Your feet are splashing through shallow puddles as you approach the outside
of the church. It's a Dreary day. It's thundering. It's raining.
The funeral starts in 15 minutes.
Your buddy's dad passed away unexpectedly.
Your plan is to walk in, get familiar with the area,
find somebody that you know, get a little bit of comfort built,
and then find your buddy and say something. But as you open the door to walk in,
you find him standing right there by himself. He's a mess.
He's looking like a wreck. What do you say to him?
What's the proper thing to say? What would you say in this video?
I'm going to go through a few things. You should never say that most people do.
Say I'm a teach you one thing at the end.
That's the perfect thing to say at any time,
whether you're at a funeral where there's something bad happen to someone,
whether they're sick themselves or that they're sick and dying.
Any hard situation like this,
I'm gonna teach you one thing that you can say that always comes across well.
So what not to say.
Don't try too hard to get flowery. Most people.
There's a lot of silence when the other person isn't talking very much so they
want to fill that silence by giving some big sermon on the Mount,
some big long talk about ho they lived a great life. They're in a better place.
That's what they'd want. Here's the problem with that.
Intuitively it feels like that. What's what the want to hear, you know,
positives, all,
they lived a good life so they can kind of hang their hat on that.
It doesn't work.
You don't know where this person is at in the grieving process and if they're
not to a place that they've digested it yet, all those things,
not only are they not helpful,
but they're hurtful and the other person doesn't want to hear it.
When you try to talk too much, you come across like a know it all.
Even though that's not, I know that's not your intent.
That's not anyone's intent. Who does that?
This is a very important issue to discuss because what is intuitive to us is
actually not working.
What do people really want and need in a time of loss or sadness support.
Remember that all you want to offer support,
not some brilliant advice,
not some long winded thorough line.
All you want to show is support. We have a tendency, especially as men,
to want to help and solve. No. Think of it this way.
They lived a good life and you know, they did all these experience.
I wish I would be happy if I live that kind of life,
that that's not what's helpful. So all you want to do is show support.
So how can you do that?
This is what you can do in any time that you're talking to someone who's
distressed, down in the dumps or lost somebody, just go up to him, say,
man, I'm so sorry and say it in a genuine way.
Nothing else. Let them talk.
They're going to fill you in at where they're at in the process.
Then you're going to be able to decide what to say next.
So if you go up to him and say, man, I'm so sorry for your loss. Quiet.
Be quiet. Let them say something. If all they say is, Oh, thanks man.
Thank you man. I appreciate that. Like, yep, we're definitely here for you.
Let us know if you need anything. That's it.
Don't be tempted to go into some long thing about some other synopsis that
you've got in your don't do it. Now. What if they say something else?
If he's saying, I'm really sorry for your loss,
I'm really sorry you're going through this, and what if they say, yep, you know,
the way we're looking at it is we're looking at this as a positive.
They lived a really great life. You know,
if I die at the end of my life like that, it's gonna be great.
Well then you see where they're at in the process.
You can jump on that frame and jump on that thread. You know,
I was actually thinking about it the same way. I was like,
I remember when when they went out, when your pops went out the so-and-sos,
I was like, man, I hope I have experienced like that by the time that I'm,
I'm towards the end of it.
You can ride that but enables you to better facilitate your supportive comments
and remember that every step, all you're trying to do is support.
So once you have a little more clarity and information on where they're at in
the process, you can show more tailored support by comedy.
But when you go in there,
don't assume that they're at the place where they're looking at it positively.
You've got man, what a life they live.
Maybe they can barely even get out of bed at the time and they're 90 they don't
even want to think about that. Right. Then you saying that is more hurtful.
So by starting off with the generic genuine,
I'm sorry cause most people are going to come up and they're gonna Fain some.
I'm so sorry for your loss. And I just saw her the other day.
Be present with them.
See that almost puts up a bit of a shield where you're not allowing to get in a
strange, that sounds into the grief.
You're not meeting them in the reality of their grief and you just go up and
start talking. If flipped this word shield, Oh, I'm really sorry.
Just thinking about on the other day like this and this and this,
you're going versus just being with them.
I'm so sorry for your loss and just stand there.
And by accepting that silence and allowing that solid silence to be there,
you're acknowledging this can be awkward. This is a tough time.
There's a terrible time.
There's nothing you could do to remove the fact that that's a terrible time,
but you're being a strong, competent leader by being able to be in that space.
You don't have to put up a bunch of words, all words. It's going to be okay.
It's gonna be, it's just, I'm here with you. I'm supporting you. I'm sorry.
What can we do for you?
Let us know anything and then let them talk and they're going to be able to give
you a coloring book showing you where to color. That's kind of a strange,
strange association, but I'm going to go with it.
They're going to basically tell you where to lead that conversation based on
where they are at in their specific process.
Now if you want to see a crazy handshake battle between,
I don't think there's any really good videos that naturally lead themselves from
this one. So I'm not going to promote any videos on this,
but I'd be interested in your thoughts.
Do you have any experiences of things that you said when you were trying to
console a friend or something like that that went either very well or very
poorly? Let me know in the comments below and I'll talk to you soon.