Do you know why I’m fascinated with today’s holiday?  It reminds me of the way lots of advisors approach their deals.  They seem absolutely mystified by how they end up in a repeating loop of busted deals, completely unaware of what’s going on underground and how to change the pattern.  Likewise, our emotions can seem like unpredictable wild animals that pop up from nowhere and derail our lives and our deals.  So the groundhog metaphor is a good one for us to use in thinking about how to help more owners make it all the way through a successful sale of their business.

The term “Groundhog Day” became part of the English lexicon as a means to describe a monotonous, unpleasant, and repetitive situation.  It arose following the release of a comedy by the same name that has surprisingly philosophical undertones that are applicable to the process of selling a business.

In Groundhog Day, Bill Murray portrays Phil Connors, a cynical television weatherman covering the annual Groundhog Day event in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, who becomes trapped in a time loop forcing him to inexplicably relive February 2 again and again.  The film’s creator, Danny Rubin, said that this lack of explanation made Phil’s situation more relatable, as “none of us seems to know exactly how we got stuck here either” when facing our own Groundhog Day experience.

Like some advisors I’ve met, Phil makes no secret of his contempt for the assignment, the small town, and the “hicks” who live there, nor does he conceal that he’s only doing it for the money and his ability to leverage it into something “better.”

In short order, when Phil realizes that each day is the same as the one before and there are no consequences for his actions, he begins spending loop after loop indulging in binge eating, one-night stands, robbery, and other dangerous activities, using his increasing knowledge of the day’s events and the town residents to manipulate circumstances to his advantage.

Some advisors in our industry have taken a similar approach, treating business owners, their precious life’s work and the sale process like “a numbers game” – slickly convincing lots of business owners to list their companies with them, but putting in little effort to help those owners succeed at the sale, concealing key information from deal partners and doing just enough to earn their fee and abandoning those deals and clients that don’t quickly show economic promise.  They put their attention on only the technical aspects of the sale, persuading the owner and themselves that only reaching the highest dollar matters, ignoring the reality that their work as a trusted advisor is about so much more than just running a transaction and collecting their fee before moving on to the next one and the one after that.

We hear advisors mutter under their breath with contempt that they have to play “part-time psychologist” in their deals, meanwhile actively looking away from the signs of distress that owners exhibit about their uncertainty surrounding the transition and, worse yet, sometimes shaming those owners for needing to slow down so they can catch their breath and adjust to all the change that is happening around them.  Those same advisors treat the inevitable emotional elements of the process as if they are dirty gophers mucking up the fantasy of their smooth playing field and often shove owners or their partners around, forcing a deal to close because their own fear of losing their commission overrides their ability to care for their client’s best interest.

These behaviors end up creating the self-perpetuating loop of busted deals and lead to mistrustful owners and advisors who treat owners with contempt that goes round and round.

In the movie, Phil gradually becomes depressed and desperate for a way to escape the loop.  Each thing he tries lands him back in the same situation day after day.  I’ll bet you know some folks like that, too.  I sure do.

Beneath the comedy aspects, the script melds sentimental and deeply cynical elements to help us focus much more on the philosophical aspects of our chosen work in the world.  It showcases Phil’s existential loneliness as he fails to find meaning in his looping days, consumed only with his self-interest and how to manipulate others into giving him what he wants.

It is only when Phil stops using the loops to indulge his own desires and instead uses them to selflessly help others that he is freed.  He learns to use the knowledge he is gaining from the repeating loops to demonstrate genuine empathy and develops ways to care as he helps others without fakery or self-interest.

The more he understands what is going on for others and finds ways to ease their walk in the world, knowing that no matter which path he chooses (the selfish one or the helpful one) the day will likely reset anyway, that is when he wins the respect and affection of Rita, the paramour played by Andie MacDowell.  He wins with her, not because he desires it or has impressed her with his knowledge or manipulated her into choosing him, but because he has genuinely become the type of person that Rita could love.

I see a similar path to success for advisors who take the opportunity to understand the journey their business owner clients are on as they navigate the exit of their business.  Using each interaction with a prospect or client to display not just their transactional prowess, but their deep respect and affection for the business owner and what they have built, these advisors win their client’s trust.  Those are the deals that close with ease and turn into loops of satisfied former clients and circles of influence filled with deal partners who make referrals that fill those advisors’ pipelines with clients they genuinely enjoy helping.

The behaviors we engage in create patterns and lead to the loops of our lives.  We have more power to decide which loop plays out than we sometimes remember.

For Rubin and Murray, the essential message of Groundhog Day represents having the strength and knowledge to make a purposeful change when faced with the opportunity to simply keep repeating previous mistakes. The pair loosely used the Kübler-Ross model of the five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—as an outlining structure for the film.  We watch Phil navigate those stages of grief as he grows, just as we watch our clients move through these elements as they let go of their business.  Want to read more about that process and how you can use it to help your clients?  Check out my article Grief, Loss & Owners on the Brink.

While Bill Murray got to replay the same day over and over in the movie Groundhog Day until he got it right, you don’t get that chance when you’re helping a client sell their business.  You and they get only one chance and the way you show up with them makes all the difference in whether they place their trust in you and allow you to shepherd them to the other side of the single biggest transition in their professional life.

Keeping with my Bill Murray and small animal theme, in Murray’s other famous role as Carl the groundskeeper in Caddyshack, he said you’ve got to BE the gopher.  Think like the gopher … er, I mean the business owner.  Instead of setting up traps to catch the gopher or devices to suppress their emotions to keep them from blowing up your deal, tap into what it’s like to know the deeper meaning of the work you are doing and relate to what your client is experiencing.  Get in touch with the sense of profound responsibility that comes with an owner entrusting their most prized possession to you and allowing you to guide them across a ravine of the unknown as they sell their business.

Ask yourself, “If this was my favorite uncle, how would I handle the sale of his business?”  Would it be different than the way you are approaching or interacting with this business owner who might, today, feel like a stranger?  Do you care about how this owner and his family and employees and community will experience this process and what lies for them on the other side?  What can help you to build relationships of trust with your client and your deal partners so that this deal makes it all the way to the close in a way that leaves everyone feeling at ease?

Are you genuinely proud of the way you are doing your work and the way it affects the people you are serving? If not, change your approach or pick a different job.  Otherwise, reconcile yourself to being like Bill Murray’s character Phil living a never-ending series of Groundhog Days filled with misery or his grubby groundskeeper character Carl in Caddyshack muttering about the string of senseless deals as “a pool or a pond, all the same to me.”

The emotional arc of a deal is actually far more predictable than you think and you don’t have to treat it like you’re stuck in a job crawling on your belly trying to outsmart your client’s emotions as if they are gophers and you’re caught in a game of Whack-a-Mole.

Remember, the way to get the kind of rich, satisfying life you want is to do your work in ways that serve others.

The post Is a Groundhog Running Your Deals? appeared first on Denise Logan.

***

It sounds like the beginning to a beautiful story. Yet, when Prince Harry announced that he was stepping down from royal life, the world seemed shocked.  So did the Royal family and their advisors.  But, should they have been?

If their very public drama was playing out in your own family business, which role would be yours? Queen Elizabeth? Prince Charles? Prince William? Prince Harry?  Or one of the many advisors who appeared equally surprised by this seemingly sudden (but all too predictable) turn of events in their client’s family and business?

Come with me as we peek behind the heavy velvet drapes and eavesdrop inside what I imagine as our characters’ private thoughts during this difficult chapter in one of the world’s oldest family businesses.  See if you can spot the similarities to the dragons silently lurking in the shadows of your own story.

***

THE QUEEN … Good grief, I had no idea I would still be running this thing after 70 years! I mean, I guess I should have realized I COULD be, but enough already!  I’m exhausted and frankly sick of this whole business and all the drama it seems to bring with it.  I thought it would be easier by now.

Maybe I could get Boris Johnson to convince Parliament to allow one of those private equity firms to just buy us out and leave all the money to charity to care for my people.  Fat chance of that happening!  I should have asked Winston Churchill to do it years ago, that man seemed to be able to get things done.  Ah well, it’s too late for that now. 

I guess I’m just going to have to accept that I have no choice but to stick it out at this point and reconcile myself to the fact that I’m going to die at my desk one day.  That seems to be the only way I’ll get out of this thing.

And, really, what else would I do with myself anyway?  I guess it’s not that bad and besides there ARE a lot of perks with this job.  It really IS good to be The Queen most days.

At least I don’t have to deal with what I hear those other leaders talking about colloquially as “succession planning.”  They act like it’s something new they’ve dreamed up when we’ve been doing it here for eons. 

But, really!  The way this whole plan was set up gives me no flexibility to decide WHO should come next. Oh well, at least when I’m gone I won’t have to watch what a dog’s dinner my son is going to make of it. 

But I do find myself lying awake at night wondering … Can I possibly hang on long enough to outlive that ninny and pass this whole business directly on to my grandson and that smart little cookie Kate?

***

PRINCE CHARLES … Good Lord, is that woman going to live forever???

I’ve been SOOOO good waiting for my turn all these years.  If I was King, there is so much I could have done by now.  At this rate, by the time I get to run the show, I’ll be so old, I’m not sure it will even matter anymore. 

I’ve spent my whole life just biding my time when I could have been doing something else that I really wanted to.  If I’d known I’d be waiting this long, I might have done exactly what Harry’s done, too. 

But why on earth couldn’t he have just TALKED with me about this before flying off the handle?  How was I to know he felt like that?  We could have found some way to create a role he might have been happy with.  It makes no sense, really.  He’s always known the way this was set up, didn’t he? 

That boy’s always been so hot headed and now that he’s made a big stink about things, it’s embarrassing. He knows better than to hang the family’s dirty laundry in public, we always handle these things our own way.   It’s bad enough we’ve had to deal with the blowback from my brother Andrew’s shenanigans with that nasty fellow Epstein.  And now Mother and I have to find ways to support both Andrew and Harry and keep all that money off the books.  Why couldn’t they have just continued to go along with the ways things have always been done?

I’m too old for all of this although I guess I don’t really have any choice. I’ve already waited this long, but man she seems to have no plans to ever give it up.  I feel bad watching my dad spend all that time alone.  It’s as if she doesn’t even realize what it meant that he gave up his career to support hers. They could be spending this time they have left together before one of them dies.  But she’s so stubborn about never stepping down just because Edward did it and it colors her ability to see what’s best for everyone.   It’s sad but no one should be left hoping their parent dies just so he can finally step into the role he’s been destined for his whole life! 

I wonder if I should find a way to set some mandatory retirement age so I don’t do that to my own kids?  Nah, I’ve waited so long already, I don’t want to cut my time short either.  I guess in some ways I’m just like her.  Besides, I’m sure I’ll be able to hang on to my marbles and do a good job like my Mother has.  What could go wrong?

***

PRINCE WILLIAM … It’s been pretty good being the Prince and, honestly, it’s been reassuring to know so clearly that I’m the heir apparent to all of this. 

My grandmother gives me a lot of latitude and the people seem to really like me, but it does feel like a lot of responsibility and pressure at times.  I probably would have chosen this role anyway.  But it’s a little weird to realize that I never even had an option and, even if I screw it up, there’s no real consequences – well, except, I guess if there’s a revolution, right?  But what’s the chance of that? 

Even though I’ve always been destined for this, and sort of “in training” my whole life, I hope my dad gets to run the show for a while before I become King.  It would suck for him to not have even gotten a turn after waiting all that time. 

I know he’s getting up there in age himself, but I could use a couple more years to watch how it’s done before it’s my turn, especially since it seems like people expect me to walk some fine line between keeping everything the same and modernizing it at the same time. Everything is changing so quickly right now.  Somehow, even though my grandmother was a lot younger than me when she took over, and I’m sure I’d do a great job, I think things were simpler back then. I can’t tell anyone but I kind of like that my role is more “ceremonial” anyway. 

Of course, I am bummed that Harry is gone but, really, we’ve all known he wasn’t ever going to fit in here anyway.  Now I won’t have to worry about all the sibling rivalry stuff I’ve watched my dad and my grandmother deal with. 

I really will have to think about how to prepare for something like that as my kids grow up.  It’s tricky though, right?  I guess I don’t have a lot of choice if I want this thing to continue on beyond me.  It’s easier to just choose George because he’s the oldest.  Still, I’m torn.

I’d kind of like to encourage my own kids to explore their passions.  I sometimes envy Harry for the freedom he’s gotten to just be himself.  I feels kind of cruddy to make the other kids wait in the wings their whole life “just in case” – especially since I’m starting to see that one of them looks like this is a better fit than the others.  But, I’ve got to find a way to keep them all in it so they don’t leave the family high and dry if we need one of them.  That’s probably why all those distant cousins are always getting handed titles and special assignments.  It pays to keep them around even if they are a lot of trouble to manage.

***

PRINCE HARRY … I feel so conflicted all the time. 

Of course, I’m thrilled for my brother Will and I love being an uncle.  I mean, those kids are so cute. 

I’m not even sure I ever really wanted to be King, but even if I did, there was no point in saying it.  Will’s always been the chosen one.  The “Master Plan” was never up for discussion in this family.  Sure, everyone tried to make me feel like I was a part of things, but it’s always been clear that there’s no real role for me here and I was just the backstop.

Will & Kate seem to have no limit on the number of kids they’re going to pump out and the truth is, no matter what I do, I just keep getting pushed further and further back in line.

I mean, it’s great to not have all the pressure on me like he has.  I’ve been able to pretty much do what I wanted and party with the girls and all, but no one really respects me either.  They just want to get close to my family and my influence … Hey, I wonder if that’s what it felt like for Uncle Andrew, knowing Will & I skipped ahead of him.  Oh, wait, he’s even behind my son Archie.  Yikes – he’s had it even worse than me.  I wonder why he never pulled me aside to tell me to be sure to get my own life and interests?  I’ve got to remember to do that for Charlotte and Louis before it’s too late.

Anyway, it’s been rough because, as I’ve gotten older, the family has all these expectations of me.  And now they have them of my wife, too.  For heaven’s sake, they even tell her how to sit and what color nail polish she can wear.  I’m getting sick of taking flak from them and from her on all of this. 

No one even asks what I want!  It’s as if I’m just some cog in their giant machine and they all assume I’ll do whatever they decide.  I’ve tried to talk about it a lot of times but it always falls on deaf ears.  All I get is – “That’s the way we’ve always done things.”

So, you know what? I’m OUT! I’ll show them I don’t need them.  I can be my own man! 

Uh-oh, maybe I should have thought that whole thing through a little more or gotten some advice first.  I wasn’t exactly sure what “financial independence” would look like in the real world and I never really developed another career because I just assumed somehow I’d always be part of the family business.  It’s kind of lonely and I miss some of the things I didn’t realize were part of the business and not mine.  Equally challenging is that being part of this family means there are some other parts of the business and the family that I’m always going to be tied to.  It seems I can’t fully cut ties with them even if I wanted to and there’s not easy way back.  It has been really hard to navigate and I don’t feel like I have anyone to talk to about all this.

***

We know that even fairy tales with glamorous royal characters and access to loads of elder statesmen as advisors don’t always have happy endings.  The truth is that what we’ve seen play out in the House of Windsor is not some novel problem that inexplicably confronts only empty-headed characters in a fairy tale.

***

Every family business, big or small, is filled with predictable emotional turmoil that, when it goes unaddressed, rears its head like fire-breathing dragons – all too often burning down the kingdom, scorching the earth and scarring generations in the process.  We don’t have to leave the characters in our own stories or those of our clients in the dark to fend off these dragons by themselves.

The choice is yours. Are you ready to learn how to bravely leash the dragons of unexpressed emotions and help your people live happily ever after? My book The Seller’s Journey can give you the language to begin those conversations and I’m only a call away to help you, too.

The post Slaying the Emotional Dragons Lurking Inside Every Family Business appeared first on Denise Logan.

Not only could I believe that Walter had said that – he’d been signaling his ambivalence for several weeks –  I also knew that both Ed and the prospective buyer were losing their patience with Walter and that the way they were responding to Walter’s emotional swings were contributing to the likely demise of the deal. Frankly, it’s not uncommon for business owners to struggle with the decision to sell, even at these late moments, or for that uncertainty to cause the advisors to lose their cool and start pressuring the owners in unproductive ways.

Ed often remarked that he spent half his time in every deal “playing therapist” to his clients and I knew that, even though he thought he hid it well, he resented having to coddle business owners he thought should be grateful for his help and for all the money he was getting for them.   I told Ed that what Walter was signaling was more than just ambivalence about the deal.  I recognized it as signs of the grief that comes late in the process of a transition, and told Ed this.

“Grief?” he asked.  “What does this guy have to be upset about?  He’s poised to make a pretty penny from this deal.”  I asked Ed whether he wanted to know what he could do to help Walter stay in the deal and make it through the closing and, even better, to help Walter become Ed’s best referral source ever. 

Here’s what I told him…

Even in the best of times, the moment the illusion of our perfectly laid plans comes crashing down, we’re likely to feel an unexpected and sudden sense of loss.  Even more so, now, for business owners who are being flailed by such uncertainty and the repeated stripping away of even a fleeting sense of control.

Many of us don’t recognize this emotion as grief and, if we do, we can feel a sense of shame when we recognize that our loss appears small compared to that which others around us are suffering. I’ve learned over time that grief is not relative – no one person’s grief is more deserving of being felt than others. 

From personal experience, I also know that our disappointments and losses, both great and small, deserve to be acknowledged and grieved.  And when we don’t deal with our losses they have a way of impacting our lives in unexpected ways.

Let’s take a look at how grief can show up for an owner in the sale of a business during these tumultuous times.  See if you can spot how it might also be showing up for you right now as you struggle with all of this transition, uncertainty and change.  Try to catch sight of your own fantasy that things will return to normal.  My hope is that you will recognize this pattern as it plays out in your transactions and be able to bring a sense of compassion to the process, along the way helping to move all of us to something even better than the old normal.

Grief is playing out in my calls with business owners and advisors every day … “When will things get back to normal?” they ask.  Of course, I have no satisfying answer to that question.  Instead, I often inquire in return whether the “normal” for which they are longing was really that great or if it was just familiar?

I recognize their attempts to control what cannot be controlled, to find ways to use busyness or money or things to fill the gap left by a loss.  Like when a business owner gets close to the end of the deal and suddenly realizes that he and his spouse have nothing in common.  What rears its head at that moment is relational grief – the realization that the “golden years” he dreamed of having after years of hard work were an illusion.  If we don’t tend to that grief, he may kill his own deal rather than face the loss of the dream and the loneliness that it presents.

What we’re seeing in the reaction of an owner when the valuation comes in significantly lower than what they had imagined, is grief.  Their shock and adamant denial, the anger at the valuation professional, the bargaining to engage someone else to redo the valuation or for the advisor to seek out other offers, or to just keep the business and terminate the sale process abruptly.  But, if we’re patient and help to guide them, many of these owners come through the grief to acceptance and conclude their sale.

The old adage, ‘time kills all deals’ needs a modifier because it takes time to recognize and process grief.  If we are careless or brusque with our clients, not only will the sale not close, but the owner, the business and their community will be harmed by our callousness.  We can do better and we must, for our clients and for each other.  Many of our clients or the surviving spouses and partners of those who die in this pandemic will need us to be prepared to help them navigate the uncertainty, the losses and the normal grief responses we are observing but, until now, may not have recognized in response to the wide-ranging uncertainty that surrounds all of us.

Much has been written about the Five Stages of Grief, but one of my favorite tools when talking with clients about navigating a loss is this amusing little video clip by Adult Swim.  Take a minute to watch it and come on back … I’ll wait.

Stage 1 – DENIAL, NUMBNESS & SHOCK.  At first, the giraffe can’t believe what’s happened.  He can’t be caught in quicksand, he tells himself, creating a sense of denial and even making a bit of a joke.  You’ll recognize this in current rhetoric that “things are going to turn around quickly, in fact, I’m sure we’ll be open by ____!” We’ve all filled in that blank with some date by which we were hoping normal would have returned and it hasn’t.  You may also recognize it in an owner’s protest “That valuation must be wrong, they probably missed something.”

Coming face to face with the realization that our best laid plans are failing us can be crushing.  We struggle to process what’s just happened, often yearning for what we’ve lost and searching for a way to make it not be true, to turn back the clock.  Although we may want to shake our clients out of their denial and drag them into facing the reality of their situation, be patient.  They call it shock for a reason and denial serves a purpose, to allow our bodies and brains to catch up.

Stage 2 – ANGER.  As the reality of the situation sinks in (just like our little friend the giraffe sinks further into the quicksand) anger erupts and he rages against the unfairness of what has happened.  We’ve seen it recently as someone lashing out at the officials who insist we must shelter at home or when our clients rage about what they characterize as an outrageously low-ball offer that a buyer has made, insisting that they’d rather burn the thing down rather than let someone have their company at that insulting price.  Most often this shows up as blame, but sometimes we see an owner turning it inward on themselves, blaming themselves as to why they didn’t see the crisis coming.  Sometimes their anger is turned on us as their advisors.  Recognize it for what it is – grief.  Don’t take it personally and don’t vent yours on them.

Stage 3 – BARGAINING.  Our giraffe slips into the next stage – Bargaining & Guilt – by trying to make a deal.  I always know I’m in bargaining mode when I catch myself using “If only… “ statements.  Notice your desire to insist that, if only we can get back to normal soon, none of this will be happening.  You’ll hear this in our owners as they try to explain why older valuations should apply to their businesses going forward, as a way to mitigate reduced valuations that they’ll be facing.  We’ll hear them argue that they just need one more year to turn things around, ignoring the realities facing their companies, their own advanced age or ill health, daydreaming about the big year ahead that will turn it all around, bargaining for anything that will seemingly delay the sale or the reality of this crisis and its impact on their business.

It’s logical, like all the stages of grief, but it’s a natural mistake we all engage in during the grieving process. The lure of bargaining makes us think we can solve past pains by making a deal about what fresh hell we’ll tolerate in the future. “If only …” Sometimes we do this because we feel guilty or even responsible for what’s happened to us, and negotiating is our penance. When you recognize a client in the bargaining stage, be kind, not shaming or dismissive. 

Stage 4 – DEPRESSION. The video shows us that howling pain our friend the giraffe feels. That’s what our owners are feeling right now.  Chances are it’s what you’re feeling too.  Feeling deep sadness about your loss sucks. There’s no way around that. But letting yourself acknowledge and feel the depth of your emotions about your situation is a great way to clear those feelings out. When the reality of the situation dawns, owners may fall into despair. After all, what’s the point in soldiering on if the underlying cause is out of your control?

Those who are missing payments may stop opening the mail or answering the phone entirely. Guilt blossoms here, as does the tendency to “awfulize” and focus on the feeling that their business or credit will never recover, they’ve lost everything, etc.

Those who aren’t missing payments, but are realizing the serious extent of their lost value, may mentally spin on the feeling that they’re trapped: “I’ll never be able to make a move or recover” or “I’ll never be able to sell.” These feelings are not reality-based, but it feels very real to them at the time.  Like you would with a child who seemed inconsolable, treat your client with comfort.

Stage 5 – ACCEPTANCE & HOPE. Finally, our little giraffe gets to Acceptance and Hope.  Acceptance gets a bad reputation because it sounds like you’re choosing to settle for your current reality. But in the context of grief, acceptance is the return to hopefulness because you’re no longer denying the truth of your situation.  This is also the stage when people start consulting attorneys and accountants and other advisors to help them decide whether to walk away, to sell or to rebuild.

Instead of offering a callous “It is what it is” viewpoint for your client (which could flip them back into denial-based or depression-based thinking), it’s about understanding where they are in the grieving process and gently helping to shift their mindset into “I see what it is, and I see what I can and can’t do about it.” There’s a lot of power in this mindset evolution.  Although the challenge is to remember that grief is not linear, nor is it a “one-and-done” experience, especially as losses pile up, as they are inevitably for all of us during this crisis. 

Remember that grief also sets its own timeline and refuses to be rushed.  Denial and bargaining might stretch out for long periods of time and the bargaining and anger phases may frequently flip on and off in reverse order.  That’s normal and you need to prepare yourself to support (not rush) them through the process.

Your client’s dream of how great the amount they could reap from a sale has died, but now that they’ve accepted its demise, they are free to pursue a new path that fits them better. It’s then possible to learn from the reality and craft a new plan to rebuild or to sell.  Acceptance is not always easy or fun to get to but it is totally possible.

Crisis and catastrophe are inevitable in a business, as in life.  Most business owners are made of pretty sturdy stuff and will not allow themselves to wallow in self-pity for long. Consequently, they will make peace with the threat and begin to develop a strategy to deal with it. How? By focusing on what’s working and eliminating what isn’t.

In my observations, the manner, speed and severity at which a business owner experiences these stages of grieving has a lot to do with how hard their local market and their business’ value was hit, and with what else was going on in their scenario, combined with what other simultaneous personal catastrophes they were experiencing. 

But the single most determinative factor in whether an owner is able to successfully complete the sale without regret is how the advisors around them understand that the owner is involved in a transition, not just a transaction. The advisors who demonstrate high levels of empathy in the deal to help their clients recognize and process the grief that surfaces along with the changes they are facing are the ones who are rewarded with deals that close and clients who become lifelong sources of quality referrals. 

Need some more tools to help your team or an owner recognize and deal with these emotions? Let’s talk.

The post Grief, Loss, and Owners on the Brink appeared first on Denise Logan.

Have you ever been to a restaurant with a sushi train?  It’s a revolving conveyor belt that snakes through the restaurant loaded with little plates of sushi.  Diners choose directly from the sushi-go-round the nibbles that appeal to them.  Like at a dim sum restaurant, the plates are color-coded by price.  At the end of the meal, the waitress tallies up your bill by counting the plates.

The revolving sushi bar is fun to look at and it’s exciting when you do see something you like and grab it. However, it’s easy to get caught up in FOMO (the fear of missing out) and take more than you can eat.  Sometimes I’ve watched diners even snatch one of the many less desirable items like a fried onion roll (what?) or imitation crab rolls, and even pieces of chocolate frosted yellow cake. (Seriously? Who eats yellow cake at a sushi bar?) I’ll bet they wonder why they feel overstuffed and unsatisfied when they leave.

My client Tom is trying not to lose it right now.  He’s a senior investment professional at a well-respected firm.  By all external markers, he’s a guy everyone else wants to be.  The thing is, he’s miserable, burned out and looking to leave his firm; perhaps, even the industry.

He told me that as the days go by he’s being asked to do more and more, while he’s getting less and less done. Tom tells me that his priorities are being dictated by his boss, his clients, his wife and that he’s lost touch with why he’s even doing this work, other than the money. He’s sleep deprived, nursing an injury that won’t heal, resenting his family and generally pissed off at life.  He drinks a little too much (ok, maybe a lot), rarely sees his friends, travels more than is good for him or his kids, and admittedly is underinvesting in his health, himself and his marriage.  Though, as he tells himself, all this kind of goes with the job, doesn’t it?

Tom and I have been working through a process of determining what’s next for him professionally, and how to reclaim himself to boot, so he can be a better leader, as well as a better husband, father and friend.  He wants to feel in charge of his destiny again.

He’s been making great progress in identifying what matters to him, so his next move will be a great one.  One that will actually give him a life he can enjoy.

The challenge is this: he finds it difficult not to snatch up one of the less desirable opportunities as they are passing him by – even though he knows that his quality of life, his health, his marriage and his children will suffer if he takes one of these.  He also knows that taking one of these will mean he’s likely to end up in a version of the dissatisfied life he’s trying to get out of.  He’s just anxious about whether he can have the kind of life he wants while doing work he finds stimulating and financially rewarding.

He tells me he’s excited to build something new, to really impact the culture of a new place.  I’m with him on that front, Tom is the kind of guy who any firm would be thrilled to have.  If he stays with this process, he’s on track to create an amazing life – one he’ll enjoy staying with for the duration of his career.

When I ask him to map out what an ideal day would be like for him, what culture he would like to create, at first he dulls down his answer.  I can tell he’s reciting to me what he thinks a firm will give him.  So, I keep pushing – “No, not what do you think you can squeak out – what do you WANT?”

I’m not trying to make Tom dream so he can have his hopes smashed, I’m trying to get him to taste a life that will make him feel nourished, valued and satisfied, instead of taking the professional and lifestyle equivalent of imitation crab rolls off the sushi train, just because it’s what’s passing in front of him.

He told me that he can’t focus on any of that right now.  He has convinced himself that the first six months to a year in any new role, he’ll need to really focus on showing his new firm that he’s committed to their goals.  He’ll be building a team for them.  I pointed out that he’s acting like he has no choice in how his life unfolds; he’s preparing to give his power away and head down the same tracks he’s been on since he entered this industry more than twenty years ago.  He’s just changing out the scenery, but not where his life is headed.

I asked him, how will your life be different twelve months from now?  How will you be getting adequate sleep?  How will your wife and children see the best version of Tom? If you devote the next six to twelve months of your life to doing work the same way you’ve been doing it, how will you shift gears and suddenly do it differently then?  Won’t you have trained your firm to consistently expect that from you?  Why would they accept different behavior from you six or twelve months from now?

Tom tells me, I’m a downer, with all my reality-stuff! He tells me to just trust him; he’ll figure it out when the time comes.  I remind him, if he wants a different life, he has to make different choices and communicate them.  If he does, it really CAN be different.  And, I remind him, he doesn’t necessarily have to leave the industry, he just has to get and stay clear about what he wants and make decisions that are aligned with what HE WANTS.  Otherwise, he can expect to face this same dilemma, feeling like everyone and everything else runs his life, six months, two years, ten years from now.

Can it be done differently?  Yes, it can.  Let me tell you a story about Gary.

Gary is also a senior investment professional I worked with when he was making a transition a couple of years ago.  We looked at where he was saying YES, when he really wanted to say NO, but didn’t think he could.  One of the areas we decided would vastly improve his life was to draw a boundary around evening and weekend time.  We decided to try an experiment, Gary would begin to tell new clients and his team that he would be fully available during business hours (8am to 6pm) Monday through Friday, but that (on all new matters) he and they were not doing after hours conference calls, emails, meetings, etc. They would find ways to take care of business during business time and free everyone up to actually enjoy their lives and be with their families.

Was he skeptical and anxious about trying this new approach? You bet! Did some clients and team members push back? Yep.  But, Gary held his ground.  And, let me tell you the best story about what happened…

One of Gary’s clients was grumbling about him not being available to discuss the deal on a Saturday.  The client even went so far as to tell Gary he’d have to think about whether to take his business to a different firm who WOULD be available when the client needed him.  Gary was, admittedly, sweating bullets about this threat – it WAS a client he didn’t want to lose – but he held his ground (partly out of dislike for being bullied, he’ll admit).  The following week, this same client grumbled to Gary (on Friday) “I guess I’ll just have to blame you then if the deal goes south while you and I are both sitting at our kids’ soccer games on Saturday!” Gary didn’t like the thought of being blamed if the deal tanked, but he knew it wouldn’t be because he and his team didn’t work on Saturday.  They were conscientiously handling everything that needed to happen during the workweek – including corralling lawyers and other professionals outside of their firm who were used to handling things during hours they no longer worked.  Gary likes to say he kind of grinned thinking about his client’s kid benefitting from his having held his boundary.  A couple of weeks went on like this, and the deal did close just fine.  The client didn’t leave Gary’s firm.  In fact, he recently referred Gary a client, saying his wife told him that everyone should have their priorities in order like Gary and his firm.

It’s not all sunshine and roses.  Of course, Gary has lost some clients and hasn’t won others who find his limits “unreasonable.”  But, Gary will tell you that he’s come to realize that those clients who think business has to extend into all of the other parts of the day are the “unreasonable” ones.  Gary says that it’s like resisting the urge to take the crappy imitation crab roll off the sushi-go-round.  Yes, sometimes he worries that all the good stuff will be taken, but it hasn’t actually been the case; that’s just the gremlins of fear jabbering.  He has learned that the “good” clients are the ones that value the work they do AND their boundaries.

Finally, he and his team and his clients, and all the other outside professionals they work with have permission to have work they enjoy AND have a life.  It took some time, but he’s developed a loyal culture that people envy – and he built it inside a firm he doesn’t own.

We talk a lot in this industry about being entrepreneurs and innovators and then do everything just like everyone else does it.  We can get caught up in always doing what “the market” demands.  We focus on product-market fit, completely ignoring what my friend Jonathan Fields calls “maker” fit.

I know, because I did it at one point in my life, too.  I built my business, my baby, like everyone else’s and then ended up hating my own baby and wanting to put a stick in my eye rather than go to work.  I convinced myself I’d just do one more deal, serve one more client, squeeze in one more meeting and THEN I’d take a break, slow down, do it differently.  Here’s what I learned (and what hundreds of my clients have learned) – You Have To Choose What Matters – and that means saying Yes and saying No.

The odd part is that you are ALWAYS saying Yes and No, it’s just that you don’t always think about what you’re saying No to, when you say Yes.

When Gary says No to weekend and evening work, he’s saying Yes to a lot of different things.  Can you name some of them?

As he’ll tell you, 50 hours a week is actually enough time for him and his team to get done what actually HAS to get done.  He and his team are engaged, have enough time to think through problems creatively and serve the clients with whom they are aligned.  He and his people get to the gym, have time to read something appealing, have dinner with their families, get to their kids’ games and can let their brains idle so that actual creative problem solving can happen, instead of just running around, their last nerve frayed, hair on fire and bodies spent.

Tom and I are still working on this part – alignment – sorting out what HE wants his life to look like and communicating that to the firm he’s considering joining.  He’ll work hard, in fact, plenty hard – but they’ll get the best version of Tom they can get and so will his family.  He’s learning how to say no, because it’s harder to put those unappetizing things back on the sushi belt after you’ve taken them, and they taste horrible when you realize you’re eating it because you have to.

The secret to having more control over your life is to get clear about what you really want and say no to everything else.  That way your yes makes for a delicious life.

The post Taking Back Your Life appeared first on Denise Logan.

“Can’t you see I have my Do Not Disturb light on?” I replied. “Tell whoever it is I’m busy and I’ll call him back later.”

My assistant responded that the caller said he would hold until I was ready. I hated sales people who were that obnoxious and couldn’t hear “No” and I brushed her off impatiently with a “Fine, he can hold until I’m good and ready then!”

I went back to the project I was working on, aggravated at yet another interruption. I was behind the eight ball already on this day, with a to-do list longer than my arm and the end of the month looming ahead of me.

Years ago, my husband had asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Only half-jokingly, I had answered “Eight extra hours a day so I can catch up on what I always have undone at the end of each day!” He bought me an Ipod instead, commenting that if I had more hours I would likely just try to fit more in on my schedule. I remembered that I needed to try to find time to upload some music for relaxation onto my Ipod and wondered if there was a teenager to whom I could outsource that task.

As I was turning out the light to leave the office, late that night, I noticed that the hold light was blinking on my phone. I picked it up and said impatiently, “This is Denise. Who is this?”

The voice on the other end of the line said, “It’s your life. I’ve been waiting for you.” I dropped the phone and started thinking about how long I had been avoiding this call.

For years, everything else came first, that is … everything that felt like an obligation or a distraction. Each time I heard the whisper of this call, I filled my hours with something – another project, another committee obligation, another anything – just so I wouldn’t have to sit with the voice of this caller who wanted me to look at the meaning of my life and why I was here. I avoided this call because I was afraid I would have to do something about what I heard if I listened.

How does the call of your life haunt you? Does it come from inside you on Sunday night when you start dreading your return to the office. Is it the pain in your heart when you hear your six year old daughter cry because you’re leaving on another business trip that will have you away from home more nights instead of tucking her in and reading The Velveteen Rabbit. Maybe your call sings out the familiar phrase “Do Something” when you read about the people who have lost everything in the latest weather disaster and you wish you could get that song out of your head and just get back to enjoying American Idol.

Calls are serious business. Responding to them is how we make something worthwhile out of our lives.

Not every call is a blockbuster, star-making epic. One or two of them may take up most of our time, but other more urgent calls weave their way into our lives from time to time.

Some of them, like being a nurturing, attentive parent or riding out the illness of a friend who needs our extra attention, engage our minds and our hearts and do not earn us accolades or cover photos on national magazines. Others draw us deep beneath the noise of social conventions and impact lives in unimaginable ways. It is neither the duration nor the visibility of the call that matters.

A life-changing call engages your ability to listen to both the subtle and obvious messages that rise within you and to see the nuance of something transcendent in the role before you. You answer the call through your willingness to move beyond merely filling the role or carrying out the duties a task requires by choosing to imbue your intention and your courage into your actions.

Not answering the call doesn’t make it go away. In fact, it often escalates its frequency or intensity to capture your attention. First pebbles, then stones, then boulders raining down on your life if you continue to ignore it. The call of your life is persistent and insistent. Thank goodness, really, that it doesn’t give in to our occasional wish for it to just leave us alone so we can get on with business as usual.

When you get serious about answering your call, mentors and supporters will appear. They will guide you with teachable moments and they will appeal to your innate human longing to be more than what you presently are.

As you move toward answering your call, they will help you draw upon your courage to step into the potential that sounds quietly in your dreams.

You have a choice, to just live your life, work a job, and fulfill a role or to commit to answering a series of worthy calls within this life of yours.

Listen carefully to the whispers and shouts of your calls and answer them with all the passion and cleverness at your disposal.

Use every means of introspection and mentorship available to you to help you find the courage to answer the call to make a difference – both where you find yourself now and in the place where your unique path takes you. After all, there’s a call for you on hold right now, all you have to do is answer it.

The post The Unexpected Danger of Putting a Call on Hold appeared first on Denise Logan.

“How much SHOULD it suck?” I asked him.

I suggested he check out this humorous video about careers and burnout .  It would be funnier if you didn’t see yourself in it, right now.

Children dream about their futures, they imagine things they can do to effect change, to have fun.  They don’t voluntarily choose tedium and stress.  They know that work shouldn’t suck.  And, by the way, before you think to yourself that work isn’t supposed to be fun, research has shown that the opposite of play isn’t work, it’s depression.

My client, Mitch, was convinced that if he switched firms and made more money he would feel happy and engaged again.  Of course he would, for a little while.  But the story would continue to be the same one he’d lived through three prior firms.  Mitch’s stress was through the roof, he was sleeping less than 6 hours a night, felt frantic about finances and hadn’t had time for friends, let alone time for himself.  He was constantly doing triage and felt like everyone else was driving the direction of his life, not him.

I broke the news to him that if he didn’t dive into what was driving his burnout, it would follow him to his new firm.  Probably quicker than he even thought was possible.

“What do you mean ‘what’s driving my burnout”?  It’s the crazy people I work with and the fact I’m under appreciated and underpaid doing it.  That’s why I’ve gotta get out of here.”

“Perhaps,” I replied.  “But what will YOU do differently in your new firm?”

“I hear you.  But the first six months, I’ve gotta be head-down, really driving it hard to show them what I’ve got.  It’s gonna be a lot of ‘in the weeds’ work and then I can settle in and look at the stuff you’re talking about.  My family is cool with that.”

Work is where we can make ourselves, 

work is also where we can break ourselves.” — David Whyte

I’ve seen it for decades, how a move to a new firm with an increase in compensation actually does make clients happy.  Superficially happy.  For a short period of time.

Until the voice of their heart rises up again and says, “Are you kidding me?  We’re still doing this?” Then they think “If only …” they worked at another place, made more money, (you can fill in the blank) THEN they would be happy.  And they are, for another short period of time, until the voice speaks again.

HOW BURNOUT SNEAKS UP ON US

The 12 Phases of the Burnout Process were mapped by Herbert Freudenberger and Gail North (and not necessarily in this sequential order):

1. Compulsion to Prove Oneself (turns into compulsion to work harder)
2. Working Harder (to prove yourself, irreplaceability, doing it all)
3. Neglecting Their Needs (no time and energy for anything but work)
4. Displacement of Conflicts (inability to see yourself as the source – 1st physical symptoms begin to arise)
5. Revision of Values (your job becomes your new value system, hobbies & friends and needs get sidelined)
6. Denial of Emerging Problems (intolerance, aggression, sarcasm, talk about time pressure & stress as “status”)
7. Withdrawal (social contact becomes minimal, isolation, alcohol or drug use increases)
8. Obvious Behavioral Changes (along with rebuffing anyone who points out these changes)
9. Depersonalization (self and others lose value, focus only on present time and future success, increasingly blunt)
10. Inner Emptiness (in an effort to overcome this, an increase in addictive activity & exaggerated importance of work)
11. Depression (exhausted, hopeless, indifferent & a sense that life is meaningless)
12. Burnout Syndrome (collapse physically and emotionally, may have suicidal ideation as the only escape from the situation)

The post The Antidote to Burnout – It Isn’t What You Think It Is appeared first on Denise Logan.