Sometimes your clients give you a hard time.
A good client of mine wanted me to hire his son to work with me. Who was about to graduate from medical education. I knew that the client had a path in mind for his son, I spoke to his son. “I’m thinking about going into medical mission work,” his son said. This was a red flag for me. “I can’t allow him to do that,” the client told me when I spoke to him.
It was an incredibly difficult conversation
Because on the one hand, I got a very good client who is asking me for his child’s future. On the other hand, you have someone who wants to take their life in a different direction. And I’m trying to balance that. During this time I had a delightful way to say to the client, “I’m a huge fan of how you’ve raised your children, and personally, I believe the same thing. I would like my son to go out and get a good job in the medical field. Having said that, your son is all grown up now, and it’s not the right decision for either of us to make. Where will I go because the direction he is going will not hurt anyone.
Then I sat with his son. I said, “You need to know what sacrifices your father has made especially for your education. You have graduated, and so going to the mission of medicine is not what you want.” They imagined. But in the end it’s up to you to decide.”
I don’t know if it’s a happy ending or not, but medicine and doctors are much needed in the time of COVID. He got a good offer and, he got a high-paying job in Chicago and is now working there as a physician. He will likely pursue the medical mission work because I think that’s what he has in his heart, but it was a difficult conversation because I had to find a balance between keeping a very good client happy and delivering such news. Trying something that was probably not in my area of expertise. So don’t play with someone’s career, let a person go in the field, which is his heart’s desire.
