A 19-year-old told me nobody needs teachers anymore. He was half right.

I met a 19-year-old guy at the gym today. He looked fit, but he also looked new. He came to the lat pulldown machine where I was working out and asked how many reps I had left. I told him we could do it one by one, together.

During the workout I asked why he wasn’t taking personal training.

He was quick, direct and very clear. We don’t need trainers or teachers nowadays. Everything is on YouTube, or you can ask ChatGPT directly.

That stopped me. I use these tools every day, and I have still paid hundreds of thousands of rupees to a gym trainer.

He was completely confident about what he had learned. So I asked him more — about his diet, his supplements, how he was deciding what to eat. He told me exactly what he was eating and exactly what he was taking, and said he got all of it from the internet.

I have paid a nutritionist to build my diet plans.

I am not saying he was wrong. But it felt like watching someone freedive — going underwater on a single breath, no tank, no regulator. It is more enjoyable and it gives you more confidence. It is also more risky.

The internet gives you information. But information can be wrong, incomplete, outdated, or simply distracting.

A teacher gives you DCA (Direction, Correction, Accountability)

The internet is very useful — under the direction of a teacher.

Let me explain from my own ten years.

I learned almost everything I know from the internet. It took far longer than it needed to. My first two years I earned nothing at all, and even after that the income was very low. Looking back at my whole career, I think a teacher could have saved me at least half that time. Probably more.

But notice what I said. A teacher could have saved my time. I did not say a teacher would have helped me earn more.

That decision was always mine — what I wanted, how big my target was, how much time I would give it, how much effort I could make. A teacher only gives direction inside that. A teacher does not guarantee results. A teacher saves time.

Now let me apply the same test to my own teaching.

I taught 250 students about online earning.

Hardly three or four are doing well consistently. The others started, earned something, and left. Some never earned at all.

I gave all of them the same direction. Three or four stuck with it.

That is exactly why the 19-year-old is half right. Whether you succeed still comes down to how long you can stay with it — and nobody, teacher or internet, can do that part for you. The students who are earning today deserve full credit for it. They did the part that actually mattered.

So where does a teacher come in?

Imagine you’re a new employee at a large bookstore. The racks are organised, but there are no labels on top. Your boss asks you to bring a specific book. Every book is right there in front of you — and you go rack by rack, and it takes you a very long time.

Now imagine someone trained you for a few days first. Your boss asks for the same book. The first thing you do is rule out every rack it isn’t in.

Nobody found the book for you. You found it. But the training saved you an hour.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

If I could give that 19-year-old one piece of advice, it would be this: pay a teacher, get direction, find the information yourself on the internet, bring it back, and let him correct you.