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 Swetha Ashok for an exclusive interview with us. Swetha is an Entrepreneur, Leader, Lifestyle Coach, Wellness Consultant, Nutritionist, Diabetes Educator and Change Enabler. Let’s learn more about her incredible journey, her background and her advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Swetha:
We are aware of your contributions to the ecosystem; talk us through your background and your journey, please;
I started my journey as a Nutritionist 6 years back before which I was a research assistant at the Institute of Chemical Technology in collaboration with Science for Society and the National Institute of Nutrition.
To initially gain experience, I worked at corporate nutrition companies and with a few nutritionists to understand and learn from the best. I am a double major graduate in microbiology and biochemistry with a master’s in biochemistry, diploma in nutrition and an MBA in healthcare.
All this motivated me to want to reach out to people and truly help them discover their full potential by being able to focus on their health and work too.”
I started my own private practice in 2019 and have been helping people since then with various disorders and health problems like Thyroid, diabetes, PCOS, Hypertension, weight management and women’s health.
While working with them personally, I also have come to the realization that each one needs to learn to be health independent. Hence I have also started conducting workshops and challenges to educate people on getting rid of the diet mentality.
How did you discover your passion?
The whole idea came from wanting to help spread awareness of the right approach towards a healthy lifestyle.
With so much wrong information, weight loss scams, fad diets and the food industry’s way of marketing things, people are falling for gimmicks and quick fixes.
It is important that we help people understand the severity of these gimmicks. I wish to inspire people to do right by their body, mind and soul and to work on their health and lifestyle in a sustainable way.”
My second inspiration stems from my own struggles with asthma, digestive issues, skinny teenage years, weight gain after marriage, stress, anxiety and much more.
I believe in following what I preach and the strength to stay true to my path not only comes from my family, friends, clients and my husband but also my own internal validation.
How do you manage to keep going despite the challenges? What drives you?
Insecurities, fear and doubts are always a part of any journey. I have always been one who has been easily affected by the negatives but what I have learned and practised now is how quickly we can get out of our rut so as to acknowledge how we feel and not give it too much weightage either.
What drives me to keep going is the passion that I have towards growth, my work and the people I can help.
Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving. – Albert Einstein
Who do you believe has been the biggest source of motivation in your daily life?
I have had immense support from my parents, my husband & my in-laws when it comes to pursuing what I want in life.
They always help me weigh the pros and cons before moving ahead with anything and as any parent would worry so did mine when I stepped into my entrepreneurial journey.
One of the main things that I also believe in when it comes to motivation is to learn to improve your own internal validation as that will keep us going.
What are some of the strategies that you believe have helped you grow as a person?
There are a few:
(1) Self-awareness
(2) Humility
(3) Being organized and structured
(4) Taking risks
(5) Being a giver
(6) Great listener
(7) Being able to reach out and ask for help
In your opinion what are the keys to success?
I doubt if I can put all of them down but here are a few factors that surely play a huge role.
(a) Self-love
(b) Responsibility for my actions
(c) Trusting the process
(d) Developing resilience
(e) Always be the curious cat
(f) Being okay with failures
(g) be an action taker
What advice would you give to our readers?
An important lesson I have learned as one with many roles is balancing out things play a great role in how well you maintain your sanity and still care for your loved ones.
I would say to the readers that it is very important to work towards finding balance and it is extremely important to accept yourself for who you are first so that you can work towards who you want to become.
I would want to leave the readers with one thing that always chase consistency instead of perfection and know that our health is all we have rest all is secondary.
I am here to help people build better relationships with food and help them bridge the gap between the journey and the results. I believe that the body and mind are connected and we cannot sustain without having to fix both together.
Last but not least, what about your journey makes it satisfying/exciting?
The satisfaction and excitement in this journey comes from each client that trusts me starts their journey with me.
It has been an amazing journey so far to have been able to work with 100+ clients and to help each one understand and educate them about their patterns, nutrition myths and their own body.
Then there are these wonderful small wins, I won the IWC 100 Iconic women award and a women’s day award of recognition from Xperia and multiple features on a different platform. What genuinely grounds me is the excitement of being able to be a learner for 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.
