I was haunted by a dark past where my father beat up my mother almost every day. He screamed at me for no reason and my mom left him only to end up with a guy who was no better. I thought I’d end up broke, poor or would spend my all life living on the sidewalks. Hope was nowhere to be seen, the light at the end of the tunnel was gone and all I could see was endless oblivion of darkness.

You could say my life was hanging through a string and that string was my mom. She always used to push me to a greater good, to be better than what I had seen. Her tears fueled my journey. But without proper education, success was hard. I tried a lot of jobs and ended up disappointed. I knew where I was lacking and yet I kept trying, thinking someone might recognize the fire in me.

Lost and broken, I started a job as an office boy at a real estate company. I had started this job with a new goal in mind, a goal to provide quality education to the needy. I wanted to give those looking to better themselves an opportunity to learn and grow.

But before I could teach, I had to learn. I enrolled myself in English classes and took personality development courses to enhance who I am because, the world sees you for how you act, not just what you know.

During the classes, I found someone who shared the same dream and was ready to lend me a hand. I had enough money saved from my job to rent a small room that could seat 20 people at the max. As I said, I didn’t have enough money so ways of getting the word out about our institute were limited. So we proceeded with the cheapest possible way, flyers and pamphlets.

Initially, we got only 7 students and that was a big achievement for us. To be honest, our expectations were met beyond what we had thought. Seven out of five of the candidates cleared the IELTS exams and they all got a band score above 7. What could be more reassuring for a business than a positive outcome? This was our ace and we used our achievement for advertisement.

Pretty soon we had groups of 20 students and we set up milestones after milestones. The best part about our startup was we didn’t enroll candidates who could afford these courses but we gave chances to those unable to pay a hefty amount.

Starting a venture also depends on a specific vision. It matters not whether the venture is profitable in the beginning, what’s important is how far you are willing to go to make things work. I had a vision and my friend helped polished it. It wasn’t long before we moved to a bigger accommodation and expanded our class for 50 students. The process went on and we now own a fully furnished place. Kunal Bansal Chandigarh Institute now teaches a batch of 100 students at the moment, and our successful delivery rate is close to 100%.

I didn’t achieve a millionaire tag nor do I aspire to. The sole motive behind telling this story is that your past is irrelevant. What you do with your present is what makes you successful. And although I had a bitter past, I could’ve been something else. I chose to better the lives of others who probably go through the same.