At BrilliantRead Media, we always strive to bring some of the meaningful and powerful stories from around the world to empower and motivate our growing community. This week, we invited passionate women entrepreneur Somdutta Sarkar to know more about her interesting entrepreneurial journey and the way forward. She is a Mentor, Thought Leader, Community Builder, Keynote Speaker, Podcast Host, Author and the Founder of Intensifier Mentor. Let’s learn more about her journey!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with her;
Talk us through your background and your journey as a women entrepreneur, please;
It was no long ago that I was in a job and living the kind of 9-5 life like everyone else was living. Going to the office, coming back home, go to sleep, and next day office again. But then something happened – I made a series of choices during that time. A choice to trust people and help them. When your friends come and ask you for your help, what do you do? Simple. You help them.
But little did I know that my ignorance would lead me to life-changing experience and I landed into a debt of lakhs of rupees when it turned out to be fraud cases. From then on, I realized what those consecutive problems were trying to tell me. There was a hidden meaning which I was not able to understand. But soon after I was hunting and looking for answers everywhere, solutions to my problems.
To calm myself I went for Vipassana. Then I started looking for a Mentor or a guide who can give me unbiased guidance since I was scared of people judging me ‘how can you make such stupid mistakes’, etc.
Once I found my mentor, a new journey began. I realized what all things were lacking in me and why I was facing all those problems.
Realized that there are so many things we are not taught in school or college about life, problems, situation handling, stress, anxiety, depression, or any kind of mental health, human behavior and psychology, and many more.
I also realized that when problems strike – it always carries a hidden meaning, always tries to tell us something and we keep facing similar problems in life until we find what it is trying to tell us and learn from the situation.
Hence, I realized that I was living a mediocre life, living just like everyone else but wanted a different result! How is that even possible?
So, started working upon myself, started on the journey of self-discovery and self-development. Because only when I will intensify my own life, I can expect a different result and also live life differently.
This made me realize that there are so many people undergoing the same or similar situations. So I decided to enable people like me and intensify as many lives as possible on Earth.
Why did you choose entrepreneurship over a job?
As mentioned, I realized I was just living a mediocre life, like everyone else was living but wanting different results. But then when I realized; found my passion and purpose in life, it became evident that I cannot fulfill it if I stay in a job. Because to know myself truly I have to live beyond and explore myself and every possibility more and more which was definitely possible for me when I was in a job.
But through entrepreneurship, I learned lots of things in just 1 year that I have never learned in my entire life! It taught me that if I have to do something limitless and explore each and every day with a new set of challenges, new learning, and new accomplishments, I can do it being an entrepreneur.”
And when people ask me ‘I want to become an entrepreneur, how can I become one?’ I have one thing to say – If you just want to get into entrepreneurship because of only money, don’t get in. But if you want to solve a major problem and contribute to the world, then become an entrepreneur. Why? Because you will need 10x more efforts, energy, patience, the right attitude, courage, resourcefulness, and extreme ownership than what you are doing in a job. So if you don’t have the burning desire, don’t get it.
How did you find your passion and purpose and started working with it?
Just like many people I was not aware of my passion and purpose. Of course, there was something missing in life and the challenges I faced were simply trying to tell me to look in a new direction for a new journey. However, I was able to find it with the help of my mentor. And hence I strongly believe in the power of mentoring and coaching because that changed my life.
My purpose is to intensify 1 billion lives on this planet and this intensifies humanity. When I can intensify 1 life, that person can, in turn, change someone else’s life and the positive effects we have on each other is highly contagious. Once you feel the positivity within you then nothing can stop you from being who you want to be in life and achieving all your dreams.
Hence, I started my podcast named ‘Intensify Humanity’ where I had the opportunity to interview some of the great world leaders.
And I launched my mentorship program ‘Intensify Life’ for people looking for a deeper solution and get results (not some motivation) and also mentoring people along with my mentor Dev Gadhvi.
I really feel humbled and honoured to be mentored by Dev Gadhvi and Ron Malhotra. They have been instrumental in shifting my paradigm.
What gets you out of bed in the morning i.e. what’s your source of motivation?
‘The inspiration to impact 1 life positively today’. To do something new and productive that I have not done yesterday and to live and contribute in that day fully because I feel grateful every morning that I got another day to live.
What challenges/obstacles did you face in your journey so far?
Many but just to name a few – the challenges of huge financial debt, the pain of mediocrity (especially in terms of mindset), lack of knowledge of financial awareness, and not knowing ‘who I was’ were the major challenges.
What comes first for you – money or emotions?
None. First for me is always – thoughts.
Reason – Depending on what kind of thoughts, I generate emotions, depending on the kind of emotions, I act, depending on my activities I make money. So the first is always thoughts. Even if I have to choose, I will choose thoughts over anything.
How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?
I just do one thing – monitor my thoughts.
When I realize that am feeling pressure or stressed or anxious, I simply change my thought pattern consciously. But I must admit it did not happen overnight. It took a consistent practice to tune my mind and thoughts and that’s what became a game-changer.
What is one strategy that you believe has helped you grow as a person/startup?
Always being resourceful, taking extreme ownership, and have shown courage and taken risks. – All these as one single factor of ‘belief’ has helped me every time to grow as a person, as an entrepreneur (passionpreneur).
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 –
What advice would you give to someone starting out as an aspiring women entrepreneur?
Don’t jump on to something just for money. Because money is a by-product of how much value you add in the marketplace.
When you start something just for money, you will soon realize that enthusiasm and willingness are fading away because maybe that is not your passion or purpose. So do something which you feel is your passion and purpose in life that you want to contribute to the world at large.
Never quit. Because when you never quit then you never fail. And when you never fail, then you finally get what you want.
Ignorance is not bliss. It’s a disease. Never start anything that you are ignorant about.
Be resourceful. You may not have resources all the time. But what will get those resources to you is your resourcefulness.
Every problem has a hidden meaning, so look out for the meaning that it is trying to tell you.
And finally, when life itself is temporary, how can problems be permanent. So remember that everything is just temporary to expect what you are going to leave back to this world once you are gone.
What is your book ‘7 Steps from Shame to Being Back in the Game’ all about?
When I facing those challenges in my life, I thought that only I was such a stupid person to make certain decisions. However, later on, when I shared my story, so many people reached out saying even they are facing the same or similar kind of problems.
This is where I have shared a part of my own story and experience along with the journey of how I came out from a phase of guilt and shame by following a step by step process in my life and living the life I wanted to live.
Once I did that I received so many messages saying how this book changed their lives in many ways.
We make choices each and every day. The problem is when we make decisions we do not think about whether it is right or wrong. Only when the consequence turns out as something which is not expected by us then we learn a lesson.
But that thing leads us to feel guilty. It does no matter whether the situation or the consequence is small or big, but that guilt leads to bigger suffering. Hence this if for all who are looking for a proven process to come out from that kind of phase in life.
Why do you think mentoring and coaching can help someone?
Because I personally have experienced it. My entire life was changed because I found and took the guidance of my mentors. And I have seen the power of what a ‘right’ guidance can do to your life.
We all want to do something great, something different. But the problem is we live is an assumption and myth that doing the same thing will yield results. Well, that is not practically possible.”
Hence, to learn from someone who has been there and done that is the best thing you can do because you will reduce the time span to reach where you want to reach due to the guidance of the mentor who has already experimented lots of stuff and has given you the proven process.
Yes, of course, the individual hard work, consistency, and massive actions are needed. Because how much someone teaches you to do push-ups in different ways, ultimately you have to do the push-ups yourself to get the results.
So I believe that mentoring and coaching are highly needed for someone who is wanting to live a life beyond the normal convention and want to do something different in life.
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