This article is written by  Abhyuday Agarwal, COO,  LawSikho.

Tears rolled down my eyes as I saw the ending of the movie called the School of Rock. I had last seen this movie fifteen years back, in 2004, when I was preparing for Class XII boards and law school entrance.

In the final scene, a band of 10-year old kids, led by their teacher, play at a rock competition and completely wow the crowds, which includes their parents. 

The crowd gives a standing ovation, and chants the band’s name, calling them to play another song. 

Their parents, who till that day preferred that their kids study and get good grades instead of pursuing their passion in music, applaud when they see their children’s virtuosity.

I cry because to me that scene signifies a victory of multiple sorts.

First, it is a victory for the protagonist, Jack Black, who was kicked out of his own band. He took the unconventional route and created a highly talented band of school kids, and managed a fantastic comeback. 

Second, it signifies a victory for the young members of the band, who could beat older and more experienced rock musicians in the local circuit.

Third, it signifies a victory for an innovative process. Jack Black innovated by involving a class of school kids in a rock band. The kids followed their passion and gave it everything, to perform even better than the older ‘pros’. 

For those of you who have not seen the movie, here’s a quick narrative. 

Jack Black, an aspiring but failed musician, lives with his friend, who also had ambitions as a musician, but gave them up to become a teacher. Jack Black is unable to pay rent anymore, and his friend’s girlfriend has been urging him to get a job and pay rent or move out.  

In a moment of desperation and serendipity, he takes a phone call on behalf of his friend, represents himself to be his friend and lands a temporary job as a school teacher in a primary school. 

He has no skills as a teacher, and passes away time for a few days, until he accidentally witnesses the schoolkids at a music lesson. He is completely blown away by their ability. 

When they are back from their music lesson, he gives a few tunes to the kids to play on different instruments. Those who want to sing were asked to sing a line. 

They all do exceedingly well for his expectations, and in a moment of insight, he decides to form a rock band with those kids. This is the band that will participate in an upcoming rock competition. 

Other students in the class are also given key roles in connection with the work of the band. 

To enable them to transition from classical music to rock, he writes down a schedule for sensitization of the students to rock music.   

He works with them for about 3 weeks, not just on music, but on aspects such as lights, choosing a band name, band uniforms, etc. He even appoints one of the class kids as the band manager. 

With foresight and cooperation with students, he dodges scrutiny until the very end from the principal. 

Fast forward to the Battle of the Bands. This is the competition he wanted to win with his earlier band, but was kicked out, just three weeks before, when he started this job as a temporary schoolteacher. 

At the competition, this was of course the youngest band ever. Kids of ten years’ age played amazing rock music. They were more than a match to the best rock bands in the circuit on all fronts, whether it pertained to guitars, keyboards, vocals, drums or even the lights for a rock concert.

As I saw this, I realized how much I wanted to create something new and innovative and outside the conventional path, even back then. 

These kids and the rock band had accomplished what I wanted to do. This is what I wanted to create and I hadn’t realized!

And then I looked at the present, and saw how I had subconsciously worked on creating exactly that, without realizing that some of the seeds of inspiration were sown back then. 

Ramanuj and I started work on legal education in college and continued to work on it full-time with one year of experience at a corporate law firm. 

Today, there are over 40 of us working from various parts of India. Our mission is to make practical legal learning accessible, and to involve the best experts in the teaching process.

For a young law student, quitting after a year of working in a law firm may sound like one has all the experience to venture out and face the world. But one does not.

In law, one year is barely anything. We did not have 20 years of experience, we were not even senior associates in a law firm. 

One of our juniors who had worked with us in our initial days shared that after completing 1 year at a law firm, she did not have an idea about how to start on her own, even though she would like to. At that time, she had completed working for 3 years at one of the top corporate law firms.  

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When I quit, my seniors at the law firm expressed concern at how I would manage to run a business on my own without supervision. They had seen and reviewed my initial drafts, and would have known how much I still had to grow if I chose to remain in a law firm.

Guess what? 

It does not matter, because the point is to start following your purpose despite any self-limiting beliefs you have. 

You will figure out the rest on the way.

It does not matter if you are the youngest, the junior-most or the least experienced. 

At LawSikho, we have a long way to go, but here’s what we believe in – 

You don’t need years of experience in a law firm before you start your own venture or your own practice. 

You don’t need to struggle in litigation without having any idea as to how or when you will learn the skills and have a flourishing clientele. 

You can build a thriving litigation practice from the day that you graduate, or as a young lawyer.

All it takes is training to acquire the skills, putting in efforts earlier than others so that you move ahead, sharing and publishing your work and building a network. 

This is not the work to be done when you become a partner or a senior advocate – this is the work to be done from day one, on the path to the journey. 

We had to do this work from the day we started. We started learning how to hire, how to train a team, how to build process, and so on. 

We are still learning on all of these fronts, but our efforts led us in an interesting direction. We were able to expand our team and operations and move forward through tough times. 

One of the aspects that have been incredibly useful for us are the training programs we pursued. We explored a variety of training and mentorship programs, ranging from Landmark Forum, Startup Leadership Program, etc. I have been exploring programs at Mindvalley, and particularly found LifeBook (a course on designing a life vision with respect to twelve areas of one’s life) and Speak and Inspire (on communicating through story-telling) to be extremely powerful.  

These programs relate to personal growth, self-esteem, business growth, personal development, inspiring others, creating a vision, etc. 

In addition, we also have a business coach.

Most people wonder how I get the time to do all this. Is it a luxury? 

No, it is a necessity. 

Whenever I hit a wall at work or in personal life, I can count on these trainings to expand my thinking, develop my imagination and move forward. 

These training programs have been extremely useful to take action and move past self-limiting beliefs.  

However, many young lawyers, managers and students whom I speak to everyday are consumed by self-limiting beliefs. 

Why will a client give me work as a law student?

Why will a senior pay me money?

How can a young lawyer like me compete with the best law firms?

These are only some examples. 

While some people can identify that their beliefs are self-limiting, they do not have a way to conquer such beliefs. 

A self-limiting belief doesn’t go away unless you set a goal, and then take actions increase your skills and take action to move ahead. 

One of the actions you can take to increase your skills is pursuing a training program.

But first, you must set a goal, such as the following-

I will earn a stipend of INR 5000 every month by working part-time for senior lawyers.  

I will help two friends every month in drafting contracts. 

I will intern with a startup for 3 months and help them get their legal documents, contracts, compliance, etc. in order. I will continue assisting the startup on a part-time basis, alongside college. I will charge INR 5000 – 15000 as stipend. 

Once you set a goal, you can use a training program to acquire the necessary skills, move forward and conquer a self-limiting belief. 

As we transition into the New Year, I want you to think about how you can start early and conquer a self-limiting belief on the way?

Feel free to reach out to our team if you want to identify the training that can be used to attain your goals.

Here are some great courses you can use to pursue your journey:

DIPLOMA 

Diploma in Business Laws for In House Counsels

Diploma in Companies Act, Corporate Governance and SEBI Regulations

EXECUTIVE CERTIFICATE COURSES

Certificate Course in Advanced Corporate Taxation

Certificate Course in Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code

Certificate Course in Advanced Civil Litigation: Practice, Procedure and Drafting

Certificate Course in National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) Litigation

Certificate Course in Arbitration: Strategy, Procedure and Drafting

Students of Lawsikho courses regularly produce writing assignments and work on practical exercises as a part of their coursework and develop themselves in real-life practical skill.