Interview with Anup Mittal | Mentor | Life and Executive Coach | Motivational Speaker | Founder at Butterfly Coaching Academy | Co-Founder at Transforming Lives
At BrilliantRead Media, it is our constant endeavour to identify and share some of the unique and compelling stories from the startup ecosystem. As part of this, we invited yet another passionate entrepreneur Anup Mittal for an interview with BrilliantRead Media. Anup is an Entrepreneur, Leader, Coach, Motivational Speaker, Mentor and Change enabler. He is the Founder of Butterfly Coaching Academy and the Co-Founder of Transforming Lives. Let’s learn more about his background, his inspiring journey so far and his advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Anup;
Could you please talk us through your background and your journey?
I had a humble beginning like any other middle-class family. I could only complete simple graduation, since I couldn’t get an opportunity or direction to study nor could I afford fancy degrees. My Father was a simple poultry farmer, I was born and brought up in Ajmer, one thing for which I am really and deeply thankful is my school education, that is where my core foundation is laid. My father got my admission to Mayoor School Ajmer that made my foundation the strongest!
Genetically, my wisdom and my articulation skills have been blessed to me by my mother since birth, I dedicate my achievements to her at her feet. I joined corporate right after my education and that’s where I learnt all the corporate mantras. I had an innate ability to learn things quickly and assess the situation from the grassroots level.
Have always been a follower of self-education so, whenever possible, I spend time on self-improvement to move ahead in life. I managed to move up the ladder fairly quickly but as you know corporate setups have their own politics and toxicity in the form of poop leadership and biased bosses, my career was no different. I also fell prey to it and after years of dedicated service in 2018, I was asked to leave.
Had to choose a new role or a new life. I consciously chose a new life, immediately introspective and decided to leverage my skills i.e. coaching, mentoring and leading people. I registered a sole proprietorship firm and named it Anup Transforming Lives, taking the first step in the world of entrepreneurship. Consistent failures year on year basis.
In 2018 itself, I applied for my ICF-ACC credential and earned it in one go! Started showing up daily but consistently kept failing. People laughed at coaching practice as a career, not many trusted to hire me…kept going and going and going with all the failures.
In 2020, I applied for an ICF-PCC credential and earned it in one go, this was when my understanding of coaching went beyond, I learned that real coaching is to be a competent coach over just doing a coaching conversation at a problem-solving level. It changed the way I look at coaching.
With significant success in what I was doing, I decided to found Butterfly Coaching Academy Pvt Ltd in 2022 with a Vision to help people become global coaches. We formed a mission to simplify learning and make it reach the masses. Early this year Butterfly Coaching Academy submitted their course to the International Coaching Federation, which was accredited by ICF for Level 1 – ACC and can be seen on the ICF’s website. Also, I’ll be earning my MCC credential by Dec’2023.
During all these years of coaching, what I have learnt and experienced has helped me grow immensely in a lot of aspects, and at BCA we are doing the same for people who are willing to experience a transformation with coaching competencies.
ICF has approved our coach training program for empowerment and transformational coaching and without a bias, the standards ICF is following are Gold Standard and robust. It has a definite edge over any other credential in the global world of coaching. When you move on to the path of becoming a coach, you let go of who you are. And in that process of letting go of who you are, you find a new version of yourself.
If you want to learn more about coaching and how it can be beneficial for you, you can book a complimentary appointment with me through my profile. (refer to the video as well)
How did you discover your passion as a ‘Coach’?
I was always deeply fascinated with the belief in helping others grow, primarily the 70% of us who were not or are not fortunate enough to get the right orientation and support from family, school and overall environment.
I always wanted to make things simple. The decision to pursue my career as a coach was not a random one, it was my friend, who made me conscious of this quality of mine. During my tenure at Vodafone, a friend and I were working on a project. That project became a huge success and we were highly appreciated and acknowledged at a national level. It is when she made me realize, I had been coaching unknowingly for quite a while now. I took this revelation seriously and started my research for the same.
While I was figuring things out about being a coach, life decided to throw some more surprises across me, which led to the loss of my job with just a month’s notice period. The day might look like a dark day in my professional life, but it was also a game changer for me. I did not lose hope; rather this situation carved me a path to learn more about coaching and continue my journey as a coach. I trained at ICF for level 1 certification.
And since then, there’s no looking back. I continued doing something I was good at rather than simply following the conventional paths. I chose to work on myself and help others grow and guide them to unfold their true potential.
In 2017, when the telecom industry was going through lots of ups and downs, I felt the need to enhance myself too, I realized that coaching is something that I wished to explore but I had little knowledge about coaching and I was trying to learn more about it through various sources. While researching, one name that always popped up was Gallup. They have some great articles about coaching.
But, at that time there was nobody who could guide me to learn more about coaching, except, there was one manager, who was in the marketing team. He had some idea of what coaching is about, He knew something about the International Coaching Federation, that’s when I got introduced to the word.
From that point I started my research, I went to ICF’s websites, read a few articles, I was a bit confused, but then came across ICF’s one tool where you can go and find out the coach training institutes. I marked an email, I got in touch with an institute, I got in touch with a local person in India. I invested a good amount in myself to go through a program. I went to Mumbai for a 4-day intensive classroom course, and that’s how I completed my ACC course.
6 years ago I could see it coming, I could see it evolving, aligned with my values, and that was the best decision that transformed me as a person. It’s made me more curious, it made me a better listener, it made me a better performer and I was functioning with a better potential in every way.
How do you manage to keep going despite the challenges? What drives you?
My attitude of not giving up and persevering has helped me manage and overcome some of the toughest challenges in life. You see- I fight for what you wish to change in the world to make it a better place.
There are plenty of people in the corporate world who face similar challenges and find themselves clueless about how to handle them. My vision is to help them transform their life and move up in the direction they always wanted.
I always stand for the bigger purpose and don’t worry about failures as failures are opportunities to learn.
Who do you believe has been the biggest source of motivation in your daily life?
(1) My willingness to help and support everyone.
(2) To make things simple, easy and accessible as we all deserve to learn and become better, to learn is our birthright.
What are some of the strategies that you believe have helped you grow as a person?
Embracing failures and seeing a VISION as the vision always pulled me while I was going through the thicks and thins of life.
The deep desire to solve the problem of simplicity and help people become better and succeed is the only strategy that I see day in and day out.
In your opinion, what are the keys to success?
The only key to success is believing in yourself and doing the deep work which is very hard. People get attracted to success from a different perspective, real success to me is what one becomes in the process and not what one achieves as an outcome.
WHO AM I and WHO AM I Becoming is the real part of the success journey.”
However, perseverance and never giving up attitude are most important too. One needs to be optimistic in all stages.
What advice would you give to our readers?
Always remember, no door closes without another one opening up. Look for the one opened and never give up. Failure is where we all begin. Without commitment, you shall never begin and without consistency, you will never finish. Be consistent and persevere.
Time is an important factor as it is time that compounds the effort over time and we get what we want and need. Have patience. Caterpillars don’t become butterflies overnight, it took 6+ years to build Burj khalifa in modern times as well.
Last but not least, what about your journey makes it satisfying/exciting?
When people come back and tell me about how they didn’t give up which really helped them succeed. How they are transforming and empowering not only their lives but how they are successfully helping others grow and become better.
The most satisfying part is the trust that I am given by the Universe to be the medium of doing something for others in a very selfless state.
I am the chosen one and it makes me deeply thankful and happy. Tons of people have written back to me mentioning how they see Lord Krishna in my presence (not as God) but as a true, authentic and honest Saarthi. I have also got tons of messages from my clients, strangers on how I emerged to be the torch (Guru) and they felt enlightened in my presence, All that has made my day!
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.
