Lessons from Life’s Classroom

Discover how purpose, challenges, and mentors can pivot your path forward

Life is a journey not a destination. This human experience that we share is a collection of an infinite number of moments that co-create us by interacting with the fabric that we are. I will share here some moments, some lessons, and their teachers. It is my intention that by sharing how these moments and teachers have impacted my life, that you will be inspired to look with new eyes at your own journey so that you might notice the fruit that was already ripe for the picking.

I guarantee that there are fruits borne by the experiences of your own life that you have not yet harvested.

As we go, you might get glimpses of the road markers that helped a little autistic kid now buy businesses. Yes, I had autism and severe developmental delay and, yes, I still have challenges related to some of that. And I am grateful for these and for the role they play in my life.

Purpose

I knew how much my parents were hungry for a child – for me. Yet, a mass in my belly before I was born led to enormous uncertainty for me and for my parents if I would even survive to be born. 

As in each of our lives there are things internal to us, like the mass for me – and things external to us, like my Dad having surgery and the events of September 11, 2001 that impacted me. And, from wherever it is that great ideas come from, one came to me: that if these things were happening, there was a reason. I hadn’t yet heard of Albert Einstein and his famous quote: “God doesn’t play dice with the Universe,” but it seems as though I had happened on to the same great lesson.

Purpose, reason for being, has consumed me since before I was born. I knew that if I were here, there must be a reason. I knew there must be a reason why, I just did not know then what that reason was.

During a surgery at four days old to remove that mass from my belly, I was not fully anesthetized. And, when the pain of my muscles being ripped apart and my innards being moved around was too much to bear, I learnt that when you can’t rely on anyone else, you rely on yourself. You turn inwards to your inner strengths. The kind of fortitude that arises from beyond mortal. That made me learn more about self-reliance and resilience than any lesson hence. When most people speak of self-reliance, they forget the greatest part of self. The part of self connected with your reason for being, your purpose. I absolutely include that part.

Purpose of Challenge

When I was 12 years old, I wrote the following:

“You have heard that I was blessed to have been called stupid – so I learnt to think for myself.

You have heard that I was blessed to not see well, so I learnt to look hard for the symmetry, the proportion, the order and the overall beauty and perfection all around me in God’s Universe.

That I was blessed to not hear well led me to focus intently on the callings of my own soul. My mission.

That I was blessed to not speak well, nurtured the burning desire to share my God given message with the whole world.

I remember that it hurt me to be hugged. I now seek to hug the whole world.

I remember the sound of my mother’s voice, screeched in my ears. I learnt to read love in her eyes and in her actions.

I remember when it hurt me to eat. I learnt to nourish myself with my thoughts.

I remember being ignored and locked in a dark room on the first day of the first playschool my parents tried for me after repeated exhortations from others to have me “socialize.” While I have not been literally locked in many rooms since, I have been treated as in the dark by so many since. So many who have thought or acted like they could not see me, or I them. From this I learnt to think. 

For thousands of hours I have contemplated meaning and purpose. For thousands of hours I have contemplated the greatest challenges of our and of all time. I was beginning to understand the purpose of challenge.”

Navigating the maze that was Autism left me with a void to understand how we humans tick and how we relate. Autism has helped make me an expert in the human mind and human achievement.

Just as I have certainty that you are here on purpose, I have certainty that your challenges are purposed too.

Learning

Both my parents and their respective families are immigrants to Canada where we now reside. There are diverse reasons that many over millennia choose to leave their native lands for other countries. For both of my parents and their families though, there was one overriding consideration: Greater educational opportunities for their kids. 

Both of my parents had been given the following gift, the following lesson from their parents: Learning is one of the critical keys to climbing beyond whatever you are facing and wherever you are finding yourself. For as long as I have known my parents (and later got to know those who influenced them early on), they have instilled within me the lesson that “Learning is one of the great levers to move the world.”

Mom

A few years ago, my Dad said the following to my Mom: “You’ve said all kinds of things about what you truly value, what’s truly important to you. And I’ve watched and I’ve come to know what your life demonstrates – you are the rock that holds our family together.” We all had tears in that moment of truth. 

I have learnt and received so much from my Mom. And for her love and focus on family, I am most grateful. I can’t even begin to calculate how I’d be where I am from where I’d started without my family.

My Mom’s sister, Satya Sukhai, is like a second Mom to me. And without her dedication to my life, so many doors that have opened for me would not have been remotely possible. Later I will discuss some of the therapies that I and my family undertook to help me – and we could ONLY access those because my aunt made her life work for me.

Dad

So, what does my Dad’s life demonstrate that he values? My Dad has been a problem solver forever it seems. He has friends, dating back to when he was three years old, who tell stories of him being a problem solver, and interestingly, and only in retrospect, a ‘people-problem’ solver since he was a young child. And for all of the time I’ve known him, he’s been dedicated to solving the problem of how he supports me best to make my greatest impact in this Universe of ours. I get to reap the rewards of him following his purpose.

On the Shoulders of Giants

Where are you getting to reap the rewards from others whose purpose it is to lay the fodder that you might thrive? It turns out that each individual with whom we are entangled does serve a purpose in our lives. Are you humble enough to notice?

Glenn Doman and the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential (IAHP)

In their hunger, frankly their desperation to help me navigate profound developmental delay and Autism, my parents landed on the doorstep of the IAHP.

Mr. Glenn Doman had figured out some laws of child development and healing the brain-injured child. And key to this process was leveraging the natural process that a ‘normal’ child would experience as they grew and grew in function. He had figured out that it was preferable to work with the natural order than against it. And so many, most especially Susan Aisen and Miki Nakayachi in my case, worked tirelessly to help me heal my own brain and body.

Of all the things I learnt from the IAHP, the two most critical were: Reading (I have now read over 14,000 non-fiction books); and a way to express my ideas as my independent speech is still somewhat delayed. 

That model of leveraging the natural process, mimicking nature’s way of solving problems has been key to how I help solve life and business problems to this day for my clients and our companies. 

Bill Bartmann

Mr. Bill Bartmann previously ran the largest debt collection agency in the USA and when my family met him, he was teaching personal growth and business growth. He was eminently qualified to do both as he had thrived in the face of massive personal and business adversity in his own life. 

As a four year old autistic kid, my parents had limited options for alternate caregivers for me. So, they asked Mr. Bartmann if he would let me attend his courses with them. In exchange, their warrant was that if I so much as squeaked, they would leave so that I did not interfere with the class. I didn’t squeak but I did soak up all he had to say (and what he meant but didn’t say - as I studied him and his lessons intently). I did so while the other attendees thought I was perseverating on the toy hippopotami that were my apparent best friends. As proof that that is what they thought, Mr. Bartmann’s wife and daughter caringly and thoughtfully bought me a hippo and one of the attendees mailed me a hippo to add to my collection. 

From Mr. Bartmann, I learnt to believe in myself, and how to use business as a lever to move the world. 

He said there was one other lever that moved the world – politics. But he said that since he wasn’t very good looking and had a lisp, he wouldn’t make it – so he stuck with business. Since I make no claims on good looks myself, and since my independent speech is still much affected, I thought his advice did very much apply to me, and stuck with business.

Dr. John Demartini

Through a series of what some might call chance events, I was introduced to Dr. John Demartini, a polymath and human behavior specialist. In our first meeting he taught me that the voices in my head that were criticizing me were the result of the ‘positive thinking’ that my parents were promoting to themselves and to me in the hope that it might make a difference in our lives. The following day, I wrote to him with my understanding of what he had taught me and what that meant for my mind. Dr. Demartini has recounted the story of our meeting and what I wrote to him to thousands around the world. That meeting started a friendship and mentorship by me and my family with Dr. Demartini, that has enormously impacted our personal lives and the work we still do with our clients and in our businesses.

As a polymath himself, he confirmed for me the importance of being a polymath and instilled the hunger to know the works of the greatest minds of all time. He taught me to search for patterns that might uncover the Universal laws that govern all - and to do so in my studies and in my observations of the world as it is. He taught me a tool for understanding and leveraging human values and by living true to his own highest values, exemplifies what is possible when one consciously lives an authentic life.

He regifted to me an affirmation he received from his own mentor “I am a genius and I apply my wisdom”. And one other that he created himself “I create original ideas that serve humanity.” I affirm these daily and am blessed to watch them manifest in my life and in the lives and businesses of my clients.

From thousands of books, authors, and videos, and thousands of hours of thinking…

I have been blessed to remain a child at heart. Especially since I define a child as one in a state of readiness to learn and to grow. And by that definition, I would argue that we are all children. For why are we here if it is not to learn and to grow? 

Since I surrounded myself with great teachers, it is no wonder that I consider that I am a teacher myself. Over time that evolved into the consulting work that I did with my Dad in Chintan Project – with so much of it helping solve human behavior problems, the kind that involve how we humans tick and how we relate to achieve more, impact more, and be rewarded more. Along the way, one client said: “You guys are like ‘Seal Team Six'  – you come in, help us fix the problem, and often leave before others even knew you were here.” 

Over time, we got more clarity that our greatest work was as Advisors (Ad = toward, Visio = vision), helping our clients achieve their vision rather than only through consulting. 

And patterns started to emerge…

Human behavior problems are more likely to be prominent when humans are having difficulties coping with stress. And since the majority of our clients were owners of privately held businesses, they frequently had challenges when their businesses were challenged. And business challenges are most common around the times of startup and of exit. 

The human behavior problems that are present for each of us and at each life stage, just get exacerbated at those times. As my Dad would say, when your bucket is full it overflows and creates symptoms. We are familiar with the patterns of symptoms that coping with stress can cause in our bodies. And we had started noticing patterns of symptoms in businesses too.

If you are considering exiting your business and those symptoms exist (for example: financial problems, legal problems, and especially people problems), the prospective buyer is likely to find out and it becomes a situation of blood in the water and the sharks come out. The end result is that the seller is not compensated as well as they could be for their years of risk and work to grow their business.

We started helping our clients, the prospective sellers, either “love their businesses again - or exit their businesses so they can love their lives again.”

The work we were doing with them had a ripple effect on their families, employees, stakeholders, customers, and expanding.

Yet, the conventional paths to selling a business had its own challenges. And we embarked on a quest to solve that new problem.

Roland Frasier

Enter into our lives, Roland Frasier. Roland describes himself as a ‘recovering attorney’ and is the Co-Founder or Principal of five of Inc. Magazine’s fastest growing companies. What’s more is that Roland figured out how to help sellers exit their businesses more effectively and often more profitably than they could typically accomplish on their own in the marketplace. 

He is an expert in investing in and exiting privately held businesses. We are experts in navigating the human behavior challenges so common at the ownership or C-suite level in businesses. Together, it became clear that we have an enhanced toolkit for helping business owners. 

And what comes naturally next…

Today, we leverage this combination by partnering with Roland so that together we can bring additional resources to bear on behalf of our clients facing challenging exit scenarios. 

There are many ways we help sellers. For some, we help them structure their business or structure the selling deals for optimal outcomes.

Now, with Roland, we are able to help them further by acquiring businesses with terms that are much more acceptable to them than alternative options available in the marketplace.

These measures even further enhance the ripple effect of our work. We get to serve even more - and at a scale that would not be possible without the lever of business at play. 

Thank you for joining us on this journey through purpose and the purpose of challenge, from autism through business acquisitions, and all the while working with nature as opposed to against it. 

I am humbled and grateful to be who I am, have had the gifts and challenges that I have, to be able to do what I do, and blessed with what the Universe has rewarded me.

With Gratitude and Love,

Amit Chintan Ramlall

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