How do people succeed in life, why someone does and other doesn’t is a question people try to find an answer to for ages. Starting from the concept and developing the whole project from zero alongside and in partnership with a woman whom one loves, is how our new columnist, owner of the Atmantan Wellness Resort Nikhil Kapur chooses to explain his business success.
There’s a couple of images that always come into my mind. One is from my childhood. I was seven years old and I remember my father practicing yoga. He used to do the head-stand. As a child I laughed, it always brought a smile to my face. But now I am so proud thinking that he was so advanced practicing yoga when it wasn’t as popular as it became now.
The second image in my mind is slightly funny, a short distance races where you have to finish in five seconds. I never came in dot five. But in one occasion my instructor told me to run a long race. And in long race I became number one. I realized when the race was on that I felt more and more energetic with every second. And as the distance increased, I was going faster. So, I’d say ‘I’m a horse for the long race, not for the short one’. I drew that comparison to the horizon because what happened in our business doesn’t happen in one or three months or even in one year. We needed to go on and on with a lot of patience. Delivering something like this doesn’t mean you take high points or low points. But the impor-tant thing is to keep your eyes on the final product and make every day count. Keep on making better, faster and moving closer to the target.
So, I think it all started when I was a young boy. My father is an Indian athlete, he was in army and he played Junior Badminton Nationals and Squash Nationals and has been instilling a love for fitness and the outdoors in me and my sister. We grew up seeing him with the knowledge that taking care of your body is very important. Our dad used to say: ‘Look, when wealth goes, nothing goes but when health goes, everything goes’. My father is an ideal example for me. I admire his magnetism, his discipline, the way he does his work, even the way he enters the office. His ethical approach is irreproachable. My dad is my idol. So, I’ve been in sport squashing, golfing, for the last five years I was in long distance running. I took up running in my thirties, and did a couple of marathons as personal milestones. So, for me it was not just one incident that transformed me. It was growing up and seeing my father taking care of his health so much and his body and spirit as well. So, I think it became my habit this way.
Love is about spending happy precious moments with your family. But that’s a very tough question. My wife and I, we met in the College. We didn’t like each other much at first. But we worked close because of being a part of the students’ association. We got to know each other really very well. We’re both active. She is very energetic and positive person. We graduated and I went to business school to a different destination and she went to another business school. We were in touch and then we realized that we don’t have to separate anymore because we like each other, we got each other and we should talk about spending the rest of our life with each other. That’s how we got married in 2002. We have a handsome son who is ten years old. The good thing was that me and my wife, we both wanted to make business and we had a common vision, we believed in our idea. Working with your spouse is not the easiest thing to do. We had a number of fights along the way but then we learnt to keep Departments separately. Otherwise it spoils everything, it meant interfering each other’s jobs a lot and fighting. We even have a family joke and say sometimes ‘If I had to do another Atmantan I’d never do it with you’. But we’ve done what we’ve done and became mature. So, we try to keep some things which I’m the boss of and another thing she is the boss, so we try not to cross each other. When you are a businessman the work never stops. Even in the office, even when you go home, when you are on the holiday it is always business. We try not to bring our work home. That’s a part of the way to keep love.
