If you want to learn from Dronacharya, be prepared to be Eklavya.

A few days ago, I read a post here about someone quitting Rodinhoods because Alok did not reply to his email. 

Got me thinking (Yep, I try that sometimes)

I am working on my own tech startup. I seek guidance from many friends, relatives (including Alok) and even strangers (twitter, linkedin zindabad) who are successful at what I want to do and very busy with their own work, family and other engagements. 

They are like Dronacharya – great at what they do. We all want to be Arjun – their beloved student whom they would hand hold and spoon feed – and train to be the best. 

But the reality is that Dronacharya does not have enough time to be “private tutors” to all of us. Some like Alok who actively mentor may have a choose a few people based on some criteria in terms of skills, idea, commitment, connections, timing .. whatever.. like Drona would only teach Princes. Others do not even have the mindset to mentor. 

We have to take a call on whether we value the learning or not. If we do, we should be willing to learn the Eklavya way – from a distance. Read posts/books that are available. Attend their seminars. Look at the advice they are giving to others and see if thats applicable to us too. And ofcourse, keep applying to become Arjun from time to time too.

This is true for famous saints too .. like Art of Living  – not everyone gets a lot (if at all) of one on one time with Shri Ravi Shankar Ji. It is also true for large universities that are now opening their courses for web based users for free – try the Stanford course on tech startups (https://www.coursera.org/course/startup) 

If we truly want to learn, we have to set our ego aside. We have to be ready to take the harder route. Give up on a few extras (degree from stanford, VC intros from Alok). And make most of what we have. 

Thats also the only way entrepreneurs survive – specially those who are low on cash and clout.