At BrilliantRead Media, it is our constant endeavour to bring meaningful and powerful stories from India and around the world to empower and motivate our growing community. As part of this, we invited Aniruddha Pathak for an exclusive interview with us. He is an Entrepreneur, Leader, Coach, Consultant, Motivational Speaker, Change Enabler and Mentor. Let’s learn more about his incredible journey, his background and his advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Aniruddha:
We are aware of your contributions to the ecosystem; talk us through your background and your journey, please;
For education – I have done my graduation in Arts, post-graduation in Communication and Journalism, Additional graduation in Psychology and Postgraduate Diploma in Human Resource Management.
I started working at the age of 22 and worked with corporate giants like Jet Airways, Vodafone India and Reliance Communication for over a decade. In 2009-10, I was associated with the recruitment team and was taking interviews for the probable candidates and I was getting a wider spectrum to interact with fresh graduates who come for the interview.
During those interactions, I realized that they are having some unrealistic expectations and the corporate demands very crude, basic but important skills. The students were not even aware of it and they are venturing into a journey which is putting them into frustration and depression in the longer run.”
I was upset over it and discussed this concern with my father a couple of times and was expecting someone to take some steps and correct it. My father realized it and asked me one day, that why I’m expecting someone else to take that pain and change something which is bothering me. He added, why can’t I take that initiative and responsibility of changing something. This hit me hard and after evaluating my situation and all if and but, I took a decision to come out of corporate.
At the age of 33, I realized that I was having good growth in the job and salary but still work-wise I was not satisfied. Hence after a lot of assessment and discussion with my parents and family, I decided to quit the corporate race. In 2013, I started my own journey of training, mentoring and coaching.”
And since then I have trained more than 40k people including students, parents and also fresh entrepreneurs.
Currently, I m working as a Mentor for people of 20 to 45yrs age group to have better and sound sleep so that they can be effective in their respective work and can avoid any lifestyle diseases.
How did you discover your passion in ‘Coaching’?
When I was working in corporate, I was heading a training team. Hence I was assigned the training to be conducted too. I was conducting training sessions and I was getting very good feedback too. I wasn’t aware that my sessions were appreciated so much.
Though training came to me as a part of my job but I was enjoying the whole process of interactions and conducting sessions.”
When I started getting good feedback about it and when I also started enjoying the stage and the sessions, I realized my passion is training and coaching people. This is something which I enjoy doing for multiple hours. And I was able to help people get solutions to their challenges, I was able to make them feel empowered and that made me realize my passion towards coaching.
How do you manage to keep going despite the challenges? What drives you?
I always ask myself 2 simple questions – “What If” and “Why did I start”
Challenges have been an integral part of my coaching journey but pushing myself even during challenging times made me strong and ensured that I keep on moving.
Emotionally, financially, physically, mentally, the journey has been taking toll on all aspects of life but still, it pushes me because I always put myself into the position of our soldiers of the armed forces.”
They drive me. If they can put their life on the line for us then why can’t we push ourselves a little harder and get us through the tough times.
Fear comes in, even I get scared at times and feel like quitting but I ask myself, what if, I get through this. What if I get the chance to change the life of someone who is not even aware of their own potential? Quitting is easy but continuing and pushing forward takes courage. And this brings me to the next question I ask is why did I start?
I started this journey because I wanted to bring the change, I wanted to impact lives, I wanted to live a life worth remembering.
Who do you believe has been the biggest source of motivation in your daily life?
My parents and my kid are the biggest source of motivation for me. Whenever I feel like quitting, I look at them and without a single word I get the motivational dose required and I start pushing myself.
Along with our armed forces, my kid and my parents drive me – I ask myself, do I want to set an example of a quitter or a fighter and winner in front of my kid, I get my dose of pushing more. I ask myself, do I want my parents to be proud of me, this pushes me to be better, do more and deliver more.
Please share with us, how do you motivate your clients?
Making people aware of their own potential and removing their self-limiting beliefs helps to bring them back to the reality of life.
I make them read books which are real-life case studies and also share my mistakes with them.
I firmly believe that people connect through emotions and they want to believe that they are capable and worthy of the success that they dream. Hence when I share my personal story with them, about my failures and misses and embarrassing moments I get their confidence that I m just like them. That builds their confidence and helps them get better and faster results. Personal story and being vulnerable makes it easy to motivate anyone.
What are some of the strategies that you believe has helped you grow as a person?
There is a framework which I follow – OPEN LION
O – Observation – helps to learn faster
P – Patience – builds a stronger approach
E – Empathy – emotional connection with self and people around
N – Networking – easiest way of building relations and collaborations
L – Learning – constant growth is possible only through learning
I – Investment – nothing comes free, we must keep on investing in self and surrounding
O – Openness – rigidity will kill us untimely, hence openness to new ideas, people, learnings, expands our context
N – Newness – bringing new ideas and ways of working keeps our brain more functional, any conventional way of doing things holds us from growing
You are always positive and motivated, what keeps you going?
My motivation comes from reading, watching movies, documentaries, spending time with my kid and parents, reading him books and stories, playing with him, meeting new people and friends.
I always remind myself, this is the only moment I m alive hence I don’t want to do something which is not worthy of that moment. Live in the moment is the mantra I love to follow.
Also, when my clients get results and feel empowered because of an interaction with me, it truly motivated me and makes me positive.
What are the business mantras you have embraced as you sought to establish your success story?
Work hard, add value as much as you can, don’t focus on earning money as it is a byproduct of the value you create in the marketplace. Treat people with the same respect as you want to be treated. And never forget your roots, it helps you stay grounded.
Treat yourself whenever you over-deliver, read and learn from all the possible sources. Money will surely come if you keep on adding value. Focus on helping people, people will help you make money. It’s a global truth.
In your opinion what are the keys to success?
I will say it straight that there are many factors but if you really have to have the key elements then to me these are the ones:
(a) Being compassionate
(b) Loving self and self-belief
(c) Responsibility and owning the failures
(d) Standing up for myself
(e) Massive actions
(f) Resourcefulness
(g) Curiosity
(h) Positive Attitude
(i) Quality over quantity
(j) Consistency over perfection
What advice would you give students and young professionals who want to have a successful career?
Learn, upgrade, upskill and focus on adding value. Money or monetary success is an outcome of the input we give in terms of value. Don’t run behind the short-term success, invest for long-term success and focus on creating a legacy.
The market today doesn’t survive only on technical skills hence works a lot on soft skills and life skills. At one point, technical skills cant take you beyond one point then it’s all about how you deal with people, situation and challenges.
Get a mentor, learn from him/her, work with them for free, today it might look odd as per social standards but it is a worthwhile investment to get better results in the coming years.
First 5yrs, don’t focus on making money or buying liabilities. Instead invest, learn, educate yourself, upgrade and upskill yourself. Don’t be scared to fail. Even if you fail, you are still ahead of those who never even tried. Do better, fail better, start new, start from experience.
Last but not least, What about your journey makes it satisfying/exciting?
Clients getting the expected output and when they come and share that just one social media post of mine helped them channelize their thoughts and helped them come out of their comfort zone and helped them realize their potential is extremely satisfying.
Getting recognition on various platforms is surely exciting and a certificate of the work I’m doing but more than that when my parents say they are proud of me, I feel most content and satisfied with it. When my kid says he wants to be like me or better than me that makes me excited to set the benchmarks right and deliver better as he is watching closely.
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
