#communityovereverything: Kit Gupta

Kit Gupta X CityCentral 

“THERE’S A FINE TUNING BETWEEN WHAT YOU LIKE DOING AND HOW YOU CAN MAKE A LIVING OUT OF IT…”

The American dream can get lost in translation for some. Nothing will happen to you overnight; you must be ready for risk-taking, sacrifice and hard work. We sat down with the Executive Director at Blue Sky Talk and CityCentral member, Kit Gupta, to discuss how he took his passion of interacting with people and turned it into a successful non-profit service.

After getting his MBA and working in the medical device industry, Gupta became a young entrepreneur in his late twenties. He soon realized that the career path he was taking wasn’t going to work for him. “Now in retrospect when I look back, it didn’t work out because it wasn’t meant to be; there was something more that I wanted to do, and I think I found it,” explains Gupta. 

“LEARNING FROM PEOPLE REALLY HELPS ME UNDERSTAND MYSELF AND MY PERSONAL GROWTH.”

Kit started his journey by going to global events across the world and speaking to crowds. He realized that there’s plenty of motivational speakers that are out there trying to make others feel and do better. “I think the goal for me was to have something which was more fulfilling in my work, and that was interactions with other people,” Gupta Explains. He realized through his global travel that there was a lot of knowledge he could take from individuals who are making an impact and wanted to help share their stories. “I knew there were parts of this that can be evolved. The speaking part of it which I was doing can be transformed into something more like a documentary or interview style, presentations and so on…I decided it had to be something more simplistic, something where people who are doing something good for the community can come here and talk about their work. So that’s where Blue Sky Talk was birthed,” Gupta explains. 

“THE GOAL IS FOCUS ON PEOPLE WHO ARE MAKING AN IMPACT WITH THEIR WORK, BUT AREN’T ABLE TO GET A PLATFORM TO GET RECOGNIZED.”

Blue Sky Talk is made up on 2 facets: Voice of Changemakers and Blue Sky Learning. Voice of Changemakers gives people who are impacting the community an opportunity to speak about their work. “Voice of Changemakers comes in to play for entrepreneurs, women-run initiatives, minority-run initiatives—it gives them a voice there,” Gupta explains. 

The second facet of the non-profit service is launching in 2021 called Blue Sky Learning. “It’s a platform where we are connecting what we are learning from these Changemakers in the interview to people who would like to learn success-skills which they otherwise would not be able to learn in an academic setting”, Gupta explains. The service will teach individuals things like, “How do you accept your own shortcomings?” and how to react to criticism. 

Blue Sky Talk has also expanded by adding interns and giving them a professional, real-world experience. “We are helping them through the platform itself gain professional experience, professional work, marketing, blog writing, research and so on,” Gupta explains. 

 

“SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO BE CRAZY. CRAZY ENOUGH TO TAKE BIG RISKS AND RISK IT ALL.”

When asked what advice he has for people who want to quit their day job and make something of their own, Kit explains, “You don’t take risks because someone else is telling you to take risks, you take them when you are ready.” Kit explains that there are a select few that really go after what they want and let their passion take the wheel. It’s all about listening to yourself when you are ready to break the ordinary life that you are living. The best advice Gupta has ever received is, “Figure out a way where you can get paid to play every day.”

“[CITYCENTRAL] IS A VERY GOOD PLACE FOR ANYONE TO COME, BUT YOU HAVE TO BE WILLING TO INTERACT.”

Gupta explains how CityCentral has immensely helped the non-profit organization make connections, “I got my first interview from outside but then I realized that there are people within CityCentral that I could reach out to.” 

To learn more about Blue Sky Talk and discover Changemakers within the CityCentral community and across the world, visit www.blueskytalk.org

 

By Libby Smith

 

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