Tilling The SOIL In Delhi

SOIL stands for School of Inspired Leadership.  This morning, I spoke to the students about Laddership, then held a circle with 20 local business leaders, and then engaged in a local student-run Karma Kitchen.  In his introduction, Anil Sachdev (the founder of SOIL) spoke about his adoring affinity for ServiceSpace values and said how he thinks of SOIL as a local ServiceSpace chapter. :)



Deepak and Pratyush also joined and presented with me.  It's awesome how a posse emerges everywhere we go -- and that too, a pretty awesome posse.

Pratyush has had an interesting trajectory.  After working at McKinsey, he worked at a couple education NGOs, then took off in pursuit of higher truths, on an open-ended train ride without money.  He got off on a random train station at 2AM -- which landed him in Kerala.  Ultimately, he ended up staying at an ashram there for a few months.  Every so often, Pratyush returns to mainstream life and integrates what he's learned; most recently, he spent many months on a several thousand kilometer walk across the sacred Narmada river, while his mother in Delhi did daily acts of kindness.  This year, he spent 3 months deeply studying Vedanta in the Himalayas. :)  There's not too many links on him, but we did manage to snag his writings into a blog once. :)

Deepak is a former IIT engineer, has spent many years at Microsoft, been senior exec at some established companies, and then led some startups.  He's been connected to ServiceSpace for more than a decade.  During a rough patch in his life, he turned to generosity as a way to heal.  College students often asked him to mentor them, and he decided he would just say yes.  In that one year, he met with several hundred folks.  That led to his labor of love project -- KarmaCircles.  Its platform makes it easy for anyone to give and receive mentoring -- find a person, request for an online or in-person meeting, and thank them for their help (which also builds one's generosity profile).  He shares more context in this interview.

Grateful to be in the company of such kindred folks.     

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