Great Companies - From where did you get the idea of 'Vibha Education Services Corp'?
Harini: While I was fascinated and attracted by the teaching profession from childhood, and inspired by my tuition teacher, I started my tuition while I was doing my Master's. Over the years of teaching, I gained knowledge and became an expert in subject matter as the saying goes "Teach to become an expert". I was doing great with my small business 10 years ago.
I have had the experience of being a math tuition teacher for 12 years and I have helped hundreds of students to excel. Sometimes I have seen children complain of stomach discomfort or panic on the day of the exams. They do well in schools and my classes, but in the exams, they were not able to give their best. I started to think about it. As I continued taking my classes, I had to relocate. I thought to continue my tuition there, which I could not do so because of the language barriers. I had to sit at home doing nothing. I felt like I had lost my identity, I was depressed and I was under stress. It was at that point of time I realized that I was not happy sitting idle and I knew that I was not me anymore. I started to face health challenges and I struggled a lot to cope up. I realized that I have to learn the skills needed to handle my stress when I saw others excel in their life. I understood life has to be perceived and lived differently and my mind was full of curiosity to learn how to get there. By the time, I came back to India and started my tuition again in 2013. Then, I realized though I was a subject matter expert, I lacked some life skills like problem-solving, decision making, critical thinking. Then I practiced some of them, mindfulness, meditations and undertook some courses, and I applied. Eventually, I saw changes in my life. I felt a gap which was not taught to me in school or anywhere else. We didn’t know how to handle ourselves during hard and challenging times. One day, out of the blue, a thought came to me ‘Why don’t I train students on self-awareness, mindfulness, and Life skills?.’ It was a sudden thought that came up to help students and train them on life skills. I started to give small training in my community from 2013. Then I brought some of my services under the name Vibha Education services Corp. on May 2014. That’s where all it started five years back.
Great Companies - What all different kind of services do 'Vibha Education Services Corp' provide?
Harini: We provide training and coaching for students between the age 6-23. We train them on The top 10 life skills defined by WHO like Self- Awareness, Goal setting, cognitive skills, coping up with stress and emotion. Apart from this we also provide training on Time Management, personality development program. We deliver One-on-One Coaching for children who suffer from issues like bullying, self -esteem, low confidence and other adolescent issues. Parents and teachers play an important role in the life of children. In that aspect, we conduct workshops for parents on positive parenting and Leadership training programs for teachers. Vibha’s vision is to create a channel that nurtures emotionally strong children, we hold their hand when they stumble through mental blocks leading them to where they truly ought to be. We also train and coach budding and aspiring entrepreneurs to create a blueprint of their dreams, help them to gain clarity and focus through goal-setting sessions.
Great Companies - What is your success mantra?
Harini : Mantra 1: Take action /steps on the ideas
Take action on ideas and dreams as the first step towards success.
Mantra 2: Keep working with patience and perseverance
There have been times where I didn’t have any projects, all did was promoting myself.
When you have a goal and write it down, it helps to focus and be on track. My life experience has taught me resilience and to bounce back.
Mantra 3: Keep upgrading your knowledge and skills. Learning is an integral part of me. I realized that during my early years of entrepreneurship and I keep updating my skills ever since. I feel that people in the service industry must be in par with current strategies and skills to succeed
Mantra 4: Networking
I never miss any opportunity to explore and connect with people. I have never felt embarrassed to talk about myself or my service whenever I meet new people. Unabashed marketing is what every entrepreneur needs to do.
I attended a lot of networking events and connected with many people. During these meets, apart from marketing and connecting, we can learn a lot from other’s experiences and the strategies that they follow, and the mistakes they did. This helps to reduce the time and avoid mistakes.
Great Companies -- What is the ultimate goal of 'Vibha Education Services Corp' and how you plan to achieve it?
Harini: The ultimate goal of Vibha is to empower children and women with values, boosting their confidence, building stronger and brighter personalities with resilience, Believing in yourself, following your intuitions, loving and accepting yourself are the key goals that we focus on while empowering future leaders. We are planning to achieve this by conducting classroom sessions in schools, We act as a helping hand to students who need more clarity through one-on-one sessions. We also focus on conducting training programs for teachers, when a teacher is empowered, thousands of lives get impacted. If we empower one woman entire future generations will get empowered with her skills and knowledge. So we are also coaching women through one-on-one sessions and we are planning to conduct classroom training programs for a woman in the future.
Great Companies - What suggestion would you like to give to other aspiring entrepreneurs?
Harini: Set smart goals and create action plans to achieve them. Work on achieving those action plans. Revisiting your goals often, it will help to get it manifested soon. Patience and perseverance are two keys to unlock success. While you are growing never try to put down another budding entrepreneur and come up. In fact, please share the tips and knowledge and grow together. It is a must for an entrepreneur to be updated with current skills. Keep learning new things and be open to learning. Attend networking events, socialize, connect and build a relationship with others. It will help you in some way or another. Listen to other entrepreneurs and their stories. Never hesitate to spread the word about yourself. Find a mentor to help you. Never hesitate to ask for help. Everyone needs a mentor.