About Me
Let's go all the way back to 1992
I was born and raised in Calgary, a city on the west side of Canada close to the Rocky Mountains. I still live here to this day. I grew up with my mom and my disabled younger sister. Life was not easy for my mom when I was younger seeing as she was a single mother. However, she did a great job ensuring my sister and I had a happy childhood.
My sister and I are incredibly close. In fact, at the age of 18 I became her guardian. Looking after her is a significant part of my identity.
Languages have always been a part of my life
I attended a French immersion school from K-12, grew up speaking Gujarati with my family, and then spoke English with everyone else. At the age of 15, I went to France on a 3-month exchange trip where I lived in a small village with a population of about 500 people. What a unique experience, especially considering that I was raised in a city!
The photo above is from my time in France as a high school student. France will always hold a special place in my heart since it is where my passion for languages was born.
In 2014, I graduated university
I completed a double major in French and Spanish. After graduating, I continued to learn more languages. For example, in 2014 I started learning Mandarin and in 2018 I began improving upon my proficiency in Gujarati. I learn languages by taking classes, using various self-study resources, and traveling abroad. In fact, I live abroad 1-2 months a year. To date, I’ve been to 128 cities across 17 countries in 5 continents.
Learning languages and traveling has shaped who I am as a person. For example, I’ve learned how important it is to be adaptable, all while maintaining my own identity. With that said, what’s interested me the most is that despite variations in beliefs and cultural norms, it seems that we share more similarities than differences, particularly in terms of our everyday emotions. At the core, we are all still human beings.
Aside from languages, I also love business
I started my first business at the age of 18: a residential window cleaning franchise. From 2011 to 2016, I went from being a franchisee managing a single, two-man window cleaning crew (I was one of the window cleaners) to running all of Central Canada as a General Manager. As a GM, I was responsible for all recruiting, training, and operations for the 8 cities in my division. I had over fifteen direct reports per year, each of whom managed up to 5 people of their own. The photo above is from the final awards night I attended while working at that franchise.
What I love most about business is building, training, and leading teams. It’s such a deeply meaningful experience to unite collective efforts on a singular project, propelling the company forward in a manner that also harmonizes with everyone’s individual ambitions. It’s truly beautiful and awe-inspiring for me 🙂
I started my second business in 2016
In 2016, I left the window cleaning franchise to work in a field I’m passionate about: foreign language acquisition. I started a business called the Calgary Language Nerds. Initially, I didn’t have anybody who worked for me. I simply taught English, French, and Spanish by myself. From 2016 to the present day, I have grown my business to the point where I employ over 20 people and offer classes for 15 languages. We’ve taught thousands of people over the years.
The primary strategy I use to find students is content marketing. I have made over 5,000 unique pieces of content across all major social media platforms. I also organized free weekly drop-in classes and social events for language learners in Calgary as a way to build community. Pre-pandemic, 200+ people attended Calgary Language Nerds events every month.
I still own this business today and continue to run it. What a journey it has been! I was so nervous in the beginning because I had never started a business from scratch. I was filled with doubt. However, looking back I’ve found the past 7 years to be meaningful and fulfilling. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished and am eager to keep growing personally and professionally in the years to come.
Fast Forward to Today
As I mentioned above, I still run the Calgary Language Nerds. My current focus at that business is to create a program where our students are guaranteed to reach conversational fluency within 6 months or less. I’m open to work opportunities, full-time or part-time, that fall into one or multiple of these categories:
- High social impact. Playing a role in the well-being of others fulfills me.
- High paying. I can use the money to reach my personal financial goals and improve my current business, the Calgary Language Nerds.
- High learning curve. I want to maximize my positive contribution to society through the organizations I run in my lifetime. The more I learn that helps me accomplish this, the better.
If any of those three points resonate with you, click the blue button at the bottom of this page.
Thanks for reading this and I look forward to speaking with you soon 🙂