Building in public is a great way to push yourself to keep expanding your limit.
It forces you to be accountable and practice being transparent.
Normally I post quick updates on twitter but sometime want to cover more details in an article and post it here.
This is a HUGE update for me as I decided to get rid of modern business model for my coaching service and going all in with ancient way of how knowledge should be delivered.
Recently I dropped fixed pricing from my coaching services and made it ‘pay what you want’.
My decision is inspired by ancient Sanatan Vedic tradition in India where teachers didn’t ask for a fixed amount in return of their service.
Knowledge was seen as something so auspicious in ancient India that you need to follow a strict routine to be ready to receive it. You could not purchase the certificate. You could not just mug the theory and get certified to practice particular activity in society.
Your integrity was tested at each stage of promotion before you can learn powerful techniques to use for collective wellbeing.
Because educating someone with materially selfish vested interest is not the best way to nurture and strengthen the integrity in the relationship.
I learned this from my father who has been a teacher all his life and never charged a student a fixed amount as fees for education.
When their parents asked, he told them to pay fees from the first salary that their son/daughter gets.
Logical reason behind this ancient tradition
There is no logical way you can calculate a fixed fees for mentoring someone.
Because mentor is someone with experience in particular field, through his/her failures which costed time, efforts and probably some materials.
Mentee is someone who needs guidance to maximize efficiency by investing time, money and energy in the right direction by not repeating mistakes of the mentor.
While mentoring the mentor is delivering from experience to which the mentee cannot relate 100%. So message can not be delivered with full clarity. There will be some lessons which mentee can learn only by following mentor’s advice.
There is no way for even mentor to calculate how much his mentee has understood.
So the best way to measure economic value is to let mentee decide the value of mentorship he received and pay the mentor accordingly.
There is an element of trust here which mentor invests in mentee. Also this is a sign for mentee that society cannot function without trust in the social system.
Mentor also knows base market value of the teachings in accordance with inflation and public demand but will never reveal it to public instead he observes if mentee returns the favour willingly and honestly or not.
If mentee is authentic and offers proper credit and returns to mentor then mentor puts more efforts the next time. While some mentees behave like a thieves.
They get the mentorship (as it doesn’t cost a fix amount), use the knowledge and grow but don’t ever return a proper portion of value generated by mentorship. Sometime they don’t even credit mentors for overcoming obstacles with the help me mentor’s guidance and network.
For this kind of mentees, mentors reserve the rights to restrict how much knowledge is revealed.
On the other hand mentor has right to accept or to reject mentee as he deem fit.
As a result there is no scope of wasting energy and time of both mentor and mentee.
Sanatan Vedic tradition has very profound take on education that it helps nurture the minds of people who are going to operate the society.
In Bharat, education was totally free but there were rules and standards to obey before you can be given knowledge about particular topic. i.e. current day entrance exams, but instead of figuring out a person using just intellectual tests (IQ) there were screening of character and integrity (EQ) using various tests.
Why the screening?
Would you recommend teaching anyone who wants to know how to use a gun?
Your logic may say ‘Yes, but he has to follow safety rules.’
So I would like to ask a counter question.
Is it better to train his brain to follow the safety rules before or after you give them a gun?
Similarly, knowledge should be given to those who are trained to use it for good, prior to having access to the knowledge.
Because of this training is required to balance your left and right parts of the brain before you can learn powerful things.
Moreover, just like an army man has to follow some protocols even after retiring, the mentor/mentee must abide by some lifelong rules to follow.
If you break the rules, the knowledge will start working against you in many ways so it is better to stay in your limit.
Like you cannot sell the techniques for material or social gains. Also you are not authorised to give the knowledge to someone else unless your mentor give you the permission.
Mentees should use mentor’s guidance to improve their personal life first and experience if whatever mentor is teaching is working or not.
And whenever mentee has a chance, he should offer credit to his mentor but do not share direct teachings to anyone however innocent it may look.
I am going to share more such insights and improve my coaching programs as I learn by studying the Sanatan Vedic culture as well as latest happening in technological, economical and political worlds.
If you are interested to know more about the coaching service please setup an friendly intro call from below.
