The Teachers Behind the Expertise: Why No One Builds a Career Alone

The Room Where Expertise Learned to Breathe

There’s a moment in every career when you look back and realize—I know what I’m doing.  

It arrives not with fanfare, but with stillness. Like a room you didn’t know you were building, suddenly furnished. And people start to turn to you, seeking direction.  

And that’s when the ego appears. Quietly. Curiously. Dressed like confidence.  

It whispers that you earned this. That your brilliance built the whole damn staircase.  

But a wiser part of you knows better.

Because nothing we are is ours alone.  

Our expertise is stitched together from borrowed threads—gestures, corrections, glances, silences.  

From those who walked ahead, paused, and turned around—just long enough to hand us a compass.

Today, I won’t talk about branding, strategy, or teams.  

Today, I unlock the inner chamber.  

The part of the journey no résumé captures.  

The breath between questions.  

The touch that taught you everything without a word.  

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 S.S. Bhat – The One Who Showed Me How Code Breathes

In India, I spent three years with S.S. Bhat, the CTO of IMISoft. But CTO was just a label.  

He wasn’t chasing titles—he was crafting engineers.

We sat for hours. No clock, just current.  

Each line of C++ —declared, refined, released.  

Sometimes he taught with code, sometimes with silence.  

Through him, I learned more than syntax. I learned how to listen to a structure.  

How to feel where the logic wanted to go.

Together, we built software that designed towers—not just functional, but precise, strong, and beautiful.  

Years later, I gave him a gold ring. Not for payment, not for formality.  

Just to say: I see what you gave me. And I carry it.

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 Mr. Vishwanath – The CEO Who Didn't Need Worship

At IMIMobile, Mr. Vishwanath did what many try but few achieve:  

He built a company without converting people into followers.  

There was no gospel, no altar. Just connection.  

Real, unforced, human connection.  

And in that fertile ground, his company grew.  

Years later, his message—just a simple congratulations—meant more to me than any award.  

Because his words didn’t arrive from a pedestal.  

They came from a place of presence.

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 Dr. Gregory Guthrie & Dr. Ralph Bunker – The Mind-Shapers

In the U.S., Dr. Gregory Guthrie gave me the scaffolding to shift worlds—from India’s tech temples to the American digital labyrinth.  

He built intellectual grounding without closing the door to intuition.

Dr. Ralph Bunker, war-scarred and wisdom-soaked, taught me how to think through code.  

Not just how to build—but why.  

And what it meant to hold a structure in your mind long before your fingers touched the keyboard.  

He drilled in a discipline that had nothing to do with punishment, and everything to do with reverence.

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 Mr. Raghavan Kalkunte – The One Who Built with People

For four years, I worked under Mr. Raghavan Kalkunte, before HR was a polished machine.  

Back then, leaders built culture by feel.  

And he felt everything. From North Carolina to Beijing, from Bengaluru to California, he knew how to sense people.  

He taught me how to build teams not from strategy decks, but from energy.  

He read cultures like stories, and placed people where they could bloom.  

Everything I know about hiring, leadership, and workplace spirit—started with him.

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 Dr. Valérie Gauthier & Dr. Charles-Henri Besseyre des Horts – The Shapers of Thought & Touch

At HEC Paris, Dr. Valérie Gauthier moved between language and leadership like a dancer.  

She showed me that business isn’t made of numbers—it’s made of nuance.  

That a leader must speak to the parts of people that spreadsheets never touch.  

Dr. Charles-Henri brought structure. Sacred geometry of HR.  

He gave me frameworks to match my intuition, maps to follow when my compass spun.  

With them, I saw what organizations feel like when they’re aligned.  

And what happens when they’re not.

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 Ms. Luana Brandão – Brazil as a Feeling

Luana Brandão didn’t teach me Portuguese. She seduced me into it.  

Her words melted across skin and sense.  

With her, I didn’t learn Brazil. I entered it.  

Not as a country—but as a pulse.  

She whispered a phrase: viver de coração.  

To live from the heart. But not the Hallmark version.  

This was a chest torn open. A rhythm-first, logic-later kind of living.  

It was the kind of love you don’t manage—you surrender to.  

And that is the essence of Latin America.  

Business included.

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 The Wisdom Is Not Mine

If anything in this blog stirred something in you—if it felt true, or warm, or alive—  

know that it didn’t begin with me.  

I’m the channel. The container.  

The melody passed through me, but it was never mine.

The imperfections? Those are all me.  

But the light? That came from those who lit my path.

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 And You?

You didn’t arrive at your expertise alone.  

So pause. And ask:

- Who shaped your rhythm?  

- Who steadied your hand when you doubted?  

- Who saw your potential before you could pronounce it?

Because you’re not self-made.  

You’re mosaic-made.  

And that makes you whole.