At Brilliant Read Media, we always strive to bring meaningful and powerful stories from India and around the world to empower and motivate our growing community. This week we invited Nidhi Khare Sharma for an interview with us. She is a Leader, Entrepreneur, Certified Life Coach and Counselling Psychologist. Let’s read more about her incredible journey so far and her advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Nidhi:
We are aware of your contribution to the ecosystem, talk us through your background and your journey as a coach, please;
I started my professional journey in the field of advertising, selling cable ad space and moving on to stalwarts like India Today and Hindustan times, before I moved into Below the Line Advertising and worked for over 14 years, dealing with consumer behaviour to sell various brands.
However, the steadily escalating career didn’t satisfy me and it always felt that “I was not meant for this” despite complimentary reviews about my growth.
5-6 years of intense turmoil, which took a toll not only on my health, my relationships as well as my mind and emotions, where I constantly faced my growing fear that “this was it” “I was a failure”, as what I was doing just didn’t inspire me. All I started to understand was that I had been in a profession that added value to me while I was able to add values to those I interacted with.
It’s now all in the background, small self-awareness steps helped me to trudge through the confusion.”
I had to get into therapy, counselling and finally life coaching, not to mention groping with a variety of courses, from Image management to Hypnotherapy to Life coaching to NLP (and various other courses to find the passion and path), and then I started to get the clarity on my burning need to be able to add value through my existence and my career.
I finally understood that It was human behaviour that enticed me and ignited me. That’s when a Master’s in Psychology happened, which opened the arena of positive psychology, growth mindset to me. I have found my shore… so to speak…
What made you passionate about Psychology?
Not sure, where it began however, I have asked this question of myself many times. I realize that as a young kid, stories of human interest captivated me, I loved psychology as it represented a variety of human emotions, perspectives and ultimately, I saw another approach, another path to do the same things.
I am passionate about human potential, an aspect that makes us different from every other creature on this planet.
The infinite possibilities that the human mind has, which I saw in my amma and continue to see in my mother. (Of course, it’s all in retrospect). I guess this is called psychology in the world.
What gets you out of bed in the morning i.e. what’s your source of motivation?
My sense of responsibility, first and foremost, towards myself, I have been granted this beautiful life and I respect it and do everything that I have to do so that when I take my last breath, I close my eyes with satisfaction, hopefully.
Secondly, my responsibility to those I love and the world around me. To me this is a powerful motivator, doing our best, being our best and striving to keep going from Good to Great.
How do you manage yourself and keep on going despite the challenges? What drives you?
I think I have answered it in the earlier questions. I had to work very hard to find what ignites me, the possibility of living a life that adds value to me and to those lives that I touch.
Challenges are here to help us, find ourselves, is my understanding, and my infinite faith that ‘dots always connect…even if it’s in retrospect.’
This helps me to stay positive, hopeful and motivated. I know I have it in me to create my world as I choose it to be and that the larger picture always emerges.
Please share with us, how do you motivate your clients?
I do what I do to the best of my abilities and intent. I believe if I am true to myself, I will be able to support my clients to be true to themselves.
After all, I am just a mirror and a catalyst, the hard work is done by them. So the truer I am to me, the truer I can have my clients to their highest good.
In your opinion what are the keys to success?
For the starter knowing what success looks and feels like to each individual. I think it’s a very individual, subjective space and hence knowing our own sense of achievement is the key.
Having said that, I think having a growth mindset, helps us achieve almost anything that we set our mind to and hence it’s a trait, I recommend, is developed deliberately by each one of us.
You are always positive and motivated, what keeps you going?
That’s not so true, I think every emotion is granted to us for a very specific reason, as it tells us something about our state of mind our ambitions, our concerns, passions etc.
So I am not always positive…. I recover fast, as I have trained my mind, (just like we train our body, by working out etc. to recover from any disease or have higher immunity).
The sign of a healthy emotional and mental state is how fast we recover from the setback. Think of the Treadmill test for the heart, doctors make us walk on it with different speeds and then see how fast our breathing/pulse comes back to normal. Faster the recovery better the heart health.
Same way, how fast our mind recovers from the set back is the sign of a healthy positive mental health.
What advice would you give students and young professionals who want to have a successful career?
I am not sure if we live in the world of advices anymore, as it’s a world of experiences… we like to test waters and rightly so…why take someone else’s word for it when each one has the infinite capacity to learn.
So I say go explore…the world, your surroundings, your beliefs,… leave the shore, find new places… and most importantly explore your potential and possibilities.
Believe that good is the biggest enemy of great…We are meant for greatness… we are meant to go from good to great… So, create your own success and happy living…
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.
