Sometimes the lessons come slowly, as this one did.

I lost a client. He fired me. Not today. Not this week. Not this month. Not this year. Not even this decade. It’s probably been four years ago.

I happened to think about this client tonight. I was repairing fences on my farm, and for whatever reason he came to mind; likely because he is a farmer, too.

This farmer was not an unsophisticated man. He bore a graduate degree and retired to the farm after a career in administration, so he had thinking capability. He was a financial advisory client of mine. The stock market had treated him badly (as it had everyone) and he was frustrated. I offered him my condolences, and the best solutions that financial planning could offer. I showed him three clear options, and when he couldn’t decide I sent him home to think about it and choose the one he thought best for himself.

The next day, he fired me.

I never knew why. He wouldn’t take my calls and didn’t respond to the letter I sent him. I felt hurt and frustrated. It was OK that he chose to hire another advisor (I presume), but it wasn’t OK that he burned our relationship by slinking away in the middle of the night; disappearing without saying a word—no honest man-to-man talk here. I didn’t need him as a client and the loss of income from his business was minuscule, nonetheless, I was hurt because I really had done the best by him; not my best, but the best. I had given him very solid advice. I had told him the truth even when he didn’t want to hear it. I had offered him solutions and discussed the risks they involved. I gave him the freedom to choose, or not to make a choice. But what I didn’t do was take the pain away with the false promise that the very next investment was guaranteed to work magic, because it wasn’t. I didn’t offer a panacea. I was honest. Evenly manly.

Tonight, in a moment of enlightenment I figured it out. Firing me had nothing to do with me. He was miserable. He couldn’t change his age. He couldn’t change how much money he had. He couldn’t change the stock market. He couldn’t change interest rates. The only thing in his life he could change was me. So in his misery he thrashed about and the tie that broke first was the tie to me. He didn’t really fire me. He flopped around until something broke. Our relationship just happened to be the something.

Perhaps there is someone in your life who is thrashing about; a client, or a friend. Maybe the relationship is already broken. Maybe its just fraying. My advice to you is: be honest, be compassionate, and if they choose to walk away, let ’em go.

It’s not about you.