Sense of Soul - Coach Ajit Nawalkha Living From Your Favorite Self

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

Today on Sense of Soul we have Ajit Nawalkha. He is a leading voice in the coaching space, an founder of Evercoach and the Dharma Coaching Institute. He is an author and host of the Master Coaching with Ajit podcast. From starting out as a spearheading leader volunteering in the world's largest young leaders organization, Ajit has held various roles including the CEO of Mindvalley, Co-founder of Mindvalley Teach and Co-founder of Global Grit Institute. Over the past decade he has built and sold multiple companies, coached entrepreneurs and consulted companies scaling their impact. His passion and drive to share the business and productivity strategies which have helped him build and grow numerous multi-million-dollar businesses. His desire to support humanity to an even better future and ignite abundance in business and life is why he has poured his heart, learnings and strategies into his book, LIVE BIG: The Entrepreneurs Guide to Passion, Practicality and Purpose. Read LIVE BIG here for FREE a gift from Ajit! Upcoming workshop: https://www.evercoach.com/supercoach-immersion/ https://coachajit.com https://www.evercoach.com Follow his journey:  https://instagram.com/realcoachajit?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA== Learn more about Sense of Soul Podcast: https://www.senseofsoulpodcast.com Check out the NEW affiliate deals! https://www.mysenseofsoul.com/sense-of-soul-affiliates-page Follow Sense of Soul on Patreon, and join to get ad free episodes, circles, mini series and more! https://www.patreon.com/senseofsoul

Hello, my soul-seeking friends. It's Shanna. Thank you so much for listening to Sense of Soul Podcast. Enlightening conversations with like-minded souls from around the world. Sharing their journey of finding their light within, turning pain into purpose, and awakening to their true sense of soul. If you like what you hear, show me some love and rate, like, and subscribe. And consider becoming a Sense of Soul Patreon member, where you will get ad-free episodes,

monthly circles, and much more. Now go grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Today on Sense of Soul, we have Ajit Nuala. He's a leading voice in the coaching space. He's the founder of EverCoach and the Dharma Coaching Institute. Ajit has founded or co-founded several companies that focus on human transformation, including Mindvalley, where previously he was also their CEO. He's also the host of the Master Coaching with Ajit podcast. Ajit has been a featured speaker on stages around the world. And it's my honor

to have Ajit here with us today on Sense of Soul. Thank you so much, Ajit, for being with me. I'm super excited for this conversation. And I know you're going to bring me a lot of wisdom. I just I trust that the universe is always bringing me the most divine advice. And so I'm absolutely your student today. Oh, thank you very much. I'm honored to be having a conversation with you. Honestly, this is the first time we're meeting. But the sense I'm getting from you is that you're very divine and very, very connected and very gentle. And clearly you listen to the universe. So let's see what we have in store today. I'm sure I'm going to learn a lot as well. Well, thank you. You know, I've had on Christina McElhaney before when she was, you know, releasing her new book. And I saw the connection with you being one of

the co-founders of Mindvalley, you know, the former CEO, which, you know, it's changed a lot of people's lives and connected a lot of people. And I share that same passion to bring light into the world. And so can you just maybe tell me a little bit about who you are and how you landed to where you are today? Absolutely. Absolutely. So I was born in India, in a small town of Jaipur. It's small, but there's like 30 million people that live there. But I grew up in that small city for the rest of India, it's still a very small city,

in the old town of that city. And we lived in what we call the joint family. A joint family is where basically your parents and you live, but also does your uncle and his kids. And so does your grandparents and brother of your grandparents and his entire family. So I grew up sharing space with 23 other souls through my entire childhood and early adulthood until I was like 23 years old. And that really formed me in many ways, because that invited me to be present to many energies at the same time that invited me to love and interact with people and in a different way in a very home family fashion way. And that also brought to my attention that there is something

called abundance, because we didn't have any Sharing a house with 23 people while it could have its own set of delights has a lot of challenges. You never really have enough space. You never really have the choice of foods that you want to have. You never really get the gifts that you really want. I had an elder sibling and my birthday presents were his old presents. Let's just summarize. His jackets were my jackets and his bicycle was my bicycle so it was beautiful to grow up like that and it was also something that made me really aligned to that I didn't want to feel concerned about space I didn't want to feel concerned about or live in the reality of feeling scarce about space and feeling scarce about money or feeling

scarce about just about anything. And that initially drove me to take actions that would be counterintuitive to most people. So I was a decent student, above average student. And I was like any Indian at the time, I was chasing to be an engineer. And while my chase for being an engineer started, I realized very quickly, I did not like what an engineer does. It's a very repetitive job. And I was like, I don't want to do that. It's while I enjoy sciences, and I enjoy studying, and I love learning, I love math, I love physics, I love chemistry, I love biology, which probably informs my work today. But because I loved all the subjects,

I love the learning. I hated the thing that engineers actually do for most of their careers, which is repetitive work until they become managers, and then they do managerial work. So I was like, I don't want to do that. And so early on, I had the awareness, I was about 18 at the time, that I will probably not be living the traditional life. Because I was one of the few people in my family that were considered in grades smart enough to be able to even qualify for something like engineering. So anyways, I go along and I decided to quit engineering. My family was very supportive in that. And that started my journey of what is entrepreneurship today. I started taking jobs

very early on in different companies, directly working with the founders. These are smaller organizations when we started mostly education institutes because, well, I loved education. I loved learning. I love teachers. And so I started taking these odd jobs at these institutes, designing their papers, doing grunt work for them, sometimes hosting a class for them and so forth, which kept developing me as a person that takes risks and gets understanding of how a founder really thinks, which brought me to an experience. One of my friends was in Malaysia at the time working for this organization called ISAC.

And they said, hey, listen, Ajit, I know you're keen and interested in learning about this new world of digital. It was very new to India at the time. This is 2008 we're talking about. It was very new. Facebook had just come out. It was just getting traction in India at that time. And so you're like, I know you're interested in all these things.

And I know there is no real education in India around it. There's this tiny startup here in Malaysia that works out of a house. They have like six employees And they need talent. People like you who are interested to learn, they will teach you everything. They just pay a really small stipend, basically, so you can barely survive. And I said, yes. If they would take me, it's a yes. And I joined the organization. That organization was Mindvalley. At that time, it wasn't the Mindvalley that we know today. At that time, Mindvalley was basically more like an agency that ran a bunch of websites

for a commission. They were all websites around personal development, personal transformation, which really exposed me to the idea that we can change if we consciously work towards it. We don't have to assume the identity that we were given as a child. We don't have to take the identity that people around us give us. We can actually create it. And that really got me very excited. So my first six years of Mindvalley or seven years of Mindvalley, which is as long as I was in the company, look very interesting.

Because every single year or every 18 months or so, I would have a different title in the company because I constantly challenged who I was. So I started as an intern. In two months, I got an upgrade as a business manager. I wrote the first successful campaign for Mindvalley, a marketing campaign. I was business manager for this one product at the time,

became the business manager, became the most successful business manager that Mindvalley had at the time, started a company in partnership with Mindvalley, which is the printing division of Mindvalley at the time, became the business manager, became the most successful business manager that Mindvalley had at the time, started a company in partnership with Mindvalley, which is the printing division of Mindvalley at the time, put that and leaned back into the company or sold the company back to Mindvalley and leaned into then becoming the launch manager for the company or the lead of launches for the company, became the CTO of the company, then became the CMO of the company, eventually becoming the CEO of the company. So I basically changed roles across the entire field of work that you can possibly do in an organization. So in about six and a half years, I went from being an intern in the company

to being CEO of a company, to taking that company to about, we were impacting, I want to say about 100,000 lives at that time. And we're doing about 40 million in revenue. So it was significant that I was able to help the company get to because when I started, like I said, we were like six or seven employees, we were really tiny. I like to call that my little contribution to today's success of Mindvalley. And then I had an experience in life that was a very personal experience. I went through this journey where I had, yes, pursued an identity of who I want to be professionally, but I forgot that identity is not single dimensional. That your identity must also evolve or evolve towards what your relationships look like,

what your health and well-being looks like, what your spirituality looks like. What is it that you, who you are? It's not a single dimensional question to ask. It's a multidimensional question to ask. And that got me into this place where I was like, I need to kind of reset. I need that reset button. And so I hit reset in the process, quit being CEO of Mindvalley, ended my then relationship, reset my relationship with my friends and my family, and really went on a journey for about two years of really discovering who I was as a person. In the process, created EverCoach, that is also known as Mindvalley Coach now, found

my partner, my love, my now wife and mother of my two children, Nita, rekindled my friendships, rekindled my health, reset my health completely, actually, rekindle my relationship with my parents, everything that I felt was important to me, I was able to reset. And in the process of all of that, of course, reset my entire abundant set as well. So I live a beautiful and most abundant life I've ever lived today, because of resetting everything else in my identity. Wow, that's amazing. I love this story. You know, it reminds me much of mine, but mine's, you know, not as a CEO, mine's was more of the CEO of the household and of, you know, my life where I thought I was, you know, doing everything right, you know, following what I was supposed to

do, following in line, basically doing what my mom did, doing what her mom did. And I was going to be this great mother who was selfless, never had a thing for herself, go to church on Sundays. It was all about the house and the cars and make sure my kids look good and they do good because that'll make me look better. All these conditions. I felt like I had a reset button too. It was after I asked myself how much of what I believed in and how much of what I was living had I actually experienced to be my truth. But really it was everything I was told to be and do. And that just was mind blowing. And I hit the reset button too. That's how I felt. I would describe the same thing. But it took me a while to reset. You know, there's this space where I experienced pain, confused. I had to grieve my religion, who I was, what I thought. Did you have to go through that

too? I did have to grieve my old self. And I did grieve. It was very present to me in the first two years of my experience. I would often go, why did I quit a perfectly good career? Right. Because it was something that was meaningful to me. It wasn't that I hated my job or anything like that. It was just that I ended up in this place where I had to make a decision. And because of that, I had to let go something that I held so dear to me. Yeah, because I did hold that really dear to me. It was really important to me. It was

really meaningful. It was the first most meaningful thing that I ever did, where every morning I would wake up with joy and jump out of bed to go to work. And I would work 12 hour days because, not because I had to, but because I loved it so much. What I've learned through that, that experience is that often, not just sometimes, often we have to let go of something. And when you let go of something, there will be parts of you that will, that will kind of miss it because parts of you loved it. Even if it was not helpful and healthy for you. It is true for even like unhealthy relationships, like a relationship that might feel like

this is a constant source of stress for me. Like I am constantly anxious because I'm in this relationship and you quit that relationship and then suddenly you go, why am I feeling so heavy about it? Why am I grieving? And the reason you grieve that is because you are not one being in this one body you have parts you have many beings within this body and they show

up differently in different parts of life and show up differently and so there's a part of you that still loves that relationship even if it was not overall really helpful to you, overall not really healthy for you. So there could be, and I don't know what's your relationship with your religion now, but it is something that is part of you that kind of misses that, hey, listen, but I did feel good when I was sitting and I was just listening to stories. And I was in this container that felt safe, that felt powerful, that felt spiritual, felt elevated. And so that part of you is grieving because there is love that is still for that within

you. And that's okay. Grief is not a bad thing. Grief is just a sign that there are parts of you that love what you grieve now. But it's also a sign that reminds us that even if when you love something, sometimes you have to let it go. Yeah, just like the leaves on a tree. I've been reflecting a lot on that outside lately. You know, you see the wind come through and the tree is dancing and it just so effortlessly

lets go to just making space. How do you feel today? Like, are you still part of the religion? Have you already moved on? I feel like I went through grief stages. You know, there's waves and there was anger and there was sadness and all of the things that anyone would go through with actual grief of loss of something. And then I came to a place where it just was like, it just is.

And I have peace with that now. But I have a different relationship with source. I just feel like for so long, and I think this is for a lot of people, we're searching outside of ourselves for everything, for love and hope and solutions to the world's problems and all the things. And I think a lot of that, what I discovered was I was lacking trust and discernment within myself. And I see this in a lot of people. I mean, I coach people as well. And I want to tell them at the beginning, you have all of the answers inside of you. You have everything you need.

However, there's a lot of shedding that has to be done before you get to that point to where you even understand that the kingdom is inside of you. So let me ask you about that. You do speak a lot about self-coaching. And I think that for me, I think that's the wisest thing any of us can do is connect to that inner wisdom. That is very true. What I've found, not only during the experience of grief, but experience of growth. If you look at our life right now, we have situations happening at any given time, right? There is situations that we are responding to, they are at house front, they might be in the business front, they might be at your job. And these situations often get our lowest quality response, right? Because often, whatever is the emotional state that you're in,

you respond from there, right? There's nothing wrong with emotions, but if you always fall back on the emotion that you're in, or you always fall back to your default programming, what would happen is you would get the worst response you can get, because here is how we are set as human beings, right? Our minds, our brains are set this way. Our desire is that we want to have the highest standard for ourselves or the highest set point for ourselves. But our bodies, our minds, our souls, everything is set for comfort. And so it doesn't set for the highest standard because when you are at your highest standard, you are the most uncomfortable, right?

It's like going into a really cold plunge, right? That's your highest standard, how much you can tolerate, right? It's like going into a really cold plunge, right? That's your highest standard, how much you can tolerate, right? If you're in your physical body, you went into a cold plunge and you sat there, right? You can only stay there for a few minutes, right? After that, you kind of go like, this is a little bit nuts. Some people can't even bear it for a few seconds, but that's your higher standard, not even the highest standard, but a higher standard. But if I keep you at that standard, you won't be able to operate really, right? What happens is your body wants to go into comfort, which is why you'll get out of the coded punch. This is your default setting for anything in life,

your mind, your identity, your emotional state, you go to the most comfortable one, the moment you can, which means pretty much all the time, your body, your soul, your emotions are trying to get you to the most comfortable level. Your most comfortable level is your lowest set point. It's your lowest identity. It's your lowest vibration most of the time. You can operate from a higher one, but it's not comfortable.

It's pushing you to growth. And because of that reason, when we just respond for life is, right? We just respond saying, hey, I'm an awesome human being. I should just be able to just operate in life without any coaching or without anything, right? I just should be able to show up

and life should be easy. It's going to be easy, but it's not going to be growth oriented. And it would probably cause the same chaos that you currently have. And so many of us have chaos right now in our lives. Could be any reason whatsoever. Could be our life, could be what's happening in the world, could be because of our family, could be because of our work, could be because of our business.

Call it whatever you want to call it. You have chaos in your life. And if you don't, you will create some, right? What is it that we can do as human beings to operate from a place where there might be chaos still, but it is created to find and live the greatest version of ourselves. And I even want to call it the favorite version of ourselves. And here's why I like to change sometimes from greatest to favorite. It's because you know the version you like the most about yourself. It's often the best self. It's often the greatest self. It may not be greatest from the point of view of the world outside, but who gives a shit? Who cares, right? What we truly care for is are we having a great time with life, right? So the version that you will have great time with is the

version that is your favorite self, is the one that you like the most. It could be a little quirky. It could be a little annoying. It could be a lot more fun. It could be very smart and intellectual. It could be a little bit meta. Whatever it is, it's your favorite self. When you operate from your favorite self, you get to have so much more fun in life. So if we lean into the idea of saying, hey, listen, I don't have to just respond because I'm at my lowest self and I'm just gonna respond from where it is or what is. Instead, I'm gonna take a second. I'm gonna take a minute. I'm gonna take half an hour if I have to,

but I will coach myself through this situation so I can operate from my favorite self because my favorite self is the way that I get to live my best life. And my best life is defined by person, by themselves. But that's what self-coaching is all about. Self-coaching is about taking a few extra minutes and observing what is really happening,

getting really present with what's life, getting really clear on how and what we think and how these thoughts are being formulated and is there truth to it? Being able to then lean into if those are the emotions that are showing up, are those emotions the emotions you want to operate from a day-to-day and hour-to-hour basis?

And then sometimes changing our complete identity, changing our habit to be able to live that favorite self more consistently. And that's really what self-coaching is about. And once you start to practice the art of self-coaching, you realize that anything in life is so much possible. Shana, this is true for not only just me, and it's true for you clearly,

because you've shared that you've been practicing this yourself. But I'm sure you observe this with your clients. I observe this with my clients all the time time is the day they start to take a pause and acknowledge the art of self-coaching, anything that they dream becomes true in the next two years. It's fascinating. You know, my kids have been my greatest teachers. And as you were describing this favorite self, I saw this vision of my daughter who is pretty shy. She's on the introverted side. But when she is with her best friends, she shines, right? She's like hilarious and amazing and fun.

And she's safe. She feels safe to be who she is. And then she goes into certain situations where she's not in her best self and she's got fear, overwhelming emotion and anxiety and she doesn't know what to do with it. She can't find that favorite self. And I'm actually going to school at 2.30 today to discuss this because she's getting a 504, which is like accommodations for that, so that she can be successful in her best self. And that's my goal for her. As you're speaking, and as I can clearly see this outside of me, I was thinking, what's my favorite self? Where do I feel the most safe, where I can just be crazy Shanna? And a lot of that is in this space. And I do know that I do have some fear. I don't know what it is. Actually, I haven't

quite put my finger on it, but everyone wants video now. And I've been comfortable in podcasting my comfort zone. I thrive in this space. But if I want to go to the next space and I have fear to go to the next space. How do I go over that threshold? You know, what kind of self-coaching would you advise somebody to make that step into the uncomfortable spaces? I want to share a story and then let's talk about this a little bit. Oh, yeah. I love stories. It relates to your daughter and relates to a personal experience of my life.

So when I was a kid, really early on, maybe I was like seven, eight, or maybe even six years old, I loved dancing. I still love dancing. In India, what would happen is when there are weddings or there are big anniversaries, we would have an event that is called Sangeet. Sangeet is basically music, but that event simply meant there would be a stage and there would be kids and adults dancing to music. We have a very musical community. Indians, you can say in a way, if you have watched a Bollywood or a Hindi movie ever, you would see a lot of dancing and music. So we are really dancing musical communities. As a child, I would love to go up on stage and dance. I would love, I would just go up and I would dance. And apparently it was really, really good. And it was really cool and cute to see, I guess,

an eight-year-old dancing or seven-year-old dancing on stage. So I started getting invited to people that I didn't even know to say, hey, can Ajit dance at our wedding? Can Ajit dance at our anniversary ceremony and so on and so forth? But I loved it. So I was like, sure, I will do it. I would do it. It didn't matter to me. It got me to dress up a certain way and dance and perform and get the applause. And I would be like the star attraction of the evening. I'm like, I'm just going to come at like, you know, the 10th dance. I would usually come towards the end because, you know, the star performers come in the end. So it'll be like, oh, I just got to come at that time, like right before the bride and the groom, you know, that kind of a thing. So it was really good. I really used to enjoy it. I used to really put in my all. I used to practice really hard.

And then I started growing up. And I started growing up and I became 13 and 14. And if you remember your teenage years, you kind of didn't really like that kind of attention at that time. You didn't want anybody in your face. And that kind of happened to me. But the problem was I was still the star kid, the kid that needed to go and dance because

he was so good at it. And I was really good at it. So I would still go and perform, but very reluctantly. I would still go and perform, but not really interestedly. But I was still getting on stage because I had now built a great competence. I didn't have to practice really hard or just go up on stage and do something. And people will be like, whoa, that's a great performance. But I started hating it because I started hating it. I started to go to these parties and really be only with my cousins or my friends and not really talk to

anyone else. Not really acknowledge that somebody would say, hey, that was a great performance. We really had a good time. And as I kept growing up, up and up, I learned about these things called introversion and extroversion by Myers-Briggs type indicator, MBTI. There are introverts and extroverts in the world. Extroverts in the world are the people who are fueled by the energy outside and introverts of the world that are fueled by the energy inside. And a great way for me to escape all these dancing and parties was, I'm an introvert. I am an introvert. I do not enjoy hanging out with people.

And I made that my story. I made that my story going forward from there. So through college, I'm an introvert. In my first few jobs, I'm an introvert. You're inviting me to a party, I'll probably not show up because guess what? I'm an introvert. Oh, you want me to attend an event? I'm an introvert. You're inviting me to a party. I'll probably not show up because guess what? I'm an introvert. Oh, you want me to attend an event? I'm an introvert. An introvert became the story I kept telling myself again and again and again and again until I was taking a course.

And I had already switched careers and I was a coach, but guess what is a great selling point as a coach? I'm an introvert. It's a great selling point if you're a coach. But guess what is a great selling point as a coach? I'm an introvert. It's a great selling point if you're a coach. People love an introvert coach for whatever reason. So I was like, great, it works for me. I'm an introvert. Great. I'm an introverted coach, right? Somehow it creates great resonance with people. So this story was serving me metal until I started taking this course. And I started taking this course. And in the course, they say charisma is not something that you have or you don't have. It gets turned on or turned off. Something like that. It was a charisma course.

And your charisma is turned on if you're with the right people. Your charisma is turned off when you're with the wrong people. This is one of the things, right? Charisma is impacted by what's your container. You could be very charismatic if the container allows for it. But if you have heavy energy in the room, you can't be charismatic because it will feel incongruent to the energy of the house. Right? So charisma is turned on and off. And that brought my attention to saying, is introversion and extroversion turning on and off?

And I realized that introversion, extroversion is an arbitrary concept. And if you actually study how it came about, it was one of the psychologists, Carl Jung, who kind of said this introvert and extrovert energy. And these two phenomenal ladies took that idea and really blew it up by saying, I can determine if you're introvert and extrovert. And that's why psychologists actually don't acknowledge MBTI.

But because it's a popular term and we get to box ourselves, we have started to accept that identity. It's like, oh, I'm an introvert and an extrovert because I get to label myself now. I get to say why I operate this way. Either of them justifying our behavior instead of asking ourselves, who do I choose to be?

Because you are an introvert and extrovert, like you said, like your daughter, right? Your daughter is very extroverted when she's hanging out with friends. What's different about her friends and her school? It's the container. She is the same person. It's the environment that is impacting the way she's showing up. And I realized that for myself, I was like, hey, listen, Ajit. So if you want to have fun at the party, if you want to be your

favorite self at a party, don't go to a party where you hate the people. Don't. You don't invite people over just because they would be good to have. Because you don't get to be your favorite self then. What if you curated the community that supported your favorite self? And that favorite self can be introvert, extrovert, ambivert, or whatever word it needs to be. It doesn't matter. Because that's not what we get to play in this world. We don't get to come to this world. We don't come to this world to say, let me get a label for myself.

We come on this world, this physical world, to actually have a great time, right? At least a part of it is that, right? That we actually get to enjoy this life. Then why play by the rules set by someone that was trying to put us into a box while there can't be a box that fits us all? Because we ain't same.

You are not same as me. I'm not same as you. Your daughter's completely different. I can't fit that box of intro word, extrovert. It's unfair to me. I get to make my own box. We get to make our own box. Your daughter gets to make her own box. I wanted to share the story with you because I lived that life of introvert for so long until I realized that I was compromising my favorite song that I could play every day, all day. And I don't know how you'll lead this conversation with your daughter, but it is something that I hope somebody told me. Again, I knew that this was going to be divine

for me today. That's what we're going to school for because she has the ability to be very successful. And just like with you, when you decided to make the decision of not being an engineer, I mean, you knew that was not the container where you could be successful. You couldn't be your best self there. that is aware and conscious and is taking active steps to actually have a conversation about this with her daughter and the school to say, I want my kid to play her favorite self every day. She doesn't come to the school to play your part. She comes to the school so she can play her part the best she can. So I'm so excited for that conversation. I'm sure it will be very impactful and would probably change even how your daughter shows up every day. She and she knows that I will go in and be that voice for her. You know, she's only 11, you know, and she's very sensitive to energy. And so the containers that she's in are sometimes difficult for her. And she understands that she has to push herself to that

space. Sometimes we've had conversations, but she's also the type of person, she's a really good artist, but she will not do her art to her best because she doesn't want to be called out on it. But it's at that age that you do start, like you said, when you started to rather hang out with the friends, didn't really want to connect with that childlike energy anymore, the ego comes in. Everything around you starts to get narrow and narrow and narrow until you are in that box. But she is lucky to have me and her siblings that we all support her and just who she is. Something else happened to me just now. I started to cry as you begin to speak and maybe my

listeners would have never noticed. And there are interviews that I've released. I had one with Neil Donald Walsh where I actually am crying because I am so moved by his words. It's one of the reasons why I have issues with being on video because I am so emotional. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. Why is being emotional a problem? Yeah. I think of several issues.

I think of, can I get myself back? You know, sometimes I have a hard time bringing myself back. Can I compose myself in this total condition? When you're a little parent's you just suck it up, wipe those tears and, you know, push that emotion down. But I mean, my listeners know I'm an emotional person. Maybe that's something I need to work on. And maybe that's what they need to see. Because maybe your listeners listen to you because they can finally see themselves in you. And they can hear themselves in you right now. Maybe they'll be able to see themselves in you. And this is an invitation for you to explore. Of course, I am no one to tell you what you should be doing. But, you know, one of the works that I believe I am here for is to be able to show people that people like me

can also do X, whatever that might be. Let me give you a contextual story so you see where I'm coming from. And maybe it'll help you see why I am bringing this to your attention. So when I started my career as a coach, this is like 2015, when I said, okay, I'm gonna quit being CEO of the company. I wanna help businesses.

I wanna help people live a better life. That's my journey. That's my experience. That's what my calling is right now as I discover who I am, right? That was my experience. So as I'm finishing up my role as CEO, I start to do what anybody

who's starting a new career would be. I'm like, all right, I'm going to go and learn as much as I can from as many people as I can. So I can have an understanding of what I'm even trying to do. I have a base understanding, but a real understanding, right?

Especially the business side of things, because I've always worked in a container of somebody else's business to help build them. But this is my own business. It's a completely different reality. So like, all right, let me go and learn from as many people. And as you would notice, whenever you started your coach learning journey, when I started, we just learned from a lot of people and a lot of people became so amazingly inspiring to us, right? You're like, oh, I love that guy. I love that girl. What an amazing, you know, like, I love this, right? So you really start to respect and look up to these individuals.

And so there were certain people that I was really looking up to at the time as I was learning. And I was also starting the journey of learning through events. So I was at this event where I had a friend and a friend knew that I liked these certain people. And she said, hey, Ajit,

I know you love and respect these people. I'm invited to a private lunch meeting with all these people. Would you be interested to join? I was like, Oh, yeah, like I wasn't getting invited to that party. I would absolutely join you. So I kind of tagged along as a plus one. And it was a really small group, maybe like 10 people in a suite just having lunch together. Everybody's standing in a circle. And when we walk in, everybody's just introducing themselves and everybody's going around. And now it's my turn.

And so I go, hey, hi, my name is Ajit. I was born in India. I was doing this before this. And now I want to help individuals live a more beautiful life. I want to do that through channel of helping businesses and individuals on a personal coaching front. And I also want to be able to build a platform, which at that point was called EverCoach, still is.

And it's also called Mindvalley Coach now, but I want to build this platform that really brings different coaches on the same platform so we can learn from diverse experiences because that's how I learn, right? So I finished my spiel. And as I'm finishing my introduction, the person that is standing right across me

looks at me, smirks, and said, good luck with that. Like, hold on, what does that mean? And he goes, well, if you want to be successful, and this is going to be wrong at so many levels, so trigger warning for people who are listening. He looked at me dead in the eye and said, if you want to be successful as a coach, you have to be a 40-year-old white female. You are none of that. You won't be successful. This is in front of 10 people, right?

And this is a person that I'm looking up to, right? It's not only just like not a random person that I can ignore. This is literally a leader of the industry looking dead in the eye, telling me I won't be successful because I don't fit whatever arbitrary understanding they had of the industry and people around the world.

I kind of go, oh, and I kind of like, you know, you kind of cave in when something like that happens, especially when you don't know it has never happened to you before in that context, not from a coach of all people. So I kind of caved in and I kind of believed him for a hot second, like for probably a month. I was like, well, maybe this person is right. Maybe I am, you know, I am the skin tone. I can't do anything about that. I am a man. I can't do anything about that at that time of like 35. So like, I can't do anything about that. Like all those things I can't really, not even 35, like 33 or something at that time. So like, I can't do

anything about any of these variables that he said that are important for me to be successful as a things. I can't really, not even 35, like 33 or something at that time. So like, I can't do anything about any of these variables that he said that are important for me to be successful as a coach. Right. And a month later, while I was talking to some of other friends, they brought my attention to, you can either believe what the world tells you or you can be the gold standard. So after that conversation, I said, I don't care what this person says, watch me. And that also became one of those important things. And I wanna relate it back to you, Shana,

is we've been told what we can or cannot do. You've been told don't express your emotions. You've been told you can't cry on camera. You've been told all those things. But is it actually true? Or maybe you are that person that finally makes it okay. Because here's what has happened the last eight years since I decided watch me. Every single day, I get messages from the Latino community, the black community, the Indian community, the younger people saying, thank you. We finally see someone like you who looks just like me successful in this field. This gave me confidence that I can do this. This gave me confidence that it is also available to me. Now, that's not the agenda I had,

but sometimes the reason why you have to show up is not for yourself, but because when you show up, it becomes that permission that somebody else really needed. So Shauna, I have a proposition for you to inquire within yourself is maybe the thing you're resisting so much is the thing that the world needs the most. So maybe, maybe, maybe when you do cry on camera, it lets that one person cry that really needed a release. When you get emotional, it tells somebody that, thank goodness, because now I feel like I can be emotional. When you get comfortable with somebody enough to say, I'll let my vulnerability out, maybe it gives permission to somebody else to be vulnerable. So my invitation for you,

Ishana, is I think you're meant to be on video because your energy is beautiful, by the way. So I think you will really resonate with a lot of people. But again, it is your decision and you have to see if this is an experience you want in your life and if this is your favorite self. Well, thank you. You know, the ugly cry, you know, they call it the ugly cry. Yeah. And wonder who came up with that term because who says you're ugly and what is ugly exactly isn't all our souls beautiful and i hold space all the time for people you know to be able to let it out and but you know it's interesting i did hear at one point when you're speaking you're a cry baby you know, it's interesting. I did hear at one point when you're speaking, you're a cry baby. You know, those are those old conditions, that ego, right? That just tries to pop in. And believe me, I'm a hot second when I think about that stuff. I'm like,

I hear you get out of here. So it is important to be aware of those thoughts, right? And the things that we're telling ourselves, the narratives and truly just almost the logic. I mean, to think that I couldn't do it just like how, you know, for a hot second, you thought you couldn't be, you know, who you wanted to be. We are sometimes so limiting ourselves just because of what the outside world has told us yeah yeah and what is whatever is the lowest standard the society can set for us and yeah and maybe we are here to set a new standard and create a new narrative for us for society for our kids for everything and you already are i mean without even putting on video you already are

setting new standards because i know your community loves you. And they've been learning from you for such a long time. And you've been so kind and generous with your time in bringing over 400 episodes, that's over 400 hours of you dedicating your time, effort and energy and personal growth for yourself and bringing it to a community. So kudos to that. Yeah. You know, and I always have to connect back with how when me, my best friend first started this podcast, which she's on to her next journey, but it was just hope, you know, that it would land on one ear, you know, that needed here, you know, it never was supposed to, you know, be over 1.2 million years. I mean, that was never even a thought. Like,

I feel like your intentions, right, are the most important thing and what really keeps you aligned. And when you're aligned, you're in your authenticity. And when you're in your authenticity, you're able to be your favorite self. That's what I'm hearing. Okay. Well, how much, how much do I owe you and where do I send the bill? Because this was amazing for me personally. Well, what you do for the world is so amazing. So I'm so, so, so, so humbled that you gave me an opportunity to come and speak with you and create this dialogue that I hope helps many. And I think it is so important, even though we have coaches in our

life to always trust. I think that story that you, that you shared really showed that. You do. I'm also certain that that person was hurting in some way. And because maybe he was somebody who didn't feel they could be successful because they were a man and maybe they were trying to protect me. I wouldn't know. I never really got a chance to confront them about it and so i i give them the benefit of doubt irrespective but that's why we have to try and coach ourselves at any given time and operate from our favorite self and not our lowest sense of identity which is influenced by whatever's happening around us at any given time. You have to constantly ask that question to yourself. So yeah, I forgive them for what they said. It doesn't have a hold on me, but it is a good reminder, like you said. It really made you reflect on,

do I have limitations? It really made you face that. So it was almost a blessing in some way, because you were able to be like, oh, hell no. I definitely can do it now. And I will show you. I'm capable. I'm capable. Yeah, it's so true. It's so true. Our most painful experiences often are followed up by our greatest teaching moments. So we got to celebrate those pains, because it will be followed by something that's going to be just awesome. That's amazing. What is your website where they could find you? Is there a social media? Yeah, you can, you can follow me on Instagram.

That's probably the platform I post the most on at real coach Ajit. That's my handle. If you want to just check out my work, you can go to coachajit.com. I did actually see that you do sometimes some workshops. Yes, I do. I have many things that I do at this point, but what is coming immediately is I have an event coming up in like three weeks, which is coincidentally all about identity that we ended up talking about today.

It's called Supercoach Immersion. But I would really want to highlight because I wanted to give more to humanity in the best way I can. And one of the most impactful things that have happened for me or have access to is books. Because often, sitting down with a book feels like a conversation with the author, especially if the author does a good job of writing that book. And one of my best conversations or books that I've written is called Live Big. And for the longest time, it had to hide in the shelves because it was with the publisher. Nothing wrong with the publisher, but sometimes publishing world can be a little tricky. So recently, I was able to get my rights back for the book, like just a few months ago.

The reason why I said I want to go out and reach out to the community, get on a call with you is to be able to offer that book for absolutely free. There's nothing attached. It's simply a link where you enter your name and email address and you get a download of the book email to your inbox. So you don't get to log in somewhere. You don't have to do any shenanigans. It's my give because I was able to get these rights back. I was able to buy it back.

I'm so grateful for that, that they let me. And it is one of the most amazing books. If you're somebody, in my perspective, of course, I might be a little biased here because I wrote the thing, but it is one of those books that you would keep by your bedside or keep it on your Kindle open or your iPad open at any given time, because you can flip through any page and it'll give you inspiration for that day. If you're somebody who is purposeful or wants to live a purposeful life, who's passionate about things, but sometimes misses the practicality of bringing that purpose and passion into fruition. So it's a book, it's a guide for passion, purpose, the practicality of bringing that purpose and passion into fruition.

So it's a book, it's a guide for passion, purpose, and practicality. So my invitation is for anyone that is listening to this podcast and is curious about that. I think we've sent the link over to you. If you could just post in the show notes, go ahead, download it. Again, there's no strings attached. You got to pay nothing. There's no upsell or any of the shenanigans. It's just simply, they'll send you an email, the download link, and you will also

subscribe to a weekly message from me. Again, there's nothing that we sell there. It's simply a newsletter where I share my latest ideas that I'm working on or some of the ideas that I think may impact somebody's life. So it's one of those shareable emails that you often anyways want to subscribe to. So that's all that is. So there's no strings attached to that. Well, then how do you make any money if you give away everything for free? Well, the beauty of what I've been able to do is I have multiple successful businesses and I am a coach that helps businesses. So I'm very generously paid for all of those things, more than I could ever imagine in my life.

That's why I said, while I work on everything else in my life, I found I became the most abundant version of myself as well, because, and this is probably a little bit controversial as well, but when you don't care about money, money becomes so easy.

It's a good reminder to always have is when you don't care about money, money comes easy. When you don't chase money, it chases you. Ooh, I want to be running away from it. No. All the work you do in helping people,

get used to getting checks in your mail for no reason whatsoever. You know, the energy you put out kind of returns back to you. I mean, sometimes it's in money, and sometimes it's with many blessings and connections and wisdom like, like you today. I mean, I feel like this has been a priceless conversation for me. Thank you. Thank you so much, Shana. And thank you for everything that you do. Thanks for listening to Sense of Soul podcast. And thanks to our special guests for joining me. If you want more of Sense of Soul, check out my website at www.mysenseofsoul.com where you can work with me one-on-one or help

support Sense of Soul podcast by donating to my coffee fund. Thanks for listening.