Speaker 1: Does everybody need to have a formalized education? Now, what
Speaker 1: I'm going to say is not very popular, especially in
Speaker 1: the world of academics, but no, not everyone needs to
Speaker 1: go down that traditional path. Hey everyone, welcome back to
Speaker 1: On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world.
Speaker 1: Thanks to each and every single one of you that
Speaker 1: come back every week to listen, learn and grow. Now
Speaker 1: you know that I'm always excited to speak to people
Speaker 1: with a broad range of experiences, different backgrounds, different walks
Speaker 1: of life, people who've achieved incredible things but maybe taken
Speaker 1: parts less trodden. Now today's guest is none other than
Speaker 1: Neha Kumar, who has over fourteen years of experience operationalizing
Speaker 1: and scaling startups and is currently running a venture fund
Speaker 1: on a mission to build the next generation of game
Speaker 1: changing consumer focused brands. So, if you also someone who's
Speaker 1: wanting to be an entrepreneur, learning about finance, learning about
Speaker 1: building a business, this is the episode for you. In
Speaker 1: addition to running a venture fund, Naha is also a
Speaker 1: lecturer at UCLA's Anderson School of Management, where she has
Speaker 1: been teaching for over nine years. Prior to launching her fund,
Speaker 1: Nay has served as the CEO and CFO of creating Cultivate,
Speaker 1: which sold a majority stake to a private equity firm
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, and also led growth efforts at drinks
Speaker 1: dot Com. She received her undergraduate degree from the University
Speaker 1: of California La UCLA and her MBA from the University
Speaker 1: of Southern California. Welcome to the show, Naha, Kumara, Naha,
Speaker 1: thank you for being here. It's so great to have
Speaker 1: you on the show. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: And after the introduction even I feel amazing. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's an amazing it's an amazing bio. And of course
Speaker 1: we're friends. We've been hanging out a couple of times
Speaker 1: this year. Excited to share that part of the story
Speaker 1: as well. Every time I've sat down with you, you've
Speaker 1: told me stories. You've told me moments of your life,
Speaker 1: your childhood, and I love people who communicate their life
Speaker 1: in such an interesting way. And I was just saying
Speaker 1: to you before we started taping that you have one
Speaker 1: of the hardest jobs in the world, which is keeping
Speaker 1: eighteen to twenty one year olds excited, enthusiastic, and engage
Speaker 1: in the learning process. So I'm going to be like
Speaker 1: a student today asking you questions in a lecture hall.
Speaker 1: But first one I wanted to start it by saying,
Speaker 1: it's your five year of wedding anniversary. Congratulation. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Yeah, it's been five years since
Speaker 1: we got married today and we started dating when we
Speaker 1: were in business school, my husband and I fifteen years ago. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's pretty unbeliuble. Thank you, thank you, that's amazing. Actually,
Speaker 1: my husband got me the cutest guest this morning. Tell
Speaker 1: me about it. And so for five years it's would
Speaker 1: and so my husband isn't consulting, and he would travel
Speaker 1: a lot before he probably will start traveling a lot again.
Speaker 1: What he got me is a heart box. It's a
Speaker 1: wood box, but it has a heart on it and
Speaker 1: it basically sends you messages. So you can look at it.
Speaker 1: It's plugged into the wall and then the heart starts
Speaker 1: to spin and that means somebody sent you a message
Speaker 1: and they can do it from their phone. You open
Speaker 1: up the box and there was a digital picture and
Speaker 1: a message in there. And so today before I came,
Speaker 1: I this heart was spinning and I looked at it
Speaker 1: and I opened it and I was like, wait, what
Speaker 1: is this? And it says, I am your rock today
Speaker 1: and always. Oh, and there was a picture. No, he's
Speaker 1: here today, but he wanted me to see it so
Speaker 1: that now when he travels, he can just send me
Speaker 1: messages and then the heart spin so I know a
Speaker 1: message is coming in. It is the cutest thing. My
Speaker 1: six year wedding anniversary just went like a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago and Rady said to me, she goes and
Speaker 1: we haven't seen each other. She's in London, and her
Speaker 1: rule was she was like, you're not allowed to send
Speaker 1: me anything. I don't want anything. I just want to
Speaker 1: see you and then when I see you, then we
Speaker 1: can celebrate. So I wasn't allowed to send my wife
Speaker 1: anything because that was her order and her rule because
Speaker 1: she knows that I usually go quite over the top.
Speaker 1: But that is a beautiful idea. I love that. Thank you.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Yeah, I can't wait for you to meet him. Also,
Speaker 1: it's just been an interesting right and it's a big
Speaker 1: deal for us the five year because we had a
Speaker 1: long road to getting married. It was a bit different
Speaker 1: from a cultural standpoint. My parents are traditionally Indian, as
Speaker 1: you know, and he's not. And my parents now love
Speaker 1: him they absolutely love him, and we have two of
Speaker 1: the most beautiful, adorable children. I have a one year
Speaker 1: old and a three year old, And it's so amazing
Speaker 1: how when you really want you can make things happen
Speaker 1: and make it all come together. It's beautiful. Yeah, tell
Speaker 1: us tell us a bit about that journey. Before we
Speaker 1: dive into the depths of your journey and each part
Speaker 1: of it, I want to hear a bit about what
Speaker 1: is that like. First of all, dating someone at business school,
Speaker 1: someone that your parents may not initially culturally accept, but
Speaker 1: then going on that journey to now being in a
Speaker 1: place where he's loved, you have beautiful family together. Because
Speaker 1: I think for a lot of people listening they may
Speaker 1: face elements of that in their journey, whatever that dysfunction
Speaker 1: or challenge may be. In business school, a lot of
Speaker 1: people made a joke and they said women are just
Speaker 1: here to get their mrs, not just get their MBA.
Speaker 1: And I ended up dating someone in school and it
Speaker 1: was really challenging, you know, getting married after all of that,
Speaker 1: and I always felt that I had to prove myself
Speaker 1: more that I wasn't just here for that reason. And
Speaker 1: it was very interesting. And there is a unconscious bias
Speaker 1: that not only other people have, but we have on ourselves.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if years later anybody was looking
Speaker 1: at me anything differently, because I did marry somebody when
Speaker 1: I was in business school. From business school, but I
Speaker 1: looked at myself a little bit differently, and I felt like,
Speaker 1: I need to work harder, I need to strive more
Speaker 1: to prove myself to myself. I wish I would have
Speaker 1: let a lot of that go, because we just get
Speaker 1: caught up in all these small trivial things which aren't necessary,
Speaker 1: and it's, you know, pushing a bull older uphill to
Speaker 1: prove to ourselves that were okay. And I wish I
Speaker 1: would have let that go. That's the first one. The
Speaker 1: second thing was going through it with my parents, and
Speaker 1: it was very, very hard, and it was very challenging,
Speaker 1: and there were a lot of times Jason, my now
Speaker 1: husband's name, we broke up, got back together, broke up,
Speaker 1: got back together because it was am I letting my
Speaker 1: family down? Am I not doing things right? And in
Speaker 1: the end it worked out. But it was the hardest
Speaker 1: thing and it was a journey that I never thought
Speaker 1: I would go through. I remember when I got engaged
Speaker 1: I took my ring home. I hit it in my wallet,
Speaker 1: my engagement ring, because I was scared. How am I
Speaker 1: going to tell my parents? It was the hardest time
Speaker 1: of my life. I'll never forget. It was around Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: and again, in hindsight, it's twenty twenty. It was going
Speaker 1: to work out. We're going to have the cutest kids.
Speaker 1: Everything is going to work. But going against the grain,
Speaker 1: whatever that might be in your life, while it seems
Speaker 1: really challenging, and while you might have different expectations put
Speaker 1: on by other people onto you, or you think that
Speaker 1: other people have on you, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you have to do what is authentic to you and
Speaker 1: what you think is important to you. And I know
Speaker 1: this might seem a little bit far fetched, but I've
Speaker 1: recently been really reading and learning a lot about the
Speaker 1: concept of faith, and sometimes you just have to have faith.
Speaker 1: You have to have faith that it's going to work.
Speaker 1: You have to have faith that I can take a
Speaker 1: leap and it's going to happen. And that's very hard
Speaker 1: for somebody like me who's a planner, accounting in finance background. Right,
Speaker 1: So it was definitely a process and it's great now
Speaker 1: it's amazing, But Jay, it was really hard. This idea
Speaker 1: that women go to business school to get married. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's incredible to me to hear that that idea had
Speaker 1: seeped in to that place because you're at this repute
Speaker 1: book school, you're getting this incredible qualification and the fact
Speaker 1: that that's the rumor mill around this space. I mean, now,
Speaker 1: when you're someone who's been so extremely successful in finance
Speaker 1: as an entrepreneur, as a business person, tell me a
Speaker 1: bit about where that discrepancy began in your life, where
Speaker 1: you started to feel like you had to work harder,
Speaker 1: where you started to feel like people look to you
Speaker 1: in a certain way, and what were the actual steps
Speaker 1: you took to keep confident, to keep focused, to keep
Speaker 1: driven on that journey. Because when I meet you today,
Speaker 1: one thing I do appreciate about you is that although
Speaker 1: you're a very powerful business person, I don't believe that
Speaker 1: you've lost the ability to have a compassionate heart, or
Speaker 1: the ability to connect, or the ability to be mindful
Speaker 1: and thoughtful like it seems like those are very balanced
Speaker 1: for you. A lot of that compassion and empathy comes
Speaker 1: from what I had to go through, and it was
Speaker 1: really hard and I'm so happy to see things changing
Speaker 1: so much in the world right now. It's great, but
Speaker 1: you know, as a young girl, it is hard. I
Speaker 1: was always interested in accounting in finance. My dad is
Speaker 1: a financial planner, and so we grew up with him
Speaker 1: always wanting to tell and teach me and my younger
Speaker 1: sister about personal finance so we could be independent and
Speaker 1: we could do things. And I remember I was working
Speaker 1: in banking and I was in a credit training program,
Speaker 1: and I remember another guy saying to me, why are
Speaker 1: you doing this. You could just throw parties, be a
Speaker 1: party planner. And it was really hard for me to
Speaker 1: hear that. And it was a lot of moments like
Speaker 1: that that had me say, I'm going to work harder,
Speaker 1: I'm going to work smarter, I'm going to work stronger,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do what I have to do to excel.
Speaker 1: And we can look at a lot of those things
Speaker 1: and say they were bad, but in some way, shape
Speaker 1: or form. I think everybody goes through something, whether you're
Speaker 1: a woman, whether you're a male, whether you're a person
Speaker 1: of color, or whatever it is, you go through something,
Speaker 1: and we can either look at those things and we
Speaker 1: can let them beat us down. And sometimes I did, Jay,
Speaker 1: but we also can take those as an opportunity to
Speaker 1: push ourselves harder. And it all comes down to attitude
Speaker 1: of how we're going to view these things, how we're
Speaker 1: going to look at this. And again, I want to
Speaker 1: be clear, a lot of times they did beat me
Speaker 1: down and it was really tough. But you have to
Speaker 1: constantly find yourself and create yourself to be resilient and
Speaker 1: to bounce back up and to deal with all the
Speaker 1: things that can come your way, no matter from where.
Speaker 1: It's so difficult because you realize that there are challenges
Speaker 1: that everyone goes through, but when it's like a whole
Speaker 1: gender is treated a specific way that you know is
Speaker 1: a much larger challenge. I saw this video a few
Speaker 1: years ago that I think summed it up brilliantly. So
Speaker 1: in this video, they had blue balls and pink balls,
Speaker 1: and they asked a ten year old boy and a
Speaker 1: ten year old girl their job was to go and
Speaker 1: pick the blue balls up for the boy and the
Speaker 1: pink balls up for the girl, and they had collect
Speaker 1: them and put them inside this container. So the boy
Speaker 1: ran off. He started picking up all the blue balls
Speaker 1: was the same amount as the pink balls. As girl
Speaker 1: ran out, they filled their containers up. They pretty much
Speaker 1: finished around the same time, and then they gave the
Speaker 1: boy this huge jar of sweets, and they gave the
Speaker 1: girl like three quarters the jar of sweets. And the
Speaker 1: whole video was to show the gender pay gap and
Speaker 1: how men and women doing the same work are rewarded differently.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about how you've seen that in the industry,
Speaker 1: Like did your friends who identified as women from business school?
Speaker 1: Have they gone on to feel satisfied and accomplished in
Speaker 1: their careers or are they noticing those discrepancies along the
Speaker 1: way as well? And for yourself in your path there
Speaker 1: you took too. I think what's really interesting is a
Speaker 1: lot of people talk about the pay gap, all of
Speaker 1: these things which are there and they're apparent, But what
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times is missing is the
Speaker 1: type of careers that you see a lot of people
Speaker 1: go into. And the question would be why so in
Speaker 1: business school, for example, the school that I went to,
Speaker 1: the majority of women went into marketing. We have different verticals.
Speaker 1: We have a marketing vertical, finance, etc. In the finance vertical,
Speaker 1: there were three women total in the marketing vertical. I'd
Speaker 1: say like ninety percent of them more female. Now, certain
Speaker 1: industries pay more than other industries. That's the way the
Speaker 1: world right now, right or wrong, that's kind of how
Speaker 1: that works right now. Right. What I think is very
Speaker 1: important is taking the time to educate and allow for
Speaker 1: opportunities for women at younger ages, to show them that
Speaker 1: there's different things that they can do. So here's an
Speaker 1: interesting thing. When I was in junior high, we had
Speaker 1: an elective course we could choose and you could either
Speaker 1: take Homac or wood Shop. And day I really wanted
Speaker 1: to take wood Shop, Like I really was excited to
Speaker 1: like cut the things and things. I thought it was amazing.
Speaker 1: And all the girls were going to take Komac, and
Speaker 1: I remember asking my mom, like, what should I do?
Speaker 1: All the other girls are doing this or taking this class,
Speaker 1: And my dad jumped in and said, no, you do
Speaker 1: what you want. And I ended up taking wood Shop,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad I did. But it's just so interesting
Speaker 1: that even when I was taking wood Shop, I kept thinking,
Speaker 1: did I do the right thing? What are my friends
Speaker 1: doing in the other class? Am I being left out?
Speaker 1: So I had a lot of that that was there.
Speaker 1: So I come back to I think it's really important.
Speaker 1: We see a lot of things right now like STEM
Speaker 1: programs that are created, or there's some great programs like
Speaker 1: Girls Who Code to teach women how to do these
Speaker 1: things at younger ages, and I think they're phenomenal, and
Speaker 1: I think we should continue to create more things like that.
Speaker 1: In finance and accounting, one of the things I do
Speaker 1: on my own part is I also teach, and so
Speaker 1: I think that getting to people at younger ages not
Speaker 1: to steer them in a certain direction, but basically to
Speaker 1: let them know that they're options and you get to
Speaker 1: choose what those options are, regardless of your male or female.
Speaker 1: You're someone obviously who's so well educated, you've gone to
Speaker 1: great schools, gone on to become an entrepreneur. I wonder
Speaker 1: there's a lot of debate right now about the value
Speaker 1: of a college education and business school too. And what
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by is two things again here and you
Speaker 1: can answer them in any order you like. The first
Speaker 1: one is do you see a genuine value and correlation
Speaker 1: between the education you've got and the success you have today.
Speaker 1: That's the first question. And the second question is if
Speaker 1: someone didn't have the opportunity to have the education that
Speaker 1: you've had, whether it was access, capability, interest at the time,
Speaker 1: whatever their reasoning may be, how do they today build
Speaker 1: up financial literacy, goal planning, understanding of their investments, understanding
Speaker 1: of how they manage their money. So my dad was
Speaker 1: an electrical engineer by education. He came here and he's
Speaker 1: now a financial planner. And I remember when I was
Speaker 1: in college. I thought I was pretty cheeky, and I said, Dad,
Speaker 1: I mean, did your education do anything for you? Like?
Speaker 1: Why do I have to work so hard? You're doing
Speaker 1: something completely different? And he said to me, said, Naha, listen,
Speaker 1: my education gave me the framework from which I can
Speaker 1: have a way to think. And he said, I've been
Speaker 1: successful at my job because I had that education that
Speaker 1: I had. Now, after you know, I've been graduated a
Speaker 1: long time ago, I can say the same. I can
Speaker 1: say that my education in undergrad and grad school and
Speaker 1: everything that came between and around it has absolutely helped
Speaker 1: shape who I am and the success that I've had
Speaker 1: to date completely. Can you tell us how, like what
Speaker 1: parts of it? I love what you said about your
Speaker 1: father saying that he gave him a framework of how
Speaker 1: to think. What did he do for you? Business school
Speaker 1: was a great one, because what it did is it
Speaker 1: gave us a breath of knowledge of how to look
Speaker 1: at companies. So now when I'm evaluating companies for the
Speaker 1: fund or back when I was in banking, it gave
Speaker 1: me a proper understanding of how to think and what
Speaker 1: to look at and if you think about it, right,
Speaker 1: experience that we get from people in academia, etc. It's
Speaker 1: just trying to learn things at an accelerated rate. Now,
Speaker 1: could you learn them on your own? Absolutely? You could, right,
Speaker 1: Maybe one day we'll get to the point where we're
Speaker 1: like the Matrix the movie where you get plugged in, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then all the information comes in. So the way
Speaker 1: I view academia is it's you go four years for
Speaker 1: a college degree or whatever it is that you do,
Speaker 1: but you're trying to learn the information at an accelerated rate.
Speaker 1: So instead of you having to try and learn and
Speaker 1: figure these things out, it takes a quicker time. Like
Speaker 1: I'll give you a quick example. You might already know this, right,
Speaker 1: but our dogs color blind. Yes, dogs are color blind. Right,
Speaker 1: I told you that information that took me a second
Speaker 1: to tell you. You might have known it, you might
Speaker 1: not have known it. Now if somebody had to go
Speaker 1: figure that out on their own. It's months and months
Speaker 1: of study and research to figure that out. So what
Speaker 1: education allows us to do is learn things at an
Speaker 1: accelerated rate. Having said that, your second part of your question,
Speaker 1: does everybody need to have a formalized education? And what
Speaker 1: I'm going to say is not very popular, especially in
Speaker 1: the world of academics, but no, not everyone needs to
Speaker 1: go down that traditional path. So if you think about it,
Speaker 1: back in the day, will really shifted education. The first
Speaker 1: thing was the printing blocks. Before you had to have
Speaker 1: a teacher. Now you can have books, so information could
Speaker 1: be easily accessed through these textbooks instead of just from
Speaker 1: one person talking. Then later, if you think about it,
Speaker 1: online learning and education came up, So now you have
Speaker 1: that big shift over there. I think that there's multiple
Speaker 1: different ways that people can get access to education and information.
Speaker 1: And I think that the pandemic, it was already going
Speaker 1: to happen. The pandemic just accelerated that. And I think
Speaker 1: it's amazing. Yeah, it's just fascinating because when I think
Speaker 1: about my own education, I feel the same way I
Speaker 1: went to my high school was where it started. I
Speaker 1: went to a pretty rough and tough elementary school. The
Speaker 1: education was okay. I was surrounded by a group of
Speaker 1: people that didn't have the parenting structure that I did
Speaker 1: when my parents were already forcing me to study hard.
Speaker 1: I was one of probably three people that ended up
Speaker 1: going to a grammar school or a school that you
Speaker 1: had to take an exam to get into in England.
Speaker 1: My parents couldn't afford to somebody or private school, so
Speaker 1: our grammar school is the next best thing where you
Speaker 1: got a private school education for free by passing an exam.
Speaker 1: And so that school is where everything changed for me,
Speaker 1: because all of a sudden, I went from being like
Speaker 1: one of three people who was at the top to
Speaker 1: being literally like in the middle of a bunch of
Speaker 1: really smart people. It was almost trained to us in
Speaker 1: how to work hard, to how to compete, how to build. Now,
Speaker 1: not everyone liked that environment. A lot of people will
Speaker 1: actually look back at their time there and go, I
Speaker 1: would never send my kid there. And that's why I
Speaker 1: think it's so interesting to think of people are so unique. Right,
Speaker 1: what works for us doesn't work for everyone, which is
Speaker 1: what you just said, which is I completely agree with
Speaker 1: that that you know, maybe I love a child one day,
Speaker 1: who wouldn't have flourished in the environment I flourished in,
Speaker 1: or who wouldn't have gravitated towards the teachers that I
Speaker 1: gravitated towards. And so for me, I look at my
Speaker 1: education as having a massive impact on me because I
Speaker 1: value being really right brained and creative but having been
Speaker 1: given lots of logical, hardwired structural thinking. And I think
Speaker 1: that where I am today is because I can toggle
Speaker 1: between those two things. And my education gave me the hardwired, logical,
Speaker 1: rational brain. But then I had teachers that allowed me
Speaker 1: to bring out my art history and creativity, which is
Speaker 1: what I value myself and what I love about myself.
Speaker 1: It is really interesting because I look back at education
Speaker 1: and go, actually, I learned a ton of stuff too.
Speaker 1: And I think the mistake we make is we look
Speaker 1: at our education and we go, I don't do that
Speaker 1: for work today, And that is probably true. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's definitely true for my life, but it's not what
Speaker 1: I do for work today. It's well, what did I
Speaker 1: take and what did I collect and what did I
Speaker 1: grasp and what did I put into my tool kit
Speaker 1: that actually today makes me better at making decisions or
Speaker 1: makes me better at doing this or that. So, yes,
Speaker 1: was my education directly correlated to my career? No? But
Speaker 1: were there's skills and lessons and tools. And that's what
Speaker 1: I'm hearing you say as well. I think we feel
Speaker 1: aligned on that. When you're teaching today, right like you're
Speaker 1: you're an academic, now you're a professor, You're like you're teaching.
Speaker 1: What I find really interesting about that part of your
Speaker 1: life is how much of what you're teaching do you
Speaker 1: think or do you encourage people to go out to
Speaker 1: the real world and practice. Because I know you have
Speaker 1: lots of interesting methods that you've shared with me before.
Speaker 1: Talk to me a bit about how you think teaching
Speaker 1: has transformed and how you're transforming teaching because a lot
Speaker 1: of people who are listening or watching, they may be coaches,
Speaker 1: they may have online schools. I know a lot of
Speaker 1: our audience are trainers who have studios or online apps
Speaker 1: and platforms and things like that. Yeah, how can they
Speaker 1: think deeper and differently about teaching in today's day and age,
Speaker 1: get away from just the textbook or just the content
Speaker 1: in the textbook, and to really get the students the
Speaker 1: opportunity to understand how that connects to the world. Whatever
Speaker 1: the topic is. So right now, one of the courses
Speaker 1: I'm actually teaching it right now is Entrepreneurial Accounting and Finance.
Speaker 1: And what I do is every week when I start
Speaker 1: off class, I start off with the quote. It could
Speaker 1: be any quote from anyone. Recently, I had one from
Speaker 1: Napoleon Hill and I won't quote it exactly right, but
Speaker 1: it was something about just get started. The tools will
Speaker 1: start to come into place once you get started. And
Speaker 1: I told the students in class, and this is the
Speaker 1: part is so I start off with the quote and
Speaker 1: then I give them an action item every week at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the week. The action item for this
Speaker 1: specific quote was during class, I want you to think
Speaker 1: of two things, any two things that you've been thinking
Speaker 1: about doing and you just haven't been doing. You've been
Speaker 1: dragging your feet. It could be a homework assignment, It
Speaker 1: could be that you need to talk to someone. It
Speaker 1: could be that you want to ask somebody out on
Speaker 1: a date or dinner, whatever it is. But I want
Speaker 1: you to think about it during class, and then I
Speaker 1: want you to write it down and the end of class,
Speaker 1: and then in the next week I want you get
Speaker 1: an action and I want you to do it. And
Speaker 1: so the reason I told them to do it during
Speaker 1: class is because if I gave them a day or
Speaker 1: two days, they're going to overthink it. There's already something
Speaker 1: there for them in their mind of I need to
Speaker 1: do this, and I wanted that to come out right
Speaker 1: away and not overthink it. That's the first part. The
Speaker 1: second thing I also did is I actually went around
Speaker 1: the class and looked at everybody and I asked for
Speaker 1: an acknowledgement. If you just say something to people, that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's going to cause action in them. But
Speaker 1: what I actually did is I looked at everyone and
Speaker 1: I said okay, okay, okay, and I'm looking for the
Speaker 1: uhhhh from each person, an acknowledgement. How many people is
Speaker 1: this about? Forty three? Yeah? No, no, no, it's good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like it. We went through that and they all
Speaker 1: said yes. The most interesting thing happened is that I
Speaker 1: have one set of office hours right after class. I
Speaker 1: already had students coming in after that class telling me
Speaker 1: about the things that they're going to do right. And
Speaker 1: so when it comes towards back to your original question,
Speaker 1: right or what are some techniques or methods I might
Speaker 1: use in regards to education and teaching and work to
Speaker 1: transform it. So many people get caught up in the
Speaker 1: technical items. Back in the day before, if you were
Speaker 1: teaching formulas or whatever else it was, you had to
Speaker 1: go through it with them. I can go through it
Speaker 1: with them, but I also know they can go on
Speaker 1: Google and get it. I know they can go on
Speaker 1: these other websites, you watch these YouTube videos, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: I'll give it to them in class and we go
Speaker 1: through it. But I also want them to get real
Speaker 1: world application of how these concepts are applied, and so
Speaker 1: they get excited about it. And I think that's something
Speaker 1: that was missing a lot from other classes that I've
Speaker 1: seen or I've taken, as they go straight into just
Speaker 1: the technical items, but they're not actually taking it up
Speaker 1: at three thousand foot level and saying this is why
Speaker 1: it's important. And I really like I always like the
Speaker 1: inspirational items and the quotes and everything else. It keeps
Speaker 1: people in action, and I think that's the most important thing. Yeah, no, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I love those I love those insights, and I think
Speaker 1: acknowledging people. I remember the first time Facebook Live launched
Speaker 1: this was probably around six years ago now, and I
Speaker 1: was one of the first users. This was when I
Speaker 1: was a senior host and producer at huff Post. So
Speaker 1: I was in New York City and we had a
Speaker 1: partnership with Facebook Live. So I went live and the
Speaker 1: first thing I asked was, Hey, if you like anything,
Speaker 1: press the like button. If you love anything, pressed the
Speaker 1: love button, And if you want to share something with me,
Speaker 1: drop a comment in the comment box. And my producer
Speaker 1: was holding her hands over a face, going, Jai, I
Speaker 1: can't believe you just asked the audience to do that.
Speaker 1: And it was really funny because the response was amazing.
Speaker 1: People loved act like what you just said like. People
Speaker 1: loved that there was a prescribed way that they could
Speaker 1: respond to something. So if I shared a quote that
Speaker 1: was inspiring, people would click that light button and then
Speaker 1: I could see and then I could respond to them.
Speaker 1: And that's when I started to understand that people don't
Speaker 1: just want to be receivers. They want to be participants
Speaker 1: in learning, and they don't just want to be on
Speaker 1: the receiving end. They don't just want to be listeners
Speaker 1: and hearers and taking in. They want to be involved
Speaker 1: and they want to be engaged. And so I love
Speaker 1: that example of teaching. Let's say a lot of people
Speaker 1: who are listening right now may have just started a business,
Speaker 1: or they're on the cusp of starting a business. How
Speaker 1: should they be thinking about the finances of this business.
Speaker 1: They don't have a lot of money to get started,
Speaker 1: They're probably not going to go and raise They're probably
Speaker 1: just trying to build something through a few friends, maybe
Speaker 1: from themselves. What are the things they should be thinking about.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a really great question. I could just
Speaker 1: say take my class. No, not everybody can't. You're right,
Speaker 1: you're right, but I would yeah, yes, yes, yeah. You
Speaker 1: want to be able to think strategically, right, and so
Speaker 1: you want to look at how much runway do I
Speaker 1: need to have to actually get the business started? And
Speaker 1: a lot of this comes back to capital. And I
Speaker 1: don't want to nerd out too much on capital conversations,
Speaker 1: but I mean, one of the first things I do
Speaker 1: with my students, even if I'm not having them go
Speaker 1: through this, is I'll have them build out a ProForma. Right,
Speaker 1: so what is it going to look like? How much
Speaker 1: money do I need to have for what period of time?
Speaker 1: And this doesn't need to be something fancy. You don't
Speaker 1: need to build up a model and put an excel.
Speaker 1: You can write it on a piece of paper. And
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people don't look at the
Speaker 1: basics even to start on something like that. And I'm
Speaker 1: also all about following your passion and getting excited and
Speaker 1: everything else, but you also want to combine with things
Speaker 1: that are practical. And I think when I have people
Speaker 1: come to my office hours, I get my current students,
Speaker 1: I get a lot of people come into my office hours,
Speaker 1: even non current students, and they ask me the same
Speaker 1: question you're asking, and I turn it back on them
Speaker 1: and I say, what is your purpose? What is the
Speaker 1: purpose of what you're trying to achieve. Some people will
Speaker 1: tell me I want to make money. Some people will
Speaker 1: say I want to do this for fun. Some people
Speaker 1: will say I just want to have experience. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of different reasons of why people are doing things,
Speaker 1: and I think it is very important first and foremost
Speaker 1: to be clear with yourself on why you're starting this business. Now,
Speaker 1: if it's to start a business for your livelihood, we
Speaker 1: actually have to map this out and planet right, what
Speaker 1: is your market size? How many people are in There
Speaker 1: are a lot of companies that we're looking at right
Speaker 1: now are in the beverage space. I love the beverage
Speaker 1: space right It gets me very excited, and you want
Speaker 1: to look at that and see how many people are
Speaker 1: currently in the market. What are the other products that
Speaker 1: are out there. The beverage space also has a low
Speaker 1: barrier to entry. Somebody can take a relatively small amount
Speaker 1: of money and go there tomorrow to a production facility,
Speaker 1: and you can go out there and you can get
Speaker 1: it created. As opposed to another company that I recently
Speaker 1: invested in is a sunscreen company. Sunscreen companies have some
Speaker 1: people might say that there's a low barrier to entry
Speaker 1: for sunscreen. Having said that, there's a long process to
Speaker 1: get a product approved. It can take a year and
Speaker 1: a half two years. So part of it is thinking
Speaker 1: through and this is the framework that I got from
Speaker 1: Business Goal. We have something called Porter's five Forces, which
Speaker 1: is a phenomenal tool. So you look at what are
Speaker 1: the items that are market competitiveness, who are the other
Speaker 1: competitors in the space, what are the barriers to entry,
Speaker 1: what are the alternatives to the product, what are the substitutes.
Speaker 1: It's actually a model. I had a diagram it and
Speaker 1: a whiteboard right now, I draw it up for you
Speaker 1: right thinking through things from that model. That framework allows
Speaker 1: you to properly assess is it even worth it? And
Speaker 1: do I want to go into this business? And again
Speaker 1: probably a non popular opinion at this point in time
Speaker 1: when I'm about to say, but everyone always says, just
Speaker 1: go out there and follow your passion, follow your dream.
Speaker 1: I get that, I do, but you also have to
Speaker 1: look at something that is a survivable business and how
Speaker 1: much time do you want to spend on it. I'm
Speaker 1: really happy you said that. I mean, when I started
Speaker 1: doing what I do today, I was working a full
Speaker 1: time job, getting home from the full time job and
Speaker 1: then editing videos from nine pm to two am, and
Speaker 1: then waking up, going to my full time job, coming
Speaker 1: back and doing the same thing, and then doing this
Speaker 1: on the evenings and weekends. And therefore it didn't need
Speaker 1: to make money. So for two years, me doing my
Speaker 1: passion didn't directly relate to money. It didn't make me revenue,
Speaker 1: it didn't make any profit. It didn't pay my bills
Speaker 1: because I was paying my bills through a full time job,
Speaker 1: and that to me, was the healthiest way for me
Speaker 1: to start, because I was able to see what the
Speaker 1: options were and what opportunities came up. So while I
Speaker 1: was doing my full time job paying my bills, I
Speaker 1: didn't have to worry about anything, and actually using my
Speaker 1: evenings and weekends to build my passion led to that
Speaker 1: being my long term business. And I don't think I
Speaker 1: could have done that. If I would have quit my
Speaker 1: full time job and tried to build my passion from scratch,
Speaker 1: I think there would have been quite a few years where,
Speaker 1: I mean, I would have been broke because there wasn't
Speaker 1: a way to monetize what I was doing. And so
Speaker 1: I love that you're encouraging people to not think about
Speaker 1: their passion in this romanticized way, because it's so easy
Speaker 1: to get romantic about your passion and your purpose and
Speaker 1: just believe that because you believe that, everyone's going to
Speaker 1: believe and something's going to happen. And I often prefer
Speaker 1: that people either do or you're saying where they actually
Speaker 1: ever planned their structured they're thoughtful, or they're in two
Speaker 1: boats for a while. They have their job or their
Speaker 1: part time job, and then they have this other thing
Speaker 1: that's going on, and that's a much safer place to be.
Speaker 1: I don't believe that every passion can be a business
Speaker 1: or should be a business. How do you help your
Speaker 1: students or anyone decipher between what should remain a hobby
Speaker 1: and a passion, yeah, and what can has the market
Speaker 1: potential to evolve into a business Because I think, I
Speaker 1: think we're living in a town. We're pretty much a
Speaker 1: lot of random things have become businesses. So it kind
Speaker 1: of feels very open. But there's things to think about
Speaker 1: and becoming a CEO or a business person that are
Speaker 1: different to being a passion business. So the IRS when
Speaker 1: you actually have a business that over for a period
Speaker 1: of time, it doesn't create any income, but you have
Speaker 1: expenses against it. It's literally defined as a hobby. A
Speaker 1: hobby is an actual definition of an IRS term. Right.
Speaker 1: So I always find that very interesting, and I ask
Speaker 1: my students or any other entrepreneurs I talk to, even
Speaker 1: if I'm talking to them about the fund or anything else,
Speaker 1: will come to me and ask me advice, right, And
Speaker 1: I say, you just have to be clear with yourself.
Speaker 1: Is this a passion project and a hobby or is
Speaker 1: this something you really want to make money on? And
Speaker 1: I think that it's very important to decipher between the two.
Speaker 1: I tried to start my own startup before I left banking.
Speaker 1: Took a big risk, quit my job, and I tried
Speaker 1: to start my own startup. And if I could go
Speaker 1: back and tell myself something, it would be nahaw, be
Speaker 1: clear on what this is. Can you tell us about
Speaker 1: that story? Tell us a bit about that, like what
Speaker 1: did you start? How did it go? Because I think
Speaker 1: hearing about that would be awesome. I had a great
Speaker 1: job in banking and graduated from business school. They rolled
Speaker 1: out the red carpet type of job in banking. It
Speaker 1: was amazing. So I was working with a lot of
Speaker 1: companies that were looking to do an IPO or looking
Speaker 1: to get acquired within the next so many years. I
Speaker 1: had the opportunity to spend time with founders CFOs CEOs.
Speaker 1: When you're a startup and you're with a bank, that
Speaker 1: means you're pretty sophisticated. You're far along, right. So I
Speaker 1: was dealing with a lot of people and I saw
Speaker 1: how much they were making and what they were doing,
Speaker 1: and I thought, whoa, I'm so smart. I could do that,
Speaker 1: And so I left a great job in banking to
Speaker 1: start my own startup. It was ironically, it was an
Speaker 1: online platform which was going to be to teach personal
Speaker 1: finance to predominantly predominantly women, and then branch out from
Speaker 1: that to women and men. But I should have been
Speaker 1: more focused. I failed at what I wanted to do,
Speaker 1: and it was hard. How did you define failure? What
Speaker 1: went wrong there? The whole thing had to stop. Any
Speaker 1: money that I had spent we lost. I'd gotten money
Speaker 1: from families and friend for about a year and a half.
Speaker 1: I'd been working on it. We lost everything, and it
Speaker 1: was very, very tough because I had been so used
Speaker 1: to being successful and amazing. I have immigrant parents who
Speaker 1: are phenomenal, who are also very driven, right, and who
Speaker 1: also have driven their children to work hard and succeed
Speaker 1: and excel. And so went to school, did well, went
Speaker 1: to business school, did well, went to banking, did well.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, I start my own thing,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I don't even know how to properly
Speaker 1: ship boxes, Like I don't know the difference between ups,
Speaker 1: FedEx all of these things. Like it was a really
Speaker 1: big learning experience for me on basic items that I
Speaker 1: didn't understand. And the startup didn't work right. It wasn't
Speaker 1: what I wanted. It to be and it was very,
Speaker 1: very hard. And if I could go back and give
Speaker 1: myself one piece of advice, it would be be able
Speaker 1: to decipher between passion and business. They can be both,
Speaker 1: but you have to be clear on what you're trying
Speaker 1: to do and achieve, because when it's a business, you
Speaker 1: move out all the noise and you focus in on
Speaker 1: do I have the right market? Is there the right
Speaker 1: market product fit? Are people ready to buy this? You
Speaker 1: can't just go and talk to your friends and say, hey,
Speaker 1: do you think this idea is great? They're going to
Speaker 1: go yeah, of course, They're not going to tell you
Speaker 1: yes or no. Really right, you need to ask them, hey,
Speaker 1: I have this product, it's great, Okay, are you going
Speaker 1: to buy it? Will you pay for it right now?
Speaker 1: That's what makes the difference there, And so being able
Speaker 1: to decipher between passion and a business I think is
Speaker 1: very very important. Yeah. Absolutely. I think that one of
Speaker 1: the misconceptions that I think I had, and also people
Speaker 1: have in general, is that when you live a passion
Speaker 1: business that you just to do what you want to do.
Speaker 1: And I would honestly say that in the come up period,
Speaker 1: I did more of what I didn't want to do
Speaker 1: and what I had to learn, whether it was the
Speaker 1: UPS or FedEx in your scenario, in my scenario, it
Speaker 1: was client relationships, editing learning, videography learning, social media learning.
Speaker 1: I had to learn all these skills in order to
Speaker 1: do what I do. To to learn about podcasting, I
Speaker 1: had to learn about publishing. These were not things I
Speaker 1: wanted to do, but they were vehicles to do what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do. So I had to spend more
Speaker 1: time studying vehicles and modalities and frameworks and mechanisms and
Speaker 1: tools so that I could spread my message, which is
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do. But if I just tried
Speaker 1: to spread my message, that was never going to work
Speaker 1: because I had to understand the tool. Today, I live
Speaker 1: a life where, yeah, I do way more of what
Speaker 1: I want to do today. But I think the mistake
Speaker 1: is believing that you will be able to let go
Speaker 1: of what you have to do. And I think that's
Speaker 1: where I've realized that there is no one in the
Speaker 1: world who can completely let go of things they have
Speaker 1: to do in order to do what they want to do.
Speaker 1: But it's a balance of the two. And so when
Speaker 1: I'm hearing you talk, I'm reflecting on my own journey
Speaker 1: and going, Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because
Speaker 1: in order to do what I love to do today,
Speaker 1: I have to do things that I just have to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And to live a pure passion business is a hobby
Speaker 1: because that means you're just enjoying the passion of it.
Speaker 1: So if I said every Friday night, I was going
Speaker 1: to go live on Facebook and just teach my message
Speaker 1: and whoever turned up turned up, that's a hobby. That's beautiful.
Speaker 1: But if I really want to create ways in which
Speaker 1: people can learn, grow, get educated, change their life, transform,
Speaker 1: that's going to need me to be a bit more
Speaker 1: organized and focused. Yea, As you rightly said, focus is
Speaker 1: such a big deal. And I also think it comes
Speaker 1: back to priorities, right, there's certain times. One thing I
Speaker 1: really like that you said is there are certain times
Speaker 1: right where you're on your way up right, you had
Speaker 1: to do a lot of the things that you didn't
Speaker 1: want to do. And one of the things that I
Speaker 1: keep hearing people always talk about is well do you
Speaker 1: have the right work life balance. There's a story, and
Speaker 1: I know you've heard this before, but there's a person
Speaker 1: standing in the front of the room and they have
Speaker 1: a glass and first they put rocks in the glass
Speaker 1: and they say is there anything else more? Room laughed
Speaker 1: and if everybody goes no, and then they put the
Speaker 1: pebbles in, then they put the what is it? Sand?
Speaker 1: And then water. Right, Here's what I think is missing
Speaker 1: from that story, though, is that that all makes sense.
Speaker 1: But there's certain times in life where you're going to
Speaker 1: have situations where that priority level is going to shift,
Speaker 1: and that's what's missing. So we're there certain times in
Speaker 1: my life also where the rocks would be just career
Speaker 1: or just work or just the things that I don't
Speaker 1: want to do. They were and it wasn't that I
Speaker 1: didn't have a work life balance anything in that way.
Speaker 1: It was more of that point in time in my
Speaker 1: life that was the priority. So even though now my
Speaker 1: priority is family and I love my work, I love
Speaker 1: running the fund, I love teaching, you know that though
Speaker 1: I teach for fun, right, I love it. But the
Speaker 1: priority set is going to shift over time. I'm so
Speaker 1: glad we're having such a real conversation about this because
Speaker 1: I'm like loving this right now because I completely agree
Speaker 1: with you. So when we got married, we got married
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen, which is kind of where my external
Speaker 1: career took off, and for three years we didn't go
Speaker 1: on a honeymoon because we can't afford it. Like we
Speaker 1: didn't go on our honeymoon, we never had one because
Speaker 1: we didn't have the money or the time to My
Speaker 1: career was busy, things were growing, I had momentum on
Speaker 1: my side, and I couldn't afford to take the time
Speaker 1: or the money to pay for something. Three years later,
Speaker 1: we went on a beautiful honeymoon. It was it was amazing.
Speaker 1: It was so fun to have waited for something like
Speaker 1: that and have this amazing experience. And I look at
Speaker 1: those first three years and I go, I'm so happy
Speaker 1: that we lived the way we did. We lived in
Speaker 1: this five hundred square foot apartment in New York City.
Speaker 1: You know, we ate, worked and slept in the same areas,
Speaker 1: didn't have any other space. And I have such good
Speaker 1: memories from that time. And I'm so grateful that the
Speaker 1: rocks became just hard work, networking, meetings, events, whatever it was,
Speaker 1: and my wife was doing the same for herself. I'm
Speaker 1: so happy that I allowed myself to do that for
Speaker 1: three years in order to have the life I have today.
Speaker 1: And I don't think there's a right or wrong way.
Speaker 1: And that's what I'm hearing from you too. It's about
Speaker 1: the hope that you have for the result you want.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, It's like everything's proportionate to what you want.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that we should have either romantic
Speaker 1: or unromantic views of what we want to have in life.
Speaker 1: We should just be clear that if this is where
Speaker 1: I want to be, this is what it's going to require.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I just I'm great for those memories. I'm
Speaker 1: grateful for those times I look back and I'm so
Speaker 1: happy that and and even today I was saying this
Speaker 1: to a friend today, I was like, I still haven't
Speaker 1: taken my foot off the gas today because the people
Speaker 1: I look up to and admire and respect, they haven't
Speaker 1: taken the foot off the gas after thirty years of
Speaker 1: being at the top of their game. And I want longevity, right,
Speaker 1: I'm not looking for a flash in the pan or
Speaker 1: I want longevity. I want to be doing this for
Speaker 1: the next three to four decades of my life, which
Speaker 1: requires a different level of planning and maturity as opposed
Speaker 1: to just going for quick wins. So I'm glad we're
Speaker 1: having this conversation because I think it's a tough conversation
Speaker 1: to have, but it is true. And again, I want
Speaker 1: to go back and say to people, like, it wasn't
Speaker 1: about not having work life balance. It's that the term
Speaker 1: work life balance means everything should be equally. And I
Speaker 1: think equality is the issue because equality doesn't actually mean balance.
Speaker 1: For example, two hours of time for myself a day
Speaker 1: could balance, and so out ten hours of well that day, Yes,
Speaker 1: I can, one hundred percent. I was talking to my
Speaker 1: mom about it previously, and she's like, you know, work
Speaker 1: life balance, just because everybody always talks about that with
Speaker 1: motherhood and this and that. You know, I have two kids. Right.
Speaker 1: If you literally think of balance, it's if you think
Speaker 1: about like two weights on a side. You have fifty
Speaker 1: pounds of gold and another person who's fifty pounds. It's
Speaker 1: a balance, it's equal. It's it's never going to in
Speaker 1: life be that way. And I think the challenge that
Speaker 1: people have is they're calling it balance to begin with,
Speaker 1: when it should be priorities. When I was at Drinks
Speaker 1: dot Com Direct, a consumer wine company, I probably was
Speaker 1: working you know, seventy to eighty plus hours a week.
Speaker 1: Like I remember looking at this and I'm going I'm
Speaker 1: eighty plus hours a week. What that means is I'm
Speaker 1: working all day, come home, have dinner, and then I
Speaker 1: work again. And you do that six days a week.
Speaker 1: Now is that good or bad? I don't know. But
Speaker 1: at that point in time, it was a priority of
Speaker 1: my life. I was married. My husband travels for work,
Speaker 1: as you know, and so he wasn't there, right, he
Speaker 1: was gone every single week, And so I loved what
Speaker 1: I was doing and it was exciting to learn more
Speaker 1: and do things. And the more things I would say
Speaker 1: at work I can take on. They'll be like, you
Speaker 1: want to launch a new wine project over here, go
Speaker 1: do this. You want to look at how some of
Speaker 1: these things run for we were doing a wine program
Speaker 1: for Martha Stewart. You can do this, right, It was amazing, Right,
Speaker 1: So I felt like whatever I wanted to take on,
Speaker 1: I could. But my priority, my rocks at that point
Speaker 1: in time in my life was my career. Yeah. A
Speaker 1: lot of people look at priority lists that you have, right,
Speaker 1: so you have ten priorities of things that I wanted
Speaker 1: a job or what I did. It was with a guy, right,
Speaker 1: how you're dating, and they look at it in a
Speaker 1: horizontal manner like, these are the list of all the
Speaker 1: things I like to look at in a vertical fashion.
Speaker 1: And then you have to put in order right the priorities,
Speaker 1: and you can quickly see even if it's this is
Speaker 1: almost like playing with your subconscious, right you yourself will
Speaker 1: start to see what are the priorities and what's the
Speaker 1: ink amongst them. Once you do that, then you can say,
Speaker 1: all right, at this point in time in my life,
Speaker 1: I'm going to focus on this later. It's going to
Speaker 1: change later, it's going to change, you know. It's just
Speaker 1: like buying a house. I have so many friends right
Speaker 1: now who are in the market. It's a crazy market, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's insane. Yeah, but everybody always says we want great location,
Speaker 1: good price, and a lot of space. We live in
Speaker 1: LA I mean, come on now, right yeah. And then
Speaker 1: what I've noticed is that when they're with their partners,
Speaker 1: they're not on the same page. And so what I've
Speaker 1: been telling them. My husband and I did was is
Speaker 1: we both sat down and we created a vertical list.
Speaker 1: I now know what his top priority is and he
Speaker 1: knows what mine is. When we're going out and looking
Speaker 1: for places, it's easier for us to be on the
Speaker 1: same page and it sounds like you understand what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. I am completely in agreement with you. We
Speaker 1: did the same exact thing, and you know, Faradi, it
Speaker 1: was a big kitchen like that was very important to
Speaker 1: her because that's her world. For me, it was having
Speaker 1: a space where we could have a studio like this,
Speaker 1: an office like those were priorities for me, where where
Speaker 1: I could work from home because I love working from
Speaker 1: home from my husband. It was being close to the beach.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, it has to be close to the beach,
Speaker 1: a total beach person. And then for me, I needed
Speaker 1: something where I can have my own office space. Yeah
Speaker 1: that was separate away from the office. Yeah, but that's beautiful.
Speaker 1: And I love that idea of people writing down their
Speaker 1: priorities separately and also just recognizing that different stages in
Speaker 1: life will have different priorities. Yeah, and knowing that it
Speaker 1: can change and absolutely and that balance if everyone could
Speaker 1: remove the idea from their mind that balance means equal
Speaker 1: because the way we think about balance is time. We
Speaker 1: think dividing our time equally means balance. Yeah, but that's
Speaker 1: the wrong currency to divide. Balance means how much time
Speaker 1: do you need for yourself in order to feel great
Speaker 1: so that you can give and build and create for
Speaker 1: the rest of the day. That's what balance is. And
Speaker 1: I find for me personally that two to three hours
Speaker 1: a day for myself gives me enough energy to go
Speaker 1: ahead and do that. Someone else say it, may say
Speaker 1: they need four or five, someone may need one. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's all subjective. But to me, it balanced. You
Speaker 1: shouldn't be about times. It's not about equality of time.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is one of the vast things that
Speaker 1: I've heard anybody say, because it's you constantly keep hearing
Speaker 1: this all the time. Everywhere. Everyone needs work life balance.
Speaker 1: You do need a balance, but again it's not equated
Speaker 1: to time. I think it's more you've got to do
Speaker 1: the priorities. What are my priorities? I need to make
Speaker 1: sure I'm getting all those priorities in whatever that might be,
Speaker 1: and in different stages of your life that also does change. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think that's a wonderful way to put it.
Speaker 1: This is what I love about you. You know, you're
Speaker 1: a woman, you're a business person, you're an academic, you know,
Speaker 1: a mom like you know, And that's why I'm enjoying
Speaker 1: having this conversation with you, because I haven't had the
Speaker 1: challenges you've had. I'm not a mom, Like I don't
Speaker 1: have to raise kids and build businesses, and like I'm
Speaker 1: not in that position right and so I have so
Speaker 1: much respect for you, and I have so much admiration
Speaker 1: for you and what you're able to achieve and do,
Speaker 1: because I think every time I've seen you all so
Speaker 1: you just carry yourself very well. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: I have all this going on at the same time,
Speaker 1: but you love it, and you can tell that you
Speaker 1: love being a mom, a teacher, and a coach. You
Speaker 1: love being an investor and an entrepreneur. I read a
Speaker 1: study from two and twenty one that said that, and
Speaker 1: of course, let's be honest, what mothers do is priceless
Speaker 1: and you can't put a value on it. If someone
Speaker 1: asked me how much what my mom did for me,
Speaker 1: how much was that worth? Could never put a price
Speaker 1: on it. But I do believe it's important to understand value.
Speaker 1: There was a research study from twenty twenty one that
Speaker 1: said that if you looked at a mom's career as
Speaker 1: a career and looked at the over one hundred and
Speaker 1: three hours a week more like twenty four to seven.
Speaker 1: If you tallied up all the costs of how much
Speaker 1: everything would call us to do or or outsource, it
Speaker 1: would be one hundred and eighty six th four hundred
Speaker 1: dollars that an average mum would make. When you hear that,
Speaker 1: what goes through your mind? I want to hear your
Speaker 1: response and thoughts. It's a lot of work, and it's
Speaker 1: a lot of time, and I just don't know if
Speaker 1: society always understands. Again, it comes back to the unconscious bias, right,
Speaker 1: that we feel as women that it's our responsibility to
Speaker 1: take care of the household, It's our responsibility to do
Speaker 1: all of these different things, and the amount of time
Speaker 1: and energy that goes in it's constant. And sometimes you
Speaker 1: might be lucky and get a smile from your child,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't always happen. You know. I'm going to
Speaker 1: take this in a little bit of a different direction here,
Speaker 1: but I do think that what makes a lot of
Speaker 1: these things hard is that in the workplace, we don't
Speaker 1: always have the ability to have others that empathize with us, right,
Speaker 1: and having people around who have similar fashion like who
Speaker 1: understand these things makes a big difference. And my husband's
Speaker 1: at Deloitte. Deloitte is known to take care of women.
Speaker 1: They are known to be a great place for the
Speaker 1: working mother. They have a lot of partners that they
Speaker 1: interact with right who are mothers. What that has done
Speaker 1: for me, though, in my personal life is my husband
Speaker 1: gets it more. It's more common to him. He understands that.
Speaker 1: You know, when I was nursing my baby, it was okay,
Speaker 1: how much work is it for Nay? How to constantly
Speaker 1: have to nurse throughout the day or take the pump
Speaker 1: with her to work, And the issues that I've had
Speaker 1: even with pumps and everything else. One time, startup life,
Speaker 1: the electricity stopped working in our building and the pump
Speaker 1: that I had, I didn't realize it was my first child,
Speaker 1: that I should have a battery pack as a backup
Speaker 1: or something like that, and I needed to pump. So
Speaker 1: I had to leave and drive home to go do it,
Speaker 1: and it was such an ordeal. But these are the
Speaker 1: things as women that we're constantly having to deal with
Speaker 1: that not everyone understands. And I think that having women
Speaker 1: in certain positions at work, it does make a difference
Speaker 1: because it shifts the conversation. Even my husband who's amazing
Speaker 1: and very loving. He's constantly being exposed to it his work,
Speaker 1: so he sees it, he hears it, and then he'll
Speaker 1: empathize more with his wife. But Jay, to your point,
Speaker 1: it is non stop. It is twenty four to seven.
Speaker 1: You never get a break. I think the only time
Speaker 1: I get a break, and I think I'm lucky about
Speaker 1: this one is when I go to the bathroom. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But otherwise, if I'm at home, it's NonStop. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: remember my mom doing the same thing. Like, my mom
Speaker 1: was the main breadwinner of the family. She used to
Speaker 1: cook for us breakfast, lunch, and dinner, pack our lune,
Speaker 1: sent us to school, she dropped me and my sister
Speaker 1: to different schools, pick us up like the whole works,
Speaker 1: you know, and it was, and to help us with
Speaker 1: our homework and planned weekend activities. I mean, supermom like
Speaker 1: just incredible. And also I agree with what you said.
Speaker 1: So I grew up seeing my mum work really hard,
Speaker 1: and so that gave me a sense of empathy and
Speaker 1: compassion to how hard moms work. I have a younger
Speaker 1: sister who you know, when she gets married, I think
Speaker 1: about the same thing. I'm like, I can understand that
Speaker 1: you know she can't be left to do it all
Speaker 1: on her own and so and I love what you
Speaker 1: said about the workplace I worked at Accentia. Again, Accentia
Speaker 1: as incredible practices, especially in the UK at least where
Speaker 1: I worked there, for moms, where women who'd go away
Speaker 1: and maternity leave, when they come back, they'd come back
Speaker 1: to the position they would have earned if they stayed
Speaker 1: at the company. Yeah, so it wouldn't be that, Oh,
Speaker 1: you went off and became a mum, so you're going
Speaker 1: to start where you were. It's like, no, we trust
Speaker 1: that you've continued to grow and evolve and now when
Speaker 1: you come in, you're going to take on that role.
Speaker 1: And I loved seeing that because it was why would
Speaker 1: someone get penalized for going off to do the most,
Speaker 1: to do the most in the world? How have you
Speaker 1: allowed yourself? And I'm really intrigued by this, and I'm
Speaker 1: asking this question on behalf of all my friends people
Speaker 1: who ask me this question, I always say I need
Speaker 1: to ask a mom because I'm not qualified to answer
Speaker 1: this question. How do you deal with mom guilt? In
Speaker 1: the idea that you are an ambitious business person who
Speaker 1: wants to do eight of things who loves what they do,
Speaker 1: and then you deal with the challenge that but what
Speaker 1: if I miss that moment with my kid or what
Speaker 1: if I'm not a part of that moment of their growth?
Speaker 1: How have you dealt with that? Because I think that's
Speaker 1: the hardest thing that I from. When I speak to
Speaker 1: women today who are mums, they just say to me, go, Jay,
Speaker 1: I miss being able to be that person. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I don't want to miss this moment
Speaker 1: with my kid. And that is sounds like the hardest
Speaker 1: place it is. And you know, the way I look
Speaker 1: at this is life is not about either or. It's
Speaker 1: about finding a way to create an end and it's
Speaker 1: it is very, very hard to make it work, Jay,
Speaker 1: it is I mean, just being completely honest, Yeah, there
Speaker 1: isn't right. But I when we sold Creating Cultivate and
Speaker 1: we were going through the diligence process, I was pregnant
Speaker 1: with my daughter Ava. Even now, when I look at
Speaker 1: the photos that we have online of you know, the
Speaker 1: announcement of the sale, I was thirty six weeks pregnant
Speaker 1: in the photo. But hey, look at that, and I go,
Speaker 1: Ava's in the photo with me, right, She's there in
Speaker 1: the announcement page. It was really hard, right because I
Speaker 1: didn't take a day off from Eternity leave. I had
Speaker 1: to work through the transaction and the sale. And somebody
Speaker 1: could look back at that and say, that was so hard.
Speaker 1: What was going on when we had the closing call.
Speaker 1: It was online on zoom for the sale. I was
Speaker 1: nursing my daughter at the time, so I had the
Speaker 1: camera off and everybody said, hey, we can hear Ava,
Speaker 1: we can do all this stuff. And somebody can look
Speaker 1: at that and say, and every mom has their own journey.
Speaker 1: For some people, it's good for them not to work
Speaker 1: and stay at home. For me, the type of person
Speaker 1: that I am, and I don't need to feel bad
Speaker 1: about it. I love working. I love being out there,
Speaker 1: and you know what I'm gonna love doing. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: love telling my daughter the story of how she was
Speaker 1: born and the village and the army of people that
Speaker 1: stepped in to come and help me out so that
Speaker 1: I could get through the transaction. I felt like I
Speaker 1: had my baby straps from my back and I'm going
Speaker 1: out there and I'm doing all these great things. And
Speaker 1: the fact that I was able to get and be
Speaker 1: a part of getting a company sold that focused on
Speaker 1: live events during a global pandemic while pregnant. I will
Speaker 1: always have that and I get to tell my daughter
Speaker 1: Jay what I did when I was having her and
Speaker 1: what she can be able to go and do in
Speaker 1: the world. So what my thought for people is who
Speaker 1: have mom guilt, that they have work and they have
Speaker 1: personal life and all of these things going on, is
Speaker 1: you have to first take care of yourself and then
Speaker 1: you can take care of the child. It's the old
Speaker 1: story right of the airplane when the air masks come down.
Speaker 1: First you put it on yourself and then you put
Speaker 1: it on the child. And you have to take care
Speaker 1: of yourself first. And this comes back to self care
Speaker 1: and mental health everything else. If you don't take care
Speaker 1: of yourself first, you can't be the best mom. After
Speaker 1: my first child, I dealt with severe postpartum and it
Speaker 1: was very, very hard. I went back to work very early.
Speaker 1: I started a new job, this job at Create and Cultivate,
Speaker 1: and I remember thinking, I have to push through this.
Speaker 1: I'm not a good mom. I'm not great. If I
Speaker 1: can't make this work for my child, what's wrong with me?
Speaker 1: I thought all these things. I started working when my
Speaker 1: son was seven weeks old. Within two days, I stopped crying.
Speaker 1: I was crying all the time. It's a part of postpartum.
Speaker 1: Within two days I stopped crying, and everybody around me
Speaker 1: would say, why are you working so soon? Your baby
Speaker 1: needs you this? That, And I said, I need me
Speaker 1: When I go to work and I can focus on
Speaker 1: the things I'm great at. I feel good and I
Speaker 1: feel confident, and then I get to go home and
Speaker 1: be the best mother to my son. And this is
Speaker 1: again when I had my first child, and I think
Speaker 1: that mom guilt Again, I've used this phrase, but it's
Speaker 1: an unconscious bias. It's there from other people, but it's
Speaker 1: also there from ourselves. And every mom has their own journey.
Speaker 1: And you need to do what's right for you and
Speaker 1: your child. And there is no wrong. There's actually no wrong. Yeah, First,
Speaker 1: you got to take care of yourself. The second thing
Speaker 1: for me that worked out very well is I created
Speaker 1: what I call a life team. You know, and we
Speaker 1: create these teams at work, but you have to create
Speaker 1: these teams around you with your life. I have an
Speaker 1: amazing supportive husband, I have phenomenal parents, my parents. My
Speaker 1: mom is my coach, right, she talks to me every
Speaker 1: time I'm driving in the car, helping me sort through things.
Speaker 1: She's phenomenal. Right. My in laws are amazing. They help
Speaker 1: with my kids all the time. I don't know what
Speaker 1: I would do without them. I have some friends who
Speaker 1: are always there. You know, you create this great team
Speaker 1: of people around you, and what that has allowed me
Speaker 1: to do is spend what I think are the important
Speaker 1: moments with my kid by both of my kids. So
Speaker 1: right now, every Friday, the second half of Friday, I
Speaker 1: take off and three other Friday I'll take out one
Speaker 1: of my kids just for mommy and me time. My
Speaker 1: son's name is in there. He's so cute and he goes,
Speaker 1: is it mamma? And in their time, it's the sweetest thing.
Speaker 1: He's a little over three, right, But to me, that's
Speaker 1: more important than hearing a word that he said for
Speaker 1: the first time, or seeing my daughter do something different
Speaker 1: like she turned over a different way. She's just over
Speaker 1: one right for me, that time I get to spend
Speaker 1: with them one on one. For me, that's what's important.
Speaker 1: Everybody will have their own though that's important for them.
Speaker 1: I love that. I think, I think, I mean, I
Speaker 1: took so much away from that, but I think the
Speaker 1: ultimate answer is that there is no wrong like recognizing
Speaker 1: that however you're functioning and dealing with it and as
Speaker 1: long as there is time. I love what you said
Speaker 1: when you said I needed me right Like, I think
Speaker 1: that's so powerful, like I needed me and and when
Speaker 1: we all full, we are able to give ourselves to others.
Speaker 1: It's it's the old cliche, but it's true. But hearing
Speaker 1: that from you is really powerful. Now, you've been so
Speaker 1: generous with your time today and I actually absolutely love
Speaker 1: everywhere we've gone. But I do want to talk a
Speaker 1: bit about and this is the last question I'm going
Speaker 1: to ask you before we go to our final five,
Speaker 1: which you're aware of because you're a listener, so you
Speaker 1: know that we're going to end with our rapid fire around.
Speaker 1: But before that, you launched New Money Ventures. Yes, which
Speaker 1: is your fund? You know you're investing in lots of
Speaker 1: exciting companies and brands. How are you deciding what to
Speaker 1: invest in? What is it that you, as an investor
Speaker 1: look at. I think that would be really educational for
Speaker 1: our audience who potentially may want to have investors one
Speaker 1: day and raise one day. What are the things you
Speaker 1: look for. There's two big things I look for. One
Speaker 1: is the market opportunity, right, so what can this actually
Speaker 1: grow into? And then number two is the founder. We're
Speaker 1: investing in early stage, so for us, that's going to
Speaker 1: be seed in Series A companies. I know that things
Speaker 1: are going to change no matter what. There's gonna be upstairs,
Speaker 1: going to be downs with a lot of these startups.
Speaker 1: We want to be able to invest in the right
Speaker 1: people who can pivot along with those changes. And those
Speaker 1: are the two big things of how we look at
Speaker 1: which companies we're going to invest in. Amazing, very clear.
Speaker 1: It's very clear, very concise. Yes, very clear, very simple.
Speaker 1: I love it all right, So we're gonna end with
Speaker 1: a final five, So nay, I'll go on. Oh, of
Speaker 1: course I was gonna say. I have to tell you too.
Speaker 1: I've been listening to this podcast. I listened to it
Speaker 1: all the time on the drive to class. I love
Speaker 1: it so Tuesdays and Thursdays right now I go to
Speaker 1: class and it takes me about forty five minutes to
Speaker 1: an hour, perfect, perfect timing. I love it. And sometimes
Speaker 1: I told you, I tell my students to quote. I'll
Speaker 1: actually pull it from some of your podcasts. I love that,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. That means the world to me.
Speaker 1: I love that of course that I'm a part of
Speaker 1: your day and my class is day two. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love that. That means the world to me. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. So now you can put a quote from
Speaker 1: your own podcast now when you listen to it on
Speaker 1: the way. So something you said. Okay, so Nick comard
Speaker 1: your final five. The first question is what is the
Speaker 1: best advice around money you've ever received. My dad would
Speaker 1: always tell me this, and you'd say, when you have money,
Speaker 1: everybody wants to give it to you. When you don't
Speaker 1: have money, nobody wants to give it to you. And
Speaker 1: the reason that's something to be very cognizant about is
Speaker 1: about how you manage your finances from a personal side
Speaker 1: but also from a work side. Love that great, great answer,
Speaker 1: We've never had that before. All right, Second question, what
Speaker 1: is the worst money or finance advice you've ever heard?
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of people who get up
Speaker 1: on panels and things and they'll say, just go out
Speaker 1: there and get the money, Just go out there and
Speaker 1: raise it. Yeah, and there's a lot of fluff behind that.
Speaker 1: You need to be able to support it. You need
Speaker 1: to be able to show that you can, that you
Speaker 1: have the right business behind it. And the last thing
Speaker 1: that you want to do is I mean, I hear
Speaker 1: all these I says of you know, drain your four
Speaker 1: oh one k, go out there if you believe in
Speaker 1: what you're doing. I'm all about faith. I left my
Speaker 1: job right. I did all of these things. But you
Speaker 1: do need to be able to have some support before
Speaker 1: you completely drain out your four oh one k. And
Speaker 1: you need to make sure that you're financially doing the
Speaker 1: right thing for your business. That's great. Love that question
Speaker 1: number three? How would you define your current purpose to
Speaker 1: leave the world in a better place than I found it?
Speaker 1: I love that. It's beautiful. Question number four, if someone
Speaker 1: has just failed, what would be your best advice to them?
Speaker 1: Right now? Get up and start again right away, don't
Speaker 1: even think about it. Brilliant. I love that that was
Speaker 1: very quick, very quick. You'll really wrap it. This is
Speaker 1: good or fifth and final question. We asked this to
Speaker 1: every guest. If you could create one law in the
Speaker 1: world that everyone had to follow, what would it be?
Speaker 1: Don't judge other people? I love that. I think we're
Speaker 1: all so quick, especially in the media world today, we're
Speaker 1: so quick to judge everybody around us, and I think
Speaker 1: that if we were to take a step back and
Speaker 1: know that everybody has something that they're coming from, and
Speaker 1: just not to judge them and not already have our
Speaker 1: own listening of what we're when they're talking, what we're
Speaker 1: listening to, and not judge, but create a space for
Speaker 1: them to say or do whatever they want. I think
Speaker 1: that'd be amazing. Everyone. That's Naha Kumar and everyone. You
Speaker 1: need to share this episode with someone who is starting
Speaker 1: a business, just failed running one, figuring it out. I
Speaker 1: believe this was one of the most rural, honest, open
Speaker 1: conversations where Naya didn't hold back at all. We really
Speaker 1: got stuck into some really difficult topics and territory. Naya,
Speaker 1: where's the best place that people can find you, follow you,
Speaker 1: connect with you? If people are like I need more
Speaker 1: of Naya's advice in my life, where's the best place? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: So I do have my Instagram profile right Nihat Kumar,
Speaker 1: I will be starting up a couple of things as well,
Speaker 1: and then I'll be putting it through my Instagram links.
Speaker 1: Also amazing. So Naha Ti Kumara on Instagram Please go
Speaker 1: follow her. Please go and tag me and Naha on
Speaker 1: Instagram and on any other platform that you're using, to
Speaker 1: tell us what resonated with you, what stood out to you,
Speaker 1: what connected with you. I'd love to know you might
Speaker 1: even end up in one of her classes. But thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening and watching today. Please pass
Speaker 1: this one on. I think it's going to impact a
Speaker 1: lot of people and I can't wait to have you
Speaker 1: back for another episode of On Purpose. Thank you so much, Naha,
Speaker 1: thank you