About

Stan Kunnathu

Roles (in chronological order): son, brother, husband, father, business owner, basketball coach

I have an easy life because my parents had a hard life. First generation immigrants from India. I never felt poor or wanting, despite threatening to call social services on them for not getting me a Walkman. I grew up in the northeast and northwest Calgary, with two younger sisters, until junior high and went to an inner city high school. To be clear, I was not hood or ghetto but I also wasn’t rockin’ Jordans when I was 10. I was a very middle-class honour roll student with strict Indian parents.

I was an academic but played on the volleyball, basketball and badminton teams. I got scholarships for university and lived rent and expense-free until I got married, at 30! Please don’t judge, it’s just how we did things and I don’t regret it. I am acutely aware of how cushy I have it.

The first dream was medical school. Fail. That turned into a 7-year stint in a PhD program in diabetes and heart disease. I didn’t actually get my PhD (long story). Fail.

That following Monday(!), I started at my Dad’s firm. Maybe, a week later, I signed up to get my CGA (now called CPA) and did night school for the first 5 years of married life. My wife, who immigrated from India in December 2008, was a student-widow from day 1. She spent 9 years at home with the kids, for which I am so grateful, before becoming part of the HR team at the YMCA.

I’m jumping all over the place because that’s how I live. Switching hats all the time.

In the first seven years, we made 3 kids (13,10,8 years old in 2023), moved houses once and I now find myself running my firm, saying “kids these days!”, coaching kid’s sports, trying to be a better husband and father, and staving off death through physical activity.

My athletic pursuits started with school sports and then martial arts (1st degree black belt in Hap Ki Do), then Crossfit and now strength training (not bodybuilding). (Fair warning: don’t ask me about health and fitness unless you have no opinion on the matter and several hours to waste.)

My current “academic” pursuits start by listening to various podcasts, hearing about a book, reading said book. My interest go from modern “philosophy” (Taleb) to psychology (Fogg) to parenting (Siegel, Bryson) to teaching/learning (Newport/Gray) to marketing (Vaynerchuk), etc. I’m trying to balance things out with fiction but it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe I’ll make some posts about the podcasts and books.

The underlying theme of my reading, however, is how this information would fit it into my dream school curriculum. The dream comes from my dissatisfaction with my own readiness to be out in the real world. Certainly, my struggle-free upbringing was part of it (no shade to my parents) but I also think education is broken. As an outsider, but product of the system, I might not be entitled to an opinion. That being said, I have a talked to a few educators (some of them clients) who are confirming my suspicion that school is failing to provide the necessities of life. I’ll get off this soapbox for now.

There’s the Coles notes! Feel free to ask details about anything. But, equally, tell me your story.