A self-employed consultant who does not care enough about his business because he is constantly occupied by his family would be advised to simply say “no”. But it is not that easy. Here is another Logosynthesis story.

A few years ago I worked with a self-employed business consultant who was seeking my help to establish his business. Carlo was “Secondo”, which means he was a second generation Italian immigrant. An experienced banker, he had set up his own business a year and a half earlier. He was the sole breadwinner of the family of four and so it was existential for him to attract clients. Therefore we developed a marketing and acquisition strategy. He was enthusiastic and implemented a few things. But then his activities slowed down. 

We started to investigate: He had no scruples about acquisitions. He felt comfortable with the approach we developed for him and when he implemented it, it worked. His offer was suitable for the target group. So it did not fail because of that either. 

Finally we found a starting point: his difficulty to set boundaries.  It turned out that he was constantly allowing his family to invade him. There were always things to be done, like driving the children somewhere or similar tasks. On one hand, it’s great that someone is there for the family. On the other hand, he was neglecting his very important duty: to be there for the financial needs of all of them. 

Just say “no”? Of course he had already figured this out for himself. However, he never managed it in critical moments. And this is where Logosynthesis comes in, the method I mainly work with in coaching. In Logosynthesis we assume that many problems cannot be solved with the intellect. We can explain things to ourselves and in most cases we know what we should do. What keeps us from doing it, however, sits much deeper and “outsmarts” the mind. 

So we set up a coaching session to get to the bottom of this. The first thing we came across was Carlos’ belief: “If I say ‘no’, my children won’t like me anymore”. We resolved it with Logosynthesis. The feeling of being a bad father if he didn’t have enough time for his children still remained. We worked on that with Logosynthesis. 

Then an image appeared in Carlos’ mind. He saw his father sleeping on the sofa in the living room. And suddenly the whole story became clear to him. Carlos’ father had worked extremely hard as an immigrant in Switzerland to give his family and especially his children a “better life”. He was so exhausted by all the work that he would spend the little time he had at home sleeping. Carlo did not have much time with his father and often felt abandoned by him. Not surprisingly, he tended to contradict this. His beliefs and fantasies about “being a father” also became understandable. 

After working with the image of the sleeping father and everything it represented for him, Carlo was able to rethink his own role. He decided to make a clearer distinction between the time he worked and the time he wanted to be there for his family. His new sense of his role also included having time for his children to play or do activities with them. He did not want to repeat the mistakes of his father. But he also realised that in order to do so, he would have to become more successful in his business. 

The next time I saw Carlo, he had found a simple solution: He had moved from his home office to an external office space to make the separation of job and private life more comprehensible for everyone. He had also agreed on clear rules with his wife, which helped everyone to understand when he was available and when he wasn’t. During his working hours he was now able to concentrate better on his task and soon saw the progress made. And as an unexpected side effect, he was even able to take time for doing sports two or three times a week, another thing that had come too short for him. 

There are often old stories behind the issues that trouble us. Whenever we seem to act illogically, or against our own better judgement, it is worth taking a closer look. Logosynthesis is a great way to do this. You can find my video about Logosynthesis here.