Building up early
foundation-
I think one of the
biggest and most important things that got me to where I am today was the fact
that I had to start work from a very young age. As said by Einstein – “Wisdom
is not a product of schooling but a lifelong attempt to acquire it.” I’m of course
not saying I’m wise or have attained wisdom but experience in various fields
and an avenue of life teaches you a lot. Once I started working, I enjoyed the
independence it gave me and that got me always wanting to do more.
I think that has been the major influence too, wanting to do more and wanting to earn more money. Money was always a big motivator for me. I know some people don’t like to admit it even though it’s true. I think it’s great to be motivated to make more money, eventually that’s what pays- the bills, the holidays, and the experiences we have in life. I still, even today get a slight feeling of thrill and excitement about making more money, about every raise and increment I receive. I also like working with targets and doing what needs to be done to hit these targets month by month. I don’t like the feeling I get when targets aren’t met so I try my best to make sure that doesn’t happen very often.
Failures are stepping
stones to success-
I realize now, that I
never thought of these moments as failures in life – at least not while you’re
going through them.
To me, they were more
like a problem or an obstacle that came up. It’s human nature to find a
solution to every problem and that’s exactly what I did. When something
challenging came and comes on my way I think I automatically switch to solution
mode. It’s only when you look back, you realize what the learnings were.
To come to think of
it, one of the lessons that I have learned is that there’s no point crying over
spilled milk, you might as well just clean it up and work with what’s left.
The Entrepreneurial
Journey-
My first job was right after I finished school. I worked at a gym taking aerobics classes. I was just about 15 and had women in the class who were all much, much older than me, some were mothers who had kids my age. This definitely helped me get a lot more confident about me since I had to make these older women take me seriously, make sure they enjoyed my sessions, and also came back for the classes every day.
Working as a soft
skills trainer, was definitely learning in itself because to be a trainer you
first need to get trained yourself on not just the content but also the various
styles in which content is delivered. Coming to work every day, trying to get
people to unlearn and learn, and standing in front of a room full of strangers,
again who are much older than me was not always easy but it taught me how to
deal with different kinds of people, how to motivate them, make sure they have
fun (we all got a feedback score at the end of every session) so we wanted to
make sure the trainees have a good time while they learn. Again, I realized how
much I learned and grew as a trainer only when 4 years down the road I was the
one conducting the Train the Trainer workshops (TTT as we call it).
Being a team manager
was a whole other ball game. While everyone wants to be a manager and like the
sound of it, I think managing people was one of the hardest things I had to do.
It was here that I realized that people are not always whom they say they are.
Team members would say and do the most absurd things to get their way and my
attention. Politics at work was the worst and I had no bandwidth to deal with
any of it. My focus was always – what’s the problem and what’s the best
solution? I might not have been liked for this approach but my aim was to get
the job done and so small talk, company gossip, team outings were all things I
stayed away from and that’s what I think led to people taking me seriously
because they knew when they came to me I meant business
Enlighting the world from your work-
At LCHHS we have one
very simple vision and mission. Our vision is our next client.
How can we give the
client the best of what they need? Whether it’s food, coaching, emotional
health, or whatever it might be, when the next client comes to us we want to
make sure we give them the best.
- 1 of the main tools
we use is of course the 5 pillars of health, where we focus on the 5 most
important pillars of wellness - Balanced Nutrition, Exercise, Sleep, emotional
well-being, and Spirituality. Educating people on the importance and balance of
these 5 pillars is our main goal
- The second thing is of course making sure there is a system and process for everything. There has to be a method to the madness and the SOPs (Standard operating systems) are a guiding tool used for every single vertical within our organization.
Sources of powerful
lessons-
Yes, of course, we all need help and we all need that someone to whom we can talk and bounce our ideas. I have had many people that have played this role though I might not want to name all of them, some have been mentors, some have been friends, and some have been role models you look up to.