An introvert since childhood with few friends, Sharmila Bhanu shared her journey from being a teacher to an HR professional. Through this journey, she figured out that independence is the key to success. Her introverted nature is what keeps her away from video interviews. Although she can have a pleasant one-to-one conversation with anyone, being the center of attention makes her uncomfortable.
Despite this, a brave Sharmila Bhanu attempted to overcome her limitations by giving a few video interviews in 2018, 2021, and 2022. As an introvert, she can listen to people for hours or days but doesn’t speak much about herself or share her views and opinions. She views her introverted nature as a boon in her life that kept distractions at bay and helped her achieve whatever she wanted to. She believes that this has been possible because she never got too attached to anyone she came across in life. She recalls being an assistant teacher at a Montessori school as a turning point in her life. Why does she say that? Let’s find out!
Exploring The Teaching Profession
Sharmila says it was a time in her life when she was still immature and had a very casual approach to life. For her, being a teacher at that point in time was all fun and games. She thought her only responsibility was to play with kids and keep them entertained. However, this was also a time when she got a lot of work to do because of which she learned a lot.
The teachers whom she assisted, taught her right from wrong during this time. Some even advised her to go back to college, complete her education and enter the corporate world. This, Sharmila says, ignited a spark in her to prove to herself and the world that she could achieve perfection in whatever she wanted be it speaking fluent English, teaching, or anything else that the people around her discouraged her from.
Sharmila Bhanu talks of an incident that built her confidence and kept her going amid all the discouragements. Once Dr. BV Pattabhi Ram came to her college. When he conducted a session and asked questions, no one except Sharmila could answer. Dr. Ram called her an extraordinary student and gave her a card that reads – “If you can dream it, you can do it.” This gave a tremendous boost to her determination and helped her throughout her life. She calls it a life-changing event in her life.
The First Turning Point
The day came when she surprised, or even, shocked everyone by securing a job as the main subject teacher in Bhashyam School, Rajamundry. Till then, she was only clearing doubts, managing a class, and doing the simplest of things as an assistant teacher. One day, she finally got an opportunity to prove to the world that independence is key. Sharmila gave a demo for the role of the main teacher to a room full of highly experienced male teachers.
She was to give her demo on a grammar topic and a regular lesson. That demo impressed everyone in the room. It not only created debates in the room but won her a lot of applause for the way she demonstrated her teaching skills. People found her even more impressive when an experienced teacher tested her by pointing out a mistake but she took a stance on her skills and proved to everyone that she was right.
Within nine months of Sharmila’s stint at Bhashyam, she proved to her and the world that independence is the key to success indeed. She was promoted to principal at the new branch of their school. However, she was in her early 20s back then, and she and her family felt that she was way too young and inexperienced to take up the role so she politely declined the offer. Life had other plans for her. From Bhashyam, Sharmila Bhanu stepped into the corporate world when she started working at Narayana E-Techno School.
She learned a lot about the teaching profession in this school and polished her skills further. Although Sharmila was a Computer Science student, she did not have a chance to upskill herself technically because of a lack of time and resources. Finally, she got both when she worked at Bodhi School for four years. During this time, she learned many other things like event management and took up animation courses because of which she could design many interesting and useful things for herself and her students.
The Corporate Life
From here on, there was no looking back for Sharmila. She went on climbing the ladder of success one step after another. Every school she worked at taught something new. After Bodhi School, she joined the Creek Planet School – a Hyderabad-based school that also has a branch in Rajamundry. Here, Sharmila Bhanu got exposure to an international curriculum for the first time. She worked in multiple roles with the same efficiency.
At the Creek Planet School, Sharmila was an English teacher and an ISI coordinator. She managed the British Council Project which was a huge success in the very first attempt.
These major turning points in Sharmila’s life made it what it is today. But the increasing workload decreased her opportunities to spend more time at the library reading books – something she enjoyed doing. So, brought discipline back into her life and made sure that she read at least one book in a month. Once she started organizing things in her life, her confidence was growing. Even moving to a new city post her marriage added a great deal to her existing confidence.
The confidence led her to take up content writing as her passion. Unlike most people who look for a platform to showcase their work, Sharmila simply wrote to express herself. She writes articles and shares them on all of her social media platforms to reach out to as many people as possible. Her motivation comes from her audience who take time out to read her work and share their opinion on it. Her positive attitude helps her view every comment positively.
Many Talents of Sharmila Bhanu
Sharmila is someone who believes in not being restricted to one profession alone. So she revealed another side of her personality and told us that she is into storytelling too. There’s a very interesting reason why she chose storytelling. She hopes to overcome her discomfort with the camera through storytelling. Well, here’s someone who’s not just complaining about her limitations, but is working towards overcoming them. Sharmila is now working as a human resource manager at Bambinos.live, an edutech company. She gives the credit for her professional success to her own curiosity and desire to learn.
She had no one to guide her at any stage of life. There might be people who look for leaders and motivational speakers to guide them but Sharmila is not one of them. Support of any kind is not mandatory for success according to Sharmila. She believes in not letting failure define a person. She advises people to learn from their mistakes and keep going toward their goals. Her message to the world is that growth depends purely on your mindset. People could guide you to a point but it is ultimately you who has to make the decision for yourself.
Elaborating more on this perspective, Sharmila shared her own story of a time in life when she wanted to be a doctor. She realized that the first step to being a doctor is to take up the science stream in intermediate which requires her to do a lot of drawing. Since it is something she didn’t enjoy at all, she stepped away from that idea and started exploring other things in life.
She even considered becoming an IAS officer but her disinterest in social science took her away from this as well. Then, she found interest in research which made her go for computer science. Ultimately, she left all of this, did a B.Ed course, and become a teacher. Very few people know that the multitalented Sharmila has many Kuchipudi dance performances to her credit. She started learning as a child and continued until her intermediate.
She even taught dance to her students in every school that she taught for annual days or other school events and describes that as the happiest moment in her life. She helped even those students who didn’t know how to dance and nurture their confidence. Similarly, she calls out to every young person to weigh out the pros and cons of every stream or profession and make a decision for themselves. Her advice to youngsters is to do their own research first and then reach out to others for guidance. This will help you protect your individuality and develop your decision-making skills.
A Rough Road To Success
Achieving the success that she did was not easy for Sharmila. She had to fight a lot of criticism from people when she didn’t have money and was struggling financially. Even those whom she had once helped, abandoned her at a time when she was in need of help. If she had a chance to go back in time, she would make the same mistake again. That’s when she decided that she must do something which will make these people come to her for advice.
That’s what eventually happened. People who saw her in 2008 or 2012 could picture her only as a teacher. They would always judge her for the lack of support and financial instability in her life. A lot of people even criticized some of her decisions. Today, they came to her for advice on their kids’ careers. Sharmila wanted to prove to the world that independence is the key to success and she did.
None of this was planned but life turned out to be good because Sharmila never stopped learning, be it shifting from hard work to smart work or learning to choose the people who could be trusted.
Now, she has no points to prove and works only for her satisfaction. For her, success is a journey and not a destination. She still feels that there are a lot of things to learn in this world and she is looking for opportunities. In the future, Sharmila wants to develop a language hub of her own and help people make the best of parenting language, teen language, and so on.
She wants to be remembered as the best parenting coach and storyteller and become as great as Naaz Joshi. Sharmila dreams of being the best voice-over artist and achieving the topmost position in this.
Over the years, she has learned a lot about what it means to be successful. She realized that the pursuit of success is a journey, not a destination. The realization has made her more patient. She learned to appreciate the journey more than the destination. She is now better able to focus on the process than on the result, which has made her a happier person.
Be independent, make your own decisions and never regret your choices. You are unique. The millions of other people on the planet are unique too. It’s these differences that make us who we are. Our interests, hobbies, and quirks are a part of our identity. -Sharmila Bhanu.
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