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 Dr. Priyam Dhani for an exclusive interview with us. She is an Entrepreneur, Leader, Coach, Mentor, Corporate Trainer, Influencer and Change Enabler. Let’s learn more about her incredible journey, her background and her advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Dr. Priyam:
We are aware of your contributions to the ecosystem; talk to us through your background and your journey, please.
I have always been a curious person and my curiosity led me to learning new things and subjects. I was an Arts graduate and took Indian history and French as majors. I just wanted to learn a new language and know more about Indian History and didn’t think about what career options I’ll be left with.
I then pursued my MBA, specialising in HR and marketing. I wanted to learn more about Human Resources post my MBA, so I continued my education and got 2 PG Diplomas, one in Human Resource Development and other in Personnel management and labour welfare.
My quest for knowledge didn’t end there, I enrolled myself in PhD and started my research.”
By then, my curiosity in humans and human psychology was at its peak. So I studied a lot about industrial psychology and organizational behavior and did my PhD in Emotional Intelligence and Personality Traits as predictors of Job Performance in the Indian service sector.
I was in academics for almost 5 years and I thought I’ll continue my journey as an Educator.
How did you discover your passion ‘Coach’?
As I mentioned I wanted to be an educator as I love learning and sharing my knowledge. However during the pandemic when people were going through mental and emotional turmoil, I helped many friends and students of mine using my knowledge on Emotional Intelligence to help them go through the tough times.
That’s when I realized I don’t want a regular 9-5 but I want to pursue Coaching full time.”
I got myself certified as an Emotional Intelligence Specialist and for the past year I’ve been coaching, educating and training people about Emotional Intelligence and its importance in our personal and professional lives.
How do you manage to keep going despite the challenges? What drives you?
When anyone starts their individual journey as a coach or an educator it’s definitely challenging. As you don’t know how to begin, how to target clients, how to grow.
But if you believe in yourself and if you are confident about your knowledge and work, things start working out on their own. You just have to be persistent and patient.
The feedbacks from my clients and see them grow mentally and emotionally have been my driving force. When my clients tell me how my coaching or how my course has helped them in their personal or professional life, it brings sense of satisfaction and contentment.
Who do you believe has been the biggest source of motivation in your daily life?
My Daughter definitely has been the biggest source of motivation in my life. She was the biggest reason I started working from home as I wanted to spend all my time with her.
I believe when you become a mother it’s not just your responsibility to raise your child and take care of them, what is more important is we make them great confident individuals as they are the future of the country.”
I’m raising her as an Emotionally Intelligent person who will grow up to be a kind, helpful and passionate individual. We hear a lot of success stories but how many stories of kindness do we hear? I believe that’s what needs to be changed as a society and I understood about it when I became a mother.
What are some of the strategies that you believe have helped you grow as a person?
Self awareness is the most important thing for anyone’s growth. Exploring what matters to you the most in life and what gives your life meaning and purpose is the first step towards growth.
To be honest, before I began my self awareness journey, whatever I did was to make my family proud. However now whatever I do I do it for myself. If I get satisfaction after doing something that’s what matters to me now, I want to make myself proud, no one else. And I believe this is a sign of growth.
Learning is another way to grow, as I mentioned I’ve been a learner throughout my life. My approach is different when it comes to learning as well. I believe enrolling yourself in a course related to the subject you want to learn is better than just grabbing a book on the topic to read.”
Course will always help you explore the topic in a wide range which a book or article can’t. Currently I enrolled myself in a Counselling Psychology course because I wanted to learn more about human psychology and how it will help me as an Emotional Intelligence Coach.
Please share with us, how do you motivate your clients?
One of the main purposes of Emotional Intelligence Coaching is motivating the clients. I work with them according to their needs and requirements.
Emotional intelligence coaching involves self awareness, self management, self motivation, empathy and relationship building. I believe once a person starts his or her journey towards self awareness it helps them become motivated and work their goals.
What kind of services do you provide to your clients?
I’m not just a coach but an educator and trainer as well. When it comes to coaching it usually begins with the clients filling up a questionnaire on Emotional Intelligence which makes me understand about their strengths and weaknesses.
We then either work around their issues and requirements or some of them want to work on their overall Emotional Intelligence.
I also conduct corporate training and the issues we work on are majorly conflict resolution, job performance and relationship building. I also have a website named Nurturing Emotions where I have started online courses related to Emotions and Emotional intelligence.
In your opinion, what are the keys to success?
According to me, success is a very subjective term. Success is different for different people. Some people want to achieve something in their professional lives and when they do they feel successful, some people want material success and when they buy a house or a car they feel successful, some people want to look after their family and kids and if their family is happy and kids grow up to be great individuals they feel successful.
So, I don’t think there is a specific set of rules to follow if you want to be successful but I believe self awareness and self management are really important for anyone to be successful.”
If you know what you want in life, if you understand your purpose of life then you can work towards achieving it, rather than running the rat race and doing what the others are doing. When you achieve or are working towards achieving your purpose you’ll have a sense of satisfaction and that satisfaction is what I believe is Success.
What advice would you give students and young professionals who want to have a successful career?
My advice to students and young professionals will be never stop learning, be persistent and patient. These three things will always help you in life, no matter what.
Try to learn more about yourself, I always tell my clients that we have four versions of ourselves, one what we show the world, second what the world thinks we are, third which we believe we are and the fourth is our hidden side, something which we don’t show to others and not even to ourselves.
If we understand all aspects about ourselves then it becomes easier for us to figure out what exactly will give us peace and satisfaction. And if we are able to crack that code, no one can stop us from becoming successful.
Last but not least, what about your journey makes it satisfying/exciting?
My journey has just begun and it’s already exciting. Meeting new people, understanding them and being able to learn new things everyday is exciting for me. The world we are currently living in is not an easy one, many of us face mental and emotional issues and are not able to cope on our own.
I’m grateful that I can help some of them by sharing my knowledge with them. It brings an immense sense of satisfaction to know that I am able to change lives by doing my bit.
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.
