I was sitting in the park, quietly reading, when a man came and interrupted my quiet space. I wasn’t really in the mood to talk. However, he clearly was. He was an older man and began by sharing his business journey. He ran a jewellery business over many years and it was becoming increasingly less profitable because of the high price of gold. I listened intently as he delved deeper into his heart and shared with me a personal story about his wife. She held a high-pressured job and together they climbed the corporate ladder in the pursuit of success. Sadly, his wife fell ill and slipped into a coma. He nursed her for seventeen years before she passed away. His mother also helped him nurse his wife and then she tragically passed away herself only two years later. He was now alone apart from his son. He quietly shared that he wished his wife was still alive, so he could still be nursing her.
On reflection, he concluded that the simple things in life would have been so much nicer and more rewarding to pursue than being in the corporate world. Matters of the heart became the most important things to him through his reflection.
This man, a total stranger, shared in his reflection an intimate story of true love and what was truly important to him. There was a beautiful lesson in it for me, and maybe for you?
- an excerpt from Andrew's book Business from the Heart
