Actor and motivational speaker Ashish Vidyarthi on how to stay relevant in an ever-changing job market
MUMBAI MIRROR (February 15, 2020)

American TV star George Lopez once said: “When things are bad, it’s the best time to reinvent yourself.” My life can pretty much be summed up by this one quote.

After graduating from NSD, I began working in theatre and garnered a fair amount of success in art house films. In 1994, after winning the National Award for Drohkaal, a lot of meaningful work began to come my way. I realised that I was being offered good roles, but not much money. I needed to support my parents and myself, so even though it was painful, I had to transition into becoming a fulltime, mainstream-cinema actor.

I am a trained actor, and that has been my primary career for many decades. But I realised early on that I did not want to do just any role that came my way; at the same time, waiting for preferred roles wasn't making economic or emotional sense. Indeed, necessity is the mother of invention — it compels us to choose a particular profession for a living. I remember the review of a play of mine by theatre critic Kavita Nagpal. She wrote, “Ashish gave a delineated performance” — meaning that I had delivered on the role exactly as I was supposed to. I wanted to continue to do many such ‘delineated’ and layered roles, but as it turned out, I was only being offered parts that were unidimensional. So I began to look for such roles outside the Hindi film industry, in regional cinema. And for that, I had to reinvent myself. Today I have worked in the Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Bengali industry, and performed in a total of 11 languages.

A few years ago, I bumped into a well-known filmmaker with whom I had worked extensively in the past. He said to me, “Oh, I thought you had disappeared.” This despite the fact that he knew exactly what I had been up to, but chose to pretend that he didn’t. This hurt me a lot. But I decided not to let his casual indifference turn into bitterness, and channelled it into a positive motivational force that then helped me move past this. There was indeed a time in my life when people wouldn't take my calls — people whom I’d been fond of, worked closely with and even stood by in their time of need. That was when I realised I had to reinvent myself and stay relevant by learning new skills which were the demand of the time. Consciously opting to do this was a rigorous process, and came with sacrifices. But I knew that the results would be worth it.

In school, we are promoted from one class to another, but we never look at this as ‘reinventing’ ourselves. This could be because we don’t have too many responsibilities at that stage in our lives. We only perceive it as the next logical step in our progression. But as we become adults, one of the challenges we face is allowing our decisions to be governed by how they will be perceived by others. Reinventing yourself as an adult isn’t easy. But think of it as becoming part of a new class in your school. The key difference is that you have chosen this class for yourself, rather than being moved up from a lower grade, and since there is no fixed syllabus, you have to figure out what you want to do and learn new ways of doing it.

Each of us has trained or studied hard to excel in our chosen field, and we invest long years to hone particular skills. When we realise that those painstakingly-acquired skills are no longer relevant, we shouldn’t be upset. We should appreciate that life is giving us an opportunity to redevelop ourselves. Also, life is much more than a single career: you must develop the ability to shake off what is irrelevant and learn new skills.

It’s possible that in our formative years, people have praised us for our achievements. But when you are reinventing yourself, your past achievements no longer matter, and also the results of your reinvention may not show up right away.

During this period, we should give ourselves time. Don’t be discouraged by others’ perceptions of you. What matters is how you choose to live your life and view yourself.

Years ago, I had seen a famous steel company ad where the tagline was ‘We also make steel’. That’s when I decided I needed to add an ‘also’ to my life. I knew, even at that point, that I’m more than an actor: I’m also a writer, a communicator, a traveller and a friend. Some years ago, I began interacting with companies, conducting workshops, and reached out to over 150 organisations across the country. I got to express myself in ways beyond just as an actor, and that’s how I stumbled upon a whole new profession — that of a life and leadership influencer. My quest for continuous change has not stopped, however. I constantly try to discover new skills and capabilities; ways of comprehending life, as I resurrect my love for communication. You, too, can chart a new path for yourself. But keep these in mind:

No one will cheer you on
You need to find unique ways to motivate yourself and get by. Most will hold onto that fixed perception they have of you, and only a few will congratulate you on your courage. Be prepared to be told that while they appreciate your brave attempt at transformation, they shouldn’t be counted on for any assistance.

Power through with passion
This is a personal journey. You have to keep going, fuelled by your faith, views and energy. You have to relentlessly question your choices and the path that you have chosen.

Retain your voice
Reinventing yourself does not mean taking a break from your past. It means discovering your own unique way of making a difference. Even as I go about delivering talks as a motivational speaker, I continue to act in films and web series. Wherever you are in life, you are part of a greater whole. So nurture the belief that you can still become a better version of you. Picture abhi baaki hai…

Vidyarthi has co-founded Avid Miner ( www.avidminer.com ) and delivers talks on leadership, creativity and life, even as his journey as an actor continues.

National Award-winning actor Ashish Vidyarthi is now a regular on the motivational-speaking circuit. Just how did he get there?
Kunal Guha (MUMBAI MIRROR; February 3, 2019)

Six years ago, on a warm Summer evening, Ashish Vidyarthi was twiddling his thumbs at Hyderabad airport. His flight had just been delayed for the nth time, and he was watching his disgruntled fellow passengers launch a verbal assault on the junior-most staffer manning the airlines’ desk. Vidyarthi says he intervened when it looked like things would spin out of control. “I walked up to the most belligerent of my fellow passengers and told him that if he touched the airlines’ staff, he would get arrested.” Vidyarthi’s straight-talking defused the situation. “If I had tried to calm the fellow down, he would have gone on and on about the reasons for his rage. So I just shared the potential consequences of his action with him.” Vidyarthi didn’t think much about his intervention until he was approached by a co-passenger who felt the actor could deploy his skills to impart managerial lessons, and invited him for a talk at his firm. Six years and over 100 motivational talks later, it’s safe to say that Vidyarthi, whose filmography includes over 240 films across 11 languages, has made a cosy career of it.

Today, he works with top corporates, Airtel, HSBC, Accenture and Mahindra Group, among them, and various B-schools to create and conduct customised transformational workshops. What does he talk about? A bewildering range of topics, from building resilient teams to the purpose of innovation. His sessions are packed with humour and peppered with anecdotes from his own life. “I often ask, ‘how do you cross a street?’ You look left and right, and then cross it, correct? But how do we actually do it in India?” he asks, and smiles. “That’s life. It doesn’t have a standard operating procedure — one has to be agile and inventive.”

Vidyarthi says he often gets requests from companies to talk about ‘storification’ to alter behaviour and mindset. “As an actor, we are all about stories, and now, I have applied it to life. We include things which we consider ‘possible’ as part of our story. But the things that aren’t ‘possible’ for us, may figure in someone else’s story. If we alter our story by including things we want, our story expands and so does our ability to do things,” he says.

Vidyarthi, who was last seen in Begum Jaan, first took on the role of a corporate communicator in 2013. “Often, HR personnel request for a session I had previously conducted for another firm. But I tell them that it was a solution that worked for them at the time, and that they may need an entirely different one.” Vidyarthi tries to understand the concerns and areas of improvement of each firm before hitting the board to write his own ‘material’.

Vidyarthi’s desire to reinvent himself was triggered 15 years ago when he tired of playing “cardboard roles” in Hindi films. “I was playing a villain in every film,” says the NSD graduate and National Award winner for his performance in Droh Kaal. Back then, the actor had established his presence in Mumbai, and had just begun working in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada films. On a flight to Chennai for a shoot, he remembers landing at the airport to find a man holding up a placard that read ‘Aziz Vidyanidhi’. “I went up to him and asked if he meant ‘Ashish Vidyarthi’. He responded with a blank expression, and then said, ‘Bombay actor? Sit in car.’”

This sudden bout of anonymity shook the actor up, and he began questioning himself. “As an actor, you live in a fool’s paradise. You want to hear only the right things and that becomes your reality. But these trappings are only momentary,” says the actor who has included ‘Aziz Vidyanidhi’ as a chapter in his forthcoming book, The Second Half.

Vidyarthi says he reflected on the episode, and realised that, apart from being an actor, he was also a father, husband, traveller and photographer. “So why should I limit myself to one role? Especially when we live in a world of cross-pollination.”

The History graduate from Hindu College says that he is not an HR or leadership specialist, but just another human being who finds ways to get access to human behaviour. This comes naturally as actors closely read human beings. “It helps that I am also a ‘vidyarthi’ for life and am keen to learn every day.”