THE STRANGER IN MY HOME
  • Home
  • Vignettes
    • Encounters
    • Events
    • Experiences
    • Epiphanies
  • Stories
  • Fables
  • Translations
  • Miscellany
  • Now/Then

now  /  then

blogs and blends

The Believer

2/3/2017

2 Comments

 
​After nearly ten years of work in a Silicon Valley giant, my friend LR – he preferred to go by those initials – founded his own technology start-up in 2000. He spent all his savings, borrowed from his family, and took a loan from his bank. But few knew of what he considered his biggest resource.
 
LR was a deeply religious man. He certainly didn’t have the aspect of a pious person. He was a flamboyant guy, who wore tailored suits, sported expensive watches and drove the latest Porsche. He hosted parties at fancy places and drank us, his friends, under the table. He had a reputation for shrewd packaging and sharp negotiation. Yet he was a scrupulous church goer and active on several church committees.
Picture
​Many people go to church for social reasons, but LR believed deeply in divine guidance and dispensation. He told me that he would never have started his business if he did not believe God wanted him to work independently, offer jobs to other people and use his bigger earnings to help his church and his community. He saw a clear link between piety and prosperity.
 
That kind of faith was not my cup of tea and I remember pulling his leg by broaching the well-known problem of a camel trying to negotiate the eye of a needle. He laughed, but said that providence was showing him the way to double his employee strength the following year. That proved correct: the software his team had developed for construction companies was picked up by some major companies and his enterprise more than doubled. 
 
It was an extraordinary story of success in the following years and I saw his picture on the cover of two business magazines. When I congratulated him, he spoke graciously of his colleagues, but did not forget to add that a benign divine hand had helped him choose just the right kind of people who could help him carry out his vision.
 
Then came the bust of 2008, construction froze, and I heard from friends that LR’s company had downsized significantly. When I got in touch with him, LR said ruefully that the business was no longer viable and he had been forced to sell its remnant to a larger group.
Picture
​We met for lunch six months later. LR was now an adjunct professor in a business school and spoke enthusiastically of his students and courses. He had moved into an apartment and no longer drove the Porsche. I asked him if he missed his earlier life when he was a model of success in the business world.
 
His reply stunned me. He said he had enjoyed the excitement of starting an enterprise and taking it to the pinnacle of success. He felt, however, that kind of busy, bustling life was good only for a while. He did not care for a life of sustained tension, but did not know how to take his hands off the helm of his company. God had shown him the way by creating circumstances where he could move, step by step, to a simpler, quieter and happier life. He was now at peace and very grateful. I was amazed.
2 Comments
Alpana Ghosh
2/4/2017 02:31:15

As always, I loved reading it!

Reply
Manish
2/4/2017 08:10:47

Thanks, Alpana.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Manish Nandy

    Writer, Speaker, Consultant
    Earlier: Diplomat, Executive


    Archives

    January 2022
    December 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015

    RSS Feed


    Categories

    All

Proudly powered by Weebly
© Manish Nandy 2015  The Stranger in My Home