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does everybody need to have a formalized education now what I'm going to say is not very popular especially in the world of academics but no not everyone needs to go down that traditional [Music] path hey everyone welcome back to onp
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purpose the number one Health podcast in the world thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen learn and grow now you know that I'm always excited to speak to people with a broad range of experiences different backgrounds different walks of
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life people who' achieved incredible things but maybe taken Parts less trodden now today's guest is none other than naha Kumar who has over 14 years of experience operationalizing and scaling startups and is currently running a venture fund on a mission to build the
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next generation of gamechanging consumer focused Brands so if you you're someone who's wanting to be an entrepreneur learning about Finance learning about building a business this is the episode for you in addition to running a venture
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fund naha is also a lecturer at UCLA's Anderson School of Management where she has been teaching for over 9 years prior to launching her fund n has served as the COO and CFO of create and cultivate which sold a majority stake to a private
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Equity Firm in 2020 and also LED growth efforts at drinks.com she received her undergraduate degree from the University of California La UCLA and her MBA from the University of Southern California welcome to the show n Kumar n thank you
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for being here um it's so great to have you on the show thank you so much for having me and after that introduction even I feel amazing it's I mean it's an amazing it's an amazing uh bio and of course we're friends uh we've been hanging out a couple of times this year
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excited to share that part of the story as well every time I've sat down with you you've told me stories you've told me moments of your life your childhood and I love people who communicate their life in such an interesting way and I
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was just saying to you before we started Taping that you have one of the hardest jobs in the world which is keeping 18 to 21 year olds excited enthusiastic and engaged in the learning process so I'm going to be like a student today asking
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you questions in a lecture hall uh but first of all I wanted to started by saying it's your 5year wording iversary congratulations thank you thank you so much it's amazing yeah it's been 5 years since we got married today and we started dating when we were in business
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school my husband and I 15 years ago wow that's pretty unbelievable that's amazing thank you that's amazing actually my husband got me the cutest gift this morning tell me about it and so for 5 years it's wood and so my husband is in Consulting and he would
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travel a lot before he probably will start traveling a lot again what he got me is a a heart box um it's a wood box but it has a heart on it and it basically sends you messages so you can look at it it's plugged into the wall
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and then the heart starts to spin and that means somebody sent you a message and they can do it from their phone you open up the box and there's a digital picture and a message in there and so today before I came I this heart was spinning and I looked at it and I opened
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it and I was like wait what is this and it says I am your rock today and always oh wow and there was a picture of our no he's here today but he wanted me to see it so that now when he travels he can just send me messages and then the
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heart spins so I know a message is coming in it is the cutest thing my six year wedding anniversary just went like a couple of weeks ago and rad said to me she goes and we haven't seen each other she's in London and her rule was she was
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like you're not allowed to send me anything I don't want anything I just want to see you and then when I see you then we can celebrate so I wasn't allowed to send my wife anything because that was her order and her rule because she knows that I usually go quite over
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the top but that is a beautiful idea I love that thank you I can't wait to meet your husband that's awesome yeah I can't wait for you metet him also it's um it's just been interesting right and it's a big deal for us the five year because we
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had a long road to getting married it was a bit different from a cultural standpoint my parents are traditionally Indian as you know and um he's not and my parents now love him they absolutely love him and we have two of the most beautiful adorable children I have a
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one-year-old and a 3-year-old and it's so amazing how when you really want you can make things happen and make it all come together it's beautiful yeah tell us tell us a bit about that Journey before we dive into the depths of your
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journey and each part of it I want to hear a bit about what is that like first of all dating someone at business school someone that your parents may not initially culturally accept but then going on that journey to now being in a place where he's love you have this
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beautiful family together because I think for a lot of people listening they may face elements of that in their Journey whatever that dysfunction or challenge may be in business school a lot of people made a joke and they said women are just here to get their
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Mrs not just get their MBA and I ended up dating someone in school and it was really challenging you know getting married after all of that and I always felt that I had to prove myself more that I wasn't just here for that reason
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and it was very interesting and there is a unconscious bias that not only other people have but we have on oursel and I don't know if yours later anybody was looking at me anything differently because I did marry somebody when I was
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in business school from business school but I looked at myself a little bit differently and I felt like I need to work harder I need to strive more to prove myself to myself I wish I would have let a lot of that go because we just get caught up in all these small
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trivial things which aren't necessary and it's you know pushing a boulder uphill to prove to ourselves that we're okay and I wish I would have let that go that's the first one the second thing was going through it with my parents and
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it was very very hard and it was very challenging and there were a lot of times Jason my now husband's name we broke up got back together broke up got back together because it was am I letting my family down am I not doing things right and in the end it worked
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out but it was the hardest thing and it was a journey that I never thought I would go through I remember when I got engaged I took my ring home I hid it in my wallet my engagement ring because I was scared how am I going to tell my
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parents it was the hardest time of my life I'll never forget it was around Thanksgiving and again in hindsight it's 2020 it was going to work out we're going to have the cutest kids everything is going to work but going against the grain whatever that might be in your
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life while it seems really challenging and while you might have different expectations put on by other people onto you or you think that other people have on you at the end of the day you have to do what is authentic to you and what you
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think is important to you and I know this might seem a little bit far-fetched but I've recently been really reading and learning a lot about the concept of faith and sometimes you just have to have faith you have to have faith that it's going to work you have to have
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faith that I can take a lead and it's going to happen and that's very hard for somebody like me who's a planner accounting and finance background right so it was it was definitely a process and it's great now it's amazing but Jay it was really hard this idea that women
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go to business school to get married I mean it's incredible to me to hear that that idea had seeped in to that place because you're at this reputable school you're you're getting this incredible qualification and the fact that that's
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the rumor mill around the space I mean now when you're someone who's been so extremely successful in finance as an entrepreneur as a business person tell me a bit about where that discrepancy began in your life where you started to feel like you had to work
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harder where you started to feel like people looked at you in a certain way and what were the actual steps you took to keep confidence to keep focused to to keep driven on that Journey because when I meet you today one thing I do
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appreciate about you is that although you're a very powerful business person I don't believe that you've lost the ability to have a Compassionate Heart or the ability to connect or the ability to be mindful and thoughtful like it seems
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like those are very balanced for you A lot of that compassion and empathy comes from what I had to go through and it was really hard and I'm so happy to see things changing so much in the world right now it's great but you know as a young girl it is it is hard I was always
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interested in accounting and finance my dad is a financial planner and so we grew up with him always wanting to tell and teach me and my younger sister about personal finance so we could be independent and we could do things and I remember I was working in banking and I
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was in a credit training program and I remember another guy saying to me why are you doing this you could just throw parties be a party planner and it was really hard for me to hear that and it was a lot of moments like that that had me say I'm going to
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work harder I'm going to work smarter I'm going to work stronger I'm going to do what I have to do to Excel and we can look at a lot of those things and say they were bad but in some way shape or form I think everybody goes through something whether you're a woman
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whether you're a male whether you're a person of color whatever it is go through something and we can either look at those things and we can let them beat us down and sometimes I did Jay but we also can take those as an opportunity to
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push ourselves harder and it all comes down to attitude of how we're going to view these things how we're going to look at this and again I I want to be clear a lot of times they did beat me down and it was really tough but you have to constantly find yourself and
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create yourself to be resilient and to bounce back up and to deal with all the things that can come your way no matter from where it's so difficult because you realize that there are challenges that everyone goes through but when it's like a whole
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gender is treated a specific way that that you know is is a much larger challenge I I saw this video a few years ago that I think summed it up brilliantly so in this video they had blue balls and pink balls and they asked a 10-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl
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their job was to go and pick the blue balls up for the boy and the pink balls up for the girl and they had to collect them and put them inside this container so the boy ran off he started picking up all the blue balls it was the same
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amount as the pink balls the girl ran out they filled their containers up they pretty much finished around the same time and then they gave the boy this huge jar of sweets and they gave the girl like three qus the jar of sweet
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tweets and the whole video was to show the gender pay Gap and how men and women doing the same work are rewarded differently talk to me about how you've seen that in the industry like did your friends who identified as women from business school have they gone on to
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feel satisfied and accomplished in their careers or are they noticing those discrepancies along the way as well and and for yourself and your path that you took too I think what's really interesting is a lot of people talk about the pay Gap and all of these
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things which which are there and they're apparent but what I think a lot of times is missing is the type of careers that you see a lot of people go into and the question would be why so in business school for example the school that I
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went to the majority of women went into marketing we have different verticals we have a marketing vertical Finance Etc in the finance vertical there were three women total in the marketing vertical I'd say like 90% of them were female now
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certain industries pay more than other Industries that's the way of the world right now right or wrong that's kind of how that works right now right what I think is very important is taking the time to educate and allow for opportunities for women at younger ages
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to show them that there's different things that they can do so here's an interesting thing when I was in junior high we had an elective course we could choose and you could either take homac or wood shop and Jay I I really wanted to take wood shop like I really was
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excited to like cut these things and create things I thought it was amazing and all the girls were going to take comac and I remember asking my mom like what should I do all the other girls are doing this they're taking this class my
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dad jumped in and said no you do what you want and I ended up taking wood shop and I'm glad I did but it's just so interesting that even when I was taking wood shop I kept thinking did I do the right thing what are my friends doing in
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the other class am I being left out so I had a lot of that that was there so I come back to I think it's really important we see a lot of things right now like stem programs that are created or there's some great programs like um girls who code to teach women how to do
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these things at younger ages and I I think they're phenomenal and I think we should continue to create more things like that in Finance and Accounting um one of the things I do on my own part is I also teach and so I think that getting
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to people at younger ages not to steer them in a certain direction but basically to let them know that their options and you get to choose what those options are regardless of you're male or female you're someone obviously who's so well educated you've you've gone to
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Great Schools gone on to become an entrepreneur I wonder there's a lot of debate right now about the value of a college education and business school too and what I'm fascinated by is is two things again here and you can answer them in any order you like the the first
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one is do you see a genuine value and correlation between the education you got and the success you have today that's the first question and the second question is if someone didn't have the opportunity to have the education that
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you've had whether it was access capability interest at the time whatever their reasoning may be how do they today build up financial literacy goal planning understanding of their Investments understanding of how they manage their money so my dad was an
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electrical engineer by education he came here and he's now a financial planner and I remember when I was in college I thought I was pretty cheeky and I said dad I mean did your education do anything for you like why do I have to
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work so hard you're doing something completely different and he said to me he said n listen my education gave me the framework from which I can have a weight to think and he said I've been successful at my job because I had that education that I had now after you know
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having graduated a long time ago I can say the same I can say that my education in undergrad and grad school and everything that came between and around it has absolutely helped shape who I am and the success that I've had to date
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completely can you tell us how like what parts of it I love what you said about your father saying that it gave him a framework of how to think what what did it do for you business school was a great one because what it did is it gave
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us a breath of knowledge of how to look at companies so now when I'm evaluating companies for the fund or back when I was in banking it gave me a proper understanding of how to think and what to look at and if you think about it right experience that we get from people
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in Academia Etc it's just trying to learn things at an accelerated rate now could you learn them on your own absolutely you could right maybe one day we'll get to the point where we're like the Matrix the movie where you get plugged in yeah and then all the
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information comes in so the way I view Academia is it's you go four years for a college degree or whatever it is that you do but you're trying to learn the information at an accelerated rate so instead of you having to try and learn
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and figure these things out it takes a quicker time like I'll give you a quick example you might already know this right but are dogs color blind yes dogs are color blind right I told you that information that took me a second to tell you you might have known
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it you might not have known it yeah now if somebody had to go figure that out on their own it's months and months of study and research to figure that out so what education allows us to do is learn things at an accelerated rate having
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said that your second part of your question does everybody need to have a formalized education and what I'm going to say is not very popular especially in the world of academics but no not everyone needs to go down that traditional path so if you think about
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it back in the day where what really shifted education the first thing was the printing blocks before you had to have a teacher now you can have books so information could be easily access through these textbooks instead of just from one person
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talking then later if you think about it online learning and education came up so now you have that big shift over there I think that there's multiple different ways that people can get access to education and information and I think that the pandemic it was already going
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to happen the pandemic just accelerated that and I think it's amazing yeah it's just fascinating because when I think about my own education I feel the same way I went to my high school was where it started I went to a pretty rough and
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tough Elementary School the education was okay I was surrounded by a group of people that didn't have the parenting structure that I did when my parents were really forcing me to study hard I was one of probably three people that
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ended up going to a grammar school or a school that you had to take an exam to get into in in in England my parents couldn't afford to send me to a private school so a grammar school was the next best thing where you got a private school education for free by passing an
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exam and so that school is where everything changed for me because all of a sudden I went from being like one of three people who was at the top to being literally like in the middle of a bunch of really smart people it was almost
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trained to us in how to work hard how to compete how to build now not everyone liked that environment a lot of people actually look back at their time there and go I would never send my kid there and that's why I think it's so interesting to think of people as so
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unique right what works for us doesn't work for everyone which is what you just said which which is EXA I completely agree with that that you know maybe I'll have a child one day who wouldn't have flourished in the environment I
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flourished in or who wouldn't have gravitated towards the teachers that I gravitated towards and so for me I look at my education as having a massive impact on me because I value being really right brained and creative but having been given lots of logical
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hardwired structural thinking and I think that where I am today is because I can toggle between those two things and my education gave me the hardwired logical rational brain but then I had teachers that allow owed me to bring out my Artistry and creativity which is what
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I value myself for and what I love about myself it is really interesting because I look back at education and go actually I learned a ton of stuff too and I think the mistake we make is we look at our education and we go I don't do that for
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work today MH and that is probably true I mean it's definitely true for my life but it's not what I do for work today it's well what did I take and what did I collect and what did I grasp and what did I put into my toolkit that actually
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today makes me better at making decisions or makes me better at doing this or that so yes was my education directly correlated to my career no uh but were there skills and lessons and tools and that's what I'm hearing you say as well I think correct we we feel
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aligned on that when you're teaching today right like you're you're an academic now you're a professor you're you're like you're teaching what I find really interesting about that part of your life is how much of what you're teaching do you think or
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do you encourage people to go out into the real world and practice cuz I know you have lots of interesting methods that you've shared with me before talk to me a bit about how you think teaching has transformed and how you're transforming teaching because a lot of
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people who are listening or watching they may be coaches they may have online schools I know a lot of our audience are trainers who have Studios or online apps and platforms and things like that yeah how can they think deeper and
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differently about teaching in today's day and age get away from just the textbook or just the content in the textbook and to really get the students the opportunity to understand how that connects to the world whatever the topic is so right now one of the courses I'm
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I'm actually teaching it right now is entrepreneurial accounting and finance and what I do is every week when I start off class I start off with a quote it could be any quote from anyone um recently I had one from Napoleon Hill
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and I won't quote it exactly right but it was something about just get started the tools will start come into place once you get started and I told the students in class and this is the part is so I start off with the quote and then I give them an action item every
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week at the beginning of the week the action item for this specific quote was during class I want you to think of two things any two things that you've been thinking about doing and you just haven't been doing you've been dragging your feet it could be a homework
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assignment it could be that you need to talk to someone it could be that you want to ask somebody out on a date or dinner whatever it is but I want you to think about it during class and then I want you to write it down at the end of
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class and then in the next week I want you get an action and I want you to do it and so the reason I told them to do it during class is because if I gave them a day or two days they're going to overthink it there's already something
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there for them in their mind of I need to do this and I wanted that to come out right away and not overthink it that's the first part the second thing I also did is I actually went around the class and looked at everybody and I asked for an acknowledgement if you just say
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something to people that doesn't mean it's going to cause action in them but what I actually did is I looked at everyone and I said okay okay okay and I'm looking for the uh-huh uh-huh from each person an acknowledgement how many people is this uh about
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483 it's a lot of nodding there yeah yeah no no no it's good yeah I like it we went through that and they all said yes the most interesting thing happened is that I have one set of office hours right after class I already had students
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coming in after that class telling me about the things that they're going to do right and so when it comes towards back to your original question right or what are some techniques or methods I might use in regards to education and teaching and work to transform it so
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many people get caught up in the technical items back in the day before if you were teaching formulas or whatever else it was you could you had to go through it with them I can go through it with them but I also know they can go on Google and get it I know
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they can go on these other websites you watch these YouTube videos whatever it is I'll give it to them in class and we go through it but I also want them to get real World application of how these concepts are applied and so they get
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excited about it and I think that's something that was missing a lot from other classes that I've seen or I've taken is they go straight into just the technical items but they're not actually taking it up a 3,000 foot level and saying this is why it's important and I
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really like I always like the inspirational items and the quotes and everything else it keeps people in action and I think that's the most important thing yeah no absolutely love those I love those insights and I think acknowledging people I I remember the
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first time Facebook live launched this was probably around six years ago now and I was one of the first users this was when I was a senior host and producer at HuffPost so I was in New York City and we had a partnership with Facebook live so I went live and the
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first thing I asked was hey if if you like anything press the like button if you love anything press the love button and if you want share something with me drop a comment in the comment box and my producer was holding her hands over her
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face going Jay I can't believe you just asked the audience to do that and it was really funny because the response was amazing people loved act like what you just said like people loved that there was a prescribed way that they could respond to something so if I shared a
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quote that was inspiring people would click that like button and then I could see it and then I could respond to them and that's when I started to understand that people don't just want to be receivers they want to be participants in learning and they don't just want to
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be on the receiving end they don't just want to be listeners and hearers and taking in they want to be involved and they want to be engaged and so I love that example of teaching let's say a lot of people who are listening right now
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may have just started a business or they're on the cusp of starting a business how should they be thinking about the finances of this business they don't have a lot of money to get started they're probably not going to go in raise they're probably just trying to
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build something through a few friends maybe from the M themselves what are the things they should be thinking about I mean that's a really great question I could just say take my class can they take your class they can't no not not
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everybody can you're right you're right but um I would say not yet not yet you want to be able to think strategically right and so you want to look at how much runway do I need to have to actually get the business started and a lot of this comes back to Capital and I
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don't want to nerd out too much on on Capital conversations I mean the first things I do with my students even if I'm having them go through this is I'll have them build out a proforma right so what is it going to look like how much money
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do I need to have for what period of time and this doesn't need to be something fancy you don't need to build up a model and put in Excel you can write it on a piece of paper and I think a lot of people don't look at the basics
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even to start on something like that and I'm also all about following your passion and getting excited and everything else but but you also want to combine that with things that are practical and I think when I have people come to my office hours I get my current
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students I get a lot of people come into my office hours even non-current students and they ask me the same question you're asking and I turn it back on them and I say what is your purpose what is the purpose of what you're trying to
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achieve some people will tell me I want to make money some people will say I want to do this for fun some people will say I just want to have experience there's a lot of different reasons of why people are doing things and I think it is very important first and foremost
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to be clear with yourself on why you're starting this business now if it's to start a business for your livelihood we actually have to map this out in planet right what is your Market size how many people are in there a lot of companies
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that we're um looking at right now are in the beverage space I love the beverage space right it gets me very excited and you want to look at that and see how many people are currently in the market what are the other products that are out there the beverage space also
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has a low barrier to entry somebody can take a relatively small amount of money and go there tomorrow to a production facility and you can go out there and you can get it created as opposed to another company that I recently invested
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in is a sunscreen company sunscreen companies have some people might say that there's a low barrier to entry for sunscreen having said that there's a long process to get a product approved it it can take a year and a half two years so part of it is thinking through
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and this is the the framework that I got from business school we have something called Porters 5 forces which is a phenomenal tool so you look at what are the items that are Market competitiveness who are the other competitors in the space What are the
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barriers to entry what are the alternatives to the product what are the substitutes it's actually a a model I had a diagram in a whiteboard right now I draw it up for you right thinking through things from that model that
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framework allows you to properly assess is it even worth it and do I want to go into this business and again probably a non-popular opinion at this point in time what I'm about to say but everyone always says just go out there and follow
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your passion follow your dream I get that I do but you also have to look at something that's is a survivable business abolutely and how much time do you want to spend on it I'm really happy you said that I mean when when I started doing what I do today I was working a
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full-time job getting home from the full-time job and then editing videos from 9:00 p.m. to 2: am. and then waking up going to my full-time job coming back and doing the same thing and then doing this on the evenings and weekends and
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therefore it didn't need to make money so for two years me doing my passion didn't directly relate to money it didn't make me Revenue it didn't make any profit it didn't pay my bills because I was paying my bills through a full-time job and that to me was the
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healthy EST way for me to start because I was able to see what the options were and what opportunities came up so while I was doing my full-time job paying my bills I didn't have to worry about anything and actually using my evenings
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and weekends to build my passion led to that being my long-term business and I don't think I could have done that if I would have quit my full-time job and tried to build my passion from scratch I think there would have been quite a few years where I mean I would have been
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broke because there wasn't a way to monetize what I was doing and so I love that you're encouraging people to not think about their passion in this romanticized way because it's so easy to get romantic about your passion and your purpose and just believe that because
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you believe that everyone's going to believe and something's going to happen and I often prefer that people either do what you're saying where they actually have a plan they're structured they're thoughtful or they're in two boats for a
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while they have their job or their part time job and then they have this other thing that's going on and that's a much safer place to be I don't believe that every passion can be a business or should be a business how do you help your students or anyone decipher between
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what should remain a hobby and a passion yeah and what can has the market potential to evolve into a business because I think I think we're living at a time where pretty much a lot of random things have become businesses so it kind
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of feels very open but there's things to think about in becoming a CEO or a business person that are different to being a passion business so the IRS when you actually have a business um that over for a period of time it doesn't
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create any income but you have expenses against it it's literally defined as a hobby a hobby is an actual definition of an IRS term right so I always find that very interesting and I ask my students um or any any other entrepreneurs I talk
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to even if I'm talking to them about the fund or anything else they'll come to me and ask me advice right and I say you just have to be clear with yourself is this a passion project and a hobby or is this something you really want to make
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money on and I think that it's very important to decipher between the two I tried to start my own startup before I left banking took a big risk quit my job and I tried to start my own startup and if I could go back and tell myself something it would be nahab be clear on
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what this is can you tell us about that story tell us a bit about that like what did you start how did it go cuz I think hearing about that would be awesome I had a great job in banking I graduated from business school they rolled out the
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red carpet type of job in banking it was amazing so I was working with a lot of companies that were looking to do an IPO or looking to get acquired within the next so many years I had the opportunity to spend time with Founders CFOs CEOs when you're a startup and you're with a
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bank that means you're pretty sophisticated you're far along right so I was dealing with a lot of people and I I saw how much they were making and what they were doing and I thought whoa I'm so smart I could do that and so I left a
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great job in banking um to start my own startup it was ironically it was an online platform which was going to to be um to teach personal finance to to predominantly predominantly women and then Branch out from that to women and men but I should have been more
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focused um I failed at what I wanted to do and it was hard how did you Define failure like what went wrong there the whole thing had to stop any money that I had spent we lost i' gotten money from families and friends for about a year
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and a half I'd been working on it we lost everything and it was very very tough because I had so been so used to being success UC F and amazing I have immigrant parents who are phenomenal who are also very driven right and who also have driven their children to work hard
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and succeed and Excel and so went to school did well went to business school did well went to banking did well and then all of a sudden I start my own thing and I'm like I don't even know how to properly ship boxes like I don't know
33:47
the difference between UPS FedEx all of these things like it was a really big learning experience for me on basic items that I didn't understand and the startup didn't work right it wasn't what I wanted it to be and it was very very hard and if I could go back and give
34:03
myself one piece of advice it would be be able to decipher between passion and business they can be both but you have to be clear on what you're trying to do and Achieve because when it's a business you move out all the noise and you focus
34:21
in on do I have the right Market is there the right Market product fit are people ready to buy this you can't just go and talk to your friends and say hey do you think this idea is great they're going to go yeah of course they're going to tell you yes or no really right you
34:36
need to ask them hey I have this product it's great okay are you going to buy it will you pay for it right now that's what makes the difference there yeah and so being able to decipher between passion and a business I think is is
34:47
very very important yeah absolutely I think that one of the misconceptions that I think I had and also people have in general is that when you live a passion business that you just get to do what you want to do and I would honestly say that in the come up
35:06
period I did more of what I didn't want to do and what I had to learn I whether it was the UPS or FedEx in in your scenario in my scenario it was client relationships editing learning videography learning social media learning I had to learn all these skills
35:25
in order to do what I do today I had to learn about podcast I had to learn about publishing these were not things I wanted to do but they were vehicles to do what I wanted to do so I had to spend more time studying vehicles and
35:38
modalities and Frameworks and mechanisms and tools so that I could spread my message which is what I wanted to do yeah but if I just tried to spread my message that was never going to work because I had to understand the tool today I live a life where yeah I do way
35:57
more of what I want to do today but I think the mistake is believing that you'll be able to let go of what you have to do and I think that's where I've realized that there is no one in the world who can completely let go of things they have to do in order to do
36:12
what they want to do but it's it's a balance of the two and so when I'm hearing you talk I'm I'm reflecting on my own journey and going yeah that makes a lot of sense because in order to do what I love to do today I have to do things that I just have to do yeah uh
36:27
and to live a pure passion business is a hobby because that means you're just enjoying the passion of it so if I said every Friday night I was going to go live on Facebook and just teach my message and whoever turned up turned up
36:40
that's a hobby that's beautiful but if I really want to create ways in which people can learn grow get educated change their life transform that's going to need me to be a bit more organized and focused yeah uh as you rightly said focus is such a big deal and I also
36:55
think it comes back to PRI prorities right there's certain times one thing I really like that you said is there are certain times right where you like on your way up right you had to do a lot of the things that you didn't want to do
37:07
and one of the things that I keep hearing people always talk about is well do you have the right work life balance no there's a story and I know you've heard this before but there's a person standing in the front of in the front of the room and they have a glass and first
37:20
they put rocks in the glass and they say is there anything else more room left and everybody goes no and then they put the pebbles in then they put the what is it sand and than water right here's what I think is missing from that story
37:31
though is that that all makes sense but there's certain times in life where you're going to have situations where that priority level is going to shift and that's what's missing so were there certain times in my life also where the Rocks would be just career or just work
37:50
or just the things that I don't want to do they were and it wasn't that I didn't have a work life balance anything in that way it was more of at that point in time in my life that was the priority so even though now my priority is family
38:07
and I I love my work I love running the fund I love teaching you know that though I teach for fun right I love it but the priority set is going to shift over time I'm so glad we're having such a real conversation about this because I
38:21
I'm I'm like loving this right now because I completely agree with you I so when we got married we got married in 2016 which is kind of where my external career took off and for 3 years we didn't go on a honeymoon because we couldn't afford it like we didn't go on
38:37
our honeymoon we never had one because we didn't have the money or the time to my career was busy things were growing I had momentum on my side and I couldn't afford to take the time or the money to pay for something three years later we
38:50
went on a beautiful honeymoon it was it was amazing it was so fun to have waited for something like that and have this amazing experience and I look at those first 3 years and I go I'm so happy that we lived the way we did we lived in this 500t apartment in
39:05
New York City you know we we ate worked and slept in the same areas we didn't have any other space and I have such good memories from that time and I'm so grateful that the Rocks became just hard work networking meetings events whatever
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it was and my wife was doing the same for herself I'm so happy that I allowed myself to do that for 3 years in order to have the life I have today and I don't think there's a right or wrong way and that's what I'm hearing from you too it's about the hope that you have for
39:40
the result you want yeah right it's like everything's proportionate to what you want and I don't think that we should have either romantic or unromantic views of what we want to have in life we should just be clear that if this is where I want to be this is what it's
39:57
going to require and yeah I just I'm grateful for those memories I'm grateful for those times I I look back and I'm so happy that and and even today I was saying this to a friend today I was like I still haven't taken my foot off the
40:08
gas today yeah because the people I look up to and admire and respect they haven't taken the foot off the gas after 30 years of being at the top of their game and I want longevity right I'm not looking for a flash in the pan or I want longevity I want to be doing this for
40:25
the next three four Decades of my life life which requires a different level of planning and maturity as opposed to just going for quick wins so I'm glad we're having this conversation because I think it's a tough conversation to have yeah
40:38
but but it is true and again I I want to go back and say to people like it wasn't about not having work life balance it's that the the term work life balance means everything should be equal exactly and I think equality is the issue
40:52
because equality doesn't actually mean balance for example 2 hours of time for myself a day could balance out 10 hours of work that day yes I can I see you% I was talking to my mom about it previously and she's like you know work life balance just because everybody
41:09
always talks about that with motherhood and this and that you know I have two kids right if you literally think of balance it's if you think of a like two weights on a side you have 50 PBS of gold and another person who's 50 lbs it's a balance it's equal it's it's
41:22
never going to in life be that way and I think the challenge that people have is they're calling it balance to begin with when it should be priorities when I was at drinks.com a director consumer Wine Company I probably was working you know
41:37
70 to 80 plus hours a week like I remember looking at this and I'm going I'm 80 plus hours a week what that means is I'm working all day come home have dinner and then I work again and you do that six days a week now is that good or bad I don't know but at that point in
41:51
time it was a priority in my life I was married my husband travels for work as you know and and so um he wasn't there right he was gone every single week and so I loved what I was doing and it was exciting to learn more and do things and
42:06
the more things I would say at work I can take on they'll be like you want to launch a new wine project over here go do this you want to look at how some of these things run for we were doing a wine program for Martha Stewart you can do this right it was it was amazing
42:21
right so I felt like whatever I wanted to take on I could but my priority my rocks that that point in time my life was my career yeah a lot of people look at priority lists that you have right so you have 10 priorities of things that I
42:34
want in a job or what I did it was with the guy right how you're dating and they look at it in a a horizontal manner like these are the list of all the things I like to look at it in a vertical fashion and then you have to put in order right
42:49
the priorities and you can quickly see even if it's this is almost like playing with your subconscious right you yourself will start to see what are the priorities and what's the rank amongst them once you do that then you can say
43:03
all right at this point in time my life I'm going to focus on this later it's going to change later it's going to change you know it's just like buying a house I have so many friends right now who are in the market it's a crazy market right yeah it's insane yeah but
43:16
everybody always says we want great location good price and a lot of space we live in LA I mean come on now right yeah and then what I've noticed is that when they're with their Partners they're not on the same page and so what I've
43:29
been telling them what my husband and I did was is we both sat down and we created a vertical list I now know what his top priority is and he knows what mine is when we're going out and looking for places it's easier for us to be on the same page and it sounds like you
43:45
understand what I'm talking about I am completely in agreement with you we did the same exact thing and and you know for RI it was a big kitchen like that was very important to her cuz that's her world for me it was having a space where
43:56
we could have a studio like this and have an office like those were priorities for me where where I could work from home because I love working from home for my husband it was being close to the beach oh wow okay he has to
44:06
be close to the beach he's a total Beach person and then for me I needed something where I can have my own office space that was separate away from the beach office that's the yeah but but that's beautiful and and and I love that idea of people writing down their
44:20
priorities separately and also just recognizing that different stages in life will have different priorities and knowing that can change and Absolut and that balance if everyone could remove the idea from their mind that balance means equal because the way we think
44:37
about balance is time we think dividing our time equally means balance yeah but that's the wrong currency to divide y balance means how much time do you need for yourself in order to feel great so that you can give and build and create
44:54
for the rest of the day that's what balance is and I find for me personally that 2 to three hours a day for myself gives me enough energy to go ahead and do that someone else say may say they need four or five someone may need one
45:07
you know it's it's all subjective but to me it balance just shouldn't be about time it's it's not about equality of time I mean this is one of the best things that I've heard anybody say cuz it's you constantly keep hearing this all the time everywhere everyone needs
45:21
work life balance you do need a balance but again it's not equated to time I think it's more on you got to do the priorities what are my priorities I need to make sure I'm getting all those priorities in whatever that might be and in different stages of your life that
45:37
also does change so I I think that's a wonderful way to put it this is what I love about you you you know you're a woman you're a business person you're an academic you're now a mom like you know and that's why I'm enjoying having this
45:50
conversation with you because I haven't had the challenges you've had I'm I'm not a mom like I don't have to raise kids and build businesses and do like I'm not in that position right and so I have so much respect for you and I have so much admiration for you and what what
46:06
you're able to achieve and do because I think every time I've seen you also you just carry yourself very well and and at the same time have all this going on at the same time but you love it and you can tell that you love being a mom a
46:18
teacher and a coach you love being an investor and an entrepreneur I read a study from 2021 that said that and of course let's be honest what mothers do is priceless and you can't put a value on it if someone asked me how much what my mom did for me
46:37
how much was that worth could never put a price on it but I do believe it's important to understand value there was a research study from 2021 that said that if you looked at a mom's career as a career and looked at the over 103
46:53
hours a week more like 247 if you tallied up all the cost of how much everything would cost to do or hire or Outsource it would be $186,400 that an average mom would make when you hear that what goes through your mind I want to I want to hear your
47:10
response and thoughts it's a lot of work and it's a lot of time and I just don't know if Society always understands again it comes back to the unconscious bias right that we feel as women that it's our responsibility to take care of the
47:22
household it's our responsibility to do all of these different things and the amount of time and energy that goes in it's constant and sometimes you might be lucky and get a smile from your child but that doesn't always happen you know
47:36
I'm going to take this in a little bit of a different direction here but I do think that what makes a lot of these things hard is that in the workplace we don't always have the ability to have others that empathize with us right and having people around who have similar
47:52
fashion like um who understand these things makes a big difference my husband at Dee deoe is known to take care of women they are known to be a great place for for the working mother they have a lot of partners that they interact with right who are mothers what that has done
48:08
for me though in my personal life is my husband gets it more it's more common to him he understands that you know when I was nursing my baby it was okay how much work is it for n to constantly have to nurse throughout the day or take the
48:22
pump with her to work and the issues that I've had even with pumps and everything else one time startup life the electricity stopped working in our building and the pump that I had I didn't realize it was my first child that um I should have a battery pack as
48:37
a backup or something like that and I needed to pump so I had to leave and drive home to go do it and it was such an ordeal but these are the things as women that we're constantly having to deal with that not everyone understands
48:51
and I think that having women in certain positions at work it does make it difference because it shifts the conversation even my husband who's amazing and very loving he's constantly being exposed to it at his work of course so he sees it he hears it and
49:09
then he'll empathize more with his wife but Jay to your point it is non-stop it is 24/7 you never get a break I think the only time I get a break and I think I'm lucky about this one is when I go to the bathroom yeah but otherwise if I'm at
49:24
home it's non-stop yeah yeah I I remember my mom doing the same thing like my mom was the main bread winner of the family she uh used to cook for us breakfast lunch and dinner pack our lunch send us to school she drop me and my sister to
49:38
different schools pick us up like the whole works you know and it was and help us with our homework and plan weekend activities I mean Super Mom like just incredible and also I agree with what you said so I grew up seeing my mom work really hard and so that gave me a sense
49:53
of empathy and compassion to how hard mom's work I have a younger sister who you know when she gets married I think about the same thing I'm like I can understand that you know she can't be left to do it all on her own and so and
50:06
and I love what you said about the workplace I worked at Accenture again Accenture has incredible yeah uh practices especially in the UK at least where where I worked there for moms where women who'd go away and maternity leave when they come back they'd come
50:19
back to the position they would have earned if they stayed at the company so it wouldn't be that oh you went off and became a mom so you're going to start where you were it's like no we trust that you've continued to grow and evolve
50:29
and now when you come in you're going to take on that role and I loved seeing that because it was why would someone get penalized for for going off to do the most important to do the most important job in the world how have you allowed yourself and I'm really
50:42
intrigued by this and I'm asking this question on behalf of all my friends people who ask me this question I I always say I need to ask a mom because I'm not qualified to answer this question how do you deal with Mom guilt in the idea that you are an ambition
50:56
icious business person who wants to do creative things who loves what they do and then you deal with the challenge that but what if I miss that moment with my kid or what if I'm not a part of that moment of their growth how have you
51:12
dealt with that because I think that's the hardest thing that I from when I speak to women today who are moms they just say to me go j i I miss being able to be that person but at the same time I don't want to miss this moment with my
51:25
kid and that is sounds like the hardest place it is and you know the way I look at this is life is not about either or it's about finding a way to create an end and it's it is very very hard to make it work Jay it is I mean just being completely honest there isn't right but
51:46
I when we sold create and cultivate and we were going through the diligence process I was pregnant with my daughter Ava even now when I look at the uh photos that we have online of of you know the announcement of the sale I was
51:59
36 weeks pregnant in the photo but I look at that I go Ava's in the photo with me right she's there in the announcement page it was really hard right because I didn't take a day off for maternity leave I had to work through the transaction and the sale and
52:15
somebody could look back at that and say that was so hard what was going on when we had the closing call it was online on Zoom for the sale I was nursing my daughter at the time so I had the camera off and everybody said hey we can hear
52:27
Ava we can do all this stuff and somebody can look at that and say and every mom has their own Journey for some people it's good for them not to work and stay at home for me the type of person that I am and I don't need to feel bad about it I love working I love
52:41
being out there and you know what I'm going to love doing I'm going to love telling my daughter the story of how she was born and the village and the army of people that stepped in to come and help me out so that I could get through the
52:54
transaction I felt like I had my baby strap to my back and I'm going out there and I'm doing all these great things and the fact that I was able to get and be a part of getting a company sold that focused on live events during a global pandemic while pregnant I will always
53:14
have that and I get to tell my daughter Jay what I did when I was having her and what she can be able to go and do in the world so what my thought for people is who have Mom guilt that they have work and they have personal life and all of
53:29
these things going on is you have to first take care of yourself and then you can take care of the child it's the old story right of the airplane when the air mask come down first you put it on yourself and then you put it on the child and you have to take care of
53:43
yourself first and this comes back to self-care mental health everything else if you don't take care of yourself first you can't be the best mom after my first child I I dealt with severe postpartum and it was very very hard I went back to work very early I
54:04
started a new job this job at create and cultivate and I remember thinking I have to push through this I'm not a good mom I'm not great if I can't make this work for my child what's wrong with me I thought all these things I started
54:18
working when my son was 7 weeks old within two days I stopped crying I was crying all the time it's part of postpartum within 2 days I stopped crying and everybody around me would say why are you working so soon your baby needs you this that and I said I need me
54:37
when I go to work and I can focus on the things I'm great at I feel good and I feel confident and then I get to go home and be the best mother to my son and this is again when I had my first child and I think that Mom guilt again i' I've
54:52
used this phrase but it's an unconscious bias it's there from other people but it's also there from ourselves and every mom has their own journey and you need to do what's right for you and your child and there is no wrong there's
55:07
actually no wrong Point yeah first you got to take care of yourself the second thing for me that worked out very well is I created what I call a life team you know and we create these teams at work but you have to create these teams around you with your life I have
55:22
an amazing supportive husband I have phenomenal parents my parents my mom is my coach right she talks to me every time I'm driving in the car helping me sort through things she's phenomenal right my in-laws are amazing they help with my kids all the time I don't know
55:38
what I would do without them I have some friends who are always there you know you create this great team of people around you and what that has allowed me to do is is spend the what I think are the important moments with my kid my
55:54
both of my kids so right now every Friday the second half of Friday I take off and every other Friday I'll take out one of my kids just for Mommy and Me time my son's name is iner he's so cute and he goes is it Mama and iner time it's the sweetest thing he's three a
56:11
little over three right but to me that's more important than hearing a word that he said for the first time or seeing my daughter do something different like she turned over a different way she's just over one right for me that time I get to
56:28
spend with them oneon-one for me that's what's important everybody will have their own though that's important for them I love that I think I think I mean I took so much away from that but I I think the ultimate answer is that there
56:41
is no wrong like recognizing that however you're functioning and dealing with it and as long as there is time I love what you said when you said I needed me right like I think that's so powerful like I needed me and and when we are full we are able to give
56:58
ourselves to others it's it's the old cliche but it's true um but hearing that from you is is really powerful n you've been so generous with your time today and I I I actually absolutely love everywhere we've gone uh but I do want
57:10
to talk a bit about and and this is the last question I'm going to ask you before we go to our final five which you're aware of because you're a listener so you know that we're going to end with our rapid fire around but before that uh you launched new money
57:23
Ventures yes uh which is your fund m you know you're investing in lots of exciting companies and Brands how are you deciding what to invest in what is it that you as an investor look at I think that would be really educational for our audience who potentially may want to
57:41
have investors one day and and raise one day what are the things you look for there's two big things I look for one is the market opportunity right so what can this actually grow into and then number two is the founder we're investing in
57:55
early stage so for us that's going to be seed and series a companies I know that things are going to change no matter what there's going to be ups there's going to be Downs with a lot of these startups we want to be able to invest in the right people who can pivot along
58:11
with those changes and those are the two big things of how we look at which companies we're going to invest in amazing very clear it's very clear very concise yes very clear very simple I love it all right so we're going to end with our final five
58:26
uh so n come on oh go on of course I was going to say I have to tell you too I've been listening to this podcast I listen to it all the time on the drive to class I love it so Tuesdays and Thursdays right now I go to class and it takes me
58:38
about 45 minutes to an hour it's the perfect perfect timing I love it and sometimes I told you I tell my students a quote I'll actually pull it from some of your podcasts I love that thank you so much that means the world to me I love that of course that that I'm I'm a
58:54
part of your day and uh my class's day too yeah I love that that means the well to me thank you so much so now you can pull a quote from your own podcast now when you listen to it on the way so something you said okay so Nar these are
59:07
your final five uh the first question is what is the best advice around money you've ever received my dad would always tell me this and he'd say when you have money everybody wants to give it to you when you don't have money nobody wants to give it to
59:23
you and the reason that's something to be very cognizant about is about how you manage your finances from a personal side but also from a work side love that great great answer we never had that before all right second question what is
59:38
the worst money or Finance advice you've ever heard you know there's a lot of people who get up on panels and things and they'll say just go out there and get the money just go out there and raise it yeah and there's there's a lot of fluff behind that you need to be able
59:51
to support it you need to be able to show that you can that you have the right business behind it and the last thing that you want to do is I mean I hear all these advice as of you know drain your 401k go out there if you believe in what you're doing I'm all
1:00:05
about faith I I left my job right I did all of these things but you do need to be able to have some support before you you completely drain out your 401K and you need to make sure that you're financially doing the right thing for
1:00:18
your business that's great love that question number three how would you define your current purpose to leave the world in a better place and I found it I love that it's beautiful question number four if someone has just failed what would be your best advice to them right
1:00:34
now get up and start again right away don't even think about it brilliant I love that that was very quick very quick you're you're really rapid this is good all right Fifth and final question we ask this to every guest uh if you could
1:00:46
create one law in the world that everyone had to follow what would it be don't judge other people I love that I think we're all so quick especially in this in the media world today we're so quick to judge everybody around us absolutely and I think that if we were
1:01:04
to take a step back and know that everybody has something that they're coming from and just not to judge them and not already have our own listening of what we're when they're talking what we're we're listening to and not judge
1:01:17
but create a space for them to say or do whatever they want I think that' be amazing everyone that's n Kamar and everyone you need to share this episode with someone who is starting a business just failed running one figuring it out
1:01:33
I believe this was one of the most raw honest open conversations where n didn't hold back at all we really got stuck into some really difficult topics in territory uh n where's the best place that people can find you follow you connect with you if people are like I
1:01:48
need more of n's advice in my life uh where's the best place absolutely so I do have my Instagram profile right Kumar um I will be starting up a couple other things as well and then I'll be putting it through my Instagram links also amazing so n t Kumar on Instagram
1:02:05
please go follow her please go and tag me and n on Instagram and on any other platform that you're using to tell us what resonated with you what stood out to you what connected with you I'd love to know you might even end up in one of
1:02:17
her classes uh but thank you so much for listening and watching today please pass this one on I think it's going to impact a lot of people and I can't wait to have you back for another episode of on purpose thank you so much n thank you if
1:02:31
you want even more videos just like this one make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here I'm also excited to let you know that you can now get my book think like a monk from think like a monk book.com check Below in the description to make sure you order today