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Women in the Arena
Women in the Arena is the celebration of everyday women living extraordinary lives in plain sight. We seek to inspire, encourage and challenge you to reach for the great heights you're made for.
Women in the Arena
Revolutionizing Education with Neha Gupta: From Tutor to CEO, Navigating College Admissions, AI, and Work-Life Harmony
Ever wondered why the path to success in education is often rugged and winding? Join us in this enlightening episode as Neha Gupta, the visionary founder of College Shortcuts, shares her remarkable journey from a youthful tutor to a leading education influencer. Discover how she's reshaping how students identify their passions and make pivotal career choices in a rapidly evolving education system.
With the pressures of college admissions and the growing influence of artificial intelligence on learning, Neha's insights offer a beacon of hope for personalized student development. Learn practical strategies for navigating the complexities of college admissions and the impact of AI on learning, and gain valuable advice on balancing professional dedication with personal fulfillment.
Reflecting on my own journey as the host of Women in the Arena and a corporate veteran, I found Neha's perspective on establishing healthy boundaries both uplifting and challenging. Together, we peel back the layers of societal expectations that often hinder women's pursuit of work-life harmony, revealing a transformative cultural shift toward valuing personal time and well-being.
If you're teetering on the edge of leaving the corporate world for the unknown thrills of entrepreneurship, our conversation provides an honest look into the emotional and practical shifts that come with such a decision. Neha and I explore the discipline required, the value of mentorship, and the calculated risks that turn an idea into reality.
Why Listen:
- Learn strategies to navigate college admissions and understand the growing impact of AI on education.
- Gain insights into establishing work-life balance and healthy boundaries.
- Get inspired by Neha's journey and find practical advice for those considering a career shift or entrepreneurship.
Call to Action:
Tune in to this episode and join us in a rallying cry to guide the next generation toward personal fulfillment and leadership. Empower your journey, embrace your individuality, and ignite your passion for growth and development. Listen now and elevate your path!
Thank you for all of your support.
If you like what you hear, please go check out more episodes at https://womeninthearena.net/
Want to connect with me? You can click the "let's be friends" link and send me a message!
***Last thing- This is my WISH LIST of interviews:
• Joan Jett
• Dolly Parton
• Viola Davis
• Ina Garten
Maybe you can help a girl out...***
Go check out all of our episodes on our website at: https://womeninthearena.net/
If you'd like to connect, reach out to me at audra@womeninthearena.net
***One last thing...I have an interview wish list because a girl's gotta dream
- Viola Davis
- Dolly Parton
- Ina Garten
- Joan Jett
Maybe one of you can help me out!
Thank you all for supporting this show and all Women in the Arena!
Welcome in everyone and thank you so much for joining me again this week. This week, I am joined by an amazing, incredibly intelligent and creative woman who's trying to change the lives of not only us but our children. Today I am joined by Neha Gupta, who is the founder and CEO of College Shortcuts. Just listen to the list of her achievements and accolades. She is a graduate from Rice as well as UPenn. She has a master's degree from the Wharton School of Business. She is a TEDx speaker and she is the recipient of the Wharton Innovation Fund. She is the three-time best-selling author and her passion is inspiring the next generation.
Audra :It is both my pleasure and my honor to introduce to you Neha Gupta. Neha, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show. Thank you so much, otter, for having me, thank you for being here and thank you for the work you do. Not very many people are concentrating on the work of the next generation and how they're going to show up in the world, and this, I think, is very unique and it takes a special person to put that amount of passion into that effort. So let's start with, first of all, a little bit about your background. You are an incredibly accomplished individual. With that list of accolades and your education, you're no dummy. So tell me a little bit about your background.
Neha:Yeah, so for me, I'm really passionate about education. That's been my main focus. I started in the education space actually about 20 years ago. Now that I look at kind of the time that I've spent, from you know, starting off in high school with tutoring students and then, you know, eventually trying to work corporate positions, eventually realizing I wasn't exactly the best fit for that, and then eventually I started tutoring full time and so I started working at over a thousand different homes and in one or two neighborhoods in Houston, texas. I've been doing it for so long that I had gone to houses where it was one family and then another family had moved in, like it got to a point where I was very well known in the community and, you know, eventually I started studying business skills, learning how can I expand more, not just be me, and then building a team across the United States, across from Asia to Europe, to Canada, where students are looking to really figure out what they want to do with their lives and then also to figure out where's the right place for their next step.
Neha:So it's been quite a journey. From starting off with just simple, my first student that I tutored she was in second grade. Now she's probably like 24 or so now 24, 25 years old, but we started off with study skills and life skills at second grade on how to study and how to effectively take notes to you know. Now I've gone from not just tutoring but to helping students figure out, like, what do you actually want to do and why? And let's test drive those concepts and ideas. So we've grown a lot in the last 20 years. It's been quite a ride of expansion, contraction, expansion, like any entrepreneur has, but it's been, it's been very enjoyable. I'm constantly listening and hearing what is it that my customers want and need to ensure that I'm always providing the best level of service I can.
Audra :Like I said, you have concentrated on an area that not very many have and you touched on it briefly as to helping students guide them on what they want to do, because there are many people listening right now that did what they thought they had to do, got into a career and then now they're in this place going. Do I even want to do this anymore? Is this really what I wanted to do?
Neha:Yeah, I went through that myself.
Audra :Yeah, I mean yeah. Yeah, I went to.
Neha:Rice University, I was told to study economics. So I studied economics and then the only two options apparently are consulting and banking. Those are the only two things that they would tell you to do. And so I remember I still have a book on my bookshelf about how to ace the consulting interview and I clearly did not return it to the library and I laugh every time I look at it because I remember being so focused on trying to answer how much popcorn fits in a plane and I ended up getting an internship at Goldman Sachs and eventually, you know, getting the opportunity to even work there. And I remember, just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should.
Neha:To me, at this time, what I've realized is our education system is completely broken, and if there was ever a time that proved that, it was the pandemic, seeing how everything pretty much fell apart. We were trying to, teachers were trying to teach whatever they could, but the reality is is, if we look at the system in general and how we create so much busy work for children, it's almost like we just put them in a holding pattern to learn all these things that really AI is going to replace. So in reality, we have these kids going to college, but no one's really sat down with them and said, like, what are the subjects you like? What's your personality type? Let me understand you a little better. Let's see if we test drive, doing this type of research or this type of project, if this is what you would like to do. And really it's a system that slows people down in terms of finding what they want to do, but then it makes it really challenging.
Neha:Also, the college admissions game has changed in the last 10 to 15 years especially. It used to be a time we looked at undergrad as a time for you to go explore, figure out what you want to do with your life and take different classes, and there are some parents that still take that approach. But with the rising costs of tuition, that becomes a very expensive question of oh, take a few classes and maybe take a class in philosophy and in art history. At this point, parents are looking at the dollar and they're like hold on, that's like a $5,000 class. You could take that on Coursera, right, like. So families are starting to ask questions around.
Neha:Okay, well, if college is not becoming a time to just figure out what you want to do, then how do we do that sooner? And then, on top of it, the admissions officers are not really looking for students that are undecided. They want to know students that have figured out what they've kind of been interested in and showcase that over the last four to six years. So in a way, I wish the system was set up where there was entire classes, not just math, science, english, history, but classes about like profession types and what do these professions look like. So we build our own curriculum at College Shortcuts to literally teach students okay, hey, this is a field you want to go into. Here's a 12-month curriculum and let's work through and figure out like, is this really what you want to do or not? Because there's nothing worse than not being happy at something you do 40 hours to 60 hours a week.
Audra :First of all, that's a lot of pressure to put on an 18 year old kid. I mean, as a high school senior, I was just trying to figure things out. I'm sure that you were the same thing, even though you were focusing on I'm going to get into a great university and this is what I'm going to do. But I didn't know myself, you didn't know yourself and, quite frankly, here I am in my early 50s, still trying to figure out is this really what I want to do? Did I put all this work into this and then get here and start questioning it? Obviously, things change and evolve and grow as you evolve and grow over time. But I never had that opportunity at 18, 22, to take an examination and really think about well, what do you really want to do? What do you like to do? That was never afforded to me, and you're saying it's a luxury.
Audra :Yeah, it was very much a luxury. And what you're saying is that, since the system is broken, we're having these adults, namely my generation. We're a bunch of Gen Xers that are really discontented with what we've done. We've worked really, really hard and then we're like, well, I don't even know if I want to do this. You're trying to change the game to that and you've identified a practice, a name which I had never heard of before until you introduced it to me. And now, once you introduced it to me, I've been looking it up and I can't, I can't get enough of it. I'm like why am I have this? Why is this the first time I'm hearing this? And that is Ikigai, which is? I know that it's a Japanese study, but tell me a little bit more about Ikigai, which sounds like it is the entire basis of the foundation of your curriculum and your program.
Neha:Yeah, so Ikigai is and it's come up a lot actually, especially that I've been watching the Netflix series about blue zones and living a long life and longevity and it talks about Ikigai a lot. And Ikigai is a if you look at like a Venn diagram, so everyone's listening. If you visualize a Venn diagram and you look at three different areas, one is something you can make a living or get paid for. One is something that brings you joy and happiness and one that brings you purpose to your life. Ikigai is the center of that. It's the thing that highlights the strengths of what you offer to the world. That's your gift, that you can make a living, you are happy when you do it, you enjoy it and you find great purpose to it, and so I really am of the belief that Ikigai is not only a key indicator of longevity, but it's also important if we look at the new generation of kids that are being born. You said earlier about how it's, you know, and I also said that it could be a luxury and it is. You know.
Neha:I was thinking about our talk today and how you know, even like back home in India, like there are people that don't get to choose their passion. They get happy to get paid, they bring home money and they eat food, and they find a lot of joy and purpose. They find that they get paid. They can find ikigai even in being a painter of somebody's house, so I think that ikigai is different for everybody. Finding your passion, though, is a lifelong journey. It's not something that just immediately happens when you're a teenager, but it's something that I think is an excavation process, and the generation currently that's being born, these are not people that want to work at a company honestly for more than three to four years. So long gone is that viewpoint of I'm going to state this company for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. I mean, this is, this is a generation that says you know, if I'm not happy here, I'm not going to work here. So ikigai is actually intertwined in their dna and the fabric of who they are, and I think the reason where that's coming from is that this is the generation that's been born with social media. They have a very different perspective on work, ethic, life, work-life balance, and we're seeing this really clash between generations around these types of principles and concepts. At the same time, ikigai is, I think, a very beautiful thing.
Neha:There are many things that people feel ikigai in their lives, and there's a lot of people that when they're misaligned, if you're not happy, you're getting paid, you have a little bit of purpose, but you're not happy doing it Well then there needs to be a reassessment, and I also feel that you can change who and what you want to do at any age. I mean, I just don't. I just who I am today versus 15 years ago, and how I did what I do today is very different than what I did 15 years ago. So I do feel that Ikigai is something that is a changing thing as you go through. If you want to mark it as decades or wherever those kind of transition points are in your life, it is something that can shift and change often.
Audra :Well, it's interesting that you bring up the new generation and their perspective on the world and work and work-life balance, and I'll share with you a conversation that I had with my daughter just last night. So keep in mind I mentioned that I am a Gen Xer, which means I was raised by boomers. Boomers are a very hard working generation. They were very linear and you do this and you just suck it up and deal with it, and that work ethic was translated to me and there's been a lot of stuff that I've had to suck up and deal with. But then I also colored outside the lines and did some creative things. But yet don't get it twisted, I am still on call, even if it's after five, and someone is pinging me. You know I'm gonna take it, and I had this conversation with my daughter just last night.
Audra :I was taking a call well after five and then my daughter called me in the middle of it. I texted her and said I'll call you right back. She's like Mom, why were you taking a call after five? I said well, because someone had a question and I needed to respond to it. She said was it life and death? I was like no, was somebody on fire? Was it mortal danger? What was the problem? Like none of that.
Audra :And she said mom, you need better work-life balance and keep in mind she's 23. She's only been out of college a year, but I thought it was really profound that she said this at the tender age of 23. She works very hard, but she's like you know what my time's my time? You shouldn't have work bleed into your time. So I do find people in my generation, specifically women. I know that we are leaning in towards how do we get parts of our life back that we have freely given away, and I love that you are teaching the next generation to never give it away in the first place. That is so significant to me personally that I think that that is world-changing work, specifically here in the US, but you're doing it globally, us, but you're doing it globally. So that kind of response, I think, will change the trajectory of our future for the better.
Neha:Yes, I think one distinction I might want to make is that, while I do think work-life balance is important, at the same time, I think at the same time and it's an entrepreneur in me that shares this is that I've struggled with work-life balance my entire life myself, and I think it's because I am so passionate about what I do. You know I'll put out of offices on my email and I still respond. I let things bleed over all the time. I've had to put a lot of walls around my time because of how easy it is. So I think it's. Yes, is it something I teach? Cause I do teach students time management and how to like structure their time.
Neha:Yes, I also think that when you love and when you are passionate about what you do, a lot of times work is so flexible, as an entrepreneur specifically, that it can be at bursts in different times too. So I do still struggle with work-life balance. I think that in a lot of conversations I've had with people, they're like what is work-life balance? Like what is work-life balance? Like what is this concept and term? And a lot of times people will say that work-life balance is more of a corporate term than an entrepreneur's term, that an entrepreneur is like work-life balance what is even that? But I think there's entrepreneurs that do get to a point where it's how do I design my ikigai, my work, my life, my work life, around my life? And that's taken me a very long time to figure out. But I think I'm at that point where I've pretty much mastered it in the last few years where there are some non-negotiables that I put into my time that I don't mess with. And I used to when I was younger around blowing through workouts, blowing through my sleep, just really putting everything else first. So I do think that it is important.
Neha:I also think the new generation, like you said your daughter shared that comment they believe that because it's part of who they are as a generation. If it's not a fire, they say why are you handling it? Sometimes they'll further ask do you have an addiction to your work? That, even if it's not a fire, you feel like you need to respond? Do you have a fear that, as a female, you have to work harder?
Neha:There's so many beliefs that get wired into why we do what we do, and I think it is a real challenge, especially in America.
Neha:I think there's a lot of other countries that don't work as much as we do that really believe in enjoying life, and even as I've tried to master this part of my life, I'm actually pretty quiet about how much I try to create a relaxing environment. I think the only people that know it are probably my close four to five friends and my sister, but they've also watched me grind myself for the last 15 to 18 years to get here. But even when I've gotten here, I still don't share it a lot, because there's this weird energy around being able to say that you know, I I carve out time to myself. We're not in, I'm not in that generation that's younger, where they can talk about that and be like cool, like what'd you do. I'm still in that generation where people are still in that hustle and grind mode and that's still a lot of the messaging, unfortunately. So I I have a hard time even sharing about how I've created my structure on my time.
Audra :I will tell you that I also struggle with that too carving out time for just myself because you feel guilty for doing it, which is, I know, it's been embedded in me that you should never take care of yourself first. It's if you've gotten everything else accomplished and there's nothing else to do. Then you can take care of yourself, which is backwards. I know that physically that is backwards because as we sit here speaking right now, I have a heart monitor on me right now trying to monitor my heart rate at the moment, because menopause is no fun. Anyway, next question, that's a different topic for a different day, but the thing is is that you, you're hardwired I'm hardwired to take care of everybody and everything else first than that I am last. So, to your point that you don't share with people, that you are taking time for yourself, I understand, because I feel guilty taking time for myself.
Neha:I'll tell you, audra, I go through phases. There are seasons in my year where I am hard charging, full about work, nothing else. And then there's seasons where I contract and I don't really have the energy to output to anyone, even friends, where I just need some alone time and sometimes I feel the need to nest or I feel the need to like reorganize everything. It's just, it depends on what kind of phases you're at. But I think that the one thing that stays the foundation is that ikigai, no matter what, like knowing that while I try to do the work that I do and I work with you know, if you think about it, I work with the area in which a child goes from a child to an adult. Teenage years are the most misunderstood years of a child's life. You know parents are reminiscing when their child always listened to them. You know they're missing the cute days where they would like smell their heads and they were cute kids. And then they have this teenager and they're like what, what is this? How, how does this work? And I think I sometimes try to explain that. Do you remember, like when you had a kid and it slept well and then six weeks later it had something called sleep regression. Teenagers also go through phases and they all and it's just a little bit more intense than well. It's a lot more intense than those stages, but it did feel like life or death at that time when you had a child, you didn't know how to handle it. The teenage years it's such a time of self-discovery and I think that's the big part is that, like a lot of beliefs get hardwired. I was teaching a class about radical responsibility and ownership to my group mentorship of students and how do we take ownership in our lives? How do we admit when we've done something wrong or we're working in a group and we know that someone's not doing the work? How do we handle that situation? Because that happens in work all the time and you know they were sharing kind of their experiences and one student had said, well, I've just learned not to trust people and I was like, okay, that's interesting. At 15 or 16, you've decided to have this belief and therefore, what for the next 30, 40 years? Every project and everything you do, you're just going to do yourself because you don't trust anybody. And so these are the types of little things we have to unwind, even at teenage years when they're going through life to say, okay, how do we work on that belief? That's in my soft skills training, because, again, the education system doesn't teach our students really directly. Soft skills on responsibility, time management, elevator pitch, how to sell yourself, how to interview properly all these things not being taught at all in schools yet in the admissions process and job interviews this is what gets you those positions. So my curriculum covers that. But then the second part is around like building a research paper figuring out their passion. So I really do believe that, like underneath all of it is, why are you here, what are you doing all day and do you actually enjoy it? And I think it's interesting because you share that.
Neha:Coming at a point in your own life and I'm sure there's other people listening that have that question mark, and I had that question mark. That happened to me a long time ago at this point, but I remember it became so strong that I remember this. One day I had I was worse than the flu and it wasn't COVID, because this was like decades ago, but it was such a long time ago and I remember feeling deathly ill and my boss said you still need to come in and I said okay and I came in and I used an entire Kleenex box piled on my desk. It was gross. And everyone around me two days later had the same thing. Trust me, I didn't want to come in.
Neha:I have extreme discipline. Whether I'm working from home and this was at a time where no working from home happened whether I'm working at home or I'm working at the desk, if you've worked at Goldman Sachs, you have extreme discipline. It doesn't matter where you're sitting, you can turn it right on when you need to. But I was at this other firm and they wanted to complete me, like make sure I was doing my work. Everyone got sick and I remember, even after, just like every day, I would like press the elevator button and I was like, what am I doing? And I was getting physically sick from it. So that's really when I really had to take an inventory and be like okay, I didn't listen to the voice inside, I didn't listen to, like, the thoughts I was having. Now it's physically manifesting, you know, and I was in a very toxic work environment on top of it. So then it just got to the point where, like, I couldn't come into work because I was so sick.
Neha:But then eventually I had to like step up and have that really difficult conversation and I'll never forget the day I quit, because the day I quit I was sobbing. It was such a realization that I just am not built to not be an entrepreneur Like it. It was in me, it's in my DNA, and I couldn't work for anybody. And I cried because I knew it was going to be the last time for anybody. And I cried because I knew it was going to be the last time. It was going to be the last time I could work in a environment like that. And you cry because it's it's a lot to take into your own self to admit that and then to step up for yourself and then to walk out with your ugly brown box. You know like it felt so big.
Neha:But I had a mentor and this is why I believe in mentorship and why I do mentorship. I had a mentor at the time that was like, look, if you don't land on your feet in the next three months, I'd hire you. And I was like, oh, okay, so it's like you forget. You think like this is the only job that exists, only you cannot get anything else and that that just like traps you in and it's not true. It's so not true. There's hundreds of opportunities, thousands of opportunities all over the place. So I think that that that now again, not everyone can take, that. Some people have responsibilities, some don't. It depends on your situation.
Neha:I will say one thing I am not a believer of quitting your nine to five until you have found something that makes sense. My tutoring business and I want to be really clear about this, because there's a lot of entrepreneurs that say things like quit your nine to five, start a company no, I'm not that entrepreneur. I'm going to tell you the real truth. Entrepreneurship, if you think it's going to cost something, assume it's 10 X the cost of what you think it is. And I worked nine to five and then I tutor five to nine, monday through Friday. And then I tutor Saturday and Sunday. Saturday and Sunday, 10 AM to 6 PM. Sundays till 9 PM. I brought my food in my car, like I was just running from house to house to house, and my rule was, until I was making more from tutoring than I was working nine to five, I wasn't going to leave.
Neha:So until my side hustle became enough that I felt that level of stability, I didn't walk out. That's not an easy place to get to. It is pretty exhausting. But I am very risk averse. People think entrepreneurs are high risk takers. We're actually pretty risk averse. We're constantly analyzing risk. So I would say that you know, don't just walk out and then think you know everything's going to line up it's. You know, you have to really be methodical in your process. Not, yeah, methodical, not like highly emotional. Even though I did cry when I quit and I knew I was making more. It was that realization of self that was coming up. And my boss, actually he was so uncomfortable with my emotions. He was like it's okay, neha, like it's fine and I'll find somebody. And I'm like okay, I'm so sorry I'm doing this because I'm so sorry. He's like it's really all right.
Audra :Like just go. It's really all right, like, just go. First of all, I'm so proud of you for finding that, for finding that strength so early and for hearing that voice so early and I tell on myself on this all the time, because I'm the only one I can tell on in this show is that I didn't hear that voice for decades, decades, because I was too busy focusing on the work, too busy focusing on everybody and everything else to hear me. However, the voices start to get louder and louder and louder and come out eventually in some way, in some form. It just shows up. You can't deny it anymore. So I'm really, really proud of you for doing that, and I think that your emotional response was a couple of things.
Audra :One, it was a grieving process, a grieving a life that you thought you wanted, that you thought you were supposed to do and then realized that it wasn't. So there was a grieving process there. But the other thing is that it was the program. It was the program that runs in all of our heads, that we've been designed to follow, and you were breaking away from that program, which is terrifying Also, were breaking away from that program, which is terrifying, also incredibly brave, and it was. I think that it was those two emotions combined that was coming out in tears, but I'll bet that after you sat with your emotions, what you felt was relief. Yeah.
Neha:Oh, extreme relief, and I think I grieve almost every two years. When you talk about it in that way, I'm constantly shedding who I am, and sometimes not by choice. I go through these cocoon phases and butterfly phases as a woman and there's nothing. I think there's nothing worse than when you're in the cocoon and you don't realize you're in the cocoon until you're in it and you're like, oh shit, I'm in the cocoon, oh no, I'm in here. So the thing is I think that's a beautiful and profound way to say it, because that really was it and the relief was immediate.
Neha:Actually, within a few weeks, I started making so much more because I had the time.
Neha:I had the time to be. You know, at that time I was the scheduling appointment person, I was the bookkeeper, I was the person that parents called to schedule appointments and I was the 1-800 number. I was the tutor and I was able to find the time to hire two other tutors right before final season. And keep in mind this is during a time where, like, people only bought plane tickets online, they didn't buy things online, they didn't trust the internet. Like it was a time where I'd like I'd have to go to every house and be like hi, can you please hand me this or let's do this. Like it was a very like, like almost like a small cottage business at that time because I was still learning processes and systems, but I now had that extra 30, 40 hours a week to do everything I needed to grow it. So there was a lot of relief and I think the universe also just like really rewarded me within one to two months after that experience to be like you know, go for it.
Audra :Saying that and seeing how you have blossomed into this beautiful butterfly that you keep evolving to, how do you think this your entire foundation for the business and helping these kids find their purpose and find their ikigai, and put together these processes that they're not taught in school. What do you think or what have you observed to be the outcomes and the results of this, of your entire business?
Neha:Yes. So I would say the big thing is is that, no matter what, it's never a straight line. So even if, when we're working with a student, you know one of the ways I do it is I like to test drive and execute on things. So if a student says, hey, I think I'm interested in business, I'm like great, let's launch a company right now, let's do it. And they're like what? I'm like, yeah, let's do it, let's test it out, let's spend a hundred bucks and let's build something. And at this point they're like really surprised because there's no class. They've taken on it. But we start testing and building and prototyping and finding clients and doing things so they can get their feet wet. So to me it's like okay, isn't that a better experience for a student in a 12 month period, or you know, or if they're really interested in studying business, we write a full research paper on it. That's really big right now in the admissions processes, doing academia type of work. So getting that type of experience can be very powerful at a young age because it's giving them exposure.
Neha:I think what happens is it's so easy to say I think what happens is it's so easy to say I don't know what I want to do I'm not sure, I haven't figured it out, I don't know. I don't know, but we're kind of living in a time where I don't know is easily answered by ChatGPT, coursera, udemy, edx. It's the lazy person's response at this point. People can start taking courses, they can get certified. It's the lazy person's response At this point. People can start taking courses, they can get certified. There's people that can get project manager degrees online and get immediately hired by Google. I mean. So I'm at that point now where, if you look at the soft skill that matters most, it's hunger, it's drive, it's resilience, it's grittiness.
Neha:So I think that the outcomes of the work that I do is, first and foremost, creating these types of soft skills in kids, and then the second part is figuring out and exposing them to things and then figuring out the right colleges. Now have students said hey, I think I really want to go into this. We expose them to stuff, they really find it interesting, and then they go to college and they might find something different. Yes, it happens all the time, but at least we test drove it ahead of time and they're like okay, maybe I want to combine it right now. Really big thing that's happening is the combination of fields like biotechnology, bioengineering, business and tech, so students can be now multifaceted in what their interests are. So I feel like, with what we're trying to do, it's not a straight line approach.
Neha:I don't treat every child the same. Every child pretty much does their own research paper or their own project. No project is ever the same that I do with students. I literally don't recreate the same thing. There's no cookie cutter way to work with the child, because all of them have different personality types, passions, interests. But the outcomes are really grand, I have to say, because when you coach someone at this form, it's a very formidable age. It's very forming time for them. They are highly impressionable, and so what happens is when you're young and you're still figuring things out, when you have that forming time and you have the right coach in front of you, it's really powerful.
Neha:Now a lot of parents are very confused by what I do. I mean, I try to explain it as much as I can, but the reason why they're confused is because this field did not exist. College admissions consulting did not exist when parents applied. Currently, today, the parents that have teenagers now they did not have this type of help. Now the college admissions industry is over a billion dollar industry. There are many people in it teaching kids how to apply to college, how to write essays, how to present well, how to build a school list.
Neha:On the mentorship side, it's a little smaller, just because it is so nuanced and it's not easy and it's so dependent on the child as well. Like, are they going to show interest? Are they going to show up to the calls? Are they going to be in this coaching relationship or not? A parent can want it, and then the student. If the student's not on board, it can be a little challenging. So there's a lot of different aspects to mentorship and coaching, but for the most part I can tell you that the students that are interested, that do want to get a solution like this, they do have phenomenal outcomes because they wanted it, and so I do think that the work we're doing is absolutely changing kids' lives.
Neha:I've had students that you know say they want to go into something but their parents don't know where to find these opportunities or what to do. You know, in our program we have upwards of 200 different opportunities across the US that students could be involved with, from summer camps to clubs, to all sorts of things that would give their kids incredible exposure. So I really do believe that there's a lot out there. It's just about creating this curated experience, because I think parents get overwhelmed with all the information out there. I mean, I had a parent once read me or send me what the schools email them and I was just like I don't know why they're expecting you to read a hundred page handbook. This is very odd. And they're like, no, no, read all five emails. And I was like this is a full-time job, like I don't know why they're doing this to you, why what is happening. And they're like, yeah, and I try to keep mine not too long.
Neha:But you know, I always say the number one thing I say is that students drive the process, and I think we've turned this at incorrect direction. Where parents are driving the process and the problem is is that you can't drive the process as a parent. It's going to be painful at some point. Your child will not listen to you, so it's the student that needs to drive the process. This is the only way to create kids that are resilient and gritty and trying things and figuring them out. Yes, you can put an opportunity in front of somebody, but they need to go and do it. It's like the gym. Going to the gym is hard. You can drop your kid to the gym, but you can't lift the weights. You can't. The only way for that kid to get bigger biceps or to be more stronger they've got to lift their own weight.
Neha:And I think this is the part why the education system has gotten broken, why parents have gotten overwhelmed. The parent-on-parent crime going on is intense. It's just really warped because before and the reason why we have boomers and Gen Xers that are so hardworking is because you guys drove the process. Even if I'm an elder millennial, we drove the process. Our parents were too busy. They were not.
Neha:I also have an immigrant family background, so there's that intertwined with my own story too. But students need to drive the process and I think that's the big part that a lot of people don't realize is that, yes, that can maybe 16, 17 or 18, but they're pretty smart. Like we got to give them the opportunity to either run with it or fail at it, and I think right now we're living in a generation where we're not letting our kids fail, and that's going to show up really hard when kids are in their mid to late ths and parents are like what's happening? And they're like, well, I've never had a hardship, what do I do with this? So these are the types of things that I unravel a lot when I do mentorship and work with families, because there's no class for grittiness.
Audra :I mean you gain grittiness through experience and being thrown down on the ground, stomped on heartache, the whole thing. There's no class for that. That's learned through experience and through trial and error and you're like okay, well, that didn't work, let me try something else. I never ran to my parents for any of that.
Audra :Admittedly, we have coached and consulted our own children a little bit more, and I think that that was done with good intentions, because we made the commitment to our children that they had every right to have a childhood where we didn't. We became adults very, very, very early and we didn't want them for that, that for them. So I think that it came. It did come with good intentions, but we haven't yet seen what our gentle guiding, what the results will be at the end, because they're in their early to mid twenties. We're not sure yet. We're hoping. We're hoping that it's okay, because we've let them fall and skin their knee on occasions, but I'm hoping that it's a more positive effect. But I'm also really hopeful because you are teaching these students something that wasn't taught to me or taught to you, which is to dream and to actively pursue those dreams and pursue your happiness and to pursue fulfillment, and so then they're never at this spot where, like you know, or they're not as much at a spot with what am I doing here? How did I get here?
Neha:Yeah, Well, the thing is, I don't think they have the ability to sit in that uncomfort or dysfunction for very long. That is true, that generation doesn't have it and they won't tolerate it, and this is a generational gap that is unfathomable for people above a certain age. They're like no, you need to stick it out, and they're like why?
Audra :So it's almost why would I?
Neha:So it's a very interesting experience. So, knowing that, so for me, I know this about this new spiritual soul group that's coming up. So if you look at that and you know that about it, then how do we supercharge the potential of what they want to do? So, for example, you were saying, like there's no class on grittiness, I have a student who she's a seventh grader. She's so cute and she's decided, she's passionate about, you know, eye care, eyes Ayurveda. She's interested in, like health, but she doesn't know what to do at seventh grade. There's nothing for her. So we've built, for example, an eye care drive. We've researched nonprofits. She can donate glasses to everyone. Always has an extra pair in their houses. So then she now has to take that idea and execute on it.
Neha:The next step was okay, let's find in the organizations you know if they will reach out, if they will let you collect glasses. So she got red tape at school. She got red tape at her sibling's school. I said, okay, she goes. So what do I? She was like, what do I do? I've gotten red notes. I was like, good, you've experienced a no and you're only like 14 or 13 or whatever, like this is great she goes, is it? I was like, yeah, it's great. Now we need to figure out what your goal is. She goes. Okay, my goal is 20 glasses. All right, great, 20 glasses.
Neha:By the time I met her the next time, she had collected 20 glasses from friends, family, text messaging asking her parents and they're asking them. We worked on a flyer together on Canva so you could sit there and be like okay, neha, an eye donation, glasses, drive, who really cares? That could be a perspective that a listener might have. It's not always about the exact project. It's about everything underneath that. She's learning to be a leader, to get rejected, to be her own boss in a way, to have the vulnerability to ask for things. These are all the things I'm teaching her Now.
Neha:Does it also relate to her passion? Yes, is she actually pretty much caring about the fact that she's very comfortable in her lifestyle as a child? Most of our families are that we work with, but now she's learning about people that can't afford glasses, so she has a different viewpoint on life, about her privilege. So there's a lot of aspects to when I do projects with students that may not make sense at first, but that level of confidence and all those other aspects show up as well. So here you know, we're creating a child that has all these leadership skills that you know, maybe later on in life, you know, I said, hey, who knows, maybe Warby Parker will, you know, pick up what we're working on and put you in a newsletter.
Neha:You know, you're a hard charging female woman of color and you're in seventh grade and she's like, oh, that'd be so cool. I'm like, yeah, like why would they say no to you? Let's reach out, let's draft an email, let's use AI. So these are all the things I'm doing, even with a 12 or 13 year old, and they want it. They want it Internally, they really want this type of expression of themselves. So that's why I think that generation is uncomfortable with sitting in the muck is because they know that there's so much stuff out there that they could be solving or trying or doing.
Audra :The system just isn't teaching them what that is no, because rejection has been my greatest teacher, honestly, because it shows me okay, that didn't work, let me change it a little bit and go forward and do something different, and I'll just keep changing it until I get it right. So that's what rejection has taught me. At first, I thought rejection was a bad word, and it hasn't been since I've gotten older that I realized. No, rejection is a good thing, it's a teacher, but if your kids never get rejected, they don't have that teacher. But flip side is that you're teaching them ingenuity and you're teaching them to be flexible and to use what they know and use their passion to move forward.
Audra :That's what some of the greatest inventions have occurred in our lifetime and before our lifetime. You were uncomfortable, you tried some things, you wanted to get something new and so you made it. I think that that is a beautiful thing, that you are teaching and encouraging, and I know we are. I'm so sorry. I could talk to you for hours and I'm watching the clock and we are definitely quickly running out of time, so I'd like to ask you to share with the parents that are listening If they've got these teens that are in this interesting age, where, for those of you that have teenagers or have had teenagers or you're just on the other side of teenagers. You know that they challenge. That's part of their DNA, that's part of their joy is to challenge, because they're going through an internal challenge as well. What would you say to them as they're trying to figure out who they are, to help foster that challenge without making themselves crazy?
Neha:I'd say for the parents. One of the big things I always say is that there are parts of this position as a parent to outsource. I come from a culture my background is Indian where there were many people. It's a village in India that raises children and here we have these little isolated nuclear situations where these families are trying to do everything themselves, and it's actually not the way that kids were supposed to be raised. People in India had tutors, they had aunts, they had uncles, they had many people around to ensure that the child was getting multiple perspectives, learning and hearing and experiencing things.
Neha:So I think one thing is don't expect yourself to be everything. There's just no way. Second, know that the teenage years are a year where they will defy you on every aspect, and so knowing that information, knowing that you're going to get pushback, knowing that they may not think you are cool but you still want to get certain things across, is why most parents hire me. So having someone outside to infuse the things and values that matter to you, because you know already that this is coming or that your kid is going to be challenging, is really powerful. I mean, I was that kid to my own mom.
Neha:I made her life very difficult during high school. I was that kid, I wasn't the easy kid. So even though I was very smart, all honors, ap kid, all that jazz on the inside my house was a mess. It was one of those situations where I did not make her life easy and I think this is a major reason why I created this is because I had to become the mentor I needed. I wish I had me as a teenager.
Neha:You know is what I'm really trying to share. So I think that this is why having outside help is so powerful is that it can create more healthy relationships at home, it can create more separation of who's doing what and it creates more of a community vibe, I think, for families. So I think, take a breath and realize that this is going to be a challenging time. I sometimes describe my work when kids get into colleges I'm the one that cuts the umbilical cord and it's not an easy process for most parents the one that cuts the umbilical cord and it's not an easy process for most parents. So realizing and knowing like that is not something usually a mother does in the labor room and being open to receiving help can be very powerful.
Audra :What a visual of cutting the umbilical cord and that that's not necessarily physical but that spirit, spiritual umbilical cord and it's painful. I'm not going to sugarcoat that because that has happened with our children and it is not fun and it would be lovely if we'd had a parent a mentor to help escort us through this because it was not fun.
Audra :Before I let you go, I want to make sure that the audience knows where to reach you If they have questions, if they want more information about what you offer the classes. I mean this is fascinating. This could be a game changer, not only for their children, but for themselves. So how would they reach you?
Neha:Yeah, absolutely. They can find me at college shortcutscom. On that site, we've got a contact us page and in the top right people can even schedule a call with my team to really learn more about what we do, and we have our services on that page as well. They can also find us on Facebook, instagram I think we have over hundreds of videos on both of those, as well as YouTube and TikTok for lots of tips. If they enjoyed this interview, I will make sure that all of those, as well as YouTube and TikTok for lots of tips if they enjoyed this interview.
Audra :I will make sure that all of those are linked in the show notes of this episode, so I'll make it easy so they can go out and link to it and learn more about you, and I encourage all of you that, if this is at all something that sounds like it would be beneficial for you and your children, reach out to her, ask her questions. She's fascinating. She's also very warm and down to earth and is amazing to talk to, so I encourage all of you to do that. Neha, I want to thank you for spending your very precious time with us today. Like I said, I promised you only an hour and we are right up against it. So thank you for giving us this hour and sharing with us your wisdom, your passion, and that you are escorting our children to their passion as well. So thank you Absolutely. I had such a great time. Thank you, I enjoyed every minute of it, and I want to thank all of you for listening and we'll see you again next time.
