Story of a CA who is a Youth Icon and now on the journey of Entrepreneurship
I was born in a modest Marwari family in Sikar district of Rajasthan, where getting a government job was the only parameter of success in the life. My father was an honest officer in government service, seeing his stories of honesty and respect from people, it seemed that this is the ultimate goal of life. Though I was meritorious in studies, but still I was the weakest in studies among my siblings. So I understood that there is still much left in the race to become the best.The lack of confidence in childhood was so much that even I couldn’t introduce myself properly. But my father always supported and guided me. He inspired me to read Shrimad BhagwatGeeta, Six darshans and other ancient Sanskrit literatures.
At the age of 14, I started reading Hindi and Sanskrit literature,writing poetry and giving speeches. This offered me recognition and satisfaction in an early age. Since I was interested in literature but all the people in the family were from commerce background, as a tradition, I also had to take commerce in class XI. Even after spending most of my time in literature and social work, I topped my school and made a place among toppers in the state in the XIIth board examination.
My elder brother Dr. Vivek Sharma dreamed that I should do CA, so I started CA and ranked among the top 20 students in CPT across the country. I also cleared IPCC exam in first attempt itself and joined Deloitte Haskins & Sells, Gurgaon for articleship. I being a Hindi medium student from a small city, realised that the world is far ahead of me. Here I have learnt responsibility, hard work, art of presenting myself and got ready to prove myself once again. My senior CA Jaideep Bhargava, Partner in Deloitte, my guide CA Abhishek Jain and my elder brother Gyan Prakash supported me tirelessly. Result of their support and my efforts was that I became CA at the age of 22 in the first attempt without doing any regular coaching and at the same time I got a Certificate of Achievement from the managing partner of Deloitte India. I got multiple job offers from my dream organisations and even with handsome packages. But now my goal was to become a job giver not a job seeker.
I started my own practice. The initial struggle was very difficult.Everyone called me crazy. But I had learnt everything from life which was necessary for this new journey. In just 8 years since inception, our firm become a well-known firm serving fortune 500 companies over the globe. Simultaneously, I also got unexpected success in the election of Gurugram Branch of ICAI and at the age of 29, I became the youngest Chairman of the largest branch of ICAI in the northern region.
In January 2021, I surrendered my Certificate of Practice and at the age of just 30 I handedover my firm to my team members. Once again people called me crazy. But now I had come to believe that if people are saying me crazy, then surely I am doing something right. My dream has been that the doors of higher education should be open for everyone, even for those who cannot afford expensive coaching. That is why I founded KS Gurukul, an education startup project to develop a platform where students from all over the country can study on various subjects from subject experts from different corners of the world.Thousands of students will also be given completely free education on merit cum need based scholarship basis.
Lessons I learnt from life:
1. There is no limit of age or subject for learning. I have always continued my studies in the diversified field. I chose the subject of Human Resource Development for a Doctorate. I have done prestigious courses like Financial Accounting and Analysis from IIM Bangalore, Emotional Intelligence from IIT Kharagpur etc. and other such courses are still going on.
2. Connect with people selflessly. I have always kept my speaking passion alive and have conducted hundreds of events to mentor the youth. In any of difficult times, these people become our greatest moral strength, which is not easy for anyone to guess.
3. It is important for all the students to consider articleship/internship as the most important step in the career. My own experience says that during this period you learn important things like time management, multi-tasking, representing yourself, working in a team, accepting your mistakes, respect for others, hard work etc. and all these are equally important to the subject knowledge.
4. Never consider success to be limited only to good marks in the exam or good earning in the job. Success is a combination of prosperity, satisfaction and social appreciation, the sooner you understand this, the easier your journey to success will be. Accept that your hard time is your greatest teacher. What you learn from it, really supports you.
5. Don’t accept a person as your ideal who merely impress you, make your ideal to a person who can bring the change in you. We can be impressed by any player, actor, magician etc., but your ideal should be the person who can mentor you in your journey. I acknowledge the irreplaceable contribution of my mentors my father Mr. SL Sharma, founder of Sankalp group CA Umashankar Sharma, Managing Director of Arihant Institute CA Sandeep Kamdar, my elder brother Dr. Vivek Sharma etc. in my journey.