Sir, Why did You Choose Engineering?
Questioner: Did you want to become an engineer or your parents wanted you to be?
Acharya Prashant: No, I had no special inclination towards engineering. It's just that I was very clear. I didn't like the shape of the world as it looked to me. I didn't like how ignorant we all were. I saw that there was an unfinished agenda because I had been reading about the greats from all fields of science in technology, sports, politics, the fighters in the freedom struggle and all these people and I could clearly see that their work is not yet finished.
And even from firsthand experience I could see how the world around is and I was a sensitive kid. I think I still am, both a kid and sensitive. So, it hurts when you look at the world around you and you see the kind of lovelessness and treachery and all those things. So, I could see that all this needs to change. So, in my limited knowledge, we are talking of the late 80s and the early 90s, that's when I was in class 7th, 8th 9th 10th. So in my limited uh knowledge the civil services the- IAS in particular was the place where one could bring about social change.
That was also influenced by the fact that both on my maternal side and my father's side, we had uh bureaucrats in the family. So I thought of going that way and it would appear a bit amusing today. But the only reason I went to the IITS was because we used to have a magazine called CSR, Competition Success Review. I don't know whether it's still published. So that would contain the interviews of all the UPSC toppers mostly. So I was quite a regular with that magazine for several years and I very soon saw that most of these stoppers are coming from the IITs. That was what was happening in the early '90s. So I said that means that if you have to become an IAS you need to be an IITian.
So I said fine. So after class 10th one has to pick something. It's not that I was especially focused on PCM. In fact I had a greater love for biology, I loved history and geography as well. I loved the languages, especially Hindi. So it's not as if I was made to be an engineer. But I took up PCM just because that was the gateway to IIT. So PCM was chosen so that I could get into IIT and IIT was chosen so that I could get into IAS and that's how it happened.
Questioner: But don't you think or don't you feel that it was a borrowed dream that you had like a lot of people do?
Acharya Prashant: The way was borrowed the dream was not because the dream still lives on. I'm still doing what I was uh thinking of doing when I was 10 or 12 or something. Obviously in a more refined way. Obviously I understand the world better and the work has shaped up more clearly, more beautifully. But I wanted to bring about a change. I was very clear. The way this earth is, it cannot go on like this. The way we people are this is not, this is not at all in proportion to our potential. So things had to be changed and that was the dream. If you want to call it dream, that still is the dream.
We have to be better individuals. And if we are better individuals, the shape of things around us, the systems, the economy, the education system, the politics, international relations, the application of science, the future of technology, all of it would change. Our arts, our literature, all of it would change.
Questioner: I might sound a little atrocious here, but I really thought that I should ask this question to you. You know, people say that you make films, films don't change anything, right? They don't change society, they don't change people's mindset, they don't change how they are supposed to think, right? Because their parents probably have raised them in a certain way and that's what they have learned and that's what they're going to do. So how much can you change.
The things that you're doing right now. Or for that matter people who either motivate or teach or make people understand the philosophy of life. How do you think that can make a bigger impact in life? And do you think that it's possible?
Acharya Prashant: No, we are doing it every day. So, it's not a matter of thought or conjecture anymore. I'm seeing lives change in thousands if not millions every day in front of my own eyes. We are doing it. We have actually done it. So, it's not as if it's a pipe dream or a mere vision. I'm 45 now and if I'm not doing it today, it would be too late. So, it's actually materializing. It's just that a lot of it is probably not yet out in the public domain, it's not yet making big news.
So, people do not yet know of it. But, with all humility, I can say that the number of people for example who have been turned vegan. The number of girls and women who have now dared to, with courage challenged their bondages. The number of young people who have chosen to live rather meaningful lives and discard the well trodden path that number easily runs into several lakhs.
Questioner: Wow. Several lakhs.
Acharya Prashant: And that's not a a mere momentary change. People have taken irreversible steps. People have moved to places they would never come down from.
Questioner: Give me one example if I may.
Acharya Prashant: It's very difficult to give one example because there are so many. How do I cite a, I mean…
Questioner: Something that's very close to you, something where you felt that you know this is why I
*Ac** Just download the Achar Prashant app. Just download the Achar Prashant app and there you go to the community section and you have live testimonials streaming in at the rate of one every 5 minutes.
Questioner: Wow.
Acharya Prashant: One every 5 minutes. H So that's what and that app has more than a million downloads. More than a million downloads and live testimonials streaming in at the rate of one every 5 minutes.
Questioner: Brilliant. I think that that answers the kind of question that I had in mind. But I want some nuggets of you on this. You know every B school that I go to, I don't see this bit that you just mentioned as a focus. They don't talk about what the ultimate learning is. They start the conversation with what the ROI is going to be and right now we're talking about 25 lakhs of loan or rupees of loan right and that's something that they're entering this organization with. Now in the back of their minds they're always thinking that do I have the luxury to actually not think about money?
Acharya Prashant: You know then you must see whether the whole thing is worth it at all. I shelled out a total of 2.5 lakh rupees, you know, and that included the cost of the desktop that I was given. So that was not really a consideration even though I too went there on a student loan. But if it's 25 lakhs these days one has to very very sanely consider whether the whole thing makes sense.
You know for an IIM probably it does but if it's 25 lakhs even for the lesser institutions if I may say so, then it's not advisable just doling out that amount. Because what's the point, the peak, the prime of your life you are spending just somehow managing your EMIs, hardly makes sense.
I don't know why one should feel the pressure to have that degree on your CV against your name. So much can be done just even without that thing. If I if I look at it in fact, I have many times more entrepreneurs from my IIT batch than I have from my IIM batch.
The IIT batch has been much more fertile in terms of yielding entrepreneurs and a couple of unicorns as well. So it's not as if you really need that business education to do even materially well in life, not compulsory though useful, certainly useful.
Questioner: Are you hinting that this uh mindset of getting a job hinders them from innovating.
Acharya Prashant: The packages are bigger so the stakes are higher and that lowers your risk appetite. The packages in an IIM are like two or three times bigger compared to an IIT, though there is a distribution
I'm just talking of the average package. It is quite possible that a top ITN gets a package that even a fellow from an IM Ahmedabad may not match. So, that's possible. But, uh, when you get paid more coming from an IIM, when you get paid more, it starts making lesser sense to quit everything and go out and and brave the winds and the cold and secure funding and and feel the the pressure and bear the grind and you know do all those things and also you are 24 25 by the time uh you complete your MBA education.
So for many people, it's another phase of life that awaits them. So they really are not in a position to take risks in a big way and in a prolonged way. Whereas when you complete your BTE or something you are 21 or 22. So you have those three four extra years when you can just play around with life and experiment things and see how it works for you.
Questioner: Tell me something, this is a conundrum that I also have in my life. I always think, "What next?” This is something that we all think right? Am I doing the right thing where am I right now? Is this something that was meant for me and I'm doing the right thing or not and what next that's coming for me. Is this something that constantly kind of eats you up as a professional.
Acharya Prashant: You see, if you are doing the right thing right now, that thing decides what next. So I have had the luxury of never being tormented by that question. In fact, I always have much more on my plate. So the first question I suppose that you asked today, you know, what's my state of mind?
I said wonderment. You could say I'm overrolled by what's going on and challenged. So you're never asking what next. In fact, you have to ask yourself now, ‘There is so much, what to keep and what to discard, and how to prioritize.’ So if you pick up the right identity for yourself today and the consequent right action, the decision has been made for you already. Then when it comes to the future.
Because the right work is just so overwhelming that you cannot ever call it done or completed or discarded. It starts owning you. It becomes your master and it starts dictating your future. It's like a love affair. Once you get into it. See, you have a kid at home, let's say. You become a father or you become a mother or something. You have a kid at home. Now, you lose the luxury to envision the next day. How the next day would shape up is decided not by you but by the kid. That's what I'm saying. So, Oh, get a kid.
Questioner: I actually do. I have one dog and two cats. All of them were rescued. And I really think about them. The moment you said that, it made me think about it. I have my reservations about how we have dealt with the education system in India. And I feel that more and more institutes are looking towards making profit and we have kind of forgotten the the culture of gurukul that we have all come up from and I don't know I have not personally been part of any of the gurukuls to understand what the education was there but I certainly feel that the education that is given today is extremely corporatized and for profit. Is there a way to break this metrics and do we need it…
Acharya Prashant: You see the gurus are not going to return It's just that it's a matter of common sense. Somebody is demanding rupees 25 lakhs from me. That's the figure we took. I have to have the sanity you know to calculate what am I really going to get from it. But because we do not know the value of stuff therefore our calculations go awry.
You see valuation is a fine art and not everything is so tangible that you can get it valued from the marketplace. You know, you have a piece of gold and you can take it to the market and get it valued. But uh not everything can be valued this way.
The most important stuff in life is intangible. You cannot carry it in your hands for the purpose of valuation. So you must know what is valuable. For that again you will have to know yourself because value All value is with respect to the individual. Whatsoever is valuable is valuable to me. I am the touchstone of all value.
Am I not? Yes. So I must first know and then that which really matters to me will be taken as valuable even if the society does not accord any price to it. But I'll say, ‘No this is extremely valuable. Why? Because I know myself and I know that this thing matters. This thing matters.’
A cat for example is just a cat. But for you the cat is very valuable. The society might say just another cat. You'll say no no no not just another cat. My life, my life. So so similarly do we know what is it that can be accorded value? Because we do not know that, hence we do not know what's going to become of the 25 lakhs. We we look around and we say oh he's prepared to pay. He's prepared to pay. She's prepared to pay. So probably it's a fair deal because all of them are prepared to pay.
Figure out for yourself who you are and what your own priorities are and then whether that 25 lakh makes sense.
Questioner: Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Love the conversation.
