Line and Problem ideology

You may have come across this riddle sometime in your life, “You draw a line, without touching it how you make the line longer?”

Answer is,” You draw a shorter line next to it, and it becomes the longer line.”

On 2^nd August, 2018 I was sitting across my boss’s (Pramod Sir) table. Frustrated, I told him, “I need a 1 month unpaid break. I am unable to make justice to all the work responsibilities I currently have. My circumstances have changed. I need time to think.”

I felt a sigh of relief as I vented out my thoughts, choking me from many days. Now the ball was in boss’s court. How would he react?

Meanwhile, I could hear my mind screaming, heart pounding. “You fool, what do you think of yourself? What are you demanding? This is a professional company and it has some set of rules which we all have agreed upon. You ought to be fired for such unpractical demands.”

“Don’t pick a job, pick a boss”, they say. This is what I heard, when Boss said, “Okay, Granted...!”

The discussion went ahead this way. Boss asked, “What is the reason for such a severe step?” I played the same cassette again, with a minor change in voice intonation and words, “I don’t know, I don’t enjoy these roles and responsibilities anymore, if I cannot help you to grow the company, I should at least not trouble you. I don’t want to betray a first generation entrepreneur.” This sounded more convincing, as I played the audio that was echoing inside me from last many days.

“Can we make it 15 days, instead of a month?” Boss inquired. I kept mute. Because, “I believe, you will get bored within a week itself”.

Seeing the question mark on my face, boss said, “You know what the actual problem is. You never go looking for larger problems.” I was confused, “What does that mean now?”

“I face a lot of problems, everyday and their magnitude keeps on varying. However there is no point in pondering over the situations. Instead act on them.” I had heard this philosophy a lot of times.

“You know, what one more thing do I do in conjunction with acting on the problems?” Boss questioned me. I nodded, “No.”

“I find out a bigger problem to work on.” Now this dialogue drew my 1000 % attention. I was ready to listen with my whole body, not just my ears. One more business secret of an entrepreneur was to be uncovered.

“Ajinkya,” he said, “When you work on bigger challenges, suddenly the mind is tricked into believing that previous challenge is nothing compared to newer one. So let me get rid of this small enemy with a snap of a finger and then I will focus on the larger one.”

Whatever fell on my ears, it completely blew my mind. How conveniently had I overlooked this amazing strategy.

Entrepreneurs are an amazing breed, their work starts where a common man’s ability ends.

Later that evening, a bit motivated and with lots of optimistic plans, I left for the big break.