Inspire Someone Today
Inspire Someone Today
E153 | The Mountain She Chose to Climb | Rigzen Wangmo
Rigzen Wangmo shares her journey from a small village in Ladakh to Harvard Kennedy School and back, where she founded the Village Lab Foundation to revolutionize education by integrating local context, culture, and community.
• Grew up in Nubra Valley near Siachen, spending early years exploring freely before being sent to boarding school
• Discovered her passion for teaching while volunteering in communities during her zoology studies in Delhi
• Joined Teach for India program in Pune, where she taught for two years despite language barriers
• Returned to Ladakh after discovering SECMOL, an alternative school that impressed her with its educational approach
• Founded Village Lab Foundation on the principle that curriculum should fit children, not children fitting into a curriculum
• Uses the entire village as a learning laboratory with community members as volunteer facilitators
• Shifted from viewing her village identity through a deficit lens to recognizing its rich assets
• Focuses on creating education rooted in culture, nature, and community living
• Believes in taking a long-term view of education, planning for generations rather than just years ahead
• Emphasizes the importance of pausing, reflecting, and practicing gratitude as leadership practices
To learn more about the Village Lab Foundation or to visit us in Nubra Valley, Ladakh, reach out through our website or social media channels.
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I think Village Lab Foundation was born with a very simple idea that children should not fit into the curriculum we design. We should fit our curriculum based on their needs and based on what. What do they want? So I think growing up it was always like a fight for becoming someone else.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Inspire Someone Today podcast, a show where we dive into the stories and insights that has the power to create ripples of inspiration in your life. I'm your host, shrikant, and I'm thrilled to be with you on this journey of inspiration. This is Inspire Someone Today, celebrating five years of creating ripples of inspiration. Couldn't have been more excited than this month where we have back-to-back episodes celebrating five years of Inspire Someone Today and to be part of this journey joining me today. In today's episode is we bring you the voice of a woman who didn't just find her path, she walked it home.
Speaker 2:Meet Rikzen Mangbo, an educator, changemaker and a soulful listener to the whispers of her land. From Ladakh to city classrooms, from global exposure to grassroots impact, her life is a stunning circle living to learn and returning to serve. This episode is all about homecoming not just to a place but to a purpose. It's about what happens when a quiet voice decides to become a guiding one, and it's a reminder that sometimes going far is what helps us to see what's all the way and been close. It's an absolute joy to have Rigzen Wangmu on this episode of Inspire Someone today. Welcome to the show, rigzen.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm honored to be here speaking to you.
Speaker 2:It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure to have you, Rigzen. I see your journey as reflection, resilience and rediscovery from the beautiful land of Ladakh. Let's kind of take you back to Aang Rigzen from Ladakh. What was it like growing up for Aang Rigzen and how did this all happen? What ideas, questions or restlessness lived in her as Aang Rigzen? Just walk us through that. Walk us through that phase of your journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. I come from a village called Sumur which is very close to, if you've heard, siachen. It's just like 60 kilometers away from Siachen. So we're up in the north, you know, in Ladakh, and growing up it was. I spent most of my time mostly with my mother and my grandmother, because my father used to be away for his work. So I studied in the same village that I, you know, I was born in. So, just with all my friends, my day-to-day life was mostly just exploration and full of, you know, fun, play and playfulness. I would say so that's how I think. I spent mostly till my fifth grade, just in my village, carefree, running around the field, watching my parents work, mostly in the garden and you, you know, in the field, and just listening to stories from my grandmother. So it was very beautiful, fun and lots of you know like exploration. I would say, yeah, so it was still 10 years old, and then, soon after, I was sent to a boarding school. From there, then a different phase of my childhood starts yeah.
Speaker 2:So, growing up with all the fun and festivities in ladakh, you went to the boarding school in pursuit of education, pursuit of how you can fit into the world out there. Then what happened? How did this whole idea of wanting to give back? Where did this journey take you and what brought you?
Speaker 1:kind of come back to the point that you are here now I think, uh, for me it wasn't like a very unusual thing that I was sent to a school. That's how every child was sent. You know, every family would want their children to get an education and since it wasn't like readily available in their villages, they would just send it. So it wasn't very unusual for me as well. So that's why I think I accepted too coyly that, okay, like everybody goes, we'll also have to go out. So yeah, growing up it was always kind of put in our mind that education meant going away. Education meant leaving your families or staying in a place that is just for your academics and that's where you will learn. So it was never seen as integrated, as just being with your family or like learning from your community. So I didn't question much, to be honest, because that's how life was, that, that's how everybody was doing it. So I felt like, okay, if this is what I am expected to do or get an education, I will do it. And just to tell you that I am the eldest daughter of my parents and my parents didn't have a chance to go to school. My father went till like eight or something, I don't quite remember, but my mother never even like entered a school so they were also not very sure you know like things.
Speaker 1:I also went on, you know, kind of exploring different things and that took me to then Delhi. After my schooling I went to Delhi, did my bachelor's in zoology, which was shared out of lack of guidance, I would say, because it wasn't like my first Now looking back, it wouldn't be my first now looking back it. It it wouldn't be my you know kind of first choice, but I still kind of just like, chose zoology and then I completed my bachelor's and master's from Delhi University. But while I was doing my graduation and master's, I was fortunate to also get involved in different organizations as a volunteer. So that really helped me open my eyes into different ideas and different options that are available for me to explore.
Speaker 1:So that's how I kind of started exploring on my own what else can I do and what else, you know, do I explore that brings joy to me, and teaching was one of them. As a volunteer I used to often go to communities to teach children and that, I think, was, I would say, one of the turning points in my life where I kind of found that this is really, you know, what I want to do. In my heart, I knew that I'm going to be a teacher for the rest of my life. I didn't know how you know, how will that happen, how would it look like in the future, but I knew in my heart that I want to be with children and that's how it all started in some like. I don't even remember the name, but a very small community in North Delhi, a little closer to my college.
Speaker 2:Wow, From a point in time where you followed the template of study for some period of time in your village. Then go to coding school, do what was told. Now you're at a point of scripting your own journey, challenging some of the conventional methods of scripting your own journey, challenging some of the conventional methods. So what if you studied zoology? That shouldn't stop you from going and teaching the kids and you change the script.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say um, unknowingly, because it wasn't like a, I wouldn't say that I was very um. You know, there was a lot of choices that I was making like very consciously. Also I knew that this makes me happy and this is really something that makes sense to me. But I think the changing the script consciously really came a little later. Also, you know, in my life journey, when I started then immersing myself into education fully, when, when I started exploring different facets of education very deeply, then I kind of started thinking really really deeply and consciously about how do I want to change the narrative of how things work and how it should be, so that I think will come into the later part of my life when things happen, you know.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We'll get on to that particular piece in a bit. So, along all of these moments that you kind of found your passion, you wanted to kind of pursue something in the field of education, was there certain beliefs, limitations that you held on to and you found it difficult to kind of let go of it, or what made you to kind of take the next decision? What was the next step after this?
Speaker 1:so, yeah, when I did my master's in zoology without any particular kind of very way forward, like clear way forward, I thought that why not I continue doing something that I really like, which is teaching or being with children? And that's when and I feel very fortunate that things really aligned itself because right after my master's, I got to know about Teach for India amazing organization. I didn't know much about it before, but then, right after, I got to know about it and I was like teaching already. So I felt like this is a right time for me to, okay, just like jump into that and see what happens, right, so I filled up the teach for india application form and then found myself in pune after you know, few months and I didn't know marathi, you know, I was like going to that part of the country for the first time and but then I was very curious and excited to see what unfolds in teacher India. So teacher India really became like the first kind of place for me to immerse myself fully into a classroom, be with the children full time for two years, explore education on ground, day in and day out. It gave me that understanding of how education really works in India. Right, because I was teaching this 30 students every day and so, yeah, I think it was the start of everything that I do now as an as an educator. And I clearly remember the first time I went to that school it's a government school, low-income a government school and there was a bunch of like 30 energetic kids flying, you know, everywhere in the classroom and then I am very, you know like first nervous. You know like I'm teaching and I'm going in as a teacher for the first time and I went in. Then everybody started talking to me in Marathi and I had no idea because, like, for them also it was a first year intervention and I was talking to them in English and sometimes in Hindi. So there was like, no, like a language kind of formality, since still, like, for the first six months, we all like use gestures and, like you know, our hands and head and like all the facial expression to communicate. And then that became my core of like, I think, what I do, like and what I want to do. I saw each child evolve. I saw each child becoming who they are in true sense, you know. Know, through conversations, through reflections, through talking to each other. So I really felt the power of education really in that class, and that kind of made me really reassured that I want to do this, you know, actually for the rest of my life. So that's how it all started.
Speaker 1:Teach for India I did for two years and then I came back. So I actually in between, like the fellowship there, there's this 10 days holidays in October. That's when I was looking at opportunities in Ladakh to volunteer because we have 10 days holidays. So I thought, okay, why not I just go back to Ladakh and see? Because eventually I wanted to come back and do something here in Ladakh and I wanted to have that context and have some experience working with children in Ladakh as well. So I ended up volunteering at Sekmal.
Speaker 1:Sekmal is this amazing alternative school in Ladakh, founded by Mr Sonam Vangchop and a bunch of Ladakhi leaders and change makers, I would say so. I was there as a volunteer for 10 days and then what I saw at SAC mall was completely like I was blown. You know, I was really really impressed and amazed by the way education is practiced, you know. So then I was like, okay, this is amazing, but I have to finish my fellowship. So I came back to Pune, finished my fellowship. That's when I also got the offer to be the academic director at SIGMALL. So right after my fellowship I returned. It was a very, very good opportunity for me to really work with children from all over Ladakh because at SIGMALL SIGMALL is a place where children from all over Ladakh come like they stay there. It's a residential school, so it was a really good opportunity for me to be with the children all the time and just to see and explore things and educations now with them. So that that's how I kind of came back to Ladakh as a teacher at SIGWAL.
Speaker 2:What a journey it has been. Thank you for walking through us with those elements, those pieces of it and with all of these things. The core in everything that you speak about, everything you kind of write about, is education is at the heart of it. Wanting to kind of give back to the community is at the heart of it, and have you ever reflected upon this, thought about it? Where is all of this stemming from?
Speaker 1:I think, yeah, many people really ask you know why? Like why do you have to come back, why do you have to do what you do? But I feel like it's a way of living right and it is something that you see growing up. I really believe that people here are in ladakh, are are giving, and that's how they're like grown up, like just seeing others, like even if my community members, my villagers it's just a way of life. There's no question that if I want to do something for others, that that's how the community functions right. So I feel like it's so ingrained in us, especially in the young, just seeing others or like the elders doing the things that they do for the society, for the community, for them, for everyone. That's how I think it is.
Speaker 1:And the fact that I've lived here, I've experienced education here, the fact that I've experienced education that is not enough to realize the potential of a child. So I felt like, okay, we need to change and no one's going to come from outside to change right for us. It's the people here who needs to kind of rethink education and reimagine education. So my lived experiences also really helped me kind of see things in different light. My lived experiences also helped me understand what's not working, what's working well in education, and that really helped me understand, okay, what we need to do now. Um, so I would say, just like the community, growing up in a community that is so giving and by nature and just obvious, and my own lived experiences really helped me kind of be who I am and do what I do now.
Speaker 2:And for the benefit of all of our listeners, not knowing what education setup is either in Ladakh or in your own place, nobru Valley, to be kind of closer just give us a perspective of what education looks like, maybe when you were growing up, or maybe what it is today, and what is that gap that you're trying to kind of fill yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 1:Growing up it's. For me it was because I was also a, you know, a child who was very interested in storytelling, who was very curious and very interested in like reading books, and I was just like naturally very inclined to reading books. So I used to just like wait for my cousins, my friends, to finish their books so that I can like read it, and there was like no concept of library or anything right in the village and I had hardly seen like storybooks, like so it was only comics like Chacha Chaudhary and those like those comics that used to come, and even for that I used to wait in line and just like those were like treasures for us. So I would say, overall, the opportunity and access to these resources was very scar like or like very less unlimited, you know, when I was growing up. Fortunately, now things are changing with the kind of evolving economy and everything else. I believe that things are changing, but I still feel that there is a gap in terms of what are we learning? Right? It could be within the schools or outside the schools as well.
Speaker 1:Now for a context. You know that Ladakh is a region with a very distinct culture, traditions, way of living and being, and now, with the implementation of syllabus or curriculum that doesn't necessarily reflect our lived experiences or the context very well, it makes children feel a little alienated to the world, right? For example, if I'm flipping a page, if I'm reading a story, I want to see a girl like me there. I want to see a house like mine in the story. I want to see the mountains. I want to see the double hump camel. I want to see a house like mine in the story. I want to see the mountains. I want to see the double hump camel. I want to see my grandmother, the attire or the traditional clothes that she wears. I want to see all of these.
Speaker 1:But seldom you see those you know. And then that makes you feel almost like less, uh, worthy or less appreciated, because you are never like uh, worthy or less appreciated, because you are never like portrayed or you are never included in those mainstream narratives or stories or in mainstream media world stuff like that. So I feel that the context needs to be integrated in what children are learning, and that is unfortunately not up to the mark now, right? So that's what we are trying to kind of fill in. That Village Lab Foundation is an organization that we have started. Maybe we can talk more about it later, but what we are doing is we are focusing on the lived experiences of children here in Ladakh. The context, the curriculum, is rooted in culture, the nature and the community way of living and being wonderful.
Speaker 2:So you saw a gap in how education was delivered and through your lived experiences of working at teach for india, working for the segmal foundation of sonam, you created that experience for yourself, for you to kind of go back and do that, and that's how the birth of village lab foundation came into the story. Tell us a bit about what village lab foundation is all about and also a bit about working with one and only Sonam Wangchuk. What was it like working with him and what did you kind of learn from the experience of working with him?
Speaker 1:yeah, absolutely. I think, um, I'm very fortunate to be able to have that opportunity to work very closely with him while I was working in tech mall and even now having him as a mentor. So for me it was reimagining education was. So when I entered education it wasn't like a big kind of idea that I was thinking. But when I entered SACMALL and when I started like really working closely with him, I feel that it was, I think it just like really made that difference, especially, you know, in terms of how he was thinking about education not just for tomorrow, not just for 10, you know, for the next year or for the next 10 years, but he was literally thinking about education for the next 50 years and for the, you know, for the next generations to come. So I feel like that really helped me see the big picture. Now I do not, when I'm building Village Life Foundation, I'm not just thinking about how would education look like for tomorrow or look like for next month or next year or next like five years, but I'm really thinking about where would it take us you know all of us and Ladakh as a region where will you know it take our children, our next generation? So I think, just like be able to see those big pictures and be, I wouldn't say, visionary, but I think to able to see like those big pictures really now enable me to feel, you know, like work within my organization also.
Speaker 1:And I think Village Lab Foundation was born with a very simple idea that children should not fit into the curriculum we design. We should fit our curriculum based on their needs and based on what do they want? Right, and in our case, in Ladakh, they really want education that is contextual, show that really, you know, incorporate their lived experiences. Um, so that's what I think it just like, born out of all these questions. And it's also interesting because when I was designing it, I first thought that I want to start a school.
Speaker 1:You know, it wasn't like a foundation or anything that I wanted to do, but mostly just like a school. So then I started thinking that, okay, what would this organization do? And it didn't just have children, it had my grandparents, it had the villagers, it had the land, it had the mountains, it had the streams. So then I thought, how would a school contain all of this? And that's why we started the village lab foundation, where we work with all the community, we use our whole village as a learning lab, as a school, and we partner with the villagers as facilitators can everybody listening to this podcast get an opportunity to kind of come visit the Village Lab Foundation, get a tour of it?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. We actually had a lot of people visiting us this year also, since we are just like started, we do not have like a big space or anything of our own, but we still run out of place which our villagers have generously offered for now, and we are really fortunate that many people came forward to volunteer just see our work and also kind of and people like you who are like listening to our narratives and sharing this to the larger audience. So we have been very fortunate in that sense and I would we would love to, you know, have people visit us in Nubra. It's a beautiful place with more beautiful like way of learning as well.
Speaker 2:So, rigjan, you have literally taken the adage it takes a village to raise a child. You're literally taking the entire village to bring in education to the kids in Nubra Valley. So congratulations to you on that Turning the classic mode of education upside down. What a powerful statement it was. It is for us to make change happen. That's what Rigson stated out there.
Speaker 2:Rikson's journey takes us from a resource-challenged childhood where opportunity was a distant dream to returning home with a mission. Through the Village Lab Foundation, she is just not teaching children. She is planting seeds of transformation in the very soil she grew up in. And, like she said, they are not planning this for the next year, for the next five years, but for the next generation. And this is not charity. This is a story of strategy, grit and and an unshakable belief that education can rewrite the destiny of a community. Isn't it so beautiful?
Speaker 2:I welcome you to look more into Village Lab Foundation. If possible, make a trip down there and let's get back to listening to what else Rikzan has in store for her to share with all of us. Back to listening, while it's one thing to have a big dream, to have a big, bold ambition, but it's other thing to make it happen. So, when you're talking about this big picture thinking, wanting to do something for your village, not for the immediate future, next year, five years from now, but for generations to come, what were some of the methodologies, frameworks or conversation that you had that instilled that big picture thinking in you?
Speaker 1:yeah. So I would say that took me a lot of uh reflection. It took me a lot of um, uncomfortable, uncomfortable kind of moments of you know thinking. It took me a lot of conversation with people who really believe in my work and in community learning, or people who really believe in learning that should be rooted in culture, you know should be rooted in community. You know it should be rooted in community. So one of the few people I met was a professor at Harvard Kennedy School, professor Marshall Ganz. He teaches this really democratic schools.
Speaker 1:I think those two courses plus professors really helped me design for and I mean they really sparked the initial kind of insights and initial kind of you know thoughts in me about, okay, how should we go about it, how should we go about designing. And then later, when I came back and all the conversations I had for the past like one year, I just had conversations with my villagers. You know I used to just gather like a group of women and sometimes just like a bunch of kids or like people every now and then and talk to them Like what does education mean to you? What does it mean to your child? You know, what does it mean to us as a community.
Speaker 1:So those conversations really helped me design, you know, things that we, the programs that we are doing right now, and, similarly, I feel like those conversations are really important to ground yourself into the work that you are doing. You can actually, you know, import any framework and say that, okay, I'm going to implement this, but I think that doesn't really sustain, especially in places where the needs are so contextual and the needs are so different and unique. That's when the reflections, the uncomfortable conversations and thinking and rethinking are really helped and people who really believe in you and people who can then support you also in designing those. So I think for me it was a combination of all of those.
Speaker 2:And do you attribute that as the secret of execution as well?
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely, and I think the execution beat is also up for me. It became much more easier in terms of execution, especially because my villagers volunteered to work with me. When I came here with this bold idea, with no proof that this is going to work or this is what we are doing, the initial conversation they were not even able to imagine what I was talking about. And then I was talking about we have to reimagine education for our village and for our people and for our children here. We need not send them to Delhi, or like at least for the younger age. Okay, I'm not talking about that. We should not send our kids anywhere. I have gone everywhere and then I've come back.
Speaker 1:I know that there's a lot of value in exploration and seeing you know things for yourself, opening up to different ideas, but I do believe that the foundational you know learning, or the very basic learning that happens, that should happen near to your root. Then you can make your own choice and then you can go out, you can choose to serve and come back, and then you know do what feels right for you as a human right, and then there is a purpose and a sense of choice there and there's a sense of agency there. So for me it was like it was very hard for people to even imagine what I was talking about. But I got really fortunate that even then people really volunteered.
Speaker 1:I now I have like around 10 folks from my village. They are just like VLF members and they work day in and out with me without any expectation. I would call them at random odd hours saying that you know like this thing is not happening. Can Can you come help me? You know like I have to remove this shelf and there's more books coming. Where should I put? You know those little things as well. So they had just stood by me from day one without even seeing the result of what I'm trying to build. So I feel like that really enabled me to execute what I'm executing now.
Speaker 2:How powerful. You make the traits of a great leader look so seamless In a world where you got to show proof. You have shown something that is abstract and sold that concept for people to believe in your leadership, in your thought, to kind of support you, to see what Village Lab Foundation is today and the headline for you, rick John, has always been. That's what kind of took my attention as well. The girl from Himalaya to Harvard that was the headline that kind of captured my attention. And my question for that girl from the Himalaya to Harvard is what does leadership look like for you, not in theory, but in the quiet everyday moments? What's leadership?
Speaker 1:I think for me, leadership is a practice. For sure it is a practice. It is how you live every day. It is not something that you live for a day in a yard or something. It is a practice that you live, you breathe and you really believe in. And I also believe that leadership is not just, it's a collective, it's a collective effort right when you are able to enable others to achieve and that's something I've also learned from my professor that leadership is a practice that really enables others to achieve a shared purpose. And I believe that that's something I really feel and try to work towards, that I am not just walking alone, but I'm taking my people along with me to a shared purpose of achieving a good, meaningful education in a region like Ladakh. So that means enabling my youth, that means enabling the children, that means enabling the villagers in my region so that they are able to see that purpose as well. So overall, I feel like it's a practice, it's a way of living. Leadership is a way of living. That's how you function beautiful.
Speaker 2:Leadership is a way of living. Couldn't have kind of coined it better than that reason. And in all of this process, all of this journey, was there moments of discomfort, moments of challenge that you have not spoken in public, but that is what has made you the person that you are today.
Speaker 1:I think, throughout my journey whatever you know I've done or been through, till, like my education at Harvard, I was constantly fighting or to run away from my identity, you know, or my own self, I would say. In some way I always wanted to be this pretty girl speaking fluent English or, like you know, wearing certain things, or just like being a different kind, who is kind of praised and who is shown in those books and tv and everything in those popular media. So I think, growing up, it was always like a fight for becoming someone else, right, I think I always um, not always, but I used to discard things that were making me look small, like you know, like maybe working in the firm could have been, you know, labored, as, oh, you've come from a village, so that's why you are to be faced, and stuff like that. So I almost felt very disconnected to my own identity, to be honest, you know, for a long time. And it was only when I started reflecting on, like, what strengths it has to be this girl from Samur, from Ladakh, from this community, which is amazing.
Speaker 1:So I think, like till then, I was constantly running away from my identity and it was only when I started really reflecting on my experiences, my, uh, my community you know the strength that it has. That made me kind of embrace my identity slowly, and now I feel very confident and proud to say that I'm from a village and I live in a village and I come from this village, which has wealth of knowledge and wisdom, and that needs to be, that the world needs to learn from. And I feel like those uncomfortable moments with my own identity is something that I did not speak about and wasn't very conscious, you know, like conscious about for the longest of time, I would say.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's a huge claim from not liking your own identity to now falling in love with that identity. What shift did you have to make in order to kind of embrace that new identity, to feel comfortable with who you are?
Speaker 1:I think, um, the shift was, I would say, from changing or viewing my myself from a deficit lens to an asset lens. Earlier my focus was more like, oh, we don't have this in the village, or like people don't do this in the village, or like the, you know, cities are like shinier and stuff like that. Right, it was mostly for the deficit, kind of like what's not there. But I would say what changed is when I started looking at what's there, you know, like the asset approach that people call. Now we have relationships, we have clearer skies, we have stories, we talk to our grandparents, the elders, the community members. Every day there is community engagement, there is a sense of warmth and belongingness in being in a village. You know, things like that really made me shift my focus from what we don't have and what we now are so rich in, you know, and those are not very tangible, but things that really really matter, especially in today's life, that is, relationship and community.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That's a great, wonderful mindset to have, From a scarcity mindset to an abundant mindset. You gave us a great line there, Vixen. Well, we have been having this wonderful, lovely conversation with the girl from the Himalayas who went to Harvard talking about her Village Lab Foundation, talking about taking education back to the Nubra Valley in Ladakh. If you're ready, we'll get into the Power of Three Round segment.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So we are here with Rigzan and the Power of Three Round. The first of the Power of Three Round questions Rigzan coming to you Three life lessons learned through your journey as a changemaker.
Speaker 1:I would say first is change starts slow, and that's okay. And I would say, remember your, your why. That will guide you and that's your anchor, that's your northern light. And I would say, take your people along.
Speaker 2:Superb Wonderful Three words to describe your journey so far.
Speaker 1:Exploration rooted and evolving Exploration rooted and evolving.
Speaker 2:Okay, exploration, rooted and evolving wonderful three things. The next generation must unlearn to build a better future.
Speaker 1:I would say success doesn't necessarily mean accumulation of materialistic wealth. Pause, learn to pause, learn to pause and do nothing. Be nothing to pause and do nothing, be nothing, just pause and breathe and see. And third thing is stay close to your people.
Speaker 2:Rikshan, you are giving us some wonderful nuggets. How are they going to keep it up? Rikshan, if you were to do this podcast interview 10 years from now, what is the advice that you would give to the future self of the exam?
Speaker 1:advice. Okay, this is interesting. I would say you take it slow, you might get white or like, uh, you know you might get in tight to doing thing, many things all together, but take it slow and trust the process. I would say it could be challenging. I know that it is challenging. What I'm doing is I believe it is challenging. What I'm doing is I believe it is a movement and it is going to take a lot of time and it is going to take a lot of, you know, uncomfortable conversations and thinking. So I think, but I know that it's worth it. It's worth it for people and children here in Ladakh.
Speaker 2:When the community is behind you, it's even more worth it.
Speaker 1:Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1:What are your three personal passions? That drives you being with children? For sure it grounds me, it humbles me, it really keeps me. You know, stay in reality and not like just designing something. I teach every day and I know that I feel that it is how it should be, that we should never be too away and too far from the real things that we're working for. So, yeah, just being with children. My passion is also storytelling. I really believe in the power of stories and stories can definitely change the world, and that's something I want to also kind of continue telling my stories, enable others and people to tell their stories as well, because everyone has a story to tell.
Speaker 2:Everyone has a story to tell, for sure, and you are running the Village Lab Foundation. This is an apt question for the Village Lab Foundation head, which is if there are three micro experiments that you could recommend, which is either nurturing the resilience factor or improving the storytelling. What are those three micro experiments that you would recommend our listeners to practice?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think very similar to what I said earlier pause and reflect every now and then be with yourself more, be with the nature more. It really nourishes your soul and mind. I know that the times that we are living in is moving fast and fast enough for us to make feel like know everyone's, just like you know, feel very isolating also. So I feel like pause, think for yourself Also, you know, be in touch with nature and I also feel that practice gratitude.
Speaker 1:I always say that gratitude is a leadership practice. Being grateful to what you are able to do now, being grateful to what you are able to do now, being grateful to what you are going to do, and being grateful to people, environments, that enables you to do things is also a leadership practice. Nature, more often than ever, because we as a generations are really drifting away from the very beautiful, you know, environment and earth that we live on and we're just going into this. Really I I don't know like what's the term, it um, but I think from reality. So, with the advent of a lot of technology and then AI and then very short lived reels and stuff like that, we often do not have time for the real things great micro experiments to think of.
Speaker 2:They pause and reflect. One for sure, the last of the power of three roundun question Rikzit. Three things that you're really proud of at the Village Lab Foundation.
Speaker 1:I'm really proud of the community members, the VLF members, who are really amazing and who have been my pillar of strength. I'm really proud of the community who have embraced this new idea, new movement with open arms and are ready to kind of join the movement. And I'm really proud of the children who are willing to learn and do this work with me.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. Just drawing on that, that officially racks up our power of three round segment. Drawing from there where you left. What does legacy mean to you and what is your month of outliving the legacy that you have set for yourself?
Speaker 1:I would say it is in knowing that children in Ladakh are Ladakh, know that their culture is their wisdom. It is in knowing that children are able to make purposeful choices for themselves and for the world. It is also in knowing that community members know that how they live what they do, members know that how they live, what they do and their way of living is valued and it is well valuable for the world. I think, if I'm able to do all all of this, I believe that I've left some sort of legacy behind. I don't know if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Absolutely how wonderful it was, rikzan, the world needs more changemakers, more big picture thinkers like you, wishing you, on behalf of me and the entire Inspire Someone Today community, loads of success, loads of gratitude for what you have been doing. Before we sign off, this show is all about creating ripples of inspiration. Watch your Inspire Someone Today message for all of us out here.
Speaker 1:I would say stay true to yourself. Go back to your why every now and then, especially when in doubt, go back to your why. Why have you started? What have you started, even if it's the smallest of things that you are doing right now? I really really believe in the power of why. I believe that it really fuels you. It really, you know like, takes you out from the self-doubt and the self low, self-esteem that you might have, you know, sometimes.
Speaker 2:So go back to your why every now and then going back to that, why, from a person who is making silent but significant contributions from the hilly terrains of Ladakh. Thank you so much, rikzen, for sharing your thoughts, for sharing your journey on this episode of Inspire Someone Today.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining us on this episode of Inspire Someone today. This is Srikant, your host, signing off. Until next time. Continue to carry the ripples of inspiration, stay inspired, keep spreading the light.
