On a lot of days I do question myself.
Priyamvada:I do wonder why am I doing this?
Priyamvada:I do wonder when I'm running the race to why I'm doing this.
Priyamvada:And that's also the time I tell myself that I'm not going to do it
Priyamvada:again, but it's really hard, you get out there and then I'm going
Priyamvada:to pick up my child from school and then I see someone else running.
Priyamvada:I'm like, gosh, I miss it.
Priyamvada:I need to run more.
Priyamvada:I
Rob:thought for a moment you were going to say you go off
Rob:running and forget your job.
Priyamvada:Actually, yeah it's a love hate relationship.
Priyamvada:I think there are days you love it.
Priyamvada:There are days you just don't.
Priyamvada:Some days I love running.
Priyamvada:Some days I love doing the weights.
Priyamvada:Some days I don't want to do anything.
Priyamvada:But then I also feel when I'm not doing something, like when I'm not
Priyamvada:actively exercising in some form, whether it's playing badminton or
Priyamvada:dancing or running away somewhere or lifting weights, I do feel by 4 p.
Priyamvada:m.
Priyamvada:in the evening I can sense that I'm falling into feeling Not so
Priyamvada:good or not feeling great about myself or don't have the energy to
Priyamvada:tackle the next half of the day.
Rob:What happened that made health and fitness so important to you?
Priyamvada:I guess for me, health and fitness was always important.
Priyamvada:I always did it in some form or another.
Priyamvada:I always put in time.
Priyamvada:I always put an energy into it.
Priyamvada:I've been doing it for 10, 15 years, but I never gave it the sort of
Priyamvada:attention that it actually deserved because I just thought it's, One
Priyamvada:of those things, you just do it.
Priyamvada:Everybody's doing it.
Priyamvada:I had different reasons to do it when I was younger, because I
Priyamvada:wanted to fit into good clothes.
Priyamvada:I wanted my waistline to look really tiny.
Priyamvada:I was enamored by all those glossy magazine covers.
Priyamvada:And then I thought that's the standard of beauty and that's
Priyamvada:what I should try to fit into.
Priyamvada:So without knowing anything about nutrition, without knowing anything
Priyamvada:about exercising or it's other benefits, I would just go to the gym and I would
Priyamvada:be on the treadmill for an hour, maybe two, as long as I felt like it and
Priyamvada:I would feel good about myself and say, yeah, I go to the gym every day.
Priyamvada:I work nine to five and then I make time for the gym.
Priyamvada:But it didn't really put my soul into it.
Priyamvada:I was just doing it for other vanity reasons.
Priyamvada:So I never enjoyed the benefits of it until I think 2019 end of 2019, early
Priyamvada:2020, just before the pandemic hit was when I was falling into this cycle of
Priyamvada:Being in a job, doing the same thing every day, not really realizing what I'm doing.
Priyamvada:Yes, I have a job.
Priyamvada:Yes, the money's coming in.
Priyamvada:Yes, I got a family.
Priyamvada:I got a house to live in.
Priyamvada:I got food to put on my plate, but there's just something in
Priyamvada:me that's not feeling right.
Priyamvada:I would wake up every morning crying and I would think, Why am I crying?
Priyamvada:I do.
Priyamvada:This is what I work towards, right?
Priyamvada:My parents said get good education, get a job, marry.
Priyamvada:And I've done all of that.
Priyamvada:I've ticked all the boxes.
Priyamvada:I'm young.
Priyamvada:So why am I feeling so restless?
Priyamvada:And why am I feeling so unfulfilled?
Priyamvada:And I didn't want that feeling anymore.
Priyamvada:I didn't want to feel like shit anymore.
Priyamvada:Every morning it's really hard to, wake up in the morning and not look forward
Priyamvada:to your day, not wanting to do anything.
Priyamvada:Every task feels like a chore.
Priyamvada:It feels so painful.
Priyamvada:Oh my God, I need to go to job.
Priyamvada:Oh my God, I need to get my kids ready to school.
Priyamvada:Nothing, absolutely nothing interested me.
Priyamvada:And that's when I slowly started putting pieces of my life together.
Priyamvada:I started reading a lot.
Priyamvada:I slowly disconnected from my job.
Priyamvada:I would sleep very little.
Priyamvada:I was the classic, "Oh, I sleep only five hours a day".
Priyamvada:And that's enough for me because I'm going out there and getting that
Priyamvada:corporate role and I'm going to climb that ladder and become that vice president.
Priyamvada:And this is what successful people do.
Priyamvada:They sleep less and they work more and maybe that works for a lot of
Priyamvada:them, but it wasn't working for me.
Priyamvada:I was sleep deprived.
Priyamvada:I was upset and I was doing everything the wrong way.
Priyamvada:So when I started putting my life back slowly together, by reading, by
Priyamvada:going out, by studying nutrition, by studying fitness, by actually doing
Priyamvada:it for the right reasons, I started slowly seeing the positive impact of it.
Priyamvada:It doesn't happen overnight.
Priyamvada:And not to say that as soon as you start, as soon as you start
Priyamvada:exercising, or journaling, your life is going to magically change.
Priyamvada:It's not going to happen.
Priyamvada:There will still be days when you feel what am I doing?
Priyamvada:But you got to keep at it, every day.
Priyamvada:. So you got to just keep doing it every day.
Priyamvada:You got to keep it.
Priyamvada:Putting in the efforts every day.
Priyamvada:And you can start by doing very little.
Priyamvada:In my case, for example, I started my journaling by writing just
Priyamvada:three sentences every day, just three, because I had read it works.
Priyamvada:I had no clue how it works.
Priyamvada:I was like, how can writing something work?
Priyamvada:How can you writing affirmations work?
Priyamvada:How can you write you're grateful for something?
Priyamvada:And how can that work?
Priyamvada:I don't know.
Priyamvada:It doesn't make sense, but everyone's saying it works.
Priyamvada:So I have nothing to lose.
Priyamvada:So I started slowly.
Priyamvada:Building on my habits, whether it was journaling, whether it was
Priyamvada:stepping out for a walk, whether it was lifting weights, whether
Priyamvada:it was understanding nutrition.
Priyamvada:And then I saw those effects change my life over time, over a couple of years.
Priyamvada:That's when I seriously got into it.
Priyamvada:And I thought if it could change my life, It can change.
Priyamvada:People just don't realize the benefits.
Priyamvada:People just think, let me exercise.
Priyamvada:I am going to, change the way I look, I'm going to have a teeny tiny
Priyamvada:waistline, or I'm going to, I don't know, build muscles, whatever it
Priyamvada:is, their physical fitness goal is.
Priyamvada:And that's the only reason people get to it.
Priyamvada:Whatever else it does to you is absolutely mind blowing.
Priyamvada:And that is what I'm trying to tell everybody else as well, that look, you
Priyamvada:can actually have, whether you want to be successful in your corporate career,
Priyamvada:whether you want to be an entrepreneur, whether you want to be a stay at home
Priyamvada:parent, whether you want to be a writer, no matter what it is that you want
Priyamvada:to do in life, there's nothing that works like mental and physical fitness.
Priyamvada:Everything else is built on that.
Priyamvada:That is like your foundation.
Priyamvada:That's your base and whatever you want to do, you build on top of that.
Priyamvada:Cause if that's not strong, then everything else is going to break.
Priyamvada:Everything else is going to collapse.
Rob:I can see the passion.
Rob:So five years ago basically it seems you were on autopilot, like most of us
Rob:are, you're told by society and parents and everything, do this, you do that.
Rob:And then you find okay, I'm not liking the life it's left, leaving me with.
Rob:How long were you in that period or before you became aware of it?
Priyamvada:I think I must have been there easily for more than a
Priyamvada:year, at least two years, because the first one year you actually
Priyamvada:think something is wrong with you.
Priyamvada:And you tell yourself, I'm just tired.
Priyamvada:Or I'm not doing it right.
Priyamvada:Or maybe I've just become weak.
Priyamvada:I need to be stronger if I'm not able to do something.
Priyamvada:I see other people doing it.
Priyamvada:So it's me, it's my fault.
Priyamvada:I'm not doing something right.
Priyamvada:So there's so much conditioning you grow up with that even when it
Priyamvada:happens to you, there is this long period of time that you don't want
Priyamvada:to accept that it's happening to you.
Priyamvada:You feel you're different, you are stronger.
Priyamvada:It happens only to weaker people or whatever else it
Priyamvada:is that you have read, right?
Priyamvada:You don't believe it when it happens.
Priyamvada:So I'm pretty sure I must have been in it at least for a year
Priyamvada:and a half or two for sure until
Priyamvada:None of it made sense to me.
Priyamvada:I mean I couldn't have been weak for so long I couldn't have been doing it wrong
Priyamvada:for so long and I couldn't have been waking up crying every morning if Other
Priyamvada:things in my life are going fine, right?
Priyamvada:What is my reason to cry?
Priyamvada:Why am I feeling so bad?
Priyamvada:Why?
Priyamvada:What is it?
Priyamvada:Am I not healthy?
Priyamvada:Yes, I am.
Priyamvada:Do I not have a job?
Priyamvada:Yeah, I have a job.
Priyamvada:Do I not have, I have, I can tick off all the boxes.
Priyamvada:So if you look at Maslow's hierarchy and the basic needs, food,
Priyamvada:shelter, clothing I do have it all.
Priyamvada:Do I want to go on a holiday?
Priyamvada:Do I have the money for it?
Priyamvada:Yes.
Priyamvada:Then why is it that I am not feeling up to it?
Priyamvada:Why is it that none of what I have is making me happy?
Priyamvada:And it takes a while for you to realize that.
Priyamvada:Could this be, Am I burning out?
Priyamvada:Am I not feeling fulfilled?
Priyamvada:Is there something bigger to this?
Priyamvada:Because even today, when I talk to my parents and nothing against
Priyamvada:them, I love them and whatever they've taught me, I'm here for
Priyamvada:because of whatever they taught me.
Priyamvada:Even today, their standards of measuring success because of the society they came
Priyamvada:from and because of their conditioning and the time that they grew up in,
Priyamvada:it's all about, you've got to graduate, you've got to have a job, and you've
Priyamvada:got to be married by the time you're 24 or 25, and you've got to have kids
Priyamvada:by the time you're 28, and you miss any of those deadlines, or you do anything
Priyamvada:in the wrong order, oh my god you're questioned, and you're banned from the
Priyamvada:society in a way people look at you like, you know what, she did not do She
Priyamvada:did not finish her graduation at 21.
Priyamvada:Yeah, she failed and she's now doing repeating a year and she's
Priyamvada:going to miss out on her job.
Priyamvada:And so when I tell them that I have a marathon and I'm running,
Priyamvada:they say so who's going to take care of the kids when you do that?
Priyamvada:There are two in parenting.
Priyamvada:There are usually two people.
Priyamvada:Yes, but no one plays as important a role as a mom.
Priyamvada:I'm like, yeah, but I'm only just gone for a few hours.
Priyamvada:I'm going to run and come back, but you're also training.
Priyamvada:You're taking away so much time from the kids.
Priyamvada:Yeah.
Priyamvada:Maybe you should just stay at home and worry about what's
Priyamvada:going to happen with the kids.
Priyamvada:It's your job.
Priyamvada:It's your duty to, bring them up to raise them right, not be running
Priyamvada:around everywhere in the world.
Priyamvada:So they still don't get it.
Priyamvada:And it's taken me a while to change that definition of success.
Priyamvada:Our family WhatsApp group or a friend's WhatsApp group, the kind
Priyamvada:of information that gets exchanged is look, this person bought that
Priyamvada:house in this location, which has a swimming pool and yay, great for them.
Priyamvada:And I asked my mom, did you tell your cousins or whoever that I ran a marathon?
Priyamvada:She's like.
Priyamvada:No, like, why is it?
Priyamvada:Who tells people you're running marathons?
Priyamvada:I don't even know why you run marathons.
Priyamvada:She just doesn't get it.
Priyamvada:So for me to have grown up in a certain way and for me to understand
Priyamvada:that there could be Possibly more definitions of success, and it
Priyamvada:could vary from person to person.
Priyamvada:That itself has taken a while that itself has taken some time.
Priyamvada:But I'm glad that, whatever happened.
Priyamvada:Otherwise, I don't think I would ever reach this point.
Rob:What I can see is you have a lot of passion and you have a lot of energy,
Rob:and you have a lot of enthusiasm.
Priyamvada:Thank you.
Rob:On a scale of one to 10, so 10 is 10 is what you have now?
Rob:how much did you have back at that 2019?
Priyamvada:Oh, passion energy, minus five, minus 10.
Priyamvada:. I didn't have any.
Priyamvada:I did nothing.
Priyamvada:I would be on the couch, my screen time, my scroll time.
Priyamvada:It amazed me when I started going on this journey and I read that see how much
Priyamvada:of time you're putting into your phone.
Priyamvada:And I was like, two hours, maybe three hours.
Priyamvada:I couldn't be doing more than that.
Priyamvada:I have a job, I have kids, I have so much to do.
Priyamvada:And then when I actually opened the phone and then it said nine hours, I was
Priyamvada:like, I'm on the phone for nine hours.
Priyamvada:That cannot be possible.
Priyamvada:And then it said, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp.
Priyamvada:It also shows you where are the apps where you're spending more time.
Priyamvada:And it absolutely shocked me.
Priyamvada:I said, it cannot, how, when am I doing this?
Priyamvada:So I'm just all my waking hours and the time that I'm supposed to be sleeping
Priyamvada:and the time that I'm supposed to be taking care of my kids or the time that
Priyamvada:I'm supposed to be doing anything else.
Priyamvada:I am on the phone nine hours a day.
Priyamvada:It's a lot of time.
Priyamvada:It's more than one third of your day.
Priyamvada:When you realize something like that It's scary.
Priyamvada:And no wonder I had no energy to do anything.
Priyamvada:No wonder I didn't feel I had the time to do anything because I was
Priyamvada:putting it away everywhere else.
Priyamvada:I was trying to feel good about life, maybe, or I was
Priyamvada:trying to numb the pain away.
Priyamvada:Actually by continuously scrolling and by looking at my feed and
Priyamvada:thinking, Oh my God, look at this person going on a holiday.
Priyamvada:I need to do that.
Priyamvada:Oh my God, look at this person.
Priyamvada:She's got the perfectly clean house and she's also a mom of four kids.
Priyamvada:I need to do that.
Priyamvada:And constantly comparing myself.
Priyamvada:No wonder I reached the point, where I did.
Priyamvada:Yeah.
Priyamvada:So I would put my energy levels definitely in the negative.
Priyamvada:Back then.
Rob:That would be a a video of you then and a video now.
Rob:I think would show.
Priyamvada:Absolutely.
Priyamvada:Yeah.
Priyamvada:The way I looked the way I felt it, it all spoke.
Priyamvada:I also say, your skin, your hair, it all reflects what you're going in.
Priyamvada:There was, this was also the time I had so much acne on my face and I
Priyamvada:went to every dermatologist I knew.
Priyamvada:And I did all the creams and all the medication and everything
Priyamvada:they gave me, nothing worked.
Priyamvada:I would every time go to dermatologists and say, why is it?
Priyamvada:And they would be wondering, this works for even teenagers who have,
Priyamvada:huge acne issues because of the hormonal changes they're going through.
Priyamvada:Why is it not working for you?
Priyamvada:But because I was so stressed because I was internalizing
Priyamvada:so much without even knowing.
Priyamvada:I do have a picture of my skin before and after.
Priyamvada:And when I still see it every time I'm feeling, low.
Priyamvada:And every time I want to know how far I've come in life, I
Priyamvada:still look at that picture.
Priyamvada:I'm like, Oh my God, look at what I did to myself without even knowing.
Priyamvada:Look what it made to my skin.
Priyamvada:Look what it did to my face.
Priyamvada:So yeah, it's sometimes pretty crazy how much your body is telling you every
Priyamvada:way it can, whether it's hair fall, whether it's the way your skin looks,
Priyamvada:but all that fat I was putting on.
Priyamvada:I was really heavy for someone, my height for someone, my age, and for
Priyamvada:someone who claimed to be walking two hours on the treadmill, I was really
Priyamvada:heavy because it did nothing to me.
Priyamvada:I was just casually on the treadmill staring away and just
Priyamvada:walking for no reason, just doing it for the heck of doing it.
Priyamvada:So it all showed up.
Priyamvada:It all showed up in the way I look in my physical aspect, in my mental
Priyamvada:aspect, if you don't take care of it, the good and bad, it compounds, and
Priyamvada:then it starts showing up for sure.
Rob:At some point there was some realization and you
Rob:said you started reading.
Rob:So what was the first thing that you did when you start to become aware of how
Rob:you were feeling and your unhappiness what was the first thing you did?
Priyamvada:Okay, the first thing I, so the first book I read in this phase
Priyamvada:was something my friend recommended.
Priyamvada:She said, you should read this book, the power of subconscious mind.
Priyamvada:It tells you a lot about your subconscious energy and what
Priyamvada:actually happens in your mind.
Priyamvada:Maybe it'll give you an insight into what you're going through.
Priyamvada:So I just started reading the book and all the examples in the book, it
Priyamvada:actually Made it seem very unreal to me, where there are so many examples.
Priyamvada:He talks about how people are looking for love and they find love.
Priyamvada:People are looking for job and they find job.
Priyamvada:You just need to start listening to your voice.
Priyamvada:You need to start building your awareness.
Priyamvada:You need to speak to your mind and you need to let your mind speak to you.
Priyamvada:So the first thing I started doing was that actually I started waking up
Priyamvada:about 45 minutes earlier than usual.
Priyamvada:And I would just sit in a corner on the couch before anybody else woke
Priyamvada:up and I would just close my eyes and visualize what I wanted to feel and
Priyamvada:what I wanted my life to look like.
Priyamvada:Every time I've wanted my life to look in a certain way, but
Priyamvada:I felt that I'm not smiling.
Priyamvada:I felt that my jaws are clenching and I'm tensing that up.
Priyamvada:I knew it's not what I wanted.
Priyamvada:And I needed that time to self reflect, to build that awareness and to see that,
Priyamvada:no, that's not what I'm looking for.
Priyamvada:It's not, I want to be happy thinking that I need to buy a house of this
Priyamvada:size, but I'm somehow not feeling it.
Priyamvada:I'm not feeling that happiness when I think of the house.
Priyamvada:So what is it that I really want to do?
Priyamvada:So that was the first thing I did, to wake up every morning and to take the
Priyamvada:time off for myself before I became anybody else, then I have to call my
Priyamvada:mom and have to send the kids to school.
Priyamvada:And then I have to be go be this worker in the office.
Priyamvada:And I have to call my brother and I have to attend to my friend who's having.
Priyamvada:So I'm all throughout the day, I'm playing so many roles that I don't
Priyamvada:have time to pause and listen to what my what's going on in my head.
Priyamvada:I'm taking in so much information that's coming from everybody else.
Priyamvada:It's coming from so many sources.
Priyamvada:So that point in the day, that 45 minutes in the morning was my time
Priyamvada:where I really started working on my self awareness to discover what makes
Priyamvada:me happy, what doesn't make me happy.
Priyamvada:And I think that was a starting point for everything else.
Rob:I'm listening to your story and it's there's nothing of you in it.
Rob:You're doing everything that you're supposed to be doing, but there's no
Rob:part of you that's being nurtured.
Rob:There's no part of you that's been expressed.
Rob:And yeah, so if you don't have that, your life is going to be lifeless
Rob:because there is none of you in it, it's just being a good kind of robot.
Priyamvada:Yeah, absolutely, for sure,
Priyamvada:Again, I don't want to blame anything or anyone, but it's probably, it probably
Priyamvada:a lot of it probably also comes from the culture, where you grew up from all the
Priyamvada:social conditioning that you grew up in.
Priyamvada:I remember this one instance.
Priyamvada:So I was in graduation and I was an economic student until
Priyamvada:the point I hit graduation.
Priyamvada:I was what you call typically a star student, right?
Priyamvada:Getting all the A plus grades and.
Priyamvada:My score was something as bizarre as 98.
Priyamvada:5 percent out of 100.
Priyamvada:So being really in the top league and I could put my admission into any college,
Priyamvada:any top university, and I would get it.
Priyamvada:So it was all working out and my parents were happy.
Priyamvada:They would flaunt me everywhere.
Priyamvada:Oh, look at our daughter.
Priyamvada:She secured a place in this college.
Priyamvada:Oh, look at her daughter.
Priyamvada:She won this competition.
Priyamvada:And.
Priyamvada:I was so used to that validation.
Priyamvada:So if my parents weren't showing me off, I was, I thought I'm
Priyamvada:not doing something right.
Priyamvada:I'm supposed to be the star everyone talks about, but then I got into college.
Priyamvada:And this was the first time I was away from my parents from home.
Priyamvada:And that was a different life.
Priyamvada:I saw that was a different life.
Priyamvada:I experienced so much to do.
Priyamvada:Nobody controlling me really, nobody saying, hey, it's 430 in the morning.
Priyamvada:It's time to wake up and start doing your maths questions.
Priyamvada:This is the time in the morning you're active.
Priyamvada:So nobody to Tell me anything, absolute free time.
Priyamvada:And I just did what I wanted to do.
Priyamvada:I went out, I went for music shows, I went for dramatic shows.
Priyamvada:I just did whatever made me happy, which basically meant when it was time for
Priyamvada:me to do my examinations, I failed the paper and the university where I was
Priyamvada:studying if I failed a paper, You had to stay in the hostel and the hostel
Priyamvada:admissions were based on your grades.
Priyamvada:So not everybody could get in the hostel.
Priyamvada:Only students who got good grades could get inside the hostel.
Priyamvada:And my parents, this was far away from home.
Priyamvada:So my parents only condition to send me away was you will stay in the hostel
Priyamvada:that is within the college campus.
Priyamvada:Because that's the only place where we feel, you're safe.
Priyamvada:And I had signed up for it and me failing an exam meant that they kicked me out
Priyamvada:of hostel, which for my parents meant I had to quit college and I was horrified.
Priyamvada:When I look back I can laugh at it, but at that point of time, it was
Priyamvada:the worst horrible thing that could ever happen to me, like failing in an
Priyamvada:exam in a paper and my parents, they were distraught, they were upset.
Priyamvada:They wouldn't go to any social gatherings because they couldn't
Priyamvada:talk about me anymore and everyone's so what's Priya's grades this time?
Priyamvada:Oh, she failed a paper.
Priyamvada:Can you imagine them saying that?
Priyamvada:So My conditioning was all about how much external validation you can get how
Priyamvada:much you can get people to appreciate you How much you can get people to
Priyamvada:say "oh my god, look at her life.
Priyamvada:Oh my god.
Priyamvada:Look at what she's doing She's so successful"
Priyamvada:And I had internalized so much of that while growing up that no wonder I
Priyamvada:reached this point where I thought if somebody else is not validating what
Priyamvada:I'm doing, that I'm not successful, which is really not the place to be.
Rob:So you read the book.
Rob:You started visualizing what you wanted.
Rob:So tell me a little bit more about what happened next.
Rob:You started gaining some awareness?
Priyamvada:Yes, definitely started building awareness for sure.
Priyamvada:I started journaling.
Priyamvada:I started writing out why I wanted something.
Priyamvada:And that was one place where I could be really honest with myself, right?
Priyamvada:When you're writing, it's your journal.
Priyamvada:There's no external validation.
Priyamvada:There's nobody looking in it.
Priyamvada:You don't have to do anything to the world.
Priyamvada:And I started asking myself, why is it that you want to do this?
Priyamvada:Why is it that you want to do something?
Priyamvada:Why is it that you want to go after, whatever you want to go after.
Priyamvada:And that sort of gave me a lot of clarity.
Priyamvada:It's funny.
Priyamvada:So I started by basically experimenting on very small things that would actually
Priyamvada:be inconsequential in the larger scheme of life to see how this works.
Priyamvada:And I was absolutely blown away.
Priyamvada:This is one incident I caught everywhere.
Priyamvada:When I started visualizing, for example I wanted to try something
Priyamvada:very easy and something that wouldn't have an impact on my life whatsoever.
Priyamvada:And one day I said, okay, I want to travel business class.
Priyamvada:I've never traveled business class.
Priyamvada:My parents tell me it's only for people who have a lot of money and it's.
Priyamvada:We don't have a lot of money, but I want that experience.
Priyamvada:And then the pandemic happened, couldn't travel everywhere.
Priyamvada:And then things opened up and I hadn't seen my parents in three years.
Priyamvada:So I was going to go home and I said, okay, I'm going to go in business class.
Priyamvada:And then I looked at tickets.
Priyamvada:I was like, I cannot afford that.
Priyamvada:They are expensive.
Priyamvada:My parents are right.
Priyamvada:But I want to go in business class.
Priyamvada:I do want that experience because I just want to try it out.
Priyamvada:I want that feeling.
Priyamvada:I want to know how it is.
Priyamvada:And I want to experience what it feels like.
Priyamvada:So every day I would visualize me in business class and, I would imagine all
Priyamvada:those the flight attendants coming to me and serving me this gorgeous looking
Priyamvada:dinner plates and me enjoying them, lying flat on the bed, all of this.
Priyamvada:I booked my tickets.
Priyamvada:I booked them in economy.
Priyamvada:I'm all set for travel.
Priyamvada:So my family and me, we head to the airport counter.
Priyamvada:It's packed.
Priyamvada:It's busy.
Priyamvada:And we have an infant at that point of time and I'm like,
Priyamvada:we're going to miss the flight.
Priyamvada:So I rushed to the counter and I say, sorry, can you help us check in?
Priyamvada:Because we have an infant and I also need to nurse her.
Priyamvada:She's just three months and I cannot stand in this line.
Priyamvada:So could you please help us out?
Priyamvada:And she was kind.
Priyamvada:She said, yes.
Priyamvada:And then while standing there, I said I know this is too last
Priyamvada:minute, but Out of curiosity, I just want to know what an upgrade to a
Priyamvada:business class would cost right now.
Priyamvada:And she looks at me and she says, ma'am, you mean an upgrade to first class?
Priyamvada:I said no, that'll come not right now, but I'm thinking about
Priyamvada:an upgrade to business class.
Priyamvada:How much would it cost just for a seat?
Priyamvada:So I thought maybe just me and my infant could go.
Priyamvada:And then she looks at my ticket and she looks at me and she said, but ma'am,
Priyamvada:you are already in business class.
Priyamvada:I said, no, I am in economy class.
Priyamvada:I am not in business class.
Priyamvada:And she said no, you are in business class.
Priyamvada:These are your seats.
Priyamvada:I said, but I booked them in economy.
Priyamvada:How did this happen?
Priyamvada:She said, you must've got a message on your phone.
Priyamvada:We sent it at 8am this morning that you've been upgraded.
Priyamvada:I didn't have time to check my phone because we were in a rush.
Priyamvada:We needed to get to the airport.
Priyamvada:I had no idea that message me.
Priyamvada:And I said, how is this possible?
Priyamvada:This how can this happen?
Priyamvada:And she obviously couldn't get my confusion at that point.
Priyamvada:She said ma'am.
Priyamvada:I don't understand.
Priyamvada:You not want to travel.
Priyamvada:Do you want first class?
Priyamvada:Are you okay?
Priyamvada:Is something wrong said?
Priyamvada:No just i'm sorry.
Priyamvada:I couldn't explain what was going on, but it was Unbelievable.
Priyamvada:It's as bizarre as that and from that point on Every little thing
Priyamvada:that i've truly wanted every little thing That I've known why I have
Priyamvada:wanted it, where my self conscious, where my awareness has been right.
Priyamvada:It's worked out in the last three years and I cannot tell this enough
Priyamvada:to people how much visualization, how much building your self awareness,
Priyamvada:how much working on yourself actually empowers you to get what you want.
Priyamvada:It's not magic.
Priyamvada:It's something beyond that.
Priyamvada:You cannot put it in words.
Priyamvada:You just have to experience it to know how it actually is.
Priyamvada:Yeah.
Priyamvada:This is just one example.
Priyamvada:I could quote a million more that's happened in life where you would
Priyamvada:think, how is it even possible?
Priyamvada:And I thought the same, when I read the book, when I see people
Priyamvada:say, Oh, you just have, it's just your energy, it's what you feel.
Priyamvada:It's what you put out there.
Priyamvada:I thought the same.
Priyamvada:I said, how can it just be energy?
Priyamvada:Come on, there's laws, there's physics.
Priyamvada:There's so much science in this world.
Priyamvada:It just can't be energy, but it is.
Priyamvada:It's so much is yeah.
Rob:How did the fitness and health become more...
Rob:first question.
Rob:Do you now go business Class no.
Priyamvada:Just was enough.
Priyamvada:No.
Priyamvada:I do get upgraded now and then, of course, but I don't spend my
Priyamvada:time visualizing just that because I have so much more to visualize.
Priyamvada:It's just an experience I wanted to try.
Priyamvada:It feels great.
Priyamvada:And yes, at that point of time, my daughter was an infant.
Priyamvada:So it's also easier to pay for three tickets as opposed to four business
Priyamvada:class tickets but then I tell myself that if I'm flying somewhere longer
Priyamvada:than seven hours, then I think it's okay to be business class.
Priyamvada:But if it's a short flight anything less than that, I do economy.
Priyamvada:But the experience was great.
Priyamvada:And it just helped me believe more in myself and believe more
Priyamvada:in whatever I was trying to do.
Priyamvada:I think that's what I was trying to achieve.
Priyamvada:And to your question as to how all of this led to fitness is because
Priyamvada:fitness is not just how you look, it's not just the shape of your body.
Priyamvada:It actually starts here in your head.
Priyamvada:And that translates to every aspect of your life.
Priyamvada:And that is why that sitting in the morning all by myself that journal,
Priyamvada:journaling those moments of self awareness, that's what it helped me build.
Priyamvada:I realized slowly I got in touch with fitness coach who actually guided me.
Priyamvada:He helped me do the exam.
Priyamvada:He also broke down a lot of myths for me.
Priyamvada:He was able to tell me why walking on the treadmill for two hours was
Priyamvada:not working, why it was not doing anything for my mind, why it was not
Priyamvada:doing anything for the way I looked, why I was not fitting into my clothes.
Priyamvada:Helped me really understand nutrition and not just, oh, eating quinoa is
Priyamvada:healthy, but if quinoa Is protein but quinoa is also carb loaded protein
Priyamvada:Avocado is healthy.
Priyamvada:Yes.
Priyamvada:It's healthy fat But if you eat only that then you're just going to pile on fat and
Priyamvada:you'll not get anything else Understand the difference between nutrition and
Priyamvada:calories understand Why just me going on a salad diet is not going to take my weight
Priyamvada:away It's only going to make it come back really hard when it does and all of those
Priyamvada:aspects help me change my lifestyle, so I started eating healthy And when you start
Priyamvada:eating healthy, you feel good, when you feel good you think good, when you think
Priyamvada:good you do good So they're all connected.
Priyamvada:It's a cycle.
Priyamvada:It cannot work in isolation.
Priyamvada:You cannot only do your journaling or you cannot only do your visualization
Priyamvada:and not do the other aspects of it.
Priyamvada:It all adds up.
Priyamvada:It all ties in together.
Priyamvada:When you realize why you want to do something when you visualize
Priyamvada:your life, you say, okay I want to look a certain way.
Priyamvada:How do I do it?
Priyamvada:I do it by exercising four times a week.
Priyamvada:Okay.
Priyamvada:I'm a busy mom.
Priyamvada:I don't have four times a week.
Priyamvada:I have two times a week.
Priyamvada:Okay.
Priyamvada:So how do I, Okay.
Priyamvada:Do that two times a week.
Priyamvada:What all do I do those two days when I have to exercise, what
Priyamvada:kind of food do I need to eat?
Priyamvada:How much of that food do I need to eat?
Priyamvada:You start questioning everything that you know, you start wondering about
Priyamvada:everything, and everything you don't know and you build your life from there.
Priyamvada:And which is why I say it all starts up here.
Priyamvada:Even when you want to look physically good, it starts up here because a lot
Priyamvada:of people say, Okay, I have the time.
Priyamvada:I'm going to, lift weights five times a week and I'm going to walk,
Priyamvada:do my 10, 000 steps and then 10 days later they say I got bored or
Priyamvada:I didn't feel like doing it anymore.
Priyamvada:Or, hey, I had the social gathering and I couldn't do it for beyond five days.
Priyamvada:And that's when you are telling yourself and your mind.
Priyamvada:This is it.
Priyamvada:This is my limit.
Priyamvada:I can only do something for five days.
Priyamvada:I don't want to do it because if I do anything beyond that, it's boring.
Priyamvada:Who eats the same kind of food for 90 days in a row?
Priyamvada:Who walks 10, 000 steps for six months in a row?
Priyamvada:It's all the boring stuff that nobody wants to do.
Priyamvada:Which is why me.
Priyamvada:You need a strong why, which is why you need your awareness, which
Priyamvada:is why everything starts up here in the mind, which is where you
Priyamvada:need to start building things.
Priyamvada:The example so people question is so you run all those races just to get
Priyamvada:like a free banana at the end of it.
Priyamvada:I'm like if you put it that way, it sounds really horrible.
Priyamvada:And it is not a free banana.
Priyamvada:You have to pay for your shoes.
Priyamvada:You have to pay for the gels and you have to pay for the entry ticket,
Priyamvada:but that's besides the point, right?
Priyamvada:If you don't know why you're doing it, then you will feel like your
Priyamvada:life is just after that free banana.
Priyamvada:So build up your reason, build up your awareness, figure out
Priyamvada:why you want to do something.
Priyamvada:And once you have that strong why, work towards it.
Priyamvada:You don't.
Priyamvada:That builds up your mental stamina, that builds up your discipline,
Priyamvada:that builds up your commitment.
Priyamvada:And when you have these things in control, then everything else will work around it.
Priyamvada:That's why I say mental and physical, they go together.
Priyamvada:It all, it's all one big cohesive unit.
Rob:That's really interesting for me.
Rob:So my journey in what I do started 30 years ago and I'd always read.
Rob:And so by the time I was like I used to read a book at night, so
Rob:I'd read all the kids stories.
Rob:I'd read all the teenagers stories.
Rob:I'd read all the football biographies, I got into the self
Rob:help, I got into the business books.
Rob:Read all the kind of self help books and that by, in my teenage years.
Rob:So I looked at fitness as, okay, you want to make the most of
Rob:everything, make the most of life.
Rob:And I saw an opportunity in gyms were new.
Rob:And so I opened up a gym.
Rob:Although I opened it all up with loans and debt I studied as a nutritionist.
Rob:And.
Rob:It's a job that everyone wants to do or like I found almost everyone
Rob:wants to be in fitness and for me I was bored It was like how quick
Rob:can I get someone through there?
Rob:So I trained as a nutritionist and I was giving people these plans and
Rob:I was like nobody's gonna stick You know, no, I saw no one was sticking
Rob:and the economics of a gym certainly back then was you had to pretty much
Rob:tie someone to a year's membership.
Rob:And it was like, I'm selling this year's membership.
Rob:But I know statistically, most people are going to quit after three months.
Rob:It's interesting for me to see that the way that you came to it is I see
Rob:there's so much more life in what you do and so much more passion.
Rob:I was doing it as a business.
Rob:And it was more, I wanted to scale up a business and it was not, we're never going
Rob:to be the vehicle that I was looking for.
Rob:I have a low tolerance for failure.
Rob:And so when people weren't working, I was like, okay, I need to understand
Rob:why how do people get results?
Rob:And so this is when I went into therapy.
Rob:And I ended up doing therapy on everyone who wanted to join the gym.
Rob:Actually what I found was people weren't really looking for fitness.
Rob:They were looking, there was another problem in their life and
Rob:it was mostly around relationships.
Rob:It was, they thought that their partner was cheating on them.
Rob:They were thinking of leaving the relationship.
Rob:They just got over a breakup.
Rob:It was mostly for a reason like that.
Rob:And three months later that problem is gone.
Rob:And so they don't have the motivation to go through the pain and the discomfort.
Rob:So anyway, I left the gym with a manager and I closed it down after six years.
Rob:But that's really what got me into why what, what do people need?
Rob:So it's fascinating for me to see the different journey that you took.
Rob:The question I have is, given that most people are going to try all these things,
Rob:they're going to have the New Year's resolutions and they're going to fail.
Rob:How how do you cope with that?
Rob:And also how do you help people when they get started so that
Rob:it becomes more sustainable.
Priyamvada:I always start by having long conversations with them.
Priyamvada:And understanding again, why is it that they want to do something?
Priyamvada:What are they looking for?
Priyamvada:What is it that they're trying to change?
Priyamvada:Just get to know them more as a person, as opposed to just say,
Priyamvada:okay, this is how much you weigh.
Priyamvada:This is the food that you need to eat.
Priyamvada:And this is how you're going to get there.
Priyamvada:Which is all the scientific way of doing it.
Priyamvada:But I also I, it would really help for me to understand how they
Priyamvada:actually, or why they actually want to do what they want to do.
Priyamvada:And then of course, when I am making plans for them, I always not just check
Priyamvada:their enthusiasm for fitness or how much they want to change their life.
Priyamvada:But I'm constantly also talking to them about what are your stress levels?
Priyamvada:What are your energy levels?
Priyamvada:Like, how did you feel last week?
Priyamvada:What upset you?
Priyamvada:What did you feel good about?
Priyamvada:What did you do?
Priyamvada:Did you look for any kind of food when you felt that way?
Priyamvada:Or what was your coping mechanism?
Priyamvada:Have you always been doing it?
Priyamvada:Helps me understand them more as a person when I'm making their plans.
Priyamvada:When I'm tailor making their plans when they say, I absolutely
Priyamvada:cannot do four times a week.
Priyamvada:It is too much for me.
Priyamvada:Then I give them the realistic picture.
Priyamvada:I said, that's fine.
Priyamvada:You can do only two times a week.
Priyamvada:That's also okay.
Priyamvada:It's still better than not doing anything, but also know that whatever it is that
Priyamvada:you're aiming for will take that much longer give them the realistic picture.
Priyamvada:It's not those magazines and those glossy covers, they do a damn good, even
Priyamvada:social media, they do a damn good job of selling you an ideal body and ideal life.
Priyamvada:But it takes a lot of discipline, a lot of discipline to actually get there.
Priyamvada:Women and men function differently.
Priyamvada:We have different sort of hormones for you to look like
Priyamvada:that influencer on social media.
Priyamvada:She's been doing this work for many years.
Priyamvada:You are going to start doing now.
Priyamvada:She is 25 years old.
Priyamvada:You are 45 years old.
Priyamvada:It is her job to look good.
Priyamvada:You are a full time parent with four kids.
Priyamvada:Understand the difference in lifestyle.
Priyamvada:She probably has four people who do her hair and makeup, somebody
Priyamvada:to help her, eat those nutritious meals, somebody who does a grocery.
Priyamvada:It's not the same for you.
Priyamvada:You have to take our time to go to the grocery store, get
Priyamvada:those meals, make those meals.
Priyamvada:Stock those meals, eat those meals, do the dishes.
Priyamvada:There is a huge difference in lifestyle.
Priyamvada:So while it is great to be inspired by others, also know
Priyamvada:the real side of the story.
Priyamvada:I am not trying to disappoint you.
Priyamvada:I'm only trying to tell you what is possible and what is possible
Priyamvada:in how much time can you go on an 1,100, - 1,000 calorie a day diet and
Priyamvada:lose all that weight really quickly?
Priyamvada:Yes, you can.
Priyamvada:Is it sustainable?
Priyamvada:No, it's not.
Priyamvada:It's all going to come back and then you're going to feel worse.
Priyamvada:And then you're going to feel horrible.
Priyamvada:And then you're going to think of yourself as a failure because you
Priyamvada:could not keep that weight off.
Priyamvada:And then you just get into the cycle of feeling guilty punishing
Priyamvada:yourself, feeling more guilty, punishing more, it never ends.
Priyamvada:So it helps me to understand the why, and what I have noticed also in
Priyamvada:the last couple of years is a lot of people who come to me for coaching.
Priyamvada:Do not come to me in January, they come to me sometime.
Priyamvada:In Feb or in March when actually the new year high dies down.
Priyamvada:I don't know why, I don't know the exact reason behind why this is happening
Priyamvada:as a trend, because I was also one of those consumers who would sign up
Priyamvada:at the gym for a new membership in December to look good for December 31st
Priyamvada:and then not go after a certain point.
Priyamvada:But I do notice a lot of people.
Priyamvada:Don't come to me in January.
Priyamvada:It's always in the months after a lot of them, even mid year, like June, July,
Priyamvada:August, when there is no connection to new year, when there's probably some
Priyamvada:other life shift that has happened, that's making them do it, which I think is a
Priyamvada:good thing in a way you're not actually.
Priyamvada:Waiting for the new year moments to feel like your life is going
Priyamvada:to magically change into something else after the clock strikes 12.
Rob:Okay.
Rob:So the key, your key to their success is finding their why.
Rob:I'm really curious about what your why is in helping people.
Priyamvada:Actually, someone asked me this yesterday on on LinkedIn.
Priyamvada:And, he said probably the same person you and me both know him.
Priyamvada:Saeed asked me this.
Priyamvada:He said, what's your dharma?
Priyamvada:And I said, what's dharma?
Priyamvada:I know what the word means, but what do you mean by asking me this?
Priyamvada:He said, what is your purpose like in life?
Priyamvada:It was, it came to me so naturally without thinking to tell him my purpose in life
Priyamvada:is to empower other people to know that they can transform their lives into
Priyamvada:anything they want and be whoever they want to be through the power of physical
Priyamvada:and mental fitness, through the power of physical and mental wellbeing, no
Priyamvada:matter I have lived in so many countries,
Priyamvada:I have lived in so many cities, my job, my family everything is taking me across
Priyamvada:so many continents and everywhere I go, yes, people look different people eat
Priyamvada:different, people celebrate different festivals but all of us at the end
Priyamvada:of the day only want the same things.
Priyamvada:We all want to be loved.
Priyamvada:We all want to love.
Priyamvada:We all want to feel safe.
Priyamvada:We want to make people who we love, feel safe.
Priyamvada:We want to be happy.
Priyamvada:You can go to Africa.
Priyamvada:You can go to South America, Brazil, U.S.
Priyamvada:Everywhere.
Priyamvada:People, no one is going to tell you, I want to wake up feeling crappy in the
Priyamvada:morning, or I want to wake up feeling like I don't want to go through the day.
Priyamvada:Everyone wants to wake up happy.
Priyamvada:Everyone wants to feel happy.
Priyamvada:Once the basic needs of food, shelter, and money are taken care of.
Priyamvada:The basic amount that you need to keep your life sustainable.
Priyamvada:We all want the same thing, no matter how we look, no matter what our race is,
Priyamvada:no matter what our caste is, no matter what our religion is, no matter where
Priyamvada:we come from, what our upbringing is.
Priyamvada:And that is what I want to tell people.
Priyamvada:That is what I want to empower them with, spread that knowledge.
Priyamvada:Tell people you are capable, you can do this.
Priyamvada:And this is not me saying this because everybody says, yes, you can.
Priyamvada:It's me showing you how you can telling you showing you all the ways in which
Priyamvada:you possibly can change your life.
Priyamvada:And once these are sustainable ways, when you start meditating, when you
Priyamvada:start exercising, when you start journaling, when you start building self
Priyamvada:awareness, when you visualize, And what it does to your life, it's very hard
Priyamvada:for you to go back to not doing that.
Priyamvada:You will probably happen is you'll start by meditating two minutes a day
Priyamvada:and go to five, 10, 15, 20 minutes.
Priyamvada:You will only do more of it.
Priyamvada:You will never want to do less of it because how it makes you feel is like
Priyamvada:it charges you with some super power.
Priyamvada:And every one of us, we all have it within us.
Priyamvada:We just don't give ourselves enough time to bring that out.
Priyamvada:We numb ourselves.
Priyamvada:We say, okay, we have to be busy.
Priyamvada:We have to keep running.
Priyamvada:We have to keep chasing.
Priyamvada:We have to keep hustling.
Priyamvada:We have to do so much because everybody's doing so much.
Priyamvada:And then you're not really giving yourself that quiet moment, quiet moments to
Priyamvada:know who you are, what you want in life.
Priyamvada:And the only way to get to know this is by physical and mental fitness.
Priyamvada:Physical and mental wellbeing.
Priyamvada:There is no other way.
Priyamvada:There's no money.
Priyamvada:There's nothing on eBay or on Amazon or any of those popular sites in
Priyamvada:the world that you can buy you cannot buy your health, that's it.
Rob:That's interesting because when I look at your profile, you've
Rob:come up through from, it looks like fashion to me, it looks like you.
Rob:Retail
Priyamvada:industry.
Priyamvada:Yes.
Rob:When I look at your profile, it looks like your your interest, cause
Rob:you talked about, you used to do fitness to fit into the clothes to,
Rob:to look like, the cover girl or that.
Rob:So young Priya was like following, what mom and dad said and what
Rob:culture said and doing this fit then.
Rob:I'm guessing you were looking at, I don't know, Vogue or whatever it is.
Rob:And I want to be like that and trying to match your life to other people's.
Rob:Like the glossy magazines is that the journey you took?
Priyamvada:What do you mean?
Priyamvada:Match my life to other people?
Rob:So when I look at you, where you worked at retail, but it was fashion
Rob:retail, it was high end fashion retail on, on, aspirational about brands was
Rob:that the life you were aspiring to?
Priyamvada:The younger Priya, maybe the younger Priya, maybe.
Priyamvada:But after that, I never aspired for it.
Priyamvada:I never worked towards it.
Priyamvada:Although I have been working in retail brands.
Priyamvada:My focus has been more on the business side of it, more on
Priyamvada:the e commerce side of it.
Priyamvada:Understanding the numbers, the sales, the growth that bit of it.
Priyamvada:I never consciously worked towards being a part of a certain brand.
Priyamvada:Definitely not after I was 27.
Priyamvada:I can see that for sure.
Priyamvada:Till that age.
Priyamvada:Yes.
Priyamvada:Again, one of those things which I really wanted without knowing why I wanted it.
Priyamvada:So from the age of 14, I always wanted to work for Ralph Lauren as a brand.
Priyamvada:No idea why don't ask me at 14 years.
Priyamvada:I had no, why I just wanted to work because I think that clothes look great.
Priyamvada:And I wanted to be a part of that, wear great clothes.
Priyamvada:And I got an opportunity to work for them.
Priyamvada:That was the only brand where I seriously put in my time
Priyamvada:and effort to work for them.
Priyamvada:I made my resume.
Priyamvada:I did everything before that, but after that, no, not really.
Priyamvada:I have never consciously looked it.
Priyamvada:The opportunities came my way.
Priyamvada:If it interested me, I would take it up, but I never consciously worked towards
Priyamvada:being in a particular brand as such.
Priyamvada:I would more look for what the role offered me, if it would make me learn
Priyamvada:something, if it would challenge me to a certain extent, and if I would
Priyamvada:just not be repeating whatever I've been doing for the last three years.
Priyamvada:I think my effort went after 30, especially my efforts
Priyamvada:were more towards that.
Priyamvada:It's just a coincidence that I have my, those brands on my resume.
Rob:Okay, so you have a lot of knowledge, you have a lot of passion
Rob:wondering, have you organized all of that?
Rob:Is there a kind of model that you work from?
Priyamvada:What do you mean by that?
Rob:You can organize your, knowledge into, because when you talked about,
Rob:because what I'm hearing from you is you mentioned Maslow's and I
Rob:see that you have an alternative type of Maslow model in you.
Rob:In the ways that you're talking.
Rob:Talked about first class business class and economy, I think that's
Rob:what you're talking about in life is I think when people are on
Rob:autopilot, they live an economy life.
Rob:They just get herded in and do what they want.
Rob:When you get to business and first class, it's shaped by what you want.
Rob:It's shaped.
Rob:When you talk about health and fitness, what you're really
Rob:talking about is you can live life.
Rob:Powered like minimal battery life.
Rob:And I think what, what's coming across with you is how much energy and
Rob:enthusiasm and passion that you have.
Rob:And you have to be in good health to have that.
Rob:If it were me selling it, I would be looking at do you want to live a first
Rob:class life or an economy class life?
Rob:And I think that is all powered by where you get your energy from.
Rob:If you get your energy from aspirations, social media,
Rob:junk food you don't have much.
Rob:And what you're teaching people is how to get more from themselves.
Rob:I think
Priyamvada:I hadn't thought of it that way at all.
Priyamvada:But I love that you put it this way and I think I'm going to
Priyamvada:quote you and use it as well.
Priyamvada:I think you're absolutely right.
Priyamvada:Yeah.
Priyamvada:If if you don't know what you want, there'll always be somebody telling you
Priyamvada:what you will reach a point in life.
Priyamvada:And it's not a question of if you will reach that point, it's a question of
Priyamvada:when you will reach that point in life where you will question everything
Priyamvada:that you know, you will question what things mean to you and why
Priyamvada:you're doing whatever you're doing.
Priyamvada:That is a given if you're just being told.
Priyamvada:And if you just follow the herd it's a given and only you can
Priyamvada:tell yourself what you want.
Priyamvada:There's nobody, not your parents, not your partner, not your
Priyamvada:children, not people who love you.
Priyamvada:No one can tell you what you want in life as much as you can.
Priyamvada:Only you know yourself, honestly, only you can be truthful to yourself.
Priyamvada:Your parents can guide you.
Priyamvada:Yes.
Priyamvada:Your loved ones can offer you support, but it's still got to be you.
Priyamvada:It has to be you who has to save yourself, drive yourself.
Priyamvada:It's all up to you.
Priyamvada:There are, million ways to do it.
Priyamvada:But as I keep saying, the way to get started is by laying
Priyamvada:your foundation, right?
Priyamvada:It empowers you so much.
Priyamvada:It drastically changes your life.
Priyamvada:And like you said it, it puts you in first class.
Priyamvada:And maybe it even puts you in the pilot seat.
Priyamvada:You're flying the plane.
Priyamvada:It's your life.
Priyamvada:And you know where you want to land it.
Priyamvada:You know what altitude you want to fly at.
Priyamvada:Maybe there's another plane that's flying much higher than you.
Priyamvada:Maybe you don't want it.
Priyamvada:You're happy cruising at this altitude.
Priyamvada:So you figure out what is it that works for you.
Priyamvada:And it's that example I gave you of getting the free banana at
Priyamvada:the end of a marathon, right?
Priyamvada:If you look at it as, I'm running this race for a free banana, then you really
Priyamvada:won't be able to run beyond a marathon.
Priyamvada:But if it's something else you're seeking much beyond that, you've got your
Priyamvada:why and you know why you're doing it.
Priyamvada:A lot of people also ask me Sunday mornings, really all
Priyamvada:races are on Sunday mornings.
Priyamvada:Why would you want to ruin your Sunday?
Priyamvada:It's a perfect day to sleep in.
Priyamvada:Who wakes up at 8am to run?
Priyamvada:I'm like the race is just the final bit of it.
Priyamvada:Getting there to the starting line for the race at 9am is the final bit that
Priyamvada:I'm training towards, but there are so many other weekends before that,
Priyamvada:that I have to wake up and train.
Priyamvada:Not just that I cannot have as much alcohol as other people
Priyamvada:doing social gatherings because it affects my performance.
Priyamvada:It affects my training.
Priyamvada:It affects my metabolism.
Priyamvada:I cannot stay up late.
Priyamvada:I cannot be in a party till 1 a.
Priyamvada:m.
Priyamvada:2 a.
Priyamvada:m.
Priyamvada:all night.
Priyamvada:When I hear my friends say, Oh, that was so much fun.
Priyamvada:We were up till 4 a m.
Priyamvada:There is this one part of me that says really, but then immediately
Priyamvada:I know, but that's not what I want.
Priyamvada:I'm sure it was fun, but I don't feel left out anymore.
Priyamvada:A younger Priya, someone in the twenties, I would have big FOMO.
Priyamvada:I would think, Oh my God, they're all having so much fun.
Priyamvada:And I'm here sleeping and not doing anything.
Priyamvada:I should have stayed up there.
Priyamvada:I should have had the alcohol.
Priyamvada:I should have been up till 5.
Priyamvada:00 AM.
Priyamvada:That is life.
Priyamvada:So much fun.
Priyamvada:But only, like I said, only you can eventually tell yourself
Priyamvada:what truly matters to you.
Priyamvada:Give yourself that time.
Priyamvada:Give yourself lots of time to discover yourself and you will
Priyamvada:know your life can change.
Rob:That's probably the biggest barrier people have, isn't it?
Rob:FOMO.
Rob:Which is social media and all of those things.
Rob:Yeah, it's interesting what you say, because I always, I think
Rob:the way we think is like a model and we have to break that model.
Priyamvada:Yeah.
Rob:For me, there's something called the think free rebellion.
Rob:I think everyone has to come to that point of rebelling and I can see
Rob:that's when your life changed when you took control and rebelled against
Rob:what everyone said to live your life.
Rob:So your life changed, I can see like dramatically, the amount of energy
Rob:and life that you have compared to what you talked about in the past.
Rob:But I can imagine you've already alluded to that, that it's
Rob:difficult for your parents.
Rob:So how have your relationships changed?
Priyamvada:Interesting.
Priyamvada:I would say definitely that it hasn't changed a lot with my dad.
Priyamvada:My father doesn't get it, but he respects it.
Priyamvada:Okay.
Priyamvada:This is what do you want to do?
Priyamvada:This is what makes you happy.
Priyamvada:Fair enough.
Priyamvada:But it is a bit more difficult with my mom in the sense that we don't have
Priyamvada:a common conversation to talk about.
Priyamvada:It's easier for my mom to talk about.
Priyamvada:The more obvious social definitions of success.
Priyamvada:So she finds it very comfortable to say, this person got a job in that
Priyamvada:company paying so much money and he's only 30 and he already is a millionaire
Priyamvada:and he's got these skills and that's what put him out there and she's
Priyamvada:very comfortable talking about that.
Priyamvada:So then we hit a wall, my mom and me, we hit a wall because after a
Priyamvada:point, I just say that's good for him.
Priyamvada:That's really nice.
Priyamvada:That's interesting.
Priyamvada:He's doing it.
Priyamvada:And I find it difficult to continue the conversation beyond that.
Priyamvada:But if she were to, for example, ask me so how was it running the Dubai marathon?
Priyamvada:How did you run so fast or so slow?
Priyamvada:What are you doing?
Priyamvada:I could go on and on, but that's not probably what would help
Priyamvada:her have conversations, right?
Priyamvada:So she wouldn't understand it.
Priyamvada:She would wonder why I'm spending four hours on a Sunday.
Priyamvada:In a city like Dubai, running 42 kilometers she still says it's bad for
Priyamvada:your knees, it's bad for your health you're getting old this is not what
Priyamvada:you should be doing you should try more yoga, that's good for the body, all
Priyamvada:comes from a good place so yes Between my mom and me, for sure we find it
Priyamvada:difficult to talk beyond certain aspects.
Priyamvada:With my father, it's been the same.
Priyamvada:But the one person who has been the most encouraging and with whom I
Priyamvada:have even bettered my relationship in spite of the distance is my brother.
Priyamvada:Because probably since we grew up in the same household and with the
Priyamvada:same set of social conditioning he was a rebel much before me, when
Priyamvada:my parents would say be a doctor.
Priyamvada:He would say, no, I'm going to be an engineer.
Priyamvada:For me, it was like, if my parents would be a doctor, I'd say, okay, whatever
Priyamvada:you say, I'm going to be a doctor.
Priyamvada:So he has seen the evolution in me.
Priyamvada:He has seen who I was and who I am today.
Priyamvada:And he's very supportive of that.
Priyamvada:He's always, what is your next race?
Priyamvada:Send me pictures.
Priyamvada:Did you hit your PB?
Priyamvada:What are you doing for your training?
Priyamvada:He talks about all this, right?
Priyamvada:He invests his time and his energy into knowing what pushes me.
Priyamvada:And although I haven't seen him for the last five and a half
Priyamvada:years we still share that connect.
Priyamvada:We still share that vibe and we're in a much better place than
Priyamvada:we used to be many years ago.
Priyamvada:So it works differently.
Priyamvada:I think with different people.
Priyamvada:Some people.
Priyamvada:Get what you're doing.
Priyamvada:And some people don't.
Priyamvada:The one aspect of it, which I really enjoy outside of my family
Priyamvada:relationships is how it's changed my relationship with my friends.
Priyamvada:I have been able to get some of them to actually put in
Priyamvada:time into exercising, right?
Priyamvada:And it's not because I'm coaching them.
Priyamvada:It's not because I gave them a plan.
Priyamvada:It's them just watching me, doing me things.
Priyamvada:And at some point they would make fun of me.
Priyamvada:At some point they'd say, who eats like that?
Priyamvada:That is so boring.
Priyamvada:That's oh, come on.
Priyamvada:There's so many, there's fun food in this world.
Priyamvada:Live your life.
Priyamvada:And I would just smile at them and say, I'm happy you're eating what you like.
Priyamvada:And I'm happy, I'm eating what I like.
Priyamvada:And that was three years ago, cut to today to see them eat the kind of food
Priyamvada:that I'm eating to, watch them say, Oh no, I got to hit the bed at 10 30 because
Priyamvada:I wake up at six to, walk for 90 minutes every day that makes me feel good.
Priyamvada:That makes me, even if you can influence one person's life to see them.
Priyamvada:Put in that effort to get to bed at 10 30 so that they can wake up at six o'clock.
Priyamvada:That makes me so happy.
Priyamvada:It's not because they're paying me.
Priyamvada:It's not because I'm coaching them.
Priyamvada:It's just them trying it out one day, probably because they have been seeing
Priyamvada:me do it for so long and then seeing the value in it, and now there's
Priyamvada:just not able to go back to it.
Priyamvada:So I think that kind of relationship, those kinds of friendships,
Priyamvada:that really makes me happy.
Rob:You're inspiring the people around you.
Rob:I'm
Priyamvada:trying to, yeah.
Rob:Who inspires you?
Priyamvada:My dad, my father, for sure.
Priyamvada:So he's 70.
Priyamvada:So my dad, I believe is every self help book you can ever read in this
Priyamvada:world turned into a human being, everything that you can read.
Priyamvada:I've seen him do things that I never made sense of in my childhood, which I actually
Priyamvada:want to do now, or which I am doing right now, which makes perfect sense because for
Priyamvada:example so my dad is a writer by hobby and he worked in a full time government role.
Priyamvada:So he had his regular nine to five.
Priyamvada:And then in spite of all of that, he's written about 50 books in an Indian
Priyamvada:language and the drawing room in our house, in my parents house is full of
Priyamvada:all his awards and pictures and meeting different celebrities who are giving him
Priyamvada:all kinds of awards for the work that he's put in to change the face of literature.
Priyamvada:And everybody would ask him the same question.
Priyamvada:You have a nine to five job and you're also writing books
Priyamvada:and how are you doing that?
Priyamvada:And he would say, I just write every day.
Priyamvada:And I've seen him do that.
Priyamvada:He would get us to bed.
Priyamvada:And then he will be writing, even today when he comes home to visit us.
Priyamvada:If I have to take a bathroom break in the middle of the night at 3am, I wake
Priyamvada:up and I see the lights on somewhere.
Priyamvada:I know he's writing.
Priyamvada:And he says, there's no, you don't, you just do it.
Priyamvada:When you want to do something, it just comes to you.
Priyamvada:You just do it.
Priyamvada:And I have seen him therefore say No to so many things which used to
Priyamvada:really offend people in the beginning.
Priyamvada:Hey, can you come for this social gathering at 11?
Priyamvada:And he would say, I'm sorry, I cannot, I have to write, but if
Priyamvada:you're okay, I would come at 12 and I will be there for 15 minutes.
Priyamvada:He did that on my wedding day.
Priyamvada:I'm getting married at 9 AM and he tells my mom, okay, I have nothing to do.
Priyamvada:She's getting married.
Priyamvada:There's somebody making the food.
Priyamvada:There's somebody doing the decor.
Priyamvada:I will come at 8 45 AM because I have things to finish.
Priyamvada:And my mom is furious.
Priyamvada:Your daughter, she's getting married.
Priyamvada:Can you for one show up?
Priyamvada:There will be people.
Priyamvada:So he says, but those people, you're there for those people.
Priyamvada:I'm going to come at nine.
Priyamvada:She's going to get married.
Priyamvada:And then I have a meeting with a publisher from 11 to 1130.
Priyamvada:And my mom still gets furious, right?
Priyamvada:She doesn't understand this.
Priyamvada:She says, how can you do this on your daughter's wedding day?
Priyamvada:But that's how he guards his boundaries.
Priyamvada:That's how he says, I'm going to be there for the most important moment of her life.
Priyamvada:And then I'm also going to take care for what's important to me.
Priyamvada:Every morning, he goes for a walk an hour.
Priyamvada:Every evening he's doing yoga.
Priyamvada:Every day he's carrying his book around, right?
Priyamvada:He calls that his book of random thoughts.
Priyamvada:And every time he sees an interesting thing on the road, or
Priyamvada:he meets some interesting people somewhere, he just writes it down.
Priyamvada:He comes home to Netherlands and he knows more about my neighbors in five days
Priyamvada:than I've known about them in five years.
Priyamvada:He talks about them in first person because he has no ego.
Priyamvada:He has no barrier.
Priyamvada:He doesn't think how do I approach someone?
Priyamvada:What do I say?
Priyamvada:He just talks.
Priyamvada:He goes to somebody he likes what they say what they say to him, and
Priyamvada:he tells me Robin was telling me that his kids are going to this school.
Priyamvada:I say, who's Robin?
Priyamvada:You don't know Robin?
Priyamvada:The one who lives in house number 87?
Priyamvada:That's three houses away from you.
Priyamvada:I'm like, no, I don't know Robin and stop talking to random people.
Priyamvada:But he doesn't think, how do I approach someone?
Priyamvada:How do I make conversation?
Priyamvada:What do they think about me?
Priyamvada:What about my accent?
Priyamvada:What do I say to them?
Priyamvada:None of those things.
Priyamvada:He doesn't have fear of missing out.
Priyamvada:He doesn't have ego.
Priyamvada:All he does is show up every day to do what he loves doing.
Priyamvada:And that is writing.
Priyamvada:And he inspires me every day.
Priyamvada:Therefore I wish he always tells me though, he apologizes and he says,
Priyamvada:I wish I had the courage to guide you or to show you that life can be
Priyamvada:different, but I came from a very different background where my parents
Priyamvada:couldn't even afford to buy oil to cook.
Priyamvada:And so I never wanted to face that and I didn't want my children to face that.
Priyamvada:So it's probably why I'm very risk averse and why I didn't tell you that you can
Priyamvada:do more in life than the chosen path, but I'm happy that you're still, which
Priyamvada:is why I said the relationship with my father is very different than the one
Priyamvada:with my mom, but he's my inspiration.
Rob:He sounds inspiring.
Rob:So when I look at that from the lens of the think free rebellion,
Rob:it sounds like your dad went through that maybe younger or, but somewhere
Rob:he's defined what he wants from life and how he's going to get it.
Rob:Do you think your mom has?
Priyamvada:No.
Priyamvada:My mom No, she likes to confirm to.
Priyamvada:Yeah, she likes to, she does like to fit in.
Priyamvada:It's important for her.
Priyamvada:She does not like to stand out.
Priyamvada:She does not like not at least in the wrong way.
Priyamvada:She does find it difficult to accept if someone in her social
Priyamvada:gathering, in her set of people say, hey, you didn't do this.
Priyamvada:No she's not okay breaking the rules.
Priyamvada:But dad, yes.
Priyamvada:To some extent he even supported me, for example.
Priyamvada:Was because of him that I was able to go outside home to study in college.
Priyamvada:I studied economics back then, or maybe even now, I'm not sure.
Priyamvada:It was not a thing to study.
Priyamvada:Everybody in school, everybody at home, all my friends, all religious,
Priyamvada:they were all against me studying economics because they wanted me to
Priyamvada:study computer science and become an engineer and follow that path.
Priyamvada:And I was just not interested.
Priyamvada:I said, I don't get science.
Priyamvada:I don't get engineering.
Priyamvada:And they would say, but you're so good.
Priyamvada:Look at your scores.
Priyamvada:You got like a 98 in science.
Priyamvada:I'm like, I got the score because I studied for it.
Priyamvada:I didn't get the score because I like it.
Priyamvada:There's a huge difference.
Priyamvada:But it was my father then who said is if economics is what you want to do
Priyamvada:and if this is the college you want to do it, even if it's a four hour flight
Priyamvada:from here will make that happen for you.
Priyamvada:So he's, if it's a good cause, he's always supported and I don't think I
Priyamvada:would have been able to do a lot of things in life had he not stood by me.
Priyamvada:Yeah.
Rob:Okay.
Rob:So now in terms of how you work with people please tell us a little bit
Rob:about what you do, what it looks like for someone to work with you
Priyamvada:with me.
Priyamvada:Ah, that's interesting.
Priyamvada:You mean I don't know.
Priyamvada:Should I be praising myself here?
Priyamvada:I think again I've grown as a person.
Priyamvada:I've grown as a leader.
Priyamvada:I had a very different idea of what a leader should be when I started
Priyamvada:my career, probably because of the kind of leaders I encountered,
Priyamvada:bossy, always telling you what to do.
Priyamvada:Going over everything you do, going over everything you don't
Priyamvada:do, picking on your mistakes.
Priyamvada:Yeah.
Priyamvada:So I thought I should be at a point in life, in my corporate career, where I will
Priyamvada:get to be this person who can then tell the employees what to do, what not to do
Priyamvada:and pick on them and point their mistakes.
Priyamvada:But there was this one manager I worked with and I always quote her.
Priyamvada:Her name is Alison.
Priyamvada:I worked with her when I was in Ralph Lauren and she completely changed
Priyamvada:my idea of what a leader should be like, what a leader should look like.
Priyamvada:Till I met her.
Priyamvada:I had no idea what a leader was like, how someone's supposed to be.
Priyamvada:She was compassionate.
Priyamvada:She had the empathy.
Priyamvada:She understood, she gave you room to grow.
Priyamvada:She showed me off in front of other people.
Priyamvada:When I did something nice, she didn't take credit for herself.
Priyamvada:When there was a larger leadership meeting, she would say, Priya put in
Priyamvada:this effort and Priya got these results.
Priyamvada:She never made it look like it was her job.
Priyamvada:She always checked in with me, when we had our one on ones, she showed me that
Priyamvada:we could have conversations beyond work.
Priyamvada:Sometimes she would just ask me, how are you feeling?
Priyamvada:What are your energy levels?
Priyamvada:Do you want to discuss work?
Priyamvada:Is there something else going on in your life you want to talk about?
Priyamvada:And she showed me that a leader can be human.
Priyamvada:She would do all these tiny little things, for example, buying Christmas
Priyamvada:gifts for people customized Christmas gifts for people, somebody like the
Priyamvada:spa, somebody like different variety of cheese or somebody like wine.
Priyamvada:And she would go out and put in, and these are for employees.
Priyamvada:These are not her family members.
Priyamvada:And she showed in small ways that you can actually feel, make people feel valued.
Priyamvada:When I told her that, for personal reasons, I need to relocate to New York
Priyamvada:and I cannot be in Washington anymore.
Priyamvada:She helped me find another job, another role within the company in New York.
Priyamvada:She could have said, okay, you can quit, move on in your life.
Priyamvada:But she actually showed me and what a leader is or who a leader should be.
Priyamvada:And she opened my mind to that.
Priyamvada:And I can really say that I take a lot of inspiration from her.
Priyamvada:And I've tried to be the sort of leader I've tried to be
Priyamvada:that sort of leader since then.
Priyamvada:I don't micromanage.
Priyamvada:I let my team do what they like to do.
Priyamvada:I like to have fun when we are working.
Priyamvada:Without fun, I think work gets really boring and really dull.
Priyamvada:I like to know a lot about a lot more about people beyond their job.
Priyamvada:So I just don't want to, I just don't want to know you as a
Priyamvada:product manager or a designer, what keeps you going, what takes you.
Priyamvada:And I think that somewhere helps you also understand why people do what
Priyamvada:they do at a job, what motivates them.
Priyamvada:Cause not everyone's motivated with money.
Priyamvada:Everybody's looking for something in life and that also translates into
Priyamvada:what they're looking for in a job.
Priyamvada:I've definitely evolved as a leader.
Rob:When someone shows an interest in, and in nutrition and change in
Rob:there and going for what I would call a first class life in that
Rob:terminology you support people going through that in making a change.
Priyamvada:Absolutely.
Priyamvada:Yes.
Priyamvada:Of course if they know their why, absolutely.
Rob:So talk us through maybe other people that you've worked with or it might
Rob:look like for someone to someone who was maybe where you were, five years ago.
Rob:And what's the journey like to get to now?
Priyamvada:I always encounter, I think two different kinds of people.
Priyamvada:One who think that they want to change.
Priyamvada:They're in love with the, Idea of wanting to change, but they really
Priyamvada:don't want to put in the effort.
Priyamvada:So they'll say, Hey, it's so great that you're doing all this.
Priyamvada:I've been thinking that I need to change my nutrition game.
Priyamvada:So can you give me some tips?
Priyamvada:And then you tell them and say, yeah, but that's, that's a bit
Priyamvada:difficult for me because I got some other obstacle that I cannot clear.
Priyamvada:Say, okay, so if that's your obstacle, then maybe you can try doing this.
Priyamvada:Yeah, but that's not food that I really enjoy.
Priyamvada:Okay, so you know, then I'd say you're not looking for solutions.
Priyamvada:You're looking for problems to the solutions that I'm giving you.
Priyamvada:So then you don't really want to change your nutrition or your fitness or whatever
Priyamvada:you're looking for in life, but you think that you want to, it's like how people
Priyamvada:say, I've always wanted to write a book.
Priyamvada:I think I have it in me.
Priyamvada:And they say this when they're 30, they say this when they're
Priyamvada:35, they say this when they're 40.
Priyamvada:But then you ask them, so have you written something like a chapter or like?
Priyamvada:No, I just don't find the time, but I've always wanted to do it.
Priyamvada:Then you don't want to do it.
Priyamvada:You would think you want to do it.
Priyamvada:And you're in love with the idea of wanting to do it.
Priyamvada:But the ones who really want to make the change.
Priyamvada:And they want to move that needle.
Priyamvada:They listened, they are coachable, they come back and they say, Hey you told me
Priyamvada:to eat this sort of food and I tried it for 10 days, but this is what's happening.
Priyamvada:I'm feeling anxious.
Priyamvada:I'm feeling low energy levels.
Priyamvada:I don't know if I'm doing something wrong.
Priyamvada:Can you guide me?
Priyamvada:They come back to you and they actually try it out.
Priyamvada:They actually want to make that change and they do it over a period of time.
Priyamvada:And then even within that set, there are two different kinds of people, the one
Priyamvada:who do it for 60 days, 90 days, and then think, this is not working for me, and
Priyamvada:they just fall off because life happens, and then there are others who just
Priyamvada:keep at it, and then they keep going.
Priyamvada:The last category is really hard to find.
Priyamvada:It's easier to fall off the wagon.
Priyamvada:It's easier to not do the difficult things.
Priyamvada:Yeah, I would definitely now say there are three different kinds of people I meet.
Priyamvada:One who are not coachable at all, who are looking for problems to the solutions.
Priyamvada:One who are looking for solutions.
Priyamvada:They try it, but they're not able to do it beyond a certain time.
Priyamvada:And the other ones who really stick to the third category is the smallest.
Rob:Something similar I found., I would pick people into three groups
Rob:and I could talk about them being power seekers, people who want to be right
Rob:there's peace seekers who just want an easy life and then there's truth
Rob:seekers who want to get it right.
Rob:I suppose it all comes down to what you were talking about.
Rob:It's really about finding your why.
Rob:I can see why you work so much on helping people get clear on their why.
Rob:It's been fascinating to, to talk to you and I've really enjoyed the passion
Rob:and the energy that you have really comes through and it's inspiring me.
Rob:I missed the gym yesterday and I was like, Oh, I've got to get to the gym today.
Rob:But I'm going to, I'm going to be more mindful about it.
Rob:And I'm going to be more mindful on the treadmill and I'm like, okay, we're
Rob:nearly at, we're nearly at five minutes.
Rob:We're nearly there.
Rob:Okay.
Rob:It's only this much more and I do fractions in my head of, okay,
Rob:we're an eighth of the way through.
Rob:We're a quarter of the way through.
Rob:But I'm going to be.
Rob:more mindful of that.
Rob:So someone who wants that enthusiasm, who wants to go through that kind of what
Rob:I would call the think free rebellion, who wants that first class life,
Rob:what message would you have for them?
Rob:And if they wanted to reach out and talk to you how is the best way?
Priyamvada:Okay so my message is always the same get your first foundation right.
Priyamvada:It's the only foundation that matters and it doesn't matter how old or young
Priyamvada:or what race or what gender you are.
Priyamvada:Get your first foundation right.
Priyamvada:Your mental and your physical health is everything that you need.
Priyamvada:And they can find me on LinkedIn.
Priyamvada:That's the only social platform I'm on.
Priyamvada:I am currently not on any other social platform because I stepped away from them
Priyamvada:a few years ago and I'm enjoying that.
Priyamvada:I like to, I think for the moment, LinkedIn is where I will be and
Priyamvada:that's where they can find me.
Rob:Thank you for your time.
Rob:It's been fascinating to listen and your passion is inspiring.
Priyamvada:Thank you, Rob.
Priyamvada:It's been great talking to you.
Priyamvada:It's been great.
Priyamvada:Your questions are so different and was, I really had fun chatting with you.