Sharad’s life has never been a smooth ride for him, but facing all the challenges fearlessly, he did well in life. He urges everyone to battle their hardships instead of having suicidal thoughts or running away from them.

Sharad Kothari has been running his Paints and Hardware shop in Udaipur for the past thirty years.

Sharad was born in Udaipur but lived in Sawai Madhopur till class 10th. He completed his remaining schooling from Udaipur. Thereafter, as he could not get any seat in Engineering, he ended up setting his foot in the paints and hardware business.

Sharad says that he had no knowledge about the paints business initially. He ventured into it just at the behest of his relative. After understanding the work for a year-and-a-half, his interest started growing. Then he started taking entire projects on a contract basis. He started getting good responses and gradually his business started going uphill.

When asked about his role models, Sharad says that he has learned from many people whom he met. Apart from this, he considers his friends and books as his source of inspiration.

Recalling his struggling days, Sharad says that during the initial days of his business, his financial condition was feeble. But he kept his spirits and started the business with nickels-and-dimes, which has now grown multiple times. Also, he saw a very bad phase when due to his sister’s marriage, he came under huge debt. He had to sell his house to pay off the debts. Even then he did not give up. He started from scratch and on the strength of his business, he built a new life for himself.

Sharing his COVID experience, Sharad says that during its first wave, he had a lot of fun and celebrated a lot with his family at home. And his business was not impacted that much as he was getting some or the other work. He just had to face difficulties in getting the payments. But the second wave was the worst for him as everyone in his family turned Corona positive. From the business point of view, it was not stalled but it did slow down a bit.

Between education and experience, Sharad believes that education matters a lot but it has a phase after which you cannot take education. He says that if we pay attention to our education in our early phase then in future we can do well in our professional lives and can go a long way in our careers.

If Sharad had a Time Machine, he would like to go back to his childhood and relive his life from class 4th to 10th with his friends.

Talking about his hobbies, Sharad says that he is fond of traveling and hanging out but he hardly gets any free time.

Sharad advises everyone that you should first identify your field of interest. Then, as per your ability, choose a wise business for you. Further he says that do not enter into any business just because others are doing it. Instead, do what interests you and in which you have a firm belief that you can achieve success in it. He suggests everyone to take advice from friends and elders to start any business and give your best into it. Eventually, the end results may shock you.

If anyone wants to make a career in the paints business, Sharad advises them that in the near future, a lot of changes can take place in this industry because technology is becoming very dominant in this field. So the business would not turn bad at all but only if you have good capital to invest, then you can easily enter into the market and compete with new technology based machines and equipment.