Using the true story on which the Disney movie “Million Dollar Arm” was based, celebrity sports agent and marketing pioneer J.B. Bernstein shared why “the worst idea” his friends and associates said they had ever heard turned out to be the best life lesson he could share with young people today.

Speaking at the Else School of Management’s Forum at Millsaps College in Jackson Thursday, Bernstein told students and faculty members he uses the movie “as a microcosm to relate lessons in life.

“I wish somebody had come along telling cool stories that were relatable to me when I was in your place,” he told the students.

Bernstein emphasized creativity, passion, overcoming adversity, planning, and ethics as keys that have served him well in the business world and in building his personal life.

Despite the fact that Bernstein said “even my mom told me it was the worst idea she had ever heard of,” he passionately pursued his plan in 2007 to create a reality show contest in India to find that country’s best baseball pitching talents and reward them with a $1 million prize and a chance to play professional ball in the U.S.

Inspired by the phenomenal success of Chinese athlete and NBA player Yao Ming, Bernstein overcame cultural and language differences to find two “incredibly talented” young men among the 37,000 who entered the contest. Each would each land a contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Both first-place winner Rinku Singh and runner-up Dinesh Patel made the trip from the remote farming area of Uttar Pradesh — where they had no running water, limited or no electricity and no TV — to Bernstein’s Los Angeles home, where he would become their mentor and friend.

A byproduct of the show’s success, Bernstein said, was the hope that the athletes inspired in their home country.

“Rinku and Dinesh told me that in their area, young people don’t think in terms of what they will be or do when they grow up. They just do what their fathers did,” Bernstein said. “Their story inspired young people to ask, ‘What gift did God give me that maybe I could do something different with my life?’ “

The story of Bernstein’s search for India’s first pitching star was released as the movie “Million Dollar Arm” last year, with Jon Hamm playing Bernstein’s character.

Bernstein, who received his education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and the London School of Economics, is a resident of New York City. He had previously traveled to Mississippi as a sports scout following Mississippi State University football.

Kimberly Burke, dean of the Else School of Management, said the school invited Bernstein to speak at the Jackson campus nearly 18 months ago as they were beginning to take a look at their graduates who had been athletes, and what they are doing now.

“We are a Division III school, so none of our athletes are here on sports scholarships — they play for the love of the game,” Burke said. “We thought he would be a great fit for the kinds of things we see students participating in and the lessons they learn from sports.

“As a professor, I want students to learn from some of his mistakes that he shared. Lessons learned in sports are meaningful and lifelong,” she said.