About 20+ years ago as a 20 something young entrepreneur in Bangalore, India; I attended a year long program by Crestcom International (I only did 6 months). It was two full day sessions every month that cost us almost 16000 Indian Rupees for the entire Year. And 16K was a lot of money in India that time.

In the huge auditorium of some Five Star Hotel with high ceiling and Chandeliers hanging high; I remember sitting next to some middle-aged guys who held VP and SVP titles with major Pharmaceuticals like AstraZeneca and Himalaya Drugs and Tech companies like Infosys and so on.

I could see a ‘Are you in the wrong place dude’ look in some of their eyes as we a mid-twenty something sat there fooling around with no much seriousness. I was not alone we had 5 people from our small company. All of us not on the same day. For us in those days Entrepreneurship was not really entrepreneurship, it was more like an extension of college with loads and loads of fun with Bikes and booze and late night rides and a fierce appetite to sell.

I still remember the person who came to our office to sell the course. It was one Naresh who was the founder of Crestcom International Training in India. I googled him and send him a Friend request after writing this. His first sales call to our company Cascade was in his (I believe a Herald or Fiat) hatchback car with a small TV and a VHS player. He would come and demo the course to us energetic youngsters. These were videos of Zig Ziglar, Hal Krause and Bob Johnson, none of whom we had much idea back then.

Finally it was decided that some of us will enroll. I think we had around 10 or 12 people join it. This was a ‘Train the Trainer’ Program. No idea why we got 10 people into a ‘Train the Trainer’ Program in a 30 people company. I guess that is how Good Naresh was in convincing. Looking back we should have just got two or three people enroll and then train the rest. Anyways, we joined.

We had a plan, we will get 20 people attend. To get a certification you only need to attend 9 sessions I think and so we thought we could give a chance for more than 20 people to get a feel of this. This was in the year 1995-1996. The same time when Naresh started and probably we might have been one of his first customers.

I remember using what I learned back then to do training sessions in my life some formal in companies I worked for and some on informal manner. Fast forward 22 years; yesterday I happened to attend another training session bringing memories of that mid-twenty year old into the head and heart of this mid-forty guy.

I realized I am now the age of those same middle-aged guys with whom I took that training in 1995. You realize how life moves. Life took me all around the globe from there. Through brief and long successes and failures; In the elevators of  multistory buildings built on desert dunes in Dubai to London streets carrying a street map book sipping beer and browsing old books on the banks of Thames to Washington DC and then a Road trip from DC to the Silicon Valley, my current home.

22 + years and it is interesting that one thing that remains very sharp in my memory is something I heard Zig say. It goes something like

More than being taught new things; We should be reminded of what we already know

This still holds true. Especially when we live in a world where there is information all around us. We are swamped by that constant messaging.

Your ‘Read Later’ list just fills up and is now like a mini internet and you need a new search engine to get you want you want. I have a Feedly account that I regularly go to just clean up thousands of articles that I had bookmarked to read later but never got to.

I have always been wondering how can you get through this clutter. I kept thinking about it till I figured that you don’t need to do it. There is so much information and you cannot catch them all. It is not needed. So yesterday when I attended the training it was interesting when I felt some of these things I have heard or read before. Though I did not attend trainings all this time, I had been constantly reading all these years and what struck me again was the words 

More than being taught new things; We should be reminded of what we already know

It is not necessary that we always accumulate new knowledge, sometimes it is the same information reminded and rewinded back to us. Yesterday and Today, I walked back miles in my memory picking small pieces of unbroken images. I loved it. A kind of new rejuvenation.

There is another reason I wrote this, I will keep that to myself for now. 🙂

Categories: Enjoying Life and Work, On Learning

Tags: Coaching, Training