As part of our relentless pursuit to identify and share with our community some of the unique and compelling stories from the startup ecosystem, this week we invited yet another passionate women entrepreneur Nirmit Sinha Goel to understand more about her inspiring journey, her vision and the way forward. Nirmit is a Life Coach, Leader, Parenting Expert, Author, Change Enabler and Motivational Speaker.
She is the Founder of Xperienci-o-pedia. Her story shows us what a parent can do despite all odds. She is currently raising awareness for a big cause through her platform.
Please log on the following link to watch her inspiring story – https://www.sgsuperspeaker.in/contest/?contest=video-detail&video_id=327#toggle
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Nirmit:
Talk us through your background and your journey, please;
A management graduate by qualification (MBA from S.P. Jain), an artist at heart, a woman of substance and a parent at the core, I am Nirmit Sinha Goel mother of two beautiful girls, an author, a life coach and a parenting expert popularly known as Miracle Mom but I didn’t set out becoming one.
My life was perfect with a flourishing corporate career and a beautiful family. I was not just performing at the highest level but was also inspiring others being a motivational Guru.
The turning point in my life came when my second daughter was born with congenital hearing loss and thin nerves. This completely shook me from the inside. After the initial period of shock, disbelief and upset, I accepted her hearing loss but did not accept what came associated with it.
“God gave me a challenge and I had no option. I got the shock of my life when I came to know about my daughter’s Hearing Loss. I gave up my promising corporate career and it became my supreme goal to make her better than the best.”
I wasn’t ready to settle for anything less than the best for my child. Thus started my journey of research and trust me there’s very little available on the internet. So, I started meeting experts, did several courses, used law of attraction, put in all my intelligence and skills (btw I am an MBA from S.P.Jain one of the top MBA colleges of India) into finding the best techniques and wherever I couldn’tfind I developed it myself. I designed customised techniques to use her strengths to cover her weaknesses. I just didn’t want to leave any stone unturned.
The results were miraculous. Despite hearing first sounds at the age of 2.5 years, my child was mainstreamed at the right age. Today she is doing pretty well in academics, is an ace Sportsgirl and became a digital literacy champion of her school in App design for the 2nd consecutive year – a competition from class IV – XII and she won being in class IV and this year being in class V.
The more the experts in the line said that it’s not possible, the more I became determined to make it possible. The results were miraculous and soon I came to be popularly known as Miracle Mom. I got recognition as a woman of substance this women’s day. I strongly believe all parents can create miracles in their child’s life. If I can do it, you can do it too.
What is your purpose, your mission and the way forward?
My mission is to support other parents in the hearing loss journey. This path is not just difficult, there is very little clarity. There are surgeons, audiologists and therapists which forms just 60% of the journey.
There is no parental guidance including rehabilitation, important life skills, prevention of complex formation, self-esteem development and coping mechanisms. Today, my child is doing so well because I took care of all this right from her childhood.
These skills are important not just for a child with challenges but with all kids in general. The whole world is moving towards customised solutions and we are providing a very generalised parenting to the most important people in our life. We all know every child is unique but that unique child needs unique parenting also.
My second mission is to help parents sky-rocket their parenting journeys from “Manage to Miracles”, from somehow managing their kids to creating miracles in their lives.
I also stand for the cause of women. There is a lot of work being done for the upliftment of women who are downtrodden or are visibly going through adversities but there is a big section of women who are supposedly happy and do not fall in the bracket of upliftment. If anyone would see their lives, he would say that they have everything, but still, they are not happy.
My third mission is to uplift such women and take them to the next level of self-esteem, confidence, self-respect and real happiness.
You are always positive and motivated despite the challenge you faced in your journey, what keeps you going?
We, the people from the hearing world have no idea what is the challenge faced by a child born with hearing loss until we have one in our lap.
When faced with any challenge, we always have two options, either to accept it as fate and come to terms with the reality or to rise above fate, take it into our hands and create history showing a new ray of hope to others in the same journey inspiring everyone in the process.
This is not just a story of my combat with my daughter’s hearing loss, each one of you will get something in it for your life in this story. At times, we feel low when confronted by challenges and wonder, “Why me?” We are shattered and there seems darkness all around with no ray of hope. But that’s not the complete picture.
Challenges don’t pull you down, they pull you up, push you to become a better version of yourself. A challenge is always a channel to greatness. Embrace it!
You have made significant contributions towards your domain, talk us through your story and what made you choose to do this?
It is said that when the going gets tough, the tough get going or rather adversities bring out the best in you. I was doing very well in the corporate sector, reaching the position of Imports Manager of Excel Industries Ltd. in a short span of 3 years. Performing at the highest level, I had to go on a Sabbatical when my first daughter was born.
I strongly believe that the first five years of a child are extremely crucial for two reasons, 90% of the brain develops in the first 5 years and both the character or the complexes are built in the early years.
It was during the sabbatical that I got the time to lower the pace and look at everything with a very different, exponentially progressive perspective. In my second innings after the Sabbatical, her new facet as a mentor and motivational guru unfolded. Like I shared, the turning point in my life came when my second daughter was born with congenital hearing loss and thin nerves.
I researched extensively on the subject. My child’s therapist, whom I call my mentor in this field always encouraged me to challenge everything that seemed impossible. I started using my child’s strengths to conquer her weaknesses.
My child started hearing first sounds at the age of 2.5 years, a stage that occurs in the mother’s womb. I wanted to mainstream my child in a normal school and didn’t want a 5-year-old kid sitting in a 3-year-old class doing activities meant for a 3-year-old.
I had 1 year to develop her daughter’s speech and hearing to a level that is developed in 3.5 years in a normal course. For this, I had to develop her language exponentially. I started making experience books for quick language development – during the day I would give her new vocabulary, click pictures and at night when she slept, I made her experience books to be used the very next day.
The results were miraculous and I did manage to accomplish this seemingly impossible task where I was advised by everyone to delay the admission to school by one or two years. I achieved in one year what usually takes 3.5 years
You also specialize in ‘gamification.’ Tell us something about it.
I started seeing a magical world through the eyes of my little daughter and indulged in all sorts of creative activities to feed her curious mind. I observed that my child was a natural in sports and dance and thoughtfully used this strength for other areas.
While doing this I discovered another unexplored skill in my armour –I found that I have a knack for turning complex lessons into fun and interesting games and activities in the spur of the moment so that kids can imbibe the concepts easily. It all begins with understanding one’s child.
When do you try your best to do something? When you are playing a game, right?
Everyone likes to play games and is ready to do whatever it takes to win. I used the human tendency as a tool to bring out the best productivity.
Where did the idea to write it come from, share with us more about your book?
I always wanted to help others using my personal story and experiences. After the initial struggle was over and my child was quite settled, I was invited by many clinics to share all my knowledge and techniques with other parents having a similar journey. I started encouraging other parents to use experience books as a tool to develop language quickly but most of them requested me to publish the books that I had made for Prisha.
So, finally, I got one of my Experience books, “My Experience of a Zoo” published and I named the concept ‘Xperienciopedia’
This is how I founded Xperienciopedia – Every experience is an opportunity to give as much knowledge as is in an encyclopedia. I used to make Experience books for my daughter & later published one.
Thisbook has complex knowledge simplified and woven into a creative fabric soaked in stories and activities. My style is psychologically appealing to kids and at the same time nurtures essential life skills in their formative years.
An experience becomes more valuable when maximum knowledge can be extracted from it and this is the concept of Xperienci-o-pedia.
I’m sure your journey must have been quite challenging. People are generally coping with challenges but you create miracle. Would love hear more about it.
Life is full of challenges but instead of becoming weak at the face of any challenge, I took every challenge as an opportunity to cause a miracle. I call it Miracle by design.
My child was shy and somewhere considered herself as a little less than others. I noticed that she is shying away from the limelight and systematically started working on her self-esteem in her personal life as well as along with her school teachers. I enrolled her in a very good theatre school and in just a matter of 3 months my daughter did a full solo act along with group acts in the play.
I looked at every aspect scientifically and developed my own ways of combatting adversity. Children with hearing loss struggle with speech clarity and it is much worse in case of thin nerves. In a workshop, the developers of an App for Speech clarity demonstrated by live example how children with aided hearing speak at a much higher pitch (80-90db), the normal range being 50-70db, and that is one of the causes of unclear speech.
While others returned home feeling low accepting the fate, I decided to do reverse-engineering. As higher pitch reduces speech clarity, I started training my child to consciously lower the pitch while speaking and the results were fantastic.
Most parents worry about their child’s future. I also had all the reasons to be worried but I started looking for options and found Coding as a great option. It is the future of the virtual world and in this profession, verbal communication doesn’t have a major role. My daughter did exceptionally well and has been winning continuously the digital literacy championship in App designing in her school ever since it started despite being the youngest.
What is your advice for other parents? Also, tell us a little bit about ‘The Concept of an Experience Book’
We, the millennial parents have a few burning issues which keep on haunting us day in and day out. Let me try to answer these challenges that most of us face today and in the process, you’ll understand why you need an experienced book.
How many of us are trying hard to inculcate a good reading habit in our kids but they seem to be glued to media and gaming, be it television or smartphones or tabs? If you are one of them, continue to read on.
Let’s compare a children’s book with a cartoon movie and you have to choose one, what would you choose? Both are colourful, attractive and interesting but watching the video is a passive activity not requiring any effort from the end-user while reading a book requires an effort to read and comprehend. Isn’t the choice simple? So, books need to have a bigger attraction to grab your child’s attention.
In the experience books, the main character is your child and the setting is familiar as the child has himself experienced it. Children need a lot of repetitions before a concept is registered in their permanent memory.
With his pictures in the book, your child would pick up his experience book, again and again, would like you to read it to him several times and even share it with anyone who comes home, in the process going through the content innumerable times.
Secondly, we visit a lot of places with our child but are not able to give him much knowledge related to what we see mainly due to lack of time and also sometimes due to lack of knowledge ourselves. At the max, we are able to throw some “nouns” at him. I have written this Experience book in a way so as to develop relevant vocabulary and language.
It will easily build reading comprehension and writing skills in our little children without the burden of studies.
Register yourself for 10X your child’s performance workshop – https://bit.ly/3k6icrx
To book a free clarity call at – https://calendly.com/nirmitsinhagoel
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.
