On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Neha Kumar ON: Building Resilience to Negativity & How to Make Your Passions Practical

Episode Date: June 6, 2022

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 CalmJay 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 Intro02:27 Congratulations on your 5th wedding anniversary!04:40 The unconscious bias on women08:14 Being a woman in business school14:27 Education will give us a framework on how to think21:23 How to teach students to think deeply25:47 You want to be able to think strategically31:07 The difference between a business and a passion project36:53 Focus is a big deal40:39 Work-life balance versus priorities46:44 In the workplace, not everyone can empathize with you50:40 Dealing with ‘mom guilt’57:30 What do you look at when you invest?59:06 Neha on Final FiveEpisode ResourcesNeha Kumar | LinkedInNeha Kumar | TwitterNeha Kumar | InstagramNew Money VenturesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Jay Shetty and on my podcast on purpose, I've had the honor to sit down with some of the most incredible hearts and minds on the planet. Oprah, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Hart, Louis Hamilton, and many, many more. On this podcast, you get to hear the raw real-life stories behind their journeys and the tools they used, the books they read, and the people that made a difference in their lives so that they can make a difference in hours. Listen to on purpose with Jay Shetty on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Join the journey soon. Regardless of the progress you've made in life, I believe we could all benefit from wisdom on handling common problems, making life seem more manageable, now more than ever.

I'm Eric Zimmer, host of the One-E-Feed podcast, where I interview thought-provoking guests who offer practical wisdom that you can use to create the life you want. 25 years ago, I was homeless and addicted to heroin. I've made my way through addiction recovery, learned to navigate my clinical depression, and figured out how to build a fulfilling life. The One-You-Feet has over 30 million downloads and was named one of the best podcasts by Apple Podcasts. Oprah Magazine named this is one of 22 podcasts to help you live your best life.

You always have the chance to begin again and feed the best of yourself. The trap is the person often thinks they'll act once they feel better. It's actually the other way around. I have had over 500 conversations with world-renowned experts, and yet I'm still striving to be better. Join me on this journey. Listen to the one you feed on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Danny Shapiro, host of Family Secrets.

It's hard to believe we're entering our eighth season, and yet we're constantly discovering new secrets. The variety of them continues to be astonishing. I can't wait to share 10 incredible stories with you, stories of tenacity, resilience, and the profoundly necessary excavation of long-held family secrets. Listen to season eight of Family Secrets on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to onpose, 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 parts less trottern. 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 or someone who's wanting to be an entrepreneur, learning about finance, 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, which she has been teaching for over nine years.

Prior to launching her fund, Neha served as the COO and CFO of creating 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.

Thank you so much for having me and after that introduction, even I feel amazing. It's an amazing, it's an amazing bio. And of course, with 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, what I wanted to start by saying, it's your 5-year wedding anniversary. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's amazing. 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.

Wow. That's pretty unbelievable. That's amazing. Thank you, thank you. That's amazing. Actually, my husband got me the cutest gift this morning. Tell me about it. 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 heart box. It's a wood box, but it has a heart on it. It basically sends you messages. You can look at it. It's plugged into the wall.

The heart starts to spin, and that means somebody sends you a message. They can do it from their phone. You open up the box, and there's a digital picture and a message in there. Today, before I came, 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. Oh wow. And there was a picture of our two kids. No, he's here today. Okay, okay. 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. 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 how order and her rule

because she knows that I usually go quite over the top. But that is a beautiful idea. I love that. Thank you. A comment to me, your husband. That's awesome. Yeah, I can't wait for you to meet him. 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, you know and 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. Yeah, tell us tell bit about that journey. Before we dive into the depths of your journey and each part of it, I wanna 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. 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 updating 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 ourselves. 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 just get caught up in all these small, trivial things which aren't necessary. And it's 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, 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 going to work out. We're going to have the cutest kids. Everything is going to 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 far-fetched but I've recently been really 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 definitely a process and it's great now. It's amazing, but Jay, it was really hard.

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 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 what were the actual steps you took to keep confident, to keep focus, 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 for the ability to connect for the ability to be mindful

and thoughtful. Like it seems like there was a very balanced for you. 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 was really hard for me to hear that. And it was a lot of moments like that that had me say, I'm going to work harder, I'm going to work smarter, I'm going to 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 reform, 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 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. 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, you know, is a much larger challenge. 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, there was the same amount as the pink balls, his girl ran out, they filled their containers up, they pretty much finished around the same time. And then they gave the boy the huge jar of sweets, ran out, they filled their containers up, they pretty much finished around the same time.

And then they gave the boy the 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 there, you took two. I think what's really interesting is a lot of people talk about the pay gap in all of these

things, which are there 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, etc. 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 the world right now, right or wrong. It's kind of how that works right now, right? 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 act or wood shop. And Jay, I really wanted to take wood shop. 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 homeic. And I remember asking my mom, like, what should I do? All the other girls are doing this, are taking this class, my dad jumped in and said, no, you do what you want.

And I ended up taking wood shop. And I'm glad I did. But it's just so interesting that even when I was taking wood shop, 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's 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, but basically to let them know that they're options and you get to choose what those options are regardless of your male or female. You're someone obviously who's so well educated,

you've gone to great schools, gone on to becoming 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, how do they today build up financial literacy, goal planning, understanding of their investments, understanding

of how they manage their money. 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 has absolutely helped shape who I am and the success that I've had to date completely. Can you tell us how? Like what parts of it? I love what you said about your father saying that he gave him a framework of how to think.

What did it do for you? Business school was a great one because what it did is it gave us a breath 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. I 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 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 our 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. 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 it won't really shift at 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. 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 there's multiple different ways that people can get access to education and information. And I think that the pandemic, it was already going to happen.

The pandemic just accelerated that. And I think it's amazing. 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 England. My parents couldn't afford to submit a private school or a school that you had to take an exam to get into 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 got a private school education for free by passing an exam. 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, 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 are so unique, right? What works for us doesn't work for everyone, which is what we just said, which is exactly completely agree said, which is,

I completely agree with that, that, 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. 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, hard-wired, 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 hard-wired, 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. 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 that actually today makes me better at making decisions or makes me better at doing this. So that's, so yes, was my education directly correlated to my career? No. But were there skills and lessons and tools? And that's what I'm hearing you say as well. I think. Correct. We fill a line on that. When you're teaching today, right? Like you're in academic now. You're a professor. 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 or do you encourage people to go out into the real world and practice? Because I know you have lots of interesting methods 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. How can they think deeper and differently about teaching in today's day and age? I'm Danny Shapiro, host of Family Secrets. It's hard to believe we're entering our eighth season, and yet we're constantly discovering new secrets. The depths of them, the variety of them, continues to be astonishing. I can't wait to share 10 incredible stories with you, stories of tenacity, resilience, and the profoundly necessary excavation of long-held family secrets. When I realized this is not just happening to me, this is who and what I am. I needed her to help me.

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Get 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 the 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 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 in the class. And then in the next week, I want you to 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 and I asked for an acknowledgement. If you just say something to people, that doesn't mean it's gonna 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. How many people is this?

About 43? Okay, well, it's a lot of nodding. Yeah, no, no, no, no, it's good, yeah, I like it. 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. 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 formula or whatever else it was, you had to go through it with them. I can go through it with them, but I also think I 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 when we go through it, but I also want them to 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 3000 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. 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 Huff Post. 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 wanna share something with me, drop a comment in the comment box. And my producer was holding a hands over a 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. 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'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. They're probably just trying to build something through a few friends, maybe from themselves.

What are the things they should be thinking about? I mean, that's a really good question. I could just say take my class. Can they take your class? They're gone. No, not everybody can. You're right. You're right.

But I would say, yeah. 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 capital conversations. One of the first things I do with my students, even if I'm not having them go through this,

is I'll have them build out a performance, 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 an 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. 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, 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 wanna make money. Some people will say, I wanna 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. 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 in planet. 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 the sunscreen company. 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 in a whiteboard right now. I draw it up for you, right? Thinking through things from that model, that framework allows you to properly assess,

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, is this a viable business? Absolutely. And how much time do you want to spend on it?

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. 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. 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 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 hope your students are anyone deciphered between what should remain a hobby and a passion? And what can has the market potential to evolve into a business?

Because I think, I think we're living at a time with 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. 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 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. And if I could go back and tell myself something,

it would be, may have be clear on what this is. Can you tell us about that story? Tell us a little about that. Like, what did you start? How did it go? Because I think hearing about that would be awesome. I had a great job in banking. I 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 women and then branch out from that to women and men. But I should have been more focused. I failed at what I wanted to do and it was hard. How did you define failure? Like what went wrong there? The whole thing had to stop. Any money that I had spent we lost.

I got money from families and friends for about a year and a half. I've been working on it and we lost everything. And it was very, very tough because I had 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 in 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. The startup didn't work. What I wanted it to be, and it was very, very hard.

If I could go back and give myself one piece of advice, it would 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 going to go, yeah, of course. They're going to tell you, yes or no, really, right? You need to ask them, hey, I have this product. It's great. Okay. Are you going to go, yeah, of course, they're going to tell you, yes or no, really, right? You need to ask them, hey, I have this product. It's great. Okay, are you going to buy it? Will you pay for it right now? That's what makes the difference there. And so being able to decipher between passion and a business, I think, is very, very important.

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, I did more of what I didn't want to do. And what I had to learn, 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 to have 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. 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 will 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. Yeah. 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. Yeah, as you rightly said. Focus is such a big deal. And I also think it comes back to priorities, right?

There's certain times, one thing I really like that you said is there are certain times where you, like on your way up, right? You had to do a lot of the things that you didn't want to do. And one of the things that I keep hearing people always talk about is, well, do you have the right work-life balance? There's a story, and I know you've heard this before,

but there is 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, and 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. 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 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. I'm so glad we have such a real conversation about this

because 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 honeymoon because we kind of forwarded. Like we didn't go on 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 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. We lived in this 500 square foot apartment in New York City. You know, we ate worked and slept in the same areas. We didn't have any other space. And I've 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. Yeah. Right? It's like everything's proportionate 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 look back and I'm so happy that. 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. Because the people I look up to in admire and respect, they haven't taken the foot off the gas off to 30 years 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. But it is true. And again, I wanna go back and say to people,

like, it wasn't about not having work-life balance. It's that the term work-life balance means everything should be equal. Exactly. 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 10 hours of work that day.

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I was talking to my mom about it previously. like Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Or cityoftherails.com. I was talking 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, it's never going to in life be that way. And I think the challenge that people have is they're calling it balanced to begin with when it should be priorities. When I was at drinks.com, direct to consumer wine company, I probably was working, you know, 70, 80 plus hours a week. Like, I remember looking at this and I'm going, I'm 80 plus hours a week. What that I remember looking at this and I'm going, I'm 80 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. But at that point in time, it was the priority in my life. I was married. My husband travels for work, as you know. And so, 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 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. A lot of people look at priority lists that you have, right? So you have 10 priorities of things that I wanted a job or 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, all right, at this point in time of 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? Yeah, it's insane, yeah. 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?

Yeah. 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, 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. I am completely agree with you. We did the same exact thing. And you know, for Rade, it was a big kitchen. Like that was very important to her because that's how world.

For me, it was having a space where we could have a studio like this. I got that. Like those were priorities for me where I could work from home because I love working from home. For my husband, it was being close to the beach. Oh, wow Okay, he's asked me be close to the V She's a total beach person and then for me

I needed something where I can have my own office space. Yeah, that was separate away from the kid office Yeah, but that's beautiful and and I love that idea of people writing down their priorities separately and also just Recognizing that different stages and life will have different priorities. Yeah, and knowing that it can change 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. And knowing that it can change. Absolutely. 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. But that's the wrong currency to divide. 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. 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 say, it may say they need four or five. Someone may need one.

It's all subjective, but to me, a balance just shouldn't be about time. It's not about equality of time. I mean, this is one of the best things that I've heard anybody say, because 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, you gotta do the priorities. What are my priorities? I need to make sure I'm getting all those priorities in. Whatever that might be, and in different stages of your life, that also does change. So I think that's a wonderful way to put it. This is what I love about you.

You're a woman, you're a business person, you're an academic, you know, 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 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 you're able to achieve and do because I think every time I've

seen you all so you just carry yourself very well and at the same time I 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. I read a study from 2021 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 reset study from 2021 that said that if you looked at a mom's career as a career and looked at the over 103 hours a week, more like 24 or seven,

if you tallied up all the cost of how much everything would cost to do or hire or outsource, it would be $186,400 that an average mom would make. When you hear that, what goes through your mind, I want to hear your response and thoughts. 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 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 to have similar fashion, like who understand these things makes a big difference. And my husband's at Deloitte. Deloitte is known to take care of women.

They are known to be a great place 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 Neha 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, start-up life, the electricity stopped working in our building. And the pump that I had, I didn't realize it was my first child, 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. Because it shifts the conversation,

even my husband who's amazing and very loving. He's constantly being exposed to it, his work. So he sees it, he hears it, and then he'll empathize more with his wife. But J to your point, it is non-stop. It is 24-7. You never get a break. I think the only time I get a break and I think I I'm lucky about this one, is when I go to the bathroom. But otherwise, if I'm at home, it's non-stop. 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 an unpack our lunch.

Sell us to school. She dropped me in my sister to different schools, pick us up. The whole works, you know, and it was, and it helped us with our homework and plan weekend activities. I mean, supermom 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 I love what you

said about the workplace. I worked at Accenture again. Accenture has incredible practices, especially in the UK, at least, where I work there. For moms where women who'd go away and maternity leave when they come back, they'd come back to the position they would have earned if they stayed at the company. 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 going off to do the most important job?

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 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, they just say to me, okay, 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. 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 is, it is very, very hard to make it work. Jay, it is. I mean, just being completely aware. They look sorry, yes, yes. There isn't, right? But when we sold Crate 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 the announcement of the sale, I was 36 weeks pregnant in the photo, but I look at that. I go, Eva'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. 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 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 straps in my back and I'm going out there and I'm doing 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 mass come down. First you put it on yourself and then you put it on the child 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. 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, the job at Creighton 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,

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. First, you got to 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 support of 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 spend what I think are the important moments with my kid, 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 in there. He's so cute. And he goes, is it mama and in their time? It's the sweetest thing. He's three 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. 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 when we are full, we are able to give ourselves to others. It's the old cliche, but it's true. But hearing that from you is really powerful. Now, you've been so generous with your time today,

and I actually love everywhere we've gone. But I do wanna talk a bit about, and this is the last question I'm gonna 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 gonna end with our rapid fire round. But before that, you launched new money ventures, which is your fund, you know, you're investing in lots of exciting companies and brands.

How are 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 raise one day and raise one day. What are the things you look for? 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 gonna be ups, there's gonna be downs with a lot of these startups. We wanna 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 gonna invest in. Amazing, very clear. Very clear, very concise, yes.

Very clear, very simple. I love it. Alright, so we're gonna end with our final five. So, now you have come on. Oh, go on. Of course, I was gonna say, I have to tell you too. I've been listening to this podcast. I listened to it all the time on the drive to class.

I love it. So, two days and Thursdays right now I go to class and it takes me about 45 minutes to an hour. Oh perfect. Perfect timing. I love it. And sometimes, I told you I tell my students to an hour. Oh perfect. Perfect. Perfect timing. I love it. And sometimes, I told you I tell my students a quote, I'll actually pull it from some of your podcasts.

I love that. Thank you so much. That means the world to me. I love that. Of course. That I'm a part of your day and. And my class is day too. 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 Nehya Kumar, this is your final five. The first question is, what is the best advice around money you've ever received? 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. 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 had? 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. Yeah.

And 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 wanna 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 left my job, right? I did all of these things, but you do need to be able to have some support before you completely drain out your 401k and you need to make sure that you're financially doing the right thing for your business. That's great. Love that. Question number three, how would you define your current purpose?

To leave the world in a better place than I found it. I love that. It's beautiful. Question number four, if someone has just failed, what would be your best advice to them right now? Get up and start again. Right away, don't even think about it. Brilliant.

I love that. That was very quick. You'll really wrap it. This is good. Our fifth and final question we asked is to every guest, if you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be? Don't judge other people. I love that. I think we're all so quick, especially in this, in the media world today, we're so quick to judge everybody around us. Absolutely. 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 weren't 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'll be amazing. Everyone, that's Neha Kumaar. 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 in 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? 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. Amazing. So Neha T. Kumar on Instagram, please go follow her. Please go and tag me a 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 pause this one on. I think it's gonna 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. Thank you. What do a flirtatious gambling double agent in World War II? An opera singer who burned down an honorary to kidnap her lover, and a pirate queen who walked free with all of her spoils, haven't comment. They're all real women who were left out of your history books. You can hear these stories and more on the Womanica podcast. Check it out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.

What if you could tell the whole truth about your life, including all those tender and visible things we don't usually talk about? I'm Megan Devine. Host of the podcast, it's okay that you're not okay. Look, everyone's at least a little bit not okay these days. And all those things we don't usually talk about, maybe we should. This season, I'm joined by stellar guests

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