Tell us of moments or influences in your personal life that have defined who you are today

I walked into my first class in the US and was shocked by what I saw. Many sitting in the classroom showed learning disabilities. “Down Syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy…” I looked around and thought to myself, “I know my English is poor but I don’t belong here.” Being a prideful teenager at the time, I was resentful for my class placement. In the following days, I avoided my classmates in all possible situations.

A week later, it was my turn to give a simple presentation summarizing the previous class. I stayed up all night preparing, forcefully memorizing the entire speech while painstakingly perfecting each syllable. Nevertheless, despite all my effort, on the podium I panicked, drawing blanks and stuttering, and had to look up pronunciations for nearly every other word in the dictionary. The three-minute presentation was dragged into a thirty-minute agonizing struggle of broken words and incomplete sentences. However, as soon as I finished my speech, the whole class gave me a standing ovation. As I walked down to my seat, my classmates waved their hands to give me “high-fives” as if I just won the presidential election. I couldn’t hold back my tears. While I judged them so harshly, my classmates overlooked my language deficiency; while I refused to be seen as their peer, they accepted me with open arms and held a helping hand when I most needed. That day, they taught me a lesson I would never forget, the lesson of humility. After my English improved and I moved onto higher level classes, I would still return from time to time to sit by their side, listening to them and laughing with them. I was proud to be their friends.

The lesson stayed with me long after I graduated from high school. When I was in Bank of America, our group was assigned an analyst in India. For a while though, quality of Ravi’s work was substandard. Despite the difficulty in communication and time zone difference, I didn’t just assume I was the better analyst and turned my back on Ravi. Instead, I remembered my days as an ESL student and called him to discuss the issues upfront. The problem wasn’t his capability but lack of detail directions. Afterwards I spent hours in late nights and early mornings on the phone with him, walked through each line item on deal memos to make sure that he understood not only the requirements but also the reasons behind the requirements. His work improved significantly and within months, he became the best performing analyst in the Indian program and a valuable member of our team.

No matter where I go, I treat everyone with a touch of the humility that I learned from that class in high school. It taught me the importance of avoiding quick judgment and treating people equally. It became the only way that I make true connection with people around me, a connection through which life stories are shared and lessons learned.