As part of our ongoing quest to get you meaningful and powerful stories from India and around the world, we invited Tejashri Acharya for an exclusive interview with BrilliantRead Media. She is an Educator, Parenting Coach, Career Counsellor, Early Childhood Educator and the Founder of Joyful Minds Let’s read more about her inspiring journey and her advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Tejashri:
We are aware of your contribution to the ecosystem, talk us through your background and your journey as a women entrepreneur, please;
I did my schooling from Carmel of St. Joseph and further pursued my Bachelors and Masters in Psychology, thereby learning more about early childhood education. Right from childhood, I was always passionate about being with kids-their adorable face and how in just a little giggle they would win the hearts of people around them.
My curious attitude of knowing more about the world of child psychology took me to learn Parenting, Child Care & Development from Bangalore.”
While being associated in a school environment, parents used to ask me about various careers a child must opt for and I had few answers to them but somewhere I was not very satisfied with my own answers and the thought of a career kept wandering “One career cannot suit all”.
To gain more insights about the career I then did my second masters in career counselling and to polish my skills I studied NLP.
The journey from working as an early childhood educator to now a counsellor and a chief mentor. It started when I realize the need of having a platform for parents, children and youths. I have always been a shy girl and little did I know after 10 years I would be conducting workshops training people and collaborating with organisations.”
What made you passionate about psychology?
I’d like to share a small incident here. When I started college I had no friends and I had never thought of psychology in the first place ever in my life but because I had no friends books were the ones I used to talk to back then.
While reading in-depth about the human mind and how it works I realized that our mind is so important and we can train our mind to work for us in every situation. You can conquer all the battles outside once you have peace inside.”
And the second reason is the need for psychologists and being there emotionally for someone made me more inquisitive to learn about psychology.
‘Joyful Minds’ is such a unique name; talk us through more about it, please. Our audience would also love to know what kind of problem you are solving?
– Joyful minds as it taglines that says spreading smiles across miles
– Joyful Minds works from kids as young as age 3 to adults age 35
– Joyful Minds is an organization that is committed to bringing remarkable change. A change that will help your child to explore, reform and discover themselves to be more joyful.
– Joyful minds function in three different horizons.
a) EVOLVE:- Education-We have classes like public speaking, phonetics, Language Development for kids.
b) ENCOURAGE:- Counselling- We have career counselling for teenager and young adults who wish to shift their career, We provide parent counselling we conduct workshops.
c) EMPOWER: – Conducting workshops- We have small batches that teach graphology, trains you to get better in child psychology, Wellness program, Parenting workshop, Public speaking.
Today it’s just not enough to have education or academic excellence; we also require other skills as individuals; to maintain a perfect balance between our personal life and professional life. In the same way, our child is just not to gain academic intelligence.
Joyful minds work with a clear vision of providing holistic i.e. overall learning and exposure to our participants.
i) Connecting with the hearts and minds of students and parents.
ii) Crisp and effective training session designed for practical outlook.
iii) Discovering a smarter you and confidence too.
iv) It taps on untapped potential enhancing personality and lasting communication skills.
How do you manage to keep going despite the challenges? What drives you?
I have always been motivated by the desire to meet my goals. Setting and reaching aims gives me such a sense of accomplishment. I love creating an organized schedule for completing a task and achieving my goals on time.
Every hurdle in your face in your life teaches you a lesson. Achieving each milestone motivated me to keep working and helped me to ensure that the event ran smoothly.”
Appreciation and feedback from my clients and young youth drive me to do more and the best shot every day.
Who do you believe has been the biggest source of motivation in your daily life?
First of all, I would say the desire to do something for society is the biggest motivation. While in my ups and downs I have my parents to whom I look upon and for more guidance I look upon my mentors.
Not to forget I have my failures, a set of people who criticized me with their judgments and great lessons that I have been taught by all of them.
What are some of the strategies that you believe have helped you grow as an entrepreneur?
There are a few:
1) Being consistent
2) Digital Marketing skills
3) Being courageous and confident about you and your product/service
4) Being more vocal with people around you.
Please share with us, how do you motivate your clients?
At Joyful Minds, we have one on one interactions with clients
Based on their needs we chart out a plan of action. Simply motivation and bathing are just the same. You have to do it by yourself and every day so we make them believe in themselves.
We are all born with potential Joyful Minds just have to tap on untapped ones and you are halfway done.
In your opinion, what are the keys to success?
Success is intentional. Your efforts will decide your success
i) Hard work
ii) Dedication
iii) Attitude
iv) Vision
v) Planning
You are always positive and motivated, what keeps you going?
I have these 2 mantras that I follow each day.
– Life is 10% that happens to you and 90% how you react with it so be smart while you react and the second one is
– No matter what happens get up again, dress up, show up. You are what you do make sure it has a purpose in this world.
What advice would you give students and young professionals who want to have a successful career?
By 7 years of learning journey in a different field, I have learnt 7 lessons short and precise
1 – Self-discipline-Give your 100% everyday.
2 – Work on yourself- Don’t forget you have one life so along with the professional goal you have family, friends, travel and most important your own self
3 – Failure teaches you many things than what success doesn’t
4 – Understand your customers and their needs and Research your product/service
5 – Compete, compare only with yourself
6 – Put your heads heart and soul into whatever you do
7 – Knowledge-Keep updating and be a lifelong learner
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.
