At BrilliantRead Media, we always strive to bring meaningful and powerful stories from India and around the world to empower and motivate our growing community. As part of this endeavour, we invited Dr. Urmi Roychoudhury for an exclusive interview with us. She is a Leader, Mentor, Women Entrepreneur, Certified Leadership Coach and Trainer, Career Consultant, Influencer and Changemaker. Let’s learn more about her incredible journey, her background, and her advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Dr. Urmi:
Could you please talk us through your background and your journey?
I have had an adventurous life. Blessed with challenges to be stronger and pampered with good times to reward me. Started my professional journey during my first-year college and since then there was no looking back. It’s been 18+ years and I feel I still learn every day.
I started teaching at a very young age and my dream of facilitation took me to being a corporate professional, training & mentoring others.
Got married and am now a mother of two teenage boys. Although the chapter on marriage was closed 10 years ago, I did learn to be independent and come out stronger and more powerful as a single mother. During my phase of raising kids alone, I also raised myself. Completed my MBA and then my Doctorate in Organizational Training and Coaching. That always has been my first love.
With my adventurous life, I have had to restart my career many times. But that has always been a boon as now I am more equipped with different phases of my career journey with different market trends. From career breaks to the recession, from time management to stress management, I have had my bad days with all and learned from life experiences.
With experiences and knowledge, I now choose to contribute to society through Training, Coaching & Consulting graduates and working professionals. The vision is to redefine ourselves to a transformed individual with Self-Management skills and techniques. Hence I introduced Corporate Learnings.”
I am a self-made woman with a mission to inspire and influence leaders and develop self-management skills through effective communication.
Dr. Urmi with her sons
How did you discover your passion as a ‘Career Coach’?
Well! As a trainer & mentor of communication, I have developed listening as a strong skill. I have been passionate about empowering people and helping them in their journey.
During my journey, people have looked up to me for help in their journey. Although I have helped many but I always felt I could do more for them.
Only imparting knowledge and sharing experience wasn’t enough. I needed to understand them deeply, listen to their thoughts and ideas. We all have the power to solve our own problems. We just need a little push to empower ourselves.”
That’s when I decided to take up a formal coaching education and empower others. Now, with the relevant certifications, I have organized methods to transform their journey, I feel I can do justice to people who follow me.
How do you manage to keep going despite the challenges? What drives you?
What drives me really, is consistency. And I prefer to build intrinsic motivation than waiting for external motivation. Being consistent and accepting challenges as a part of life has helped me overcome many obstacles and still moving.
Also, perspectives matter to me. Promotion is not a measure of success. Peace is. So even if I am not being appreciated for my work, the tangible and intangible results from people give me peace of mind and definitely ‘drives me’ and provide an intrinsic motivation
Who do you believe has been the biggest source of motivation in your daily life?
To talk about external motivation, definitely my kids – Ivan & Leenoy. I see them dreaming to be a businessman and also offering help to strangers, be it giving away seats to the elderly or teaching the poor kids for free absolutely voluntarily really inspires me. I guess- a cross-influence and aura that we have built in the house that keeps us going.
Also, for intrinsic motivation, I choose to keep a board in my room which has my ideas, and goals written on it.
What are some of the strategies that you believe have helped you grow as a person?
> Being authentic
> Time management
> Being consistent
> Accepting situations as is
These have helped me plan my daily life, future and also manage myself and my family and business during low times. This also has made me disciplined, and keep a sorted mind, always. This makes me grow as a person emotionally.
In your opinion what are the keys to success?
Success has its own definition and is measured differently at different phases of life.
What has always worked for me is knowing the path and consistently moving towards it. Not only moving alone but taking people along with me toward their version of success.
A few points that I could list down would be:
(1) Persistence
(2) Patience
(3) Self Management
(4) Self Confidence
(5) Intrinsic Motivation
(6) Defining success and its measure.
What advice would you give to our readers?
It’s easy to know what we want to do. What matters is how you do it and what is your purpose behind it.
Kids play cricket all the time. But an ambitious cricketer knows when to play it, how to practice and who to seek help from. Cricket is no more a game then. It’s a dream seen with open eyes.”
Know your goals and know why would you want to pursue it. And how would you pursue it.
Do you know why does the same food taste better when your mother or grandmother cooks it. Because they know HOW to use the ingredients in the right quantity at the right time for the right taste. We are the mother of our dreams. We got to make it the best!
Last but not least, what about your journey makes it satisfying/exciting?
My journey is about people, their experiences and achieving their definition of success. All I do is give that push for them to unleash their potential and find their value.
What’s exciting and satisfying is that I live so many lives, I have so many dreams and I feel good every time I can inspire someone. I find my work as exciting today as it was 18 years ago.”
With all that said, what success for me is to be able to inspire, influence and have my peace of mind which is an ongoing process which I would like to keep until the last day of my life.
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.
