Life is distracting. I know it, and you know it. Hey, it’s life, and we have to relish the distractions. Life isn’t business, after all. Business is a part of life.

When the distractions include the marriages of our children, moving to new homes, graduations, holidays and everything else that comes with life, that’s great – and we probably shouldn’t call those distractions. We should call them life.

But in my line of work I don’t find that it’s this part of life that either results in or compounds the troubles of a turnaround.

I Give Up

I got a call the other day from a client who said, “Lee, I think I’m just going to file for bankruptcy tomorrow. I can’t keep up with this, and I don’t know what to do. It’s too overwhelming, and I’m done.”

It was at that point that I lit my  cigar (not really, I don’t smoke) and asked my client to lay down on his couch (we were, after all, on the phone, and I couldn’t very well have him laying on my couch).

I’ve learned over the years that my job is – in large part – the job of a psychoanalyst. I have to break through what a client is telling me is bothering him and get down to what the real problems are.

Let’s Go Deeper

As I asked my client to tell me what was really going on and what was really overwhelming him, he said that the business was the problem: payroll wasn’t going to get paid, creditors were barking at the door and everyone seemed despondent. Those are pretty standard problems in a turnaround – after all, it’s what I was doing there in the first place.

But why all of a sudden could he not handle the pressure and the issues? Why did he want to give up and file for bankruptcy when I’d told him that we would get through this turnaround without the need?

As it turns out, the issues weren’t really about the business. I pushed a little more and learned that this client’s father’s health had just taken a bad turn and that he was having other problems at home.

He was prepared to handle the issues the business was facing because he knew I was there at his side to take care of them, but what he wasn’t prepared for was handling the business and the rest of life’s more challenging distractions at the same time.

He didn’t realize that I was there to support him through those issues, too.

Have Someone to Turn to

No – I didn’t become his drinking buddy or commiseration pal, but I did use my Dr. Freud skills to listen to his issues and show him that whatever else was happening, he could place the burden of his business on me. It would be my problem to bear in the meantime because that’s what I do best.

When you find that work has become too overwhelming – especially when things are going wrong – consider the fact that you may be distracted by a lot of life’s other challenges. Maybe you should talk to someone and maybe you should lean on some of the key people in your life to take the burden off of you.

How do you deal with distractions and focus when you really need to?