329. From India to the Land of Opportunity: An EB-1A Immigration Success Story with Ranjeet Mudholkar

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Hey there. I'm Sandee Sgarlata, and welcome to the Happiness Solve podcast. Twice a week, we explore the journey to finding true happiness by sharing inspiring stories, practical tips, and insightful conversations with some of today's leading experts. But we don't just scratch the surface. We dive deep into the real grit of what it takes to live a genuinely happy life.

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00:00:47
Ranjit, such a pleasure to have you on today. I'm so excited for this conversation. We talked a little bit before I hit record, but how's everything going today? Wonderful. And thank you for having me.

00:00:59
It's a great honor. Oh, my gosh. Thank you. Thank you. I love talking to people that do things that are very unique because I, you know, we don't know what we don't know.

00:01:10
And when I, when I saw, you know, got the email, I was like, wow, that's really interesting. So you're the founder of NEt, the next league program. And what you do is you transform the pathway to the EB one a green card, by helping professionals achieve the american dream. By applying for the EB one a green card, and landing the perfect job in six months without any sponsor, lottery or a million dollar plus investment. Wow.

00:01:39
I know. I can imagine it can, it can cost a lot of money to try, to try to immigrate here. Tell us your backstory. Why did you find this, this passion of yours and what was the turning point that you were like, this is what I've got to do. Okay.

00:01:58
Now, I have been an educationist all my life. At 24, in fact, I was a director of one of the leading business schools in India. And then after that, I have been a CEO of financial planning Standards board, India, where, you know, we used to produce certification programs in finance, which is today very popularly in the US, known as certified financial planner. Right now. I have been an educationist all my life.

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You know, there was always some kind of giving back to people. Making, helping people to become the best version of themselves was always ingrained in me. I had to move. I wanted to move to better opportunities. My children wanted to kind of have an education in the US.

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And that prompted me to kind of apply for coming down to the US myself, actually, while I was in India. And typically, Sandee, what happens is that if somebody wants to move to the US. They need a relative to be here, brother, sister, or parents, or they need an employer. If you want to do a job, there is, of course, there are one or two other options which are there, like, you need to have a $1 million investment you can make. So I initially felt that this was very difficult for move to the US without a sponsor.

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But I stumbled upon the net and came to know something about this eb one, a green card myself. And what happens is, it is called extraordinary ability or genius visa or Einstein visa, which basically says that one should be a Nobel laureate, Oscar awardee, or an Olympian. For this particular coveted green cardinal, you. Have to be in. Could you repeat those again?

00:03:44
An Olympian, Noble laureate. What did you say? What is Noble? You should be a Nobel prize. You should have a Nobel Prize.

00:03:52
Oh, a Nobel prize. Oh, so you should. There's a lot of people out there with a Nobel prize, right?

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So you should have a Nobel Prize Oscar or an Olympic medal. Oh, my gosh. Okay, then you qualify for this. However, if you don't have this, then you need to justify your name to fame or name to acclaim in a way that if there were a Nobel prize, you should be getting it. Let's say if you, as a podcaster, Sandee, as a podcaster, were to apply for Eb one, a green cardinal, you should be the best in your field, in your endeavor, that if there were a Nobel Prize, you should be getting it.

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Now, when I came across, this initial reaction was, well, this is. I am not cut out for that. And, well, I thought. But something intrigued me that, well, if the us government is really wanting to have only Nobel laureates or Oscar, then why they should open it for other people because they want. So I went into a little deep dive myself that what are they looking for?

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And I realized that they're looking for people to make us a kind of a tool for global talent. So that was the whole initiative and motivation. So I applied myself, and fortunately, I got it. I came to the USA during COVID time. I did my masters again, it was second masters.

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So I applied for this. Then I applied, I got it. I came to the US. Then lot of people started approaching me and saying that, can you help us to get this eb one a green card? I have been an educationist all my life.

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Rather than just helping people in an ad hoc manner in a very, very unstructured way, I wanted to create a structure and create a program around it that would not be just like, oh, I got it. Ranjit got it. And he's helping Sandee or somebody else to get it. It is. The whole idea is, can I enable an ecosystem to be created that anybody who comes in who is talented, motivated, and inspired can apply and get EB one a green card?

00:06:06
So my program is not. It is. It aims to help you achieve your Eb one a green card. But the aim is to kind of help you become the best version of yourself so that Eb one a becomes a milestone in your journey. So we are trying to put basically people into a success path.

00:06:28
I love it because while coming to this country is, you know, I don't know anything else, obviously, you know, I was born here. I haven't traveled around the world that much. I've lived in the same geographic area my entire life, and I. It's not easy being here. It's expensive, you know.

00:06:55
Yes. You have the american dream, and we're competing against, what, 300, close to 350 million other people? Well, not all of them. I think I heard the latest statistics is probably close to 100 million of those are adults. So a lot of them are children, so you can't really count them.

00:07:12
But you've got 100 million adults that want the american dream. Absolutely right. That's what we all want. And I guess as an american, you know, I'm definitely living the american dream, without question. And has it been hard?

00:07:32
Absolutely. Have I had to work hard? Absolutely. I've always had, until last October when I turned 58 years young, I've always had two jobs, always since I was 16 years old. Not a lot of people are willing to work that hard, you know, and so are your programs.

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Are they really, you know, are you, are you mentoring them for success in a way that they're. They're employable? They've got the good worth. Yeah, just talk a little bit more about that. You see, typically, there is another caveat, I must tell you, for immigration, which is there that us always entertains diversity.

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And to encourage diversity in immigration, there is a. Another. It's a constitutional requirement that no country from any other part of the world should have more than 7% representation each year for immigration, for granting greenhouse. So, for example, us normally would issue a million green cards each year across all categories. It could be relative, it could be employment, it could be sponsorships, it could be what you call investments.

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If you invest $1 million, you can also do that. So typically, they would have these categories. Now, people from all over the world want to come here, Australia, India, China, Europe, or anybody, but no country in a particular year will be represented more than 7%. So it means that some total of all the green cards put together for any country would be 70,000. Now, there are three countries which are maximum.

00:09:27
Immigrants come from maximum from these countries, China, India and Mexico. Now, there is a huge backlog of people whose petitions are approved, but they are still in queue, so their number or their queue will become present. Let's say for India, for employment based visas, the queue is almost 20 to 30 years. For China, it may be 15 years or so. Oh, my gosh.

00:09:58
Just to get their visa. Just to get their visa is approved, but just to get their green card approved. The actual green card. Yeah. Because there is a quota, you understand?

00:10:08
7%. So 7% quota will put you behind the queue. Right. Okay. Because they want to increase diversity.

00:10:14
But for Eb one a, it is, sometimes it is current, and currently it would take a year or so, year or two maximum. So still. So this helps people to kind of, you know, you know what, if I may say, to try for Eb one, a green card. So I always tell people that, don't look at Eb one a green card as a green cardinal. It is called extraordinary ability.

00:10:38
Look at this as an extraordinary opportunity to propel your career, to become the best version of yourself so that the green card comes to you, not that you are trying to chase a green card right now. Typically, I think this is in any job that you do, Sandee. I think one of the best things everybody likes to do is what kind of people are you dealing on a day to day basis? Of course, you want to make good money and you want to have good life and house and everything good. But still, you see frustrated.

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People are frustrated in their jobs because fundamentally, the environment where you are working is very toxic, or the people with whom you work is very toxic. But one good thing about the profession where I am in right now, in this part of my life, is that I am coming across people who are highly motivated, inspired, and at the peak of their careers. Now, most you asked me about what kind of people does this resonate with? These are the people who are from Ivy leagues, are from the top universities in the world, are working with companies like Google, LinkedIn, that from tech professionals, or some of them are the best health professional. They're already in the US on visas, but their children are aging out, so they want to have more certainty.

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That's the reason why this ebb one, a green card, becomes a coveted aspiration for them. Some of them are very young also. So imagine, sometimes I visualize that when you try for this EB one, a green card, you try to push yourself against your boundaries and you widen your horizons in terms of your profession, what you, whatever you are doing, you want to become the best. You see, to prove yourself, to be in the top 1% of your field is not easy. You really have to be first and then you try to prove it.

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And USCIS is very, very strict on, USCIS is an agency which actually does this on behalf of the government to give you a green card. It is very, very strict on this particular options and possibilities which come up like this, how it is done and all the assessment, what they call is as adjudication, is very strict on strict parameters. They really, us really wants people who are at the pinnacle of their career. So fundamentally, what is happening in the CB one, a green card, is that there are 1.5 million people waiting in the queue right now from India, China and other part of the world. So basically this puts you in the front of the queue and gives you a green card instantly.

00:13:16
Yeah, I see. You know, can you just explain to a lot of people, because I know a lot of people may be against immigration because they feel like it's taking the jobs away from, from Americans. Okay, I will be very candid with you. I mean, you said no politics. I know.

00:13:34
I was like, I don't want to talk politics, I want to talk religion. No, no. But I have a very direct answer for this. The whole purpose of this eb one a green cardinal, and I would restrict my communication, not on immigration in general, but Eb one A in particular because that's my field. I don't know about.

00:13:49
Right. We don't even talk about the whole immigration problem. I'm not qualified to. Yeah, I'm not qualified. I would not like to qualify myself to talk on that.

00:13:56
But here on a general eb one A is basically the Congress passed a law to make sure the world's best talent is attracted to United States. Right. So somebody, you have a top scientist in India, you have a top marketing professional in China, you have somebody, a DNA genetics engineer in Ghana, level of a Noble being, a Nobel laureate. It is for them. So basically you are trying to attract people here.

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And my job here is to help you become the person of that level of excellence whom us would want you. So you brought up, you brought. Yeah, go ahead, go ahead, finish your thought and then I'll jump in. Yes. So I don't look at, as I mentioned to you, I don't look at EB one a as, just as a mere immigration tool.

00:14:50
Actually, it is like an opportunity for you. Recently we had a 27 year old guy getting this EB one a green card. Now imagine the amount of mission, the amount of work that he would have put into hard work that he would have put into while a typical youth of 2526-2728 year old. How they spend time and how a person who is trying to just because he wants to be a us citizen, amount of energy and amount of soul that he is putting into his work, into profession. He is a data scientist.

00:15:25
He put into so that he can get it. Now, these are the things one country want them. It is not about taking anybody's job. He's not taking any. He's.

00:15:35
Tomorrow. He, who knows? I mean, because of this giving that he may become an entrepreneur and give. Give jobs to hundreds and thousands of people. That's right.

00:15:42
Yeah. And I was going to. What I was going to say when I was interrupting you and my apologies for that. We need people, especially in the math and sciences. We need doctors, we need nurses.

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And I don't know that people are really that in tune with the severity of the situation that, you know, less and less people are going to medical school, less and less people are taking or going to nursing school. I mean, think about that for a second. Right? You're in a severe car accident or your kids in a car accident. And, oh, sorry, we don't have enough.

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We don't have enough staff. And it's happened. We saw it happen during COVID Right. Where, you know, so that's why this conversation is so important, because we do need very talented people to come here and take on some of these roles because, you know, I mean, I love today's youth and my son just graduated from college. But I think a lot of people would agree with me that there's a huge part of that generation that really doesn't want to work.

00:16:54
They want to play video games. They don't want to study hard. They want to party in college. They're not, you know, there's, you know, I have a niece who is so incredibly talented and smart, and she's in Boston college working in the math lab this summer, you know, and that's such a huge accomplishment. Right.

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But there's. That's such a small percentage of these american kids. I'm not going to work in a math lab. I want to, you know, I want to go. I just want to wait tables and then go party at the bars at night.

00:17:29
Right. I mean, that's kind of where we. Where a lot of the kids mentality is, and we almost have to lean towards programs like this so that we can all keep living this american dream, right? Absolutely. It is called, in technical language, in immigration parallels, it is called stem, actually, science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

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So yes, there is a demand. In fact, almost 90% of the people whom I would have would belong to the stem discipline and US holds, and they hold a great potential to the US. And I don't think they are there to take anything. In fact, they would add a tremendous value. So I feel privileged at times to kind of, to be serving such talented professions.

00:18:21
Yeah, well, let's just talk about that for a minute, because you've taken something that you really love. You're helping people. What has that done for you personally? And I'm just going to, I'm broadening, I'm broadening our conversation right now, plant a little seeds into people that when you live your passion and you're serving others, how does that, what has that done for you personally? As I mentioned to you that earlier also that one of the best things which I find is that every day is a new day for me.

00:18:52
It is learning. So when I meet people who want to kind of live their american dream and become eb one a achiever for the particular purpose of getting a green card. So I have come across wonderful people, as I said, who are at the pinnacle of their careers. So imagine a bunch of them, like for example, recently, you know, kind of total number of people last one year who have become EB one achievers are close to, I think 15 to 20 in through my program. Like, you know, one of my colleagues was showing a Zoom shot actually, where I'm talking to a bunch of 20 people and, you know, kind of, there is a meeting happening and I'm trying to train them.

00:19:34
Okay, what, how to have a right mindset to become EB one a achiever, what they need to do professionally. And all of them are from, as I mentioned to you, top Ivy leagues. Out of those bunch of 20 guys, I think 15 or 16 have become EB one a achievers. Now, remember, they are Einstein visa holders. So I like, I felt very proud.

00:19:54
Oh, I mean, these guys are like, they are not ordinary people. They are like, you know, the best cream la cream in the world, actually. Thats awesome. So. And they are all us.

00:20:04
And US government has instantly recognized their potential to get a green card otherwise, which would take 20 to 30 years for them.

00:20:16
Having a bunch of them in a room in a zoom like this is a great motivation. Where else in every business, I mean, in every job, in any job for that matter, where would you come across. I personally was thinking that if I were doing something else or anything, where I would come across set of people of such a high caliber where there is a potent energy in the room. So tomorrow, for example, I just finished a meeting. I would be having another interaction with somebody, a brilliant guy, actually, a lady who is, who is my student, and she is from MIT and from Harvard.

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She has done an MBA and working with one of the top FAANG companies, Fortune five company in the world, earning now those to have even to get to kind of encourage them and motivate such kind of people. It's a great kick for you personally, isn't it? Yeah, I love it. I love it. So how can people get ahold of you if they want to find more information about your program?

00:21:19
Absolutely. I am available on my LinkedIn page, of course, is there, and my website is www.nextleagueprogram.com. Perfect. I will make sure those. Yeah, I have all of your social media handles your website.

00:21:33
I have everything right here. So for the audience, Ranjit also has a YouTube channel, which I'm guessing they can find more there as well. Awesome. Is there anything else you'd like to share with the audience before we wrap? Absolutely.

00:21:50
I mean, you know, I would like to put it like this. One is. I will talk about, before we conclude one is about ebb. Wanna green card? And then success in general.

00:22:01
So when it comes to EB money, I mean, I normally come across three kinds of people. You know, there is a concept in philosophy called absurdism, which was propaganded by a gentleman called Albert Camus. He was a french philosopher in 1950s. And he mentioned that, you know, in our human endeavor, when we come across a situation where we don't find a solution and there is a, like a head hitting a wall, it's called absurdism, and you don't know what to do. So he says there are three kinds of situations one can deal with.

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The first is something he calls it as intellectual society. So relating it to immigration, I would say, oh, you crib. Oh, you know, it takes 20 years to do. Nothing is happening. Politics is good, politicians are bad.

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Whether this party or that party, nothing is going to change. You keep on cribbing and don't do anything. That's called intellectual society. The second, they call it as, what he calls is as leap of faith.

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He says your leap of faith is like, you know, tilting towards divinity or something akin to that. Oh, you kind of do go to churches, go to temples, go to mosque, you know, try to pray, hoping that something or the other in the universe learn, you know, so called this manifestation. Tools have come up. You know, people go to them. But let's remember, God will not lift a single finger for you, no.

00:23:38
Unless you do something yourself. I mean, even if you're religious. I mean. I mean, I'm. Yet.

00:23:43
Well, you have to take action. Absolutely. And the third situation is confrontation. He calls it, deal with it, deal with it head on. Take bull by the horns and find a solution in that absurdism yourself.

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Now, I personally feel that Eb one A is akin to that where you find a situation, there exists, okay, there every. No system, including immigration system, is perfect. So I think one of the biggest challenges is rather than just cribbing about it or trying to hope against hope that something divine will come to your rescue, there is an opportunity for you, something called as Eb one A. If you become the best version of yourself, definitely the US is waiting for you. That's what I would like to.

00:24:40
You know, there is a beautiful phrase I had read somewhere, a poem which says that what you are seeking is also seeking you. Right? So I think it's a. Some persian author had said this, I remember somewhere, having read it somewhere. So if you take the particular, choose a particular path of confrontation.

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And this is. I said, in general, this is about any success you want to achieve in life. Don't crib, don't think that divinity will come, take head on. And that's my message to everybody. Awesome.

00:25:17
Thank you so much. I know that for my us listeners, I know that this is a little bit different than what I normally do. And I really wanted to talk to Ranjit because you may know somebody who knows somebody, and this could be the perfect program for you. And so I'm hoping that, that this message will get out, because at the end of the day, I loved how you put getting this Eb one A is just a milestone. It's really about becoming the best version of yourself, and that's.

00:25:50
And I love that message. So thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it, and I hope that you get flooded with inquiries to help people through this journey. So thank you. Thank you very much.

00:26:04
It's a great pleasure. Thank you so much.

00:26:20
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