Interview with Neelima Kumari | Mentor | Soft Skills and Corporate Trainer | Keynote Speaker | Founder and MD at Aspiration Matters Training and Consulting
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 Neelima Kumari for an interview with BrilliantRead Media. She is an Entrepreneur, Leader, Mentor, Trainer, Consultant, Coach, Keynote Speaker and Change Enabler. Neelima is the Founder and MD of Aspiration Matters Training and Consulting. Let’s learn more about her background, inspiring journey so far and advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Neelima:
Could you please talk to us through your background and your journey?
I was born and brought up in a humble and conservative environment in a tier-3 city. After moving to Mumbai, I got a cultural shock that shook my confidence. I decided to take up each challenge one by one while handling the change in my personal life.
It was very challenging as I had to work on my personality from a 360-degree angle, be it my language proficiency, or my overall outlook. I worked on everything from scratch and very soon started working as a teacher. That job gave me confidence and drive to achieve more in life.”
My journey started as a teacher in 2005 and since then I always kept upgrading myself from time to time to grow and evolve in my career. Each accomplished goal gave me the courage to set the bar a bit higher because I always felt there was so much to do. Finally, life kept moving like this for one and a half decades.
During covid time while heading my school, I got ample time because of my hybrid work schedule. I wanted to do something for the masses.
I had no idea what to do. I meditated for a few months on the area to venture and suddenly my heart inclined me towards sharing my rich life experience to help others. I feel that was my calling and that’s when it all started.”
Since my rich life experience was not adequate to prove and substantiate my credibility, So I decided to undergo professional training and certifications. I became a certified and trained soft skills and corporate trainer.
Further, I performed some SWOT analysis and it allowed me to assess all my strengths and work on my areas of improvement. I realised that mentoring, training, and guiding people came naturally towards me and I could also leverage years of my expertise to devise easy and actionable modules to help others.
My journey in this second career started from zero, without any network and support system, or social media presence.
How did you discover your passion as a ‘Trainer’?
The opportunities that came my way as an administrator while heading my school and my abilities to bring transformation in those three years gave me a sense of my hidden true potential.
At the same time, few opportunities came my way due to my positive attitude, enthusiasm, competency and confidence to take sessions for trainee teachers.
Such sessions gave me the feeling of my ability to strongly connect with the audience and their genuine appreciation and perceiving me as a source of inspiration surely helped me discover my passion.
While meditating all these experiences come alive and also, I realized that guiding and training come with ease and I love to help people find solutions to their challenges.”
High involvement and hope quotient prove me discover my passion on daily basis. I involve myself completely with full devotion while conducting my session. After the session I want to stay in their mind forever. My purpose and my strong sense of duty keep me on my toes to give my best.
I live and feel what I say and do during my session because this comes very naturally to me. I can help, guide and train people anytime, anywhere. This profession comes very naturally to me. I love seeing results, I love seeing a change in people. My energy does more than half of the work in all training. That is possible due to passion.
How do you manage to keep going despite the challenges? What drives you?
Challenge is an opportunity for me to discover an unknown area of my personality. I always ask myself during challenging times how can I overcome this, what do I need to do to cross this hurdle and I get ample of ideas, immediately I work and act, very soon the challenge poses to me as an opportunity.
I remember it was challenging to generate revenue and find people to avail of my services initially in 2022 April. No one was there to recommend or help me. I had no network etc. I just started sharing my thoughts on LinkedIn on a regular basis. Very soon people started approaching me for their needs and help.”
I got to discover my unknown potential of writing skills, I created unique content consistently, got connected with quality people while helping others to grow in their lives. I achieved a great number of followers base, started my revenue generation, and got recognized for my talent.
It was like challenges that created an ample number of opportunities in my life. Being a problem solver and creative thinker, I enjoy both my ups and downs. Ups give me achievement drive and downs give me opportunities to discover my hidden potential and strength with my abilities.
The crux of the matter is:
All challenges build conflict in a person’s mind, so overcome all the conflict with self. Negotiate with self-first. Instead of thinking about what is happening, ask how you can overcome this challenge.
Who do you believe has been the biggest source of motivation in your daily life?
I am highly inspired by Bhagwat Gita and Swami Vivekananda. I always wanted to have my own identity, self-reliance, and great support for everyone in need.
Always wanted to write about a better future. I always want to be better day by day.
Being authentic and passionate about every aspect of life is the biggest motivation. Strong drive to create a future where everyone supports and uplifts each other. If I am contented, I love to see others happy and contented, so I try to keep myself happy and contented.
What are some of the strategies that you believe have helped you grow as a person?
Believe in AORE has helped me grow.
> Aspirations – Having strong and intense aspirations.
> Observation – I observe and learn a lot.
> Reflecting on actions and thoughts kept me self-guided in all aspects of my life.
> Experimentation with Excel- I experiment a lot while experimenting I go out of my comfort zone, and I have a high-risk appetite.
> My passionate attitude and values with a strong belief system provided a strong base so I stay, authentic, approachable and humble.
In your opinion what are the keys to success?
Success is something that comes with happiness, if you get what you want you to feel happy, and the cycle goes on like that.
If we reflect daily and evaluate our progress in terms of all blessings, other than the material part that itself is the reason of being happy. Once the attitude of happiness sets in we are bound to achieve success.
The key to success is:
> The curiosity to learn and experiment.
> Intense desire.
> Consistent and determined initiatives.
> Overcoming hurdles with an action-oriented and result-oriented approach.
> Using your blessing to uplift others.
> Being able to support others.
> Keep uncovering your potential skill from time to time by up-skilling.
What advice would you give to our readers?
– My advice to the readers is:
– Just know yourself before knowing others.
– Observe your thoughts before reading other’s mind.
– Take charge of yourself before taking charge of others.
Same way
– Understand to be understood.
– Respect to be respected.
– Love to be loved.
– Listen to be heard.
– Trust to be trusted.
– Create to be created!
– Support to be supported.
– Desire to be desired.
What about your journey makes it satisfying/exciting?
The most satisfying element in this journey is that I am able to help people overcome poor self-esteem, which is one of the biggest diseases in this world.
It gives me immense pleasure to see my mentees and learners becoming confident and great decision-makers.”
Now my mentees and trainees can take decisions with clarity and logic. Their ability to overcome stagnancy in their life also makes me happy. I can reach out to the masses with ideas and tips.
And the best part is that I got a platform to share great ideas related to human skills and human potential that is reaching many audiences.
Last but not least, what do you want to say to entrepreneurs?
Entrepreneurship is a journey and it has to be lived fully. We need to work on ourselves first and then we need to work on our business. Our attitude, take-on life and risk appetite shapes the whole journey.
Being extremely honest with yourself and work with confidence. Being confident means giving confidence to others who believes in your services and products. Craft your USP and get known and perceived as you want, not as others want.
If people believe in you then they will believe in your services or products. Your authentic image is like the jewel of your business/organization. Do not measure progress only with the material. Measure your progress in totality. Take each experience as an axe to make you a gem in the coming time.
Always Remember:
~ We can create our life as we want.
~ We can learn and achieve anything; we need fire to get a spark.
~ Never fear shortcomings, think about what we want and why we want and how to reach there.
~ Stay invested in life learning experiences with enthusiasm and passion.
~ Zero has strong power to take very far because Zero lacks ego and complacent behaviour. This zero has zeal, empathy, resiliency, and optimism.
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