Meet Abdul Basit, Whose Passion For Teaching Made Him A Guinness World Record Holder

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My name is Abdul Basit. I am a Guinness World Record holder and in this video, I’ll share my story with you. Why and how I made this channel to inspire my students. That’s coming up.

First, let me tell you about myself. I have a wife and 3 kids. When I was a kid, even at that time, I liked to brag about and show off with my numbers skill. That was my gift. I was nothing like a genius or something with it but I was pretty good at it. More importantly, I enjoyed it. I am an MBA with majors in Management Information Systems.

After completing my degree, me and one of my friends, we made an academy in 2001. We both loved to teach. For 4 years till 2004, we worked hard and made name for our academy in the city. But things didn’t work out between me and my partner. Financially, we were doing good though, but I wasn’t enjoying the business.

Then, at the end of 2004, I sold my shares to him and came to Dubai to try my luck. Crazy, huh? As I was not used to working as an employee, I left 4 different jobs. Not because they let me go but because I quit. I resigned from each job because I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing, I wasn’t happy. That was not what I loved to do. I wanted to teach and inspire students. Train them for the competitions in their studies and in their lives. I wanted to teach students the easy methods of calculating in their heads. I wanted to teach them how to acquire a photographic memory.

To fulfill my dream, I went to a lot of schools, colleges, and universities. At the most, they gave me an appointment for presentation in their management and decision makers. In presentations, I showcased my skills of calculations and memory. I don’t remember a single presentation in which they were not really excited. But when it came to teaching those skills to their students and paying me for that, no one was interested in paying for something not included in their curriculum.

I struggled for almost 10 years. Because of my financial problems, I made big financial mistakes. Blunders you can say, I admit that. There are people who loved and respected me, and I betrayed them. I apologize for that and ask for their forgiveness. All of it is going to change now. I’m going to make up for all my mistakes. A time came when one of my best childhood friends said I was a disgrace to his friendship. He was ashamed of being called my friend. He stopped receiving my calls and never replied to my emails when I tried to reach him. I really needed him at that time.

I quit going to schools to tell them to buy my course or anything. Then one day, I was sitting. Desperate, exhausted, and I wanted to cry. How can I reach all these students? I love to train, I love to teach, I love to explain things, to motivate others. You know all those things that have “tion” in the end? Motivation, inspiration, determination, I wanted to do all those “tion” things. How do I reach my audience? Madaari needs his audience, right? I like to show off, that’s why I made a playlist especially for “show off tips and tricks”.

Then after a lot of thinking, It dawned on me. All those people who I met all these years showing my skills, they loved the entertainment part of my presentations. That’s why the name of this channel is Numbertainment. Numbers and entertainment. It became numbertainment. And it’s not hard to relate. If students enjoy it, they will be interested in spending time with it and they will learn in the process. You know, I always thought Math or any subject, any learning material for that matter, should be as easy and natural as breathing.

For example, everyone wants to get good grades in the exam, but very few want to go through all the struggle of learning. Why? 1 reason that I know of is, the methods of learning and memorizing used in our schools make it very hard for students to enjoy learning. It’s really hard to feel any sense of achievement or satisfaction after getting the correct answer to a Math problem when you have spent full 2 pages of the notebook and 5 to 10 minutes to get that answer. Where I teach nowadays, it’s an American institute.

I teach students how to get the answer within seconds, with writing 1 or maximum 2 lines. Sometimes even mentally without writing anything. They love it. They shout and scream with excitement. The normal response is, “why were these methods not taught to us before?” In standardized tests like SAT, GMAT, GRE and others, you don’t need to show the working. They only want the answer. So, that gives my students a competitive edge in these types of tests. But even if you have to show the working, just knowing the answer within a few seconds doubles the confidence level of a student.

Then, he or she can show the working to reach that same answer. Ok, let’s say, for example, you can memorize anything just by reading it, looking at it, or hearing about it only once. If learning a new concept is that easy, who would not want to learn?

I realized then. If they don’t let their students learn from me, I have to find another way to reach my audience. And that was the beginning of this channel. I made this channel not only for my students who I teach in my institute. It’s for all the students out there in any part of the world. There was a problem though. How can I attract all these students with different cultures and nationalities to my channel? I mean look at my getup.

Do you like it? Okay! When I go into my class and if it’s a new batch, I look at the faces of students when they see me for the first time. They are like, “Are you kidding me?”, “What could he possibly teach us?” That’s my first impression on them. Then 5 to 10 minutes into the class, and they feel at home. But, what about the students who watch me on YouTube for the first time? I don’t have 10 minutes to impress them before they leave. How can I attract them to my channel before they close my video? How can I inspire them? How can I make them want to come to my channel and stay there? How can I motivate them? All those “tion” things, you know.

Hmmm. IDEA!!! Guinness World Record. Guinness World Records is a renowned and famous company. If I become a Guinness world record holder, maybe they will listen to me. So, I went and smashed the world record. It was nothing but a piece of cake. Just kidding! I practiced a lot. 4 months, day and night, before becoming a Guinness world record holder.

If you go to the official website of Guinness World Records and open my record page, that is, this one, “Fastest time to identify all elements of the periodic table”, it’s written there, I quote, “Abdul Basit attempted this record to inspire his students”. And that’s true.

But, now I will tell you what’s not written there. I did it not only to inspire you, but to tell you that if there is something you want to do in your life, you love to do it, and you want to make it you career, may it be sports, or becoming an artist, or helping your local community, I don’t care. Most important thing is you love to do it. You enjoy it. That’s you. It’s your life.

Don’t try to become what your teacher wants you to become, or what your parents want you to become, or your elder brother or sister wants you to become. Become what YOU want to become. Make it your career, your business, your life, I don’t know. Live your life, not someone else’s.

Now that I am a one-time Guinness world record holder, I am planning to break the new world record in the different category every 6 months. I’ll make a playlist for those records in which I’ll tell you about that record category, how I practiced for that record and will show you my Guinness world record official certificate. And if you want to become a Guinness world record holder yourself, tell you what, don’t bother.

I will help you. You need any guidance, how to apply on their website, any other help you need. Anytime boss. What??? You are welcome. No problem dear.

Guys, for you, I have made separate playlists for each topic. So, there is “showoff tips and tricks” playlist where I teach you how to show off using numbers. There is a playlist named madaari where I just show you the cool stuff. Then there is a playlist “Become a human calculator”. Just started a new playlist, “Talk 2 Me” where I’ll tell you my stories and what’s going on with the channel once in a while and in return, you can talk to me.

I have great hopes for my channel. Also, I am planning to approach local schools, colleges, universities again for free presentations to inspire their students and increase my community of learners on my channel. Who knows in near future, I’ll be doing a show in your school or college. And all over the world. You never know.

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