Ad Astra Muse - Marco Arienti (4K) | Sagacious (S1: E15)

0:00 today I'm going to be talking to another awesome guest and the person I'm I'll be talking to is Marco arienti I need to say that that the whole experience of working in a really really fastpaced environment has helped me a lot and what's something internships offer that students don't get at University why rather than just go up the career ladder you got off the career ladder and decided to hop on a different ladder right so you made a switch from law to teaching I think quite surprising because both in Germany and here uh students are very afraid of making mistakes because apparently the society or I don't know even other teachers they sco them immediately but I I don't the

0:45 government here uh is very very Progressive mhm and they understood that um education plays a crucial part in developing the country I'm really excited about these challenges yes because I see them as new opportunities to learn and grow yeah not necessarily uh big problems and new headache like most people do but to me it's like a reason to wake up in the morning because I know there's a there's a opportunity new possibility for me to become the better version of me yeah to to take on new skills and qualities and help more people than I'm doing already yeah yeah there are good times and bad times there are times in which financials are restrained so what do you do in those

1:32 times will you still pay high salaries to those who have supported you for 5 years or would you just cut them or would you go to them and said listen we don't have this money anymore would you agree to have a a salary without a bonus for 6 months and then we will sit down again if that was the case in usbekistan Imagine That imagine that i' I'd have 10 kids right now you get the neurolink Chip And they program AI to it and they install it in their brain and they become super humans and have Godlike powers and start controlling the rest of the world don't work hard work

2:18 [Music] smart hey folks hey everyone welcome back to another episode of adust muse I'm your host Muhammad Ali here today I'm going to be talking to another awesome guest and the person I'll be talking to is Marco arienti he works at one of the presidential schools in usbekistan and he teaches business so yeah Mr Marco thanks for coming on the show hi hi so would you like to tell our audience a little about yourself so what do you do at the moment well at the moment I'm teaching um business uh in grade 10 and also in

3:04 grade nine last year I was also teaching economics and yeah that's uh and I think yeah and I have got uh one class in English as a second language in GR8 so that's what I'm doing right now and I'm living in bhara of course oh yeah that's that's very interesting so uh at the moment you're teaching all these different subjects at presidential school right right so what do you say we take some time take some time talking about your uh past MH right so can you tell us a little about your background well I come from a um from a corporate background I've worked um seven or eight years and in two

3:49 international law firms after my first graduation so basically have a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in languages MH and with that I started working it it's called wolf ties it's one of the two biggest international law firms in Central Europe I think at the moment they have 13 offices throughout Europe and I was in the headquarters I started off as as an evening assistant uh just to uh finance my second studies so I wanted to get a business degree but uh then things went quite well I was promoted and um yeah basically my my workload got way more complex than it was at the beginning so I dropped my my

4:36 studies and actually got an MBA a few years later and that MBA is from Scotland so it's the Robert Gordon University in abine um I really recommended University I need to say and uh I think I graduated in 2014 yes 2014 so approximately um 10 years ago from there and these um well that's my second Masters and all these studies were then recognized by the German Ministry of Education uh it's called it's the county of Brandenburg which is south of Berlin so after seven or eight years of working for law firms I've have had enough and I

5:23 decided to to become a teacher yeah and I need to say that that the whole experience of working in a really really fastpaced environment has helped me a lot becoming a teacher and also getting my second oh well not my second my my teaching license in Germany which which was pretty tough it was uh one and a half years on top of working full-time and especially when you go into teaching in those State schools it's uh very very difficult at the beginning totally new environment and to deal with with uh let's say 100 to 120 children every day who you don't know and what and you're not used to it's yeah it's very it was very very

6:10 difficult yeah so what is it like working for a law firm and what do people who work for a law firm like usually do like when we think of law lawyers we think of people who always were a suit and a tie and who speak in this Crypt cryptic language well they do they do they they all wear suits and they look professional but um I will support stuff so um I've had not so much contact with the clients I've had very little but well to some extent I would say um but um big law firms they operate like corporations so they need of course accountants and marketing personnel and

6:56 all sorts of support rules and I was uh kind of the the right hand of a department head so in a big law firm in a corporate law firm you would have different um they call them practice groups and my practice group was internet law and and these days it's called TMT technology media and I don't even remember exactly um so it uh it was intellectual property and internet law at the time so yeah so would you recommend law as a care career to young people you think it's worth a shot yes it's worth a shot but um if you want to practice law you need to be aware of the fact that you can only practice law where you actually studyed

7:42 MH yeah so there there are some master degrees in international law but um you would only get a license where you actually take the bar exam and the bar exam is related to your studies in most countries in Europe and so there is no real flexibility so if you study law in Scotland you have to be a lawyer in Scotland um I I'm not sure about the the United States where things seems to be a bit more flexible in the sense that you can take bar exams in different um States but in Europe it's just um yeah it's limited to the country where you actually studied the European framework though allows you to get a license if you practice

8:30 law I think three four five I don't remember exactly so if you practice law for a certain time within a corporate law firm then you can get an accreditation yeah I see but it takes a long time all of this and not all of them succeed because you still would need to to take a very complex exam yeah yeah so it's not like medicine where you get degree in any University and can you can practice medicine in any part of the world no no no no I no absolutely not it's simply because different countries have their own rules and their own law policies yes I mean the funny thing is that um the Roman law is like a third of

9:15 um each and every legal framework in Europe but of course you don't study Roman law yeah in in your at University level it's just um that it's Incorporated in all the little exams that you take but you're not aware of that fact until basically the very end when you study the history of law mhm yeah so so for those students who are just getting started and want to take up law as a major what is something you would recommend these days yeah you mean here for in usbekistan or or in general like if I'm on a major in law do you think I should do some internship at a law firm right off the bat or do you think I should wait until get I get some theoretical knowledge

10:01 right I would always always recommend to take internships it's also something I recommend to my students here and also something I recommended uh to the Ministry of Education in usbekistan because it's common practice in the so-called Western World yeah especially especially in Europe so I've worked in Germany and the students would have to go to internships they would have to attend internships um as part of their curriculum mhm if they don't attend they they will they will miss some exams I think yeah so it's obligatory right and what's something internships offer that students don't get at University absolutely I mean the

10:46 universities um university these days I wouldn't say all of them but because I have not been to to all universities I've been actually to a university that was was very very good at at teaching the real life because they they they invited a lot of guests from corporate environment in abin but at University level especially in law and also business administration everything is set uh for you to find one or two solutions and I remember a colleague of mine saying that when he came to he came as an intern and now he's a very very good law lawyer by the way uh very very well-known lawyer he

11:32 started with me and he said the difference uh between the law firm internship and universities that on at University at the exam you get a paper or maybe one and a half A4 papers and then um you can solve the problem but when he started there he got something like three or four piles and then his bo uh told him okay listen in one hour yeah I need an answer about these three questions and and he said why he said yeah because the client wants to know it and I don't have time for this and it's a very easy thing to find out so you know three piles were thousands of pages and at

12:20 that at that point you need to know where to search for information in certain files so um I would say from the age of 13 14 up to the age of 18 19 I recommend each and every student all around the world to do an internship at least once a year and I also recommend students to work in summer they should do though um a work that is related to their studies or to their interests because I see a lot of young people wasting their time with um work they don't really want to do in the future yeah don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with delivering pizzas but and it needs to be done but if you want to become a lawyer you you should probably search for an an internship

13:06 that gives you an insight into how law is practiced yeah yeah yeah that's a very important thing to consider as young student as a young student yeah and because that's something I realized personally back when I was on University I was majoring in economics with finance and I was taught all these different concepts and theor and I couldn't quite connect the dots because I I'd be taught something at University but when you watch the news or listen to politicians or or talk about different things you don't you don't see the application of those things in real life yeah so so the point is uh I told you my

13:53 University was very good M so in my Corporate Finance exam I received uh the report by a major European um Aviation company mhm of course it took out the name of it but it was pretty clear that it was easy either easy jet or ryer was pretty obvious and they only gave me three questions they said could we afford to introduce um a luxury brand yeah or luxury flight something like that and then there were two questions relating to that question and the IFR RS U annual report or a a an IFRS report

14:39 would be something like 70 to 120 pages and then you really need to know where to look at because you will be given 15 or 20 minutes to prepare and there was a committee and the committee consisted of course of my t then the professor then the dean the dean himself he sat there and then there were two people from an auditing company from one of the big four KPMG and Deo and so on and they were really nasty yeah and what what exactly did they do you mean well they were asking questions I mean it was like in in an in an interrogation but that really showed me

15:25 how real life would work yeah so all this fear is kind of spoiling the students at the end of the day and they feel secure and safe in this they say I scored an A+ and when you work in a law firm I wouldn't say nobody gives anything about your your marks which it's it's not true but you you have to survive in real life yeah and what I said what I said to them is listen I mean it's pretty obvious that Ryan or whoever it was you have enough money you can you can afford this but then as said on page I remember page 74 or 76 I don't remember on one of these Pages it says that some of your um your routes are not

16:11 cost efficient and I said what said yeah they're not because basically between two or three cities in Europe you were making losses and then I said if you uh basically take out the planes from there and I said paint them nicely and put in nice furniture it's much better than e either renting or even buying airplanes and then they started discussing yeah they started discussing among themselves well yeah this is something we did not think about but that that just came to my mind because I I had been working many years in in an international context yeah and I don't think any student who just knows the theory would have come across that idea so yeah I think that theory is important

16:58 it's the basis of of it all but it needs to be on it needs to be practiced all the time right so as soon as students start going to school their choice of University or college they should be eager to get some internship whether paid or unpaid so they can build some practical experience and start to get a better idea of how the world Works outside the university context yes um about paid and unpaid um reasonable companies will always pay you mhm yeah those who who are professionals really professional they they will always pay you because for them paying interns is is just peanuts

17:44 oh I see it's really it's it's it doesn't matter at all whether they even in Europe even if they give you 500 a month or even a thousand a month it's nothing I mean really nothing for them and those who who want want to give you an unpaid internship they're usually those who are kind of fishy oh yeah that's something I didn't realize cuz I used to think that if the guy has the skills I don't mind if he's paying me or not paying me I'm just going to work for him no yeah I wouldn't do that um it's it's it's Al it also depends on the country um for example in Italy it's like this there is a law in Italy that until the age of 20 now you are SOC called Apprentice I mean what is that yeah you you you graduate at the age of 23 and then for uh six years you're an

18:30 apprentice what is this so this is basically a way of squeezing people out and I don't recommend it at all because it's psychologically not U not good for yourself and at the end of the day they will discard you for another one yeah who who works for free yeah and um I know that there are a lot of countries who who who have got this let's say philosophy or attitudes but if a company is serious then they will pay you maybe not much but they will pay you so just to just enough to pay the bills yes to pay the bills because a student let's say at Master's level would probably so either have a scholarship or at least have the studies paid and then the students need to

19:16 survive in some some way and at those levels you would already search for a job yeah and a good company would actually for the would actually look for the good students and if they don't pay them it's pretty obvious that they were just that they would be just looking for something mediocre mhm yeah so it's it's a whole game I always say that uh work needs to be retributor or in an international law firm every year is very very

20:02 similar so you have got those Seasons I would say and then you have got the fiscal year that ends and the quarters and it was kind of boring for me MH I did not quit because I did not like the law firm it was a very good place I was also very good with my um Superior we still in contact over LinkedIn and sometimes every once in a while we write to each other and I follow his his post as well but it was just um I'm a person who need who needs constant challenge MH and as a teacher all every day is different every day is different especially in state schools yeah I mean the presidential schools a little bit different because they are kind of an elite environment

20:49 where students are very very well behaved but in normal State School in Germany they are not and you need to find your way through it so every day I mean in six years every day was different and it's something I enjoyed quite honestly yeah so one question I got on my mind right now is why rather than just go up the career ladder you got off the career ladder and decided to hop on a different ladder right so you made a switch from law to teaching well I did not have a law degree I need to say I did not have I told you I had a language degree and I was studying business administration at the time so um I think well I was already at the top

21:37 for as regards my age and my experience because above me there would only have been the management level but really the upper management level so that that's that's fine that's fine the the law firm was not as big as the the the American ones that have 2,000 3,000 people we had something like 650 I mean that's still a big firm yes it's a big firm that's true but um it was it did not have a career path really for um support stuff yeah I see but you you did make investment in getting a degree in education though right you could have made that investment in getting a degree in law right or is that something that didn't occur to you at the

22:23 time well law studies in Austria they are 5 years uh-huh so so you just couldn't wait until that long to get a degree no because I had a degree in in in in languages already I see in translations so that explains it yeah yeah yeah and I was never really interested in in practicing law right I need to say yeah now what do you say we talk a little more about than teaching so you said you've taught mostly English I'm assuming yeah how many countries two two countries so how do you like teaching how does your experience of teaching in one country differs from your experience of teaching

23:10 in another country so first of all I like teaching very much and I think it's my vocation in in life yeah or to work in this environment I enjoy um being in the classroom I don't enjoy so much or as much being with my um my teaching colleagues not just because I don't not because I don't like them but just because I enjoy working with teenagers so whenever I enter the classroom I know I'm at home oh okay yeah um I thought when I came here that's a so-called elite school would be very different from um a normal State School in Germany but it's actually not um the students here I would say the

23:57 grasp they grasp uh knowledge quicker but they show the exact same behavior as in as in Germany meaning their their their way of learning their way of of of of developing their skills is very very similar that kind of surprised me like in what ways similar well I would say teenagers are teenagers everywhere at a certain point they they changed interest towards um yeah just towards other but they have they have other interests that's at some point and this is very very similar to Germany um yeah that's what I would say and more

24:46 on teaching what's your approach in the classroom how do you go about teaching so you mainly teach business and English right so yes last year economics right so how do you go about teaching do you usually use like handouts visuals or is it like more teacher oriented have lectures no no I mean this is something maybe [Music] um my my best friend once said that I'm very unconventional mhm and um and I think that comes from my corporate background so I try to make the C the classroom as realistic as possible so in each and every lesson in business students have to be they have to produce something M um either they have to

25:32 produce a paper a podcast a video or even a discussion and um when you produce a paper which can be an outline of ideas then these ideas would then be discussed um in in in a group setting again and again so um I'm not the most important person in the classroom yeah I'm there to help them to get better and of course I know that my knowledge is much much broader than theirs which is why I'm there mhm but um I would say my teaching style is very explorative MH teachers try uh sorry students they they should find their own way through it with my help rather than me telling them what to

26:17 do and this was surprising in both countries I mean surprising to the students in both countries because it seems that the teacher is there to transmit um yeah to transmit knowledge but I'm there to have them learn their skills yeah to to learn their strengths and weaknesses and to work on their weaknesses but especially on their strengths and I also I mean this is something that really surprised my students in Germany is when I came in it was a very very nasty class in the second year and they went to the principal after the first year and said we want to have him as our English teacher and the principal called me and said how is this possible I mean how is this possible that they want you I said well

27:04 I teach them teach them business half of the class and and the vice principal once visited me and couldn't believe it that they were quiet and concentrated and they were working on their computers and so they wanted me and when I came in in the first lesson I said look I know that um that what happened in the past in the two years before for and I said um what we need to understand is that we need each other yeah I want the best for you I want you to graduate and especially I want you to enjoy these two years and they just couldn't believe it what do you mean by enjoying I said don't get me wrong this is not fun I said going to the cinema is fun but to

27:50 enjoy work is also important yeah and this is also what I think when you when you choose your University um subjects you should uh you shouldn't choose them for the fame or for maybe the money you can make out of it because it's very obvious if you look around that um you can make a lot of money with things that not necessarily related to your studies yeah so you don't have to study medicine to become rich yeah and um this is something something I encountered especially with people who have a lower income I would say they they always think about the money but even I mean if as an electrician at the moment in Germany you can earn a fortune yeah it's it's unbelievable because

28:36 there is just a lack of them yeah but that aside um yeah so my students I urged them to to create a good atmosphere together with me and I don't I always tell them the only time when you shouldn't make a mistake is at the exams and yeah whatever happens in between said I personally don't care and I always tell them think of a toddler how many times does a toddler need to fall until he or she can walk yeah I think a thousand thousands of times and this is something quite surprising because both in Germany and here students are very afraid of making

29:22 mistakes because apparently the society or I don't know even other teachers this SC them immediately but I I don't I don't and this is why I think the students accept me yeah the way I am I've actually heard something similar from other Educators I had on the podcast with many years of experience and they're always stressing the importance of creating a safe learning environment for the student yeah and you do that by normalizing making mistakes mistakes should be celebrated mistakes are indication that you're actually trying yes CU if you didn't you wouldn't make those mistakes yes right and um especially in business I mean once once

30:11 business gets more complex also economics there is not only one solution it's the same in law as we were referring to the practice of law before um you have to argue your your decisions through yeah yeah there is not one solution it's it's usually three or four and they have their pros and cons yeah so cutting salaries will be beneficial for this the shareholders but not very much beneficial for the wellbeing of the of the staff the result will probably be that their motivation goes down by 50% and then they quit mentally and are already searching for another job this is what I'm teaching my students here I

30:58 said you you are said to be the Future Leaders of this this country and if you take a decision it will have multiple effects and not just one and this is very hard to to grasp for the students whatever they do is uh they think it has only one effect but it has not it's like a Snowball Effect yeah yeah yeah that's something that really resonates with me as well so with a lot of students I see because their teacher is too judgmental or quick to quick to blame everything on the student call them names and lazy rather than trying to genuinely help them and I think that that's a that's what makes you an excellent

31:44 teacher I think that's what makes all other great Educators an excellent teacher the fact that they have the ability to create that safe dialogue in the environment for students to explore experiment and you know learn through their own eyes perspectives rather than learn through our biases yes and about being lazy MH I mean looking back looking back I've been teaching for eight years now I would say two or 3% of the students maybe are lazy MH and most of the students are just not they they think that they are in the wrong place mhm yeah and it's your job

32:31 to create the atmosphere so that they can Thrive mhm yeah that's that's what I think and for that your personality as a teacher needs to be strong because guiding young young uh young adults is is difficult they need discipline and they need your guidance but it doesn't mean that you have to uh push them down and this is something you should absolutely avoid yeah right so what are some qualities you look for in an excellent student because we just talked a lot about some qualities of a great teacher now because the will yeah the willingness to improve I actually don't look at much at uh how high were your

33:18 scores before mhm um the willingness to improve Talent is is completely overrated in my opinion I have encountered highly talented students but what is important in real life is to actually survive as I've said before and you survive through your uh soft skills and through your ability to communicate that is very important unless you're a specialist who is working only on their own like a programmer but even a programmer will cooperate at some point in time yeah but the willingness to improve is essential yeah yeah I've personally also seen in my years of teaching where I see students who start off as um outliers

34:05 and they are I mean start off as uh low Achievers yeah and they and they catch up with high performing students in no time with the right amount of push and little bit of discipline yeah they're not as talented they're not as bright but they figure things out be it's because of their I I think that winner mentality they keep going after it failure after failure setback after setback until they finally make that work yes and the other thing is start um how can I say this without insulting anybody um no please be direct please be direct just please be direct that that's what you have on your mind and that's the way you see things the point is

34:51 um students develop individually it means that you you can that your mind can be developed at the age of 14 but it could also be that it's highly developed or more developed at the age of 16 but then it will back basically explode and if you only judge the students per year yeah I mean by at the age of 14 then you would actually waste their talent that's what I think I have a student here in in bhara it's actually two two minutes away and last year was very very he really didn't know what to do he was always following other students and I could see it and also in the exams he was very weak but then in this year he kind I don't know what happened over summer but he he became um one of the top students

35:37 and also other teachers noticed that he is just brilliant now so one year ago he was just maybe but he was he was uh not at that point yet but now he is and what I look at is I always look at the end of it yeah I mean to discard students just because they're underperforming grade eight is is a mistake in my opinion yeah and there are there are organ organizations of schools who do that because they Market their high scores but they don't never Market their uh their levels of improvement yeah that's such a common problem in a lot of the schools and with

36:23 in the classroom as well because simply teacher is not willing to put in work to bring out the good side in the student it it takes a lot of work cuz I see that I see that it's well it's it's it's for me it's not so much work it's it's rather than setting setting the path properly and um it's also about being patient mhm I mean if I look at myself at the age of 14 I didn't know anything yeah yeah and when I graduated from school I had a D in English yeah I mean it's just was very bad at English and then when I graduated from University my um my English scores they were as high as my Italian scores in Italian is my second mother tongue yeah and I I I

37:09 received praise from my from my University professor and he was actually the one of the chief interpreters of the Australian broadcasting agency yeah so he would uh to be The Interpreter of uh of American politicians that's if you receive praise from some somebody like that yeah yeah that that that's pretty impressive oh yeah that is a big deal it's an honor it is it's an honor and and if I look at myself at the age of 18 I was just very very bad I know it but I I took my time yeah right I completely agree with you on the point of setting the right setting students on the right path but at the same time believe that

37:55 every single student especially underperforming students need extra push from their teacher a constant push not just an extra a constant push and one great example is this a lot of the students I teach you come here I know even after I spend hours lecturing them on what's right and wrong and why they should be studying and how in what ways I can help them and that I can be their mentor and I can help them in a lot of ways they still fall back to their old habits and when it happens it's my job as a teacher to again intervene and pull them back out P pull them out of that state and set them back on that right path and do it on repeat until eventually it becomes their second nature following the right

38:40 path but so that is and that's what I meant a lot of work on the teachers's part because I I I work with a lot of students and uh what I've seen my personal experiences like you said majority of the students are great talented and they have great potential but they simply have default back to their bad habits unless they are constantly under the constant supervision of their teacher and that that's the part where you have to break some sweat that's the part where you have to get out of your chair and you should be go back to that lecture and give that lecture all over again which sometimes can be depressing right um but I feel like it's

39:26 really part of my jour job it's part of it but what I would do I would um I would rather count on differentiation in the sense that I would put them into would put them together with high performing students and um put them in a situation where there is competition among them um usually boys are more competitive than girls usually I mean it's a it's it's kind of a a general rule but if if you have to motivate a student to work work single-handedly you would probably waste a lot of energy and this is something I I I would recommend only in in a few cases where it's necessary but the first step should always be put would would be putting them into an environment where they feel

40:13 the pressure from the peers MH and um what I found especially in Germany is that um if you put together the students who like each other they will start to learn from each other so your job as a teacher is to understand that situ ation as well yeah rather than going through the same things over and over and over again I know that our schools are different I'm just saying it for me because this is a totally different type of school yeah I think here it's more about the individual performance and individual achievements as you're offering you're offering a and yeah but in in in my schools it it would be different yeah no no you are also right about peer pressure aspect of motivating

40:59 students yeah the I think this comes from I think it's a political philosophy that um every student should be included yeah I think that every each and every student should get U the same chances but um I would instill um responsibility uh with the students as well uh it's very important yeah because at the end of the day you need to survive out there you cannot wait for somebody doing the job for you I have seen students like this because when I was growing up in Austria there were students who had very rich parents and they had no motivation at all but they

41:44 failed in later in later life a lot of them failed one even went to prison and he thought that his daddy would get him out of prison I said what I mean he he basically forged accounts oh oh yeah and that's major crime yeah he was charged with six years of prison yeah but this is another story what what I mean is um students I say it again they should be prepared for their real life and um the safe environment is at school and it's also within your family but at some point you need to be challenged I would say usually at the age of 14 15 somewhere there mhm yeah so striking the balance between a safe environment and at the same time

42:31 incorporating yeah some of the challenges of the real world so they get a taste of what's coming ahead yeah yeah yeah and prepare them for it I mean of course there will be reflection so for example in Germany the students would return after two weeks um from their um from their internships and the internship would be assessed mhm they it's it's like what was it 40% or 60 no 40% of their annual marks of their annual score would be the internship and the companies would actually filed reports with us and if on that reports it says the student is always absent always on his phone always uh always not is not interested at all yeah um always

43:19 late then I would speak to the parents and said do you really think this is a worth EIC that will work and said this is not part of of the school anymore yeah this is real life so do you really want to um to to pay all your son's bills until the end of time yeah and this is where you um have to be really direct yeah as a teacher as someone who's been around here in this country for some time and who's been involved in education uh can you highlight some of the strength and weaknesses of our local education here so what do you think of our education system so what are some things that you are a big supporter of and what are some

44:04 things you would have done differently big question yeah very big big question so um first of all I need to say that the government here uh is very very Progressive MH and they understood that um education plays a crucial part in developing the country um this is a big strength and this is something the European countries um with a few exceptions have completely forgotten mhm um in other countries like the United States basic education is commercialized that meaning that if you want to get the standard that you get in Europe you have to pay a lot of money for that MH and here there is common

44:52 sense about the fact that improving education takes a a long long time and it is based on heavy heavy Investments and this is something that usbekistan has done over many years now I think over four years if I'm not mistaken yeah they range in the top five of the world in terms of investments into education and it's not only about uh reconstructing the buildings but it's also about um offering or let's let's say that exposing um the local teachers to more International influences this is my observation I I I cannot say anything about University

45:39 education or higher education I don't know anything about that um this is definitely definitely a strength and I need to say I applaud you know as a foreigner what this government is doing um the weakness is um it's it's very hard for me to judge it because I'm not working in a in a traditional USC School I can only refer to what the students who came from there actually told me and it's a bit hard to judge what a 13 or 14 year old will will tell you but there seems to be common understanding among the students that our level of tuition is much higher compared to the local schools so uh it seems I mean I cannot

46:26 judge but the students keep telling me that in this school um they learn more and they learn more they learn it in a more sophisticated way so it means to me that the that the level at of of University or maybe yeah is is or was in the past was lower compared to what I'm used to but this is just a rough guess you know um I don't really yeah it's it's hard for me to judge that um yeah big question so if you ask me what I would recommend yeah that's that's another question yeah yeah feel free to share some recommendations I only I've only

47:13 got an insight into the into the presidential schools and this is a very very small portion of the whole education system but um I think the government is also very good in understanding that they need um influences from outside and they're doing that yeah so I know from tashkin I know a few let's say teachers in tashk of course and also professors for example an Italian Professor who teaches mechanical engineering and um I spoke to some other teachers who came from the new tashkin University so to tutors and also to professors and uh the government clearly understood that we have a solid basis in the country but we need influences from outside this is why they

47:58 are getting the foreigners just like me um yeah that is uh something that I would also recommend to to the government but the government is already doing it what they would generally recommend to usbekistan is um improving their organization yeah because when you come from Central Europe especially um not only bureaucracy but uh generally your your daily life is way more organized than here and um it's planned a lot and this is something I I believe that in general the society needs to learn because if you open up a country like um M yv has done you will be you will be

48:46 put in a situ in a competitive situation it means that you need to compete uh with people who are used to other systems and that are more efficient and this can be a disadvantage to those who cannot adapt as quickly so how do you teach organization it's it's it's difficult it's it's something and this is something I see as a as a um as a weakness but not in the education system but generally I will give you one example I arrived to Tashkent and then I wanted to take a a local flight from Tashan to bhara so I had to leave the international terminal basically check out take a taxi

49:33 which as a foreigner is almost impossible if you don't have Yandex if you don't speak the language and then you have you have to drive around uh the airport and then go to the domestic terminal there is no boss that takes you there I mean what is this yeah I think it's the only airport in the only International part in my life that I that is like this yeah gladly they are or constructing a new airport but this is what I mean so for the USCS of course it's clear okay I go out I I I put my arm outside and say and get a taxi and drive around for a few thousand sums but um if you want to attract a foreigners who work here and live here for some time um the need the city of tashkin and

50:18 also the daily life needs to be more organized so this is not a criticism directly to the to the Ministry of Education but it's something that the country really needs to improve with yeah yeah right so for example here I mean buses you know where the bus stops are you know where the buses go uh I can read where they go but where would they stop in Tashan the system is already organized there are bus stops yeah you you see where you are these are just very very minor issues but if you for example then go to a bank here and you're used to banks in Europe you think oh my goodness I mean it's it's very complicated just to get a bank transfer so it's called operations the

51:05 the operations um yeah have to improve a lot right well well the good news is all these changes are underway and taking place and it's only a matter of time before the system becomes more efficient to make it more conducive for our local education system to implement those changes like bringing the foreign expertise here and making them feel home yeah and I think that um I mean what I see here in usbekistan there is a lot of willingness M to improve especially with your generation yeah we how old are you I'm 24 yeah see so you're you're 20 years younger than me oh yeah and um I

51:52 also see it with with teachers who are like who aged 30 to 30 five I see it and I would say that for example a teaching license that I have earned in in Germany the concept of the teaching license is actually to teach teachers how to teach to teach them methodologies to well it's a teaching license and this is something that should be implemented as a standard in usbekistan yeah if you ask me what I recommend so just the same way a doctor or a lawyer is supposed to get a license you one teachers also be licensed practitioner before they can start teaching in the classroom yes or just like in my case you start working but you're uh you're assessed over one and a half years or maybe two years and

52:39 you you learn you're trained on the job which is also fine but um there should be something like a license in my opinion yeah yeah and the knowledge is there I mean the knowledge you can get from hundreds of YouTube videos as well if you want but of course it needs to be organized and planned so this is my my criticism if you want so that some things uh some need to be organized and planned so from where you come your home country teachers are supposed to have a license before they can practice before they can teach yes or in or you um need to be in in a program and they will tell you that within two years you need to get the license and there are courses for it that are of course for free you are paid full fulltime in that time and you will

53:25 actually discount some of the lessons you need to teach and in these in this time you would go to courses it's also a very good system it's for those who are like me who have pra who have worked in in another environment in another industry and then wish uh to become a teacher yeah what happens if you lose that license for some reason uh in Germany you cannot lose it unless there is no yeah there is no expiry date on it I know that there are countries where there is an expired date which I think is totally stupid but anyway um you can only lose it if you commit a crime basically mhm which is fair enough you can cuz I know if you're a doctor and you might lose your license if you malpractice yes or same goes for

54:12 a lawyer so I was same for a teacher same for a teacher same for a teacher I've seen this yeah and what what would constitute malpractice and teaching it's not malpractice in teaching it's U misconduct mhm misconduct which is like inappropriate behavior in the work harassment harassment yeah and so criminal offenses at the end of the day yeah but that is it's it's is obvious there is no need to talk about that yeah yeah um it's um as long as you you learn how to teach and um in some countries I think you need to do professional development twice a year or so which is also fine yeah I've done it I've done it myself and but in Germany whether you do it or not doesn't affect

54:58 your teaching license but professional development you need to go to courses just on I don't modern modern media teaching in the classroom or whatever it is how to use apps in the classroom usually these courses are very good yeah so like to sort of enhance your skills and bring them up to date exactly exactly because the world is changing rapidly and you got to be able to keep up with the new modern practice exactly exactly exactly yeah right I see yeah all right so we talked a lot about education and there are some other questions I got on the list here I remember during our Meetup conversation you did mention that you did an NBA and you also mentioned that on the podcast

55:44 today so uh I'm actually personally interested in doing an NBA I don't know exactly when I'm going to be doing so I I I was wondering if you could point out some pros and cons of doing an MBA so is it something young entrepreneurs need if they say don't have an MBA is it is MBA a must or is it something is is business something people can figure out along the way so what are some things that NBA teach teach yourself you can teach yourself accounting and you can teach yourself corporate finance and you can teach yourself how to uh read a balance sheet you can do that yourself but you University teaches you how to um see through all three of them at the same

56:30 time MH and which are the results of one figure yeah and what how they can affect uh your business and this is very very hard to learn by doing yeah um the other thing is any University degree any additional qualification will always enhance your mindset Yeah the more you know the better for you um about the mbas um I've seen them changing over the the past 10 years so it has it it was a big business but it has become more of a big business meaning that more universities offer these mbas without actually putting in the quality I'm not getting you any names today but I've seen this a

57:17 lot so basically any University who they don't even have a business department and offer an MBA I mean what is that yeah it's just ridiculous and they think that doing an MBA just comes from inviting a few externals Who deliver their courses and then be done with it and this is very poor quality but they would charge you nevertheless 15 to 20,000 for it if not even more yeah in dollars and even even more you know so I think that an MBA as any master's degree should be at home at the University that does research and that has very good connections with uh the local or maybe the the national or even International um

58:04 corporations and that um students should learn from experienced professionals rather than just getting somebody who knows accounting and then teaches you accounting that's ridiculous this is something you can do yourself so I would be very very careful you choosing the right MBA mhm yeah I about the big ones um my University at the time had the same accreditation as Harvard jaale and um Stanford and even Cambridge and Oxford they have sought this accreditation for a few years and they had it so it's not necessary that you go for the big names because quality education is everywhere and you just need to to find it they're very very

58:50 good universities that don't have this these big names yeah um yeah so your question was is it a must I think an MBA will will change your mindset completely it will open your mind to to issues that you weren't even aware of before yeah because I remember during our conversation first conversation you made the point that you can actually have a startup business without an MBA but if you one day want to go International yeah right if you want to grow if you want to scale then you need the hardcore skills it's not something

59:37 you can you can just figure out okay um I believe it I believe that you cannot understand each and every specialism but you should at least understand it uh broadly you cannot have the same knowledge as a as a uh as the Chief Financial Officer and the Chief Information officer and so on you can't but you need to understand what they are um what they are telling you this is a big problem especially in politics those so-called advisers they speak to politicians who don't have a clue especially in Europe right now I'm not referring to this government at all I need I need to point that out but in Europe it's an absolute mess you so the

1:00:23 current minister of econ e omics or economic Affairs uh what was he he's he was a book salesman no education at all I mean it's it's it's a nightmare yeah how is that even possible right yeah how is this possible they call it democracy but I think it's anyway yeah so but for you I mean coming from a small school that is run by how many people here how many people do run the school here uh only two only two you see if you want to scale it up to 20 30 50 people um you need to be a professional and it's you cannot put in the hours anymore just to

1:01:08 um just to make your shortcomings um vanish you need to be professionally prepared so it's very difficult to scale something up something that is successful when it's small might not be successful when it goes big or bigger that's my biggest fear that's my biggest fear right now we are thinking about scaling because people want us to Branch out people want us to set up our school in other regions possibly in Tashan one day but just the whole idea of doing it and not being around and realizing that there's a possibility that quality may go down when I'm not around and not having the right people in the right place and not being able to coordinate all these events yes that's such a daunting task

1:01:54 yes and this is is where an MBA or any business studies would help you a lot and um it's something that even the head of HR of Google or the former vice vice president of HR MH of Google said it's very difficult to get good people yeah and you need to understand who is good I mean you can go to a cafee with anybody and you know have a good conversation and think oh this person is nice and he's speaking in a nice way but um then when the person works for you it made turn out that it was all superficial so how do you know that you have the right persons in place that they're doing their

1:02:40 job yeah and this comes partly with experience but also partly with uh the right education mhm I see so is an MBA a must well an MBA is expensive yeah and even for me I was working full-time I had to I had to save each and every time just to get it yeah and those were hard times I did a part-time MBA over three and a half years and I really don't want to do it again it it took a lot of nerves from me it was a very very difficult time but um um I recommend it let's put it that way I recommend it and just taking courses in the specialisms I will not help you you need to have the big picture yeah in mind yeah in mind yeah and

1:03:27 and to what would be best for you maybe is to to cooperate or speak to somebody who has already done it but then you would basically have to work with that person for a long time and learn from that person but you you don't you cannot do that because you are here and running this school yeah I see yeah what people also underestimate is uh the the political part of doing the job once it's small it's not so political but once it gets big it becomes very very political and what what do you exactly mean by political you mean like office politics or uh yeah yeah yeah a lot people are they have their feelings they they

1:04:12 they some some of them are greedy some of them want to have power in the company mhm and um how do you deal with those people you cannot push them down all the time but you can make a weakness a strength yeah yeah and it's your job as a leader to assess the situation the the people be able to read them and identify their needs and yes also when necessary be able to confront them about the problems yeah yeah I think it's also I mean what I see or what I have seen as a problem is you are 24 years old now and if you want somebody to run your school elsewhere mhm person would probably be a little bit older than you maybe 10 years

1:04:58 older so this can also be an issue just yeah and how do you deal with that yeah but at the same time I'm really excited about these challenges yes because I see them as new opportunities to learn and grow yeah not necessarily uh big problems and new headache like most people do but to me it's like a reason to wake up in the morning because I know there's a there's a opportunity new possibility for me to become the better version of me yeah to to take on new skills and qualities and help more people than I'm doing already yeah yeah I think that's absolutely the right attitude yeah yeah to see everything like uh a challenge yeah I wouldn't

1:05:44 compare it to a foot football game but it's um yeah it's it's a game you want to play yeah and you want to be successful in it and sometimes you win and sometimes you lose but overall you want to win of course yeah yeah yeah yeah so I wouldn't say this too pessimistic then yeah it's just um the MBA would help you would definitely help you yeah and having the right mindset as you said because yeah CU it's so easy to get hung up on problems I I encounter along the way and when that happens the way I pull myself out of that the depress depressive State of Mind Is by remind ing myself that there are people out there who wish who had my problems

1:06:30 oh yeah still you would well problems are always individual and you need to fix problems at work you definitely have to do it but do you personally always have to fix them and this is something I've encountered here very much is that um people I would say in bhara because I've lived here for most of the time is they still think in hierarchies and the boss is always right mhm but that's not the case yeah yeah and so Google for example or very other very successful companies they work in clusters who are responsible for their output that actually brings me to my next question I got here on the list so there are different management styles yeah and I

1:07:15 kind of looked into it and so there's Democratic and there's autogr so top- down approach like you said uh the boss makes all the major decisions and send them down to uh subordinates so which one of these two approaches or Styles you personally would Implement would have if you had your own business if you had your own company because I feel like I don't feel entirely comfortable having a democratic style of running the school here because I know the next day everyone would be walking all over me at the same time I don't want to be one of those author authoritarian yeah bosses who just calls all the shots and never let people uh speak so like how do

1:08:02 you balance those two okay um this is a question I also received from my students M and we talked about it for an entire hour mhm and the point is if you are a very very good guitar player you know way more than you actually exhibit in a concert yeah you know more ifs than you would actually play mhm in an hour or one and a half hours of concert of a concert so you need to understand as a leader when to apply what sometimes you have to kick people sometimes you have to speak with people sometimes you be have to be harsh sometimes you have to be Charming sometimes you can delegate decisions sometimes you have to take

1:08:48 them on their own yeah so it's it's not a decision of what style actually you um Implement it's about knowing what to do in in a given situation so this is why I said before the more you know the better it is and in an MBA you would actually have a year or in my case it was a year a lot of courses on how to communicate and communication is disregarded in most companies but it's actually the master class of leadership how do you communicate this is the master class if you master that then you will be successful because people are very very different yeah and my recommendation is

1:09:35 actually to apply or to know what to apply in which given situation rather than just saying I pick this one and this will always be good it can change within a day even it's yeah there are times of in which you can be there are good times and bad times there are times in which financials are restrained so what do you do in those times will you still pay high salaries to those who have supported you for 5 years or would you just cut them or would you go to them and said listen we don't have this money anymore would you agree to have a a salary without a bonus for six months and then we will sit down again but then you would they would ask you what are you doing yeah what will you do to go back

1:10:23 to to to to positive fun finals and it's a tough tough discussion then probably a few of them will leave very likely yeah so the question is you need to be flexible you need to understand in which situation you are in yeah yeah yeah I the other time I had one of my friends on the podcast who also uh runs couple of projects in his own school he actually runs two schools I think and and I posed this exact same question to him so what's one thing you learned in your all years of uh Business

1:11:09 and Entrepreneurship and he told me the number one thing you need is flexibility yeah he he said it right from the get-go said you need to I know this friend by the way yeah uh yeah if we speaking about the same person and I I doubt I okay it's another one okay yeah cuz because uh he was he was in one of the recent episodes I'm talking about be M MTAR he's an guy yeah who his bad guy yeah and you also made mentioned that you did major in economics right business business business administration business administration I was wondering if you could talk a little about economics as well my major is also I did major in economic site so can you explain to people our viewers the

1:11:55 concept of an economic model so what is an economic model we did talk little economics during our first conversation an economic an economic model tries to abstract a real life situation into something that is um understandable mhm and it cuts out um it cuts out all the possibilities and States uh certain factors that are given so it's an abstraction of the reality that is that is an that is an economic model mhm so it's like an equation with variables but no yeah depending on the model there are certain variables but

1:12:40 yeah have you ever wondered to look into usbekistan economic model oh that you mean mhm well cuz I'm assuming right now now at this Center of this economic model is education CU you did mention that we make Hefty investment in education so well that is a part of it but there is more to it yeah yeah yeah for sure yeah so what is your question so have you ever looked into what our economic model is what constitutes yes I mean [Music] they the government wants to get away from um the centralized economic model that was used in the Soviet Union and also under Kim

1:13:26 of the planned economy basically and they want to have an open market economy mhm um they want in not they only want but they need investments from abroad MH some Investments have already been made but I heard that there are plans for example of privatizing a lot of the national healthcare service MH yeah that's happening actually with a lot of the Private Hospital is how will it be will the state still have a share of 50 50% plus one share on the hospitals I don't know exactly how it will be because I can't read uh the national language MH but this is a big part of it and in this case was bistan will probably be a state like the United States MH yeah where everybody is just

1:14:13 for him or herself and uh the state will deliver you very little service MH so is this what the USCS want uh I doubt it um what the government also wants to do is they they want to bring in quality from abroad quality products basically goods and services they have uh a very good cooperation with South Korea I mean traditionally I also with the Chinese um with Russia of course as well as the big brother in the north MH and um what they're doing right now is they remain politically neutral which in my my opinion is an excellent step they

1:14:58 have taken so if you look at the companies who are interested not necessarily investing at the moment into usbekistan they come from the United States they come even from Russia and they also come from China so from all around the world and uh the government for example doesn't commment any conflict yeah in happening in the world so they open up and they want foreign investment because they understood that it can the development of quality goods and services cannot only come from inside yeah they're very aware of it but this is basically the idea of the old um Silk Road yeah that through exchange of knowledge yeah countries would mutually

1:15:46 benefit from this exchange yeah and what do you think is the purpose of every economic model is it to uh to raise the GDP or people's happiness level like which one of these two indicators do you think is more important GDP or the happiness index you mean referring to usbekistan or I mean in general not necessarily our country but in in general do you think GDP is reflective of the Count's success reflects to some to some extent but you always need to

1:16:31 look at the GDP per capita and then you need to look at the real wages then you

…