This carried on for a couple of years. But I’m not a very good liar. I’ve been told that I am extremely transparent, and people can see right through me.

After hearing me hide the truth for a couple of years, I think my business partner, Carmen, got tired of listening to me. She knew I always told the truth, but in this case, I wasn’t honouring who I was.

In a quiet moment, she looked at me and said, “Enough. Rahul, you need to own it.” I nodded my head. I knew she was right.

After successfully running our business for a number of years, 10 different companies came out of the woodwork to buy it.

We selected the seventh company to explore. A company that we knew. A bigger version of the company we ran. One that we liked. One that had the most chance of treating our staff appropriately and allowing the great company we inherited to succeed.

As we were getting closer to reaching agreement, the company that hoped to purchase ours sent us a draft agreement. In the 64-page document, there was a substantial section on warranties and guarantees. Essentially, I would have to sign that what they thought they were purchasing was actually true.

I looked at Carmen and said “I can’t sign this. They don’t know I have MS. We don’t make widgets. We don’t have a factory. They are buying our brains, our experience, and our connections. I may not be who they think I am down the road.”

Carmen said, “Well, let’s go tell them.”

The next day we were on a plane. When we arrived at the potential buyer’s office, we met with the president and the vice president. The president looked at us and said, “is everything okay? We don’t have an agenda for this meeting.”

I said, “I need to tell you a story.”

I had lived this exact moment in my head a thousand times. I took a deep breath and said, “I have Multiple Sclerosis. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. But you need to know the truth. If you need to back away from the deal to buy our company, we totally understand, and there will be no hard feelings.”

The president stared at me for a long time and said, “So? You flew all the way here to tell us that? Rahul, I’m sorry that you have MS. But our company has 250 people. I know a lot of things about the things people are dealing with.”

The vice president looked at me and said, “work less if you need to.”

And with that, the secret that had been eating me up inside for so many months was out.

Carmen later told me that that was the first time in months where she had seen my shoulders relax.

I had built up the moment of sharing my secret so much, that I ruined so many days. So many moments. So many sleeps. Having MS was monumental for me, but not for my future employer.

That day was an important marker for me. I had listened to the voice in my head that told me I was broken for so long. I thought I was so different. I was less than. It turned out I had been wrong.

From that day forward, I started the process of owning that my body was changing. I learned that Canada has one of the highest incidences of MS in the world, with an estimated 100,000 of us in this great country. At that moment, I started to feel less alone.

The barriers in front of me were real, but not insurmountable. My life was going to be different than I had planned, but with work and a willingness to adapt, it didn’t have to be worse.

With the new medications developed in the last decade, MS has stopped causing new damage in my body. I live with the past damage that occurred, but with a better understanding of who I am, how the world around me can work, and how to lead with empathy, purpose, and passion.