Dr. Ravi Gundlapalli argues that mentorship beats money. He uses the Mahabharata story where Arjuna chose Krishna's counsel over Duryodhana's army, then connects it to entrepreneurship: a mentor's time, network, and judgment unlock more value than a cash gift.
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Hi. Today I'm going to be sharing a story as well as some perspectives about making a decision.
When it comes to choosing between resources and wisdom. What do you choose?
Let me start with a story from an ancient epic from India, the Mahabharata. Mahabharata has 100,000 verses which is by far the longest epic known to mankind.
Now people say, is it just a book or did it really happen? You know, my mentor once told me, if it is a book, that's incredible that there is a book that long with tens of thousands of characters, intricate plots, such clear details of the locations and the events that happened almost 10,000 years ago.
If it did really happen even then, it's amazing because what happened has so many lessons for us to learn from and implement even in today's world. So one such story from the Mahabharata is this incident. I'll give you a very quick background.
There are two sides. One side that is all about righteousness and the other side that is about, you know, finding every non righteous way to get things done. So there is a time to conflict. There is a time of conflict for both sides to settle this course, which happens all the time, which happens in movies, it happens in many, many mythological works, it happens in real life every single day. There is always a right side and a wrong side and that wants to battle it out. So the situation happens that both sides have reached the decision to actually have a war. And they both the leaders, one of the leaders on both sides, they approach Lord Krishna, who in my book I've described as perhaps the world's first mentor.
So they go to Lord Krishna, Krishna is actually sleeping at that time. And both individuals, one from the right side, the so called Pandavas, and the other from the wrong side, the Kauravas, they both go to him and then several things happen. But finally the time comes to ask Krishna for help. Now Krishna is an incredibly wise mentor and he also commands tens of thousands of highly experienced warriors. So both of them have the option to ask Krishna for help. Now interestingly enough, the first chance is supposed to be given to who went first. In this case the leader from the Kauravas, you know, Duryodhana as his name is called. Now don't worry about the names, you will see the context very soon. He arrives there first, but then our mentor Krishna sees Arjuna first. So according to the principles, whoever I see first, I'm going to give that person the first chance. So the person on the wrong side is thinking, oh my God, he's going to ask for all these tens of thousands of warriors and I'm left with just one person. So what happens at the end of it is the Arjuna, who is on the right side in this particular epic. Now we are no way to decide who is right, who is wrong. But according to the epic, Arjuna is on the right side of so called righteousness. And he requests Krishna to be on his side. Because Krishna offers two choices. Either I can be on your side, or I can get my entire 10,000 or tens of thousands of warriors on one side. So do you want me or do you want my highly experienced super strong warriors? Now Arjuna, the one on the right side, says, krishna, I want you. But Krishna says, but I'm not going to actually lift a single in a war instrument. I'm not going to fight the war, I'm just going to be there for you. Arjuna says, that's fine, just be with me. That's good enough. The person on the wrong side, rightfully so. He's extremely happy. Even though he came first, even though he got the second chance to ask, he got what he was always looking for. He wanted the entire army of Krishna, tens of thousands of warriors. So both sides are happy. Arjuna gets Krishna, and Krishna promised that he will not fight in the war, but just be there for him. Whereas Duryodhana, the one on the wrong side, is happy because he got what he wanted. Tens of thousands of highly experienced warriors. Like I talked about. Now I'm repeating some of this because many of.
Viewers may not know the epic, but what's the lesson there? So I have, as an entrepreneur, as a tech entrepreneur, I just want to put it in the context of what we go through every day. Now. I believe in mentorship, I believe in the power of human wisdom, and I believe in having access to that wisdom. So I have some amazing mentors who I feel so blessed, people who have opened a whole world of opportunities for me, people who have helped me publish books, people who have helped me be on podcasts, start my company, win new customers and speak all over the world. So if I have a choice, or if one of you have a choice, so let's say we go to John Chambers, the iconic CEO of Cisco, or Desh Deshpande, who who has built several unicorn companies, or Elon Musk, or someone like Simon Schenek, or someone like Jim Collins, who is just an amazing, amazing mentor for entrepreneurs. If all of these people, I have a choice and they give me a similar choice, let's say Deshpande says Hey, Ravi, I can give you a million dollars or I can spend half an hour a week or half an hour every other week with you just to discuss your business situation, your vision, and then offer my guidance. What would you pick? Now, interestingly, since I believe in mentorship, I am going to pick Teshpande's 30 minutes a week or 30 minutes every other week than the million dollars now. Why? Because when I have access to somebody's wisdom and when I'm able to come convince them of the value of the time that they're investing in me, I have the entire world of that mentor. Desh can open more doors for me or John Chambers can introduce me to other amazing people in his network. And the amount of resources I will have access to will be much more than a million dollars. If I did the other, if I took the million dollars I may actually spend on wrong priorities, I may not invest that money correctly and may again end up with needing help. So when it comes to a choice between resources and wisdom, my experience and even the lesson from the great epic Mahabharata and the incident I talked about is choose wisdom. Choose wisdom from the right people who will be there for you, who will watch for you, who will look out for you, who will open their entire world of connections, their experience, their resources, and always cheer you to success. Now, interestingly enough, many, many years before I started mentor cloud, before I started this journey to impact 100 million people with the power of mentorship, I used to do drama. I love being on stage and doing st stage dramas, not the life dramas.
In the us you call them theatre. So I did theatre. And one of the roles that I played is that Mahabharata epic where I played the person, Arjuna, who I described as the person on the right side. And obviously that entire theatrical play is about me asking Krishna, saying, you be on my side. You don't have to pick a single arrow. You don't even have to do anything. Just be there for me, guide me, cheer me, strengthen my confidence. And that's exactly what happens. And Arjuna wins the war, whereas the other side that only looked at resources, saw all of their resources spent in a matter of days and actually lose the war. So I hope this perspective helps and be on the lookout for the right wisdom. Don't just focus on resources. If you get the right wisdom, you may not actually need resources or you may have access to much, much more resources than you can ever imagine to achieve your life's purpose, whether it is in your career or whether it is in your startup in your company, you can achieve a lot more when you make the right choice. Wisdom versus resources. Thank you.
