Neha Kumar ON: Building Resilience to Negativity & How to Make Your Passions Practical

Do you want to meditate daily with me? Go to go.calm.com/onpurpose to get 40% off a Calm Premium Membership. Experience the Daily Jay. Only on Calm Jay Shetty sits down with Neha Kumar to talk about women in business and motherhood. In a place where men dominate and are seen as rulers in a certain field, women will have to exert extra effort, time, and dedication to be in a position that is considerably equal to men. And when a woman has the passion for it, the will to persevere, and the favorable circumstances that allow her to flourish, she gets to be her best self for herself, her family, her career, and her goals. Neha Kumar is the former COO & CFO of Create & Cultivate, an integrated platform designed to help millennial women achieve their full career potential, including new female entrepreneurs who require additional resources. Neha has a dynamic and entrepreneurial mindset. She is also an angel investor who is passionate about investing in game-changing businesses. As a current faculty member at the UCLA Anderson school, she teaches the next generation of undergraduates about entrepreneurial finance and management. Want to be a Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach? Get the Digital Guide and Workbook from Jay Shetty https://jayshettypurpose.com/fb-getting-started-as-a-life-coach-podcast/ What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 02:27 Congratulations on your 5th wedding anniversary! 04:40 The unconscious bias on women 08:14 Being a woman in business school 14:27 Education will give us a framework on how to think 21:23 How to teach students to think deeply 25:47 You want to be able to think strategically 31:07 The difference between a business and a passion project 36:53 Focus is a big deal 40:39 Work-life balance versus priorities 46:44 In the workplace, not everyone can empathize with you 50:40 Dealing with ‘mom guilt’ 57:30 What do you look at when you invest? 59:06 Neha on Final Five Episode Resources Neha Kumar | LinkedIn Neha Kumar | Twitter Neha Kumar | Instagram New Money Ventures See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

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• 0:44Jay Shetty?

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• 1:30Jay Shetty?

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• 2:10Speaker 01

  Does everybody need to have a formalized education? Now, what I'm going to say is not very popular, especially in the world of academics. But no, not everyone needs to go down that traditional path.

• 2:30Jay Shetty?

  Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow. Now you know that I'm always excited to speak to people with a broad range of experiences, different backgrounds, different walks of life, people who've achieved incredible things, but maybe taken paths less trodden. Now today's guest is none other than Neha Kumar, who has over 14 years of experience operationalizing and scaling startups, and is currently running a venture fund on a mission to build the next generation of game-changing, consumer-focused brands. So if you're someone who's wanting to be an entrepreneur, learning about finance,

• 3:14Jay Shetty?

  learning about building a business, this is the episode for you. In addition to running a venture fund, Neha is also a lecturer at UCLA's Anderson School of Management, where she has been teaching for over nine years. Prior to launching her fund, Neha served as the COO and CFO of Create and Cultivate, which sold a majority stake to a private equity firm in 2020, and also led growth efforts at Drinks.com. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, LA, UCLA, and her MBA from the University of Southern California. Welcome to the show Neha Kumar. Neha, thank you for being here. It's so great to have you on the show.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having me. And after that introduction, even I feel amazing.

• 3:58Jay Shetty?

  It's, I mean, it's an amazing, it's an amazing bio. And of course, we're friends. We've been hanging out a couple of times this year. Excited to share that part of the story as well. Every time I've sat down with you, you've told me stories. You've told me moments of your life, your childhood. And I love people who communicate their life in such an interesting way. And I was just saying to you before we started taping that you have one of the hardest jobs in the world, which is keeping 18 to 21-year-olds excited, enthusiastic and engaged in the learning process. So I'm going to be like a student today, asking you questions in a lecture hall. But first of all, I wanted to start off by saying it's your five-year wedding anniversary. Congratulations.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you so much.

• 4:44Jay Shetty?

  It's amazing.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's been five years since we got married today. And we started dating when we were in business school, my husband and I, 15 years ago.

• 4:53Jay Shetty?

  Wow. That's pretty unbelievable.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Thank you, thank you.

• 4:57Jay Shetty?

  That's amazing.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Actually, my husband got me the cutest gift this morning.

• 5:01Jay Shetty?

  Tell me about it.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  And so for five years, it's wood. And so my husband is in consulting and he would travel a lot before. He probably will start traveling a lot again. What he got me is a, a heart box. Um, it's a wood box, but it has a heart on it. And it basically sends you messages. So you can look at it, it's plugged into the wall. And then the heart starts to spin and that means somebody sent you a message and they can do it from their phone. You open up the box and there's a digital picture and a message in there. And so today before I came, I, this heart was spinning and I looked at it and I opened it and I was like, what is this? And it says, I am your rock today and always.

• 5:38Jay Shetty?

  Oh wow.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  And there was a picture of our two kids. No, he's here today, but he wanted me to see it so that now when he travels, he can just send me messages. And then the heart spins, so I know a message is coming in. It is the cutest thing.

• 5:50Jay Shetty?

  My six year wedding anniversary just went like a couple of weeks ago. And Radhi said to me, she goes, and we haven't seen each other, she's in London. And her rule was, she was like, you're not allowed to send me anything. I don't want anything. I just want to see you. And then when I see you, then we can celebrate. So I wasn't allowed to send my wife anything because that was her order and her rule. Because she knows that I usually go quite over the top, but that is a beautiful idea. I love that.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 6:16Jay Shetty?

  I can't wait to meet your husband. That's awesome.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can't wait for you to meet him also. It's, um, it's just been interesting, right? And it's a big deal for us, the five year, because we had a long road to getting married. It was a bit different from a cultural standpoint. My parents are traditionally Indian, as you know, and, um, he's not. And my parents now love him. They absolutely love him and we have two of the most beautiful, adorable children. I have a one year old and a three year old. And it's so amazing how when you really want, you can make things happen and make it all come together. It's beautiful.

• 6:50Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. Tell us, tell us a bit about that journey before we dive into. The depths of your journey and each part of it, I want to hear a bit about what is that like? First of all, dating someone at business school, someone that your parents may not initially culturally accept, but then going on that journey to now being in a place where he's loved you, have this beautiful family together. Because I think for a lot of people listening, they may face elements of that in their journey, whatever that dysfunction or challenge may be.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  In business school, a lot of people made a joke and they said, women are just here to get their MRS, not just get their MBA. And I ended up dating someone in school and it was really challenging. You know, getting married after all of that. And I always felt that I had to prove myself more, that I wasn't just here for that reason. And it was very interesting. And there is a unconscious bias that not only other people have, but we have on ourself. And I don't know if years later, anybody was looking at me anything differently because I did marry somebody when I was in business school, from business school, but I looked at myself a little bit differently. And I felt like I need to work harder. I need to strive more to prove myself to myself. I wish I would have let a lot of that go because we

• 8:04Speaker 01

  just get caught up in all these small trivial things which aren't necessary. And it's, you know, pushing a boulder uphill to prove to ourselves that we're okay. And I wish I would have let that go. That's the first one. The second thing was going through it with my parents. And it was very, very hard and it was very challenging. And there were a lot of times, Jason, my now husband's name, we broke up, got back together, broke up, got back together, because it was, am I letting my family down? Am I not doing things right? And in the end, it worked out. But it was the hardest thing and it was a journey that I never thought I would go through. I remember when I got engaged, I took my ring home.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  I hid it in my wallet, my engagement ring, because I was scared, how am I going to tell my parents? It was the hardest time of my life. I'll never forget, it was around Thanksgiving. And again, in hindsight, it's 2020, it was gonna work out, we're gonna have the cutest kids, everything is gonna work, but going against the grain, whatever that might be in your life, while it seems really challenging, and while you might have different expectations put on by other people onto you, or you think that other people have on you, at the end of the day, you have to do what is authentic to you, and what you think is important to you. And I know this might seem a little bit farfetched, but I've recently been really

• 9:30Speaker 01

  reading and learning a lot about the concept of faith. And sometimes, you just have to have faith. You have to have faith that it's going to work. You have to have faith that I can take a leap and it's going to happen. And that's very hard for somebody like me, who's a planner, accounting and finance background, right? So it was, it was definitely a process. And it's great now, it's amazing. But Jay, it was really hard.

• 9:56Jay Shetty?

  This idea that women go to business school to get married, I mean, it's incredible to me to hear that that idea had seeped in to that place, because you're at this reputable school, you're, you're getting this incredible qualification, and the fact that that's the rumor mill around the space. I mean, now, when you're someone who's been so extremely successful in finance, as an entrepreneur, as a business person, tell me a bit about where that discrepancy began in your life, where you started to feel like you had to work harder, where you started to feel like people looked at you in a certain way, and

• 10:36Jay Shetty?

  what were the actual steps you took to keep confident, to keep focused, to, to keep driven on that journey? Because when I meet you today, one thing I do appreciate about you is that although you're a very powerful business person, I don't believe that you've lost the ability to have a compassionate heart, or the ability to connect, or the ability to be mindful and thoughtful. Like, it seems like those are very balanced for you.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  A lot of that compassion and empathy comes from what I had to go through. And it was really hard. And I'm so happy to see things changing so much in the world right now. It's great. But you know, as a young girl, it is, it is hard. I was always interested in accounting and finance. My dad is a financial planner. And so we grew up with him always wanting to tell and teach me and my younger sister about personal finance so we could be independent and we could do things. And I remember I was working in banking and I was in a credit training program. And I remember another guy saying to me, "Why are you doing this? You could just throw parties, be a party planner." And it

• 11:47Speaker 01

  was really hard for me to hear that. And it was a lot of moments like that that had me say, "I'm gonna work harder. I'm gonna work smarter. I'm gonna work stronger. I'm going to do what I have to do to excel." And we can look at a lot of those things and say they were bad. But in some way, shape or form, I think everybody goes through something. Whether you're a woman, whether you're a male, whether you're a person of color, whatever it is, you go through something. And we can either look at those things and we can let them beat us down. And sometimes I did, Jay. But we also can take those as an opportunity to push ourselves harder. And it all comes down to attitude of how we're going to view these things, how we're going to look at this. And again, I want

• 12:30Speaker 01

  to be clear, a lot of times they did beat me down and it was really tough. But you have to constantly find yourself and create yourself to be resilient and to bounce back up and to deal with all the things that can come your way, no matter from where.

• 12:46Jay Shetty?

  It's so difficult because you realize that there are challenges that everyone goes through. But when it's like a whole gender is treated a specific way, that, that, you know, is a much larger challenge. I, I saw this video a few years ago that I think summed it up brilliantly. So in this video, they had blue balls and pink balls. And they asked a 10-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl, their job was to go and pick the blue balls up for the boy and the pink balls up for the girl. And they had to collect them and put them inside this container. So the boy ran off, he started picking up all the blue balls, it was the same amount as the pink balls, the girl ran out, they filled their containers up, they pretty much

• 13:30Jay Shetty?

  finished around the same time. And then they gave the boy this huge jar of sweets and they gave the girl like three quarters the jar of sweets. And the whole video was to show the gender pay gap and how men and women doing the same work are rewarded differently. Talk to me about how you've seen that in the industry, like, did your friends who identified as women from business school, have they gone on to feel satisfied and accomplished in their careers or are they noticing those discrepancies along the way as well? And for yourself and your path that you took too?

• 14:06Speaker 01

  I think what's really interesting is a lot of people talk about the pay gap and all of these things which are there and they're apparent. But what I think a lot of times is missing is the type of careers that you see a lot of people go into and the question would be why? So in business school, for example, the school that I went to, the majority of women went into marketing. We have different verticals, we have a marketing vertical, finance, et cetera. In the finance vertical, there were three women total. In the marketing vertical, I'd say like 90% of them were female. Now, certain industries pay more than other industries. That's the way of the world right now, right or wrong, that's kind of how that works right now, right?

• 14:45Speaker 01

  What I think is very important is taking the time to educate and allow for opportunities for women at younger ages, to show them that there's different things that they can do. So here's an interesting thing. When I was in junior high, we had an elective course we could choose and you could either take home ec or woodshop. And Jay, I really wanted to take woodshop, like I really was excited to like cut these things and create things, I thought it was amazing. And all the girls were going to take home ec. And I remember asking my mom, like, what should I do? All the other girls are doing this or taking this class. My dad jumped in and said, no, you do what you want. And I ended up taking woodshop. And I'm glad I did.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  But it's just so interesting that even when I was taking woodshop, I kept thinking, did I do the right thing? What are my friends doing in the other class? Am I being left out? So I had a lot of that that was there. So I come back to, I think it's really important. We see a lot of things right now, like STEM programs that are created, or there are some great programs like Girls Who Code, to teach women how to do these things at younger ages. And I think they're phenomenal. And I think we should continue to create more things like that in finance and accounting. One of the things I do on my own part is I also teach. And so I think that getting to people at younger ages, not to steer them in a certain direction,

• 16:15Speaker 01

  but basically to let them know that there are options and you get to choose what those options are regardless of you're male or female.

• 16:24Jay Shetty?

  You're someone, obviously, who's so well-educated. You've gone to great schools, gone on to become an entrepreneur. I wondered, there's a lot of debate right now about the value of a college education and business school too. And what I'm fascinated by is two things again here, and you can answer them in any order you like. The first one is, do you see a genuine value in correlation between the education you got and the success you have today? That's the first question. And the second question is, if someone didn't have the opportunity to have the education that you've had, whether it was access, capability, interest at the time, whatever their reasoning may be,

• 17:06Jay Shetty?

  how do they today build up financial literacy, goal planning, understanding of their investments, understanding of how they manage their money?

• 17:16Speaker 01

  So my dad was an electrical engineer by education. He came here and he's now a financial planner. And I remember when I was in college, I thought I was pretty cheeky. And I said, Dad, I mean, did your education do anything for you? Like, why do I have to work so hard? You're doing something completely different. And he said to me, he said, Neha, listen, my education gave me the framework from which I can have a way to think. And he said, I've been successful at my job because I had that education that I had. Now, after, you know, having graduated a long time ago, I can say the same. I can say that my education in undergrad and grad school and everything that came between and around it

• 17:59Speaker 01

  has absolutely helped shape who I am and the success that I've had to date completely.

• 18:04Jay Shetty?

  Can you tell us how? Like what parts of it? I love what you said about your father saying that it gave him a framework of how to think. What, what did it do for you?

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Business school was a great one because what it did is it gave us a breadth of knowledge of how to look at companies. So now when I'm evaluating companies for the fund or back when I was in banking, it gave me a proper understanding of how to think and what to look at. And if you think about it, right? Experience that we get from people in academia, et cetera. It's just trying to learn things at an accelerated rate. Now, could you learn them on your own? Absolutely, you could. Right? Maybe one day we'll get to the point where we're like The Matrix, the movie where you get plugged in. Yeah. And then all the information comes in. So the way I view academia is it's you go four years for a college degree

• 18:53Speaker 01

  or whatever it is that you do, but you're trying to learn the information at an accelerated rate. So instead of you having to try and learn and figure these things out, it takes a quicker time. Like, I'll give you a quick example. You might already know this, right? But are dogs colorblind? Yes, dogs are colorblind, right? I told you that information that took me a second to tell you. You might have known it, you might not have known it.

• 19:15Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  Now, if somebody had to go figure that out on their own, it's months and months of study and research to figure that out. So what education allows us to do is learn things at an accelerated rate. Having said that, your second part of your question, does everybody need to have a formalized education? Now, what I'm going to say is not very popular, especially in the world of academics. But no, not everyone needs to go down that traditional path. So if you think about it, back in the day, where, what really shifted education? The first thing was the printing blocks. Before you had to have a teacher, now you can have books. So information could be easily accessed through these textbooks instead of just from one person talking.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Then later, if you think about it, online learning and education came up. So now you have that big shift over there. I think that there's multiple different ways that people can get access to education and information. And I think that the pandemic, it was already gonna happen. The pandemic just accelerated that.

• 20:20Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  And I think it's amazing.

• 20:22Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it's just fascinating because when I think about my own education, I feel the same way. I went to, my high school was where it started. I went to a pretty rough and tough elementary school. The education was okay. I was surrounded by a group of people that didn't have the parenting structure that I did when my parents were already forcing me to study hard. I was one of probably three people that ended up going to a grammar school or a school that you had to take an exam to get into in, in, in England. My parents couldn't afford to send me to a private school, so a grammar school was the next best thing, where you go to private school education for free by passing an exam.

• 21:01Jay Shetty?

  And so that school is where everything changed for me because all of a sudden I went from being like one of three people who was at the top to being literally like in the middle of a bunch of really smart people. It was almost trained to us in how to work hard, to how to compete, how to build. Now, not everyone liked that environment. A lot of people actually look back at their time there and go, I would never send my kid there. And that's why I think it's so interesting to think of people as so unique, right? What works for us doesn't work for everyone, which is what you just said, which, which is, I completely agree with that, that you know, maybe I'll have a child one day who wouldn't have flourished in the environment I flourished in. Or who wouldn't have gravitated towards the teachers that I gravitated towards.

• 21:43Jay Shetty?

  And so for me, I look at my education as having a massive impact on me because I value being really right brained and creative. But having been given lots of logical, hardwired, structural thinking. And I think that where I am today is because I can toggle between those two things. And my education gave me the hardwired, logical, rational brain. But then I had teachers that allowed me to bring out my artistry and creativity, which is what I value myself for and what I love about myself. It is really interesting because I look back at education and go, actually, I learned a ton of stuff too. And I think the mistake we make is we look at our education and we go, I don't do that for work today. Mm hmm.

• 22:26Jay Shetty?

  And that is probably true. I mean, it's definitely true for my life. But it's not what I do for work today. It's well, what did I take? And what did I collect? And what did I grasp? And what did I put into my toolkit? Yeah. That actually today makes me better at making decisions or makes me better at doing this or that. So yes, was my education directly correlated to my career? No. Uh, but were there skills and lessons and tools? And that's what I'm hearing you say as well, I think. Correct. We, we, we feel aligned on that. When you're teaching today, right? Like you're, you're an academic now. You're a professor. You're, you're like, you're teaching. What I find really interesting about that part of your life is how much of what you're teaching, do you think?

• 23:09Jay Shetty?

  Or do you encourage people to go out into the real world and practice? Cause I know you have lots of interesting methods. Yeah. That you've shared with me before. Talk to me a bit about how you think teaching has transformed and how you're transforming teaching. Because a lot of people who are listening or watching, they may be coaches. They may have online schools. I know a lot of our audience are trainers who have studios or online apps and platforms and things like that. Yeah. How can they think deeper and differently about teaching in today's day and age? This episode is brought to you by Mazda. The best habits are the ones we hardly notice. The ones that quietly shape the way we move through life, giving us the confidence to focus on what really matters. That's Mazda's approach to safety.

• 23:52Jay Shetty?

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• 24:34Jay Shetty?

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• 25:20Jay Shetty?

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• 26:03Jay Shetty?

  That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  Away from just the textbook or just the content in the textbook. And to really get the students the opportunity to understand how that connects to the world, whatever the topic is. So right now, one of the courses I'm actually teaching it right now is entrepreneurial accounting and finance. And what I do is every week when I start off class, I start off with a quote. It could be any quote from anyone. Recently, I had one from Napoleon Hill, and I won't quote it exactly right, but it was something about just get started. The tools will start to come into place once you get started. And I told the students in class, and this is the part is, so I start off with the quote, and then I give them an action item every week at the beginning of the week. The action item for this specific quote was during class, I want you to think of two

• 26:54Speaker 01

  things, any two things that you've been thinking about doing and you just haven't been doing. You've been dragging your feet. It could be a homework assignment. It could be that you need to talk to someone. It could be that you want to ask somebody out on a date or dinner, whatever it is, but I want you to think about it during class. And then I want you to write it down at the end of class. And then in the next week, I want you get an action and I want you to do it. And so the reason I told them to do it during class is because if I gave them a day or two days, they're going to overthink it. There's already something there for them in their mind of I need to do this. And I wanted that to come out right away and not overthink it. That's the first part. The second thing I also did is I actually went around the class and looked at everybody

• 27:37Speaker 01

  and I asked for an acknowledgement. If you just say something to people, that doesn't mean it's going to cause action in them. But what I actually did is I looked at everyone and I said, okay, okay, okay. And I'm looking for the uh huh, uh huh from each person and acknowledgement.

• 27:50Jay Shetty?

  How many people is this?

• 27:51Speaker 01

  About forty-three.

• 27:52Jay Shetty?

  Okay, wow, it's a lot of nodding. Yeah, no, no, no, it's good. Yeah, I like it.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  We went through that and they all said yes. The most interesting thing happened is that I have one set of office hours right after class. I already had students coming in after that class telling me about the things that they're going to do. Right? And so when it comes towards back to your original question, right? Or what are some techniques or methods I might use in regards to education and teaching and work to transform it? So many people get caught up in the technical items. Back in the day before, if you were teaching formulas or whatever else it was, you had to go through it with them. I can go through it with them, but I also know that they can go on Google and get it. I know they can go on these other websites. You watch these YouTube videos, whatever it is. I'll give it to them in class and we go through it. But I also want them to

• 28:40Speaker 01

  get real world application of how these concepts are applied. And so they get excited about it. And I think that's something that was missing a lot from other classes that I've seen or I've taken is they go straight into just the technical items, but they're not actually taking it up at 3,000 foot level and saying, this is why it's important. And I really like. I always like the inspirational items and the quotes and everything else. It keeps people in action and I think that's the most important thing.

• 29:09Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, no, absolutely. I love those. I love those insights and I think acknowledging people. I remember the first time Facebook Live launched. This was probably around six years ago now. And I was one of the first users. This was when I was a senior host and producer at HuffPost. So I was in New York City and we had a partnership with Facebook Live. So I went live and the first thing I asked was, hey, if you like anything, press the like button. If you love anything, press the love button. And if you want to share something with me, drop a comment in the comment box. And my producer was holding her hands over her face going, Jay, I can't believe you just asked the audience to do that. And it was really funny because the response was amazing. People loved acting like what you just said.

• 29:54Jay Shetty?

  Like people loved that there was a prescribed way that they could respond to something. So if I shared a quote that was inspiring, people would click that like button and then I could see it and then I could respond to them. And that's when I started to understand that people don't just want to be receivers. They want to be participants in learning and they don't just want to be on the receiving end. They don't just want to be listeners and hearers and taking in. They want to be involved and they want to be engaged. And so I love that example of teaching. Let's say a lot of people who are listening right now may have just started a business or they're on the cusp of starting a business. How should they be thinking about the finances of this business? They don't have a lot of money to get started. They're probably not going to go and raise.

• 30:37Jay Shetty?

  They're probably just trying to build something through a few friends, maybe from themselves. What are the things they should be thinking about?

• 30:43Speaker 01

  I mean, that's a really great question. I could just say, take my class.

• 30:47Jay Shetty?

  Can they take your class? They can't.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  No, not, not everybody can. You're right. You're right. But I would say, yes, yes. You want to be able to think strategically, right? And so you want to look at how much runway do I need to have to actually get the business started? And a lot of this comes back to capital and I don't want to nerd out too much on No, please do. Capital conversations. No doubt. But I mean, one of the first things I do with my students, even if I'm having them go through this, is I'll have them build out a pro forma, right? So what is it going to look like? How much money do I need to have for what period of time? And this doesn't need to be something fancy. You don't need to build up a model and put in Excel. You can write it on a piece of paper. And I think a lot of people don't look at the basics even to start on something like that.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  And I'm also all about following your passion and getting excited and everything else, but you also want to combine that with things that are practical. And I think when I have people come to my office hours, I get my current students, I get a lot of people come into my office hours, even non-current students, and they ask me the same question you're asking. And I turn it back on them. And I say, what is your purpose? What is the purpose of what you're trying to achieve? Some people will tell me, I want to make money. Some people will say, I want to do this for fun. Some people will say, I just want to have experience. There's a lot of different reasons of why people are doing things.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  And I think it is very important, first and foremost, to be clear with yourself on why you're starting this business. Now, if it's to start a business for your livelihood, we actually have to map this out and plan it. Right? What is your market size? How many people are in there? A lot of companies that we're looking at right now are in the beverage space. I love the beverage space, right? It gets me very excited. And you want to look at that and see how many people are currently in the market? What are the other products that are out there? The beverage space also has a low barrier to entry. Somebody can take a relatively small amount of money and go there tomorrow to a production facility and you can go out there and you can get it created. As opposed to another company that I recently invested in is a sunscreen company.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Sunscreen companies have, some people might say that there's a low barrier to entry for sunscreen. Having said that, there's a long process to get a product approved. It can take a year and a half, two years. So part of it is thinking through, and this is the framework that I got from business school. We have something called Porter's Five Forces, which is a phenomenal tool. So you look at what are the items that are market competitiveness? Who are the other competitors in the space? What are the barriers to entry? What are the alternatives to the product? What are the substitutes? It's actually a model. I had a diagram and a whiteboard right now. I draw it up for you. Right. Thinking through things from that model, that framework allows you to properly assess.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  Is it even worth it? And do I want to go into this business? And again, probably a non-popular opinion at this point in time, what I'm about to say, but everyone always says, just go out there and follow your passion, follow your dream. I get that. I do. But you also have to look at something that's

• 34:01Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  Is this a viable business? And how much time do you want to spend on it?

• 34:06Jay Shetty?

  I'm really happy you said that. I mean, when I started doing what I do today, I was working a full-time job, getting home from the full-time job and then editing videos from 9pm to 2am. And then waking up, going to my full-time job, coming back and doing the same thing. And then doing this on the evenings and weekends. And therefore it didn't need to make money. So for two years, me doing my passion didn't directly relate to money. It didn't make me revenue. It didn't make any profit. It didn't pay my bills because I was paying my bills through a full-time job. And that to me was the healthiest way for me to start because I was able to see what the options were and what opportunities came up. So while I was doing my full-time job, paying my bills, I didn't have to worry about anything.

• 34:51Jay Shetty?

  And actually using my evenings and weekends to build my passion led to that being my long-term business. And I don't think I could have done that if I would have quit my full-time job and tried to build my passion from scratch. I think there would have been quite a few years where, I mean, I would have been broke because there wasn't a way to monetize what I was doing. And so I love that you're encouraging people to not think about their passion in this romanticized way.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:22Jay Shetty?

  Because it's so easy to get romantic about your passion and your purpose and just believe that because you believe that everyone's going to believe and something's going to happen. And I often prefer that people either do what you're saying where they actually have a plan, they're structured, they're thoughtful, or they're in two boats for a while. They have their job or their part-time job and then they have this other thing that's going on. On and that's a much safer place to be. I don't believe that every passion can be a business or should be a business. How do you help your students or anyone decipher between what should remain a hobby and a passion?

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:55Jay Shetty?

  And what can has the market potential to evolve into a business? Because I think I think we're living in a time where pretty much a lot of random things have become businesses. So it kind of feels very open, but there's things to think about in becoming a CEO or a business person that are different to being a passion business.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  So the IRS, when you actually have a business that over for a period of time, it doesn't create any income, but you have expenses against it. It's literally defined as a hobby. A hobby is an actual definition of an IRS term, right? So I always find that very interesting and I ask my students or any any other entrepreneurs I talk to, even if I'm talking to them about the fund or anything else, they'll come to me and ask me advice, right? And I say, you just have to be clear with yourself. Is this a passion project and a hobby? Or is this something you really want to make money on? And I think that it's very important to decipher between the two. I tried to start my own startup before I left banking, took a big risk, quit my job. And I tried to start my own startup.

• 36:53Speaker 01

  And if I could go back and tell myself something, it would be, nah, be clear on what this is.

• 36:58Jay Shetty?

  Can you tell us about that story? Tell us a bit about that, like, what did you start? How did it go? Cause I think hearing about that would be awesome.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  I had a great job in banking and graduated from business school. They rolled out the red carpet type of job in banking. It was amazing. So I was working with a lot of companies that were looking to do an IPO or looking to get acquired within the next so many years. I had the opportunity to spend time with founders, CFOs, CEOs. When you're a startup and you're with a bank, that means you're pretty sophisticated. You're far along, right? So I was dealing with a lot of people and I saw how much they were making and what they were doing. And I thought, whoa, I'm so smart. I could do that. And so I left a great job in banking to start my own startup. It was ironically, it was an online platform, which was going to be to teach personal finance to predominantly predominantly women and then branch out from that to women and men. But I should have been more focused.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  I failed at what I wanted to do and it was hard.

• 37:54Jay Shetty?

  How did you define failure? Like what went wrong there?

• 37:57Speaker 01

  The whole thing had to stop. Any money that I had spent, we lost. I'd gotten money from families and friends. For about a year and a half, I'd been working on it and we lost everything. And it was very, very tough because I had so been so used to being successful and amazing. I have immigrant parents who are phenomenal, who are also very driven, right? And who also have driven their children to work hard and succeed and excel. And so went to school, did well, went to business school, did well, went to banking, did well. And then all of a sudden I start my own thing and I'm like, I don't even know how to properly ship boxes. Like I don't know the difference between UPS, FedEx, all of these things. Like it was a really big learning experience for me on basic items that I didn't understand. And the startup didn't work, right?

• 38:42Speaker 01

  It wasn't what I wanted it to be and it was very, very hard. And if I could go back and give myself one piece of advice, it would be be able to decipher between passion and business. They can be both, but you have to be clear on what you're trying to do and achieve. Because when it's a business, you move out all the noise and you focus in on, do I have the right market? Is there the right market product fit? Are people ready to buy this? You can't just go and talk to your friends and say, hey, do you think this idea is great? They're gonna go, yeah, of course. They're gonna tell you yes or no, really, right? You need to ask them, hey, I have this product. It's great. Okay, are you gonna buy it? Will you pay for it right now? That's what makes the difference there.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  And so being able to decipher between passion and a business, I think is is very, very important.

• 39:31Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely. I think that one of the misconceptions that I think I had and also people have in general is that when you live a passion business, that you just get to do what you want to do. And I would honestly say that in the come up period.

• 39:50Jay Shetty?

  I did more of what I didn't want to do and what I had to learn, i.e. whether it was the UPS or FedEx. In your scenario, in my scenario, it was client relationships, editing, learning videography, learning social media, learning, I had to learn all these skills in order to do what I do today. I had to learn about podcasting, I had to learn about publishing. These were not things I wanted to do, but they were vehicles to do what I wanted to do. So I had to spend more time studying vehicles and modalities and frameworks and mechanisms and tools so that I could spread my message, which is what I wanted to do.

• 40:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:30Jay Shetty?

  But if I just tried to spread my message, that was never going to work because I had to understand the tool. Today, I live a life where, yeah, I do way more of what I want to do today. But I think the mistake is believing that you'll be able to let go of what you have to do. And I think that's where I've realized that there is no one in the world who can completely let go of things they have to do in order to do what they want to do. But it's a balance of the two. And so when I'm hearing you talk, I'm reflecting on my own journey and going, yeah, that makes a lot of sense because in order to do what I love to do today, I have to do things that I just have to do.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:09Jay Shetty?

  And to live a pure passion business is a hobby because that means you're just enjoying the passion of it. So if I said every Friday night, I was gonna go live on Facebook and just teach my message and whoever turned up, turned up, that's a hobby, that's beautiful. But if I really wanna create ways in which people can learn, grow, get educated, change their life, transform, that's gonna need me to be a bit more organized and focused.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:35Jay Shetty?

  As you rightly said.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  Focus is such a big deal. And I also think it comes back to priorities, right? There are certain times, one thing I really like that you said is there are certain times, right? Where you're like on your way up, right? You had to do a lot of the things that you didn't wanna do. And one of the things that I keep hearing people always talk about is, well, do you have the right work-life balance?

• 41:55Jay Shetty?

  No.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  There's a story, and I know you've heard this before, but there's a person standing in the front of the room, and they have a glass. And first, they put rocks in the glass. And they say, is there anything else? More room left. And everybody goes, no. And then they put the pebbles in, then they put the, what is it? Sand and then water, right? Here's what I think is missing from that story, though, is that that all makes sense. But there's certain times in life where you're going to have situations where that priority level is going to shift. And that's what's missing. So were there certain times in my life also where the rocks would be just career or just work or just the things that I don't want to do? They were. And it wasn't that I didn't have a work-life balance, anything in that way.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  It was more of at that point in time in my life, that was the priority. So even though now my priority is family and I, I love my work. I love running the fund. I love teaching. You know that, though. I teach for fun, right? I love it. But the priority set is going to shift over time.

• 43:00Jay Shetty?

  I'm so glad we're having such a real conversation about this because I, I'm, I'm like loving this right now because I completely agree with you. I, so when we got married, we got married in 2016, which is kind of where my external career took off. And for three years, we didn't go on a honeymoon because we couldn't afford it. Like we didn't go on our honeymoon. We never had one because we didn't have the money or the time to. My career was busy. Things were growing. I had momentum on my side and I couldn't afford to take the time or the money to pay for something. Three years later, we went on a beautiful honeymoon. It was, it was amazing. It was so fun to have waited for something like that and have this amazing experience. And I look at those first three years and I go, I'm so happy that we lived the way we did.

• 43:45Jay Shetty?

  We lived in this 500 square foot apartment in New York City. You know, we, we ate, worked and slept in the same areas. We didn't have any other space. And I have such good memories from that time. And I'm so grateful that the rocks became just hard work, networking, meetings, events, whatever it was. And my wife was doing the same for herself. I'm so happy that I allowed myself to do that for three years in order to have the life I have today. And I don't think there's a right or wrong way. And that's what I'm hearing from you too. It's about the hope that you have. For the result you want.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:24Jay Shetty?

  Right? It's like, everything's proportionate.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 44:26Jay Shetty?

  To what you want. And I don't think that we should have either romantic or unromantic views of what we want to have in life. We should just be clear that if this is where I want to be, this is what it's going to require. And yeah, I just, I'm grateful for those memories. I'm grateful for those times. I, I look back and I'm so happy that, and and even today, I was saying this to a friend today. I was like, I still haven't taken my foot off the gas today.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:53Jay Shetty?

  Because the people I look up to and admire and respect, they haven't taken the foot off the gas after thirty years of being at the top of their game. And I want longevity, right? I'm not looking for a flash in the pan, or I want longevity. I want to be doing this for the next three, four decades of my life, which requires a different level of planning and maturity, as opposed to just going for quick wins. So I'm glad we're having this conversation, because I think it's a tough conversation to have.

• 45:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:20Jay Shetty?

  But, but it is true. And again, I, I want to go back and say to people, like, it wasn't about not having work-life balance. It's that the, the term work-life balance means everything should be equal.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 45:32Jay Shetty?

  And I think equality is the issue, because equality doesn't actually mean balance. For example, two hours of time for myself a day could balance out ten hours of work that day.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:45Jay Shetty?

  I can, I see you nodding and smiling.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  No, a hundred percent. I was talking.

• 45:48Jay Shetty?

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• 46:29Jay Shetty?

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• 47:11Jay Shetty?

  but I was struggling to find pieces that felt grounding but could also stand up to daily use. I went on Wayfair and found a beautiful, solid wood accent chair and a bookshelf. Now that corner is my favorite place to anchor my day. The quality is incredible, it's built to last, and it completely shifted the energy of the room. Plus, you can shop with Wayfair Verified, where product specialists carefully vet items for quality and functionality, so you can shop with more confidence. And if putting it all together sounds like a headache, Wayfair can handle delivery, installation and assembly. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase and start saving on your next home upgrade. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com.

• 47:57Jay Shetty?

  Wayfair, every style, every home.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  To my mom about it previously. And she's like, you know, work-life balance, just because everybody always talks about that with motherhood and this and that. You know, I have two kids, right? If you literally think of balance, it's if you think of like two weights on a side, you have 50 pounds of gold and another person who's 50 pounds, it's a balance, it's equal. It's never going to in life be that way. And I think the challenge that people have is they're calling it balance to begin with, when it should be priorities. When I was at Drinks.com, a direct-to-consumer wine company. I probably was working, you know, seventy, eighty plus hours a week. Like, I remember looking at this and I'm going, I'm eighty plus hours a week. What that means is I'm working all day, come home, have dinner, and then I work again. And you do that six days a week. Now, is that good or bad? I don't know.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  But at that point in time, it was a priority in my life. I was married. My husband travels for work, as you know. And so, um, he wasn't there, right? He was gone every single week. And so, I loved what I was doing. And it was exciting to learn more and do things. And the more things I would say at work I can take on, they'll be like, you wanna launch a new wine project over here? Go do this. You wanna look at how some of these things run for, we were doing a wine program for Martha Stewart? You can do this, right? It was, it was amazing, right? So, I felt like whatever I wanted to take on, I could. But my priority, my rocks at that point in time in my life, was my career.

• 49:24Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  A lot of people look at priority lists that you have, right? So, you have ten priorities of things that I want in a job. What I did it was with a guy, right? How you're dating. And they look at it in a horizontal manner. Like, these are the list of all the things. I like to look at it in a vertical fashion. And then you have to put in order, right? The priorities. And you can quickly see, even if it's, this is almost like playing with your subconscious, right? You yourself will start to see what are the priorities and what's the rank amongst them. Once you do that, then you can say, alright, at this point in time in my life, I'm gonna focus on this. And later, it's gonna change. Later, it's going to change. You know, it's just like buying a house. I have so many friends right now who are in the market. It's a crazy market, right?

• 50:10Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it's insane, yeah.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  But everybody always says, we want great location, good price, and a lot of space. We live in LA. I mean, come on now, right?

• 50:18Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:19Speaker 01

  And then what I've noticed is that when they're with their partners, they're not on the same page. And so, what I've been telling them, what my husband and I did was, is we both sat down and we created a vertical list. I now know what his top priority is, and he knows what mine is. When we're going out and looking for places, it's easier for us to be on the same page. And it sounds like you understand what I'm talking about.

• 50:41Jay Shetty?

  I'm completely in agreement with you. We did the same exact thing. And you know, for Radi, it was a big kitchen. Like, that was very important to her because that's her world. For me, it was having a space where we could have a studio like this.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  I got you.

• 50:53Jay Shetty?

  Like, those were priorities for me where where I could work from home because I love working from home.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  For my husband, it was being close to the beach.

• 50:59Jay Shetty?

  Oh, wow, okay.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  He has to be close to the beach. He's a total beach person. And then for me, I needed something where I can have my own office space.

• 51:07Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  That was separate away from the kids.

• 51:09Jay Shetty?

  Office, that's the, yeah. But but that's beautiful. And and I love that idea of people writing down their priorities separately and also just recognizing that different stages in life will have different priorities.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:21Jay Shetty?

  And knowing that it can change.

• 51:22Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 51:23Jay Shetty?

  And that balance, if everyone could remove the idea from their mind, that balance means equal. Because the way we think about balance is time. We think dividing our time equally means balance.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:38Jay Shetty?

  But that's the wrong currency to divide.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 51:41Jay Shetty?

  Balance means how much time do you need for yourself in order to feel great so that you can give and build and create for the rest of the day? That's what balance is.

• 51:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:51Jay Shetty?

  And I find for me personally, that two to three hours a day for myself gives me enough energy to go ahead and do that. Someone else may say they need four or five. Someone may need one. You know, it's it's all subjective. But to me, a balance just shouldn't be about time. It's it's not about equality of time.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  I mean, this is one of the best things that I've heard anybody say because it's you constantly keep hearing this all the time, everywhere. Everyone needs work-life balance. You do need a balance. But again, it's not equated to time. I think it's more on you got to do the priorities. What are my priorities? I need to make sure I'm getting all those priorities in.

• 52:29Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  Whatever that might be. And in different stages of your life, that also does change.

• 52:33Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  So I I think that's a wonderful way to put it.

• 52:36Jay Shetty?

  This is what I love about you. You, you know, you're a woman, you're a business person, you're an academic, you're now a mom, like, you know, and that's why I'm enjoying having this conversation with you because I haven't had the challenges you've had. I'm I'm not a mom. Like, I don't have to raise kids and build businesses and do like, I'm not in that position, right? And so I have so much respect for you. And I have so much admiration for you and what what you're able to achieve and do. Because I think Every time I've seen you also, you just carry yourself very well and and at the same time have all this going on at the same time, but you love it and you can tell that you love being a mom, a teacher and a coach. You love being an investor and an entrepreneur.

• 53:17Jay Shetty?

  I read a study from two thousand and twenty one that said that, and of course, let's be honest, what mothers do is priceless and you can't put a value on it. If someone asked me how much what my mom did for me, how much was that worth, could never put a price on it. But I do believe it's important to understand value. There was a research study from two thousand and twenty one that said that if you looked at a mom's career as a career and looked at the over one hundred and three hours a week, more like twenty four seven, if you tallied up all the costs of how much everything would cost to do or hire or outsource, it would be one hundred and eighty six thousand, four hundred dollars that an

• 54:00Jay Shetty?

  average mom would make. When you hear that, what goes through your mind? I want to I want to hear your response and thoughts.

• 54:06Speaker 01

  It's a lot of work and it's a lot of time and I just don't know if society always understands. Again, it comes back to the unconscious bias, right? That we feel as women that it's our responsibility to take care of the household. It's our responsibility to do all of these different things and the amount of time and energy that goes in, it's constant. And sometimes you might be lucky and get a smile from your child, but that doesn't always happen. You know, I'm going to take this in a little bit of a different direction here, but I do think that what makes a lot of these things hard is that in the workplace, we don't always have the ability to have others that empathize with us, right? And having people around who have similar fashion, like who understand these

• 54:49Speaker 01

  things makes a big difference. My husband's at Deloitte. Deloitte is known to take care of women. They are known to be a great place for for the working mother. They have a lot of partners that they interact with, right, who are mothers. What that has done for me, though, in my personal life, is my husband gets it more. It's more common to him. He understands that, you know, when I was nursing my baby, it was, okay, how much work is it for Nae Ha to constantly have to nurse throughout the day or take the pump with her to work? And the issues that I've had even with pumps and everything else. One time, startup life, the electricity stopped working in our building. And the pump that I had, I didn't realize, it was my first child,

• 55:30Speaker 01

  that I should have a battery pack as a backup or something like that, and I needed to pump. So I had to leave and drive home to go do it, and it was such an ordeal. But these are the things as women that we're constantly having to deal with that not everyone understands. And I think that having women in certain positions at work, it does make a difference.

• 55:52Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:53Speaker 01

  Because it shifts the conversation. Even my husband, who's amazing and very loving, he's constantly being exposed to it at his work.

• 56:02Jay Shetty?

  Of course.

• 56:03Speaker 01

  So he sees it, he hears it, and then he'll empathize more with his wife. But Jay, to your point, it is nonstop. It is 24/7. You never get a break. I think the only time I get a break, and I think I'm lucky about this one, is when I go to the bathroom.

• 56:17Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  But otherwise, if I'm at home, it's nonstop.

• 56:21Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I remember my mom doing the same thing. Like, my mom was the main breadwinner of the family. She used to cook for us, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, pack our lunch, send us to school. She'd drop me and my sister to different schools, pick us up, like, the whole works, you know? And it was, and help us with our homework and planned weekend activities. I mean, super mom, like, just incredible. And also, I agree with what you said. So I grew up seeing my mom work really hard. And so that gave me a sense of empathy and compassion to how hard moms work. I have a younger sister who... You know, when she gets married, I think about the same thing. I'm like, I can understand that, you know, she can't be left to do it all on her own. And so, and, and I love what you said about the workplace. I worked at Accenture. Again, Accenture has incredible

• 57:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:06Jay Shetty?

  uh, practices, especially in the UK at least, where, where I worked there for moms, where women who'd go away on maternity leave, when they come back, they'd come back to the position they would have earned if they stayed at the company.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:17Jay Shetty?

  So it wouldn't be that, oh, you went off and became a mom, so you're going to start where you were. It's like, no, we trust that you've continued to grow and evolve. And now when you come in, you're going to take on that role. And I loved seeing that because it was, why would someone get penalized for, for going off to do

• 57:32Speaker 01

  To have a child.

• 57:33Jay Shetty?

  To do the most important job in the world. How have you allowed yourself, and I'm really intrigued by this, and I'm asking this question on behalf of all my friends, people who ask me this question, I have, I always say I need to ask a mom because I'm not qualified to answer this question. How do you deal with mom guilt in the idea that you are an ambitious business person who wants to do creative things, who loves what they do? And then you deal with the challenge that, but what if I miss that moment with my kid? Or what if I'm not a part of that moment of their growth? How have you dealt with that? Because I think that's the hardest thing that I, from when I speak to women today who are moms,

• 58:14Jay Shetty?

  they just say to me, go Jay, I, I miss being able to be that person, but at the same time, I don't want to miss this moment with my kid. And that is, sounds like the hardest place.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  It is. And you know, the way I look at this is, life is not about either or. It's about finding a way to create an end. And it's, it is very, very hard to make it work, Jay. It is. I mean, just being completely honest. There isn't, right? But I, when we sold Create and Cultivate and we were going through the diligence process, I was pregnant with my daughter, Ava. Even now, when I look at the photos that we have online of, you know, the announcement of the sale, I was 36 weeks pregnant in the photo. But I look at that and I go, Ava's in the photo with me, right? She's there in the announcement page. It was really hard, right? Because I didn't take a day off from maternity leave. I had to work through the transaction and the sale.

• 59:09Speaker 01

  And somebody could look back at that and say, that was so hard, what was going on? When we had the closing call, it was online on Zoom for the sale. I was nursing my daughter at the time. So I had the camera off and everybody said, hey, we can hear Ava. We can do all this stuff. And somebody can look at that and say, and every mom has their own journey. For some people, it's good for them not to work and stay at home. For me, the type of person that I am, and I don't need to feel bad about it. I love working. I love being out there. And you know what I'm gonna love doing? I'm gonna love telling my daughter the story of how she was born and the village and the army of people that stepped in to come and help me out so that I could get through the transaction. I felt like I had my baby strapped to my back and I'm going out there and I'm doing

• 59:54Speaker 01

  all these great things. And the fact that I was able to get and be a part of getting a company sold that focused on live events during a global pandemic while pregnant, I will always have that. And I get to tell my daughter, Jay, what I did when I was having her and what she can be able to go and do in the world. So what my thought for people is who have mom guilt, that they have work and they have personal life and all of these things going on is you have to first take care of yourself and then you can take care of the child. It's the old story, right, of the airplane when the air masks come down. First, you put it on yourself and then you put it on the child.

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  And you have to take care of yourself first. And this comes back to self-care, mental health, everything else. If you don't take care of yourself first, you can't be the best mom.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  After my first child, I dealt with severe postpartum and it was very, very hard. I went back to work very early. I started a new job, this job at Create and Cultivate. And I remember thinking, I have to push through this. I'm not a good mom. I'm not great if I can't make this work for my child. What's wrong with me? I thought all these things. I started working when my son was seven weeks old. Within two days, I stopped crying. I was crying all the time. It's a part of postpartum. Within two days, I stopped crying. And everybody around me would say, why are you working so soon? Your baby needs you, this, that. And I said, I need me. When I go to work and I can focus on the things I'm great at,

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  I feel good and I feel confident. And then I get to go home and be the best mother to my son. And this is again, when I had my first child. And I think that mom guilt, again, I've used this phrase, but it's an unconscious bias. It's there from other people, but it's also there from ourselves. And every mom has their own journey and you need to do what's right for you and your child. And there is no wrong. There's actually no wrong.

• 1:02:03Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  First, you gotta take care of yourself. The second thing for me that worked out very well is I created what I call a life team. You know, and we create these teams at work, but you have to create these teams around you with your life. I have an amazing supportive husband. I have phenomenal parents. My parents, my mom is my coach, right? She talks to me every time I'm driving in the car, helping me sort through things. She's phenomenal, right? My in-laws are amazing. They help with my kids all the time. I don't know what I would do without them. I have some friends who are always there. You know, you create this great team of people around you. And what that has allowed me to do is, is spend what I think are the important moments with my kid.

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  My, both of my kids. So right now, every Friday, the second half of Friday, I take off. And every other Friday, I'll take out one of my kids, just for mommy and me time. My son's name is Indre. He's so cute. And he goes, is it mama and Indre time? It's the sweetest thing. He's three, a little over three, right? But to me, that's more important than hearing a word that he said for the first time, or seeing my daughter do something different, like she turned over a different way. She's just over one, right? For me, that time I get to spend with them, one-on-one, for me, that's what's important. Everybody will have their own, though. That's important for them.

• 1:03:30Jay Shetty?

  I love that. I think, I think, I mean, I took so much away from that, but I, I think the ultimate answer is that there is no wrong, like recognizing that, however you're functioning and dealing with it, and as long as there is time, I love what you said when you said, I needed me, right? Like, I think that's so powerful, like, I needed me. And, and when we are full, we are able to give ourselves to others. It's, it's the old cliche, but it's true. Um, but hearing that from you is, is really powerful. Nah, you've been so generous with your time today, and I, I actually absolutely love everywhere we've gone. Uh, but I do want to talk a bit about, and, and this is the last question I'm going to ask you before we go to our final five, which you're aware of because you're a listener, so you know that we're going to end with our rapid fire round.

• 1:04:15Jay Shetty?

  But before that, uh, you launched New Money Ventures.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:04:19Jay Shetty?

  Uh, which is your fund. You know, you're investing in lots of exciting companies and brands. How were you deciding what to invest in? What is it that you, as an investor, look at? I think that would be really educational for our audience, who potentially may want to have investors one day and, and raise one day. What are the things you look for?

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  There's two big things I look for. One is the market opportunity, right? So what can this actually grow into? And then number two is the founder. We're investing in early stage. So for us, that's going to be seed and series A companies. I know that things are going to change, no matter what. There's going to be ups, there's going to be downs with a lot of these startups. We want to be able to invest in the right people who can pivot along with those changes. And those are the two big things of how we look at which companies we're going to invest in.

• 1:05:12Jay Shetty?

  Amazing. Very clear.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  It's very clear, very concise. Yes.

• 1:05:16Jay Shetty?

  Very clear, very simple. I love it. All right. So we're gonna end with our final five. So Neha Kumar, oh, go on.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  Of course, I was gonna say, I have to tell you too, I've been listening to this podcast. I listen to it all the time on the drive to class.

• 1:05:30Jay Shetty?

  I love it.

• 1:05:30Speaker 01

  So Tuesdays and Thursdays, right now, I go to class and it takes me about forty five minutes to an hour.

• 1:05:34Jay Shetty?

  Oh, perfect.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  Perfect, perfect timing.

• 1:05:37Jay Shetty?

  I love it.

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  And sometimes, I told you, I tell my students a quote, I'll actually pull it from some of your podcasts.

• 1:05:44Jay Shetty?

  I love that. Thank you so much. That means the world to me. I love that.

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:05:48Jay Shetty?

  That I'm a part of your day and.

• 1:05:51Speaker 01

  And my classes day, too.

• 1:05:52Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I love that. That means the world to me. Thank you so much. So now you can pull a quote from your own podcast now when you listen to it on the way. So something you said. Okay, so Neha Kumar, these are your final five. The first question is, what is the best advice around money you've ever received?

• 1:06:08Speaker 01

  My dad would always tell me this and he'd say, when you have money, everybody wants to give it to you. When you don't have money, nobody wants to give it to you. And the reason that's something to be very cognizant about is about how you manage your finances from a personal side, but also from a work side.

• 1:06:29Jay Shetty?

  Love that. Great, great answer. We've never had that before. All right. Second question, what is the worst money or finance advice you've ever heard?

• 1:06:36Speaker 01

  You know, there's a lot of people who get up on panels and things and they'll say, just go out there and get the money. Just go out there and raise it. And there's, there's a lot of fluff behind that. You need to be able to support it. You need to be able to show that you can, that you have the right business behind it. And the last thing that you want to do is, I mean, I hear all these advices of, you know, drain your 401k, go out there if you believe in what you're doing. I'm all about faith. I, I left my job. Right? I did all of these things, but you do need to be able to have some support before you, you completely drain out your 401k and you need to make sure that you're financially doing the right thing for your business.

• 1:07:14Jay Shetty?

  That's great. Love that. Question number three, how would you define your current purpose?

• 1:07:19Speaker 01

  To leave the world in a better place than I found it.

• 1:07:22Jay Shetty?

  I love that. Beautiful. Question number four. If someone has just failed, what would be your best advice to them right now?

• 1:07:30Speaker 01

  Get up and start again, right away, don't even think about it.

• 1:07:33Jay Shetty?

  Brilliant, I love that, that was very quick, very quick. You're really rapid, this is good. All right, fifth and final question we ask this to every guest. If you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be?

• 1:07:45Speaker 01

  Don't judge other people.

• 1:07:47Jay Shetty?

  Love that.

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  I think we're all so quick, especially in the media world today. We're so quick to judge everybody around us. And I think that if we were to take a step back and know that everybody has something that they're coming from and just not to judge them and not already have our own listening of what we're, when they're talking, what we're listening to and not judge, but create a space for them to say or do whatever they want. I think that'd be amazing.

• 1:08:19Jay Shetty?

  Everyone, that's Neha Kumar. And everyone, you need to share this episode with someone who is starting a business, just failed, running one, figuring it out. I believe this was one of the most raw, honest, open conversations where Neha didn't hold back at all. We really got stuck into some really difficult topics and territory. Neha, where's the best place that people can find you, follow you, connect with you? If people are like, I need more of Neha's advice in my life, where's the best place?

• 1:08:46Speaker 01

  Absolutely, so I do have my Instagram profile, right? Neha T Kumar. I will be starting up a couple of things as well and then I'll be putting it through my Instagram links also.

• 1:08:58Jay Shetty?

  Amazing, so Neha T Kumar on Instagram, please go follow her. Please go and tag me and Neha on Instagram and on any other platform that you're using. To tell us what resonated with you, what stood out to you, what connected with you. I'd love to know, you might even end up in one of her classes. But thank you so much for listening and watching today. Please pass this one on, I think it's going to impact a lot of people. And I can't wait to have you back for another episode of On Purpose. Thank you so much Neha.

• 1:09:25Speaker 01

  Thank you.

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