Transforming Rural India Through Education, Leadership, and Compassion with Tim Wilbur

0:01John Lee Dumas:Boom, shake the room, Fire Nation, JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today we'll be breaking down how to transform rural India through education, leadership, and compassion. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Tim Wilbur and to EO Fire Studios. Tim is the international director of Vineyard India Compassion Trust, which transforms rural communities through education at Nusong Community School while leading the Wilbur Family Charitable Group to amplify global impact. And today we talk about going from 30 to 500 plus, leading in rural communities, compassionate structure, bridging continents, shifting mindsets, and oh, so much more.

0:39John Lee Dumas:And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Tim and our sponsors. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships all in one place. And when you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you get a 30-day free trial plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more. Visit highlevelfire.com, highlevelfire.com. Fire Nation, if you have a high ticket offer and need more quality leads, Nexus Install is designed for you. We'll book you eight to 20 qualified calls each month, then train you to run the system yourself.

1:17John Lee Dumas:Email my team at john at eofire.com to learn more and see if Nexus is the right fit for you. Tim, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Well, in my opinion, I think that investing ourselves in the prosperity and raising up of other people is the most important thing that any human being can do. A lot of self-help people, a lot of self-help books are telling us to invest in ourselves, promote ourselves, and that's what will bring us ultimate fulfillment. But I don't think that's true. I think the truth of the matter is if we're going to really bring fulfillment into our lives and make this world a better place, it's going to be because we have invested in the lives of other people, especially those who are under-resourced and raised their level of living and existing and what they can achieve in their lives.

2:23That's going to make our planet better. That's going to bring us ultimate satisfaction. And we're going to live better lives because of it. And a lot of people don't agree with me about that.

2:36John Lee Dumas:They smile kind of like, oh, yes, very nice, Tim. Good thoughts. but they don't think that that's actually what life is really all about. Well, that's why I'm glad you brought it up because I mean, that's what the point of that question is. It's something that people disagree with. So thank you for sharing that. One of my favorite all-time quotes is actually the quote that inspired me 14 years ago, 5 ,486 episodes ago to launch Entrepreneurs on Fire. And it's an Einstein quote, which is, try not to become a person of success, but rather a person of value. And I realized that I was chasing success, like inner fulfillment, inner success, outer success, and I wasn't finding it and I wasn't finding happiness either.

3:22John Lee Dumas:But when I just said, what can I do to be a person of value? That changed everything. And here I am 14 years later, just really thankful that that quote kind of gave me a light bulb. And I wanna talk about you transforming rural India through education, through leadership, through compassion, because you went from 30 to over 500. We're talking the Vineyard India Compassion Trust. I mean, you grew the Nusong Community School from 30 students over 500. That's a massive number. So how did that transformation happen? Well, it started out with just a vision that I had along with J. Deep and Sylvia Mukherjee, who are the educators really with boots on the ground there in Telangana.

4:03We had a vision to go into rural areas to work with poor kids who are incredibly intelligent and who need opportunities for education and give them those opportunities. And so the way we went about that is we started out just with a preschool. They called them LKG, kids lower kindergarten, and started with a little preschool and just started adding grades year after year until we grew into a full-blown high school. and because of our philosophy of not just offering education, but the compassion, loving on kids, but also instilling good values into them and helping them understand that they are people of value.

5:04Just because they don't have a lot of money, a lot of opportunities, does not mean that they are not people of great value. And they walk onto our campus and they are the most special person that has arrived at that moment. And the parents began to realize that we were people who valued their children just like they did. And so they began to notice that even though we were strangers and it moved into their area from another part of, for J.D. and Sylvia, another part of India, and for me, a visiting from the U.S., that we really did care. And I think that's what's made most of the difference over these past 22 years.

5:53John Lee Dumas:Well, what I want to move into next is actually leading in rural communities. I mean, you're now working across 28 rural villages where education at once felt out of reach. and you know that really reminds me of you know some of my past philanthropic work and I joined over a decade ago with a great organization called Pencils of Promise and we've built multiple schools in Laos in Cambodia and specifically in Guatemala where I've gone down multiple times for the ribbon cutting ceremonies of these schools and what I loved about doing that is like, we are at these schools where there's nothing 50, 75 mile radius.

6:36John Lee Dumas:And like when they were like ringing the bell for like the school to begin, you were just seeing kids like walking out of the jungle from all over the place. And like they were so excited that they had a place to come, to gather, to learn. And it was so inspiring. And I've just loved bringing that to the world over and over again. And I mean, that's what you're doing in these 20 rural villages where, again, education, it was just out of reach. Like they just, they didn't have access to it. So what leadership principles guide your work there? For them, it's like a dream come true. They never believed it could happen to them.

7:11And so the principles for us is, number one, they deserve it as much as the kids in the urban areas deserve it. Um, that they're, they're like the, they're precious stones that are hidden away and they just need people who are explorers and discovery people who go in and find these precious stones. And we have found so many of them and not just in this little village where we started in Razorla, but they're everywhere. and we view ourselves as those explorers who go in and we're in discovery mode to find out who those gyms are. And actually what we're finding is there are so many, we can't handle all of them, that everyone that comes to us has such a special gift of one sort or another that given an opportunity, they will excel and shine in their own special way.

8:21And so the value that drives us is that every person in those villages, every child matters. No one there is a throwaway child. No one there is worthless. and because they are of great value, they deserve an opportunity. And so that's why we offer a subsidized education for these children. That's why I do fundraising here in the States and wherever I'm able to talk about the school is because they really deserve the opportunity. And I just love giving them that opportunity. And so do J.D. and Sylvia. They love getting the education and then they do something with it once they have it.

9:12John Lee Dumas:I can just tell you one of the most powerful emotions that humans are capable of is hope. Like if you can just give a human hope, like you're opening up the world to them. And, you know, I told you this in the pre-interview. We had a little chat, Tim. I did extensive traveling in India. I did a four-month backpacking throughout the entire country. Such a lovely country. Amazing people. with the food. Don't even be going about the food. I haven't had as good of food since I've been there. And that was 17, 18 now years ago. But it was such an amazing experience. But one thing I did find in these rural villages is that, you know, these parents, they want the best for their kids, but I mean, they're, they're living hand to mouth.

9:52John Lee Dumas:Like they're waking up every day. Like, how do I feed myself and my family? That's the number one concern. So even though they would dream about educating their children, it's just like, we got to keep them alive. That's step number one, and we don't ever have time to get to step number two, which would be education or something along those lines. So that's what I love is that that's what you're giving to them. And we're going to talk about compassion plus structure, bridging continents, and more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Fire Nation, if you have a high ticket offer, but you are not getting enough quality sales calls on the calendar, Nexus Install is exactly what you need.

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11:13John Lee Dumas:Simple, focused, and built for predictable, long-term, quality lead flow. Fire Nation, ideas are exciting, but systems will allow you to create freedom. That is where High Level comes in. High Level allows you to build and run your entire business from one platform, website builder and hosting, funnel and landing pages, email marketing, automation and workflows, calendar booking, payments and subscriptions, even course and membership hosting. Everything works together seamlessly. Plus, award-winning 24-7 support so you are never stuck. And when you go through my link at highlevelfire.com, you unlock my full bonus stack, a 30-day free trial of High Level with full access, a private 15-minute coaching call with me, weekly live office hours with me, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 Days to Something Execution Roadmap, and more.

12:04John Lee Dumas:Stop piecing tools together. Start building momentum. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Tim, we're back. And I want to talk about compassion plus structure because you actually say, and I quote, compassion with structure becomes unstoppable. So how do you balance your heart and strategy to create lasting change? A lot of people have compassion and care a lot. And actually, we've seen it. You've traveled a lot, John, and you've seen people who really care

12:44but don't often have a lot of follow through. And there's nothing wrong with that. They're lovely people, but in order to make a sustained impact, there has to be some sort of strategy and some sort of structure to be able to sustain a vision that you have. And compassion, along with that strategy and persistence with that strategy, produces a long-term outcome that's able to continue from not only one person to the next, but we feel like one generation to the next. We're actually now beginning to educate the children of some of our original students in our preschool. Our graduates now are bringing their young children to our preschool because they were impacted by it.

13:42And all of that began because we had a strategy. We began with a preschool, then we added other grades until we got to a high school. Rather than just trying to throw money and maybe do it all at once, start with all 12 grades from lower KG all the way to 10th standard, we just built gradually so that we could sustain it over the long haul. We started with one village, which was Rejurla, and then we advanced to some other villages. And so what we did originally, you know about auto rickshaws, these little yellow three wheels.

14:22John Lee Dumas:Oh, yeah, we call them tuk-tukes. Yes, right. We would send a few of those. We would hire a couple of drivers and send them into the villages. And, you know, we broke the law. Don't tell a whole lot of people. How many followers do you have? We broke the law. Maybe three or four. Ten kids per auto rickshaw. And a couple of our donors saw photos and said, oh, my gosh. That's, yeah, that's unacceptable. So they started fundraisers to buy buses. And so that now then we run four buses into several villages. but we didn't start out by buying buses. We started out with what we could do, but we did something to build on that so that we could continue to expand and continue to grow.

15:22And we still have a vision. I mean, 28 villages, you've been to India, 28 villages is nothing compared to the amount of villages that still exist that could still use the kind of education that's being offered there. So that's what we feel is that with a strategy, you can continue. The sky's the limit. You can continue to grow if you look at what the next steps are.

15:52John Lee Dumas:I want to talk about bridging continents next, Tim, because your trust, the Wilbur Family Charitable Group, I mean, it supports people from the U.S. to create real sustainable impact in rural India. Talk about that. Well, these are people who have a great heart for under-resourced people. They understand that they have been truly blessed in their own lives. And they also know that, you know, a few dollars in a culture like rural India can go a very long way to not just maybe feed a family or clothe a family, but change a culture. When we first went into India, it was hard to convince families to invest in their daughter's ongoing education.

16:46A lot of times the daughters would go maybe through the sixth grade unless they felt like they had a really special aptitude for something. But to continue to have their daughters go beyond sixth or seventh grade, if there was much investment involved, a lot of times parents wouldn't make that investment. They would begin having the girls stay at home and prepare to become a wife. And, but so a great calling, but there was more, that's not the only calling. And that's what we were trying to instill is a dream for these girls and hope you mentioned earlier, hope that maybe there was, was more for some of these girls than that.

17:33And so we actually cast that vision, not only in India, but we cast that vision here in the U.S. You could change a girl's life and a boy's life with a very small investment. It's$300 a year to educate a child in India to pay for their education. And people began to realize, wow, that's not much of a sacrifice on this end here in the States to completely change the life of a child in a place like rural India. And so that's where our nonprofit comes in, is we cast that vision for people to realize that you don't need a million dollars to make a huge impact and to change the future of a child, to change really a cultural mindset about the value of a child and what that child could do with their lives.

18:40And I don't want to devalue what they have done in the past, but there could be more to it than just what everyone else has always done and always thought was the most important thing to do. So that's where our charitable group comes in.

19:00John Lee Dumas:Let's talk about shifting mindsets. I mean, what changes have you actually seen, Tim, in Village Confidence as these families are embracing this English medium education? Because of course, you know, everybody's a little bit resistant to change on some level. So what are you seeing there? It was hard to get parents to agree to get their, to allow their girls to get a full education all the way through 10th standard and then to go to plus one and plus two and then on to university because they would view it as just worthless. Well, this girl's only going to get married and then have children and cook meals and stay at home.

19:38And why would we educate, you know, spend all of that money? Waste was a word we heard a lot, waste all of that money if that's all that she's going to do. And so we tried to, to paint a different future, a different picture of a future where this, this could be a scenario where she would go to university and become involved in maybe government of a village or maybe in computers and bring income into the family and maybe raise the standard of living not only for herself, but maybe for mom and dad and for brothers and sisters, which is very common in India. It's very much a communal society where if a son or daughter raises their level of income, many of the rest of the family are also affected by that as well.

20:42So when we moved into the area, there were mud huts with thatched roofs all around us. And now then when you go into Razor, there are concrete homes all around our campus, not because we gave money to people, but because the mindset changed of, oh this is what we've always done we've always had mud huts with thatched roofs so this is what we do but now there's a different way there's a different economy now and different money coming in and our daughter now is working as an engineer and so she's bringing income into our family and they're thinking differently now about the economy and their values are changing and viewing children differently and how they fit into the world.

21:46And they're looking, they view themselves differently than they did before. Before they were just, oh, we're just poor people. We just work in the fields. And now, no, we're contributing to society. and this is how we're accomplishing things and their own confidence level is raising themselves and it's a wonder to see. I love it so much. I get invited into lots of homes, which means I get to eat a lot of good Indian food as well.

22:21John Lee Dumas:Really good Indian. Oh man, I'm jealous. I mean, wow, Tim, we talked about a lot here today. We talked about going from 30 to over 500 students, about leading in rural communities, compassion plus structure, bridging continents, shifting mindsets. If Fire Nation is really resonating with what you're saying, what is the best way they can connect with you? They can learn more about what you have going on. What is your call to action for our listeners? Hopefully in the very near future, I'm writing a book called Strong and Kind. And in the book I'm writing, I'm adding a lot of stories about what I have learned from the rural communities in India and what I've learned from my students at the New Song Community School.

23:04That'd be a great way to learn from me, to learn about me. you can go online to the new song community school.com and learn more about our school and also vineyardindiacompassiontrust.org i think it is.org and learn about us there and also the wilburfamilygroup.org it's another way to find out about us fire nation you're the average of the

23:34John Lee Dumas:five people you spend the most time with you've been hanging out with tw and jld today so keep up that heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com, type Tim, T-I-M, in the search bar. The show notes page will pop up with links to everything that Tim just mentioned. Tim, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you, brother, and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thanks so much. I loved it. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Tim for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, are you an entrepreneur on fire who's looking to share your amazing message with the world?

24:11John Lee Dumas:If yes, we are now accepting applications for EO Fire. So to learn more about becoming a guest, visit EOFire.com slash guest, and I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships all in one place. And when you sign up at HighLevelFire.com, you get a 30-day free trial plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more. Visit highlevelfire.com, highlevelfire.com. Fire Nation, if you have a high ticket offer and need more quality leads, Nexus Install is designed for you.

24:50John Lee Dumas:We'll book you eight to 20 qualified calls each month, then train you to run the system yourself. Email my team at john at eofire.com to learn more and see if Nexus is the right fit for you.

25:06Thank you.