Just met with a client I hadn’t seen in about a year.

Me: “Brian, so good to see you. How have you been?”
Him: “Not great. My brother died a few weeks ago. He took his own life, so that has been really hard.”

Whoa. I was derailed at this point. We kind of talked about that for a bit and I told him how deeply sorry I was. He kind of brushed it off though and said, “I’ve spent too much time being sad over that. I need to distract myself, so let’s talk business.” So we have our business conversation and as I’m leaving I once again apologize for his loss of his brother.

I should have just left it at that, but I wanted to end on a positive note and had remembered that he had gotten married in Italy about a year ago, so I go, “Hey! How was your wedding in Italy?!” Him: “We actually just got divorced last month, so yeah, life has not been great lately.”

Me: “Wow. I’m really sorry. I’m just gonna head out now. You take care.”

Seriously, what a rough month for that guy. I should have just left and not tried to end on a positive note😬