Contributed by Raj Thakkar, founder and CEO, Charter School Business Management Inc.

Could you step away from your company unexpectedly for months on end—and know everything would run smoothly?

What would you do if you had to step away unexpectedly from your business for four months, just days after you’d landed your biggest client ever?

That’s the quandary I faced in July 2019. My company was growing―fast. We had recently signed a client that was 10X larger than our other clients when I got that dreaded phone call: My mother had been diagnosed with stage four cancer, with only months to live.

It was an easy decision for me, in that it wasn’t a decision at all. I would travel to her home state (1,500 miles away) and live there to take care of her every need during her final months. And I wouldn’t simultaneously run my company during this time; my focus would be fully on my mother.