Managing Grief and Business

Managing Grief and Business

Balance. Sometimes the word doesn’t seem to make any sense at all. It seems to be something everyone is searching for, yet many truly never find. Our daily lives demand so much of us. Responsibilities in and out of the office seem to be pulling us in all directions. I’ve experienced this as often as the next person and I’d like to think I had a firm (probably lose) grasp of understanding how to find some resemblance of balance in my life. Until November of 2022 when I began to experience something else all to common to others in our world. Grief. Real grief. The kind that consumes your mind and refuses to loosen its grip until you learn to look it in the eyes, accept it, and deal with it.

My father, hero, mentor, and friend had battled an aggressive form of cancer for nearly 10 years and, in November of 2022, passed from this world. In the months following, life was a whirlwind. Upon his passing, I assumed management responsibility for Dale Carnegie Training of the Emerald Coast which required my wife and I to move 12 hours from where we had lived. Upon moving, there was business to be done, goals to be met, and responsibilities to be taken care of.

While these are all still looming, and probably more so now than ever, Mobile has become our new normal. With this settling in, however, has come the unsettling feeling of grief. In speaking recently with a mentor, I explained that it now feels like because life is becoming more “normal,” I am finally coming to the reality and awareness of grief that I haven’t had time to process.

So how do I process or try to manage grief in a healthy way while managing a business? Below are a few practices that I have found helpful, and I hope others will as well:

Take Small Moments to Process

This is something I had to allow myself to do. In all honesty, I ignored my grief and used the constant whirlwind of events and responsibility in my work life to block it out of view. I told myself, “You’re to busy to let yourself feel this.” It is only when I was honest with myself that this is something I am going to have to deal with, that I truly began to make progress. Any time I felt anxious, sad, or that sinking feeling, I played it off as being tired or found something else to stay busy with. Being busy and finding something to do isn’t always a bad thing, and I’ll be the first one to say it isn’t. Sometimes there are tasks or responsibilities that must be taken care of in the moment. We can’t just shut down. However, I found that taking 5-10 minutes throughout the day made a world of difference. Sometimes doing nothing is really doing everything. Sitting in stillness and processing emotion has allowed me to feel a peace I honestly hadn’t felt over the past 10 years. It has freed emotional space in my mind which has provided me with the mental capacity to perform at a much higher level in my work and home life.

Be Transparent

Who else struggles with this? Being transparent is hard. It requires trust, vulnerability and humility. As a manager, we want to seem put together, like nothing is bothering us. Don’t get me wrong, many business decisions need to be made with a clear mind free of emotion. Yet, when we are transparent in our emotions with those close to us, our relationships grow. We get things off our chests. We may even find ourselves asking for help (that’s also tough). In the Dale Carnegie Course, I help participants understand that emotion does not destroy credibility, it only enhances it. It makes us real and relatable. Be transparent with your team about your situation, you may be shocked how it enhances your relationship with your team.

Push Forward

When your back is against the wall, the only way to move is forward. Process your feelings in the moment, confide in others, take care of yourself, and then focus on moving forward. You cannot change the situation; you can only choose how you think about it. Dale Carnegie said, “Two men looked out from prison bars, one saw the mud, the other saw stars.” Grief can feel like a prison that you may never get out of. Yet, we can still look out the “prison bars” and see the “stars” in our lives. There is so much opportunity and so much joy to be seized in every day. Go out and make it happen! Understand that managing grief and business is a process, not something that is a quick and easy fix. Push forward. In what I later found would be some of his final words to me, my father provided me with words of encouragement that will stay with me the rest of my life. Words that I will leave with you today. “Go and make it happen. You’ve got this!” -Seth Mohorn

Request a Topic.

Request a topic for an upcoming post through dm to the author.

About the Author:?

Ian Mohorn strives to help businesses and people achieve their highest potential all while assisting them to succeed in selling, leadership, engagement, presentations, managing stress and worry, self-confidence, communication and human relations skills. He is President and CEO of SCIE & Associates, LLC which offers Dale Carnegie Programs in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. His mission is to develop and serve all those he works with to the best of our ability. He understands that business clients are more than clients, they are partners. Partners that have trusted him and Dale Carnegie Training of the Emerald Coast with the most of important part of their business: their people.

People. Partnership. Performance.