'Success defined'

'Success defined'

Name: Glynis Legrand,42.

Title: President/CEO, the Urban Tea Loft.

Resume: Legrand spent 15 years working her way up the corporate ladder at giant State Farm Insurance Co. to become an auto superintendentin charge of 80 employees and millions of dollars in business.

Her story: There are few breaks for Legrand, who spends her day rushing between customers in the front and administrative duties in the back of the Urban Tea Loft.

Legrand wouldn't trade the hectic pace for anything.

"By all standards I was considered to be successful under corporate America's definition of what success is," she said. "Under my own definition of what success was, it wasn't the life and the legacy I wanted to lead."

Legrand's life changed after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002.

Surgery, chemotherapy and radiation followed.

"Everybody knows that life is short, but when you have something that could be a terminal illness it really makes you sit and reflect and say, 'I'm going to live the rest of my life exactly the way I want to live it, under nobody else's terms or conditions,' " she said.

Her oncologist recommended she start drinking green tea. Legrand and her husband began to learn everything they could about the health benefits of the beverage.

They are going through the rigorous process of completing certification through the Specialty Tea Institute.

Legrand opened the shop in November 2007.

Her cancer is in remission, and she is able to spend more time with her husband and 9-year-old daughter.

"I wanted to see my daughter grow up," she said. "At the end of the day, it was her and my husband there holding my hand through those treatments."

Her advice: Workers who leave the corporate world to start a business should: "My theme is every girl needs a good exit strategy, whether it's a bad relationship, bad job, bad haircut," Legrand said with a laugh. "I basically planned my exit strategy from corporate America. It's not something that you wake up one day and say, 'You know what? I'm not going to do it anymore.' "

Glynis Legrand in her Urban Tea Loft.