Teachers I met outside the classroom!

I had so many teachers in my life, thanks to our education system. But very few of them are actually responsible to shape up my life.

image source: onlinecareertips.com

Henry Adam quoted ‘A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.’

So according to me you may come across hundreds of teachers in your life but a true teacher for you is the one who is responsible for what you are today. Irony of my life is I went to school, college, etc in search of a GURU but the best of the teachers I have ever met is outside the classroom.

A teacher holds a very significant position especially in an Entrepreneur’s life. Often due to generation gap, lack of knowledge, traditional mentality, etc an Entrepreneur has to face discouragement from his family and friends. So an Entrepreneur has to be lucky enough to have a teacher in his life to support him and to show him the right path.

Seldom you can find a true teacher in a school or college who has been appointed as your teacher, because his motive is to earn money by teaching you and not enlighten you. It doesn’t mean teacher should not earn money, they should but the motive should be to enlighten students. A relationship of a teacher and student is no less than a match-making. It’s a divine relationship, and I am grateful and lucky as well to have such divine relationships.

After I dropped out of engineering, I joined Sathaye College, Vile Parle, Mumbai. I enrolled for B.M.S (Bachelors in Management Studies) to complete my graduation. Motive was not to learn management but to just get a graduation degree. And this is what I call luck, I enrolled in that college because I didn’t get admission in central line colleges and coincidentally same year prof. Shashank Pai too joined Sathaye college.

For the first time in my life I met a professor who didn’t emphasize on syllabus, books, notes, etc. All he wanted us to read economic times. His office hours ended around 2 pm but he used to sit with us till 5 pm. We discussed economic times, current issues, social issues, etc. When I launched my Pizza Outlet he took the pain of travelling for 3 hours and visited my Pizza outlet. (He didn’t ask for discount either. :p)

After starting up a food venture, it was difficult for me to attend all lectures and also I was under mental pressure as my family didn’t support me for that venture. Shashank sir voluntarily visited my home, met my family and tried to convince them. Sathaye college was very strict about attendance still they never tried to imprison me in a classroom because they knew I was chasing my dreams.

There was something more to learn from him than what he only preached. He didn’t follow what university said was right but what was actually beneficial for students. Similarly, we entrepreneurs don’t have a book for code of conduct. We don’t follow the tradition for taking decision but we do what suits the best. While he was helping me out, he was actually fulfilling his Karma of Guru. As an Entrepreneur I learnt that you have to go out of your way, walk that extra mile to fulfill your Karma. An Entrepreneur’s Karma is to keep trying, keep fighting and keep surviving.

I am indebted to Shashank sir not only for supporting me but also for introducing me to my next best teacher. He introduced me to Rodinhoods. He took me for the first TRHS Mumbai Open House in NSE.

I met my next teacher in Mumbai Open House, Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal. Alok mesmerized everyone when he said ‘Welcome to the first Mumbai Open House in NSE. NSE is a temple of capitalism.’ May be Alok doesn’t even know my name but I am learning from him the Eklavya way.

Eklavya way of learning is the most efficient way of learning, it’s a robust learning process. Arjun was a great archer but Eklavya was by far a great student. He knew ‘How to learn’ but Arjun had to learn first ‘How to learn’. Lets take an example if Arjun and Eklavya both are facing a difficulty, so what will be their first response to it. Arjun will immediately go to Guru Dronacharya and get a readymade solution. While Eklavya won’t have anyone to guide him. Eklavya will probably try lots of permutation and combination to solve the problem, may not even sleep for many nights, may also take lot of days to solve difficulty but eventually he will find out a solution. Also not to forget, Eklavya had all his learnings outside the classroom. Days of spoon feeding are gone, Eklavya symbolizes self made and self taught man. 

When I was new on TRHS, I had so many misconceptions about startups, business, entrepreneurship, funding, etc. With every new post of Alok, I got my concepts clear. Alok taught me that we have to be updated on everything happening around, because everything happening around is gonna affect you in one or the other way. Alok transformed me from a naive entrepreneur into a mature entrepreneur.

Alok’s gesture of meeting up with Rajat Gupta, informing him that he wrote a post against Rajat Gupta’s act in Economic Times and then genuinely asking him for some tips which can help startups to succeed, was simply such a pure gesture. This gesture taught me following things:

1) You don’t have to hate people for their mistakes, hate the mistake, learn from the mistake.

2) You can be honest with a person about his mistakes and yet expect him to inspire us through his good deeds and learnings.

3) Most important lesson here is ‘ASK’

Alok is a classic example for ‘How to live a life with success?’ More successful you are, more you have liability of society on your shoulders. Always aspire to inspire others to become successful, return back to society, fight for the community and help survival. Is ‘Survival of the Fittest’ is the rule then lets help each other to become fit for survival.

Competition is friendly and healthy, this is what I learn when Alok shares his pics with Vishal Gondal of IndiaGames Ltd. And this is what Alok has inculcated into the culture of TRHS. We have learned this and we implement this too, often on TRHS posts we find two competitors sharing their experiences and Trade Secrets. In fact, we happily create competition for ourselves and help people in our domain to startup and grow stronger. This is insane, and no classroom can teach you insanity. Insanity is another name for Entrepreneur and I learnt insanity from Alok, outside the classroom.

My next teacher was Parag Phade. He is neighbour of my co-founder Sumeet Gujaran. Parag Phade is bed ridden since last 20 years. Once when I visited my friend Sumeet, Mr. Parag was also present in his bedroom and that was the first time when I interacted with him. I was surprised to see that a man who is bed ridden since 20 years is not depressed at all. Though he is 52 years old, he is a teenager at heart, so we became friends.

Parag Phade taught me one of the most important lessons in my life. He taught me digestion. He taught me how to digest Success and failure, how to keep calm in all situations, how to detach yourself? I came to know his secret, why he was not depressed, how he managed to be happy? The secret was spiritualism. He spent more than 12 years in spiritualism. I was fortunate that he introduced me to the spiritual world. It helped me detach myself from materialistic world. I am still learning but today Success or failure doesn’t affect me the way they used to few years back.

My next teacher has got so many names like Superman, wikiRodinhoods, encyclopedia, etc and I call him Rajnikant of Entrepreneurs. By now all Rodinhooders have guessed his name. His name is Darshan Bhambiru.

Darshan on the Right side, standing along with Mahesh Nair

Once he invited me to visit him at Bhayender. I visited him next day and realized no wonders why people give him names like superman and wikiRodinhoods. He remembers each and every post on TRHS. You name any field and he has his contacts and expertise in that field. After few discussions with him I realized he is out there to help anyone and everyone who is seeking help, provided they show same kind of dedication and commitment.

I am learning a lot of tricks of the trade from him. I learnt how to make solid contacts and quickly. His mantra is ‘Keep sharing knowledge and keep connecting people’. The easiest way to make contacts is to identify and connect two people who need each other without looking for self-interest. Darshan observed me closely and pointed out the mistakes I make. You can observe the above picture and relate how closely he observes my mistakes :p . He helped me become more efficient in negotiation and execution. He volunteers to meet my clients at times and help me crack deals too.

By experience I can now say this, practical learning can happen only outside the classroom. It’s said that Life is the best Teacher, it’s true but life never teaches inside the classrooms. The random people you meet in your life have something or the other to teach you. All you have to do is keep your eyes and ears open and carry your brains everywhere you go and be receptive all the time.

Mentor, Guru, Teacher, Guide all are Same meaning names to what we call them it is just Conditional in a Situation and Relation.At times your client become your teacher and at times your competitor. Thats why the saying goes, ‘A man stops growing when he stops learning’ Every client I worked with had something or the other to teach me, following are my learnings from various clients:

1) Never work for free (When I offered him to write a business plan for free)

2) Never work without contracts/MOU in place. (Yes, I used to work without contracts in place initially)

3) Allow room for negotiation, don’t always quote low price.

I have graduated in management studies but learnt all these important lessons outside the classroom. Everything and everyone around me is trying to teach me something or the other. I am sure this is not only my story.

If you also have come across any Teachers outside the school and colleges do share your experiences as comments and share the learnings.

Having such teachers in life is nothing less than a blessing and competitive edge to win!

image source: loft22blog.wordpress.com 

Aman A Jha,

Founder at S4S (Startup4Startups)

info@s4startups.com

9892621090

https://in.linkedin.com/pub/aman-jha/21/711/5a7/

website : s4startups.com