and he went through chemo. It was his whole process, and he came to the other side of it. By the time he was done with all of that, he was on dialysis, but he was cancer free.

unfortunately that only lasted, I would say a few months when all of a sudden [00:02:00] he started having some back pain and they found out the cancer was back. So it was just kind of this like week by week new symptoms are showing up. If you ever experienced a family member who had cancer, you kind of get this cancer diagnosis. And then they're like, okay, we're going to schedule your scan and it's gonna be like two weeks out.

And after that, oh, we need another scan. That's another two weeks out. I mean, it's, it's crazy. I dunno if it's just here, but I feel like you have this crazy thing going on in your life and then you're waiting for testing that takes a couple weeks to do. So that's what we were doing. Everyone was waiting for these testing to come in, and then all of a sudden his health just got really bad and the cancer was in his lungs.

He had a harder time breathing and for a few days in the hospital he was fighting things really struggling. And then when he kind of realized that they were gonna put him on a feeding tube and a lot of, a lot of things were going to be coming into place that he just was like, no. And so [00:03:00] he decided to stop chemo and within five days he passed away.

And at the time I'm recording this, his funeral was yesterday, for those of you who may know, I may have mentioned this before in the podcast, but my father died when I was 15. He had a l s. So I know what it looks like to live with someone who is slowly fighting for their life. Their body is just slowly just giving up. But this was kind of my first time as, I don't know, a 35 year old woman, a mother. Talking to my kids that their papa's gonna pass away and also he did in-home hospice care. So then I kind of took over the overall management of making sure that my brother and sister-in-law had all the food they needed. Cleaning just managing all of the conversations and all that stuff. It just was, I turned full blown project management. And then when he passed away, I became like, The virtual assistant, so to speak, of his funeral and trying to get everything in line and all those [00:04:00] things.

So it's been a crazy, crazy time. A crazy, sad, full of shock and grief time. And kind of the funny story, so my father-in-law, he was a minister, youth pastor throughout most of his life, and when he kind of retired, it wasn't really necessarily by choice at the time. He really took to Facebook and he was jokingly called like the Facebook pastor. He can stayed in connection with a lot of people on Facebook. And I remember I went to the hospital as soon as I knew that he was done with treatment, he took the oxygen support off and we really didn't know how much more time he had. And I kind of looked at him and I said, I know this is a really silly question to ask.

But would you want me to help you write your last Facebook post now for some of us be like, come on, you asked him for his last social media post. But he was very active on social media and he didn't have the [00:05:00] strength necessarily to do this himself. It was something I offered and he was very appreciative and so I sat down with him.

I asked him questions, and then I pulled something together and then I read out loud and then I posted it. Here's what's cool. Within three hours, 250 people commented, and I know that some of these comments are read over him. Of people pouring out their love and appreciation and sharing how much they love him and what an impact he made on their lives. That was such a reminder of the power of social media. I. I always say that I'm here to help you become more social and social media and seeing that these people, all these people in his life got an opportunity to basically say their last words of love to him, and it was powerful.

So there you go. With that said, the thing I wanna talk to you about is the things that I've [00:06:00] learned as a business owner, and like I said, a mom and. Daughter-in-law of the things I wish I did differently and the things that worked well, This is gonna happen to all of us to one degree or the other.

Maybe it's not necessarily a death in the family. It could be really good things, a wedding in the family. Anything that happens or could be something that unexpectedly for two weeks of your life, your basic mode of operation is completely derailed. So how do we handle that and what are some key takeaways?

First of all, the one thing that I wish I did differently, From the very beginning was communicating to my clients when I knew the cancer was back and we weren't quite sure how this was gonna go. We could tell it was much more aggressive than last time. It was spreading much faster. Yet the doctors weren't like rushing him through tests and stuff like that.

So we're like, ah, I don't know. I wish I shared with my clients that, hey, I have a family member who is [00:07:00] really ill, and the main reason why wish I told them is that I even knew back then that I would be very actively involved in at least some capacity.

I called one of the pastors they're gonna have to the funeral. And I said, hi, I am Danny Hamlet, I am the organized hamlet. And he literally laughed and he said, wait, the hamlets have one of those. I'm like, I guess so. That's me. So I knew that to a greater degree than maybe some that I would be really involved with.

Just the overall administration of funeral and everything. So if you know that if A or B happened that you are gonna be very actively involved and it's gonna take time away from your work. Let your clients know.

So it's not like a surprise. All my clients are great about it, but I was like, man, I wish I cud them in a little bit sooner.

Number two that I wish I [00:08:00] did was I wish I asked for help a little bit sooner.

For a week I was really busy promoting meal trains and cleaning help and sending, you know, addresses and everything to make sure everyone has everything updating the care page. That about four days in, I like hit this wall. Like my kids are literally eating McDonald's every night and I'm like, I need a meal.

I really need a meal. Can someone bring me a meal? I, I, I was crying in a coffee shop because I did a typo and I was so, so tired. And I wish that I acknowledge the fact that. I needed help as well. May it be through extra babysitting for my kids or even a meal. I would ask for help sooner. You can look at the situation and think, man, I feel like I should be able handle all of this. But if your family is in crisis mode, that's when you need help. And it's not just about asking help for other [00:09:00] people, but it's also asking help for you.

The third thing that I wish I had in place earlier on kind of like an S, so S plan for my business operations. So this is just, I don't know, I just thought about this right now, but sitting down and thinking if something were to happen, what would be the so S mode? What would be the bare minimum things that I need to do to keep the clients onboarded? The lights on in the business, but that will also relieve a lot of pressure and stress off my shoulders.

I got to a point where I was so overwhelmed that I contacted one of my business friends, she's able to just systems and operations, and I was like, okay, here is what I got going on. Can you please help me figure out what I should focus on?

And she gave me some piece of advice that I was like, oh no, duh. So some of my clients, I created content for 30 days. And I was about two weeks out from that next bundle delivery needed to be made right? And it [00:10:00] was, whew, that deadline was so heavy on my shoulders and my friend said, Make sure your clients all know, which by, at this point they all did, and be week by week. You work this week on what needs to be done for next week, and you always stay week ahead. And that's what you do. She gave a lot of other advice as well, but that was the one thing that completely released the pressure.

I just gotta do week by week. That's all I have to do. And so I switched to week by week and it whew, that helped a bit. Now I just gotta think about how to build things back up. But that's another story for another day. So figure out what do you need to do week by week? Kind of like your so s plan. Like how are you going to be able to still keep the lights on your business and take care of the crisis that's at home?

One thing that I did do as well is I kept my clients in the loop. I basically told them as soon as I knew that my father-in-law was gonna hospice care that that was happening.[00:11:00]

I do wish I kinda expressed right off the get go that if he passes away, I'm going to be spending a lot of time helping with the semantics of that. But needs to say, I do believe I did a good job keeping my clients in the loop, letting them know what was happening and when it was happening and So that there were no questions of like, where is Danny? Where did she go? No, they knew where I was

and my last tip. And honestly, this can only work if you prepare this in advance in some ways. But you know, it depends. If you can outsource, find out if you can.

If you can afford maybe a time period where you outsourced parts of your work to someone else to do, and then when you kinda get back on your feet, you can onboard that back or whatever makes sense for you. That's another form of asking for help. , has a little more money tied to it, but you get the picture.

After going through, through all of this I don't know, I think we're all still in shock, honestly.

I mean, the funeral was just [00:12:00] yesterday and here I am recording a podcast, so maybe some of you guys are thinking I'm nuts anyway, but oh, I dunno. I got three kids, so just life keeps going in summary. If you know that somebody in your inner circle is not doing well, and you know that it's going to take away time of work if their health declines anyway, just let your clients know.

Ask for help, and don't feel bad about it. Take your work week by week if you have any of those big, massive projects. Break things down into little steps like what do you need to get done on Monday? What do you need to get done on Tuesday? And really find any way that you can relieve that pressure off of your shoulders.

Keep your clients in the loop. Continue to communicate. If something is changing or deadlines need to be moved, the sooner they know the better and also consider outsourcing if you can, to stay afloat

so in the midst of it all, give yourself permission to [00:13:00] cry. Give yourself permission to be a human

because you are a precious, amazing. Human and sometimes life really, really sucks. And if you're working with fantastic clients, they will understand that for a season you're not gonna be hitting out of the park, and that's okay.

So with that said, if any of you listening to this have lost someone you love a father, mother.

A friend, brother, sister, a child, if you're trying to navigate this whole run your business and somehow life keeps going. I just want you to know that I hear you, and I'm not saying there's any easy way to get through this, and there are no words to make it sound easy because there's nothing easy about loss.

There's nothing easy at all about it, and that you're now alone. There are people out there that totally understand and if you want someone to talk to, [00:14:00] you can call me. Okay. If you wanna do a coffee chat where you just kind of cry and blubber, I mean, I probably, it'll probably be like therapy, right? You probably don't cry enough.

So if you just want some like 30 minutes therapy, I don't, I'm not a huge crier. I, it does happen. But I guess someone could get me going if they wanted to.

Or if you just want someone to listen, I'm here. I get it. It's a club you don't wanna be in, but when you're in it, you get it. So if you go to the show notes, You're gonna find a link to a song that my, I always called him Daddy Bob, that was a nickname. his name was Robert Hamlet. So I called him Daddy Bob, and so if you go down the show notes, you'll find a link to his song. And it was a song he wrote about going to heaven. His firstborn son was Joshua James, and he was born with severe [00:15:00] disabilities and he wrote a song about going to heaven, and there's a particular line where it says the crippled arm made hole. And I just thought, Hmm, this would be fitting. So if you really wanna listen to some really cool eighties music, go below and take listen or book a coffee chat or what have you. But hey, thank you for listening today, and this is a little bit more raw and real than usual, but I just thought maybe there'd be somebody out there who is navigating law.

So I'll try and run a business and this would be, I don't know, just let you know, Hey, you're not alone. This is crazy hard because it's just hard. It's not hard because. You are a loser who can't get your crap together. It's not hard because you're just not organized enough. It's hard because it's just hard, and you're doing great now.

I'll see you next week. Another discovery call.