Jim replied, “Joe, there’s no reason to worry. we’ve been hearing these kinds of threats for months. if they materialize, they’ll represent 15 to 20 percent of our sales, but there’s no guarantee that will happen.” sylvia piped in, “Plus, if the customers don’t want our umbrellas, that will mean we’ll have an easier production schedule — nobody will be complaining come summertime.” Joe couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He looked around the room. Nobody seemed worried or upset. On the contrary, the mood was light, almost comatose. Joe felt as if his entire nervous system was beginning to overload. “what you’re saying is, we’re going to lose some business, and if we do, it’s no big deal, because it’ll mean less stress, less workload. if that was our goal when this business was started, we never would have met each other — we would have been out of business years ago.” 5