5 Tips for Dealing With a Personal Crisis or Health Issue While Running a Business Personal troubles happen. Don't let them derail you.

Ted Murphy is no stranger to fundraising under duress. In 2011, when the serial entrepreneur was raising capital to sustain Izea, his Orlando, Fla.-based social media marketing company, his mother was hospitalized for a quadruple bypass. The next year, while Murphy was raising another round of bridge financing, his prematurely born son spent two months in the neonatal intensive care unit fighting for his life. Once again, Murphy found himself taking investor calls from his car in the hospital parking lot.

"I was getting very close to running out of money," he says. "I had to close a deal within a week or so if I was going to keep the lights on."

Murphy got his money. And we took some lessons from his ordeals and those of others in crisis mode to put together a quick guide to staying on-task with your business, no matter what personal obstacles you may face.