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 Shaswati Banerjee for an exclusive interview with us. Shaswati is a Certified Parenting & Life Coach, Counsellor and an Influencer. Let’s learn more about her background, journey and her advice for our community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Shaswati:
Could you please talk us through your background and your journey?
My journey has been one of continuous growth, learning, and transformation. I hold a BSc in Physics, which I completed in 2008, and then went on to pursue a BTech in IT, graduating in 2011.
After that, I embarked on a corporate career spanning 13 years, where I gained invaluable experience in the tech industry. However, my path hasn’t always been easy. During my teenage years, I went through a serious battle with depression, which required treatment for over two years. That experience gave me a deep understanding of mental health challenges and the importance of emotional resilience.
Despite my corporate success, I always felt a deep calling to do something more meaningful, something that would allow me to make a direct impact on people’s lives. After becoming a mother to my now 5-year-old, that realization grew even stronger. Motherhood gave me profound insight into the emotional and psychological needs of children, parents, and families. It was during this time that I decided to pivot my career towards helping others through parenting and life coaching.
I became a certified parenting and life coach, and to deepen my understanding of human behaviour, I also pursued clinical psychological counselling. Today, I am passionate about empowering children, teens, and parents with tools from positive psychology, behavioural therapies, and life skills.
My journey from overcoming personal challenges to becoming a mother has inspired me to create lasting, positive changes in the lives I touch, guiding others towards emotional well-being and self-growth.
How did you discover your passion?
My journey to discovering my passion has been a deeply personal evolution, shaped by my own life experiences and the guidance of incredible mentors. After over a decade in the corporate world, where I also participated in mental well-being programs and helped many individuals, I realized my true calling lay in supporting emotional and mental health.
During my teenage years, I experienced depression, which taught me early on about the importance of mental health. However, it was motherhood that transformed my perspective, giving me insight into the emotional and psychological needs of children. I knew I wanted to help not only my own child but also other parents and children in navigating their mental well-being.
Mentors such as Riddhi Deorah and Siddharth Rajsekhar played a pivotal role in helping me find my path. Their guidance led me to transition from the corporate world into parenting and life coaching. To deepen my understanding of human behaviour, I pursued a counselling diploma from Indian Counselling Services and became a certified clinical psychological counsellor.
Today, my work focuses on empowering children, teens, and parents with the tools they need for emotional resilience and positive development. My passion is to create environments where families can thrive emotionally and mentally, supporting them in building strong, confident, and mentally healthy lives.
Despite the challenges, what keeps you going when things get tough?
Despite the challenges, what truly keeps me going is the deep sense of purpose I feel in the work that I do. I’ve been through my own personal battles, including my experience with depression during my teenage years, which has made me acutely aware of how important mental and emotional well-being are for everyone—especially children. Every time I see a child or a parent gain clarity, confidence, or resilience through my work, it reaffirms why I do this.
Motherhood has also been a profound motivator. Being a mother to a young child has given me a sense of responsibility to create a better world for the next generation. I want my child, and all children, to grow up in a world where they feel emotionally supported, understood, and empowered.
Moreover, the guidance from my mentors and the support from the people I have helped in corporate mental well-being programs keep me grounded. Knowing that the work I do makes a tangible difference in people’s lives gives me the strength to keep pushing forward, even when things get tough.
Lastly, I constantly remind myself that challenges are part of growth. The resilience I’ve built from overcoming obstacles in my life fuels me to persist. Every challenge becomes a stepping stone, and with each step, I am closer to fulfilling my mission of helping families and children live emotionally balanced, confident lives.
What are the three most important lessons you have learned in your life?
The three most important lessons I’ve learned in my life have shaped who I am and how I approach the world:
1) Resilience is Key – One of the most profound lessons I’ve learned is that resilience is essential in life. Going through personal battles, especially dealing with depression as a teenager, taught me that adversity is inevitable, but how we choose to respond defines our journey. Resilience is not about avoiding hardships but about embracing them, learning from them, and growing stronger through the process. It’s what helps me keep going when life gets tough, and it’s a value I instill in my work with children and parents.
2) Mental and Emotional Well-Being are Non-Negotiable – My own mental health journey and my work as a counselor have shown me that mental and emotional well-being should always be a priority. We often focus so much on external achievements that we neglect our inner self. I’ve learned that without mental clarity, emotional balance, and a sense of self-worth, it becomes difficult to achieve long-term happiness or success. This lesson has been the foundation of my work, guiding me to help others achieve emotional resilience.
3) Connection and Community are Everything – No matter how strong we are individually, we thrive through connection. I’ve seen the power of mentorship and community in my own journey. The guidance of my mentors has been crucial in helping me find my purpose and stay motivated. Likewise, building a community around me—whether it’s family, friends, or the people I work with—has been essential in my growth. We rise by lifting each other, and this collective strength has been one of the most valuable lessons in my life.
In your opinion what are the keys to success?
I will say it straight that there are many factors but if you really have to have the key elements then to me these are the ones:
1) Resilience and Persistence
2) Clarity of Purpose
3) Continuous Learning
4) Discipline and Consistency
5) Building Meaningful Relationships
6) Emotional Intelligence and Self-Awareness
7) Gratitude and a Growth Mindset
What advice would you give students and young professionals who want to have a successful career?
Stay Curious and Keep Learning – Continuously seek new knowledge to stay relevant and open to opportunities.
Embrace Challenges – View challenges as opportunities for growth; they’ll shape your resilience and adaptability.
Find Mentors – Mentors can guide you and accelerate your growth. Learn from their experiences.
Have a Clear Purpose – Align your career with your passions and values for long-term success and fulfilment.
Develop Emotional Intelligence – Understanding yourself and others is key to building strong relationships and navigating challenges.
Don’t Be Afraid to Pivot – Be open to changing directions if a new path aligns better with your purpose.
Prioritize Mental Health – Take care of your mental and emotional well-being to ensure a balanced, successful career.
Stay Consistent and Disciplined – Success is built on showing up every day, even when it’s tough.
Give Back – Helping others enriches your journey and gives deeper meaning to your success.
Stay True to Your Values – Your values are your foundation; always act with integrity and dedication.
Last but not least, what about your journey makes it satisfying/exciting?
What makes my journey truly satisfying and exciting is the ability to bring positive change into people’s lives, especially for children and parents. I feel a deep sense of happiness knowing that I’m contributing to building better human beings—helping them discover their strengths and develop emotional resilience.
What excites me the most is the potential to integrate positive psychology and mental development into schools and colleges. I firmly believe that education alone is not enough; we must be emotionally strong to truly thrive in life.
By embedding these concepts into school curricula, I hope to make mental and emotional well-being a fundamental part of every child’s growth. This vision, of creating emotionally resilient individuals who can face life’s challenges, drives me every day and makes my journey incredibly fulfilling.
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.
