Fulbright Trip to Pune, India 

The trip started Saturday, August 17th with Kristin and the kiddos doing a road trip with me to Silverdale for the trampoline park and then dropping me off at SeaTac for a flight just before midnight. No major issues at the airport, and thankfully I was able to sleep on the flight to New York. In the morning, I had a four-hour layover and then onto the flight to Mumbai. The flight turned out incredibly well on India Air where I had three seats to myself which allowed me to relax and catch up on some reading for my class and look over some of the PowerPoint decks for the upcoming presentations. I also watched three movies and still had time on my hands with almost 15 hours in the air. I landed in Mumbai on August 20th and had Sagar pick me up for the 4+ hour drive to Pune. I was tired at this point and slept about half the trip which was a first for me in India traffic. We arrived at guest housing where I stayed for several weeks, and I had dinner and then a well-deserved night’s rest.

August 21st – I woke up at 3am and went through the 4 cups of instant coffee they had prepared for me, then breakfast before heading to the Symbiosis School of Business. I spent the day being introduced to faculty, some students and getting set up in my office for the time here. They had lunch on site and then in the evening I was driven back to the guest house for a quiet evening catching up with family and getting through the last season of Suits on Netflix. August 22nd – I didn’t sleep as well the previous night and was up for about half an hour at midnight and then tossed and turned from 3am onward. I went to campus at around 9am and walked the ½ mile down the main drive observing the sights on the way and remembering my time here decades ago. I spent the afternoon more intentional engaging with faculty and met up with Adya and Pravin to tour the Aga Khan Palace where Ghandi spent almost two years of his life in the early 1940’s. I met up with Lelith Daniel, a social worker and entrepreneur who shared a great deal about financial training and partnerships they are managing here in India with the remote villages. We planned to do a field trip on Friday, August 29th for the day to visit the villages. In the evening, I came back to the guest house and finalized details on the presentation for tomorrow.

August 23rd – The morning went well as I put the finishing touches on my presentation and wrote out my notes to keep myself on track. The sessions started at 9:30am – 12:30pm and the first session on entrepreneurship and the incubators, accelerators, maker spaces, and support systems went very well. It was a lively conversation. The second half from 1:30 – 4:30pm was a lot more interactive with discussion of the merits of social entrepreneurship and defining what exactly a social entrepreneur is. We talked about potential social entrepreneurship ventures including reclaiming waste for incineration and energy capture, aiding aging parents who are getting lonely with changes in societal trends, prostatic companies providing to needy recipients and a few in the healthcare space. They had a half an hour written assignment and a Q&A and that wrapped up my day. I left in the evening with my head swirling with ideas. I am fascinated by either a mastermind style group, leadership academy style group, and/or building out Rotary to be an epicenter for young entrepreneurship and innovation. What I’m realizing is that these things are probably in play in some form or another in Port Angeles and other communities and leaders, including myself, need to become aware of them. August 24th – On Saturday, I went to campus and caught up with a few people, relaxed and spent time working on presentations and reading.

August 25th – On Sunday, I had a nice easy morning and then went out for lunch and shopping at Phoenix mall with Adya in the evening. August 26th – On Monday, I was back on campus and had the opportunity to sit in a class with Vijay, meet with students and finalize my presentations for the week. In the evening, I went out with Sunny and he talked about the education and professor tracks here in India. I had the opportunity to use the gym in the morning which was a blessing, and I used it every day of that week. August 27th – On Tuesday, I went over the curriculum with a few of the professors, including Sourav Mondal who I had met with Monday, about doing an HBR article together in the future. It was a helpful review, and we had some great conversations and laughs about differences in cultures and climates on campus. In the afternoon I taught a 3-hour class on group entrepreneurship and self-help groups (SHG’s). The students are about the opposite of the faculty in their interactions, although after the first hour I got fairly good at pulling information out of them. In the evening Pravin and Adya took me to old town Pune, and we ate at street vendors, picked up some outfits for Kalea and enjoyed the drumming for a festival for Krishna, one of their many Gods. It was great taking the air train, and then rickshaws or “tuk-tuk’s” as they call them. I also had the opportunity earlier in the day to jump on a motorbike with Raul and make my way back to my room for some clothes to get washed.

August 28th – On Wednesday, I had a great night’s sleep but was somehow off to a slow start. I was stuck between that desire to be highly efficient and to do my work admirably and yet I found myself overeating, laying in bed, and not being as driven as I would like to be. For example, I pretty much just laid in bed for an hour and a half after waking up at 5:30am and instead of getting a jump on my day I caught up with what people are doing in Port Angeles and Los Angeles. Thankfully, just after 7am I snapped out of it and did some pushups, made my coffee and caught up on journaling. It’s a tough reality to balance the “I want to be this way and make these habits in my life” and the harsh reality of “I’m just not doing that right now.” I gave myself grace, restarted and stayed focused on the day ahead. I do find that a check list is one of the keys to keeping me or starting me to get on track. I had my checklist for the day, I was rested, and I was ready to put the car in gear and get off my duff… 🙂 The rest of the day went well. I had a great interaction with the entrepreneurial students and was able to share some case examples including Sene, Thousand, Welly’s, The Last Book Store, the Iconic Farmers Market in LA, Moss, Fisherman Labs, and Travertine Spa. I had a discussion with the students about the main reason they come to 3-hour lectures, being that a 75% attendance is required to sit for exams at the end of the quarter. Tomorrow, I get to travel around and do a tour of the villages where the Self-Help Groups (SHG’s) are being implemented.

August 29th – Thiswas my favorite day on this trip so far. The hour-long drive with Pravin to the Symbiosis International University was a good chance to view the countryside and some of the surrounding communities. Once we were on campus, we got to see the large women’s run hospital which offers free services to the local community.The whole campus is a beacon on the hilltop. I was able to meet up with some incredible innovators, peace ambassadors, and educators with a few key highlights. Meeting Dr. Vidya Yeravdekar was a highlight of the trip. She is the pro Chancellor at Symbiosis, and we had a lovely conversation in one of the most beautiful offices I’ve walked into. The white and cream colors with a few select notable cultural and educational items around the room would have made any KonMari Media, Inc. consultant proud! Meeting Dr. Ramakrishnan Raman, a fellow TEDx and motivational speaker who’s energy and passion for empowering students and innovating in business and management is contagious. Meeting Dr. Shrirang Altekar, Director of Business Management, along with a few members of his team including Dr. Bhuvnesh Sharmaa who oversees the MBA focused on innovation and entrepreneurship. After our conversation I managed to work my way into teaching a 3-hour class that Saturday, which was the instructional highlight of this trip.Having a tour of some of the villages by Lelith Daniel and his staff that comprise doctors, nurses, and social workers for the medical van, and a tech team for the technology van which provides computer access and education to the local residents. I was able to share with Lelith some of the work my Uncle Clifford is doing with Chipster, an offline snapshot of the internet that works wonders in smaller communities and villages. The work being done in the villages through partnerships with schools like Symbiosis, the local Rotary clubs, and the government agencies such as the Self-Help Groups (SHG) are sources of hope! Connecting with Dr. Adya Sharma and many other faculties including Dr.Manisha Raj who is looking forward to pursuing a Postdoc Fulbright opportunity in the United States. I’m learning so much on submitting journal articles which is much more prevalent in India’s academics and looking forward to working on reviewing future case studies with Sourav Mondal and papers with Pravin Nawade, and Dr. Bhuvanesh Sharma as well as others from Symbiosis. The evening drive back with Lelith was a standout experience from the trip. We stopped in a small village, and he introduced me to this family that was being taught to read through one of the local villagers. The villager was the daughter-in-law of the family that she was teaching which is very unusual in Indian culture as I’m told for someone of lower status to be given the opportunity to teach or instruct elders and native villagers. It was a beautiful experience, and I enjoyed watching her 4-year-old boy listen in and sit quietly to the reading lessons provided by local Rotary Club 3131.

August 30th – On Friday, I had the opportunity to relax in the morning and a few of the women from the school took me out shopping. Pravin was courteous enough to drive us as we picked up a couple of authentic Indian outfits for Hudson, some sweets, and a few trinkets from Indian culture. After a few weeks, I’m finding my way here and enjoyed the friendly banter with my hosts as we navigated the streets of Pune. In the afternoon, Dr. Adya blessed me with a group huddle in the faculty room where she presented me with one of the “Faculty of the Month” awards and my fellow instructors said that I fit right in with them and that it was a wonderful experience. We shared handshakes, hugs, photos, and food before heading off to a lecture by Dr. Sourav on two of his recent articles. August 31st – As of Saturday, I had been sleeping very well here in India except for that second night and the previous night. I tossed and turned well into the night thinking about life in India and practices that I can implement when I get home. Not more things, per se, but doing things simpler, more impactful, and with an increase of presence and intentionality. I finally nodded off just after 1am and slept for a few hours. I woke up after 3am and reached out to some prayer partners to keep me focused on the presentation the next day and if possible, to get a few additional hours of sleep. I sent the message off and was blessed with a few extra hours of sleep. I woke up rested, made a French press coffee, and had a quick breakfast before being picked up by the driver for the hour-long commute to Symbiosis main campus where I would be presenting to the MBA program. For this presentation, I put together a massive amount of slides and my intention was to be humble, present and share the highs and lows of the entrepreneurial journey through case studies. As the class unfolded that was exactly what I was able to deliver. It felt like I was a different version of myself, a better version, a decisive version with a clear grasp of the concepts and a quick recall of information in my mind. I have not felt that sharp in years, and I was profoundly grateful that my mind and spirit allowed me to connect so well to the students. I shared about my own journey, the entrepreneurial mindset, business model canvas, and then spent almost two hours sharing about case studies from Travertine Spa, Sene, Thousand, my good friend Elijah Kim’s personal and professional journey, and a handful of other situations and company transitions I’ve been able to watch first hand over the last decade I’ve been an entrepreneur. I shared about how it feels to be an entrepreneur vs. what it looks like. That 20% success often puts you at the top of your game but feels like 80% failure. I shared about how the first few times you land a massive client it feels like you won the lottery, and then within a day or two you realize what you actually did was sign yourself and your team for an extraordinary amount of work and logistics in figuring out how to solve the client’s problem, which often currently doesn’t have a solution in sight. After the conversation I spoke with half a dozen students and got to hear their passion for their ventures or planned ventures and give insights when possible. The most common answer I am realizing is of course, “it depends” and sharing about how dynamic the market factors are in business. Often a right answer today could be a poor choice tomorrow. Slow, steady, intentional commitment and innovation tends to put you in a position to make more reasonable decisions. Also making decisions that you can survive from. If you bet on the farm over and over you might get fortunate for a while, but at some point, when it goes sideways, you are out of the game because, well, you bet the farm and now it is all gone. Small pilots and beta testing, when possible, lead towards a higher chance of staying in the game.

September 1st – On Sunday, I woke up at 4:15am and was picked up at 4:55am to start my journey home. With 3 flights and 2 long layovers I was home in a day and a half. I couldn’t wait to see my wife and kids and experience that reverse culture shock as I quickly reinserted myself into daily life in the Pacific Northwest.