The Man Who Thought He Was Done

In June 2024, Ramesh Shukla handed in the keys to his office at a nationalised bank in Raipur and drove home for the last time as a salaried employee. He was 52 years old, had managed credit portfolios worth hundreds of crores, had overseen staff across twelve branches, and was, by any measure, a successful man.

He was also, he told us quietly, "completely lost."

"My whole identity was the job. The designation, the responsibilities, the team. When that ended, I didn't know what to do with myself. My wife kept saying, 'You have so much to give, do something with it.' But I genuinely didn't know what that looked like."

Ramesh had spent decades counselling small business owners on loan applications — understanding their business models, their risks, their blind spots. He had mentored dozens of young probationary officers over his career. He knew the ecosystem of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh deeply: which industries were hiring, which engineering colleges were strong, which families had aspirations they couldn't translate into a plan.

What he lacked was a structure to turn that knowledge into a practice.

Discovering the Dheya Mentor Programme

A former colleague whose daughter had taken a Dheya career assessment sent Ramesh a link. He was sceptical — "I thought it was another one of those online tutoring things" — but he filled out an enquiry form anyway. A Dheya mentor onboarding specialist called him back within 24 hours.

"The conversation surprised me. They weren't trying to sell me anything. They were asking me about my experience, what I knew, what I cared about. By the end, they said, 'You sound like exactly the kind of mentor our students in Chhattisgarh need.' That landed differently."

Ramesh joined Dheya's mentor programme in August 2024. He completed the four-week onboarding: learning to administer and interpret the RAPD assessment, understanding the 7D mentoring framework, setting up his mentor profile, and building his initial batch capacity.

He set a modest first target: four students per month, focusing on Class 12 students and fresh graduates in the Raipur–Bilaspur corridor.

The First Three Months: Slower Than Expected, Faster Than Feared

Month one produced two students. Month two, five. Month three, nine.

"The first student was the hardest to get. Not because I didn't know what I was doing — the training was excellent — but because I had to believe in myself as a mentor, not as a banker. That took a few weeks."

The breakthrough came through a local connection: a family friend asked Ramesh to counsel her son, who had scored 72% in Class 12 science and was convinced he needed to crack NEET. Ramesh administered the RAPD assessment and found that the boy had a strongly Practical orientation — high hands-on interest, low interest in theoretical science — and a passion for electronics that had been dismissed by his family as a hobby.

"I told them: your son will be miserable in medicine. He belongs in electronics engineering, specifically in industrial automation, which is booming in this region. The father looked at me like I'd said something scandalous. Three months later, he called to say his son had gotten into NIT Raipur for ECE and was the happiest he'd ever seen him."

Word spread the way it only can in a city like Raipur, where extended family networks carry information faster than any advertisement. By the end of month three, Ramesh had a waiting list.

Building a Regional Practice

What distinguished Ramesh's growth trajectory from many mentors who plateau early was his deliberate decision to position himself as a regional specialist, not just a generic career counsellor.

He developed deep knowledge of specific employer ecosystems: NTPC, SECL, NMDC, and the steel plants of Chhattisgarh for engineering graduates; the growing pharmaceutical manufacturing sector around Raipur; the UPSC and state PSC pathways that are aspirationally central in many families across both states.

He also identified an underserved segment: students from smaller towns — Jagdalpur, Dhamtari, Ambikapur — who had never had access to structured career guidance. He began conducting monthly group information sessions on Dheya's platform, building a funnel that converted to individual mentoring engagements.

"I had one session where 47 students attended from six different towns, all online. These are students whose parents are farmers or small traders. Nobody has ever sat with them and mapped their strengths to actual career possibilities. You could feel the relief in the chat — people saying, 'I didn't know this option existed.'"

The Numbers: 18 Months In

By February 2026, eighteen months after joining Dheya, Ramesh's practice looked like this:

  • Active monthly students: 38–42 (varies by season, peaks in March–April and October–November)
  • Gross monthly revenue: ₹2.1 lakh (averaging ₹5,200 per student engagement)
  • Group session attendees: 180–220 per month
  • Geographic reach: Students from 23 cities and towns across Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh
  • Student outcomes tracked: 67 students have completed full mentoring cycles; 52 have made defined career moves (admissions, career changes, or goal-aligned role transitions)
  • Net Promoter Score on Dheya platform: 91

"I earn more than I did in the last two years of my banking career. And I work four hours a day. But more than the money — I know every week that I changed someone's trajectory. That's not something I felt in banking."

What Made the Difference

We asked Ramesh to identify the factors he believes drove his success. He listed four:

Regional depth over generic breadth. "I don't try to counsel a student in Bengaluru. I know Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. I know the ground reality of what's possible here, and I know the families. That specificity builds trust faster than any credential."

The RAPD framework. "Before Dheya, I was giving career advice based on intuition and experience. That's not nothing — but it's not systematic. RAPD gives me a language, a structure, and a defensible methodology. Parents who might dismiss an opinion respect a scored assessment."

Patience with the pipeline. "Month one and month two were hard. I almost quit once. The Dheya community — the WhatsApp group of mentors — kept me going. Someone who'd been through the same slow start told me: 'By month six you won't have enough hours in the day.' He was right."

Investing in outcomes. "I track every student I've worked with. I call them three months and six months after we finish. Not to sell them anything — just to see how they're doing. That reputation for follow-through generates more referrals than any marketing."

A Word for Professionals Considering the Shift

Ramesh is unequivocal with the professionals who reach out to him — and several do, now that his story has circulated in retired banking and government circles.

"The money is real. But don't start for the money. Start because you have genuine expertise that can change a young person's life. If you're in this for the right reasons and you put in the work for the first six months, the income follows. I've seen it happen for others in this programme, and I've lived it myself."

He also cautions against underestimating the structural support. "Working with Dheya is different from going independent. The platform, the assessments, the curriculum, the community — I would not have gotten here on my own. I would have figured out something, but not this, not this fast."

Starting Your Own Mentor Practice

If you have domain expertise — in any professional field — and a genuine interest in guiding others, Dheya's mentor programme is designed to transform that into a structured, income-generating practice.

The programme includes certified training in the RAPD and 7D frameworks, a managed student referral pipeline, platform tools for scheduling and session management, and a community of over 1,200 practising mentors across India.

Explore the Dheya Mentor Programme →

There are no geographic limits. Ramesh's case is not unique — it is a pattern that repeats for mentors who combine genuine expertise with the discipline to build consistently. What is required is the decision to start.