In our latest interview, we spoke to Anju Kumari to understand more about her journey as a women leader and entrepreneur. She is a leadership coach, mentor, trainer, change enabler, writer and speaker. She is the founder of Crafting Leaders and W.I.N.G.S. Her mission is to create future leaders and help people build a better life by growing their DREAMS, achieving HAPPINESS and turning purpose into prosperity for their life. Let’s learn more about her inspiring journey and her advice for those aspiring!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Anju:
Take us through your background and your journey as a women entrepreneur/coach, please
I am a very strong believer in this. “Any journey of milestones starts with actions”. The day I decide to do something, I don’t give myself enough time to re-think. I immediately put it to action. Crafting Leaders, my company is based on these three pillars – “act now”, “act for your self” and “act in the moment”.
To reach to a level of having a training and development company that provides training in all soft skills areas and is into mentoring people in different areas, I had to cover a long journey. I first had to quit a full-time corporate job. The last position held was quality director, of CRM products in SAP labs, Gurgaon.
Thereafter I took a break for a few years to plan ahead and think about a profession that I should be able to sustain and no retirement beyond that. Having said that, it’s a daunting task to launch your self after 8 years.
I did many courses & certifications and one day decided to open my own company which could bring excellence in the life of others. The main intent was to enable people to be leaders of their life and hence the name “Crafting Leaders”.
Along with that, I decided to empower women as much as possible in my capacity and I started with an online community of women which was called “W.I.N.G.S”. This is the platform where I could specifically enable women belonging to all professions as well as homemakers for a better life.
It’s been an absolute challenging journey but the most satisfying ever in life. I am a B.tech computer science graduate & executive management in finance. An NLP executive practitioner and soft skills trainer. Goal Management and Time Management have been my expertise and have mentored/trained many on these lines.
We are aware of all the good work you are doing in your space; our audience wants to know – what keeps you going?
See our life has mountains to climb and valleys to fall into. It’s never gently flowing like a stream for a long time.
We all should learn to be with the flow and not go against it, the harder you try, you will start losing your strengths and very soon you will be exhausted. Strengths have to be utilised to change any existing scenario to the best. So thinking in the moment and believing in myself keeps on propelling me.
Surrender to GOD, rest believe in this “Que sera sera ” (whatever will be, will be). On day to day basis, I do a lot of running & reading to keep my mind and body in complete congruence to goals of my life. Life has gifted us many things. Once you start appreciating all that you have, you are just so unique as an individual.
So, what keeps me going is that, Crafting Leaders and W.I.N.G.S both are my passion and my love from them does not end. My work comes from the space of LOVE. It’s like mother having two children and I am completely happy to be in such a space.
Why did you choose entrepreneurship over a corporate career?
Michael Gerber says:
“The entrepreneur in us sees opportunities everywhere we look, but many people see only problems everywhere they look. The entrepreneur in us is more concerned with discriminating between opportunities than he or she is with failing to see the opportunities.”
Hence I saw many opportunities for myself to grow outside the corporate career.
When I decided to rebuild my career, it was more to do with what I could sustain with the existing environment that I was in. In fact, learning should never stop and being able to learn more and more is what I have been passionate about. Having my own setup of training and development was big-time in my mind and I could utilize my past experience towards it. I could plan and strategize on my own terms and could have a lot under my control than letting my creativity go waste in the four walls of corporate. I was keen on making an impact outside the corporate world and hence entrepreneurship happened.
Please share with us some of the challenges you faced in your journey;
Entrepreneurship or any other work comes with its own challenges. After 8 years of being out of a corporate career, it was difficult to find a foothold in the market. Everything had to be done from scratch. It indeed was very fascinating to do what I was passionate about but to build an empire everything had to start from zero. A lot of courage, planning, perseverance, hard work, combined with good strategy & execution skills were needed.
I have faced huge challenges from far more experienced people in this field, but being genuine and honest about work has given me a unique presence with my clients. To overcome this kind of challenge I diligently did many courses and certifications to be able to speak with thorough confidence.
Another challenge that I faced is copying my ideas and style by competitors or followers. No matter what you do, today the digital world is very fast and can overtake you very soon if you didn’t know what’s happening around you. But to cope with this I decided to keep improving myself and not worrying about who is copying me. Improving or upgrading on knowledge and other areas of work were all under my control and were my strengths so I just focussed on myself.
I believed that, what is not in control has to be outside my circle of influence and I should not even be looking at it.
What is your business mantra: money or emotions?
My business is my child as I mentioned above and if I have to bring up my child, it cannot be quantified by money. I flourish by having a healthy relationship first and then doing business planning.
I don’t look at successes as the end of my journey of business but they are just small milestones to celebrate.
My business mantra is “#actnow” “#actforyourself” and “#actinthemoment”. Ethically my core values of TRUST, RESPECT AND EMPATHY are very strong in doing business. So definitely money flows but your emotional reasons have to be very strong for business.
During this COVID-19 crisis, what are the measures you have undertaken to continue your business without disruption?
I did a resetting of my goals for the year by looking into it in the following ways:
1 – I checked what was planned for the whole year. I shift few tasks from year-end to the lockdown period. I launched my own book kindle version during this time. Book available on amazon – DAUGHTER’S IMPERFECTIONS: LESSONS FROM FATHER TO MAKE YOU QUINTESSENTIAL
2 – I checked which goals were not doable till year-end because of COVID, can they be removed or replaced with something new. So I immediately planned a lot of my tasks to be live and online.
3 – I checked for new skills that I had to pick and that helped me in putting many strategies in place during these COVID times.
4 – I checked for changes in my personal lifestyle so that I can work better towards my professional life. This is extremely important point.
I wouldn’t say business was as usual, but if you were quick enough to learn surfing on high tides, then by now you would have sailed and would be far better than the normal routine.
How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?
The environment around is very volatile and we always have to be on the go or on top of all the issues and problems in business. You can take on pressure and still feel relaxed in many ways. It’s not that one size fits all, hence different stress coping mechanisms for different kinds of stress are needed. Mind and body both are equally stressed many times. So to let you know my key points.
I am an extreme fitness freak, hence to handle the pressure I detox my mind first, and that happens when I am able to spend some time with my own self. I go for runs and that is my natural intake of dopamine which helps in relieving stress.
Another way to handle pressure or stress is that I keep asking myself during any turbulent times “so what ?”, let it happen, what bad can it do to me, I am still capable of building it all again. So once you start believing in yourself that you can do it all over again even if you fail, you will never have stress. Rather I would say any stressful situation multiplies my strength.
Please share with our audience – what has worked well for you so far?
It’s a battlefield always, so what keeps me sailing through all turbulences and storms are the core values of the company. Crafting Leaders, my company has core values of TRUST, RESPECT, and EMPATHY. These values have worked extremely well in maintaining a very good relationship with all my clients. I have build and nurtured all my relationships with loyalty. I am always a GIVER first.
Given the rapid pace at which the world is changing, what are the leadership traits that are necessary for success?
Businesses are seeing a surge of transformation and hence being Adaptable, Agile, Anti-Fragile and ready for Disruption, traits must be adopted. You have to be flexible in this unpredictable world.
In your opinion what are the keys to success?
Learn to “sweat the small stuff”. Always work in the direction of your strengths. Don’t be overconfident but believe in yourself always.
We would love to know your advice for all those starting out as an aspiring women entrepreneurs?
I would say, any work demands speed, conviction, commitment. No one will come and remind you of your dreams, goals, and fulfilment of desires. You have to remind yourself always, how you want to shape your business. What is important to you, remains important to you only. It is rare to find any individual/friend/partner, who would always first think of growing you or your business. So always plan keeping this in my mind, you are the one who will have to face the world alone with your choices.
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.
