PART 1: THE WAY TO GO -----> Chapter 2

I planned to relax during the next few weeks. Nowadays, CEOs are in favor of taking a short five-day break from work. Thirty-day vacations were passé for them. But these weren’t old-hat for me. I took the time to visit the temples where I had been a regular visitor during my student days, and also caught up with a few relatives.

I went to supermarkets to check the supply of my biscuit variant. Taking a pack of them in hand at one of the stores, I thought what a strange variant I had proposed—mint-coated biscuit! I had chanced upon that idea while having biscuits with mint tea. Initially colleagues laughed at the product concept. They said I was crazy. But I had read what Albert Einstein had once said, “If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.” My persistence with the concept paid off. The idea got through and became a product. And it clicked in Kerala, which was chosen as the test market.

On one afternoon, when I returned from a movie, I found Amma looking worried. She gave me news that Lokanath, her one and only brother, was having financial problems. He was the owner of Lakshmi Industries, a concern that produced industrial goods of relatively small value like ropes, nails, screws and bolts of base metal. The firm was presently operating in the red. Amma wondered if I could be of some help in turning around the firm into a profit-making one.

I wanted to help Lok uncle. I carefully considered the options available to me. This looked like an opportunity for me to acquire valuable experience in running a business in Kerala. And I didn’t have to be an employee there. I didn’t have anything to lose. My heart had told me to quit my job. Now it was telling me that this was the right choice. I decided to take a chance.

My only concern was whether I would make things worse for Lok uncle. I simply couldn’t go for any ‘mint-coated biscuits’ type thinking. It was just too risky. Uncle’s business was already doing terrible. One mistake on my part, and he could well go bankrupt.

I realized I was losing self-confidence. I reached for my trusty notepad and read a quote by William Shakespeare, from Measure for Measure: “The miserable hath no other medicine / But only hope.” But Lok uncle had not become miserable yet, I thought. I found another one by Vince Lombardi: “The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.” After reading a few more quotes, I felt like Popeye who had just had his spinach. I was now ready to face the uphill task.