Aditya Nagrath shares his transition from hourly employee to startup founder and how his money mindset evolved along the way.
He’s the co-founder of Elephant Learning Math Academy. It’s a gamification software that not only makes learning math more fun for students, but also they also learn more quickly.
On average, students using his software for 30 minutes a week learn one and a half years of math in three months! Wish I had this when I was in school!
Lot of great lessons in our conversation including:
- How gamification can help students learn more effectively.
- Case study of how he made the transition from hourly employee to startup founder.
- Why he eventually decided to focus on just one software product.
- Aditya’s evolving view of money as he transitions away from the employee mindset.
Life Skills That Matter In This Episode
- Self-directed learning.
- Reframing your mindset.
- Aligning your habits.
How Aditya Works and Thinks
- Wake up time: 7:00 – 8:00 am
- Core work activities + habits: 1) Be as uninvolved as possible. 2) Stay on top of tasks that keep everyone else moving. 3) Actively working on what the next step is. 4) Working on putting an executive team in place.
- Ideal work environment: Anywhere, as long as he’s got headphones.
- Definition of success: The number of months of mathematics they’ve taught.
- Regains focus by: Filling his checkboxes of caring for himself, his family, and his community.
- 90-day goal: Putting an executive team in place.
Inspirational Quotes
“That’s really the key is that, if you think about math as a jargon, it’s kinda more accurate. It’s just this jargon that’s so fundamental to humanity that we call it vocabulary.”
“The idea is that they play this activity, it feels like a game, but as they’re playing it, they’re always kind of getting the next step.”
“We have more opportunity, I think, to build culture and to build brand and to build something that’s kinda just more than what we are.”
“The goal is to get things off of your plate and onto your team’s plate.“
Coaching Advice
Want to start exploring how you like to learn? Aditya shared this advice:
1) Break the learning down to three phases: definition, recognition, and production.
2) Figure out what the words mean, then start to see the words in play to understand the more complicated ideas, and then apply the ideas in order to solve problems.
3) Finally, the key phase is experimentation.
Resources + Bonus Materials
LSTM Weekly Reflection Reminder
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